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A force for evil?
by AC Grayling
Reposted from:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2007/07/a_force_for_evil.html
As I stated at a Manchester festival debate on Saturday, religion is the lunatic fringe of human thought - scores are murdered daily in the name of faith.
I don't know whether there was intentional irony in holding a debate on the question, "Is religion a force for good in the modern world?" last Saturday, July 7, rather than some other day, 7/7 being one of the iconic dates relating to contemporary religion-inspired mass murder, but no one mentioned it from either the platform or the floor during the debate's course. (You can listen to a recording of the debate at http://download.guardian.co.uk/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2007/07/09/Religiondebate.mp3.)
That, in its way, is an interesting fact: we are conscious that the families and friends of those murdered in London in the 7/7 atrocity each have a life sentence of memory to bear because of it, yet the murderers did no lasting damage to the body of society as such, illustrating the futility and pointlessness of such acts, which in the end hurt individuals alone - the victims, and those who grieve - and also the cause and beliefs in whose name the atrocity was committed. For the world has changed: now when people do vile things in the name of their religion, prompted and encouraged by their interpretation of it, screaming the name of their deity as they do it, what can the reaction be but disgust, directed both at the contemptible actors themselves and the world-view they invoke.
Everything human has its lunatic fringe, and we could dismiss those who kill for their superstitions as such if they were such. But the truth is that religion itself is the lunatic fringe of human thought, and that is why we see scores or hundreds murdered daily for sectarian reasons, infantile mobs yelling in the streets of Pakistan over a book they have not read, religious organisations tearing themselves apart because of their ancient prejudices against homosexuals (as if there were not genuine problems in the world to be exercised about), and much, much more besides that is puerile, nauseating or plain dangerous.
Religion's apologists in the formerly Christian western world salve their embarrassment at the way religion flaunts its true colours in these ways by fixing their gaze, and attempting to turn that of their critics, to the pleasant folk who shake hands with each other in an English country church on Sunday mornings - a much dwindled and still dwindling rump of folk, true, but harmless and even admirable for the cakes they bake for the Saturday fete, raising money for developing world children and other good causes. They waste their time in trying this on: for the kindness of such folk would still be there if they had never heard of religion and if their country town had no parish church with decorated arcading in its south porch. For kindness needs no ideology; ideologies (including religions, the prime examples of such) are required for unkindness, division, mayhem and murder.
In the debate last Saturday the old argument was run that we who criticise religion are imposing our own straw-man definition of "religion" on religionists. So let me make quite clear what I mean by the word. I use it to mean belief, typically organised into doctrine, in the existence of one or more invisible beings who, again typically, command human beings to live and act in certain ways, and reward or punish accordingly. That is the essence of the thing, no matter how slippery the gloss, how polysyllabic, how evasive and gestural, how cloaked in appeals to mystery and depth and the convenience of our own epistemic limitations, that theologians and apologists invoke in their continuous attempts to move the goalposts whenever they come into the firing line for holding what is, fundamentally, exactly the same kind of commitment - exactly the same intellectual delusion - as is involved in believing that there are pixies and gnomes lurking invisibly among the rhododendrons.
Nothing that is not in essence this is a religion. If a world-view and an attached ethics does not premise the existence of supernatural agencies in the universe, typically as the explanation (!) of its existence, as determiners of its point, and as arbiters of the right behaviour for humanity, it is not a religion; it is a philosophy at best, and an outlook anyway, but it is not religion.
And here is the problem. Religion premises an absolute authority over the self, which trumps everything else. In the 16th and 17th centuries "Papism" was both hated and feared in Protestant countries because Roman Catholics had a higher loyalty to the pope than to their temporal rulers and their fellows in society. They were thus seen as potential betrayers and subverters, and Guy Fawkes (would-be perpetrator of a 5/11) proved them right. The "higher loyalty" of religionists to their equivalent of pixies and gnomes places some of them actually, and all of them uncomfortably in principle, in the same boat.
And so they all hasten to distance themselves from their extremists - all religions have them - and to assert their peace-loving credentials, a claim that rings very hollow indeed in the light of history and their own sacred texts (which they have to cherrypick and heavily reinterpret to make them halfway acceptable, so filled are they with testimony against that claim), to say nothing of every day's newspaper reports under our noses.
