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Morality without a God
by David Roffey
"… consolatory nonsense seems to me a fair definition of myth, anyway … Myth deals in false universals, to dull the pain of particular circumstances." Angela Carter
The Preface to Richard Dawkins' new book, The God Delusion, says: "If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down." On the face of it, a deeply unlikely ambition, and not one that is borne out by the quality of the writing. Along the way, however, it does raise some important questions about the nature of morality, and the relationship of morality to religion.
Let's start with Dawkins' tome …
The God Delusion
Since time immemorial, people have been ascribing what they don't understand to gods and magical beings. This is still the essential argument of many deists, most notably the Intelligent Design / Creationists: "it's too complicated to be explained, therefore a God must have done it". Richard Dawkins, it seems, has had enough of writing popular science texts that attack this idea by explaining the complicated, and has moved on to attack the basic premise.
Dawkins is careful to define the God he is attacking: "a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us." (p.31) and: "in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation." (p.18). Examples: Yahweh, Christ, Allah, but not Buddha or Confucious.
So, we are not here discussing an Einsteinian or Spinozan amorphous belief in (eg) a god or force who designed the universe but has taken no actions in it for several billion years once it was set up or sneezed out of the Great Green Arkleseizure * (busy with some other project?). "To adapt Alice's comment on her sister's book before she fell into Wonderland, what is the use of a God who does no miracles and answers no prayers. Remember Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy'." (p.60)
Failure to understand this distinction as it is intended renders, for example, the New Scientist review of the book meaningless, as well as many other criticisms of it from those who say they do not recognise the God they believe in as the one under attack – simultaneously not recognising that the God they believe in is not the same one that their church, temple or mosque believes in, either.
Second definition: Delusion: "a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence" (MS Word dictionary). Dawkins notes with interest that the illustrative quotation for "delusion" in the Penguin English Dictionary is "Darwinism is the story of humanity's liberation from the delusion that its destiny is controlled by a power higher than itself" (Phillip E Johnson).
Now, clearly any follower of any religion believes that theirs is the only true and valid view. However, there is a wide range of views about what to do about the infidels who don't believe (or, worse, believe in something else). I have a vivid memory of a service led by the saintly Rev Dr Ann Wansbrough which began with a welcome that included the words: "My God loves you whether you believe in him or not." Like everyone else, I also have many vivid memories of news of incidents perpetrated by those who think in more violent terms on how you treat unbelievers. Dawkins' motivation for attacking religion, rather than just ignoring it, is essentially because of the growing prevalence of the fundamentalist and intolerant view amongst followers of many religions (but most particularly in the three Abrahamic faiths). Anyone who has seen Andrew Denton's low-key masterpiece God on my side has seen some good examples. (NB, keep watching to the end of the credits for the best question of the whole film.)
Dawkins has the traditional fun with the myriad contradictions and inconsistencies of the Bible story, and the unlikelihood that anyone could live their life following God's word as set out in it without being banged up for life:
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a mysogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (p.31)
Knockabout stuff, but not really up to the task of persuading the deluded that Dawkins has set himself. A confirmed deist who took on the penance of reading the whole thing will have no difficulty brushing off the rational (after all, faith in the irrational is how they got where they are to start with). They might give up on page 253, just after St Paul is described by Dawkins (with every justification, admittedly) as "barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant".
Which would be a shame, because they'd miss some of the more important questions on the next few pages, as Dawkins raises questions of just what exactly is the morality we can get from religious teachings, and where they can lead us. A few recent debates elsewhere on Webdiary might be illuminated by the discussion of Israeli schoolchildren's reactions to and learnings from the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho (pp.255-7) [NB – worth reading the whole paper by John Hartung from which Dawkins' discussion is drawn.]
Choosing which of God's Rules to follow
The key point raised is this: clearly, good Christians don't get all of their moral teaching from the Bible, or, more accurately, don't get their moral teaching from all of the Bible – they pick and choose amongst God's word for the principles they feel comfortable with, and discard the ones they don't. Faced with the injunction to " utterly destroy all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword" (and keep the gold for the Treasury), most of us have second thoughts, and those that don't tend to end up on trial, as do those Muslims who follow up on the equally lurid odd passages of the Koran.
We all interpret and choose amongst the moralities set out around us, and the evidence is that the choices that atheists and religious people make when faced with moral dilemmas are very similar (pp.222-6). So, Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov was almost certainly wrong, and without god, not everything is permitted, and not only because "conscience is that inner voice that warns us that someone may be looking" (HL Mencken).
As one of Dawkins' chapter titles asks: why are we good? He provides a good summary of the evolutionary reasons why individuals might be altruistic, generous or 'moral' towards each other: kinship, reciprocation, reputation-building, and advertising ourselves as good breeding mates. Once we started banging the rocks together with a purpose, thoughtful humans have selected towards these characteristics (though not completely – see Capitalism's Moral Bastards). People who care are just more likely to successfully pass on their genes. We don't need that 'someone who may be looking' to be some omniscient and personified surveillance system with a penchant for smiting or torturing for eternity those who transgress.
On the other side, as we've already aired here, those who do want to do almightily awful things to their fellow human beings (and the rest of the denizens of the planet), can find plenty of justification in the weirder outreaches of their holy books.
As Dawkins sees it (and I agree), the big problem with religion is not so much in the detail of the Jericho's and the '72 virgins', but in the absolutism of the handing down of knowledge, and the aversion to discovery (not to mention the whole Armageddon movement and its view of all the fire, flood and disaster as being preliminaries to final days – and thus not only unavoidable / unpreventable, but to be welcomed).
The question is, now that we're applying intelligence as well as instinct and evolution to our morality, just how do we choose the rules we follow from among those set out by our peers, our parents, or our favourite prophet?
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Morality without a God
As it happens, while I was reading The God Delusion, I was also reading another book covering this ground from a very different direction: Values, Ethics and Society: Exton Land [an alter ego of writer LE Modesitt Jr (LE = Leland Exton)] **
"What is ‘ethical’ or moral? A general definition is that actions that conform to a ‘right set of principles’ are ethical. Such a definition begs the question: Whose principles? On what are those principles based? Do those principles arise from reasoned development by rational scholars? Or from ‘divine’ inspiration? Does it matter, so long as they inspire moral and ethical behaviour? ... In practice, with or without a deity, every action is permitted unless human social structures preclude it. Yet, on what principles are those social structures based? Ethics and morality?
Theocracies and other societies using religious motives, or pretexts, have undertaken genocide, torture, and war. Ideologues without the backing of formal religious doctrine or established theocratic organizations have done the same. The obvious conclusion is that ‘moral’ values must be ethical in and of themselves, and not through religious or secular authority or rationalized logic. This leads to the critical questions: How can one define what is ethical without resorting to authority, religious doctrine, or societal expediency? And whom will any society trust to make such a judgment, particularly one not based on authority, doctrine, or expediency?"
Setting out some principles
On the face of it, the definition of ethical looks pretty straightforward. It is relatively easy to set out a "new ten commandments" that fit most people's ideas of ethics and morality – Dawkins references some of these – and they will have a substantial overlap with the principles in the Sermon on the Mount – which is one of only three incidents in the story of Jesus that are agreed upon by all the Gospel writers (the others being the baptism and the passion week story). The problem is that atheists are no more likely to actually act on those principles in their day-to-day life than Christians are. If you think I'm being harsh, try looking for the frequency of application of a few examples, say (not at all at random): "Agree with thine adversary quickly" or "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you" or "Judge not, that ye be not judged".
The Golden Rule ("do as you would be done by") would tend to come first, followed by "(strive to) do no harm". Of the original Ten (though actually there is not agreement amongst the sects on what the original Ten are), we can fairly easily accept the injunctions against murder, theft and perjury, while wondering how it came that coveting your neighbours' stuff got to be more worth mentioning than, say, rape or child abuse, and not getting too distracted by the thought that at least some sects have used "honour thy father and mother" as justification for forms of the latter.
"To insist that people not annex their neighbor's cattle or wife 'or anything that is his' might be reasonable, even if it does place the wife in the same category as the cattle, and presumably to that extent diminishes the offense of adultery. But to demand 'don't even think about it' is absurd and totalitarian, and furthermore inhibiting to the Protestant spirit of entrepreneurship and competition.": (Christopher Hitchens, in Slate)
Dawkins, with a modern sensibility, argues for "do not discriminate or oppress on the basis of race, sex or (as far as possible) species", "do not indoctrinate your children" and "view the future on timescale longer than your own". (pp.263-5)
However, this only takes us so far along the route. The principles may be clear, but how do we actually operationalise them in our individual lives and police them in society's rules – and how much do we respect other society's/people's different rules.
"Traditionally, one of the fundamental questions behind every considered attempt to define ethical behaviour has been whether there is an absolute standard of morality or whether ethics can be defined only in terms of an individual and the culture in which that individual lives.
Both universal absolutism and cultural relativism are in themselves unethical. Not only is the application of universal absolutism impractical, but it can be unethical, because the universe is so complex that there are bound to be conflicts between standards in actual application, unless, of course, the standards are so vague that they convey only general sentiments.
‘Be kind to one another’ is good general guidance, but it does not qualify as an ethical standard because the range of interpretation of the meaning of ‘kind’ is so broad as to allow individuals incredible discretion. That does not even take into account the problems when society must deal with unethical or violent individuals.": 'Exton Land'
Interpreting the rules
It isn't only the definition of 'kind' that has been a problem. The other big problem in "be kind to one another" has traditionally been the circumscription of 'one another' to a severely reduced subset of humanity. Dawkins points out that the original Ten Commandments' "thou shalt not kill" only applied to other Jews – killing non-Jews didn't count (and in the case of Jericho and numerous other examples was at God's command). For most of history, 'one another' also didn't include any females, or at least not to the same extent – recall that Lot proved his status as the only man worth saving in Sodom by offering his daughters up for gang rape in place of the angels he was sheltering.
The modern response to these dilemmas sometimes seems to be ever more detailed definition of exactly what is or isn't forbidden / punishable / suable for, with piles of precedent and litigation to hone the edges of liability and guilt. Almost makes you want to hark back to the false certainties of doing what the AllFather tells you…
"The Judeo-Christian concept of ‘original sin’ as defined in basic Christian theology was and remains an extremely useful tool for social indoctrination, because (1) it provides a reason for evil while also allowing people to accept that evil is not the fault of the given individual; (2) supplies a rationale for why people need to be taught ethics and manners; and (3) still requires that people adhere to an acceptable moral code.
