At the request of my dear sister Rose’s parish priest, I accepted a telephone consultation appointment with Sister Moecha Meretrix, the principal of the Catholic school to whom Rose sends her vast brood of Catholic children, Mother Superior of a local Dominican convent, and, as it happens, a member of the Ecumenical Congress of the United States of America Board of Directors. I was very busy during the week, so I arranged for her to call me at my home in Great Falls, Virginia on Saturday afternoon.
Tom: Hello, Mother Superior Meretrix.
MS: Uh… hello, is this Tom Collins?
Tom: It is indeed, Mother Superior.
MS: Um… how did you…
Tom: I have Caller ID, Mother Superior.
MS: Oh. I see. I suppose you know why I’m calling, then?
Tom: Not exactly. How can I help?
MS: Well, first of all, I just want to confirm what I was told, that you you don’t charge anything for the first… um… consultation.
Tom: That’s correct, Mother Superior. It’s part of my marketing program.
MS: Oh, that’s a relief, because for what you charge for an hour, I could buy a month’s worth of anti-retroviral medication for children at our order’s AIDS orphanage in South Africa, vaccinate nine hundred children for small pox at our mission in Bhutan, provide rehydration therapy for a thousand infant cholera victims at our charity hospital in Haiti, supply mosquito netting for eleven villages in the upper Amazon, and still have enough left over to buy new uniforms for the four of your nephews and two of your nieces who belong to the marching band right here in Virginia, at their Catholic school in Fairfax.
Tom: As Our Savior has said, Mother Superior, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto the Lord that which is His.
MS: Yes, that’s all very well and good, just so long as I don’t get an invoice asking the archdiocese to render unto Tom Collins an outrageous amount of money for his sagacious advice.
Tom: Mother Superior, you have my sincerest assurances, this one’s on me. What can I do for the Church this afternoon?
MS: Have you heard about that study they just published in Current Biology? The one that says atheist children are better than children from religious homes?
Tom: You mean, The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism across the World, by Decety et al., out of the psychology department at the University of Chicago?
MS: Yes, that’s the one.
Tom: The investigators conducted psychological tests on children aged five through twelve in six different countries, including Christian and Muslim subjects, as well as the children of parents who identified as atheists. The results revealed that, at a high level of statistical significance, children from religious families are less altruistic than children from atheist families.
MS: But that has to be wrong, doesn’t it?
Tom: Why?
MS: What to you mean, “why?” You’re a Catholic! You went to catechism! I can’t believe you asked that! Because religious training provides moral guidance, that’s why! And since you said that, may I ask if you, perhaps, are the reason there’s a rumor going around that your sister Rose is thinking about converting to Episcopalianism?
Tom: High Church, of course. It’s her idea. Actually, I think she might have already done it, but I don’t know. A few months ago, she told me she had, but later she said that was just so I would tell her husband about it. Now I can’t really get a straight answer out of her. As far as I can tell, all her kids think she’s still a Catholic.
MS: But – conversion? Whatever for?
Tom: So she can get a divorce. Or at least that’s what she tells me.
MS: A divorce? Why does Rose want a divorce?
Tom: Well, primarily, she says, she wants to make sure she is no longer responsible for her husband’s debts.
MS: His debts? What’s the matter with him? Did he develop gambling habit or… something like that?
Tom: No, Hank is accumulating debts because he ran off with his sister-in-law, Shannon, to West Virginia, where they are both spending lots of money even though they don’t have jobs.
MS: West Virginia? You mean they… eloped?
Tom: No, nothing as sane as that. Hank and Shannon are preparing for the Apocalypse.
MS: The Apocalypse?
Tom: Yes, you know – the End Times. They’re storing up guns, ammo, radiation suits, freeze dried food, water, dynamite, that sort of thing. They’ve been at it for years, and Rose has given up on the situation. No matter how much she and Shannon’s husband plead with Hank and Shannon, neither of them will come back to Fairfax.
MS: I don’t understand.
Tom: They’re just taking the Book of Revelation seriously, Mother Superior.
MS: Mr. Collins, you – and they, for that matter – ought to be fully aware that preemptive eschatology is not part of accepted Catholic doctrine!
Tom: Nevertheless, it’s a very popular concept with a lot of Christians these days – they like to imagine themselves safely ensconced in some remote wilderness redoubt while all the sinners and atheists get what they deserve when the Antichrist wreaks havoc during the Tribulations.
MS: But how could someone do something like that – desert their family and head for the hills to hunker down in a survival bunker?
Tom: You have to ask? Come now, Mother Superior.
MS: I’m not sure what you’re getting at – after all, it is an extremely selfish thing to do.
Tom: Well, Hank and Shannon are both very religious, you know.
MS: What’s that got… oh… the study.
Tom: Right. The study found that religious children, and by implication, religious people in general, are significantly more selfish than atheists.
