An excellent long article from the estimable Bryan Appleyard.
Is it time to take God out of the state?
The Sunday Times
October 22, 2006
Bryan Appleyard
Faith groups are increasingly demanding new rights or complaining of being wronged. Some say the time has come for Britain to create a clear divide between state and religion. Are they right?
11 comments:
This is a bit of pet topic for me. You can see earlier threads here, here and here.
In attempt to kick start this thread, which (despite being initiated by JP) is very close to my heart, I commend for your reading pleasure this article by AC Grayling.
Religions don't deserve special treatment
It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect.
AC Grayling
October 19, 2006 03:45 PM
It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law against criticism and ridicule.
It is time to refuse to tip-toe around people who claim respect, consideration, special treatment, or any other kind of immunity, on the grounds that they have a religious faith, as if having faith were a privilege-endowing virtue, as if it were noble to believe in unsupported claims and ancient superstitions. It is neither. Faith is a commitment to belief contrary to evidence and reason, as between them Kierkegaard and the tale of Doubting Thomas are at pains to show; their example should lay to rest the endeavours of some (from the Pope to the Southern Baptists) who try to argue that faith is other than at least non-rational, given that for Kierkegaard its virtue precisely lies in its irrationality.
On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason - to believe something by faith - is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect. It is time to say so.
Read on...
Brilliant from Grayling. Remember some good philosophy books by him back in college days...
on this blog his argument is a bit like preaching to the converted.
Shouldn't that be "making a secular speech to those who have already been rationally convinced of the argument"?
:)
Grayling's back... and he's pissed! He starting to sound as grumpy as Dawkins. Anyway, this time he goes after people who say that atheism is a 'faith' position and who describe people like himself (and Dawkins) as 'fundamentalist atheists.'
No quote - if you're interested you'll follow the link and read it.
Gotta have faith?
Brilliant from Grayling. Definitely worth reading the whole thing.
"Atheism" is a word used by religious people to refer to those who do not share their belief in the existence of supernatural entities or agencies. Presumably (as I can never tire of pointing out) believers in fairies would call those who do not share their views "a-fairyists", hence trying to keep the debate on fairy turf, as if it had some sensible content; as if there were something whose existence could be a subject of discussion worth the time.
...
So despite the best efforts of religious folk to keep the discussion on their turf, those who do not share their outlook should repudiate the label "atheist" unless those who wish to use it are prepared to say "atheist and afairyist and agoblinist and aghostist" and so on at considerable length, to mark the rational rejection of belief in supernatural entities of any kind. As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, since Christians and Muslims do not believe in Thor and Wotan, or Zeus and Ares and Hermes, or Shiva and Vishnu, or the Japanese Emperor, and so endlessly on, they too are "atheists" about almost all the gods ever imagined.
Without the commonplace and dispiriting facts of history which show how religious organisations are in truth political, military and economic ones that exist for the sake of their all-too-human beneficiaries, it would not be easy to see why, eg Christians believe in the volcano god of the Jews (the pillar of smoke by day, the burning bush on the mountain top), and why they choose the Jesus story out of all the many in which a god (Zeus and Jaweh are hardly alone in this) makes a mortal woman pregnant, who gives birth to a son, who engages in heroic endeavours, often involving suffering (think of Hercules and his labours), and therefore goes to heaven. For this tale is a commonplace of the old Middle Eastern religions, and it is arbitrary to pick this one rather than that one to kill and die for.
On the subject of religion, I was quite taken aback by this suggestion from Melanie Phillips:
"it is vital that Britain and Europe re-Christianise if they are to have any chance of defending western values."
Now, even if Melanie could persuade me that this was desirable, just how do you effect this re-christianisation?
The staunchly secular blogger Shuggy exposes a flaw in her argument when he writes:
"I'm getting really fed up with apologias for religion based on this sort of disutility argument: for Melanie Phillips and her ilk, the decline in religious faith has produced a cultural catastrophe of family breakdown, crime, cowardly sensualism, plagues of locusts etc.
Secularists of the world unite in argument - we spend too much time taking issue with the dodgy history and sociology that people like Melanie Phillips use. But this distracts from a more obvious and immediate problem with her argument. It is that people don't become believers for this sort of reason. People convert for the salvation of their own souls, not because they think thereby they'll be instrumental in strengthening the nuclear family and reducing crime.
So if Melanie Phillips wants Europe to re-Christianize, her energies would be better spent trying to make converts by preaching the Gospel.
But she can't - because she doesn't believe in it herself.
You see the problem.
Anyway, what would happen if the 're-Christianization of Europe' produced not people willing to fight for the causes she advocates, in the way she prescribes, but instead people disposed to loving their enemies and turning the other cheek? Mel doesn't say."
Unfortunately Shuggy is 100% right. And I kinda like Wembley's proposal too.
I guess the issue that concerns us is can you achieve the benefits of the desired Christianisation without the religious belief? Answers on a postcard....
Re: the benefits of Christianisation (and religiosity) in general, The Journal of Religion and Society has collated a bunch of data contrasting the US with other 'prosperous democarcies'.
Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies
A First Look
Gregory S. Paul
Baltimore, Maryland
Two centuries ago there was relatively little dispute over the existence of God, or the societally beneficial effect of popular belief in a creator. In the twentieth century extensive secularization occurred in western nations, the United States being the only significant exception [...]. If religion has receded in some western nations, what is the impact of this unprecedented transformation upon their populations? Theists often assert that popular belief in a creator is instrumental towards providing the moral, ethical and other foundations necessary for a healthy, cohesive society.
Read on... (The graphs are the best bit.)
The US comes out as the most religious of the countries in the study, but also the one with the most social problems. The authors of the study find a correlation between religious belief and societal ills and and wonder if the relationship is one of cause and effect.
Personally, I think this may be pushing it too far - Japan comes out very well in the data, so there may also be a correlation between sushi eating and societal health. If you look at the worldwide murder rate you'll see religious societies at both the top and bottom of the table. However, the study does at least suggest that a god-fearing society is not necessarily one with less social problems.
As for JP's request for postcards here's Muriel Gray suggesting (perhaps with tongue in cheek) the foundation of a new movement:
Tired of all the religious garbage? It’s time to become an Enlightenist
I'd been meaning to post something regarding the research Dan found on the effects of popular religiousity on prosperous societies.
It occured to me that the age structures of the respective countries might explain the differences in murder rates. Maybe older societies where less violent than younger ones.
Out of curiousity I googled age structures in Japan, UK and the States. It's not conclusive but some of the statistics seem to support this theory.
Japan for instance has an aging population (In 2030 the over sixty fives are projected to be 25.6% of the population) and a very low murder rate. We can see similiar results in the EU which also has an aging population and relatively low murder rates.
Here is the age structure research on Japan,
UK, and the USA. Also here's an American article on the relationship between age structures and homicide rates in the USA.
One other curious thing I noticed in the US murder rates, they decline under Bush and seem to have reach a peak under Clinton's term in office. Curiouser still, they appear to be going up under Labour too.
On a similar point, I seem to remember a fair bit about the link between demographics and a nation's propensity to be war-like in Huntington's fascinating Clash of Civilizations. And guess what - a lot of Muslim countries have extraordinary percentages of young people.
Wonder what the average age in Ipswich is?
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