Prayer Is Not Legal

A brilliantly fair decision all around by Mr Justice Ouseley.

Bideford Town Council prayers ruled unlawful
A Devon town council acted unlawfully by allowing prayers to be said before meetings, the High Court has ruled. Action was brought against Bideford Town Council by the National Secular Society (NSS) after atheist councillor Clive Bone complained.
Mr Justice Ouseley ruled the prayers were not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972. However, he said prayers could be said as long as councillors were not formally summoned to attend.

I've reported on the case before so there's more in "Hands together Eyes Closed" ¹ and there's the full story with associated links on the BBC website ²

It's a shame it had to go to court before the religious were forced to see sense but at least it is now quite clear.


"Should prayer be compulsory in public meetings?"
"No."
This is ^{No longer} one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

¹ Hands together Eyes Closed - http://crispysea.blogspot.com/2011/04/hands-together-eyes-closed.html
² BBC website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16980025

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Philosophical Dickens

I Just watched a lecture by Dr Chris diCarlo, entitled "Natrual and Supernatural Responses to Life's Biggest Questions" If like me you didn't know any more about Dr diCarlo than his authorship of the RDFRS slogan "We Are All Africans" the video introduction furnishes us with some pertinent details; advisory fellow CFI Canada. Philosopher of science and ethics,interests in cognitive evolution have taken him into the natural social science. His research focuses on how and why humans reason, think and act the way they do.
Now I've not read the book, just seen the lecture but Dr Chris diCarlo's "How to become a really good pain in the Ass: A critical thinkers guide to asking the right questions" delivers the 'Big 5' questions about human life that, we find, we all ask of ourselves, even if only subconsciously.

The Big 5
1. What can I know? (what are the limits of my knowledge?)
2. Why am I here (how did I get here/what am I doing here?)
3. What am I (What am I composed of?)
4. How should I behave (that is to say, ethically; toward others/other species?)
5. What is to come of me?

Dr diCarlo says in the lecture, and I agree, that the way we each answer the big 5 tells us a lot about ourselves because they trickle down to decisions we make about human rights, abortion etc.

Whilst I think Charles Dickens did a sexier job of delivering the list, in Scrooge, even if the elegance and artistry of his transmission method somewhat obscured the list's presence, and I've a sense of despair that the philosophical awareness displayed by our greatest of authors is often ignored in the schoolroom or trampled in the rush to forced feed children a steady diet of those novels with a promise of post mortem reward points, I think Chris diCarlo's list is a great distillation of the relevant points into an exceedingly manageable format, almost a questionnaire even. They are clear enough in fact for one to take a step sideways and consider selecting a set of multiple choice answers for them.¹
Y'know, we are all humans, we have limited choices about how we wipe our arses noses. we ALL have a similar experience.
Wouldn't handing out the big 5 as a questionnaire be better suited to human life than a religious studies lesson?
Wouldn't it prompt a great comprehension of our humanity to openly discuss and debate the possible answers to the questions and the consequences of those choices, in class, than merely expecting children to simply follow ancient rules of a fake authority?
I bet you can guess what I think.




¹Interminably long sentence in honour of Mr Dickens 200th birthday. "Please, Mr Dickens, can I have some more breath now?"

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!