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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/15/godblock-religion-software-internetYour family computer may be protected from internet nasties like porn and viruses. But is it protected from the ultimate virus? What's to stop religion infiltrating innocent minds and perpetuating itself across another generation of hapless faith victims?
Well, Godblock apparently. It's an internet filter you can download to block religious content and guard unwary souls from the "violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material" contained in religious propaganda and spiritual teaching.
Admittedly it has its disadvantages and limitations, the main one being that there's no evidence it actually exists, as no one has yet been able to download it. The irony of this is so sweet – that software that's supposed to protect the vulnerable from the deity is as hard to pin down to actually existing as Himself – that it seems somewhat gauche to spell it out, but I have anyway because frankly I'm not at all sure you're as bright or discerning as I'd prefer my readers to be.
Forgive me if I insult your intelligence – to forgive is divine, but then so is to insult. But that's what appeals to me about this Godblock stunt. It puts its finger on the colossal intelligence-insulting that both sides of the God divide indulge in in their attempts to protect people from each other's propaganda.
Intentionally or not, it's a tart satire that works both ways. From my own (metaphorically) cloistered childhood I know too well the paranoia that Christianity can inspire in vigilant parents. There are no known cases of boys being possessed by Beelzebub through watching Doctor Who, but you cannot apparently be too careful. Or perhaps you can.
But equally, it sounds a lot like genuine humanist attitudes to religion, this lingering insuperable fear that faith has a power that reason and debate simply can't compete with, that holy fire has to be fought with fire. Witness Daniel Dennett's prescription, "Safety demands that religions be put in cages". Likewise, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion echoes the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey saying that children "have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to [their parents'] bad ideas", a right to be brought up without "an atmosphere of dogma and superstition" – raising the rather alarming question of how that right is to be fulfilled and by whom.
This is not to claim that humanists have attained to anything like the absurd level of fear and loathing of more embattled Christians. My favourite example of this is CAP Movie Ministry which offers an alternative movie rating system for Christian parents. The latest Harry Potter film is up-rated from PG to R because it recruits children to the evil one and promotes teen alcoholism. So is the wonderful Aliens in the Attic, on the grounds of teen impudence and skin exposure. But when the site starts warning parents about the phallic imagery in this poster it's clearly time someone had a word.
It's a shame that a faith that's supposed to open up the potential of human life should make the world seem such a dark and hostile place to some people. And while humanism hasn't yet gone so far down that scary road, the same kind of hatch-battening against the all-powerful enemy is implicit in the rhetoric of Dawkins and Dennett, and in the approbation with which this supposed piece of software has been greeted by some of those eagerly waiting to download it.
Enormous claims are made by both sides for the powers of their champions. The omnipotence of almighty God for whom the miraculous is just a day job, and resisting whom is like trying to stand up to a nuclear missile. And the omnipotence of reason, which – if we were only rational enough to see it – annihilates any idea of God and faith.
If only both sides could bring themselves to believe in their own claims, and find such confidence in the power of their respective champions that they could leave them to fight their own battles, instead of getting so twitchy about each other. I'd download a piece of imaginary software to achieve that.
Topic: Behind the Godblock