Climate change, hot air and God

I rather enjoyed President Obama's inaugural speech yesterday - a masterpiece of liberal rhetoric designed to tickle the political G-spots of American bourgeois lefties from start to finish. I can confidently predict that it will all be downhill from here, of course. Yes, Barack wants to be nice to women, gays, ethnic minorities etc – and I'm all in favour. But being a proper lefty, I was listening out for what we Marxists call the 'structure'. Culture wars are part of the 'superstructure': the social characteristics that stem from a society's economic structure. Did we hear anything about replacing the failed capitalist system? Absolutely not. The point of all this identity politics stuff is that however welcome it is, it distracts from economic inequality and destruction, and it doesn't challenge capitalism iin the slightest. You only have to look at the Stonewall guide to 'good' employers, or take a walk down Canal Street to realise that capitalism loves liberation: whole new markets are opened up, appropriated, co-opted and tamed.

We also didn't hear anything about the United States's ongoing and illegal war against Afghan wedding parties, Pakistani teenagers and anyone else hit by a drone strike authorised personally by the President and executed by some gum-chewing schmuck operating a PS3 controller in Rat's Ass, Arizona. In case you missed it, the US has decided that any male of combat age in a strike zone can be assumed to be an enemy combatant – which means that you don't have to declare any civilian casualties whenever you drop a drone. If your village is a 'strike zone' (don't expect a postcard letting you know), then you're automatically a militant.  Which strikes me as utterly immoral as well as illegal. But then the US is bombing Pakistan, with which it isn't at war, so we shouldn't expect too much.

Supposed liberal Presidents (and Prime Ministers) like nothing more than to drop high explosives on distant brown people. It reassures wavering voters that they're Tough: Tough on Terror, Tough on National Defence, Tough on Complicated Arguments About Why We Might Want To Think Twice Before Bombing Another Poor Country. They want to belong, surrounded as they are by chaps in uniform and other persuasive chaps from Acronymic Agencies (MI5, CIA etc) who promise them induction into their Hermeneutic Secrets. You're nobody until (as the UK PM has to do on his/her first day) you've sat down and written out fresh instructions to nuclear submarine commanders.

But the bit that caught my attention was Obama's reference to climate change. Obviously he's contradicting a large section of his electorate and an even larger section of the political class by stating that climate change exists. Good for him. But the way he framed it was really interesting. He said this:

"We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations," "That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That's what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared," Obama said.

Interesting. It hints at a US equivalent of the Big Society, except with meaning because so many Americans are practising religious types that it's conceivable that an appeal to them on religious grounds - making an 'end run' around the vested interests of politicians and lobbyists - might work. Certainly here in the UK the mainstream churches accept climate science as accurate and at least don't oppose mitigation action. There are even some modest attempts to promote ecological health on C of E land, like the Caring for God's Acre network.

But I'm not convinced that Obama's call for faith-based environmentalism works. The religious debate about how to see the environment is split between those who think God gave the care of the planet into our hands ('wise stewardship'), and those who say he gave the use of it to us. 'Go forth and multiply', he allegedly said: not a warning against over-enthusiastic multiplying and the consequent draining of resources.

There are plenty of Godly types who see the bit about 'dominion' over the earth and endorsement of whatever foul things we do to the planet. You only have to look at Robinson Crusoe, a seminal book in the development of Protestant Capitalism to see how rape and pillage becomes a religious duty. In it, Robinson is marooned on a desert island (the earth) and carefully records in his diary (Protestants were encouraged to examine their spiritual development in diaries) what he's got and what he does with it. Everything on the island is at his disposal – including Man Friday who lacking the grace of Christianity, is fair game, just another resource. The theory is that if you don't use what's lying around – oil, mercury, coltan, blood diamonds – you're wasting the resources God put there for your use. If you get stressy about the damage done by use or overuse of these resources, you Lack Faith. God won't let us all perish: he'll turn up to save us from ourselves. Again. (This only works if you believe in the New Testament nice God: Old Testament Angry God seemed to quite enjoy a bit of nationwide Smiting).

And if that's not dumb enough, there are the Christians who accept that climate change is destroying the world, and think it's a sin to interfere. You'll find quite a lot of them in the United States's odder denominations. Rapture-ready churches aren't exactly new, there were plenty around in Medieval Europe and later, but they're only a major force in the US. They hold that the End Times are imminent. Destructive climate change is one of the ways in which this world will end, they say. It's God's plan. If you reduce CO2, or plant trees, or drive a Prius, you are Working For Satan by opposing God's plan (apparently Star Trek IV is particularly guilty for promoting 'environmental Pantheism').

Will Obama's sneaky attempt to get the god-botherers onside work? That depends on the strength and effort the God's Acre Christians put in, the opposition of the Rapturists and of course political will. My guess is that it won't. When the Americans stop thinking that the answer to climate change is to turn up the air conditioning, then something will happen. And that means basically never.

Doing god?

