Russia is reeling from the suicide bombings in Moscow, bringing back awful memories of the attacks on London on 7 July 2005. This puts into fresh perspective some of the other nonsense going on in the world and claiming our attention. Interesting to see that tonight’s online Pravda puts this story alongside the problems going on in Gaza and Obama’s nightime visit to Afghanistan. The juxtaposition itself is interesting, but it also says that the local has to be understood in the context of the global – however powerful the local story, it isn’t the only important one. And no mention (at least that I could see) of the ‘chancellors debate’ on UK telly this evening…
I wonder if such debates do anything to change people’s minds ahead of an election. Or is it just another beauty parade in which the ‘star quality’ outweighs argument? I wonder if people listen to the arguments or take their steer from the interpretations offered by the observers online, in broadcast media or in newspapers.
What I did find interesting today was Charles Moore’s review in the Daily Telegraph of Peter Hitchens’ new book about God and his brother (Christopher). In The Rage Against God he takes issue with his brother’s loud atheism and particularly the assumption that to be religious you must be stupid – a mistake made by many of the new atheists. I just thought Moore’s piece was measured, wise and interesting – which is why I thought it welcomed a discussion that generated light rather than heat. Take this, for example:
Surely any dispassionate observation would suggest that utterly brilliant people can be believers, as they can be agnostics or atheists. The Church has not proved the most durable of all the institutions in the history of the world by being stupid. But it is also a key part of Christian understanding that truth is not necessarily discerned by an intellectual elite alone. Christianity’s radical and paradoxical message is that weakness is strength, poverty is wealth, giving is receiving, dying brings life. In the story of the Passion, commemorated this week, the most intelligent person, apart from Jesus himself, is Pontius Pilate. His brain power does not lead him to make the right decisions.
Peter Hitchens’s case is that militant atheists dimly sense this truth, and this is what makes them so angry. If God does not exist, after all, why the rage against him? God’s really unforgivable characteristic is that he is alive and well and quite impervious to the assaults even of people as brilliant as Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
Nuff said.
(But, as I read after posting this, read George Pitcher for more light on a ‘cross’ issue.)
March 29, 2010 at 9:26 pm
The year of the London bombings was actually 2005.
March 29, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Peter, amended – thanks.
March 29, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Hi Nick, your link to George Pitcher’s article has an extra ‘http’ section in it, so it currently doesn’t work (I took the extra bit out and found the article – thanks for the link).
Best wishes
A Parishioner
March 30, 2010 at 7:33 am
Thank you for mentioning Hitchen’s book.
There are some, like myself, who moved to Dawkins’ side in the controversy because of spiritual abuse from the more socially powerful CofE preachers, but moved back into Christ’s influence when they realised that living in a Godless world is not a good option.
So this book is a good move forward for many of us.
Kindest Regards
HP
March 30, 2010 at 8:22 am
hoi polloi, AN Wilson made a similar move. Sometimes it is hard to see through the ‘powerful’ preachers to the substance of Christian faith which that power obscures (or reduces to a means of control).
March 30, 2010 at 10:19 am
For me the most difficult thing about trying to read Dawkins’ The God Delusion was that it was so unscientific. I didn’t manage to get very far despite, at that point in my life, not being strongly associated with any particular faith community. I doubt I will read Peter Hitchens’ book, but I welcome a reasoned and sensible response to those who believe that to be faithful is to compromise personal honesty or scientific integrity.
I differentiate between atheism (the belief that God does not exist) and anti-theism (the more complex, dogmatic ideology sported by Dawkins et al). My own belief is not simple; I absolutely believe that God exists, and I always have, even when I attempted not to. But I will grant that on a logical, intellectual level there is no proof that God exists, and that my belief could be wrong. Many atheists I know have the same perspective — they grant that God could exist, but they see no particular reason to believe in God. My belief is based on a strong perception of God which I can only properly explain in terms of my own experience and I have to accept that people who have had different experiences, or whose interpretations are shaped differently, may not find it at all reasonable to believe in God.
