No True Believer
Sean at 4:49 pm, September 15th, 2006It’s tough being a scholar sometimes. Just ask Pope Benedict. In the course of a long speech, he took the time to tell a little story about a 600-year-old meeting between two educated thinkers, one Christian and one Muslim. And now he has the whole Islamic world angry at him. His story went something like this:
The Pope’s speech quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.
“The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the Pope said.
“He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached’.”
Benedict described the phrases on Islam as “brusque”, while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.
Hey, this is a popular blogging technique! Just link to a story somewhere else, without giving any explicit endorsement. I wonder if Benedict has been reading Instapundit, or Little Green Footballs?
So now apparently Muslims are upset, as they don’t appreciate the linkage between Islam and violence. Personally, I find it unpersuasive to claim that the two are unconnected when so many people persist in connecting them. Also, if your goal is to insist that your religion is one of peace and tolerance? Probably burning the Pope in effigy is not the best way to get that message across.
The real problem with the Pope’s speech was his claim that violence had no place in true religion (you know, like Christianity).
“Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul,” the Pope said.
We all know that most big-time religions have many examples of terrible violence in their past, and Christianity is certainly no exception. Even putting aside the many recent incidents, it’s interesting to consider the record that is part of official Church doctrine, as recorded in Scripture. Steve Wells has done the hard work of going through the Old Testament and counting up the death toll for both God and Satan, taking care not to exaggerate by only including those examples for which specific figures are given. (Via Cynical-C.) The final tally:
- God: 2,270,365.
- Satan: 10.
This doesn’t include stuff like the Flood, for which reliable figures are unavailable. If violence is incompatible with the nature of God, He sure has a funny way of showing it.
To be serious for a second: my thing about religion is generally not that it’s bad, but that it’s false. The history of religion is far too complex to be summed up as “good” or “bad,” and there are obviously components of both. The Salvation Army, odious discrimination policies notwithstanding, does a tremendous amount of good. Religious people are generally better at donating to charity than non-religious ones (last I heard; I don’t have specific figures, so this could be wrong). And I like a lot of the art and architecture.
The overall effect of religion may be good or bad, I don’t know how to judge. But if you’re going to talk about it (which the Pope is definitely going to do, given his job description), you should at least be honest, including all the ugly parts. Pretending that either Islam or Christianity is all about non-violence and peaceful dialogue is patently false. You can try to say that the episodes of violence are aberrations, not reflective of the “real” religion, but that’s just the No True Scotsman fallacy. What a religion is, for all important purposes, is revealed by what its adherents actually do, for better or for worse. If Pope Benedict had said “We are all fallible human beings, and people of our faiths do not always act wisely, but we should all strive to promote peace over violence within our churches,” perhaps there would have been fewer effigies.
I’m convinced that religion’s record is bad enough to call it bad, regardless of any good works. Some people might say it’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I’m pretty sure we’d still have good things in the world, and a lot less bad (or at least far fewer excuses for the bad).
I often hear that religious people on average give more to “charity” than non-religious people. In fact I just heard a story on NPR to that effect just last week. now I don’t have the numbers, but I suspect that these studies include the the religious peoples contributions (tithing) to their own churches as “charity.” But most churches actually spend very little of their overall budget on helping the poor or providing social services. Instead most of their budget goes to maintaining their facilities, paying the salaries of the ministers and the work of missionaries. I do not consider that real charity.
Thank you.
Well spoken.. or rather, typed
Now if only we could get this message out of a scientists’ blog, and into the minds of those gullible “believers”.. Talk about wastage of (human) resources.
Hey Sean, the Universe is supposed to be preposterous, remember?
Sure. But if you give to a gigantic charity like Reading Is Fundamental, an almost equal portion of your dollar goes to the director’s salary, facilities, and the work of outreach staff. Same dif.
Ministers have to eat, they need shelter. Missionaries need to eat, and need shelter. If you’re giving to that cause believing that you’re saving souls, well, the person giving likely thinks that is more important, or of equal importance to feeding the poor in terms of social service. However, some ministers also council families in need, run soup kitchens and daycare and such.
In any case, since we don’t know where “religious” people’s money is going, no point in putting pants on the straw man.
You seem to be forgetting about papal infalliblity!
In fact the popes lecture was remarkable. He touched upon a core issue of western cultures dialogue with other cultures: Is reason universal or merely cultural. In a society as reflective as ours this is a question that fundamentally shapes the way we engage with other cultures, and the Pope came down strictly on the side of universal reason.
You have strenously defended reason against it’s adversaries internal to western culture (and there would be plenty of room for disagreement with the pope there), but while the argument is clad in theological terminology, “we” are on the same side fundamentally.
Religion has slowed down the progress of our civilization. I explain on my blog using anthropic reasoning that this is why we find ourselves in a civilization where religion plays such an important role rather than an atheistic civilization.
http://www.deschner.info/index.htm?/en/work/kg/criminalhistory.htm
Anyone read these?
On the question of whether or not God can tell something false to man, or even lead them to idolatry, I have to observe that few parents are completely honest with their children and I would expect nothing different from God. The adults simplify things, fail to inform children of details, and sometimes tell them stories that deviate far from the truth. My latest tendencies towards this is to doubt His word on the status of special relativity as a principle that belongs in the foundations of physics.
Since Christianity would never have become more than just another cult without the swords of Constantine and his soldiers, it’s pretty rich for the Pope to intimate that Islam is illegitimate because its sucess depended upon military force.
Well rightly said that so many people link Islam with violence. So many people in the past also believed the sun goes round the earth too. A scientist should find out himself. On the other hand, so many people in the east think Islam does not endorse violence. And perhaps they have a better knowledge of it because they practice it.
The western press has a strange way of depicting the east. Believe me, there have been too many sane discussions on this issue, but they only publish pictures of burning effigies.
Why don’t you read a chapter (surah, i will recommend the third) in Qur’an and find out yourself?
I am not here to promote, but to defend.
From my Qur’an, Surah 3 verse 12:
Say to those who reject Faith:`Soon will ye be vanquished and gathered together and driven into Hell - an evil bed indeed (to lie on)!
Not necessarily. See above (”Pope” and “Christianity is all nice and peaceful”).
