Letters/The Independent: Dodging the issue
From the Letters page of The Independent on 22nd December:
Sir: This Christian is left amused and astonished that Johann Hari (Opinion, 21 December) can be so theologically ignorant.
Christianity anti-materialistic? On the contrary, as William Temple observed, it is the most materialistic of all religions, celebrating not only the physical world from quarks to quasars, but also creaturely embodiment, indeed - precisely at Christmas - the enfleshed humanity of God.
Christianity anti-science? On the contrary, as historians of ideas have observed, it was precisely the Christian desacralisation of nature, granting time and space its own integrity, that allowed the natural sciences to flourish.
Christianity barbaric? After all, it has a God who “feeds small children to bears”. Never mind the Sermon on the Mount, no, go for an Old Testament folk tale as the basis of a critique of biblical ethics. Such a hermeneutic would make a first-year religious studies student blush.
It is not that Mr Hari gives a bad name to Christianity, for he torches a straw man. Rather, he gives a bad name to atheism itself: Nietzsche, Marx and Freud would wince at his accusations.
THE REVD KIM FABRICIUS
Fabricus seems to suffer from that common theistic affliction of selective interpretation, also known as “cherry picking“.
Christianity anti-materialistic? On the contrary, as William Temple observed, it is the most materialistic of all religions, celebrating not only the physical world from quarks to quasars, but also creaturely embodiment, indeed - precisely at Christmas - the enfleshed humanity of God.
As Temple mentions, this comes through in the ritual of the eucharist (the cannibalistic ritual of eating and drinking the flesh of the christ). I don’t recall any mention of either quarks nor quasars concerned with this. Neither do I find any mention of these within the christian scriptures. Perhaps I haven’t read it thoroughly enough.
It’s also well established that christmas has next to nothing to do with the Christ of the christian faith. q.v. Saturnalia, Yule, Mithras.
Christianity anti-science? On the contrary, as historians of ideas have observed, it was precisely the Christian desacralisation of nature, granting time and space its own integrity, that allowed the natural sciences to flourish.
Christianity is anti-science, there’s not really any way to get around this. Truth claims are made by christian scripture: Bats are birds, the universe created in six days, a god exists, etc. Rituals that invoke magical, supernatural intervention: the eucharist, prayer. Pseudoscience: ID/creationism, holy water, crying madonnas. All of these can, are and have been tested by science, and found wanting.
Christianity barbaric? After all, it has a God who “feeds small children to bears”. Never mind the Sermon on the Mount, no, go for an Old Testament folk tale as the basis of a critique of biblical ethics. Such a hermeneutic would make a first-year religious studies student blush.
Way to dodge the issue! Never mind the Sermon on the Mount
Now, that’s a really neat application of a red-herring fallacy. [G]o for an Old Testament folk tale as the basis of a critique of biblical ethics
Sweet! By saying this (argumentum ad novitatem vs argumentum ad antiquitatem), you can now safely ignore any ethical (or otherwise) claim or imperative made in the old testament, say, like the ten commandments. Such a hermeneutic would make a first-year religious studies student blush
Whoa! Let’s look at some of the other things from the old testament that can be creatively interpreted as the christian god being a barabarous scumbag: Genesis 6:7, Genesis 15:9-10, Genesis 22:2-13, Genesis 38:8-10, Exodus 11… you get the picture. I won’t even bother to mention the appeal to the every schoolboy knows fallacy.
It is not that Mr Hari gives a bad name to Christianity, for he torches a straw man. Rather, he gives a bad name to atheism itself: Nietzsche, Marx and Freud would wince at his accusations.
And here we have the coup de grâce: while not only denouncing Hari as having created a strawman, Fabricus simultaniously manages projection of his/her own strawman and has an appeal to authority by invoking the names of Freud, Marx and Nietzsche - who are obviously everybody’s atheist benchmarks. Well done, I applaude you!