Fear Society

I tend to become upset, even depressed at times by the propensity of leaders worldwide to rule by instilling abject fear in their respective populaces. Cases in point being AIDS, that huge osamabogeyman TERRORISM and illnesses such as Avian Influenza, SARS and the current mindscrewup SWINEFLU. All could so easily have been handled with a degree of honesty that did not necessitate making the populace have difficulty sleerping.

The meeter-greeter-teacher in this photograph is supposed to be standing on the school steps, welcoming the children with a polite "Wai" and ensuring all is well for the start of the school day. Instead, as you can see, she is standing as far as she can from the path they will take and wearing not one, but three masks to protect her from the current nightmare. I have no idea how she copes in the classroom. (This photograph was taken a couple of weeks ago.)

This afternoon, on the way to school, I noticed a helmetless lady riding a motorcycle, talking on the phone and wearing a mask. She obviously thought this dire disease is more dangerous than the prospect of her head contacting the road or roadside furniture in the case of a crash. (I wanted to photograph her, but decided safety was more important while driving.)

No sooner had I passed her than I noticed another similarly masked helmetless couple on a bike. During the 15 or so Kilometers to school, I counted thirteen motorcycles, each with one or more, presumably concrete-cranium-cretins in dire terror, masked in prophylaxis against contracting bacon disease.

If the powers can instill abject fear in their masses about such a relatively mild, (for most sufferers,) illness, why can they not make these people understand that skulls are softer than stone?

Dear America

Dear America

You like to refer to yourselves as a Christian nation, the greatest Christian nation on the planet.

You refer to yourselves as “One nation under God.”

When did you take up with the Devil? Why are you following Evil’s best practices instead of those taught by Jesus, your Saviour and great teacher?

In recent months and years you have shown yourselves to be true Satan’s spawn in so very many ways.

Where did your Saviour teach you to cause harm to others? Was his word not as: “Matthew 19:16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

He taught you to “love thy neighbour as thyself.” Do you do this?

Where did your Saviour teach you to seek vengeance for yourselves? To the best of my knowledge, all His teachings were of peace, love and forgiveness. Does your holy book not teach: “Romans 12:19: Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Furthermore, if you are harmed, did he not teach in Matthew 5:39 “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Does that mean you must seek vengeance?

The Lord your God claims vengeance for Himself. Are you not doing the Devil’s work when you seek to take this from him?

You have many thousand people who did harm incarcerated in your prisons. Are they there for the protection of your society, or are you taking God’s teachings in vain and following the Devil by seeking your own vengeance.

What of those you put to death. Where does the Lord your Saviour teach you it is right and proper to take the life of another? Surely He taught: “Matthew 19: 18 Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder.” Why then are so very many awaiting their own sanctioned murder on death row.

There is one dying man in prison in Scotland. He performed an admittedly evil deed. What do you think the Devil wants you to do? What about your Saviour? Who would prefer you to show kindness or forgiveness and allow him to return to his home to die in the arms of his loving family? Which of the two is gleefully witnessing the hard-hearted screams for continuing vengeance?

America – Throw out the Devil. Forgive your transgressors. Incarcerate those who pose a danger to your society but help the others. Seek no vengeance. Leave that to the judgement of your God. Prove to yourselves and all that you are truly “One Nation Under God,” and all will look up to and respect you again.

Religion:

Religion:

A good definition is as follows - Noun. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.

The most important parts of the definition of “Religion” are the words Belief: Noun. 1. Any cognitive content held as true or 2. A vague idea in which some confidence is placed. and Supernatural: Adjective. Not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws; not physical or material.

Thus Religion is the process of placing a strong confidence in a vague cognitive idea that a power, not physical or material, that does not exist in nature, nor comply with the laws of the universe, is controlling a person’s destiny.

Hmmmmmm!

I have been asked, on several occasions, to explain my own religious beliefs. This normally occurs when I have been debunking fundamentalist Christian, Islamic, Jewish or other myths to their, frequently psychotic, adherents. A case of, “I’ve shown you mine, you must show me yours.” My companion at the time objects to my “attacking” their base superstitions if they do not know mine to attack in exchange.

Firstly and most importantly, according to the definition of Religion as above, I do not follow any although if I did, I would most probably chose the Bahá'í Faith as the most honest and logical of the religions practiced today.

In all probability, there is no airy-fairy supernatural being. There is no evidence for the existence of one and no logical reason why there should be one. The Bible is a collection of myths, legends and stories, the product of overactive imagination and, frequently, strong vested interest; altered almost beyond recognition by further vested interests over the millennia and more since it was originally penned.

Einstein explained the truth most succinctly in a couple of letters he wrote in 1954, the year before his death:

• This first, open-letter was written to those who falsely attributed religious and creationist beliefs to him: “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

This next abridgement of the letter to Eric Gutkind from Albert Einstein at Princeton in January 1954, (translated from German by Joan Stambaugh) is particularly telling regarding his beliefs, his thoughts on the Bible and Judaism. It was sold at Bloomsbury auctions in May 2008 for a record sum for a single Einstein letter of £404,000. Professor Richard Dawkins was one of the bidders who failed to purchase it:

· “... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. . . For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.”

I personally regard the modern-day Abrahamic religions as evil, using base fears and superstitions designed by a ruling elite to instil fear in the masses as a method of control. In this group of evil movements, I include not only the purported monotheistic, Abrahamic triad of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but also non-theistic religions such as Stalinism, Maoism and personality cults such as those practiced in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Jonestown and even Thailand. There is so little difference between these religions and cults that I am sure an alien, coming from another galaxy, would be hard pressed to tell them apart. They are just different faeces on the same die.

Let us go back to basics to try to discover the natural, logical truth behind the mumbo jumbo, mythology and ceremony surrounding the modern versions of the religions practiced today.

All modern religions either started either as the result of the teachings of a leader, or they were distilled from stories and legends, handed down from their original adherents, from their history and that of people they came in contact with. Hinduism is a classic example of a religion derived from myth, as is Judaism, which was distilled from the beliefs of the ancient Cretan conquerors and civilizers of the Hebrew peoples, with input from teachings that originated in Persia, the Indian subcontinent and further afield. Hinduism is falsely regarded as a polytheistic religion when in actuality all the “gods” are simply different incarnations or avatars of the same being, making it maybe the first monotheistic religion.

