Blind Faith : Over the World

I have just read Blind Faith by Ben Elton, who as always captures the intellectual zeitgeist, and darkest scenarios of my thoughts.

In his new novel he paints a dystopian future that tackles the issue of Faith v Science, which is something I feel quite strongly about.

If the house is burning down do you A. pray for a big sky daddy to put the fire out? Or B. do you get a hosepipe out. Hell even a bucket is basic technology.

Well the house IS burning down and science can fix things, but we need religion to get out of the way and shut up with the stone age bleatings. Give scientists all the money instead and let them concentrate of saving the planet.

Watch Sir David Frost talk to comedian and novelist Ben Elton on Over the World for Al Jazeera, about his latest novel 'Blind Faith' and how intellect is being sidelined in favour of faith and feelings.

As he tells Sir David Frost in this interview, "Intellect is on the backfoot, and passion & 'feelings' are on the front foot. I think it's a worrying situation. Ignorance is what oligarchs exploit"




I think Blind Faith should be mandatory reading in any religious studies programme. Yet again Ben Elton serves up a healthy dose of cynicism coated with comedy, and makes me want to keep working at prevent his vision ever coming true.

Blind Faith tells of a UK gone mad after a great flood with religious Political Correctness. Where any rubbish believed by anyone of any faith must be respected however bonkers. It's a modern 1984 where privacy has been given up voluntarily.

"The Holy Order was announced at the weekly Wembley Stadium Faith Festival. These were the celebrations at which charismatic believers from all over the capital convened to share their heartache, rejoice in the Love and testify to their faith. The stadium held 250,000 people and so it was decreed that any gathering of that number who could be seen to speak with once voice should be able to make a law."

Of course the first law passed is the Faith Law making it illegal to have no faith. Showing the wrong emotion is dangerous, Group Hugs at work are mandatory, and one must act normal even at home, in case your chat room host or neighbour notices and reports your to the Inquisitors.

Acting 'normal' is over-emoting one's innermost feelings at all times, and privacy is considered suspicious. Darwin is a banned text, and the only books allowed are self improvement manuals. You can NEVER turn off the television.

It was so horrific that I had to keep reading it in short bursts, and then go outside to listen to crickets, and look at my view of One Tree Hill to remind myself that thankfully I now live in New Zealand. Blind Faith is an extrapolation of my worst nightmares that caused me to flee the UK and move to a rational, and above all secular country.

As an 80s child, I grew up watching Ben Elton on the UK's Friday Night Live with his vitriolic rants about Mrs Thatcher. His bile helped shape my adult cynicism and world view which translated perfectly onto the page in his books.

I think I have a copy of all of his works, from Stark & Gridlock on climate change, to Popcorn on the trend of death & violence in cinema and on TV. In Dead Famous he painted an inevitable end to the Big Brother human zoo, and in High Society he wrote about the real reasons for the War on Drugs/Reason.

In all of his books he has laid out cynically and succinctly the machinations of politicians and media use to manage the Mood of the Public. This is perfect to add to my collection, as is an Evlove Tshirt.