Sean,
Given the volatile global circumstances we live in these days the fact that the leading cleric of the Catholic church should try to present someone else’s faith with such scornful condescension (albeit in a scrupulously veiled manner) suggests that he understood quite well the reaction it would generate among muslims afterwards: (maybe he was hoping for someting like this to happen from the outset of his remarks). (And one may surmise that muslims are not as dim-witted as others may think them to be; they can understand the difference between “scholarly” commentaries and veiled insults.)
Moreover, imagine if you will, him giving a “scholarly” presentation of the Crusades, or the Inquisition, or the tireless efforts of countless Christian missionaries sent all over the African, Asian, American (North and South), and Australian continents to spread the “true” message of the Gospels to the wretched savages inhabiting this God’s Earth: I’m not so sure he would have been so keen to include allusions to various intellectual thinkers (one of whom being from the “receiving” community) reflecting over the nature of Christ’s message and its attendant effects on the lives of most (non-European) non-Christians…
As Desmond Tutu once said (and I paraphrase since I don’t know the exact words): The Europeans took away our freedom, and gave us Christianity in return.
Arun, do you know if the Vatican library keeps copies of those texts. After all the Pope is (I hear) a professor of theology…
The pope is a professor of theology, and, as a matter of fact, possibly one of the sharpest thinkers of our times, as even his strongest intellectual critics (within and outside the church) will admit.
Just a few years ago he engaged Jürgen Habermas (sort of like the German pendant to Chompsky, i.e. the leading sociologist, philosopher and intellectual) in a dialogue/debate.
The focus of his papacy so far has not been expansion of faith, he is not a missionary, he wants to focus on bringing a good and enriching life to the people within the church first, and not at the cost of others around.
He certainly is no one who denies history and the historicity of institutions like the catholic church, but at the same time, his actions and directions now are not bound to them. A violent history has implications for the present, but these are not always straightforward. 60 years after the Holocaust Olmert asks for German soldiers in Lebanon to defend and implement Israeli interests.
I wish those burning effigies of the Pope had also burned effigies of Osama bin Laden, or Mullah Omar, or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or President Bashir or al Sadr or any number of actual vicious killers - the Pope has no battalions and merely said something. I wish they were as protective of the right to vote, women’s right to education and to work, as they were of what someone says about their religion.
To PK
Yes, it basically warns the unbelievers, but does it say that ‘kill those who reject faith’? That is what people say Qur’an says.
Apart from that Qur’an also says- ‘Whoever believes in One God, does righteous deeds and is just and reasonable, whatever he may call himself, a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim, he will be forgiven.’
To Charon
Point well taken.
No seriously, there is a need to foster positive ideas in many parts of Muslim world.
To Arun
Well I agree with you that these issues should be getting more importance than they are getting. Given that, these undue insults should be protested. Given that, it should not be a pretext for not being progressive.
Sean, I reiterate
If there is a God
what does God need armies or swords for
what does God need missiles or nuclear weapons for
Does God care
what flag you are wrapped in when you are dead
whether it be the stars & stripes (red & white)
whether it be blue & white stripes
These are the things of mortals & men!!!
–
If there is a God, then fear God not death
for only A God can bring you back to life, or cut you off.
—
“… the Pope has no battalions and merely said something. …” - Arun
The Pope should learn Orwell’s definition of Crimestop.
‘Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.’ - G. Orwell, 1984, Chancellor Press, London, 1984, p225.
In a film about Alan Turing’s life it was mentioned that religion makes you fear when there nothing to fear and gives you hope when there no hope.
It’s sort of funny that so many “scholars” in the West - who gladly proscribe the birth of science to Western minds (and *exclusively* to Western minds) - should fail to notice what most non-Western historians (and educated laypersons alike) seem to catch notice of quite readily / effortlessly. Look through the following before making sweeping statements regarding Islam or Mohammed I say:
The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives (MIT Press), (ed.) Jan P. Hogendijk, (ed.) Abdelhamid I. Sabra
“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262194821/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added/104-1939686-1090340?ie=UTF8″
or
Muslim Heritage
“http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?TaxonomyTypeID=22″
I guess our learned professor just kinda’ missed these sources in his many years of intellectual explorations of Islam and Muslim thought.
I think the evidence is overwhelmingly against religion of all types. The belief systems are logically incoherent and unfalsifiable. I think arguing about their merits and faults is akin to arguing about who’s the better captain, Picard of Kirk. It’s a fun bar conversation but meaningless.
Unfortunately, a large portion of humanity appears to need a goal and/or idea larger than themselves to give their lives meaning. I propose (in the US at least) that public school curriculum include philosophy and rhetoric classes- the art of thinking combined with the skill of debate. It’s a shame that we ignore the development of our kids’ intellectual skills.
For me a least the imagining the fantastic things humanity can achieve sends shivers down my spine- mega structure, nanotech, bio-engineering, it’s awe inspiring. The thought of contributing to expanding human endeavors over mega-years or more dwarfs the paltry ambitions of the many religions.
sumit, you seem to be arguing with somebody, but I can’t tell who it is. What are the “sweeping statements regarding Islam or Mohammed” you are cautioning us against?
Satan clearly got into the publishing house the day before the printing and fudged his figures.
Clearly.
The Pope is the Tom Cruise of the religious world. Whenever he says/does anything that’s stupid and/or funny (but in a sad way), it’s immediately front-page, above-the-fold news.
Also, wasn’t the Palaeologos family the last ruling dynasty of Constantinople? I think that old Manuel’s son was the last Emperor. Maybe Manuel should have learned to choose his friends more carefully, instead of devoting his time to insulting Persians.
fh’s apparent apologetics notwithstanding we do need to keep something very important in mind. Prior to being elected Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger headed the Vatican’s arbitrary and authoritative dogma enforcement agency: the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. He was not your everyday professor of theology, but rather just another official Torquemada in a long line of them. He was responsible for excommunicating a number of Catholic priests; no, not for their sexual proclivities, but for believing in liberation theology and creation spirituality. Pope Benedict VI as grand inquisitor makes his remarks not only inappropriate, but decidedly hypocritical.
The “sweeping statement” mentioned by sumit in comment #23 may just be Sean’s post title, “No true believer”.
Is it possible to truly believe in anything that is so vague and undefined as a mysterious dogma with no hard facts?
Because no religion gives hard facts, it follows that no religion can be truly believed by anybody using plain old, down-to-earth common sense. Religious zealots must suspend their common sense, which means that their “belief” is always forced and therefore is always insincere, and untrue.
