Thanks anyway
Oh good, more calls for mandatory religion and against public atheism.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, are introducing a new think-tank report that challenges the secular dream of taking Christ out of Christmas or anything else…In a joint foreword, they welcome the conclusion of the report that faith is not just important for human flourishing, but that society can only flourish if faith is “given space” to contribute and challenge.
Really? Is that true? ‘Flourish’ in what sense? According to whom, by what lights, according to which criteria? And what kind of ‘space’ has to be given, and how much of it, and to whom? Can society ‘flourish’ only if, say, Fred Phelps is given space to contribute and challenge? Or does society do a better job of flourishing if Fred Phelps is thoroughly ignored. Can society ‘flourish’ only if the pope and the archbishop of Westminster and Catholic clerics in general tell everyone in the world not to use condoms? Is that ‘flourishing’?
“Many secularist commentators argue that the growing role of faith in society represents a dangerous development,” the archbishops say. “However, they fail to recognise that public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position.”
Could that be because that’s not true? Could these many secular commentators fail to recognise that public atheism is an ‘intolerant faith position’ because it’s not a ‘faith’ or a ‘faith position’ at all and because it’s not inherently intolerant any more than not playing the saxophone or not watching football or not eating pizza?
The report argues against confining faith to the private sphere, and says that religion will play an increasingly significant role because of the return of civil society, research about the role it plays in happiness and the politics of identity.
The politics of identity is one big reason to hope religion won’t ‘play an increasingly significant role’ in the public sphere; the politics of identity is…tricky and often reactionary stuff.
“We should not react with bewilderment when a public figure does ‘do God’. We should be less scared of public figures citing religious texts in mainstream contexts. We should be more willing to treat other value systems as coherent, reasonable and even valuable rather than as primitive or grotesque mutations of the liberal humanism to which every sane person adheres.”
No we shouldn’t. Religious texts, like so many things, are only as good as they are; many of them are revolting; the less revolting ones are less revolting for human secular ethical reasons that don’t need religion to ground them; so why should we be encouraging ‘public figures’ (which looks like a tricksy euphemism for political figures) to cite them? And we shouldn’t be more willing to treat other value systems as coherent and reasonable unless they in fact are coherent and reasonable – we shouldn’t be subject to blanket instructions to treat all other value systems as coherent and reasonable. Some are, some aren’t, and they should be evaluated on their merits, not on generalized instructions to accept and respect everything.
So archbish me no archbishops.
Cheers, OB! Keep up the good fight. After the Dems lose today, and lose big, (how do they deserve any different, offering nothing but a more tepid version of Republican theocracy and militarism?) the God-botherers will feel fully vindicated. Promise Keepers and Battle Cries for EVERYONE!
we need a few voices for rationalism and secularism to slow just a tiny bit the headlong rish to Handmaiden’s Tale.
‘ …public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position.’
Public? Public? Gosh, sorry arch-bish, hadn’t realised that being an atheist in public was such an issue. Is it OK if I disbelieve in private? May I mention it to close friends and family members? I promise not to ask any awkward questions or express any views which might offend supernaturalists if only I can have a tiny cupboard into which I can creep when the urge to disbelieve comes upon me.
AND IT IS NOT A BLOODY FAITH POSITION.
See, now you’ve made me shout.
Well, there’s a load of ahistorical bullshiot for a start: …”the secular dream of taking Christ out of Christmas >”
Does no-one remeber their history?
Or what the extreme fundie-churches do now/
They know that “Christmas” was deliberately fixed by the early church so as not to fall on either the shortest day, nor that day when it is (realtively) easy to tell the days are getting longer. It was a deliberate stich-up, even then.
Cromwell (ugh) and the puritans (EURGGHHH!) made the celebration of christmas an offence, and treated 25th December as a normal working day.
Faith should most definitely NOT be part of the public sphere – that is why, even now, the November 5th celebrations in Lewes are so vigorous. We have no desire to see the bonfires of heretics re-lit, because one’s faith is a public matter.
These people need to be seriously rubbished in public, not that many of our MP’s are going to be up to it, for fear of upsetting the extreme protestants/catholics/muslims.
Oh BUGGER!
( Cue Spanish Inquisition )
Well, I would agree with the archbishop that faith should be given space to flourish and challenge, as well as non-faith should be given space to challenge faith. Basic liberalism. But I’m not sure that’s what the archbishop has in mind.
“…research about the role it plays in happiness and the politics of identity.”
As if the politics of identity were necessarily a good thing, or that because something makes you happy makes it true. These guys aren’t even trying to appeal to honesty anymore. It might make me very happy to believe that I don’t have gangrene when I do and my leg doesn’t have to be cut off when it does, but that happiness will be awfully short-lived, won’t it?
“We should not react with bewilderment when a public figure does ‘do God’. We should be less scared of public figures citing religious texts in mainstream contexts.”
We should react; we should be scared.
Any argument that reduces to “God says so” is inherently based on belief and not reason.
If there ARE good reasons for doing something — eg not using condoms — then the “God says so” argument is just not needed.
If there are NO good reasons, then “God says so” is only compelling to that subset of the population that believes in that particular idea of God.
On a slightly different issue: Why is it that the arguments for “more religion” are usually so vague, woolly and weak?
On a different thread and in a different context, Jerry S opined that it is possible to make better arguments.
