His column in last Friday’s Irish Independent devoted itself to the visit of the Catholic pope Joseph Ratzinger to Britain. He at first claimed the Vatican chief had conquered, only to pull back a sentence or two later to the more modest position that:
if he didn't exactly conquer, he certainly persuaded many people that there is a lot more to Joseph Ratzinger than the caricature of him many might lead us to believe.
This is in spite of reduced numbers having turned up to greet the pope, compared with the 1982 papal visit, a decrease perhaps better explained in terms of a greater disinterest in religion than by Quinn’s take that smaller numbers were down to security and financial considerations.
Nor is it accurate to claim that ‘the Pope's visit to Britain last weekend was vastly more successful than almost anyone anticipated’. Quinn could have said with greater plausibility that the crowd that turned up to protest the visit ‘brought ten times as many people as expected to a rally opposite Downing Street.’ But in a world as imaginary as the god of David Quinn, the Christian columnist saw critics of the papal visit ‘reduced to petty and impotent fury.’ Wish, father to the thought.
The real success of Ratzinger’s visit lay in the fact that it avoided any major controversy. He was not pelted with eggs and there were no priests caught on camera flashing as the popemobile zoomed past them.
What struck me about Quinn’s piece was that his real concern is that the challenge to the power of religion is steadily curbing its ability to restrict the rights of others. Quinn masks this as an attack on Christian rights:
if the forced closure of Catholic adoption agencies in the UK and elsewhere because they want children to be adopted by married, opposite-sex couples isn't an example of a direct attack on the rights of religious organisations, then nothing is.
But the rights he cites as being violated are precisely in those areas where religion seeks to discriminate against others on the grounds of religious opinion. Clearly the grounds for discriminating against people in same sex relationships are based on a religious opinion. Religious belief should not be allowed to function in that capacity any more than sporting belief.
When Quinn supports Ratzinger’s description of secular tolerance as the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ he seeks to subvert what is a bulwark against the dictatorship of Catholicism.
As is evident from the position of Quinn this Catholic dictatorship would seek to deny abortion to US and Swedish women on the basis of the religious opinion of the doctor. Any legal rights the women have would be rendered null and void by religious opinion. Irish couples who choose not to get married would be denied infertility treatment because the religious opinion of the fertility doctor would override their right. Women in general would have no right to the morning after pill if some chemist decided on the grounds of his religious opinion that they should not get it. Again legal rights being subverted by religious opinion. In all these cases Quinn values his opinion over the rights of others.
On the same dubious grounds Quinn also complained that the Government and opposition parties refused to add a conscience clause to the Civil Partnership Bill:
a true example of the "dictatorship of relativism" which insists that no distinction can be made between one "lifestyle choice" and another, and that those who make such distinctions must be penalised.
Distinctions can always be made between lifestyles. But Quinn wants some lifestyles not just to be desisted from – a matter of personal choice - but to be actively penalised by intrusive religion. It is society’s prerogative, not the church’s, to set its own standards. Quinn rejects this. He is intolerant of Minister Dermot Ahern’s advice to politicians not to let religion "cloud" their judgment and Minister John Gormley’s instruction to bishops to "stick to the spiritual needs of their flock", rather than "intrude" on ‘matters of State.’
In a bid to present religious believers as victims Quinn hits out at ‘aggressive secularism.’ What he is really doing is presenting in a harsh light assertive secularism which is nothing other that the assertion that people have rights that cannot be eroded by the religious opinion of others. The ‘rights’ of religion is nothing other than an attempt to discriminate against those religion does not approve of.
Because of the concern with safeguarding rights against religious opinion Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, made the point at the rally where, according to Quinn, only the petty, impotent and furious turned up: ‘we are no longer listening to religious leaders - we get our morality from other places.’
It is as well we do otherwise we would believe raping children sits on the same moral plateau as ordaining women priests and worthy of the same sanction.
Well said Anthony,thank f##k people are now thinking for themselves and making their own minds up on the drivel that we have been fed over the generations,when we have examples of politicans in the republic telling the church to butt out of the matters of state, its a good indicator that at last we are moving in right direction.
ReplyDeleteMarty,
ReplyDeletesociety is becoming more secular and it is a welcome thing. Religion can exist in a secular society like other belief systems but it should never be allowed to intrude in people's lives. In terms of prescribing moral codes it should have all the authority of a soccer club. Why should I or anybody else feel obligated listen to Fernando Torres telling us how we should live?
