Despite the best efforts of some people with ready access to the media worldwide, religion is asserting itself as never before, for 100 years, at least.
It’s all too much for me. I’m de facto religious because I was baptised into the Catholic church in 1934, ordained priest in 1960 and am still serving in South Melbourne since 1973.
Richard Dawkin’s book “The God Delusion” has revived the entertainment value of religion among secularists.
And, now, some of Dawkin’s acolytes (sorry global citizens, I mustn’t sink into the murky depths of locality…Australia) like playright David Williamson, Pamela Bone the journalist/writer and Robyn Rileg journalist, who ALL have been bitten by a mad dog they call Religion.
They want to drive out of religion the demons of superstition and irrationality. The exorcism, say Dawkins and Co., will kill off religion, which of course, it won’t because religion is “other” than rational.
It may, however, entertain the aforementioned exorcists.
As for the “furphy” that religion causes, more than any other factor, wars and other horrors? This culture of war and horror comes in a separate package from religion. It comes from the most primitive parts of the human mind and heart. Religion, at its best, is the ritual and practice of whatever brings us together for the common good.
To quote the “good book”: religion pure and undiluted is feeding the orphan and widow.
Richard Dawkins, et al, have built a straw man out of the debris left when religion “pure and undiluted” expels the toxins contained in bad religion, itself an expression of bad culture.
Good religion is only able to be the vehicle of the eternal and infinite God, aka the infinite Relational Matrix. Bob.
I’m a fan of yours, Father Bob, DESPITE your Catholic affiliations, however this opinion piece is a bridge too far!
1. There is no “entertainment” value in religion among secularists. Speaking from my personal position as a homosexual man and also a man of reason and common sense, I find it hard to understand how you could conclude that I find “entertaining” a guide-book which instructs its readers that I am an abomination, that I should be murdered, and that I deserve nothing less than eternal torture as my punishment for having being born. (Have I misread those passages in the Bible somehow?). I also find no entertainment whatsoever in Herr Ratzinger’s endorsement of this opinion when he tells his cult members that I am a bigger threat to the world than AIDS or climate change.
2. You say “this culture of war and horror comes in a separate package from religion. It comes from the most primitive parts of the human mind and heart”. Yes, and so does Religion, which, since it was invented by man, is why it also carries at its heart a culture of war and horror and misogyny. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Father Bob. You can’t say “Religion isn’t ALL bad, so therefore it’s all good”. By the same logic, you would have to support Kim Jon-Il’s regime in North Korea, since surely his government provides ALL of the hospitals and health care in that country, he must be good!
3. You claim “religion pure and undiluted is feeding the orphan and widow.”. I would argue that it only feeds the orphan and widow who is simple enough to believe in water becoming wine, virgin births, magic trees and talking snakes. The rest of us who aren’t so gullible (or who require a little more reason before making their minds up) can just go and get stuffed, is that right?
4. You are a bit of a hypocrite, really, aren’t you? I’ve never heard to Pope talk about “the infinite Relational Matrix”. Was that a Vatican II invention or what? Perhaps you should tell Herr Ratzinger that he’s wrong about God, and you’re right! Oh, by the way, does the Inifite Relational Matrix also propose the stoning to death of homosexuals? I don’t see how you can be part of the Catholic machine whilst at the same time redefining the Catholic view of the way the universe works, just because you’re a little squeamish about espousing all of its clearly egregious, bronze-aged attitudes.
If I’ve misunderstood what you were saying in this piece, then please correct me.
It just seems that you are on the one hand an apologist for Catholocism, whilst re-interpreting its basic tenets so that you don’t appear as obviously archaic as the religion is in reality.
Regards,
Jonathan.