The Telegraph has a lovely article on how The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies is going to brainwash children. Here’s the kind of mud they’re slinging:
Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: “Atheists are becoming increasingly militant in their desperate attempts to stamp out faith. It is deeply worrying that they now want to use children to attack the Christian ethos of their schools.
“Many parents will also be anxious at the thought of militant atheists targeting their children.”
Oh, lordy, lordy. “Attack the Christian ethos”? He says that like it would be a bad thing.
But don’t trust the Telegraph, which is openly lying about the program planned. Go straight to the source to find out what they’re actually up to.
What the AHS actually wants to do is encourage interfaith discussion through a variety of events, focusing on both scientific and religious education, as well as supporting charity work. The aims of the current initiative are outlined in brief here:
- To teach students how to debate and create dialogue between school faith groups.
- Provide the school with fun and educational events and activities, including two student-led courses: ‘Perspectives’ in which a speaker from a faith group gives a talk followed by Q&A, and our ‘One Life’ course, which considers moral and ethical issues without god. Many events will also support the scientific curriculum.
- Encourage charity volunteering.
- Give students the experience of running a group and managing events.
- Show students that it’s ok not to believe in god and encourage critical thinking.
- Bring out issues concerning religious privilege in schools such as collective worship and incomplete or biased religious education.
All of those things, of course, are horribly objectionable to certain Christians.
Christians lying? I NEVER expected that!
“All of those things, of course, are horribly objectionable to certain Christians”
…and the Telegraph’s target demographic.
I wonder what those attempts are.
Mind control? Killing? What are these atheists actually doing to “stamp out faith”? Don’t tell me they’re trying to commit persuasion, as surely we wouldn’t want speech to be so free as to allow atheistic persuasion.
Really, though, the article isn’t bad. Basically it’s just telling what the atheists are doing, letting them explain why, and then we have the overheated nonsense by the theist near the end of the article.
Maybe it’s “balance” where there should be more in the way of analysis, but “balance” is the worst “sin” that I can see there. The atheists have more say than the theist, even though the latter is only smearing the former.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
How is that not “attacking the Christian ethos”?
According to Christian fundamentalists, the very idea of dialogue with hated enemies is blasphemous anathema.
Let´s look at what the atheists are doing…
– encouraging critical thinking
– empowering children
– teaching respect for other faiths and non-faith
– encouraging multiple perspectives on issues of faith.
To state the obvious, yes, this group is clearly attacking the Christian ethos.
We had to watch those traveling Christian evangelist rock band shows during assembly a few times back in high school. They need to make some secular ones for a fair balance, IMO.
Well, they are promoting thought – and we know how much the Judeo-Christian religion is founded not allowing independent thought, hence the ‘bad things happen to you if you eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge’ story right at the start.
Nothing’s going to free the vast majority of people from Christianity more than encouraging them to actually think about it at any depth beyond ‘Why do we have Xmas and Easter?’, sociocultural tradition and Pascal’s Wager.
So, they’ve a right to be concerned; however, they aren’t entitled to be protected from what’s worrying them.
Those wicked atheists, targeting children! Religion would never target children – religions refuse to have anything to do with a child until the child is 18 years old and can demonstrate critical thinking and independence of thought, and only then may the child choose to be involved with religion if they so wish. The mere thought of indoctrination of children is reprehensible to all religious believers around the world. Oh, wait…
But… If they teach children that atheism is OK, then religious people WILL HAVE NO CHOICE! Their will be having their rights TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM!
(Don’t ask me how or about what they’ll have no choice. That’s intolerance!)
Ugh. That obviously should read: “They will be having…”
“Critical thinking” is the devil’s most effective tool, obviously. The Utah GOP will try to outlaw that soon too, I’m sure.
But If you respect your kids, you want them to be able to reason for themselves. We attended a graduation ceremony for a cousin last year, at the Crystal Cathedral. [Yes, that Crystal Cathedral. Not terribly impressive, actually, but then I’ve been in Notre Dame and the Cologne Cathedral.] It was a Christian HS ceremony, and after about the tenth interminable Bible verse and the hundredth time the presenters gave total credit for all the kids’ accomplishments and great grades/SAT scores, etc. to God and not the kids who did the work, my daughter leaned over, gave me a big hug and whispered, “I love you sooooo much.” (If she’s ever been in church it’s been inadvertent.)
