Beyond Belief

A Comres survey commissioned by the BBC for Palm Sunday** does not look good for the Church of England despite a predictable effort to spin the findings.

In the survey, 51% of people surveyed identified as Christian. Half of the people surveyed said they didn’t believe in the resurrection, while only 31% of people identifying as Christian said they did. Only 17% of people thought the Bible version was literally true while 26% believed but thought the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally.

Although Christmas is now far more celebrated, the resurrection is the core tenet of Christianity and Easter is its most important festival. No resurrection, no Christianity.  To quote the Bible: Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. (John 11:25) And yet more than two thirds of Christians don’t believe that.

Sidebar: I wrote about how Jesus is not the only one claiming to be resurrected here. 

Belief and church attendance have been falling for quite some time. The figures for belief in this survey are slightly better than those in a YouGov survey from last year which found that only 46% of people identify as Christian. This was a much bigger survey and so is more likely to represent the population as a whole (nearly 12,000 as opposed to around 2,000 people). The YouGov survey also found that more people believe in ghosts than in a Creator.

  

According to the current survey, 37% of people identifying as Christian never go to Church. Another survey by the Church of England itself found that only 2% of the population go to the Church of England at Easter. The flock really has strayed far from the Good Shepherd (probably because they know he’s going to herd them off to the slaughterhouse so we can all eat our traditional Easter roast lamb and rosemary). 

The survey also looked at belief in life after death. It found that only 46% of people said they believed in it and the same number said they didn’t. If you don’t believe in an afterlife then the Church’s carrot and stick tactics are not going to work on you.

Sidebar: of those who do believe in an afterlife, 56% were women and 36% were men. I looked at why women may believe more than men in many kinds of supernatural phenomena (and non-evidence based medicines) here.

The Church is fighting a rearguard action and trying to spin the findings that 20% of the non-religious believe in some sort of life after death and that 9% of non-believers do believe that the resurrection happened.

The Bishop of Manchester, the Right Reverend David Walker,said: "This important and welcome survey proves that many British people, despite not being regular churchgoers, hold core Christian beliefs”. He describes the results as “surprisingly high levels of religious belief among those who follow no specific religion, often erroneously referred to as secularists or atheists”.

Let’s unpack this a bit. Firstly, the Church doesn’t have a monopoly in life after death belief. About a third of the people (32%) who believed in some sort of life after death believe in reincarnation, hardly a Christian doctrine.

Secondly, 9% believing in the resurrection is not a ‘surprisingly high level’ when you look more closely and see that these are people who ‘do not belong to a religious group’ according to the survey. They are not identified as non-believers or claiming to be atheist or secular, he’s just grasping at straws because any kind of belief, however small or tenuous is better than nothing.  He does deserve credit for his top skills at ignoring all the stats that don’t reflect well on the Church though. That’s quite an impressive mental contortionist act.

Thirdly, he is conflating atheists and secularists. Atheism means no belief in God whereas secularism is a political belief in the need for separation of Church and State. You can be religious and secular, as many people are.

Like a lot of Easter eggs, the Bishop’s claims are hollow and crack under the slightest pressure.

There is also dissension in the Christian ranks. Reverend Dr Lorraine Cavenagh is the acting general secretary for Modern Church, which promotes liberal Christian theology. She said "Science, but also intellectual and philosophical thought has progressed. It has a trickle-down effect on just about everybody's lives.

"So to ask an adult to believe in the resurrection the way they did when they were at Sunday school simply won't do and that's true of much of the key elements of the Christian faith."

A cynical person might say that the Church wants us all to believe like children at Sunday School do. Many of these children also believe in Santa.

Would it be mean to point out that in 2002 a survey found that a third of Church of England clergy don’t believe in the physical resurrection? That’s a bit of an own goal. It’s also unfair to people who do believe if they’re being led by people who don’t.  

These findings follow the Cadbury Easter egg fiasco where self-proclaimed vicar’s daughter Theresa May and Archbishop Sentamu got very hot under the dog collar about Cadbury’s and the National Trust dropping the word Easter from their eggs and egg hunt. I wrote about that here (short version – it’s not true).  

Does any of this really matter to most of us who are more interested in hot cross buns, chocolate eggs and maybe some roast lamb next Sunday?

The Bishop of Manchester also said: "This demonstrates how important beliefs remain across our society and hence the importance both of religious literacy and of religion having a prominent place in public discourse."

This is the crux of the matter. The Church will not give up its power and influence. It will not give up unelected bishops in the House of Lords or its tax-free benefits or state-funded Church schools and hospital chaplains or its general right to meddle in people’s lives. It wants the right to cherry-pick who gets to go to its schools, to mislead children in sex education classes and to discriminate against women and non-hetero cis men.

Church leaders are deluding themselves about the relevance of their beliefs and their jobs in a multi-cultural society. Yes, this country has a Christian heritage, religion has shaped society and history but it is not the sole influence. Societies evolve and the Church is looking increasingly like a dinosaur just before the meteors hit. Or, to add another simile, the Church is like a ferret that will not let go once its jaws have locked on.

However, this survey is no reason for celebration. Politicians won’t do anything to secularise the country because they’re afraid of losing votes. Anglicans (Church of England) are more likely to vote Tory, for a start. This government is very good at ignoring research it doesn’t like in any area and at dismissing ‘experts’ as irrelevant. 

So the Church of England has the last laugh. Whatever surveys show, there is no prospect of change any time soon. It’s much easier to hold onto power than to gain it. Inertia, cowardice and the status quo prevail.

Happy Easter.

** Palm Sunday is the one before Easter where the Bible says Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and people waved palm leaves at him.

The E Word

As if Theresa May didn’t have enough to deceive the British public about at the moment, now she decides to wade into the Great Easter Egg Debate. This is basically the Winterval, ’they’re cancelling Christmas’ non-story with added chocolate.

Cadbury’s and the National Trust have been running a joint egg hunt for 10 years. This year they’re calling it the Cadbury's Great British Egg Hunt instead of the Easter Egg Trail.

According to May, dropping the Easter is ‘ridiculous’. According to Archbishop Sentamu, this is ‘spitting on the grave’ of the company founder, John Cadbury, who was a Quaker.

May said: "I think the stance they have taken is absolutely ridiculous. I don't know what they are thinking about frankly. Easter's very important... It's a very important festival for the Christian faith for millions across the world." She also reminds us that she’s a vicar’s daughter.

Firstly, Cadbury is not dropping Easter from its promotions. As a spokesman point out: "A casual glance at our website will see dozens of references to Easter throughout." A ten second look at their website shows ‘Enjoy Easter fun at the National Trust’. Yes, the E Word is right there.  They also have a section called Easter Products  that says ‘Our eggstensive range is packed with perfect treats for the Easter season!’. Yes, it’s a terrible pun, but, again, the E Word is right there.

The National Trust website  says Join the Cadbury Egg Hunts this Easter. In fact, the page mentions the E Word five times.

Secondly, dear Archbishop, stop being a drama queen for one minute and you may remember that Quakers don’t even celebrate Easter because they believe every day is holy. 

Thirdly, both the Archbishop and the vicar’s daughter seem to have forgotten that there is nothing in Christian doctrine about the mass consumption of poor quality chocolate at Easter, whether it is shaped like an egg or a rabbit. These are wholly pagan relics. I wrote about the pagan originsof Easter here .

Fourthly, calling it the Great British Egg Hunt should make all the Brexiteers happy. We’ll have none of that Middle Eastern religion that was imposed on traditional British beliefs around 1500 years ago. Keep Britain’s Spring Festival British.

