Yesterday, for the first time ever, a prayer was offered in the Texas Senate by a Muslim cleric.
Yesterday, a republican Senator named Dan Patrick was as much of a hypocritical jerk as he possibly could have been with regards to that historic occurrence.
He pointedly and publically boycotted the event, handed out a two-year old Dallas Morning News editorial which vaguely outlined something “troubling” about the cleric in question and THEN, in a stunning moment of massengillosity, he utilized personal privilege in order to end the Senate session by spouting bullshit about tolerance while smugly, condescendingly reminding us all that we are lucky to be here in Amreeka, where we’re free. Gosh, Massa we sho is lucky to be here wit you! (Thanks for the tip, Margin Fades)
Witness the awesome tolerance below (all quotes from the Houston Chronicle unless otherwise indicated):
“I think that it’s important that we are tolerant as a people of all faiths, but that doesn’t mean we have to endorse all faiths, and that was my decision,” (Patrick) said later.
Either you believe in it or you don’t, make up your damned mind. Wtf does this even mean?
“I surely believe that everyone should have the right to speak, but I didn’t want my attendance on the floor to appear that I was endorsing that.”
While it’s true that other Senators missed Imam Yusuf Kavakci’s invocation (which was in English, btw), Patrick was the only one who tried to educate his fellow legislators about the nefarious, dangerous nature of the Turkish cleric and his poopy views:
But he was the only senator known to have passed out to other senators copies of a two-year-old newspaper editorial criticizing Kavakci for publicly praising two radical Islamists.
I couldn’t find the editorial via the Dallas Morning News website, so I’m borrowing the following from LGF, since they had a post which featured the text:
The mosque’s imam, Dr. Yusuf Kavakci, has publicly praised two of the world’s foremost radical Islamists, Yusuf Qaradawi and Hasan al-Turabi, as exemplary leaders. Dr. Kavakci also sits on the board of the Saudi-backed Islamic Society of North America, described in congressional testimony as a major conduit of Wahhabist teaching. Yet Dr. Kavakci tells The Dallas Morning News he rejects Wahhabist teaching. Something doesn’t add up. [LGF]
When I googled the Islamic Society of North America, I found this:
The ISNA was one of a number of Muslim groups investigated by US law enforcement for possible terrorist connections. Its tax records were requested in December 2003 by the Senate Finance Committee. However, the committee’s investigation concluded in November 2005 with no action taken. Committee chairman Charles Grassley said, “We did not find anything alarming enough that required additional follow-up beyond what law enforcement is already doing.” [wiki]
Back to the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the Senator who believes in concepts which he can’t, as a good Christian, endorse (p.s. I’ve never been more relieved to be a bad Christian):
Patrick’s political ally, Harris County Republican Chairman Jared Woodfill, had sharply criticized the fact that the Muslim prayer was scheduled during the week before Easter.
What if it were TWO weeks before Easter? This reminds me of the Sex and The City episode I saw last night, when the girls were at Vera Wang for final bridesmaids’ dress fittings and Charlotte advised a confused, conflicted Carrie, “Don’t tell Aidan you’re a cheating whore now, do it after my wedding, this is MY WEEK”, to which Miranda brilliantly replied, “you get a DAY. Not a week. A day.” Exactly.
The timing was coincidental, said Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, who sponsored the cleric’s appearance at the Capitol on the Texas Muslims Legislative Day.
Shapiro is Jewish, and this also is Passover, a major Jewish holiday.
Shapiro praised Kavakci’s “extensive interfaith experience” and said he represents a “substantial constituency of Texans who deserve to be represented.”
Right. So if the good Jewish Senator doesn’t have a problem with the Imam, why should Patrick? Especially when…
She said she checked out his reputation with the Anti-Defamation League and other groups to “make sure he was not somebody I would be embarrassed by.”
Shapiro said she never leaves the floor when Christian ministers deliver an invocation “in Jesus’ name” and doesn’t consider her presence an endorsement of Christianity.
“I have a great respect for Christianity. I have a great respect for anyone who comes and prays. That’s what this country was based on, its freedom of religion,” she said.
No, this country was based on whining:
In a personal privilege speech at the end of the Senate session, Patrick called the Muslim invocation an “extraordinary moment,” coming during Passover and before Easter.
“In many parts of the world, I know that Jews or Christians would not be given that same right, that same freedom,” he said.
“The imam that was here today, he was fortunate to be in this great country.”
Way to make Team Jesus look TERRIBLE, asshat. Tolerance, my rondure.
