The letter below was in The Age newspaper on 7 November 2007 in response to Barney Zwartz's article the previous day implying that it was necessary for politicians to use their religious convictions in deciding on policies.
Australia is still a secular state and there is no place for religion in the political processes in the federal parliament. It was bad enough that the Alternative Liberal Party (ALP) used its preferences for senate outcomes in the 2004 elections which gave a Victorian senate seat to the religious right's Family First. This should never be allowed to happen again!
BARNEY Zwartz (Opinion, 6/11) uses polemic gymnastics to dodge around secular concerns about religious interference in Australia's democracy. The simple equation is: religion wishes to impose dogma-based restrictions on many aspects of legislation. The opposite and secular camp requires reasoned evaluation in making decisions that will affect us all.
The confirmed worry is that many politicians assess legislation on the basis of personal religious beliefs instead of making the best choices available. When coupled with preference deals allowing religious zealots to hold the balance of power, the distortion of democracy is inevitable. Many in these two groups keep their private agendas hidden from public scrutiny.
RELIGIONS ARE RIDICULOUS ANYHOW! ALL THEY DO IS PREACH HATE AND PRACTISE MURDER!!
This letter was in the Sunday Age newspaper on 23 March 2008 – thank goodness!
Dr Andrew Singleton states that atheism is not capable of offering an alternative to religion.
In one sense, he is correct. Atheism is not another religion and therefore cannot offer a similar make-believe world. However, it does lead to a reality where individuals make their own unprejudiced choices and where pluralism is cherished. It produces people unafraid of supernatural repercussions and not dependent on false and unattainable hopes. Further, atheism provides for society none of the myriad conflicting ideas and irrational beliefs. Some of these skew the education system, disenfranchise women, lesbians, gays and those in need of voluntary euthanasia.
It is not atheism that entertains creationism in the classroom, blocks stem cell research, prevents comprehensive sex education or threatens abortion rights. Religion promotes the wish for more than is available. Atheism pursues the path that what is obtainable is far greater than any religion can offer.
DAVID NICHOLLS, president,This article was published in The Age newspaper:
THE Atheist Foundation of Australia has lodged complaints of religious discrimination in Melbourne and Hobart after being refused permission to put atheist advertising on buses.
- Discrimination claimThe AFA raised $16,000 from donations to put signs on buses around the country saying "Atheism — celebrate reason". This followed a London campaign, backed by anti-religion campaigner Richard Dawkins, with signs on buses reading, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life".
But APN Outdoor, which handles bus advertising in all metropolitan cities except Hobart and Darwin, declined the advertising and refused to give any reason, AFA president David Nicholls said yesterday. Nor would Metro Tasmania in Hobart accept the ads, he said. A complaint was lodged with the Anti-Discrimination Commission of Tasmania late last year. In Melbourne, AFA member John Perkins emailed a complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission on Tuesday.
"Legally atheism counts as a religion, though we say we're not one," Dr Perkins said.
Mr Nicholls said it was an issue of freedom of expression.
APN's general manager of marketing, Paul McBeth, said public buses were owned by state governments, who stipulated in agreements with APN that any advertisement that might offend the community was not permitted on public buses.
BARNEY ZWARTZFor too long lesbian, gay, transgender and HIV/AIDS members of our communities have been oppressed by governments of all persuasions because of their religious affiliations and because of the influence and finances the religious right bring to bear on them.
Many years ago, members of such groups in the USA formed organisations to counter the homophobia from the religious right (or wrong!!) and the earliest one we have encountered to date appears to be about 1978. They produced a journal called GALA Review which seems to have appeared from 1978 to 1988 or thereabouts.
We reproduce here a leaflet we found from that organisation:
I came across this 1994 press release while researching further atheist sites relating to gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS communities (GLTH), and as I am trying to list as many atheist organisations as possible, this is next on the list!:
PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
*****************************************************************
AMERICAN GAY AND LESBIAN ATHEISTS, INC.
Houston, TX -- As the political season reaches "high gear," the national office of American Gay and Lesbian Atheist is busily watching the degree to which churches and religious organizations in the Houston area are involving themselves in partisan politics. American Gay Atheists, Inc. is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) educational foundation which does not violate the tenets of the IRS codes which prohibit direct involvement in partisan politics by non-profit groups.
American Gay and Lesbian Atheists has been instrumental in having the Dallas office of the Internal Revenue Service maintain an open file (File 4940 Dal) on Houston area churches and religious groups which involve themselves in the political process, such as endorsing candidates for public office. During the 1993 elections, AGLA documented numerous cases of direct political involvement by Houston churches, particularly in the races of Sheila Jackson Lee, who was backed heavily by numerous Black ministerial alliances. In some cases, the political involvement of churches was so blatant that some churches placed campaign signs on their properties.