Christianity and Islam were both founded by teachers who altered the Judaic and Zoroastrian myths to their own purposes, (mostly with good intent). Buddhism was also started by a teacher, although true Buddhism makes no claim for any supernatural power, so it can not strictly be called a religion. Zoroaster (founder of Zoroastrianism), Siddhārtha Gautama (The Buddha), Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji (founder of Sikhism), Lord Rishabha (founder of Jainism), Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Nuri (founder of the Bahá'í Faith), Mohammed Christ and other exceptional teachers were all entirely natural, fully mortal human beings. They existed in nature and complied fully with all her laws. All supernatural claims, if any, made for any of them were made by followers, frequently centuries, even more than a millennium after they died. There is strong evidence that all these leaders lived and taught, however none of the claims of supernatural events or miracles attributed to any of these teachers have any contemporaneous historical evidence of any kind, despite the evidence of their existence. This leads to the logical certainty that they were each exceptional, albeit normal, mortal teachers most of whose lessons and life stories have unfortunately been edited, altered and bastardised by multiple generations of highly vested interests. Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Nuri and the Bahá'í Faith being a notable exception because he and the other leaders of this young faith distilled the most important teachings from other religions to build a teaching based on peace, compassion, understanding and the “Golden Rule.”

Most religions, particularly the Abrahamic triad, serve two main purposes in society.

1. They tell people how to live their lives and have a risk/reward system, the reward often being promised for some time after death. (Control.)
2. They separate believers in society from non-believers.

Senior members of a religious society promote a culture of fear, which can only be alleviated in part by unquestioning acceptance of their authority. They bind a people together in a multitude of ways and “protect” them from “unbelievers”, keeping them at a safe distance. These unbelievers may be those of a different race, tribe, caste, class or even gender or sexual persuasion. Note the many religious prohibitions against adherents of one faith taking a spouse from a different one. Some who dare flout such a prohibition are likely to be killed, often with extreme brutality, even in the current new millennium.

If we throw aside the fear, superstition, mumbo jumbo and childish stories that hold most religions together, we need to begin with a clean slate and offer a true alternative, serving a similar, but more humane, purpose in our modern society. Our new way of living and teachings should:

1. Be based on logical, repeatable scientifically provable evidence.
2. Help people to lead happy, productive lives, allowing moral and intellectual enrichment motivated by concern for the alleviation of suffering.
3. Remove their fears, including that of death, without replacing them with deceit, false hopes or sham promises.

Let us take these in order:

The first is easy. We need to teach our society to question what they are told. Any individual beliefs they may have must be based on evidence. Frequently evidence means an observable fact, something you can actually see (or hear, feel, smell, taste etc... ) that something is true. Other types of evidence fit the description that they are the only or by far the most likely logical explanation for something. Examples would be evolutionary theory or the theory of relativity. All the observable facts fit and give veracity to the theories. If later observations using your equipment, your hearing, sense of touch, smell, taste etc show the theory to be wrong, then the theory will be reworked to account for them. This is scientific method and it explains the world we live in. No facts should ever be altered or ignored to fit a pre-existing theory or belief system, as they are so frequently today by those who chose to follow illogical religious teachings.

We must take no account of teachings based on tradition, authority, or revelation, the three evil cornerstones of religious belief systems.

• “Tradition” means beliefs handed down through the generations or from books handed down through the centuries. Most of these beliefs start because somebody just made them up, normally to gain some kind of advantage over others or to explain some observable fact that they found inexplicable at the time. Santa Clause, monster under the bed, tooth fairy, sun god, god of thunder, even the Abrahamic god all fall under these traditional belief systems. Do not believe something just because it is in a book or tabloid newspaper. Look for provable evidence.
• “Authority” means believing a story simply because you are told to believe it by somebody more important or knowledgeable than you consider yourself to be. That person could be somebody older than you, a teacher, a parent, a man with a big gun, or a religious leader. For them to use only their authority to try to make you believe something is truly evil. They must provide access to provable, reproducible evidence. Some claim that scientific texts are simply an aspect of “Authority” teaching, but this is not the case because you can use the texts as a basis to prove the truth of what is written. I can tell you here that light speed is approximately 298,000 Kilometres per second and you could easily find out how to prove that experimentally. However, if I tell you that a man can walk on water, you could never reproduce it without trickery, illusion or thick ice.
• “Revelation” means that somebody claims something to be true simply because they thought it to be so themselves. They sat and prayed, or meditated or dreamed or had a hallucination because they ate some bad grain or fungus or nasty drugs and this idea came to them that they want everybody else to believe. Alternatively, they felt left out of their society and made something up to make themselves feel important. You see people like this all the time. There were thousands waiting for the start of the year 2,000, claiming God had told them the world was going to end. (As far as I know, the evidence would seem to prove it is still here as I type this.) Another example of a “Revelation” can be seen at Lourdes in France and other “miracle” sites. Millions of people go there hoping against hope to be cured of their ills, but it never happens. The only claimed cures are far more likely to be pure chance or to have entirely natural explanations. “Revelations”; do not believe them whether they are yours or anybody else’s. They are mostly just the symptom of a mind temporarily short circuited.

Secondly we must help people to lead happy, productive lives, allowing moral and intellectual enrichment motivated by concern for the alleviation of suffering. This is also not too hard if we have already accepted the first part, that all teachings must be based on logical, repeatable scientifically provable evidence.

In this regard, the “Golden Rule”, slightly rephrased and taken back to an earlier version here, is all important: “Each person should love their fellow beings as a mother loves her children.” Or phrased in a more recognisable manner: “What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others.” In this simple but profound rule can be found the true meaning of good, the basis for most of the philosophy by which we should all strive to live our lives. In contrast, the absence of the Golden Rule is the very epitome of devil, when people commit acts on others they would never like to be committed on themselves.

Good and devil are both alive and well and fighting a constant battle in our hearts and minds. Some truly good people naturally follow the “Golden Rule”, unfortunately other devil members of society prefer to totally ignore it and always follow the opposite course of action, cause pain or suffering where they can. Most of us are caught in between the two.

