Arguing about Religion

Who isnt? Some interesting ones:

William Rees Mogg on why its best not to act against a church or religion:

Society has no choice but to act against a church or religion that attacks social order, as some Muslim groups do. In the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I or King James I the English Government was justified in acting against Catholic plots, though many Catholics were unjustly punished and were pushed into extremism. British policy in Ireland has never been forgiven.

The Catholic Church believes that doctrine would be prejudiced if Catholic agencies arranged adoption for same-sex couples. After 2000 years, the Church is not going to change its mind because of a vote in the House of Commons. In matters of faith and morals, the Catholic Church sees itself as sovereign, because it is teaching the doctrine of Jesus. The Church may not break British law, but it will certainly not break its own law.

A prudent prime minister knows the limits of his own authority. He can pass laws, but he cannot enforce consent. The great religions command strong loyalties. It would be a great mistake if the British Government decided to take them on, and a pity if the Leader of the Opposition supported a policy of compelled uniformity.

David Vance on the influx of eastern europeans:

So, the reformation is now in reverse, with the decline of the Protestant faith accelerating as the Anglican Church totally fails to stand up for Christian principles, and the only real leadership is that being shown by the Roman Catholic church. I make no apologies for my fundamentalist Protestantism and I wonder about this massive influx of Roman Catholicism coinciding with the tenure of a Labour Government containing prominent Roman Catholics and whose historical inner city voting base is Roman Catholic.

James at Nourishing Obscurity on seperating Church and State

The separation of state and religion should be sacrosanct. There is no place for any religion to be aggressively and temporally enforced. Religion is a personal belief. That’s all. Better one person who truly believes than a billion who are coerced.......Christianity, having no secular basis, therefore cannot be a state religion. Thus, to compare adherents of different religions, as if numerical supremacy has anything to do with it, is illogical. On the other hand, the state can claim to nominally support a certain religion, e.g. Christianity but that’s as far as it goes. This was clearly demonstrated in the discussion with Pilate - JC was the first to argue for the separation of Church and State

Steve at Pub Philosopher on concessions, the road to Sharia', one of several posts:

...it is likely that there will be increasing demands for Muslims to be allowed to live under Sharia. For this reason, any concessions to religious minorities, whoever they are, would be extremely unwise. You may not agree that adoption agencies should be compelled to help gay people adopt children, or that hotel owners should be forced to accept bookings from gay couples but if a law is passed there should be no exemptions. Allowing people to obey a different set of laws on the grounds that they have a strong religious belief would set a dangerous precedent.

Into a few of which ive put my oar as I try to work it all out.

Losing my Religion

Mr S has got a post up about Love, christianity and women at ATW. I imagine this as a more thoughtful approach to the challenges posited off the back of a string of grossly titled, uselessly heated debates on abortion.

The romantic notions of women and faith are ideals. Romance wasnt all about chivalry, the idea of some woman being whisked off into the sunset by a knight back then reflect the lucky ones i expect! Marriage was very much a trade with women as commodities. The realities are always a bit different.

The thing about being 'westernised' is that I can challenge my faiths absurdities. I havent had a view of an obstinate unmovable God since I realised that much like Islamic texts are stuck in the socio political context of the time but remain unchallenged, christian texts were also. I cant imagine Jesus building his church via St Peter, the first Pope, and being disingenius to think faith would not evolve with time. Thats just stupid. The rules of Islam apply and can be distorted by murdering nutjobs precisely because noone en masse thinks they can change much and the ones in charge dont want to. Critical masse has had effect in the West for christianity but at the top its still a bit murky. I'd wager from the number of christian couples with standard size families at mass when i get a chance to go along, they dont follow the rules. They dip in and out of what suits their lives in 2007.

