Spying council to be investigated

A privacy watchdog is to investigate a council that used powers to spy on people, including a family suspected of lying about where they lived.

A couple were monitored for nearly three weeks by Poole Borough Council to find out if they were really living in a school catchment area.

Covert surveillance was also used to check for the illegal harvesting of cockles and clams by fishermen.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it has “concerns”.

David Smith, deputy commissioner at the ICO, said: “The ICO has some concerns about the surveillance that has taken place in Poole.

“It seems that in at least some cases the surveillance has involved the covert collection of personal information about those individuals under scrutiny.

“We will be contacting Poole Borough Council to ensure that the way in which personal information about those under surveillance has been collected and subsequently processed meets the requirements of the Data Protection Act.”

The council said it had carried out surveillance on 17 separate occasions under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) since 2005.

The powers had been used in a number of ways, including detecting underage alcohol sales, investigating benefit claims and monitoring suspected drug dealers.

Spanish village holds religious baby jump

Grown men have been leaping over rows of babies in the north Spanish village of Castrillo de Murcia in an annual rite meant to ward off the Devil.

Jumpers dressed as the Colacho, a character representing the Devil, bounded over clusters of bemused infants laid out on mattresses.

Nobody appeared to get hurt in this year’s festive event.

Castrillo, near Burgos, has been holding the event since 1620 to mark the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi.

The feast is widely celebrated in Spain, often with processions and mystery plays.

Pageants can feature dancers depicting demons and angels or other characters.

Case dropped against boy, 15, who held up sign branding Scientology a cult

The case against a 15-year-old boy who was facing possible legal action for holding up a placard which branded the Church of Scientology a “cult” has been thrown out.

The Crown Prosecution Service took just a day to decide it was not in the public interest to take the teenager to court after he was handed a summons by the City of London police.

The boy was “strongly advised” by officers to get rid of the sign which said “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult” at a protest outside the church’s headquarters in the City of London two weeks ago.

He refused and police sent a case file to the CPS. Lawyers have now taken the decision not to prosecute.

This week it emerged the teenager was appealing for help defending his case on an anti-Scientology website.

He had been among demonstrators outside the church’s ?23million headquarters near St Paul’s Cathedral when he was advised to put down his banner.

A policewoman read out section 5 of the Public Order Act which prohibits signs that have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.

Others in the group agreed not to display their signs but the boy refused and he was issued with a summons.

Police are believed to have taken action against the group after receiving complaints about the demonstration.

The force came under fire last year when it admitted accepting thousands of pounds of hospitality from the Church of Scientology.

Writing on an anti-Scientology website this week, the teenager says: “I need precedents, legal advice, definitions and defences.

“I intend to make a big folder with all the defence you can give me, and in case this does get through to court, I will be well prepared.

“Also, what’s the likelihood I’ll need a lawyer? If I do have to get one, it’ll have to come out of my pocket money.”

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti this week described the decision to press for a prosecution as “barmy”.

The Church of Scientology, founded by author L Ron Hubbard in the Fifties, teaches that humans are immortal spiritual beings known as thetans, who have passed through previous lives.

Tom Cruise and John Travolta are among its adherents.

The end is approaching for the Church of England, say Christian researchers

Dire warnings about the future survival of the Church of England have been sounded by the authors of the annual book of church statistics Religious Trends which is produced by Christian statisticians.

The finding that most newspapers headlined was the forecast (not particularly new) that within a generation there will be more people in Britain attending mosques than Christian churches.

The fall in attendance at the CofE is so precipitous, the researchers say, that it will soon become financially unsustainable. As congregations age and die, there will be no money from collection plates to support the Church’s infrastructure and keep on paying the pensions of retired vicars and bishops. In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035. (In a population of, by then, 65 million, that is still pretty small).

According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious practice in Britain, published by Christian Research, even Hindus will also come close to outnumbering churchgoers within a generation. The forecast to 2050 shows churchgoing in Britain declining to 899,000 while the active Hindu population, now at nearly 400,000, will have more than doubled to 855,000. By 2050 there will be 2,660,000 active Muslims in Britain – nearly three times the number of Sunday churchgoers. The research is based on an analysis of membership and attendance of all the religious bodies in Britain, including a church census in 2005. The findings are bound to fuel calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England.

Even the much-trumpeted growth in evangelical churches is beginning to slow and, in some cases, even starting to decline. The numbers of people who are actively involved in religious organisations of any kind is now very small.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “It is difficult to see how the Church of England’s special status as the established church can be justified. It is a tiny denomination of a dwindling religion. The other religions are also tiny, so even though it’s projected that there will be more Muslim worshippers than Christians by 2050, that doesn’t mean to say that this will be a really significant number. The numbers involved in all these religions pale into insignificance beside those who declare they have no religion. And yet still we have MPs who are arguing that the CofE should be disestablished in order to give all religions equal status. For instance, Martin Salter, the Labour MP for Reading West and a member of Reading inter-faith group is quoted in The Times as saying: ‘I think all faiths could be treated equally under our constitution. These figures demonstrate the absurdity of favouring one brand of Christianity over other parts of the Christian faith and the many other religions that grace our shores.’”

