A.C. Grayling's Careful Logic

The philosopher A.C. Grayling has written a special piece for Dawkins' website prompted by the much publicised judgment by Cherie Booth (aka Mrs Blair) in which she is reported as letting a man off with a suspended sentence for an assault because he was religious. In the piece which was posted last Thursday Grayling boasts he will 'pick through the logic of Mrs. Blair’s view carefully':

'[Cherie Booth's] remarks to the jaw-breaking ‘devout Muslim’ (so the newspapers described him) Shamso Miah imply that she thinks that religious people have a greater tendency to be good than non-religious people. What justifies this assumption? Is it the fact that self-avowed non-religious people commit atrocities against other all other people, religious and non-religious alike, explicitly in the name of their non-religion, indeed driven to such actions in service of their non-religion? Of course not. So on what basis other than prejudice and religious sentiment can Mrs. Blair claim, in a judgment made in a British courtroom, that someone ought to be more leniently treated because he is religious? The wrong done to non-religious people of good character by this judgment, and the perversity of the judgment in itself, make it right that the National Secular Society (NSS) has lodged a complaint against Mrs. Blair.'

Grayling's judgement of Booth is unremitting:

'The point that emerges from this unedifying matter is that Mrs. Blair has proved herself unfit for the bench, and a vigorous reassertion of judicial impartiality and inclusiveness is needed. It ought to come as a corollary to a disciplinary action against Mrs. Blair, her removal from the bench, and a commitment to having better reasons for keeping violent people out of prison than that they believe in ancient pre-scientific superstitions.'

But Grayling's non sequitur has come under fire from a legally minded fellow atheist who, to his credit, points out that a defendant is allowed to put to the judge whatever mitigation they see fit to establish good character, which could be a wide variety of things. From the fact that Cherie Booth in this particular case accepted the religious observance of the defendant to be an indication of good character, it does not follow that she considers it to be a necessary condition of good character. Nor does it mean that this was the only factor she took into consideration in reaching her decision. So much for Grayling's careful logic.

Having failed to demonstrate that Booth discriminated against atheists, by showing some leniency to a religious believer, Humanists are now trying to make out that the 'real story' is not discrimination, but whether religious belief should be accepted at all as an indicator of good character. Some people never know when to give up.

Equality and tolerance secular style

Many in the media are, predictably, in a state of indignant hysteria because the pope has voiced an opinion on an issue in British politics: Harriet Harman’s Equality Law. For most secularists and humanists the pope's input is beyond the pale. The fact that the pope represents Catholics in this country who are British citizens, and that they, like everyone else in the country, have a right to be heard in a democracy seems to have escaped even the more restrained voices.

On today’s Daily Politics show, Jo Coburn, one of the presenters, gets to the heart of the matter which is about the rights of the Catholic Church to choose to appoint who it wishes to senior positions. Jo asks why the Catholic Church should be exempt from some aspects of the equality legislation which would force it to consider employing practising homosexuals for high ranking jobs. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church, like everyone else, be bound by the same laws designed to promote an equal and tolerant society?

But this is very little to do with creating an equal and tolerant society and everything to do with certain groups (in this case, gay activists) seeking, not simply tolerance of their choices, but rather approval and endorsement of their practices from those who they know for certain are ideologically opposed to them. But, opposition per se to the thought and practices of others is not an infringement of their human rights, unless you live in a police state. Personally, I find the views of humanists offensive. Yet, should I wish to become a high ranking member of the British Humanist Association it would hardly be reasonable of me to expect to be considered for the position while continuing to publicly espouse and practice my religious beliefs, and neither could the refusal by the British Humanist Association to consider me for the post be considered by any sane person as an infringement of my equality rights.

Christian child

Oh dear, what an irony. It turns out that the two children who feature on the billboard posters of Richard Dawkins' atheist campaign and were picked by the British Humanist Association because they looked so joyful and carefree are the children of devout Christian parents. You have to laugh. The British Humanist's education director Andrew Copson tried to wriggle out of this embarrassing revelation by suggesting that the fact that the children were Christian didn't undermine the atheist campaign because it was never their intention to suggest the children of Christians were unhappy. What! A word of advice to Mr. Copson: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

Atheist Child

Today sees the final phase of the atheist bus campaign, not on buses but on billboards. According to the promoters, the aim of the ‘Don’t Label Me’ billboard campaign is to challenge the idea that children can be labelled with their parents' religion. One of the posters from the campaign has a picture of a small child and the caption alongside reads, "Please don't label me, let me grow up and choose for myself". In truth, this campaign by the British Humanist Association (BHA) of which Richard Dawkins is the vice-president, is just a bit of softening up of the British public for the real agenda, which is to get rid of faith schools. According to their website, the BHA’s stated aim is to ‘stimulate and organise local campaigns against new faith schools and lobby government and parliament to reform law that allows state funded schools’. The line that this campaign is about freedom of thought for children reeks of hypocrisy given Dawkins’ recent funding of an atheist summer camp for children as young as six. It seems that in Dawkins’ utopia only atheists are to be allowed to pass on their beliefs to their, and anyone else’s, children.