Hard News: Testify!
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Russell, great batting on The Panel this afternoon.
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Wow... have a look at the index of that chapter.
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The statute books can be an amusing read for sure. Something like this is surely one of those offences that never gets used, and in the US at least merely awaits an angry plaintiff to take cause with it and appeal to the SC?
Oh, and go to www.legislation.govt.nz and look up the Crimes Act 1961 - it lists current and repealed sections, many of which are very similar to the ones listed in this chapter. I note with sadness that wrecking is no longer a crime, perhaps it now falls under piracy?
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"Of course, we have no recourse to the 1st in NZ..."
but we do have s21 of the human rights act, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of:
(d) Ethical belief, which means the lack of a religious belief, whether in respect of a particular religion or religions or all religions:
the draft statement on religious diversity says:
1. The State and Religion
The State seeks to treat all faith communities and those who profess no religion equally before the law. New Zealand has no state religion.2. The Right to Religion
New Zealand upholds the right to freedom of religion and belief and the right to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of religious or other belief.paul morris clarified that "other belief" included those who have no religion.
so i think the intent is there in the law and in the diversity statement to protect non-religionists (is that the word we're using now?).
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"non-religionists (is that the word we're using now?)."
Commonsensists is the preferred term.
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Juha - I agree that the First Amendment doesn't - on its own terms - protect atheism, but that is how it has been intepretted, particularly in light of the 14th amendment (on it's own terms it doesn't apply to State Governments).
I was think more along the lines of:
"government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion."
from the decision of Justice Souter (writing for the majority) in the Grumet Supreme Court decision.
Or similar decisions holding that atheism qualified as a religion for various tax purposes etc.
That high schools are not even permitted to have moments of silence before football games (however sensible this proscription might be) should tell you that there is at least some freedom from religion enshrined in US law.
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New Zealand upholds the right to freedom of religion and belief and the right to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of religious or other belief.
paul morris clarified that "other belief" included those who have no religion.That's not an 'other belief'. It's 'no belief'.
I'm already cross that the census data ignored my atheism, and classed me as having 'no religion'. I don't want this statement on diversity to classify atheism as 'other belief'. Atheism is not a belief. It's 'no belief'.
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Don:
Thanks for drawing the distinction between secularists and athiests. I'm a Catholic, but I'm perfectly happy to live in a country where our Government - and our education system - isn't run on the basis of canon law. (I do think it's rather odd that New Zealand's head of state has to meet a religious qualification imposed by the British Parliament almost three centuries ago, but that's a whole other kettle of rotten fish.)
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Russell, great batting on The Panel this afternoon.
(With the Family First guy, that is.)
I could have gone on. I made a snap decision to go hard because I'm tired of these people trotting out their talking points unchallenged. It's the kind of facts that sound good until you know the , uh, other facts.
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"I'm already cross that the census data ignored my atheism, and classed me as having 'no religion'. I don't want this statement on diversity to classify atheism as 'other belief'. Atheism is not a belief. It's 'no belief'."
well, i guess us religionists would say that you do have a belief. your belief is that there is no God, no valid religion etc. you may say that it's not belief, it's fact.
even if we accept that, you still would have some beliefs. eg the sanctity of life might be one. or that it's wrong to lie might be another. even anarchists have a belief: that there should be no rule of law. that's why the human rights act talks about "ethical belief". the original draft of the diversity statement used the words "ethical belief" too, but no-one got it so it was changed to "other belief".
but as we saw with the "pakeha/european new zealander" debate, and as proved on this thread, it doesn't matter what you call a group of people, someone in the group is not going to like it...
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This just in: USA Today/Gallup poll. More than half of Americans would refuse to vote for a well-qualified presidential candidate on the basis that that candidate was an atheist.
Atheists rate lower than any other group, and are the only group that more than half of respondents said they would not vote for on principle. That's even worse than a homosexual!
Least prejudice would be faced by a Catholic, followed by a black man. Women trail in behind Jews, in fourth place.
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"That's even worse than a homosexual!"
I'm getting a t-shirt with that on it.
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if it didn't mention that religions exist, that many people are influenced by their beliefs in the various religions, and these beliefs underpin a lot of what goes on in the world
Well, unless secondary education has changed radically in the last 15-odd years, it does, in Social Studies and History courses. Which is the appropriate place for it.
As opposed to, say, my first encounter with Christianity at primary school, where the other 6 year olds explained they couldn't play with me any more because the religious studies teacher had explained contact with heathens would result in them being sent to hell.
Poor oppressed Christians.
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As for our Christian foundations ... Robert Stout helped put our schools on a secular footing; and Julius Vogel was hardly Christian.
As a "protestant atheist", I quite like that tolerant heritage.
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Well, Russell, unless Gallup hires mind-readers what exactly does that poll prove? Here's another equally plausible read on that: There's plenty of religious bigots, racists and homophobes who won't share their prejudices with strangers on the phone, any more than they'd run down the street screaming 'I hate niggers, faggots, kike and papists!'
And for the benefit of anjum and deborah, could anyone explain what legitimate interest the New Zealand Government has in collecting census data on people's religious affiliations, full stop? I found it so offensive, I didn't even bother ticking the 'object to state' box - just left it blank.
