Atheism is a broad church - Catherine Deveny - Opinion - The Age 17/3

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/atheism-is-a-broad-church-20100316-qclu.html

No faith in their hatred - Andrew Bolt - Opinion - Herald Sun 17/3

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_no_faith_in_their_hatred/

A carnival of unbelief - Nick Moodie - On-line Opinion 17/3

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10185

Bad, bad media - PZ Myers - Pharyngula - 16/3

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/03/bad_bad_media.php

Fielding goes to ground after being likened to earthworm - Damien Murphy - Opinion - National Times - 16/3

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/contributors/fielding-goes-to-ground-after-being-likened-to-a-worm-20100315-q9pb.html

The weekend of non-belivers - Ian Robinson - On-line Opinion - 16/3

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10184

Atheist ridicule won't win friends and influence people - Barney Zwartz - Opinion - The Age - 16/3

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/blogs/the-religious-write/atheists-ridicule-wont-win-friends-and-influence-people/20100315-q9wj.html

Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine - Melanie Phillips - Opinion - The Australian - 16/3

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/dawkins-preaches-to-the-deluded-against-the-divine/story-e6frg6zo-1225841086925

Catherine Deveny on ABC's Q&A - 15/3

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2840015.htm

The rise and rise of atheism - Rachel Holkner - Opinion - The Guardian - 15/3

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/15/global-atheist-convention-melbourne

Atheistic and Christian faiths - a contest of delusions? - Rowan Forster - On-line Opinion 15/3

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10176&page=0

Mysterious rituals of the atheists - Stephen Bullivant and Lois Lee - Opinion - The Age 15/3

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/mysterious-rituals-of-the-atheists-20100314-q60k.html

Jason Ball interviewed on 'Breakie with Tom and Alex' - triple j - 15/3

http://www.umss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Breakfast-with-Tom-Alex.mp3 [right click, save as]

Creating saints 'Pure Monty Python' says Richard Dawkins- Herald Sun - 15/3

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/creating-saints-pure-monty-python-says-richard-dawkins-about-mary-mackillop-at-the-global-atheist-convention/story-e6frf7kx-1225840868449

Dawkins derides sainthood as pythonesque - Sydney Morning Herald - 15/3

http://www.smh.com.au/national/dawkins-derides-sainthood-as-pythonesque-20100314-q676.html

Dawkins delivers the sermon they came to sear - The Age - 15/3

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/dawkins-delivers-the-sermon-they-came-to-hear-20100314-q63g.html

Celebrating life beyond belief - Miriam Cosic - The Australian - 15/3

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/celebrating-life-beyond-belief/story-e6frg6z6-1225840634149

Richard Dawkins on Sunday Night Safran - triple j - 14/3

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/triplej/safran/safran_2010_03_14.mp3 (10 minutes in)

Melbourne hosts atheist convention - ABC News - 14/3

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/03/14/2845398.htm

Hardcore and Hard - PZ Myers - Pharyngula 14/3

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/03/hardcore_and_hard.php

Q: What to these MPs have in common? A: They are out and proud atheists - The Age - 14/3

http://www.theage.com.au/national/q-what-do-these-mps-have-in-common-a-they-are-out-and-proud-atheists-20100313-q59i.html

Path to loosing his religion - Peter Munro - The Age 14/3

http://www.theage.com.au/national/path-to-losing-his-religion-20100313-q59j.html

Atheists, walk this way - David Horton - Opinion - Huffington Post - 14/3

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-horton/atheists-walk-this-way_b_498474.html

Religion needs atheism - Samir Selmanovic - Opinion - Huffington Post - 13/3

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samir-selmanovic/religion-needs-atheism_b_498051.html

Govt urged to back Scientology inquiry - Nine News - 13/3

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1026890/xenophon-says-scientology-a-cult

Wild times laughing with the godless - PZ Myers - Pharyngula - 13/3

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/03/wild_times_with_the_laughing_g.php

Opening night of the Global Atheist Conference - Natasha Mitchell - All in the Mind Blog - ABC - 13/3

http://blogs.abc.net.au/allinthemind/2010/03/opening-night-global-atheism-conference-2010-atheistcon.html