Fifthly, if Easter is as important as the two of them are trying to make out, how come only about 2% of people bother going to Church to celebrate what is the fundamental basis of Christianity?  And that’s according the Church of England’s own statistics. 

All of those armchair Christians really should stop their advance towards diabetes for an hour and go to their nearest church – if they even know where it is.  They may be able to sing some carols but how many Easter hymns do they know? How many gave something up for Lent? It’s not as if Cadbury and the National Trust are barricading church doors to keep people out.

Sixthly, the real story here is that Brexit could mean more expensive or smaller chocolate bars. Cadbury’s have already reduced a pack of six Creme Eggs to five with only a slight decrease in the price. A spokesman for thecompany has said that it may well have to pass on higher costs to customers by raising prices or selling smaller products for the same price. And it’s not even a British company any more, it’s owned by US company Mondelēz International. I suspect the ghost of Mr Cadbury would be far more bothered about that.

Cadbury’s are probably far less worried about what Theresa May thinks than about the fact that six out of ten of our favourite chocolate products are made by their rival Mars, including the top slot, which is taken by Maltesers.  

Finally, a vicar’s daughter and an Archbishop really should know that it’s a sin to tell a lie. They won’t be getting any eggs this year because the Easter Bunny knows if you’ve been naughty or nice. Santa sold the Bunny his list – customer data sharing gets everywhere.

2018 UPDATE

It looks like Cadbury's and The National Trust are avoiding the wrath of May and the Archbish this year by plastering the word Easter all over their joint egg hunt site.

But this isn't enough for some people.  Yes, the War on Easter brigade are back. The Sun has come up with the shock horror headline that nine in ten eggs won't have the word 'Easter' on them. One of the people they spoke to said 'Eggs signify  Jesus is risen and help tell the story. Why  not put Easter on the front of eggs?' Kind of missing the point there. Eggs, as we know, predate Christianity as part of Spring celebrations across many cultures.

If they don't like the eggs, perhaps they'd be happier with this:

It's so much easier to whine about eggs than to deal with the fact that so few people go to Church on Easter Sunday even though it is the core festival of this religion - not Christmas. Only 1.3 million attended in 2015 according to the Church of England's own data. That's only 2.3% of the population (of England - the Churches of Wales and Scotland have separate data). Too busy stuffing themselves with chocolate, probably.

I'm sticking to hot cross buns. After all, the best part of any religion is its carbs.

2021 Update:  Here we go again. As if getting through the pandemic wasn't hard enough. The Express is braying:  Political correctness gone mad! Words 'Easter, egg' dropped from seasonal chocolate treats.

It's not about spurning Jesus but, according to Allyson Stewart-Allen, chief exec of International Marketing Partners for Galaxy, "In the multi-cultural society that the UK now is it may be that the majority of target customers do not celebrate Easter and therefore being able to offer that product as a gift for non-Christians is a domestic opportunity for the manufacturers".

Nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with money. Cadbury's are still using the E word on their packaging.

I'm disappointed the Express didn't talk about Cancel Culture although 'multi-cultural' probably had a fair few of its readership frothing at the mouth.

I'm thinking about having a Terry's Dark Chocolate Orange for a change this year because I'm that much of a rebel.

La Rentrée à l'Ecole: Back To School - French Style

France shows us how it should be done

France is secular, which means total separation of Church and State. On September 9, the French Government launched its Secular School Charter to reaffirm secular values in the context of education.

I’ve translated the fifteen articles – it’s been a while since I did any translation so there may be a few inelegant phrasings, but it’s accurate in sense. Clarity is not always the main objective of official French syntax. The term laïque is not identical with secular but it’s the closest we have in English.

As the new school year starts, the Charter shows how very far the UK is from any kind of secularism in a system where one in three state-funded schools are religious schools. These schools are paid for by all of us through our tax. In many schools, teachers can teach/preach according to the ‘ethos’ of the school and employers can legally discriminate against teachers whose lifestyles do not conform to that ethos, either in who they employ or who they promote. They can also select which pupils they accept; this is allegedly to give parents choice but effectively discriminates against parents who are not of the ‘right’ religion, or not religious enough, and who may have to send their children to schools far away. In many of these schools, there is compulsory worship. Schools of other religions exist and are allowed to impose their own ethos.

Homophobia, creationism and inadequate, moralistic sex education are permitted.

Former Archbishop Rowan Williams said ‘A church school is a church’. Even though they claim to welcome everyone, these publicly-funded schools are the churches’ main way of recruiting the next generation – something they desperately need to do as church attendance falls year on year and as poll after poll shows that an increasing number of us are indifferent to religion.

All young people should be free to make up their own minds what they do or don’t believe and should be fully equipped to live in society, not just within their religion. They should be given full access to unbiased facts and taught that any idea can be – and should be – questioned.

THE SECULAR SCHOOL CHARTER

Articles 3, 6, 11, 12 and 13 are the most relevant for comparison with UK schools. All bold is mine.

1 France is an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It assures equality for all citizens before the law throughout the whole of its territories. It respects all beliefs.

2. The secular Republic institutes the separation of religions from the State. The State is neutral with regard to religious or spiritual convictions. There is no State religion.

3. Secularism guarantees freedom of conscience for all. Everyone is free to believe or not believe. It permits free expression of convictions within the limits of respect for others and public order.

4. Secularism permits the exercise of citizenship, reconciling individual liberty with the equality and fraternity of everyone in the public interest.

5. The Republic ensures respect for all of its principles in its educational institutions.

6. Secularism in schools offers all students the conditions to develop their personalities, exercise their free will and learn how to be citizens. It protects them from all proselytizing and all pressure that would prevent them from making their own choices.

7. Secularism ensures students have access to a common and shared culture.

8. Secularism permits students freedom of expression within the operational limits of the school, and the limits of respecting republican values and pluralism of belief.

9. Secularism implies the rejection of all violence and discrimination, guarantees equality between girls and boys and is based on a culture of respect and understanding for others.

10. All staff must teach pupils the meaning and value of secularism along with the other fundamental principles of the Republic. They will monitor their application in the educational framework. They must tell parents about this charter.

11. Staff have a strict duty to be neutral: they must not reveal their political or religious beliefs while doing their jobs.

12. Learning is secular. In principle, no subject is excluded from scientific and academic questioning. This is to ensure that students are exposed objectively to the diversity of world views, and to the full scope of fact-based knowledge. No pupil may invoke a religious or political belief to challenge a teacher’s right to deal with a subject on the curriculum.

13. No one may use their religion as an excuse for refusing to obey the rules of schools in the Republic.

14 Internal rules of public educational institutions about ways of living in different spaces defer to secularism. Pupils are forbidden from wearing symbols or clothes that show they belong to a particular religion.

15. Pupils contribute through their thoughts and actions to making secularism live in the heart of their academic institution.




The UK government is keen to open more religious schools. The French model will not be adopted here any time soon. For many children in this country, back to school means back to discrimination, propaganda and publicly-funded God.

Too Smart For God?

A new meta-analysis has found that intelligent people are less likely to be religious – if you believe the media coverage.

What often happens when research is published is that journalists read the press release or, at best, the abstract (summary) of the research paper. This is partly because of tight deadlines and partly because many journals charge for access to the full paper ($25 in this case). Then people who have a particular axe to grind jump on the results and get either outraged or smug, depending on the findings.

A meta-analysis is a study of studies. It looks at all the research done on a particular subject to collate and analyse the results. In this case, it covers studies done between 1928 and 2012.

