May 6, 2009
Dear Colleague:
I am beginning to wonder whether the least religious people—those who disbelieve in God or blaspheme against him—and the least compassionate are the fundamentalists of Islam and Christianity. Take the case of Islam. A Danish cartoonist made fun of the prophet Muhammad in a cartoon, and the mullahs in the Arab world were outraged. They issued fatwas condemning the Dane for blasphemy. But how could it be blasphemy when Muhammad was, even to Moslems, a prophet and not God? Suppose the Dane somehow really intended to target his barbs at Allah. Shouldn't the mullahs have just brushed them off as silly or in poor taste? They should have. Instead, they themselves committed blasphemy far worse than any that the cartoonist could have done, their blasphemy being their making Allah, creator of Heaven and Earth, into an insecure man or a touchy lady who had no better thing to do than to be constantly on the lookout for possible slights! In my indignation at this insult to Allah's majesty, I wish I can issue fatwas myself, directed at the mullah infidels.
I now turn to America, which has more Christians—more believers in God and the afterlife—than any other Western country. What a shock to discover that this isn't true. Researcher Andrea Phelps divided 345 cancer patients in to two groups—those who professed to be Christians and those who professed to be atheists. She hypothesized that the atheists would want aggressive medical treatment since no life awaited them beyond this one: to atheist patients maybe even an extra day or two counted. The Christians, on the other hand, would not want aggressive treatment. What was the point of prolonging a painful life by a bit when, with death, they would at last meet the God they talked about with such fervor? So imagine Dr. Phelps's surprise and mine when she discovered that, compared with the nonbelievers, a statistically significant higher proportion of Christians wanted their doctors to use extreme means to keep them from falling into God's arms. (Reported in The Economist, 21 March 2009).
Who in America are more compassionate, Christians or atheists? The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life tries to find out. They ask two groups—those who attend church at least once a week and those who do not—whether torture of suspected terrorists is, as Bush and Cheney say, justified. Guess what? 54 percent of church attendees say that the use of torture is often or sometimes justified. Only 42 percent of the non-church group agree. So much for feeling the pain of others—for love and forgiveness that are at the heart of the Christian religion. Don't fundamentalist Christians know that Christ himself was considered a possible terrorist, someone who could subvert the Roman empire, and was ruthlessly tortured for that and other reasons? (CNN Jack Cafferty, 1 May, 2009).
"I am a Christian." "I am a Moslem." To me, that in itself is evidence that he or she is probably neither. It's a bit like hearing someone say, "Hey guys, I am a good fellow!" Then is the time to check whether your wallet is still in the back pocket. Hypocrisy is not listed as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, yet it—a combination of cunning and hypocrisy—is among the most common and deadly.
Best wishes,
Yi-Fu
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