Latest version 0.6 of leaflet - significant changes from previous version 0.5 discussed at July Commitee meeting.
Includes new Polly Toynbee quote
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Time for a Change - Richard hogg leaflet v0.6
Latest version 0.6 of leaflet - significant changes from previous version 0.5 discussed at July Commitee meeting.
Includes new Polly Toynbee quote
Comments to the OUT Campaign
pick of the comments at RichardDawkins.net
4. Comment #59769 by Happy Hominid on July 30, 2007 at 3:25 pm
avatarI like it. Could we do better? Maybe. But who cares? The point is to stand up and say what you are and if most go along with The Scarlet A then it will become KNOWN. It's not much of a statement if a million atheists have a million different ways of showing it, because the average person won't recognize the symbol. If we can rally around one, even if we disagree whether it's the BEST, it will have impact. I'm in. It's already up.
http://evolutionarymiddleman.blogspot.com/
5. Comment #59772 by Milton on July 30, 2007 at 3:34 pm
How about FIND OUT? The more you learn about how the world works the less likely you are to find a need for belief in the supernatural. Could also mean 'find out' more about how many atheists there actually are.
7. Comment #59776 by Déjà Fu on July 30, 2007 at 3:56 pm
I don't think any books from Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Stenger, Hitchens, Sagan, et al, will overcome the embedded generation's brainwashing as children. They simply cannot dissuade the current generation from their childhood and social programming. Words (other words, that is) cannot conquer the application, from childhood, of the books of faith. The value of these writings, of this new expression of reason and analysis, is to the next generation - to the children and grandchildren and even beyond them. These books, all of them, are a powerful legacy (much more powerful to young minds than the books of faith) and therein lies their value. They are part of a library of reason which, once built, can never be burned. I would urge all the authors of these books to take profit for, say, 10 years and then render them into the public domain.
BTW, the font of the "official" Scarlet A is *not* in the public domain, and I therefore reject it.
9. Comment #59780 by theocide on July 30, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I have recently decided to come out. It is really scary because all my family are fundamentalists Christians. I can directly thank Richard Dawkins & Dan Barker for giving me the courage to come out and proclaim that I won't keep quite any more regarding my lack of belief in any gods.
Thank you Richard and Dan! Please keep up this important work. I'm sure there are many millions more like me that don't believe but don't speak out either.
14. Comment #59788 by Happy Hominid on July 30, 2007 at 4:25 pm
avatarDeja Fu said, " don't think any books from Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Stenger, Hitchens, Sagan, et al, will overcome the embedded generation's brainwashing as children."
A couple of posts later Theocide said, " have recently decided to come out. It is really scary because all my family are fundamentalists Christians. I can directly thank Richard Dawkins & Dan Barker for giving me the courage to come out and proclaim that I won't keep quite any more regarding my lack of belief in any gods."
People DO change their positions. Yes, it can seem impossible with some folks and it may be so, in their lifetimes. The point, to me, is to start moving the numbers in our direction. Most atheists today were brought up in a religious tradition. We all changed. We probably didn't just "do it" in some vacuum. We read the thoughts of great minds and we paid attention to the realities of history and science vs. what we were taught and came to a conclusion - to COME OUT. Others will too. How many is partly up to us who are already there
15. Comment #59789 by Sten on July 30, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I live in a working class estate in the north of the UK, and I can tell you that no one here discusses religion much - I mean there are lots of folks who have 'faith', but very few know the texts in the bible beyond what they remembered at Sunday school or at the morning prayers when they were at regular school. They don't want to come out or in. I reckon most folks just hope they can continue somehow after they've dropped dead. I think it's wishful thinking, but that's the way people are. My gut feeling is that many folks who 'believe' round here, will not be told (or persuaded), to believe or not believe, they just want the comfort of the faith thing. Personally I think it's time the human race got a grip and took it on the chin when they expire, but humans have huge ego's so that's not going to happen just yet. Roll on evolution
18. Comment #59792 by Damien White on July 30, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I've got a t-shirt winging it's way to me down here in Adelaide, The City Of Churches, and once it's arrived i'll be wearing it, and eagerly looking out for others!
United we stand, divided we fall.
20. Comment #59794 by Jack Rawlinson on July 30, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Good to see Richard weigh in on this, and to see him do so with his customary clarity.
By nature I am not a "joiner". I am not a very clubbable chap. But I feel so strongly that atheists need to become more visible, more open, more exposed. Remember that chilling recent statistic which showed that atheists are amongst the most mistrusted people in America? That, right there, is why this is a worthwhile campaign. It's not about getting in people's faces in order to be provocative or aggressive; it's about being open, about showing all those people who so mistrust atheists that we're actually decent, moral, non-scary people. And it's about making it okay to be openly atheist in those many areas of the world where it is anything but that right now.
I've always been an extremely vocal and unapologetic atheist, but I've also always recognised that to be so isn't easy for everyone. The anti-atheist prejudice is real, and in some areas quite vicious. So I'll wear the shirt as an expression of solidarity with those people more than as a personal expression of belief (or lack of) And also because I agree with Richard when he says, "We need to stand up and be counted, so that the demographically savvy culture will come to reflect our tastes and our views. That in turn makes it easier for the next generation of atheists."
Those of us who grew up in the relatively enlightened post-war era, in which religion was very much in retreat in the west, have been complacent. That has allowed the madness to take root and thrive again. No more complacency. This is worth shouting about.
25. Comment #59802 by briantw on July 30, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Here's an example of what can be done. I attended Rock Against Religion here in South Africa. There were some people outside praying, but they got cold and went home. Other than that it was peaceful and, I think, productive.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=180&art_id=vn20070626040504282C606400
http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Local/0,,2-1225-1242_2117677,00.html
Trio to rock against religion
June 26 2007 at 08:40AM
By Barry Bateman
A city band's music concert calling for "freedom from religion" is set to rock the pious and ruffle some religious feathers on July 7.
The 777 Rock Against Religion show, featuring seven of South Africa's "most outspoken rock and metal" acts is organised by local trio Architecture Of Aggression. It has already angered some Christians who have made their voices heard on the band's website.
Brothers Anton and Van Alberts and William Bishop say the concert would be a "a peaceful protest against the injustices caused in the name of religion against people of different faiths or the non-religious".
Anton said: "We want to bring to people's attention all the atrocities committed in the name of religion."
In the band's 777 statement it said "religion served a purpose to our distant ancestors in many different, subtle and even useful manners".
"It helped explain 'mysteries' such us the seasonal cycles, creation and where storms come from.
"It also stimulated the imaginations of early humans with stories of great gods and miracles.
"It also served as a useful tool in early civilisations and among nomad tribes, where circumcision could prevent disease in the male population, where eating the wrong animals could lead to infection by parasites and worse. But we have no more need for these controls," it read.
Humanity now had intelligent ideas and understanding of how the universe functioned and possibly how it came into being as well, the statement said. "There is no need for religious dogmatism in our modern, educated, reasoning society any more.
"It is not only redundant but extremely limiting to us as a species. There will always be a place for it, as there will always be a place for the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny," it said.
Bishop said they wanted to break the silence on a subject still considered taboo in South Africa.
"You can't talk about it. We want to get people to speak about it, to provoke people to speak freely and say that it's okay not to be religious."
Van said: "We want people to speak their mind without running the risk of losing their job or being ostracised by their families."
The three said that some mainstream bands pulled out of the show for fear of losing their fan base or what their parents would think of them.
"We don't want people to believe what we believe," said Anton.
"We want to challenge the religious to read the texts of other religions and not to hate or judge other people because they don't know or understand them."
The band said: "If we see someone wearing a 'I love Jesus' shirt we leave them alone, that's their thing.
"The religious need to be educated. If you speak out against religion you are immediately seen as demonic. There is no in-between for them. You are not allowed to have a different point of view," said Anton.
Van said that the conservative were becoming more conservative and that there was a new crusade mentality, as well as increased fundamentalism.
"The religious do not take what they're told and think about it; they take it literally," said Anton, referring to Amal Nassif, 37, who severely damaged her eyes after staring into the sun for a full minute. Benoni "visionary", teenager Francesca Zackey, told her that the sun would begin spinning at dusk and allow believers to see the Virgin Mary appear in it.
"For humanity to prosper we need to move forward and tone down religion," said Anton.
The band planned to hold the concert annually and in the future invite poets and other artists. "We'd like to get a speaker like (famous atheist and author) Richard Dawkins and get the idea out there," said Anton.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=180&art_id=vn20070626040504282C606400
rock against religion
Rock n' Roll Against Religion
iol.co.za
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=180&art_id=vn20070626040504282C606400
26. Comment #59804 by Jef on July 30, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Now I feel all left out because I've never been anything but a completely unapologetic atheist... :/
I want to come out too!
Hmm.. never thought I'd ever be saying that.. :P
28. Comment #59808 by Dr Benway on July 30, 2007 at 5:30 pm
avatarHere's an idea: rubber wristband with "ATHEIST" on it, like those yellow wristbands with "LIVESTRONG" promoted by Lance Armstrong for cancer research.
I can't wear icons to work. But I'll get a mug if you got one.
37. Comment #59822 by jonecc on July 30, 2007 at 6:35 pm
At last, a proper political campaign, and some inspiring words to get us going. Oh, it's not the end, it's not even the beginnning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning...
