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GOD ISN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR SOME PEOPLE by UMBERTO ECO
MEANT TO BE READ AT CHRISTMAS…IMAGINE SNOW.
We are now approaching the critical time of the year for shops and supermarkets: the month before Christmas is the four weeks when stores of all kinds sell their products fastest. Father Christmas means one thing to children: presents. He has no connection with the original St Nicholas, who performed a miracle in providing dowries for three poor sisters, thereby enabling them to marry and escape a life of prostitution.
Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion. You can see this in the positivist scientists of the 19th century.
They insisted that they were describing the universe in rigorously materialistic terms – yet at night they attended seances and tried to summon up the spirits of the dead. Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious – to such an extent that it sometimes seems to me that to be a rigorous unbeliever today, you have to be a philosopher. Or perhaps a priest.
And we need to justify our lives to ourselves and to other people. Money is an instrument. It is not a value – but we need values as well as instruments, ends as well as means. The great problem faced by human beings is finding a way to accept the fact that each of us will die.
Money can do a lot of things – but it cannot help reconcile you to your own death. It can sometimes help you postpone your own death: a man who can spend a million pounds on personal physicians will usually live longer than someone who cannot. But he can’t make himself live much longer than the average life-span of affluent people in the developed world.
And if you believe in money alone, then sooner or later, you discover money’s great limitation: it is unable to justify the fact that you are a mortal animal. Indeed, the more you try escape that fact, the more you are forced to realise that your possessions can’t make sense of your death.
It is the role of religion to provide that justification. Religions are systems of belief that enable human beings to justify their existence and which reconcile us to death. We in Europe have faced a fading of organised religion in recent years. Faith in the Christian churches has been declining.
The ideologies such as communism that promised to supplant religion have failed in spectacular and very public fashion. So we’re all still looking for something that will reconcile each of us to the inevitability of our own death.
G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: “When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn’t believe in nothing. He believes in anything.” Whoever said it – he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.
The “death of God”, or at least the dying of the Christian God, has been accompanied by the birth of a plethora of new idols. They have multiplied like bacteria on the corpse of the Christian Church — from strange pagan cults and sects to the silly, sub-Christian superstitions of The Da Vinci Code.
It is amazing how many people take that book literally, and think it is true. Admittedly, Dan Brown, its author, has created a legion of zealous followers who believe that Jesus wasn’t crucified: he married Mary Magdalene, became the King of France, and started his own version of the order of Freemasons. Many of the people who now go to the Louvre are there only to look at the Mona Lisa, solely and simply because it is at the centre of Dan Brown’s book.
The pianist Arthur Rubinstein was once asked if he believed in God. He said: “No. I don’t believe in God. I believe in something greater.” Our culture suffers from the same inflationary tendency. The existing religions just aren’t big enough: we demand something more from God than the existing depictions in the Christian faith can provide. So we revert to the occult. The so-called occult sciences do not ever reveal any genuine secret: they only promise that there is something secret that explains and justifies everything. The great advantage of this is that it allows each person to fill up the empty secret “container” with his or her own fears and hopes.
As a child of the Enlightenment, and a believer in the Enlightenment values of truth, open inquiry, and freedom, I am depressed by that tendency. This is not just because of the association between the occult and fascism and Nazism – although that association was very strong. Himmler and many of Hitler’s henchmen were devotees of the most infantile occult fantasies.
The same was true of some of the fascist gurus in Italy – Julius Evola is one example – who continue to fascinate the neo-fascists in my country. And today, if you browse the shelves of any bookshop specialising in the occult, you will find not only the usual tomes on the Templars, Rosicrucians, pseudo-Kabbalists, and of course The Da Vinci Code, but also anti-semitic tracts such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I was raised as a Catholic, and although I have abandoned the Church, this December, as usual, I will be putting together a Christmas crib for my grandson. We’ll construct it together – as my father did with me when I was a boy. I have profound respect for the Christian traditions – which, as rituals for coping with death, still make more sense than their purely commercial alternatives.
I think I agree with Joyce’s lapsed Catholic hero in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: “What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?” The religious celebration of Christmas is at least a clear and coherent absurdity. The commercial celebration is not even that.
Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com
In case you hadn’t noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?
Declarative sentences – so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It’s like what I’ve heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?
What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like . . .
whatever!
And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we’ve become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!
I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.
Here is a clip from the Oprah Winfrey show as they debate ONE WAY. Please be sure to watch and comment.
What? Read this article and post your comments…(how would you respond?)
The Blasphemy Challenge
Host of Internet Challenge Says God ‘Most Likely Doesn’t Exist’
By JOHN BERMAN, ETHAN NELSON and KARSON YIU
Jan. 30, 2007 —
Brian “Sapient” is an average-looking 30-year-old guy who works out of his basement in Philadelphia. His job? Well, Brian is taking on God.
“Wow, that’s a dramatic way of putting it,” says Brian, who asked that “Nightline” not use his real last name for safety reasons. But however he defines his challenge, Brian is on the cutting edge of a new and emboldened wave of atheism.
