INTRODUCTION
‘The Christian religion and “Christian” morality are variously seen as stultifying and irrelevant to the complexities of modern experience. Religion serves to complicate and further frustrate the destines of central characters’ (Sanders, 1994:462).
Before unpacking Sanders’ comment on Christianity and its morality, we first broadly define morality as an intuition that we ought to do that which is good, and ought not to do that which is bad (Kranak 2021). This is true for Christian fundamentalist morality where we ought to do that which God prescribes as 'good', while also encompassing the modern lens of non-religious morality, or specifically for this essay, normative morality as observed by secular humanism (Gert 2020), where we ought to do that which brings about wellbeing, which we interpret as 'good' (Harris 2010). That said, this essay agrees with Sanders on the grounds that Christian orthodoxy can be seen as stultifying and frustrating for those who exist in the present day and age.
Referencing the Euthyphro dilemma, the Christian doctrine prescribes objective laws stemming from subjective experiences relative to the distant past, which if ever applied to the modern world, is only applicable via an external morality that supersedes Christianity (Hitchens 2007). For Christians in a cosmopolitan community, the severity of incongruent worldviews impinged upon the self and society corresponds to their intensity and adherence to Christian dogma—especially specific elements supporting the ignorance or denial of progressive breakthroughs in science, philosophy, and critical thinking (cite). In any case, the aforementioned clash of worldviews would either result in cognitive dissonance, or evoke an internal conflict of identities. This essay aims to examine the conflict of religious discourse in two Victorian poets—Thomas Hardy and Lord Alfred Tennyson. Both have familiar roots in Christian morality and are placed in positions to challenge it, but possess differing reasons for their respective doubts and resolutions. Evidences regarding the crisis of faith are reflected in their poems, which will be referenced and discussed within this essay via a mostly humanist lens.
DOUBTING FAITH: TENNYSON
This section will be discussing the poem In Memoriam (1849) by Lord Alfred Tennyson, which was written in a state of grief and mourning, illustrating the journey of how he goes through religious doubt. It aims to uncover how the reinforcing of Tennyson’s faith through confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance (which, in further distancing and muddying the ideas of truth for him and his audience,) is non-productive except in terms of personal peace,.
Religious Disillusionment
Preceding the World War that propagated further the sense of religious loss and fragmentation, Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1833) and later, Charles Darwin’s discourse of evolution (1859) became known as milestone revelations that shook the foundations of the anthropomorphic Christian faith (Furneaux 2014). The scientific atmosphere of the times exerted pressure upon said dogma, in this case by filling in the gap of knowledge previously assuming God as the answer to the complexity of existence. The assumption exists via the dogma’s domination, as seen in what Tennyson writes, whereby ‘…faith alone, embrace,/Believing where we cannot prove’, a prologue which incidentally echoes the biblical virtue of ‘childlike faith’ (cite). An example of such falsified faith is seen in Christian apologist William Paley’s popularisation of the watchmaker analogy (1802), which posits a teleological premise that complexity is always a product of intelligence, and because organisms are complex, they are a product of intelligent design. While there are following rebuttals for a deistically mechanical universe inherently supporting divine design (Smith 2010), the argument is still an intuitive one that appeals to ignorance, as it fallaciously propositions its premise to be true on the grounds that it is yet to be proven false (David Hume citation). Regardless, In Memoriam details how certain tenets of Christianity face an onslaught of threats levied by the growing incompatibility of evolutionary science with the Bible’s long-standing narrative that asserts the account of a six-day creation and the idea of human exclusivity as divinely clear and inerrant (citation bible is inerrant). For instance, Tennyson reflects in cantos CXVIII on how mankind ‘the herald of a higher race’ evolves, and ‘move[s] upward, working out the beast,/and let[ting] the [primal] ape and tiger die.’ By incorporating evolution as a working worldview of humankind’s hope (Mazzeno 2020), he seems to side-line the Bible’s literal narrative to achieve some middle-ground in reinterpreting and reconciling God’s Word with scientific worldviews.