I think the gay analogy works quite well, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's probably the case that atheists, like gay people, are on average better off, whereas for women and black people discrimination is most crucially experienced in the economic arena. Secondly, atheists in religious families often have to go through a process of coming out, as do gay people in straight families. Thirdly, many superficially religious people aren't actually quite as religious as they make out. Doubt, like gayness, is often experienced as shame in repressive environments.
Of course, as said above, atheism is a choice rather than an orientation, but otherwise the analogy holds.
53. Comment #59841 by Ohnhai on July 30, 2007 at 8:14 pm
avatarThe 'A' shirt is as good a symbol as any, but it's not for all. I am ordering several so I can wear it frequently. If it is not for you then find your own OUT cry, but cry OUT you must.
Dawkins is right about that.
What ever else divides us atheists, we need to raise our voices as one and call OUT "ENOUGH". We will not tolerate interferance in public life,or our own personal life, from religions, or the religious.
We will NOT be ignored and marginalised, and deamonised by religions, or the religious
We need to stand together and shout OUT god does Not exist and THIS is our freedom, you will not deny us.
We need to shout OUT we are more numerous than you think. Not only do we know where you live, we LIVE where you live.
come OUT
reach OUT
speak OUT
stand OUT
56. Comment #59845 by BT Murtagh on July 30, 2007 at 8:37 pm
avatarI was already pretty outspoken and obvious in my atheism, so I wasn't sure this would be relevant to me. The longer I thought about it and read the comments, the more I've come to like the idea of a popular, recognizable symbol of atheist solidarity. (Note the absence of words like "standard" or "official"!)
I've already added the A to my website and will shortly be wearing it. Is it a perfect symbol? Perhaps not, but it's a good starting place - I particularly like the Hawthorne reference, that this is something they tried to make shameful but we're going to wear it as a badge of pride.
If other symbols come out later and become recognized as atheist symbols, great; the Christians have several, after all, and who can count the number of pagan symbols? Prior to this the closest we had was the Darwin fish, which I still like to show, but that's more an anti-creationist icon - a theistic evolutionist could get behind that too, for example.
Rock n' Roll Against Religion
reposted from iol.co.za
Trio to rock against religion
June 26 2007 at 08:40AM
By Barry Bateman
A city band's music concert calling for "freedom from religion" is set to rock the pious and ruffle some religious feathers on July 7.
The 777 Rock Against Religion show, featuring seven of South Africa's "most outspoken rock and metal" acts is organised by local trio Architecture Of Aggression. It has already angered some Christians who have made their voices heard on the band's website.
Brothers Anton and Van Alberts and William Bishop say the concert would be a "a peaceful protest against the injustices caused in the name of religion against people of different faiths or the non-religious".
Anton said: "We want to bring to people's attention all the atrocities committed in the name of religion."
In the band's 777 statement it said "religion served a purpose to our distant ancestors in many different, subtle and even useful manners".
"It helped explain 'mysteries' such us the seasonal cycles, creation and where storms come from.
"It also stimulated the imaginations of early humans with stories of great gods and miracles.
"It also served as a useful tool in early civilisations and among nomad tribes, where circumcision could prevent disease in the male population, where eating the wrong animals could lead to infection by parasites and worse. But we have no more need for these controls," it read.
Humanity now had intelligent ideas and understanding of how the universe functioned and possibly how it came into being as well, the statement said. "There is no need for religious dogmatism in our modern, educated, reasoning society any more.
"It is not only redundant but extremely limiting to us as a species. There will always be a place for it, as there will always be a place for the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny," it said.
Bishop said they wanted to break the silence on a subject still considered taboo in South Africa.
"You can't talk about it. We want to get people to speak about it, to provoke people to speak freely and say that it's okay not to be religious."
Van said: "We want people to speak their mind without running the risk of losing their job or being ostracised by their families."
The three said that some mainstream bands pulled out of the show for fear of losing their fan base or what their parents would think of them.
"We don't want people to believe what we believe," said Anton.
"We want to challenge the religious to read the texts of other religions and not to hate or judge other people because they don't know or understand them."
The band said: "If we see someone wearing a 'I love Jesus' shirt we leave them alone, that's their thing.
"The religious need to be educated. If you speak out against religion you are immediately seen as demonic. There is no in-between for them. You are not allowed to have a different point of view," said Anton.
Van said that the conservative were becoming more conservative and that there was a new crusade mentality, as well as increased fundamentalism.
"The religious do not take what they're told and think about it; they take it literally," said Anton, referring to Amal Nassif, 37, who severely damaged her eyes after staring into the sun for a full minute. Benoni "visionary", teenager Francesca Zackey, told her that the sun would begin spinning at dusk and allow believers to see the Virgin Mary appear in it.
"For humanity to prosper we need to move forward and tone down religion," said Anton.
The band planned to hold the concert annually and in the future invite poets and other artists. "We'd like to get a speaker like (famous atheist and author) Richard Dawkins and get the idea out there," said Anton.
Trio to rock against religion
June 26 2007 at 08:40AM
By Barry Bateman
A city band's music concert calling for "freedom from religion" is set to rock the pious and ruffle some religious feathers on July 7.
The 777 Rock Against Religion show, featuring seven of South Africa's "most outspoken rock and metal" acts is organised by local trio Architecture Of Aggression. It has already angered some Christians who have made their voices heard on the band's website.
Brothers Anton and Van Alberts and William Bishop say the concert would be a "a peaceful protest against the injustices caused in the name of religion against people of different faiths or the non-religious".
Anton said: "We want to bring to people's attention all the atrocities committed in the name of religion."
In the band's 777 statement it said "religion served a purpose to our distant ancestors in many different, subtle and even useful manners".
"It helped explain 'mysteries' such us the seasonal cycles, creation and where storms come from.
"It also stimulated the imaginations of early humans with stories of great gods and miracles.
"It also served as a useful tool in early civilisations and among nomad tribes, where circumcision could prevent disease in the male population, where eating the wrong animals could lead to infection by parasites and worse. But we have no more need for these controls," it read.
Humanity now had intelligent ideas and understanding of how the universe functioned and possibly how it came into being as well, the statement said. "There is no need for religious dogmatism in our modern, educated, reasoning society any more.
"It is not only redundant but extremely limiting to us as a species. There will always be a place for it, as there will always be a place for the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny," it said.
Bishop said they wanted to break the silence on a subject still considered taboo in South Africa.
"You can't talk about it. We want to get people to speak about it, to provoke people to speak freely and say that it's okay not to be religious."
Van said: "We want people to speak their mind without running the risk of losing their job or being ostracised by their families."
The three said that some mainstream bands pulled out of the show for fear of losing their fan base or what their parents would think of them.
"We don't want people to believe what we believe," said Anton.
"We want to challenge the religious to read the texts of other religions and not to hate or judge other people because they don't know or understand them."
The band said: "If we see someone wearing a 'I love Jesus' shirt we leave them alone, that's their thing.
"The religious need to be educated. If you speak out against religion you are immediately seen as demonic. There is no in-between for them. You are not allowed to have a different point of view," said Anton.
Van said that the conservative were becoming more conservative and that there was a new crusade mentality, as well as increased fundamentalism.
"The religious do not take what they're told and think about it; they take it literally," said Anton, referring to Amal Nassif, 37, who severely damaged her eyes after staring into the sun for a full minute. Benoni "visionary", teenager Francesca Zackey, told her that the sun would begin spinning at dusk and allow believers to see the Virgin Mary appear in it.
"For humanity to prosper we need to move forward and tone down religion," said Anton.
The band planned to hold the concert annually and in the future invite poets and other artists. "We'd like to get a speaker like (famous atheist and author) Richard Dawkins and get the idea out there," said Anton.
Come out! by PZ Myers
'The shrinking violets who complain that it's too bold, it's too in-your-face, it'll make us a target. Talk about missing the point: yes, it's supposed to be bold. You are supposed to be bold. Begging for a tiny little delicate bit of subtle embroidery on a shirt pocket means this movement is not for you. Don't wear the shirt. Don't put the bumper sticker on your car. Don't say a word — it's easy to pass as a Christian or a Muslim, you know.
Just don't try to claim that you're helping.'
reposted from PZ Myers
A while back, I floated the idea of a logo for the godless. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea, and a lot of good design ideas came out of it … maybe too many good ideas. And being a mob of atheists, there was absolutely no consensus on what was the best symbol to use. Finally, I didn't want to impose a logo on anyone, so I just let it drop to see if anyone would simply start using one of the suggested designs, that maybe a consensus might coalesce. I saw a few of the logos on scattered sites, but there wasn't much of a spontaneous response, and alas, every single site used a different logo. Typical atheists.
Now, though, there is one possible option: the RDF has started the Out Campaign, an effort to get atheists to publicly and proudly declare their status.
It has a slightly different meaning — it's not exactly a symbol of atheism, but more a symbol of the willingness to come out about your disbelief — but it's nice, it's simple, it's clean. It's a simple red Zapfino "A", the scarlet letter.
Go ahead, use it. I've got one on the sidebar to testify to my openness about my ideas of the nature of the universe, we should all spread it far and wide. I'll even make it easy for you: you can use this code to put one on your website, if you're one of us loud and proud atheists.
One weird thing about this development, though, is that it sure brings out the whiners and concern trolls. I'm a little bit surprised at the response at the Dawkins site, with far too many rushing to complain. You'll see two kinds of negative reactions.
The nay-sayers who complain that this is too much like Christianity, it's a uniform, it's Dawkins trying to enforce conformity. How ridiculous. It's a freakin' t-shirt or bumper sticker, not the High Holy Cathedral of the Sacred Letter A. You can wear it or you can skip it. You can use it to wipe the sweat off after a workout. You might wear it to a barbecue at the park. Wear it while you're doing the dishes. It's casual wear. It's a nice shirt that sends a straightforward message about your willingness to be unafraid, nothing more, with no other deep significance. It will not be part of the dress code.
