False Science and False Religion

One of the frequent attacks made against religion as a whole is that it is essentially just a scam run by manipulative fraudsters to cow the great gullible unwashed into obedience, and to give the fraudsters (i.e. priests) power and wealth in exchange for promises of pie in the sky. A quote from Mark Twain is frequently trotted out; ‘Religion was born when the first conman met the first fool.’

It is, unsurprisingly, an assertion that I do not agree with. However, a story on the BBC website this week made me sigh, because it appeared to bolster this assertion. It regards the church in Nigeria, and the fact that certain clergy are trying to enforce the (shaky) biblical injunction that all believers should tithe at least ten percent of their earnings to the church. In a country as poor as Nigeria, many of these clergy seem to be very (perhaps even suspiciously) well off indeed, with personal fortunes well into the millions of pounds.

The story quotes one of them as saying "Anyone who is not paying his tithe is not going to heaven, full stop." This makes me incredibly angry. Not only because it is appallingly untrue, is a disgusting theology and flies utterly in the face of the teachings of Christ, but because, as I said, it seems to be confirming all the worst assumptions and assertions of the angry online anti-theists. It is abundantly clear that these preachers are little more than conmen using religion as a scam to make themselves rich, and in the process driving a great many people away from God. Honest, sincere clergy end up tarred with the same brush due to the crimes of these frauds.

However, it also made me think. It’s true that these ‘preachers’ are no more than conmen, but they are nonetheless used as an admittedly unusually stark example of what religion ‘really’ is.

Doing so though is surely something of a double standard. The problem is that you can apply this argument to science too. These preachers, and their counterparts across the world, demanding that their followers send money to assure their salvation, are merely the theological equivalent of the stereotypical snake-oil salesman. Dr Andrew Wakefield was an accredited medical researcher, until he was found guilty of deliberately falsifying information on the safety of vaccines in order to make considerable personal profit.

As a result, a great many people around the world now erroneously believe that vaccines are linked to autism. Most avowed atheists tend to be very scientifically-minded, and rail against disbelieving the vast majority of modern science and medicine due to a few fraudulent assertions by a now disgraced scientist. Similarly, they’ll argue against ‘scientists’ funded by oil companies whose researches seem to show that climate change isn’t happening, in the face of the vast weight of scientific evidence. For some reason though, they don’t seem to realise that they’re doing exactly the same thing with regards to Christianity. They are taking manipulative frauds as being representative, rather than realising that they are, or ought to be, a disgraced minority.

Now, it’s very true that not all wealthy churches and clergy are conmen or grasping, greedy manipulators. Many have quite rightly pointed out the vast wealth of the Catholic Church, and the Church of England, and I am in total agreement with them. I see very little of the teachings of Christ in the gold and marble of the Vatican. Being neither an Anglican nor a Catholic, I don’t feel I need to work too hard to defend these, and certainly historically, the Catholic Church had become corrupt and money-driven. It’s largely what sparked the Reformation after all.

Sellers of fake medicine do not disprove the validity of the scientific method. To suggest that they do is obviously ridiculous. Sellers of false theology do not disprove the existence of God or the teaching of Christ. Apparently this is less obviously ridiculous for some reason. I’ll end with a slight mis-quote from G. K. Chesterton on exactly this when discussing miracles. “I hope we may dismiss the argument against wonders attempted in the mere recapitulation of frauds, of swindling mediums or trick miracles. That is not an argument at all, good or bad. A false miracle disproves the reality of miracles exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence of the Bank of England- if anything, it proves its existence.”

Confessions of an Armchair Christian

I have mentioned before how very difficult I find it to read the works of George MacDonald.  After a lengthy rest from them and in a careless moment, I found myself dipping back into the Unspoken Sermons.  It was a mistake.  George MacDonald, a man writing in the north of Scotland over a hundred years ago nonetheless has a terrible ability to reach down through time and punch me right in the theology.

The particular sermon that I have been struck down by is The Truth in Jesus in Volume 2.  In a few pages, he strikes straight at the things that have vaguely concerned me about my own faith, tearing them out and holding them up to the light so that I can see them properly.  Frankly, they are not a wholly comforting sight.

I have said before, although possibly not in this blog, that I occasionally worry that my faith is too intellectual.  I love the minutiae of theology, I love discussing and debating it.  Recently a friend on Facebook shared the interview with Stephen Fry that I attempted to answer in a previous post, and it sparked an extremely lengthy debate that wandered over all sorts of theological territory.  I manfully (as I supposed) stepped up to the plate and argued my side of it, explaining my own beliefs and attempting to defend Christianity from the criticisms and questions levelled at it.  To what extent I have succeeded in that, I don’t know, but I have been reasonably satisfied with my own performance.  I have spent a long time crafting an, in my opinion, rational, intellectually defensible, reasonable (in the truest sense of the word) theology, and then spent some time testing it by explaining and defending it in numerous debates.

