The christian war on Evan Harris
David Colquhoun sees Evan Harris rather differently from the way George Pitcher does.
Evan Harris is one of the most principled men I have ever had the pleasure to meet. His stands on human rights, civil rights and libel law reform have been exemplary. He is also one of the few (and now fewer) members of parliament who understands how science works and its importance for the future of the UK. He has been a tireless advocate for the idea that policy should be based on evidence (as opposed to guesswork).
And he’s an atheist, and “his defeat was brought about by poisonous lies propagated by, ahem, evangelical christians.”
Then Colquhoun goes through the lies and the people who propagated them.
Lynda Rose is an Anglican minister who seems to think it appropriate to call a good man “Dr Death” because of her religious ‘principles’…Cristina Odone was editor of the Catholic Herald from 1991 to 1996. She is another ‘good christian’ who wrote an abominably nasty piece in the Daily Telegraph on April 19th…
A piece also calling Harris “Dr Death.” And then George Pitcher, and Father Raymond Blake.
So much for the idea that religious people are nicer.
When confronted with verifiable examples of religion-inspired mean-spiritedness, those who claim that “religion makes people nice” will usually alter their claim to something like, “Religion makes people nice, except when it doesn’t, oh and by the way stalin pol pot mao. Gotta go now.”
I hadn’t read that Odone article, euch.
That’s the sentence that really sums up the problem with her way of looking at things, which has been mentioned on more than one occasion on B&W before: the insistence that all life is precious merely because it exists, as though quality of life is irrelevant (and the second part of the sentence can just be ignored as a childish oversimplification). Life is treated as an end, when it is actually a means to an end, a vessel which is essential in enabling us to enjoy things, but which isn’t sufficient in itself.I don’t hold life to be precious simply ‘as is’; it is precious because of what happens within it. The surgeon who saves someone from dying isn’t doing them a favour just by extending their physical existence, they are doing them a favour because there are so many good things that can be done within that period of existence, and if that period of existence can only be spent in pain and terminal suffering then it does call into question its worth.It’s a peculiarly Catholic way of looking at it of course, and the root of so many rigid, un-thought-through positions on abortion, euthanasia etc. Life is precious, and that’s it: says so in the Bible, don’t have to think more broadly and flexibly about it, fingers in ears. It’s also monumentally arrogant too – your life is precious, because we say so, and we don’t care how shit it is for you, you’ve got to suffer through it (because suffering is good too, remember). As I said, euch.
Quite – and they don’t mean all life anyway – or even close to it – yet they get self-righteousness credits for saying it. They don’t mean bacteria, or viruses, or most insects, or plants. The vast majority of them don’t even mean other animals. They just mean all human life (and the vast majority of them make exceptions for warfare and self defense, and some do for punishment).
And then there’s the pronoun issue. I may think all human life is precious – but it’s still not up to me to decide what your life is to you. I don’t have to live your life; you do; you’re the only one who can know whether you want to continue to do that or not; my thoughts about how precious it is have no bearing on what you want. A murderer doesn’t get to decide your life is worthless, and a Catholic god-botherer doesn’t get to decide your life is so precious that you have to be trapped in it until medical technology can no longer keep your heart beating.
This odious woman must KNOW she’s completely distorting the issue of assisted dying. Yet she persists in her gross distortions in order to influence those who don’t want to invest much energy in thinking. Always interesting to see what can be accomplished if a writer doesn’t let facts, honesty and integrity get in the way. This used to be called “yellow journalism” did it not?
I know it. Evan Harris would have a much better case for libel than the BCA had against Singh, it seems to me, but of course he is far too principled even to hint at a threat of such a move. And Odone and Pitcher probably rely on that very fact – they probably have it in the back of their minds as they type – “This might be a bit risky – libel? – oh no, it’s Harris, of course; he’s the last person to resort to the libel laws; I’m safe.” The shits.