April 17 to 23 2009

God rush or hog wash?

The Anglican Church’s imbecilic prayer (April 9), ‘Lord God, we live in disturbing days”, raises the equally disturbing question why an omni­potent deity has to be informed of this. But of course He knows, He just wants you to grovel like an obsequious sycophant and beg for help. He thrives on obeisance.

It’s said that there aren’t any atheists in a lifeboat. Clearly, there aren’t many on a sinking economy. Suddenly, those who lived perfectly rational lives, unconcerned with murky metaphysics, find their ‘faith”. A god needed is a god indeed! This duplicity gives the lie to the entire religious enterprise. Religion feeds on road-kill.

Steve de Gruchy (‘Taking aim at the atheists”, April 9) argues that it is necessary first to note that ‘atheist” is a bastard word. We do not have a name for people who do not believe that Elvis Presley is alive, nor one for people who do not believe that the moon is made of spaghetti. It is similarly unnecessary to have a word for those who don’t believe in comic-book fantasies such as the Virgin Birth and the Second Coming.

De Gruchy unwittingly sets himself up for an ironic backlash when he indicts Richard Dawkins: ‘As if an Oxford don has offered the final word on God and religion in Africa [and] catechists of European secularism think that they know better than the ‘natives’. The arrogance is astounding.”

This snide bit of xenophobia is a failed attempt at an appeal to vulgar populism, and its effect is patronising and condescending.

How did Christianity come to Africa, in particular South Africa? As an integral part of the great imperialistic adventure. Local beliefs were rubbished and ‘false” gods consigned to the scrap heap. This propaganda was enforced at gunpoint. Gunpowder was the 13th apostle.

What has Christianity got to do with Africa? It consists of the alleged acts of a nomadic tribesman in the Middle East thousands of years ago, his brain addled with messianic delusions. The greatest agent of European colonisation was Christianity. Yet De Gruchy indicts Eurocentrism.

De Gruchy claims: ‘We are not a secular nation, but a religiously plural one.” But the bill of rights expressly prohibits unfair discrimination on the grounds of gender, in direct contradiction of the Bible, a text marinated in misogyny and homophobia.

Millions are indoctrinated with religious dogma from birth (which, as that appalling European Dawkins notes, is a severe form of child abuse). Very few recover from this pernicious brainwashing.

I do agree with De Gruchy on one point: ‘Religion is not going to go away in Africa (or elsewhere).” That is no cause for celebration. It is an occasion for profound regret that most of the human race is trapped in a Bronze-Age time-warp, hopeless in the clutches of a brutal fairy tale that leaves humanity intellectually stunted and morally degraded. — Laurence Berman, Pretoria

Here we go again! It’s Easter so, as regular as clockwork, the M&G trots out the ‘Let’s bash Christianity” article. Usually the hatchet-job is given to Shaun de Waal, but this time Pat Hopkins gets a go, with a book plug worked in through most of the article.

This time the diatribe starts from the premise that Hopkins has recently interviewed lots of eccentrics for his book, including someone who was raised to be and claimed to be a second Christ. As we know, humans claiming to be Christ are eccentric, hence Jesus Christ was ‘a deeply eccentric man”. It’s not even an argument worthy of kindergarten, yet the M&G publishes this drivel.

For a change, we also have Steve de Gruchy writing that ‘whatever the personal religious beliefs of the editor of and journalists at the M&G, there is just so much rich material to reflect on when it comes to religion that is being avoided in these pages”. Well said! — Philip Cole

Steve de Gruchy would do better to lie low and rely on the residual taboo against attacking religious belief than to provocatively invite mickey-taking from atheists.

The positives he lists in favour of religion, such as concern for refugees and people ‘of faith doing good things”, have nothing to do with religion but are basic humanitarian ideals. Religion can only mean a belief in a supreme being and subjugation to its rules and rituals. If what he says is true, that religion is deeply embedded in South Africa and that consequently people take refuge in myth and superstition rather than dealing with reality, it means that more effort should be put into debunking religion, not less.

He opines that we do not shut down music schools when people sing badly, but fails to notice that we most certainly shut down vitamin salesmen who misrepresent their product as a cure for HIV/Aids. He sets up a straw racist by saying secularism is European, when he probably means modernist, and that such secularism is arrogant because it thinks it knows more than ‘natives”, when in reality secularism thinks it knows more than believers, of whatever origin.

The pope perfectly illustrated the delusional nature of religion last week when, just as the United States was sending lifting equipment and Israel was sending sniffer dogs to the Italian earthquake areas, His Holiness announced he would be sending ‘holy oils”. — Sydney Kaye, Cape Town

I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘God Rush” feature (April 9). I could not agree more with Steve de Gruchy that a postmodern reluctance by the media to touch on religious matters does not help the struggle for life in Africa.

South Africa is a highly religious country, with reportedly 80% of its population classified Christian. Admittedly, this orthodox classification may be misleading. There are different strands of Christianity in our country — from the African indigenous to the pentecostal, from Bishop Desmond Tutu’s version to Ray McCauley’s.

Some of it embraces politics while some of it views politics with suspicion. Some of it is pro-choice, while some of it is anti-abortion. Some of it is prepared to extend civil liberties to gays and lesbians, while some of it views them as an abomination.

Faced with such a fragmented religious audience, the media gives up. At best, it gives coverage to those who shout the loudest. Having been a journalist and now working for a church in the area of media relations, I am convinced the most important determinant as to whether the media takes religion seriously is the commitment of the individual journalist.

