I have to admit that my consciousness is not raised on this matter and I don’t hear with Muslim ears but, unless merely mentioning statements somebody made nearly a thousand years ago in the context of a significantly longer address criticizing the use of violence in religion is offensive, I don’t understand what people are getting upset about. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
I just heard Tariq Ramadan interviewed on NPR a few minutes ago. He, basically, just said the same thing.
Turkey's ruling Islamic-rooted party joined a wave of criticism of Pope Benedict XVI on Friday, accusing him of trying to revive the spirit of the Crusades with remarks he made about the Muslim faith. A Turkish lawmaker said the pontiff would go down in history "in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini" for his words.
Turkey's ruling party seems to forget that the Crusades began because of a Muslin invasion of Europe.
I simply look at the behavior of the faith's founder when I look to decide its value. Muhammad did convert by the sword. He did sue to make peace until he was able to win by war. His hands are soaked with blood.
The closest anyone can come to saying the same of Christianity is blaming the Church. It's a valid criticism but one need only make a cursory glance at Yeshua and His Disciples to realize they were not doing things as He Himself had done.
Blame the Church for the Crusades if you must. I blame Muhammad himself for all the deaths at the hands of Islam.
Simply, a "peaceful" Muslim is not a true follower of the Koran.
It will be very interesting to see if the Vatican back-pedals, even if the "pedalling" in the first place was attenuated. I predict that it will, indeed, do so.
i'm not particularly excercized about it myself, especially since if you actually read the Pope's statement, he's really talking about secularism, not Islam, as the threat. And there are plenty of polemical Christians who are eager to misinterpret the Pope just as readily.
I think it's interesting (yeah, "interesting") how often Moslems talk about and think about the Crusades - Christendom's failed attempt to take the Holy Land back from its Islamperialist conquerers.
Who exactly is it who is "...bringing back the mentality of the Crusades."?
The speech truly was how reason was a basic part of the Christian faith, and that trying to separate reason from faith damages both. The reference to Islam was in passing, a comparison of a religious faith with reson interwoven through it and one without any reason.
Of course, those who are perpetually prepared to be offended, and use that contrived sense of outrage to further their worldly agendas were not and never will read the actual speech.
"If you can bear to hear the words you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..."
This is a tempest in a teapot and a mountain out of a molehill (those are the only two cliches I can come up with).
Interestingly, the scholar quoted by Pope Benedict in his speech describes Islam in the following manner, "But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." Pope Benedict never adopts that description of Islam's conception of religion as his own, but given the irrational response of some Muslims, it seems somewhat apt in this case.
By manufacturing outrage, the imams solidify their own xenophobia-founded power.
That was the real triumph of the Enlightenment: those in power finally began practicing the tolerance Jesus had taught, despite the cost t their own power. Here, let me throw out another controversial historical statement:
“You have heard that it was said ‘Love your neighbors’, and you hate your enemies. But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the worst sinners do that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even idol-worshippers do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
You all know as well as I do that the pope was just talking the usual liberal mushmouth, and that even if he were to crawl on all fours to the thrones of these islamic leaders they would condemn him.
What this pope doesn't seem to understand is that in such a battle as now confronts the west, it would be far more meaningful for him to act the part of a soldier of Jesus, and less that of just another defender of the purple robes, Michaelangelo paintings, and marble palaces of the roman papacy.
Benedict's islamic counterpart is a tall, thin Arab with blazing eyes, absolute certitude about his mission in life, and living with his key supporters in mountain caves of western Pakistan. And I hate to have to say it, but the truth is, that tall, thin Arab in that sparse cave in western Pakistan has more moral authority among his fighters than this painted-up priest in Rome, regardless of the size of the crowds of docile Romans, Germans, Austrians and Poles who come out to gawk at the popemobile driving by with its kindly, white-haired stooped and aging occupant.
As more people in the West realize that we are all all in a protracted conflict with much of Islam -- and maybe all Islam, depending on how well you define these matters -- most of them will understand that the sad, tired roman catholic papacy of today has neither the will nor the courage to confront it's consistent enemy of 1373 years' duration. That must be left to better leadership cadres and better and stronger men and women.
Or am I wrong about Christianity playing a militant role in countering its most formidable enemies in two millenia?
True, but this is primarily a war of information; those in Islam who war against the West do so by duping/indoctrinating their followers. Military force is useful in two ways:
1) Direct suppression of terrorists (Afghanistan)
2) Creating the conditions for free exchange of information which makes the task of the militants (to create information cocoons in which they can control Muslims' context and create the illusion that war against the West is moral and necessary) more difficult (Iraq)
Islam does not tolerate other religions well. There are many Christians that routinely debate atheists, Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses. But I have not seen a Muslim willing to debate a Christian.
TD, I know full well the frequently self-imposed western limitations on all-out war. But even for a successful limited war, it is imperative that the West take the offensive against the islamists. Do you think the 21st century papacy is an agency strong enough even to initiate such a burden, to say nothing of carrying it? Who are their soldiers today, other than a relative handful of Opus Dei wimps secretely whipping themselves in the privacy of their lavoratories, or whatever it is they do for spiritual refreshment?
That pack in Rome, despite their fancy palaces and impressive costumery, are just a bunch of losers, as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox and even Billy Graham, Joseph Smith, the reverend Sun Myung Moon, and L Ron Hubbard have been proving for 500 years.
Hell, for that matter, even Hutton Gibson or his kid, for that matter, would make more effective pope than the ones they've voted in during recent centuries.
You know as well as I do that the roman international has accommodated every European dictator since Napoleon. They would have kissed Josef Stalin's ass just to get a religious concordat with that sardonic old realist. And they will do the same with the islamic world, if they ever get a chance.
I sometimes wonder whether that bunch in Rome still believe their stuff, or maybe if they're really just a bunch of apatheists, like me.
James Taranto's Best Of The Web Today included this comment from a spokeswoman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, Tasnim Aslam: "Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence."
It's the agree-that-we're-peaceful-or-die argument that's become so popular in Islamic circles. (I'm sold! Don't hurt me!) It reminds me of the blackmail note recently sent to Tony Blair by various British Muslim groups that essentially said, we blame your foreign policy for making us into terrorists, so change your foreign policy or brace for more terrorism.
who writes on his blog that the pope's attempted assasination was by a muslim
im not sure about the individual's religion (he might be secular and may not be a theist at all)
but the organization he belonged to was a racial non-religious organization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves
you may also be interested in the following from wiki:
On March 2, 2006, an Italian parliamentary commission concluded that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt, in retaliation for John Paul II's support to Solidarity, the Polish workers' movement, a thesis which had already been supported by Michael Ledeen and the CIA at the time. The report stated that certain Bulgarian security departments were utilized to prevent the Soviet Union's role from being uncovered. [4] [5] However, alternative theories also exist, and the Pope himself declared during a May 2002 visit to Bulgaria that this country had nothing to do with the assassination attempt. The failed assassin was also a member of the ultra-nationalist Turkish Grey Wolves, who were allegedly infiltrated by Gladio, a NATO sponsored paramilitary organization created in order to counter a potential Soviet invasion [6].
i forgot to add that the second assas. attempt upon my favorite pope was by a christian
Another assassination attempt took place on 12 May 1982, just a day before the anniversary of the last attempt on his life, in Fatima, Portugal when a man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet, but was stopped by security guards. The assailant, an ultraconservative and right wing Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, former member of the Society of St. Pius X, reportedly opposed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and called the pope an agent of Moscow. He subsequently left the Roman Catholic priesthood and served a six-year sentence, and was expelled from Portugal afterwards.
of course, the only blanket statements commentators make here are about muslims
"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence."
