Vol.2 No.6 - February 19, 2007

Like a thief in the night…

In writing this article, I am availing myself of the great liberty of eisegesis.

I recall my obfuscation, befuddlement and discombobulation, although I had not at the time the vocabulary to identify my youthful confusion and incomprehension in quite such definitive terms, when first my Afrikaans Language high school teacher, Broederbond membership card all but pinned to this beige safari suit lapel, announced that one may read into a text something not intended to be portrayed by an author… something even contrary to an author’s purport.

Mused the Apostle Peter in his second epistle (chapter three, and verse ten… although authorship is hotly contested): “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

Written, of course, before he became the Vicar of Christ and the founding champion of the Stool that to this very day carries his illustrious name and is occupied, currently, by one Josef Ratzinger – very much not a Semite. Before, too, he took up office as Keeper of the Pearly Gates.

Methinks this “thief in the night” analogy apposite to the beguiling banter employed by the faithful in desperate attempts to muster even a valeity of support and credibility, incredulous as it may be, for religious tenets.

Man, I’m having fun with this!

A former, Apartheid regime, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roelof “Pik” Botha, had the misfortune this last Saturday, to have an article on “creationism and evolution” published in a leading Afrikaans magazine, By, the week-end edition insert to the daily Die Burger. Entitled Wees ons onkundigheid genadig (Have mercy on our ignorance), Botha suffered the ignominy of stating “The theory of evolution bestows on God infinitely more power than does creationism… and should there be a form of continued existence after death, I should look forward to it, for my life here on earth was pleasant.”

My initial reaction was one of incredulity and mystification. My tashe quivered with amusement as I read and I broke into a gentle chuckle.[1]

My subsequent reaction was one of botheration. What was it that irked me so?

Eventually I was piqued. So I called a senior journalist friend and suggested that the editor of By be drawn and quartered at midday, Monday, upon Church Square in Cape Town. My friend stilled me and suggested that the editor of By was in fact an extremely competent journalist and…

I know. Of course I know. Liza Albrecht has my complete respect as an editor. I think she represents the future of (Afrikaans) journalism.

What vexed me about Botha’s article? And was it even important enough to merit indignation?

I turned to the Internet. As I am wont to do. I posted Ondermynende joernalistiek (Undermining Journalism) on Kletskerk – a thread that attracted some 300 hits to date, and some 40 responses.

I am discomfited, huffy even, probably incensed, because Botha, either by design or unwittingly, sneaked in one for “The King”. Like… a thief in the night: surreptitiously, furtively; sneakily.

I think it irresponsible and frankly, disrespectful to readers, for an editor to publish an article by a renowned and widely respected, iconic even, individual from a nostalgic recent past, suggesting – even only suggesting – the possibility of divine intervention in the origin and development of life and the universe, and the possibility of eternal life beyond the grave.

It is, I maintain, as irresponsible as would be the publication of an article suggesting that a sweet potato diet could possibly – even only “possibly” – cure AIDS… Even if such AIDS article strongly addressed the magnitude of the pandemic and the absolute need for continued research and vigilance to counter and obliterate the disease.

“The average By reader” – religious to at least the extent of squirming at the idea of the nullity of “God” will doubtlessly have her conviction that the God conjecture is a quite legitimate alternative weltanschauung worthy of consideration and respect, fortified by the article. It simply is not a legitimate alternative![2]

Botha’s underhanded remarks remind me of a parable by Douglas Adams, as retold by Richard Dawkins in Lament for Douglas: “A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box. manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. ‘But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?’"

It is unacceptable for a leading secular newspaper to have the God hypotheses and eternal life promoted in its pages.

It is demeaning. It is pseudoscientific. It is derisory. It is opprobrious.

It must be opposed by sentient people rising to the challenge of incessantly indicating the irrationality of the God hypothesis; calling foul without fail when its mendacious head shows above the trench of wanton otherworldliness.[3]

I am ad idem with Richard Dawkins: "I am utterly fed up with the respect we have been brainwashed into bestowing upon religion."[4]

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[1] A reaction shared with Baron Gruner, the Austrian murderer who killed his wife in the Splugen Pass and came to the attention of Sherlock Holmes in one of Dr Watson’s renderings entitled The Adventure of the Illustrious Client. (As I have mentioned before, I am too having fun!)

[2] See Irreducible idiocy, TART Remarks, January 29, 2007.

[3] January 29, 2007.

[4] Michael Brooks and Helen Phillips. 18 November 2006. Beyond belief: In place of God. New Scientist. 2578: 8-11, reporting on a November 2006 La Jolla, California, symposium entitled "Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival", hosted by the Science Network, a science-promoting coalition of scientists and media professionals convening at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.