When did atheism become a religion?

Yesterday, I went out shopping in the morning, walking up past the Greek Orthodox Cathedral. There must have been a major religious festival, for the church was just emptying. I didn't have my camera, so I couldn't take a crowd shot. But here is an earlier shot of the Cathedral.

My area in Sydney was the location of Greek settlement in Sydney after the Second World War. Many Greeks have died or moved on, but it remains a centre.

There is an old Greek woman, I think that she is Greek, She has lost her English, that's often a problem with our older migrants, but we always say hello. Tuesday night on my way to tennis, I said hello. She pressed a number of sweets into my hand, said goodbye in heavily accented English, and then walked on.

looking at the crowd thronging the pavement outside the Cathedral, I thought how nice it was. There were old woman alone in their black, older couples talking to their friends, young people with their families. An older man, well he was certainly older than me!,  hugged his daughters and then, cupping his granddaughter's face in his hands, gave her a kiss on the top of the head. I smiled, but it took my thoughts in a different direction.

When did atheism become a religion? That may sound an odd question in the circumstances, but let me explain.

I have noticed through the feeds I get and some of the blogs I read, an increasing an increasing stridency in atheist propaganda. The following is an example of what I mean.  Now its perfectly rational to conclude, on the balance of probabilities, that God doesn't exist and that, consequently, you are an atheist. However, when you use images such as the above, you have adopted an especially unpleasant faith that were you anyone other than an atheist would be roundly and rightly condemned.

The existence or otherwise of God or Gods, of a divine being or beings, cannot be proved or disproved. That is why it is a faith. When atheists concluded that god does not exist and seek to persuade others, they too have accepted a faith, a belief in the non-existence of the divine. That's fine, but when they use images such as the above in the attempt to discredit the views of others, when they selectively point to all the evils created in the name of religion. they have entered a new religious domain much loved by those they criticise. I am right, therefore you must believe.

Now the actual theological issue captured in that image has been much debated. How can an all knowing, all powerful god allow evil or indeed natural disasters to exist?, There isn't an easy answer. In the Christian tradition, it comes back to the question of nature and free will. Man has the freedom to make his choices and must suffer the consequences. That's actually very hard, for the innocent suffer.

Would the world be better off nobody believed? I don't know. I suspect not. The evidence of human history is that we all have a deep need to believe in something beyond ourselves, something that might help explain, to make sense of. the apparently unexplainable, 

As knowledge has expanded, the domain of the unexplainable has shrunk. And yet, we still feel the need to believe. That need has created some of the worst moments in human history, but also some of the best, the finest. I don't think that we should lose sight of that.        

Denis Wright & learning from the Sufis

Do you know much about the Sufis? I must admit I do not, beyond a broad general knowledge.

I mention this because Denis Wright's Learning from the Sufis provides a well written introduction to Sufi beliefs that makes aspects of Sufi thought easily accessible.

The post was originally published as a piece in Hemisphere early in 1982. Denis and I then shared the History staff room, Denis as a lecturer, me as postgraduate student.

It's interesting. While I knew the fields that Denis taught in, I generally mixed with the single staff and my fellow Australianists. It's only now through Dennis's blog that I am getting a real feel for the range of his interests.

Do have a browse. I think that he has integrated his thoughts plus Sufi writing in an interesting way.  

It all suxs

Never let it be said that I won't pinch material from a fellow blogger when it suits me!

Saturday Morning Musings - New Zealand, Australia & multiculturalism was triggered by DeusExMacintosh's post Australia Sux (New Zealand, Seven). Now the comment stream on DeM's post really made me laugh, so I am going to pinch part of it.

My excuse is that it deserves a wider audience (hem, special pleading), but it does say something about the NZA (or ANZ) relationship. When I am wearing my New Zealand hat, I always put the NZ part first! After all, I am only a first generation Australian on Dad's (NZ) side. This puts me in the 44% of Australians so often quoted as being born overseas or having at least one Australian parent born overseas.

Some might argue that we need a multicultural policy to assist Australians and New Zealanders to understand each other, to assist the rest of the world to make any sense of Australians and New Zealanders. In the interests of international accord, I have added a glossary at the end.  

