ABC, ECHR and Abortion

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ireland did not sufficiently protect the constitutionally guaranteed right of a woman to have an abortion (if her life is endangered) through adequate legislation. Of course, this is not the way in which the media reported it. From headline reports to opinion pieces, almost all commentators on the verdict got it wrong. People on both sides of the abortion debate rushed to make their voice heard. On the right you had Youth Defence who opined that the verdict was "intrusive, unwelcome and an attempt to violate Ireland's pro-life laws". On the left you had CNN who carried the headline "Court condemns Irish ban on abortion". The core of the ruling centres on Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution which states:

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.

This article was introduced into the constitution by means of a referendum in 1983. 27 years later and despite a Supreme Court ruling on the issue in 1992, the government has still not introduced legislation as the constitution clearly promises to guarantee women the right to have an abortion if their health is threatened.

 Of course, once people start reading more into a story than is actually there, you end up with all sorts of crazy shit coming out such as the Youth Defence article above. Look, we signed up to Europe in 1973 and reinforced this commitment through various treaties such as Maastricht and Nice and Lisbon. We are also signatories to the UN and European conventions on human rights, the latter of which is the document which founded the European Court of Human Rights at the centre of this story. We chose to be involved in a unified Europe and current economic conditions not withstanding, we have been better off because of it. It is, therefore, just a little bit preposterous to suggest that the EU shouldn't safeguard the rights of its citizens.

Leaving aside the current case for a moment, the recent media storm brings the topic of abortion back into the public sphere once again. On one level, people have to realise that the debate over abortion is never going to go away, at least as long as religion exists. On the other hand, the government must put legislation in place which safeguards the rights of all citizens. Also, the key points of the legislation must be based on reasonable conclusions made from concrete evidence. There are several issues which combine to make abortion the social hot-button that it is. By taking each one in turn, however, it is possible to determine a reasonable approach to the overall issue.

The first and most important issue is the point at which life begins. The pro-life movement usually begin from the position that life begins at conception and therefore any abortion results in the death of a person. Unfortunately, these people cannot proffer any substantive evidence to back up this claim. Even those who use their religion to guide their view on abortion (the majority of pro-lifers) cannot rely on their religion to back them up. Anyone looking to the bible for an answer will only find this:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul

 This would mean that life begins when the blood begins to flow which is day 22. However, despite claims from some god-botherers to the contrary, we don't make laws based on the bible. We use, or at least should use, medical criteria to decide medical matters. In this case, a reliable existing method for determining when life begins. We have a defined criterion for when life ends, the cessation of brain activity. Therefore by mirroring this, we have a solid basis for determining when life begins, which is 9 weeks after fertilisation. Given the normal course of events for a woman when determining whether or not she is pregnant, an upper time limit of 2 months would be a reasonable starting point in determining a window for legal abortions.

The next most important question is that of the health and the rights of the mother. At its most basic level, this argument, which is the basis of the recent court case, deals with the rights of a woman to safeguard her own health. There is no easy solution to this problem. In most cases, you have two patients with conflicting interests which you have to try and balance between speculative and definitive diagnoses. The one thing I will say is that it is the first duty of the attending doctor to act in the best interest of the mother since she is his patient. Each case should be reviewed on an individual basis where a panel of doctors can review all the evidence. In the end, though, I think that if there is a real risk to the health of the mother that abortion should be permissible. After all, we are humans, not salmon, nobody ever intended for us to expend our lives for the sake of offspring.

Another issue which requires treatment is where the act of conception itself involves some degree of trauma for the mother, i.e. rape, incest etc. I know that the pro-lifers consider all life to be sacred, regardless but what compassionate person would condemn a woman to carrying with her a living reminder of an unspeakable act. That's torture whatever way you want to dress it up.

There are so many more other issues but those above are the ones which, if not the most important, are certainly the ones which attract the most attention. The issue as a whole is delicate and for a lot of people involves suffering and heartbreak but it is something which we must debate with a clear head and even temper.

