The Atheist Blogger

So a Times Online article, written by religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill, broke the ‘news’ over the weekend that the children featured in the new BHA billboards are ‘evangelicals’. This article has so many falsehoods and misrepresentations (not to mention completely missing the point of the adverts) that I’m afraid I’m going to have to go through it a paragraph at a time.

The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’s latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery he associates with religious baggage. With the slogan “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”, the youngsters with broad grins seem to be the perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted by Professor Dawkins and the British Humanist Association.

It boggles the mind as to how Gledhill managed to come to the conclusion that this is the “perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted”. Come on Ruth! In the same sentence you describe the adverts as “new atheism”, you wrote the slogan of the campaign: “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”. Tell me, how on earth does that slogan have anything to do with belief or disbelief in God?

Except that they are about as far from atheism as it is possible to be. The Times can reveal that Charlotte, 8, and Ollie, 7, are from one of the country’s most devout Christian families.

So? Like I said before, this isn’t an advert about atheism, this is an advert about calling children “Christian child” or “Muslim child” when they are clearly too young to understand and make a rational decision for themselves on what they believe. When I was Charlotte’s age, I could too be described as a “Christian child”, except I really wasn’t. I believed in God and Jesus not because I had considered the subject, but because my parents told me that’s what we believed. Indeed, it wasn’t until later that I started considering the issue for myself, and first described myself as an atheist.

My personal story aside, there isn’t anything wrong with featuring children of religious parents in this advert. In fact, the whole point of the advert is to show that all children are equal, free, and shouldn’t be called by the religion of their parents. A religious couple’s children would be perfect for such an advert.

Their father, Brad Mason, is something of a celebrity within evangelical circles as the drummer for the popular Christian musician Noel Richards. Now a web designer and photographer, Mr Mason has been supplementing his income for years by providing photographs to agencies who sell them on to newspapers and advertising campaigns.

I say ‘perfect’ a bit more timidly now. Evangelicals are a different kind of religious believer, more intent on proselyting that having an active discussion about anything concerning their beliefs. Still, the fact that the children in the photo are the children of an evangelical Christian has nothing to do with the advert itself, which is, afterall, asking parents not to label their children.

He said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”

Yes, I suppose it’s kind of ironic that the children chosen for an advert about not labeling children were in fact, children who have been labeled by their father. The again, it adds a little humour to the advert from a humanist perspective; these children are now ‘asking’ their father not to label them, and to let them decide for themselves. I wonder if he’ll listen?

He said that the children’s Christianity had shone through. “Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians. That is quite a compliment. I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.

I reckon it does show that the children have been brought up in a good way, and they do look very happy. Nobody has said that being brought up by Christian parents (or any religious parents for that matter) means that you will be unhappy. I was perfectly happy as a child of religious parents, and I’m sure many are. The only thing shining through here is the happiness of the child, which has more to do with their upbringing than the religion they most likely do not understand.

Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer network of churches, which Mr Mason and his family used to attend before they moved to Dorset, said: “I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.”

The only thing ‘hilarious’ about this is that it has revealed how needed the advert is. Both the journalist who wrote this piece, the father, and the church leader quoted above have referred to these children as ‘Christian’ when they are not. They are children of Christian parents, they come from a Christian family, but you cannot expect an 8 year old and a 7 year old to understand the complexity of the Christian belief system. These are children who in all likelihood still believe in Santa Claus (if their evangelical parents do that sort of thing that is), and the Easter bunny. You can tell a child of this age anything and they will believe it; they have not yet developed the reasoning skills or the understanding that adults can be wrong.

The British Humanist Association said that it did not matter whether the children were Christians. “That’s one of the points of our campaign,” said Andrew Copson, the association’s education director. “People who criticise us for saying that children raised in religious families won’t be happy, or that no child should have any contact with religion, should take the time to read the adverts.

“The message is that the labelling of children by their parents’ religion fails to respect the rights of the child and their autonomy. We are saying that religions and philosophies — and ‘humanist’ is one of the labels we use on our poster — should not be foisted on or assumed of young children.”

Finally, the voice of reason appears in the form of Andrew Copson. It’s a shame that it took the entire length of the article before reaching some actually truthful comment, but I guess you don’t sell newspapers any other way. Luckily, in only two paragraphs, Andrew dispels all previous misinterpretation, ignorance, and blatant lying that the previous six contained.

So, are the children in the advert ‘Christian’? No.

Are they children of Christian parents? Yes.

Does it matter that such children are appearing in an advert? Not really, no.

Problem solved, crisis over. Let’s see who can misinterpret the billboard next! I can’t wait, but to fill the void, here’s a lovely quote from writer Philip Pullman, who supports the billboards and actually bothered to read them.

