Catholicism explained

By Reuben.

Facebook is just so awesome. So awesome, in fact, that some Catholics are given the opportunity to explain themselves.

John Ashley's irony-o-meter must be malfunctioning

Hear the words of a ‘modern Catholic’:

Hello, everyone.
As a modern catholic I know why you think that the Pope’s stance seems a little crazy but as someone who understands the rules i thought i’d better respectfully tell you why no ammount of preassure will ever change his mind.
You see the Catholic church will NEVER endorse contraception of any kind because in its founding rules it does not believe in sex for any other reason than for having babies or a token of love in marrige. The church would be contradicting itself if it supported contraception because its just like saying its ok to have sex outside of our rules.
The rules will never change, they are there mostly to protect people – even though I’m sure it seems like nannying. There are heaps of reasons why Catholics don’t believe in promiscuous behaviour but i’m sure you guys are smart enough to know them all, so i wont list them ha ha.
Anyway hope you’re a little clearer now.
Happy easter guys, peace

Of course it would be completely presumptuous of me to say all Catholics actually support the Pope’s futile, irrational and unethical approach to tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis, but it certainly concerns me that the Pope’s stance appears unstoppable. Where’s the UN condemning his stance? There should be public outrage at the retarded policy the Vatican has put out. And will the majority of the world’s Catholics turn against the Vatican? That remains to be seen. Thankfully, we have moderate, reasonable Catholics like Kath.

Entrance to Easter

As many of you know, both me and Oskar are attending The University of Melbourne. I’m doing a Bachelor of Environments (a generalist degree readying us for architecture or urban planning, in my case) whilst Oskar is studying a generalist science degree with mathematics and physics as core disciplines (the only two things in life he truly loves).

As most of you know, this time of the year is special for at least to main religions. For Christians, it’s Easter. For Jews, it’s Passover. On campus, all the Christian groups are banding together in one formidable mass (no pun intended) to promote belief in Jesus (remember him?) and faith. To counter this, the UMSS (University of Melbourne Secular Society of which both me and Oskar are a proud part of ) launched a ‘chalk-campaign’ of writing quotes about religion and reason on the ground. The way we battle things out at university between different groups is by drawing, in chalk, on the tarmac and hope for the best. And the best did arrive. On one such quote, about how religion teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world, someone wrote “Religion makes you good; and go to church“. Does anyone find this slightly ironic? Here’s a secular quote alluding to the supremacy of reason and someone comes along and reinforces this, unintentionally.

The Christian groups have also tried to convert me on many occasions. On Wednesday, I was relaxing with some friends on the lawn when two boys came up and asked if they wanted free chocolate biscuits. Naturally I asked “are there any strings attached” to which they gave a negative. But as soon as I had polished off my biscuit, they launched into a tirade of biblical nonsense – thus making the ’string’ a biblical one (presumably attached to heaven). I told them firmly that I was an atheist, that one of my friends was Jewish and that the other two were Christian, so they took head and engaged with my other two friends who happened to be Christian (Pentecostal). I thought that was reasonable of them.

I declined to debate them there and then lest I bring out my sarcastic fury and insult them; but it did get me thinking about something: Why do Christians go out soliciting their wares more than other religions? It’s certainly the case that here in Melbourne, it’s Christians that go around spreading the ‘word’ of ‘Christ’ – rather than Muslims spruiking Mohammad and his ideas or Sikhs going around spreading the word about their Five K’s. Maybe it’s because Christianity, at least in Australia, is losing its appeal with younger generations and is thus becoming more desperate. That was the atmosphere that I gleaned off the readily-assembling Christian students at any rate.

On a final note, I got accosted by a Fundamentalist Catholic on the tram recently; just thought you ought to know.

How Fundamentalists ‘think’

By Reuben

Across the Internet, there is much discussion and discourse on how exactly the Bible, Koran etc pines against homosexuality, abortion etc. As discussed here, some have a more liberal interpretation of such texts. But what makes a fundamentalist determine what’s heretical/bad/liberal/logical from what’s conservative/backwards/myopic/traditional? How do they ‘think’ (and note that I use the term ‘think’ with a certain amount of irony here) or infer biblical, non-biblical or anti-biblical themes from seemingly unconnected policy areas?