I have to say, though, that the most disturbing aspect of the abortion debate is the argument against abortion that is promoted by some groups is nothing short of disgusting. There are quite a few people out there, who argue that, if abortion were legalised then women would be lining up to get them. They reason that abortion is a temptation and women, who seek to live a promiscuous life without consequence, use abortion as a means to maintain that lifestyle. That's just batshit crazy. It is based on an utterly perverted view of women and the people who argue in this fashion are usually men (though not always) and more often than not Christian. The Bible has always forwarded the view that women are sinners and bereft of redeeming qualities but this is nuts. For most women, having an abortion is often the worst day of their lives and the worst decision they'll ever have to make.

Finally, this whole story has reminded me, to a certain extent, of the debacle surrounding the opening of pubs on Good Friday this year. There is a certain argument to be made in this regard and with censorship in general that personal choice should be considered. If you are a "good" Christian, then I'm sure that you wouldn't drink on Good Friday, just as I'm sure that you wouldn't get divorced or have an abortion or watch porn or anything else that your mythology forbids. The fact that you wouldn't, though, doesn't mean that anyone else shouldn't. We're not all Christians and we're not all bound by the strictures of your mythos. There's no reason why we should live by Christian morals or even respect them. As Ricky Gervais so neatly stated earlier this week:

You are entitled to your own opinions. But not your own facts.

Christianity and the Subversion of Myth

In my last post I touched briefly on the subject of syncretism, the tendency of new mythologies to build themselves from the remnants of their predecessors. There is nothing inherently sinister about syncretism; it's merely a method of relating the tenets of the new mythology in terms that adherents of the old one will understand. Christianity has for the most part, however, distorted syncretism beyond an attempt to convey a message and Christians have tried to rewrite history from their own faith. The most common examples of this are: Christmas (which I have mentioned previously), the idea that all modern laws stem from Christianity and that the United States was founded as a christian nation. Naturally this is complete bullshit. The following examples will show that Christianity is as someone recently stated "old wine in new bottles".

Moses

Moses being central to both the Jewish faith and Christianity is the perfect place to begin.  The story of the birth of Moses is outlined in Exodus 2:1-3

And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank.

It sounds like a plausible story until you read the story of Horus, son of Isis and Osiris in Egyptian mythology, 1700 years previously.

The battle between the two resulted in the death of Osiris, but before he died Osiris had impregnated his wife, Isis, goddess of wisdom and beauty. Isis in turn gave birth to Horus, the falcon-headed god of kingship. When Seth learned that his brother Osiris’s offspring had been born, he sought to kill the baby Horus. Isis prepared a basket of reeds to hide him in the marshland of the Nile Delta, where she suckled him and protected him, along with the watchful eye of her sister, Nephthys, from the snakes, scorpions and other dangerous creatures until he grew and prospered.

Of course the story of Horus remains an influence on Christianity, just compare the depictions of Isis and Horus with that of Mary and Jesus.

The Resurrection

The next most important theme in Christianity is the resurrection. The resurrection is central to Christianity for a number of reasons, the promise of life after death, the divinity of Jesus and the claim that the resurrection is what separates Christianity from other religions. Except that it doesn't. The concept of a life-death-rebirth cycle is one of the most widespread themes in pre-Christian mythologies. For those unfamiliar, the simplified version of the idea is that Jesus was born, grew up, was crucified, waited 3 days and then came back to life.

Similarly in Norse mythology, in the Hávamál, there is a story told about the discovery of runes by Odin. According to the story, Odin is eager to learn the wisdom of the runes to give him power in the nine worlds. He therefore sacrifices himself to himself (not inventing another personality for himself was kinda inconvenient) and is hung from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights (the number 9 being of particular importance to Norse mythology) and is finally pierced in the side by his own spear Gungir. He later returns to life having gained this new knowledge. Sound familiar?

Similar stories can be found in many other mythologies, including but not limited to Osiris (Egyptian), Orpheus (Greek), Mithras (Zoroastrian), Tammuz (Bablyonian) and Zalmoxis (Dacian).




