Constitutional Convention insults secular citizens with 2% vote on Church & State

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

It s not up to me to prove Michael's assertion wrong it is up to him to prove his assertion factual.

What would be your response to a theist who asked you to prove that there is no God?

The burden of proof lies with michael, not me.

and Michael has provided the submissions via the convention website. If you have a problem with his claims, then do the homework of auditing the submissions.

Brown Bomber

koth wrote: »

and Michael has provided the submissions via the convention website. If you have a problem with his claims, then do the homework of auditing the submissions.

Yes, and i provided the same evidence to show that the deportation of gingers was most. Submitted.

Why is this any different?

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Yes, and i provided the same evidence to show that the deportation of gingers was most. Submitted.

Why is this any different?

you mean the silly claim you pulled out of the sky? One can only wonder.

Michael Nugent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

And are you going to show me an aerial photograph of loch ness next as evidence that the monster is in there somewhere?

Brown Bomber wrote: »

That same list in fact actually shows that the highest numbers number of submissions were in support of bussing every ginger in the land across the border and annulling their citizenship.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

What would be your response to a theist who asked you to prove that there is no God?

Ah, right.

I'm sorry I made the mistake of taking your earlier comments seriously.

Nodin

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Uhhuh, it also adds a plus 1 to everything else and since the object of the exercise was to get and idea of the number of submissions relative to each other it makes no difference.

now could you answer the previous question please?

I've no idea if his claims are factual. I do know that yours aren't, so I'm working from that.

robindch

Folks, I haven't counted submissions myself, but until I do, I think the analyses provided by Michael and Gordon are accurate and sufficient, and disputation will not shed any more light on the Convention's strange decision.

Next topic, please.

Brown Bomber

The Lobbyists Atheist Ireland lambasted the Constitutional Convention here and elsewhere; including their own site for the outrageous "insult" caused to them and "secular Citizens" everywhere with the Convention prioritising basic human rights for Irish Citizens and political reform Before their own agenda.


The faulty reasoning behind this was the unsupported claims that a) It had the most support in public meetings and b) Separation of Church State received the most submissions from the public.




These are the numbers published by Atheist Ireland.


190 Separation of Church and State
166 ESC rights
160 Environment
110 Family and Issues of Morality
53 Political and Institutional Reform
32 Bill of Rights

I've gone through the submissions one-by-one and it appears to me that at best someone has miscalculated and inflated the seperation of Church and State figures and at worst has intentionally tried to mislead.

This is what I got. I didn't know how to insert an excel file into here so I put it into a blog

http://constitutionalconventionsubmissionscount.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/submissions-to-the-irish-constitutional-convention-by-type/?preview=true&preview_id=8&preview_nonce=10ab8a5190&post_format=standard

robindch

Brown Bomber wrote: »

This is what I got

If you want to continue this thread, then I suggest you take the list of submissions from here and list them sequentially, with each one allocated to whatever category it's due, then post the results.

There's no need for a separate thread to do this and if you don't have a licensed copy of Excel, then feel free to try the equivalent offerings from Open Office or Libre Office.

Brown Bomber

robindch wrote: »

If you want to continue this thread, then I suggest you take the list of submissions from here and list them sequentially, with each one allocated to whatever category it's due, then post the results.

???


That is what is in the link.
Since you were allowing Michael to shift the burden of proof that is exactly what I did do.


C Con Submissions Before Oct 25


C Con Submissions After October 25

Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent wrote: »

That's not actually the case.

The most orchestrated campaign by far was for ESC Rights, which ended up on the agenda. Without that campaign, I doubt many of the Convention members would even be familiar with the term ESC Rights. That campaign involved a coordinated network of organisations, some with full-time paid employees, working over a period of many months, holding seminars and lobbying politicians, and coordinating written submissions.

The second most orchestrated campaign was for the Environment. Again, this involved several organisations over a period of many months, lobbying politicians and coordinating written submissions.

Ours was probably the third most orchestrated, and it was esssentially run by one organisation, with no staff and very limited resources. We only really started after the Convention had dealt with blasphemy, because up to then we had to focus our resources on ensuring that that was passed.

And when we did encourage people to make written submissions, we did not coordinate them with boilerplate submissions, but instead asked people to write in their own words why they felt the issue should be addressed.

Indeed, the Convention Secretariat specifically told us that it was noticeable that the Church and State submissions were individually written by people describing their own opinions when compared to some other submissions.

Finally, there was a late campaign for Family and Issues of Morality, resulting in a lot of submissions starting partway through the public meeting process.

The only two of the six categories for which there was not an orchestrated campaign were political and institutional reform and bill of rights. And I suspect if I checked, there may well have been a small campaign for bill of rights as it does not seem to me to be the type of thing a lot of people would independently see as a priority, but I might be mistaken about that.

Given that there was so much orchestration going on by so many lobby groups in so many areas, it would seem that the Convention in essence ignored it all, made up its own mind about what should be prioritised, and then decided accordingly.

And made the right decision, too. Nice work, IMO.

Michael Nugent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

The Lobbyists Atheist Ireland lambasted the Constitutional Convention here and elsewhere; including their own site for the outrageous "insult" caused to them and "secular Citizens" everywhere with the Convention prioritising basic human rights for Irish Citizens and political reform Before their own agenda.

That’s an interesting exercise in hyperbole. Let’s unpack it.

We’re not “The Lobbyists Atheist Ireland”. Lobbying is one of the many things that we do.