Atheist convention's first secular success - The Age - 13/3

http://www.theage.com.au/national/atheist-conventions-first-secular-success-20100312-q499.html

Uh oh, we aren't being nice and respectful - PZ Myers - Pharyngula - 12/3

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/03/uh-ohwe_arent_being_nice_and_r.php

Atheists meet in Melbourne to celebrate lack of faith - BBC - 12/3

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8563583.stm

2,500 atheists gather in Melbourne - Newser - 12/3

http://www.newser.com/story/83113/2500-atheists-gather-in-melbourne.html

Atheism - a fizzer or fantastic - Dick Gross - Opinion - National Times

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/blogs/godless-gross/atheism--a-fizzer-or-fantastic/20100311-pzwu.html

Faith falls down under - BBC - 9/3

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8555953.stm

Richard Dawkins on ABC's Q&A - 8/3

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2831712.htm

ABC Religion Blog - Global Atheist Convention - 4/3

http://blogs.radionational.net.au/atheistconvention/

Heads Up

EDITED BY GREG CALLAGHAN

Q10

Peter Singer, PHILOSOPHER, 63

Studies now show that the so-called “human” qualities of compassion and altruism are present in dolphins, chimps and gorillas. What does this tell us?

It tells us what Darwin already noticed — that it is not only in our anatomy, but also in our emotional and mental lives, that we are on a continuum with the other animals. It also tells us that our ethics need to change. Now only human beings can have basic rights, or the moral status of a person. All animals are just “things” — at law, items of property. That needs to change. We should not disregard or discount the interests of another sentient being just because it is not a member of our species.

Do you think zoos play any role in preserving endangered species and educating the public?

The best zoos do play a role in educating the public about the importance of conservation, but it is always a mixed message because at the same time they tell the public that it is okay to keep animals in captivity so that we can enjoy looking at them. Zoos need to put the interests of the animals first, and that of the spectators second. Otherwise, even if they do occasionally preserve an endangered species, what is the point of preserving animals if they are having miserable lives?

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who five years ago inflamed hard-line Muslims with cartoons they considered blasphemous, still lives in fear of his life; there was an attempt on his life last month. Is it becoming harder to criticise religion?

Yes, it is becoming more dangerous, especially if you are criticising Islam. But fundamentalist Christians in the US are also a problem, of course. We need brave people who are prepared to stand up to the threats, because if we are to solve the problems that face us, we need to take an open-minded, evidence-based attitude to the world.

Why do human beings have such a fervent need to believe in God?

Richard Dawkins has suggested that during much of our evolutionary history, groups of people who believed in a god or gods may have had an evolutionary advantage, in that individuals were more ready to make sacrifices for the group as a whole. That could explain why we have a widespread propensity to believe in a being that none of us has seen. Of course it could just be that it is comforting to think that, even though our bodies die, we will somehow live on. It’s a kind of nice fairytale that adults tell each other.

Many people say that life would be meaningless without a god. What do you say to them?

I have no problem finding meaning in what I do. What could be more fulfilling and meaningful than trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world, and make the world a better place? The more I think about it, the more discomforting I find the idea of believing that this world, with all the suffering and misery experienced by both humans and non-human animals, was created by an omniscient, omnipotent being. How could one love a being who could stop all that suffering — or never have allowed it to start — and yet knowingly allows it to continue?

What role do you think philosophers have in the world today?

Philosophers are now contributing to raising the standard of public discussion on a huge range of ethical questions — making that discussion more probing, questioning assumptions, and putting forward new ideas for consideration. That’s a very important role.

Most major religions emphasise the connection between family values and their religion. Is this valid?

Religions tend to reinforce the value of the family, but our love for our children is something we get from our biology anyway. We are mammals, and we need to care for our young for many years before they can fend for themselves. The values don’t themselves come from religion.

Osama bin Laden urges followers to prepare for a drawn-out conflict with the West and Christianity. Isn’t it more a conflict with modernism?

