Not Either Silly
I’m going to have to disagree with my friend Norm on Polly Toynbee’s comment on the pope. I hate to do it – but he’s off on his travels, so that’s all right. David Hadley of Stuff and Nonsense alerted me to Norm’s post. (How busy I am these days. I don’t even have time to get around to checking Norm every day. Terrible.)
I really don’t get it. Every time there’s an event that brings forth a manifestation of religious belief by large numbers of people, some militant secularist or other will give out an opinion that would be jejune coming from an intelligent sixth-former…But how she can speak in so trivializing a way of world-wide reaction to the death of the head of a church whose ‘deeper power’ she herself characterizes as lying ‘in its personal authority over 1.3 billion worshippers’ is mystifying to me…I do not think there are any good evidential or other reasons for belief in a supreme deity, much less a benign and all-powerful one. But to speak now, in the face of a historical experience stretching over millennia, as if religion is no more than a silly mistake of silly people – answering to no real human concerns, meeting no deeper needs, all just froth – is (not to put too fine a point on it) silly.
Well, it’s my turn not to get it, and to find it mystifying. Really. For one thing, the world-wide reaction is part of the point, surely. The irrationality and indeed anti-rationality of that reaction is part of the subject, not a reason for not talking about it. And the fact that this one man had ‘personal authority over 1.3 billion worshippers’ is also part of the point, not a reason for not addressing it. Why shouldn’t the strangeness (to put it rather neutrally) of that authority be examined and questioned? Norm seems to be suggesting that it ought rather to be taboo – but why? It is an absurdity, after all, and not one that we accept in any other context. It may sound silly to point out the absurdity, but maybe that’s because the absurdity is so obvious? So we’re just supposed to ignore it? Because it’s rude to mention it? But it is absurd – and of course far worse than absurd. Toynbee wasn’t actually trivializing, she was indicting. That’s the sad thing about the papacy and the whole rigmarole that goes with it – it’s both absurd (in a manner beneath even a sixth-former, I should think) and extremely harmful. Why should that subject be passed over in silence? It needs talking about more, not less, I would have thought.
And surely it’s this idea that we ought not to say such things that helps to perpetuate them. (As I’ve said before. How tediously repetitive I am.) There is such massive cultural pressure and peer pressure these days* to be deferential to religion (excuse me, I mean ‘faith’) and believers, and that cultural-and-peer pressure just helps religion to go on being shielded from criticism, and why should it be? Why? Why should religion alone among belief systems and institutions (with the possible exception of the family, another sacrosanct item these days**) be shielded from criticism? Especially given how powerful it is? Especially in the case of the Catholic church and especially especially the pope?! Of all people! Who else has the kind of magical global power he does? No one! The dalai lama has some international influence, but he doesn’t issue edicts in the same way, and his words aren’t binding in the same way. Plus Buddhism is nowhere near as harsh as Catholicism. And dalai lamas don’t have the gall to issue edicts announcing themselves to be infallible. I ask you. This guy is officially formally infallible and he tells people not to use birth control and not to use condoms – and we shouldn’t say harsh things about him?? He is the one person on earth most in need of oversight and criticism, as sharp as possible.
I suppose he does have one rival for magical global power – and that would be bin Laden. Same kind of power, too: power over people’s minds. Well he’s not beyond criticism, is he. Nor should the pope be, and especially when every front page you see is busy drooling over him, which is not the case with Osama.
And the part about human concerns and human needs – I don’t see the relevance. Concerns and needs don’t cause things to exist that don’t exist. People’s putative need for god doesn’t cause god to exist, any more than my need for a falafel sandwich is going to cause one to appear on my desk. And more than that, religion is one thing, and the pope is another. It’s perfectly possible to think the papacy is an absolutely terrible idea and still believe in a deity. A certain fracas that took place in the 16th century springs to mind.
So – there it is. I don’t think Toynbee was a bit silly, I think she said what badly needed saying.
*I say ‘these days’ because I do think it’s gotten worse and is going on getting worse, than it was in, erm, previous days, but don’t ask me for the exact date, because I don’t know, but date it from Jimmy Carter if you like, or Reagan, or some UK-relevant date but I have no idea which one, nothing occurs to me.
**See above but with possibly different dates.
Hmm.
I’m all for symbols of inspiration. Really, I am. But I have a problem with the idea of the pope as one. Because he’s not and he can’t be just a symbol, can he – he’s also a real person with real power, who delivers real encyclicals that have real consequences. He really tells real people what to do. He really eased out (the very popular) Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen in Seattle (another symbol of inspiration, if you like, but a less conservative one than JP) in the 80s.
I’m all for symbols, but they have to be symbols. They don’t get to have it both ways.
