Stephen Law

Thanks to Blakeley Nixon for this link. Surprising vote at the end. To be fair to the Catholic side: as speakers, Widdecome and the Bishop were pretty awful and entirely outclassed. Postscript. By the way, for anyone interested in this topic I would strongly recommend David Ranan's Double Cross: The Code of the Catholic Church , which is at least as exciting as The Da Vinci Code . The Catholic Herald wrote: Speaking of how other people may see us, I have been reading a fascinating, if somewhat uncomfortable book called Double Cross by David Ranan (Theo Press). When I tell you that it devotes 350 pages to attacking the Church ... you will understand why I would not recommend it to anyone who is not familiar with Church history and the general cut and thrust of apologetic debate. ... whenever I was able to check references they proved satisfactory. Withal, I found the book salutary. It reminds me how the credibility of the Church has so often been endangered not only by bad individ...

For the story go here and here . Pope Benedict XVI has said that handing out condoms is not the answer in the fight against HIV/Aids, as he makes his first visit to Africa as pontiff. Speaking en route to Cameroon, he said distribution of condoms "increases the problem". I previously posted on this topic here . Perhaps this is one area where we can say, more or less without qualification, that religion is dangerous.

Following on from the previous piece , which was a response to Matthew Parris's piece "As an Atheist, I truly Believe Africa Needs God" , a few more thoughts on using religion as a social tool. Perhaps the right way to think about religion as a tool is as a catalyst . It does seem to have a supercharging power. Take our tendency to strive to improve our collective lot, to be benevolent and caring, etc. Add a pinch of religion, and the tendency is magnified. However, the catalytic power works just as well with negative tendencies, such as the desire to dominate and exploit. Take the subjugation of women, mix in a few drops of the heady brew of religion, and watch how much more entrenched and hard-to-shift the subjugation becomes; add a few drops more, and watch how some become sufficiently intoxicated to start flinging acid in the faces of young girls who dare to attend school. Add a dollop of religion to homophobia, and suddenly the attitude becomes far more difficult to ...

Matthew Parris' piece , in which he suggest that, though he is an atheist, he thinks religion is a powerful tool for good in Africa, something he recommends we foster and encourage, has predictably provoked responses from atheists. See previous post. My small contribution here is just to repeat and edited part of my earlier post Is Religion Dangerous . The moral I wish to draw is, obviously, that even if religion can be a highly powerful and useful tool, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to use it. Many, including Keith Ward, recommend religion for social engineering purposes. They claim that (i) it helps build a sense of community, (ii) it makes people happier and healthier, and (iii) it makes them better behaved [more highly motivated to do good, etc.]. Suppose it does. Even if it were useful in these ways, it seems to me there are nevertheless special dangers attaching to the use of religion as a tool. Religion is immensely powerful and can behave in unpred...

Ibrahim has posted a poem to illustrate the mystical Islamic tradition that he admires. Ibrahim in italics. It's in response to my posting on intellectual black holes (which you should probably read first). My comments follow: IBRAHIM WRITES: I am posting the following as an example of a text from within the Islamic mystical tradition. The author is Muhammad ibn al-Habib, a Moroccan shaykh who died in 1972 (see Wikipedia). It offers a view onto a non-rationalist tradition, which is either nothing but fantasy and imagination (or simple insanity), or an internally coherent and viable worldview shared and practised by millions of adherents past and present – or both. Note the stanza which appears towards the end: “Strip yourselves of all knowledge and understanding”. This is a technique which is referred to in other mystical traditions: “Except that ye be as little children…” and “In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is acquired; in pursuit of the Tao, every day something is ...

[This is partly in response to some excellent comments on the preceding post: The Emperor's New Clothes . Commentators have suggested that appeals to God's mysteriousness and ineffability in order to deal with rational objections can be perfectly legitimate. Possibly, but read on...] Suppose I believe in an evil God. A supremely evil and powerful being. God is hate. Sometimes I even appear to sense this at some deep level of my being. The world seems to me infused with a ghastly, horrific pallor that reflects the infinitely depraved character of its maker (apparently, such horrific visions are not uncommon among some mentally deranged folk). So gripped am I by this vision of the world that I even write poetry about it in attempt to express what it seems to me I have glimpsed of the fundamental character of reality. You, of course, think I must be a borderline nutcase. You point out there’s a great deal of evidence against the existence of such an evil being. Why on earth would...

Here’s another reason why encouraging children to think critically and independently even about moral issues might be a good idea. Again, it’s from my book The War For Children's minds . I’ll summarize my case against the Ibrahim’s view that in any good Islamic school “Islam is a given and never challenged” shortly. Milgram’s Experiment Here’s another reason why raising Enlightened citizens might be a good idea. Humans appear to have a disastrously strong in-built tendency to defer to authority. This was demonstrated particularly vividly by the psychologist Stanley Milgram back in the Fifties. Struck by the way in which concentration camp guards in Nazi Germany attempted to excuse themselves by insisting they were “only obeying orders”, Milgram set out to show that the same could never happen in the U.S. He designed an experiment to establish what strength of electric shock an ordinary American citizen would administer to a stranger if asked to do so by a white-coated authority fig...

Hello Ibrahim Lots of interesting points being made here (especially in your comments on last three posts) – I won’t try to address them all. Seems to me one of the biggest issues you raise concerns the use of reason. Here’s a popular argument for general scepticism: Why suppose reason is a reliable route to the truth? Any justification of reason we offer will itself rely on reason, and so be unacceptably circular. So, that reason is a reliable route to truth cannot be justified. But if reliance on reason cannot be justified, then, because every justification relies on reason, nothing can be justified. So, all beliefs are equally irrational! Moreoever, if, to qualify as knowledge, a belief must be justified, knowledge is impossible too. Suppose I am involved in a debate – and I’m struggling to make my case. In fact, my opponent seems to have shown I’m wrong. Oh dear. What do I do? I might be tempted to make just this sceptical move. It offers a wonderful “get out of jail” card. I give ...

