Is Saint Andrew's Day controversial?

A few weeks late, I have come across this exchange on the merits of celebrating Saint Andrew's Day on the 30th of November as a national day for Scotland. Saint Andrew was said to have been crucified on an 'X'-shaped cross, which gives us the saltire in the modern Scottish flag (pictured above). His apparent connection with Scotland is that some of his relics were brought here after his death, and so he is considered the patron saint of Scotland.

In the article from the Herald, Gordon Ross (treasurer for the Humanist Society of Scotland) argues that (a) Andrew has no demonstrable connection to Scotland (he's patron saint of many other places as well), (b) it is primarily a religious tradition, which implicitly excludes the many non-Christian people in Scotland, and (c) we have plenty of other days with more genuine merit, to celebrate Scotland as a nation.

Opposing him is Azeem Ibrahim, who argues that religion isn't a serious part of Scottish Saint Andrews Day celebrations, and that the inclusive celebration of Scottish awesomeness is what the day is about.

This seems to me like a microcosm of the perennial Christmas debates in the atheist community. Is it a problem to celebrate on a day that has been connected to beliefs or values that you reject? As someone who grew up with essentially religion-free Christmases, I just can't get worried about it. (For us, it was about family, food, gifts, and games.) I've never seen evidence that celebrating a secular Christmas somehow lends credence to the non-secular version of it.*

I tend to agree with Ibrahim - the same goes for Saint Andrew's Day. While I am aware of the legend behind it, I've never felt that the religious side was particularly important. It's about celebrating this wonderful little nation of (currently) five million people, who have produced so much.** (Including, I should point out, many of the central historical figures and cultural traditions celebrated in my homeland, Canada.)

Humanists and atheists often chastise religious people for being too sensitive about their beliefs. I think this is a great opportunity to show that we mean it. Saint Andrew's Day does not exclude us; it does not demean us. So let's set aside the historical religious basis of the day and enjoy it for what it is now.***

Lang may your lum reek!

Footnotes:

* I feel I should point out this post by Cath, in which I learned that even very conservative Christians don't necessarily observe Christmas. This doesn't change the fact that it's historically a religiously-motivated festival, but it does somewhat derail the assumption that Christianity and Christmas necessarily go together.

** I should also acknowledge that Saint Andrew's Day is not a huge thing, even in Scotland. In fact, my main experience of it is the free admission to the castle, and perhaps token acknowledgement in the media. So it's a very different issue in many ways from Christmas. But the parallels are intriguing.

*** Also, I should acknowledge a certain personal bias: Saint Andrew's Day is also my birthday. It's quite nice to be offered free admission to national monuments on your birthday.

Image credit:

Saltire from Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Miscellaneous

Several things have come through my blog reader that I want to comment on, but none require a post of their own. So here you are:

Celebrating Darwin. Still? Again? It doesn't really matter. Here's a well-produced video giving the history of life in brief, narrated by David Attenborough. Delightful to watch.





(Thanks to Mike, the Not Quite So Friendly Humanist, for sharing this video.)

Solar System on one page. Also along the lines of enjoying the natural world. Or, in this case, worlds: a webpage where you can see all the planets (plus Pluto). They are to scale for size, but also for mean distance from the Sun. Try it out.

If you're having difficulty finding the planets in all the black, here's a little trick: after the "/" at the end of the URL, add "#mars", or "#neptune", and it'll zoom to that planet. But that does kind of defeat the purpose: you're supposed to become aware of the vast, vast spaces between the planets.

(Thanks to Phil, the Bad Astronomer, for the link.)

Abolish the Canadian monarch? Here's Canadian humanist and activist Justin Trottier with his take on the fact that the nominal Canadian head of state is not Canadian, and is also the head of one particular religious sect. I tend to agree with him - there is no good reason to retain the monarchy, though perhaps not yet sufficient reason against it to go to the trouble of writing them out of our laws.

