Friday, May 09, 2008
Cardinal Points
'Have you ever met anyone who believes what Richard Dawkins does not believe in?' asks Cormac Murphy O'Connor pithily in an interesting lecture that has received a gratifyingly large amount of attention. Which unfortunately meant a grilling by John Humphrys on the Today programme this morning - the last thing the Cardinal and his message needed. Of course Cormac came out of it seeming a thoroughly good egg, but he was unable to get across much of what he wanted to say/ reiterate, sidelined by an intelocutor who really doesn't 'get' religious belief (as he demonstrated in his recent interview series devoted to the subject). As the great Marilynne says somewhere, nothing true can be said about God from a defensive posture. But the Cardinal's basic point is well worth making - that there ought to be an acknowledged common ground between believers and non-believers, in the realm of doubt where both groups live much of the time (except of course the Dawkinsites, who simply know the truth). There's another area where the believers should be more assertive too, I think - in stressing the fact that most (if not all) of what secularists cherish in secular societies and secular 'enlightenment' values grew out of the fertile soil of Christendom and is at bottom, in the broadest sense, Christian; there is no easy escape from the gravitational pull of Christianity, and whenever western societies do break the bond with the Christian past, the results tend to be catastrophic. But, in the end, the best argument for Christianity has always been a matter of living the life, not arguing over dogma - least of all with those who, like Dawkins, will not hear.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Yet neither side has an exactly unblemished record when it comes to respecting common ground, so one can hardly be surprised if folks are a little sceptical. From one side they come at you with a tricolor or red flag and a firing squad; and from the other with a bible or koran and a stake. Live and let live seems quite alien to proselytizing types.
ReplyDeleteImho, best to steer clear of the whole rotten business or choose a path with a better record of tolerance. Completely agree, though, that living the life is what matters. So much religion seems just a matter of geography.
As nobody lives the life what else is there to do but argue over the dogma!
ReplyDeleteI refuse to attend any interviews conducted by John Humphries. The man’s an ass, without doubt, the most disgraceful journalistic offering of all time.
ReplyDeleteHe seems to labour under the manic impression that an interview is some sort of third degree, in which the interviewee is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Time was when journalists were a medium. Conductors for the interviewee to air his views, and for the public to evaluate them. Never did they give any detail of the analytic method - beyond the facts essential for the evaluation of one’s opinion. Today’s proceedings come via some pigheaded motormouth who obstructs the minutes with the cheaply condescending insinuation of a public outrage, whereas the persons being interviewed can consider themselves lucky if they get a word in edgewise.
This, of course, also applies to Paxman, a man whose pampered pomposity is more suited to a sulking sultan (I think he may have gone mad), as well as to Jon Snow of Channel Four (even though, happily, the latter tends relieve the proceedings with his ever occasional stutter). I'm bound to say the method absolutely baffles me. I do not care for Paxo, Jon or Humphries’ opinion, I want to know what the person interviewed has to say!
Dammit...
Nobody makes sneeringly disrespectful interviews as entertaining as Paxman though. We'd miss him if he left.
ReplyDelete'Have you ever met anyone who believes what Richard Dawkins does not believe in?'
ReplyDeleteUm...that there is a heaven and a hell, that there is a God and Jesus was the Son of It who died for our sins and that he will come again on a Day of Judgement?
Actually, it is an interesting question, because my suspicion is that almost nobody does really believe any of those things. Which is to say, a lot more people say they believe those things than act like they believe them.
The very few who act like they really do believe those things are dismissed as nuts by the 'real' Christians, who then go on to scold Dawkins for mixing up the two.
Good point, Brit. You are a rock of good sense.
ReplyDeleteDreamy, I don't agree entirely. I would much rather have a Paxman or a Humphries in the chair than some timorous, wishy-washy sort. Especially when politicians are being grilled. Ask the bastard the same question twelve times in row if needs be and show them up for what they are once in while.
