Dialogue: I think I'll maintain my belief in disbelief

Got a letter the other day from a bloke who reckons that when Voltaire was on his deathbed he was asked to renounce the Devil and replied that at his age he couldn't afford to make any new enemies.

Brief research didn't confirm the quote so it might be apocryphal, but it sounds so richly Voltairean I'm going to believe it anyway.

The volatile French maverick was a star of the Enlightenment, one of the courageous people who intellectually terrorised an oppressive Church in Europe in the 18th century.

Many of his sayings became catchcries for the gradually developing secularism of the past two centuries, among them, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," and "If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him."

He has for a long time been the patron saint, as it were, of the rationalists but I'm sure that were he alive today he would still be a sceptic and wouldn't subscribe to any of the belief systems that abound.

He would know more than anyone just how damaging ideologies, uncritically held, can be to the mind - which was confirmed for me this week by two examples.

First, the man who restructured the power industry, Max Bradford, and who staked his political career on prices falling, concedes now that he got it wrong - and good on him for the admission.

He unsheathed his sword by taking responsibility for the decisions made then, but decided not to fall on it by saying the advice he got pointed positively towards a good result for consumers.

(What did he mean by "I stake my career"?)

If you look at Bradford's CV and if you listened to him at the time the legislation was being rammed through Parliament, you can understand why he looked less critically at that advice than an independent thinker would have.

It fitted the prevailing ideology to which he subscribed. "Competition cuts costs, competition at all costs," goes the mantra.

You might recall that many of us at the time reviled him for his arrogant, unnecessary haste, but he could see no reason to hesitate because Treasury, or whoever gave the advice, was telling him what he wanted to hear, what he knew, what was a vital piece in the jigsaw of his ideology.

Why falter in the face of a great Truth?

Bill Birch, you might remember, similarly explained away his economic wetness as a devout Muldoonist, or unreconstructed socialist, at the time of Think Big.

He claimed that the Government was acting on the best advice available at that time.

Like most people who need belief systems, he then did a volte face, became economically dry and an effective, head-down, hard-graft apostle for a new ideology.

The second example of a mind in a tunnel was this. In a eulogy to loved friend Selwyn Dawson a few weeks ago, I wrote: "I was approached to join the rationalists society. It was Selwyn - and I never told him this - who made me decide not to."

You see, I listened to some of the rationalists and found in them some of the same bigotry, the same certainty of rightness, that my grandfather had; but when I talked with Selwyn on any subject, I discovered this deep well of tolerance.

This drew a letter from the editor of the NZ Rationalist & Humanist, Bill Cooke, who said, among other things: "I see our association came in for another round of abuse in your column" and asking me would I like to meet over a lunch or a drink or did I wish to nurture an old grievance based on obsolete information.

Well, if he thinks that's abuse, he's lived a life of rare gentility for an editor in the modern world. And I can't remember when I previously disparaged rationalists (although he says it was last year) so another round of abuse is ridiculous.

Also, far from nurturing an old grievance, I've been more annoyed by running out of milk for my tea than by anything the rationalists have said or done.

Anyhow, the editor wrote that the ball was in my court - where I was happy to leave it. But he served again by telephoning and asking me to meet him. I said I thought his letter rather confirmed what I thought of them and he said our difference was a shame because we are both on the same side.

Well, he realised immediately what he'd said and apologised, but it did seem very Freudian to me.

I have no doubt whatever that some members of the Rationalists Association are liberal-minded and generous towards the ideas of others - but others are not.

Organisations based on common religion or philosophy are susceptible to the overcooking of ideas and beliefs in the spontaneous combustion of mutual agreement.

Even some of the Skeptics, of whom I am one, believe too fervently in disbelief.