Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1996

UK Government Clarifies That Creationism Cannot be Taught as Valid Science in Publicly-Funded Schools

Tucked away in new UK government regulations guiding all publicly-funded schools is a welcome reminder that Creationism isn’t science — and legally cannot be taught as such.

That’s not how it works

[Clauses in the Funding Agreement] explicitly require that pupils are taught about the theory of evolution, and prevent academy trusts from teaching ‘creationism’ as scientific fact.

…

The parties acknowledge that Creationism, in this sense, is rejected by most mainstream Churches and religious traditions, including the major providers of state funded schools such as the [Anglican] [Catholic] Churches, as well as the scientific community. It does not accord with the scientific consensus or the very large body of established scientific evidence; nor does it accurately and consistently employ the scientific method, and as such it should not be presented to pupils at the Academy as a scientific theory.

…

The parties further recognise that the requirement on every academy and free school to provide a broad and balanced curriculum, in any case prevents the teaching of creationism as evidence based theory in any academy or free school.

To be clear, Creationism can be discussed in the classroom. But not as valid science. (As mythology? Sure.)

The British Humanist Association’s Head of Public Affairs, Pavan Dhaliwal, celebrated the clarification:

“In 2011 our ‘Teach evolution, not creationism‘ campaign called for enforceable rules saying that creationism cannot be presented as a valid scientific theory in any publicly-funded school. Now the Government has extended such an explicit rule to all new Academies and Free Schools and made it clear that it believes that existing rules mean that no Academy or Free School can teach pseudoscience… We congratulate the Government on its robust stance on this issue.

Meanwhile, as io9 points out, a bill currently being discussed in Missouri would warn parents anytime evolution is taught so they could pull their kids from the classroom.

Because facts are distressing.

The UK government maintains that this wasn’t a rule change, merely a clarification of a policy they’ve held for a long time:

“It is already the case that all state schools, including academies, are prohibited from teaching creationism as scientific fact. That has not changed,” a spokesperson said.

“The funding agreements for academies and free schools have been restructured into one document and drafted in plain English, as part of an ongoing process of simplification.”

It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when your standards are written by people who trust scientists instead of nonsense-peddlers like Ken Ham.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Jack for the link)

High Court of Australia Invalidates Federally-Funded School Chaplaincy Program

Ron Williams (below) wanted his children to attend a secular school in Australia, so you can imagine his surprise when his children told him they were attending “assemblies where the chaplain presided and a rap song was played extolling the virtues of chaplains over teachers as adults kids could trust.”

As it turned out, it was all part of a program funded by the country’s government. In fact, since 2007, schools could be eligible for up to $20,000 if they began or extended chaplaincy services.

Williams sued over this — and the case went all the way to the High Court of Australia (their Supreme Court) — saying this violated religious freedom and went beyond the scope of what the government could do.

In 2012, the High Court ruled in his favor. Kind of. They said the chaplaincy didn’t violate religious freedom, but the government had no business giving schools money for this because it wasn’t supported by any legislation.

In response, the Australian government (under then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard) quickly wrote up and passed legislation to rescue the program.

Yesterday, in a potentially devastating blow to the chaplaincy program, the High Court ruled that that legislation was unconstitutional. Though legal scholars say there’s yet another way to get chaplains in secular schools that the government will now try:

In a unanimous decision, six judges on the High Court held that the federal government’s agreement to fund the Scripture Union of Queensland to provide chaplaincy services to Queensland schools was unlawful.

…

Mr Williams said the decision was a huge win for the “silent majority of parents” around the country who opposed the chaplaincy program.

“I think we can call this a 6-nil clobbering,” Mr Williams said.

He said that he had been “gobsmacked” when the federal government funded the program in the recent budget while “slashing education and health”.

…

Sydney University constitutional law professor Anne Twomey said on Wednesday that the federal government would be able to continue the chaplaincy program by providing grants to state governments rather than directly to schools.

“This is the only real option. They can do that and they probably will,” she said.

That said, the Court’s decision could force the government to redirect more than $245,000,000 that was allocated for the next five years of the chaplaincy program.

For now, it’s a victory for all those parents who see a problem with the government funding religious chaplains over secular social workers at public schools.

