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Missionary Position
Should We Tolerate the Religious?
They Sikhim Here...
Allah's Alibi
Muhammad the Plagiarist
Atheist Upbringing
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Antisemitism: The Big Lie
Kimdonesia: The Lost Sheep
Schools of Thought
Swords, Prophets and the Weakness of Gods
Religious indoctrination is child abuse
The Jewish Question
Fitna, Geert Wilders and the Death of European Freedom
Previously I had considered Sikhism to be the most tolerant of religions, this story has certainly put back the public image of Sikhism a couple of decades or more.
I think the time has come to de-recognize religion as a reason for extraordinary acts of tolerance. We should stop treating religious ideas as immune from criticism or challenge. We should stop treating religious ideas as special. In a free country people are free to express opinions and to gather and organize. Those freedoms are more than sufficient to allow religions to do what they have a legitimate right to do. If we simply take religion off its pedestal the way we treat people and their religious beliefs should be quite clear.
If there was a controversial play set in a butcher shop that annoyed butchers we wouldn't consider for one moment the idea of tolerating a mob of butchers causing the play to be pulled. The same goes for Tories, social workers or Masons. So why the hell should it be different for Sikhs? Playwrights don't stop people going into their gurdwara and nor should they.
Religion is a Hobby
Religions should be treated exactly the same as any other hobby, no more, no less. We should allow people to watch trains and scribble in notebooks or wear towels around their heads and wave their arses in the air, and we should be free to mock them just the same. There is nothing special about religion, religion does not need any special protection as it is adequately covered in any constitution that accepts the right of freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and freedom of association.
Ornithology is OK if it involves looking at birds with binoculars but it isn't OK if it involves stealing birds' eggs. Similarly most religious practices are perfectly reasonable and consistent with life in a law-governed society but a few practices go beyond the reasonable. The existence of egg stealing isn't sufficient to justify persecuting twitchers just as the existence of fatwahs, jihads and honour killing isn't enough to justify persecuting the religious. The law should be blind to religion. It should not accept the idea that a certain practice is justified by an irrational belief system as justification for exemption. If Sikhs can wear turbans instead of motorcycle helmets then so can everybody, or there should be no exception. Nobody should have to, or be able to, prove they have irrational beliefs to get a concession in law.
Religion should be redefined as a hobby: a voluntary activity which is deemed to be a matter of personal freedom as long as it does not interfere significantly with the rights of others. There is no good reason to elevate beliefs and practices that are irrational above beliefs and practices that are rational.
If following a religion encourages people to act against the law and against the wishes and interests of other people then it rightly becomes a matter for general concern. We should throw out all special pleading on the grounds of faith and belief where this contradicts the law. Faith is just a kind of belief, but one which is immune to logic. It cannot be right for the law to accept that people can make up their own rules as to what they will or will not take notice of.
Suffer Little Children
It is of course a basic human right to be able to bring up your child as you see fit, within reasonable limits. But no society can grant parents carte blanche to do whatever they want with their children. If parents train children to be pickpockets or child prostitutes we rightly decide we must step in. The time in which parents could decide what religion their children would follow and use whatever methods they see fit to ensure that it happens has gone. Beating religion into children is not a freedom we should allow. Children should be given a veto on religious indoctrination, observation and church attendance. What age is appropriate? I would say the same age at which a society would hold that child capable of being responsible for criminal behaviour. If a child is old enough to be tried for a crime he is old enough to decide he doesn't want to be forced to go to church.
In Britain the age of criminal responsibility is ten. This seems to me to be a suitable age. We expect children of under ten to know about crime and to take some responsibility even if we do not impose it, likewise I suggest parents should listen to children under the age of ten and respect their wishes if they seem to be understanding the issues involved. After the age of ten I would suggest that forcing a child to take part in a religious service or course of religious instruction against their will should be a serious criminal offence, with parents and priests or teachers both liable.
I would suggest that after the age of ten a child is free to make up their own mind as to whether or not they believe what their parents believe. And just as important they should be free to change their mind. A confirmation or Bar Mitzvah is not a lobotomy, teenagers do change their minds, often more often than they change their socks.
The concept of asking children of five what they believe in is absurd. A child of five has no grasp of religion and cannot meaningfully be said to be a member of a faith community in their own right. We should not assume that because a child is born to parents who are Sikh or Hindu that the child is Sikh or Hindu; and we should not assume that the parents have any right to expect that they are.
Freedom of conscience is vitally important. The freedom to make your own choice is essential. It cannot be the parent's choice as to what the child believes. The parent has the right to decide, but not to an unlimited degree, what the child is exposed to, what choices are offered. But the act of choosing beliefs is down to the child.
Forcing a child to become a Baptist or a Muslim against their will is just as much child abuse as forcing the child to support Manchester City. But equally if that child does not follow the religion of their parents the parents are not suffering any great indignity that the wider society should be concerned by. All individuals must be free to believe what they believe, no parent has the right to decide what their children believe. Religion is, after all, just a hobby.
Religious indoctrination is child abuse |
Churches should pay the same tax as the Rotary Club.
Just as individual religious beliefs need no special rules or laws to protect them neither should the possession of a set of beliefs that can be characterized as a religion entitle any organization to any special treatment. Churches should not be assumed to be charitable or exempt from tax just because they are religious. A church is simply a voluntary collective organization. Whether it is treated as if it is a limited liability corporation, a non-profit making mutual club or a charity should depend upon what it does, not upon what it stands for. The Catholic Church seems to operate its priesthood as a very limited liability corporation. The law should be blind to religion and irrational beliefs. Whether an organization is built around shared irrational assumptions should be irrelevant. What matters is what the organization actually does.
Having a few scholarships and a few Church of England services shouldn't make Eton College a charity. Mosques and churches which give less to genuine charitable causes than corporations like Tesco or Microsoft should not be assumed to be charities simply by default. A charity is an organization which exists principally to do good work which needs to be done. Churches are principally organs of “spiritual” propaganda.
The spreading of irrational beliefs among people, whether at home or abroad is not a charitable act. It is propaganda, as such it should be financed out of taxed income by people who know clearly what the money will be used for. The days of the nondescript tin box by the till being filled up with spare change by people too idle to carry it being used to fund third world indoctrination by sordid and grubby Christian charities who claim tax breaks should be put behind us.