Officially terrorist in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is a medieval despotism, with a medieval approach to human rights and freedom of religion. So its sadly unsurprising that they classify atheism as terrorism

Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of new laws which define atheists as terrorists, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

[...]

Yet last month further regulations were issued by the Saudi interior ministry, identifying a broad list of groups which the government considers to be terrorist organisations - including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Article one of the new provisions defines terrorism as "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based".

Great. I'm officially a terrorist in Saudi Arabia. Maybe I should get a badge or something?

But snark aside: cuius regio, eius religio isn't a good way to run a state in a world where there is a diversity of religious views. Quite apart from moral considerations, its not even practical: when the only way you can exercise your religion in peace is to overthrow the government, that's what people will try to do. Which is why civilised countries have abandoned it in favour of freedom of religion and a neutral state.

There's no need to be religious about it

Alain de Botton wants to build an "atheist temple" in London. All I can ask is why? The whole point about atheism is not caring about religion, not wasting your time believing in imaginary gods. But if you don't believe in imaginary gods, why would you want to waste your time not believing in them either? If the idea is irrelevant, a sad delusion resulting from flaws in our neural architecture, then why waste any time on it at all?

Which makes the idea of building a special building where people can congregate and contemplate their mutual lack of faith extremely puzzling. Its caring far too much, being almost... religious about it. Which seems to really be missing the point entirely.

Silencing the Atheist Bus Campaign

Last year, the Atheist Bus Campaign raised $20,000 in the space of a few days to stick the message "there's probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life" on the side of buses. Unfortunately, there's a problem: NZBus, which had previously accepted the advertisements, has suddenly changed its mind and refused to carry them after pre-emptive complaints from members of the public. The bigots have exercised a heckler's veto.

The problem for NZBus is that their behaviour is blatantly unlawful. The Human Rights Act 1993 makes it clear that religion, or its absence, is a prohibited ground of discrimination - making it illegal to discriminate on religious grounds in the provision of goods and services. Just as a shopkeeper can't refuse to sell their product (say, bread) to Maori, NZBus can't refuse to sell their product (advertising) to atheists.

NZBus clearly knows this - they've refused mediation through the Human Rights Commission. The Atheist Bus Campaign is now looking at taking them to the Human Rights Review Tribunal (let's hope they don't get Brian Neeson as a panel member, since they clearly won't get a fair hearing under him).

In the meantime, its worth remembering that NZBus receives millions of dollars in subsidies to run public transport services in Auckland, Wellington, the Hutt Valley and Whangarei. If you think its inappropriate for your rates to fund unlawful discrimination, perhaps you should raise this with your city councillor.

Atheist buses hit New Zealand

Late last year, the UK got an Atheist Bus Campaign, designed to counter religious advertising with some atheist counterpropaganda. Now New Zealand has its own version - and they're looking to raise $10,000 to stick the message "There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" on the side of buses in Auckland and Wellington.

I've previously criticised the campaign as caring too much about something people shouldn't be caring about at all. I don't waste my time believing in gods; religion is just irrelevant to me. So why would I waste my time and money proclaiming this to the world? But others may care more. If you want to donate, you can do it here. Currently they're at a mere $190; it will be interesting to see if it takes off in the same way it did in the UK.

Religion and torture

This is scary: according to a poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, the more often you go to church, the more likely you are to support torture. Conversely, those who seldom or never attend religious services, and those who classify themselves as "unaffiliated" (which in US-speak, gloms atheists together with those who refuse to pick a Christian denomination) are least likely to support torture. So much for the old claim that morality cannot exist without religion - instead, it seems the opposite is the case, and that religious fanaticism undermines morality.

Atheists and buses

The UK press is full of reports of the Atheist Bus Campaign, which has raised 140,000 pounds to fund ads on buses saying "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life". The campaign is now spreading to Spain, Australia, and the US. So why not here? I can think of two reasons. Firstly, while religious belief holds on in all sorts of odd places, we're a country where secularism has won, at least in our public culture. Religion is widely seen as a private matter, and seems to be quietly dying out (particularly among the young). Secondly, in the absence of the kind of public fightback / death spasm from religion against secularism currently seen in the UK, there seems to be little reason to give a damn - and every reason not to. After all, the whole point of godlessness is not giving a shit. There's no point being an atheist if you're going to waste all your time talking about the god you don't believe in. And talking about it simply boosts the belief amongst the godful (God-ed? Begodden? Godly has certain implications...) that their imaginary friends are somehow relevant to people's lives. Better to avoid that, and let their delusions die a quiet, demographic death, than waste breath on it and in the process give them oxygen.