In my contribution to the debate last Saturday I said that religion is a force for ill in the world because although there are sincere religionists, and although some religious organisations do charitable work (but 80% of British charities are non-religious, and non-religious people give more to charity than self-described adherents to a faith), they create divisions which too often lead to conflicts, teach false beliefs, and premise morality on fallacious foundations; and that the principal victims of religions are children and - overwhelmingly - women.
It would have been enough to read aloud from the day's newspapers to make the case that religion is, overall and by a large margin, a force for ill in today's world, but these general points merit statement and constant iteration, in the hope that as water wears away stone, it will conduce to a desirable effect: first, that religion will recede into the private domain where it belongs if it belongs anywhere, and secondly, that the business of freeing the mind of mankind from its distorting and imprisoning absurdities can begin; to start with, by protecting small children from the abuse of brainwashing and proselytisation in "faith-based" institutions and the legal requirement for "acts of worship" in every school - remembering that children are not born Muslim or Christian, Hindu or Jew, despite what the first and last of these would say, but have to be manipulated into becoming so by conditioning and lies.
No doubt people will still find reason to quarrel, and peoples will still find reasons to go to war with each other; but in the absence of the portmanteau appeal, the all-trumping, simplistic, total motivation that religion provides to people who think it gives them divine sanction to murder strangers, that indeed makes the murder of strangers a moral good, there will have to be much sounder arguments and much better evidence available for doing evil. At present, all that evil needs is the name of faith.
For Paul Vallely's reply go to:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1396,A-force-for-good,Paul-Vallely
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2007/07/a_force_for_evil.html
As I stated at a Manchester festival debate on Saturday, religion is the lunatic fringe of human thought - scores are murdered daily in the name of faith.
I don't know whether there was intentional irony in holding a debate on the question, "Is religion a force for good in the modern world?" last Saturday, July 7, rather than some other day, 7/7 being one of the iconic dates relating to contemporary religion-inspired mass murder, but no one mentioned it from either the platform or the floor during the debate's course. (You can listen to a recording of the debate at http://download.guardian.co.uk/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2007/07/09/Religiondebate.mp3.)
That, in its way, is an interesting fact: we are conscious that the families and friends of those murdered in London in the 7/7 atrocity each have a life sentence of memory to bear because of it, yet the murderers did no lasting damage to the body of society as such, illustrating the futility and pointlessness of such acts, which in the end hurt individuals alone - the victims, and those who grieve - and also the cause and beliefs in whose name the atrocity was committed. For the world has changed: now when people do vile things in the name of their religion, prompted and encouraged by their interpretation of it, screaming the name of their deity as they do it, what can the reaction be but disgust, directed both at the contemptible actors themselves and the world-view they invoke.
Everything human has its lunatic fringe, and we could dismiss those who kill for their superstitions as such if they were such. But the truth is that religion itself is the lunatic fringe of human thought, and that is why we see scores or hundreds murdered daily for sectarian reasons, infantile mobs yelling in the streets of Pakistan over a book they have not read, religious organisations tearing themselves apart because of their ancient prejudices against homosexuals (as if there were not genuine problems in the world to be exercised about), and much, much more besides that is puerile, nauseating or plain dangerous.
Religion's apologists in the formerly Christian western world salve their embarrassment at the way religion flaunts its true colours in these ways by fixing their gaze, and attempting to turn that of their critics, to the pleasant folk who shake hands with each other in an English country church on Sunday mornings - a much dwindled and still dwindling rump of folk, true, but harmless and even admirable for the cakes they bake for the Saturday fete, raising money for developing world children and other good causes. They waste their time in trying this on: for the kindness of such folk would still be there if they had never heard of religion and if their country town had no parish church with decorated arcading in its south porch. For kindness needs no ideology; ideologies (including religions, the prime examples of such) are required for unkindness, division, mayhem and murder.
In the debate last Saturday the old argument was run that we who criticise religion are imposing our own straw-man definition of "religion" on religionists. So let me make quite clear what I mean by the word. I use it to mean belief, typically organised into doctrine, in the existence of one or more invisible beings who, again typically, command human beings to live and act in certain ways, and reward or punish accordingly. That is the essence of the thing, no matter how slippery the gloss, how polysyllabic, how evasive and gestural, how cloaked in appeals to mystery and depth and the convenience of our own epistemic limitations, that theologians and apologists invoke in their continuous attempts to move the goalposts whenever they come into the firing line for holding what is, fundamentally, exactly the same kind of commitment - exactly the same intellectual delusion - as is involved in believing that there are pixies and gnomes lurking invisibly among the rhododendrons.
