Having been a “religious moderate” for a long time, I have chosen to change my position and refer to myself as a “spiritual liberal”, which obviously separates me from the “religious conservative” - although that seems to me to have been clear for some time.
I have found a growing agreement with Sam Harris in what he has said about religion - however, with regard with the broader story that he tells, rather than the striking slogans that are used pointedly. I find that the deeper I read into Sam Harris’s position, the more I see a sensitivity which is otherwise lacking in the discussion, although he also speaks out clearly against religions which fail to uphold basic aspects of civilization and fall into the category “barbarity”.
If there were anything that I would require of a religion in order to allow it to preach in any society, it would be to actively reject and disdain calls to kill or harm anyone out of religious zealousness. I would require of the law not to differentiate between such atrocities and homicide, and to apply the same punishment to both.
This would apply to violence against women, including honour killings and female genital mutilation, jihad, kidnappings or any other kind of behaviour that the laws of our society prohibit.
I know zero about Sam. Religions have underwent reform. Zealous killing stuff is in the passed for a modern christian. That is ancient judaism. I think jesus spent his life pushing for a religious reform.
You don’t like Muslim fundamentalists and extremists. Not surprising since they do some nasty stuff.
But…
They manage to get followers. That says something about human nature and religion.
Maybe…
Religion feeds the psychopath within?
Religion encourages people to turn off their brains and blindly accept authority?
However, the article is primarily about the danger that is helped being spread by the liberal attitude towards Islamic extremism as against other forms of violence.
The problem addressed in the article is that Muslims have hardly been able to reflect on their religion with self-criticism without becoming apostate and threatened with death. The introspection which has taken place in the west has yet to happen in Islam, since even moderates can’t disagree that the quotes that extremists use are from the Q’ran and are not likely to endanger themselves. The death penalty is so normal for apostasy that honour killings are, although “unfortunate”, necessary to keep the faith.
However, people (especially Muslims) who point this out are very often threatened with violence or death.
I Think you and Sam make for poor bedfellows. But certainly there are religious people and organizations that have and still do meet a good mirror at a conceptual level in Sam Harris. Religions have often been used to justify all sorts of direct atrocity. Though this is true of secular organizations also, so I am not sure it makes sense to make a specific case against religions or specific rules. Kissinger and the Neo Cons, for example, should be required to pass the same test. Secular orgs tend to aim their no nos at OTHERS.
I am on board with ‘kill’ but not ‘harm’, because as written ‘harm’ is just going to wind up meaning “Anything Sam Harris and Bob don’t like”. Sam Harris thinks religious people actually teaching their children to believe as they do is harmful, for example.
So if you define harm in some way that isn’t giving the State broad powers to disallow any religious activity it doesn’t care for, then this seems reasonable.
Some societies–it’s difficult to imagine in ours, Bob–take religion seriously, in that they think that their religious beliefs are actually true, and that the religious precepts in the holy books are actually commandments, and not, you know, suggestions, or whatever it is that modern day non-christian Christians think. They also usually tend to think a society is just only to the extent that it is religious, which means only to the extent that the law mirrors the holy law as it is found in the holy books. Sometimes the holy books require killing and harming others for certain offenses. Why do you want to weed all these religions? What possible reason is there? Harris has an easy answer. Their beliefs are false, and actually ridiculous; his beliefs are’t. Consequently we should tolerate these religious morons, the thought goes, only if they don’t harm anyone. The answer is difficult for a religious person.
[tab]…or someone who doesn’t share the same understanding of ‘truth’ that Harris does.[/tab]
It would certainly be a violence upon these societies to prevent them from enacting what they think is right and true. I can only see it working in good conscience in secular societies that ‘tolerate’ different religions while simultaneously belittling them; that is to say, by making them water down religious practices, making them conform to secular ethics, and/or outright prevent them from certain practices altogether when religion and secular morality and state law conflict.