“There isn’t any good reason to believe in God,” asserts Brian. “It’s that simple.”
What’s wrong with God?
“What’s wrong with the tooth fairy?” asks Brian. “There’s nothing wrong with something that most likely doesn’t exist.”
There are an estimated 20 to 30 million atheists in the United States these days, and some of them say they feel like a persecuted minority.
“Atheists are completely vilified. And it’s OK,” says Kelly, an atheist who works alongside Brian and also asked that her last name not be used.
“It’s actually OK to hate atheists,” Kelly said. “We are like the last group that people overwhelmingly agree that it’s OK to hate us, because there’s an absurd caricature of atheism out there.”
The Rational Response Squad
Brian and Kelly are co-founders of the Rational Response Squad. From Brian’s basement they broadcast a weekly Internet radio show about God…or the lack thereof.
And recently they came up with a new way to publicize their cause. It is called the Blasphemy Challenge.
“Initially we wanted to find a way to allow atheists to come out of the closet, speak up and show other people that there are people that think like this,” Brian says.
What they did was challenge people to make videos of themselves, denying, denouncing or blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and then post them on YouTube.
‘We Are Not Scared of This Unforgiveable Sin’
“We wanted to do it in such a way where we stripped the power from religious institutions that instill fear in people,” says Brian. “And we did that by blaspheming the Holy Spirit, by showing that we are not scared of this unforgiveable sin.”
A passage in Mark 3:29 reads, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”
While the passage is open to interpretation, the Rational Response Squad is taking it literally and challenging people to gamble with their eternal souls. So far more than 800 people have taken up the challenge.
One of the posts is by a young-looking man named Chandler. He says: “I’ve come to the conclusion that alongside the fact that there is no Santa Clause and there is no Easter bunny, there is also no God. So, without further ado, my name is Chandler and I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit.”
Another: “My name is Joel. I deny the Holy Spirit, as well as God, Jesus, Buddha, Zeus, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, Sponge Bob, the pope, Santa Clause, Mother Mary, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Optimus Prime, all the saints and Spiderman.”
Dozens upon dozens have posted, including comedian Penn Jillette, who simply says, “I deny the Holy Spirit.”
‘Eternal Trouble’?
“I think how sad it is that someone would be rejecting hope essentially,” says the Reverend Kathleen Liles, an Episcopalian minister, just one of many from the religious community who say this Internet challenge is misguided or worse.
“I think if people are courting blasphemy, going out of their way to cross that line, that is just dangerous,” says Paul de Vries, the president of the nondenominational New York Divinity School, which provides ministry training. “They might get themselves in eternal trouble.”
Brian thinks otherwise. “We are showing people that we are not afraid of what they are afraid of. He is saying that he is afraid in that situation. He is saying how he would feel if he were doing it himself. He would be afraid. I am not.”
Targeting Teens
Taking risks with your own soul is one thing, but the Rational Response Squad advertises for the Blasphemy Challenge on Web sites for teens, like Tiger Beat. Why?
“They have already been targeted,” Brian says. “So hopefully they are at a point where they are not so indoctrinated and set in their ways that they can overcome this religious superstition that has been put into their brain unfairly.”
Isn’t that simply another attempt at indoctrination?
Brian says it isn’t.
“We are not indoctrinating people,” he says. “There is no fear of hell in what we do, in our activities. We don’t tell people that if they do believe in God they are going to hell. We are against fear-based systems.”
Brian wasn’t always an atheist. He was raised Catholic, and became a born-again Christian when he was 13.
“That’s what I was taught. And I really believed,” Brian says. “I loved Jesus and he was my best friend and I talked to him and God all the time. I have to admit that they never talked back to me, and I think some people would say that God does talk to them and I think they’re not being honest with themselves.”
‘The Faith to Believe’
Liles says Brian is simply missing the point. Faith is not something that can or should be proven, she says.
“Faith is a gift, it is a mystery, as so many other gifts from God are,” she says. “And when we open our hearts to God, then God will give us the faith to believe.”
However Liles feels about atheism, it isn’t going away and might even be getting stronger. Two of the best-selling books on Publishers Weekly’s religion list are by atheists about atheism. There is a hard-hitting documentary questioning the very existence of Jesus. There is even an atheists’ lobby in Washington.
Brian’s decidedly black-and-white rhetoric has won him many enemies. He has received hundreds of death threats from Christians using decidedly un-Christian language — more four-letter words strung together in a row than you can imagine.
Like his last name, he keeps his address a secret for safety reasons.
Despite the threats, the Rational Response Squad intends to keep Blasphemy Challenge going for some time. “Until the end of Christianity,” Brian says.
Do Brian or Kelly worry their rhetoric and antics might land them in hell?
“No, because hell doesn’t exist,” Kelly says.
Even if there was a one in a million shot that Hell existed, would they still be so unconcerned?
Brian’s response? “That would stink, huh?”
The jokes about hell and the whole Blasphemy Challenge open the squad up to critics’ attacks who say that whatever its views, its methods are simply disrespectful.
