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Ireland to outlaw blasphemy

May 2, 2009 //

As if the situation in Ireland wasn’t bad enough, we are also now a global laughing stock. Thanks a lot, Dermot Ahern.

The idea of a blasphemy law is mindboggling in this day and age. Who decides what is “grossly abusive or insulting”? A simple drawing of a man’s face is enough to cause major offence in some sections of society, particularly if the two words “Prophet Mohammed” are written underneath it, so if this is the case, ANYTHING is fair game for a law outlawing blasphemy.

What might be art or fair comment to one person might be grossly insulting to another. If the offendee gets to decide, then all free expression is in danger. Let’s remember that some people find a woman’s bare legs an offense against their religious morality.

Because the law makes it an offence to disparage any religion we could be back to book banning in this country again very soon. Up to the 1960’s, the government of Ireland zealously prohibited a wide range of publications in order to protect Catholic Ireland from mortal sin. This new bill is potentially more wide-ranging as it applies to every religion, and it impinges on all forms of expression: film, podcast, music, canvas, you name it.

Any group, including the Raelians and the Church of Scientology will be entitled to call in the lawyers if this bill is passed. Think about it: we are at risk of being sued if we were to scoff at the idea that humans are descended from inhabitants of the planet Venus..

Most religious beliefs come from a time when we knew much less about the world than we do now. Religious beliefs are often highly discriminatory, they are sometimes dangerous and they present a distorted view of reality that often contradicts the available scientific evidence. To my mind, the most serious claim against religions is that they block critical thinking, which is the main purpose of a good education. Our government seriously wants to protect this state of affairs?

So, in the spirit of Mr Ahern’s bill, I would like to propose 3 things to be outlawed forthwith.

1) Father Ted. Did Fr. Dougal not say some awful things about God? In fact, wasn’t the whole series not a piss-take on Catholic Ireland?

2) The Life of Brian. Worshipping sandals, singing while crucified, saying “Jehovah”. We’ve been there before, I seem to remember. It wasn’t very bright then, and it isn’t very bright now either.

3) Tommy Tiernan has been saying awful things about religion for years. Actually, while you are at it, lock all of those bloody comedians up. They are always making jokes about religion…

Ahern and his cabal would do well to realise that this is 2009, not 1979. If this is the standard of thinking in operation by the government, they need to leave office forthwith, lest they embarrass themselves even more.

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Categories opinions

The case for humanism

March 1, 2009 //

humanism.png

When you are admitted into hospital in Ireland, one of the first questions you are asked is your religion. The main reason, apparently, is because if you don’t manage to clock out when your stay is over, they want to be able to contact the right cleric to look after your affairs.

This bothers me. First of all, it is assumed that all residents of Ireland must have a religion. The mere idea of people walking around with no religious belief whatsoever seems to be anathema to our public services. It’s as if we ,who profess no religion, are somehow lying and that deep down we believe in a god, but that we are suppressing it. This is not a good assumption. We do not believe because there is no evidence, and plenty of contradictory evidence, despite what some people would have would have us believe. We liken belief in God with belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.  Nobody would ever be accused of living their lives in secret denial of the Tooth Fairy, would they?

Second of all, for many non-religious people in Ireland, religion is something that we have struggled for many years to free ourselves from. Some people have painful memories from the past, others wish to undo the indoctrination of our early youth, and many of us shake our heads at the great reverence and respect shown in our society to what we see as gross irrationality. Why then are we expected to give in to religion when the final paragraphs of our lives are being written? Surely hypocrisy has no part to play in the most serious and honest moment in a person’s life?

Finally, it presents an unfortunate challenge at an unfortunate time for many non-religious people. A purely secular sending off is not open to us, as it is with people who subscribe to a particular creed. If we want to express our dissent from the consensus, then we are obliged to organize these affairs ourselves. Given the fact that there are so many of us nowadays, this is a situation that needs changing.

