Contempt

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Case for God (2009)

  Voltaire defined Deism in his Philosophical Dictionary (1764). Like Newton, he thought that true religion should be “easy,” its truths clearly discernible, and, above all, it should be tolerant. Would it not be that which taught much morality and very little dogma? That which tended to make men just without making them absurd? That which did not order one to believe in things that are impossible, contradictory, injurious to divinity, and pernicious to mankind, and which dared not menace with eternal punishment anyone possessing common sense? Would it not be that which did not uphold its belief with executioners, and did not inundate the earth with blood on account of unintelligible sophism? Which taught only the worship of one god, justice, tolerance, and humanity? 9 Scarred by the theological wrangling and violence of the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War, European Deism was marked by anticlericalism but was by no means averse to religion itself. Deists needed God. As Voltaire famously remarked, if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. The Enlightenment was the culmination of a vision that had been long in the making. It built on Galileo’s mechanistic science, Descartes’ quest for autonomous certainty, and Newton’s cosmic laws, and by the eighteenth century, the philosophes believed that they had acquired a uniform way of assessing the whole of reality. Reason was the only path to truth. The philosophes were convinced that religion, society, history, and the workings of the human mind could all be explained by the regular natural processes discovered by science. But their rational ideology was entirely dependent upon the existence of God. Atheism as we know it today was still intellectually inconceivable. Voltaire regarded it as a “monstrous evil,” but was confident that because scientists had found definitive proofs for God’s existence, there were “fewer atheists today than there have ever been.” 10 For Jefferson, it was impossible that any normally constructed mind could contemplate the design manifest in every atom of the universe and deny the necessity of a supervising power. 11 “If Men so much admire Philosophers, because they discover a small Part of the Wisdom that made all things,” Cotton Mather argued, “they must be stark blind, who do not admire that Wisdom itself.” 12 Science could not explain its findings without God; God was a scientific as well as a theological necessity. Disbelief in God seemed as perverse as refusing to believe in gravity. Giving up God would mean abandoning the only truly persuasive scientific explanation of the world. This emphasis on proof was gradually changing the conception of belief. Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), the New England Calvinist theologian, was thoroughly conversant with Newtonian science and was moving away so radically from the idea of an interventionist God that he denied the efficacy of petitionary prayer.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘You recall, Thomas, that Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights before he was permitted to converse with Almighty God on the summit of Mount Sinai? Only after he had denied himself food for all that time was he permitted to receive the Ten Commandments, written with Jehovah’s own finger of fire. And do you remember Elijah on Mount Horeb? The prophet fasted, too, and spent his days in contemplation before God deemed it right to speak to him. Aaron and all the other priests of the temple would never dare to approach the incense altar without mortifying their flesh. They prayed only after they had abstained from drink. How could they be drunk in the holy place? It was unthinkable. God would have struck them dead. Take warning from what I say, Thomas. The priest who prays for your welfare and recovery must be sober - or else . . . well, I will say no more. You catch my drift. ‘Our own Saviour, as the New Testament tells us, gave us many examples of fasting and of prayer. That is why simple friars like myself are wedded to poverty and to celibacy. We lead lives of charity, of pity and of purity. I myself am always weeping. Yes I am. Of course sometimes we are persecuted for our holiness. That is the world for you. Nevertheless I tell you this. Our prayers are more acceptable to God. They rise higher than those of you and your kind, who can think only of your sensual appetites. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden for the sin of gluttony. Is that not so? It was not for lechery. I know that much. ‘Thomas, listen to me, I beseech you. I don’t have the exact text about me at the moment, but I can remember the gist of it. These are the words of sweet Lord Jesus, when He was talking about us friars. “Blessed,” He said, “are the poor in spirit.” That’s me! All the gospels sing our praises. Cleanliness is next to godliness. The eye of the needle. That kind of thing. Do you think they are referring to us or to those of you who wallow in your possessions? I pity those who are in thrall to gluttony. I spit on those who are addicted to lechery. I abjure them, Thomas. I renounce them. They are no better than that heretic Jovinian. He was as fat as a whale, and he waddled like a swan. He was as full of booze as a bottle in an alehouse. How can people like that pray? When they pray, they burp instead. Do you know that psalm of David when he says that his heart is issuing a great matter? All they issue is gas. ‘No. We are the ones that humbly follow the path and example of Jesus. We are meek. We are poor. We are chaste. We are lowly, Thomas, ever so lowly.