Author: Ophelia Benson

I was thinking earlier today about religion as a meme, and the familiar point that (as Steven Weinberg summarizes it in the TLS) ‘the persistence of belief in a particular religion is naturally aided if that religion teaches that God punishes disbelief.’ I was thinking about the fact that what that means is that religions that do teach that are a racket, in a quite literal sense. A racket, and also circular. ‘Believe in this god because it will punish you if you don’t.’ ‘But why should I believe that?’ ‘Because it will punish you if you don’t.’ ‘Yes but why should I believe that it’s this god that will punish me, what if it’s actually a different one that will punish me for believing this one?’ ‘Because this one will punish you if you believe that.’ And so on. That’s one of the problems with Pascal’s flutter, of course. So anyway, it’s circular, and a racket. And it’s a very nasty racket at that – one of the nastiest that could be imagined.

Why? Because it systematically and deliberately disables one of the core human abilities: flexibility: the ability to change our minds.

That really is horrible, you know. I don’t think we appreciate how horrible it is, because we’re so used to it. But it is very horrible. Look, it’s a privilege being human. We get to have long-term memory, and we get to have language so that we can extend our memories by exchanging them and discussing them with other people, and we get to extend them further and make them more reliable by recording them in various ways. Think of that. Even the cleverest of other animals can’t tell each other what their ancestors did; they know nothing at all about anything that happened outside their own memory and observation. It’s a privilege having such complicated minds, and flexibility is one of the luxury appointments of those minds. The ability to change them is a fantastic thing, and religion’s short-circuiting of that ability is an appalling way of proceeding. We’re so used to it we take it for granted, we don’t notice the horror of it, but really it is a bad thing.

It’s one of the best things about us, the ability to change our minds, and it makes possible many other best things about us – the ability to learn, for a start. Imagine disabling people’s ability to learn. Terrible business.

Dawkins touches on this in an interview at Alternet, in reply to the observation that ‘People finally say, “What’s it to you? Why not be an atheist if that’s what works for you, and leave the rest of us to be as religious as we wish?” This, I believe, is offered as a challenge to your open-mindedness or your respect for others. You’re being called “an atheist fundamentalist.”

“Fundamentalist” usually means, “goes by the book.” And so, a religious fundamentalist goes back to the fundamentals of The Bible or The Koran and says, “nothing can change.” Of course, that’s not the case with any scientist, and certainly not with me. So, I’m not a fundamentalist in that sense.

Nothing can change, you see. What a horror. What a nightmare that idea is. Those poor deprived people. It’s heart-rending.

An interesting point about expertise and epistemology and how they interact in courtrooms.

The evolving science that surrounds DNA, for example, demands caution and careful interpretation, while the criminal law and our adversarial system expects a simple explanation – often nothing better than a “yes” or “no” answer. So the hired expert who presents his data with certainty and determination is more likely to win over a jury than the more hesitant doctor, scientist or expert who is prepared to acknowledge doubt. That’s why Gene Morrison was able to bamboozle the courts for as long as he did – not because he had a fake PhD (after all, even TV diet experts have those), but because he presented what he had to say with certainty and conviction and the scrutiny of the science behind what he said was never robustly questioned either by the defence or by the prosecution.

Beware of certainty; be especially ware of people who make claims with certainty; be triply ware of people who make claims with certainty in areas where certainty is not possible.

This is unpleasant stuff. Unsurprising, but unpleasant. A statement by the Cambridge Muslim Welfare Society about that business at Clare College.

With sorrow and anger the Mosque notes the publication, in the student newsletter Clareification, of material which deliberately insults the honour of the Blessed Prophet Muhammad (s.w.s.). Mindful of its duty before Almighty Allah and before humanity to defend the honour and good name of the Final Prophet, the Mosque condemns this provocation in the strongest terms.

Its duty? To tell everyone in the entire world that it is forbidden to ‘insult’ the honour of the Blessed Prophet Muhammad (s.w.s.)? To impose the taboos and rules of one religion on everyone everywhere, despite the impossibility and unreasonability of expecting everyone to share that view of the BPM? To worry more about the ‘honour’ of someone who died in the 7th century than about – pretty much anything else? That’s its duty?

