Wednesday 25 November 2009

Revenge is sweet



We received a small donation at work this week, inside a card. On the front, it had the picture above and said:

The Fund was established to disburse a small sum of money left by the late Michael Young who died in August 2000 shortly after his 100th birthday.

He was not a good man – quite the opposite. He was strongly anti-Semitic, had a deep-rooted distaste for coloured people, who he feared would pollute the white races, propagated a mean-spirited and unforgiving interpretation of Christianity.

He paraded these beliefs under the banner of patriotism, was a founder member of the League of Empire Loyalists and claimed, with pride, that he tipped a bucket of offal over Jomo Kenyatta, at that time President of Kenya, a member of the Commonwealth.

He corresponded with, and supported financially, Lady Birdwood and John Tyndall of the British National Party as well as various fringe religious movements. He wrote a number of poisonous pamphlets.

He was wholly self-centred, had no interest in anything beyond his Bible studies and preparation of his meals, neither read a newspaper nor stirred out of his house for the last 10 years of his life. It is hard to find any redeeming feature in the man.

So, it seemed a nice idea to pass a little of the money he left to some of the individuals and small organisations who try to do some good in the world, and, where possible, to ones he would have disapproved of.

His 'mean-spirited and unforgiving interpretation of Christianity' as well as his political affiliations mean he would have been horrified that any of his money should go to the National Secular Society (www.secularism.org.uk).

On the back, there is an explanation of how the Fund works:

If you like the idea of making small grants to decent people but don't want to set up your own fund, email a request for some of these cards to anthony@evelynwilliams.com. You can use them yourself or ask us to post on your 'grant' if you want to remain anonymous.

What an excellent and classy way to take revenge on a nasty old man. It's almost enough to make you wish there was an afterlife so his ghost could watch and be tormented by what is being done in his name. That would really be hell.

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Doctor Jesus - The Franchise



Coming soon to a town near you – healing through the power of prayer.

A group called The Healing Rooms is spreading its tentacles across the UK. The Starbucks of faith healing, their mission statement is:

We have a vision to see every town and city in England with at least one Healing Room and many Healing Rooms in larger cities. This is part of a wider vision to see Healing Rooms set in around the world. The first IAHR Healing Room in the UK opened in Halifax, West Yorkshire at the end of January 2003. There are now 50 registered IAHR Healing Rooms in England and if you include those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland the total is 79 Healing Rooms in the UK. Worldwide there are just over 1,000 Healing Rooms in 47 nations all linked together through IAHR.

The parent organisation, the International Association of Healing Rooms is based in America.

They were brought to my attention at work by someone who had seen the glowing article in his local paper, the Wee County News, on 7 October 2009, about a branch opening in Moncrieff Church, Alloa.

IAHR claims include the usual gamut of minor afflictions as well as curing cancer, HIV, ME, asbestosis and restoring a liver. Testimonies from the London branch include these cancer cure claims:

I am giving a testimony on behalf of my sister who received her healing from cancer. I used to come to the Healing rooms every week to pray for her when she was diagnosed and to the glory of God she is healed and completely free. I believe that God answers prayers, all we have to do is to ask and I am living proof. There is nothing too difficult for Him and with Him all things are possible. All the doctors in South Africa where she was receiving treatment were completely amazed by her recovery. She has gone for several other check-ups and no tumor is found.

and

I was diagnosed with cancer over 11 years ago. In Dec 2005 I had a body scan and was told that there were 3 tiny nodules in my left lung and many lesions throughout the vertebral bodies and pelvis. I have been going to the Healing Rooms for nearly a year and I am very pleased with the result I have today. God is good to me and has answered my prayer. The last report I had was really good and my consultant is very impressed. He told me the body scan showed no evidence of bony metastases. I feel very well in myself and praise God daily. Thank you Jesus, for you are the same yesterday today and forevermore. You are the greatest healer. A big thank you to the Healing room staff for their patience and love.

