Police Commissioner Elections

The shambles of the Police Commissioner Elections, the low turnout, the spoiled ballot papers, and the sometimes inane, sometimes ill-informed comments on Facebook, combine to reveal how colossally ill-informed most members of our society are. I find myself driven to set out the basic principles involved once and for all, rather than arguing with so many, far too many, of my friends.

The basic principle of democracy is that the people cede to some of their number power to make decisions over them, and to exercise certain controls over the people at large for the benefit of all. But the ultimate authority remains with the people at large, to whom those given power are accountable. One of the ways in which that accountability is exercised is through removing those who hold the offices of the state from their jobs and replacing them with others. This is the essence of democratic accountability. It is shocking that this basic feature of our system of government is so poorly understood.

As it happens, the system actually doesn't work terribly well in this country, but one of the hopeful signs is that there are moves afoot to extend the ability the people have to call those in authority over them to account. One of the most important of these is the police. They have considerable powers, and very many of the people are dissatisfied with the way those police powers are exercised.

There are examples in the rest of the world where the changes proposed for us have been in effect for a number of years, notably the USA. I happen to know a bit about the way it works there, which can be summed up in a single word – variably. But I do know examples of where it works very well, where the police take into account public concerns and act accordingly, and where, because the Chief of Police's job depends on it, good relations with the public are a priority. The Chief of Police is elected, that's why his job depends on how satisfied the public are. This is an example of democratic accountability.

Someone suggested that we should invite applications for the job and appoint a suitable person in the usual way.  This raises a simple issue. The police have power over the public. It is therefore appropriate in a democratic system that the public hold the police to account, that they have a say over police priorities, and the ability to remove from office the Chief of Police if these matters are not held to be discharged satisfactorily. If the usual route of appointing people to jobs is followed that democratic control is absent. No-one has any say over who does the appointing of the Chief of Police – it regresses to an oligarchy.

The persons who have been elected Police Commissioners now have a difficult job, made harder by the absence of a proper mandate, vulnerable to dismissal when the next election arises, and vulnerable to criticism and complaint from those who did not bother to cast a vote, who gave up their right to have a say, and who will complain none-the-less anyway. Democracy works worst when the people do not play their parts – voting people into power and then holding the people they have elected accountable.

If we get bad policing the responsibility lies with those who did not exercise their democratic rights and responsibilities. If we get good policing the credit belongs in part to good police officers and in part to good Commissioners who will have done a difficult job without the public support they deserved.

I wonder...

I know that, apart from dealing with hunger and thirst, which I don't really get a lot of, eating and drinking are ways to recapture the long lost pleasures of childhood. There is an image in my head from over 60 years ago, dining at my grandparents' table surrounded by family – it was the highlight of my infant week. A table full of food with my family and friends recaptures that happiness. Some, if not all, of the unnecessary grazing that I do seems to me to be an attempt to recapture that happiness and the safety that went with it. It helps to repel the anxiety that is always lurking just out of sight.

Then there are the things I habitually do, or do for no clear reason. It seems to me that a lot of them are to fill my mind and stop thoughts coming that would otherwise be unwelcome. Reminders of the many bad decisions, the host of terrible mistakes, that I've made in my life. The constant nudging into awareness of how much better I could have done, should have done, if I'd got some of those choices right. And thoughts about the distress in other people's lives that I have been responsible for. I cannot say with Edith Piaf that I have no regrets. Sometimes I find myself keeping busy for no apparent reason, and I'm pretty sure that I'm keeping that stuff away from consciousness.

The other side of that coin is the set of things that I avoid doing, things (and just occasionally, people) that I regard as thieves of my time – the few years (who knows how many, but far less than those that have already rushed, ill-used, away) that remain that I really want to cram so much into. I have more books than I can do justice to, more ideas to assimilate and understand, more pushing to do against the boundary of my ignorance. Right now shopping calls, but there is a new book I've hardly started and several I have not yet finished, all dealing with things I think are important and that I want to get a better handle on. And as well as those ideas, there are places to go, old friends to visit, views to enjoy, times to share and new people to meet.

So let's get on with it...

Statistics, Media, and Sentencing Policy.

A short while ago at MK Skeptics in the Pub we had a very interesting talk by Professor Kevin McConway on Statistics in the Media. To show that I was listening and learned something, here is a short reflection on a headline in of today's papers. I think it was the Mail, but it might have been another paper that majors on exploiting ignorance and prejudice.

The headline was "20,000 spared jail reoffend" prompting the knee-jerk response "terrible, far too many, lock more people up and don't give them a chance to reoffend."

The headline, of course, tells you nothing. How many offenders were given non-custodial sentences? What is the proportion reoffending? What if 200,000 offenders got non-custodial sentences and 20,000 reoffended? Well, in that case 90% did not reoffend, which surely would qualify as a success. What if all 200,000 had been locked up at great expense to the community? And what if the 20,000 offences were trivial? Where is the benefit in that? The headline provokes questions. It does not, by itself, give an answer or an indication of whether non-custodial sentences are successful or not. And above all, it does not tell you that the reoffending rate among prisoners is as high as 74% in one UK prison and that the comparative rate for non-custodial sentences compared to short terms of imprisonment (therefore hopefully for similar original offences) is lower, not higher, no matter whether 20,000 seems to be a large number or not. (Figures from a 2010 article in The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/04/jail-less-effective-community-service)

How not to attack religion...

A friend of mine, someone I hold in esteem, recently posted the following quote by Sam Harris which is found in his little book "Letter to a Christian Nation":

"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."

This seems disingenuous of Harris to me. He cannot be unaware that all nations of humankind have religious traditions and that all of them recognise some sort of communication with the divine, whether directly in contemplation, through the agency of magic mushrooms or the like, or by casting runes and other kinds of divination. And as far as I know all modern societies also set limits beyond which claims of communication with the divine are held to be at least suspicious and potentially insane at worst. The details vary between societies and religions. He must also be aware that throughout recorded history rulers have sought to legitimate themselves and their policies by associating them in some way with the divine will. And we, skeptics that we are, tend to think that there is less sincerity in these claims and more cynicism than might have been thought by most people at the time. It also seems to me that it is precisely the interposition of a hairdryer that, in any modern society, would tip the balance from an accepted, if disparaged, norm into lunacy. If he cannot see why this is so, then his imagination is sadly lacking and his human empathy is in need of an upgrade.

