Label Fail - Atheist Christians on poster

In a classic case of "irony fail", The Times Online has labelled two children as evangelical Christians after they appeared in an ad campaign asking that kids not be labelled...


The poster lists a bunch of labels, including Protestant child, Muslim Child, Catholic Child and even Libertarian Child - and Atheist Child - as it pleads with people not to use such labels on our children. Despite this, The Times Religion Correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, has deemed it an atheist ad featuring evangelicals.

After completely missing the apparent point of the campaign, Gledhill quotes the children's father...

He said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”

Yes, the father missed the point too.

The kid on the right of the ad is barely old enough to remember his own name and yet his father and Gledhill have amazingly determined that he fully understands the nature of life, the universe and everything to the extent that they know the labels "evangelical" and "Christian" are the correct ones for him.

The article does not improve as it continues...

He said that the children’s Christianity had shone through. “Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians. That is quite a compliment. I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.”

Clearly the campaign organisers didn't give a toss what religion the kids supposedly were since, as should be apparent to anyone who learnt English at school, they don't believe such categories are suitable for children.

Now maybe I'm misunderstanding the father's comment but it reads, to me, as if he's saying Christianity is what makes happy kids. Are there no happy children living in Muslim or Buddhist homes? Are the children of every atheist and agnostic grumpy and disenchanted? Do children living in every Mormon home cry themselves to sleep every night?

Or could it be that there are happy kids who aren't Christians but whose parents don't sell pictures of them to stock photo companies for use in ad campaigns just like this one?


Found at JREF

UK: Homeopathy faces parliamentary scrutiny

The House of Commons Science and Technology Sub-Committee recently investigated the evidence for homeopathy. For almost three hours, supporters and promoters of wishful thinking and placebo therapy faced questions from committee members and challenges from supporters of evidence-based reality.

You can read a live blog of the proceedings at the Guardians' Science Blog: Homeopathy: MPs on science and technology committee grill experts

9.35am: Phil Willis is kicking things off. Looking to see "whether there is evidence to support government policy."

9.37am: First off – question to Paul Bennett: "You sell them. Do they work?"

Paul: "There's consumer demand.

"I have no evidence to suggest they are efficacious."

Great opening.

"It's about consumer choice and a large number of our consumers think they are efficacious."

9.38am: Robert Wilson says it's an old business and popular in France.

Phil Willis: "So is prostitution."

9.40am: Wilson says he believes homeopathy works beyond the placebo effect.

Wilson's comment: "If they didn't work beyond the placebo effect, why do people keep buying them?"

Willis: "That wasn't a serious comment was it?!"

Willis quizzing Wilson - if you have evidence that it works, why don't you give it to Boots. Boots just admitted they have no evidence that the stuff works.

................

11.11am: Peter Fisher: "You use highly purified water and highly purified ethanol. It's not even got sugar in at that stage."

He's talking about how homeopathic treatments are made.

You shake the water. That helps it "remember" what substance is in it.

Harris: "I'd have thought shaking it would make it more likely to forget."

Fisher: "You have to vigorously shake it. You can't stir it."

This is hilarious. Grown men talking about shaking water to turn it into a medicine.

Come on.

11.12am: Harris: "Does the MHRA check how much your water's been shaken?"

Fisher: You'll have to ask them.

This, in the 21st century. Does our medicines regulator check how much water has been shaken before it can be sold as a medicine? How on Earth is this happening. It's Dark Ages stuff.

It should be clear (at least from the Guardian blog) that reality won the "debate" but this is politics and there's a lot of money in homeopathy (and other alternative treatments) so there's little guarantee, or hope for that matter, that the committee will see it the way reality-based observers and participants will see it.

You will also find links to a webcast on the Guardian blog.


Thanks to Evidence Based Thought for the link.


Journalist and doctor Ben Goldacre was a participant in the fantasy committee hearing and you can read his short summary here.

You can read the Guardian's report on proceeding here.

Scientology "criminal": Xenophon

I have, in the past, taken a fair interest in Australian federal politics but I must confess that I wouldn't have known Senator Nick Xenophon if I tripped over him. By the end of this week, I doubt there will be too many Australian's who won't be aware of the Senator.

