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Volume 1434

In his stories Ed's depiction of nature as the all-wise creator of living things, the Great Perfectionist who demonstrated her perfection in her scheme of things — the animals, plants, and their environments — indicated that his religious philosophy tended toward pantheism. As wrote in a letter to a priest: " I think I have a more satisfactory God for I am not afraid of my God and. I enjoy His company every day in the sunshine and flowers and the beautiful hills and I do not have to crawl into a dark closet to pray to him."

His reply to the Reverend L. Eugene Wettling of Religious Films, Inc., New York, June 14, 1928, made clear his disapproval of the church:
"Permit me to assure you of my appreciation of the honor conferred upon me by election to your Honorary Advisory Board. My religious convictions are such, however, as to make such a connection incongruous, and as it might cause embarrassment to all concerned I sincerely hope that you will withdraw my name...."

Burroughs, attempting to be open-minded on matters of religion, was particularly careful to avoid influencing his children or dictating to them. He advised his son Hulbert, then at school, in this manner: "You will be wise if you attend church occasionally, at least, if not regularly. It is a very necessary part of the education of all cultured men and women. Your own good judgment will tell you what to accept and what to reject."

However, individual rights in a religious choice were quite different from any plan to introduce compulsory religion on a mass basis. In response to the query of Henry Goddard Leach, editor of The Forum, "Shall We Force Religion into the Schools?," Ed was vehemently on the negative side: "Compulsory religious training in any form in schools supported by tax-payers seems to me to be contrary to the highest ideals of American democracy."  He noted that even in endowed colleges religious subjects should be electives, and about the Bible, could see no practical way of using it in the public schools. He conceded that the "historical and literary phases" might be of value for study, but insisted that if the Bible were used, equal time should then be devoted to the Talmud, the Koran, and other works. Since, in his opinion, the material was not needed, and the school hours were insufficient for all these religious works, it was best that these subjects should be excluded from the public school curricula.

In discussions with his sons Hulbert and Jack, Burroughs stated his religious attitude clearly: he did not believe in the Bible, Christ, the Immaculate Conception, or God. He called himself an atheist. To his sons, Burroughs, who did not attend church, had often expressed his dislike for any form of organized or sectarian religion. At times, especially because of his efforts to be tolerant about other people's religious views, he gave the impression of being an agnostic. On occasion when he termed himself a "religious" man, he was referring to his objectives of following the moral or ethical precepts taught by Christ or found in the philosophies of the Greeks and the Romans. Concerning the typical religious attitudes displayed by characters in his stories, both of his sons have maintained that these should not be interpreted as representing Burroughs' beliefs — they are merely inserted as necessary elements in the story, or to create the particular effect he was seeking.
Porges p. 445
 
 

A religion acn be defined by its text. The reason is simply that it gives its followers carte blanche justification to commit the most horrendous acts. The average Christian today isn't a murderous, scheming, holy death machine. Yet, given the right conditions, that average Christian could very easily become such a thing -- because his god commands it in his holy book. Same with almost every religion -- not just picking on Christianity here.
When a religion is peaceful, all it means is that the serious evil it can be is only waiting in the shadows, ready to strike when the time is right.

---

Well…I’m going to answer that question:
If I’m wrong…I’ll go to Hell as your doctrine prescribes.
If I’m wrong…The Rapture will happen and I’ll be left behind.
If I’m wrong…I’ll be forced to wear the “the mark of the Beast” etc.
If I’m wrong…my soul will be lost, etc.
inquisition2

But there’s another side of the “What If you’re wrong?” question:
If you’re wrong…you’ve wasted your life believing in an antiquated fairy tale.
If you’re wrong…people of your faith owe millions of relatives of the tortured, burned, stabbed, shot, ridiculed, persecuted and judged many apologies and reparations. Most of these folks were Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, African Americans, gays, atheists, witches, warlocks and other people killed out of just plain paranoia! Your religion has had periods of forced conversions.

As an atheist, I’ll take my chances on being wrong. It is my life.
If you’re wrong about Heaven, Hell, Jesus and an afterlife…you have wasted MANY lives.
Atheists don’t convert, Christians do.
http://proudatheists.wordpress.com/

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and the in extent that we respect his theory that is wife is beautiful and his children smart.
-H. L. Mencken

In ages bygone there were few things a soldier feared more than a drum-head trial.

An accused soldier would be dragged before an impromptu court that upturned drum that served a table. Justice had nothing to do with it. With no standards of evidence, punishment was sift and severe. There were no rights to appeal. No rights to present evidence. You were guilty
until proven innocent — and even then you were still guilty.

If this scenario seems all to familiar and gives you willies, there’s a good reason for it. Freedom of speech and press in Canada have been dragged before a latter-day version of the drum-head trial, best known as a human rights tribunal.