I can't be the first one who's noticed that all religious protesters are irony-deprived.
It's not clear which part of the quote caused the most offence - the one dissing Mohammed or this:
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.
The statement "not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature." is central to the message Benedict was trying to convey.
When I first read this, I thought his critics were cherrypicking, but given the nature of the complaints, I'd guess that they may have read the whole thing. Benedict's critics aren't big supporters of reason-based religious belief.
If Benedict gives in to these unreasonable demands, he'll be acting in a way that he said was contrary to God's nature. He's wouldn't just be acting like a dhimmi, he wouldn't just be 'turning the other cheek', he'd be going against his stated beliefs.
What is interesting is that the Roman Catholic Church is coming out in favor of "faith through reason" while the Epsicopal Church is turning to "faith because we said so". And the words of a Byzantine Emperor, a Greek Orthodox, were used to support the views of a Roman Catholic Pope.
"Benedict's islamic counterpart is a tall, thin Arab with blazing eyes, absolute certitude about his mission in life, and living with his key supporters in mountain caves of western Pakistan."
Are you saying that Osama Bin Laden is the Pope's counterpart? Wouldn't that make the Pope a terrorist?
Then again you have self identified as living in the troll capital of the world so perhaps I shouldn't take you seriously.
"of course, the only blanket statements commentators make here are about muslims"
Neato, a blanket statement about blanket statements. That would be like some kinda meta-blanket statement wouldn't it? Well at least someones learning something about the word meta from my prior comments.
Although it would be nice to have specifics here. I couldn't actually find all the blanket statements about Muslims that you were complaining about. In fact, I didn't find a single one. I wouldn't claim it wasn't there however since I'm fallible. Perhaps you could point it out.
I did find some blanket statements by the fellow from the troll capital of the world. Unfortunately they were directed not at Muslims but at "Romans, Germans, Austrians and Poles", "Opus Dei", and "That pack in Rome". Which pretty much falsifies your claim that the only blanket claims were about Muslims.
Note that the following statements are not blanket claims due to the words that I have bolded. I'll let you figure out why.
"Pope Benedict never adopts that description of Islam's conception of religion as his own, but given the irrational response of some Muslims, it seems somewhat apt in this case."
"By manufacturing outrage, the imams solidify their own xenophobia-founded power."
"It just seems that the Muslim Street cannot say anything without someone somewhere (usually Pakistan) dying during a protest."
"True, but this is primarily a war of information; those in Islam who war against the West do so by duping/indoctrinating their followers."
"Islam does not tolerate other religions well."
"But I have not seen a Muslim willing to debate a Christian."
Since you are so against blanket statements perhaps you would be so kind as to reject the following Qur'anic blanket statements as foolish ranting by someone who is not well versed in logic.
These nasty ones target Jews, Christians, idolaters, non-Muslims, etc.
2:96 And thou wilt find them [the Jews] greediest of mankind for life and (greedier) than the idolaters. (Each) one of them would like to be allowed to live a thousand years. And to live (a thousand years) would be no means remove him from the doom. Allah is Seer of what they do.
2:99 Verily We have revealed unto thee clear tokens, and only miscreants will disbelieve in them.
2:121 Those unto whom We have given the Scripture, who read it with the right reading, those believe in it. And whoso disbelieveth in it, those are they who are the losers.
3:32 Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance).
4:51 Hast thou not seen those unto whom a portion of the Scripture hath been given, how they believe in idols and false deities, and how they say of those (idolaters) who disbelieve: "These are more rightly guided than those who believe" ?
3:118 O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.
5:45 And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds retaliation. But whoso forgoeth it (in the way of charity) it shall be expiation for him. Whoso judgeth not by that which Allah hath revealed: such are wrong-doers.
5:59 Say: O People of the Scripture! Do ye blame us for aught else than that we believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed aforetime, and because most of you are evil-livers ?
16:22 Your God is One God. But as for those who believe not in the Hereafter their hearts refuse to know, for they are proud.
There are also blanket statements about Muslims but probably not of the kind you'd object to.
4:69 Whoso obeyeth Allah and the messenger, they are with those unto whom Allah hath shown favour, of the prophets and the saints and the martyrs and the righteous. The best of company are they!
Some blanket statements go both ways. Apparently all Muslims are clean and all idolaters are unclean.
9:28 O ye who believe! The idolaters only are unclean. So let them not come near the Inviolable Place of Worship after this their year. If ye fear poverty (from the loss of their merchandise) Allah shall preserve you of His bounty if He will. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise.
No wonder Mohammed kicked them out of their own tribal places of worship. Those guys never take a bath! Can't have them hanging out around their own sacred temples where they had been praying for centuries before Mohammed showed up to give them a lesson in bodily hygene. Or were they unclean in some other way that would disqualify them from worshiping in their own places of worship!
Apparently, Mohammed was worried that his message would not appeal to Muslim soap merchants. If they drove away their unclean customers then who would buy the soap? Surely not the perpetually clean Muslims. So he comforts them with the knowledge that Allah will pay some sort of compensation.
Or did I misunderstand the word clean in that passage. Surely you don't drive people away from places of worship because they are spiritually unclean! Those are the people who most need to be there. Thus I figured this was about soap.
Yes, it really is that silly and that's why I mock. It's evil too, usurping someone elses holy place.
Sorry for the aside, back to the point.
Not only is the Quran full of blanket statements it is also full of all sorts of other fallacious claims. Not to mention double standards and other unethical principles.
Of course, as always, for brevity sake not every example from the Qur'an was included in any category. Plus I don't remember them all.
of course, the only blanket statements commentators make here are about muslims
Gee eteraz, that's a pretty ironic thing to say - at a blog that hosts the "Carnival of Brass - Best of the Islamsphere", and has Aziz - a Muslim - as guest commentator.
Dean's taken a lot of heat from some for his Libertarian stance on Islam.
As for the Pope's assassin, yes the KGB was behind it. But as far as I know - the trigger man was a Muslim.
Is that a big deal? I don't think so - but my point is I think it's a bigger deal than the Pontiff quoting from a 700 year old text.
The Roman Catholic Church, through its Pope, is taking a part in the war, a part it is well-suited for. It is offering a theological basis for fighting Islamism. It is offering reason a seat in the debates, by acknowledging its place in our own divinely-gifted humanity, and stating, clearly and scholarly, that to deny reason is to deny part of what separates us from the stingrays of the waters.
God granted us reason. God granted us faith. We are made in God's own image, so reason must be part of God. To deny reason is to deny God. To deny faith is to deny God.
Acknowledged - we are not God, we cannot fathom all of the mysteries of creation, we cannot have full understanding of God. Hence faith. But we can use the gifts that God gave us to better understand him. Hence reason. To deny either is to deny an essential part of our humanity, and it is to deny an essential part that links us to the divine.
We are not animals, yet we are not divine. We are a special creation that partakes of both. Reason without faith, without a firm moral bedrock that some things are not done leads to eugenics, leads to euthanaisa, leads to Treblinka. Faith without reason leads to holy wars, leads to inquisitions.
Each is a denial of humanity and thus a denial of the shadow of God that we all are.
Pope: “Islam is too often characterized as a religion of violence. As long ago as the 14th century an emporer of Byzantium said ‘Mohammed’s religion has only brought violence and the forced conversion to Islam by the sword.’ We must work together to show that all the world’s great religions are religions of peace.”
Islamic reaction: “You have blasphemed Mohammed and Islam! Die! Die! Die!”