As an atheist I think it is a sad, and sometimes a dangerous, thing that political leaders still resort to these tactics. It is even more sad that some of them even believe the claims that they make. But my opinions in this matter do not licence me to deride human history and the human emotions that drive religious hunger, nor do they make snide quips that I dream up an acceptable form of rational discussion.

Civil Liberty

I have long been interested in the idea of Liberty and the way it is worked out in different ways and places. And while this country was one of the pioneers of liberty (my own references go back to John Milton's Areopagitica - published in 1644, but I am only an amateur scholar - a real scholar will do much better than that) the present age has seen hard won civil liberty steady eroded. Right now there is a proposal to record all everyone's internet activity which I regard with horror. It's equivalent to opening everyone's post in the hope that some misdemeanor might emerge. But it is far worse than that.

My friend Paul Vella informs me that, under a bill passed into law a few years ago, the police in the UK have the power to remotely install monitoring software on your computer without the need for a search warrant - all they need is the approval of an Inspector and the belief that you are involved in a crime that would attract a 3 year custodial sentence. That's "belief" and we all know how flakey beliefs can be. Worse, if they can't install this software remotely, the same legislation provides for them to secretly enter your home, workplace or hotel room and install it by hand - again, without the need for a search warrant. And you thought your home was your castle. Not any more.

Did you know that under the Lisbon Treaty, passed by our government, they are allowed to intern people who have a communicable disease (see the list here). "Intern" - that's lock them up. The same treaty only recognises our right to life if we don't resist arrest. The death penalty was abolished in 1969 wasn't it? Well it has been stealthily re-introduced for acts of terrorism that could lead to or prolong a war.

There's more. We live in a country where the council dog warden can put you and your family under surveillance and obtain details of your Internet browsing and mobile phone calls! Yes - the Dog Warden. 

Are you interested in the Olympics? If you're lucky enough to be in the stadium and make a video of an event on your mobile phone you are not allowed to upload it to YouTube. Nor may you wear a Pepsi Cola T-shirt to the Olympic stadium. It may be your own favourite T-shirt which you wear often, but Coca-Cola are official sponsors and they wouldn't like it. And you can't even buy chips at the Olympics unless it is from McDonalds, or is served with fish. Curry and chips? Forbidden.

Free country? Not in a way John Stuart Mill, the great 19th Century philosopher of liberty, would recognise. And who cares? People are too distracted with Britain's Got Talent and David Beckham to notice what is really important.

Choice and sexuality

I saw a post on Facebook this morning by a religious bigot arguing that homosexuality is a choice of lifestyle. A moment's reflection is all that is required to see the falsity of this view. Since it is one of those posts that I cannot comment on I'll use my blog to do so instead.

The basic point is simple, one we can all recognise by simply looking at ourselves and our preferences for a moment or two. No-one chooses what they like, no-one has any control over what they are attracted to. I used to prefer red wine. These days, probably for biological reasons connected with my taking Allopurinol for a long period, I tend to prefer white. The reds I do still like, are, annoyingly, very expensive. At that point, but not before, I seem to have a choice. I look at my financial circumstances and decide I'd better do without the very expensive reds, and since I mostly don't like the cheaper ones any more, I buy a bottle of white that I do like. It used (before I was taking Allopurinol) to be the other way round – the only whites I liked were the expensive wines of Chablis, but I was happy to settle for an inexpensive Claret. I have absolutely no control over this – I put the wine in my mouth, and I either like it or I don't.

That is the way human beings are. I happen to be interested in the Hellenistic philosophers, but my friend finds them boring and loves to rebuild valve radios. These hold no interest for me, even though I can appreciate the beauty of his finished work and the skill involved. I'd no more want to do that than swim with a school of sharks. But there are people who do enjoy swimming with sharks.

One of my friends is distressed by the mere thought of eating meat, another finds a vegetarian diet repulsive. Neither of these is a choice. My vegetarian friend cannot help her reaction to meat. I am utterly infuriated by the junk on TV called the Jeremy Kyle Show. I happen to know someone who finds it interesting, attractive, good entertainment and a perfect way to relax after a stressful day. While both of us may rationalise what we call our choices, in neither case is it a choice – we have no control over whether we like it or not, any more than we can choose whether we love or hate celery or garlic.

You like to wear red, I prefer greens and browns. Even if I think you look great in red the idea of wearing it myself is, well, unthinkable. You may say that you choose red, but it's a loose use of language – you find red attractive to wear and have no control over that at all. In exactly the same way I can choose whether I will visit Rome or Athens – but that I want to visit both of these cities is not a choice. I can rationalise why I want to visit them and do not want to visit Washington or Delhi, but there is no choice involved, it's a want I happen to have, connected to the interest in the Hellenistic Philosophers that I also happen to have. I can choose to stop reading their writings (at least I think I can, but I might get withdrawal symptoms if I do) but I cannot choose whether or not I am interested.

And in exactly the same way, none of us choose to whom we are sexually attracted. You might ask your father why he chose your mother, and he may give you cogent reasons – her cooking, her laugh, her eyes. But the real reason is that he found himself to be attracted to her, a fact of life over which he had no control whatever. He might have been able to choose whether or not he acted on that attraction, but he could not choose whether he was attracted or not. Equally we do not choose the gender of the person to whom we are sexually attracted. My friend Fred is bisexual – but he is not attracted to all men, or all women. He finds some men and some women attractive and is currently in a relationship with a particular individual. This happens to be someone of the opposite sex, but over the years I have known Fred he has also had long term and committed relationships with people of the same sex. From my point of view, I like Fred a lot, he is very good company, and I am delighted he is happy and in love. Some of his partners over the long time I have known him I have liked and got on with more than others, irrespective of their sex. Just as in the rest of life there are people that I like more, and people that I like less. I choose to spend time with the former rather than the latter, but which ones I like is beyond my control. I cannot choose whether I like someone any more than Fred can choose whether or not he is attracted to them.

To assert that someone's sexuality is a choice is about as ignorant a thing as I can imagine, because to see that the truth is otherwise is simply a matter of a moment's reflection about oneself.

