The Scopes Monkey Trial of our Time

We are not required to accept others' false beliefs about reality

Firstly, a reminder that my Ask me Anything: 1000 Subscribers Edition is still open - I will respond later this week.

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We are well practised at handling the fact that we live in a society in which people have different views about the nature of reality.

Because religion is often thought of - particularly by those without faith - as a matter of culture, of practise, or as a source of morality or ethics, we can overlook the fact that people of different faiths don’t just think we should behave differently, but believe things about reality that are fundamentally at odds with the secular consensus.

Sometimes these beliefs are about things that happened in the past - and cannot be easily checked. That a person called Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead three days after he was crucified. That the Archangel Gabriel dictated the Quran to Mohammed in a cave. That the world was created in seven days, or that a flood once wiped out almost all life on earth.¹

But other times these beliefs are about things that are happening right now.² Beliefs such as the idea that people have an immortal soul, that praying for something makes a difference as to whether or not it happens, that preachers can heal someone in a religious service, or that some mental illnesses are caused by demons that can be cast out. Beliefs that when a person dies, they will be reborn as another person or animal.

And, of course, if you are a person of faith reading this, then you will likely believe that all of us atheists - not to mention believers of other religions - have factually incorrect beliefs about the world.³

There are many people who belief factual statements about reality that are not clearly associated with any formal religion. Belief that ghosts exist - or aliens - or Bigfoots⁴, belief that crystals can heal people, or that horoscopes make a difference in people’s lives. Belief that breaking a mirror or walking under a ladder is bad luck - or that touching wood after a statement can prevent it from being jinxed.⁵

We don’t always foreground it, but these all involve real, factual beliefs about reality that differ from the secular, material truths on which we base modern society. And, over time, we’ve developed a sophisticated set of social tools for how we accomodate differing beliefs about reality - and, equally important, how we don’t.

We say that people can’t be discriminated against for their beliefs. You can’t fire someone, deny them a job or refuse them service because they’re a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Jew.

Their are also protections against harassing people for their beliefs - and worse offences, such as physical violence, can be treated as aggravated offences if motivated by a protected characteristic, which includes religion or belief.

We require employers to be sensitive to their employee’s religion - for example, requiring them to accomodate a request for leave to celebrate a religious festival. This isn’t carte blanche - a request can be denied if there is genuine business need and a Catholic, for example, couldn’t ask for 80 days off for 80 different saints’ days - but there is an expectation to be reasonable.

We also make provisions in society to accommodate such beliefs - for example, Muslims and Jews are permitted to slaughter animals in ways that are acceptable to their faith, or Sikhs to wear turbans instead of helmets if serving in the police force.

In our personal dealings, as well, we have ways in which we accommodate these differing beliefs.

It’s generally accepted that you can wish a Christian colleague Happy Easter, or a Muslim one Eid Mubarak, without suggesting that you literally believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that you are accepting the tenets of Islam. In normal everyday life, we simply accept that different people believe different things.

The polite response to a friend saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ if you have recounted some tragedy or illness, is to say, ‘Thank you,’ for a well-meant thought, not to engage in a dispute about the efficacy of prayer. And choosing a time and place of vulnerability, or mourning, or celebration to challenge someone’s - or a community’s - religious beliefs is rightly seen as distasteful or obnoxious.⁶

We accept that people’s beliefs about the nature of life - and death - may determine their approach to key life moments, ceremonies and funeral arrangements.

This is not a ‘solved’ problem. There continues to be debate about where the boundaries should be drawn. Should faith schools exist and what should be taught in them? Should Rastafarians be allowed to smoke cannabis? Should Halal and Kosher butchery be permitted? But broadly, we accept a range of accomodations.

But equally importantly, there are important ways in which we do not accommodate these differing beliefs about reality.