There is also this oddity:

I came on Wednesday evening and the welcome was very loving . I had prayer and my lower back and crushed disc was healed and my right leg grew 1.5 inches and I no longer have any pain. It is so wonderful, no pain, peace at last. God is wonderful, thank you Jesus. I have been so blessed my family relationships have improved and my brother phoned me after 2 years.

Doctor Jesus made this man’s leg grow one and a half inches. That's an observable and quantifiable effect. There is no mention of whether the leg was measured by a doctor before and after prayer, of course. And how nice that Doctor Jesus also got his brother to call. They must have been praying extra hard that night.

Healing Rooms also have something called a Prayer Cloth:

In Acts 19:11-12, it speaks of how cloths (aprons and handkerchiefs) were touched by Peter and Paul and taken back to the sick who were often cured of their ills. It says that "God gave Paul the power to do unusual miracles, so that even when handkerchiefs or cloths that had touched his skin were placed on sick people, they were healed of their diseases, and any evil spirits within them came out." (The New Living Translation) The cloths are anointed with oil and prayed over by our intercessors before we mail them out to you.

Testimonials for this include:

A prayer cloth was sent to a man in Australia who had Asbestosis, for which there is no cure. When he received the cloth he put it on his chest. On his next visit to the doctor, he was told that all traces of Asbestosis have now gone - he is completely healed.

If these cloths worked, the NHS would be mighty interested as it would save them an awful lot of money. In fact, why not get rid of all the doctors and nurses and just hire Healing Rooms to service the entire UK? Oh right, you only get healed if your faith is sufficiently strong. That rules out all the non-Christians. Doctor Jesus is a private practitioner. Or maybe it's not part of His Great Plan to cure you. Who knows? He moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.

From the Scottish branch claims include:

Danny was waiting to go to hospital to have an arm amputated from the elbow as he had no feeling or movement in it and nothing could be done to save the arm. After prayer his hand began to tingle and move and he can now clench his fist and move all his fingers. No amputation will now be needed!

He will no doubt be using that hand to put against the other one in prayer.

And there are many more testimonies on the American site.

Not only do IAHR claim to heal any number of problems through prayer, they also train people to heal. So if you want a new hobby, pop yourself along to one of their centres and you can set up your very own franchise. I'm not sure why you have to go along to the Healing Rooms to get fixed - does Doctor Jesus not make house calls?

As I mentioned in my Doctor Jesus post about Body of Christ International Ministries, as soon as a claimed cure for cancer is spotted, the alarms go off because such claims are in contravention of the BCAP code of practice 50.27 viz Marketers should not falsely claim that a product is able to cure illness, dysfunction or malformations and also the Cancer Act 4.1.(a) 8:

No person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement—

(a)containing an offer to treat any person for cancer, or to prescribe any remedy therefor, or to give any advice in connection with the treatment thereof;

(8) In this section the expression “advertisement” includes any notice, circular, label, wrapper or other document, and any announcement made orally or by any means of producing or transmitting sounds


For this and other reasons detailed in the Doctor Jesus post, I have reported them to Trading Standards and the ASA.

For every group making a claim that the ASA rules against, more spring up. They are hydra-headed and the more canny ones make no actionable promises or claims. But it's important to keep chipping away and to publicize the facts about faith healing - that there is NO EVIDENCE AT ALL that it has anything more than a placebo effect at best. That's NO EVIDENCE AT ALL.

Of course, if you have faith, then evidence is nothing. Proof is nothing. Facts are nothing. It's a miracle, praise Jesus and pass the collection plate. You can't put a price tag on the Love of God but there's no such thing as a free miracle.

It doesn't take long to fill in the Advertising Standards Authority complaints form or to send an email to your local Trading Standards office.

In the words of eco-campaigners: think global, act local.

And if you'd like to know more about the Alloa branch, you can ring local director Elaine McDonagh on 07742 175 453 or email alloa@healingrooms-scotland.com.