My own return to exploring my faith in an explicitly Christian context has not been as a result of rejecting atheism or anti-theism, which I could never accept in the first place. It has not been a flight from a Godless world: I perceive God as present and active outside the structures of the church. Indeed the opposite seems true — the more I engage with God through Christianity, the more I feel invited or compelled to confront suffering, pain and harm where I see them and do something, if possible, to alleviate them. The church draws me into the world, not out of it.
For me, returning to church has been an odd mixture of fascinated curiosity and profound thankfulness. My life has been transformed by the lovingkindness of others, an unconditional lovingkindness practised as part of their faith and as part of who they are. That hasn’t changed my belief in the existence of God, but it has certainly made unrecognisable some of my previously-held prejudices about churches and Christianity.
March 30, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Three short disparate thoughts.
The Chancellor’s debate was not terribly enlightening but to be fair to all three, might it be that the format forced them into blandness? I doubt any of us could do justice to an important argument under such circumstances and so they were all forced into ” soundbite politics” which I thought we all wanted to get away from.
I like Charles Moore as a commentator who does useually have a distinctive voice which does not vary with fashion.
On the “rationality” point raised by Song, I have reached the view that God does not tend to send arguments or manifestoes but people. Moses and Jesus are our two most reliable guides but even in our modern age I find that on all kinds of levels I learn more from the experience of individuals
(yourself included Nick) than being beaten over the head with logic.
On Saturday I heard Mark Russell preaching and he offered us the example of children who “bubble” with the need to share the good news of Jesus. Next day some of us smiled as a two year old giggled and broke into a run to the communion rail.
We as a Church never got into a debates over either women priests or gay issues. Yet we have experienced first the ministry of a NSM and now a full time woman priest and doubt has gone. Last Easter a gay couple joined our Church and simple by sharing our Church life ( and contributing much) I am sure that attitudes have changed.
Surely Jesus taught as much by example as precept?
March 30, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Nick,
I could never claim to be scientific or academically educated, clever and articulate are not words that fit me well.
If I am to understand the thrust of the Atheist argument, as I hold a belief in God, I must be stupid? as well as not being clever.
Sometimes I wonder if we use to academic terminology to explain ourselves, when it is perfectly simple. Deep inside of me, I have felt and know the presence of God. I have felt the grace and healing power of the Holy Spirit. I do not need reason or rationalise it – I just know to my Core that God “IS”, he loves me and calls me to “BE”. and to love him in return.
It all gets horribly complicated when you try to explain it – but my reality is founded in my faith and belief that God exists, he sent his Son as our Saviour to redeem us from our sins with the promise of new life in him.
I would love to pass on this word in clever, articulate prose, but I prefer my life now be the only evidence anyone needs to believe. I am weak, I fail, but I know that I will be forgiven and be able to try again.
March 31, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Re: Charles Moore as quoted by your blog-
“The Church has not proved the most durable of all the institutions in the history of the world by being stupid.”
It’s quite certain that no-one with any understanding of the church could ever accuse it of being stupid.
No, it’s proved to be durable because of it’s propensity to be devious, malicious, duplicitous, deceitful, mendacious, corrupt, dividing, intolerant, money raking and avaricious (I’ve never been able to work out how the church’s greed and wealth fits in with the philosophy of Jesus).
“But it is also a key part of Christian understanding that truth is not necessarily discerned by an intellectual elite alone.”
Really? Well perhaps the churches should change because the above statement probably reveals why there is so much evil and nasty fundamentalism around in religions today (except for the Quakers – they really are a nice bunch of people). Maybe it’s time for a more robust intellectualism to take charge instead of leaving the interpretation of theology, of whatever brand, to the uneducated and ignorant.