The shrinking violets who complain that it's too bold, it's too in-your-face, it'll make us a target. Talk about missing the point: yes, it's supposed to be bold. You are supposed to be bold. Begging for a tiny little delicate bit of subtle embroidery on a shirt pocket means this movement is not for you. Don't wear the shirt. Don't put the bumper sticker on your car. Don't say a word — it's easy to pass as a Christian or a Muslim, you know.
Just don't try to claim that you're helping.
The Myers family ordered a few t-shirts, and my car will have the bumper sticker on it. We aren't afraid. Especially not to make such a trivial commitment.
The OUT CAMPAIGN explained by Richard Dawkins
'Our choir is large, but much of it remains in the closet. Our repertoire may include the best tunes, but too many of us are mouthing the words sotto voce with head bowed and eyes lowered. It follows that a major part of our consciousness-raising effort should be aimed, not at converting the religious but at encouraging the non-religious to admit it – to themselves, to their families, and to the world. This is the purpose of the OUT campaign.'
In the dark days of 1940, the pre-Vichy French government was warned by its generals "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." After the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill growled his response: "Some chicken; some neck!" Today, the bestselling books of 'The New Atheism' are disparaged, by those who desperately wish to downplay their impact, as "Only preaching to the choir."
Some choir! Only?!
As far as subjective impressions allow and in the admitted absence of rigorous data, I am persuaded that the religiosity of America is greatly exaggerated. Our choir is a lot larger than many people realise. Religious people still outnumber atheists, but not by the margin they hoped and we feared. I base this not only on conversations during my book tour and the book tours of my colleagues Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, but on widespread informal surveys of the World Wide Web. Not our own site, whose contributors are obviously biased, but, for example, Amazon, and YouTube whose denizens are reassuringly young. Moreover, even if the religious have the numbers, we have the arguments, we have history on our side, and we are walking with a new spring in our step – you can hear the gentle patter of our feet on every side.
Our choir is large, but much of it remains in the closet. Our repertoire may include the best tunes, but too many of us are mouthing the words sotto voce with head bowed and eyes lowered. It follows that a major part of our consciousness-raising effort should be aimed, not at converting the religious but at encouraging the non-religious to admit it – to themselves, to their families, and to the world. This is the purpose of the OUT campaign.
Before I go any further, I must forestall one major risk of misunderstanding. The obvious comparison with the gay community is vulnerable to going too far: to 'outing' as a transitive verb whose object might be an unfortunate individual not yet – or not ever – ready to confide in the world. Our OUT campaign will have nothing, repeat nothing to do with outing in that active sense. If a closet atheist wants to come out, that is her decision to make, and nobody else's. What we can do is provide support and encouragement to those who willingly decide to out themselves. This may seem trivial to people in parts of Europe, or in regions of the United States dominated by urban intellectuals where support and encouragement is unnecessary. It is anything but trivial to people in other areas of the United States, and even more so in parts of the Islamic world where apostasy is, by Koranic authority, punishable by death.
The OUT campaign has potentially as many sides to it as you can think of words to precede "out". "Come OUT" has pride of place and is the one I have so far dealt with. Related to it is "Reach OUT" in friendship and solidarity towards those who have come out, or who are contemplating that step which, depending on their family or home town prejudices, may require courage. Join, or found local support groups and on-line forums. Speak OUT, to show waverers they are not alone. Organize conferences or campus events. Attend rallies and marches. Write letters to the local newspaper. Lobby politicians, at local and national level. The more people come out and are known to have done so, the easier will it be for others to follow.
Stand OUT and organize activities and events in your local area. Join an existing local neighbourhood atheist organization, or start one. Put a bumper sticker on your car. Wear a T-shirt. Wear Josh's red A if you like it as much as I do, otherwise design your own or find one on a website such as http://www.cafepress.com/buy/atheist; or wear no shirt at all, but please don't carp at the very idea of standing up to be counted with other atheists. I admit, I sympathize with those sceptics on this site who fear that we are engendering a quasi-religious conformity of our own. Whether we like it or not, I'm afraid we have to swallow this small amount of pride if we are to have an influence on the real world, otherwise we'll never overcome the 'herding cats' problem. If in doubt, read PZ Myers's exuberant hortation at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/come_out.php.
"Keep" OUT worried me at first, because it sounds unfriendly and exclusive, like the Barcelona Travel Agent whose travel poster, in well-meant English, read "Go Away!" "Keep OUT" here means, of course, keep religion out of science classes, and similar expressions of the US constitutional separation between church and state (Britain has no such separation, unfortunately). As yet another delightful T-shirt put it, "Don't pray in our school, and I won't think in your church." Lobby your local school board. Quote Christopher Hitchens: "Mr Jefferson, build up that wall."
Chill OUT (exhort others to do so). Atheists are not devils with horns and a tail, they are ordinary nice people. Demonstrate this by example. The nice woman next door may be an atheist. So may the doctor, librarian, computer operator, taxi driver, hairdresser, talk show host, singer, conductor, comedian. Atheists are just people with a different interpretation of cosmic origins, nothing to be alarmed about.
What other OUTs might we imagine? Well, suggest your own. Vote OUT representatives who discriminate against the non-religious, the way George Bush Senior is alleged to have done when he described atheists as non-citizens of a nation "under God". Politicians follow where the votes are. They can only count atheists who are OUT. Some atheists are defeatist in thinking we'll never be effective simply because we're not a majority. But it doesn't matter that we're not a majority. To be effective, all we have to be is recognizable to legislators as a big enough minority. Atheists are more numerous than religious Jews, yet they wield a tiny fraction of the political power, apparently because they have never got their act together in the way the Jewish lobby so brilliantly has: the famous 'herding cats' problem again. And the argument applies not just to politicians but to advertisers, the media, merchants across the board. Anyone who wants to sell us anything caters to demographics. We need to stand up and be counted, so that the demographically savvy culture will come to reflect our tastes and our views. That in turn makes it easier for the next generation of atheists. Fill OUT 'Atheist' on any form that asks for your personal details, especially the next census form.
Break OUT! Some might like to throw 'coming OUT' parties where they joyously celebrate the courage of those who have decided to put behind them the habits of a lifetime, or the habits of their ancestors, embrace a realistic and superstition-free life and Break OUT into the real world. Break OUT of religious conformity and, in celebration of your new found freedom, Break OUT the champagne.
http://OutCampaign.org
The OUT CAMPAIGN by RichardDawkins.net
'Atheists are far more numerous than most people realize. COME OUT of the closet! You'll feel liberated, and your example will encourage others to COME OUT too. (Don't "out" anybody else, wait for them to OUT themselves when they are ready to do so).'
Read Richard Dawkins' Introduction to The Out Campaign here
Atheists have always been at the forefront of rational thinking and beacons of enlightenment, and now you can share your idealism by being part of the OUT Campaign.
Atheists are far more numerous than most people realize. COME OUT of the closet! You'll feel liberated, and your example will encourage others to COME OUT too. (Don't "out" anybody else, wait for them to OUT themselves when they are ready to do so).
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
As more and more people join the OUT Campaign, fewer and fewer people will feel intimidated by religion. We can help others understand that atheists come in all shapes, sizes, colours and personalities. We are labourers and professionals. We are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and grandparents. We are human (we are primates) and we are good friends and good citizens. We are good people who have no need to cling to the supernatural.
It is time to let our voices be heard regarding the intrusion of religion in our schools and politics. Atheists along with millions of others are tired of being bullied by those who would force their own religious agenda down the throats of our children and our respective governments. We need to KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies.
It is time to step up and...
We have many exciting activities and plans for the OUT Campaign, so be sure to watch OutCampaign.org for the latest developments.
OUT Campaign 'Scarlet Letter' T-Shirts and stickers now available: click here
Earth Pic in The Cosmos
This made me stop and think. Wow!!
 clipped from www.smart-kit.com
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Monday, July 30, 2007
St. Louis Ethical Society & South Place Ethical Society
Thanks to David Warden for information about St. Louis Ethical Society.
St Louis Ethical Society motto is "Deed before Creed". See Quick facts and Philosophy and Beliefs of Ethical Culture.
Some people choose the Ethical Society as their community without viewing Ethical Culture as their religion because to them "religion" means dogmatism and the worship of a supernatural God. For many members, however, the Ethical Society serves as a religious congregation where they build a community of friends, find inspiration and purpose, celebrate the seasons, and clarify their world views.
The closest equivalent organisation in the UK is the South Place Ethical Society at Conway Hall in London.
Brussels Declaration 2007 - Background to a Secular Vision
The one page Brussels Declaration 2007 is here.
Background: The centrepiece of the Vision for Europe is the Brussels Declaration, a one-page summary of our common values.
Background: The centrepiece of the Vision for Europe is the Brussels Declaration, a one-page summary of our common values.
reposted from Vision from Europe
'The centrepiece of the Vision for Europe is the Brussels Declaration, a one-page summary of our common values.'
As the 50th anniversary of the creation of the European Union approaches, the principles and values on which modern Europe was founded are once again under threat. Recent events have thrown into sharp focus the divisions that exist between those who share our liberal, humanitarian values and those who seek to create a more authoritarian society, or would use our culture of tolerance to promote intolerance and undermine democracy.