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  That worthy man, that Friar, had been frowning and glowering at the Summoner all the time that the Wife had been speaking. He had not forgotten their argument. But, for the sake of decency, he had not said anything vicious. Now he spoke up. ‘Dame Alison,’ he said, ‘good Wife of Bath, God send you a long life! I swear that you have touched upon a matter for debate by scholars, and you have acquitted yourself very well. But, ma dame, while we are riding here together our only task is to entertain one another. There is no need to engage in moral discussion. Leave that to the priests in their pulpits. So, if the rest of the company are agreed, I will now tell you a funny story about a summoner. I think you will all admit that there is nothing good to be said about that profession. Summoners are the pits. Of course I am not referring to any individual here.’ He glanced at the Summoner before continuing. ‘A summoner is a jackal. He runs up and down with writs of arrest for fornication. And of course, consequently, he gets beaten up all the time.’ Harry Bailey, our Host, interrupted him. ‘Good Friar,’ he said, ‘please be polite. A man of the cloth ought to be courteous to others. We will have no arguments between ourselves. Get on with your story. And leave the Summoner alone.’ ‘Let him say what he likes,’ the Summoner replied. ‘It doesn’t worry me. When my turn comes, I will pay him back in kind. I will tell him all about friars, false flatterers as they are. I have a lot of dirty stories about them that I will keep in reserve. He will learn what it is to be a friar.’ ‘Peace. No more.’ Our Host put up his hand. ‘Now, good master Friar, will you please tell your story without more delay? It is getting late.’ The Friar cleared his throat. The Friar’s Tale Heere bigynneth the Freres Tale

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Dawkins is an extreme exponent of the scientific naturalism, originally formulated by d’Holbach, that has now become a major worldview among intellectuals. More moderate versions of this “scientism” have been articulated by Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg, and Daniel Dennett, who have all claimed that one has to choose between science and faith. For Dennett, theology has been rendered superfluous, because biology can provide a better explanation of why people are religious. But for Dawkins, like the other “new atheists”—Sam Harris, the young American philosopher and student of neuroscience, and Christopher Hitchens, critic and journalist—religion is the cause of all the problems of our world; it is the source of absolute evil and “poisons everything.”22 They see themselves in the vanguard of a scientific/rational movement that will eventually expunge the idea of God from human consciousness. But other atheists and scientists are wary of this approach. The American zoologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) followed Monod in his discussion of the implications of evolution. Everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that science was not competent to decide whether God did or did not exist, because it could work only with natural explanations. Gould had no religious ax to grind; he described himself as an atheistically inclined agnostic but pointed out that Darwin himself had denied he was an atheist and that other eminent Darwinians— Asa Gray, Charles D. Walcott, G. G. Simpson, and Theodosius Dobzhansky—had been either practicing Christians or agnostics. Atheism did not, therefore, seem to be a necessary consequence of accepting evolutionary theory, and Darwinians who held forth dogmatically on the subject were stepping beyond the limitations that were proper to science. Gould also revived, in new form, the ancient distinction and complementarity of mythos and logos in what he called NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria). A “magisterium,” he explained, was “a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution.”23 Religion and science were separate magisteria and should not encroach on each other’s domain: The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory)? The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry.24 The idea of an inherent conflict between religion and science was false. They were two distinct magisteria that “hold equal worth and necessary status for any complete human life; and … remain logically distinct and fully separate in lines of inquiry.”25

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Where is our offence? We will never renounce the cause that we know to be true and just.’ ‘You have a choice,’ Almachius replied. ‘Renounce your faith or suffer death. There is no other way.’ When she heard this, Cecilia began to laugh. ‘Oh, sir, you are a simpleton. Do you think that I would renounce my innocence in order to become a sinner? Do you not see that you are making a fool of yourself? You stamp and stare. You rage at me as if you had lost your mind.’ ‘Foolish woman! You do not know the extent of my power. The rulers of this land have given me the power of life and death, over you and everyone else. How dare you speak to me like that? You are puffed up with pride!’ ‘I speak nothing but the truth. I am not proud. We have been taught as Christians to hate the sin of pride. And if you want to hear another truth, then I will tell you this. You have lied. You have said that our rulers have granted you the power of life and death. You can take away only the mortal life. You have no other jurisdiction. So you can be the minister of death. But that is all.’ ‘Enough of your impudence,’ he said. ‘Make sacrifice to Jupiter. Then be on your way. I do not care what you say about me. I can endure that like a philosopher. But there is one thing I will not permit. I cannot allow you to speak ill of our native gods.’ ‘Oh foolish man,’ she replied. ‘You have said nothing to me that has not been vain and ill-considered. You are an incompetent officer and a presumptuous judge. You might as well be blind, for all the good your eyes are. Can’t you tell that this idol is made of stone? You have announced that a piece of granite is a god. Put your hand on it. If you cannot see it, taste it. Can’t you tell? It is made of stone. It is a shame that all the people will be laughing at you for your foolishness. It is known that the Lord God is in the heavens. Anyone can tell that these stone images are of no use or value. Do you not see that they have no purpose? They are cold. They are lifeless.’ Her words enraged Almachius. He ordered his officers to take her back to her house, and there burn her to death. ‘Bathe her in flame,’ he said. ‘Clean her.’ They followed his orders literally. They placed her in a bath, pinioned her, and then lit great fires beneath her that were fed with logs night and day. All that night, and for most of the next day, she felt no pain; she remained quite cool, and did not burn. There was not a drop of sweat upon her forehead. Yet she was still destined to die in that bath.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Sir priest,’ the canon said, ‘I don’t want any great fame. In fact I prefer to remain unknown. So I beg you. Let this be a secret between us. If other people knew of my gift, why, I would be the object of hatred and of envy. I would be a dead man.’ ‘God forbid! You don’t need to tell me that. I would rather lose all the money in my possession - I would rather go mad - than betray you.’ ‘Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now I must bid you farewell, sir. Goodbye! Good luck!’ The canon gave the priest the kiss of peace, and left him. The priest never saw him again. He soon discovered that the so-called formula was useless; every experiment failed, and every session ended in tears. He had been completely fooled. The canon was a master of the black art of treachery. Consider, gentlemen, how people in every walk of life strive for gold. There is so great a desire for it that it has become scarce. I could not count the numbers involved in alchemy, for example. They are led astray by philosophers who speak in misty terms. They never understand a word of their jargon. Their minds are addled. They chatter nonsense like magpies. They never achieve anything. If a man has enough money, he will easily learn how to turn his wealth to nothing. This is the only transmutation that takes place. Mirth is replaced by sorrow. Full purses are changed into empty purses. The hopes and happiness of those who have lent money are turned into curses and bitterness. They ought to be ashamed. Those who have been burned should flee the fire. I have one message for those of you who dabble in the false art. Abandon it. Leave it before you are ruined. Better late than never. If you lose everything, I am afraid that it will be too late. Seek, but you will not find. You will be like blind Bayard, blundering everywhere, not seeing the snares and traps in front of him. Can he stay on the high road? Of course not. He crashes into rocks and hedges. That is the way of alchemy, too. If you cannot see with your eyes, try to use your inner sight. Try to be guided by reason and judgement rather than staring wildly around for any portent. You may think you are wide awake, but you are sleepwalking to disaster. So put out the fire. Smother the coals. Give up the pursuit. If you don’t believe me, believe the writings of the true alchemists themselves.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to religion and science—and invariably. And, on the other hand, all untrammelled scientific investigations no matter how dangerous to religion some of its stages may have seemed, for the time, has invariably resulted in the highest good of religion and of science. 69 The two were implacably opposed. One of these protagonists was beneficial to humanity; the other, evil and dangerous. Ever since Augustine had insisted on the “absolute authority of scripture,” all theologians “without exception, have forced mankind away from the truth, and have caused Christendom to stumble for centuries into abysses of error and sorrow.” 70 In reality, the relations between science and faith had been more complex and nuanced. But this overblown polemic has remained the stock-in-trade of the atheist critique of religion and is widely accepted as a matter of fact. White’s misrepresentation of Augustine’s view of scripture is just one example of his bias. One of the most persistent of the apocryphal tales that developed at this time is the story of Huxley’s encounter with Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford (1805–73). In June 1860, shortly after the publication of Origin, they took part in a debate at a meeting of the British Association. Wilberforce is said to have played to the gallery and, having shown that he had absolutely no understanding of evolution, concluded by facetiously asking Huxley whether he claimed descent from a monkey through his grandmother or grandfather. Huxley retorted that he would rather be descended from an ape than a man like Wilberforce, who used his great talents to obscure the truth. It is a story that brilliantly encapsulates the “warfare” myth in its depiction of intrepid science victoriously triumphing over complacent, ignorant religion. But, as scholars have repeatedly demonstrated, there is no record of this exchange until the 1890s. It is not mentioned in contemporary accounts of the meeting. In fact, Wilberforce was entirely conversant with Darwinian theory; his speech at the British Institution summarized the recent review that he had written of Origin, which Darwin himself, acknowledging that Wilberforce had pointed out serious omissions in his argument that he would have to address, had considered “uncommonly clever.”

