Humanist philosophers reviewing each other! BHA Vice President (soon to be President) AC Grayling reviews Julian Baggini’s new book, The Ego Trick.  If humanist morality is based on the self-initiated actions of human moral agents, then “What is a self?” seems like a pretty important question.

The problem of self-understanding is a perennial one. But even before you tackle it there is a prior problem: making sense of selfhood itself. What is a “self”? Given that we change physically and psychologically throughout life, what is it that somehow makes us remain the same person in spite of those changes? If I borrowed money from you 20 years ago, and in the interval much happened that drastically altered me, surely I still owe you that money nonetheless?

In this entertaining, educative and gracefully written book, Julian Baggini explores the question of the nature of the self and in what sense it persists through time. Ever since the philosopher John Locke devoted a chapter to the problem in the second edition of his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1692, these questions have been central to much philosophical enquiry.

But, as Baggini shows, they are not “merely” philosophical questions. Psychology, neurology, gender issues, brain tumours, head injuries and dementia, multiple personality, memory, social construction of personae, ideas about souls, reincarnation and the afterlife – all these are in some way relevant to the debate and Baggini considers them in pursuit of clarification, arguing that there are, indeed, answers to be found.

Continues: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/84eb910a-6165-11e0-a315-00144feab49a.html

“I will be shown, I will be inspired, I will be led, but I won’t be told!”  Stephen Fry accepts the 2011 lifetime achievement award from the Humanists at Harvard University, on what it means to be educated and distinguishing between “revealed” knowledge (whether religious or even secular) and discovered knowledge.

Stephen Fry is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.

Aditya Chakrabortty asks, “How much of Japan’s suffering can people comprehend?”, examining the sometimes curious, sometimes “dispiriting” difficult we have in being ‘human’ when humanity suffers its greatest tragedies.

The American author Annie Dillard summed up well the difficulty of empathising with hordes of other people. “There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China,” she wrote. “To get a feel for what this means, simply take yourself – in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love – and multiply by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it.”

I came across that honest, wise remark this weekend, while watching the footage from Japan. The two did not sit well with each other. When a big disaster strikes, either here or abroad, politicians and journalists alike work on the basis that the greater the misery, the more they, and we, should care. David Cameron was working to that logic when he said yesterday that “our thoughts are with the Japanese people”. And after reading the reports of 10,000-plus deaths and nuclear warnings, or seeing the photos of submerged towns and stranded survivors, who could disagree?

Yet the uncomfortable truth is that the academic research suggests Dillard is right. However horrifying the pictures, however moving the reports, there’s a limit to how much suffering people can take on board – and it’s extremely low.

The bigger the numbers of fatalities and injuries, the harder it is for audiences to comprehend them. This law of diminishing returns doesn’t just apply to natural disasters, but to other varieties of misery – from oil spills to famines and genocides.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/15/how-much-japan-suffering-comprehend

The Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks every 22 years and the rate of sun spot formation and attendant flares peaks every 11 years. The two events will combine in 2013 to produce potentially much stronger flares. Previous flares hitting the Earth have caused physical damage to power grids and with more satellites and more sensitive equipment in human hands year on year, the potential for disruption grows.

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.

“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”

The Telegraph quotes Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, saying:

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be … It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.

“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7819201/Nasa-warns-solar-flares-from-huge-space-storm-will-cause-devastation.html

Given that we  cover hysterical religious apocalypse fears every so often, the skeptic is often unsure how to take an alleged scientifically based threat. The post-modern response is to treat it as exactly the same (a silly panic based on esoteric reasoning). The occasional failure of secular apocalypse fears (like the Millennium Bug) encourages this attitude, and a seemingly rational concern is unravelled when the prediction fails. But to treat all threats coming from science as relative to each other and relative to supernatural Armageddon stories would be cynical. In the case of global warming it becomes outright “denialism”. Where do mega-Sun flares fall on the spectrum of skepticism about theoretical global crises?

The BBC has a tradition of big budget nature documentaries including the relatively recent Blue Planet, Planet Earth, and Life. The latest – minus David Attenborough, but with John Hurt narrating – is Human Planet.

Human Planet is an awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, heart-stopping landmark series that marvels at mankind’s incredible relationship with nature in the world today.

Uniquely in the animal kingdom, humans have managed to adapt and thrive in every environment on Earth. Each episode takes you to the extremes of our planet: the arctic, mountains, oceans, jungles, grasslands, deserts, rivers and even the urban jungle. Here you will meet people who survive by building complex, exciting and often mutually beneficial relationships with their animal neighbours and the hostile elements of the natural world.