Nothing that is not in essence this is a religion. If a world-view and an attached ethics does not premise the existence of supernatural agencies in the universe, typically as the explanation (!) of its existence, as determiners of its point, and as arbiters of the right behaviour for humanity, it is not a religion; it is a philosophy at best, and an outlook anyway, but it is not religion.
And here is the problem. Religion premises an absolute authority over the self, which trumps everything else. In the 16th and 17th centuries "Papism" was both hated and feared in Protestant countries because Roman Catholics had a higher loyalty to the pope than to their temporal rulers and their fellows in society. They were thus seen as potential betrayers and subverters, and Guy Fawkes (would-be perpetrator of a 5/11) proved them right. The "higher loyalty" of religionists to their equivalent of pixies and gnomes places some of them actually, and all of them uncomfortably in principle, in the same boat.
And so they all hasten to distance themselves from their extremists - all religions have them - and to assert their peace-loving credentials, a claim that rings very hollow indeed in the light of history and their own sacred texts (which they have to cherrypick and heavily reinterpret to make them halfway acceptable, so filled are they with testimony against that claim), to say nothing of every day's newspaper reports under our noses.
In my contribution to the debate last Saturday I said that religion is a force for ill in the world because although there are sincere religionists, and although some religious organisations do charitable work (but 80% of British charities are non-religious, and non-religious people give more to charity than self-described adherents to a faith), they create divisions which too often lead to conflicts, teach false beliefs, and premise morality on fallacious foundations; and that the principal victims of religions are children and - overwhelmingly - women.
It would have been enough to read aloud from the day's newspapers to make the case that religion is, overall and by a large margin, a force for ill in today's world, but these general points merit statement and constant iteration, in the hope that as water wears away stone, it will conduce to a desirable effect: first, that religion will recede into the private domain where it belongs if it belongs anywhere, and secondly, that the business of freeing the mind of mankind from its distorting and imprisoning absurdities can begin; to start with, by protecting small children from the abuse of brainwashing and proselytisation in "faith-based" institutions and the legal requirement for "acts of worship" in every school - remembering that children are not born Muslim or Christian, Hindu or Jew, despite what the first and last of these would say, but have to be manipulated into becoming so by conditioning and lies.
No doubt people will still find reason to quarrel, and peoples will still find reasons to go to war with each other; but in the absence of the portmanteau appeal, the all-trumping, simplistic, total motivation that religion provides to people who think it gives them divine sanction to murder strangers, that indeed makes the murder of strangers a moral good, there will have to be much sounder arguments and much better evidence available for doing evil. At present, all that evil needs is the name of faith.
For Paul Vallely's reply go to:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1396,A-force-for-good,Paul-Vallely
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Posted: Monday, July 9, 2007 | PermalinkComments 1 - 50 of 54 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #55051 by DaveK on July 9, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Yes, I think he speaks the truth, but sometimes in sentences that are too long and convoluted.Other Comments by DaveK
3. Comment #55067 by DNAtheist on July 10, 2007 at 12:18 am
Here is the link to the mp3 file of the debate. (85 MB) Other Comments by DNAtheist
4. Comment #55072 by ricey on July 10, 2007 at 12:43 am
Ignoring the author's subtle "borrowings" from Dawkins' The God Delusion, (for the sake of a good cause); this was a well constructed knockdown of faith-based dogmatism.Lets hope a few fundies, pumped up by an almighty faith-based rage, follow the Guardian link and join the debate on this site.
Other Comments by ricey
5. Comment #55115 by rnewson on July 10, 2007 at 3:49 am
"kindness needs no ideology". Nicely put. Other Comments by rnewson
6. Comment #55122 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 4:08 am
I agree with DaveK. I like what he says but not, sometimes, how he phrases it: "and premise morality on fallacious foundations;" is an absurdly convoluted phrase that could have been expressed much more simply. Other Comments by pewkatchoo
7. Comment #55125 by Major Bloodnok on July 10, 2007 at 4:20 am
rnewson:"kindness needs no ideology". Nicely put.
And true. But I can't agree with the rest of the sentence:
ideologies (including religions, the prime examples of such) are required for unkindness, division, mayhem and murder.
unless you class avarice, jealousy and so forth as "ideologies".
