A report on the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14406818) suggests that there is a small but rising incidence of HIV sufferers being persuaded by Christian Pastors to give up their drug treatment and rely on prayer. Some people have died as a result.
As far as I can see, there is a very large and growing number of actual clinical cases where people have received drug treatment and been enabled to live many years and enjoy a reasonable quality of life too. But on the other hand there is not a single authenticated case of cure through prayer, and meanwhile those people who do not take the drugs to control HIV die of AIDS.
Therefore even if you believe, counter to the evidence, that prayer will be efficacious, stopping drug treatment is uninformed to say the least, stupid maybe. To deliberately convince someone to stop drug treatment and rely on prayer instead is not merely uninformed, it is playing with people's lives and indirectly hastening their death.
I suggested on Facebook that a Pastor who persuades one of his followers to take this course should be prosecuted. Well, I suppose that's a bit wild. As far as I know there is no law against talking someone into risking their life in that way. One of my friends suggested that even if there was no-one would be prosecuted because the Human Rights Act would defend their choice to live by their culture. I'm not so sure there is a Human Right to persuade someone to behave in such a way, but it is true that main-stream churches have gotten away with hiding and harbouring criminal child abusers, so one doubts that talking someone out of taking beneficial drugs would incur the law's wrath.
As so often is the case, my mind turned to John Stuart Mill, whose work “On Liberty” ought to be read much wider, and much more attentively, than it is. Mill thought that liberty, in thought, speech and action, was an essential condition for human growth; that no-one could reach their full potential without it. If your liberty is circumscribed, so is your growth. There ought only be, Mill thought, one check on liberty, and that was causing harm to others. The problem, of course, is that it all depends on how you understand causing harm. Does getting allowing your child to get hooked on smoking tobacco by not showing him the error of his ways and a good example? After all, the habit will, very likely, shorten his life. Or what about feeding one's child hard drugs? In that case the harm is even more certain. Or what if the person affected is not a child but an adult with the right and ability to make their own decisions on the subject?
Pastors are almost always persuasive speakers, and they have been vested with great authority. It seems to be the case that once someone has chosen to follow a particular pastor, they have in some sense handed over their decision-making capacities to him. He can then persuade and convince them into all sorts of courses of action, some benign or helpful and others potentially malignant and harmful, both to the individual and to society at large. So in the kind of cases quoted by the BBC, it seems to me that their actions, their use of words, falls well within the definition of causing harm, and not so far short of manslaughter.
I did wonder whether if we were starting again with the criminal code crime could be defined simply as causing harm to another, with a range of punishments according to the degree of harm caused – a black eye might attract a lesser penalty, and causing death, whether by crazy driving, pushing drugs, deliberate murder, or recklessly lethal advice from a position of power, a more severe one.
But we're not starting again, and people with high status will be enabled to get away with recklessly endangering others as they have been to date. What a shame.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Friday, 4 March 2011
The Great Census Religion Con
Probably most people are aware there has been some debate about the census question on religion in the upcoming census. At the last census, in 2001, the same question was asked as this time: ‘What is your religion?’ It was placed directly after the Ethnicity question, and responders seem to have read it as another question about their background.
I say this because the most recent British Social Attitudes Survey split the question into two parts:
1.‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’ and
2.‘What religious tradition, if any, were you brought up in?’
Answers to the second question closely match the 2001 Census return: only 18.5% said ‘No religion.’ But answers to the first question gave 50.7% of responders saying ‘No religion’ – almost three times as many. This is a strong reason to believe that people understood the census question to be about their religious background rather than about their religious practice. However, the answers are interpreted by decision makers in terms of religious practice for things as diverse as Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' and funding for Faith Schools. They argue that less than 20% of the population are not religious, and therefore they should provide for the remaining 80%. In truth, as the answers to the first Social Attitudes survey show, the reality is somewhere close to 50:50.
The British Humanist Association tried to get the question for this census revised to be closer to the more carefully phrased one on the Social Attitudes survey. But resistance of the census authorities to any change was resolute. An item in Radio 4’s 'Sunday' on 27th February threw a clear light on the cynicism which lies behind this. The Deputy Director of the Census explained that the reason for keeping things as they are is that the users of this particular item in the 2001 census data want the question left as it was. Of course they do. The reason they are ‘users’ is that it gives them the answers they want. If it were changed now it would mean that their policies over the last decade had been unfounded. Who goes looking for egg on their face?