Only a small minority of human beings have a strong predilection toward either ‘morality’ or ‘immorality’. This has historically posed a problem for any civil society based on purely secular rule because (1) society in the end is based on some form of self-restraint; and (2) the impetus to require self-discipline and to learn greater awareness of what is evil and unacceptable lacks the religious underpinnings present in a theocracy or a society with a strong theocratic presence. Likewise, history has also demonstrated most clearly that the majority of individuals are uncomfortable in accepting a moral code that is not based on the ‘revelation’ of a divine being, because in matters of personal ethics, each believes his or her ethics are superior to any not of ‘divine’ origin.
As transparently fallacious as this widely accepted personal belief may be, equally transparent and fallacious – and even more widely accepted – are the ethical and moral systems accepted as created by divinities – and merely revealed to the prophets of each deity for dissemination to the ‘faithful’. Throughout history, this has been a useful but transparent fiction because the ‘divine’ origin of moral codes obviates the need for deciding between various human codes. Humans being humans, however, the conflict then escalates into a struggle over whose god or whose interpretation of god is superior, rather than focussing on the values of the codes themselves.": 'Exton Land'
Focusing on our values
It really is becoming very important that we try to focus on the values of the codes (and our society) themselves. We have let our society drift for the last fifty years or so along a path where the values of the individual and the market have been allowed progressively to dominate: where the central dogma is that there is no dogma – there is always another way of looking at things - that all voices deserve a hearing, that all points of view have something of value to offer.
"There is indeed an ethical absolute for any situation in which an individual may find himself or herself, but each of these absolutes exists only for that individual and that time and situation. This individual ‘absolutism’ is not the same thing as cultural relativism, because cultures can be, and often have been, totally unethical and immoral, even by their own professed standards. That a practice or standard is culturally accepted does not make it ethical. There have been cultures that thought themselves moral that practiced slavery, undertook genocide, committed infanticide, and enforced unequal rights based on gender or sexual orientation.
The principle practical problems with individual absolutism are that, first, one cannot implement a workable societal moral code on that basis, and, second, that any individual can claim unethical behaviours to be moral in a particular situation, which, given human nature, would soon result in endless self-justification for the most unethical and immoral acts. That said, the practical problems do not invalidate absolute individual morality, only its societal application …
In practice, what is necessary for a society is a secular legal structure that affirms basic ethical principles (eg, one should not kill, or injure others; one should not steal or deceive, etc), and that also provides a structured forum, such as courts, in which an accused has an unbiased opportunity to show that, under the circumstances, his behaviour was as moral as the situation allowed. Such a societal structure works, however, as demonstrated by history, only when the majority of individuals in the society are willing to sacrifice potential self-interest for the value of justice, and such societies have seldom existed for long, because most individuals eventually place immediate personal gain above long-term societal preservation.
The faster and more widely this ‘gospel of greed’ is adopted, the more quickly a society loses any ethical foundation – and the more rapidly it sows the seeds of its own destruction.": 'Exton Land'
The reaction to blatant wrongdoing that contravenes our basic values can be reduced to "well, that's the only way you can do business over there". If the only values we all submit to are the values of the market, then 'a fair go' doesn't get a market value, nor do the rest of the 'Australian Values' the Commonwealth is about to spend a small fortune on in our schools. (Hands up who can name them? - to save you, they are: Fair Go; Care and Compassion; Understanding, Tolerance and Inclusion; Integrity; Doing Your Best; Freedom; Respect; Responsibility - and doesn't our Federal Government stand up for all of these every day as an example to our kids.)
Letting market value determine the rules
"What happens to ethics and morality when economics reigns unchecked – when the negative externalities of not following an ethical course are not included in the marketplace? Laissez-faire economic systems simply assume that everything has a price, and that, if left alone, supply and demand will balance at an optimum price. As a general rule, it works fairly well. Or it does so long as there is an independent moral system underlying it.
Assume everything has a price. Does that mean that ethical behaviour also has a price? And that, if it is scarce, it becomes harder and harder for the average citizen to purchase?
Look at history, How many societies were there where ethical behaviour in trade and government were not the norm, but where bribery was necessary merely to ensure that both merchants and functionaries did their jobs? Then, in the worst cases, whether or not the job was done depended not on ethics, but on market power, on who could pay the highest price. In some societies, that was obvious. In others, that aspect of the market economy is far from obvious. They have an elected government, and everyone can vote. And they have a seemingly open legal system. But that system is based on the assumption that an adversarial system will provide the truth and justice. At times, it does, but only when both advocates are of close to equal ability and when the issues are relatively simple. Most times, the court ends up deciding for the party with the most resources, unless the case happens to be one that is truly egregious. The same thing happens with legislative bodies, because once large nation-states developed and modern communications emerged, the number of citizens represented by each legislator grew so large that only those candidates with the resources to purchase those communications services could reach the citizens. So, in the end, both the laws and their interpretation become commodities purchased by the highest bidders.": 'Exton Land'
How far are we down the road to a society where market power overrules democracy always and everywhere? I'm fascinated by how the Right are divided over this question: while some will protest that all is best in this best of all possible worlds, and our version of democracy is so strong and pure that it must be exported to the rest of the world (at gunpoint, if necessary), there is another faction that may have gotten quieter about the 'greed is good' philosophy since Wall Street, but basically believes it still.
The latter view is often mixed up with some simplistic interpretation of Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', and views such as this:
"The rich ... divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal proportions among all its inhabitants." Adam Smith (1759), The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London: A. Millar, 1790. Part IV. Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation in paragraph IV.I.10
This earlier 'invisible hand', which predates the more famous one in the later Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), exposes the habitual misapplication of the term, because The Theory of Moral Sentiments is imbued throughout by the unstated assumption that the aforementioned rich operate in a society with a shared set of values ('moral sentiments') based on pervasive agreements on ethics and morality that our society has largely left behind (or reserved for a small and compartmentalised segment of life).
A 'crisis of faith'?
There is some (mostly anecdotal) evidence that the general run of our society is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the direction we are taking. Whether this unease or malaise is going to translate into action is far from clear.
"A societal crisis of faith occurs when the values that produced a particular incarnation of a society no longer correspond to the values held by the individuals and organisations holding economic, political, and social power in that society. Paradoxically, these value changes seem to occur first on a social level. In reality the changes are already far advanced by the time they appear, because in most societies social standing and mobility lag behind economic and political power. Those with economic power seldom wish to flaunt values at variance with social norms, and those in the political arena prefer a protective coloration that in fact straddles the perceived range of values, while ostensibly preferring the most popular of values …
Although all stable societies rest firmly on a consensus of values, invariably the individuals in those societies prefer not to discuss those values, except in glittering generalities, not because they are unimportant, but because they are so important that to discuss them seriously might open them to question and interpretation. Thus, the very protections of a society’s values preclude any wide-scale and public re-evaluation of those values and any recognition of a potential crisis of values.": 'Exton Land'
The need for a new consensus
We are coming to a period where the challenges to society are going to require actions that need a radical change to the fundamental ethics we hold so deeply that we haven't hardly questioned them at all. Only a short while ago, our Prime Minister got away almost unquestioned with the theory that we couldn't possibly consider doing anything about the future of the planet if it was going to potentially cost Australian jobs: even now the rhetoric is still (qua the Stern review) that saving the planet is only on the agenda because it might not cost any jobs after all.
We need a new consensus on morality and ethics. Coming full circle to where we started, I don't think we can look to religion to get us there, because although there are many wonderful and moral people in all major religions, large factions of the religious hold to various versions of either "let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth", or "these are the latter days, fire and flood, and there is nothing we can do to stop it" – this last being a direct quote from conversation with a famous Australian of evangelical bent.
Where are we going to get our consensus? Everywhere, I guess. David Curry's boy gets his worldview at least in part from The Lion King. Probably a better place to start than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which in the film version at least was so heavily into the Church Militant and smiting that I ended up cheering for the Witch. I, in my turn, have taken much of my text from the sidebars of a novel.
However we get there, the process must be at least as moral and ethical as the result.
"From the beginning of human history, there has always been a debate over the ethics of ends and the ethics of means. Can a good and ethical solution result from the use of unethical or immoral means? Does the end justify the means? Virtually all ethicists would agree that, of course, it does not, because, first, actions should be ethical in and of themselves, and, second, because corrupt means almost invariably result in corrupting the ends."
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Notes
* "The Jatravartid People of Viltvodle Six firmly believe that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called The Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call The Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief." The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Dawkins' book is dedicated to Douglas Adams.
** 'Exton Land's writings are scattered through the section and chapter headings of Modesitt's books: all of the quotes above come from The Ethos Effect. As David Brin noted in the speech cited in the text, science fiction is one of the places where human creativity can explore the big questions without getting bogged down in the specifics of history and particular hard cases.
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Mike - was that hmmmm meant to be hymn?
Mike, when you suggest because I see no point in reading Dawkins that that is effectively close minded bigotry you are wrong, at least where I am concerned. The arguments against belief are not new and are basically the same and I have read reams of stuff on the issue, in magazines from Dissent to Church newsletters, putting both points of view. I cannot think that Dawkins can add anything new. If I come across a copy I will look at it, but I won't bother chasing it. For me the core issue is that no atheist can prove there is no God. Like you if they could I would be the first to admit I was wrong. But this is one answer that only each and every one of us will know after we die. To look out at the enormous universe and think that we know what is there or not there is just plain arrogance on our part. Some things we know, but there is much that we don't and probably never will.
As to God's chosen people comment, you do not know me. I have known quite a lot of Jews, worked with them and have Jewish relatives and friends, two of whom lost most of their family in the holocaust. And believe me, the expression God's chosen people was used by them, so no, why I should retract, and it has nothing to do with decency, it was a statement of fact of what has been said to me by Jews. If other Jews deplore that that is not my problem. And of course that claim comes from what you call the Wholly Babble, which expression shows to me your lack of respect for a Holy Book revered by millions of people. When I was in Pakistan I was very careful, though not a Muslim, not to put the Koran on the floor, as they saw that as disrespectful. As I said, ridiculing belief, or the Holy Bible does not do you any credit, but if that is how you are, then so be it. Are you prepared out of decency to retract the term Wholly Babble?
I have never been ignorant of the failings of the Christian church and deplore the way Nazi guards were helped to escape, and not just by those you mention. I have always been proud that the Danes, my own people, Lutherans, went to so much trouble and risk to themselves to protect their Jewish population. But I think it was, and still is, an appalling indictment of the Catholic Church in particular as was the abuse of children in church institutions (and not just Catholic) even in this country. But the the crimes of the Church are not the crimes of the Christian God, they are the crimes of people. I deplore inhumanity to man, and animal, no matter under what ideology, religion, atheism or culture it is carried out.
