Just watched - Tomorrow, When the War Began

Not a bad show - characters I could identify with, even if they seemed much older than the 17 or so they were supposed to be. And there's the sheer incompetence of all the highly-trained invading soldiers.

This movie is, of course, based on John Marsden's popular novel. Worth looking at it, but some of it was a bit too implausible to sustain disbelief ... as underscored for me by the groups of giggling teenagers in the audience who expressed their merriment at any moment that seemed appropriate to them.

On the Crossway Conference

I spoke at the Crossway Conference yesterday, and I should start by reporting that this was a very positive experience. My talk seemed to go well, the questions were generally courteous, sincere, and sensible - and they gave me a chance to make some important points that I'd dropped from the talk itself because of time constraints. Many people approached me afterwards to thank me for my perspective and for my courage in addressing them (not that it really took that much courage - it's not as if I was going to be physically attacked or something!). Everyone was kind and gracious to me, and there were some very interesting moments. I ended up seated at lunch with some young guys from a Christian rock band, who were fun to talk to and didn't even mind when I joked about Eric Cartman's Christian rock band in South Park. Perhaps my own background makes it easy for me to get along with people like this: more-or-less progressive evangelical Protestants, not greatly different from what I once was myself. However, it's not just that: the staff, attendees, and other speakers, etc, were all pleasant and professional. I can't fault the way they treated me.

So thanks again to Pastor Dale Stephenson for inviting me along, and to all the staff who helped out and the others who spoke to me. This was all very classy. (It was certainly a marked contrast to the weird Christian who berated me at the Atheist Society gig the week before.)

There's much to learn from this kind of interaction. It was interesting seeing the presentations from the speakers immediately before and after me, both of whom were humorous and slick, but also came across as very genuine. Dale spoke about his own conversion experience and his grounds for accepting the truth of the gospels - not very strong grounds in my view (of course), but that's not the point. What I got out of it was how pivotal it had been to him that someone he respected for totally different reasons turned out to be an evangelical Christian. The other speaker - a young evangelist from the US - emphasised the need to be friendly to people and sincerely interested in them, rather than shoving religion down their throats. Above all, basically, don't be weird. I'm sure that's good advice, and many religious folk - and others, no doubt - could benefit from accepting it.

There seemed to be a lot of acceptance of my points about the "New Atheism" - that it's not really new, but rather the new development is that there's now a large market for critiques of religion, since many people Out There are concluding that religion is not benign and that criticism of religion is worthwhile; and that it's no good demonising the "New Atheists" - even if this is successful in a PR sense, those who indulge in it will be misleading themselves and doing themselves a disservice. They'll fail to understand why it is that many tolerant, reasonable, good-willed people have come to the view that Christianity and religion in general are not benign but have a dark side of authoritarianism, intolerance, and worse. I may be wrong, but it seems that many of these folk were prepared to take that message on board. I only wish that all of my fellow atheists were as willing to accept these basic points. What the Crossway people do with this message, even assuming they accept it, is, of course, up to them and beyond my control.

Those of us on the "other side" have a lot to learn from organisations like Crossway about the professional organisation of conferences - though of course one difference is that such an organisation has enormous resources, with a small army of paid staff. No secular organisation can match this. Still, they deserve praise for the efficient way they run their show, while also making guests feel very welcome and addressing possible glitches well in advance. It's worth dealing with an organisation like this not just to see how the "other side" thinks ... but also to see how, with their resources and experience, they do things.

Once again an interesting and positive experience at my end, and I'm pleased to have been to invited and to have taken part.

Currently waiting to catch a delayed flight ...

... but at least it's now landed, so I'll be off to Melbourne soon. I look forward to reporting back. Tomorrow should be very interesting.

Off to talk about the "New Atheism"

I'll be addressing the Crossway Conference tomorrow, talking about the so-called "New Atheism". This involves explaining the phenomenon to a group of several hundred Baptist ministers and their teams from across Australia. I was a bit surprised to receive the invitation to do this, but I'm feeling positive about it: there are useful things that I can tell them, and it will be fascinating to see how they respond.

As I'll be flying around a bit for the next 48 hours, or a bit more, I may not be blogging much, if at all, and may soon become very slow in approving comments (moderation is still on). Bear with me; it's only temporary.

Indoctrination in guilt and shame

This is a good reason to be against "nice" "moderate" kinds of Christianity such as Roman Catholicism - well, Roman Catholicism in particular. Go and read Miranda Celeste Hale's piece, "A dirty little girl, her head hanging in shame." This shows how the Church turns the ordinary behaviour of good people into the production of shame and guilt. This is one reason why the Church merits our opposition.

Contract signed!