We do not accept they cannot be challenged or criticised. Anyone can say that God does not exist - or that the factual or metaphysical beliefs of any religion are false. Importantly, we do not limit this freedom to theologians or philosophy professors, but allow any man or woman on the street to stand up and proclaim their disbelief in religion.

We do not accept that it is ‘denying the existence of Christians’ to say that Jesus did not rise from the dead, or ‘denying the existence of Hindus’ to refute the fact of reincarnation. We do not accept that saying Moses didn’t really exist ‘makes Jews feel unsafe’ or that the Quran is not the word of Allah ‘threatens Muslims’.

Furthermore, we allow religious beliefs to not just be challenged, but to be mocked and made fun of - even in ways that believers find deeply, profoundly offensive. Cases such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Jerry Springer: The Opera have established this beyond doubt.⁷ It is an important freedom.

We do not expect people who are not members of a religion to actively make statements, attend celebrations or display symbols that indicate agreement with that religion to show ‘solidarity’ or ‘allyship’. No employer⁸ - public or private - would dream of asking employees to add ‘Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.’ or ‘There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet’ to their email signatures to show that the organisation was supportive of Christianity or Muslim. We recognise the difference between an organisation in which a Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu, can work without discrimination and an organisation that actively promotes and champions Christianity, Islam or Hinduism - and have no expectation that employers will be the latter.

Following a harrowing string of child abuse cases in the Catholic Church, Church of England and elsewhere, it is almost unquestioned that we hold people to the same standards and requirements for safeguarding children - regardless of their faith or religious beliefs. There have been too many cases where those who should have been most above reproach have committed appalling atrocities - and in too many cases had their wrongdoings concealed by others.

We do not allow religious beliefs to justify carrying out harmful or invasive interventions on children. No matter how firmly you believe it is good, or necessary, or holy, we will not allow you to carry out female genital mutilation.⁹ In extremis, doctors can provide a blood donation to children even if their parents would rather that we didn’t - and no matter how strongly your beliefs - religious or otherwise - say that a substance or treatment is beneficial, we will not allow you to supply it as a medical treatment in a way that contravenes our standard regulation of such procedures.

If an adult Catholic chose to wear a cilice - the self-mortification device made famous by The Da Vinci Code - we would say that was their business.¹⁰ However, we would not allow such a wearer to come into a school, a scout group or a youth club and promote its use to children. If a headteacher or youth leader did, knowingly, invite in such a person to promote such practices, and this led to one or more children adopting the practice, and ultimately needing medical treatment for it, then that headteacher or leader would be rightly investigated, disciplined and very likely be struck off and/or have limitations placed on them working with children again.

More broadly, we do not allow people’s beliefs about reality - religious or otherwise - to fundamentally infringe the rights of others. If you believe that your God says you should always be given priority in an interview - we do not feel obliged to accommodate this. If your religion says that, for whatever reason, you can touch the ball with your hands in footabll - we do not feel obliged to accommodate this. If your religion says that the standard laws that protect others’ privacy, safety, property or bodily autonomy do not apply to you - we do not feel obliged to accomodate this.

100 years ago this year, the Scopes Monkey Trial took place in Tennessee. Amidst a blaze of publicity, it marked a crucial moment in the battle to ensure that evolution could be taught in schools. Though Scopes was found guilty, it marked a turning point in the battle of truth against dogma - and of establishing that, no matter how offensive - severely, profoundly, offensive - the fact that humans evolved from monkeys¹¹ was to the belief of some Christians, that the most accurate known scientific findings about the material world could be taught in schools.¹²

Last week’s decision by the Supreme Court, that the word ‘woman’ in the Equality Act referred to biological woman, marks a similar turning point. A case that would have been inconceivable a couple of decades ago, it is a line in the sand for the supremacy of biological reality over the unfalsifiable faith-based beliefs of individuals.¹³