If I were a vole of faith, which I'm not, I'd feel pretty let down by my political leaders: those who profess a strong faith (such as Blair and Bush) seemed to use God as a mute supporter for torture, surveillance, illegal wars and free-market capitalism. Their sins are enough to persuade any reasonable believer that secular states are infinitely preferable to religious ones.

The latest intervention is by David Cameron, who has released an 'Easter Message'. This is weird enough. Christmas is one of many winter festivals across the world and it's closely followed by the new year, so it seems reasonable that prominent citizens might have some kind of message at the year's end, even if none of us pay any attention. But Easter's a very specific event, and not one easily understood other than on a deeply theological level.

What does Call Me Dave say?

The prime minister, who held an Easter reception in Downing Street, quoted from the Gospel of Luke as he spoke of "we"  Christians.
"This is the time when, as Christians, we remember the life, sacrifice and living legacy of Christ. The New Testament tells us so much about the character of Jesus; a man of incomparable compassion, generosity, grace, humility and love. These are the values that Jesus embraced, and I believe these are values people of any faith, or no faith, can also share in, and admire.
"It is values like these that make our country what it is – a place which is tolerant, generous and caring. A nation which has an established faith, that together is most content when we are defined by what we are for, rather than defined by what we are against. In the book of Luke, we are told that Jesus said, 'Do to others as you would have them do to you' – advice that when followed makes for a happier, and better society for everyone."
He told the assembled guests that he welcomed a Christian "fightback". He said: "I think there's something of a fightback going on, and we should welcome that. The values of the Bible, the values of Christianity, are the values that we need."

I fear that Dave is developing messianic tendencies - always useful when one's administration is in difficulties. Whenever Blair didn't have any evidence, he referred to God and his conscience in place of empirical truth. In Dave's case, it's particularly cynical because he previously said this about his beliefs:

"As Boris Johnson once said, his religious faith is a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes. That sums up a lot of people in the Church of England. We are racked with doubts, but sort of fundamentally believe, but don't sort of wear it on our sleeves or make too much of it. I think that is sort of where I am."

I think we can assume from this that he's a lazy atheist or agnostic: not someone who's every given religion much thought, but a cultural Anglican who knows very well that his core voters wouldn't be very impressed by indifference. So he's recast uninterest as a classic English tolerance. 


So I think this original statement is rather deceptive, and his latest 'message' seems to by a cynical and dishonest attempt to import the Reaganite playbook into the UK. I could spend several paragraphs pointing out that tolerance and kindness is only one strand of Christianity - but instead, I'd advise you to visit any Northern Irish Presbyterian chapel, consult the actual Bible to familiarise yourself with certain rather unpleasant aspects to be found there, or read about the Crusades, the Reformation etc. etc. etc. (or read the Left Behind books). I could also point out that of all the positive characteristics Cameron lists as specifically Christian (which is pretty insulting: I'm caring, generous and tolerant, and so are many Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Jedi), none are terms which one could currently apply to his government. This is the administration which has cut state support for disabled children, for instance, yet continues to design new nuclear weapons at a cost of £80bn - not a policy sanctioned by the New Testament, as far as I remember.


But what really caught my eye in this statement is this talk of a 'fightback'. Against whom? Atheists are not burning Christians at the stake. Nor are Christians discriminated against by law: far from it. Anglican Bishops have permanent seats in the legislature. England and Scotland have Established churches (Wales, despite being traditionally very religious, disestablished the Church in Wales). Certainly leading scientists and intellectuals are more strident in defence of atheism, but in general, postmodernity seems to be a culture of religion. See for example, the way sub-contintental immigrants are now routinely described in terms of their religion rather than their other cultural or ethnic identities, bringing about confrontation. 


No, there's another, more disgusting reason why David Cameron has suddenly declared jihad upon we inoffensive atheists. Just as the Tories have been attempting to import the culture wars into British politics (whipping up 'morality' and 'identity' politics to disguise viciously sectarian economic policies), they've decided to extend this to the religious arena. 


Perhaps you're too young to remember the Reagan-Carter election of 1980. I was 5, but distinctly remember poring avidly over the newspapers as the campaign unfolded. The sitting Democratic President Carter was a peanut farmer from Georgia, and a practicing and ordained Baptist minister. He was (and is) a fundamentally decent, humane and thoughtful man who governed for all Americans and allowed his faith to inform his politics without directing it. He is, I think, one of the greatest politicians of the last century, though one whose Presidency was marooned and curtailed by events and the viciousness of his opponents. 


Ronald Reagan was a former actor, turncoat union leader, vacuous and vicious governor of California and a long-term machine politician, a cheery (and brilliant) communicatory who fronted for a sinister security and business network desperate to regain power after the Nixon disaster made Republicans damaged goods. Reagan was technically Christian, but wore his religious beliefs - if any - very lightly indeed, appearing in church only on official duties or - and this bit is important - when an election was in the offing. 