Devil pokes us in the ribs and persuades us to be selfish, lie or cheat or steal, he promises so much happiness, wealth or power but always, eventually leaves us or another with a bitter pill to swallow and a nasty taste to go with it. Good, on the other hand, keeps us awake at night if we have done something wrong, but he also rewards us with a feeling of absolute joy and happiness if we do something truly good and selfless. This can all be proven by simple experiment. If you dry a child’s tears or return lost or stolen property, you will always feel good about it. If, on the other hand, you cheat an old lady or knock her over, you will be guaranteed to stay awake at night or feel unhappy because of it. Unless, of course, you choose to mostly follow devil’s ways.

So, to recap number two: It is necessary to follow the “Golden Rule” and to base all our teachings on logical, provable, scientific evidence.

Lastly, we must fears, including that of death, without replacing them with deceit, false hopes or sham promises. If our teachings are based on logical, provable, scientific evidence, there will be no deceit, false hopes or sham promises and the only real remaining fear will concern the unknown, death or the afterlife. All others can be overcome by simple honesty.

Fear of what happens at the end of life is more difficult. It is after all “After our Life” and nobody has ever passed through and returned to tell the tale. However we each have a spark of consciousness within us that is not extinguished, indeed it returns to us after we sleep or enter alternative states of unconsciousness caused by accident, (coma,) or medication such as anaesthesia etc. There is a logical probability that this spark could well continue after our mortal remains have been cremated or rotted away as food for worms. If this spark is indeed reborn in a different body, as some believe, we could have no evidence of it. Memory is, after all, a function of the neural networks of the brain we left behind in our past corpse. We simply do not know, and can never do so. So there is really no point in worrying about it. At the end of our days we will simply go for a long, comfortable sleep from which we will not awaken in the same shell. This is something to look forward too, not fear.

As I wrote above, I feel a great affinity for the Bahá'í Faith. Their teachings of peace, harmony, the unity and equality of humankind are entirely logical except for their belief in a supernatural being, although their belief that God, if there is one, is too great for human comprehension, has its merits too.

Einstein, Spam & Religion.

A deeply troubled, evangelical friend recently forwarded me a chain email purportedly quoting a confrontation between an un-named atheist professor and a deeply religious student by the name of Albert Einstein. In this confrontation Einstein was reported to have dumbfounded his professor with his logic and essentially proven the existence of god.
The story was untrue. Einstein never engaged in such a conversation. Indeed, Einstein is reported to have become deeply disillusioned with both the teachings of his Jewish background and the Catholic schools he attended before he reached his teens.
Throughout most of his life he was very circumspect about his views, not wanting to antagonize either the believing or non believing camps. However in 1954, a year before his death, he wrote a couple of letters that make his beliefs plain:
In an open letter to those who claimed he worshipped a Judeo/Christian God he wrote:"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

The following abridgement of the letter to Eric Gutkind from Princeton in January 1954, (translated from German by Joan Stambaugh) is particularly telling. It was sold at Bloomsbury auctions in May 2008 for $404,000, a record sum for a single Einstein letter. Professor Richard Dawkins was one of the bidders who failed to purchase it:

"... I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me. What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common.

... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, ie in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and 'rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things. With friendly thanks and best wishes

Yours, A. Einstein"

Learn Without Fear

I felt this should be blogged, as well as forwarded:

I have children, know children of friends and have friends who themselves have suffered abuse, bullying and corporal punishment at school despite such being illegal throughout much of the modern world. This needs to stop.

No child should be afraid to attend school because of the threat of sexual abuse, corporal punishment, or bullying. But every year 350 million children face violence in schools – and with devastating effects. Please help us achieve violence-free schools by signing our petition urging the United Nations to encourage every country to take immediate action so that every child has the right to Learn Without Fear.

The wording of the petition to the United Nations is as follows:

I believe that every child has the right to attend school without the fear of violence. But right now children around the world face sexual abuse, corporal punishment, and bullying in their schools each day. We must put a stop to this cycle of violence against children and make schools safe places where they can learn without fear.

I urge the United Nations to help end all forms of violence in schools by encouraging every country to:

• Work with non-governmental organizations and governments to establish data-collection systems so we can better understand the severity of violence in schools;
  
• Work with teachers and education authorities to develop and implement plans of action for achieving violence-free schools; and
  
• Establish a procedure for children to report violent incidents.
  
  

Please declare that the United Nations supports the right of every child to attend school without the fear of violence.

Please go here to view the a short video, "Learn Without Fear," and sign the petition.

http://www.planusa.org/learnwithoutfear/takeaction.php?tp=VE1HUj0xLHRpZD0xMDA3MDQ1LA%3D%3D

Thank you

What can parents use in the battle against religious indoctrination?

"Daddy, why did Jesus invent butterflies if they die after two weeks?"

I just about hit the panic button when my six-year-old son Theo put this question to me not long ago. His mother, who is a Christian, had taught him that Jesus was God. When Jesus's visage appears in a painting or on television, Theo sometimes exclaims, "That's God!" In his butterfly question he seemed to reason, syllogistically, that if Jesus was God, and God created the world and its life forms (butterflies being one of them), Jesus "invented" the winged creatures. Either that or God and Jesus are simply interchangeable in his mind.

"First, Theo, your question presumes that Jesus was God," I responded. "Many people, like mommy, believe he was, but many others don't. It also presumes that there is a God - we don't know for sure that there is." "I think there is," he retorted. "There may very well be a God, Theo. But not everyone agrees on that - there are many people who doubt there is a God. We might never know for sure if there is or not," I told him. "When we die we'll know," he came back. "Maybe," I said. "But maybe not."

The literalism packed into Theo's question alarmed me, but this was by no means my first encounter with the influence of religion on my progeny. My ten-year-old son Elijah enjoys going to church with his mother - not every Sunday, but not infrequently. I've never discouraged it. One Monday morning a few months ago, though, I saw him reading the Bible, a children's Bible he'd been given at his mother's church. In no way did I discourage him from reading it. But I confess (as it were) that I went to work that day a bit preoccupied.

To be sure, I'd always been comfortable with our familial arrangement: our boys have parents with very different views on religion - their mother a Catholic, their father an agnostic humanist. This is only one of the several ways in which our family is "mixed": Nilsa is from Puerto Rico, I from the Midwestern US; she grew up in a working-class family in the countryside, I in a middle-class one in the suburbs; she speaks to the children in Spanish, I in English. Our differences regarding religion must therefore seem, to the kids, par for the course, no?