I really don’t get this atheist boogeyman thing that America has going on. How can a population really be that ignorant?
An atheist storm is gathering, the clouds are dark and the winds are strong, etc…
Don’t know if this has been posted, but the Boston Globe had a story today on the relative dearth of studies of nonbelievers (compared to Templeton and others’ support of research on believers):
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/04/26/beyond_belief/
not to mention that, according to the website, these “children” the Telegraph is talking about here are college students. Can’t have them being exposed to new ideas at university.
An atheist storm is one that is explained by the laws of physics as opposed to Baal or Thor correct?
The article was in the Torygraph. They’d misreport the weather if they thought it would do the right wing Christards any good.
It’s pretty funny. Atheists are trying to set up a group similar to “Campus Crusade for Christ”, and of course, it’s the atheists who are engaging in brainwashing.
If I wanted to be cruel, I suppose I could say the same thing about all the religious schools (at all levels) that engage in brainwashing, …er, sorry, indoctrination into the faith.
And militant? Are they arming this group they’re attempting to recruit with weapons?
Ha! Ha, ha, ha! Kel you wonder how can a population really be that ignorant?
You’re kidding right?
My hometown newspaper has religious tard letters to the editor by the page full, and every Friday a minimum of two pages of christian news and events. We don’t get educational speakers here, we get tent revivals.
All these terrible militant atheists rose up in Berlin today in a concerted effort to stamp out faith and drive persecution of Christianity home to the core of every single believer.
No, what actually happened was that one in six voters (the portion who were interested in the issue at all as opposed to spending fifteen more minutes at the Biergarten) nonchalantly defeated the best effort the religious could muster in their Prop8-style propaganda campaign to segregate children into denominational groups for church-led religious ‘education’. Berlin said ‘Do Not Want’. Bishops are crying into their pillows tonight.
Do any of them advertise good Christian gatherings where they’re going to party like it’s 1599?
Wowbagger:
A little boy kicked me in the butt last week
I just smiled at him and I turned the other cheek
I really don’t care, in fact I wish him well
‘Cause I’ll be laughing my head off when he’s burning in hell…
“Many parents will also be anxious at the thought of militant atheists targeting their children.”
Sounds like my reaction to watching “Jesus Camp”, but with the roles reversed.
Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, but at least it’s an ethos. These guys are just nihilists!
Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, but at least it’s an ethos. These guys are just nihilists!
But teaching critical thinking is attacking the Christian ethos!
I wish. I keep hearing similar happens in Australia, but I’m yet to see it. Hell, we’ve even elected a (defacto) atheist as our leader before. I can understand why people don’t understand evolution or big bang – hell, it’s taken me a long time to properly understand either of those concepts and I’m still very sketchy on what the big bang entails. But atheism is just simply the non-belief in a god. It’s like someone who doesn’t believe in astrology, only in god. That’s all, there’s nothing to it. How is it so hard to grasp that simply point?
It’s amazing actually here in Britain. A few years back, the Daily Telegraph did a poll which found that only 7.5% of Britons attend a religious service at least once a week.
And yet, when you suggest to any religious person that it might be an idea to supplement religious studies classes with a philosophical or critical thinking class – as is becoming more popular at age 16+ – their eyes just pop out and they go into maniac mode.
But why not split religious studies up as part of a broad philosophical awareness? We should be wanting students to have a broad education, and to think critically about as much as possible: why not have a class where teachers get students to think critically about religion, ethics, politics, philosophy, ideology and so on. Religious and non-religious views affect all of these areas. Teach kids how to think critically, and to critically reflect on the claims to knowledge. But this suggestion put to all but the most liberal of religionists leaves them shuddering. It’s not “atheist propaganda”, it’s not “politically correct”. But our side has nothing to fear from a rigourous philosophical and scientific curriculum.
