Be Reasonable

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: Keep religion and politics separate

I've previously expressed my scepticism about the idea of religion existing within a secular society. Is it really possible for the deeply religious to keep their religion private and not have it interfere with public life? Well in today's Sunday Time Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks (Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth) explains how crucial it is to keep religion and politics separate.

Sacks covers disastrous episodes in history that have resulted from the mixing of religion and politics and is concerned that we may be headed in that direction again:

We are living in an age in which, not just in Britain but throughout the world, many people are disillusioned with secular politics, and are turning to religion instead. In itself that is a blessing. Religious faith is our noblest effort to understand ourselves and our place in the universe. The expansive air of the spirit redeems the narrowness of the material world. But to expect it to solve political problems is to invite disaster. Religion becomes political at its peril, and ours.

Sacks explains what liberal democracy can offer that religion doesn't:

Liberal democracy does what few great religions have ever achieved. It makes space for difference. It honours the person regardless of his or her beliefs. It allows societies to negotiate change without catastrophe. It teaches us the difficult arts of listening to our opponents and - in Isaiah's phrase - 'reasoning together'. These are modest virtues but necessary ones.

And:

Politics knows what religion sometimes forgets, that the imposition of truth by force and the suppression of dissent by power is the end of freedom and a denial of human dignity.

Sacks explains that it's the 'existence of alternatives, the clash of opinions' that keeps democracy alive and that this is where politics and religion differ. Personally I think that these are also the qualities required for contemplating the 'big questions' which Sacks considers to be the domain of dogmatic religion.

Of course, I'd prefer it if religion kept out of both politics and ethics, but I'm very happy to see Sacks speaking out in this way. I guess it's easier for a leader from a minority religion to support the separation of religion and politics, but with the current situations in the US and the Islamic world, it's certainly welcome.

The sad tale of the British Muslim women's football team

I listened to the Taking on Tehran programme on Radio 4 today. The programme is about a British football team's participation in the Muslim Women's Games. There's also an article about the programme on the BBC News site.

I found the programme rather sad. Iran doesn't permit women to participate in most sports in the Olympic because of religious dress codes. Instead they have set up their own women-only games where no men are permitted so the women can wear sports gear.

The British football team does hopelessly badly. I don't know much about football, but even I know that a 38-4 defeat is dismal (and that wasn't their worst defeat). The reason for this is that Muslim countries are fielding their national teams and some countries have fielded non-Muslim teams which is permitted. Britain could send the national women's team but that would be rather disappointing for the Muslim girls.

The programme does offer some balance. We hear that the girls from strict Muslim countries don't understand why the Brits wear the Hijab when they don't have to. We also hear from contributors who are against the games pointing out that Muslim men can compete in the Olympics and that segregation is against the spirit of sport.

Whenever there's a discussion about women's right to wear the hijab or even the burqa, there's a part of me that feels that they should be permitted to do so if it is a free and considered decision. However, there's a stronger part of me that feels that it is wrong to cover and inhibit women in this way. This programme has made me more convinced that such restrictive dresss is inappropriate even when self-imposed.

UK shops withdraw Jerry Springer: The Opera DVD

BBC News has an article covering the blogosphere's response to the following short piece which appeared in the Independent a few days ago:

Major retail chains have bowed to pressure from a tiny fringe Christian group by withdrawing copies of a DVD of Jerry Springer: The Opera from stores around the UK.

Woolworths and Sainsbury have both taken the unprecedented step of removing the film from shelves because of "customer" concerns about the content of the musical, released three weeks ago. Sainsbury has admitted it received just 10 complaints.

We are not amused. I've sent letters of complaint to Sainsbury and Woolworths. I shop at both of these shops and I'm seriously disappointed. Unless they reverse the decision I'll be doing my Christmas food and present shopping elsewhere.

I'm hoping that the withdrawal of the DVD was a reflex reaction to receiving complaints and not the result of a considered censorship decision. I'd like to see Sainsbury and Woolworths come admit that they made a mistake.

As penance I think they should stock not only Jerry Springer: The Opera but also The God Who Wasn't There.

So you think Grandma's going to Hell?