I've also sensed (hoped?) that having one religious parent and one secular one could be healthy for the boys ("hmm, if mom believes x but dad doesn't, I guess there are multiple perspectives to consider, and who knows which one is right? Maybe none has a monopoly on truth...").

Nonetheless, the sight of Elijah reading the Bible that morning did leave me with an uneasy feeling. Of course it was wonderful to see him reading. And the Bible is in any case a seminal world-historical text: familiarity with it is an essential form of cultural knowledge. Churches, however, don't typically dispense Bibles merely as cultural texts but rather as the Word of God. It was in this register that I worried a bit about Elijah's engagement with the book. And it made me ask myself what exactly I was doing to share, or impart, my secular worldview to Elijah, as a counterbalance to the Catholicism he was imbibing from his mother. She takes him to services. What do I take him to? She has him reading the Bible. What do I have him reading?

I have read all sorts of books with Elijah that I think of as humanistic, broadly speaking: lots of poetry (particularly Pablo Neruda, whose Book of Questions is ideal for children); books like David A White's Philosophy for Kids, and its sequel, The Examined Life: Advanced Philosophy for Kids. I recall feeling especially proud one evening after doing a chapter of Philosophy for Kids, which is designed for discussion between parent and child - I think it was a chapter on the meaning of friendship - followed by some verses of Neruda. I put Elijah to sleep that night thinking to myself, a diet of Aristotle and Neruda for my eight-year old - how cool is that?

Cool though it may be, does it actually counterbalance the influence of the churchgoing and Bible-reading? Or does it operate on a parallel track from it altogether? Does Elijah juxtapose whatever he may be taking away from the philosophy and poetry with the stuff he hears at church? Does he consider one in relation to the other at all? Seeing his head buried in that Bible that morning really made me wonder if I was perhaps approaching the matter too sideways. Maybe I needed to tackle the situation head-on.

But how? Are there any children's books, I wondered, that directly address religious questions from a humanistic point of view? Not necessarily an anti-Bible, but a strong alternative or counterpart in a secular key.

I called a friend of mine, who works for a humanist charity and is a parent too, feeling sure he would have some sage advice. His response surprised me. Not only did he not know of any good humanist children's books, he said, he didn't like the idea of such a thing. Rather than attempt to counter-indoctrinate kids with explicitly anti-religious messages, he argued, far better simply to expose them to the widest range of reading as possible - weren't Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss essentially humanistic? - and expose them to the manifold religions and philosophies in the world in order to nourish their imaginations and sense of wonder about the Universe, and help them view religion in a comparative context. The antidote I was seeking, he suggested, was to be found in books of evolution and science fiction, not didactic manifestos.

Sounded wise, though I didn't expect to hear it from a full-time, professional humanist. And I was disappointed that he didn't have a ready-made list of books of the sort I had in mind.

The dilemma remained: what if all the science and fantasy and comparative metaphysics fail to do the trick, and Christian literalism, despite my efforts, works its magic on my children's minds? Call me intolerant, but I'll admit it: I don't want to tell my children what to believe or not to believe, but I would be displeased and disappointed if they were to embrace conventional religious views. I just would be. Isn't there a more direct way, I thought, to militate against that outcome?

I turned to Amazon and found that there are several books in this register. Many of them are published by Prometheus Books, an American press with a long history. Within minutes I had found books such as Humanism, What's That? A Book for Curious Kids by Helen Bennett and Dan Barker's Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide for Young Skeptics. I particularly liked the title of this one. Could I have found what I was looking for?

I had liked the idea about exposing the kids to the array of religious traditions. Wouldn't this naturally tend to weaken the notion that any one religion holds the key to Truth? Another friend of mine had challenged this idea - wouldn't this, he asked, merely sanction or naturalise the religious frame of understanding the world? Isn't the message, in effect, "Look at these various religious beliefs and practices - you are free to pick among them"? "What about the millions of people who live without religion?" he asked. "Why not present secular modes of thought alongside the religious traditions?"

He had a point, but since I was already getting some explicitly secular books I added The Kids Book of World Religions to my shopping cart.

Well, we've read the books, but I'm afraid there's nothing terribly interesting to report either about the texts as such or about my children's reactions to them, which have been rather quiet, if not altogether bored - tough to tell, and I'm strongly disinclined to go fishing for their thoughts. I've been tempted, but better, I think, to let them process it all in their own way (assuming the books made an impression at all). The books themselves are a mixed bag: at turns poignant and clunky, clever and awkward. I might re-read them with the boys at some point. Or maybe they'll pick them up themselves and read them on their own. We'll see.

And I might look for other humanist books that engage my children more than this first batch did. Raising my children as a secular father in a society saturated with religion, and in a home that is itself mixed (up?) on the religious question, creates anxiety. But maybe I should just relax. "Kids mostly just want to play with their friends, and religion isn't that big a deal - though it is, unfortunately, to parents," writes Emily Rosa, one of the contributors to the book Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, in an essay evocatively titled "Growing Up Godless: How I Survived Amateur Secular Parenting".

Danny Postel ansd his sonsAll parents must confront the prospect that if we raise our children to be free, self-confident individuals, they may make choices that we don't like. Tough. The companion volume to Parenting Beyond Belief bears the title Raising Freethinkers. Sounds appealing - I'd like to raise freethinkers. But what if raising my kids to be truly free in their thinking results in their becoming religious? What if my efforts to instill scepticism in them lead them to become sceptical of my humanism? So be it.

"Teaching" your children (about) humanism can be a fool's errand, plagued by some the same pitfalls involved in raising children "in" a particular faith tradition. Richard Dawkins has provocatively argued that indoctrinating children with religion is a form of child abuse. But couldn't secularism, as Jeremy Stangroom recently wondered, constitute its own form of indoctrination? Might the attempt to impart one worldview or another to one's children - whether religious or secular - itself be ill-conceived?

And yet one doesn't want to be passive, especially in the American context, in which religion in one form or another constitutes a kind of default position. One can certainly understand the impulse behind the humanism-for-kids books, whatever their faults and limitations, and the desire of secular parents to get their hands on them. They arise from and speak to a very real hunger, whether they satisfy it or not.

