“I’ve never yet met an atheist with a sense of joie-de-vivre… most of them seem to be miserable buggers… I am convinced that (atheism) … is directly responsible for the increase in drug abuse, in crime, and most specifically, in the five-fold increase in suicide that we have seen in these islands over the last 25 years.”
The Irish Independent, usually a fairly sane publication with pretty good economic analysis (and more importantly for my Monday mornings, an awareness of Irish football), saw fit to give two-thirds of a page to a focused attack by ‘journalist’ Mary Kenny on ‘atheism’. While she seems partially inclined to bore readers with some jabs at the UK’s Guardian newspaper (she writes for a rival paper in England), the majority of the piece is a scathing attack on what she sees as the root of all our problems.
I am an atheist – I don’t believe there is a God. I usually borrow an analogy and say that “I’m an atheist like you – I don’t believe in Vishnu, in Allah, in Yahweh, in Zeus nor in Thor; I just believe in one less God than you”. Unfortunately this is not always tolerated. My ‘coming out’ to my family out as an atheist happened to occur at my graduation, that celebration of years of shared endeavour which is a moment of pride both for the graduate and their loyal parents. During mine, my parents implored me to attend a non-denominational church service at the Honan Chapel after my acceptance into the University alumnus. I said I didn’t want to, but I did so for the sake of peace.
The ceremony involved giving thanks to God for helping me to come this far. Frankly, and with the sincerest of humility, I did just enough work to get by and some sleepless nights during the exams were what I should be thanking (the title of this blog is not just a witty rhyme). Afterwards, my unwillingness to go along came up, and a quite heated debate ensued that ended with me giving in and calling myself a Buddhist (I sort of am; the atheistic school of Buddhism anyway) and this being accepted as at least having some sort of label.
Mary Kenny, herself a former militant feminist who spent her youth importing condoms from the North with (presumably hell-bound) Nell McCafferty, is both intolerant and ill informed. Akin to describing ‘the gays’ as sexual and moral perverts, she venomously spits at ‘the atheists’, convinced not only that we are a miserable bunch who’d rather discuss Nihilism than have Christmas dinner – she is appalled by “this kind of dreary and austere puritan” – but that we are responsible for everything from drug abuse to the disgusting “Baby P” case in the UK.
It used to be homosexuality, that deviance from scripture which brought the ire of Christians seeking a minority to point the blame at. They were perverts and could hardly be left alone with children let alone given custody of one – mind you, while this view has disappeared from the broadsheets, it hasn’t gone away – and if you put your mind to it, you could blame them for anything. Even today, clergy men are able to launch acidic tirades even on the basis of a gay kiss in a Boyzone music video. Like gay pride 50 years ago, atheism has no such guaranteed platform, no united group to speak on behalf of all atheists; indeed, it is a strange sort of a demographic, one whose only combining factor is being defined by something they don’t do. Indeed, say ‘atheist’ and a lot of people will probably imagine either Nietzsche, Marx or Dawkins; and while Dawkins’ biological books are wondrously well written, and his atheistic books are full of marvellously caustic wit, it is akin to equating every homosexual with the flamboyance of a young on-stage Elton John. But now that ‘the homosexual agenda’ has rendered such vitriol journalistic suicide, it is increasingly the Godless heathens that are attacked, from the UK to Wall Street.
For those who might not know me very well, I am quite outgoing these days, and enjoy such austere pastimes as (live Irish) football, reading, having a few drinks with friends, the cinema and CouchSurfing. At one point however, I was not so joyful and when I was 17 I contemplated suicide. At that time in my life, I would probably have called myself a Catholic; but I felt as if I was more alone than anyone in the world. I am not the picture of beauty, I’ve got a funny voice and had all the grace with the opposite sex of a rhinoceros doing Mecxano. I pulled through this time in my life, and since then have been relatively happy. I once helped run a website for teenagers who had been like me; it aimed to provide them with a forum to talk with others who had or were going through the same thing. On a daily basis I heard the type of things which were making kids from all over the world, from California to Clydebank to Canberra, feel alone.
In her article, Kenny tells us confidently that it is the UK’s growing lack of faith that is responsible for all of life’s ills, this 64-year old international journalist explaining why the youth of today lack morals. However, she could not be further from the target. She states that suicide rates are much higher now than 25 years ago; this is true, and suicide is a dark spectre that all too often is swept under the rug. However, how exactly is she helping by singling out an already maligned minority for the blame? Suicide rates have increased mostly because of increased reporting; 25 years ago, there was the threat of social ostracism for the families of hell-bound suicidal children. Teenagers, apart from the chemical imbalances which medicine is still researching, become depressed and suicidal not because of some existential ennui, but because of peer pressure, the constant need to fit in, the influence of television perfection and media hounding of celebrities. Girls becoming bulimic vegans because they need to stay thin without the social faux-pas of smoking; Boys becoming binge drinking misogynists because any admittance of emotion or weakness is jumped upon by the machismo of the group.