I've just signed the contract for my forthcoming book on freedom of religion and the secular state. This is an exciting moment. Though the book got a green light a few weeks ago, there's nothing like having an actual contract in the hand. I'm looking forward to finishing this project, which is my highest priority over the months immediately ahead.

Drink a toast to it, if you're that way inclined! :)

Reading: Vandals of the Void by James Morgan Walsh

First published in 1933, Vandals of the Void is an early example of the sort of science fiction that depicts naval battles in space. It's something of a landmark in the history of Australian science fiction, and a good choice for volume 3 in Chimaera Publications' Classic Australian SF series. Sean McMullen's brief introduction covers it well: this is a book with battles, political intrigue, and romance, in a formula that is still popular. Sean is also correct that a modern version would offer us more insight into the villainous Mercurians, who are intent on a program of forcible imperialism throughout our solar system. Today, we'd want to know more about how events seem at their end: what motivates them, what life is like for them, what their leaders are like as individuals.

The book proceeds at a cracking pace, almost too cracking for suspension of belief when it comes to such aspects as the main character's whirlwind romance with a young Martian woman. Still, there is much to amuse, such as the sly discussions here and there of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, which gets invoked as an analogy - though the point is made that this involves warfare on Earth, against invading forces, whereas the protagonists of Vandals of the Void face a war actually fought in space.

Next stop, a classic work of late-19th-century melodrama: Guy Boothby's A Bid for Fortune or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta.

Signing stuff (2): Baggini on the UK papal visit

Here's a letter that was signed by many highly admirable people from the UK. I was not asked to sign it, and nor should I have been - this was very much a letter to be signed by British worthies, protesting the Pope's state visit to the UK. So there's another reason not to sign something: in the circumstances, you might not be an appropriate person to do so. Most of the things I'm asked to sign could be signed by almost anyone, but as an Australian I'm not really an appropriate person to be signing a letter to be sent to British newspapers and addressed specifically to this kind of political choice.

In the event, it's signed by:

Stephen Fry, Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor Susan Blackmore, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Ed Byrne, Baroness Blackstone, Ken Follett, Professor AC Grayling, Stewart Lee, Baroness Massey, Claire Rayner, Adele Anderson, John Austin MP, Lord Avebury, Sian Berry, Professor Simon Blackburn, Sir David Blatherwick, Sir Tom Blundell, Dr Helena Cronin, Dylan Evans, Hermione Eyre, Lord Foulkes, Professor Chris French, Natalie Haynes, Johann Hari, Jon Holmes, Lord Hughes, Robin Ince, Dr Michael Irwin, Professor Steve Jones, Sir Harold Kroto, Professor John Lee, Zoe Margolis, Jonathan Meades, Sir Jonathan Miller, Diane Munday, Maryam Namazie, David Nobbs, Professor Richard Norman, Lord O'Neill, Simon Price, Paul Rose, Martin Rowson, Michael Rubenstein, Joan Smith, Dr Harry Stopes-Roe, Professor Raymond Tallis, Lord Taverne, Peter Tatchell, Baroness Turner, Professor Lord Wedderburn of Charlton QC FBA, Ann Marie Waters, Professor Wolpert, Jane Wynne Willson

That's a pretty impressive list!

If I'd been British, and if I'd been asked to sign the letter, would I have done so? Very likely I would. I'd want to scour it carefully to make sure I really did agree with everything in it ... but say I decided that I did? Would I have any other reason not to sign it?

I raise this because Julian Baggini, who is both British and a valued contributor to 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists , was given an opportunity to sign it and declined. Now, I'd understand this if he disagreed with the sentiments in the letter, or even if he generally agreed with them but found something there that he was just not prepared to put his name to. I think that's quite legitimate. It's also quite legitimate to explain your misgivings or reservations privately to the person who has asked you to sign up. Indeed, it's okay to explain them publicly.

But I'm at a bit of a loss to understand what was going on in this case. As far as I can see, Julian doesn't have any objection to the letter's content and would have been prepared to sign it if there hadn't been enough other people already doing so: "If only a few people were [protesting] I might have felt it necessary to sign the petition." As far as I can see, his reasons amount to the claim that signing would have been divisive.

I have a lot of time for Julian, and I think his essay in 50 Voices is well worth reading. I don't mind that his stance towards organised religion is more conciliatory than that of some atheists and religious sceptics. There's certainly room for a range of viewpoints, and my own experiences witth organised religion are not vastly different from his - a mix of benign and not so benign.

