Human Too Human

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario Savio, Free Speech protest leader

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Friday, October 31, 2003

I reply here to a comment of DrChrist to my previous post (to follow the whole thread, you can read the comments there), because this text, perhaps too long, does not seem to be easily accepted by the comment's format. DrChrist says:

I in no way meant to say that homosexuals, because of the fact that they are homosexuals are filthy. Rather, I was showing that Jesus himself spent time with those who in his time were considered to be social outcasts, much as homosexuals are in our society. I agree with you that immoralality has nothing to do with a persons orientation per se, when a person acts on this orientation through engaging in "homosexual sex" it is then that the person chooses to turn away from God and his laws. You mention that Courage askes a person not to express their sexuality. That is false. Courage askes men and women to express their sexuality in ways that are not genital. Genital sexual activity is not the only way to express one's sexuality. There are myriads of other ways. That is why celibacy or chastity is not a denial of sexuality, it is merely a different way of living it out.

Still, the anathema-sounding terminology used, "filth of their own sinfulness" [read comments to my previous posts to know the whole story], was strongly improper referred to a human being, and also the comparison with prostitutes was not particularly apt. The idea of outcasts is more acceptable, as it appears more objective.But the reasons why in some cultures or communities homosexuals are outcasts is exactly because of prejudice exerted on them, the moral stigma, the idea of being "hated by God" (and actually the Baptist reverend mentioned in my previous post used the Bible to support his idea of a monument to celebrate the entry of a murdered man in hell).

The idea behind the "Courage" organization that DrChrist mentions is utterly wrong from a human point of view. Why should anybody have to accept to divert his/her own sexuality and live it in an incomplete way? Very likely because of an interiorised sense of guilt that Catholics contribute to build up incessantly and obsessively. Everybody can agree that genital sexuality is not the only way to express sexuality (in fact, from a Freudian point of view, sexuality is a dimension that accompany us from birth, and obviously not always in a genital way) but for an adult person choosing a non-genital way should be a free choice, not a behaviour induced by moral pressure, absurd vows or absurd sense of guilt. And what's wrong with the genital sexuality anyway? (DrChrist allows that sexual orientation is not immoral per se, but the physical expression is) Catholics should grow out of their obsession for carnal sins. They are really those who seem to think about it more than...people affected by sex-compulsive syndromes or sex-related perversions (just consider how often St. Augustine apparently wrote about the 'problem' of 'sinful' spontaneous erections - which he seemed to have considered a consequence of Adam's sin: how pathologic can they get?). In fact, perversion is often correlated to religious repression.

And the "myriads of ways to express sexuality" (in DrChrist words) don't seem to work too well for Catholic priests (who supposedly should set the example, and yet indulge in a NON sublimated sex - a large number of them anyway, in a clandestine hypocritical way), it is an objective fact: but Catholics and facts don't match too much. From this respect too, Catholic religion is a instrument of alienation and denial of life. Just read this article to have an idea. Some facts mentioned in there are even hilarious, but sad too. (From the article: "Bernard of Clairvoix, prominent leader of the Catholic Church in the twelfth century, who wrote eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, could not get the story right either. Throughout life he tried to sublimate his libidinous urges (once in his youth even plunging himself in an icy pond after "an exchange of admiring glances" with a pretty young woman had resulted in an erection), the sum total of which sexual experiences produced in him a hatred of infidels and what he considered as other malefactors. In fact, so virulent was his hostility to Muslims, Bernard became the chosen one to lead the Second Crusade to the Holy Land (an honor, as he saw it, but neither Phipps nor I so view the matter; he declined due to advanced age). As Phipps went on to state, and with much justification, a "devotion to aggressive war becomes for some persons a substitute for frustrated love.". After reading this part, one can think that the motto "love not war" makes a lot of sense.).

Thursday, October 30, 2003

From the N&A blog a link to an article showing how barbarian humans can be and how the beliefs that should witness our divine destination are a joke. A group lead by Rev. Fred Phelps, a Baptist minister from Kansas, wants to place a monument in a car park where a young homosexual was beaten by two men and left tied to a fence post to die of injuries and hypothermia he suffered for five days in the freezing cold weather. The monument is supposed to have the following plate on it: "Matthew Shepard entered Hell, October 12, 1998". The following is an excerpt from the article:

“Our message is a message of God’s hate, not human hate,” said Marge Phelps, the reverend’s wife, also of the Westboro, Kan., Baptist Church. “And the concept of God’s hate is found in the Bible. And all it means is that people are going to go to hell if they disobey God.”

The whole article can be read here.

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

"Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have."

