THE SELF-CENTREDNESS OF CERTAINTY
AT 53 : November 15th 2000
A reader writes disapprovingly of "the inherent selfishness of faith" and asks me to comment on this perception. He cites the case of an insufferable 'fundamentalist' woman, of his acquaintance, with whom normal conversation seems to be all but impossible. There are, of course, insufferable people of various persuasions - including some secularists whom I could name - but do not. But it may be worth while to consider what it is about religious belief that can make it an insufferable feature of otherwise reasonable people.
It is claimed, in this essay, that self-centredness is inherent in religious enthusiasms. The very thing which the believers value most highly - their invincible faith - is the one thing that can lead them most easily to insufferable self-assurance.
In passing it might be as well to explain my use of the word "can" in the last sentence. My mother was generally a kind, gentle, capable down-to-earth woman; I got on with her very well except, mainly, for one thing. She was sure that, one day, God would strike me dead for doubting His existence; she told me as much, with considerable feeling, when I was about thirteen or so. From that day, over sixty years ago, to this, it has always seemed to me important to distinguish between the value of a person and the value of the beliefs and opinions held by that person. It is dangerous to judge either by the other.
The very word 'fundamentalist' is a loaded word; it is laden with the notion that people answering to that description are, somehow, deeper thinkers than the rest of us. They might better be termed 'superficialists' but that is also a loaded word - the use of which is equally tendentious unless we can identify precisely what it is that they are superficial about.
I claim that we can identify this. Their superficiality resides in a failure to make a categorical distinction, in larger matters, between reporting and allusion (perhaps poetically, by oxymoron, metaphor, allegory and so on). They have no difficulty with this categorical distinction in smaller matters; if I say "my feet are killing me" then not even the most naive person would suppose that my feet present life-threatening possibilities; everybody knows that I am merely complaining of painful feet. Not even the most well meaning of fanatics would start to pray for my survival merely because my feet are getting at me that day. Not even the sternest of believers would threaten me with hell fire unless I mend my ideas before my lethal feet do their worst.
But these so-called fundamentalists have no time for distinctions between report and allusion when they are referring to the Bible (or other Authorities). In this connection, a seven days' creation is just that - and no messing about with interpretation. Fundamentalists are actually scriptural literalists and it is fair to describe them that way and this, interestingly is where the self-centred arrogance comes in - disguised as humility.
If I say that I have absolute confidence in xyz (xyz being almost anything - the Bible, the Church, the Party, my Uncle Fred etc) then it sounds as though I am submitting humbly to what I acknowledge as ultimate authority; it sounds like self-submergence in something altogether ampler than self. But behind this apparent self-submerging humility lurks an implicit assumption that I can recognise, with certainty, absolute dependability - when I meet it.
This assumption would be one of absolute arrogance on my part; I can be mistaken as to what is truly dependable. It is the underlying assumption, that they are sure judges of what is truly dependable, that moves people to claim privileged access to the 'real truth' and therefore unimpeachable authority to kick anybody around who might question that claim. Faith, in the religious sense, begins where questioning such claims peters out. Religious faith is the template of tyranny and it is to the great credit of millions of semi-secularised religious liberals that they stop short of kicking other people around. The idea that they might do so genuinely horrifies them.
Faith, as promoted by the more fanatical sorts of people, seems to arise from one basic fear and two undisciplined desires related to it.
The fear is of insecurity - in a life that is manifestly insecure; this fear leads to an undisciplined desire for certainty, to wishful thinking. That self-same fear leads to a desire for power, an urge to manipulate and to control other people.
The 'protection racket is a ubiquitous element in human life. There is an element of it in the impact of the faithful upon the sceptic. The message and the good news are, respectively, your immortal soul is in dire danger UNLESS you think as we think and do as we advise. It is the presumption that they have a divinely ordained duty to protect us from ourselves that is the basis for the self-centredness of the fanatics. My correspondent's insufferable woman acquaintance may have been a bad case but she is a bad case of something quite general among 'committed people'.
The next issue, Number 54, will appear on December 15th 2000.
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