The Times: Religion isn’t the sickness. It’s the cure

In today’s The Times, William Rees-Mogg, the Times columnist of yesteryear, expounds on the virtues of christianity, initially with respect to slavery, and then goes on to lambast atheistic attitudes and final put out that overly worn (and well-dismissed) mantra that one cannot be moral without religion – in this case, christianity.

In the opening paragraph, Rees-Mogg opines:

From the earliest days Christianity has been opposed to slavery. In his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul wrote: “As many of you that have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. We were all one in Jesus Christ.” Undoubtedly Christians have compromised with slavery — as with other social evils — in the course of history, but the orthodox Christian doctrine is one of liberty and equality.

He first puts forward his argument, and then backs it up with scripture. However, reading the scripture that he quotes, one can immediately see that it is not opposing slavery, it’s just acknowledging its existence. Opposing it, it would have had to say something like “slavery is wrong unto the lord” or “the lord doesn’t suffer a slave owner to live” or “unto the lord, slavery is an abomination”. But no, we don’t see that.

In fact, reading through the bible, one gets the distinct impression that slavery wasn’t just tolerated, it was actively condoned. Even those who adore that vicious book acknowledge that slavery isn’t condemned. Christianity doesn’t seem to be quite as moral as it claims.

The Christian belief was the inspiration in William Wilberforce’s long campaign to end the slave trade. His Bill received the Royal Assent on March 25, 1807, 200 years ago. That was the most important of all the great reforms of the 19th century; essentially it was a Christian reform, inspired by the Protestant conversion of Wilberforce himself.

Ok, so we have one christian who opposed slavery. However, calling this a christian reform is presuming a little too much credit on the part of christianity.

It is said that William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a Christian. But at any rate his Christianity was strongly diluted with unbelief. As an abolitionist he did not believe Leviticus xxv. 44-6; he must have rejected Exodus xxi. 2-6; he could not have accepted the many permissions and injunctions by the Bible deity to his chosen people to capture and hold slaves. In the House of Commons on 18th February, 1796, Wilberforce reminded that Christian assembly that infidel and anarchic France had given liberty to the Africans, whilst Christian and monarchic England was “obstinately continuing a system of cruelty and injustice.”

Wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery, found the whole influence of the English Court, and the great weight of the Episcopal Bench, against him. George III, a most Christian king, regarded abolition theories with abhorrence, and the Christian House of Lords was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. When Christian missionaries some sixty-two years ago preached to Demerara negroes under the rule of Christian England, they were treated by Christian judges, holding commission from Christian England, as criminals for so preaching. A Christian commissioned officer, member of the Established Church of England, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as the year 1824. In the evidence before a Christian court-martial, a missionary is charged with having tended to make the negroes dissatisfied with their condition as slaves, and with having promoted discontent and dissatisfaction amongst the slaves against their lawful masters. For this the Christian judges sentenced the Demerara abolitionist missionary to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. The judges belonged to the Established Church; the missionary was a Methodist. In this the Church of England Christians in Demerara were no worse than Christians of other sects; their Roman Catholic Christian brethren in St. Domingo fiercely attacked the Jesuits as criminals because they treated negroes as though they were men and women, in encouraging “two slaves to separate their interest and safety from that of the gang,” whilst orthodox Christians let them couple promiscuously and breed for the benefit of their owners like any other of their plantation cattle. In 1823 the ‘Royal Gazette’ (Christian) of Demerara said: “We shall not suffer you to enlighten our slaves, who are bylaw our property, till you can demonstrate that when they are made religious and knowing they will continue to be our slaves.”
Humanity’s Gain From Unbelief – Charles Bradlaugh (1889 & 1929)

This hardly sounds like it supports the claim that christianity was instrumental in the abolition of slavery. Perhaps his religious bias has usurped his supposed journalistic integrity in this case.

A lot more evidence to support this can be found over at Debunking Christianity.