Me to enraged Muslims: “Um…. well, the Pope said that this was a perception of Islam. Your reaction is simply proving that the perception is true. Do you even see the irony?”
Islamic reaction to me: “You have blasphemed Mohammed and Islam! Die! Die! Die!”
I’m starting to see a pattern here. Is anyone else?
I reside in the town of Cross Plains, a non-incorporated rural area some six miles northeast of the village of Mount Horeb, which is my USPS mailing address. The trolls there are advertising gimmicks by which the largely nowegian-american population seeks to attract tourists from Madison, Milwaukee, and greater Chicago. Especially tourists with spare money jingling in their pockets.
As for "trolls" in the blogworld sense, I have been a regular commenter almost-daily commenter on Dean's World since autumn 2002. Which is considered lengthy residency in blogtime. And if I were a "troll" in the blogworld sense, Dean Esmay would have booted me off a long time ago.
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That pope Benedict is not a terrorist and that Osama bin Laden is a terrorist are both indisputable.
But it is obvious that you misunderstood my point about these two men. That Osama bin Laden is a terrorist is irrelevant to what his leadership function is becoming in Islam. The acts of destruction against the United States for which this man provided the funding, leadership cadre, training, and fedaiin volunteers (literally, "self-sacrificers") are that man's growing ticket of legitimacy of leadership status in the conjoined political and religious aspects of Islam.
The kalif of Islam before the destruction of the kalifate by the Mongol invaders of mesopotamia in the 13th century, was considered the "commander of the faithful" and as such, was the prophet Muhamad's direct successor, which, for the Sun'a, was always a hierchical attainment, whereas the Shi'a considered only direct blood descendants of the prophet's family as legitimate leaders of the islamic world.
By striking such terrible blows as he has done against us, the alien and enemy West, and by evading death or capture at our hands, Osama bin Laden is establishing is leadership in the minds of Muslims all across this planet, especially among those who already consider us the enemies of their faith and culture. And by his success to date, it must be assumed that support for him among other elements of Islam is growing.
By those standards, Osama bin Laden is very much more than the counterpart of pope Benedict, whose real-life role is little more than the roman catholic papal version of queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. In short, just a ceremonial leader.
Instead, the nearest counterpart to an islamic kalif would be a combination of the Frankish-German emperor Charlemagne and one of the great and strong Roman popes of the middle ages, such as Innocent III.
And I have no doubt that kalif -- commander of the faithful -- is the status that many Muslims around the world already regard Osama bin Ladin as having achieved through merit, his service to islam, and his victories against the unbelievers of the West. That means us.
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In general, BM/BW, I do not think you and very many other bloggers and commenters regard with sufficient seriousness the totality of the threat these people pose to western civilization.
There is nothing whatsoever fuzzy-minded about any of them. Islam knows what it intends to achieve, and they have both the fanaticism and patience to wait until they are sufficiently strong, and their intended victims sufficiently weak, to conquer the remainder of the world and reduce its populations to submission to their concept of allah.
And that is all they want. Total submission to the totality of Islam. A worldwide sharia that will dictate all social, personal, domestic, civil, political and religious life. A totalitarianism without doors, windows or even seams. A permanent dictatorship of zombies, by zombies, and for zombies. In other words, an endless reign of the living dead.
Apparently the Pope doesn't know any Muslims since many think their religion is all about reason and science. Apparently he also hasn't read the bible since it spends a lot of time denigrating reason. Nor know any Christians because they tend to believe that faith trumps reason.
I wonder if my first comment counts as a blanket statement if I don't include the word "all". Well at least I balanced it out with the last one. I guess that makes it acceptable.
Maybe not. Guess I'll have to go back and add the words "many" and "tend". Or am I lying and were they always there? You'll never know.
Brian, it works very simply if you deny the worth of each human and see them all as contributing or non-contributing parts of a greater whole. If you reduce human life to a bead on an abacus:
This human life will not be able to contribute. Sterilize it so that it cannot spread its functional weakness to society. [Eugenics]
This human life will no longer/never contribute. Remove the burden that is a drain on society. [Euthanasia]
This group of people are shown to contribute nothing to the greater nation. Remove them all. [Treblinka]
For the first, see the US Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell, and Justice Holmes' statement that three generations of imbeciles is enough. Much humanity there, eh?
"God showed you no mercy, now neither shall man." PDB Wimsey. (IIRC)
We can all be thankful that the latter two ideas have not made great inroads in the USA.
Brian, I am not a theologian, but I think St.Paul utilized reason in his gospels, and I am pretty sure St. Augustine was a very reasonable man, steeped in the best that the Greco-Roman world had to offer, which was very, very good.
Arnold - I think I've been commenting here also since late 2001-early 2002. So we should be counted amongst the "Old Guard" that which dies, but does not surrender.
What a funny coincidence. I'm from Wantagh, L.I. which is of Indian origins. Wan for leg and tagh for tug. I'm originally from Chap-pa-quid-dick which means literally "Drive with drunk Edward". Puzzling as I always assumed that was the nickname for Richard.
I don't think Osama is a very good example of an Islamic counterpart for the Pope.
The Pope is the head of the Catholic church whose edicts are [blanket statement warning] respected by 1 billion good people. He inspires by his example of peace and irrationality.
Osama Bin Laden is a head but I'm not saying what kind. Furthermore, his followers, the ones who follow his edicts, are a bunch of criminals. He inspires the way a KKK lynching does.
Being serious. I'm not sure there is an Islamic counterpart for the Pope. Maybe one of the sects has such a counterpart but I doubt it. None of the sects I know about are organized the way the Catholic church is. See I do know something about Islam. Of course, not all but who does?
This is why I didn't take your statement seriously. Plus I thought it funny to compare the Pope to a head terrorist. I won't be mean and bring up that whole child molesting thing because I think it's unfair to pin on any Pope.
I'm not so sure about the founders of other religions we've been speaking of. Yes, I've read the Islamic apologetics on this one. They are not believable except perhaps if you are already a member of that particular faith.
I am fully aware of the ethical and physical dangers that Islam presents to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. I think that much I have established. Forgive me if I'm not serious tonight but I'm on a roll.
Besides the idea of the current Pope charging forward as "a soldier of Jesus" and being the counterpart of a militant terrorist just doesn't appeal to me. I prefer a more defensive stance.
I do think we should outlaw the teaching of any religious doctrine that calls for murder or denigrates others based on their beliefs, or race. But only on the condition that such teaching has endangered someone. One could still sell the things as fiction, or with disclaimers like those evolution stickers the fundamentalists wanted to put in the textbooks.
Unfortunately, although the correct solution it wouldn't be politically popular here in the US. After all the Old Testament calls for stoning homosexuals and witches, and there are a lot of Christian literalists here. Is it any wonder that we find homosexuals barbwired to fence posts? That "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live" thing also caused plenty of trouble.
Think about it. Why do religious people have the right to believe on no evidence what-so-ever that people who don't believe as they do are evil? What the heck is that about? I know not all Christian sects go in for that, but many do. So far it appears every Muslim sect is of that variety and I'm looking carefully.
To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens of faith, if you require no credible evidence to believe such nonsense then I require none to dismiss it. That's particularly true of the idea that not believing as you do is going to cause some all-powerful uber daddy figure to get his jollies using me for an eternal marshmallow roast.
So despite your desire to have Christians protect us from Islam I think they are philosophically neutered in this cause. Or at least having some sort of erectile dysfunction. It will be very hard for Christians to disarm Islam of that most dangerous tool, faith, when they are codependents.
