Until a few months ago I admit I had never even considered the chaplaincy services in NHS hospitals around the UK. Like everyone I have lost relatives over the last few years, mostly grandparents, but none of them were ever religious so there was never a call for any visit by a chaplain. So until I visited the National Secular Society website I had never registered their existence.
Imagine my disgust, in fact I hope you share it, when I read that the estimated cost of the chaplaincy service for the NHS is more than £32 million a year. £32 million! In the grand scheme of the cost of running the NHS and the deficit it has, this is probably quite small, but for what it provides it is ridiculous. It is also disgusting in this financial climate and considering the amount of services (in many areas, not just the NHS) that the government is proposing to scrap to save money.
The NHS website, here, categorises the role of a chaplain under the heading of “spirituality” which to me smacks of trying to appease both sides of people (religious and non-religious). In fact they even say:
” For some people it means religious belief, but many believe that spirituality doesn’t have to be religious.”
Perhaps I’m wrong, but if you are offered support at the hospital for an issue that is not physical but psychological, is that not just counseling? Why have a separate service, if you like, that deals with “spiritual” matters (again, if you are not religious you may not believe in the concept of a soul or spirit in the traditional sense many people do) but try to dress it up as available to all types of people, if counseling is available anyway?
“It might be that you just need some space. Hospital chapels are not only for people who have religious faith. If at any time you need a quiet place to think, to pray or just to be alone, you can use the chapel.”
The chapel may not exclude people who are not religious, but as an atheist, I would feel very uncomfortable with going in to a place that is traditionally created for prayer and religious practices to have some space or be alone. Where are the rooms for the non-religious? Are there any? I’ve never seen one if there is. Please let me know if I am wrong.
“If the person you look after is terminally ill and receiving palliative care, and they would like spiritual support, this should be considered as an integral part of their care. Along with medical and physical needs, palliative care aims to look after the emotional and spiritual needs of patients, families and carers.”
I fully understand that people who are religious want religious support when they are terminally ill and do not think that this should be ignored. However, why should it be on the onus of the taxpayer to provide this? Surely if you are that connected to your faith and in need of support, a member of your local house of worship, whatever the faith, would be a hundred percent more appropriate than a stranger paid by the NHS to do the job.
In April 2009 the National Secular Society performed a Chaplaincy Costs Survey which you can see in full here. The outcome was that, of those hospitals and trusts that did respond to the survey, the cost of chaplains amounted to £26,722,494, roughly £48,953 per chaplain. As stated in the survey, these figures only account for the staff salaries and on-costs only, but not for the maintenance of the chapels, churches and various prayer rooms. So on top of those salaries there is extra expense. (I assume this accounts for the £32m figure as well as the estimate of those hospitals whose figures were not available).
To put this in perspective, here are a few examples of what this money could provide in the NHS:
- 1070 extra midwives (on lowest salary of approx. £25,000)
- 1338 extra nurses (on lowest salary of approx. £20,000)
- 890 Neonatal incubators for newborn babies with critical cardiac conditions (£25-30,000 ea)
That’s just a few of many, many other uses for that money. In fact, that last example was from the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital which is fund-raising for these incubators. According to the NSS Chaplaincy survey mentioned earlier, this specific hospital spends almost £100,000 annually on chaplains, yet they are having to raise money for equipment that can assist 150-200 newborn babies every year. For that money spent they could purchase two brand new incubators.
Where is the sense in this? Are we saying that people’s religious beliefs are more important than saving the lives of newborn babies or, for that matter, any lives? There are thousand of women across the UK who have been rejected NHS funded medication (such as Herceptin to treat early stages of breast cancer) because it is too costly (roughly £20,000 per year, although it does vary from case to case), even though it has been shown to reduced the risk of death by 1.8% over two years. Even if some medication does not save but prolong a patients life by months or years, this is surely a better use of NHS funds than to provide a service used by a minority in an increasingly secular society.
Nobody is saying that people should not have the right to religious support should they choose it but it is unjust and unacceptable to expect NHS taxpayers to fund this. If support and faith in difficult times of health is so important then the Catholic Church, the Church of England and every other faith organisation should be more than willing to fund it. If one purpose of the NHS is, and it should be, to supply psychological and mental support then the money would be better off being channelled in to general counselling where it can be used and appreciated by any and all patients who pay their taxes for this national service. Anything extra, anything religious based, is and should be the responsibility of the individual.
