Do criminals need religion to go straight?

Once again a comment on the Today Programme’s “Thought For the Day” spot has got me thinking.
The 1st July speaker was the Rev. Roy Jenkins on the subject of reforming offenders in prison. The context that of Justice Minister, Ken Clarke’s proposed changes to sentencing

The bit that got me thinking was this

But rehabilitation, reform, working on the assumption that even the most crooked or the most inadequate can become different - for me, that has to be the ultimate goal; and it requires a great deal more faith and courage than building higher walls.
I've been humbled to meet a number of men and women recently for whom prison has prompted exactly that response: with lengthy criminal records, often fuelled by their need for drugs or alcohol, they've come to a point where they've realised that unless they change, they'll soon be dead. Sometimes through the care of a particular warder, a teacher, or a regular visitor, they've begun the slow climb out of their pit.
For some it's been an encounter with Christian faith which has shown them for the first time that they're loved, valued, and that God has a purpose for them even when everyone else seems to have given up on them, and they've all but given up on themselves. They have trusted the promise that Christ can make people new, and they have literally changed.

So why, I wondered, do people on the point of desperation to change themselves become vulnerable to religion? Is it in fact that atheism is a luxury for those with healthy minds and successful lives?
I understand that for people grappling with addiction, joblessness, poverty and homelessness religion offers a simple panacea; be good for God and God will look after you, if not in this life at least in the next. But is this what we should be offering such people?
For one thing it’s a bum steer. Even if it motivates people to change it does so in a way that puts the responsibility for success on God not the individual and as God doesn’t actually exist there are many likely to be let down in their efforts. For another, a secular humanist approach to offenders would show them that it is people and society that cares about them, in the here and now, not in some vague hereafter. Teaching offenders that would make them more likely to care about the damage they are doing to society by their recidivism.
Perhaps atheism and humanism seem too abstract or intellectual a motivation for goodness and hell fire and brimstone is the necessary infinite stick they need. If so it is a failure of our approach to rehabilitation that we cannot educate our prison population without resorting to superstition of this kind.
Religion is a poor moral compass with which to equip individuals already challenged in this area. For one thing if they embrace their new faith too fully and descend into biblical literalism they will find plenty of moral justification for all sorts of behaviour which if not exactly criminal would be socially undesirable. The tools these people need are a sound education, social and practical skills, critical thinking and a secular ethical framework underpinning it all. These are the things that offer true stability, not the irrational foundations of religious faith.

Popes' U.K visit approaches

At the risk of repeating myself I was reminded by an interview with John Patten that Pope Benedict XVI will visit England and Scotland on a four-day Papal visit from 16-19 September 2010.
The first thing to say about this visit is that the associated costs to the British tax payer are now estimated at 12 Million pounds which given our current dire financial straights seems a lot of money to be spending on a visit from a the head of an organisation as morally discredited as the Catholic Church. This is of course an estimate and given the level of protest that will rightfully surround this visit the security costs may well escalate beyond that. The Catholic Church itself is to raise a further 7 million which is fine if its congregation really want to stump up the money, but in my book they should be footing the entire bill.
Ratzinger is coming at the invitation of the Queen (formally at any rate) which seems to mean that the Government can distance itself from the issue of the child abuse scandal and the subsequent cover ups by the hierarchy including the Pope himself as a former Cardinal. But as Richard Dawkins said,

“This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.”

and consequently should be called to account for himself and his organisation. Our government has a responsibility to confront him on this issue. Not that he’ll get any challenge from John Patten who referred to Dawkins’ purely factual remark above as “abusive”, failing to see the irony I suppose. This Jesuit educated apologist will no doubt be heard defending his spiritual master throughout the Papal visit.
There even seems to be some equivocation about meeting some of the U.K abuse victims. Bishop Nichols has come out with some particularly distasteful weasel words

It should be up to the Vatican to decide whether the Pope should meet some of those who had suffered abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy.
It's easy for people to call for some great public gesture, such as meeting victims, but that in itself is a difficult process for someone who has suffered abuse.
And we must not use those who have suffered abuse for some kind of public agenda.

So Ratzinger will avoid confronting this issue because he wants to spare the victims’ feelings? Come on! These people have self identified as abuse victims and I would guess are rightly very angry at the institution that has been supressing the truth for so long. They ought to be invited to a face to face meeting even if they refuse to accept that invitation, which would be damning enough for the Pope. But no, once again the Church is more interested in saving its own face than confronting its crimes.
The deadline on the Protest the Pope petition has expired and closed with over 12000 signatures. Currently the new administration has suspended the site which is a shame as I’m sure even more people would respond as the date for the visit approaches.
Remember, the child abuse issue is not the only reason to condemn this visit. As the Protest the Pope website explains

The Pope not only opposes the right of women to have an abortion but also their right to contraception to prevent the need for abortions.
He also opposes women’s access to IVF fertility treatment to give childless couples the chance of parenthood. He condemns potentially life-saving embryonic stem cell research.
Pope Benedict denounces the use of condoms, even to stop the spread of HIV, as well as claiming falsely that condom usage “increases” the rate of HIV infection. This puts millions of lives at risk.
He opposes legal equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and their full protection in law against homophobic and transphobic discrimination
The Pope has authorised the Catholic Catechism, which condemns same-sex relationships as a “grave depravity” and “contrary to natural law.” In 1992, he criticised gay sexuality as a “tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil.”

