It is always interesting to watch an atheist wave his hand and dismiss the faith-based claims of religious believers as so much hogwash. That is usually followed by an assertion that religion is the greatest force for evil in society and the greatest blight upon the history of mankind. What one rarely sees is such a rejection of the articles of faith combined with an acknowledgement that religion makes believers better people, not worse. Yet that is what one gets in todayÂ’s edition of the Guardian, courtesy of Roy Hattersley.

I believe a good Fisking is in order.

Hurricane Katrina did not stay on the front pages for long. Yesterday's Red Cross appeal for an extra 40,000 volunteer workers was virtually ignored.

The disaster will return to the headlines when one sort of newspaper reports a particularly gruesome discovery or another finds additional evidence of President Bush's negligence. But month after month of unremitting suffering is not news. Nor is the monotonous performance of the unpleasant tasks that relieve the pain and anguish of the old, the sick and the homeless - the tasks in which the Salvation Army specialise.

Actually, Roy, there won’t be any need for evidence – the press will simply make some up, or accept the charges of partisan hacks as holy writ.

The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character.

Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.

While the most notable private charity involved in relief is the American Red Cross, I agree with your more general point – it is religious charities and faith-based groups that are doing the bulk of the work in this country. When one considers that many of the volunteers are, in fact, part of organized groups from churches and other houses of worship, the degree of religious involvement in the relief effort is staggering. And, of course, most charity work in this country has some faith-based component anyway.

The arguments against religion are well known and persuasive. Faith schools, as they are now called, have left sectarian scars on Northern Ireland. Stem-cell research is forbidden because an imaginary God - who is not enough of a philosopher to realise that the ingenuity of a scientist is just as natural as the instinct of Rousseau's noble savage - condemns what he does not understand and the churches that follow his teaching forbid their members to pursue cures for lethal diseases.

Well known? Perhaps. Persuasive? Obviously not, given the degree of adherence to religious belief around the world.

As for the Irish problem, it has less to do with sectarian division than it has to do with a longstanding British policy of subjugation of the Irish to English control in their own homeland – a policy that predates the Reformation by centuries. Though Henry VIII, Oliver Cromwell and the Stuart Pretenders give the matter a religious gloss, it is more properly understood as based in ethnicity than in theology.

And I wonÂ’t even dignify the argument on stem-cell research with a response, for the personhood question is grounded as much in philosophy as theology. For that matter, it is grounded as much in biology as it is in either theology or philosophy.

Yet men and women who believe that the Pope is the devil incarnate, or (conversely) regard his ex cathedra pronouncements as holy writ, are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others. Last week a middle-ranking officer of the Salvation Army, who gave up a well-paid job to devote his life to the poor, attempted to convince me that homosexuality is a mortal sin.

Of course they are. After all, they accept that there is something to life that extends beyond the simple pleasures of the world. Life has meaning because it leads to something beyond life. For those who believe that there is nothing else, why waste a moment of life on pursuits that are other than hedonistic?

Late at night, on the streets of one of our great cities, that man offers friendship as well as help to the most degraded and (to those of a censorious turn of mind) degenerate human beings who exist just outside the boundaries of our society. And he does what he believes to be his Christian duty without the slightest suggestion of disapproval. Yet, for much of his time, he is meeting needs that result from conduct he regards as intrinsically wicked.

But that is where you are wrong. I do not doubt that your companion does view these individuals as degraded and degenerate. But Christianity teaches that we are ALL degraded and degenerate because of our sinful nature. The reason for the lack of disapproval is that he recognizes that he is no better than those to whom he ministers, not that they are no worse than him. If asked, he will probably tell you that he, too, is a sinner and that he, too, has areas in his life in which he manifests behavior that is equally wicked in the eyes of God.

Civilised people do not believe that drug addiction and male prostitution offend against divine ordinance. But those who do are the men and women most willing to change the fetid bandages, replace the sodden sleeping bags and - probably most difficult of all - argue, without a trace of impatience, that the time has come for some serious medical treatment. Good works, John Wesley insisted, are no guarantee of a place in heaven. But they are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists.

So, we are uncivilised if we view the trade in human flesh as contrary to the laws of God? We are not up to your standards if we see addiction to be wrong in the eyes of God? My, what a sad thing your “civilization” is! What you fail to see is that we seek to end prostitution and drug addiction and a host of societal ills because they promote actions that block one’s relationship with God. All the acts of charity you list are about meeting the basic needs of our fellow man so that they are in a position to encounter God – something that is hard to focus on when one is starving or seeking one’s next fix.

The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand. The close relationship may have something to do with the belief that we are all God's children, or it may be the result of a primitive conviction that, although helping others is no guarantee of salvation, it is prudent to be recorded in a book of gold, like James Leigh Hunt's Abu Ben Adam, as "one who loves his fellow men". Whatever the reason, believers answer the call, and not just the Salvation Army. When I was a local councillor, the Little Sisters of the Poor - right at the other end of the theological spectrum - did the weekly washing for women in back-to-back houses who were too ill to scrub for themselves.

What you fail to recognizes is that religious faith, particularly Christianity, is often based around a call to charity. It isn’t “Do good because it is pleasing to me.” Rather, it is “Do good because it is pleasing to God.” If one sees oneself as a God’s servant rather than one’s own, there is a tenaciousness to serve one’s Master by helping to bring about the order God seeks.

It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian or, better still, to take Christianity à la carte. The Bible is so full of contradictions that we can accept or reject its moral advice according to taste. Yet men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles do not go out with the Salvation Army at night.

But it isn’t. A Christian life is infused by grace, which comes through faith. The rejection of faith is the rejection of grace – the putting of self ahead of God and the rejection of his gift.

The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army.

Exactly – true faith does have a packet of moral imperatives that makes believers morally superior to atheists. That you have discovered this truth should tell you that the atheism you hold to so fervently might not be truth at all. Could the problem be that most atheists ultimately believe in “government” or “society” as having responsibility to act – and therefore write off the importance of a personal commitment to do good, while religious individuals see such action as a part of their duty to God? In short, are the fruits of belief in God proof of the existence of God – and the lack of fruits from atheism the proof of that belief system’s ultimate bankruptcy?

Posted by: Greg at 09:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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