Waters, Waters everywhere ...

Myksyk

Just wondering what people thought of John Waters' homily, I mean column, in Monday's Irish Times which makes the argument that life without religion is devoid of meaning, freedom and hope? In it he praises Bertie for his recent questioning of "aggressive secularism" and makes the argument that people have an intrinsic need for what religion has to offer.

Dades

Bascially...

[John Waters'] life without religion is devoid of meaning, freedom and hope ... [John Waters] ha an intrinsic need for what religion has to offer.

It does anger me that he gets a pulpit to peddle his crazy from.

monkeyfudge

Yeah... John.. and you've given us lots of hope with that crappy Eurovision entry haven't you?

If that sh*te manages to win then there probably is a god.

5uspect

Yes, the suicide rate amongst atheists is shocking, not to mention the gangs of roaming atheists going around warning "The End in Nigh!".

Zombrex

Myksyk wrote:

Just wondering what people thought of John Waters' homily, I mean column, in Monday's Irish Times which makes the argument that life without religion is devoid of meaning, freedom and hope?

Well his life might be devoid of meaning and hope without religion ... but sure it is devoid of meaning and hope with religion too, so that is that

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who is John Waters btw?

monkeyfudge

Wicknight wrote:

who is John Waters btw?

He's a columnist in the Irish Times. I'm amazed he took time out from winging about fathers rights to write this, because that's pretty much all he does with the column any time I've tried reading it.

He also wrote Ireland's entry for the eurovision this year. It's rubbish.

Nature Boy

I actually feel embarased for the guy who wrote that. Especially when he implied that all atheists take drugs, commit sex crimes, etc.

Stupid article

Schuhart

The Atheist wrote:

It does anger me that he gets a pulpit to peddle his crazy from.

I don't mind giving these folk pulpits. The sheer nuttiness probably does more for secularism than any amount of careful argument.

There's really only one question that I'd like to ask him. Having a child with Sinead O'Connor; what was that all about, John?

Dave!

If that's the case, then John Waters' life is pretty pathetic.

Myksyk

The basic error of the argument is the demonstrable fact that atheists do not, regardless of what Mr. Waters may argue, experience lives devoid of meaning, hope or freedom. In addition, the fact that people may want what religion has to offer is not a comment on the truth of the ideas of religion but an acknowledgement of the undeniable emotional/psychological/social impact of the claims made on its behalf ... everlasting happiness, forgiveness, immortality, unconditional love etc etc.

Zillah

Wicknight wrote:

Well his life might be devoid of meaning and hope without religion ...

Thats why I always say we should go for their children. The average adult believer is so dependent upon their religious easy answers that they don't have the emotional strength to function without them.

So we get their children. This generation can't be saved, but the next one might

Feel free to quote me out of context on "Get their children"...

Beruthiel

My life is devoid of meaning and hope?
I did not know this and all the time me having a great time

Back to the bog with ya John, I blame the Brothers School.
See Mr. John Waters comes from the same town as my good self and would have gone to the Brothers school as a boy, that school was a scary place by all accounts and I'm not surprised he's a tad crazy as a result.

Zombrex

Schuhart wrote:

Having a child with Sinead O'Connor; what was that all about, John?

Isn't there a law against that .... ?

Dave!

There f*cking better be.

Mr McDowell, I need to talk to you....!!!

MoominPapa

Anyone catch waters covering for karen coleman on newstalk at the w/e? It was really painfull, he's very limited and newstalk give him far too much airtime as a rent a gob on the morning paper reviews. He sees himself as a towering intellectual whereas he is about as mediocre as Kevin Myers, just slightly less pompous. anyway anytime I hear someone say that life without religion is meaningless I think of Nietzsches comment:"Life without music would be a mistake", going on waters eurovision entry I would say that his life is without music therefore to correct the mistake of his existance he seeks meaning in "belief" and because his sad existance requires it he assumes everyone else does as well

How amusing.
Christians seem to spend their entire lives waiting for what happens after death, atheists appreciate this life as the one and only and presumably try to make the most of it. Yet it's an atheist's life which is meaningless? Hm...

Dave!

Anybody able to post the article for us? The Times' website want money

Sangre

Myksyk wrote:

Just wondering what people thought of John Waters' homily, I mean column, in Monday's Irish Times which makes the argument that life without religion is devoid of meaning, freedom and hope? In it he praises Bertie for his recent questioning of "aggressive secularism" and makes the argument that people have an intrinsic need for what religion has to offer.