In 1980, the Cold War was at its height, characterised by the Republicans as the Godly against the Godless Atheists in Moscow. The 1970s had exposed (just like now) the total failure of American capitalism to generate good jobs for Americans - real wages peaked in 1975 and American workers have been getting poorer ever since. Reagan beat Carter with two messages: 'the shining city on the hill', which promised a brighter future without any explanation of how it would be achieved (credit/debt turned out to be the answer), in contrast to Carter's gloomy realism, and by harnessing the latent anger of core Republican voters - those who saw America as a religious crusade. 


Reagan's genius was to persuade voters that he - the non-practising man who preferred golf to god on a Sunday morning - was the true candidate of the religious electorate, rather than the Reverend Carter, who still preaches and teaches Sunday School. In doing so, Reagan unleashed the revolting elements active in American protestantism: bigotry, fraud, 'prosperity gospels', homophobia and so, with which he probably had no sympathy at all. As a political strategy, it was absolute genius: millions of men and women denied decent jobs, homes, a stake in society, were persuaded that only the Republicans stood between them and Atheist Communism. The fight against abortion, women's rights and a whole panoply of other causes rallied them round the flag and saved the party from irrelevance. Over the longer term, however, it's proved destructive. Moderates defected from the party and it was taken over by ageing extremists out of touch with the electorate - hence the current race for the Republican nomination and impending defeat. 


This is the politics which Cameron's confected Manichaean battle draws on. He knows that even the Daily Mail is hostile to his economic policies. He knows that it, the Telegraph and similar outlets want a more-or-less censorious and dominant Church of England, and that they think the world is in the throes of a religious war to the death. It's fertile territory, and he's making a grab for it - and just like Reagan, he doesn't even believe it. He's just cynically harnessing the fears of religious voters to garner votes. It may work in the short term - though I doubt it because British Christians (having a folk memory of the religious Civil War) are scared of extremes.


I imagine that ordinary decent believers would be horrified by this. Certainly there are plenty of religious bigots in this country, across all faiths, but I get the sense that most religious people are kind and tolerant people. The cynicism with which they're being encouraged to see the Conservative Party as Defenders of Faith against liberal atheism is breathtaking, especially as the party's neoliberalism runs counter to pretty much everything Jesus said about caring for one another and its leaders are as Godless as the rest of us. 

The war against religion?

If you've read Baroness Warsi (Tory cabinet minister with no responsibilities, appointed to make David Cameron look non-sexist and non-racist), you might be under the impression that Christians are being lynched in the street or burned at the stake on a regular basis.

Britain is 'under threat' by the 'rising tide' of 'militant secularisation', she says, neatly implying that 'Britain' is a coherent concept which in some way requires religious belief, and that non-religious people are a security problem.

Only the last time I looked, most British people don't practice any form of religion, and yet appear to believe that they're both still British and non-threatening. On the other hand, virtually all the major crimes I can think of recently: 7/7, 9/11, Ulster loyalism and to a slightly lesser extent Irish Republicanism, Serbian aggression and a whole swathe of other atrocities were committed by religious people. It used to be states burning, hanging, drawing and quartering their citizens on religious grounds: now it's amateur groups. I could start listing the violent and intolerant sections of various religions' holy books, but that's just point-scoring. I'll content myself with pointing out that many religious groups - particularly the cruder ones which grab the headlines (not all: I've a soft spot for the Quakers for instance) -  insist as a matter of absolute fact that they're right and everybody else is wrong - and to an extent, fair enough: so why isn't the same respect extended to those of us who are atheists. There's little point having fundamental belief if you don't feel the need to convert or condemn the infidels - which is where religion threatens us all. (I'll exempt Judaism and Islam from this: they haven't tended to be proselytising faiths, though forced or voluntary conversions aren't unknown).

I just don't see the fabric or the security of this country being threatened by people calling a little more loudly for a science, education or morality based on evidence and humanist values: they imply respect for individuals' beliefs, while requiring a little more rigour in public policy.

Warsi sees it differently:

For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.”

I just don't see it. Religion is - and has to be under circumstances - intolerant. If you're convinced that your way is the only way to heaven, surely you have to be militant if you want to keep for own group and possible converts out of hell. I can't see anything more militant in atheism than a few dyspeptic professors and frankly that's small beer compared with say Galileo's lifelong house arrest, the legal murder of Catholics under the Common Wealth, the ban on Catholicism lifted only in 1848, the genocidal campaigns against heretics in the Vendée and elsewhere, the Gordon Riots, the exclusion of Dissenters from public life… need I go on? Warsi's inventing a straw man by raising the spectre of 'totalitarian regimes': I can think of two deeply religious countries of the top of my head which regularly top the league table for oppression, intolerance and ruthless abuse of human rights: Saudi Arabia.

Is the British polity under attack from 'militant secularists'? It doesn't look like it from here. An Established church. Compulsory worship in all schools. Bishops in the House of Lords. Religious groups being handed control of schools with no oversight whatsoever. A Prime Minister officially defining Britain as a 'Christian country' (Warsi seems very confused about this: as a Muslim, she's calling for more Christianity).

