Indianapolis Newspaper Axes Daily Christian Prayer

A small victory for secularism came from an unlikely source as the Indianapolis Star decided to stop publishing its daily Christian prayer.

Dennis Ryerson, the IndyStar editor was suitably contrite and hailing from a Norwegian Lutheran family felt his Christian credentials untarnished. Although in his editorial announcement he does let slip a slight lack of brotherly feelings towards Methodists!

"I'd long wondered about the appropriateness of a secular institution such as a newspaper practicing prayer each day. I long have reflected on a conversation I had with more than three dozen priests, evangelical leaders, rabbis and ministers several years ago. They were unanimous -- our job is to report the news; our job isn't their job, which is to practice religion."

So sounds like the men in robes were fine with the idea. One slight problem were the bleating sheep. "We've received larger reactions to previous changes we've made but nothing so large over so few words: A one-sentence generic prayer often tailored to events of the day."

As a way to express their general anger whilst not losing them as readers a religious (Christian) Thou Shalt Blog was started.

I haven't read all the comments but there are a few funny ones, such as that the paper was not so much cutting printing costs but was worried God might charge a syndication fee. There is also one good point about why the paper doesn't also remove horoscopes, although they tend to be counted as entertainment.

So, a slightly strange scenario for the USA in having a curb on Christian propaganda... and even stranger being implemented by a man who was brought up in a deeply religious community, but one that dislikes shouting about it.

New Year, New Blogs

A new year and a little conceptual change to this blog. For some reason the sheer names of this Asylum Joy blog and my Aakom blog seem to demand hat their aims be somewhat swapped. So Asylum Joy will henceforth concentrate on news, commentary and resources on the interface between science and religion. This will largely be from a naturalistic point of view. With all the isms that populate the fields of both believers and non-believers perhaps at the moment the only one I am comfortable with is naturalism. Perhaps this could be renamed Natural Born Infidel, but to continue to play with names could be a tad schizophrenic.

So Asylum Joy will be my own random trawl through the news and views on science and religion. My own preference is for the more conceptual and philosophical side of the exchange, but I am fully aware of the social and political consequences of religious faith indoctrinating a population. The ultimate test, in my opinion, is one of control versus freedom.

In contrast, Aakom will have a very specific view on the scientific investigation of religious experiences and altered states. It will also look at techniques and technologies that already exist that will facilitate the expansion of human experiences. As humans we share a (more or less) similar biology and it is therefore also most likely we share a common mental structure. Religious belief (fideism) creates a template that makes it difficult to break through to further, even deeper, levels of experience. The mutual linguistic incomprehension between fideists and infidels is but a manifestation of different states of mind. I think that only through shared experiences and philosophical honesty can we ever approach any real consensus on life, the universe and everything.

A third blog that I have recently started is Aggregated Infidels, which is an aggregator of blog and news feeds plus a list of websites of interest that do not have feeds. Aggregated Infidels was started for my own use but hope it will prove useful to others. I am aware of other such aggregators, but have seen some have not been updated in months and, anyway, even similar resources have their own style and layout.

Well, I hope this mental clean-up will not have to be done again in a hurry, but luckily all the blogs are relatively new so has not been too much work. Back-links has been enabled, so that any links to specific posts will be reciprocated. As always, all comments appreciated.