From: Bodie (mclarkc@essex.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Jan 16 2002 - 09:52:42 MST
I think it's a good idea, but the whole spirit of the COV so far from what
I remember hasn't been to actively recruit new members, we seem to grow
naturally without the need to advertise. The story you talk about is just
that, a fictional story, and while I agree it does have a lot of good
points the whole thing is just someone's head stuck in the clouds. I'm
not denying that it makes some very valid points, the whole theory behind
it is very flawed and unworkable in practice. I think if we did start
advertising and showing pictures of WTC, Ireland etc, the public would
believe to start with that we were just another religion who was going to
cause the same thing given half a chance. We need to concentrate on the
differences between us and organised religion first
On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, Kalkor wrote:
> Well then, and instead of arguing about mystik mathematiks, why don't we
> shoulder the role of John Galt (shudder, you draw your own conclusions) here
> and figure out a way to convert all those wandering around in a haze of "an
> apathy which I would describe as covert agnosticism masquerading as weak
> observance"[RR, and which I agree with, in my observation --Kalkor]... Yes,
> convert them to the CoV!
>
> In that fictional story( http://www.neo-tech.com/thestory ) I've been
> incessantly talking about, there was a religion based on very similar tenets
> (heheheh): Complete honesty, rational and critical thought, living at
> level3.
>
> So how do we improve someone's life by introducing them to CoV? How do we
> make them WANT to improve their lives? How do we expose large numbers of
> people to the concept? How do we, once having exposed them, make them want
> to investigate?
>
> "Could things be coming to a head? Could we be seeing a polarisation of
> public attitudes to faith?"[RR]
>
> YES! And maybe we should be taking advantage of it?
>
> And to steal another idea out of that story that will not die, one of the
> little boys in the class starts selling smoke detectors door-to-door. He
> finds out that he makes every sale within the first few seconds, and
> resolves to find a way to demonstrate the value of what he has to sell them
> in those seconds. He does this by using shocking images on a flyer, followed
> by a rapid verbal delivery about it. Why don't we put the collapsing WTC,
> body bags in Irish schools, or other such shocking images on OUR fliers?
>
> I know, slow down, walk then run ;-}
>
> Your thoughts, virians?
>
> Kalkor
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
> Of Richard Ridge
> Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 7:44 AM
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: virus: What are we doing, in God's name?
>
>
>
> http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,248-2001602822,00.html
>
> BY MATTHEW PARRIS
>
> Has God had a good war this year? Has the new century started well for
> religious belief? As the last closed, politicians were talking about what
> they called the “faith community”; after September 2001, how is that
> community doing? How high, at the end of this strange and shocking chapter,
> is deism’s stock? The smoke has cleared in New York. Western man has
> witnessed a mad tragedy actuated by faith. But it is not clear whether for
> most people this only underlines the need for a true God — to save us from
> the false ones — or whether gods, all gods, were the problem, not the
> solution. Never mind me: I am a convinced unbeliever. But what do my
> countrymen think? I listened to two old men, I would guess from lower
> middle-class backgrounds, talking on the train to Derby last month. Their
> discussion was typical of many I have overheard. They were discussing the
> day’s news: more violence in the Middle East.
>
> “Them Israelis ...” began the one.
>
> “Zionists,” added the other, by way of elaboration.
>
> “Zionists, as you say. They’re just stirring it up, like, when they should
> be cooling it down.”
>
> “Fanatics.”
>
> “Exactly. Their religion, innit? God’s chosen people, they think. Can’t see
> no argument other than their own. Mind you, them Palestinians, they’re not
> much better. That man — you know ... the one with a tea-towel ...”
>
> “Arafat.”
>
> “Yes, him. No better, is ’e? Thinks Allah’s on the Arabs’ side. Won’t bend.
> Little children throwing stones in the name of religion — I ask you.”
>
> “Fierce people those Muslims — from birth. Stop at nothing.”
>
> “Fanatics. Look at that Osmara — Osama — whatever — Ben Laden. Thinks there’
> s virgins waiting for ’im in Paradise. ’Ow many? 72 was it? Or 77? Bloody
> ridiculous.”
>
> “Cause of all these wars and terrorism and things. Christians too, just as
> bad, some of ’em. Look at Ireland. Grown men chucking rocks at little girls
> walking to their school ... sane men and women, or so they’d have you
> believe, claiming it’s God’s will ...”
>
> “Y’know, Mick, I think religion’s at the bottom of all this. Don’t do no
> good at all.”
>
> Or that was the drift. The sentiments are not new — they come muttering
> through history — but the confidence with which they are being expressed is
> fresh, voiced widely by morally conservative people from whom you would not
> expect it. Winter 2001 is not a time to express visionary religious views at
> dinner parties. Religion took a knock of sorts, in 2001.
>
> I do mean religion — all religion: the generic term.
>
> Critics might excuse the local vicar and his congregation of six kindly old
> ladies, but otherwise tend to lump together the Church Militant, Islam of
> every sort, Jews in hats on the Sabbath, Hindus with their caste system,
> Mormons and Adventists, people with tambourines, Roman Catholics and their
> views on contraception.
