The Prestidigitator

The Catholic Church is caught up in yet another child abuse scandal. But contrary to what many of us would like to think, the church is not in its final throes of relevance. Someone in a ridiculous hat will come up with a convoluted justification and/or a half-assed apology and the sheep will forget. Before you tell me that the Catholic Church does not represent all Christians, let’s not forget that senile prick  Pat Robertson who really does believe with all his black heart that a ‘deal with the devil’ was what caused the earthquake in Haiti. Or that clown, Benny Hinn who gets away with pretty much everything save murder. Yes, I’ve heard that the lunatic fringe is never to be taken seriously but any organization that has over a billion members and has the gall to entertain the delusion that it can control people’s lives while covering up institutional child abuse and rampantly promoting ignorance, hatred and homophobia does not constitute the fringe. Any person, organization or movement incapable of telling the difference between ethics and morality does not deserve to be taken seriously. No bloody exceptions.

“The loss of religious faith is a slow and fragile process, like the raising of continents,” writes Darwin to his wife. That one line from the film resonates greatly with my personal philosophy and  is perhaps one of the few reasons I enjoyed this rather ponderous study of Darwin’s struggle with faith and evidence.

The more I think about the film, the more glaring the flaws seem. The film seems conflicted about what caused Darwin’s inability to complete his treatise, On the Origin of Species – the death of his daughter or his accommodationist views on Christianity.

Creationists have long argued, albeit with no documented evidence that Darwin recanted on his death bed. Creation, based on the book, Annie’s Box by Randal Keynes dispels the myth and portrays Darwin as a man with strong convictions even if he occasionally questioned them.

This is the kind of Christmas music I can get behind.

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin

Incredibly disturbing but relevant piece by Johann Hari.

And then he smiles, coming up with what he sees as his killer argument. “When I see Western journalists criticise us – don’t you realise you’re shooting yourself in the foot? The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn’t oil, it’s hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying – I want to go to Dubai. We’re very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don’t have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn’t gloat at our demise. You should be very worried…. Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path.”

Very often, we tend to ignore the correlation between economics and religion.

I really don’t want to contribute to the hyperbole that this debate has already created but I can safely say that this is the finest one hour of debate, one-sided as it is, I’ve seen in a very long time. Two amazingly articulate intellectuals take on Catholicism and religious hypocrisy. To be fair, I do wish that the two proponents of the Catholic church would have been a little more, I don’t know, Christlike instead of pretending that (institutional) child abuse and homophobia are urban myths.

Stephen Fry makes an especially brilliant case against the so called ‘force for good’. Nod along or throw stuff at your computer but this is what good television is all about.

Go watch. Now.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don’t respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don’t respect the idea that we should follow a “Prophet” who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn’t follow him.

I don’t respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don’t respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of “prejudice” or “ignorance”, but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.

When you demand “respect”, you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.

…

But a free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence.

Read this beautifully articulated argument by Johann Hari in its entirety here.

You spend enough time with people and you realize that it’s always tempting to reduce them to cultural stereotypes; the proverbial clown car so to speak.  It would have been depressing if it weren’t so much fun.

So yes, I spend happy hours after work with this rather colorful group – a group I’ve grown particularly fond of over the past few months; the Indian couple who after 3 years of marriage still seem to be all over each other, the proselytizing right wing American who cannot stop blathering about the USPs of being ‘born again’, the pretty Chinese girl who for some strange reason finds it imperative that she photograph every waking moment of her life, the computer whiz who downs more energy drinks than anyone else I know and the jolly chain smoking (militant) atheist who would have made a brilliant Santa Claus if he weren’t, well, such an avowed atheist. (Note how I consider myself above all generalizations.)

A couple of nights back, during one of our inebriated sessions, religion comes up. Pretty Chinese girl starts raving about how Buddhism is the one religion/philosophy that in the last 2500 years hasn’t instigated a single conflict. Not to be outdone, Santa Claus reiterates how secularists have done more good for humanity than followers of all religions combined. Mr Yankee, piss drunk and understandably offended starts mouthing verses from the bible much to the consternation of Young Married Couple.

