Re: What's next?
hobitbob wrote:err..no, Islam does NOT dictate that secular and spiritual are the same, but thank you for playing, anyway! Ironically, the same misconception is held by many Muslims about Christianity.
Oh, I see - you must be an Islamic scholar, in addition to your other academic credits.
My experience and study tells me that Islam IS just what I said it is. It is also an evil institution, but that's another topic. LOL.
Hey Hobitbob - please jump on over to:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14473
I would appreciate your input on that - it's a hell of a lot more intellectually stimulating that the Vatican's problem with condoms. Besides, I'm not discussing Islam in this thread any further. :-) I will participate in one, if you want to start a thread about it, though.
Re: What's next?
hobitbob wrote:Youir second comment is pure ignorance.
I know I can make a sound, convincing case for the evils of Islam as an institution - I've done it before, so if you'd like to start a thread somewhere on these forums, please do. I am open minded, and you may sway some of my opinions, after all, but most of all, others may benefit from the discussion. I don't appreciate baseless flames like that one, though. It's not really necessary, is it?
Considering the number of times I've had this discussion with Perception, Italgato,and even AU, I don't feel like butting my head against a wall today. And, considering the preponderance of historical evidence, the comment still stands. It is pure ignorance. Islam is no more and no less "evil" than Catholicism, Protestantism, Bhuddism, Judaism, or any other "ism" you care to name.
I wouldn't be having the discussion today, anyway.
So, many others have said the same thing? I'm presuming.
Well, yes, almost all of the 'isms' are a form of evil, so, Islam happens to be one of the worst. I wouldn't lump Buddhism into the same category, nor would I do that to Hindism. I would lump Christianity into that dangerous, evil category, if that's any comfort.
HobitBob -I'm speaking of Islam's contemporary applications throughout the world - it's historical record has little bearing, if any, and that's not to say that your studies of medieval Islam is not significant - don't get me wrong, ok. I'm only concerned with it's actual practice, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, by all the Imams and inside all the madrassahs.
I would be more careful about my use of the word "all" if I were you. It doesn't say much for your objectivity.
As for Hinduism and Bhuddism, Hindu terrorists have been as active in the India/Pakistan conflict as have Muslim terror groups, both proudly flying banners of religious identity. As for Bhuddism, the inclusion of Bhuddist thought, and the re-allignment of Bhuddist thought (particularly Zen) in support of Japanese military actions in the early 20th century were rather extensive.
hobitbob wrote:I would be more careful about my use of the word "all" if I were you. It doesn't say much for your objectivity.
That doesn't say much for your reading skills. Didn't I write "almost all" -??
You're going to lecture me now about objectivity? Why don't we discuss Chemisty - I have a BS in Chem, and did a minor in biochemistry. Your profile says you're a molecular BIO person, so let's talk about that, eh? Hey, I was an army medic too - back in 1976.
Egads - ok - I see - you want to play the "one upmanship" game, and you're still comparing Islam - the relative terrorist aspects of Hindus and Buddhists - LOL - who cares?
Sorry, I don't play that HobitBob. Besides, this thread is about the Vatican killing people by discouraging HIV carriers to not use condoms. Later on, and goodnight.
hobitbob wrote:I have an MA in medieval History and am in a PhD program for the same, so I might actually know of what I speak, eh?
You are a master of medival history, and soon to have a doctorate. Congratulations. Wasn't chemistry more lucrative, btw? (that's not a dig, btw, just a sincere question)
I'm sure you know medieval history, and if I need some information on medieval history, I'll read your books, and/or listen to what you have to say here about medieval history. Fascinating topics in medieval history - really are.
Goodnight. Best wishes in your doctorate program.
If I need information on contemporary Islam, I'll probably look elsewhere.
phineasf and HobitBob
Phineasf and HobitBob, I know the two of you are having fun with your pissing match, but it ain't much fun for the rest of us. How about giving it a rest? I know its tough to do with religious topics, but it shuts out and turns off everyone else.
BBB
p.s. I see you started a new thread where you two and others can duke it out and flame each other to your hearts content. Thanks a bunch
The Vatican is killing us slowly
Well BEE, I wasn't about to continue, and certainly don't enjoy flaming anyone (don't object at all to your interjection here, either, btw). I actually do have a lot of respect for anyone pursuing a doctorate program, and do, despite what I am going to say next, have repect for the 'person' adhering to any theism. I'm an atheist on Sundays, and an Agnostic the other 6 days of the week. LOL. Besides, our disagreement about an aspect of Islam, had nothing to do with this thread. So, on that note, I'm going back to a discussion of the irrationalities of the Catholic Church!
The issue here is that in Philippines, in Kenya and various other places, the battle against AIDS is being lost because the Church has joined the battle against it. It is well established that condoms provide, not absolute safety but significant reduction of risks in transmission of AIDS. Of course condoms can break or tear and infection can still take place. But if we can reduce the risk of transmission, then we significantly reduce the spread of AIDS. However, across four continents, the Catholic Church, which regards birth control as anathema, is fighting against AIDS control using condoms. That they should oppose birth control itself is a sign of their obsolete thinking. That they should claim their own scientific studies to oppose the role of condoms in AIDS control exposes millions of their followers to unacceptable risks. Already doctors in various parts of the world have testified that they are facing hostile reaction from the Church in their attempts to educate the people in the use of condoms and safe sex.
