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The fact that the Theos research is being reported in today's media both in terms of Britons being more a more religious society than imagined (the Western Mail) and an increasingly secular one (Scotsman) illustrates the confusion that exists in our culture. We neither know what we believe nor why we believe it.

Hi James Collins, you say. We neither know what we believe nor why we believe it.

I know what I believe, and why I believe it, because I belong to a strongly confessional Church which has Tradition and Dogma. Therefore, when I say 'I believe...', as in the Creed, I am speaking in persona ecclesiae. It is a collective singular. 'The body of Christ' isn't something merely metaphorical, it is real for us (as in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist). 'We' are the one Christ on earth, corporately (or more accurately, corporeally) (One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic... That is, it isn't about personal consent, like putting one's hand on one's chest and swearing an oath of allegiance, which is individualistic (America being based in non-Confessional Christianity), but the church expressing itself, as One.

From this perspective then, both non-confessional Christians and secular humanists are, by their rejection of Tradition and Dogma, relativists.

Non-confessional Christians pick and choose from the Bible what they'll believe (some even deny the bible has any authority, or go even further, like Don Cupitt), each one believing their Own Thing, just as secular humanists pick and choose what they want to believe from the 'smorgasbord of truth', or what's expedient for the argument of the moment. The idea of the Bible as the authority of the 'bible-alone' believing Christian, is the same as the secular humanist's acknowledgement of the authority of science: when it suits, or 'how I interpret x, is...'.

As an example, if Don Cupitt calls himself a Christian, how can a non-confessional Christian prove otherwise? Those who disagree will be quoting different and possibly conflicting verses of scripture at him, depending on where they think he is in error - over which they'll also disagree.

Tradition and dogma are what divide Catholics from other non-confessional Christians and secular humanists, and the lack of these two, mean that the secular humanist and the non-confessional Christian actually believe the same about truth - and why I won't find much sympathy in these forums from either non-Confessional (specifically, 'Bible-alone' Christians) or secular humanists, because they both denounce Tradition and Dogma as being worthless or erroneous (yet certainly not proving their case).

For Catholics, 'religious' isn't defined by street polls or SPECT scans, but quite simply by those that assent to the Tradition and Dogma of the Catholic Church, i.e., the Magisterium.

If you don't have Dogma and Tradition, how can you differentiate between the secular and the religious? The relativist - religious or not - hasn't got any benchmark to define what is 'secular' and what is religious', so even the 'Bible-alone' believing Christians, will disagree with each other as to who are genuine Christians, even within their own congregations, while secular humanists will disagree as to who's genuinely 'secular'.

Of course, because Catholics have Tradition and Dogma, we are very clear on the demarcation, and therefore we're perceived as arrogant by both the non-confessional Christians (e.g., polly), and secular humanists (e.g., GreyWizard).

To state one knows something as true is to commit the only capital sin today, whilst every little relativistic group (read individual, and which holds its own truths of course) condemns the Catholic Church for it's Dogma, Tradition, and claim to truth.

We claim truth and codify it. It's public. It's Catholic - 'held by all' - and all those who dissent 'leave' the church. That is, they stay and cause trouble, rather than have the courage to act upon their convictions, or until are excommunicated in exceptional cases.

So, for the secular humanist and the non-confessional Christian, you've got to ask each individual, what is 'truth'?, what is 'Christian'?, what is 'secular'?... They all believe different things, all believe their truth is right, schism, schism, schism..., logically resulting in a church of one (i.e., not 'one' as in united, but 'one' as in individual).

Catholicism = 'One Church', non-confessional Christianity = 'Church of One'. One sees the church as Trinitarian, the other, as numerical.

Servanthood and obedience aren't compatible with relativism. Relativism, by it's nature, puts the subject at the centre of deciding what is true, therefore, as master. Paradoxically, Catholics are branded as arrogant for claiming to hold the truth, yet we're also branded as 'unthinking' or 'brainwashed', if we actually live as if it is true!

If submission, servanthood, obedience, or whatever, to Tradition and Dogma which has at its essence, putting others before myself (including my notions of truth) in both belief and action, is 'unthinking' or 'brainwashing', then it's my preferred option.

I would say that what is Christian is that which is not relativist, which means only churches which are fully confessional and take their confessionalism seriously are Christians, rather than merely relativists, 'bible-believing', or not.

I wonder if Theos ought to change its strap line to "Challenging Secularism In The Public Square" as it seems to be interested in this role more than anything else. Would it really be so bad if Polly Toynbee's claims were true? Is there absolutely any evidence at all to suggest that religious people would not be able to carry on with their chosen way of life if this were the case?

With regard to the millions with a non-committal attachment to the Christian faith - why exactly do you want them? To stop them from being anything else perhaps? Tongue in cheek maybe but is this a similar strategy as used in politics where parties will spend millions trying to win over prospective voters who habitually are unable to make up their minds politically despite being adults - thus giving the movers and shakers a powerbase on whose behalf (supposedly) they can do their moving and shaking.

Scarthin Nick. Bravo! Couldn't agree more. What is this problem with something called 'secularism'? Do we really know what it means? Does anyone? I suppose people like Paul won't be pleased until everyone submits to his (or his church's -- I'm not sure which) notion of tradition and dogma, but, all things considered, no one's going to stop him doing that if he wants to. And so long as he doesn't force it down my throat -- and here's where the fight against secularism seems particularly dangerous -- it won't bother me. But when his bishops claim that certain books shouldn't be stocked in school libraries, or that women shouldn't be allowed to terminate pregnancies, and things like that, then it's nice to have the security of some kind of distance from this sort of belief system. Same goes for the mullahs and their systems of Islamic law. These have no place in the public sphere.

I think the reason the religions would like to get a more fulsome confession from 'the millions with a non-committal attachment' is that this would give them more clout in the public sphere. Paul Rodden says: "If submission, servanthood, obedience, or whatever, to Tradition and Dogma which has at its essence, putting others before myself (including my notions of truth) in both belief and action, is 'unthinking' or 'brainwashing', then it's my preferred option." But it's not just a matter of putting others (unselfishly) before oneself. It's a matter of putting authority before both oneself and others. And that's where the real danger lies. Paul can bow to whatever gods he wishes. Fine. But this should have no effect on the rest of us, so far as our beliefs or actions go, unless we choose. And if relativism is the only option besides his absolutism, then I'll take relativism every time. However, despite his confidence, I don't think that's the only option. Besides, absolutisms are relative -- just ask the man in Rome and the Muslim scholars in Mecca.

I have to agree, on the whole, Scarthin Nick, but I wonder whether it is really aiming to challenge secularism, as it's Zeitgeist is so similar, or whether it's just that it sees secularism encroaching upon what it considers its own turf?

I am a member of the local council of churches, and there is an increasingly nasty strain of proselytism developing (as opposed to mission in its theological sense), where the purpose is doing anything to get the punters in, and so there's a real possibility us Catholics will be withdrawing in the not too distant future as it utterly disrespects human freedom and human dignity. I'm sure that if they thought 'hookers for Jesus' wasn't going to damage their moral street cred., they'd introduce it.

In fact, see

www.hookersforjesus.net and

www.planetpop.tv/pussycat.preacher

The difficulty is, this 'New Theism' seems to have more in common with modern marketing psychology and early Native American scalp-hunting, than any Gospel to which Catholics can relate. What's more, it seems to be a culturally alien import from America: sloppy delivery, sloppy thinking. We import people from the East, and ideas from the West. The whole Jesus-as-a-vending-machine mentality, where the prayer groups I attend are more like supermarkets as they reel off their shopping-list to God - "And Jesus we just ask..." - as if prefacing the 'ask' with 'just' makes it sound not as demanding as a spoiled child's request: it's horribly self-centred. I presume death is the check-out where they find out whether their account's in credit or not. These sort of Christians sell Jesus as if he were a product, like washing powder, and are as spiritually acquisitive as their secular counterpart.

I don't have a problem with the secular (saeculum), but the ideologies which are peddled as superior to religion, when, in fact, they're just as noxious.

I have atheist friends, I have Catholic friends, I have Protestant friends, but we're agreed nutters span all camps, and that there are some nasty ideas floating about in all of them too, whichever camp they're in. We're agreed that, if these were allowed any influence, the results would be catastrophic and inhuman. There are genocidal maniacs on both sides of the secular/sacred divide.

GreyWizard likes to point out all the religious ones, and I never deny his examples, it's just a shame him and his cronies have got such a huge blindspot for the horrors in their own domain. ("Name one!", I can already hear him say.)

Catholicism isn't perfect, and Catholics have done some pretty nasty, violent, and stupid things in the past, but that is no proof of error: sin, yes.

Any qualified lawyer will tell you that the chances of an untrained person being able to interpret the statute books accurately, without the tradition, is almost impossible. So why do some Christians think they can interpret scripture in the same way? It is what some theologians refer to as a 'hermeneutic of discontinuity', a re-inventing of the wheel by every Christian, as if there is nothing to be gained by standing on the shoulders of giants or even just those who went before. Each one starts from scratch. There's no 'development of doctrine'. It's just starting afresh at every moment, and what is gained by doing that? From this view, what's the point of Church? There is none. The only reason for it becomes that scripture demands it, for there is no tradition which shows why it makes sense.

Lawyers, scientists, mathematicians all rely on tradition, or else their disciplines would fall apart, but maybe that's what's happening to Evangelicalism - it, like secular society - is falling apart owing to the jettisoning of tradition for immediacy (emergent-cy) - 'change' - as people like to call it, as if they were victims rather than the manufacturers of it.

If lawyers, scientists, and mathematicians, among others of the same ilk, dumped their historically developed tradition, their disciplines would collapse. That's why I have no problems with Dawkins on genetics. It's good scholarly work. But just because his scientific work is perfectly credible, doesn't mean anything else he writes is too. In my opinion, it's ill-informed drivel - just like the Bible-basher's view of Catholicism: hopelessly flawed and prejudiced.

Because Catholicism has such a culture and Tradition, it's perfectly at home in secularism. It has a strong identity. 'Ite, missa est', 'The Mass is finished': we are sent out into the world.

Catholicism defines itself constantly by what it is. Other forms of Christianity and secualr humanist ideas have to define themselves by what they are not: not Catholic, not secular, not Christian, etc.. As I've mentioned before, the Catholic principle is et-et, not either-or, not black and white.

Therefore, in terms of Scarthin Nick's points, from a Catholic perspective, it's a peculiarly non-Catholic problem. The 'New Theists' are constantly having to define themselves afresh because they don't know who they are because they have no tradition to tell them. It's all relative. This pastor disagrees with that one, so they go their separate ways, then they spilt again. They can't blame society. They're the ones who chose to reject tradition, and they're reaping the results. It's mitosis rather than symbiosis. Churches are divorcing as much as the families in their congregations.

Catholicism offers something secular society has ditched which some would argue is at the root of societal collapse: tradition. How can Theos address this from a brand of Christianity which rejects Tradition?

George Bernard Shaw: We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

George Santayana: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Henry Ford: History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.

The 'New Theists' and secular humanists side with Henry Ford, the father of modern consumerism.

Theologians, like DH Williams, are offering them a wake-up call, it remains to be seen whether they roll over and go back to sleep.

Well, Paul, you've really got that taped. All that Christians need to do is to refer to the same traditional authorities and they'll all agree. But what has that got to do with whether Britian is secular or not? As you yourself acknowledge, Roman Catholicism is quite happy with secularism. When the mass is ended, you are all dismissed to live in the world, the secular world, I take it, not the religious one, and to uphold, within that world, the personal standards prescribed by your beliefs. Fine. No problem. The problem begins when you begin to say, as so often happens, that other people should measure their own lives by the same standards. Then there is reason for objection, not because religious people are monsters, or anything like that, since non-religious people can be monsters too, but because the religious, in a secular society, have no right to have their values reflected in society itself. (There may be reason to have them reflected in society, but its something you have to argue, not claim.) Sometimes, probably often, this will happen anyway, since our moral beliefs probably don't differ much, whether we are religious or not; but sometimes it matters a lot, as when some religious people -- read 'most' -- seem to think that being gay is monstrously immoral, or that abortion is a primal sin, or that assisted dying is to fly in the face of the Almighty. You're free to think these things, I suppose, so long as it does not invite harm on other people who believe differently, but, in a secular state, you have no right to impose them on others. The one about assisted dying is still one place where the religions still seem to have the loudest voice. I hope that will soon change. It's a matter of justice, not religion.

It may be true that DH Williams, who invites evangelical Christians to take tradition on board, has something important to say to protestantism, which does tend to be very friable, but it has little relevance to the question of secularity. Secularism, despite Nick Spencer's assumptions, has more to do with the way we arrange our lives so that religion doesn't interfere with our getting along with each other despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things, than it has to do with whether people believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Even Antony Flew seems to have joined the gang, which should make you happy. But whatever people believe about the resurrection of Jesus, we can probably live together peacefully in society, if that isn't made a requirement of social belonging. And if it is, you'll be looking at more that societal collapse.

Finally, a couple comments. First. In what way, may I ask, is Shaw's view of history (as you quote him) different from Ford's? Second. Why are you so dismissive of Christians who disagree with you? Is it so hard to find reasons, or do they just make you angry? I guess the second point is the one that shcoks me the most about your posts. You have so little regard and respect for people who disagree with you. Why don't you just try -- it's not that hard -- to hear what they say. You'd be surprised. I'm reading some Karl Barth at the moment. It's surprising how creative traditionalists can be when they try.

I really should apologise for the irony, but, Paul, you do invite it. Lighten up a bit. We might, for all you know, be able to carry on a conversation.

I shouldn't come back so soon, but I was rereading your post Paul, and came up with this:

"I don't have a problem with the secular (saeculum), but the ideologies which are peddled as superior to religion, when, in fact, they're just as noxious."

I couldn't agree more. There are ideologies that are just as noxious as religion. And I thought we were on a completely different frequency!

Hi Paul, I don't think any of us were in any doubt that you know what you believe and why you believe it! Except perhaps for the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (I take it you're referring to transubstantiation, rather than variations on the theme), you ascribe (just like me) to the historic creeds and formularies of Christianity. I don't know many non-confessional Christians, but let's not fall for the idea that secular humanists reject Tradition or Dogma. You're quite wrong about that. It's simply that their dogma is from the likes of Nietzsche. Christians are, by definition, confessional.

I'm always intrigued by the way you turn your comments into a rant against others in the Christian community with whom you disagree ('The idea of the Bible as the authority of the 'bible-alone' believing Christian ... etc). It does point to a profound insecurity if I may say so.

'Of course, because Catholics have Tradition and Dogma, we are very clear on the demarcation...' Officially, yes. In practice, I'm not so sure. Many Christians, including many Catholics, are often very unclear about what they believe.

Karl Barth would agree with you about putting God as subject. God is absolute truth, beauty etc etc. The issue is that, our hands (and yours), absolute truth becomes provisional (at best) and distorted (at worst). Therefore, exercising humility is important, a quality that should characterise all Christians (including you Paul). Indeed, humility (like servanthood) is also part of Christian orthodoxy.

Scarthin Nick. I think I agree, but I guess putting the case against secularism is part of doing public theology. Polly T's claims are only so bad if we believe that 'secularism' as defined by Nick Spencer, is bad for society. I think there is plenty evidence that some people (like Polly T in fact) want to marginalise religious involvement in society, and this would be hugely detrimental.

Exactly Greywizard. Thanks. 'Why are you so dismissive of Christians who disagree with you?' Paul.

I don't have a problem with the secular (saeculum), rightly defined, but secularists often tend to define it in terms of imposing noxious ideologies on society and marginalising religious faith.

Paul. I find it very funny that you don't think I'm confessional. I've never been accused of that before!

I'd be really interested to know people's beliefs about life after death. Any takers?