The punishing of heretics and the promise of heaven to recruit believers is a forced, corrupt, immoral and cynical carrot-and-stick, so it follows that such ideology selects only insincere and untrue believers.
No wonder religion is in crisis generally.
One thing that is true : it doesn’t make sense to talk about “the” real religion.
There is very clearly no “one true religion” in the world. There is “one true science,” in the sense that all scientists agree on many things and generally agree on the methodology and standards of evidence. (It’s just that sometimes things are complicated enough or ambiguous enough that different scientists rationally reach different conclusions.)
With religion… different people have different religions. And, who knows whether any or all of them are “false” ; religion done right isn’t really subject to the methodology of science. (If it is, then it’s not really religion per se.) Faith, really, is by and large a personal thing, nonwithstanding all the organized religions out there with tremendous political power. That is a political thing, and they manipulate the language of faith to their ends. But faith itself is something for each person, which may or may not provide comfort, inspiration, etc. It also sometimes provides ignorance, which is the case when many use their faith to deny the knowledge of modern science.
There is no “the” religion. There are Muslims and there are Mulims; some are violent in the name of their faith, some are peaceful in the name of the faith. Likewise with Protestants, Catholics, Jews, etc. Every religion will have in its history ugly episodes, becuase it’s part of human history, and human history is replete with ugly episodes.
-Rob, who knows that trying to talk about religion as anything other than a childish delusion on this blog only invites scorn
Nice post Professor. I guess all I can say is… amen to that
NM
I agree with Prof. Knop that religion is by-and-large a personal and subjective concern; but what the entry deals with here is the ecclesiastical authority of over half-a-billion persons (if my figure is anything to go by; I don’t know the exact count) making an unwarranted and thinly-veiled attack on the faith of another community, while he himself selectively forgets to (or more likely intentionally decides not to [my hunch only]) mention the historical role of *his own* institution (i.e. the Papacy) in advocating ruthless cruelty and intolerance towards those outside the fold of Roman Catholicism (including other sects of Christianity, e.g. Protestantism, etc.)
Furthermore, if he is supposedly an advocate of universal reason (over dogmatic religious doctrinces) he probably shouldn’t have been the primary enforcer of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”; this doesn’t seem quite readily compatible with his current position…
Lastly, as for the web-links I provided: I think it’s time to set the record straight: the whole *enterprise* of experiment-oriented study and investigation of nature and natural phenomena was founded and cultivated within the philosophical modus operandi of Islamic scholarship (before that there really was no such enterprise, although it may be noted that Archimedes was one such person who did carry out experiments during his investigations, e.g. Archimedes’ Principle; (however, throughout his life he was derided and osticized by his peers exactly for that reason!)). So, the Pope doesn’t seem to mention these (contradicting) little facts when he opines on Islam…
(Doesn’t suprise me though… just look through Church-sponsored depictions of Islam and Mohammed throughout its institutional history.)
p.s. If you want to know more on this, please read Roger Bacon’s writings on “Arabic sciences”… the most fun part is where he tells (at times even urges) his Cambridge contemporaries to adopt the practice of “Arabic scientists” when investigating natural phenomena instead of Aristotlean scholasticism.
Sumit
I suspect that every reader and writer here knows about the Arab role in protecting the Greek legacy from the European dark ages (i.e., catholicism). We are also well aware of the Arab contribution to mathematics, although not much physics of that era has seemed to survived the test of time.
Clearly, anything a scientist says has no moral weight, because after all they gave us the nuclear bomb, and poison gas and high explosives and anthrax and guided missiles and so on and so forth - ever more efficient ways of killing each other in large numbers. What is sauce for the Pope is sauce for the scientists as well. History doesn’t shine kindly on scientists either.
Arun — that argument is made a lot, but I don’t think it’s entirely fair.
Yes, it is true that the advance of science includes the advance in the understanding of military technology. You could even go farther and point to global warming, which is a consequence of industrialization, which depends on various bits of science.
However, the difference is that the enterprise of science itself is by and large neutral to these things. The motivation behind the use of all these bad things was cultural and political. Science enabled it just because knowledge isn’t inherently all “good”, but it wasn’t the scientists pushing the use of these things.
In contrast, it was the religious authorities pushing the Crusades and the Inquisition. It is religious leaders driving the civil war in Iraq, and that was driving the civil war in northern Ireland. Etc.
Science is the pursuit of knowledge; if you learn more, you may be able to use it for good and bad things. A very strong argument can be made that the good things vastly outweigh the bad things, and thus we should continue the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
As for religion — one may also be able to make the same argument, but it’s not relevant to this. Organized religion is much more like a political entity, and it’s got crimes aplenty.
This is a statement of the same order as: all muslims are suicide bombers, all catholics are hypocrites, all jews are miserly, and so on. Try to keep the discussion free of such generalities.
PK,
The thesis of my post was to illustrate the following: modern *experiment-oriented* science owes its *very existence* to scholarship persued within the broader theological compass of Islamic doctrines (hence the reference to the text above). Christian scripture is directly antithetical to scientific scholarship as we know and practice today: hence the perennial bifurcation between ‘faith’ and ‘reason’ within Western intellectual culture; Islam - on the other hand - actively encourages Man - as God’s Viceroy on Earth - to investigate and learn of Creation through his intellectual faculties: so that Man may come to know and understand the Creator better.
The idea being promoted by the Pope is that Islam is incompatible with reason (while Christianity is) is amusing and comical to say the least!; in fact it’s been the reverse if my history classes taught me anything. However, as (I assume) all of us will readily accept, religion can (and has!) been misused by many for great evil and inhumanity… it’s not just within Islam or Christianity…
The issue being raised here is his selective use of quotations.
Manas Shaikh,
Wrote: “many people in the east think Islam does not endorse violence” , but they do know that many of its preachers and their charities do! As Sean, remarked, all religions get defined by what their practitioners do.
Chinmaya,
In the overwhelming instances where we witness violence (from muslims) there we also note an underlying political reason: if the US was not so adamantly supportive of Israel, while the bulk of the Palestinian people were rotting in front of our TV sets every night, maybe the phenomenon of jihad would not have received such grassroots support. I really fail to see how the US (or even Israel) can go about bombing the living daylights out of mostly civilians around the world without tangible justification - and it’s a debatable issue! - while the receiving parties are pre-judged as “terrorists” and “enemies of freedom” should they rightfully retaliate. (If you don’t agree with what I present then by all means allow (even invite if necessary!) the US military to bomb your house and country indiscriminately - and should you retaliate you will become a “terrorist” - that’s your prerogative.