"Such political involvement by churches is harmful to basic freedoms and civil rights of many, particularly gays and lesbians," says Don Sanders, national director. "The strongest opposition to equality of rights for gays and lesbians comes from the churches and the Christian scriptures. Many ministers bastardize the non-profit status accorded them under the rules of the Internal Revenue Service by directly instructing their congregations for whom to vote and how to vote on key issues, such as abortion rights, women's rights, and rights for gays and lesbians." Sanders points out that efforts to stop churches from influencing politics have proven ineffective. "However," Sanders says, "if the politically-meddling churches suddenly were threatened with loss of their privileged tax status accorded them under the directives of the Internal Revenue Service, much direct partisan political involvement on the part of churches would cease."
During this political season, AGLA is carefully monitoring the antics of the so-called Religious Right and the support of their candidates by churches. "If the churches will not abide by the law which prohibits them from endorsing candidates, instructing their congregants for whom to vote, or funding political campaigns, we hope that our efforts to encourage the IRS to look into these matters by giving them documentation on this obvious abuse and illegal activity will help prove to the churches, once and for all, they should get out of the political game, or lose their tax exemption," says Sanders.
For further comments or questions, contact Don Sanders. American Gay and Lesbian Atheists promotes Thomas Jefferson's constitutional premise of separation between state and church, and works to protect and promote the civil and human rights of persons who are Atheists and gay.
*********************************************************************** * * *American Atheists website: http://www.atheists.org * * PO Box 140195 FTP: ftp://ftp.atheists.org * * Austin, TX 78714-0195 * * Voice: (512) 458-1244 Dial-THE-ATHEIST: * * FAX: (512) 467-9525 (512) 458-5731 * * * * Atheist Viewpoint TV: avtv@atheists.org * * Info on American Atheists: info@atheists.org, * * & American Atheist Press include your name and mailing address * * AANEWS -Free subscription: aanews-request@listserv.atheists.org * * and put "info aanews" in message body *
* * *This text may be freely downloaded, reprinted, and/other * * otherwise redistributed, provided appropriate point of * * origin credit is given to American Atheists.
* * * ***********************************************************************E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic TankThis article was found in the Utah Humanists web pages and dated June 2006.
It was a privilege to hear Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheists for the last ten years. Working tirelessly, she is furthering two goals of the American Atheists: 1] Keeping state and church separate; 2] Protecting the civil rights of atheists and other "freethinking" groups. With visiting freethinkers attending Johnson's presentation, it was a good time for humanists to mingle and build solidarity for common objectives and issues.
Because Johnson speaks to many different groups and organizations, she has noticed that there are misperceptions and misinformation about the founder of American Atheists, Madalyn Murray O'Hair. In Johnson's observation, the older population has negative thoughts about O'Hair, many from the media, while younger people know little or nothing about her.
Born in 1919, O'Hair came from a poor union family in Pennsylvania, where her father owned a glass manufacturing company that hired only union workers. Baptized into the Presbyterian Church and raised by church-going parents, O'Hair claimed that she became an atheist after reading the complete Bible in her early teen years.
Earning a law degree in 1952, O'Hair, among other activities, served both in World War II and for the Foreign Service.
Many people are aware that O'Hair in 1963 won in the Supreme Court decision of Murray vs. Curlett where school prayers across the U.S. were ended in the public education system. Describing herself in 1963 as "the most hated woman in America," it was also later in 1963 that she founded American Atheists, working steadfastly and courageously as its leader for 32 years from 1964 to 1995 when Johnson then took over.
Undeterred by the backlash that she received for Murray vs. Curlett, like death threats and the victim of vandalism long after the 1963 decision, O'Hair continued to work toward the separation of church and state legal battles as the country's atheist-in-chief.
Too numerous to detail completely, Johnson shared a list of some of O'Hair's accomplishments.
O'Hair founded the first American Atheist Library & Archives to collect and preserve Atheist history and publications.
She founded the "American Atheist Radio Series" in 1980 as the first and only regularly scheduled Atheist broadcasts ever to be made in the United States and broadcast in 123 stations for a dozen years.
She founded the "American Atheist Forum" in 1980, also the first and only regularly scheduled television broadcast ever to be produced and directed by Atheists. It was on the air for about sixteen years and aired on 130 major cities reaching an estimated 9.3 million homes.
She founded the first local-level network of Atheist chapters.
