Religion, privacy and democracy

A guest post from Shlomoh Sherman (and very good it is too):

Religion, privacy, and democracy
By Shlomoh Sherman
May 8, 2008

Several disquieting stories have come to my attention recently; they all concern academia. I found out a long time ago that academia is about the worst set of professions that you can get into. It attracts the worst types, and the decent ones who find their way into the professions usually wind up getting eaten by the sociopathic sharks.

Several friends of mine who are teachers have found themselves being harassed and forced to resign for no other reason than that the administrator took a personal dislike to them. There is the story of a young female teacher who went on a vacation to a resort where the parents of one of her students also were vacationing that year. The parents noticed that the teacher was wearing a bikini and a belly button ring. Upon her return to work, she was notified that she was fired for wearing a bikini and belly button ring on her vacation, something which the school administrators felt was unbecoming behavior for their staff.

There is also the story of a teacher and her husband who recently appeared on the HOWARD STERN SHOW. Someone at the school must be a Stern listener because several days later she was fired for appearing on the Stern Show. By the way, in case you are wondering, neither she nor her husband did anything on the show that could be considered improper behavior.

You would think that Americans, or anyone for that matter, are entitled to their privacy. Don't we claim privacy as our "God given" right? For the moment, we can forget that God does not give us ANY rights; He gives us rules, or so they say. But He especially does not give us the right to privacy! We HAVE no privacy in front of God. He watches our every move like some celestial Peeping Tom. He spies on us. He snoops. He sticks His enormous nose into our [private] business. Well, if snooping is good enough for the Overseer in the sky, it's good enough for His worshippers. And don't His clerics tell us that it is good to confess? What is it that we need to confess? What I do in private is none of your business. But is that so? The fact is that "privacy" is a relatively new concept. It did not exist in the pre-modern world. Both in the ancient world and the medieval world, the idea of the "private individual" was unthinkable. The individual person was only thought of as a member of a group, - either a family, a church, a community, a town. No person was ALLOWED to be an isolate. There was no such thing as individual responsibility except to the group to which one belonged. There were even societies in our primitive past in which an individual's crime was seen as the crime of his group. If someone killed a person belonging to another family, for example, he and his entire family might be put to death.

Although we like to think that we live in a modern society, especially in America, the fact is that most Americans have carried the pre-modern past into the present. The pre-modern past existing in the present always seems to express itself in religious communities, especially in those communities which are known as Biblical communities, namely Jews and Christians. But these communities and their beliefs and standards have a major impact on the national community as a whole. In this century so far, the impact has been greater than the impact of the secular humanist community - because the majority of Americans identify themselves as "Christian", and it is from their ranks that many of our elected officials come to office. It is from their ranks that many of our lawmakers get into power. It is then that America finds itself at the mercy of the pre-modern mindset.

Our social and empirical scientists have discovered a lot during the past 200 years. Much of what they have learned has benefited society in no small measure. And yet, in this unhappy century, their gains and achievements are being minimized by the INTRUSIVE mentality of those who wish to return us to an earlier, unhappier time. The pre-modern mentality seeks to undo the work of the creators of democracy.
In a democracy, we are supposed to have a right both to our privacy and to our opinions. Neither of these rights was given to us by God. They were given to us by Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and their comrades, men who were able to see the oppressiveness of communities where there was a lack of rights, communities in which mindless, illogical, mean-spirited rules deprived individuals of privacy and freedom.
The men who made our country wanted us to live in a place where you and I are ENTITLED to think for ourselves. Hence they created a nation free of gods and clerics, so they believed.

However if you look at the philosophical state of our country today, you can see the betrayal of the Founders' dream. The overwhelming majority of Americans actually believe that the United States is, or should be, run as a theocracy. They may not use that word but it comes down to the same thing. Example: It is constitutionally illegal to require a "religion" test to anyone seeking political office. Yet the case de facto, if not de jure, is that anyone declaring him/herself an agnostic, atheist, secularist, or humanist will not be elected to public office in most places, and certainly not to the high federal offices such as president. The whole issue of personal belief ought to be a private affair. If I run for office, what I believe or disbelieve is none of your business, and I ought to be allowed my so-called "god-given" right to privacy in matters of personal conviction. However, because the majority of my fellow Americans are addicted to the premises of the so-called "great monotheistic religions", I have to put up with the public's scrutiny, or to be blunt, snooping into my head. Amazingly, even the Press sees nothing wrong with this. In most of Europe and the civilized modern Western world, this invasion of privacy would be an outrage!

