Religion

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I like her comparison between the crazy stories told to us by Mormons, and the equally crazy stories told to us by Catholicism.

Explicit warning:

This video contains some VERY graphic images and audio, please do not watch it unless you are prepared to see and hear them.

BBC news story here.

Personally, I found the film extremely upsetting. If you would rather not experience that upset, do not watch it.

I do see merit in the argument that the film incorrectly equates all of Islam with violence. In many ways it has the propaganda elements and tone of the same Islamic videos it criticises. Western classical music is used as background, instead of arabic chanting. The most extreme Islamists are used to portray Islam as evil, in the same way Islamic videos portray the West as evil.

One could hold up an extreme version of anything and hold it up as representative, but it is not.

All this video does is encourage the polarisation of views, instead of the compromising of views.

Religion is a curious thing.

Michael points to the excellent Catholic.ie, which features this video. Hilarious.

Ross Douthat, writing in this month’s Atlantic, argues that the US is becoming increasingly secular, while Europe - thanks to Islam - may be turning back to its religious roots. Douthat makes an interesting case for the secularisation of the US:

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 20 percent of 18-to-25-year-olds reported no religious affiliation, up from just 11 percent in the late 1980s. It’s visible on the best-seller lists, where books such as Kevin Phillips’s American Theocracy make their pitches to liberal readers, and in the public comments of scientists who now seem eager to attack religion as a threat rather than dismiss it as a nuisance. And it’s found a home in the expanding world of the liberal blogosphere, which has provided a virtual parish for Americans united by their disdain for “godbags” and “fundies.” (A Pew study of Howard Dean activists, one of the first mass constituencies mobilized by “netroots” activism, found that 38 percent described themselves as “secular.”)

I must say I have noticed an increase in support for people like Dawkins - the popularity of his videos on YouTube is something I would not have imagined possible 10 years ago when I was reading River out of Eden. It was taken as given that Americans were religious. Or maybe it’s that the internet gives atheists a medium in which to vocalise their lack of belief in a divine entity.

Douthat makes another point, the facts of which I am unsure:

…when the Democrats finally shattered the Republican majority in the 2006 midterms, it was their consolidation of the secular vote that helped put them over the top. Despite all their efforts to close the God gap, the Democrats managed barely any gainsamong frequent churchgoers last November—but their share of the vote among Americans who never attend church at all leaped to 67 percent, from 55 percent in 2002.

Hmm. Was secularism really such a big factor in the midterms?

He then looks at Europe - and as someone living in Ireland, I find many of his points fanciful - but then I guess I might think differently if I lived in Holland or France.

Yet the Europe of tomorrow may look more like … the United States, with a politics that’s increasingly shaped by clashes between believers, or between belief and unbelief. Already, the Continent is experiencing a low-grade culture war, created by the collision between the religious zeal of Muslim immigrants and the secular culture that surrounds them. In flash points that range from the murder of the anti-Islamic filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Holland, to the controversy over the supposedly blasphemous Danish cartoons, to the question of whether to admit Turkey to the EU, secular Europe has found itself in unfamiliar, God-haunted, almost American territory. Such disputes may subside as Islamic immigrants assimilate to European norms, but for now, at least, resistance to assimilation by Muslims suggests that they may succeed in changing those norms as much as they are changed by them.

I note that he did not mention the European Constitution, and the lack of reference to any god, Christian or not.

Meanwhile, there are signs that Christianity, too, is emerging from its decades-long defensive crouch. Pope Benedict XVI has taken the re-Christianization of Europe as a theme of his papacy, and his church’s recent interventions in Spain’s debate over same-sex unions and in Italy’s referendum on whether to loosen restrictions on in vitro fertilization bear an unmistakable resemblance to the gauntlet-throwing that Americans have come to expect from their churchmen.

I really don’t get the sense that the Catholic Church is becoming any more influential in Europe, if anything it is becoming less so.

The Muslim birthrate in Europe is far higher than the birthrate among non-Muslims, and immigration from the Islamic world continues apace. Meanwhile, immigrants from Africa and Latin America have injected a new vitality into European Christianity, creating thriving Evangelical and Pentecostal communities in urban areas where many of the established churches stand empty. It was Christians’ demographic advantage in the ancient world, the sociologist Rodney Stark has suggested, that helped their faith take over Europe in the first place, and high fertility rates help explain the growth of evangelical Christianity and Mormonism in the United States over the last century. Now similar demographic forces, the political scientist Eric Kaufmann argued last year in the British magazine Prospect, may be “carrying Europe towards a more American model of modernity,” in which the wall of separation between church and state looks more like a picket fence, easily scaled or shimmied through.

He may have a point about birth rates. But what really goes to the core of this, and something he does not mention, is whether the institutions of the EU, or of her member states, are secular enough in tradition or law, to withstand any assault from a ‘new’ religion such as Islam. I would argue that despite growing numbers of Muslims - most if not all EU nations are secular enough politically to withstand the onslought of either evangelism or Islam.

Douthat concludes:

America has long avoided this trap by enjoying near-universal piety; Europe, at least lately, has escaped it by cultivating near-universal skepticism. But if the religious gulf between the two continents narrows, the divides within each one are likely to open ever wider, and religious peace turn increasingly to culture war—or worse.

And religious wars are the worst kind indeed.

Mary Eberstadt with a cover story in Policy Review on the subject of secularisation:

In sum, and given what we know now about the religious and familial situation in Western Europe some 125 years later, Nietzsche was right to declare that the great Christian cathedrals of Europe had become tombs. But he may have been wrong about what exactly had been buried in them. It was not so much God as the European natural family that has been largely laid to rest — an interment already well underway in some countries long before his madman entered the square and one that is surely an overlooked and critical part of the full story of how Christian Europe went secular.

Looks like someone smuggled a video camera into a Scientology induction screening, fascinating stuff. These guys are nuts.