Terry Sanderson replied: “Mr Salter’s approach is the very worst of all worlds. No religion should be given special status and nor should all religions be given it. We should have a complete separation between religion and the state. This would be a much more accurate reflection of the nature of this country and by privileging no-one would be much fairer.”

Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary with responsibility for community cohesion, has said that she will “look closely at the findings”. She said: “Britain is a secular democracy with a strong Christian tradition but many faiths have a home in Britain.” The question now becomes: What kind of secular democracy does Ms Blears think Britain is?

Predictably, the Church of England tried to rubbish the figures. Lynda Barley, its head of research, launched a counter-attack, saying that the findings were “dangerous and misleading.” She said: “These statistics represent a partial picture of religious trends today. In recent years church life has significantly diversified so these traditional statistics are less and less meaningful in isolation.”

The dangers of creationism in education

Council of Europe Resolution 1580 (2007)¹

1. The aim of this resolution is not to question or to fight a belief – the right to freedom of belief does not permit that. The aim is to warn against certain tendencies to pass off a belief as science. It is necessary to separate belief from science. It is not a matter of antagonism. Science and belief must be able to coexist. It is not a matter of opposing belief and science, but it is necessary to prevent belief from opposing science.

2. For some people the Creation, as a matter of religious belief, gives a meaning to life. Nevertheless, the Parliamentary Assembly is worried about the possible ill-effects of the spread of creationist ideas within our education systems and about the consequences for our democracies. If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights, which are a key concern of the Council of Europe.

3. Creationism, born of the denial of the evolution of species through natural selection, was for a long time an almost exclusively American phenomenon. Today creationist ideas are tending to find their way into Europe and their spread is affecting quite a few Council of Europe member states.

4. The prime target of present-day creationists, most of whom are of the Christian or Muslim faith, is education. Creationists are bent on ensuring that their ideas are included in the school science syllabuses. Creationism cannot, however, lay claim to being a scientific discipline.

5. Creationists question the scientific character of certain areas of knowledge and argue that the theory of evolution is only one interpretation among others. They accuse scientists of not providing enough evidence to establish the theory of evolution as scientifically valid. On the contrary, creationists defend their own statements as scientific. None of this stands up to objective analysis.

6. We are witnessing a growth of modes of thought which challenge established knowledge about nature, evolution, our origins and our place in the universe.

7. There is a real risk of serious confusion being introduced into our children’s minds between what has to do with convictions, beliefs, ideals of all sorts and what has to do with science. An “all things are equal” attitude may seem appealing and tolerant, but is in fact dangerous.

8. Creationism has many contradictory aspects. The “intelligent design” idea, which is the latest, more refined version of creationism, does not deny a certain degree of evolution. However, intelligent design, presented in a more subtle way, seeks to portray its approach as scientific, and therein lies the danger.

9. The Assembly has constantly insisted that science is of fundamental importance. Science has made possible considerable improvements in living and working conditions and is a rather significant factor in economic, technological and social development. The theory of evolution has nothing to do with divine revelation but is built on facts.

10. Creationism claims to be based on scientific rigour. In reality the methods employed by creationists are of three types: purely dogmatic assertions; distorted use of scientific quotations, sometimes illustrated with magnificent photographs; and backing from more or less well-known scientists, most of whom are not specialists in these matters. By these means creationists seek to appeal to non-specialists and spread doubt and confusion in their minds.

11. Evolution is not simply a matter of the evolution of humans and of populations. Denying it could have serious consequences for the development of our societies. Advances in medical research, aiming at combating infectious diseases such as Aids, are impossible if every principle of evolution is denied. One cannot be fully aware of the risks involved in the significant decline in biodiversity and climate change if the mechanisms of evolution are not understood.

12. Our modern world is based on a long history, of which the development of science and technology forms an important part. However, the scientific approach is still not well understood and this is liable to encourage the development of all manner of fundamentalism and extremism. The total rejection of science is definitely one of the most serious threats to human and civic rights.

13. The war on the theory of evolution and on its proponents most often originates in forms of religious extremism closely linked to extreme right-wing political movements. The creationist movements possess real political power. The fact of the matter, and this has been exposed on several occasions, is that some advocates of strict creationism are out to replace democracy by theocracy.

14. All leading representatives of the main monotheistic religions have adopted a much more moderate attitude. Pope Benedict XVI, for example, as his predecessor Pope John-Paul II, today praises the role of science in the evolution of humanity and recognises that the theory of evolution is “more than a hypothesis”.

15. The teaching of all phenomena concerning evolution as a fundamental scientific theory is therefore crucial to the future of our societies and our democracies. For that reason it must occupy a central position in the curriculums, and especially in the science syllabuses, as long as, like any other theory, it is able to stand up to thorough scientific scrutiny. Evolution is present everywhere, from medical overprescription of antibiotics that encourages the emergence of resistant bacteria to agricultural overuse of pesticides that causes insect mutations on which pesticides no longer have any effect.