Subsequently, the sense of religious doubt of the century is also clearly reflected in cantos (LV), where Tennyson says ‘I falter where I firmly trod’ in the face of formidable blows upon his spectrum of reality, where he could only resort to ‘stretch(ing) lame hands of faith, and grope,’. Unfortunately for him, he ends up ‘gather(ing) dust and chaff, (while still trying to) call/To what (he) feel is Lord of all,/And faintly trust the larger hope.’ Tennyson’s condition as presented in the text reflects the fact that the state of belief in God cannot realistically be managed as an act of policy, as Dawkins pointed out when discussing the viability of Pascal’s wager in The God Delusion (2016). Instead, if God’s holy and inerrant Word does not survive philosophical and scientific scrutiny, belief in the God of the Christian Bible falls apart due to the void of claim in divine inerrancy. At the least, God is written off as the author of confusion and contradiction. Consequently, attempts to maintain the faith despite the aforementioned revelations are described by (Nietzche?) as a regression of critical thinking (cognitive bias citation), leading to irrational conclusions and risking harmful decisions. As follows, Tennyson’s cognitive dissonance seems to stem from an erroneous belief; that the ideas we emotionally and fervently hold onto for the longest time contain more truth. This standpoint elucidates how he is understandably susceptible to confirmation bias in rationalizing the emotional hunch of God as sacrosanct (Michael Schermer), even in the face of evidence against it.
Dangers in Christian Deconstruction
Indeed, Tennyson’s confirmation bias becomes apparent as we see the depth of commitment to his Christian worldview as presented in In Memoriam. Case in point: we note that the third stanza of cantos (XCVI) indicates that ‘there lives more faith in honest doubt,/… than in half the creeds.’ While the lines seem to pose the doubt experienced as ‘honest’, with an impression of minimal bias, we should also consider the allusion to the popular stance of religious deconstruction—where any attempt to challenge the scripture should only have a top-down goal of faith, which is to confirm the scripture’s validity through limited doubt (citation). Any other result would be a disconfirmed expectancy of the faith, which would then be re-evaluated with internal and/or external refutations of incriminatory evidence against the faith (Harmon-Jones 2002). This popular method of invalidating or explaining away contradictions, usually with reaffirmations of faith via moral and emotional support, allows the questioning Christian ‘to find a stronger faith his own’. Essentially, they reach a state of reconfirmed belief with renewed vigour and confidence, which is problematic as it is fallaciously attained. While Tennyson ‘dwells not in the [divine] light alone’ and explores ‘in the darkness and the cloud’, he still assumes the default of God’s presence within said clouds, on ‘Sinaï's peaks of old’, where God, as the ultimate moral authority, descended in the clouds and dictated the ten commandments. So, cases of renewed faith such as Tennyson’s would usually result in a complacent assurance that encourages a higher probability of underestimating or dismissing challenges against faith (Colapietro 2013), and in turn a greater possibility of harming others through misguided actions and inaction.
The Gravity of Grief
On the other hand, there is the factor of considering the frustrating effects experienced by those who undergo the process of religious doubt and despair. For instance, the first world war stripped apart many illusions (citation), and people who might have been clinging to a residual belief in old customs and traditions—including the tenets of Christianity—found themselves becoming increasingly disillusioned and in pain from a crisis of faith. To illustrate in a scenario, a recently widowed woman experiences a period (or an unending experience) of grief in response to losing an integral part of her personal and societal identity. Comparably, many Christians do recognize that they might very well experience grief in a loss of personal, familial, and cultural identities as well as their integral support systems following a divorce of their religious ideas in the age of science. As Christianity is a worldview maintained by acknowledging the Jewish God of the Bible (DeLockery 2021), it thoroughly crumbles in the event where an aspect of God’s existence or representation of dogma is refuted and/or recognized as inconsistent. This may subconsciously lead to a suspension or denial of critical thinking while encouraging a recurrence of confirmation bias appealing to the emotional need of preservation and survival of mental, physical, spiritual, and social comfort. The experience of the already frustrated individual will be further complicated, inducing unnecessary stress and potentially disrupting productivity in general. Concurrently, there would be a lowered engagement in the utilisation of mental faculties to engage with more grounded issues such as climate change, socio-economic awareness etc. (cite).
