"Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were 'without hope and without God in the world' (Eph 2:12). Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths. Notwithstanding their gods, they were 'without God' and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future. In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing)."
While he's rewriting history, he may as well go a bit further:
"From the beginning, Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the Logos, as the religion according to reason...It has always defined men, all men without distinction, as creatures and images of God, proclaiming for them...the same dignity. In this connection, the Enlightenment is of Christian origin and it is no accident that it was born precisely and exclusively in the realm of the Christian faith" [alexander drummer (29 July 2005). "Address on Christianity as the Religion according to Reason"].
So Christianity is now setting itself up as the religion of reason and the cause of the Enlightenment (wait--don't we use Arabic numerals, just to name one rather glaring counterexample). Don't non-Christians have any say in this? How would Galileo have felt about it?
The word preposterous has an interesting origin: putting what is normally first (pre) backwards (post). As an adjective, I think it describes Benedict XVI's encyclical rather well.
So, all you other faiths of the world: please tell me there is some concept of hope that does not rely on the existence of a Christian deity.
I am going to demonstrate, through a rather crude hypothetical experiment, how hope requires no deity at all, but rather is an intrinsic part of human nature. I call it the "Little Old Lady Experiment."
In today's world, it is hard not to be cynical. We assume the worst about other people. We even expect it. But, really, just how common is evil? Sure, we all have our dark sides, but haven't you ever wondered, what percentage of the human population is really out to get you?
Let's start by assuming the worst of everyone. In order to test this hypothesis, we perform an interesting social experiment. Let's assume that you can perform the same experiment using a cultural equivalent, just in case you feel there may be a cultural bias to the experiment itself. Start with a little old lady, or the cultural equivalent of a little old lady. Now let's imagine the worst neighborhood we can imagine: again, the same culture as the little old lady. Put her there in the worst hour of the day, say, for example, the middle of the night. Now, surrounded by random street people in that neighborhood, have her drop her purse.
How often, do you think, somebody will say: "hey, lady, you dropped your purse"?
Think about it hard enough, and I think you will find that the answers will probably surprise you. Deep down you know that most of the time somebody, even the person you may think the worst of, will be compelled to do the right thing.
I would someday like to see this social experiment actually conducted. But in the meantime, I will rely on similar experiments for data. In Freakonomics, a bagel salesman modeled a business by knowing that customers will be honest 80 to 90 percent of the time.
In other words, hope isn't just a phenomenon that is tied to belief in a deity. There is something within all of us that generally wants to do the right thing most of the time. Biologically, we are all social creatures. We all want to be successful, and are programmed to try to be beneficial more often than not. If anything, it feels alien to get something for nothing, or to take advantage of a helpless person or situation. It feels sadistic to take advantage, and we all feel guilty when we do. And when we do something immoral, we immediately seek approval from other human beings in order to justify it, out of insecurity.
I would argue that altruism is not motivated by personal choice, but is hardwired in our DNA.
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