Here’s another, hopefully more accessible, way of making the same point I made in my reply to Ibrahim below. Suppose Ted buys an astrology book. The first line of the book says he must accept the basic principles of astrology without question. They must not be subject to critical scrutiny. Ever. Ted accepts this. As a result, whenever Ted comes up against any apparent evidence against astrology, he always attempts to explain away the evidence, or, if he can’t, says it’s simply a “mystery” that such evidence should exist given astrology is true. The one thing he never does is question the basic tenets of the book. Ask him why he does not question the book, he simply answers: because the book says he mustn't. Ted has made acceptance of the principles of this book part of his foundational beliefs – his first principles, if you like. Given you reject astrology, as I do, would you nevertheless accept that, because Ted has made acceptance of these principles "foundational", ...

Hello again, Ibrahim (if I may) I have pointed out that other religious folk are able to tolerate – some even positively encourage – critical thought about religion in school. I ask: why aren’t you? If I have understood correctly, your answer is that this is simply not permitted according to Islam. In any good Islamic school, “Islam is a given and never challenged”. Your main response to my arguments for encouraging such critical thought seems to be this: that you and I have different foundational principles. Your foundational principles include certain beliefs about Islam, mine don’t. Neither set of foundational principles can ultimately be “justified” (perhaps because all justifications have to come to an end somewhere, and here is where they come to end). Procedural reason always takes something for granted – premises. If our first premises – our foundational principles – differ, reason will not, then, be able to settle which are correct. I guess you think this dispute over how chil...

Ibrahim Lawson's reply to my letter: A word about the anger some of us may feel inclined to vent: I entered into this discussion in the spirit of dialogue rather than debate (check google or see http://www.nald.ca/clr/study/scdvd.htm) so I am not trying to win this argument or catch anyone out. Rather, I am seeking areas where some new thinking might emerge. In order to do so I am prepared to ‘hold my beliefs lightly’ as some have put it. My religion: entails some fairly strong assumptions about epistemology. These appear to run contrary to those which have evolved within the western metaphysical tradition since its Socratic origins. As a short hand, perhaps we could call the latter ‘Greek’ and the former ‘Semitic’. In order to see how there might be a conversation between the two, we have to go very deep, to the roots of each, where the sources of later, derived conflicts lie. Alasdair MacIntyre exposes this kind of problem at the beginning of ‘After Virtue’ in a discussion of att...

While some of us might feel anger at the views expressed by others, can I please ask that we avoid venting it – this is a rare opportunity to discuss things openly, and perhaps even change someone’s mind. You are unlikely to succeed if you sound angry and dismissive. My response to Mr Lawson's letter I should begin by explaining to Mr Lawson that I quoted him, not because he is a Muslim, but because he expressed a view about education that I think wrong-headed and, actually, dangerous. It's not just Muslims that hold that view (though many do). To be clear: I am objecting to his educational views, not his religion. Mr Lawson. You say that your school is a happy one. It may well be that the values you inculcate are values of which I approve. That’s not the problem. The problem is with the way in which those values and associated religious beliefs are communicated – as something that must be accepted entirely without question. That is what I disapprove of, and I would disapprove ...

Here is an email from Ibrahim Lawson, head of an Islamic school, whom I quoted below in Is Religion Dangerous? I am v. grateful to Mr Lawson for permission to post the letter here for discussion. Seems to me Ibrahim Lawson is right - this is exactly the sort of discussion we should now all be having with each other: Muslims, those of other faiths, atheists, etc. Sadly, such discussions don't happen very often, so this is a real opportunity. Contributors will, I'm sure, respond temperately and graciously. I hope we get a range of views. Mr Lawson writes... Dear Stephen, I came across this today: If you're not worried about what's going on in some religious schools, you should be. Here's a brief excerpt from a Radio 4 interview with Ibrahim Lawson, head of an Islamic school: IL: [t]he essential purpose of the Islamia school as with all Islamic schools is to inculcate profound religious belief in the children. ER: You use the word "inculcate": dies that mea...

William Hawthorne takes me to task on "Is religion dangerous?" My responses below. William's stuff is in italics. [Y]our argument runs as follows: (1) Religion has the power to get so many people to believe something so ridiculous so quickly. (2) Religion is also unpredictable. (3) If something x is unpredictable and has the power to get so many people to believe something so ridiculous so quickly, we should have safeguards in place against x. (4) So we should have safeguards in place against religion. I think this is a fair construal, given your comment above. Now, where are your supporting arguments for (1) and (2)? All you did in your original entry is bring up examples of particular religious people who hold ridiculous beliefs. But, as I said earlier, it doesn't follow from that that religion has the "power" to do thus and such. At the most, you could claim that some religious people have the power to assent to ridiculous beliefs. And certainly that'...

I was at a conference yesterday with theologian Professor Keith Ward. He gave a talk based on his book Is Religion Dangerous? and then he and I had a debate. Here's one of the points I made. Keith (whom I like v. much, by the way) takes the view that religion is not to blame for much (indeed, in the book he even says that it is not a cause of evil, and that it is not intolerant [the intolerant merely use it] - however, his actual view is bit more nuanced than that). Many, including Keith, recommend religion for social engineering purposes. They claim that (i) it helps build a sense of community, (ii) it makes people happier and healthier, and (iii) it makes them better behaved. Suppose it does. Even if it were useful in these ways, it seems to me there are nevertheless special dangers attaching to the use of religion as a tool. Religion is immensely powerful and can behave in unpredictable ways. Take the young earth creationists back in the 60's. A tiny band of crackpots. W...