It's bad enough that the average citizen has this attitude. It's worse when our lawmakers have it. Several years ago, in a town in Texas, the police broke into the home of a homosexual, without a warrant, and arrested him and the other man with whom he was having sex, on the charge of sodomy.

The idea that there are even laws on our books against certain sexual acts committed by consenting adults in the PRIVACY of their own homes is bad enough. What's worse is that the laws of states such as Texas allow the breaking into your home and mine to actually arrest and try citizens who are not harming anyone or causing any trouble.

Our religious culture causes people to be wrapped up and emotionally involved in the private pleasure of their neighbors. It's absolutely Orwellian. Our century betrays the fact that we have never quite gotten away from the Puritanism of the days of Salem. Four hundred years ago, people in Salem were not allowed to think for themselves. Their private thoughts and acts were unquestionably public domain. Many in this century feel they ought still be public domain. More and more, our country is intruding into our private lives and diminishing what privacy we think should be ours.

I can understand, in the age of terrorism against the West, that cameras are now everywhere. I can even understand the government tapping telephones in order to catch criminals. I understand that after 9/11, I have to give up some of YOUR civil rights so that I will be safer. What I don't understand is that the majority of Americans sanction ideas that are similar to those of the Taliban. I understand that in certain countries there is government scrutiny into every aspect of life. But this is America, not Afghanistan. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness are our promises. Dude, where is my Liberty? I know that I don't have the liberty to steal from you. But at least, give me the liberty to express my beliefs and live my life as I see fit so long as I don't hurt anyone.

Don't fire me from my job just because I wear a belly button ring on my vacation, or appear on a radio show that you don't happen to like or whose philosophy is not about mom's apple pie or Jesus' benevolence.

Democracy, as understood by any intelligent, philosophically minded American, implies a degree of privacy. Yet an amazing percentage of Americans who
consider themselves the MOST American, believe that they and their government have the right to impose their standards of belief on you and thereby deprive you of what you think and do in private, and that belief is motivated by pre-modern ideas of group guilt and group snooping, behaviors condoned and approved of by a deity. What I don't get is how these people reconcile their inappropriate moralistic behavior and attitudes with their belief in the democracy of America.

I've thought about this for many decades and I have come to some conclusions. Americans who claim to believe that America is great because of its freedom and democracy and yet, at the same time, say that they believe that our American society ought to be forcefully run by Biblical imperatives, are hypocrites, knowingly or not. Religion, especially Biblical religion, expressed as Christianity and Judaism, is incompatible with real democracy.

Biblical religion militates against free expression. It opposes what we think and do in private, mainly because it opposes our private pleasures. It posits that people are sinful by nature and that they are "born in sin". Anyone born in sin is a slave, not a free person, and he who is born in sin does not deserve freedom or pleasure; at least he should be closely watched! If need be, what little freedom and privacy he has left should be taken away from him.

Believing Christians and Jews who say they are for democracy are hypocrites. Jews are somewhat less hypocritical than Christians. Fundamentalist Jews will tell you that the TORAH is a fascistic document. Some ultra-Orthodox individual actually once used that expression with me. As far as I am concerned, if you are less of a hypocrite than someone else, you are still a hypocrite. And in my book, religious hypocrites are the worst kind because they believe themselves to be morally superior to me.

I confess, I do have my faults. But among them are not the desire to snoop on someone else's bedroom activities, nor the desire to prevent people most in need of condoms from having access to them, nor the desire to tell a female how to deal with an unwanted pregnancy, nor the desire to have Harry Potter removed from the public library, nor the desire to engage in the prevention of scientific and medical research which might benefit mankind, nor the desire to tell you how to live your life philosophically, nor the desire to kill diversity of opinion in my country.
What is the supreme proof that fundamentalist Biblical religion is antithetical to our democracy? The answer is the belief in the Messiah. One cannot call himself a Christian if he does not believe in the coming of the Christ, nor can one call himself an Orthodox Jew if he denies that God will one day raise up a Messiah for the People of Israel.