Did you notice how next to no one mentioned the incredible act of faith it took to fly those two planes into the towers? Many were thanking God for getting out of the towers in time but how many were cursing Allah. What's that about anyway? Do they really think God favored them over the poor bastards who didn't get out. Somehow they are special? I think for the most part it probably had more to do with what floor you were on, but that's just me.
Christians will not be able to stop Muslims from spreading the plainly false and endangering doctrines precisely because they believe freedom of religion is about spreading religion, not protecting people from it. So us poor atheists and idolators are going to have to suffer every time a Muslim actually reads the Koran, believes what's actually written, and acts on those beliefs.
What a world.
It's appalling that they actually revere this stuff. Shows you how impressionable a young childs mind is and how long the effects can last. A mind is a terrible thing to destroy. Teach them over and over that non-believers are greedy, lying, selfish, non-charitable, evil, burn-in-hell walking timebombs and they just aren't going to want to listen to reason. Especially if some imaginary being that never makes mistakes told them so.
I think it is criminally negligent child abuse to teach kids such notions. Negligent because if you teach them some book is the infallible word of the creator of the universe and that book carries verses advocating murder of non-believers then they might act on it. Especially if you twisted their mind with notions that knowledge is the fruit of the tree of evil. That's like handing them a loaded gun with one bullet in the chamber, pulling the trigger (click), and saying "See it's not loaded. God told me so and you wouldn't want to get him angry by looking in the chamber. Try clicking the trigger at that non-believer. God wants that and even if the gun went off you won't get in trouble."
Lucky, most Christians don't take their text literally any more, or are ignorant of it's contents, or are taught that the Old Testament has been overturned by the New.
There is nothing reasonable about believing that the creator of the Universe made an eternal torture chamber for what are to him insignificant beings, just because he didn't want to lift his pinky finger to communicate his desires in a believable fashion. If he exists he's gone out of his way to erase the evidence. Heck, Cambrian invertibrates have left more evidence that this.
As to your claims that reason has lead to atrocity well, reasoning and rationalization are two very different things. Also we are speaking here about ethical reasoning. One cannot use ethical reasoning to come to the conclusion that one has the right to exterminate others. Those decisions are more based on faith that reason. Faith in the superiority of the Aryan bloodline in the face of Jewish accomplishment for example.
If the Jews were inferior, or anyone else for that matter, then according to Darwinian theory there is nothing to do. Natural selection will take care of them on it's own. There is nothing about evolution that says altruistic acts like a mother caring for her child, charity, or friendship are inherently maladaptive. The German army didn't attack mano-a-mano against each Jew separately with equal weapontry to see who was physically superior. That's the idea that would cross any rational mind.
No if you look at the history of Germany the hatred of the Jews had to do with Christianity and the blood libel. Many christians actually believed that Christian blood was required by Jews to perform certain acts such a procreation. It was believed that jewish males were born with their hands fused to their forheads in an expression of grief over the realization of what they had done to God's son. Only Christian blood would release this.
A good century before Hitler their was a movement to purify the Jews by conversion. Their sin assumed to be passed on religiously. The Jews would have none of this. It was finally decided by many Germans that the "Jewish problem" was intractable and that somehow it was not so much about religion but race. This was quite some time before Hitler. Extermination plans were being discussed in German literature decades before Hitler was on the scene. This idea did not originate with Hitler and had it's roots in Christian faith.
"God showed you no mercy, now neither shall man." PDB Wimsey. (IIRC)
That sounds like a statement of faith to me.
All of the worlds most evil ideologies are absurd on their face. Look at the labor theory of value promoted by Marx. His idea that one can do away with property. What can be more rationally absurd that that? In fact, I have argued with both socialists and communists. They are immune to reason. They long for a utopia that can never exist and the dream is more important than reality. They have faith in the cause and that is what really matters because it shows they are good people.
Even the very heart of socialism, the idea that the group is more important than the individual is ethically unreasonable. That's just two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for dinner. Reasonable people understand that not all individual goals are in alignment. They also know that in the past the majorities desires have often been to the detriment of all. No reasonble person believes that a society of theives is superior, even if most wish to live that way.
Communist rejection of property rights is merely the morals of the thief being imposed on the society of the whole. The communist is just advocating that everyone be able to steal from everyone at will, with the intention of gaining power to mold the stealing to match his goals.
I have yet to meet a truly ethical position that cannot be arrived at by proper reasoning, and have yet to see a truly vile result that was not either the result of abandoning reason or employing faith. Religious faith isn't the only kind you know.
No Brian, I don't think you understood what I wrote at all. I think you have deliberately misread what I have written, much as those muslim government officials cherry-picked quotes from that speech in order to manufacture outrage. From your last paragraph, though, I think I am understanding your personal outrage, and please believe me when I say this - I really do not care what your personal faith is at all.
What I said, and I'll try to make it as clear as I can, is that this is a very simple concept. Reason alone and faith alone are dangerous, for the divorce of the two allows people to rationalize themselves into committing atrocities. Both are needed for a proper balance.
What part do you think I have deliberately misread? Be specific, and I think you owe me clarification because you are now charging me with being dishonest. If your writing was clear and I have misread then I will apologize. I'm not perfect, you know. Perhaps I misremembered something written by another as your own writings. I can’t explain or correct if you don’t give me specifics. If you don’t do so then it is you who is being intellectually dishonest.
I think perhaps you might be mistaken about what I know and believe. The processing of information is based on ones mental models of the world. If your models are not well tested then one can see different things in the same event. Like seeing the world trade center go down when he didn't expect it too has lead Osama Bin Laden to interpret that event as evidence for the approval of Allah.
I interpret it as him being a poor engineer. When I saw the plane hit and the resulting fire I told my wife the people better get out because it's probably going to collapse. I knew about steel losing strength under high temperatures and no way any insulation would survive a high-speed impact like that.
I believe something that you do not. I believe that reason does apply to ethics. I also probably have a wider definition of reason than you do. I don’t limit reason to mere logic. I also define faith as the belief in something contrary to credible evidence. It’s likely that our misunderstanding lies in these areas.
I for instance would say that none of my beliefs are based on faith. Some are based on error, but error isn’t faith. Faith is a deliberate choice to abandon error reduction methods.
I've never made the claim that the religious cannot act rationally. I've even heard of Priests that do not even believe in God. They value their religion more for the moral teachings, traditions, and stories. Heck, I like the Good Samaritan story and I think it advocates a reasonable ethical sentiment. I even like Christmas, Easter, and the like. Why shouldn’t I. I like Halloween and I don’t believe in witches and ghosts.
I just don't think ethics is grounded in a supreme being. That's all faith is about isn't it. Giving a justification for believing in a supreme being.
To show that I am aware of theologians that utilize rationality I was surprised you didn't list Thomas Aquinas. I do think however that such theologians are play-acting at rationality when it gets to the hard stuff and rationality is in conflict with faith. Usually they either accept a fallacy, make an error or refuse to take the final step if it conflicts with faith.
I also understand that humans are not fully rational. They do sometimes need to use irrational means to compensate for their shortcomings. I personally was afraid of the dark as a child. I rationally knew that the monsters did not exist. However, sometimes going to sleep (or waking up in the middle of the night) I would get that paralyzing fear. Knowing that monsters did not exist did not help calm me.
I figured that since the monsters were imaginary then they must be susceptible to imaginary powers. So I invented the idea that I had super powers to create a vaporizing shield around myself to destroy them. My ability to kill monsters was triggered by defocusing my eyes. Thus the monsters feared me because they had no warning and generally stayed away in the first place. I only had to contend with the occasional foolish monster that thought they could get past it, or was ignorant of my powers.