I admire the devout but i dont feel bound in by them until they start ranting. However lets not kid ourselves about the timeline in all this. The general secularizing trend gradually dissolved many of the barriers and made it easier for the faithful but it is still pretty vague. Catholics are divorced, use contraception, and have abortions at about the same rate as non-Catholics. (Recruitment of priests and nuns has ebbed to a very low level, while the average age of priests and nuns is very high). As recently as in 1968 Pope Paul VI, against the counsel of his own advisers, issued his infamous encyclical, Humanae Vitae, condemning contraception. The encyclical triggered a massive revolt among Catholics--lay and clerical--and was viewed widely as an attempt to turn back the clock, to restore medieval authoritarianism. Ive chucked abortion into that. Pretty obvious to me if someone wants to tell me my life is worth less than an unformed group of cells then I should. It is a constant challenge and in comparison to Islam and women, largely a question of degree and context. Insisting on no contraception (supported better because it affects guys too) or a pregnancy is a huge deal for anyone. The faithful in Islam truly believe they are doing women and the world a favour protecting them under that veil and keeping them inside. They truly believe it is in their best interests.

As i was growing up in the fall out of feminism i quickly recognised the crap applied to women in the form of fundamentalism - to which i added and still include the decrees on contraception and abortion. I argued about them when i was 16 and at a catholic school. Not a lot has changed. Looking further afield at Islam when i was in my early 20s before the jets hit the twin towers, fundamentalists of all religious sorts seemed pretty similar in what they were saying. Some of it made me very angry. Not Without My Daughter a film i watched in the early 90s about an American woman stuck with her nutjob husband in Iran - gentle and loving in America it didnt take long for the Ayatollah via his own family to work the loony magic and turn him into a fundi. He saw what he was doing as righteous - insisting she wore the veil for her own good and that his daughter stay in Iran. Saudi Princess the book followed, stories about the 'dirty women' who bleed and the rituals of Judaism...and then the following bit of advice from the pope - all made me question just how tenable a position you can have as a female in any of the great faiths without looking utterly foolish. The twenty-year papacy of John Paul II has confirmed this perception, while his selection of conservative bishops and cardinals may surely continue this trend well into the future in spite of Ratzinger. These events highlighted to me the disconnect between the Vatican's power structure on the one hand and most ordinary Catholic and non-Catholic opinion on the other, myself included.

Pope John Paul the II. A man I greatly admired for his devout ways in a fierce consumerist environment made some dreadful and probably predictable errors. The following didnt take place two centuries ago. It took place a few decades ago in Kosovo. The Pope forbade raped women in Kosovo to use the "morning after pill". He condemned them to bear the children -of another faith- and caused many of them, born into a country where religious and social tolerance were non existent to be shunned by their communities for the sin of being raped. Without meaning to undermine Mr Smiths post of good intentions re reverence to women - so 'revered' were catholic women that inspite of the hideousness of their situations they were to make the ultimate sacrifice. Apparently though in contrast the Vatican's distribution of contraceptives to nuns in the Congo in the 1960s, was what senior Vatican official Monsignor Ello Sgreccia called "a legitimate defense" against the possibility of rape. Catholics for a Free Choice even launched an effort to get Useless Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to review the special Non-Member State Permanent Observer status that the Holy See (the headquarters of the Roman Catholic church) enjoys at the U.N. I understand, though i need to look into this properly, that The Holy See is the only religious body so privileged and has used that status to exert pressure on the U.N. to down-play efforts to deal with the problem of overpopulation and the reproductive health and rights of women. Somehow though it really doesnt surprise me. On the one hand i support women kicking out of the socio political chains of Islam. Id be an enormous hypocrite if i didnt recognise the issues the Holy See's direction compounded not so very long ago and continues to compound today in the third world.

No one knows how many Kosovan Albanian women were raped. There were unconfirmed Nato reports of 'rape camps' operated by Serb soldiers. Groups working with refugee women shipped forbidden morning after pills to camps in Kukes, Vlora, Lezja and Tirana in Albania. The Popes removed dispassionate advice amounted to turning their rape into an act of love by accepting the enemy within and carrying their pregnancies to term. How thoughtful. This blatant misinformation was in some understandable views 'intended to further a political agenda to prevent access to contraceptives in general and specifically to emergency contraceptives, which enables the prevention of unwanted or enforced pregnancy, clearly an urgent need of some women in a war situation such as Kosovo.'

UNFPA executive director Nafis Sadik said: 'It shows an insensitivity to the suffering of the women of Kosovo. The women of Kukes need our support and care, not condemnation.' Why would anyone argue with that?