Saturday 14 November 2009

Normal Service Will Be Resumed...


There may now be a slight hiatus while I relocate from Bloomsbury to Camden as the lease is up and the street is being redeveloped into something shiny, smart and very very expensive.

It's the end of an era and I'm a little sad but after two months of looking at rat holes and shoe boxes, meeting the mad, the dubious and the dreary, it's a great relief to find a new flatmate and a new home that don't make me want to put my head in the oven.

Two people tried to scam me, I saw adverts from 'gentlemen' wanting young women to cook their dinner, iron their shirts and give them a massage in return for cheap rent and learnt just how small an alleged double room can be (about six by eight feet).

It has been fantastic living right in the heart of town with everything on my doorstep, walking to work and the gym, knowing the area inside out and having lots of space. But. The kitchen sink is now blocked beyond even the redemption of One Shot, the roof leaks, the mice are getting really cheeky, the plaster on the walls and ceilings is starting to look like crazy paving and the whole area is about to become a building site thanks to Crossrail. All of these things and more make it easier to go.

Change is never easy when it's forced on you and choices are limited; it was horribly stressful at times but there are very many worse places I could have ended up. My mother was praying for me - perhaps that's what did the trick. Or not.

I'll be living within yards of the place I lived in when I first came to London. I'm far enough away from the market to avoid the weekend hordes and still on the Northern Line - the devil I know. Camden really needs a good bookshop, though.

Moving is going to be one of the Twelve Labours of Hercules and it will take a while to get a new routine so there may be a blog break. Then it will be back to business as usual.

See you soon.


Tuesday 10 November 2009

Doctor Jesus - Struck Off

Last month (October 09) I reported the Body of Christ International Ministries to the Advertising Standards Authority for their leaflet claiming to cure cancer, arthritis and an enlarged heart through the power of prayer.

The ASA has now contacted me to say that the BCIM have agreed to stop distributing the leaflet and will not make the same claims in any future leaflets.

This is just a tiny blow against the army of religious groups making dangerous, misleading and unscientific claims but it's important to keep chipping away at them, to let them know that they are being watched. They will no doubt try other tactics to lure people in. It's also important to explain to people why they should not trust these claims, however desperate they are.

BCIM - God is watching you and so are we.

Sunday 8 November 2009

Psychic Detectives



Evening all. Two jolly queer stories this week from Dock Green.

Firstly, Police in Lampeter spent £20,000 following up tips from psychics in a murder investigation. The suicide verdict was questioned when mediums told the police that a lion, a horse and a man called Tony Fox were important. So off went the Boys In Blue round all the local pubs with Lion or Horse in the name.

The police were told that the dead man's ghost had been in touch to say he was strangled by gangsters and forced to drink petrol and bleach. Oddly enough, a second postmortem found no trace of either substance. Tip for mediums: don't make claims that can be disproved in five minutes with a scalpel.

The Dyfed-Powys police said they followed up the leads 'to reassure the family that the full circumstances of the death were as they appeared. Police have a responsibility to the deceased, their family and the public to investigate all deaths thoroughly'.

Up to a point, lads. Going against post mortem evidence does not say a great deal for their trust in forensics either. The men and women in white coats can't be exactly delighted.

The dead man had a row with his girlfriend and local news added that 'Their relationship had deteriorated since the birth of their son Luca in 2005, and Miss Edwards, 23, said her former partner had developed bouts of anger. She said Mr Assaf, who had spent six months in jail for assaulting her in 2006, was addicted to amphetamines'.

Does this make the police more or less gullible? Were they fooled by an alleged psychic or were they just doing their job? Could the mediums have been giving them a real tip-off based on facts they were trying to dress up as knowledge from Beyond the Veil for who knows what motive? The police said they had to be sure no third party was involved and someone decided this was worth twenty grand of police time.

We will never know at what point in the mystic revelations the police decided they'd been had or, in their terms, decided that no third party was involved.