The way in which I’ve been thinking about this is their reactions to certain movies – even movies that aren’t overtly on religion. One such movie is V for Vendetta – a fabulous movie in my opinion -  and it has been slammed by many Christian religious groups. I have no clue why; V for Vendetta talks about the tyranny of the British government in the near future when the country becomes a fascist state. It explores the process of change in government through its protagonist – a shadowy character called ‘V’. The main themes in V for Vendetta are:

• Freedom and civil liberties (how the people are being oppressed)
• Estranged Romance (the two main characters develop a bond).
• The believability of deceit and lies (how the fascist state came to be established).
• The limitations of technology (as V says: “ideas are bulletproof“).
• The potentials of anarchy (the fascist reign is toppled).

Naturally, the next question we should be asking ourselves is ‘where does V for Vendetta discuss religion?’ It doesn’t. The only reference I can think of is that the main antagonist – Chancellor Sutler – who masterminded the fascist state is a “deeply religious man“. But, like Hitler, he is clearly motivated by evil – not religion. His character would be just as effective if he were an Atheist.
When his henchman proclaim “strength through unity, unity through faith” the context is not biblical in nature at all, even if the characters themselves are actually religious. If the fascist state was theocratic, logically it would be hunting out atheists as well – yet it’s made very clear that queers, refugees and the mentally unwell are the main targets. Atheism is not painted in a good light or a bad light; it’s not even mentioned.

Chancellor Sutler: a religious man, but places evil in a higher regard

There is no religious undertone whatsoever in the script, but that doesn’t stop our fundamentalists from seeing a pernicious agenda designed to topple their core beliefs, dogmas and superstitions. If Chancellor Sutler was an atheist, would they back down their criticism?

According to ‘Christian Spotlight’, V for Vendetta’s moral ranking is “offensive“. For the most part, their criticism is a reverse ad hominem claim – ‘the evil guys are Christians…why are you making Christians evil?‘. Yes, supposedly Christianity is the antithesis of evil. Here these reviewers roar:

The movie is preachy to say the least, and harps on three major themes and one minor one: 1) the evil of America; 2) the government control of media; 3) the evil of Christianity; and 4) the innocence of Islam.

Yes…that’s right. It’s all against America. To borrow Christian Spotlight’s own ad hominem-styled arguments, V for Vendetta portrays America in a good light…because the fascists are against what they call ‘Arse-erica’. Clearly freedom of speech (which is what V for Vendetta is considerably about) is not in any way, shape or form ‘American’. The irony continues unabated:

The second fiction of the movie is that of a government-controlled (or supported) media which brainwashes its populace. In reality, this is true only of oppressive regimes and socialist societies like England where the media is, in fact, already Leftist. In the United States, we have a freedom of speech that is so wide-ranging in its liberties that it permits our media to print blatant forgeries libeling our President.

Yes, the BBC is obviously less objective than Christian news channels. But this point is irrelevant to the script anyway; the media outlets depicted in V for Vendetta were very much censored. How is this disputing the freedom of America’s press?
Finally the truth is revealed:

The only totalitarianisms we have known in the modern era are either secular or Islamic, precisely the ones that the United States is trying to protect the world from.

Watch out Christians, when the new atheist/Islamic/British order takes hold, you won’t be spared. And here’s the icing on the cake:

And when movies persistently portray our country and our faith as evil, even skeptical believers who think that Hollywood is too shallow or too objective (!) to make anti-Christian movies should sit up and take notice.

Got that Hollywood? You’ve got an agenda to uphold.

Finally, here’s a trailer of V for Vendetta:

Also published on YAS.

Is Faith Rational?

By Oskar

I recently attended a joint discussion event between the Secular Society and Christian Union at Uni, the topic: Is faith rational? I will give an overview of the event and a critique of the arguments put forward by both sides of the debate.

The forum involved a speaker representing the views of each of the societies giving a 15 minute talk on the matter, after which they each had the opportunity to spend a short time rebutting the other’s arguments. This was followed by a less formal question and answer session with the two speakers, in which attendees could ask of the speakers any questions they they felt relevant. Speaking for the Secular Society was Ian Robinson, president of the Rationalist Society of Australia, while Danny Saunders from Ridley Melbourne Mission and Ministry College spoke for the Christian Union.

Ian began his talk by providing some definitions of both faith and rationality, claiming that faith is the belief in something that has no base in proof and that something is rational if it agrees with the laws of logic. He made it clear that he was disagreeing with the rationality of Christian faith in particular, as he had inferred from the nature of the groups participating that this was to be the main issue of contention. He went on to differentiate between faith in a particular deity over others, which had existed in the Christian sense for around 2,000 years, and faith in the existence of a deity at all, which is a far more recent; beginning in earnest in the 19th century (before which it was taken as a given that some deity existed). Suggesting that we need only prove the latter to be irrational, as the former relies on it, Ian argued that the premises on which Christian faith is based on did not fit the criteria of rationality he had initially set. He did not go into the specifics of why he believes the premises of Christianity are not rational, as he assumed that we, an audience of Christians and secularists would be familiar with these arguments. He rounded off by appealing to anyone who had found his arguments convincing to act on them by joining either the Secular Society or the Australian Rationalists.