A spokeswoman for Marie Stopes International said women in the camps were suicidal at the prospect of bearing their Serb rapists' babies and would opt for this rather than giving birth. I bet they bloody well were!

Outside of hideous scenarios such as these. The church still says that marriage is ordained for the procreation of children. Therefore it is a woman's duty to have children with her husband. Thwarting God's intention must be just as heinous as abortion. The first bit it is obvious - but we arent bound by duty to this. We are bound by hormones. Imposing a duty makes it banal.

Thanks to living in the UK, where a more liberal western set of values came about through mounting enormous challenge and criticism of the Church, I can actually ignore all of it. Im very lucky to live here. But their chipping away at issues is a reminder that where sometimes I feel they are hard done by and the government needs to work on some basis of give and take... they ARE there- and given half a chance would insist every bit as much as the next religion. Problem is the way government gets all muddled and tackles it. In Islams case, frightened of it. This flopping around on Islam, after keeping christianity at arms length quite fiercely, makes the whole approach so antagonising.

There is a clear difference in degree between religions and attitudes towards women. The clear difference in socio political dogma where the religion is meshed into the fabric of society. There is something rather creepy sounding, though, in the similarities between parotting the reverence for women in christianity which sets specific female gender based roles and the worship of Perfection ...and the men in Islam who do the same (and the women who go along with it in both). There are plenty of references within Islam that gave women a much better social status than women ever found in christianity. And the burqa is not advocated in the Koran but seen as protcetion. Of course how it all then becomes interpreted is at the crux of the issue really. And just how much it gets applied in the West is down to the society that keeps it at arms length and mounts a critical challenge rather than imposing. Third world backward ratholes having, of course, a much much harder time. But really - did anyone give a shit about womens rights under Islam before 9/11?

The catholic view on contraception and abortion is a clear parallel to all this given it operates in the third world but little reminders come about when in the west people parrot the Old Testament to justify no abortion rulings with religious zeal. That is religion dictating to me how to make a decision and then condemning me for it without compassion and without the first clue what leads to such a decision. Zygotes trump a fully formed human. Bollocks.

What it boils down to is something you cannot shirk. Religious dogma, controlling sexuality and ultimately controlling men and women. Its just the latter are easier to control for some.

It is pretty accurate to recognize that toward one side are gathered conservative, even reactionary, Catholics, evangelicals, and Jews, while toward the opposite side are diverse groupings of moderate and progressive Catholics, Protestants, Jews, humanists, and others. I prefer the gentle aspects and voices of my faith wherever I can find them and opt for the latter - but i do not discount the former. A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist, a literalist by degree. It hasnt altered for me personally because 9/11 changed the goalposts. Islam has adopted a far fiercer dogmatic vicious and violent method overall and therefore becomes the number one priority. Wound more tightly into communities untouched by reason and progress, the attempt is to keep a much tighter grip on the faithful using the progress in the West as an example of how not to proceed. Of course here in the UK governments compound what might have been better progress by making a religion an ethnicity. Im not ethnically catholic.

I respect and hugely admire the women who are fighting off the bigotted mysoginist assholes in Islam whilst maintaining their own degree of faith as only they can - given the limitations and laws applied to women. You cannot as a christian 'use' Ayaan Hirsi Ali as a brave example when she wants women to reject their faith altogether and at the same time then raise an eyebrow at gobby women who challenge christian rules. If you want to be a really verbose 'God botherer' then take up the flack.

Interestingly Ratzinger has a new approach to the role of women. Whilst facsinating and seemingly progressive it falls back upon the virtues eschewed around Mary the mother of God. Who remains the paragon of womanhood as the Perfect Virgin, that ideal not so very different from the other faiths. Beautiful but flawed, odd and extra unatainable concept into the bargain. Tough eh. Bear in mind the year this Pope came to extol his progressive ideas and reexamine these texts though: 2004.

Faiths have huge values. What weve gained and lost as a society makes a tremendous impact socially and extracting all of it has left a massive vacuum filled by worship of rubbish.