That is why I am so appalled at what the Japanese did yet cannot see that they had anything to apologise for. I only read recently of the extent of what happened in China, in that research institution the name of which escapes me, and it beggars belief that no apology has ever been forthcoming. And those Korean comfort women are in a pitiful state, even today. This failure is coming back to haunt Japan as seen by the riots in China against Japanese interests.
I have many good Japanese friends, most having left Japan to escape the rigidity of the society there. Their society may be safe, but it is not necessarily a happy one. The pressure to conform and achieve is high as is the stress and suicide rate, even in quite young children.
As for the Psychics. I am not a skeptic. I have had many psychic experiences myself, some of which I wish I hadn't. It is not something I can turn on or off at will, it just happens. My family know this and always treat everything I say seriously, as I have been right too many times for them to ignore it. I don't think it is something one can test for and I am not particularly interested in it anyway. But I am curious about those psychics who are reported to have helped police to solve murder cases, with the spirit of the dead person claimed to be directing them. It again is not something that they just turn off and on, it just comes to them so we cannot in my opinion just dismiss these phenomena out of hand. I believe the spirit does live on after it has left the body and I think these situations give support to that. I asked if you thought they were just liars and frauds and if so why when so many police have taken them seriously in those cases, if only after first being skeptical themselves.
But as I said I think this discussion has pretty well run its course. We have different views and I see no reason to change mine, any more than you do yours. So cheers. BTW Maybe if you had seen that light show you would be as in awe as I am of the power that is out there. That there could be even greater, and intellignet power I am just not prepared to rule out.
Question for Mike
Mike Lyvers, you would appear to be a person able to answer the question in the original thread -(which seems to have wandered off into more problematic areas) - of: "Now that we're applying intelligence as well as instinct and evolution to our morality, just how do we choose the rules......"
Each to their own
F Kendall, well the reply to that by Mike appears to be leave it to each of us to figure out. That I doubt will get us very far as is suggested in David's post. Affluence, greed and individualism lead to selfishness and that is where much of western society is at in my opinion at this point in time. I am sure the rules the haves would set for themselves as opposed to the have nots are going to be very very different and probably mutually exclusive.
I move constantly between the rural and urban scene. Due to the drought I see a lot of the have nots out in the bush these days, and there one has a sense of shared hardship, shared compassion, mutual support, shared understanding and the youngsters I meet display high levels of social consciousness, commitment to the family and community as a whole; but when I return to the city, I get the opposite sense.
I had quite a discussion last night with a group of people, all of whom were highly educated, anti Howard government and reluctant to say whether they were believers or not, but who all expressed concern at what they said was a very slippery moral slope that society was on. All had teenage kids and all were worried. They acknowledged the decline in religious belief and church attendance and unanimously agreed that the moral framework that religion once gave was being challenged and discarded, "with nothing being put in its place".
One woman who had just completed her masters in counselling and who works with young people summed it up by saying: This generation of kids are lost, they live in a spiritual vacuum and we are paying a heavy social price for that. The consensus was that if the moral drift continued, that western society could well rot from within.
Now I don't think the situation is as hopeless as that but these post baby boomer parents are the ones on the front line, raising teenage kids in a rather Godless society. And they are all very worried about the direction in which society is headed as they perceive it.
I cannot help comparing the situation with that I knew when I was a teenager. Each Friday night over a hundred teens of all ages would gather at the church hall, dance and have fun, no drugs, no alcohol, no cars. Religion was central to our lives. Now kids in their early teens are down on the beach late at night, getting drunk. I hear them argue with their parents over their right to go because their friends are going they say, see the surliness at any requests for information and they have condoms in their rooms.
Oh well, I guess the chickens will all come home to roost as they are already with skyrocketing admissions to hospitals with alcohol related conditions in young people.
I have decided to talk to everyone everywhere and I started in the hair dresser the other day to a women who said she had five kids. I urged her to introduce them to Sunday school and church, even if she was reluctant herself, to at least give them a chance. She said she would as she too was worried about the direction society was taking. It is not child abuse to do that as Mr Dawkins is reported to suggest. It is caring about your child, which is quite the opposite.
F Kendall - the rules
Denouement
Thanks Craig R. I'll do just that. I'm surprised - Borders takes two weeks. I might even do it tomorrow - I miss being in a city. I lived so differently in Paris.
Signing out for a little while. I've given Webdiary my soul over the past week, whether it wants it or not, and it is time to step back.
Blogger barons
Seek and ye shall find. Seems UWS library (Penrith), bless them, has a copy of "Barons to bloggers", as they rightfully should. I shall borrow it as soon as possible and work on my review, before semester starts towards the end of the month. I would prefer to have a copy that I can keep and spill red wine on but since Webdiary, which is after all not a tame lion, declines to answer any of my questions about this, I don't know whether to put an order in or to keep checking my mailbox.
A library copy will do just fine. Media books are notoriously full of underlines, highlighting and gratuitous comments anyway. I will be sure to notify Webdiary if there is any "Moonbat!!" scrawlings by Blairites in the margins. When you are a captive audience, all graffiti takes on the power of a tycoon like Murdoch.
Mike, I think it is of a higher order to be able to reject the kind of social conditioning that you describe and yet accept that life is nevertheless a mystery and that, whilst religious books may resemble political dogmas more often than not, they can nevertheless be the source of inspiration. Which is why I said that some of the mature Christians I know are more sophisticated than some atheists, because of their comfort with both belief and unbelief. I can't really tick all the right boxes that they use to define a "Christian" but can see worth in humbling myself to become a disciple of Christ, whatever his true nature, given the allure and authority which his teachings have to me. Judas, too, was a disciple.
Oh and it really isn't politically correct to call anyone an atheist. They are "Not yet Christians".
God bless, all.
Craig R: Solomon, I ordered my copy of From Barons to Bloggers (Alfred Deakin Debate #1) online from Abbey's Bookshop in Sydney as soon as it was released and it was shipped to me within 24 hours. Cost about $10. #2 in the Alfred Deakin Debate series is now available.
Solomon, re: "atheists"
I don't know any atheists who would deny that life is a mystery. Rather, it is the theists I have known who deny that. They think all the answers lie in the mythologies of ancient primitive cultures. On the other hand there are those who were raised in a religion and still call themselves "Christian," "Jewish," or "Muslim" but who do not take their religion of origin seriously enough to be uncomfortable with non-belief, as you put it. I guess they would be the more "mature" believers in your analysis. But perhaps they are just well along the road to maturing out of such beliefs altogether.
Jenny
Jenny: Agree. Xmas is for kids; otherwise it's just a day where servies are restricted. Not sure about the "true" meaning of anything really as I don't think that way. The meaning comes from within me, nowhere else.
As to being hypocritical. Who isn't? I take pleasure in it when I genuinely feel or think something. And that changes too, Jenny, otherwise I'd be seeking an end to this life.
I actually give humans the credit that they are capable of changing their minds, any time, on any topic. This to me separates the "leaders" in all forms from human beings. They won't even say what they believe except if they make a slip in Question TIme. Along with spittle, foam on lip and a feed of humble pie later on renouncing those real beliefs.
Enough 2 Party barracking.
Olympiad
Ross, I think reading and any other media consumption should be done for both entertainment and instruction. Otherwise you are a zombie, and you are influenced by it anyway, with your critical mind shut off.
I suppose Jim Morrisson was one of the cool kids and he certainly hated the military. I think there is a view in some quarters that militarism involves a sort of fetish for power, guns and death - rather than the preservation of life, which is what it is ostensibly there for. This is certainly what I was suggesting when I mentioned my would-be prison warden friend, who, I suspect, would have liked nothing better than to spend his life shooting Nazis. I think Nazism had a certain fetishism involved in it, with its obsession with "Aryans", physical strength, confronting symbols and conquest. At root I suspect there is an insecurity in this, though, I'm not really fond of psychologising.
I would love to get ahold of Leni Reifenstahl, the Nazi propagandist's, film Olympia. Respected, ruthless film critic Pauline Kael wrote of it that:
- Cinemania '97, short extract from her published work.
I think a fetish for beauty, of whatever kind it takes, is preferable to a fetish for death. Yet somehow they become intertwined. I said earlier that I think all things are military - even, for example, ballet. I say this partly because almost all aspects of our lives are dominated by media, of some kind, and the media is one of the essential machinery of the defence force. I was swimming in my pool the other day and it occurred to me that I was nevertheless part of the military-industrial complex, that, though I may be a light that is currently switched off, that I was nevertheless a light on their invisible switchboard. I was there, at that moment, because of a complex mix of social-conditioning, which, had it not been there, might have seen me fighting as a guerrilla in the jungles. Or like a animal scrounging in the dirt.
That sounds a touch Orwellian but I have a very different framework to Orwell, which I shall elaborate later. The gist of it is that a country like Australia is not dominated by a single, centralised media juggernaut, as in 1984 (or North Korea) but by an effectively infinite, hierachical set of independent actors who operate generally in the service of (but sometimes in defiance of) the prevailing norm, and that, the majority of them are not even conscious of this, that what they think is pure entertainment is actually part of a complex web of social-conditioning aimed at creating order amongst chaos.
Rather than seeking to control the populace, capitalism, which is what it really is, tries to educate them - starting with the lowest common denominator, which probably amounts to a Today Tonight story on Shane Warne's smutty text messages, the media exists in a pyramid structure, of further and further refinements of thought, which requires that at least some of those within the structure can understand and manipulate it, for the furtherance of the structure itself. The system actually likes and uses those who, to use Maslow's vulgar framework, "self-actualise" themselves and transcend the bounds of thoughtless conditioning and are able to manifest a higher level of criticism of the people in power. Democracy sometimes elevates dangerous people in to power but easing the harm they caused is a process that requires a lot of different forces working in concert together.
Insight can encourage a sense of fear and paranoia, which is why, the system uses these individuals of particular insight, who have reached the other side of the journey - whether they realise it or not - to soothe the fears of those who wander off the beaten path in the forest. Art is a lullaby that gives us faith.
On commemorating victories, I was reminded that there was recently a movement in Russia to put up monuments to Stalin, for leading the victory against Nazi Germany. I remember reading that some older Russians felt nostalgia for the Stalinist days because of a subsequent breakdown in law and order. I don't know what to say - my critical mind collapses in the face of the surreality of this kind of nationalism.
I remember a documentary about the closing down of liberties in Russian society under Putin and a journalist interviewed Gorbachev, in the hopes that he would offer a denunciation. Gorbachev turned it around on the journalist and asked him: well, why is Putin doing this? This is the question the media ought to ask but seldom does. Gorbachev is my hero.