Beautiful impermanence. I close this grab-bag with a delightful "sermon" from Daylight Atheism, in which we are encouraged to reflect upon impermanence as autumn surrounds us*. He contrasts the humanist acceptance of our impermanence with the inborn yearning we all have - reflected so frequently in religious beliefs - to deny our own deaths. While I'm not generally interested in contrasting humanism with religious beliefs, I think the contrast here is poignant. Particularly as the humanist position, in following the evidence of the world around us, draws us away from our primitive desires for immortality. It encourages us, in a real sense, to grow up.

Okay, this one could have used its own post. For now, I refer you to this pair of posts (in that order) by Dale McGowan, about discussing mortality with his kids. And this more recent one, about the problem of awesome people being mortal too.

[Edit to add link to the Daylight Atheism post, which I unaccountably forgot to do at first.]

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* Excluding Canada and other northern regions, where winter has already firmly displaced fall, and the whole southern hemisphere, being on the other side of the seasonal see-saw.

For Deena

I have no pretty words to mark this occasion. I have no fanfare to set this day apart from all the other days of our life together.

I have only the same words I share with you every day. I love you.

I have only the same choice I make anew each day. I choose you.

Happy ninth anniversary.

- your everyday Tim

Atheist Pride Day

I am an atheist, and I am proud of it.

It's true, that I prefer to style myself a humanist than an atheist, because I feel it better reflects the positive outlook that lies at the centre of my life. I've even resisted simply using the scarlet A of the Out Campaign. [That link is currently out of order working again.] Also check out the video here.

Hemant, the Friendly Atheist, blogged the other day pointing out that tomorrow (20 March) is Atheist Pride Day. It's being organized around the theme of the Out Campaign, and atheists are encouraged to change their Facebook or other online profile pictures to the scarlet A for the day to show solidarity and encourage other atheists to come out.

Of course, I am already out. But sometimes it pays to remind people. I am an atheist - I do not have a belief in a god. This position, as part of a wider humanist outlook, guides my daily choices, both profound and casual.

I am proud of it, because it is a worldview I have come to through a great deal of questioning and thinking.

I am proud of it because this vein of human thought has a long and noble history, from Socrates through the Enlightenment to modern secular societies.

I am proud of it because my atheism, and the humanism which it is a part of, represent my best self - the best things I do, and the things I strive for but sometimes (often) fail to do, are informed, motivated, and inspired by atheism and humanism.

This is not about sticking it to all those people out there - many of them friends of mine - who are not atheists. It is not about building a wall to divide us from them. It is about asserting that these beliefs of ours are okay. It is about showing everyone - ourselves, theists, and everyone else - that there are many of us out here. It is about showing people that, whatever else it means to be an atheist, it doesn't mean that you are alone, or foolish, or bad.

If you are an out atheist, please participate in Atheist Pride Day tomorrow. If you think you might be an atheist, or know you are but feel alone, have a look around at the various Out Campaign participants (a Google search for Atheist Out Campaign should give you plenty). How many scarlet As are there in your Facebook friends list?

Even if you are a firm theist, perhaps you could spend some time tomorrow trying to think how the world looks from an atheist's standpoint? How do you, or your religious leaders, talk about atheists? How do the culture of your area or the laws of your nation treat atheists? How have they treated them in the past? Do your scriptures mention atheists? If so, how are they portrayed? Is it consistent with the atheists you know personally?

I am an atheist, and I am proud of it. And I would be delighted to talk more about it with you in the comments. Do you want to discuss the merits (and possible drawbacks) of an Atheist Pride Day? Come on in!

Software Freedom Day

I just learned about Software Freedom Day: today, 20 September!

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business -- in short, everywhere!

I don't have much time to research and write the article I would like to write in support of this. I am a big supporter of free software ("free as in speech, not free as in beer"), and hope to include a line of articles on it in this blog when I have more time (whenever that might be).

For the moment, let me just give a little anecdote:

My dad is a farmer in Alberta. He uses a computer for accounting, word processing, e-mail. It is important, because one of his main operations is a mail-order seed-potato business, Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes with a website for people to browse and order from. (He grows several very interesting and exotic varieties of potatoes for gardeners across Canada.) My brother farms with him, growing u-pick flowers and a very popular sunmaze.*

They recently got attacked by an e-mail virus that just about did them out of internet access - a serious problem for an internet-dependent business.