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Um, really? I have my moments when I wish Richard Dwakins and Brain Tamiki would STFU and stop being so hysterical and self-righteous (I also wish they'd be a little less self-serving in their grossly simplistic reading of history and culture), but I'm just cranky that way. :(
For the most part you do have my sympathy. However I understand that Richard Dawkins' recent round of hysteria was provoked by a considerable invasion of his privacy by the other team. From my own POV I got more than a little bit nasty after an incident involving evangelical recruitment and vulnerable freshers at Uni. Specifically an Indian (Hindu) kid had dropped his first tab of acid and lost his friends. Needless to say he found new ones with the evangelists who promptly took him to a "meeting". Whilst at the meeting the hallicinogens made a big surge and he endured a profound religious experience....... The last we saw of him was when he set off to drive home in order to pronounce his conversion to his parents.....
Later, I quite shamefully verbally bullied one of their recruiters until she cried I was so angry at the time.
Since then I have never quite felt the same about "spreading the word"..........
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And for the benefit of anjum and deborah, could anyone explain what legitimate interest the New Zealand Government has in collecting census data on people's religious affiliations, full stop?
I don't know, but if they are going to collect the data, then they could at least report it accurately. I would guess that there were other people who declared themselves to be atheisits - surely I'm not the only one in the country. So if they are going to report the 12 people who declared their religion to be 'Tenriko'. they should be willing to report the number of people who declare themselves to be atheists, instead of casually lumping us into 'no religion'.
well, i guess us religionists would say that you do have a belief. your belief is that there is no God, no valid religion etc. you may say that it's not belief, it's fact.
... but as we saw with the "pakeha/european new zealander" debate, and as proved on this thread, it doesn't matter what you call a group of people, someone in the group is not going to like it.Indeed. I very explictly said that I do not have a belief, and you immediately, and rather patronisingly, turn that into a belief. Let me be very clear. I do not believe in any gods because there is no credible evidence that any god(s) exists. That is not a belief - it is no belief.
I'm simply not interested in being treated as one faith among many, because I have no faith. Your statement on diversity is an intellectual fraud when you try to treat me as having a belief, and refuse to listen to my account of myself.
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Well, Russell, unless Gallup hires mind-readers what exactly does that poll prove? Here's another equally plausible read on that: There's plenty of religious bigots, racists and homophobes who won't share their prejudices with strangers on the phone, any more than they'd run down the street screaming 'I hate niggers, faggots, kike and papists!'
You could say the same about any opinion poll in that case.
If nothing else, it indicates that it's more acceptable to express prejudice against unbelievers than most other groups. It's not exactly news: anyone who dares call themselves an atheist in America can expect to be misunderstood, at the least.
The Pew surveys have shown much the same thing. IIRC, the rate of people who believed that being a "good person" is contingent on believing in God was much higher than that in any other western country.
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Brian Tamaki is a misguided and sad (and maybe even dangerous) individual.
"Tamaki told his followers that New Zealand's government will soon be upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ."
Unfortunately governments still have to be administered by people who have never shown the ability to be quite as good as Jesus would be in governing!
Perhaps Russell is onto something being down at the pub with sodomites and epicene woman. Jesus may have been there too...perhaps Brian might like to join them.
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You could say the same about any opinion poll in that case.
I certainly could, and IMO there's a reason why all polling about social attitudes should be treated with even more extreme scepticism than political ones.
My larger point is that I'm sure every one of the sodomites and mannish women you had a whale of a time with recently could give you chapter and verse on the difference between what people will say in polite company - or to your face - and what they do when they think nobody's watching. A secret ballot is the ultimate privacy, when you get right down to it.
I don't think it's entirely facetious or cynical to say polite hypocrisy keeps the world going round - not blurting everything that crosses my mind has certainly prevented me from getting beaten up on more than one occasion. :)
A bigot who knows how to self-censor is still a bigot, though I'm hardly complaining about any evidence that sectarian prejudice, anti-Semitism, racism and homopbobia are a lot less socially respectable than they used to be.
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A bigot who knows how to self-censor is still a bigot, though I'm hardly complaining about any evidence that sectarian prejudice, anti-Semitism, racism and homopbobia are a lot less socially respectable than they used to be.
I call that progress - first they stop killing people over it, then they stop talking about it in public, next they stop talking about it in private, and the generation or so after that doesn't know what the fuss was about.
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does work. witness the catholic-proddy divide.
two generations ago my grandfather was ostracised for marrying a 'papist'.
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Likewise, I was in high school before I found out that being a Jew was considered by some to be worthy of comment, and even that was more from US TV than local attitudes. And it was studying Shakespeare when I learned that it wasn't only Germans that had a problem with Jewishness. Not all of those who don't know their history are necessarily doomed to repeat it...
The only times that I noticed religion amongst my peers was the occasional JW who didn't do Xmas or Easter, and the (very) odd fundys who tried to tell me that the eyes on my little lead Dungeons & Dragons figurines would glow red at night cause they were a tol of the devil (of course my response was the same as most teenage boys' would be: "cool!"). -
Slightly off-topic, but connected to Jeremy's post above, has World of Warcraft made it onto the fundy radar? All the same issues they had back in the 80s with D&D, 7 million 'converts', played over the morally-corrupting internet...
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