Don't Be Ridiculous

Nothing short of a quest for meaning...


Followers of this blog - and I realise that, at the moment, these are mythical beings - will see a theme emerging over a few of the previous posts. I have been trying to find some kind of concrete definition of what constitutes ridicule of the religious and their beliefs. It all started with the Questions of Faith blog and my interest has since then been fuelled by media reports in the aftermath of the GAC. Before the convention even started, the verdict was in: Atheists are all disrespectful of religious beliefs and cannot raise themselves above ridicule and militancy. This was hinted at in post #1 of Questions of Fath, repeated many times in this country's media during the visit of one Richard Dawkins, and is an accusation levelled at atheists time and again in general conversation, political forums, lively debates and congregational meetings.

I've been looking into it for some time now and I think I have discovered the definition of ridicule when it comes to religion.

Ridicule: Any statement or phrase that indicates a difference of opinion, an assertion of disbelief or an outright disagreement with any generally accepted religious concept.

Let me explain further.



Matters of Tone, Disrespect and Avoiding the Issue...

I tried to cut this excerpt from Q&A down. I could not. Please bear with me as I ask you to read this excerpt from the transcript.

RICHARD DAWKINS: The New Testament - you believe, if you believe in the New Testament, that God, the all powerful creator of the universe couldn't think of a better way to forgive humanity's sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity? What kind of a horrible, depraved notion is that?

JULIE BISHOP: You know, can I just say one thing?

TONY JONES: Yes.

JULIE BISHOP: You know what disturbs me about this debate and that is that people should respect other people's views. Now, the neo-creationists say that there's no scientific theory or fact and they deny it and the neo-Darwinists deny that there's faith or religion. Let's show some respect for different people's views and then I think the debate will be perhaps much more pleasant.

RICHARD DAWKINS: What is wrong - when you say - you're implying I didn't show respect.

JULIE BISHOP: No, I'm saying that what disturbs me about this debate and we see it often is that there are extremes. And whenever I see extremes I'm concerned.

RICHARD DAWKINS: But the extreme is in the New Testament. I simply told you what is New Testament doctrine. That is St Paul's view, which is accepted by Christianity. That's why Christ came to earth, in order to atone for humanity's sins. If it's extreme, it's not me that's being extreme, it's the new testament that's being extreme.

TONY JONES: No, well, I'm going to jump in here, because is that not a story of sacrifice and therefore has something admirable attached to it which is the opposite of what you suggested?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Do you think it's admirable? You think it's admirable that God actually had himself tortured for the sins of humanity?

TONY JONES: That is the Christian view obviously.

RICHARD DAWKINS: That is the Christian view. If you think that's admirable, you can keep it.

TONY JONES: Okay. Tony Burke, first of all, quickly?

TONY BURKE: I don't think your ridicule of people's faith is much better than what you're criticising. I really don't.

RICHARD DAWKINS: But I just stated it. I didn't ridicule it. I simply stated it.

TONY BURKE: No. No. No. No. Sorry, if you go back over the words you used, once you're stating it you did then ridicule it. You did. And if you want to look at the challenges and the conflicts and making a community around the world work together, then the level of respect that so many religions have not shown for each other absolutely needs to be lifted and your level of respect and tolerance could probably be a bit better too.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Let me answer that. Let me answer that. I did not more than state the Christian doctrine and Tony then said, "That is the Christian doctrine. Isn't it admirable." People said, "Yes, it's admirable." So how is it disrespectful if I simply state what it is and half the audience think it's admirable? What's disrespectful about stating it?

TONY BURKE: Press rewind, hear your own words. You have changed them.

TONY JONES: Okay.

RICHARD DAWKINS: I have not.

This situation is going to be familiar to a lot of atheists. The question, prior to this debate on Q&A kicking off, was put to Richard Dawkins about morality coming from the bible, about the bible containing a notion of absolute morality, and how humanity can divine these concepts in no other way. A bold assertion, certainly, that Dawkins tries to refute by demonstrating what he believes to be an extremely amoral part of the New Testament. Read it for yourself and decide if I'm misrepresenting the situation.

