The inaugural conference of the Free Society Institute was held on August 29, 2009. I recently launched the FSI with the intention of providing an umbrella organisation for the various atheist/secular/etc. organisations in South Africa, much as the IHEU does internationally. What follows is the speech from which I no doubt deviated at the conference.
Category: Religion
Posts on religion and secularism, and how religion can intrude on secular interests.
As is customary for omnipotent beings, the Christian god has a deep concern regarding what you wear, as John van Heerden reminds us on his News24 blog. Five crucial questions need to be asked and answered to god’s satisfaction before you can present yourself to the world with your virtue and dignity intact, and your soul unthreatened. As was recently the case with Frontline Fellowship, though, god doesn’t seem to care much about what us non-believers tend to think of as genuine moral issues, such as plagiarism or lying. This, at least, seems to be the message that John van Heerden is attempting to convey through presenting someone else’s article as his own – the advice on attire is entirely cut-and-pasted from Momof9’s place.
In August 2008, an angry 18 year-old schoolboy in Krugersdorp killed a fellow pupil with an ornamental sword, bought by his father 3 or 4 years previous to the incident. The schoolboy, Morne Harmse, also attempted to kill a three other people during what some papers referred to as his “rampage”, including another pupil and two gardeners.
The reason I’m writing about this nearly a year after the incident is that sentencing is due to occur this coming Monday (see end of post for a correction of this date), and the newspapers are reporting that “expert witnesses”, including “occult crime specialists”, will be called to testify before sentencing. At this point, you’d be justified in wondering what the hell an “occult crime specialist” is, and how the testimony of one could possibly add value in a case like this (or any case, for that matter).
So, the Frontline Fellowship (of which Peter Hammond is Director) has posted a description of the debate that was meant to happen recently. Here’s how it starts:
Atheist Abandons Argument
Just two hours before the scheduled debate the Atheist Association lecturer, Jacques Rousseau, cancelled his involvement and withdrew from the debate. The organiser was then compelled to change the venue from Jameson Hall to a different venue nearby.
Apparently, the event ended like so:
Over 100 students responded to the challenge to commit themselves to full-time Christian ministry. Many of those expressed their conviction that they were called to be missionaries to university campuses. The atmosphere at Campus Harvest was electric.
These 100 students will no doubt undergo rigorous training in hyperbole, hysteria and deception, judging from the article. All I can do is to – again – point out that if these students are at all interested in an education, and the facts, they can avail themselves of the evidence in the form of the correspondence leading up to the debate here.
Today’s edition of Varsity, the student newspaper at UCT, carries an article (see end of post for a scan of the article) reporting on the debate that was meant to occur last week. Contrary to my fears, it’s a balanced and sensible account of what happened in the lead-up to the non-event. There are, however, a few details from the article worth commenting on.
From Pastor Michael, in response to my blog posts (I think).
Hi, To All
I would like to address this letter To Jacques,
and have some of you to be as witness so that Jacques may not Twist my words again as it is a custom to you atheists.
Jacques, you wrote in your blocks about the reasons of your pulling out. in all you have said, i recognized that the organization had some problems and i told you which i find so small problem as long as our speakers were comfortable with that which proves to me i was right because we finally made it to the end as i told you we will be able to have the debate because i trusted my abilities to do so.
Jacques, your thinking worries me; the facts you presented in your block were tricky and Dishonest.
Well, he says it’s an open letter. As sent to Varsity (on April 18th, although I only received it an hour ago). His covering letter reads:
Hi, My Dear Sister Zerene
Here are some more infos about the debates:
-the date is wednesday the 29th April at the Jameson Hall from 6:30 to 8pm
-on their sides, their speakers are: Dr. Tauriq Moosa and Jacques Rousseau.
-on the Christian’s side there is Bishop Clinton L. Battieste and possibly Errol Naidoo
and the chairperson of the events is given to the SRC Though Amanda who is the first Chair and the second chair is to be chosen soon because He or She must be an Independant person which the SRC still has to find.
the Topic is: ” IS BLASPHEMY FREEDOM OF SPEECH ”
Please, can i ask you two things to do for me?
1. to announce the International Christian Conference that will follow the next day after the debate with our Guest speaker Bishop Dr. Clinton Battieste
2. secondly, i am attaching a letter that is very important to publish because the need might be there to know why have gone this way of deciding to debate with those who undermines us and pushes us away because we chose Jesus as our and our life and Truth.
be blessed and hope to hear from you again any time.
Michael
Pastor
As readers will know, a debate was meant to take place tonight, at UCT’s Jameson Hall. I have now withdrawn from this event, as has my co-speaker, Tauriq Moosa. I fear that those we were scheduled to debate with may try to exploit this to their political advantage, and therefore feel that it’s important to place on record the sequence of events leading to my withdrawal, as well as the reasoning behind it. First, though, apologies to any of you who looked forward to attending, and especially to those who did not receive timeous notification of the cancellation via my Twitter or Facebook messages.
Here’s a sense of what awaits:
Part of me wonders whether I shouldn’t spend the bulk of my allotted time simply explaining the mistakes in the Michael Nlandu sentences, as quoted above. I’ll only have 15 minutes, after all. But no, as he says: “this is not vengeance”, so I’ll focus on the problems associated with burying one’s head in the sand more generally, rather than picking on poor Pastor Michael.
Next week, Tauriq Moosa and I will be representing the UCT Atheist and Agnostic Society in a public debate with the Campus Crusade for Christ.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Time: 6:30pm – 8:00pm
Location: Jameson Hall, UCT
Topic: “‘Is Blasphemy Freedom of Speech?” (which makes little sense, but I think we know what they mean).
If you’re a Facebooker, the event announcement is here.