Nice Christians are Still Christians
Last night I attended a release party celebrating Hitchens’ “God is not great” being released in Swedish, with the title “Du store Gud?”, by Fri Tanke Förlag (Freethought Publishing). There was a discussion between Elisabeth Sandlund, the editor of a christian newspaper and Åke Ortmark, a prominent journalist who was recently elected onto the board of the Swedish Humanist Association (which I guess makes us colleagues). The editor, an obviously intelligent lady with a lot of what I’d have to call spunk, had been atheist for a long time but met god at the confirmation of her handicapped daughter.
All in all it was a fun, friendly discussion. She wasn’t a creationist and I think ethically she and I would agree on most things - although she’s against euthanasia and thinks that diagnosing handicaps in the womb and preventing these fetuses from growing is a slippery slope. We shouldn’t give the scientists free reins, she opined, forgetting that it’s not the knowledge that’s dangerous, but the application. She also made a few other slightly baffling comments; for instance she was under the impression that scientists are pursuing a final answer and would be happy the day we know everything there is to know. During my turn to speak in the discussion afterwards I pointed out that the very jobs of scientists depend on there being more questions to ask.
I also asked her a question that seemed to piss her off, as she didn’t answer and instead made herself seem like an idiot. She had been lamenting the misuse of christianity during the crusades and in catholic countries outlawing homosexuality and the like. I asked her if it isn’t a little problematic to believe that her version of christianity is the right one, when these other christians believe just as fervently as she does that they’re doing the right thing. Huffily, she said that by that logic, all atheists like Stalin.
Yeah, I have no idea how she made that connection. The old “atheism led to the Holocaust/gulags/whatever” fallacy has been debunked ad nauseam, but in this case it’s not even applicable. I wasn’t saying that her personal faith was responsible for crimes against humanity, or that she’s in any way connected to these, I was asking how she knows that she really happens to believe in the right version of christianity, when there’s so many of them. Perhaps I phrased the question poorly, though. I am, after all, only human. Unfortunately she rushed off afterwards, panting “I have to get home to my handicapped child!” (she referred to her daughter often, and it irked me. Clearly she thinks she’s special because her daughter has a mental handicap. I have nothing but contempt for people who use their handicapped children as arguments in a debate, it’s so obviously fishing for sympathy), so there wasn’t time to resolve the matter.
Other than this, nothing out of the ordinary was said. Ortmark failed to answer a question from a christian about objective morality, probably because he as a Humanist doesn’t believe in any such thing and hence didn’t even understand the question. Sandlund repeated the old fallacy that Swedish ethics = Christian ethics, and failed to answer all the questions that normally lead people to reject god, such as the problem of theodicy, and complacently stated that she’s happy to hand over those problems to God, and that in fact, she feels it strengthens her faith that she doesn’t know everything. A lovely bit of rationalising - “This is a problem that might dent my faith. Therefore, I must believe it strengthens my faith.”
In short, the message to take home was that even nice, intelligent christians are still, well, christians. They still have an imaginary friend and they still believe in miracles, contrary to all evidence.
Being a catholic, i still agreed with some things you wrote here. The question you asked:
How do you know your type of christianity is the correct one?
is not easy to answer in a half minute.
The fact that most christians in the world belong to the vatholic or orthodox churches, doesn’t mean that i’m more right than Sandlund is, although your question is yet to be defended.
.
Ortmark seems to reason in a consistent manner. Where would an objective set of moral codes come from if there is no God? I’ve debated against quite a few atheists now, who are sure there is an objective morality (based on logics, not feelings or sympathy),
but they can’t seem to logically/empirically prove even the basics:
Why should you not kill?
Why should one not act selfishly?
Why should one want to live?
Since Chrsister Sturmark seems to be friends with the jesuit Ulf Jonsson: have you ever had the chance to argue with Ulf?
Comment by simple z — April 30, 2008 @ 14:57
Z, Like I said, Ortmark didn’t actually argue that question, he failed to answer it completely, not understanding what the questioner was trying to express. I have only heard of one atheist believing in objective morality and that’s Torbjörn Tännsjö, all the humanists I’ve talked to believe, like I do, in an intersubjective morality that comes from us being social animals and hence needing rules to be able to live in a group.
I have met Ulf on a couple of occasions but both times it has been Christer arguing with him and not me. I did once, at a seminar about religion and politics, ask him how he can defend freedom of religion on one hand and religious schools on the other at the same time. Since I think all humans, including children, should have the right of freedom of religion, I think religious schools shouldn’t be allowed, whereas he defended them with the rather atrocious claim that since children don’t have all the responsibilities of an adult, they shouldn’t have all the rights of an adult either. This completely neglects the fact that since children don’t have the right to vote and hence have little to no power in society, their rights are in SPECIAL need of protection.
Comment by Felicia Gilljam — April 30, 2008 @ 18:00
So Sandlund is a “former atheist”, did she go into what convinced her not to be so any longer?
It seems to me that at least here in Sweden, many people are atheists not because they have reasoned themselves to that conclusion, but rather because it is the default position in our society and might be as irrationally founded as any other religion. (“I am because I have always been.”) So, not really having any arguments for their position, they might be easily convinced by promises of, uh, I don’t know, meaning, justice, afterlife, whatever.
So, anyway, were the reasons for this conversion touched upon at all?
Comment by kai — May 1, 2008 @ 13:46
Kai, In fact, her conversion was one of the first things that were brought up as a direct question from Åke to Elisabeth. For the first thirty-something years of her life she was an atheist; during her teens “staunchly” so (she pointed out that she would have LOVED Hitchens’ book at the time) but later mostly a sort of default non-belief. She had the same problems with theodicy as most reasonable people do, etcetera.