However, continuing with Rees-Mogg:

We live in an age when modernists regard religion with something approaching panic. It is like the Devil’s attitude to Holy Water. There was a comic example of Christianophobia in The Sunday Times yesterday. Michael Portillo, who used himself to be seen in Brompton Oratory, was hyperventilating at the idea of David Cameron going to church. “I worry,” he wrote, “because men of power who take instruction from unseen forces are essentially fanatics . . . I would be more reassured to hear that the Tory leader goes to church because that is what it takes to get a child into the best of state schools, not because he is a believer.”

Perhaps this neurotic response to Mr Cameron’s habit of going to church reflects Mr Portillo’s recognition that religion is again becoming an important influence on society. Many of the current news stories show that religion is back in public consciousness; for those who feel uneasy about religion, that is unwelcome.

My emphasis. I’m not sure what Rees-Mogg is alluding to here, when he uses the adjective “important” to refer to the influence of religion on society. Perhaps he means to use it in it’s meaning of “serious” or “influential”, rather than the more populist meaning of “valuable”. I hope it’s the former but, I am sadly let to believe considering the tone of the rest of the article, that it’s the latter.

I, for one, who do not usually have any common ground with Portillo, am in agreement with him on this issue: I would rather that Cameron was a church attendee to aid his child’s entrance into a faith school, rather than because he actually believes in, and acts on, the dogmas of the christian church.

Islam is, of course, the alarming religious issue that will not go away. In the 20th century the world failed to adjust to two major belief systems, nationalism and Marxism. Now we face a similar global challenge from Islam, which opposes Judaism in Israel, Hinduism in India, Buddhism in South East Asia, Christianity in Europe and America and modernism in the whole advanced world. We certainly cannot say that all religious influences are benign; al-Qaeda is a religious cult, but a perverted one.

Here’s a prime example of the compartmentalisation of the theistic mind: my religion is lovely and homey and doesn’t do anything wrong; that other religion over there is a disgusting travesty and should be expunged from the face of the planet. Nyah.

So, here we have one theist, on the one hand extolling the virtues of his own belief system, and on the other hand taking someone else’s religion to be evil and dangerous. I doubt, should Mr Rees-Mogg ever have the opportunity to interview the terminally absent Mr Bin Laden, if he asked him what his thoughts were on the influences of islam on the world and on christian influences to same, he would think islam is a blight on humanity, and that christianity was the best way to ensure peace and love with all the populations of the world. I’d be happy to put money on this.

As the immortal Frank Zappa once said, The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own. This is certainly true if one considers the assets of the Church of England, and those of al-Qaeda (who, to the best of anybody’s knowledge, live in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan).

Religion turned William Wilberforce into a Protestant saint, but Wahhabism has turned Osama bin Laden into a devil.

This equivocation of “religion” (when Rees-Mogg means christianity specifically) implies that wahhabism isn’t a bona fide religious outlook. Unfortunately, it is, although it’s not usually known by that name by those who practice it.

One of the central tenets of wahhabism is reform to a stricter interpretation of the koran. One can easily see the equivalent within the christian outlook in the fundamentalist attitudes of the USA, and with increasing vociferousness, in the UK as well, who seek to implement a more literal, biblical idea of christianity onto the statute. Take the recent example of the catholic church’s attitude to the recent equality bill, and the CofE’s vocal support of them.

There’s two options at work here: either these people are already bigots, without any influence of their religion and are just using it as an excuse for their bigotry, or their religion is genuinely bigotted and they’re comfortable with it being so, perhaps even relishing it. If one cares to read the christian scriptures, one can see that the latter ideas are supported. Again, we have christian morality under question.

The rise of militant Islam in the 21st century is, however, part of a much broader phenomenon. In the United States there has been the extraordinary resurgence of fundamentalist Protestantism, sufficiently strong to win two presidential elections for the Republican Party. In Britain, an inflow of Catholics from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, has revitalised the Roman Catholic Church, which now has the largest Christian congregation in the country. The worldwide Church of England has been divided by a battle of moral convictions. All of these religious movements challenge modernism, that popular mix of materialism, scientism and political correctness that had seemed to be carrying all before it.