I think the execution of Saddam was wrong. Howard said, in a different context, recently that we ought to have some moral absolutes - to me the death penalty should be eradicated as an absolute. In combat killing is inevitable but when someone is already incarcerated it is pure revenge. We should avoid revenge to set an example.
Jesus us spoke of more than merely refraining from violence but of turning the other cheek. If we all did that then there would be no more war. Yet life brings up complications - Dostoyevsky used to argue that everyone is responsible for everyone else. I was puzzled by this but under the way I think now I think he was right, especially in a democracy. The Sarvanim in Israel still contribute to the policy of the government of the day by living and working in the society that taxes them and uses that which they produce with their labour to engineer its goals. They are still part of that system and there is no way of avoiding it. It is wrong to kill, but if we see it collectively, rather than ego-centrically, there becomes a need to form a policy that will minimise killing in its totality, for the sake not just of our own souls, but that of humankind.
God angrily clarifies 'Don't Kill' rule.
Jenny Hume, we all tend to interpret Christianity in a way that supports our own opinions, rather than modify our opinions to align with Christianity. I'm on this side: "God angrily clarifies 'Don't Kill' rule."
Ask Any General Insurance Company
Solomon And Morrison
Solomon, thinking over. Just be yourself. Reading is good, but not if you seek instruction, just escape or ideas.
Craig W., Hippy? Morrison? Give me a break. How did you arrive at that conclusion? Hippies don't drink mate. They make other choices.
Why did he drink himself to death? Because he could really. What was left for him to do? He wasn't a messiah, just a singer in a rock n roll band.
Enough 2 Party barracking.
Christmas and atheists, Christian?
Hi Jenny,
Why shouldn't atheists celebrate Xmas? Is there a rule? Like those who believe in Doug Walters (God of his day) should pray every day, that sort of thing? Anyone ever not conformed?
I'm Christian, Aussie, male, have kids, love Xmas and celebrate accordingly. Good God, the cricket's on you know!
The commandments
Jenny Hume:But you defended, and appeared to approve of, the killing of Saddam Hussein, although it also "did not adhere to one of the most important of the ten Commandments."
F Kendall and Ross
F Kendall, yes I did. As a Christian I do not support the death penalty though that is easy to say so long as it is not one's own who is the victim of the crime. I had no difficulty understanding or accepting why the Iraqis were not prepared to let Saddam live and I think even God would let that one pass. Genocide is the one crime for which I would make an exception to God's law.
I must say I cannot see why any atheist (and I am not suggesting you are one) would oppose the death penalty for the likes of Saddam. If there is no God to ultimately punish his kind, or to tell us that "thou shalt not kill" then why should mankind not take the life of those who commit genocide? If there is no justice to be handed out by God, then let man be the judge of what is appropriate, and if victims demand the death penalty, then that should be their right.
Ross, I did not say atheists should not celebrate Christmas. I just said I wondered why atheists did when it was a religious festival. I think atheists should celebrate it as in doing so they cannot help but be reminded of its true meaning and one day may come to respect that again for themselves. Why we might get a few of Mike's converts back into the fold!
And I did not even say Ms O'Hare should not have her Christmas tree. I just said that for one who was so bitter in her hate of all things religious, it was more than a tad hypocritical for her to associate herself with the celebration of Christ's birth in any way at all. That is all. So enjoy your pud and your pressies, and your cricket. I am not going to try and stop you.
Madeline O'Hare celebrated Christmas?
I watched the program on SBS last night on the life of the Amercian atheist Madeline O'Hare. I am sure Dawkins would love to have someone like her to spread his message for him today. Interesting how her family life was so troubled and her own son turned against her atheism to become a born again Christian.
But what I found most curious was that this woman, who hated everything that Christianity stood for, and who spent her whole life fighting for the cause of atheism, nonetheless saw fit to participate in the celebations of the birth of Christ by having a decorated Christmas tree in her home. Maybe she did not have so much faith in her atheism after all. Who knows, but if she did, it certainly did not seem to bring her much happiness.
She certainly mixed with some pretty nasty people who did not adhere to one of the most important of the Ten Commandments. They murdered her in a most grotesque way along with two of her family.
psychopaths galore
Jenny, psychopaths know no one denomination but can be found in all of them, and in atheism too. O'Hare was the victim of a psychopath. It can happen to anyone. Remember the horrific case a few years ago of Marc Dutroux, who kidnapped two young Christian girls from nice Christian families, raped and tortured them repeatedly for months, and then let them slowly starve to death in an underground dungeon? Lots of good Christians prayed for God and Jesus to rescue those girls, but as usual all their prayers were unanswered. God/Jesus score nil, yet again.
As for the pagan tradition of celebrating the Winter Solstice by decorating a tree and putting presents beneath it, that practice predates Christianity and in fact has nothing to do with Jesus at all. Nor does the Easter Bunny for that matter.
In response to those who say that discussions between theists and atheists never change anyone's mind, you are clearly wrong. Missionaries at least occasionally do win converts, and I myself have "saved" a few deluded Christians from their beliefs in my lifetime.
MIke. As you well know...
Mike: A bit naughty there. Where did I say that discussions between theists and atheists never change anyone's mind? Clearly they do otherwise there would not be religious conversions going on all around the world even as we write, especially in Africa. I was referring to the futility of you and I trying to discuss religion - never the twain (us) shall meet. While I am a believer I think I am far more tolerant of your position than you are of mine and of believers generally, which rather undercuts your assertion on the other thread of the democratic right to freedom of religion. It seems to me that you would do away with religion if you could in all its forms.
Now you may consider you have "saved" a few of the so called deluded. Of course they may not thank you in the long run and may well revert when they are old and sick. They are what I call foul weather Christians. They go running back to religion and God when they no longer feel in control of their life. I would suggest that if faith can be easily destroyed then it was probably not very strong in the first place so don't credit yourself with too much.
Madeline O'Hare could not even convince her own son to stick with atheism. And in her atheism and hate for all things religious she generated so much hate it is not surprising she attracted others full of hate, and it got her killed. As you sow, so shall you reap. Preach hate, and you may well be its first victim.
As for the Christmas tree. I am well aware of its history but it has come to be an integral part of the celebration of Christmas by Christians as you well know. If O'Hare was really true to atheism she would have gone out of her way to avoid any association with any element of Christmas, the Mass of Christ. The Christmas tree is a tree on which people place their gifts and to Christians Christmas is a time for giving, following the tradition of the bearers of gifts for the infant Jesus. You will find the tree in many churches on Christmas day. O'Hare would have known that the tree is now a symbol of one of Christianity's holiest days. She chose to embrace it. Such hypocrisy!
Christmas is a religious festival. I wonder why atheists bother celebrating it at all. It is a bit hypocritical is it not? If you are not a believer in Christ, then why take Christmas day off work? Why not just treat it as any other day? Maybe many atheists do, but a hell of a lot don't.
Now I wonder what Dawkins does on Christmas day?
rejecting faith
Jenny interprets the actions of those raised in a religion, who finally wake up to reality by rejecting it, as follows: "I would suggest that if faith can be easily destroyed then it was probably not very strong in the first place so don't credit yourself with too much."
"Faith" means "unquestioning belief in something for which there is no evidence." Many people raised by religious parents simply grow up and come to realise that this is a dumb thing to do. Otherwise why not just believe in any old thing? Norse mythology? The bloodthirsty Aztec gods? The rather strict and intolerant god Allah? What about Krishna? Just as most children eventually stop believing in Santa Claus, sometimes this process is facilitated by discussions with others, sometimes by one's own logical reasoning and appraisal of the evidence. I've seen cases where very strong religious faith (e.g. went to fundamentalist Christian schools, trained to be missionaries) was completely discarded - two of my best friends in fact. In their case they did so without any input from me, as this happened before I knew them. They told me their faith had been extremely strong, the guiding principle of their lives, until they woke up to see it all crumble as they realised it was all a mere fantasy. Their faith was NOT "easily destroyed," Jenny; on the contrary they told me this was a most painful (though necessary) process in their lives. The pain they experienced is the reason Dawkins describes a religious upbringing as a form of child abuse.
Overcoming religious indoctrination and conditioning happens quite often these days, especially among the highly educated. The more you know about history, about the reality of the universe we inhabit, and about the way life works, the less inclined intelligent people are to believe in the fantasies, dreams and superstitions of primitive tribespeople from the distant past, who posited sky gods, demons and such. (Although the Romans can be credited with the virgin birth element of the Jesus story: Julius Ceasar was born of a virgin too.)
Oh the uneducated dumb believers
Mike, you ask in what way you are intolerant of believers. Well I think it was you was it not who said belief should be ridiculed at every opportunity or such like words. And so you go on to refer to believers using terms such as dumb, infantile, immature and credit loss of faith to the mature and the highly educated. I think that intolerance is a pretty good word to use for one so convinced of the rightness of his own position and who choses such terms.
I wonder what statistical evidence you can give to support your view that non believers are the highly educated and mature of this world while believers are the immature, uneducated and dumb.
Let me remind you that throughout history some of the most brilliant minds belonged to believers, and still do. Education has little to do with whether one is a believer in God or not. Just because people do not have a formal tertiary education does not mean they are dumb, far from it. Many highly educated people I know are believers, and I am far from uneducated myself. And I must say they and their children seem to lead happier and very moral lives, which I cannot say for many non believers and their kids that I know.
I notice you failed to respond to my question earlier as to whether you saw any connection between the negative moral drift in western society to the fall in religious belief and practice in the past thirty or so years. Frankly when one looks at much of western society today it is not a pretty sight. God has been evicted and we have high rates of suicide, high rates of drug and acohol abuse and the negative behaviours that go with it, pornography and violent games littering the TV and computer screens for the young to devour, foul language emitting from the mouths of very small children and teenagers, road rage and skyrocketing domestic violence and child abuse. Frankly if that is the best a primarily atheist society can come up with then the answer to the question Morality without God is self evident.
Society has well and truly deluded itself on that score.
Now one thing with you I find rather interesting and you can correct me if I am wrong. But it seems to me that you are one of the strongest defenders of the right of the Jews to the territories of Palestinians, now known as Israel.. And yet the Jews claim to those lands stems from the first five chapters of the Bible. They claim it is their God given right to inhabit those lands. How does an atheist reconcile support for the establishment of a state based on an argument of a God given right? Why were the Jews not settled in some other part of the world?
Just curious Mike.