I’ve written about this a couple of times now in the St. Catharines Standard and the 411 is this: In 2006, Maclean's magazine ran an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book America Alone. In the piece, Steyn writes what he thinks is the obituary for western liberal democracy. Pointing out the low birth rate of non-Muslims compared with that of Muslim immigrants, particularly in Europe, Steyn suggests the continent is on the cusp of being Islamified. And, he says, with those immigrants come the violent Islamists who wouldn't know the value of democracy from a public execution.

Now, while Steyn gets some things right, his somewhat paranoid thesis that democracy is soon going to be replaced by a barking mad jihadist theocracy is a bit too Oliver Stone for my tastes. But that really isn't the point.

Steyn's conclusions offended the sensibilities of some law students -known in the blogsphere as the Canadian Islamic Congress' "sock puppets"- who happened to be Muslim. After Maclean's refused to give them equal space to write a rebuttal by a writer of their choice (which the magazine could not edit) under a cover they designed (which the magazine could not alter) they enlisted the help of the Canadian Islamic Congress to drag the magazine to the Canadian, Ontario and British Columbia human rights tribunals, which are due to hear the case this year.

According to the CIC, Steyn's article misrepresents "Canadian Muslims' values" and damages their "sense of dignity and self-worth." It wants the government bodies to order Maclean's to give the students their rebuttal or at the very least want the magazine to be officially censored for saying things some Muslims just don't like very much.

Now, the CIC through their sock puppets, got to complain about the alleged mistreatment by Macleans in the National Post and other newspapers, and on TV and online. But they what want is to bring Macleans to heel and want the force of government orders to do so.

The first round was much of a fight at all. The Ontario Human R issued a statement saying it could not rule on the Steyn case because it is not part of its mandate - and then went ahead and ruled on the issue anyway in a statement you can read here.

Dripping with a staggering ignorance of the value of free speech, the commission's statement accuses the magazine of propagating racism.

"This type of media coverage has been identified as contributing to Islamophobia and promoting societal intolerance toward Muslims," the statement reads.

Surely the commission brings some evidence to support these claims, right?

Nope. None. Nothing. Zero. Squat.

The Maclean's stories "have been identified" as promoting racism? Really? By who exactly? Presumably the commission itself, because it does not cite a single source.

Maybe the commission provided some content analysis of the magazine, or pointed out where Steyn got his facts wrong? That's a big fat no as well.

In fact, the statement is merely a declaration, convicting the magazine of being a racist rag without having provided so much as a single shred of evidence. It then says what Canada needs is a discussion "about how narrowly or broadly society places limits on freedom of expression in order to protect the human rights of its vulnerable members." And the commission makes it clear where it stands: where free speech offends, it should be outlawed by the state.

Round two isn't quiet over. Unlike the almost but not really savvy Ontario commission, the British Columbia human rights tribunal was dumb enough to hold a hearing. Never mind the complainants are both residents of Ontario, the tribunal decided to go ahead with the drum-head trial.

Reports on the hearing demonstrate exactly why its time to wipe out these commissions, or at least limit what they can do. There are no standards evidence. None. So a professor whose claim to fame is a study of Bollywood films gets accepts as an expert on the Canadian media. But never mind she has no published work on the subject, she an expert, because, well, she says she is.
By that logic, I’m an expert on organic chemistry, even though I haven't actually done any organic chemistry, I'm really interested in the subject. Expert my aching ass.

Also, the bruised feelings of the complainants count as evidence, as do the writings of anonymous loonies on blogs in other countries. But actual evidence? Facts? No these do not count. In fact, the tribunal's boss is happy to declare to that the hearing is "informal." In other words, its like playing tennis without a net - and the loser is always the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Anyway, the hearing and the case is so sad it would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that it presents a real and present threat to free speech in Canada. A guilty verdict is almost a inevitable. These commission and tribunals operate with a 100 per cent conviction rate. (You read that right. Nearly every person or group dragged before these demented kangaroo courts is found guilty. Imagine if one of our law courts had that kind of conviction rate? Imagine the political and legal fallout if no one was ever found not-guilty in a court to law!)

The only plus in this entire sad story is that a guilty finding will allow the magazine to appeal the ruling to actual court of law where things like evidence matter.

In any case, not content with waiting for victory, some Muslims leaders holding court with Barbara Hall -the grand poo-ba of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and would be commissioner of the thought police - declared this week that if Muslims are not given an "equal voice" in the Canadian news media, there will be dire consequences.
 

"And we have to tell them, you know what, if you're not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it's time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars,"said Khurrum Awan the main primary witness in the MacLean's case in BC. (check out the full story in the National Post)
So where Voltaire is sometimes reputed to have said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," the CIC is saying, "I disapprove of what you say, and I will litigate to gag you."