I think, Brit, the point is the way in which it is believed, the level of literalness or materiality if you like (I don't much - ugly words) - Dawkins seems to assume believers believe in God in the same way as they (or he) believe in, say, gravity or that the sky is blue. Plainly they don't, even the most literal-minded of them.
ReplyDeleteAnd Neil, what about Eddie Mair (and before him Nick Clarke)? It's possible to be incisive without grandstanding.
Actually, it is an interesting question, because my suspicion is that almost nobody does really believe any of those things. Which is to say, a lot more people say they believe those things than act like they believe them.
ReplyDeleteThat's equally true about the Darwinism that Dawkins claims to believe in.
A very good point, Peter - the real implications of Darwinism are almost never addressed by those who claim to believe in it (see John Gray's Straw Dogs).
ReplyDeleteYes, I get the idea, Nige. Dawkins's mistake is to push for a post-religious 'utopia' where even the lip service has disappeared.
ReplyDeleteMy idea of a post-religious utopia is one where all religions are like Anglicanism: you can happily get on by believing any degree of the actual mumbo-jumbo from zero per cent up to about 45 per cent (but not more).
Anglicanism is the post-religion religion.
Maybe, brit the post religious faith will be the internet, on headcount and fervour alone it must dwarf the classic religions, in some areas I would suggest that sport also has replaced religion among fairly large sections of the community,
ReplyDeleteand why not, these things are easy to cling on to, and therefore require little thought, a very obvious trend in the last two decades. Far more logical than becoming a Jehovah's Witness, the ultimate dotty, designer creed, after the Wee Free, that is.
Nige, PS
ReplyDeleteIn Borders books Edinburgh store last week, Dawkin's 6, B.Obstmetre 2
Where is he by the way, he's becoming distinctly Lucanesque, just glanced out of the window, our bats are out and about.
Anglicanism is the post-religion religion.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point, Brit, and obviously arguable. But surely there is an "Anglican" Darwinist equivalent? How about all those unthinking rationalists in Starbucks or the blogosphere who revere those sequential slug-to-man pictoral charts in science classrooms and raise their children to believe in them without ever asking themselves where they come from and what they imply? We all recognize the caricature of the kindly, befuddled vicar who suddenly decides he can no longer believe in the Thirty-Nine Articles, but what of the secularist bright who, at the very moment his triple low-fat soya latte is served, has a Damascene moment and realizes he can no longer accept Dawkins's eleven commandments.
"That's equally true about the Darwinism that Dawkins claims to believe in."
ReplyDeleteMany feminists and humanists use evolution to batter Chrisitianity yet continue to believe that most inequality and violence is purely socioeconomic and learned. i.e man isn't inherently violent-it's learnt from a macho and bigotted culture.
From a darwinian standpoint(that we are subject to the same laws as other animals) this doesn't exists. We don't apply sociological reasons to explain why cats love to hunt mice- we know instinctively that it's been passed on by the cat's genes.
"Cardinal Points": The blog post wherein Nige proves he can get just as many commenters as Bryan by bringing up Richard Dawkins and the science/religion wars.
ReplyDeleteYou go, Nige. By the way, I just had a very pleasant dose of Muscular Christianity. Whilst rounding up the eldest after her first year of university, I listened to Hugh Bonneville read "Tom Brown's School Days." What a great book! I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it about a million years ago when I first read it. (J.K. Rowling obviously read it too 'cause much of her Hogwart's seems derived from Hughes' descriptions of 19th-c. Rugby. Dr. Arnold and Dumbledore are fairly similar too.)
Great audio book, & available in your own lovely nation from Silksound Books. By the way, Hugh B. has a great voice. Why have I never heard from him across the pond?
the real implications of Darwinism are almost never addressed by those who claim to believe in it
ReplyDeleteWhat would those real implications be, Nige?
I'd say there are several contenders for the post-religion religion, neither of which are mutually exclusive. These would include Gaia/Environment worship and it's cultural corollary, the authenticity/indigenous people's movement. Both of these give the believer ample opportunity for guilt and penance, as well as missionary service via the new religious order, the NGO/CSO.