About 16 years ago, when the Internet was still new, I participated in an Internet discussion group on Religion. A Christian lady wrote to me and said that she understood what would happen when Christ came back: "[He] shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." What an incredibly wonderful vision. What the lady wanted to know is what do Jews believe will happen when the Jewish messiah comes at last. Unfortunately I do not have the original response that I sent her. But I can repeat the basic answer I gave to her.

I said: "Regarding the messiah that our religion has taught us, when he comes, a new age will be initiated on earth. Israel will be gathered to the Promised Land and the third Temple will be rebuilt. Nations will not go to war any longer since all people will love their neighbors as they love themselves. Whatever sinful nature man may possess, that is, his YETSER HARA, will be subdued. There will be no crime, no sickness, no hunger, and no poverty. All people will speak and think with one accord. "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." What an incredibly wonderful vision. However, I do not believe that there is any such thing as a free lunch, not even in messianic times.

Here is the side of the coin that the wonderful folks who wrote the Bible left out.
When the Messiah shows up [either the Jewish or the Christian One], the first thing to go will be the Constitution of the United States which "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution." The document which came into being as a result of the shedding of American blood will be shredded. Remember, this is the document which ensures that people can come to this country if and when their own countries deny them freedom of religion or freedom of conscience. It guarantees them the right to privacy which the Bible somehow overlooked. It gives them the right to wear a belly button ring and to appear on the Howard Stern Show unmolested.

But remember one important thing. The Messiah is a king; he is the ultimate king. He is the king of kings. As such, he requires no constitution to govern. He IS the constitution. The articles of his divine constitution are WHATEVER HE SAYS, and you had better "observe to do according to the Divine Law; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left hand". So we won't need no STEENKING Constitution. In your home, you will not have the privacy to be on YOUR Internet, watch YOUR videos, read YOUR books, practice YOUR sex, and think YOUR thoughts. He is the Messiah; they will be HIS Internet, video, book, sex, thoughts. If he says that Howard Stern and belly button rings are out, they are out, no matter what YOU think. In fact, don't think! The Messiah will do your thinking for you. All you'll have to do is live your life as though you were on Aldous Huxley's dream-inducing drug, Soma. Only it will be called Dwelling in the Presence of the Lord, or some such meaningless phrase. Enjoy! To paraphrase Henny Youngman, "Take my MESHIACH, please!" I'll take my freedom and privacy, and whatever pleasure I enjoy that hurts no one.

Here's the rub. Americans fought and died long ago in order to get rid of a king, in order that WE would not have to live under the tyranny of a king.

Paul, the prophet of the Christians, told his followers to be good little servants and follow the DICTATES of the king. And the king often dictated that his followers be food for lions. When his followers became kings themselves, they made those who thought for themselves food for flames.

Like any sensible person, I too want what a messiah is supposed to bring. I want to see an end to war, and end to crime, to sickness, to want. But I am not willing to sell my soul for those things. I believe we can be our own messiah. If we wish to end war then we will have to heavily persuade those who fly airplanes into buildings to stop doing it. If we wish to end crime, we will have to get to the point where we can weed out the sociopaths among us. If we wish to end sickness, we will have to allow our scientists to proceed with work that can lead to "miracle" cures. And lastly, if we truly want to put an end to want, we will need to stop being greedy, and those of us who own over 90 percent of the wealth and resources will need to start loving their neighbors with fewer resources, and allow them at least the basic necessities of life.

Once we stop worrying about what others are thinking and doing in private; once we allow other people liberty and the pursuit of their own vision of happiness, we won't have to worry about them intruding on our liberty and happiness. In order to do that, we will have to subordinate allegiance to kings and clerics, towards working for the greatest good for ourselves. Before the modern era, many nations existed which believed they were "under God". They were no more under any deity than our nation is. Any nation which professes itself better than other nations because it is more under God, expresses the height of arrogance "for after all these things do the Gentiles seek".

Some may find comfort in their churches. That is their business and their constitutionally given right. But they will not find ultimate answers for our problems in the pews. Thomas Paine, a great American patriot, once said, "My mind is my own church." We should follow his sound example.

