You can’t have proper human relationships unless you are a Christian 4 Apr 201018 Sep 2017 … according to Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, who seems to think that prior to Jesus nobody ever had a decent human relationship. A secular society is right out, brother. The idea that secularism suggests that people might form relationships without the scaffolding of the church seems to worry him a lot. That people are lonely in an urbanised society independently of their religion also seems to worry him. Religion is, you know, central to everything. Says the guy who makes his living running a religious institution. As someone once nearly said, “well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?” I am perplexed, a little, at the willingness of those who are religious to denigrate the underlying and shared humanity of all people unless they happen to share some or all of the religious person’s religion. The execrable Irish Cardinal who denied that atheists were even human, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is just a slightly extreme version of this. The idea that they might be motivated by exclusionism and parochialism that they benefit from directly seems not to even enter their heads. “I have emphasised human loneliness this Easter because that is what expert observers of our society are saying is a real problem,” Dr Jensen said. “It is what we would expect to occur given the secularist philosophy we have embraced. “This philosophy emphasises the individual and individual rights, it invites us to invent our own lives and it undervalues commitment to other human beings. “It is a recipe for loneliness and the path to a very lonely old age.” Really? Where is it written that individual rights should be bad? Oh, yeah, in that Bible thing. But again, there seems to be no independent reason to think that one who is religious isn’t engaged in just as much self-invention as one who isn’t. The difference is that in your self-invention, you chose to accept that your worth is subsumed under the views and expectations of others. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but don’t imply that you are free of the very same acts of self-invention, or that somehow being religious means you have a better handle on being human. Religion certainly is community building. It is, as Loyal Rue has written, primarily what religion is about, not God. But it doesn’t follow that it is the only thing that builds community. Sports build community. Clubs of hobbyists build community. Motorcycles build community. Politics build community. Being in the military builds community. Hell, being in a community builds community, and humans are community animals. Sure, loneliness is a problem, but religion is hardly the only, let alone the best, solution, so don’t try to take credit for the whole schtick, because it’s just greedy and unrealistic. I am non-religious. I have been religious – regular readers know I once did some of a theology degree – and I hold no great animosity, even when once I lost my faith my co-parishioners spread the rumour that I had become a Satanist and everyone stopped talking to me altogether, leaving me without any social community. I understand why they did that, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with the purity of religious community building. And I have a social community now. Sure, they are scattered across the world, and I see some of them rarely, but I have no problem forming friendships and relationships. If I have trouble it is because religious groups tend to exclude those who aren’t members of their group. Which is, rather, the point. A friend thinks that religious exceptionalism – that religions should, not only do, have a unique and privileged place in society – is inevitable. I am not so sure. If religious communities exist they will, like all other human social institutions, try to claim their centrality, but there’s no defence of that claim. We can do better. That’s called a “secular society”. Join a motor cycle club. Rue, Loyal D. 2005. Religion is not about God: how spiritual traditions nurture our biological nature and what to expect when they fail. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Politics Religion Social dominance Social evolution
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Actually I wanted to give in but couldn’t immediately think of a really good one so I settled for pretending to resist. Still, it’s a fair cop.
There’s quite a few things that are good about religions, but all the ones I’ve seen so far are relentlessly human. In fact, the most distinctive thing about religions is how relentlessly human they are: a motorcycle club is at least partially about motorcycles (which are obviously not human), but religions are nominally about things which are actually just inventions of human minds. I like empty churches. Nobody seems to build similar things for secular purposes (for that matter, there seem to be fewer good churches being made these days: modern protestantism seems to be copying its architectural ideas from shopping mall cultures).
Every time I travel I love to go to the local churches and look around. They are quiet and often beautiful places, and when there are few people there they can be great to visit. I agree about the modern style (Catholics can be as bad); it’s like visiting a factory that’s been turned into a basketball stadium sometimes.
One of my disappointments about my new campus is the lack of a chapel on campus—which as the most reliably underused place at the school is an excellent place to get quiet contemplation (in my case, fully godless). I am surprised that the Catholic church is building ugly modern structures too. Mostly because I thought they were loosing so much membership that they were more engaged in closing rather than opening churches.
Empty churches are to be cherished for the quality of silence they encapsulate. In any event, sorry for the long post, but this seemed appropriate. Philip Larkin – Church Going Once I am sure there’s nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence. Move forward, run my hand around the font. From where I stand, the roof looks almost new – Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don’t. Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce ‘Here endeth’ much more loudly than I’d meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence, Reflect the place was not worth stopping for. Yet stop I did: in fact I often do, And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches will fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show, Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places? Or, after dark, will dubious women come To make their children touch a particular stone; Pick simples for a cancer; or on some Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort will go on In games, in riddles, seemingly at random; But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky, A shape less recognisable each week, A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last, the very last, to seek This place for what it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique, Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? Or will he be my representative, Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation – marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these – for which was built This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here; A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognized, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round.
Maybe the only reason this Jensen character has any relationships IS because of his religion, and he generalizes what seems true for him to be true for the rest of us. Is that what he’s trying to say? Maybe he just needs a little companionship without strings attached…
There is a no-man’s land between the communities of faith and secularism; I certainly experienced it. The newly faithless are still working out the implications of what it means not to believe in god, but the secular community is often rather impatient while they do. I don’t know how to fix it though. Especially since often faith is lost long before the change is acknowledged.
*sigh* Individualism—as opposed to rights of the individual—is certainly due for a critique. It does a lot of harm, the least of which is loneliness. But I don’t think it came from secularism, and secularism can get along fine without it!
Also, it bears repeating (every time), that the opposite of secularism is not religion; the opposite of secularism is theocracy. The idea of a secular state and society is as much the work of Christians afraid of coming to blows over religion as it is of the nonreligious.
