Labelling children and the campaign not to.

[Clinton Huxley]

I would argue that the tacit acceptance of labelling contributes to this kind of thing happening in the the first place. That was the purpose of the link. I would argue there was far more straw in your rebuttal than my presenting of it.

Ok - I'll play, how? If there is a real link beyond religious fundamentalism being dangerous I'll accept that it was relevant. It's illegal, has little support in the public, and is already being campaigned against in it's own right, so what does the happy kids poster add?

What does the happy kid poster detract? Many small wedges and all that.

you suggested it was a potentially successful outcome of the campaign that it changed people's view of child abduction, and you claimed the campaign succeeded with me. If you claim the ad campaign has succeeded with me surely you must allow me to say it has not changed my own view? Or is it that your premise cannot be disproved?

I think you are mixing apples and pears here. I suggested the campaign might change behaviour, for example re the disappearance of "muslim" girls it might make teachers etc more likely to stand against it were labels not so readily protected. A teacher speaking on 5 Live recently stated that mentioning the disappearance of these girls was a "career-ending event". I also suggested the campaign had succeeded with you because you were talking about it. Two different examples.

So it doesn't count that there's no awareness of hundreds of kids that go missing while in care, and yet one should support an ad campaign dealing with a far lower number of muslim kids abducted (which already has publicity in it's own right) even where the possible positive effect of the campaign is dubious at best? Oh come on.

Never said it didn't count. Never said the campaign was specifically targetted at the problem of missing "muslim " girls. Used as an example of the area it might influence.

[floppit]

I think we may just have to agree to differ - most responses I'd make now were in my first few posts, especially in regard to what it may detract!

Clinton, I'm really glad you've stuck to responding and if there's anything you feel I could clarify I'll happily do my best. At the start of this you said I had many fair points in why this campaign may not have been the wisest, perhaps the direct battle has done more to confirm a hard line opinion in yourself? maybe I misunderstood what appeared as initial acceptance of potentially negative outcomes?

Either way, I'd be simply repeating what's been said now, so unless something does remain unclear I'll save everyone's eyeballs by not doing so.

Cheers for the debate - it really was a pleasure.

[Clinton Huxley]

No worries, Floppit, enjoyed it myself, too. Needed something to occupy my mind on a slow work day

Have a nice weekend. Off to pick the nipper up from nursery.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Floppit,

May I just say that, had this campaign been launched while I was in my mid teens and beginning to seriously question the christian faith in which I had been brought up, I have no doubt that it, and the attendant publicity surrounding it, would have pushed me further along the road to dumping that faith as a poison apple a little quicker than I eventually did. I am not saying that it would have worked for everyone, only that it would have done for me.

There was nothing of this nature when I was 15. I think it is a good thing that there is now, even if it makes the atheist camp look a little over-zealous and preachy at times - it is better than nothing.

[floppit]

XC - That's how I feel about critical thinking, had I been taught rather than having to figure most of it out myself I think I'd have left a notion of god behind at about 8! My reality was that at 14 I had someone tell me my religion was the effects of brainwashing (ironically a student living next door who believed this because he felt I was too interested in science!) which certainly entrenched my position - albeit briefly!

Thing is, I like the way I left religion, without residue, even grateful for the trip - it was like leaving childhood itself, I just outgrew it. My first debates were religious ones, a kid dragged to her mother's meetings who spoke and began. That for me is hard to regret, one book is easier to wrangle than all the complexities of the universe - it was a superb nursery. I'm not sure if any of the then adults would appreciate me saying that though.

[charlou]

*IF* it were plausible to remove the labels I would agree, but as yet you haven't followed through with any possible means by which that can be achieved, and I have asked repeatedly. Perhaps if we change what is possible what is impossible now will become plausible in the future.

I think you are missing the point of the exercise here. As Charlou and I have both said, its a consciousness-raising exercise. It will make people think about what they are doing. It's not intended to become a law or something. You aren't going to have labelling police carting away parents or teachers in the dead of night. It's. Merely. For. Awareness.

That's right. It's not about dictating the behaviour of others but about getting people to move away from such dictatorial behaviour themselves by becoming aware of and thinking about their words and behaviour, rather than just blindly follow tradition without thought or question. The example Richard Dawkins gives of a newspaper article describing (and thus defining) a group of children in terms of their parents' religions rather than simply as a group of children is a good one ...

CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING AGAIN

And now, here's another charming picture. At Christmas-time one year my daily newspaper, the Independent, was looking for a seasonal image and found a heart-warmingly ecumenical one at a school nativity play. The Three Wise Men were played by, as the caption glowingly said, Shadbreet (a Sikh), Musharaff (a Muslim) and Adele (a Christian), all aged four.