Jenny - response:
Jenny it is not "intolerance" to disagree with - even in the form of ridicule - ideas. For example, those innocuous Danish cartoons ridiculing the truly ridiculous beliefs of many Muslims were not expressions of "intolerance," however, the violent response by some Muslims definitely was. The extreme sensitivity of religious people to any criticism of their beliefs is very dangerous and this has been proven over and over again. Sticks and stones can break my bones and constitute intolerance; mere words do not.
Jenny you ask: "wonder what statistical evidence you can give to support your view that non believers are the highly educated and mature of this world while believers are the immature, uneducated and dumb."
Read Dawkins' book; he cites such statistical evidence. Degree of education is negatively correlated with religiosity. Those are the facts and many studies have shown this.
You say: " ... notice you failed to respond to my question earlier as to whether you saw any connection between the negative moral drift in western society to the fall in religious belief and practice in the past thirty or so years. Frankly when one looks at much of western society today it is not a pretty sight. God has been evicted and we have high rates of suicide, high rates of drug and acohol abuse and the negative behaviours that go with it, pornography and violent games littering the TV and computer screens for the young to devour, foul language emitting from the mouths of very small children and teenagers, road rage and skyrocketing domestic violence and child abuse. Frankly if that is the best a primarily atheist society can come up with then the answer to the question Morality without God is self evident."
Do you really think this is a primarily atheist society?? No evidence I know of supports that contention. Japan is, however, and I think you will find the rates of all the problems you list are far lower in Japan than in any Christian society today. I read a year or two ago that 88% of Japanese do not believe in God, yet their society has among the lowest rates of crime and violence of any society in the world. The highly religious USA, on the other hand, looks pretty poor by comparison on such indices.
Finally, I support Israel's right to exist because it is the traditional homeland of the Jewish people.
In a tight spot there Mike
Mike, you responded to me: "Read Dawkins' book; he cites such statistical evidence. Degree of education is negatively correlated with religiosity. Those are the facts and many studies have shown this."
In other words you have no evidence and frankly such a proposition is patent nonsense as all educated believers demonstrate and there are millions of them in the world, Mike, millions. Atheists are going to have to do better than that if they want to convince believers they have the truth.
And ridicule is one of the purest forms of intolerance where people are different. Racists for instance often ridicule the physical differences of other races. But in this situation people also use ridicule as they have no rational or sound basis for their point of view. They cannot prove there is no God but they are uncomfortable with belief so they can only rely on ridicule. They cannot rely on fact.
I suppose you would just dismiss the experiences of those psychics who have been guided by the dead person's spirit to help solve their own murder. Even when a respected policeman can list 120 points in a case that the psychic was able to tell him while having not known either the victim or anyone related to him or her, or who ever saw the crime scene, but who claims the spirit of the dead person guided them, even giving the name of the actual murderer, later proven to be correct. But these would be uncomfortable matters for those like you who believe the spirit does not live on after death. And that was not the only case covered if you have been watching the program. Are all those people in that show just frauds and liars Mike or can you admit that the spirit just might live on after it leaves the body?
Atheist Japan! For a start, Shinto is not atheism. But the Japanese have arguably one of the worst track records of abuse of human rights in all of history! If we thought Mengele was bad, just check out what was done to the Chinese in the name of research to men, women and children and no apology forthcoming either. God forbid that we ever are ruled by your atheist Japanese. Oh they may have low rates of crime and violence amongst their own, but oh boy, look what they are capable of doing to others Mike in our own lifetime. Lest we forget. They would like us to I know, but many of my generation never will. And why should the Chinese forget anymore than the Jews. As I said, not even an apology for unimaginable atrocities on an enormous scale. Even the Germans gave an apology. And look at the Japanese unwillingness to make amends to those comfort women even today. A moral society you say Mike? Look also at the high rate of suicide amongst its children in particular. Frankly I think God should be introduced to the Japanese. And saying all that does not make me a racist. It is just stating the obvious as demonstrated by the Japanese themselves.
I only read recently the latest statistics of non believers in the UK, in the Scandinavian countries and in Australia and the findings were that these societies were now predominantly atheist and I see that as a consequence of the materialism and affluence of society, not a result of higher education. Money is the God these days. Of course one would have to look at how the study was conducted but if attendance at church is anything to go by, then the reality is there for all to see. And I think that has led to a less moral society overall as evidenced by the issues I mentioned in my earlier comment. But I notice you have not answered the question, merely sought to introduce the Japan red herring.
Just putting one's religion down on a census paper does not make one a believer and the level of church attendance is very low. And who knows how religious America really is given that belief is for many in the US essential if you want to make it. Asserting belief for convenience does not mean one does believe. So until that changes one can never know how religious America really is. But I will say this, the young Americans I know are the most polite, most respectful people I have met in any western society and yes, most are religious. And the morality of a country is not measured just by the crime rate. That can be one factor that points to immorality in a society, but it is not the only one. One does not have to commit a crime to lead an immoral life or conduct oneself in an immoral way. Morality relates to the general conduct of the whole society. Crime is the provenance of the few. And frankly I would prefer to be amongst the religious youth of America than amongst many of the atheist youth of Australia. And even though the Hillsong church is not my cup of tea it is good to see so many young people flocking once more to join a religious organization. It tells us something does it not?
Finally you wrote: "I support Israel's right to exist because it is the traditional homeland of the Jewish people."
Now that is a cop out, Mike, of the first order. I suggest the Israelis have no more right to move in on the Palestianian peoples' lands than we ex Scots would have to go and try and recoup the lands we once occupied but were cleared off by the Nobles. And why should the Jews be afforded rights that we deny to our own indigenous people? They cannot take back the site of Sydney or Melbourne. Surely those sites however are their traditional homeland. Would you be willing to move out?
You know and I know that the claim to the lands now known as Israel was on the basis of a God given right as the Jews declared it, as set down in the Bible. I really think you've got a problem with your position on this one Mike. If you are an atheist then you could never support the return of the Jews to Israel given the basis on which they claim those lands. To say you do just because their ancestors lived there over a thousand years ago is ridiculous and you know it. There is more to it than that and you know that too. People all over the world have been dispossessed from their traditional homelands. What made the Jews different Mike? Why were those particular lands restored, after so many centuries?
Come on Mike, admit it, you support what the Bible says about the right of the Jews to the territory now known as Israel. There is no getting around that. But it is a bit of a dilemma for an atheist I grant you. And I am not stating my position here in relation to Israel, I am simply pointing out that you would seem to have a problem with this one, as a declared atheist.
This is just harassment, Jenny.
I pointed to Dawkins' book as a source for those statistics in question. You can read it for yourself. To insist that I provide such sources here is just harassment on your part. The material you demand is in there, so go get it. If you don't want to buy the book then just browse to the section on education and religion next time you're in a book store. I would cite it for you from his book but why bother; in a debate about Dawkins' book the participants should have read at least part of the book, I would think.
"And ridicule is one of the purest forms of intolerance where people are different. Racists for instance often ridicule the physical differences of other races. But in this situation people also use ridicule as they have no rational or sound basis for their point of view. They cannot prove there is no God but they are uncomfortable with belief so they can only rely on ridicule. They cannot rely on fact."
This would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. People choose their beliefs; thus beliefs are open to criticism and debate, while skin color is not. Only with rigorous debate can the truth eventually win out. You tell me to rely on fact, which is ironic as there is no evidence whatsoever for the various spirit beings Christians believe in - God, Jesus, Satan, angels, demons, etc. are all fantasy stuff for which there is no hard evidence. But if God suddenly appeared in the sky and started talking to me, or Jesus descended performing miracles, I'd become a believer. Unlike you I am open to the evidence. And unlike you I don't believe in things for which there is no evidence.
As for psychics, James Randi and the Skeptics society have for decades offered one million dollars to ANY psychic who can demonstrate their ability in an experimental situation. No one has ever been able to claim the money. I myself devised an experiment (shown on A Current Affair) a few years back to test the psychic healing ability of a well-known Australian psychic; the test proved he was utterly incapable of healing anybody. Psychics play the game of chance and occasionally get lucky, that's all there is to it Jenny.
Shinto was the religion of most Japanese during WWII, when those atrocities occured, but today most Japanese say they are non-religious atheists in polls. Do you ever wonder why the rate of criminal violence is so low in Japan compared to Christian countries? Again, you don't need to believe in a big dude in the sky to be moral or to have decent human values. I lived in Japan for 4 years and was impressed with the extreme safety of the society and generosity and kindness of the people.
"And even though the Hillsong church is not my cup of tea it is good to see so many young people flocking once more to join a religious organization. It tells us something does it not?"
It tells us just how easily some people can be deluded.
"If you are an atheist then you could never support the return of the Jews to Israel given the basis on which they claim those lands."
I've gone over this so much before in this forum I am frankly sick of it, but here's a synopsis: The Jews were expelled from Israel by Europeans (the Romans), who re-named it Palestine. Later generations of Europeans tried to exterminate the Jews. Thus the U.N. in its wisdom decided to re-establish the state of Israel in 1948 as a Jewish homeland and sanctuary for the most persecuted people in all of history. The U.N., not Yahweh, established the modern state of Israel. No belief in Gods is required.
Skirting the issues, but so be it.
Mike, to me you write intolerant nonsense and when taken up on it don't like it. So be it. You attack and use ridicule rather than address the questions I put. You have given no evidence to suggest those psychics were lying or frauds. You just skirted around the issue from your own experience. That is what I mean by avoiding the question.
You were not being asked to revisit the irreconciliable Israel/ Palestine issue. And I too found it quite sickening, the intolerance on both sides. You were merely being asked how an atheist can support the choice of lands for resettlement of the Jews, when they had no other claim to those lands other than that they were vested in them by God, as per the first five chapters of the Bible. Any title to lands is lost after a thousand years, and in fact mostly in a lot less time than that. The UN, given the persecution under the Nazis chose to support it. The Jews consider themselves God's chosen people, with a God given right to the lands of Israel. It presents a dilemma for atheists like yourself who support that choice of lands is all I am saying. But clearly you find that uncomfortable. So be it. I do not want to upset you.
If the only research you can refer to, and not bother quoting from is that of a rabid atheist, then don't bother. And I won't bother reading Dawkins either.
Atheists clearly cannot cope with the fact that believers have experiences that they attribute to God, the big dude you refer to. Such descriptions do not do your intelligence any credit Mike, but no matter. That is your problem, not mine.