Best quotes:

You are at the threshold of your next trillion years. You will live it, in shrivelling agonised darkness or you will live it triumphantly in the light - the choice is yours, not ours. If you this minute say I will, for better or for worse, go on in scientology, you will open the door to your own future. If you say otherwise you slam tomorrow shut in your own face. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it really is.

If you leave this room after seeing this film, and walk out and never mention scientology again, you are perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid, but you can do it. You can also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out. That is your choice.

Haha. I can see this becoming a ‘cult’ classic!

This story outlines how some of the stuff mentioned in the video actually works…

Amazing what religion can do to some people.

You would have to wonder why Fox invited her on at all.

Click here

This was mentioned on Gerry Ryan yesterday morning, where he asked the obvious question - what on earth happens all those people in limbo? Where do they go now. Sinead has also brought the subject up.

Yes the Catholic Church is an easy thing to take the piss out of on occassions such as this. I like the history of the idea though:

…in 1905, pope and now St Pius X made a definitive declaration confirming the existence of limbo. “Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either, because having original sin, and only that, they do not deserve paradise, but neither hell nor purgatory.”

However the statement was not made infallibly.

Imagine if it was made infallibly, oh the horror! The Church wouldn’t be able to back track once an idea became untenable.

More on science and religion, the Kansas Board of Education has approved new public school science standards yesterday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. Notes CNN:

The challenged concepts cited include the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and the theory that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life.

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

I just feel sorry for the students.

The BBC report on it here:

The new standards include several specific challenges, including statements that there is a lack of evidence or natural explanation for the genetic code, and charges that fossil records are inconsistent with evolutionary theory.

It also states that says certain evolutionary explanations “are not based on direct observations… and often reflect… inferences from indirect or circumstantial evidence”.

“This is a great day for education,” board chairman Steve Abrams told the Reuters news agency.

I think the phrase here is ‘flip-flop‘:

Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin’s theory of evolution were “perfectly compatible” if the Bible were read correctly.

His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.

“The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim,” he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that “the universe didn’t make itself and had a creator”.

Twenty Major highlighted something I have been meaning to write about. That is the rather odd (crazy?) decision of the Mater Hospital. I will try and tell the story in brief for those of you who have not read about it.

Brian Conlan, Chief Executive of the Mater hospital, along with the clinical trials advisory group, decided that it was against the hospital’s Catholic ethos to allow a clinical trial of Tarceva, a drug which is said to prolong life in patients with lung cancer. This was because women in the trial would be required to use contraceptives, as the drug could have catastrophic effects on an unborn baby. The trial was therefore deferred.

The Irish Times recently reported:

In June Mr Conlan wrote to the hospital board saying his group was receiving clinical trial applications which contravened the hospital’s ethos.

The Mater said the advisory group deferred its decision on the Tarceva trial because it knew another committee in the hospital, with three members, was drafting the wording of an extra information leaflet which would be given to trial participants and would reflect the hospital’s ethos.

Fr Kevin Doran, Mater chairman John Morgan, and a nurse tutor, Sr Eugene Nolan, are on this group which will report on its leaflet to a full meeting of the hospital board on October 18th.

A hospital spokesman said that if the board adopted the wording at that stage, the advisory group could give the trial the go-ahead.

I side with Twenty on this one:

The irony of a nun and a priest making a decision about contraception is hardly worth noting but this is the kind of shite we had to put up with for years in Ireland. We had a government but the church ran everything really. I really did think their influence had waned to a point where they were as insignificant as they deserved to be but there’s still a bit of life left in the rancid old dragon yet.

I have been vaguely following the Intelligent Design court case in the US. It should be noted that in 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public-school science classes was an unconstitutional blurring of church and state. But the current issue centers on this:

Last year, the school board in Dover, a small rural school district near Harrisburg, mandated a brief disclaimer before pupils are taught about evolution. They are to be told that “The theory [of evolution] is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.�? And that if they wish to investigate the alternative theory of “intelligent design�?, they should consult a book called “Of Pandas and People�? in the school library.

Eleven parents, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, two lobby groups, are suing to have the disclaimer dropped. Intelligent design, they say, is merely a clever repackaging of creationism, and as such belongs in a sermon, not a science class.

In my view that is exactly what intelligent design is - cleverly repackaged creationism.

Kenneth Miller, the author of a popular biology textbook and the plaintiffs’ first witness, said that, to his knowledge, every major American scientific organisation with a view on the subject supported the theory of evolution and dismissed the notion of intelligent design. As for “Of Pandas and People�?, he pronounced that the book was “inaccurate and downright false in every section�?.

And on the subject of tea:

To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understanding�?, Mr Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one’s spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.�? None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.

It makes no sense, argued the professor, to confuse the study of molecular movements by bringing in the “I want tea�? explanation. That, he argued, is what the proponents of intelligent design are trying to do when they seek to air their theory—which he called “appalling theology�?—in science classes.

I know that some people on the right in America forget that Bush is a fundamentalist Christian, and some even argue that having a devout Christian in the White House is a good thing. I have my doubts. Especially when you are waste high in Islamic countries. But the White House has denied he ever said anything of the sort. I doubt that too. Of course it is based on the accounts of Palestinian politicians so the whole story is not exactly on solid ground.

Here’s an interesting graph from this month’s Foreign Policy. It show church attendance as a percentage of the population attending church at least once a week. As you can see Ireland is way out in front.

Do that many Irish people still go to Mass? I really didn’t think the figures were still that high. FP reads into the figures as following (Ireland was ranked third last in the CDI)

The CDI (Commitment to Development Index) measures whether rich states fulfill this commandment. Interesting enough, countries where fewer people go to church score higher in the index. Or, in other words, where there is more preaching, there is less practicing. Just 3 percent of Danes, who rank at the top of the CDI, attend church at least once a week, according to the World Values Survey, which tracks social and cultural changes worldwide. In second-place Netherlands, church attendance stands at 14 percent, while in third-ranked Sweden, a mere 7 percent of the population goes to church once a week. At the opposite extreme is Ireland, which ranks 18th out of 21 CDI countries, but where church attendance stands at 65 percent.