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Parent & Child Reading list:

(With thanks to papers at: 74.125.155.132)

Julia Sweeney - Navigating Around the Dinner Table

In an essay at turns hilarious and touching, comedian Julia Sweeney recounts her own experience of growing up happily Catholic, gradually giving up her belief, then struggling to raise her adopted daughter without the convenient answers and simple religious comforts she had as a child.

Norm R. Allen, Jr. - Thinking My Way to Adulthood

Norm Allen, Executive Director of African American Humanists, tells of growing up in a Baptist home with one unusual feature: an open invitation to question anything, even the existence of God, and an assurance that he would be loved and accepted no more or less based on his answers.

Richard Dawkins, FRS - Good and Bad Reasons for Believing

On the tenth birthday of his daughter Juliet, Oxford biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins gave her a letter describing something of singular importance to him: the value of evidence and honesty as the basis for our beliefs.

Emily Rosa - Growing Up Godless: How I Survived Amateur Secular Parenting

Emily Rosa (now a college student at CU Boulder) describes her own upbringing as a child in a secular family, including an usually public introduction to skepticism and the scientific method.

Bertrand Russell - from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Philosopher Bertrand Russell lost his parents as a very young child. The courts ignored the instructions of his freethinking father to have him raised without religion—despite which, he became one of the foremost freethinkers of the 20th century.

Anne Nicol Gaylor - I’d Rather Play Outside

Freedom From Religion Foundation founder Anne Nicol Gaylor remembers her upbringing in a freethought home and her interactions with religious neighbors and friends.

Dan Barker - My Father’s House

Dan Barker’s “de-conversion” from fundamentalist minister to freethought activist provides a fascinating backdrop for his reflections on parenting. Dan first raised children in a Christian home and now raises a daughter in a freethought home.

Pete Wernick, PhD - Parenting in a Secular/Religious Marriage

Marriages between partners of different beliefs present special challenges. For parents, the challenges are further increased. Pete, a humanist, and Joan, a Catholic, are both seriously engaged in their belief systems, yet by conscious planning and hard work, they’ve made a solid and lasting marriage and parenting team.

Roberta Nelson, DD - On Being Religiously Literate

Rev. Nelson suggests that knowledge of religion is an important part of cultural literacy and provides a number of ways to achieve that literacy without indoctrination.

Stu Tanquist - Choosing Your Battles

When Stu Tanquist married his wife, he was an apathetic agnostic and she was a devout Catholic. Over the years he became more skeptical of religious claims, which introduced friction into their relationship—especially related to their daughter. Eventually the dissonance became too great, the marriage ended, and Tanquist was raising his daughter with limited support, confronting many issues including religion in the public schools.

Margaret Downey - Teaching Children to Stand on Principle—Even When the Going Gets Tough

Margaret Downey’s son had no problem identifying as a nonbeliever in his New Jersey Boy Scout troop—but when the family moved to Illinois, the new troop leader confronted the family and expelled Margaret’s son. Margaret’s essay describes her family’s experience, placing it in the context of her own upbringing in a mixed-race family.

Ed Buckner, PhD - Secular Schooling

Why should secular parents support public schools (or oppose “vouchers”)? Is moral education possible in secular public schools? Why should parents of all perspectives support the separation of church and state within public schools? Ed Buckner proposes answers to these questions and more, describing what separation is (and is not), and notes that secular schools are not the same as “atheistic” schools.

Jane Wynne Willson - Humanist Ceremonies

Though religious expressions have come to dominate rites of passage and the marking of other important life events in much of the world, there are meaningful and emotionally satisfying ceremonies available to serve these intrinsically human needs without supernatural overtones.

Dale McGowan, PhD - Losing the “Holy” and Keeping the “Day”

The calendar of holidays need not be diminished in the least when a family moves beyond belief. Most formerly religious holidays have a fully secular parallel expression today, with meaning intact. Add to that an array of new secular holidays to select from, and the possibilities are endless.

Tom Flynn: - Put the Claus Away

Dale McGowan: - The Ultimate Dry Run

Noell Hyman: - To Easter Bunny or Not to Easter Bunny?

It isn’t the most urgent issue in the secular family, but the question of intentional childhood myths taps many of our central concerns, including honesty, fact and fiction, reward and punishment, and trust. Tom Flynn suggests we do away with the mythologies of childhood, while Dale McGowan and Noell Hyman find reasons to keep and even cherish them.

Gareth Matthews, PhD - Morality and Evil

Secular parents may think they can avoid discussions of the problem of evil, but Gareth Matthews suggests otherwise. Making sense of the problem of evil, and the fact that evil often comes from good, is one of the central intellectual struggles of childhood.

Jean Mercer, PhD - Behaving Yourself: Moral Development in the Secular Family

Jean Mercer describes Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development and the interplay of emotion and moral reasoning.

David Koepsell, JD, PhD - On Being Good for Good Reasons: Commandments vs. Principles

David Koepsell distinguishes between “commandments” and “principles” as the underpinnings of moral behavior. Rather than choosing between them, Koepsell suggests that morality tends to be grounded in a combination of the two.

Shannon and Matt Cherry - Double Vision: Teaching our Twins Pride and Respect

This essay, along with “Seven Secular Virtues” (McGowan), draws a distinction between pride and arrogance. Pride, properly understood as self-esteem, has long been recognized as an important human virtue. Shannon and Matt Cherry go on to a nuanced description of respect, noting a difference between respect for a person and respect for that person’s ideas—an understanding they hope to instill in their twin daughters.

Dale McGowan - Seven Secular Virtues

Dale McGowan offers a list of seven “secular virtues,” not as a comprehensive list of human virtues, nor as a list that applies only to secularists. Like the traditional virtues, they are qualities to which we aspire – often with great difficulty.

Donald B. Ardell, PhD - Supporting Your Children in Their Quest for the Meaning of Life!

Life without meaning and purpose would be unbearable. But there is no universal, inherent meaning that applies for everyone. What is called for, says Dr. Don Ardell, is a conscious quest for meaning.