What's getting at me?

It's easy really. I still can't quite forgive myself for a bum decision made when I was a theology student. Many of those that know me will have heard the story. In its bones it goes thus: the Principal took me aside, casually during a coffee break, and told me that he didn't think I was cut out to be a clergyman, but that I would make a good academic. And he had an opening for me. I simply wasn't interested. But he was right on the first point and may have been right on the second. I like to think so.

I know enough about the kind of job he had in mind for me to think that it might have led me away from theology into philosophy. At the time I was interested in St John's Gospel – there are some questions about its date and the background it arises from. And the person I was dating at the time knew the greatest authority on St John, Charles Kingsley Barrett, at Durham. So the dream goes that I might have gone to Durham to be supervised by Barrett in a study of St John's background. That, unavoidably, would have taken me deep into the philosophy of the Greco-Roman world that so interests me 40 years later. There are connected questions of liberty and democracy that are also a big interest of mine, so who knows where that might have led. And instead of that I was not much good as a clergyman, far too interested in the meaning of things to be any use at all in an average parish. I was seen as a threat by a lot of the clergy I worked with because I believed in educating the parishioners. I had to get to 65 before I found room to explore my academic talents and realise how much catching up there is to do. I did at least spend 20 years doing some sort of teaching, but it was of computing skills, and not anything to do with those questions of meaning that have bugged me for as long as I can remember.

An aside: I set up a group when I was a curate in Kingston to criticise my sermons. One comment made was that they were very educated and sometimes not too hard to follow, but what people really wanted was answers to questions to save them thinking for themselves. I was making them think for themselves, so I had it the wrong way round. An absolutely correct assessment of the situation!

In my mind I have revisited that coffee break several times. It is hard to see how the person I was then could have acted any differently. I'd had dreams of becoming a clergyman and studying theology since I was a child. I had the mistaken idea that people interested in religion were interested in it the same way I was – an exploration of meaning. I was on a track towards becoming a leader in that search. Only the search didn't actually exist in Church of England parishes, or anywhere much else apart from the dreaming spires of academe and in my head. None the less, that was the track I was on, I had got a long way down it after many years of trying, and I cannot see how I could have been deflected by a casual remark over coffee. And certainly not by Gerald – he taught New Testament, and by my 3rd year I had realised how much more about the New Testament I knew than he did. So he had the odds against him for changing my mind about anything. I won a University prize and was presented to the Queen Mum as a result, and Gerald had expressed surprise. “I knew you were good Oliver, but I didn't know you were that good.” And he called me Oliver, which everyone knew I hated. No, he hadn't impressed me, so how could he influence me?

Maybe there was a way. I was devoted to one of the teaching staff, Dr Cecilia Goodenough, who had supervised my prize-winning effort. I had total respect for her. She was indeed formidable. Nothing crossed her lips that she hadn't thought about long and hard. If she was convinced about a matter she said so. If there was doubt she explained the issues. Indeed, “issues” may have been the word she used most often.

Maybe Cecilia could have influenced me. In fact, even in a matter to which I was dedicated, she could at least have made me stop and think. But that never happened, and if it had done then the outcome might have been the same. I did wonder why Cecilia, who didn't believe in ordination, was training ordinands. But the point was that she too was engaged in a journey into truth and meaning which she couldn't let go.

I thought I had seen all this long ago. What else could have happened? So I thought I had forgiven myself. But I haven't. It is still irritating me like an itch I cannot scratch, a dull ache that will not go away. I can't get away from the thought that I had talent and a chance, and, in this one and only go I have at life, I wasted one and missed the other.

It is time to go back to the Stoics who had a unique and admirable understanding of ethical life in a deterministic world. Perhaps a short trip to Athens is called for to walk where Chrysippus walked, or to Rome to stand where Seneca stood and enjoy the view, especially as I have never been to either.

Midsummer Memory

Some years ago, on 22 June, I was travelling in to work by train and reading The Times and came across a photo of the previous day's celebrations at Stonehenge. At the time I was interested in ritual (I still think that ritual is an important part of life too easily neglected) and I wondered if the Druids simply expressed in their ritual of Father Sun and Mother Earth something self-evident (that we depend on the Sun and the Earth) or whether they hypostatised them as deities as primitive man once did.

I tend to follow up on ideas and questions, and that led me to getting to know a prominent Druid, a lady of great personality and much style. After a long email exchange we met, I joined in some festivities at Stonehenge and other sites and wrote some pieces for one of the Druid magazines. The ritual at Stonehenge at midwinter, in the cold and dark among the standing stones, under a brilliant starry sky, was especially moving.

What I learned surprised, and later shocked me. The answer to my first question was a clear yes - and I found it surprising that so many people could regard our celestial neighbours as gods when the physics is available for all to know. They just ignored it. I am always slightly nonplussed by people who opt to ignore the discoveries of science. But it happens. Creationism depends on it, for example. In that case a powerful emotional commitment outweighs scientific knowledge. The most dramatic example of that I ever came across was an Astrophysicist I knew once who was also a believer in the biblical account of creation. For her, biblical authority was more important, carried more of an emotional investment, even than her vast knowledge of how the universe actually works. So if someone like that can be effected in that way, then I suppose I should not be surprised when others who are less well informed fall under the same spell.

But there was more. The ritual evoked the spirits of the four directions, and of the ancestors, and while the former seemed nebulous and mysterious (but somehow powerful) the latter were quite simply the dead still living in some other parallel life, walking about, clothed as normal (but normal for a Druid may not be what is normal for most of us) who could be called upon in various ways. Apart from the rather strange idea of bodiless spirits wearing ghostly clothes, which seemed just silly, and the breach of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, it was the seriousness with which all this was taken that most bothered me.

Finally, over a meal, my Druid friend revealed that she was a shape-shifter. I am in no doubt that this woman, to all appearances elegant, charming, and sane, really believed that she could go into the woods at night and adopt the shape of, say, a fox or an owl. Those that know me will not expect me to take that without comment. As politely as I could I said I thought that was crazy and completely unbelievable. The conversation moved on, the meal ended, we parted on good terms and I never saw or spoke to her again.