SHIMI– I care. I really do. And as one of the people who (I guess?) would kick you in the nuts, I assure you that I would never. Unless you reeeeeeally wanted me to. Growing up in California, I’ve heard of far freakier. 😉
AMITABH, I had no idea about Arya Samaj. I’m so glad you’re here to shed light on such things.
BRANCH DRAVIDIAN, yowza. I disliked Senator Patrick, now I fairly loathe him. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
And VIKRAM, while I agree that SJP isn’t conventionally pretty (I felt bad during the final season, when she seemed to have aged uber-rapidly relative to her girls) I do grok TASH’S point too…my issue is with her character’s behavior…the more I watch the show (twice a night, in syndication, here in DC) the more Carrie annoys me. But we could have a whole other thread about that. Or three of them. 😉
I get it now.
No, that’s not it…it’s “encouraged Punjabi Hindus to disown their mothertongue (Punjabi) and opt for Hindi”.
Razib wrote:
Actually, he appears to know more about christianity than you.
See? This is pure ignorance on your part. Christians believe that God has already said who is going to be saved: ” “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6). This is the basis of christian exclusivism.
“Outside the Church, there is no Salvation” is Catholic Dogma. Mainstream Protestants are also exclusivists: faith in the blood sacrifice of Jesus, the only son of God, is the only salvation possible. You keep spouting inclusive Unitarian Universalist sentiments as if this tiny minority is represntative of christianity. It is not. Both catholics and protestants burned unitarians at the stake as heretics.
Christianity before it was defanged by the Enlightenment was far more intolerant than Islam. Only jews were tolerated, since they are the progeny of Abraham, God’s chosen, and since the mother of God’s only son was a jewess. Islam on the other hand tolerated jews, christians and hindus as dhimmis. And deviant “muslim” sufis as well, while the catholic church completely wiped out the christian equivalent, the Cathars, in a genocidal “crusade”.
Dont confuse the current western tolerance as christian tolerance. It is not. It is Enlightenment tolerance. As Neitschze noted, christians would still be burning us alive if they had the power to do so.
Apparently you have never heard of the Nicene creed. Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox sects all subscribe to this “belief expression”.
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blockquote>if you think religion is about logic you don’t know about religion.
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blockquote>
Apparently you have never heard of buddhist logic:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22buddhist+logic&btnG=Google+Search
Or of hindu logic (Nyaya):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nyaya&btnG=Search
You really need to expand your horizons. A little humility is also in order.
As long as the Muslim clerics and other Muslims recognize that this isn’t a “triumph” of Islam in that they are now able to have their religion in American government but rather that America accepts all faiths as EQUAL. And that is why it is being preached in the Senate then I have no problem.
But the problem is that many Muslims see this has a “we are winning” and they see it as a weakness of Christianity. They think the only reason that “Christian” America allows it is because Christianity is realizing how flawed their own religion is and is embracing the truth (Islam).
If the Muslims, especially aboard can understand that this is not a refute of Christianity. But actually only tolerance of ALL religions then I have no problem.
Uh, you too. And please try to format your comments better, they are difficult to read and thus difficult to understand, this far in to a conversation. Thanks.
Amitabh,
The Arya Samaj also promoted caste reform and gender equality. Yes it was agressively proselytizing, (performing shudhi [conversions] on Muslims and Sikhs) but it was also a response to agressive proselytization from British missionaries. It is also most emphatically not dead – many districts in Harayana are dominated by Arya Samajis, particularly from the Jat caste. Swami Agnivesh, a very progressive Hindu social reformer, has his roots in the Arya Samaj. And yes, I too now circle back to Hinduism. Oh well…
i think its foremost about female friedship which rarely gets explored like male ones (butch cassidy, diner, etc) in part reflecting the reality that women seek out marriage while men cling to their freedom. but satc is about female freedom, using sex as an analogy.
so these women add new choices w/o necessarily rejecting the old, as personified by the charlotte character and numerous nods to tradional pursuits like fashion, materialism, and social climbing.
Edward Norton with his unconventional looks is never marketed as a sex symbol like Brad Pitt, but SJP is foisted on viewers on tv and screen as if she was CZJ. She’s a mediocre actress without even taking her looks into consideration.
I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And possibly style too.
Back to your regularly scheduled program/thread now…
Among the rank and file Christians, which will be 99.99% of the population, the reasons for accepting Judaism are probably a lot less cerebral. Culturally and racially, the American Jews are closer to American Christians than Hindus and Muslims are to American Christians. So there is that comfort factor, and let’s not forget that wee bit of Christian guilt rooted in Auschwitz and perpetuated in at least one Hollywood movie every year. (Nothing against the Jewish influence on the media. We desis are doing the same thing here, aren’t we?)