Australians, feel free to offer more insight into this decision in the comments section!

(Thanks to Gunnar for the link. Portions of this article were posted before.)

Pagan Forbidden from Opening Temple in Beebe, Arkansas Because His God Isn’t the Christian God

When Bertram Dahl told Beebe, Arkansas Mayor Mike Robertson that he wanted to build a church and goods shop in the garage in his backyard, Robertson was very supportive:

The mayor was very nice to us and welcomed us and even gave us useful information, such as the local utilities we would need to contact. He even sold us three couches from his furniture store to put in the new home.

When Robertson found out Dahl (below) was, in fact, a Pagan High Priest, his support faded quickly:

“We were basically given a cease and desist you know — shut down. We hadn’t even unpacked. We aren’t even open — how are we getting this,” [Dahl] said.

The order was issued the same day the city’s code officer receive a letter from Mayor Mike Robertson, expressing his opinion no conditional use or special use permits should be issued on Dahl’s property for a worship place or shop. Dahl hadn’t even applied yet.

…

Dahl claimed he also reached out to his alderman regarding city policy, but when we spoke to the alderman, the only comment he wanted to make on the record was “that man’s God isn’t my God.”

If that was the on-the-record comment, what the hell was he saying off the record?!

Dahl’s (unconfirmed) personal version of the story sheds even more light on the extent of the discrimination at play:

… When we told him we wanted to talk to the town counsel about this, he told us that if we showed our face at the town meeting, we would not be on the docket and we would not be heard. We told the mayor that this seemed like Religious Persecution and he responded with “I don’t care, it’s not going to happen”…

…

On 2014 Mar 14 we decided to go to City Hall and officially ask for the permit. We had been turned down without even applying, but we thought we would officially apply anyway. The secretary called the mayor and said on the phone “He is standing right here in front of me”. And after a few moments of listening to him, she hung up and told me the mayor said “We will not be granting any permit of any kind to you”. We were then informed (though they would not put it in writing) that we could not have any application, that there would be no permit of any kind for us and that we could not speak with the city attorney as previously promised.

What’s really unbelievable is that, if these stories were untrue, the mayor could easily just get on camera and say there’s no religious discrimination at all. Pagan temples are welcome in the town, just as all churches are welcome. Instead, the mayor said (off camera) that there was no permit Dahl could apply for — even if the goods shop he wanted to open up was forbidden, the church wasn’t an option either. For reasons that only make sense if you use #ChristianLogic.

As far as I know, no churches in the area have come out in support of Dahl. No lawsuit has been filed either.

(Thanks to everyone for the link)

Ontario Catholic Teachers’ Union Faces Criticism for Pride Parade Participation Plans

This June, on top of the usual Pride Week festivities that culminate in downtown Toronto’s Pride Parade, the city of Toronto hosts World Pride 2014, an annual international festival celebrated in a different city each year to highlight the culture, achievements, and activism of the world’s LGBTQ people as they strive for full legal and social equality.

Only three cities have been World Pride hosts thus far — Rome, Jerusalem, and London — and Toronto expects World Pride to bring more than $130,000,000 of tourism dollars into the city. So it’s kind of a big deal.

Specifically because of World Pride, teachers in the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) voted to “have a presence in the parade in support of students, teachers, and others in the LGBT community,” according to OECTA president James Ryan. Explaining the group’s convictions, he spoke of “trying to stand in solidarity with a group that is quite marginalized” and “their right to be free from bullying and harassment.”

OECTA has not been an official part of past Pride parades, though they have appeared as a presence on the street fair before. Naturally, individual members of OECTA are free to decide whether they wish to participate in the parade as part of the OECTA marching contingent or not, and may express approval or disapproval of how their colleagues have collectively voted to support participation.

That’s not good enough for some critics of OECTA’s decision, who want the union as a whole to take a position more in line with the Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality.

The major activist group speaking out against OECTA’s decision is Parents As First Educators (PAFE), a Catholic organization that has been involved in controversies over LGBT issue in the past, including during the controversy over gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in Catholic schools. According to PAFE president Teresa Pierre, “the concern with this is just that it’s further involvement of the schools in an official capacity with the promotion of ideals that run counter to the Catholic message on homosexuality.”