The reaction, as you can see, is bristly. Immediately, upon declaring the story of Jesus' crucifixion a 'horrible and depraved' notion, he is taken to task by Julie Biship in a round-about way and Tony Burke in a direct way for being incredibly disrespectful. I invite the deputy leader of the opposition and the minister to remember exactly what it is we are talking about here: the torture and murder of an innocent man, upon which the weight of all the sins of every man in the world was transferred so that human kind could go on living without the burden of responsibility for their transgressions. The story goes that he was beaten, made to carry his own cross to the top of a hill, whereupon he was hung by nails through his hands, furnished with a crown of thorns, and made to suffer horribly until the point that he died. Go back and re-read that last sentence and raise your hand at the point where you find the words 'horrible and depraved' do not apply. I don't imagine many people typing, one handed, into my comments box to tell me exactly where this occurred.

In the transcript above we have written in plan text exactly what occurred - the Professor detailed which parts of the bible he found less than admirable, asked the audience whether they believed the story to be admirable themselves, and invited them to 'keep it'. That is a disagreement. On any other topic imaginable, this would be called 'not seeing eye-to-eye'. People would amicably enough move on and concentrate on the real point - in this case, does morality come from the bible or not. In the religious debate, we do not find this to be the case. People are unwilling to move beyond their objections to the disagreement and, as a result, those doing the disagreeing are labelled disrespectful and accused of ridicule.

I put this to Margaret Coffey of Questions of Faith and her response may have seemed quite reasonable to her at the time. She claimed that what most Christians take issue with in these matters is the 'tone' in which they are addressed. While I have no problem admitting that you can find examples of strident and immature atheists in the world who want nothing more than an ecumenical game of fisticuffs with a staunch religionist, I'm going to take specific issue with this for the simple reason that 'tone' is not a consideration in any other debate, anywhere, ever. Further to that, matters of tone are not taken into consideration in the reverse - the religious are never seen to turn the accusation of disrespect back on themselves. A curious double standard emerges. An atheist that disagrees with a Christian is being strident, ridiculing beliefs and generally making a nuisance of themselves. A Christian who disagrees with an atheist is simply one of the majority and the assertion of their views a fact of everyday life in a country founded on Christian principles.

Consider this: some two streets away from my house is a Catholic school. This school has a notice board out the front of it that reads 'Catholic Education Week: Education of the whole person' (Italics are mine). If a Christian takes issue with Richard Dawkins' disagreement with their beliefs, am I not entitled to take offense at the idea that my public school education was deficient in that it only educated part of me, and not the whole? Am I allowed to take issue with the tone being employed here, and campaign to have them say 'Catholic Education Week: Of course other points of view are valid, we believe ours is quite good, and invite you to consider sending your children to us after a careful elimination of all the other options because of our specific set of values that work for us :-)"? (The smiley face is very important - this is a notice board, after all, and it is important we know that the writer was smiling at the time).

Of Course Not.

Nor do I want to.

Am I to take offense at the fact that, despite sunday morning services around the country going on peacefully and undisturbed every single week, the one weekend the atheists decided to have a conference a table of Christians set up outside to hand out pamphlets? Ask yourself: How respectful is that? You will certainly not find the reverse - no atheist has ever approached a full church on sunday morning and handed out 'There's probably no god, so stop worrying and enjoy life' stickers. But is this something worth getting riled up about?

Of course not.

Am I to take offense to the brave Christian woman who stood in the middle of the Athiest Convention and declared "I'm afraid I do believe in God, and I will be praying for all of us before bed tonight"? You would not find me approaching a church in Newcastle and shouting from the pulpit 'I think you've all got kind of the wrong idea, here'. Surely there is something to be said for the disrespect that unwanted prayer for the unfaithful incurs? Are we not to get riled up, take ourselves off in a huff, and refuse to engage in the argument over religion ever again because we don't feel we are being treated fairly?

Of course not.

OF COURSE NOT.




A Civil Tongue - For Civil Ears...