Unlike the Scopes trial, in which Scopes was found guilty, last week the Supreme Court found for material reality. But this has only come after a large number of people, primararily women: Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock, Allison Bailey, Kristie Higgs, Denise Fahmy, Eleanor Frances, Jo Phoenix - hear their names! - and more, have lost their jobs, been hounded by their employers and faced state-sponsored persecution¹⁴ for daring to speak the truth that a person cannot change sex.¹⁵

Like the Scopes Monkey Trial, last week’s case is a key moment in the struggle of truth against dogma. I don’t want to get into a debate over whether or not trans ideology is a ‘religion’¹⁶ - for what it is worth, I don’t think it is. But its tenets share a core similarity with many religious beliefs, in that they consist of a metaphysical claim - a dualist belief that all humans have a non-material ‘gender identity’ that can be different from their biological sex - which then leads to a moral imperative about how people should act - that self-identified ‘gender identity’ should be considered more important than biological sex in all or most human interactions. It is their right to believe this - but the rest of us are not obliged to accept it, and we can draw on the wealth of experience we have built up in how to accommodate religious truth claims as to how to accommodate this.

After Scopes, the creationists did not pack up and go home. Secularism was not won in a day. And similarly, here, there will be many more clashes over the years ahead, and perhaps revivals for those who believe in trans ideology - the Supreme Court decision, however important, was only about one specific element of this debate. And, like with religious tolerance, there will no doubt also be many difficult edge cases, which should be approached with wisdom and compassion for all of those involved.

In the immortal words of J K Rowling:

No-one should be fired or discriminated against for what they believe - still less should they be harassed, threatened, or beaten up for it.

But no-one else is obliged to believe what they do - or to pretend that we do in order to ‘show solidarity’ or ‘make them feel safe’. We are permitted to say that we disagree with people’s faith-based beliefs - and to say clearly that they are false. And while courtesy is a virtue, when it comes to our interactions in society, no-one’s mistaken beliefs about reality gives them the right to ignore safe-guarding rules, carry out untested medical interventions upon children - or in any other way to fundamentally infringe upon the rights of others, children or adults.

I recognise this is a contentious issue about which emotions can run high - so please keep things polite in the comments.

1. I’m aware not all people of faith believe in the literal truth of everything that their religion says happened. But a goodly number believe in at least some of them.

2. Though also, interestingly, cannot be easily checked.

3. Unless you are someone who believes ‘all religions, including atheism, are equally true’, in which case there is no help for you.

4. Bigfeet?

5. And we’ve not even got on to the conspiracy theories, such as chemtrails, or the moon landings being faked.

6. Though again, this is ‘you shouldn’t turn up outside a church on Easter Sunday distributing copies of the God Delusion’, not ‘you mustn’t say anything critical of Christianity in any forum throughout the whole of Lent’.

7. Again, there is nuance here. I’m not an employment lawyer, but it seems at least plausible that if you went in to work every morning and greeted your devout Christian colleague with, ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy,’ you could be done for workplace harassment. But the fact that the film exists, can be shown without limitations on television, bought from shops and quoted from or memes shared more broadly in public or on social media is well established.

8. Other than perhaps an explicitly faith-based charity.

9. I’m aware a minority of people think male circumcision should also be banned. That comes into the ‘we’ve not settled all the issues’ - like with faith schools. Opposition to FGM, however, is rightly overwhelming.

10. Yes, I know only a very small minority of Catholics do this.

11. Ook!

12. I know that a fair number of my readers are practicing Christians. However, I think most of them also believe evolution occurred - or, at the least, accept it is the most plausible scientific/materialist explanation of how the diversity of life on Earth arose.

13. Yes, intersex people exist. No, their existence has utterly no bearing on whether the vast majority of humans who are not intersex can change from male to female or vice-versa - just as the fact that clownfish can change sex has no bearing on the fact that humans cannot.

14. I do not think this is too strong a term when a publicly funded body spends tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money pursuing a court case against an individual.

15. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

16. For one thing, everyone defines religion differently.