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  There was a SUMMONER with us, unfortunately. He had the face of a fiery cherub, covered with pimples. He had swollen eyelids, adding to the unfortunate impression. He was as hot and lecherous as the proverbial London sparrow. His eyebrows were scabby, and the hair was falling out of his beard. You could understand why children were afraid of him. There was no medicine or ointment, no quicksilver or brimstone, no sulphur or cream of tartar, no white lead or borax, that could remove those unsightly pustules. They were like oyster shells on his cheeks. His diet may have had something to do with it. He loved onions, garlic and leeks, which are well known to nourish bitter humours; he drank the strongest red wine he could find and, in his cups, he would talk and cry out as if he were mad. ‘You are all janglers and clatterers!’ he said. He was looking at me at the time. When he was completely drunk he would speak only in Latin, and one evening he sang out the old rhyme: Nos vagabunduli Laeti, jucunduli, Tara, tarantare, teino.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  But the new atheists will have none of this, and in his somewhat immoderate way, Dawkins denounces Gould as a quisling. They adhere to a hard-line form of scientific naturalism that mirrors the fundamentalism on which they base their critique: atheism is always a rejection of and parasitically dependent on a particular form of theism. The work of the new atheists has been exhaustively criticized, notably by John F. Haught, Alister McGrath, and John Cornwell.26 Like all religious fundamentalists, the new atheists believe that they alone are in possession of truth; like Christian fundamentalists, they read scripture in an entirely literal manner and seem never to have heard of the long tradition of allegoric or Talmudic interpretation or indeed of the Higher Criticism. Harris seems to imagine that biblical inspiration means that the Bible was actually “written by God.”27 Hitchens assumes that faith is entirely dependent upon a literal reading of the Bible, and that, for example, the discrepancies in the gospel infancy narratives prove the falsity of Christianity: “Either the gospels are in some sense literal truth, or the whole thing is essentially a fraud and perhaps a moral one at that.”28 Like Protestant fundamentalists, Dawkins has a simplistic view of the moral teaching of the Bible, taking it for granted that its chief purpose is to issue clear rules of conduct and provide us with “role models,” which, not surprisingly, he finds lamentably inadequate.29 He also presumes that since the Bible claims to be inspired by God it must also provide scientific information. Dawkins’s only point of disagreement with the Protestant fundamentalists is that he finds the Bible unreliable about science while they do not. It is not surprising that Dawkins is incensed with American creationists who are campaigning against the teaching of evolution, and the proponents of a new, quasi-scientific philosophy that has tried to revive the theory of intelligent design (ID). These include Philip E. Johnson, professor of law at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial (1991); the biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box (1996); and the philosopher William Dembski, author of The Design Inference (1998). These theists do not all posit God as the Designer, but they do argue that ID is a viable alternative to Darwinism and cite a supernatural agency in creation as if it were scientific evidence. But as Dennett points out, the ID theorists have not devised any experiments or made any empirical observations that challenge modern evolutionary thinking. ID, he concludes, is therefore not science.30 ID is also theologically incorrect to make scientific statements. Mythos and logos have different fields of competence, and, as we have seen, when they are confused you have bad science and inadequate religion. But while Dawkins’s irritation with creationists and ID theorists is understandable, he is not correct to assume that fundamentalist belief either represents or is even typical of either Christianity or religion as a whole.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  As soon as the friar had left the neighbourhood, however, he would take out the writing tablet and erase the names he had just put down. It was all a trick, an act, on his part. ‘This is all lies!’ The Friar was very indignant. ‘Peace!’ Harry Bailey called out. ‘For the love of God go on with your story, sir Summoner. Go on till the end. Leave out nothing.’ ‘That’s what I intend,’ the Summoner replied. ‘You can be sure of it.’ So Friar John went from house to house, until he came to one where he was accustomed to hospitality. He was sure of getting something here. But the good man who lived here was sick; he was lying upon a low couch, and could scarcely rise. ‘God be with you,’ the friar said. ‘Good day to you, Thomas. And may God reward you, my friend. I have been very well fed at this table. I have enjoyed many meals, haven’t I?’ He shoved the cat from its favourite chair - put down his stick, his satchel and his hat - and then sat down at the table with a smile on his face. He was alone. His friend had already gone into town, with the servant, in order to book rooms in the inn for that night. ‘Oh my dear master,’ the sick man said, ‘how have you been this last week or two? I haven’t seen you for a while.’ ‘God knows, Thomas, I have been hard at work. I have been working for your salvation. You would never believe the number of prayers I have offered up for you and for my other friends in Jesus. I have just come from your parish church, as a matter of fact, where I delivered a sermon during mass. It was a poor thing, but it was my own. It was not entirely based on scriptures, of course, because I prefer to paraphrase and interpret in my own way. Holy writ is too hard for some to understand. So paraphrase is a good alternative. Do you know that phrase we friars use? The letter killeth. I simply told the congregation to be charitable, and give their money for a good cause. I saw your wife there, by the way. Where is she now?’ ‘She’s in the backyard, I think. She’ll be here in a minute.’ And then stepped in the good wife. ‘Welcome, holy friar,’ she said, ‘in the name of Saint John. Are you keeping well?’ The friar rose to his feet very politely, put his arms around her very tightly, and kissed her on the lips. He was chirping like a sparrow. ‘Never felt better in my life, good woman. I am yours to command in all things. I saw you in church today, you know. I have never seen a prettier wife, as God is my witness.’ ‘Alas I have my faults, good friar. I am a frail woman. But thank you.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  As part of the corrupt old regime, the churches had to go, together with the God who had supported the system. 16 As modernization intensified, rapid industrialization and population growth during the 1840s led to severe social deprivation. Food riots were brutally suppressed. It was in this climate that Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72), pupil of Schleiermacher and Hegel, published The Essence of Christianity (1841), which was avidly read, not simply as a theological statement but as a revolutionary tract. Feuerbach had taken Hegel’s call for a God and religion of this world to its logical conclusion. 17 If the idea of a remote, external God was so alienating, why not get rid of him altogether? God, Feuerbach argued, was simply an oppressive human construct. People had projected their own human qualities onto an imaginary being that was merely a reflection of themselves. So “man’s belief in God is nothing other than his belief in himself. ... In his God he reveres and loves nothing other than his own being.” 18 Hegel had been right. God was not external to humanity; the goodness, power, and love that were attributed to him were human qualities and should be revered for their own sake. 19 The idea of God had deprived Christians of self-confidence, 20 encouraging them to think that “in the face of God, the world and man are nothing.” 21 The people must realize that they were the only “gods” that existed and understand that any authority rooted in the idea of God was nothing more than an expression of blatant self-interest. The declaration of the Second Republic in France in 1848 led to widespread hopes that something similar could be achieved in Germany, and there were calls for constitutional rule. Hoping that this agitation would spread to the rest of Europe, Karl Marx (1818–83) published his Communist Manifesto, but a year later it was clear that the revolutionary movement had failed. Marx took it for granted that God did not exist, so he did not bother to justify his atheism philosophically; his sole aim was to alleviate human misery. Born into a middle-class Jewish family at Trier, Marx had studied with Hegel in Berlin, where he had met some of the most controversial theologians of the day. Failing to get an academic post in Germany, he worked as a journalist in Paris until he was expelled for his political activities and settled in London, where he began work on Das Kapital, his monumental analysis of capitalism. While Feuerbach’s analysis was quite sound, Marx conceded, it did not go far enough.

