Wordcount update

After five days (which included one day off), I've written over 12,000 words of material that's in not bad shape. Yay for me! But posts will still be thin on the ground, and rather short, for a while.

British employment law case on religious discrimination

Full (rather concise) judgment here.

US Supreme Court - cross is now a secular symbol

The US Supreme court, by a 5-4 majority, has held that it is okay for the government to use a cross as a "secular" symbol in the context of a war memorial. In that context, the cross is now de-Christianised, according to the majority, so no question of separation of church and state arises.

This will not please American secularists, and who can blame them? It gives the government much more authority to spray the landscape with Christian symbols, and of course many Americans don't read the cross as merely a secular symbol of the deaths caused by war. Thus, Derek Araujo at the CFI says: “This endorsement of a sectarian religious symbol for purportedly non-religious purposes should disturb religious and secular Americans alike.”

Well, yes. Quite right. But that's the way a lot of these cases are now going to be decided, by de-Christianising the Christian symbols and interpreting them as "just ceremonial deism" or even as symbols that have, in context, taken on a secular meaning. Once you do that, you can avoid some of the hard questions about separation of church and state, because you assert that such-and-such a Christian symbol or practice is no longer "the church", but now has some non-religious meaning in American culture.

I'll cop some reaction to this, but I actually think the position was pretty arguable in the particular case. I don't know how things stand in the part of California where the cross was set up, but here in Australia a cross really might be interpreted, at least to some extent, as a secular symbol if it were connected with memoralialising the sacrifices involved in war. To some extent, the meaning has segued from a specifically Christian thing to a more ambiguous thing as a result of our exposure to countless images of crosses on war graves ... in contexts where all the emphasis is on the horror of war, and none is on religion. So, I could actually live with the outcome of this litigation, at least if it were viewed as an isolated development.

The bitter pill to swallow will be when (and if) the Supreme Court upholds the National Prayer Day legislation, which is blatantly and unambiguously religious. The case is a long way from reaching Supreme Court level, but surely it will. I can see no plausible legal basis to save National Prayer Day, but when you count judges ... well, there's four unequivocally conservative judges plus Justice Kennedy. If they vote as expected, the law will change. With Justice O'Connor gone, the balance of the bench has altered considerably, leaving Justice Kennedy as the only swing judge. Kennedy will sometimes vote against the government in cases like this, but only if he sees something at least mildly coercive. Given his previously-expressed views, the law in the US will soon allow a lot more non-coercive endorsement of religion by the government. That's where all this is heading, and it's not a good destination.

CFI press release on South Park debacle

“Free expression is the cornerstone of a free society,” maintains Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO of CFI. “No belief, no public figure, should be immune from criticism, whether that criticism takes the form of a book, an article in an academic journal, or a cartoon. What is especially disturbing about the South Park controversy is that the show did not even criticize Islam or Muhammad—it merely included Muhammad as a character along with many other famous figures. It is intolerable that the producers of South Park were threatened with violence.”

Go here for the full press release.

Okay, just quickly ...

H/T Ophelia Benson. This article by Lawrence Lessig shows just how the Catholic Church is now shooting itself in the foot when it comes to the game of sustaining its aura of moral authority. As Lessig notes, insurers take over civil suits on behalf of defendants that are relying on insurance policies to pay for any damages that might be awarded. So it's not so odd to see the Church take a hard line in actual court proceedings - it's really the insurer running the case, and the lawyers will be those retained by the insurer. Insurers like to settle on favourable terms if they can and to win in court if they can't. They're pragmatists looking after their own bottom line. Fine so far, but we then see the church itself doing everything possible to try to put itself outside the reach of the civil law, no matter how heinous the acts of its minions.

What will this accomplish? Think about it - the answer is, "Lower insurance premiums."

Blog semi-break

Over the next couple of weeks I plan to do some intensive writing. First, it'll probably take me a couple of days to get some files organised and some structure re-planned. Then, by the beginning of May at the latest, I'll be hoping to turn out 2000 words per day - I have a lot of material in rough form, waiting to be cannibalised, so I won't be doing this entirely from scratch, so therefore it's doable, even though the job will be finicky.

But I need to get into a headspace where I'm not too distracted by debates on other matters, so that will mean trying to cut down my time writing blog posts (and commenting on other people's blogs). It will also mean spending spare time relaxing with loved ones rather than too much of it arguing with people who are Wrong on the Internet (or even giving kudos to people who are Right on the Internet). I won't be able to resist the temptation to blog to some extent - I know myself that well - but at least I won't feel a responsibility to blog each day, as is normally the case. Quite the opposite: I'll feel a responsibility to avoid doing that.

So, with any luck, I'll be a bit scarcer for the immediate future. If that happens, you'll know why. OTOH, don't stop checking; I won't be gone altogether.

An extra note on boobquake for people who don't "get" it

Following from my comment at Jerry Coyne's boobquake post. We're talking about women voluntarily wearing clothes which seem to them to be fun and sexy. Note that it was a woman who had the idea and that many other women are getting into it enthusiastically. I think there's a reason for that. We're not talking about pornographic images that are meant to do dirt on female beauty for the benefit of men who fear it. 