There has been criticism of the current pontiff that he has taken the Church back a number of decades. On issues such as celibacy and gay rights, even liberation theology, the Church can argue that this is an internal matter of the Church and does not belong to the public domain. The matter becomes altogether different when the Church propagates belief in miracles and miracle cures and when it involves itself in sabotaging attempts to allow people to practice contraception. This verges on the criminal if a deliberate scientific fraud is practiced on its followers in the world wide struggle against AIDS where safe sex using condoms has been shown to be effective. That the Church should oppose such measures in its bigoted belief against contraception is condemning millions to this dreaded disease.
The western media, which spares no attempts to show how other societies are irrational, falls curiously silent when it comes confronting irrationality in their own backyards. That is why the silence of the western media on miracles being used to justify an action by the Church becomes an important omission.
Lest people feel that the denial of miraculous powers of Mother Teresa is an attempt to run down her work, let me state that all of us are deeply appreciative of her work amongst the poor in Kolakata. A number of us would differ sharply on her views on birth control, position of women, and various other social and political issues. That is our right just as it was hers to hold whatever views she did. Her views do not take away from her the quality of work she did. The issue of whether she should be conferred sainthood by the Catholic Church engages us only because instead of it being based on her work, it is based on the sudden suspension of the laws of nature. The Church is certifying that divine intervention occurred on Monica Besra praying to Mother Teresa to cure her.
The Monica Besra case has been well documented. Briefly, the case as presented during Mother Teresa's beatification was that Monica Besra's pain and stomach tumour disappeared after she applied a locket with the image of Mother Teresa on the site of the pain. This miracle supposedly took place in September 1998, on the anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. The problem with this position is that Monica Besra had undergone extensive medication in the state run Balurghat Hospital. Doctors who treated her confirm that she underwent treatment for more than 2 months and improved steadily during this period. Monica believes that though she indeed did take the medicines, but her cure is due to the locket. Her husband, Seiku Murmu, as also her doctors believe that the miracle is a hoax. The Church has been challenged to prove a miracle, but as is usual with miracles, such challenges are quietly ignored. Miracles, we are told, can only occur with the faithful. Oh BULLSHIT (my bullshit meter just went off again! LOL)
Why should we be concerned if the Church believes that the laws of nature occasionally stands still at the behest of god to establish sainthood for some? How would it matter if the Church still held that Galileo was indeed wrong and sun goes around the earth? The reason we should be, is that such beliefs of the Church have implications, and serious implications for their following. And what affects them, the ONE BILLION AND GROWING followers, has dangerous implications that affect ALL of US!
Let us take the current state of Mother Teresa's sainthood. The Church, to confer sainthood, requires a second miracle. The impact on the believers is that a number of them will leave medical treatment now to pray to Mother Teresa. That it exposes the faithful to risks of curable disease is what should be considered by anyone with a rational mind! Fight the battle of faith anyway you want, but for the sake of the people concerned do not preach against medicines and in favour of miraculous cures. This is true for all believers in God - be they Hindu, Muslim, Jew, or Christian variety believers (or any other, to be fair and not leave anyone out).
The case of AIDS and the role of the Catholic Church is even worse. According to the Church, condoms have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass and that is why the Church is arguing against the use of condoms, putting at risk millions of Catholics. The Vatican's "research" remains a well kept secret! Hmmm. A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are untrue. The WHO has condemned the Vatican's views, saying: "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million."
Obviously, irrationality is not the province of any particular religion or community. The danger unfortunately, is not even to the religious institutions. The danger lies in that it affects human lives, either through wrong practices and policies, or in extreme cases, through organized programs. It is this spilling over of religion to the public arena that must be condemned by all right thinking people.
ok - stepping off my soapbox now, and thanxs for listening ~Phineas Flapdoodle
phineasf
Phineas Flapdoodle? I love it.
I don't object to the points you make, in fact, being an atheist seven days a week, I agree with most of what you say. My objection is to the tone that always comes out when discussing religion (and other topics that generate passion.) Posters can't seem to state their thoughts without taking cheap shots at others. This results in a diversion from the issues into a pissing match. I call this behavior verbal gladiator sport. It degrades the participants and their points of view. Its interesting that it seems mostly males that persist in this behavior.
Now, back to the Catholic Church topic. All religions, and especially the Catholic church wraps itself in the veil of religious holiness and good deeds. But, in my opinion, their policies (dogma) are all designed to further their power, wealth, and numbers. Hence the ban on birth control and condoms. Either would limit the growth of the church's membership, which impedes its power and wealth.