You don't have to be religious to believe you may survive your death. Several recent atheists (C.D.Broad,

John Beloff, John McTaggart) thought survival was conceivable or even likely. However, some of these also thought that survival, if if occurred, might not be pleasant. It might be temporary, with the personality gradually fading away, or there might be survival in a zombie-like state.

Hi Paul,

Interesting post, as always. I followed up your your links - I fear the poor lady in Hookers for Jesus has exchanged one pimp for another (in the form of her religious advisors) I presume you are familiar with Flirty Fishing - Would you agree that when organisations like the Children of God are exposed there is a trend of their being promptly and conveniently reclassified from a "Church" into a "Cult" ? One wonders where the fine line is between just censure and keeping everyone else "pure", as it were.

To James Collins: With regard to putting the case against secularism as a criteria (essential or desirable?) of doing public theology - it seems to me that the Church (in the broad usage of the term) almost thrives on having a fresh antagonist for each up and coming generation. Today it is secularism, twenty years ago it was the occult and New Agery, before that - eastern philosophy for the psychedelic generation and before that Rock and Roll - the Devil's music, as it was oft described. All of the above fit into the the category of the things that young people begin to choose for themselves, independent of parents and establishment, particularly so in the case of pop music and culture, which is probably the most trivial of all but used to send my parents' generation into near apoplexy. Once again, where can the line be drawn between safeguarding young people and allowing legitimate freedom of choice. Does the Church have a reasonable claim to have a mandate on safeguarding us all?

To Polly: The most honest answer I can give to your question is "I don't know." Logic suggests no life after death, many people, (indeed almost in every family) have anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise - even if 95% of these can be discounted in one way or another, you are left with a core of phenomena that cannot currently be explained - that said, it still does not, perforce, make them true in the way we would like to believe. Had a good talk about this with a young neighbour down at our local last Monday. She has lost her husband relatively recently and now believes in all earnest that he is communicating with her from the other side. An interesting conversation but a difficult one to offer an opposing view without causing unnecessary upset. Eternal survival - now that is a scary concept! What are we going to do? What happens when we've had enough?

Hi Scarthin Nick. You say "One wonders where the fine line is between just censure and keeping everyone else "pure", as it were." Well, in some senses, that sums up the purpose of my posts.

An immediate response is that Catholicism isn't about purity, it's about repentance. It is not about being moral, so much as acknowledging one's weakness and inability to be moral, and therefore asking God for forgiveness and the grace to do better.

So the above is an example: I can state what Catholics (should) believe, and you can find what we believe in our catechism. Whereas what do the other Christians believe? As many things as there are that sort of Christian. It's unlikely polly could tell me exactly what the whole of her church believes, but just what she believes. None of it will be codified, and if her church does have a codified doctrinal structure, how much does she feel bound by it, rather than her own private interpretation of scripture? If she doesn't agree with the pastor/minister, she could just join another sect, or start her own, and it wouldn't be considered odd. This fragmentation and atomisation of this type of Christian culture is no different from the same forms of fragmentation and atomisation occurring in secular society. As I've tried to show, secular humanism and evangelicalism are two sides of the same coin, with a common intellectual inheritance from Martin Luther (who is actually a child of William of Ockham).

In one sense, I'm not on a crusade against other churches at all. I'm just trying to propose a 'second position'.

Both non confessional churches and secular humanism denounce Authority and Tradition (in it's traditional sense!). The monarchy has been undermined since the English Reformation, now it's the House of Lords, which would have a knock-on impact upon the judiciary.

In short, there's a common agenda held by non confessional Christians and secular humanists to undermine any form of tradition, religious or not. Authority and tradition are intimately linked, and both groups seem bent on anarchy.

These views are direct descendants of The Enlightenment. Destroy all tradition and authority - and replace it with the tradition and authority of whoever gets into power. The crypto-religious symbolism of the French and Bolshevik Revolutions, as well as Fascism and National Socialism, is plain to see by anyone who looks at their history, even briefly.

It's not an issue of disagreement, polly, it's one of fundamental views of the structure of society, and the role Authority and Tradition play in managing and governing that society. Catholicism has Authority and Tradition, and it's not fragmenting or becoming atomised. It's not breaking down.

However, non-confessional churches are splitting at an alarming rate, being led by disaffected, charismatic egos (like in the 20th century totalitarian regimes), and our own society and the family is breaking down too.

You can ridicule what I believe or call me names, but why is the Catholic church not going down the same, fragmented, atomistic, route as other groups, if it's so wrong? What is so wrong with authority, tradition, hierarchy, if it works and keeps a society together?

Nick Spencer has asked whether British society is secular or not, and then has rolled out a lot of stats that show that there's quite a bit of residual religious belief around. Paul is sure that British society is breaking down into anarchy, led by the twin forces of evangelicalism and secular humanism, which he relates, not absurdly, with the reformation. But then, there's been a lot more than a reformation. There was a scientific revolution, and there were world empires, and now we have a very different situation where the recommendation of authority, tradition and hierarchy, despite a few utopian dreamers like Paul, just won't work. So we need to find a way to live together despite the fact that we disagree about the best way to live. In fact, Paul, your recommendations don't seem so far removed from the kinds of things tried out in Spain and Italy, where the church's authority, tradition and hierarchy was extolled and given a central role. And the symbolism in these cases was not always crypto-religious, it really was religious -- and catholic. Ideal societies? Probably not. Let's try something different. What do you think?

What's so wrong with atuhority, tradition and hierarchy? It didn't work, and it didn't keep society together. Hence the reformation. It won't work, and it won't keep society together. Hence the need to try something else, which is what is happening anyway.

Thanks to everyone for your comments, and apologies in advance for not responding to all of them or responding with the thoroughness that many deserve.

Scarthin Nick makes a fair point when he accuses us of being too concerned with “Challenging Secularism In The Public Square”. My debate piece failed to distinguish between different types of secularism (partly for reasons of space and partly because it was intentionally polemical), such as what Rowan Williams calls procedural and programmatic secularism (see his lecture “Secularism, Faith and Freedom”, delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Rome on 23rd November, 2006 for more details)

I don’t have a problem with procedural secularism, although because all politics, whether procedural or programmatic, inevitably has some moral orientation, I would want that procedural secularism to reflect what I understood to be certain Christian rather than other values.

I do, of course, have a problem with programmatic secularism, because it claims that what I believe is necessarily irrational and harmful and should therefore be confined to my mind. I think this is just a(n only slightly more) subtle way of trying to silence those you disagree with.

As to why I should want to challenge secularists or non-committed “Christians”: it’s simply because I believe that what they believe is wrong or deficient or that they are missing out on something that is really rather important and appealing. I am aware, of course, of the many hostages to fortune that these bald sentiments offer, so I should add that I am under no illusion that what I believe is either definitively correct or sufficient, etc. I’m pretty sure it isn’t, which is why I read the things I do, and also, I would suggest, why the Theos website frontispiece is a public debate rather than a standalone article or something similar.

Greywizard goes, I think right to the heart of the matter, when he writes “the religious, in a secular society, have no right to have their values reflected in society itself.” I am tempted to say, why not? If “the religious” could persuade a sufficiently large section of the population that a particular “value” should be “reflected in society” (which, I presume, means placed on the statute book) – why shouldn’t they? Surely that was what happened with the abolition of slave trade 200 years ago and, in a more attenuated way, through the influence of nonconformist churches in the staccato development of state welfare provision in the first half of the 20th century?

As long as the religious observe basic “procedures” – use of publicly-accessible language & reasoning, political argument, democratic processes, etc – surely they have as much a right to campaign for their values to be reflected in government as the non-religious?

On an altogether different note, we really appreciate the thoughtful and detailed comments that so many of you make to our debates. Can I make a small plea that some of the longer ones are edited down a bit? We often get comments from people that they would like to participate in the debate but that they don’t because they don’t have time to read the extensive comments first!

Thanks and best wishes

Nick

Hi Greywiz. I hope I'm not recommending anything. I'm certainly not offering a solution, but just giving evidence for something which I consider has a proven track-record. I'm not denying the evils of the past, but the Church has always recovered because the actions weren't in the Dogma or Tradition, and so the Church as sensus fidelium has always managed to pull herself back on track, by the grace of God.

The Catholic Church itself has not splintered into many fragments, but if one looks at Orthodoxy or Protestantism, then you see the fragmentation.

At the time of the Reformation, a handful of people who thought they knew better, set themselves up as authorities. The scientific revolution grew out of Protestantism, as did Capitalism and the industrial revolution: the Protestant Work Ethic. Some would say this was merely transposing overt black slavery for a form of white slavery which was just more covert and deceitful (even now, if we look at the spread of earnings).

It could be argued Wilberforce stopped merely a practice, not the mentality which underpinned it. Flares and nylon shirts are out of fashion, but the 'mentality of fashion' which has a hold over people is still just as strong.

'Trafficking', the current euphemism, is still with us, and being done by secularists.

The reason the Church didn't prevent the Reformation is that the dissenters were arrogant enough to think that their own views were superior to the Tradition's. That is, they no longer wanted to serve the Common Good, but their own agenda. It was the pride of Adam and Eve all over again.

Authority and Tradition are efficacious, and do hold society together - if one also submits to them - which isn't blind following. It's a sign of faith, humility, and solidarity, rather than empiricism, pride, and individualism. Our catechism states explicitly about the supremacy of conscience. As the "aboriginal Vicar of Christ" the human conscience obviously has certain rights. But as Newman points out: "The conscience has rights because it has responsibilities."

Bible-alone Christians have to be able to see proof texts for everything until they'll believe something, secular humanists, observable evidence, before they believe something.

My problem is, this is what they claim in their bible- or science-bashing, but, as I observe through my experience of the actual behaviour Bible-alone Christians and secular humanists, they certainly don't believe what they preach, but rely on their own individual mental machinations as the arbiter of truth, which is nothing like what we mean by conscience.

In short, I don't think the trying of 'something else' as an alternative to religion, to which you refer, is actually any better. Yes, all those terrible things happened in the Church's past, but what's been going on since the British Empire, I consider pretty dire and repulsive - and it hasn't been the Catholic Church doing it. The Catholic Church has been fighting it.

How does one explain the photographs of Castel Gondolfo, the Pope's summer residence, showing the place so full of Jews they were sleeping even on the stairs, and anywhere they could find a space, where they were fed and cared for, if Pius XII was a Nazi collaborator? Why the encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge? The only Encyclical published specifically in German, and against the Nazis? (Enter GreyWiz, with some conspiracy theories :) )

I think Catholicism has a good track record overall, and what's more, what it believes is codified. There is nothing of the sort produced by Bible-alone churches or secular humanism, because the mindset of the belief in the absolute, autonomous (self-legislating) powers of the individual's reasoning over that of a tradition, ends up with the individual's own authority set over and above that of scripture, science, community, politics...in fact, everything. Even parents are leaving their kids in front of the TV or looking at porn on the internet in their own bedrooms, whilst they watch Eastenders. The case of Shannon Matthews, whatever else it is, is more a sign of gross neglect than anything else, as is Madeline McCann. If their parents had been with them (as they should have been, considering both situations from which they were abducted), the events wouldn't have happened.

But more importantly, is it the promulgation of the ideas and values of secular humanism which are behind the streets becoming less safe places, or Christian ones?

The Catholic Church has teaching on the family to which I submit and try to live out as I see it as life-giving to children and families.

Secular culture and bible-alone churches do not. Each of these Christians has their own opinion, each politician has their own opinion, and they all clash.

As I said, the Catholic Church has a very clear idea of what is secular and what is sacred.

'Residual religion', like Dr Hay's 'natural religion', is a good starting point, but surely they're not fooled into thinking it actually means or counts for anything. It's pretty tenuous and is merely a rather empty notional assent at best, rather than any real assent.

To claim something as having real meaning, it has to be more than saying one believes in God, or puts 'C of E' when admitted to hospital. This is Theos grasping at straws, for they would be the first to say that 'being Christian' means significantly more than a vague believing in God - and this would have to be extrapolated across all religions because I'm sure none of the other religions, even Buddhism - would accept that claiming to believe something when it has absolutely no motivating influence on one's life, isn't actually a belief, but more an unthinking, knee-jerk response to a question.

Because Catholics can define exactly what we mean by 'Secular' and 'Christian', we can say it is a secular society (which it should be - saeculum), but that it should also be both. What it shouldn't be is a secular humanist society, i.e., Godless society.

Catholics don't make a Christian/secular distinction as both are good and necessary. What isn't good is anything which undermines the Common Good, and replaces it with radical individualism, whether religious or atheistic.

Point taken, Nick.

Sorry, but I was writing simultaneously, and so didn't see yours until I posted.

Will be briefer in future.

Paul Rodden asked yesterday:-

I'd be really interested to know people's beliefs about life after death. Any takers?

It is rather off the topic of secularism but when did THEOS discussion ever worry about that?

My view: It ain't going to happen. When the electrical and bio-chemical activity of your brain ceases, Paul, you will cease to exist as a sentient being. You are going to get old and die. Get used to it. If you want to experience what oblivion is like, think back to your earliest memory, then try to remember what it was like earlier than that. All yor religion is about trying to escape this reality.

Not sure if I dare enter the debate room again! It does seem to have become more of a focus on the validity of Catholicism as opposed to any other part of Christian tradition, rather than a focus on the debate question. I would also like to add to Nick Spencer's plea, ironically ignored by the next comment, to try and keep points more succinct.

I'm not sure what everyone else who is a 'regular', does in the non cyber world but we haven't all got the time to type as much. You can end up being reluctant to respond because there are too many threads to pick up on.

A brief observation - I live in the Netherlands - supposedly more secular(however that be defined) than the UK. And yet more and more media coverage seems to be showing that religious belief is far from dying - one article written by a 'secular'journalist a while back for instance - "Post secular Holland - Christianity is dead, long live Christianity"

Yes, religious beliefs should not be imposed but nor should secular humanistic ones. Again interestingly here, one of the Govt coalition parties is an overtly Christian party and there are Muslim members of the cabinet too. Does this provoke debate of various ethical issues? Of course it does but what is wrong with that? It has to be remembered that such politicians have stood on a faith basis and been voted in. Does this have to be a bad thing necessarily?

I stop, lest this become too lo.....

Nick, the abolition of the slave trade was more than just the reflection of religious values in society. It was the reflection of Enlightenment values as well. And it recognised the humanity of those whose humanity had been until then denied. This was definitely more than just a matter of religious values finding expression in society.

But the main point that religious organisations or bodies have no right to have their values reflected in society is that, no matter whether they have a majority or not, it might just be wrong to limit freedoms in the way demanded. If Jehovah's witnesses managed to get a majority to agree, would it be right to stop blood transfusions for everyone? Or, if Christians in Britain could gang up and rule out homosexuality as a form of defective humanity, or as criminal behaviour, should that be reflected in the law? Or if religious people could convince a majority, because they've achieved it, that severe punishments should be meted out to adulterers, should that be reflected in the law? In all these cases, I don't think so.

If Christian values help with the task of living together in peace and harmony, then, of course, there is no reason not to see them reflected in law. Non-Christians would be able to see that too. However, if there are legitimate grounds for dissent -- such that obvious kinds of harm are not being done to, or illegitimate limitations of freedom are not being imposed on, people by the practices involved -- then there is no reason why majority voices should determine what people should be or how they should act.

I think there are places where religious voices are too clearly expressed now in the way we organise our lives, and those voices should, in fairness to those who differ, be silenced. I think of the proposal to have the call to prayer in Oxford. Well, this might be common in majority Muslim countries, and in countries where public loudspeakers are more common, but it hardly fits in with the rights of those who do not want to hear the Muslim call to prayer several times a day. Muslims have watches and clocks, they don't need someone calling them on a loudspeaker.