I remember the Christian Union in my school though. There was a teacher who would run a weekly religious gathering in the sports building, and would get a notice read during the school assembly telling everyone that there would be free doughnuts and a chance to talk about “the big questions”.
There is nothing as entertaining as watching these people show their deep persecution complex.
Send me money, or when you’re dead, I, or a designate will dig up your grave and piss on your corpse.
Though not as intricate as religious dogma, it’s way more plausible, when you think about it.
Now, who wants to be designates, and what should the price be? :P
I meant to say: some schools in Britain now offer an AS/A2 (academic qualifications taken at age 16+) course called Critical Thinking which aims to make the student develop “the processes involved in being rational” and become “open-minded yet critical [of] one’s own thinking as well as that of others”, to develop clear and logical arguments, spot hidden assumptions, evaluate reasoning, identify logical flaws and fallacies and rhetorical appeals to emotion.
It’s really awesome, and I hope that if/when I get through a Ph.D and start having to admit students to university courses, this kind of course will have become a key part of the curriculum and has become required for everyone going to university. It would be nice if they included a bit more understanding of credibility of sources: pointing out that Wikipedia might be slightly less accurate than a double-blind, peer-reviewed research paper in Nature, and giving school students the tools to recognise the scholarly gems in the big heap of bullshit.
And yet, the same government that has allowed schools to start teaching Critical Thinking courses has also allowed the number of faith schools to dramatically increase – and not just relatively innocuous wooly Anglican church schools, but hardcore Islamic and evangelical Christian schools (teaching, in the latter case, young-earth creationism). This is what we get for electing a supposedly left-of-centre party?!
Having seen the nonsense first hand growing partly up in Jerusalem, I’ve been a “militant atheist” since I was five or six.
Militant atheism isn’t new, nor is it very militant.
My tactic has evolved and spins around the basic question-
“Is it immoral to lie to children?”
From there, it is easy to get parents to have to admit that they are, in fact, lying to their children when they say “there IS a god”.
But of course, as everybody knows, these arguments aren’t hard to win, but they are hard to sink in…
It’s not confined to the US, Kel. That’s a story from the UK. And don’t forget we’ve got our own religious nutters here — Cardinal Pell Pot springs to mind.
Sensationalism worse than Limbaugh.
Of course their god put them up to this. They would never think of this themselves. Why is it that they don’t invoke their god’s connivance in these matters? Good grief, what insane bullshit.
This misquoting will not stand, man.
“Nihilists! !”@$ me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”
Well having nutters is unavoidable. Though the way the media has gone after Hillsong shows that religion is not untouchable here.
Newfie writes:
Send me money, or when you’re dead, I, or a designate will dig up your grave and piss on your corpse.
Though not as intricate as religious dogma, it’s way more plausible, when you think about it.
OMG my keyboard! (blot) (blot)
I’d often thought that if the “uploader” futurists get their way, it’d actually be possible to accomplish the christian vision of eternal heaven or hell, at whatever clock-speed you like, inside some great big computer. Of course if someone wanted to torture my uploaded memories it’d be someone else, not me, so I guess I wouldn’t care (other than that they had serious “issues”). Which then makes me wonder why “I” should particularly care what happens to my “soul” when I die. I’ll be dead. Uh, (brain hurts) theology… feel my brain melting…
This makes me happy. Seriously.
The more secular the population becomes, the more strident the fundamentalists become. This is a metric, man, it’s a metric! Listen to them cry havoc at each hint of critical thinking; watch them turn red as a turnip with every advance of secularism.
Anyway, that’s how it is in my fantasy world.
Incredible. Right before the quote from the guy from the Christian Institute — the one that says “Atheists are becoming increasingly militant in their desperate attempts to stamp out faith” — is this:
And they argue that the atheists are “becoming increasingly militant?”
Clearly, we are using different understandings of what it means to be “militant.” When it comes to atheism, it means wanting to be treated just like other viewpoints, and given thoughtful consideration. Militant atheists write books, start up discussions, and try to persuade through reason. Religion is granted that as standard. “Militant religion” means bombs, violence, and death threats — and even then we’re supposed to “understand” that their faith was “threatened.” Tch.