As an atheist, as a humanist and, I hope, a good human being, the thought of any tax I have ever paid funding a frivolous, religious service makes me feel sick. I want my money to have provided good services for everybody, from minor accidents to the best possible care for people dying of terminal illnesses to life saving treatments and operations, not to allow a small number of people to talk about and to, what I and many others believe, is a fictional character.
As mentioned in the previous blog, @MovingToMontana, author of www.howgoodisthat.wordpress.com, is due to review the book of the amazingly deluded Joe Cienkowski. Here are the first two videos as he opens the book and begins to read it (be prepared to laugh a lot):
Check back here or on above mentioned blog for more….
After stating in my last blog that I had wasted too much time arguing with time-wasting Christians, I ended up ignoring myself and doing it again. But this time it was on a whole different level of mind-numbing idiocy. Said idiocy came from the unremitting Joe Cienkowski. If you’re an atheist/humanist/skeptic and are on Twitter then you will know who he is and I would rather not waste more time and effort writing a description about him. Also, no words I write can describe the level of ignorance and stupidity this man emits. If you don’t know who he is, for a taster see the videos below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8obaP6esEc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T49ZiU_AyLA
Or you can find him on Twitter and read the rubbish that pours from his feed and/or go to this great blog here: http://howgoodisthat.wordpress.com/2010/05/
It’s probably been a month or so of back and forth with him: that is, me (and many others) questioning his statements and beliefs and him ducking them and plugging his book….relentlessly plugging his book, the book he had to publish himself because evidently nobody with a sound mind would do it for him.
Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson this time: in fact a few days ago I blocked him on Twitter. I can’t deal with his increasingly crazy and provocative statements regarding atheism (e.g. It’s a religion, we believe life came from nothing etc.) and delusional Tweets regarding “God” and Christianity.
However I still feel irritated enough to attempt to stop other people from being berated by him, as well as hopefully stop people who sway towards his thinking or are on the fence from being, for want of a better word, ‘converted’ to his ideas and beliefs.
Author of the earlier mentioned blog, and @MovingToMontana on Twitter, has, despite the nausea it must have caused, parted with his money to buy a copy of Joe’s newest book ‘Atheism Is A Religion’. But don’t be alarmed, this is purely so we can see this “proof” and “evidence” Joe says he has to back up his statements (no, none of us really believe the book has this in, but it should be hilarious if nothing else). Again, read more here: http://howgoodisthat.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/ill-be-reviewing-joe-cienkowskis-book-on-youtube-heres-how-you-can-help/
As of today, 9th June 2010, the book has been paid for but still not arrived. If only to salvage this one bit of his dignity, I hope Joe does deliver seeing as money has been transferred.
*EDIT* As I’m about to publish this, I have word that the book finally arrived.
The reason I even care is because, as much as I want to avoid back and forth slanging matches with these people, I draw the line at allowing such uneducated people to put out books claiming to have evidence for things that they clearly do not and making money from this, without anybody questioning their work. So I think it is important, and a valiant effort by @MovingToMontana, to pick apart what appears to be a sham of a book. If Joe’s own words are anything to go by, I expect twenty pages of 48 point font and a whole lot of nonsense! Perhaps that’s unfair, perhaps it will prove to be a wondrous, educational book that will change the world, but I highly doubt that.
Last night I spent a good two hours on and off arguing with some opinionated and slightly crazy people on Twitter. It started with a tweet from a Texan woman saying she celebrated Earth Day by thanking “God” for it. This irritated me somewhat: another topic being hijacked by religion. So I read her feed and she was telling someone that they believed the lies they were taught. So I commented that I thought she was the one believing in lies and that there was no God. What I received back was some abuse and name calling: nothing unusual. She was angry that I had commented but I pointed out that if she didn’t want anyone commenting, she should not put things on a public, thought sharing site.
After that another three or four people jumped on the bandwagon, also using name calling and quite pathetic arguments, if you can call them that. It doesn’t bother me, it happens all the time. I must admit I did snap and say a few harsh words too. Eventually I left it when the conversation deteriorated in to slating the UK (from one man) and me trying not to do likewise to USA, as somehow we ended up talking about health care.
After I shut down my computer I wondered what I had achieved and realised, sadly, nothing. All I had managed to do was get angry and get dragged in to a bit of a slanging match. As I thought more about it I realised that this happens quite often and sometimes it’s quite fun and entertaining, other times it just makes me more angry. I guess that’s the thing with Twitter: you can always find someone who has a different view to you and argue or converse with them.