• From City of Night (1963)

  On the stools next to us, sit two middle-aged men. They have been talking in whispers, but now, as they glance surreptitiously but obviously at the fatman, one word emerges clearly from their sibilant sounds: “Fat” The fatman drops the cigar butt suddenly on the floor, letting it fall from his mouth; brings his ovaled fatfoot heavily on it, squashing it angrily into the debris of cigarettes on the floor. The two middle-aged men, aware he has heard them, turn away nervously, making rushed incoherent conversation as they clutch at their beers as if for protection—as they move against the wall. The fatman’s eyes follow the two doggedly. With renewed venom now, he goes on about Skipper: “I’ll bet hes over 30—hes been around longer than just about any of them.” “Maybe hes not as young as some of the delinquents around here,” said the skinny one, “but I still feel rawthuh Intrigued.”... And then, in an uncontrolled burst, in which the Mask slid off shockingly, he said: “I think hes positively Savage!” He flung his eyes ecstatically toward the smoky Heaven. Quickly, realizing what hes just said, he composes himself, adjusting his pose consistent again with his earlier charade of Maiden. He sips his drink, shifts his skinny hips; says: “This whole place is Positively Indecent; it should be razed!” The fatman roars with laughter. “Why dont you go talk to him?” “But what will I say to him?” the skinny man asks in renewed interest. He brought his hand to his chest in a gesture of uninitiated Helplessness. “Nothing.” The fatman contracted the mountains of flesh into a shrug. “You mean he’ll talk to me?” The fatman says viciously: “No. I mean, Mary, that all you have to do is wave a few bills before him and he’ll drop his pants for you—right here!” Even in the orangy dark, I can see the skinny man blanch; he tightens his lips, sucks them in between his teeth, breathing deeply. His eyes hurl their hatred at the fatman. For a long time, the two men look at each other, resenting the common knowledge that binds them together. “I-dont-believe,” the skinny man said pitifully, at last wresting his eyes in defeat from the embattled stare of the other, “that-men-take-money-from-other-men-for-sex.” “If you dont want to pay for him,” the fatman said ruthlessly, driving his words into the skinny one like a pike, “Ill buy him for you.... Easy enough.” The skinny man flings a frantic look of Deep Hurt at him. “Go on, honey,” the fatman pursues mercilessly. “You got to learn. You aint pretty yourself, you know.” He buries his fat elbow in the skinny man’s ribs, almost knocking him off-balance. “Go on!” “I—have—Never—paid—for—sex,” the skinny man murmurs.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  In the meantime the canon was getting ready to fool the priest again. He took out from his pocket a hollow stick, in the end of which he had secreted an ounce of silver filings. He had secured the end with some sealing wax, just as he had done with the piece of coal. While the priest was busy with the fire, the canon once again sprinkled some more powder into the crucible and stood waiting expectantly. You have seen the measure of his falsehood, have you not? May the devil flay his skin! May God desert him in his last hours! Then he took the stick and began stirring the coals. Of course all fell out as before. By which I mean, the filings of the silver fell out. As soon as the wax melted they ran out of the crucible and soon became liquid metal. What do you think happened, gentlemen? The priest was fooled by the same trick twice. The idiot was so pleased by the sight of the silver that I scarcely have the words to describe his delight. He was delirious. He gave himself up, body and soul, to the deceiver. ‘Yes,’ the canon said, ‘I may be poor, but I have a certain wisdom. And I prophesy this. There is more silver to come. Do you have any copper in the house?’ ‘Of course. I know where to find some.’ ‘Well, sir, hurry up and get it.’ So the priest went off, found the copper, and brought it back to the canon. As soon as he had it in his hands, the canon carefully weighed out an ounce. No pen can describe, no tongue can tell of, his wickedness and false seeming. He was the minister of lies and deception. He seemed friendly enough to those who did not know him, but in thought and deed he was a fiend. It wearies me to list his crimes, but I do it only to put you on your guard against him and others like him.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  This type of reductionism is characteristic of the fundamentalist mentality. It is also essential to the critique of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris to present fundamentalism as the focal core of the three monotheisms. They have an extremely literalist notion of God. For Dawkins, religious faith rests on the idea that “there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence, who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it.”31 Having set up this definition of God as Supernatural Designer, Dawkins only has to point out that there is in fact no design in nature in order to demolish it. But he is mistaken to assume that this is “the way people have generally understood the term” God.32 He is also wrong to claim that God is a scientific hypothesis, that is, a conceptual framework for bringing intelligibility to a series of experiments and observations.33 It was only in the modern period that theologians started to treat God as a scientific explanation and in the process produced an idolatrous God concept. The new atheists all equate faith with mindless credulity. Harris wrote The End of Faith immediately after 9/11, insisting that the only way to rid our world of terrorism was to abolish all faith. Like Dawkins and Hitchens, he defines faith as “Belief without Evidence,”34 an attitude that he regards as morally reprehensible. It is not surprising, perhaps, that he should confuse “faith” with “belief” (meaning the intellectual acceptance of a proposition) because the two have become unfortunately fused in modern consciousness. But like other atheists and agnostics before him, Harris goes on to declare that faith is the root of all evil. A belief might seem innocent enough, but once you have blindly accepted the dogma that Jesus “can be eaten in the form of a cracker,”35 you have made a space in your mind for other monstrous fictions: that God desires the destruction of Israel, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, or the 9/11 massacres. Everybody must stop believing in anything that cannot be verified by the empirical methods of science. It is not enough to get rid of extremists, fundamentalists, and terrorists. “Moderate” believers are equally guilty of the “inherently dangerous” crime of faith and must share responsibility for the terrorist atrocities.36

