Explanations

So today is St Patrick's Day here in Ireland.

I told E that that's what today is called, and that's why I stuck a green t-shirt on her, and how we might go watch the parade later if the weather clears up a bit.

She asked, "Who's Patrick?"

So I told her that Patrick was a miserable old grumble-head who didn't like anything the way it was and went around complaining and trying to tell people what to do all the time.

She grinned.

Duty for the day as an atheist parent: done.

A blog I read

I find the Meming of Life blog by Dale McGowan a great read. He's the editor and author of a number of books on atheism and secular parenting in particular. I am a big fan of the book Parenting Beyond Belief, in which various different atheist and agnostic people discuss how they addressed issues confronting secular parents.

In particular I loved how the book presents different options and opinions, sometimes conflicting ones, and assumes the readers are perfectly capable of deciding what will work best for them.














I really loved this recent post. It's an answer to a reader's question about the comfort that religion can bring, and how secular parents can replace this in their child's lives.

The answer suggested is real people, real relationships. The support networks of friends and family.

I've certainly found that, through my recent crisis. My friends and family have gotten me through it. It has been difficult, but had I been alone, it would have been impossible.



Thank you, dearest mother, sister and wider circle of support. I love you all. You are where I draw my strength and inspiration from, and I know that you are there for my daughter as well, and will be into the future. No matter what life throws at us, we will be fine, because we have you. 

I recently wrote about the privileged position of religion in the Irish constitution and law and how people who have no religion are discriminated against.

It seems my timing was impeccable, as a few days ago the International Humanist and Ethical Union published a report on discrimination against the non religious. The discrimination I mentioned last week is referred to, and severalk other European countries including the UK have a similar situation regarding secularity and religion and the protection of law.

However, as much as I love to complain, we don't have it so badly here. Not really.

There are countries where you can be sentenced to death for not subscribing to the state religion; for having a different belief or for being an atheist or agnostic. Those countries are: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, the Maldives & Mauritania.

If you have time, go read the report, or bits of it anyway. It's good to be informed, and to understand what a truly toxic relationship the marriage of state and religion can be.

A secular society is not an atheist one. It is not fundamentalism in any sense whatsoever. People in a fully secular society would be fully free to believe whatever they wish, and participate in rituals of whatever religion they choose (as long as their rituals don't infringe on the rights of others!). However, the laws would not favour one religion or type of belief over another. The law would ensure that schools and health services are not tarnished by religious morality. The law would ensure that taxpayers' money would not fund religious activities. The law would create a fair system - a truly democratic one. One in which innocent children are not subjected to declarations about sin, one in which women are not treated as second-class citizens purely because milennia of religious belief has engraved that notion in people's psyches, one in which the state does not murder its citizens for non-conformity to a belief system.





A final point - as shocking as it can be to learn about things like this, another shocking thing is the fact that I haven't seen this reported ANYWHERE in the mainstream media. Atheist Northern Ireland facebook page alerted me to it.

Human Rights, and my child's future.

My child is an Irish child, but she does not have the same rights as many other Irish children.

She has citizenship. She is entitled to childrens' allowance.

However, she is not being brought up as a member of any religion. And therefore, she misses out on some other fundamental rights.

For one thing, she can never become President. Article 12.8 of Bunreacht na hEireann (the Irish Constitution) states that upon taking office, the President shall swear the following oath (it also refers to the President under the default pronoun "he" but we'll leave that for another day as the sexism in the constitution deserves its own post):


"In the presence of Almighty God I ,do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will maintain the Constitution of Ireland and uphold its laws, that I will fulfil my duties faithfully and conscientiously in accordance with the Constitution and the law, and that I will dedicate my abilities to the service and welfare of the people of Ireland. May God direct and sustain me."

Atheists do not believe in god, any god. While the lines in the oath have a very Christian slant, a Muslim could nevertheless take office as he or she calls god "allah"; or a Buddhist who calls their god "Buddha" but nevertheless believes in a "god" to whom the above could refer to. An atheist however, could not in good faith take that oath, because it means nothing to them, and no one watching an atheist take such an oath could believe that it meant anything to them for belief in god is a fundamental part of it.