I know it's a load of crap and would not force anyone else to believe it, but it worked for me. As I got older the fear of the dark disappeared on it's own and I no longer needed this method.
I’ll have you note that under my definition of rationality the use of my “imaginary power” was quite reasonable. It worked so why not use it? I have no idea why. I don’t have a well tested explanation. Even though I deduced that this might work there is no purely logical principle that would explain why. This calming tool was not however based on faith. I had empirical evidence that the method works so I don’t need to believe in it for no good reason.
What I do believe is that humans are fallible, are born ignorant, and make choices. These facts mean that each of us must follow our conscience in choosing the ethical system we are to live by. We are prone to error in this process of programming ourselves with our ethical principles. This requires that we use the best error reducing principles less we fall into error. Rationality is a tool for such error reduction whereas faith is not. Faith by ignoring the possibility of error instead embraces it.
Note that I do believe religion is justified. Just not on the issue of whether it is true or false. Something can be rationally justified even when it is not true.
Hope that helps you better see where I am coming from.
I responded to the first half of your post before reading the full post. I took so long to write the first the response to the first paragraph that I forgot that I hadn't read your entire post. I then posted my response before seeing the second paragraph.
I apologize for my latest error.
I again noticed the second half to your comment when I went to check if my comment was posted properly. I have now read it and will respond, but I have to take my son to Ju Jitsu right now.
I don't agree with that simple concept. The problem isn't that reason alone is dangerous.
The problem is that part of reason is the recognition that individuals make mistakes. Even when they think they have the very best of logical arguments there is the possibility of error at every stage.
Some people don't have enough respect for the possibility that they have committed an error. Faith is not the answer. Humility is.
actually, this is another example of why benedict appears to be about as bright as a sack full of hammers. given that the gist of his speech seems to comprise an attempt to relativize religion in the face of encroaching secularism, (complete with a sneaky platonist reference), why hamfistedly include a quote denegrating muhammed and islam, and guaranteed to alienate and disgust at least some of the worlds 1.3 billion muslims?
ah, how i long for the days of machiavelli and the jesuit when catholics were smarter than everone else, instead of stupider. ;)
I thought the ancient quote fit in quite well with the rest of the speech. If ever there was an example of a religion that didn't use rationality to temper faith then it's Islam. Muslims will now riot, attack churches and random christians to prove the point. In fact they already have at the Nablus church.
Non-Muslims have never been free to criticise Islam for precisely that reason. Islam is violence but if you say so you get attacked.
I do think however it's sort of like the pot calling the kettle black. It wouldn't be if this were some other Christian sect. At least however the Catholics have reformed. Can't say the same for the Muslim sects I've heard of. Many of their top clerics are calling for blood.
I do agree however that this Pope is not a sharp as prior Popes. I'm thinking he didn't realize what he was doing. He didn't realize that Muslims haven't reformed and that they deep down know that their religion entails violence, but don't want to hear that message coming from some lowly stupid Christian. Better to stick your fingers in your ears than to admit the truth and try to deal with it.
I have a low opinion of this guy because didn't the Pope just fire his chief astronomer for some reason like saying that the earth was round and revolves around the sun. :)
For all the above reasons, Brian, how much more ass-licking of these crazed, ugly, scowling and thoroughly vile people are the leaders of western Christianity prepared to do before saying,
"Apologize? For what? Not surrenduring to your continuous and thoroughly outrageous demands, short of which, you threaten to attack such measly and miserable christian institutions that you permit to operate in your islamic societies? Enough is enough. If war is what you claim you want to wage on us, then war it shall be."
Tell me who's offended again?
Right?
I just heard Tariq Ramadan interviewed on NPR a few minutes ago. He, basically, just said the same thing.
Turkey's ruling party seems to forget that the Crusades began because of a Muslin invasion of Europe.
I simply look at the behavior of the faith's founder when I look to decide its value. Muhammad did convert by the sword. He did sue to make peace until he was able to win by war. His hands are soaked with blood.
The closest anyone can come to saying the same of Christianity is blaming the Church. It's a valid criticism but one need only make a cursory glance at Yeshua and His Disciples to realize they were not doing things as He Himself had done.
Blame the Church for the Crusades if you must. I blame Muhammad himself for all the deaths at the hands of Islam.
Simply, a "peaceful" Muslim is not a true follower of the Koran.
I can't imagine the Vatican doing anything else.
Now the Pope himself?
Who exactly is it who is "...bringing back the mentality of the Crusades."?
Of course, those who are perpetually prepared to be offended, and use that contrived sense of outrage to further their worldly agendas were not and never will read the actual speech.
"If you can bear to hear the words you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..."
Interestingly, the scholar quoted by Pope Benedict in his speech describes Islam in the following manner, "But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." Pope Benedict never adopts that description of Islam's conception of religion as his own, but given the irrational response of some Muslims, it seems somewhat apt in this case.
By manufacturing outrage, the imams solidify their own xenophobia-founded power.
That was the real triumph of the Enlightenment: those in power finally began practicing the tolerance Jesus had taught, despite the cost t their own power. Here, let me throw out another controversial historical statement:
“You have heard that it was said ‘Love your neighbors’, and you hate your enemies. But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the worst sinners do that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even idol-worshippers do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
It just seems that the Muslim Street cannot say anything without someone somewhere (usually Pakistan) dying during a protest.
What this pope doesn't seem to understand is that in such a battle as now confronts the west, it would be far more meaningful for him to act the part of a soldier of Jesus, and less that of just another defender of the purple robes, Michaelangelo paintings, and marble palaces of the roman papacy.
Benedict's islamic counterpart is a tall, thin Arab with blazing eyes, absolute certitude about his mission in life, and living with his key supporters in mountain caves of western Pakistan. And I hate to have to say it, but the truth is, that tall, thin Arab in that sparse cave in western Pakistan has more moral authority among his fighters than this painted-up priest in Rome, regardless of the size of the crowds of docile Romans, Germans, Austrians and Poles who come out to gawk at the popemobile driving by with its kindly, white-haired stooped and aging occupant.
As more people in the West realize that we are all all in a protracted conflict with much of Islam -- and maybe all Islam, depending on how well you define these matters -- most of them will understand that the sad, tired roman catholic papacy of today has neither the will nor the courage to confront it's consistent enemy of 1373 years' duration. That must be left to better leadership cadres and better and stronger men and women.
Or am I wrong about Christianity playing a militant role in countering its most formidable enemies in two millenia?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
True, but this is primarily a war of information; those in Islam who war against the West do so by duping/indoctrinating their followers. Military force is useful in two ways:
1) Direct suppression of terrorists (Afghanistan)
2) Creating the conditions for free exchange of information which makes the task of the militants (to create information cocoons in which they can control Muslims' context and create the illusion that war against the West is moral and necessary) more difficult (Iraq)
That pack in Rome, despite their fancy palaces and impressive costumery, are just a bunch of losers, as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox and even Billy Graham, Joseph Smith, the reverend Sun Myung Moon, and L Ron Hubbard have been proving for 500 years.
Hell, for that matter, even Hutton Gibson or his kid, for that matter, would make more effective pope than the ones they've voted in during recent centuries.
You know as well as I do that the roman international has accommodated every European dictator since Napoleon. They would have kissed Josef Stalin's ass just to get a religious concordat with that sardonic old realist. And they will do the same with the islamic world, if they ever get a chance.