It is absolutely right that we shouldn’t label children until they are old enough to decide for themselves.

Image via Wikipedia

Reader Ryan Latham has created an informative presentation on the origins and history of the Pledge of Allegiance, and a brief introduction to the constitutional issues it faces. I’m not an American citizen, but it is hard to be a secularist online and not know about the 1954 inclusion of the words “under God” into the Pledge to counter “godless communism” at the time.

Ryan’s presentation fills you in on the court cases involving the Pledge, and how the addition of “under God” would fare if tested by the courts today.

I’m back from Egypt, and I haven’t had the time to watch any interesting YouTube videos that I could share with people, however I just watched one that I have to make a comment on. It’s called “Converting an indian to christianity -- don’t let the devil win” by some YouTube newbie, and it is either a display of outright ignorance, or a hoax.

The video is a discussion between two American kids and their friend “Saraa” who is Indian. In it, they discuss Indian culture and the Hindu religion, before attempting to “convert” poor Saraa to Christianity. If you don’t have time to watch the video, here are a selection of face-palm quotes you might want to peruse:

This is just an epic fail in geography.

Molly: [Saraa's] Indian. It’s like…an African country in Asia.

This is plain ignorance, not to mention quite racist.

Molly: Do you consider yourself Asian or African?

Saraa: Asian.

Molly: Because you look African…but you’re Asian.

Rachel: Why are you so dark then?

Saraa: Because I’m from Asia!

Molly: Why aren’t your eyes pointy…or slanted?

*pause*

Molly: It’s ok, I know you can be what you want, but it’s not what you look like.

Rachel: Yeah, I think she’s lying to us.

Yet more ignorance regarding race.

Rachel: It’s like, if an African and an Asian had a baby.

Then they move onto religion.

(After Saraa explains she is Hindu and doesn’t believe in Jesus)

Molly: But why don’t you change if you’re wrong? You know that believing in multiple gods is a sin?

No amateur discussion of religion is right without one mention of Pascal’s wager.

Molly: Ok, how about this. There’s a chance…well, a very good chance that Christianity is the right religion, and that’s the religion that has a hell, so if I’m wrong in your religion I don’t go to hell, but if you’re wrong in my religion then you go to hell.

So why do I think the video might be fake? It’s just an inkling I get when watching it, perhaps because I’ve seen so many Poe’s in videos, but it doesn’t come across as how actual conversation goes. Especially at the end when Molly tells Saraa that she can’t be her friend because she’s not Christian, and Saraa sort of just accepts it and says “I need to go home to eat rice”.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Prayer request sites… I’m sure this sort of thing has been around for a while. But I had no idea just how many sites there are out there that allow one to post to their prayer requests to the electronic world at large, for the purpose of having other people Retweet their petitions up at God.

(Let me make the disclaimer, of course, that I’m not going to rag on the good intentions of so many people that will take the time to try to help a complete stranger with their problems. The motivation for setting up a site to help people in need obviously comes from a good place. The problem, of course, is that petitionary prayer doesn’t actually do anything, beyond a placebo effect at best; and that if you want to help someone in need, they will quite obviously be better off if you actually take action of some kind.)

You’d think that if God was going to respond to a prayer, he’d just do it, without factoring in if there was a massive effort on the part of many people. If the person praying has great needs, the last thing he or she needs is to have to find others that will echo the prayer around. Is there some kind of threshold criteria God uses to determine how he answers, or if he answers? For example, suppose I want divine help in looking for a new job. Is twenty other co-supplicants twice as good as ten? Why would it matter?

These are the kinds of questions I asked myself as I perused a bunch of prayer sites. I found many to be dull, but a few were interesting or funny for one reason or another. What follows is my top ten list.

10. Requestprayers.com

Pretty vanilla site, this is run by the Baha’i organization. Seems odd that they’d give it a commercial rather than organizational extension, but that was true for most of these places. They have one page that purports to have the most powerful prayer ever devised. Testimonitals include:

The Baha’is have some of the most beautiful and powerful prayers in the world. Add that power to a million souls across the globe praying on your behalf from all the religions, and the Light is dumbfounding. Need immediate help? You were guided to this site, and nothing happens by accident!

9. Liveprayer.com

The extremely conservative minister behind this site claims to have started the entire business of online prayer requests, apparently. He also claims to have personally received and re-prayed 60 million prayer requests. Wow! If that was not impressive enough, the main page devotes much attention to President Obama, naming him “God’s Enemy”; plus, they feature a tasteful, if amateurishly photoshopped, portrait of him next to Hiter. There is also extensive advertising for something called The Jonah Project, an effort to better Christianize the U.S. (and the world).

