Islam is not a respectable religion, and it does not deserve our respect
Yesterday, Jerry Coyne put up a video of 20 Muslim scholars and academics speaking on various aspects of their faith. Taken together they make a strong case for not only not respecting Islam, but for positively disrespecting it. Here is the last clip from the film. Watch this first, and then I will go on with the rest of this post.
As Jerry says so clearly:
What is most frightening—and enlightening—about this, is that it shows how sincerely these people—eloquent and educated people—actually believe in the ludicrous dictates of Islam. That’s often forgotten by those who excuse terrorists by claiming that the terrorists’ motivations are not religious but political.
It is ridiculous to claim that the issues raised by Islam are simply political. They’re not. They are deeply embedded in the fundamental texts of Islam, texts which, not to put too fine a point on it, are of doubtful provenance and authenticity. As Joseph Schacht, whom Wikipedia describes as “a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York,” is quoted by Tom Holland (in his new book In the Shadow of the Sword) to this effect:
We must abandon the gratuitous assumptions that there existed originally an authentic core of information going back to the time of the Prophet. [36]
In other words, the founding documents of Islam are sometimes centuries older than the supposed prophet of Islam, and their historical provenance is insecure. Nevertheless, Muslim scholars are not yet prepared, at least in any considerable numbers, to face the fact of the critical historical study of their founding texts, and, as the person in this video takes it for granted, not only do the texts bear the authority of God himself as a final revelation; but even their most primitive and brutal prescriptions must be adhered to. He even suggests, in what would be funny if it were not so pathological, that those who sin in the ways described, by committing adultery or engaging in homosexual acts, actually want to be treated in these brutal ways; they want to be killed by stoning. Such people, as one person says, if they exist, which she takes leave to doubt, are suffering from some psychopathology and need psychiatric help.
This would be crystal clear, if people didn’t keep making apologies for Islam. And while the majority of Muslims may oppose the protests over the insult to their prophet — and there seems to be no secure basis upon which to make this judgement, however often repeated — it seems clear that the central core of Islam is reflected by the academics and scholars collected by Jonathan Pararajasingham, and poste on his blog by Jerry Coyne. The bona fides of the man in the video just above are these (I copy from Jerry Coyne, along with his own wry comment in italics):
20. Shaykh Haitham al-Haddad is a London-based Islamic scholar. He sits on the boards of advisors for Islamic organisations in the United Kingdom, including the Islamic Sharia Council, and is the chair and operations advisor for the Muslim Research and Development Foundation. He is also a trustee for the Muslim Research and Development Foundation in the United Kingdom. al-Haddad explains why stoning is an appropriate punishment for certain crimes, including adultery. He maintains that those people who get stoned actually want to be stoned! He says he receives many requests from Western women who have committed adultery, asking how they can find their way to a Muslim country so that they may be stoned to death. Yeah, right!
Yeah, right, indeed! I can just imagine these pleading women lining up a al-Haddad’s door, seeking a place where they can be stoned to death! But notice how this ridiculous – almost certainly lying – man holds positions of great influence in the Muslim community in Great Britain. He is a respected scholar of Islam, we are to suppose, and not only believes that British women (and not only Muslim ones) want to be stoned for adultery, but implicitly suggests that this would be an appropriate change to introduce into British law.
I conclude from this sort of thing, not only that Islam is not a religion to be respected, but it is one that needs to be criticised and opposed to the greatest extent possible, until it is discredited in the eyes of its own adherents, let alone of those who are not Muslim. Of course, we have to be careful that we do not tar with the same brush those who do not buy into the Islamist rhetoric, as Maryam Namazie points out in a recent post. “This is about politics not religion,” she says, but she shows clearly, at the end of her piece, that it isn’t just about politics at all. She quotes from the late Marxist Mansoor Hekmat, who said:
In Islam … the individual has no rights or dignity. In Islam, the woman is a slave. In Islam, the child is on par with animals. In Islam, freethinking is a sin deserving of punishment. Music is corrupt. Sex without permission and religious certification, is the greatest of sins. This is the religion of death. In reality, all religions are such but most religions have been restrained by freethinking and freedom-loving humanity over hundreds of years. This one was never restrained or controlled.”