Re: Martin Sewell
“We as a Church never got into a debates over either women priests or gay issues. Yet we have experienced first the ministry of a NSM and now a full time woman priest and doubt has gone. Last Easter a gay couple joined our Church and simple by sharing our Church life (and contributing much) I am sure that attitudes have changed.”
Attitudes have only changed amongst certain places and congregations. Some churches talk of ‘inclusivity’ but only if you believe in their ‘certain’ doctrines and dogma. My partner is a member of a local church (C. of E.) and I am welcome there not only as a gay man but also as an atheist. Not only that but Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims et al are warmly welcomed without any desire to convert them. Now that’s what I call inclusiveness! However, there are plenty of nasty, homophobic, evil, misogynistic, people hating, dogma wearing idiots around to more than compensate for the decent folk.
March 31, 2010 at 2:39 pm
MF, it is difficult to know how to respond to your comment – for which I am grateful and with which I partly sympathise. Your judgement on the church’s history is valid – but it isn’t the whole story. I would be interested to know your ‘take’ on the massive good that Christianity has brought to the world despite some of the bad stuff. I think your comment about intellectual robustness is fair and I constantly plead on this blog for greater intellectual engagement… by all parties. Some atheistic comment is startlingly irrational and I regret that on the grounds that I think a better case can be made for atheism than is sometimes represented.
Regarding your response to Martin, why don’t you say that there are more decent folk around to compensate for the nasty, homophobic, evil, misogynistic, people hating, dogma wearing idiots? Your views sound pretty dogmatic to me.
March 31, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Martin,
On the “rationality” point raised by Song, I have reached the view that God does not tend to send arguments or manifestoes but people.
I haven’t been here long enough to decide what God “tends” to do but there are people in my life who I would certainly refer to as “Godsends”.
I wonder where, in turn, I might be sent?
MF, do you think anyone, intellectual or not, can discern the truth on their own? I don’t suggest that if our discernment causes us to disagree with others we should abandon it, but that faithful discussion and dialogue with others is part of a healthy discernment process for most, if not all, religious people. I don’t tend to trust people who say they’ve had great spiritual revelations but who won’t talk about their experiences or listen to the criticisms or concerns of others. Similarly, I don’t give much time to scientific experiments that are not subject to a peer review process.
Personally I’ve never been involved in a religious community that obviously had enough money. I don’t know enough about C of E structure to know how the administrative expenses compare with that of, say, government or corporate institutions, and I don’t begin to say I know which expenses are justifiable and which are not. But buildings cost money to heat and to maintain, stipendiary clergy do need to be paid, and lower numbers of regular churchgoers mean less money and also fewer volunteers. Yet most of the churches I know about also support various charity projects, local and global. Many do this at considerable cost to their own comfort. At the church I attend locally it has been possible to see one’s breath in the air during services for most of the winter despite the heating being on; it really needs repair or replacement, and it’s not going to be cheap. This year we couldn’t afford that, but we did send funds and materials to a school for orphans in Ghana.
However, there are plenty of nasty, homophobic, evil, misogynistic, people hating, dogma wearing idiots around to more than compensate for the decent folk.
Sometimes I think the nasty people just shout louder than the decent ones.
April 1, 2010 at 12:49 pm
To Nick Baines –
“but it isn’t the whole story”
But it is. Everything from the crusades through the inquisition to the Victorian era of the subjugation of the working class (by telling them that their reward will be in ‘heaven’) shows the demanding and domineering ethos of an institution. Your religions share the same values, ambitions and achievements with any business through history whose desire is world domination. From the East India Company to Microsoft and others the parallels are fairly obvious and all encompass similar morality and territory, whether it is to bring a browser or a doctrine to the natives.
“why don’t you say that there are more decent folk around….”