I simply do not understand why it should be thought that religions have something that, in themselves, deserve widespread obedience. They are voluntary societies. Much of English law today is represents a retreat from once religious sanctions which have been deemed to be either harsh, intrusive or immoral. Questions having to do with marriage and divorce, and sexuality generally, abortion, homosexuality, blasphemy, unbelief, adultery, not to mention witchcraft, apostasy, and no doubt many others are now dealt with in ways that have no reference to religion at all, but are simply ways of governing common life. There are other things, still largely influenced by the churches, where it would be best if the religious point of view was simply abandoned, at least so far as the law is concerned. Christians and Muslims can go on prescribing for their own people, if they like, but why should it be supposed appropriate that, even if they had a majority, their point of view should be reflected in the way we govern our common life? I simply do not understand.

One problem with the debate is that we are accepting Polly Toynbee's use of 'secularism' as shorthand for 'atheism'. Moreover, she conflates these with 'humanism' too. This should be resisted - the three are very distinct, and should be kept as such.

Secularism has much more to do with 'procedural' issues in an open society than it has to do with the promotion of unbelief. I am all for a secular public realm, as in a multi-faith/no-faith society such as we have and will remain, there must be a common public language of debate that trumps any specific vocabulary of faith. Evangelical atheists can twist this to mean that the voices of faith must be kept to the margins or shut up completely, but that is not justified or intended by the concept of secularism.

Hi seculardemocrat - it was polly who asked the question! I thought the same.

Ian Christie, couldn't agree more. That is precisely what secularism is about, as I have tried to say from time to time. I'm not sure that Polly Toynbee's view is any different, but I haven't paid a lot of attention to her.

Hi andyjv.

You say "It does seem to have become more of a focus on the validity of Catholicism as opposed to any other part of Christian tradition, rather than a focus on the debate question."

What I have been trying to say will seem irrelevant because in most of these debates, there are common philosophical assumptions held by both Protestants and secular humanists, and to which Catholics don't subscribe. It's not about superiority but what are the real differences between Catholics and non-Catholics. It's not doctrine, but an utterly different worldview.

This affects how we see the secular and sacred, and what we'd therefore judge to be such. [See, Charles Morerod, OP, Ecumenism and Philosophy: Philosophical Questions for a Renewal of Dialogue, Sapientia Press, 2006]

We don't reject the secular, we reject relativism. The secular is good.

Therefore, I think it is important to try to show that, what's an important question for Protestants (which leads to a need to proselytise the 'darkness'), and 'Toynbean' secular humanism (which leads to a need of a 'programmatic' extinction of religion), isn't relevant to Catholics. Both sides are trying to undermine each other, whilst Catholics are asking whether there's any mileage in the relativistic presuppositions of both camps.

For Theos, the question seems to be secular vs. sacred - some individuals have truth, other's don't. For us, it's authoritative truth vs. relative truth, i.e., the value of commonly held communal truth vs. individual truth. Private truths and revelations are judged with utmost care by us because 'n-heads are better than one'.

Paul, I'm sorry, you have misunderstood. It is not a question of relativism vs. authoritative truth. There is no such thing as authoritative truth. Period. You may submit yourself to something that someone or some organisation calls the truth, but that doesn't make it so.

But it doesn't follow that all we're left with is relativism. We are left with ways of supporting and confirming statements or claims. If I tell you that soaking your feet in hot water will cure cancer, you can check it out. If I tell you that such and such a drug at such and such dosages may be able to retard the progress of, or even, in some cases, to cure your cancer (given some clear understanding of what that might mean), then you can check it out. But if n-heads tell you that astrology works for them, you would say, well, there must be something in it; after all, n-heads have claimed to believe it is so for them.

It just doesn't work that way. And that's where religion is left out on a limb, vigorously sawing off behind them. Just saying that Jesus rose from the dead (next Sunday being Easter), doesn't mean a thing. Millions of people celebrating it next Sunday won't make it true either. The only thing that would make it true is that, first, we have some idea what we're affirming, and, second, that what we're affirming actually happened. Prove it to me before next Sunday, and I'll go to my nearest church and affirm that Jesus is risen. But even, then, as you know, to make the celebration of Jesus' resurrection a requirement of every adult citizen of Britain, you'll have to go further than that, you'll have to explain what difference it makes. And that's the more difficult part!

Just as an addendum. Secularism assumes a certain degree of practical relativism. We permit people to make up their own minds, even when they're wrong. And we don't affirm anything, other than the conditions necessary to get along with reasonable peacefulness, as required of anyone. So, I assume, this kind of secularism would not be acceptable to Catholics. They would want to say, at certain points, as they do, that this is not acceptable. They've done it quite often. What is the secular that you do ot reject?

"We permit people to make up their own minds, even when they're wrong". Grey wizard, you're confused. That's called liberalism, which is a different thing to secularism. Hope that helps.

Greywizard, I agree that in a free society that people should be allowed to make up their minds, even where we disagree. I don't believe that is just a 'secular'value, I also believe that is something that should flow from a Christian understanding of others.

As someone whose 'job'is helping others consider the relevance of Christian faith to their lives, I agree with you, claims such as the resurrection, not only need to be presented for people to fully examine, but also the 'so what?'element also needs to be given an answer.

In focusing on the resurrection, you are absolutely and rightly touching on the lynchpin of Christian faith. If Christ never rose, the whole thing is at best misguided and to a degree essentially nonsense. Even as Paul (the New Testament one!) wrote, "If Christ be not raised, then we of all people are most to be pitied"

Can I ask, what causes you to reject the resurrection as being true?

Hope in asking that, this does not go too far off the original point of this discussion.

andyjv. I asked first, and, surely, the burden of proof is on the person who claims that such an extraordinary thing happened. There is no credible (and consistent) evidence that I know that it did. It is an affirmation of faith.

blatherisfree. So is belief. Secularism and liberalism are not identical, but they share some common features. Freedom of belief is one of them.

People can and do use any word to mean (or obscure, in Rowan Williams's case) anything they like. But it doesn't help clarity if the staff of Theos bang on using 'secular' as a woolly synonym for 'irreligious'. Plainly, many people in the UK are religious. They believe in all manner of weird gods, from Jesus to Allah to Rasta to Padre Pio.

As a precise term in politics and philosophy, secular, of a state, means 'not controlled by any particular one of the warring sects of the warring religions'. Sensible Roman catholics (for instance) are therefore secularists in this precise sense. England (as opposed to Wales and Scotland) is an interesting case, because on paper the state is controlled by the Church of England, but in practice the state is almost secular. (Compare, for example, France, where all religions are explicitly excluded from the state; and notoriously, the USA which is secular on paper, but to be elected, politicians have to appear nauseatingly religiose.)

The opposite of a secular state is a theocracy. All historical examples of theocracies, and current examples such as Saudi Arabia, have brought only misery.

Just for clarity, the difference is, that in a secular state, laws are enacted or repealed according to their verifiable effects in the known world. In a theocracy, laws are enacted, or not, because someone in a funny hat claims his god wants them, or not.

Welcome back, Nicholas!

I agree with the sentiments of your 'someone in a funny hat', but that is taken from the funeral of John Paul II, so I would consider it not in the best of taste.

I have a friend who is atheist - so much so - that he collected his mother's body in a van from the hospital in a cardboard coffin. Needless to say, he didn't just take it to the landfill, but spent almost a week trying to find someone to deal with the body in some dignified manner.

Why does the National Secular Society have all that pseudo-religious hocus-pocus to replace religious ceremonies? Why not just provide a furnace in which to chuck dead relatives and then grind the bones for fertilizer?

Maybe there's not a lot of religion about, but atheists seem to have no shortage of sentimentalism. People are really (essentially) valuable, or they are not. It seems to me that secular humanism can't make up it's mind. Sentimental adverts about starving babies in Ethiopia one minute, the rights of women to abort babies the next.

What I am looking for is coherence, and what I mean by 'relativism' is incoherence. Tradition is the way one stabilises and creates coherence. Tradition is the way one benefits from the wisdom of the past.

Therefore, pace Nick Spencer, I think Christian/secular is a false distinction. 'Christian' and 'secular' can be atomistic and ahistorical, or they can be communitarian and historical.

Catholicism, Anglicanism, the Lords, Parliament, and the judiciary have a lot in common. However, there is a movement within society which is aiming to undermine not only the religious elements, but any form of non-atomistic, historico-traditional institution in society. It's the assumption of business - that so-called 'change' is an inexorable movement that we can have no influence over. We can, and we have to look closely as to whose interests this utterly fallacious belief benefits.

This is what worries me, and there are forms of Christianity and secular humanism which have this as their agenda.

When in dream or in a dreamlike state of mind

one comes face to face with one’s ancestors,

the idea of joining them is, I believe, gradually conveyed,

activating the mind’s faculty for myth-making,

in order to throw light on the mystery of existence.

Sir James Frazer in The Golden Bough

- A History of Myth and Religion

Secularism as a political – cultural - religious notion appears to be a phenomenon best seen in countries with a history of Empire. Turkey, Britain, Holland, Spain, France, Portugal, are nations that brought their political, economic, social, educational and religious institutions to countries that had their own.

Now with an attitude of visiting parent institutions people from the far-flung reaches of each of those empires come and expect to connect with them for the functional organisation of their lives.

They do not come empty-handed, for they do not expect to find that unique inner faith which guides a person’s life, - the one of which Moses Maimonides speaks -, they bring it with them.

And they are right, for the existential link to a transcendental dimension, also known as religion, that creates a family, a clan, a tribe, a congregation and even a nation, is as far as ‘nation’ is concerned no longer there, it got lost in the Empire.

The sustaining beliefs, - mentioned in an inquiry held in Britain about people’s religiosity as having taken the place of institutional Religion -, are those rooted in an existential fear, generated in what Jean-Paul Sartre called the God-shaped hole in the human consciousness.

This fear is one, - usually called irrational -, analysed and described by Sociology Professor Frank Furedi in his books. The latest is Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown.

Furedi presented his ideas in a Forum discussion in Amsterdam, one of a 4-day series of what is called Winternachten, - held in January of this year -, at which writers from Turkey, Britain, Arab and other Middle Eastern countries, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, South Africa, Suriname, Indonesia, Netherlands and Flanders together with poets and musicians were invited to express their ideas and images on the subject of ‘Fear’.

Winternight is the English title of one of the more disconsolate of Ingmar Bergman’s films.

Presumably for each of these intellectuals “Fear” is not what their own spiritual life is about, it is merely something they observed, thought and wrote about, and presented in the centre of an erstwhile Empire, known for its cultural hospitality and commercial enterprise.

Now it has also caught the ‘fear for immigrants’, into which I gained some insight when it began to affect our family relations across the continental divide, relations which had already suffered from an attitude encouraged by Church-imposed sanctions on some of its members for the exercise of their human freedoms.

The writers at Winternachten would probably be willing to share their own existential link to a transcendental dimension with their audience, if it was asked for and accepted. The fact that it is not is now on a communal level the problem of the Temple, the Church and the Mosque, which took the road to an Empire of Doctrine and Law, where they lost sight of the revealing image that had given them the mystical link for creating communal coherence.

The world, in which the ancient mythic land and the people’s existential link to it was seen and where the history of Religion had its beginning, has as the human habitat been covered by a global infrastructure built with the means of air transport and cyber communication. This has obscured and tried to replace the mystical existential link, - after it lost its place in human consciousness -, with logistically constructed domains and our claims to them.

The experience of being connected to one’s world has been turned over to business to become an asset for the commerce of tourism, where it survives as an individually acquired slant on life, evangelised by the advertising media, guided by interacting economic and political interests and subject to their failures.

Events in the Africa of the ‘mystique d’Afrique’, to which many ‘homecomers’ have succumbed, bring me to an insight that it is in the social-economic-political crisis called globalisation, - mooted as the root cause of existential fear -, that we can find the link anchoring our existence by answering the ‘Cosmic Question’ it puts to us.

For an ‘Answer’ that can be an existential link the idea can come out of the truth generated in the structuring of the interaction by which men, women and children form a community, a way of life that has been ours in one cultural form or another since the beginning of humanity and its values.

The strategy for survival there in the present and the future, - traditionally known as the customs of the tribe -, are now taking the shape of finding political solutions for structuring society and make it a true community. They are those that at the beginning of this year snatched Kenya from the jaws of tribal warfare, which would have destroyed it as a nation, a process in which is restored what was lost in the empires that invited Terror.

The social, economic and political structures for living and functioning have, I believe, to be crafted with this strategic insight that arises from the depths of the mind, where it touches the terror and compassion of our questioning Cosmos as it surrounds us in the smallest biological and largest social-political and out to infinite cosmic of the concentric circles of life.

It is there that we can come face to face with our ancestors and conceive the idea that we shall join them, which gradually activates the mind’s faculty for myth-making, in order to throw some light on the mystery of existence so that we can understand and accept to live with it and let it transcend the course of globalisation and direct it towards planetary community building.

Yes welcome back Nicholas and thanks for helping to crystallise the discussion.

Let me challenge your assertion that in a secular state laws are determined according to their "verifiable" effect. Not necesssarily. They may also be passed because of demagogery or because of dogma.

I fully agree that with you that "theocracy" - in the sense of rule by religious leaders - is a disastrous proposition. However I think we have to look for a more pluralist form of society, especially in a situation where the state controls 40-50 per cent of the economy, including education and health services. You cannot simply exclude religious views on education, social services and medical ethics by declaring that taxes must be spent in a "secular" way.

As things stand I think we've got a fairly good constitutional mix in this country in terms of pluralism. Where we do have a problem is the divide between population's declared affiliation to Christianity and general understanding of the faith. Toynbee's point I suspect is that in the "public square" religious talk tends to be frowned upon. So it gets left to the bishops in their funny robes and the occasional other religious leader. And the symbolism of this is often as significant as what is said - so the public believe we are a Christian country because we allow bishops to speak on public policy. So government ministers who have ethical objections to policy are simply told to stay away - to abstain.

The reality is that even in the best of possible worlds political decisions often cannot be made on a "rational" basis. The facts don't exist or are open to interpretation. Both politicians and the electorate have to make judgements - and indeed the basis of British democracy is that the electorate selects those representatives whom it most trusts to make the right judgements. Part of what's needed is for the electorate to get more subtle - and to be enabled to be more subtle - about those choices.

Okay, I'm going to express my sense of being offended.

Paul Rodden, first of all you take offence at someone speaking about someone in a funny hat. People were talking about people in funny hats a long time before John Paul II, from the year dot, I should think. Imagine, being offended at such a thing. Bishops are people who go around in funny hats. So?

But second, you go on, rather inconequently, to say, "Why does the National Secular Society have all that pseudo-religious hocus-pocus to replace religious ceremonies? Why not just provide a furnace in which to chuck dead relatives and then grind the bones for fertilizer?" That is the most offensive thing that I have read on this site.

My wife died last year, and we had a beautiful time of remembrance, when we remembered her life, her zest for life, her creativity, and celebrated what we had lost. And we did it without any prayers or supplications. No pretence about bodies rising from the grave. It was beautiful and tender and true, so if you want to grind up your relatives, go ahead, but don't make such offensive suggestions here, at least not without expecting a comeback.

This is precisely the thing that we avoid in a secular society. We don't have religious people spelling out how everything should be done, whether birthing or dying. We don't have the intrusiveness of religion in people's lives, unless that is what they choose to have. We don't have, or shouldn't have religions trying to say what can or should be taught in schools, and every child should have the opportunity to learn fully about the religion of their parents as well as the religion or otherwise of others. They should be able to read about why people believe, and why they don't, and be able to make up their own minds without indoctrination.

Having said all that, let me welcome Nicholas back too. It's nice to hear the clear voice of reason that we had come to know so well.

Andyjv - May I pick up on your comment " . . . As someone whose job is helping others consider the relevance of Christian faith to their lives . . ."