These are utterly incompatible ideas and they show just how out of touch the CIC is with democratic ideals.

So what is going on here? What did Steyn say that was so horrible? Whether you disagree with his thesis or not, isn't the point. Steyn is not a hate monger. I mean, even if you hate America Alone, you'd have to admit he didn't write, say, Mein Kampf. Hitler's little diatribe in which he lays the ills of the world at the feet of the Jews and pretty much telegraphs what he would do if he ever had real political power is maybe the most horrible book of the 20th century. You'd be hard pressed to find a book that so defines hate speech. And yet as nasty as it is you can get it at any book store. In it, Hitler foreshadows his "final solution." What did Steyn do? Steyn can be a sacrastic cus at times, but he essentially looks at the problem in Europe, demographics and the rise of Islamo-facism and say "Uh, do we have a problem here?"

Oh and he quotes from radical ding-dong clerics who think that blowing themselves up on planes or in Jewish pizza joints gets them a front row seat at god's party palace. To the sock puppets et al, this is a real no-no. We can't actually quote what actual people actually said. Because, you know, then we might know what they actually think which might actually be of some actual importance!

Now why don't the sock puppets want Steyn to quote from radical Muslim leaders? Well, they aren't radical Muslims, of course, and they find the view of Jihadists offensive. And since they aren't crazy jihadists, Steyn has no business quoting people who are.

A bit mad, no? But it does highlight something interesting about this effort to high-jack free speech. These folks appear to believe that their religious are immune to criticism. Their religion cannot be spoken of in any way except in terms that they deem proper.

It comes down to something Douglas Adams said once, that is that believers think religion gets a special place in society where ridicule and criticism can't touch it. He said:
 

Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'. The odd thing is, even as I am saying that I am thinking 'Is there an Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just said that?' but I wouldn't have thought 'Maybe there's somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics' when I was making the other points. I just think 'Fine, we have different opinions'. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody's (I'm going to stick my neck out here and say irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say 'No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it'.

It's rather like, if you think back in terms of animal evolution, an animal that's grown an incredible carapace around it, such as a tortoise - that's a great survival strategy because nothing can get through it; or maybe like a poisonous fish that nothing will come close to, which therefore thrives by keeping away any challenges to what it is it is. In the case of an idea, if we think 'Here is an idea that is protected by holiness or sanctity', what does it mean? Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that's holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we've just got used to doing so? There's no other reason at all, it's just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it's very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.

The fact is pretty simple. They don't like what Steyn said because it offends them. They don't attack the thesis of his book, not really. They don't go after his facts, or criticize his political analysis or debunk his claims. Instead they display their bruised feelings and say "Oh well look, some nutter wrote a blog saying hateful things after Steyn's book came out! Steyn is responsible for spreading hatred!"

What they don't understand is that freedom of speech is not a negotiable commodity. It does not fall upon bended knee before the precious feelings of sectarian groups who want to muzzle anything they don't like.

If you are in favour of free speech, as Noam Chomsky once said, it means accepting you will be offended now and again. "Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin," Chomsky said. "If you're really in favour of free speech, then you're in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favour of free speech."

As I have said before, if these human rights tribunals side with the CIC and try to punish Maclean's, the government, provincial and federal, should promptly abolish them and replace them with something with a narrower and clearer mandate and limited powers.

We do not have a right not to be offended.

I have to ask what "human rights" have been violated by Steyn and company? Are Muslims in Canada now required to wear a crescent moon on their clothing? They are being rounded up, as the Japanese were and Native Canadians before them, and placed into camps and reserves? Are they being denied access to government services, to jobs, to the right to voice their opinions, to freedom of religion, to freedom of movement?

Is this pack of weeping, sycophantic, solipsitic chest thumpers and wanna be martyrs being denied a single right under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? I submit the answer is no.

Whatever legitimate role this commission once had has been lost in an attempt to create a version of Orwellian Newspeak for Ontario. If the commission wrote 1984, Big Brother, not Winston Smith, would be the hero of the story

Human rights tribunals were designed to prevent discrimination in the workplace and ensure all citizens have access to government services regardless of religion, sex or race. They have absolutely no business ruling on the alleged offensiveness of articles printed in magazines and newspapers, never mind meting out punishments.

Now, these unelected and unaccountable commissions with no due process or legal standards of evidence are on the cusp of becoming agencies empowered to punish thought crime and blasphemy. A deep chill will fall over the fourth estate and the door will open for anyone to shut down public debate in the name of protecting their bruised feelings.

That isn't democracy and, ironically enough the CIC appears utterly unaware of this (or maybe they are and don't care), is a step in the direction to prove Steyn's thesis correct.
http://theatheisthandbook.blogspot.com/

Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the sun and are very far away? And how do we know that Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the sun?