1) the influence of pre-millenial dispensationalism and the philo-semitism implied, at least notionally, is pretty widely dispersed
2) re: auschwitz, the term “judeo-christian” is a feature of the last 2 generations. prior to this period jews were definite “Other”
I always thought Al-lah was just the Arabic word for God, which Arab Christians also use for ‘their’ ‘Christian’ God – do you agree? Would fundamentalist Protestants allow the Christian God to be referred to in Arabic, and would they agree that the ‘God’ of the Arab Christians is the same as their own ‘God’?
“al-lah” is the same root as the semitc “el,” the caananite god who abraham, isaac and jacob worshiped. later god explained to moses that his name was jehovah/yawheh, but the three patriarchs knew him as el shaddai, el of the mountin. the semantic arguments are pretty uninteresting to me since i don’t think they every resolve anything.
Actually, he appears to know more about christianity than you.
he doesn’t have a penis last i understand (i.e., it’s a she).
Both catholics and protestants burned unitarians at the stake as heretics.
you’re talking bruno.
“Outside the Church, there is no Salvation” is Catholic Dogma.
here is the catholic encyclopedia:
Indifferentists, going to one extreme, claim that it makes no difference what church one belongs to. Certain radical traditionalists, going to the other extreme, claim that unless one is a full-fledged, baptized member of the Catholic Church, one will be damned.
The following quotations from the Church Fathers give the straight story. They show that the early Church held the same position on this as the contemporary Church does—that is, while it is normatively necessary to be a Catholic to be saved (see CCC 846; Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 14), there are exceptions, and it is possible in some circumstances for people to be saved who have not been fully initiated into the Catholic Church (CCC 847).
you’re either stupid or a liar.
My agreement @#67 actually referred to the commenter who sequentially preceded me at 65 and 66; Razib,I should have clarified. Apologies. On reading further it was only in response to some of his comments up to that point.
you at #58.
I respect you for your honesty. Some people follow a faith like putting on a Sari, braiding their hair-, or enjoying certain musical traditions. It’s more to do with saying my fore fathers came for place X, they followed belief Y, which is why I call myself Z. Others would have problems in seeking religious instruction from an avowed atheist. To each his own. As far as what other comments would agree with or not- I’m well aware of the complex hierarchies of what is ok and not ok on this board. Some people will be angry if they feel ‘the white people’ are being picked on. Some will be aware of existing power structures,and co-opt “voices” and write things like “Gosh, Massa we sho is lucky to be here wit you!” In order to identify with (??) a marginal group-and at the same time showcase their sophistication and ‘otherness’ by being able to remain outside that social stratification. It’s all good 😉 Happy Easter!
He knows his stuff, even if he doesn’t believe in any of it. It’s entirely possible to learn something without buying in to it. In some ways, I think not believing makes it easier for him to grok it all so well.
Oy vey, It’s like I’m being punished for missing Palm Sunday for the first time in my life last week; every morning this week I get to wake up to a different comment which makes me feel awful. Awesome. Yes, yes, in all cases, there are emoticons, but that didn’t stop me from spending the last 30 minutes asking myself WHY I included that sentence, if I have any right to, if you were right about me, etc. Where is my fakakta coffee already…
This is not aimed at you, it’s “general” since the “C-bomb” (clique) has been dropped liberally these days. Sometimes, I really hate caring this much. You know, I’m not as ________ as most of you seem to think, but I guess that only becomes clear when I write posts like this and those who had not done so before see me as an actual human and thus, cut me some slack. Until there’s another bloodletting, the current crop of new/new-ish/indifferent readers who currently dislike and complain about me via our tip lines (!) et al will continue to think what they will/not assume the best about me. Sigh.
Guys – nix on the name calling and escalation, please
Razib – that argues more against your position than for it, no? That is there are a few exceptions, but the Catholic position is that by and large you have to be a Catholic to be saved.
It’s a fascinating discussion on theology. I just wish y’all could have it without the sticks and stones …
That’s not how we learned it in CCD (for all you non-Catholics out there, CCD is the Catholic version of Sunday school. For some reason, it always seems to be held on Wednesdays. At least around here.)
The way we learned it, for Catholics (and other Christians, for that matter), the path to salvation was clear– faith and good works (Protestants only believe in the faith part.) For non-Christians, salvation was still possible, but how it was to be achieved was much less defined.