Number of people Islamic terrorism has killed in the East is enormous. Of course they always have a nobel cause (haha…).
It may be misleading to claim that science flourished under Islam. As I read the evidence, Islam was as hostile to free thought as Christianity. It’s just that in the first couple of centuries of Arabic domination, the dead hand of Christian orthodoxy was removed from the exercise of science, philosophy, and mathematics by invaders who didn’t much care about such matters. As time went by and Islam became entrenched, the faithful gradually became less and less tolerant, which is perhaps why there wasn’t very much interesting philosophy after Averroes and Ibn Khaldun and not much science either.
sumit,
I am not talking about the Israel and the media issue; the media bias is too obivous, I should’ve been more detailed. Saudi charaties have funded extremism and terrorism in India. Add to that whats has gone on in Sudan.
Taking human life is never noble. Taking life through justification(s) based entirely on lies and deception is even worse…
Jim,
Firstly:
May I know the sources from which you came to learn of this?
Secondly:
Scholarship within the West regarding Islam has not been the most objective it could have been: many of the works of historians of science - such as Duhem, Sarton, etc. - are considered grossly obscure/distorted and pathologically biased against Islam and its contributions to world history (but that has been, still remains, and will likely remain an issue when it comes to the study of Islam in the West); current scholars - such as A. I. Sabra - usually refer to original sources for their information.
from your post:
“…Islam was as hostile to free thought as Christianity.”
Comment: Please privide documentary evidence.
“It’s just that in the first couple of centuries of Arabic domination, the dead hand of Christian orthodoxy was removed from the exercise of science, philosophy, and mathematics by invaders who didn’t much care about such matters.”
Comment: the concept of a “University” - a centre of higher learning open to both laypersons and religious clerics alike - has its roots in the Islamic world, e.g. Al-Azhar University - the world’s first “true” institution of higher learning. Also refer to Roger Bacon and other early Christian “secular” thinkers for further reference.
sumit, I find it hard to believe that people like Galileo, Descartes, and Newton were influenced by Islam’s scientific tradition, except in a very indirect way. Also, with very emotional issues like this it is very hard to get a good gauge of the Western scholars’ bias. To be honest, from the people I know, I’d be surprised if there is a significant bias in the serious scholarly community these days.
sumit, are you saying in #38 that all Islamic terrorism is retaliation?
While I think it’s true that for much of its history, Christendom was the unwashed barbarian fringe on the edge of Eurasian civilization, and later owed much to Arabic civilization, I think it’s possible to go overboard in defending the latter. My impression is also that Islamic thinking grew more rigid sometime after 1000 CE; one source might be Jennifer Michael Hecht’s Doubt: A History, which talks a lot about early Islamic freethinkiers (Faylasufs).
As for the first university, see Wikipedia on “University”, with two or three Indian and one Byzantine universities said to be founded before Al-Azhar. The history of experimentation I don’t know about, but I know that for much of history the advanced part of the world was China and India, with their inventions diffusing or being re-invented in the West, and it would be easy for Arab historians to ignore China as for European historians to ignore Islam, though I think traditional Arab and Iranian historians were more aware of what they owed to India, e.g. “Arabic” numerals.
I think an “objective” history of humanity with limited resources might well be one of China and India, with occasional digressions — early ones to the Fertile Crescent, late ones to the invention spree of 1500s+ Europe, plus ones in the middle for the Roman Empire and the rise of Islam, among others. But the majority of the people and inventions were in China and India, AFAIK.
Dear Sumit,
I have a great deal of respect for a number of Islamic philosophers, some of whom I’m quite familiar with. Indeed, I raise the question of whether Islam per se had much to do with intellectual productivity because of the way in which popular Muslim religiosity inspired the persectution of people like Averroes. After the triumph of Christianity, a great many Greek-inspired scientific, mathematical, and philosophical people relocated to the East, many of them in Syria and Persia. That’s why individual knowledgeable about Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Strabo, Euclid and other classical authors were available during the period when translations into Arabic and Syriac were made. What the philosophical activity of the period had to do with Islam, per se, is less clear to me, though it is evident that philosophy had quite an effect on how Islam eventually defined itself, a process that was underway during this same period.
I’m not raising these questions rhetorically or polemically. My doubts about the standard story of science in the Muslim world are real questions, i.e., I don’t claim to have the answers. At a guess, I think that a serious account of the relationship of Islam and reason would, like the corresponding account of the relationship of Christianity and reason, conclude that the faith has sometimes sponsored and sometimes impeded thought but that, sociologically speaking, a deep-seated popular anti-intellectualism has usually dominated.
The direction this thread of comments has taken is fairly indicative of the passion found in human religiosity. We have sumit pleading with us to accept that islam is something qualitatively greater than he assumes we think it is (at least historically); we have those who hold science as a liberating epistemology from our millenia of religious based credos; we have those who are expressing their displeasure with a Pope meddling in world politics furthering divisiveness through hypocrisy and arrogance. Well, geeez, go figure.
If sumit so desires us to acknowledge his islam’s contribution to science, he also needs to acknowledge that islam garnered a great deal of that from indian and chinese primary sources (and that includes the notion of higher education). Much of this was taken by the bow and sword.
Science, as a process of acquiring knowledge of the physical universe, is not political, it is amoral; and as such, the knowledge, particularly the reliable predictability of it, has been used by humans to do terrible things to one another, and to do amazingly wonderful things to alleviate suffering across the spectrum of species and creeds.
Religion, the normative and descriptive properties of which are of great value to study, provides human beings with deeply-binding collective organizational frameworks and structures, that themselves demand protection and expansion. The indigenous tribal people of New Guinea connect with their divine order prior to killing and eating their human enemies. The Holy Roman Empire launched deadly crusades against people who failed to believe as they demanded. Islamic caliphs spanned across much of Asia and North Africa slaughtering those who resisted conversion. China’s faith in Maoism has led to the mass execution of millions of people who put belief before Mao’s vision. The US is currently being led by people who simultaneously value deity and economic capital as the highest form of faith, guiding them to take on empire building for the sake of control over resources and markets.
Yet, homo religioso also leads to kindness and compassion, to striving for the alleviation of suffering, for the welfare of the Earth, for the caring for creation. These are powerful motivators and have, throughout history, provided enormous benefits (funding health initiatives, reducing poverty, raising voices against human inhumanities, and so forth).