Unhappily the lady I was then married to was not so skeptical as I - she remained in touch with the Druid lady and consulted her about some issues in her life. She was persuaded to have Past Life Regression Therapy - in which the troubles of the present are understood and healed by discovering what lives the person had lived before. The actual treatment was never discussed, but I did gather that my wife had learned that in a past life she had been a deer. She, an educated person, a talented therapist employed by the NHS, took this on board. In retrospect it is not a surprise that her mental health deteriorated rapidly soon after.

A little integrity...

Someone in a group I belong to has sparked an awareness in me. It begins with one of the first non-religious funerals I took. The deceased man's son wrote a poem which I read at the funeral. It was very good, very good indeed. He put his finger on some important things, and he said things about his Dad that everyone knew but only he had a right to say. After I read it the congregation spontaneously applauded.

The premise of the poem was that his father was sitting on a heavenly bar stool looking down on his family and they'd all meet again in the next life. And this was a funeral without religion. When we were being trained for this role the question came up of how we'd react if we were asked to say a prayer, or in some similar way contradict our personal atheism. I had worked out a compromise, but I never needed to use it. What did come up, and frequently, was my client's expectation of another life where the family would be reunited. That I had not expected.

In the case of the poem above this crops up in the premise of the poem - but the poem was so good, and it was so hard to see how it could have been written any other way, I just put it down as a necessary literary device. Later on there was no such excuse. Families would say something about meeting again, or the next life, almost in the same breath as declaring their rejection of all religion and disbelief in God. I'd smile and say nothing, it seeming wrong to me to disturb grieving people or deprive them of their comforts.

Often a member of the family or close friend would speak at the funeral, and almost invariably they would make a similar reference, either to meeting again or to the deceased looking down on us now. Well, it wasn't me saying it, but I did feel I was being associated with it, with something that seems quite wrong to me.

Every living thing on this planet dies. Its body is recycled one way or another. Nature is cavalier about death - vast numbers of different life forms produce more young than can possibly survive, and the vast majority become food for some other life form. As far as we can tell, Homo sapiens is no different. Our thinking self-awareness is totally dependent on the electro-chemical activity of our brains, just as it is for every other animal. When our brains stop, we stop, and we cease to exist, just as we did not exist for the 13.7 billion years the Universe has existed till now. There is absolutely no evidence of anything else. That is the way of all flesh, and all plants, and all microbes too. Stars are recycled in the same way. The only reasons we can have for believing in another life are comfort at the death of a loved one and the impossibility of imagining our own non-existence. None the less, it seems to me that the vast majority of people cling to that belief, including a majority of those who claim no religious adherence and no belief in God.

Quietly going along with what seems to me to be self-deception, maybe out of kindness, was an irritant to me. Now I do not take funerals any more I no longer need to be dishonest, and I can choose when I want to challenge the fantasies some people have. I general I don't do it, but I am free to, and sometimes I do.

Book recommendation

I just finished reading God Collar by Marcus Brigstocke, who is best known for being a comedian. It's a long time since I read a book and immediately started it again with a highlighter in my hand, but that's the case here. It's witty, in some places eye-wateringly funny, poignant, moving, honest, devastating in its even-handed criticism of religion and not pulling punches about the failings of the non-religious either. He bares what I can only call his soul in a very courageous way. The sheer humanity touched me. If anyone thinks non-religion is easy, a simple rational choice, here is something they need to read.

Just a quickie...

Neither books nor august persons are infallible authorities. All they offer are opinions, more or less well informed, more or less valuable, but nothing set in stone. Every opinion can be questioned, no matter how great the prestige of the person making the pronouncement. Indeed, my experience is that the best experts welcome intelligent questions and respond courteously. In the search for truth there is no question that is forbidden and no hard question that may be ducked.

Criticism of Religion

The other day I was struck by a cartoon on Facebook lampooning Christian doctrine. It was witty, I liked it, but the picture of the faith that it started from was hopelessly wrong. I tried to frame a response along the lines of it being necessary to understand your opponent and attack his real weak points. But time and space were short, I probably did not express myself well and I doubt I was understood.

So let's come at it from a less contentious starting point. One of the things that gets my goat these days is the misuse of statistics. From what I read by people in a position to know, the human race is incredibly bad at assessing risk. Advertisers, campaigners and others with an axe to grind can take advantage of this by manipulating statistics to make their sophistical point, and most of us fall for it over and over again. I feel the urge to correct such misuses as I see. There is only one problem: I am no statistician. Mathematics is to me as Ancient Greek is to most people. I have a friend who is a mathematician, who is comfortingly normal in other ways. But a few sentences with him quickly reveals the vast empty space in my understanding where maths ought to be. At work, some of my friends were Actuaries, people incredibly knowledgeable about risk and probability, and most of them were normal in other ways. One had a gift for putting such things into easy language liberally peppered with great, simple, examples, littered with humour. But I see these people no more. Instead I rely on things like More Or Less on Radio 4 to let me know when something less than statistically reliable is being promoted and to help me understand why there is a problem and why I should think twice.

There was quite a good example recently – there was something in the news about there being more people alive now than have ever lived. The point that was being made was about the present population explosion. More Or Less did a programme on it, which you can still download as a podcast. There are some assumptions to be made (where do you start counting people, for example – Homo sapiens only, or do H neanderthalis or H floriensis or H habilis get in too?) And there being no records till quite recently there are other problems to solve. While the adult population might be something that can be agreed on, what about the high proportion of infant deaths? They surely have to be counted as people who lived, if only briefly. Some American experts on population statistics went to work on it and it turns out that for everyone living now there are about 30 human persons who have died, taking the starting point as the rise of modern man 50,000 years ago. So the original statement, used to promote alarm, is simply rubbish.

I am aware of my mathematical incompetence. So when I suspect the presence of an odoriferous rodent I do not rush into print, I do some research. Then, armed with the facts, I can go to war against a real opponent. Sadly, although almost all of the people I know are aware of at least some, and sometimes significant, mathematical shortcomings, most of us think we can assess risk correctly. But we can't, we get it terribly wrong, and the blind are led into a ditch. A further example comes from a course I was on recently where we were asked to assess which class of road produces the greatest number of fatal accidents, motorways, urban roads, or rural roads. One of the group was a professional driver, whose considered opinion was that the only possible answer was motorways. The rest of us deferred to his judgement, which seemed reasonable enough. We were wrong. Motorways are far and away the safest roads with the lowest number of fatalities. It's urban roads, where pedestrians come into direct conflict with cars, that are markedly the worst for fatalities.

