What the Fool says (7)

The late atheist philosopher, J.L. Mackie, made the following assertion in his book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, 'Morality is not to be discovered but to be made'. This disconcerting statement, which dramatically lowered my estimation of him, crystallizes precisely one of the great dangers entailed in atheism, the separation of fact and value. On this account, moral principles and values have nothing to do with the structure of reality, but are statements of how we would like things to be. We make morality in our own image, which is not such an objectionable idea if 'we' are peace loving followers of Saint Francis, but is completely objectionable if 'we' are the not so peace loving followers of Hitler, Stalin or Mao. Once moral principles cease to be regarded as objective statements about the world and become expressions of our personal prejudices, then any behaviour can become morally acceptable, if we choose to make it so.

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”.'

What the Fool says (5)

Philip Pullman clearly sees himself as the atheist's answer to C.S. Lewis and his mission to oppose in Lewis' Narnia books what he dubbed 'one of the most vile moments in the whole of children's literature.' Now this little remark would probably be enough to raise the suspicion that Pullman is a ha'penny short of a shilling but a recent reply he made to an audience in Oxford when asked about the offensive nature of the title of his latest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ suggests all this celebrity atheist attention has really gone to his head:

"Yes it was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That's all I have to say on that subject."

What the Fool says (4)

A message from Claire Rayner on The National Secular Society website extols visitors to join the society and 'be on the side of all humanity, the side of intelligence, rationality and decency.' According to Rayner, who is also Vice-President of the British Humanist Association and an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Association:

'I do hope you’ll join the Society, because its work helps keep alight the torch of clear rational thought and plain common sense in a world that is beset by confusion, superstition and very muddled thinking'.

Here is a recent example of the sort of 'clear rational thought and plain common sense' that Rayner espouses:

'I have no language with which to adequately describe Joseph Alois Ratzinger, AKA the Pope. In all my years as a campaigner I have never felt such animus against any individual as I do against this creature. His views are so disgusting, so repellent and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him.'

So much for humanity and intelligence, rationality and decency! Little wonder that The National Secular Society is struggling.

What the Fool says (3)

'The universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple - just physics and chemistry, just the scattered dust of the cosmic explosion that gave birth to time and space. The fact that it did not - the fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing - is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.' (R. Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale, p. 613).

Yes, it would be mad to attempt to describe the process by which something evolves from nothing since nothing is not something and therefore is not something that can be the subject of empirical enquiry. Like many a pseudo-philosopher (and ‘brilliant scientist’ to quote his publisher’s blurb), Dawkins treats the word ‘nothing’ as if it refers to a kind of something. If something can evolve out of it, it is not nothing, but if it is not nothing, what is it? On one level he seems to be saying that the universe evolved out of something we know nothing about, but he actually uses the phrase ‘literally out of nothing’. It looks like he is equivocating and does not consistently mean ‘literally out of nothing’, but rather ‘almost as if out of nothing’. But that is to make a quite different claim about the universe, and is no longer a claim about its origins, but is rather a claim concerning its post-original development.

According to Dawkins the universe would look different if it were created by God, and consequently God is a scientific hypothesis. But neither of these claims can he show to be correct. The difference between a situation in which there is a world created by God and one in which there is no world created by God is the difference between something and nothing. God is not a scientific hypothesis, although He is the precondition for the universe and hence for all activity in the universe, including the natural sciences. The natural sciences can each in their own limited ways investigate the post-original universe, what they cannot do is to investigate its metaphysical preconditions. From within their own discipline they cannot even comment meaningfully on these preconditions. For any scientist qua scientist to do so would be for them to commit a category error - a symptom that one might consider renaming 'Dawkins’ disease'.

What the Fool says (2)

Ricky Gervais is a comedian who makes much of his atheism and the fact that he has a degree in philosophy. According to Gervais, an honorary associate member of the National Secular Society, being an atheist makes one a 'clearer thinking, fairer person'. This piece of erudite reasoning was found on his website:

By the age of eight, he [Gervais] could read people. "I remember the day I became an atheist," says Gervais. "I was doing my homework. I'd been to Sunday school from the age of five to eight. I had gold stars and used to win Jason in the Lion's Den books, and everything was great. And, er, I f---ing loved Jesus, I thought he was brilliant. What a great man." Then his brother Bob, who was 19, came in and took an interest in the homework. He asked Ricky why he believed in God "and my mum got nervous. My mum went, 'Bob' [in a warning voice] and I thought, something's up. Then he went, 'Well, what proof is there?' My mum said, 'Of course there's a God.' He went, 'No, I'm just asking.' And I said something ludicrous: they've found evidence, they've found his blood in a bottle. I was just guessing. And Bob laughed. I could tell just by looking, that he was telling the truth and my mum was lying. I knew the truth in that instant. That's why I put such a value in body language."

Persuasive stuff.

What the Fool says (1)

From Amanda Donohoe, star of stage, screen and Emmerdale, concerning her part in Ken Russell's hilariously bad film, Lair of the White Worm, in which she spits on a crucifix:
"I'm an atheist, so it was actually a joy. Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can't embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages. And that persecution still goes on today all over the world."

Try being a Christian in an atheist state if you want to know about persecution!