Organisations such as the Humanist Association of Ireland exist to provide assistance to people during major life occasions. They officiate at births and weddings and other secular ceremonies. They counsel people in their last moments and work with families and friends prior to, during and after death. However, humanist counsellors and chaplains are few and far between, particularly in the city where I live. The only non-religious funeral I have ever attended was a lonely, amateurish and sad affair that cannot have been easy on the spouse of the man who had passed away. Surely singing and poetry and prose; the hug, the handshake and the kind word, is not the sole preserve of the priest and pastor?

Irish society is growing up, so there should be more humanist options available to us to help us celebrate the major stages of our lives. It should be possible to celebrate the big moments properly – the joys, the hopes and the sadness – without the mumbo-jumbo. The non religious – the agnostics, the atheists, the secularists and free-thinkers amongst us – are as entitled to our public moments of elation, contemplation and bitter grief as anyone else. These moments should be facilitated by trained men or women who can ease the pain, organise the occasion and add to the memories.

It is something I would like to explore further.

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Categories opinions

Let's have some Academic Freedom around here!

January 28, 2009 //

The creationists are right. We need academic freedom. We can’t just have one view, pounded into us by those pesky scientists. Schools and universities must be forced should be allowed to teach alternative views to their students side by side with science. That’s what education is for, isn’t it? We need Academic Freedom in our schools and we need it NOW!

Here are the principal areas that our educators need to focus on right away:

1) The Earth is Flat. When I go outside the door, it’s flat. Even when I climb a mountain (and I did that once) it still looks flat. Even when I go on a plane, (and I’ve done that too), it’s flat. So the earth being flat is a legitimate scientific view and must be taught in science classes alongside the (rolls-eyes) “oblate spheroid” dogma.

2) The Moon, the Sun and all the stars revolve around the Earth. Well, they do, don’t they? All rising in the east and setting in the west just like they are meant to by God. This Copernican stuff doesn’t wash with me, it didn’t wash with countless popes until 1992, and it shouldn’t wash with you either. So let’s teach the controversy and make sure that those Galileans are knocked back in their corner.

3) If waves need water to pass through to splash on us, then there must be a similar medium in which light passes through in space! It’s called Aether and it deserves a shot. Better than that weird quantum electrodynamic stuff (and far more understandable too, IMHO). Down with Quantum Mechanics! BOO! Up with Aether!

4) Now the “scientists” are always drumming up silly ideas like atoms and molecules when there was a perfectly legitimate theory in place before this new fashioned stuff came into play. It was called Phlogiston Theory. A cool name, eh? Every time you burn something, Phlogiston is released! When you burn an every day object: a match or a heretic perhaps, the weight afterwards is less than the weight before, and the difference is Phlogiston. Academic Freedom dictates that we see Phlogiston get equal treatment to chemistry. 

5) Of course medical doctors are always going on and on about saving people with antibiotics and vaccines and using approaches involving “studies” and “evidence” to find a cure, when there are lots and lots of alternative theories with the great advantage that you don’t need to perform any proper studies at all! Much cheaper, no need to learn tough mathematics like statistics and many of them feel nice and tingly. All you need to do with your chosen therapy is to believe that it will work. If it doesn’t, there are lots more to choose from. We have therapies that give dilute water magical healing properties, that control the flow of chi in your body and that shield us from toxins that cause imbalances. Some of the theories conflict with each other completely but hey, you can choose what theory suits you best! All you need is a big wallet and a mind unbridled by critical oversight. 

So let’s put science in it’s place for once and for all! Let’s ensure that every half-baked hypothesis we have ever dreamt up has legitimate pride of place beside scientific views in our schools and colleges. Just because a theory has “weighty evidence” and “a solid scientific consensus” around it, just because it been tested a million times and has never been disproved, doesn’t mean it should be treated any more seriously than its rivals no matter how off-beat and nonsensical they are. So, let’s take a moment and celebrate the great wonder of ignorance. It beats reality anytime.

(Inspired by this article)

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Categories opinions, science

So long, Dr. Strangelove

January 22, 2009 //

Cheney passes into history

I was originally going to post a snarky message comparing the ex-VP to Peter Seller’s comic creation, but then I saw this photo and realised that what I was trying to do wasn’t really that funny.  What I see instead is pathetic and rather sad.