We didn’t “lambaste” the convention. We criticized them in a strong but balanced way, and we included the statement “Atheist Ireland accepts that different people have different priorities, and we did not expect to automatically have our priorities on the agenda. We understand why people would see Political and Institutional Reform to be central to the Constitution, and we are part of the network that supports ESC Rights.”

We didn’t describe the insult as “outrageous”. You just made that up. We didn’t say that the insult was to “secular citizens everywhere”. I know that you know that we didn’t say that, because you have already acknowledged that on this thread after you made that mistake before.

We didn’t criticize them for “prioritizing basic human rights for all citizens”, and we do not place “basic human rights for Irish citizens” before “our own agenda”. Our own agenda in this context is to promote basic human rights for all Irish citizens. These include the right to freedom of conscience, the right to freedom from discrimination, the right to equality before the law, the right to family and private life and the rights of the child.

These are among the most basic of human rights (more fundamental than ESC Rights), and Ireland is breaching them on a regular basis, as we have been told by the UN Human Rights Committee, the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the Irish Human Rights Commission, and the Ombudsman for Children, among others. Any implied exclusion of these from “basic human rights” just makes tackling the problem that little bit harder.

So feel free to criticize us for what we say and do, but please don’t just criticize your misrepresentation of what we say and do.

Michael Nugent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

The faulty reasoning behind this was the unsupported claims that a) It had the most support in public meetings and b) Separation of Church State received the most submissions from the public.

They’re not unsupported claims.

The claim that Church and State had most support at public meetings is supported by our Regional Officer attending each of the public meetings, and recording how many people spoke on each topic.

The claim that Church and State had most submissions published on the Convention website is based on counting the number of submissions published on the website.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

These are the numbers published by Atheist Ireland.

190 Separation of Church and State
166 ESC rights
160 Environment
110 Family and Issues of Morality
53 Political and Institutional Reform
32 Bill of Rights

I've gone through the submissions one-by-one and it appears to me that at best someone has miscalculated and inflated the seperation of Church and State figures and at worst has intentionally tried to mislead.

It's good to see you moving away from your earlier arguments based on Padre Pio miracles, the Loch Ness Monster, gingers being bussed out of the State, and disproving the existence of God.

And you are correct that at best someone has miscalculated and at worst has intentionally tried to mislead. As a charitable person, I will assume that you miscalculated.

Firstly, as a very minor point, your summary includes a figure of 140 for Church and State submissions published after Oct 25. However, your more detailed breakdown puts that figure at 142. When you add the 25 submissions from before Oct 25, that should bring you to 167 instead of 165.

But more importantly, what you appear to have done is calculated only the number of submissions that were submitted to the website using the category "Other". In fairness, it is understandable why you would do that, as that is where the submissions should be categorized on the website.

However, if you also check the submissions that were submitted under the category "Blasphemy", you will find that 24 people made submissions under that website category that are either explicitly in their titles about Separating Church and State (as distinct from being about blasphemy) or else are in their titles about Blasphemy but within the submission refer to both Blasphemy and Separating Church and State.

It seems reasonable to assume that these people saw the category option of "Blasphemy" as being the nearest option to what they were looking for, and thus submitted them under that website category instead of the website category "Other". However, it doesn't actually matter why they mistakenly miscategorised them on the website. They are still submissions about their content, which is Separation of Church and State.

When you add those submissions into your calculations, you should find that the Church and State figure more or less matches the 190 figure that Atheist Ireland posted (I make it one out, but I may be mistaken in that).

As I know from your previous post that you can do that exercise, I assume that you will for the sake of accuracy update the blog that you created in order to publish your figures.

robindch

Brown Bomber wrote: »

That is what is in the link.

Nope. You've got two lists. Put them into one. Then sort them. Then post the results so other people can verify the figures and verify them against your earlier claims if they wish.

And drop the trivially false misrepresentations of AI or you will be carded for incivility.

Brown Bomber

Michael Nugent wrote: »

They’re not unsupported claims.

The claim that Church and State had most support at public meetings is supported by our Regional Officer attending each of the public meetings, and recording how many people spoke on each topic.

The claim that Church and State had most submissions published on the Convention website is based on counting the number of submissions published on the website.


It's good to see you moving away from your earlier arguments based on Padre Pio miracles, the Loch Ness Monster, gingers being bussed out of the State, and disproving the existence of God.

And you are correct that at best someone has miscalculated and at worst has intentionally tried to mislead. As a charitable person, I will assume that you miscalculated.

Firstly, as a very minor point, your summary includes a figure of 140 for Church and State submissions published after Oct 25. However, your more detailed breakdown puts that figure at 142. When you add the 25 submissions from before Oct 25, that should bring you to 167 instead of 165.

But more importantly, what you appear to have done is calculated only the number of submissions that were submitted to the website using the category "Other". In fairness, it is understandable why you would do that, as that is where the submissions should be categorized on the website.

However, if you also check the submissions that were submitted under the category "Blasphemy", you will find that 24 people made submissions under that website category that are either explicitly in their titles about Separating Church and State (as distinct from being about blasphemy) or else are in their titles about Blasphemy but within the submission refer to both Blasphemy and Separating Church and State.

It seems reasonable to assume that these people saw the category option of "Blasphemy" as being the nearest option to what they were looking for, and thus submitted them under that website category instead of the website category "Other". However, it doesn't actually matter why they mistakenly miscategorised them on the website. They are still submissions about their content, which is Separation of Church and State.

