When the BBC reports stories with a religious angle, no matter how trivial it is, the theists usually get an easy, uncritical ride. Consequently, in this BBC News piece about why god allows natural disasters to happen it is good to see holes being picked, albeit in a fairly gentle manner, in the drivelly arguments religious people are wont to spew to anyone unfortunate enough to be in earshot.

Employees of the church of England, that domain of mild, incoherent and woolly thinking, have given some typically vague responses when asked why their god would allow the earthquake in Haiti to occur. I quote from the BBC article:

Faced with this question, Archbishop of York John Sentamu said he had "nothing to say to make sense of this horror", while another senior clergyman Canon Giles Fraser preferred to respond "not with clever argument but with prayer".

These responses avoid answering the question in a really base and duplicitous manner. What else could one expect expect from senior members of the drivelly and confused waffle-mongering Anglican church?

There are plenty of other examples of theists’ bonkers reasoning and avoidance of giving straight and meaningful arguments. How about this laughable attempt by some theists to define their frankly pathetic beliefs in a manner which avoids saying anything definitive or concrete about them: Others say their talk of God is supposed to acknowledge … a thread of meaning or value running through the world, or perhaps something ineffable. Utter crap, obviously, but then so is the whole idea of religious belief. If people are fool enough to to subscribe to the preposterous idea of there being any form of god, I suppose one cannot really expect consistent and articulate arguments from them about their theism.

The final paragraph in the article clearly encapsulates one of the many problems theists still have:

But, as for those who believe in an all-good, all-powerful agent-God, we've seen that they face a question that remains pressing after all these centuries, and which is now horribly underscored by the horrors in Haiti. If a deity exists, why didn't he prevent this?

Edit: I’ve recently heard from theists that all religions share a common thread of compassion. This news article really demonstrates that such a thing either does not exist or if it does it is routinely ignored. Might religious people be somewhat hypocritical? “Do as I say not as I do.”

When I last saw my psychotherapist he suggested I spend the time between our meetings thinking about judgement and forgiveness; there is a lot of judgement in my life and not much forgiveness. My method of thinking about these topics has been to read moral philosophy and see how it applies to me and my life. I can recommend two good, general books on the subject: Ethics (Fundamentals of Philosophy) by Piers Benn and Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics by Simon Blackburn.

Much to my surprise I have found these books remarkably uplifting. They describe a number of competing theories of what constitutes being good, and according to all of the compelling theories it appears very much like a I am a good person. Reading these books has really enlightened me, I don't feel quite so bad about myself. Judgement that I was tasked to think about has turned out to be a lot more positive about myself than I would normally think.

What about forgiveness? I have done some things that I feel terrible about and have never been able to let go of the guilt. Again, reading has come to the rescue. Game Theory suggests that for co-operation to evolve in selfish populations forgiveness, in terms of minimally punishing behaviour which damages individuals in the population and rewarding positive interactions, is necessary and is a stable strategy in evolutionary terms. It takes a logical leap to apply this to the things I've done, but I can see that it does; I have been punished enough and it is time to have a more positive view of myself.

I have to admit to feeling a bit weird about all of this. I've been judging myself negatively and not forgiving myself for my wrongs for a decade. Now some self-analysis has led to the feeling that I am not bad and not worthy of punishment; feeling good about myself is in my grasp. Wow, man.

I am sure my positive outlook has also been enhanced by my medication. Clozapine has worked wonders with my paranoid delusions and has had a great anti-depressant effect. Sleeping more is also a help.

I am around the neighbours', and I am racked with existential angst. I've just been reading Satre, and that is supposedly how we are supposed to to be as good extistentialists. But I am not a good existentialist, I think it is quite a drivelly set of ideas: I am a good positive utilitarian.

Not a negative utilitarian, you'll note, as minimising the amount of unhappiness in the world would be nuking everyone.

A positive utilitarian thinks (and Wittgenstein said the construction 'I think' is a tautology) that one is a good person if one increases the general happiness of society. Now, it makes me feel bad to say this, but lots of people appear to like me. Perhaps, by my own definition, I am good.

