Tag: Religion

"That doesn't take courage."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last week Nellie and I were among hundreds who flocked (ha) to see Christopher Hitchens deliver a lecture about the ten commandments at the Royal Ontario Museum. Attending lectures at museums isn’t my usual Tuesday night activity, but when given the opportunity to see hear as eloquent a speaker as Hitchens on such an interesting topic, one makes exceptions. His lecture covered the expected ground, familiar to anyone who’s read his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything or heard his recent debates with religious leaders. After forty minutes he took questions from the audience, some insightful, some rambling, one angry.

During the less interesting of the questions I found myself drifting off, thinking about two CBC articles I’d read earlier in the day. The first concerned a young girl in Manitoba whose mother and stepfather sent her to school with Swastikas and other white-power symbols on her skin. Following the investigation which uncovered neo-nazi materials in the apartment as well as general evidence of neglectful parenting, the girl and her brother were seized. The stepfather filed a constitutional challenge on the basis that “his right to freedom of expression, religion and association were violated when the children were apprehended.” Predictably this story was met with horror, and condemnation of the parents for teaching hate to an eight-year-old.

The second article described a law, passed earlier that day in Alberta, allowing parents to pull their children out of classes dealing with sex, sexuality or religion. Teachers fear this leaves open the possibility for parents to file human rights complaints against them based on what they teach in their classrooms. I suppose it would be possible to read this as relatively innocuous, that there are a few parents who are extremely sensitive about what is taught to their children in schools rather than at home, and who would like complete control over that. But the set of targeted topics — sex, sexuality and religion — are all pet topics of social conservatives and make clear the intention of the bill. The language of the bill’s legislative supporters point — none too subtly I might add — in the same direction. Conservative MLA Rob Anderson said (emphasis mine), “There are thousands and thousands of parents, the silent majority, severely normal Albertans that are extremely happy with this legislation…” Reaction to this story, while strong, has been less universal than that garnered by the budding skinhead. Clearly there is enough support for this for the bill to have passed in the provincial legislature.

To me, both stories are about intolerance. In one case parents are explicitly teaching a child to be intolerant of other races. In the other a new Alberta law gives parents the right to keep their children from hearing presumably progressive discussion about sexuality and religion. Note: I say presumably for two reasons: 1) this is Alberta, traditionally a far more conservative province than the rest of Canada; 2) a provincial school system actively teaching regressive views on sexuality (e.g., homophobia) and religion (e.g., creationism) would immediately fall under national criticism, which Alberta’s has not, so one can only conclude the parents supporting this bill must be concerned about their children being exposed to topics such as gay rights or evolution.

So why isn’t the second story as widely and vociferously condemned as the first? Is it because the intolerance is passive rather than explicit? Is it because the Alberta bill is intolerance dressed up in doublespeak (the afore-mentioned MLA finished the above quote  thus: “…, that believe it’s right to affirm the right of parents as being the primary educators of their children on these subjects.” The stepfather in Winnipeg is no doubt counting heavily on a similar interpretation of this right now that his little girl’s Swastika tattoos have been discovered) and legalese? Or is it that claiming religious sanctuary still affords one a certain amount of license to be intolerant in the public eye?

I suspect it’s all of these. The first is perfectly understandable: racism is repugnant to most, and Nazi fascism is universally despised outside of a few pockets of extremism, so any right-thinking person will be horrified at the idea of an eight-year-old being taught this filth, even if the parental law in this case is a gray area. The second is unavoidable; politicians and special-interest groups will always find ways to obfuscate their true aims by wrapping bad intentions in good rhetoric: patriotism, family values and so on. The third explanation is most frustrating, but also gives me the most hope. I’ll explain:

Look back at the first sentence in my last paragraph: not many would argue with the statement “racism is repugnant to most” and yet, not long ago, this simply wasn’t true. Far from it. But just two generations removed from Jim Crow, the idea that lawmakers allowed (let along condoned) “separate but equal” treatment based on skin color is nearly unfathomable. Given that, I have no reason to think homophobia will follow any different a track than racism. Now, I have no delusion that intolerances like racism or sexism have been wiped from our lives, but in each case society has eventually progressed to the point where — for the most part — it no longer creates or allows law which systematically oppress people. Arthur Schopenhauer said, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” It takes generations to think away intolerance, but it does happen. For gay rights I think we’re somewhere between Schopenhauer’s second and third stages. For secularism I think #2 is just getting heated up.