I sometimes wonder whether that bunch in Rome still believe their stuff, or maybe if they're really just a bunch of apatheists, like me.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
It's the agree-that-we're-peaceful-or-die argument that's become so popular in Islamic circles. (I'm sold! Don't hurt me!) It reminds me of the blackmail note recently sent to Tony Blair by various British Muslim groups that essentially said, we blame your foreign policy for making us into terrorists, so change your foreign policy or brace for more terrorism.
who writes on his blog that the pope's attempted assasination was by a muslim
im not sure about the individual's religion (he might be secular and may not be a theist at all)
but the organization he belonged to was a racial non-religious organization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves
you may also be interested in the following from wiki:
On March 2, 2006, an Italian parliamentary commission concluded that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt, in retaliation for John Paul II's support to Solidarity, the Polish workers' movement, a thesis which had already been supported by Michael Ledeen and the CIA at the time. The report stated that certain Bulgarian security departments were utilized to prevent the Soviet Union's role from being uncovered. [4] [5] However, alternative theories also exist, and the Pope himself declared during a May 2002 visit to Bulgaria that this country had nothing to do with the assassination attempt. The failed assassin was also a member of the ultra-nationalist Turkish Grey Wolves, who were allegedly infiltrated by Gladio, a NATO sponsored paramilitary organization created in order to counter a potential Soviet invasion [6].
of course, the only blanket statements commentators make here are about muslims
I can't be the first one who's noticed that all religious protesters are irony-deprived.
It's not clear which part of the quote caused the most offence - the one dissing Mohammed or this:
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.
The statement "not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature." is central to the message Benedict was trying to convey.
When I first read this, I thought his critics were cherrypicking, but given the nature of the complaints, I'd guess that they may have read the whole thing. Benedict's critics aren't big supporters of reason-based religious belief.
If Benedict gives in to these unreasonable demands, he'll be acting in a way that he said was contrary to God's nature. He's wouldn't just be acting like a dhimmi, he wouldn't just be 'turning the other cheek', he'd be going against his stated beliefs.
This world keeps getting weirdeder and weirdeder.
Are you saying that Osama Bin Laden is the Pope's counterpart? Wouldn't that make the Pope a terrorist?
Then again you have self identified as living in the troll capital of the world so perhaps I shouldn't take you seriously.
I don't think they're the proper leadership, or indeed that we need centralized leadership at all.
Who are their soldiers today
The soldiers in this war are all freedom-loving, reasonable men -- especially Muslims like eteraz. Theirs is the heaviest burden.
Although it would be nice to have specifics here. I couldn't actually find all the blanket statements about Muslims that you were complaining about. In fact, I didn't find a single one. I wouldn't claim it wasn't there however since I'm fallible. Perhaps you could point it out.
I did find some blanket statements by the fellow from the troll capital of the world. Unfortunately they were directed not at Muslims but at "Romans, Germans, Austrians and Poles", "Opus Dei", and "That pack in Rome". Which pretty much falsifies your claim that the only blanket claims were about Muslims.
Note that the following statements are not blanket claims due to the words that I have bolded. I'll let you figure out why.
Since you are so against blanket statements perhaps you would be so kind as to reject the following Qur'anic blanket statements as foolish ranting by someone who is not well versed in logic.
These nasty ones target Jews, Christians, idolaters, non-Muslims, etc.
There are also blanket statements about Muslims but probably not of the kind you'd object to.
Some blanket statements go both ways. Apparently all Muslims are clean and all idolaters are unclean.
No wonder Mohammed kicked them out of their own tribal places of worship. Those guys never take a bath! Can't have them hanging out around their own sacred temples where they had been praying for centuries before Mohammed showed up to give them a lesson in bodily hygene. Or were they unclean in some other way that would disqualify them from worshiping in their own places of worship!
Apparently, Mohammed was worried that his message would not appeal to Muslim soap merchants. If they drove away their unclean customers then who would buy the soap? Surely not the perpetually clean Muslims. So he comforts them with the knowledge that Allah will pay some sort of compensation.
Or did I misunderstand the word clean in that passage. Surely you don't drive people away from places of worship because they are spiritually unclean! Those are the people who most need to be there. Thus I figured this was about soap.
Yes, it really is that silly and that's why I mock. It's evil too, usurping someone elses holy place.
Sorry for the aside, back to the point.
Not only is the Quran full of blanket statements it is also full of all sorts of other fallacious claims. Not to mention double standards and other unethical principles.
Of course, as always, for brevity sake not every example from the Qur'an was included in any category. Plus I don't remember them all.
Gee eteraz, that's a pretty ironic thing to say - at a blog that hosts the "Carnival of Brass - Best of the Islamsphere", and has Aziz - a Muslim - as guest commentator.
Dean's taken a lot of heat from some for his Libertarian stance on Islam.
As for the Pope's assassin, yes the KGB was behind it. But as far as I know - the trigger man was a Muslim.
Is that a big deal? I don't think so - but my point is I think it's a bigger deal than the Pontiff quoting from a 700 year old text.
God granted us reason. God granted us faith. We are made in God's own image, so reason must be part of God. To deny reason is to deny God. To deny faith is to deny God.
Acknowledged - we are not God, we cannot fathom all of the mysteries of creation, we cannot have full understanding of God. Hence faith. But we can use the gifts that God gave us to better understand him. Hence reason. To deny either is to deny an essential part of our humanity, and it is to deny an essential part that links us to the divine.
We are not animals, yet we are not divine. We are a special creation that partakes of both. Reason without faith, without a firm moral bedrock that some things are not done leads to eugenics, leads to euthanaisa, leads to Treblinka. Faith without reason leads to holy wars, leads to inquisitions.
Each is a denial of humanity and thus a denial of the shadow of God that we all are.
Pope: “Islam is too often characterized as a religion of violence. As long ago as the 14th century an emporer of Byzantium said ‘Mohammed’s religion has only brought violence and the forced conversion to Islam by the sword.’ We must work together to show that all the world’s great religions are religions of peace.”
Islamic reaction: “You have blasphemed Mohammed and Islam! Die! Die! Die!”
Me to enraged Muslims: “Um…. well, the Pope said that this was a perception of Islam. Your reaction is simply proving that the perception is true. Do you even see the irony?”
Islamic reaction to me: “You have blasphemed Mohammed and Islam! Die! Die! Die!”
I’m starting to see a pattern here. Is anyone else?
I reside in the town of Cross Plains, a non-incorporated rural area some six miles northeast of the village of Mount Horeb, which is my USPS mailing address. The trolls there are advertising gimmicks by which the largely nowegian-american population seeks to attract tourists from Madison, Milwaukee, and greater Chicago. Especially tourists with spare money jingling in their pockets.
As for "trolls" in the blogworld sense, I have been a regular commenter almost-daily commenter on Dean's World since autumn 2002. Which is considered lengthy residency in blogtime. And if I were a "troll" in the blogworld sense, Dean Esmay would have booted me off a long time ago.
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That pope Benedict is not a terrorist and that Osama bin Laden is a terrorist are both indisputable.
But it is obvious that you misunderstood my point about these two men. That Osama bin Laden is a terrorist is irrelevant to what his leadership function is becoming in Islam. The acts of destruction against the United States for which this man provided the funding, leadership cadre, training, and fedaiin volunteers (literally, "self-sacrificers") are that man's growing ticket of legitimacy of leadership status in the conjoined political and religious aspects of Islam.
The kalif of Islam before the destruction of the kalifate by the Mongol invaders of mesopotamia in the 13th century, was considered the "commander of the faithful" and as such, was the prophet Muhamad's direct successor, which, for the Sun'a, was always a hierchical attainment, whereas the Shi'a considered only direct blood descendants of the prophet's family as legitimate leaders of the islamic world.