The great religions compete with each other for power and wealth. The well being of the people of this planet plays a secondary role to that primary goal. The sexual abuse practices recently publicized, but having a centuries old history, demonstrated the focus of the church was not on helping the faithful, but protecting the church's power, wealth and numbers. As an aside, the celebacy dogma was initiated, not because of some holy need, but to prevent married priests from passing on church property upon their deaths. So the church forbade priest marriage to protect its property rights. But it had to wrap the dogma in holiness to sell it. After all, it couldn't be honest by admitting it valued its land more than the well-being of its priests.
Everything else practiced by religions is simply smoke and mirrors to protect those three primary goals. The fact that God and Jesus is used as a tool to achieve these christian goals should be self evident. The other major religions do the same with different icon tools. Even minor religions ape these techniques: David Koresch, Jim Jones, etc., etc.
I know most people won't agree with me, but at least I can express my beliefs without taking pot shots at other posters to make my point.
BumbleBeeBoogie
Au contraire BBB,
There are many who agree with you. I would venture to say that these minions would include a large percentage of those actively participating in the aforementioned religions who have seen the light but for various reasons, including social, familial, and business, elect not to ostracize themselves. My wife, a devoted catholic for most of her life, has turned bitter towards the church. This because she sees priests using the Sunday Mass , and other church venues, as a bully pulpit jamming political views down the congregation's throat. She loves her faith but hates to sit thru a mass whose main purpose seems to get out the vote for a candidate who agrees with church doctrine, at least towards one narrowly focused issue such as abortion. She feels it is her church's primary duty to see to its member's spiritual well being and not to pursue such tangential adventures in politics. (Perhaps, the fact that she refers to it as her church is where she sets herself up for disappointment: Church politics are not democracy in action)
This brings up a thought. Reading a Newsweek article a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to learn that part of the beatification process included not only testimony from those that were in the affirmative position but also those opposed. Further surprise awaited me when I learned that this testimony came not only from devil's advocates opposed to the classification of specific incidents as miracles. Indeed, a layman who has been consistently critical of Mother Teresa's actions was invited to speak. He pointed out that the candidate's teachings encouraging women to be subservient to their husbands and that they practice only "natural contraception" kept these people in poverty. This is a well known scientific statistical fact. Even the leaders of the people she helped knew this. His concluding question: How can an institution honor an individual whose entire career helped condemn millions of poor people and their children to a legacy of perpetual poverty?
One could form an apologist's argument in favor of Mother Teresa's and others' good deeds involving those in poverty but the meat of that argument would speak only towards their ignorance towards common social knowledge as regarding population dynamics and thereby discount these workers good intentions. The responsibility lies in the higher echelons of the church. This group is highly educated and consists, literally of Physicians, Lawyers, and Sociologists, many possessing PhD's.
Given this level of modern knowledge what other conclusion can one reach other than that reached and stated by BumbleBeeBoogie?
Quote:"The great religions compete with each other for power and wealth. The well being of the people of this planet plays a secondary role to that primary goal."
This, of course, has the potential for change. But change in such institutions is glacial. After all, how can the truly faithful argue with those with God on their side? Well, the church does respond when people implicitly vote with their feet and pocket books. Apparently, economics can play a role in spiritual fulfillment.
JM
James Morrison
James Morrison, you may find the following of interest re the Devil's Advocate process:
Christopher Hitchens On Mother Theresa (Interview)
by Matt Cherry
The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 16, Number 4.
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Below, Matt Cherry, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, interviews Christopher Hitchens about his book The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995) and his television program, which strongly criticized Mother Teresa. The interview recapitulates the most devastating critiques of Mother Teresa ever made. It also gives a very telling account by a leading journalist into the U.S. media's great reluctance to criticize religion and religious leaders.
As Free Inquiry was going to press, we heard that Mother Teresa was suffering from heart trouble and malaria and there was concern about her chances of survival. It was, therefore, suggested to the editors that it would be inappropriate to print an interview that contains criticism of Mother Teresa's work and influence. However, in view of the media's general failure to investigate the work of Mother Teresa or to publish critical comments about her, the editors felt it important to proceed with the publication of this revealing interview.
Christopher Hitchens is "Critic at Large" for Vanity Fair, writes the Minority Report column for The Nation, and is a frequent guest on current affairs and commentary television programs. He has written numerous books on international current affairs, including Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies.
?- EDS.
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Free Inquiry: According to polls, Mother Teresa is the most respected woman in the world. Her name is a by-word for selfless dedication in the service of humanity. So why are you picking on this sainted old woman?
Christopher Hitchens: Partly because that impression is so widespread. But also because the sheer fact that this is considered unquestionable is a sign of what we are up against, namely the problem of credulity. One of the most salient examples of people's willingness to believe anything if it is garbed in the appearance of holiness is the uncritical acceptance of the idea of Mother Teresa as a saint by people who would normally be thinking - however lazily - in a secular or rational manner. In other words, in every sense it is an unexamined claim.
It's unexamined journalistically - no one really takes a look at what she does. And it is unexamined as to why it should be she who is spotlighted as opposed to many very selfless people who devote their lives to the relief of suffering in what we used to call the "Third World." Why is it never mentioned that her stated motive for the work is that of proselytization for religious fundamentalism, for the most extreme interpretation of Catholic doctrine? If you ask most people if they agree with the pope's views on population, for example, they say they think they are rather extreme. Well here's someone whose life's work is the propagation of the most extreme version of that.
