In a
comment to PsychoBabble's
“Blessed”
post, this morning, I agreed that we atheists should not truncate
language* by excising religious terms just because we are not
religious.
Later in
the day, I heard myself use the words “poisoned chalice” … a
phrase from St Benedict which, of course, I use without any religious
intent. Our culture was shaped by religion; to root out every
linguistic result would be to leave very little to say.
Anything
Goes, meanwhile, highlights
(“Your
Christmas clutter has arrived”) the bigotry which issues from
some believers. Bigotry is not the sole preserve of believers, of
course; I know some equally bigotted atheists. But then, I know some
admirably humane believers, too … bigots and saints are to be found
aplenty on both sides of the fence.
One of the
many believers for whom I hold great respect and admiration, even in
my profound disagreement, is theologian Simon Taylor of Derby
Cathedral – who is as far from bigotry as it's possible to get. The support of an atheist is probably of dubious value to
any faction of the Church of England, but I nevertheless have to
support his
piece this evening in response to the House of Laity's rejection
of women bishops:
It’s a dark evening for the Church of England. The Measure to allow the ordination of women as bishops failed at the General Synod by six votes in the house of laity. The Church remains a place where discrimination on the grounds of gender is permitted. How can we seriously proclaim a God who loves all people, when we qualify how different groups of people are to be treated? How can we expect people to take seriously the discussion tomorrow about the Living Wage when we institutionalize treating some people as less than others. This is a night of sorrow, of grief and of anger.
On the
other hand, I do also admire his optimistic determination to press on
…. and his recognition that most do not agree with those who
blocked progress.
There's not
such a glut of good will in the world that either believers or nonbelievers
can afford to waste it just because they find it in the other camp.
*For
the words “truncation of language” I am indebted to
John Marks, musician; alas, I no longer know where to direct the
acknowledgement.
7 comments:
Our culture was shaped by religion; to root out every linguistic result would be to leave very little to say.
Quite. There are always going to be linguistic 'fossils'. That there happen to be idioms reflecting the Christian religious tradition is to me at much the same level of our happening to have days of the week named after Norse gods.
I wish I had thought of that perfect example! :-)
Just six votes made the difference. That bit keeps popping back into my head.
Ray, I'm going to shamelessly steal that example and use it, wishing that I'd thought of it myself when defending my use of 'religious' terminology! There seem to be quite a lot of people out there that think certain words 'belong' only in a spiritual worldview. My usual defence is that the concepts they are describing are human concepts, labelled by us and us alone as a way to communicate often very abstract ideas, evolved over time and often 'stolen' from another language or concept.
Someone I know has become a very vocal fundamentalist Christian. He's very intelligent and fun to debate, and has at times made me question my own thoughts and worldview. However, he's also told me that the very concepts of beauty, wonder, justice and love have no place in a naturalistic worldview, and that when we use those terms we are borrowing from a spiritual worldview and not being consistent with our own stated beliefs.
We have some heated discussions.
I have often wondered
Where would so much beautiful music have come from and what would the words have been about without religion. Having said that we would surely be far better off without it.
@Jazz: We have some heated discussions
No doubt!
However, he's also told me that the very concepts of beauty, wonder, justice and love have no place in a naturalistic worldview, and that when we use those terms we are borrowing from a spiritual worldview and not being consistent with our own stated beliefs.
You may well have gone down this path, but if you want to be inflammatory, I'm sure there are strong arguments for these being intellectualizations of evolved behaviours. Love, for instance, divides into various categories - the Greeks had it right with agape, eros, philia and storge - that could analysed in terms of biological imperatives such as sexual attraction, protecting offspring and group loyalty that we see in primate relatives.
"Goodness Me", "Cor Blimey", "Jimminy Cricket",
Let's stop the living in fear, throw away the crutches of the mind.
Let's not be manipulated by the none-believers for their own gain.
I wonder? When the day comes that our fellow apes ( let's say my mates the Chimps ) arrive at the same level of conciousness as us will they suddenly become fearful?
Praise the rising of the sun? Invent gods? The most fearful will need to dominate the "sheep" apes and invent a god to keep them in place.Then this tribe and that will "discover" different gods and religious wars will start wihtin their culture.
As I often say "It's time we all grew up"
If I ended up on a deserted island with a hundred survivors and one put on fancy robes and a funny hat and declared himself to be the voice of god we would have to treat her with kindeness and sympathy and help them get over it!
The same goes for the would be king or queen.
@Geoff: [Grin!]
@Ray (sorry, Mr Girvan!)I like it, I hadn't considered adding the Greek ideas about love, although I agree with them very much. I have argued from an evolutionary point of view, since it's a bit of a passion of mine, and he is becoming more and more fundamental and has even turned into a young earther, so it crops up now and then! He provokes me when he wants to debate, I do the same.
The debates about morality are probably the most fun. He gets very annoyed when I argue that morality is a necessity for a social group to function and survive when their very survival depends on their ability to form strong social bonds and rules for living cohesively. Without pro-social behaviour, we would never have survived - of course it's been selected for. He argues for God-given, universal moral absolutes... but I'm still waiting for him to name one that has been universally observed throughout history.
Moral relativism seems to be the sticking point. The creationists I've come across who are argue passionately about morality seem to hate the idea of moral relativism. If there are no God-given absolutes, then there would be anarchy! We'd have no right to judge the behaviour of others, because it's all relative, and there is no right or wrong.
Yet should I bring up slavery in the bible, or the stoning of people for crimes such as adultery, or the giving of daughters to strangers rather than let them have your male guests, etc etc etc, all I hear is: "Well, for that time and place, he laid down those laws for the people at the time, it was an improvement on the way things HAD been previously..."
So... God employs moral relativism?
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