We were visiting Canada at the time, and I suggested trying Linux (specifically Ubuntu, one of the most human-friendly varieties of Linux). They put Linux on the infected machine, got the e-mail client running within the day (it's at least as easy as it is on Windows), and are now 99% virus-proof.

While we were at it, we put Xubuntu, a low-spec variety of Ubuntu, on a laptop that could no longer handle the demands of Windows, and suddenly they had one more usable computer than they had before.

A very short learning curve (about the same as you'd get moving from one version of Windows to the next) and they were all up and running.

Moral: if you don't want to spend money on virus-prone operating systems or on the latest and greatest computer, but just need something that works easily, reliably, and safely, Linux is the way to go. (Free Software is marketed as "free as in speech, not free as in beer", but it's usually both.)

And even if you don't want to go so far as trying Linux (even though it's very easy), there is a lot of useful free software out there that you can use in Windows or on the Mac. Try OpenOffice.org, which has a word processer, a spreadsheet, and most of the applications and features that Microsoft Office has. Try the Gimp, an image processing program akin to Photoshop. And for the love of all things digital, make sure you're using Mozilla Firefox rather than Explorer!

That's all for now. Enjoy Sofware Freedom Day!

*Note: Yes, I am shamelessly promoting my family's businesses here. Go, visit them, try the maze, grow some potatoes.

(Thanks to TeXblog for alerting me to Software Freedom Day.)

My home and native land

Tomorrow, July first, is Canada Day. It commemorates Confederation in 1867, the key step toward our independence from Britain. I'm here in Alberta, still writing up my PhD (almost done!), and I thought I'd take a few minutes to share with you what I love about this land I call home.

I grew up on an Alberta farm. The landscape of my youth contains gently rolling prairies dotted with native woods, and the wall of the Rocky Mountains standing guard on the western horizon.

Photos will never give you the full sense of a place that is at once complete and unfinished, a sense that I got early this spring, looking out over the soft browns of the grassland, dotted with pale, naked deciduous trees, dark spruce, and dirty-white patches of snow. For that, you would need to come stand beside me at the edge of the farmyard here, looking out over those fields. Breathe deep of the crisp, dusty air; squint against the brilliant sun and the vast, pale blue sky. Taste the calm anticipation of spring, the heady vibrancy of summer, the hot explosion of fall, or the sharp, dry tang of winter. Listen to the quiet, vibrant present, humming with the birds of the season and the distant activity of humans. Feel the steady is and the eager will be of the world commingling in this place.

See the sharp peaks of the Rockies on the western horizon. Go visit them. Stand surrounded by these majestic Titans, waiting eternally by the standards of a human life. They have grown an inch, a millimetre, a micrometre at a time, age after age, until the sea floor became the land's ambassador to the sky. Let yourself be thoroughly daunted by the realization of their vast, patient ascent, their venerable serenity. Some are almost as old as life itself; others are young, rising in the late Cretaceous (after the first mammals evolved).

I wish I could share with you just what I love about this land that is in turns both humble and arrogant, noble and common (much like its human tenants). But I cannot. At the root of my connection to Alberta, behind every phrase I use to try to evoke its essence in your mind, is that impossible-to-communicate longing called "home". If the central Alberta prairie is your home, you already know what I mean and my words are a pale substitute for our shared understanding. If it is not, I can only hope to show you fragments and moments of what this place is to me.

Perhaps that is enough.

Come and visit. Not necessarily me, or my family's farm (though you're welcome, of course). Come visit the land. Let me know what it says to you.

Happy Canada Day.

A beautiful picture from Mars

What do you think: is this the most beautiful picture you have ever seen?


Well, why don't you go see what Phil Plait, the coolest and most engaging science blogger I've come across, has to say about the deceptively simple image:

Here are a couple of links to another blog that talks about this awe-inducing image (including a picture that tells even more).