All of which makes his plan to speak on “civil society” something of a sick joke.
We won’t get this visit cancelled it seems, but we should all do our best to make him feel as unwelcome as possible and challenge this immoral doctrine as loudly as possible.

Surprise! More Papal Bull

So the P.O.P.E (Pontiff Opposed to Paedophile Exposure) is upset at the Belgian authority’s raids investigating the child abuse scandal there.
This he calls “deplorable” while still being mealy mouthed about the institutional cover up this child-molesting ring has perpetrated.
There’s little more to say on this obvious hypocrisy except to ask, after all this why would anyone want to be a Catholic?

Time for Obama to support BP

It’s time for Obama and the U.S administration in general to adopt a more levelheaded approach to BP and the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
It may well be the case that there were serious lapses in safety protocols on the rig, leading to the explosion that has released hundreds and thousands of barrels of crude into the gulf. However this is not known and is currently the subject of an internal enquiry by BP. It will no doubt eventually become the subject of independent scrutiny and, probably, criminal investigation when the inevitable litigation machine cranks into full swing.
Unfortunately the American public appears to have prejudged BP in this matter and the U.S administration is way too happy to pander to this prejudice.
Witness the appalling behaviour of the members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee during their six hour interrogation of BP CEO Tony Hayward.
Barely a question was asked without snide and sarcastic rhetoric to accompany it and the congressmen present were clearly more interested in playing to the gallery than seeking clarification of BP’s position.
The media and Capitol Hill have bulldozed even the normally sanguine Barack Obama into using “butt kicking” language in reference to the company, and it seems every one is taking this dubious lead from him.
The brute fact is that a massive environmental disaster is still in progress in the gulf. It is not in anyone’s interest, let alone BP’s for this to continue and it is clear that BP is piling as much resource as it can into solving the problem. Shouting and screaming may make the ineffectual U.S politicians feel better, but it will not save one centimetre of coastline, a feat that only the technical expertise of the oil industry has any hope of achieving.
The White House may feel powerless in this situation, and on a practical nuts and bolts level it surely is. Obama has achieved what he could reasonably expect to achieve with the 20 Billion USD escrow fund for compensation from BP. But now is the time to work with the company to facilitate its efforts to solve the problem, and ensure that it is still a viable respected company going forward.
Americans love to make Brits the bad guy, a casual survey of U.S television drama will tell you that. It is probably part of the reason the Congress committee felt so comfortable blatantly insulting Tony Hayward the way they did. It is also possible that they mistook his natural British reserve for “stonewalling”, when in fact he was just honestly presenting the limits of the available information in a factual way. Whatever, they’re not helping the situation. At some point they will have to wake up to the fact that 40% of the company is in U.S shareholder’s hands and that a damaged BP will not play well with their financial situation any more than it will in Britain.
Obama must work now, not to undermine confidence in BP, but to encourage and support their effort in front of the American population. Also while he’s at it, when BP finally succeed in their efforts to stop the leak, make reparation and limit the damage he needs to give them the credit for it. Unfortunately at the moment it seems he is taking the populist line and giving the responsibility to God. If he is going to give some deity the credit for making it better, he should be giving it the blame for causing the disaster in the first place. He should know better than this.

Royal wingnut strikes again

Oh dear! Royal woomeister Prince Charles has been airing is bizarre anti-scientific opinions in public again. Apparently all the world's environmental ills are due to a “deep, inner crisis of the soul”. and it’s Galileo’s fault apparently.

“This imbalance, where mechanistic thinking is so predominant, goes back at least to Galileo’s assertion that there is nothing in nature but quantity and motion.
“This is the view that continues to frame the general perception of the way the world works, and how we fit within the scheme of things."

So Charlie thinks that if we all re-engage with our souls and go in search of Gaia that we will magically reverse the effects of climate change and over exploitation of the planet.
All this rubbish was said at an Islamic centre so no doubt he had a ready audience, but really! Why does he persist in opening his mouth about things he only barely understands?
Fine, a little more respect for the delicate balance of our planet wouldn’t go amiss. But soul and especially religion has nothing to do with it. In fact in the general way of things, religionists in the west are all for exploitation, not stewardship of our resources. It is after all in the Republican camp that you’ll find most of the U.S politicians lobbying for oil drilling rights in Alaska and denying climate change. The oil rich Islamic states even make a national political position out of it.
Remember this is the same guy that thinks homeopathy is a real therapy and that nanotechnology will result in grey goo.
Sorry Charles, but please leave the science to the scientists, who have actual evidence on their side and not vague unfalsifyable beliefs in the soul. Oh, and stop embarrasing yourself in public, it does not do any favours for Britain's image as a scientific nation to have a potential future head of state peddling this sort of new age idiocy.