Unless we stand firm and defend our values now, fundamentalism and authoritarianism will once again ride roughshod over our rights.
We offer this Vision for Europe to the people of Europe as a restatement of our common values, the liberal values of individual freedom, democracy and the rule of law on which modern European civilisation is based. They are not the values of a single culture or tradition but are our shared values, the values that enable Europeans of all backgrounds, cultures and traditions to live together in peace and harmony.
The Vision for Europe is the outcome of an unprecedented collaboration between academics, politicians, writers, community leaders and both secular and religious non-governmental organizations.
The centrepiece of the Vision for Europe is the Brussels Declaration, a one-page summary of our common values. It is available in the following languages: English, French, German, Swedish, Dutch, Polish, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Latvian, Slovak, Portuguese, Danish, Bulgarian, Esperanto and Finnish from this website.
We seek endorsement of the Brussels Declaration by politicians, community leaders, academics, writers and non-governmental organisations from all 27 member states of the European Union, plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. We urge everyone, whatever their faith or creed, to endorse the Brussels Declaration.
The Declaration was formally launched in Brussels on 27th February 2007, ahead of the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the signing of the Treaty of Rome on March 25th 2007.
No formal signature is necessary; simply use the Sign the Brussels Declaration links on this web site and complete the simple form provided. Version française
Who are we?
The Vision for Europe project is a joint venture between the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), the European Humanist Federation (EHF) and Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC).
Main Committee
The main committee members are:
Frances Kissling (outgoing president CFFC), Jon O’Brien (incoming president CFFC), Michelle Ringuette, Nina Miller and Elfrieda Harth of CFFC
David Pollock (president EHF) and Georges Lienard (Gen Sec. EHF)
Sonja Eggericks (president IHEU) and Roy Brown (immediate past president, IHEU)
Sophie in’t Veld MEP, Chair of the European Parliament All-Party Group on Separation of Religion and Politics.
Jeremy Gibbs of IHEU provides technical support to the project as consultant to the committee.
Secretary to the committee and project coordinator is Roy Brown
Mailing address
Our address for correspondence is:
Campus de la Plaine
ULB CP 237
Ave Arnaud Fraiteur
B-1050 Bruxelles
Email: roywbrown@gmail.com
Editorial committee
The members of the editorial committee were as follows:
Ishtiaq Ahmed, Professor of Political Science, University of Stockholm, Sweden
Matt Cherry, President, NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief, UN, New York
Paul Cliteur, Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Leiden, Netherlands
Arnaud Dotezac, Human Rights Lawyer, France
Michelle Ringuette, Program Officer, Catholics for a Free Choice.
Keith Porteous Wood, General Secretary, National Secular Society, UK
Roy Brown, immediate past president IHEU, secretary to the committee
Catholic Church sends missionaries into cyberspace
Online virtual reality game Second Life is set to be invaded by Catholic missionaries following instructions given in a Vatican-approved Jesuit journal.
In an article in La Civiltà Cattolica, academic priest Father Antonio Spadaro urges the faithful to sign up for Second Life - a detailed virtual world where players create a digital version of themselves and lead a parallel existence - and carry out missionary work.
In an article in La Civiltà Cattolica, academic priest Father Antonio Spadaro urges the faithful to sign up for Second Life - a detailed virtual world where players create a digital version of themselves and lead a parallel existence - and carry out missionary work.
Apparently Second Life players allow their avatars (virtual selves) to get up to all sorts, including that great enemy of the Vatican - promiscuous sex. Therefore Father Spadaro advises that Catholics should travel through Second Life attempting to save the souls of anyone who may be allowing computer-generated pixelated characters to fornicate outside of digital wedlock. Other immoral acts being committed on Second Life include simulated gambling, cyber drinking and virtual drug-use, and the participants will all be the targets of the online missionary effort.
Marcus Brigstocke - The Now Show - Atheist comedy
reposted from RichardDawkins.net
If you didn't hear Marcus Brigstockes' last performance on the Now Show, click here.
Audio requires QuickTime Player 7. Download the free player here.
1.7 MB : 7:14
This file is available for download here.
Ctrl-Click and 'Download Linked File' (Mac)
or Rt-Click and 'Save Target As' (PC) the link above.
Reposted from:
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/07/religion_is_har.html
Thanks to Norm at onegoodmove.org for the link.
Brother Brigstocke's Travelling Secular Salvation Show suggests that: "Religion is hard, it's too hard for most people, whereas humanity is relatively easy. All you have to do is be you and try not to be a dick."
Marcus Brigstocke has a nationwide show in the autumn. He is appearing at the Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne on 21st November. Anyone wanting to go, contact Chris Street for discounted tickets.
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/07/religion_is_har.html
Thanks to Norm at onegoodmove.org for the link.
Brother Brigstocke's Travelling Secular Salvation Show suggests that: "Religion is hard, it's too hard for most people, whereas humanity is relatively easy. All you have to do is be you and try not to be a dick."
Marcus Brigstocke has a nationwide show in the autumn. He is appearing at the Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne on 21st November. Anyone wanting to go, contact Chris Street for discounted tickets.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Christopher Hitchens talks to Simon Mayo
reposted from Think Humanism
Alan C.
said Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 11:19 pm
It's a 30 min interview with Christopher Hitchens, broke down into 4 sections, enjoy. Specially part 3, when a pastor phones in and Hitchens starts mumbling profanities under his breath.
part 1.
part 2.
part 3
part 4
Alan C.
said Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 11:19 pm It's a 30 min interview with Christopher Hitchens, broke down into 4 sections, enjoy. Specially part 3, when a pastor phones in and Hitchens starts mumbling profanities under his breath.
part 1.
part 2.
part 3
part 4
Friday, July 27, 2007
the Government is wrong to communicate with people from ethnic minorities as though they were members of groups rather than individual citizens
reposted from NSS Newsline 27th July
Editorial by Terry Sanderson
At last – the message is getting through. Categorising communities by religion is dangerous and counterproductive
The Conservative party has commissioned a report about national security. One of the findings is that the Government is wrong to communicate with people from ethnic minorities as though they were members of groups rather than individual citizens. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6916773.stm
The NSS has been saying this for years. The Blair Government created these group categories – mostly based on religion – to define whole swathes of the population. But the huge numbers who didn't want to define themselves in this way were left without a voice.
This is particularly true of the tendency to communicate with every person from a Muslim background as though they had one opinion and could be spoken for by one organisation (the Muslim Council of Britain until recently).
Maryam Namazie and her recently-launched group, The Ex-Muslim Council of Britain, has vividly illustrated that there is no way that the label "Muslim" can be accurately attached to everyone who has come from a Muslim cultural background.
The present Government is gradually reaching the conclusion that people are people, and even though they might have been born into a strongly religious culture, it doesn't mean that they still regard themselves as part of that culture. If we want a strong, integrated society that doesn't split down the middle, we must stop religious labelling and start treating people as individuals with their own opinions and own priorities.
It is time to marginalise the theocrats who have dominated the debate so far. Religion should be made a private matter again and those who want to use it to gain political influence – be they Christian or Muslim – must be firmly slapped down.
The "faith school" concept must be dismantled, the Church of England disestablished and there should be encouragement for religion to return to the mosques and churches and temples where it belongs. All those who want religion should go to their place of worship to find it. Otherwise, the space that we share as equal citizens must become religion-free so that we can all participate safely and without sectarian conflict.
That's to everyone's benefit (except, of course, the power-seeking clerics).
See also: Moderate Muslims
Editorial by Terry Sanderson
At last – the message is getting through. Categorising communities by religion is dangerous and counterproductive
The Conservative party has commissioned a report about national security. One of the findings is that the Government is wrong to communicate with people from ethnic minorities as though they were members of groups rather than individual citizens. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6916773.stm
The NSS has been saying this for years. The Blair Government created these group categories – mostly based on religion – to define whole swathes of the population. But the huge numbers who didn't want to define themselves in this way were left without a voice.
This is particularly true of the tendency to communicate with every person from a Muslim background as though they had one opinion and could be spoken for by one organisation (the Muslim Council of Britain until recently).
Maryam Namazie and her recently-launched group, The Ex-Muslim Council of Britain, has vividly illustrated that there is no way that the label "Muslim" can be accurately attached to everyone who has come from a Muslim cultural background.
The present Government is gradually reaching the conclusion that people are people, and even though they might have been born into a strongly religious culture, it doesn't mean that they still regard themselves as part of that culture. If we want a strong, integrated society that doesn't split down the middle, we must stop religious labelling and start treating people as individuals with their own opinions and own priorities.
It is time to marginalise the theocrats who have dominated the debate so far. Religion should be made a private matter again and those who want to use it to gain political influence – be they Christian or Muslim – must be firmly slapped down.
The "faith school" concept must be dismantled, the Church of England disestablished and there should be encouragement for religion to return to the mosques and churches and temples where it belongs. All those who want religion should go to their place of worship to find it. Otherwise, the space that we share as equal citizens must become religion-free so that we can all participate safely and without sectarian conflict.
That's to everyone's benefit (except, of course, the power-seeking clerics).
See also: Moderate Muslims
Secularist councillor won't pray in chamber
A row has erupted after an Exeter councillor refused to stand for prayers during a civic meeting.
Reposted from NSS Newsline 27/7/07
Councillor Paul Pettinger sought to explain his decision but was told to be quiet by Exeter's Lord Mayor, Councillor Hazel Slack, at the full council meeting last week.