Is this actually your paid employment, as opposed to something like the Jehovah's Witnesses voluntary pioneer work? I can understand this in the form of working for a specifically Christian charity or a commissar at a faith school - but I must confess I can't see why an ordinary employer would have a need for such a role in his or her organisation.

No need to answer if you feel this an invasion of privacy - I am merely curious - I have colleagues who organise Christian fellowship meetings within the workplace but on a purely on a voluntary basis.

Greywizard, I simply wanted to say two things.

Firstly I am sorry about the death of your wife last year, I am sure that you still greatly miss her. Secondly, I apologise for not answering your point on the resurrection issue being in my court not yours. I tried logging on to reply but I just could not get on to write a message. Such are the joys of technology!I see that the discussion has moved on so I am not going to bang on about it now - I appreciate you may have read books like it, but I found Frank Morrison's "Who moved the stone?" a helpful starting point.

Nicholas, I also agree from all kinds of historical examples, that so called 'theocracy' has not worked out for good. Especially as all too often, it is more the use of religious dictates by a few to wield power over others.

At the same time, I believe JonHunt makes a good point - a pluralistic society does not mean that religious views should be silenced nor are such views necessarily less valid than so called 'secular'ones.

I know the debate will rumble on but I have to bow out, as it is going to be a busy weekend - I am one of those strange beings who is a believer in Christ and also a church leader. But whatever you view on such things, I wish you a peaceful Easter weekend.

Oh, gosh, andyjv, let me say, without meaning to offend, that I read that book, well, it must be nearly fifty years ago! I didn't find it convincing then, even though, at that time, I was a Christian.

But, don't apologize for not responding, or not being able to. And I understand, having been a Christian, how busy Holy Week and Easter can be. I just wonder, now, what the fuss was all about.

Of course, religious voices should not be silenced. I hope no one thinks that. The whole point about freedom is that any voice can be heard, even the most offensive -- though you have to expect a reply! And the word 'secular', as Nicholas has reminded us, is not about religion or irreligion, but that no -- how shall I put it? -- ideological voice will be given preference in public decisions and policy.

Having said that, I do wish Christians a very joyful Easter. I can't share the story or the joy, but I know what the story says.

Sorry if you chose to take offence, GreyWiz, but you're the only one who's ever offended, and never cause offence. You're always the only one who's reasonable. We're the unreasonable, stupid, ones.

You know I wasn't making any such suggestion. I was asking a perfectly reasonable (rhetorical) question, and not suggesting anything.

If you'd asked it, and I took offence, you would have mocked me as being too sensitive, or stupid, for not seeing it was a rhetorical question.

Science and reason can't tell you the intrinsic worth and value of a human person, that has to come from somewhere else. If they're merely neurons firing or chemical reactions in the brain, as well as any associated feelings and emotions, why should a secular humanist, accord them with meaning? If they have a purpose, then what is it? If they're just part of our 'survival instinct', any animal has them, so either we should become vegans, or we should be able to butcher people just like animals, to put is in stark contrast. Whatever, without a coherent or accepted view of the nature of the human person, it's back to the well-known Fred Astaire song: pot-ay-toes or pot-ah-toes?

You mention your wife, yet recently, you also said, "Paul doesn't think, apparently, that it is an offence against human dignity to refuse a twelve year old girl, pregnant by her father (or perhaps her priest), to get an abortion. This is simply monstrous."

To which I replied but, of course, I shouldn't have been offended by this. We Christians are always the monsters, the bigots, the emotivists, the stupid ones.

It's not worth me talking about the psychological damage abortion can have on people because you'd just ridicule the research as distorted by religious fanatics, or by some other such non-scientific nonsense, because you just want to discredit us at every turn.

Of course, me thinking abortion horrific, no doubt, is in the same league as 'silly pointy hats'. (Of course, now I've vocalised it, and you didn't get in first, you'll say I've got you wrong, or something similar.)

So, I'm not questioning your feelings, in fact they support my point: "People are really (essentially) valuable, or they are not. It seems to me that secular humanism can't make up it's mind."

I presume you would put your wife in the first category, but the aborted baby of the twelve year-old, in the second. In other words, some humans have value, other's don't in your reasoning. This is what I mean by incoherence: an 'Animal Farm' mentality of persons.

Catholic doctrine holds that all life is valuable, 'from conception to natural death', as we put it. Therefore, there is no incoherence in our position. We don't hold only 'near-and-dear' as having intrinsic value, but all human persons.

"This is precisely the thing that we avoid in a secular society.", is a phrase I could use of many of your 'suggestions', too.

Dear Greywizard, Paul Rodden (and anyone else)

I have no wish to interject in what is obviously a very animated and increasingly personal discussion, but our administrator has had to remove Greywizard's last post.

That is simply because it had the F word in it, which we prefer not to put on the site (not because it is abhorent but because it may offend some and might encourage others to do the same)

Because we cannot edit people's comments, we've had to remove the whole post.

Apologies for the inconvenience, Greywizard, but would you mind reposting your comment (but without that word).

Incidentally, we won't remove posts that are personal but would obviously prefer if the debate were conducted in as civil a manner as possible.

Best wishes

Nick

This country may (or may not) prefer secular democracy but Ms. Toynbee is quite wrong if she believes the Establishment and government of this nation is secular. The Theos "Easter" poll tables (which I managed to download before they mysteriously vanished) show 23% are prepared to state that they are atheist and about 25% declare themselves to be agnostic. Without some technical information it is not without risk to project these results to the population of Britain. Theos does this with gay abandon as it cherry picks the tables.. but never discourage the religious from considering real evidence... it make a refreshing change. So, following the Theos lead, that makes the adult atheist and agnostic population of Britain about 22 million. More than 20 million adults are being ignored by this government when it consults “faith” groups about policy, education and other public services. Secular democracy... I think not!

seculardemocrat. The Theos "Easter" poll tables are still on the website and shall remain so. ComRes interviewed 1107 GB adults online between 22 and 24 February 2008. Data were weighted to be representative demographically of all GB adults. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Theos has an open publication policy of its research and is committed to transparency and openness. Clearly, like all polls, they are open to interpretation.

No, I won't repost it. It was written in a fit of pique. It's just as well off. I guess I just got a bit fed up with Paul Rodden going on about the wonders of Roman Catholicism, and then questioning the humanity of everyone else. But of course that's what you get when you get religious bigots (yes, that's what I mean). They pretend to care about people, but they care far more about beliefs. I won't respond to the man again. He doesn't deserve one. He writes as though he's a walking version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, trashes protestants, and has no respect for anyone else. Ich habe mehr als genug gehört.

Jon Hunt: Yes, I was wrong to assert that secular legislatures rely only on evidence; I agree that legislation driven by headlines in the Daily Mail (etc) also occurs. What I reject, utterly, is the value of any argument based on an alleged supernatural source. And I hope I would still do so, even if I believed I had some inkling of the wishes of some supernatural source.

There are two reasons for that, one practical, and one moral.

The practical reason is that there are dozens of claimed supernatural sources, and legislators have no way of knowing which is authentic.

The moral reason was famously articulated by Plato, long ago; and I despair to see the Great Lie, that any religion can provide any basis for any law or moral precept, still trotted out so mindlessly and frequently today.

If there are reasons for a proposed law, let them be stated and debated. If on the other hand the law is just the whim of a god, the god is a bully, who deserves our defiance and contempt.

GreywizardYour posts have, again, moved me to cheers and tears. Please be sad as much as you need to, but may you also find some moments of joy.

For those who now have an interest in statistics, take a look at the graph in this article. The US is an interesting outlier but the relationship is pretty obvious... although beware of confusing correlation with causation.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/secularism

"Beware of confusing correlation with causation..."

Indeed, and I have in front of me a 1938 copy of RH Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism.

The question is UK Christian or Secular?

And I have been trying to answer it.

'Christian': Where is the 'definitive' definition?

'Secular': Where is the 'definitive' definition?

So how can we judge? There are Christians who hold that everyone's a form of Christian and everyone's going to heaven, to those at another extreme.

Non-Christians in this forum have said one can easily be secular and Christian and there's no real problem with this (and I would agree). Others would think there needs to be a distinction made.

Catholic: Where is the 'definitive' definition? In the teaching of the magisterium and the catechism.

I can be a walking catechism, not because I'm a bigot, but simply because my Church has one.

So, James Schall SJ, whom I quoted in the last discussion in relation to the nature of the person is in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church, whereas Dr Hay's view was far less so, and an orthodox Catholic academic institution, like Maryvale, for example, might have problems with him if he was teaching students what he was saying in his replies (as some secular humanists are, claiming Christianity or religion has no place in the curriculum).

The point of my question about just throwing the dead on furnaces was to show (in the context of what else I had said in the previous part of that post) that secular humanists and Christians hold a lot in common, including quasi, if not pseudo-religious ceremonies. So, where was the difference in the context of the vague 'belief in God' in the stats. Nick Spencer was giving, if some secularists also need these ceremonies? No offence was intended, but clearly offence was taken.

What is so wrong with having a shared, corporate view of truth? What's wrong with having dogma and tradition if it is the cement which holds your community together - a shared set of common understandings? Surely this enhances community rather than destroys it, and leads to more solidarity than division?

Contrary to what's been said above, I'm not Protestant-bashing. As I've said before, there is work going on within Protestantism where they are asking questions about Christian identity, the role of philosophy, tradition, etc., and looking at Catholicism. I have read 36 books written by evangelical protestants in the past year, and they are outstanding. Not because they agree with my view, but because they're grappling with the real problems sola scriptura has in (post-)modernity and how it simply doesn't address, and cannot dialogue with, the concerns of 'secularism' and relativism. That's why I talk about 'proof-text' dogfighting.

It's like that scene in Indiana Jones and the whirling dervish in Raiders of the lost ark. The dervish swirls his scimitar around ornately and when Indiana Jones gets bored, he just pulls out his pistol, shoots the dervish, and walks off. This is what most people do to 'bible-alone' Christians. There's no place of fruitful engagement. They are talking utterly at cross-purposes.

I am keen on the dialogue, but syncretism and false irenicism - which has been the hallmark of so much supposedly ecumenical dialogue, especially ARCIC, has had it's day, and both thinking Evangelicals and Catholics don't want to deny their differences, but really want to grapple with them.

Despite what anyone else thinks, Catholicism is built on a 'rock' - Peter - and this has all sorts of benefits when surrounded by the sand of relativism.

Catholics know who they are and what they believe, and if they don't, they know where to find it. We are of 'one voice'.

That is why I think the real divide isn't one of Christian/secular, but solid, clearly defined corporate belief and identity, versus shifting, atomistic belief and identity.

Christian or Secular?

Must it really be one or the other? (Are the other religions not even on the table?) Does anyone have a worst case scenario for either?

Slightly off topic - I have just been listening to Radio 4s " Any Answers" where one of the callers responding to the debate on embryo research made the interesting point that should there be a free (or Catholic whip, if you like ) vote - will the "noes" decline treatment for medical conditions resulting from stem cell research on hybrid embryos in years to come? With regard to current Theos debate asking what exactly does the church population believe - we all know that the Jehovah's Witnesses reject blood products, according to them because of biblical instruction - yet the other 95% or so of Christians feel they need not obey it - indeed I believe there are a couple of cases (in extremis) where minors have been given blood whether their witness parents like it or not. Who must we believe on matters like this? Are the JWs wrong because they are just a small percentage - or is everyone else marching out of step? Just as a matter of interest, can you fill us in, Paul on why the Catholic church does not view blood products in the same way as embryo research? Same Q to others representing their churches.

Funnily enough, scarthin nick, I was just about to quote this from the BBC website today:

The government faces mounting dissent over controversial embryo laws after the Archbishop of Cardiff joined calls for a free vote on the legislation.

He joins other leading Catholics and Catholic MPs demanding to be allowed to vote in line with their conscience.

We're constantly accused of controlling, dictating, following like lemmings...yet ours is the only church making formal statements about freedom of speech: a freedom which clearly the 'secular' government doesn't want.

As to JWs, we believe scripture is totally inerrant because it is the Word of God, and that Scripture has a literal, spiritual, and analogical meaning, but 'literal' is not the same as literalism (i.e., every 'verse' can stand by it's own de-contextualised self, noting that scripture wasn't broken into chapters and verses when it was written!).

There are plenty of other non-Catholics who would hold to our meaning of 'literal', and the latter view, of 'literalism' could broadly be called 'fundamentalism' in its normal usage, as opposed to its technical one.

That said, Catholics who believe in our Church, with all its warts, are fundamentally 'pro-life', and we believe scripture is too, when held together in its entirety.

Apart from the theological issues, our issue is that it is arrogant to assert we can know, categorically, when the person becomes sentient or 'valuable', and so every conception has the potential to be a person. Therefore, to give that life the benefit of the doubt, they should not be deprived of that potentiality to actualise themselves. In the same way, because a person has dementia or is disabled and unable to communicate, we cannot assume they are not merely 'trapped in their bodies', and that the integrity of their personhood could be other to any outward manifestation. Therefore, ALL human life, potential or actual, is valuable, whatever state it's in.

Blood transfusions save life, and a person doesn't have to be destroyed to donate it, therefore, we don't have an issue with it is is good, as are organ donations. The things we are against are organ farming, taking organs against/without consent, or anything where the person is being treated as an object, or under duress, from a commercial or any other expedient (i.e., utilitarian) motive.

Your question is interesting, because I can tell you what we believe, however, will any other Christian be able to refer to a definitive view, apart from their own reading of scripture?

Paradoxically, Jehovah's Witnesses are closer to us in their homogeneous nature as having a strong community and identity, which showed in the same self-sacrificing behaviour as Catholics in the Nazi gas chambers. When one feels part of something bigger than oneself, both chronologically and temporally, the desire to survive on the individual level isn't so great.

I know, Paul, that I said that I would not answer you again, since you did not deserve one. But really, does this nonsense not deserve some response?

"That said, Catholics who believe in our Church, with all its warts, are fundamentally 'pro-life', and we believe scripture is too, when held together in its entirety."

'Held together in its entirety.' (Notice carefully -- 'all the warts' -- no matter how bad things really are.) Are you just dreaming, or making something up? What does it take to bring one or two thousand years of text together in its entirety? It really does beggar imagination, how you, and no doubt others, think you are being true to a text that has evolved over hundreds (or even thousands -- take your pick) of years. It's like trying to make sense of a whole period of English literature. Did you ever try to make Swift and Pope consist with each other?

You, however, are so bold as to tell us what 'we' believe. What a wonderful confidence! You should be proud on the eve of Easter to be able to say with such assurance, that all those gathered with you tomorrow morning can say, without equivocation, "Christ is risen!" What, I wonder, does this really mean? No one will be able to refer to a definitive review, no matter how many documents you can point to, because what people mean when they say something is not located in texts, but in minds, thank goodness.

Bless your heart. "ALL human life, potential or actual, is valuable, whatever state it's in." It's nice to know. All those sperm, ready to be deposited in some willing female, are surely potential human life -- isn't that what sperm are? (Remember Beyond the Fringe's "Every sperm is sacred'?)-- no wonder catholics condemn maturbation (although, what about female masturbation? -- since it doesn't waste any potential at all?)-- wow! what a wonder! Let's go celebrate the fecudity of male sperm! Potential for human life, after all! Sacred and Holy! Christ is risen! (After all. I'm tempted to use the 'f' word.)

And, of course, if this doesn't move you, you can always rest content in the fact that you feel yourself a part of something bigger than yourself (I felt that in the navy. Does that count?). Don't worry, if you drop dead tomorrow, after all, surviving as an individual isn't that great.

Am I really responding to such rubbish?!

I do feel that I have to offer an apology both to Paul Rodden and the group. I don't mean to be mean spirited. My problem is that I find Paul's posts completely off the wall. Is this only my problem>? It it is, I'll slink away into the gathering gloom.

