Author: Ophelia Benson

Another installment of Heathen’s Progress. It starts with prayer and then generalizes to religious ritual compared to secular ritual.

I’ve recently started praying. Well, not exactly praying, but doing something that fulfils what I think are its main functions. Prayer provides an opportunity to remind oneself of how one should be living, our responsibilities to others, our own failings, and our relative good fortune, should we have it. This is, I think, a pretty worthwhile practice and it is not something you can only do if you believe you are talking to an unseen creator. Many stoics did something similar and some forms of meditation serve the same kind of purpose. My version is simply a few minutes of quiet reflection on such matters each morning.

I don’t see why that should be called prayer at all. It looks to me like thinking, which is not the same thing. Reflection is more like thinking than it’s like prayer, and adding “quiet” doesn’t make it more like prayer. Thinking generally is quiet.

Prayer, after all, is a form of asking. “I pray you” is an archaic way of saying I ask you, I beg you, I beseech you. It’s not a way of saying I quiet-reflect you.

Maybe Julian thinks it’s like prayer because he does it each morning, so that makes it prayer-like. But it could also make it brushing the teeth-like or putting on the trousers-like. But those are comparatively noisy; maybe it’s the combination of quiet and each morning. But then pausing to figure out where you left your keys/homework/bus pass would be prayer-like.

I’m being mean. Ok, I am being mean, but that’s because I don’t much like this solemn attempt to sanctify (as it were) an entirely secular activity.

I do think that prayer, like many rituals, is something that the religious get some real benefits from that are just lost to us heathens. One reason is that many of these rituals are performed communally, as part of a regular meeting or worship. This means there is social reinforcement. But the main one is that the religious context transforms them from something optional and arbitrary into something necessary and grounded. Because the rituals are a duty to our absolute sovereign, there is strong reason to keep them up. You pray every day because you sense you really ought to, and it will be noticed if you don’t. In contrast, the belief that daily meditation is beneficial motivates in much the same way as the thought that eating more vegetables or exercising is. Inclination comes and goes and needs to be constantly renewed.

Yes but that idea is also one of the most dangerous and oppressive ideas that humans have come up with. Yes it can be good for good people, in helping them stay motivated, but it’s a nightmare in the hands of ungood people. Julian knows this of course, but he fails to mention it.

He goes on to say that it’s difficult to replace religious rituals with secular ones because they don’t have the same kind of automatic justification, so it all feels a bit forced and fake. I agree with that, and once wrote a Comment is Free piece (answering CiF Belief’s question of the week) saying much the same thing:

There are several candidates for least-possible-to-replace aspect of religion. For most varieties the obvious one is the object of worship – the god or gods. If you subtract god or gods and leave the ceremonies and meetings and rules, you seem to be left with something very arbitrary and random. “Why are we doing this when we don’t think God is participating?” Secular pseudo-religion strikes me as not just hopeless but also faintly nauseating. I’m not about to sit in a circle holding hands, or worship The Principle of Humanity, or put a list of Affirmations on the wall.

…

The sad thing about this is that church is, among other things, a way to get together with other people and focus the mind on being good. The religious version of being good is not always on the mark, to put it mildly, but even the opportunity to contemplate goodness seems valuable. This is something it’s truly hard to reproduce with secular institutions. Politics seems like the closest thing to a substitute, and it’s not a very close match.

This could in theory be something humanist groups could attempt, but in reality the idea seems hopeless. Why? I suppose because it’s like the proverbial herding of cats. Who would deliver the sermon? I don’t want to go sit in a pew and listen to some secular sermon, and I doubt many other people do either. We’re used to the idea of a cleric standing up and lecturing people about some facet of being good; we’re not used to the idea of anyone else doing that. Habituation explains a lot. I don’t think clerics have any special expertise in moral matters; on the contrary; but I do realise that they at least have practice in talking about them. How useful this is depends very heavily on the quality of their moral views: lectures on the duty of women to be obedient and the duty of men to enforce obedience are not helpful, for instance; but the habit of focusing on morality, at least, seems in some ways enviable.

I can get quite melancholy, sometimes, thinking about this. But then – there is no obvious easy replacement for a weekly sermon on being good, but there is also no obvious easy replacement for the belief in eternal torment. Swings and roundabouts.

I think Julian neglected the roundabouts.

Ohhhhhhh the Daily Mail. It’s a sin to tell whoppers.

Headline on story about Jessica Ahlquist and the judge’s decision:

School ordered to remove ‘religious’ banner which tells pupils to be kind

Scare quotes on “religious” when the banner starts with “HEAVENLY FATHER” – does the Mail think that’s a secular greeting?

A school has been ordered to tear down a banner encouraging its pupils to be kind to one another after a judge decided it violated the First Amendment.

The banner at Cranston High School West in Rhode Island was judged to promote religion because it takes the form of a prayer addressed to ‘Our Heavenly Father’ and concluding ‘Amen’.