Today's Guardian (yes the paper that is obsessed with religion) reports, Dr Eric Stoddart of St Andrew's University is doing a fascinating piece of academic research on the implications of belief in Hell. Here's an extract:

Dr Stoddart is interested in how belief in hell affects everyday life and is keen to hear from ordinary Christians as well. He said: "I'm interested in how people handle their belief in hell. If you believe (or are told you should believe) your grandmother is going to hell because she is not a Christian, how do you deal with that? Do you dehumanise her or psychologically distance yourself in order to accept her fate? How is it possible to go about daily life while believing that a loved-one has entered eternal suffering? When most hell-believing Christians are likely to encounter the death of 'non-Christian' loved-ones it is striking that it is a subject rarely tackled. No one talks about this aspect. There is something of a conspiracy of silence."

It's a good question. I've often wondered if Christians really believe this stuff. Do the Christians that I know well (yep, we've got serious religious folks in the family) really think that I'm going to suffer in Hell for all eternity? If so why aren't they doing more to save me and the other atheists in the family? Surely social etiquette wouldn't be reason enough to stop them if they really believed. I can only conclude that in their heart of hearts they don't.

Guardian too religious?

Ian Mayes has a piece in today's Guardian newspaper that was provoked by the following letter from a reader:

"Yet another religious article today. Please could you tell me why there is now so much religion in the Guardian? What prompted this move to go from being a secular paper to the most religious of all the papers?"

Since I began blogging on the topic I've become increasingly aware of the religious profiles of the UK newspapers. So is this a fair criticism? Mayes doesn't think so and neither do I.

In the past the Guardian may have avoided religious topics and it's true that it now has quite a lot of religious coverage. I'd noticed that although I look at all the broadsheet newspapers (often online, sometime the print version), I more often find interesting religion-related articles in the Guardian. However, I'd say that the newspaper certainly has secular leanings. It does publish pro-religious pieces (such as Nicholas Buxton's drivel), but it also publishes pro-secularism pieces such as today's Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion by Polly Toynbee.

Mayes notes that the paper has a Quaker/Unitarian history through its founders. A recent survey showed that a healthy 56% of current Guardian staff said they had no religion.

Like the journalists that Mayes polled, I don't think now is the time to be sweeping religious issues under the carpet. I for one would like to see more, rather than less, balanced coverage of religious issues.

Twelve days of Kitschmas

A BBC News feature drew my attention to the Ship of Fools Twelve Days of Kitschmas which highlights some truly painful religion-related gifts. I'm pretty impressed with the BBC's lack of reverence.

My personal unfavourite is the Nativity Timer (illustrated) for boiling blessed brussel sprouts to perfection I assume.

But what's that at number 13? It's the Heroes of Atheism Mugs from the National Secular Society. I have those mugs! Why should the Lord have all the best rubbish indeed.

Lord Winston: Religion without Faith

Yesterday I discussed Lord May's caution that religious fanaticism is an inhibitor to scientific progress. Today it's the turn of another British Lord and scientist to express his views on the relationship between science and religion. Lord Robert Winston has written a book and made a TV series entitled the Story of God (starts Sunday 7th November, BBC1) and is of the opinion that science and religion can happily coexist.

Winston expresses his views today in a BBC News article. I'm a bit baffled by Winston. He seems to think that worrying about whether God really exists or not is besides the point:

It does not matter whether you believe there lurks a real God or gods behind the idea. The idea is real and, as a scientist who studies "real things", I believe it deserves to be examined.

But he is a practising Jew and in this recent interview he clearly separates religion and faith:

Do I believe in the conventional God who sits on a throne in heaven and judges people on earth? No I don't. I don't believe that because I believe in free will. And if you have free will then you can't have a god that intervenes - it doesn't make sense. But you can have a divine idea or divine spirit within you, which I believe. And I come from a religious tradition which is as much concerned with how you behave as how you believe. Judaism is one of the few religions which makes no demands on faith.'

I get the impression that Winston doesn't believe in God but does believe in religion. He seems to like the ritual of religion (he only eats Kosher food) and appreciate the intellectual and ethical framework of Judaism.

Interesting. This is certainly a more rational position than belief in the supernatural. But I still find it unnerving. I just don't see how a scientist can be so strongly influenced by dogma. I'm looking forward to watching his TV series and trying to get a better understanding of what Winston's views really are.

Twilight for the Enlightenment?

Lord May of Oxford, the outgoing president of the Royal Society (the UK's academy of science) has criticised fundamentalist religion in his anniversary speech.