Speaking on the same programme for the Church of England, Linda Barley said that the question ‘is not about believing’. That made me sit up with a jolt! How is that so? Let's hear it again: ‘Religious affiliation is not about believing.’ Up to now I thought that the religions claimed that membership was entirely about belief and demanded respect, and even exemption from some laws (such as those discrimination against gays or women) on the basis of that deeply held (but unjustified) conviction. I am amazed that someone speaking for the church was prepared to admit on air that people who claim to be religious may not in fact believe a word of it. What they want is, for example, to manipulate access to a certain school, an opt-out for their prejudices, or some similar benefit. I am as glad as anyone to see the church admitting to the cynicism of those on their roll of members. Now I wait for other religious leaders to follow suit.
But back to the point. If you, being non-religious, want public policy over the next decade in matters affected by religious attitudes to be based on the facts, rather than on a carefully and cynically nurtured fiction, make sure that you tick the ‘No religion’ option on the census form.
There is a very nice short presentation on this topic prepared by the Milton Keynes Humanists. Click here to access it.
Thanks to Charles Baily for his help preparing this item.
I say this because the most recent British Social Attitudes Survey split the question into two parts:
1.‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’ and
2.‘What religious tradition, if any, were you brought up in?’
Answers to the second question closely match the 2001 Census return: only 18.5% said ‘No religion.’ But answers to the first question gave 50.7% of responders saying ‘No religion’ – almost three times as many. This is a strong reason to believe that people understood the census question to be about their religious background rather than about their religious practice. However, the answers are interpreted by decision makers in terms of religious practice for things as diverse as Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' and funding for Faith Schools. They argue that less than 20% of the population are not religious, and therefore they should provide for the remaining 80%. In truth, as the answers to the first Social Attitudes survey show, the reality is somewhere close to 50:50.
The British Humanist Association tried to get the question for this census revised to be closer to the more carefully phrased one on the Social Attitudes survey. But resistance of the census authorities to any change was resolute. An item in Radio 4’s 'Sunday' on 27th February threw a clear light on the cynicism which lies behind this. The Deputy Director of the Census explained that the reason for keeping things as they are is that the users of this particular item in the 2001 census data want the question left as it was. Of course they do. The reason they are ‘users’ is that it gives them the answers they want. If it were changed now it would mean that their policies over the last decade had been unfounded. Who goes looking for egg on their face?
Speaking on the same programme for the Church of England, Linda Barley said that the question ‘is not about believing’. That made me sit up with a jolt! How is that so? Let's hear it again: ‘Religious affiliation is not about believing.’ Up to now I thought that the religions claimed that membership was entirely about belief and demanded respect, and even exemption from some laws (such as those discrimination against gays or women) on the basis of that deeply held (but unjustified) conviction. I am amazed that someone speaking for the church was prepared to admit on air that people who claim to be religious may not in fact believe a word of it. What they want is, for example, to manipulate access to a certain school, an opt-out for their prejudices, or some similar benefit. I am as glad as anyone to see the church admitting to the cynicism of those on their roll of members. Now I wait for other religious leaders to follow suit.
But back to the point. If you, being non-religious, want public policy over the next decade in matters affected by religious attitudes to be based on the facts, rather than on a carefully and cynically nurtured fiction, make sure that you tick the ‘No religion’ option on the census form.
There is a very nice short presentation on this topic prepared by the Milton Keynes Humanists. Click here to access it.
Thanks to Charles Baily for his help preparing this item.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Islam and Prejudice
Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Tory Party, is reported as saying that prejudice against Muslims is seen as normal. The BBC claims that she will say (how I hate that - it's not news until it's said, and it's only then that the actual content and context can be judged) in a speech to Leicester University that prejudice has passed the dinner-table test. Well, I am wary of being prejudiced. I certainly try not to be, but I am also aware of having a very negative impression of Islam, a different impression from that which I held when it was the subject of academic study in my student days. But it is right to scrutinise one's views, so let's have a look at what's going on for me.
Obviously there is the effect of terrorism. It's not that Christians (say) haven't adopted terror tactics in the recent past: they have. The murder of doctors involved in abortion in the US comes to mind. Prior to that, the Klu Klux Klan had Christian associations, even though their behaviour defied any reasonable interpretation of Christianity. The divide in Ireland was on religious lines, and even Catholic priests were rather close to active terrorists. I guess the same may be true of the other side, though I know of no accounts. But in Ireland the primary motivation was political, not religious. Religious leaders sometimes spoke out against terrorist activity, though also some did not. But the horrific mass murders perpetrated by Islamist terrorists recently, both against the West and against their own co-religionists so appall decent people it is extremely hard not to be strongly influenced by them. And it has to be said that very prominent religious leaders have encouraged, or supported, such actions. Starting from Ayatola Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, urging the murder of someone who had written a book he disapproved of (probably without reading it) some incredible, horrible, things have emerged from Islam. And, in the UK at least, recent events make one think that being the victim of a terrorist mass murder by someone who is not a Muslim is very much less likely than by a perpetrator who is a Muslim.
