Fundamentalists of all faiths and none

I usually feel a sense of satisfaction when I see someone writing something that I've been saying for ages and it is being said to a wide audience. Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, says.

"We are witnessing a social phenomenon that is about fundamentalism. Atheists like the Richard Dawkins of this world are just as fundamentalist as the people setting off bombs on the tube, the hardline settlers on the West Bank and the anti-gay bigots of the Church of England. Most of them would regard each other as destined to fry in hell. You have a triangle with fundamentalist secularists in one corner, fundamentalist faith people in another, and then the intelligent, thinking liberals of Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, baptism, methodism, other faiths - and, indeed, thinking atheists - in the other corner. " says Slee. Why does he think the other two groups are so vociferous? "When there was a cold war, we knew who the enemy was. Now it could be anybody. From this feeling of vulnerability comes hysteria."

I think that it could be that last bit of analysis which is worth chewing over a bit more. I don't know yet whether I think it may be right, but I do think that it is plausible.
The article is a good read, and includes this rather nice soundbite from Alistair McGrath,

"We need to treat those who disagree with us with intellectual respect, rather than dismissing them - as Dawkins does - as liars, knaves and charlatans. Many atheists have been disturbed by Dawkins' crude stereotypes and seemingly pathological hostility towards religion. In fact, The God Delusion might turn out to be a monumental own goal - persuading people that atheism is just as intolerant as the worst that religion can offer."

There are a number of interesting and even provactive things in this article. And here's another one.

Slee argues that low (below 7%) church attendance is a result of Christians being revolted by "the church presenting itself as narrow and non-inclusive".

. Again I find myself wondering whether that is true or plausible. I suspect its plausibility is more a function of ones viewpoint: more liberal types think it must be true. But, I can't help wondering whether the fact that it looks just as plausible to more 'signed up' religious believers that the low figures are about not being definite enough producing communities where belief is not strong enough really to be sufficiently distinctive to propagate itself.

On another point, we find Children's author, Philip Pullman, arguing atheism should be taught in schools.

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

As someone currently teaching in a Catholic school, I can say, with reasonably experiential authority, that atheism is taught, and reasonably fairly and that the science department is happy with evolution as are the RE department. I would reserve a comment to say that science does involve a degree of faith, and if Mr Pullman had a better grasp of epistemology he might agree and not see that as somehow threatening the endeavour we call science, at its best.

Of course it is an article written in a UK context, so international readers may need to recall that Britain has schools that are overseen by faith communties which are part of the state school provision. However, they all have to follow the national curriculum, so that considerably narrows the scope for 'indoctrination'.

The reason this matters to me is pretty much summed up with the words of the Archbish of York,

"The aggressive secularists pervert and abuse any notion of diversity for the sake of promoting a narrow agenda.

I came to that view working in a secular university that seemed blind to the fact that 'secular' did not really mean 'neutral'. I did manage to get that changed to some degree, so that secular views were also recognised as on a par with religious in terms of having values and world-view issues attached which could be challenged by religious views. And in fact, because this was in Bradford, I came to a view about the matter remarkably similar to this.

Tamimi contends that this was not quite what happened. Rather, he suggests that Christians were complicit in their marginalisation from power. "Christians did that to themselves - they allowed religion to move to the private sphere. That would be intolerable for Muslims." Why? "Partly because secularism doesn't mean the same for Muslims from the Middle East. The story of secularism in the Middle East is not one of democracy, as we are always told it was in the west. Instead, it is associated with tyranny - with Ataturk in Turkey, for instance. Islam is compatible with democracy, but not with this secular fundamentalism we are witnessing."

. And my view on how to handle that in public life came to be one that is remarkably similar to this one

set out by Yahya Birt, research fellow at The Islamic Foundation. "One form of secularism suggests that religion should be kept in the private sphere. That's Dawkins' position. Another form, expressed by philosophers suc has Isaiah Berlin and John Gray, is to do with establishing a modus vivendi. It accepts that you come to the public debate with baggage that will inform your arguments. In this, the government tries to find common ground and the best possible consensus, which can only work if we share enough to behave civilly. Of course, there will be real clashes over issues such as gay adoption, but it's not clear to me that that's a problem per se."

So I'm well pleased to see my thinking over the last few years affirmed.

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