The RSA’s strapline is 21st century enlightenment. Brenda Watson FRSA argues for more discussion of religion, which she believes has a legitimate place in public discourse.
Whilst I welcome the fact that the RSA has had some interesting events on the subject of faith, including a recent speech by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, more could be done to ensure that religion is not marginalized.
We need to be open-minded; to close our minds to ‘religion’ per se is a contradiction, and even hypocritical. Organisations like the RSA, embrace a forward-thinking, questing, and pragmatic outlook on the world. The Enlightenment sought to make reason a corner-stone of life. So how can it be rational to regard the whole of religion as inappropriate for the public domain? This fails to acknowledge the huge range of opinions within religions.
Reason derives from whole-of-life life experience and so cannot be faith-free; the ‘reason/faith’ divide is based on a false dichotomy. While individual religious or irreligious believers alike may be irrational people, the majority, and especially the saints and scholars of all the great world religions, have always appealed to reason in interpretation of their faiths. To imply that Aquinas was bereft of reason seems illogical, just as to say the same of, for example, a Rowan Williams or a Jonathan Sacks.
In a liberal democracy religious and irreligious people have equal rights. The state exists for all its citizens, not just for some. If an atheist is offended at the wearing of a burka, turban or cross, a religious person may be equally upset by their banning. Reciprocity should mean balance and common sense, with state intervention only as needed to keep the peace. Such matters warrant proper public expression.
Public debate would also benefit from religious contributions. Survival of democracy in a world of chicanery requires maximum public involvement by all its well-wishers. The help of democratic religious people should therefore be welcomed, not spurned or regarded with suspicion. As with secular views, the properly liberal and democratic way for such positive input to be promulgated is through public debate. Marginalisation and occasional public scorn of religion does not encourage open debate. It drives religion underground and into ghettoes. This removes one of our best ways of controlling religious extremism inimical to a democratic society. Intelligent debate is a major safeguard against the rise and promotion of perverted beliefs. For the safety of society, should not religion be properly and respectfully acknowledged?
Liberal religions helped to establish and support the democratic state. Indeed the fundamental creed behind democracy - that all people are equal as persons - derives historically from fundamental Christian doctrine. The notion of the equality of all was not sourced from ancient civilisations. For example, the democracy of Athens was reserved for only a quarter of the population; slaves and women were excluded. Care for the vulnerable and deprived has been absent from almost all civilisations except our own.
In her recent article in the RSA Journal Cecile Laborde argues that public discourse should take place in a secular language, which is available to all, secular and religious alike. This proposal imposes a burden on religious people that atheist and agnostics do not share because the secular is their language; they do not have to acquire another. Furthermore, it prioritises atheism by making the non-God perspective the default position. An anti-religious mindset was understandable hundreds of years ago when religious institutions used their power to be obscurantist and prevent proper academic freedom. But in the West that situation no longer applies. Are we perhaps behaving like teenagers who may rebel against the parental control that harnesses them, a rebellion which becomes absurd in the middle-aged?
The RSA is well placed to play fairer with religion by acknowledging publicly that religious perspectives are as permissible in public as non-religious ones. Should not its charters and mission statements acknowledge that some people see these virtues as grounded in God, whilst others affirm them as humanist? Affirming but critical treatment should be meted out by government, the media, in philosophy, in political debate, in education, to religious people, atheists and agnostics alike.
Dr. Brenda Watson is an educationalist - teacher, lecturer and author of several books - her main subjects being History, Music, Philosophy and Religion.
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edit:
....there is [NO] creator, super-entity...
"Cecile Laborde argues that public discourse should take place in a secular language, which is available to all, secular and religious alike this imposes a burden on religious people.. it prioritises atheism by making the non-God perspective the default position.
I think setting the default position to things we can and can't prove is pretty sensible. Why do you imagine a creator to explain 'it'?
We marginalised witchcraft, voodoo, human sacrifice, stoning people, astrology, tarot as all illogical, irrational, backwards and poisonous.