And all this is against a background of views that seem to be rooted in the 6th Century CE - if not more primitive than that. You only have to think of the uneducated imam who declared "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes". This was in a sermon delivered at Tehran University. (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8631775.stm) It's not difficult to find other similar examples of a world view that seems to predate the ark. I know you also get idiotic, uneducated views promoted by Christians - the Creation Museum being an outstanding example - but even the brainless lunatics who still think the earth was created in 7 days on 22 October 4004 BCE don't think that the presence or absence of clothing is related to plate tectonics or vulcanism. Mind you, I know a few who think that God takes a personal and detailed interest in their parking requirements, and you only need to watch the NFL briefly to see that many players think he is a football fan and supports their team. Ignorance is a terrible affliction where ever it is found, but Islam seems to take pride in it.
Of course not all Muslims take such unsupportable views, but I wish a few more of those that don't would stand up and say so. It looks as though the authoritarian stance taken by not only teachers of Islam but also followers has something to do with this. Organised religion tends to be authoritarian. The Pope still tries it on from time to time, for example. But in the Christian West the church lost its hold over what people think and do at the time of the Enlightenment. Today most Christians embrace Enlightenment values, not least the freedom to think, and to say, and to write and publish what you believe. They also take the view, by and large, that this is a good thing because it provides an environment in which people can grow to their full potential, and in which something closer to the truth emerges through the discussion and criticism of the various views that people hold. If I cannot defend my views in a reasonable way when under rational criticism, there is at least something missing from my understanding of my own position. It is also rather likely that there is something wrong with the views themselves.
Religious leaders usually don't like educated people criticising or questioning them. On a trivial and local level I have personal experience of this. When I was a clergyman in Northampton I offered a course, an introduction to thinking theologically and realistically (I thought such a thing was possible!) in my own parish. The Vicar of the parish thought the material was good and suggested I open it to all the local churches. So I publicised it to the other clergy, so they could alert their people. Apart from in my own parish, there were no takers. I happened to meet one of the senior local clergy in the street and I asked him why he thought this was so. His reply was that it was because he hadn't told his congregation about it. He did not want them to be theologically educated, he said, because if they were they might start to question him, and that would never do. When the first session was held, in which I opened up some areas for discussion, someone objected and said she'd not be coming again because I was not telling her what to think. No indeed, I wanted her to be able to think for herself, something our predecessors had fought for and given their lives for, but which she was too frightened to do, so cowed was she by successive authoritarian clergy.
But in general, the hold that the church has over the minds of even its adherents, is greatly weakened today, thanks to education, and encouragement to learn, and to think for oneself, and to question things that do not appear to be true. Islam never had its own Enlightenment. The Golden Age in which great Islamic scholars both preserved and advanced knowledge in astronomy, philosophy and mathematics is long past. Just learn to recite the Koran, in a language you may well not understand, and settle for that, seems to be the way. Some think that women should not be educated at all. I guess that's for much the same reason as the Northampton clergy did not publicise my course - it would lead to them questioning the unfounded assumptions of the men, and that would never do.
But none of the above is the primary cause of my worry about Islam. Just recently there has been a terrible, but similar, event in both Islamic Pakistan and Christian America. In both places there has been an assassination attempt on an prominent elected official. In Tuscon, Arizona, Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on Representative Gabrielle Giffords, seriously wounding her and killing several other people. At least, he has been indicted for the crime, and was apprended at the scene trying to reload his gun. In Pakistan Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated, confessedly by one of his own bodyguards. In both cases, this is not only murder, but also an attack on democracy itself.