Forget Warsi's shrill carping. There's something else going on here. Over in the United States, capitalism failed as long ago as the 1970s. The wages of the working class have declined since about 1973. America's heavy industries failed to invest and innovate, leaving massive swathes of the heartland destitute. The Democrats, stuck in Cold War narratives, refused to evince a leftwing agenda of state support and investment, for fear of being accused of Socialism. The Republicans, unable to challenge their economic orthodoxies (sound familiar, by the way?), decided that they needed a new way to attract working-class voters.

They hit on the 'culture wars'. Neither party had a leg to stand on when it came to economics, but the Republicans realised that the people could be distracted by social matters. So they constructed a new country, 'Real America', the bits between the (liberal, urban, socialist, Jewish) coastlines. Liberal America, they said, was going to take away your guns. Liberal America would force Real Americans to have abortions. Real Americans would be forced to abandon school prayers, the Pledge of Allegiance, SUVs and 'states' rights' (i.e. racist laws). Liberal America would turn your children gay and your wives into feminists. Real Americans want a theocracy: Liberal Americans want a Soviet Atheist dictatorship complete with Death Panels and schools which brainwash your kids. Liberal America would spend your taxes on Mexican-American History classes, immigrant rights and 'socialised healthcare', like Cuba. Real Americans supported Israel because the Bible said so: Liberal America supported burnoused Arab terrorists. Liberal America was Godless America. Real America believed in God and Guns.

And thus it came to pass: every defeat for Real America (such as the legalisation of abortion after Roe v Wade) was further proof that 'militant secularists' were on the march. Never mind their hero Reagan's genial lack of religious feeling (or the deism of the Founding Fathers) - this was not a reality-based struggle. While the rednecks out on the plains saw this as final apocalyptic battle for America's soul, the Republican leadership saw it as a magnificent way of locking in votes for ever, despite the overwhelming evidence that a vote for the Republicans was a vote for the military and corporate powers which destroyed middle America. It's a distraction technique, and a stroke of genius.

You can read up on this stuff: it forms the core of political speeches by Republican candidates even now: Gingrich, Santorum and co (as this Gary Younge piece explains. They believe in Small Government and Self-Reliance - except when it comes to the bedroom.

Warsi has clearly picked this stuff up, and I strongly suspect that the Tories are deliberately copying American political strategies: too much of this stuff is popping up in Tory political discourse in recent years. They're talking about Freedom from the state - education, healthcare - and creating a siege mentality amongst their core voters which isn't borne out by the facts. But as in America, we're not dealing with reality, they're attempting to create one.

Will it work? I doubt it. It's a core vote strategy, and it's clear that even up against the least popular Prime Minister of recent years, the Tories only managed a 35% share of the vote: there isn't a natural Tory majority out there. I also think that religious bullying of this kind doesn't play in most of Britain, thanks to the legacy of the Civil War. After the Restoration in 1660, the word 'Enthusiast' became a term of abuse in polite society, applied to anyone whose religious fervour threatened to return the country to civil war and the years of the stake. Despite occasional outbursts of state and popular intolerance, the UK gradually decided that religion was a private matter rather than a public flashpoint.

Why are the Tories suddenly banging this drum? Because, like the Republicans, they know that their cherished economic orthodoxes have failed. The Finance Tories (hardline free-marketeers, financial engineers, uninterested in social values) and the One Nation Tories (hunting, paternalism, jam and Jerusalem, social fabric) are in serious danger of parting company. Cameron's solution is the same as the Americans': wrap yourself in cross and flag, generate controversy, keep quiet about economics - that's for the big boys who read the FT, not the Mail-reading voters.

Cynical, no?

(Disclosure: I'm a Catholic Atheist. If you're one, you'll understand what I mean).

Update. I've been discussing this all day with @z_rose on Twitter. She objected to a couple of inaccuracies in my characterisation of religion, which I've corrected, and suggested that I've fallen into the trap of accepting dominant discourses around religion as genuinely representative. She makes the point that many religions and religious people aren't exclusive when it comes to truth, or oppositional, and that accepting the media's love of discord is to cede the ground for debate to extreme positions (implicitly mine as well as those of religious groups). I'll concede a lot of this, though I do think that massive swathes of American society are more Manichaean in approach than we acknowledge, and on the rare occasions I attend Mass I'm always surprised by the sermon's intolerance: Israel right, Palestine wrong; contraception evil etc. There are nice religious people, moral religious people and open-minded religious people - just as there on my atheist side.

She also says religion is a lived experience rather than a static thing: again, I agree up to a point. It drives me mad when the media present all Muslims as observant fundamentalists: plenty drink beer and don't pray, just as most 'Christians' don't darken the door of a church from one year to the next. But - the more text-based your practice is, the less tolerant it is: if you genuinely believe that God personally dictated a ban on gays and shellfish and that these rules still apply, you're bound to practice them.

What have I learned from today? Warsi's a dangerous, short-termist with evil intent, like all Tories. But also that I shouldn't blog off the top of my head. I need footnotes to keep me accurate, despite the fact that - having been retweeted by my idol Marcus Brigstocke to 101,000 followers - the less nuance, the more readers.