Human Planet crews have filmed in around 80 locations, bringing you many stories that have never been told on television before. The team has trekked with HD cameras and state of the art gear to film from the air, from the ground and underwater. The result: a “cinematic experience” created by world-class natural history and documentary camera crews and programme makers.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00llpvp (via Kottke)

Human Planet continues tomorrow at 8pm on BBC 1.

Reid Gower explains his unofficial mocked up NASA publicity video borrowing the voice of humanist, Carl Sagan.

I got frustrated with NASA and made this video. NASA is the most fascinating, adventurous, epic institution ever devised by human beings, and their media sucks. Seriously. None of their brilliant scientists appear to know how to connect with the social media crowd, which is now more important than ever. In fact, NASA is an institution whose funding directly depends on how the public views them.

In NASA’s defense, they have embraced social media. I guess my point is that they don’t fully understand how to best use it. In all of their brilliance, NASA seems to have forgotten to share their hopes and dreams in a way the public can relate to, leaving one of humanity’s grandest projects with terrible PR and massive funding cuts.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/damewse#p/a/u/1/oY59wZdCDo0. Via BoingBoing.

Bad news for anyone who… well, everyone, really.

Men given a dose of oxytocin, a hormone known to promote feelings of love and trust, have revealed the chemical’s dark side: It made them more ethnocentric.

When asked to resolve a moral dilemma, such as choosing to save five lives from a runaway train by sacrificing one life, oxytocin-sniffing Dutch men more often saved fellow countrymen over Arabs and Germans than those who didn’t get a hormonal whiff.

“Earlier research of oxytocin paints a very rosy view of it. We thought it was odd a neurological system that survived evolution would make people indiscriminately loving toward others,” said social psychologist Carsten De Dreu of the University of Amsterdam, co-author of a Jan. 10 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Under oxytocin we saw an increase of in-group favoritism, which has the downside of discrimination against people who are not part of your group.”

Oxytocin is a hormone made in the brain and [euphemism alert] some reproductive organs. The body releases the biggest doses of it into the bloodstream during intimate situations (such as caressing), and from there it can dampen fight-or-flight instincts and calm down organs such as the heart.

As a neurotransmitter, it’s also intricately involved in social behaviors such as mother-child bonding, feelings of trust and love, and group recognition.

De Dreu’s “research flies in the face of how we’ve thought about oxytocin for decades. It’s not all about free love and warm fuzzies,” said neuropsychologist Sarina Rodrigues of Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study. “It complements recent data showing oxytocin can promote envy when someone you don’t like wins something, or gloating when you win over someone you don’t like. It’s key to defining where and who we are in society.”

Continues: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/oxytocin-social-favoritism/

With the population still growing by about 80 million each year, it’s hard not to be alarmed. Right now on Earth, water tables are falling, soil is eroding, glaciers are melting, and fish stocks are vanishing. Close to a billion people go hungry each day. Decades from now, there will likely be two billion more mouths to feed, mostly in poor countries. There will be billions more people wanting and deserving to boost themselves out of poverty. If they follow the path blazed by wealthy countries—clearing forests, burning coal and oil, freely scattering fertilizers and pesticides—they too will be stepping hard on the planet’s natural resources. How exactly is this going to work?

Robert Kunzig goes on to outline just how the global population grew so quickly, explaining that as in Europe the average woman had six children in the 18th-century, making up for high child mortality rates, and as medical science and social conditions advance it takes time for the population to adjust. In the interim there is a population boom as couples still aim for six births. It’s a pattern which is repeated around the world in different times and places.

Demographers call this evolution the demographic transition. All countries go through it in their own time. It’s a hallmark of human progress: In a country that has completed the transition, people have wrested from nature at least some control over death and birth. The global population explosion is an inevitable side effect, a huge one that some people are not sure our civilization can survive.

It’s a mixed message. The population is still growing, but around the world the rate of growth has decreased since the early 1970s by around 40 percent. That still means the numbers are going up, though.

Many people are justifiably worried that Malthus will finally be proved right on a global scale—that the planet won’t be able to feed nine billion people. Lester Brown, founder of Worldwatch Institute and now head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, believes food shortages could cause a collapse of global civilization.