MS: Mr. Collins, if I may say so, it sounds to me as if you believe that study.
Tom: I’m certainly not surprised by the results. Religious children were found to have lower levels of empathy, higher degrees of selfishness, and to be much more likely to recommend much more severe punishments in experimental circumstances where wrongdoing was discussed.
MS: But… but… atheists don’t believe in God. How could they have any morality at all without a Supreme Being?
Tom: What do atheists need a Supreme Being for, Mother Superior?
MS: Everybody needs a Supreme Being!
Tom: What for?
MS: To… to make them behave, that’s what for!
Tom: I see. Does it matter what the Supreme Being is?
MS: What do you mean?
Tom: Does it have to be an Old Man with a long beard up in the sky?
MS: Mr. Collins, God is not an Old Man with a long beard up in the sky!
Tom: What is He, then?
MS: God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! You know that!
Tom: For the Catholics. But not for the Muslim children in the study, for example. Not even for all of the Christians, as a matter of fact.
MS: Now you’re splitting hairs. What’s your point?
Tom: My point is, what if the Supreme Being is a Flying Spaghetti Monster? Would being touched by His Noodly Appendage be sufficient to instill moral rectitude?
MS: A flying… what?
Tom: A Flying Spaghetti Monster.
MS: No, I don’t think so! A flying spaghetti monster cannot confer moral rectitude, righteousness, absolution of sin, Divine Grace or anything else, except, perhaps, an extreme case of indigestion!
Tom: But the Lord Almighty can.
MS: Yes. And if we don’t have His guidance, we simply have no morality, that’s all there is to it. Without God, we are incapable of distinguishing what is good from what is evil.
Tom: And you and your colleagues have twelve-inch steel rulers to rap across the knuckles of any Catholic school child who doesn’t understand God’s definition of the difference.
MS: Oh, I wish, Mr. Collins! Unfortunately, we can’t do that anymore.
Tom: Those good old days are gone forever, then?
MS: Sadly, yes. And, I notice that having the knowledge of good and evil beaten into you by the nuns at your Catholic school doesn’t seem to have done you any harm, though, has it? You’re quite successful, aren’t you?
Tom: I would not say, Mother Superior, that success inside the Washington Beltway has very much to do with being able to distinguish good from evil. But time is short, and we digress. Did you know that there is an alternative theory to yours, one that explains why atheist kids are significantly better human beings that Christian or Muslim kids?
MS: What sort of theory are you referring to?
Tom: Well, your theory is that if the universe doesn’t have Somebody in Charge, then nobody will be able to figure out what’s right or wrong. That’s a “top down” theory of morality, where a Supreme Being decides, for example, that it’s wrong to have sexual intercourse without Divine Approval, to miss Mass, go without confession of sin, eat pork, eat lobster, eat meat on a Friday, loan money with interest, work on a certain day of the week and so forth; and right to have slaves, mutilate children’s genitals, marry four wives – or twenty or thirty if you’re a Mormon – burn homosexuals at the stake; that’s why they’re called “faggots” isn’t it, and…
MS: Mr. Collins! You’ll be going on about the Spanish Inquisition next, I suppose! You’ve made your point – yes, whatever morality we have comes, as you say from the “top down,” from God Almighty. It seems to me that should be obvious – without Somebody in Charge, as you say, there is simply no logical basis for morality, as we know it, to exist.
Tom: But the alternative theory, Mother Superior, is that morality as we know it comes from the “bottom up,” via our evolution as a social primate species. Numerous scientific studies of related primate species, such as chimpanzees and bonobos…
MS: Just a minute here, Mr. Collins! You’re saying a bunch of monkeys invented morality?
Tom: Not monkeys; apes, actually. But yes, I’m saying that what we conceive of as altruistic behavior, a capacity for empathy, a sense of fair play and a notion of justice – all of those things can be shown to confer advantages for the survival of the individual social primate who has them, as well as for the survival of the DNA line of that individual’s immediate family. Consequently, given millions of years, natural selection will inevitably produce a dominant population of social primates – that is, human beings – in which those traits are innately manifested. And those traits are manifested, I might add, without the need of a Supreme Being to mandate them.
MS: Well, this is all just theories, isn’t it?
Tom: Yes, and we know the difference between theory and reality, don’t we?
MS: I should think I do, at least. Some ivory-tower sorts such as you, Mr. Collins, I’m not so sure about, actually.
Tom: Oh, I know the difference. Let me illustrate. A young boy goes to his father, who is reading a newspaper on the couch in the living room, and asks, “Dad, what’s the difference between theory and reality?” And Dad says, “Son, go ask your mother and your sister if they would have sex with the guy who lives across the street for a million dollars.” So about twenty minutes later, the boy comes back and says, “Okay, Dad, I asked Mom and Sis if they’d take a million dollars to have sex with the guy across the street, and they both said yes.” “And there you have it, son,” the father replied, “that is the difference. You see, the theory is, the guy across the street has a million dollars; and the reality is, you and I live with a couple of whores.”