These are petty concerns. They are the attitude of the precious and the smothered and the protected, and they show a spectacular want to avoid the issue that is being talked about. Some days ago I sent a text message to Paul Bevan on 1233 ABC Newcastle which, as far as I know, was read out (I got waylaid with work and was unable to listen). It went like this:

Paul, regarding the atheist lack of respect: I wonder, should we beware the theists who cry 'disrespect' and 'insensitivity' during every single debate on the topic of religion? It seems to me a very easy way to avoid engaging with the actual issues. 'I don't like your tone, therefore this debate is over'. A genuine problem arises when 'disrespect' is confused with disagreement and all debate is halted. Respect for individuals is of course a given - but it is impossible for an argument to take place unless beliefs are questioned. Consider what parliament would be like if politicians demanded respect and sensitivity for their position on the political spectrum. More time would be spent apologizing than arguing. While a cordial level of respect should OF COURSE be maintained between two parties to a lively discussion no matter the topic, it is surely silly to expect that neither will say something that other finds unpalatable. I end with the words of Christopher Hitchens: 'As long as we are having a civilised conversation, why is there a need to keep insisting that is what we are doing'? (Mitch, Newcastle - does not know the meaning of brevity).

It more or less summarises what I am trying to say here. The nature of argument is that people are going to disagree. It is a fact of life that, at some point, someone is going to clash with your own point of view. It is important to know that when this does happen that the other is not automatically being disrespectful of your point of view by virtue of the fact that they do not share it. I actually believe that most people already know and understand this but, bizarrely, we make one exception: religion.

We could all make a legitimate claim, no matter what side of the debate we are on, to being treated with insensitivity by the other side. To allow ourselves to get bogged down in this rather than pick up and carry on with what actually matters - the content of the debate - is to do ourselves and the future of our society a great disservice.

Those that demand a civil tongue be kept would be well reminded that a civil ear is the other side of that equation. 'I do not like your tone' will become less and less of an excuse as this debate between secular and religious values continues, and the sooner that it is swept aside like the lame straw man that it is the sooner we will be able to make some actual progress and find a common ground. Until then, atheists will be forced to defend themselves from sweeping accusations of disrespect and insensitivity, theists will retreat further into their cotton wool fortresses, and the status quo will remain statically quoed.

When the status quo allows things like the trampling of womens rights, the oppression of entire cultures, the deaths of thousands in meaningless wars over devastated and war-torn deserts, the suppression of homosexual rights, the institutionalised rape and torture of children (a practice that I will not refer to by its sensitive alternative, 'abuse') by their annointed spiritual leaders and the indoctrination of millions of people on pain of death, it is something that we all ought to be showing a little more urgency to try and shift.

#AtheistCon - The Aftermath

So, a decent few days back from AtheistCon and the ripples we caused in the media are beginning to subside. It's been incredibly interesting to look at the fallout from a humble two-and-a-half days' discussion on what we don't believe in. I'd like to make a couple of (brief as possible) points.

•  Questions of Faith - I'm genuinely torn over the coverage of AtheistCon by the Radio National blog 'Questions of Faith'. My previous posts will reveal a short exchange I had with the owners of the blog about the role ridicule has to play with religion - it was mostly go-nowhere, but then again, most blog comments are. The best way to summarise my thoughts is to probably go from negative to positive, because it will leave a better taste in the mouth of any impartial reader.
  
  Negative - Much was made initially about the militant tone that atheists take with the religious and, while I acknowledge that this tone exists amoung some of them, I found the hypocrisy to be a bit annoying. In the first few posts before the convention even began, we had Margaret Coffey and Gary Bryson making clicking noises with their tongues. Two accusations of discourteousness within two posts, followed by a cynical accusation against Richard Dawkins that he was likely going to be spruiking his latest book (anyone in attendance will tell you that this was certainly not the case). I was ready to give the Questions of Faith team the benefit of the doubt, but they made their stance on the convention known early. Something along the lines of "It might surprise us, but we expect it to be a bunch of muck-slinging and back patting" (NOT a quote). It was not in the spirit of the mutual cooperation they sought. Briefly on the negative side also: It bears mentioning that by allowing the Questions of Faith team cover the convention, the ABC let the whole point of atheism skip over their heads. Would they let the Grandstand team cover the This Is Not Art festival?
  
  Positive - As the posts went on and, particularly, when guest bloggers were invited to make contributions, I found the general quality of the blog went up. Some of the information provided could best be described as 'selective' (for example, mention of the terrifically moving speech by Taslima Nasrin was limited to a single post, in which the terrifically banal rationale 'there is no more that needs to be said' was employed. There is plenty that needs to be said on the issues Taslima Nasrin is facing), but overall there were plenty of points of view on offer. Like the general media coverage I found it to concentrate disconcertingly on the negative at times, but this is part of fair and balanced reporting and I take no issue with it here.