When you add those submissions into your calculations, you should find that the Church and State figure more or less matches the 190 figure that Atheist Ireland posted (I make it one out, but I may be mistaken in that).

As I know from your previous post that you can do that exercise, I assume that you will for the sake of accuracy update the blog that you created in order to publish your figures.

1) Thanks for pointing that out. I had wrongly assumed that everything was covered under "submissions" and the others were sub categories. I will amend when possible
2) Without analysing I can tell you straight off that "Family and Issues of Morality" has considerably more submissions than "Separation of Church & State".
https://www.constitution.ie/Submissions.aspx?cid=50

Brown Bomber

robindch wrote: »

Nope. You've got two lists. Put them into one. Then sort them. Then post the results so other people can verify the figures and verify them against your earlier claims if they wish.

And drop the trivially false misrepresentations of AI or you will be carded for incivility.

Could you please just open the link that I provided? As I've said once already this is EXACTLY what I've done.

Michael Nugent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

1) Thanks for pointing that out. I had wrongly assumed that everything was covered under "submissions" and the others were sub categories. I will amend when possible.

Thanks. As I said, I understand why you would have assumed they would be categorized under "Other"

Brown Bomber wrote: »

2) Without analysing I can tell you straight off that "Family and Issues of Morality" has considerably more submissions than "Separation of Church & State".
https://www.constitution.ie/Submissions.aspx?cid=50

No, that's a different issue.

There are two types of agenda item that the Convention had to discuss. One was a list of specific items that the Government asked them to discuss. That list included both same-sex marriage and blasphemy, as well as other items.

The Convention did not have any discretion about discussing those items. The Convention's discretion only came into play on the final agenda item, which was any other items that they wanted to make recommendations on.

What we are talking about here are submissions for the "AOB" section, not submissions about items which were already on the agenda (and indeed have already been addressed by the Convention.)

For clarity, I am not including all of the submissions about blasphemy as part of the figure for Church and State. I am including only submissions about Church and State that were miscategorized under Blasphemy.

To fairly compare the number of submissions on Same Sex Marriage with the number of submissions on Church and State, you would have to have one or other of the following two scenarios:

Either (a) that both were specifically on the agenda, and the Convention was seeking submissions on how to address them; or (B) that neither were on the agenda, and the Convention was seeking submissions on whether to include them.

Brown Bomber

Same sex marriage clearly falls under the broader category of "Family and Issues of Morality". Blasphemy and separation of Church and State are clearly two separate issues.

Michael Nugent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Same sex marriage clearly falls under the broader category of "Family and Issues of Morality". Blasphemy and separation of Church and State are clearly two separate issues.

That wasn't the point I was making. I was distinguishing between items already on the Convention's agenda (including Same Sex Marriage and Blasphemy) and items that were not on the Convention's agenda (including Family and Issues of Morality and Separation of Church and State).

But if you do want to interrelate the issues (which I do agree is reasonable as part of a different conversation) then Blasphemy is certainly related to Separation of Church and State in any context, and Same Sex Marriage is related to Separation of Church and State in an Irish context. So is Family and Issues of Morality; indeed in Ireland those terms are almost a code phrase for the influence of the Catholic Church on private morality.

Michael Nugent

Deleted User wrote: »

Given that there was so much orchestration going on by so many lobby groups in so many areas, it would seem that the Convention in essence ignored it all, made up its own mind about what should be prioritised, and then decided accordingly.

That’s not actually correct.

In March 2013 the ESC Rights Initiative held a seminar in Dublin titled “Pursuing Constitutional Protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - Identifying Allies and Opportunities.”

33 of the Convention delegates are public representatives. The Convention delegations from all parties and groupings in the Dáil were invited to attend this seminar to outline their party position on ESC rights.

During the morning session of the seminar politicians from all political parties, and the Technical Group, committed in varying degrees to support the review of ESC rights as part of the Constitutional Convention process.

Banbh

The Constitutional Convention is a crock.

It is comprised of appointees who were then deemed to be representative of the people. It has a 'neutral' chairman appointed by the Government - neutral between what and what is not mentioned. They have been cruising around the country holding public meetings at which people say anything they fancy and then the neutral chairman summarises and moves on.

It's a crock. And it is going to come out with the greatest load of oul cobblers imaginable and then the neutral chairman will be appointed to the Senate.

Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent wrote: »

That’s not actually correct.

Then why did you say it? I was only summarising all the stuff you posted about various groups orchestrating campaigns to get submissions made.

The number of submissions is, to say the least, small. Moreover, the submissions have all been made by people who are, for want of better terminology, highly committed to what they are campaigning for. It would also appear - on the basis of what you've said - that many of the submissions were the result of orchestrated campaigns. Let's face it, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? Given the choice between giving priority to issues based on the volume of material sent to the Convention, or giving priority to issues based on the analyses of the Convention's members, I'd go for the latter. It's not an ideal choice by any means, but by the looks of things the alternative is to run the risk of letting the agenda be dominated by fringe groups who "bulk up" their lobbying efforts.

Michael Nugent

Deleted User wrote: »

Then why did you say it? I was only summarising all the stuff you posted about various groups orchestrating campaigns to get submissions made.