All of this reminds me of the old line about women: you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. Religion isn’t much different.
Well, he apologized.
The damage has already been done: As with the cartoons of Muhammed, there are too many people itching for a riot because they feel disenfranchised.
I entirely agree with Mr. Carrol that Mr. Ratzingers comment relative to Islam was both correct and accurate. In addition, there is no doubt that the record of the Christian Church (and its Hebrew antecedents) is indeed bloody. However, I would argue that the Christians (and Jews) have progressed from the savagery of a bygone era, but Islam has not. For instance, I don’t see Christian (or Jewish, or Buddist, or Hindu) homicide bombers.
Then you’re not looking.
Wow! I’ve heard of Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Jewish,… extremism, but Buddhist?
A woman needs a god like a fish needs a bicycle.
Chinamaya, look at Sri Lanka– not quite “homicide bombers”, but nonetheless pretty damn violent towards the Tamils. And before anyone screams at me, I am not supporting either side, or even opposing anyone.
AR, its not Chinamaya but Chinmaya, if its too long use Chinmay
You make an interesting point; I am sure Sri Lanka also has its interesting points.
#55 AR: To characterise the conflict in Sri Lanka as an example or a result of Buddhist extremism is naive. As someone who left the violence there long ago but still has lots of friends and family in harm’s way, I do have a pretty detailed knowledge of the situation there.
Rob Knop,
The question was not whether science is worth pursuing, but whether scientists are credible moral voices. The answer is no, science does not make anyone more moral or more non-violent than any religion. The central claim of Sean, etc., is that being more rational, more cognizant of physical reality, leads one away from the nasty side of religion. But scientists remain as enmeshed in the politics and culture of their time as any religionist, and the nasty things happen anyway.
The only thing which makes one virtuous is the practice of virtue, and not the belief or skepticism or disbelief about supernatural things, or a belief or disbelief in scientific materialism.
-Arun
Hiranya I did not suggest that it was due to Buddhist extremism alone– but it had a part to play. And you know there always are two sides of the story. If you go to Madras and talk to some of the Tamils from over there they have their own version. Perhaps both sides exaggerate it a bit– and have a little bit of truth as always.
Anyway this is off topic and as I said I am not trying to attack or defend any side in that tragic conflict. See at the end of the day doesn’t matter who started it and all that– as in all wars innocents die on both sides. I apologize if I have hurt your feelings, didn’t want to do that.
Chinmay– sorry for misspelling your name– silly me!
AR: Thanks for being sensitive about your comment. I remember Tamil extremists murdering monks at the holiest of Buddhist shrines, and trying to blow up the temple containing a relic of the Buddha’s tooth. These are not just Buddhist symbols but are deeply connected to the identity of the ethnic Sinhalese. In these instances atrocities were committed in order to provoke religious/ethnic tensions. You can compare it to attacking Mecca or the Vatican to get an idea of the resulting feelings. I agree its off-topic so I won’t comment any further except to say I understand there are two sides to every conflict.
As protests against modernity, the various fundamentalisms—Buddhist and Hindu as well as Jewish, Muslim, or Christian—are more alike than different even they are supposedly versions of distinct religions. Since sufficiently creative interpretation can justify any doctrine or course of action by appeal to some ancient, deeply obscure scripture, whatever the extremists believe or do arises from contemporary social and political circumstances rather than some immemorial essence of the faith. Religion is not like science where the nature of things, always present in the lab, tends to curb dogmatism and fantasy. Relgious conceptions are fictional and therefore quite incapable of providing a rigid structure for social institutions like churches. Religions don’t have any bones in ‘em.
Why can we not have faith in what we cannot see? Why are so may of you so anti-God (Organized religion is not the same thing). Why does this blog get soo much comments (I am pleased to note that the Dark Matter blog got more..so far).
And what makes you think that not beiliving in god is not relgious? Its just a different Faith.
greg: Religion is first and foremost an emotional affair, so it will always invite more comments, no matter how interesting the other posts are (and the science is what draws us to this blog anyway, I reckon).
Secondly (and I have made this comment here before): Calling people who do not believe in a god somebody with “just a different faith” is like calling a vegetarian a different type of meat eater.
isn’t it more like calling them a different kind of eater?
I think it’s probably wrong to say that statements that violence is antithetical to one or another religion is not necessarily a “No True Scotsman” fallacy since that fallacy depends on there not actually being a definition from which the claim being made can be evaluated. Presumably, a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist, etc is a follower of the teaching of Jesus, Mohammed, or Buddha. In that case, while there may be disagreements about the finer points, one can actually make real arguments about whether or not a certain idea is in line with the notion of belonging to a certain group. So, regardless of whether a majority of members of a group actually practice something or practice it well, it can still be a part of the definiton of what it means to be a ‘true’ member of that group. I think it would be generally accepted that militant Buddhists (yes, they exist) are not really following the teachings of the Buddha, as very high on his list is loving kindness. So too, regardless of the violent history of Christianity, I think it’s clear that peace and love were very high up on Jesus’s list. And when it comes to Mohammed, even though his writing are significant in length and change tone, it think it is on the whole true that Mohammed promoted peace. His is complicated, however, with being a leading member of a community engaged in a war of survival (that is, Medina vs. Mecca). Therefore, we are at three religions which have notions of peace built into them. Other religions, like Judaism and Hinduism are harder because they are extremely old and do not have single figures promolgating the core values; however, it is true that both of the religions have seen an evolution towards understanding peace and love as univeral ideas, not only limited to a particular racial or cultural group. All in all, it’s incredibly fair to say that the major world religions all have the concept of peaceful co-existence built into them. How well anyone does at attaining these goals, well, that’s anyone’s guess.
In my analogy, all food corresponds to general belief, while meat corresponds to belief without evidence. If you want to argue the contrary you’d be better off with a different analogy alltogether.
PK:So you are right because what you say is true, and what others believe is false……..
mmmmm where have i heard that before?
War/Violence is not a result of God or any other enitity we like to cast the blame on (that is not us). Its lack of tolerance of others, no matter how “unreasonable” you may think they are.
If the solution is to get rid of religion…. you are on cursade to convert people to believe what you believe.. that there is nothing outside observable fact.
If thats not a religon then neither is anything else.
Ah well, my point was just to beware of `proof’ by analogy.
