As readers of this blog will be aware, I’m currently attempting to put a journal to study witchcraft. In the interests of good research, I openly disclose the fact that I am a) part of the skeptical community and b) part of the Wiccan community. A skeptical Witch.

Rushyo basically has two issues with what I wrote: one is that the blog contained a “horrendously poor skeptical analysis”. The other is that, in my response to his first comment beneath the blog, I’m guilty of religious hatred/intolerance. I’ll try to address both of these.

The post in question contains a spell lifted from a witches’ website. The spell involves writing “a goal you desire” on a bit of paper and throwing it into a river or sea while reciting a rhyme. The spell is accompanied by the categorical statement that “the ink and paper dissolve into the water and the spell begins to work”.

No plausible mechanism by which this spell might achieve the desired outcome is suggested and it struck me that there was some small similarity with homeopathic remedies, in that both appear to rely on water having a power that has not thus far been confirmed by scientific research, in spite of extensive investigation of water at a molecular level.

A further similarity between homeopathy and this particular remedy may be inferred by the claim that the spell begins to work when the paper and ink dissolve, implying an inverse relationship between the degree of dissolution and the efficacy of the spell. The more dilute, the more potent. Sound familiar?

Anyway, I didn’t state this argument in as many words but expected instead that readers would see the point without explanation. I concluded with the suggestion that it wasn’t wrong to call homeopathy witchcraft after all.

In one of his comments below the piece, Rushyo says,

Your argument makes as much scientific sense as someone looking at Western medicine and using the description of the ‘cold treatment’, bringing people back to life, as a justification for calling all Western medicine a sham.

Rushyo’s objection, then, is that I generalised from a single example and, because one spell appears to bear some similarity to homeopathy, I shouldn’t assume they all do. Thus, the evidence I present to support the claim that homeopathy is witchcraft (or vice versa) is insufficient. This is a fair point and, had I been trying to make a serious case that homeopathy and witchcraft are pretty much the same on the grounds that they both rely on the ‘memory’ of water or on the notion that dilution makes things more potent, then I wouldn’t have supported my argument with a sample of one.

However, as most readers appreciated, my blog post was not intended to be taken seriously; not for a nanosecond, did it occur to me that anyone would and, so far as I know, nobody but Rushyo did. And he was so aggrieved by my perceived violation of skeptic principles that he left the kind of snarky comment that just begs for a put-down. Thus, I suggested he calm himself with a frog’s toe special. As a consequence, I found myself accused of “preaching religious hatred”. He even tweeted it.

In his own account of what happened, Rushyo writes:

I made quite sure my dismay was evident when I found somebody mocking witchcraft and comparing it with Homeopathy (something that has been thoroughly proven not to work) which they themselves stated was based on absolutely the most flimsy and pathetic evidence.

This quote suggests that it was more the mockery of witchcraft than the ‘bad science’ that offended Rushyo but, given his emotive comments beneath the article, that was pretty obvious already. Here’s an example:

So, essentially, you just wanted to preach a bit of religious hatred? Don’t mask this as skepticism, it puts the skeptical community to shame. I’m ashamed to be associated with you. Pathetic.

He later adds:

A skeptic that throws skepticism out of the window as soon as Witchcraft is mentioned is no better than Wiccan that turns around and throws the rede out of the window when it comes to issues of scientific interest (such as medicine).

It may occur to some readers, as it did to me, that a skeptic who threw skepticism out of the window as soon as witchcraft is mentioned would end up embracing witchcraft wholeheartedly, as Rushyo seems to have done. A skeptic who embraces and adopts a worldview first and starts a more thorough investigation only after having done so sounds like….well, I hesitate to say ‘an oxymoron’, given that when someone said the same thing on twitter, Rushyo responded first with this and then with this, which doesn’t get us any further.

In case anyone doesn’t get where the charge of religious hatred comes from, Wicca involves the “ritual practice of magic” (wiki). Ergo poking fun at witchcraft is insulting the Wicca religion. In his blog, Rushyo explains further

The insult related to my religion. What makes this attack astounding was that I was not shouting from a religious soapbox – I was shouting from a skeptical one. I felt that the article was the anti-thesis of skepticism for reasons which I will go into later. My argument was completely unrelated to my religious belief. Were I an atheist I would have felt exactly the same.