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

DrChrist has commented my yesterday's poem, for which I thank him. Obviously he did not seem to agree. He writes:

It seems as though he persists in his misconceptions about that Catholic Church. For instance, he claims that we are "sick rejecters of the corporeal world," which is truly a lie.

But what can a Catholic, bound to obedience to dogmas, say? They will say that, no, Catholics do no reject the corporeal world! While the whole Christian theology is based upon the concept of reality being stained by sin, a fall from perfection, and a vale of tears, a time to spend as a test until the true full (albeit humanly contrived) reality of the afterworld arrives. Anyone with a bit of knowledge of Christian theology, but without preconceptions, will admit that Christianity has matched the ideas of Plato (highly commended by St. Augustine), disqualifying the tangible, with the alienated approach of St. Augustine himself. Also, I have analysed the current teachings of the Catholic Cathechism and commented them: the position of the Church as regards premarital sex, homosexuality, masturbation and contraception is utterly irresponsible and is a constant reminder of their being non-scientific and affected by a form of pathologic and pathogenic phobia.
Some posts, but not all, on the topic: The alienating teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on sexuality, on Castii Connubii.

DrChrist also says:

He also holds that we "acquiescence to anything said, no matter how senseless, as long as established by dogmas held truer than reason." This too is nothing but deception. The Catechism of The Catholic Church, which is the authoritative document containing the basic teachings of the Church, as well the document Dei Filius which was issued as long ago as 1870 says, "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth (Catechism paragraph 159)"

The above paragraph reads more like a blind act of loyalty rather that a persuasive argument. The statements "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason." have been often proved wrong in principles and in facts. In the First Vatican Council it has been clearly said that "Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church [...]". Quite a statement for a religion which presumably should be open to science! And about the facts, we all know about Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno for example. I have written about these topics in other occasions. Read for instance my posts Does Catholicism rhyme with obscurantism?, The value of critical thinking in education, and An interesting article on science and religion. But I have tackled the topic in other posts too. Giving priority to faith and dogmas over reason is unacceptable and humiliating for human intelligence.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Mental sodomites

In their saintly obsessed cathechism,
the Roman Catholic Church,
true pernicious nest of idiocy,
which is the real sin in the world,
often talks against sex
and contraception and homosexuality
(and the last aspect really sounds
surreal and ironic, coming from them).
But it is not homosexuality
that we should beware, rather
the spreading of mental sodomites,
that is the mentally passive,
and the spreaders of lies,
the breeders of pathological thinking,
the sick rejecters of the corporeal world
(who often do not reject very corporeal pleasures,
only they do it in the dark in their dark gowns,
perhaps in guilt, surely in hypocrisy),
the propagators of the virus of ignorance
and acquiescence to anything said,
no matter how senseless,
as long as established by dogmas
held truer than reason.
These promulgators of disease
justified by theological contrivances,
grotesque relics of an ancient past,
fluted-voiced evangelizers of death,
are really those we should beware.

A Court in Italy, in the city of Aquila, has decided that no crucifix should be hanged on walls of Public school classrooms.
Read here from the Guardian (in English).
Read here an article from La Repubblica (in Italian).

The N&A blog posted this quote by Bertrand Russell, which I wish to post here too (I was not able to find the source either):

"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." - Bertrand Russell. 

Thursday, October 23, 2003

IF this is true THEN...

A webpage which I came across reported the following:

92% of a person's performance is related to the attitude of the individual.

8% of a person's performance is related to skills development of the individual in that particular discipline.

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Mind, body and soul

“Body am I, and soul”—so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.”
The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.
An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which thou callest “spirit”—a little instrument and plaything of thy big sagacity.
“Ego,” sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing—in which thou art unwilling to believe—is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not “ego,” but doeth it.
[F. Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra, IV. THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY]

Almost perforce did the mind acquire more importance than the body, to the extent of having Plato affirming that reality is nothing but a blurred reflection of a world of pure Forms and Descartes holding that the mind is independent from the body (Cartesian dualism): the thought is the very first ineffable "substance" with which we come in contact through our thinking. While reflecting over things, our mind affirms itself in its reflective capacity, almost claiming its existence as a separate reflecting entity (likely such propensity is also linked with a sense of omnipotence). In other words the overrating of the mind seems to be an inherent danger of the mind itself.

P.F. Strawson in "Self, Mind and Body", talking about Descartes describes how it is possible to incur such a delusion: "What, the, is the source of the Cartesian delusion? Well, no doubt it has several sources. But I think a particularly important one is a certain experience of intense looking within, or introspective concentration, of which most of us are capable abd which certainly seems to have been characteristic of Descartes' own meditations."