The point I am making here is that there are three factors to consider: expert knowledge, awareness of ignorance, and false confidence. It seems to me (I have no reliable statistics, but I do have quite a few examples from recent years experience) false confidence is common among those who are critical of religion. They often think they have grasped what the subject is about, but they have not, and go tilting at windmills. Sometimes they manage to do this in such a way that they bring ridicule on their own heads. At other times the misunderstanding is so crude and the attack so violent that religious persons who might otherwise be supportive of the point being made feel compelled to go to the aid of those under attack. Crude and inaccurate attacks are frequently self-defeating, in this subject as in others.

Alain de Botton, in his book Religion For Atheists, says “Tough-minded critics of religion have found much pleasure in laying bare the idiocy of believers in remorseless detail, finishing only when they felt they had shown up their enemies as thorough-going simpletons or maniacs”. (I'm working on the book at the moment and generally find most of his arguments unsatisfactory, but this comment seems well aimed.) No doubt there are believers who qualify under both those headings, but I have found most to be reasonable, good-natured people. Insulting them is not the way to make progress. What seems to me to be happening is that some of religion's critics are more interested in that feeling of triumph which Alain de Botton describes than anything else. I happen to think that religion is an emotional response at bottom, not an intellectual one. But rational argument, grounded in the realities of belief, not a caricature of it, might make some progress in undermining that emotional commitment, if that is desirable. Rational argument has nothing to do with the erection of an Aunt Sally or a Straw Man to shy at, nor with ad hominem attacks, but with reasoned criticism of the opponent's actual views, his real arguments, not ones we imagine he might have expressed.

In the same book I quoted above, Alain de Botton writes that “The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true” (emphasis in the original). I too find that question boring. Religion is evidently a human creation, but one which satisfies some human needs – that's the only reason it survives. How and why it does that are the proper subjects of academic study, by Social Scientists, Philosophers, Psychologists and so on. The important question concerning religion is how do we take the discussion forward from there?

Each of us will be grabbed by different things. Writing just for myself, here are some issues involving religion that motivate me strongly.

1. I am in favour of education, of the development of curiosity and understanding, especially but not solely in the young. And education must include the achievements of science, and indeed criticism of science, because that is that way that scientific progress is made. What must be resisted is the replacement of science with myth, and the silencing of questioning. That is what is happening in the expansion of the teaching of Creationism in schools as a valid alternative to Evolution. All such things should be resisted, if only because they substitute unquestionable dogma for a proper search for the truth.

2. Like most people I am horrified both by the extent of child abuse by the clergy, and by the cover-up by church authorities. Both the perpetrators and all (whatever rank and prominence they have since attained) those who protected them should be prosecuted by the appropriate jurisdiction and steps taken to ensure that such a thing can never happen again.

3. I am politically a liberal in the style and tradition of John Stuart Mill. Properly representative government is therefore close to my heart. At present we have a House of Lords that is subject to reform. And about time too. Some are arguing that Church of England Bishops should retain their seats in the Lords as of right. No-one should have a right to sit in government, in any role whatsoever. Every government official, especially members of both the houses of our legislature, should be elected. If a Bishop campaigns and gets elected, that's fine by me. But he (or she) should not have a seat by any other means, and nor should anyone else. 

4. There is an increasing (I think, I don't have access to any research to show it) number of believers in forms of religion that trade on people's fears of spirits, devils, and the like. We have just seen the termination of a trial, and the conviction of two of a child's family, who murdered him because of their belief that he was a witch. Such beliefs come straight from the Stone Age. What is to be done about their prevalence defeats me. It's very worrying.

5. Some forms of religion are extremely sexist – in India (those dreaded statistics seem to show) there is a large gap between the expected number of female births and the actual number. The implication is that female children are being killed. We have all heard of Honour Killings where a female family member has, for behaviour fully acceptable to the majority in our society, been murdered other family members. Cases have come to court which seem to be the tip of an iceberg. But this is not limited to people from India – and some have suggested that it is a cultural, not a religious, problem. I cannot judge. But I have heard people in good standing as spokesmen for a number of religions (Christianity included) denigrating women in general and denying them equal standing with men, in defiance of UK law. How best to resist this is not clear to me, but it must be resisted and reversed.

6. The idea has gained credence that “Faith” should be protected and respected. For myself, I don't care what people believe. I'm happy to allow them to take up Bertrand Russell's suggestion and believe that there is a china teapot in orbit round the moon. I absolutely respect everyone's right to believe whatever they want. I do NOT thereby respect the beliefs themselves. Some beliefs I do not share are arguable. I happen to think that it is frequently possible to make a strong case on both sides of a question. Some beliefs are ridiculous, like the china teapot example. Someone I know has fun by propagating one such and is an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Most religious beliefs seem to me to either be short of evidence or to fly in the face of what evidence there is. There is a world of difference between respecting the right to believe and respecting the belief itself. I do not respect nonsense no matter who believes it, and nor should anyone else.

I could go on, but I won't. There are tremendous issues raised by religion in a wide variety of areas. They need to be considered carefully, and where necessary challenged rationally, but challenged for what they are, not for what they are not.

In two areas (at least) I have reservations. Some like to claim that religion has done terrible harm through suppression of the truth, violence and war. They have a strong case. But exactly the same crimes have been committed by non-believers. This is shaky ground to start an argument on.

Christian doctrine (the only one I am competent to talk about) is extremely complex. It might be hard to find two believers with exactly the same doctrinal stance. At the simplistic end their dogma is usually evidently self-contradictory, but at the other end, there is a mire. I suspect much the same is true of most of the major religions. Similarly it is easy to lampoon the bible which contains many things that fall under the headings of barbarism, self-contradiction, or meaninglessness. But anyone with a more than a nodding acquaintance with the text will know that things are not as they seem on the surface. You might be able to tie a fundamentalist in knots, but the vast majority are not in that camp, so I am reluctant to go there. It is fun to ask a Jehovah's Witness in, get out my Greek text, and embarrass them with the issues between it and the Authorised Version. But it is largely also a pointless waste of time. Often they don't understand the argument anyway.