Long post. Yeah, Im thinking it all through and constantly having to work it all out as I go along in the current climate. But Ill take the contraception, the option to divorce, abortion, commit all these sins if i face them and seek my peace with God, thanks. Whatever judgement falls upon me is through God and not the lectures judgments and views of others.

Some briefer thoughts on the Harley Street abortion decision later.

Hang on a sec...

Until now the key religion and state had operated in this country with give and take, pull and push - for the most part it (christianity) had kept its head down in a sort of gentlemans agreement. I say this because I was brought up and educated a catholic (not the State religion) but at no time in my life have ever received direct instruction from the church I regularly attended, and the school for that matter, that issued direct requests to compete with the accepted norms of society or insist.

My father is a devout catholic and i grew up to love this faith. My mother by contrast an atheist with a respectful but forthright view of religion that countered hard at the ideas that women are generally looked down upon in any of the Great World Religions. An opinion equally cherished. This give and take worked well in modern Britain and it was something of which I was proud. I felt i was able to criticise, respect, see both sides of the religious vs non religious argument and accept both its flaws and respect its pretty decent outlook.

I think I recognise a zealot when I see one. Growing up with a religion as a big part of your life and holding untypical ('lapsed'...'moderate' whatever you want to define it as) views means ive had my fair share of experience facing up to some on both sides of the argument. There are some Christians with deeply held convictions who will go for the throat if you mention the unmentionables. Occasionally they pop out of all corners of the blogosphere now and make their Judgements and threads get, lets say, interesting! But by and large I respect their deeply held views. If that balance were wholesale inversed somehow then Id be inclined to fight back. Equally you get those who will sneer and look down their noses and think your views highly suspect. But people living here with deeply held views either way have in listening to opinions, come to take less harsh views, adjust their thinking, sometimes move away from religion altogether or accept that beliefs vary in their devotion. Mainly because christianity has accepted Reason for the most part and Criticism for the rest and it is wound into our society with a bond that worked well up til now.

I disagree with Steve here. I see this as idiots who pop out of situations of the governments own mishandling and meddling. They are emboldened purely by Islams antics and the lack of government 'zeal' to condemn them or get a grip. The people he describes as zealots are not. Zealots are the kind of people who rock up at Waco and proclaim themselves the son of God reborn for whom a group of people wish to die. Or bomb abortion clinics. These people he describes are idiots in a harmless minority who probably shouldnt even have been employed. The reason they have, has a dotted line back to the governments and their agencies enforcing of quotas without thinking it through properly and leaving idiots to pop up into the current media friendly limelight. It isnt about making concessions. Its about not allowing them to crop up in the first place and become an issue. The 'dangerous precedent' was set by this government and its pussyfooting around a fanatical version of Islam, indulging the likes of the MCB and stating them as 'moderate', along with 'community leaders' (ive never had one of these as a catholic) and media spokespeople (again, never one for catholics). And yet - my religion is a foreign religion.

There is only one religion where religious zeal is gaining momentum at a terrific pace unchallenged at the moment. And so for many of its adherents any action, idiotic or otherwise, will justifiably be met with either a raised eyebrow or outright condemnation. Until such time where they measure up to the respectful give and take established through years of change that has come about for christianity Ill happily point it out -and no- I wont feel in the least bit like I should be applying equal eyebrow raising zeal to other religions to counter it.

If you treat all religious groups as the same you will create more issues than you solve and generate reflex conservatism. Theyll band together at the top and the issues of Islam where it needs to reform and adapt will dissipate.

Some religions have a lot of basic catching up to do.

Don’t threaten agencies acting for years without problems in a diverse adoption environment and reward them with closure. Don’t throw positive discrimination for ethnic and religious groups into the bargain without thinking through how it will play out and deciding how to handle it first given the huge differences in the faiths and the socio political impact of some.

The quick fix answer isn’t to then constantly legislate against social problems and issues of consicience across the board. (Even less so when that legislation is so utterly flawed that it purports to be in favour of reducing discrimination but is anything but. eg Equal rights for gays at the expense of catholic beliefs when Id wager no single gay couple ever faced a discriminatory issue in that regard. Meanwhile women’s equality gets a bypass and a SSSHHHH! when it comes to discussion on the burqa where there is good reason to believe women in this country are forced and abused)