Elton John as Exhibit A
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Matt Drudge reports extensively on an interview with Elton John from the British press. Given the lack of permalinks on his site, I quote the report in full here.
ELTON JOHN: 'I WOULD BAN RELIGION COMPLETELY'It is at times like this that I feel especially grateful to Ayn Rand for clarifying exactly what is wrong with religion and the emotionalist left. Otherwise, there is so much that is so wrong here one would hardly know where to begin.
Sat Nov 11 2006 15:42:55 ET
Sir Elton John wants religion banned completely -- because he believes it promotes hatred of gays.
Speaking to the Observer Music Monthly Magazine the singer said religion lacked compassion and turned people into "hateful lemmings".
The PRESS ASSOCIATION reports: In a candid interview for a dedicated Gay issue of the magazine he shared his views on topics as varied as being a pop icon to Tony Blair's stance on the war in Iraq.
He said there was a lack of religious leadership, particularly in world politics, and complained that people do not take to the streets to protest any more.
Sir Elton said: "I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.
"But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion. From my point of view I would ban religion completely.
"Organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."
He added: "The world is near escalating to World War Three and where are the leaders of each religion? Why aren't they having a conclave? Why aren't they coming together?
"I said this after 9/11 and people thought I was nuts. Instead of more violence why isn't there a meeting of religious leaders?
"It's like the peace movement in the Sixties. Musicians got through to people by getting out there and doing peace concerts but we don't seem to do them any more.
"If John Lennon were alive today he'd be leading it with a vengeance," he said.
Sir Elton said people were too busy blogging on the internet to go out onto the streets to stand up for what they believed in.
"They seem to do their protesting online and that's not good enough. You have to get out there and be seen to be vocal, and you've got to do it time and time again.
"There was a big march in London when Britain decided to join the war against Iraq and Tony Blair is on the record as saying 'the people who march today will have blood on their hands'. That's returned to bite him on the ass," he said.
Sir Elton compared his place in British culture with that of the Queen Mother's.
He said: "People come to me and I'm a bit like the Queen Mother. I never get those problems. I don't know what it is with me, people treat me very reverently.
Referring to his "wedding" to long-term partner David Furnish, he said: "It was the same when Dave and I had our civil union - I was expecting the odd flour bomb and there wasn't.
"Dave and I as a couple seem to be the acceptable face of gayness, and that's great."
He pledged to continue to campaign for gay rights saying: "I'm going to fight for them whether I do it silently behind the scenes or so vocally that I get locked up.
"I can't just sit back; it's not in my nature any more. I'm nearly 60-years-old after all. I can't sit back and blindly ignore it and I won't."
Developing...
I'll once again dust off the following passage, taken from Ayn Rand's 1960 essay "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World" (as reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It):
Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when mean deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, persuasion, communication, or understanding are impossible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind -- a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence. [bold added]Yes. Religion often fosters hostility towards homosexuals. Yes. Religion turns people into lemmings. And yes, Mother of Queens, there is no conclave. All of these things are true for the exact same reason -- that religion fundamentally rejects reason. On what basis do religions claim homosexuality (or anything else) is wrong? Because it defies God's will as allegedly revealed to man. Why do men become lemmings? Because they accept, on faith, ready-made answers about difficult issues rather than taking on the responsibility of thinking them through on their own. And why no conclaves? On what basis would religious leaders determine whose infallible yet somehow conflicting revelations were correct? The violence he decries is part and parcel of the irrationality fostered by religion.
Come to think of it, given Sir John's low opinion of religion, why would he even want a conclave? Elton John is right to be appalled by the way religion can and does affect his ability to simply be who he is, but for someone who is so concerned about the problem, he is remarkably unable to appreciate its underlying causes. He is so out of his depth, in fact, that he ends up emulating the very people he condemns for intolerance!
One could understandably chalk up Sir John's professed desire to ban religion to hyperbole, but what of the following? "Sir Elton said people were too busy blogging on the internet to go out onto the streets to stand up for what they believed in." This is a blatant confession on his part that he regards intellectual debate as futile. In fact, his strong preference for sixties-style protests is a manifestation of his own rejection of reason as a means of communicating with others.