Annie Laurie Gaylor What Your Kids Won’t Learn in School

Freethought scholar Annie Laurie Gaylor presents a flying overview of some famous religious doubters, including many probable surprises. Such a list can serve as a counterpoint to the common assumption that the great figures of the past and present are believers.

James Herrick - Parenting and the Arts

“If you are looking for comfort, if you are looking for consolation, if you want the meaning of life handed to you on a plate – don’t go to the arts. Whether it is for parents or children, or their interaction, the arts can disturb and should not avoid the difficult areas of life. But art is not to be feared, for it can also stretch the imagination – art is wonderfully elastic, and it can stir creativity. Art is a wonderful stirrer, and a stirrer of wonder.”

Noell Hyman - The End, As We Know It

Noell Hyman reflects on the difference between the conception of death she held as a Mormon and the naturalistic conception that now frames her discussions with her own children, whom she is raising without religion.

Kendyl Gibbons, DD - Dealing with Death in the Secular Family

In a wide-ranging essay, Rev. Kendyl Gibbons gives practical advice on how to help children understand and cope with death without recourse to supernatural illusions.

Mark Twain - Little Bessie Would Assist Providence

Many of Mark Twain’s late writings were explorations of his own disbelief and of the influence of religion. Little Bessie was a satire in several chapters that went unpublished during Twain’s lifetime. It tells of the impertinent religious questioning of a wildly precocious little girl and her devout mother’s appalled attempts to answer.

Robert E. Kay, MD - Thoughts on Raising a Creative, Curious, Freethinking Child

Child psychiatrist Dr. Robert Kay offers fifteen thoughts on raising children without religion.

Amy Hilden, PhD - The Family Road Trip and the Self Behind My Eyes

Wondering is a formative experience for the growing human mind, says philosopher Amy Hilden—and the more unstructured and self-directed, the better. She describes her own wonderings as a child staring out of the car window on family road trips as her first sojourn into the philosophy of mind.

Margaret Knight - Excerpt from Morals Without Religion

“In January 1955 psychologist, broadcaster and humanist Margaret Knight stunned post-war Britain by suggesting in two talks on the BBC’s Home Service…that moral education should be uncoupled from religious education.”1 This brief excerpt from that talk is intended primarily to recommend a closer look at Knight’s elegant and thoughtful writings.

Stephen Law - Does God Exist? from The Philosophy Files

The arguments for and against belief in God are many centuries old. Stephen Law presents all of the major arguments in the form of an accessible dialogue among friends.

Dale McGowan - Teaching Kids to Yawn at Counterfeit Wonder

“A lot of people believe that you can’t experience wonder without religious faith,” says Dale McGowan. “If that were the case, this book would have to sound the alarm. Childhood, after all, is our first and best chance to revel in wonder. If parenting without religion meant parenting without wonder, I might just say to heck with reality.” But the wonder inherent in a scientific worldview can positively eclipse religious wonder—if we consider implications along with facts.

Amanda Chesworth - Natural Wonders

Amanda Chesworth continues the contrast between fictional and scientific wonder, suggesting that one of the primary privileges of a parent is the opportunity to provide children with “brain food.”

Kristan Lawson - The Idea that Changed the World from Darwin and Evolution for Kids

Kristan Lawson presents the theory of evolution in a nutshell, along with several activities designed to illustrate the principles of natural selection.

Pete Wernick - Building the Secular Community–However Slowly

Pete Wernick describes his own attempts to build humanist community by creating a sort of “church without God”—and shares some honest critiques of the current humanist infrastructure.

Amanda Metskas and August Brunsman IV - Summer Camps Beyond Belief

More than ten years have passed since Camp Quest, a summer camp for the children of freethinking families, first opened its gates in Kentucky.

Penn Jillette - Passing Down the Joy of Not Collecting Stamps

Penn Jillette has been a nonbeliever for a long time but only recently became a father. He reflects on raising his kids without religion, noting that you don’t have to “teach Atheism.” An absence of religious indoctrination, he says, is enough to give kids room to think for themselves

America today

Dear Bill - I really like what you say here, but why concentrate only on black ghetto society. Isn't much of America in the same situation.

What about the white evangelical trailer trash who count their children in the teens 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 children to the same mother, all paid for by the state - and she wants as many more as "Jesus" and fertility drugs can provide.

What about the ultra right wing gun nut with enough war weapons to start a war. What private person needs an M60 machine gun? or five? The First Amendment Right is not an excuse. Amendments that are just plain wrong can and should be amended to take account of the modern age.

What about separation of church and state. In God you may trust but where is the personal responsibility in that statement? Less of the "Jesus will provide" and more of the "get off your backside and do it" please. Jesus or God will only help those who help themselves.

What about . . . I give up! This is word for word what Bill Cosby said to a gathering of students who asked about the bailout in America ......

'They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.'

I can't even talk the way these people talk:

Why you ain't,?

Where you is,?

What he drive,?

Where he stay,?

Where he work,?

Who you be...?

And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.

And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth

In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around.

The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.

These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.

$500 sneakers for what??

And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

Where were you when he was 2

Where were you when he was 12?

Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?

And where is the father? Or who is his father?

People putting their clothes on backward:?

Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?

People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something???

Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from?

We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa .

I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.

I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, or the Netherlands?. The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa .

So stop, already! ! !

With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap ....... and all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

We have got to take the neighborhood back.

People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now.

We have millionaire football players who cannot read.

We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.

Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.

We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

We cannot blame the white people any longer.'

Dr. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.

Doctors indeed

(From our own correspondent.)

I lived several hundred miles away from my mother and stayed in touch with her by occasional mails and phone calls. At that time I was a certified Advanced Cardiac Life Support instructor and certified as an EMT II.

During these years my mother would keep me informed in regards to her health. At one time she extolled the new health care she had signed into, HMO. In every subsequent communication she would bring me up to date on her getting regular health check ups and the occasional glimpses she would get of her wonderful doctor.

During a four year period following her getting on HMO she had bouts of incoherence. As my brother described, ‘She is getting fuzzy’ which was attributed to her turning 80. At times she became almost incoherent and on one occasion while I was speaking to her on the phone she sounded like she wasn’t all there.

By chance I visited my mother and together we went to a hospital to visit a friend of hers. As we were getting out of the car I noticed a general frailty about her and upon looking more carefully I noted she was slightly cyanotic. Instead of going up into the main hospital I steered her to the emergency room.