Though the media in general has a long way to go in delivering religious coverage which measures up to the standards set in other beats, your ‘God Rush” is a move in that direction. I wish it could happen more regularly than just at Easter. — Vusi Mona, deputy administrator and spokesperson, Rhema Ministries

Steve de Gruchy misses the point completely. The only arrogance ‘catechists of European secularism” are guilty of is believing that reasoned discourse could change the opinions of those clinging to a pre-scientific mindset. Religion does not explain anything. At all. — Martin Capraro, Cape Town

Let’s air our religious views

Thank you for allowing Steve de Gruchy and others a voice on religious belief. Each one of us has the freedom to ask: ‘Of what relevance is religion to my life?” As a Christian I find the Zapiro cartoon (April 9) one of the most hard-hitting (and therefore the most relevant) portrayals of both politics and religion — and I hope no fundamentalist writes in claiming that it is ‘blasphemous”. The power struggle between our political leaders has nailed Justice to the cross. In this sense we are all ‘nailed” and our ideals betrayed by expediency, greed and the desire for power. — Nora Saneka, Durban

The cartoon in the Easter weekend edition of the M&G is extremely insensitive, particularly given that Easter is such a sacred holiday in the Christian calendar. Is this what freedom of expression means — showing total disregard for absolutely anything? — Keith Dhliwayo

Zapiro’s depicting the justice system being put to the sword by ‘Pontius” Mpshe says it all. One picture sums it all up, this being the final deadly assault on our justice system by the power players in this theatre of comedies. Alsolutely brilliant parody by Zapiro, who is clearly a genius! What would have taken 14 pages of explaining is summed up in one picture. Hopefully though ‘Lady Justice” will, as in the legend that the cartoon was based upon, rise from the dead and smite her enemies ! — Colin Bosman, Cape Town

Your Zapiro cartoon showing Justice crucified continues your long-held habit of publishing cartoons, articles and opinion pieces which satirise the symbols and even the beliefs of the Christian religion. Your publication has always been admired as a bastion of truth, tolerance and integrity in the apartheid years and today — yet you cannot seem to resist provoking Christians. Surely you are more mature and ethical than this? Does your tolerance not extend to the right to follow and practise one’s religious beliefs? Whether you share their beliefs or not, I urge you to stay true to your journalistic integrity and not resort to childish stunts to boost your readership. — Wayne Toms

The NPA did the right thing

The dropping of charges against Jacob Zuma was the result of a procedural flaw discovered in the National Prose­cuting Authority’s prosecutorial processes at the time. The NPA was executing its judicial mandate.

Evidence of political meddling was alluded to earlier by Judge Chris Nicholson. The NPA’s decision to challenge Nicholson’s ruling was ill-informed.

The NPA is one of those pillars on which our infant democracy rests. It is critical that all our democratic institutions realise that the voice of masses should take precedence when such issues are being looked at. To restore the public’s confidence in our state institutions it is imperative that the incoming administration emphasise public participation in policy formation.

This will help prevent the envisaged anarchy likely to emanate from poor service delivery. — Mzwabantu Zwide, Cape Town

The revelations of the tapes by the NPA points to worrisome conduct by the Thabo Mbeki leadership; while not mentioned by name the inferences show he was involved in manipulation of the judiciary. The only issue that is left is why Mbeki has not yet left the ANC. We are free at last. — Simphiwe Thobela, Kokstad

If Schabir Shaik is the tea water, and Zuma the tea cup, how can the courts show definitively that the tea water was poured into the tea cup, but now suddenly the tea cup has disappeared? — James Hartzell

Did she mean it?

When American shock jock Don Imus referred to athletes on the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as kroeskop jintoes (‘nappy-headed ho’s”), he unleashed protest, lawsuits and was ultimately fired. Puzzlingly, Pearlie Joubert (‘Zille’s blonde ambition”, April 9) has chosen to mark the two-year anniversary of the Rutgers controversy by giving the M&G an Imus moment of its own.

How else to explain her reference to the hip-swaying DA aunties from Mitchell’s Plain as ‘jintoes”, meaning sluts in Cape patois? Did she understand the language she was using? Joubert will have to answer questions like these. Only a quick, honest explanation will prevent a career blot on an ­outstanding journalist. — Neil Horne, Cape Town

In brief

It seems to me to be an oxymoron to be a Christian and vote for any party that supports abortion. God Almighty is vehemently opposed to the butchering of the most innocent and defenceless members of society. For anyone who claims to be Christian to vote for a party whose stated intention is to continue to murder the innocent in their mothers’ wombs is breathtakingly illogical. — John Zenstra

In brief

I apologise for confusing the name of Nikiwe Bikitsha with that of Khulani Qoma in my letter which appeared on April 3. It is the latter who ‘glosses over the disadvantages of polygamy”. The error is regretted. — J Matthews, Durban

Jacob Zuma’s statement that only Afrikaners are true white South Africans is a slap in the face of English-speaking whites who have paid taxes all their lives and always owned one passport. Every time Zuma opens his mouth he shows why he shouldn’t be the next president of South Africa. — Cilla Webster

The ANC’s demand that Desmond Tutu apologise to Zuma is outrageous. Its blind loyalty to Zuma, as opposed to a principled stand for what is right, righteous and rational, brings its integrity, morals and faith into serious doubt. — Willem van den Berg, Pretoria