I didn't say that it wasn't correct that there were orchestrated campaigns to encourage submissions. Of course there were. I said that the following is not correct -

Deleted User wrote: »

Given that there was so much orchestration going on by so many lobby groups in so many areas, it would seem that the Convention in essence ignored it all, made up its own mind about what should be prioritised, and then decided accordingly.

i.e., that it is not correct that the Convention in essence ignored the orchestration going on by lobby groups.

I then gave an example of the political parties, via their delegations to the Convention, giving commitments at a seminar organized by one of the lobby groups to support including the topic that the seminar was organized to lobby them about.

Deleted User wrote: »

The number of submissions is, to say the least, small. Moreover, the submissions have all been made by people who are, for want of better terminology, highly committed to what they are campaigning for. It would also appear - on the basis of what you've said - that many of the submissions were the result of orchestrated campaigns. Let's face it, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? Given the choice between giving priority to issues based on the volume of material sent to the Convention, or giving priority to issues based on the analyses of the Convention's members, I'd go for the latter. It's not an ideal choice by any means, but by the looks of things the alternative is to run the risk of letting the agenda be dominated by fringe groups who "bulk up" their lobbying efforts.

By far the most orchestrated campaign, and the most resourced, and the only one to get commitments from Convention delegates at a lobbying seminar, was the campaign run by the ESC Rights Initiative.

So do you believe that, by selecting ESC Rights, the Convention has "run the risk of letting the agenda be dominated by fringe groups who 'bulk up' their lobbying efforts"?

Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent wrote: »

So do you believe that, by selecting ESC Rights, the Convention has "run the risk of letting the agenda be dominated by fringe groups who 'bulk up' their lobbying efforts"?

Is that a question or a statement? It looks like a question because it has a question mark at the end. But the "so" at the start makes it look like you've already leaped to a conclusion.

I believe that you are cross because your lobby group wasn't successful in getting its agenda promoted, and you've decided to play the victimisation card with your "insults secular citizens" line.

As far as the work of the Convention goes, I would regard the reform of Ireland's political systems and institutions to be the top priority, and I would regard economic, social and cultural rights to be a second priority, albeit at some distance behind the first. Despite being an atheist, I consider issues of separation of church and state to be a lower priority. Moreover, I am of the view that many (perhaps all?) of the issues that I would consider important as an atheist are capable of being addressed under those two priority headings.

Instead of seething because their orchestration campaign failed, and moaning about being insulted, Atheist Ireland would be better employed acknowledging that its campaign concerns are in fact issues of political and institutional reform, and issues of social and cultural rights - and addressing them with the Convention accordingly.

Michael Nugent

Deleted User wrote: »

Is that a question or a statement? It looks like a question because it has a question mark at the end. But the "so" at the start makes it look like you've already leaped to a conclusion.

I believe that you are cross because your lobby group wasn't successful in getting its agenda promoted, and you've decided to play the victimisation card with your "insults secular citizens" line.

As far as the work of the Convention goes, I would regard the reform of Ireland's political systems and institutions to be the top priority, and I would regard economic, social and cultural rights to be a second priority, albeit at some distance behind the first. Despite being an atheist, I consider issues of separation of church and state to be a lower priority.

It’s a question, related to your opinion that paying attention to orchestrated campaigns runs the risk of letting the agenda be dominated by fringe groups who "bulk up" their lobbying efforts.

I was trying to ascertain whether you applied that reasoning to the political Convention members giving commitments to lobby groups for ESC Rights.

That’s a separate issue from your personal opinion of what issues you personally believe the Convention should discuss.

So a paraphrase of my question might be - independently of your personal opinion that the Convention should discuss ESC Rights on its merits - do you have the same procedural concerns about the lobbying by the ESC Rights Initiative as you seem to have about the lobbying by Atheist Ireland, and would you describe the campaign by the ESC Rights Initiative to have people make submissions as that of a fringe group bulking up its lobbying efforts?

Deleted User wrote: »

Moreover, I am of the view that many (perhaps all?) of the issues that I would consider important as an atheist are capable of being addressed under those two priority headings.

Instead of seething because their orchestration campaign failed, and moaning about being insulted, Atheist Ireland would be better employed acknowledging that its campaign concerns are in fact issues of political and institutional reform, and issues of social and cultural rights - and addressing them with the Convention accordingly.

Putting aside your inaccurate phrases about being cross and seething and moaning, you should of course be correct that some (though by no means all) secular issues can be addressed in the context of the two issues that the Convention selected.

We of course contacted the Convention to make this suggestion when we heard of their decision, and we asked the Secretariat to convey our suggestions as to what aspects of the issues involve religious discrimination.

However, they had already sent out a ballot paper asking the members what aspects of Political and Institutional Reform they wanted to discuss. This ballot paper does not include any secular issues, though there is an “other” option at the bottom.

Based on that, I suspect that it is unlikely that they will consider secular issues related to Political and Institutional Reform, but we will have to wait and see.

Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent wrote: »

So a paraphrase of my question might be - independently of your personal opinion that the Convention should discuss ESC Rights on its merits - do you have the same procedural concerns about the lobbying by the ESC Rights Initiative as you seem to have about the lobbying by Atheist Ireland, and would you describe the campaign by the ESC Rights Initiative to have people make submissions as that of a fringe group bulking up its lobbying efforts?

No, because I don't have any procedural concerns about lobbying by Atheist Ireland. My point was that you tried and didn't succeed. As for "ESC Rights Initiative", my view is that those issues would have polled in second place in the priority order anyway. Accordingly, my own view is that their lobbying efforts weren't any more successful than Atheist Ireland's, though of course that is not easily proven.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Putting aside your inaccurate phrases about being cross and seething and moaning....

