| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Michael Gray" |
| Date: |
17 Oct 2006 05:37:08 AM |
| Object: |
News: Catholic and Sane? Chalk and Cheese? |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1923272,00.html
"I am a Catholic. I'm also sane. But these days people find it hard to
accept that religion and rationality can co-exist
Martin Newland
Monday October 16, 2006
The Guardian
I doubt very much that when those niqab-clad women set off for Jack
Straw's constituency surgery, probably intending to talk about local
bin collection or crime, they knew they were going to touch off a
nationwide debate about Muslim integration, female emancipation and
terrorism. Straw's decision to write about the issue might, as he
himself and many commentators thereafter suggested, have led to a
much-needed debate about Muslim "separateness" from mainstream
society, but I feel these women have been gravely insulted. The whole
episode has been filtered through every political and sociological
argument by columnists and politicians from the left and right without
anybody alighting on the real motivation for those women wearing the
veil - simple religiosity.
I do not therefore see Straw's comments as an attack on Muslims, but
rather an attack on religious observance in general. Secular society
does not allow for openly religious people to be seen also as normal
and well-adjusted. There always seems to be a desire to pigeon-hole
them as semi-rational, spiritual fifth columnists.
Reactions in everyday secular society to manifestations of
religiosity, such as the veil, range from a patronising accept-ance to
the downright insulting. We are told, by the diligent self-publicist
Salman Rushdie, that the veil "sucks". Columnist Allison Pearson says
the veil is a "nosebag" and a "female-inhibiting shroud from the House
of Taliban". Yasmin Alibhai-Brown claims that the veil is not mandated
by the Qur'an. But what is mandated is that women cover themselves.
What is also mandated is that men dress plainly. And the original
texts have been followed, as in all the mainstream faiths, by
teachings and interpretation which are also considered by the faithful
to be linked to the will of God.
If you Google the word niqab and read about Islamic teaching on the
veil, there emerges a tradition, shared by all the major religions, of
ascetic self-denial, of a desire by some to deliberately hide their
physical attributes as a witness to humility and as a sign that they
are marked out for God. Thus in all the frantic commentary on the
issue that followed Straw's initiative, one Muslim woman, interviewed
on Radio 4, came closest to the truth. She did not wear the veil, she
said, in order to communicate anything to those around her, but rather
as a "sacrifice". Had Straw understood this, he may well have kept
quiet.
I am a Roman Catholic. As such, I believe that God took the decision
to be born into a poor family in Roman-occupied Palestine. I believe
that His short life on earth was spent setting down the rules by which
He expected us to live, and I believe that as a sign of His love for
us He humbled himself on a cross, died and rose again. I believe that
He left behind a church which is infused with His Spirit but also
subject to sin. I further believe, if pressed, that the fullest
incarnation of God's plan for his church resides in the Roman Catholic
Church, with the successor of St Peter at its head and the Apostolic
Succession as its historical guarantor.
I go to mass on Sundays, and I see it as one of my most important
duties to bring my children up in the faith. I wear a crucifix as a
symbol of my religious convictions and as protection against harm.
Every night when I turn in I wander around my children's beds crossing
their foreheads, invoking the Holy Family to protect them while they
sleep. I am also quite sane by the way. I have worked all my life in
journalism, and climbed the professional ladder with a keen eye for
self-advancement. I love to laugh and swear and I drink too much as
well.
It is possible to be religious and rational. To believe in the
transcendent but to savour every challenge and joy thrust up by life.
If God became human, it is easy to understand how the total human
condition, from cleaning your teeth, to driving to work, to going to
parties, is graced. But I feel a kinship with those Muslim women
because the world is full of Jack Straws, who imply by their actions
that religiosity entails something vaguely misguided or sinister,
something that is ill at ease with public life.
By involving the nation in an intensely critical, secularised debate
on their personal religious observances, Straw has insulted these
women in the same way that I feel insulted and hurt by Madonna aping
Christ crucified, by part of the Act of Settlement, by the burning of
papal effigies in southern England and by the use of a compulsory BBC
licence fee to broadcast the offensive Jerry Springer: The Opera.
I also believe in freedom of speech and "turning the other cheek", but
those in this country who think Muslims are the only ones who take
offence should think again. When I was appointed editor of the Daily
Telegraph, there appeared to be an inexplicable fascination with the
fact that I was a Catholic. After I resigned, Private Eye carried a
cartoon of me, with wings on my back, pushing at a door marked exit.
Newspaper diaries followed my treatment of the story of the death of
Pope John Paul II, suggesting that I was being overly unctuous in my
editorial decisions. The fact that I welcomed Cardinal Ratzinger's
elevation as his successor with a banner headline "God's rottweiler is
the new Pope" did not deter them.
Life lived by religious people, at least religious people who are not
fundamentalist extremists, tends to be based on careful compromises
and accommodations between religious principle and secular living.
When I was a young man, going through the usual moral turmoils, I saw
a priest, and asked him how the Catholic Church reconciled its rules
governing sexual morality with its ministry of forgiveness. "Faith is
a journey towards an ideal you will never achieve while alive," he
told me. "Think of the rules as tennis-court lines. You are going to
hit the ball over the lines all the time, and that's OK, but make sure
you never question whether the lines should be there."
This was the accommodation sought by Ruth Kelly, a member of Opus Dei
as well as a government minister, on homosexual acts and abortion.
Unfortunately, she was pinned up against the wall by the "public
interest" and not allowed to live by it. Are we saying through the
treatment of Kelly that public office and religious conviction are
incompatible? If I were to become prime minister, would the public
interest demand that I resign because of my views on abortion?