POSTSCRIPT:

"A notable event was the recent emergence from the non-theistic closet of a public official, Congressman Pete Stark of Fremont, California, announced that he did not believe in a supreme being. Will other public officials do likewise?
It will be fascinating to see if Dawkins can make significant inroads on the American religious scene. Recently, there has been an outpouring of books by prominent authors aggressively challenging the dominant role of religion in American life. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Richard Joyce, Lee Silver, Victor Stenger, and Christopher Hitchens. Is change in the air?"

From A DARWINIAN VIEW OF A HOSTILE ATHEIST
By Irwin Tessman
Skeptical Inquirer Magazine
January - February, 2008

Spot the difference

Further discussion has arisen from the synchroblog on interreligious dialogue.

I guess to me the differences between the different styles of communication are as follows:

Interfaith dialogue: Hello, I am a Pagan. I honour both the masculine and feminine Divine, and a multiplicity of deities immanent in the world. I would be interested to hear about your religion.

Evangelism: Hi, I'm a Pagan, and I'm here to tell you that the Goddess really loves you and is yearning to connect with you. She can make your life so much more meaningful.

Proselytising: Hi, I'm a Pagan, and I'm here to tell you that if you don't honour my specific vision of the Divine, the consequences will be disastrous (both cosmically and personally).

(Last 2 styles of communication unlikely to be heard from Pagans, though you might get Baha'i-style "all religions are one" type statements from a few Pagans, or "Jesus was a Pagan really". No. He wasn't. Really.)

polytheist pastafarianism

Why be a monotheist Pastafarian? You should also honour fusilli, macaroni, lasagna, tagliatelle, vermicelli, ravioli, gnocchi, penne, ziti, strozzapreti and all other forms of pasta. Join the Polytheist Pastafarians.

The illustration is clear evidence that Pasta comes in many forms and is woven by the Great Goddess of Pasta.

Rather like the Three Fates of Greek mythology, who weave our fate and that of the gods, the Great Goddess of Pasta weaves the destinies of all the other Polytheist Pastafarian deities, including the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

the secret name of FSM

It has been revealed to me that in actual fact this universe was created on an otherwise quiet Thursday afternoon at around tea-time by one Zgwrr Xchg'h'yuj, a bored graduate student who turned on the proton collider experiment in our parent universe. The by-product of the proton collision was a baby universe, which growed and growed to become the one we know, love, and live in.

So both the New Atheists and the religious theories of creation and emanation are wrong. Pastafarianism is partly correct, because Zgwrr Xchg'h'yuj in fact looked very much like His Noodliness.

Yay!

I've finished my dissertation, "Do Pagans see their beliefs as compatible with science?" (short answer: yes). Thanks to all those who took part in the survey.

Farewell

Del Martin, co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis and campaigner for LGBT rights, died yesterday. Her wife, Phyllis Lyon, survives her. They were one of the first same-sex couples to be married in San Francisco in both 2004 and 2008. They became lovers in 1952.

Having struggled for the rights of LGBT people for half a century, may she rest in the arms of the Goddess. Blessed be.

queer spirituality

Kittredge Cherry (a Christian blogger and author who is Pagan-friendly) asks, "Gay spirituality vs. everybody spirituality: A new closet?".

A few Pagans (such as Riverwolf and myself) have already commented. What do you think?

I think there is a distinct queer spirituality, not necessarily for any essentialist reasons, but because the queer spirituality that I have observed transcends more boundaries, includes more imagery that others can't handle, and GLBTQ people have carved out a niche for ourselves in traditions that sought to exclude us or ignore us. Also, it's not yet safe or appropriate to merge it all in with other forms of spirituality, because queer people are still excluded in many traditions, either by outright homophobia (as in many forms of Christianity) or by unthinking heterocentrism and gender essentialism (as is sometimes the case in Pagan circles).

New article by Michael York

As editor of the Pagan Theologies wiki, I am delighted to announce that Professor Michael York has kindly contributed a specially-written article to the site.