Despite his error (on dualism, but also in his arguments on the existence of God), Descartes is fundamental for the method adopted and for the centrality given to rational scrutiny, Strawson (in the same text quoted above) also regarding Descartes' error "One of the marks, though not a necessary mark, of a really great philosopher is to make a really great mistake: that isto say, to give a persuasive and lastingly influential form to one of those fundamental misconceptions to which the human intellect is prone when it concerns itself with the ultimate categories of thought". The comment makes a lot of sense, but of course what matters is not to persevere in the error.

Again on the factors that lead to erroneous conclusions of dualism: while we think, our body remains a blurred presence on the ouskirts of our thought. It maybe occasionally say it is present too by sending signals (hunger, thirst etc.). Moreover, millenniums of speculative tradition have explained the mind through the intervention of God, as a form of spirit blown by God. The very ignorance of human biology and neurobiology, have contributed to the overrating of the mind, to the point of its hypostatisation. We still pay the tribute to this with current conceptions many people have on teh existence of soul. And even the concept of God is correlated to this matters.

From the logic of Descartes, it seems to make sense that there should be a dualism. But it is the very nature of thought that creates the illusion of its possibility: the body cannot think itself and overrate itself! Whereas the mind has come to do exactly this through the history of philosophy: present itself as an entity, separate from the body thanks to the very constant presence of itself to itself.

In this respects the arguments of Strawson, point to the fact that there is a person to which mental and bodily predicates can be ascribed, and the idea of numerability and re-identification of the mind respecting the body, which underlines the impossibility of Cartesian reductionism, seem to derive from a quite sensible (and common sense) idea of the individual.

Interesting, in the mind-body discourse, the position of Nietzsche, his negative idea of Socrates (who he considered emblematic of mental hypertrophy) and the idea contained in the IV chapter of the Zarathustra: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.”.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Correlation between religion and pathology

I have already written on this subject (see for example here). I believe that it would be important to carry out research on the typical psychology of priests, mystics, saints and the like. Often forms of sexual and/or psychological abnormalities can be found in them. Perhaps, once certain factors are clarified, people would have a more precise and objective opinion on the pathogenic influence of religion.

Some links:

Horneffer (cited in the link above)
Ganschinietz
Vasily Rozanov (see part relevant to him)
General info

"There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate government action." - Bertrand Russell

An uprorious burst of laughters rises in the universe. The laughters of nothingness.

Monday, October 20, 2003

Does Catholicism rhyme with obscurantism?

Yes, it does. And not only that: one, in sense, goes necessarily with the other. In a guise such that Catholicism needs a considerable amount of obscurantism in order to be maintained. That is, the Church must be sure that questioning, rationality and science do not pass a given threshold, a threshold that we can colourfully define the "Bull dejection revealing threshold": in other words the threshold that shows the bullshit. For such a reason, the Roman Catholic Church has clearly forbidden opinions on matters in contrast with the Catholic faith and, moreover, has stated the infallibility of the Pope.

For the readers who love quotes and evidence I can show some enlightening documents that do not go back to the Middle Ages. I have already quoted some of these lines, but I deem it useful to present them again, together with others. My comment will be in bold. Those who desire to read the whole original documents quoted can click on the links provided.

From the Mirari Vos (On Liberalism And Religious Indifferentism), Encyclical Of Pope Gregory XVI promulgated on August 15, 1832.

"But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say.
This quotation from the omnipresent St. Augustine (who really would deserve several posts, due to his importance in shaping the Christian thought up to the present times), is emblematic: the Encyclical wants to suggest that Faith shall be put before science, rationality and research. A constant ballast under the threat of eternal perdition.

"Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty."
Here, Pope Gregory XVI, condemns "freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty". The unacceptability of such a dogmatic position is obvious: no freedom of opinion can be considered "immoderate". There cannot be a censoring authority that decides what is moderate and what is immoderate. Freedom of opionion and speech is one of the most important principles of modern societies.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice.
We can be sorry for the sense of horror that the Catholic Church feels for "monstrous doctrines" and so on. But they are not, and cannot bem teh measure of what doctrines can be deemed monstruous or not monstruous. Save the right of minors, incongruous or nonsensical doctrines or opinions, if any, should find a natural rejection by the mature and balanced opinion of people. Any pre-emptive conscience that replaces the conscience of the individuals is a form of abuse and arrogance.

The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books. This was true even in apostolic times for we read that the apostles themselves burned a large number of books.
Personally I don't see anything to be proud of in burning books.