But Councillor Yolonda Henson, the council's Conservative Party leader, said she would ask for a new rule, requiring anyone who does not want to stand at council meeting prayers to leave the chamber. The Lord Mayor began the meeting by saying that she intended to be a traditionalist, which appears to mean she will not tolerate dissent.
She added: "I have no qualms in asking you all to show the mayor, and whoever, respect and more importantly, respect for each other. I realise we do not all follow the same religions but I ask we stand for prayers to show respect."
After the prayers, Councillor Henson said she wished to introduce a rule requiring those who did not wish to stand should leave the meeting during prayers. Councillor Pettinger replied that he had two reasons for not standing. He began to explain that he was not a Christian, despite a Christian education, but the Lord Mayor interjected that councillors swore an oath to represent the city of Exeter.
When he continued to talk, she said: "As Lord Mayor I've asked you to sit down. Could you please sit down or I will ask you to leave the chamber."
Councillor David Morrish, a Liberal said: "I think this is the wrong forum...it should be discussed at the leaders' meeting."
Cllr Pettinger, who, at 24 years old, was the youngest councillor in the city when he was elected in 2004, declared that he intends to maintain his position: "I'm elected to do a job for my residents and the people of Exeter and faith has nothing to do with it," he said. "I am a secularist and believe in the complete separation of personal faith and state. I'm an atheist and don't wish to take part in Christian worship. It's highly inappropriate to put pressure on people to act in this way when there are people of so many faiths in this country."
He suggested councillors should instead be given the option to hold prayers in a separate room beforehand.
Cllr Henson told a local paper that she would raise the issue at future talks with other party leaders. "I felt, at the full council meeting, that as senior member of the house, it's got to be said," she added. "It doesn't matter what religion you are, the Lord Mayor is the representative in Exeter of the Queen.
"Why should he presume he's the only atheist in the room? He's probably not. But we all show a mark of respect."
Reposted from NSS Newsline 27/7/07
Councillor Paul Pettinger sought to explain his decision but was told to be quiet by Exeter's Lord Mayor, Councillor Hazel Slack, at the full council meeting last week.
But Councillor Yolonda Henson, the council's Conservative Party leader, said she would ask for a new rule, requiring anyone who does not want to stand at council meeting prayers to leave the chamber. The Lord Mayor began the meeting by saying that she intended to be a traditionalist, which appears to mean she will not tolerate dissent.
She added: "I have no qualms in asking you all to show the mayor, and whoever, respect and more importantly, respect for each other. I realise we do not all follow the same religions but I ask we stand for prayers to show respect."
After the prayers, Councillor Henson said she wished to introduce a rule requiring those who did not wish to stand should leave the meeting during prayers. Councillor Pettinger replied that he had two reasons for not standing. He began to explain that he was not a Christian, despite a Christian education, but the Lord Mayor interjected that councillors swore an oath to represent the city of Exeter.
When he continued to talk, she said: "As Lord Mayor I've asked you to sit down. Could you please sit down or I will ask you to leave the chamber."
Councillor David Morrish, a Liberal said: "I think this is the wrong forum...it should be discussed at the leaders' meeting."
Cllr Pettinger, who, at 24 years old, was the youngest councillor in the city when he was elected in 2004, declared that he intends to maintain his position: "I'm elected to do a job for my residents and the people of Exeter and faith has nothing to do with it," he said. "I am a secularist and believe in the complete separation of personal faith and state. I'm an atheist and don't wish to take part in Christian worship. It's highly inappropriate to put pressure on people to act in this way when there are people of so many faiths in this country."
He suggested councillors should instead be given the option to hold prayers in a separate room beforehand.
Cllr Henson told a local paper that she would raise the issue at future talks with other party leaders. "I felt, at the full council meeting, that as senior member of the house, it's got to be said," she added. "It doesn't matter what religion you are, the Lord Mayor is the representative in Exeter of the Queen.
"Why should he presume he's the only atheist in the room? He's probably not. But we all show a mark of respect."
Penn and Teller talk about The Bible
Thanks Wendy Dimmick for the video link
Check out this video: Penn & Teller Bible Bullshit
Check out this video: Penn & Teller Bible Bullshit
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Fewer Muslims 'back suicide bombs'
Support for suicide bombings against civilians has fallen sharply across the Muslim world since 2002, a major survey has suggested.
However, 70% of Palestinians interviewed said they believed such attacks were sometimes justifiable.
reposted from RichardDawkins
However, 70% of Palestinians interviewed said they believed such attacks were sometimes justifiable.
reposted from RichardDawkins
Thanks to Scott for the link.
Reposted from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6914959.stm
The Global Opinion Trends survey, by the US-based Pew Research Centre, polled 45,000 people in 47 countries.
It also found widespread optimism in poor countries that the next generation will enjoy better lives.
And it suggested that people viewed the US as the most friendly country in the world and the most feared.
Sectarian tension
In Lebanon, Bangladesh, Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia, the proportion of Muslims who support suicide bombing has declined by half or more since 2002.
But in areas of conflict, the results are different - 70% of Palestinians said that suicide bombings against civilians were sometimes justifiable.
There is also declining support among Muslims for Osama Bin Laden. In Jordan, just 20% express a lot or some confidence in Bin Laden, down from 56% four years ago.
However, the survey found broad concern among Muslims that tensions between Sunni and Shia are not limited to Iraq and represent a growing problem for the Muslim world.
The survey also suggests that as countries and families grow richer, optimism increases, as well as support for ruling governments.
In Latin America, the poll results indicate that despite the electoral success of a new generation of left-wing leaders, the majority of respondents believe that people are better off living in a market economy.
SEE THE FULL REPORT: Global opinion trends 2002-7 [2.5MB]
Reposted from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6914959.stm
The Global Opinion Trends survey, by the US-based Pew Research Centre, polled 45,000 people in 47 countries.
It also found widespread optimism in poor countries that the next generation will enjoy better lives.
And it suggested that people viewed the US as the most friendly country in the world and the most feared.
Sectarian tensionIn Lebanon, Bangladesh, Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia, the proportion of Muslims who support suicide bombing has declined by half or more since 2002.
But in areas of conflict, the results are different - 70% of Palestinians said that suicide bombings against civilians were sometimes justifiable.
There is also declining support among Muslims for Osama Bin Laden. In Jordan, just 20% express a lot or some confidence in Bin Laden, down from 56% four years ago.
However, the survey found broad concern among Muslims that tensions between Sunni and Shia are not limited to Iraq and represent a growing problem for the Muslim world.
The survey also suggests that as countries and families grow richer, optimism increases, as well as support for ruling governments.
In Latin America, the poll results indicate that despite the electoral success of a new generation of left-wing leaders, the majority of respondents believe that people are better off living in a market economy.
SEE THE FULL REPORT: Global opinion trends 2002-7 [2.5MB]
Philosopher Roger Scruton takes on Dawkins and Hitchens
Chris Street heard Roger Scruton debate Christopher Hitchens, AC Grayling and Richard Dawkins in London.
'makes a powerful case for religion as myth and solution to rather than cause of violence. Some of it is persuasive, like this: "The experience of the sacred is not an irrational residue of primitive fears, nor is it a superstition that will one day be chased away by science. It is a solution to the accumulated aggression which lies at the heart of human communities."
'makes a powerful case for religion as myth and solution to rather than cause of violence. Some of it is persuasive, like this: "The experience of the sacred is not an irrational residue of primitive fears, nor is it a superstition that will one day be chased away by science. It is a solution to the accumulated aggression which lies at the heart of human communities."
Do you know Roger Scruton? He's an British conservative philosopher – an unabashed lover of high culture and scourge of all things lily-livered liberals like me hold dear. I think I disagree with him about virtually everything, from multiculturalism to opera, politics to fox hunting. Thing is he's not only a nice man – I worked with him, sort of – and, though unabashedly conservative he is a very original and independent thinker and also writes beautifully. His recent book on the philosophy of conservatism was, almost, convincing, and now, writing in Prospect, he delivers what is the most powerful critique and challenge to the 'new atheism' yet. Taking Hitchkins' (®) "religion is the root of all evil"/"religion poisons everything" argument head on, he makes a powerful case for religion as myth and solution to rather than cause of violence. Some of it is persuasive, like this: "The experience of the sacred is not an irrational residue of primitive fears, nor is it a superstition that will one day be chased away by science. It is a solution to the accumulated aggression which lies at the heart of human communities." Scruton has issued a challenge to those of us who reject religion which we must answer in the next round of God books and humanist responses to contemporary religion. It's all very well when our opponents are half-wit creationists, bully-boy mullahs or whacked-out Scientologists but Scruton has now raised the bar considerably, and, yes, he does make the broad-stroke generalisations of the new atheists look a bit, well, exaggerated. We'll be picking this subject up in the next but one New Humanist in a major essay by a top British philosopher. Don't miss it (subscribe to make sure you get it)
religion is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it? Roger Scruton
reposted from Prospect Magazine
Today's atheist polemics ignore the main insight of the anthropology of religion—that religion is not primarily about God, but about the human need for the sacred. As René Girard argues, religion is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it
Today's atheist polemics ignore the main insight of the anthropology of religion—that religion is not primarily about God, but about the human need for the sacred. As René Girard argues, religion is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it
Roger Scruton
Discuss this article at First Drafts , Prospect's editorial blog
It is not surprising that decent, sceptical people, observing the revival in our time of superstitious cults, the conflict between secular freedoms and religious edicts, and the murderousness of radical Islamism, should be receptive to the anti-religious polemics of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others. The "sleep of reason" has brought forth monsters, just as Goya foretold in his engraving. How are we to rectify this, except through a wake-up call to reason, of the kind that the evangelical atheists are now shouting from their pulpits?