We don't spend defence money on anti-voodoo spells, there is no point. IF there were evidence of Voodoo spells working then it would be different. Some people believe in all that 'stabbing-a doll-with-a-pin' crap. Really. They believe that their daughter is a witch. REALLY BELIEVE. Should their beliefs be protected from scrutiny? No. So how do you best scrutinise them? With secular language, reasoning and rationality. The default position for a rational society has to be that there is no witchcraft. The default position for a rational society has to be that there is creator, super-entity, rescuer or ender of all, higher power and meaning, saviour or Satan.
"Dad. Why is there no religion in Star Trek?"
"Because it's the future son."
Ideas of freedom and equality in society come from ancient Greek thought, not Christianity. Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence here in the States disavowed religion.
Whilst I share Tom
Sparrow's lack of a religious faith, I have certain difficulties with
his conclusions. Whilst not holding religious beliefs, I can respect
them and those who hold such beliefs.
I suspect that Mr.
Sparrow, like so many, has not examined the Enlightenment, to which
he refers, critically. Clearly, the Enlightenment did alter radically
the way in which society thinks and it is very difficult to say that
this influence was not for the better. However, I find flaws in the
approach of the Enlightenment, or at least in its current day
interpretation by many. The Enlightenment certainly values the
rational but there is a danger in equating the rational with the
valid and the irrational with the invalid. The human being has
irrational dimensions. I cannot explain the following about myself
(to give some examples):- my love for my wife and family; why I
prefer Renaissance art to the Baroque; why I don't like Dickens; why
I cannot abide the taste of celery. I can try and explain these but,
fundamentally, these explanations are not rational.
Further, that which we
cannot explain gives immense pleasure: beauty, awe to name but two. I
would argue that life would be far less enjoyable if everything was
explicable.
I infer from Mr.
Sparrow's comment that he equates the irrational with stupidity. The
OED defines stupidity as an incapacity for sensation, a state of
stupor, an incapacity for emotion, an insensibility to pain, a
dullness or slowness to appreciation. I trust he agrees that the
examples of my irrationality do not align with that definition.
Hence, to be irrational is not necessarily to act stupidly.
Belief, by definition,
has to be irrational: if it were rational it would be fact. I am
unaware that I have ever met anyone without beliefs. I do not believe
in a Christian God but I do believe in the equality of human beings.
That belief is no less rational than a belief in a god. Of course, I
have enormous difficulties respecting someone who does not share that
belief but I do not deny that they are entitled to their belief and
have to grant this because I cannot prove my belief. Further, as I
cannot prove my belief, I cannot disprove theirs. Over lesser
matters, such differences of belief, i.e. differences of opinion,
make society more interesting.
I am of the opinion
that we simply have to accept that we do not share the beliefs of
some others without being judgemental (which does not mean that we
cannot express an opinion).
What is far more
important than a belief (as I said in my earlier posting) is the
outcome of the belief. Whether someone believes in a god or not is of
no importance; what is important is the actions of that person.
Hence, actions, not beliefs, should be the focus of tolerance or
intolerance.
I think that Brenda is right in may ways, but what she does not address(not saying she had to) is the sheer frustration from the atheist and agnostic perspectives with religion. This perspective which I share is how on earth someone can live their life for a god and structure their life with absoloute certainty there is religion, when there has never been evidence and books like the bible seem to suggest a guideline in ancient times for how peole were to behave, given by the church, which was then alongside the monarchy the ruler of the land. People like myself just can not seem to get my head around how smart people can actually beleive 100% that this is the truth. I am not 100% dismissing it, but how on earth can someone be certain over such a uncertain myth with no evidence...however i also know that society is genuinelly stupid(sorry but its true) and therefore do not think it is time to speak out radically against religion. I think a democratic view must be taken alongside religion for the mean time, and then in time alongside enlightenment religion will perish in the West and then we can all look forward. But once again let me highlight the fact that there is no differentiation between a huge book on santa and his reindeers than there is with the bible. If you are religious take a step back and analyse your religion, and if you are still certain there is one specific god and that all other religions on earth are false, then you are irrational and in my opinion down right stupid!