The Pope in Britain

I watch the BBC most nights, which has been offering rapt coverage of the Pope's visit to Britain. They've described his goals in speaking as the "re-evangelization of the West". I was interested to see what he was actually saying, so I googled looking for a transcript. The one that showed up highest (that wasn't something old about John Paul) was a post at the Richard Dawkins Foundation. There's something ironic in that -- more about that later.

Oversimplifying a bit, Benedict argues that the good parts of British tradition (justice, truth, mercy, etc) are the result of their religious heritage. He believes that most of the tragedies of the 20th century were the result of "atheist extremism". And he concludes that the exclusion of religion results in a "truncated vision of man" and his destiny. I believe all three things are false.

I believe that religion is far more dangerous, by dividing people based on their metaphysical beliefs, beliefs that can have no grounding in reality. Clinging to ancient mythology as the basis for truth, justice and the foundation for a path forward is a recipe for disaster: it's like building on quicksand. Our only hope is to build a common foundation together among things we can all agree upon and not cling to dangerous fantasies that can be used to divide us.

In the end, however, I was not surprised to see the transcript at RichardDawkins.net. One of our great challenges is that relatively few people actually read the words of the people they follow or that they despise. How many people will actually read the Pope's words? How many people have actually read Osama bin Laden's proclamations? How many people have actually read Barack Obama's economic plan? These days, most people seem to wait for the media to tell them what to think.