Perhaps it would be uncharitable of me to point out that Rees-Mogg doesn’t clear up the his use of the term “materialism”, whether he means the money-grubbing attitude, or the philosophical idea that the material universe is all there is. It may be even more improper of me to suggest that, as is common with those theists that take this type of stance against reality that it’s probably another form of equivocation, that half-minded and intellectually scandalous commingling of the two. Sadly, again, I fear that this is Rees-Mogg’s position. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, though I fear I’m not.

I also must presume that he’s using the terms “scientism” in the pejorative, rather than in the traditional meaning, as he’s using it as a counterpoint to religious movements.

The modernist attack on religion was based on the victory of science, and particularly of neo-Darwinism. Yet science was open to the same challenge as religion; it could explain only half the world. The scientists, or some of them, sneered at religion for being unable to explain the developments of nature. Yet science itself was unable to produce a science-based morality for society. Marxism attempted to create a scientific social order that ended in monstrous and bloodthirsty tyranny. Social Darwinism either meant eugenics and the slaughter of babies who were not thought fit to survive, or it meant nothing. The Social Darwinism of George Bernard Shaw, or indeed that of Adolf Hitler, has been rejected by mankind.

Now, I can’t take Rees-Mogg’s use of the term “neo-Darwinism” without reference to the rest of this paragraph, especially when he mentions “eugenics” and “Hitler”. He is obviously, here, using it in the tongue of the (especially young-earth) creationists — the pejorative sense — rather than its technical meaning of modern evolutionary synthesis. I’d say this was a red-flag for journalistic integrity and intellectual honesty.

He then goes and commits the intellectually mendacious crime of equating social Darwinism and eugenics with the scientific ideas of natural selection. By saying that Social Darwinism either meant eugenics and the slaughter of babies who were not thought fit to survive, or it meant nothing he’s not only creating a false dichotomy with emotive horrific overtones, he’s creating a equivocal situation whereby the traditional ideas of Darwinian evolution (natural selection, et al) and science in general are equated with the most terrible of eugenic idea — baby killing.

It should also be borne in mind, though, that one of the main aspects of eugenics, selective breeding — which humans have been doing for thousands of years with domesticated animals — is practiced in the biblical old testament. Hmmm.

This non sequitur shouldn’t be ignored, as it’s the crux of his argument for christianity as a force for good.

Comparing religion and science, he claims that science was open to the same challenge as religion; it could explain only half the world. Clearly, he either has very little understanding of what science is, what it’s for, and how it’s achieved, or he is being rather impious in claiming that religion is not up to the job of explaining the universe. Either way, he is being disingenuous in arguing for the positivity of religion without understanding the fundamentals of the science he is decrying.

Additionally, in a illogical coupe de grâce, he says that because science could explain natural processes where religion couldn’t, science fails because it can’t provide a basis for morality. I hope that this is showing that religion has rather less than a monopoly on ethics.

Rees-Mogg is exposing either his ignorance of the goals of science (to accurately and honestly describe (and predict) the universe we live in) or his bias against science because it implies, by definition, that his choice of religion is ever increasingly unlikely to be true. Again, I suspect it’s the latter.

Continuing with Rees-Mogg’s rant:

The world needs religion to address the moral issues. In the advanced societies it is these moral issues that now mock us. Europe and North America are hugely wealthy regions, but they are morally impoverished. Broken families, drugs, booze, youth gangs, crime, neglect of children and the old, the sheer boredom of shopaholicism, terrorism, the inner-city slums, materialism itself, are all the marks of a global society in decline. Societies can be judged by their care for children. Social education must start in the family and must have a moral basis. Children need to be taught to distinguish between right and wrong. A recent report by Unicef showed Britain as 21st out of 21 advanced countries in the welfare of children; our national failure is a shame and a disgrace.

