The GOD Delusion (51 page)

Our
society, including the non-religious sector, has accepted the
preposterous idea that it is normal and right to indoctrinate tiny
children in the religion of their parents, and to slap religious labels
on them - 'Catholic child', 'Protestant child', 'Jewish child', 'Muslim
child', etc. - although no other comparable labels: no conservative
children, no liberal children, no Republican children, no Democrat
children. Please, please raise your consciousness about this, and raise
the roof whenever you hear it happening. A child is not a Christian
child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child
of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an
excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A
child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately
realize that religion
is something for her to choose - or reject - when she becomes old
enough to do so.

A
good case can indeed be made for the educational benefits of teaching
comparative religion. Certainly my own doubts were first aroused, at
the age of about nine, by the lesson (which came not from school but
from my parents) that the Christian religion in which I was brought up
was only one of many mutually incompatible belief-systems. Religious
apologists themselves realize this and it often frightens them. After
that nativity play story in the
Independent,
not a
single letter to the Editor complained of the religious labelling of
the four-year-olds. The only negative letter came from 'The Campaign
for Real Education', whose spokesman, Nick Seaton, said multi-faith
religious education was extremely dangerous because 'Children these
days are taught that all religions are of equal worth, which means that
their own has no special value.' Yes indeed; that is exactly what it
means. Well might this spokesman worry. On another occasion, the same
individual said, 'To present all faiths as equally valid is wrong.
Everybody is entitled to think their faith is superior to others, be
they Hindus, Jews, Muslims or Christians - otherwise what's the point
in having faith?'
¹⁵¹

What
indeed? And what transparent nonsense this is! These faiths are
mutually incompatible. Otherwise what is the point of thinking your
faith superior? Most of them, therefore, cannot be 'superior to
others'. Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice
their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about
the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether any are
'valid', let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to
do so.

I
must admit that even I am a little taken aback at the biblical
ignorance commonly displayed by people educated in more recent decades
than I was. Or maybe it isn't a decade thing. As long ago as 1954,
according to Robert Hinde in his thoughtful book
Why Gods
Persist,
a Gallup poll in the United States of America found
the following. Three-quarters of Catholics and Protestants could not
name a single Old Testament prophet. More than two-thirds didn't know
who preached the Sermon on the Mount. A substantial number thought that
Moses was one of Jesus's twelve apostles. That, to repeat, was in the
United States, which is dramatically more religious than other parts of
the developed world.

The
King James Bible of 1611 - the Authorized Version -includes passages of
outstanding literary merit in its own right, for example the Song of
Songs, and the sublime Ecclesiastes (which I am told is pretty good in
the original Hebrew too). But the main reason the English Bible needs
to be part of our education is that it is a major source book for
literary culture. The same applies to the legends of the Greek and
Roman gods, and we learn about them without being asked to believe in
them. Here is a quick list of biblical, or Bible-inspired, phrases and
sentences that occur commonly in literary or conversational English,
from great poetry to hackneyed cliche, from proverb to gossip.

Be
fruitful and multiply • East of Eden • Adam's Rib *
Am I my brother's keeper? * The mark of Cain * As old as Methuselah
• A mess of potage * Sold his birthright * Jacob's ladder *
Coat of many colours * Amid the alien corn • Eyeless in Gaza
• The fat of the land * The fatted calf • Stranger in
a strange land * Burning bush • A land flowing with milk and
honey * Let my people go • Flesh pots • An eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth • Be sure your sin will find you
out • The apple of his eye • The stars in their
courses  Butter in a lordly dish »
The hosts of Midian • Shibboleth • Out of the strong
came forth sweetness • He smote them hip and thigh *
Philistine * A man after his own heart • Like David and
Jonathan • Passing the love of women • How are the
mighty fallen? • Ewe lamb • Man of Belial •
Jezebel • Queen of Sheba • Wisdom of Solomon
• The half was not told me * Girded up his loins * Drew a bow
at a venture
• Job's comforters • The patience of Job • I
am escaped with the skin of my teeth • The price of wisdom is
above rubies • Leviathan • Go to the ant thou
sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise • Spare the rod and
spoil the child • A word in season • Vanity of
vanities • To everything there is a season, and a time to
every purpose • The race is not to the swift, nor the battle
to the strong • Of making many books there is no end
• I am the rose of Sharon • A garden inclosed
• The little foxes • Many waters cannot quench love
• Beat their swords into plowshares • Grind the faces
of the poor • The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the
leopard shall lie down with the kid • Let us eat and drink;
for tomorrow we shall die • Set thine house in order
• A voice crying in the wilderness • No peace for the
wicked • See eye to eye • Cut off out of the land of
the living • Balm in Gilead • Can the leopard change
his spots? • The parting of the ways • A Daniel in
the lions' den • They have sown the wind, and they shall reap
the whirlwind • Sodom and Gomorrah • Man shall not
live by bread alone • Get thee behind me Satan • The
salt of the earth • Hide your light under a bushel •
Turn the other cheek • Go the extra mile • Moth and
rust doth corrupt • Cast your pearls before swine •
Wolf in sheep's clothing • Weeping and gnashing of teeth
• Gadarene swine • New wine in old bottles •
Shake off the dust of your feet • He that is not with me is
against me • Judgement of Solomon • Fell upon stony
ground • A prophet is not without honour, save in his own
country • The crumbs from the table • Sign of the
times • Den of thieves • Pharisee • Whited
sepulchre • Wars and rumours of wars • Good and
faithful servant • Separate the sheep from the goats
• I wash my hands of it • The sabbath was made for
man, and not man for the sabbath • Suffer the little children
• The widow's mite • Physician heal thyself
• Good Samaritan • Passed by on the other side
• Grapes of wrath • Lost sheep • Prodigal
son • A great gulf fixed • Whose shoe latchet I am
not worthy
to unloose • Cast the first stone • Jesus wept
• Greater love hath no man than this • Doubting
Thomas • Road to Damascus • A law unto himself
• Through a glass darkly • Death, where is thy sting?
• A thorn in the flesh • Fallen from grace •
Filthy lucre • The root of all evil • Fight the good
fight • All flesh is as grass • The weaker vessel
• I am Alpha and Omega • Armageddon • De
profundis • Quo vadis • Rain on the just and on the
unjust