How is it possible to aggressively promote secularism yet at the same time have a life devoid of meaning?

Zombrex

Sangre wrote:

How is it possible to aggressively promote secularism yet at the same time have a life devoid of meaning?

LOL .. yeah I was wondering that too. Surely aggressively promoting secularism would give your life a meaning and a purpose ...

Scofflaw

Sangre wrote:

How is it possible to aggressively promote secularism yet at the same time have a life devoid of meaning?

It's because we're tools of Satan.

Wicknight wrote:

LOL .. yeah I was wondering that too. Surely aggressively promoting secularism would give your life a meaning and a purpose ...

Mindless tools of Satan, meaninglessly obeying our dark master. Come on, Wicknight, you know this stuff...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sangre

Is our meaning then not to be tools of satan?

Scofflaw

Sangre wrote:

Is our meaning then not to be tools of satan?

Nah - I think that's intrinsically meaningless. Being a tool of God is meaningful, so being a tool of Satan would obviously be the reverse...besides, mindlessness = meaninglessness. You only think you're not mindlessly obeying Satan, because you're being deluded by Satan - or whatever, you know? It's all good. Or bad.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Stephen

Has this guy ever talked to an atheist or does he just pull this bull5hit out of his arse?

Myksyk

Said Article:


Probably the most interesting speech by a politician for years was delivered last week by the Taoiseach when he warned of the dangers of "aggressive secularism", writes John Waters
Speaking in Dublin Castle at the opening of a "structured dialogue with churches, faith communities and non-confessional bodies", Mr Ahern touched on the most dangerous trend in modern societies: the tendency of public discourse to sideline or disparage religion as something outmoded or dangerous. "So much of what is happening within our society and in the wider world is bound up with questions of religion, religious identity and religious belief," he said, "that governments which refuse or fail to engage with religious communities and religious identities risk failing in their fundamental duties to their citizens." This, considering the secularised nature of the discourse into which the Taoiseach was seeking to advance his analysis, was radical stuff. Usually when we hear talk in the public square about a "right" to religious belief, it is in the context of the need for public "tolerance" of faith and religious practice.
The implication is seldom far from the surface of such platitudes that, of course, whereas those who engage in such superstitions are to be "tolerated", they are also to be regarded as engaging in a near-obsolescent and unmodern activity. Our society seems merely to put up with people who believe in God because such "tolerance" is part of our liberal ideology
It is some time since I heard a public figure identify precisely why this is such a dangerous trend. We are suffering at present, the Taoiseach said, from "a form of aggressive secularism which would have the State and State institutions ignore the importance of the religious dimension. They argue that the State and public policy should become intolerant of religious belief and preference, and confine it, at best, to the purely private and personal, without rights or a role within the pubic domain. Such illiberal voices would diminish our democracy. They would deny a crucial dimension of the dignity of every person and their rights to live out their spiritual code within a framework of lawful practice which is respectful of the dignity and rights of all citizens. It would be a betrayal of the best traditions of Irish republicanism to create such an environment."
Mr Ahern here expressed something that no politician or public figure has articulated for a generation, and few clergymen have managed to say so well. Usually when the subject of religion is broached in public it is either by way of pious invocation or derisory dismissal.
Catholic bishops, for example, frequently speak about the importance of religious faith, but they tend, in doing so, to suggest that faith and religion should be embraced as a kind of duty, perhaps even a duty to them and their church, or, in the personal context, a guarantor of goodness. The Taoiseach was saying something altogether more interesting and profound: that human beings have a deep need for what religion offers, and that the right to practice is therefore a fundamental human entitlement. Although the current fashionability of atheism, agnosticism and secularism tends to convey that religion is merely a hangover from outmoded tradition, there is considerable evidence that it is, in fact, a natural and essential element of the human psyche.
The mood of the present tends to dismiss what our forebears took for granted: that we are born with a longing for what is "beyond", and that this longing is as real in us as the sexual instinct or the sense of smell.
Disparaged it may be, but tradition knew something about us that we seek to deny: there is a religious dimension inherent in the human being, faith comes from within, and without these we are less than human. This surely tells us that the importance of religion goes far beyond issues of morality and identity, extending also to hope, meaning and freedom.
The world on its own does not offer sufficient hope to carry the average human being through an average life. The baubles of the marketplace do not for long serve to quiet the longing in the human heart. And the promise of earthly freedom fails to address the issue of how we are to free ourselves from our instincts, our weaknesses, our egos and our selfishness.
As we observe our society plunging into the secular paradise promised by the liberal ideologues who triumphed over the custodians of tradition, we observe also the manifestation of the many baneful symptoms of this shift. Alcohol, drugs, rampant consumerism, sex crimes and countless related phenomena tell us that there is something in the human being that is voided by secular, material society.
Increasingly, our society manifests an erosion of hope, a misdefinition of freedom and a collapse of meaning, and all of these phenomena are directly related to the disappearance from our culture of what we know of as religion.
This is not simply because the Catholic Church has lost the authority to tell us what to do, but because, in the absence of a religious consciousness, there is, ultimately, no hope, no meaning and no freedom.