To summarise, we see the shattering uncertainty Tennyson brings through his mourning in In Memoriam, which echoes the mid-nineteenth century's deep reassessment of God and the world (Furneaux 2014). Even today, the poem beautifully weaves these themes together to affirm our feelings of scepticism and grief in the departure of identity and religion.
DIVORCING FAITH: HARDY
While scholars stress the significance of religious language in Hardy’s work, there is the conclusion that Hardy deems core ideas of Christianity inadequate for the hope of Humanity’s moral progress (Washburn 2012). Indeed, some even remark that Hardy’s relationship towards faith and transcendence largely comprises of resentment and regret (Panter 2014). This section delves into two poems from Thomas Hardy’s collection entitled “Satires of Circumstances, Lyrics and Reveries”—‘A Plaint to Man’(1914), and ‘Hap’ (1860). The latter indicates an observation that life is ‘hapless’, at mercy of mere chance and randomness without God, whereas the former highlights religious disillusionment, lamenting man’s creation of God as a hindrance.
Dogma Limiting the Mind
In the face of doubt, denial, and grief, an argument for the rationalization of Christianity is that the system of its religiosity has been maintained for aeons and has benefited humanity in some ways. Notwithstanding, it is only so because the humans of the past knew so little of the world, and lived in the uncomfortable condition of perpetual uncertainty. As Hardy writes in ‘A Plaint To Man’: ‘Man needs to conceive of a mercy-sea’ in the face of such uncertainty, and thus ‘drew the unhappy need of creating [God]/A form like [their] own—for praying to’, for finding solace, security, and answers for the unknown. There’s a certain use of having ‘such a forced device’ of false security if there is nothing else available, because it works ‘for easing a loaded heart at whiles’. As man ‘could not bear/The irk no local hope beguiles’, they turn to these placebo effects which can grant a level of emotional and mental stability, to regain composure needed for survival (cite cool nerves). However, it is dangerous to resort to such unfounded and irrational forms of problem-solving in a modern society where real solutions exist. For example, the choice of pursuing and proselytising faith-based, nature-based, and pseudo-scientific healing in place of modern scientific medicine is virtually an act of committing suicide (Asimov 1988). Hardy’s sentiment that divinity’s ‘virtue, power, utility,/Within [its] maker must all abide, Since none in [it]self can ever be,’ suggests that humanity has progressed to a point where they should recognize that perhaps the might of the divine only exists within the mind of man.
Granted, a full relinquishment of control to the idea of God does employ a number of psychological benefits—increasing its desirability for believers (Krause 2021)—but the pressing concern is that the potential damage caused by Christian dogma has outweighed its potential benefits to society today. The Christian religion, which functioned as a crutch to maintain societal and emotional balance, has created its own ‘gloomy aisles/Of this wailful world’. Consider the effects of the passive followership mindset on children who were systematically subjected to Christian indoctrination from approximately the 9th century. This indoctrinated narrative that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent (Purzycki, 2013) inhibits critical thinking and even atrophies the ability to challenge oneself (Van Vugt et al, 2008). Instead, such teachings develop a blind acceptance of and appeal to authority, where apparent might makes right. In his work, Hardy laments that even though the idea of God does ‘dwindle day by day/Beneath the deicide eyes of [rational] seers’, the mode of thought keyed to false indoctrination that placed schools under the management of Christian authorities (Notgrass 2004) till the 18th century still persists in educational institutions today (Stefon et al 2018). Whilst proponents of Christianity such as St. Justin Martyr (2ad), and Anselm (cite) claimed Christian revelation as a fitting piece to intellectual and philosophical fulfilment, this standard for humanity's progress only goes as far as not to contradict the Bible, meaning that any process of deconstruction begins with (1) the ingrained acceptance that God and His commands are perfect, and (2) that humans are written off as inherently wrong in any deductive reasoning that contradicts God—on the basis that they cannot understand God's Will. A clear example of such ideological conflict is evident in the persecution of Galileo Galilei (Finocchiaro, 1989); who challenged the Christian dogma’s geocentricism with the heliocentric system in an intellectual wrestling match for truth. Understandably, it is concerning to digest that even today, examples of anti-intellectualism are nurtured by the false notion of democracy—that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’ (Asimov 1980). Ergo, the limit of Christianity lies in its claim for an unchanging behaviour towards an unchanging truth, when the objectivity of known truth is malleable and is subject to rational improvement over time (Lord 2017).