A police source commented: 'We are becoming a laughing stock'.

Well, yes.

Then, a few days later, there was another story, this time about Alan Power, a police trainer with Greater Manchester Police, who is going to court after being sacked because he believes psychics can help in police investigations.

Judge Russell at the Manchester Employment Tribunal said 'I am satisfied that the claimant's beliefs that there is life after death and that the dead can be contacted through mediums are worthy of respect in a democratic society and have sufficient cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance to fall into the category of a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Regulations'.

He is referring to the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003. This is the same law used by Tim Nicholson when he argued that green beliefs are equal to religious beliefs recently.

There's respect for someone's right to believe any old nonsense and then there's taking that nonsense seriously in the workplace, which requires quite a leap especially in a job where lives and safety are at stake.

The judge said that a later hearing would have to establish whether Power was 'dismissed for the possession of religious or philosophical beliefs or for his alleged inappropriate foisting of his beliefs on others'.

Power has belonged to a Spiritualist church for 30 years. He told the hearing that he believed in psychics and their 'usefulness to police investigations'. He is to call a psychic he has known since 1980 to testify that his association with the psychic has proved 'detrimental' to his police career.

Greater Manchester Police are going to argue at an appeal that Judge Russell 'erred in law' because Power did not originally claim to have a religious belief, only that he had a belief in psychics and their usefulness to the Force.

They must be aware that their public reputation is at stake - something Dyfed-Powys police might like to have considered.

On the one hand, is there really any difference between believing that the dead can be contacted and that (fill in any mainstream religious belief of your choice here). If the latter is 'worthy of respect in a democracy', why not the former? What is the difference between praying to a supernatural being to guide you in your investigation, solving the case and ascribing it to His Wisdom and bringing in a psychic? Both are world views based on faith not science, evidence or any testable claim. Both often involve
post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, confirmation bias, seeing patterns where there are none and a whole gamut of logical fails, not to mention leaps of imagination.

On the other hand, Manchester police do appear to be showing a lot more common sense than the Dyfed-Powys police. The fact that Power wants to prove his beliefs have been detrimental to his career means that he has form, that they have known about him for a while and he went too far.

If Power wins his case, then the floodgates will be open for people with any kind of belief to refuse to do certain work because it is against those beliefs, to bring those beliefs into the workplace, demand concessions or privileges and to appeal if they get sacked. As long as they can prove they didn't just make up a belief on the spot because they fancied a day off, they could have a case.

Two incidents of psychics and police do not make a trend, but it would be interesting to know just how many members of the Force have some sort of supernatural belief that they bring to work with them. There is a Christian Police Association , a Muslim Police Association, a Sikh group and a Pagan Police group.

The pagans wanted to take the Solstices and Halloween off and Hertfordshire police have appointed two pagan police chaplains. A member of Staffordshire Police is a practising Wiccan who has offered to do spells to help his colleagues.

In the light of all this, does using the dead to grass up the living seem so extreme?




UPDATE: 25 NOVEMBER 2009

Power's case has now been heard and the judge found against him.

The tribunal heard that Power was playing the part of an arrested shoplifter during a police training exercise near Warrington in 2004. But, according to the report, 'he became visibly aroused during the frisking process'.

A sergeant from Merseyside police saw this and decided not to use him again. Cheshire Constabulary made the same decision because of his 'inappropriate behaviour'.

So the perp had form.

The information came to light in October 2008 after Power, who denied the allegations, got a job as a special trainer with Greater Manchester Police. He was sacked three weeks later with the force citing his 'current work in the psychic field' as a reason.

It was also alleged that he had handed out inappropriate research materials to Merseyside officers about the World Trade Centre attacks.

The GMP said "The matter has never been about Mr Power's beliefs and we vehemently deny any claims he was discriminated against on those or any other grounds".

So first time round he was sacked for a stiffy, then either for his psychic activity or for handing out leaflets. Or possibly his pony tail. The evidence is not exactly clear.

