that religious ramble

I am hoping that in my last post on religion and science, I came across as anti-religious. It’s pretty fashionable these days, and I don't want anyone to think that I am uncool. I can live with stupid and ill informed.

But I am not really anti-religious. Since I define religion as being “an interconnected system of beliefs and behaviours,” it would mean disparaging huge swathes of human experience. I am really anti-authoritarian, enjoy sparkling discussion and chase after truth through a fascination with language’s potential.

Funnily enough, I don't think atheism is a religion, and I am resistant to ideas that try and frame it as one. Humanism is a religion, and contemporary humanists are mostly atheists. I am not sure atheism really even counts as a belief, although there’s enough linguistic trickery in the absence of belief counting as a belief to let that pass.

Like many an autodidact (ever read The Autobiography of Malcolm X?), I fall back on etymology when I don’t have the knowledge of a subject. In the case of atheism, I fall back on the Greek. Strictly, atheism is in opposition not to Christianity, Islam or Judaism. All of these come freighted with social, moral and ritual behaviours. Atheism is just the contention that there is no God.

And there are atheistic Christians and Jews: the former subscribe to Christianity’s morality, but not its supernatural theology; the latter adopt a racial identity as Jewish. As for the Buddhists: the Dalai Lama proudly asserts that Buddhism is atheistic.

While I am pretending to be anti-religion, I’d like to express my worries that atheism is becoming a religious belief. Above all, I don’t really like singing in public, and the thought of having to go to a godless church makes me wince. Especially if they have Imagine as the main tune; thanks to John Lennon, the world knows that atheism can be as witlessly sentimental and plaintive as Christian fundamentalism.

The problem I have with religion isn't about beliefs but behaviours. Religion has a tendency to encourage hierarchy. I believe that hierarchy is a bad thing, because it allows abuses of power to be justified for the greater good.

Let me take an example that allows me to bash Marxism.

The SWP is currently in meltdown because certain members committed sexual harassment on other members. Rather than report the former to the police  - an organisation that they rightly mistrust, because the cops arrest them every time they exercise their democratic right to protest – they set up internal trials. Almost inevitably, they took sexual harassment less seriously than either the law would or their own principals ought to dictate.

It is unpleasant of me to take any pleasure in this episode, but it reveals evidence of something I have long thought. Marxism’s notion of equality has not yet managed to shake off its adherents’ inherent misogyny.

Of course, this would just be another example of Marxist hypocrisy if it weren't also a demonstration of how a hierarchy is able to pervert justice, and protect inequalities.

So I beg atheists: please don't become a religion. It might seem like fun, getting a comedian to pretend to be a vicar and give a sermon. But in five years time, when they have pretended a bit too much and fiddled with one of the choir, the natural instincts of hierarchy will snap into place, and you'll be hiding their misbehaviour. If it happened in the BBC, it can happen anywhere.

I'll go further: the current state of evangelical Christianity is directly the result of its religious structures. Once it had a power structure, there was a career path. This encouraged its most talented members not to seek external validation, but to pursue careers in the church. Opinions didn’t become part of a dialogue with competing ideas, but examples of orthodoxy that could be converted into positions of authority.

The rich Christian tradition of dialogue – which did exist, and still does – with other points of views has been replaced by an internal mumbling.

Hang on a minute. I haven't worked that one out. It’s a sketch, not an argument.

Desperately pulling myself back on topic, I do see atheism being presented as a religion, whenever there is one of these ridiculous turf wars about creationism and natural selection. If there is an argument about the negative impact of theism on consciousness and society, it has been sidetracked into this macho test of intellectual strength, in which fundamentalists get to display their will power and scientists show off their knowledge.

Swiftly followed by people like me, shouting at both sides. It’s like one of those Saturday night rucks outside the pub, the fundamentalist lying on the ground, the evolutionist putting the boot in while I pull at his arms yelling “he’s had enough, less it.”

I wrote all of these posts about science and religion in one afternoon. They are being slowly released because most people don't come to my blog to read about my crisis of faith. I want this to remain an arts’ blog, despite it all.

There is, however, a reason for this ramble. Last night, I went to see Quiz Show by Rob Drummond. Drummond’s a bit like Shakespeare, in so far as all of his plays have a consistent, recognisable authorial voice. He clearly regards theatre as an important place for discussion of Big Ideas, and likes to slip in as much of his research into the wonder of sciences as possible.

There’s usually something about resurrection in there, and a speech that is clearly his opinion, directed at the audience.

While I rarely dispute Drummond’s specific facts, I am aware that the vision of the world that he presents in his plays is not one I easily subscribe to. He provokes me to a response. He forces me to think about the way I regard religion and science.

On a side, Quiz Note drops an anvil about child abuse. I completely agree with him that child abuse by celebrities is a very bad thing.