The source of this pattern may be where people put their faith—whether in government bodies or religious institutions. The Netherlands and Nordic nations are small and homogeneous, and they maintain small gaps between rich and poor domestically. As a result, citizens seem to place more trust in elected officials to represent their interests, and, in turn, have a more activist development agenda. They rank highly thanks in no small part to generous foreign aid programs—and an apparent faith in their government’s ability to do good.

Kevin Drum is reminding some of those on the right about Bush’s views on evolution and creationism - apparently some of them forgot.

Actually, what bugged me most about this whole affair was reading the faux outrage from Bush’s conservative supporters in the blogosphere, as if they had no idea he felt this way before this week. Give it a rest, guys. Bush thinks creationism sounds great, Tom DeLay thinks the teaching of evolution was responsible for the Columbine shootings, and Bill Frist — a medical doctor! — is so scared of the Christian right that last December on “This Week” he hemmed and hawed and fidgeted like a naughty schoolchild while repeatedly declining to say whether he thought HIV-AIDS could be transmitted through tears or sweat.

The venerable Dan Drezner also weighs in, I agree with him.

I really don’t know what to make of Ronan Mullen’s remarks today. Has anyone any thoughts on this?

We have grounds for humility. It took Western Christianity centuries to arrive at the insight that human dignity called for freedom of religion, equal opportunities between the sexes and so on. But Islam’s problem is that it’s not there yet. It does not have the centralisation of religious authority which can both unify people around a coherent set of values and prevent the emergence of extremes. That is a real problem which cannot be explained by American preoccupation with oil, Israeli oppression of the Palestinians or the invasion of Iraq.

I really am stumped. Where do I start?

It sounds like what he is really getting at is Islam - not to mention fundamentalist Islam - is an inferior religion to Christianity. He also seems to suggest there there are not as many extremes in Christianity. Does this strike anyone as just a little ethnocentric?

To follow logically what he is saying -

Christianity (the West) is centuries ahead of Islam (Near East, Middle East) on the human rights front. Islam needs to be more like Christianity, because Christianity is centuries ahead of it. The centralisation of power in Christianity unifies people (surely he means Catholicism, unless he means the Great Schism, Reformation, Counter-Reformation), and prevents the emergence of extremism (can you count the number of extreme Christian movements?).

What this does reek of is cultural and religious superiority. And given Mullen’s track record it is not Christianity he refers to, it is that special flavour (or extreme, depending on your view) called ‘Catholicism’.

Professor Reville of UCC has an interesting article in today’s Irish Times on the subject of astrology.

After analyzing the practice he reaches the following conclusion:

Astrology makes large claims that are extremely improbable from a scientific viewpoint. In order to take these claims seriously it would be necessary to have extraordinarily strong evidence. On the contrary, the evidence is very weak. In the absence of extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims, the only sensible course is to treat astrology as seriously as you would treat an amusing party game.

That sounds like a perfect definition of religion to my mind.

Anthony Sheridan

The Muslim Council of Britain is someone I have some sympathy for, after watching the news earlier. The BBC reports:

When a well-organised group of hecklers from a fringe, Islamist group stormed a general election event organised by the Muslim Council of Britain, it was a PR disaster the organisation could have done without.

In chaotic scenes, the young and angry demonstrators stormed into one of London’s most prestigious mosques, denounced the MCB leadership, damned the prime minister as a devil and decreed that Muslims who voted committed crimes against their very being. Iqbal Sacranie, the MCB chief well known for his easygoing manner, found himself slapped in the face.

Some of the great and the good of British Islam looked on with utter dejection as what was meant to be a reasoned gathering descended into a familiar scene of turmoil and embarrassment.

Andrew Sullivan is just a little freaked out at Ratzinger becoming pope. Choice quotes:

It would be hard to over-state the radicalism of this decision. It’s not simply a continuation of John Paul II. It’s a full-scale attack on the reformist wing of the church. The swiftness of the decision and the polarizing nature of this selection foretell a coming civil war within Catholicism. The space for dissidence, previously tiny, is now extinct. And the attack on individual political freedom is just beginning.

There is simply no other figure more extreme than the new Pope on the issues that divide the Church. No one. He raised the stakes even further by his extraordinarily bold homily at the beginning of the conclave, where he all but declared a war on modernity, liberalism (meaning modern liberal democracy of all stripes) and freedom of thought and conscience. And the speed of the decision must be interpreted as an enthusiastic endoprsement of his views. What this says to American Catholics is quite striking: it’s not just a disagreement, it’s a full-scale assault. This new Pope has no pastoral experience as such. He is a creature of theological discourse, a man of books and treatises and arguments. He proclaims his version of the truth as God-given and therefore unalterable and undebatable. His theology is indeed distinguished, if somewhat esoteric and at times a little odd. But his response to dialogue within the church is to silence those who disagree with him. He has no experience dealing with people en masse, no hands-on experience of the challenges of the church in the developing world, and complete contempt for dissent in the West. His views on the subordinate role of women in the Church and society, the marginalization of homosexuals (he once argued that violence against them was predictable if they kept pushing for rights), the impermissibility of any sexual act that does not involve the depositing of semen in a fertile uterus, and the inadmissability of any open discourse with other faiths reveal him as even more hardline than the previous pope. I expected continuity. I didn’t expect intensification of the fundamentalism and insularity of the current hierarchy. I expect an imminent ban on all gay seminarians, celibate or otherwise. And I expect the Church’s immersion in the culture wars in the West - on every imaginable issue. For American Catholics, I foresee an accelerating exodus. But that, remember, is the plan. The Ratzingerians want to empty the pews in America and start over. They will, in that sense, be successful.