16. The Council of Europe has highlighted the importance of teaching about culture and religion. In the name of freedom of expression and individual belief, creationist ideas, as any other theological position, could possibly be presented as an addition to cultural and religious education, but they cannot claim scientific respectability.

17. Science provides irreplaceable training in intellectual rigour. It seeks not to explain “why things are” but to understand how they work.

18. Investigation of the creationists’ growing influence shows that the arguments between creationism and evolution go well beyond intellectual debate. If we are not careful, the values that are the very essence of the Council of Europe will be under direct threat from creationist fundamentalists. It is part of the role of the Council of Europe’s parliamentarians to react before it is too late.

19. The Parliamentary Assembly therefore urges the member states, and especially their education authorities to:

19.1. defend and promote scientific knowledge;

19.2. strengthen the teaching of the foundations of science, its history, its epistemology and its methods alongside the teaching of objective scientific knowledge;

19.3. make science more comprehensible, more attractive and closer to the realities of the contemporary world;

19.4. firmly oppose the teaching of creationism as a scientific discipline on an equal footing with the theory of evolution and in general the presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion;

19.5. promote the teaching of evolution as a fundamental scientific theory in the school curriculums.

20. The Assembly welcomes the fact that 27 academies of science of Council of Europe member states signed, in June 2006, a declaration on the teaching of evolution and calls on academies of science that have not yet done so to sign the declaration.

Human Rights committee says pupils should be able to opt out of RE and collective worship

The Government has rejected a recommendation from the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) that school pupils of “sufficient maturity and intelligence” should be able to opt out of religious education and collective worship. The National Secular Society has said that it will try to find a case with which to challenge the policy that forces children to worship in schools, even if it is against their conscience.

The JCHR, in its report, says: “As we have said in previous reports, provisions which fail to guarantee a child of sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding the right to withdraw from compulsory religious education and collective worship are incompatible with the child’s human rights…. We therefore recommend that the Government reconsiders its objection to permitting a child of sufficient maturity and intelligence to withdraw from religious education and takes into account our previously expressed views on this issue. As for religious worship, we recommend that children who are not in the sixth-form but who have sufficient maturity and intelligence, be permitted to withdraw. This could be simply remedied in the Bill by replacing “sixth-form pupil” with “child of sufficient maturity.”

After pressure from the NSS last year, the Government gave 16 year olds the right to withdraw themselves from collective worship (but not religious education). As the law stands, all other students must have their parents’ permission to withdraw from religious education and collective worship.

The British Humanist Association, in its press release on the matter, said “The best situation would be the replacement of the law requiring religious worship with a law requiring inclusive assemblies that would be suitable for all children.” But Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “‘All-inclusive’ assemblies will mean even more religion in schools as each faith seeks to have its share of school time. The only equitable answer is to seek the phasing out religious involvement in schools, not invite even more.”

NSS news http://www.secularism.org.uk/legalactionthreatenedoverreligio.html

C of E : “What credit crunch?”

link

The Church commissioners — the trustees who manage the assets of the Church of England (who also included the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Speaker of the House of Commons!) — this week published news of record profits from investments for 2007. The 33-strong board announced overall returns of 9.4 per cent on their investments last year and a 9.5 per cent total return on invested funds over the past 10 years.

The commissioners will report that the value of assets under their management has grown to £5.67 billion and that their fund, which is a closed fund accepting no new investment, has been able to return £37 million more each year to the Church over the past decade than it would have done if it had performed at the industry average.

Reporting this news, the Daily Telegraph said “Congregations should not start planning for new roofs and church halls, however, as the commissioners say that their funds contribute just 17 per cent of the total running costs of the Church of England – the balance being made up from the pockets of congregants and Diocesan investments.”

Oh, (the reporter and the commissioners forgot to mention) and hundreds of millions from the taxpayer.

Despite having this fantastic stash (and that is only a small proportion of its total wealth, which is tied up in property, such as shopping centres and farmland) the Church of England continues to sting the taxpayer for church repairs, gigantic tax concessions, grants from statutory bodies, subsidising of its ‘chaplaincies’ in hospitals, prisons and the armed forces, and hundreds of millions ploughed into church-run schools.

However, despite all this, the Church continues to plead poverty, whingeing about a growing pension bill for retired clergy. It is also agitating to be exempted from paying water bills (a change in the way this is levied means that suddenly the church has to pay its way like everyone else.) Yesterday representatives of the Church of England, Methodist and other churches met officials from Ofwat, the industry regulator, to argue that they shouldn’t have to pay for the water they use in the same way that everyone else does. After all, they’ve only got £6 billion in the bank.

And even in secular Australia, the churches have managed to get their greedy hands into the exchequer. You can read about the objections to that here