5uspect

Of course back in the glory days of the RCC in Ireland, "Alcohol, drugs, rampant consumerism, sex crimes and countless related phenomena" were non existent. I mean they couldn't possibly cover up such things like that could they?

I'd imagine that rampant consumerism would be difficult back then considering we didn't really have any jobs, or shops, or anything really. So why is economic success such a bad thing? Why is choice wrong?

This guy is living in la la land.

robindch

hmmm... I see a local contributor <ahem> got a note into today's Irish Times:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2007/0308/index.html

robindch

robindch wrote:

hmmm... I see a local contributor <ahem> got a note into today's Irish Times:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2007/0308/index.html

Who and which note...?
/is reading them

robindch

> Who and which note...?

Well, look at my login and look at the list of letter-writers

(BTW, that letter was incomplete. I pressed ctrl-enter by mistook in outlook. Thought that I popped the network socket quickly enough to stop the email, but it looks like I didn't. Oh, well. So much for "we'll contact you to verify your credentials!")

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

It's because we're tools of Satan.

I for one welcome our new malicious master.

Myksyk

Saw that ... Nice one Robin!

Myksyk

we are born with a longing for what is "beyond", and that this longing is as real in us as the sexual instinct or the sense of smell.

This is nonsense. We are born with nothing of the kind. We are schooled and fed over our early years with all manner of ideas about mythical beings in the sky and then long for what we're told they offer ... immortality, everlasting love and whatever you're having yourself. Waters' level of honest analysis here is paper thin.

MoominPapa

I'm struggling to think of example of agressive secularism in the country (except this board of course:p ). Complete straw man crap, worthy of bertie, who will bring up anything to deflect attention away from the economy\jobs\crime\everything which his govenrment is making a rocks of, but this halfwit then comments on it as if Bertie is sincere and brave
Anyway, I'm off to get pissed , buy loads of crap I don't need, "do" drugs and maybe get a bit of dogging in before I collapse in a pile of vomit and ennui

Zombrex

Waters wrote:

Alcohol, drugs, rampant consumerism, sex crimes and countless related phenomena tell us that there is something in the human being that is voided by secular, material society.

Sometimes you have to ask is everyone just mad apart from the atheists?

I am never not surprised when I hear this line of thinking, that societies ills can be traced back to abandonment of religion, either at a personal level (he didn't believe in God, that is why he raped those women) to a social level (HIV is God's punishment for homosexuality).

The simple fact is that in the last 300 years since Enlightenment, and a move away from the state and the church being co-dependent, the over all state of humanity, from health to morals and freedom, has increased dramatically.

There is no evidence I'm aware of that atheists display any more tendency towards violent or immoral behaviour than a religious person, and quite a bit of evidence that they don't.

One statistic I find very interesting and never tire of rolling out to theists is that in the US divorce rates for atheists and agnositics are lower than the national average, while rates of conservative Christians is higher.

Dr Pepper

robindch wrote:

hmmm... I see a local contributor <ahem> got a note into today's Irish Times:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2007/0308/index.html

Would you mind posting this note please. I'm not paying €2 for 24 hours access.. Don't want to be accused of 'rampant consumerism'!

Myksyk

Yes ... another good example of his frustratingly superficial analysis. But maybe the punters buy it. Saying 'the loss of religion is why your life is crap' is on a par with 'foreign nationals are the reason your life is crap'. Idiotic.

Dades

Dr Pepper wrote:

Would you mind posting this note please. I'm not paying €2 for 24 hours access.. Don't want to be accused of 'rampant consumerism'!

Seconded!