Every
one of these idioms, phrases or cliches comes directly from the King
James Authorized Version of the Bible. Surely ignorance of the Bible is
bound to impoverish one's appreciation of English literature? And not
just solemn and serious literature. The following rhyme by Lord Justice
Bowen is ingeniously witty:

The
rain it raineth on the just, 

And also on the
unjust fella. 

But chiefly
on the just, because 

The unjust hath the
just's umbrella.

But
the enjoyment is muffled if you can't take the allusion to Matthew 5:
45 ('For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust'). And the fine point of
Eliza Dolittle's fantasy in My
Fair Lady
would
escape anybody ignorant of John the Baptist's end:

'Thanks
a lot, King,' says I in a manner well bred, 

'But all I want is 'Enry
'Iggins' 'ead.'

P.
G. Wodehouse is, for my money, the greatest writer of light comedy in
English, and I bet fully half my list of biblical phrases will be found
as allusions within his pages. (A Google search will not find all of
them, however. It will miss the derivation of the short-story title
'The Aunt and the Sluggard', from Proverbs 6: 6.) The Wodehouse canon
is rich in other biblical phrases, not in my list above and not
incorporated into the language as idioms or proverbs. Listen to Bertie
Wooster's evocation of what it is like to wake
up with a bad hangover: 'I had been dreaming that some bounder was
driving spikes through my head - not just ordinary spikes, as used by
Jael the wife of Heber, but red-hot ones.' Bertie himself was immensely
proud of his only scholastic achievement, the prize he once earned for
scripture knowledge.

What
is true of comic writing in English is more obviously true of serious
literature. Naseeb Shaheen's tally of more than thirteen hundred
biblical references in Shakespeare's works is widely cited and very
believable.
¹⁵²
The
Bible Literacy
Report
published in Fairfax, Virginia (admittedly financed
by the infamous Templeton Foundation) provides many examples, and cites
overwhelming agreement by teachers of English literature that biblical
literacy is essential to full appreciation of their subject.
¹⁵³
Doubtless the equivalent is true of French, German, Russian, Italian,
Spanish and other great European literatures. And, for speakers of
Arabic and Indian languages, knowledge of the Qur'an or the Bhagavad
Gita is presumably just as essential for full appreciation of their
literary heritage. Finally, to round off the list, you can't appreciate
Wagner (whose music, as has been wittily said, is better than it
sounds) without knowing your way around the Norse gods.

Let
me not labour the point. I have probably said enough to convince at
least my older readers that an atheistic world-view provides no
justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our
education. And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the
cultural and literary traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or
Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and
funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that
historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in
God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.

10

A
MUCH NEEDED GAP?

What
can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a
distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a
500,000-year-old stone tool in one's hand, standing before the immense
chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a
scientist who gazed upon the face of the universe's creation and did
not blink? That is deep and sacred science.

—
MICHAEL SHERMER

'This
book fills a much needed gap.' The jest works because we simultaneously
understand the two opposite meanings. Incidentally, I thought it was an
invented witticism but, to my surprise, I find that it has actually
been used, in all innocence, by publishers. See
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/french/pgr/tqr.html
for a book that 'fills a much needed gap in the literature available on
the post-structuralist movement'. It seems deliciously appropriate that
this avowedly superfluous book is all about Michel Foucault, Roland
Barthes, Julia Kristeva and other icons of haute francophonyism.

Does
religion fill a much needed gap? It is often said that there is a
God-shaped gap in the brain which needs to be filled: we have a
psychological need for God - imaginary friend, father, big brother,
confessor, confidant - and the need has to be satisfied whether God
really exists or not. But could it be that God clutters up a gap that
we'd be better off filling with something else? Science, perhaps? Art?
Human friendship? Humanism? Love of this life in the real world, giving
no credence to other lives beyond the grave? A love of nature, or what
the great entomologist E. O. Wilson has called
Biophilia}

Religion
has at one time or another been thought to fill four main roles in
human life: explanation, exhortation, consolation and inspiration.
Historically, religion aspired to
explain
our own
existence and the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves. In
this role it is now completely superseded by science, and I have dealt
with it in Chapter 4. By
exhortation
I mean moral
instruction on how we ought to behave, and I covered that in Chapters 6
and 7. I have not so far done justice to
consolation
and
inspiration,
and this final chapter will briefly
deal with them. As a preliminary to consolation itself, I want to begin
with the childhood phenomenon of the 'imaginary friend', which I
believe has affinities with religious belief.

Christopher
Robin, I presume, did not believe that Piglet and Winnie the Pooh
really spoke to him. But was Binker different?

Binker
- what I call him - is a secret of my own,

And
Binker is the reason why I never feel alone.

Playing
in the nursery, sitting on the stair,

Whatever
I am busy at, Binker will be there.

Oh,
Daddy is clever, he's a clever sort of man,