This is not just a political statement. It is a statement about a religion which suppresses human rights and dignity, enslaves women, considers children as little more than animals, deems music corrupt and corrupting (other videos in the collection make this point with ridiculous emphasis), and sex without permission one of the greatest sins. It is, he says, a religion of death, and though all religions are such — I continue to call Roman Catholicism a death cult, as some of you may recall — some religions have already gone through a period where they have been forced to restrain themselves and accept that freedom-loving people have a right to act freely without religious oversight. This is something that is still not granted by Islam, whatever one might say about the moderation of individual Muslims. Their religion is one that needs criticism, and needs to be put through the fires of purification, so that it can come to recognise that it is only one worldview amongst others, and that it does not and cannot have an unproblematic word from a god. Its whole structure of beliefs and laws is based on sand, and it is time that Muslims were made to be aware that many people think this, and that they have a right, nay, a duty, to say so. Some of this criticism, no doubt, will be crude and insulting. Well, it’s going to take some of this in order to toughen the hides of those who react with violence at the issuance of any challenge from those who don’t share Islam’s kooky beliefs.
This is a religion that deserves to be criticised and condemned for its manifold offences against humanity. Its record of defending and upholding human rights is troublingly poor, and, if we take the so-called academics in the collection of video clips from which I took the clip above as any indication of the mind of Islam, then this is not something that is likely to end soon. Notice, for example, how many people in the audience clapped when the Muslim scholar highlighted above made his stupid remark that he would want to be stoned if he sinned. It simply took my breath away. That in itself was so chillingly disturbing that it demands enquiry. We have to remember that these are people who have come to live amongst us in the West, and that they are making claims for a kind of recognition and freedom from criticism which would imprison all of us.
There is an article in the Telegraph this morning, by one Shashank Josi. In it the author speaks in detail about the $100,000 bounty put on the head of the producer of the short video clip “Innocence of Muslims,” a bounty placed by a government minister on the head of a man who lives in another country, and one to which his own nation is allied. As Josi says:
The minister, like a good number of his venal and incompetent colleagues, is undoubtedly a buffoon of the highest order. He once dismissed Pakistan’s need for railways, suggesting that Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan had done without. Yet these comments are no laughing matter. It is intolerable that a senior official, in a country scarred by violent extremism, should urge the murder of an allied nation’s citizen, for no other reason than their expression of an offensive view. It is an outrageous assault on free speech, deserving of a robust response from every liberal democracy worth the name.
The British government should make it plain that Mr Bilour is not welcome in the UK, where he, like much of the Pakistani elite, owns property. As this newspaper reported yesterday, the minister spends summers in his London apartment. If he thinks he can avail himself of British law and order, while cheering on assassination to score cheap political points, he should be quickly disabused of this notion.
Better still, Parliament should make it possible for the assets of such murder-inciting provocateurs to be confiscated. The European Union and the United States should do likewise, clarifying that anyone who advocates violent responses to free speech will face a travel ban.
The man should be persona non grata anywhere where freedom is valued. We can’t have people on religious grounds putting bounties on people’s heads, whether their own citizens or the citizens of other countries. And recall that Pakistan is one country amongst many where religious freedom is severely restricted, and minority religious groups are always in danger of arbitrary accusations and arrests, and often even murder.
How does one deal with nonsense of this sort? We have to start by making it clear that we will not have our freedoms abridged by people who refuse to accept criticism of their religion, their prophet, their religious practices, or any other religious peculiarity which deserves criticism. We should never apologise – as too many Western leaders have already done — for the free acts of our citizens, nor should we permit homicidal fury to express itself in our midst. People have a right to protest and to criticise in turn, but they do not have a right to recommend violence, so it is simply inappropriate to carry placards advocating the beheading of those who insult the prophet. This should lead to greater insults of the prophet, for if we bow down to terrorism, or the threat of it, we will lose what freedom we have. We do not need to be crude about it, but we do need to put Islam in historical and philosophical perspective, so that its religious claims can be shown to be bogus, as are the claims of all religions. But those who wish to weigh in as crudely as “Innocence of Muslims” did have the right to have their say as well. This is something that Muslims must learn to live with.