Myksyk

Here are today's letters:


Madam, – Bertie Ahern deserves warm applause for the recent speech in which he highlighted people’s religious dimension. It was praiseworthy both for what he said and because it was he who said it. Not only has a leading politician now declared in favour of the recognition and promotion of the transcendent. He has also gone on to imply that social development and, by extension, public policy would benefit from such recognition. It seems reasonable to presume that Mr Ahern, true to his Europe-wide reputation for pragmatism, has reached this conclusion by simply observing what is happening all around him: that the Gadarene gallop of recent years away from God has made the social development of Ireland difficult to the point of intractability. In other words, far from representing a retreat into the past, a vibrant belief in God is the best guarantor of the social development of our peoples.It will be interesting, indeed, to see how this debate is joined. – Yours, etc, FERGUS KILLORAN, Granville Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Madam, – John Waters warns that if we discard religion, we risk creating a world without hope, meaning or freedom. Why should any of these human qualities need to be supported by a set of archaic religious dogmas? – Yours, etc, ROBIN HILLIARD, Dublin 2.

Madam, – If I had religious faith I would ask God to give me the understated erudition of a John Waters. His column on Monday was a prime example of Pope’s line, “What ere was thought but ne’er so well expressed”. – Yours, etc, KEVIN HEALY, Hampstead Avenue, Glasnevin, Dublin 9.

Madam, – It was difficult to engage with John Waters’s woolly article of March 5th, in which he elaborated upon a recent speech by Bertie Ahern (himself a master of the fleecy flight of fancy). There was more innuendo than argument in the Waters thesis: “Our society seems merely to put up with people who believe in God because such ‘tolerance’ is part of our liberal ideology,” he shrewdly observes. I have to concede that he is right: we do tolerate religious people because we believe we should tolerate them! Shame on us! Another difficulty with the Waters exposition was that it was entirely given over to telling Irish society what it is short of, while failing entirely to explain what he wants it to be. Should we abandon the principle of the separation of Church and State? Should we all become Roman Catholics? Should we try to forget that millions of people all over the world believe in a wide variety of religions, all different in their tenets? Should we outlaw atheism and agnosticism? Perhaps Mr Waters could let us have the second half of his exposition some time soon. – Yours, etc, COLIN BRENNAN, Nutley Square, Dublin 4.

Madam, – John Waters writes with an undisguised sense of reverence for the Taoiseach with regard to his speech warning against “aggressive secularism”. Mr Waters goes on not just to defend religion, but in effect to make the audacious claim that tolerance towards religion is not enough, and that society should afford it more respect. He finishes on the depressing note that “in the absence of a religious consciousness, there is, ultimately, no hope, no meaning and no freedom”.In his disparagement of secularism he seems to be confused as to what it means. People’s personal beliefs and practices, from believer to atheist, should be afforded respect and tolerance, but religious groups should have no more nor less influence on society than any other communities, groups or individuals.This is the secularism that best serves a democratic state; it is not a refusal to accept and respect religion, but a refusal to allow matters of State and society to be unduly influenced by any one sectional interest group. – Yours, etc, DARREN HENRY, Iveragh Road, Whitehall, Dublin 9.

Dr Pepper

Waters wrote:

Alcohol, drugs, rampant consumerism, sex crimes and countless related phenomena tell us that there is something in the human being that is voided by secular, material society.

How can a journalist make accusations like this about athiests? What is it about us athiests that makes us fair game for sweeping, baseless accusations like this? If this article was about members of any other 'religious' group... or travellers... or Polish people, there would be bloody uproar (or there wouldn't because it wouldn't/couldn't be published in the first place!).

PS - I am actaully looking for answers (or theories) to these questions if anyone can tell me, thanks

Scofflaw

Allow me to posit a rather more sinister possibility than the standard "brains of a flea" explanation...

Have a read of this paper: Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society.

Now, consider that Ireland is becoming a multicultural society - or rather that Ireland is currently absorbing a lot of immigrants with different faiths and cultural backgrounds - with faith seen as the strongest marker.

One way of 'papering over' the differences between, say, Muslim and Christian, is to give them a common enemy. Well, why not atheists?

We're few in numbers, disorganised, invisibly yet disturbingly different. We have no agenda, but have become increasingly seen as the puppet-masters behind a shadowy yet omnipresent campaign of 'aggressive secularisation' - a campaign which is actually being carried out by the state.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new Jews - the atheists...

pass me my tinfoil, dammit,
Scofflaw

Dr Pepper

Scofflaw wrote:

Allow me to posit a rather more sinister possibility than the standard "brains of a flea" explanation...