Yes, the Japanese can be very kind and generous to you in their own country. But ask those that have lived under their occupation. Thankfully we avoided that but an awful lot of our own suffered and died a terrible death to see that that did not happen. I will respect the Japanese and believe they have changed when I see an apology from them. Until then, I certainly would not like to live under any occupation by them, not then, and not now. Thanks to the Americans and our own, that has been at least made impossible during our lifetime. How I thank those who died for us back then. Don't be too blinded by politeness Mike. I am sure they were a very polite society back then too. I see no evidence that that polite society thinks those comfort women or those who suffered in China should receive an apology, let alone any compensation. Does that not tell you anything?
Anyway, clearly your are getting stirred u so I will say no more. It is not my intention to upset you. And what you write does not upset me one iota. That is what being firm in one's faith is all about. So reply if you wish but I intend to let it all be.
Intolerance
Jenny, what makes you think I am "intolerant of your position"? The mere fact that I disagree with you? Is any disagreement regarded by religious folks as intolerance? It certainly seems that way, and all too often.
As for O'Hair's son, I've known countless people who were raised by Christian parents who rejected Christianity when they reached adulthood. Maybe it had something to do with growing up in big bad L.A., I don't know. In any case it is common for kids to rebel against their parents' values, so the fact that one of O'Hair's sons became a Christian is hardly surprising.
There is no hypocrisy in celebrating the Winter Solstice in the exact same way our pagan ancestors did - by worshipping a tree.
Solomon, don't make me think
Hi Solomon,
I will respond. I'm not used to having to think about what others here have written and it's taking time. Thank you mate.
Blowing bubbles
Please burst all my bubbles, Craig W., that is what they are there for. There are worse things to do in life than blowing bubbles. They are harmless, pretty, colourful, beautiful and have the added poignance of impermanence - like life, or, love.
All statements I make here are really questions - how about yours? I think it was Tim Winton that said that the best art asks questions rather than seeking answers. I shouldn't be so hard on him.
I have a particular antipathy to the word "eccentric", and wouldn't use it against anyone. What I said originally was that military history is unfashionable. As if I knew what was fashionable.
If what you say is intended to apply to me, then the answer is no, I do not think I am going to change the world by debating politics on a blog (and of course do not spend all my time doing so). Though of course the science contradicts me - blogging had a role to play in the independence movement of Kyrgzstan, for example.
Tastes are always personal and any element of condecension or superciliousness on my part was purely self-deprecatory and ironic. Hence my subsequent desire to hurl endless abuse at myself. You should try it some time: it really only hurts the first time.
You are right to pour scorn on blogging, anyway. It is truly not in style and I am quite sure the cool kids are doing something else entirely. I couldn't tell you what.
I only know so much about dear Jim Morrisson. The Oliver Stone film was, I'm told, full of fictionalisations, like most of his films, but I expect he got the characterisation more or less right. If you look closely you can see a shot of Understanding Media when the camera lingers over Morrisson's books. And there is the surreal passages dealing with Andy Warhol. You would probably have a lot of sympathy with Roger Ebert's assessment of Morrison. I am more forgiving though I do not think he is wrong.
Shameless self-promotion
Ross, I think it is important to talk about the way we talk. There seems to be a nihilistic belief here that there is no point discussing the God vs Atheism thing because the other side is not going to listen. Likewise for other debates where the positions are seemingly entrenched.
Any examination of communication should start - but not end - with the medium. I used to think instantaneous communication and a diet of mass-media were corrupting influences. I thought Not Happy John forged in a pot of blog-stew, was flawed and slap-dash, like pulp fiction. It was full of standard internet techniques like trolling, which I didn't think belonged in print, which I wanted to be pure and self-sufficient. Likewise I thought The Longest Decade by George Megalogenis was a symptom of this general internet and pop-media induced malady, which I reviewed here.
Then I read Mcluhan's Understanding Media, belatedely, after having studied him at university. He kept insisting things like that television requires higher concentration than print, that there is value in examing comics and that I should read high literature like Joyce as if it were a magazine. I think I simply misunderstood the nature of the medium of the internet. Yes, it can encourage recklessness, spontaneity and messiness. It is not tidy like, say, an academic journal. I like Margo comparing it to a round-table - people can raise issues, then others with more knowledge and experience can respond, quickly, as if we were, I don't know, planning a murder or starting a religion..
I think it is right to accept the exigencies of the medium and not rebel against them.
Yet there are great weaknesses, which I satirised in my piece Confronting Islam. In the comments I compared it to a work by Andy Warhol and I meant it. The methodology I used was completely flawed, from an academic point of view, and I knew it. I did not have time to do it properly and, having announced to the world that I was going to write something, was under an obligation to produce. I thought it better to go to the other extreme and quote questionable sources (from an academic point of view) like former Webdiarists, Wikipedia and news media. No-one, evidently, sought to dispute my facts or interpretation of Islamic scripture. Though there was plenty of other kinds of objections.
More fundamentally I started with my conclusion, that Islamic dress should be banned, then searched out sources which confirmed exactly what it is I believed (or more accurately what I conditioned myself to believe, with some effort, requiring that I break something inside me). I did not take an inductive, scientific or even a deductive approach, or do any meaningful research but rather simply opportunistically used sources to my advantage. I got very little hard agreement but I got a lot of soft agreement, which I think is incredibly revealing. In advertising you learn to aim at one target when you really have a collateral target in mind. Few agreed with me that headscarves should be banned but many acknowledged that there may be a problem, with a different solution.
This is the same methodology used by most newspaper op-ed writiers, and, most bloggers. If I can ever get ahold of Margo and co's book (I consider it impolite to merely review the single internet-published chapter) then I will be sure to use a different methodology and actually use Communication journals and proper research. I have access to this kind of material as a communication student and it is unbelievably entertaining. There is highly, highly specific research done on the most obscure topics, like say, the effect of the computer game Warcraft on ethnic minorities in Kyrgzstan during the period between 2003 and 2004 (not a real example). It is so specific it would require someone with the roving, creative mind of Mcluhan to pull it all together in to something coherent. I love it all, it is so weird it becomes like modern art.
Incidentally, the Anzac-loss idea was not my idea. It was propaganda, placed in my head, by God-knows what dark and mysterious force, some Anzac day, some years ago.
Oh Mike
Hi Mike, wake up mate, I'm just playing. It's boring listening to the same old rants again and again, hadn't you noticed? What are you doing?
Let's hear a bit about Mike. Silence reigns now.
Enough 2 Party barracking.
Peta Pata Strike Me Pink
Well said Solomon
Hi Solomon, got me laughing mate. Thanks. What a change to have someone talk about spontaneity. Is that allowed in WD? Yes mate, musings are what they are, often passing thoughts, not cemented opinions.
I suspect a conversation with you may be highly entertaining and amusing.
Re blessing. Haven't met Freddy Fittler and didn't know he ever thought of me.
Enough 2 Party barracking.
Hi Mike
Hi Mike, I think so. it appears you know some, mate.
Enough 2 Party barracking.
In the buff
Hi Craig W., I was hoping that you would pop up in the context of this discussion. Lest anyone think I do not know what I am doing, that was precisely what I was aiming for - though your reasons for doing so I do not presume to know. I think a military history buff may also, if taken in a certain sense, apply to a naked Kim Beazley. What a profoundly disturbing thought.
Kim was a military historian, apparently, and he was made an object of fun for it in the media. He was also a Christian and a friend of Israel and had an extraordinary passion for soldiers. He shunned fashion and refused to govern his bulk, or talk in snappy buzz-words, until all the low-blows at him made him at least try. I think the media cut down Beazley. I didn't think it would happen. I was so wrong.
Oh and he had a masters in Philosophy, but he never seemed to want to admit it. I think perhaps this was a miscalculation. Look where bombs got him.
A wise woman once said to me: No education is wasted. Your detailed comments here on Nazism are valuable. As is your grace under fire.
Incidentally I don't believe in separating the military from the civilian at all. I think everything is military.
You're looking very Buff Buff
Hi Solomon, I hate to burst the bubble on your grand scheme ("I have a cunning plan my lord....") but I actually replied to the comments made by Mike about the comment on the German army belt buckle. I have a rather large library of books on WW2 German ground forces and if I know someone has made a mistake I point it out.
An interest in Military history is eccentric? Perhaps it is, but I don't think it is any worse than someone spending all their time on the internet arguing (sorry debating) politics and somehow deluding themselves that what they write will change the world. In short, if it is fair to call someone a military history "buff", then I would suspect that makes you a Webdiary or perhaps blogging buff.
I used to get rather worked up in discussions on religion, and had some real good sessions in the Army. As a 3rd year apprentice we had a church parade and I kicked up a stink (the only person to). In the end I was reading the Army law manual (now that is a great read...) and noticed that you could not be forced to attend a Church service. I raised the point with my OC and as a result, a directive was issued that those who did not wish to take part in the service could fall out and stand at the side of the parade ground (a victory for Craig!). A few years before that though I was made to scrub the outlet pipe on urinals (as in what the urine ran down) with steel wool (no gloves) for refusing to go to Church.
So I had good reason to get worked up about religion! After that I had some interesting times with Jehovahs, Mormans and Born again Christians. Despite all the efforts I am quite comfortable with the notion that when I die I will be fertilizer. I still have some Jehovahs pop around every few weeks. I bring them out a drink and we sit on the verandah and talk about kids, animals and all sorts of things - but rarely religion.
Something to consider in between belowing at each other.
By the way, have you seen photos of Jim Morrison from just before he drank himself to death? I could never understand what was so iconic about being drunk and urinating on an audience. But there again, I wasn't a Hippie.
Apprentice bush lawyers
So, Craig Warton, you fell for the oldest trick in the book: I have a right not to go to Church Parade.
True. Correct solution: don't go. Ordering you to go is not a lawful command so you don't have to obey it. Confuses the hell out of them (literally). Then, you can invoke your rights under s 116 of the Constitution.
My favourite stories about church parades are:
(1) The dental Corps had a colour patch that was almost indistinguishable from that worn by Chaplains until the Head of the Dental Corps missed his plane one evening in Melbourne. His language was so foul, his demeanour so threatening, that when the complaint from the civvie staff (he was flying domestic) finally hit his desk for comment, he insisted on changing the colour (I've always wondered, since a child, why it's burnt orange); and
(2) Dad, in camp, intending to shower but having a pre-shower slash found himself, on a Saturday night, next to a chap (both suitably attired for the shower) who solicitously said to him "Are you coming to Church Parade tomorrow?"
"Not f***ing likely." said the then Major to the unidentifiable fellow next to him.
When he (me old Dad) saw the man, now in full Pardre Uniform in the Mess later, he was so ashamed he actually went the next morning. In mysterious ways does the Dental Corps move its purposes to achieve.