To analogize, it’s like applying to college for U.S. students vs. foreign students– for the U.S. students, it’s pretty much known what will get you in (GPA, SAT/ACT, etc), but for others some or all of that stuff might not apply. N.B.: this isn’t meant to be a commentary on relative numbers of people in heaven vs. relative number of foreign and U.S. students. The analogy isn’t perfect. But the Catholic position is that Christian revelation in general and Catholic revelation in particular is superior to that of other denominations or religions
Speedy
This is an interesting discussion. On the issue of salvation outside the Chuch, I think excellent points have been made, but I think Dharma has the definite edge at least in terms of doctrine. Official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and a number of Protestant denominations (yes, I understand that there is a difference between the position of doctrine in the Catholic Church and doctrine in Protestand denominations) hold that salvation may only be obtained through the Church and specifically through acceptance of Jesus Christ as personal saviour. I scrolled down a little further from the site Razib linked to and found this “However, for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine)… no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unityâ€Â. Presumably, those people such as myself, who are pretty aware of the main tenets of Christianity and still chose to reject them, aren’t getting a get out of jail pass anytime soon. Now the practical implications of that may be different these days (e.g. “damned and to be treated as such†vs. “not saved but Inquisitions are sooooo last millenniumâ€Â) but the underlying message is still the same: being saved is the point of existence and there is only one way to be saved: through accepting Christ as one’s saviour (then there is the whole issue of whether one demonstrates acceptance of Christ through “faith vs. works”, but I digress).
I am aware that Christianity is not a monolith, even within denominations (just as I am aware that a number of evangelical Christians do not consider Roman Catholics to be Christianâ€â€which boggles my little heathen mind), I am aware that there are competing strains of thought and doctrines can change from time to time, and I am also aware that the sway that official doctrine holds on members varies greatly. However, I am also aware that outsiders can use a group’s stated policy to evaluate the group, just as non-Americans can use official statements and acts of the Bush administration to evaluate the non-monolithic U.S, and its Democrat controlled Congress. And while tolerance may have been a hallmark of Christianity in its early days, I’d agree that the tolerance shown these days is more of a hallmark of the influence of the Enlightenment and secularism rather than a reflection of Christianity when it was the main institutional power.
This doesn’t mean Christians are always intolerant bigots or the only ones capable of being intolerant bigots: in fact I think the one thing that marks us as humans is our seemingly endless capacity for bigotry (so I guess we know the senator isn’t a Cylon). It’s just that I think it’s inaccurate to suggest that someone is wrong for pointing out that Christianity isn’t all kumbaya and rainbows with regard to unbelievers-it has a demonstrated history and capacity for the type of intolerance more in keeping with the other Abrahamic religions than with, for example, Hinduism. Hinduism has its own equally vile intolerance and bigotry, just of a different kind.
And yeah, the senator is an ignorant git and I’d really like prayer to be removed from government functions.
Also, sorry about the formatting error. Is there an “edit” button?
According to the Newsweek poll I cited above, American Catholics seem to have transcended Christian exclusivism more thoroughly than any other community. A resounding 91% believed that salvation is available outside the Church.
Vatican II, under the aegis of the liberal Italian John XX111, issued a document called Nostra Aetete, which proclaimed that salvation was available to Jews and Muslims – and perhaps some pagans too.
The backlash against Nostra Aetete was long and pronounced. The current pope, Ratzinger, was at the forefront of the backlash. The previous Pope held interfaith festivals where he invited not just Abrahamics but pagans to partake. Ratzinger found this display particularly revolting, and calls much of interfaith dialogue, “relativism.” When he headed a Vatican body devoted to ferreting out “heresies,” he censured a number of eastern priests – Indians and Sri Lankans – who borrowed from Vedantic, Taoist and Buddhist thought for promoting the selfsame “relativism.”
There is an interesting article in last weeks New Yorker about the Pope and Islam.
Nostra Aetate
Breaking News. We are receiving word that salvation has also been extended to unicorns, Mensheviks, hermits, and Madagascar’s lemurs. Ferrets, surrealists, and string theorists are up for consideration in Vatican III.
Do you know how many prosimians there are in the bunker? And you’re telling us we aren’t going to burn in hellfire? This is the best Good Friday EVER.
The official position of the Jalebi Liberation Front is that we are not, repeat, we are not, interested in salvation, Catholic, Islamic, or otherwise.
on behalf of the JLA (military wing of the JLF), Mr Kobayashi
Breaking News. In response to the Vatican extending salvation to the Mensheviks, the Mensheviks have shot God and formed a provisional coalition with the JLF. They have stated they have no intention of being absorbed by the Vatican and will call for parliamentary elections to empower the opposition party JLA. The Pope is in good health and the Mensheviks have invited Catholics to join the coalition.
am i the only one to wonder what massengillosity is??