It is entitled A Pagan defence of theism and is very interesting:

we are not talking about monotheism. Paganism is either bitheistic in comprehending divine reality as ‘The God’ and ‘The Goddess’ or, more traditionally, polytheistic – entertaining the possibility of many gods and goddesses. But ‘theism’ here is the substitute term for ‘supernatural’. Personally, I do not like this last and tend to avoid using it as much as is feasible. The supernatural as we know it is largely a Christian-derived expression from the idea that its ‘God’ is over and ‘above’ nature – material/empirical reality. It is this notion that is the target of secular and naturalistic animosity alike. Instead, rather than ‘supernatural’, I turn instead to the ‘preternatural’ that expresses the non-causal otherness of nature – one that comprehends the magical, miraculous, numinous, mysterious yet non-empirical quality of the sublime. Most important, however, the preternatural does not demand belief or faith but instead encounter and experience – whether through contemplation, metaphor, spontaneous insight, ecstasy, trance, synchronicity or ritual or any combination of these. As Margot Adler expressed it, paganism is not about belief but what we do.

» Read more

enormous pile of books

These are just some of the books I have referenced for my dissertation:

There is now another pile of books the same size next door to this one!

the original stroppy rabbit

A painting seen in a shop window in York:

(if it's not the actual picture after which I named this blog, then it's by the same artist)

A Pagan response to Dawkins, part 2

Dawkins' view of religion really is rather odd. He appears to think that because people believe in stuff, they have a separate compartment in their minds that is set aside for religion, where reason and empiricism are not allowed to penetrate.

He also tends to regard religious ideas as contagious memes, rather as if they had an objective existence like a computer virus. Of course, the meme is a useful metaphor, but it's not objectively real (much like deities).

Pagans tend to take the view that they had an experience, and it might have been a hallucination, or it might have been a projection, or it might have been a manifestation, but much of the time to realise that it's not what the experience actually was, but how it was experienced that is important, and what its effects were. We did a ritual - do we now feel better as result? Good, then it worked. Those of us with a more empirical cast of mind might spend time tinkering with it to make it work better; and those of us with a reasoning-about-things cast of mind might spend time wondering how it worked; but most people are just happy that it worked. That's not to say that we should not be on our guard against doctrinal no-go areas creeping in (because they are in some traditions, especially "hard" polytheism) but for the most part Paganism is gloriously doctrine-free (except for the doctrine that we don't have doctrines).

Anyway, on to the specifics.

On pp 125-126, Dawkins says "Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious". This is a twisted view of what mysticism and mystery is. For one thing, mystics have historically been persecuted by the Christian Church because their connection with the Divine bypasses official channels; for another thing, the mystics are generally much more loving and humane than the Church, because mystics identify with the whole of existence, whereas the Church wants to bring everything under their dominion. And mysticism, for the most part, is like the "Eisteinian religion" that Dawkins praises in chapter one. The Mysteries are something that can only be experienced and not described. The ancient Greeks had two words describing the Mysteries: aporrheton (that which may not be spoken, the lesser secrets) and arrheton (that which is inexpressible, the greater mysteries). The reason that mysteries are revealed in sequence is because the mind is unprepared for the greater mysteries and can only approach them via the lesser ones. Unfortunately the Christian Church suppressed all the Pagan initiatory mystery traditions as competing paradigms. Had they taken the advice of Symmachus (as New Atheists could also benefit by doing), things might have been better:

We ask, then, for peace for the gods of our fathers and of our country. It is just that all worship should be considered as one. We look on the same stars, the sky is common, the same world surrounds us. What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth? We cannot attain to so great a secret by one road.
— Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (340–402)

Dawkins goes on to say that "one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied by not understanding". This is definitely not true of the majority of religions. It is certainly true of a large swathe of Christianity, but not of Buddhism, Taoism, Paganism, Unitarianism, Judaism, Sufism, etc.

On page 163 he describes natural selection as if it were a force with agency; I know it's a metaphor but he'll just give the creationists a loophole by talking like that; he should be more careful.

Chapter 4 should be entitled "Why there almost certainly is no Creator" (rather than "Why there almost certainly is no God") because he is only talking about the concept of the Creator, and not other concepts of the Divine.

On page 166, in listing characteristics of religion, he only lists the negative behaviours associated with (fundamentalist) religion. Later, he (quite correctly) goes on to say that our capacity for morality is nothing to do with religion and transcends it; I would say this was also true of our capacity for immorality.

On page 168 he quotes a comedienne as saying "religion is basically guilt with different holidays". Very funny, but this is not true of the joyful and life-affirming traditions which do not dwell on guilt, such as Unitarianism and Paganism.

