This Demon-Haunted World

The imminent prospect of the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the depressingly predictable response we can expect following the Koran-burning ritual promised by the Florida pastor, Terry Jones, on that anniversary has reminded me of how apt is the late great Carl's Sagan's description of this world as demon-haunted. This world truly is haunted by the demons of irrational and anti-human religious belief.

In my youth, I attended Sunday school at my local church. One day, the Church organised a visit to a local mental hospital. As a rather callow youth, the experience truly shocked me. Anyway, one part of the visit that I can still recall decades later concerned a particular patient at the hospital who looked and sounded quite rational on the surface; he was polite, friendly and did not show the slightest symptoms of someone with mental-health problems until he introduced us to his office. He then explained to us visitors that he was the Pope's private secretary and it was in this office that he carried out all his correspondence with the Pope. I can't recall how the hospital had set aside a small room for his office, maybe it was a broom cupboard, but I can still picture his school writing-desk with its piles of envelopes, pens and letters of correspondence. I felt distinctly uncomfortable when the nurse, or mental-health worker, who was showing our party around began to humour his delusion by publicly back up his story; she asked him to show us his latest communication from the Pope. He proudly showed us the letter he had recently received in which the Pope outlined his secretary's duties for the coming week. I have no exact recollection of those particular duties, but I'm fairly sure that they included helping out with some of the menial tasks within the hospital. Notwithstanding his normal appearance and evident sociability, the poor soul was completely lost in his delusion. And even if they could have, it was fairly obvious that no one at the hospital was going to disabuse him of it.

Now my mind jumps forward another fifteen years or so to 1985; I am attending a public lecture entitled "The Search for Who We Are" given by Carl Sagan at the Boyd Or lecture hall at the University of Glasgow. At the end of Carl Sagan's enthralling and pellucid lecture, presented with his characteristic mellifluous delivery, he asked the audience if they had any questions they would like to ask him. One member of the audience was ready, and his arm shot up like a ramrod; I recall he was siting just a few rows behind me. "Would you consider the prospect that Jesus turned water into wine possible?" was the question he was immediately posed. A non sequitur, if ever there was one. "No. Next question; yes, the man over there" was Carl Sagan's snappy response. I can't say if Carl Sagan was peeved that such an irrelevant question had been put to him, but I suspect that he was. I cannot recall any of the other questions, but I do recall that a certain section of the audience had strongly-held religious beliefs and were there not so much to discuss the subject of his lecture but rather to challenge him for his opinions on religion. Nevertheless, Carl Sagan dealt with them calmly and rationally saying that further discussions in this vein were futile because, as he put it, "You will spin your wheel and I will spin mine."

When it comes to beliefs, religious beliefs especially, or the lack of them, there is definitely an argument for allowing the other party to keep spinning their wheel as long as it causes you no physical harm; but equally so, there is also an argument for trying to disabuse someone of a belief that is patently insane or harmful. I'm not sure if convincing the patient at the mental hospital that he wasn't actually the Pope's personal secretary would have improved the quality of his life. I am quite certain, however, that the constant pandering and kowtowing of the West to the prickly medieval religious mindset prevalent in a significant portion of the Islamic world is unhealthy and dangerous.