• From The Case for God (2009)

  It usually referred to any belief that the writer deemed incorrect. For Lessius, “atheism” was a heresy of the past: the only “atheists” he could name were the ancient Greek philosophers. He was especially concerned about the “atomists”—Democritus, Epicurus, and the Roman poet Lucretius (c. 95–55 BCE)—who had believed that the universe had come into being by chance. Democritus had imagined innumerable particles, so tiny that they were “indivisible” (atomos), careering round empty space, colliding periodically to form the material bodies of our world. There was a new interest in atomism in Europe at this time; it certainly troubled John Donne. 6 Democritus’s infinite cosmic space suited the Copernican universe very well, now that it had been shorn of the celestial spheres. But Democritus had seen no need for an overseeing God, and Lessius could not accept this. Citing the Stoic philosophy of Cicero, he argued that the intricate design of the natural world required an intelligent Creator. It would be as absurd to deny the hand of divine providence as to imagine that a “faire, sumptuous and stately palace” had been put together “only by a suddain mingling and meeting together of certaine peeces of stones into this curious and artificiall forme.” 7 The French mathematician and Franciscan friar Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) was a committed scientist and had supported Galileo when it was not politically expedient to do so. 8 But in The Impiety of Deists, Atheists and Libertines of Our Time, he had no difficulty in identifying modern “atheists.” 9 None of them denied the existence of God: some, like the devout Parisian priest Pierre Charron (1541–1603) or the Paduan philosopher Geronimo Cardano (1501–76), were merely skeptical about the ability of human reason to arrive at any final truth. Mersenne was particularly disturbed by the hermetic philosophy of Bruno, another of his “atheists,” who had believed that nature had its own divine powers and needed no supervision. To counter this, Mersenne developed a Christian version of atomism, which added a supervising Creator God to Democritus’s universe. 10 The atoms had neither intelligence nor purpose, so nature had no occult power of its own and was entirely dependent upon le grand moteur de la universe. It is significant that in combating “atheism,” both Lessius and Mersenne turned instinctively to the science and philosophy of antiquity rather than to their own theological tradition. Thomas Aquinas had insisted that we could not learn anything about the nature of God from the created world; now the complexity that scientists were discovering in the universe had persuaded theologians that God must be an Intelligent Designer. Denys and Thomas would not have approved. Mersenne was present at a conference in Paris in November 1628, when a distinguished group of philosophers listened to a spirited critique of scholasticism in the presence of Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle (1575–1629), the papal nuncio.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Shame on you,’ Pertelote replied. ‘What happened to your courage? Now you have forfeited all my love and respect. I cannot love a coward, for God’s sake. Whatever we women may say, we all want husbands who are generous and courageous - and discreet, too, of course. We don’t want to marry misers or fools or men who are afraid of their own shadow. And we don’t like boasters. How dare you say, to your wife and paramour, that you are afraid of anything? Do you have a man’s beard without a man’s heart? For shame! And why are you afraid of dreams? They mean nothing. They are smoke and mist. They come from bad digestion or from an overflow of bile. I am sure that this dream you describe is a direct result of your bilious stomach, which leads people to dream of flaming arrows, of orange flames, and of tawny beasts that threaten them. Bile is the red humour, after all. It stirs up images of strife and of yelping dogs, just as the melancholy humour provokes the sleeping man to cry out about black bulls and black bears and black devils. I could give you a list of the other humours, and their effects, but I will forbear. ‘Suffice to say what Cato said. That wise man declared that there was no truth in dreams. So, husband, when we fly down from our perch, remember to take a laxative. I swear on my life that you need to purge yourself of all these bad humours. You must shit out your bile and your melancholy as soon as possible. I know that there is no apothecary in the town, but I will teach you what medicinal herbs to chew. We can find them in the farmyard here, and they will cleanse you below and above. ‘You are choleric by complexion, of course, with your red crest and comb. Beware that the midday sun does not find you full of hot properties. If it does, you will fall into a fever or a chafing sickness that will kill you. I know it. So let us find some worms to aid your digestion. They can be followed by spurge laurel, centaury and fumitory. Why are you making that face? I can pick you some nice hellebore and some euphorbia. I know for a fact that ground ivy grows in the garden. Just take a stroll there and eat some of it. Stay cheerful, husband, I beg you. There is nothing to fear from a silly dream. I can say no more.’

