The RSA’s strapline is 21st century enlightenment. Brenda Watson FRSA argues for more discussion of religion, which she believes has a legitimate place in public discourse.
Whilst I welcome the fact that the RSA has had some interesting events on the subject of faith, including a recent speech by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, more could be done to ensure that religion is not marginalized.
We need to be open-minded; to close our minds to ‘religion’ per se is a contradiction, and even hypocritical. Organisations like the RSA, embrace a forward-thinking, questing, and pragmatic outlook on the world. The Enlightenment sought to make reason a corner-stone of life. So how can it be rational to regard the whole of religion as inappropriate for the public domain? This fails to acknowledge the huge range of opinions within religions.
Reason derives from whole-of-life life experience and so cannot be faith-free; the ‘reason/faith’ divide is based on a false dichotomy. While individual religious or irreligious believers alike may be irrational people, the majority, and especially the saints and scholars of all the great world religions, have always appealed to reason in interpretation of their faiths. To imply that Aquinas was bereft of reason seems illogical, just as to say the same of, for example, a Rowan Williams or a Jonathan Sacks.
In a liberal democracy religious and irreligious people have equal rights. The state exists for all its citizens, not just for some. If an atheist is offended at the wearing of a burka, turban or cross, a religious person may be equally upset by their banning. Reciprocity should mean balance and common sense, with state intervention only as needed to keep the peace. Such matters warrant proper public expression.
Public debate would also benefit from religious contributions. Survival of democracy in a world of chicanery requires maximum public involvement by all its well-wishers. The help of democratic religious people should therefore be welcomed, not spurned or regarded with suspicion. As with secular views, the properly liberal and democratic way for such positive input to be promulgated is through public debate. Marginalisation and occasional public scorn of religion does not encourage open debate. It drives religion underground and into ghettoes. This removes one of our best ways of controlling religious extremism inimical to a democratic society. Intelligent debate is a major safeguard against the rise and promotion of perverted beliefs. For the safety of society, should not religion be properly and respectfully acknowledged?
Liberal religions helped to establish and support the democratic state. Indeed the fundamental creed behind democracy - that all people are equal as persons - derives historically from fundamental Christian doctrine. The notion of the equality of all was not sourced from ancient civilisations. For example, the democracy of Athens was reserved for only a quarter of the population; slaves and women were excluded. Care for the vulnerable and deprived has been absent from almost all civilisations except our own.
In her recent article in the RSA Journal Cecile Laborde argues that public discourse should take place in a secular language, which is available to all, secular and religious alike. This proposal imposes a burden on religious people that atheist and agnostics do not share because the secular is their language; they do not have to acquire another. Furthermore, it prioritises atheism by making the non-God perspective the default position. An anti-religious mindset was understandable hundreds of years ago when religious institutions used their power to be obscurantist and prevent proper academic freedom. But in the West that situation no longer applies. Are we perhaps behaving like teenagers who may rebel against the parental control that harnesses them, a rebellion which becomes absurd in the middle-aged?
The RSA is well placed to play fairer with religion by acknowledging publicly that religious perspectives are as permissible in public as non-religious ones. Should not its charters and mission statements acknowledge that some people see these virtues as grounded in God, whilst others affirm them as humanist? Affirming but critical treatment should be meted out by government, the media, in philosophy, in political debate, in education, to religious people, atheists and agnostics alike.
Dr. Brenda Watson is an educationalist - teacher, lecturer and author of several books - her main subjects being History, Music, Philosophy and Religion.
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The problem I have with your argument is the assumed place
of religion in reasonable discussion. While I do agree that religious views
should not be censored, I think you lack recognition of the fact that many
religious people themselves separate religion and their faith from science and reasonable
arguments. They do not feel the need to prove that God exists (just as atheists
do not feel the need to prove that he does not) and justifying their faith to
those who would (quite easily in my opinion) reason it away becomes tiresome. As
stated above, it is futile to try to reason with a religious belief. They
believe because they believe.
