Ten years ago, and last week
I was browsing through Katha Pollitt’s Subject to Debate this morning and read a great piece from September 2000, Freedom From Religion, ¡Si!
…that’s the official American civic religion at the opening of the twenty-first century: What religion you have may be your own business–rather literally so, in the case of Scientology–but it’s society’s business that you have one. Modernity may have eroded some of the distinctions between previously antagonistic belief systems–Quick! Explain the difference between Presbyterianism and Methodism!–as is suggested by the increasing replacement of the word “religion,” with its connotations of dogma and in-groupness, by the warm, fuzzy propaganda term “faith.”
See? I’m not the only one who has noticed the replacement and thinks it’s a plot of warm fuzzy propaganda.
Facing the common enemy, secularism, devout Christians and Jews dwell lovingly on their similarities as part of a “Judeo-Christian” ethos, when historically the ethos of each faith was precisely that it wasn’t the other…
Yep. Ten years on, that hasn’t changed. (It’s probably more defensive though, thanks to the scary gnu atheism.)
Because the most energetic religions tend to be the ones most invested in keeping women subordinate, women in particular have nothing to gain from the burgeoning involvement of religion in the public sphere. The wave of mergers between Catholic and secular hospitals is already depriving women of crucial reproductive services, from contraception and abortion to in vitro fertilization and the morning-after pill, even for rape victims. Indeed, wherever you look, religion is the main obstacle to providing women with modern reproductive healthcare: The fig leaf of “conscience” becomes a justification for denying others basic human services. Thus the Catholic Church throws its weight against making health insurers cover contraception (Viagra’s fine, though) and anti-choice pharmacists claim the right to refuse to dispense birth control, emergency contraception or, should it be approved by the FDA, RU-486.
And if the bishops had their way, abortions would be illegal and ruled out even for women who would die without them. I’m hoping Katha will light into the bishop of Phoenix.
Happy new year, all.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Ten years ago, and last week http://dlvr.it/CS1Kn […]
Perhaps we could use this sort of thing as a way to measure how strong atheist influence is becoming in society. Every time Christians and Jews gather for a mutual hand-wringing, we’ll know that atheism is becoming a force to be reckoned with. When Christians and Hindus do it, atheism will be a major player.
It is easy for Good People to do Good Deeds, and for Evil People to do Evil Deeds, but for Good People to do Evil Deeds requires religion.
To allow the Mother to die would have been truly evil. The religious contortions used to justify such evil are quite enlightening.
When our own moral judgements happen to coincide with those of religion, we must ask “do we need religion?”
When religion can be used to justify such a shocking conclusion (that a mother must be left to die), we must ask “can we afford religion?”
I dimly remember a long-ago op-ed by that stout Catholic defender of Judeo-Christian civilization, Pat Buchanan, expressing admiration for fundamentalist Muslims along the lines of “humph, whatever else you may think about ’em, at least they’re willing to stand up and fight against our common enemy of evil secularism”. Once the current terrorist hysteria passes will the Judeo-Christian trope be replaced by “the traditional values of Abrahamic ethics”?
Christians and Hindus? Hmm…can’t see Xtians saying “hey, y’know, with this Trinity stuff I guess we’re kinda polytheists after all! Praise Shiva!”
Also, the few Hindus I know react to my atheism with whatever the Sanskrit is for “meh”. :)
Never read anything by Katha Pollitt. Perhaps I should. This makes a lot of sense:
The sooner we recognise that no one stands to benefit from the increasing involvement of religion in the public sphere. That’s why I’m reading Mary Warnock just now, and will include a reread of Paul Cliteur’s book on the secular outlook as well. Somehow, we need to shift people’s perspective. That’s not going to be done by being nice to religion, since they don’t respond to nice. We should continue on the attack. The only thing that will take their power away is if their people start to see that reason is not on their side. So-called multicultural societies should help this process along, since it’s hard to stick to religious idiocy when your neighbour is a religious idiot of a different stripe. How do keep maintaining the truth of your own beliefs when they conflict with the equally tenacious beliefs of those who disagree with everything that is most fundamental to your own belief system? A bit more sunlight should expose things for what they are — the empty dreams of the past. Abrahamic dreams? Probably not. There’s no evidence that he even existed, let alone dreamed.