My colleague spends some of his free time watching instructional videos that are produced by American religious groups to try to debunk the theory of evolution. It cannot be a lot of fun and I tend to look bemused when he tells me about them ("If evolution is true why is there no croco-duck - an animal half-way between a crocodile and a duck?"). Why bother I ask since you know what they are going to say and are just going to wind yourself up?
He's right of course that you need to know the opposing view accurately if you are going to respond as he does in his own articles. It is also a matter of extreme importance that children are educated properly and I fear there are many in the US and possibly many in this country who are being taught nonsense.
In a sense he is an aggressive atheist but he is a member of the scientific orthodoxy that is very far from the staw man the Pope attacked. Learned bodies and scientists rarely speak in absolutes because if they know anything it is how little they know. Cornerstone theories of science such as Quantum Mechanics appear almost supernatural and the standard model of particle theory remains still open to debate despite the massive amount of tunnelling we have been doing under Switzerland.
Faith and scientific endeavour should sit as well together as they have done for thousands of years. There is an ebb and flow as natural cycles progress. Once upon a time we depended on the Muslims in North Africa to preserve and develop our knowledge of science and mathematics while Europe was in the dark ages. Without them there would not have been the renaissance in the way that we knew it.
One of the great dangers of scientific work is that it exposes us to things that perhaps it would be better that we didn't know. The physics of the atom is all well and good but it will have done us no help in the end if nuclear weapons massacre billions.
I believe that everyone needs a moral compass and ultimately some sort of belief system. That system will be reasoned up to a point but really we will never get away from sometimes just feeling uneasy with something or accepting a logical paradox. The Abrahamic religions certainly can provide some of that. My favourite part of the New Testament is Jesus' command: 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'. If that lesson could be rammed down the throats of the Iranian leaders and made to guide their behaviour it would be a better place.
That said, while I am comfortable with some people's interpretation of Catholocism I am much less keen on this Pope. The prohibition of artificial contraception is insane and while it is widely ignored in the West must condemn millions to suffering elsewhere. Population control is going to be an essential part of ensuring that the human race has a future on this planet in a recognisable form. There are other parts of his teaching too that I profoundly dislike but these have been well enough documented during this week so you can fill in the gap here yourself.
My biggest worry is that there is a new aggressive form of religious dogma that will come to dominate. We have already endured eight years of George Bush and the thought of Sarah Palin makes me shudder. Our own government, which I broadly support, is going to give more and more control over schools to fragmented groups and I do not welcome the creation of faith schools.
So coming back to the start and my despair at Richard provoking himself with his opponent's videos I admit to an immediate sympathy with those who think we should leave the Pope's visit alone. They call Dawkins, Hitchens et. al 'militant' or 'fundamentalist' atheists. But the more I have thought about it the more I see the need to speak up and speak up loudly for my own beliefs. The things that have made me smile this year such as gay marriage in Mexico, Argentina and Portugal, are fragile and could be gone in an instant. The legions who think that Jay and I should not be parents stand ready to enforce their morality.
The croco-duck is always waiting in the wings.