In the Arizona case, there has been a lot of heart-searching, and some wild accusations, from both sides of the political divide. No-one approves of murdering members of the body politic no matter how much their views differ from one's own. The assumption at present is that the assassin is in some way mentally ill. In Pakistan too thousands mourned Governor Taseer. But, and it is an enormous but, in Pakistan some religious leaders have praised the governor's killer. (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12116764) Why? Because he was a liberal, a man who believed and said that Pakistan's blasphemy law is draconian and needs to be changed. Malik Mumtaz Hussein Qadri confessed to the murder and people gave him garlands. One religious leader said "No Muslim should attend the funeral or even try to pray for Salman Taseer or even express any kind of regret or sympathy over the incident". Some people supported Governor Taseer because he spoke up for minority rights. Other supported his murderer simply for religious reasons. The New York Times reported that the assassin "was showered by hundreds of supporters with rose petals and garlands. Moderate religious leaders refused to condemn the assassination, and some hard-line religious leaders appeared obliquely to condone the attack". (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/world/asia/06pakistan.html)
The difference is clear, and I don't think it is prejudice. In America those for and against Mrs Giffords' policies were equally horrified at the assassination attempt. Everyone sees and condemns it as an attack on democracy itself. In Pakistan while that view was also found, so was a vocal element, encouraged by some religious leaders, that supported the assassin for purely religious reasons. Christianity is not without its kooks and an insane fringe who will stoop to the murder of their opponents. They are a tiny minority condemned by almost all. In Islamic Pakistan those who support murder on religious grounds are at the very least a significant minority, maybe much more, and too large a proportion of more reasonable voices are intimidated into silence. That fundamental factor, a religious authoritarianism that is closely related to Fascism and is all too frequently found in Islam, is the source of my deep unease with Islam. I don't think it is prejudice. And it is opposed to all the human values I believe in. If a British Muslim leader would condemn such views and support Governor Taseer and human, Enlightenment, values I would be delighted. So far I have heard no such comment.
As everyone knows, my position is that religion is at best a mistake, one powered by deep emotional factors. But at least some adherents of religion retain human decency and value humanity itself. Others do not, and the sad fact is that Islam gives the impression of having the largest contingent of those whose fervour not only overcomes all reason but all human feeling as well.
Obviously there is the effect of terrorism. It's not that Christians (say) haven't adopted terror tactics in the recent past: they have. The murder of doctors involved in abortion in the US comes to mind. Prior to that, the Klu Klux Klan had Christian associations, even though their behaviour defied any reasonable interpretation of Christianity. The divide in Ireland was on religious lines, and even Catholic priests were rather close to active terrorists. I guess the same may be true of the other side, though I know of no accounts. But in Ireland the primary motivation was political, not religious. Religious leaders sometimes spoke out against terrorist activity, though also some did not. But the horrific mass murders perpetrated by Islamist terrorists recently, both against the West and against their own co-religionists so appall decent people it is extremely hard not to be strongly influenced by them. And it has to be said that very prominent religious leaders have encouraged, or supported, such actions. Starting from Ayatola Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, urging the murder of someone who had written a book he disapproved of (probably without reading it) some incredible, horrible, things have emerged from Islam. And, in the UK at least, recent events make one think that being the victim of a terrorist mass murder by someone who is not a Muslim is very much less likely than by a perpetrator who is a Muslim.
And all this is against a background of views that seem to be rooted in the 6th Century CE - if not more primitive than that. You only have to think of the uneducated imam who declared "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes". This was in a sermon delivered at Tehran University. (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8631775.stm) It's not difficult to find other similar examples of a world view that seems to predate the ark. I know you also get idiotic, uneducated views promoted by Christians - the Creation Museum being an outstanding example - but even the brainless lunatics who still think the earth was created in 7 days on 22 October 4004 BCE don't think that the presence or absence of clothing is related to plate tectonics or vulcanism. Mind you, I know a few who think that God takes a personal and detailed interest in their parking requirements, and you only need to watch the NFL briefly to see that many players think he is a football fan and supports their team. Ignorance is a terrible affliction where ever it is found, but Islam seems to take pride in it.
Of course not all Muslims take such unsupportable views, but I wish a few more of those that don't would stand up and say so. It looks as though the authoritarian stance taken by not only teachers of Islam but also followers has something to do with this. Organised religion tends to be authoritarian. The Pope still tries it on from time to time, for example. But in the Christian West the church lost its hold over what people think and do at the time of the Enlightenment. Today most Christians embrace Enlightenment values, not least the freedom to think, and to say, and to write and publish what you believe. They also take the view, by and large, that this is a good thing because it provides an environment in which people can grow to their full potential, and in which something closer to the truth emerges through the discussion and criticism of the various views that people hold. If I cannot defend my views in a reasonable way when under rational criticism, there is at least something missing from my understanding of my own position. It is also rather likely that there is something wrong with the views themselves.
Religious leaders usually don't like educated people criticising or questioning them. On a trivial and local level I have personal experience of this. When I was a clergyman in Northampton I offered a course, an introduction to thinking theologically and realistically (I thought such a thing was possible!) in my own parish. The Vicar of the parish thought the material was good and suggested I open it to all the local churches. So I publicised it to the other clergy, so they could alert their people. Apart from in my own parish, there were no takers. I happened to meet one of the senior local clergy in the street and I asked him why he thought this was so. His reply was that it was because he hadn't told his congregation about it. He did not want them to be theologically educated, he said, because if they were they might start to question him, and that would never do. When the first session was held, in which I opened up some areas for discussion, someone objected and said she'd not be coming again because I was not telling her what to think. No indeed, I wanted her to be able to think for herself, something our predecessors had fought for and given their lives for, but which she was too frightened to do, so cowed was she by successive authoritarian clergy.