The abstract begins: ‘A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity’. However, the abstract is not the whole story. The discussion at the end of a paper is where the caveats are found and give the full picture.

The paper is long and complex. These are just some of the caveats that need to be taken into consideration before any intelligent atheists start patting themselves on the back.

The percentage of males taking part in any survey or study had a significant effect on the findings. The more men there were, the stronger the finding that intelligence makes people less religious but the less representative it is of the population as a whole.

Education levels were not found to correlate with belief levels although college students were more likely to be or become non-believers.

No studies from outside the English-speaking world were included in the meta-analysis. The authors conclude that ‘Clearly the present results are limited to Western societies’ and that any negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity ‘may also be limited to the American Protestant population’ (my bold).

Without comprehensive and culture-appropriate studies of countries where the main religion is Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and so on, no definite global conclusion can be drawn. In some of these countries, cultural factors may affect the results. It may be socially difficult to be a non-believer in some parts of the West (particularly if you want to be a Head of State) but it's not life-threatening. In some countries, the intelligent position may well be to at least profess belief, even in a survey.

The researchers also acknowledge that measures of intelligence used in the West are not appropriate for all other cultures, particularly in the Third World. There's another reason to be cautious in evaluating any findings. While the ability to increase IQ test scores can be learnt, intelligence is an innate characteristic - but not a value-neutral one. There is almost always a value-judgement implicit (or sometimes explicit) when intelligence levels are identified. As with height in many cultures, more intelligent often means superior, better, more worthy.

Some of the papers analysed had flawed methodology when it came to measures of global intelligence. For example, one included this graph which appears to show that the average IQ in some countries is under 65. There are also some outliers that appear to indicate fewer atheists in 'more intelligent' countries.

The meta-analysis also proposes various reasons why more intelligent people are less religious but admits that these are speculative and may well not apply in, for example, Scandinavian countries where there are higher percentages of non-believers.

Some of the reasons it proposes are that intelligent people are non-conformist, better able to resist cognitive bias and are more analytical. However, a poll in the Guardian (currently) shows that 74% of people agree with the finding but unless they’ve all read the research, this reaction is more likely to be based on wishful thinking and self-affirmation than on reason and analysis. The result may also show that Guardian readers are highly conformist with each other.

I’m not an apologist for religion, I’m an atheist and a secularist. It’s really important that those of us who claim to stand for reason don’t fall into lazy thinking, that we don’t let the media lead us by the nose into knee-jerk reactions that make us look as eager to believe anything that confirms our personal biases as any religious fundamentalist.

It's also important to remember that correlations don't apply to everyone. There will always be outliers - highly intelligent people who do believe and less intelligent ones who don't. A correlation is not one-size-fits-all. And it is not necessarily an indicator of causation.

Even if there turns out to be a global correlation between intelligence and belief – what then?

There’s the obvious point-and-laugh satisfaction for certain atheists but what do the rest of us do with this information? If belief is tied to intelligence then it could be harder to overcome or modify its negative effects on societies and individuals, to ensure equal rights than if it were closely linked to culture or education. The idea of religion as a virus that can be cured through debate or education fails. And, significantly, the people (men) in charge of religions are not stupid.

The last line of the paper is ‘Obviously, these conclusions are a topic for future research’. In other words, don't put out the bunting just yet.

The main problem here is that ‘It looks like there's a correlation between intelligence and religious belief among American Christians but we’re not sure about the rest of the world’ doesn’t make a very good headline.

I promise that I will do my best...

The Guides and Brownies are now consulting on whether to change their Promise. The usual objections will be raised in certain quarters by people who are too quick to think that their faith is being persecuted, that our great traditions are under attack, that everyone should adore the Queen (gawd bless her) or by people who just don't like change. These are the facts.

I was an Imp in the Brownies and a Scarlet Pimpernel in the Guides. I still have all the badges. Growing up in a village, they were an important part of learning social skills and a good way to escape my parents' control for a few hours a week. It's because I enjoyed them that I'd like every girl or young woman to be able to join fully, not because I want to tear down the very fabric of society.

What do Guides and Brownies do?

According to the web site, the ethos of Guiding is that

All girls are welcome
We put girls in the lead
We encourage girls to speak out
We let girls have their own space.

A change in the promise would mean that all girls are equally welcome, which is not the case at the moment.

Guiding is not just about doing good deeds locally. They've joined with five UK charities to help members learn about issues that seriously affect the lives of girls and women around the world, and to 'empower them to advocate, volunteer and raise awareness to make the world a better place for girls'. Basically, at its best it's Girl Power in uniform.

The Guide Law is a pretty good set of values for anyone:
A Guide is honest, reliable and can be trusted.
A Guide is helpful and uses her time and abilities wisely.
A Guide faces challenges and learns from her experiences.
A Guide is a good friend and a sister to all Guides.
A Guide is polite and considerate.
A Guide respects all living things and takes care of the world around her.

Why change the promise?

At the moment, the Promise is:
I promise that I will do my best:
to love my God,
to serve the Queen and my country,
to help other people
and to keep the (Brownie) Guide law.

They say they are consulting because 'Over the past few years we have heard from more and more girls and Leaders who struggle with the wording of the Promise, particularly in interpreting what it really means to girls today'.

Guiding is not about camping, church parade and learning how to fold bandages. It's not a training ground for some 1950s type memory of the Women's Institute.

Why attack a great tradition?

A change to the Promise would not undermine the values of Guiding or deny its history. As they point out themselves, since they were founded in 1909 (Brownies in 1914), the Promise has already changed 11 times 'to reflect changes in society and to make it more meaningful to girls and women'.

People who oppose change and cite tradition as a defence often mean they want things to stay as they were when they were young, not as they have been for all time. It's a form of parochial nostalgia.

The Guides are a Christian organisation in a Christian society

No they're not. The web site states: 'Girlguiding UK has always been open to girls of all faiths and none – we have never been a Christian organisation'. You don't currently have to make the Promise but this means that there is effectively a two-tier membership. Some Guides are more equal than others.

The proposal is to change or remove the line in the Promise about loving God. At the moment, if you're a non-believer, then either you can't be a full member or you have to lie when you make the Promise, which is hardly in the spirit of the Guide Law. Girl Guides Australia removed the reference to God from their Promise in 2012.

I did make the Promise and, at the time, I meant it. I had a very religious upbringing that I hadn't turned away from at that point. But as society changes, an increasing number of girls and young women have decided they don't have a faith and shouldn't be excluded or downgraded.

This isn't about excluding or marginalising religion, it's an equalities issue, about making Guiding open to everyone, equally. A change would also open up the organisation to adults who want to volunteer, the Brown Owls and all the others.

Changing the Promise would also change people's perception of Guiding. Saying they welcome everyone but having a religious component to the Promise sends a mixed message.

God save the Queen, you evil commie Republicans

There's also a proposal to change the part about the Queen - not because Guides have gone all republican but because serving Queen and country is a rather nebulous, archaic and even militaristic concept that has little or no meaning to many people today.

Why does this matter?

This may seem like a minor issue, but it's an area of inequality that could be easily fixed, to the benefit of women. And, in a society where there are so many pockets (or gaping holes) where women's lives need improving, it's a change that could affect a lot of people. Not all changes need to be huge.

Girlguiding UK has around half a million members including about 100,000 trained volunteer adult Leaders and supporters.

There has been a lot more in the media about changes to the Scout Promise and campaigners have paid them more attention, sometimes getting pretty heated. The Guides have largely been ignored until now. They seem much more open to change than the Scouts, who have long refused even to consider dropping the God part of the Promise, although they too are now consulting.

