By the time I finish the 2010 11-Plus Exam, which I began three Mondays ago in sympathy with Barbados’ children, who faced the real thing on May 3, I may be of university age (again) myself.
For another week, I’m postponing the maths section of last year’s 11-Plus to respond to the argumentative tricks of “straw man” and “red herring” made about me a letter-writer to THE NATION.
Two weeks ago, I disagreed strongly with the unproved assumption by THE NATION’s youth columnist, Corey Worrell, that premarital sex was wrong; if this was the youth view, I asked, what must the old fogeys think?
I criticised Corey for not making reasoned arguments in a national, not a religious, publication.
I also stated a simple fact, which appears to have riled the unidentified letter-writer last week: religious belief is irrational. That is not something you can have an opinion about. Religious belief is called “faith” precisely because it cannot be proved.
I meant no insult to and take no objection to any believer, unless the belief affects the rights of others. My own life was much easier when I was secure in my delusion that God somehow had it all under manners and I just couldn’t grasp his plan with my feeble, finite mind.
Further, though I think religious instruction is child abuse, all adults are free to believe whatever holiness or rubbish they please. Catholics may believe in virgin conception today and in a flat earth up to the time the Vatican forced Galileo to recant; Hindus may believe in reincarnation; Jews and Muslims may believe God hates bacon – but no public policy in a modern liberal democracy should be founded upon religious belief and no civic debate should pretend to proceed on biblical grounds.
I have no doubt that faith was a great source of comfort to Barbadians, especially in those long-gone (thank God and Bussa) iniquitous days of slavery.
The Jews who kept the covenant had less dreadful ends in Hitler’s ovens than the doubters, perhaps.
But no matter how much personal comfort the individual or even the communion derives from personal belief, it simply cannot form the basis of public policy; that is theocracy, not democracy, and they have it in Iran, where women can be murdered in all holiness for the sin of being raped.
There is also the problem of which belief should become law. My Flying Fish last week was a Muslim, and intelligent persons responsibly seeking identity are increasingly turning to Rastafarianism. Should the undeniable fervency of those beliefs be translated into mandatory hijab or legalized marijuana? Argument defining policy must be rational and secular. Anyone is free to write about his beliefs, but not to pretend to argue public policy using Biblical quotes instead of sound propositions.
Finally, it is not a privilege to write a column; it is a job; and that job is to write. If I don’t do it well, I should be fired, not silenced; and certainly not merely because I offend the orthodoxy; unless you intend to crucify me.