My language wasn't inaccurate. Atheist Ireland lobbied and didn't succeed, because other issues were given a higher priority. But instead of recognising that, you've tried to frame the decision in terms of "insults", when the decision isn't insulting. Whether this is tactical deployment of victimhood, or whether you genuinely feel victimised I can't say, but either way it's wrong and misses the point.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

We of course contacted the Convention to make this suggestion when we heard of their decision, and we asked the Secretariat to convey our suggestions as to what aspects of the issues involve religious discrimination.

However, they had already sent out a ballot paper asking the members what aspects of Political and Institutional Reform they wanted to discuss. This ballot paper does not include any secular issues, though there is an “other” option at the bottom.

Based on that, I suspect that it is unlikely that they will consider secular issues related to Political and Institutional Reform, but we will have to wait and see.

If it is the case that the Convention has now closed itself to any input from outside, then their approach may be flawed (of course, this assumes an absence of sound reasons for that).

On the other hand, perhaps the issues of concern to Atheist Ireland might have found their way on to the ballot papers had Atheist Ireland addressed their concerns in a manner more likely to gain traction in the first place. As I said already, many (if not all) of the issues of concern are capable of being addressed under the rubrics of political and institutional reform or social and cultural rights. In fact, if you look at this from the perspective of revising the Constitution rather than campaigning to separate church and state, it is the most logical way to consider the issues involved.

Michael Nugent

Deleted User wrote: »

No, because I don't have any procedural concerns about lobbying by Atheist Ireland. My point was that you tried and didn't succeed.

No, that was not your point. Your point (or at least the point that you made to which I was responding) was a general point about the harmful impact of orchestrated lobbying campaigns, and in particular your assertion that:

Deleted User wrote: »

I was only summarising all the stuff you posted about various groups orchestrating campaigns to get submissions made. The number of submissions is, to say the least, small. Moreover, the submissions have all been made by people who are, for want of better terminology, highly committed to what they are campaigning for. It would also appear - on the basis of what you've said - that many of the submissions were the result of orchestrated campaigns. Let's face it, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it?

You then referred to Convention “running the risk of letting the agenda be dominated by fringe groups who "bulk up" their lobbying efforts,” and I was wondering whether you included the lobbying by the ESC Rights Initiative as one such fringe group.

Deleted User wrote: »

As for "ESC Rights Initiative", my view is that those issues would have polled in second place in the priority order anyway. Accordingly, my own view is that their lobbying efforts weren't any more successful than Atheist Ireland's, though of course that is not easily proven.

As you say, that is not easily proven. However, on the face of it, the evidence leans strongly towards the suggestion that the ESC lobbying efforts were more successful, and not merely because it got on to the agenda. I was involved in both campaigns, and in my experience most people don't generally understand what ESC Rights are until you explain it to them. In fact, most people haven't even heard of the concept of ESC Rights until you introduce it to them. From my experience of both campaigns, I would put the chances of ESC Rights being on the Convention's agenda without that lobbying campaign at vanishingly small.

But that is not the question that I was asking you. I was asking you whether you consider the lobbying by the ESC Rights Initiative to fall under the category of orchestrated lobbying that you summarize as "Let's face it, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it?" and whether you consider the lobbying by the ESC Rights Initiative to be “running the risk of letting the agenda be dominated by fringe groups who "bulk up" their lobbying efforts”?
.

Brown Bomber

Michael I had meant to apologise for my accusation before, it was a genuine mistake.

Submissions aside, could you please clarify something for the record?

You believe that removing references to God in the Irish Constitution is more urgent than providing a home, food and clean drinking water to all Irish children?

You also believe that given the choice between the two that more Irish people would prioritise removing these references over these basic human rights?

Brown Bomber

Actually, I think this might answer my own question.


140+ favourite atheist-related books http://www.michaelnugent.com/best/140-favourite-atheist-related-books/

"Any book by Ayn Rand"
(...)
"Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Demonstrates the dangers of dogma in society whether mystical or social. Offers a view of ethics which rejects altruism as its basis and tells why and how rational egoism is the rational ethics in which to life by."


And the satanic Bible???

Michael Nugent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Michael I had meant to apologise for my accusation before, it was a genuine mistake.

Okay, thanks, that's fine. I appreciate the apology. We're all doing our best, and there are no villains here.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Submissions aside, could you please clarify something for the record?

You believe that removing references to God in the Irish Constitution is more urgent than providing a home, food and clean drinking water to all Irish children?

You also believe that given the choice between the two that more Irish people would prioritise removing these references over these basic human rights?

I'll try to reply to this later today.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Actually, I think this might answer my own question.


140+ favourite atheist-related books http://www.michaelnugent.com/best/140-favourite-atheist-related-books/

"Any book by Ayn Rand"
(...)
"Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Demonstrates the dangers of dogma in society whether mystical or social. Offers a view of ethics which rejects altruism as its basis and tells why and how rational egoism is the rational ethics in which to life by."

And the satanic Bible???

I think the opening paragraphs to that list should show why anything within it does not answer your question, or indeed any question, about what I believe:

Extract from article on my website wrote:

This list was first published in July 2009, and is occasionally updated: add your own favourite atheist-related book to the comments and I will add it to the list.