Josi ends his article with a particularly penetrating and important insight:
Salman Rushdie wrote earlier this year: “If the creative artist worries if he will still be free tomorrow, then he will not be free today.” But this isn’t really about creative artists. If Holland or Nakoula are worried about their safety today, then none of us are free tomorrow. [my italics]
This is vital to understand. It is about our general freedom of speech. Any restriction on that freedom — for the protection of Islam’s prophet or anything else — is a restriction which affects, not only artists, but all of us, who would be put on notice that anything we say might possibly be considered to be insulting to someone somewhere with beliefs that we wish to criticise or subvert. We need to begin with Islam, I think, and point out as strenuously as we can, that it does not deserve our respect, and will only deserve it when it has given up its tendency to erupt in childish tantrums, at the slightest critcism. Needless to say, this does not apply to all Muslims. Some of them, perhaps even a majority, given the choice, would opt for freedom. And Namazie may just be right when she says that Islamists and Salafists are trying to take possession of the Muslim narrative, and claim it as the only legitimate one. But it is the one that we hear, and moderate Muslims are no doubt as afraid of reprisals should they speak out as are other readily identifiable persons. Perhaps even more so, since they are often members of communities where Islamists live. Since criticism of Islamist rhetoric would be taken as heresy or apostacy, and thus deserving of death, there are probably good reasons for their silence, but it does not excuse it. Until people are free to stand up and speak their minds about these matters without let or hindreance, and until the academic study of Islam is permitted to go forward without intrusion form the true believers, Islam does not deserve our respect, and should not receive it.
Posted on 25 September 2012, in "Islamophobia", Danger of Religion, Death cult, Islam. Bookmark the permalink. 33 Comments.
I do not know what the Islamic stance on ‘Choice in dying’ is, as this site focusses on.
It seems to be cherished that an Islamic adulterer can choose to be murdered in a completely barbaric manner though!
Intelligent scholars? No, I’m sorry. Deluded wannabe controllers of fellows.
Swearing and name calling seem somehow totally inadequate.
The religion of piece!
Pieces of stone lobbed at people, leaving pieces of tattered flesh.
‘But it is the one we hear…’ But it is not the ONLY one we hear, and I think we need the generosity of spirit to recognise this and to encourage that other voice. I agree with almost everything you say in this, Eric, but there is this (I reproduce this again from Andrew Sullivan’s blog):
“It was a dramatic weekend in Libya, starting on Friday when tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Benghazi to protest against Islamist militias, including Ansar al-Sharia, the group many believe to be behind the attack on the US consulate there. Then after the main demonstration ended, many protesters regrouped to storm several militia compounds:
Chanting “Libya, Libya,” hundreds of demonstrators entered, pulling down militia flags and torching a vehicle inside the compound, Ansar al-Sharia’s main base in Benghazi – once the base of forces of former leader Muammar Gaddafi. The crowd waved swords and even a meat cleaver, crying “No more al Qaeda!” and “The blood we shed for freedom shall not go in vain!”
“After what happened at the American consulate, the people of Benghazi had enough of the extremists,” said demonstrator Hassan Ahmed. “They did not give allegiance to the army. So the people broke in and they fled.”
Though one militia fought back, resulting in eleven deaths, others simply evacuated, and their compounds were subsequently taken over by the Libyan military. In fact the government quickly took advantage of the opportunity to coordinate a crackdown on the militias, later announcing that all illegitimate armed groups must either submit to government authority or disband.”