The same is true for a presence on the Council of State (article 31) and perhaps more importantly, the judiciary (article 34.5.1). A judge in Ireland must swear an oath to god. This oath:

"In the presence of Almighty God I, , do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will duly and faithfully and to the best of my knowledge and power execute the office of Chief Justice (or as the case may be) without fear or favour, affection or ill-will towards any man, and that I will uphold the Constitution and the laws. May God direct and sustain me."

"May God direct and sustain me" - in my role as a judge, as I try to uphold the laws of the land. That is an ill-fit with notions of secularity, as well as meaning that once again, my daughter and others like her could never realistically be considered for the role.How does it even fit with the line that precedes it - "without fear or favour, affection or ill-will towards any man" (man, not person, again!) - what if God directs the judge, by way of religious teachings, to have favour toward one person or ill-will toward another - religion has after all, been used to justify slavery, which certainly counts as using the law to favour one person over another.


And now we come to Article 44 - Religion. It even gets its own article!

Here is the text in full of Article 44:



1. The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion. 
 2. 
 1° Freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion are, subject to public order and morality, guaranteed to every citizen.
 2° The State guarantees not to endow any religion. 
 3° The State shall not impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the ground of religious profession, belief or status.
 4° Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school.
 5° Every religious denomination shall have the right to manage its own affairs, own, acquire and administer property, movable and immovable, and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes.
 6° The property of any religious denomination or any educational institution shall not be diverted save for necessary works of public utility and on payment of compensation.


Let's start at the start. The state acknowledges the homage of public worship is due to almightly god. Yeah, that's the big one. It presumes the existence of, and belief in, god. Specifically, a (male) god who needs and deserves worship.

The articles which follow are also actually offensive to secularists, not so much as the first, but insomuch as they mention religion constantly, but there is no mention of "No religion". Therefore, the state can't discriminate against religions or people from different religions, but they can discriminate against people who don't belong to any religion, meaning atheists and agnostics too. We are not afforded the same rights. This translates into law too - the nine grounds (equality and anti-discrimination legislation) include religion, but not "No religion" or "religion or lack thereof", therefore in legal analysis, those of us who have no religion are not included and may be discriminated against. The article on schools is vague and legislation around it has interpreted that the churches have a right to discriminate and choose members of their religion over non-members if the school is over-subscribed, as the religion has the "right" not to compromise its principles - the same legislation makes it perfectly legal for schools to discriminate when hiring teachers, and since most of the schools are Catholic, you can guess which sorts of discrimination take place.

Yes, I have chosen this for my daughter, as I chose not to have her christened (my other half was raised Catholic and it would have been very easy to have her baptised, his family would have been all for it!). I chose to make her life more difficult, perhaps? I chose to deprive her of rights which could otherwise have been hers? Those things may be true. I choose another perspective. I choose to bring her up in a way which is right. To not abandon my principles for what would be easier. To fight against discrimination instead of hiding away and pretending to be one of the people against whom no discrimination takes place.

I hope that by the time she is of an age where she could be president or a member of the judiciary, if she should so choose, these articles will have been amended. Because to be able to partake in politics and the justice system of your country are fundamental elements of citizenship, and as a non-religious person, she does not have those rights.

The legacy of religion

I am an atheist, and a passionate secularist - that is, I believe in full separation of church and state, that none of our laws or systems of government/judiciary , or any state bodies such as the health care system or education system should have any grounding in religion or its teachings.

I see great horrors that have been, and continue to be, committed in the name of religion. Female genital mutilation, jihad, the crusades, the pogroms against Jews all over Europe, witch burnings. The list could go on and on and on, describing death - murder - and abuses of many kinds.


However, I do see beauty in the legacy of religion as well.

Take these songs:
Silent night



Away in a Manger


Just two examples. Yes, they are religious. Full on, virgin-birth, angels and Jesus as god religious. However, they are also beautiful. The music more so than the lyrics perhaps, but I do find great beauty in the whole package.

Are there beautiful secular songs? Well perhaps any song that speaks of love of a person, or of the world, without a religious undertone (or overtone), or actually anything at all other than religion, is a secular song. So that is most of the music ever composed, including many modern Christmas songs. Nevertheless, can we ever have too much beautiful music? Should we stop playing religious music just because it's religious? I don't think so.