But in general, the hold that the church has over the minds of even its adherents, is greatly weakened today, thanks to education, and encouragement to learn, and to think for oneself, and to question things that do not appear to be true. Islam never had its own Enlightenment. The Golden Age in which great Islamic scholars both preserved and advanced knowledge in astronomy, philosophy and mathematics is long past. Just learn to recite the Koran, in a language you may well not understand, and settle for that, seems to be the way. Some think that women should not be educated at all. I guess that's for much the same reason as the Northampton clergy did not publicise my course - it would lead to them questioning the unfounded assumptions of the men, and that would never do.
But none of the above is the primary cause of my worry about Islam. Just recently there has been a terrible, but similar, event in both Islamic Pakistan and Christian America. In both places there has been an assassination attempt on an prominent elected official. In Tuscon, Arizona, Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on Representative Gabrielle Giffords, seriously wounding her and killing several other people. At least, he has been indicted for the crime, and was apprended at the scene trying to reload his gun. In Pakistan Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated, confessedly by one of his own bodyguards. In both cases, this is not only murder, but also an attack on democracy itself.
In the Arizona case, there has been a lot of heart-searching, and some wild accusations, from both sides of the political divide. No-one approves of murdering members of the body politic no matter how much their views differ from one's own. The assumption at present is that the assassin is in some way mentally ill. In Pakistan too thousands mourned Governor Taseer. But, and it is an enormous but, in Pakistan some religious leaders have praised the governor's killer. (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12116764) Why? Because he was a liberal, a man who believed and said that Pakistan's blasphemy law is draconian and needs to be changed. Malik Mumtaz Hussein Qadri confessed to the murder and people gave him garlands. One religious leader said "No Muslim should attend the funeral or even try to pray for Salman Taseer or even express any kind of regret or sympathy over the incident". Some people supported Governor Taseer because he spoke up for minority rights. Other supported his murderer simply for religious reasons. The New York Times reported that the assassin "was showered by hundreds of supporters with rose petals and garlands. Moderate religious leaders refused to condemn the assassination, and some hard-line religious leaders appeared obliquely to condone the attack". (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/world/asia/06pakistan.html)
The difference is clear, and I don't think it is prejudice. In America those for and against Mrs Giffords' policies were equally horrified at the assassination attempt. Everyone sees and condemns it as an attack on democracy itself. In Pakistan while that view was also found, so was a vocal element, encouraged by some religious leaders, that supported the assassin for purely religious reasons. Christianity is not without its kooks and an insane fringe who will stoop to the murder of their opponents. They are a tiny minority condemned by almost all. In Islamic Pakistan those who support murder on religious grounds are at the very least a significant minority, maybe much more, and too large a proportion of more reasonable voices are intimidated into silence. That fundamental factor, a religious authoritarianism that is closely related to Fascism and is all too frequently found in Islam, is the source of my deep unease with Islam. I don't think it is prejudice. And it is opposed to all the human values I believe in. If a British Muslim leader would condemn such views and support Governor Taseer and human, Enlightenment, values I would be delighted. So far I have heard no such comment.
As everyone knows, my position is that religion is at best a mistake, one powered by deep emotional factors. But at least some adherents of religion retain human decency and value humanity itself. Others do not, and the sad fact is that Islam gives the impression of having the largest contingent of those whose fervour not only overcomes all reason but all human feeling as well.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Secular New Year
The first day of 2011 and the Archbishop of Canterbury is trying to get me to read the King James version of the bible on the one hand, while members of one religion are bombing and murdering members of another religion on the other hand.
It is no surprise that a churchman recommends bible reading. But the evidence of the terrible damage that uninstructed bible reading can do is plain to see. It is a collection of writings from many periods, informed by many and various prejudices but zero knowledge, representing a variety of autocratic and misogynistic attitudes that, when filtered by Enlightenment sensibilities is not absolutely without merit. Reading it intelligently and profitably requires specialist education, sadly lacking in most believers. The best modern translations come with introductory notes, and are made with a knowledge of the original languages that has only been available comparatively recently. On the other hand the King James version, now 500 years old, was made with comparative ignorance, especially of Hebrew, and into a form of English so different from our own that many of the sonorous phrases it contains themselves require translation.
So one has to suppose that Dr Williams is recommending bible reading for its literary value. Some passages do read very well, not least the more dramatic, and blood-thirsty, stories in the Old Testament. But these do not exemplify the values I'd want any children of mine to acquire. Or there is that ever-popular passage in the New Testament for reading at weddings in which St Paul extols love. I could once have given an hour's lecture on the meaning of the Greek word agape which St Paul uses, which has little to do with what is going on in the minds of most of the couples whose weddings I have conducted.