Ridding us of this meddlesome priest

As you might have noticed, I'm a keen atheist, albeit a Catholic atheist. So I've been watching the resignation of Canon Giles Fraser from St. Paul's Cathedral with interest and no little amusement.

He's gone because he wouldn't accept that the Cathedral should connive with the Corporation of London (i.e. the money) and the Mayor of London (the bankers' pet gnome) to get rid of the Occupy movement on the plaza in front of the Cathedral. Other clerics have been muttering about losing £20,000 per day, which is rather different from Jesus expelling the money-changers from the Temple.

Fraser's right: no church should be in the business of evicting idealists protesting against the obvious and demonstrably damaging rapaciousness of money power. But I can't thinking that it's a bit late for any cleric, especially one representing the Church of England, to suddenly object to doing deals with money and power.

Have you every been to a major church or cathedral? They're often festooned with military banners commemorating the glorious battles fought by local regiments against the unsuspecting natives of lands unfortunate enough to be attractive to the British Empire, from Ireland to Australia. The flags of Empire abound, as do memorials to the stinking rich and powerful. The Church of England, as an Established Church, did its deal with the élite centuries ago. It's too late to discover a radical streak now.

Not that the original church, the Catholics, have anything of which to be proud either. In the 20th Century they crushed the Liberation Theology movement, which posited that Catholic priests might want to help the oppressed in Latin American dictatorships: simply the latest in a series of disgusting moves which maintained power at the cost of morality. Many commentators are clear that Christianity lost all legitimacy when it was taken up as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Getting into bed with a slave economy meant suppressing any instincts against slavery and imperialism, for instance, hence the Church's early advice to slaves to be obedient rather than demand equality.

So two cheers for the canon, but he's utterly compromised. Religion's just another arm of the dominant hegemony. Don't expect radicalism from that quarter.

More charming Americans

Those delightful folks of the Westboro Baptist Church are planning to picket the funeral of Christine Taylor-Green, the nine-year old girl murdered in Arizona at the weekend. According to them, her death is a punishment from God for America's tolerance of homosexuality. There's a video explaining their reasons, but I'm not inclined to post it. The pastor does have this to say:

"Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson – Westboro Baptist church will picket their funerals."

Europe isn't short of fundamentalists from various religions, but they don't tend to attract the support and media coverage associated with American groups: I remember being dragged to the Catholic shrine at Walsingham and finding a Protestant demonstration there, exhorting us to stop worshipping false idols. Even at 12, I remember thinking that there was something odd about the vehemence with which they objected to other people doing something voluntarily, which didn't impact on them at all. And let's not even start on Northern Ireland.

I guess it's part of the fundamentalist outlook. If you're entirely convinced that your beliefs are the only correct ones, you're justified in condemning all others outright, perhaps to the point of violence. Catholicism used to believe this, as did mainstream Protestantism, as did Islam. Some sections of these faiths still do. American religion is more prone to such outbursts because the founding sects were led by hardline persecutors who left Europe to escape the degrading effects of liberalism and Catholicism: the Founding Fathers - largely agnostic - came later and their religious toleration is often overlooked. They didn't seek tolerance, they sought isolation and purity.

In many ways they're like all the leftwing splinter groups: so obsessed with ideological purity that they've entirely lost sight of the purpose of their groups. Certainly the Westboro Baptist Church seems to have very little to say about Jesus and his apparent belief that we should all try to be a bit kinder towards each other. Indeed, such sects see their isolation and small numbers as proof that they're right: the outside world is irredeemably evil and therefore persecutes the Elect believers. Westboro and its allies thrive on the condemnation of liberal society (by which they mean everybody else).

Even an atheist like me can see that Jesus had very little to say encouraging hijacking the funerals of child murder victims.

Poor old Andrew

Mr Marr is rapidly declining mentally. Last week he uttered some rather confused and uninformed pearls of wisdom about blogging, this week he started a radio discussion of morality and politics by claiming that it was 'beyond issues of left and right'.

This is, of course, absolute balderdash. Both wings of politics have drawn on religious origins for their morality, then claimed that their ideological perspectives are moral. The soft left of the Labour Party claimed that it owed 'more to Methodism than to Marx', which was certainly true, while Blair allowed his neoliberal capitalist hodgepodge of ideas to be influenced by his belief in God (whom he occasionally seemed to confuse with voices in his head). (Incidentally, the Methodists and similar groups were great - they encouraged democracy inside and outside their chapels, trained thousands of workers as preachers and organised the working classes. Shame about the actual God bits).

The English Civil War, despite its unfortunate bouts of Catholic-massacring, was a leftwing religious event: God directly told the Parliamentarians that hereditary rule was evil. The result was a Republic which soon became an Iranian-style theocracy. If you read the Putney Debates, the Fifth Monarchists, the Ranters, the Diggers, the Levellers and most of the other groups during this time of astonishing ferment, you'll find God at the centre of their communist/socialist doctrines.

