Another christian not quite getting it

While trawling the interwebtubes, I came across MadPriest’s blog, who has a post about the recent BHA “atheist bus”1 affair.

MadPriest, as he likes to be known, seems to be a relatively liberal type of christian (as most UK anglicans are), but seems to take some exception to the actions of the BHA and its supporters after reading this article in The Telegraph:

I fully understand atheism and possibly spend more time considering it for myself than most agnostics. But these so-called humanists I just don’t get. They are just so destructive – they always campaign for the negative whatever they say about themselves. If they truly were “people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs” they would just STFU and live and let live.

I guess about 5% of the English population is part of the”established church.” The bravest we ever get nowadays is to lecture people about spending too much money at Christmas and to make comments like “the rich are responsible for the rest of us being poor.” In other words, bog-standard humanist beliefs. Our church schools are exactly the same as any 100% state school in respect of the curriculum. They may have very bland and wishy-washy Christian assemblies, but any student can opt out them (although even the Muslim students don’t tend to).

We are not financed by the state. We have one privilege – the right of a few bishops to sit in the non-legislative house of parliament and nobody, except the bishops, give a toss about that. In return our old ladies pay for the upkeep of most of our country’s architectural treasures.

So what are these English humanists after?

Do they think that if they get rid of the Christians their enemy will disappear along with them?

I don’t think so – he’ll just change his name to Allah and then they will have something to complain about.

I won’t comment on the £35k grant given to the BHA for their research as his comment doesn’t deal with it and, besides, eight other organisations were given similar grants for the same purpose, but I did comment on his comment, where I wanted to clear up a few “details”, and which was as follows:

The Telegraph wrote: ‘The BHA says it is dedicated to bringing about “a world without religious privilege or discrimination” and represents “people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs”.

You wrote: ‘But these so-called humanists I just don’t get. They are just so destructive – they always campaign for the negative whatever they say about themselves. If they truly were “people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs” they would just STFU and live and let live.’

It’s rather amusing that you copy (but seemingly didn’t read) the motives of the BHA, but extrapolate their own definition of themselves to create a strawman. Let’s see those two original quotes together:

“[P]eople who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs”… seeking “a world without religious privilege or discrimination”.

Please, just think about that for a moment.

If anything, they campaign is to remove the “negative”: discrimination over the parts of the population by promotion of religion over non-religion, discrimination over the rest of the population by the promotion of your religion over other religions, the ability for the heads of your religion (unelected by the rest of the population) to assume a right to represent/browbeat same, etc.

You’re wrong that “nobody, except the bishops, give a toss about” their being in the HoL; there are plenty of us that don’t care for the church’s special privileges in this regard. Admittedly there are also many of us that don’t care for the unelectedness of the HoL at all, but that’s a separate issue.

As for state finance, churches can, under certain circumstances, receive public money, and of course the CoE has either a reduced of or exemption from taxation (depending on the mode of the finance in question). This can make a huge difference to fundraising. If it doesn’t, I guess the church would happily abrogate its tax privileges, no?

If the “architectural treasures” truly belong to the country as you claim, then why not have the church donate them to the country (i.e. an organisation like The National Trust) and then have the tax-payer provide for their upkeep in the standard way such things are done? I suspect, the church wants to keep these as part of their £5.67 billion portfolio of property and other investments. Considering this sanction of gambling (sorry, how impolitic of me, “good stewardship of assets aligned neatly with the Parable of the Talents”) somehow I don’t think it’s just a bunch of concerned tea-drinking little old ladies keeping the church in eucharist goblets and stained glass. I’ll say nothing of the church’s approbation for lottery funds (PDF) or funding for church schools.

I’m sure the BHA and others of that ilk will happily “just STFU and live and let live” when those of church choose to do the same. Perhaps you could give Slee, Williams, Sentamu and the rest of the talking heads a nod in this direction?

You wrote: “So what are these English humanists after?

“Do they think that if they get rid of the Christians their enemy will disappear along with them?

“I don’t think so – he’ll just change his name to Allah and then they will have something to complain about.”

It’s just occured to me: I don’t think I’ve ever seen passive-aggressive fatwa-envy before. Should I give you props for that?

I’ll mention it again seeing as it doesn’t appear to have registered: “a world without religious privilege or discrimination”. This is hardly the same thing as “a world without religion”. Christians are not their enemy, christian (and other religious) privilege is what’s of concern.

By the way, they’re the British Humanist Association. And, if they really are a bona fide “religion” (in which case they should receive the same privileges as other religions, should they not? Either that, or denigrating humanism as “just another religion” as some of a theistic bent are wont to do on occasion [as exemplified in some of the comments here] simply undermines the assumed supercilious position of their own religion) then please direct me to their articles of faith, their scriptures, their dogmas and diktats, their traditions, their places of worship, their high priests and all of the other trappings of religiosity. I’ve obviously missed them in my travels.

Hopefully he’ll think about this a little and reconsider his attitude towards the BHA and other secular organisations. He seems otherwise like a rather reasonable christian.

1. how I dislike that term [↩]

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