She worked with an early chapter director, prominent businessman Lloyd Thoren, now deceased, so that he could found the first American Atheist Museum in the United States, located in Indiana. Later, O'Hair worked with him to establish the first Dial-An-Atheist service.
She founded the United World Atheists, which brought together Atheist groups throughout the world.
She founded the American Atheist Press, which publishes Atheist books. In 1987 it obtained press credentials for covering both the Democratic and the Republican National Conventions.
She founded the American Atheist magazine, the first open Atheist journal.
She founded the "American Atheist International Radio Forum" which was heard on 2,000 radio stations worldwide.
She originated the American Atheists annual convention.
She was the first person to propose that the United States and all the governments of the world recognize as celebration days the four days of natural events which affect all the world: the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes and the Winter and Summer Solstices
O'Hair and Jon Murray worked with Arnold Via of Virginia, to create the first Atheist cemetery in the United States.
They worked with a number of leaders in the Gay movement to assist them to set up the first Gay Atheist League of America, and later, a separate national American Gay Atheists organization.
O'Hair was able to obtain a ruling from the Veterans' Administration to add to the grave markers in veteran's cemeteries the symbol of American Atheism.
The Murray-O'Hairs and American Atheists organized and carried out the first Atheist picketing of any pope in the western hemisphere, in Chicago, Illinois, in 1979.
O'Hair was arrested and jailed in November 1977 for objecting to prayers at a city council meeting, and Robin Murray-O'Hair was jailed in December 1988, rather than take an oath "so help me God" in order to serve as a Juror.
Another notable case in 1969, O'Hair vs. Pain, because of the publicity it aroused, caused the United States government to abandon plans to carry religious programming into space in U.S. NASA operations.
In 1977 the nation-rocking case to remove "In God We Trust" from our currency and coins was filed by American Atheists titled O'Hair vs. Blumenthal. In ruling against the case, U.S. District Judge Jack Roberts agreed with a federal appeals court, which said that the use of the motto on coins "has nothing to do with the establishment of religion." The United States Supreme Court refused to review the case on appeal.
In another case, O'Hair vs. Wojtila, O'Hair, Jon and American Atheists challenged the right of Pope John Paul II to give a full Roman Catholic mass on the Washington Mall in the District of Columbia in 1979.
Murray vs. Goldstein attempted to stop the tax exemptions of church businesses.
O'Hair vs. Briscoe attempted to remove a crèche from the rotunda of the Texas capitol building.
O'Hair vs. Hill fought the exclusion of Atheists from public office.
Collins vs. Chandler attempted to stop prayers at high school commencement exercises.
Reed vs. Ingham County was fought over the firing of a policeman in Michigan because he was an Atheist.
O'Hair vs. Nixon (1970) attempted to stop full-scale church services in the White House. Murray vs. 27 radio stations and Society of Separationists, Inc. vs. FCC both concerned the demand for equal time for Atheists under the "Fairness Doctrine."
O'Hair v. Cooke in 1977 challenged the opening prayer at city council meetings in Austin, Texas.
Such objectives like eliminating prayers in public schools and public government meetings, stopping tax exemptions by church businesses, ensuring that public office is open for everyone no matter their beliefs, and promoting equal job security for everyone regardless of their beliefs should interest us all. Johnson concluded by saying that there is no question that Madalyn O'Hair's lifetime of work has laid the foundation for successes today in keeping state and church separate and protecting the civil rights of all freethinkers.
--Sarah SmithIt is long past time that GLTH communities in Australia who are atheists started organising to oppose the homohpbia of religious right organisations.
So, I am proposing a group called:
Any atheists interested?
This article is from The Age newspaper:
WEEK one, Planetshakers. Week two, the Quakers. Week three, and in the final instalment of my interrogating-reality triptych, I sat through Sunday Mass on the same pew I grew up on at my childhood parish. But this time with my atheist sons. How did they become atheists? That's the way they were born.
Entering the cathedral of misogyny, deception, manipulation, chauvinism, hypocrisy and bigotry, all wrapped up in "If you don't swallow this hook, line and sinker you're going to hell", felt like coming home. I'm not bitter, just being descriptive and honest. Going back was fabulous because it reminded me I'd escaped.
Under the same roof where I'd been baptised, confirmed and brainwashed, my six-year-old asked: "Where's the Pope?" I laughed. Until the 11-year-old said: "Here he comes."
The priest, obviously drawn by the unusual sight of new people, approached us to welcome us to his flock. I shot out my hand. "Hi, I'm Catherine."
