Let’s forget the fire and brimstone

Chris Patten

From: The Australian December 30, 2010

IT has been a better year for God. After withering literary assaults on the Almighty from the Oxford academic Richard Dawkins, the essayist Christopher Hitchens and others, the believers have hit back.

Best of all has been The Case for God by the brilliant religion writer Karen Armstrong. More important still is the news that more people (certainly in Britain) are going to Christian churches of all denominations. Moreover, the Pope made a very successful visit to Britain in September. And we know about heavy attendance at the nation’s mosques.

At this time of year, of course, many Christians who are not regular churchgoers attend the nativity services. Carols, church bells and mangers are still at the heart of mid-winter festivities, alongside the consumer binge. Although this year the “big spend” in Europe may have been inhibited by the big winter freeze and the big austerity programs.

Even in the most godless households, most children in Western societies probably know the details of the Christmas story. The travellers who can find no room at the inn. The birth of a baby in the stables. The arrival of the wise men bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. We learn about all this as we are told about Father Christmas, his Lapland reindeers and his sacks full of presents. We rapidly lose our belief in that winter myth, but we tend to retain into adulthood the same views of God we formed in childhood. An old man with a long beard watches over us, and most of us retain a pretty literal opinion of the stories about his son as told in the Bible’s New Testament.

It is this God that atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens attack. With such a target, it is not difficult to poke holes and pile on the ridicule. Leave aside the fact that you can make an even stronger case against godlessness, remember the atrocities of atheist totalitarians in the 20th century and consider the assault on those whose commitment to literal interpretations of religious texts means they deny science and reason. To them, the world was made in six days; evolution is a fanciful tale.

Those of us who think that science and religion dwell in different domains – and recall that Socrates argued science did not teach morality or meaning – find our case undermined by the literalists and fundamentalists in every religion. There are Christians who know about the fire and brimstone of the Book of Revelation, but seem not to have heard the instructions about generosity in the sermon on the mount.

Likewise, there are hardline Jews, such as the settler groups who drive Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and Hebron, who have forgotten the early teachings of Jewish scholars, who argued that strangers should be treated like your own people. And there are Muslims who ignore the Koran’s commands of pluralism, tolerance and peace.

Where the atheist assault is often correct is in pinpointing the amount of harm frequently done in our world by such fundamentalists. Right-wing American attitudes about their country’s place in the world are invigorated by fundamentalist dogma. The UN is the devil’s own creation. President Barack Obama is an un-American Muslim. Palestine from the Jordan River to the coast should be handed to Israel so the world can end with a cataclysmic Christian triumph.

Jewish fundamentalists obstruct any peace process that is left in the Middle East and build more illegal settlements. Islamic fundamentalists define jihad as a war of terror against the West and call for an Islamic caliphate from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The strident and damaging dogmatism of fundamentalists of every stripe has a common feature: a truculent sense of grievance, rooted in fear and resentment of modernity. Christian fundamentalism in the US harks back to 19th-century populism and anti-intellectualism. Members of evangelical churches associate their beliefs with the rugged individualism of the early pioneers. They are contemptuous of the establishment.

Jewish fundamentalists believe Israel’s critics are anti-Semitic or, in the case of Jewish opponents of Israel’s harder-line policies, “self-hating Jews”. Islamic fundamentalists reckon what the rest of us regard as the liberalising influence of technological progress and globalisation is a brash rerun of Western colonialism.

For a happier New Year, we should listen to the core messages of all these great religions, above all the Confucian golden rule that we should never do to others what we would not like to be done to us. What religion should teach us is not how to hate, but to borrow again from Confucius how to develop societies that look after and welcome the poor, the stranger, and the oppressed.

That is the most important message for everyone, atheists included, to take from the Christian story of Christmas.

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford

Project Syndicate

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And one person’s comment:

Rt Hon Lord Chris Patten of Barnes,

Chancellor,

University of Oxford

Re:
‘Let’s forget the brimstone’, The
Australian, 30/12/10 (= ‘
A Good Year
for God’, Project Syndicate, 23/12/10)

I should like to submit for your consideration a couple of other thoughts on
the ‘God versus the Atheists’ debate that was the subject of your article.
While there is a good case for objecting to violent extremism no matter what
ideology it is based on, there are important practical consequences of
religion that have nothing to do with extremism – and the failure of
academics to address those consequences arguably contributes more to the
world’s problems than the worst religious extremists.

My interpretation of your article: God has had a better year after attacks
by Dawkins, Hitchens and others. The best has been Karen Armstong’s Case for
God. Also many people are attending Christian churches and mosques, while
the pope made a successful visit. Many who are not regular churchgoers, do
so at Christmas. And even the most godless families teach children about the
Christmas story – and about Santa Clause. Most people retain the view of God
gained as children – of an old man with a white beard watching over us. It
is this God that atheists attack – and rightly so (though an even stronger
case can be made against atheistic totalitarians and those whose literal
interpretations of the religious texts causes them to deny science and
reason). Those or think that science and religion live in different domains
find their case undermined by literalists of all religions (eg Christians
who know about fire and brimstone in Revelation, but not about generosity in
the sermon on the mount). Likewise there are Jews and Muslims who have
forgotten teachings about tolerance and peace. The atheist assault is valid
in pinpointing harm done by fundamentalists (eg right wing attitudes in US;
Jewish and Islamic fundamentalists). All fundamentalists have grievances,
based on fear and resentment of modernity. Christian fundamentalists revert
to 19th century populism and anti-intellectualism, while evangelical
churches associate their beliefs with rugged individualism and are
contemptuous of the establishment. Jewish fundamentalists believe their
opponents are merely racist, while Islamic fundamentalists see the
liberating effect of technological progress and globalization as more
Western colonialism. For a happier year we should listen to core message of
great religions eg the Confucian golden rule about never doing to others
what we would not like done to us, and to adopt such Confucian ideas about
developing societies that welcome the poor, stranger and oppressed. This is
the message that everyone, including atheists, should take from Christmas

Karen Armstrong’s The Case
for God seems to present the (traditionally Masonic?) view that all peoples’
gods are essentially the same and equal, and that what people mainly need to
do is be nice to one another. However cultural assumptions (including
religions) have practical consequences, and in rejecting extremism that can
be associated with some assumptions (eg an emphasis on ‘brimstone’), it is
important not to also ignore the practical consequences. Some reasons for
suggesting this are outlined in comments on the neglect of Australia’s
Christian heritage in proposals for a new history curriculum (see
Australia’s National History Curriculum: Making Education Futile and
Highlighting the Importance of Christianity?
).
Karen Armstrong apparently argues that there is a fundamental reality that
transcends human concepts and thoughts, and that it doesn’t matter what you
call it. But the way you behave as a consequence of the way you understand
God, does make a difference.

More generally the post-modern reluctance of universities to discriminate
amongst cultural assumptions on the basis of their practical consequences is
arguably a far more important factor in the inequality, disadvantage and
conflict in the world than the actions of the most extreme fundamentalists
(see Competing Civilizations
).

Finally I note that Confucianism is a religion that does not seem to have
any time for God at all, and its moral authorities are merely the human
Establishment in a given society. Thus it is not clear what relevance
references to Confucius’ version of the golden rule are in an article that
seemed to be trying to show Atheists a way to accept a syncretic version of
a transcendent God. My suspicion is that Western Atheists will initially
view non-theistic Confucianism as an ally, but eventually discover that it
proves to be a competitor for their niche in the ecology of ideas (see
Asia’s Rising Atheism).

I would be interested in your response to the above speculations.

Regards

John Craig

Centre for Policy and Development Systems

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