I simply can't compete with Phil's description, so I'll leave you with his words:

Think on this, and think on it carefully: you are seeing a manmade object falling gracefully and with intent to the surface of an alien world, as seen by another manmade object already circling that world, both of them acting robotically, and both of them hundreds of million of kilometers away.

Never, ever forget: we did this. This is what we can do.

Big Girls, You Are Beautiful!

When our daughter, Kaia, was born, she was a little big. And she got bigger so fast that before she was a month old she had grown out of the lovely purple tam I had knitted her. At six months old, she has bigger feet than her ten-month-old cousin.

And she is beautiful enough to stop time. (Empirical fact - I've experienced it many times.)

Everyone - medical professionals, family members, complete strangers - sees her size as a sign of good health, and praises her for it. She is a big girl, and it's a good thing.

Her mom is also bigger than average, and also time-stoppingly beautiful. But people, especially doctors, rarely take her size as a sign of good health. Doctors worried about it when we were trying to conceive; they worried about it when we succeeded and started planning for a minimum-intervention birth; they worry about it almost every time she has an appointment with them, whether her complaint is size-related or not.

When does being a big girl go from a sign of good health to a sign of bad health? Why?

This is not just a modern question about human development. It is also an interesting historical question. For much of human prehistory, the most worrying medical problems were malnutrition and starvation - being big was a sign that you were healthy, had a reliable diet, and (probably) that you were well-off. And of course, fertility and sexuality were positively associated with good padding, as figures like the Venus of Willendorf attest. When did being a big girl go from a sign of good health to a sign of bad health? What changed?

Perhaps the health risks of being big were just obscured by all the other difficulties ancient people faced. Today, we've all heard that being big puts you at greater risk for heart disease, diabetes, and various other causes of early death. We all know these are established facts. Don't we?

Fortunately, Deena has a great interest in her health, not just her size, and has done a good deal of research. She has discovered, through a combination of reading and personal experience, that weight-loss diets almost always fail, or provide only a temporary fix and anyway the health risks connected with size are (except at the high and low extremes) almost entirely imaginary. These conclusions are also drawn by Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth. He was interviewed (mp3) on the Truth-Driven Thinking podcast by Steven Gibson. In the interview (and in the book itself, which I haven't read), he explodes most of the common beliefs about obesity and health. The facts are well-summed up in this quote:

“Even if it were true that thin people had better health than fat people which on the whole, except at its extremes, they don't; and even if it were true that you could show that there was a strong dose response between weight loss and improved health which, again, is not true; it still wouldn't make sense to be focusing on weight loss as a public health intervention unless you could actually produce it, but here's the thing: we can't!”

And he's not the only one to debunk popular myths about weight. So where does that leave me? I have a big, beautiful, cheerful daughter, who is growing up in a culture where big becomes a liability at some stage in the process of growing up, despite the absence of empirical support for the prejudice.

Will the ignorant assumptions of people around her give her feelings of inadequacy and shame? Will she be driven to try unhealthy diets in a desperate attempt to fit into the insanely limited idea of beauty promoted by media?

Fortunately, Kaia has several things going for her. She has her own natural love of being. She has family who love her as she is. She has parents determined to arm her with the critical thinking skills to combat the culturally-biased spin that the media (and many scientists) put on legitimate scientific research into human health. She is growing up in a world where many people are determinedly combating the irrational preconceptions of the wider society - the size acceptance movement, as well as a quietly successful fact-based, government-sponsored health sector focusing on a balanced diet and a sensible amount of exercise.

And there are plenty of people who celebrate the diversity of the human form. Kathryn of A Mindful Life posted not only this exuberant and sexy video of Mika's song "Big Girl, You Are Beautiful"





(it's now one of my favorite songs), but also a photo of her lovely, swimsuit-clad, pregnant self - a charming celebratory affirmation of big beauty. And when it comes to big affirmations, she's not the only one. Not by a long shot.

So finally, here's a picture of the two most important, stupendous, heart-flutteringly delightful women in my life.

Big girls, you are beautiful!