I'm not a fan of pornography because I think that this is what much (I'm not saying all) pornography is all about. In that sense it's deeply misogynist. But we need to make the distinction between rational critique of this kind of pornography and getting upset at the sort of sexual display by women that the women themselves feel good about. Women are entitled to dress in ways that strike them as wild, and fun, and sexy, and we are all entitled to enjoy it if they do. Contrary to the rantings of an Iranian cleric, women get to be flirty or frivolous or to exult in their beauty. The difference between enjoying this and resorting to misogynist pornography is as radical as the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at someone.

Much 1980s radical feminism was too unnuanced to make these sorts of distinctions. Sure, some of its targets - the kind of pornography I mentioned - were legitimate ones. But much of the critique was so scattergun as to give the impression of rationalising anxieties about sex and the body. The people concerned would have been in good company with Saint Augustine or a brace of mullahs from Iran.

Whoa! Great volcano footage!

I'd love to see this IRL.

Outrageous attack on freedom of speech in the UK

As Ophelia says, this means war.

According to the Daily Telegraph (UK):

Harry Taylor, 59, left home made posters at Liverpool John Lennon Airport three times in November and December 2008.

The self-styled philosopher denied three counts of causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress but was convicted in less than an hour by a unanimous jury.

Among the posters, one image showed a smiling crucified Christ next to an advert for a brand of ''no nails'' glue.

In another, a cartoon depicted two Muslims holding a placard demanding equality with the caption: ''Not for women or gays, obviously.''

Islamic suicide bombers at the gates of paradise were told in another: ''Stop, stop, we've run out of virgins.''

Tasteful? No. But he did not do anything that was illegal, independent of the authoritarian legislation used to convict him. Taylor has been slapped with an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, which bans him from carrying "religiously offensive" material in a public place. As reported by the Telegraph, he was also sentenced to six months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, ordered to perform 100 hours of unpaid work, and pay costs of 250 pounds.

Taylor may be a bit obsessive, as he's done this sort of thing before, but he should have freedom of speech. Thus, I have a slightly different emphasis from Ophelia. Granted, this debacle may well say something about the rights of atheists; but I also think it shows, more generally, yet again, and very powerfully, how a don't-rock-the-boat mentality is undermining freedom of speech. People who are eccentric or obsessive should be free to spread their messages in public, just like those of us who are more inclined to conform, speak decorously, and not rock the boat.

It's time to redouble our efforts to defend free speech against these constant attacks from people, including legislators and judges, who see it as having low value.

Boobquake

Jen McCreight has produced a meme - "Boobquake" - ridiculing the idea that "immodest" dressing by women leads to lascivious thoughts from men, which results in fornication and adultery - which, in turn, cause earthquakes. The idea was proposed a few days ago by a senior cleric in Iran, but of course it's in line with the common thought in Islam that there's something wrong with a woman "showing her beauty to the world". Christianity is not much better, of course: there's a long tradition of Christian theologians problematising women's (and men's) bodies, deprecating sexual beauty, and expressing anxiety about sex itself.

Go back to the Church Fathers, to Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome, for example, and look at what they have to say. Their writings are saturated with ideas of sexual sin and shame. Those ideas have carried right through to the present day, but they are absurd, miserable, and life-denying, and they deserve our mockery. They exemplify the way that religion does dirt on the good things that this world has to offer.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of 1980s radical feminism that took a similar attitude to that of Christianity and Islam, problematising displays of female beauty and even expressing disgust with heterosexuality itself. This looks like the use of feminist-sounding language to rationalise the religion-based anti-sex morality into which the individuals concerned were socialised. But they lacked the self-insight to understand that it's what they're doing.

Get it clear: there is nothing wrong with the beauty of the human body, male or female, nothing wrong with enjoying it, and nothing wrong with displaying it to the world. If you've been blessed with physical beauty, then for Aphrodite's sake display it; take pleasure in your good fortune, and let other people take pleasure in it. Strut your stuff, and don't let anyone make you feel ashamed about so-called "immodesty". Feel free to scorn the moralism of Islamic clerics and anyone else who tries to put you down.

I find it incredible that there's still so much irrational, religion-based shame and guilt about the body even within Western societies: so much fear of the body's beauty, and of its power to arouse sexual feelings. We see this shame, guilt, and fear even among atheists, many of whom have not fully liberated themselves from traditional morals. (For Zeus's sake, what's the point of being an atheist if you still buy into a version of the same old religious morality? You need to get beyond that.)

Let's return to a healthy pagan value-set. For the Greeks, beauty, creativity, analytical intelligence, athletic ability, and many other things would have been seen as excellences that it's good for a human being to have. Unfortunately, few of us possess them all (I most certainly don't!), but all of them are worthy of enjoyment and celebration wherever and whenever we do encounter them. All of these human excellences open up possibilities of one kind or another, and give a sort of power to those who possess them; all of them are admirable; and all of them can be used to bring pleasure to others.

Anxiety about the body and its beauty is sometimes rationalised on the basis that we should value cognitive abilities above physical beauty, though I'd love to see a rational argument as to why we should adopt any particular hierarchy of values. In any event, this is not a zero-sum game. You can have many of these human excellences; they don't exclude each other; and you can take a proper pride in them all.