But why do I feel such unhappiness and angst? Who knows? Who dares to dream?

Now and again I have railed against sloppy thinking as this is something I despise. Consequently, as I read through my new book, Bad Thoughts by Jamie Whyte, it is little surprise that I often chortle quite loudly at his witty, angry attack on people who cannot be bothered to think or construct a decent argument. A quote:

How scrumptious to be faithful! But utterly irrelevant to whether or not the opinion in question is true. Whatever the finer feelings associated with faith, no matter how elevated those who indulge it, from the point of view of truth and evidence, faith is exactly the same as prejudice. Declaring an opinion to be a matter of faith provides it with no new evidential support, gives no new reason to think it is true. It merely acknowledges that you have none.

It is a hilarious book, but perhaps I was destined to enjoy as I am on record as saying, "When it comes to wine there is an objective reality out there and I know what it is", whilst the author of the book has had a paper published in a philosophical journal entitled, "Relativism is absolutely false." Well said that man!

If my time at Oxford taught me one thing it is that it is always useful to have a bottle of something decent to hand. If the biology course taught me one thing it is that knowledge of initial sources frequently gives one the greatest insight. Consequently, I am quite pleased by my latest book acquisition: the two volumes of that great French thinker Paul Henri Thiery's (aka Baron D'Holbach) work The System of Nature (in translation, obviously). This was the first openly atheist book published in the modern world (in 1770) and it is a treat to read.

Certainly it has the flowery precision of language that many of the tomes of that period posses, and so it is a bit harder for we modern types to read, but when someone clearly took such delight in shaping their thoughts into words it is worth spending a few hours pouring over. Sentences one and two are re-produced here for your delectation:

The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error.

So, well done that clever French chap with his cunning thoughts about the value of investigation, thinking and humanity, I'd buy him a drink if he was not dead.

Three geezers find themselves sitting together at the start of a joke whilst travelling on a train; they are a vicar, a monk and a biologist. In order to pass the time until the joke finishes with a woeful inevitability they start playing cards and quickly move on to playing for the pitifully small amounts of cash they posses. Within moments the Peelers, of the British Transport-variety, arrive, they are all whisked off and unceremoniously dumped in front of the local magistrate. The magistrate puts down his glass of Sherry and says to the vicar, "You are charged with gambling in a public, unlicensed place; how do you plead?"

The vicar looks up to the sky and whispers, "Just one white lie, Lord, just one", before replying, "Not guilty, sir."

"Case dismissed," bellows the beak. He then turns to the monk and says, "You are charged with gambling in a public, unlicensed place; how do you plead?"

The monk looks up to the sky and whispers, "Just one white lie, Lord, just one", before saying, "Not guilty, sir."

"Case dismissed," bellows the beak and turns to the biologist. "You are charged with gambling in a public, unlicensed place..."

The biologist interrupts, "Who with?"

We all have things that we like very much. For example, I am a huge fan of Burgundy. It is important that we recognise our likes and dislikes and not be blinded into sloppy-thinking by them. Only last year I was presented a glass of wine with no idea what it was after much sniffing, swirling and swilling I confidently claimed, "Well, this is quite big, but has a pleasing degree of refinement. Since most Australian Chardonnay tastes like oak-ridden lighter-fluid I think this is probably a good bottle of French Chardonnay. Possibly Grand Cru Chablis from a producer who likes oak." Seconds later when I was told it was Sorrenberg Chardonnay I was delighted; not only because it was a lovely and well-priced bottle of wine but also because my hideous prejudices had been caught out.

Much the same is true with software. I am a reasonable fan of the works of Microsoft; Windows XP is an easy, powerful operating system and their recent programming languages are terribly pleasing if one can generate enthusiasm for that kind of thing. Yet, some people seem to have balanced personalities (ie. a chip on both shoulders) when it comes to using Microsoft software. They buy it, use it with rarely a significant problem (even though they may never download updates) yet despite this successful experience they whine like dysfunctional teenagers about them. They will berate Microsoft and yet praise other software companies producing niche-market applications even when they behave in completely the same way.