Eric, I agree with everything you say. Even more than most religions Islam’s absurd beliefs and vicious morality should be challenged by serious scholarship and ethical discourse. But this is a political issue, as well as a religious issue, with very serious international implications. In the US, the anti-Islamic campaign is led by those who want to launch military attacks on Muslim countries (Iran at present). This objective is being pushed by the Israeli government, whose own religious-based claims to Muslim territory and treatment of Muslims deserves scrutiny as well. In the US, unquestioned military support for Israel is supported not only by the influential Jewish population, but by the powerful block of evangelical Christians, who are motivated by their own absurd and violent “end of times” eschatology. So exaggerating Muslim atrocities plays into the hands of Jewish and Christian extremists with their own “Jihads” in mind. I’m not saying you are doing this. Your blog is an excellent forum for a reasoned and informed discussion of the issue. But in the public forum where all religions are not examined objectively, and criticism of one religion is usually a means of supporting the goals of another religion, stoking animosity towards any religious or ethnic group is a dangerous thing
Tim I think there is a detail you missed in the latest Libyan riots against the Islamists. They were not so to speak saying we can mock their religion or their prophet, no, they are tired of the Islamists but they are on the same side on the prophet requiring respect.
I agree with Eric in this piece and we can’t afford to accord this violent religion any respect or give them any room to oppress us! No we must fight it to the end.
“I agree with Eric in this piece and we can’t afford to accord this violent religion any respect or give them any room to oppress us! No we must fight it to the end.”
Feel free to pick up your gun and go to Iran then.
I take the side of Tim Harris and Paxton Marshall here, things are getting out of hand, and perspective is being lost. Muslims are human too, and if they wish to defend their lands against colonialist imperialism, then that is honorable. The death and destruction, the horror and crimes done by our own nations against the Middle-east, means that we have no right at all to think ourselves morally superior.
If there is lack of perspective, I do not think, with the greatest respect, that I have lost it. I say very clearly in the title of this piece, and reemphasise in the piece itself, that this is about a religion, not about invidiual people. Indeed, I suspect that many moderate Muslims are held hostage by the violence of the Islamists in their midst, and dare not speak out against the extremes for fear of themselves being harmed. It is the religion itself which encourages this kind of violence and fundamentalism. Indeed, it is not altogether clear that there can be a moderate form of Islam, especially in a context where it feels itself challenged by other world views. This is, I think, written into the foundation texts of the religion, and it is of this that I speak. I do not think that religion as such deserves our respect, but I believe that Islam is less worthy than most other religions in this respect. While there are violence of God traditions in the Bible and in other sacred texts, the violence of the Qu’ran seems to me to be in a class all by itself, It is a horrifying book to read, and to call it holy seems to me a misuse of language. I do not know why it is wrong to say of this religion that it does not deserve our respect. I think this is what, in so many different ways, people like Ayan Hirsi Ali, Nonnie Darwash, and others are saying, and I agree with them. The point about the people in Libya taking back their revolution from the militia’s is a hopeful part of the LIbyan story, however I believe that their revolution will remain in question because of Islam and its intolerant, violent ways.
It’s funny though. I speak like this about Roman Catholicism all the time, yet no one has immediately jumped to the defence of Roman Catholics, who obviously are not all followers of the Vatican lline. The same goes for Islam, though I think it is much more difficult for Muslims to dissent from the strict letter of the Qu’ran and the hadith, etc., with the kind or ruinous opinions expressed by the man in the video. But the pope is often as objectionable, and no one that I know has suggested that I lack perspective when I point it out.
Eric, I do not wish to distress you, so I’ll just respond in as polite a way as possible. This is not about Islam, it’s about America’s foreign policy in the middle-east, which is utterly shameful. I really think that you need to go and research just what is happening out there, and America’s clandestine involvement.