KVD wrote:

Good for them – sticking to their principles. Perhaps we should invade them as the only country in the world with proven, true Weapons of Mass Destruction: The All Blacks.

Legal Eagle wrote:

My mother-in-law is a Kiwi originally. My father-in-law was telling me a funny story last night about when they went to the Bledisloe Cup. My mother-in-law left NZ at 18 and has been a naturalised Australian for 20 years. But…who do you think she was shouting for 20 minutes in, despite her resolution to support Australia??? The All Blacks, of course.

Dave Bath wrote:

Can Julia beehive herself?

Angry Exile wrote:

At the risk of being kicked out of the country, Aussie and Kiwis sound the same to me. And now if you’ll excuse me I just need to hide from my wife for the next thirty tears

Dave Bath wrote:

Patrick@7: From Geelong, I’m happy enough for Oz triumphalism to be quietened with losses in the Bloodyslow Cup – and maybe more of the heathens north of the Murray will turn to the one true religion.

Mind you, I’ve seen REALLY scary hakas – from types that later kidnapped and beat up a girlfriend up so badly I had to give her cash to get out of town after she escaped and I patched her up – too scared to hang around and lay charges. Apart from the few crazy-scary, the rest of the kiwis are crazy-hilarious. But they are all crazy I reckon.

kvd wrote:

P@7 I don’t hate the New Zealanders – I reckon they are great; it’s just the full on ferocity which is unsettling. But if you really want scary, watch the All Blacks’ personal trainers in action. I think they call themselves the Silver Ferns.

Now this must be one of the most incomprehensible comment streams ever recorded. To assist you, the following table provides a glossary.

Term	Meaning
All Blacks	New Zealand religious order that seeks to find salvation through bodily penance, body building, extreme training and stylised mayhem. The order is named after the black uniform worn. Because of the need to remain relevant in a changing modern society, the uniform has been redesigned to emphasise key features relevant to many in the congregation - abs and pects. See also Bledisloe Cup, New Zealand national religion, rugby and haka.
Australia	Small continent occupied by country. Originally settled by convicts, most of the population huddles within a few kilometres of the coast line looking seawards, perhaps looking for the ship that might take them away, even to New Zealand. See also New Zealand. Technically Australia as a country includes islands beyond the continent of which Tasmania is the largest. However, Tasmania keeps on getting dropped off the map and can be ignored for practical purposes.
Beehive	Name given to the New Zealand Parliament Building. While the name is based on the building's shape, it provides ample scope for local jokes.
Bledisloe Cup	Religious symbol awarded following gladiatorial rugby contest between Australia and New Zealand. See also All Blacks, Australia, New Zealand, New Zealand national religion, rugby and Wallabies
Haka	A religious ceremony performed by New Zealand men at the start of each sporting event. Originally a Maori war chant  meaning bring it on, it provides an excuse for adults to stick their tongues out at others.
Netball	Religious ceremony technically played as a game in which seven people on each side wearing bibs use a ceremonial ball to undertake a variety of very stylised activities including attacking, shooting, passing and jumping but not stepping or contacting. Originally a British game based on basketball but with rules modified to suit the more genteel ladies of the Victorian era, modern netball compares to its past as modern warfare compares to village cricket. From its Imperial heartland, netball has spread to remote locations including Copenhagen where eldest daughter is able to practice the required ceremonies. See also Silver Ferns.
New Zealand	Island country separated from Australia by language, intense rivalry and the ditch (dutch), the local name given to the Tasman Sea. Also known as the Shaky Isles and famous for its mountains, sheep and Lord of the Rings. Object of many bad Australian jokes usually involving men and sheep, a necessary solace to frequent losses in annual religious ceremonies. See also Australia, New Zealand national religion, All Blacks, Silver Ferns and Bledisloe Cup.
New Zealand national religion	In theory, New Zealand is a modern secular democracy. In practice, sport is a national religion involving complex rituals and religious artifacts. Any sport is okay if it involves beating Australia, but the main denominations attracting greatest fervour are rugby and netball. See also New Zealand, Australia, rugby, Bledisloe Cup, All Blacks, netball and Silver Ferns.
Rugby	Short for Rugby Union. Religious ceremony technically played as a game in which fifteen people on each side use a ceremonial ball to undertake activities including rucking, mauling, jumping, throwing, tackling, passing and kicking. A break-away sect strong in North England and certain Australian States known as Rugby League denies Rugby's use of the word rugby. See also All Blacks, Wallabies, haka and New Zealand national religion
Silver Ferns	New Zealand women's religious order that seeks to find salvation through bodily penance, body building, extreme training and stylised mayhem. The order is named after the silver fern imprinted on the black uniform worn. Because of the need to remain relevant in a changing modern society, the uniform has been redesigned to emphasise key features relevant to many in the congregation and especially men. Known for their ferocity especially when playing Australia, they provide support to their male equivalents, the All Blacks. See also All Blacks, New Zealand, and New Zealand national religion.
Wallabies	Minority Australian religious order that seeks to find salvation through bodily penance, body building, extreme training and stylised mayhem. The order is named after the wallaby, a smallish inoffensive grass eating Australian macropod, and had to be adopted because a rival sect had stolen the name Kangaroo. Membership involves an annual penance, the Bledisloe Cup, which often resembles a Roo Drive in which the hunters (the All Blacks) drive the hapless Wallabies in whichever direction required. See also Australia, New Zealand, All Blacks and Bledisloe Cup.

