A Rambling Bit of Something?

by Zephyr on Jan.12, 2009, under Atheism, Religion

More from across the pond. Madeleine Bunting of The Guardian seems to be trying to make a point, but she only really succeeds in insulting the intelligence of her fellow man:

Then I thought about how it might look through the eyes of some of the people who travel on the buses I use from Hackney. The ones who look exhausted returning from a night shift of cleaning. Often they have a well-thumbed Bible or prayer book to read on their journey. And along comes a bus emblazoned with that advert. A slogan redolent of the kind of triumphal atheism only possible when you have had the educational opportunities, privileges and material security of the British middle class. The faith of this person is what sustains their sense of hope and, even more importantly, their sense of dignity when they are confronted every day by the adverts of affluence that mock them as “losers”, as failed consumers. Ouch, I winced that we can be so blindly self-indulgent to this elitist patronising.

via Madeleine Bunting: Religions have the power to bring a passion for social justice to politics | Comment is free | The Guardian .

Hang on, so … let me get this straight. Society has made a huge gap between the rich and the poor, nearly canonized consumerism and, in general, failed to educate a huge swath of people… and to Madeleine… the answer is not to give people education, livable wages and reasonable jobs that don’t wear them to the bone. It’s to give them the false hope that eventually they’ll die and thus get to live in eternity forever? Not very nice.

She then prattles on about how all of us liberals, happy as punch to have a democrat in the white house, are going to be startled once we finally figure out that Obama is a Christian. I realize the UK is a bit of a distance away, but honestly… has she been living in a cave? Missed, entirely, the whole flap over Rick Warren? Didn’t catch word of Michael Newdow’s suit? Yeah, Madeleine, we know he’s Christian… and we know he’s not going to give up his faith. In fact, we’re not asking him to. Many of us aren’t even particularly thrilled over his faith, but we’re all holding out hope that a Democratic Christian in the white house is much, much less likely to try and pass off some of the crap the last Republican in the white house did. Oh, and it helps that Obama doesn’t claim that he gets divine guidance from The Big Man himself on who to bomb next.

After this, she tries, desperately, to tie together social organization with religion and claim that religions are looking for social justice.

What this kind of community organising - and it has spread across the US - can do is draw deeply on the passion for social justice that runs through all religious traditions. It finds common ground between Muslim, Christian and Jew in places where poverty and crime can often set them apart.

Set them apart form whom, exactly? I’m not even sure how this paragraph makes any sense whatsoever. However, I’ll add to it this. The term “social justice” means different things to different religions. As we’ve seen here in the US, it tends to mean limiting the rights of those who don’t agree with that particular religion. Social justice for a fundamental Christian, for example, can literally mean making homosexuality illegal. Not the sort of warm and fuzzy I, at least, want. Again, if crime and poverty are a problem, we need to address crime and poverty - not introduce religion. Religion is not and has never been and will never be a cure-all for what troubles you.

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