What is a little more surprising is the extent to which religion is caricatured by its current opponents, who seem to see in it nothing more than a system of unfounded beliefs about the cosmos—beliefs that, to the extent that they conflict with the scientific worldview, are heading straight for refutation. Thus Hitchens, in his relentlessly one-sided diatribe God is Not Great, writes: "One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody… had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs)."
Hitchens is an intelligent and widely read man who recognises that the arguments most useful to him were well known 200 years ago. His book takes us through territory charted by Hume, Voltaire, Diderot and Kant, and nobody familiar with the Enlightenment can believe that our contemporary imitators have added anything to its stance against religion, whatever examples they can add to the list of religiously motivated crimes. However, Enlightenment thinkers, having shown the claims of faith to be without rational foundation, did not then dismiss religion, as one might dismiss a refuted theory. Many went on to conclude that religion must have some other origin than the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and some other psychic function than consolation. The ease with which the common doctrines of religion could be refuted alerted men like Jacobi, Schiller and Schelling to the idea that religion is not, in essence, a matter of doctrine, but of something else. And they set out to discover what that might be.
Thus was born the anthropology of religion. For thinkers in the immediate aftermath of the Enlightenment, it was not faith, but faiths in the plural, that composed the primary subject matter of theology. Hence the appearance of books like CF Dupuis's Origine de tous les cultes, ou Religion universelle (1795), and the busy decipherment of oriental religions by the Bengal Asiatic Society, whose proceedings began to appear in Calcutta in 1788. For post-Enlightenment thinkers, the monotheistic belief systems were not related to ancient myths and rituals as science to superstition, or logic to magic. Rather, they were crystallisations of the emotional need which found expression both in the myths and rituals of antiquity and in the Vedas and Upanishads of the Hindus. This thought led Georg Creuzer, whose Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker appeared between 1810 and 1812, to represent myth as a distinctive operation of the human psyche. A myth does not describe what happened in some obscure period before human reckoning, but what happens always and repeatedly. It does not explain the causal origins of our world, but rehearses its permanent spiritual significance.
If you look at ancient religion in this way, then inevitably your vision of the Judeo-Christian canon changes. The Genesis story of the creation is easily refuted as an account of historical events: how can there be days without a sun, man without a woman, life without death? Read as a myth, however, this naive-seeming text reveals itself as a study of the human condition. The story of the fall is, Hegel wrote (in Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 1827), "not just a contingent history but the eternal and necessary history of humanity." It conveys truths about freedom, about guilt, about man, woman and their relationship, about our relation to nature and mortality. For Hegel, myths and rituals are forms of self-discovery, through which we understand the place of the subject in a world of objects, and the inner freedom that conditions all that we do. The emergence of monotheism from the polytheistic religions of antiquity is not so much a discovery as a form of self-creation, as the spirit learns to recognise itself in the whole of things, and to overcome its finitude.
Between those early ventures into the anthropology of religion and the later studies of James Frazer, Emile Durkheim and the Freudians, two thinkers stand out as the founders of a new intellectual enterprise—an enterprise which seems not to have been noticed by Hitchens, Dawkins or Daniel Dennett. The thinkers are Nietzsche and Wagner, and the intellectual enterprise is that of showing the place of the sacred in human life, and the kind of knowledge and understanding that comes to us through the experience of sacred things. Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, and Wagner, in Tristan, The Ring and Parsifal, as well as in his writings on tragedy and religion, painted a picture that, while rooted in the post-Enlightenment tradition, placed the concept of the sacred at the centre of the anthropology of religion. The lesson that both thinkers took from the Greeks was that you could subtract the gods and their stories from Greek religion without taking away the most important thing. This thing had its primary reality not in myths or theology or doctrine, but in rituals, in moments that stand outside time, in which the loneliness and anxiety of the human individual is confronted and overcome, through immersion in the group—an idea that was later to be made foundational to the sociology of religion by Durkheim. By calling these moments "sacred," we recognise both their complex social meaning and also the respite that they offer from alienation.
The attempt by Nietzsche and Wagner to understand the concept of the sacred was taken forward not by anthropologists but by theologians and critics—Rudolf Otto in Das Heilige (1917), Georges Bataille in L'Érotisme (1957), Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane (1957), and, most explicitly and shockingly, René Girard in La violence et le sacré (1972). It is Girard's theory, it seems to me, that most urgently needs to be debated, now that atheist triumphalism is sweeping all nuances away. For it helps us understand questions that even atheists must confront, and that their dogmatic certainties otherwise obscure: what is religion; what draws people to it; and how is it tamed?
Girard begins from an observation no impartial reader of the Hebrew Bible or the Koran can fail to make, which is that religion may offer peace, but has its roots in violence. The God presented in these writings is often angry, given to fits of destruction and seldom deserving of the epithets bestowed upon him in the Koran—al-rahmân al-rahîm, "the compassionate, the merciful." He makes outrageous and bloodthirsty demands—such as the demand that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. He is obsessed with the genitals and adamant that they should be mutilated in his honour—a theme that has been explored by Jack Miles in his riveting book God: A Biography (1995). Thinkers like Dawkins and Hitchens conclude that religion is the cause of this violence and sexual obsession, and that the crimes committed in the name of religion can be seen as the definitive disproof of it. Not so, argues Girard. Religion is not the cause of violence but the solution to it. The violence comes from another source, and there is no society without it since it comes from the very attempt of human beings to live together. The same can be said of the religious obsession with sexuality: religion is not its cause, but an attempt to resolve it.
Girard's theory is best understood as a kind of inversion of an idea of Nietzsche's. In his later writings, Nietzsche expounded a kind of creation myth, by way of accounting for the structure of modern society. On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) envisages a primeval human society, reduced to near universal slavery by the "beasts of prey"—the strong, self-affirming, healthy egoists who impose their desires on others by the force of their nature. The master race maintains its position by punishing all deviation on the part of the slaves—just as we punish a disobedient horse. The slave, too timid and demoralised to rebel, receives this punishment as a retribution. Because he cannot exact revenge, the slave expends his resentment on himself, coming to think of his condition as in some way deserved. Thus is born the sense of guilt and the idea of sin. The resentment of the slave explains, for Nietzsche, the entire theological and moral vision of Christianity. Christianity owes its power to the resentment upon which it feeds: resentment which, because it cannot express itself in violence, remains turned against itself. Thus arises the ethic of compassion, the mortification of the flesh and the life-denying routines of the "slave morality." Christianity is a form of self-directed violence, which conceals a deep resentment against every form of human mastery.
That "genealogy" of Christian morals was effectively exploded by Max Scheler in his book Ressentiment (1912). Scheler argues that the Christian ethic of agape and forgiveness is not an expression of resentment but rather the only way to overcome it. Nevertheless, there is surely an important truth concealed within Nietzsche's wild generalisations. Resentment remains a fundamental component in our social emotions, and it is widely prevalent in modern societies. The 20th century was the century of resentment. How else do you explain the mass murders of the communists and the Nazis, the seething animosities of Lenin and Hitler, the genocides of Mao and Pol Pot? The ideas and emotions behind the totalitarian movements of the 20th century are targeted: they identify a class of enemy whose privileges and property have been unjustly acquired. Religion plays no real part in the ensuing destruction, and indeed is usually included among the targets.
Girard's theory, like Nietzsche's, is expressed as a genealogy, or a "creation myth": a fanciful description of the origins of human society from which to derive an account of its present structure. (It is significant that Girard came to the anthropology of religion from literary criticism.) And like Nietzsche, Girard sees the primeval condition of society as one of conflict. It is in the effort to resolve this conflict that the experience of the sacred is born. This experience comes to us in many forms—religious ritual, prayer, tragedy—but its true origin is in acts of communal violence. Primitive societies are invaded by "mimetic desire," as rivals struggle to match each other's social and material acquisitions, so heightening antagonism and precipitating the cycle of revenge. The solution is to identify a victim, one marked by fate as outside the community and therefore not entitled to vengeance against it, who can be the target of the accumulated bloodlust, and who can bring the chain of retribution to an end. Scapegoating is society's way of recreating "difference" and so restoring itself. By uniting against the scapegoat, people are released from their rivalries and reconciled. Through his death, the scapegoat purges society of its accumulated violence. The scapegoat's resulting sanctity is the long-term echo of the awe, relief and visceral re-attachment to the community that was experienced at his death.
According to Girard, the need for sacrificial scapegoating is implanted in the human psyche, arising from the attempt to form a durable community in which the moral life can be successfully pursued. One purpose of the theatre is to provide fictional substitutes for the original crime, and so to obtain the benefit of moral renewal without the horrific cost. In Girard's view, a tragedy like Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is a way of retelling the story of what was originally a ritual sacrifice in which the victim can be sacrificed without renewing the cycle of revenge. The victim is both sacrificed and sacred, the source of the city's plagues and their cure.
In many Old Testament stories, we see the ancient Israelites wrestling with this sacrificial urge. The stories of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac and Sodom and Gomorrah are residues of extended conflicts, by which ritual was diverted from the human victim and attached first to animal sacrifices, and finally to sacred words. By this process a viable morality emerged from competition and conflict, and from the visceral rivalries of sexual predation. To repeat: religion is not the source of violence but the solution to it—the overcoming of mimetic desire and the transcending of the resentments and jealousies into which human communities are tempted by their competitive dynamic.
