Up above the sky so high

NOTED journalist and polemist Christopher Hitchens has accused votaries of Christianity and moral theism of promoting ‘celestial dictatorship’ . “I am told that it can watch me while I sleep,” he told audiences at a public debate on whether religion was a poison or cure at Georgetown university.

“I am told it can convict me of ‘thought crimes’ ; I can be condemned for what I think. If I commit a right action it’s only to evade this punishment and if I commit a wrong action, I can be caught in punishment for what I’ve done not just in life but even after I am dead!” he said.

According to him the Old Testament gods were terrible indeed (in recommending all sorts of vile things against ‘unbelievers’ ) but they did not promise to punish the dead; there was no sort of punishing you after the earth had closed over. That only happened after the gentle Messiah ‘meek and mild’ made his appearance.

What if we changed such tenets ? Many humanists have argued that the trouble with religion is that its object of veneration is a remotely unreal or supernatural ‘god’ . What if we were to substitute man for god? What would happen if we equated ‘humanism’ with ‘theism’ ? That would be tantamount to saving the baby while throwing out the bathwater — saving many of the valuable attitudes and institutions of religion while doing away with its central irrationality.

Auguste Comte, the founding father of modern humanism, tried to do this by his own example in the 19th century. For him, ‘humanism’ was a word parallel to ‘theism’ . Just alter the object of worship, he exhorted, substituting humanity for God and faith will follow. He called it the ‘religion of humanity’ and devised ritual forms for it that were close to traditional Christian ones.

But Comte’s new ‘Christianlike’ hybrids withered away like vines planted in alien climes. The Comtian temple, a tidy little Victorian church with round (not Gothic ) arches, its walls lined with statues of the Saints of Humanity — Plato, Newton, Shakespeare , Beethoven — still stands today in Paris. But when the British philosopher Mary Midgley asked its gloomy concierge whether she thought anybody ever worshipped there she replied , “Nobody. I think, never.”

Was that because even Comte’s iconic humans were too remote and exalted in terms of time and achievement ? The flourishing cults of godmen and gurus offer a counter example.