Her conversion happened at the confirmation of her handicapped daughter as she was about to take communion, at which point God apparently let her know that he existed. She is fully aware that she was “softened”, that is, she was in a rather suggestible state of mind on account of it being a very emotional occasion for her. But still she apparently can’t shake the feeling that she knows that God exists now and that she was wrong all those years. She still has no answers to any of the problems that led her to be an atheist during her teens and subsequent years. Her husband’s an atheist but her handicapped child has a “deep christian faith” (why am I not surprised?).
I agree with you that most Swedish people’s atheism hasn’t been arrived at by a conscious thought process. Atheism is simply the default position; if you’re not taught that god exists at a young age you’re unlikely to believe he does later on. I’m not sure that this makes you an easier convert, but I definitely believe that Swedes could do with a little more training in rational thinking. Organised religion might not be very popular here but New age and other sorts of spiritualism-run-amok is definitely gaining ground.
Comment by Felicia Gilljam — May 1, 2008 @ 16:26
The patronizing attitude that just about always accompany the “enlightened” atheists’ description of believing persons (after all “even nice, intelligent christians are still, well, christians”) is both sad and not very constructive. Besides that your description of the releaseparty cause a number of questions to be posed. In no particular order…
Isn’t your question to Sandlund reversible? Isn’t it just as reasonable to ask a dedicated, utterly and completely convinced atheist (as yourself) the same question? How do you know that you really happen to believe in the right version of description of reality, when there are so many of them? Isn’t it problematic that you – and others who share your rigid opinions about the god-question – beyond any doubt whatsoever believe that your version of the construction and description of reality is by “empirical” definition the only corrrect one?
Isn’t it also a bit arrogant to claim – or actually demand – the falsification of someone else’s conviction about the constitution of reality and at the same time deny any posibility that your own specific conviction is in any way near even the possibility of falsification – as is usually the case when the topic God is touched upon by Dawkins/Hitchens/Sturmark disciples? (Is a mind that excludes any possibilty of the falsification of its own presuppositions even close to the ideal of a humans being’s open mind being the main and most important tool for reasons’s search of a deeper and more truthful understanding of reality?)
Can one really claim intellectual consistency and honesty when one subject others’ understandings of the construction and understanding of reality to scrutinizing questioning (mainly directed at a christian perspective that there is a God who relates to people and humanity) and at the same time rebuke that the same questions can and should be asked about one’s own understandings, convictions and presuppositions? This usually seems to be the case when Dawkins/Hitchens/Sturmark disciples argue that their “empirically” defined reality is untouchably correct and all other by the same definition is false.
It is a problem for the discussion that on the atheist’s side of the Swedish debate-arena today there seems to be a limited interest for important questions that connect to the way humans write, speak and relate to their inviroment and to reality. (Besides the physiological/neurological functions that cause or are caused by the human’s interaction with the enviroment that is.)
Usually there is little, if any, attention payed to for instance the understanding of human language and its functions in speech and writing, or to philosophical definitions of the realms of thinking, or to the fact that a theological question like that of theodicy cannot even be discussed outside of a theologically defined realm of thought, or to the fact that theological claims rarely claim what the regular secular Swedish atheist claim them to claim, or to the fact that there are massive amounts of thoughts by people like Kant, Kierkegaard, Sjestov, Dostojevski, Nietzsche and others that actually go into the depths of the questions concerning the constitution of human thinking about the human existential situation.
These are only a few of the questions that the average Swedish atheist of today usually don’t want to relate to, which causes a mindset about the world’s constitution that is constituated by the delusion that it isn’t a mindset but truth itself and that the own mindset is in no need of distinction or correction. The consequence usually being a complete lack on humbleness in relationship to other human beings’ understandings of reality, if their understandings are other than the atheists’ own. This in turn causes the less constructive patronizing attitude. The patronizing school of thought is quite apparent in the writings and speeches of Dawkins, Hitchens, Sturmark and their followers. It is not constructive, sad and at the same time baffling since the apparent lack of understanding of differing descriptions of reality usually comes from the ones that claim to understand the most.
I would like to suggest a reading of for instance Nietzsche, that deconstructed not only religion’s claims on absolute truth but also science’s absurd claims to constituate absolute truth (a short synopsis of one of his texts that relates to this topic is available in Swedish here: http://teologiforum.blogspot.com/2008/03/nietzsches-vad-betyder-asketiska-ideal.html).
A more humble and less patronizing attitude toward eachother would help us all to make the world both better and more intelligble.
(An attempt to critically relate to the Sturmark way of thinking is available in Swedish here: http://abobabopolitik.blogspot.com/2007/10/humanistbrister.html)
Kindly
Comment by PatrikP — May 2, 2008 @ 11:45
Patrik, thank you for your comment, I’ll come back to it in a blog post later. I can’t promise any good answers though as for the most part I think your questions concern straw men.
Comment by Felicia Gilljam — May 2, 2008 @ 12:01
*looking for Torbjön Tännsjö’s proof for the existence of objective morality*
Comment by z again — May 5, 2008 @ 14:15
I think you’re forgetting what’s most important: the food was good.
Comment by Hampus — May 7, 2008 @ 23:20
very nice blog… God Bless!!! can we xlinks???
Comment by Did You Know? — May 15, 2008 @ 03:24
Z, don’t bother; you wont find any. Trust me.
Comment by Tobias — May 24, 2008 @ 10:25
Are we to understand that a proper response to Patrik´s comment won´t turn up? Or have you simply forgotten?
Comment by Jacob — June 11, 2008 @ 00:50