The implication in the first sentence here is that religion is the only basis of morality. This, is a constant refrain from the theistic community, and has been shown to be clearly false. This is simply a case of an argument from personal incredulity: he can’t imagine any reasons to be moral without his god, therefore it doesn’t exist. More compartmentalisation.

Following this he then goes on to claim that Europe and North America are morally impoverished. Which is odd, especially when you consider the percentages of religiosity that these two regions claim, especially in the case of the USA, where an estimated 80-95% of the population are openly (and often overtly) religious. If this is indeed the case, I fail to see how a claim that the religious are the only ones to have any kind of morality holds any water if these places are so morally impoverished. I would argue that the contrary is true: religion leads to a lack of morality. At least my hypothesis, even if I’m wrong, is supported by the facts. His hypothesis just contradicts his earlier premises.

We can also see examples of high, almost total, religiosity in some of the middle eastern countries, where violence is rampant, discrimination is de rigueur. I don’t think even Rees-Mogg could claim that religion here was a force for good in this case. Of course, he wouldn’t say this: he’s made it clear that christianity is his idea of ‘good’ religion — islam is merely a diabolical cult.

Then he goes on to list some of the ’symptoms’ of our modern, secular, age (yes, the same morally impoverished ones with the high levels of religiosity). Of course, he reiterates the manta of “materialism bad – materialism bad”, again refraining from explaining which version of materialism he’s talking about: more equivocation to muddy the waters. However, it’s difficult to see how science has caused the symptoms he mentions. Perhaps he’s alluding to the idea that a lack of religion causes these ills – but doesn’t provide any evidence to support either of these conclusions.

He then goes on to say that [s]ocieties can be judged by their care for children and pulls out the recent UNICEF study that shows that the UK is 21st out of 21 advanced countries in the welfare of children. Imagine how this rating would change if the study took into account every single country in the world. Cross referencing that with the religiosity of those countries, I don’t doubt that the more religious would have, in general, a lesser rating.

I do wonder if Rees-Mogg would be happier if we took ourselves back to the very christian pre-Victorian era: an era when children, an young as five years old, worked in mines, when child mortality was at 200-300 per 1,000, when children of the privileged were the only ones to receive an education.

Indeed, if, as Rees-Mogg claims, societies are judged by their care for children, then those mostly-christian times past have nothing to boast about when compared to the present day. Comparing then to now, which is the bigger disgrace?

In 19th century England, the revival of Christianity provided the basis for a century of social reform. The religious revival spread across all the Christian churches; in the Church of England there was the Evangelical movement as well as the High Church movement. The Roman Catholic Church attracted thousands of new converts. The Methodists and other Nonconformists devoted themselves to the welfare of the poor and the working class. The Salvation Army took its trumpets into the pubs and slums and offered a new hope.

The 19th century was an age of social reform based on religious revival and the Christian faith. The 20th century was an age of religious decline and of accelerating decline in social cohesion as well as in faith. “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey/ When wealth accumulates and men decay.”

What Rees-Mogg neglects to mention here, and it is an important distinction, is that the revival that christianity underwent was primarily in opposition to the prevailing climate of christian traditionalism that was the societal norm at the time, rather from the implied overarching attitude of laissez-faire godlessness. He also omits the very direct influences of humanistic attitudes, many of which were directly contrary to some of the more traditional christian ideas, like the slave trade.

A lack of cohesion is always claimed by the traditionalist, within any era, as the cause of the ills in the society in which they live. They wouldn’t be a traditionalists, otherwise. However, although the vast majority of power and money still lie with the elite and the clergy, the person on the street has, in general improved their lot. A return to a time where the elite and the clergy hold all of the money and the power and where we have none is not an attractive proposition.

To claim that religion is the cure for all of societies ill is at best wishful thinking, and at worst witheringly naïve. In fact, to claim so, and then act on this claim as if it’s true, could lead to a situation that’s far worse than we have today.

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