And there was I thinking that faith — belief without evidence — is the antithesis of skepticism. I’m very surprised to learn that I was wrong and that in fact mocking magic spells is the antithesis of skepticism. Good grief!

Seriously now, I think we can discount the claim that his argument was completely unrelated to his religious faith. Were it not for his religious belief, he would have either seen the piece as nothing more than a bit of fun or, if he really did take it seriously, calmly pointed out that my argument was fallacious. At least, that’s what any other skeptic would have done. By his own admission, what dismayed Rushyo was my “mocking witchcraft and comparing it with Homeopathy (something that has been thoroughly proven not to work)”.

I did indeed poke fun at witchcraft with references to newts’ eyes and making things disappear. And clearly Rushyo also sees the mere comparison with homeopathy as mockery of witchcraft, which I suppose it is, though my intention at the time was only to mock homeopathy by comparing it with medieval nonsense, which is how I view witchcraft. I’m afraid Rushyo’s explanation of it doesn’t make me view it any differently.

Witchcraft is the act of invoking power beyond the material world defined by science, often linked with a spiritual element, intended to perform a tangible task with a particular stated goal. As practised by Wiccans, Witchcraft is used to invoke the power of the Gods through prayer and ritual.

Interestingly, while Rushyo evidently thinks witchcraft isn’t a legitimate target for mockery, he seems to think homeopathy is. He says,

Homeopathy is the subject of ridicule because it has a weight of scientific evidence against it. Witchcraft does not (surprisingly!).

The claim that there is a lack of scientific evidence against witchcraft is arguable, to put it mildly but, even if it were true, should the fact that there is a lack of evidence against it protect it from mockery? I mean, if there hadn’t already been hundreds of trials of homeopathy, if it hadn’t already been proven to be a crock, would we (and by ‘we’ I mean people who identify as skeptics) treat it with any more reverence because it was untested? Of course not, because it’s scientifically implausible; it contravenes scientific laws and is therefore ridiculous. Just like witchcraft.

By the way, I have since seen a few other spells from the same source and concede that they don’t all rely on an unknown power of water, thereby undermining my original contention that witchcraft is homeopathy, which I happily withdraw, seeing as I didn’t really mean it in the first place. However, the spells do all involve some element of magic, as do homeopathic remedies, so the comparison — and, indeed, the reverse contention that homeopathy is witchcraft — aren’t as outrageous as Rushyo would have us believe. And they’re both suitable topics for skeptical humour, as are any number of other ridiculous quack therapies or ‘weight-loss eating plans’ making claims for which there is no evidence either way. These are mockable not so much because they haven’t been properly tested but because, if true, their claims would force us to re-write all our physics and chemistry text books.

So it seems Rushyo’s understanding of skepticism differs somewhat from my own. For the record, it was the explanation of skepticism on UK-skeptics that first resonated with me, leading me to adopt the label. It points out that skepticism is not a world view but a methodology. It starts with doubt and applies it to everything. Claims — whether they be about global warming, quack therapies or supernatural powers — are not taken at face value but must be supported with good quality evidence before they will be accepted:

assuming or holding the provisional position that a claim is false until proven otherwise is also the correct approach to take

As he is a scientist, I don’t think Rushyo could disagree with this, any more than I would disagree with the definition of skepticism Rushyo quotes from wiki (see below). What I do disagree with is his claim that he is attacking from a perspective of skepticism and that those of us who disagree with him are betraying true skeptic principles. From his comments:

I would give the topic the gravitas I feel it deserves. Call it a ‘Galileo complex’ if you like. The value of establishing facts over adopting society’s wider views has become a core tenant (sic) amongst Witches. Something I was under impression us, as skeptics, were supposed to champion as well.