Danny began by re-defining faith and rationality. His definition of faith was essentially the same as Ian’s, while he gave rationality a more probabilistic meaning (though he didn’t contradict Ian’s definition), claiming that it was rational to assume the most likely outcome. He gave the analogy of our thoughts when boarding an aeroplane (one that would resurface repeatedly during the question and answer session); when we board a plane, we make assumptions that the equipment is sound, the pilot qualified and that it will get us where we want to go. We are making a leap of faith, trusting the airline to have checked all these for us. In short, we are basing our our reasonable, rational predictions on the likely, though not completely certain, event that the plane trip will be a success. Having shown this kind of faith to be rational, he argued that rational faith extended to faith in Christianity. He cited many historical accounts that he considered to stack up and provide a greater probability that the events depicted in the bible were true than untrue, focusing specifically on the resurrection of Jesus. He rounded off by making the somewhat controversial statement that Christianity was not about being good, but recognising that you are bad. He invited anyone who wanted to participate in a discussion about why there is evil in the world if God could prevent it.

Ian’s rebuttal consisted largely of disagreeing with the validity of Danny’s historical sources. He claimed that neither rapid spread and longevity, nor personal accounts from the past were  satisfactory as evidence for the truth of an idea. He concluded with the amusing, though not entirely relevant fact that if Jesus had begun his ascension from the Earth 2000 years ago and traveled at the speed of light, then he would not yet have cleared the milky way.

Danny’s Rebuttal was mostly a restatement of  arguments form his original talk, though he also made claims about the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection in the form of questioning the reasons for the apostles’ commitment after Jesus’ death, particularly if as he seemed to think was being claimed, the apostles ‘made up’ the story of Jesus’ resurrection. Finally he made the claim that while science can deal objectively with the questions of the observable world, it is up to religion do deal with epistemological questions.

The question and answer time had a continuation of arguments for and against the validity of the claimed proof of Jesus’ resurrection. Questions addressed to Danny included how he took into account conflicting historical testaments such as the Koran, while Ian was questioned as to why the message of Christianity could have spread so quickly in its early years if the accounts of witnesses to the resurrection were false. At some stage the discussion turned from being strictly relevant to the debate to being a more general discussion about why the two speakers maintained their beliefs.

I found Ian’s talk to be sensible and logical. My main criticism of it is that he concentrated more closely on Christianity than faith in general terms, while the discussion topic did not specify Christian faith. I also feel that he could have given more time to detail some of the specific arguments for Christian doctrine not being rational, even one example would have proven that he was not assuming he was right before he began considering the logic. The assumption he made about our knowledge of the arguments would have been fine if he had been speaking to an all-secular audience, but because he was speaking to, and trying to persuade, Christians, he needed to understand that some of his audience would have different takes on the lack of evidence, so need to have his point of view demonstrated to them.

Danny’s talk began well for me, the first argument he constructed was well presented and thought out. It was the one argument in the discussion that I think really addressed the topic. I am referring to the argument about it being rational to accept something with overwhelming evidence, but never being able to say with certainty whether something is true or not. In this way, I agree with him that it is both rational and necessary to make some faith assumptions to get by in life. They protect us from absolute uncertainty, which, while philosophically justifiable does not make for a good strategy for getting along with your life when you are not being pedantically intellectual. This argument, however, is where our agreements end. I did not find any of his historical arguments compelling or believable and found his ignorance of rational philosophy as a tool of answering epistemological questions particularly annoying. How can religion be used to answer the questions “Is there a god?” or “Why is there a god?”?

So there you have it, my take on an interesting discussion between some interesting people. What do you think? Please critique the original speakers arguments, my own and add any new ones you feel are relevant.

The Early History of Christianity

By Reuben.