I'm from a different lefty perspective. For me, the abandonment of God is a moment of ethical and political liberation. In His place goes empathy towards your fellow humans, which to me means being very very very leftwing. As far as I can see, being rightwing is essentially denying empathy and promoting individualism: rightwingers are often religious in the classic Robinson Crusoe mould, in which self-help leads to God - from that flows selfishness and American politics.

Unfortunately, God isn't around to settle this one. The Old Testament God is clearly a Tory or New Labour interventionist - smiting, smiting, smiting. Always smiting the Palestinians and arming the Israelites - definitely a George Bush. The New Testament God is a bit different. Seems to be more about providing healthcare and being nice to everybody, though social services would have something to say about throwing His son out with the intention of having him crucified. A mixed report, one could say.

As for Marr - very poor indeed. He deserved this:

From our religious correspondent

What according to the Catholic Herald, is

frightening in its sheer vicious irrationality. These people are in the grip of a barely restrained hysteria.

Is it the Inquisition? Is it excommunicating the nun who suggested an abortion would save the lives of one of the two people who were definitely about to die, or excommunicating the mother and medical team involved in arranging an abortion for a 9 year old girl bearing twins after abuse by her stepfather?

No. It's New Atheists writing articles about not liking the Pope, in tones more measured than plenty of religious people, such as Ian Paisley. Diddums. Poor ickle Catholics (like my younger self) seem not to be able to take criticism, despite having many centuries of wielding the red hot pokers themselves.

This'll melt your heart

A lovely advert from Humble Oil in 1962. 'Each day Humble supplies enough Energy to melt 7 million tons of glacier'!

from an article by Al Gore. We should all be very proud. 

Did you know that American capitalism is particularly anti-environmentalism because Puritanism was at the core of its foundation? 

Unlike Catholicism, which encouraged Good Works of charity as well as torturing thousands of heretics to death, 17th-century Protestantism believed that worldly success indicated that God approved of you (poor people = unGodly). One of their core texts was the Bible verse about being given the stewardship of earth, to make productive. So good Protestants were encouraged to work hard, look after themselves (don't help the poor: God's decided they deserve to be poor) and don't worry about environmentalism because God's got a plan you shouldn't interfere with. Profit is a sign of efficient exploitation, therefore high profits = God's smiling on you. 

From this stems America's reluctance to act collectively (e.g. decent welfare, a national health service, trade unions), to trust each other (buy guns, only care about your family) and to reduce breakneck consumption. 

You can see it in the spiritual diaries devout worshippers were encouraged to keep. In fiction, Robinson Crusoe is a prime example: it's a journal in which he obsessively details what he's given and what he does with it. Waste and unproductiveness is wrong, efficiency i Godly - which means exploiting the Island (= earth) to the utmost, from the soil to poor Man Friday). 'Counting your Blessings' is part of this tradition too.

It's not just the US, of course - sanctimonious rapacious scum can be found anywhere, but because the Founding Fathers were all Puritans, the ethos of individualism was rooted from the start.

And so we get to Mr. Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, famously described as, who recently described the bankers' self-enrichment which has bankrupted most countries as 'Doing God's Work'.* He's not wrong. He's theologically within a proud tradition. Of mean-minded fundamentalist selfishness. 

God, eh?

*Oddly enough, he said it in a fawning profile in The Times which has cravenly removed the article without explanation. Lucky everybody spotted it first!

A change of pace

For the past few weeks, I've mostly been listening to Riot Grrl and 80s/90s indie pop (Pale Saints and Heavenly mostly), but the next album on my alphabetical trawl through my hard drive is a compilation of Benedictine monks singing Gregorian chants.

Now, I'm ambiguous about religious music as it is: it can be utterly sublime, but it's written for the glorification of an imaginary being which has legitimised all sorts of appalling behaviour (and some good things, to be fair). I'm also ambiguous about Benedictine monks: I spent some of my school life in the tender care of this lot (as well as the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy - who were heavily armed and not inclined to mercy, I can tell you) and they were, by and large, drunks, mental and physical bullies and very much not what you'd call holy. I just can't imagine the ones I knew producing this kind of contemplative music. I also supposedly sang this stuff in the school choir - nobody worked out that I simply mouthed the words for 2 years because choir practice was better than the homework sessions which were the alternative.

So this is a beautiful album, one which, I suppose, can be treated by atheists as simply music - being in Latin helps most people, but I can follow enough to get annoyed - but it holds all sorts of other associations for me.

By Ganesh!

My esteemed colleague Steve Jacobs has just had a book published. It's called Hinduism Today, and will be the core text for anyone interested in or studying Hinduism in its modern, globalised state.

It's available here as well as at proper bookshops, and it's great. Buy one today.

Byzantine rhythms

Today's music is a collection of Byzantine hymns and music from Vespers, the evening prayers, by the Balamand Monastery. Yes, I'm an atheist, and I don't speak any of the languages used in the Orthodox rites. So for me, this music is all about sound and atmosphere. Music is far more important in Orthodox churches - they'd never countenance the weedy, tuneless crap which oozes out of most church choirs over here: you can hardly hear a tune over the wheezing and backstabbing of the average church choir.