The Christians stole Christmas from the pagans. I am sure that most modern religious festivals have a pagan heritage, as every society in the world was once pagan of some sort. So why can't the secularists "steal" some of it from the Christians, Muslims, Buddhists etc?

And then we have art.

Some of the most beautiful paintings have a religious motif. 

E.g. The Last Supper by Leonardo daVinci

 in which we see Jesus and the apostles at the scene which forms the basis for most of Christianity (the bread anf wine as the body and flesh of Jesus).












 Botticelli's The Birth of Venus,

which depicts a nude, gorgeous goddess emerging from a seashell.









 or of course, the roof of the Sistine Chapel

 These are amazing works of art. Should we disregard them because they depict religious scenes? of course not. They were painted by some of the most skilled artists of their time.

Especially with respect to the Christian scenes, the church at the time of the Rennaissance was a very welathy and powerful patron (at least in part due to the corruption that led to the Reformation, but that's a story for another day!). This was a time before government grants to artists, before such a thing as the Office of Public Works existed, before social welfare for people who weren't working. Earn money to feed yourself, or starve, were the options of the day. So if a wealthy patron offered you the chance to express yourself and your hard-practised talents (Michaelangelo was a grave-robber by night, using cadavers to learn about the human body in order to paint and scult it more accurately), with the caveat that the paintings must contain religious imagry, most would take up the offer, especially at that time.

Religions have been creating things of great beauty for much longer than that though, of course. There is Newgrange, in Co. Meath, Ireland - built approximately 5000 years ago, at the same time as the pyramids. There are the great pyramids of Egypt themselves. There are petroglyphs carved by Native American tribes. There is the cave art of early European societies, most famously Lascaux. These are all expressions of creativity. They refer to sacred spaces, things and thoughts. They are symbols created or built in the name of understanding the world around us. These were all created at a time when religion and science were not at odds. In Newgrange, on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, the light comes in through to the deepest chamber. That's astronomy as well as religion.The cave art may be an attempt to understand the "spirit world", the supernatural, but it is also the earliest form of the idea of symbolism created by humans, the ability to use a mark to symbolise a real thing, which lead to all other forms of art and writing and is one of the beautiful, abstract things which marks us out as different to other animals (due to our brain evolving differently).

Religion may have started off as a way to understand the world around us. It went hand in hand with science. It was about discovery and exploration, not dogma. It was about trying new things - to appease the gods, people did a rain dance, or made a sacrifice. When something appeared to work they did it again, when it didn't, they stopped. All right, it was chance and not a metaphysical being that caused the apparent effect or lack thereof, but still, that is in principle closer to modern science than it is religion.

At some point, religion decided it had all the answers. No more exploration was needed, no more attempts to discover.

So while objects of great beauty continued to be created, the aim of religion changed. Instead of seeking to discover, it sought to explain and dictate. To control. The opposite of the essence of where it started.


Nevertheless, the desire to explain things that we can't yet understand is a facet of humanity, and religion was once a way to do so. Now, science is a better way. We can enjoy the art, and the music, and continue to explore the universe and always ask why.

Free from superstition, free from fear.

I was playing scrabble with my sister over the weekend, and it was a lot of fun - it's kind of a tradion with us now.

At one point in one of the games, I commented that I was having a great game, things were going really well, I was getting good letters at the right time and the opportunity to use them well.

A few years ago, I would have had to follow that with a "touch wood" exclamation, followed by actual touching of wood, just in case I was tempting fate and my luck would change simply by virtue of my having commented on it.

Now, as an atheist, skeptic, rationalist, I don't feel the need to do that. I know that it is pure random chance that draws the letters from the bag, and me saying I got good ones does not invite some malicious demon imp upon me to mess with my future chances.

I can say what I like without fear of impunity. It's the fear that's the problem. The worry that my words, thoughts or simple actions can affect the outcome of something which really, of course I have no control over. The time I was brushing my teeth and the Ireland team scored a goal - perhaps I should brush my teeth for the ninety minutes of every Ireland game in future, to help the Boys in Green on their way? As if little old me could really make such a difference...but...what if? Should I do it, just in case? If they lose, is it my fault?