Eamonn rounds up lots of other quotes from around the blogosphere.

I am one of those people who actually wasn’t alive when the last Pope was elected, so it is interesting to see a new one. His policies sound exactly like JPII’s.

This is likely to figure highly on the agenda of the new Pope. This subject has come up before, will the Church taking a softer line on condoms as a pro-life gesture be acceptable to Catholics?

In my opinion religion has only two positive consequences. Firstly, in times of trouble, like the death of someone close, it can be of great comfort. Secondly, religion can be useful in maintaining stability in society in general. Every other aspect of religious belief is negative. War, death and destruction, unnecessary guilt, discrimination, stunting of mental creativity, massive waste of resources (on temples and priestly castes), brain-washing of innocent children – the list goes on.

Furthermore, I believe that the tendency to believe in a god is an evolutionary development necessary for the survival of early humans and that given enough time, the need will evolve out of existence.

For the above reasons religion should be taken seriously but at the same time robustly challenged. But there are times when a religious opinion/belief needs to be totally rejected, to be laughed out of court, to be derided as an idiotic imbecilic notion.

Such a case appears in the Irish Catholic newspaper The Voice Today dated 31st March. The author of this idiotic article is none other than George Weigel the biographer of the late Pope described on the internet as a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Roman Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading commentators on issues of religion and public life.

Weigel apparently believes that the Tsunami disaster was caused by fallen angels.

Here is a sampler:

Creation is ‘groaning’ because creation has not experienced the finality of redemption….And when creation ‘groans’, its travail can have devastating effects. In the Biblical view of things, nature is not unsullied and innocent; nature suffers from the after-effects of the angelic fall; nature awaits its final redemption. Until that happens, nature is capable of, and will do, terrible things.

This harebrained notion is a deep insult to the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the disaster, it’s an insult to the intelligence of human beings in general, it’s a notion so stupid that it deserves the contempt of all rational humans.

Here’s my interpretation of events according to George:

The Devil calls a meeting of his fellow fallen angels.

Lucifer: “Right you fuckers, I want some suggestions and I want them quickly. Things have gone from bad to worse ‘topside’. Humans have been making all the running lately, wars, disease, environmental damage, George Bush, global terrorism, Charlie Haughey. We devils have been almost forgotten, we’re not taken seriously anymore and we’ve got to do something about that.”

Fallen angels:“How about killing the Pope, oh evil one?”

Lucifer:“Bollix! We sent an apprentice devil to do that in 1981 and the bastard missed. And with the state of JP’s health he’s due to join us shortly anyway.”

Fallen angels:“We could arrange for an asteroid to strike and vaporise the whole shebang”

Lucifer:“Jesus, save me from stupid devils, if we vaporise, who will be left to suffer, who will be left to agonise over the existence or not of ‘Mr. oh so fucking holy’ above in heaven?”

Fallen angels:“I have it, oh master of darkness, we could impose Irish political standards on every government in the world.”

Lucifer:“Fuck, even I’m not that evil. No my son, you have great potential for causing suffering and destruction, but while we want something terrible we also want to give humanity some hope of survival.”

Fallen angels:“I have it, oh prince of all that is perfidious, pestiferous and putrid. An underground earthquake in the Indian Ocean topped with a massive tsunami and finished off with a thick coating of dead humanity.”

Lucifer:“Brilliant, brilliant, but how will we convince the humans that it was our handiwork?

Fallen angels:“We could use George, your evilness, you know? George Weigel, one of your most successful creations, designed so that humans see an intelligent, philosopher/theologian when in fact you scraped him from the bottom of the barrel in the deepest pit of slime and stupidity.”

Lucifer:“Yes, yes I knew George would prove useful some day. Make it so, you bastards, get out there and create mayhem. You, minion, Get me George on the line now!”

Anthony Sheridan

I think this to be one of the better obituaries going around.

Kevin Drum has been given a curious assignment…in relation to an impending debate on an apparently growing number of scientists around the world who no longer believe that natural selection or chemistry, alone, can explain the origins of life.

…please prepare suitably relevant definitions for the following words and phrases:

*”Growing number”
*”Scientists”
*”Believe”
*”Theory”
*”Compelling”
*”Biochemical”
*”Evidence”

Hmm. I am always sceptical when I hear a phrase like “provides evidence of purpose and design in nature”. This subject has come up before - I just don’t think it holds water. But please convince me with sound evidence of design (implying a designer) and evidence of the existence of such a designer and I will be satisfied.

I am not surprised by this study, but it is still a good read on the day that’s in it.

The team gave questionnaires to 169 pairs of identical twins - 100% genetically identical - and 104 pairs of fraternal twins - 50% genetically identical - born in Minnesota.

The twins, all male and in their early 30s, were asked how often they currently went to religious services, prayed, and discussed religious teachings. This was compared with when they were growing up and living with their families. Then, each participant answered the same questions regarding their mother, father, and their twin.

The twins believed that when they were younger, all of their family members - including themselves - shared similar religious behaviour. But in adulthood, however, only the identical twins reported maintaining that similarity. In contrast, fraternal twins were about a third less similar than they were as children.

“That would suggest genetic factors are becoming more important and growing up together less important,” says team member Matt McGue, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota.

I never realised, but according to the Pope, and to the Vatican, there was a divine intervention during the assassination attempt in 1981. This is all related to the ’secrets of Fatima’. There is a conversation with Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart detailed on this Vatican website.

The original text, in Portuguese, was read and interpreted with the help of the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima. Sister Lucia agreed with the interpretation that the third part of the “secret�? was a prophetic vision, similar to those in sacred history. She repeated her conviction that the vision of Fatima concerns above all the struggle of atheistic Communism against the Church and against Christians, and describes the terrible sufferings of the victims of the faith in the twentieth century.