At this, Kenny implies that with the guiding compass of faith, these kids would never be alone; Jesus would walk beside them. If someone does find solace through faith, that is better than nothing – but frankly these children should not be alone in the first place. It is society that has isolated them, their parents unable to relate to them, the media feeding them Jade Goodys and Kate Mosses, children growing up in a world where a celebrity falling out of a bar in SoCal is beamed immediately to their retinas. Where once they would merely have worried that perhaps they weren’t as aesthetically blessed as the belle of the ball, there are now cults of worship of the Victoria’s Secret models on Bebo. Unable to keep pace, parents either ignore the problem or deny responsibility; and what better way to avoid responsibility in these times of published abuse than to find a scapegoat?
Factually, Kenny is flying in the face of the evidence – extra-Christian America is doing worse than Britain, and much, much worse than atheistic Scandanavia.
Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.
Now, I’m not going to say that religious belief causes these problems. At most, it probably provides something to cover your eyes, pretend that these problems don’t exist. Instead, I would say that it doesn’t do a whole lot to stop these problems, and that instead the cause is society’s irresponsible handling of the new global village. The US is the worst affected, not because they are intensely Christian, but because they are closest to the source. The UK is a runner-up, because of the Americanisation of the UK and Ireland’s media. Countries with less exposure and different languages to Hollywood horrors do best, because they still have some sense of distance from the media.
Yet Kenny explains how without religion, we have no moral compass and describes todays world in a tirade of sensationalism more at home in The Daily Mail.
“Fathers walk away from their children because the state provides all welfare; relationships are casual and a variety of boyfriends and serial stepfathers move in, mothers spend the day smoking dope, drinking vodka and cruising for sex on the nternet while their children die with broken backs among filth and excrement, dead mice and snakes.”
No really, she’s serious – should one day people embrace the message of John Lennon’s Imagine, we’ll all end up with pet snakes or something.
Look, Mary, or any other Christians reading: frankly, this kind of message scares me. Are you suggesting that your own morals are only kept in line because you believe that someone is watching you? Are you telling us that if you had a day, one day where His back was turned, you could do anything you pleased with nobody to judge you or sentence you – that you would fly off the deep end on in a rampage of sex, murder and drug abuse? No, I don’t think you would. Deep down, regardless of faith we of sound mind all know wrong from right, and while the inspirational messages of Jesus, of Buddha, of Confucius, Ghandi or John Paul II are full of wonderful value and are indeed often great guides to dealing with the challenges life gives us, some of us just don’t need the magic or miracles to find the meaning of their words beautiful. It is the message, love one another, don’t judge each other, support each other, that we need to adopt and if we did, that would go much further to solving societies ills than to spread fear that somewhere out there someone is reading our minds.
Apparently, “life… without the Ten Commandments is a living hell”. No, a lonely life whose value is measured by materialism and one’s place in the social pecking order is hell, and Mary Kenny would like nothing better than to place my “ilk” at the very bottom.
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Tags: atheism, depression, insults, intolerance, media, morals, speakout, suicide
mary kenny and I imported contraceptives from the north. Enough already with your exclusive phallocentric concentration on condoms. She has never described gays as “sexual and moral perverts” and i note that you do not say so either – you dishonestly elide that interpretative quote (your interpretation) into another quote – your interpretation ?- into another one about her opinion about atheists. jaysus, but i dislike dishonesty. let her quotes, – not yours – speak for themselves. if you have to lie – and you do – your argument falls.
nell mc cafferty
@ “Nell” (Who I must inform any readers did not supply a working email and so is unlikely to be ‘the’ Nell, although the non sequitor on condoms would be in character)
It’s never implied that Mary said any such thing about homosexuals. Instead, there are 2 paragraphs comparing the situations of homosexuals and atheists. These days making a sweeping statement about ‘the gays’ will most likely see you left out in the cold; and increasingly Christians are using atheists as their punching bag. If you’ve missed this, perhaps you didn’t re ad any further – the majority of the article does not directly address MK’s piece, rather briefly juxtaposes it with my views. It is not my intention to dismantle MK’s piece, nor to publicise her hateful words. If it was, I would have pointed out the factual errors like her exaggeration of Dawkin’s contribution to the “atheist bus” fund – Dawkins neither started the fund nor gave £8,000 toward it; he found out about it and pledged to match the donations if they could raise £5,000 themselves. The actual figures are a simple search on the internet away but the laziness, or indeed dishonesty from such a ‘journalist’ is to be expected.
It is with a hint of irony then, that I note your repetition of the word dishonesty, as if saying it 3 times makes it appear. Either you read one paragraph and made massive assumptions from it, or you chose to pluck out one little piece and base incorrect statements about it. What would you call that?