This must be an example of the intellectual rigor of Joseph Ratzinger. The Pope has claimed that atheism is responsible for the destruction of the environment. Now all we have to do is figure out how to implement his brilliant solution to the environmental crisis.
What I wrote is, of course, not actually an argument that the Pope is wrong. I will respond to that now. For full context, here are the Pope’s (translated) remarks.
The earth is a precious gift of the Creator, who has designed its intrinsic order, thus giving us guidelines to which we must hold ourselves as stewards of his creation. From this awareness, the Church considers questions linked to the environment and its safeguarding as profoundly linked with the topic of integral human development. I referred to these questions several times in my last encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” reminding of the pressing moral need for renewed solidarity” (49) not only in relations between countries, but also between individuals, as the natural environment is given by God to everyone, and its use entails a personal responsibility towards the whole of humanity, in particular, towards the poor and future generations (Cf. 48).
I actually agree with a few of these sentences. Environmental questions are profoundly linked to human progress, and responsibility at a personal, national and international level will be required. And it’s very true that the poor (people and nations) will be impacted the most by environmental change. But he seems to be saying that the only good reason to take care of the natural world is because it belongs to God, who be very upset if we break it. There are much better, less culturally relative motivations for this.
Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where is[sic] existence is denied? If the human creature’s relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the “final authority,” and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.
I honestly don’t know where to begin with this one. No, that is not true. Just look at the environmental debate in the United States. The “Drill Baby Drill” mantra is coming from people who could hardly be described as having marginalized their religion, for the simple fact that they don’t think we will be having future generations to protect! Jesus could come back any day you know. Why plan ahead? And yes, this tends not to include (many) American Catholics, but that’s exactly why I said these remarks are culturally relative.
Let’s look at the other end. According to Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index, these are the world’s top ten sustainable countries. Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Costa Rica, Austria, New Zealand, Latvia, Colombia, and France. It follows that these are clearly the most religious countries in the world.
It’s really this simple: there are large numbers of people who think a) the Earth and in fact all creation was designed just for them, b) God will always be there for us and would never let our Earth become unlivable, that optionally, c) Jesus could come back and bring about the Rapture any day now, and most of all, d) that believing something regardless of, or contrary to, the evidence makes you a good person. The consequences are predictable. The Earth is an endless resource, global warming is a myth, it was all put here just for us, and we’ll all be divided into the Saved and the Damned within the next few decades so it really doesn’t matter how hard we screw this planet up. This is what happens when you take Christianity to its logical conclusion, and since being environmentally responsible takes real effort, it’s not difficult to take the idea this far.
Together we can build an integral human development beneficial to present and future peoples, a development inspired by the values of charity in truth. For this to happen it is indispensable that the present model of global development be transformed through a greater and shared responsibility for creation: This is demanded not only by environmental emergencies, but also by the scandal of hunger and poverty.
These remarks make the pontiff a hypocrite. I am glad the Pope considers hunger and poverty to be a scandal, and acknowledges the environmental importance of addressing them. Of course, overpopulation is one of the biggest causes of hunger and poverty, as well as unsustainably large population growth. But what is the Pope’s position on how to slow down population growth? Well, here’s what he said about condoms while in Africa several months ago:
Speaking to reporters on his way to Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, the Pope said HIV/Aids was “a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem”.
The solution lies in a “spiritual and human awakening” and “friendship for those who suffer”, the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.
Condom use is associated with reduction of 80% in the transmission of AIDS. In no way does it increase the risk. If the Pope is willing to spread such disinformation about using condoms to prevent exposure to AIDS, you can probably guess his position on using condoms to reduce population growth.