When asked: “Is the principal figure in the vision the Pope?�?, Sister Lucia replied at once that it was. She recalled that the three children were very sad about the suffering of the Pope, and that Jacinta kept saying: “Coitadinho do Santo Padre, tenho muita pena dos pecadores!�? (“Poor Holy Father, I am very sad for sinners!�?). Sister Lucia continued: “We did not know the name of the Pope; Our Lady did not tell us the name of the Pope; we did not know whether it was Benedict XV or Pius XII or Paul VI or John Paul II; but it was the Pope who was suffering and that made us suffer too�?.

As regards the passage about the Bishop dressed in white, that is, the Holy Father—as the children immediately realized during the “vision�?—who is struck dead and falls to the ground, Sister Lucia was in full agreement with the Pope’s claim that “it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death�? (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, 13 May 1994).

A mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path? Now there’s off the wall, and then there’s off the wall. Not only that but the Pope wanted to thank Mary for single handedly destroying communism. I guess it had little to do with US pressure, or that communism didn’t really work.

On the occasion of a visit to Rome by the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the Pope decided to give him the bullet which had remained in the jeep after the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in the shrine. By the Bishop’s decision, the bullet was later set in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe, to the fall of the Communist regimes which promoted atheism. For this too His Holiness offers heartfelt thanks to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world, however, attacks against the Church and against Christians, with the burden of suffering they bring, tragically continue. Even if the events to which the third part of the “secret�? of Fatima refers now seem part of the past, Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance, issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today. “The Lady of the message seems to read the signs of the times—the signs of our time—with special insight… The insistent invitation of Mary Most Holy to penance is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness�? (Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1997 World Day of the Sick, No. 1, Insegnamenti, XIX, 2 [1996], 561).

The bullet is in a crown? Am I the only one that things this is completely crazy? And details of the supposed prediction only come out years after the event? “Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance”? “In need of conversion and forgiveness”? All us non–Christians (hat-tip hundreds of millions of Muslims, assorted Protestant religions, Buddhists, 1 billion Hindus), convert, or as they like to say in the Catholic Church - “Go to hell”.

The Pope is sick indeed.

Richard Holloway on Nietzsche and God. I will quote the whole thing(except the poem):

The madman in Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours and ran to the market to proclaim the death of God to the scoffing bystanders, realized he had come too early: “My time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way. … It has not yet reached the ears of man.” It has reached them now. Its time has come. God is dead.

That may sound like a quixotic claim in a time transfixed by religious controversy, with the devotees of rival gods at each other’s throats, but it is true: God is dead, and we are alone in the world. What Nietzsche and his madman failed to mention is that God has died before. Human history is littered with the tombstones of God. It is said that at the death of Jesus, when the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, a cry swept across the ocean, “Great Pan is dead.” Pan, god of grove and pasture, was killed by a god from the desert who commanded his disciples to have no other gods but him. In spite of the latter-day pagans who dance round Stonehenge at the turning of the year, we know that Pan is dead.

But so is the god who destroyed him. He died the death of a thousand cuts inflicted by some of his own followers. Decent people, they could not resist the attractive freedoms of secular society, so they tried to teach their ancient god new tricks. They wanted him to go easy on women, for instance, and to stop beating up gays: a courageous thing to attempt when the old monster had already set down his opinion on those subjects in the Bible. The attempt to liberalize Christianity was honorable, but when you subject a religion to meticulous historical and scientific analysis you expose all its violent absurdities and doom it in the eyes of the very people to whom you are trying to commend it. This is why the most humane and tolerant species of religion on earth today, Liberal Protestantism, is also the most endangered.

The Pope, a fervent champion of the old god, understands this, which is why he resists any attempt to adapt Roman Catholicism to the emancipatory values of secular democracy. The popes of Evangelical Protestantism understand this, which is why they crow with delight at the death of Liberal Christianity and gloat over their capture of the citadel of American democracy.

What neither group realizes is that they are themselves dancing on the grave of God. The fact that humans are at war over religion is evidence that there no longer is a single, absolute and universally compelling meaning to life. There no longer is a unifying authority to which humanity can submit or against which it can rebel. In other words: God is dead.

Even the confident religions know this. When their god was overwhelmingly alive he did not permit them to mingle with the followers of other gods: Now they come together to increase the volume of their protests against the noisy indifference of the scoffers in the market place. But the god of the marketplace is also dead. Secular confidence in the ability of atheistic rationality to deliver the good society has been undermined by an invasion of the angry ghosts of dead religion and by the ugly excesses of materialist consumerism.

So what are we to do, those of us who know that God is dead? The first thing we should do is celebrate the fact that we have been delivered from idols, and are now on our own. And we must resist the temptation to cure our anxiety by manufacturing new idols to serve. We should learn from our history that idols created to console us always turn out to be jealous gods who take us to war against their rivals. In spite of our ancient and dangerous longing for them, we should accept that there are no absolutes.

The only thing we can be certain of is that there is no certainty - including that one. Committed to being uncommitted, we should relish the irony of our position. Knowing what we know, we should stand closer to outsiders than insiders, remembering how the gods love to divide: So we should make alliances with poets and protesters, rarely with priests and politicians. We should not expect to win many battles against the world’s tyrannous addiction to idols, but nor should we ever allow ourselves to be defeated by it.

My uncle, below, summed up my thoughts on Reville’s article pretty well. He is forever trying to reconcile religious belief with scientific advancement and understanding. It is an impossible task. I especially liked this :

The main alternative to religion is secular humanism. This philosophy holds that nothing greater than mankind exists and we must work out our lives entirely reliant on our own resources. Some people, but I believe no more than a small minority, can live decent and fulfilled lives drawing on this philosophy. The majority of people need the solace of religion.