We have learned that certain teachings are being spread among the common people in writings which attack the trust and submission due to princes; the torches of treason are being lit everywhere. Care must be taken lest the people, being deceived, are led away from the straight path. May all recall, according to the admonition of the apostle that "there is no authority except from God; [...]
"There is no authority except from God" Gregory XVI writes. Of course, the authority of an alleged God is exerted by humans who ave elected themselves as exclusive an unquestionable representatives of God on earth. So no authority exists but the absolute exerted by some humans who claim to have the right to do so.

As I said, the above has been written only in 1832, not in the Middle Ages, but really the attitude is the same as that that lead to the burning of people at the stake for expressing opinions in contrast with what the Catholic Church would affirm as true. But after the Enlightenment, and in a period of expansion in different branches of science, likely the Pope has felt that more solid ground was needed to support Christian doctrines. What was the solid ground chosen? Rationality? Logic? No. The affirmation of INFALLIBILITY. In the First Vatican Council, Pius IX affirms the dogma of the Pope's infallibility.

From the First Vatican Council (1869-1870):

Session 3 - Chapter 4
5. Even though faith is above reason, there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason, since it is the same God who reveals the mysteries and infuses faith, and who has endowed the human mind with the light of reason.
Interesting premise. It states, without evidence, that there cannot be any real disagreement between faith and reason: does this mean that the disagreements at the time of Galileo Galileo, Giordano Bruno or Tommaso Campanella were not real? Were they "not-so-real"? "Sub-real"? "Unreal"? "Almost real?" "Shamefully imaginary?". Either faith accepts to be ruled by reason, or it is necessarily in disagreement as it implies a different and incompatible way of facing the pursuit of knowledge and learning about the world. Reason cannot accept any a priori knowledge in the search for truth as this would contradict search itself.

6. God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth. The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the Church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.
This is pure dogma and arbitrariness. Very typical of Catholic thinking is stating that when contradictions between reason and faith emerge, such contradictions take place because "dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the Church". In other words one should give up rationality and accept dogmas in order to understand dogmas! How logical and persuasive such an argument!

7. Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false [34].
"Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false" Read that well: it is pure distilled dogma. Even diluted is heinous. Unbelievable, and yet very believable. It is stated that there is an absolute truth, and by definition any contrary assertion is totally false.

8. Furthermore the Church which, together with its apostolic office of teaching, has received the charge of preserving the deposit of faith, has by divine appointment the right and duty of condemning what wrongly passes for knowledge, lest anyone be led astray by philosophy and empty deceit [35].
"Therefore the Church [...] has by divine appointment the right and duty of condemning what wrongly passes for knowledge, lest anyone be led astray by philosophy and empty deceit." Consider that the Church condems, but does not really prove anything as wrong. The "wrongness" is only defined as stated contrast with the absolute truth the Church itself claims it possesses. This is absolutely in contradiction with the affirmation of reason and faith not being in contrast.

9. Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church; and furthermore they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth.
The above is one of the most revolting and unacceptable assertions of the Catholic doctrine one can read. Humiliating human intelligence. Why "God" has given reason to human beings if they are supposed to behave like drones or robots and just obey?

Sunday, October 19, 2003

From Twilight of the Idols by F. Nietzsche (found here):

MORALITY AS ANTI-NATURE

All passions have a phase when they are merely disastrous, when they drag down their victim with the weight of stupidity—and a later, very much later phase when they wed the spirit, when they "spiritualize" themselves. Formerly, in view of the element of stupidity in passion, war was declared on passion itself, its destruction was plotted; all the old moral monsters are agreed on this: il faut tuer les passions*. The most famous formula for this is to be found in the New Testament, in that Sermon on the Mount, where, incidentally, things are by no means looked at from a height. There it is said, for example, with particular reference to sexuality: "If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out." Fortunately, no Christian acts in accordance with this precept. Destroying the passions and cravings, merely as a preventive measure against their stupidity and the unpleasant consequences of this stupidity—today this itself strikes us as merely another acute form of stupidity. We no longer admire dentists who "pluck out" teeth so that they will not hurt any more. To be fair, it should be admitted, however, that on the ground out of which Christianity grew, the concept of the "spiritualization of passion" could never have been formed. After all the first church, as is well known, fought against the "intelligent" in favor of the "poor in spirit." How could one expect from it an intelligent war against passion? The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, its "cure," is castration. It never asks: "How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?" It has at all times laid the stress of discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of the lust to rule, of avarice, of vengefulness). But an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life.


(*il faut tuer les passions: "One must kill passions". The translation of this small sentence was found in "The Portable Nietzsche" edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann, Penguin Books, from which this online edition seem to have drawn. The Portable Nietzsche contains Twilinght of the Idols, The Antichrist, Nietzsche contra Wagner and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, besides selections from other books, notes and letters by Nietzsche).