During July 2009 I asked on Twitter and Facebook about your favourite atheist-related books, and why. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins was recommended as many times as the next three books combined. The Bible took second place, with its power to convince people of atheism edging it ahead of God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

Also popular in the original list were books by Phillip Pullman, Sam Harris, Bertrand Russell, Daniel Dennett, Douglas Adams, Michael Shermer, Julian Baggini, Pascal Boyer, Nietzsche, Carl Sagan and Derren Brown. More have since been added based on the comments to this post.

But the most fascinating part is the eclectic list of books recommended once. You may not have heard of all of them, but each is a book that somebody, somewhere, believes to be a valuable read for anybody interested in finding out more about atheism, reality or morality.

Here’s the full list, along with some of the reasons that you gave as to why this was your favourite atheist-related book.

Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent wrote: »

But that is not the question that I was asking you.
.

I've already answered the question you were asking me, and the fact that you don't acknowledge that says more about you than it does about me.

Your point about the ESC Initiative or whatever it was called is not well made. Logically, the most important topic for the Convention to consider is political and institutional reform. Equally logically, the next most important - though considerably less important - is the area of economic, social and cultural rights. So the Convention called it right, and should not be expected to call it wrong just because one lobby group is unhappy about their perceived failure in the face of another lobby group's perceived success.

And in case you haven't noticed from my previous postings, I am not best enamoured of the victim culture or of persecution complexes. I am an atheist who grew up in an Ireland that was significantly more dominated by a Catholic ethos than it is today. I wasn't a victim then, and I'm not a victim now. If Atheist Ireland wants to play victim politics, that's its business - but don't be surprised if someone like me takes a dislike to that and says so.

Michael Nugent

Deleted User wrote: »

I've already answered the question you were asking me, and the fact that you don't acknowledge that says more about you than it does about me.

No you haven’t. You have repeatedly not answered it, regardless of how many times I have rephrased it. I’ll assume that this is because of my failure to communicate my question effectively, so I will try once more.

To clarify, I am not asking about your opinion as to whether the Convention made the right choice. And I am not asking about your opinion about anything to do with Atheist Ireland. And I am not asking about your opinion about the relative merits of ESC Rights and other issues.

I am asking whether you consider the campaign of the ESC Rights Initiative to be that of a fringe group bulking up its lobbying efforts by orchestrating campaigns to get more submissions made to the Convention?

Michael Nugent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Submissions aside, could you please clarify something for the record?

You believe that removing references to God in the Irish Constitution is more urgent than providing a home, food and clean drinking water to all Irish children?

You also believe that given the choice between the two that more Irish people would prioritise removing these references over these basic human rights?

What you have done in that question is to contrast the most trivially phrased expression of the campaign to separate Church and State, with the most emotionally charged expression of the campaign for ESC Rights. That’s not a fair contrast.

You could do the same thing the other way around by contrasting the most trivially phrased expression of the campaign for ESC Rights, with the most emotionally charged expression of the campaign to separate Church and State.

For example, you could ask “You believe that adding in references to the right of authors to be recognised as creators of their work to the Irish Constitution, is more urgent than providing a basic education free from religious indoctrination to all Irish children and treating all citizens equally before the law without discrimination? You also believe that given the choice between the two that more Irish people would prioritise the rights of authors over these basic human rights?”

The campaign to secularize the Constitution is not just about removing references to God from the document. It is about removing the breaches of the most basic human rights of secular citizens that are caused by the religious references in the Constitution.

These include the right to freedom of conscience, the right to freedom from discrimination, the right to equality before the law, the right to private and family life, and the rights of the child. These are absolutely fundamental human rights.

So let’s imagine we are talking about either the weakest expression of both issues, or else the strongest expression of both issues, but not the weakest expression of one over the strongest expression of the other.

In that context, it is a false dilemma to suggest that the Convention had to choose one or other of these issues as being more urgent. It could have chosen to discuss both, or it could have chosen to discuss three or more issues. It was not a competition between ESC Rights and Separation of Church and State.

I have never complained that the Convention is discussing ESC Rights. I wanted the Convention to discuss ESC Rights. I actively campaigned for the Convention to discuss ESC Rights. Atheist Ireland is part of the ESC Rights Initiative.

If you want to rephrase “urgency” as “the most logical order in which to address the issues”, then I think that the most logical order would be to first address the breaches of basic human rights that are infringed by the religious influence on our Constitution.

These are the type of basic rights that, under international human rights law, should be respected immediately, that should not be balanced against other rights, and that do not depend on the availability of resources in order to be progressively realised.

When all citizens have freedom of conscience, the right to freedom from discrimination, the right to equality before the law, then we have a solid foundation upon which to build the next level of rights, which include ESC Rights, which are internationally recognized as rights that can be progressively realised based on available resources.

So I believe that the Convention should have discussed both, and should have sequentially discussed Church and State first and ESC Rights second, in order to ensure that all citizens have both the basic human rights and the next level ESC Rights.

And that is what I and Atheist Ireland have been actively campaigning for, and will continue to do so.

Brown Bomber

If I could just clarify my position for a minute - I am all for the separation of Church and State, just like I am all for reform in all the areas the Commision voted on. However, I was born and raised in Ireland and have somehow managed to avoid this so-called "indocrination" and I have never personally witnessed any meaningful discrimination against non-Catholics in my lifetime in Ireland. I am talking about everyday life. On the other hand I have seen and spoken with many hungry and frightened children living on our streets.