MS: Mr. Collins! That is the crudest explanation of the difference between theory and reality I have ever heard! If I were your priest, I’d give you one hundred Hail Marys, seventy-five Our Fathers, fifty Rosaries, and twenty-five Stations of the Cross for telling such a smutty story to a nun!
Tom: But you’re not my priest, or anybody’s, for that matter, because the Church says it’s morally wrong for women to take confessions.
MS: That… it… the Pope… the Church… the Lord… oh, to Hell with it. I think the best thing to do would be to pray for you, Mr. Collins.
Tom: Gee thanks. So, why does this psychological study upset you so much, anyway?
MS: It’s not just me. It has everybody on the Board of Directors upset. Especially the part where it says that the Muslim children are meaner and more selfish than any of the others.
Tom: Well, it doesn’t really say that. Or at least, the finding that the Muslim children scored higher for selfishness and judgmental attitudes than any other group wasn’t statistically significant at a probability of error less than one in a thousand, anyway.
MS: It made both of the imams very upset, especially the Shi’ite. And when he said they should have had more Jews in the study so we could see how mean and selfish they are, the Unitarian minister, the AME bishop and the Buddhist monk had to physically restrain the Orthodox rabbi from punching him in the snoot!
Tom: Just the Orthodox rabbi?
MS: The Reform rabbi broke out laughing and said that was the first time he had ever heard a Shi’ite ask for more Jews, and the Conservative rabbi just shrugged, pointed at the imams and said “Meh! What can you expect from a couple of schmegegges like them?” What is a schmegegge, by the way? Do you know?
Tom: It’s the sort of word that would no doubt add a large number of Hail Marys, Our Fathers, Rosaries and Stations of the Cross to my penance, were I to reveal its meaning to a nun, Mother Superior.
MS: Oh. Well then, Mr. Collins, as you can see, this study is already having very negative impacts on the ecumenical community. We’ve struggled very hard over the last decade in increase church attendance – at least on major holidays, at any rate – and the last thing we need is a bunch of secular humanist psychology professors saying they’ve proved that taking your kids to church makes them mean, selfish and judgmental!
Tom: Only relative to kids who get to stay home and play on Sundays instead.
MS: I don’t think that’s going to be a strong enough reply. The Ecumenical Congress of the United States needs to mount a counter-attack!
Tom: Oh, really? In that case, I’d recommend that the ECUS ought to do what the tobacco and fossil fuel industries did.
MS: What was that?
Tom: When scientific studies were published indicating that tobacco is bad for human health, the tobacco industry funded research to determine the health hazards of tobacco. When scientific studies indicated that burning fossil fuels was bad for the environment, the fossil fuel industry funded research to determine the environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels.
MS: But didn’t those studies verify that tobacco is bad for your health and that burning fossil fuels affects the environment?
Tom: Some of them did. And guess what? When the scientists who performed those studies applied for money to do more tobacco or fossil fuel research, they didn’t get any. On the other hand, the scientists whose studies cast doubt on the health hazards of tobacco or the effects of acid rain, ozone smog or global warming got more funding any time they asked for it. Catch my drift here, Mother Superior?
MS: I… think… so, Mr. Collins. But, if I recall correctly, weren’t the scientists who produced the studies that proved tobacco is bad for your health eventually proved correct?
Tom: The key word there is “eventually.” And, as I’m sure you’ll note, there is still plenty of scientific debate going on about whether burning fossil fuels causes global warming. And in both instances, we’re talking about hard science – chemistry, physics, meteorology, that sort of thing. Psychology, on the other hand, is pretty squishy stuff. You guys get enough psychologists with enough studies on your side, and the debate about whether being religious really makes people mean, selfish and judgmental could go on for a hundred years.
MS: You think so? A hundred years?
Tom: At least until civilization destroys itself in a worldwide religious war, anyway.
MS: Well, if it turns out that’s what God decides is right, who are we to question Him? Can you recommend any… um… appropriate psychologists to perform… the necessary favorable research?
Tom: Just issue a press release, and they’ll come running.
MS: You’re sure?
Tom: I guarantee.
MS: And… what, specifically, should this press release say? We wouldn’t want to be too… obvious, now would we?
Tom: Tell you what – I’ll draft an appropriately worded version and email it to you tonight.
MS: That’s also free of charge, right?
Tom: Absolutely.
MS: Oh, thank you, Mr. Collins.
Tom: You’re welcome, Mother Superior.
MS: And when you confess all the naughty things you did during this conversation, say I told you to mention writing that press release for us. I’m sure the priest will go easier on you.
Tom: I’ll be sure to do that, Mother Superior.
MS: That’s a good boy. God bless you, Tom Collins.
Tom: And you. Goodbye, Mother Superior.