There is also an upcoming Episode from intriguing curators Arika at Tramway. I have often mocked Arika for their presentation of Marxist ideas and while this is, hopefully, good-humoured, I am aware that my hatred of Marxism could be seen as a negative response to their work.

It isn’t. It is within the spirit of the debate that they are offering.

Anyway, for somebody who claims that he wants to be misunderstood, parodied or debated, I am very sensitive. I don't want to be misrepresented in my thoughts about Marxism, Christianity and science. I flatter myself that my opinions on these are very nuanced, and easy to reduce to straw men. 

Nuance is a synonym for confused and contradictory, right?

It is, ironically, from these three sources that my thoughts about theatre, equality and morality flow. So I thought that if I wrote up a load of my opinions and drip fed them onto the blog, I could make plenty of cheeky one-liners about God and Darwin in my art reviews. If anyone complained, I could direct him or her to these tedious therapy sessions.

So – I apologise for the long blogs. I hope that Christians can forgive, scientists recognise the biological advantage while Marxists acknowledge this as part of a historical dialectic. And Rob Drummond will get a review that makes sense.

Last night, after a splendid meal at Straithvagin, the molecular biologist (who had given a precise description of how life was driven by a relationship between genes and memes), made a distinction between the Richard Dawkins who had a more precise understanding of life than anyone else ever in history and the “anti-religious idiot” he has become. It was consoling to me that a scientist could split Dawkins into these two personae, mainly since I struggle to reconcile the thoughtful author of The Blind Watchmaker, who comments that he could not imagine being an atheist without Darwin’s theories, and the pugnacious rhetorician who keeps bearding theists until they accuse him of hate speech.

Dawkins has probably done more to popularise atheism than any other single thinker. Apart from a rather bizarre suggestion that atheists ought to call themselves Brights – implying that a certain intellectual position is inherently smarter than another, something that religions frequently encourage – his contribution to public understanding of science and its implications is outstanding.

He is also part of a wave of atheists who brandish their religious non-convictions as some kind of free pass for making moral judgments.  One Dawkins’ classic was suggesting that bringing a child up with a faith was tantamount to abuse. I didn't like going to church as a teenager, Richard, but it has been far less traumatic a memory than that time when someone shoved their cock through the glory hole in the toilet outside Carpenders Park Station.

I suppose that Dawkins’ issue is the various nasty things that have been carried out in the name of religion –
his rhetoric has become more melodramatic since 9/11 – which he regards as intrinsic to the blind faith required by theism. If it means ignoring all the nice Christians and Jews – although Dawkins is oddly polite and friendly when he speaks to agnostic ex-bishop Richard Holloway, who maintains at least a modicum of a Christian sensibility – then it is a small price to pay for the condemnation of acts like, say The Inquisition.

However, it is one thing to make a reasoned argument for natural selection, and quite another to spout anti-religious slogans. My distaste for comedians comes from their belief in their own righteousness, and there are plenty of stand-ups who enjoy baiting the religious. The idea that faith is an act of idiocy, of switching off the mind, is gaining currency.

There are two reasons why this annoys me.  First of all, it is disrespectful to many serious and liberal Christians, Hindus, pagans, Muslims and Jews who struggle to reconcile their faith with the teachings of science. More importantly, it is based on a profound misunderstanding of what faith is, its relationship to religious belief and how it operates in the human consciousness.

The first objection isn't really in need of much explication: I just have a very British distaste for rudeness. I get tired of hearing how faith is childish, ignorant, malignant. I believe that much of this heightened discourse is the consequence of North American values crossing the Atlantic. It’s easy to point to McDonald’s as an example of the USA’s global hegemony, but loud-mouthed “debate” is equally American.

I am not saying that all Americans are bullish. Yet the nation’s attitude towards freedom of speech is robust and their discussions are partisan, more polarised than their British equivalents. To be fair, it’s often the religious right who provide the most salient example of the debating technique known as “shouting loudly at your opponent.” I have been listening to this character, Martin Savage. He has a radio show in the USA, but is not allowed in the UK because he is perceived as a proponent of hate speech.

As a writer, I admire the USA’s constitutional right to freedom of speech. Unfortunately, it does allow Savage and his ilk to bellow at people who share my beliefs. It encourages a more aggressive mentality, and philosophical posturing. It encourages extremes of opinion (creationist against evolutionist) and ignores the middle ground (not Intelligent Design, which is a fancy name for creationist, but the thoughtfully confused).

It is telling that South Park, a cartoon once lambasted for obscenity, is often the most moderate voice in matters ranging across religion and politics.

Supporters of Darwin had to fight very hard to defend natural selection in schools against a creationist lobby that was supported by very aggressive – and very wealthy – evangelicals. A degree of overstatement was probably necessary. To apply the same intensity when debating with an Anglican vicar isn't really necessary.