On Anne Atkins' thought for the day

I have conflicted feelings about BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day spot. It occupies a handful of minutes during the Today program and I hear it most days on the way to work.
Conflicted feelings, because part of me doesn’t see the point of having a dedicated spot in a current affairs program for religious apologists to tout their opinions, It’s not as if religion doesn’t have enough opportunity to belabour the myth of its own moral superiority. But on the other hand, it is sometimes a rich vein of material to mine for this blog.
Today was one of those times. . .
Anne Atkins, a fairly regular contributor decided to tackle the thorny old issue of the problem of evil. The platform for this was the distress of her son at unexpectedly losing a friend who had died suddenly. He found this inexplicable and was prompted, as would many of us in the circumstances, to ask “why him?”
Anne Atkins then went on to point out, quite reasonably, that many random unpleasant events happen to people all of the time, and that it is human nature to look to find reasons or ascribe blame for those events, when in fact there maybe no justification for doing so.
However she is not arguing that we should not ask “why me?” or “why now?” or “why them?” because some events truly are random, but because implicit in the question is “why has God done this?”
The question of why bad things happen to “good” people has troubled the religious mind for centuries, along with its corollary. But Atkins goes on to state this slightly differently.

Lottery winners don’t ask “why me?” yet this is just as much a random event.

Her conclusion is that we all have a sense of expectation that life is meant to be good, that love (from God) is the default position and that we all know deep down that there is a prescribed order in the world that is designed to nurture us.
However there is more than a little question begging here. What humans define as “good” at an individual level is anything that helps them meet the requirements of their lives. At a basic level this is shelter, food, sex, companionship and status. It is as true for us as it is for the simplest organism and when those needs are fulfilled we are not as stressed as when they are not.
Furthermore if left to their own devices, events are rarely on balance fortuitous for individuals. It is a truism that people “make their own luck” and this is partly because natural entropy will degrade any environment unless some work is put into maintaining it. If we have built a stable, balanced, comfortable life almost any random event that impinges on it is likely to be deleterious which is why we all want a bit of slack in the system; emotional and financial buffers to shield us from the disruption of outside events.
The lottery winner doesn’t ask “why me?” firstly because they know why, dumb luck! Secondly because it is not a threat to their well-being. The victim of disaster may well rant against the unfairness of it all and if they are of a religious bent, may look for reasons in their own lack of piety. But Anne Atkins cannot use this as an argument for God. Bad luck is not the counterpoint to a benevolent creation; it is the inevitable outcome of random events on a life seeking equilibrium.

More science please

The last episode of the excellent BBC program The Story of Science aired this week. The whole series has been a complete delight and left me even surer than ever (if that’s possible) that science is the best and most enthralling way possible of understanding the universe and our place in it.
Ever since the enlightenment, the scientific method has consistently succeeded in getting ever closer to explaining the phenomena we experience around us. It has provided sufficiently accurate models of matter, energy, space and time that we can build rockets, control them with computers and reach distant planets. It has provided explanations of the diversity of life and the information behind it to define our existence on earth and our relationship to every other organism. It allows us to manipulate the genetic code and create organisms suited to our needs. It gives us the means to communicate instantly and effortlessly across continents, with sound, pictures and the written word.
What all of this demonstrates is that science works. The evidence is all around us; everywhere and everyday.
It is all the more surprising then that so many people are anti-science or sceptical of its claims to usefulness. I fail to understand, particularly in the relatively science literate west, how for example, Homeopathy can be such a lucrative business, when its claims can be shown to be totally bogus, with no rational mechanism by which they could be otherwise.
Similarly,the level of belief in creationism found in the U.S, one of the most technologically innovative nations in the world is astounding. When you consider that the same physics that informs their nuclear power industry is the same physics that proves the earth to be 4.5 Billion years old, how do they reconcile a biblical creation with switching the lights on at night?
What was so good about The Story of Science and the Channel 4 program Genius of Britain(also worth watching) was the emphasis on how science is done, the assumptions it makes and the use of the scientific method to attempt to falsify those assumptions. It cast scientists as real people, with real questions to ask about the world, thus overturning the B-movie stereotypical scientist the media still like to portray.
We cannot have enough of this positive portrayal of science and scientists on our screens. My hope is that it will rejuvenate an interest in understanding the world scientifically and encourage more young people to study for science degrees at college.
Not least I hope it will persuade the general public that science is not just dogma, or opinion. It is simply the best method found so far for revealing the truth about the world.