General Conversation on History and Religion

First , I’d like to be complimentary about the posting from ‘John’, the sort of thing which makes this weblog worthwhile. I’ll reproduce it here for those who may have missed it: ‘The Nazis are in no sense traditional or social and cultural conservatism taken to the extreme. If you were to say that old fashioned Toryism, that of Dr. Johnson, Swift and Bolingbroke, Clarendon and Strafford was Mr. Hitchens's conservatism or traditional conservatism taken to the extreme, then that might be correct. Or even if you were to say that the counter-revolutionary conservatism of Viscount De Bonald or Justus Moser was this extreme, you might be able to make an argument, but Nazism or fascism in no sense are simply the extreme of social or traditional conservatism.

 

Arguments CAN be made about Franco's (the distortion of the Spanish civil war that sees one side as good and the other evil, where in fact the Republicans were at least as bad and would have been worse victors from Britain's point of view, placing a communist regime in Western Europe, is to opposed) relationship to traditional conservatism. His means were often directly counter to traditional conservatism, but he did partially back a sort of nationalist traditional conservatism (Franco was never a fascist).

Whilst Macaulay is wrong (as is often the case) that the Stuarts tried for a novel absolutism - in fact, they rather hesitatingly simply tried to continue the Tudor absolutism (Henry VIII was a tyrant far, far worse than any of the Stuarts, even James II) - the idea the enlightenment gave us the rule of law is absurd. This is an idea of long precedence in Roman law, common law, and medieval and early modern European thought. In fact, Mr.Godfrey lumps together democracy and the rule of law, which are in fact quite different in origin and intent. The rule of law belongs to a long tradition of ordered liberty, long predating the enlightenment, but continued by the best elements of the enlightenment (the more conservative elements like Hume and Adam Smith). Democracy has far less to do with ordered liberty, and, when insisted upon in any strong sense and connected with ideas like radical equality, comes out of the radical enlightenment of Rousseau and the philosophes and is a menace to order, justice, and liberty. The old ideal was not democracy but the Res Publica, or the people's thing. This meant simply the government ruled in the interests of all its people, as a mass and in their several classes, associations, and interests. It did not mean the government needed to be significantly democratic; indeed, a King could rule a Republic in the traditional sense.’

 

This is serious, thoughtful and enlightening. I sort of agree with him about Macaulay and Henry VIII, but would point out that Henry was an aberration, and recognised as such at the time.  It’s an interesting question by how much he accelerated the arrival of the Reformation in England( and by how much he may also have delayed it).  But I have always been led to believe that his loathing for the cult of Thomas a Becket  (windows portraying Becket, and other monuments to him, tended to be smashed or removed if they were on premises Henry controlled) had nothing to do with any religious opinions, but rather with Henry’s dislike of the political power of the Church).

 

By the way, if people have at hand texts which answer questions ( as for example the Hitler speech) why don’t they provide the quotations, rather than referring me to the book? I don’t possess volumes of Hitler’s speeches, and it would take even me some time to locate and consult such a volume.

 

I am also grateful to Amarjeet Singh for his thoughtful and fair-minded contribution : I am an atheist and I get annoyed when I hear other atheists say "not believing is not a belief" and "I don't believe in God because I am intelligent" and all the other lines they produce. Their argument is that there is no proof for God, therefore it is a belief and as they oppose your view, their view is not a belief. Next time you are confronted with that argument Peter point out to the atheist that if they don't believe the universe was created with the helping hand of some creator they must think it spontaneously created itself. And as there is absolutely no proof of that, it is also a belief.

And if they play the intelligence card, point out Sir Isaac Newton and Michael Faraday (probably the two best minds this country has produced). Both fundamentalist Christians and neither was simply a product of their time and following the orthodox view on religion. Faraday was very hardline even for his day and Newton was extremely fundamentalist and is now described as a bit of a heretic.’

 

I have of course tried to point these things out, but it never makes any difference.  You cannot actually argue with dogmatists who don’t realise that’s what they are. I do know that some atheists have the intelligence and grace to recognise the position,  but a large part of my activity these days is devoted to showing that most of the New Atheists’ are not as clever as they think they are, lack self-awareness and fail to understand their own position properly.

 

John Jennings,  (first quoting me), writes : ‘Mr W asserts: ‘readers should know that PH defines addiction as something that CANNOT be overcome by will power alone’. Perhaps he could tell me where I have so defined it."