We hope and trust…that the students will offer a full and unconditional apology for their irresponsible action. The University’s record of freedom of expression is a matter of record and of pride. However it is clear that incitement to religious and ethnic hatred is at all times immoral, and that its consequences for harmony between communities and nations can be grave. It is particularly important that the boundary between fair comment and hate speech be respected and understood at the present time…

Is insulting the honour of the BPM ‘incitement to religious and ethnic hatred’? Is the boundary between ‘fair comment and hate speech’ so well demarcated that it is self-evident where it is? Is it up to Mosques to decide? Is that worry about harmony between communities a threat? A lot of questions here. But it makes me nervous when religious people think they get to tell everyone what to do.

The problem with soothing official boilerplate is that it tends to ignore incompatibilities – it tends to say ‘Yes yes of course we can do everything, of course we can fly through the air and creep along the ground and dive beneath the sea, all at the same time.’ It tends to say everyone can have everything everyone wants, next question please. The Department for Education and Skills reaction to the MCB’s helpful educational guidelines for instance.

The Department for Education and Skills has no involvement with the document produced by the MCB. We have already provided schools with a wealth of official guidance, which makes clear they should take into account, and recognise, the needs and cultural diversity of all their pupils regardless of their background….It is important that education provides the right ethos which encourages high aspirations, good citizenship and mutual understanding, and that schools recognise the cultural and faith needs of all their pupils.

Right, except the only problem is that you can’t do all those things. That’s why all this business about recognizing the putative ‘cultural and faith needs’ of everyone is not a cheery straightforward uncontroversial matter. Shall we spell it out? Yet again? Might as well, I guess. Maybe if we keep on spelling it out, over and over again, eventually spokespeople for departments will realize they can’t get away with soothing boilerplate on this particular subject any more. Okay: to spell it out: some cultural and faith needs include the need to prevent half of humanity from having high aspirations. Does that clear it up at all?

Okay I’ll try to be even blunter. Some cultures and some faiths don’t want women to have high aspirations at all; as a matter of fact there is nothing, literally nothing, that some cultures and traditions hate more than women with high aspirations. Some adherents of cultures and traditions like that shoot women with high aspirations in the head, precisely for the crime of having high aspirations. Other such adherents set fire to such women. So you can’t do both. You can’t do both, you can’t do both. Sad, isn’t it – but you can’t. You have to choose. You can do only one. Either recognize putative cultural and faith needs, or encourage high aspirations. Those two goals are violently, tragically incompatible. Hideously incompatible. Repellently incompatible. You have to choose one, and you have to choose the right one. You have to learn how to say ‘The hell with cultural and faith needs.’

Terry Eagleton says wrong things again.

The basic moral values of the average Muslim dentist who migrates to Britain are much the same as those of a typical English-born plumber. Neither is likely to believe that lying and cheating are the best policy, or that they should beat their children. They may have different customs and beliefs, but what is striking is the vast extent of common ground between them on the issue of what it is for men and women to live well.

Is he joking? No, apparently not, he apparently means it – he means that ‘the average Muslim dentist’ and the ‘typical English-born plumber’ and, presumably, by extension, everyone else in the world is unlikely to believe that they should beat their children. Really?! There’s a universal consensus that people should not beat their children? The inadvisability of beating one’s children is uncontentious? Who knew!

Or to put it another way, what a ridiculous claim. Of course it’s not – it’s not an uncontentious claim even in the US or UK, and it’s certainly not one in places average migratory Muslim dentists are likely to come from. Especially, I would point out, ever so tactfully, if the children in question have the bad judgment to be daughters.

So what does he mean by his very next words? ‘They may have different customs and beliefs’ – right, such as beliefs about whether or not it’s a good idea to beat children, and customs about beating children. Yet all the same, they have the same basic moral values, which just happen to bear an uncanny resemblance to the basic moral values that Terry Eagleton would like them to have, such as the error of beating children. And even happier and pleasanter and more delightful, there is a vast extent of common ground between them on the issue of what it is for men and women to live well. At least according to Eagleton. I would have said he was wrong about precisely that point, but there you go.

David Thompson comments too, and so does Tom Freeman.

Update: Rosie Bell (our friend KB Player) also comments, as does our friend Ed.