Ayn Rand explained the significance of such protests this way in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (p. 256):
The only power of a mob, as against an individual, is greater muscular strength -- i.e., plain, brute physical force. The attempt to solve social problems by means of physical force is what a civilized society is established to prevent. The advocates of mass civil disobedience admit that their purpose is intimidation. A society that tolerates intimidation as a means of settling disputes -- the physical intimidation of some men or groups by others -- loses its moral right to exist as a social system, and its collapse does not take long to follow. [bold added]I regard homosexuality as outside the realm of morality and the activities of consenting adults to be their business and their business only. I am sympathetic to Elton John's desire to be able to live the way he chooses free from fear of persecution. But John offers no compelling reason on his own behalf for why we should live and let live! He makes no attempt to persuade. Rather, he simply states that religion turns men into lemmings, that he would ban it, and that he wishes people were still attempting to address major issues like this by thrashing about in the streets rather than thinking about them carefully and discussing them.
How else could he realistically hope to achieve his ends but by force? And how does he expect that force not to be turned against him sooner or later?
It is too bad that Elton John does not understand that there is a rational case to be made for the freedom he wants. For not only are the various flaws he finds with religion united with his own ramblings in their fundamental rejection of reason, his plight as a homosexual is united with the plights of every single rational individual on the planet. The only way for Elton John to live a free life is for society to respect (and thus for government to protect) the individual rights of all of its citizens.
But Elton John, like the religionists he despises, has abandoned reason and therefore fails to see that he has common cause with almost everyone and would get lots more help if he would articulate as much. He also fails to appreciate that the desire to quash intellectual freedom (even in the form of religious freedom) and to abandon the intellect places all individuals in grave peril. If anyone needs to begin thinking rationally, Elton John does!
It is not just religionists, but all irrational men who threaten your freedom, Sir John. Exhibit A is looking back at you from the mirror.
-- CAV
2 comments:
If I understand correctly what he is saying is nothing against having spiritual convictions but rather buying into boxed sets of beliefs we call religion. I do agree with Elton about religion in most cases. I often believe the reason for people to chose to associate oneself with one a reliogous affiliation is because people have always had sense of some power greater than themselves that has created all that we see,all that we are and all that there is and we don't understand it. People tend to be lazy thinkers and would rather someone just hand them a manual in which to live by. Unfortunately this book is handed to you with a warning. The warning being that you do NOT think or live outside this box or else. Of course the manual obviously is impossible to follow otherwise the "experts" handing it to you would be able to live by it themselves. I would rather live my life without the fear of retribution from some wrathful God for some trumped up indiscetions that someone else believes in and wants others to as well. I think most of us know what right from wrong is and can have rich fullfilling lives living by one rule that in that book and that rule is;"do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I think that's an easier and much more realistic approach to better living withing imposing our own beliefs onto others . Thank you, Aaron fennville, Mi www.aaronjasonsilver.com
"... people have always had sense of some power greater than themselves ..."
Based on what? It isn't direct sensory evidence or logic.
"[T]this book is handed to you with a warning...."
Of course it is. It's a list of marching orders, and it is supposed to guide your entire life.
"I think most of us know what right from wrong is and can have rich fullfilling lives living by one rule that in that book and that rule is;'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'."
This may be okay for social interactions, but that tells you nothing about any other sphere of your life. Heck. You don't even have a basis other than emotion for deciding how you want to be treated and thus how you will act. (Both of these are moral questions, although altruists tend to miss that fact for how one wants to be treated.)
Selectively ignoring marching orders you do not like will not fix what is wrong with the basic approach ... of accepting marching orders. Of attempting to live one's life without thinking.
"I think that's an easier and much more realistic approach to better living withing imposing our own beliefs onto others ."
So far, you have shown me that you are committing exactly the same error as Elton John: choosing emotionalism from a false alternative between it and blind faith.
My whole point is that reason can be the basis for discovering what is moral and proper to man. In fact, since man is a being with a specific nature, any attempt to ignore the requirements of his life in formulating a morality will result in error and, as a consequence, some form of injury. Ultimately, faith and emotion do exactly this, leading to moral codes that offer no real guidance for living on earth.
So reason not only can, it should form the basis for moral thought. For the sake of anyone wanting to live a good life.
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