No: this stuff is the business. And it drowns out my neighbour's Sky Sports obsession (how many times can you listen to the news that a non-league goalkeeper has turned his ankle?). And as it's in Arabic (1st one), Greek (2nd one), and Russian (3) you don't get annoyed at the contentious theological content.

Forward to the 9th Century

Striking a massive blow for mystics everywhere, the Church of England has voted to work towards female bishops (one day) - equal opportunities superstition is so progressive.

Why the 9th Century? Because of the legend of Pope Joan.

I love it when (in another church) the Pope and his mates furiously bar homosexuals entry to the priesthood - that's quality denial based on the priests I've met.

Shelley the Republican, I think I love you

She's like all of Ewar's letter-writers rolled into one. She's so quotably insane that she's clearly a parody. This is all from the 'God's Hitlist' section. Apparently God spends his time pondering the respective positions of America's political parties, and He's made His choice… Beware - this is an exhaustive list of His dislikes, as dictated to Shelley the Republican. Why He dislikes Chelsea Clinton and Kurt Vonnegut is left unclear… Daniel and Emma: I hope you're honoured to be equated with paedophiles and Linux users, as vegetarians.  I'm deeply honoured to be on the list under several categories.

Heaven's clearly no fun at all.

His expectations are abundantly clear and well documented in His bestselling book – The Bible. Any questions as to your behavior and conduct in your time on Earth find quick answers there. Should I have gay sex? No. Should I take the Lord's name in vain? No. Should I vote Republican? Generally, yes, since they are the only party that believes in God and God’s word.

God’s people hitlist: God wants them dead because they harm America!

Barack “The Muslim” Obama

(aka “Homobama”, “Barack Osama”, “Husein the Terrorist”) 

Tristan Shuddery (He died due to auto-erotic asphyxiation in Room 66 of the Motel 6 in El Reno, Oklahoma on March, 15 2007. He was found the next day by the housekeeper. He was our friend and and part of the STR writer crew but he turned against God. He died and God won!) 

Cory Doctorow ( Pro-hacker liberal, runs a satanic blog called “Boing” ) 

Richard Dawkins 

Michael Moore 

Hillary Clinton 

Bill Clinton 

Chelsea Clinton 

Cindy Sheehan (Has publicly repented from her sins – God won!) 

Al Gore 

Al Franken 

Barrack Osama 

Boris Yeltsin (God Won) 

Kurt Vonnegut (God Won) 

George ?Greasy Greek? Soros 

Charles Darwin (God Won) 

Marcel Marceau (God Won) 

James Cameron 

=============Wrong Choices

God’s lifestyle choices hitlist : God hates people that belong to one of the groups below because they harm America!

• 
  

  Gays
  

  
  
• 
  

  Liberals
  

  Abortionists
  

  Animal Rights People
  

  Environmentalists
  

• Muzlims
  

  Vegetarians/Vegans
  

  Pedophiles
  

  “Global Warming/Cooling” Believers
  

  Linux users
  

  “Purpose Driven” churches
  

  Mormons
  

  Germans
  

  Government school teachers
  

  The anti-smoking lobby
  

  College Professors
  

  Poets
  

  Hybrid Cars
  

  
  

=============Harmful groups and parties

God’s groups and parties hitlist : God hates people that are member or support the groups and parties below because they harm America!

Democrat Party 

Hezbollah 

Hamas 

UCLA 

=============Harmful bands

God’s music hitlist : God hates people that listen to the bands below because they harm America!

Neil Young 

Slipknot 

Madonna 

Red Hot Chilly Peppers 

Bono 

Patti Smith 

Bob Dylan 

Little Richard 

The The 

David Rovics 

All hip-hop and other musical forms that promote and encourage degraded, drug-addicted and murderous black culture 

Any and All American Idols 

Friends, Family and Fans of Any and All American Idols 

The Dixie Chicks 

Linda Rondstadt 

Ravi Shankar 

Fish 

Bruce Springsteen 

Doris Day  

Anyone who has ever appeared in, listened to, rented or bought in any form the “musical” Rent

Who killed Haiti?

It was God.

At least, if you listen to tele-evangelist and former US Presidential candidate Pat Robertson (6 minutes into the video). He's one of the most influential religious and political figures in the US. Apparently the Haitians struck a deal with the devil to achieve independence from the French (back in reality, it was a brilliantly organised slave uprising).

"They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it’s a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another." 

Presumably Robertson thinks the the American Revolution was also a diabolic plot against God's Anointed Empire (the British). Presumably he endorses slavery too… You can read a list of his stupidest opinions here. I particularly like this one, which I have on a postcard:

"the feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Snow joke

I'm happy today. Despite the fact that the Ultimate Authority of the Hegemon got a 7% pay rise (from £213,000 to £228,000) while lots of us lost our jobs and the institution was fined several million pounds by the government, and there's still lots of marking to do, it's snowing, which always makes me happy. I've also received the latest Stile Antico recording (John Sheppard's Media Vita and other music), and new albums by The Imagined Village and Spiers and Boden.