But it does read well aloud: the structure of the prose is marvellous. I sincerely hope that is what Dr Williams had in mind. But I doubt it.
I had met and worked with many thoughtful Christians who were willing to study to understand the relevance of the Bible for today and whose moral values were empowered by their sympathy, their empathy and their rationality. Their faith somehow withstood the shocks that such a courageous approach will give it, and I have nothing but admiration for them.
Unfortunately I have also been confronted by others whose ignorance was only equalled by their arrogance, and these have sadly been the majority. These are people whose instincts are closer to those of the Bronze Age authors of the Old Testament and who are temperamentally inclined towards intolerance and bigotry which does not stop far short of violence if at all. It's shocking when two apparently sweet old ladies call at your door to bring you good news about the love of Jesus and, when opposed in argument, inform you of the punishment that awaits you after death with ill-disguised relish. I forget which of the ancient sages of Christianity it was who taught that one of the joys of Heaven was watching the damned suffer in Hell - but he has his followers today.
Religion encourages believers to see themselves as different and better than others. At one place where I worked there were 3 Baptist churches. The regular, main-stream, Baptists joined in with the other local churches and while they generally held stricter views than the others, were pleasant enough people it was easy to associate with. The other two were splinters of the first, and one a splinter of the other, though I forget which was which. These were the Full Gospel Baptists and a group rejoicing in the name of the Strict & Peculiar Baptists, which was extremely apt for them. These two small congregations kept themselves apart from all other Christians, and from each other, as they each thought that they alone were saved, and the rest destined for Hell.
The militants of every faith are prepared to underwrite tactics that would be condemned as war crimes by anyone else. There have been examples of this in 2010 that made my blood run cold. And from there it is only a short step to those who find in their Scriptures not just permission but encouragement to slaughter innocent men, women and children. Sometimes this is because of a disagreement about matters of belief which are unsupported on both sides. Religious belief always boils down to a matter of opinion. Sometimes it is out of passion for the perceived will of God and in callous disregard for whoever finds themselves a victim. Thus worshippers at a church today, and at several mosques and religious festivals throughout last year have been viciously butchered, just as God ordered his prophet Elijah to butcher the prophets of different god, and his people to indiscriminately slaughter the citizens of Jericho, according to the Old Testament.
If religion were solely a matter of reason and rationality, only the most evil people of today would have anything to do with it. Unfortunately it is an emotional matter, and adherence to a religion almost as gut-level as sexual preference, and therefore beyond the reach of reason most of the time. That way even good people get caught up in it.
It is no surprise that a churchman recommends bible reading. But the evidence of the terrible damage that uninstructed bible reading can do is plain to see. It is a collection of writings from many periods, informed by many and various prejudices but zero knowledge, representing a variety of autocratic and misogynistic attitudes that, when filtered by Enlightenment sensibilities is not absolutely without merit. Reading it intelligently and profitably requires specialist education, sadly lacking in most believers. The best modern translations come with introductory notes, and are made with a knowledge of the original languages that has only been available comparatively recently. On the other hand the King James version, now 500 years old, was made with comparative ignorance, especially of Hebrew, and into a form of English so different from our own that many of the sonorous phrases it contains themselves require translation.
So one has to suppose that Dr Williams is recommending bible reading for its literary value. Some passages do read very well, not least the more dramatic, and blood-thirsty, stories in the Old Testament. But these do not exemplify the values I'd want any children of mine to acquire. Or there is that ever-popular passage in the New Testament for reading at weddings in which St Paul extols love. I could once have given an hour's lecture on the meaning of the Greek word agape which St Paul uses, which has little to do with what is going on in the minds of most of the couples whose weddings I have conducted.
But it does read well aloud: the structure of the prose is marvellous. I sincerely hope that is what Dr Williams had in mind. But I doubt it.
I had met and worked with many thoughtful Christians who were willing to study to understand the relevance of the Bible for today and whose moral values were empowered by their sympathy, their empathy and their rationality. Their faith somehow withstood the shocks that such a courageous approach will give it, and I have nothing but admiration for them.
Unfortunately I have also been confronted by others whose ignorance was only equalled by their arrogance, and these have sadly been the majority. These are people whose instincts are closer to those of the Bronze Age authors of the Old Testament and who are temperamentally inclined towards intolerance and bigotry which does not stop far short of violence if at all. It's shocking when two apparently sweet old ladies call at your door to bring you good news about the love of Jesus and, when opposed in argument, inform you of the punishment that awaits you after death with ill-disguised relish. I forget which of the ancient sages of Christianity it was who taught that one of the joys of Heaven was watching the damned suffer in Hell - but he has his followers today.