By striking such terrible blows as he has done against us, the alien and enemy West, and by evading death or capture at our hands, Osama bin Laden is establishing is leadership in the minds of Muslims all across this planet, especially among those who already consider us the enemies of their faith and culture. And by his success to date, it must be assumed that support for him among other elements of Islam is growing.
By those standards, Osama bin Laden is very much more than the counterpart of pope Benedict, whose real-life role is little more than the roman catholic papal version of queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. In short, just a ceremonial leader.
Instead, the nearest counterpart to an islamic kalif would be a combination of the Frankish-German emperor Charlemagne and one of the great and strong Roman popes of the middle ages, such as Innocent III.
And I have no doubt that kalif -- commander of the faithful -- is the status that many Muslims around the world already regard Osama bin Ladin as having achieved through merit, his service to islam, and his victories against the unbelievers of the West. That means us.
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In general, BM/BW, I do not think you and very many other bloggers and commenters regard with sufficient seriousness the totality of the threat these people pose to western civilization.
There is nothing whatsoever fuzzy-minded about any of them. Islam knows what it intends to achieve, and they have both the fanaticism and patience to wait until they are sufficiently strong, and their intended victims sufficiently weak, to conquer the remainder of the world and reduce its populations to submission to their concept of allah.
And that is all they want. Total submission to the totality of Islam. A worldwide sharia that will dictate all social, personal, domestic, civil, political and religious life. A totalitarianism without doors, windows or even seams. A permanent dictatorship of zombies, by zombies, and for zombies. In other words, an endless reign of the living dead.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I wonder if my first comment counts as a blanket statement if I don't include the word "all". Well at least I balanced it out with the last one. I guess that makes it acceptable.
Maybe not. Guess I'll have to go back and add the words "many" and "tend". Or am I lying and were they always there? You'll never know.
This human life will not be able to contribute. Sterilize it so that it cannot spread its functional weakness to society. [Eugenics]
This human life will no longer/never contribute. Remove the burden that is a drain on society. [Euthanasia]
This group of people are shown to contribute nothing to the greater nation. Remove them all. [Treblinka]
For the first, see the US Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell, and Justice Holmes' statement that three generations of imbeciles is enough. Much humanity there, eh?
"God showed you no mercy, now neither shall man." PDB Wimsey. (IIRC)
We can all be thankful that the latter two ideas have not made great inroads in the USA.
Arnold - I think I've been commenting here also since late 2001-early 2002. So we should be counted amongst the "Old Guard" that which dies, but does not surrender.
What a funny coincidence. I'm from Wantagh, L.I. which is of Indian origins. Wan for leg and tagh for tug. I'm originally from Chap-pa-quid-dick which means literally "Drive with drunk Edward". Puzzling as I always assumed that was the nickname for Richard.
I don't think Osama is a very good example of an Islamic counterpart for the Pope.
The Pope is the head of the Catholic church whose edicts are [blanket statement warning] respected by 1 billion good people. He inspires by his example of peace and irrationality.
Osama Bin Laden is a head but I'm not saying what kind. Furthermore, his followers, the ones who follow his edicts, are a bunch of criminals. He inspires the way a KKK lynching does.
Being serious. I'm not sure there is an Islamic counterpart for the Pope. Maybe one of the sects has such a counterpart but I doubt it. None of the sects I know about are organized the way the Catholic church is. See I do know something about Islam. Of course, not all but who does?
This is why I didn't take your statement seriously. Plus I thought it funny to compare the Pope to a head terrorist. I won't be mean and bring up that whole child molesting thing because I think it's unfair to pin on any Pope.
I'm not so sure about the founders of other religions we've been speaking of. Yes, I've read the Islamic apologetics on this one. They are not believable except perhaps if you are already a member of that particular faith.
I am fully aware of the ethical and physical dangers that Islam presents to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. I think that much I have established. Forgive me if I'm not serious tonight but I'm on a roll.
Besides the idea of the current Pope charging forward as "a soldier of Jesus" and being the counterpart of a militant terrorist just doesn't appeal to me. I prefer a more defensive stance.
I do think we should outlaw the teaching of any religious doctrine that calls for murder or denigrates others based on their beliefs, or race. But only on the condition that such teaching has endangered someone. One could still sell the things as fiction, or with disclaimers like those evolution stickers the fundamentalists wanted to put in the textbooks.
Unfortunately, although the correct solution it wouldn't be politically popular here in the US. After all the Old Testament calls for stoning homosexuals and witches, and there are a lot of Christian literalists here. Is it any wonder that we find homosexuals barbwired to fence posts? That "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live" thing also caused plenty of trouble.
Think about it. Why do religious people have the right to believe on no evidence what-so-ever that people who don't believe as they do are evil? What the heck is that about? I know not all Christian sects go in for that, but many do. So far it appears every Muslim sect is of that variety and I'm looking carefully.
To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens of faith, if you require no credible evidence to believe such nonsense then I require none to dismiss it. That's particularly true of the idea that not believing as you do is going to cause some all-powerful uber daddy figure to get his jollies using me for an eternal marshmallow roast.
So despite your desire to have Christians protect us from Islam I think they are philosophically neutered in this cause. Or at least having some sort of erectile dysfunction. It will be very hard for Christians to disarm Islam of that most dangerous tool, faith, when they are codependents.
Did you notice how next to no one mentioned the incredible act of faith it took to fly those two planes into the towers? Many were thanking God for getting out of the towers in time but how many were cursing Allah. What's that about anyway? Do they really think God favored them over the poor bastards who didn't get out. Somehow they are special? I think for the most part it probably had more to do with what floor you were on, but that's just me.
Christians will not be able to stop Muslims from spreading the plainly false and endangering doctrines precisely because they believe freedom of religion is about spreading religion, not protecting people from it. So us poor atheists and idolators are going to have to suffer every time a Muslim actually reads the Koran, believes what's actually written, and acts on those beliefs.
What a world.
It's appalling that they actually revere this stuff. Shows you how impressionable a young childs mind is and how long the effects can last. A mind is a terrible thing to destroy. Teach them over and over that non-believers are greedy, lying, selfish, non-charitable, evil, burn-in-hell walking timebombs and they just aren't going to want to listen to reason. Especially if some imaginary being that never makes mistakes told them so.
I think it is criminally negligent child abuse to teach kids such notions. Negligent because if you teach them some book is the infallible word of the creator of the universe and that book carries verses advocating murder of non-believers then they might act on it. Especially if you twisted their mind with notions that knowledge is the fruit of the tree of evil. That's like handing them a loaded gun with one bullet in the chamber, pulling the trigger (click), and saying "See it's not loaded. God told me so and you wouldn't want to get him angry by looking in the chamber. Try clicking the trigger at that non-believer. God wants that and even if the gun went off you won't get in trouble."
Lucky, most Christians don't take their text literally any more, or are ignorant of it's contents, or are taught that the Old Testament has been overturned by the New.
To this day, their bedsheets have never recovered from that cruel fabric assault.
There is nothing reasonable about believing that the creator of the Universe made an eternal torture chamber for what are to him insignificant beings, just because he didn't want to lift his pinky finger to communicate his desires in a believable fashion. If he exists he's gone out of his way to erase the evidence. Heck, Cambrian invertibrates have left more evidence that this.
As to your claims that reason has lead to atrocity well, reasoning and rationalization are two very different things. Also we are speaking here about ethical reasoning. One cannot use ethical reasoning to come to the conclusion that one has the right to exterminate others. Those decisions are more based on faith that reason. Faith in the superiority of the Aryan bloodline in the face of Jewish accomplishment for example.