Miracles

Miracles are the lifeblood of Christianity in general and the Catholic church in particular. For 2000 years, the evangelisation of pre-christian cultures has been driven by the revelation of "holy" people who have been tools of God in showing their fellow people the way. Even today a past history of attributable miracles is a necessary step on the path to sainthood. It pays the church to recognise some unexplained events as miracles and when it comes to Jesus, miracles have to be plentiful. Unfortunately, Jesus seems to be just a tribute act, recreating "miracles" which had already been documented hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before.

The marriage feast of Cana
Widely recognised by Christians as the first miracle performed by Jesus, the marriage feast of Cana features the miraculous and seemingly impossible feat of turning water into wine. It might seem impossible for the son of a Jewish carpenter but not for the Greek god Dionysus who pulled off the same trick at his marriage to Ariadne in Greek mythology.


Lazarus
Bringing people back from the dead must surely be a miracle, unless of course you've got a defibrillator handy. Still though, Jesus managed to bring Lazarus back by just speaking to him, just as Asclepius had done for Hippolytus in Greek mythology centuries before.


The Feeding of the Multitude
This is a difficult one to sift through for several reasons. Firstly, as can be seen in other stories, the Bible can't even seem to agree with itself. In the gospel of John, 5000 people are fed from five loaves and two fish with 12 basketfuls of leftovers. In Matthew's gospel though, 4000 people are fed from seven loaves and two fish with seven basketfuls of leftovers. The numbers are not that important since, like the rest of Christian numerology, they relate to observable phenomena of the time. The five and the seven both relate to the number of visible celestial objects in the night sky - 5 planets and the sun and moon for a total of seven. The twelve represents the zodiac while the two fish represent the constellation Pisces. Astrologers have stated that this is the age of Pisces which began around 1 CE and will end around 2150.
Other aspects of the story mirror the story of Horus in Egyptian Mythology. Horus is known as the distributor of loaves in Egyptian mythology and his city of Annu or Heliopolis is known as the place of multiplying bread. Also Horus is aided in some stories by Taht who in stories of Ra is "the word made flesh". Taht in stories of Horus is represented as a boy who brings food to Horus to be distributed just as the young boy does in John's gospel.


There are many more examples of this throughout Christian mythology but this post is long enough already. The most important realisation to be gained from all this, though, is that, in the words of one biblical scholar:

We are faced with the inescapable realization that if Jesus actually lived in the flesh in the first century A.D., and if he had been able to read the documents of old Egypt, he would have been amazed to find his own biography already substantially written some four or five thousand years previously

 When you come to understand the area and time in which Christian myth was born you begin to understand the forces that shaped it. Israel at one point in history was in a position so central in the known world that every major civilisation surrounding it had some varying degree of influence. The mythology of Christianity is built from components of its geographical and temporal predecessors including Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Dacian, Sumerian, Babylonian and Zoroastrian.

The Bible is a Chinese whisper, the last written omnibus of an oral history which stretches back thousands of years. The stories themselves are an attempt to understand the world but we have moved on in the last 2000 years and some of the questions they pose have been answered while others have changed. All that remains are fairy stories and outdated social guidelines. If you really want to pass on stories with a moral compass to your children, I suggest the Simpsons box set instead. It'll probably be cheaper in the long run.

Who said atheists can't bring peace and love?

I'm really starting to get into the Christmas spirit at the moment. That may sound strange coming from an atheist but then I always have to laugh at the news stories this time of year talking about "The war on Christmas" or the furore over using Happy Holidays instead of Happy Christmas. Really it's just another example of christians, particularly American christians trying to rewrite history by suggesting that if it weren't for their pokey mythology then people wouldn't have any reason to celebrate in December. Of course this is bullshit. 