You have done so or implied it several times, here's one of them:

"In my view, ‘addiction’ cannot co-exist with free will, any more than the famous immoveable object can co-exist with the famous irresistible force. If one exists, the other cannot, by definition. Either there is free will, or there is not. If there is not, then we are slaves of circumstance who have no choice in our fates, such as ‘addicts’ are alleged to be."’

 

I am puzzled. Where does this say that addiction cannot be overcome by will-power? Which words does Mr Jennings think have this meaning? What I say here ( and have many times said ) is that the concept of addiction(which I reject as an invented falsehood and as an immoral denial of free will) cannot co-exist with the idea that we have free will. That is not in any way a statement about will-power versus addiction.

 

Mr ‘P’ writes : ‘If you were to tell me that you believe the planet Saturn to have green cheese at its core, my refusal to accept that that is the case does not constitute a counter belief. It's up to you to show me the goods and not me to expose your nonsensical contention.

 

‘The contention that green cheese is at Saturn's core is of course ridiculous, but is it any more ridiculous than the raising to life of dead men or the ascending of risen dead men into heaven. And that's just a small sample of the plethora of ridiculousness which if you encounter rational opposition you deem to be counter belief.

In fact the turning of atheism into belief is a propaganda ploy on the part of the religious who recognize that their argumentation is very much on its back foot, and becoming more unbalanced with every conversation, discussion and debate.’

 

Once again this is a silly confusion, into which he has fallen because he would rather mock than argue seriously. And he would rather mock because of his own (rather unjustified) conviction of his own superiority.’

 

The problem first of all is that the statement about cheese being at Saturn’s core does not explain anything which is otherwise unexplained. It is the same with all the silly jeering (which is annoying because it is silly and babyish, not because it is blasphemous or deliberately, rude, though it is that too) about dragons, teapots,  fairies, Father Christmas and Spaghetti Monsters.

 

On the contrary, if we take them seriously for a moment ( as their enthusiasts of course never do, because they won’t argue this matter seriously) , such things *require*  explanation rather than providing it. By what process could the core of a planet have become cheese of any colour? How would the ‘Monster’ have taken the shape of spaghetti and meatballs?  By what process could a teapot have come into an orbit? If there are fairies and dragons, dwelling amongst us as material things,  then why is there no material evidence of their existence and activities?

 

So these things require unavailable explanations, and explain nothing unexplained. Whereas the postulated existence of God *would* explain the origins of the universe

 

The monotheist God (as distinct from the gods of the various pagan cults) is said to be ‘ eternal, without body, parts or passions; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible. His existence ( which as I repeatedly say, and as Christ himself maintained in the passage which begins ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock’) can be acknowledged by us if we choose, or not if we choose. He will not force us into belief. If He exists, then He offers a possible explanation for the origins of the universe,  for there being something rather than nothing. He is of course a disturbing and unwelcome explanation to many. For if He exists, then that origin had a purpose, was not a random event, and the laws which govern the universe are not accidental, but designed and intended. Without such condition, as it happens, what is nowadays called ‘science’ would have no purpose, for why bother finding out the rules of a universe which has no rules?

 

If that is so, then the main activity of man must surely be to divine those laws (moral as well as physical) and live according to them. But it cannot simply be rejected as a possibility. We have no knowledge on which we can base such a rejection. So those who reject and mock it are simply closing their minds *in advance*to one possibility. From my side, I do not close my minds to the possibility that the Godless are right, that we are on a pointless lump of rock hurtling meaninglessly through space, having begun for no reason and doomed to end for no reason. But I openly reject it because I find the implications of that belief disgusting, dispiriting and terrifying. I would count myself dishonest, however, if I pretended  that anything other than my own wishes and desires had led me to choose God over pointless chaos.

 

Mr ‘P’ makes a grave category error is when he asks ‘The contention that green cheese is at Saturn's core is of course ridiculous, but is it any more ridiculous than the raising to life of dead men or the ascending of risen dead men into heaven.’

 

No , we are not arguing here about the details of the Christian faith. We are arguing about theism versus atheism. The cheese contention is limitlessly ridiculous, and not to be compared with the idea that the universe may have had ( and has) a Creator, as I *believe* (but do not *know*).