Author: Marc Alan Di Martino

Are Catholics mentally deficient?

The short answer is, “No.” Now for the long answer.

Miranda Celeste Hale has a post at Ex-Catholic Girl arguing against PZ Myers’ comment that Tony Blair must be “mentally deficient” for converting to Catholicism. Hale, who grew up Catholic (hence the name of her blog), argues that Blair’s conversion was rather “ethically questionable.”

Choosing to remain a member of and to support an institution that is as backwards, unethical, bigoted, and dangerous as the Catholic church marks one as, to varying degrees, ethically questionable, not mentally deficient. And to bring it back to Blair, I’d argue that choosing, as an adult, to become a member of the Church, marks one as much more ethically questionable than an individual who was raised Catholic and never managed to escape their childhood religious indoctrination.

That’s clearly a good distinction to make, one which recognizes the difference between having a belief system thrust upon you from your earliest days and choosing one of your own free will. None of us are to blame for the destruction others have wrought in our minds while we were too young to oppose it. But she has raised a question more provocative than Myers’ claim that Catholics are mentally deficient:

…choosing to remain a member of such a corrupt and dangerous institution does indicate that one is ethically questionable, at the very least.

This goes beyond the basic cognitive dissonance that plagues most believers throughout their lives. Is it ethical to belong to a religious organization that does such harm?

I’m guessing the answer from a person like Tony Blair would be, “But the Church does much good which outweighs the harm.” Indeed this was the gist of his debate with Christopher Hitchens, which inspired Myers’ barb, which inspired Hale’s retort, which inpired this post.

Living in Italy, most of the people I know formally belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Most of them are probably not believers in the true sense, although a few are. I have no doubt that they who are think their church is “the light of the world.” The majority try not to think about these things at all. Very few are openly opposed to the Church’s moral bankruptcy, of which a fraction have taken matters into their own hands and debaptized themselves. Apparently, they could no longer reconcile themselves to such an obviously incoherent worldview.


A prophet in the making

There is a great article in this week’s New Yorker (subscribers only) about a New Age guru named Benjamin Creme, “the most delicious-sounding religious leader since Pope Nougat V,” according to Stephen Colbert. An eighty-seven-year-old oil painter, he is tracking the movements of the elusive Maitreya, who it turns out is the final prophet of God (yes, another one). One of the Maitreya’s followers makes the following equation, which would make even a charismatic rabbi blush with shame: “God + Adam + Noah + Abraham + Jesus + Moses + Muhammad + 12 = 19.” This is meant to illustrate an obscure piece of gematriya he had read in the Qur’an, where the weighty number nineteen makes and appearance in a verse about Hell-Fire (a typical Qur’anic threat to unbelievers. We’re quaking!)

The twist in the story is that the Maitreya has been identified. His name is Raj Patel. Apparently some of Patel’s biographical details chimed with those of the mysterious Maitreya, which probably isn’t hard if your messiah is, in Creme’s words, “tall, broad-shouldered, six feet three. But he might not look quite like that. He can change his clothes and expression in such a way that it would be hard to think it was the same person.” Creme refers to the Maitreya, predictably, as Master.

It’s too interesting an article to pass up, and I’ve only outlined it here. I suggest anyone interested in the way religions appear in the world give it a read. What is asserted by Creme is at once so specific (“six foot three”) and vague (he’s apparently a wily shapeshifter) that it could be applied to anyone, even a reluctant prophet like Mr. Patel, whose verdict on Creme’s ideas is, “Bonkers.”

The moral of the story is that every religion starts in a similar way. Just look at the history of Mormonism if you don’t believe me. It’s not particularly off the wall if one considers the central claims of all other religions. The whole point being that any old sci-fi garbage can become a religious movement if it has adherents. Look at Scientology. Study a thousand different religions and behind every prophet you will find a charlatan like Joseph Smith or Benjamin Creme, making up nonsense about invisible beings who are out to save us from our destructive ways. They all have secret literature, receive instructions from voices in their heads, and declare once and for all that they have the skeleton key to unlock Truth.

Don’t think for a second that your religion – if you profess one – is any different. Truth is not to be found in such places, but from patient and honest inquiry into the natural world. All prophets are full of shit. But you knew that, right?

(via kinoppete)

Why I’m an atheist

Over at WashPo Susan Jacoby couldn’t resist having another laugh at the expense of the Catholic Church. But this is like sniggering at the shmendrick who drops his ice cream on the sidewalk: it’s too easy. Here’s Jacoby:

Let’s see. One in four American-born Catholics have left the church during the past 20 years. Parish schools are being closed throughout the country because many dioceses are strapped for cash after settlements with victims of priestly pedophilia. Seminaries are empty and nuns (those who are left) are in open rebellion against a male hierarchy that will not even consider ordaining women as priests. I guess it’s logical that the church needs more exorcists.

Talk about desperate. If I were the pope I’d be trying to make my church a bit more modern, a bit more humanistic and a bit more, well…serious. Exorcism is sheer buffoonery, like clown shoes. Did you ever see the pope walk out in public wearing something so silly as big, floppy clown shoes? Well, I guess you have.

Jacoby nails moderate religious belief as well:

The problem with “moderate” religion–as distinct from fundamentalists creeds that insist on the literal truth of ancient collections of fantasies–is that there is really no difference between “reasonable” and “unreasonable” supernatural beliefs. When you think about it, it is really no more absurd to believe that Satan can make us froth at the mouth than it is to believe that ashes will one day be reassembled and restored to life. Any belief for which there is no evidence apart from one’s own longings and fears is unreasonable. That is why I am an atheist.

