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It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect. by Prof. AC Grayling
It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law against criticism and ridicule.
It is time to refuse to tip-toe around people who claim respect, consideration, special treatment, or any other kind of immunity, on the grounds that they have a religious faith, as if having faith were a privilege-endowing virtue, as if it were noble to believe in unsupported claims and ancient superstitions. It is neither. Faith is a commitment to belief contrary to evidence and reason, as between them Kierkegaard and the tale of Doubting Thomas are at pains to show; their example should lay to rest the endeavours of some (from the Pope to the Southern Baptists) who try to argue that faith is other than at least non-rational, given that for Kierkegaard its virtue precisely lies in its irrationality.
On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason - to believe something by faith - is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect. It is time to say so.
It is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, like their sexual proclivities. Everyone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no-one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world's many religions.
And as this last point implies, it is time to demand and apply a right for the rest of us to non-interference by religious persons and organisations - a right to be free of proselytisation and the efforts of self-selected minority groups to impose their own choice of morality and practice on those who do not share their outlook.
Doubtless the votaries of religion will claim that they have the moral (the immoral) choices of the general population thrust upon them in the form of suggestive advertising, bad language and explicit sex on television, and the like; they need to be reminded that their television sets have an off button. There are a number of religious TV channels available, one more emetic than the next, which I do not object to on the grounds of their existence; I just don't watch them.
These remarks will of course inflame people of religious faith, who take themselves to have an unquestionable right to respect for the faith they adhere to, and a right to advance, if not indeed impose (because they claim to know the truth, remember) their views on others. In the light of history and the present, matters should perhaps be to the contrary; but stating that religious commitment is not by itself a reason for respect is not to claim that it is a reason for disrespect either. Rather, as it is somewhere written, "by their fruits ye shall know them"; it is this that far too often provides grounds for disrespect of religion and its votaries.
The point to make in opposition to the predictable response of religious believers is that human individuals merit respect first and foremost as human individuals. Shared humanity is the ultimate basis of all person-to-person and group-to-group relationships, and views which premise differences between human beings as the basis of moral consideration, most especially those that involve claims to possession by one group of greater truth, holiness, or the like, start in absolutely the wrong place.
We might enhance the respect others accord us if we are kind, considerate, peace-loving, courageous, truthful, loyal to friends, affectionate to our families, aspirants to knowledge, lovers of art and nature, seekers after the good of humankind, and the like; or we might forfeit that respect by being unkind, ungenerous, greedy, selfish, wilfully stupid or ignorant, small-minded, narrowly moralistic, superstitious, violent, and the like. Neither set of characteristics has any essential connection with the presence or absence of specific belief systems, given that there are nice and nasty Christians, nice and nasty Muslims, nice and nasty atheists.
That is why the respect one should have for one's fellow humans has to be founded on their humanity, irrespective of the things they have no choice over - ethnicity, age, sexuality, natural gifts, presence or absence of disability - and conditionally (ie. not for intrinsic reasons) upon the things they choose - political affiliation, belief system, lifestyle - according to the case that can be made for the choice and the defence that can be offered of the actions that follow from it.
It is because age, ethnicity and disability are not matters of choice that people should be protected from discrimination premised upon them. By contrast, nothing that people choose in the way of politics, lifestyle or religion should be immune from criticism and (when, as so often it does, it merits it) ridicule.
Those who claim to be "hurt" or "offended" by the criticisms or ridicule of people who do not share their views, yet who seek to silence others by law or by threats of violence, are trebly in the wrong: they undermine the central and fundamental value of free speech, without which no other civil liberties are possible; they claim, on no justifiable ground, a right to special status and special treatment on the sole ground that they have chosen to believe a set of propositions; and they demand that people who do not accept their beliefs and practices should treat these latter in ways that implicitly accept their holder's evaluation of them.
A special case of the respect agenda run by religious believers concerns the public advertisement of their faith membership. When people enter the public domain wearing or sporting immediately obvious visual statements of their religious affiliation, one at least of their reasons for doing so is to be accorded the overriding identity of a votary of that religion, with the associated implied demand that they are therefore to be given some form of special treatment including respect.
But why should they be given automatic respect for that reason? That asserting a religious identity as one's primary front to the world is divisive at least and provocative at worst is fast becoming the view of many, although eccentricities of dress and belief were once of little account in our society, when personal religious commitment was more reserved to the private sphere - where it properly belongs - than its politicisation of late has made it. From this thought large morals can be drawn for our present discontents.