I identified myself as a paramedic to the ER staff and that the woman with me appeared to be having a heart problem. I asked that she be put on the 12 lead but the ER staff opted for a 3 lead to initially check things out.

As I stared at the trace on the scope a doctor appeared at my side. We both instantly locked on the P wave being weak or missing and consequently the QRS complex not firing correctly about three quarters of the time. Our mutual diagnosis took all of a few seconds. The doc immediately turned to a nurse to order the 12 lead. He then told me he wanted her to be checked into the hospital over night.

My mother protested as she always did, citing that her doctor had told her ‘Your veins are like garden hoses’. I switched from son to professional mode, informing her that regardless of what she had been told she had a serious condition and we were going to find out what was going on.

The 12 lead instantly confirmed the initial suspicions. The P wave was missing or mostly ineffective and she was getting about 1 out of 4 functional QRS complexes to do the job. As I looked at the read out her regular doctor and a cardiologist came into the room. I confronted the doctor, placing myself between him and my mother to be sure I got his attention.

I held up the print out. “Excuse me, Dr. …, my mother has apparently needed a demand pacemaker for the past four years and during this time she has been under your care and you have failed to diagnose the condition. The less than 10 minutes per year her insurance pays you has apparently taken precedence over the Hippocratic oath.”

The doctor turned on his heel and left the room. The cardiologist ignore the exchange, looked at the 12 lead print out, and asked both my mother and myself if he could schedule her for surgery the following day to implant a pacemaker. I enforced this to my mother informing her she will have the surgery. The cardiologist checked her into the ICU for the night.

24 hours after the surgery my mother was sitting up in bed. Almost her first words to me were ‘I feel like I had been asleep the past four years and just woke up.”

Well, she had. Her brain was receiving just barely enough oxygen to keep from being damaged. However, her condition was classic and any EMT I could have spotted it. The combination of overworked uncaring nurses with too many things to do and an even more uncaring doctor who ran patients through like they were on an assembly line left an obvious life threatening condition that was easily reversible go undiagnosed year after year.

Now, to be fair to the nurses who had seen my mother during that time, her cardiac condition is easy to overlook. Even if the P wave fails and the QRS doesn’t fully trigger, a pulse of sorts will still be felt. If the patient is borderline as my mother was, a quick BP check might only reveal low but acceptable blood pressure. It is entirely up to the doctor to do an assessment of the patient, taking a few moments of time to listen to complaints as well as doing a little detective work and possible preventive intervention. This is not as complex as it sounds. His patient is over 80 and occasionally feels dizzy and light headed. A quick ECG during each regularly scheduled visit is certainly in order, even if overlooking the complaint might be acceptable.

It is easy to blame the HMO, or any other medical insurer for the oversight and lapse, but the doctors are not blameless. They could forego a few thousand dollars a year, still afford the payments on the mansion and fourth car, and still afford the world cruise, though not as often. It is time the entire medical profession does what the lowly first responder, EMT, fire fighter, police officer, and a host of other jobs are required to constantly execute. Self assessment is definitely in order here. Who are they really working for?

Influenza - a politician's honeypot?

The Thai government has, in their kindness, decided to give cloth face masks to every school student in the country. This is supposed to be a preventative measure against the 2009 Influenza pandemic. Unfortunately it appears to be a chance for the politicians to earn a little, (or a lot) of extra gravy because the Thai government has not seen fit to provide the training or resources necessary to make best use of the masks and the masks are not fit for purpose in any case.

Let us look at a little bit of information about the 2009 Influenza pandemic, frequently referred to as Swine Flu or H1N1.

The pandemic is believed to have originated in a giant pig feed lot at La Gloria village, Vera Cruz, Mexico. The lot is owned and operated by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of the giant US pork producing corporation Smithfield Foods Inc. (Smithfield moved much of their pork production to Mexico to evade considerably more stringent health and safety regulations in the USA.)

The La Gloria pig lot produces almost 1 million pigs per year. These pigs produce so much faecal effluent that it can not be properly treated on site. It has to be kept in giant lagoons that frequently overflow, polluting local water supplies. The amount of effluent is so great that the company has at times resorted to atomising the faeces and pumping them into the atmosphere, frequently spreading respiratory and other infections to local communities. Our new pandemic is believed to have started as a direct result of just such an episode following a spate of pig deaths at the lot.

The first known, index case of the pandemic was a four year old boy named Edgar Hernandez from La Gloria village. Edgar recovered, but since then almost 100% of the population of La Gloria have caught the disease.

The virus is particularly virulent, easy to catch, and is spread by inhalation or contact with mucous membranes. Most sufferers have fairly mild symptoms, a fever, sore throat, a cough and sniffles. However some, with previously compromised immune or health systems, will unfortunately die. The mortality rate for people who are confirmed sufferers from H1N1 varies from country to country. Some countries report mortality rates as high as almost 4% while the world average is a little under 0.5%. The higher mortality rates are presumed to be due to most mild attacks of the flu going unreported, this is true everywhere. Overall true mortality is likely to be somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2%. Thailand currently reports mortality of almost 2%.

The H1N1 influenza virus is a particle approximately 0.12 microns diameter, and it can survive for up to 24 hours outside a host body, either in the air or on a surface, as long as it is in a moist or humid environment. When it is expelled from the host, by a cough or a sneeze, the virus is generally carried in a drop of sputum that can range in diameter from 0.3 to 20 microns or more. The size of the sputum drop is important because it affects the manner in which the spread of the influenza can be controlled.

Influenza protection

To best ensure safety from influenza in a school, or other community, the following precautions should be taken:

• General measures.
  Proper hand washing is the most important factor in preventing transmission of disease. Hands can be washed with water and antimicrobial hand soap. If hands are not visibly dirty, an alcohol based hand cleaning solution or hand wipes can be utilized. Hands should be washed at least once per hour, before and after performing cleaning tasks and every time a person coughs or sneezes.
  Avoid touching eyes, nose, mouth or genitals. Wash hands if you do so.
  A constant supply of tissues is essential. If anybody coughs, sneezes or needs to clear their throat or nose it should be done into a tissue and the used tissue immediately discarded into a receptacle reserved for the purpose. Hands should be washed immediately afterwards.

