I was inclined to write this after reading an interesting article by Stuart Jefferies in the Guardian concerning the great social divide between religion and secularism that is becoming increasingly intolerant.

“We must accept the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.” H.L.Mencken

This perceptive comment by an American Journalist many years ago would seem to provide a compelling argument for respecting other peoples beliefs and disbeliefs and most importantly not allowing disagreements about it (which psychologically rest on matters of taste) to spoil friendships. And yet in the latter 20th and early 21st century it would appear that the ‘argument’ between these two deeply entrenched sides has led to the souring of the relationship and a greater dependence upon the law courts and parliament to seperate and adjudicate.

“You have a triangle with fundamentalist secularists in one corner, fundamentalist faith people in another, and then the intelligent, thinking liberals of Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, baptism, methodism, other faiths – and, indeed, thinking atheists – in the other corner. ” Colin Slee – Dean of Southwark

The battle then, for thats what it is, is no longer about people of faith and people of no faith simply agreeing to disagree and living their lives in accordance with their tastes and with respect to the laws of their society, it has become (between the fundamentalists) a war, a desire to eliminate or subjugate the other. But why should this be so? Why should this situation that has previously been timid have become such a violently contentious issue?

According to Tariq Ramadan a Muslim scholar and senior research fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, it is due to a fear of the “other”. Secularists and people of faith particularly post 9/11 and post cold war have grown to distrust and fear the other, and percieve a ‘threat’ where perhaps none exists. This seems to me, along with an intellectually stale uncritical and literal acceptance of the ‘key discourses’ (both religious and secular) to have the ring of truth to it. The “other” so central to postmodern ethics and politics, the object with which we are compelled to identifiy in postmodernism, is now described by otherwise intellectually rigorous scholars with abusive terms and mocking scorn. It seems the “other” has never been so far away as it is now, when people of faith condemn to the hellfires those who are heathen and heretic and when atheists such as Dawkins describe faith as a poison, dangerous to self and society, that euphemistically calls “gerinoil” (an acronym for religion).

But abuse is nothing as compared to the sort of language that borders on incitement to hatred or dogmatic ideology. What is going on, truly, in the minds of the author or the reader when someone reads Christopher Hitchens for example conclude the opening chapter of his book God is not Great with words such as these?

“As I write these words and as you read them, people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won human attainments that I have touched upon. Religion poisons everything.”

Is this not the language of the crusade? Is this not the language of the rabble rouser and the mob? What is being inferred here? That our way of life is in danger thanks to religion and religious people, they will destroy us… unless. ‘Unless’ what? In response to Hitchens the obvious question is, ‘so what are we to do about it?’ – I don’t think I need to elaborate, hateful polemic and hateful propaganda transform into hateful actions sooner or later. Although Hitchens would despise my comparison I must say it nonetheless; in the late 1920′s many Jews would have been revolted at the fiercely anti-semitic polemic evident in Hitler’s raving manifesto Mein Kampf, but too few would have interpreted in it a warning of soon-to-come pogroms, ghettoization and genocide. Precisely the same criticism can be levelled at people of faith too when their dogmatic and unshakeable belief in the righteousness of their God and their scripture leads them to make such violent statements of intent about throwing homosexuals off of tall buildings, or condemning people for making lifestyle choices such as Gay marriage or abortion. Though some may find such choices not to their taste is this justification for condemning them, describing them as abomination, the worst of the worst, and reason to blow them up?

It is remarkeable to note but both sides feel threatened, and when ones way of life is threatene, then much as one would if your life itself was under threat, moves are taken to build the barricades and defend oneself. But unfortunately the deeper one digs the bunker the further one removes onself from the “other” and the less likely one is to even try to attempt understanding, respect, tolerance and reconciliation.

Perhaps most remarkeable of all is that this battleground is being drawn up by intellectuals who should know better. Whose intelligence is such that they should have learnt the lessons of history regards intolerance and absolutist dogmatism. So what are we to do?

Some say education is the key. But how? At Exeter university the Christian Union was banned from its facilities because membership of the Union required a person to sign up to a testimony of beliefs, which naturally as it is a worldview is liable to offend somebody somewhere. Because of its anti-homosexual opinions it was banned. Rightly so perhaps, for surely homophobia has no place in society – but an educational institution banning a society – has all tolerance and freedom of expression – including the freedom to express unpalatable opinions – been eradicated?