existentialism Jean Paul Sarte pronounced such teachings and beliefs as 'bad faith'
And to-morrow the whole of me disappears, The truth should be told, and the fact be faced That had best been faced in earlier years:
The fact of life with dependence placed On the human heart’s resource alone,
In brotherhood bonded close and graced
With loving-kindness fully blown,
And visioned help unsought, unknown.”
Reconsidering Rational Morality (Hap)
The destabilizing factors that seeped into the Victorian mid-century thus involved the socio-cultural subsets of moral, religious, aesthetic, and gender issues. In public fora and in their own hearts, mid-Victorians were often preoccupied with questions surrounding religious faith, men’s and women’s roles in and outside of the home, and the moral and social ramifications of aesthetic values. (Tucker 2014)
‘Crass Casualty’ and ‘purblind Doomsters’
Supposing that Christian doctrine is ultimately false, some might still say that the nature of its religiosity is beneficial for moral development (cite). Nonetheless, this sentiment would be demonstrably untrue; there is no reason to opt for Christianity especially when extreme consequences in its misleading people with irrationality do exist. To clarfy, despite having a story where man gains the knowledge of good and evil from eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis), Christianity presupposes that man is unable to know what is good and what is evil, and that God alone knows and commands ‘good’ through transcendental morality (Nietzsche 1889). Accordingly, Christian morality generally supports ideas from the codified Old Testament that are unaligned with scientific and cultural progression, such as slavery, indiscriminate massacre, racial bigotry, and patriarchy (Hitchens 2007). The controversy lies in how the aforementioned practices were not rebuked, but affirmed by Jesus (wielding authority as the Son of God) in the New testament, who came to fulfil, not abolish, the aforementioned laws (cite). Although the modern experience of humanism criticizes such standards for morality, there are a spectrum of fundamentalist sects blindsiding their rational thinking in favour of God ordained barbarism, just because their interpretation of the Bible deems it to be so. Inasmuch, the existence of Christian morality is not only irrelevant and stultifying, it also engenders a real level of harm towards the wellbeing of humanity.
Talks about the coming darkness when religion loses its grip on society, and with that, the loss of objective morality that was enforced as the norm. Secular Humanism still supports the idea of objective morality, within the subjective sense, where the 'good, bad, and ought' cannot be defined.
In other words, morality appeals to the objectivity of individuals seeking an avoidance and mitigation of pain, while seeking pleasure within their subjective experiences. This attempts to debunk the Christian narrative, which through a series of objective claims from a divine origin, denies the relativity of experience that is ever prevalent in a modern cosmopolitan awareness of societies.
In this sense, Christian morality is categorised as an instance of the false dichotomy fallacy, denying the socio-cultural aspects interwoven into what we call morality is more complex than is presented in the Christian lens of Othering ‘Evil’, which encourages the intolerance of out-groups, largely spurred on by ignorance. (example)
Christian mindset: should have suffering from original sin; birth control pill (beneficial), tube ligation, abortion (patriarchal; inadequacy of woman’s suffering and choice). Anyone who escapes natural state of creation is sinning and should be judged.
the question then arises as to which world-view is preferable, that which supposes that the gods are set on destroying man’s happiness,
or the cosmos revealed by Darwin in which the forces of nature are mechanical and purposeless and man has as good a chance of
happiness as of despair? There is evidence that Hardy stressed to his critics that he was not replacing one source of cosmic oppression
with another, and he was in fact quoted as saying that: “The world does not despise us; it only neglects us” (See “The Life of Thomas
Hardy”, by Florence Emily Hardy, p. 48). The implication of this is that man has been dealt an even hand and must play it the best way
he can. The new order is therefore a bestowal of freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility – there are precursors of Sartrean thinking here.