Is it really nonsense, Greywizard?

I agree, what I am saying is very different from accepted views in society, even among non-Catholic Christians.

But you knock everything apart from my main points.

Do you not think we (i.e., Catholics, just to be clear!) are right in thinking MPs should be entitled to vote according to their conscience? Do you not think that tradition is what holds society together, or do you think that tradition should be abolished? What I am arguing for is something similar to what someone who assents to the importance of monarchy, the Lords, Parliament, the judiciary would argue for a stable society.

Greywiz, I want your argument against my position, not just ridicule.

In short, as I've said, I think the distinction's wrong. Christian/secular isn't a correct distinction because I see them as very similar.

I think the UK is becoming anti-religious, but also anti-establishment altogether, and this is my concern because there are 'anti-establishment' views in both the Christian and non-Christian spheres.

One can have an 'establishment' (tradition) without religion. It's a tradition based on agreed protocols, manners, etiquette, etc., but it is shared and commonly understood, like driving on the left (in England). I'm perfectly happy with that, as long as it doesn't want to quash my belief, as I'll not impose mine.

What we have today is people who use mobile phones while driving, break speed limits, smoke where they shouldn't, etc.. It's utterly petty, but it's a way of imposing self against 'the establishment', a way of stamping one's identity on the world. It's more like the behaviour of disobedient kids, having a cigarette behind the bike-sheds, getting a little thrill 'because it's naughty', than anything adult or mature.

A lot of Christianity and secularism are tinged with this narcissistic, antinomian, make-your-own-rules-as-you-go-along thinking. Society is fragmenting, certain churches are fragmenting.

Does the centre hold? And if it does, what are the elements which enable and assist this?

I think the distinction is between those elements which assist, strengthen, and enable stability and community, and those which destroy, fragment and weaken stability and community. I want to argue for what creates a stable nation, not one that's just Christian, or just secular for the sake of them being so.

I'm not arguing for Catholicism, I'm arguing for a Zeitgeist and culture which is the same as the Catholic one. At the English Reformation, it might have kicked out Catholicism as a religious practice, but all the benefits in terms of it's culture in relation to the state, were continued without any question - and the vestiges are to be found still in the institutions I mentioned.

As Nick Spencer says, 'If you have worked out that these figures don't add up, you would be right. Some people are very confused, not least atheists.'

I'm trying to find a demarcation between what exacerbates this confusion, and what reduces it as being the thing which defines 'UK', not a load of atomistic individuals all following their own 'beardie-weirdie'.

If this is off the wall, or so 'off topic', then so be it, but I think it's relevant.

GreyWiz, as I've said in previous debates, you think nothing or ridiculing my views, or whether your comments are likely to offend me, like your comments on masturbation ('Every Sperm is Sacred' was by Monty Python, in 'The Meaning of Life', BTW)

Unlike you, I'm unlikely to take offence at anything said here as it's so likely to happen in such an open discussion about important things, that I'm able to keep it at arm's length. One minute Christians are weak mamby-pambies, the next, bigots and mass-murders, which is it going to be, GreyWiz? :)

Gawd bless ya, this Easter, GreyWiz!

You're right, Paul, I really went over the edge. As I said, I shouldn't respond to what you say. For some reason, it gets my dander up. I simply think you're wrong, and you express it in a fairly 'in your face' sort of way. Take the following:

"I'm not arguing for Catholicism, I'm arguing for a Zeitgeist and culture which is the same as the Catholic one. At the English Reformation, it might have kicked out Catholicism as a religious practice, but all the benefits in terms of it's culture in relation to the state, were continued without any question..."

This, it seems to me, is simply wrong. There is no evidence that catholicism was what led, in the end, to what might be called, the freedom of Englishmen. In fact, given the history of catholicism on the continent, this is precisely what it would not have led to. But these historical connexions are too tenuous to be arguing about. In fact, as I've suggested, the claim only merits contempt, in my view, and I can't for the life of me see why anyone would claim such a thing, as though the reformation, the scientific revolution, and the enlightenment hadn't come in between somewhere.

You may be right about the breakdown of British society. The examples you pick out are fairly trivial, so it's hard to say. I don't know whether these simply offences are in any sense meant to thumb their noses at the establishement (whatever that might be). Supposing that it is plausible, historically, or contemporaneously, to introduce a Zeitgeist which is (as it happens) identical with the catholic one, is a fairly big stretch, especially with all the different religions claiming a piece of the British pie.

I disagree intensely that secularism is the product of catholicism. Of course, the secular world in the middle ages consisted of all those things which were not of the church, not clerical. But, in the contemporary world, the secular is not simply that, it is the context in which all people, whatever their private beliefs about the composition of or the rule of the universe, get to join together to plot ways of living together.

Yes, you're right, I will ridicule your views, if they can be expressed (and you're right -- I show my age -- it was Monty Python) in the words of the famous song, 'Every sperm is sacred.' I didn't mention masturbation, by the way, though a famous Canadian catholic ethicist did say that any ethic that denied the fact that most boys (or men) at some point masturbated was, to that extent, inevitably deficient. (I believe, in the end, he was suspended as a catholic teacher, but, you know, he said it long before the suspension came. It was only when he added his opinion that homosexuality was not a defect that he was suspended, as I recall.)

What kind of argument would you like to hear 'against' your position? I don't know of any argument in favour. That's my problem. When the catholic church says that homosexuality is defectively human (you can correct the language if you like), what argument would you like to hear against it? That it is normal in every known human population? That it is common in the animal world? What would satisfy you? That 95% of men admit to having masturbated at some point in their lives, and that the other 5% are liars? What argument would satisfy you?

Should catholic politicians be allowed to vote their conscience? Is that the question? Well, yes, if they think they are bound to do so. But when they have bishops or popes urging them from the sidelines, I'm not so sure. If I vote for someone, I expect they will represent faithfully the consituency they represent, and vote as their consciences determine, but I don't expect that they'll have someone urging them to vote a particular way or face excommunication if they don't.

Well. My message must have gone beyond the paramters of this site. It just posted itself. I'll leave it at that.

If the administrator will forbear, just to follow up my slightly off-topic comments of yesterday - I hear on the news this morning that Gordon Broon is likely to give MPs a free vote on the embryo research issue - once he is satisfied he will win the vote regardless. So whilst the Government is plainly going to ignore any objections to this research it nevertheless feels the need, for the wider purposes of the Great Game, to play lip-service to the Church even though it is transparent - rather like the resigned "Yes, Dear" of a bickering married couple. Is it time acknowledge that Church and State really is, for the most part, a marriage of convenience? Hmm . . . let no man put asunder?

"Yes, you're right, I will ridicule your views, if they can be expressed (and you're right -- I show my age -- it was Monty Python) in the words of the famous song, 'Every sperm is sacred.'"

That sums it up, GreyWiz. I thought secularism wanted to show Christianity up for being unreasonable when you don't practice what you preach - which I've said at other points in our discussions. You might be better read and knowledgeable than me, but you don't need to ram it down my throat in such a patronising way. But I'm not going to flounce off and lick my wounds, it's par for the course in here.

When you were a Christian, GreyWiz, were you plotting to blow up people, destroy people's lives, believe you were dumb and stupid believing it? Unlikely. You were probably trying to consider other people before yourself, love them, etc.. You tried, however falteringly, 'to walk the talk'.

If you weren't, and instead you were actively and aggressively proselytising to convert - with no thought for your 'victims' dignity and freedom - and you left that sort of Christianity, then we're both agreed that sort of Christianity is vile, and deficient. My worry would be if you left that sort of Christianity for other reasons, but just changed from aggressively proselytising as a Christian to aggressively proselytising as a secular humanist/atheist.

But, that sort of Christianity is the atomistic, individualistic, bible-alone sort which characterises that sort of secular humanism which is abhorrent and aggressive.

That is why I draw the line in that direction and not in Nick Spencer's.

"I disagree intensely that secularism is the product of Catholicism." So do I, as I didn't say that.

"This, it seems to me, is simply wrong. There is no evidence that Catholicism was what led, in the end, to what might be called, the freedom of Englishmen." I didn't say that either. Despite that, your argument is: "This, it seems to me, is simply wrong." So, not much evidence to the contrary there!

GreyWiz, I think it's more a case of you can't be bothered. That's OK, but please don't bother, rather than patronise me, constantly trying to show how stupid I am, with your little intellectual flourishes:

"Am I really responding to such rubbish?"...

"Ich habe mehr als genug gehört." Eh?

Good tradition is a way of carrying forward what's good and keeps the structure together, but simultaneously remembering the past in order not to repeat the mistakes.

I'm a Christian (which is debatable to some, being Catholic), who's trying to live a good life (and for those who think that's wrong, we do believe it is through grace alone, but we don't believe one should sit there waiting for the puppeteer to pull the strings. We believe grace is co-operative). I'm not a suicide bomber, planning the next Crusade, or warming up for the next Inquisition... All I'm doing is trying to defend myself against someone who's constantly calling me stupid, and make points or critiques from an alternative perspective.

DH Williams, whom I've mentioned, has written two books on Tradition, and is scathing about 'Bible-alone' (in the way i'm using it) Christianity. He's a Baptist, and his books are published by recognised Evangelical academic publishing houses. I don't hit Evangelicalism 'from without', but I'm using it's own critiques of itself. JP Moreland, Mark Noll, James Sire, Harry Blamires, William Craig Lane, Os Guinness, to name but a few, are doing a similar thing in relation to 'headless chicken' Evangelicalism.

Other key people, especially in terms of ethics and postmodernism, would be Stanley Hauerwas, George Lindbeck, Peter Leithart, Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert Meilaender, and in Biblical Studies, NT Wright. Any of these it would be good for a Catholic to read.

Where we seem to meet is in the writings of GK Chesterton and CS Lewis, and websites like Touchstone Magazine are key places of real Evangelical/Catholic collaboration.

My 'boss' at work is the Evangelical Rector of our Parish. We don't try to water down the differences or ignore them through syncretism or false irenicism, but realise we have a lot in common in our view of persons and society, their breakdown, and what might be the solution.

Greywiz, we might well be agreed on the breakdown, but it's the solutions on which we disagree.

What I would expect in here, if the secular was so different from the sacred, would be two different forms of post, one reasonable, measured, and dispassionate, the other irrational and emotive, if the two were like some secularists claim. But it doesn't split that way, does it? More evidence for the Christian/Secular distinction being a wrong one, perhaps?

After I posted here, I realised I hadn't visited Touchstone for a bit - the ecumenical journal I mentioned - and serendipitously, there is an article in this month's edition (All Churched Up), which is broadly along the lines I'm getting at, written from a confessional - Reformed - perspective.

That said, one of the most significant places from where there is some excellent philosophy is your home, Canada.

I'm a fan of the Canadians Bernard Lonergan, SJ, and Charles Taylor (who won the 2007 Templeton Prize for his book A Secular Age, which I'm reading currently, but also of Trudy Govier, who is not even Christian, as far as I know, but her work on trust, forgiveness, and terrorism is excellent and thought provoking.

Bernard Lonergan used the phrase 'vetera novis augere et perficere': 'to augment and perfect the old with the new' (He nearly always taught in Latin!). This, for me, is the best, concise, definition of 'Tradition', and he explains it, thus:

'Classical culture cannot be jettisoned without being replaced; and what replaces it, cannot but run counter to classical expectations. There is bound to be formed a solid right that is determined to live in a world that no longer exists. There is bound to be formed a scattered left, captivated by now this, now that new development, exploring now this, now that new possibility. But what will count is a perhaps not numerous center, big enough to be at home in both the old and the new, painstaking enough to work out one by one the transitions to be made, strong enough to refuse half-measures and insist on complete solutions even though it has to wait.'

From: 'Dimensions of Meaning', Collection, Collected Works vol. 4, 244-5

Another key book which is from a non-Christian Perspective is Paul Connerton's How Societies Remember.

The 'blurb' on the back cover states, 'In treating memory as a cultural rather than an individual faculty, this book provides an account of how practices of a non-inscribed kind are transmitted in, and as, traditions. Most studies of memory as a cultural faculty focus on inscribed transmission of memories. Connerton, on the other hand, concentrates on incorporated practices, and so questions the currently dominant idea that literary texts may be taken as a metaphor for social practices in general.' How Societies Remember, 'Themes in the Social Science Series', Cambridge University Press, 1989.

For me, the split is between the 'solid right' and the 'scattered left', not Christian/secular. Therefore, as far as I can see, even the Conservative Party is actually part of the 'scattered left', doing anything to win control in it's own interests, than reinstate a firm, stable foundation on which to base a coherent, stable society.

Oh, what's the use?

What's the use, Greywiz? I am trying to reply the best I can to you. If it's inadequate, I can't do any better. You want everything on your terms. As you say, don't respond to my rubbish!

What is of use, is that this debate is occurring in the first place, however 'off the wall' you might consider it. Christianity is off the wall because it's not a mainline (secular) thinking. But it isn't all bible-bashing.

As I've shown, there are plenty of Evangelical Authors which I read and learn from, and their benefit isn't that they're 'conspiring with Rome', or other such nonsense. Unlike other Evangelicals who have their heads in the sand, they've heard the wake-up call, and are responding intelligently and so we can dialogue.

I also think there is immeasurable value in our own 'secular' statecraft, here in England, as it is the little remnant of what's holding our society together and preventing it slipping into total anomie. My concern is that there are people wanting to undermine this under the guise of it being for the sake of 'change' as an inexorable good, and nothing else. 'Change' is an unquestionable truism to them, but they never prove their case, they merely state it, as if the ubiquity of a belief proves its truth.

This 'immediate gratification', and re-invent-the-wheel-for-every-generation- and-ethnic-and-minority-group mentality, can't be a stable basis for a society, can it? This is where I think certain forms of Christianity have something valuable to offer, and it's not only Catholic, but sadly, in the modern era, predominantly so.

UK: stable or unstable?

I've just noticed Scarthin Nick's post which was posted while I was composing my previous post.

I think his post gives us a good example of the problem I have just indicated, needs to be addressed.

The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint ... but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.

CS Lewis

Introduction to The Screwtape Letters

The embryology debate provides a good example of where and why religion does have a role within a secular state.

There are whole areas of ethics where a rational ethic cannot come to an answer. There are too many guesses to be made, too many assumptions, for instance, how do we weigh the future against the present? Those who don't call on faith, will reach answers based on their own instinctive judgement about such questions - now may be more important than the future. Confidence in human rationality to solve prospective problems may be strong or weak.

There is no reason why religious and irreligious cannot engage in debate about such things. The faithful need to be as clear about their presumptions and assumptions as does the atheist. Paul R is quite right in one respect, in suggesting that the Catholic Church is often the clearest and frankest about its assumptions - it doesn't mean it's necessarily flying in the face of rationality. Other Christians and religions may be more diverse in their assumptions - that's the nature of debate; but I do think respect needs to be given to the ethical base and the history of ethical thinking that Christianity brings to this country.

Similarly politicians thinking about declaring war would do well to pay attention to centuries of unheeded Christian thinking on the issue of Just War. Okay, much of it is embedded in the Geneva Convention and the UN charters - but it still gets forgotten.

Comments such as I have read elsewhere today stating "political decisions should be made on the basis of science and reason. Religion has no place in politics" suggest a wild (irrational?) over-optimism about the capabilities and knowledge available to science and human reason.

Of course, science doesn't have a monopoly on reason or knowledge. But let's have a go with religion, shall we? I made fun awhile ago about every sperm is sacred. Well, now, it seems, every cell is too. Much more important than research into diseases like motor neurone, Parkinsons, MS, Alzheimers, and so on. Are we really supposed to take seriously the claim that, because a god says it, every sperm is sacred, or every cell is sacrosanct? That we mustn't use these means to deal with terrible diseases that cause untold suffering every year? And then, to be told, that, if you do happen to be stricken with one of these terrible degenerative diseases, you have no right to bring you dying more hastily to an end?