… For centuries population pessimists have hurled apocalyptic warnings at the congenital optimists, who believe in their bones that humanity will find ways to cope and even improve its lot. History, on the whole, has so far favored the optimists, but history is no certain guide to the future. Neither is science. It cannot predict the outcome of People v. Planet, because all the facts of the case—how many of us there will be and how we will live—depend on choices we have yet to make and ideas we have yet to have.

Full article: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text/1

Martin Rees introduces a selection of scientists’ suggestions for big questions which science must answer. They range from the self-described “esoteric” such as whether there is a deeper pattern to prime numbers, to BHA Distinguished Supporter Brian Cox’s question, “Can we make a scientific way of thinking all pervasive?”

This would be the greatest achievement for science over the coming centuries. I say this because I do not believe that we currently run our world according to evidence-based principles. If we did, we would be investing in an energy Manhattan project to quickly develop and deploy clean energy technologies. We would be investing far larger amounts of our GDP in the eradication of diseases such as malaria, and we would be learning to live and work in space – not as an interesting and extravagant sideline, but as an essential part of our long-term survival strategy.

John Sulston’s big question is “How do we ensure humanity survives and flourishes?” and Kathy Sykes asks “What is consciousness?”

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/nov/30/10-big-questions-science-must-answer

What is striking and honest about the arguments in this book [The Grand Design, Stephen Hakwing and Leonard Mlodinow], however, is how many of them are applied even-handedly to both gods and men. If the divine creator is unfindable through the methods of science, we will have an equally hard time finding the individual human person, at least in the way we ordinarily think about them.

… I can in theory fully explain the elevation of my daughter’s arm in terms of the tensile strength of bones, the leverage of muscles, the transfer of nutrients, the sparking of electrical signals across neurons. For Hawking, this means that I cannot and indeed should not attribute that lifting to her own will. Like the twitching frog legs on Galvani’s bench, human behaviour is no more than chemicals, electricity and levers; intimations of intention – of free will – are merely an “effective theory”, a necessary approximation for understanding a “biological machine” too complex to calculate.

This is of course an age-old dilemma: Alan Turing struggled to define exactly what it is that proves that a certain set of behaviour is produced by a person and not a very sophisticated machine. Longer ago still, the Catholic Church debated for years whether the Amerindian natives who were caught up in the Spanish slave trade were actually human and had souls, or whether they could be treated like any other animal or automaton. Only with the papal bull of 1537 were they declared fully human (ironically, because they believed in a supreme deity).

Hawking’s answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is not that of the Vatican: for him, both God and the free human individual are primitive fantasies.

What The Grand Design drives home is how difficult it is to defend the study of people (as opposed to humans as biological machines) from an objective scientific standpoint. The individuality that makes me different from you, or that describes the actions, thoughts and policies of King Henry VIII, does not show up well on scientific instruments. Like God, people as individual agents – as authors of their own fates, as creative beings – are scientific chimeras.

Full article: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=414269&c=1

“New Atheism” is often dismissed as a publishing phenomenon even by those whose books contributed to the trend. Victor Stenger, on the other hand, offers a characterisation that is possibly more substantive than just being louder.  ”Atheists”, he says, “have long been telling us that we can be good without God. The new atheism says that we can be better without God.”

Belief in ancient myths joins with other negative forces in our society to keep most of the world from advancing scientifically, economically, and socially at a time when a rapid advancement in these areas is absolutely essential for the survival of humanity. We are now probably only about a generation or two away from the catastrophic problems that are anticipated from global warming, pollution, and overpopulation. We can expect flooded coastal areas, severe climatic changes, epidemics caused by overcrowding, and starvation for much of humanity. Such disasters are predicted to generate worldwide conflict on a scale that could exceed that of the great twentieth-century wars, possibly with nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable nations and terrorist groups.

This is a time, if there ever was one, when science is needed to lead the way. It won’t do so by sitting back and letting irrationality rule the day. And make no mistake about it; the irrationality we see on today’s political scene, as exemplified by the Tea Party, is fueled by the irrationality of religion.

It’s time for secularists to stop sucking up to Christians — and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and any others who claim they have some sacred right to decide what kind of society the rest of us must live in–what a human being can do with her own body.

Continues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/why-religion-should-be-co_b_775163.html

A fossil human jawbone discovered in southern China is upsetting conventional notions of when our ancestors migrated out of Africa.

