A new flag carrier for political atheism

Step forward a slightly surprising flag carrier for political atheism - Matthew Paris - who has launched a rallying cry for the non-religious to make their voices heard in the public square. The article is in today's Times and is a response to the large number of critical emails he received after recently writing an article urging "intelligent Christians" to fight back against nonsense such as the idea that Pope John Paul II might have cured a nun from his grave. Paris says many emailers were basically telling him that if he didn't believe then he should "shut up" and stop writing about such stuff. This is a familiar line for Paris who recounts his time as a Conservative MP and how one Tory Chief Whip  who explained he never felt the need to tell anyone about his personal atheism in case it "astonished" some of his local voters.

Here is Paris' response, it's worth reproducing one large chunk of the article:

"How do we reply? An ad hominem response would be to remark that when the Church had the upper hand it was happy to persecute, imprison or behead non-believers and fight crusades against other religions. Now it has lost its boss status it simply asks us to keep our opinions to ourselves (but still wants laws to criminalise us for mocking its pretensions).

On the back foot at last, it discovers (first) a brotherhood between all its sects. Then as the situation deteriorates Christianity discovers within itself a respect first for Judaism (suddenly we are all “Judaeo-Christians”), then women with a Christian vocation, then for divorcees, and finally finds a common purpose with religions such as Islam, too (the “faith” community). Needs must.

And as the Devil (or falling church attendance) drives, these “members of the faith community” cease enforcing their moral imperatives upon a secular world and retreat into whimpering about their “freedom of conscience” to carry on persecuting the minority groups upon whose sinfulness they can still find a consensus. Freedom of conscience, my eye! If only there were an afterlife: Martin Luther would have loved Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s protests. They don’t like it up ’em.

As mainstream Christian church attendances fall farther still I predict that the Church of England, and finally the Roman Catholics, will be driven to conclude that they cannot even afford to make enemies of homosexuals, unmarried couples and family planners, and start welcoming them in too. I expect they’ll call it the “love community”. In truth it’s the “can’t afford to be choosy” community.

But there I go again. Getting passionate, fighting dirty. But we have a better argument than “you’d do the same to us if you could” — though they would, and until about half a century ago they did.

It is that they will again, unless we non-believers are watchful, and energetic and — yes — passionate. I hate ending up in scraps with nice Anglicans and thoughtful Catholics because the Church of England and intelligent Catholicism are not the problem. They are the best kind of Christians, but the best lack all conviction. It is the worst who are full of passionate intensity. Look at the evangelical movement in America, and to some extent, now, here. Look at the Religious Right in Israel. Look at fundamentalist Islam. What they share, what drives them, the tiger in their tanks, is an absolute, unshakeable belief in an ever-present divinity, with plans for nations that He communicates to the leaders, or would-be leaders, of nations. They are the very devil, these people, they could wreck our world, and their central belief in God’s plan has to be confronted. Confronted with passion. Confronted because, and on the ground that, it is not true.

Disbelief can be passionate. Sometimes it should be. Agnosticism can be passionate. A sense that we lack certitude, lack evidence, lack the external command of any luminous guiding truth, may not always lead to lassitude, complaisance or a modest silence. Sometimes it should provoke a great shout: “Stop. You don’t know that. You have no right.”

I hit you, earlier on, with a burst of the admirable David Hume. But he was not always right. “Opposing one species of superstition to another,” he wrote, “set them a-quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.” No, David. Listen instead to Nietzsche. “This eternal indictment of Christianity,” he said, “I will write on walls, wherever there are walls.”

We who do not believe must be ready with our paintbrushes, our chisels and our cans of aerosol spray. Disbelief can be more than an absence of belief. It can be a redeeming, saving force. "

What is equally interesting about Matthew Paris is that he is a Conservative. In Britain, the most prominent advocates of secular politics have always come from the left. What we may be seeing now is the ongoing growth of secular attitudes in the UK finally reaching the far bastion of organised religion - the Tories. Which can only be a good thing at the end of the day.

Comments

[Martin Bentley]

An interesting find although I find it slightly objectionable for you to claim that "prominent advocates of secular politics have always come from the left". That suggests that secularism is a left wing value when it is equally a Libertarian value and the recent hijacking of the Right Wing in America by Religion doesn't mean there aren't secular leaning conservatives. I'm a Liberal/Socialist/Libertarian/Humanist they all can comfortably overlap but don't mutually have to be a package. We have many devour Catholic Socialists (despite that churches Fascist history).

[Martin Bentley]

typo: devour = devout

[The Labour Humanist]

I wouldn't want to claim secularism exclusively for the left - it would be far better if there was a healthy secular consensus across the political spectrum.

However, in the UK, can you name a single prominent Conservative political figure in the last fifty years who has spoken out in favour of the separation between church and state?

[Matt Wardman]

>In the UK, can you name a single prominent Conservative political figure in the last fifty years who has spoken out in favour of the separation between church and state?

That depends what you mean by prominent, what you mean by conservative, and what you mean by politician (do you mean MPs or Cabinet Ministers). However, on your doorstep:

BHA "distinguished supporter": Baroness Flather (pulled from the distinguished supporters list of the BHA.

Also, David Starkey (Conservative Party member and NSS Associate).

and - as you say - Matthew Parris.

They probably exist, but I do not have spiriual biographies of 50 years of Tory ministers to hand, nor a weekend to spend on the research.

I also haven't checked through the speakers in the HoL debate on the 19th April.

What *did* surprise was the domination of BHA/NSS "allies" by Labour/New Labour. I checked them all and I reckon it is 85-90% of politicians.

I don't think that supports your claim, however - more to do with the NSS/BHA cosying up to the party in power for influence. Imho they need to do that due to the vanishingly small membership figures.

[Matt Wardman]

Can I qualify this statement:

>What *did* surprise was the domination of BHA/NSS "allies" by Labour/New Labour. I checked them all and I reckon it is 85-90% of politicians.

I mean politicians within the respective "distinguished supporters" and "associates" lists.

[Matt Wardman]

Add John Bercow, who has signed the "chuck out the Bishops" EDM". 5 years on Tory front bench.