I'm sorry, what turnip truck do you think the rest of us just fell off?

That's why I say, what's the use? What the use of talking to people who really take this stuff seriously? Where's the reason in stating your position so clearly? So, we know where the catholic church stands? So? Jehovah's Witnesses make it clear too. Shall we refuse blood transfusions too, because some zany religion thinks that it is the ruling of a god?

This kind of thing becomes very tiresome after a certain point. Claims have recently been made that Britain threw out catholicism, but retained the culture that gave us freedom and democracy. Shall we believe this too, just because some religious person states it clearly? Assumptions must be based on something. The sacredness of sperm? The sacredness of conceptuses? Okay. Fine. But why should these assumptions be given any weight at all in deciding what we do about terrible disease that tear the life out of living, conscious, suffering human beings? It really beggars imagination.

I know, Paul R is now going to say that I abuse others, but get outraged when people abuse me. Well, there is abuse and there is abuse. Paul R decided that 'secularists' or members of the National Secular Society should be content to throw out the bodies of their loved ones as garbage. What have they to do with 'services', as though liturgy or ritual was something that was the sole preserve of religious bodies. That's offensive. I say, quite simply, show me that conceptuses and sperm are sacred, and this is said to be abuse. Well, show me.You can make your assumptions as clear as you like, but they can still be ridiculous. I am quite prepared to go on and tell you why catholic sexual ethics is not only ridiculous, but immoral. But we'll leave it at ridiculous for now. Morality, by the way, has got to be based on more than assumptions. You have to give plausible reasons for making them.

I think the embryology debate shows precisely why religion has no place in the secular state, and the sooner we learn this the better.

I can't believe, by the way, why this site still requires us to add html tags for paragraphs. It must be the only blog on the web that requires it.

By the way, CS Lewis was wrong. Certainly, much evil is done by quiet men in white collars. A lot of evil is done by quite different sorts of people. As to the greatest evil. I'm not sure. Was he speaking from experience?

Greywizard you state: "Morality, by the way, has got to be based on more than assumptions. You have to give plausible reasons for making them."

Yes of course but you also have to admit you are making assumptions and too many who call "science and reason" to their aid don't. As I stated three big assumptions are:

1/ how do we value the present against the future;

2/ what are the future risks of a new, and therefore untested, course of action;

3/ do we think that science and humanity is progressing to the extent that it will resolve problems in the future that would be insoluble now?

An example that doesn't often get associated with religion is nuclear power, about which judgements on all three aspects have to be made.

My view for what it is worth is that the rationalist world view tends to be excessively optimistic about human nature and capability - in the face of all the evidence, including the theories of Darwin and evolution, which suggest little to be optimistic about.

Well, jonhunt. I don't know a blessed thing about nuclear power, but the subject to hand was embryonic research, remember? Let me make this challenge. Let's suppose, as I hope is reasonable to suppose, that adherents of stone age belief systems will not be sufficient to prevent embyronic research on diseases such as MS, cancer, Alzheimers, motor neurone disease, etc. Now. Here's the challenge. Let all those who oppose such research now, all the churches that now stand opposed to such research, say, in advance, right now, that anything discovered by this means is unacceptable for any of its adherents to accept in treatment for their diseases in the future, no matter how effect, because obtained in a completely immoral way. Let them say this boldly, and let them say it now. The assumptions are based on the imagined requirements of a god. There is no possible way of confirming whether they are valid or not. But the religious, we assume, take them as valid. Now, let the catholic church (or any other body like minded) state, right now, that, if any treatments of these diseases are in fact discovered through this research, that the faithful of these churches, under pain of excommunication, may not avail themselves of them. Then, I will believe that they really think what they say is true, and that they will stick to their position, no matter what. That's what it means to make clear distinctions, remember?

As to your three questions, I don't think they help us to make relevant moral distinctions at all. How do we value the present as against the future? It depends, doesn't it> What are the future risks of an untested course of action? You can only know if you test it. Do I think science and humanity is progressing in such a way that it will resolve problems in the future that would be insoluble now? Go back a century, ask the question, and tell me what the answers are. I think many problems have been resolved that were insoluble then.

Is the rationalist world view overly optimistic? I don't know. I really don't. Some rationalists have not been particularly optimistic. But why should you think that the theories of Darwin (and do remember, that we've come a long way since then), are particularly pessimistic? Evolution ended up with you, didn't it? A bad guess? Only time will tell.

Your bored with me, so now your treating johnhunt like an idiot now, Greywiz:

"I don't know a blessed thing about nuclear power, but the subject to hand was embryonic research, remember?", as if he didn't?

I'm not bored with you Paul, I just don't see the point of discussing with someone who who claims to have all the answers. Nor am I treating him like an idiot. I said what is true. I don't know anything about nuclear energy, and then redirected the discussion back to the topic at hand. If this is the kind thing you have been blaming me for, then it's difficult to see how I could avoid offending you. I do not pretend, as you seem to think that I do, that I have all the answers, nor do I think that any voices should be silenced. I simply find religious ways of dealing with things lacking in modesty and honesty. Just having firm principles is not enough. Like Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor in the Guardian today, you have presented yourself as knowing already what it means to be fully human. So, in that sense, yes: Ich habe mehr als genug gehört -- and discussion becomes a wasted effort. However, I take jonhunt at his word, and he certainly seems to be someone with whom it might make sense to carry on a discussion. I thought his three questions were not quite up to snuff, and didn't really spell out objections to doing certain things, but that is the whole point of dicussing. Do you really want to scrap? I'll go on scrapping, if that's what you want, though I don't really see the point.

OK. I'm going to try to use your post as the basis for a response, Greywiz, but in the context of the discussion, and try to show why I think the question 'UK:Christian or Secular', is wrong.

Firstly, you imply Onanism (Gen 38) in your comments about every sperm being sacred. This is not the basis of the Catholic view. It's a scriptural literalist's view held by unthinking Evangelicals and Christian 'fundamentalists'. We have reasons why masturbation is wrong, but it's not related to the spilling of seed in the remotest. It's got more to do with the sheer narcissistic nature of the act. Therefore, within Catholic thinking, coitus, even where the sperm is not 'spilled', and where the possibility of procreation is possible too - it could be termed 'masturbation', as the man just uses the woman rather than his hand. It is to do with the nature of the act and it's context, not the result. If it was, it would be a consequentialist/utilitarian morality, which we utterly reject. (See, Lawler, Boyle, May, Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, and Defence, and Asci, The Conjugal Act as a Personal Act: A Study of the concept of the Conjugal Act in the light of Christian Anthropology)

Secondly, your comment is based on truth being synonymous with ubiquity. That is, most people wouldn't question what you say about sperm and Catholics because it's commonly held nonsense.

Thirdly, johnhunt responded to you with his own thinking on the matter, as would any other Christian or secular humanist. Catholics don't have this problem, but thinking Evangelicals do, which leads me to someone trying to address johnhunt's problem.

I have in front of me a relatively recent book (2002), The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism: Recovering the Church's Moral Vision. I know you can't stand it Greywiz, but it's published by IVP (like many of the books on my shelf!).

It is calling for something similar to what the Catholic Church has, in terms of ethics.

It says:

...I have personal reasons that account for my interest in ethics that extend over and beyond my own vocational calling. ...a student of American Evangelical culture—intrigued by its bewildering diversity, troubled by its relative lack of unity, and on occasion, stupefied by its conspicuous absence from the great moral debates raging within society. (This last tendency stands in marked contrast, for example, to the visibility of Roman Catholics, who for two decades have benefited from the moral leadership of Pope John Paul II, one who has not been reticent to offer penetrating ethical and social commentary in the form of regular major encyclicals. (p13-14)

He then proposes a plan:

[a] It will require learning to approach biblical theology and biblical ethics as a unified and consistent whole spanning the entirety of scriptural revelation.

[c] Furthermore, it will mean taking seriously the church's cultural mandate, which compels the Christian community toward responsible and strategic cultural engagement. (p14)

He then goes on later to speak further of Evangelicalism:

...we are creatures of the moment, reacting to issues and dilemmas on the basis of stopgap measures rather than developing the implications of our worldview. A related tendency among evangelicals was (and remains) our inability to relate biblical theology to ethics, which would seem to suggest a rather tragic divorce between belief and practice, in the end revealing a faith-works dichotomy that is roundly condemned in the Epistle of James.

By contrast, more often than not Roman Catholics were the ones who seemed to be making the most significant contributions to social and political thought. Where were the evangelical protestants? And why were evangelicals conspicuously absent among vocational ethicists, legal consultants and theorists, economists, social scientists and policy analysts? Did this suggest a basic flaw in our evangelical worldview? (p 15)

...which he goes on to answer in the book. (Any emphases are the authors)

If this is where Evangelical thinking is, then a) we've got a lot to discuss, and b) my apparent 'protestant bashing' is nothing of the sort, for which I have just provided, I hope, ample evidence.

It seems as if at least J Daryl Charles and I are quite agreed on the importance of the 'centre holding', and that is why I think the divide is between those who are looking to history to find those things which bring stability, and those who are wanting immanence, immediacy, and rapid change, and we have to ask what agenda is behind this, as there are both Christian and secular humanists pushing for this.

Sorry for the post being long, but I feel after the recent assaults, I feel quoting my sources is now important, rather than relying upon 'journalistic-style' responses.

I don't think I have all the answers, GreyWiz, but I do think my church, and some of the other Evangelicals I mentioned in a previous post, have a very good and robust response to secular humanism and relativism, which is why I cut the pie where I do.

Books like the following are excellent (all by Evangelicals):

Nash, Worldviews in Conflict, Beckwith & Koukl Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in mid-air, Smith, Who's Afarid of Postmodernism?, Stetson & Conti The Truth About Tolerance, Copan True for You, but not for me, and many others...

Relativism is the enemy, not secularism.

Paul R. Let's take a look at the dictionary (the Penguin one will do): 'masturbation ... noun stimulation of the genitals accomplished by any means except sexual interourse.'

I'm not terribly interested in redefining words, and I acknowledge that some acts of intercourse are less morally appropriate than others, but to rename these acts masturbation doesn't change the language. My first comment.

Second, I've never been particularly interested in what you call evangelical theology, and have not bothered reading it. That some evangelical theologians, at long last, are beginning to see that it has been largely sub-intellectual does not surprise me. I'm still not interested. And if they choose to extol catholic theology as a corrective to a narrow-minded bilicism, that's fine. It's time they did, even though biblical fundamentalism is so deeply rooted it's probably a lost cause in most places where protestant biblicism is deeply entrenched.

Everything that you quote seems to suggest that the way forward is to combine this biblicism with the kind of traditionalism that is found in catholic theology. Am I misreading you? This is what I hear you saying. It all points to a tradition which has maintained its historical roots, and is able, somehow, to look at things steadily and to see them whole (to resurrect Matthew Arnold for a moment). Fine, if that's what Christians want to do, who am I to object?

I think it's going to be quite a task -- an impossible one -- to, as you say, learn "to approach biblical theology and biblical ethics as a unified and consistent whole spanning the entirety of scriptural revelation." Now, that's just an impossibility. As a body of text, the Bible has a fairly bewilderingly complex and often contradictory take on moral issues. No doubt some people have tried to bring unity out of it, but it's simply not there. But, even if it were, it still begs the major question, because it speaks so innocently of 'scriptural revelation,' as though those words made sense.To speak of anything as 'revealed' in the sense meant, as though, through these works, we have access to the mind of God, is a mere ignis fatuus. You are free to think this, if you wish, but there is no more reason for thinking the Bible is a revelation, than for thinking that the Qu'ran or the Book of Mormon is. And of course, other sacred texts are known and held in the same kind of veneration and for much the same reasons.

But this still doesn't get you out of the charge of what you call (did I call it that?) 'protestant bashing,' since that is certainly something you spent a good deal of time doing. The fact that a few evangelical protestants finally realise that sola scriptura doesn't work, doesn't mean that protestants were all tarred with that particular brush, and a lot of them would still like to distance themselves (the present Archbishop of Canterbury notwithstanding) from anything which would suggest an allegiance to the kind of authoritarianism represented by Rome.

As for the centre holding. I'm not sure we can any longer define the centre, except to suggest that it at least includes a commitment to freedom of belief, expression, association, and a willingness to base our beliefs, in so far as they concern the governance of society, on forms of reasoning and evidence that can be shared.

This is, to my mind, what secularism is about. People can believe all sorts of crazy or not so crazy things, but if they want their proposals to be acceptable as matters of public policy, they have to give reasons. And a reason that simply says, it's part of my tradition, or it's a revelation from my god, or someone in authority has decided the issue, just won't do.

And this is not relativism, because it demands reasons and evidence that is sharable and identifiable. So when someone says, as you do, that catholics value life from conception to natural death, and I say, as I will, that that is a pretty narrow and disputable conception of what it means for life to have value, we have something to talk about. But if you say, but life is sacred because it's given by a god, and we have no right to interfere in any way with what this god has given, then I simply say. Show me. Aquinas thought that souls were implanted in male fetuses after 40 days and in girl fetuses after 80 days. (Something like that, anyway.) Now it is said that the soul is implated at conception (or whatever the language is). Show me. You're welcome to the belief, but it doesn't convince.

Public policy has got to be based on more than that. That's what I mean by secularism. There will be a certain amount of relativism here, because people will have different beliefs and so will act differently. But the sacredness of fetuses is of a piece with the refusal of blood transfusions. It doesn't touch the centre of human morality, which governs how we all get along. Jehovah's Witnesses can be horrified at the widespread abomination of blood transfusions, and catholics can be horrified at the abominations of abortion. Fine. But let's not confuse what some religious people count as abominations with things that count.The centre can still hold, despite the fact that some people are unhappy with the way other people live. The things that bring stability have to do with respect, generosity, friendship, kindness, willingness to help sometimes at considerable personal cost, justice, freedom and many other things like that. All the classic virtues among them, I suppose. This we should protect and promote, but those things that pertain to people's particular religious commitments do not deserve public sanction or support, except in so far as we support people believing and living as they believe they are called to do by their gods or other powers.

You say: 'As for the centre holding. I'm not sure we can any longer define the centre, except to suggest that it at least includes a commitment to freedom of belief, expression, association, and a willingness to base our beliefs, in so far as they concern the governance of society, on forms of reasoning and evidence that can be shared.

This is, to my mind, what secularism is about. People can believe all sorts of crazy or not so crazy things, but if they want their proposals to be acceptable as matters of public policy, they have to give reasons. And a reason that simply says, it's part of my tradition, or it's a revelation from my god, or someone in authority has decided the issue, just won't do. ....

This we should protect and promote, but those things that pertain to people's particular religious commitments do not deserve public sanction or support, except in so far as we support people believing and living as they believe they are called to do by their gods or other powers.'

A quotation:

"Arendt maintains that totalitarianism was able to emerge because of the development of what she calls 'the masses'. ...As class structure broke down in Europe, no structures emerged which could hold people together in a common interest. Arendt maintains that without common interest, people develop mass psychology.

Arendt describes the masses as composed of isolated and lonely individuals. As class distinctions broke down, a type of atomistic individualism came to dominate human relations. People did not develop social links and did not recognise social obligations. These people were politically neutral because they did not have ties to members of a group. ...They could be organized, not because of commonly held needs or goals, but to serve the purposes of a minority. ...Democratic freedoms, especially the concept of majority rule, were used to abolish freedom. ...The masses, isolated individuals without common goals and social ties, serve the successes of totalitarianism"

from PA Johnson, On Arendt

(Of course, maybe we shouldn't listen to Arendt because she was a Jew, or is it that she had an affair with Heidegger, and so she's talking rubbish, Greywiz?)