All in all, the Pope’s remarks are wrong and useless. He fails to understand the true nature of the problem, does not address the actual underlying causes, offers no concrete solutions whatsoever, and approaches the whole discussion from a position of dogma and not science. He doesn’t even say “try to bike to work more often.” This is all from a guy who thinks that secularism will lead to a conquest of nature, but believes in the book that says this:
Genesis 1:26 (KJV)
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Actually the Pope has been way out in front of the environmental question, rightly situating it as a social justice issue. Anyway, instead of snide remarks (“this must be an example of the intellectual rigor of Ratzinger), please develop an actual response to his claim:
“If the human creature’s relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the ‘final authority,’ and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.””
Isn’t this essentially a statement of the problem of modernity – the task of man becomes the “conquest of nature”? He is criticizing what Heidegger calls “technological thinking”. If materialism is true and man is simply a collection of evolved drives and desires, isn’t there a danger that life becomes a “feverish race to possess the most possible”. Another way of putting this is that, absent God, man loses his proper place and must seek to become a god (master) himself. In other words, isn’t Benedict here really responding to Nz?
By the way, if you read the whole text of BXI’s talk it is actually deeply humanistic (I don’t hear much, actually any, talk about humanism from SHAFTers but it is in your title). And, frankly, the Pope is downright “liberal” on this issue (as Catholics often are on questions of social justice).
After wading through Sanderson’s talking points on your link (do atheists have these silly old canards on a notecard so they are ready to spill them out whenever the Pope says something?), I was reminded that the Vatican became (in 2007) the world’s first carbon neutral sovereign state. I’ll just hazard a guess that the National Secular Society’s offices (surely much smaller than the Vatican!) are not carbon-neutral.
It is also worth noting that the “golden palace” that is Vatican City is actually a very severe financial burden on the Church. The Church spends enormous amounts of money saving these priceless masterpieces of human creativity for future generations.
Someone might also remind Sanderson that ad hominem attacks make for really lousy arguments. Behind all of his bluster he says, basically, nothing.
Kleiner’d! Yah!
I’ll post a few follow-ups to your remarks:
1) I don’t see anyplace that Benedict says we ought to care for the environment only because failing to do so will upset God. Quite to the contrary, he is almost totally humanistic about it – human beings have an intrinsic dignity and a part of the actualization of human ends (in this generation and in future ones) requires we care for our natural environment.
2) The mere fact that some Christians are not good stewards of the environment does not prove that Christianity is somehow incapable of a robust environmental posture. Insofar as Christians fail to be good stewards of the earth (the drill baby drill morons), Benedict would say they are being precisely un-Christian. The fact that so many American Christians (including American Catholics) have such distorted notions of environmental stewardship goes to show that they have been diseased by our secular materialist consumer culture! He is calling them back from the “feverish pursuit of more”. Your suggestion that environmental silliness is “what happens when you take Christianity to its logical conclusion” is a painfully ridiculous caricature of the Christian faith. It is actually hard to take it seriously. Looking over your (a)-(e) claims that you think are somehow representative of Christianity, I would not sign on to a single one of them (and I am Christian). This kind of caricature is simply irresponsible, but it is the kind of irresponsibility that is so common to new atheists – take the dumbest Christians you can find and take their views to be an adequate statement of Christianity. Please, don’t follow in the footsteps of Religulous and that idiot Maher et al.
The bigger point here is Benedict’s response to the value-less arena of materialism and naturalism. I still don’t see that you have countered Benedict’s claim that materialist atheism opens the door for the will to power, not nice friendly liberalism and democracy (which is, at least according to Nz, the offspring of Christianity and not atheism). By the way, this is not a dogmatic assertion of Benedict’s. It is a philosophically interesting (even if you don’t think it true) claim.
3) Your claim that overpopulation is the cause of hunger and poverty reflects a pretty dated Malthusianism. I reject Malthusianism. In fact, I think the opposite of Malthusianism is true, and the evidence seems to support that. Rather than overpopulation causing poverty, I think poverty causes overpopulation. This is why developed countries don’t have overpopulation problems (in fact, Europe is facing a demographic crisis since they are not even replacing themselves). I won’t take the time to go through all the arguments and evidence here – if you want to know more about this debate, take PHIL 1120 Social Ethics.
