Church and State

Australian Democrats nailed it. They have the most comprehensive policy to ensure separation of Church and State, I wonder where Greens stand:

"The Australian Constitution prohibits the Commonwealth from making any law for establishing religion, imposing religious observance or using religion as a test for office. However this has not guaranteed a secular state and boundaries between church and state have become increasingly blurred.

The Howard Government shaped its response to refugees in terms of Australian values which it said were Christian. Exclusively religious chaplains were funded in government schools and all states give as of rights to religious instruction in school hours. Schools are prohibited from providing meaningful activity for those who opt out.

MPs, including prime ministers, have openly declared their religious allegiances and parliaments around the country still pray before each sitting that their deliberations are overseen by God for ‘...the advancement of Thy glory’.

Organised religion is exempt from taxes for their commercial businesses. Earnings for the 10 biggest religious groups were estimated at $23.3b in 2005, costing taxpayers untold sums in lost revenue that might otherwise be spent on services."

The following is my wish list and all seem to be endorsed in Australian Democrats' policy:

We need constitutional reform to ensure separation of Church and State. 

We need tax system reform to remove exemptions for church organisations for profits made from purely commercial operations.

We need replacing prayers in Federal Parliament with period of reflection on the importance of ethical practice.

We need obliging church organizations providing publicly funded services such as hospitals and employment placement to not discriminate on religious grounds in the services they deliver or the people they serve and employ.

We need abolishing grants for proselytising such as the $8m for Catholic World Youth Day.

We need adherence to the fundamental principle that children should not be inculcated in religion before they are mature enough to make judgements on particular belief systems.

We need confining religious instruction or education in government schools to after school hours, changing parent permission to opt in rather than opt out and encouraging ethics education in schools.

We need  the principle that government should be policy neutral when it comes to religion – between different religions and with those of no religion.

For more info refer to: http://www.democrats.org.au/policies/

Death of an Atheist

The following post from the Freethinker web site is distressing.

"A young muslim, who had been investigated by his employers at Male International Airport in the Maldives for apostasy, was found hanged from the airport’s control tower yesterday (14 July 2010).

In two emails sent to an international humanitarian organisation on June 23 and 25, Ismail admitted he was an atheist and desperately requested assistance for a UK asylum application. He claimed to have received several anonymous threats on June  22.

In the emails, he said:

“I foolishly admitted my stance on religion to work colleagues, word of which had “spread like wildfire.” A lot of my close friends and girlfriend have been prohibited from seeing me by their parents. I have even received a couple of anonymous phone calls threatening violence if I do not repent and start practicing Islam … I cannot bring myself to pretend to be I am something I am not, as I am a staunch believer in human rights. I am afraid for my life here and know no one inside the country who can help me."

This sad news brings back the question of how much religious fundamentalism should be tolerated in secular societies.

In secular democratic societies people with strong religious convictions enjoy and share the freedom of expression and civil rights with other citizens who may not necessarily share their faith.

Islamists cried for 'freedom of expression' when French banned 'burka' recently, but when they have the numbers religious fundamentalists act like monsters who would not tolerate opinions other than the bigoted preaching dictated by their faith.


Source: The Freethinker

Borders of irrationality

This is from a local newspaper North Shore Times:

“ORTHODOX Jews in St Ives could be freed up to leave their homes on the Sabbath and other holy days if a proposal to create a religious zone ringing the suburb is approved by Ku-ring-gai Council.

The Jewish community wants to create the zone, known as an eruv.

Once physically inside this zone, orthodox Jews would be able to do otherwise forbidden activities such as pushing and carrying objects including car keys and tissues.

The plan requires the installation of 27 poles of 6m height and connecting wires.”

Richard Dawkins said "Tradition has its place, but not where factual knowledge is concerned." and continued:

"There are many ways in which people differ from one another by virtue of traditions handed down through the generations, and these are often admirable and worthy of respect. But there is a qualitative difference between a cultural tradition and factual evidence, and we should not feel obliged to respect, or encourage the perpetuation of, beliefs about reality which we know to be untrue, simply because they form part of a tradition, even an ancient tradition. When you put it like that, I find it hard to imagine how any person of goodwill and intelligence could seriously disagree. Yet because it is usually not put like that, there are many people, even non-religious people, who have been duped into confusing the ‘cultural tradition’ side of religion with the ‘statement of facts’ side, and endowing both with the respect due only to one."

