A Meaningless Title

Anyone who does serious work in history has probably gotten into a discussion-slash-argument with someone who doesn’t approve of the current historical standard of using “BCE/CE” instead of “BC/AD”.

It occurred to me during a recent such argument that critics have gotten entirely the wrong end of the stick. Far from trying to excise Christianity from history, the modern standard is putting an end to a long standing anti-Christian message!

After all, what does BC stand for? “Before Christ”! It’s clearly an endorsement of the Arian heresy, implying that there existed a time where the Father existed but the Son did not, in violation of all good orthodox trinitarian theology! True Christians everywhere should be glad that we’re finally doing away with that vile heresy and removing it from the history books, in accordance with Constantine the Great’s edict of 333 CE!

Anyone seriously trying to use the Ontological Argument for the existance of God is automatically barred from participating in philosophy ever again.

I mean, hell, I've got more respect for Pascal's Wager...

So, I’m sure everyone’s seen this article about atheists outdoing religious people on a survey about religious knowledge? Doesn't surprise me, but that's not what I find interesting about the results. What fascinates me is this bit:

“Forty-five percent of Catholics did not know that their church teaches that the consecrated bread and wine in holy communion are not merely symbols, but actually become the body and blood of Christ.”

 

I’d be really curious to see what the actual question asked there was – I assume it was a simple yes/no question, which makes an incorrect result that high really surprising. It’s fascinating, considering how significant the doctrine of Transubstantiation was throughout the last thousand years of Christian history and how much of a symbolic issue it became in dividing the Catholic and Protestant churches during the Reformation. I’m wondering how much of this is ignorance of the doctrine, and how much of it is modern Catholics actually consciously rejecting it.

 

I’d also love to know if there are similar patterns among Catholics outside the US…

Just in case the election campaign wasn't worrying you enough about the direction Australia's heading in...

*sigh*

Few points: one, why only allow discrimination on basis of ‘sex, sexuality, marital and parental status and gender identity’? Why are those acceptable targets for religious bigotry but not race or ‘political beliefs or activity’? Especially the last one – if you’re allowed to discriminate against people because they’re gay, why not against people because they’re strong supporters of gay rights? Surely that’s just as much a case of someone who ‘they believe may undermine their beliefs’.

Two – apparently, under the new deal, the religious group still has to ‘demonstrate how this action conformed with its religious doctrine’. That’s a bit of a slippery slope, isn’t it? Can the group just point to Leviticus, or do they have to provide evidence of a pre-existing theological argument and proof that their sect has historically followed that interpretation? Presumably you can’t just say “I’m not hiring Bob because I had a revelation last night that being called “Bob” was against God’s will”, but then where’s the dividing line between plain old regular discrimination and discrimination backed by legitimate religious doctrine? It really doesn’t seem like this is something the state government should be getting involved in determining.

And that’s really the problem – you can’t justify bigotry just by saying that it’s your religion. Or rather, you can, but you can’t expect that justification to hold any weight with anyone except your coreligionists. Religious freedom should be about the right to express your ideas freely, not to enforce them.

There’s something pretty damn disingenuous about this survey. See, the article claims that ‘the results were produced from those who were non-religious, or from another religion, or who loosely indentified with Christianity.’ So you look at it like that, and you think “Wow, even people who don’t call themselves Christian still believe in Christ!”. Except… well, ‘don’t consider themselves born-again’ isn’t the same thing as ‘non-religious’ or ‘non-Christian. Considering oneself “Born Again” is pretty much unique to evangelical Protestantism. Catholics tend not to use the term in that way. Orthodox Christians don’t use the term that way. Anglicans don’t tend to use the term that way.

And Australian Christians are overwhelmingly from those denominations, not evangelicals. So the results end up being far less surprising than Mr. Dickson seems to believe. I can’t help but feel there’s a political motive here – an attempt to minimise the influence of non-Christians by being able to point to surveys that ‘prove’ that even most ‘non-Christians’ still believe in the divinity of Jesus. Not to mention what looks like an attempt to define evangelical Protestantism as ‘real Christianity’.

The Age has a religion editor – I’ve mocked him a few times. Perhaps he could stop writing terrible editorials and start actually editing these stories so they’ve got a bit of context and don’t just take the survey maker’s interpretation at face value?

Oh, and it’s not an odd finding “that 31 per cent of Australians believe Jesus lived BC”. The gospels record Jesus’s birth as occurring during the reign of Herod the Great. Herod died in 4 BCE. It’s not that obscure a fact to know that 1 CE probably does not correspond to Jesus’s birth year.