I just love these “How to” posts!
These guys shouldn’t worry so much. We don’t want to convert all their kids to atheists.
Just the really, really smart ones.
*Felix* #20
Man, that’s quite the religious intrusion in schools!
I’m surprised that issue would even come up in Berlin.
Having been there often before reunification, I never had the impression that Berlin was a religious city. Unless the
Soviet sector was vulnerable to missionaries?
Hey guys,
I am a uber-regular reader of the site and the posts but do not usually make comments. When I saw this one I thought that maybe this might make a perfect time to speak up as an Athiest who is also trying to help make a difference.
I’m walking in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Research here in Chicago in a bit over a month and was hoping that some of you might like to help as well.
http://info.avonfoundation.org/site/TR/Walk2009/Chicago?px=4534910&pg=personal&fr_id=1780
is where you can donate a dollar or ten. Every little bit helps. If you can’t no worries but if you can that would be awesome.
Yours in reason,
Marc
marc #44 wrote:
Good for you, marc! I wish you the best, it sounds like a great cause.
But don’t think it’s a good idea for us to start soliciting donations for these types of charity events in Comments section. I’m going to guess that a lot of us do fundraisers, and so once one of us starts, others will follow — and it will rapidly become like the office where everyone is constantly buying chocolate bars and pizzas for everyone else’s cause. That way lies madness…
PZ will occasionally talk about donating to a particular group or person on topic, but it’s his blog, and his topic.
Thanks for posting this PZ. The AHS sends their thanks!
@ 39
How can you be sure the “you” that wakes up in the morning is the same “you” that went to sleep?
“Many parents will also be anxious at the thought of militant atheists targeting their children.”
Yes, exposing children to atheism is supposed to make you anxious. Exposing children to religion, as in bringing them along to Church or sending them to Sunday School, on the other hand…
This is right!!
Which faith is the real one? We should “teach the controversy”. Ha.
I’m a touch puzzled. I’m certainly not inclined to defend the ToryGraph but I’m having a hard time seeing this article as especially slanted. There’s a simple statement about the AHS followed by an arguably biased/sensational condensation of what they’re about. Then several paragraphs in what seems quite reasonable tone, including a good quote from Grayling. There are just three sentences of Calvert’s complaint – basically “oh noes! nasty atheists want to stop us hoodwinking your children!”followed by two closing paragraphs that seem quite ok to me.
Now I’m pretty good at English- I’m well-read, I’ve written a bit, I’m generally considered literate and able to communicate. I don’t see this as much of an attack and claim it could easily read as support for atheism. If I’d spotted this myself I might have pointed it out as surprising evidence that someone at the telegraph had a brain.
So what do you claim I missed? Or did they edit the article between PZ posting and me reading?
Check out the last part of this dude’s comedy routine… the stuff about Jesus and lying to our children is just priceless
There’s a part of me that relishes the idea of being thought of as a bogeyman of sorts, especially by parents.
Think of the time you’ll save not having to line up in grocery stores and banks because the terrified patrons snatch up their kids and flee when you enter.
A couple of months ago some poor 19-year-old tried to proselytise to me on a street corner. He looked so frightened when I told him I was an atheist I was briefly tempted to say ‘Boo!’ to see if he would fill his drawers. Of course, I couldn’t stay to toy with him longer as I was late for my weekly Atheist Conspiracy meeting (you know the ones in which we plot to destroy the American Family ™ and edit history books to support our bogus claims that neither the US or Canada are Christian Nations. Did you know that the founder of the Hudson’s Bay Company was actually Jesus? No? Well, thanks to the work of the Atheist Conspiracy neither will generations of Canadian children, heh-heh.)
Another story from The Maily Telegraph ,formerly The Daily Torygraph. (So named due to its reporting moving ever closer to the hate filled but more popular Daily Mail.)
Tom Morris wrote
Here in Wales the former education minister (who used to be a teacher) abandoned SATs some years ago and relaxed the strict curriculum that went along with them. This allowed a broadening of the subjects taught in primary schools.