The more I think about it the more I realise what a waste of time it was because these people will never listen and never change their ideas. Their beliefs are so ingrained in them through family and society that they will never be able to even attempt to hear another person out or see a different viewpoint. They will never accept science and coincidence has brought us in to existence because they don’t want to. Those two hours would have been better spent trying to do something much more useful and productive like campaigning for more secular policies within our government and society, writing letters to my MP or other MPs to stop the Pope’s visit, to increase and encourage better education not based around traditional religious practices and beliefs, to abolish the idea of faith schools or fight for the punishment of the hundreds of Priests involved in the many cases of abuse within the Catholic Church.
I don’t exactly have a goal, I don’t want to abolish religion because I don’t think that will ever happen, but I do think that thousands of young children are at risk of being suckered in to religion by their family and our still biased education system, and so if I do have a goal, it would be to change the way children are educated. If given a real choice I think most young people would be clever enough to see the irrationality of all religions and the logic behind science and facts. I also think that we should continue to keep religion and state/government separate and address the issue that religion is some untouchable force that cannot be questioned or must be consulted in the case of a major story, political or otherwise.
Sometimes people say things so ridiculous and offensive that they need to be addressed but most of the time there is little to gain from even entertaining these morons. Simply out there are many more things I could do with my time than argue with badly educated, stubborn, ignorant people on social networking sites and in a way I’m thankful for those idiots last night because they have made me realise where my time would be better spent.
There seems to be an abundance of people, particularly on Twitter, and more specifically of a religious persuasion,who seem to not only lack a basic knowledge in the words they throw around but attribute whatever meaning they like to them. It will be no surprise to atheists, humanists and secularists who engage in conversations with religious people that many of them like to call atheism a religion or, as I encountered recently, a “school of thought”.
So I decided to write-up a little list of definitions of the words commonly thrown about but usually in the wrong context or attributed with a completely different meaning to its real one.To be consistent I have used the same dictionary for all definitions, Cambridge Online Dictionary, should anyone feel the need to question them and look them up.
Atheist: someone who believes that God or gods do not exist
Religion: the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship
Fundamentalism: the belief in old and traditional forms of religion, or the belief that what is written in a holy book, such as the Christian Bible, is completely true
Militant: active, determined and often willing to use force
School of thought: a set of ideas or opinions which a group of people share about a matter
As I mentioned earlier, there are plenty of Christians and believers of gods (though the Christians seem to appear in a higher number) who feel the need to try to label atheism as a religion. I’m not sure whether this is to annoy or cause conflict, or just because they cannot understand how someone can live a happy, fulfilled life without religion, so they try to put us in the same confined box as them. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that atheism is not a religion isn’t it?
I hope people can see with their own eyes and actually use their own brains to see the difference between the definitions of atheism and religion. One is the belief in a god and belief system, one is not. How can it be any simpler?
As for saying atheism is a “school of thought”, well this too (surely obviously?) is also incorrect. A belief system or school of thought implies multiple ideas and beliefs, but atheism can be easily summed up in one line: not believing in any god or religion. There are no other beliefs, there is no handbook on how to be an atheist and what to believe in, it does not mean that every person who says they are an atheist therefore shares the same beliefs on everything else.
I added on the definition of ‘Fundamentalism’ and ‘Militant’ because many believers also like to call atheists and secularists fundamentalists or militant because they have strong opinions on anything to do with their religion. But the definition of ‘Fundamentalism’ above proves yet again another example of badly educated and misinformed people trying to label other people incorrectly. The only fundamentalists I see are the ones with the religious texts firmly planted in their hands.
As for being militant: it’s interesting that for hundreds, thousands of years, religion has been embedded in our culture and society and as soon as people stand up to say they do not agree with religion, do not believe in god, want church and state to remain separate, they are labeled as militant. There is a big difference between being strong in voice and opinion and being willing to use force.
Hopefully that has cleared up a few confusions for the under-read out there, and feel free to direct people to the list of definitions above the next time a Christian or believer throws those term around without knowing what they mean.
Finally, I don’t know who came up with this (please let me know if you do so I can attribute the correct praise to them), but I have seen it a lot of Twitter and it sums up nicely the atheism/religion debate:
“Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.”
At the moment on Channel 4 (in the UK) there is a documentary series running called The Bible: A History. Its basic premise is each episode focuses on different parts of the Bible, by various presenters (authors, journalists, writers, scientists, politicians) in a loose chronological order. Despite how it sounds, it’s not simply presented as fact but offered up for some debate and to be critiqued.