She’s right, too. Why is belief in the recomposition of a decomposed body any less outlandish than belief in devils, demons and dybbuks? It’s all nonsense, and that’s the point. All religions are full of such beliefs, right down to the central one about God. If you think I’m being unfair (and I know a lot of people who hold on to God as a pre-teen boy holds on to his teddy bears) I’d like to know what you think the difference is.

And that’s one reason I, too, am an atheist.

Favorite film stills: Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is the movie I’ve probably watched more than any other except Star Wars, and that’s only because when I was young we had cable television and it was on two or three times a week. But Citizen Kane is the movie that, as an adult, repays constant viewing. I always see some subtly-placed detail I’d never noticed before, from that murky opening scene with the spooky camera work around Xanadu to the balcony shot with Hitler.

"first support, then denounce"

That’s some proto-Zelig kind of stuff, too, because it really looks like Hitler. I don’t know much about the technical end of movie-making, or how things were done back in 1942, but almost seventy years on it’s still pretty convincing. And did I mention it was 1942? With all the knowledge we have of who Hitler was, what his actual aims were and how indescribably awful the Nazis turned out to be – stuff nobody knew back then except those caught up in its whirlwind, and for whom there was little hope at that point – the still is quite ominous. I’m not going to get schmaltzy and say the film sounds a “prophetic” note, but it sends a chill up my spine every time I watch it.

Exorcism is complete and utter nonsense

I just wanted to briefly add my voice to the chorus of those who thought Laurie Goodstein’s NTY article on the revival of exorcism in the Catholic Church was silly. I mean, is this news? PZ Myers made a thorough frisking of it here, so I won’t go into it. His point is summed up thus:

In any other subject, if someone made a specific claim like that, I’d expect a good journalist to ask, “how do you know that?” and try to track down a credible source for such a claim about an individual. When the subject is the Devil, though, anything goes. You can say any ol’ crazy thing about Satan, and the reporter will dutifully write it down and publish it without ever stopping for a moment to wonder, “Hey, is my source just making shit up?”

Ooga-booga, ol’ Satan is back to haunt us in the pages of the New York Times. I would expect this kind of silliness from the Osservatore Romano or even Corriere della Sera because I’m aware that the Italian media bend over backwards to accomodate the Church, regardless of the ridiculous nonsense its mouthpieces are spewing, in wholly uncritical fashion. We’re talking about expelling demons, for chrissakes!

Here’s the kind of thing that makes me laugh:

“The ordinary work of the Devil is temptation,” he said, “and the ordinary response is a good spiritual life, observing the sacraments and praying. The Devil doesn’t normally possess someone who is leading a good spiritual life.”

That’s the last paragraph of Goodstein’s article. Straightfaced. Let’s say it loud and say it proud, “THERE IS NO DEVIL. THERE IS NO GOD. IT’S ONLY PEOPLE MAKING SHIT UP. WE ALL KNOW THIS. NOW LET’S STOP PRETENDING AND GROW THE FUCK UP.”

I feel better. Enjoy your weekend.

S.P.Q.R.

Italy deserves a better government. This is undeniable. But I don’t think Bersani has a ghost of a chance of running it. Here’s some Greek tragicomedy.

My favorite Yo La Tengo song

I love the way this one reverberates. I think they ran a Farfisa organ through a guitar and then fiddled with the wha-wha…or at least that appeared to be what Ira Kaplan was doing on stage when I saw them play in NYC circa ’96. I also saw Richard Thompson that year, probably my last great year of concert-going before I stopped being obsessive about music and transferred my obsession to books. Oh, well.

Play the softer version with dozing infants in the room.

Caught in the act

In Peru, a suspecting husband filmed his own wife in bed with the local parish priest, doing the nasty in church. The woman is apparently pregnant with the priest’s child, and is hoping he will recognize it. He has been suspended from his sacerdotal duties by the archbishop of Trujillo. The video, broadcast on Peruvian television, is here.

Geoffrey Robertson, in his recent book, The Case of the Pope, writes:

It may be that more is yet to come: after paedophile priests, promiscuous and predator priests will enter the spotlight […]

The vow of celibacy is widely disregarded. A recent survey in Poland showed that 54% of priests would like to have a wife, while 12% owned up to already having one.

Isn’t it about time clerical celibacy became a thing of the past? If all the other Christian denominations can get by without it, then why can’t the Catholic Church?

h/t UAAR

 

Beatification prayer for Pius XII

I fell for it again. I bought Corriere della Sera today because they have a new promo, “Classics of Freethought;” for one euro you get a thin volume of Voltaire, Rousseau etc…provided you buy the newspaper. So I did.

And on the front page is an article telling me the Vatican has already prepared an official prayer for the beatification of Pius XII, that stone-faced, humorless pope who never spoke a word against the Nazi atrocities during the entirety of World War II.

The prayer begins, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You for having given to the Church Pope Pius XII, that faithful teacher of Your truth and our angelic pastor…”

Barf. Does “introspection” have an entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia? Or is it taboo, like “relativism?”

More apostate comix

By now I’m guessing that most of my readers also read Jesus and Mo. I want to share Mr. Apostate with you now. Mr. Apostate has a very different style than J&M,  and rather reminds me of Glen Baxter and Bazooka Joe. Here’s one I liked:

Please send links to more apostate comix.