But one part of a solution to those discontents must surely be to tell those who clamour for a greater slice of public indulgence, public money and public respect, that their personal religious beliefs and practices matter little to the rest of us, though sometimes they are a cause of disdain or amusement; and that the rest of us are as entitled not to be annoyed by them as their holders are entitled to hold them. But no organised religion, as an institution, has a greater claim to the attention of others in society than does a trade union, political party, voluntary organisation, or any other special interest group - for "special interest groups" are exactly what churches and organised religious bodies are.
No one could dream of demanding that political parties be respected merely because they are political parties, or of protecting them from the pens of cartoonists; nor that their members should be. On the contrary. And so it should be for all interest groups and their members, without exception.
Comments by Guardian readersHere are a few of the hundreds of comments:
Comment No. 261336 October 19 16:11
At last, atheists awake from their slumber. Dawkin's has really stuck a chord with his new book (I see Anthony has read it). Let's hope we finally assert ourselves and challenge religious dogma where we see it.
Comment No. 261359
GBRHurrah! I was having this very discussion the other day. Why do beliefs that are based on science come second to any beliefs that by definition have no scientific backing? It seems you can question anybody's beliefs, unless they believe in some kind of supernatural entity and a moral code laid down a couple of thousand years ago, at which point they (the beliefs) must automatically be respected and shown deference...
Comment No. 261364
GBRComment No. 261487
Excellent piece.
I think some people here fail to distinguish between respecting people's right to practise their religion and respecting their religious beliefs. Two different things. Of course if you want to believe that God came to earth 2000 years ago to save all who believed in him, then please do so, but don't expect to be able to ban tv programmes that offend you, have automatic representation in the House of Lords, or receive state funding for your schools. Or, indeed, receive universal murmurs of admiration for your piety.
Comment No. 261549
GBRAbout time that someone said this.
As a rationalist scientific athiest I find the idea that people who believe something because God says so foolish.
I find the phrase "faith school" an oxymoron. Either you learn or you are indoctorated, you can't do both.
I do not think that belief should be irradicated, but should be taught in the same way that we learnt about Classical Greece or Roman times. You need to know ABOUT them, but not believe them.
I personally NEVER use the phase "I belive" as a matter of priciple. When I find I am about to say it, I don't use it as a shorthand for "I think that the arguments suggest.." because people of faith think that their foolish subjigation to a book is on the same par as centurys of reasoned thought and argument.
'...Faith is a commitment to belief contrary to evidence and reason...'
No, better to say faith is commitment to an opinion held piously. It's the piety bit that usually gets in the way of reason. It makes people think they can manage without reason, and that they are somehow virtuous for calling their belief or opinion 'faith'. It's this self-righteousness that leads to all the silly clothes, incense, belief in their own humility, acceptance of a jolly important Creator and so on.
aquilla
Comment No. 261392
October 19 16:37
You took your time this has been bubbling under for weeks, thank you oh so much. Let battle royale commence.
Religion is hard-wired into our brains, making it difficult for people to think outside of that paradigm. Religion is brainwashing, as with all ideologies a certain way of thinking is expected.
Religous scripts have been doctored time and again to fit contemporaneous society.
How many versions of the bible are there?
These people deserve protection from this ludicrous and ultimately destructive mental malaise of faith.
Look at those with the niqab, those with cross, those with the skullcap, they ahve a right to exist but please understand you have been brainwashed. You have a culture that I will defend with my life, but your superstitions, the earth 6000 years old, get off that cloud cuckoo.
Weak minds, unsure people accrete around poles of certainty, and religion masquerades as fact.
If it were not for religion though, the mental hospitals would be fuller. So there is a trade off.
Thank you again, though you took your bloody time.
WoollyMindedLiberal
Comment No. 261396
October 19 16:40
GBRIf people want to dress up in funny clothes and speak in strange made-up languages the only sensible response is to laugh at them. There is no reason why we should find Trekkies speaking in 'Klingon' and less ridiculous than evangelists babbling in 'tongues'.
Why should fictional characters like 'Jesus' or 'Mohammed' to be treated any differently from King Arthur or Captain Kirk?
liberalcynic
Comment No. 261464
October 19 17:03
GBRSpot on, wonderful comment piece. Religion should be a matter of private, and individual, conscience, and should not be imposed on those of us who are able to live quite happy and moral lives without it.
aber
Comment No. 261478
October 19 17:09
IRLBelief in God should not confer any more moral authority on a population than belief in the fairies at the bottom of the garden (thanks Dawkins). The media could help - why when there is a "moral" debate do the media look to religious figures for comment. Why are they especially qualified? What about going to the sociologists instead? Let's put some faith in science and the well-educated. Those are the peers we should look to for good debate every time.
There is a middle ground to be won over; the strong atheists and agnostics just have to stand up and be counted. Well done AC Grayling.