May begins with an explanation of Enlightenment values:

What are these values? They are tolerance of diversity, respect for individual liberty of conscience, and above all recognition that an ugly fact trumps a beautiful theory or a cherished belief. All ideas should be open to questioning, and the merit of ideas should be assessed on the strength of the evidence that supports them and not on the credentials or affiliations of the individuals proposing them. It is not a recipe for a comfortable life, but it is demonstrably a powerful engine for understanding how the world actually works and for applying this understanding.

He then explains that the world is heading into dangerous times with problems related to climate change, biological diversity and infectious diseases. May describes how religious fundamentalists and others who reject the scientific method are inhibiting progress:

Not surprisingly, there exists a climate change "denial lobby", funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by sectors of the hydrocarbon industry, and highly influential in some countries. This lobby has understandable similarities, in attitudes and tactics, to the tobacco lobby that continues to deny smoking causes lung cancer, or the curious lobby denying that HIV causes AIDS.

And,

I have dwelt on this campaign against condom use by individuals and institutions motivated by dogma, because it provides another example where faith and belief not only override evidence, but also lead to deliberate misrepresentation of the facts (presumably in the service of a higher good).

The final section of May's speech asks whether it's 'Twilight for the Enlightenment?'. May covers the threat from the US where religion has become anti-science and the threat from Islamic fundamentalism and concludes that that is definitely cause for concern.

Sadly, for many, the response is to retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason. The Enlightenment's core values, which lie at the heart of the Royal Society - free, open, unprejudiced, uninhibited questioning and enquiry; individual liberty; separation of church and state - are under serious threat from resurgent fundamentalism, West and East. Our forceful and effective presence on the national and international stage is more important today than at any time in the Royal Society's 345-year history.

The full text of the speech is available here.

I find it very sad that Lord May feels the need to defend science against religious fundamentalism. Sad, but unfortunately necessary.

No earthly good

The Catholic church are really on a roll this week.

Yesterday it was the official publication of their lovely document explaining that the sex that priest's are not having must be of the heterosexual variety, but condemning discrimination against homosexuals. Do they have their own special branch of Vatican logic?

Today it's the proposal that limbo has been abolished. Catholic doctrine says that the souls of babies who die before being baptised are sent to limbo, which lies between heaven and hell, because they are still tainted with 'original sin'. The Guardian suggests why limbo might be going out of favour:

More than six million children die of hunger every year in underdeveloped countries where the Church is keen to see its support continue to grow.

It is concerned that the concept of limbo may not impress potential converts.

The Church is aware that Muslims, for example, believe that all children go straight to heaven without passing any test.

And, in preparation for tomorrow's World Aids Day the pope has already taken the opportunity to avoid talking about condoms, instead he invokes "the help and comfort of the Lord" for Aids sufferers. Reminds me of that Johnny Cash song "You're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good".

Let them have religion

Umberto Eco, the author and academic, has written a piece in today's Sunday Telegraph entitled God isn't big enough for some people. Eco bemoans the current trend for replacing Christian belief with belief in anything and everything:

"G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it - he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity."

Eco seems particularly bothered by the cult that has grown up around Dan Brown's The Da Vinci code. This must be especially troublesome for Eco whose academic field is semiotics (the study of things that can be taken as signs) and who writes historical novels. I imagine Eco is frustrated by a readership that cannot tell fact from fiction and an author who plays on this for commercial gain.

Eco, an atheist himself, does seem to value religious traditions:

"I was raised as a Catholic, and although I have abandoned the Church, this December, as usual, I will be putting together a Christmas crib for my grandson. We'll construct it together - as my father did with me when I was a boy. I have profound respect for the Christian traditions - which, as rituals for coping with death, still make more sense than their purely commercial alternatives."

I could be misinterpreting him, but Eco seems to suggest that religion is better that the alternatives and is therefore appropriate for the masses although the enlightened have no need for it.

It does concern me that the alternative to religion seems to be ghosts and horoscopes, but that doesn't strike me as a reason to hold on to religion. Although annoying, these other beliefs don't have such a negative impact on society.

Eco concludes that: "The religious celebration of Christmas is at least a clear and coherent absurdity. The commercial celebration is not even that." I disagree, I don't find the Christian Christmas at all coherent. Although commercial Christmas may be incoherent and absurd, at least it's not claiming to be anything else.