I happened to tune into the Archbishop’s speech to Synod (made in July
this year) while watching television today. I wasn’t spiritually uplifted.
Amongst other things he said:
“And
as the Synod meets today, we are custodians of the gospel that transforms
individuals, nations and societies.
Er no . . . the Church for the most part has stood
in the way of nations being transformed. Prior to the French revolution, the
Church was on the side of the aristocracy, not the poor. And it was largely the
church elders backed the house arrest of Galileo for the last ten years of his
life for having the temerity to claim the Earth revolves round the Sun. Plus
they opposed Darwin’s theory of evolution when it first appeared. I could go
on, but the general point is that when it comes to the really important or
“transformational” issues the Church has never been much of a guide: it’s
always on the side of the establishment.
The archbishop then said: “With all parties
committed to austerity for the foreseeable future, we have to recognise that
the profound challenges of social need, food banks, credit injustice….”
So who has really got to the bottom of the flaws in
the pro-austerity argument over recent years, rather than just shouted and screamed
about the problem? Not the Church. It’s
advocates of Modern Monetary Theory (like me) and others. Doh!
Next, the archbishop said:
“..truth
is not set by culture, nor morals by fashion…”. Wrong again. Morals are almost
entirely a matter of fashion. For example, the morality of central America
before the arrival of Europeans about 500 years ago dictated that human
sacrifices were necessary in order to placate the Gods. Now what exactly is
“moral” about human sacrifice? Darned if I know.
And the
morality of Ancient Egypt dictated that everyone spent hours every day lugging
large blocks of stone around so as to build million ton pyramids in which to
bury dead kings and queens. Effing waste of time, strikes me, but what do I
know?
And the
morality of some societies (past and present) dictated that homosexuality was just
fine, while in others it dictated that homosexuality was a cardinal sin. So
morality is very much determined by fashion.
Anyway,
while the Archbishop is a nice bloke, I can do without his advice. My
religion is that expounded by Jean Paul Sartre: existentialism. Which roughly
speaking consists of just one principle: “s*dding think for yourself”. Though existentialism
is actually more subtle than that. It actually says that you have no option but
to think for yourself. That is, you can follow some creed if you like (e.g.
Buddhism), but it was you that chose to follow that creed, so the idea that you
follow a creed is self-contradiction: you’re still thinking for yourself. You
have no other option.
Here
endeth the lesson.
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