A "9.8" on the Sacredometer

Today, we have a story out of Canada that is a combination of heartening and puzzling, sent to me by my friend (and frequent Skeptophilia contributor) Andrew Butters, author of the wonderful blog Potato Chip Math.  (And do yourself a favor -- add his blog to your list, it's thought-provoking and funny and generally all kinds of awesome.)

The story comes from The National Post, and has the headline, "Atheism a creed that needs the same religious protections of Christianity and Islam: Ontario Human Rights Tribunal."  The whole thing comes up because of an odd, although probably not unique, policy by the Niagara School District, wherein all fifth graders were offered Gideon Bibles as long as they got parental consent to receive one.

Well, the "parental consent" clause seemed to cover any possible charges of proselytization in public schools -- until René Chouinard, of Grimsby, Ontario, who is a self-described secular humanist, offered to provide copies of Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children to fifth graders, and the school board told him he couldn't do that.

Chouinard complained to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, and the school district, in a rather frantic attempt to cover their asses, changed their policy -- to allow the distribution of other religious texts, "so long as the religion is included in the Ontario Multifaith Information Manual" and "the text in question qualifies as a sacred text."

Now, what exactly does that mean?  Is there some kind of sacredometer that measures the sacredness of a text?  Does the Egyptian Book of the Dead, for example, count as sufficiently sacred?  I mean, no one much worships Thoth and Anubis any more, far as I can tell.

And the problem, of course, is that this specifically eliminates consideration of any secular texts, since they are by definition not sacred, given that atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Fortunately -- in one way, at least, and I'll get to that in a moment -- the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal agreed with Chouinard.  On August 13, they issued a ruling stating that the policy, even as it was modified, was discriminatory.  "The policy was discriminatory because its definition of acceptable materials violated substantive equality by excluding the kinds of materials central to many creeds," the ruling, in part, reads.  "The restriction to sacred or foundational texts excludes some creeds and is therefore discriminatory."

Well, right on, and I agree with that... but.  Here's the problem.  Is it the job of the school to get involved in religious instruction at all, beyond teaching students about world religions as a lens into history and culture?  It seems to me that this is exchanging one problem for another, and saddling schools with yet another responsibility, namely, making sure that all kids get access to the sacred (or not-so-sacred, depending on the reading that pops up on the sacredometer) text that they, and their parents, want.

But isn't this the job of the parents?  I mean, fer cryin' in the sink, if my fifth grade kid had wanted a bible, I'd have gotten him a bible, not waited for the school to hand him a freebie based on some kind of weird sacred-text-distribution policy.  Same goes for The Book of Mormon, the Qu'ran, the Talmud, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or The God Delusion.  Honestly, in fifth grade my sons were more interested in reading Animorphs and playing with Lego, but hey, kids are different, and maybe there are fifth graders out there who are desperate to delve into sacred texts.  I dunno.

Anyhow, that's the current news from our neighbors to the north, and another shout-out to my bud Andrew for turning me on to the story.  It's nice to have folks send me leads, and this was an especially good one.  I'll make sure and say a good word to Anubis in Andrew's favor, next time I'm in the temple.  You know how it goes.

We've got your number

Today's question is: how far should you go in accommodating people's irrational superstitions?

The whole question comes up because last week, town councillors in Richmond Hill, Ontario voted to ban the number four from any new street addresses.  "The number 4 in different Chinese cultures," councillor Greg Beros said in an interview, "the Asian culture, in their language it sounds like the word death, and that has a very bad connotation for them."

Notwithstanding that Mr. Beros seems to be confused on the difference between "Chinese" and "Asian," not to mention the fact that "Asian" is not a language, he is correct that in traditional Chinese folklore the number four does have bad associations.  And the town had already set a precedent in this direction by previously outlawing addresses containing the number 13.

My reaction, predictably, is: seriously?

At what point do you just have to say, "I'm sorry, that's ridiculous?"  Now, don't get me wrong; I'm all for treating people with respect, and that includes granting them the right to believe whatever they want to.  But that respect of their right to belief does not extend to a requirement that I respect the belief itself.  You are perfectly free to believe that the letter "S" is unlucky, and to refuse to buy a house with an address containing an "S."  It is also within your rights to refuse even to drive past 767 South Sissinghurst Street.  But it is well within my rights to consider your belief superstitious nonsense, and there is no reason in the world that town governments should feel obliged to act as if your claim has any basis in reality.

Oh, I know a lot of this has to do with money.  Town councillors are concerned with economics, and a lot of economics has to do with selling real estate.  If a significant fraction of the houses aren't going to sell (as would be the case in my "letter S" example, assuming a large number of people believed that), the town governors' actions would be simple pragmatism.  But in Richmond Hill, it's just two numbers -- 4 and 13 -- that are outlawed.  (Councillor Beros emphasized that house numbers containing 4s were okay, such as 14, 24, and so on -- it was only the single-digit number 4 that was verboten.)  So we're not denying the majority of the housing to a substantial proportion of the population, here.  The solution is simple: if you don't want a house with the number 4, then don't buy one.

Of course, I recognize that this is a losing battle.  Because of the weirdness associated with the number 13, many airplanes have no 13th row, and skyscrapers no 13th floor.  (If you're curious, the origin of the "unlucky 13" myth isn't certain, but may have started because there were thirteen people present at the Last Supper, an event that certainly didn't end well.)

Superstition, unfortunately, is still rampant in the world.  As I mentioned in a post last week,  the list of beliefs in lucky and unlucky actions is long (and bizarre).  But rational people need to be unafraid to identify those beliefs as what they are (i.e. untrue), and there's no reason in the world anyone should have to cater to the silly demands of someone who wants us to treat their mythology as if it were fact.