Here is a man whom history has already judged. Over the coming years, as the threat of censure fades, as the files documenting the Bush Presidency get released, the judgement of future generations is destined to get much, much harsher.

For Dick Cheney, there will be no kind epitaphs. No entry into the pantheon of the American Greats. No statues or streets named after him outside of his home state. Merely whispers, rumours and that background radiation of anger that accompanies the memory of someone who did so much to spread misery and resentment during his time in the limelight.

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Categories opinions, politics

He can't do everything

January 21, 2009 //
via OpenCongress.org

via OpenCongress.org

 

Some time ago, our CEO, a well known and incredibly successful and charismatic man, addressed his employees via a video link to talk about how the company was doing overall. He talked about the future, and the successes of the past. I was struck by a common theme throughout his talk. He declared, on a number of occasions what we were not involved in, what we not prepared to do, what wasn’t of interest to us as a company, what wasn’t yet a mature market.

Not, no, never, can’t, shouldn’t, won’t.

That is strategy:  the realisation that you can’t do everything, that you have limited resources and limited time, and that you are much better off doing some things very well rather than doing everything poorly.  

So, when I was listening to President Obama’s inspirational inauguration speech yesterday I was struck by the level of expectation heaped upon his shoulders, and what he expects his government will be able to achieve in the next 4 plus years. I couldn’t help wonder about the depths of the problems facing him. Iraq. Afghanistan. Al Qaeda. Global Warming. Financial Meltdown. Liquidity. Unemployment. Homelessness. Inadequate healthcare. A crumbling infrastructure. An educational deficit. Peak Oil. The restoration of international law and America’s moral standing in the world.

Where do you start? 

However he does it, he will need to pick his battles wisely, because he and his administration will not be able to do it all. He can’t do everything. Maybe all we can expect, at least in the short term, is that he is judicious in sowing the seeds of change.

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Categories events, opinions, politics

My shame

January 13, 2009 //

My shame is that I don’t get sufficiently outraged by pictures such as this.

Or this.

gaza-children-3

I am ashamed that my typical reaction is that that it’s all very complicated really, that the other side have their reasons, and that the aggressors were probably forced into it.

I see democratic countries – free countries – countries that could and should be providing leadership by example, lowering themselves to the tactics of their enemies, and I shrug my shoulders. I am ashamed that over time I have become morally neutral about such things.

But I look at the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and even though I know it’s more complicated than this, and even though I appreciate that the other side are far from blameless, and even though I recognise the anger and frustration on the other side, and that there is a strategic logic in play, I can’t help feeling that the bombardment is nevertheless utterly wrong.

When a government bombs mainly innocent civilians, when they show scant regard for the lives of small children and when they don’t give the inhabitants of Gaza the opportunity to flee the fighting, when we see phosphorous devices being used in urban areas, then lets call a spade a spade, we’re witnessing war crimes.

To all those men and women who are prepared to stand up on the side of human rights, I salute you.

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Categories events, opinions

Reflecting on the boom years

January 3, 2009 //

Over the last few weeks I have been reflecting on the dramatic end to the Irish boom years. The papers and radio programs can talk about little else these days. It seemed to me that we Irish lost control of ourselves, embarking on a no-holds barred journey of utter hedonism and a devil-may-care financial splurge of epic proportions.

And yes, there were excesses. I remember once meeting the wife of a builder in Co. Clare, who told me that she changed houses every 2 years. At the time, they were both living in a 4,000 square-foot pad, and they would probably build a bigger one as soon as she got bored with it.

In a more general vein, there was the epic investment in foreign properties and towering office blocks; the multiple holidays per year to far flung locations such as Mauritius and the Seychelles; the arms races between neighbours and the ubiquity of stretch limos ferrying debutantes and first holy communicants to their dates with destiny.