I’m sorry Egbert, while I agree that American involvement is not always without its shadow side, this is still about Islam. When the fatwa was issued agaisnt Rushdie, that was about Islam. When the Danish cartoon controversy blew up in everyone’s face, and people made attempts at the life of Kurt Westergaard, that was about Islam. When the planes hit the twin towers — while no one could say that the US was not involved in the Middle East — it was a result of an Islamist attack, not obviously a response to American involvement, since, after all, the US had helped with defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan, as well as acting to protect Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, and driving Saddam out of Kuwait, quite aside from the financial support that Pakistan has been receiving for years. It’s too simple to say that it’s simply a response to American involvement in the ME, and, indeed, much of the violence is due to the continuing running sore of Israel, and the antisemitism of the Arab world, which has been so since before the Second World War. The whole region is heavy with the aftermath of colonialism and British and French involvement, which happened because Turkey fought WW I on the side of Germany. Much of the Muslim angst in the ME is due to the decline of the Muslim Empire, and its loss to European ascendency. So the whole thing is more complex than simply American iinvolvement. And besides, there is a long history of Christian – Muslim animosity as well. But all I was attending to is the religion, its tendencies, and its history, which is one of violence and imperialism, the subjection of minorities, and the very obvious racial doctrine of Arab supremacy, which is evident wherever you go in the Muslim world. There is nothing particularly nice about this religion — not that there is about any religiion, — and I think it constitutes a danger, as a religion prone to violence, as has been amply demonstrated. Canada, for example, stayed out of the Iraq war, much to the dismay of the US, and yet Islamists in Canada have planned several terrorist attacks which were [sorry -- not] carried out, largely because of the vigilance of the Canadian intelligence service and the RCMP. I see no reason not to consider Islam, in the light of the things said on the video above, and the others posted over at Why Evoluion is True, and the continued actions of Muslims around the world (in Nigeria, to mention only one country where fundamentalist Muslims are a dangerous and violent force), to be a religion which does not deserve our respect. It will get none from me.That does not mean that American military involvement should not worry us, but it is simply not clear to me that Islam’s bad habits began only when the US got involved.
That video was particularly distressing. Next to al-Haddad sat Tofik Dibi, at that moment a member of Dutch Parliament for left liberal party GroenLinks. Before the debate he said something like (roughly translated): “[Haddad] has a repulsive even disgusting opinion, but he is entitled to his opinion. We should not bar him, yet debate him. In The Netherlands no one is censored beforehand.” Too bad he kept his mouth shut during the video fragment.
“Notice, for example, how many people in the audience clapped when the Muslim scholar highlighted above made his stupid remark that he would want to be stoned if he sinned.”
I haven’t seen the debate on Youtube – nor intend to, but since this was in Amsterdam I can only hope that it was a sarcastic applause. If not, it would a stain upon our capitals reputation of former Gay Capital of Europe. We don’t need stone-headed hate mongering idiots who propagate stoning in the 21st century. This is not about politics, this is about lack of civilisation and empathy.
Eric, there is one thing that you’re right about: there are dark forces at work, very dark, and not in any supernatural sense.
Come on Egbert. There is no doubt a complex of forces at work wherever you go, but this was not my concern in writing the above. The political issues that you mention may be as important as you think they are, and yet Islam still remains a blight on humanity. What I wrote was based on this one video in particular (along with its companions), and what it says about the religion of Islam, and none of it is good. As DutchA says, “This is not about politics, this is about lack of civilisation and empathy.” And so it is. Anyone who can say what that man said, trying to justify a cruel and barbaric practice, because it is one prescribed by his religion, does not deserve our respect, nor does the religion he represents.
And since this and similar cruelties happen with some regularity in Muslim countries, where women are kept in subjection to men, where they are treated as less than human, as breeding and housekeeping chattel, it is not a religion which I can respect. It is beneath contempt in my view.
Now, it’s true, most religions are beneath contempt, because of the way that they hang onto the past, without respect for progress — which has been made, pace Gray — and humanity. The Roman Catholic Church with its tentacles reaching into the depths of our legal systems, yet concealing its crimes against thousands of children, besides its cruelty to women, to the dying, to gays and lesbians, who are thought of as defective, and whose sexuality is slandered by the representatives of a god who is identified with love. Muslims raging because their prophet is insulted — a prophet who, if their stories are true, was also a warrior, the mob boss of a protection racket, a pedophile, and a murderer — their governments, meanwhile, doing all they can to make sure that the freedoms of people globally are simply snuffed out to protect the reputation of that man: it is simply beyond reason to suppose that the world would be better off with these people in charge of things, as they want to be. As I say, these religions will get no respect from me, nor, I believe, do they deserve it. And while I focus here on Islam, I have before criticised Roman Catholicism without similar comment. This, to me, is disturbing.
