Read Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion for Free Online Page A

fools.
    Yearly moment of release at the Agape Restaurant. ( illustration credit 2.18 )

III
Kindness
    i.Libertarianism and Paternalism
    1.
Once we are grown up, we are seldom encouraged officially to be nice to one another. A key assumption of modern Western political thinking is that we should be left alone to live as we like without being nagged, without fear of moral judgement and without being subject to the whims of authority.Freedom has become our supreme political virtue. It is not thought to be the state’s task to promote a vision of how we should act towards one another or to send us to hear lectures about chivalry and politeness. Modern politics, on both left and right, is dominated by what we can call a libertarian ideology.
    In his
On Liberty
of 1859,John Stuart Mill, one of the earliest and most articulate advocates of this hands-off approach, explained: ‘The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.’
    In this scheme, the state should harbour no aspirations to tinker with the inner well-being or outward manners of its members. The foibles of citizens are placed beyond comment or criticism – for fear of turning government into that most reviled and unpalatable kind of authority in libertarian eyes, the nanny state.
    2.
Religions, on the other hand, have always had far more directive ambitions, advancing far-reaching ideas about how members of a community should behave towards one another.
    Consider Judaism, for example. Certain passages in the Jewish legal code, theMishnah, have close parallels in modernlaw. There are familiar-sounding statutes about not stealing, breaking contracts or exacting disproportionate revenge on enemies during war.
    However, a great many other decrees extend their reach dramatically far beyond what a libertarian political ideology would judge to be appropriate bounds. The code is obsessed with the details of how we should behave with our families, our colleagues, strangers and even animals. It dictates that we must never sit down to eat a meal before we have fed our goats and our camels, that we should ask our parents for permission when agreeing to go on a journey of more than one night’s duration, that we should invite any widows in our communities for dinner every spring-time and that we should beat our olive trees only once during the harvest so as to leave any remaining fruit to the fatherless and to the poor. Such recommendations are capped by injunctions on how often to have sex, with men told of their duty before God to make love to their wives regularly, according to a timetable that aligns frequency with the scale of their professional commitments: ‘For men of independent means, every day. For labourers, twice a week. For donkey drivers, once a week. For camel drivers, once in thirty days. For sailors, once every six months’ (Mishnah, Ketubot, 5:6).
    The Jewish legal code advises not only that stealing is wrong but also that a donkey driver ought to have sex with his wife once a week. Moses receives the Tablets of theLaw. From a FrenchBible,
c
. 834. ( illustration credit 3.1 )
    3.
Libertarian theorists would concede that it is no doubt admirable to try to satisfy a spouse’s sexual needs, to be generous with olives and to keep one’s elders abreast of one’s travel plans. However, they would also condemn as peculiar and plain sinister any paternalistic attempt to convert these aspirations into statutes. When to feed the dog and ask widows over for supper are, according to a libertarian worldview, questions for the conscience of the individual rather than the judgement of the community.
    In secular society, by the libertarian’s reckoning, a firm line should divide conduct that is subject to law from conduct that is subject to personal morality. It should fall