Criticism of Religion

The other day I was struck by a cartoon on Facebook lampooning Christian doctrine. It was witty, I liked it, but the picture of the faith that it started from was hopelessly wrong. I tried to frame a response along the lines of it being necessary to understand your opponent and attack his real weak points. But time and space were short, I probably did not express myself well and I doubt I was understood.

So let's come at it from a less contentious starting point. One of the things that gets my goat these days is the misuse of statistics. From what I read by people in a position to know, the human race is incredibly bad at assessing risk. Advertisers, campaigners and others with an axe to grind can take advantage of this by manipulating statistics to make their sophistical point, and most of us fall for it over and over again. I feel the urge to correct such misuses as I see. There is only one problem: I am no statistician. Mathematics is to me as Ancient Greek is to most people. I have a friend who is a mathematician, who is comfortingly normal in other ways. But a few sentences with him quickly reveals the vast empty space in my understanding where maths ought to be. At work, some of my friends were Actuaries, people incredibly knowledgeable about risk and probability, and most of them were normal in other ways. One had a gift for putting such things into easy language liberally peppered with great, simple, examples, littered with humour. But I see these people no more. Instead I rely on things like More Or Less on Radio 4 to let me know when something less than statistically reliable is being promoted and to help me understand why there is a problem and why I should think twice.

There was quite a good example recently – there was something in the news about there being more people alive now than have ever lived. The point that was being made was about the present population explosion. More Or Less did a programme on it, which you can still download as a podcast. There are some assumptions to be made (where do you start counting people, for example – Homo sapiens only, or do H neanderthalis or H floriensis or H habilis get in too?) And there being no records till quite recently there are other problems to solve. While the adult population might be something that can be agreed on, what about the high proportion of infant deaths? They surely have to be counted as people who lived, if only briefly. Some American experts on population statistics went to work on it and it turns out that for everyone living now there are about 30 human persons who have died, taking the starting point as the rise of modern man 50,000 years ago. So the original statement, used to promote alarm, is simply rubbish.

I am aware of my mathematical incompetence. So when I suspect the presence of an odoriferous rodent I do not rush into print, I do some research. Then, armed with the facts, I can go to war against a real opponent. Sadly, although almost all of the people I know are aware of at least some, and sometimes significant, mathematical shortcomings, most of us think we can assess risk correctly. But we can't, we get it terribly wrong, and the blind are led into a ditch. A further example comes from a course I was on recently where we were asked to assess which class of road produces the greatest number of fatal accidents, motorways, urban roads, or rural roads. One of the group was a professional driver, whose considered opinion was that the only possible answer was motorways. The rest of us deferred to his judgement, which seemed reasonable enough. We were wrong. Motorways are far and away the safest roads with the lowest number of fatalities. It's urban roads, where pedestrians come into direct conflict with cars, that are markedly the worst for fatalities.

The point I am making here is that there are three factors to consider: expert knowledge, awareness of ignorance, and false confidence. It seems to me (I have no reliable statistics, but I do have quite a few examples from recent years experience) false confidence is common among those who are critical of religion. They often think they have grasped what the subject is about, but they have not, and go tilting at windmills. Sometimes they manage to do this in such a way that they bring ridicule on their own heads. At other times the misunderstanding is so crude and the attack so violent that religious persons who might otherwise be supportive of the point being made feel compelled to go to the aid of those under attack. Crude and inaccurate attacks are frequently self-defeating, in this subject as in others.

Alain de Botton, in his book Religion For Atheists, says “Tough-minded critics of religion have found much pleasure in laying bare the idiocy of believers in remorseless detail, finishing only when they felt they had shown up their enemies as thorough-going simpletons or maniacs”. (I'm working on the book at the moment and generally find most of his arguments unsatisfactory, but this comment seems well aimed.) No doubt there are believers who qualify under both those headings, but I have found most to be reasonable, good-natured people. Insulting them is not the way to make progress. What seems to me to be happening is that some of religion's critics are more interested in that feeling of triumph which Alain de Botton describes than anything else. I happen to think that religion is an emotional response at bottom, not an intellectual one. But rational argument, grounded in the realities of belief, not a caricature of it, might make some progress in undermining that emotional commitment, if that is desirable. Rational argument has nothing to do with the erection of an Aunt Sally or a Straw Man to shy at, nor with ad hominem attacks, but with reasoned criticism of the opponent's actual views, his real arguments, not ones we imagine he might have expressed.

In the same book I quoted above, Alain de Botton writes that “The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true” (emphasis in the original). I too find that question boring. Religion is evidently a human creation, but one which satisfies some human needs – that's the only reason it survives. How and why it does that are the proper subjects of academic study, by Social Scientists, Philosophers, Psychologists and so on. The important question concerning religion is how do we take the discussion forward from there?