Today I’m showing  a guest post by Brian Hughes, on the roots of Christianity. I sent a random email to Brian earlier in the week asking for his thoughts on the subject and so here they are. Enjoy:

Wouldn’t it be excellent to be able to stand back (on a very high rooftop for preference) and study the evolution of Christianity, from an unbiased wall-to-wall perspective, taking in all the unsubtle kinks and added twists along its chronological route that transformed it from what was basically a ‘good idea created by a socialist hippy’ to the ‘buggered up, war mongering, anachronistic heap of old crud’ that it is today?
Well you can. It’s called history. You might have heard of it.
Here’s what happened.
Did you know that Jesus was actually crucified on a tree stump? That’s right, according at any rate to early versions of the gospel, quite a number of which are kept in a locked room at the Vatican, only accessible by the select few (such as BBC executives with extremely deep pockets). It was the Emperor Constantine who changed the design to that of a cross, because it better suited his political ends. You see Constantine was a Mitheras worshipper, who in later life (when he realised which direction the political wind was blowing and thought that a convergence of opposing religions might stop all the squabbling that was keeping him awake at night) allegedly converted to Christianity (despite the fact that, in reality, he was still buried in the Mitheras tradition). As part of this conversion he ‘invented’ the chi-rho cross, still used in some of the fiercer Roman Catholic strongholds to this day. The chi-rho consisted of a cross (as you might expect) with ‘P’ symbols on the arms, contained within a circle.
The ‘P’ in the chi-rho was the symbol for Mitheras, the sun god, which was why Constantine put it there.
Mithraism itself originated in Persia circa 400 A.D. but there aren’t half a lot of similarities between it and Christianity — far too many for healthy young enquiring minds. Mithraists, for example, believed in the trinity…long before Christians invented their third enigmatic member, the Holy Ghost. (What the hell is a Holy Ghost anyway? A bed sheet that’s been eaten by hungry moths?) In Mithraism baptisms were also common, using the sign of the cross on converts’ foreheads. Sunday was the day of worship. The chief festivals were what Christians would now call Christmas and Easter (after all…it’s a bit hard to fathom why New Year, which by rights ought to take place on Jesus’ birthday, actually happens one week later) and Mithra himself was born in a cave, to a virgin, on December the 25th, and died, during ‘Easter’, on a cross.
Hence the chi-rho!
Mithra was also considered to be the saviour of the world, the messiah if you like, his death having occurred to save everybody else on the planet and secure them an eternal afterlife.
All of this, 400 years before Jesus was even born. Talk about plagiarism. (So much for the ‘Gospel Truth’, eh?)
Constantine also gathered the Christian leaders of the day together (Christianity was a bit fractious even then) to produce a final consensus on what should, and, perhaps more importantly, shouldn’t be included in the New Testament.
That’s where the other versions of the gospel come in…the ones that didn’t quite make it to the final edit. One of these now missing books is apparently a lengthy surreal poem all about God and the sun and cellophane flowers and what have you, whilst another reckons that Jesus was gay. (No seriously…it does. So much for the Da Vinci Code.) That would explain a few matters, but let’s not bother going there.
So the New Testament, as we know it now, consists of a few (edited for content) stories written about Jesus some considerable time after his death, concentrating mainly on his ideas and his parables and so forth, with an awful lot of added Mithraism such as his childhood and his resurrection and so forth, for seasoning.
And that’s how it was for several centuries — the two religions mixed into one, with a sprinkling of other Pagan deities thrown in for good measure (which is where the holly and the ivy at Christmas originate, and the Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies), the Christian God sharing his throne with other Pagan Gods as and when it suited. And everyone was happy and got along fine and witches weren’t burned and the old ways weren’t stamped out.
The only trouble was that Constantine, being emperor and everything, had made Rome the head of this new conglomerate religion, which was fine at the time. However, several centuries on, and power hungry authorities being what they were decided on a more fundamentalist approach to the Christian doctrine. They’d already abandoned the ‘give your money to the poor’ line, and the ‘humble yourself’ routine, and the ‘if thine enemy strikes you offer them the other cheek’ stuff. After all, what’s the point in being the head of a big organisation if you’ve got to be pleasant to snivelling little peasants all the time?
That’s when matters took a turn for the worse. The early Christians who’d tried to understand the nature of the universe through scientific experimentation and logical debate etc. (it was all part of God’s great plan, they believed, to unravel the workings of his creation) were suddenly shunned, slandered and eventually dumped on from a great height…namely Rome. The commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ had a silent amendment added to it by the church authorities, that being: “Unless the church decides that it’s all right, of course” and, as often happens with the best laid plans of mice, men and Roman emperors, matters spiralled out of control.
Anyhow, I’m probably as bored of writing this now as you are of reading it…so if you want to find out more I suggest that you go and do some research for yourselves. This sort of stuff’s worth bearing in mind though for future arguments and debates about the nature of religion. As Tony Robinson once put it, “How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve come from?”
Dangling prepositions aside, he had a point I reckon.

And now, dear readers, what are your thoughts?