The hammer of religious faith 24 May 2009 To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail. But hammers actually have a purpose that is useful. They do things. Some religious belief is rather more like a man with an imaginary hammer. The outgoing and obviously not-to-be-missed Archbishop of Westminster, the man who thinks you aren’t entirely human if you don’t believe in some god, has now said that the greatest evil in the world today is atheism. Yes, that’s right, people who fail to believe in a god are worse than the child rape by priests reported throughout the world. They are more evil than those who blow up civilians. They are worse than mass murderers or those who would enslave us all. Because not doing one arbitrary thing – believing in what they believe in – is the biggest moral threat there is: “What is most crucial is the prayer that we express every day in the Our Father, when we say ‘deliver us from evil’. The evil we ask to be delivered from is not essentially the evil of sin, though that is clear, but in the mind of Jesus it is more importantly a loss of faith. For Jesus, the inability to believe in God and to live by faith is the greatest of evils. “You see the things that result from this are an affront to human dignity, destruction of trust between peoples, the rule of egoism and the loss of peace. One can never have true justice, true peace, if God becomes meaningless to people.” Fortunately his successor is slightly less offensive. He only thinks that atheism impedes dialogue. “Some today propose that faith and reason are crudely opposed, with the fervour of faith replacing good reason. This reduction of both faith and reason inhibits not only our search for truth but also the possibility of real dialogue.” But wait! There’s more: Referring to the report published on Wednesday that exposed decades of child abuse by Catholic priests and nuns in Ireland, the Archbishop had said that it took courage for religious orders and clergy to “face the facts from their past.” If by “facing the past” you mean “ensuring that even when dead no names are made public and all perpetrators manage to evade prosecution with the willing assistance of the government”, then yes, they courageously faced the past. At least the Dublin Archbishop rightly and roundly attacked this piece of bastardry. Tell you what: if I had a hammer, I’d bloody use it on these pricks. Hat tip: The Freethinker. Ethics and Moral Philosophy Politics Religion
Philosophy You can’t explain a variable with a constant 12 Jan 2012 Courtesy of reader Jocelyn Stoller, comes this video, of respected philosopher of science Jim Woodward discussing whether or not religious beliefs explains things like suicide bombing and the moral right in the US. Answer: not likely. Watch part 2 at Youtube. Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Morality and Evolution 1: The Milvian Bridge 29 Apr 201422 May 2014 [Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] A while back I gave a talk to a group of theologians on the question of Darwinian accidents. It had no ethics content. The first question I was asked was “If you are an atheist, how can you have moral rules?” Like many others who talk… Read More
Evolution Edis on Islamic creationism 21 Feb 2008 One of the more curious episodes in recent cultural history is the adoption, word for word, by Islamists particularly in Turkey of the American Christian fundamentalist antievolution schtick. Nobody knows more about this than Taner Edis, whose book An Illusion of Harmony: Science And Religion in Islam outlines how this… Read More
God has become meaningless to me, and yet I have never buggered a boy (nor a girl.) I imagine that means I am incorrigible.
I see it as just another object lesson, if any were needed, of how believing oneself to be in possession of an Absolute Truth can lead to ignoring or justifying or even, in the worst cases, indulging in what anyone else would consider the most appalling and atrocious behaviour. I would hold people like the Archbishop not much less culpable than those who commit these acts.
Yes, that’s right, people who fail to believe in a god are worse than the child rape by priests reported throughout the world. They are more evil than those who blow up civilians. They are worse than mass murderers or those who would enslave us all. I liked it better when we were expected to make spaghetti and meat balls from innocent newborns.
The abuse of children would be among the lowest in Dante’s cirlces of hell – if he could have conceived of so heinous an act my a human being.
It used to puzzle me why hardcore religious fundamentalists deemed faith far more important than deeds. But when you view these hardcore religions as evolvable viruses of the mind, it actually makes sense. Faith is far more important to the propagation of the virus than good deeds. In fact, it’s far more important than anything else to most fundamentalists. The virus has a defense mechanism that says the most horrible things imaginable will happen to you if you stop believing, which makes it harder to kill and helps it to spread. Of course, I may be guilty of the hammer-nail problem here, by using evolution to understand religion. But at least it’s not an imaginary hammer.
“loss of faith”? I think he’s trying to say that apostasy is the greatest evil. Well, he’s in agreement with Osama Bin Laden and other mohammedans then – apparently it’s the one thing worse than being a jew (not that any of my jewish friends would agree that being a jew is a bad thing).
Exactly the reason I rejected fundamentalism: the prioritizing of belief over conduct as a criterion of moral judgement.
What frustrates me the most is that if you look carefully at the attributes of “God,” it is clear that “God” couldn’t exist. It’s simply just a rational impossibly due to the inherent properties said deity is supposed to exhibit in accordance with the tenants of faith and doctrine, yet does not exhibit. Yet we atheists, having seen there is nothing behind the curtain and have moved on past bronze-age superstitions, are somehow subhuman and immoral. While the human “moral” advocates of this delusional construct routinely engage-in/cover-up these kind of horrific behaviors. My view, with a tremendous amount of context and philosophy behind it, can be simplified as: “moral is as moral does” and those that fail to routinely exhibit “moral behaviors” have long since surrendered what it means to be fully human.
My great aunts, uncles and grandparents were almost all catholics, including one who was a Nun. Everyone, believer or not, got along just fine. I very much doubt that any of them believed that atheism was the greatest evil. Of course, they all lived through world war II: most everyone in society, whether religious or not, thought that aggressive war was the greatest evil. These high-up priests are out of touch. It would be comical, except for the fact that too many dangerous nutters take cues from their extremism. They should learn from regular catholics of firm belief who live their lives among all others in society, with love and confidence tempered with humility and respect.
That is true. My sainted late ex-mother-in-law was as conservative and devout a Catholic as ever lived, but she never denigrated me for my lack of faith once. We had some fun arguments, though.