Either way, this particular psychic will no longer be using his invisible friends as police informants or copping a feel-up on the job.

More importantly perhaps, citing discrimination against your beliefs is becoming an increasingly tenuous response to being fired.
UPDATE 26 November
This post appeared on the Friends of the National Secular Society Facebook page:
I'm the sister of the man in this story. I'd love to say lots more, but then he'd take me to court too! All I can say is that I'm very very glad he lost!!!















































Wednesday 4 November 2009

Arrogant Gods of Certainty




Scientists are arrogant, unimaginative and quite possibly insane. But luckily, AN Wilson is here to save us from the worship of science, the great superstition of our age.

He open with: the row between the Government and its scientific advisers blazes on like a forest fire.

And then proceeds to throw petrol on it.

First up is David Nutt and the uproar of self-pity and self-importance that his sacking has caused in the scientific community. But this is not just about Nutt, science itself is in the dock because what scientists say must be taken as true. The trouble with a 'scientific' argument, of course, is that it is not made in the real world, but in a laboratory by an unimaginative academic relying solely on empirical fact. Of course.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Wilson has no understanding of scientific methodology - randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed - you know how it goes. Or the way that, if a scientist gets something wrong, it is very often other scientists who point this out because they are the only ones who understand the mistake. Or the way that science is not a monolithic body - conservative, ignoring evidence, resistant to change, oblivious of the 'real world' and condemning anyone who dares to challenge orthodox views. That would be religion.

But he doesn't need to know any of this because he knows he is right. He is on his high horse - and from up there it's hard to see what is really happening on the ground.

So the 'scientific' argument (why the inverted commas?) is made in a laboratory, not in the real world? Well yes, scientists come from a parallel universe and have cloven hooves, for a start. They wear Star Trek T shirts to distract us. But look carefully and you will see that the crazy hair conceals tiny horns. Didn't you know that? It's a conspiracy theory! How do you make an argument in a laboratory? What kind of test tube would you need?

Wilson next objects to any suggestion that E may not be as bad as certain people in Government would like us to believe because of the devastation wrought in sink estates not only on the youngsters themselves, but on whole communities by the casual abuse of drugs.

He admits that smoking and drinking have more casualties but this does not mean it is safe to take ecstasy.

Two things. Firstly, no one is saying E is safe, just that it is not the danger to civilization that some people are making out. Perhaps some degree of rational and objective enquiry would be a good idea? Perhaps Government policy-makers might like to consider some evidence?

No. He doesn't want to know if it is less dangerous or should be re-categorized. Drugs should be presented as the Great Evil because of their effects on what he charmingly calls the murkier parts of our society. Lie to the plebs for their own good. Drugs bad. All drugs bad. Much easier than trying to educate people or to look at the underlying causes of drug and alcohol abuse among low-income groups. No Mail reader would want to hear about that.

Incidentally, I doubt if the average teenager of whatever background gives a stuff whether drugs are Class A or otherwise.

He goes on to say that what is on trial is the reputation of science. Not so much a trial as a kangaroo court presided over by Judge Wilson.

However, he does kindly allow a case for the defence: it would be folly to deny that we all owe a vast debt to scientific discoveries, made by patient, intellectually rigorous men and women over the past few centuries. Just think what we owe to developments in medicine, let alone all those technologies we now depend on, from cars to computers.

These Good Scientists presumably do not work in labs relying solely on the empirical method. Maybe they are the ones working in garden sheds or on the kitchen table using guess work.

How do you tell a Good Scientist from a Dangerous Lunatic? This is a serious point - how is the public to know? Who can understand the issues well enough to judge when science is good (useful to decent upstanding society) and when it is bad, and to inform us all? Never fear, Wilson is here. And it's not just the plebs on estates who need his wisdom.

There is an increasing presumption among many intelligent and good-hearted people that science is an absolute truth, that its methods of arriving at the truth are infallible and that scientists must be listened to at all times.