I hope that in the foregoing I have made a clearer statement of the position I tried to make in brief on Facebook. In short, I am concerned about the false confidence exhibited by some of my fellow critics of religion who I think sometimes undermine our cause. But I think that religion does raise some important issues for our 21st Century democracy which need to be faced head on with properly thought out rational argument that deals effectively with the arguments put forward by the other side.

An Instinct For Kindness

As I have written on Facebook, An Instinct For Kindness is a first class piece of dramatic writing, brilliantly performed, and should be nominated for an Olivier award. It's not a barrel of laughs, although there are some, but it makes the main point brilliantly. It's going to have a week's run in London - take advantage and see it if you missed it. It is a challenging and worthwhile evening. The details can be found at the web site, http://www.festivalhighlights.com/theatre/aninstinctforkindness.

The management at Royal & Derngate organised a debate after the show and I was privileged to be on the platform, along with the author and performer, Chris Larner, the Archdeacon of Northampton, Christine Allsopp, and a member of Leicester Secular Society, Harry Perry.

Harry's position is described on his blog, http://secsoc.blogspot.co.uk/ - in short he thinks that assisted suicide should be available, not to the terminally ill, as advocated by Dignity in Dying, but to anyone who is a) suicidal and b) so incapacitated they cannot kill themselves. It seems to me that one of the main arguments for not changing the law is that it would make it more likely that people going through a crisis, may be deeply but temporarily depressed, more likely to make a wrong decision. So I was surprised that he went so far as to undermine the point made by Chris Larner that what is needed is compassion and dignity for someone who is suffering extremely and terminally ill. It was an own goal against our side.

And indeed, that was the line Christine Allsopp took, very gently and carefully. She didn't mention Divine Authority or the Sanctity of Life, she expressed her concern for vulnerable people who might be adversely effected if we legalise assisted suicide, and she told of someone who had been seriously depressed, tried to kill himself but failed, and was now alive and glad to be so.

My approach was to indicate the three headings under which a decision needed to me made:

1. Autonomy – do we have the right and responsibility of making our own ethical decisions or do we have to defer to a higher authority?

2. Compassion – how do we best help those who are terminally ill and seriously suffering?

3. Safety – whatever legal framework emerges, what precautions are needed against abuse?

I then went on to say that the present situation amounts to cruelty to people like the one described by Chris Larner. It is unreasonable and unkind to defer giving help to them in favour of protection for a hypothetically threatened group, especially as experience where assisted suicide is legal has shown that these fears are unfounded.

The legal position was, up to 1961, that committing suicide was illegal. If you made an attempt and failed you could be sent to prison, which, as Chris Larner says in the show, “obviously helps”. The law was changed 50 years ago, but instead it is now a crime to help someone to do something that is not a crime, even if the non-criminal act happens abroad and therefore outside our jurisdiction, which makes no sense at all. The Director of Public Prosecutions in the last government made a clarification of the legal position to the effect that someone acting out of compassion and not for financial gain would be unlikely to be prosecuted. Sadly this puts a serious obstacle in the way of someone wanting to go to Dignitas. One of the things they insist on is a legal document confirming who you are and where you live, which has to be provided by a Notary Public, who normally charges a fee for their services. So the Notary's professional body has advised its members against giving this service as it is technically illegal. And the same applies to any other professional services needed such as an independent doctor, a travel agent, or a taxi to the airport.

And that's just one obstacle. Chris Larner put the total cost of going to Switzerland to die at about £14,000, way beyond the reach of many people who need it. There are some other interesting statistics: for example over 70% of those who take the first step towards an assisted suicide never take the second one. Having a potential safety net seems to be enough.

One lady in the audience was herself terminally ill and had the idea of going to Dignitas in mind. She had two friends along to support her. I felt that they were addressing what certain Christians often say publicly and hanging the attendant feelings on Christine Allsopp. That wasn't really fair, as she had shown nothing but sympathy and not voiced the usual line at all. None the less, it is true, as Chris Larner pointed out, we do live in an environment where a fairly authoritarian religion is part of the backdrop of life. In fact, I thought that Harry Perry was put out, or at least discomforted, by Christine failing to use the Sanctity of Life argument so often trotted out. He actually asked why she hadn't, and then rather erected a straw man to attack. In fact Christine had said that she believed in using her brain. (She is a former research chemist and her husband is a biologist.) My experience is that most religious people in this country take a similarly intelligent, tolerant and sympathetic view, but they are hidden by others of more extreme positions. I offered, as a summary of Christine Allsopp's view, that preaching at people is both arrogant and a waste of breath. I happen to think that is true whether the preacher is religious or not. Fundamentalism is not a good mark for a cause, and there are fundamentalist atheists as well as fundamentalist believers.

It's a truism that we all need to bear in mind that no matter how strong a person's convictions are on any issue other than matters of fact, that strength does not amount to being right. In an emotive issue such as this all parties need to keep that in the front of their minds and listen to other people's actual arguments sensitively and respond with equally good arguments, not just emotively. They also need to listen to the disputants' emotions and respond on that level too.

For myself, Chris' performance made me more aware than before of the extreme suffering and frustration that some people go through. The main character in the show, Chris' ex-wife Alison, said on the morning of her suicide, “I don't want to die. But I don't want to live any more like this.” And it was compassion for her terrible situation that moved him, and through him, the audience. To delay a change in the law seems to me to be cruelty, even if that delay is for the laudable reason of protecting apparently vulnerable people. Laudable but mistaken, I think, as experience is that these fears have not been fulfilled in practice in places where assisted suicide in strictly limited circumstances has been permitted. Cruelty is not acceptable and a way has to be found to bring relief to sufferers but with safeguards for people who feel or may be threatened by the change.

Goodbye, old friends

I need space for my growing collection of philosophy books. There is no way I will play chess again, and I've found a new home for my chess books. Now I want to find one for my computer books, because I haven't got the time or the interest any more. There may be some more, older, ones up in the loft, but I've not been to look. There is only one I'm keeping, the one on OpenOffice, because I use it heavily and having a reference book will probably be handy.

Books are like friends, and it's sad to part with them, but there just isn't the space in my tiny study.

