THE GOD CONFUSION

You may be surprised that I never really address the atheist/faith debate in this space. Enough people are certain enough of their ground to do enough damage, and enough discord is being sown, without my chiming-in. That’s been my feeling, anyway.

My thoughts on the spiritual and its relation to science, history and psychology are a little too fluid and nuanced (not to say, “Fuzzy”) to express in a five-hundred word blog post or throw-away tweet. Suffice it to say, the standard arguments on both sides strike me as equally selective and dogmatic; equally irrational; and equally childish.

            But, having ranted enough about politics – a theme I’m currently unable to ponder without collapsing into suicidal despair – I figure we might just as well break the other social taboo and talk about religion for a bit (Unless, that is, you want to talk about sex. Anybody? No? Then here we go ...).

My Shepherd is Right, Your Goat-herd is Wrong

“If another mass attachment takes the place of the religious one ... the same intolerance towards outsiders will ensue as in the era of the Wars of Religion, and if differences of scientific opinion ever managed to attain a similar level of importance for masses, the result would be the same for this motivation as well.”

 – Freud,

                                               Mass Psychology and Analysis of the ‘I’

Nobody can deny the damage that has been done whenever one group, fired by zeal for the certain righteousness of its cause, has sought to impose its religion on another. It is fundamentally important to recognise that modern, proselytising Atheism – typified by Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling – springs from precisely the same psychological ground.

            It has, although forever invoking its name, nothing to do with science. We see in the New Atheists the same narrow focus; the same belief that a benighted world, in thrall to false idols, can be delivered by their own special brand of Truth; the same blindness to any possible virtues in the enemy; and the same willingness to twist accepted facts – or invent them – to suit their argument as we see in any Genesis spouting evangelist.

            Richard Dawkins is a superb scientific communicator. His books and documentaries on evolutionary biology are classics of the genre. He is also, behind the calm exterior, a textbook zealot. As soon as he climbs on to his hobby-horse, any “scientific” objectivity, any semblance of scholarly argument, is abandoned and he becomes dogmatic – even shrill. His attempt, in The God Delusion, to counter a standard Christian line by asserting that Hitler was a practicing Catholic is an instructive example.

            (Since we’ve mentioned him, AC Grayling deserves a look-in too. He has been known, using that spectacular sophistry only a professional philosopher can summon, to argue against the idea of “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” – an evil and malignant precept if ever there was one!)

            Zealots are rarely zealots in one area alone; Saul of Tarsus, however brilliant his mind, was undoubtedly a bull-headed misogynist even before he fell from his horse and became Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Roman World; and so it is with Dawkins. His decades-long feud with the geologist, Stephen Jay Gould, over the correct interpretation of Darwin is again illustrative – Darwin is made the Prophet and only Dawkins, and those who agree with him, are blessed with true knowledge.

           

The Knowledge of the Wise

The world was brutal and frightening. Starvation, pestilence and invasion were always on the horizon, and they weren’t discouraged by the evolution of societies and cities. People craved certainty. Even their rulers needed someone to look up to.

            A pattern repeats itself, from the priests of Egypt and the Magi of Mesopotamia; through the Temple of Solomon and the early Christian communities; to the grandeur of the Orthodox and Imperial Roman Churches, and the desert storm of Islam.

            People looked to the secret men – the wise. Dressed in special robes, the knowing-ones disappeared into holy places to do mysterious things; to commune with the spirits over things the ordinary person didn’t understand. As they tried to unpick the screen separating world and mind, the ordinary person accepted their pronouncements on faith. And, lo, there was certainty. Civilisation progressed. It was no permanent settlement, but for a long while things went well enough – as long as nobody incited the ordinary man to go and kill infidels.

            Thankfully, it was just a stage. We’ve evolved beyond that kind of simplicity now. We were blind, and now we see. Not for modern cafe guy or Arts graduate that kind of ignorance and prejudice: cafe guy knows about science. He’s read The God Delusion – or at least heard of it.

            Now men and women in white coats disappear into laboratories to do things cafe guy doesn’t understand, and cafe guy accepts their gifts; civilisation progresses. He views the entire universe through this half-comprehending prism, but cafe guy finds certainty in that soothing word, science. This is not at all like blind faith.

            And, oh, the delicious zeal with which he – although unable to tell the difference between a pulsar and a proton – berates those religious types for their stupidity. He knows better. He is not at all self-righteous, merely right. He has it from on high.

The Uncertainty Principle

“What is ‘Truth’?”

 – Pontius Pilatus

            The Dawkinses, Graylings and cafe guys of the world are entitled to their beliefs. Just don’t say that it’s science. Don’t claim to be ridding the world of the Plague while you spread Ebola. Maybe someday we’ll evolve beyond religious bigotry but, if the New Atheists are any indication, we’re not there yet.

            Science is more than people with Bunsen-burners and telescopes – it’s a habit of mind. It infers laws from evidence. It doesn’t twist evidence to fit its theories. It remains alive to possibilities, looked for or not. Selling dogma in the name of science is no better than invoking a god of love on the way to war.

            Kierkegaard posited that it’s impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god; that we can only examine ourselves and make a decision – a conscious decision, not facile posturing based on no more than prejudice – for or against. Both options require courage. Either way will be hard. Either way, we accept the consequences. And either way, we decide for ourselves and no-one else. That seems about the most honest treatment of the question.

            Wisdom begins in admitting we don’t know something. Ignorance – and bigotry – begins in thinking we know something we can’t.