Aw, bless the poor little intelligent fools with their great big hearts cruelly deceived by wicked scientists. I presume he has a list of names and addresses to back up this claim?

To prove their wickedness and arrogance, he lists some science fails (according to him). The foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 and BSE, for example. Then he brings out the big guns.

The only difference between Hitler and other governments was that he believed, with babyish credulity, in science as the only truth.

With his wonderful grasp of history, Wilson sees the same habit of mind at work in Professor Nutt and his colleagues as made those mad scientists of the 20th century think they were above the moral law which governs the rest of us mortals.

This is stoking up the forest fire big time. We've gone from scientists = arrogant fools having hissy fits when anyone disagrees with them to scientists = Nazis. Nice move, Wilson.

Just to underline the comparison, he reminds us that scientists are tampering with the origin of human life itself in so-called stem cell research. So-called?

Not only are scientists dangerous, those who dare question science are demonised for their irrationality.

Two sorts of people questions science. Scientists who are doing their job and people who don't understand science but think it should serve their own moral, religious or commercial ends.

In Wilson World, scientists hate free discussion and are often seen burning down the houses of those who disagree with them - or taking them to court for libel. In his words: cast doubt on these gods of certainty and you are accused of wanting to suppress free expression... it is the arrogant scientific establishment which questions free expression.

Like the free expression of those who promote bogus cancer cures or claim that vitamins alone can cure HIV/AIDS or that God made the world in six days? Or just anyone who doesn't like the facts?

Don't scientists just love playing god - meddling with nature and claiming their own omniscience. That's when they're not too busy playing Dungeons and Dragons (or whatever it is - I have a life).

He continues:

Think of the hoo-ha which occurred when one hospital doctor dared to question the wisdom of using the MMR vaccine.

Ah, those scientists and their hoo-ha. How dare they slap down one brave man who dared to tell the world that MMR was a Bad Thing for all those poor little children? He had so much solid evidence after all. Oh wait, evidence is an empirical tool of the unimaginative scientists.

Then it gets a bit weird. After saying that scientists are up in arms about Nutt's sacking because they are arrogant etc etc, he talks about the way in which the scientific establishment closed ranks in order to assassinate him. Huh? This logic truly surpasseth all understanding.

He ends with a final fanning of the forest fire flames in case there are a few tiny creatures not yet burnt to a crisp.

And to everyone who thinks otherwise, I would ask them to carry out a simple experiment. Put a drug, bought casually on the street corner, and a glass of red wine on the table when your teenager comes home from school. Which of them, in all honesty, would you prefer him to try?

The irony of him suggesting an experiment is not lost. Mail readers skulking on street corners trying to score. Then standing over their kids wearing white coats, clutching clip boards, stop watches and whatever else it is that scientists do in their crazy labs (while lightning crashes around them). Don't forget to have a few monkeys on hand and some unspeakable things in jars. But only after the kids have done their homework, of course.

The article matters not because one silly bugger has got the wrong end of the stick and is using it to beat his moral agenda drum (sorry about that metaphor) but because it is another blow against the public trust in science. It matters because scientists have a hard enough time without being caricatured as arrogant, unfeeling, cold-hearted, hoo-ha-ing empiricists with a god complex. It confuses morals, evidence, social factors, logic, truth, half-truths and hysteria. And it matters because more and more money is being spent on 'alternative' medicine and dietary supplements because 'it worked for me' and 'science doesn't know everything'.

We all know that scientists sometimes get things wrong, even badly wrong. But relying on a journalist to sort out good science from bad or to judge which truths the public can handle is the real danger.

He accuses scientists of being like the Spanish Inquisition, trying to destroy all opposition, but he is the one mounting a witch-hunt. Maybe it's because it's Bonfire Night tomorrow and he's looking for something to throw on the fire - a bundle of scientists would do nicely.

There is so much more to say about this article but that will do for now.