4) An aside on whether or not the Pope is a hypocrite. I would submit that everyone is a hypocrite. The only way to not be a hypocrite is to be unprincipled because human beings always fail to live up to their principles. This constant failure of humans to live up to their principles looks like a demonstrable truth about human nature. You don’t have to call it “sin” if you don’t want to, but don’t we all see that man is broken (he constantly fails to be what he thinks he ought to be)? Of course the theist and atheist part ways on what to do with this truth about human nature. Theists hope for grace. Atheists accept their broken situation and despair or hope that broken man can fix his own brokenness (marxism, secularisms of various sorts including (broadly speaking) modernity and the so-called “age of reason” — which finally ended, it is worth noting, in the Holocaust where we realized that the tyranny of techno-scientific thought just makes us more efficient at killing each other).
5) Your comments about condoms and AIDs ignore the EVIDENCE (… pausing to enjoy the irony). The evidence shows that the countries with the biggest drops in HIV infection are those without aggressive condom programs. The evidence shows that the most successful way of curbing the AIDs epidemic is by (a) reducing the number of sexual partners (ie, stressing fidelity) and (b) raising the age of first sexual contact (ie stressing abstinence). The free sex crowd lets ideology and DOGMA get in the way of EVIDENCE, so they simply ignore the biggest success stories in Africa. By the way, the statistics show that African countries with the largest Catholic presence actually have the lowest AIDS rates. Burundi, Angola, Ghana, Nigeria all have 40% or so Catholic populations and 6% or lower AIDS rates, as compared to the 35% infection rates in other countries (Botswana, Swaziland) with very small Catholic populations and often aggressive prophylactic policies. (I know correlation does not equal causation, but this is still interesting). Uganda is particularly interesting. Large Catholic population and an abstinence/fidelity national policy that has dropped infection rates from 23% to 6%. As far as I know, no country using a condom program has seen anything close to those kinds of results. Here is a link to a leading HIV researcher (and self-confessed liberal) who admits that the evidence is on the Pope’s side.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/marchweb-only/111-53.0.html
I am not suggesting the debate here is closed as there might be other contributing factors, but the first look is at least counter to the conventional wisdom about such things.
6) Regarding the Genesis passage, you are not listening to what the Pope said. The Pope clearly understands “dominion” to mean “stewardship” or even “shepherding” and not “domination”.
7) Why say he approaches it from dogma and not science? I know that is one of the “talking points” that you almost have to trot out, but what was dogmatic about what he said? By the way, dogma means “opinion or belief” in Greek. When the Pope “speaks dogmatically” he is simply speaking the belief of the Church. But we should remember, as JPII said, “the Church imposes nothing, she only proposes.” If you agree with what the Church proposes (believes) about man, God, community, love, redemption, etc, then be Catholic If you don’t, then move on. But I don’t see that there is anything dirty about “dogma”. The Church, particularly under JPII, always frames the Church’s position in the terms of human questions. Human life is a question, the Catholic Church proposes an answer. There are a lot of ideas out in the intellectual marketplace, this is one of your choices.
9) This short statement of the Pope’s is hardly comprehensive, and one could hardly expect him to address more than an aspect of the issue in a short address like this one. One can find much more substantive discussions on this social justice and environmental problem in his larger writings. See, for instance, his latest encyclical on the economy. For Benedict (as for me), all of the issues of our time (life issues, social justice, poverty, environment) are interrelated aspects of a basic problem – the failure to love and to respect the inviolable dignity of every human person.
10) Do comments like “All in all, the Pope’s remarks are wrong and useless” accomplish anything or advance a reasonable discussion? Not much free thinking (which you defined as “general open-mindedness” in another post) going on when you simply dismiss out of hand the thoughts of one of the most accomplished intellectuals in the world.
I’ll probably stay away for a while again, since I don’t want to pull you guys too off-track. But you had to know you were going to raise my hackles with your posts!