O si pensa* (*il pensiero, qualunque pensiero astrae dall'istante) o si vive. Due principi opposti. Il primo tende al superamento, alla trascendenza. La consapevolezza della scelta coincide con l'emergere della consapevolezza. La consapevolezza è peso, responsabilità della capacità creativa. Ma la capacità creativa astrae dall'attimo, dalla consistenza dell'istante. Allontana, proietta. Anche Sartre propone una forma di trascendenza, al pari di Platone e di S. Agostino, suggerisce Beverley Clack. È la trascendenza del pensiero creativo (reso possibile dalla piena valutazione del cogito cartesiano). La morte, suggerisce sempre Beverly Clack, diventa però la zona di aggressione dell'Altro, al quale l'essere-per-sé trasformato in essere-in-sé non può più opporre resistenza. Tensione tra pensiero e vita, trascendente e immanente, essere-per-sé e essere-in-sé, Io e Altro.

Religious infirmity

Eager to wallow in reassuring, torpid words,
you delude yourself with divine will-o'-the-wisps,
and your life you transform in a quiet existence
that already resembles death to make death easier.
But what sense has all this? What sense is there
in paying the toll to death amidst your life,
and close your eyes to all, and reject its smells,
its taste, the pleasures, and see all as illusion
caught into the religious wafts of decay, while
illusion is not before, rather in the idea of after?
What sense in giving in to the idea of end,
inherent in our very thought, in the awareness
that sets us permanent between a before and an after
and that therefore always suggests the idea of end?
Is there more wisdom in death rubbing off on life,
than in the laughs of that who knows all too well
and lives his time aware and accepting the idea of end?

Friday, October 17, 2003

In a recent post DrChrist complained about the fact that a movie on Luther, he was told, "does not recount his hatred for Jews". I cannot say anything on the movie, since I have not seen it. But talking about hate and intolerance, I wondered. Isn't the Catholic dogma of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus ("Outside the Church there is no Salvation", meaning the Catholic Church) a possible cause of intolerance against other religions, including Judaism? On the relationship between Catholicism and Judaism, with respect to the dogma, and from a Catholic point of view, you can read this page. If you reason about the Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus dogma, you can easily understand that it is not exactly a dogma that favours ecumenism and mutual acceptance of religions in the world.

Thursday, October 16, 2003

Rationality may well appear a damage, a fall, the original sin that shows the naked reality of life. At the birth of humanity, men had to cover themselves, their nakedness and their eyes. And to use the patch of religion to repair the damage, in order to not see, in order to delude themselves on the reality of things.

But the remedy is much worse than the damage. And, what's more, more pathetic.

Plato and the man of Hippo
did it well. Humans,
they deluded themselves
to cope with life and pain.
But we now, unveiled the game
cannot do the same.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Some bishops and priests must think people are stupid?

DrChirst writes in his blog:

Last night I listened to an excellent talk which covered the topic of atheism. It was given in the 1960's as part of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen's classic television show entitled "Life is Worth living." I liked it so much that I thought I would post a transcript of the section on athiesm here.

I read the transcript, and DrChrist is commendable for posting it, so we all can read the deep thoughts of the eminent bishop and this, in turn, can help shape our convictions, if that has a value. I have noticed that the bishop has some talent for short stories, but not so much for logic. The Bishop says:

One Sunday morning I came into the front of the Church to read mass and I found a young lady standing if front of the communion rail and haranguing the congregation. She was saying to the congregation ‘There is no God, there is too much evil in the world. Reason cannot transcend sense. It is impossible to conclude with existence. Every night’ she said, ‘I go out to Hyde Park, I talk against God. I circulate England, Scotland, and Wales with pamphlets denouncing a belief in the existence of God.’

In the way the woman has been described, she appears affected by a form of obsession. Who would go by a church to "convert" people to atheism? Nobody. On the other hand, it is more comprehensible that one should tackle subjects deemed important in other, more appropriate, places (conference places) or in booklets. Besides, theists use PR techniques nowadays, on top of the traditional ones (in some communities: unsolicited visiting of homes, blessing of houses, blessing of animals, even blessing of vehicles, public ceremonies, processions etc.); churches can avail themselves of an extremely well-organised and spread out network of parishes and the like, which would make any TV emperor like Mr. Murdoch green with envy. So why shouldn't a person, in the proper places, express his / her own ideas? That is commendable.

