Humanists in Education

One thing that a lot of humanists like to get worked up about is education. I don’t know if it’s the terrifying thought of all those little kiddies being brainwashed in faith schools or what, but something about it makes our blood boil. But as one of the key functions of the state, the education system is something secularists of all types like to concentrate on.

This year education has become a big feature of Scottish humanism. The Humanist Academy has been slogging at the issue for a while under the enthusiastic June Maxwell, and has a humanism course available for the national curriculum for 16 year olds in the Scottish education system.

Seeing her getting things done, the HSS have doubled their efforts to outdo her (for some reason I don’t fully understand the HSS and the HA don’t get along too well) and are making education their prime target, launching their education programme this weekend at Our Dynamic Earth (what a venue) which, as an officer of the Student Humanist Society, I’ve been invited to.

And whilst these two heavyweights battle it out, the rest of the humanists in Scotland sit back and reap the benefits. Magic!

Hopefully the BHA will get moving on it so these benefits can be nationwide. What they need is an arch-rival counter organisation right on their patch to motivate them. Maybe we should start a fake one just to annoy them. We’ll call it… the People’s Front of Judea! Even better, the Judean People’s Front! Maybe not.

Scientology Protest 2: Operation Party Hard

As this Saturday was L Ron Hubbard’s birthday, Anonymous decided to celebrate it in style with a full blown protest party near the Church of Scientology in Hunter Square. Admittedly I forgot about it completely, but luckily I happened to be crossing the road at the exact same second that Stuart was driving past (he didn’t run me over), and I was duly reminded. The protest itself was pretty much the same as last time. Plenty of signs, about the same amount of people but we were a bit more spread out in the square so it didn’t look as many, but I thought it was much better organised. People had learned their lessons from the last one and brought extra cardboard for signs, as well as tape, and we had balloons, party bags and stickers rather than just flyers. I’ll spare you the details.

In any case from the last protest there’s been a few issues brought up. The student media saw it as pointless, or even discriminatory, and various comments were made such as “what are they trying to do?” and “what will an attack on the people they claim to be victims of the organisation actually achieve?”

It’s a fair question, but it’s totally missed the point of the protest. This isn’t an attack on the ‘church’ members, the protest isn’t about them at all! The whole point of protesting is to raise awareness to the general public that the building we were outside is a church of Scientology (misleadingly called “The Hubbard Academy for Personal Independence”) and that the ‘free personality tests’ and ‘free stress tests’ that they’re offering are actually ways of getting you into their cult and robbing you of their money. It is a public awareness campaign.

Before I wasn’t so sure it was necessary, but since the protests I’ve spoken to several people who have briefly fallen victim to it, or who have taken a test and not gone any further, and it’s entirely necessary and appropriate to make people aware of what they’re getting themselves into. They take advantage of people who are vulnerable or gullible and take their money away and it’s not remotely fair. That’s why Anonymous is protesting.
Captain Shamrock

Quality sign

Protestors

Our Sign

Scientology Protest

Well, I was there, were you?

It was actually a really good turnout, we had about 150 people which was about as many as we could fit along the side of the road without blocking the pavement. The police were there to keep order and in case we decided to do anything stupid, but to be honest I don’t think anyone had any intentions of doing anything like that. One ironic thing was that one of my friends who turned up to protest has told me in the past that she’s a creationist Christian. She claims to hate scientology because it’s obviously a load of rubbish and it takes advantage of depressed people… bit strange really.

We noticed about 5 or 6 different people inside the building. They were photographing and videoing us, so we’ll see what becomes of that. All it’ll show is a big group of people standing there, singing and cheering when cars beep support. Nothing illegal there.

Although I don’t think it’s the most important or controversial topic at the moment, it was good to get noticed and have more people on board with the issue. Scientology is a cult, there’s no doubt about it. It takes people into it, separates them from their friends and family, takes their money away from them and resists letting them leave. It’s extremely secretive and exclusive, and they’re very hostile to people who oppose it.

Anyway I’m going to see if I can figure out how to upload the pictures. There are some great ones.

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Knowledge is Free

Lolcats

War on Scientology

It’s been called a ‘cult’ by a judge in the US Supreme Court and the Germans won’t have anything to do with it. The more I hear about it, the more I’m starting to realise just how messed up Scientology is. As if the Tom Cruise video wasn’t enough to get me going (”When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help…”), the fact that the “Church” managed to get it taken off YouTube really peeved me off.

Why people believe in this bollocks is beyond me. It was written by a SCIENCE FICTION WRITER! It’s obviously a cartload of rotten tripe! I don’t understand why someone would believe in this rubbish when they know it was just written by some guy.