Have a read of this paper: Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society.

Now, consider that Ireland is becoming a multicultural society - or rather that Ireland is currently absorbing a lot of immigrants with different faiths and cultural backgrounds - with faith seen as the strongest marker.

One way of 'papering over' the differences between, say, Muslim and Christian, is to give them a common enemy. Well, why not atheists?

We're few in numbers, disorganised, invisibly yet disturbingly different. We have no agenda, but have become increasingly seen as the puppet-masters behind a shadowy yet omnipresent campaign of 'aggressive secularisation' - a campaign which is actually being carried out by the state.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new Jews - the atheists...

pass me my tinfoil, dammit,
Scofflaw

Way to link to a 24-page paper Scofflaw :rolleyes: I'll be back in a week (v. slow reader=me)

Just kidding, thanks! I'll have a good read of it later.
I think your 'common-enemy' theory is a good one.. But what happens to Waters' suggestion that '"tolerance" is part of our liberal ideology' when it comes to athiests? How does he sneer at (what he believes to be) "today's secular society's limited/artificaial tolerance of religious belief" and treat athiests with absolutely no tolerance?.. Oh never mind - Suffice it to say "I don't like him!".

Scofflaw

Dr Pepper wrote:

Way to link to a 24-page paper Scofflaw :rolleyes: I'll be back in a week (v. slow reader=me)

Just kidding, thanks! I'll have a good read of it later.
I think your 'common-enemy' theory is a good one.. But what happens to Waters' suggestion that '"tolerance" is part of our liberal ideology' when it comes to athiests? How does he sneer at (what he believes to be) "today's secular society's limited/artificaial tolerance of religious belief" and treat athiests with absolutely no tolerance?.. Oh never mind - Suffice it to say "I don't like him!".

In essence, that's what the paper looks at:

"We demonstrate that increasing acceptance of religious diversity does not extend to the nonreligious, and present a theoretical framework for understanding the role of religious belief in providing a moral basis for cultural membership and solidarity in an otherwise highly diverse society."

That idea the theists (including this board's posters) put forward that atheists have no religious basis for morality, therefore no morals? That's why it's possible to exclude us from the consensus. For the same reason, all the immoral bits of modern society can be laid at our door, because we are the immoral bit of modern society.

It's as if our currency is backed by nothing in a world of God-backed currencies - while people may think the 'Islamic dinar' is only worth a 'Christian penny', the 'atheist pound' is worth nothing at all, because it isn't even a currency. We are 'flooding the market with worthless paper'.

Actually, I find this worryingly convincing.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Actually, I find this worryingly convincing.

Which bit, that atheists have no basis for morality, or the theory why theists think atheists have no basis for morality?

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Which bit, that atheists have no basis for morality, or the theory why theists think atheists have no basis for morality?

The more general theory that atheists are being used as the "other".

A further point is that the word "secular" is being redefined to mean "atheistic", rather than the rather more correct "tolerant". This actually allows you to pretend that being tolerant of all faiths is nothing new, and that what is new is the attempt to remove religion from public life.

Now, as far as I am aware, no-one is actually attempting to remove religion from public life, but it seems a reasonable thing to suggest atheists might want to do - and almost any request for tolerance of atheism can be made to look like it, as can most scuffles between believers.

For example, all of the "war on Christmas" stuff - where it isn't actually simply untrue - almost every case where, say, Christmas trees have been taken down, is actually the result of complaints by other believers - but it is always laid at the door of 'agressively secular atheists'. Subtext: it's not Muslims trying to spoil your Christmas, it's those darned atheists!

cordially,
Scofflaw

Myksyk

... the current fashionability of atheism, agnosticism and secularism

Yes ... fashionable ... as if nobody comes to dump belief in the supernatural through a process of learning, reflection and deep consideration ... no, we're just being fashionable.

faith comes from within

This is said as if it is 'intrinsic', not reliant on any inculcation. It is patently the result of inculcation.

and without these we are less than human.

Deeply held, ignorant, dangerous bigotry. No matter how oblique the reference, this can only be interpreted as meaning those without religion (including people here) are less than human. Let's see ... what other groups were deemed 'less than human' ... Jews? Blacks? Poles? Tutsis? Armenians? Kurds?

The world on its own does not offer sufficient hope to carry the average human being through an average life.

