The Bill of Responsibilities for the youth of South Africa
The Bill of Responsibilities, being launched in South Africa today, is a list of purported responsibilities that flow directly from the Bill of Rights. But they don’t – it’s an aspirational, paternalistic, religion-infused list of virtues and values that could have been written by Oprah, and which in some cases run completely counter to the commitment to liberty enshrined in the Constitution.
Suffer the little children
It should surely not be the case that wearing a funny hat grants you immunity from legal processes, and the Catholic priests who abuse children should be questioned.
‘Twas Easter and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble on the roads
The extent to which the secular community has an obligation to play along – or the opposite obligation to protest – at times when others are engaging in religious ritual is a running debate. A key element of this debate is the possible incoherence involved in your lack of belief not standing in the way of allowing others to continue believing absurd things.
Taryn Hodgson’s pornography problem
To approach the complicated problem of pornography from the point of view that Christian values will save us from various social ills is stupendously naive, in that it ignores other data we have suggesting that the religious are no better off in terms of protecting what Hodgson refers to as the “basic building block of society” – the family.
Good without god
Progress is rarely easy, especially when it involves overturning centuries-old mistakes – but the difficult things are often the ones most worth doing.
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