I've said it before but I'll say it again, there is nothing new or original contained in christianity. Every holy day observed by christians can trace its roots to some earlier tradition. Here in Ireland, St. Brigid's day is celebrated on the 1st February on the same day as the old Celtic holiday of Imbolc. Halloween is celebrated on 31st October, the same day as the Celtic festival of Samhain. Christmas of course, is a modern incarnation of the celebration of the winter solstice which can be found as far back as 3100 BCE in Newgrange. Even the trappings of Christmas such as holly and mistletoe have origins which predate christianity.

In any case, the point of this post is about sharing the love this time of year. Most of all, I love hearing Christmas songs, particularly the crooners (although that can be from playing too much Fallout 3). My favourite, however is one that was released just 3 months before I was born and has the best message of them all:

"No hell below us, above us only sky, ... nothing to kill or die for, no religion too" 

I can't think of a better sentiment.

"Persecution" of Christians

Last week, Channel 4's excellent documentary series 4thought.tv ran a week long series asking whether christians in Britain are being persecuted. Of course, this is not the first time that the word persecution has been thrown out by christians but lately it seems to happen with increasing frequency. Vatican-oriented news agency Rome Reports has just released a new report which "shows" that christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world.

The report opens by suggesting that 7 out of 10 people cannot freely practise their faith and that christians are the most persecuted religion. What an amazing blinding flash of the obvious. There are approximately 2.1 billion christians worldwide. There are 500 million more christians than the next biggest group, muslims. It stands to reason that if you select a group on the basis of a universal characteristic (i.e. religion or in this case religious persecution) that the composition of that group will be greatly influenced by the composition of the entire population. Simply put, there are more christians persecuted because there are more christians. I'm sure that if you looked at the next most persecuted group it would be muslims.

Of course, the most telling thing about the whole report is that it was conducted by a catholic group called "Aid to the Church in Need". If instead, the report had been conducted by the RAND corporation or the CATO institute then people would sit up and pay attention, but a christian group talking about christian persecution, not so much.

Another factor in the "persecution" of christians highlighted in the report is that religious persecution is necessarily a function of religious conflict. Religions are like spiritual encyclopedia salesmen, eagerly trying to flog their own worldview while disparaging all rival products. It's no different than any other white goods.

The report in this case highlighted 21 out of 194 countries which it analysed for religious persecution. Naturally the countries on the list include Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and China. It is noted, however, that the cause of persecution can be split into two categories: political and religious. The first one, we are already familiar with; countries with a despotic regime rarely tolerate anyone who speaks out against it. The second category is persecution by other religions and this is really a situation caused by christians themselves. When a country has a majority religion or a state religion like Saudi Arabia or Iran the people there may not take too kindly to missionaries invading their country and telling them that their deeply held beliefs are bullshit. This is something that christian missionaries have been doing for centuries. They have manipulated indigenous cultures into destroying their cultural heritage for the sake of some theoretical promise of an eternal life by eating crackers which are the body of a dead guy.

I have to agree that the human rights of christians in the countries listed in the report are being seriously infringed. The thing is though, so are the rights of all the other people living in those countries. Countries where religion takes over rarely tolerate dissent. Atheism too can lead to it, just look at Stalinist Russia. (Oh and a note to all the people who like to point out the tendency of atheism towards despotism, remember that at the top of the list of despots is Hitler, who was a Catholic.)

I would like to suggest to all christians out there that like to complain about religious persecution to remember these incidents:

• Firebomb used in Florida mosque attack

• Child starved to death for not saying amen at meals 

• Funeral of slain Marine picketed by baptists

• High school students prevented from accessing information on gay rights 

• Councilman threatened with lawsuit for being an atheist 

• Gay couple "arrested" by Mormon church guards

• Family Research council launches petition to have equal rights activist fired

Ok, so there are no deaths in the stories above, but persecution is persecution, whatever form it takes. And before anyone says that christianity doesn't lead to terrorism have a look at the picture below because it's one that we should never forget.

And if anybody out there doubts the obvious connection to christianity maybe this Spanish easter parade will help.

Finally, I leave you with a quote from Johnathan Swift who perfectly describes the reason behind the repeated claims of persecution that are heard so often from christians:

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.