Each of us will be grabbed by different things. Writing just for myself, here are some issues involving religion that motivate me strongly.

1. I am in favour of education, of the development of curiosity and understanding, especially but not solely in the young. And education must include the achievements of science, and indeed criticism of science, because that is that way that scientific progress is made. What must be resisted is the replacement of science with myth, and the silencing of questioning. That is what is happening in the expansion of the teaching of Creationism in schools as a valid alternative to Evolution. All such things should be resisted, if only because they substitute unquestionable dogma for a proper search for the truth.

2. Like most people I am horrified both by the extent of child abuse by the clergy, and by the cover-up by church authorities. Both the perpetrators and all (whatever rank and prominence they have since attained) those who protected them should be prosecuted by the appropriate jurisdiction and steps taken to ensure that such a thing can never happen again.

3. I am politically a liberal in the style and tradition of John Stuart Mill. Properly representative government is therefore close to my heart. At present we have a House of Lords that is subject to reform. And about time too. Some are arguing that Church of England Bishops should retain their seats in the Lords as of right. No-one should have a right to sit in government, in any role whatsoever. Every government official, especially members of both the houses of our legislature, should be elected. If a Bishop campaigns and gets elected, that's fine by me. But he (or she) should not have a seat by any other means, and nor should anyone else. 

4. There is an increasing (I think, I don't have access to any research to show it) number of believers in forms of religion that trade on people's fears of spirits, devils, and the like. We have just seen the termination of a trial, and the conviction of two of a child's family, who murdered him because of their belief that he was a witch. Such beliefs come straight from the Stone Age. What is to be done about their prevalence defeats me. It's very worrying.

5. Some forms of religion are extremely sexist – in India (those dreaded statistics seem to show) there is a large gap between the expected number of female births and the actual number. The implication is that female children are being killed. We have all heard of Honour Killings where a female family member has, for behaviour fully acceptable to the majority in our society, been murdered other family members. Cases have come to court which seem to be the tip of an iceberg. But this is not limited to people from India – and some have suggested that it is a cultural, not a religious, problem. I cannot judge. But I have heard people in good standing as spokesmen for a number of religions (Christianity included) denigrating women in general and denying them equal standing with men, in defiance of UK law. How best to resist this is not clear to me, but it must be resisted and reversed.

6. The idea has gained credence that “Faith” should be protected and respected. For myself, I don't care what people believe. I'm happy to allow them to take up Bertrand Russell's suggestion and believe that there is a china teapot in orbit round the moon. I absolutely respect everyone's right to believe whatever they want. I do NOT thereby respect the beliefs themselves. Some beliefs I do not share are arguable. I happen to think that it is frequently possible to make a strong case on both sides of a question. Some beliefs are ridiculous, like the china teapot example. Someone I know has fun by propagating one such and is an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Most religious beliefs seem to me to either be short of evidence or to fly in the face of what evidence there is. There is a world of difference between respecting the right to believe and respecting the belief itself. I do not respect nonsense no matter who believes it, and nor should anyone else.

I could go on, but I won't. There are tremendous issues raised by religion in a wide variety of areas. They need to be considered carefully, and where necessary challenged rationally, but challenged for what they are, not for what they are not.

In two areas (at least) I have reservations. Some like to claim that religion has done terrible harm through suppression of the truth, violence and war. They have a strong case. But exactly the same crimes have been committed by non-believers. This is shaky ground to start an argument on.

Christian doctrine (the only one I am competent to talk about) is extremely complex. It might be hard to find two believers with exactly the same doctrinal stance. At the simplistic end their dogma is usually evidently self-contradictory, but at the other end, there is a mire. I suspect much the same is true of most of the major religions. Similarly it is easy to lampoon the bible which contains many things that fall under the headings of barbarism, self-contradiction, or meaninglessness. But anyone with a more than a nodding acquaintance with the text will know that things are not as they seem on the surface. You might be able to tie a fundamentalist in knots, but the vast majority are not in that camp, so I am reluctant to go there. It is fun to ask a Jehovah's Witness in, get out my Greek text, and embarrass them with the issues between it and the Authorised Version. But it is largely also a pointless waste of time. Often they don't understand the argument anyway.

I hope that in the foregoing I have made a clearer statement of the position I tried to make in brief on Facebook. In short, I am concerned about the false confidence exhibited by some of my fellow critics of religion who I think sometimes undermine our cause. But I think that religion does raise some important issues for our 21st Century democracy which need to be faced head on with properly thought out rational argument that deals effectively with the arguments put forward by the other side.

An Instinct For Kindness

As I have written on Facebook, An Instinct For Kindness is a first class piece of dramatic writing, brilliantly performed, and should be nominated for an Olivier award. It's not a barrel of laughs, although there are some, but it makes the main point brilliantly. It's going to have a week's run in London - take advantage and see it if you missed it. It is a challenging and worthwhile evening. The details can be found at the web site, http://www.festivalhighlights.com/theatre/aninstinctforkindness.