Mystic paths
Ross, I suppose that depends how you define a true victory, but I have already moved on from this, which should be evident from my original reply to Geoff. My comments were merely late night musings, the kind that I might have made whilst going for a moonlit walk with Jenny Hume, in the countryside, whilst we discuss the mysteries of existense.
The medium we deal with has a bias towards the publication of near instantaneous thought - which can often, wrongly, be expressed as absolutes. So, I guess, is a natural human conversation, without the added factor that it is recorded, and that others may read it and instantly pull together research that contradicts it. Were I to truly have made the comments on a moonlit walk, I may later have sparked an interest in it and gone to research it, discovered my error, and who would be the wiser?
Saying "Australia must be" and "Australia is", are not quite the same things, yet I knew, nevertheless, even as I was writing my little absolute statement that it may well be wrong, that someone else will likely pop up with their google search, spoil the mood, and show me precisely why it is I am wrong. It is part of the nature of the medium that, though you may direct your comments to an individual, in a particular light, they will inevitably be read by others, who will take them in an entirely different one. I accepted that, and, was unsurprised to see someone correct me. But there was no need for sarcasm.
I expect that I could find you 10 victory celebrations, just as I am sure Geoff could find you his 100 defeat commemorations, but I don't know what that would prove - a search engine is designed to tell you what you want to hear. I could take an inductive approach and try and derive a general principle by looking at all the specific examples - but I was never truly intending to talk in terms of logic, but rather in a different realm all together. Here we have to labour over a minor point whilst any substantive point that I may have been reaching at is ignored.
And God bless.
Rants, raves and ignorance, again
Good grief says Charlie Brown.
Haven't some of you got anything productive to do? Statements about Oz being the only country to commemorate a loss have been covered by Geoff.
Let's pose Solomon a puzzle. Name 10 countries that commemorate a victory. Real victory.
Mike, I think you watch too much History (Hitler) Channel.. Where do get this rubbish from?
Craig, won't happen mate. Live and let live? For many, never. Wish it would happen mate.
Religion is what each of us wants it to be. Discussions on that go nowhere but perhaps that is where some of you are already. Right? Instead of proclaiming all others belief's to be invalid and descending into abuse (not a big step really, you're right there already). Just shows your own ignorance and intolerance, so go for it.
Try screaming at yourself and see if you can convince anyone of your platform. Check the background for those that watch. Any siblings?
For God's sake try laughing at yourself for once.
Gee that barbie on the Gold Coast sounds good. But you have to be invited don't you. Sob, sob, sob.
Enough 2 Party barracking.
Just curious, Ross:
So Ross.......
Dostoyevsky - not you, not you!
Mike Lyvers, I think there is some validity in the idea that anti-semitism in Christian culture assisted Hitler in his rise to power. I don't think that anti-semitism or accusations against them of being "Christ-killers" is a correct approach to the teachings of Christ but it nevertheless seems to have held sway over many. I accept that the Nazis were theists but not that their ideology had any resemblance to a proper application of Christianity, which clearly preaches forgiveness, love, non-violence and lack of judgement. Nazis rather worshipped strength, militarism and violence.
Even the beloved Christian writer Dostoyevsky, mentioned in the piece above, was an anti-semite. This is a racist site (interesting in itself) but it gives some extracts from Diary of a writer, which I admit I haven't read, mainly because, as the site says, it is prohibitively expensive. I can't verify the accuracy of the quotes but there does seem to be a strain of anti-semitism in his fictional work, like that of The House of the Dead and I am inclined to believe they are accurate. I don't know if his anti-semitism, probably a product of his time, is enough to condemn him as a writer. I think it is possible to extract what good there is from his work, whilst keeping a wary eye on that which we can no longer deem acceptable.
I disagree with the philisophical position that Dostoyevsky put in to the mouth of his character Ivan Karamazov, that: "If God does not exist, all things are lawful". As I was trying to get across earlier, there is a mainstream ethic in our culture, based on self-defence and protection of our loved ones, or those we deem worthy, which exists even despite the teachings of Christianity.
I don't think a God is necessary for an ethical system to derive its authority - and many base it around reason, utilitarianism, liberty, pragmatism or mutual self-interest. These are good enough reasons and Ivan Karamazov's rejection of them is a symptom of his deeper melancholia and as a rationalisation for his lascivious tendencies, which he feels guilty over. It is less philosophy to him than a tantalising - and horrifying - idea that would allow him to descend in to hedonism.
Sarvanim
I learn, Geoff, with my Google search and my Gobbledygoo that Sarvanim is a term of abuse in Israel, something undemocratic and unpatriotic, by both mainstream left and right parties. I understand, of course, that National Military Service in Israel - the highest in the democratic world - does not necessarily mean that you have to enter a combat role and that many simply are not called up at all. So why do they make a fuss?
Tears in my eyes again reading the eulogies at the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by an ultra-right madman, at a peace rally.
I was especially moved by the thoughts of King Hussein from Jordan:
And then Rabin's own words, quoted by Clinton:
And then, from acting Prime Minister, of the time, Shimon Peres:
And:
And finally, Noa Ben-Artzi Filosof, granddaughter of Rabin, who begins:
But also:
Ach, du
Yes, Geoff, I was being cutesy-pie - a little darling of the media, student of the facile, night-time bitch of the superficial. Too pretentious to want to play what I see as, through my untrained and inexperienced eye, battleships in my bath-tub, when it is really quite sacred -after all, we're talking about death and the right to live.
Proud? Yes, oh so high and mighty against all those guns and bombs, the province of manly men, the mechanised phalluses of destruction, that offend my delicate middle-class faggot sensibilities. Not even caring to support, in my ivory tower, the resistance of the long lost Pemulwuy, guerrilla and magician of our dreaming, the past that is not past because the wounds remain here still.
Peace - the little self-righteous, moral high-ground. The little word that preachers preach whilst ignoring the practical point that we must kill or be killed, or let others die whilst we do nothing. The little idea that captured the hearts, in popular myth, of the hippies and beatniks and which, so it seemed, was something that could be chosen, at a whim, if only the powerful weren't so cold and selfish, and not something that had to be fought for, with guns and knives and bombs. The little word that said: no, stop the war in Vietnam, stop the war in Korea, it is we with our agent orange and our intervention that make it worse. The little word that says no, let's not fight to defend South-East Asia against the bloody, communist regime and let them fight their own battles. It is none of our business who lives or who dies outside our borders.
The little bitch of a word that says no, lets not hunt and kill Osama, he doesn't exist, they made him up like Goldstein in Orwell. The little tart of a word that says Iran is not a threat even with nuclear weapons, that China is not really a totalitarian state any more, that we should live in harmony, be brothers, hold hands, vote in elections that are fixed anyway. The little slag that says there is no such thing as weapons of mass destruction, that says it is the United States' fault for propping up Saddam, that he was their bitch too, that his invasion of Kuwait was oh-so-long ago and that he is not nearly so bad with his torturin' and his persecutin' as he used to be. The little whore that says the Dresden bombings were wrong for targeting civilians, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary, that maybe Churchill was a butcher too.
The little mole that says that all US military interventions were wrong, that East Timor need not be free so fast, so soon - that the US military is unnecessary, that it is the highest carbon-dioxide producer in the world, that war is manufactured to feed the US military-industrial complex. The little skank that says we are right, the powerful are wrong, and that Israel must be immoral because it is so friendly with the United States of war. That those Palestinians are the victims, that a Hamas-led government is fine, that the Israelis should just ignore suicide bombers because it is their fault anyway. That Israel has no right to defend itself, that the Old Testament or the Talmud or the book of Zion or whatever doesn't give it ownership of the land, that Spielberg is a Jew among Jews, like Wagner, that the Palestinians only have children throwing sticks and rocks and that if Israel just up and left and went to - wherever - then there would be no more war.
The moral hypocrite that says we should all go back to Britain, or wherever it is we came from, because we don't belong here, living on a land we stole from a culture that has been here 40,000 years (or more). Land we stole from the God Altjira, who created the Dreamtime and now will not intervene to take it back - from the phallus God Njirana, father of Julana, who pops up from underneath women to rape them. Of the Rainbow serpent that made the rivers and the canyons, of the great flood, of the Dreamtime which is time-outside-time. The little polemicist that says sorry, oh so sorry, violence is wrong. The little consumer that buys their Dalai Lama book of sayings, that says Buddhism has no flaws, that the Chinese are totalitarian after all, Mao was a butcher, look what the Communist party did to the Tibetans, and oh, darling, what do you think of my Mao-Tse Tung paraphernalia?
The little devil that says non-violent resistance, a la Ghandi, is the right way to go. The one that says Nelson Mandela is a martyr, a hero, a saint, a man the US called a terrorist, a man we should all aspire to be. The little ho that says Apartheid was wrong, that imperialism is wrong, that says the flag is a symbol of conquest, that says that the Indians would be better off without the conquistadors, the Timorese without the Dutch, the Pacific without the oh-so-many empires, even the hated French, that there is something terribly vulgar about being white.
The little, self-absorbed, middle-class, left-wing voice, from the sidelines, who does not understand war, guns, bombs, knives, supports Howard on gun control, scoffs at the United States for its "Right to bear arms", against phantom enemies who could be anyone with darker skin. The little skerrick that does not believe a word of the mass-media and yet goes ahead and consumes it anyway, who thinks that the US engineered 9/11, that it was all to get at oil - after all didn't Bob Dylan say something about all that foreign oil controlling American soil and Sheiks walking around with nose-rings. The little guilt-laden, misogynistic, feminazi, bisexual trollope that says Muslims are being persecuted by Murdoch and his goons, and that they are peaceful and nevermind Sura so-and-so, I didn't hear anything about decapitating infidels, did you?
The whore that says love your enemies. The little bitch that says when your enemies strike you, turn the other cheek. The little faggot that says, forgive them that persecute you. The leftist dyke that condones anti-semitism because it hates the powerful.
And always looming above everything there is Hitler, the man Nancy Mitford said "brightened up" European politics. Oh how wrong she was. Hitler is boring. Hitler is death. I am indeed sick of Hitler. Even the thought of Nazi Germany, of opening a book to read about it, of (again) visiting the Holocaust museum in Sydney, or the Jewish Art History Museum in Paris with its exhibition on Polish Jews before Nazi invasion, even the thought of learning about this evil, wretched period that dominates our discourse, that is used by all manner of people to silence others in shame, by saying you are one too, you fascist. This disgusting, wretched, evil period of our history makes me want to vomit.
And all the people that use it to their advantage to score debating points.