I personally couldn't care less about traditional religious oaths or if our constitution mentions God in places. I don't have an anti-religion agenda, I don't think you can deny that you do. For example, didn't you campaign to have Mass Cards for the dead banned...?

I believe this agenda is clouding your judgement. There are no right or wrong answers to the question "what is important to you?" That said, I don't believe that anyone with a conscience could put their own "special interests" before the rights to have the bare minimum to survive in terms of food, water and shelter.

Then you are in a difficult position. Even if you were to consider for example, the Environment and Political Reform as your own personal 1 and 2 you have obligations to say otherwise.

Likewise, I would suspect that you were under some pressures to come out swinging after your unsuccesful lobbying attempts. Coming out crying "insult" wasn't dignified at all, it smacks of desperation, especially given the context and the (non) source of your "insult".

The whole submissions process was diluted into insignificance by people like yourself. The Convention should not be and thanfully were not influenced by numbers which were inflated by online marketing campaigns and the social media. If every Mosque in Ireland demanded that Muslims left a submission on the site requesting Sharia Law in the Constitution and it ended up with the most submissions would you equally have been "insulted" if the Convention prioritised ESC rights over Sharia Law?

I doubt it somehow.

robindch

Brown Bomber - do you have anything positive to contribute to this discussion?

Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent wrote: »

No you haven’t. You have repeatedly not answered it, regardless of how many times I have rephrased it. I’ll assume that this is because of my failure to communicate my question effectively, so I will try once more.

Your failure - though failure is a harsh term for you to use - is not in communicating your question effectively. It is in the fact that you don't have a consistent question. You asked something of me, and I answered it. The answer wasn't to your liking, so you "paraphrased" (in other words, amended) your question. The answer I gave to that question wasn't to your liking, so you changed your question again.

I answered two of your questions, and then I decided to stop playing that particular game when it appeared that instead of taking my answers for what they were worth you would just ask another question. If you go back over the exchange of posts between us you'll see that this is the case.

I'll set this out comprehensively, but in fairness I don't think I should be expected to do it again. The only reason why you get to make submissions and to lobby in relation to this matter - whether in respect of Atheist Ireland or the ESC Initiative - is because you have arrogated to yourself the right to do that. Speaking as an atheist, you don't represent me, and you don't represent any atheist I know. Likewise, you don't represent me in my capacity as a middle-aged middle-class parent with a concern for social justice. That's not a criticism of you or the groups, by the way. It's just the way it is.

Why is the above relevant? Here's why. Because exactly the same can be said about almost every interest group under the sun, including those that lobbied the Convention, or orchestrated submissions and representations to it. None of them really represent anyone other than the cabals and interest groups who care enough about some issue or other and have the spare time and energy to devote to their passion. Many of them are decent people who want to make their society and community better. Some of them are wingnuts and headbangers. What they all have in common is their zeal about their issues and the time, energy and willingness to put in the work to promote their agenda.

What does that mean? It means that every single group who orchestrated a campaign to get their agenda "on the clár" was doing the same thing - trying to bulk themselves up, and trying to jockey for position. Is that a bad thing? Not really, it's the nature of politics. Do I have "procedural concerns" about it? No, regardless of whether it comes from Atheist Ireland or anyone else. Do I think it should be taken seriously? Only up to a point, because a sensible political system has to be capable of looking beyond orchestrated campaigns. I think complaining about someone else's lobbying when you did the same and you didn't "win" might help you vent steam, but it doesn't really get you anywhere.

It seems to me that, faced with a few different campaigns, the Convention's membership decided to make a judgement call. On the face of it, they made the right call, though they might yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if they are too narrow in their definitions of what can be discussed under the headings of political and institutional reform and economic, social and cultural rights.

And crucially as regards this thread, the Convention's members were not insulting secular citizens in making their decision. Saying that they were just comes across as victim politics and doesn't help your argument. I think you know that, by the way.

Michael Nugent

Deleted User wrote: »

What does that mean? It means that every single group who orchestrated a campaign to get their agenda "on the clár" was doing the same thing - trying to bulk themselves up, and trying to jockey for position. Is that a bad thing? Not really, it's the nature of politics. Do I have "procedural concerns" about it? No, regardless of whether it comes from Atheist Ireland or anyone else. Do I think it should be taken seriously? Only up to a point, because a sensible political system has to be capable of looking beyond orchestrated campaigns.

Okay, thanks, that answers the question that I was trying and failing to accurately ask. You think that all of the campaigns were trying to bulk up their lobbying, you don’t think that is really a bad thing, you think it is the nature of politics, and you think that it should be taken seriously but only up to a point.

That is a reasonable position, and one that I agree with. The reason that I was trying to clarify your position was that you had earlier said “many of the submissions were the result of orchestrated campaigns. Let's face it, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it?” and I was trying to ascertain whether you applied that same logic to a campaign where you agreed with the Convention’s decision to do what that campaign asked them to do.

From your answer it seems that you do apply the same criteria to all of the lobbying campaigns, which is reasonable and shows integrity. It also seems to me that your current phrasing of your criteria seems more benign than your earlier one, but I don’t think there is any benefit in discussing that in detail.

Deleted User wrote: »

I think complaining about someone else's lobbying when you did the same and you didn't "win" might help you vent steam, but it doesn't really get you anywhere.

I think I should clarify something here, because it seems that you may have a mistaken belief about my response to the ESC decision, that may be coloring your opinion of my response to the Church and State decision.