Religion encourages believers to see themselves as different and better than others. At one place where I worked there were 3 Baptist churches. The regular, main-stream, Baptists joined in with the other local churches and while they generally held stricter views than the others, were pleasant enough people it was easy to associate with. The other two were splinters of the first, and one a splinter of the other, though I forget which was which. These were the Full Gospel Baptists and a group rejoicing in the name of the Strict & Peculiar Baptists, which was extremely apt for them. These two small congregations kept themselves apart from all other Christians, and from each other, as they each thought that they alone were saved, and the rest destined for Hell.
The militants of every faith are prepared to underwrite tactics that would be condemned as war crimes by anyone else. There have been examples of this in 2010 that made my blood run cold. And from there it is only a short step to those who find in their Scriptures not just permission but encouragement to slaughter innocent men, women and children. Sometimes this is because of a disagreement about matters of belief which are unsupported on both sides. Religious belief always boils down to a matter of opinion. Sometimes it is out of passion for the perceived will of God and in callous disregard for whoever finds themselves a victim. Thus worshippers at a church today, and at several mosques and religious festivals throughout last year have been viciously butchered, just as God ordered his prophet Elijah to butcher the prophets of different god, and his people to indiscriminately slaughter the citizens of Jericho, according to the Old Testament.
If religion were solely a matter of reason and rationality, only the most evil people of today would have anything to do with it. Unfortunately it is an emotional matter, and adherence to a religion almost as gut-level as sexual preference, and therefore beyond the reach of reason most of the time. That way even good people get caught up in it.
Sunday, 19 December 2010
The Good Man And The Scoundrel
I heard a discussion on the Radio of Philip Pullman's "The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ" - I knew the premise of the book, and I wasn't going to read it. But the discussion changed my mind, and I am glad it did. My only problem is that I don't know how much my New Testament knowledge contributed to my enjoyment of the book - I could see so much of the New Testament, and of scholarly opinion, behind the story. But I suspect that anyone with an interest in religion and the rise of the Christianity of the church out of the teaching of Jesus would enjoy it.
Christianity, it seems to me, was invented by St Paul. The Gospels have a go, in their different ways, and with their different interests, at telling the Jesus story and giving an account of his teaching. St Paul makes no reference to any of this, apart from the Passion and Easter narratives, which he sets in his own theological environment. St Paul doesn't seem to give a tinker's about what Jesus said, or when or where he went about. What he is interested in is the significance of Jesus in God's plan. And that is the core of Christianity - Christianity makes claims about why Jesus matters, not about what he taught. That's how the Church has managed to overlook so much of his teaching (for instance on poverty, and the importance of being child-like, and so on) while concentrating on his role as God's instrument, and it's own role as the preserver of that message. Indeed, without that emphasis it's hard to see what the institutional church's role would be.
Pullman uses an ingenious device, Jesus' twin brother. The twin, called Christ, observes and records and improves Jesus' message in order to preserve it for the future. It is Christ, not his brother Jesus, who thinks that founding a church would be a good thing for the world. In a brilliant picture of Jesus' agonised prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest, Jesus sees the downside of a church, and feels the silence of God intensely. I recognised some of my own thinking in the words Pullman puts into Jesus' mouth. There is a constant tension between Jesus, the enthusiast for God's coming kingdom, and Christ, the one who wants to institutionalise the best bits of that enthusiasm. Pullman constructs a further tension between History, what happened, and The Truth, which exists apart from it in some timeless reality (or unreality if you prefer). And I loved the discussion between the beggars at the Pool of Bethesda. Absolutely spot on.
The book is written like a children's story, and is very easy to read indeed. But the adult nature of the thinking behind the writing can only be escaped by act of deliberate ignorance.
There is much more I could say, but it would be better if you read the book for yourself.
Christianity, it seems to me, was invented by St Paul. The Gospels have a go, in their different ways, and with their different interests, at telling the Jesus story and giving an account of his teaching. St Paul makes no reference to any of this, apart from the Passion and Easter narratives, which he sets in his own theological environment. St Paul doesn't seem to give a tinker's about what Jesus said, or when or where he went about. What he is interested in is the significance of Jesus in God's plan. And that is the core of Christianity - Christianity makes claims about why Jesus matters, not about what he taught. That's how the Church has managed to overlook so much of his teaching (for instance on poverty, and the importance of being child-like, and so on) while concentrating on his role as God's instrument, and it's own role as the preserver of that message. Indeed, without that emphasis it's hard to see what the institutional church's role would be.