Now had ya said Alex Ferguson Anthony I might have disagreed lol,
ReplyDeleteMarty was sort of thinking that as I wrote the comment
ReplyDeleteMackers, do you think that football has become a form of religion?
ReplyDeletePeople tend to follow it relentlessly and hang on to every word these overpriced, over inflated ego's dribble (no pun intended'
Those 503 errors were not coming up until Marty started saying all that stuff about the Pope!
ReplyDeleteNuala, Divine intervention equals 503 you think!! Marty the devil's fault.
ReplyDeleteI think some people have a religious like devotion to football. They react to any criticism of their team in the same way that cults react to criticism.
Do you think Benny the bad has the odd gander at the quill hon, oh goody maybe I,ll get excommunicated for a crimbo pressie,anyway F5 trumps 503 so nah nah!do yer damnest Bennyboy if I was wearing a kilt I,d do the Bravehaert hello!
ReplyDeleteMarty, I'm sure he has the odd dekko at the 'Quill'.
ReplyDeleteMarty Mc Guinness is lining him up to come 'here' in 2012. You could do your Braveheart then, well providing Marie lets you out?
Albert wants to know is 'dog' a euphemism for toyboy?
Dog backwards is god hon and live is evil!!!
ReplyDeleteAnthony, there has been a bit of pseudoscientific pontification by right-wing journalists recently. First of all, David Quinn and John Waters both wrote fairly similar and equally tenuous pieces criticising Stephen Hawking. In excerpts from his forthcoming book, Hawking argues that, because there are physical laws such as gravity, the universe can create itself from nothing. Quinn and Waters heap scorn on this argument, with Quinn calling it a "cheap magician's trick" because Hawking doesn't explain how physical laws can exist in the first place. To my mind, though, it seems more plausible that a simple set of physical laws prexisted the universe rather than an infinitely complex, infinitely intelligent deity.
ReplyDeleteAlso our old friend Kevin Myers wrote an absolutely daft piece decrying 'evolutionism' and even questioning whether evolution itself is a credible explanation for how complex life emerged. He seems to think that the theory of evolution implies that the gradual emergence of complex chemicals and organisms is like "putting 140 pounds of mince into a huge mixer, churning them around for a million years and expecting Einstein to result." His attitude betrays a complete misunderstanding of the biological law of natural selection; though some chance is involved in the random mutations of organisms as they reproduce, organisms which thrive are naturally and unconcsiously selected over those which don't. It is not a mince mixer and to say so is a straw man. He also doesn't seem to know that complex chemicals like amino acids can form via natural chemical reactions from simpler compounds. And just because scientists don't YET know how nucleic acids were formed (yetology, according to Myers) doesn't mean that trust in science is somehow akin to religious belief; we have a wealth of scientific history of past discoveries to justify the belief that science will eventually find a rational and unsupernatural explanation. Anyway, for a better, fuller refutation of Myers's article, check out this piece: http://myblog.rsynnott.com/2010/09/kevin-myers-blinded-me-with.html
Religious Opinion Against Rights
ReplyDeleteAlfie,
‘Hawking argues that, because there are physical laws such as gravity, the universe can create itself from nothing. Quinn and Waters heap scorn on this
argument, with Quinn calling it a "cheap magician's trick" because
Hawking doesn't explain how physical laws can exist in the first place.’
I think this argument happens all the time. The god thing is pushed back further and further in time and is squeezed in somewhere before the big bang, a ‘god of the gaps’ type explanation. If that ends up the only place for a god – apart from the e coli bacteria where they are now finding evidence of god’s existence! – it will have no relevance on the lives of others: no interventionist god, no basis for intrusive religion.
‘To my mind, though, it seems more plausible that a simple set of
physical laws pre-existed the universe rather than an infinitely complex,
infinitely intelligent deity.’
This is so lucid in its simplicity that why people don’t get to grips with it amazes me. Instead they try to get into this irreducible complexity which throws up the very problems it is meant to solve.
Will read the Myers piece and the critique. Thanks for linking. It amazes me that there is still a flat earth mentality toward evolution. The intelligent theologians accept evolution as a fact and it does not erode their religious belief. Myers argument is the old Boeing 747 emerging from a scrapheap. Total failure as you show to engage with even the most basic of evolutionary concepts.