All the blood drained from his face. "You're that writer?" "Yes," I replied. I happily introduced my sons, who, in an uncharacteristic display of manners, shook the priest's hand and said, "Nice to meet you." The priest wandered off in a daze. Or was it a trance? Maybe it was religious melancholy.
After surveying the ''good news'' of carnage and damnation on the wall, the 11-year-old asked what a virgin was. I explained. Then he said, "Is there something wrong with sex?" When I was four, one of the girls from a ''good'' family who sat two pews in front of us got pregnant. She was 15. She married on a Saturday afternoon wearing an orange kaftan. She wasn't allowed to wear white because she wasn't ''a bride''. The poor girl was being shamed and made an example for the rest of us.
On the way home from the wedding I remember Dad saying to Mum: "I feel for her father." I remember wanting to jump over the front seat and ram my father's head into the windscreen. In the '70s this building - so groovy it could have been designed by the dad from The Brady Bunch - was Rock Mass Central. The breeding baby boomers had the place packed with little Gerards, Damians and Bernadettes singing along to Sister Janet Mead. The sad little crowd last Sunday was mostly made up of defeated-looking nannas who could whip up a pav at the drop of a crochet hook, plus a handful of Asians.
Mass had the feeling of a miserable couple married for 40 years just going through the motions; passionless, soulless and loveless. Too late to back out now.
The priest said there would be no "sign of peace" because of swine flu and instead of shaking hands we should just nod to each other. I couldn't help drawing a comparison with the Vatican's refusal to endorse the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa. Who cares if we lose a couple of golliwogs, but we can't have white people getting the sniffles.
Time for Communion, when bread and wine is turned into the actual flesh and blood of Christ by the priest. Because he's special. They call it transubstantiation; I call it bullshit. The congregation lines up and shares in this ''celebration'', as long as you've officially been given the nod via a bizarre bridal ceremony around the age of 10 known as ''first Communion''. As we lined up, I thought about priests refusing gay people Communion, which is hilariously hypocritical when you consider the amount of hanky-panky some priests get up to. And that's just the stuff we know about. There's a list of things that exclude people from receiving Communion, including "not believing in transubstantiation, participating in an abortion, homosexual acts, sexual intercourse outside marriage and deliberately engaging in impure thoughts".
When it was my turn the priest picked up a wafer and said: "The body of Christ." The expected response is "Amen". Instead, I said: "I have three children and have never been married. I've used contraception, had an abortion, use the Lord's name in vain, think transubstantiation is a crock and I'm an atheist. And I'm not sorry."
Actually, I didn't say that. I wanted to, but I felt sorry for the priest. He looked tired and worn out. I thought of Dan Barker, the former evangelical preacher who is now one of America's leading atheists and who is gathering the names of atheist clergymen and women who only stay in their jobs because they don't know how to do anything else. Hell is truth seen too late.
>b>Catherine Deveny and Daniel Burt appear in An Evening of Insight and Filth at the Butterfly Club, South Melbourne, until Sunday.This article is from The Age newspaper:
HERE'S my theory. God has narcissistic personality disorder. Stay with me as I indulge in two of my favourite pastimes: illuminating monotheistic religion's exploitation of the human desire to feel safe, loved and special; and my constant need to question and expose maladaptive behaviour. Let's pathologise!
Here's the deal: tick five in the diagnostic criteria and we have an NPD winner!
¦ Feelings of grandiosity and self-importance (I am God); exaggerating accomplishments (I made you and the world) to the point of lying (I exist and there is a heaven); demands to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements (Worship me and only me because I am great and almighty and I know everything).Atheist pin-up boy Richard Dawkins describes God as "the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it. Petty, vindictive, unforgiving and racist. An ethnic cleanser urging his people on to acts of genocide." Mm, smell that NPD!
It has been suggested that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama suffer NPD.
NPDs are often extremely successful in business, politics, entertainment, sport and the clergy. It's believed a highly emotional, chaotic childhood results in a sense of inferiority, which hobbles NPDs' ability to be true to themselves; instead creating a false reality. Which becomes their reality.
They are charismatic, persuasive and intelligent and become skilled actors who can fake any emotion and have the ability to make you glow with their favour. But they are deceitful, ruthless, manipulative users who are unpredictable and emotionally erratic. The emotional transaction is wildly out of whack. They expect the best but give very little. They cannot love and have no empathy. But they are emotionally needy and crave attention so hone their skills to attract love, admiration and attention to fill a hole inside them that will never be filled.
NPDs don't feel they exist without an adoring fan club, so they create their own fantasy world in which they are king. With their manufactured charisma and genuine hauteur, they make others feel special by granting small mercies and bestowing their favour.