Mr. Hitchens concluded his response to one of the final questions (which ran something along the lines of, “Plenty of religious people are good, and religion can be helpful. Would you oppose that?”) in this way: he had no issue with anyone who found comfort in religion, and that indeed it could be helpful, but two things must be kept in mind. First, the devout should not be able to impose their religion on those who do not want it — he used the example of attempts to force the teaching of creationism in various school boards in the US. Second, the devout should not suppose that religion somehow excuses immoral behaviour.

If you want to hear the podcast of the lecture, you can download it here.

Seriously, the human genome is 3×3, max

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I recently finished reading God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. I loved reading it, partly because he was (heh) preaching to the choir, but also because of how eloquently Hitchens writes. He runs through the usual litany of complaints about religion, with which I agree enthusiastically, but he raises one point that, if not the thesis of the book, is probably the most compelling: “If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.”

That got me thinking about the various categories of belief that I’ve seen in people, and what I think causes the differences. I haven’t spent a great deal of time thinking about it, mind you, but now that I have an MBA I feel compelled to put things into 2×2 matrices, and I think it works.

First, I suspect that if a child isn’t raised with any exposure to religion, they rarely go on to count themselves as believers. I think that’s a rare situation though; most people I’ve ever met had some exposure, if not to church, at least to biblical teachings.

For those who did receive religious instruction as children, I think this is where the matrix comes in. Some of these people will, over the course of their lives, question their religion for some reason. This puts them on the left side of the table. If they then perceive some kind of need for their religion — perhaps a loved one is ill and prayer provides some comfort, or perhaps their church is an important organizing principle and social aspect of their life — they may not feel compelled to cast off their religious beliefs, but retain them, or least parts of them, to keep from unbalancing their own life. I would place — and this is my opinion, not their suggestion — my parents in this category I’ve labeled Traditionalist…they’re too thoughtful and rational to have never questioned their faith, but both see great value in their involvement in their local church. My mother is certainly a believer — she is/was a church trustee, plays the organ every week, leads the choir and is involved in her regional presbytery — but I’ve always thought of her as more spiritual than religious.

I place myself, obviously, in the Non-believer quadrant. As a child I never thought of religious teachings as anything but fables, and many years ago the lack of evidence in a god prompted me to question and reject the hypothesis. I’ve never doubted that thought process.

Of those who have never seriously questioned their faith, I think they follow the same thought process. My theory is that the default position for those on the right side of the matrix would be the Lazy category. I could just as easily have labeled this quadrant ‘Scared’, since (as Hitchens points out) the stories used to ensure compliance among children are ones of eternal damnation, not to mention hairy palms, but ‘lazy’ — as in, intellectually lazy — will do for now. Many people go to church, or don’t but still say they believe in a god, because they were raised to do so and haven’t really thought about why they do it. This isn’t tradition, like those in the upper-left quadrant, but rather habit and fear. These are the people who, when asked why they say they believe in God, answer, “Might as well, just in case.”

Finally, the upper-right: the Fundamentalists, who have never questioned their faith, and have good reason never to do so. They gain some advantage, or perceived advantage, from their religion. Some wield it to get rich or gain political power, though you could argue these are actually corrupt Traditionalists. A rare and dangerous few fuel extremist, even murderous, tendencies with it. Mainly, I think that most in this category simply have a need to feel right. I suspect a defining line between Traditionalists and Fundamentalists could be the desire to impose their beliefs on others, by recruiting, campaigning, altering legislation, etc.

Of these, I find the Lazy category the most frustrating. These people seem to think they’re religious, and speak (and vote!) accordingly, but they don’t follow most tenets of their religion. It’s peer pressure, or latent childhood fear. It’s this tragically silent majority that could make the difference in the world Hitchens speaks of.