8. CarmelTemple.org

Not just your typical prayer submission site where your request is simply posted to a page for others to dutifully recite. No, this is the Home of the Crystal Prayer Bowl! (Yes, they have pictures of it, too.) Here is what they do with it:

The Crystal Prayer Bowl is used to collect prayer requests sent to Carmel Temple. It is placed under the Blue-White Healing Light at the beginning of healing sessions in the Sanctuary. The prayer requests then receive the energy and prayers of those present. We encourage you to place into the bowl the name (even the initials will do) of the person, persons, or situations that need prayer or healing energy. This procedure has been very effective and that bowl has an excellent reputation!

7. Donjuddministries.org

You can send them your prayer requests, which they will compile with all the others that they receive. Then they will print the entire list out. Why? So that they can “lay hands on the list” as they pray over it. Why not just lay hands on the hard drive and save time, paper, and ink?

6. Prayerblaster.com

I had high expectations for this page, and I was disappointed. I was hoping it would be a bit like Pingmyblog.com. Instead it is just a pedestrian list of links. Not much of a blaster at all, as you’d have to manually go through the list and submit your prayer to each site individually. This page might have been made in 1992.

5. Prayer.la

The folks running this site seem proud to offer an exhausting 218 pages of prayer requests that are all less than one month old. Apparently they expire after that. No stale prayers! Would take hours to go through them all and pray for each one, I’d imagine.

4. Prayerrequestweb.com

Much like prayer.la, in terms of sheer volume, but at least you won’t have to click through 218 pages of prayers. They are all on one very long page that you can just scroll down.

Here is an excerpt that I found particularly pathetic and sad, yet somehow representative of what you’ll find posted. There is a compulsory tone to it at the end… as if the author meant to finish with “Or else!”

Please pray GOD gives me all the desires of my heart that are righteous in GODs eyes.Pray GOD sends me on the mission He has for me now,Pray GOD raises me a mile above those used by Satan to glorify GOD,Pray GOD Blesses me financially now and always.Pray GOD heals my body completely now.Pray GOD brings me my soulmate now,the loneliness is tormenting me. In JESUS Name Pray.

3. Holylandprayer.com

Now this is a “dot com” that truly deserve that extension. Also fitting is the image of the glowing gold Jesus hanging on a cross that adorns their home page.

Here is what they offer, for some nominal fees: If you send them a prayer, they’ll have it prayed in Jerusalem, “steps from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the spot where Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.”

Or, they’ll light a candle for you there. Or do both together and get a discount!

Why would God care where the prayer originated from? Does it get more power coming from Jerusalem? Does that make it more bona fide, somehow? Or is God impressed that you are in dire enough straights that you’d send these people money? (Back in Dante’s time, accepting money for ecclessiastical favors was called Simony and earned one a very hot reward in the Eight Circle of Hell.)

Costs: $10 for a candle, $15 for a prayer. $20 for both.

2. Healinglifecoach.com Looking for something a little different from the same old prayer site? Then this is the place for you.

These folks offer special stones imbued with power because they are not merely prayed over, but “programmed.” Specifically, they tell us:

Programmed Stones can be effective and powerful tools for anything from Prayer, Freedom from Worry and Creative Visualization to Healing, Forgiveness, Gratitude and much more!

How are the stones programmed? They are cleaned and set in the Healing Sanctuary with your individualized and special requests with daily prayers being said over them for a minimum of 30 days. Then they are sent to you!

1. Ipraytoday.com

This was my favorite site because, beneath the name and prayer entry fields, it has a “capcha” device, so that you can prove you are a human being! To be fair, I suppose this is more to save the devout from being asked to repeat bogus prayers, but it struck me as hilarious to think of it as a spam filter for The Lord God Himself. I can only imagine Jehovah’s fury at realizing he was tricked into granting the request of a bot.

-S.A. Alenthony

www.blackburnianpress.com

Christians have recently begun putting billboards up claiming that the separation of church and state is not what the Founding Fathers wanted for America. This is actually quite true, since it is a well established fact in the Church of the Smashing Orangey Bit that both George Washington & Thomas Jefferson were devout Jaffalots. Far from wanting a separation of church and state, the Founding Fathers wanted a joining of the “state and cake” to honour McVities forever.

However, fundamentalist Christians stormed the proceedings, rewriting the constitution, and sending back all the Jaffa Cakes to England. This event is now known as the Boston Tea Party, because it was yet again covered up by Christian fundamentalists. By telling the population that the boxes contained tea, they tricked everyone into a riot, until no Jaffa Cakes remained and the snack was forgotten.

In retribution for this terrible event, the Church of the Smashing Orangey Bit has decided to put up our own billboards to counter the atheist and Christian versions. People may have forgotten the joining of state and cake, they may have forgotten Jaffa Cakes, but they will not forget McVities!

Thou shalt not eat Communion wafers.

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