Grayling and Blackburn on Religion and Respect
Well this is what I keep saying.
It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law against criticism and ridicule. It is time to refuse to tip-toe around people who claim respect, consideration, special treatment, or any other kind of immunity, on the grounds that they have a religious faith, as if having faith were a privilege-endowing virtue, as if it were noble to believe in unsupported claims and ancient superstitions.
That’s all. It’s quite simple. Faith is not a virtue, and it shouldn’t endow privilege. It’s not noble to believe in unsupported claims, especially in the guise of ancient superstitions. ‘Faith’ keeps insisting on throwing its weight around in public matters, so it can’t reasonably claim kid glove handling at the same time. It does claim exactly that; but not reasonably.
Grayling is forthright.
On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect. It is time to say so. It is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, like their sexual proclivities. Everyone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no-one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world’s many religions.
Simon Blackburn said much the same in that article ‘Religion and Respect’ [pdf] that I commented on a year ago.
But, I argued to myself, why should I “respect” belief systems that I do not share? I would not be expected to respect the beliefs of flat earthers or those of the people who believed that the Hale-Bopp comet was a recycling facility for dead Californians, and killed themselves in order to join it. Had my host stood up and asked me to toast the Hale-Bopp hopefuls, or to break bread or some such in token of fellowship with them, I would have been just as embarrassed and indeed angry.
But the rules change for (established) religion. And they not only change, they creep.
People may start out by insisting on respect in the minimal sense, and in a generally liberal world they may not find it too difficult to obtain it. But then what we might call respect creep sets in, where the request for minimal toleration turns into a demand for more substantial respect, such as fellowfeeling, or esteem, and finally deference and reverence.
Or not finally; there’s another step: obedience and submission, along with silencing and censorship. In some places and on some subjects, we’re already there.
Grayling concludes:
But no organised religion, as an institution, has a greater claim to the attention of others in society than does a trade union, political party, voluntary organisation, or any other special interest group – for “special interest groups” are exactly what churches and organised religious bodies are. No one could dream of demanding that political parties be respected merely because they are political parties, or of protecting them from the pens of cartoonists; nor that their members should be. On the contrary. And so it should be for all interest groups and their members, without exception.
Yup. Time for the worm to turn.
Read the A.C. Grayling article. Heartily approve. Made me wonder how you non-theists in the US cope on a day-to-day basis, to be honest…? :-) [my wife’s American, and my m-i-l is a Baptist creationist, who works for a large creationism-promoting organisation, so I’m well aware of the general drift…hyuckhyuck]
Mind you, if you scroll down and start reading the comments, it doesn’t take long for the supernaturalists and the “all knowledge is relativistic” crowd to come out moaning…
no wonder the Groaniad regularly heads down that blind alley – it can’t exactly afford to lose any of its readers, however un-enlightened they may be…!
I for one cope by never going outside.
No but seriously – it’s not that bad in real life. The media and politics are a horrible joke, but in real life one is not constantly bumping into godbotherers. I never do. I gather other parts of the country are a tad more difficult, but one manages to creep around.
Yeah, greetings, Cathal.
But I think your ranking questions are beside the point. Grayling isn’t posing a global question about the grounds on which to respect people overall, he’s simply saying that respect is not owed to religious belief. That says nothing about whether or not one respects people who neglect their children; that’s a separate question. One doesn’t have to choose. One can respect conscientious parents as such and still not respect them for their religious beliefs.
Cathal Copeland: “The point is that whether I ‘respect’ somebody or not depends on their behaviour, not their beliefs…”
This is *exactly* what Grayling says in the paragraph beginning “We might enhance the respect others accord us if we are kind, considerate, peace-loving, courageous, truthful, loyal to friends, …”
That paragraph ends: “Neither set of characteristics has any essential connection with the presence or absence of specific belief systems, given that there are nice and nasty Christians, nice and nasty Muslims, nice and nasty atheists.”
Cathal Copeland: “Grayling is in fact arguing that 99% of the human race are despicable morons – why doesn’t he just say so directly?”
Perhaps he doesn’t say so directly because that is *not* what he is saying.
His article is clear and eloquent and I think that he has written exactly what he wanted to say.
Cathal,
We’ve been here before – and if I remember correctly, you never acknowledged the point. But mere number of offspring is not the only sign of evolutionary success. It’s often a better reproductive strategy to have fewer but better (cf Ninotchka) offspring which thrive and survive longer and attract better mates and have fewer and better offspring and so on.
Also – you misparaphrase Grayling there by yanking that phrase out of its contextual sentence and also by altering it just slightly (but including the altered bit inside the quotation marks – don’t do that – that’s cheating). He didn’t say (contrary to your claim) “that they ‘deserve the opposite of respect’.” He said “On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.” That’s different. Again, he is not saying that all believers globally deserve the opposite of respect, he is saying that to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason deserves the opposite of respect.
If you’re going to do hermeneutics of suspicion you need to do some close (or at least careful) reading along with it. That’s one of the problems with hermeneuts of suspicion: all too often their suspicious claims rest heavily on sloppy readings. At worst they end up sounding like Hamid Dabashi.
Don, thanks — actually I’d never heard of Stephen Green before. Yes, he looks so smart I’m almost certain he’s an actor rather than a preacherman.