Kleiner, anyone who would deny condoms to people to protect them from std’s is a murderer. You can’t say. “It’s their choice; the church isn’t forcing them.” The church is forcing them. When I was religious, I would feel overwhelming guilt for the most minor infraction of the rules, and I felt worthless. Threatening someone with hell is mental abuse.
And I don’t know where you’re getting your “facts” about condoms from. This is from the American Social Health Association:
“Currently, condoms are the only widely available, proven method for reducing transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) during intercourse. Organizations around the world recommend condom use for the prevention of pregnancy and HIV/STIs.”
This is from the CDC:
Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in
preventing transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In addition, correct
and consistent use of latex condoms can reduce the risk of other sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs), including discharge and genital ulcer diseases.
It is instinct to want to have sex. It just is. And there is nothing wrong with that. It isn’t evil, it isn’t gross, and as long as you TAKE PRECAUTIONS, it isn’t dangerous. The Pope is just trying to avoid looking “weak” by giving into public pressures. But he is doing it at the cost of peoples LIVES. The fact that such unbelievably basic idea as condom us is being disputed by a college professor horrifies me. You might want to stick to Philosophy, and stay out of medicine.
The pope didn’t just say that condoms were ineffective, he said they increase the chance of getting AIDS. That is impossible, that is wrong, and that is sick. There are people out there that will die because of what he has said. That is irrefutable. Is that what you mean by “respect” for all people? What about respect for homosexuals, and what about respect for the little kids who were abused. The very abuses that cardinal Ratzinger himself covered up. The Catholic church respect the Catholic church, and that’s it. I will reiterate what James said: The pope is a hypocrite.
“As far as I know, no country using a condom program has seen anything close to those kinds of results.”
Take a look a Thailand sometime. They have, perhaps, the most aggressive condom advocacy program in the world, which has been the primary factor in reducing the number of new HIV infections from 143,000 in 1991 to 19,000 in 2003.
I did not mean to offend, Kimi. I am just participating in an open dialogue here. If my views are not welcome, let me know and I will not return.
Look, I cited a well known HIV expert (a liberal and someone who did not seem to want to jump to the Pope’s defense) and other evidence that the condom programs are not the savior they are made out to be (Green is “the director of the Harvard AIDS Prevention Research Project, and is a leading advocate for evidence-based interventions.”) As I said, there is debate on the issue, but it is hardly decided. Green gets criticized for his views (from folks at CDC and other places), but the evidence appears to be on his side. Shouldn’t scientists follow the evidence wherever it leads, and pause at drawing “irrefutable conclusions” when the evidence is, at best, mixed?
Why would condom use increase risk? Because condom programs can encourage irresponsible sexual behavior. Fidelity and abstinence have the best track record as public health policy initiatives in Africa. That is just what some EVIDENCE with African public health programs says! (Please note that Green distinguished between individual behavior and public health initiatives, your above citations assume the individual effectiveness translates into effectiveness as a public health program).
By the way, while I think sexual drives are a basic, natural, and GOOD part of human life, it does not mean that they cannot be controlled and directed. I frankly think there is a bit of racism lurking behind the condom programs in Africa – do we not trust the Africans to have the capacity to moderate their sexual behavior?
Also, I never called sex evil, nor did the Pope. In fact, John Paul II wrote one of the most “pro-sex” books I’ve ever read (the Theology of the Body). And I don’t hear much fire and brimstone (threatening people with hell) in Catholic parishes. I am sorry that was your experience, that does not seem to me to be an effective way to shepherd a flock.
No one – no one – in good conscience will come to the defense of those priests who abused children. That scandal is one of the gravest violations of trust I can think of, and the Church should be deeply ashamed for not handling the issue as quickly / firmly / sensitively as it should have. I don’t have any evidence that Ratzinger himself was a part of some “cover up” though. In fact, I think the levels of bureaucracy in the Church (she is, in part, an all too human institution) prevented the powers at the Vatican from really knowing just how serious the situation was.