This disrespect was not evident in Dawkins’ earlier writing. He even says, generously, in the introduction to The Blind Watchmaker, that he could not understand atheism as a philosophical position before Darwin articulated the theory of natural selection. Rather like the Christian who finds it hard to believe that someone could hear Jesus’ story and not accept God, Dawkins regards the understanding of natural selection as being definitive.

There’s a little irony here. I frequently hear from atheists who proclaim that evolution disproves God without actually understanding the difference between evolution and natural selection (one’s an observable fact, the other is the theory of how that process happens). They are also shady on what a theory is (a hypothesis supported by experimentation), a problem shared by a previous Pope when he called natural selection “more than a theory.”

On a side note, I have yet to hear a religious thinker defeat a scientist in a debate about intelligent design against natural selection. However, that doesn't mean that swapping one set of scriptures they haven’t read for another makes the keyboard warrior become a genius.

This segues rather nicely into my second objection: faith is not properly understood. Apart from the objection The Origin of Species like Holy Writ – in an age when Stephen Fry is seen as a public intellectual, that level of confusion should be about as surprising as the abuse of power – faith is commonly vulgarised as what people have when they stop thinking. That can be true, but it sweeps aside thousands of years of theists, from Plato through Descartes to Martin Buber. Given how meticulous St Thomas Aquinas is in squaring Aristotle with The Bible, I find it highly unlikely that he managed to switch off the thinking when it came to the foundations of his choice to become a monk.

to various Cowboy Beebops using

And a quick objection to continue: fideism, justification of a belief through faith alone, is a heresy in Roman Catholicism. In other words, the kind of thoughtless belief that certain comedians ascribe to all Christians is actually a genuine anathema to Catholics.

Religion appears to have occupied the word “faith.” When religion is discussed, faith is often used as a synonym. Buddhism, however, does not ask for faith – some schools insist on rigorous testing of each and every tenet - and Marxism has many articles of faith, like the idea of a historical dialectic. I’m happy to include Marxism as a religion – it certainly conforms to my definition of religion – but I am not happy to exclude Buddhism.

Certainly, Christianity has privileged the idea of faith (although compassion is explicitly mentioned as superior). Atheism, although it sometimes is regarded as a belief, doesn’t require faith but, like its opposite (theism) is not a religion and lacks an intrinsic moral or ritual system. If the comic version of faith – believing in something without any positive evidence – isn’t entirely a caricature, it fails to acknowledge the importance of faith in mundane experience.

Now, the following is not an analogy to prove the existence of God. Apologetics are full of analogies, metaphors and parables that are supposed to prove God by inference. For the record, I reject them.

It is, however, an analogy to prove that faith is crucial. I am bringing in one of the most important concepts in the development of human civilisation. Justice is not a physical entity. It might count as a meme, Dawkins’ fine coinage for the self-replicating idea. It isn't a physical law, like gravity. It is not amenable to testing. Yet without a belief that justice exists, it is impossible to imagine a legal system.

I am going to try not to bang on about how great justice is, but I understand that it was the preoccupation with justice that led the Athenians to experiment with democracy.

Then there’s money. I am no great fan of capitalism. Yet money has value because there is an accepted belief – a faith – that the coins and notes have a value. That coin in my pocket has no intrinsic worth. It’s only because the teller at the pound store believes it is worth a quid that they let me take the milk out of the shop without calling the police.

Every day, I make a thousand assumptions, based purely on faith. I'm assuming air is good for me, but I haven't thought about it.

Well, I have now: for the first time ever.

This argument isn't about God. It is about precision in the language used. It’s about not discounting expanses of human history and experience simply to win an argument. It’s about not being a dumb ass to prove that someone else is a dumb ass.

At this point, I am not anywhere near defending religious belief as valid or true. I’ve done the opposite – already, some Christians will be upset by my deconstruction of Genesis. And I affirm my belief in scientific truth. Science pretty much does what it says it is going to do and its openness to change and adjusting theories is, contrary to religious disapproval, precisely what makes it so valid.

I just see the assumption in the arguments between religion and science (I really ought to put both of them in scare quotation marks) as being lazy and stupid. I am starting to recognise that I am writing this out of some personal trauma and that in the argument I see some kind of primal divorce. Mummy and daddy are shouting at each other, and the gloves are off.

I don't see atheism or theistic religion as the real threat to humanity. It’s stupidity that is going to destroy us. And these arguments against religion are not only stupid, they offer a false veneer of intelligence to people who aren't thinking properly, but rather are mouthing the emotional rancour any break-up engenders.

To destroy the idea of faith simply to score points from a minority religious group is about as stupid as mistaking a parable about the nature of evil for a scientific account of biodiversity.