Which is how people get sucked into the transaction of worshipping a God despite no rational evidence. Babies die in ditches every day, yet God helps Hollywood stars win trophies. "Ah yes, the Lord works in mysterious ways. He helps me find my car keys occasionally. And because he's so famous, and he noticed me, that makes me special. So I keep believing. Because if I don't, I won't be special.''
My 11-year-old atheist gave me the revelation that God had NPD when he said, "I think we invented God and then God invented us."
It was Galileo who said, ''I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.''
The following article was in the Sunday Age, 11 October 2009:
Tarot cards, aura-cleansing, little green men: it's not only the easily duped and poorly educated who believe in things wild and wacky.
GOD is dead. Or is she? While church attendance is steadily declining and the number of confessed heathens steadily increasing, we're not quite ready to give up the ghost. Instead, for every person abandoning Mass, it seems two more are having their horoscope cast, their aura cleansed or their past lives aligned.
In Australia, the ranks of the non-religious have doubled in the past 25 years, while in the US a recent Gallup Poll found more people than ever believe in ghosts, witches, communicating with the dead, psychic or spiritual healing, and clairvoyance. We may no longer be believers, but boy do we want to believe.
"I think holding a belief can be a state of tension," says Melbourne-based healer Tania Goldsmith. "It does create separation within the mind and within the community - you know, my religion's better than yours, my god's the only god - and that may be one reason why formal religion has less application."
But Goldsmith believes our spiritual needs are greater than ever. "In this culture, we often don't have a connection with the soul and the body and the feelings. So some of that dimension is lost and we suffer in that."
Certainly, while we may have ditched the dogma, the big questions that religion has traditionally answered - Who am I? Why am I here? What does it all mean? - continue to trouble us. And plenty of people these days embark on a sort of spirituality smorgasbord: trying everything, pushing some things to the side of the plate, sometimes going back for seconds, until they find what nourishes them.
Goldsmith's own journey has included a degree in the philosophy of religion, a period of Jungian analysis, training in reiki and five years in the Byron Bay hinterland, where the itinerant population brought her into contact with a range of teachers and gurus. Her practice includes a variety of disciplines but she is reluctant to put a firm label on her current belief system. "My passion is to be able to hold a space of loving presence for people, for my clients, so they can meet that place within themselves and be free within themselves. It can sound really esoteric or hippie to say it's just love and its presence, but the actual realisation of that is the most profound gift of my life."
Goldsmith is convinced our interest in the spiritual is so strong precisely because the world around us is increasingly rational and material.
"That soul essence part of people is integral. It's always reborn with us," she says. "When someone has any sort of life crisis, that becomes incredibly apparent. We can cover it up with our programming, and with material things, but we are paying a price for that in terms of our health and wellbeing."
It is fair to say not many of us feel comfortable talking about our soul essence or putting our faith in mystical healing. But few of us are entirely material and rational. And most of us feel there is something more to us than flesh, bone and organised electrical activity. Professor John Bigelow of Monash University's philosophy department thinks that's only human. "No one has found a way of explaining the scientific story in a way that taps into our emotions," he says. "It has an intellectual thrill, but it doesn't hit you in the heart or the gut. Science is silent on moral and emotional issues. Whereas the religious and spiritual stories have an emotional truth to them."
And as religion proper falls from grace, we naturally seek out something to replace it. "There was some need being filled by religion, and something has to fill the vacuum," Bigelow says. "Eddie McGuire said something on this - that now people aren't going to church, football has filled the gap. That's why footballers have to be role models."
If instead of asking, "What would Jesus do?" we started asking ourselves, "What would Fev do?" we might find ourselves deep in the seventh circle. But there's no doubt people are looking for guidance, often in some pretty peculiar places.
At one extreme is a book such as The Secret, which declares we can control absolutely everything using only the power of our minds.
Other quasi-mystical disciplines can be more benign. "There are lots of nice people, intelligent people, who believe in astrology, for instance," Bigelow says. "And one of the things I think astrology, tarot readings and so on provide is a network of symbols that have deep associations in the mind. They're something to think with. If someone does a tarot reading, you end up having a conversation you would never have had if you were having a conversation about science."
Even the great philosopher of science Karl Popper believed that in order to have hypotheses to test, you have to generate conjecture from the imagination. "The ideas don't have to be rational, as long as you're rational in the way you test them," Bigelow says.
Then there are the practices that oblige us to believe in something preposterous, whether that's the Rosicrucians (alchemy, clairvoyance) or the Scientologists (aliens). But even there, powerful sociological and anthropological forces are at play.