Further to this are the allegations that Scientologists were responsible for the death of Lisa McPherson. After she had a car crash and a mental breakdown, they took her out of psychiatric care to look after her themselves, which led to her death, basically through neglect. They have untrained people practicing medicine without licenses, which is downright dangerous.

Anywho I heard today that all this controversy has led to the birth of an internet group known as Anonymous, which has declared war on Scientology. So far this has been by hacking their website and shutting it down, sending them pizzas, and (my personal favourite) sending them black faxes to waste the ink in their fax machines, but this Sunday it will go one step further with a global peaceful protest outside the many Churches of Scientology.

One of these is in Edinburgh, near the Tron in Hunter Square at 11am (and there was me thinking computer geeks slept all through the day). I’ll be there, and I’ll be sure to take some pictures and try and get them up here. I urge anyone else who wants a giggle to come along too. Apparently there are Facebook groups and events but I’ve yet to find one for the Edinburgh Protest.

Listening to: Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine

Compensation Adverts

Not having a TV at uni, it seems I’ve missed a lot of the adverts. There are the usual Christmas ones, a hellishly huge amount of celebrity-endorsed perfumes, and the occasional gem, like the Guinness advert. But, if it’s possible, it seems there are even more compensation adverts on TV than I remember there were in the Summer.

Does anyone else find them repulsive? It’s a manifestation of the suing culture which has invaded us from our Western cousins across the Atlantic. Noone is willing to take responsibility for their actions anymore. I’ve been looking for videos of the ads online but I can only find the forklift one which is crap so you’ll have to imagine what happens.

The one that really gets me is “I was installing a fire alarm, and I was actually given the wrong type of ladder. It slipped and I fell, crushing my hand. I went to the National Accident Helpline and was awarded £7,000, and I didn’t even have to go to court” What it should say is “I was given the wrong type of ladder and I was stupid enough to still use it without anyone holding it. But I needed some dosh so I sued my boss, who was so scared he just handed me £7,000 so I’d shut up.”

The fact that it’s called the National Accident Helpline is particularly strange. Most people with a brain accept that accidents happen, and you can’t always just blame someone else for it, then hold your hand out and expect some money, like the people on the adverts seem to do.

I think people are realising how immoral it is as well, because the newer adverts that have appeared since I went to uni have a little section at the end saying how suing someone helped prevent the same thing happening again, making it seem like it’s their moral duty to claim. For example “I got £5,000 compensation, and they’ve relocated that bus stop”, or “I got £3,000, and the plastic? That’s a thing of the past”.

Anywho it seems my anguish is shared by the good people of Youtube, who have made several spoofs of the adverts.

Love Letter

I want to do more contructive posts, honestly I do, but the bible bashers keep giving me hilarious leaflets to take the piss out of. Today’s one is called “Father’s Love Letter: an intimate message from God to you”, and was left on the bar in my work so I brought it home to tell you lovely people about it. At first I thought it was some kind of incest erotica but that’s my dirty mind for you. You can view a similar copy at this site, by clicking on the “Generic Greeting Card” link at the top. Unfortunately it’s not exactly the same, and the bits that are missed out on the dowload are the bits I want to focus on, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, it’s printed right in front of me.

Regardless of what I think of the content of the message, I must give the designers due credit, it’s really clever how they’ve constructed this leaflet. The way it’s written is that every sentence of the letter is a direct quotation from the Bible, with the Bible reference printed right after it. The result is a letter which is only slightly disjointed but generally makes sense (as much sense as this drivel could, anyway), and it means the writers are at least superficially justified in saying that this letter is from God.

Right, now to the bad bit; what’s written by the author after the letter.

Would you like to come home? All you have to do is simply believe that Jesus died in your place to make a way for you to be born into his family.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it has exactly the same problem that Pascal’s Wager does. Who among us chooses what we believe? It’s not a conscious choice, so what’s the point in this leaflet? It’s got no evidence, it’s not going to convince anyone (or at least I hope it wouldn’t). Either someone believes or they don’t believe, and none of them get to choose. That’s not how it works.

The following words might help you express your thoughts to God.

Excuse me? I don’t think I’ve ever read anything as patronizing and insulting as that line. Not only does the author think I can make a conscious choice to have faith or to not, but he’s telling me what to say as well? Telling me how to “express my thoughts”? As though he knows what my thoughts are going to be? What’s next, is he gonna tell me what to think? (What am I saying, of course that’s the next step, that’s religion for you). They can bloody well piss off!