That's the first motive. The second was a sort of journalistic curiosity as to why it was that no one had asked any serious questions about Mother Teresa's theory or practice. Regarding her practice, I couldn't help but notice that she had rallied to the side of the Duvalier family in Haiti, for instance, that she had taken money - over a million dollars - from Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings and Loans swindler, even though it had been shown to her that the money was stolen; that she has been an ally of the most reactionary forces in India and in many other countries; that she has campaigned recently to prevent Ireland from ceasing to be the only country in Europe with a constitutional ban on divorce, that her interventions are always timed to assist the most conservative and obscurantist forces.
FI: Do you think this is because she is a shrewd political operator or that she is just naïve and used as a tool by others?
HITCHENS: I've often been asked that. And I couldn't say from real acquaintance with her which view is correct, because I've only met her once. But from observing her I don't think that she's naïve. I don't think she is particularly intelligent or that she has a complex mind, but I think she has a certain cunning.
Her instincts are very good: she seems to know when and where she might be needed and to turn up, still looking very simple. But it's a long way from Calcutta to Port au Prince airport in Haiti, and it's a long way from the airport to the presidential palace. And one can't just, in your humble way and dressed in a simple sari, turn up there. Quite a lot of things have to be arranged and thought about and allowed for in advance. You don't end up suddenly out of sheer simple naïveté giving a speech saying that the Duvalier family love the poor. All of that involves quite a high level of planning and calculation. But I think the genius of it is to make it look simple.
One of Mother Teresa's biographers - almost all the books written about her are by completely uncritical devotees - says, with a sense of absolute wonderment, that when Mother Teresa first met the pope in the Vatican, she arrived by bus dressed only in a sari that cost one rupee. Now that would be my definition of behaving ostentatiously. A normal person would put on at least her best scarf and take a taxi. To do it in the way that she did is the reverse of the simple path. It's obviously theatrical and calculated. And yet it is immediately written down as a sign of her utter holiness and devotion. Well, one doesn't have to be too cynical to see through that.
FI: You point out that, although she is very open about promoting Catholicism, Mother Teresa has this reputation of holiness amongst many non-Catholics and even secular people. And her reputation is based upon her charitable work for the sick and dying in Calcutta. What does she actually do there? What are her care facilities like?
HITCHENS: The care facilities are grotesquely simple: rudimentary, unscientific, miles behind any modern conception of what medical science is supposed to do. There have been a number of articles - I've collected some more since my book came out - about the failure and primitivism of her treatment of lepers and the dying, of her attitude towards medication and prophylaxis. Very rightly is it said that she tends to the dying, because if you were doing anything but dying she hasn't really got much to offer.
This is interesting because, first, she only proclaims to be providing people with a Catholic death, and, second, because of the enormous amounts of money mainly donated to rather than raised by her Order. We've been unable to audit this - no one has ever demanded an accounting of how much money has flowed in her direction. With that money she could have built at least one absolutely spanking new, modern teaching hospital in Calcutta without noticing the cost.
The facilities she runs are as primitive now as when she first became a celebrity. So that's obviously not where the money goes.
FI: How much money do you reckon she receives?
HITCHENS: Well, I have the testimony of a former very active member of her Order who worked for her for many years and ended up in the office Mother Teresa maintains in New York City. She was in charge of taking the money to the bank. She estimates that there must be $50 million in that bank account alone. She said that one of the things that began to raise doubts in her mind was that the Sisters always had to go around pretending that they were very poor and they couldn't use the money for anything in the neighborhood that required alleviation. Under the cloak of avowed poverty they were still soliciting donations, labor, food, and so on from local merchants. This she found as a matter of conscience to be offensive.
Now if that is the case for one place in New York, and since we know what huge sums she has been given by institutions like the Nobel Peace committee, other religious institutions, secular prize-giving organizations, and so on, we can speculate that if this money was being used for the relief of suffering we would be able to see the effect.
FI: So the $50 million is a very small portion of her wealth?
HITCHENS: I think it's a very small portion, and we should call for an audit of her organization. She carefully doesn't keep the money in India because the Indian government requires disclosure of foreign missionary organizations funds.
I think the answer to questions about her wealth was given by her in an interview where she said she had opened convents and nunneries in 120 countries. The money has simply been used for the greater glory of her order and the building of dogmatic, religious institutions.
FI: So she is spending the money on her own order of nuns? And that order will be named after her?
HITCHENS: Both of those suggestions are speculation, but they are good speculation. I think the order will be named after her when she becomes a saint, which is also a certainty: she is on the fast track to canonization and would be even if we didn't have a pope who was manufacturing saints by the bushel. He has canonized and beatified more people than eight of his predecessors combined.
FI: Hence the title of your book: The Missionary Position.
HITCHENS: That has got some people worked up. Of the very, very few people who have reviewed this book in the United States, one or two have objected to that title on the grounds that it's "sophomoric." Well, I think that a triple entendre requires a bit of sophistication.