Other Comments by Major Bloodnok
8. Comment #55130 by AdrianB on July 10, 2007 at 4:41 am
Major Bloodnok, yes "kindness needs no ideology" is nicely put and it would be perfect if he could finish it off with the second part but it doesn't quite work. It does NEARLY work though, and with a bit of thought I'm sure it could be made to.Any ideas how it could be improved anyone?
.
Other Comments by AdrianB
9. Comment #55135 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 4:51 am
Kindness needs no ideology, whereas, ideology provides commonplace justification and encouragement for all sorts of unkindness, division, mayhem and murder. Other Comments by pewkatchoo
10. Comment #55144 by LeeC on July 10, 2007 at 5:37 am
Thanks DNAtheist for the link.Downloading now...
I look forward to my train ride to work tomorrow now.
Cheers
Lee
Other Comments by LeeC
11. Comment #55147 by konquererz on July 10, 2007 at 5:48 am
pewkatchoo I think I like the way you finished off that sentence better than A.C. Grayling did. And its a perfect summary of ideology.
Grayling does to a spectacular job of making the point that religion does more overall harm than good. And that people do not need religion to do good things, and in fact, would likely do more good things without religion to hold them back.
Other Comments by konquererz
12. Comment #55159 by Barbara on July 10, 2007 at 6:20 am
Holy bovine! Most of the sentences were so long I had to read them more than once to understand them. I'm looking forward to reading Against All Gods but if it's written this way I'll be grateful it's a short book. Whew! Otherwise, this is a good article. Other Comments by Barbara
13. Comment #55165 by Friend Giskard on July 10, 2007 at 6:59 am
The only sentence I had to read more than once was this one:"Nothing that is not in essence this is a religion."
That's one ugly sentence.
Other Comments by Friend Giskard
14. Comment #55167 by Barbara on July 10, 2007 at 7:09 am
Yup! Friend Giskard, you are correct. And if that's the only sentence you needed to read more than once you have better reading/comprehension skills than I. :) Other Comments by Barbara
15. Comment #55175 by minstrel on July 10, 2007 at 7:40 am
Ah! Another grandiloquent, profuse, pseudo-cerebral rant on the perils of "religion". Nothing disseminates the ignis fatuus of elite intellectualism quite like the practice of torturously expounding facile philosophical points in the most labyrinthical way imaginable. Sans oublier de mettre quelques mots en français pour démontrer sa profondeur culturelle. Bravo! Other Comments by minstrel
16. Comment #55189 by A.Lex on July 10, 2007 at 8:10 am
#55130 by AdrianB: "Any ideas how it could be improved anyone?"Steven Weinberg did it long time ago: "With (religion) or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion"
Other Comments by A.Lex
17. Comment #55193 by cassdenata on July 10, 2007 at 8:20 am
Does anybody know where he got that information on 80% of charities being non-religious and non-religious folks donating more to charities than the religious. Is that just in the U.K?Other Comments by cassdenata
18. Comment #55202 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 8:40 am
I don't think any research on charity giving statistics can be relevant. After all, non-religious charities will be equally made up of religious and non-religious people.The amounts given by the religious and non-religious would be equally contentious. In a survey of such things, people would lie. They would not want to be seen as mean. Even if you could get accurate amounts it would still be misleading. What sort of charity do you give to? Is it a local school or college for example. Maybe you give because your children go there! Redistributive charity is really what we should be looking at only.
The UK is a secular country with a very high proportion of non-religious people, yet we give millions every year to charities. Comedy Relief and BBC's Children in Need (tv based charities) both surpass their collection totals every year. I am pretty sure that it is not just religious people that are donating to these.
If it is ever found that religious people do give more than non-religious people. Is this out of altruism or is it because of their religious guilt complex? If it is the other way around or even equal, then are non-religious people actually more generous because they don't expect anything in return?
Charitable donations is too complex a matter to have any relevance.
Other Comments by pewkatchoo
19. Comment #55212 by OhioAtheist on July 10, 2007 at 9:01 am
I actually like Grayling's writing style. Oh well, to each his own. Other Comments by OhioAtheist
20. Comment #55214 by Erik on July 10, 2007 at 9:05 am
"No doubt people will still find reason to quarrel, and peoples will still find reasons to go to war with each other; but in the absence of the portmanteau appeal, the all-trumping, simplistic, total motivation that religion provides to people who think it gives them divine sanction to murder strangers, that indeed makes the murder of strangers a moral good, there will have to be much sounder arguments and much better evidence available for doing evil. At present, all that evil needs is the name of faith."I'm not sure I entirely agree. I believe that faith, and particularly the strength of faith, is rooted in something else. Perhaps in the fear of losing one's identity; perhaps in the fierce notion of self that may be tied to the drive to procreate. In any event, you can find the same type of phenomenon in patriotism, which can be as extreme as religious faith.