Why don’t we see them?
Here’s the full ‘report’:
http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/Files/MediaFiles/TheosBookletfinal.pdf
Should make for some nauseating dinner-time reading…
I notice that the main article on the Theos website is a review of ‘The God Delusion’ that begins with the opinion that it is Dawkins’ weakest book yet.
Why do I find this unsurprising?
“they fail to recognise that public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position”
And the archbish fails to notice that growing a beard is a form of shaving. It’s hardly surprising given how bushy his cheeks are, but once he recognises this we can go on to talk about what kind of aftershave he uses.
This idea of “public atheism” (how *dare* they do it in public!) is a bait-and-switch from secularism, which is tolerant of everything apart from theocracy.
He really needs to do much better if he hopes to fool anyone.
“… councils that try to rename Christmas as part of a trend towards politically correct public symbolism that ends up as “insipid and uninspiring”. “
Agreed, but they are following trends in governance which superficially embrace all organised religion rather than dominant Christian ones, in a pursuit of multicultural values that positively encourage people to express a religious persuasion, and actually hold little regard for a neutral or secular humanist approach. Multicultural stuff is often used than little more than an urban vote winning tactic by professional political and managerial strategists – aimed at various loud-mouthed religious interest groups.
It’s not rocket science: it is hardly an atheist position, nor humanist one, to rename Christmas, but I see here the terms increasingly are bandied about along with secularism as if they all describe an illusory attack on Christianity, its values and the Christian Church, and of course, good old fashioned Common Sense.
We are also led away from the fact that less then 3 percent of the country actively attends any regular worship.
It is a phoney war invented after assistance given to the senior ranks of the CofE by McKinsey & Co-like consultants (trust me on this) – the church not only wanted to address the horror of rapidly increasing market share of media-driven public attention and interest toward Islam after 9/11, but also the fact that thousands of churches have been closed permanently in the UK over the past fifty years following a glacier like demographic drift away of Britons from church attendance and faith towards both scepticism and secularism. A one-way street though ?
The CofE realised that a disastrous tipping point was being approach in the early nineties, when the afforementioned sophisticated management consultants were brought in, and although a tiny minority of Brits actually give a monkeys about what these various pontiffs are getting at, the death of communism, the rise of consumerism and the rise of Islam gave the Christian leaders some purchase on the situation.
Yes most Britons find these renaming activities absurd, it’s fork-in-the eye obvious, but then most Britons if asked about their ‘faith’ would profess vaguely to some sort of position; no matter how vague this position, it is taken and used as evidence by the churches as part of the attack on our once Great Faith, part of the assault on our traditions and on Great British values. There has to be an aggressor, so for now it is convenient to call it Scepticism and Rational Enquiry. This report is little more than a sophisticated marketing device to drum up public interest, media coverage (and of course investment) in the Christian church. But the real cost to Britain? Reason and truth.
“Jerry S opined that it is possible to make better arguments.
Why don’t we see them?”
We talked about that earlier today. JS suggests that theologians make more sophisticated arguments in academic publications; their popular work can still be terrible. I asked if they deliberately wrote terrible work for a broader audience, and he said maybe – because it can be difficult to write sophisticated popular arguments. The arugments have to be complicated, and the more complicated, the less popular. That makes sense.
Ts – arguments, not arugments.
“in a pursuit of multicultural values that positively encourage people to express a religious persuasion, and actually hold little regard for a neutral or secular humanist approach.”
You know – that’s a really interesting point. I sort of knew it but hadn’t quite thought of it that way before. Multiculturalism has pretty much come to mean religion – that’s the culture. Other things are too trivial, too consumer-like (food, costume, etc) to count. That would explain why lefty types think it’s lefty to cuddle religion the way they do.
Very helpful, Nick.
‘ The arugments have to be complicated, and the more complicated, the less popular’
This statement is likely true however when one reads the arguments in the journals one sees nothing new at all just the same rehashed ideas often coated with colorful language.
So I would disagree with JS that the sophisticated arguments are better. They are just more sophisticated.
The best arguments are simple. In the case of theology it should be really simply if something as incredible as a God exists.
“The best arguments are simple.”
Well not necessarily. The point (if I understand it correctly, and I think I do, because we hashed it out a bit, after I misunderstood what he was saying last week – and also because I know this from experience, such as working on Why Truth) is not sophistication for its own sake, but to avoid oversimplification. Complicated arguments are complicated arguments, so if you strip them down for simplicity and ease of reading – you’re leaving things out. It just isn’t always the case that the best argument is simple and linear. (Look at Jerry’s article on justice for what I think is a good example. It’s a complicated subject; the argument just can’t be simple and still best.)
I think an argument can be simple and still best but your point is well taken and your likely correct that it may not always be the case.
That being said I do not find theological arguments that are ‘sophisticated’ anymore revelant than those that are very simple. In fact I often find the more complex arguments have more holes upon close inspection.But that is only one venue for discussion.
Yup, that’s all I’m saying – an argument can be simple and still best, but that isn’t always the case.
I think JS would agree about sophisticated theol arguments – that’s compatible with their not being easy to dismiss, which was his basic point. It’s the close inspection bit.
Is there a link for J.S.s article?
It’s in News somewhere. I posted it, oh, a few weeks ago – I’m sure ‘search’ would find it. Or Google would – name plus justice.