It should be apparent to anyone with an eye on the facts as they are now accepted by scientific opinion that religion no longer has any fact claims (a sad truism often overlooked). While there are many questions that we have in the past had religious “answers” to that we have since replaced with empirical science the river flows one way (1). What do we now have a religious answer to that in the past we held an empirical scientific position on?
It seems to me that most religion has for decades floated over the gaps in human knowledge. Few assertions are made to prove that there is a god, instead the theist asks unanswerable questions; confident that his maker secularly hovers in the ever shrinking gaps of human conception. The argument from evidence has either been settled or is as we speak being researched. Nevertheless, there persists a flavor of human credulity that advocates an argument from morality. This argument dogmatically sweeps away the blatant immorality that consistently colors their founding scripture and asserts human morality as evidence of the divine, a donation to an unworthy creation .The gap in this argument announces itself like a church bell on a Sunday afternoon. They assume an unproven entity to do the giving then use the presumption as evidence for that same entity. To further the argument I want to assume that it is proven that there is a creator and that human morality as defined by the torah, the New Testament or Koran is his gift to us. It leaves me personally wanting more, needing more; it lacks development (Which I guess is the role of theology, making religion more compatible and acceptable to the times) and universality .Our best ideas, the ones that make our imperfect world a bit better, wholly come from human reasoning and philosophy. A concern for human suffering and happiness is the basis for our most noble and cherished ideas.
Take if you might as an example of this hubris, this recent statement from the Vatican. Pope Benedict the XVI urged for a more moral media in statement on world catholic communications day (2).
From his infallible pen the statement read:
"When communication loses its ethical underpinning and eludes society's control, it ends up no longer taking into account the centrality and inviolable dignity of the human being.”. He continued to add that the media “in order to attract listeners and increase the size of audiences, “...“does not hesitate at times to have recourse to vulgarity and violence, and to overstep the mark" .
It seems so insulting to me that an organization soaked in as much blood ,grief and guilt as the Vatican feels it can direct human artistic expression to a more “moral” place .We know so little about the civilizations of the “New World” chiefly because the catholic conquistadors under the infallible guidance and direction of the Vatican burned countless historical manuscripts in between bouts of murdering , raping and pillaging the continents native inhabitants (Something to do with souls and how only whites have them ….).Then there's the cross Atlantic slave trade which it appears the Vatican endorsed as recently as 1866, asserting that "Slavery itself…is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law…".There are also the poor Cathars(3)who’s faith flourished in the Languedoc region of France between the 11th and the 13th centuries . In response to this growth our Iron-Age minded center for moral progress and human dignity declared the Albigensian Crusade. The killing went on for two decades, between 1209 and 1229, and claimed an estimated 1 000,000 “heretics”, deaths that were caused by and sometimes commissioned by the Vatican. The pope granted the people that participated in the crusade against Catharism, the same absolution of all sin that was granted the holy land crusaders. Worse still than the massacres, was the callous attitude to human life, to quote Arnaud Amaury, the Pope's official in charge of the crusade, when asked how to tell a heretic from one of the faith he replied:: 'Kill them all, God will know his own’. This is the tradition that our moral guidance wishes to come from.
The atrocities sanctified, and sometimes instigated by the Catholic Church are literally enough to write volumes on. This dark resume includes collusion with ethnic cleansers in Nazi Germany .The Vatican helped the National Socialist cause in an assortment of ways which include opening the Vatican’s genealogical records to identify Jewish family lines , the constant refusal of the Catholic church to excommunicate Hitler, and the underground missionary network which helped Nazi war criminals to flee trail. The Vatican was also not above providing machete wearing men of the cloth more than 40 years later in Rwanda, some of these holy men even provided enraged mobs with the machetes that they used to massacre their neighbors. This gruesome history of evil that we call the history of the Vatican church spans from the inquisition to the modern day sheltering protection of rapist pedophiles and beyond.
History confesses to their crimes. It shouts from its dusty archives, a reminder that the Vatican has significant pain to account for, and legions of “souls” to make amends to .Furthermore the Catholic Church represents a faith whose main pillars are at least suspect. The idea that through the suffering and pain of one man humanity becomes transcendent subtracts personal responsibility from the equation of human morality .This fantasy is further enhanced by the various traditions of confession that share the redemptive philosophy of privately confessing your misdeeds. The “sins” are confessed to a person whose only qualification is his training in receiving them, and his sworn oath never to reveal them. They bleach guilt and human responsibility, and the confession provided it’s done in the right way with the right person is enough to gain your absolution. They tell us that we are in a “fallen creation“ where any sin , any crime except blasphemy can be forgiven by often unaffected individuals .We are they assure us, fallen because we sought knowledge. Doomed by our free will .We are a clump of mud coughed on by the divine, far to inferior even to create the rules of our own conduct .In the 100000- 250000 years of human existence only in the last few thousand have we been given this gift .Ignored previously and left to our own muddy devices, our salvation they assure us lies in the acceptance of their word. For better or worse these are the pillars of catholic morality, and without apology I find them indefensible.
It seems to obvious to me that people like mother Teresa do help the poor , feed the hungry and generally ease human suffering . It’s equally obvious that this same humanitarian spent most of her time campaigning against abortion , contraception and divorce , issues while meriting discussion are far from the main sources of human suffering in the developed world .Orthodoxy is the aim while less human suffering is a by-product .Once a person accepts the contention that morality is predefined , that we live in a world colored in black and white ,altruistic motives disappear into good deeds done for greed and evil avoided through intimidation . A heavenly carrot balanced by a hellish stick.
The idea that religious morality is based on a concern for humanity and its suffering is a fantasy. Humanism is drawn aside by dogma and orthodoxy takes center stage .That’s why the Catholic Church knowing full well about the epidemic spread of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa can still preach against contraception to people who often have no other source for this information. This preaching is killing countless people as we speak! It is also why Muslims are so concerned with the veiling of women and the consumption of malt whiskey. Once you believe that you have access to the final edition of the book of human morality, the concept of moral reasoning becomes redundant. Right and wrong are predefined; all that remains is acceptance and/or submission. Obedience is assured by divine oversight and the universe is Orwell’s Big Brother state, god is brother and the church is the ever attentive thought police.
So by what right does the Vatican, whose morality is based in orthodoxy to dogma, whose history is tainted by misjudgments and questionable motive, claim to be speaking? By what reasoning do they see themselves as a moral authority? We know the answer of course; they are concerned chiefly with the orthodoxy of their creed. Our suffering and happiness, our rights and those of animal are all of them distant.
The popes own words sum up the ethos of my objections to religion - he‘s of course speaking of the media here - “While claiming to represent reality, it can tend to legitimize or impose distorted models of personal, family or social life.”, the man might be infallible after all. (4)
End Notes:
(1)Quoted from Sam Harris in the truth dig debate “Religion, Science and the end of the world .It was not referenced in the debate transcripts, I’m not sure if he said it or if he was quoting someone else.
(2) World Catholic communication day is on May 5th I’m well aware of that, nevertheless he did make the statement and recently, I have no idea why it’s so early/late.
(3) Cathar the spelling in Wikipedia and Britannica online I’m not 100% sure it’s spelt that way.
(4)I’m of course aware of the logical inconsistency its poetic and not a miss-quote since I reported what his infallibleness was actually referring to.
As always Wikipedia, Britannica, Webster’s, Sohiel and BBC helped a lot.
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