Eric, I posted a video over at Jerry Coyne’s the other day, showing the other side of what’s going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B6hp8HMstkE
Does that not make you re-think things, and go off and research what is actually going on? And who created Islamic extremism? Take a guess.
Who created Islamic extremism? Does that video show that the practice of stoning originated as a result of the war in Iraq? Ayan Hirsi Ali speaks of her experience as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, in events which long preceded the war. This is not a question about the rightness or wrongness of the Iraq war, nor about the inhumanities which took place in or because of it. Of course, it is just as well to remember also the Iran-Iraq war and the thousands of men who died senselessly in it, and the Kurds who were killed with the use of poison gas. What I am addressing myself to is Islam, and the inhumanity and extremism that I heard expressed as normative doctrine within Isalm. And, remember, please, that the fatwa against Rushdie was issued in 1989, long before these events took place. The twin towers attack took place before the second Iraq war, for which there was no basis — one reason why Canada stayed out. Yet, NATO has been involved in Afghanistan since then. Is throwing acid in little girls’ faces the kind of extremism you have in mind? I’m not justifying the Iraq war, but I do not think that the religious extremism that I am talking about has anything to do with that war. The publication of The Satanic Verses resulted in the same kind of fanatical rage that is being expressed now, as well as murders by Islamist extremists, but the Verses preceded the Iraq War by 12 years. I am not a defender of Bush or his administration, largely run by evangelical apocalyptic Christians who (like Boykin) believed they were fighting the forces of evil, if not Satan himself. It certainly didn’t do much for America\s reputation in the world, but it is not the origin of Islamism, which was well underway by the Second World War, during which Islamists identified with Hitler and antisemitism. My history is not strong in this area, but it is not negligible, and I do not see that Veterans against the Iraq war can really establish that this is the source of Islamist extremism.
I find myself largely isolated from Muslim ideas, not speaking any Arabic. The more I am learning the more I am shocked and dismayed.
That clip contains one of the most horrifying statements I have ever heard, followed by approving applause. To seriously and earnestly argue that anyone would actually want to be stoned to death shows a staggeringly stunted sense of empathy. There can be no doubt that religion caused the acceptance of that statement, to argue otherwise is amazingly obtuse. There can never be any sensible respect for statements like that or the ideologies that spawn them.
Egbert are you defending Islamic law? Do you think if the west cleared out of the Middle East, countries adopt something equivalent to the US 1st amendment? adopt an equal rights amendment? The west is certainly not a paragon of virtue and still relies on violence to solve perceived problems, but would you freely opt to live in say Saudi Arabia?
“The west is certainly not a paragon of virtue and still relies on violence to solve perceived problems, but”
Yes, that’s called hypocrisy.
A lot has gone wrong with the so-called ‘war on terrorism’. It’s misnamed, to start with. You can’t have a war on terrorism. This is something that should have been learned a long time ago. Afghanistan, Vietnam, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Lebanon: all of these situations should have taught us that indiginous forces, with popular support, are almost impossible to beat by the use of conventional forces.
The old state-state warfare, in present circumstances, is almost a thing of the past. Almost, because someone might do the unthinkable, and start one, and then we will all be in trouble. Meanwhile, armed forces have to learn something about how force is best used in the real world as we know it. Force and violence will still be a part of our world, and it is silly to pretend that it will not be. But perhaps we can learn how to use it effectively and efficiently with as little harm as possible.
I am not sure that modern industrial armies are learning this fast enough, and that is why we get things like the impossibly scarred young man we saw in the video that you linked to, Egbert. That is the result of putting soldiers, whose function is to fight armies, in the field with irregulars that may appear at any moment, and have a measure of popular support, so that they can attack anywhere anytime. There is no front line, and it is difficult for soldiers trained in conventional battle to deal with.