•  General Media Coverage - There was a myriad of coverage about the conference that was, as I mentioned above, intially quite negative. In fact, for the first few days, it was left to convention speakers to defend the merit of the convention. If you have no time to follow the links, I'll summarise them for you: Dawkins gave a talk called 'The Pope is a Nazi and Steve Fielding is an Earthworm', then did the dead parrot sketch live on stage but replaced all the names with 'Mary McKillop. I was very disappointed to see this as the chosen line of reportage.
  
  Dawkins' talk contained extremely few references to god or religion. When directly asked by an audience member what he thought of canonisation, he indeed responded that it was pure Monty Python - but he did not refer to the current Pope as a Nazi. Rather, he was referring to Pope Pius XII, himself up for canonisation around the same time as Mary McKillop. Pius XII was the Pope during the second world war. Dawkins forgot his name and referred to him as Pope Nazi, due to his time as Pope during the regime of Hitler. It is worth noting also that Dawkins' supposed reference to Senator Fielding as having an IQ lower than an earthworm was entirely hearsay, attributed to him by a secondary source. Decide for yourself whether this, out of three days worth of lectures and discussion, was worth the headlines it got.
  
  Recently some more positive coverage has come out - interestingly, alot of them from British and online sources - that took a less sensationalist view of proceedings. I was happy to read these articles and to accept the messages embedded in them. The last thing we want is to be inaccessible to anyone but ourselves.

• 'Atheism - Another Religion' - You'll see it in the articles I've already linked to and generally in discussion about the place. Atheism, it seems, is taking on all the hallmarks of a religion. I mean, look at those atheists - they've had one conference at which they categorically denied the existence of the supernatural! That's incredibly reli...oh...well, I suppose it isn't.
  
  
  There is nothing religious about atheism. This might take longer than I have to explain, but the differences are important. It's too easy to say that religions require faith where atheism requires nothing like that. It is more deep than that. Atheism is about critical thinking, arriving at conclusions that are independent of institutional doctrine, and inquiring freely on any given topic be it a secular or religious one. This is why, for example, one can appreciate Christopher Hitchens' views on religion yet disagree with him on his support of the Bush Administration during the invasion of Iraq. There is no dogma in atheism because there is no scripture, no structure, and most of all, no enforcement. As it was put by NonStampCollector (I suggest you look at some of his videos), 'If atheism is a religion, then not stamp collecting is a hobby, bald is a hair colour, and off is a TV channel'.
  
  I guess I don't have the time to go into it in full detail. Anaolgies between atheism and religion are cheap to make - I suggest a bit of careful thought before diving in headfirst.

Aaaand that's it for tonight. More coming, everyone - for now...sleep. 

Update - The Young Australian Skeptics, as usual, have said this way better than I could have.

Questions of Faith revisited

Got my response - from Gary Bryson, no less. I think it's bordering on deliciously wonderful, but I want to check with you bloggers first. Here is the exchange. I do not expect to get any further replies. Did Gary win this one, or did I? I really can't tell.




Mitch wrote on March 10, 2010 at 8:08 pm “In particular, I’m hoping to find an atheism which can transcend militancy and ridicule in its dealings with those who choose to take a path of faith.”
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this lately, Margaret, and I have a serious question on the subject of ridicule that I hope you might be able to help me with. As one of these atheists that, I am sure, you would consider to be militant, I am at times baffled by the sensitivity of the faithful to ‘ridicule’ of their faith.
I have included the quotation marks because sometimes the definition of ‘ridicule’ in matters like atheism versus religion is stretched beyond all recognition. Take, for example, the panel on Q&A with Richard Dawkins on monday night. Prof. Dawkins highlighted the story of Jesus’ crucifiction and loudly declared ‘if you think that is moral, you can keep it’. That is all – he summarised the story and expressed his opinion that it was not one of moral substance. A very common point of view amoung atheists. He was then taken to task for ‘ridiculing’ the new testament.
Now, now. If we have come to define the term ‘ridicule’ as the mere suggestion that the bible is not a sound base for morality, then you will find precious little in the way of candidates for your program, I’m afraid. Respect should be observed on a person-to-person basis, of course – you will not find an atheist who disagrees with this. But I fear that it might be impossible to be an atheist without ridiculing the religious if the criteria for ridicule is ‘disagreement with scripture’.
I have more to say (obviously, I am an atheist on the internet, after all), but I’ll yield to what you said about keeping comments shortish. In the spirit of not wanting to appear militant or hostile in any way, I’ll add that I am not trying to rile anyone with this comment. I am genuinely interested to know what constitutes ridicule in the eyes of the faithful. I am sure a common ground can be found. We are all reasonable people.