(snipped)

If I may quote Wikipedia:

“Scientific skeptics attempt to evaluate claims based on verifiability and falsifiability and discourage accepting claims on faith or anecdotal evidence.”

and “Scientific skeptics do not assert that unusual claims should be automatically rejected out of hand on a priori grounds.”

Were I an independent observer I would surmise I was not talking to skeptics – in fact I might reasonably surmise I was talking to the polar opposite given those definitions.

As I said, I would agree with both those extracts from wiki and I don’t know why Rushyo feels they make some sort of case for him. To repeat, the starting point for skepticism is doubt. We don’t look at a proposal that claims throwing a bit of paper into the sea while uttering a spell will work in achieving a desired goal in life and think: “Hmmm….there’s no evidence against this idea so we should wait until it’s been tested before we mock it.” Rather we would argue that everything we know about the natural world indicates that this proposal is absurd and unworthy of investigation. That’s not to say we won’t change our minds if a scientifically plausible explanation were offered but, in the meantime, the proposal is worthy of ridicule. And if it were being funded on the NHS, it would, like the similarly implausible homeopathy, be a campaigning issue for skeptics.

To aid our understanding of why my ‘frog’s toe special’ suggestion qualifies as religious hatred, Rushyo helpfully provides the criteria by which he defines religious hatred/intolerance (he treats these words as synonyms) and proclaims that my comment to him meets every one. A perfect fit!

a) It has to be for the purpose of insulting.
b) It has to relate to a religion
c) It has to reference the person’s religion belief
d) It should display ignorance/prejudice

…to meet all these criteria for insulting a Muslim you might need something like the following: “Don’t worry, I’m sure your Mother and Father Mohammed will calm you down, Mohammed.” This statement would meet the above criteria – and it would similarly be considered unacceptable. In most circles.

Well not in mine because I don’t even understand it and my Muslim friends are pretty chilled about religious insults. (Less so about racism, say, because they recognise that religion in adult life is a choice, ethnicity isn’t.)

If I’m being totally honest, offending people’s religious sensibilities isn’t something that bothers me too much. This isn’t religious hatred, it isn’t religious intolerance, it’s religious indifference. We each of us choose our different worldviews and none of them should be seen as exempt from ridicule. If ridiculous ideas are to afforded special protection just because they are part of someone’s religion, can someone tell me where we would draw the line? Would the ‘religious ideas’ of  someone who decides to invent a new religion over breakfast be entitled to the same protection?

In conclusion, ‘hatred’ is a strong word and certainly not something I feel for mildly eccentric people and their barmy religion — as long as they do nothing to harm others. And, while I am grateful to Rushyo for making me thing this one through, I don’t think his claim that he is criticising from a skeptic’s perspective stands up to scrutiny His argument amounts to no more than special pleading that witchcraft should be exempt from mockery and because it’s part of his religion and, as one commenter here already said, that’s just creepy.

When has prayer ever even seemed to work? For every prayer that has ‘worked’, there are a billion more that get ignored, so anyone thinking of sharing an account of how a prayer has worked for them can think again unless they can also share an answer as to why they don’t work for everyone. And by ‘work’, I don’t just mean made someone feel better or more positive about whatever their problem was or made something happen that can easily be attributed to causes other than prayer. I’m talking about intercessory prayer: prayers that saved a dying child’s life, for example.

This isn’t a trick question. I don’t mind admitting that no anecdotal evidence will convince me that prayer has saved the life of a single creature in the history of the universe, however miraculous a recovery was made and however much the recovery may have mystified doctors. My point is that stories of such recoveries are extremely rare, if they happen at all. It’s not as if the media are full of them, nor is it the case that most religious people shun orthodox medicine in favour of prayer — mais non! they see it as supplement, surely? A complementary therapy, so to speak. So where on Earth did the Neumanns get the idea that it might work for their child?

Dale Neumann describes himself as someone who partied hard and drank until he found Jesus. Was it finding Jesus, then, that lead him to kill his daughter? It seems so.

If I in a moment of crisis and in a moment of time, I went to anyone else but the Lord, it would not have been favorable to God,” Dale Neumann said. “It would have been idolatry and sin because it is disobedience.”