"Historically, tribes scarify their members so they can't leave and join another group," Bigelow says. "One thing cults and religions can do is provide rituals that mark you out as a member of one group, and excluded from another group. If those rituals consisted solely of rational conclusions drawn from the evidence available, where's the exclusivity in that? Then all the religions would be the same.
''The whole point is to pick some irrational idea. At random. And declare: 'We are the people who believe this!' The irrationality of it is functionally important. The whole point is to make it hard to believe."
We all want to be special and part of something and god knows there are plenty of opportunities for people to put their faith in the ludicrous, whether that's Holocaust deniers, UFOlogists, or past-lifers. Nor is believing in the unbelievable just something indulged by horoscope-addicted teenage girls. Attend any event by psychics such as John Edward and you'll see a hall full of women. But ask about UFOs, or Big Foot, or historical revisionism, or conspiracy theories, and men are much more likely to believe.
And while we may like to smugly hold to the notion that only the ill-educated and gullible fall for magic and hocus-pocus, there's much evidence that the reverse is true. No one could accuse the followers of Scientology of being deficient in IQ, for instance, whatever else you might think of their beliefs. US studies show that New Age concepts, especially, are dearly held by those with higher intelligence, higher socioeconomic status and higher educational levels; while psychologist David Wulff found that certain high-achieving personality types are more inclined to believe in mystical experiences (typically those who score high on personality variables such as complexity, openness to new experience, breadth of interests, innovation, tolerance of ambiguity, and creativity).
US science historian and professional sceptic Michael Shermer is particularly interested in why smart people believe the unbelievable (he has written a book on the subject, Why People Believe Weird Things). In a comprehensive review of the literature, he collated a fascinating precis of the psychology of belief, and came to one basic conclusion: "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. Where evidence is lacking, the mind fills in the gaps, and smart minds are better at gap-filling."
But perhaps the most interesting - and pertinent - study Shermer quotes is by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. Studying island tribes off the coast of New Guinea, Malinowski discovered that the further out to sea they went to fish, the more they developed superstitious rituals. The safer their environment, the less they relied on magic. The more dangerous, chaotic and unpredictable the environment, the more the tribesmen invoked complicated rituals to keep bad luck at bay.
In short: "We find magic where the element of danger is conspicuous."
And that, as much as anything, explains why so many otherwise intelligent, rational people choose to get their horoscopes cast, or consult regularly with their clairvoyants. In a chaotic world, we feel we need all the help we can get.
But the other intriguing trend, especially among the educated middle class, is the tendency to put our faith in things we don't actually believe in. We have our lucky footy scarves and pre-match rituals, even though we know, rationally, it has absolutely no impact on the outcome of the game. We compulsively read our horoscopes in cheap magazines and then describe ourselves accordingly ("I'm a typical Sag"), while simultaneously accepting that the relation of the planets to the sun on the day we were born can have no actual bearing on our personality. And we assess potential new homes or design our renovations around feng shui principles we not only don't believe in, we don't really understand - much to the ire of the people whose business it is to actually design houses and renovations.
"If you actually believe in feng shui, then by all means go to a feng shui master and have your house designed that way," says architect Polly Bastow. "But personally I think you're better off trusting a strong sense of design and years of experience to give you a great house that responds to your brief, rather than some vague concepts that may or may not have relevance. If a client wants feng shui feedback, they've come to the wrong person."
Maddeningly, that's precisely what they regularly come to Bastow for anyway. And clients' feng shui concerns invariably focus on just the one thing: that your front door shouldn't face your back door. "It gets a little bit more abstract when they talk about the money running out the door. When it comes to renovations, the money is always going to run out the door. But if you keep the feng shui out of it, it's going to leave you with some wonderful pieces of design." When she's taking it personally, Bastow sees the feng shui fixation as evidence of a lack of faith in her skills and expertise. The cynical part of her sees it as a fad clients like to trot out at dinner parties. More generously, she understands undertaking a major building project is daunting, and people are looking for all the reassurance they can get. "It's just an easy thing to say, an easy concept to understand," she says. "When a project seems too big, too hard to comprehend, it's one of those things they can grasp."
Terry Kelly, president of the Victorian Skeptics Association, says "it seems to be part of the human condition that if it suits us to believe something that doesn't make sense, we will''. Kelly stresses that the association is not anti-religion (indeed, several of its members are religious, including an Anglican minister). But various members have given a lot of thought to why so many people believe so much that is either patently nonsensical or impossible to prove.
