School collective worship

This is the second of my pieces on religion.

The story continues. I happened to witness a school assembly the other day. The audience comprised receptive, attentive and well behaved 4 to 11 year olds, some two hundred and thirty in number. The speaker was an experienced head teacher. The subject matter was a Bible story - the feeding of the five thousand. The head teacher, explaining carefully that a very large number of people faced starvation, drew attention to recent television news items from locations such as Sudan. She pointed out that the Biblical version had a happy ending, because each of the thousands of people was fed as much as they could eat. There was even enough food left over to fill several baskets. The source of the food? A very small number of fishes and barley loaves. Each time the "waiters" took food out to the starving people, there was still as much remaining as there had been before. The supply was literally endless.

As I listened, my horror diluted somewhat by countless repetitions of this story in the past, I heard something especially awful. The head teacher summed up the tale by stating, "Five thousand people fed from that tiny amount of food. Incredible, but it happened." (my italics).

There was a tangible sense of awe in the room. The quiet was velvet smooth and ocean deep. The inaudible but nonetheless discernible fidgeting, breathing and general ticking-over generated by large groups of children was suddenly and completely suspended. It was as if something just below the level of conscious auditory perception had been turned off - you notice it only when it is no longer there. And the atmosphere was tinged with the unmistakable thrill of adrenalin.

The message slammed home, finding its mark for sure in a significant proportion of the minds focused upon the story. The children had all heard Bible stories before, but... they are only stories, aren't they? Even if some of them did really happen, it was a long time ago and very far away. But here's someone we know, trust and respect, telling us it really happened! Just like in the countries we see on the news! Gosh!

Once it has been accepted that the events depicted in the story actually happened, it requires but a simple step to accept that the deity responsible for such a miracle is capable of literally anything. Including, of course, creating the world and the rest of the observable universe, answering prayers, forgiving sins, etc.. The religious virus is in place, ready to filter experience and observation to suit its own perception of the world. Should it show signs of failing in its mission, an injection of guilt, shame or fear should serve to revitalise it. Such is the basis of organised religion.

It is a consequence of the bias which I outlined in the previous chapter, that behaviour such as that demonstrated by the head teacher continues to be acceptable. Were you or I to stand up and state that the feeding of the five thousand as depicted in the Bible did not happen, then I would be surprised if complaints from parents did not ensue. Few voice their objection to the perpetuation of this asymmetry, but many actively support its continuation. Indeed, it is supported by English law.

Recently I shared these views with a colleague. She agreed with me that the head teacher was wrong to state that the events actually took place, but she felt that I would be equally wrong to state that they did not. Why, for goodness' sake? Because, she said, the two viewpoints were of equal merit and no-one was to say which was correct. Everyone should have the freedom to decide for themselves.

Asinine, blinkered arguments such as this do little to restore my dwindling faith in the capacity for rational, ordered thought. So if Fred says a dead man rose up from his grave, and Bill, upon hearing of it, expresses doubt, their viewpoints are automatically equally valid? If I were to assert publicly that the moon were made of blue cheese, should my voice be heard as loudly as the man who will point out that it is actually made of moon rock? Of course not. It is manifestly untrue that, in any given dichotomy, both sides deserve equal credence.

So what makes the religious dichotomy so special? Why is it that the most fantastic, misleading nonsense is held up in equal opposition to basic common sense? The answer lies in the ages of precedent to which I referred before. Mankind does indeed have a darker side, of which it ought rightly to be thoroughly ashamed. Let me explain precisely what I mean.

Most of us have been afraid of the dark at one time or another. If not this, then I am sure if we are honest with ourselves that we will find some shred of superstition, albeit dormant. Evolution has fashioned our patterns of behaviour in such a way that we look continually over our shoulder. This was but one of the many ways in which our ancestors ensured their survival. Some of those who begat us must have been saved from digestion at the hands of hungry predators, purely by over caution and the consequent avoidance of potentially dangerous circumstances. We are designed to see ghosts and hobgoblins in every corner. To summarise, belief in things that go bump in the night is a positive survival advantage. It is built into every one of us.

There is a drawback associated with such a natural defence system. Brains which are capable of believing and imagining on a large scale, are susceptible to contamination by all manner of other stuff. Couple this with the fact that young humans depend utterly upon older humans for nourishment, care and guidance, and you have a dangerous cocktail. The older humans can easily invoke the ghouls and hobgoblins, and the young humans will swallow them whole. If the beliefs instilled are (a) superficially plausible; (b) seductive and (c) apparently held by elders, then they will stick. Our failure to recognise that this is the root of all religious belief, constitutes a serious fault. If, on the other hand, some of us are able to recognise this but fail to do anything to stop it, then I have demonstrated the existence of the darker side to which I referred.