I use the word ‘kill’ deliberately because both the Neumanns have been convicted of second degree reckless homicide and, as it happens, I think this conviction is justified simply because they didn’t plead insanity and, in spite of reportedly once burning library books “because the Holy Spirit told him to” and calling a prayer meeting instead of an ambulance for his daughter, Dale Neumann had not been sectioned (or whatever the US equivalent is). The Neumanns reportedly gave the appearance of being a normal American Christian family and Dale has reportedly said that he wouldn’t do anything differently should another of his kids get sick. Note the word ‘reportedly’ — I’m having trouble believing everything I read about this couple and I am open to correction. But if it is all true and if their delusions are not deemed to be symptomatic of mental illness, then they are guilty as charged.

For pity’s sake — they didn’t grow up in some isolated primitive tribe so if they are not insane then what excuse have they got?

That said, growing up in the most powerful industrialised nation in the world, they will undoubtedly have encountered some pretty primitive and outlandish ideas about a dysfunctional paternalistic creator god who sent his only begotten son (who was really himself, you understand) on a suicide mission to this planet because we earthlings turned out to be no better than he made us in the first place. If you are going to indoctrinate people from birth to believe in bizarre myths and a load of other stuff about an omniscient, omnipotent and altogether improbable god, then it’s perhaps not surprising that someone somewhere takes it seriously.

Gloria Thomas and Kara Neumann both died because their parents disregarded reason and evidence in favour of superstition.

There’s a moral there somewhere.

Take Michael White, for example, in yesterday’s Guardian:  “Secularists dominate the airwaves for the other 23 hours and 57 minutes of the day,” he tells us, “so why not keep three minutes for the faiths?” Or as Free Presbyterian Minister, David Robertson, whines in the Sunday Herald, “The BBC’s default world view and operating principle is secularist…We will be more than happy to give up the tiny slot that is reserved for “religion” in the BBC…provided that the 99% of the BBC that is exclusively run from secularist presuppositions is opened to the majority of the population who have some form of religious belief.”

Well, blow me! It never occurred to me that religious listeners might resent the fact that the rest of the BBC output is presented from a neutral perspective and that they’d rather have a religious slant on everything. Perhaps they’d like to hear an archbishop or rabbi present the news from their religious “presuppositions” as well as produce dramas, documentaries and music programmes?

Sorry, but that argument is hogwash. Unless a programme is specifically religious, everyone can enjoy it, regardless of their world view. There is a place for religious thoughts and I don’t mean they should stay in the heads of religious people. I’ve no objection to a few clearly flagged religious programmes. After all, religion is a special interest still held by many and those of us who are bored or offended by it can listen to something else.

The problem with Thought for the Day is that it interrupts a purportedly serious daily news magazine with what is, for many of us, a highly irritating three-minute religious platitude. I always found TFTD objectionable when I was a regular listener to the Today programme. One day in 1981 my irritation boiled over and I switched channels permanently. I’ve never listened to the programme since but recently I’ve looked at some transcripts of contributions to the slot on the programme’s website and I found no improvement to speak of. Most of them are, in my view, trite, tired and unoriginal.

The second problem with Thought for the Day is its very title, which suggests the thought being expressed is profound and meaningful. Excluding non-religious contributers implies that only religious people can have profound, meaningful thoughts. Thus non-religious listeners are irritated even more.

On the plus side, a three-minute daily platitude would seem to be low-hanging fruit, as far as secularists are concerned: the campaign against it gets the secular humanist organisations some publicity during the silly season. If you do nothing else for the campaign against religious privilege, drop a line of complaint or just sign a petition against TFTD’s exclusively religious character and pat yourself on the back for doing something worthy.

I’m inclined to agree with A C Grayling’s view, quoted in The Telegraph:

At the moment the slot is discriminatory. A lot of people are irritated by it being on a main news programme. They should really abolish it but at the very least they should have alternative views.

