“Thank God...” for what?

On how many occasions have we heard someone thanking God for delivering them from some misfortune or other? On how many of those occasions have we found ourselves nodding in respectful agreement, in comradely submissive acknowledgment of his right to attribute everything to an omnipotent, benevolent deity? 

When businessman Rajiv Bhatisavi turned on his radio on 31 July 1992 and heard that Thai Airways flight 311 had crashed while attempting to land at Kathmandu, he could barely believe his ears. He had been booked on the flight but had cancelled at the last minute owing to pain from a dog bite. His words on hearing the fate of the doomed jet? “Thank God.”

Just what was Mr Bhatisavi so grateful to God for? 99 passengers and 14 crew all perished when the wide-bodied Airbus A310 slammed into a Himalayan rock face. Perhaps Mr Bhatisavi believed God had arranged the dog bite for his benefit, to avoid his boarding a flight earmarked by His-Almighty-Self for destruction. Mr Bhatisavi's gratitude, then, seems remarkably self-centred. What are his thoughts on God's plans for the doomed 113 upon whom he chose not to set loose the hounds of portent?

Already I hear the objections. “Don’t be so uncharitable. Expressing belief in God aloud is a sign of niceness. Mr Bhatisavi was simply praising his good fortune in evading death.”

No, he wasn’t. If he had been, he would have said, “Gosh, I had a lucky escape there. I wish the other 113 people on board could have shared my luck but at least I am here, alive and well.” His expression of “Thank God” is tantamount to, “Bugger everyone else, whose destruction was planned by God for that day. I’m just grateful he chose to spare me.” Unless, that is, he was also thanking God for slaughtering the other 113.

It has to become acceptable to call people out when they thank God for sending others to perdition instead of them. Those uttering such balderdash are entitled to have their consciousness raised. Their remark is not harmless. It is not quaint and it is not admirable. To fail to call attention to their callous condemnation of the not-so-fortunate is to fail to respect the commenter as human. Automatic acceptance of self-interested remarks, legitimised only by religion, has to stop. 

HRH The Prince of Wales gets it wrong again

In a new departure for the Royal Family - perhaps to establish his own annual slot, alongside his mother's customary Christmas message (a tradition started by her grandfather in 1932) - HRH The Prince of Wales has delivered an Easter message to the world, broadcast on Good Friday, 30 March, 2018.

My heart goes out to all who, this day, whatever their beliefs, are being persecuted on religious grounds, and, at this time of Easter, when our minds are recalled to the suffering of our lord, two thousand years ago, we think especially of those Christians who are suffering for their faith in many places around the world.

As in his equally vapid 2016 speech, His Royal Highness misses the point once more. It is as though one's religion were unalterable, fixed before birth; something constant, precious, quaint, inherited, protected as a human right by tacit assent. In fact, religion is none of those things. Religion is a set of beliefs, verbally handed down, usually from parents when the recipient is young and dangerously impressionable. Since the convictions thus instilled are not the same in all tribal groups, the result is that people grow up with contradictory, conflicting beliefs.  Religion is divisive by its very nature, and is itself the source of the persecution that troubles the Prince so. Those doing the persecuting are doing so in pursuit of their own beliefs, whose protection His Royal Highness is so keen to promote. Unwittingly, the Prince exacerbates the divide by sympathising 'especially' with Christians, who presumably suffer at the hands of religiously-inspired non-Christians. He is making my point for me.

I want to assure them that they are not forgotten and that they are in our prayers. Over the years, I have met many who have had to flee for their faith and for their life, or have somehow endured the terrifying consequences of remaining in their country, and I have been so deeply moved and humbled by their truly remarkable courage and by their selfless capacity for forgiveness despite all that they have suffered.

I hope the persecuted draw comfort from the Prince's prayers. Since the persecution continues, the prayers appear to have little effect. His Royal Highness makes no comment upon the motivation nor the capabilities of the supposedly omnipotent deity who permits - indeed, occasions - the persecution in the first place. He is right to praise the courage of all who bravely face adversity; however, he fails to point out that the solution is to address religion itself, through education, by encouraging young people to question and test everything they are told by their self-interested elders.

