Letter to The Independent (unpublished)
Yesterday, Bruce Anderson, one of The Independent’s regular contributors, opined that [e]ven non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity
The era of the Crusades is over. But in our dealings with Islam, it would help us if we had more confidence in our own values and traditions. In order for that to occur, as many people as possible ought to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I wrote the following letter to the editor, which wasn’t published, although a similar comment to mine was (see Darren Hill’s comment). My letter is below.
Dear Sir,
Bruce Anderson (”Even non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity”, 9 April 2007) opined “Professor Richard Dawkins and his noisy acolytes … have an easier task than theists … it is only necessary to accept one proposition. Believers have to try to understand what they believe.”
Contrary to Mr Anderson’s ill-conceived notions, atheism is a conclusion drawn from the exposure to any number of god-concepts and not from the acceptance of a singular proposition, and certainly not from simply rejecting the christian ideas of a god. On the contrary, it only requires a believer to accept just one idea of a god (or gods) and the rest are rejected by the edicts of their dogma of choice without any further consideration. Atheists, on the other hand, have to examine all deistic claims and reason with each accordingly.
Mr Anderson’s epithet of “noisy acolytes” is not only misprepresentative of the position of atheists (we applaude, not follow) but is a simple-minded ad hominem, projected in the language of the religious. Mr Anderson should be ashamed for stooping to such rhetoric.
Mr Anderson also stated that “Mr Dawkins gives the impression that the possibility of self-doubt has never crossed his mind.” Perhaps he would care to read Prof. Dawkins’ The God Delusion (once more?) to discover what he actually said about what it would take to change his mind about the existence of gods. I, too, have my own evidentiary requirements. Does Mr Anderson have any such ideas as to what evidence would be required to disabuse him of his own theistic beliefs? Somehow, I doubt there are any.
Perhaps Mr Anderson will in his next column explain to his audience why he believes what he believes (his own argument above suggests that he has already done this) and also why he rejects all other god-concepts. I’ll give him a hint and suggest that he deals with Zeus, Odin, Thor, Krishna and Isis initially. Perhaps then he can vanquish the thousands of other notions of gods in subsequent opinion pieces.
Mr Anderson finally suggests that we would all be better off believing in his singular saviour man-god (c.f. Osiris, Dionysus, Mithra, Attis, et al) to have more confidence in “dealings with” islam. I submit that perhaps we should be looking at more reasoned (and reasonable) avenues of discourse, rather than those proposed by bronze age desert mystics whose ultimate solution to many questions of morality was “stone it to death”.
Of course, a letter the length of this would never get published in a daily newspaper in its entirety, if at all. But I feel gratified to see that at least a partial response by somebody opposed to Anderson’s wingnuttery was published.
No other posts are likely to be like this.
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5 Responses to “Letter to The Independent (unpublished)”
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Tagged
An Identical Role for Believers and Unbelievers
What would it actually take to persuade you to “alter†your religious beliefs? I’m inclined to think we’ll have to be sitting in the darkness of a “nuclear winter†before people seriously question their religious thinking! And when I say “people,†I do not only mean what the Muslims, Christians and Jews think! To be sure, the “self-satisfied†atheists and the “removed-from-it-all†agnostics and the “beyond-it-all†believers in “heathen†religions are doing absolutely nothing to help the world avoid the Religious War that will hurtle everyone into the prophesied “gross darkness†of a manmade “nuclear winter!â€
The Prophets of Judaism, Christianity and Islam brought messages about the Lord God of all creation that never contradicted each other, as they introduced the world to the One Thinking Source of all the energy in existence. Their teachings have persuaded a huge portion of the world’s population to embrace one of those three “related†monotheistic religions. Yet, amazingly, many Jews and Christians actually believe that “Allah,†the Name used by Muslims for Abraham’s God, is not the same God that Abraham worshiped. That is how “elementary†their ignorance is! Worse yet, each religious “family†embraces their clergy’s interpretations of their own Holy Book. And each “family†is so certain their clergy’s teachings are “right,†they won’t even consider reconsidering their beliefs. So, will the unbelievers learn and save us?
They could, but chances are, they won’t! Even as you won’t, no matter your current beliefs. But, tell yourself the truth! Are you really so satisfied with what you believe — whatever that is — that you are more willing to suffer a nuclear war than to try to improve your understanding? Even if you’re a “non-believer†in Abraham’s God, if enough of you finally came to appreciate what ALL the Prophets taught, the “believers†of the world would finally have a compelling reason to pay attention to you! And you would finally awaken them — which is what you’ve wanted to do all along, but you lacked the “right†message! So, no matter your “religious philosophy,†you could diminish the Religious War that is closing in on every single human being, by learning from ALL the Prophets and speaking of them to others. (You could learn from the individual Sacred Books, or discover the essence of their teachings from my book. The point is, SEEK and you CAN find!)
Jane,
while I appreciate your semblance of a comment, it might have been rather more appropriate to come up with something that perhaps had some kind of relevance to my post, rather than simply copying and pasting a previous post from your own blog.
In answer to your principal question , I would refer you to my reply to a previous post in answer to this same question. Whether you are or not is immaterial, since I have already provided the answer and it does not correspond with what you believe.
As a footnote, I don’t appreciate advertisements disguised as comments. Any further comments like this will go to the great Askimet dump in the sky.
As a further footnote, you might want to lay off the scare quote pills — you seem to be taking more than the recommended daily dosage.
I tried my best, but when I read Jane’s “post” my eyes kept watering and the words blurred into one. I am impressed you managed to extract a principle question, let alone responded to it.
It wasn’t easy, I was tempted to eat my own face before I read any further but I stuck it out, and now look at me! ;-)