As a result, Hardy staunchly rejected the idea that Christianity could be adapted to modern thought, emphasising the value in tangible examples of human virtue as sources of hope, rather than theories about miraculous or divine assistance.
CONCLUSION
While the worldview of Christianity does perpetuate harm, especially by warping truths, we can see through Hardy’s and Tennyson’s work that it is clear that the bond between members of the church as a whole is valid and should be taken into consideration in the process of abolishing its system.
Even if there is no possibility of conforming the entire world in the right way to practice rational thought, every sum total to the side of rationality is precious.
PRIMARY REFERENCES
Sanders, A. (1994). The Short Oxford History. Oxford: Chrendon Press
SECODNARY REFERENCES
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Colapietro, V. (2013).‘Time as Experience/Experience as Temporality: Pragmatic and Perfectionist Reflections on Extemporaneous Creativity’, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 5: 69-95.
Darwin, C. (1859). The origin of species and The descent of man. New York: The Modern Library.
Dawkins, R. (2016). The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press.
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Gert. B, and Gert. J (2020) "The Definition of Morality", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/morality-definition/>. [Assessed 28 November 2021]
Harmon-Jones E (23 July 2002). "A Cognitive Dissonance Theory Perspective on Persuasion". In Dillard JP, Pfau M (eds.). The Persuasion Handbook: Developments in Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications. pp. 99–116.
Harris S. (2010) The moral landscape: How science can determine human values. New York: NY Free Press.
Hitchens, C. (2007). God is not great: how religion poisons everything. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart.
Kranak, J. (2021) Chapter 6: Kantian Deontology. Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics, Hendricks, C (ed.), https://press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-ethics/chapter/kantian-deontology/ [Assessed 7 December 2021]
Krause, V., Goncalo, J. A., & Tadmor, C. T. (2021). Divine inhibition: Does thinking about God make monotheistic believers less creative? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 164, 158–178.
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Purzycki, B. G. (2013). The minds of gods: A comparative study of supernatural agency. Cognition, 129, 163–179.
Smith, James K. A. (2010). Science and the Spirit: A Pentecostal Engagement with the Sciences. Indiana University Press. p. 54.
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Washburn, C. (2012). The Image Of Christ In Thomas Hardy’s Poetry Of Progress. Texas: Baylor University
END
we too often believe that the ideas that we are emotionally attached to and fervently hold for the longest time contain more truth, and that is where the harm is done. Thus, we shouldnt criticize bad ideas any more than we criticize good ones. Practically speaking, if you recognize something as a bad idea, you necessary don't hold on to it, and might even criticize it. But if all we do is criticize bad ideas, we're not criticizing ideas that we hold. While there is benefit in criticizing bad ideas,a path to growth and self-development is to start evaluating and criticizing why you consider your own ideas as good. This shouldn't be a scary prospect as if your idea is really a good one, it should survive scrutiny and criticism. If it doesn't survive criticism, it will be a fallacious and problematic belief, and you would benefit from it too. This is why we should criticize ideas that are considered to be good as much as we criticize ideas that are considered bad. No idea is above the bar of criticism, and that is the framework of skepticism. This is especially true for people who hold good argumentative, rhetorical, and intellectual skills, as while they are also susceptible to confirmation bias, they have more tools to rationalize their emotional hunches as sacrosanct, even if they are bad ideas (Michael Schermer).
Practicing impersonal philosophy, which is the act of removing oneself from the equation, helps (Princeton). Reasoning faculties are used in impersonal ethical dilemmas, while emotional faculties are used in personal ethical dilemmas.