There are several strands to this conflict. But one interesting aspect of it is that it undermines the claim that we should always respect religious faith. The faith of the terrorists who were prepared to die to bring down the World Trade Centre must have been very strong. That doesn’t make it a good thing. The lesson should be that we have to move beyond faith in order to discuss whether a belief is right or wrong.

What do you think are the three biggest mysteries of the universe?

Some things that many people consider unknowable I believe we do already understand quite well — for example, that the universe was not created by a divine being, and that there is no survival after death. Of course, I admit that I could be wrong about these things, but I think it very unlikely. So what does that leave? I’d love to know if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If there is, I’d like to know if the other intelligent beings have conceptions of reason and of ethics that are similar to ours.

What would be your advice to a young Peter Singer today?

Set your sights high. Try to make a difference to the world. It’s the most fulfilling way to live.

Peter Singer is a speaker at the “The Rise of Atheism” — the 2010 Global Atheist Convention — next weekend at the Melbourne convention and exhibition centre.

Richard Dawkins is an ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science author, known as probably the world’s most famous atheist.

He made his name back in the 1970s with his landmark book, The Selfish Gene. Since then a trail of evolutionary bestsellers have followed, including his global bestseller, The God Delusion.

UK-based Dawkins maintains simply that religion is incompatible with science and is the greatest source of conflict in the world.

George Negus speaks to him in Brisbane during his current tour of Australia about his controversial stance and the rising influence of atheism.

Watch the interview, as broadcast on Dateline on Sunday 7th March, or click here for an extended version.

[3.4M MP3]

ATHEISTS have begun an advertising campaign on Melbourne buses, proclaiming ''Atheism - celebrate reason'', the first time they have entered the fray in such a public way.

The signs are on the backs of 24 buses until March 29, when the number will rise to 40 and the advertisements will be included on the sides as well, according to Atheist Foundation of Australia president David Nicholls.

''This is the first time we have advertised in public in such a big way - it's a very significant move forward for atheists,'' Mr Nicholls said.

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The Freethought University Alliance, a coalition of atheist, humanist, secular and skeptic campus groups from universities across Australia, will be launched at The Rise of Atheism, 2010 Global Atheist Convention.

The Alliance will connect student leaders and help them work together and grow as a collective student movement dedicated to furthering science, reason and secular values in Australian society. The Alliance will provide students with useful advice, resources and networking opportunities, and also support students planning to start new aligned groups on university campuses.

The 2010 Global Atheist Convention is pleased to be sponsoring the launch event of the Freethought University Alliance, to be held at 12:30PM on Friday 12 March 2010 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Special guest PZ Myers, famous atheist and science blogger, will be a guest speaker at the event, which is open exclusively to university students and includes a free lunch.

To register, send an email to jason@umss.org with your name, university and student number.

Places are strictly limited and are filling fast.

http://ausfreethought.org

The Death Trap
Published February 15, 2010

It is illegal to obtain but it is the drug of choice for some terminally ill patients wanting to choose the timing of their death. The law is now catching on.

THREE weeks ago, Miklos Somogyi hobbled into his study to compose a letter to the Federal Police. His wife, Erika, had urged him not to do it. She was worried about their welfare, but Miklos was so frustrated by the apparent interception of his special package that he persuaded her they had nothing to lose....

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Call to charge Nitschke for 'aiding' suicide
Published February 18, 2010

EUTHANASIA advocate Philip Nitschke should be charged for assisting suicide over deaths caused by the drug he promotes as the ''peaceful pill'', a prominent ethicist says.

Associate Professor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, of the Pope John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, said recent revelations that 14 Australians aged in their 20s and 30s had died from an overdose of Nembutal was ''disturbing'' and should prompt legal action...
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Vast majority support change
February 19, 2010

AN INCONVENIENT truth for Jim Wallace and Nicholas Tonti-Filippini ("Call to charge Nitschke", The Age, 18/2) is Newspoll research that shows that 85 per cent of the community wants the law reformed to allow those suffering the unrelievable torture of an end-of-life illness the right to seek and obtain medical assistance to die peacefully according to their beliefs and values. That support includes three out of four Catholics, four out of five Anglicans, and nine out of 10 of those who observe no faith. The Australian Christian lobby represents only a tiny minority view against informed choice.