“If I knew that their belief system was wrong and I didn’t say something, that would be much more disrespectful,” Brian responds.
And to the billions of Christians who have believed for the last 2,000 years, Brian says he is open to a dialogue.
“If they want to come to the table and present their evidence, I will present my evidence. And we will see how much of theirs is based on faith, and how much of mine is based on fact.”
A quick blurb on him: Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author, most recently, of God Is Not Great. His edited anthology of ungodly classics, The Portable Atheist, will be published in November.
So, we may never have the opportunity to personally speak or debate with Christopher, but… here’s your chance to at least opine on what he writes…
Christopher Hitchens
Belief in Belief
A question that interests me very much (and always has) is this: I know that I do not believe in either any god or any religion, and I can give my reasons in a manner that the other side can at least understand, but can the same be said for those who claim that they do believe? A shorter way of putting this is to ask whether our antagonists in this ancient argument truly mean what they appear to say.
The recent disclosure that Mother Teresa had for almost half a century been unable to feel the presence of Christ in the Eucharist or the ear of God listening to her prayers, is of great importance here. (See the recent book of her despairing letters, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.) Not even her most fervent admirers regarded this woman in any sense as an intellectual, and she evidently struggled to combat her doubts in a highly traditional way—namely, by making ever-more extravagant and even masochistic professions of “faith.” This would be superb confirmation of Daniel Dennett’s hypothesis about “belief in belief”— the strange idea that, though faith itself may be ludicrous and incoherent, the mere assertion of it may possess some virtues of its own.
Even though I have sometimes described her as a fraud (for her collusion with rich oppressors of the poor like the Duvalier family in Haiti and for her other corrupt dealings), I would now hesitate to put Mother Teresa in the same category as a Falwell, a Haggard, a Sharpton, or a Robertson. These men have never done a day’s real work in their lives and are or were simple parasites who pinch themselves every morning at their good fortune at living the easy life of exploiting the gullible. For them, religion is nothing more than a trade, or a racket.
The same, I think, can be said of the numberless clerics convicted of child-rape (why on earth do we allow ourselves the silly euphemism of “abuse”?). Their foul crime is not one of hypocrisy. No priest who sincerely believed even for ten seconds in divine judgment could conceivably endanger his immortal soul in this way, and those in the hierarchy who helped protect such men from punishment in this world are equally and obviously guilty of a hardened and obscene cynicism.
But the racketeering and exploitative side of religion, as with its no-less-marked tendency to generate wars, atrocities, and repressions, isn’t the whole story. What of those who try their best to help others and lead a decent life, attributing this conduct to their belief in a Virgin, a Prophet, or to the story of Exodus, or any other such fabrication? I never cease to wonder, in dialogues with such people, whether they are really saying what they mean or meaning what they say.
To any humanist, for example, it’s perfectly obvious that the city of Calcutta would benefit from an influx of volunteer nurses, doctors, inoculators, sewage experts, and others, just as it would not benefit from the attentions of people who regard poverty and death as a secondhand share in the “mystery” of the Crucifixion. There are actually quite a good number of activists of the first type (I spent some time there once, watching the great Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado do his work for UNICEF documenting the massive campaign for vaccination against polio), but for some weird reason the only person anyone can name is a woman who spent her entire life campaigning against birth control—a stupid campaign that Bengal most definitely did not and does not need.
Is it not possible that the missionaries of “faith” regard the objects of their charity as mere raw material—human subjects for a tortured experiment in their own psyches? It seems that, the more Mother Teresa lost conviction in the teachings of her religion, the more energetically she silenced her doubts by ostentatious crusades against divorce, abortion, and contraception using “the poorest of the poor” as her backdrop and her excuse. And does this not degrade such work as she actually did? For her, the helpless beggar was just that—helpless, to be sure, yet for that reason easily available for her own exhausting propaganda. The case for assisting starving Bengalis is complete on its own terms, but most of the money raised for the “Missionaries of Charity” went—as Mother Teresa herself happily admitted—to the building of convents that were consecrated, in effect, to her own ambition and her own very extreme teaching of Catholic dogma. These preachings went dead against the only certain cure for poverty—the emancipation of women from the status and condition of breeding machines—that the human race has ever discovered.
In other words, “faith” is at its most toxic and dangerous point not when it is insincere and hypocritical and corrupt but when it is genuine. At that point, its energy of certainty and self-righteousness can be used, not only to reinforce the Church but also (as Mother Teresa’s continuing reputation demonstrates) to impress even the secular. The evidence now is that this is how she and her confessors squared the circle. Repress your misgivings, overcome your despair, redouble your efforts, and we will make you a saint and later claim that you cured the sick even after your death. It’s at this point that the cynical loops round to meet the naïve and say in effect that anything is permissible as long as it keeps the illusion alive. Again, one has to stand amazed before a clergy who can use, as a recruiting sergeant, a wretched old lady whose own faith, as they well knew, had worn to a husk.
What do you think? Post a comment.
Other articles of interest…
Why Bother with Discipleship? By Dallas Willard
The Joy of Boredom – By Carolyn Johnson
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