PAFE has created a petition to school-board trustees, who Pierre calls “the legal guarantors of the faith,” to block their teachers from participating in the parade, a decision that may differ from one jurisdiction to the next. One Halton trustee, Anthony Danko, wanted to develop “remedial and punitive actions” to take against OECTA, whose actions “offer scandal to the Catholic community”; his motion did not survive.

Toronto’s Bishop Thomas Collins has spoken up to support PAFE’s position and argues that the union has overstepped its boundaries in this case:

Its competence is limited to collective bargaining, and the services any union provides to its members. When it goes beyond those areas, it can easily go wrong, as it has in the decision of the OECTA delegates to participate in this event. This decision shows that they and the OECTA leadership have an inadequate and mistaken understanding of their faith.

Collins has made token calls for Catholics to be compassionate towards gays “in harmony with the gospel,” but he echoes Pierre’s concerns when he says he considers the Pride festivities an inappropriate venue for displaying that compassion and understanding:

I find it very troubling and strange that [the union] would choose this particular event as a way of expressing that, when it seems to be going completely against what we believe in many ways. That’s the point at which I would say, ‘Really? What are you thinking?’”

Teresa Pierre would echo that sentiment, calling the Pride parade unsuitable for families and Catholic organizations based on its (extramarital) sexual content, condom distribution, and permissive attitudes in general:

[The Pride event] breaks nudity laws, and participants promote homosexual activity, instead of sex in marriage, and simulates extreme behaviour like sadomasochism, which demeans the roles of men and women in loving relationships.

In response to these criticisms, Ryan had this to say:

I understand that some of the bishops are unhappy with our participation in the parade. I think they see the parade as something different than we see it as. I think they probably see it as an affirmation of a way of life, whereas we would see it as a parade that celebrates diversity, and also a parade that speaks out against the discrimination that members of the GLBT community have traditionally suffered.

He goes on to indicate that he believes in the Church’s teachings on chastity both within and outside of romantic relationships and does not find OECTA’s support of World Pride to contradict those values.

New Reality Show in Which Chosen Participants Agree to Marry at First Sight Will Feature Humanist Chaplain

Check out the premise of this new reality show premiering in July on the soon-to-launch network FYI (formerly The Biography Channel):

Hundreds of single people interested in long-term relationships are pared down to 6 individuals — 3 “scientifically”-matched couples — on the basis of four areas: clinical psychology, sociology, sexology, and religion/spirituality. After they are matched up by experts in those fields, the couples agree to get legally married before even meeting each other.

It’s called Married at First Sight. Consider it an arranged marriage where your parents have nothing to do with it.

And guess who the religion/spirituality adviser is?

Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, who appears in the trailer below:

Post by FYI Television Network.

Epstein wrote on Facebook:

I am sure my community members will be as surprised, even shocked as I was when first hearing the concept. I ultimately joined the project because I believe it presents an opportunity for a much-needed conversation about how modern dating has itself become an extreme social experiment — one we can be more thoughtful about.

Hell, I would’ve said yes, too. It’s a cool experiment. Gimmicky? Sure. But if the participants are actually in this to meet someone, then it might actually be interesting. (Will their marriages last? Probably not. But it can’t be any worse than the couples formed on The Bachelor/Bachelorette, right?)

I have to say: They made the right decision in going with a Humanist in that role. A religious chaplain of any flavor would likely have promoted the idea of spirituality/belief as a good thing. As it stands, the younger participants — many of whom may not even be religious — had nothing to worry about. Don’t believe in God? Not a problem. The Humanist chaplain’s got you covered.

I asked Epstein if his experience filming the show was a good one and why they chose him for the role. He said this (via email):

It was a great experience and the filming process generated a ton of big philosophical and ethical questions that I look forward to discussing as the show debuts…

I think the producers wanted someone who could understand and appreciate the huge diversity of religious perspectives and backgrounds among American young adults, and someone comfortable with the fact that such a large percentage of young Americans are nonreligious. That’s how they found me. I was given total freedom to represent myself and my Humanist perspective fully and truly, throughout the process.