What can I do?

Anyone can respond to the consultation. Adult non-members can fill out the questionnaire (and leave comments) here. It takes about ten minutes.

UPDATE 22 JUNE 2013:
The Guides have now decided to change their Promise. The new version will be:
I promise that I will do my best: to be true to myself and develop my beliefs, to serve the Queen and my community, to help other people and to keep the Guide law.

And of course there has been the predictable howl of protest from certain religious groups, equally predictably quoted in the Mail, Express and Telegraph.

There is also the predictable protest that Guides and Brownies will now promise to serve their community rather than their country, although the Queen has kept her place. Words like lefty and liberal salt these articles.

Chief Guide Gill Slocombe has responded:
“All the essence of what we do is still in the Promise. It has just been reworded to make it more easily understood by the girls of today.

“We were getting feedback that people were struggling with the Promise, they were uncomfortable with it. I have used the word 'off-putting’. I think people were gritting their teeth and saying it.

“This was never a faith organisation. It was always a spiritual organisation. I don’t see how Guiding could have grown to 145 countries with 10 million girls worldwide if everybody had been expected to go along to their local Anglican church and sign up.

“Nothing is changing except the Promise. We have been wilfully misunderstood. Let’s hope we can set the record straight.”

Wilful misunderstanding is something that people keen to get on their high horse about the destruction of everything they hold dear are very good at.

Being true to yourself is a bit nebulous and needs to be clearly framed within the context of the Guiding ethos as a whole to give it any meaning but it's not the wooly fudge that some critics are making out.

The Scouts are said to be planning a change to their Promise later this year. It shouldn't matter that the girls got there first, but it does to me. Come on boys, keep up.

Well done, Guides and Brownies, you have done your best. My ten year old Brownie self gives you the three-finger salute.

Dr Jesus in the dock

In May last year I wrote about Dr Richard Scott who was being investigated by the General Medical Council for aggressively preaching at a vulnerable patient. Scott practices at the Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate, which is run by six Christian GPs.

The GMC has now reached a verdict and the findings are published here.

Scott's lawyer, Paul Diamond, works for the Christian Legal Centre and is no stranger to cases like this. He said that 'a degree of deference should be given to an experienced GP who is embedded into the local community, particularly one who has a reputation for the care he provides to his patients.'

Scott didn't give any deference to a vulnerable patient, or his beliefs. Deferring to someone simply because they are a figure of authority is a demand generally made by dictators and Victorian patriarchs. The GMC agreed and said:

In deciding whether to issue a warning the Committee must apply the principle of proportionality and weigh the interests of the public with those of the practitioner.

In other words, there should be no deference if it's harmful to patients. The GMC is not anti-religion or anti-Christian. The findings stated that GMC guidance acknowledges the role of faith issues in medical care and the right of doctors to raise such matters within the consultation provided that it is done with the patient’s consent and with sensitivity and respect for any faith they might have...on this occasion your behaviour in presenting your faith to Patient A had exceeded the boundaries set out in the guidance and, to use his words, “had gone too far.”

Way too far. Scott was found guilty of saying that:

If Patient A did not turn towards Jesus and hand Jesus his suffering, then Patient A would suffer for the rest of his life.

His own religion could not offer him any protection and that no other religion in the world could offer Patient A what Jesus could offer him.

The devil haunts people who do not turn to Jesus and hand him their suffering.

You told Patient A that you were not offering him anything else because there is no other answer and that he will keep suffering until he is ready to hand his suffering to Jesus.

This is way beyond offering to pray with a patient or asking them if they would like to discuss their beliefs. Scott was once a missionary in Africa; his behaviour in the surgery suggests that he is of the fire and brimstone school, threatening and bullying people into accepting his faith, conjuring images of the devil to batter them into submission. So much for 'first do no harm'. What's more, so much for 'God is love'.

The GMC found that Scott's actions also contravened Paragraph 33 of Good Medical Practice: You must not express to your patients your personal beliefs including political, religious or moral beliefs, in ways that exploit their vulnerability or that are likely to cause them distress.

They warned Scott that Further serious or persistent failure to follow GMC guidance will put your registration at risk.

In other words, he could be struck off. But further action relies on further evidence that he is ignoring the ruling. This means that other patients would have to be brave enough to stand up against this figure of authority, know enough to take their complaint to the GMC and be strong enough to give evidence at a hearing. Not everyone may be capable of doing this either against Scott or other doctors who behave in the same way.

The Committee ruled that this warning be attached to Scott's registration:
During a consultation with a patient in August 2010 you expressed your religious beliefs in a way that distressed your patient. You subsequently confirmed, via National media, that you had sought to suggest your own faith had more to offer than that of the patient. In this way you sought to impose your own beliefs on your patient. You thereby caused the patient distress through insensitive expression of your religious beliefs.

The warning will stay on his registration for five years.

Scott called the hearing 'a charade'. This translates as 'I didn't get my own way' or 'How dare they enforce the rules that I agreed to abide by when I became a doctor?'. Possibly, he stamped his feet as well.

Entirely predictably, the Christian Medical Fellowship has responded with its usual wailing about 'the growing marginalisation of Christian professionals and the rise of militant secularism in Britain’s institutions.'

Christian Concern commented that “Our society seems to becoming more and more repressive, with ordinary, decent people being reported to the authorities and disciplined, not for committing any crime, but just for expressing their Christian beliefs.”

Ordinary, decent people do not bully and threaten the vulnerable, they do not abuse positions of authority and they do not expect special exemptions from rules or laws when it happens to suit them. Whether a practice run by six Christian GPs who advertise their faith on the practice web site is serving the whole community in which Scott is 'embedded' is another matter.

ETA: 18 June

Christine Odone writes her usual ill-informed propagandist response in the Telegraph. However, she does make a good point that the GMC 'allows doctors to promote the healing effects of homoeopathy, chiropractic and reiki, also known as palm healing — which are all unsupported by Western, evidence-based medicine but are backed by belief systems'.

Dr Scott would of course claim that there is plenty of evidence that faith heals and has also spoken in favour of homeopathy.

This doesn't mean the GMC ruling on Dr Scott was wrong but it does suggest that they are inconsistent in their approach and need to be more stringent about evidence-based medicine.

ETA: 20 June
There's an interesting take on the story and the alleged efficacy of prayer by Dr Robert Winston.

ETA 22 June

Dr Scott has now told Pulse magazine that he is not going to change his behaviour.

He said: ‘If anything it will make me even more determined to do it. I showed the GMC all the statistics that showed that spiritual care really helps people's health. Doing God is good for your health. That is the message we tried to get across to the GMC, which they abjectively (sic) failed to grasp.'

He also said: ‘We have evidence-based medicine and if doctors are not providing spiritual care they are actually harming patients.'

It appears that Dr Scott and the GMC have a different interpretation of 'evidence'. They also appear to have a different interpretation of what abiding by a code of practice means. Scott appears to be saying that all the generations of doctors who have been keeping their beliefs out of the surgery have in fact been doing harm to their patients. That's a pretty big accusation.

In addition to spending years learning how the body works and how to fix it when it goes wrong, medical students really should be learning how to preach the gospel. And if they're not Christian, they'd better convert pretty damn quick because believing in any other faith is tantamount to gross medical negligence. Atheist doctors are just criminals.

Scott also ignores the difference between having a faith and being bullied. Some people may derive a sense of well-being from their beliefs, and may avoid more harmful behaviours because of them. But being told that your god is inferior and that the devil is after you when you're already ill or in a vulnerable state is not likely to make you feel better.

