Apathy Sketchpad

This month, the Religious Crackpot Of The Month award (I love how these nutters just roll around, regular as clockwork, at least once a month) goes to General Sir Richard Dannatt, who is something called the Chief of General Staff, seen here in fancy dress as a magpie’s nest. He wins the award primarily for making this comment:

In my business, asking people to risk their lives is part of the job, but doing so without giving them the chance to understand that there is a life after death is something of a betrayal, and I think there is very much an obligation on …a Christian leader to include a spiritual dimension into his people’s preparations for operations, and the general conduct of their lives. Qualities and core values are fine as a universally acceptable moral baseline for leadership, but the unique life, death, resurrection and promises of Christ provide that spiritual opportunity that I believe takes the privilege of leadership to another level.

I think that’s all that I need to say to convince you he’s totally mad, but just for good measure I’ll ramble on a little further. My main problem with this is not that there isn’t a life after death (although there isn’t), but that if I were killed without knowing there was a life after death and there was, I’d be pleased, which is not really the same as feeling betrayed, whereas if some crackpot general had convinced me there was and there wasn’t, then I (or more realistically, those who survived me) would feel very betrayed, and that this would be quite justified because they had literally been betrayed.

Even if it could be proven beyond reasonable doubt that there was life after death, he’d still be wrong. Given that it hasn’t, he’s not only wrong, but his position is diametrically opposed to the truth. If you replace the word “without” with the word “after” and delete after the word “betrayal” then you arrive at the truth.

This blog is equally at fault, and is linked by Libby Purves, who has written an opinion piece without expressing one, which would appear to be an act both of spineless sham diplomacy and of sloppy journalism (which is ironic considering she calls her section a “guide to religion and thought” — non-overlapping magisteria if ever there were any). The Times also choose to back this report up with a piece by Ruth Gledhill, their “religious correspondent”, although judging by her output, “religious correspondent” is a description rather than a job title. This is what she said:

I understand the Ministry of Defence was not too impressed by Sir Richard’s unabashed evangelical take on the eschatological aspect of the job he does. … And yet, after all, someone’s got to be head of the Army. Surely, given the close daily contact with death and destruction that Army service entails as Iraq is all to sad a witness to, it’s better that the person responsible for all this is someone with strong religious beliefs.

She is a crap religious correspondent if she understands the issues that poorly. After that is an acknowledgement that other people may disagree, but unfortunately it isn’t a sentence so I can’t infer any views from it:

Or maybe there are some who think not, Islam, Christianity and the state of the world in general.

What the hell does that mean?

And perhaps more to the point, where is the secular reaction to this? Why is that exactly nowhere to be found anywhere on The Times’ website? Why do they have a special Irrational Correspondent and no rational reaction?

I don’t know why I ask such questions. I know already that there exists no answer that will satisfy me.