However, I believe the bishop narrated his story to precisely suggest the idea of an obsessed person. The bishop interprets the 'wrath' of the woman in a very debatable and subjective way, without giving real support to his interpretation. Even if the woman had been affected by a condition of anger, does her anger lead necessarily to an exclusive unique interpretation of it? Is the bishop a psychologist? A philosopher? No, he is a Catholic bishop, therefore moved by the pretension of possessing an absolute truth. And because of this his argument should have validity? I think the other way around. His arguments are likely to be very biased. In fact his argument is psycho-theleo-rhetoric.

From a philosophical point of view, by mererly reading the transcript one could draw other conclusions. Maybe, in the worst case, the woman's apparent 'obsession' was conditioned by what Nietzsche defined as "Passive [or negative] Nichilism" which does not prove the existence of God, but rather the fact that some people miss the habit of the mental image of god and react to the void after the false image of God has disappeared from their mind. They feel a void determined by the room previously occupied by a non-substantial metaphysical entity. But, as I said, this does not provide ground at all for the existence of God. The bishop uses the anger of the woman to try to demonstrate the existence of God* (* I added the followoing part of the transcript and expanded my comment since DrChrist stated, see comments to this post, that the bishop "seems to have a good point about why people don't consider people who preach against the existence of God to be crazy, whereas someone who preaches against some imaginary creature is considered to be quite mad. The logical explanation for this would be that the reason people do not consider the atheist preacher to be mad is because there is actually something to preach against." But the logic behind the bishop's argument is faulty):

I said to her, ‘Young lady, I am very happy to hear you say that you believe in the existence of God.’ She said ‘you silly fool I don’t.’ I said, ‘I understood you to say just the contrary. Suppose I said that I went out every night to Hyde Park and talked against twenty footed ghosts and ten centaurs. Suppose that I circulated England, Scotland and Wales denouncing a belief in these ghosts and their centaurs. What would happen to me?’ She said, ‘You would be crazy. They would lock you up!’ Well, I said ‘Do you not put God in exactly the same category as these fantasies of the imagination, namely, ghosts and centaurs? Why then would I be crazy for attacking ghosts and centaurs and you are not crazy attacking God?’ She said ‘I don’t know…why?’ I said ‘because when I attack these phantoms of the imagination I am attacking something that is unreal, and when you attack God, you are attacking something just as real as the trust of the sword or an embrace.

The argument of the bishop works this way: "You oppose God, and you claim you are reasonable in opposing a belief in him. But if I talked against some non-existent beings (ghosts and centaurs) you would think I am crazy. By the same token, you should be considered crazy when you talk against a being (God) who does not exist. But you think you are not crazy in opposing God (unlike when one opposes ghosts and centaurs) because indeed God is real." The argument of the bishop is specious in that it can easily be affirmed that non-theists do not oppose God but the idea of God, and the correlated dogmas. Moreover, the argument of the bishop is intrinsically wrong in that he uses an abstract hypothesis that could actually be true. Often people complain against beliefs and superstition (in magic and other things), and that is perfectly reasonable. Also, the bishop seems to speciosuly confuse the idea of opposing an entity with the concept of opposing the belief of an entity. As said, a non-theist opposes the non verified belief, not the object of the belief.

The bishop, however, continues and according to the transcript emphatically proclaims:

"Do you think [...] that we would have anything such thing in the world as prohibition unless there was nothing to prohibit? Could there ever be anti-cigarette laws unless there were cigarettes? How can there be atheism unless there is something to atheiate?’ She said ‘I hate you!’ ‘Well’ I said, ‘Now you have given the answer. Atheism is not a doctrine. It is a cry of wrath."

First thing one shoudl congratulate with the Bishop for the originality of the mataphor regarding the cigarettes. But the line:

"How can there be atheism unless there is something to atheiate?"

is so specious that it is even funny. It is ridiculous, grotesque.

I repeat once again the concept. There are many organizations in the world that fight superstition (which is indeed a cause of evil, many people are ripped off by 'magicians' and the like), is this a proof that magic really exists? No, only a proof that there are people who exploit the belief in magic. Atheist people do not fight against God, they fight against the ungrounded belief of God. The bishop confuses the two things. I hope in good faith. But is it plausible that a bishop confuses such things in good faith? Not it is not. Therefore the conclusion is that the bishop, likely, let himself be carried away by an access of sophistic rhetoric and either made up the story (actually the story is too well constructed and literary to sound plausible, it sounds more like a 'parable' smuggled as truth), or really used it to confuse the poor woman and his listeners. In both cases the bishop would show little consideration for the intelligence of people. Moreove, if the story is true, the bishop seemed to have shown little charity when dealing with the woman, abusing his familiarity with Catholic rhetoric.