You see, I would imagine the person you were trying to convince would regard the typical scientific worldview (whatever that is, and I’m not going to try to define it here) as containing some `beliefs without evidence’. Your choice of analogy implicitly denies that possibility, so in some sense it begs the question.
Of course, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but trying to explain why you won’t convince the other guy above with your analogy.
Manuel II (source of the quote) wa one of the Byzantine rules who oversaw the decline of the Empire. Arguably, Byzantine aggression against Arabs in the eastern Meditarranean was one of the causes of Jihad (the military, a opposed to spiritual version) in the first place. The (Muslim) Arabs were defending themselves against the gaudy and aggresive Byzantine Greeks. That still doesn’t justify the tiresome and predictable over-reaction every time a public figure criticised Islam or any of its figureheads. Live in the west and there’s freedom of speech. You don’t like it? Tough. Having left the Catholic Church many missed Sunday Masses ago, (and having published a book about the papacy) I hold no brief for the Pope, especially this specimen. But this wass a freedom of speech issue. No apology.
The bit about religious people contributing more to charity is a circular argument. Charity is religious in nature.
The question is, what do you contribute to society. And there can’t be much doubt that agnostic and atheistic contributions, even by overtly religious people, far outweigh charity.
Maybe this shouldn’t be so. Maybe we should prize true altruism above any bridge or hospital that can be built. Or maybe not- that’s how it was in medieval times, and people leaped eagerly to the alternative when it became available.
Greg, but unless the things that supposedly exist “outside observable fact” can somehow influence things here on Earth, there is no point in believing in that.
People who go to church do believe that religion is relevant to their lives. So, I don’t see how you can argue that if God indeed exists, he would not be responsible for war and violence.
Arunn–
The only thing which makes one virtuous is the practice of virtue, and not the belief or skepticism or disbelief about supernatural things, or a belief or disbelief in scientific materialism.
Yes, I’ll certainly agree with you on that. And I agree that science is value “neutral”, in that it’s fundamentally amoral. I will argue, though that the knowledge we’ve gained from science has helped humanity immeasurably more than it has hurt — and that’s just the practical stuff. I would also argue that the impractical stuff has enriched human culture as much as the works of the greatest artists.
But, yes, following science doesn’t make you all good, nor does fully embracing rationality. In your first post, it sounded like you were saying that science can be “blamed” for the use of the atomic bomb and so forth. In your latter post, I think you make it clear that that’s not quite what you meant.
-Rob
Count Iblis: My point is that because someone thinks its not relevant to their lives then why shouldn’t it be relevant to others…. Oh because they are wrong?… I just don’t see the difference between “My God is the True GOD you idoit” and “No God is the truth you simple minded fool!!”.
People can see the world differently…. can’t thay… Or perhaps because someone knows better they should tell everyone else what they are alowed to believe? And Who should that be? Dam even most scientists disagree on quite a few things.
Count Iblis,
“Greg, but unless the things that supposedly exist “outside observable fact†can somehow influence things here on Earth, there is no point in believing in that.”
One obvious counterexample is if part of your belief system is an afterlife.
Count Iblis said: “Greg, but unless the things that supposedly exist “outside observable fact†can somehow influence things here on Earth, there is no point in believing in that.â€
not morrisey said: One obvious counterexample is if part of your belief system is an afterlife.
There are a million things that may or may not exist, and may or may not be true affect our life on earth:
Is your partner cheating on you?
Even if they are not it is affecting your state of mind (and behaviour?) if you are worried about it. Even if it is NOT True.
–
Do strings or dark matter exist?
Some people are dedicating their life to it, almost to the point of obsession, but is it of any consequence either way to the average person, even if it IS True
–
Maybe they are matters of life and death we are talking about?
If logical theoretical scientists believe the whole universe goes thru periodical rebirths, what is so illogical about human rebirth resurrection and/or reincarnation.
The only argument would seem to be whether information passes thru, whether there is partial or total information loss, as in ever more broken or corrupt DNA strands. I guess the human equivalent is rebirth with no memory of past life, or ‘conscious’ rebirth and afterlife.
–
Sean wrote:
Sean,
The Pope made no such claim. Please read his address. The quote that you and your source attribute to him is actually his summary of the reasoning of the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus. Here’s the relevant excerpt:
BEGIN EXCERPT
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.
God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death….
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.
END EXCERPT
Here’s my summary of the Pope’s (unadvisedly professorial) speech:
1) Non-Western cultures are offended by the West’s current dismissal of religion as incompatible with reason.
2) As evidenced by a 600-year-old dialog between a Christian and a Muslim, Christianity was once understood to be compatible with reason, and this perceived compatibility distinguished it from non-Western beliefs such as Islam.
3) If the West revives its belief in the compatibility with reason of Christianity in particular and religion in general, non-Western believers will cease to view the West as inimical to and dismissive of their core (i.e. religious) beliefs.
4) A revived Western view of the reasonableness of religion can form the basis of a dialog between the West and other cultures.
Generally, your text is not bad but I miss some basics of good judgement:
1) If judging the popes speech: You have to read the original, not a 2nd or 3rd party information source that takes a quote out of the speech puts it into a wrong context.
2) I miss CLEAR words, that dark ages of the Christian religion were 500 years ago. Do you want to wait another 500 years?
Not all muslims are terrorists, but a high portion of all terrorists are muslims. Sad but true.
Religion of Peace? I dont think so.
2) I miss CLEAR words, that dark ages of the Christian religion were 500 years ago. Do you want to wait another 500 years?
Sectarian violence between different sects of the same religion — all over the place with Islam in Iraq right now. Not so very long ago, the Christian version of the same thing was tearing Northern Ireland apart.
Many if not most or all large religions have people doing awful (as well as good) things in its name right now.
-Rob
so much here to munch on. “A high portion of all terrorists are muslims” for example denotes a difference between acts of terror (as perpetrated by a massive military state) versus terrorist acts (as carried out by those who are incapable of conceiving of other ways to express their “issues”). Someone up there (Arun or Robb) dropped a line about morality and virtue not stemming from rationality, yet that was the essential discourse of the enlightenment philosophers, freeing humans from the dependency upon religion as the arbiter of virture. Science is amoral, reason provides opportunities to know and choose what is moral and virtuous.
serial catowner said Charity is religious in nature. Now, not mentioning the history of evolutionary biological study, i can offer that there is an honor’s thesis paper sitting on my desktop from a former student who graduated recently from Stanford and is now in the MS/MA (?) philosophy program studying computational hermeneutics. The title of this paper is: Radical Interpretability and Parasitism: Justifying the Principle of Charity. There is not a mention of religion in it.
and finally someone else above suggested that part of the multitude of commentary in this thread stems from the religious nature of the topic as being emotional?? I think it has much more to do with so many people feeling competent to discuss religion without really understanding it at all, especially as an academic discipline, much like they do discussing education and art. I suspect it is one of the reasons that when one drifts over to religion blogs, one finds so much use of arcana and specific nomenclature offered to constrict the discourse.
ps. Belizean, you need to read Gary Leupp’s essay: The Crusade of Pope Rat!