Really, it is quite easy to answer your questions - I don’t want the things I listed going on in the country I live in. If there is a law against such things, all people entering the country have to abide by it or face the consequences. That means that in countries where such legislation is already available, there is no reason to care about what these people think is right and true. If they want to have that, they have to live in a country where legislation supports their ideas.
I think there has been for too long a masquerading behind accusation of racism when people are accused of deeds that nobody is allowed to perform for secular reasons. Religious sensitivity works both ways. I find it deeply offending when people living a normal life in my country are killed or mutilated because they do not come up to the standards of another society. If people are to be killed in my country for satirical comments that offend someone in other countries, then I expect to hear no derogative comments about my society in their countries. This is where the whole thing becomes ridiculous, because those doing the honour killings are using their right to move freely in a foreign country in an attempt to make it more like their own. Well then, they can stay where they came from if their views lead to violence on our streets.
On the other hand, I am critical of the treatment of women in my country too. I think there is a lot to be improved in Europe and America, but I am allowed to say that and the same applies if my Government should try to take that right away. Somehow, in Europe it is not the done thing to expect a mutual respect between cultures - probably because we have a low esteem of our own cultural background, and there is a low-profile forboding that we are going to the dogs.
As an aside, when I look at neo-nazis, I can’t help thinking that very often they would have been about the last choice for Hitler and the “Körper-Kult” of the 30’s supports that thought. The discipline they require from other people is not what they represent in their sloven and obese appearance, and they represent more the cannon fodder that was sent to the front.
Sure, so long as we’re being honest and admitting that we’re being intolerant towards cultures that don’t share our values on the basis of nothing but taste. This intolerance, necessary that it is, requires firm belief, it requires dogmatism. Sam Harris thinks our values are right and true, and that’s fine and good. These people are necessary, though they’re ultimately not philosophers. I’m not disagreeing with you actually. Healthy cultures, i.e., that believe in themselves and the values that make its existence possible, are always intolerant. When they’re not, they disintegrate. Post modernism and cultural relativism, and the subsequent ethical stance based upon them–one of universal tolerance–are symptoms of weary and defeated types, not to say anything about whether they’re true or false.
[tab]Philosophy should be esoteric. Where everyone is aware of philosophical truths, societal death is imminent.[/tab]
But if they do this they will be prosecuted and harshly. I am just wondering where you Think the loophole is? If you come to the US and kill someone for making a drawing of Mohammed, they will try to Catch you, just like any murderer and then work on getting you Life imprisonment or the Death penalty, given the incredibly clear intention and planning of the killing. Likewise if you kill your sister for being too flirty. And so on. I am not saying there are no special types of treatement - I Think male circumcision is one, though in the US this was also common practice. You can certainly be a real asshole to your kids and do this in ways that are seen as justified by scripture, but this is nothing special in the US or in Europé, except Scandanavia where they will put you in prison for using corporal punishment. Not that this happens much given the problems with evidence and complaints.
So what crimes are religious people getting away with that a non-religious person would be prosecuted for?
Sorry for not answering earlier, I’ve just had a week that you just have to leave behind …
Religion has too many powers and privileges for many people in the UK. It has been a subject that has riled a lot of people, and represents a bias that many non-religious people resent. For example:
Halal and Kosher butchers are being allowed to break animal cruelty laws.
People are being able to remove their children’s foreskin when not medically necessary before they are old enough to consent.
Religious exemption from child abuse accusations - e.g. if parents systematically tell one child they are worth less, had to serve and were not allowed the freedoms of another child, emotional abuse could be investigated. However, if the parents explain they are religious and girls are not treated the same as boys in their faith, this makes it OK.
Policemen and –women attending calls because of domestic violence are called racist when giving evidence in court, even though the effects of that violence are obvious at the scene of the crime.