Dr Scott also said that the GMC had downplayed the severity of the warning. ‘It's a drag, because if someone else complains to the GMC, then it's two yellow cards equals a red.'

Yes, it's a real drag when you're forced to obey the rules. Bummer, dude.

Scott may see himself as a martyr but his reaction is neither scientific nor humane, two of the main requirements of a doctor. It's just plain arrogance.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the GMC, said: 'Our guidance is clear - doctors must not impose their own beliefs on their patients or cause them distress by inappropriately expressing their own views. This is not about religion, it is about respecting patients and making sure doctors do not use the incredibly privileged position they hold to push their own beliefs, however strongly held they may be.'

Watch this space.

Skeptics Versus Religion

In Nick Cohen's Guardian review of Mark Henderson's book The Geek Manifesto, he suggests that skeptics are being cowardly in not taking on religion.

Is religion a legitimate skeptical target and if so, which aspects of it should we be tackling?

There are already certain aspects of belief that skeptics do take on. For example, the pseudo-scientific claims of creationism or Intelligent Design and its teaching in schools. In September, Alom Shaha will be talking about science versus religion in the classroom at London Skeptics. The 40 Days of Treats campaign was run by two skeptics, who took on religious opposition to abortion. Claims of faith healing are regularly reported to Advertising Standards; one of the more recent was HOTS Bath.

Skepticism promotes rationalism, evidence and scientific thinking. It's not about what or how much we know but about how we know it. If new evidence challenges established thinking, then that thinking changes. This isn't the U turn dreaded by politicians or proof of weakness in the methodology, it is the methodology.

There are skeptics who take on the basic tenets of religion but should this be the basis for a campaign or something we should do more of? I would suggest not. I advocate the generally secular position that beliefs should be a personal matter, that religion should have no special privilege in law-making, healthcare, equalities, education and so on. Beliefs matter less than actions. Yes, actions are founded on beliefs but that's where legislation comes in.

It's easy to find holes in the logic of any religion, flaws in the reasoning, contradictions and scientifically unverifiable claims. It's easy to point and laugh, sneer at and condemn people's genuinely-held beliefs. We need to acknowledge that none of us is as rational as we might like to think. Atheists are not more intelligent than believers and simply pointing out the flaws or evils in religion is not going to make it go away. We need to be humane as well as rational, understanding the many complex reasons people believe what they believe. There is a role for intelligent satire but for some skeptics ridiculing 'truth' claims is a sport that makes them feel good about themselves but what else does it achieve?

What might we want skeptical activism to achieve? One of the first rules of campaigning is to identify your goals.

Do we want an end to all religion? That's not going to happen. Fewer people believe and actively practice religion (in the West) than in the past, but that's not a trend that will carry it into oblivion, largely because of the way the human mind has evolved combined with social factors.

Do we want laws and professional bodies' best practice to be evidence-based and not give in to religious demands for special treatment? Do we want to raise awareness or influence policy-makers (or both)? Do we want to attempt huge campaigns (that may demand more resources than we can realistically provide) or do we want more grassroots activism, tackling individual claims and inequities? These questions all need to be addressed.

We already promote science and evidence-based thinking so that people have access to information about alternatives to belief and its effects should they want them. We do this on a small scale at our meetings and conferences. Brian Cox, Simon Singh and David Attenborough (who might not identify as a skeptic) have been making science programmes for years that have mass appeal, along with many others.

What other areas of religion should we then be tackling?

Should we be involved in clashes between religion and equalities, for example women's rights under sharia law? Should we be running a gay marriage campaign to counter the strong religious opposition or a campaign against the ever-growing number of state sponsored faith schools? There is clear evidence that the majority supports gay marriage and doesn't want more faith schools but is this the kind of evidence we need to take action on or are they purely secular matters?

The atheist bus campaign promoted scepticism about the existence of God but that was scepticism with a C, not with a K, and it was a humanist campaign. It has been suggested that every school should be sent a copy of Origin of Species in response to Gove sending the King James Bible but this would be an empty (and expensive) tit-for-tat gesture.

Secularism and skepticism are obviously not mutually exclusive but it's about the focus of activism, about branding.

One area where skeptics could do more is in the clash between religion and healthcare, where there are usually clear evidence, facts and research as opposed to religious propaganda, unsubstantiated claims and downright lies. The Christian Medical Fellowship and their like (including Nadine Dorries) write propaganda and lies about abortion, mental illness, contraception, doctors' right to proselytize in the surgery and conscientious objections. Add to this pharmacists demanding the right to refuse to sell the morning after pill, therapists claiming to cure homosexuality and medical students refusing to bare their arms to scrub up. And the Vatican (among others) consistently opposing stem cell research. I've written about all of these matters, in some cases more than once, if you want some background.

I suspect that part of the reason we haven't done much in some of these areas is that they cover so-called women's and gay issues and skepticism has historically been very much a heterosexual male domain. But this is changing, as the number of women now coming to Skeptics in the Pub meets and the 40 Days of Treats campaign run by skeptics Liz Lutgendorff and Carmen D'Cruz shows.

Two ways to take direct action are to write to MPs and ministers, and to respond to consultations. This may not seem like a very exciting or high-profile activity, but your MP should respond to your letter and they often assume that for every voter who writes, there are many others who agree, especially if it's a personal, individual letter rather than one obviously copied from an organisation's template. Consultations often inform legislation and best practice. For example, the Secular Medical Forum's recent response to a consultation on Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice, makes some good points.

And then there's good old fashioned talking - to family, friends, people in the pub, at school parents meetings and at work. Not haranguing, not lecturing, just talking. It's what Christians would call bearing witness.

I don't believe that skeptics avoid religion out of cowardice but we do need to think more about what we can do in this area, to define our targets and our responses to them. There is no single skeptic opinion on any one subject but many shades and variations, so I'm not hoping for a mass, homogenous uprising. I am hoping that Nick Cohen's comment and this response will open a debate.

Always let your conscience be your guide? Part 4

The Christian Medical Fellowship is at it again. This time, it has gender reassignment surgery in its sights. And just like all the other times, its relationship with facts is non-monogamous.

Dr Peter Saunders of the CMF is claiming that doctors risk disciplinary action if they refuse to carry out gender reassignment surgery. He says this is yet another symptom of how Christian doctors are being marginalised and penalised for their beliefs.

However, the Royal College of Surgeons has confirmed that gender reassignment operations are not something a general surgeon would be expected to do. There are many different kinds of surgery involved and like other areas of specialist surgery they require training. A doctor who had objections wouldn’t elect to be trained in this area in the first place.

So where is the problem? Has Dr Saunders read the story of the boy who cried wolf?

Not surprisingly, the Mail has written Doctors 'forced to carry out sex-change ops' under rules meant to 'marginalise Christian medics'.

They got the story from Dr Saunders’ blog Christian Medical Comment where he claims that ‘Legislation and regulations are being used to marginalise Christian health professionals in Britain. British medicine in the 21st Century now involves practices which many doctors regard as unethical. A significant number of doctors do not wish to be involved in sex-change operations or prescribing contraceptives to unmarried couples.’

He gives no evidence for what this ‘significant number’ might be.

The CMF website says things like

God created each of us in his image, male and female, and he doesn't make mistakes… This issue has tremendous implications for society at large and the institution of marriage in particular… the doctor's duty in treating his/her patients is to restore people to what God originally intended … giving sex change treatment goes beyond this remit.

