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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. ". ….. Religious perspectives on matters in the public space are almost always personal perspectives shored up by cherry-picking of chapter and verse to suit the argument."
Why just religious perspectives? Most so-called rational argument is heavily laced with subjectivity - necessarily, as Hume noted well enough back in the 18th century. Isn't the basic atheist assumption that there is no God as unprovable a personal judgement as the view that God exists
2. "How did "liberal religions" support Greek democracy or other doctrines of equality that precede Christianity?...... It took Christianity nearly 2000 years to catch up with (or to be "tamed by") secular enlightenment thinking for more broadly based ideas of equality to enter its consideration"
As a historical matter, the notion of the equality of all cannot be accounted for through the Enlightenment's re-discovery of the classical world. For that world's spectacular achievements did not include anything approaching the inclusivist ideal of treating women, slaves, the poor, the sick and disabled as equal citizens. This notion - that all people are equal as persons - derives historically from the fundamental Christian doctrine of the Fatherhood of God which entails that all are God's children. It may have taken close on 2000 years for this particular seed to come to fruition in so-called Christendom, but isn't that the way with all really significant developments in thinking because of the huge obstacles in the way - power politics, habit, conditioning by society etc.?
Do you know P. Berger & A. Zijderveld's book In praise of Doubt: How to have conviction without becoming a fanatic (HarperOne 2009)? These sociologists speak of the crucial importance of institutions, and they note that only those cultures and societies powerfully influenced by Christianity have institutionalised equality for all. The glimpses of it in other religions and in the classical world didn't achieve institutional status and therefore did not influence widely the whole of society.
The author says:
I am intrigued to know how Gwyn knows there is no God. Cecile Laborde's article in theRSA Journal. (Summer 2010: 10 -14) carefully distinguished between a secular state and an atheist state, noting that the latter should not be prioritised. This is because …".Neither the view that religion is true, nor the view that religion is false, counts as a public reason…as neither can be proven according to widely accepted epistemological standards" (p.14)The supposed glory of a democracy is that disagreements between citizens on such important and controversial matters can be openly debated. The public dogmatic marginalisation of religion sets this notion aside.
" The core of a Christian belief for example contains particular outlooks on ethics and morality that cannot be put in a box aside " - I disagree that there is a core outlook outside of some sort of subservience to whatever it is they call God ( and I don't think there's much agreement there - lay opinions tend to differ substantially from those of theologians). I think there is a tacit agreement not to probe too deeply into what other Christians [insert other creeds here] believe. The Bible is full of outrageous acts that I would qualify as immoral.
"they have a valuable contribution to make to public discourse (as Brenda is stating). " - examples from yourself or Brenda would be very helpful at this point. When one opens the newspapers and finds that Anglican bishops are blaming floods on "gays in London" or other tosh, are we really getting a valuable contribution from those who may be seen as the brightest and the best in their own religious communities? These people get given places in the House of Lords (hardly an underground ghetto, Brenda)!
"However, this interpretation should exclude the "extremists", those to take their version of religion too far. " OK so who makes the "too far" call?
"or me personally, those who argue on small matters (of diet and clothing, as you say), if confined to their own people (people of the same belief) shouldn't be judged or penalized. " So if they brainwash their children to believe that girls are inferior to boys, or they believe that female opinions aren't as valuable as men, they can get away with doing what they want, and we must not sneer or intervene?
" fairness is treating things the way it should be treated" - an example of Hume's is/ought problem. It's rather circular reasoning, as is " we should consider only viable suggestions from those who are qualified". Those who believe in the letter of their dogma (so-called fundamentalists) probably believe they are the most qualified, and that their bad old ideas are the best and immutable.
Thank you for your response.
Religion is indeed a large compendium of faiths and one may not be the same with the other. However, this interpretation should exclude the "extremists", those to take their version of religion too far. Those who forced their opinions on people, whether they are believers or not, are stubbornly irrational and would not be open for discussion anyway. The author mentioned "democratic religious people" and for me this means people who are moderate, tolerant and full of common sense. These are the ones that make up the majority and generalizations derived from judgment of the minority would be unfair.
For me personally, those who argue on small matters (of diet and clothing, as you say), if confined to their own people (people of the same belief) shouldn't be judged or penalized. The analogy is that would it be appropriate for a foolish foreigner to sneer at a local custom, just because the foreigner judged it to be appropriate, savage even? Surely, this isn't fair.What I expected is not blind acceptance to everything, but rather objective judgment. Fairness does not mean equality, but fairness is treating things the way it should be treated. An example is for allowing someone to drive a car. Giving the rights to drive to every Tom, Dick and Harry, even people who does not know how to drive or would abuse the right (like drunk driving) is not fair. The right thing to do is to allow anyone with a license to drive but penalize when they do something wrong like causing an accident. The key thing is to allow everyone to learn and obtain a legit license. This is the same with ideas and judgment. We should consider only viable suggestions from those who are qualified. However, everybody should be given a chance to voice out. If they dare to do something like suggest old bad ideas then just simply don't use that idea.