• From The Case for God (2009)

  During his visit to Laplace, Napoleon, filled with wonder at the marvels of the cosmos, is said to have cried rhetorically: “And who is the Author of all this?” Calmly, Laplace replied: “I have no need of that hypothesis.” 61 It was an emblematic moment, but few people were able either to take it in or grasp its implications. In the very same year as Napoleon made his visit to Laplace, the British churchman Archdeacon William Paley (1743–1805) published Natural Theology (1802), which achieved instant success and recognition in the English-speaking world. Like Lessius a century earlier, Paley reached instinctively for the argument from design as irrefutable proof for the existence of God. Just as the intricate machinery of a watch found in a desert place bespoke the existence of a watchmaker, the exquisite adaptations of nature revealed the necessity of a Creator. Only a madman would imagine that a machine came about by chance, and it was equally ludicrous to doubt that the wonders of the natural world—the intricate structure of the eye, the minute hinges of an earwig’s wing, the regular succession of the seasons, or the intermeshing muscles and ligaments of the hand—pointed to a divine plan, in which every detail had its unique place and purpose. Paley was not suggesting that the universe was simply like a machine; it was a mechanism that had been directly contrived by the Creator. There had been no change or development. God had created every species of plant and animal in its present form—just as Genesis described. Paley’s image was attractive at a time when the Industrial Revolution had inspired a new interest in machinery. It made the idea of God as “easy” as Newton believed that it should be: it was not difficult to understand; it gave a clear, rational explanation; and the vision of a universe operating as regularly as clockwork was a comforting antidote to the terrifying tales of the French Revolution. Throughout the nineteenth century, Natural Theology was required reading for Cambridge undergraduates and was accepted as normative by leading British and American scientists for over fifty years. The young Charles Darwin (1809–82) found it deeply persuasive. But it did not please everybody. The Romantic movement had already started to rebel against Enlightenment rationalism. The English poet, mystic, and engraver William Blake (1757–1827) believed that human beings had been damaged during the Age of Reason. Even religion had gone over to the side of a science that alienated people from nature and from themselves. Newtonian science had been exploited by the establishment, who used it to support a social hierarchy that suppressed the “lower orders,” and in Blake’s poetry Newton, albeit unfairly, became a symbol of the oppression, aggressive capitalism, industrialization, and exploitation of the modern state. 62 The true prophet of the industrial age was the poet, not the scientist.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The wife was not at all put out by his rebuke, but answered him boldly enough. ‘By the holy Mother of God I defy that false monk, that so-called cousin John! I didn’t pay any attention to this bond, or repayment, or whatever you call it. I know that he brought some cash to me, but I assumed that he was giving it to me for your sake. I thought that he wanted me to dress up, to entertain and be entertained in your honour. He has been given hospitality here often enough. I thought he wanted to repay me in kind. May God’s curse fall upon our dear cousin. But since I see you are displeased with me, I will come to the point. You know well enough that I always pay my debts on time. I pay you your just tribute night after night. I am running out of double entries. Should I ever fall behind in payment, you may chalk it up. I will soon honour the debt. I swear to you that I have spent everything on fine clothes and on hospitality. Not a penny has been wasted. Don’t I look a credit to you? So don’t be angry. Let us laugh and play. You can play on my body, if you wish. Bed is the best payment of all. Forgive me, my dear husband, and come beneath the sheets. You will not regret it.’ The merchant realized that there was no alternative. It would have been madness to criticize her any further. What was done was done. ‘I forgive you, dear wife,’ he said. ‘But, in future, try not to overspend. Keep your money in your purse, I beg of you.’ So ends my story. God be with you. And may you always be worthy of credit! Heere endeth the Shipmannes Tale Bihoold the murie wordes of the Hoost to the Shipman and to the lady Prioresse ‘Well spoken, Shipman,’ Harry Bailey said. ‘By the body of Christ, I enjoyed that tale. May you sail around the coasts for ever and a day, master mariner! But may that false monk, cousin John, have nothing but bad luck for the rest of his life! Let this story be a lesson to all of us. A monk is nothing but an ape in a man’s hood. The monk made a monkey of the merchant, and of the merchant’s wife. Never let one of those rogues enter your house. ‘Now let us go on. Who is it to be? Who is going to tell the next story?’ He rode up to the Prioress and, with as much modesty as a young maid, addressed her. ‘My lady Prioress, by your leave - if it doesn’t offend you - I wonder if you would be so good as to entertain us all with another tale? Only if you wish to, naturally.’ ‘Gladly, sir,’ she replied. The Prioress’s Prologue The Prologe of the Prioresses Tale Domine dominus noster