Not to mention throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill some - was it the left shoulder, or the right? Should I google it, just to be sure? If I throw it over the wrong one, is it double bad luck?

And that mirror I broke as a child, seven years of bad luck! No wonder I had such a crappy childhood. It was all down to the cracks in the mirror. Then there is the four-leaf clover, to ward off evil and bad luck, a good luck charm. An abberation in nature, a slight malfunction in the genetic code - why are four leaf clovers so sought after, when six-toed children are not?

The fear that some little thing I even think could impact upon the outcome of huge events is awful, and awfully silly. I am so glad I gave that up.

My thoughts are my own now. Superstition of that degree is the Thought Police on the most effective scale ever. We police our own thoughts, try to purge the unwelcome ones from the record - though the unwelcome ones in that scenario are the pleasant ones, where we are grateful and happy - in case the thought alone makes all the good things go away.

I am free from superstition, and free from that fear.

Grieving as an Atheist, Part 2

I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago that when I had an appointment at the hospital pertaining to my recent miscarriage, I was given some leaflets that had religious style poems on them about the heartbreak and tragedy of miscarriage.

They didn't help. They made me sad, and angry, and on a wider level, cross that there is is assumption of religiosity in Irish society. People are reasonably tolerant of "other" religions than Catholocism, in comparison to their level of tolerance of atheism or even real agnosticism (as opposed to the vague, spiritualist/deist version of agnosticism espoused by a lot of people here who are angry with the Catholic church over recent scandals, and want to use contraception and have sex before marriage, but otherwise still hold similar beliefs to the population who declare themselves Catholic).People assume that you're a Christian of some kind, or at least that you believe in a god. Atheism is a far more alien concept to most Irish people than Islam.

I want to share the poems here; I want to explain why I find them offensive, even though the gesture was well intended.

This is the worst of them. The line "Don't try to question God" is particularly offensive and self-serving. What person suffering a tragedy wouldn't question why, of god or nature or the universe or chaos theory, why did this terrible thing have to happen to ME? Why did I have to suffer this loss, this tragedy, this heartache?

I don't believe in Jesus, I don't believe that there is a man in the sky singing my baby a lullaby. If I did believe in an all-powerful god, I certainly wouldn't choose to suffer this heartbreak unquestioningly, content in the belief that he was looking after my baby.

"Don't think he is unkind" - why not?  Surely it is unkind to make people to suffer tragedy and loss? Surely if he was omniescent and lives forever then he could have waited a while for my precious baby - oh wait, there I go, questioning Him, and I'm not supposed to do that (/sarcasm).


They don't want questions, because to question when faced with tragedy might result in figuring out the truth: that there is no god, no Jesus, no little baby angel in the sky. And that is sad, so very, very sad. But to know it would remove the power the priests have over the ordinary people. So even when your instinct is to rage against the universe, and its creator if you believe in one, they don't want that.

This one starts off all right. I can relate to the first paragraph very easily, and the first half of the second paragraph. It all goes downhill from there, however.


A parent's pain turns into a plea for the soul of the unborn child to "intercede for us at God's throne" - what, so we don't have to spend quite as much time in purgatory paying for our massive sins (like questioning god perhaps - see above) before we meet again???


I am sure the idea that one day "We will meet" gives comfort to many during this sad time. But not universally: it does not help me and presuming that it does helps me even less.

This one is not as offensive as the previous two. It refers to love, comfort and courage - all things which I need to get through this time. The angel described might "watch out for you in all the things you do" but it isn't interventionist at least.


In a secular, non-religious way, I will always have my baby with me, in the sense that I will never forget, I will always carry the sadness as well as the wondering with me.

So while this one is religious, it isn't offensive as such. It doesn't make me angry.

It doesn't make it worse.

A selection of mismatched lines here. The first - "I did not die young. I lived my span of life within your body, and within your love." is beautiful.It is non-religious. The only thing is relates to is the heartbreak that a woman who has suffered a miscarriage feels. It brought tears to my eyes, but good tears. The type of tears that come with dealing with sadness.