In his rant blog, Saunders refers to the General Medical Council’s current consultation on personal belief and medical practice, including conscientious objections. Draft guidance says

‘You may choose to opt out of providing a particular procedure because of your personal beliefs and values’ and adds ‘The exception to this is gender reassignment since this procedure is only sought by a particular group of patients (and cannot therefore be subject to a conscientious objection)’.

Gender reassignment surgery has been available on the NHS since 1999 and the Equality Act 2010 prohibits doctors from discriminating against people who are undergoing gender reassignment treatment. So this is not just something the GMC has come up with on a whim, it’s the law.

Although his blog mostly relates to surgery, Saunders also mentions GPs with religious objections who would not currently be allowed to opt out of referring a patient to a specialist or providing related treatments.

It appears that he has not read his own web site. For example, one doctor writes:

I would emphasise that I am no expert in this type of problem and would be happy to refer him to a psychologist to explore his request further.

This may be a fudge to avoid being accused of discrimination but it would ensure that the doctor’s beliefs would not affect the patient. It also means that Saunders does not even represent all CMF members or Christian doctors.

The GMC consultation closes on 13 June. The CMF’s response to the consultation is here.

Child brides and licensed rape

Women in the UK are being forced to get married with threats and violence. Children under the legal age of consent for marriage or sex are also being forced to marry - and most of them are girls.

Four hundred children were helped by the government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) in the last year - the youngest was five years old.


Worldwide, it is estimated that one in seven under fifteen year old girls is forced to marry according to the report Breaking Vows.

In 2011 the FMU dealt with around 1,500 cases of forced marriage of girls and women, but many more are thought to go unreported. In the UK, the highest incidence of forced marriage is among South Asian communities. In some cases, girls and women are taken abroad without knowing what awaits them. The FMU is aware of cases from Afghanistan, North and East Africa, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey.

In 52% of FMU's 2011 cases, victims were taken to Pakistan. Although forced marriage is predominantly a problem in the Muslim community in the UK, it also happens to Hindus and Sikhs.

Currently, it is not illegal to force anyone to marry. Forced Marriage Protection Orders (FMPO) were introduced in 2008 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland under the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007. These protect anyone who is at risk of being forced into marriage or who has been forced to marry. Breach of an FMPO is not a criminal offence, it's dealt with as a civil contempt of court and the county courts can impose a custodial sentence of up to two years. In Scotland the breach of an FMPO is a criminal offence punishable by prison.

David Cameron wants the law to go further and held a public consultation on making it a criminal offence to force anyone to marry against their will in England and Wales. He said people should not "shy away" from addressing the issue because of "cultural concerns".

In almost every culture, women have been seen as belonging to their male relatives at some point in history. They have been married off (handed from one man to another) to cement alliances, end wars or disputes, to consolidate territory or to get immigration visas. Royal or noble women and girls were used as strategic bargaining chips until comparatively recently in the West.

Although forced marriage has strong cultural origins, it is often supported and even justified by religion and cannot be entirely disentangled from it. While some religious leaders speak out against it, many endorse it either explicitly or tacitly. It is significant that the majority of cultures that still practice forced marriage are also Muslim.

If women are not taken abroad, they are often married by sharia courts in the UK - sometimes without them even being present. Under this law, a woman's word is worth half her husband's, she can be beaten and raped with impunity, and has no rights at all over her marriage or her children. Under-age girls may be threatened or abused into keeping silent; they may not know that UK law is being broken by using sharia this way or that the FMU exists.

Some of the women forced to marry are LGBT and some are forced to marry men much older than them. Once married, they are vulnerable to violence, abuse and forced sex (rape) with men who see it as their right to have sex with their wives against their will - even if their wives are under the legal age of sexual consent. Which means that they are raping children with impunity. Amy Cumming, joint head of the FMU, said 29% of its cases last year involved minors.

Women who want a divorce from an abusive forced marriage are told by imams to go back to their husbands and put up with the abuse. If they are allowed to divorce, the sharia court charges them twice as much as a man.

The consultation asked whether anyone who knew that an order had been breached but did nothing should also be liable to prosecution. However, some family members may be afraid to speak out - particularly women who may themselves be victims of forced marriage.

There are arguments against changing the law - for example that a change may result in more victims being taken abroad, that there may be more pressure not to report cases because a criminal record for a family member may result, and that kidnapping, false imprisonment, child abduction, assault and threats to kill are already illegal, along with non-consensual sex (rape) and sex with under-age children. However, these laws are either not sufficient or are not being applied.

In 2009, the BBC reported that some schools and local authorities are non-responsive and failing to intervene because "they dismiss forced marriage as a cultural issue or fear a backlash from powerful figures in minority communities". This situation doesn't seem to have improved.

There are two root causes of this abuse being perpetuated and of the lack of public awareness. The first is underlying cultural misogyny, the kind of misogyny that means we still have shamefully low rates of prosecution for rape in the UK as well as the kind institutionalized by orthodox Islam.

The second cause is so-called multiculturalism, allied with post-modern cultural relativism. This aspect affects the 15% of forced marriage cases investigated by the FMU that involved men.

We are still squeamish about criticising other cultures and religions for fear of being accused of racism or Western imperialist thinking or other lame excuses about values being relative and all truths being equal. It's the victims of forced marriage who need sensitivity, not the cultures themselves. The same applies to victims of religious caste discrimination and female genital mutilation in this country.

The abuse of women and children is wrong universally, there is no get out of jail free card for cultures we don't quite understand or are afraid of. Forced marriage and associated abuse are everyone's business, not something for other cultures to make their own decisions about. Or rather, for the men of other cultures to make their own decisions about.

Defending human rights means that they must apply universally. Feminism means looking out for all women. And child abuse is a crime in any culture.

In case we feel that this is a problem only for 'backward' cultures, the marital rape exemption was abolished in England and Wales only in 1991.

Are You A Heathen?

Julian Baggini has written in the Guardian that we need to rethink and re-brand atheism to make progress in public debate with the religious.

He's right that the debate about the place of belief in public life and the rights of non-believers has become polarised and that moderate atheists are often excluded (in the same way that moderate believers are).

Baggini writes that 'We need a name that shows that we do not think too highly of ourselves'. He's right that groups like the Brights do no one any favours as the name is a PR disaster, implying superior intelligence and smugness. He's also right that humanism is not the answer as it's just a sub-set of non-believers.

His solution is to re-brand atheists as heathens because 'in the public imagination [atheism] amounts to little more than a caricature of Richard Dawkins'.

The word 'heathen' has the same root meaning as 'pagan' - people who live in the countryside and who are therefore not civilized (living in the city, from the Latin civis). These people had their own belief systems that were characterized by the derogatory 'heathen' or 'pagan' as primitive, along with everything else they did. It was also a term used by early missionaries so it has a racist tinge to it as well.

As someone who was raised in the countryside, far from civilization, I'd like to reclaim the word 'yokel' and make it a source of pride but I won't be calling myself a heathen.

Other groups have reclaimed words or changed their meaning (gay, for example) but one of the problems with heathen is that it's already in current use. Heathens are a variety of neo-pagans and British heathens have an annual meet called Heathenfest in Peterborough. They may not be too pleased with the word being co-opted by atheists*. Heathen is also a thrash metal band and the Heathens are a Dudley speedway team.

Baggini does say that people may not agree with everything in his manifesto, that it is a broad set of principles, 'an attempt to prescribe what the best form of atheism should be like'.

But no matter what we decide to call ourselves, there will still be moderates and extremists and there will still be people calling themselves atheists.