Colours to the mast here - I am a secular humanist. I do not beleive the majority of people need the solace of religion. I do believe that a huge amount of people are born into and indoctrinated into religious belief from a very early age.

Earlier this year I attended a lecture given by Dr. William Reville in UCC. The lecture concerned the same ideas - religion and science. I thought Reville lacked any cogent argument whatsoever. One of his arguments included, believe it or not, that old diamond - Einstein and Newton believed in god, they were intelligent, therefore we should believe in god and god is likely to exist. Crazy. Besides the fact that it is highly questionable whether Einstein believed in god or not.

Another gem he came up with is that the Earth is in exactly the right place for life to develop, that if the conditions were even slightly different life would have never come about - therefore an intelligent designer is likely to exist. The big elephant in the room is what most people reading this might realise. Life came about partly because conditions were right, granted, but he is getting his logic all mixed up here….

Uncle Anthony at it again, this time in response to William Reville article posted below.

Madam, - In his attempt to reconcile science and religion Prof William Reville reduces Christianity to the all-encompassing formula, “Love God, love your neighbour, forgive your enemy and take responsibility for your actions” (Science Today, November 25th). With the omission of God, this formula reflects a humanist philosophy that all reasonable people would agree with.

Unfortunately, it is the human capacity to invent gods and organise religions around them that causes so many problems for humanity.

Compulsory adherence to rituals and rules, on pain of punishment, including everlasting damnation, the wholesale indoctrination of children into the beliefs of whatever religion they happen to be born into and the extremes of war and terrorism based on religious fanaticism are just some of the serious consequences arising from religious belief. Give me the solace of secular humanism any day. - Yours, etc.,

ANTHONY SHERIDAN, Cobh, Co Cork.

I agree.

I think that many of the responses to Reville are good - I will publish them all.

First:
Madam, - My former colleague, the estimable William Reville, makes another of his occasional trips from the laboratory to the pulpit (Science Today, November 25th).

In attacking Richard Dawkins’s crusading atheism, Prof Reville claims that religion by and large, has been beneficial to humanity and enables people to live “decent and fulfilled lives”. Interestingly, this essentially utilitarian point is made by Machiavelli, who advises his Prince to recognise that religion is food for the masses and helps to keep them in line.

But Prof Reville does not take on Dawkins’s main argument that “the concept of God is man-made and that religion was invented as a comfort-blanket” - and it might be added, as a weapon of mass control.

Anyway, your admirable science columnist might be persuaded to tell us why he feels impelled every so often to make a (not very convincing) case for the faith of his fathers.

Perhaps it’s a case of is “treise dachas na oiliint”. - Yours, etc.,

Second:
Madam, - Thank God for Prof William Reville, who certainly speaks for me. While Richard Dawkins battles with the complexities of this life I am aware daily of the marvels of Creation and, as Patrick Kavanagh says, “Of the One and the Endless, the Mind that has baulked the profoundest of mortals”. - Yours, etc.,

Third:
Madam, - Prof William Reville warns that secular humanists “would be well advised to stop trying to reduce [ Christianity] to a position of no significance. . [ as] a greatly weakened Christianity could be replaced by some other form of religion hostile to social progress”.

Could this argument be summarised as: “Better the the devil you know. . .”? - Yours, etc.,

Fourth:
Madam, - I’m surprised at the shallowness of Dr William Reville’s challenge to the view that religion is an invented comfort-blanket (Science Today, November 25th).

Doesn’t he subscribe to this very notion in concluding feebly that “the majority of people need the solace of religion”. And how convincing is his proposition that “the average person’s need for religion remains and a greatly weakened Christianity could be replaced by some other form of religion hostile to social progress”? Is this not a classic case of advocating the devil you know?

In considering the main alternative to religion - secular humanism - and holding (with what authority?) that “some people, but I believe no more than a small minority, can live decent and fulfilled lives drawing on this (secular humanism) philosophy”, he then presents humanism negatively, describing it as an ethos where “we must work out our lives entirely reliant on our own resources”.

No, Dr Reville, it’s not a case of “must”; rather a case of our having the capacity and wherewithal so to do - with due regard for the dignity and rights of others. - Yours, etc.,

Fifth:
Madam, - It is good to see Dr William Reville, a man of science, take issue with Prof Richard Dawkins, who sees religion as the greatest evil afflicting humankind. Of course religion has been greatly abused in the past, is no doubt being abused at present and will be in the future. The same is true of science and technology and true also of all human activity.

Everything about our existence is enveloped in mystery. Indeed, we are all a mystery unto ourselves. But is it not true that our minds need mystery as our body needs food? Deprived of these essentials, both wither.The really great news is that God, reflecting his own essential nature, has provided us with an infinitude of mystery. That should warm the cockles of Prof Dawkins’s heart. - Yours, etc.,

Sixth:
Madam, - It is great to see William Reville once again face down the proud and arrogant atheism of Richard Dawkins (Science Today, November 25th); if anything, Prof Reville was too nice to him.

There has certainly been evolution, but belief in Darwin’s traditional theory of evolution where the entire creation developed by purely random changes at the genetic level, a doctrine so adhered to by Dawkins, requires more faith than believing that God is behind it all.

Dawkins’s god is time. . .everything in Dawkins’s eyes is possible, given only time. The mists of Time conjured up the first self-replicating particle, assembled the first cell, an incredibly complex thing in itself. For Dawkins Time allowed for order to come out of disorder, allowed absence of intelligence to beget intelligence, and chaos to produce a vast array of creatures oozing with evidence of incredible design. . . and there was of course no designer, no intelligence behind it all!

We have been beguiled by this unscientific thinking. It is time to call his bluff. The laws of chance working at the genetic level do not in fact allow for the evolution of the range of creatures in this creation within a mere three billion years. Or if they did, the odds are so long that it is an absolute miracle - back to God again!

