Pulman on Religion
My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.
— Philip Pullman ["The censor's dark materials", Guardian [UK], 25 September 2008]
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Saturday, 4 October 2008 at 00.48
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". . . religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations."
Sheesh, you realize if this gets around college campuses, nearby churches and chapels will soon have lines out the door Sunday mornings. Bill Bennett will have to thread the needle to come up with religio-political downside significance. And ultimately, law enforcement will have some highly unusual cracking down to do.
on Saturday, 4 October 2008 at 09.06
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>>>>…religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations.
This is just fashionable religion bashing. Where's the evidence that the non-religious have less "malign sensations"?
>>>>Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.
"Destroying intellectual freedom" is not the province of religion. If you want to see intellectual freedom destroyed big time, check out Liberalism.
on Sunday, 5 October 2008 at 14.50
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The difference between commenting intelligently and trollery can be seen in RSF's statement:
"Destroying intellectual freedom" is not the province of religion. If you want to see intellectual freedom destroyed big time, check out Liberalism.
Without bothering to explain why you charge liberalism with destroying intellectual freedom, RSF, you offer the unenlightening and obnoxious equivalent of someone sticking his thumbs in his ears, wiggling his fingers and yelling, "Ah ya muddah wear Army shoes."
on Monday, 6 October 2008 at 10.00
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>>>>Without bothering to explain why you charge liberalism with destroying intellectual freedom…
The proof is left as an exercise for the student.
It seems humans always-always-always organize their thoughts and actions around a religion. Liberalism often rises to a religion, with its own orthodoxy, priesthood, sacraments, etc. If Liberalism meets the definition of a religion, and if religions destroy intellectual freedom, then…
When arguing with atheists, I tell them they are merely replacing one religion with another. They insist they are agitating for no religion. I don't see it.
on Monday, 6 October 2008 at 13.05
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The penultimate refuge of those who feel their own religion on thin ice and their own faith wavering is professing the inability to imagine life without — or human civilization without — religion. The ultimate refuge, of course, is to declare every identifiable system of thought to be a religion, usually to include science and atheism, two of the biggest perceived enemies of religion.
Liberalism, alas, falls short of being a religion because it does not believe in the infallible divinity of its leaders; modern conservatism, of course, does–witness the faith in Reagan and Bush, the latter requiring an unbelievably strong faith.
on Monday, 6 October 2008 at 19.31
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>>>>Liberalism, alas, falls short of being a religion because it does not believe in the infallible divinity of its leaders
I would say Obama gets close enough to this mark.
The divinity of a religion doesn't necessarily reside in its leaders. The theistic elements can reside in the inanimate, the supernatural, or in the self-sufficiency of its creed.
>>>>[the result of] faith wavering is professing the inability to imagine life without…religion.
I don't think this is so. If one has a wavering faith, or thinks it is possible to be on thin ice with it, isn't the game up at that point? Then you are kind of rooting for your favorite sports team to win the event. I will have to think about it a while. Just because the faith waiverers (wd?) hold this belief doesn't make it wrong.
on Tuesday, 7 October 2008 at 00.26
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Infallible divinity; liberals never find anyone infallible–it's their biggest failing in getting someone elected. Obama stands a chance of getting elected for having replaced infallibility with celebrity.
People whose faith is on uncertain ground, but who want fervently to believe, have to profess a stronger, holier-than-thou faith in order mostly to convince themselves that they truly believe.
The attempt at self-convincing operates in other spheres, too. It is not only a cultural truism but also appears justified statistically, that the loudest, most strident anti-gay voices usually belong to the most anxious, closeted gay men, who have to try to convince themselves that they aren't really what they are. Sometimes I think this reaction is the strongest testament to the idea that being gay is not a choice.
Certainly it's true (logically) that an idea isn't wrong just because it's held by the waverers. But, yes, I think the point is that the game is up at that point, but that the waiverers refuse to admit it. See above about closeted gay men, and ponder the unlimited human capacity for denial. (No cheap shots about Republicans here, either!)
This game-is-up aspect I saw with remarkable clarity recently when one anti-marriage-equality person, after exhausting all of his arguments, said in desperation "But it's all going too quickly." The game was clearly up in his mind and yet he was forcefully unwilling to concede. (Here's where I discussed that further.)