But despite all this, the boom years were good years: a chance to forget the day to day struggles and to approach that stage of self actualisation heralded by Maslow. Many people were permitted to set up new businesses in a wide variety of fields, from coffee shops to tree surgery to exotic footwear. The quality of everything – food, clothes, furnishings – jumped dramatically. People were better able to provide for their families and to enjoy meals and outings with their friends. Services were set up to help people to improve the quality of their lives. People could indulge themselves in their hobbies and interests. Many people worked harder than they had ever worked in their lives, fanning the flames of an entrepreneurial ethic within Irish society. For a short few years, the wolf was no longer at the door, and it felt good.

So screw it. Let’s not regret the boom years. Let’s figure out how to get ourselves back to such times as quickly as possible so that we, our families and the less fortunate in society can benefit from a bit more cash in our pockets.

As Spike Milligan once said, “money can’t buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasent form of misery”.

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Categories Ireland, opinions, thinking

Ireland: How to turn a Crisis into a Disaster

October 25, 2008 //

It’s not such big news considering the global situation, but Ireland’s fabled “Celtic Tiger” got shot a few months ago. Shot, gutted, skinned, skewered and then roasted. Like an express train travelling at 200kph towards a half-finished bridge, everyone saw it coming, but few dared to scream halt. The whole country was complicit in an unprecedented property scam. Ireland, for a while, became the land of the golden SUV. People were taking four holidays a year. You were measured by the size of your kitchen extension.

And all this time, the government was rolling it in. Larging it up. The cash was there from increased taxes and almost full-employment, so why not give this nation of habitual complainers the services they always wanted? Every spare penny was spent on cushioning: padding out the public services, propping up the salaries, silencing discontent with cash. Nobody complained. How could they? Nobody, after all, likes a party pooper. 

But then, in 2007, the property market crashed. Crash. Bang. Wallop. Thud. Every month since then, less and less money has flowed in as waves of construction workers and their dependents find themselves out of a job. The Irish Government, with no money stored away for a rainy day, is now broke. Officially, indisputably, skint.

And yet, the public expectation is that the Celtic Tiger services stay exactly the same. That’s the public for you and who can blame it? You fight hard to get your privileges, and damned if you are not going to put up a fight if someone tries to take them away. 

You would think, in a situation such as we find ourselves in today, that the political classes might get together to figure out what needs to be done. All the parties – government, opposition, everyone. Get the best administrators, the most capable leaders, the most innovative thinkers, and put together a plan that hurts like hell, but eventually gets the country out of the mess it now finds itself in. 

Instead, what we find is political point-scoring on a massive scale. The entire opposition has decided that siding with the populace is the way to go. That sympathising with Mr and Mrs Murphy on Leitrim St is going to solve the countries problems. That blame is better than solution finding. That it is better to seize the opportunity now to get elected than to be constructive and engaged in solving this overwhelmingly bad situation. 

Well, oppositiony politiciany folks – we need your rampant opportunism now like a chasm in the head. Unless you start telling us how you are going to solve the political crisis by making deep, painful cuts in public expenditure or increasing taxes, could I ask you to fuck off and leave the professionals to it?

There. Rant over.

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Categories Ireland, opinions, politics

Ideas without walls

October 19, 2008 //

We live in a world where many people (lawyers, mainly) are gainfully employed in the business of protecting ideas and the distribution of ideas around the world. These protections, mainly trademarks, copyrights and patents, form a huge body of law known as Intellectual Property or IP. The concept is that if you come up with an idea, you can protect it from rivals, thereby giving you a chance to profit from it. Protecting your idea means that you can recoup the (often sizable) investment that you might spend on bringing that idea to fruition. Without IP, the fear is that others would steal your great ideas without putting in the hard work and you would think twice about coming up with an idea ever again. Innovation would be stifled and progress as we know it would come to a grinding halt. 

Such fear is often a load of bollocks.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the contrary argument is in fact the case. IP often does more to strangle innovation than it does to protect it, and in a world where everyone is talking about innovation as the key ingredient of success in the 21st Century, that’s a problem.  

Silicon Valley is probably a case in point: although there are plenty of lawyers making a tidy sum from IP issues around the Bay Area, nevertheless it’s acknowledged that protecting ideas is not that big of a deal. You join another company with my ideas today, I hire you back with their ideas tomorrow . That’s pretty much the way it goes. Things move far too fast to be worrying about court cases. The Valley’s success, it has been argued, is precisely because there is much freer movement of ideas there than elsewhere in the world.