It is in just this way, Girard argues, that we should see the achievement of Christianity. In his study of the scapegoat, Le Bouc émissaire (1982), Girard identifies Christ as a new kind of victim—one who offers himself for sacrifice, and who, in doing so, shows that he understands what is going on. The words "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" are pivotal for Girard. They involve a recognition of the need for sacrifice, if the guilt and resentment of the community is to be appeased and transcended, and the added recognition that this function must be concealed. Only those ignorant of the source of their hatred can be healed by its expression, for only they can proceed with a clear conscience towards the tragic climax. The climax, however, is not the death of the scapegoat but the experience of sacred awe, as the victim, at the moment of death, forgives his tormentors. This is the moment of transcendence, in which even the cruellest of persecutors can learn to humble himself and to renounce his vengeful passion. Through his acceptance of his sacrifical role, Christ made the "love of neighbour"—which had featured in the oldest books of the Hebrew Bible as the standard to which humanity should aspire—into a reality in the hearts of those who meditate upon his gesture. Christ's submission purified society and religion of the need for sacrificial murder: his conscious self-sacrifice is therefore, Girard suggests, rightly thought of as a redemption, and we should not be surprised if, when we turn away from our Christian legacy, as Nazis and communists did, the hecatombs of victims reappear.
Girard's account of the Passion is amplified by many references to Freud and Lévi-Strauss, and by a conviction that religion and tragedy are, as Nietzsche argued, adjacent in the human psyche, comparable receptacles for the experience of sacred awe. The experience of the sacred is not an irrational residue of primitive fears, nor is it a form of superstition that will one day be chased away by science. It is a solution to the accumulated aggression which lies in the heart of human communities. That is how Girard explains the peace and celebration that attends the ritual of communion—the sense of renewal which must always itself be renewed. Girard takes himself to be describing deep features of the human condition, which can be observed as well in the mystery cults of antiquity and the local shrines of Hinduism as in the everyday "miracle" of the Eucharist.
There are many features of Girard's theory that can be criticised—not least the idea that human institutions can be explained through creation myths. We need more evidence than is contained in a creation myth for the view that our "original" condition is one of vengeful competition. And the alleged "mimetic" nature of human competition is underjustified. Moreover, there are other plausible explanations of the ancient ritual of animal sacrifice besides the one offered by Girard; and the success of the Christian ethic has other causes besides the mystical reversal that allegedly occurred on the cross. The growth of towns under Roman imperial jurisdiction meant that people were in daily contact with "the other," and living under competing urges both to exclude and to forgive. Why is that not an equal factor in explaining the rapid spread of a gospel of disinterested love?
Such criticisms do not, it seems to me, account for the comparative neglect of Girard's ideas. Girard's thesis has been received with the same dismissive indifference as Nietzsche's in The Birth of Tragedy, and though he has been honoured with a siège (seat) at the Académie française, the honour has come only now, as Girard approaches his 90th year. I suspect that, like Nietzsche, Girard has reminded us of truths that we would rather forget—in particular the truth that religion is not primarily about God but about the sacred, and that the experience of the sacred can be suppressed, ignored and even desecrated (the routine tribute paid to it in modern societies) but never destroyed. Always the need for it will arise, for it is in the nature of rational beings like us to live at the edge of things, experiencing our alienation and longing for the sudden reversal that will once again join us to the centre. For Girard, that reversal is a kind of self-forgiveness, as the concealed aggressions of our social life are transcended—washed in the blood of the lamb.
Girard's genealogy casts an anthropological light on the Christian ethic and on the meaning of the Eucharist; but it is not just an anthropological theory. Girard himself treats it as a piece of theology. For him, it is a kind of proof of the Christian religion and of the divinity of Jesus. And in a striking article in the Stanford Italian Review (1986), he suggests that the path that has led him from the inner meaning of the Eucharist to the truth of Christianity was one followed by Wagner in Parsifal, and one along which even Nietzsche reluctantly strayed, under the influence of Wagner's masterpiece.
Of course, you don't have to follow Girard into those obscure and controversial regions in order to endorse his view of the sacred as a human universal. Nor do you have to accept the cosmology of monotheism in order to understand why it is that this experience of the sacred should attach itself to the three great transitions—the three rites of passage—which mark the cyclical continuity of human societies. Birth, copulation and death are the moments when time stands still, when we look on the world from a point at its edge, when we experience our dependence and contingency, and when we are apt to be filled with an entirely reasonable awe. It is from such moments, replete with emotional knowledge, that religion begins. The rational person is not the one who scoffs at all religions, but the one who tries to discover which of them, if any, can make sense of those things, and, while doing so, draw the poison of resentment.
Discuss this article at First Drafts , Prospect's editorial blog
It is not surprising that decent, sceptical people, observing the revival in our time of superstitious cults, the conflict between secular freedoms and religious edicts, and the murderousness of radical Islamism, should be receptive to the anti-religious polemics of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others. The "sleep of reason" has brought forth monsters, just as Goya foretold in his engraving. How are we to rectify this, except through a wake-up call to reason, of the kind that the evangelical atheists are now shouting from their pulpits?
What is a little more surprising is the extent to which religion is caricatured by its current opponents, who seem to see in it nothing more than a system of unfounded beliefs about the cosmos—beliefs that, to the extent that they conflict with the scientific worldview, are heading straight for refutation. Thus Hitchens, in his relentlessly one-sided diatribe God is Not Great, writes: "One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody… had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs)."
Hitchens is an intelligent and widely read man who recognises that the arguments most useful to him were well known 200 years ago. His book takes us through territory charted by Hume, Voltaire, Diderot and Kant, and nobody familiar with the Enlightenment can believe that our contemporary imitators have added anything to its stance against religion, whatever examples they can add to the list of religiously motivated crimes. However, Enlightenment thinkers, having shown the claims of faith to be without rational foundation, did not then dismiss religion, as one might dismiss a refuted theory. Many went on to conclude that religion must have some other origin than the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and some other psychic function than consolation. The ease with which the common doctrines of religion could be refuted alerted men like Jacobi, Schiller and Schelling to the idea that religion is not, in essence, a matter of doctrine, but of something else. And they set out to discover what that might be.
Thus was born the anthropology of religion. For thinkers in the immediate aftermath of the Enlightenment, it was not faith, but faiths in the plural, that composed the primary subject matter of theology. Hence the appearance of books like CF Dupuis's Origine de tous les cultes, ou Religion universelle (1795), and the busy decipherment of oriental religions by the Bengal Asiatic Society, whose proceedings began to appear in Calcutta in 1788. For post-Enlightenment thinkers, the monotheistic belief systems were not related to ancient myths and rituals as science to superstition, or logic to magic. Rather, they were crystallisations of the emotional need which found expression both in the myths and rituals of antiquity and in the Vedas and Upanishads of the Hindus. This thought led Georg Creuzer, whose Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker appeared between 1810 and 1812, to represent myth as a distinctive operation of the human psyche. A myth does not describe what happened in some obscure period before human reckoning, but what happens always and repeatedly. It does not explain the causal origins of our world, but rehearses its permanent spiritual significance.If you look at ancient religion in this way, then inevitably your vision of the Judeo-Christian canon changes. The Genesis story of the creation is easily refuted as an account of historical events: how can there be days without a sun, man without a woman, life without death? Read as a myth, however, this naive-seeming text reveals itself as a study of the human condition. The story of the fall is, Hegel wrote (in Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 1827), "not just a contingent history but the eternal and necessary history of humanity." It conveys truths about freedom, about guilt, about man, woman and their relationship, about our relation to nature and mortality. For Hegel, myths and rituals are forms of self-discovery, through which we understand the place of the subject in a world of objects, and the inner freedom that conditions all that we do. The emergence of monotheism from the polytheistic religions of antiquity is not so much a discovery as a form of self-creation, as the spirit learns to recognise itself in the whole of things, and to overcome its finitude.
Between those early ventures into the anthropology of religion and the later studies of James Frazer, Emile Durkheim and the Freudians, two thinkers stand out as the founders of a new intellectual enterprise—an enterprise which seems not to have been noticed by Hitchens, Dawkins or Daniel Dennett. The thinkers are Nietzsche and Wagner, and the intellectual enterprise is that of showing the place of the sacred in human life, and the kind of knowledge and understanding that comes to us through the experience of sacred things. Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, and Wagner, in Tristan, The Ring and Parsifal, as well as in his writings on tragedy and religion, painted a picture that, while rooted in the post-Enlightenment tradition, placed the concept of the sacred at the centre of the anthropology of religion. The lesson that both thinkers took from the Greeks was that you could subtract the gods and their stories from Greek religion without taking away the most important thing. This thing had its primary reality not in myths or theology or doctrine, but in rituals, in moments that stand outside time, in which the loneliness and anxiety of the human individual is confronted and overcome, through immersion in the group—an idea that was later to be made foundational to the sociology of religion by Durkheim. By calling these moments "sacred," we recognise both their complex social meaning and also the respite that they offer from alienation.
The attempt by Nietzsche and Wagner to understand the concept of the sacred was taken forward not by anthropologists but by theologians and critics—Rudolf Otto in Das Heilige (1917), Georges Bataille in L'Érotisme (1957), Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane (1957), and, most explicitly and shockingly, René Girard in La violence et le sacré (1972). It is Girard's theory, it seems to me, that most urgently needs to be debated, now that atheist triumphalism is sweeping all nuances away. For it helps us understand questions that even atheists must confront, and that their dogmatic certainties otherwise obscure: what is religion; what draws people to it; and how is it tamed?