Other Comments by Erik
21. Comment #55226 by squinky on July 10, 2007 at 9:44 am
Well pontificated Minstrel!Although I agree with many of his points, those are some tortuous sentences!
Other Comments by squinky
22. Comment #55261 by Canuck#1 on July 10, 2007 at 11:27 am
I was going to writ a legthy repsonse too dis arrticle but I thot somebode myght korect ani mis-takes I mite mak....sew foreget itt.Other Comments by Canuck#1
23. Comment #55319 by Shuggy on July 10, 2007 at 3:02 pm
That is the essence of the thing, no matter how slippery the gloss, how polysyllabic, how evasive and gestural, how cloaked in appeals to mystery and depth and the convenience of our own epistemic limitations, that theologians and apologists invoke in their continuous attempts to move the goalposts whenever they come into the firing line for holding what is, fundamentally, exactly the same kind of commitment - exactly the same intellectual delusion - as is involved in believing that there are pixies and gnomes lurking invisibly among the rhododendrons.
The pixies and gnomes and rhododendrons are far enough away from the goalposts and the firing line, but the goalposts and the firing line are too close together - they put me in mind of juntas executing people in stadia.
The thought is good, but he badly needs a good editor.
My rework:
"That is the essence of the thing that theologians and apologists invoke, no matter how slippery the gloss they put on it, no matter how polysyllabically they express it, no matter how evasive or gestural they are, no matter how they cloak it in appeals to mystery or depth or to the (convenient) limitations of our ability to explain it. They continuously attempt to move the goalposts whenever they are challenged, but fundamentally they hold exactly the same kind of commitment and suffer from exactly the same intellectual delusion as someone who believes pixies and gnomes lurk invisibly among the rhododendrons."
Other Comments by Shuggy
24. Comment #55322 by Broshiesq on July 10, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Long sentences rule! I cannot believe you people are criticizing his style and "rewriting" passages of his article. How smug. What's easier, editing a pre-written passage or expressing it first yourself? Too much time on your hands, just maybe?Other Comments by Broshiesq
25. Comment #55332 by cacahahacaca on July 10, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Any links to a video of the debate?Other Comments by cacahahacaca
26. Comment #55333 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 4:28 pm
BroshiesqWhat, we are not allowed to criticise writing style any more? Is that the rules? Or did you just decide that yourself? How self-righteous and arrogant is that then? Too much starch in your shirt, just maybe?
Other Comments by pewkatchoo
27. Comment #55336 by mjwemdee on July 10, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I have to agree with Broshiesq and OhioAtheist. Grayling's style is literary, but perfectly clear (to me at least) and I'm surprised people are saying they can't follow him. I have to say I find Hitchens' prose style more arduous. Read Grayling's books 'The Meaning of Things' or 'What is Good?' - they're fascinating and clear-sighted. He is one of the best moral philosophers we have in the UK.
Other Comments by mjwemdee
28. Comment #55341 by philosowizer on July 10, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I think Shuggy did an excellent job re-wording that sentence.Other Comments by philosowizer
29. Comment #55348 by Duff on July 10, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Minstral,You get the Alan Sokol award. Pure nonsense! Good job!
Other Comments by Duff
30. Comment #55378 by Patte Lanus on July 10, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Fabulous! Grayling says it all and says it exceedingly well! Clear, concise and definitive! Also, I think so much appreciation needs to go to everyone who continues to visit this site and then speaks up for critical thinking and rationality! Thank goodness the truth is finally being spoken and shared. Never before has such an opportunity existed to have global discussions and influence so many within such a short time. Perhaps this time humanity may break through the lies and come out to reality: it is time to put religion aside for good.Other Comments by Patte Lanus
31. Comment #55392 by Shuggy on July 11, 2007 at 1:17 am
broshiesq:What's easier, editing a pre-written passage or expressing it first yourself?Editing it, of course, but so what? I didn't do it because it was easy, I did it to help me understand what he meant, and once I got it into my own words, I understand it much better.
Patte Lanus, whatever else it may be, an 89-word sentence containing six figures of speech is not "concise".
