Regardless of all else, Christmas is still a holiday

And for that, we can give a little bit of thanks. Thanks, to the conventions of calendars, and ostensibly secular states who continue to pay their respects to religious traditions. I don’t mind – as I’ve said before, this atheist thinks it entirely justified that our public holidays are mostly on religious holy days. But mostly, I can’t mind times like this, because the holiday offers a most welcome break not only from work, but also from the never-ending human stupidity that is reported in the news.

The stupidity goes on, of course – it’s just that less of it is reported. Here’s a lovely example, from IOL (today), explaining how the police in Swaziland are making victim-blaming in cases of rape their official policy. Yep, it’s true – police spokesperson Wendy Hleta

said the use of the 19th century law would be applied to anyone wearing revealing and indecent clothes. Women wearing revealing clothes were responsible for assaults or rapes committed against them.

“We do not encourage that women should be harmed, but at the same time people should note acceptable conduct of behaviour,” she said. The act of the rapist is made easy because it would be easy to remove the half-cloth worn by the women. I have read from the social networks that men and even other women have a tendency of ‘undressing people with their eyes’. That becomes easier when the clothes are hugging or are more revealing.”

2012 had good bits too, of course. Plenty of good company, good food and wine, and an exciting and productive year of work, both at the university and on the Daily Maverick (which you should of course be reading, if you aren’t already doing so). And on the secular activism/atheist etc. front, the unremitting infighting, misunderstanding and so forth shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the fact that it seems we are making progress. The 2011 UK census results, released earlier this month, contain some quite interesting data. You can read the key stats here, but the piece of information that leapt out for me was this:

Between 2001 and 2011 there has been a decrease in people who identify as Christian (from 71.7 per cent to 59.3 per cent) and an increase in those reporting no religion (from 14.8 per cent to 25.1 per cent).

Also, remember that even among those who self-identify as Christian, being a Christian no longer seems to mean much of significance – at least in terms of where you get moral guidance, which metaphysics you subscribe to, and so forth. The Richard Dawkins Foundation data, released earlier this year, revealed that (for Christians in England):

  • 15% of them have never read the Bible
  • 32% believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus
  • 24% say that the Bible is inferior to other sources of moral guidance
  • 54% look to their own “inner moral sense” for guidance on morality, and only
  • 10% seek moral guidance from “religious teachings and beliefs”
  • 50% do not consider themselves to be religious

So that’s good. Here at home, I’d be lying if I reported that there seems to be any decrease in irrational beliefs. The churches seem to be going along strongly, and we’ve got a possible 7 more years of the buffoonish Jacob Zuma – a strong ally of theirs – as President. Besides religious belief, the continued dearth of good science journalism (with the occasional and honourable exception of the Mail & Guardian) isn’t helping to limit the growth of quackery, of late most prominently visible in the form of the formerly respectable scientist, Tim Noakes.

Yep, I’m also tired of all the medical journals banging on about the Bible. And Louis Agassiz himself still seems to be waiting for people to agree with his purported “great scientific truths” of a) the falsity of the theory of evolution, and b) scientific racism. I don’t know about you, but I’d be a little more wary of citing someone like that as an authority on how hypotheses gain acceptance. I guess that’s mostly because I eat too many carbs, though. I should be careful, in case I end up developing homicidal urges:

Anyway – merry Christmas to you all, whatever Christmas might mean to you. See you next year. And if you don’t know Tim Minchin, take a listen to his Christmas song, below.