The Nigerian girls in the news merely wanted to be educated but militant terrorists believe Allah is not pleased with females who are educated. However, similar opinions are historical. We are familiar with the King James Version of religious conflict. Since the 20th century, Israeli-Palestinian on-going conflicts, the Yugoslav wars, the Syrian civil wars, and the Nigerian Sharia conflict are among those countries that have battled, through their legitimate governmental forces and illegitimate terrorists. Gratefully, the west no longer justifies senseless mistreatment and murdering on biblical rationale. However, our slate is not clean. Slavery was condoned on a biblical text.
There is no doubt that such attacks are carried out by extremists, and not mainstream worshippers. However, even mainstream worshippers of all faiths and beliefs have intolerant attitudes toward other believers. This is where the problem lies. If mainstream religions encourage parishioners, by claiming to have the only legitimate faith, or by claiming the laws of the country they live in are not legitimate, to disrespect other teachings and cultures, even in non-violent ways, violence will happen.
This process also takes place in Christian circles when religious leaders proclaim Christianity is the only legitimate faith. These sentiments still set the tone for calling those with different beliefs “heathens”, which obviously calls those called “heathens” to also fall into name-calling against the first group, which in turn sets the tone for hostility toward the second group who are name-calling. This spiralling hostility takes to the streets and is also manifested in many other forms—from discrimination in the workplace to bombings and kidnappings.
This just isn’t acceptable.
But Halal actually means that you must take the animals experience into account and reduce the pain as much as possible, even emotional pain. It is the only Abrahamic religion that actually recognizes that animals are experiencers. Kosher, sure. And over here in the use factory farming, forget About it.
This is a good Point.
Do you mean that if sexist non-religious parents didn’t let their daughters socialize like their peers and so on, they would be prosecuted?
Does the system support those accusations? IOW if the police are called racist are the charges dropped. And note this isn’t really religious.
Sure, I understand the Nigerian Girls, but I thought the subject was more like ‘In Western countries religious people are not subject to the same laws’.
I do see religions being used to justfiy all sorts of things out there, but in general, in the West, it seemed to me that religious people cannot break laws.
Sure, I don’t like that stuff. But then these kinds of patterns are implicit in all sorts of secular organizations. The IMF, the World bank, Corporate relations with developing countries, de facto slavery in communist countries and so on.
And I am not simply saying ’ Oh, but the non-religious are bad too.’ My Point is more that generally it seems to me religious people are held to the laws of their states. Circumcisian is an exception, though in the US and likely elsewhere this was simply standard practice on nearly all males not so long ago. Not that I Think that makes it OK. It’s just not yet really considered criminal. I Think it generally should be. Kosher methods of killing should be outlawed. But there are practices, at least in the US, that cause animals more pain than that and they are simply byproducts of factory farming.
One does not have to search hard to find many corporate genocides (either direct or through support) throughout the world as well as corporations profiteering from genocides.
To me, the issue is more along the long of mass hysteria — stick a bunch of people together and they quickly degenerate into a pack of delusional arseholes (sorry for the French). Each human carries with them a little bit of fuel for the fire, stick a lot of humans together and you have a lot of fuel — all that is needed is a spark.
It is similar to a forest, which may take years, decades, or centuries to grow — but a raging forest fire can be devastating in just a few days. As humans, we don’t have the capacity to hold in our minds a long duration of events. And so we ignore the hundreds of years of forest growth and focus on only a few days of fire.
We can work to address the problem in two ways: remove the fuel or remove the spark (or both).
We can only encourage civilised behaviour from each individual — one person at a time. Focusing on Religions or Corporations or Politics simply clouds the issue within a conceptual and abstract framework that has no clear target. Ultimately this causes us distress as we are fighting an invisible and faceless target and none of our offences manage to strike the target… meaning we never really address the issue at hand (i.e. human behaviour).
To “deliberately” change our “own” behaviour is the hardest thing any human being could ever possibly achieve (it is a life’s work). Recognising that this is a shared challenge, that every human faces, is the beginning of the first step. We as individuals and as a collective are bound to make mistakes along the way.
