The View from Number 80 is intended to be humorous
in tone with the occasional barb or rant inserted when it is felt to be merited. What follows is not an attempt at humor, nor is it an attack on any one particular group of people. It is a genuine attempt to articulate a feeling that one of the underlying factors, some might say THE underlying factor in the horrendous events in New York and Washington on September 11th. is being ignored. Singling out the recent US experience does not mean to belittle or gloss over the many cruel and cowardly attacks by various terrorist factions over the years, but it has raised concerns over these matters to the highest possible profile. In a
recent
piece in the UK Guardian newspaper Richard Dawkins, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, pointed out this underlying factor with a striking sentence -
" I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don't mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one's own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the
end."
I suppose that many people will have already taken offence at the above but I hope
they will continue reading for it is a very real concern that is being articulated here.
My point is somewhat different from Dawkins' focusing more on violence than
promises of immortality but, as has been seen, they are closely connected in
some minds. The three religions entangled with what the West (and most of the rest of the world) calls terrorism are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Most followers of these faiths would strenuously deny that their religion endorses acts of terror in any way and these people are doubtless sincere when they say this. But underlying these faiths is one thing in common - so much so that these followers have been termed
Peoples of the Book - and which book is graced with a capital B? It is what christians call the Old Testament, the stories that begin with Adam and Eve and lead on through Noah, Abraham, Moses,
Joshua and the rest. In this collection of stories many whole chapters are devoted to a litany of violence with a gleeful god inciting his people to kill foreigners of all kinds, treating them as less than human. Among such foreigners (unforgivably worshipers of their own version of god) are:
The Canaanites at Hormah, utterly destroyed by the Lord Num.
21:3
The Amorites at Heshbon. Israel "took all these cities." Moses summed up the slaughter: "We . . . utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones." Num. 21:25 and Deut. 2:34
All the males and kings of the Midianites, because they worshipped idols, and all their wives and male children. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Vex the Midianites, and smite them. Num. 25:16,17 Num. 31:7,8
The subjects of two kingdoms on the east side of the Jordan, in order that Reuben and Gad might seize these realms for their own as a gift from God. Num. 32
The Ammonites, decimated by the Lord so that Lot might possess their land. Deut. 2:19-21 10,000 Moabites, by the Israelites. ". . . and there escaped not a man." Judges 3:29.
200 Philistine men, killed by David to obtain their foreskins with which to purchase Saul's daughter to be his wife. I Sam. 18:27
Sadly these are a tiny proportion of the massacres described in this book, at times with a horrible delight at the destruction wrought - and all with the approval of God. Now a reading of the Old Testament (I use that term for convenience) shows that this God
appears to be a little tribal god who is in the process of being elevated to the Lord of All Creation. The idea that the creator of our vast cosmos should take delight in intertribal murders is not an easy concept. Yet for every good and kindly act in this book there are many acts of extreme violence viewed with approval. If one is a believer in any of the three religions of the book how does this square with the ideals of tolerance, kindliness and what christianity would call the
Golden Rule? One cannot cherry pick just the items acceptable to modern sensibilities and ignore the rest. This violent and xenophobic underpinning of the religions of the book
is fundamental and cannot be discarded.
The whole idea that a single race, culture, tribe or group of people has sole knowledge of the creator of the universe is unlikely (at least to this observer) and smacks of the most incredible arrogance. There is a horrible danger in believing that you have THE answer, particularly when, unasked, you start to apply those ideas to others who do not subscribe to your particular
vision of god. In this instance god can also be taken as shorthand for any number of ideologies that claim complete certainty about the world and those dwelling in it, unlike
say, science, which in its proper form is always open to revision in the face of new evidence.
Jacob Bronowski
put this point far better than the present writer in the BBC television series
The Ascent of Man, as he stood by the pond in Auschwitz concentration camp -
"It is said that science will dehumanise people and turn them into numbers. This is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgement in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are
fallible."
See Jacob Bronowski - Knowledge or Certainty for some more comment on the above.
In science if an idea or theory fails to meet the proper standards of evidence it is rejected - but knowledge that is claimed on divine authority has to be accepted - there is no possibility for revision in the light of new knowledge (heresy is one term for such revision). A concept put forward by, amongst others, the papacy, is that of non-overlapping magisteria. This is the idea that science has its domain and religion another and they should not conflict. Obviously in the real world they can and do all the time. Now 80 feels strongly that people are entitled to their beliefs, up to the point where they impinge upon the freedoms and rights of others who do not share those beliefs. This is encapsulated in the old cliche "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." The world is growing smaller all the time and we are all going to have to learn to live in it together - it is never going to be easy and at times will be very hard indeed. But humankind has no other choice. The universe is too big for the old tribal gods of intolerance and hatred to hold sway any more and the arrogance and certainties of religious bigotry, of whatever stamp, have no place. It is time to realize the only tribe we belong to is the human tribe and humans, whilst unique in some ways, are still part of the animal kingdom and need to learn much, much more before presuming to speak for any god.
For a less than sympathetic
view of the Scientology cult 80 recommends Operation
Clambake
A final point - what were the self-proclaimed psychics and mediums up to? Not one managed to predict the events of September 11th - not one. You can be sure that there will be some frantic retroactive editing and misremembering by these fakers to show they were really on the case.
So Sylvia Browne, John Edward and the rest of the charlatans, let's hear your explanations - we are all
waiting.
Talking of mediums (media?), the next ASKE challenge will be inviting those of that calling to take up the cudgels on behalf of, well, on behalf of about £4000 sterling last time I looked - yes it has gone up! Looking at some of the money rooking charlatans around perhaps the amount on offer seems like small change. But what about doing it and winning to settle any doubts about your claims? Besides the £4000 think what the endorsement of The Association of Skeptical Enquiry would do at the box office!
(As mentioned before 80 is a member of ASKE but any views expressed here are entirely 80's fault alone.)
"Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature." Jacob Bronowski