Caring too much

The Guardian and the British Humanist Association have begun an "atheist bus campaign" to counter religious advertising in the UK with some atheist counterpropaganda. But while their message - "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" - is one I agree with, and it will undoubtedly generate a few smiles while offending some people who deserve to be offended, proselytising is something religious people do. More importantly, I just don't see the point. I don't waste my time believing in gods - but I don't waste my time not believing in them either. The whole idea is simply completely irrelevant to my life. Why bother to stick that on the side of a bus? IMHO, its caring far too much about something no-one should be caring about at all.

Still, if you do care, you can donate online here. They've already reached their initial target (it only took them a few hours after going live), so they're extending the campaign.

(And on a related topic: Salon has a review of Phil Zuckerman's book Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, which is quite interesting. I doubt the Danes and Swedes would bother with an atheist advertising campaign either - but then again, they have no need to).

Secular nation

The Sunday Star Times has some preliminary results from their belief survey into New Zealanders' beliefs and superstitions (more details here). While they're highlighting the fact that slightly more Greens than the average believe in the existence of Taniwha, the result I think is more interesting is that only 41% of those surveyed believe in god. It's a self-selecting survey, so the usual caveats apply, but what it does tell us is that online readers of the Sunday Star-Times are a pretty secular bunch.

Out II

Deborah at In A Strange Land disagrees with my view that there's not much need for the Out Campaign in New Zealand. In my defence, I'd like to point out that we are one of the most secular countries in the world. 35% of New Zealanders professed no religion at the last census, and of those who are religious, the majority view it as a private matter rather than something to be imposed on others. Our schools are secular (though there are problems in some high schools), our government is secular (though we still open Parliament with an archaic prayer), and our public culture is generally secular. And those wanting to reverse this and have more religion in public life are very much on the fringes and regarded as loonies. While I've identified some problems in the above, I view them mostly as minor irritants, and think they are likely to be resolved soon, particularly as the more religious older generation passes on.

That's why I don't see much need for the Out Campaign - because I see the battle as already won, and things moving in the right direction. Other people's religion just doesn't impinge on my life in a significant way. Sure, it's useful to remind people every so often that there are unbelievers, simply so they don't forget, but there's just not the pressing need here that there is in, say, the US.

Out

Richard Dawkins is attempting to challenge the dominance of religion in US politics by raising the visibility of atheists - both to give them a political voice, and so that religious Americans can see they're a) relatively common; and b) ordinary, everyday people rather than the baby-eating monsters they are commonly portrayed as. His method of doing this is the Out Campaign, which simply aims to get atheists to declare their non-belief. Kindof like the Blasphemy Challenge, only less obnoxious and not requiring the implied buy-in to Christianity.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether it will be successful. The Enlightenment seems to have passed the US by in this area, and while legally they have freedom of religion, socially they're still stuck in the pre-Enlightenment era, fighting battles over the public role of faith and the acceptability of difference which Europeans settled in the C17th. So their reaction to seeing atheists out themselves may be more oppression, rather than "my neighbour's an atheist? I never knew. I guess they can't be that bad after all". OTOH, the increased visibility of gays has resulted in greater tolerance, though slowly and with a lot of resistance from the dominant religious conservative community.

As for here, there's just no need. As a rather more recent offshoot of Europe, we inherited that C17th religious settlement, and absent a few loonies at the fringes, seem relatively comfortable with religion being a private matter between an individual and whatever spiritual entities they do or don't believe in. But its worth posting anyway, in support of the Americans, and to remind readers from there that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily think the same way as them.

Caring too much

The Dead Roo pointed me at the Blasphemy Challenge - record a YouTube video including the phrase "I deny the Holy Spirit", and get a free atheist DVD (or if you're not American, a much cheaper one). You can see some of the responses (including those from outraged Christians) here.

How you feel about this will obviously depend on your view of atheism. Those who want to profess their lack of faith or piss off the Christians will leap at it, and I can see the appeal in that. But I'm simply not that kind of atheist any more. Religion is simply irrelevant to my life, except insofar as those with imaginary friends try to impose them on me (which fortunately doesn't happen very often in New Zealand). Sure, I deny the holy spirit, just as I deny the flying spaghetti monster, fire-breathing dragons, ghosts, Great Cthulhu, or any of the other fictional props which form a backdrop to my preferred entertainments. But I don't waste my time thinking about it on a daily basis. That's no reason not to do it, of course, but going to the effort of recording a video saying so just seems to be caring too much about something which doesn't matter to me in the slightest.