I should say that for the most part, he is very clear: his sentences, though long, flow logically from one idea to the next. And of course I agree with what he says.
Other Comments by Shuggy
32. Comment #55407 by Rosemary on July 11, 2007 at 3:15 am
I too found the article well-written (except for that one ugly sentence), clear, and engaging. Other Comments by Rosemary
33. Comment #55412 by gcdavis on July 11, 2007 at 3:35 am
I am a long time admirer of Grayling but his contention that "religion itself is the lunatic fringe of human thought" doesn't accurately describe religion or help to explain it. Humankind has lived in fear for most of its existence, fear of the elements, fear of the unknown, fear of hunger, disease and death. How terrifying an electric storm must have seemed to our distant forefathers and how natural to ascribe a vengeful intent to its perpetrator. And how reasonable the desire to placate and appease a power that was so overwhelming. It wouldn't have taken much to persuade me the Thor was not a guy you mess with!
When you ascribe god or gods to the events that dominate your existence, worship, ritual and religion will inevitably follow, in fact it seems a perfectly reasonable, even rational response!
Those who still believe in god and embrace religion do so in the face of colossal evidence to the contrary. The explanation surely is that many are ignorant and uneducated; most will have been born into a faith that provides a cultural as well as religious identity. Some will still be motivated by fear, fear not of the unknown but the known; the fracturing of society in much of the developed world, in the alienation of youth and drugs culture, the frightening pace of change and the prospect of "civilisation" being reversed.
The practise of religion in many European countries and especially the UK has usually been associated with piety and with harmless or even beneficial activities like fundraising and charity. So for many in our society any attack on religion and god has seemed vulgar and misplaced. However since 7/11 and 7/7 and the Iraq war perceptions have begun to change. Many people are now hostile to all Islam rather than simply tolerant of it. The emboldening of other faiths and their claims of protection from ridicule and insult has begun to ring alarm bells, even though the UK government still seeks to maintain their collective privileges.
Grayling is a philosopher so perhaps "human thought" has a particular meaning to him, yes some religions do have a lunatic fringe of fundamentalist zealots but this is not a true description of religion as whole, I prefer to see religious belief as a throwback, a nostalgia even for a more certain world for those who do not have the courage to see the world as it really is; "red in tooth and claw".
Other Comments by gcdavis
34. Comment #55441 by coretemprising on July 11, 2007 at 5:27 am
Any of you criticizing Grayling for any reason really really need to listen to the faith head who followed him, one Prof. Ramadan, to hear in action the difference between clarity and mud. What a bunch of convoluted nonsense from this supposedly educated individual. JesusMary&Joseph save us!"Religion is the means to educate yourself." Gack!
Other Comments by coretemprising
35. Comment #55451 by Lord Asriel on July 11, 2007 at 6:12 am
I like Orwell's guidelines for political writing (and especially rule #6):1 Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2 Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3 If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4 Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5 Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6 Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
From "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell (found here)
Other Comments by Lord Asriel
36. Comment #55483 by John Hyperion on July 11, 2007 at 8:51 am
I enjoyed the article and I really enjoy Grayling's writing style. Paragraph long sentences are always a plus for me, and I had no trouble following it. Reminded me of Lovecraft. Other Comments by John Hyperion
37. Comment #55486 by Rtambree on July 11, 2007 at 9:06 am
35. Comment #55451 by Lord AsrielExcellent pointers from Orwell. Hemingway would have approved. Rutherford once said something similar... "a theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good"
Other Comments by Rtambree
38. Comment #55504 by philos on July 11, 2007 at 10:34 am
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion." - Steven WeinbergPity for the non-mentionable: for bad people to do good things, that takes religion.
http://www.smccd.edu/accounts/goth/MainPages/Is_there_a_designer_univer%20.pdf
Other Comments by philos
39. Comment #55511 by Bonzai on July 11, 2007 at 11:15 am
Comment #55506 by philosPity for the non-mentionable: for bad people to do good things, that takes religion.
This is dumb. 100%, throughly "bad" people don't exist.Even Stalin was kind to his daughter and it didn't take religion.
However, for a normal, decent person to commit heinous crimes it requires rationalization to override his moral instinct. Only religion or something equally potent and blind such as patriotism,-- which is actually a secular religion,--can act as the override.
Other Comments by Bonzai
40. Comment #55543 by Broshiesq on July 11, 2007 at 1:31 pm
pewkatchoo: Too much starch in your shirt, just maybe?Hardly; I would never ruin a Faconnable or Ike Behar shirt with starch.