Post-Christian Europe believes it has done with the "Christian thing".
But our refusal to understand faith and Europe's faith heritage denies
us an opportunity to understand why we act as we do in response to
issues ranging from veils in constituency surgeries, to the European
constitution, to Turkish accession. These women did not wear their
veils as a sign of "separation" from society; they were rather
rendered separate by Straw.
· This week Martin read A History of the English Speaking Peoples
Since 1900 by Andrew Roberts: "An amusingly written account of the
triumphs of the Anglosphere." Martin watched every available episode
of Scrubs, the US hospital sitcom: "The funniest thing on TV." Martin
also used the last of the year's sunshine to run and hike through the
Kent countryside."
.
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| User: "Mark D J. Mark D" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic and Sane? Chalk and Cheese? |
17 Oct 2006 09:31:49 AM |
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"Michael Gray" <fleetg@newsguy.spam.com> wrote in message news:
Martin Newland
Monday October 16, 2006
The Guardian
I go to mass on Sundays, and I see it as one of my most important
duties to bring my children up in the faith. I wear a crucifix as a
symbol of my religious convictions and as protection against harm.
A 'protection against harm'. Uh, right.
Every night when I turn in I wander around my children's beds crossing
their foreheads, invoking the Holy Family to protect them while they
sleep.
Nice. I, on the other hand, like to go into my kids' rooms and yell "Hot
potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends. Aaahh!" It actually works
just as well, though the kids tend to wake up and scream when I do it. And
in all the years since they were born, it's completely protected both of
them from abduction by aliens; and when they get ill it keeps them alive for
as long as it takes for the doctor to arrive. This guy should try it.
I am also quite sane by the way.
Umm, I think you'd better run that bit past me once again...
M.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic and Sane? Chalk and Cheese? |
17 Oct 2006 10:19:11 AM |
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On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 14:31:49 GMT, "Mark D J." <Mark D J.@hoyme.com>
wrote:
"Michael Gray" <fleetg@newsguy.spam.com> wrote in message news:
Martin Newland
Monday October 16, 2006
The Guardian
I go to mass on Sundays, and I see it as one of my most important
duties to bring my children up in the faith. I wear a crucifix as a
symbol of my religious convictions and as protection against harm.
A 'protection against harm'. Uh, right.
Well ...
If someone shoots him and the bullet hits the crucifix, it'll probably
save his life. So would a heavy silver pentagram. So God and Satan
are about equal.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains
premature today."
- Isaac Asimov
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
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| User: "Mark D J. Mark D" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic and Sane? Chalk and Cheese? |
17 Oct 2006 12:27:56 PM |
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"Al Klein" <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in message
news:01t9j21qem6e0lp4msutvh2kb6appfq947@4ax.
I go to mass on Sundays, and I see it as one of my most important
duties to bring my children up in the faith. I wear a crucifix as a
symbol of my religious convictions and as protection against harm.
A 'protection against harm'. Uh, right.
Well ...
If someone shoots him and the bullet hits the crucifix, it'll probably
save his life. So would a heavy silver pentagram. So God and Satan
are about equal.
So: ***** God; ***** Satan -- *Kevlar wins*!
M.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic and Sane? Chalk and Cheese? |
17 Oct 2006 01:30:24 PM |
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On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:27:56 GMT, "Mark D J." <Mark D J.@hoyme.com>
wrote:
"Al Klein" <rukbat@pern.invalid> wrote in message
news:01t9j21qem6e0lp4msutvh2kb6appfq947@4ax.
I go to mass on Sundays, and I see it as one of my most important
duties to bring my children up in the faith. I wear a crucifix as a
symbol of my religious convictions and as protection against harm.
A 'protection against harm'. Uh, right.
Well ...
If someone shoots him and the bullet hits the crucifix, it'll probably
save his life. So would a heavy silver pentagram. So God and Satan
are about equal.
So: ***** God; ***** Satan -- *Kevlar wins*!
I'd sooner depend on Kevlar - it actually exists.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"We should do unto others as we would want them to do unto us. If I were an unborn
fetus I would want others to use force to protect me, therefore using force against
abortionists is *justifiable homocide*."
- "Pro-Life" doctor killer and corpse Paul Hill
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
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| User: "Nosterill" |
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| Title: Re: News: Catholic and Sane? Chalk and Cheese? |
18 Oct 2006 05:52:41 AM |
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Michael Gray wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1923272,00.html
"I am a Catholic. I'm also sane. But these days people find it hard to
accept that religion and rationality can co-exist
Martin Newland
Monday October 16, 2006
The Guardian
I doubt very much that when those niqab-clad women set off for Jack
Straw's constituency surgery, probably intending to talk about local
bin collection or crime,
More likely they were worried about short sighted people trying to post
mail in them.
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: News: Catholic and Sane? Chalk and Cheese? |
18 Oct 2006 10:29:41 PM |
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On 18 Oct 2006 03:52:41 -0700, "Nosterill" <fladgate@hotmail.com>
wrote:
- Refer: <1161168761.623581.26610@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Michael Gray wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1923272,00.html
"I am a Catholic. I'm also sane. But these days people find it hard to
accept that religion and rationality can co-exist
Martin Newland
Monday October 16, 2006
The Guardian
I doubt very much that when those niqab-clad women set off for Jack
Straw's constituency surgery, probably intending to talk about local
bin collection or crime,
More likely they were worried about short sighted people trying to post
mail in them.
Or even more concerned about about Dr. Who trying to zap them.
"Exterminate!"
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