A friend trialled a philosophy course with his 7/8 year old pupils, for a year, which was so successful he is in great demand to train other teachers how to set up the same in their schools. It is now part of his school’s curriculum.
The critical thinking elements rolled out across the entire curriculum have made a difference to the results achieved by these pupils and have been noted when they move on to high school. There has also been a noticeable improvement in behaviour.
Sherry @#43,
no, the missionaries were very active but thoroughly unsuccessful. In the nearly two decades since reunification, religiosity has risen no more than two or three percent in the former Soviet zone and is now stagnant or re-declining.
This new campaign was an effort from churches together with mostly western conservatives and the liberal party. The religious are in a cold sweat since they have realized that not mandating religious education/indoctrination from a young age results in a rapid decline.
Ethics classes were introduced as a subject for all students together in reaction to religious divisions becoming more and more apparent and (partially) religiously justified violence increased in youth groups (‘muslim’ gangs, honor killings). Six decades of religion classes had not prevented the present increase in youth violence – the only area where crime is on the increase in Germany. More and more teens were organizing into ethnically divided groups, increasing the language difficulties of immigrant children. Spurred on by ignorant parents and religious community figures, they adopted religious identification to raise their sense of self-worth and standing, honor and heritage. The old system had segregated Christian classes for Protestants and Catholics, and none for Islam. Until today, muslims have not found a unified voice whom to appoint to educate and nominate teachers or whether to request their own religion classes at all. There are many immigrant and second-generation parents from predominantly muslim countries who are not religious and fear the intrusion of religion into their mostly secular communities in Germany. Others are religious but are also well aware of the deep and dangerous divisions within Islam and wish to sensibly keep their brand of religion private and not a matter of school education.
Pro religion campaigners in Berlin claimed that their ethos was being marginalized by letting it be discussed as equal among all religions and in direct comparison to non-theistic philosophy. They say that religion is too important for the formation of an ethical worldview to have it taught and evaluated in a group not led by a religious theologian. Many voters were urged to cast their vote against ‘the abolishment of religion classes’, which in reality was not being debated or voted on – they lied plain and simple. On election day, clerics instructed their flock until the last minute of their sermons how to vote. Children were instrumentalized to fuel the propaganda by lighting candles – all as if Jesus was going to be murdererd all over again. For this misleading and hyperbolic campaign of emotionalism, they got the proper rejection from the constituency.
For information, we do have religion classes in addition to ethics. They are being held by church-appointed teachers paid for by the state (i.e. everybody’s taxes). What bothers the indoctrination proponents is that these classes take part in extra time and are not mandatory. They know full well that this oh-so-desirable subject is not interesting to most parents and students enough to spend even one or two extra hours a week on. Why the church Sundays – completely blue-lawed throughout Germany – and all the time after school were insufficient for parents and clerics to instruct their children in their cherished religious ethos, they never bothered to explain.
Tim Rowledge:
I agree with Tim; PZ is demonstrating the sort of mendacious mis-representation that he despises in pro-religious commentators.
PZ:
No, don’t trust PZ. Like the fundamentalists, he seems to believe that it is OK to misrepresent and lie about anything he chooses to despise, because he is doing No-God’s Work, honorably serving an Absence of A Higher Power.
The Telegraph’s article seems accurate and balanced and I see no misrepresentation of either (pro- or anti- religion) side.
Your blog post though is a pile of lying horseshit. Your fawning and unquestioning minions deserve better than this.
And they argue that the atheists are “becoming increasingly militant?”
ie…they think we are getting more like them. However i don’t think we would ever sink that low.
Sam C @ 57,
PZ’s objection is I believe to the way the article quoted this Calvert guy without comment and seemingly as part of the reporter’s piece,and he supplied a link to the actual planned program,which is totally different from what Calvert says in the article.
Its not only bad journalism,its also a lie,as you could have seen if you had cared to read it properly.