I fear that the new incarnation of Western religious zeal may outdo the previous one for preachiness and overall intrusive bothersomeness.
Well Duck I think the main implication of Darwinism is that it leaves no ground whatsoever for privileging humankind, its vallues and all it has done and stands for, over any other species. Apart from naked self-interest. The most ardent Darwinists still speak as if man is something special (or rather their utterances can very swiftly be boiled down to that assumption), but Darwinism offers no reason for believing any such thing. The discourse of Darwninists is permeated with values that actually have no place (having no ground) in a Darwinian world view. Darwin himself had terrible difficulty coming to terms with his insight, and arguably never did. I rather doubt if any human being could truly internalise it - dammit we haven't even internalised Copernicus: the sun still rises and sets.
ReplyDeleteNige
ReplyDeleteTrue, Darwinism provides no scientific, objective reason for privileging mankind. But why is that necessary? We can privilege ourselves on purely subjective grounds.
I have no problem with the dichotomy between the objective realm of science and fact and the subjective realm of values. If religious people would just admit that religion is subjective, then they would enjoy the benefits of religion more fully, in my opinion.
I blame Plato, for objectifying ideas like the good and the beautiful, and the idea of perfection, which is the most purely subjective notion of all.
Think of the fable of the goose that laid golden eggs, the gold being those subjective qualities of existence that we treasure. Don't expect to find it by dissecting existence into its constituent parts. Science won't find them, nor should anyone expect that it could.
We can privilege ourselves on purely subjective grounds.
ReplyDeleteNot really, because Darwinism cannot account for the subjective. Even our altruism is genetically determined. True, you can do a Steven Pinker and say that your genes can take a hike when you want to do something counter-survival like remain childless, but that reduces the whole project to the utterly banal. Nature selects for fitness except when we tell it to piss off.
Not really, because Darwinism cannot account for the subjective.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Darwinism doesn't explain everything.
Even our altruism is genetically determined. True, you can do a Steven Pinker and say that your genes can take a hike when you want to do something counter-survival like remain childless, but that reduces the whole project to the utterly banal. Nature selects for fitness except when we tell it to piss off.
No, Nature is always selecting for fitness. It selects on our telling it to piss off. You just haven't seen the results of that yet.
Duck, I think virtually all religious people - certainly theistic Christians - happily accept that religious truths are subjective rather than objective, as they have reality in the subject's relationship with God. Even the most ardent literalist 'believer' doesn't take 'God will answer my prayers' as a statement on the same level as 'This antibiotic will cure my infection'. Okay, snake handlers nearly get there...
ReplyDeleteNige,
ReplyDeleteThat seems to be a British viewpoint. It is not shared on this side of the Atlantic. We heretics are constantly being told that without religion we have no objective foundation for morality, or truth of any sort.
Rumors of Plato's demise have been greatly exaggerated.
If Cardinal Cormac McCarthy doesn't believe the things that Dawkins thinks he does (that Jesus was the son of god born of a virgin herself immaculately conceived and that on his death he redeemed mankind of all sin and rose from the dead to ascend to heaven where he can intercede in the affairs of men through the mechanism of prayer etc etc) I wish he would come out and say so. That would be a big story. But he won't because he is being (as Dawkins rudely points out from time to time) phenomenally dishonest as usual.
ReplyDelete"Duck, I think virtually all religious people - certainly theistic Christians - happily accept that religious truths are subjective rather than objective2
ReplyDeleteHow does that work? God only exists for those who think he does? He created the universe but not if you don't think so? He is all powerful but isn't if you don't want him to be? That Holy books, shrines and symbols are just holy for believers but may be treated with any degree of disrespect by non-believers for whom they are not holy? I am afraid my experience of the religious is different from yours. They tend, in my experience, to think that they know a truth about the universe that is true whatever I may think.