On page 174, he sets out to show how religion is a by-product of other propensities of the human mind. A very interesting idea, as religion (like language) must have evolved from other cognitive functions. However, he maintains that religion is a harmful by-product of these other functions. The example he gives is that it's good to believe what your parents tell you, because they have lots of information about which plants are good to eat and which are poisonous; but the downside is that you will also believe all the weird stuff they tell you (i.e. religion). There are two things wrong with this argument: firstly, not all religion is about obedience and gullibility; and secondly, there are lots of positive aspects to religion which must be beneficial by-products of other cognitive functions. Dawkins' working definition of religion is far too simplistic.

Why can't religion (in the sense of connection with the world around you) be seen as a positive emergent complexity arising from smaller components? Surely the mystics' capacity to love their fellow beings (an extension of genetic kinship) is a positive by-product? Or the heretic's quest for truth and following their own conscience?

On page 177, Dawkins cites JG Frazer's evolutionary theory of folklore and mythology, which is largely discredited (NB this is not the same as Darwinian evolution). Humanity has not proceeded in an orderly fashion from animism to polytheism to monotheism to atheism; beliefs do not evolve by natural selection. Dawkins also uses the analogy of language evolving from a single source (sometimes called Proto-World) and diverging; however this theory is largely discredited among linguists. If he's going to stray into other academic disciplines, he should at least check the current state of research in those disciplines. Nevertheless, language is quite a useful analogy for religion; but Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic model of the spread of ideas is much more helpful than the evolutionary model.

On page 180, he suggests that the cognitive predisposition to dualism gives rise to religious thinking. I agree that there is a cognitive predisposition to dualism (anthropological and psychological research has shown that this is the case, for example the work of Emma Cohen), but I disagree that it gives rise to religious thinking; rather, it gives rise to supernatural thinking (but then Dawkins assumes that all religion believes in the supernatural). But what about all the monistic religions like pantheism, most of Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Unitarianism?

On page 188, he cites JG Frazer's Golden Bough as evidence of the diversity of human irrational beliefs. This is rather a circular argument, because that is precisely the use to which Frazer intended his work to be put (he would have been shocked and dismayed at all the Pagans who mine it for rituals). Also Frazer's comparative method has long been discredited in anthropology as too selective (he developed a theory and then went around looking for examples to back it up, which is precisely the opposite of the scientific method, as Dawkins should know).

On page 189, Dawkins says that languages evolves. As already stated, evolution is not a helpful metaphor for language (or religion) though another biological model, the growth of rhizomes, is a useful analogy.

On page 190, he says that reason is the enemy of Christianity. Very true; however I seem to recall that Pope John Paul II declared a truce in his encyclical about reason and faith. Reason is not regarded as the enemy in Paganism or Unitarianism or Judaism, however; indeed in the case of Unitarianism it's one of their three key concepts (reason, freedom and tolerance).

On page 191, he describes the theory of memes, which is interesting but by no means accepted by all theorists of culture. As stated above, I find the rhizomatic model more persuasive.

On page 199, he defines faith as "belief without evidence". That is how I always used to define it, until I came across this marvellous quote from Alan Watts:

"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be."

On page 203, he describes the development of cargo cults, and wonders if they are a good model for the evolution of religion. Well, at least cargo cults are logical and based on empirical observation, at least the way Dawkins describes them!

On page 212, he quotes the various obnoxious fundamentalists who have written to him to tell him he'll burn in hell etc as typical examples of religious adherents. I don't think these obnoxious bastards are typical of religion in general at all. Besides, I've come across some pretty obnoxious atheists (e.g. on a discussion board, there was one who wanted to ban all talk of religion; the other more sensible ones asked how the ban would be enforced) but I don't thereby assume that all atheists are like that.

On page 220, he compares the naturalist model of altruism as having some evolutionary advantage with the authoritarian idea that people are moral because God is watching and he'll get you if you misbehave. I completely agree with the quote from Einstein on page 226, that "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." The idea that altruism has evolved is reassuring, because it means it's innate and internal rather than cultural and external; but where is the element of choice if everything is genetically determined? I find something heroic in the idea of doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do, and not because someone (God) or something (genes) is making you do it. Our genes presumably predispose us to be bad as well as good, so we still have a choice, surely? Consciousness is an emergent property of life, not pre-determined.