For example, when a woman is widowed, she loses her husband's name, which had been a major part of her identity, and reverts back to her own, which brings about a period (or unending experience) of personal grief responding to losing an integral part of her identity. In the age of science, the religious do recognize that they might very well experience grief in a loss of personal, familial, and cultural identity following the divorce of religious ideas. This may lead to a hesitation and a recurrence of confirmation bias appealing to the emotional faculties of preservation and survival of comfort.
The enormity of the War had undermined humankind’s faith in the foundations of Western society and culture and Post-War Modernist literature reflected a sense of disillusionment and fragmentation. A primary theme of T.S. Eliot’s long poem “The Waste Land” is the search for redemption and renewal in a sterile and spiritually empty landscape.
Secular humanism focuses on the way human beings can lead happy and functional lives. It posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God, it neither assumes humans to be inherently evil or innately good, nor presents humans as "above nature" or superior to it. Rather, the humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of secular humanism is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology—be it religious or political—must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. Along with this, an essential part of secular humanism is a continually adapting search for truth, primarily through science and philosophy.
thomas hardy far more autobiography in his poems than in his novels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jgx6ez9LYM
Hardy's poetry explores a fatalist outlook against the dark, rugged landscape of his native Dorset. He rejected the Victorian belief in a benevolent God, and much of his poetry reads as a sardonic lament on the bleakness of the human condition. A traditionalist in technique, he nevertheless forged a highly original style, combining rough-hewn rhythms and colloquial diction with a variety of meters and stanzaic forms. A significant influence on later poets (including Frost, Auden, Dylan Thomas, and Philip Larkin), his influence has increased during the course of the century, offering a more down-to-earth, less rhetorical alternative to the more mystical and aristocratic precedent of Yeats. Thomas Hardy died on January 11, 1928.
https://poets.org/poet/thomas-hardy
Curtis Fox: This was in 1885. Hopkins was a Jesuit priest, and some of his greatest poems celebrate the glory of God.
Mary Jo Bang: And yeah, the degree of his pain has made him question his belief in God, and there is no greater anxiety and angst than having the very thing you relied on seem to abandon you in this moment of great pain.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/76757/his-dark-places
the question then arises as to which world-view is preferable, that which supposes that the gods are set on destroying man’s happiness, or the cosmos revealed by Darwin in which the forces of nature are mechanical and purposeless and man has as good a chance of happiness as of despair? There is evidence that Hardy stressed to his critics that he was not replacing one source of cosmic oppression with another, and he was in fact quoted as saying that: “The world does not despise us; it only neglects us” (See “The Life of Thomas Hardy”, by Florence Emily Hardy, p. 48). The implication of this is that man has been dealt an even hand and must play it the best way he can. The new order is therefore a bestowal of freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility – there are precursors of Sartrean thinking here.
According to recent studies, speculation of religion in the modern experience has been somewhat skewed toward the positive, and that there is insufficient discourse regarding negative consequences that belief in God might have in daily life (Suzanne Chan-Serafin, Arthur P. Brief, Jennifer M. George (2012) PERSPECTIVE—How Does Religion Matter and Why? Religion and the Organizational Sciences. Organization Science 24(5):1585-1600.)
(Krause, Goncalo, Tadmor 2021)
morality:
an intuition that we ought to do that which is good, and ought not to do that which is bad (cite). This is true for religious morality; where we ought to do that which God defines as 'good',
Stultifying because its doctrine specifically others those who do not follow it. It is an ‘active’ religion in its core as its fundamental commandment of the new testament, or the new covenant, requires the Christian to further the Kingdom of God by spreading His Word, which, in many cases, is directly against the worldviews of modern culture; denying certain values of morality we hold while inspiring tribal in-group mindsets.
Literature and Dogma by Matthew Arnold: religious experience: 'morality touched with emotion' Define Christian Morality: ordained by God, practices (that are considered unaligned with science and progressive civilization) from the old testament first codified by Jewish authors of (BC) and affirmed by Jesus in the New testament
GE Mores: conforming to rules of social conduct.
Talks about the coming darkness when religion loses its grip on society, and with that, the loss of objective morality that was enforced as the norm. Secular Humanism still supports the idea of objective morality, within the subjective sense, where the 'good, bad, and ought' cannot be defined.