• Face Masks.
  Face masks are of very little use as general protection against the influenza virus and may well increase the danger of passing it. All masks have a very limited effective usage period, ranging from about 30 minutes or so for the standard cloth mask up to a few hours for an N95 certified mask with activated carbon filter. (N95 are so called because they are certified to catch approximately 95% of particles of 0.3 microns.) For best safety, all masks should be N95 certified. Unfortunately most cloth masks, unless they are three layer finely woven silk with cotton filling, are little use unless the particles are 50-100 microns or so in size.
  Masks need to be used correctly if they are to have any efficacy. They should only be used if an infection is suspected and should be replaced before their period of efficacy is over.
  A damp mask, or one used past the safety period will become a reservoir of infection to be passed to anybody who touches it. Used masks need to be handled with care, using latex gloves, and disposed of under biohazard safety conditions, or sterilised for re-use with boiling water or a soak in antimicrobial solution containing alcohol or bleach

• Body temperature.
  All pupils or community members need to have their body temperature monitored on a regular basis. This is most easily and safely done in a large community by using standard infra red technology however any workable method should be used.
  If somebody shows an abnormal rise in body temperature, he/she should immediately be quarantined in a room set aside for the purpose and be taken to visit a doctor as soon as circumstances permit.
  When in quarantine, the pupil should wear an N95 certified face mask to catch sputum droplets. Any person entering the room or coming within 1 meter of the patient should also wear an N95 certified face mask, latex surgical gloves, eye protection and a disposable plastic coat.

• Premises.
  All surfaces likely to be touched by community members need to be sterilised on a regular basis by spraying and wiping with an antimicrobial solution containing alcohol or bleach. These include counter tops, door knobs, stair banisters, tables, chairs, desks, elevator buttons and panels etc. Computer keyboards and other sensitive equipment should be fitted with plastic covers that can be sprayed and wiped.

• Air conditioning.
  Rooms with air conditioning should be fitted with N95 certified sheet filters and have the temperature set low. Virus particles will be caught by the filter, and if they pass through, will be taken out of the air by the dehumidifying process of the air conditioner and will be pumped safely outside and away with the drops of water and sputum removed during the cooling and dehumidifying process. A cool room temperature will also help in early identification of those with a rising fever.

The Thai government must be fully aware of all these measures as promoted by the WHO, the CDC and health authorities throughout the developed world. Why have they thrown them out of the window and reccommended almost the exact opposite behavior. Could it be that a member of said government has a fiscal interest in the face masks that are being distributed. Thailand's history of "transparency" would seem to indicate the probability that this is the case. We await the scandal likely to erupt in a few months time.

_____________________________________________

Note: Several companies manufacture N95 certificated filter masks and rolls of filter material. 3M is possibly the most widely distributed, but Japanese and European companies are competing in the market. A good 3M disposable N95 certified mask sells for about US$1.00 and can be sourced directly from 3M or found on sale at many home improvement centres.

Christianity, the origin of Morality?

I was recently told by a friend that he had only become honest and moral because he had discovered Jesus. We had something of a discussion about this subject, so I felt it would make an interesting blog post.

If you wish to explore pre Christian teachers of morals, you can do little better than read Pythagoras a non-religious philosopher mystic who was deeply influenced by the teachings of Buddha. Following Pythagoras came Socrates who taught the meaning of what is just, and insisted that moral sentiment depended on knowledge, not any form of theology. One of his famous teachings: "We ought not to retaliate, or render evil for evil to anyone," is perhaps uncomfortably close to words said to have originated with Jesus, but they come from three hundred years earlier.

Plato was the forst sociologist and taught that moral law is utilitarian, logical law for the good of society. Aristotle, after Plato wrote the first treatise on Ethics. He too had no theocratic hangups.

By the 3rd century BC, the Stoics, taught natural ethics and self control as a basis for life. Their movement continued until just after 500 AD when Emperor Justinian closed their schools because their teachings of logical morality owed nothing to his Christian faith.

Leucippus and his student Democritus were the first European philosophers / scientists / evolutionists in about 400BC who taught that the object and origin of moral law was simply the concern for human welfare.

Epicurus, the last of the great Greek philosophers, again taught that moral acts were those which promoted a passionless tranquillity of life. They had nothing to do with religion.

Now have a look at Christian teachings. The oft quoted "Golden Rule of life", the "Royal Law" the most famous of Christ's teachings, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" is a quotation from the Old Testament; Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD." This is 500 years older than Christianity and some 100 plus years after the Lord Buddha was teaching about universal love, where he stated that every man "should love his fellows as a mother loves her children," and "hatred ceases by love: this is an old rule." A bit different from the Jewish position, where his neighbour was only regarded as being a fellow Jew. The Jews excluded other races from the necessity to be loved, much as many Christians do today.

If we stay at the time of the Buddha, about two hundred years before the Old Testament was written and have a look a bit further East at the teachings of Confucius "Recompense injury with kindness" and "What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others." Confucius's student Menicus went on to teach, "A benevolent man does not lay up anger' nor cherish resentment against his brother, but only regards him with affection and love." About the same time Lao-Tse was teaching, "Recompense injury with kindness." All these great moralists were living in the heart of Agnostic China, where religion did not have any import.

Christianity, did it introduce humanity to morality? I am afraid not.

Perhaps in time we can build an enlightened society where frankness, courage, honorableness, and consideration for others and a social or utilitarian theory of morals rules our lives without hangups from misplaced teachers, clergy, mullahs and busybodies behind net curtains. We need to love our fellow beings and allow acts and thoughts that injure no one in any way. These must be regarded as a man's or woman's own business, not meat for the narrow minded or bigoted bible thumping pulpit screamer.

From Prometheus Unbound:

None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines
Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak;
None, with firm sneer, trod out in his heart
The sparks of love and hope till there remained
Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed.

None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk
Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes,
Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy
With such a self-mistrust as has no name.
And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind
As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew
On the wide earth, past; gentle, radiant forms,
From custom's evil taint exempt and pure,
Speaking the wisdom once they could not think,
Looking emotions once they feared to feel,
And, changed to all which once they dared not be,
Yet, being now, made earth like heaven; nor pride
Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame,
The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,
Spoiled the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)