The show was a hit in Denmark, where it originally aired, so FYI is hoping for similar results in America. (It’s already generating some discussion about why shows like this are allowed, but gay marriage is still not legal in every state — a fair point, albeit one that’s been made for more than a decade now, even since match-making reality shows first started airing.)

Since the show’s on a fledgling network, I don’t know how many viewers they’re expecting to get. But maybe that won’t matter if they get the episodes online quickly enough.

Don’t Put Your Religious Beliefs on Your Resume… Especially if You’re Atheist, Muslim, or Pagan

When I applied for my first teaching job, I decided to leave off any mention of volunteer work I’d done with atheist groups, any leadership positions I held in them, and any scholarships I received from them. I just didn’t know who would look at the application and why give them a reason not to hire me?

At the same time, I knew that if I had volunteered with, say, a church youth group, it would probably boost my chances of getting the job.

Now, two new studies confirm that line of thinking.

Michael Wallace and Bradley Wright, professors at the University of Connecticut, sent out thousands of fake resumes to a variety of employers who posted ads on a website like Monster.com (they didn’t specify). Embedded in those resumes were mentions of the fictional job-seekers’ religious identities — atheist, Catholic, evangelical Christian, Jewish, pagan, Muslim, pagan, “Wallonian” (a fake religion, just for control), or none at all.

What they found was that, yes, it sucks to be an atheist… or a member of any faith group, for that matter:

In general, Muslims, pagans, and atheists suffered the highest levels of discriminatory treatment from employers, a fictitious religious group and Catholics experienced moderate levels, evangelical Christians encountered little, and Jews received no discernible discrimination. We also found evidence suggesting the possibility that Jews received preferential treatment over other religious groups in employer responses.

Atheist wasn’t even the worst thing to be. It’s especially tough to get a response if you’re a Muslim:

What the researchers did not expect, though, was the scope of the apparent bias against Muslim applicants: Muslims received 32 percent fewer emails and 48 percent fewer phone calls than applicants from the control group, far outweighing measurable bias against the other faith groups.

“Just by adding the word ‘Muslim’ to an application, its chances of receiving an employer contact were reduced by between a third and almost half,” Wright said.

In general though, they found that it was bad to even mention your religious beliefs on a resume. Sounds like common sense to me, but there you go:

The results bore that out in the New England study: applicants expressing any religious identification received 19 percent fewer overall contacts than the applicants from the non-religious control group.

The two studies they published focused on different regions — the South and New England. While the trends were similar, there was one notable (and totally predictable) difference:

New Englander are a little more tolerant and they seemed not to care as much about religion. But in the South, the differences, particularly for applicants from minority religions show up more sharply, said Wallace.

The clear takeaway is that you shouldn’t mention your religion on your resume — at least if your faith has nothing to do with the job you’re trying to get. Focus on your tangible skills, not your beliefs about the supernatural. And if all of your accomplishments come from your faith/non-faith-based work, then you better have some luck on your side.

Or be Jewish.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to @anirvan for the link)

Former Irish President: Having Celibate Bishops Review Catholic Teachings About Family is “Completely Bonkers”

It’s not exactly a new idea, but few people have said it better.

Discussing the pontiff’s plans for an October synod so bishops can review questions of family life in Catholic doctrine, former Irish president Mary McAleese (below) had some very direct remarks; she said it was “completely bonkers” as well as “profoundly wrong and skewed.” But if you ask me, the money quote is this:

(Image via Wikipedia)

How many of the men who will gather to advise you as pope on the family have ever changed a baby’s nappy? I regard that as a very, very serious question.

It’s a particularly sharp and elegant way to make the point that, of all the people the Pope intends to ask about family life as it’s experienced by faithful Catholics everywhere, he’s chosen to gather only the opinions of people who have no experience of adult family life, parenthood, or marital relationships.

In fact, they are people who have deliberately selected a life without those experiences, which might indicate a significantly different perspective on family life than you’d find in your average lay Catholic.

Oh, and there is the fact that only men are allowed to become bishops… which means that these issues, so central to the lives of Catholic women, will be decided entirely in the absence of a female perspective.