Aboriginal spirituality and religious education in NSW public schools

I want to start this post by saying what I do not want to discuss. I do not want to discuss the general question of religious education in public schools. I am dealing just with the current system.

Now to help international readers make any sense of this post, when the NSW public education system was set up it was strictly secular. However, the system provided for one period a week, I think it was one period a week, in which the various churches (all then Christian) could provide religious instruction. Parents could decline to allow their children to participate. In that case, kids were expected to do ordinary school work.

There were good practical reasons for this approach. Sectarian divides between the Protestant/Anglican majority and the Roman Catholic minority really dictated a secular system. However, the previous public education system had involved a mixed secular/religious school system. If religion was not accommodated in some way, the rival church and state systems might continue. As it happened, the Roman Catholic hierarchy opted to set up a rival system of church schools, but the rationale remained.

Now track forward to NSW in 2009. There are new religions, new in an Australian sense in terms of significant numbers. These have been accommodated.

This is where we come to a problem. An Aboriginal colleague's children are going to a Sydney public school. That school provides opportunity for a variety of religious instruction including Hindu, Muslim and a number of Christian denominations. She did not want her children undertaking conventional religious instruction. Instead, she asked if the period could be used to introduce her children to Aboriginal culture and especially spirituality.

The answer was no. So now the children have to do ordinary school work when their colleagues are doing fun things like colouring in and listening to stories. They are very cranky with their mother as a result.

Now I suspect that there are many things I do not know from this story, including practical difficulties that the school might face. But I do know that she is very upset and resentful of the fact that the school accommodates new faiths but won't recognise the original Australian culture.

At an in-principle level I have to agree with her. I would have thought, given existing policy on religious instruction, that this was an issue that could be accommodated.

For Tikno - selection, perception, bias and the MUI Fatwa

In a comment on my last post, Saturday Morning Musings - a miscellany, Tikno reminded me that I had not responded to the last point in his post. I had intended to do so, but got sidetracked in my thoughts.

Tikno's last two paragraphs read:

Therefore, it's clear that terrorist is the problem of terrorist itself, the responsibility of personal or their organization itself, and has NO relevance with religion. Among you may want to say "Why not using national legal system?" For this one I agree with you, but at least all the good Muslim people has sending the message for world peace through the Fatwa against terrorist. Always remember! outside there are still many good Muslim people, even more than that which you imagine. Will you generalize them also? Hopefully NO.
Although I'm not Muslim, I want to defend my Muslim friends (my best friends here) who understood their religion properly.

Finally, I'm confused why I rarely heard the publication or discussion for this Fatwa on media like TV, newspaper or internet? Oh... I can understand! But... if you have a blog, hopefully you want to help me to spread this news.

Tikno's post refers to two Fatwas against terrorism, one from Indonesia, the other India. The Indonesian Fatwa was issued in 2004 by Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), the highest Muslim authority in Indonesia with the rights of issuing Fatwa.

Tikno's point goes to the heart of two linked things, stereotyping and selection in reporting. 

I have written on both in the context that Tikno is talking about. I tried to find the posts, but could not find the ones I wanted in the time I had. There are just too many posts. I will try to find them later.