With the confirmed death toll now standing at 181, and dozens of fires still burning out of control, Danny Nalliah, pastor of the unfortunately named ‘Catch the Fire Ministries’ and general asshole, decided to make a statement about the bushfires.

Charming.

Now, some of you might be saying “But wait a minute, didn’t the bill decriminalising abortion pass more than three months ago? What took God so long to notice? And didn’t the ACT decriminalise abortion years ago? And what’s with the flooding in Queensland, then? – they’ve got the strictest abortion laws in the country!”

And some of you might be saying “But wait, isn’t the idea that Satan can act openly in the world with God’s consent theologically troubling for a variety of reasons?”

And then, some of you might be saying “THE HELL WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU SICKENING BASTARD?!” I think there’s a fair bit of merit to that position…

Entertainingly idiotic editorial in The Age today, offering an incoherent criticism of modern Christmas celebrations. It’s a jumbled mess of the traditional complaints about commercialism, mixed in with brand new rants about how those damn secularists are ruining everything for those poor put-upon Christians.

And it’s clearly all secular people’s fault, as the author points out that he’s “never met a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist or Hindu who resented Christmas. Indeed, they welcome it, and hope only that their religious festivals might also get a modicum of recognition.” Of course it’s not as if he devotes any time to complaining about how schools aren’t doing anything to mark this week’s Eid festival, so it’s not as if he actually cares if other religion’s holy days are recognised or not. Still, it’s nice to see a token attempt to argue that he doesn’t have anything against other religions, just non-believers.

But clearly, secularism has destroyed Christmas, through such actions as ensuring the Myer Christmas Pageant is dominated by advertisements for products sold at – shockingly – Myer stores. I’d perhaps suggest that a Myer department store may not be the best place to be looking for a spiritual experience, and perhaps he’d be better off trying one of the rather nice churches just down the road instead. But then, I’m a filthy secularist, so what do I know?

The author’s argument is confused at best. He complains about commercialism taking over the holiday, but judging by the rest of his rant, would be thrown into a fever if stores decided to stop observing Christmas altogether. He’s annoyed at secular messages replacing explicitly Christian ones, while at the same time insisting he doesn’t expect Christmas to be a uniquely Christian festival. He wants “to keep some spiritual relevance in Christmas, for believer and atheist alike”, apparently believing that atheists will be able to find some relevance in the birth of the Christian saviour – and apparently forgetting again about the existence of non-Christian believers. So he wants a non-commercial Christmas, with corporate sponsored pageants that focus entirely on the religious message of the day, which will deliver a non-denominational generic ‘spiritual’ message to everyone, while schools teach explicitly Christian carols. Yeah… I’m going to have to get back to you on that one.

What is it about Christmas that inspires these sorts of ranting? You don’t see Christians complaining about how the non-religious aren’t participating in Easter enough; it’s a religious festival, people of that religion observe it, the rest of us eat chocolate eggs. It doesn’t seem to confuse people when you say you’re not Christian and therefore don’t observe it. Christmas though – well, alright, it’s gotten out of control. I can understand Christians not likening what it has become. But the problem isn’t that secular people are corrupting it; the only reason we’re involved at all is because people like the author of this piece are convinced that everyone needs to observe their religious festival. I’d be more than happy if Christianity returned to its religious roots – but only as long as those of us who aren’t of that religion can extricate ourselves from it. I’ve no more interest in participating in a generic ‘spiritual’ Christmas than in any other religious festival.

Apparently we're not allowed to annoy the Pope anymore...

EXTRAORDINARY new powers will allow police to arrest and fine people for "causing annoyance" to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, beginning today...Police and emergency services volunteers will be able to direct people to cease engaging in conduct that "causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event" or risk a $5500 fine.

Look, I understand the need for security. But this isn't security - this isn't stopping assasins or terrorists or even violent protests. This is about clamping down on free speech because it might offend the Pope or the Catholic pilgrims. We somehow managed to have the Dalai Lama visit last month without needing to pull this kind of crap against protests by Shugden Buddhists, but apparently if we're to have World Youth Day we need these sort of controls in place, lest some unsuspecting pilgrim see a same-sex couple or an offensive t-shirt.

Now, I'm not blaming the Catholic Church; they've said they didn't ask for this sort of special treatment. So why the hell is it happening? The government already spent more than a hundred million dollars on what is, after all, a religious event. Now we need these sort of restrictions on those of us who aren't overjoyed that the Pope's visiting our shores to ensure it goes smoothly?