Charming? Heart-warming? No, it is not, it is neither; it is grotesque. How could any decent person think it right to label four-year-old children with the cosmic and theological opinions of their {338} parents? To see this, imagine an identical photograph, with the caption changed as follows: ‘Shadbreet (a Keynesian), Musharaff (a Monetarist) and Adele (a Marxist), all aged four.’ Wouldn't this be a candidate for irate letters of protest? It certainly should be. Yet, because of the weirdly privileged status of religion, not a squeak was heard, nor is it ever heard on any similar occasion. Just imagine the outcry if the caption had read, ‘Shadbreet (an Atheist), Musharaff (an Agnostic) and Adele (a Secular Humanist), all aged four.’ Mightn't the parents actually be investigated to see if they were fit to bring up children? In Britain, where we lack a constitutional separation between church and state, atheist parents usually go with the flow and let schools teach their children whatever religion prevails in the culture. ‘The-Brights.net’ (an American initiative to rebrand atheists as ‘Brights’ in the same way as homosexuals successfully rebranded themselves as ‘gays’) is scrupulous in setting out the rules for children to sign up: ‘The decision to be a Bright must be the child's. Any youngster who is told he or she must, or should, be a Bright can NOT be a Bright.’ Can you even begin to imagine a church or mosque issuing such a self-denying ordinance? But shouldn't they be compelled to do so? Incidentally, I signed up to the Brights, partly because I was genuinely curious whether such a word could be memetically engineered into the language. I don't know, and would like to, whether the transmutation of ‘gay’ was deliberately engineered or whether it just happened.150 The Brights campaign got off to a shaky start when it was furiously denounced by some atheists, petrified of being branded ‘arrogant’. The Gay Pride movement, fortunately, suffers from no such false modesty, which may be why it succeeded.

In an earlier chapter, I generalized the theme of ‘consciousness-raising’, starting with the achievement of feminists in making us flinch when we hear a phrase like ‘men of goodwill’ instead of ‘people of goodwill’. Here I want to raise consciousness in another way. I think we should all wince when we hear a small child being labelled as belonging to some particular religion or another. Small children are too young to decide their views on the origins of the cosmos, of life and of morals. The very sound of the phrase ‘Christian child’ or ‘Muslim child’ should grate like fingernails on a blackboard. {339}

(Chapter 8, page 337, The God Delusion http://macroevolution.narod.ru/delusion/index.html )

[floppit]

My first thoughts are that people describe themselves an others from the most defining to the least defining attribute, faith is an issue in our society, one that has attention drawn to it and in doing so it remains high on people's agenda. The irony of the above quote is that the 'heart warming' part of the description refers (and I think it's safe to say this) to the history of conflict between faiths and subjective hope it will end - something which may in part be raised further in people's consciousness when fighting religion head on - after all the conflicts are a big issue in that respect. In other words the 'issue' that leads to 'heart warming' is one advertised by people seeking to remove religion.

Let's put this in another perspective, a more positive one. I actually (perhaps foolishly) believe religion can be overcome by human beings despite it's evident tenacity so far. The reason I believe this is that as science has progressed we are able to see and do more than ever before. Religion plugs gaps in people's knowledge, badly, but it helps hold together a world view which makes sense in a reality of an array of things which have not historically been able to be seen, the alternative of observation has not been accessible. One of the things increasing in science exponentially is our ability to observe, the whole of quantum physics was born from discoveries which increased observational ability, RD's own subject 'genes' was born from the capability improved equipment provided - and into space, the same, more is possible, more is seen. Another example would be the media, I remember hearing David Attenborough talk about the impact of people seeing the natural world in their home and how he believes it has effected people's concerns and actions, something mirrored in the way conservation groups advertise for support. Although DA also gets flack it's largely from the fundies, he's knighted, and hailed a national treasure so it's safe to say people have been grateful for the window of that particular open atheist.

I think we are at one of many crossroads, there's enough of us (non believers) to do something truly useful but if we try and do multiple things at once we risk dilution at a level which removes any advantage of our numbers. The reason I don't support the outright battle with faith is that it has over millennia proved resilient to such an approach, one kicked off by Aristotle, if it was to work it would have done. Yet, Aristotle's life was hardly a waste, his logic moved the world further and more profoundly than could be described. It is an unknown what a brilliant mind for science such as RD's could have achieved if all the time he's spent fighting religion and on sociology had been spent in his own field, I think it is almost certain he would have achieved more than he has as a scientist had he remained solely in that field, given his undoubted skill at science I think it fair to say it's probable in that time he would have moved the science of biology and genetics forward - and possible in doing so he'd have left faith with a bigger headache than his current approach.

In the end I believe faith will be thwarted by reasoning and our ability to observe the natural world adding constantly to the evidence base for that reasoning. The current generation who are already set in their ways can only turn their own direction but children ALWAYS have a chance - after all, the adult typing this was the child of a ex nun! Religion fights religion to no avail, atheism can fight religion if it chooses to but will only be seen as an alternative faith by those unable to recognise reasoning, as such I'm not laying any bets it will work! Alternatively all effort COULD be given to furthering the evidence base and people's ability to recognise it's value - this approach has no downside, the logic outlives the angst, logic is based on observation, observation will continue to become ever more powerful.

I want to ride a wave not be stood on the opposite beach screaming at the water to go back.