Still – you do have a point…
‘Sixth-form’ is always a giveaway. When applied to artistic endeavour, it’s often valid criticism. But when applied to political comment, it’s actually a translation for “Something actually true, but embarrassing to point out here and now. Please be quiet.” I thought Norm was above that kind of thing, but obviously not.
It’s a variation on the old argumentative technique, so ubiquitous nowdays, that goes:
A: “Millions: die of stavation / are oppressed by racism / are exploited by capital.”
B: “You have: unfashionable trousers / a weird name / odd friends / a strident style.”
I’m not sure which number it is in Thouless’s list of specious arguments, but I imagine it’s there.
It is strange, isn’t it. There was an outburst of the same kind of thing when Dawkins commented on the tsunami – he was called all sorts of names, but I thought what he said was quite compassionate and certainly not unreasonable or sixth-formish. I mean – it’s not really all that consoling to be a theist right after a natural disaster – since you have to think the deity let it happen, and you may even think the deity wanted it to happen or made it happen – which leads to all sorts of unconsoling thoughts about why the deity would do that. Thoughts of guilt, punishment, what did we do that was so terrible, and the like. Surely in a way it’s consoling to think it was just a twitch in the earth’s crust – no one’s fault. That’s all Dawkins said, but a lot of people pitched a fit as if he’d urinated on their fluffy kitten or something.
Very good argumentative technique illustration.
I might remember my parochial school – excellent name for these institutions, by the way – catechism wrong – but the last formally infallible papal pronouncement was made in 1950 and concerned the “assumption of Mary.” So, not EVERYTHING the pope or church pronounces is considered infallible in the strict sense. Note that this would not prevent a rational person from having rather strong epistemological reservations nevertheless, considering that the “assumption of Mary” means that the virgin Mary ascended bodily into heaven! On a related note, Roman Catholics are obliged to form their consciences in full accord to official church teachings, even when those teachings are not in agreement with the individual’s own findings or even when they might be changed or reversed by the Church sometime. Which raises the question: can someone really believe something she does not believe? What can that mean except an intentional refusal to think?
Ah – thanks, Gene. I had that wrong then. I thought I’d read somewhere sometime that there was an encyclical declaring the papacy itself infallible. Sort of an all-purpose all-occasion type thing.
I’m always wondering that about the believing something you don’t believe question. Especially when godbotherers are saying harsh things about atheists. What are we supposed to do about it? Believe what we don’t believe? How?
“I’m always wondering that about the believing something you don’t believe question.”
Me, too, but I often wonder if believers themselves actually believe as much as they think they do. Belief in something like God seems to be of a different, weaker variety than something like belief that the sun will come up tomorrow, or that the chair I’m sitting in is really there. What does it actually mean for someone to say she believes in God? I suspect that much of the time, it’s just a strong habit of mind or an emotionally invested self-identity, rather than a firm belief in the actual proposition “God exists.”
Phil
“I often wonder if believers themselves actually believe as much as they think they do.”
Me too. Definitely. And especially if they believe as much as they tell everyone they do. In reality I think very few people really do. I think the dirty little secret is that most people don’t really believe it all the way down, but they pretend (including no doubt to themselves) that they do.
That would explain the saying harsh things then – we’re supposed to pretend too!
“That would explain the saying harsh things then – we’re supposed to pretend too!”
And it would also explain the insecurity than many (most?) believers in the USA seem to feel in one form or another. If you really believe a benevolent, powerful God exists who has a good plan for creation, why fret when biology teachers want to teach evolution? Why constantly bicker that science and secularism are marginalizing your beliefs? And really, why worry about anything at all if God is going to make things work out in the best of ways?
Phil
‘over 1.3 billion worshippers’ is mystifying to me’
This number rises by the day, first it was 1 billion, then 1.1, then 1.2, now 1.3. Nevermind the fact that the actual number is less than half of that from actual counts.
This church counts every man, woman, and child ever born into the church whether they actually attend or have changed faiths.
Why fret – indeed. I’ve often wondered that.
“This church counts every man, woman, and child ever born into the church”
No doubt that has a lot to do with the condom ban, too. Keep those numbers up – no matter the cost (to other people).
“the head of a church whose ‘deeper power’ [lies] ‘in its personal authority over 1.3 billion worshippers” — You call this a good thing? Is the Mob’s control over the thousands of people who pay it “protection” money very week a good thing? I think not.
It’s the cult of celebrity compounded by the aura of estabished religion. Hell, even a mere movie star like Mel Gibson was given the kid-glove treatment for a movie that would have been ruthlessly savaged by film critics had it come from some obscure Holocaust-denying film-school student.
Remember, children: Celebrities must never ever be criticized; and if they’re religious celebrities, then they must be accorded the deepest respect by everyone. Or else.