FI: And your television program in the United Kingdom was called "Hell's Angel."
HITCHENS: Yes, very much over my objection, because I thought that that name had not even a single entendre to it. I wanted to call it "Sacred Cow." The book is the television program expanded by about a third. The program was limited by what we could find of Mother Teresa's activities recorded on film. In fact, I was delighted by how much of her activity was available on film: for example, her praising the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. There is also film of her groveling to the Duvaliers: licking the feet of the rich instead of washing the feet of the poor. But "60 Minutes" demanded a price that was greater than the whole cost of the rest of the production. So we had to use stills.
FI: How did Mother Teresa become such a great symbol of charity and saintliness?
HITCHENS: Her break into stardom came when Malcolm Muggeridge - a very pious British political and social pundit - adopted her for his pet cause. In 1969, he made a very famous film about her life - and later a book called Something Beautiful for God. Both the book and the film deserve the label hagiography.
Muggeridge was so credulous that he actually claimed that a miracle had occurred on camera while he was making the film. He claimed that a mysterious "kindly light" had appeared around Mother Teresa. This claim could easily be exploded by the testimony of the cameraman himself: he had some new film stock produced by Kodak for dark or difficult light conditions. The new stock was used for the interview with Mother Teresa. The light in the film looked rather odd, and the cameraman was just about to say so when Muggeridge broke in and said, "It's a miracle, it's divine light."
FI: Are we all victims of the Catholic public relations machine? Or has the West seized upon Mother Teresa as salve for its conscience?
HITCHENS: Well, you are giving me my answer in your question. For a long time the church was not quite sure what to do about her. For example, when there was the Second Vatican Council, in the 1960s, there was an equivalent meeting for the Catholics of the Indian subcontinent in Bombay. Mother Teresa turned up and said she was absolutely against any reconsideration of doctrine. She said we don't need any new thinking or reflection, what we need is more work and more faith. So she has been recognized as a difficult and dogmatic woman by the Catholics in India for a long time.
I think there were others in the church who suspected she was too ambitious, that she wouldn't accept discipline, that she wanted an order of her own. She was always petitioning to be able to go off and start her own show. Traditionally, the church has tended to suspect that kind of excessive zeal. I think it was an entirely secular breakthrough sponsored by Muggeridge, who wasn't then a Catholic.
So it wasn't the result of the propaganda of the Holy Office. But when the Catholic church realized it had a winner on its hands, it was quick to adopt her. She is a very great favorite of the faithful and a very good advertisement to attract non-believers or non-Catholics. And she's very useful for the current pope as a weapon against reformists and challengers within the church.
As to why those who would normally consider themselves rationalists or skeptics have fallen for the Mother Teresa myth, I think there is an element of post-colonial condescension involved, in that most people have a slightly bad conscience about "the wretched of the Earth" and they are glad to feel that there are those who will take action. Then also there is the general problem of credulity, of people being willing - once a reputation has been established - to judge people's actions by that reputation instead of the reputation by that action.
FI: Why do you think no other major media before you had exposed Mother Teresa?
HITCHENS: I'm really surprised by it. And also I'm surprised that no one in our community - that of humanists, rationalists, and atheists - had ever thought of doing it either.
There's a laziness in my profession, of tending to make the mistake I just identified of judging people by their reputation. In other words, if you call Saudi Arabia a "moderate Arab state" that's what it becomes for reportorial purposes. It doesn't matter what it does, it's a "moderate state." Similarly for Mother Teresa: she became a symbol for virtue, so even in cartoons, jokes, movies, and television shows, if you want a synonym for selflessness and holiness she is always mentioned.
It's inconvenient if someone robs you of a handy metaphor. If you finally printed the truth it would mean admitting that you missed it the first, second, and third time around. I've noticed a strong tendency in my profession for journalists not to like to admit that they ever missed anything or got anything wrong.
I think this is partly the reason, although in England my book got quite well reviewed because of the film, in the United States there seems to be the view that this book isn't worth reviewing. And it can't be for the usual reasons that the subject is too arcane and only of minority interest, or that there's not enough name recognition.
I believe there's also a version of multi-culturalism involved in this. That is to say, to be a Catholic in America is to be a member of two kinds of community: the communion of believers and the Catholic community, which is understood in a different sense, in other words, large numbers of Irish, Italian, Croatian, and other ethnic groups, who claim to be offended if any of the tenets of their religion are publicly questioned. Thus you are in a row with a community if you choose to question the religion. Under one interpretation of the rules of multi-culturalism that is not kosher: you can't do that because you can't offend people in their dearest identity. There are some secular people who are vulnerable to that very mistake.
I'll give you an interesting example, Walter Goodman, the New York Times television critic, saw my film and then wrote that he could not understand why it was not being shown on American television. He laid down a challenge to television to show this film. There was then a long silence until I got a call from Connie Chung's people in New York. They flew me up and said they would like to do a long item about the program, using excerpts from it, interviewing me and talking about the row that had resulted. They obviously wanted to put responsibility for the criticism of Mother Teresa onto me rather than adopt it themselves - they were already planning the damage control.