Yes, they should but personally I wouldn’t lift a finger in furtherance of that particular cause. I loathe TFTD with a passion and I wouldn’t expect to like it any better just because it included an occasional secular platitude. Because, let’s face it, not every secularist is a Grayling or a Baggini. We shouldn’t flatter ourselves that the quality of the slot is necessarily going to be improved by the inclusion of secular contributors. The bar isn’t exactly set high.

Opposing David Robertson in the Sunday Herald, Tim Maguire of the Humanist Society of Scotland, says,

If the UN Special Rapporteur on Religion and Belief is to be believed, two-thirds of the UK population have no religious belief. Why should they look to religious leaders for moral guidance? On the other hand, if the Daily Mail is to be believed, there’s a huge moral vacuum in our society. For once I agree with the Daily Mail, but let’s fill that vacuum with philosophers, thinkers and comedians whose conclusions are reached by reason and compassion rather than divine revelation.

Hang on a minute, where’ve I read that before? Strangely, the same four sentences — identical right down to the use of the first person — appear in a piece written for The Guardian back in February by Juliet Wilson, also of the Humanist Society of Scotland. (And there was I mocking the Muslim speakers Adam Deen and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, recently, for being unoriginal thinkers with a set script!)

Anyway, Juliet was promoting what she describes as a “secular alternative in podcast form called Thought for the World” and I resisted the temptation to scoff at the idea that a three-minute slot on highbrow radio could impinge on any moral vacuum because my hopes were raised by the mention of philsophers, comedians and thinkers.

Alas, the first of this year’s series of thought for the world podcasts was by Muriel Gray, who is neither philosopher nor comedian nor, it would seem, much of a thinker. Her contribution on voluntary euthanasia, which I railed about in a previous post because it’s a subject close to my heart, was not only devoid of both reason and compassion, it also conflicted sharply with the view held by the majority of freethinkers — and many religious believers too — that people who are suffering unbearably should have the right to end their own life if they choose to. As I said in the earlier post,

To be fair, Muriel wasn’t really trying to make an argument. She was simply using an opportunity handed to her on a plate to speak uninterrupted and unchallenged about what she wants or, rather, what she thinks she would want if she were dying a slow painful death. The arguments in favour of a change of law, the sufferings of the likes of Diane Petty, Nigel Pratten, Sue Lawson or countless others could be safely ignored. And they were.

It struck me as a tad ironic that this project of providing a secular alternative to religious TFTD should give a voice and a potential audience of millions to someone who opposes another long-standing humanist campaign and one that is far more important, in my opinion, than getting secular viewpoints on TFTD because it is a campaign that is concerned with real human suffering.

I wouldn’t deny people the right to say whatever they like; what I object to is giving people a soapbox which, once they’ve had their say, they can kick aside and go home without any requirement that they listen to an opposing view. The notion of providing platforms for platitudes where there is no opportunity to engage with the speaker and explore their ideas in more depth — or disagree with them altogether — doesn’t sit well with my understanding of humanism as a positive and democratic philosophy.

All over the web I see thoughts being expressed by ordinary people with more wit, wisdom and perspicacity than most of the contributors to either TFTD or its secular alternative can manage. Better still, I see those thoughts being challenged and developed through discussion and debate from people all over the world (something that humanists in Scotland don’t seem very interested in, judging by the tumbleweed on their internet forum).

For all the noise that (some) secularists make over our exclusion from TFTD, I know there are plenty who, like me, don’t give a flying toss about it and aren’t really interested in hearing atheists sounding off with no come-back. An attempt to raise funds for the Thought for the World project launched in February this year has raised a pitiful £211.11 so far and, as the extraordinary success of the atheist bus appeal demonstrates, it’s not because we’re stingy.

No. While the idea of pissing off the likes of the Revd. David Robertson is appealing, it wouldn’t compensate for the tedium of hearing atheists use the slot to promote their favourite cause or whinge about their personal bugbears without fear of being challenged.

I’d rather scrap it altogether, thanks all the same.

Edited to add: Oops – if I’d seen this article in the Independent before posting, I would’ve chosen a different title. I recommend the article in spite of the title.