Because there aren’t. If there were I would have said so. Most humans are intrinsically selfish which can often lead to a conflict of personal ethics. Concepts such as altruism are very rarely taken on board by people. Indeed, one of my university lecturers insisted there was no such thing as altruism as any person in the act of giving would always get something back, even if it was only a feeling of moral superiority or a ‘warm glow’. I am not as cynical as that but I certainly understand the inherent desire to please oneself that would lead her to come to that conclusion.
“Your views sound pretty dogmatic to me.”
My views are not dogmatic but influenced by observation and empiricism. Dogma is defined as unchanging in attitude no matter what. I am, and have been, quite open to the idea of changing my value set, along with my opinions.
To Song –
“do you think anyone, intellectual or not, can discern the truth on their own?”
I never said that anyone had to do it on their own. I merely said that the uneducated and ignorant should not get involved. I never mentioned the ideal number to achieve this.
“but that faithful discussion…”
What on earth is a faithful discussion? Is that a discussion that doesn’t want to go off elsewhere and indulge in another discussion. Perhaps the fidelity of discussion is another discussion we should be having. In fact we can invite the first one along as long as it promises not to get involved with any other discussions.
“But buildings cost money to heat and to maintain…”
I’m presuming that here you are referring to my comment about the greed and wealth of the church. Without stating the obvious about the catholic church and the luxury, particularly the papacy, it has and lives in, your own heating problem might not be such a problem if the C. of E. hadn’t mismanaged so many of its millions. I think the latest debacle has been the investment in a New York development which hardly epitomises shrewd thinking (at least you’d think that god would look after his/her/their own!). In fact money is at the heart of the C. of E. to a greater extent than a lot of parishioners would realise or even, possibly, feel comfortable with. Not only that but they would probably be aghast if they knew how the level of greed had led to such mismanagement of the finances – ‘Faith in the equity markets and the consequences of new regulations have holed the Church’s flagship pension scheme, where the shortfall grew by two-and-a-half times within two years to reach £352m.’ [FT Pensions: Led into temptation Jan. 11th 2010]
Fundamentalist evangelical parishes (the bigots) within the C. of E, should they leave the communion and split the church, will also have a deleterious effect on the church’s finances. They have a tendency to be better off than the more traditional parishes and obviously this money will go with them. So, ergo, you will be even colder this winter thanks to the dogma ridden, intolerant evangelists.
“Sometimes I think the nasty people just shout louder than the decent ones.”
I’m not sure if this is a criticism of me or not. Well, to paraphrase an often mis-attributed quote – ‘all that is necessary for the nasty people to be heard is that good men (and women and gay and lesbian and trans gendered and…. [it’s a long list – you know what I mean]) stay silent’.
April 1, 2010 at 3:51 pm
[...] to be no end to the hyperbole about Christians in this country being ‘persecuted’. I pointed the other day to George Pitcher’s demolition of the notion and felt better for it. Then I [...]
April 2, 2010 at 8:05 am
MF,
I’ll reply to your comments more fully sometime in the next few days, but wanted to clarify that I had no intention of calling you nasty.
April 2, 2010 at 10:03 pm
As a humanist I would just like to comment on the quote from Charles Moore: “If God does not exist, after all, why the rage against him?” This idea that atheists “rage against God” is a weird one that some religious believers seem to have. How can one rage against something that doesn’t exist? If there is any rage it is probably from former believers whose lives have been screwed up by the indoctrination they received in their childhood, and is directed against the church. I fortunately escaped any such problems.
When Dawkins wrote of the God “Delusion” I don’t think he was implying any lack of intelligence in religious believers. Many must indeed be highly intelligent to be able to get their minds round the convoluted thinking necessary to sustain religious belief and theological argument.
Calling myself a Rationalist, as I sometimes do, may sound arrogant but I don’t mean it to imply that other thinkers are irrational. I mean only that I try very hard to be rational, in the same way that I’m sure you would say you try very hard to be a good Christian.
What I have found in my contacts with religious believers is that they are what I call “god-befogged”. They are unable to think about anything without dragging their concept of “god” into it somewhere.