In other words, morality appeals to the objectivity of individuals seeking an avoidance and mitigation of pain, while seeking pleasure within their subjective experiences. This attempts to debunk the Christian narrative, which through a series of objective claims from a divine origin, denies the relativity of experience that is ever prevalent in a modern cosmopolitan awareness of societies.
In this sense, Christian morality is categorised as an instance of the false dichotomy fallacy, denying the socio-cultural aspects interwoven into what we call morality is more complex than is presented in the Christian lens of Othering ‘Evil’, which encourages the intolerance of out-groups, largely spurred on by ignorance. (example)
Christian mindset: should have suffering from original sin; birth control pill (beneficial), tube ligation, abortion (patriarchal; inadequacy of woman’s suffering and choice). Anyone who escapes natural state of creation is sinning and should be judged. Homosexuality denominations such as anglican still extremely patriarchal in nature, closely observe constraints of gender roles
caustic to the wellbeing of non-conforming stereotypes.
Sam Harris: there is nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist as long as there is nothing wrong with the fundamentals of the ideology.
Why protect the ideals of problematic ideologies that are supposedly backed up by an all powerful God? This act of rebuffal against narratives deemed true by God seems to highlight His weakness, as it indicates that God lacks power to protect or fend for its own doctrines and truths. Why would a God that is self-evident and true need the defense of flawed mortals? Perhaps it is only in the minds of human beings that they do exist.
IRRATIONALITY
Humanity is not rational. (Isaac Asimov)
A rational basis to solve problems: endowed with an ability to appreciate rationality and to be a skeptic that wants things to make sense, there is a burden of duty to say so, just like how religious have the call to do God’s word, I believe that if there is such a thing as God’s word, it is rationality, and I have a call too spread it. Even if there is no possibility of conforming the entire world in the right way to practice rational thought, every sum total to the side of rationality is precious.
A motivation to embrace the rational ethic:
To understand the universe better, as to believe in sordid things without the germ of sense is to limit the self terribly (Krause, Goncalo, Tadmor 2021), to live in fear of all sorts of things that don’t exist, and to commit a regression of values as a byproduct of the belief when one could walk down a more productive path to progress. We may have evolved to be hyperaware of possible dangers by utilising our sense of fear, but in this age of information and relative safety when compared to the past, we should focus on problems and threats that actually do exist, instead of living in fear of unknown threats that may very well be non-existent.
Unfortunately, the prevalence of irrationality does stem from one significant factor: the illusion of certainty, in certain answers. The human is wired to be attracted to certainty, even when it is wrong. For example, we would favour someone who says ‘2+2=5, there is no mistake about it’, compared to a position of ambiguity and no definite answer, where ‘modern scientific research says that 2+2 usually equals 4, but we can’t always be certain about it’. This would be a byproduct of our evolutionary bias, as we tend to follow people who are most certain about things as they are usually the ones who have survived because of their certainty.
Of course, the attractiveness of a statement depends on what is promised. Generally, Mothers fall for quack doctors because they are promised that their sick child will get a hundred percent healed. people fall for get rich quick scams because of their eagerness to get rich easy, to fulfil the blind wish and predisposition for money and wealth.
These con-men of irrationality are selling a full security of something that sounds good, knowledge of the future that does not really exist, assurance of safety when the isn’t any, and we gladly give money for the realisation of these ideas.
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
an example that —Mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity — John Adams,
‘Religion, if ever right is right by accident’ Sam Harris
Cantos 39
My reflections on Saint Teresa aside, it is my firm belief that the Catholic Church’s condemnation of artificial birth control is markedly unreasonable and inimical to those in the third world who are suffering under its influence. Inimical because here is being displayed a stark rejection of the single most effective method through which to reduce STDs among sexually active people, and unreasonable because the opinion is grounded on fundamentally defective logic. If you ask a Catholic to explain the reasoning behind their hostility towards contraceptives, there are two common arguments which are usually presented in response:
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