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  There were two poor scholars who dwelled in the college, named John and Alan. They were both from a town called Newcastle, somewhere in the north of England. I have no idea where. In any case they were high-spirited and playful, to say the least, and for the sake of diversion they asked the master if they might go up to Trumpington for a short while and watch the miller at work. They were convinced that he was short-changing the college and they assured the master that they would not allow him to steal any more corn by trickery or by threat. They staked their necks on it. After much thought, the master gave them permission to journey to the mill. So Alan got everything ready, and loaded the sack of corn on to his horse. Then both of them prepared themselves for the journey with sword and buckler. These country roads are not always safe. But they needed no guide. John knew the way. When they arrived at the mill John unloaded the sack while Alan chatted to the miller. ‘Canny to see you, Simkin,’ he said. ‘How are your wife and your bonny daughter?’ ‘Alan, how are you? And you, too, John. What are you both doing here?’ ‘Well, Simkin, need knows no law. A lad who has no servant must serve himself. Otherwise he has a pranny for a master. You know that our manciple is on the way out?’ ‘I have heard.’ ‘Even his teeth hurt. It’s that bad. So me and Alan have come here to grind our corn and take it back to college. Will ye give us a hand?’ ‘Of course I will. Better than that. I’ll do it for you. But what do you want to do while it is grinding?’ ‘Well, I think I’ll stand awa’ there by the hopper when the corn flows in. I have never watched that happen. I wouldn’t mind seein’ it.’ ‘And I’ll stand awa’ there,’ Alan said, ‘and watch the meal gannin’ doon into the trough. That’ll keep me happy. You and I are just the same, John. We kna’ nowt about mills or millers.’ The miller was smiling at their stupidity. ‘They are trying to trick me,’ he said to himself. ‘They think that nobody can fool them. Well, well. I’ll pull the wool over their eyes just the same. Their logic or philosophy - whatever it is they study - is not worth a bean. The more tricks they pull, the more I will return. Instead of flour, I’ll give them bran. As the wolf said to the mare, the greatest scholars are not the wisest men. That was a shrewd wolf. And so will I be.’

• From The Case for God (2009)

  He had no time for theologians, who were “bogged down in their interminable questionings”; 82 motivated solely by “vanity,” these people should be called “Fool” rather than “Doctor.” 83 Rolle regularly insulted anybody who uttered the slightest criticism of his eccentric way of life with a stridency that jars with his lush descriptions of God’s love. This emphasis on sensation was strangely parallel to the tendency of the late scholastic theologians, who were increasingly skeptical about the mind’s ability to transcend sense data. 84 This new “mysticism” translated the traditionally symbolic discourse of interiority into a literal exploration of observable, quantifiable psychological states, which had become an end in themselves. 85 Rolle made a great impression on his contemporaries, but many of them were disturbed by this emotional piety, which contravened cardinal principles about the nature of religious experience. As we have seen, contemplatives were supposed to rise above their feelings in order to explore the deeper regions of the psyche. Rolle refused to have a spiritual director who could have instructed him in the special techniques and carefully cultivated attitudes that would enable him to transcend his normal modes of perception. The traditions all insist that a mystic must integrate his spirituality healthily with the demands of ordinary life. Zen practitioners insist that meditation makes them more alert and responsive to their surroundings. But in his writings Rolle alternates between excitable, almost manic exultation and crushing depression. He developed a stammer and found that a job that would once have taken him thirty minutes now took a whole morning. His younger contemporary Catherine of Siena once fell into the fire in an ecstatic swoon while cooking a meal. This unbalanced behavior would become increasingly admired in certain circles. Like Rolle, Catherine refused to submit to spiritual direction that could have helped her to negotiate this perilous psychic hinterland. Elevated feelings were never supposed to be the end of the spiritual quest: Buddhists insist that after achieving enlightenment, a man or woman must return to the marketplace and there practice compassion for all living beings. This was also true of Christian monks and nuns, who had to serve their communities; even anchorites often acted as counselors for the local laity, who came to them with secular as well as spiritual problems. But Rolle vehemently refused to engage with his fellows, and his contemplation did not lead to kindly consideration and kenotic respect for others—the test of authentic religious experience in all the major faiths. But as the rift between spirituality and theology developed, a flood of pleasurable and consoling emotion would be seen by more and more people as a sign of God’s favor. The Dominican preacher Meister Eckhart (c.1260–1327) was uneasy about this development. 86 Whatever mystics like Rolle believed, the feeling self could not be the end of the religious quest, because when reason fulfills itself in intellectus, it has left self behind.