I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

Rights are indeed self evident, at least I thought so until I read the abortion threads!

But you need legal machinery to enforce them, no? And for the legal machinery to work, you have to create a legal framework. Laws and all that stuff.

For instance, there is a democratic consensus nowadays that married women are not the property of their husbands. That was not always the consensus view, albeit that consensus seems to have consisted of a few up tight Victorians with somewhat odd attitudes to bare table legs.

Oh definitely, Douglas. Dorries et al is one of the reasons I left the Conservative party a while back.

Oh, also, Douglas, I’m not a big fan of “rights”. Rights are inherent, we don’t need any government to grant us “rights”.

Which theists though? I doubt the vast majority of Anglicans for instance, would want to turn the clock back quite that far.

There are extremists attached to nearly every movement, quite apart from religions. For instance, there are environmentalists that think that a return to a hunter gatherer society is the answer? No-one pays them any heed, and neither should we pay any heed to religious fundamentalists of any stripe.

What we are seeing, in Europe at least, is growing secularism. Quite why politicians privileged the likes of the MCB for so long before chucking them out is, admittedly, a bit of a mystery. I think it is because it is hard to teach an old dog – the government – new tricks. They try to apply control, ahem, sorry, consultation methods that were more applicable to the colonial era.

Personally, I think that if you want a government based on evidence rather than the crucifix, the likes of Nadine Dorries should be challenged on rationalist grounds. Come to that, Tony Blairs pandering to faith was pretty unwholesome too. These are the real enemy.

We have fundamental rights, embodied in the European Convention of Human Rights that would have astonished any Victorian.

If the theists had their way, it would be.

We are in danger of a return of the days when scepticism about religious claims will again have consequences in the U.K.

Do you really think so? Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ has sold over a quarter of a million copies. We are hardly in the same world as Charles Bradlaugh, are we?

Bradlaugh’s fight was only twenty years after Darwin published ‘The Origin of the Species’. Things have moved on a bit since those days, have they not?

The NSS dates from a time when asserting a lack of belief would have actual consequences.

The wikipedia page on NSS founder Charles Bradlaugh :-

“In 1880 Bradlaugh was elected Member of Parliament for Northampton, and claimed the right to affirm (instead of taking the religious Oath of Allegiance), but this was denied, and he subsequently offered to take the oath “as a matter of form”. This offer, too, was rejected by the House. Because a Member must take the oath before being allowed to take their seat, he effectively forfeited his seat in Parliament. He attempted to take his seat regardless, was arrested and briefly imprisoned in the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament. His seat fell vacant and a by-election was declared. Bradlaugh was re-elected by Northampton four times in succession as the dispute continued. Supporting Bradlaugh were William Gladstone, George Bernard Shaw, and John Stuart Mill, as well as hundreds of thousands of people who signed a public petition. Opposing his right to sit were the Conservative Party, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other leading figures in the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church.

On at least one occasion, Bradlaugh was escorted from the House by police officers. In 1883 he took his seat and voted three times before being fined £1,500 for voting illegally. A bill allowing him to affirm was defeated in Parliament.

In 1886 Bradlaugh was finally allowed to take the oath, and did so at the risk of prosecution under the Parliamentary Oaths Act. Two years later, in 1888, he secured passage of a new Oaths Act, which enshrined into law the right of affirmation for members of both Houses, as well as extending and clarifying the law as it related to witnesses in civil and criminal trials (the Evidence Amendment Acts of 1869 and 1870 had proved unsatisfactory, though they had given relief to many who would otherwise have been disadvantaged).”

We are in danger of a return of the days when scepticism about religious claims will again have consequences in the U.K.

I know someone in Ireland who has had her children baptised into the catholic church because she believes they will be seriously disadvantaged otherwise.

I do not want a return to such fears here.

Two of PP’s writers – Rohin and Leon – are atheists. But they’re not rabid like you.

True but then we’re true atheists, rational and calm, at one with the force…er…sorry was watching Star Wars earlier…!

Terry made a great suggestion earlier, he said the NSS is a democratic org, perhaps more secularists should take him at his word and join en masse to change it from within?

Terry’s link can take you to an Indian perspective on secularism, which I found quite interesting.

‘cant let gays adopt children’ – ! more concerned about someone’s sexuality than about someone’s care-giving skills. or imagining someone’s sexuality is bound up with someone’s care-giving skills, is a bit of a bizarre obsession, if you ask me.

islam certainly is clearly obsessed with sexuality, i think it would be safe to say the RC church is also equally obsessed.

I am no expert in the subject and this is hardly the place for the details. I merely wish to point out that there must more than one vision about secularism and the West’s need not be the authoritative one.

What is wrong with Grayling’s proposal? No doctor is required to perform an abortion if they have moral or religious issues. Fair enough, but some are refusing to direct their patients to another doctor on the grounds that they are ‘procuring’ an abortion. So why not have an agemcy which exists simply to allow women access to all options, including adoption and counselling as well as abortion? The religious doctor’s conscience is now clear. How does that support your claim that ‘doctors are not allowed to avoid doing abortions’?

On gay adoption, I was aware of the issue, that the church said it would shut down it’s agencies rather than allow gays to use them. I seem to remember that the CofE went even further and said it would shut down breakfast clubs if forced to admit gays. I was puzzled by your use of ‘canard’. Has the clerical stance been misprepresented?

‘people who consider human rights as a religious common sense.’

Don’t know what that means? Is it a good thing?

’strange how areligious stances on the matters tend to revolve around the children’

Given that the matters in question are abortion and adoption, it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t.

might not seem too visible to people who consider human rights as a religious common sense.

Don.
adoption thingey
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=298852007

abortion thingey
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2007/10/can_we_trust_our_doctors.html

strange how areligious stances on the matters tend to revolve around the children.

You can read it free at http://www.trincoll.edu/secularisminstitute

‘Why does is seem like doctors with certain beleifs are not allowed to avoid doing abortions which are against their religion?’

I have no idea why it seems that way to you, as it is not the case.

‘gay adoption canard’? What canard?

You really aren’t getting the point I’m making, are you?

Shooting people is worse than causing offence, obviously. But tactics can be independant of the scale you are working on – a lot of the same principles apply when playing a parlour game or fighting a war. One of theose principles is the difference between a bystander and an ally.

Sometimes an idea is bad for two independant reasons:

1. it’s immoral, impolite or unpleasant

2. it doesn’t work

When reason #2 applies, you can’t counter it by making an argument against reason #1.

For example, if the idea is ‘drinking the blood of virgins keeps you young’, then it’s kind of a mistake to waver about the morality, but finally decide to do it, without ever questioning the effectiveness.

Now, if all you are interested in is expressing your beliefs for the sake of it, that can’t be usefully argued against.

It is only when you tie those metaphysical beliefs into the whole politics of terrorism and democracy, claim to have a goal you want to achieve by expressing them, that the question comes up:

is this working?