That said, everyone’s perspective deserves a voice in
democracy, whether their perspective is considered reasonable or not. I personally count
religious views as an unreasonable perspective, but I would also count many
other standpoints, having nothing to do with religion, as unreasonable too. The
argument, as far as I see it, shouldn’t be that religious views should be
present in debate because they are impossible to prove wrong, but because they
are the views, however misguided (or not), of participants in the democracy.
I also find the suggestion that religions should have a
place in debate so we can keep an eye on them and prevent fundamentalism
slightly offensive. If religious views have a place in debate, then so should
fundamentalist views. If you imagine that fundamentalism will be lessened by
inclusion, then I would imagine that all religious sentiment would be lessened
by inclusion in democratic discourse. The point is that noone should be marginalised, whether it be for religious, political etc views. We can improve as a society by discussing as a whole society all viewpoints and being willing to accept that we may be wrong.
Overall I agree with the conclusion of this piece, that
religion has a place in debate but not with many of the supporting assumptions. All
we can do is all attempt to bring a constructive view to the table, listen to
what others (all others) say, and try to build from that, not dominate, and
impose our own doctrine.
I'm not sure whom you are talking about here in these absolutist terms. There are some religious people who think like this, but there are huge numbers who don't. Aren't you guilty of false generalisation? Don't folk like Rowan Williams and Jonathan Sacks demonstrate an open-mindedness and rationality which your dogmatic outburst against all religion does not? Religion cannot be dismissed so easily.
I'm strongly in favour of rational
argument, and I am asking for a level playing-ground for religious, agnostic and
atheist views, not preferential treatment for any.
re.
the non-existence of "Thor, Zeus, Santa Claus and floating teapots in space...",
this misses the point completely because there is a huge amount of evidence to
be weighed regarding the existence of God, whilst the items in this list have
next to no evidence to support them.
Brebda Watson's contribution is expressd well. However, she maintains that in a liberal democracy the religious and irreligious have equal rights. This is not true. Part of the mechanism for obtaining important factual information on behalf of the nation state is via a regular national referendum every decade. However, I, as an atheist have no means of stating my world view through the medium of this information gathering exercise. This is a calculated and deliberate ommision because when representations have been made by organisations auch as British Humanists to successive governments about this matter there has been a deliberate policy of ignoring such views. It has been shown by surveys that less than 12 per cent of the population attend church on a regular basis and yet religious schools are funded by taxes paid by almost the whole of the population. The recent visit by the pope to this country was funded by us all despite harsh reductions in secular state expenditure in all areas of life. My protest to the Home Secretary about the cost of this visit and its irrelevance to the majority of the population fell on deaf ears. Despite being amongst a huge majority of non-religious citizens my preference and those of other non church goers has few productive avenues for their voices to express their views.
What is the actual evidence that religious voices are being squeezed out of the public arena? I can see none. I can't open a paper without reading a column by a religious columnist. Every morning I hear a sermon an Radio 4. Nor do I, as an atheist, want religious voices silenced.Far from it. I want a secular society that protects the right of all to be heard - equally and impartially, without lending favour to any pro-or anti-religious point of view.
What *is* happening is that many non-religious people [and, please note, quite a few religious people (e.g. Ekklesia)] now recognize that religion has no right to a *privileged* role in our society, with automatic seats in the Lords, state funds provided for religious schools, exemptions to anti-discrimination laws pleaded on religious grounds, etc. etc.
This justified anger at claimed and/or ongoing religious privilege is being responded to with cries of marginalization, victimhood and, often, even fabricated or misrepresented stories of the "persecution" which, when investigated, turn out to have little or no substance to them (though Brenda doesn't claim persecution, of course).
As the religious guys at Ekkleisa point out:
"we need to be theologically clear amidst the siren voices of alarm. That
Christians do not rule others in the way they once did, in the fading
Christendom era, does not amount to "persecution"."
So some actual evidence of unfair marginalization of Christians please, Brenda.
PS. It's true that Christians promoted human rights. But then they also, on religious grounds, opposed them. We find Christians arguing on religious grounds for *and against* almost every moral development.
Given that only a minority of us are now believing Christians, surely we are ill-advised to try to give respect for human rights a foundation in Christianity morality. Surely we are better off looking for foundations to which we can *all* sign up, religious or not?