Jonah comments on a phenomenon that is getting a bit on the old side by now — the “Darwin Fish“. You know, that “clever” little modification of the classic “Jesus Fish” that you see tacked onto the bumpers of some cars, that has taken the classic fish shape and added legs to it, with either “Darwin” or “Evolve” replacing the traditional texts one finds printed in the “Jesus Fish”?
It’s one of those things that I think was meant, by whoever came up with it, to be a witty little statement against religious faith. Of course, instead of being witty, it typically comes off as petty, especially when paired (as Jonah notes that it so often is) with some sort of bumper sticker preaching “tolerance.”
Not that one ever expects truly rational thinking from secular folk. It’s nice to find, when it happens, though. But the “Darwin Fish” isn’t an example thereof.
Update: as a bonus, Michael Coren discusses that other great secular bigotry, tolerance, frameworking the discussion in the story of Magdi Allam, the Italian journalist welcomed this Easter into the Church by none other than Pope Benedict XVI himself. Allam’s conversion from Islam has been treated as controversial in the media, and has been condemned as a move calculated to inflame Christian/Muslim tensions.
Aref Ali Nayed, one of a group of 200 Muslim scholars who claim to be intent on establishing a new, open relationship with Christianity, condemned the Pope’s behaviour as “a triumphalist tool for scoring points.” The group in question tends to say very little about, for example, suicide bombings, forced conversion of Christians to Islam in Sudan or Turkey’s closing of a Catholic seminary. But is extremely upset that the Pope has behaved as, well, the Pope.
It’s a spurious, disingenuous critique. Theological dialogue may have been a Muslim tendency 800 years ago but nobody seriously believes that religious pluralism is a regarded concept in contemporary Islam. The denial and double-talk is sickening. Allam had been under police protection long before his conversion because of his staunch critique of violent Islamic fundamentalism. Death threats have increased since his embrace of Christianity and all that allegedly moderate Muslims are saying is that if there is going to be a conversion, for goodness sake keep it quiet.
But why? This is not about changing a shirt but transforming a life. According to Christian belief, Magdi Allam has begun a journey that will lead to eternal life. He has found not interesting opinion but absolute truth. Jesus didn’t say “I may be” but “I am” The Way. The only way. The Catholic Church is far more accepting than many Protestants in the way it views the salvational possibilities of non-Catholic goodness; but it still teaches that the only guaranteed way of meeting God is through the Sacramental structure of a church founded by Christ.
This notion of exclusive truth, however, is not just a problem for Muslims but for secularists as well, what with their fetish for ostensible tolerance. Modern liberalism has not merely abandoned certain commandments but replaced those it has expunged with a set of its own. The most important of which is toleration. I tolerate therefore I am. It’s nonsense of course, in that it is self-contradictory by nature — the tolerant cannot tolerate intolerance and are thus no longer tolerant — but it’s also a grand, great lie. Human rights commissions, student unions and leftist activists remind us every day of the authentic meaning of genuine intolerance.
Yet it still plays to the core of secular thinking. The standard argument, taught in universities and passively accepted in popular dialogue, is that because religion believes that it has the truth it is not broad-minded and broad-mindedness is an indication of sophistication and urbanity.
Magdi Allam said yes this Easter. Yes to a truth and no to its rivals. No to Islam, no to atheism. Which has made many Muslims and just as many of their relativist, secular allies extremely angry. An Easter present slightly more important than a chocolate egg or even a teaching course on why nothing really matters.
Chesterton defined bigotry as the inability to form a rational conception of an alternative to a proposition. To be fair, that definition allows the label of “bigot” to be applied to many a believer…but it can also be applied to many, many more on the secular/atheist side of the equation; only genuine agnostics could be considered exempt.
As a person of faith and a committed Catholic, I can nevertheless admit that I may be incorrect in my faith. I nevertheless choose to practice it, in the expectation that I am not wrong…but, certainly, I might just be. I can, to wit, conceive the alternative to the proposition I make by saying that I am a believer, a person of faith.
I’ve yet to met a self-declared atheist who can admit an ability to understand that s/he might likewise be incorrect. At best, one can expect to be told that is irrelevant and also a poor evangelical tool. Of course, the initial question — that is, the ability to rationally conveive the alternative to the atheistic proposition — did not concern Pascal’s musings at all, and the rejection itself (seen, for example, in the Rational Response Squad’s FAQ section) is evidence of the bigotry of the atheist in question.
Update: Welcome, WebElf readers! If you enjoyed this article, you may also be interested in some more recent discussions I am having with a pair of atheists named Joel and Sam!
