I read an opinion piece in The Age, Melbourne Australia, by Greg Craven and understand what Dad meant. It’s a boostful, sarcastic attack on “the new hobby atheist is as brash, noisy and confident as a cheap electric kettle” by the vice cancellor of a local Catholic university. Craven equates this group of atheists to a new plague of blowflies or something fictitious from biblical Egypt.

The Roman Catholic Church is apparently a particularly popular target. Is it the endless cover-ups of priestly child abuse around the world? No. Is the use of misleading scare campaigns against the use of condoms to fight HIV infections in Africa? Is the historical distorting of the evolution science message in Catholic schools and communities? Is the selective application of healthcare driven by theology ahead of humanity? Is it the discrimination of women and homosexuals from positions of power within the church? It is none of these: apparently its because the church is big and, unlike their protestant bretheren, they actually believe in something. Craven sees the media as full of Christian attacks as today’s modern blood-sport.

I shall give Greg Craven the closing words:

At the bottom, of course, lies hate. I am not quite clear why our modern crop of atheists hates Christians, as opposed to ignoring or even politely dismissing them, but they very clearly do. There is nothing clever, witty or funny about hate.

Alex McCullie

It’s a theme here – stop giving religions immunity from criticism about their human rights attitudes. Religions, faiths and churches should be subject to the same standards as applied to all in our societies. Adverse homophobic attitudes should be unacceptable from all secular and religious organisations. Some (not enough) have highlighted the Vatican’s appalling offer to disaffected Anglicans – homophobes, misogynists and bigots – to join an organisation happy with those attitudes – the Roman Catholic Church. And the same churches are so sensitive to criticism!

Randy Cohen in the NYT comments

Richard Dawkins has a few low-key words, including:

What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity with which Jesus himself might have connected, however tenuously: a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate. The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite. It does not send its missionaries out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans, about the alleged ineffectiveness of condoms in protecting against HIV. Whether one agrees with him or not, there is a saintly quality in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a benignity of countenance, a well-meaning sincerity. How does Pope Ratzinger measure up? The comparison is almost embarrassing.

Alex McCullie

[N]eutrality toward world views cannot be truly tolerant and respectful. Likewise, an absence of convictions does not define tolerance; and in the absence of some compelling notion of the truth that requires us to be tolerant of those who have a different understanding of the truth of things, there is only skepticism and relativism.

and later:

An authentic notion of tolerance in pluralistic societies demands that in their dealings with unbelievers and those of different faiths, believers should grasp that they must reasonably expect that the dissent they encounter will go on existing. At the same time, however, secular political cultures must encourage unbelievers to grasp the same point in their dealings with believers. When secularized citizens act in their role as citizens, they must [not] deny in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth. Nor must they refuse their believing fellow citizens the right to make contributions in a religions language to public debates.

Again, the Catholic hierarchy view astounds me. I would have thought neutrality towards religious world views would more naturally lead to tolerance than say an ardent Christian, Islamic or Jewish view. Many religious people love conflating secularism and atheism to be anti-religious. They seem to work on the most intolerant mentality of ‘for us’ or ‘against us’. So who is really intolerant?

The real agenda comes in the second quotation. The Catholic leadership wants to imposed their faith-based morality (derived from revelations and ancient scriptures) onto the modern secular world. I have no problems people having religious attitudes. However, and this is a big ‘however’, discussion in the public space needs to be based in modern-day secular terms. Restricting condom use in HIV ravaged Africa, for example, should not be argued on the basis of God’s will or preventing soul-creation.

Alex McCullie

Alex McCullie

Alex McCullie

http://www.thecatholicsearch.com is another and older search engine that’s safe for Catholics. Unlike CatholicGoogle (now named Cathoogle – a problem with Google?) mentioned previously, The Catholic Search engine restricts you to acceptable sites only – a sort of non-catholic Roman Catholic search – sorry.

This time my site didn’t come up with The catholic Search engine!

See Faithworld for a blog discussion.

Alex McCullie

News articles about the Pope’s speech and responses
National Post
Christian Today
Conservative Anglican defends Pope
Guardian Online
Religious conservatives defend Popes attacks

Alex McCullie

It used to be a simple “stop it or you’ll go blind” injunction. The Roman Catholic Church repackaged this to have a new “inconvenient truth” environmental outcome to strengthen its sinful message (article at the Onion in 2005).

Alex McCullie

Alex McCullie