The most recent episode, number 3, is presented by MP Ann Widdecombe and focuses mainly on the ten commandments of the Old Testament. As a lifelong believer, Widdecombe is obviously totally in favour of the commandments and continually insists that the world would be a much better place today if more people used them as a basis for living their life. Even in the face of the wonderful national treasure that is Stephen Fry and well-known writer and atheist Christopher Hitchens, like many religious people, her argument consisted of telling them they were wrong and trying to question whether they thought “honouring thy mother and father” was a wrong belief to uphold. A typical tactic employed by many believers in an attempt to turn something in to a black and white argument that makes the non-believer look immoral and callous.
I found myself becoming increasingly angry as I watched it: Widdecombe continued to bleat on about how immoral our society is now (teenage pregnancies, drinking and drug taking, promiscuity, a lack of respect, an unhealthy materialistic lifestyle as well as general lawlessness and crime) and how, if we made an effort to follow the ten commandments, we would live in a much better world
There are two major things wrong with this. The first is that all of those issues with sex, drink and crime are not new. They are not a product of a modern society, they are problems that have always existed for hundreds and hundreds of years, back in times when most people were religious and did believe in a god. Clearly there are more atheists, agnostics and non-believers around now (or, at least, more who feel they can be honest and vocal about their secular views) as opposed to the majority 500 or 1,000 years ago who believed in a deity above them, so to suggest that today we live like this because we do not follow the commandments is ridiculous.
Think of it in this simplistic way: if many more people were religious many centuries ago than they are today, why did they still suffer the same vices and supposedly disreputable lifestyles that we have today? Surely if the Bible and the commandments were bigger, positive influences on people then, past societies would have been a bountiful place of decency, peace, monogamy, honesty and trust.
Well, of course not, because it is a ridiculous idea to suggest that today we live “in sin” because many more people no longer believe in God and in the past people lived much more “morally” because they believe in the ten commandments and went to church on a regular basis. It is simply not true.
The second aspect of this argument which really infuriates me, and is something most atheists and humanists encounter on a regular basis, is the mistaken idea that those who believe in God, the Bible (and most importantly in this case) in the ten commandments, are morally superior to those who do not. Frankly this is one of the most repulsive aspects of religion and religious people I can think of. Just for now I will set aside going in to detail on the many, many negative aspects of the Bible, Christianity and religion in general, the continual, horrendous stories of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the nonsensical ideas of the Pope and his (and the churches) part in the spread of AIDS throughout Africa, the oppression of gay people and their rights, amongst many other issues; but how can people who believe in such a belief system that allows and perpetuates these atrocities dare to question other people’s morals and claim superiority over us?!
To suggest that people who do not believe in God and the commandments have no ethics or morals is misguided idiocy and thoroughly offensive. It is taking away the natural aptitude for kindness and compassion that most of humanity has and making an exceptionally wrong assumption that we need a book and an outdated list of morals to live our lives by or we would all end up stealing, raping and killing each other. Almost all of us know the difference between right and wrong, it is instilled in us from childhood by our parents, family members, friends, neighbours, teachers and superiors. There is, of course, always an exception to this, but we all know that, even from toddler age, we have known what we can and cannot do, what we should and should not do, what is right and wrong and why. And if as a child we are aware of this then there is no reason as an adult why we would suddenly forget how to be a good person and need to turn to a 2,000 year old story book to help us.
So all the believers out there who think they are morally superior to us skpetics, if you only read and think about one part of this blog article, make it this:
The difference between the morals of religious followers and atheists is that believers are (supposedly) morally good out of obligation, because they fear the repercussions of God and the threat of hell, while non-believers are (for the most part) good examples of how a human being should be because we want to, because we are inherently good and because it is the right thing to do.
Now who should be considering themselves morally superior…?
Welcome to Rational Existence, a blog dedicated to writing and comment on atheism, atheist discussions and ideas and the study and dissection of religion. The aim is to expose inconsistencies of religion (in particular Christianity and the Bible as this is the religion that most saturates the society and culture I live in) and open up honest discussion and debate about them as well advocate atheism, thinking rationally and embracing the wonders of science.
This blog is not intended to offend or provoke argument for argument’s sake nor cause unnecessary swearing or threatening behaviour between people who choose to read and comment. it is simply a place for me to write about how I see things and hopefully encourage others to think differently, rationally, about the topics and comment and express their own opinions, whether in agreement or not.