If altruism as a by-product of some other cognitive function is benign, why not some aspects of religion, such as feelings of being connected to other people (human, animal and plant)?

On page 227, he quotes the horrible views of Ivan Karamazov. I hope, though I have no evidence, that Dostoevsky was setting up Karamazov as a straw man to highlight the horribleness of his ideas.

On page 232, he mentions absolutist morality. Not all religious adherents are absolutists in matters of morality (think of the famous quote from Jesus about the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law); Dawkins doesn't appear to be saying that they are, but some readers might infer that view.

On page 237, he acknowledges the worthwhileness of liberal Christians like John Shelby Spong and Richard Holloway. If he can appreciate them, why doesn't he realise that lots of religious adherents are like them, and more of them every day?

On page 245, he talks about the autocratic behaviour of Yahweh in insisting that the Ba'al-worshippers among the Israelites be killed. Yes, the Bronze Age priests of Yahweh were a thoroughly unpleasant bunch of murderers - but he doesn't stop to ask why the worship of Ba'al was so persistently attractive. Could it be because Ba'al is an immanent nature deity, associated with trees?

On page 251-252, he discusses the thoroughly unpleasant doctrine of substitution or atonement; however this disgusting and pernicious doctrine is only found in Western Christianity, and not in Eastern Orthodoxy.

On page 254, he starts quoting more frothing mad fundamentalists as typical of religion. This is simply not the case.

On page 257, he talks about the intolerance of the Abrahamic religions towards other faiths. This is certainly true of large swathes of Christianity, but not all of it. For example, St Francis preached against the crusades, and many Christians (such as John Shelby Spong) are coming to appreciate the wisdom of other faiths. Islam became intolerant as a result of the crusades. Judaism has only become intolerant again recently, due to specific historical circumstances. Such intolerance is not usually found among polytheistic or pantheistic religions, because they have a theology that can cope with other views of the Divine.

On page 259, he admits that internecine struggle is often caused by factors other than religion, but that religion is often used as a label for the perpetuation of conflict. True, but if religion didn't exist, some other identity marker would be used instead, like language, skin colour, territory, etc. (all of which have been used as excuses for the perpetuation of conflict).

Is it inevitable that conflict will arise as a result of different religious views? Maybe, but I suggest that it is often a convenient excuse for a desire to label an out-group, and if there wasn't another religious group to pick on, another label would be used instead (like colour, sexuality...).

On page 261, he discusses the indoctrination of children. The vast majority of Pagans are opposed to the indoctrination of children and against the establishment of Pagan schools; and even those who are bringing their children up as Pagans are not inculcating them with a dislike of other faiths, or of atheism.

In a 2005 survey by Covenant of the Goddess (an American Pagan organisation), 49% of respondents indicated having no children, and of the remaining 51%, only 27% (i.e. approximately 13% of the total sample) said that they were bringing their children up as Pagans. 52% of those with children said they were bringing them up in a multi-faith environment; 9% said 'another faith'; and 12% said 'none'.

[Part 1 of A Pagan response to Dawkins]

Campfire or umbrella?

Many people have referred to Paganism as an umbrella term encompassing the various Pagan traditions. Recently, however, there has been quite a lot of jostling for centre position under the umbrella, with various groups feeling as though they have metaphorical rain running down the backs of their necks. It could even be said that some groups were trying to run away with the umbrella, claiming they invented it and everyone else is just touting shoddy imported versions.

Maybe it's time we stopped thinking of Paganism as an umbrella, and started thinking of it as a campfire. That way, we are all standing round the centre (whatever that is - perhaps the deities, or Nature) and warming our hands, but anyone who gets too close will get singed. Also, the warmth of the campfire radiates out much further than the shelter of an umbrella, and has fuzzy boundaries (unlike an umbrella, which has a defined edge); and the light from the campfire can be seen from the nearby campfires (which are friendly religions with a similar ethos, like Unitarians and UUs, Quakers, Taoists, liberal Hindus, traditional indigenous religions, etc). And those who like to visit the other campfires and swap stories (like me and Cat and Peter) can be within the ambit of both campfires.