There are now companies that exist purely to buy and hoard patents: this is a complete abuse of patent law and hugely damaging to companies that want to try new things. Patent law is so often the last refuge of the uncompetitive.

Copyright, in the digital world, is a nonsense. Digital products copy themselves easily. That’s their nature. That’s what they do. Attempts to limit this ability piss off customers and positively entice people to pursue alternatives. Even when ideas and products are shared freely it is still possible to make money. Just ask Google.

Even the world “Intellectual Property” is a bit of a misnomer in the digital world. Property implies zero sum: if I have it, you don’t. It implies constrained supply – there’s only so much to go around. But the “problem” with digital (and with ideas, generally) is that it’s unconstrained. It’s infinite. You can have as much of it as you wish, with no fears that it will run out any time soon. I give you one, I still have mine. That’s the beauty of ideas.

Today’s IP situation is a lot like the world before free trade, when countries used to impose stringent tariffs on imports to protect their native industries. Unfortunately, however, such logic hampered trade and kept people poor (because tariffs worked in reverse). It was only when protectionism was eliminated within market blocs that economies began thrive.

Reducing or even eliminating IP in certain areas would have a similar, if not even greater effect on competition and innovation. I foresee a time when IP in its current form will be dead and people will shake their heads at the lunacy and lack of vision in our era. Hopefully I’ll still be around to see it happen.

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Categories opinions

Am I overreacting?

July 9, 2008 //

A local evangelical minister slipped a message in the door today, announcing that there would be a kiddies’ show in the green by the house next week, while I’m out at work. Games, fun and bible stories for all the family. This kind of stuff makes my blood boil.

I’m not easily upset by many things, so I’m trying to understand why this stuff is such an affront to me.

1) It feels dishonest that people would dress up good ol’ bible-bashing with games and parties. Really what they want to do is to convert kids to their thinking when they are young and impressionable, so the whole fun and games thing is merely a device – a cloak – to enable them to reach out to children. To me, that’s just grubby.

2) There is a respect problem here. Surely parents should decide what is acceptable for their children, and what beliefs their children should have? This is a naked attempt to gain influence when none is invited.

3) There seems to be a pushiness about evangelicalism that requires them to go out and convert others to their ways. This only puts people’s back up, not because “Satan” is trying to lead us in another direction, but because we are entitled to our own personal views being considered and appreciated. Maybe “we” are right and “they” are wrong, but it’s not something that seems to be considered by them. They give the impression of talking, but not listening.

4) Evangelicanism feeds on human frailties and vulnerabilities. The tactic seems to be to catch people at a low ebb in their life, or to catch people who are too trusting for their own good. To me, this just feels wrong. Similar tactics have been used in other parts of the world by other ideologies, with sometimes devastating results. It’s so much about emotion, and less so about logic and reason.

Finally, (and possibly most importantly)…

5) Anyone with a modicum of scientific understanding of the world would realise that Evangelicalism is based on utterly false premises. Something is very wrong with a world-view that repudiates evolution and believes in a 6,000 year old Earth, the creation of the world in literally 6 days, the absolute inerrancy of the bible, the division of humanity into sinners and saved, and this utopian idea that all will be well if we follow the Bible. It’s a view that belongs in the Dark Ages, and yet it’s a view that is gaining currency in the supposedly enlightened developed world. It deserves to be lumped into the same bucket as astrology, crystals, faith-healing and soothsaying should be.

I guess those are the main reasons I feel annoyed about this. Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe I’m off base in some of my criticisms, but I do genuinely feel, given the complexities of this world and the challenges that we face, that all we need are people throwing religion into our face and telling us that all will be ok if we submit to the Law of Jesus Christ.

Please, blog to your heart’s content on the Internet, minister as you wish to your congregations, do good things for charity, pray to your god in whatever way you wish. But keep our kids out of it.

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Categories Ireland, opinions
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