But they didn't make any program. And the reason they gave me was that they thought that if they did they would be accused of being Jewish and attacked in the same way as the distributors of The Last Temptation of Christ had been. And that this would stir up Catholic-Jewish hostility in New York. It was very honest of them to put it that way. They had already imagined what might be said and the form it might take and they had persuaded themselves that it wasn't worth it.
FI: So your film has never been shown in the United States?
HITCHENS: No, and it certainly never will be. You can make that prediction with absolute certainty; and then you can brood on what that might suggest.
FI: What was the response in Britain to your exposé of Mother Teresa? Did you get a lot of criticism for it?
HITCHENS: When the film was shown, it prompted the largest number of phone calls that the channel had ever logged. That was expected. It was also expected that there would be a certain amount of similarity in the calls. I've read the log, and many of the people rang to say exactly the same thing, often in the same words. I think there was an element of organization to it.
But what was more surprising was that it was also the largest number of calls in favor that the station had ever had. That's rare because it's usually the people who want to complain who lift the phone; people who liked the program don't ring up. That's a phenomenon well known in the trade, and it's a reason why people aren't actually all that impressed when the switchboard is jammed with protest calls. They know it won't be people calling in to praise and they know it's quite easy to organize.
A really remarkable number of people rung in to say it's high time there was a program like this. The logs scrupulously record the calls verbatim, and I noticed that the standard of English and of reasoning in the pro calls was just so much higher as to make one feel that perhaps all was not lost.
In addition to the initial viewer response, there was also a row in the press. But on the whole both sides of the case were put. Nonetheless, it was depressing to see how many people objected not to what was said but to its being said at all. Even among secular people there was an astonishment, as if I really had done something iconoclastic. People would say "Christopher Hitchens alleges that Mother Teresa keeps company with dictators" and so on, as though it hadn't been proven. But none of the critics have ever said, even the most hostile ones, that anything I say about her is untrue. No one has ever disproved any of that.
Probably the most intelligent review appeared in the Tablet, a English monthly Catholic paper. There was a long, serious and quite sympathetic review by someone who had obviously worked with the church in India and knew Mother Teresa. The reviewer said Mother Teresa's work and ideology do present some problems for the faith.
FI: But in America the idea that Mother Teresa is a sacred cow who must not be criticized won out and your book and your critique of Mother Teresa never got an airing?
HITCHENS: Yes, pretty much. Everything in American reviews depends on the New York Times Book Review. My book was only mentioned in the batch of short notices at the end. Considering that Mother Teresa had a book out at the same time, I thought this was very strange. Any book review editor with any red corpuscles at all would put both books together, look up a reviewer with an interest in religion and ask him or her to write an essay comparing and contrasting them. I have been a reviewer and worked in a newspaper office, and that is what I would have expected to happen. That it didn't is suggestive and rather depressing.
FI: The Mother Teresa myth requires the Indians to play the role of the hapless victims. What do the Indians think of Mother Teresa and of the image she gives of India?
HITCHENS: I've got an enormous pile of coverage from India, where my book was published. And the reviews seem to be overwhelmingly favorable. Of course it comes at a time when there is a big crisis in India about fundamentalism and secularism.
There are many Indians who object to the image of their society and its people that is projected. From Mother Teresa and from her fans you would receive the impression that in Calcutta there is nothing but torpor, squalor, and misery, and people barely have the energy to brush the flies from their eyes while extending a begging bowl. Really and truly that is a slander on a fantastically interesting, brave, highly evolved, and cultured city, which has universities, film schools, theaters, book shops, literary cafes, and very vibrant politics. There is indeed a terrible problem of poverty and overcrowding, but despite that there isn't all that much mendicancy. People do not tug at your sleeve and beg. They are proud of the fact that they don't.
The sources of Calcutta's woes and miseries are the very overpopulation that the church says is no problem, and the mass influx of refugees from neighboring regions that have been devastated by religious and sectarian warfare in the name of God. So those who are believers owe Calcutta big time, they should indeed be working to alleviate what they are responsible for. But the pretense that they are doing so is a big fraud.
FI: You mention in your book that Mother Teresa is used by the Religious Right and fundamentalist Protestants who traditionally are very anti-Catholic as a symbol of religious holiness with which to beat secular humanists.
HITCHENS: Yes, she's a poster girl for the right-to-life wing in America. She was used as the example of Christian idealism and family values, of all things, by Ralph Reed - the front man of the Pat Robertson forces. That's a symptom of a wider problem that I call "reverse ecumenicism," an opportunist alliance between extreme Catholics and extreme Protestants who used to exclude and anathematize one another.
In private Pat Robertson has nothing but contempt for other Christian denominations, including many other extreme Protestant ones. But in public the Christian Coalition stresses that it is very, very keen to make an alliance with Catholics. There is a shallow, opportunist ecumenicism among religious extremists, and Mother Teresa is quite willingly and happily in its service. She knows exactly who she is working for and with. But I think she is happiest when doing things like going to Ireland and intervening in the Divorce Referendum, as she did recently.