An example. I am a generally happy user of Firefox for some of my interweb browsing requirements, yet in the four or five months since I first installed it I have had to download four updates, the first two of which required me to completely uninstall the old version before installing the new one. Clearly, this is a tad irritating, but nothing terribly burdensome. Yet, Microsoft's monthly patches merit streams of incoherent abuse from the hard-of-thinking about how terrible it is that they cannot write perfect software that meets the needs of 90+% of all desktop users in the world the first time around. Hmmmm...

Not only are these updates for Firefox accepted by the critics of Microsoft, they are praised for quite the most bizarre reasons. An experienced programmer (who should know better) said to me the other day, "Well, with Firefox there are not as many problems as IE which is so easy to hack and at least with Firefox they do not wait until the problems have been found before they are fixed". I shall assume he meant something else apart from the hilariously howling logical error he trotted out (how can one fix a problem if one does not find it first?) and concern myself with his first comment. It is wrong. In the last six months of 2004 the well-known company Symantec found more security flaws in Firefox than in IE. Not only has it had more security flaws in recent times but also we are told by the youth with too much time on his hands who found one of the recent ones that, "The assumption that IE is easier to exploit is a common misconception. IE has become quite tough and it is very difficult to find venerabilities in it." Strangely, he used techniques that used to work with IE (but do not any more) to find the hole in Firefox.

You will note that I do not claim for a second that all Microsoft programs are utterly perfect or that the company is above indulging in the under-hand tactics that every other company feels they can get away with. Microsoft are one of many big companies so they try and make money by pleasing their customers and by stiffing their opposition as much as they can manage. If this seems a surprise to some people then perhaps they need to just check up on how companies other than Microsoft behave and what the average bear's toilet habits tend to be.

We all like many things but we have to recognise their flaws as well as their functionality. I love Riedel glasses far more than nasty Spiegelaus but I recognise that one can put the very best Spiegelaus in the dishwasher with little chance of them exploding (and they cost less to replace if they do) whereas Riedels have to be washed by hand (with a reasonable chance of them exploding even if you give them a hard stare). I am sure that in some ways Apple's new and whizzy version of the ancient Unix operating system is better than Windows, but it also has security flaws that need fixing and is not used by that many people so personal familiarity is lower and getting free support from your next-door neighbour is harder (for some people all software needs free support). Screaming incoherent abuse at people because OS X is better than Windows XP or Riedels are better than Spiegelaus is more likely to make one look unthinking and boorish rather than result in making friends and influencing people.

Woefully boring people who insist on parroting other people's humourless constructions such as "M$" or "Microshaft" may as well be parroting the Nicene Creed; even though it is contemptible at least it has a bit of historical background and has provided many people with a sanctimonious glow in the past.

When I trek out into my local high-street I am invariably harassed by people pushing unreadable religious tracts into my unwilling hands and screaming incoherent drivel in my face. My normal response is to point out that I am a member of the National Secular Society and so I would rather they kept their weird ideas to themselves.

In view of the ever-present menace of sloppy-thinking I am perfectly happy to give a bit of financial help a noble organisation such as the NSS, albeit a tiny bit of help on the grounds of my minuscule income. However, this does come with a cost. Having joined, I now receive their weekly media-watch newsletter by email. This reports all the latest shenanigans of those sanctimonious people of faith and so results in my Friday afternoons being times of explosive rage. To read such things such as how it is alright to break the law as long as it is connected with believing in arbitrary things makes me fume with anger.

So, should I ask the NSS to stop sending me their emails and spare my blood pressure? It seems to me that I should not. Whilst avoiding news and current affairs is a valid strategy with many historical precedents, I am afraid I have the perhaps unjustifiable view that the continued progress of humanity is helped not only by people being informed, but also by standing up against laughable ideas. Gillian Sathanandan of the Independent newspaper made the point very well:

We in Europe were once a stifled, theocratic, feudal, crusading society that not only burned books but people too, and it was blasphemy that set us free. The term "blasphemer" has been ennobled by the likes of Socrates, Galileo, Kazantzakis and Joyce. We should remember the great debt that society and democracy owe to heresy and blasphemy and implore our MPs to rid us at last from this long-outmoded blasphemy law.