The pope, pedophiles and pragmatic pluralism

There’s a fair body of both social and biological science now to suggest that, however it comes about, most humans are cognitively wired to accept irrational beliefs.

But it often requires a stark level of realism to break through the mental defensive shell erected around that belief, with the end result cognitive dissonance — the emotional quaker a person goes through when they can no longer rationalize having faith in something and suddenly lose its emotional support.

A former mormon bishop once said that realizing his faith was based on lies was like having the world pulled out from under him, like he had no understanding of humanity or his role in it, for months.

Like most intelligent men who are nonetheless capable of becoming captive to faith, he’s happier since living such a strident orthodoxy, although has somewhat lapsed in that he immediately turned to capitalism as a replacement.

People: all systems of faith, economics and politics are created by us. We’re flawed, so none of them are perfect.

The question is how imperfect, or blind to those imperfections, a faithful person is willing to be. This Dallas Morning News article outlines the crisis of faith people around the world are experiencing as it becomes more evident daily that high-ranking Catholics — and quite possibly Pope Benedict himself — helped cover up, or wilfully ignored, years of system child abuse.

This guy, creepy? No way!

The article is crap, replete with specious examples of crises of faith that, regardless of the cause, have long-existed in the church. But the end result is interesting: people don’t lose their faith in a higher power, just their faith in a particular religion.

If you’re a pragmatic pluralist — someone who accepts we’ll likely never understand our origins or which side of the atheism/theism argument is correct — it’s neat to see people realizing they can use the ceremony, community and decency inherent to many moderated religions, and discard the divisive, insulating effects of orthodoxy.

This is not new. Many religions have can thank their lucky starts they embraced religion and reform early on, and consequently are represented by entire congregations of agnostic supporters. For example, there are more than 40 synagogues across North America that are home to “secular humanist judaism,” the practice of elements of the faith, but with an acceptance that religion is created by man in an attempt to understand his origins.

On the judeo-christian front, there’s unitarianism, which is rooted in the Jeffersonian tradition of taking the logical communal lessons from the Bible and applying them humanely …without arrogantly assuming a super being that looks like us (or we like him, six of one, half a dozen of the other) is in charge of everything and created it all.

A few years ago, the author and lecturer Dr. David Wulff told me it all comes down to the same thing: a need for comfort and security.

“In religion, you have a magnet that draws people together: there’s mystery, there’s the promise of a form of immortality, there is hope for solutions to complex problems,” said Wulff.

“A lot of it is very pragmatic. It’s been argued that religion is what we do when there are no real answers left. And you see that reflected all the time: when people are trapped in a mine and there’s nothing the people trying to save them can do, they pray. The fact that it’s so often ineffective doesn’t seem to matter, given the comfort that it brings them.

“I’m thinking back to a study done in the 1970s by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in which they trained interviewers to go into nine congregations and interview members to find out why the church was important to them and what about it was most important.

“And what the people kept saying over and over again was that it was the sense of caretaking, first towards the congregation by the minister, and then between the congregation itself. Whenever one of the interviewers would suggest there was something wrong with the answers, because they didn’t discuss the church’s ‘justification by faith’ doctrine, or God or Jesus, they would remark that there was no better conversation stopper than the actual theological questions.

“So despite the church’s belief that all of these important doctrines, rules, codes and traditions were important, inevitably the congregation wasn’t concerned with that. They were much more concerned with one another.”

Oh, that is just so gay

….and when it’s a case this asinine, there IS something wrong with that.

We here at SMU are not even remotely homophobic, given that the bulk of evidence strongly supports the contention people are born gay. That would be like being “heterophobic”: stupid and irrational. Being gay may not be that common but it certainly is biologically normal, so get over it, ya weenies.

Having said that, even numerous members of Canada’s uber-concious LGBT community think Lorna Pardy is immensely full of shit.

The B.C. woman’s story is outlined in Canada’s National Post today. She has helped run a Vancouver restaurant into the ground after Pardy, who is gay, was heckled there by a comedian. It’s a comedian witnesses say she was heckling and insulting for several minutes as well, but we digress.

Here's a solution to the problems of over-sensitive lesbian hecklers, like Vancouver's Lorna Pardy: only hire gay comedians, like Ellen DeGeneres or Rosie O'Donnell! That way, when they make jokes about lesbians, no one will be offended! In fact, let's never mix people together who are different. Let's keep all the colors separate, the genders, the sexual identities. Good grief, what a bunch of horseshit.

She admits restaurant owner Salam Ismail is not a homophobe. She admits he is not a bad man and he was not even in the room when she was heckled. Nevertheless, she brought a human rights tribunal complaint against Ismail, claiming she should be awarded damages for pain and suffering.

The backlash against Ismail from the gay community shut down his restaurant , which until that point had actually hosted a night specifically for Vancouver lesbians — the homophobic bastard! — and has left Ismail with $13,000 in debts. His legal fees are now being paid by his brother, a city businessman.

So, just a case of poor judgment, perhaps, on Pardy’s part, particularly given that witnesses said her group was heckling the comedian (and his mother)  viciously prior to the incident? Ismail must have some role, right?

Uh, nope. In her own words: “”He wasn’t there at all,” she testified yesterday. “I didn’t see him anywhere.” She also said the restaurant owner was “nice” and “not the target” of the protests that …. shut his restaurant down.

Soooo, when a civil court would likely laugh her all the way home, she instead….takes it to a B.C. human rights tribunal?!?

Next week on Jerry: Parents of children who sue after getting wet at theme parks

Fanboys in the hood

The next time you hear someone question the separation of church and state, tell them to trust in the Force and, Yoda willing, everything will be all right.

Seems to be working for Briton Chris Jarvis, who has received a letter of apology after being told by staff in a job centre in Southend that he had to remove his hood. Jarvis, you see, is one of 30,000 Britons who list their religion as Jedi.

Sure, if you want people to immediately ascertain your geek-fanboy status, it’s a lot less clever than switching a few letters on the back of your Volkswagen Jetta. But for those not blessed with German automotive technology, it’s a cheap alternative.

It’s already been pointed out by at least one blogger than Jarvis’s argument — he’s planning to sue over the hood incident — isn’t particularly valid, given that only the bad guys wear hoods consistently in the Star Wars movies.

I suspect there’s an easy answer to this.

Future leader of the British Labour Party, Mr. Yoda McYoda.

If he can get credit for believing in a fictional religion, from a series of fictional works staged on a series of fictional planets, the courts should be allowed to schedule the hearing on the desert planet of Tatooine. If Mr. Jarvis can make it, great. If not, they summarily dispose of the case.

He will have the right to be represented by an Ewok. If he waives that right, any lightsabre within reach may be used against him.

Of course, if we hold modern religions based on modern works of fiction to such a high standard, there’s no reason we shouldn’t hold ancient religions based on ancient works of fiction to the same standard — say, some objective proof of the existence of Christ. (Proof, not the New Testament, the first book of which was written at least six decades after Christ’s alleged birth and death.)

Any proof will do. Grave marker, piece of cloth with his DNA on it, standing diary or document actually written while he was alive, which, despite the discovery of numerous other documents from that era of human civilization, has yet to make an appearance. Anything.

No?

Well, then let the farce be with you.