So whichever way you look at it, we’re looking at a designer here. Revel in that, Prof Dawkins. - Yours, etc.,

Seventh:
A chara, - Surely, the whole point of a public debate is to convince others? But if the average person has a “need” for religion, as suggested by Dr William Reville, why does he bother proselytising?

If he thinks belief is innate (this ignores Christian teaching that God gave freedom not to believe) Dr Reville should chill out and enjoy his status as an a la carte Christian.

But before leaving the scene to the genetic code it would be a matter of interest to some of us if Dr Reville detailed his own religious beliefs. Which, if any, tenets or “fundamentals” - to use a pertinent phrase coined by early 20th century American Christians - does he subscribe to?

It would be especially interesting to know if, as his writings suggest, he agrees with everyone who believes in any god. If so, surely this brings him into conflict with Christianity which, though praised in his article, wears its monotheism as a badge of honour. - Is mise,

Ninth:
Madam, - Dr Michael Telford (November 30th) writes that Richard Dawkins adheres to the idea that “the entire creation developed by purely random changes at the genetic level” - and then argues against this on various grounds. Unfortunately, his argument fails at the first hurdle because Dawkins has never claimed that pure random chance shapes evolution but that natural selection, which is far from random, is the force that drives it. - Yours, etc.,

…or so claimed Dr William Reville in last Thursdays Irish Times. (Sub. required)

The article has caused a great deal of controversy in the letters pages for the last week, see what you think yourself:

Under The Microscope: Europe has become strongly secular, in contrast to the US where religion plays a prominent part, as demonstrated by the recent presidential election, writes Dr William Reville

Traditional Christianity has been in retreat for many years in Europe, too jaded to effectively fight off attacks from the secular left. Religion is also under attack from some scientists - most notably from Richard Dawkins, who has written several fine books explaining the importance and implications of the main scientific theory in biology: the theory of evolution. Dawkins is Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, and he interprets his brief to be much wider than explaining evolution. He is a proselytising atheist, believing religion is bad - principally because, in his opinion, religion prevents its adherents from acquiring a true understanding of the world. He speaks frequently against religion and his onslaught has become much more forceful and bitter since 9/11.

Dawkins believes the concept of God is man-made and that religion was invented as a “comfort-blanket”. He believes the concept of religion has infected the human mind as a mental virus that is transmitted from generation to generation. This hypothesis can be presented in a plausible manner and, although impossible to prove, it is also impossible to disprove.

Dawkins rails against the media for routinely inviting religious leaders to express opinions on important technological developments in society, for example when Dolly, the first cloned adult animal, was produced in 1997. Dawkins believes that only people who have expert professional knowledge in the particular area - pre-eminent people such as himself, of course - should be asked to express views, and not people whose only claim to prominence is that they are spokespersons for what he sees as irrational beliefs.

Dawkins claims religion teaches people to be content with not understanding (or misunderstanding) the world. For example, fundamentalist Christianity does not believe in biological evolution. He also believes religion is a convenient badge of identity for groups intent on attacking each other over ancient grievances, as in Northern Ireland. You can read more of his ideas in A Devil’s Chaplain (Phoenix, 2004).

Although not all of Dawkins’ points are wrong, in my view he is entirely wrong in his overall argument. It is true that some terrible things have been done in the name of religion. But what about the countless number of people whose lives have been enriched by religion? I can speak only of Christianity because I don’t know enough about other religions. I fail to see how the basic Christian message of love God, love your neighbour, forgive your enemy and take responsibility for your actions can do anything but good for those who abide by it.

It is true that the Christian churches, as human institutions, have often erred grievously - but name any human institution that has not. The failings of churches as institutions do not discredit the basic Christian message. Many people are killed by cars every year. So what do we do - ban cars? No, cars are useful things. The problem is careless driving.

All human institutions have a tendency to err. Science is a human institution and it has erred. Eugenics was a very popular scientific movement in the late 1800s and the first half of the 20th century. It advocates the improvement of the human stock by selective breeding and was enthusiastically promoted by prominent biologists. The movement degenerated into notions of racial hygiene and racial superiority and was an important underpinning of Nazi philosophy.

In A Devil’s Chaplin, Dawkins charges that much of Hitler’s anti-Semitism can be attributed to his never-renounced Catholicism and his belief that Christ’s real mission was to fight the Jews. He never mentions Hitler’s clear and acknowledged dependence on “scientific” racial hygiene. If Dawkins applied the same criteria to science as to religion he would also have to denounce science.

If religion has such a bad influence, one would expect that regimes in which religion played no part would be singularly happy and thriving places. We had two such notable regimes in the 20th century - Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. We must hold our nerve in Europe. Because religion has erred we should not heave the water out of the bath - the baby is in there. Institutions that err need reform, not obliteration. When Gandhi was asked for his opinion on western civilisation, he replied: “It would be a good idea.” You could say the same for basic Christianity.

The main alternative to religion is secular humanism. This philosophy holds that nothing greater than mankind exists and we must work out our lives entirely reliant on our own resources. Some people, but I believe no more than a small minority, can live decent and fulfilled lives drawing on this philosophy. The majority of people need the solace of religion.

Conventional Christianity is a decent philosophy with predictable societal consequences when practised genuinely. Secularists would be well advised to stop trying to reduce it to a position of no significance.

The average person’s need for religion remains and a greatly weakened Christianity could be replaced by some other form of religion hostile to social progress.

William Reville is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Director of Microscopy at UCC

Interesting stuff…

Should Americans really give intolerance a pass if it is rooted in religious faith?

Many American Christians once read the Bible to mean that African-Americans were cursed as descendants of Noah’s son Ham, and were intended by God to be enslaved. In the 19th century, millions of Americans sincerely accepted this Biblical justification for slavery as God’s word - but surely it would have been wrong to defer to such racist nonsense simply because speaking out could have been perceived as denigrating some people’s religious faith.