Then that terrible mistake of reading George MacDonald.  Here is the passage that threw iced water over my self-satisfaction:

“Whatever be your opinions on the greatest of all subjects, is it well that the impression with regard to Christianity made upon your generation should be that of your opinions, and not of something beyond opinion?  Is Christianity capable of being represented by opinion, even the best?  If it were, how many of us are such as God would choose to present his thoughts and intents by our opinions concerning them?  Who is there of his friends whom any thoughtful man would depute to represent his thoughts to his fellows?

If you answer, ‘The opinions I hold and by which I represent Christianity are those of the Bible’, I reply that none can understand, still less represent the opinions of another, but such as are of the same mind with him- certainly none who mistake his whole scope and intent so far as in supposing opinion to be the object of any writer in the Bible.  Is Christianity a system of articles of belief, let them be as correct as language can give them? Never.”

He then goes on to say that he would far rather have a person who held any number of obnoxious untruths but lived in the faith of the Son of God than one whose beliefs he agreed with totally, but who didn’t live their faith.

“To hold a thing with the intellect is not to believe it.  A man’s real belief is that which he lives by and that which the man I mean lives by is the love of God and obedience to His law so far as he has recognised it. (…)  What I come to and insist upon is, that, supposing your theories right, and containing all that is to be believed, yet those theories are not what make you Christians, if Christians indeed you are.  On the contrary, they are, with not a few of you, just what keeps you from being Christians.  (…)  No opinion, I repeat, is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God.  (…)  I do not say that this sad folly may not mingle a potent faith in the Lord himself; but I do say that the importance they place on theory is even more sadly obstructive to true faith than such theories themselves.”

As I’ve already said, I’ve occasionally wondered whether I don’t over-intellectualise my faith.  G.K. Chesterton said that one’s religion should be less of a theory and more of a love affair, but I’m afraid that mine is definitely more of a theory, and I spend a lot of time pondering theological questions and points of apologetics.  I hope that my specific beliefs are not too obnoxious, and I also hope that I live my faith at least occasionally (when I remember to), but nonetheless I am keenly aware that my Christianity is theoretical rather than visceral.

I am also aware that when I take up my Keyboard of Justice and attempt to defend Christianity from its detractors and critics, I am wholly failing to do so.  Straw man arguments of the most ludicrous sort are a very common tool of angry online atheists who portray Christianity as a grotesque caricature of itself, and then wonder why anyone would believe it.  I have realised that I myself have done something not entirely dissimilar.  I end up not defending Christianity, but theology, and as a result end up portraying the theology as Christianity.  “Is it well that the impression with regard to Christianity made upon your generation should be that of your opinions, and not of something beyond opinion?”  It is not well at all, Mr. MacDonald.

Part of the problem is that we are born into a culture in which the ruling paradigm is scientific.  The objections raised against Christianity tend to be scientific ones, or at least based on a scientific notion of rationalism, and therefore the arguments against these objections are couched in the same terms.  Rational objections are raised, and therefore we feel that we must offer rational answers.  I have said before in this blog that Christianity is not rational (or rather perhaps, not rationalistic; there is more to be said on this, probably elsewhere), but such an answer would not only not satisfy these detractors, it would make them think that there was no answer at all.

I think that this will probably bear a whole other blog post to chew over, but to return to my main point for this post, have I ended up crafting this splendid rational model, and then had the foolish temerity to make out that it is Christianity.  Christianity isn’t thought or deduced or calculated, it is lived and breathed and acted.  It is easy to forget this in the joys of mental gymnastics. 

They (whoever they are) say that the first step towards solving a problem is to admit that it exists.  Despite the overall tone of this post, I am not overly interested in self-flagellation, sack-cloth and ashes.  I will always maintain that Christianity is not and has never been about making people feel bad about themselves, or afraid of either God or whatever might come hereafter.  It is about self-awareness in the most empowering and optimistic way. I do not think that I am a terrible person, just not necessarily a very good Christian.  I try to live by the teachings and tents of Christ, and I occasionally even succeed briefly, but I spend far more time pondering the theory (and with no guarantees that I’m even getting that right) than I do thinking of how I can set about the practice.  It’s a struggle.  When I see people online hurling vitriol at my faith, I feel duty-bound to defend it lest they assume that there is no defence, but in doing so I am forced onto a field and into a defence which do not suit the subject.