In previous writing I have attacked the use of the term "Muslim" or "Muslim Faith" as a universal descriptor. My point was that I did not know what it meant beyond a simple religious label. I thought that it had become dangerously misleading.   

Take the phrase Indonesian Muslim. Indonesia I can understand as a country. Muslim is a faith. So in simple English, an Indonesian Muslim is someone from Indonesia who happens to be a Muslim. It means no more than that.

Indonesia itself is a very varied country, so to say more here I would need to know which part of the country they are from. The Muslim Faith is also very varied. Because they are Muslim there are some things that I do know in terms of religious observance. However, to go beyond that I would actually need to talk to them, to understand how they thought and felt.     

The problem with stereotypes is that the mislead and confuse. Worse, they can in fact acquire a life of their own. At worst, they actually become the thing.

In some of my writings on the Australian Aborigines I have pointed to the way that specific stereotypical views held by non-Aboriginal people actually affected Aboriginal perceptions of themselves to the detriment of both. In other posts, I looked at the changing meaning of the word terrorist and the negative impact this had had on Western thought. In other posts I attacked stereotypical views about Australia and Australians, and in some depression also explored the way in which western responses associated with the war on terror were feeding into particular views among some Muslim groups. 

Nadia is Indonesian and is presently working in Angola. In Where's the Love? - On Bombing and Indonesia Unite, she talks about her own reactions to the Bali bombings. She also talks about the way in which attitudes affect something as simple as international travel.

I have written many times about the way stereotypes affect reporting. In the case of Tamworth and Sudanese refugees I reported at some length because the very simplistic initial reports in the metro media were damaging not just Tamworth but were reinforcing global stereotypes of Australia as a racist country.

I am pretty sure, I have not checked, that the Indonesian Fatwa would have been reported in Australia at the time. However, its existence is certainly not well known. This is partly a matter of news value, something of itself that aids bias.

In the constant search for new material, the media focuses on the now and on the visual. There is little time for more reflective reporting. Those feeding the media including political leaders couch their views to fit within this media world.

In saying this, I am not attacking journalists. I am attacking the world in which they have to work.

Returning to Tikno and Indonesia, I remember when I visited Indonesia as part of an official Australian ministerial mission just how complicated I found the country. I knew a fair bit about the country already, but as I listened to the briefings at the Embassy and chatted to our people there, I found layer after layer of fascinating nuances. At the end, I realised just how little I knew!

Tikno's point about the Fatwa is a simple illustration of this. I vaguely remembered this Fatwa, but did not understand its significance in regard to MUI's position in Indonesia. Those who would like to read the Fatwa, it's in Bahasa!, can find it here. 

Happy Hindu New Year

Leaving work last night, an Indian colleague mentioned that he was going to the temple to celebrate Hindu new year. Apparently it's a low key celebration this year because of things like Bombay.

I hadn't known that it was the Hindu New Year, so did a web search. Very confusing, because apparently dates apparently vary across India. My colleague's year end is, I think, southern Indian.

Still, happy new year to all even if you celebrated it a little while ago!

Religion, values and democracy

Arthur made a thoughtful response in the now quite long comment stream on In defence of the Lord's Prayer in the Australian Parliament.

I wrote:

He (Arthur) supports public debate, including the right of religious people to organise. However, this is constrained by the second stream, the separation of church and state. I think, and I stand to be corrected, that Arthur would argue that should religious views succeed in imposing their positions on the state, that would be wrong in principle even if they were to be in the majority or to gain majority support. That is, Arthur has a dividing line in his position.

Arthur responded:

It's a dividing line inherent, unfortunately, in the very concept of liberal democracy--the problem of how to strike a balance between democracy and protecting the interests of individuals and minorities (even religious minorities--which is what, in Australia, each Christian denomination is) from the tyranny of the majority.

It's true that I don't believe religious doctrines qua religious doctrines should be enshrined in law. Nobody should be forced to observe religious laws. I oppose blasphemy laws on these grounds. I also oppose what in the United States they call "blue laws": laws designed to coerce people to observe religious moral codes. If for religious reasons you don't wish to buy or sell alcohol on a Sunday, then don't do it: the state has no business forcing you to observe the Sabbath.

