Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Robert's Your Mother's Brother

A while back whilst discussing in a reckless manner the relative merits of atheism and theism (was I doing that?), I said something to the effect that I myself didn't have any definite solution to propose (to the philosophic/metaphysical/social stalemate and conundrum). Well, now I have.

I'm sure I have at times sounded hostile towards the idea of atheism, but there's at least one situation in which I very much approve of it. And that is, within the clergy. There is no doubt in my mind that the church is the proper place for the atheist. It is the perfect venue for the fetishism of stained-glass windows, of ecclesiastical vestments, of ritual, tradition, incense, liturgy, hymn and prayer, without all the fuss of having to 'believe' in 'God'.

I myself have at times longed to wear a dog collar.

I understand the call of the cloth. When one is pulling one's surplice over one's cassock in the vestry, rehearsing one's sermon, the feel of ancient and solemn stone all around, the worn slabs beneath the feet, the anticipated tossing of censers in the air, what need is there for that superfluity known as belief? God, they say, is in the details, and when you have as many details as these, you can find that he is mercifully lost in them, as in the folds of your frock and the flocking of your flock.

Who better to understand the subtleties of Nietzsche or Schopenhauer than your local vicar? Who is more strategically placed to fathom the depths of the Ligottian cosmic nightmare than a member of the Holy See?

Not only do I think that it is a good thing for priests of all denominations under the Cross of our Lord to be atheist, I think it should be mandatory. Although, I suppose there is some room for agnosticism, for instance, amongst wacky heterosexual priests and so on.



By the same token, it should be obligatory under international law, for all scientists, of whatever field, to be devoutly religious, and, so as there are no shirkers, let's be specific and say that they should be.... Quakers. It'll work something like this. A group of scientifically minded Friends will seat themselves together in a modest laboratory, bare of equipment, in complete silence. After some minutes, perhaps, at the moving of the Inner Light, one of them will rise to his feet and say:

"Friends, I have something I wish to share with you. Energy can neither be created, nor destroyed. Thus within any closed system, the level of energy, and by extension, also of mass, must remain constant."

"Thank you, Friend, we hear you." (Comes the chorus of response.)

The Friend seats himself once more, and again, some minutes pass in silence until, by the promptings of the Inner Light, another Friend stands and says:

"Friends, I feel that I, too, have something to say, and that a voice within me is asking me to pass on that no physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics."

And so on.

However, since, Quakerism, is, obviously, slightly too congruous with atheism and with science as it stands, perhaps it would be best to go a little further, and from there to legislate that all scientists, must, by law, become yogis. They will then, therefore, sit in their laboratories (or stand etc.) in various forms of yogic practice, such as suspending lead weights from their testicles by string, balancing on the top of a broomstick, and so on. Experimentation is definitely to be encouraged. The Hindu cosmology should be on a scale sufficient to accomodate the needs of science (unlike parochial old atheistic Christianity), and yogic practice should both stimulate and temper the mind to the most blessed and fertile invention.

In such a world, viola! Bob is, literally, your uncle.

I imagine the following discussions taking place between men of science and men of the cloth in our coming world:

Father Coombes: But you see, my dear man, the true function of religion is to lead us on the path of renunciation - the renunciation of belief. At last to feel the air on one's naked defences is quite a relief.

Professor Guessit: You priests are so nihilistic. In your focus on the paraphernalia of celebration, you forget the creative principle.

Father Coombes: I'm afraid that setting your eyebrows on fire and wishful thinking are not enough to protect us from the divine and terrible non-existence of God, that comes upon us, in the end, like a trembling thunder of sunlight on a mid-afternoon tea party in June.

Professor Guessit: Can't you see the chauvinism implicit in such rational gnosticism? With our tongue-nailing practice we've already achieved great things, and there's no reason why we should not achieve more. Just the other day we made a huge leap in our development of teleportation. Admittedly, the development was actually to take a huge leap. But we're getting there.

Excellent!

Any form of teleportation developed through tongue-nailing meditation is a teleportation for which I would be willing to volunteer as a guinea pig.

Labels: atheism, Bob, Christianity, Hinduism, Science