"Astrology's the classic example of what we think is nonsense. But a lot of really intelligent people I know believe it," Kelly says. "That's partly because it's often portrayed in a really generalist way, so it can mean all kinds of things. People put their own meaning on to it. And I think this is also part of the human condition. We are pattern-makers. We try and establish generalised rules and patterns from observable evidence to help us make sense of the world, but we also tend to make patterns even when they're not there."
Kelly also thinks sometimes the smartest people are the most gullible, because they figure if they can't understand something rationally, then it must be magic. "You get this cognitive dissonance, where people can be rational in one sense, and irrational in another," he says. People like Vasilyki Eliades, perhaps, who for 22 years worked as a corporate lawyer while maintaining a not-so-secret double life as a serial attendee of what she calls "woo-woo workshops".
"And for most of my life I've been worried that my friends, who are mostly professional, rational people, would think I was a flake. Until one of them said to me, 'You know what, Vas? Everyone knows. We all know you're a complete flake.' That was such a bloody relief." Eventually, Eliades ended up doing tarot readings for her managing director and other senior executives. Then a redundancy gave her the chance to pursue the woo-woo full time. For the past two years she has combined pro bono and voluntary work with a fully fledged spiritual journey, something she regards with a combination of self-deprecation and seriousness.
"Let's see. I've done dream groups. My hairy women's workshops. Yoga and meditation, which are pretty much standard now days. All sorts of primal therapy. Gestalt. Endless psychologists. Counsellors - they're part of my pit stop. You get a wax, you go to your counsellor, you get your eyebrows done.
"I've done therapy with drawing and crayons. Voice dialogue. Have you done voice dialogue? Marvellous. Totally kooky. But marvellous. I studied reiki and became a reiki master. Which was a much prouder moment than becoming a lawyer. Crystals. Past life integration. Entity clearings. You name it. And my own jury is still out on some of that stuff. But all of these things always only ever lead to greater self-awareness. To my mind, that is the spiritual Holy Grail."
The other important thing Eliades' woo-woo workshops grant her is a sense of belonging. "Organised religions are based on separateness. And a lot of these newer things are inclusive. Which gives me a spiritual home, I guess, a feeling like I'm not alone on the planet. ''It also gives me a place, particularly the women's workshops that I've done, to just sit with women and really feel connected to the feminine, which in a corporate environment you rarely do."
But it's not just about bonding with the girls. Eliades really does believe in some kind of spiritual dimension. "My belief in an Other doesn't guarantee me any kind of redemption," she stresses. "And I do believe this life is all there is. And the way one evolves in this space is what one takes with one - energetically - when one goes. But I do believe the essence of people remains."
So we do have souls? "Oh yes. We each have an essence that is our greater connectedness." In that, Eliades is typical of many 21st-century "believers", combining an unshakeable belief in something more than this mortal coil with what she describes as "a very healthy inner cynic". "In the moment, while I am in it, I feel quite connected to whatever's transpiring." Afterwards, she's not always so sure. "A lot of it doesn't fit comfortably into my belief system," she says. "But I also think this planet and this universe are way weirder than any of us are actually willing to admit."
Sending a strong message that atheism is gaining momentum as a political issue in Australia, thousands of non-believers will gather in Melbourne next March for a major international convention: The Rise of Atheism. The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre has been booked for the event which is set to become the largest gathering of non-theists in Australia’s history.
President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA), David Nicholls, says that inquiries about the convention have exceeded all expectations and interest continues to grow as organisers confirm some of the leading names of the ‘New Atheism’ movement as speakers.
Leading the lineup is author of The God Delusion, British evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, along with American biologist, Professor P. Z. Myers, host of the world’s top-ranked science blog, Pharyngula. Also confirmed is Dan Barker, a former evangelical pastor. Barker, author of Losing Faith in Faith, now heads America’s Freedom from Religion Foundation and hosts America’s first atheist radio program, Freethought Radio on Air America.
Australian speakers include; philosopher and professor of bioethics, Peter Singer, broadcaster Phillip Adams, and Age columnist, Catherine Deveny. More information on the convention is available at: http://www.atheistconvention.org.au
The enormous contemporary interest in atheism as a social and political movement has been fueled by global religious conflicts and the increasing politicisation and influence of the ‘religious right’. A number of best-selling books on the subject, including Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, and Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, have inspired thousands to join non-theist organisations and online atheist communities.
AFA president, David Nicholls says, “Non-religious Australians are fed-up with an unrepresentative Christian minority influencing important civil rights issues like abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research and gay marriage – all issues which the majority of Australians support. They’re also concerned about the amount of tax-payers’ money being pumped into religious schools at the expense of the public education system.”
