What the Fool says (6)

Atheists never tire of complaining about the intolerance of religion yet themselves demonstrate an incapacity for tolerating, not just any viewpoint which is opposed to their own but, more alarmingly, any person who is not in complete agreement with them. Last year Stephen Fry appeared alongside Anne Widdecombe in a t.v. programme for Channel 4 in which they debated the merits of the Ten Commandments. In the following reply, posted on his website, Fry gave this response to a viewer who had the audacity to question the intelligence of Fry's assessment of the moral worth of the Ten Commandments, as well as his behaviour towards his opponent Anne Widdecombe:

'The Mosaic commandments are so evidently the hysterical drivel of a mad desert people (my own people as it happens) that they don’t deserve the dignity of anything other than anthropological curiosity and amused contempt. They have no more moral authority than any other set of preposterous, ill-thought out and inconsequential assertions. Besides how dare a “loving” creator be so arrogant and egotistical as to create a race of beings and then boss them about with these ludicrous “commandments”. I mean, frankly. ...It’s not what’s wrong with the commandments ...no, those are bad enough, it’s the commandments that are MISSING ...No mention of tolerance, decency, kindness, openness, freedom – all qualities actively disdained by that entity. Oh, it’s so self-evident that the decalogue is absolutely no basis for any kind of law, moral, theological, social, political or any other kind ...'

But, questions of 'hysterical drivel' aside, Fry's plea for the 'MISSING' commandments of 'tolerance, decency, kindness, openness, freedom' has a hollow ring:

'Incidentally, she [Anne Widdecombe] interrupted me a great deal more than I did her. Hitchens and I were edited to look intolerant. I only agreed to do the interview because I felt guilty at what an unholy (in every sense) idiot she made of herself in the debate on catholicism that preceded that interview. Well, she got her revenge by making us look like the intolerant ones. But we don’t preach intolerance, she and her church most specifically do. I’m tired of being expected to show “respect” for these odious, creepy and preternaturally stupid people and their “beliefs”.'

Forgiving atheists

I like Alice Thomas Ellis. Reading her book, God Has Not Changed, made me laugh and I cannot resist quoting from it again (see last Tuesday's post below). In this piece Ellis is talking about Christopher Hitchens' infamous book on Mother Teresa, The Missionary Position, which she was asked to review. Ellis provides some useful insights into the atheist mindset:

'He [Hitchens] goes on to mention a documentary on her [Mother Teresa's] work that he and others made called Hell's Angel: "Her response was to say that she 'forgave' us for making it." And here Mr Hitchens displays ignorance of the tenets of Christianity. He says that was odd since he had not sought her forgiveness, and it was odder still if you were inclined to ask "by what right she assumes the power to forgive." The only petition in the Lord's Prayer that carries a condition is the petition for forgiveness: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us';and as Christ said to Peter, who had asked how oft he should forgive his brother: 'I say not unto thee, until seven times seven, but until seventy times seven'. Mother Teresa was following orders, and you would have thought that anyone of Mr Hitchens' age who had passed through the school system might have some glimmering of awareness of these well-known quotations. The blurb of his book says, as blurbs will, that he is 'One of today's most devastating polemicists.' But he does not sound very well educated and his reaction to Mother Teresa makes him seem slightly unhinged. Goodness in others is perceived by some individuals as an affront and we should understand and forgive them, not only because it is incumbent on us, but because we know - God forgive us - that it will annoy the hell out of them.'

Alice Thomas Ellis, God Has Not Changed, London 2004, pp.175-6

Ditchkins and the yeti view of God

Here is a series of clips of Terry Eagleton talking in a humorous and engaging way about his latest book, Reason, Faith, and Revolution:Reflections on the God debate. According to Eagleton, it was "sheer irritation at the ignorance and illiteracy" of "Ditchkins'" (an amalgamation of "Dawkins" and "Hitchens") atheism that drove him to write this book. Interestingly, Eagleton was at Oxford with "Chris" Hitchens and in their Trotskyite days they used to leaflet car factories together. Eagleton gives a sophisticated critique of Dawkins' "good old fashioned Victorian rationalism" and his unwitting commitment to fideism. He also makes some nice points about the sheer naivety of Dawkins' theory of God as a sort of yeti, and the weaknesses in Dawkins' worldview. Unlike either Dawkins or Hitchens, Eagleton is a serious thinker and at times talks movingly about the radical nature of the New Testament and the realism which takes the suffering and crucified Christ as the truly authentic starting point of history.

The stifling of intelligent debate

Having read some of the triumphalist comments by atheists doing the rounds on the internet about the alleged trouncing received by the representatives of the Catholic Church, Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan, in the Intelligence Squared debate, I was expecting to be dazzled by the brilliant wit and intellectual verve of their atheist opponents, Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens. As it turns out what was dazzling about the arguments of Fry and Hitchens was their paucity.

It was mostly familiar stuff. Fry accused the Church of being obsessed with sex, yet his own focus revealed his predilection for the topic, in particular (surprise) his own homosexuality. His main complaint seemed to be that according to the teaching of the Church he had been labelled as a ‘disordered morally evil individual’. But Fry neglects the Church’s careful distinction between the person and the act (popularly known as love the sinner, hate the sin). The Church does condemn homosexual acts as sinful, just as it condemns all adulterous acts as sinful, but it does not condemn homosexuals per se, just as it does not condemn adulterers.

Priests, nuns and monks who chose celibacy were excoriated for being ‘unnatural’, while homosexuals were praised for their healthy joyous attitude toward sex. (This is an odd turnaround for Fry who was himself openly celibate for a number of years.) Argument, in so far as there was argument, proceeded along the lines of - all priests are paedophiles, all homosexuals are wonderful. Yet, it seems to have escaped Fry’s notice that a significant proportion of the child abuse of which he complained was committed by priests who were themselves homosexual. But the debate never got that far.

Hitchens was at his most cringing when he declared that he would, with open arms, welcome Fry, qua homosexual, to baby sit his children while promptly dispatching in a taxi any individual in ‘holy orders’ who turned up at his door to do the same. This piece of wisdom was offered to the, by now, baying crowd (overwhelmingly London metrosexual?) and the grateful Fry as if it was a knockdown argument. But, as with Fry, something has clearly gone awry with Hitchens’ logic. If Hitchens would bar all religious from babysitting his children on the basis that some have committed sexual crimes, then, by his own lights, he would also have to bar all homosexuals, including Fry, from babysitting his children, given that some homosexuals too have been guilty of sexual criminality.

But, what may really be at issue, and what Archbishop John Onaiyekan put his finger on at the end of the debate is that there is an agenda here to silence the Church, or anyone else for that matter who speaks with anything less than fawning admiration for homosexual practice. As the archbishop observed no one is forced to follow the teaching of the Church, neither are they compelled to always speak favourably of its practices. Is the same freedom of speech being extended to Catholics, and others who hold a similar unenchanted view of homosexuality, by those on the opposite side of the debate? The message from the outbursts of Hitchens and Fry was that it most certainly was not, and that if they get the chance these promoters of atheism and homosexuality will ensure that the Church (and any others who oppose them) are silenced, by whatever means.