The mandible, unearthed by paleontologists in China’s Zhiren Cave in 2007, sports a distinctly modern feature: a prominent chin. But the bone is undeniably 60,000 years older than the next oldest Homo sapiens remains in China, scientists say.

In fact, at about a hundred thousand years old, the Chinese fossil is “the oldest modern human outside of Africa,” said study co-author Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Full article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101025-oldest-human-fossil-china-out-of-africa-science/

Susan Blackmore discusses genes, temes, and a new future creation story in which humanity is the “Pandoran” species unleashing a third level of evolution on planet Earth.

I want to make three arguments here.

The first is that humans are unique because they are so good at imitation. When our ancestors began to imitate they let loose a new evolutionary process based not on genes but on a second replicator, memes. Genes and memes then coevolved, transforming us into better and better meme machines.

The second is that one kind of copying can piggy-back on another: that is, one replicator (the information that is copied) can build on the products (vehicles or interactors) of another. This multilayered evolution has produced the amazing complexity of design we see all around us.

The third is that now, in the early twenty-first century, we are seeing the emergence of a third replicator. I call these temes (short for technological memes, though have considered other names). They are digital information stored, copied, varied and selected by machines. We humans like to think we are the designers, creators and controllers of this newly emerging world but really we are stepping stones from one replicator to the next.

http://onthehuman.org/2010/08/temes-an-emerging-third-replicator/

Here we are, small beings on a small planet orbiting an unremarkable star in a really rather ordinary galaxy in an otherwise undistinguished part of an unimaginably vast universe.

Yet something about our existence feels, well, special. From the ructions of the early cosmos to the growing pains of our planet and life’s daring evolutionary leaps, not everything about how we got here seems obvious, or even likely.

Perhaps in other corners of the cosmos other sentient beings are also pondering the implausibility of their origins. Perhaps that very implausibility means we are alone with such questions. Either way, follow the trail as we visit 10 turning points in our history – the cosmic accidents that led to us.

Full article: http://www.newscientist.com/special/cosmic-accidents-10-lucky-breaks-for-humanity

John Harris on an idea which is rapidly coming to life

Human Enhancement is not a new idea. However enhancement as a moral and existential problem has become prominent in the public debate only really in the last decade. Since I find that I have devoted an unhealthy amount of time and attention to it since the publication of my first book on the subject in 1992 it seems appropriate to choose human enhancement for inclusion here [in a list of "ideas of the century"].

Human beings have always been inveterate self-improvers, seeking continually not only to enhance their lives and life-styles, but also their powers and capacities, whether by inventing tools and technologies, by socialisation and co-operation, or by education and training. …

In our own times the idea of human enhancement has become associated with improvements to the human organism itself, through the application of genetics and synthetic biology, engineering, including nano-engineering, and chemicals. This has lead to a reconceptualisation of the parameters of the human and to interest in the possible transcendence of human nature.

Full article: http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1499

John Harris will deliver the British Humanist Association Holyoake Lecture 2010 on “Taking the ‘human’ out of humanism”, on Thursday 21 October in Manchester.

On the day the Pope’s speech to a waiting Britain spoke of “extremist atheism” and belittled secularism and secular morality, we publish Leo Igwe’s speech to the Free Society Institute from last Saturday, about humanist values and secularism in Africa and the world.

Leo Igwe (pictured speaking in London last year)

Leo Igwe delivered the opening address to the 2nd Annual conference of the Free Society Institute of South Africa, co-hosted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union, on Saturday 11 September 2010. This is the full text of his speech.

Dear Friends,

I am glad to be back in South Africa and good to see you all. Thank you for inviting me to deliver the opening of this conference. Once again the FSI has demonstrated its commitment to the mission of promoting free thought and free speech in South Africa. Last year we all met in this hall for the first conference of this Institute co-hosted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union. And I must say that last year’s event remains one of the best humanist programs I have attended in Africa. I was deeply impressed by the quality of the presentations, debates, and discussions. I was inspired by the curiosity for ideas, search for truth, hunger for knowledge, the spirit of inquiry, critical thinking and openmindedness expressed by the participants. I left South Africa deeply convinced that this nation has got in the FSI a befitting humanist group. So I urge you not to relent in your efforts, commitment and support for the FSI and its mission of promoting free thought and free speech in South Africa. I hope that very soon your organisation will be reckoned with as one of the most active and vibrant humanist groups on this continent and in the world.