I have put the following comment up on RichardDawkins.net, to document the known dishonesty of the Telegraph reporter, Jonathan Wynne-Jones:-
A representative of AHS, Chloe, responded, saying that they do, in fact, have a (very moderate) initiative in schools, to encourage critical thinking. Her intervention initiated a lively discussion of AHS policy towards schools and how RDFRS might help.
SamC must not have read the same article I did, because it is sorely lacking in fairness or accuracy.
Headline: Atheists target UK schools
Disgusting misrepresentation.
Why use the word target? Why not “atheists establish clubs in UK schools?”
Subheadline:
Atheists are targeting schools in a campaign designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education.
They’re establishing a club to promote atheism. Once again, go straight to the source for what the group is about. Not what the Torygraph claims.
Again, disgusting misrepresentation.
It will coincide with the first atheist summer camp for children that will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour.
Lies.
The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE lessons and to call for daily acts of collective worship to be scrapped. It wants the societies to hold talks and educational events to persuade students not to believe in God.
“Scrapped?” Why that word? And in reference to what these atheists supposedly want done to “daily acts of collective worship?” Oh, no, the Torygraph isn’t being intentionally vague here to mislead religious nuts into thinking that the big bad Atheists are going to shut down their churches and have the Gestapo busting down the doors of their homes to keep them from praying.
Nope, not at all.
That entire paragraph is full of dog whistle statements. It’s meant to be heard by people who know how to listen for it.
And it severely misrepresents what the AHS is trying to do.
And then the blather from the British fundie.
I don’t call an article that lies and misrepresents, multiple times, accurate. That it happens to lie and misrepresent one side of the debate only means it’s not fair, either.
They don’t get a pass because they got a few things right.
Hello everyone,
Another issue which has been rather galling is that there was a whole host of information provided to the Telegraph explaining exactly what we are about, including a specific section addressing parents’ fears about “militant atheists” trying to convert your children. That was put in there because it’s obviously the first thing that some people think of. We wanted to make sure people knew we weren’t out to “convert” their children. The paper had that information, assured us it was helpful and then produced a sensationalist article filled with misinformation and distortions of our aims.
The biggest omission, that annoys me the most, is that we are not targeting anyone. We really wanted to stress that the reason we’re considering extending our support network to sixth form college (that’s 16-18 years olds by the way, although the article suggests we’re trying to influence actual children) is because they have approached us. We haven’t just decided to bring our evil plans to schools; we’re responding to a number of young people who feel like they want to stand up and discuss these issues in their schools! The Telegraph article portrays us as invading school spaces to convert children to atheism, rather than the reality which is that we want to get young adults discussing these issues in a healthy way. Most schools have Christian Unions that can say pretty much anything they like and use a variety of methods to hoodwink kids into attending. All we want to do is provide a secular, rational alternative. If that’s challenging the “Christian ethos” then so be it, but I don’t think it is. It’s about getting children to think critically, not about pushing doctrine of any kind on them.
Alex @61,
The “Christian ethos” is that it is the Truth (i.e. there’s no alternative), thus presenting an alternative is indeed seen as a challenge, regardless of your stated intent.
Sam C:
You didn’t go to Stuyvesant High School, did you?
60#
I think SamC did…but felt moved by the spirit to lie about it for jeebus!
That’s the Christian ethos of the typical university CU officer, but I actually doubt that it’s the Christian ethos of the typical Torygraph reader. They care about their Conservative shibboleths of “Christian values” and such, but I don’t think they care much about people’s views on God (even those amongst them who hold strong views on the matter themselves). We are talking mostly about CofE members after all; it still isn’t clear if the Archbishop of Canterbury actually believes in God.
Hmm. Hate to say it, PZ, but I think you read the article wrong. Yes, the quote from Calvert was accurate, but it was balanced by things like:
and:
To me, it looked like a balanced article about both sides positions – which had the effect of the Christians coming off like arseholes, and the atheists simply trying to assert their right to exist and trying to fight religiously motivated discrimination. However, the headline was poorly chosen, and you are correct that the Telegraph did get some details wrong.
Matt @65, fair enough.