By the way, there is an interesting angle to that which has not yet appeared in print. During the Divorce Referendum the Irish Catholic church threatened to deny the sacrament to women who wanted to be remarried. There were no exceptions to be allowed: it didn't matter if you had been married to an alcoholic who beat you and sexually assaulted your children, you were not going to get a second chance in this world or the next. And that is the position that Mother Teresa intervened in Ireland to support.
Now shift the scene: Mother Teresa is a sort of confessor to Princess Diana. They have met many times. You can see the mutual interest; I'm not sure which of them needs the other the most. But Mother Teresa was interviewed by Ladies Home Journal, a magazine read by millions of American women, and in the course of it she says that she heard that Princess Diana was getting divorced and she really hopes so because she will be so much happier that way.
So there is forgiveness after all, but guess for whom. You couldn't have it more plain than that. I was slightly stunned myself because, although I think there are many fraudulent things about Mother Teresa, I also think there are many authentic things about her. Anyway, she was forced to issue a statement saying that marriage is God's work and can't be undone and all the usual tripe. But when she was speaking from the heart, she was more forgiving of divorce.
FI: A footnote in your book criticizes Mother Teresa for forgiving you for your film about her.
HITCHENS: I said that I didn't ask for forgiveness and I wasn't aware that she could bestow it in any case. Of all the things in the book, that is the one that has attracted most hostile comment - even from friends and people who agree with me. They ask why I object to that, what's wrong with forgiveness? My explanation is that it would be O.K. if she was going to forgive everyone. When she went to Bhopal after the Union Carbide industrial accident killed thousands, she kept saying "Forgive, forgive, forgive." It's O.K. to forgive Union Carbide for its negligence, but for a woman married to an alcoholic child abuser in Ireland who has ten children and no one to look after her, there is no forgiveness in this life or the next one. But there is forgiveness for Princess Diana.
FI: There is a Roman Catholic doctrine about the redemption of the soul through suffering. This can be seen in Mother Teresa's work: she thinks suffering is good, and she doesn't use pain relievers in her clinics and so forth. Does she take the same attitude towards her own health? Does she live in accordance with what she preaches?
HITCHENS: I hesitated to cover this in my book, but I decided I had to publish that she has said that the suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering.
FI: A horrible thing to say.
HITCHENS: Yes, evil in fact. To say it was unChristian unfortunately would not be true, although many people don't realize that is what Christians believe. It is a positively immoral remark in my opinion, and it should be more widely known than it is.
She is old, she has had various episodes with her own health, and she checks into some of the costliest and finest clinics in the West herself. I hesitated to put that in the book because it seemed as though it would be ad hominem (or ad feminam) and I try never to do that. I think that the doctrine of hating the sin and loving the sinner is obviously a stupid one, because its a false antithesis, but a version of it is morally defensible. Certainly in arguments one is only supposed to attack the arguments and not the person presenting them. But the contrast seemed so huge in this case.
It wasn't so much that it showed that her facilities weren't any good, but it showed that they weren't medical facilities at all. There wasn't any place she runs that she could go; as far as I know, their point isn't treatment. And in fairness to her, she has never really claimed that treatment is the point. Although she does accept donations from people who have fooled themselves into thinking so, I haven't found any occasion where she has given a false impression of her work. The only way she could be said to be responsible for spreading it is that she knowingly accepts what comes due to that false impression.
FI: But if people go to her clinics for the dying and they need medical care, does she send them on to the proper places?
HITCHENS: Not according to the testimony of a number of witnesses. I printed the accounts of several witnesses whose testimony I could verify and I've had many other communications from former volunteers in Calcutta and in other missions. All of them were very shocked to find when they got there that they had missed some very crucial point and that very often people who come under the false impression that they would receive medical care are either neglected or given no advice. In other words, anyone going in the hope of alleviation of a serious medical condition has made a huge mistake.
I've got so much testimony from former workers who contacted me after I wrote the book, that I almost have enough material to do a sequel.
FI: I have a question as one Englishman in America to another. You are a secular humanist Englishman who is a leading commentator on American culture and politics. Tell me, what is it about Americans and religion? Why is it that religion, often very primitive forms of religion, is so powerful in perhaps the richest, most advanced, most consumerist nation on Earth?
HITCHENS: I'm an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself.
Why is the United States so prone to any kind of superstition, not just organized religion, but cultism, astrology, millennial beliefs, UFOs, any form of superstition? I've thought a lot about it. I read Harold Bloom's book The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (1992) about the evolution of what he thinks of as a specifically American form of religion. There was a book by Will Herberg in the 1950s called Protestant, Catholic, Jew where he speculated that what was really evolving was the American way of life as a religion. And that this was a way of life that wasn't at all spiritual or intellectual but in a sense believed that all religion was valid as long as it underpinned this way of life. Somehow religion was a necessary ingredient. In other words, religion was functional. I think that's true but it's not the whole story.