I remember when I bought most of them - for example the XHTML book, the big thick one, was bought when I was kindly invited by friends for Christmas when my marriage had come to an end and I thought the world was coming to an end too. The book fired an interest and was a big help in getting my feet back on the ground. Then on the left of that shelf there is one that contributed to my study of server-side issues in web development when I was doing an Open University course. At more or less the same time dear old Laddie came to live with us and was such a big time sink that the course fell by the wayside.

All the VBA books were to do with work, and while I enjoyed automating processes and passing on the skills to others those days are happily long behind me. I'm now happy in the shadow of an academic world I passed by when an opportunity first arose, and studying the Hellenistic philosophy schools, refreshing my long-forgotten Greek, whilst addressing some of the questions about life that first bothered me in my teens.

Are you sure?

I think I always know when I have not understood something. For example, I went to a symposium last year where one of the lecturers left me wondering what on earth his talk had all been about. Pinning him down afterwards it was evident that he was vastly knowledgeable in his topic, and in conversation was well able to deal with the questions I raised clearly, and very fully. But when he came to put a lot of his knowledge together to deliver in an hour's lecture to a group of people, the clarity with which he spoke disappeared, and I knew I had not understood what he was saying, in common, I suspect, with quite a few others.

But the obverse is not equally true. When I have partially understood, or misunderstood, I am probably confident that I have got the message, when in fact I have only got a bit of it, or got the whole thing totally wrong. But I don't know that. The greatest chance of being wrong is when you think you've got it right.

One of the joys of my retirement has been discovering the wonderful podcasts at www.historyofphilosophy.net where Peter Adamson's lucid delivery leaves me feeling I have learned something every time. Probably I have, but the question remains “how much of what was contained in the podcast have I grasped, and how accurately?” I follow up on some of the recommended reading and I have become gripped by the Stoics, with whom share an interest – the Art of Living, it has been called, and from whom I have learned a lot. I've even been stimulated to refresh my Greek. But even if I have grasped some of what the Stoic writers and modern commentators are saying, I know there is a lot more – well that's progress: realising that there is a (not too distant) boundary to knowledge beyond which lies an infinity of ignorance is in itself a good thing.

Among my growing collection of downloaded podcasts is a much larger one, not part of the main series, Podcast Live, a lecture delivered last year as part of the Arts & Humanities Festival at Kings College, London by Peter Adamson. He called it “A Brief History of Nothing”, the Nothing in question being the concept of Void or Emptiness which is prominent in the work of ancient philosophers. I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to it again. I do tend, it has to be admitted, to listen with my headphones on while lying in bed, and once or twice I have dropped off part way through. This is due to the lateness of the hour and the greatness of my comfort, not the lecturer's style. Now I think I have mined it fully, but even so, I find that I have to go and listen again to the podcast on Plato's Timeus, which has not lodged properly in my head.

Heavens, I'm 68 years old, nearly. I need more time to read, and to think more. It was Plato who first explored the important distinction between belief (of which an important sub-category is true belief) and knowledge. And still we haven't got it right. Just recently there was an item on the BBC about those experts one hears making predictions about the future of economics, sport, art, the weather, you name it. Well, one thing is for certain, about the future we have no knowledge. A study of these expert predictions revealed that the most compelling listening, most favoured by the public, is strongly associated with the confidence of the speaker. And the more confident the speaker the more likely he was to be wrong! Those experts who hedged their remarks with such phrases as “we can't be certain” and “there are several unknown factors” and “I don't want to be definite” and “all in all it seems to me that the greatest probability is...” were the ones hardest to listen too, and the least regarded by the public, and the most likely to be right.

It seems to me that we have a similar problem with the present, and sweeping assertions are highly likely to be wrong. When we are right, as my hero Karl Popper said, we are so by accident, and we can never be sure that we are right.

But even if I cannot be sure that I have properly and fully understood Peter Adamson's podcasts, the boundary of ignorance has been pushed a little further back and understanding has increased and most important of all, I may have made a slight improvement in the art of living.

The greatest disability?

An MP is in the news – it seems that there was a scuffle in a bar in the House of Commons involving several MPs, people were pushed, someone was head-butted, punches were thrown and one MP, Eric Joyce, has been arrested and charged with assault. He has been suspended from the parliamentary party and there has been discussion on the radio at least about what happens if he gets jailed, under what circumstances he would lose his seat and an election be called, who'd win the election (which is rather getting ahead of things) and so on. Members of Parliament are not supposed to be involved in scuffles, although there is in fact a history. The then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, famously punched someone who had thrown eggs at him when campaigning. Anyway, the general atmosphere is misbehaviour and punishment. That's what we do with criminals and suchlike, isn't it?

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (55-135 CE) had a different view. I'm only just beginning to read his work, but already I have encountered this alternative several times. For example, in Book 1 of The Discourses, chapter 18 discusses his observation that we should not be angry with those who fall into error. Briefly, his argument goes like this: no-one deliberately does something he knows to be wrong, to his disadvantage. So if they do something wrong, this is due to some error on their part, because at the time they thought it was right. There is something the matter with their faculty for making judgements. Thus, thieves and robbers, for example, have gone astray in matters of good and evil, their critical faculty has led them down the wrong path.

So, asks Epictetus, should such criminals be put to death? (Punishments were on a different scale to those we currently consider appropriate in the days of the Roman Emperors, and Epictetus lived under Nero.) By no means, says Epictetus, and instead wants to rephrase the question. Look at it this way, he says. This man errs in things of great importance, right and wrong. It is not that he is blinded, or defective in sight, and cannot tell white from black. It's similar, but much worse. If you look at it that way you see at once how inhuman the suggestion of capital punishment is. The greatest harm a man can suffer is to be blinded in matters of good and evil. Just like any other disabled person what someone in that position needs is help, support and therapy.

If the reports are to be believed, someone who had been a successful MP for years “lost it” as we say, when our emotions run away with us and we do or say something totally non-rational. Seneca, writing on anger, describes an angry person as someone taken over by something other than his rational self. So Epectetus' view is that he should be helped to find it, rather than punished for his serious misfortune.

It's a point of view worth considering.

Considerations...

I can't help wondering how things might have been... The Stoics (who I am currently reading) were materialists and determinists, so we start with something in common. And their ethics appeal to me, being not dissimilar in some ways to Immanuel Kant.