People have the right to believe in a racist God, or a God who throws millions of nonevangelicals into hell. I don’t think we Americans should ban books that say that. But we should be embarrassed when our best-selling books gleefully celebrate religious intolerance and violence against infidels.

That’s not what America stands for, and I doubt that it’s what God stands for.

Just remember that if you make donations to the Church, the bigger the donation the more likely you are not to go to Church at all…

A recent study by an MIT economist finds that, on average, for every one percent increase in a household’s donations to religious groups, participation in faith-related activities, including attendance at services, declines by one percent. Economists have long wondered whether religious participation and religious giving tend to rise in tandem, or whether people view giving as a substitute for participation. For every religious denomination studied, the latter seemed to be true: write a bigger check, it appears, and you’ll feel better about shirking services on Sunday (or Friday night, or Saturday, depending on your faith). This indulgence effect, as one might call it, was least pronounced among conservative Protestants (who were only half as likely as the average to supplant churchgoing with donations), followed by Roman Catholics, who appear to have left “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs” back in the sixteenth century.

Colin Sedgwick:

“I want God, but I don’t want organised religion.” It sounds fine. Who, in their senses, wants to be like those poor saps on the parochial church council? But, sorry, you cannot have it that way; God is simply not available on those terms.

Your private religion may afford you a brief satisfaction; there is, no doubt, such a thing as a spiritual placebo effect. But for the real thing - the true encounter with God - there is nothing else for it; you have to roll up your sleeves and get out your diary, not to mention shouldering that rather disagreeable bit of penal apparatus, the cross.

Hard? Yes. But this is the way to enlightenment, glory and joy. There is no other.

Yes there is another way. The non-Colin Sedgewick way.

Mark Steyn writes a very curious article in this weeks edition of the Spectator. I am actually shocked by the logical leaps he makes in his piece, and am amazed that he might actually believe what he has written. I even went to the effort of printing it out and going through it step by step to make sure - the article is so full of holes I dare not castigate it. But I shall. Later today hopefully. I can’t link to it but I’ll put the whole thing here - read on.
Read the rest of this entry »

Karen Armstrong, author of the History of God, with another article I have been meaning to blog on for a while. I like her ideas, and just in case the Guardian take this down, here is the full article, I really enjoyed it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Actor Jim Caviezel has been struck by lightning while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s controversial film The Passion Of Christ.
The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film’s assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome.

It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.

And the chances of a Michelini being hit twice on the same set? God must not be happy! LOL

Top Stories - Reuters

No official comment from the Vatican was immediately available on Thursday.
Read the rest of this entry »

Janet Dub� on religion, and prayer in US politics

In President Bush’s now notorious phrase “axis of evil”, it is obviously the word evil that suggests he was using a religious idea for political purposes. Axis has scientific meanings in a way evil cannot. Some meanings of axis suggest the phrase axis of evil is nonsense: others amplify its vague menace.

…

But it is not just because they’re politicians that many find the idea of Bush and Blair in private prayer creepy or frightening. It is because they have power and we don’t want a holy war. Use religious language to pray for reconciliation, forgiveness and peace says Professor Pagels, and keep political discourse open to everyone

George Monbiot with a subject debated at great length by myself and Frank over the last week. Worth a look.

Just to clarify, I meant there are two types only who are still fighting. Those baathists who have no future because of their actions under the old regime and foreigners.The mercenary tag is meant in a very broad sense, no-one is fighting Coalition (note: not just American) forces for money. It is clear that there are non-Iraqi muslims fighting, as there were non-Aghans fighting for the Taleban and non-Bosnians (albeit more nobly) fighting in former Yugoslavia and there have been several reports, I’ll see if I can find you a few links. To answer your question, it is only western style projection” that leads you to assume that there Iraqis sufficiently resentful of the presence of foreign troops to fight against them. there’s a huge difference between common-or-garden anti-american sentiment (as is found throughout Europe) and the motivation to kill and risk death. It is easy to understand the notion of “the resistance” and it is sloppy reporting to characterise what is happening in Iraq as some kind of spontaneous “resistance to occupation” like the mythical, false French “resistance” to the Nazis.

Im not so sure Frank. I was at a debate on Saturday and had the pleasure to meet Lindsey Hilsum from Channel 4 News. She characterized the feeling in Iraq for me.

From her experiences in Iraq she believed that the Iraqis “resent the Americans, they believe they are being colonised”. She noted a piece of graffitti scrawled on the plinth of the famous statue that was pulled down by the Americans, written now: “All done, go home”.

I dont think there is evidence either way to support a claim that it is a “Western style projection”, nor would I say that the anti-Americanism present in Arab nations is entirely the same thing as anti-Americanism found in Western European nations, I think they are perhaps two different kettles of fish.

Here’s a thought for you Gavin: Do you think the US army is composed entirely of practicing Christians? There are Muslim, Jewish and atheist soldiers too.

No i don’t. But let me throw it back, do you think a majority or a minority of soldiers in the US army would claim to be Christian? I don’t doubt the existence of other religions in the US armed forces. But like my original point, it is Christianity that would be associated with Amercian invaders/liberators more than any other - not least in the eyes of Iraqis.

By referring to the use of religion in such a broad context (different methods, different extremes) you dilute the point until it is almost meaningless. What will have a tangible effect is if religion is used coercively and to extreme, that is more relevant and interesting than a statement that the leader (or some of the soldiers) of one country prays to God as does the leader (or soldiers) of another country pray to Allah. What matters is if that country places a sanction on you because you don’t conform to the majority religious practice. I couldn’t give a stuff if Bertie Ahern and the whole Dail prayed to Satan as long as they don’t require me to join their rituals

How do I dilute the point? My point is a meaningful one. The observation of religious belief and practice is fascinating. The upsurdity in many ways, the contradictions, the sheer hypocricy of religion.