Anyway, that is an ad hominem argument – attacking Benedict’s character does not make his opinions about the environment (or sex or anything else) necessarily wrong. Feel free to hate the guy, feel free to consider him an evil hypocrite, but his ideas still demand some attention.
Thanks for the advice on career tracks. I never claimed to be an expert on such things, that is why I appealed to an expert in my email. Are there some dogmas (unquestionable articles of faith) that I am bumping up against here on the SHAFT page? Anyway, I have the feeling my views are unwelcome here. I should excuse myself from this forum.
Don’t give up the ghost quite yet, Kleiner.
It’s not dogma if it is based on science. Sure, you could do studies on the result of condom programs. But I have a feeling that in most countries, it is extremely beneficial. And on a case by case basis, condoms are irrefutably beneficial. If it stops even one person from dying isn’t it worth it? Condoms don’t encourage unsafe sexual behaviour, because using a condom is responsible. If you don’t think people should have sex before marriage, fine, say so. Don’t mask it under the pretence of being unsafe.
And what about monogamous couples where one partner is infected? The Pope has still said condoms are evil in this situation. If a man has AIDS, and his wife doesn’t, there is no way you can responsibly tell them not to use condoms. The infection rate without a condom is 1 in 5. With a condom, it goes down to practically zero.
And you are welcome to stay and comment, as long as you keep it civil. In your previous post, you essentially called James stupid and accused him of being closed minded. You will not meet a more open-minded person than James. He will change his position if you make a point that is convincing and based on evidence. I’ve seen him do it on many occasions. The problem is, you haven’t provided anything convincing. You’re calling us racist, close-minded, and stupid is not welcome. A polite discussion is.
Yeah, you seem way to eager to set the “free-thinkers” up as hypocrites for kicking you off (which would admittedly be kind of funny).
*too.
Oh wow, look at that, Kimi went and responded before I did so it looks like I’m mad at Kleiner instead of calm and ready for more like Jon… Whoops…
Kleiner can be a bit snarky, but I think he remains civil all the same. I also think it’s kosher for Kleiner to make accusations of closed-mindedness and latent racism. Personal “attacks” only become foul in my book when they’re unsubstantiated. His charge that there is a latent racism behind the condom programs, for example, is more an argument than a personal attack–and one worth rebutting, too.
I have a really thick-skin in debates, so perhaps I’m not being sensitive to everyone’s feelings. But I’d hate to see this debate end just because people (on both sides of the argument) are letting their emotions get the best of them.
I have really thick skin too, but I reject the charge that I made any personal attacks. I will confess to taking some pleasure in pointing out that free thinkers are not always as open-minded as they like to think. And I did tee it up a bit for some serious hypocrisy, and I am genuinely glad that the bait was not taken.
That said, looking over the past posts, there is evidence of what I have in the past called “Hitchens Hooliganism”. Not only has the Christian position been drawn in absurdly unfair caricature, it has been called in this post “murderous, mentally abusive, hypocritical, and useless”. Most of those remarks were simply ad hominems. And I am the one who needs to be reminded to keep it civil? Aside – I didn’t call James stupid (I know James and respect him as a student), I tried to make a series of arguments to show where I thought he was wrong and suggested that he ought to be (from his own set of values) open-minded to such ideas. I think part of my job as a philosopher here is to mentor students – and that sometimes means rebuking them – in what sophisticated intellectual dialogue looks like.
I’ll say the same sort of thing to Kimi – this is not a particularly scientific thing to say: “Sure, you could do studies on the result of condom programs. But I have a feeling that in most countries, it is extremely beneficial.” Shouldn’t a scientist and free thinker follow the studies and not their feelings? I cited a leading HIV scientist from Harvard. There are competing studies, and what is true in Africa has not been true everywhere (Kevin points this out), but I appealed to science and not “dogma”.