This could lead to non-believers becoming like the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea. Our opponents will be pleased to see dissention and division so, rather than establishing common ground between believers and non-believers, a name change could just be divisive. Perhaps he should have run a focus group first before re-branding the product.

He writes that heathens can be religious, they are people who 'reject the real existence of supernatural entities and divinely authored texts, accept that science trumps dogma, and who see the essential core of religion in its values and practices' and many religious people 'will find themselves in agreement with much of what heathens believe'.

Maybe a few of them will but they are not considered true believers by the more orthodox. Hostility to non-believers and attacks on human rights come from these most orthodox of believers and religious leaders who will not embrace any of the manifesto points. They don't want common ground or common cause. These are the people who have access to the media and to government, not the more moderate believers.

While it may appear pragmatic to soften our image in order to engage with them, the fundamental differences remain and the hard core are not going to be mollified by heathens any more than they currently are by atheists. If reasonable, calm debate worked, we wouldn't be in the position we're in now. By suggesting a re-brand, he is acknowledging that we must change because the religious hardcore will not - but perhaps the re-brand is pandering to them, bending over backwards to make them accept and engage with us. Making concessions to a bully doesn't work, it just gives him more opportunity to mock, dismiss and kick you.

One of the manifesto points is about secularism. This is the key issue and the one he should focus on. It doesn't matter what non-believers call themselves or what believers believe, it is what happens in the public sphere that needs our attention. Our efforts should be focussed on making sure that religion doesn't claim any unfair advantage or try to disadvantage non-believers, women, minorities or the 'wrong' sort of believers.

Baggini's aim is to find 'common ground to make fruitful dialogue possible'. Entering into dialogue with the religious could be productive in some areas, but it's more important to make politicians listen and act to protect our rights. This might be easier if we had some religious people on board - and in some cases we already do work on common causes together. The National Secular Society has already been doing this for some time, for example on freedom of expression and sharia courts. But in other cases, it's the opposition between belief and non-belief that's the source of the problem, the different and intransigeant interpretations of human rights. No amount of dialogue or image-softening will fix that fundamental disagreement, rooted in incompatible world views. Secular legislation and education are the only routes.

Directing the re-brand at politicians so they are less timorous about engaging with us might work but recent governments have shown scant regard for facts and evidence and too much regard for religious arguments. The media is as bad, giving endless time to extremists because they make good copy while moderates do not, often getting a paragraph tacked on to the end of a story, if they're lucky. A bishop who rants about gay marriage is going to get far more column inches than any moderate, whatever they call themselves.

It's easy to wear a badge or a T shirt with Heathen on but re-branding is not what's needed. What we do need is for moderates (of both sides) to be more active, not let the extremists of either side go unchallenged or hog the limelight, to let them, the media and the public know they do not speak for us. There are a lot of us; what we call ourselves is irrelevant, we need to get out there.


*I've contacted a couple of pagan and heathen groups and will add their comments if they respond.

John Gray on science and religion

John Gray's talk on Radio 4's Point of View called Can religion tell us more than science? (transcript here) claims that 'too many atheists miss the point of religion, it's about how we live and not what we believe'.

Gray maintains that 'We tend to assume that religion is a question of what we believe or don't believe'.

Firstly, who is this 'we'? Secondly, don't be patronising by pretending to include yourself and then showing very clearly why you're not one of we.

He blames this assumption on western philosophy (yes, all of it, apparently) and 'the dull debate on atheism'. Again with the patronising. He continues: 'In this view belonging to a religion involves accepting a set of beliefs, which are held before the mind and assessed in terms of the evidence that exists for and against them. Religion is then not fundamentally different from science, both seem like attempt to frame true beliefs about the world'.

Religion is not just that, it's also about morality, among other things. It tells us how to live. Science, on the other hand, makes no attempt to tell us how we should live. Nor is it based on a supernatural world view but on observable evidence. The activity of science is about how to interpret that evidence. Religion decides what the truth is, science attempts to uncover it. So yes, fundamentally different.

Gray likes his generalisations. He lays the blame for the false view of religion partly of the feet of Frazer and his book The Golden Bough, which he says has been 'immensely influential'. He claims it lies behind the assertions of the 'new atheists'.

Many atheists and others know that there are many reasons to belong to a religion, some cultural or social, some historical and some emotional. The majority of people do not objectively analyse their religion or weigh up the relative evidential merits of all of them before plumping for one. Some aspects of religion, like creation, are examined by some believers in an attempt to find evidence and even then, they are trying to justify their beliefs to others, not to themselves. Only a small number of theologians and thinkers actively examine their beliefs as a whole. It's not common practice to weigh up the evidence for the Sermon on the Mount or accepting Jesus as your personal saviour in order to win eternal salvation.

And religions do rest on what we believe - take the Credo, for example, which is Latin for 'I believe' and is followed by a list of things the believer believes in. They don't like it very much if you think it's just words when you're preparing for First Communion. Belief, or dogma, matter very much to the Fathers of the Church. Heresy is about believing the wrong things, so are schism and apostasy. They're not just about doing the wrong thing but believing the wrong thing and then acting on it.

He continues:'the idea that religion is a relic of primitive thinking strikes me as itself incredibly primitive.'

Again, this is not the only or the dominant thought about religion among atheists who he is far too keen to tar with the same brush. The human mind has not evolved a great deal since primitive times. It is not now a sophisticated machine compared with the neolithic brain. One common idea is that religion is a by-product of the way our brains evolved (see Pascal Boyer, for example) - and the way they still function, which is why we still have religion. There are elements of religion that come from early societies which are not relevant today but which still form part of the core beliefs but many of these are to do with identity and difference as much as trying to explain the universe in an animistic or divinely controlled way.

Then he gets to the nub of his argument: 'Practice - ritual, meditation, a way of life - is what counts. What practitioners believe is secondary, if it matters at all.'

This is a little simplistic to say the least. Actions are informed by beliefs. And beliefs do matter to the people who hold them. There are rituals that are performed without conscious analysis of the beliefs that underpin them but that doesn't mean the beliefs themselves are unimportant. One way they matter is in defining the difference between one set of believers and another. Rituals can be comforting, they can bind groups together and they can structure our time but without the beliefs they rest on, they would not have the hold on the mind that they do. And there would be nothing to distinguish them from any other ritual behaviour. He's positing a kind of religion as OCD.

When he says that it's actions that count - what does he mean by 'count'?

Gray then turns to science. 'Scientific inquiry is the best method we have for finding out how the world works, and we know a lot more today than we did in the past. That doesn't mean we have to believe the latest scientific consensus. If we know anything, it's that our current theories will turn out to be riddled with errors. Yet we go on using them until we can come up with something better'.

This is where there is a bit of slippage between his uses of 'belief'. Scientists don't believe a theory, they know that it is either true or that it's the best current approximation of the truth. Non-scientists don't believe theories either, they accept that some expert or other knows what they're doing. Not all our current theories will one day fall apart.

He says: 'If science produces theories that we can use without believing them, religion is a repository of myth.' This is a bit of an odd if...then scenario. Science doesn't produce theories we can use without believing them because no-one believes a theory, they either know it to be true or the current best guess, as I said. So his initial statement is false. Moreover, religion is not a repository of myth to the people who believe it, it's revealed truth except for the half-hearted who just go along for a bit of a sing. And while it contains stories or parables, it also contains instructions on how to behave that rest on the basic tenets. If you don't believe those tenets to begin with, then your actions are empty.