Hey, I had one of those god debates with Loyal Rue once — it was a very strange experience. He’s a very nice guy, and we ended up almost entirely agreeing with each other on everything. It made for very little drama and there were no knife fights at all, but it was fun anyway.
How on earth can you call yourself a militant atheist if you go about being all nice about it? You have a rep, man.
Quoth Dr Wilkins: “We can do better. That’s called a “secular society”. Join a motor cycle club.” I think that secularists need to provide a credible alternative to the explicit community/social structure that is provided by churches. Having got a similar suggestion from some local humanist leaders (join a bowling club, or get involved with your local ethnic association), I posed the following scenario: Here is a family: Robert and Edward are the parents of 2 young kids. They have recently moved to a new city, and they have no family or friends in the area. Suddenly, one of the children needs urgent hospital care. Robert and Edward need someone who can assist them by looking after the other child so that both parents can be at the hospital with the sick one. If they were religious, it would be completely normal and expected for them to look up the local instance of their sect and ask for assistance, and there would almost certainly be someone to look after the healthy child, and probably also someone who would drop off a casserole or muffins at the house. If they are atheists, I would like them to be able to find the local Humanist Association, and receive the same sort of support. I’m not sure a motorcycle club will do the job.
I’m not even a member, but I’m confident I could cross the street to the bar run by a local motorcycle club and find all sorts of friendly assistance. Bikers rock!
My problem here is that you are expecting a society that is defined by not being something to provide the same coherent support as a society that is defined by being something. Societies that are formed simply in virtue of not being something else exhaust their purpose in doing that. Asking for atheist groups to provide social services is like asking for non-sporting organisations to provide services for fans. But a motorcycle club has a coherent purpose and shared set of values, assuming that no Harley riders are permitted in it, and so it can provide other support as a positive entity. If atheist groups were to redefine themselves in terms of some coherent task or goal, rather than the lack of one, then I might expect them to provide the social cohesion needed here.
I think it’s true that you need a positive and coherent purpose, but there are Ethical Societies (the ‘Ethical’ part of the International Humanist and Ethical Association), which are secular societies that in terms of their social offerings are very church-like. They have Sunday meetings, they often have a Sunday School for children, but instead of teaching religious doctrines they look at options for volunteering, etc. (To take just one example: One of the things lots of people like about churches is that they often provide almost the only genuinely community choirs that are available — free to participate, free to practice, free to listen, usually open to all, and even when they’re not you’re free to sing along. I’ve never liked church choir very well at all, but all my life I’ve known atheists who attend churches because of the choirs. But Ethical Societies, when they’re large enough, will usually have some sort of choir.) And while the humanist societies I’ve come across seem to vary a lot more and be more minimalist, it’s not uncommon for them to have as one of their basic purposes the development of a more humane society. It’s precisely this sort of function that churches often provide for people; but they’re set up to provide them on religious principles, and if you like the purpose but not the principles, that means you either lose out on one because of the other or you have to put up with one because of the other. Ethical Societies and humanist associations provide a way around that. But it certainly should be motorcycle clubs often end up doing an astonishing amount of good for their community; when I was growing up, the local motorcycle club ran the Toys for Tots each Christmas and did lots of other things at other times of the year.
Such societies are not defined by what they are not, in that case. They are not “atheist”, they are “ethical” or “humane”. Unfortunately my Australian experience of these societies is that they tend even then to define themselves over against the religious organisations they rejected, rather like the Irish guy who was either a Catholic Atheist or a Protestant Atheist. If they were a secular form of the Unitarians, for example, or took the Humanist aspect seriously (preferably in ways that weren’t quasireligious), I think they might act as a social cohesive organisation. Motorbike clubs do tend to do a lot of good – we used to run not only toy runs at Christmas/Newtonmas (with around 2000 bikers doing a run on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria), but also fund raisers for cancer sufferers, awareness campaigns for road users, and the like. They also undertook political campaigns in favour of this or that issue.
Maybe Robert and Edward need to invite the folks next door over for a BBQ before doing anything so foolish as needing a trip to hospital…though if they crossed the road to the local bikers pub, they might find that a trip to hospital is a likely event in their near future. Mind you, unless the church to which they belonged was particularly unusual, I can’t imagine two men with children would be welcomed with open arms. Such is the exclusivity of religious and other such institutions.
I was a member of a bike club for about ten years, a club called Ulysses. It was primarily a social club that rode motorbikes (and hence its main purpose was to provide a chance to find partners, like many social clubs 🙂 ). However, if we had needed emergency support from any of those folks, we would have gotten it. I once broke down at the side of the road on a bike that had a Ulysses sticker, and two riders came up and basically helped me get my bike to the service station unasked. Bikers have a bad rep because of the outlaw gangs, but that would be like deriding sporting clubs because a few gyms are run by the mob.
“If atheist groups were to redefine themselves in terms of some coherent task or goal, rather than the lack of one, then I might expect them to provide the social cohesion needed here.” Exactly, which is why I said that the help should come from the Humanist Association (who are atheists, but are not *about* being atheists). [And one reason I picked a same-sex couple for my example was to highlight the fact that they would have difficulty getting assistance from a church even if they were Christians.]
…the real stuff (community when it counts, friends when the chips are down, etc.) comes from shared experience (kinship, ethnicity, common “values”, a common enemy, nationality, common humanity, etc.) It’s reinforced by cultural norms – music, sports, holidays, etc. These are, in turn, susceptible to manipulation, and you’ve either got to fight for purity (0r impurity, as the case may be), or go with the flow – but there’s no point in wishing away the power of shared experience.
[I hope this threads correctly – WordPress is having troubles on this blog] ckc: Nor would I wish away the power of shared experience. It’s one of the things that makes us human beings (just like similar shared experiences make chimps chimps, and so on).