Another happy man is Pharyngula, the militant atheist and biologist, who's come up with a cunning plan. Institute a state religion in the US by means of a game show like Pop Idol. One of the rounds involves giving each faith a terminally ill child: to win, you have to get said child to recover through prayer! More fiendish details here.

Meanwhile, here's some Morton Feldman, in honour of his birth 84 years ago today.

Mrs Robinson! Mrs Robinson!

I don't know how often you think of Northern Ireland, or what your perception of it is. Perhaps you remember it as a place of violent sectarianism, as a relic of Empire, as the lost piece in the 32-county jigsaw, or as a place like any other.

It isn't. It's a deeply strange place, damaged by centuries of imperialism, conflict, religious antagonism and discrimination. Amongst its oddities is the dominance of fundamentalist Protestantism of a kind which died out in Britain after the civil war (1660) except in tiny pockets. Northern Ireland's Catholics are pretty reactionary, but its Protestants are authentic Old Testament hellfire-and-damnation types - and unionist politics is inextricably linked to these sects.

The current First Minister of Northern Ireland is Peter Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by Ian Paisley, who also founded the Free Presbyterian church because the existing ones weren't hardline enough for him. Hardline unionism, loyalism and fundamentalist religious beliefs are bound up in Mr. Robinson, and his wife, Iris, who is simultaneously an MP in the British parliament, a member of the Northern Ireland assembly, and a local councillor. Lucratively, the couple earn over £500,000 from the state through managing to hold down all these full-time jobs, and by paying family members to assist them.

So far, so normal (they say they're British, so why shouldn't they behave like British politicians). But now Mr. Robinson has had to stand aside while an investigation is carried out. In a perfect political storm, it's emerged that Iris (the woman who described homosexuality as worse than child rape: '“There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.”) had a 19 year-old lover, for whom she secretly procured loans from businessmen she helped through her day jobs, arranging a kickback of £5000 for herself. When her husband found out, she tried to kill herself. It's a wonderful story: sex, money, corruption in high places, drama…

I'm torn here. Normally, I'd revel in the misery of a bigoted loyalist politician, and they certainly deserve it. Clearly, criminal acts have been committed, by her and possibly by her husband, who didn't inform the authorities of what he'd found out. But - fundamentalism has a strict moral code in which forgiveness is alien. I feel genuinely sorry for someone driven to suicide, however awful they are. I've seen enough of the misery that exists behind the closed doors of a family home not to wish this kind of torment on anyone. I can understand the depths of pain reached when people break their self-imposed moral codes: it's worse because they're so rigid (me: I'm an ex-Catholic. I already feel guilty about everything, so one more sin isn't going to make any difference).

Damn. Having morals spoils all the fun.

Grouch

What a rotten day it's been. I'm tired, grouchy and deaf. I should have been sparkling before an invited audience of sixth-formers gathered for a conference, or at least acting as Zoot Horn's lovely assistant, but instead I sat in a walk-in health centre (yet again, three cheers for the NHS) and then spent the day frantically trying to organise things for the fencing competition I'm taking a team to at the weekend. If I'd been OK, I'd have been discussing James Joyce, Heaney, Betjeman, Langston Hughes, St. Vincent Millay and Armitage - all my favourites. I feel genuinely bad about not pulling my weight.

Do I go home and mark essays, or go to the English department Christmas dinner, even though I can't hear anything?

Meanwhile, Mark, Neal and others are having fun at this wonderful event, populated by all my favourite people:

Gather round, my co-religionist Catholics

The godless, heathens and heretics (I'm looking at you, Left Behind) have had the gaming world to themselves for too long. It's time for good Romans to fire up the Xbox!

That would be an ecumenical matter…

In case you missed it, Pope Benedictosaurus has announced that any reactionary, bigoted Anglican vicars who are fed up of women tidying up the cloisters and thinking they're priests, can join the Catholic church, no questions asked.

Old Benedict is an utter throwback, determined to drag Catholicism back to the 14th century, despite the groundswell of opinion amongst younger clerics and theologians that looks forward to the eighteenth, at least. Many of the Catholic priests aren't going to be overly impressed by a load of johnny-come-latelies turning up, without really changing their beliefs, and bringing their wives with them - perhaps the Catholics who want to get married should convert to Anglicanism, marry, then come back…

It's not a friendly act, 'unsettling' a whole bunch of a rival's employees, like a football manager. Though it might help the Anglicans by allowing them to offload their worst elements.

Scientologists stung

The French, not keen on cults (ask the Cathars), have convicted the Scientologists of organised fraud! The organisation hasn't been closed down, but it has had to reform. In other news, Hollywood bloke Paul Haggis (made Crash, though I prefer his work on Due South) has resigned, having realised (after a couple of decades) that Scientology isn't very nice.