It is so immensely disappointing that religious people should use such paucity of logic, such unsubstantial arguments, and moreover think of being persuasive. How can they themselves be convinced of the things they say? From a merely logic point of view even a priest with a little familiarity with philosophy should feel ashamed! Do they think people are stupid? And the rhetoric used is so priestly! How can a Catholic not feel treated like a gullible ignorant when fed up with such words? Really the rhetoric of the bishop has feels intellectually and morally abusive in its sophisms.

The concept of wrath mentioned by the bishop simply confirms the hypothesis I expressed above. A perceived (subjective) excess in the oppostion from the woman, if true, is something negative if it becomes a constant condition marked by grudge, but nichilism (in Nietzschean sense, as the uncovering of lies of metaphysics, see first period of writings by Nietzsche) is a necessary positive thing. To an extent also Freud is nichilistic as he explained things and destroyed some illusions: for instance the illusion of rational control; Freud also explained a variety of behaviours, religion included, associating such behaviours to their human (not divine) root. I don't know the woman of the example (nor does the bishop apparently), maybe the woman's battle is sustained by anger because her father was a strict mentally abusive Catholic, or maybe the priest was abusive, or maybe some nuns. Who knows? But does her anger really matter? No, it doesn't. Her ideas matter. Whereas the bishop exploits the woman's anger to illogically support his conclusions. The woman is plausibly simply a woman who does not believe in God, a free-thinker. Her passion cannot be pettily used to try to specioulsy unlegitimize her position or, moreover, to prove the existence of God.

Free-thinking is a value, and if free-thinking leads to non-theism that has to be accepted. Moreover, if the battle for non-theism is a battle for the freedom of thought, as it is, it is also commendable.

Free-thinking is a value. But what do Catholics think about free-thinking? Do they consider it a value? Maybe one should read MIRARI VOS, Encyclical Of Pope Gregory XVI promulgated on August 15, 1832, or the documents of the First Vatican Council to understand what the Roman Catholic Church think about free-thinking and to understand why non-dogmatism and free-thinking are important.

From MIRARI VOS:

"But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say.

"Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice."

"The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books. This was true even in apostolic times for we read that the apostles themselves burned a large number of books."

Was the above written in the Middle Ages? (Notice how St. Augustine is profusely quoted by the church). No it was written only in 1832 by Pope Gregory XVI. And only a few years after, the Pope was declared infallible (First Vatican Council Pius IX). Likely Catholics had to have their opinions surcharged by infallibility in a period when education and rationality were spreading out. In the First Vaticam Council the following was stated:

9. Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church; and furthermore they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth. (Session 3 - Chapter 4)

The above sentence is simply unacceptable and humiliating for humans as rationa beings. And is not the non-theism in itself that matters, but rather, the freedom of thought against dogmas, which leads to non-theism and, particularly, against organised religions that matters.

The bishop also says in the end of the transcript reported in DrChrist's post:

There are indeed two kinds of atheism… the other type of atheism is that type that may be called miffed, such as the communists. They really do not deny the existence of God. They challenge God. It is the very reality of God that saves them from insanity. It is the reality of God that gives them a real object against which they may vent their hate.

The argument against the supposed "miffed" component of communist is philosophically ungrounded and arbitrary. I can concede that communism did not abolish the idea of transcendence but, in a certain sense, embodied it in immanence through the idea of socialism, but this is another business. The statement that communists "really do not deny the existence of God. They challenge God" is ungrounded and false. Marx thought that religion is "the opiate of the masses". Also, notice again the sophistic, specious approach used in 1) stating that 'communists' are angry and 2) that such anger proves the existence of God. Come on!

Conclusion. The arguments used by the bishop to prove the existence of God, to judge atheism, or even to analyze the behaviour of people, are so poor and unsubstantial, that are an offence to the intelligence of people. Such arguments seem to imply that the bishop using them must deem their listeners as gullible sheep or worse, otherwise he would not use such rhetoric nonsense.

An esthetical opinion. One of the most disgusting aspects that goes with Christian faith is the self-complacent piety, that form of soft-hearted condescencion of saints-wannabe typical of those who have been fed up with milk and images of devout people with halos, praying hands, angelic eyes, visible palms.

You will notice, that all the above is usually very well exhibited, as well as their prayers, supposedly they pray a lot, but even more so they declare they do ("our prayers for this and that", "he / she is in our prayers" etc.). I have already said what I think about this exhibition of prayers. Interesting, I think Buddhists are more persuasive in their humbleness.

If there is something extraordinary in their faith, is not the divine content, but the limitless saintly ego displayed.