Taking the determinist view without question for now, I've had reason of late to reflect on the Headmaster of my Grammar School, Dr W. No-one gets a Ph.D without academic ability, a lot of work, and without gaining a lot of knowledge. Yet at school I was one of many who found it hard to take him seriously and in later years I was very critical of him indeed. I shall never forget the morning of my 'O' Level Religious Knowledge paper. I turned the paper over, and found that the first two questions were in Greek – a long Greek passage and then a question about that passage. It had been part of the course syllabus that we learn New Testament Greek, and Dr W was supposed to teach us. Two of us boys were scheduled two lessons a week. At the start of the first of these the deputy head gave us our text books, Wenham's Greek Grammar and a Greek New Testament, and left the room. We waited for Dr W. He did not come to a single lesson in 2 years.

On another occasion I was accused by one of the masters of a minor misdemeanor, quite wrongly. He exaggerated the alleged – indeed fictitious - crime out of all proportion, and hauled me before the Head. Dr W refused even to let me speak in my defence, and issued a significant punishment. I have always had a fierce sense of justice, and I was deeply angered and offended by such treatment. As he was also a Justice of the Peace I became deeply sceptical of our criminal justice system, unfairly on the strength of one example, but that's schoolboys for you. I have nursed these criticisms for years.

I have often wondered how Dr W, who must have had a serious enthusiasm for and knowledge of Greece and the ancient world, came to miss the chance to pass it on to another generation. I found, in one of the books on Stoicism that I am currently reading, a reference to a work of his from 1931. The author of that work plainly took Dr W's scholarship seriously enough. His obituary in The Times speaks of his love of and enthusiasm for Greece and the classical period. He had, apparently, a detailed knowledge of the same Stoics that I am studying now. If he had seized that opportunity maybe I'd have discovered them over 50 years earlier – my temperament hasn't changed that much, so I think I would have been attracted. In those days I was a serious Christian believer, and I'd have seen even then the issues between Stoicism and Christianity. What kind of difference might that have made to my life path? Who knows? An academic career in the Classics in some way? Who can tell?

And then again, my indignation at Dr W's dereliction of his teaching responsibilities worked in my favour. When I was studying to become a clergyman I leapt at the chance to do a year of Greek on top of the curriculum requirements that no doubt greatly aided my New Testament studies and lead to some quite good results. And now, more or less 40 years on from those days, what remains of my Greek has helped me to get to grips with the Stoics, and motivated me to take a second go at learning Classical Greek now, to enrich this new opportunity. I can thank him for that then.

The Stoic teacher Epictetus would probably chide me on my attitude to Dr W. There was little in those events that was, in his phrase, “up to me”. What Epictetus would say I am in fact responsible for is my attitude, my decisions – all the rest was out of my control. Indeed, that's how it felt when I was a schoolboy, out of my control.

And the same is true of Dr W too. He would not have chosen to be headmaster of a North London Grammar School I'm sure. His vocation was to be an academic and to enjoy his enthusiasm for Ancient Greece. I have no idea why things worked out differently for him. A book he published in 1971 when he was retired was reissued as a paperback 20 years later, and a reviewer on Amazon gives it 5 stars. No doubt he regarded us as hopeless and helpless and no doubt he could not bring himself to waste his time and knowledge on us. Not, I think, the right decision, but given who he was, the assumptions he held about life, and so on, it is hard to see how he could have done differently, even if one can justly say that he should. No matter what brought him to being scheduled to give two Greek lessons a week to two North London kids he didn't have any regard for, his knowledge of the Stoics could have shown him a different path of action. I can imagine him looking at the timetable – he didn't normally teach at all – and groaning in anticipation of casting his beloved pearls before us swine.

I can no longer hold all that against him. What he did was not “up to me”. I am responsible now for my attitude and how I make my decisions – at least that's what Epictetus would say. And there are benefits. I am greatly enjoying my present study of the Stoics, I have learned some important lessons from them and the important thing is to make the most of these current opportunities, and not to regret past ones.

Syria

I heard the Syrian town of Idlib mentioned on the news today, for the second time in a few weeks. Previously I'd not heard of the place for 50 years – but I was actually there, passing through, on my way to Jerusalem in 1961.

We were on a Lambretta 175 that had somehow got us overland from London, and went on to see us home too. We'd left the south east corner of Turkey and entered Syria and headed south and went towards Hama and Homs and on to Damascus. I was on the back with the map, my friend Colin was driving. We came to a junction and Colin asked “Which way?”. The junction was not on our map, so I decided that left headed broadly towards the desert, and the right headed broadly towards the sea, and that was the safer option.

Shortly we came to a small town and decided we needed a closer look at our map. We stopped and were, as usual, surrounded at once by a crowd of small children. After a while I looked up and said quietly to Colin “There are soldiers all round us”. And so there were, a ring of them, carrying their weapons. We folded our map and smiled as broadly as we knew how, and one of the soldiers came over and asked where we were heading. I said “Damascus”. He pointed the way we had come - “That way”. “But we've just come that way, it must be that way,” I said, pointing in the other direction. The soldier frowned. “Where is your pam?” he demanded. “What?” “Your pam! You must have pam!” He sounded belligerent. In one of those rare flashes of genius I have been known to have from time to time, I realised he was an Arab, and was mentally reading the word from right to left. He was asking for our map!

It was soon clear that we were off the map and off the road to Damascus. The guy who had first approached us then asked us to the café – we were on some kind of Army post. We were brought food and drink, and then the phone behind the counter rang. The man of the shop answered it, brought the phone over to us and said “It's for you”. “It can't be, no-one knows we're here!” But it was, it was the officer in charge who offered us accommodation for the night. All in all we were made incredibly welcome, fed, watered and accommodated at no charge, and in the morning after breakfast sent on our way with directions to Damascus.

On our way home from Jerusalem we stopped for about 3 weeks in Damascus and got to know the city quite well. Locals made friends in the café, helped us sort out our visas when we were in danger of overstaying, and were generally welcoming and hospitable. We loved the place.

And now I hear about the violence in that leafy historic City, where we walked down the Street Called Straight, which appears in the bible, among those friendly people. It is heart-breaking, utterly heart-breaking.