The emergence of humanist groups in Africa opens a new, exciting and promising chapter in the history of African emancipation and enlightenment. The struggle to promote humanism marks another phase in the struggle by Africans for independence and liberation. It opens another chapter in the quest by Africans for emancipation from mental slavery and other forms of slavery. It marks another defining moment in the struggle by African people for intellectual liberation and mental freedom, for true renaissance and enlightenment.

There are few countries on this continent where active humanist groups like this exist. There are few places in Africa where humanists and free thinkers can meet openly to discuss, interact and express themselves without fear. Even in my own country, Nigeria, there are states(in Northern Nigeria) where events like this will be met with death and destruction. Millions of Africans still live in societies or under conditions where they fear to speak their minds or to express their thoughts freely. That tells us how important this meeting is and why we should not relent in taking this message of hope and renewal beyond Cape Town, to all states in South Africa. That tells you how significant the work you are doing at the FSI is and the potentials in terms of change, transformation and civilization. I hope the FSI will continue to lead the way in terms of promoting free thought and free speech in South Africa and in Africa as a whole. I hope this Institute will continue to champion the cause of realizing a free society in this country. It is only when a society is free that it can fully realize its potentials.

This conference is taking place on a crucial day and date in the history of the world-September 11. Nine years ago some terrorists hijacked planes and caused the death of at least 3000 people in the US. Similar attacks have been planned and executed in other parts of the world.

We are meeting here at a time the forces of religious fanaticism are ravaging the globe, causing suicide bombing, death and destruction, conflicts and instability in many countries. We are gathered here at a time millions of people around the world are living in fear for their lives, safety and security- in the air, on the land and on the seas- due to threats posed by religious fanatics. We are meeting here at the time a new dark age looms around the globe; at a time theocratic governments have taken their jihads and crusades to the United Nations. This conference is taking place at a time people in most countries are confused- or are being confused -as to what constitutes the best moral guide.

The issue of what should be the best guide to moral clarity for humanity stares the world on the face. And we need an atmosphere of freethought and free speech to consider, tackle and resolve it. We need an atmosphere that is free from threats from fanatics, terrorists, suicide bombers, jihadists, religious mercenaries and other armies of God to chart out moral path and discuss, debate, dialogue and decide what is best for ourselves.

To the question that brought us here today – Is secular viewpoint our best guide to moral clarity? My answer is yes. The secular, not religious, outlook provides us a veritable framework for the expression and realization of moral excellence. Because secular viewpoint is based on evidence, on reason, science, common sense and human beneficence. The secular outlook is open to revision and improvement. Secular morality is a morality for this world and of this world, not for the next; it is a morality for our happiness and well being in the here and now, not in the hereafter. It is a morality for this temporary life not for an eternal afterlife in an imaginary paradise. Secular morality is a morality by us, from us and for us, not a moral decree of God from God and for us ‘wretched’ humans. Secular morality is informed by the quest to be good and to do good for goodness sake, not the quest to be good and to do good for God’s sake or for heaven’s sake or to avoid going to Hell.

Simply put, secular morality is a common sense morality. Secular viewpoint put human moral destiny in human hands, not in the hands of god, godmen and women. But we must note that both secular and religious outlooks are human creations. They are human viewpoints with human limitations. But advocates of religious outlook continue to cause confusion by denying this fact.They have done humanity a great disservice by refusing to tell the world the truth and by lying that the religious moral norms are decrees and commandments handed down as eternal and unchangeable guide for humanity from above ages ago. And it is this dogmatic lie and others told in the name of God, Allah… by the self acclaimed prophets and messengers of the ‘most high’that are responsible for the lack of moral clarity in the religious viewpoint. It is these sacred myths, falsehoods and misconceptions peddled by the supernatural faiths that morally disqualified religions as the best guide for humanity.

A brief analysis of the September 11 attack- what could have motivated the islamist attackers- may help us shed some light on the confusion and contradictions embedded in the religious moral outlook- the dangers religion’s lack of moral clarity poses to the future and survival of humanity, and the risks we human beings run by allowing moral norms guided by supernaturalism, blind faith, primitive superstitions and dogmas to guide the society.

No doubt those who planned and carried out the September 11 attacks must have judged their mission to be morally right- yes morally upright by their own standards –and I should say by the standards of religious morality.

