I just can’t get behind the recent surge in aggressive secularism and atheism. It’s one thing to subscribe to a certain belief system or religion or faith or whatever, but to ram it down everyone’s throats and treat those with a different viewpoint as non-thinking subhumanoids is just bigoted and biased, no matter what side of the fence you sit on. Like Catherine Deveny, especially today. The woman’s Twitter feed has been aflame for the better part of the afternoon with lots of big, juicy denunciations of religion and faith (of all stripes). She even enlists quotations from that half-crazed advocate of atheist jihad, Christopher Hitchens. So far, her invective has reminded me of passages by Richard Dawkins in ‘The God Delusion’, stating that religion is a ‘very evil’ force in the world, or that raising children in a religious tradition is tantamount to child abuse. I wouldn’t be surprised if her next quote was ‘some propositions [of faith] are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing in them’, from Sam Harriss’ ‘The End OF Faith’. Perhaps Deveny is one of atheism’s ‘true believers’, who feels that some Islamic states may be impossible to reform because many muslims are ‘utterly deranged by their religious faith’ (Sam Harriss, again).
Honestly, this sounds like the arguments that would be put forward by the directors of the Spanish Inquisition.
But it’s only to be expected. After all, one extreme incites the other. And religious intolerance encourages irreligious intolerance. Certainly, Ms Deveny, there have been plenty of sins committed in the name of religion, but are they any greater than the sins committed in the name of secularism or atheism? Think about it for a minute, Cath. The French revolutionaries built a statue to the Goddess of Reason, then incited a Reign of Terror that killed over 20,000 people. The 20th century genocides of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot with the Khmer Rouge were motivated not by religion (which they tried to eliminate) but rather by ideals of a perfect secular society. The nation-state has become the god that many (millions?) are willing to die for. Or kill for. Do you count yourself amongst those folks, Catherine?
Personally, I feel that it’s pretty hard to imagine the world without the positive influence of religion. Its’ values lie at the very foundations of civil society. Our concern for social justice issues and human rights evolved out of the biblical prophetic tradition. Anti-slavery campaigns in Britain and the US were established and led by Christian abolitionists. The nonviolent resistance movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were inspired by spiritual beliefs.
Really, Catherine, biblical literalism is a pretty easy target. But it’s doubtful that your patronising approach is persuasive to many believers – especially those who truly understand their faith. Being tone-deaf to the attraction of religious commitment, you also seem pretty ignorant of the larger issues that attract people to God in the first place.
What is the meaning of life, in the face of inevitable death? Religion is our way of denying our mortality. It is also the cultural institution that most encourages us to reflect on our mortality and be transformed by it.
Language is metaphorical, and religious language especially so. We talk about things that cannot be seen or touched, and these may be the most important things. The mind needs symbols like the body needs food. Spiritual myths close our minds when they are taken literally as propositions that will save us if we but assent to them. We crave that kind of security, yet religion also encourages us to question our desire for that kind of security. The greatest religious myths challenge us to awaken from the collective delusions of everyday life.
Whether or not King Midas really existed, it’s pretty doubtful that Dionysius ever gave him a Golden Touch. Nevertheless, the allegory of that myth has taught generations of people something very important about materialism. Religious institutions have sometimes been obsessed with money and power just as much as many other institutions, yet religious teachings have also provided the main (and most powerful) critique of our preoccupation with money and power.
Likewise, it’s doubtful that a young Siddhartha Gautama renounced the world because of his encounter with an old man, an ill man, and then a corpse. Nevertheless, the Buddhist story conveys something essential about humanity’s origins and the purpose of religious quest on which people around the world would have embarked throughout the ages.
By ignoring and decrying all forms of religion, hyper-secularists and militant atheists like Catherine Deveny are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, ignoring the spiritual hunger for deeper meaning in life.