I find that I am mostly an armchair Christian, an amateur Christian theoretician, which is to say not a very good Christian at all.  Well then, as long as I remember that, and aim upwards, things should come right.  I won’t attempt to theorise about the how, I’ll just try and believe in the result.

British or Christian?

Another quote from the comments on the article I discussed last time:  “I will never trust anyone who claims allegiance to religion over this country.”

An interesting point, which begs two questions.  The first is personal: If it came down to it, and I had to choose between my beliefs and my country, which would I choose?  Currently I see only minor conflicts between the two, in areas such as the treatment of the poor, but suppose that they came into direct opposition.  In an either/or situation, would I choose my country or my religion?

You occasionally see claims that one’s religion is something one chooses, normally to emphasise that as a result religion should yield to things that are not chosen, such as sexuality.  I’ve already addressed this question in a different post, in which I stated that I did not ‘choose’ to be Christian, merely that it makes sense to me to be so.  Equally though, I most certainly did not choose to be British.  I’m happy to be, maybe even proud to be, if that’s not entirely irrational, but I am not British by choice.

The thing is though, that my beliefs are my own.  Although, like Chesterton, my personal heresy turned out to be orthodoxy (or something very close), I’m neither a literalist nor a fundamentalist.  I do indeed cherry-pick my beliefs, and believe that it is right to do so.  I am not slavishly devoted to every word of the Bible; I consider its teachings carefully, accepting many, rejecting some.

I have no such options when it comes to my country.  I am unable to go through its laws and statutes and decide which ones make sense to me, which ones seems right, which ones, in the context of the overall corpus, seem truest to the general message, and reject the others.  For the record, off the top of my head I am unable to think of any laws that I would wish to be exempt from.  It is not merely the written laws of the land that prevent me from going on killing sprees or tour the country defrauding old ladies of their pensions.  All the laws of the land apply to me; I can’t opt out of any because I happen to disagree with them, and this is for the best.  After all, if everyone could do that, they would be completely pointless.

However just because something is legal does not make it right; there are a great many examples of this, not all of which are merely down to loopholes and lawyers’ tricks.  Conversely, just because a thing is illegal doesn’t not make it wrong, although this is more subjective and relativist.  Some laws even now seem unjust, and there is no guarantee that in the future, unjust laws will not be enacted.  At that point, when my faith and my personal morals tell me one thing, and my country tells me another, which will I choose?

It is a foregone conclusion.  Currently I don’t feel that my allegiance is split, but if it ever is, I will choose my faith over my country over and over again.  And why should I not?  I would choose my faith over country, but my faith is self-crafted and carefully picked over, it’s not one forced onto me from outside, and informs, rather than contradicts my personal morals. 

This brings me to my second question; Why would this poster not trust anyone who claims allegiance to their religion over their country?  What the commenter doesn’t seem to realise is that by comparing the two, he (I’m assuming, on the basis of nothing whatsoever, that it’s a he) has made the latter into the former.  In the absence of God, he has deified the state, turned it into something to which we should bring our unquestioning praise and obedience irrespective of what it does or how it treats us.  ‘My country, right or wrong’ is a foolish and fundamentalist creed, as dangerous as any militant sect which says ‘Our god above all, death to the unbeliever!’  Blind faith is blind whether it is in a religion, a political ideology or a state.

The implication is that the poster won’t trust the hypothetical disloyal theist because they are irrational and dangerous.  I would contend that he is exactly what he is trying to condemn.  I wouldn’t trust anyone who claims allegiance to country over their own private beliefs, be they religious or secular.  If these happen to coincide with the country’s, then good for them, but I struggle to believe that anyone, in the face of an obviously unjust ruling, would say “That doesn’t seem right to me, but the government says so, so it must be ok.”  Actually, having just typed that, I suspect that it has indeed happened multiple times in the past; people have persuaded themselves that any disquiet they feel is misplaced, because clearly a national government wouldn’t do anything utterly wrong, and if they did it must be for a very good reason which is more than adequate to justify the apparent wrong.  I suspect it was thinking just like that that birthed and sustained the most horrific regimes in history.

Anyone who suspends their own judgement and morals and blindly and uncritically accepts the commands of others, who claim absolute allegiance to any movement, ideology, faith or state at the expense of their own conscience and free will is a person who should be treated very carefully, because they are potentially capable of anything.  “But I was just following orders!” is the cry of one who has abdicated responsibility for their actions, and is therefore capable of anything.  Unfortunately, it seems that there are plenty of people apparently willing to do just that, and persuade themselves that they are right to do so.  For whatever reason, the commenter seems to think that it is perfectly acceptable to do this for a country while it is foolish to do it for a religion, and is therefore part of the exact problem they claim to want to solve.