I was not complaining about anyone else’s lobbying campaign. I was trying to ascertain your opinion about the lobbying campaign of the ESC Rights Initiative, because it was on an issue that you agreed with the Convention’s decision on.

Not only was I not complaining about the ESC Rights campaign, but I was (and still am) actively involved in that campaign. Atheist Ireland is part of the ESC Rights Initiative. We have attended all of its meetings over the past year. We co-signed the ESC Rights Initiative submission. We made our own individual submission on ESC Rights. The video of the ESC Rights lobbying workshop is published on the Atheist Ireland YouTube Channel.

As I said in the opening post on this thread: “We accept that different people have different priorities, and we did not expect to automatically have our priorities on the agenda. We understand why people would see Political and Institutional Reform to be central to the Constitution, and we are part of the network that supports ESC Rights.”

I’ll try to address some of your other points about the Convention and Atheist Ireland later.

Banbh

Michael,
You are a kind and tenacious man with the patience of Job (please excuse the reference) to continue playing Internet Scrabble with people who can't spell.

Brown Bomber

robindch wrote: »

Brown Bomber - do you have anything positive to contribute to this discussion?

That is incredibly unfair. I went to extraordinary lengths to verify Michael's claim, when he refused to do so himself and you were giving him a free pass to allow his claims to be considered fact.


How is that not a "positive" contribution?

Brown Bomber

Banbh wrote: »

Michael,
You are a kind and tenacious man with the patience of Job (please excuse the reference) to continue playing Internet Scrabble with people who can't spell.

I assume you are referring to me. Ulysses is speaking very eloquently and making valid points. He/she doesn't appreciate being told when they should/should not be insulted. Do you?

Banbh

He/she doesn't appreciate being told when they should/should not be insulted. Do you?

I wasn't insulting you though I was insulting the Internet and the WWW and I hope they don't take it personally.

Brown Bomber

Banbh wrote: »

I wasn't insulting you though I was insulting the Internet and the WWW and I hope they don't take it personally.

Yeah, hilarious. I was referring to this section in the in the atheist Ireland article.


"How the 2% vote insults secular citizens" http://www.atheist.ie/2013/12/constitutional-convention-insults-secular-citizens-with-2-vote-to-discuss-church-and-state/


Like I said, it while you may not object to being to told what and how to think and when and why you should be insulted Ulysses clearly does.

Cabaal

Brown Bomber, are you a catholic or a religious person?

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Yeah, hilarious. I was referring to this section in the in the atheist Ireland article.


"How the 2% vote insults secular citizens" http://www.atheist.ie/2013/12/constitutional-convention-insults-secular-citizens-with-2-vote-to-discuss-church-and-state/


Like I said, it while you may not object to being to told what and how to think and when and why you should be insulted Ulysses clearly does.

do you also object to popes/bishops/clerics/rabbis telling what and how to think?

Brown Bomber

Cabaal wrote: »

Brown Bomber, are you a catholic or a religious person?

No. Why?

Brown Bomber

koth wrote: »

do you also object to popes/bishops/clerics/rabbis telling what and how to think?

Personally, yes. Of course this is different though. If an adult freely opts-in to a society with a pre-existing hierarchial structure of elders within the society the elders have a mandate. Michael has no mandate to speak on behalf of "secular citizens" of Ireland nor tell them why they can and can't be "insulted" about.

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Personally, yes. Of course this is different though. If an adult freely opts-in to a society with a pre-existing hierarchial structure of elders within the society the elders have a mandate. Michael has no mandate to speak on behalf of "secular citizens" of Ireland nor tell them why they can and can't be "insulted" about.

How is it different? If a religious leader issues a statement to the faithful referring to secularism as the great threat to humanity, how exactly is that different from Atheist Ireland issuing a statement to their members via their website?

Brown Bomber

koth wrote: »

How is it different? If a religious leader issues a statement to the faithful referring to secularism as the great threat to humanity, how exactly is that different from Atheist Ireland issuing a statement to their members via their website?

"members" or "secular citizens"?

What it is not different to is AIPAC issuing diktats on behalf of all Jews or the NRA on behalf of all Americans.

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

"members" or "secular citizens"?

members. It's a website for their members/supporters to get info about what AI is working on.

Churches speak on behalf of all humanity which even broader than "secular citizens". So how is AI behaving any differently to the religious groups in this regard?

Brown Bomber

koth wrote: »

members. It's a website for their members/supporters to get info about what AI is working on.

Churches speak on behalf of all humanity which even broader than "secular citizens". So how is AI behaving any differently to the religious groups in this regard?

So you think Atheist Ireland is acting like a religious institution?

I've just answered the question you are asking. You don't have to look any further than this thread title to get the answer.
"secular citizens" not "AI members" is a direct quote.

And you can opt-out of your religion. How do I - an Irish secular citizen - opt-out of Atheist Ireland when I am not a member?

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

So you think Atheist Ireland is acting like a religious institution?

No. Just trying to understand why you give a religious lobby group a free pass but not AI.

I've just answered the question you are asking. You don't have to look any further than this thread title to get the answer.
"secular citizens" not "AI members" is a direct quote.

I've seen the thread title, don't see how that means AI claim to have a mandate to speak on behalf of secular citizens (which would also encompass Christians and other religious groups).

EDIT:

And you can opt-out of your religion. How do I - an Irish secular citizen - opt-out of Atheist Ireland when I am not a member?

I'm not a member of any religion or of AI. AI is an opt-in group. you have to pay membership fees AFAIK.