I have also heard that, in the darkness, there are small shafts of light; signs of resurrection and of hope that, slowly but surely, Christians who have had to flee from their homelands are beginning to return and to rebuild their shattered homes.

As I recall, Christians themselves have done their share of shattering others' homes. The Bosnian Serbs and Croats, Roman Catholic to a man, levelled Sarajevo and collapsed the beautiful Stari Most in the 1990s during a religiously inspired war, their goal to rid the land of all members of a rival confession.

Biblical lands, such as Syria and modern Iraq, were not always places of strife between people of different faiths. For centuries, in many countries, the three great Abrahamic faiths have lived side by side, as neighbours, and as friends. For example, I have heard how, in Lebanon, Muslims join with Christians at the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon to honour her together. I know, too, of senior muftis who believe in the essential importance of the Christian faith to maintaining the balance of the Middle East.

A few pragmatic muftis, recognising the value of, at times, placating the opposition, risk distracting us again from the nub of the matter.  If the three 'great' faiths derive from a single patriarch, who in turn gleaned them all from a single deity, how come they are so different and so contradictory? Sir, the only reason that different mindsets have to live 'side by side' is because they are incompatible. You are applauding a state of neutrality between groups whose beliefs about the world and the universe are diametrically opposed. Such an arrangement is inherently unstable. Far better, surely, to improve the beliefs themselves, so that peaceful coexistence arises from them, and does not need to be maintained in spite of them.

At Easter, as we recall the suffering of our lord, we also remember Mary, his mother, and the torment of grief she endured. Mary occupies a (sic) unique and elevated position in both Christianity and Islam. She is the mother of our lord and exalted in the Qur'an.

His Royal Highness twists and squirms as he tries to reshape warring religions into one happy family - oh, how he wants to make what he is saying true. No Muslim in his right mind would be anything but incensed by the suggestion that his deity had a human mother. Islam is a distorted plagiarism of Christianity, with central tenets altered to confer power upon the former over the latter. Christianity is itself a plagiarism of Judaism, adopted and popularised by the Romans through their military might.

All three Abrahamic faiths have known, and continue to know, the bitterness of persecution...

Yes, sir. Persecution by one another.

...when religion has fallen into the barbaric grip of those who distort and misrepresent faith.

No, sir. You make the classic error of assuming that 'real' religion is always nice, and good, and friendly, and warm, and quaint, and harmless. It is none of those things. There is nothing good about filling children's minds with mutually contradictory beliefs and warning them of dire posthumous consequences if they fail to observe and act upon them throughout their lives. Each of the three great Abrahamic faiths teaches that it alone is the one true path to salvation, and that adherents of the other two face eternal perdition. That is hardly a recipe for peaceful coexistence.

So, this Easter, I want to salute the fortitude of all those who, whatever their faith, are persecuted for remaining faithful to the true essence of their beliefs. I admire and greatly respect all those of you who find it in your hearts to pray for those who persecute you and, following the example of Christ, seek forgiveness for your enemies.

What, sir, do you mean by 'the true essence'? Do you mean the part of their beliefs that is true? Since the beliefs of the different faiths are mutually contradictory, at least some of them must be false. Is it a virtue, then, to believe something that is false? Is it a virtue to act upon such false beliefs, in ways that impact the lives of others? Are at least some of the persecutors not remaining faithful to the essence of their beliefs?

Jesus summarises the ten commandments into two requirements: that we should love God, and love our neighbour as ourselves. It is, therefore, my special prayer this Eastertide that they will be your guide and your inspiration.

Any kind of love that is mandated through a commandment is not love as I understand it. If love has to be enforced, it is not love. The despotic God of the three great Abrahamic faiths has done nothing to tempt me to love him. At the very least, he would need to exist first. As for loving our neighbour as ourselves, this is too extreme and too strenuous an injunction to be obeyed, as Christopher Hitchens has explained. The Abrahamic God commands that which he knows his created cannot do - the classic attribute of the cruel dictator.

Sir, I neither request nor require your special prayer. My inspiration comes not from an ancient text of extremely questionable morality, but from my innate sense of ethics - I would not wish to do unto anyone, anything I would not wish done unto me. To quote Christopher Hitchens once again: "Ordinary conscience will do, without any heavenly wrath behind it."