Right. So on the list of things we have to require religious people not to do, chief among them is that we have to require that they not actually preach what their religious views are. That's exactly what I worried about in my previous post- you say you don't want them to 'harm' people which sounds nice, but then you elucidate to reveal that by 'harm' you mean 'exercise the freedom of speech everybody else has'. So, religious people being intolerant of other religions has to stop, but Sam Harris being intolerant of every religion doesn't have to stop. Why? Because Bob[i] likes[/i] Sam Harris, and Bob wants a world where what he likes prevails.
And that, in a nutshell, is why people need to stop trying to 'fix' everything.
The interesting thing about what you have written here is that what I call “name-calling” leading to open “hostility” is what you call preaching. That is probably what the radical Muslims think too!
I can live quite amicably with Muslims, my deputy is one and, apart from his occasional outbursts that I have to curb, I run a multi-religious and -cultural house, with Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Atheists in which we hold a mutual respect for each other.
I am clearly speaking about something else than you, and it has more to do with the fact that there is a behaviour in which one group starts using their rights to infringe on the rights of others - even to the degree of using violence and causing unrest. Families come to Europe to take advantage of the possibilities here, but when young people see that their own “way of life” is less beneficial and grasp the western way of life (especially if they are women) they suffer not only ostracization, which may be to be expected, but also violence and even death.
Right. So on the list of things we have to require religious people not to do, chief among them is that we have to require that they not actually preach what their religious views are. That's exactly what I worried about in my previous post- you say you don't want them to 'harm' people which sounds nice, but then you elucidate to reveal that by 'harm' you mean 'exercise the freedom of speech everybody else has'. So, religious people being intolerant of other religions has to stop, but Sam Harris being intolerant of every religion doesn't have to stop. Why? Because Bob[i] likes[/i] Sam Harris, and Bob wants a world where what he likes prevails.
And that, in a nutshell, is why people need to stop trying to 'fix' everything.
[/quote]
The interesting thing about what you have written here is that what I call “name-calling” leading to open “hostility” is what you call preaching. That is probably what the radical Muslims think too!
I can live quite amicably with Muslims, my deputy is one and, apart from his occasional outbursts that I have to curb, I run a multi-religious and -cultural house, with Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Atheists in which we hold a mutual respect for each other.
I am clearly speaking about something else than you, and it has more to do with the fact that there is a behaviour in which one group starts using their rights to infringe on the rights of others - even to the degree of using violence and causing unrest. Families come to Europe to take advantage of the possibilities here, but when young people see that their own “way of life” is less beneficial and grasp the western way of life (especially if they are women) they suffer not only ostracization, which may be to be expected, but also violence and even death.
This is, as I have said, not acceptable.
[/quote]
I thought Uccisore was overreacting to your post, but I can see what he read in there. I bolded the first sentence in what he quoted. I mean, this is part and parcel of some forms of current Christianity. That one must go through Jesus or something similar and exclusive. I think we pretty much have to let Christians posit their path as the only correct one. If they say heathens should be killed, then they are inciting violence and likely there is a law on the books to cover this. In this last post you are perhaps clarifying that it is violence that you object to, but I can see where it seems like more in the earlier post. Even the using their rights to infringe on the rights of others. They don’t really have the right to be violent in ways that non-religious lack this right.
I dislike many things that religious people say. I am critical of most theologies - and they would be of mine. I think much of the rhetoric is reprehensible - though not really that their path is the only correct one, even though I disagree - but I don’t see requiring them to be civilized and speak differently. Unless their speech violates current laws, which many kinds of speech leading to violence does - not that this is a simple area.
And I do get that dividing people into those on the right path and infidels or heathens can set the stage for justifications of violence, but I think we have to focus later on down the line. Most ideologies out there can be used to justify violence.