Maybe - and this is a conclusion that I am reluctant to come to - it is because there is no established church here. A claim that is made for established churches is that in a way they domesticate and canalize and give a form and order to superstitious impulses. That's why they usually succeed in annexing all local cults and making them their own, etc. Part of their job is to soak up all the savagery around the place. I think from an anthropological point of view, that's partly true.
In a country that very honorably and uniquely founded itself on repudiating that idea and saying the church and the government would always be separate, and also a country that many people came to in the hope of practicing their own religion, you have both free competition and a sense of manifest destiny. I think it's out of that sort of stew that you have all these bubbles.
Chesterton used to say that, if people didn't have a belief in God, they wouldn't believe in nothing, they would believe in anything. The objection to that of course is that belief in God is believing in anything. But there's still a ghost of a point in there: if people are licensed to believe anything and call it spirituality, then they will.
FI: I think maybe it's not so much not having an established church as not having a dominant church. In France you have strict separation, but the Catholic church is dominant. Yet France has very high levels of nonbelief, like countries with an established church. But in America you have free competition of churches, and lots of competing cults, and much more energy as a result.
HITCHENS: I'm not sure that people in the United States are as devout as the statistics suggest. The statistics are extraordinary if you believe them: something like 88 percent of Americans regularly attend church, and 90 percent of them believe in the devil. I would like to have a look at how the questions are formulated in these polls.
FI: We have done our own polls - scientifically selected samples - in which we framed the questions ourselves, and we got very similar results to the other polls we had read. It may be that the question is not, Why do people believe this? - because perhaps they don't - but, Why do people say they believe this? There's obviously a social conditioning.
HITCHENS: Yes, that's right. People obviously feel they owe the pollsters that kind of answer.
I wonder whether the onset of the millennium is going to be as awful as I sometimes fear. There will be uneasiness among the feeble-minded and the emotionally insecure.
FI: Especially in America.
HITCHENS: American fundamentalism has one huge problem which is that the United States is nowhere pre-figured in the Bible. It worries them a lot, they keep trying to find it there, they try to interpret prophecies to refer to the United States, but they can't succeed - even to their own satisfaction - in getting it to come out right.
FI: You have to go to the Book of Mormon?
HITCHENS: Yes, and the Seventh-Day Adventists, who descended from the Millerites. I can see that Scientology now enjoys charitable status as a religion, which I think is a real triumph. I can't get over that. You can set some idea of what it would have been like to live in third-century Nicea when Christianity was being hammered together - an experience I am very glad I did not have. Religious diversity is confused with pluralism. Because of multi-culturalism and what is called "political correctness," religion has a certain protection that it couldn't expect to have if it was a state-sponsored racket like the Church of England.
FI: A lot of people who aren't religious think religion should still be beyond criticism.
HITCHENS: Certainly, because it's people's deepest and dearest beliefs, and because they are communities as well as congregations. And I suppose that in the minds of some people the feeling is "Well, you never know, it may be true and then I will go to Hell." A lot of people every now and then are visited by fear. It seems that as animals we are so constituted. At least we can know that about ourselves, but it is such a waste of the knowledge to interpret in any other way. On the other hand, I'm also impressed by the number of people who manage to get by - often without any help or support - not believing.
FI: The great thing about humanism is that so many people reach the position independently, because it is not about teachers and doctrines. You just end up a humanist by following your own questions.
HITCHENS: That's true. And it doesn't have any element of wishful-thinking in it, which is another advantage. Though it's the reason why I think it will always be hated but never eradicated.
FI: Look at the situation in Western Europe: in Holland about 55 percent say they are humanist or non-religious; and in Britain it's up to about 30 percent and among teenagers it's 50 percent. So there's an enormous movement in Western Europe towards secularism and humanism. Yet in America it seems to be getting just more and more religious. Which, considering the convergence of culture in other areas, seems quite anomalous. Sociologists are just beginning to address this issue but haven't done so properly yet.
Jim and BEE - I don't disagree with what you're saying.
This is interesting:
http://www.bank-of-wisdom.com/cddisplay.php?cd=cd10
"The works of history presented on this CD-ROM represent the highest degree of research and historic scholarship produced upon this subject. Again and again, individual research has produced the same historic facts; facts of political intrigue and corruption that destroys governments, causes endless wars, unrest, persecution and suffering---all in the name of religion. These magnificent studies of the past explain world troubles today, troubles that will continue as long as the Vatican is allowed to dominate national and international politics for its own power and profit."
"No reading can be more entertaining, stimulating and enlightening than the awful facts of political religion. Emmett F. Fields, Bank of Wisdom"
No - not hawking this, or have any affilitation with it. I just thought the summation was a concise summary of exactly how I feel about 'political religion' - and Jim, by the way, your wife might think about getting that churches IRS exemption revoked. They are violating the LAW by politicizing the sermons to the extent you describe. If more people would put some of the damn churches out of business, maybe the rest will pay attention to the laws.
Phineas Flapdoodle? Yeah - I borrowed that from Henry Miller; he used it as his anonymous pen name in the early 1920 - 30's
Very best,
Stephen