McAleese made these comments during an interview at University College Dublin, where the Catholic hierarchy and its relationship to its rank-and-file was just one of many topics covered. Although McAleese currently studies canon law in Rome, she was visiting Dublin to receive the university’s highest honor, the Ulysses Medal. She says she hopes the planned synod will be “a process of real introspection and debate” but her expectations are not particularly high.

The synod is often described as focusing on the question of whether divorced-and-remarried Catholics — or, as the Church would call them, adulterers — are allowed to receive Communion. (Yes, this is really still a question.) But bishops remind Vatican-watchers that the synod is aimed at considering all kinds of issues related to Catholic marriage and family life across the world, including legalized polygamy in African nations, forced marriage in some eastern cultures, premarital cohabitation, same-sex marriage, and that familiar bugaboo, contraception.

Although Pope Francis is widely heralded as a pope for change, McAleese believes that “the odds of change are very poor” — probably not a controversial point of view among Friendly Atheist readers.

“You don’t need a new theology of women, you just need to end the old boys club,” she said.

Not that a new theology of women would hurt.

A Church, Seemingly Doubling as a PAC, Endorses a Republican Candidate. So Why Is It Still Tax-Exempt?

Last month, this full page ad appeared in The Mississippi Link, a Jackson-based newspaper aimed at an African-American audience:

It’s an ad supporting Republican Senator Thad Cochran (who ultimately didn’t earn enough votes to win his primary and will compete in a run-off election next Tuesday). But the curious part is that the ad was paid for by “All Citizens for Mississippi,” a political action committee (PAC).

Derek Willis of the New York Times investigated the group and discovered something incredibly shady:

The PAC appears to have been created and run by the New Horizon Church International. Jacqueline Vann, the PAC’s treasurer, is also the church’s chief financial officer.

Here’s the problem with all this. The IRS says that churches don’t have to pay taxes. In return, churches may not endorse any candidates — or they lose their tax-exempt status. That’s why events like Pulpit Freedom Sunday, when pastors are encouraged to endorse conservative candidates, are so controversial; they’re daring the IRS to come after them. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has already sued the IRS for not doing just that.

So if it’s true that a church is doubling as a PAC and endorsing a candidate, shouldn’t their tax-exemption be revoked? This seems about as cut-and-dried as these cases get.

If church resources were used by the PAC, that could be “potentially problematic” for the church, said Michael Toner, a partner at the Wiley Rein law firm and a former F.E.C. chairman. “The people who are associated with churches, you can be involved in politics, but need to do so in your personal capacity. That’s the dividing line: Is it in their personal capacity?”

While it’s possible and legal for the same individuals who lead the church to create their own PAC, the big question still outstanding is whether church funds were used to pay for the ad. If it turns out that was the case, this church is in big trouble.

Legality aside, if the leaders of FFRF or American Atheists did anything even remotely like this, Fox News Channel would devote non-stop coverage to it.

Is the IRS investigating this? Will they take action? We have yet to find out.

(Thanks to Scott for the link)

New Survey Shows More Than Half of Britain Has No Religion

This is pretty shocking information. I knew the religious trends in Britain were going in a non-religious direction for younger citizens, but I didn’t think “No Religion” would cross the 50% threshold so quickly for the whole population.

Yet, that’s what the 31st annual British Social Attitudes survey concluded in a report published yesterday:

A record low 41.7% of Brits labeled themselves some version of Christian.

The news comes on the same day Prime Minister David Cameron pulled an America and attended a National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast, where he maintained that Britain was a “Christian country.” (The survey, by the way, also showed that only 24% of British people believe being Christian is important to their national identity, which makes Cameron’s claim very dubious indeed.)

The British Humanist Association’s Chief Executive Andrew Copson was quick to point out the ramifications of the findings and how society should adapt:

… The truth of the matter is that we are a diverse society bringing together individuals and influences from Christian, other religious and non-religious backgrounds and that diversity is something that we should celebrate. Trying to label the whole nation with one religion fosters alienation and division.

It is time that the Government wakes up to the policy implications of this and stops giving bishops privileged places in the House of Lords, stops funding ever more religious schools and requiring every school that is not religious to have a daily act of Christian collective worship.

Religion is losing its power and faith leaders will do everything they can to hold onto it. Now, we just need more of those British “Nones” to speak out and hasten the demise of irrational/faith-based thinking.