April 2, 2010 at 11:41 pm
George, I also call myself a humanist and a rationalist. We have to get beyond the caricature level of discussion on these matters. That is part of the frustration with Dawkins et al. If you are up for it, so am I.
April 3, 2010 at 7:51 am
MF,
“I never said that anyone had to do it on their own. I merely said that the uneducated and ignorant should not get involved. I never mentioned the ideal number to achieve this.”
Fair enough — I misinterpreted what you said. However, I’m not sure that intellectual elitism is inherently better than an anti-intellectual rule by the “uneducated” and ignorant. Intellectual or clever people are not necessarily more disposed to be kind to others or to do what is fair and just, and the uneducated are not always stupid.
“What on earth is a faithful discussion? Is that a discussion that doesn’t want to go off elsewhere and indulge in another discussion. Perhaps the fidelity of discussion is another discussion we should be having. In fact we can invite the first one along as long as it promises not to get involved with any other discussions.”
I think that what I meant by a “faithful” discussion is one in which the involved parties treat one another with respect, are open to the possibility that they may be wrong, and are more concerned with learning the truth than with appearing to win an argument. When I approach someone else for spiritual guidance I expect that sort of discussion, rather than simply having my concerns or experiences discounted, being told what to do from a position of unassailable authority, or being ridiculed for my lack of certainty or knowledge.
That may or may not mean the discussion itself goes off on a bit of a tangent. I don’t assume that fidelity means exclusivity — but perhaps that’s something for another discussion.
My understanding of the Church of England having money and investing some of it is that it is pension-related. As previously noted I am not hugely knowledgeable about the structure of the C of E, or about its financial affairs. I think it is a reasonable assumption that the financial mistakes it has made are not much worse than the mistakes many other institutions has made; that may be incorrect. As it happens I have hardly any money to give to the Church anyway and donating my time leaves me with a much clearer conscience.
I don’t think that the evangelical parishes of which you write intend to hold the rest of the C of E hostage, and if they do I think it’s reprehensible. However, I would venture to suggest (without actually having any examples to hand — perhaps someone else will supply some?) that it isn’t a new phenomenon, and that various parties leaving the church in a great big sulk will probably not destroy it.
As for the heating problem, in our case it’s exacerbated by using a Victorian building with huge amounts of vertical space (the heat goes up and we are left standing at the bottom) and poor (if any) insulation.
“I’m not sure if this is a criticism of me or not. Well, to paraphrase an often mis-attributed quote – ‘all that is necessary for the nasty people to be heard is that good men (and women and gay and lesbian and trans gendered and…. [it’s a long list – you know what I mean]) stay silent’.”
Agreed. But I don’t think that Nick Baines is exactly staying silent, and there are other voices, some of whom are in a position to be more critical. I write semi-anonymously for a number of reasons, but hope you will trust me when I say that I do try to speak and act on issues of inclusion and equality.
That can feel pretty hopeless at times. It’s discouraging that there is still so much to be done. Yet I do see change in some communities, and some of those are communities where I would never have expected such changes.
How would you encourage good people to be more vocal and active? Accusing the church of being full of nasty people isn’t going to endear you to those who are perhaps not nasty at all but merely apathetic, undecided or even frightened of the response from friends and family.
April 5, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Nick wrote: “George, I also call myself a humanist and a rationalist.” But not presumably in the same sense as used by the British Humanist Association or the Rationalist Association, both of which find belief in supernatural happenings, such as resurrection and miracle-working, incompatible with a sound and consistent application of reason.
April 5, 2010 at 6:25 pm
No, but as the words were used originally – think of, for example, Erasmus.
April 8, 2010 at 8:44 am
Renaissance humanism was very different from what the term means today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_humanist
Humanists then were concerned with squaring christian teachings with ancient Greek philosophy, and the ultimate outcome was modern scientific humanism.