The appropriate response is for the Victorian Parliament to get on with reform, and the first responsible step is for Attorney-General Rob Hulls to refer the matter to the Victorian Law Reform Commission for full community consultation and review, just as he has done for other important social issues.

Neil Francis, president, Dying With Dignity Victoria, Melbourne

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Transcript from the Weekend Australian, Saturday 20 February 2010

How to be good without bothering God
British philosopher Anthony Grayling remains optimistic about the future of humanity
MIRIAM COSIC

ANTHONY Grayling is just the man for these troubled times. The war on terror? Globalisation and its discontents? Bioethics? The decline of manners? Ask Gray­ling, a trained thinker hard to place on the political Left or Right, tough on cant but easy on human frailty.

No ivory tower theorist, Gray­ling takes the Bertrand Russell approach to the life of a philos­opher: ethics is not just a rarefied conversation, it must be practised in the real world.

Not least, he says, because public support of universities de­mands their products are useful to society.

He is older than the present crop of celebrity philosophers — he has just turned 60 — and it shows in his rigour. He doesn’t enter the public domain to offer easy answers but rather to make us think. And think for ourselves.

“Human beings of all kinds, given the opportunity to reflect, find themselves wanting to make sense of things, to impose some kind of pattern which is satisfying to themselves,” he says during a recent telephone conversation. “But most people would rather die than think, and they shortcut things by taking on pre-packaged ideas about the world.”

The articles he writes in British newspapers and the books he writes for the layman, with catchy titles such as The Choice of Hercules: Pleasure, Duty and the Good Life in the 21st Century, are intended to help readers counter­act that tendency to take the easiest path.

Grayling is coming to Austra­lia to take part in the Perth Writers Festival later this week and the Global Atheist Conven­tion in Melbourne in March. He will share the podium in both places with Richard Dawkins, a fellow Brit and non-believer.

One of the many problems with religion, from his perspec­tive, is that it makes exclusive claims to the moral life. From an­cient times, inquiry into the good and flourishing life, the spiritual, emotional and intellectual res­ponses to the world was seen as a measure of what it means to be human. “All that was hijacked over the last 1500 years by re­ligion,” he says. “The idea devel­oped that it’s only in the religious setting that you can have a sense of the numinous and of the sig­nificance and depth of things.”

That exclusivity leaves out, among other things, the small daily communions — the walk in the park, the visit to a gallery, at­tendance in a concert hall, dinner with friends — that add im­measurably to the texture of life, a commonplace in the philosophy of classical antiquity.

People worry about the pixels rather than the big picture most of the time

Religion, he says, “monopol­ised thinking about those mat­ters, and about ethics, to the ex­tent that if someone wasn’t of a religious frame of mind, didn’t have a religious commitment, they would be regarded as in­capable to thinking ethically. And yet the opposite is true. “If you don’t have a hand-me-down frozen ethical pizza from the warehouse of ideas, but you have to think about it yourself, make it from scratch with fresh ingredi­ents, you’re likely to have thought about it much more seriously.”

Grayling likes a metaphor; it’s how he anchors the metaphysical in the concrete for general audi­ences. Later he employs another, when asked what most troubles people in Anglo-Saxon societies such as his and ours.

People worry about the pixels rather than the big picture most of the time, he replies. And that, to our cost, leads to moral panics and other passing sensations. “As kids, we used to play in parks, jump on our bike and go riding out to the country by ourselves,” he says, by way of example. “We allow our children to do much less now, in a situation which is actu­ally much safer for them. As the curve of concern about child safety goes up, the actual risk to them goes down. Back in the 19th century, much worse things hap­pened to children than happen to them now.”

We worry too much about things that are not so bad, and don’t worry enough about things we should worry about, he says: he points to erosions of civil liber­ties in the hope it will make us safer against terrorism and crime.