Belizean,
Your link to “his address” in 76. doesn’t work. Was it supposed to be a link?
The GZK cutoff has finally been observed:
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609453
Meanwhile, this blog degenerates into another boring discussion of religion or politics or some other bullshit…
So go visit another one. Maybe start your own. Sounds like you have a command of the language that would make it an instant hit.
spyder, yes let’s look at terrorism as critically as we look at war, and vice versa.
Belizean,
You write:
“…Christianity was once understood to be compatible with reason, and this perceived compatibility distinguished it from non-Western beliefs such as Islam.”
My reaction: May I suggest that you read the Koran (if you have not done so already), as well as Islamic history; I assume that you have read the Bible and Church history and would we willing to defend this specific “assessment” (the summary remark) made by Pope Benedict XVI.
Furthermore: What the Pope was doing was not really trying to initiate a healthy “intellectual” discourse; his views of other world-faiths was unambiguously stated weeks after he assumed Papal discharge: he views all other faiths as “deficient”: but in exactly what specific way - in relation to Catholocism - still remains vague, unspecific, and inarticulated…
It just so happened that his speech on Religion and Reason coincidentally included a quote from an “obscure” medieval Byzantine Christian emperor who lived shortly after the failed Third Crusade, and immediately before the period of the downfall of Constantinople. I guess one cannot get more “obscure” than that…
Vince,
Here’s the link to the “Pope’s Speech at the University of Regensburg (full text)”.
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474
If it still doesn’t work, just copy the URL into your browser.
Sumit,
To be clear, I was attempting to summarize the Pope’s speech, not give my own opinion.
Please read his speech to understand what I’m referring to with the phrase “compatible with reason”. Incompatibility in this sense does not imply that Muslims are psychologically irrational. Rather, it means that they believe their god to be so powerful that he even transcends the restrictions of reason.
Belizean,
Thank you for the clarification.
Comments by the Pope:
The Pope suggestively expresses the view that Christian scripture and doctrines (or it core “essence” anyhow) is somehow rational - as early Christianity was influenced by Hellenistic thinking (using principles of reasoning and logic at its bedrock). This may have been the case (I don’t specifically know, aside from some patches of information by historians of Early Christianity who claim that Early Christian doctrines were fundamentally different in philosophical and theological perspective from the Christianity of today, and were more akin to Jewish belief systems; incidentally, the Koran states that over the generations - the Gospel and message of Jesus (of Nazareth) had fallen to “corruption” trough human intervention - i.e. additions / deletions, editing, etc.) so that the original message had become distorted: it also states that Jesus had a wife named ‘Mariam’? - but back to the original point…)).
However, his thesis (based on the “obscure” quote from the 14th century Christian emperor) that Islam’s primary theological foundation is built on an essentially irrational worldview, which contradicts human rationality - since it permits violence in the name of God - is somewhat misinformed: jihad in the context of *self-defense against unwarranted aggression* is permitted within Islam, not exactly because God wants Muslims to convert others to the ‘faith’ through violence. [Here a reading of the Koran is essential to carry on a meaningful and healthy discussion]. (Incidentally, as many commentators have pointed out - Mahatir Mohammad being one among many - the Pope keeps missing references to own faith when presenting his academic discourse on the topic).
Topic of Jihad:
Global jihad - if one studies the empirical data with some measure of objectivity - is by-and-large a reaction to US aggression against the perpetual killing of Muslim civilans throughout the Middle East and surrounding regions (which, by the way, is from where most jihadis come from). The Administration wants us to think something else: and it hasn’t been working…
maybe mr Sumit could also explain to us why there are no democracies in the Muslim world, with the exception of Turkey ?
Constantin, you suggest that christianity is somehow more condusive to democracy, but may I remind you that proper modern democracy did not start until the English Bill of Rights in 1689. Considering that islam started some 600 years after christianity, it is too early to tell which religion fares best with respect to democracy..
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/18/85254/3270
Worth a read, IMO.
Concludes with this:
“What is really unfortunate isn’t that Pope Benedict reached back to a flawed and bigoted 12th century conversation in order to have a context for speaking about religious violence today. Â What is unfortunate is that he had to. Â For centuries, the West refused to talk to Islam at all, because we didn’t share the same faith. Â Now, we’ve lost even the ability to talk to Islam, and we’ve lost that ability because we don’t share a belief in faith itself — a belief that is central to Islamic culture. Â Unless we reclaim the ability to talk about faith without sneering, we will insult Muslims at the very core of their culture, at the very core of their existence. Â In that state of insult, there can be no peace.
What Pope Benedict is saying, is this: It is the insistence that faith has no part in a modern and rational world, that is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
- For that matter, we’ve lost the ability to talk to about a third of the American electorate.
Further, unless Muslims get the ability to talk about politics and governance and law without bringing faith into the picture, are able to talk about secularism without sneering, they will insult us at the very core of our culture, and in that state of insult there can be no peace.
“Furthermore: What the Pope was doing was not really trying to initiate a healthy “intellectual†discourse; his views of other world-faiths was unambiguously stated weeks after he assumed Papal discharge: he views all other faiths as “deficientâ€: but in exactly what specific way - in relation to Catholocism - still remains vague, unspecific, and inarticulated…”
Well, if you belong to a religion which follows the words of Jesus and claims that Jesus redeemed us and reconciled us back to God, that, in fact, he is God incarnated, and that he rose from the dead, then you have to say that religions which don’t teach the same thing are deficient. I mean, assuming Jesus is all those things, then all other religions are deficient.
but not what I meant - I’m very weary of these “spontaneous” demonstrations of indignation. Why would 1.2 billion Muslims care about what the Pope says or thinks, as if most Catholics - let alone Christians - do.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh. That’s 400 million people right there.