The British learned this in places like Malaya and Kenya, the French and the Americans in Vietnam, Russia in Afghanistan and Chechniya, And still there is no resolution to a real problem with the effective use of force in the canged circustances of the modern battlefield.
But it’s not so much hypocrisy as a failure to understand, and a consequent misuse of force. That’s why drones are more and more being relied upon, and that is not a good omen for the future. But it keeps troops from becoming so traumatised that they end up treating the enemy as other than human. This is something, I think, that has yet to be learned, and until we learn it, wars like the present ‘war on terrorism’ will be pointless affairs, where people die, but nothing is accomplished. No one wins, everyone loses.
Clearly, we need to find better ways of using violence, where violence is still needed, and it will doubtless be needed from time to time, Speaking of hypocrisy gets us nowhere. Learning how to live in peace and freedom is hard, especially when we are divided by beliefs which are not only not confirmable, but are in many ways incompatible, and which lead us to act in foolish ways. Is there no progress to be made, or must we always be at each others’ throats? I still hope that we can find ways of overcoming the irrational forces which lead us into blind alleys. But beliefs which support the stoning of people to death is not one of those ways.
“It’s funny though. I speak like this about Roman Catholicism all the time, yet no one has immediately jumped to the defence of Roman Catholics, who obviously are not all followers of the Vatican lline. . . .But the pope is often as objectionable, and no one that I know has suggested that I lack perspective when I point it out.”
I notice that no one has addressed this comment, not even Egbert.
You certainly lack do not lack perspective when you discuss the Catholic Church. The reason that devout Catholics don’t object is because they know that the covert (psychological) violence that the RCC practices is, in the long term, more effective than overt violence in controlling the masses.
Unwilling to answer my questions, Egbert? So I can only criticize the US, not Islam? and this is because any violence committed in the name of Islam is the US’ fault and Islam bears no responsibility. The tragedy perpetuated by the US both on its combat troops and the civilians on the ground is unconscionable. Killing civilians in the Middle East does not justify killing civilians in the US and vice versa – especially in the name of religions which claim to be a religions of peace. No matter how you would like to define it out of the picture – religion is heavily involved on both sides.
I honestly do not believe that Islam is intrinsically worse than any other faith-based religion. Rather, it is merely trapped — for the moment — at an earlier stage in religious development. Islam is currently as Christianity was in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages — oppressive, totalitarian, theocratic, and violent, not least to its own adherents, especially women. So too was Hinduism not so long ago (many remnants of which still remain), shoring up the caste system and demanding (or at least reinforcing) such quaint and charming traditions as suttee. So too was Mormonism until the Mormon patriarchs decided that the benefits of Utah’s statehood outweighed the benefits of their quaint traditions of murder and child-rape/slavery/marriage. So too are any and all religions based primarily on faith (and indeed, faith-based political ideologies like the various forms of Communism), because unsupportable claims are the ideal tool for rationalizing unconscionable actions.
No faith-based religion is worthy of ANY respect whatsoever, at any stage in its development. The fact that broader cultural forces of enlightenment and progress can force reform on backwards traditions does not alter their inherent backwardness, it just makes them more neighborly. That neighborliness is certainly important, but it is not worthy of respect: Rather, it warrants only wary tolerance. Tolerance, not respect — and always wary, because faith remains intrinsically perilous, easily exploited to rationalize any reprehensible nonsense believers invent.
Reblogged this on A Life Un-Lived and commented:
This post ought to be read.
“Rather, it is merely trapped — for the moment — at an earlier stage in religious development.”
You do realize that you’re making a teleological interpretation of history?
As I said elsewhere, the bourgeois have taken over atheism and turned it into a joke. Teleological indeed, and therefore a religious error. Still holding ‘whiggish’ ideas, and therefore Protestant values and still trying to impose them onto the savages (muslims and all other religions).