Christian Student Gives Jesus-Lovin’ Graduation Speech After Claiming School Officials Tried to Censor Him

The law is pretty straightforward when it comes to prayers at public school graduations: You can’t have them. That means school officials can’t lead them (even if they’re sneaky about it). And student speakers can’t lead them, either. At least not with the knowledge of the administrators.

We’ve seen schools try to work around those guidelines by letting students vote to have a prayer (still illegal) or not screening students’ speeches beforehand (which is just asking for trouble).

At Brawley Union High School in California, the administrators screen the speeches — as they should. So when salutatorian Brooks Hamby (below) submitted a speech with the following line, the administrators correctly said no:

“Heavenly Father, in all times, let us always be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us.”

It’s the same response they would’ve (and should’ve) had if a student wrote, “Let’s remember that we worked hard to make it to this day… and Jesus Christ had nothing to do with it.”

So Hamby submitted another draft that included this setup for a prayer:

“Certain interpretations of the law, school policies and conditions have stifled my ability to speak freely to you this evening and prohibited me from doing otherwise,” he wrote. “However, if I could pray with you this evening, I would say something along these lines.”

School officials said no to that, too. As they had to if they wanted to avoid a lawsuit.

They went back and forth a couple more times — Hamby kept throwing in religious references — but the school made it very clear that Hamby could not pray during his speech. They even said they would cut his mic if he tried and then make an announcement to the crowd that Hamby’s views didn’t reflect that of the district.

(Serious questions: How did Hamby became salutatorian when he clearly didn’t pass a Government class? Is he blissfully unaware of the law or does he just not care?)

On graduation night, Hamby went ahead and recited a Christian speech anyway:

In coming before you today, I presented three drafts of my speech — all of them denied on the account of my desire to share my personal thoughts and inspiration to you in my Christian faith. In life, you will be told no. In life, you will be asked to do things that you have no desire to do. In life, you will be asked to do things that violate your conscience and desire to do what is right.

…

So I will leave you with this, with a quote from the biggest best-selling book of all time in history: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Be the salt of the earth, be strong and stand for your convictions and stand for what is right, what is ethical, what is moral and Godly, no matter what is the cost to you.

…

… May the God of the Bible bless you, each and every one of you, every day in the rest of your lives.

I’m not offended by that, by the way. I just think he’s arrogant.

But there’s your insight into Hamby’s character. He’s a student who doesn’t give a damn about his fellow classmates if they’re non-Christian. He thinks the school officials were oppressing him when they were just following the law (because they must have known they would lose money in the inevitable lawsuit if they green-lit the speech). He thinks it was a violation of his conscience to speak about his faith when, really, the same rule would’ve applied to anybody in his position.

(I guess Jesus didn’t love him enough, considering someone else was the valedictorian…)

As you can imagine, Todd Starnes, the Fox News writer who loves to make up stories about “religious discrimination,” was all over this:

Brooks is still coming to terms with the national attention generated by his thoughtful act of defiance. He told me that it’s important for Christians to take a stand.

“I would tell young Christians to be bold and always speak with gentleness and kindness, to leave the sweet taste of Christ in their mouths, allow them to want and search for more,” he said.

It’s truly stunning to think that in this progressive age of thought and reason, a young man like Brooks Hamby might be considered to be a dangerous religious radical whose voice must be silenced by agents of the government.

What Starnes and Hamby don’t understand is that there are times when it’s inappropriate to talk all about your personal beliefs regarding crispy, crunchy, delicious Jesus. When you’re at a public school function attended by students and their family members who aren’t all Christian, talking about how correct your faith is isn’t kind or gentle. It’s just a combination of ego and martyr-complex.

(Plus, you *know* the same crowd applauding Hamby would’ve lost their shit if anyone gave a speech about Islam or atheism.)

Just to be clear, what he did wasn’t courageous. Not even close. You don’t need to be brave to make references to Christianity when the majority of the audience already agrees with you.

It does, however, take maturity to realize that there are others out there who disagree with you — and a graduation ought to be a time to celebrate everyone’s accomplishments instead of opening up about your personal theological views.

Hamby may have a high GPA, but he lacks wisdom and empathy.

(Thanks to Larry for the link)