Under the cloak of parliamentary privilege, Senator Xenophon (who shall from here on be called "Nick") has come out and called the Church of Scientology (CoS) a criminal organisation. Yes, that Church of Scientology - the same one Tom Cruise and John Travolta (and perhaps half the entertainment community) belong to.

Acting in response to letters he'd received from disgruntled ex-CoS members, [From WA Today] Nick said...

"What we are seeing is a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality," Senator Xenophon said.

"On the body of evidence, this is not happening by accident, it is happening by design.

"Scientology is not a religious organisation, it is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs."

The Courier Mail has provided a full transcript of Nick's speech. After detailing some of the accusations against CoS, Nick went on to ask the senate if this was an organisation that deserved tax exemption under Australian law.

Jane Shaw writes for Crikey! that Nick didn't go far enough...

Scientologists really are fish in a barrel though: they owe their beginnings to a not-terribly-good science fiction writer, they believe in aliens and they have couch-jumping Tom Cruise as their mascot. You’re not going to provoke a riot by poking them with pointy sticks; but if you are going to question the right of Scientologists to run a tax free organisation, how can you not ask the same question about the Catholics, the Jews, the Pentecostals and the Muslims?

Religious groups in Australia have a combined wealth of around $1 billion, they run cereal companies, insurance companies, wineries and pizza chains, and pay none of the income tax or capital gains tax that slows the rest of us down on our climb to wealth and profit.

It is a strange situation. If you can come up with some bizarre metaphysical reasoning for how we all got to be here - and can convince enough people to agree with you - governments around the world will allow you special tax status on your day-to-day business activities. Why?

Once Nick had opened the door, a number of MPs decided to line up behind him ready to take their own, albeit smaller, swipes at the organisation and back his call for an inquiry. Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce wouldn't commit to supporting an inquiry (I wonder how long he'll hold out if the public start demanding?) but he had this to say about CoS...

"Some bloke who arrived in a space ship, something about Johnny Travolta and Tom Cruise and jumping on couches and all that sort of rubbish," he said. "I don't know - it's their religion but I don't think I'll be joining it."

He appears to have summed it up pretty well.

With thanks to Podblack for saving me time looking this story up.

Parody of atheism - quite the laugh!

Someone called Greg Craven, apparently the vice chancellor of a university, of sorts (according to his byline), has written a sensationally amusing piece in The Age presumably, though not obviously, about next year's Atheist conference in Melbourne.

Many bloggers, blog readers or internet forum members will be familiar with Poe's Law which basically states that it can be difficult to tell the difference between genuine, fundamentalist religious argument and a full-blown parody of religious argument. Craven's article tests that law to the extreme but I'm almost certain, at least it is my genuinely held opinion, that the article is intended as a bit of fun at the expense of Catholics. After all, there's little in it that could be taken seriously by anyone remotely familiar with atheism, of either the old or new variety.

Just now, we are facing one of our largest and least appealing infestations. Somewhat in advance of summer's blowflies, we are beset by atheists. Worse, they are not traditional atheists. These tended to be quiet blokes called Algie with ancillary interests in nudist ceramics, who were perfectly happy as long as you pretended to accept a pamphlet in Flinders Lane.

Hyperbole drips from each paragraph as Craven tries, supposedly, to build a demonic, hate-filled image of evangelical athiests. We're "brash, noisy and confident", he accuses - much like a Christian fundie you might think but no, Craven likens us instead to a "cheap electric kettle". I've never had a brash or confident kettle though it's true that some seem to make more noise than others. Even then they still boil water, as advertised, so perhaps atheists are more like kettles than religious nutters.

I'm not going to do a detailed take-down of Craven's commentary, not because it would be difficult but because it would be like kicking an own goal. I'm pretty sure he's actually arguing on behalf of atheism and using the extremes of sarcasm and irony to do it. If not, then I think perhaps he has kicked an own goal and nothing I could add would help advance the score any further in our favour.