Peace - the egocentric feminist that reads Plath and thinks yes, every woman adores a fascist and I may be a bit of a Jew. When they know nothing of what it was like to be a Jew. How could anyone ever know? A Holocaust survivor once said to a group, of which I was a member, that we simply cannot know what a horror it was. Maybe some know - maybe the Indians, the Indigenous Australians, or even the Palestinians, maybe they know. Maybe the Iraqis and the Afghanis, those who suffered under those regimes, maybe they knew. Maybe those at Abu Ghraib knew. Maybe Mamdouh Habib knows or maybe he's a liar. But not us in our little Westernised enclaves can never know.
No, of course I do not know what I am talking about. There is Hitler, whom we rightly call evil, whom political correctness dictates we kill. Rudd with his Bonhoffer thinks so too and he loves Jesus as much as me or you. It is against all ethical, moral and spiritual values that we don't kill Hitler, that we don't love him as the Bible tells us too, that we kill though our holy book tells us we cannot, that we act to save the lives of the oppressed because it is the right thing to do. That is the zeitgeist that denies us the right to follow our scripture, through sophistry and its oh-so-reasonable arguments. And I don't say a word against that. If it is hypocrisy it is just hypocrisy. Politically correct can also be morally correct. I dispute nothing.
Yet I am sick of war. I don't want people to fight anymore and I do not know why they do. I am also sick of peace, yes, I am sick to death of all the self-righteous rhetoric and sentiment. Yet I still weep when John Lennon sings that there could be a world where there is nothing to kill or die for, or that the war is over if you want it. I weep because people don't want it, because there are some people I don't think can be reached by non-violent means, that, though he was right to see the possibility, the reality will never come to pass. I am sick of all the rhetoric, the banter, the debate, the partisanship and the insults that we hurl at one another.
I am sick to death of death being exploited by the media as if it were pornography, that we have become voyeurs of war, that all our fiction is full of good, evil and violence on both sides. I take comfort in Lorca's words it is alright if a man does not look for his delight in tomorrow morning's jungle of blood, knowing full well that tomorrow morning will indeed be a jungle of blood, that preaching peace doesn't work, that though I may be a student of Christ that Jesus was impractical, that non-violent resistance is likely to be as effective as those Buddhist monks that sat there and let themselves burn.
I do not know what I am talking about. I do not understand war, nor peace, though I read every word of that God-forsaken book. It is all vulgar to me right now - the peace movement and the war movement, who both seem to have the same goal, of feathering their own nest and keeping the wars going and going and going.
Genocide? Ethnic cleansing? Holocaust? Yes these things are evil and yet my religion tells me not to value the things of this world, even life. What exactly do you mean the right to live? Who gives you that right? By whose authority? Certainly not Darwin, who grants you the right to a fighting chance and for the survival of the fittest - like Hitler, I suppose, but we sure beat the hell out of him (far too late). I acknowledge no such right - we are here but by the grace of God.
It is not religion that makes us kill: it is the idea that our lives are our own and that we have a right to defend them. Or to defend those we love. This right exists in our minds sometimes even despite our religion.
Ahh, Sol...
I will fight no more forever
Geoff, I am not sure being right is sufficient consolation for admitting you are a military history buff. As someone who once went to the Garnier Opera to see a ballet, I am not sure I consider military history to be à la mode. I once had a friend in High School, whose highest ambition was to become a prison warden, who was a military history enthusiast and ever since then I have become terrified of anyone that knows the difference between a B-52 bomber and a 7-11 convenience store.
I was making gentle musings at a late hour and clearly, in the day-time, they appear to me to have no validity whatsoever.
I actually prefer Anzac day to Invasion day and think that its bitter-sweet, solemn manner could be used, universally, for commemorative days around the world. Perhaps this is how it is everywhere, I wouldn't know. That Turkey accepts and understands that we mark out this as a special day, even though it commemorates the invasion of their country, shows how deep and thoughtful a model it is. I learn that the "Lest we forget" poem was actually inspired by Kipling, whom Patrick White once called an "Imperialist bully". It was written to God.
I am on no-one's side in any war, not even the Indians, and prefer the sentiment of the surrender speech (possibly mythical) of Indian Chief Joseph.
Proud Sol On The Peace Train.
"Geoff, I am not sure being right is sufficient consolation for admitting you are a military history buff."
I have made no admissions Solomon Wakeling. What consolation is there for you in being wrong? A perverse, self-declared pride in ignorance and a cup of camomille tea at this late hour?
How very romantic. A kind of Mills and Boon version of genocide and ethnic cleansing. (Oops. Solomon prefers "military history buffs" and gratuitous references to prison guards. Then again, we have already established that Solomon doesn't really have the foggiest notion of what he is talking about when it comes to nations and peoples fighting for the right to live. And he is proud of it.)
Well, Surely Not Actually
Solomon Wakeling: "Australia is surely the only country in the world to commemorate a military loss."
Well I guess that's fair comment. Provided that you Forget The Alamo of course. Also I suppose you can overlook The Battle of the Little Bighorn 1876 on a technicality. After all most Americans are retrospectively on the side of the Indians these days despite the massacre and there is no question that Yellow Hair's heroic status has copped a tarnishing in recent years.
Mind you, Dunkirk is inconvenient. A massive evacuation of the continent under force of arms leaving France to the mercy of the Nazis. A bit difficult to see it as anything other than a military defeat really. And yet it is commemorated as a "miracle' that galvanised Britain. The boys were safe and ready to fight. Not unlike Galipolli, I suppose.
Then there is Culloden. You can argue about whether Scotland is a "country" or not, especially after Culloden. You can. I certainly won't be. But you cannot argue it was not a military defeat as ugly as they get and that it is commemorated to this day. I certainly would be seeking advice on the colours to wear around mid-April anywhere near that place.
One of my favourites is Masada. The fortress fall to the Romans in the year 73 of the Common Era bringing to an end the State of Israel. Almost none of the defenders survived, many choosing death to capture. When those boys and girls today swear that Masada will not fall again, they mean exactly what they say.
But I've saved perhaps the most interesting until last, in view of the quirky twist this thread has taken regarding a certain poet of disputed talent. The Charge of the Light Brigade. Not the finest achievement of British arms by any measure. But can you think of a more disastrous military venture of less strategic or tactical merit that has been better commemorated?
The 1916 Easter Rising
I have not included many other examples of military losses commemorated by countries other than Australia. Probably there are hundreds. But there is one I overlook at my peril. Well, I overlook at the risk of a sharp word from an old friend, at least.
The 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Just a few months after Galipolli.
The rose of circumcision
The best poem ever written is Federico Garcia Lorca's Ode to Walt Whitman. Subjectivity be damned - it is. That the fascists killed him in the Spanish civil war is one of the only things I have ever learned in my life that made me want to go to war.
Oh Jenny, you're so lovely. If we had but world enough, and time..
Sacrifice
Well I don't think you are referring to you lovers, Jenny, else the Australian countryside must resemble the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Similarly they can't be your children else you would have had more than Ramses - and he didn't have to give birth to them. As you live on a farm I expect there are all sorts of perils - chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, though as you are a particularly affectionate person I suspect you have named all your animals, rather than having them numbered, even for the ones you intend to slaughter. "Come on Lucky, time for your special day!".
So it could perhaps be some kind of farm machinery, though, unless country people refer to their milking-machines and tractors as "She", as a sign of respect, as they do ships at sea, I don't see how a machine can be female. A quick google search reveals a "number 609" as a "Cummins Atlantic", which is a type of engine or generator, in something called the "Southern Farm show". I suspect that this might somewhat resemble the Modern Art installations in the Pompidou without the added virtue of uselessness. Truly frightening. Congratulations, Jenny, now you have scared me.
I think Nazism owed its philisophical base more to the Anti-Christ, Friedrich Nietszche, though I certainly don't blame him either. He managed to influence Andre Gide and Thomas Mann - you can't be held to blame for all the people you influence, surely. The Nazis clearly did not practice any form of Christianity that I can recognise, though I understand Hitler to have claimed belief for political purposes, just as he called himself a "National Socialist" though he was a virulent anti-communist.
It is hard to understand how an edict like "Love your enemies" can be corrupted and yet it is. War is justified by Christians, on occasion, as sacrifice, mirroring the life of Christ. It is what we seem to do on Anzac day. War becomes virtuous not because we kill (though that is a necessary element) but because we go there and die to protect what we love. In fact the Anzac memorial in Sydney is eerily Christ-like, with a sprawling soldier spread out like a crucifix. Australia is surely the only country in the world to commemorate a military loss. It is remarkable how wll Turkey tolerates this, I remember reading about it on Turkish newspapers last Anzac day.
Un - Holy cows and the depth of faith.
Solomon: Good try but no. They were very un-holy bovines, all of them. And yes they did ultimately get numbers. The herd recorder wanted it that way, easier on the bureaucrats' computers I suppose. But we had names in our heads for most of them. I named one Killer so you can draw your own conclusions about her. But they've all gone now - Daisy, Porridge, Twisty Neck, Virginia, Queeny, Spotty, Roany, Whisky - just memories now of the lifetime of hard work they created for us live on.
I used to crawl out of bed at 3.30 every morning to go bring the cows in, all 200 hundred of them, and the first thing I would say to myself was: Who'd be a dairy farmer? Then I would answer myself: No one with any brains. And then head on out. So think of all those poor sods next time you buy a bottle of milk.
Actually, it had its moments. You got to see the dawns, the winter frost and icicles on the spider webs sparkling in the early morning sun, the mists rising, the red gold sunsets and silver lining to the storm clouds, and best of all the evening star against the darkening sky each night as you walked back to the homestead - when one felt close to God. I recall one evening the star was set against a deep pink and dusky sky and I raced in to call my mother to see it. She was always reciting poetry and murmured the lines of an old hymn from Tennyson:
Sunset and evening star
and one clear call for me
And may there be no moaning at the bar
when I put out to sea.
For such a tide as, moving, seems asleep
Too full for sound and foam
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home
Twilight and evening bell
and after that the dark
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark
For, though from out of bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
That is one of my last memories of her. The other was when a little bird was calling in the dark and she went out into the garden. It was a most unusual thing to hear at that hour. She stood there awhile and I just watched her. She said: My little bird has been sent to call me home. She always spoke of a little bird she had when she was young. When it died she put it in a box under her old family home with instructions that it be buried with her.
She died a month later. That little scene was one of the most poignant moments and memories of my life. I thank my mother for giving me the gift of her belief in our God for the spiritual richness that has brought to my life. Dawkins can never take that from me, he could never destroy my belief. He simply does not understand how deep one's faith can be or the beauty it brings to one's life.
Fiona: Jenny, all the best this week – despite your quote from that old fraud Alfie.