The management at Royal & Derngate organised a debate after the show and I was privileged to be on the platform, along with the author and performer, Chris Larner, the Archdeacon of Northampton, Christine Allsopp, and a member of Leicester Secular Society, Harry Perry.

Harry's position is described on his blog, http://secsoc.blogspot.co.uk/ - in short he thinks that assisted suicide should be available, not to the terminally ill, as advocated by Dignity in Dying, but to anyone who is a) suicidal and b) so incapacitated they cannot kill themselves. It seems to me that one of the main arguments for not changing the law is that it would make it more likely that people going through a crisis, may be deeply but temporarily depressed, more likely to make a wrong decision. So I was surprised that he went so far as to undermine the point made by Chris Larner that what is needed is compassion and dignity for someone who is suffering extremely and terminally ill. It was an own goal against our side.

And indeed, that was the line Christine Allsopp took, very gently and carefully. She didn't mention Divine Authority or the Sanctity of Life, she expressed her concern for vulnerable people who might be adversely effected if we legalise assisted suicide, and she told of someone who had been seriously depressed, tried to kill himself but failed, and was now alive and glad to be so.

My approach was to indicate the three headings under which a decision needed to me made:

1. Autonomy – do we have the right and responsibility of making our own ethical decisions or do we have to defer to a higher authority?

2. Compassion – how do we best help those who are terminally ill and seriously suffering?

3. Safety – whatever legal framework emerges, what precautions are needed against abuse?

I then went on to say that the present situation amounts to cruelty to people like the one described by Chris Larner. It is unreasonable and unkind to defer giving help to them in favour of protection for a hypothetically threatened group, especially as experience where assisted suicide is legal has shown that these fears are unfounded.

The legal position was, up to 1961, that committing suicide was illegal. If you made an attempt and failed you could be sent to prison, which, as Chris Larner says in the show, “obviously helps”. The law was changed 50 years ago, but instead it is now a crime to help someone to do something that is not a crime, even if the non-criminal act happens abroad and therefore outside our jurisdiction, which makes no sense at all. The Director of Public Prosecutions in the last government made a clarification of the legal position to the effect that someone acting out of compassion and not for financial gain would be unlikely to be prosecuted. Sadly this puts a serious obstacle in the way of someone wanting to go to Dignitas. One of the things they insist on is a legal document confirming who you are and where you live, which has to be provided by a Notary Public, who normally charges a fee for their services. So the Notary's professional body has advised its members against giving this service as it is technically illegal. And the same applies to any other professional services needed such as an independent doctor, a travel agent, or a taxi to the airport.

And that's just one obstacle. Chris Larner put the total cost of going to Switzerland to die at about £14,000, way beyond the reach of many people who need it. There are some other interesting statistics: for example over 70% of those who take the first step towards an assisted suicide never take the second one. Having a potential safety net seems to be enough.

One lady in the audience was herself terminally ill and had the idea of going to Dignitas in mind. She had two friends along to support her. I felt that they were addressing what certain Christians often say publicly and hanging the attendant feelings on Christine Allsopp. That wasn't really fair, as she had shown nothing but sympathy and not voiced the usual line at all. None the less, it is true, as Chris Larner pointed out, we do live in an environment where a fairly authoritarian religion is part of the backdrop of life. In fact, I thought that Harry Perry was put out, or at least discomforted, by Christine failing to use the Sanctity of Life argument so often trotted out. He actually asked why she hadn't, and then rather erected a straw man to attack. In fact Christine had said that she believed in using her brain. (She is a former research chemist and her husband is a biologist.) My experience is that most religious people in this country take a similarly intelligent, tolerant and sympathetic view, but they are hidden by others of more extreme positions. I offered, as a summary of Christine Allsopp's view, that preaching at people is both arrogant and a waste of breath. I happen to think that is true whether the preacher is religious or not. Fundamentalism is not a good mark for a cause, and there are fundamentalist atheists as well as fundamentalist believers.

It's a truism that we all need to bear in mind that no matter how strong a person's convictions are on any issue other than matters of fact, that strength does not amount to being right. In an emotive issue such as this all parties need to keep that in the front of their minds and listen to other people's actual arguments sensitively and respond with equally good arguments, not just emotively. They also need to listen to the disputants' emotions and respond on that level too.