The two lines which follow also resonate with me. We did love this child, or at least the potential they had. We have named her, and we will always think of that baby.

And even to "Live in love" to honour her...well, I can relate to that sentiment as well, though it starts to lean toward religion again.

Finally, we return to "We shall meet again" and the baby sitting with god and waiting for us.

It started so well, and yet it descended into the kind of religious phrasing that made me angry. It's a pity.




Perhaps as time goes on I will edit or write some new poems, that describe the heartbreak of losing my baby, without the religious angle. Because although they were given with the aim of making me feel better, and cope better, they made me angry. They didn't help me through my grief, they hindered it. And others are surely finding the same thing.

It's just because

Another poem. This was imagined in the days of worry, and written the day I got the bad news. I am not religious at all, I am an atheist. I don't think there is a "Meant to be", I don't think there is a reason or a higher purpose. I think that my miscarriage is just one of those shitty things. 


It's just because


It’s not because I wore a belt with my jeans
It’s not because I barely felt sick
It’s not because I breastfed my daughter
Nor because I walked the dog almost every day
And wanted to stay fit and healthy for my pregnancy.

It’s not because I ate chocolate one day
And stuffed my face with vegetables the next
It’s not because I ordered teeny tiny cute cloth nappies already
Nor because I told so many people before the first three months were passed,
And jumped up and down all happy and full of excitement and hugs.

It’s just because the world is sometimes cruel and chaotic
And deeply darkly tragic
It’s just because of that that I have to say goodbye to you
Before I even met you.

It’s not because I carried my big girl in my arms
Or held her on my hip as we walked
It’s not because I had a glass of wine the week before we found out
It’s not because I wondered about names and what we’d call you
And what you’d look like or what your first word would be.

It’s just because the world sometimes works this way
This sometimes harsh and random way,
It’s just because of that that I have to say goodbye
Before I ever got a chance to say hello.

Grieving as an atheist

I am an atheist.

I don't believe in a god or gods. I don't believe in an afterlife. Or should I say, I don't see any evidence, any reason, why I should believe in those things. I'm not a big fan of faith. I don't believe because I can't.

When I was at the hospital today, I was handed a collection of leaflets. Some were information about an inter-denominational service in memory of the lost babies. Some were poems, none had names attached.

They made me cry, because my emotions were raw. They also slightly annoyed me, however.

The poems, the remembrance service all assumed belief in a comforting Jesus or other godly figure, holding these little angel babies close and singing them lullabies. A god who took my baby back because he could not bear to be without my little one. I'm supposed to bear the loss in his stead?

In one of the poems a line was repeated several times - "Do not question God".

I do not believe that my lost little one had a soul that is now with god, or anywhere. I don't believe in the soul. I don't want to be told that my baby died because it was "God's plan" or "God's way" and ours is not to question why.

I'm sure there was a good reason for the miscarriage. A chromosomal abnormality of some sort. The baby maybe never developed past 6 weeks because s/he couldn't. Maybe there was never a heartbeat because there was never a heart? I don't know, I never will. I can only speculate.

For some, the speculation might lead them to a belief in a divine being that gently cares for the little one until a time of reuniting. For me, no. I don't even find much comfort in the idea. It gives me a bad feeling, far from comfort. More like anger, bile rising to the back of my throat.

In sadness we rage, against the universe and ourselves. Against the chaos and the cruelty. Of course we should question why, and wonder what might have been. That doesn't mean we'll ever find an answer, but to wonder and ask and explore is human nature.

The rational, reasonable atheist side of me is irritated that this type of literature is given out as standard to women who are grieving and vulnerable, without asking the simple question first "Are you religious?".

The grieving mother atheist part of me is sad, and angry that these poems and religious literature talk of a time when I will see my baby again, when I know that isn't so. It made me sad all over again, in a whole other way.

This in turn adds to the irritation on the side of the rational side of me. And I am sure this is something that I will face again in the future when faced with loss, as the only inevitable part of life is that people die.

Some may say to their lost little ones, "Au revoir - till we meet again". I may only say "Goodbye."