Behind the Scenes
I heard something interesting on the US public radio show ‘Fresh Air’ last week. Peter Stotherd, a former editor of the Times (of London), has written a book called Thirty Days: Tony Blair and the Test of History, about Blair in the days on either side of the beginning of the war in Iraq. It’s all quite interesting, it’s a subject that interests me – for one thing, I was relieved to hear that (contrary to some reports I’d read) Blair has a business-like relationship as opposed to a friendship with George Bush. Absurd, isn’t it. What do I care, what business is it of mine? But there’s something so repulsive in the thought of a grown-up, intelligent man like Blair actually feeling friendship for such a proudly vacuous bully boy as Bush that it makes me queasy.
But that’s not the bit that prompted a Note and Comment. No, I’m still musing on this question of religion and the role it plays in the two countries (the two countries B and W originates from, the UK and the US). It’s well known that the US is far more fundamentalist and god-bothering than the UK – but then again the US does have an official, constitutional, written, explicit separation of church and state, which the UK doesn’t, and there are corners of Ukanian life where religion is allowed when it wouldn’t be in the US – in schools, for example.
Stotherd tells us that Blair badly wanted to say ‘God bless you’ at the end of a major speech on Iraq, but his colleagues wouldn’t let him, indeed were somewhat outraged at the idea. ‘It will sound like a crusade!’ they exclaimed. Yes, thought I, and more than that, it will sound so horribly American. Bad enough that he’s called Bush’s poodle (Stotherd had already discussed that nickname), what would they call him if he started sounding like Jerry Fallwell? For that matter what would I call him? I can’t stand it when presidents say that. And Blair’s colleagues must feel the same way, because Stotherd reports that they said ‘People don’t want that kind of thing forced down their throats.’ Blair was affronted, Stotherd says. ‘You’re a godless lot, aren’t you!’ he exclaimed.
And that’s the bit that irritates me. There we are again, you see. Indignation at people who are ‘godless’ on the part of the godfull. But what business do they have being indignant about it? Any more than they have getting indignant at people for not believing in the tooth fairy or the Great Pumpkin? Why do believers always think they have the right to upbraid the skeptics? Why is not the upbraiding all on the other side? Or at least why is the polite toleration not mutual. Why is non-theism not the default position? Why is the burden of proof not on the believers as opposed to the non-believers? No good reason, that I can see, apart from habit and contagion. Which is why there can be such a thing as too much toleration of religion.
But, on the other hand, Blair consistently votes in favour of abortion, even though he thinks it is wrong on religious (moral) grounds. So that’s an example of the godfull recognising that the godless shouldn’t have godfull morality shoved down their throats.
Blair was also highly entertaining in his scornful dismissal of Jeremy Paxman’s question about whether he and Bush prayed together.
Also, I think I have one kind of answer to the question. If you’re genuinely godfull (i.e., you really believe what you’re saying) then godfullness seems to be a matter of life and death (eternal life and death). It isn’t so obviously the case the other way around…
Not that any of this is a reason to let bishops and the like loose on any kind of public stage..
True enough. As godfull people go, Blair is a much more benign example than the ones over here. The point was not so much that he’s as bad as the rest, as it was that even people like him can get it (in my view) wrong.
Also true that to the genuinely godfull, godfullness seems to be a matter of life and death. But that’s just what makes them so dangerous. It’s what makes them willing to send people off to be slaughtered in their thousands, or to slaughter others in their thousands, or to fly planes into buildings holding thousands. And then there’s the question of why people who (one would think) ought to see how absurd it all is, do think it’s a matter of eternal life and death. It’s no more inherently plausible than alien abduction.
Mind you, I’d quite like to see a few bishops on a public stage – a revival of ‘Showboat’ perhaps…
I suspect the worst revelation was that Blair reads theology at bedtime, as he admitted in a Guardian interview. Regarding his benign character, his government has sought to proscribe incitement to religious hatred and thereby sought to curb criticism of religion, permitted discrimination by religious employers, expanded church schools and rubber-stamped teaching of creationism, and created a post of religion czar. I do not call this benign.
Richard
But they dropped the incitement to religious hatred thing precisely because they couldn’t square it with the right of people to criticise religion. Their intentions were honourable in this regard.
The teaching of creationism thing is a storm in a teacup. Overwhelmingly creationism is not even mentioned in science lessons in UK schools (moreover nobody believes it, not even the religious in the UK [the last statistic I saw was that only 9% of people describing themselves as Xians in the UK believe in creationism; the caveat being that these surveys are very much question dependent]).
The religious schools thing is unfortunate, but has much more to do with politics than religion.
The UK just isn’t, at the moment, a religious kind of place.
J.
Hmm. Well, yes, but then a lot of the religious nonsense here (in the US) has more to do with politics than religion too, but it’s still (or perhaps all the more) harmful.
Yes. But despite our religious schools we have a population where less than 10% go to church regularly – and where the vast majority of those ageing.
To be religious here is unusual. It’s unusual enough that people will remark on it (and depending on the company one keeps make jokes about it, etc).
In sociology there is something called the secularisation thesis. Basically, it’s the argument that religion is of declining significance in modern societies. Various things are interesting about it, two of which are that its major proponents (e.g., Bryan Wilson) are British; and it’s much harder to argue for when you’re talking about the US (though people try, for example, Will Herberg argues that religion itself is secularised in the US).
Also, some of the stats are interesting. For example, the decline in church attendance in the UK over the last 100 years is striking; also the decline in the numbers of marriages occurring in church; the numbers of christenings (sp!?) and baptisms; etc.
What hasn’t changed much is the numbers who profess belief in God. It runs at middle-70s percent – pretty high, really. But, in the vast majority of cases, the belief has no efficacy. People claim to believe in God, but it makes no difference to their lives, etc.
To be clear here, I think religion is nonsense and a threat. But whilst it is nonsense in the UK, it’s not a threat to anything much here, it’s too weak. It is, needless to say, a very different story in the US, and also, of course, in Islamic countries.
Actually, the vast majority of everyone is ageing. Hardly anyone at all is doing the other thing!
And Bill K has a point too – even here, it’s perfectly possible to keep the kind of company where secularisation is pretty much 100%. Coastal urban intellectual or academic type company, for example.
But since nonsense is what we’re here to fight, I like to go on mentioning these things, even if the nonsense isn’t all that fashionable or threatening over there.
Even in academic company, in fact even in scientific company, if you really push it, a lot of people will confess to a vague spirituality, belief in something ‘out there’, a higher power etc. Sad but true.
I know. And see the newest item in ‘Flashback’ – Massimo Pigliucci points out the odd way Larson and Witham phrase the finding of their survey – ‘Scientists Keep the Faith’. As if, Pigliucci points out, that were a good thing. ‘Some Scientists Still Credulous’ would have been another way to put it.