Other Comments by Broshiesq
41. Comment #55576 by Shuggy on July 11, 2007 at 2:57 pm
coretemprising wrote:Any of you criticizing Grayling for any reason really really need to listen to the faith head who followed him, one Prof. Ramadan, to hear in action the difference between clarity and mud. What a bunch of convoluted nonsense from this supposedly educated individual. JesusMary&Joseph save us!By all means ask the webmeisteren to put it up somewhere we can see it. The thing is, we expect those people to talk nonsense, but we like our own to make themselves clear. JesusMary&Joseph? Still-recovering Catholic, are you?
"Religion is the means to educate yourself." Gack!
Other Comments by Shuggy
42. Comment #55580 by philos on July 11, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Bonzai wrote, "for a normal, decent person to commit heinous crimes it requires rationalization to override his moral instinct."It seems plausible to me that normal, decent people don't commit crimes in the first place.
And how on Earth do rationalization and moral instinct differ & override each other?
I suggest a dictionary.
Heinous crimes may be committed by people who may appear 'normal and decent' to you, but this is just but an act - something is obviously wrong in their mental state to begin with.
I'm not going to define what a 'bad' person is, but let us assume the prison population has generally 'bad' people - this is reasonable. Prisoners are often turned around in their life, not always, by religious groups helping them to get back on track. This is where 'bad' people do 'good' things comes into play. Pity Weinberg left that cliche out.
Please pay attention that it says nothing whatsover on whether religion is true or not. Personally, I don't think religion has a shred of evidence going for it. Yes, there are societal benefits, true or not. I think the benefits heavily outweigh the costs, however, and I don't mind living with so-called delusional people making the community (depending on where you live of course) a better place.
I don't see Atheist-directed organizations at the prisons, counseling people. Where are they?
In regards to Stalin, he may have been kind to his kin, but what about the staggering majority of other people he encountered (20,000,000 killings is a gross underestimate). Pity we can't ask, as they're as dead as your confused argument.
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43. Comment #55602 by mjwemdee on July 11, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Re: Comment #33 by gcdavisBravo. An excellent summary of religion during its pre-history and its present condition in the West.
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44. Comment #55621 by Bonzai on July 11, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Philos wrote:It seems plausible to me that normal, decent people don't commit crimes in the first place?
And how on Earth do rationalization and moral instinct differ & override each other?
I suggest a dictionary.
"Rationalization" in the context means coming up with excuses and justifications for actions which would be intuitively reprehensible. Religion texts often provides the justifications for hurting and harming people in the name of God.
I suggest you look up a dictionary yourself.
I'm not going to define what a 'bad' person is, but let us assume the prison population has generally 'bad' people - this is reasonable. Prisoners are often turned around in their life, not always (my highlight,--Bonzai) by religious groups helping them to get back on track. This is where 'bad' people do 'good' things comes into play. Pity Weinberg left that cliche out.
By your own admission not all prisoners would need religion to get back on the right track. To say "it takes religion" for bad people to do right thing implies that only religion can do the trick.
I recomend a logic course for you.
And what do you say about people like Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) who change from petty criminals to jihadists because they have found religion in prison?
BTW, not all people in prison are "bad" people. Many people break the law because of circumstances. That doesn't make them bad people in an intrinsic way. Since you are about to hit the books you should consult a sociology text as well.
In regards to Stalin, he may have been kind to his kin, but what about the staggering majority of other people he encountered (20,000,000 killings is a gross underestimate). Pity we can't ask, as they're as dead as your confused argument.
So he was a bad man but he was good to his daughter, it was exactly an instance of "bad people doing a good thing" without religion. You apparently have no understanding of what you wrote. Like I suggested above you should find a good book in logic and really work on it.
Please pay attention that it says nothing whatsover on whether religion is true or not. Personally, I don't think religion has a shred of evidence going for it. Yes, there are societal benefits, true or not. I think the benefits heavily outweigh the costs, however, and I don't mind living with so-called delusional people making the community (depending on where you live of course) a better place
Why are you accusing me of not paying attention? I have never argued with you about the truth or falsehood of religion, have I?
I know exactly where you come from after reading your ill informed, tiresome and smug posts about atheism and charity. They have been adequately addressed by others so I won't resurrect the discussion. The point that there is no atheistic couseling service in prison is a variation of the same silly theme and it is blatantly false. There are many non religious volunteers doing counseling, teaching literacy etc. They don't do that under the banner of "atheists" because atheism is not a brand like Catholicism or Islam.
