OpEd: The case against blaming Islam

Post #45,472 by marlowe 7/13/02 3:01:59 PM Reply	OpEd: The case against blaming Islam [link\|http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire071102.asp\|It's the larger culture.] Excerpt: In our current conflict, our enemies are all Muslims. I don't believe that our enemy is Islam, though. Islam came up in a primitive, tribal society that has never since enjoyed any real political progress. The Arabs are still primitive and tribal today; but their failure to create modern nation-states arises from their ancient habits of thought, behavior and social exchange, and from geographical constraints, not from anything in Islam. Indeed, those Arab countries - Iraq, Syria - that are established on secular principles are even more degraded and corrupt than the theocracies. And though a religion must work with the human material it finds, it can be uplifting and improving. The English novelist Evelyn Waugh was a convert to Catholicism. He remained an awful person, though: rude, selfish, and a crashing snob. When one of his friends chided him for not being a better Christian, Waugh replied: "My dear fellow, you can't imagine. Without my faith, I should be scarcely human." So it is, I believe, with humanity at large. Religion doesn't make us perfect, and of course we all know that horrible things are done in the name of God. On balance, though, we are better off with religion than without it. As bad as we may sometimes be with it, without it we should be scarcely human. A coherent and well-established religion like Islam is an asset to the human race, with the potential to soften the hearts and enlighten the minds of believers. It might be the instrument for lifting those believers out of the pit of lies, cruelty, intolerance and stagnation into which their tribal cultures seem have dragged them. If today Islam is showing an ugly face to the world, that is not a reason to give up on Islam. Christianity showed a pretty ugly face during the Thirty Years War (not to mention the Crusades). A few generations later it was ending the slave trade, providing spiritual fuel for a mighty commercial civilization, and bringing education and medicine to places that never had either. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Everything's a mystery until you figure out how it works. If competence is considered "hubris" then may I and my country always be as "arrogant" as we can possibly manage.
Post #45,482 by Ashton 7/13/02 4:22:35 PM Reply	Hmmm - a balanced piece (!) Grudgingly.. I could almost agree with Waugh (and about Waugh). A vacuum - via the sudden wiping of all religious dogma from human current memory !? WHAT would ensue THEN? But I might move the metaphor over to Oscar (Wilde) - I believe that many persons would opt for the bargain Dorian Gray made: to ever retain the Appearance of Good-ness (for others' consumption) while free to rape, pillage and otherwise be an asshole. Lord of the Flies R'Us. Homo-sap needs must restrain itself via some process which may be inculcated in the young animals. I also kinda liked Texts are never as important as the attitudes people bring to them. It is a commonplace of political science \ufffd I think Aristotle noticed it \ufffd that a state may have a very democratic constitution, and yet be a tyranny, or vice versa. There are lots of passages in the Bible I politely ignore \ufffd that stuff in Leviticus about the proper way to acquire slaves, for example. [note: You Bet! and that's just One.] We have nothing to gain from alienating honest Muslims, any more than they have anything to gain by being enemies of the West. If we can remember the first, and persuade them of the second, there might be some prospect of cutting off significant support to the legions of glittering-eyed Koran-waving murderers the world is currently infested with, and of averting the destructive clash that we are all, slowly but surely, coming to believe inevitable. Not bad for Wm. F's old mouthpiece.. maybe the new gen has taken some Buckley anti-toxin? [anti-tocsin too] (My Gramma would have Hated the moderation, relative sanity throughout this piece - that Is progress!) :-\ufffd Ashton
Post #45,485 by Brandioch 7/13/02 5:24:40 PM Reply	Expand that to include the other mythologies. Such as our mythology that all people are equal before the law. All governments and such are based upon some mythology. Individuals hold their own mythologies. In my opinion, the current level of mid-eastern nations is a result of their mythology + modern weapons. In medieval times, they were more advanced than the "Western" societies. Religion is just one of the mythologies an individual carries. That is why we have "good" muslims and "bad" muslims. That is why we can have "good" kings and "bad" kings. I can hear the angry e-mails clattering into my inbox already. Derb has sold out to multiculturalism! He thinks Islam is just as good as Christianity! I haven't, and I don't. :) I don't feel sure, in fact, that the teachings of a religion have any necessary consequence for the destinies of believer communities. There is hope that this one will achieve enlightenment. What is really important in determining the destinies and character of peoples is culture, tradition, ingrained folkways. Yes. What I call the "mythologies" of the people. Shared and individual. Most of the time, religion does not so much mould those things as wrap itself around them. Rather, the individuals (which form the society and the "culture") are a synthesis of their various mythologies. It is impossible to predict the behaviour