Breaking News. We are receiving word that salvation has also been extended to unicorns, Mensheviks, hermits, and Madagascar’s lemurs. Ferrets, surrealists, and string theorists are up for consideration in Vatican III.
You mock now. When the hair is burning off that brown arse of yours in hell you will regret your temerity. And they don’t show Premiership matches in Hell. You will have to watch Sri Lanka defeat India in cricket 666,000 times.
See: here.
Mr Kobayashi, Which doctrine will be followed by the JLF ? I suggest the one with more violence.
Check out this interesting Have Your Say from BBC. It seems Britain is soon going to be the first official ‘atheist’ nation.
Razib – that argues more against your position than for it, no? That is there are a few exceptions, but the Catholic position is that by and large you have to be a Catholic to be saved.
how do you define “a few”? the poster i was responding to my assertion that salvation was possible outside the church from the christian perspective (at least some) by repeating that there was no salvation outside the church. that’s false. now, what does “a few mean”? the 91% of american catholics, and the more liberal elements in the church take a very broad view of “exceptions” and a “few.” members of opus dei would not. like i said, this is a complex issue, and saying that christians believe this without any exploration of the various angles is really deceptive. anyone who quotes maxims like “there is no salvation outside the church” probably knows enough to know the general issues around vatican ii in regards to this assertion, so they’re trying to make a rhetorical point and “win” instead of pushing the discussion forward based on facts. so, that means they’re lying. or, they didn’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they’re stupid. i think the insult was proportionate to their attitude. if you aren’t a christian (or a hindu, or an atheist, or a german, or whatever) and you want to make broad sweeping generalizations about said group you better know your shit. how do people around here feel when whites make generalizations about browns in an authoritative manner which doesn’t suggest they really know much about the culture?
p.s., here’s a stupid thing that i’ve heard atheists (including myself at one point) say about religious people. since religious people are often scared to die, they must not believe that god or an afterlife exists. e.g., put a gun to a christian’s head and they’re really an atheist in their physical response, but it is “logical” from the bible that clearly an afterlife exists, so if they believed they shouldn’t be scared. this is the kind of “hair-brained” logic i see about christians above, it bespeaks a lack of the appreciation or awareness of human psychological complexity. which is strange, aside from me (whom there is apparently some debate) we’re all humans here right, so we know that life isn’t black & white?
That might be happening soon.. hells here and now!
Razib, I agree with what you say in #128. Religion to most people is not literally true. I find Karen Armstrong‘s division of human modes of thinking into mythos and logos to be acceptable. Also I feel people who laugh at other people’s irrationality are generally overestimating their own rationality.
However I have a feeling that there is a stronger streak of literalism running through American christianity, or at least, there seems to be some confusion over whether religious texts are to be taken literally or not. For example, this recent survey that showed 48% of Americans reject evolution. I am curious about how you interpret such data. One may say that people are simple taking sides in the culture war by professing a belief they do not actually hold, and do not actually believe that scientists are deliberately lying to them. But once you start extending such benefit of doubt, its hard to know where to stop taking people’s word for what they believe.
I meant, its hard to know where to stop not taking people’s word for what they believe (hope that is not too convoluted).
However I have a feeling that there is a stronger streak of literalism running through American christianity, or at least, there seems to be some confusion over whether religious texts are to be taken literally or not. For example, this recent survey that showed 48% of Americans reject evolution. I am curious about how you interpret such data. One may say that people are simple taking sides in the culture war by professing a belief they do not actually hold, and do not actually believe that scientists are deliberately lying to them. But once you start extending such benefit of doubt, its hard to know where to stop taking people’s word for what they believe.
america is peculiar in the modern world in having a strong and vital fundamentalist christian movement which is a significant minority in the population. this movement with american protestantism crystallized in the early 20th century in reaction to the ideas coming out of the german text analysis movement of the 19th century, but it has precursors. some of the protestant reformers held to sola scriptura, solely by scripture, to which counter-reformation thinkers pointed out that there were contradictions in the bible. in the end, reformers like zwingli, calvin and luther balked at pairing back their christianity solely to scripture, e.g., see the conflicts between anti-trinitarians and the establishment (the relation between the trinity and scripture is tenuous at best). i think america’s democratic culture and the dominance of radical sectarian protestantism means that fundamentalism will always have power here. my point isn’t that nasty forms of christianity don’t, or doesn’t, exist, it is that this is not a necessary implication of being christian in a logical sense (as some here imply). i tend to argue for a very weak relationship between texts and beliefs and behavior for empirical reasons (see atran in gods we trust and d. jason slone theological incorrectness).