The answer to these questions is "evidence." Sometimes evidence means actually seeing ( or hearing, feeling, smelling..... ) that something is true. Astronauts have travelled far enough from earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The "evening star" looks like a bright twinkle in the sky, but with a telescope, you can see that it is a beautiful ball - the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing ( or hearing or feeling..... ) is called an observation.

Often, evidence isn't just an observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there's been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the victim!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots or other observations which may all point toward a particular suspect. If a person's fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn't prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it's joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realise that they fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.

Scientists - the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe - often work like detectives. They make a guess ( called a hypothesis ) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: If that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveller, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started.When a doctor says that you have the measles, he doesn't take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: If she has measles I ought to see...... Then he runs through the list of predictions and tests them with his eyes ( have you got spots? ); hands ( is your forehead hot? ); and ears ( does your chest wheeze in a measly way? ). Only then does he make his decision and say, " I diagnose that the child has measles. " Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-Rays, which help their eyes, hands, and ears to make observations.

The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something , and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called "tradition," "authority," and "revelation."

First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about fifty children. These children were invited because they had been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by "tradition." Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either. They said things like: "We Hindus believe so and so"; "We Muslims believe such and such"; "We Christians believe something else."

Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn't all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite right and proper, and he didn't even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn't the point I want to make for the moment. I simply want to ask where their beliefs come from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they've been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over the centuries. That's tradition.

The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn't true, handing it down over a number of centuries doesn't make it any truer!

Most people in England have been baptised into the Church of England, but this is only one of the branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who believe even slightly different things from each other go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons - evidence - for believing what they believe. But actually, their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.

Let's talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn't die but was lifted bodily in to Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don't talk about much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don't call her the "Queen of Heaven." The tradition that Mary's body was lifted into Heaven is not an old one. The bible says nothing on how she died; in fact, the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn't invented until about six centuries after Jesus' time. At first, it was just made up, in the same way as any story like "Snow White" was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as and official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950, when I was the age you are now. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented six hundred years after Mary's death.

I'll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first, I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.

Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing in it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are the old men with beards called ayatollahs. Lots of Muslims in this country are prepared to commit murder, purely because the ayatollahs in a faraway country tell them to.

When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary's body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950, the pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that that pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the pope, you should believe everything he said any more than you believe everything that other people say. The present pope ( 1995 ) has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow this authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases, and wars, caused by overcrowding.

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven't seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else's word for it. I haven't, with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like "authority." But actually, it is much better than authority, because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary's body zooming off to Heaven.

The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called "revelation." If you had asked the pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary's body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been "revealed" to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling "revelation." It isn't only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe. But is it a good reason?

Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You'd be very upset, and you'd probably say, "Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?" Now suppose I answered: "I don't actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have a funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead." You'd be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you'd know that an inside "feeling" on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don't. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.

People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise, you' d never be confident of things like "My wife loves me." But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little titbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn't a purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.

Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn't even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can't trust them.

Inside feelings are valuable in science, too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a "hunch'" about an idea that just "feels" right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.

I promised that I'd come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish to be good at surviving in fresh, water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals, too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of ..... other people. Most of us don't hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters; we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We ''swim'' through a "sea of people." Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language.

You speak English, but your friend Ann-Kathrin speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to '`swim about" in your own separate "people sea." Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way . In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more true than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at "swimming about in their people sea," children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child's brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can't be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.

It's a pity, but it can't help being the case, that because children have to be suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what the grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence, or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly, or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that, too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed - even if it is completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place - it can go on forever.

Could this be what has happened with religions ? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood - not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this because they were told to believe them when they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.

Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers , Mormons or Holy Rollers, and are all utterly covinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and Ann-Kathrin speaks German. Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can't be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can't be alive in Catholic Southern Ireland but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.

What can we do about all this ? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: "Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority, or revelation?" And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: "What kind of evidence is there for that?" And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

Your loving

Daddy

RICHARD DAWKINS is an evolutionary biologist; reader in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University; fellow of New College. He began his research career in the 1960s as a research student with Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nico Tinbergen, and ever since then, his work has largely been concerned with the evolution of behavior. Since 1976, when his first book, The Selfish Gene, encapsulated both the substance and the spirit of what is now called the sociobiological revolution, he has become widely known, both for the originality of his ideas and for the clarity and elegance with which he expounds them. A subsequent book, The Extended Phenotype, and a number of television programs, have extended the notion of the gene as the unit of selection, and have applied it to biological examples as various as the relationship between hosts and parasites and the evolution of cooperation. His following book, The Blind Watchmaker, is widely read, widely quoted, and one of the truly influential intellectual works of our time. He is also author of the recently published River Out of Eden.