Since atheism is now so ‘respectable’ in England, it’s easy to see why Richard Dawkins and the other new atheists have mistaken moral scepticism for moral progress. They’ve changed (imposed) the values that atheists were selling beforehand, who were engaging individually with believers in a rational dialogue, for instead a moral criticism of religion as a group.
Unsurprising then, that atheism degenerates further into the meaningless and obscure term ‘social justice’ or in other words the theology of Christian progressivism.
It is one thing to bring down religion from its lofty delusion of moral superiority, but it’s the same delusion to go and place yourselves up there in the clouds with your teleological interpretation of history or society.
Sorry, Egbert: I don’t see how you can ‘engage in a rational dialogue’ — individually or otherwise — with people who hold irrational beliefs. What can you possibly agree on, and how can you possibly trust them to hold to that agreement when the Supreme Panjandrum of Everything may be on their hotline any moment, telling them to tear it up?
I’m not convinced that any Old Atheists were actually attempting to do what you describe, but I’m quite sure that if they were it wasn’t in the hope of attaining any common ground, but rather as an act of appeasement towards a dangerous majority; in much the same way as artificially outraged Muslims are being appeased now.
Corio, old atheists were under the ‘illusion’ that reason would win over people from their religious beliefs. It still goes on today, but now it’s all about business (hence the absurdity) where people turn up to debates as fans of celebrity atheists (or theists) rather than any genuine interest in charitable or respectful engagement with each other.
Old atheists failed precisely because religion is not rational, and old atheists failed to understand their own irrationality driving them to ‘preach’ reason. Atheists could not help noticing the irrationality among their ranks, so they separated themselves between rational and irrational. Nowadays atheists believe they’re automatically rational by default (and now it seems they believe they’re morally superior too).
And if you’re not convinced, it only means you have no respect for my opinion. I’ve been an atheist for over a decade, and I’m telling you my own experience. At least old atheism offered the chance for atheists to try and improve their reasoning abilities and knowledge, and they actually engaged with believers and got to know them as people.
I don’t wish to persist arguing on and on, getting nowhere with you guys. I’ve tried my best to explain myself and I’ve taken up enough of Eric’s blog and time. It is a great tragedy for me to see something of hope in atheism become dashed, but at least I’ve realized the error of my ways and have moved on.
Egbert, you are starting to make some of our religious trolls looks like paragons of evidence based reasoning.
All I’m seeing in your arguments is a projection of vague and badly defined fears onto atheism and atheists.
And your statement “And if you’re not convinced, it only means you have no respect for my opinion.” is bizarre in the extreme.
What makes you think that your opinions, or any body’s opinions for that matter, automatically deserve respect ?
Respect is earned, not bestowed, and you appear to be running up a deficit.
Egbert, still no answers to my questions. You claim no progress has been made – so you would be just as happy living at any time and in any place? Modern Middle East better than modern Europe? 15th, 16th century Europe better than modern Europe?
What is the grand solution Egbert? The new atheists are wrong, so who is right? What should we do?
Michael, I don’t have the answers.
Egbert (#28), I guess I wonder at your certainties then?
I have the same problem with this statement as Steve:
This is an astonishing claim. What it is saying is that you are right without question, and no one can respectfully dissent from your opinion. I hope you did not mean this, no matter how convinced you may be that you are right, surely a bit of epistemic modesty would be appropriate.
@Egbert: “Corio, old atheists were under the ‘illusion’ that reason would win over people from their religious beliefs.”
Well, let’s see.
“People professing to have no religion have moved past Anglicans to become the second-largest grouping after Catholics in the 2011 [Australian] Census.
Almost 4.8 million people said they had no religion, up 29 per cent from 2006, but the number of people not answering the question dropped by 2 per cent. This suggested that more people were claiming a religious identity (including no religion), said Monash University sociology professor Gary Bouma.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/godless-overtake-anglicans-as-hinduism-doubles-20120621-20pt0.html#ixzz27chF7T6v ”
Looks like those ‘old atheists’ were right, doesn’t it? Maybe our ‘illusions’ aren’t so illusory after all.
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