>
> This is of course unfair. Hardly had the dust from the World Trade Centre
> settled before every responsible leader, from Tony Blair down, was making
> the point that this was “not about Islam”. We were all but told to believe
> it was not about religion at all. We were to understand (variously) that
> this was about fundamentalist as opposed to mainstream Islam; that this was
> not even about fundamentalist, but about about madcap Islam; that this was
> nothing whatsoever to do with Islam but the work of pure evil which had
> “hijacked” a religious argument; or that this was not about Islam properly
> interpreted, but that unfortunately some Muslims had misunderstood — and it
> would be helpful if mainstream Islam would condemn a little louder, and so
> on.
>
> Very similar arguments are made by moderate Jews and Christians about the
> Likud Party and their policies in Israel: that Ariel Sharon’s beliefs and
> the militancy of the West Bank settlers are not inspired by Judaism properly
> understood; that they are not inspired by the Judaism most Jews follow; or
> that they are not inspired by Judaism at all.
>
> And so it is with the Christians: sectarian hatred in Ireland (we are
> variously told) is based on warped versions of Christianity; based on
> authentic but extreme versions of Christianity; or not based on Christianity
> at all.
>
> Fair as some of these arguments may be, they spit into the wind of popular
> understanding. The word which public imagination selects to describe the
> relationship between a faith which brutalises, and a faith of the same name
> which does not, is “extreme”. In the public mind, mainstream religions may
> exhibit “extreme” (or “fanatical”) versions engendering fierce belief; and
> “moderate” versions engendering less passionate belief, whose practitioners
> are therefore prepared to act reasonably. In other words, “extreme” religion
> is a strong version of the weaker mainstream variety. Reasonableness in
> religion comes from a lack of total commitment.
>
> The logic here makes some unfair jumps. We all know good people whose faith
> is theologically mild, yet fiercely held. Even in the theological middle it
> is possible to be passionate and devout.
>
> But that is not the rule. Faith as observed in practice usually supports the
> popular simplification: the more consuming is a person’s religious
> commitment, the more likely he is to hold views we think “extreme”. Tony
> Blair and the Archbishop of Canterbury may insist all they like that
> “fundamentalist” versions of faiths do not “besmirch” the mainstream
> version; the public will see it differently. We will see fundamentalism as
> the full monty, the mainstream as Religion-Lite. History suggests the same:
> the world’s great faiths have tended to be reformed and reinvigorated by
> sects driven by a zeal to return to basics. You therefore cannot just
> dismiss fundamentalists as irrelevant weirdos: their beliefs will often be
> telling you about something hard at the core of the softer, mainstream
> versions of the religion.
>
> [That's the problem with Tony Blair; he thinks fundamentalists are people
> who just haven't read paragraph 5, sub-section B of his whitepaper on the
> subject. -RR]
>
> That, at least, is what (I believe) most people suspect. In the public mind
> in Britain, Islamic fundamentalism — and to a lesser extent sectarianism in
> Ireland and the Religious Right in Israel — have done much damage to the
> reputation of three of Britain’s major faiths.
>
> If you doubt it, look at recent parliamentary and public reaction to the
> Cabinet’s plan for the proliferation of “faith schools”. I simply observe
> that national disquiet at the whole idea has taken the Government by
> surprise. In the Commons the Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, has looked
> quite winded at the attacks from behind her and across the floor.
>
> There has been a strong anti-clerical streak beneath this anger. The same
> streak is discernible in opposition to the Government’s plans to protect
> religion from those who would incite hatred against it — plans the Home
> Secretary has been forced to drop. Read the debates: Voltaire would have
> been proud of the scorn expressed.
>
> I believe there is something quite new in this anti-clericalism among the
> political class, or at least in its confidence. Agnosticism (for that is
> what it is) used mostly to be expressed rather apologetically in Parliament,
> or left unexpressed. A few years ago you would not, by two small measures
> calculated to protect and foster faith, have roused anything like such
> indignation.
>
> Yet I hinted at the start that my question — How is religion faring? — was
> not easy to answer. Nor is it. I write this from America. Here, clear and
> uncontestable published evidence points to a revival of public interest in
> religion since September 11, especially in the more evangelical versions of
> Christianity.
>
> [Though I might add that opinions of the kind expressed here seem to me to
> be more commonly expressed in the US, while the UK remains reluctant to
> express opposition to Islam. Oh, for a first amendment and not a feeble
> human rights code that allows signatories to retain blasphemy laws. That
> said, this observation is purely anecdotal and is obviously confined to
> online articles -RR]
>
> Stronger commitments from some, then, and stronger antipathy from others.
> Could things be coming to a head? Could we be seeing a polarisation of
> public attitudes to faith? For more than a century now the dominant attitude
> in the Western world has been an apathy which I would describe as covert
> agnosticism masquerading as weak observance. Is Osama bin Laden flushing
> this agnosticism out? If so, we may see an increase both in the religious
> enthusiasm of the minority, and the avowed scepticism of the majority. When
> it comes to the relationship between modern man and religious faith, the
> century now beginning may prove make-up-your-mind time. I hope so.
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:40 MDT