Margaret Coffey wrote on March 11, 2010 at 10:24 am
David (I am sure Margaret meant 'Mitch'), I’m afraid that I didn’t see that Q&A. I’m familiar though with Richard Dawkins’ views on Jesus’ crucifixion. They are not unusual: Muslims, millions of them, ever since Mohammad, find the notion of the crucifixion and the role that event plays in Christianity incomprehensible and alienating. Most of them don’t express this view in those rather puerile terms that you quote. (I was going to write ‘juvenile’, but then I thought that would be to slur all juveniles). Instead, many fruitful interfaith exchanges are based on being able to discuss what Christians would reasonably find a challenging idea, but nevertheless should surely want to discuss. I think what people are often objecting to is a matter of tone.


Mitch wrote on March 14, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Margaret,
I’m afraid I’m going to have to take something of a hard line. My original question to you was one about the boundaries of ridicule. Your response was addressed to ‘David’, but I believe I’m right to assume it was meant for me.
You finished your post with this: “I think what people are often objecting to is a matter of tone.”
And the gist of yours and Gar’s comments tends to be that there is a general insensitivity, regardless of validity of position, when it comes to the way that atheists – particularly strong and vocal atheists – put their position forward. Please pull me up if I am misrepresenting the situation in the comments here.
I can scroll to the top of this page and find a more threatening and insensitive example of language use than anything said by Dawkins today or on that Q&A panel. These are strong words, final words, and they leave no room for interpretation. I’m talking about the title of this post.
“Without God We Are Nothing.”
I am sorry, but if the faithful reserve the right to become offended by ‘tone’, then they must be prepared for the counter. If tone of voice is the only criterion we need for offense, then I level the accusation directly back at you, vis-à-vis a phrase used by you to argue that atheists employ an insensitive tone in the first place. The Cardinal’s phrase is offensive in tone and belittling to all atheists, agnostics, skeptics and, while we are at it, polytheists, who do not believe in a god and are therefore slurrishly reduced to ‘nothing’. You then go on to
Now, I will point out here – it is lucky, then, that I do NOT accept the notion that we should be getting stroppy and offended by ‘matters of tone’. I do not like being petty and arguing on the manner that the words were spoken rather than the words themselves. To me, it is rather like picking through a thoughtful reply for spelling and grammar mistakes and therefore discounting the entire reply for it – universally recognised to be poor form. My suggestion is that we move past the issue of tone lest this degenerate into a ‘which side is more at fault’ argument.
Nobody wants that. We all have much more important things to talk about. And we will not be able to get to them unless we are able to let go of our personal feelings regarding matters of tone.




Gary Bryson wrote on March 15, 2010 at 6:35 pm
On the matter of “Without God We Are Nothing”, Mitch, you’ve obviously left your sense of irony at home. “Threatening and insensitive”? Read the post.



Mitch

Comment Pending Approval. wrote on March 16, 2010 at 1:25 am
Hi Gary,

Not really – the point of my comment was that I don’t consider the phrase threatening and insensitive and do not think anyone else should either.

Regards,
Mitch

Questions of Faith - Updated

I have recieved a response from Margaret Coffey and am very grateful that she took the time to do so. She may not be so much when she reads my reply back, but I believe what I said was important.

Or so I hope.

Questions of Faith Blog

I have submitted a comment to the ABC's 'Questions of Faith' blog in the hope of defining the boundaries of what constitutes ridicule when it comes to a religious argument (see this post for the first mention of it). I think it's important to get a lot of feedback on this. On one hand I certainly don't want to be accused of heaping ridicule on something if it is not warranted. On the other hand, I know there must be situations in which it is warranted.

Margaret Coffey is the one I have directed my question to, and I hope we can have some back and forth. Or at the very least, one back.