As I said, this atomistic, 'effervescent' view, of culture, promoted or encouraged by a sub-set of Christians (especially the 'emergent' sort) and secularists, needs to be examined very closely, and especially who exactly stands to benefit from it.

I hear you as arguing for it.

Which meta-narrative (as you say, '...on forms of reasoning and evidence that can be shared', like those of the French Revolution?), and who will be the authority you choose, to carry your aims forward? Some modern Jacobins?

It's fairly late so I'm not going to go into detail. I'll try to answer more fully later. But I do wonder why you should have said this: 'Of course, maybe we shouldn't listen to Arendt because she was a Jew, or is it that she had an affair with Heidegger, and so she's talking rubbish, Greywiz?' I admire Arendt very much. I have not read her The Origins of Totalitarianism yet, though I recently bought a copy, so I will no doubt soon do so. So, I'm not in a position to speak about Arendt's view of mass culture or whatever. Nor am I familiar with PA Johnson's work, so again, I'm not in a position to comment. As I recall, Arendt, in her book, The Human Condition, goes some way towards developing a secular idea of the human, but that's only a lingering memory from reading it long ago. In any event, I think it is particularly uncharitable of you to make the suggestion that you did, and it would be much easier to continue this coversation without this kind of harassment.

Well here I am, Paul R., a little bit brighter. I'm not goint to look closely at Arendt, although I've been breezing through her book on The Origins of Totalitarianism. I don't think Johnson's got it quite right, but its a convenient simulacrum.

What did Hilter provide to a fairly large, and increasingly classless society? According to Arendt, what he offered was certainty, infallibility, in fact. Recall that Arendt is writing about societies, many of which had just emerged from periods of war, in which social classification was less determinate than before, and in which insecurity was very threatening. As to being atomistic, this seems a bit of a stretch, because people were certainly seeking new forms of identification. The Communists on the one side, along with the Social Democrats, and then a fairly large, unruly group of right-wing authoritarians who wanted somehow to return society to its original structured form. Into this people Hitler and Mussolini, Franco and Lenin (and Stalin) came, and what they promised to the masses of increasinly declased people, was a kind of certainty and assurance that they had been lacking.

Interestingly, according to Arendt, what the totalitarians did was to empty socialism (and racism), and ultimately, democracy, of its utilitarian component. Infallibility became more important than content. Basically, anyone who stood on his hind legs and said he knew the poeple's insecurity, and had definite, unflinching answers for it, was like to get a following. And so you get the wild proliferation of right-wing groups all gathered, somehow, around the idea of the Fuerher-Prinzip, but with no real program except confident prediction. Hitler used the technique all the time, when he predicted things about the Jews, etc. etc. Read any of the standard biographies.

But this was not an effervescent atomism, and if you think that that is what I am arguing for, when, in fact, I have already suggested that there is a core of things that we understand, morally, and politically, that are required for any stable democratic system. I know, you call it a meta-narrative, now, let me get this straight, a meta-narrative of 'forms of reasoning and evience that can be shared.' No, not like the French Revolution? Why would you mislead the discussion in this way? And why would you accept the language of meta-narratives which, in its post-modern use, 'modernity is sceptical of meta-narratives (or of grand narratives),' is actually a feature of post-modern relativism, which I thought you said was the enemey. Well, if relativism is the enemy, then we're going to have to find a sharable narrative about the world. Otherwise we are just so many solipsisms waiting to be nobbled by the next infallibilist charlatan who comes to town.

Come to think of it, there's only one person that I know, today, who claims to speak infallibility, and to make confident predictions too! You can't have it both ways. You can scoff if you like and call me a modern Jocobin. I don't know what such a beast would look like, by the way, but I don't have much in common with the Jacobins.

But at some point, Paul, you are going to have to get off your horse and mix with us plodding foot soldiers of science and reason, and give us reasons why the things you believe should be given any consideration by the the rest of us, who find that particular 'meta-narrative' a bit shopworn. And here, by the way, the word 'meta-narrative' is relevant, because there are all sorts of religious meta-narratives. They can't all be true, and the chance that any particular one is true is vanishingly small. So they are all competing for the same space in the domain of falsehood, just so stories.

The trouble is, I think, that you've actually fallen for the history that so many people want to tell, about the awful modernists, and how they are taking away the very structure of human lives, and leaving us with isolated individuals with nothing in common. The truth, rather, seems to me, that a whole lot of ancient narratives keep on popping up here and there in what might, but for their perdurance, become a common world, speaking a largely common language, and making decisions on commonly recognised grounds which, without being too epistemically daring, might become a shared way of looking at the world and making reasonably objective decisions about our future -- together -- instead of constantly trying to shore up ancient ways of thinking about the world which keep threatening to break down.

You ask the question cui bono? Well, we do, if we can put aside some of the more ridiculous parts of ancient belief systems, and try, at long last, actually to live in the world that we know more and more about, including the human world and its ways. Morality, its goodness, love, altruism, and so on, even seems to have some fairly firm evolutionary foundations (not altogether surprisingly), and we might begin there. We may not want to commit the naturalistic fallacy, but we could at least acknowledge that our sense of the virtues, our conscience, our intuitive sense of right and wrong (which is not always right) has some scientific backing.

In my view, and I probably won't tire of saying it, religion is old hat. It's had its day, and it's almost time it was folding up its tents and leaving the world in peace.

It would really help if you could publish the overall size of the statistical surveys as well as the age group and how the survey was conducted. I'm delighted to read that 57% of uk believes in the death & resurrection of Christ (therefore his historicity too) but to quote that with authority we need the background to the survey or otherwise critics will suggest it was a sample of people leaving churches on Easter Sunday morning!

Paul R. I cannot resist adding something to what I just wrote an hour or two ago.

I was going through my bookshelf looking for something completely unrelated, and I came upon a book that I had entirely forgotten about. It's title is "Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich." I can't go into detail because I forget a lot of the detail. However, as I recall there are some important object lessons for us in the Weimar-Third Reich transition.

As the author, Jeffrey Herf, points out in his conclusion, "Nowhere else in Europe did rapid industrialization confront feudal structures so rapidly and harshly as in Germany. No other European society became capitalist and industrial to such an exten without a single bourgeois revolt or strong liveral political tradition. On the contrary, in Germany the liberal principle remained weak." (232)

I quote this, because I think you are in danger of confusing Arendt's analysis of modernity -- and she had German modernity (and perhaps French and Russian too) chiefly in mind -- with modernity tout court. Indeed, while the anomie that Durkheim anaylsed in 19th century France was indeed an important contributor to changes taking place within French society, and lent it's weight, for example, to trends in suicide, many countries in the west escaped the worst consequences of modern uprootedness. In England, for example, there was, from fairly early times, a strong labour movement, and a firm sense of belonging. This may have sunk into the sands of New Labour, but for a long period in England, there was a strong working men's educational movement, which made the English electorate, and along with it, the electorate in places like Canada and Australia, deeply embedded in understood social realtions and structures. This is shown in the very strong and lasting demoractic traditions in these countries.

Of course, it is true, especially in Britain, that widespread immigration from former British colonies has led to a serious breakdown in social coherence, as immigrant communities, large enough to maintain themselves without reference to the surrounding society, endanger the democratic consensus built up over a century and a half, there is still a very strong tradition of social coherence and stability, to which, I think, you lend, perhaps based on European models, very little credence.

This, of course, is why Pope Benedict is trying so hard to reassert the Christian (and in particular, the catholic) traditions of Europe, and why he and others have been trying so hard to get a reference to these traditions enshrined in the European constitution. But, of course, there is a completely different tradition, based upon Enlightenment principles of science and reason, which seeks to establish Europe's future on a sharable inheritance, one which does not have an essential reference to religious traditions which have been so divisive in the past, and promise to be even more divisive in the future (because, of course, now there are so many diverse and contradictory religious traditions to be represented).

As I see it, then, Europe, and North America, Australia, and other democratic polities have a choice. Do they base themselves on secular principles of reason and science, things that, notwithstanding fringe understandings of Christianity (and other religions) which hold fast to what amount to stone age documents and the beliefs based on them, most of us, to a certain degree, share.

An example is the kerfuffle over embryonic research, which English and Scottish cardinals are representing as reprehenisble infringements of human values. Some scientists, bending over backwards to accommodate fairly reactionary views, have offered to meet with the cardinals and explain what this reseaarch is all about -- not about Frankensteins, but about modelling the human genome in laboratory animals, so that they can experiment with human genetics, without experimenting on people. Sounds sound to me. Why do the cardinals object? I have no idea. But somewhere in the background lies an notion of the value of the human which doesn't cash itself in in terms of human good. The only thing they seem to be able to fall back on is some concept of what a god has said or prescribed. Is this wrong? Is there a concept of human value here that needs to be preserved, or are we dealing, as I think we are, with rather ancient ideas of what it means to be humanly valuable, the value located in cells or aspects of the human, but not with actual good or harm that happens to human beings as such, who can understand and feel the harm that is being done? And if it is, as I suspect, merely a conceptual question, what basis that will convince non-catholics (and without going into a lot of detail about the loss of tradition and the centre not holding and things like that) that there is something there we should really worry about morally?

Chris, please see the earlier posting. Theos always publishes information regarding the overall size of its statistical surveys as well as the age group and how the survey is conducted. For the full information, go to this link and scroll down. http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/Over_half_of_Britons_believe_Jesus_rose

_from_the_dead.aspx?ArticleID=1917&PageID=14&RefPageID=14

I'm in favour of less whipping in the UK parliament, because I don't like the dismissible oligarchy we currently have as a pale substitute for representative democracy. But calls from archbishops of the ludicrously self-styled 'catholic' church for MPs to vote according to their consciences are hypocritical. (Ludicrously 'catholic', because it excludes from power that half of humanity which has no penis.)

These archbishops don't want MPs to vote according to their consciences. They want them to vote, droid-like, according to the (current) magisterium of the (current) hierarchy. And what these archbishops, princes of the pro-disease, pro-suffering lobby, fear, is rejection by a secular parliament of the wicked solipsism that humans are qualitatively different from other animals, because of the quaint fairy-tale that humans have something called a 'soul', which is undetectable by any test, but is present in a blastula.

You say, Greywiz:

'But at some point, Paul, you are going to have to get off your horse and mix with us plodding foot soldiers of science and reason, and give us reasons why the things you believe should be given any consideration by the the rest of us, who find that particular 'meta-narrative' a bit shopworn. And here, by the way, the word 'meta-narrative' is relevant, because there are all sorts of religious meta-narratives. They can't all be true, and the chance that any particular one is true is vanishingly small. So they are all competing for the same space in the domain of falsehood, just so stories.'

I know you poo-poo Postmodernism, but, I think you confuse 'metanarrative' with 'meganarrative' ('grand story'). Religion is the latter. I quote (in relation to your view of 'truth'):

"For Lyotard, metanarratives are a distinctly modern phenomenon: they are stories that not only tell a grand story (since even premodern and tribal stories do this) but also claim to be able to legitimate or prove the story's claim by an appeal to universal reason. ...It is the supposed rationality of modern scientistic stories about the world that makes them metanarrative. On Lyotard's account, Homer's Odyssey—though telling a grand story and making universal claims about human nature—is not a metanarrative because it does not claim to legitimate itself by an appeal to a supposed universal, scientific reason; rather, it is a matter of proclamation, or kerygma, which demands the response of faith. On the other hand, the scientific stories told by modern rationalism (Kant), scientific naturalism, or sociobiology are metanarratives insofar as they claim to be demonstrable by reason alone. ...

Lyotard specifically defines metanarratives as universal discourses of legimation that mask their own particularity; that is, metanarratives deny their narrative ground even as they proceed on that basis. In particular, we must note that the postmodern critique is not aimed at metanarrative because they are really grounded in narratives; on the contrary, the problem with metanarratives is that they they do not own up to their mythic ground. p. 64-69 James Smith, Who's Afraid of postmodernism? (Emphases mine)

This is my concern, Greywiz. You take your own view as being beyond criticism: i.e., 'meta'-narrative. Your assumptions on 'reason', as I've said before in previous discussions, are very question-begging, and are not axiomatic or a priori. I'll get of my horse, if you get off yours. Until then, we'll have to continue jousting...

Nicholas. I must make it clear that what I have being arguing for is stability, tradition, what-have-you. I have not been arguing for the Catholic Church. I have been using the Catholic Church merely as a disestablished and religious exemplar of these factors, whereas the Lords, Parliament, the judiciary, etc., are established, secular exemplars, and I thought I was showing that both are under attack for, what I think are, the same reasons.

Religion is pretty irrelevant. What is relevant are the common factors to which they hold, and which are under attack.

Whether secular or not, tradition and protocol get in the way of those wanting power, make a fast buck, or follow a path of narcissistic hedonism, or any other such ruse.

If anyone's utopian and unrealistic, it's Greywiz:

'The truth, rather, seems to me, that a whole lot of ancient narratives keep on popping up here and there in what might, but for their perdurance, become a common world, speaking a largely common language, and making decisions on commonly recognised grounds which, without being too epistemically daring, might become a shared way of looking at the world and making reasonably objective decisions about our future -- together -- instead of constantly trying to shore up ancient ways of thinking about the world which keep threatening to break down.'

The way you do that Greywiz, is using the tried and tested method: gulags and concentration camps, and no other way. Make the dissent disappear - as did the Catholic Church in its past - and secular regimes.

We're not proud of it, but we hope we've learnt - and a living tradition assists that.

When and where can atomistic, anomic, culture learn that if it's constantly re-inventing itself?

Paul R. What am I to say? I've responded to some of the points you make. You respond to nothing that I have said, except by quoting Lyotard. Try saying something on your own. I've given you reasons for rethinking some of the things you've said, and you keep coming back at me with regiments of quotations. I've never spoken, as Lyotard does, of something that promises universal truth. Indeed, I don't think that's available to you or anyone. Scientific truth is occasional and tentative, and always open to question, but still the most reliable approximation to reality we've got. You accuse me, rather amusingly, it seems to me, of remcommending gulags and concentration camps. Exaggeration is one thing. Hyperbolic is another. Let's get real. You speak of tried and true tradition. Name me one, aside from the scientific tradition since, say, Newton? I know you're proud of the catholic tradition. That's abundantly clear. I guess the lingering question is - Why? As to constantly reinventing. If you mean constantly changing, adapting, adjusting its perspective, approaching, and then sometimes refining, and at others correcting its perspective. True. That's the way it is when you don't claim universal truth. Try again.

One more thing, Paul. You remind me strangely of that rather faceless cardinal from Scotland, or his cousin the Bishop of Durham. What did David Aaronovich say about them today? "Wicked untruths from the church."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article3613649.ece

The article is well worthwhile reading, especially, for instance, about the 'almost wanton disregard of fairness.' I'm trying really hard to keep my cool here, but truly, nothing I have said suggested gulags and concentration camps, nor have I suggested the stamping out of dissent. I'm only looking for reasons. If you have some, fine. If you don't, resort the the ad hominem approach. It might work with others. It doesn't with me. And, by the way, I thought I was the one being accused of abusiveness here. When I'm really abusive, tell me, and I'll try to correct my ways, but gratuitous insult, in both this and your last post, is really a bit too much, even from a Christian.

You say: "Indeed, I don't think that's available to you or anyone." Exactly.

No individual. And if truth isn't going to become the privilege of power, a tradition is what is necessary, not supposedly universal reason.

I'm not 'proud' of Catholic Tradition, I think it works and it's the best option, compared with the effervescent nature of other things on offer, 'Christian', or otherwise. It is the cement which holds the whole thing together. It brings stability in the storm. In short, trust is the word I'd use, not pride. It's not going to sacrifice me - or anyone else - on the altar of some metanarrative, because the canon of Catholic Church takes centuries to change, like turning an oil tanker, the risk of it getting dragged along by some momentary trend or group, is far less likely. Infallibility had been believed for centuries before it was promulgated.