“People contact us at the Atheist Foundation every day, saying, “What can we do to stop this?” says Nicholls.
Surveys show that only 7.5% of Australians attend church regularly. While the official Census figures show Australia’s ‘non-religious’ make up 20% of the population, several major international studies reveal that this figure is vastly underestimated. Nicholls estimates that non-believers in Australia are probably closer to 50%.
The Rise of Atheism Convention will bring together atheists from around the country, and across the world. “Make no mistake,” says Nicholls, “this is not just going to be a talk-fest. The incredible level of interest should be a huge wake-up call to politicians and Christian lobbyists, alike, that non-religious Australians are preparing to stand-up and be counted. Atheism is on the rise, and the non-religious will no longer sit quietly on the sidelines while good policies are derailed by religious dogma and prejudice.”
Relevant Statistics
Nationally, only 7.5% of Australians attend a place of worship weekly. Source: Zuckerman, Phil (2005), Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns, Cambridge University Press
A survey by Germany’s Religion Monitor (2008) found that 31% of Australians do not believe in God, a divine power or life after death, while a further 26% were uncertain to varying degrees. Source: Religion Monitor (2008), ‘Australia: High level of religious identity paired with low level of Belief’, Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation, Sydney/Gütersloh (Germany)
Contact:Letter in the Sunday Age 11 April 2010
TO THE Catholic League of Australia, I am atheist and proud of it. I don't judge or condemn people for their beliefs, I don't tamper with the minds of children, I don't start wars, so what part of me is evil because I don't believe?
STEVE WINCHESTER, BraybrookArticle in TheAge newspaper:
Just nine days ago, the prime minister of the time, Kevin Rudd, drew on the words of the 18th-century Christian theologian John Wesley to explain his international view. ''The world is my parish,'' Wesley is said to have proclaimed.
Rudd - whose parish was about to shrink to less than the size of a country churchyard - was explaining his personal and political values to Christians across Australia.
Both he and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had answered the bidding of the Australian Christian Lobby to address church leaders. Their views on everything from gay marriage to school chaplains, asylum seekers, climate change and whether the Lord's Prayer would continue to open parliamentary proceedings were relayed via the internet to hundreds of churches across the nation.
The Christian lobby lays claim to a large constituency, from excited happy clappers to more sombre traditionalists, and makes no bones about requiring political leaders to take heed. The title of the program made it plain: ''2010, Make It Count''.
''It'', of course, was the Christian vote at the coming election.
Rudd and Abbott took such care with their answers you would have been hard pressed to jam a page from a prayer book between their pro-Christian views.
It seems unlikely the Christian lobby will lay out the red carpet and the internet link for the latest Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. If believers were in the dark about Gillard's religious convictions, they needed only to tune in to the ABC's Jon Faine program yesterday.
FAINE: Do you believe in God?Amazingly, the radio station was not struck by lightning.
Gillard hastened to add she was brought up a Baptist, attending the Mitcham Baptist Church. Why, she even won catechism prizes for remembering verses from the Bible.
''But during my adult life I've, you know, found a different path,'' she declared. ''I'm, of course, a great respecter of religious beliefs but they're not my beliefs.''
Quite. But was she worried about the Christian vote, Faine inquired? ''Look I'm, you know, worried about the national interest, about doing the right thing by Australians and I'll allow, you know, people to form their own views on whatever is going to drive their views,'' Gillard replied.
It seemed likely to have some of the devout falling to their knees to pray for the salvation of Gillard's soul. The more hardline may have been struck with a vision of hellfire. An unmarried woman . . . and an atheist to boot?
The last Australian PM who dared to express doubts about an Almighty was Bob Hawke, son of a Congregationalist preacher. But even he couldn't bring himself to declare himself an atheist. Hawke was agnostic. It sometimes seemed possible that the booze-challenged, womanising hell-raiser figured no deity could compete.
He became, however, Labor's longest-serving PM.
The Labor faithful will be praying for a repeat.
Atheist Alliance International
Atheist Foundation of Australia
Freedom From Religion FoundationThe Brights - An Atheist Organisation
Against Religion by Tamas Pataki published by Scribe 2007
Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam by Michel Onfray published byArcade Publishing 2007
God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens published by Allen and Unwin 2007
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins published by Bantam Press 2006
The Purple Economy by Max Wallace published by Australian National Secular Association (ANSA) 2007
Why I am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell published by Unwin Books 1967
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MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)
This page was last updated 16 OCTOBER 2010