Not if they've been inculcated to believe otherwise. There are millions of people for whom the world without religion remains a glorious, wondrous, awe-inspiring place ... which carries us through well enough thank you very much.

The baubles of the marketplace do not for long serve to quiet the longing in the human heart.

John thinks that if you're a materialist then you must be materialistic. We all (more or less) need and seek the same John ... love, relationship, passions, knowledge, happiness ... how does non-belief in a supernatural being change these needs or how they are met. Does he honestly expect us to believe that if he found out tomorrow that there definitely wasn't a god, all his relationships, passions and various concerns would 'mean' nothing? What kind of substance is there to the minutiae of his life???

And the promise of earthly freedom fails to address the issue of how we are to free ourselves from our instincts, our weaknesses, our egos and our selfishness.

Surely we free ourselves from these things by simply growing up? GROW UP JOHN!

Myksyk

Letter from the AIH in the IT today:

Madam, – I heard the full speech by the Taoiseach at the launch of the new dialogue process. I was part of the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) delegation. Many commentators have focused on Mr Ahern’s criticism of “a form of aggressive secularism” which allegedly argues that the State should be intolerant of religious belief. This reference, unclear as to whom it referred, was a very small part of a wide- ranging speech.


The Taoiseach also said the Government had to respect and provide for the important and growing non-religious section of Irish society. The HAI has not sought and will not be seeking, a State which is intolerant of any belief but will, through the dialogue process, be seeking to ensure that the State treats religious and non-religious people in a fair, equal and neutral manner.


Currently the Constitution, a number of laws and several areas of State policy discriminate against those of no religion. We look forward to engaging with the Government regularly to address these deficiencies and to put the respect the Taoiseach referred to into practice. – Yours, etc, BRENDAN SHEERAN, Director, Humanist Association of Ireland, Glenageary, Co Dublin.

5uspect

Have you seen the "Thinking Anew" column underneath that letter? Its one of those poorly argued Faith is as good as science rants. Very depressing stuff.

Myksyk

5uspect wrote:

Have you seen the "Thinking Anew" column underneath that letter? Its one of those poorly argued Faith is as good as science rants. Very depressing stuff.

Here we go:

Science and faith should not be foes
In recent years we have seen a revival of the 19th-century debate between creationist and evolutionist thinkers. Some religious literalists link reports of rising sea levels to the biblical story of Noah. If sea-levels are rising, they say, is because God is displeased with the world and a repeat of the Flood is, as it were, in God’s pipeline. The rising levels are the retribution of God and not the result of human activity.


Such people ignore the point that God promised never to repeat the wholesale destruction of the Flood. Nor do any of these literalists note that Noah was greeted in the story with scepticism similar to that which scientists face today.


Of course the generation of an artificial dispute between faith and science is not helpful. Science, like faith, sometimes uses absolutes – the infinite timelessness of the universe, for example – and faith sometimes employs science, as both disciplines struggle to learn more about the world, its origins and its destiny. Mainstream Christianity accepts the theory of evolution, but for Christians the evolutionary “missing link” has to be the question of how a stimulus-responsive single-cell organism developed into a complex being capable of free thought.


How did a simple organism suddenly decide that it had to move elsewhere in order to get food? The answer of faith is that God planned it that way. The fact that higher forms of life were inevitable does not explain the “why”. This is an example of the futility of a polarisation of science and faith. Science is asking “What?” questions and religion and philosophy are asking “Why?” questions. Ideally both should complement a wider understanding of reality but this cannot happen if they are placed at loggerheads.


As our planet and our race face the rapid changes to our eco-structure it is not helpful that faith and science are not working together. The intelligent thought that Christians believe to have come to us from God needs to be channelled into finding ways to protect our environment. Faith teaches that we have intellect and will. It is these that make us into the image and likeness of God that was declared in Genesis. Using these abilities to save our planet is a moral imperative. As children we sacrificed sweets at this time of year; maybe as adults we should sacrifice car usage or stop leaving too many lights on.

2Scoops

A response from John Waters to the fall-out from his ill-informed article of last week. Those expecting an apology will be disappointed - but at least atheists are no longer "less than human.":) Now it's just that they are too ignorant to differentiate between genuine denial of God's existence and their own negative experiences with religion and the Church. See, we all believe in God really!

Oh yeah, and they have "nothing coherent to offer either society or posterity." :rolleyes: There's even a passing reference to the Scofflaw hypothesis! Something for everyone, to be sure.