but in any case re: creationism, my own contention that this is a shallow but broad belief. psychologists have found that “creationism” seems to be the default cognitive mode of our species, but that children can be socialized away from it. the appeal of creationism to many is that it is intuitive, and in the early 20th century anti-darwinianism was a critical plank of the fundamentalists who were arguing against modernism (in part because modernist ministers accepted evolutionary theory). but, that doesn’t mean that i think that anti-evolutionism is a “deep” sentiment, which explains why the elites (both left and right) have been able to keep it out of the schools. most people who “believe” in creation don’t have a well articulated view of evolution, or, creationism in its various forms. they have a general sentiment which their church backs.
this comment is overlong, so i will end with a general assertion in regards to my point of view: i once believed that fundamentalism was the most “logical” reading of the bible and christianity, that those who argued for the importance of metaphor, allegory and context were chickening out. this i believed as an atheist. but, after reading the bible and biblical criticism i don’t believe this anymore: i believe that the most intellectually honest christianity is non-literalist, because even fundamentalists “interpret” away passages they have problems with. e.g., no fundamentalists believe that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it (as implied in the old testament). there is a small marginal group of reactionary catholics who accept and hold to this btw! there is a passage in the new testament where jesus says that he will return before the passing of this generation. the implication is pretty clear that the people he’s talking to are going to be alive when he’s coming back. but he hasn’t come back. if the bible is literally true how can this be? well, you see, fundamentalist protestants have an explanation: generation actually means the jewish people. ergo, jesus won’t come back until the jewish people pass! you can interpret the probability and nature of this however you want, my point is that fundamentalists do a lot of interpreting, so their claim to the high ground in terms of logical coherency is crap. as an atheist, i think the most reasonable implication of this “problems” in the bible is that it is man made, there’s i a god above imparting wisdom. but so what? billions of people disagree, and whether i think they’re full of crap or not, i have to take them as they are and deal with the reality we’re handed.
This may be true on some levels but it isn’t so on the most fundamental one. If any religion claims to be based on the truth it automatically means that the others are false from that perspective. Nothing hare-brained about this at all. In fact to me it seems disingenuous that you introduce all kinds of other factors in a show of complexity before adequately dealing with this most basic principle.
Not to mention the consequences of where this type of reasoning is headed. If all of us are required to respect each others’ nonsense there’s going to end up being more resentment not less. I’d rather bask five extra minutes in the sun than listen to prayers from any religion, including my own.
If any religion claims to be based on the truth it automatically means that the others are false from that perspective. Nothing hare-brained about this at all.
religious claims are not stated via mathematics or formal logic. so there is ALWAYS a “get out of jail free” card. that’s just the empirical truth of human history.
e.g.: …disconforming evidence only seems to make believers try harder to understand the deeper truth and to strengthen religious beliefs. For example, after reading a bogus article on a new finding from the Dead Sea Scrolls that seemed to contradict Christian doctrine, religious believers who also believed the story reported their religious beliefs reinforced.
(In Gods we Trust, page 92)
this doesn’t apply just to christianity. nor just to religion (think politics).
In fact to me it seems disingenuous that you introduce all kinds of other factors in a show of complexity before adequately dealing with this most basic principle.
in regards to human cognition there is no “basic principle.” a simple model of rationality doesn’t work because our minds have modular elements.
If all of us are required to respect each others’ nonsense there’s going to end up being more resentment not less.
an empirical description of the world around us doesn’t entail any normative prescriptions or judgements.
I think it’s his right to choose if he wants to attend or not. Why would anyone else be bothered by it?
I agree. But how do you square up this belief with your self-declared Islamophobia, a word I take to mean a dislike to Islam as a religion in the absolute sense, not in terms of how it exists currently in some particular socio-cultural framework? Is there any reason to extend Christianity the benefit of doubt if the same benefit is not extended to Islam. I don’t deny that there might be reasons: my knowledge of both Islam and Christianity is superficial, but I feel the most logical thing to do is to give them both the benefit of doubt.
This is extremely interesting. Where can I find more information about this (Atran? ) ? How does one ‘show’ creationism is the default cognitive mode? I think it’d be v hard to find ‘clean’ samples, ie, kids who have not been influenced in some way by their parents/family. I can see how arguments can be made that humans tend to see agency everywhere, and it seems logical that they’d be reluctant to believe that the world was created by itself, but how do you show something like that?
re: creationism, here is a start. paul bloom has talked about this too.
But how do you square up this belief with your self-declared Islamophobia, a word I take to mean a dislike to Islam as a religion in the absolute sense, not in terms of how it exists currently in some particular socio-cultural framework? Is there any reason to extend Christianity the benefit of doubt if the same benefit is not extended to Islam. I don’t deny that there might be reasons: my knowledge of both Islam and Christianity is superficial, but I feel the most logical thing to do is to give them both the benefit of doubt.
1) re: islamophobia, it isn’t absolute, because i don’t view religions as having any essences. rather, a religious group simply defines a self-identified group of humans who exhibit a distribution within an “idea space.” when i say that i’m a nominialist re: religion, i mean that a lot of this stuff is just about word games. hinduism is correct in a psychological way that theists in general believe in the same god, no matter what they say (see d. jason slone, theological incorrectness). nevertheless, word games have deep ontological significance for many people, distinctions we as unbelievers find picayune (e.g., is the son coequal with the father or is he inferior and created?) can be turned into a matter of life and death. but, i don’t believe that the conflict is fundamentally about beliefs, rather, the beliefs become totems or flags for separate teams defined in other ways. the long and the short of it is that muslims today, on average, exhibit an unpleasant suite of traits. the religion as it is expressed on the ground is illiberal, triumphalist and modally un-gelded.
2) the point about gelding is important. christianity has by and large been gelded in the western world in the past few centuries. a christianity with balls still exists in parts of the third world, but i think the nature of modernity tends to geld communalist religions.
3) just because i don’t think islam has any necessary essence or modality does not mean that i deny that it tends to exhibit a certain distribution/range of behaviors. those behaviors are the root of my islamophobia. if muslims exhibited the values of congregationalists but still said they believed in the koran i really couldn’t care less.
just to be precise, my islamophibia is ground up. of the world’s 1.2 billion muslims i would find most of them to be unpleasant and medieval in their avowed beliefs-and believe that any mass influx of these individuals into liberal societies is a danger to the nature of these societies. i don’t believe islam exists apart from the expression of believers, so it is fear/dislike of individuals simply summed up over the identity. in other words, i don’t hate abstractions. “By their fruits you shall know them.”
p.s. also, the majority consensus amongst muslims today still remains that those who were born muslim (my father is muslim, so i was born muslim from a muslim perspective despite my lifetime lack of belief) should be killed if they haven’t repented after an x amount of time. as long this is the majority consensus i really can’t be positively predisposed to the believers 😉
Razib:
Re: Posts 140, 141
Can you reject in such a wholesale manner the culture in which you were born?
Razib wrote:
🙂 You just made a point against yourself and you are calling me stupid? Exclusivism is the norm in catholicism as your own quote proves. It is based on scripture:
“For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6).
“Outside the Church there is no Salvation” was and remains infallible Church Dogma. Vatican II did not overrule it. It could not. To do so would have been to acknowledge that the Catholic Church is not infallible. See its catechism:
“Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it“
Exceptions prove the rule, genius.
Christianity, catholic or protestant, is exclusivist at its core. Likewise for Islam. Believe in their cults and go to Heaven, or burn in Hell forever.
I suggest you look in the mirror and repeat that. You are posing as an authority on christianity while revealing ignorance of something as basic to christianity as the Nicene Creed.
In your own words: “you want to make broad sweeping generalizations about said group you better know your shit”. You need to spend more time learning about religions than in spouting ignorant generalizations. Buddhism is well known for its logic. Think of Nagarjuna for example. Logic (Nyaya) is also important in hinduism. Even jews, christians and muslims felt the need to justify their beliefs in the light of Aristotelian Logic and Reason (think of Maimonides, Aquinas, Averroes/Ibn Rushd respectively).
Can you reject in such a wholesale manner the culture in which you were born?
i wasn’t raised in it dog.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6).
sathaya, you quote fundamentalist words (this line of john is beloved of protestant fundamentalists of course). if you believe that fundamentalism is the core of religion, then you’re right. but i don’t believe fundamentalism is ever really fundamental.
Christianity, catholic or protestant, is exclusivist at its core.
except that most western christians are considerably more latitudinarian, as the surveys above. therefore, by your “logic” most christians in the west are not, at the core, christians.
Even jews, christians and muslims felt the need to justify their beliefs in the light of Aristotelian Logic and Reason (think of Maimonides, Aquinas, Averroes/Ibn Rushd respectively).
there are different layers to religon. there isn’t one definitive “way” which defines a religion. elite practitioners have made recourse to “logic” (i don’t find summa theologia particularly rigorous myself, but i find aristotle’s empirical work more interesting than some of his a priori work), but the average believer has little logical coherence. see theological incorrectness by d. jason slone.
…this thread is getting long. but, i’m going to post links to my many posts on religion so that those interested can look up the literature for themselves and make their own minds up.
The nature of religion and Breaking the Spell Modes of religion Who Dan Dennett think he be foolin’? An evolutionary anthropology of religion God lives, deal with it! Belief & belief in belief Logical consistency is irreligious God & morality Are people naturally religious? Yes…. The round-eyed Buddha Nerds are nuts Atheism, Heresy and Hesychasm The God Delusion – Amongst the unbelievers Innate atheism & variation across societies “Hard-wired” for God Buddhism, a religion or not? Why do people believe in God? Is religion an adaptation? Theological incorrectness – when people behave how they shouldn’t….sort of The gods of the cognitive scientists
(bolded are recommended for you to figure out if you think i’m stupid or not 😉
happy easter & passover.
Divya, #133:
All religions claim to have the truth. The one major I can exception I can think of is Buddhism, and even Buddhism claims to have a method of arriving at the truth. The distinction between the Eastern religions and the Abrahamic religions is that the Abrahamic religions claim to have a basis in fact.
It’s a fine distinction, but an important one. For example, the divinity of Jesus is either true or false…either He was or He was not the Son of God, and there’s no real middle ground there. (Unless, of course, you believe in the Bradian Heresy, that Jesus was the stepson of God). Belief in the veracity of that claim is what makes one a Christian. But the “truth” of Christianity is trickier…whether or not Jesus was the Son of God, hopefully everyone, Christian or not, can get behind the Golden Rule and the rest of the of Sermon on the Mount.
Speedy
Satya, #143:
There’s some nuance in the quoted line that you’re missing. Most Catholics, clergy and laity, would argue that someone raised in a different faith, or with no faith, is not guaranteed a ticket on the Southbound Express even if they were familiar with the tenets of Christianity and/or Catholicism and refused to join up. The key phrase is “knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ.” I would argue that the phrase is not referring to sincere believers in other religions, or for that matter sincere atheists, but rather to people who sincerely accepted Catholic theology as being true but still refused to become Catholic.
Granted, that certainly wasn’t the position of the Church before V2, and other Catholics might not agree with my interpretation. But most Catholics do believe that salvation is possible outside the Church, and this is in fact what the Church professes in public– i.e. that’s what I was told in CCD and that’s what the priests say in their sermons when the subject comes up.
Of course, the Church would prefer that everyone be Catholic…but no one’s perfect, so there’s plenty of room for all y’all inside the Pearly Gates. 🙂
Speedy
the majority consensus amongst muslims today still remains that those who were born muslim (my father is muslim, so i was born muslim from a muslim perspective despite my lifetime lack of belief) should be killed if they haven’t repented after an x amount of time.
Do you have an actual fear of being killed by local MSA hoodlums? There is a difference between Muslims saying what should be done and what they are willing to do. I would say that outside Iran and a few countries, most Muslim apostates would be left alone unless they become like Hirsi Ali etc.
Also asking Muslims questions in the abstract is not always an indication of how the masses will behave. For example, if you were to talk to a Muslim and explain to him that the Sharia/Quran/Hadith calls for cutting off limbs for certain crimes and whether they agree with it, most of them would probably agree that such punishments should be carried out. In practice however Muslim masses are not clamoring for a change in laws in their respective countries so that hands can be cut as punishment.
.Do you have an actual fear of being killed by local MSA hoodlums? There is a difference between Muslims saying what should be done and what they are willing to do. I would say that outside Iran and a few countries, most Muslim apostates would be left alone unless they become like Hirsi Ali etc.
it doesn’t have to go as far as fear of being killed. but i’ve been threatened, and i know others who have, in this country. the fact that both of us were in positions as public atheists probably helped, though neither of us spoke about islam so it wasn’t because were attacking islam. this isn’t representative of muslims at all, but the attitudes of the majority do, i believe, prime the nuts to feel that they aren’t off the deep end. in other words, if there is a consensus about what should be done, a minority of wack-jobs will more likely take on the task of “doing right.”
Also asking Muslims questions in the abstract is not always an indication of how the masses will behave.
well, duh. but like is aid, nominal beliefs can serve as a starting point for a motivated minority.