Girard begins from an observation no impartial reader of the Hebrew Bible or the Koran can fail to make, which is that religion may offer peace, but has its roots in violence. The God presented in these writings is often angry, given to fits of destruction and seldom deserving of the epithets bestowed upon him in the Koran—al-rahmân al-rahîm, "the compassionate, the merciful." He makes outrageous and bloodthirsty demands—such as the demand that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. He is obsessed with the genitals and adamant that they should be mutilated in his honour—a theme that has been explored by Jack Miles in his riveting book God: A Biography (1995). Thinkers like Dawkins and Hitchens conclude that religion is the cause of this violence and sexual obsession, and that the crimes committed in the name of religion can be seen as the definitive disproof of it. Not so, argues Girard. Religion is not the cause of violence but the solution to it. The violence comes from another source, and there is no society without it since it comes from the very attempt of human beings to live together. The same can be said of the religious obsession with sexuality: religion is not its cause, but an attempt to resolve it.
Girard's theory is best understood as a kind of inversion of an idea of Nietzsche's. In his later writings, Nietzsche expounded a kind of creation myth, by way of accounting for the structure of modern society. On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) envisages a primeval human society, reduced to near universal slavery by the "beasts of prey"—the strong, self-affirming, healthy egoists who impose their desires on others by the force of their nature. The master race maintains its position by punishing all deviation on the part of the slaves—just as we punish a disobedient horse. The slave, too timid and demoralised to rebel, receives this punishment as a retribution. Because he cannot exact revenge, the slave expends his resentment on himself, coming to think of his condition as in some way deserved. Thus is born the sense of guilt and the idea of sin. The resentment of the slave explains, for Nietzsche, the entire theological and moral vision of Christianity. Christianity owes its power to the resentment upon which it feeds: resentment which, because it cannot express itself in violence, remains turned against itself. Thus arises the ethic of compassion, the mortification of the flesh and the life-denying routines of the "slave morality." Christianity is a form of self-directed violence, which conceals a deep resentment against every form of human mastery.
That "genealogy" of Christian morals was effectively exploded by Max Scheler in his book Ressentiment (1912). Scheler argues that the Christian ethic of agape and forgiveness is not an expression of resentment but rather the only way to overcome it. Nevertheless, there is surely an important truth concealed within Nietzsche's wild generalisations. Resentment remains a fundamental component in our social emotions, and it is widely prevalent in modern societies. The 20th century was the century of resentment. How else do you explain the mass murders of the communists and the Nazis, the seething animosities of Lenin and Hitler, the genocides of Mao and Pol Pot? The ideas and emotions behind the totalitarian movements of the 20th century are targeted: they identify a class of enemy whose privileges and property have been unjustly acquired. Religion plays no real part in the ensuing destruction, and indeed is usually included among the targets.
Girard's theory, like Nietzsche's, is expressed as a genealogy, or a "creation myth": a fanciful description of the origins of human society from which to derive an account of its present structure. (It is significant that Girard came to the anthropology of religion from literary criticism.) And like Nietzsche, Girard sees the primeval condition of society as one of conflict. It is in the effort to resolve this conflict that the experience of the sacred is born. This experience comes to us in many forms—religious ritual, prayer, tragedy—but its true origin is in acts of communal violence. Primitive societies are invaded by "mimetic desire," as rivals struggle to match each other's social and material acquisitions, so heightening antagonism and precipitating the cycle of revenge. The solution is to identify a victim, one marked by fate as outside the community and therefore not entitled to vengeance against it, who can be the target of the accumulated bloodlust, and who can bring the chain of retribution to an end. Scapegoating is society's way of recreating "difference" and so restoring itself. By uniting against the scapegoat, people are released from their rivalries and reconciled. Through his death, the scapegoat purges society of its accumulated violence. The scapegoat's resulting sanctity is the long-term echo of the awe, relief and visceral re-attachment to the community that was experienced at his death.
According to Girard, the need for sacrificial scapegoating is implanted in the human psyche, arising from the attempt to form a durable community in which the moral life can be successfully pursued. One purpose of the theatre is to provide fictional substitutes for the original crime, and so to obtain the benefit of moral renewal without the horrific cost. In Girard's view, a tragedy like Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is a way of retelling the story of what was originally a ritual sacrifice in which the victim can be sacrificed without renewing the cycle of revenge. The victim is both sacrificed and sacred, the source of the city's plagues and their cure.
In many Old Testament stories, we see the ancient Israelites wrestling with this sacrificial urge. The stories of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac and Sodom and Gomorrah are residues of extended conflicts, by which ritual was diverted from the human victim and attached first to animal sacrifices, and finally to sacred words. By this process a viable morality emerged from competition and conflict, and from the visceral rivalries of sexual predation. To repeat: religion is not the source of violence but the solution to it—the overcoming of mimetic desire and the transcending of the resentments and jealousies into which human communities are tempted by their competitive dynamic.
It is in just this way, Girard argues, that we should see the achievement of Christianity. In his study of the scapegoat, Le Bouc émissaire (1982), Girard identifies Christ as a new kind of victim—one who offers himself for sacrifice, and who, in doing so, shows that he understands what is going on. The words "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" are pivotal for Girard. They involve a recognition of the need for sacrifice, if the guilt and resentment of the community is to be appeased and transcended, and the added recognition that this function must be concealed. Only those ignorant of the source of their hatred can be healed by its expression, for only they can proceed with a clear conscience towards the tragic climax. The climax, however, is not the death of the scapegoat but the experience of sacred awe, as the victim, at the moment of death, forgives his tormentors. This is the moment of transcendence, in which even the cruellest of persecutors can learn to humble himself and to renounce his vengeful passion. Through his acceptance of his sacrifical role, Christ made the "love of neighbour"—which had featured in the oldest books of the Hebrew Bible as the standard to which humanity should aspire—into a reality in the hearts of those who meditate upon his gesture. Christ's submission purified society and religion of the need for sacrificial murder: his conscious self-sacrifice is therefore, Girard suggests, rightly thought of as a redemption, and we should not be surprised if, when we turn away from our Christian legacy, as Nazis and communists did, the hecatombs of victims reappear.
Girard's account of the Passion is amplified by many references to Freud and Lévi-Strauss, and by a conviction that religion and tragedy are, as Nietzsche argued, adjacent in the human psyche, comparable receptacles for the experience of sacred awe. The experience of the sacred is not an irrational residue of primitive fears, nor is it a form of superstition that will one day be chased away by science. It is a solution to the accumulated aggression which lies in the heart of human communities. That is how Girard explains the peace and celebration that attends the ritual of communion—the sense of renewal which must always itself be renewed. Girard takes himself to be describing deep features of the human condition, which can be observed as well in the mystery cults of antiquity and the local shrines of Hinduism as in the everyday "miracle" of the Eucharist.
There are many features of Girard's theory that can be criticised—not least the idea that human institutions can be explained through creation myths. We need more evidence than is contained in a creation myth for the view that our "original" condition is one of vengeful competition. And the alleged "mimetic" nature of human competition is underjustified. Moreover, there are other plausible explanations of the ancient ritual of animal sacrifice besides the one offered by Girard; and the success of the Christian ethic has other causes besides the mystical reversal that allegedly occurred on the cross. The growth of towns under Roman imperial jurisdiction meant that people were in daily contact with "the other," and living under competing urges both to exclude and to forgive. Why is that not an equal factor in explaining the rapid spread of a gospel of disinterested love?
Such criticisms do not, it seems to me, account for the comparative neglect of Girard's ideas. Girard's thesis has been received with the same dismissive indifference as Nietzsche's in The Birth of Tragedy, and though he has been honoured with a siège (seat) at the Académie française, the honour has come only now, as Girard approaches his 90th year. I suspect that, like Nietzsche, Girard has reminded us of truths that we would rather forget—in particular the truth that religion is not primarily about God but about the sacred, and that the experience of the sacred can be suppressed, ignored and even desecrated (the routine tribute paid to it in modern societies) but never destroyed. Always the need for it will arise, for it is in the nature of rational beings like us to live at the edge of things, experiencing our alienation and longing for the sudden reversal that will once again join us to the centre. For Girard, that reversal is a kind of self-forgiveness, as the concealed aggressions of our social life are transcended—washed in the blood of the lamb.
Girard's genealogy casts an anthropological light on the Christian ethic and on the meaning of the Eucharist; but it is not just an anthropological theory. Girard himself treats it as a piece of theology. For him, it is a kind of proof of the Christian religion and of the divinity of Jesus. And in a striking article in the Stanford Italian Review (1986), he suggests that the path that has led him from the inner meaning of the Eucharist to the truth of Christianity was one followed by Wagner in Parsifal, and one along which even Nietzsche reluctantly strayed, under the influence of Wagner's masterpiece.
Of course, you don't have to follow Girard into those obscure and controversial regions in order to endorse his view of the sacred as a human universal. Nor do you have to accept the cosmology of monotheism in order to understand why it is that this experience of the sacred should attach itself to the three great transitions—the three rites of passage—which mark the cyclical continuity of human societies. Birth, copulation and death are the moments when time stands still, when we look on the world from a point at its edge, when we experience our dependence and contingency, and when we are apt to be filled with an entirely reasonable awe. It is from such moments, replete with emotional knowledge, that religion begins. The rational person is not the one who scoffs at all religions, but the one who tries to discover which of them, if any, can make sense of those things, and, while doing so, draw the poison of resentment.
Discuss this article at First Drafts , Prospect's editorial blog
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