[url] http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2007/0312/1173443049962.html[/url]

God is our identity and destiny

I've had an interesting week poring over letters and e-mails in response to last week's column in support of the Taoiseach's criticism of "aggressive secularism", writes John Waters .

In the main my inbox reflected the readers' letters published over several days last week. Some were supportive, others critical, some both, a few demanded apologies and one or two opened windows I hadn't noticed before.

A couple sought to set atheists up as a marginalised minority, demanding retractions of the "offence" taken from my article. Such logic has already circumscribed discussion of most other "lifestyle choices"; for it to hold sway here would recruit us as the accomplices of our own gravediggers.

I heard also from some pleasant and interesting atheists, several of whom assured me that they disagreed with me about God but objected to being lumped in with liberals. The journalistic shorthand one employs in describing social patterns can lead to incorrect conflations, and I may have so sinned in tarring atheists, secularists and liberals with one brush.

Although the Irish media now conducts an unrelenting mob-secularist attack on God and church, one of the defining characteristics of atheism is that it is a solitary business. On reflection, I would say that most of what we recognise as secularism in the public domain is so transparently lacking in philosophical rootedness as to expose itself as a neurotic response to a bad experience of Catholicism.

What distinguishes this from the stream of apparently genuine atheism in the private realm is that the first is driven fundamentally by a collective backlash towards the church, whereas the other has moved on from this obsession.

Some who wrote describing themselves as atheists made mention of a bad experience of Catholicism, but almost invariably as a kind of ancient memory. They had moved on to a new place in which they had found peace but which for me seems the beginning of death.

When I wrote that there is a religious dimension inherent in the human being, without which we are less than human, I was suggesting not that those calling themselves atheists are "less than human" but that it is not possible for a human being to successfully deny the religious dimension. Because God is our identity and our destiny, denying His existence makes approximately the same sense as a daffodil denying the sun.

Oddly, some atheists seem to be closer to understanding this than the passive majority sleepwalking through what they regard as a spiritual existence. Some atheists seem to have looked more closely at reality, and sometimes the intensity of their searching verges on the religious.

"You claim," wrote one such correspondent, "that without religion there is 'no hope, no meaning and freedom'. Naturally I cannot speak for the entire planet, but as an atheist I promise, I live with hope, I live with meaning and, most of all, I live with freedom. Freedom because I am no longer tortured with images of burning in Hell as I was as a child. It has been the most liberating experience of my life to finally understand that God and religion are nothing but superstitious hangovers from a more base time. I feel more connected to this universe now than I ever did as a believing Christian."

It is a long road for most atheists to reach the spiritual awareness of not believing in God. They tend to think about it a lot and reach their conclusions after much research and self-inquiry. How many of the billions of religious can we say that of today?

Like many in post-Catholic Ireland, this man has taken his negative reaction to Catholicism for a philosophical understanding of the totality of reality. In truth, his experience of Catholicism had nothing to do with faith, religion or God, but was, in common with many such experiences, an encounter with earthly power.

Writing back, I shared with him my favourite definition of religion, from the writings of Fr Luigi Giussani. Imagine, he demanded, that, at this very moment, you have just been born - but with all your faculties, emotions, intellect and other powers of apprehension intact. What, he asked, is your response to reality?

The answer: an intense and radical attraction to reality, combined with a profound sense that you have not yourself created one atom of it. That, he said, is religion.

The distance between this and the idea of religion we have inherited from a dysfunctional church is reflected in the widening gap between Irish society and belief. This erroneous rejection of an erroneous religiosity is deeply damaging to our children's chances of peace and happiness. Atheists may be likeable, interesting people, but they have nothing coherent to offer either society or posterity.

While it is possible for an individual to live a hopeful, meaningful and free life without God, there is no evidence that this can be achieved by a society. I will go further: the "hope" Irish atheists claim to possess derives not from their own philosophical resting place but from the residual background radiation of a once intense, if flawed, cultural faith.

Sangre

*groan*

Scofflaw

KevinMyers wrote:

The answer: an intense and radical attraction to reality, combined with a profound sense that you have not yourself created one atom of it. That, he said, is religion.

The answer: an intense and radical attraction to reality, combined with a profound sense that it created itself. That, he said, is atheism.

cordially,
Scofflaw

2Scoops

Scofflaw, be careful not to mix up your John Waters with your Kevin Myers - though I can understand the confusion:D