He then says: 'Just as you don't have to believe that a scientific theory is true in order to use it, you don't have to believe a story for it to give meaning to your life.' He's being a bit slippery with his use of 'true' here. Knowing that a scientific theory may be a workable approximation is not the same as knowing that a myth didn't actually happen while containing useful guidance to behaviour or insight into the human mind.

Apparently, 'some of the ancient myths we inherit from religion are far more truthful than the stories the modern world tells about itself'. Well yes, some myths are better than others but this nostalgia, this 'myths aren't what they used to be' approach overlooks the fact that there are also non-religious myths that contain lessons about ourselves. Privileging religious myths without any kind of quality control is fruitless.

Darwin's theory of evolution , he says is 'unlikely to be the final truth'. Who says it is? There have already been plenty of refinements, additions and corrections to it.

He then attacks the 'myth of salvation through science. Many of the people who scoff at religion are sublimely confident that, by using science, humanity can march onwards to a better world'.

There is no such generally held myth. Rational people think that some parts of science can be a useful tool for improving our lives. This is partly based on evidence - medicine and technology have demonstrably improved lives. That the improvements have yet to benefit most of the Third World is not a failure of science but of politics and, in some cases, religion (for example, banning condoms for HIV/AIDS prevention, contraception and so on). Moreover, many scientists are more than aware of the destructive potential of science - nuclear war and global warming for example. They are not singing hymns to the power of science. Gray says that 'it can't save the human species from itself.' as if this were some great insight.

He claims that science is a human invention, just like religion. Yes, they are both the products of the human brain but religion is entirely made up whereas science methodology is based on phenomena. It's a bit like comparing cheese and a pyramid - not a comparison that tells us anything very useful about either.

Evangelical atheists, he says ' think human life would be vastly improved if only everyone believed as they do, when a little history shows that trying to get everyone to believe the same thing is a recipe for unending conflict.' Historically, when attempts have been made to try and get everyone to believe the same thing, these things have generally not been evidence-based but ideological. Getting everyone to believe that we'd better look after the planet rather than letting it fall apart is not such a bad idea.

Gray concludes that we should 'stop believing in belief' because 'What we believe doesn't in the end matter very much. What matters is how we live'. So if you feel like joining a religion, 'just go into the church, synagogue, mosque or temple and take it from there'. Should you just do what you're told without examining why? Follow the rituals and never mind the theology? Just taking it from there may not do you much good in some religions or denominations if you happen to be female or gay.

Gray is seriously misrepresenting science and all but a handful of the most extreme atheists - who in fact are not very scientific in their approach, lacking an understanding of human nature. But he is also misrepresenting religion, selling it short as deeds not words - and without any kind of assessment of what price you or others may have to pay for that kind of cavalier, mindless approach. Never mind, let's all just sing a hymn together, it'll be a marvellously uplifting, bonding experience. Better still, sing it in Latin so we don't have to worry about what the words mean. He's right that it's how we live that matters, but he's wrong about everything else.

Nadine Dorries - Fact and Fiction

Nadine Dorries MP wants women to see 'independent' counsellors before they have an abortion, not go to abortion providers like Marie Stopes International or the British Pregnancy Advisory Service because they have (she says) a vested financial interest which she compares with pension mis-selling. She is proposing an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill on September 6th to ensure this happens, along with Frank Field MP.

She is also on record saying that her political blog is '70% fiction and 30% fact... I rely heavily on poetic licence'.

Let's take a look at her being poetry in motion.

Research by Education For Choice has found that 'independent' is a word that belongs in Dorries' 70% category. And her comments about the 'financial interests' of BPAS and others are based on about as much evidence. [ETA] On Newsnight last night, Dr Evan Harris pointed out that the Department of Health’s own website warns against independent advisers.

Dorries is being backed by the Right To Know campaign. Despite describing this as 'our campaign', she now says 'I have no idea how they're funded'. She's also being poetic about their motivations, saying 'They may be ideologically driven'.

She has said that abortions are currently done before women have time to think what they're doing. Does she really mean this? Has she thought through the implications of saying that women are incapable of making their own rational decisions? Be careful you don't get distracted by thinking about shoes or you might accidentally have an abortion.

Then she claimed that Dr Evan Harris 'lost it' on an interview with Sky TV - an interview which she refused to share with him, insisting on being recorded separately. In it, Evan pointed out yet more flaws in her argument. It's not obvious what he he lost. His bus pass, possibly.

Dorries is being advised by the Christian Medical Fellowship, whose own interesting relationship with the truth I've already covered, for example here. So not only are her words 70% fiction, she is also consorting with fictionalists (I've made that word up because I'm bored of calling them LIARS).

The Right To Know campaign are bandying about the 'fact' that 30% of women who have abortions go on to suffer mental health problems. This claim is based on a paper from the British Journal of Psychiatry. The paper's conclusion is, quite reasonably, that abortion is not without consequences for some women.

However, the paper also states ‘The evidence is consistent with the view that abortion may be associated with a small increase in risk of mental disorders’. That's may be. It also states that ‘the overall effects of abortion on mental health proved to be small’ and could be the result of ‘uncontrolled residual confounding’. This means there could have been other factors influencing the results that they failed to rule out. That's being honest because it's an academic paper not a work of fiction.

Most tellingly, the conclusion says: ‘Specifically, the results do not support strong pro-life positions that abortion has large and devastating effects on the mental health of women’.

So that's another bunch of fictionalists she's consorting with.

She claims that the number of abortions would be reduced by 60,000 a year if women had independent counselling. Presumably she arrived at this figure by thinking of a number and then adding a load of noughts as there is no evidence to back it up. Her story-telling stops at this point rather than considering what might happen to these 60,000 babies in terms of supporting both them and their parents. For her, the happy ending is a full-term pregnancy. In this respect, she's close to the Catholic Church's position.

Dorries wants us to go back to being a Christian nation with Christian values. But the ruling classes' relationship with these values has always been a marriage of convenience, using them to justify or condemn whatever and whenever it suited them. Moreover, 'Christian Britain' is a nostalgic idyll for a time and place that existed alongside the land of the Care Bears and belongs in the 70% of words put together in a sentence that look like they might be true but in fact aren't. Besides, back in the days of Yore when we were at least nominally a Christian nation, the only people who really benefited were upper middle class white men - much like the ones who still dominate the House of Lords and the Tory party.

The latest from Dorries is this gem 'I wonder why someone would provide a quote to a national newspaper when they obviously have no idea what they are talking about?' I'm not even going to go there.

She has also said 'I have chosen the 'fact' I wish to believe'. That would be the fact that is 70% fiction, presumably.

It's almost too easy to take her arguments apart. When her bill amendment was first raised, many people said it was nothing to worry about, it would disappear and pro-choice campaigners were getting worked up about nothing. But now it looks like the Government could turn her fictions into fact, which means that no one will live happily ever after.

There's a good analysis of the almost total lack of evidence for changing the current abortion counselling position on the Nothing Special blog.

Next time will be less of a tirade, honest.

UPDATE 1 September 2011: The Government has done a U turn on abortion counselling but the free vote could still go either way next week. This means that MPs can vote according to their conscience rather than the party line.

UPDATE 2 September 2011: It's gone up from 30% to 'twice as likely' to suffer mental health problems post-abortion. She's done a loaves and fishes job on the stats.

Pro-choice groups are supporting an amendment by the Libdem MP Julian Huppert:

All organisations offering information or advice in relation to unplanned pregnancy choices must follow current evidence-based guidance produced by a professional medical organisation specified by the secretary of state.