Things take a turn for the worse when insults are exchanged between Santa Claus and Mr Yankee (“Let’s see you turn the other cheek when I…”). Emotions flare and I try my best to break the tension with lame attempts at humor. For a moment they seem to work and Yankee calms down visibly.

“You bastards can say whatever you want but Jesus saves.”

An awkward pause follows and then Computer Whiz, “Well then he should bloody well invest in real estate, shouldn’t he?”

There is only so much bullshit you can take on any given day.

The faculty at St Stephens, Delhi is apparently conducting a boycott (although the brother was still rushing to class when I last checked) in an attempt to protest againts the ludicrous move by the college to enforce a quota for Christians in faculty recruitment.

What is bound to really rile people up is a statement by the  spokesperson for Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, Father Dominic Emmanuel on CNN IBN’s Face the Nation. He goes onto say that academic excellence is not as important when compared to (wait for it) following the ‘call’ of Jesus Christ. Coming form a christian minority institution (that infringed on almost every fundamental right) myself, it irks me to see that one of the premier institutes in the country has to bear the brunt of illogical and neanderthal decisions made by the f*ckwits (thankyou, P Z Myers!) who actually have a say in matters that concern them in no discernable way. Add to that, Stephens is a publicly funded institution; so basically everyone gets to sow but few reap. Go figure.

Source: Minority quota in colleges a huge mistake

Talk about religion and you’re bound to get me all worked up; not that I don’t appreciate a good argument, just that a good argument is non existent when it comes to backing faith or the the existence of an omniscient and benevolent creator who has time to answer your petty prayers but blithely ignores starving children in Africa. 

These days, creationists and right wing retards have a new ace up their sleeve. Piggybacking. Despite the Church’s open disdain for inquiry and exploration (over the last few thousand years), they seem oddly content using art and science to explain God and his mysterious ways. A few years ago, I was told that the God of the Old Testament asked for circumcision not merely as a sacrifice but (also) because of health reasons. Sadly, Mr Yahweh forgot to list out naturally occuring carcinogens and deadly viruses.

Now, the Anglicans are looking to appropriate the Doctor Who mythos to ‘explain’ to young people facts about the Bible that would otherwise seem ‘difficult’ to understand. Brilliant. So then, Jesus was a Time Lord right?

One day you distance yourself from Harry Potter and The Golden Compass because they’re well, satanic and the next day you embrace a character (immensely awesome as he is) who espouses the need for questioning and rejecting dogma. All this is probably a sign of the Curch’s waning influence. But then again, we live in a country where almost 70 percent believe in reincarnation and another sizeable number hope to get it on with 72 virgins in the afterlife. Bah.

Over the last few years, churches have become something of a curiosity to me: places where you go to see other people wallow in their guilt and delusions. It’s especially weird considering I used to be an altar boy. Not the abused kind.

Realizing that the last time I visited a church was over a year back, I dragged myself to the Good Friday service at an Anglican cathedral here in the city and was amazed at how low the attendance was. Back home, Good Friday was the time of the year when the church burst at the seams, when people gathered to make that obligatory once-in-a-year appearance. Far from repentance, I suspect the masses did it more out of an odd sense of social responsibility.

Being a Syrian Orthodox Christian from Kerala and growing up in the middle east is a cliché of sorts, perhaps akin to being a Catholic from Boston or a Buddhist from Tibet. In hindsight, it does bring back a lot of memories. The Good Friday service for example stretched on for hours; the hymns and prayers accompanied by cymbals and frequent bells, the church covered in a thick pall of incense smoke and throngs of people pressed against each other reciting verses at the top of their lungs, more for the benefit of their friends than the invisible man upstairs. And the two years I spent in Kerala, the service was followed by the serving of choruka (a concoction made from bitter gourd and vinegar), kanji (rice gruel), payar thoran (green gram) and a pickle. Secretly, having the kanji in earthen pots was something I looked forward to, the one thing that kept me from feigning a head ache.

Here, the service turned out to be far less eventful. The choir sang a rousing piece followed by tediously monotonous recitals of a few prayers and then, nothing. Despite having no religious convictions whatsoever, I find myself longing for that controlled chaos of a small church packed with people excited about actually being able to belong to a group that would have them, in spite of themselves.