I would have been more sympathetic if the thread was more along the lines of
Calling relious people out on uncivilized behavior and speech.
I mean, if a Christian murders a Muslim or an atheist in the US, he may get some extra unfair sympathy from a jury, but he is prosecutable. He has no extra right. We do not need to gather together and demand a requirement.
In many situations we might be consistant if we called people on being hateful pricks - though in more civilized language presumably. Or boycotting their stores or whatever.
I take your point, but it is one thing to say you believe in Jesus Christ and another to condemn other religions, burn their scriptures or incite hatred against them.
I once had a friend who has long since returned to India. He was a Hindu and he used to come to the local Christian parish and join in with the service, even singing the songs and praying with everyone else. I asked him one day, when I noticed that he had not been to the service for two weeks, what was wrong. He said that members of the parish had asked him about the church in India and he told them he didn’t belong to the Christian church in India, but went to the Hindu temple. They had asked him why he posed as a Christian in Germany, to which he said he didn’t, he just enjoyed the services. The Parish members told him that he was pretending to be a Christian and even suspected him of other fraudulent behaviour, for which there was absolutely no cause. Since then he had been sent to Coventry and he thought that even I was no longer speaking to him.
We spoke about the situation and it made me remember having read that Hindus and Buddhists have often been known to take part in Christian rituals because they believed in the power of the rituals in themselves. For them it is all bone fide religious symbolism and they can wholeheartedly take part because it isn’t a question of believing the stories, but trusting in the rituals and the stories to have their effect. This obviously made a big impression on me and I have since experienced something similar in Sri Lanka and Thailand, where I was invited to take part in Buddhist rituals, despite not being a Buddhist.
When I spoke to the parish members, being an elder, I was heard and at least the animosity against my friend ceased. However, the issue came up later when a dispute arose about teaching in the parish and the Pastor allowing children to the Eucharist. These same people said to me, because I said that I didn’t see the danger they saw in allowing children to take the bread (although I required the parents to ensure that the children realise that the ritual is important to adults) “Well yes, but you let anything go!”
This seriously affected me then and over the years, this and other kinds of behaviour by which parish members became enemies has led me to leave the church. There is still a deep rut in the parish today with people on both sides ignoring each other on the streets, although they have grown up together. My friend never did come back to the church, although I had hoped that he would, because something had broken and the joy he had experienced previously was gone.
What I am saying is that the kind of behaviour I have described above, on widespread level, presents Christianity in a bad light. It even pushes people away who enjoy the company. These were moderates, I have heard from more radical groups in Europe and America, how they have even attempted exorcisms on people who have grown up under other religions. The damage done there is often not brought to court.
I also personally knew one woman who told me that she always carried an umbrella, regardless of the weather, so that she could fend off the witch who lived on the corner of the street or beat off the devils from the Jehovas Witnesses. This woman had never appeared to me to be deranged but her eyes shone somehow when she told me this.
I have also heard people hold talks to young people about Islam that firmly put Allah amongst the devils and told unconfirmed stories of the horrors of Islam. This was a disinformation rather than a misinformation and was intended to incite those listening against Islam.
It isn’t so much an “extra right” or restricted to speech but the fact that, in Europe at least, there is a leniency on religious people that you don’t find when the motive is simply greed. However, I don’t want to make it seem bigger than it is.
My point is that people who are permitted in a society to express their views, but express the view that this should not be allowed, are sawing the branch off on which they are sitting. People who want biblical or sharia law (or something similar) as against the present legislation, and use extremist methods to express that wish, should have that right taken away from them, either by deportation or by warrant. It is also debatable, what should happen to those found to be aiding and abetting.
If they argue their case in a normal democratic process and succeed in finding a majority for their cause, then it would be a majority that would have to be acknowledged. Until then, methods of religious upbringing that cause or nearly cause hospitalisation, for example, should still be regarded as abuse. These are the kinds of behaviour I’m talking about.