Grayling grew up in Zambia and then Malawi, where his father worked as a banker. The family was emotionally distant: his father quite warm but Victo­rian in outlook and uninterested in children; his mother equally uninterested in her offspring. “My parents were extremely bad at ex­plaining things,” he says. “They told me that I would be going to boarding school and didn’t point out that they would be coming back to fetch me. So when I got to boarding school I thought, ‘Well, that was chapter one’.”

The beginning, perhaps, of the search for answers.

Grayling was a bookish child. “We were rather thrown on our own devices,” he says. “The adults entertained themselves with adultery and the children read as much as we could.”

He remembers the sepia-tinted portraits of bearded philos­ophers in the encyclopaedia at home, but it was when he received his adult reading ticket at the li­brary that he fell for philosophy: Plato’s early dialogues, to be pre­cise, which were easy enough for a 12-year-old to grasp.

“I thought it was wonderful that these great names were dedicating their lives to talking about truth and beauty and knowledge and virtue and justice. I thought, ‘Yep, that’s what I’m go­ing to do’.” He is now professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London.

His engagement with real life, one imagines, is what makes him believable as a popular pundit. “I should mention that I continue to be an academic,” he says when his newspaper columns are raised.

He even helps people tap into the philosophical resources of the Western tradition — “I don’t think anybody would puff them­selves up as a teacher to hu­manity,” he says — hoping to calm people down and getting them thinking responsibly, he re­mains optimistic.

“The good news,” he says, “is that ethical roots run deep and the human being is a very intelli­gent creature. The technologies we have developed over time are an extraordinary achievement, the fact that the human race is able to throw up the Einsteins and the Michelangelos and the Beethovens in the thousands, and per­haps in the millions, shows that in our gene pool is a heck of a lot of smartness and that smartness is turned into practicality.

“The other thing to say is that our newspapers are full of conflict and war and murder, but in every city, all around the world, every day of the week there are millions of acts of kindness, compassion, affection, mutuality.

“And this shows that, as social animals, we’ve got a great deal of responsiveness toward one an­other. We have to work quite hard to put people into an out-group so that we can hate them and demonise them and bomb them. I think that’s true of humanity in general.”

And yet, philosophers have been agonising over the same questions for thousands of years, trying to make us better people.

“It surprises people when you point out to them that Christian­ity is a very young religion, and the classical tradition is only 2500 years old,” Grayling says sunnily. “And that tens of thousands of years of human history are lost in the mists before that time. And there was hardly any progress there at all up until the time of set­tled agriculture.

“You have to accept that hu­man nature changes slowly, which is why conflicts occur; but we have made a bit of progress and we may be only at the very be­ginning of human history.

“If we can survive this little isthmus of madness, where there is too much technological capa­bility and too little good sense to manage it properly, and we man­age to get into the sunny uplands of a future where we are seriously more peaceable, constructive and co-operative, we will be able to benefit from the efforts of all the philosophers who have thought about how we should be live. Fu­ture human beings may have a much, much better life.”

Published February 13, 2010
Something you will never see: an atheist boarding a plane with a bomb strapped to him, waving a copy of On The Origin Of Species, before he blows himself up in a violent attempt to further his cause.

So says David Nicholls, the head of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, the man at the increasingly pointy end of the reinvigorated and freshly vocal atheism movement.

Atheists, he says, oppose the extremism that sometimes characterises their religious counterparts. They do not believe in shoving views down throats. They mistrust group-think and are suspicious of institutions. Unlike their believer brethren, atheists are, by definition, not joiners.

''I am not really comfortable with the whole 'movement' thing, although I suppose there are other atheists around,'' Nicholls says.

How galling, then, that atheists have lately had to collectivise, organise and unite against what they regard as common enemies: religious extremism, the blurring of church and state, and the denial of the theory of evolution.

The new age of activist atheism, which began with the publication of bestsellers such as Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (2006), and Christopher Hitchens's polemic God is Not Great (2007), has grown into a loose global coalition of civil libertarians, liberals and gay rights activists...
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