I dont think the terrorists were really anomic individuals, unaware of the pain, agony, death and destruction their actions could cause. The September 11 attackers were not really bereft of conscience, compassion and fellow feeling. Instead I think the terrorists considered doing such grevious harm to their fellow human beings as consistent with their sacred sense of what is good or right; what ought to be done. The religous outlook actually thrives on sacrificing the natural or the human on the altar of the supernatural and the superhuman. Remember the story of the Biblical Abraham whose idiotic and condemnable attempt to sacrifice the son was reckoned as a demonstration of faith. So we must understand this warped sense of morality or sanctity if we are to tackle and eradicate religion and faith based terrorism in the world. We must strive to rid our minds of thess dirty and blood sucking gods that undermine the moral health of our society.

The terrorists believed that their actions were pleasing to Allah who would reward them abundantly for their deeds in the hereafter. Take note of that, reward in the hereafter –whatever that is-72 virgins (are these virgins really men or momen), a palatial home in the divine mansion in the paradise(I dont know exactly)is the driving force of religious morality.

For the Septmber 11 attackers and those who uphold religous moral viewpoint,what is deemed morally good is what is pleasing to Allah or better what is judged or considered(by who?)to be pleasing to Allah; what ought to be done is what Allah says, directs and commands – sometimes through the prophets, priests and sheikhs etc. Or what is said, directed or decreed in Allah’s, Jesus’ or God’s name. And already these commandments and norms are codified in the sacred texts- Torah, Bible, Quran- and traditions, which everyone is expected read, believe and follow without question as regards the author, source or authenticity. Thus, on hearing that hackneyed expression, In Jesus name’ ‘Thus says the Lord or Allah”, Or ‘In the name of Allah, the most gracious and most merciful’, one should be ready to swing into action without minding the consequences to oneself or to others.The religious moral viewpoint is insensitive to our feelings, to human feelings. Because the ‘words’ (or better, supposed words) of God or Allah are ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ and should be obeyed without question, hesitation or examination.

Because Allah-an entity from nowhere, somebody that is nobody- is taken to be the best moral guide for everyone including those who do not believe in him or her. So whatever s/he says or is believed to have said- no matter how stupid it is- holds or must hold everywhere and for everybody in secula seculorum (forever and ever). It is believed that Allah had charted the moral path. Even when there is no consensus among the religious as to what this moral path is. Our duty as human beings is to follow, obey and abide by this recieved moral code. That reminds me of a hymn that is sang in many christian churches. It goes this way:

Trust and obey. For there’s no other way.

To be happy in Jesus. But to trust and obey….

And the question is this – Trust and obey who? An imaginary entity?

Why should I trust and obey him or her or it? Trust and obey what? Texts from questionable sources written centuries ago by ignorant people? Should I trust and obey somebody who should not be trusted? Should I just obey orders that are stupid and harmful?

As I noted above, the religious moral viewpoint is mired in vagueness and lack of moral clarity. It has caused many people to abandon doing good, and trying to be good. Instead most people spend (I actually mean waste) much of this short life obeying God or trying to please God. Human beings will continue to wallow in moral confusion and darkness until the advocates of religious viewpoints stop peddling those ‘revealed lies and falsehoods’.

In conclusion, human beings can be good without believing in God. We can be moral without the pretensions of primitive religions. There is no doubt about it. Infact the whole idea of god came about in the attempt by primitive humans to promote and enforce what they concieved to be good-good life and good behaviour. So the religious moral outlook is largely outdated. God is actually a corruption of the good, not the author and dictator of what is good. God has no moral capacity. It does not have the capacity to judge, reward or recognize what is good or evil. Those who think otherwise are greatly mistaken. And it is this mistake that is at the root of religions’ lack of moral clarity. Human beings created God and invested it with all the human and moral attributes in their quest for some order, stability and ‘sanity’ in the primitive times. And religions have blindly adopted this primitive idea of organizing and understanding the world and society. Unfortunately many people across the world want these outdated myths and misconceptions to be the basis of our laws, policies, educational and justice systems in this 21st century. They want the world to continue to wallow in moral vagueness, obscurity and darkness. Humanity needs the best moral guide to make the best of this one life we have. And I hope that with programs like this we can initiate the much needed process of enlightening and morally reawakening people around globe to realize that the secular viewpoint presents us with the best guide to moral clarity.

I wish you all very fruitful deliberations.

Leo Igwe is the International  Humanist and Ethical Union representative in West Africa and Executive Director of the Nigerian Humanist Movement.