And never is their saintly gayety (literal sense of "The state of being gay; merriment; mirth; acts or entertainments prompted by, or inspiring, merry delight", Webster Dictionary, 1913) disturbed (supposedly) by less than saintly thoughts. And if yes, "oh well, the flesh is weak, I am human, I repent myself, but I keep my eyes fixed onto my transcendental divine destiny": it is all part of the self-deluding game, the fight between low instincts, corruption, sex (basically the real world) and the saint aspirations induced by the the Holy Spirit and the presence of God in us. Part of the strategy to cope with reality.

But all the above could well have intense psychiatric relevance, not only esthetical (boring and ridicululous). Dissociative syndrome, in my opinion. But psychiatrist turn one eye blind with some manifestations.

The best antidote against religion, in the long run, is religion itself. After a certain amount of time ridicule takes over.

You have faith? Walk on the fire of challenges and philosophies. But no, they will never do that. Faith absolves itself from its own inconsistencies and absurdities and accurately avoids any challenge. Bad faith (self-deceit), in the sense given by Sartre, at its best.

(continued) Of course, many would argue, not without reason, that not all who believe are cowards and in denial. True, often the mental habit is so well-rooted that one can hardly see the ancient origin of religion as a strategy to cope with the tragedy of life. But the total negation of doubt, the total refusal to subject faith to rational scrutiny, the refusal of even reading or being challenged by philosophies or science, all this is, at best, the evidence of a rooted bad faith (self-delusion) that is the best ally of faith.

(continued) The funny thing about Christianity is that in this respect [what I was saying in the previous post] it is not even original. Plato tried a similar operation in the field of philosophy. And what a coincidence, St. Augustine defines Platonists "the noblest of the philosophers" (City of God, Book X).

This reference to Plato and an interesting presentation of Plato and St. Agustine, as attempts to negate life's mortality in Sex and Death, by Beverly Clack. Beverley Clack (Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Oxford) also points out how St. Augustine's philosophy, compared to Plato, has added with peculiar intensity other aspects to the negation of life: the pervasive nature of sin, the inherent corruption created by the original sin, and present in each individual since birth, and the intense devaluation of human sexuality as a domain of sin and means of its transmission (I have spoken on sexuality and St. Augustine in some previous posts).

St. Augustine philosophy (and Christianity), as well as Plato's philosophy, and many other religions and elaborations of humans, are strategies. But their ancient, barbarian attempts are too obvious to be accepted nowadays. They represent relics of the past and an evidence of the persisting cowardness and denial that humans have when facing their own life.

All theistic religions are an attempt to make ends meet when it comes to the tragedy of human life. The tragedy being the fact that we are aware of our finitude which contrasts with our infinite ego. Therefore, humans have built themselves a destiny, a divine destiny, and fabricated powerful relatives (God). By contriving a powerful father, humans give themselves power, and soothe the anguish for their misery. The sad thing about all this, and the reason why it is inacceptable, is that the soothing religious pill does not work anymore, the palliative has become more heinous than the disease (life for religions). We should just accept our mortaility, and at least live life intensely, for what it is, instead of alienating ourselves from the only thing we have got and instead of humiliating ourselves, our reason and our creativity with the lies and the creations of the humans who invented the various religions.

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Check this one too, or this, and this site on homeschooling! There are many others, all can be found through the (fake) site mentioned in my previous two posts. Definitely the people behind this fake sites are clever. The disconcerting thing is that many of these fake sites reflect true religious approaches (example, I have heard religious people denying validity of Carbon 14 dating, or the dating of science and to accept the dating of the Bible).

Ignorance is bliss

I just came across this Web page meant to be educational for Christian kids. Appaling. Maybe it is a joke?

Check the Creation Science Fun Facts (Professor Giraffenstein) in the middle of the page. Some questions and answers:

Q. Hey Professor! Haven't dinos been extinct for millions of years?
A. Wrong Little Buddy... Dinosaurs still walk on the land [link provided] and swim in the seas! And the earth is less than 10,000 years old!

Q. Professor, what are fossils and where did they come from?
A. Fossils are the buried remains of the wicked men and animals that perished 4,000 years ago in the Flood!

Monday, October 13, 2003

DrChrist's last post appears to commend a discriminatory behaviour against homosexuals. The Catholic church shows its deep immaturity and incompatibility with science and rationality on issues like sexuality (heterosexual or homosexual), sexual education, contraception, use of condoms (even at the cost of not saving lives, the Catholic Church forbids them).

Thanks to Mallory for mentioning the book A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit and posting the link to this review, for which my catholic readers (if any!) will be delighted. The book tackles some issues on which people might have different opinions, but definitely appears to be thought-provoking. This a list of comments on the book.

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