But do we need walls, wires to divide the greater society we live in based on irrational belief systems and do we have obligation to respect such nonsense even though they may merely be seem cultural elements of a tradition?

Original news link

About a mouse

I have owned a Mac computer for a year now. My Mac came with a pointing device which Apple called “the mighty mouse”. The most distinctive feature of this device is its trackball’s silky sensitivity. The small trackball on the top moves in all directions and it responds to your fingertip’s faintest movements.

Yet to my sorrow the mighty mouse is far from mighty and it has a miserable design fault. After a short period of normal usage the trackball fails to move your mouse pointer on the screen (usually scrolling down fails).

As I was told by an Apple ‘genius’ later on, apparently the tiny gap around the trackball periphery sucks the smallest dust particles and in time they clog the trackball's gear. Within a month or so the mouse starts to fail in responding your fingertip’s commands. The mighty mouse turns into an ugly ordinary mouse.

The Apple guy whom I saw months back recommended to turn the mouse over and rub it against a piece of paper on a hard surface. So in a number of occasions I followed his instructions and the mouse recovered OK but only temporarily.

Over a week ago the mighty mouse failed for good, and despite my cleaning attempts it did not recover. In desperation I tried to open the mouse but instead broke plastic bearings around the rim and failed to fully open the lid at the back.

Frustrated I took the mouse to the Apple store in Chatswood, expecting some sympathy as I had an extended warranty worth of $268. I was refused to be looked at as I had to make an appointment with the ‘Genius Desk’  first (Apple calls their service people by that name).

I've made an appointment and a few days later I visited the same Apple store for the second time. This time ‘the genius’ turned the mouse over and rolled it on a paper, made some star and eight movements for about two minutes or so. And voila! My mighty mouse plugged in a MacBook test machine worked.

After mentioning him that I tried to open the mouse for a good clean up the genius said “I know. I noticed your mouse lid is broken. Your warranty is void.” I mentioned I did not really care too much if my warranty was void on a $69 mouse as at that point I just needed a functioning mouse. The genius recommended me to buy the new $100 wireless mouse.

Oh the wireless...

I said I found wireless mouses frustrating too as you had to change batteries every now and then. These were my last remarks. I walked out the store.

Don’t get me wrong I am in awe of everything Apple does. When I look at Apple products I can’t help but murmur “it’s a beautiful thing”.

However in this instance Apple failed to deliver the user experience they are so proud to fulfill.

First of all ‘the might mouse’ design is faulty. My work PC is a Windows machine and I have been using its mouse, oh I have forgotten, for so long, and never had to clean the damn thing. It just works.

So from my perspective compared to an ordinary PC mouse, Apple’s mighty mouse fails to deliver in a mighty way.

Secondly I can’t help noticing how we intelligent people in minority have to suffer from collective stupidity of majority opinion.

It appears that wireless mouse and wireless keyboard is nothing more than a marketing gimmick and majority has swallowed it. This was a foolish idea, it still is and it continues to frustrate many users like me.

The reasons why wireless mouse and keyboard is a bad idea are:

1. You have to bear the stress that any minute batteries can go flat.
2. You have to keep a spare pair of AA batteries around (you normally won’t).
3. You have to consume a bag-full of batteries every year and pollute the environment needlessly whereas your desktop machine through its USB port could have easily powered your mouse for nothing.

I now use a $20 ordinary Windows mouse on my Mac. The mouse has a cord, it works and I am happy.

Fundamentals

I returned to fundamentals. I started to follow computer science (CS) courses at MIT. 

MIT has a great program called MIT OpenCourseWare and it is free. Lecture videos are available from uTunes. uTunes is embedded iTunes portal which makes it easier to collate course material in one place.

The following snapshot shows a portion of my desktop.

I have course video at the top, a Python script edited with iMac’s Pico editor in the middle, and the output screen at the bottom. I also have course presentation in pdf document form and browser windows in other areas of my screen. 

It is great fun, probably more fun than sitting in a classroom. I can pause the video and do a bit of programming or research on the web then get back to course. 

It is also a fantastic activity to return to fundamentals of algorithms. Being a seasoned programmer allows me to focus purely on mathematics and analysis of algorithms.

My long therm objective is to study evolutionary algorithms and perhaps write a program to simulate evolutionary systems.