Pullman uses an ingenious device, Jesus' twin brother. The twin, called Christ, observes and records and improves Jesus' message in order to preserve it for the future. It is Christ, not his brother Jesus, who thinks that founding a church would be a good thing for the world. In a brilliant picture of Jesus' agonised prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest, Jesus sees the downside of a church, and feels the silence of God intensely. I recognised some of my own thinking in the words Pullman puts into Jesus' mouth. There is a constant tension between Jesus, the enthusiast for God's coming kingdom, and Christ, the one who wants to institutionalise the best bits of that enthusiasm. Pullman constructs a further tension between History, what happened, and The Truth, which exists apart from it in some timeless reality (or unreality if you prefer). And I loved the discussion between the beggars at the Pool of Bethesda. Absolutely spot on.
The book is written like a children's story, and is very easy to read indeed. But the adult nature of the thinking behind the writing can only be escaped by act of deliberate ignorance.
There is much more I could say, but it would be better if you read the book for yourself.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
About knowing God's will
"The notion of the will of God being determined by votes is both modern and alarming.” Joan Bakewell in A Point of View, Friday 25 November 2011, BBC Radio 4.
Yes, one can easily see why some people are very alarmed by it – but it isn't modern at all. Admittedly the usual way for the faithful to learn of God's will, other than from received teaching, is when some individual has sufficient arrogance to think that his personal opinions or desires are the result of direct communication from God and the chutzpah to stand up and tell everyone so.
None the less the Bible itself records God's will being decided by a debate, as at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 154-35). That was about the year 50 CE. One might think that the contents of the Bible was something that God had strong feelings about, and the debate about what works were or were not accepted continued over quite a long while until finally settled at the Council of Carthage in 419 CE, again by a debate.
No doubt Roman Catholics regard the choice of Pope as being the expression of God's will, but that has been decided by an election at least since the 2nd Council of Lyon, which laid down the rules, in 1215. So that is comparatively modern, but not, I think, modern in the sense that Joan Bakewell used the word.
It works for the Church of England too. It has made it's opinion known, for example, about whether the use of contraception was in accord with God's will or otherwise several times, changing it's mind in the process. In 1908 the Lambeth Conference (the supreme gathering of Anglican bishops) called on “all Christian people to discountenance the use of all artificial means of restriction as demoralising to character”. In 1930 the same body resolved that “Where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, complete abstinence is the primary and obvious method” but “the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of Christian principles”. So God is neither totally for nor totally against – he is truly an Anglican. Then in 1958, by which time contraception was a fact of life for church members, a resolution was passed by the assembled bishops to the effect that God wanted prospective parents to decide about the number and frequency of children and to implement their decision “in such ways as are acceptable to husband and wife”. Not only a vote by the bishops on what God's will is, but also a passing of the buck to the couple. And of course General Synod has taken numerous votes on what God's will might be concerning, say, the Ordination of Women.
All that has happened since 50 CE is that the franchise has been extended.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
For religious callers...
Religion is an illusion at best and a lie at worst. The alleged benefits it offers are false. The methods it uses to secure more followers are immoral. There is no shred of evidence in support of religion or its claims. The mountain of evidence suggesting the contrary is overwhelming.
Religious scriptures are full of ridiculous claims, impossible requirements and contradictions. I have studied the bible in both of the original languages, Hebrew and Greek, which is a claim very few doorstep evangelists can make. I can support the statements in the first sentence of this paragraph, and indeed pile up examples. Others who are native speakers of Arabic say the same of the Koran.
Let's just take one simple example, the claim that there will be life after death. Everything we know about the human body says that who we are, our awareness and our consciousness, is a product of the electro-chemical activity in our brains. The effect on personality that brain injury has is just one small piece of supporting evidence. Current research in neuroscience indicates that what we take to be deliberate conscious decisions are in fact made deep in our brains long before we become aware of them. That's just another small piece of a jigsaw that wipes out any doubt, when it is all taken together, that who we are depends on our physical bodies. That when our body dies, we stop existing is the inevitable conclusion.
It seems to me that the principle benefit of religion is to assuage the fears of those who are about to die – to give them hope that they will in fact go on living in some way. It's a false claim, but it seems to offer some comfort to some people. I don't believe in lying to anyone, even those, perhaps especially those, who are about to die. Non-existence is not something to be afraid of. We did not exist for the first 13.7 billion years of the Universe's existence. Not to exist for the remainder cannot be a problem.
If you want to believe fairy tales and soothe yourself with false hopes, that's up to you. It is deeply immoral to encourage others to do the same. Reality is always better than lies or illusions. This life is better for being only the only one we have, and more to be savoured for being short.
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