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45. Comment #55624 by Goldy on July 11, 2007 at 6:22 pm
"And what do you say about people like Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) who change from petty criminals to jihadists because they have found religion in prison?"Funnily enough, had this resonating in my head when I saw this in the NZ Herald (ex Torygraph)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/11/nplot711.xml
Mind you, a quick google of the group shows that many Islamic groups are a bit suspicious of this Tablighi Jema too - stooges of the British, apparently...
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46. Comment #55679 by Ian on July 12, 2007 at 1:25 am
What, we are not allowed to criticise writing style any more? Is that the rules? Or did you just decide that yourself? How self-righteous and arrogant is that then? Too much starch in your shirt, just maybe?
Those of you self appointed editors out there. How come you're so confident of having preserved the meaning of Doctor Grayling's words, if they are not clear? And if they are clear, why rephrase them?
Doctor Grayling is a highly trained philosopher, which means that he is sensitive to nuance and shades of meaning well beyond the vast majority. If he phrases something a certain way, you can be sure it stands as intended.
Meanwhile, having another erudite and clear thinker on our side should be counted a blessing whether you like his style or not.
Of course we have freedom to critique, but that comes with the danger of making a complete fool of yourself when you take on someone who knows so much better than you do.
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47. Comment #55753 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 6:44 am
IanOh please do get over yourself. There are lots of clever people in here too you know, maybe even as clever as you hold Doctor Grayling to be. Maybe not. But none of us are out to belittle or 'take on' Dr Grayling as you suggest, totally the opposite. I and everyone else I think actually liked the initial phrase, but even you must agree that the conclusion was clumsy and easily misconstrued. We all know what he probably meant, but that is not what came out. Here, re-read it yourself. "For kindness needs no ideology; ideologies (including religions, the prime examples of such) are required for unkindness, division, mayhem and murder." He is stating that ideologies are the cause of all unkindnesses. This is just plain wrong and paints a picture of atheists being militant. It is a clumsy attempt to paraphrase Weinburg and he got it wrong. Nobody is perfect.
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48. Comment #55845 by Ian on July 12, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Pewkatchoo,I'm disappointed by your response. I am no sycophant as far as Dr Grayling is concerned. I only own one book of his, which I have as yet to read.
However, I have read enough philosphy to know that people like Dr Grayling do not use language clumsily and if Grayling's intent was to paraphrase Weinberg he would have just quoted him. Since he didn't, then his meaning must not have been the same.
After Wittgenstein, philosophy has been about little other than language and its relationship to meaning, so modern philosophers have extremely fine control over what they say.
The intent of my post was not to rebuke, but to give pause. Pause is good, it gives time for rational faculties to consider other possibilities.
By all means, rush in like a fool, there's no law against it. I just can't recommend it as policy.
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49. Comment #55848 by Bonzai on July 12, 2007 at 3:27 pm
PewkatchooHe is stating that ideologies are the cause of all unkindnesses. This is just plain wrong.
I think his sentence means ideology is a "necessary cause" for unkindness, division and mayhem. It doesn't mean that it is "the" cause or even a "sufficient cause". I do agree that some of his sentences are unnecessarily convoluted, that seems to be the dominant style of academic philosophy, though I have the feeling that he has already toned it down. As a a naive math and physics major I find the writing style in philosophy journals pretty much incomprehensible.
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50. Comment #55861 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 4:48 pm
IanYour claim that you were not rebuking anyone is rather thin:
Of course we have freedom to critique, but that comes with the danger of making a complete fool of yourself when you take on someone who knows so much better than you do.
Further compounded:
By all means, rush in like a fool, there's no law against it. I just can't recommend it as policy.
That is twice you have intimated that I am a fool. Excuse me if I think that you are a pompous arse, but this kind of bears that out.
After Wittgenstein, philosophy has been about little other than language and its relationship to meaning, so modern philosophers have extremely fine control over what they say.
The intent of my post was not to rebuke, but to give pause. Pause is good, it gives time for rational faculties to consider other possibilities.
You are definitely talking out of your nether region.
Bonzai, the problem is he is wrong however you read it. There are unkind people who do not subscribe to any ideology. To deny that would be very naive.
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1. Comment #55042 by OhioAtheist on July 9, 2007 at 8:59 pm
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