For myself, Chris' performance made me more aware than before of the extreme suffering and frustration that some people go through. The main character in the show, Chris' ex-wife Alison, said on the morning of her suicide, “I don't want to die. But I don't want to live any more like this.” And it was compassion for her terrible situation that moved him, and through him, the audience. To delay a change in the law seems to me to be cruelty, even if that delay is for the laudable reason of protecting apparently vulnerable people. Laudable but mistaken, I think, as experience is that these fears have not been fulfilled in practice in places where assisted suicide in strictly limited circumstances has been permitted. Cruelty is not acceptable and a way has to be found to bring relief to sufferers but with safeguards for people who feel or may be threatened by the change.

Goodbye, old friends

I need space for my growing collection of philosophy books. There is no way I will play chess again, and I've found a new home for my chess books. Now I want to find one for my computer books, because I haven't got the time or the interest any more. There may be some more, older, ones up in the loft, but I've not been to look. There is only one I'm keeping, the one on OpenOffice, because I use it heavily and having a reference book will probably be handy.

Books are like friends, and it's sad to part with them, but there just isn't the space in my tiny study.

I remember when I bought most of them - for example the XHTML book, the big thick one, was bought when I was kindly invited by friends for Christmas when my marriage had come to an end and I thought the world was coming to an end too. The book fired an interest and was a big help in getting my feet back on the ground. Then on the left of that shelf there is one that contributed to my study of server-side issues in web development when I was doing an Open University course. At more or less the same time dear old Laddie came to live with us and was such a big time sink that the course fell by the wayside.

All the VBA books were to do with work, and while I enjoyed automating processes and passing on the skills to others those days are happily long behind me. I'm now happy in the shadow of an academic world I passed by when an opportunity first arose, and studying the Hellenistic philosophy schools, refreshing my long-forgotten Greek, whilst addressing some of the questions about life that first bothered me in my teens.

Are you sure?

I think I always know when I have not understood something. For example, I went to a symposium last year where one of the lecturers left me wondering what on earth his talk had all been about. Pinning him down afterwards it was evident that he was vastly knowledgeable in his topic, and in conversation was well able to deal with the questions I raised clearly, and very fully. But when he came to put a lot of his knowledge together to deliver in an hour's lecture to a group of people, the clarity with which he spoke disappeared, and I knew I had not understood what he was saying, in common, I suspect, with quite a few others.

But the obverse is not equally true. When I have partially understood, or misunderstood, I am probably confident that I have got the message, when in fact I have only got a bit of it, or got the whole thing totally wrong. But I don't know that. The greatest chance of being wrong is when you think you've got it right.

One of the joys of my retirement has been discovering the wonderful podcasts at www.historyofphilosophy.net where Peter Adamson's lucid delivery leaves me feeling I have learned something every time. Probably I have, but the question remains “how much of what was contained in the podcast have I grasped, and how accurately?” I follow up on some of the recommended reading and I have become gripped by the Stoics, with whom share an interest – the Art of Living, it has been called, and from whom I have learned a lot. I've even been stimulated to refresh my Greek. But even if I have grasped some of what the Stoic writers and modern commentators are saying, I know there is a lot more – well that's progress: realising that there is a (not too distant) boundary to knowledge beyond which lies an infinity of ignorance is in itself a good thing.

Among my growing collection of downloaded podcasts is a much larger one, not part of the main series, Podcast Live, a lecture delivered last year as part of the Arts & Humanities Festival at Kings College, London by Peter Adamson. He called it “A Brief History of Nothing”, the Nothing in question being the concept of Void or Emptiness which is prominent in the work of ancient philosophers. I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to it again. I do tend, it has to be admitted, to listen with my headphones on while lying in bed, and once or twice I have dropped off part way through. This is due to the lateness of the hour and the greatness of my comfort, not the lecturer's style. Now I think I have mined it fully, but even so, I find that I have to go and listen again to the podcast on Plato's Timeus, which has not lodged properly in my head.

Heavens, I'm 68 years old, nearly. I need more time to read, and to think more. It was Plato who first explored the important distinction between belief (of which an important sub-category is true belief) and knowledge. And still we haven't got it right. Just recently there was an item on the BBC about those experts one hears making predictions about the future of economics, sport, art, the weather, you name it. Well, one thing is for certain, about the future we have no knowledge. A study of these expert predictions revealed that the most compelling listening, most favoured by the public, is strongly associated with the confidence of the speaker. And the more confident the speaker the more likely he was to be wrong! Those experts who hedged their remarks with such phrases as “we can't be certain” and “there are several unknown factors” and “I don't want to be definite” and “all in all it seems to me that the greatest probability is...” were the ones hardest to listen too, and the least regarded by the public, and the most likely to be right.

It seems to me that we have a similar problem with the present, and sweeping assertions are highly likely to be wrong. When we are right, as my hero Karl Popper said, we are so by accident, and we can never be sure that we are right.

But even if I cannot be sure that I have properly and fully understood Peter Adamson's podcasts, the boundary of ignorance has been pushed a little further back and understanding has increased and most important of all, I may have made a slight improvement in the art of living.