If you want to count the Moslem minority in India, that’s another 150 million moslems living in a liberal democracy.
I could go on but, somehow, I don’t think Mr Constantin cares …
While in most cases a topical debate would - probably (?) - not have lasted this long (except ofcourse on ST ;-)), on this specific issue it was very much needed, and maybe - hopefully - helpful to all:
The Pope has, without much excuse to justify his action, blatantly (and perhaps even purposefully… one only wonders…) over-stepped his jurisdiction: and he should be held to task for this.
“A person’s right to breathe in public does not give him the right to sneeze on everyone else’s faces.”
(This someone said on CNN after the Mohammed cartoons.)
Pope, instead of maintaining due respectibility on behalf of the 1.2 billion Catholics, you have lowered yourself to the position of just another run-of-the-mill political figure - maybe with some axe to grind against Islam (I don’t really know). I guess John Paul would have wanted it that way…
If Pope Benedict had said “We are all fallible human beings, and people of our faiths do not always act wisely, but we should all strive to promote peace over violence within our churches,†perhaps there would have been fewer effigies.
Well, yea. Being ambiguous doesn’t offend many, but it’s not worth much unless you’re writing a poem.
But if he would have said, “Catholicism and Islam have both been associated with evil at times,” he would still probably have produced a significant number of effigies. And if he would have associated Allah or Mohammed with evil in any way, regardless of anything else that he said, he would have probably gotten the same result.
You don’t seem to understand the significance of blaspheming Jesus in a society dominated by Christians versus blaspheming Allah or Mohammed in a society dominated by Muslims.
And somewhere in here there should be a statement about the millions that were killed at the hands of atheists in the last century. But I can’t figure out a smooth way to slip it in.
You could see this article by a Muslim Scholar.
http://www.tariqramadan.com/article.php3?id_article=781&lang=en
I find I must chime in here. I find the blog quite interesting in keeping up with matters of modern physics. Thank you for that! But “you” scientists are really quite full of it you know. Many of your good friends around you are Christians, or Jews, or whatever. You demean them, and yourself, by denying their world view has any validity. Practicing a strict scientific viewpoint such as you do, has obvious benefits. But evolution has not necessitated any one worldview, at least to date. One has only needed to find food, kill his enemies before they kill him, and procreate to succeed. In some sense, that is still true today, in spite of our liberal worldviews. Would it were not.
While I often bemoan my very good Christian friends’ outlook on life, I do not demean them. I look at my scientist friends’ theories and, yes faiths, and I wonder how they can be so full of it. In explaining the ultimate scheme of things, they are as clueless as their religious friends. They just have fancier theories and faiths, expressed in exact language, and, to be sure, practices that bring about technological marvels, to the benefit of the rest of us. But there is no ultimate “understanding” at the end of all their explaining.
So the point is that we have to accept all these alternative ways to live and believe. There are no solutions, there are only choices, an old truth. That is surely a liberal viewpoint, I would propose. And a liberal viewpoint I agree with.
What is running amok these days is that one of the alternative beliefs, at least in its radical interpretation definitely does NOT have a liberal mindset. It has a medieval mindset. It will have to be eliminated if the rest of us are to survive in a (liberal) connected, pluralist world. It is that simple! Our liberal friends find it hard to revert to the definitely non liberal practice of survival of the fittest. Appeasers are everywhere among us. It is 1938 all over again. We are making apologies for people who want to kill us.
I think this is what Pope Benedict sees, but not how to see it thru. I see him as suggesting the point that God and violence do not go together. Which is where I think most of the world’s religions have evolved to. They certainly didn’t start out that way!
A radical minority of the Islam religion certainly believe that (their) God and violence go hand in hand, and that their viewpoint is the “endpoint” of spiritual evolution, to be imposed on the rest of us. And this viewpoint is tolerated by much of their majority. Definitely not good for the future of our liberal, pluralistic world.
Good for the Pope for (delicately) trying to inject this into the debate.
It’s 1938 OK. The problem is, we may be the Germans.
I prefer to think of us as Brits awakened from a deep pacifist slumber after WWI. That pacifism got 100 million people killed in WWII by absolutely refusing to confront Hitler when he could have easily been toppled, no less than 4 times. I would say we are at about time 2 here. We are NOT the bad guys. With our munificent liberal spirit, as evidenced by you (america is probably the bad guy…), we are willing to live with these people, they are not willing to live with us.
J
The notion that Iraq or Iran or even North Korea are remotely analogous to Hitler’s Germany is merely stupid since none of these countries have anything like the power to present more than a regional threat. You do know that, don’t you? You know we are NOT the bad guys, at least, apparently because you’re sure that Americans are exempt from the human capacity for self-deception, cowardice, and cruelty. Either that, or like some Fox News meatheat, you’re just playing to the cheap seats. A real rhetorical coup: it takes so much courage to grudgingly admit that “we’re always right and we never lie.”
Historical analogies are always pretty dubious–I only use ‘em for rhetorical effect myself—but if you’re going to talk about a new candidate for Hitler of the month, it will have to be the leader of a large, militarily powerful nation, somebody who dreams of imposing his ideology on the entire world, not some nut in Afghanistan.
My my.. Didn’t mean to start a flame war here on a science blog. I guess you are willing to live with the fact that someday there will be A-bombs going off in our cities. You give your jihadi thugs a lot of credit to restrain themselves in the future. I guess that is the difference between us. I believe they will do it in a hearbeat, as they have promised. All they need is somebody to supply them with a few. Wonder who that could be? That sounds worse than Hitler to me. He couldn’t drop bombs on us.
Let’s just all come home and hope these idiots behave. Sounds like a great plan to me. Sounds like 1938.
Bye.
J
The whole “death at the hands of God is His holiness” and “the wrath of God is His justice” arguments are sheer lunacy and downright ignorant. Friends, there are two creative/superior entities addressed in the Bible. The first, the LORD God of Israel, otherwise known as Yahweh or Yehovah, is an incredible manipulator of people, of societies, he abhors women, he directs his ‘chosen’ to kill, steal and destroy other people, he says not to burn your children sacrificially in a fire yet we all know what happens with Abraham (and his son) and Jephthah (and his daughter) which shows the LORD to be a hypocrite (keep in mind that the son/boy was spared while the daughter/girl was burned), he can’t stand the thought of man becoming wise, he burns with jealousy and proclaims this often, he goes around boasting and roaring that he is god and that all should fear him and that if you do not he or