of the individual from any single mythology. On balance, though, we are better off with religion than without it. As bad as we may sometimes be with it, without it we should be scarcely human. So, atheists are "scarcely human"? I know very nice atheists. I know very vile "Christians". Religion does not make you a better person. Religion does not make your society a better society. The reason for this is that "better" just doesn't exist. There are things you, personally, value more or like more than others. So you will view systems that provide those things as "better" than systems that do not provide those things. A coherent and well-established religion like Islam is an asset to the human race, with the potential to soften the hearts and enlighten the minds of believers. The same can be said of Christianity. Or Buddhism. Or any other mythology. By the same token, a religion can be used to "justify" any action, no matter how deplorable. A few generations later it was ending the slave trade, providing spiritual fuel for a mighty commercial civilization, and bringing education and medicine to places that never had either. But it was also used to support the slave trade. There are numerous references to slaves in the Bible. Many of them are positive. Don't forget to follow the law when your slave girl is bearing your child. Rather, I think that "all people are equal before the law" was more to blame for ending slavery. It just took a while to get that sufficiently ingrained in society's mythology. If we can remember the first, and persuade them of the second, there might be some prospect of cutting off significant support to the legions of glittering-eyed Koran-waving murderers the world is currently infested with, and of averting the destructive clash that we are all, slowly but surely, coming to believe inevitable. In other words, we should seek to alter their personal mythologies to more closely approximate our own. Or, at least to allow the various societies to live together without warfare. Nice. But he fails to account for one thing. Limited resources. People will, eventually, clash over the limited resources they have available. When that happens, the minor differences between the societies are used to "justify" the war which is based upon nothing more than greed. In the mid-east, there isn't much in the way of resources. But there is oil. Under the ground. That ground is controlled by various nations. Remove the muslim from the society that is trying to justify its greed for oil and you'll find a person just as his aunt did. Nice and friendly. Individuals and societies are a synthesis of the various mythologies they have been exposed to and the basic human drives (greed, sloth, etc). There is hope for that one. He can attain enlightenment.
Post #45,507 by Ashton 7/13/02 10:39:28 PM Reply	I settle for his somewhat less.. :-\ufffd That is, it is still quite uncomfortable for most folks to face squarely 'our' personal inventories of intertwined myth(s); only very few will ever admit that a finally settled-upon Belief (capitalized advisedly == Truth) never can be that Grail of The Truth. This simply is an unPopular idea to assert, among many. (Most?) Such is the state of religious inculcation in the young, most places and still. So for this time and that magazine (!) it's a good start ... especially for any reader who finds something new? to themselves, in his presentation. A refreshing change from the 99 ⁴⁴/₁₀₀ % screeds with identical messages: ..Mine's Bigger! Ashton Yet.. Dear Lord, please protect me from the wrath of thy followers is always good insurance...
Post #45,518 by Brandioch 7/14/02 3:39:43 AM Reply	Yup. :) He's started down the road to enlightenment. That's far more than most will ever even consider.
Post #45,756 by mhuber 7/16/02 9:30:28 AM Reply	Re: Expand that to include the other mythologies. So, atheists are "scarcely human"? I know very nice atheists. I know very vile "Christians". That wasn't intended as a global truth, and you know it. That one jerk was talking about himself. Some faiths are good for some people some of the time. ---- United we stand Divided we dominate the planet without really trying
Post #46,256 by Brandioch 7/20/02 11:49:29 PM Reply	Allow me to quote from that article. You say: That wasn't intended as a global truth, and you know it. That one jerk was talking about himself. Some faiths are good for some people some of the time. Now, what was actually said was: On balance, though, we are better off with religion than without it. As bad as we may sometimes be with it, without it we should be scarcely human. Note the use of "we" in that statement and the "on balance" phrase. That seems like a "global truth" to me.
Post #45,524 by wharris2 7/14/02 5:48:47 AM Reply	"Pure" Islam There are too many passages saying "Death to the infidels" and too much history of, while perhaps respecting it, other God-based religious groups like Judaism or Christianity being treated like second-class citizens. Before a local radio station took him off the radio and replaced him with Sean Hannity, Ken Hamblin had a burr up his butt over "Who is a good Muslim"? I thought he was displaying monomania about it, but he did ask some good questions. (This should probably go under the Reviews section, but Sean Hannity sometimes infuriates me by deliberately choosing extremists to interview. Makes him look good, makes them look bad (not that it's that difficult), but still...) Famous last RPG quotes: "I'll just shoot this fireball down the dungeon passageway..."

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