However, I wouldn't describe a law that happens to be consonant with a religious doctrine, but can also be justified on rational and secular grounds, as wrong in principle.

I have brought this particular exchange up as a main post because they provide a further opportunity to explore some of the tensions inherent in a democratic system.

Like Arthur, I do not believe that religious principles as religious principles should be enshrined in law. I formed this view a long time ago in part through personal experience, in part through my study of history.

I grew up in what was, by today's standards, a secular but also religious world. I developed quite strong religious views, strong enough to make me register as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

This forced me to address the question of the conflicts that could arise when duties as citizen conflicted with religious beliefs. When was it right to break the law if the law conflicted with one's beliefs? What price was one prepared to pay?

I grew up in the Protestant tradition. One grandfather was a Primitive Methodist home missionary in New Zealand, the second a Presbyterian and Methodist lay preacher. I went to Methodist Church and Sunday School. But then my parents sent me to an Anglican boys school, with its daily chapel services.

This is not a biographical post. My point is that religion was present, but so were the differences in religion. There is actually a very substantial difference between the Protestant and Anglican traditions. Further, I found some elements conflicted with my own perceptions and my immediate family experience.

At secondary school under the old curriculum, I did far more history than is possible in today's crowded curriculum. Five full year units of modern, two of ancient in the then five years' secondary course. Then three further history units when for age reasons my parents insisted I repeat the final years.

Much of the history I did had a European focus. It is impossible to study European history without becoming aware of religious conflicts. That is the reason why I strongly support the separation of Church and State, why I believe that religious principles should not be enshrined in law. Theocratic states, whether Calvin's Geneva or today's Iran, can be very uncomfortable places.

At the same time, I also learned about the way in which those in power would use force to protect their position. This held for states and for majority groups. In all cases, a range of arguments were marshaled to provide legitimacy, of which religion was just one.

For personal reasons linked to my immediate life, I tended to take the side of minority groups.

My positions were not always consistent. I have argued that Cromwell was critical in the establishment of the supreme power of Parliament, something that I regard as critical in the development of the Westminster system. At the same time, at an emotional level I have always felt like supporting the cavaliers against the round heads. They are just so much more interesting.

Out of all this has come a second constitutional principle that I hold strongly, the need in a democratic system to avoid or at least minimise the oppression of the minority by the majority, to protect minority rights.

In an earlier discussion on this issue, Bob Q challenged me. He argued that it was up to the minority to argue their position.

At one level, that's true. Yet history shows that oppression by the majority is a normal feature, that groups and institutions will use their power to enforce their position in the face of challenge, that they will only move in the face of countervailing power.

These things are never clear cut.

In the discussion on the Lord's Prayer, Ramana pointed to the way (as he saw it) the need to accommodate Indian minorities had in fact oppressed the majority Hindu community.

I have some sympathy for this as a general point, although I cannot comment on the Indian position. After all, and notwithstanding Arthur's careful subdivision of the Christian faith in Australia into its various denominational sub-divisions, Australia's majority Christian community has been forced to suffer erosion of its previous position in the name of multiculturalism and of neutrality between religions.

Yet there is also an argument on the other side. If Australia is to survive as a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society, surely we need equality of treatment even if that means disadvantaging the previous majority group?

Here we actually get into some very slippery territory indeed.

If you look at modern Australia, you will see that much of the current political debate is in fact about values and morals. We just disguise it in modern jargon. Arthur's words "rational and secular" are an example.

"Rational" simply means based on logic, on objective thought. However, while values and beliefs can be subject to and indeed supported by rational arguments, they are not themselves rational. They are what we feel and believe. The concepts "feel" and "believe" refer to emotions.

In similar vein, the word secular simply means not religious. In suggesting that discussion or policy should be based on "secular" grounds, Arthur appears to be arguing that religious views should not be taken into account. Yet this does not remove values or morals from the discussion. It simply removes a group of values, those based on religion.

This post has taken a fair bit of time, and I am running out of thought space with arguments only partially developed. To try to draw things together, I suppose that the key point that I want to make is that we need to be very careful to identify key principles in the things that we talk about.

I valued Arthur's thoughtful comment greatly because in providing a clear articulation of his position he provided a clear base on which I could respond.