Much as I dislike the Torygraph, I have to admit that I didn’t see anything wrong with the article beyond the slightly sensationalist title. The quote from Calvert is isolated in its craziness, and totally predictable.
Thanks for covering this PZ!
I think I should point out for the benefit of some commenters who don’t realise, that the AHS is a UK organisation affiliated with the Secular Student Alliance in the US.
On the other hand….if you look at the Torygraph article, there’s an adjacent link to some very nice photos taken by the Hubble telescope!
Another thing that struck me about the article apart from the use of words out of a Goebbels manual and the uncommented quote from the xtian fundie,is this particular picture of Dawkins that they are using a lot these days all over the place,its a really unfortunate snapshot LOL.Makes him look evil !
@Alex AHS #61
Fair enough. In light of that, the article does seem to have been unfairly spun. And I just noticed that the author was Jonathan Wynne-Jones. Hasn’t he been responsible for the misrepresentation of atheists before?
I’d love to see what the response will be from the more reputable newspapers (I assume that you sent the same info to all the major papers?).
And good luck with the project! It sounds really great, and I agree with Tom (#31) that teaching sixth-form students how to think critically should give them flying start at University.
@ Prof Armitage
Thank you, we do hope that extending our services to sixth forms will have a positive impact. I know that when I was at school, just the information that I was able to exempt myself from compulsory worship would have been a great help to me. We want to be there to provide information and support to young adults who want to follow their interest in non-belief, religion and secularism.
Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that this quote:
“Chloë Clifford-Frith, AHS co-founder, said that the societies would act as a direct challenge to the Christian message being taught in schools.”
… is a fabrication. Nowhere have we stated that we wish to use students as pawns in some challenge to religious traditions in schools. Obviously we think that much could be done to improve the way religion and education are so interlinked in the UK, but we’re not trying to weaponise children for Pete’s sake!
I also suggest those who contend that the article is balanced look at this quote about Camp Quest UK:
“…the first atheist summer camp for children that will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour.”
Another utter fabrication, that completely fails to understand (whether on purpose or not I don’t know) the point of Camp Quest, and what they’re trying to achieve. If this article is balanced, it’s only because the writer has misrepresented the atheist viewpoint to the extent that it seems just as unhinged as the Christian Institute’s.
Further to those that claim that the article is balanced, have you actually looked at the language used.
Any statement that projects the AHU in a negative light is presented as fact (note the lack of the word “claimed”). Yet statements from the AHU that suggest any information negative to religious groups are prefixed with “claimed” to project a sense of dubious assertion. For example:
“In particular, she claimed that some students were being told that homosexuality is a sin and to believe the Biblical account of creation.”
and
“Leeds Atheist Society claims to have experienced discrimination, vandalism, theft and death threats from religious groups on campus”
Why did the quotes from Calvert not receive the same treatment.
Buggeration – I meant AHS
This is ridiculous. Just goes to show how low organised religion is willing to go to prevent atheism from spreading.
I don’t quite understand why PZ is having a go at the Telegraph. Reading the article, I get the sense that the author *approves* of what the AHS is doing. Yes, have that one silly quote from Simon Calvert, but that’s balanced against two quotes (from Chloë Clifford-Frith and AC Grayling), and the bulk of the article is dedicated to a very positive-sounding summary of the AHS’s planned activities.
I’d be too much to expect full-throated support, but I for one am delighted that a conservative publication like the Telegraph is writing so positively about an atheist campaign. It’s a step in the right direction, a sign that the link between conservatism and theism is breaking. That’s something that should be encouraged, and accusing the author of distorting the truth just because he didn’t come down 100% on our side of the argument is counter-productive.
Then again, I suspect PZ’s only going after this guy because as a Guardian columnist he’s duty-bound to consider the Telegraph to be the source of all evil. :)
>”Atheists are becoming increasingly militant in their desperate attempts to stamp out faith.”
Yes. So what? Stamping out disease sometimes requires a bit of zealousness. It’s a good thing.
Isn’t “Catholic ethos” actually an oxymoron?
Heh. The Rapture Ready crowd is really whining about that.
Sam C @ #57