Then of course there are faith schools. I shall say little on these as our blog has covered this topic and the pro’s and con’s more than enough already. But is abolition of a system that at present provides choice the answer of tolerance? John Sentamu Archbishop of York sees more sinister forces at play. The abolition of faith schools on the grounds that they are indoctrinaire is just a cover for aggressive secularist policies. What next? The British Humanist Association thinks that religion has too much of a foothold in politics. Certainly with anglican bishops in the house of lords and public rituals broadcast on tv and religious oaths in use across the lands courts, they may have a point. But, is this evidence of an underground movement to subvert the state and the freedom of its citizens by a religious minority (majority if faith identification rather than practise is the criteria) or is it just emblematic of an anachronistic system that hasnt quite realised that the days of ‘Christian Britain’ and the British Empire have long ceased to be true or relevant?

Of course the media and popular culture has got into the act too. The danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed sparked protests and counter protests, Jerry Springer the Opera has angered evangelicals who want a return to the old strict blasphemy laws. Even childrens authors are having a go, Phillip Pullman argues that atheism should be taught in schools.

“What I fear and deplore in the ‘faith school’ camp is their desire to close argument down and put some things beyond question or debate. It’s vital to get clear in young minds what is a faith position and what is not, so that, for instance, they won’t be taken in by religious people claiming that science is a faith position no different in kind from Christianity. Science is not a matter of faith, and too many people are being allowed to get away with claiming that it is.”

If he is talking about the teaching of a seven day creation as literal truth, or of intelligent design being taught as a challenge to evolutionary science, then yes perhaps there is a problem that needs to be addressed. But is this true of faith schools in general, or is he guilty of the very thing he deplores closing arguments down. Isn’t that what teaching atheism in schools is aimed at doing? Isn’t that what his childrens books hope to achieve? Isn’t that what Dawkins explicitly stated as his intention when he wrote the God Delusion?

I believe it is. From my perspective as a postmodernist, Modernity is now in crisis. The fundamentalist corner of religious and secular thinkers are plunging us into a new dark age. As rigorously dogmatic as each other all emphasis on practise and inner peace is ignored in favour of beliefs.

“It is not just in the rigidity of their unbelief that atheists mimic dogmatic believers. It is in their fixation on belief itself… When they dissect arguments for the existence of God, atheists parody the rationalistic theologies of western Christianity.” John Gray professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics.

Science may not be a faith, in the literal meaning of the word, but it is a worldview and its methods nothing more than a toolkit to present and verify it, and is therefore totally neutral regards religious claims (when both language games stay in their respective corners I admit!).

“No scientific method says that there is no doubt. If you don’t accept there’s doubt in all things, you’re being intellectually dishonest. ” Rabbi Nueberger

Would it that the fundamentalists of both sides could see and share this postmodern view. It is bad enough when a society tears itself apart over whether its employers may allow its workers to wear a religious symbol while at work, and to debate the values of faith and secularism. But when ‘believers’ and I deliberately use that word of both sides use the language of hate, scorn and derision then I fear we are building ourselves a huge bonfire that is going to do irreperable damage.

What have we come to when an otherwise respectable intellectual and scientist such as Richard Dawkins can comment publicly – as though it was worth us bothering to listern – his opinions on the worker who wanted to wear her small crucifix to work.

“I saw a picture of this woman. She had one of the most stupid faces I’ve ever seen.” R.Dawkins

Surely we have learnt the lessons of Soviet Russia who tried and failed to eradicate religion forceably. Are not people free to choose, should we not as Mencken asks tolerate with a sense of irony the peculair oddities in the beliefs of ‘others’. If we dont then the divide will only get deeper and the comments of Richard Chatres Bishop of London, will I fear, for both secularists and religious minded people come to be true.

“If you exile religious communities to the margins, then they will start to speak the words of fire among consenting adults, and the threat to public order and the public arena, I think, will grow and grow.”

Tolerance and respect for diversity will cost us substantially less than intolerance, division and hatred for others beliefs.