Yes…….a prayer that begins with “our heavenly father” and ends with “amen” is in fact religious. What else would it be?

From Nirmukta:

Ajita was raised in the city of Coimbatore, India. His passion for science and reason went back to early childhood.

…

Ajita was an active participant in freethought throughout his years in America, forming ties with freethinkers who would become part of Nirmukta’s extended family. Employing his versatile talents, his contributions towards the cause of reason were manifold: as a prolific and edifying writer, as an insightful interviewer, as an adept podcast host, as an energetic community organizer both on-ground and online, and as a welcoming mentor to many freethinkers young and old taking their first steps towards embracing freethought.

In 2008, he started what would later become our organisation known as Nirmukta.

What? What’s that?

It’s a fun game in India and Bangladesh: stalking and/or taunting women. It has a funny jokey haha name, so obviously it’s totes harmless, even though some women kill themselves to get away from it (silly bitches) and some people get murdered trying to stop it.

Young women often face verbal abuse and taunts in Bangladesh, and sometimes stalked by colleagues at school or other young men.

Some young women, unable to bear the repeated insults, have even gone so far as to commit suicide.

…

The High Court last week asked the government to take measures to stop sexual harassment and stalking of women after a number of suicides and killings related to the issue in recent weeks.

Activists say more than 24 people, most of them young girls, have died because of bullying and harassment since the beginning of this year.

In recent weeks, some of those who spoke out against sexual harassment have been murdered, causing public outrage.

A 50-year-old woman died after a motorcycle was driven over her when she protested against the bullying of her daughter last week.

A college teacher who spoke against bullying was also murdered. The killings led to a series of protests across the country.

That was November 2010. A year later, in Bombay –

…two men were attacked and killed after they had defended women from harassment outside a restaurant in Mumbai (Bombay).

The public abuse of women – called “Eve teasing” – is rampant in India.

A Facebook campaign calling for justice for the dead youngsters has picked up tens of thousands of followers.

I just joined that group.

…a small group of young people had left a restaurant together in a smart district of Mumbai.

Outside, some of the women in the group were harassed by men standing nearby.

Two of the women’s friends confronted the men, who fled. But shortly later they returned and attacked the pair.

The two men who came to the women’s defence, Keenan Santos and Ruben Fernandes, received injuries so severe that both subsequently died.

Apparently the right to bully and taunt women is so important that it’s worth killing for.

Valerian Santos, the father of one of the two dead youths, said he was proud of his son and urged more men to take a stand against the public harassment of women.

“I have another two boys and I have always maintained that if a woman or someone is in trouble, don’t look at your life – go and help that person,” he said.

“These people, they don’t realise it until it happens to one of their loved ones. Then they will cry for help.”

“Eve teasing” makes life miserable and even dangerous for women who go out in public and who use public transport.

Oh come now, BBC, talk about something important. The mere “teasing” of women can’t possibly be important enough for a serious news article. Get a real job.

Of local interest – I’m told that the historian Olivier Zunz has written a very good book on philanthropy. He’ll be at Town Hall January 16 at 7:30.

Yet another petition. But it’s a good one. I couldn’t resist (typical woman, eh).

After 4 years of marketing research, LEGO has come to the conclusion that girls want LadyFigs, a pink Barbielicious product line for girls, so 5 year-olds can imagine themselves at the café, lounging at the pool with drinks, brushing their hair in front of a vanity mirror, singing in a club, or shopping with their girlfriends. As LEGO CEO Jorgan Vig Knudstorp puts it, “We want to reach the other 50% of the world’s population.”

That makes my head want to explode, so I signed.

As representatives of that 50%, we aren’t buying it! Marketers, ad execs, Hollywood and just about everyone else in the media are busy these days insisting that girls are not interested in their products unless they’re pink, cute, or romantic. They’ve come to this conclusion even though they’ve refused to market their products to the girls they are so certain will not like them. Who populates commercials for LEGO? Boys! Where in the toy store can you find original, creative, construction-focused LEGO? The boy aisle! So it’s no wonder LEGO’s market research showed girls want pink, already-assembled toys that don’t do anything. It’s the environment and the message marketers have bombarded girls with for over a decade because, of course, stereotypes make marketing products so much easier. But we remember playing with and loving LEGO when we were little girls.

Damn right. Well I didn’t play with LEGO – it hadn’t been invented in the 1890s – but I did play with cowboy paraphernalia, and Lincoln Logs, and an electric train (my older brother’s, to be sure, but there was no need for two of them and I played with it), and trees (by climbing them), and forts (by building them), and all sorts. I also liked making doll houses. I was eclectic. But I sure as hell did not play with anything pink and stupid.

And while we’re at it…we might as well be at it, don’t you think?

Silencing.

The purposes of debate.

Have I removed it enough yet?