But I find it very odd that someone would decline to sign something that he doesn't really disagree with and might have signed in slightly different circumstances ... and that he'd then publicly criticise the document that he might have signed. Of course, he has -and should have - every legal right to do so; but what did he think he was achieving apart from putting his own allies on the defensive and creating further confusion and division within his own ranks? If you're going to think so damn tactically, rather than concentrating on whether you actually agree with the content of a document, what's the tactical advantage in writing a high-profile piece in which you criticise your allies (and don't, subject to one point below, express any specific reservations about the document itself)?

It's all very puzzling. I hope Julian will think a bit further next time he's tempted to do something like this. He's shown a tendency lately to want to distance himself from his allies in a way that can only provide succour to his intellectual and political opponents. That's not the kind of division he should want to create. Conversely, it's healthy to express your views on issues where you really do disagree with opponents, and especially if those opponents currently wield vast power and influence. That is the kind of division - a  difference of views - on which liberal democracies thrive. Talk of things getting "ugly" is inaccurate and inappropriate when all that is going on is expression of a viewpoint (and not even in some viscerally powerful way such as by destroying opponents' flags or symbols).

Providing he actually agreed with the letter, I still don't understand why Julian couldn't sign it. If his real point is that he disagreed with the demand that the entire papal visit be cancelled, while agreeing with other points, why not concentrate on simply saying that very clearly as the main focus of the article? It's an arguable point, but it gets lost in the rhetoric.

As it is, Julian has written a piece that makes things worse - especially for his own allies, but also generally - by talking about the signatories to the letter as if they are stirring up violence, or on the path to doing so. No - what they are doing is exercising their right to free speech, which is generally a civilised alternative to making your point through violence. Liberal societies provide freedom of speech to provide an avenue for strong feelings and principled viewpoints to be expressed publicly but non-violently.

That's what the signatories to the letter were doing. They were not stirring up violence or trying to make things get ugly, or even naively acting in a way that was likely to have such an effect. Questioning their propriety or prudence merely adds to the idea that there is something illegitimate about strong criticism of religion ... and lends assistance to the decidedly ugly idea that violence is an understandable, inevitable, or somehow forgivable, response to criticism. No it isn't; free speech is a key value in Western societies, and violent responses to it are totally beyond the pale of toleration. We may understand how violent people think in an abstract, intellectual sense of "understand", but we must insist that this way of thinking will not be treated with any toleration or leniency if it's expressed in action.

Julian Baggini is definitely one of the good guys, but he's tied himself in knots on this occasion, and, once again, I hope he'll think it over before too many more occasions like this come up in political life.

Signing stuff

Now and then, I'm asked to sign public declarations, manifestos, or letters - material drafted by other people who ask if I'm prepared to sign up. Sometimes I add my name; sometimes I don't. The question arises as to when we should and should not sign such things, and my own answer is (usually) fairly simple: I'll sign something if I am in full agreement with it. General agreement is not enough, unless provision is made explicitly for general agreement that is subject to reservations. Even then, I might hesitate and decide against it. The trouble with signing something that you don't fully agree with is that you may be stuck with people thinking you hold those views ... stuck with it for the rest of your life. There's enough confusion about what I really think as it is; I believe it's best not to add to it.

All in all, then, I'm unlikely to sign something unless I agree with it completely (and not just when the document is interpreted in some recondite way). I need to feel that what I'm signing my name to is something that I really do agree with - and I agree with the sentiments expressed in the sense in which well-informed people are likely to take them. If the document is patently ambiguous, I'm going to hesitate to sign.

The moral is that your best chance of getting me to sign something is to write a screed that's very clear and simple, without too many tangential messages that you want to get across and certainly with no ambit claims. Ambit claims are for lawyers or industrial bodies like trade unions. They set the formal boundaries of a claim that is always intended to be negotiable. If I'm asked to sign something as an individual person, it is going to have to state what I seriously think or want, not a formal position that I'm proposing to negotiate back from.

I probably haven't always been consistent in following the above guidelines, but they seem like good ones and they represent the way I usually think. So please keep your claims (in the sense of demands and in the sense of assertions) simple and realistic if you want me to sign something you're writing.

But what if I do actually agree wholeheartedly with something that you want me to add my name to? Will I ever have good reasons to refuse to sign anyway? Probably. I can't rule it out. But what would they be?

I'm going to come back to this, dear readers, but what do you think? In what cases would you be unwilling to put your name, publicly, to a position that you actually agree with (and without any reservations or creative interpretations)? Inquiring minds want to know.

Sir Ian McKellen at the anti-pope march

Love the T-shirt, Erik ... er Ian!

(Edit: apparently the message is photoshopped, but it's still appropriate for this one particular gay-and-out actor. I'm told that Sir Ian was actually wearing a "Some people are gay; get over it" message like everyone else in these Magneto-red T-shirts.)