I still think that the Pope’s basic comment about godless materialism and its relation to will to power (and her ugly bastard step-child consumer culture) has been left unrefuted. Part of the task that a SHAFTer has, in order to do this, is to develop their own POSITIVE account of human flourishing, human community and human goods. I don’t think an atheistic humanism is sustainable, but I invite SHAFTers to work on that problem. You need to show that godless materialism can lead to X (flourishing community and environmental responsibility) rather than Y (human and environmental degradation in the wake of the will to power). This is a both a practical and theoretical task.
By the way, I was raised atheist and was militantly atheistic all through college. I know that it can be difficult to make the “turn to the positive”, it is easy to fall into the trap of simply negatively bashing on religion. But I really think it is important for you all to spend at least as much time developing a positive account of human nature and human community (humanism after all).
I don’t really think there is any racism in condom programs. I’m pretty sure any organization telling people to use condoms is giving out the same information regardless of the audience’s language, race, ethnicity, religion, or whatever else. It’s just by a fluke of the disease’s origin and the economic and social facts of the region that AIDS is most prevalent in Africa, and where these programs are most needed. It’s not that “those primitive Africans” can’t ignore their sexual urges. Most humans can’t. People are going to have sex. It’s true that abstinence would guarantee 100% safety from AIDS/HIV, but it’s not a pragmatic solution in the real world. Condoms are.
The efficacy of condoms in preventing STDs is definitely an interesting debate, but I want to return to the point that I brought it up in. Re: Malthusianism, I was actually not familiar with that term, and had to do some reading. This is the idea that population growth is exponential, but the increase in the food supply is arithmetic. For you non-mathy types, that means that population growth will outpace the amount of food available, leading to an inevitable crisis. Thomas Malthus used this to argue against welfare for the poor, because it would simply create more dependent poor. This is not what I meant at all. Overpopulation causes poverty, and poverty can cause overpopulation. It’s a cycle. In order to reduce or eliminate poverty, the cycle must be broken. For any given level of economic development (this is the key), there is some amount of people that can be comfortably supported. When the population climbs above that, there will be some who are impoverished. The two ways out of this are to either increase the resources available, or decrease the population growth rate. For best results, try to do both.
To make it very clear: I am NOT arguing for reducing the extant population, or for not providing for the poor. I am arguing for providing means for family planning in order to reduce the population growth as a component of a broader economic development strategy. If a family had one less mouth to feed, that would be leave more money for them to save, or invest in education or creating local small businesses (look up microloans), or whatever. After a sufficient amount of time (maybe a generation) you will begin to see the seed of an educated middle class. This is where Malthusianism breaks down: economies are not zero-sum games, and high tides lift all boats. There will be more economic resources available, allowing for higher sustainable populations. (Interestingly, Karl Marx actually argued against Thomas Malthus, saying that progress in science and technology would allow for indefinite exponential population growth. Which I actually agree with, given certain caveats.)
This is why I brought up condoms in the first place.
One more quick aside–Malthusianism has been modernized a bit and reformulated to refer to the Peak Oil situation, where it is arguably more applicable.
Challenge accepted. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and will have a post about it in . . . whenever.
Ok, one final comment.
In my sentence above: “The two ways out of this are to either increase the resources available, or decrease the population growth rate,” resources can be taken to mean physical goods as well as intangibles like education and political freedom, because these usually translate into economic benefits.
Carry on.
James – in bringing up Malthus, I did not intend to put in your mouth all of Malthus’ ideas. sometimes “neo-Malthusianism” is used in this very broad sense: the view that poverty is the consequence of overpopulation. What one does about it (and not all of Malthus’ own particular suggestions are, as you say, all that appealing!) is then a second question. Anyway, it was that very broad sense that I intended — and it is that very broad sense that I deny. I think compelling arguments can be made that the contrary is true, that poverty causes overpopulation (rather than overpopulation causing poverty).
But, as you say, carry on.
Also, it appears we are all friends again. That’s nice. Not that this will prevent all you godless heathens from going to hell someday. ;)