Getting 'blown about by every wind of doctrine' is exactly what Tradition is designed to prevent. It is so easy to think that one's own, spatio-temporal, view of the world is so right. Therefore, the Catholic Church tests things in a trans-generational and trans-national perspective before making any slight change. We call this, the sensus fidei.

As the Catechism puts it:

"The whole body of the faithful . . . cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation of faith (sensus fidei) on the part of the whole people, when, 'from the bishops to the last of the faithful,' they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals." (emphasis, mine).

You say: I'm trying really hard to keep my cool here, but truly, nothing I have said suggested gulags and concentration camps, nor have I suggested the stamping out of dissent. I didn't suggest that.

I quote you again: The truth, rather, seems to me, that a whole lot of ancient narratives keep on popping up here and there in what might, but for their perdurance, become a common world, speaking a largely common language, and making decisions on commonly recognised grounds which, without being too epistemically daring, might become a shared way of looking at the world and making reasonably objective decisions about our future -- together -- instead of constantly trying to shore up ancient ways of thinking about the world which keep threatening to break down.

And how is that going to be realised, if there are many who don't accept your metanarrative as being true, and other Christians and religions who don't see it as having any value either?

I would suggest only the grace of God could realise it. But, as a non-Christian, how can it be realised unless people defer to your paradigm?

You quote: '"The whole body of the faithful . . . cannot err in matters of belief." But of course they can. Monoplies don't count when it comes to truth. So, the whole body of the faithful can be frightfully wrong. They have been over several things. How about Limbo, to begin with a trivial example -- not so trivial for those who actually believed in it and wept. And again, you don't respond to me -- at least not to my more recent comments.

Truth, for the last time, is not accessible, but, as Bernard Williams said, truthfulness is, and it's truthfulness and not truth that counts. We can't know the absolute, final, binding truth. Let's be content with that, and try, with the methods of argument and verification to get as close to the truth (that is accessible to us now) as we can, without making any unrealisable claims.

Some time ago andyjv asked, a bit frustratedly, with good reason, at our long posts, which have gone on getting longer and further away from the subject at hand. "Yes, religious beliefs should not be imposed but nor should secular humanistic ones. Again interestingly here, one of the Govt coalition parties is an overtly Christian party and there are Muslim members of the cabinet too. Does this provoke debate of various ethical issues? Of course it does but what is wrong with that? It has to be remembered that such politicians have stood on a faith basis and been voted in. Does this have to be a bad thing necessarily? "

I guess my answer is, 'not necessarily.' However, if there is a majority of one religion or another, whether Christian or Muslim, and they decide to impose their beliefs on the rest of the people of the Netherlands, just because of their majority, then, I think it is a bad thing, necessarily. And Christians, in the Netherlands, have for a long time been wise enough to stand back and be led by the wisdom of the Dutch people. But that is indeed what is in danger of happening nowadays, given the rather exaggerated claims of religious people to know the truth, not to have to search for it.

I don't know the truth. I don't know whether there is a god or not. I rather doubt it, given the level of evidence, but, you never know. I believe, with Dawkins and Victor Stenger that the probabilities all go the other way. However, some religious people think they know the answer to the question how the rest of us should live. That's a clear warning sign to me that our freedoms are in danger of being abridged. I would much prefer people say, 'This is the way things seem to me just now; can you see things this way too.' And then we can go on to have a discussion. The trouble with you, Paul, is that you think you've arrived at something you believe you should commit the rest of your life to, as well, I am afraid, the lives of other people. A brave assumption, no doubt, but not one that the rest of us need to hold, and not one that the rest of us should heed.

Nor am I talking in Lyotard's or Foucault's sense about metanarratives, as if, like Thomas Kuhn, there are a range of incompatible paradigms we have to buy into before we speak. There are some fairly clear indications that, in so many respects, science is on the right tract. There is just too much evidence, and even Kuhn's paradigms are not obviously contradictory or unrelated. If, in place of this, you're going to resort to a metanarative or paradigm which has not a shred of empirical evidence in support, we might as well turn instead to flipping coins or shooting craps. And even there the odds are closer to reaching the truth.

And if reaching the truth depends on the grace of a god, we may as well give up the search right now. Thousands of years of history have brought us no closer -- altough in Paul R's sense, they may have developed fairly stable, if largely unjust, societies in the past -- to the truth. God's grace has gone begging for a long long time. Time to try some other way.

Oh, by the way, Paul, if you can show that there has ever been a universal consensus in matters of faith and morals, and not just a merely suppositious one, based on the authoritative declaration of the magisterium, I'd like to see the evidence.

"science is on the right tract."

Freudian slip or intended, Greywiz? :)

Greywiz, you say: Oh, by the way, Paul, if you can show that there has ever been a universal consensus in matters of faith and morals, and not just a merely suppositious one, based on the authoritative declaration of the magisterium, I'd like to see the evidence.

I'd like to quote you from one of your previous posts (24th march) as that very evidence of universal consensus on which the magisterium would agree:

The things that bring stability have to do with respect, generosity, friendship, kindness, willingness to help sometimes at considerable personal cost, justice, freedom and many other things like that. All the classic virtues among them, I suppose.

Oh, so the cardinal virtues, with some Fruits of the Spirit - chucked in for good measure then - I suppose?

Neither Freudian nor intended. Just a slip of the finger.

No, I don't think that's the point about the consensus fidelium, which encompasses things like trinitarian theology, autonement, and other imponderables. My point about respect, generosity, friendship, kindness, costly altruism, justice, freedom and things like that is that this is what you would expect from a species constructed as we are. I haven't done a lot of research into the evolution of morals or the relation of morals to evolution, but I think you'd find that, as a species, we've probably been selected for such things. Not a consensus fidelium, perhaps a sensus hominis, if you like. But this is a very different thing. And I'm not sure, by the way, that we would find univeral agreement on these things. More like empirical confidence that we are in the vicinity of a valid inductive generalisation. When it comes to translating these things into action, morality becomes, suddenly, quite situational. I am fairly confident, however, that within the church you will not be able to identify a universal consensus in matters of both faith and morals, even though morals might present an easier case.

Back in the eighties, I think, the Vatican released an Instruction of the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian. Amongst the things that were said in that instruction is that the magisterium is superior to its logic and evidence. That is, even if logic or evendence should appear to show it to be at fault, the magisterium is still held to be true. I guess these are the fruits of the Spirit. I'm afraid, I don't fall for that. I think if you can show something to be false, then, barring irrationality, you accept that it is, in fact, false.

One last point, saying that you think the virtues I have mentioned are ones on which the magisterium would agree. Well, no doubt. They are quite basic to morality. However, you have still got a hard job ahead of you, and that is to show a universal consensus on matters of faith and morals, not just on a few points, but on all the things that are of interest and concern to the magisterium. And even if you could -- which I don't for a moment believe -- just as an example, the diversity of views of the atonement (all of them morally horrific, in my view) is legion -- it wouldn't mean that that conviction had any rate telling other people how they should believe and act. What matters in morality -- as to theological doctrine aside from morality these are things indifferent -- but what matters in morality is not a universal consensus, which could be wrong, but a reasonable knowledge that leads one to believe that doing x is better than do y in situation s. This is something the bishops weighing in from Scotland, Durham and now Lichfield (I understand) don't seem to grasp. But of course they're sure they know the truth. It's a comfortable place to be, but it doesn't make anyone right.

Back in the eighties, I think, the Vatican released an Instruction of the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian. Amongst the things that were said in that instruction is that the magisterium is superior to its logic and evidence. That is, even if logic or evendence should appear to show it to be at fault, the magisterium is still held to be true.

In certain circumstances, pilots have to rely on their instruments, because if they relied on their senses, they'd crash the plane, especially in acrobatics. Is it not feasible that a parallel would be that we have to rely on tradition in the moral and spiritual life, especially when society is effervescent or turbulent? Both are man-made 'instruments' to help us navigate safely, just in different domains, aren't they?

As I said, I think less whipping in Parliament would be good. However, The Broon's concession to the Pro-suffering Soul Lobby in the case of stem cell research suggests that the UK isn't yet secular (in the narrow sense of excluding a particular religion-based lobby from influence). And that is sad, for the reasons that David Aaronovitch gave.

As to 'catholic' tradition providing stability, see Joseph Hoffman.

In relation to the Christian/secular debate, I think we have to look at how much church membership, or more specifically, assent to the body of truth one's church believes, is necessary. Hence, why one belongs to one church and not another.

Many Evangelicals will be, say, Baptists in one town, but when they move, the Baptist Church in their new town might be really stuffy and not their cup of tea, but the Evangelical Anglican one is much more their 'scene', so they go there. This can even happen in the same town with a change of pastor. 'Church hopping' is rife, based on whether the 'church' meets my needs.

One thing I hope conservative Christians are agreed on, is that there is a Biblical precedent that church membership is essential and necessary for calling oneself a Christian, unless you're a liberal who believes everyone's an 'anonymous Christian'.

Therefore, vague beliefs in God for conservative Christians, Catholic or Protestant, doesn't cut it.

Now, if you left the church, Greywiz, because of a moral problem you had with the church and how horrid Christians are (and by that, are tacitly claiming you're better, which I constantly hear), that is different from one of no longer believing in things supernatural.

Tradition doesn't require belief in the supernatural, but it does require assent, and it does require as you say willingness to help sometimes at considerable personal cost, that is, the supererogatory. The supererogatory is absolutely essential for the smooth running of a community: the submission of one's own needs to those of the larger community for the sake of unity and coherence. This is what I'm suggesting, but both you are posting, Nicholas and Greywiz, to constantly (if not obsessively) hit anything vaguely religious, whereas Nick Spencer is suggesting the vaguely religious - 'residual Christianity' - has meaning in terms of 'not secular'.

I have sympathy with Nick Spencer in the sense that, believing in Natural Law and the human person being imago dei, then everyone's open to the supernatural, but not in Dr Hay's sense.

What Nick Spencer seems to be doing is the equivalent of saying conscience is just whatever my desires move me to do, or that someone who hasn't passed grade one piano, is a pianist.

The supererogatory, the willingness to go the extra mile, is what is lacking from the attitude of the predominant atomistic, individualistic view many people, Christian or not, hold. It is something far greater than a mere 'altruism'. The supererogatory is something only grace can provide, and thankfully, God works outside his church, too.

No, Paul, it's not the same. Flying by instruments that can be calibrated for accuracy is quite a different thing to relying on tradition, for which no means of accuracy checking is possible. But when the tradition (magisterium) ignores the only accuracy method we know (logic, critical evidence, and so on), that is, in my view, irrationalism of a flagrant (and destructive) kind.

As for the topic of discussion, that is why churches should not be given kibitzing rights in relation to parliament. To the extent that they are given such rights, the democratic process is to that extent not secular.

I won't speak for Nicholas, but I do not constantly 'hit' anything vaguely religious. I do so only if it is presumed that religious voices, qua religious voices, should be given a legitimate place in determining public policy. Aside from that, you can worship the moon as a large stilton cheese, if you wish (just so long as this is not part of the science curriculum).

One last point, acts of supererogation are not that uncommon, as some recent research has shown. Defining such acts in terms of the grace of God is really begging the question. Again, show me. My guess is that we will find it an aspect of the evolutionary development of moral consciousness, thank goodness.

I disagree with Dr. Hays, not because there is no relationships between religious consciousness and the experiences identified in his research, but because I do not think we have any reason to suppose that we have acquaintance with or knowledge of anything that could be called transcendent in the thick sense. Probably most human beings have experience of transcendence, in the sense of awe, even unheimlich experiences that make our hair stand on end, and so on, things that have been identified with the transcendent in the past (cf. Otto's mysterium tremendum), but I do not think we can extrapolate from these experiences to anything truly transcendent, something there, of which these experiences are the (mediated) awareness. In that sense, too, I think that Spencer is probably right in saying that there is a lot of that sort of experience, and religious interpretation of that sort of experience, about. Whether that makes British society religious rather than secular is, I suspect, as much a question of semantics as of fact.

The most troubling feature of British democracy at the present time is that, increasingly, cardinals and bishops and other religious authorities think they have a right to interfere in political processes, and either explicitly or implicitly threaten excommunication, where their voices are often ill-informed and irrelevant. One hears on the wind faint whispers of the Glorious Revolution and reminders of what was then at stake.

Tradition is calibrated for accuracy by time.

For example, it wasn't my experience of reading the word 'Kuhn' in your post by which I just knew you would mention him, but because I used the word 'paradigm'. In fact, I thought about taking it out, because I thought, "I know what Greywiz will do as soon as he sees 'paradigm', he'll bring up Kuhn", but decided to keep it in and bear the brunt. It was because I have experienced patterns in your posts over time, and learned from them. 'Science' is not sola experientia, it is a tradition.

Greywiz, you invent your own 'straw men', then knock them down. I rarely recognise the 'religious voices' you portray in real life, apart from in secular humanism's gospels of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, etc..

For example, when you were a Christian were you ignorant of Christian history, or did you not see it in the same light as you do now? If you see it differently now, the events themselves haven't changed, they're in the past, and certainly anything you knew which happened over 100 years previously, you wouldn't have experienced at first hand either. Therefore, surely what must have happened is that you chose to read different interpreters of the events, or did you merely believe they were good one minute, and bad the next?

(WARNING: sarcasm coming up, just in case you choose to take offence)

Of course, my experience is defective because it's influenced by my religious presuppositions, but you are free from this error, aren't you. People who are 'scientific', don't have any presuppositions, do they. Their reasoning is totally other, unsullied by the mere machinations of church and 'faith', isn't it. Like the Philosophes and Jacobins. St. Marat, et al...

(End of sarcasm)

I'm not bothered if you think my view's a metanarrative, maybe it is.

What I am concerned about is your automatic assumption of your metanarrative being superior - that is, as a 'meta'-narrative in Lyotard's sense - an absolute, unquestionable, position, outside the realms of 'us plodding foot soldiers' of what you consider inferior and defective reasoning.

I can either meet you on your own terms - which means asserting a position: mine the Catholic Magisterium, yours, the scientific magisterium, or I could roll over and say, "Praise be to thee, Oh Great Greywizard, master of reason and scientific truth. Thou knowest everything by thine own experience and thought, and dost not rely on the weak lemming-like edifices of mere ordinary mortals". (Oops, sorry. Forgot to preface that one.)

Science and reason, faith and reason. I'm prepared to put them on equal terms because I don't see science as opposed to, or conflicting with, religion, but I'm not going to roll over and take your utterly unproven premises as being the rules of the game.

I have tried to show, with quotations (which you don't seem to like), that I'm taking my stance from not only non-Catholic, but non-Christian sources, too. By doing this I was aiming to get off the cycle of a slamming match, and show there are respected thinkers out there from every walk of life, who might not accept your presuppositions. Not because they're idiots, but because their view of knowledge is wider that yours. Because of the horizon which you have set on the limits of knowledge, you can be guaranteed a result which shows religion as irrational, not because it is, but because you have set the parameters by which it is judged. That's called a blik, not reasoning.

Just because your view might be more widely broadcast (read narrowcast), no way does that show it is widely held, nor does it make it right. It reminds me of the old joke, "This must be a great picnic spot, dear. After all, 23,000 ants can't be wrong!"

Realised I've left a 'hole' with the 'blik' example.

Here's what secular humanism.org says about it:

---

"Another Oxford philosopher, R. M. Hare, responded to Flew with a parable of his own: A lunatic (Hare’s word) believes that the dons want to kill him. A friend believes otherwise and tries to convince the lunatic by introducing him to the dons and showing him that they are friendly, gentle people and mean him ho harm. The lunatic responds that the dons are duplicitous and are really plotting against him, all the while pretending to be friendly.