What makes creative relationships work? How do two people—who may be perfectly capable and talented on their own—explode into innovation, discovery, and brilliance when working together? These may seem to be obvious questions. Collaboration yields so much of what is novel, useful, and beautiful that it’s natural to try to understand it. Yet looking at achievement through relationships is a new, and even radical, idea. For hundreds of years, science and culture have focused on the self. We talk of self-expression, self-realization. Popular culture celebrates the hero. Schools test intelligence and learning through solo exams. Biographies shape our view of history.

But research, Joshua Wolf Shenk argues, is increasingly focusing on our relationships to understand our development.

The sensation of “mirror neurons” helped further dissolve the distinction [between self and other]. About 10 years ago, a team of Italian researchers showed that certain neurons that fire during actions by macaque monkeys—when they pick up a peanut, for example—also fire when they watch someone else pick up the peanut. It’s probably overblown to say—as many have—that this phenomenon can explain everything from empathy and altruism to the evolution of human culture. But the point is that our brains register individual and social experience in tandem.

Full article: http://www.slate.com/id/2267004/

Science writer John Gribbin discusses the (speculative) possibility that universes – like ours – are designed to order by civilizations with technology not much more complicated than the Large Hadron Collider.

The argument over whether the universe has a creator, and who that might be, is among the oldest in human history. But amid the raging arguments between believers and sceptics, one possibility has been almost ignored – the idea that the universe around us was created by people very much like ourselves, using devices not too dissimilar to those available to scientists today.

As with much else in modern physics, the idea involves particle acceleration, the kind of thing that goes on in the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Before the LHC began operating, a few alarmists worried that it might create a black hole which would destroy the world. That was never on the cards: although it is just possible that the device could generate an artificial black hole, it would be too small to swallow an atom, let alone the Earth.

However, to create a new universe would require a machine only slightly more powerful than the LHC – and there is every chance that our own universe may have been manufactured in this way.

This is possible for two reasons. First, black holes may – as science fiction aficionados will be well aware – act as gateways to other regions of space and time. Second, because of the curious fact that gravity has negative energy, it takes no energy to make a universe. Despite the colossal amount of energy contained in every atom of matter, it is precisely balanced by the negativity of gravity.

Black holes, moreover, are relatively easy to make.

Continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7972538/Are-we-living-in-a-designer-universe.html

With the United Nations classing the Pakistan floods as a worse disaster than the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake all combined, why is the amount of aid being donated by governments and by the public so puny? Mosharraf Zaidi wonders:

There is no shortage of theories. It’s donor fatigue. It’s Pakistan fatigue. It’s because the Pakistani government is corrupt and can’t be trusted. It’s because the victims are Muslim. It’s because people think a nuclear power should be able to fend for itself. It’s because floods — particularly these floods — spread their destruction slowly, over a period of time, rather than instantaneously. It’s because of the tighter budgets of Western governments. It’s because of the lingering effects of the financial crisis.

There’s a degree of truth to all these explanations. But the main reason that Pakistan isn’t receiving attention or aid proportionate to the devastation caused by these floods is because, well, it’s Pakistan. Given a catastrophe of such epic proportions in any normal country, the world would look first through a humanitarian lens. But Pakistan, of course, is not a normal country. When the victims are Haitian or Sri Lankan — hardly citizens of stable, well-government countries, themselves — Americans and Europeans are quick to open their hearts and wallets. But in this case, the humanity of Pakistan’s victims takes a backseat to the preconceived image that Westerners have of Pakistan as a country.

Full article: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/19/why_doesnt_the_world_care_about_pakistanis?page=0,0

The ancestors of early humans used stone tools to butcher animal carcasses nearly 1m years earlier than previously thought.

Archaeologists revised the date after spotting distinctive cut and crush marks made by stone tools on animal bones dating to 3.4m years ago.

The remains, including a rib from a cow-like creature and a thigh bone from an animal the size of a goat, were recovered from riverbed sediments in Dikika in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia during an expedition last January.

The marks show where stone tools were used to slice and scrape meat from the carcasses and where the bones were crushed to expose the nutritious marrow inside.

The discovery suggests meat was on the menu far back in our evolutionary history, and long before the arrival of the first human species, Homo habilis, 2.3m years ago.

“We were just walking along when we discovered the two bones,” said Shannon McPherron, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. “We picked up the rib fragment, flipped it over and there were these two, clear marks. Soon after, we found the second bone, also with a lot of marks on it. Right away we knew we had something potentially important.”

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/aug/11/bones-stone-tools-meat-eating