If the Jews were inferior, or anyone else for that matter, then according to Darwinian theory there is nothing to do. Natural selection will take care of them on it's own. There is nothing about evolution that says altruistic acts like a mother caring for her child, charity, or friendship are inherently maladaptive. The German army didn't attack mano-a-mano against each Jew separately with equal weapontry to see who was physically superior. That's the idea that would cross any rational mind.
No if you look at the history of Germany the hatred of the Jews had to do with Christianity and the blood libel. Many christians actually believed that Christian blood was required by Jews to perform certain acts such a procreation. It was believed that jewish males were born with their hands fused to their forheads in an expression of grief over the realization of what they had done to God's son. Only Christian blood would release this.
A good century before Hitler their was a movement to purify the Jews by conversion. Their sin assumed to be passed on religiously. The Jews would have none of this. It was finally decided by many Germans that the "Jewish problem" was intractable and that somehow it was not so much about religion but race. This was quite some time before Hitler. Extermination plans were being discussed in German literature decades before Hitler was on the scene. This idea did not originate with Hitler and had it's roots in Christian faith.
That sounds like a statement of faith to me.
All of the worlds most evil ideologies are absurd on their face. Look at the labor theory of value promoted by Marx. His idea that one can do away with property. What can be more rationally absurd that that? In fact, I have argued with both socialists and communists. They are immune to reason. They long for a utopia that can never exist and the dream is more important than reality. They have faith in the cause and that is what really matters because it shows they are good people.
Even the very heart of socialism, the idea that the group is more important than the individual is ethically unreasonable. That's just two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for dinner. Reasonable people understand that not all individual goals are in alignment. They also know that in the past the majorities desires have often been to the detriment of all. No reasonble person believes that a society of theives is superior, even if most wish to live that way.
Communist rejection of property rights is merely the morals of the thief being imposed on the society of the whole. The communist is just advocating that everyone be able to steal from everyone at will, with the intention of gaining power to mold the stealing to match his goals.
I have yet to meet a truly ethical position that cannot be arrived at by proper reasoning, and have yet to see a truly vile result that was not either the result of abandoning reason or employing faith. Religious faith isn't the only kind you know.
What I said, and I'll try to make it as clear as I can, is that this is a very simple concept. Reason alone and faith alone are dangerous, for the divorce of the two allows people to rationalize themselves into committing atrocities. Both are needed for a proper balance.
I think perhaps you might be mistaken about what I know and believe. The processing of information is based on ones mental models of the world. If your models are not well tested then one can see different things in the same event. Like seeing the world trade center go down when he didn't expect it too has lead Osama Bin Laden to interpret that event as evidence for the approval of Allah.
I interpret it as him being a poor engineer. When I saw the plane hit and the resulting fire I told my wife the people better get out because it's probably going to collapse. I knew about steel losing strength under high temperatures and no way any insulation would survive a high-speed impact like that.
I believe something that you do not. I believe that reason does apply to ethics. I also probably have a wider definition of reason than you do. I don’t limit reason to mere logic. I also define faith as the belief in something contrary to credible evidence. It’s likely that our misunderstanding lies in these areas.
I for instance would say that none of my beliefs are based on faith. Some are based on error, but error isn’t faith. Faith is a deliberate choice to abandon error reduction methods.
I've never made the claim that the religious cannot act rationally. I've even heard of Priests that do not even believe in God. They value their religion more for the moral teachings, traditions, and stories. Heck, I like the Good Samaritan story and I think it advocates a reasonable ethical sentiment. I even like Christmas, Easter, and the like. Why shouldn’t I. I like Halloween and I don’t believe in witches and ghosts.
I just don't think ethics is grounded in a supreme being. That's all faith is about isn't it. Giving a justification for believing in a supreme being.
To show that I am aware of theologians that utilize rationality I was surprised you didn't list Thomas Aquinas. I do think however that such theologians are play-acting at rationality when it gets to the hard stuff and rationality is in conflict with faith. Usually they either accept a fallacy, make an error or refuse to take the final step if it conflicts with faith.
I also understand that humans are not fully rational. They do sometimes need to use irrational means to compensate for their shortcomings. I personally was afraid of the dark as a child. I rationally knew that the monsters did not exist. However, sometimes going to sleep (or waking up in the middle of the night) I would get that paralyzing fear. Knowing that monsters did not exist did not help calm me.
I figured that since the monsters were imaginary then they must be susceptible to imaginary powers. So I invented the idea that I had super powers to create a vaporizing shield around myself to destroy them. My ability to kill monsters was triggered by defocusing my eyes. Thus the monsters feared me because they had no warning and generally stayed away in the first place. I only had to contend with the occasional foolish monster that thought they could get past it, or was ignorant of my powers.
I know it's a load of crap and would not force anyone else to believe it, but it worked for me. As I got older the fear of the dark disappeared on it's own and I no longer needed this method.
I’ll have you note that under my definition of rationality the use of my “imaginary power” was quite reasonable. It worked so why not use it? I have no idea why. I don’t have a well tested explanation. Even though I deduced that this might work there is no purely logical principle that would explain why. This calming tool was not however based on faith. I had empirical evidence that the method works so I don’t need to believe in it for no good reason.
What I do believe is that humans are fallible, are born ignorant, and make choices. These facts mean that each of us must follow our conscience in choosing the ethical system we are to live by. We are prone to error in this process of programming ourselves with our ethical principles. This requires that we use the best error reducing principles less we fall into error. Rationality is a tool for such error reduction whereas faith is not. Faith by ignoring the possibility of error instead embraces it.
Note that I do believe religion is justified. Just not on the issue of whether it is true or false. Something can be rationally justified even when it is not true.
Hope that helps you better see where I am coming from.
Oops, see that, I made a mistake.
I responded to the first half of your post before reading the full post. I took so long to write the first the response to the first paragraph that I forgot that I hadn't read your entire post. I then posted my response before seeing the second paragraph.
I apologize for my latest error.
I again noticed the second half to your comment when I went to check if my comment was posted properly. I have now read it and will respond, but I have to take my son to Ju Jitsu right now.
The problem is that part of reason is the recognition that individuals make mistakes. Even when they think they have the very best of logical arguments there is the possibility of error at every stage.
Some people don't have enough respect for the possibility that they have committed an error. Faith is not the answer. Humility is.
ah, how i long for the days of machiavelli and the jesuit when catholics were smarter than everone else, instead of stupider. ;)
Non-Muslims have never been free to criticise Islam for precisely that reason. Islam is violence but if you say so you get attacked.
I do think however it's sort of like the pot calling the kettle black. It wouldn't be if this were some other Christian sect. At least however the Catholics have reformed. Can't say the same for the Muslim sects I've heard of. Many of their top clerics are calling for blood.
I do agree however that this Pope is not a sharp as prior Popes. I'm thinking he didn't realize what he was doing. He didn't realize that Muslims haven't reformed and that they deep down know that their religion entails violence, but don't want to hear that message coming from some lowly stupid Christian. Better to stick your fingers in your ears than to admit the truth and try to deal with it.
I have a low opinion of this guy because didn't the Pope just fire his chief astronomer for some reason like saying that the earth was round and revolves around the sun. :)
"Apologize? For what? Not surrenduring to your continuous and thoroughly outrageous demands, short of which, you threaten to attack such measly and miserable christian institutions that you permit to operate in your islamic societies? Enough is enough. If war is what you claim you want to wage on us, then war it shall be."
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI