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The Forum > Article Comments > We must stop defending Islam > Comments

We must stop defending Islam : Comments

By Jed Lea-Henry, published 6/8/2013

Of course, the majority of Muslims are peaceful individuals. But this being the case, Islam as a religion is facing an existential challenge from a group of its own believers.

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Islam is not open to reform or interpretation and doing either is punishable by death as mandated by the Qur'an and expounded by Mohammed in the Haddith and other writings. There is no such thing as "moderate" Islam, only lapsed Muslims who know full well that the "pick and choose" observance they engage in is rejected by their clerics and scorned by the orthodox as akin to apostasy. It is bizarre that non-Muslim so called experts on Islam are so rarely speakers of Arabic. Understanding the language of Islam leaves one in no doubt of its aspirations and those of its adherents and the West faces far more danger than will ever be estimated based on adherents' statements in English will ever disclose!
Posted by OZSHRINK, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 7:46:52 AM
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Gawd awmitey!

This piece comes down to an argument that the response of people in Middle Eastern countries to a perceived threat from the Israeli/US alliance must be due to their Islamic religion!

Sheesh, talk about confusing correlation with causation...
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 8:32:47 AM
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Islam itself does not do anything because Islam is not an entity with volition. It is people, who happen to be Muslim, who do those actions. Muslims are not a monolith and the Quran is read and interpreted in a variety ways, and this had been the case from the very beginning as is evidence from the copious amount of Islamic scholarship throughout the past 1400 years. Those who say that Muslims are not open to reform and discussion have not read much of Islamic history and scholarship.
Posted by ss, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 8:41:40 AM
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Sheesh Antiseptic
Old son you have not got a clue how about reading up on history before you start talking. Islam has been using terror since it started it did not start fifty years ago
Posted by KarlX, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 9:53:10 AM
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Actually, old son, Islam was the most enlightened religion in the world for a very long time, until the fearful self-interest of a bunch of illiterate thugs who controlled the backward, squalid, oppressive slave-based feudal pseudo-Christian Europe lead them to do all they could to destroy the centres of that enlightenment.

It never ceases to amaze me that people are so willing to blow smoke out of their nether regions in public.

However, none of that has anything to do with the basic flaw in the article, which is that the writer concentrates on the religion rather than on the more basic cause, which is territorial aggression against the countries that happen to be Islamic.
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:01:23 AM
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The main aggressors against Muslims are other Muslims! Assad #1 killed 50,000, Assad#2 has killed 70,000, Gaddafi killed 50,000 during his last months, Iraq-Iran war killed 1million Muslims, then add the Sunni-Shia killing spree with daily car bombs in Iraq and don't forget Yemen and Tunisia and Egypt. Then why not add 2million killed in Sudan and 2million Christian Armenians!
So who is the problem? Israel? I don't think so!!
Since 1948, Israel killed 6000 Syrians in 4 wars. Assad can achieve that in a week now that he's firing missiles into Syrian suburbs. Get some perspective! Muslims are at war with each other all over the Middle East and are killing each other with unparalleled brutality.
Posted by OZSHRINK, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:23:05 AM
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Antiseptic old son I was in part jesting when I said you need to read more history but your subsequent comment showed I was spot on.

You talk of 'slavery" as if it was a christian practice.Are you completely unaware that the biggest slavers were the Islamic empires.Then you go on to talk about "territorial aggression" as if Islamic countries were the victims.Please have a look at how islam came to expand over the asia and north africa

Please old son no more comments before you do a bit of research.You embarrass yourself
Posted by KarlX, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:26:21 AM
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"Actually, old son, Islam was the most enlightened religion..." says Antiseptic.

Enlightened religion is an clear oxymoron.
Posted by David G, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:40:16 AM
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"Islamic terrorism is a very real challenge to our way of life." yes, however, the most insidious threat is due to creeping Islamisation which is aided and abetted by professional multiculturalists.


Antiseptic,

"It never ceases to amaze me that people are so willing to blow smoke out of their nether regions in public." Yes, indeed.

I can only agree with KarlX's comments, do you think that the conflict started with the Crusades?

"Islam was the most enlightened religion in the world for a very long time," --when was this? Islam's so-called "Golden Age" was mainly parasitic on the existing Greco-Roman culture in those areas conquered by Moslems and sustained by Christians and Jews, islamic contributions to science and technology are negligible.

Islam was a militaristic, totalitarian ideology from its invention in the 7th century. Moslems destroyed Greco-Roman civilisation in the ME and North Africa and attacked France, Italy and occupied most of the Iberian peninsula. Moslem pirates from North Africa and Ottoman Turkey took nearly one million Europeans as slaves ( including Britain and Ireland) and transformed the Mediterranean from a peaceful highway to a source of terror for Christian Europe. The decline of Greco-Roman culture in Western Europe was due more to Moslem attacks than the so-called barbarian incursions and those attacks continued for a thousand years and only ended when Europeans gained an overwhelming technological advantage over torpid Islamic culture.

The Crusades were a counter attack to Moslem incursions in the Byzantine Empire.

You're ignorant of history, not KarlX.

For your enlightenment, I recommend Joseph Hogarty's podcast "Europe-from its origins".
Posted by mac, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:53:04 AM
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Of course the statement that “Islam is a religion of peace” is complete nonsense. However, I approve of politicians making such statements.

It helps prevent the xenophobia which is endemic in all societies expressing itself in attacks on Muslims or others who may be identified with the Muslim inspired atrocities even though they are not Muslims. Sikhs wear turbans and are dark skinned. They have been attacked.

http://www.sikh24.com/2013/08/he-attacked-us-because-were-different/#.UgA-p8N--FE

Another reason to deny the obvious connection of Islam with violence is that we are in the habit of denying the connection of religion with violence in regard to Christianity. Missionary religions which claim to have a truth denied to others are fonts of violence. Jesus is called the ‘Prince of peace’, and Christians claim they are motivated by love. In reality Christianity has a lamentable record of violence expressed in crusades, pogroms, massacres of Christians of different brands and of Jews, wars of the Reformation and in conquest to spread the faith. Christianity has been spread by violence. Richard Fletcher wrote “The Conversion of Europe from Paganism to Christianity: 371-1386.” With the exception of Ireland all countries which became Christian were subjected to violence to achieve that end. eg. In France Charlemagne gave the pagan Gauls the choice of Christianity or beheading. In 1386 Lithuania became Christian after being subjected to a series of Crusades by the Christian Teutonic Knights. Although most Christians are peaceful and the religion has been tamed by the secular state there are still outbreaks of Christian violence. I saw in a US bookshop a book supporting the Iraq War as bringing Iraq to Christ. Some Christians have bombed abortion clinics and murdered people working there. However, that is no reason to persecute peaceful Christians.

Many, if not all religions, have inspired both peace and war. John Ferguson in “War and Peace in the World's Religions” examined 15 religions including all the most prominent ones and they all elements which encouraged violence.

By stating “Islam is a religion of peace” politicians have protected our resident Muslims and have avoided a painful scrutiny of our own traditions.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:55:44 AM
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It's difficult not to smile as one set of humans seeks to demonise another.

Homo Sapiens practices the most exquisite savagery whenever it is driven to it, on many species, and on its own in particular.

All it needs for truly spectacular savagery to unfold is a psychological rallying point, one for which religion provides a most suitable marshalling ground.

Human's practice group-think extremely efficiently....and this is where our penchant for violence and territorialism finds its most verdant ground....where our fears and insecurities can be transformed into a faux morality to give impetus and legitimacy to our actions.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 11:17:54 AM
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Poirot,

Oh jeez, you've assumed the moral high and started writing platitudes, do you have a postgraduate degree in " Cultural Studies", "Comparative Religion" or "Multiculturalism" perhaps?
Posted by mac, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 11:43:09 AM
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How does this bigotry get a place on a respectable journal?
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 11:46:02 AM
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So sorry, mac, if I've introduced a little psychological symmetry into the subject.

I can understand how it must offend simplistic notions of "good vs evil"......and how satisfying it must be to demonise one side while ignoring the universal human penchant for savagery.

Carry on......
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 12:25:45 PM
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Wake up commenters! This isn't about history, it's about Jihadist aspirations and the failure of the West to mount any effective response to the very manifesto published by the Muslim Brotherhood, calling for its members to concentrate their efforts on Jihad by stealth throughout Europe and the U.S. According to this plan, terrorist acts are a distraction to be used as a stark contrast to the Brotherhood's select "moderate" Muslims, who will increasingly enter political life, stand for public office, qualify in the professions, enter the Judiciary and gradually extend Shariah Law across the globe. It's all laid out for those with the sense to go to the source. The highly respected U.S. think tank, Team B, published a 300+ page assessment of the risk of Global Jihad and the spread of Shariah Law. I recommend their report as essential reading re this entire issue.
Posted by OZSHRINK, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 1:46:23 PM
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IMPORTANT NOTICE TO JIHADISTS.

The number of virgins who await you is now ZERO, you would be advised to ask for your 44 virgins before you mindlessly blow yourself up.
Posted by Philip S, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 2:01:27 PM
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"Important notice to those who prefer vacuous emotive rhetoric."

Philip S. has now joined the conversation.....
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 2:08:37 PM
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LOL, hysterical much? You speak Arabic, do you ozshrink? Yeah, right. Perhaps Yiddish...

As for the current internecine strife in Syria, etc, it is inevitable that states in which there is pressure from without and a split on religious grounds within will end up in conflict. Wikipedia has a nice list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Religion-based_civil_wars

Yes, I realise you won't read it, but it still exists...

Karl, I'm presently studying at tertiary level the historical expansion of Islam following the death of Mohammed. One of the features of that expansion was that it had as a priority the fostering of trade and cultural exchange and the imposition of a just system of laws on populations that were often under despotic rule. The despots of medieval Europe were scared to death of it.

However, none of that has much to do with the article any more than the article has much to do with the real world. Not a good advertisement for the author's work.
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 2:11:27 PM
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Poirot - Thank you for announcing me.

I would like to remind you of a statement you made in case anyone posts any official statements.

Quote - "I take official statements on process as evidence."

Therefore any official statement Poirot will believe.
Posted by Philip S, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 2:21:19 PM
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Antiseptic,

"I'm presently studying at tertiary level the historical expansion of Islam following the death of Mohammed."

(1) "the imposition of a just system of laws on populations that were often under despotic rule." Have you studied the Islamic invasion of India yet?
LOL

What course is this, and where is it taught, and by whom? As to the "historical expansion" of Islam, by what means did it expand?

(2) "The despots of medieval Europe were scared to death of it." Naturally, the arrival of Islam was followed by massacre, and slavery and third rate status for non-Moslems. You're really a satirist aren't you?

OZSHRINK,

"This isn't about history". Actually to a considerable extent, it is, the selective amnesia of Moslems and their apologists is very significant in influencing public opinion. The successful portrayal of Moslems as the eternal victims of Western aggression is the result of this propaganda.

Phillip,S

Presumably the supply of is virgins constantly replenished, where do they come from anyway?
Posted by mac, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 2:55:04 PM
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mac, "imposition" implies force. Have you studied the history of the last 60 years? The Abbassid and Umayyid Caliphates lasted for several hundred years. How long do you reckon the US model will last?

Is it OK to napalm small children, subject entire cities to blockade for weeks, kill conscripts manning tanks trying to run from the fighting or blow up wedding parties with remote-controlled bombs from shipping containers 3000km away because they happen to be Islamic? Discuss...

I'm afraid your prejudice is showing - or perhaps that's just the bit you blow smoke out of... Either way, it's not a pretty sight.
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 3:03:58 PM
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An interesting feature of the early Muslim conquests is that, unlike most other conquests by religious entities, they did not try to spread their religion. Early Islam regarded Islam as a religion for the Arabian peninsula and discouraged conversion to Islam by the subject peoples of north Africa and other conquered areas. Muslims did not have to pay taxes, and conversion removed people from the tax rolls. Unlike Christian universities in medieval times which were only open to Christians Muslim universities were not restricted to Muslims. It was only later that Islam became a missionary religion with the intolerance displayed by such religions. One of the tragedies of history is the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula by fanatic Christians who introduced such practices as the Inquisition to root out all but the Catholic religion.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 3:06:57 PM
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Antiseptic if you are only up to "Islam following the death of Mohammed" you have a long way to go before your in a position to make statements like "Islam was the most enlightened religion in the world for a very long time". As Mac said a lot depends on who is teaching you.
As an interesting test of your teachers veracity what did they tell you about Mohammeds treatment of the original Jewish tribes of the Arabian peninsula. What enlightened idea did he have for dealing with them?
Posted by KarlX, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 4:22:15 PM
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David F,

Gaul was already Christian long before Charlemagne - in the south, the areas held by Visigoth kingdoms were Arian, but in Burgundy and Austrasia and Neustria, Catholic bishops and abbeys controlled vast areas of land, from the sixth century up until 800. Check out Henri Pirenne's work 'Charlemagne and Mohammed' or anything my Marc Bloch.

And by the way, the Muslims had slaves in Spain, according to the economic historian Vives, usually around fifty thousand at any one time.

As for Islam being totalitarian, it is no coincidence that totalitarians of pseudo-left and right, and their followers, are great lovers of grandiose architecture, from the Muslims to Mussolini and the Nazis to the North Koreans.

And a peaceful religion ? A force that can launch attacks against France and Poland and the Adriatic in the West, India in the south and Vietnam and Japan in the east, and which has almost no record of peaceful conversion, apart perhaps from the East Indies, can hardly be called peaceful. Certainly Islam is on a par, in that respect, with anything the west or Christianity could devise.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 4:26:55 PM
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Antiseptic,

(1) ""imposition" implies force. " of course it does, what point are you making? You haven't replied to my comments on the destruction Islamic attacks caused to European civilisation or to the exaggerated claims in regard to the contribution of Islamic scholarship to Western culture, or the the oppressive nature of Moslem rule. Do you, in fact, understand any history from the 7th century until say, 1683, when the last significant Moslem attack on Europe was defeated?

Again, what's the course you're studying?

(2"Have you studied the history of the last 60 years?" What history, be more specific?

"The Abbassid and Umayyid Caliphates lasted for several hundred years. How long do you reckon the US model will last." So what, Western history is far older than that. What has Islamic civilisation achieved in the last millennium? As often before, you've confused quite separate moral and political issues.

I think I understand the point you're trying to make--I don't support US policy in the ME ( particularly American support for Israel) and in my opinion, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are war crimes. You are, either deliberately, or naively, failing to distinguish between the Islamic ideology and the human rights issues involved in the ME and North Africa. Whitewashing the crimes committed in the name of Islam, or its history, is a pointless exercise.

"'Im afraid your prejudice is showing - or perhaps that's just the bit you blow smoke out of... Either way, it's not a pretty sight."

Remember, you were the first to make offensive remarks, so here's a piece of psychologising from me.

You make assertions without any support and fail to refute, or even answer comments that I've made, so (1) you're either bluffing, (2) a rather confused leftist who can't distinguish race and ideology (3) a cultural relativist desperately attempting to find some virtue in Islamic culture or (4) a Moslem, which would explain your dissembling method.
Posted by mac, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 4:40:49 PM
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Antipeptic,

Strictly speaking, the various Egyptian and the Roman Empires each lasted for a couple of thousand years, while the Abbasids and Umayyids each barely lasted 150 years, after surviving the First Moslem Civil War and the Second Moslem Civil War, in the seventh century. The Abbasids' capital of Baghdad was sacked by the Muslim Mongols, and again by the Muslim Timur - each time, massive piles of bodies marked the event.

Yes, sure is a peaceful religion.
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 6:31:39 PM
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Dear Loudmouth,

http://lostislamichistory.com/mongols/ tells about the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols. The Mongols who destroyed Baghdad were not Muslims.

From that account:

“Besides some raids and massacres on the borderlands of Islam, Genghis Khan did not invade far into the Muslim world. Under his successor, Ogedei, the Muslim world continued to be spared Mongol wrath. However, in 1255 that peace would end. The Great Khan, Mongke, put his brother Hulagu Khan in charge of an army whose goals were to conquer Persia, Syria, and Egypt, as well as to destroy the Abbasid Caliphate. The campaign’s goal appears to be a complete destruction of Islam. Hulagu himself even had a very deep hatred for everything attached to Islam. Much of this came from his Buddhist and Christian advisors who influenced his policies.”

The two big slaughters that marked the twentieth century were two World Wars largely carried on by the Christian powers against each other with the assistance of the Buddhist-Shintoist Japanese.

At the beginning of the twentieth century with the chief exception of Turkey and Afghanistan all Islam was under the colonial domination of the Christian European powers. The British, French, Dutch, Belgian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian and Italian empires were not built in a fit of absent mindedness. They were even justified to spread Christianity.

Google gunboats and missionaries to get many references to their close association. In spite of the close and lamentable association of Christianity and violence I believe, possibly in spite of the evidence, that Christians can live peacefully in the world and respect the rights and lives of non-Christians.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 8:23:22 PM
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Deleted for abuse. And if I see anymore it will go too.
Posted by cohenite, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 9:38:36 PM
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Gee Cohenite, one sentence and you foam at the mouth?
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:32:36 PM
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Deleted. Refers to previously deleted comment.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 10:42:49 PM
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Poirot,

And his point was ? Are you going to respond or get all huffy and flounce off ? To flounce back when it seems safe.

'Women defending Islam' - I think he might have been referring to the grotesque image of supposed Western feminists defending a reactionary religion - feminists defending a religion, for Christ sake - as if [because, after all, it's sort of anti-American] it must, ipso facto, be Good.

Having been raised on the Left, but observing its twists and turns over sixty years, I have been wondering if some of its adherents - not all, just some - are actually quite psychotic, that their 'radicalism' has been little more than anti-something, anti-British in my childhood, anti-American ever since - but a cover for their psychosis, nevertheless. Ergo, American, bad; not American, good. I have a close relation who doesn't believe there is such an entity as al-Qa'ida, that it's all an American plot ('and what's three thousand, after all?') - which proves, once more, of course, how evil America is. Strange how Arjay - on the Right - would agree with him.

The Left has now had almost 100 years of Russian experience, 70 years of Chinese experience, a total of hundreds of years of East German, Czech, Vietnamese, Korean, Cuban, Bulgarian experience. Any of it worth dying for ? I don't think so. Socialism has been a crock, a fraud, a step towards fascism - an EXCUSE for fascism.

Now, back to topic. Sorry, you diverted me too sell, Poirot.

Cheers :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 6 August 2013 11:03:46 PM
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Loudmouth, spot-on !
Posted by individual, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 8:02:39 AM
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David F.,

Thanks for that up-date - but the Mongols did convert to Islam ? Weren't the Mongols Muslim by the time they conquered China (in a peaceful way, of course) and then (peacefully) launched attacks against Japan to the north-east, and Vietnam to the south-east ?

Yes, you are right about Poland - the Mongols may not have been Muslim by the time they attacked Europe. Of course, further west and south, the Arabs - as Muslims - invaded Spain and south-west France, and harassed southern Europe for centuries - as Muslims: it wasn't simply a coincidence that they were Arab AND Muslim, any more than the Arabs were mostly right-handed and 'therefore' the invasion was a right-handed invasion.

In this sense, the two world wars of the twentieth century were not manifestly Christian wars, any more than they were 'right-handed' wars.

Although, as a left-hander, I wouldn't put anything past those b@stards.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 9:14:32 AM
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Dear Loudmouth,

Nobody has the truth. Some Christians think all Muslims and Jews are dirty dogs. Some Muslims think all Christians and Jews are dirty dogs. Some Jews think all Christians and Muslims are dirty dogs. Some on the left think all on the right are dirty dogs and vice versa.

Neither Christians, Jews, Muslims, left or right are monolithic entities. They all differ among themselves. They all have a history of atrocities and generosity. They all contain dirty dogs, thoroughly decent human beings and probably the great majority who are at neither extreme.

Although I think the bible is a collection of fairy tales which should be read with scepticism it contains some wisdom. One of the wisdom bits is the following:

Matthew 7:3 - And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Some people on one side tend to see all those on the other side as dirty dogs. It's that simple.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 9:29:01 AM
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David f?Loudmouth

"Some people on one side tend to see all those on the other side as dirty dogs. It's that simple."

The issue is not individuals but ideologies, however there are limits to adopting a charitable view of those who adhere to ideologies that are inimical to liberal democracy. It's worth considering the question as to why majority Islamic societies are backward and oppressive, if the majority of Moslems are "moderate".

I'm not sure whether Moslems or the West committed the most mass murders, it's not really central to the issue, the problem is the whitewashing of Islamic history and the portrayal of Moslems as always the victims. It's essential that both sides of the historical record are presented.
Posted by mac, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 12:49:59 PM
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mac wrote: It's essential that both sides of the historical record are presented.

History has many sides, and usually is determined by those who write it.

As far as I am concerned Napoleon was no better than Genghis Khan. In my opinion the main reason he is regarded more highly than Genghis Khan is that French are better at writing history than Mongols.

I used to work with a fellow called Al. He was a Hungarian immigrant and told me his first name was actually Attila. Attila the Hun is highly regarded in history in Hungary. However, in English speaking countries it is much better to call oneself Al.

However, history is not only determined by those who write it but by those who read it and the prejudices with which they read it. My reading of history leads me to regard the Christian record as far worse than the Muslim record. I am neither a Muslim nor a Christian. That does make me objective but does mean I identify with neither.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 1:36:49 PM
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David f,

"My reading of history leads me to regard the Christian record as far worse than the Muslim record." Ok, that's your opinion, in what ways is the Christian record "far worse"?

"I am neither a Muslim nor a Christian. That does make me objective but does mean I identify with neither." It doesn't necessarily make you objective, we all have prejudices and pre-conceptions. I'm not a Muslim or a Christian either-- that's a far too simplistic division of categories, in the final analysis we're considering civilisations, not just religions.

"That does make me objective but does mean I identify with neither." -this sentence is ambiguous, is there a typo?
Posted by mac, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 2:28:25 PM
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Dear mac, The sentence should be: “That does not make me objective but does mean I identify with neither."

Civilisations are greatly affected by the dominant religion of those civilisations.

Many regard the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire as the beginning of the Dark Ages. Those who dared to differ were silenced, and the spirit of enquiry current in the ancient world was crushed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_I tells of the intolerance immediately after the empire became Christian. The Christian attitude toward learning and science were exemplified by the murder of Hypatia, a female astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who refused to become Christian, by a Christian mob in 415 CE, the burning at the stake in 1553 CE in Protestant Geneva of Servetus who discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood, the burning at the stake in 1600 CE in Catholic Rome of Bruno who speculated that there were other solar systems and worlds besides ours and the house arrest of Galileo who was confined for the rest of his life. In contrast the Islamic world at that time respected scientific learning and produced such great minds as Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonides. Maimonides was Jewish, but he was free to teach and learn in the Muslim world.

During the Muslim occupation of Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims were free to interact, follow their own faiths and live peacefully with each other for the most part. When the Christians reconquered Spain the Inquisition with its extreme intolerance of other faiths and non-Catholic Christianity followed.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism) In Germany Martin Luther wrote vicious anti-Jewish diatribes in 1543. These diatribes were published in the Nazi papers to justify the Nazi treatment of Jews. I regard the persecution of Jews under the Nazis as accepted by most people in the Nazi-occupied areas because the centuries of Jew-hatred promoted by Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox churches had provided the groundwork.

With the Enlightenment and the rise of the secular state the intolerance and anti-scientific attitudes endemic in Christianity have been curbed. However, it still exists as you can see from the postings of evolution rejecting fundamentalists on olo.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 4:06:07 PM
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Antiseptic:
You have a point in that Islam did have a summer between 800 and 1200 AD, It was a period of enlightenment for Islam while the Christian world was consumed by ignorance and superstition largely generated by church leaders. Christianity was used to subjugate women and the population in general. Christian kings used religion to empower themselves. It was not until this power was taken from the kings that the west entered a period of enlightenment which continues today with the complete separation of church and state.
Sadly Islam has never achieved much since 1200 AD and remains basically a political system based on religion. Islam would seem unsustainable in its present form and is locked into an Islamic version of medieval Europe.
Posted by SILLER, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 5:07:24 PM
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David f,

I should emphasise that I'm defending Western civilisation not Christianity, I have absolutely no sympathy for the religion.

(1) "Civilisations are greatly affected by the dominant religion of those civilisations." yes of course, and religions are often greatly affected by the civilisation in which they flourish, that is particularly important when considering the West.
I'm well aware of the appalling record of the Christian theocracy, particularly the Catholic Church and its totalitarian grip on Western societies. Remember that the 17th century was the start of the Scientific revolution, followed by the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution-- all that occurred in a Christian nation.

As to the so-called "Dark Ages" in Western Europe, at least some of the region's cultural and economic decline can be attributed to Moslem attacks that started in the7th century.
Both the Western and Islamic cultures inherited Greco-Roman civilisation, however while the West produced the Renaissance, the Islamic world, after a brief "Golden Age' entered its millennial torpor.

(2) "During the Muslim occupation of Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims were free to interact, follow their own faiths and live peacefully with each other for the most part."

No, that's an overstatement, sometimes Christians and Jews were persecuted, the situation depended on the Islamic sect in power, non-Moslems were penalised by the Jizyah tax to "encourage" conversion to Islam, so "free" is a relative term. There was no toleration in the modern liberal democratic sense.

The West's history of anti-Semitism is an atrocity. In the past, generally Jews and Orthodox Christians were safer in Moslem countries than in Western Catholic societies, though that's certainly not the situation now, e.g. many anti-Semitic incidents in secular France are attributed to Moslems. Modern Moslem countries are by far the most intolerant and oppressive of non-Moslem minorities, the despised "Kuffars".

So, no matter how bloodstained , brutal and oppressive, Western civilisation's history might be, it escaped from theocracy while Islam did not, perhaps the change was triggered by the Reformation, I think it was.
Posted by mac, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 7:17:55 PM
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Davidf
<<During the Muslim occupation of Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims were free to interact, follow their own faiths and live peacefully with each other for the most part>>

You must have missed this bit of "Golden Age" tolerance:

<<Yet, despite the Jews’ success and prosperity under Muslim rule, the Golden Age of Spain began to decline as the Muslims began to battle the Christians for control of the Iberian Peninsula and Spanish kingdoms in 722. The decline of Muslim authority was matched with a rise in anti-Semitic activity. In 1066, a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city. Accounts of the Granada Massacre state that more than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, were murdered in just one day. The conditions of Jews living on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) steadily began to worsen again. As a result, many people started fleeing the Iberian Peninsula to neighboring nations.>>
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/spain1.html

"Following the fall of Toledo to Christians in 1085, the ruler of Seville sought relief from the Almoravides. This ascetic sect abhorred the liberality of the Islamic culture of al-Andalus, including the position of authority that some dhimmis held over Muslims. In addition to battling the Christians, who were gaining ground, the Almoravides implemented numerous reforms to bring al-Andalus more in line with their notion of proper Islam...

Wars in North Africa with Muslim tribes eventually forced the Almoravides to withdraw their forces from Iberia. As the Christians advanced, Iberian Muslims again appealed to their brethren to the south, this time to those who had displaced the Almoravides in North Africa. The Almohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews emigrated..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Spain

It was lucky you tacked on: "for the most part"
Posted by SPQR, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 7:24:50 PM
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Siller is right. Islam had an early period of fostering creativity in science, philosophy and mathematics. After that period it went into its own Dark Ages. However, Christianity never had a period where it fostered creativity and questioning. It was only the Enlightenment which led to the secular state that freed western civilisation from the grasp of Christianity. I don't maintain Islam is good. All I maintain is that it is not as bad as Christianity. Islam has been oppressive and stultifying but not as oppressive and stultifying as Christianity. It has had a period of several hundred years of fostering knowledge as against no similar period in Christianity. European civilisation dominates in the world today through timing. While Europe was leaving their Dark Ages Islam was entering theirs.

Unfortunately barbarians sometimes win. The Christian barbarians managed to beat off the Muslims at the battle of Tours or Poitiers in 732 CE. This preserved the European Dark Ages for several hundred years. The Christian barbarians later reconquered Spain ending a Golden Age.

All religions are delusional systems. I believe we would be better off if they all disappeared. They vary in virulence from time to time. However, they only vary in degree of virulence. They remain virulent.

I heard the religion report on ABC tonight at 5:30. The program mentioned the religiosity of Rudd and Abbott. Both are devoted to religion, and I fear for Australia. Both are trying to get the votes of those subject to the delusional systems. There is one party in Australia that is for separation of religion and state.

http://www.secular.org.au/ is their website. From that site:

"The Secular Party of Australia is the first and only Australian political party whose chief objective is a liberal, secular democracy for this country. We want all Australians to enjoy freedom of and from religion."
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 8:32:53 PM
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For goodness sake, will some of you critics of actions done using the name of christianity actually read the new testament and find out what a christian is? People, groups, nations who commit atrocities in the name of christ, ARE NOT FOLLOWING the teachings of Christ or his disciples. A Christian who murders is not being true to their professed belief. Islamists however, as taught in the Quran are being true to Mohommeds teaching when they kill infidels who refuse to convert to Islam. Christians who openly contradict what is taught in the New Testament are either ignorant, apostate or false. Muslims who openly contradict the Quran (by claiming there is no room in Islam for violence) are either ignorant apostate or false.
Posted by bobS, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 9:18:19 PM
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It seems to me that many still cannot tell the difference between religion and culture.

Many of those practices that the west finds disturbing come from specific cultures and are not universally practiced by the religion as a matter of course.

It's easy to identify extreme examples of anything and simply generalise to include all adherents.

Religious extremism can also be found in Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and even (although not strictly a religion) - Buddhism.

The biggest problem in the world is not religious belief, but intolerance and that's a universal practice.

Many of the anti-Muslim zealots are as rabid as the extremists.
Posted by wobbles, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 9:25:21 PM
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KarlX

"Islam has been using terror since it started it did not start fifty years ago?"

The modern car bomb was invented by the Jews during their terror and assassination campaign to found the state of Israel.

Early Christians in Alexandria used to publicly disembowel adultresses and have their entrails eaten alive by pigs. They burned and crucified thousands of pagans in their killing fields in what is now Syria and thousands more during the Inquisition.

Only a few generations ago they were burning witches and keeping slaves.

Is the modern use of drone warfare not potentially an act of terror?

Islam does not have a monopoly on terror.
Posted by rache, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 9:42:28 PM
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bobS

u are right of course but secularist are often so full of self righteousness that the only way they can justify murdering the unborn is to slag off and misrepresent Christianity. The national broadcasters have mastered it. I think it is a pre requisite for any senior position.
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 10:08:42 PM
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The hatred and bigotry on this thread is quite astounding. Islam is a branch of Christianity, which is a branch of Judaism, which is a branch of earlier forms of religion from the Mesopotamian region.

In other words, the commonalities are huge, yet the bigots want to focus only on the differences! It's sheer madness!

Wake up to yourselves. You and your fellow travellers in each of the religions mentioned are interested in stupid petty point-scoring over meaninglessness, while you try to pretend that it really matters what you call yourselves and which team you barrack for. You're all a bunch of stupid fan-bois, no different in your motivations than football hooligans who claim to love the game but spend all their time trying to beat up supporters of the other side.

Not a brain cell to rub together between the lot of you.

davidf, why do you bother trying to hold an intelligent discussion with dimwits whose entire repertoire of argument consists of slogans?

On the subject of secularity, it bothers me that "freedom of and from religion" without something to replace the moral structure that religion provides will be much worse. I'm surprised at your support for such a model. Religions are all about trying to make people responsible to others. The Abrahamic religions (in all of their politico-cultural permutations) do this by positing a supernal authority that is called God which sits over the petty squabbles of people and judges their behaviour, in the way a parent might oversee children, rewarding the good and punishing the bad after the play has ended. As a result, just as with kids in a playground, less direct policing of behaviour is required, because people self-regulate.

The alternative is that rigid rules must be imposed and enforced. One of our modern inventions is the "helicopter parent", who must hover vigilantly over all activities ready to step in immediately and put a stop to anything she doesn't like. The adult equivalent is the "nanny state" and the ultimate nanny state was your old nemesis, the soviet state.

Is that what you're advocating?
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 7 August 2013 11:35:34 PM
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Siller, the Abbassid Caliphate collapsed under the weight of both external threats and its own success. It outsourced its military to the less settled groups around its borders and it spent all of its efforts on cultural pursuits. As a result, it became an easy target and was duly picked off. However, the "summer" was much longer than you say. The Umayyad caliphate was expansionary, but it was also strongly focussed on trade and cultural exchange rather than on conquest per se, or even on religious proselytising. It came into being 150 years before the Abbassid revolution that supplanted the leadership after several civil wars.

It was the Rape of Baghdad that destroyed the Islamic Enlightenment and that was driven by largely illiterate, power and wealth-hungry barbarians after years of assaults by equally barbaric religious crusaders had destroyed some of the greatest flowerings of that enlightenment. Their empire was not religiously-based at all and was perhaps the most violent ever until the 20th Century. What they did do well though, was to adopt the Confucian principles, which were overtly about obligation rather than rights.

The problem with religions (Abrahamic and Eastern mystic) was that the rulers didn't like having to be bound by the same restrictions as their followers, so compliant clerics made sure they didn't have to be. Confucianism changed that by making a virtuous life an end in itself, with reward based on virtuous performance of one's role and in proportion to social status. A peasant couldn't expect to exceed a king's reward, as Christ had suggested he could, for example.

That Confucian model is still in use today and underpins the Chinese version of Marxism.
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 8 August 2013 12:11:12 AM
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Islam a branch of Christianity?? Really? Rather a branch of Judaism ...

All beside the point really ....

History is a very interesting subject and by it's very nature seen in a very different lights according to what side you are on.

It's the here and now that counts - and looking to the future.

We live in a Nation founded on Christian principles. That's our culture. It accounts for the fact that nationally we are a peaceful tolerant society. Far too tolerant in some respects.

Nations built on Islamic principles do not enjoy the same levels of peace, harmony and tolerance as Australia or most other 'Western' countries whose cultural traditions are predominately Christian based. I'm talking NOW, not hundreds of years ago.

Christian faith - the New Testament, espouses these principles. The history of the Christian Church is indeed lamentable at times but that is PAST. Can anyone name a country today where wholesale civil war, slaughter and atrocities is happening between opposing groups of Christians? I can't, but it's easy to rattle off the Islamic States.

So while Muslims are enthusiastically killing each other, contemplate the fact that Islam is the one religion that considers anyone who is not Muslim as an infidel whose life is of no consequence. As much as some 'believers' and the 'apologists' protest, this is a Koran teaching. As it is that any convert from Islam to another religion should be executed.

This might have something to do with many of us, right here right now, having a healthy aversion towards a "Muslim Invasion" - real or imagined. While numbers are relatively small, there is peace based on limited power of a minority to create great change or trouble. If the balance changes markedly - who knows! If it happens I don't wish to be here.

Now - who wants to contribute to the 'Marilyn's Egyptian & Middle East Adventure Holiday' fund? C'mon - it's a good cause. Returning (well hopefully - if she keeps quiet and covered up) with a new appreciation of home. :-D
Posted by divine_msn, Thursday, 8 August 2013 12:44:41 AM
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Dear david f,

>>Maimonides was Jewish, but he was free to teach and learn in the Muslim world.<<

True. However, the article is about the present. Where do you think would a contemporary Jewish “Maimonides” be more “free to teach and learn” (except, of course, in Israel) in a country belonging to the Muslim world or in a country like the US or one of Western Europe that until recently unequivocally belonged to the Christian world?

Todays’ Jewish culture, Jewish thinkers are more safely and “organically” embedded in what became out of the “Christian” world than they ever were in the Muslim world. They became the co-shapers of the West. This was true even before the Holocaust, and is even more true after the Holocaust. This is a fact, although one can convincingly argue that the Holocaust was a too high price to pay for this.

>>With the Enlightenment and the rise of the secular state the intolerance and anti-scientific attitudes endemic in Christianity have been curbed.<<

Again, true. However, the Enlightenment self-correction and the following thereof scientific and industrial revolutions came from WITHIN the Christian world, not from the Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu - or what you had at those times - outside worlds or cilvilisations. Whether one sees this as happening BECAUSE of the Christian background or IN SPITE of it, it is a fact that Western thinking became the avant-garde of human development on the global scene, even though this role will become gradually less visible. Perhaps not unlike the often underestimated Jewish and Muslim impacts into intellectual wealth of what used to be a predominantly Christian world.

SILLER,
>>Islam … is locked into an Islamic version of medieval Europe.<<

Well, Mohamed was born about 620 years after Jesus, and 2013-620=1393, which is a year belonging to Christianity’s late Middle Ages. I know this is a silly observation, but still.
Posted by George, Thursday, 8 August 2013 6:47:54 AM
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The funniest response so far, has been Antiseptic's criticism of DavidF for "holding an intelligent discussion" with his opponents. Nobody could ever accuse Antiseptic of ever holding an intelligent discussion.

Congratulations, DavidF. You are doing a good job of using a perverted view of history to support your premise that Christianity is worse than Islam. However confused your reasoning, it is a much better way of promoting your worldview than the woeful efforts of Poirot, Marilyn Sheppard, and Antiseptic.

That Christianity was once as bad as (if not worse) than Islam, is not in dispute. But what we are concentrating on is the fact that the two religions are totally dissimilar, and that they have produced entirely different outcomes for the people who live under each belief system.

Christianity was begun by a Jewish hippie who preached, pacifism, love and tolerance. Islam was begun by a genocide advocating warlord who created a warriors religion, similar to the old pagan Norse religions, where men who fell in battle were rewarded through all Eternity. It stands to reason that the two religions have fundamentally opposed values.

Christianity is a religion based upon pacifism. But after the fall of the Roman Empire, Christian Europe for 1000 years was a continent under siege. Norseman from the north, Muslims form the south, and Goths, Visigoths, Huns, and Hordes from the East. No pacifist religion could survive such a time, and the Christians decided to forget pacifism and to muscle up. The concept of a Christian warrior fighting for God was probably adopted from the Muslims.

That Christian religious leaders then became extremely intolerant and violent is not in dispute. But by being that way, the Christian clerics were contradicting the teachings of their own prophet. The Reformation was brought about by Christian clerics like Martin Luther who demanded that the church return to the original teachings of Jesus Christ. Protestant Christians could still be violent, but their behaviour was moderated by the fact that violence and intolerance was proscribed by their God. Very violent Christians could be labelled by other Christians as being "unchristian."
Posted by LEGO, Thursday, 8 August 2013 7:40:34 AM
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(continued)

This is fundamentally the opposite from Islam. Violence, genocide and the spread of Islam by the sword, was openly advocated by the Muslim prophet. Islam may have become more tolerant through prosperity, but such tolerance was proscribed by their God. With Islam now in trouble, the Muslims today are having their own Reformation. Like the Christians before them, they are returning to the original scriptures advocated by Mohammad. And that means violence, intolerance, terrorism and the obligation to spread Islam by violence.

There are a lot of bad Muslims today who do not want to do what God and Mohammad has instructed. But while they may not wish to commit violence themselves to spread Islam, they can not criticise the True Muslims who are simply doing what Allah has commanded.

The validity of my this statement can be ascertained by the differebnt ways that Christians and Muslims behave. When France banned the burqua in French schools, thousands of Muslims in Sydney rioted. When some silly YouTube video attacking Mohammad surfaced, Muslims all over the world went beserk, burning churches and killing Christians. But when Amina Lawal was sentenced to being stoned to death in Nigeria for "adultery", or when the Taliban shoots schoolgirls in the name of Allah, there is a deafening silence from Muslims everywhere.

When Salmon RUshdie published a book mildly critical of Islam, he was condemned to "fatwa" death by the Ayatollah Khomeini. If "moderate" Muslims are the norm in western societies, one would have expected these moderate Muslims to have laughed the whole thing off. They didn't. Moderate" Muslim leaders, including the convert Cat Stevens, publically boasted how they hoped to be the ones who had the honour of killing Rushdie themselves.

Unlike Christians, Muslims will never condemn violence committed in their name against those who break Allah's rules, or criticise their religion. Such violence is officially sanctioned by their religion by their own scriptures.
Posted by LEGO, Thursday, 8 August 2013 7:41:33 AM
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divine msn, Islam accepts Christ as a divine prophet, Judaism doesn't. Don't confuse Western Christianity, that has been subject to centuries of modification, largely to justify special pleading from some power elite or other with the Orthodox, Coptic or Gnostic forms that preceded it and pervaded the area where Mohammed lived. They are still the forms practised in that region today.

I understand your views on history, I used to hold them myself. However, I think they're a little wrong-headed. The current situation doesn't exist in isolation from the historical one, they're part of a continuum.

In this discussion, when we talk about "Muslims", what we're talking about is people from the Middle East and the sub-Himalayan region principally. Those people have been at the centre of world events and have informed a huge amount of what we regard as "our" culture.

Why are we so scared of them? I think you provided the answer when you said "Far too tolerant in some respects". We are scared because they represent the wild outside. They are dynamic, strong-willed, not afraid to take risks, strongly linked to their own communities, group-motivated, devout, aggressive in pursuing the things they regard as important, ruthless perhaps. these are not virtues in our soft, bureaucratic, somewhat effete culture. Historically, sedentary, inward-looking cultures such as ours have always been eventually subsumed by the wild outside. Abbassid Islam is just one example, so are the early Chinese Tang and Song dynasties and so on.

History is important. It tells us about how people just like us dealt with events and shows us how that worked out.

Islam is a unifying force within that region. The reason so much is made of uniformity of religion is that Mohammed and his successors understood all too well that there were already lots of local differences that lead to strife, so they sought to reduce that strife by creating a unifying, overarching religious imperative. Later leaders have done as Christian leaders have and misused that to give themselves a justification for their own special claim to power.

[cont]
Posted by Craig Minns, Thursday, 8 August 2013 8:27:47 AM
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The Shia/Sunni split is a case in point, imposing a divine right to rule not dissimilar to the Catholic idea of the Pope as an appointee of God on the original Mohammedan idea of the Caliphate as a constitutional theocracy with secular obligations as important as spiritual ones.

We've seen the same sorts of schisms in Christianity, as I mentioned above.

In my view, while your concern is understandable and reflects a large part of the population, it's narrow and somewhat reactionary, with the main fear being that your religious/cultural sense of self is under threat. What's interesting is that the response suggested is to become less tolerant, which is also held up as a reason to dislike Islam!

I say that the sensible approach is try to understand what made the Islamic Caliphates so successful in promoting cultural diversity and intellectual endeavour and try to incorporate them into our dynamic Judaeo/christian/humanist model along with the best of the Eastern mystic and secular ideologies like confucianism.

We can hardly say our present socio-cultural arrangements are perfect and the progressive/conservative political polarisation doesn't seem to offer much of a way out.

Let's strive for something better.

Our human species now spans the globe. We are essentially one large community, with sub-populations that vary considerably. We need to move rapidly away from the idea of localism to that of true globalism. Corporate globalisation was a start, but it is essentially flawed because it is a managerialist model that seeks to suppress sociocultural drives by imposing processes and regulations that are rigidly enforced, while the corporations themselves, because they are not human entities are not affected. It's essentially a development of the notion of the divinity of kings, where the "divinity" is made concrete by the inherently inhuman nature of a Corporation.

I would like to see a much more human model based on our innate drive to be social. This is vital, in my view.
Posted by Craig Minns, Thursday, 8 August 2013 8:28:14 AM
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"The Egyptian and Middle East Adventure Holiday"

I believe that was known under the collective term as "Colonialism". a blink of an eye ago in history.

Hoards of middle-class uppity English used it to prance around and feel superior while soaking up the culture - from a polite distance.

Which, of course, was perfectly above board - because they emanated from a "Christian" culture.
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 8 August 2013 8:33:03 AM
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LEGO

"But what we are concentrating on is the fact that the two religions are totally dissimilar, and that they have produced entirely different outcomes for the people who live under each belief system."

(1) Yes, indeed, unfortunately OLO's resident clique of dissembling Islamophiles refuses to concede that point, no matter how much evidence is presented.

(2)"The concept of a Christian warrior fighting for God was probably adopted from the Muslims."

Agreed, the Christian Byzantines never adopted the concept of Holy War, which would suggest that it was not part of original Christian doctrine.
Posted by mac, Thursday, 8 August 2013 8:52:31 AM
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There are at least two more ways to consider the 'maths' George...

"Well, Mohamed was born about 620 years after Jesus, and 2013-620=1393, which is a year belonging to Christianity’s late Middle Ages. I know this is a silly observation, but still."

A 'Reformation' of Islam would yield 1517+620=2137 and an 'Age of Enlightenment', (1650 to 1821*)+620=2270 to 2441.

(*Thought the range should include Faraday's electric motor)

Hopefully the globalisation of communications technology will speed things up a bit.

In the meantime, how is all this discussion affected by Section 116 of our Constitution, I wonder?
Posted by WmTrevor, Thursday, 8 August 2013 9:09:11 AM
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Dear Antiseptic ,

Your post of 7 August 2013 11:35:34 PM maintained that we need to replace the morality we get from religion. That morality depends on a Big Daddy in the sky watching what we do. He will seek retribution in some way if we don’t conform to His strictures. That kind of morality is an invention of the Abrahamic religions. Kindness, concern for the welfare of others, honesty and other things that most of us think as good do not depend on whether we believe in some supernatural mumbojumbo or not. In the non-Abrahamic religions of the Greeks and the Romans people made sacrifices to the Gods to gain their favour and support. Their morality was not guided by religious rules. They were determined by community standards, philosophical considerations or plain common sense.

Rigid rules of morality should not be enforced by the state or the masters of mumbojumbo. We need no rules of rigid morality. Many of the rules of morality imposed by religion are simply unreasonable restrictions on human freedom. Are we doing wrong because we may eat certain foods like pork or dog? Are we doing wrong if we put parts of our anatomy in the orifices of other consenting adults? Are we doing wrong if we take a mind altering drug like alcohol as long as we don’t drive or operate machinery while we are under the influence? None of those acts should be the business of anybody else. Religious rules which encourage uncontrolled reproduction are not good for the future of my descendents. The moral structure provided by religion need not be replaced because a lot of it is bloody nonsense and the rest is already obtained from other sources. When the state tries to enforce morality as the US did during Prohibition we have opened floodgates to institutional corruption and disregard of law.

I try to be honest, caring, kind, considerate, obey the reasonable (My conscience might tell me to violate an unreasonable law.) laws of Australia and question authority. What more is needed?
Posted by david f, Thursday, 8 August 2013 9:33:39 AM
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Gday David, you've got the wrong end of the stick, I'm afraid. My point was simply that religion and especially a concept of a disengaged but very much aware God that won't intervene in our misbehaviour but will punish us later for having been bad is not unlike the parental model I personally favour. My kids knew full well that if I heard they had been doing things they shouldn't they would not be consequence-free, even if I would defend them to the death in front of others. As a result they have learnt to be self-responsible instead of having to be watched every second in case they go off the rails.

Unless you have some model to replace that means of inculcating personal responsibility then removing religion is simply going to lead to a need for more draconian regulative frameworks and less personal freedom.

You claim a right to choose to ignore rules you don't agree with, but you rely for your freedom to do so on the fact that most people don't do that, because if that wasn't the case then you would either be living in an anarchy or in a police state and in neither case would you be free to act on your own recognisance without fearing some kind of reprisal/assault/punishment.

The fact that Abrahamic religion has been corrupted by a venal mob of hypocritical theologians (rabbis, priests and mullahs/imams alike) seeking favour from secular rulers doesn't make it an inherently bad thing. all it means is that there has to be a big effort made to rid the world of such "moneychangers in the Temple".

You're not using your thinking cap, mate and when you do it's always informative. How do we get rid of the rent-seekers that infest the formal structures of religions?

Thanks for your contribution LEGO. I'm sure someone will read it. If only printers were capable of processing softer paper they might even get some benefit from it.
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 8 August 2013 3:25:02 PM
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Dear Antiseptic,

I don't agree that the Abrahamic religions have been corrupted by priests, rabbis or imams. My opinion of the monotheistic religions is that they are simply reflections of the society of the time of their origins and no longer relevant. God sits like a monarch judging us all, and we must submit to his arbitrary judgment. There have been changes in our modes of government, and many monarchies have disappeared. Where they still exist the monarch is a symbol of the nation without real power, and the government is in other hands.

Monotheistic religions preserve an archaic form of society. The rules they set are arbitrary not subject to the discussion and debate by which we determine the laws that govern us in a democratic society. There is no need for them any more than the buggy whip holders that were on some of the very early automobiles.

Absolute monarchs want absolute obedience. IMHO that never was a virtue. Some people will continue to want that type of rule. They still have it in Saudi Arabia and other places. It is oppressive, and the religions based on that model are also oppressive. I see no need for any replacement although I think those who want such a thing have the right to keep it.

However, I don't think they should have the right to subject the children who are our future to such nonsense by having fundamentalist chaplains from Scripture Union in Queensland public schools.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 8 August 2013 4:24:07 PM
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Antiseptic,

Why would you favour that?

<<My point was simply that religion and especially a concept of a disengaged but very much aware God that won't intervene in our misbehaviour but will punish us later for having been bad is not unlike the parental model I personally favour.>>

Wouldn’t you prefer that they did what they did (and didn’t do) because they knew why they should and should not do it, and wanted to do the right thing?

<<Unless you have some model to replace that means of inculcating personal responsibility…>>

Well, I’ve just given you one (a better one, in fact, if inculcating personal responsibility is your aim, rather than just achieving compliance) and while it may be easier said than done, it’s not impossible - especially not for a god.

<<…then removing religion is simply going to lead to a need for more draconian regulative frameworks and less personal freedom.>>

How do you know this?

The holy books of the Abrahamic religions are like choose-your-own-adventures. There’s enough in them to justify anyone’s morality if they simply cherry-pick the bits they like - which is precisely what they do.

If religion is such an important moral framework, as you claim it is, then why is it that, for centuries, Christians have been adopting the morality of the secular societies that surround them?
Posted by AJ Philips, Thursday, 8 August 2013 4:34:17 PM
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Davis F,

That was partly the point of the thread http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5860
and it is no coincidence that religion and totalitarianism seem to go well together, while the Enlightenment, imperfect as it inevitably has been, and secularism seem to also go well together: basically, do we rely on an external force, emperors or gods, or on ourselves ? Should power be left in the hands of people 'above' us, or in our own hands ? Should we leave it to higher powers to do everything 'right', or should we have the courage to make our own decisions, and our own mistakes ?

Do we need gods ? Do we need 'authorities' ? Do we need an all-embracing but totalitarian society to 'look after' us ? Or do we stand up and become human ?

Just a thought.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 8 August 2013 4:45:33 PM
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Craig Minns

Jews started it. Then Jesus, the Messiah of prophecy - whom the Jews certainly recognised but rejected as imposter. 600 years later comes an Arab with a vision from angel Gabriel, starts a new movement based on Old Testament (Jewish) beliefs. Part of his spiel was Arabic peoples were descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham out of his wife's handmaiden, born before Isacc and claimed by Muhammad as the true promised son. Probably most profound difference between Judaism and early Islam. Jesus means no more to Islam than Judaism with exception one views him as a prophet of no importance, other as usurper.

This illustrates exactly as stated earlier - There is always more than one version of history, depending on where one stands. The truth is - We'll never know the "truth". We undoubtedly don't know every truth about modern history either but in recent and current events at least we are part witnesses to much happening in the world - thanks to technology.

Whichever version one accepts - we can only live in the present and plan for the future.

Right now we have Judaism, not pacifist but intent on defending it's peoples/territories rather than conquest, nor interested in conversion by force or death.
Christianity preaching pacifism and despite scandals involving various churches and clashes with popular culture still highest by example as the religion of love, peace and tolerance.
Islam - preaching non-acceptance, virtues of holy war, by contrast whose societies are wracked by violence within and without.

Muslim individuals, mostly regular folk want to live well, enjoy their families, life in general. Sure! Difference being their religion, which demands precedence over secular law in non-Islamic States, decrees anyone not Muslim 'infidel' with as much importance as animals.

As LEGO observed - Taliban shoot to kill a Muslim schoolgirl because she promotes female education, silence from the Faithful is deafening. Danish cartoons 'insulting' Islam incite world-wide protests, riots, by the Faithful leaving hundreds dead.

Assuming you're infidel, this is the viper you would clutch to your chest?
Posted by divine_msn, Thursday, 8 August 2013 5:29:58 PM
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Hi David, the way I train my dogs is a useful illustration. My mate Max has never work a collar except on the rare occasion I have to pretend to tie him up whilst at the shops and he goes along with that pretence. On those occasions we both know he could easily slip the overlarge chain-link collar over his head, but he doesn't because he knows he's expected not to. The rest of the time he is entirely free to act as he wishes. My home isn't securely fenced, but he knows the boundaries and doesn't exceed them very much. When he does he is growled at. When we go for walks he is not put on a lead, but is free to be my companion rather than my slave.

Everybody comments on how happy he is and I agree, he's the happiest dog around - tail up, never barks nervously at strange sounds, completely open to new people, new dogs. In other words, he's comfortable in his place and his role and doesn't feel threatened. Isn't that something we all want for ourselves?

Now, Max may not be typical, but after 11 dogs I can say he's certainly normative and that the methods I use to train him are entirely applicable to other dogs. He doesn't know he's been "trained", he knows I'm his best mate and he trusts me not to steer him wrong. In return I trust him to do the right thing without having to be dragged around by the throat. It's mutualism in action.

You say you don't like the idea of "fundamentalist Chaplains" being in schools, which seems to be rooted in your concept of individualist libertarianism. I do tend to agree that much of the way religion is promoted is archaic and that is why it is becoming irrelevant. The "god as monarch" model is an outdated, but possibly necessary metaphor for some. Have you read Kohlberg's theories of moral development?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

I'm striving toward a more appropriate model. Any ideas?
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 9 August 2013 4:00:21 AM
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Hi AJ, children aren't up to complex moral reasoning. The model I discussed is intended to teach them how to do just as you say.

I mentioned Kohlberg to David. One of the things he points out is that many people never progress beyond some of the earliest stages in his schema. Their experiences/training/education are such as to lock them into a particular way of thinking that is focussed intently on their own outcomes and ignores the effects on others.

I would say that every religion is intended to try to inculcate a more sophisticated moral sense. If we remove the religion without replacing it with some other mode of doing that then we are perforce going to need to replace the self-regulation that morality enables and presupposes a potential to reach Kohlberg's 6th or even the 7th (universal morality) stage, with at best a stage 4 rigid enforcement model.

The holy books are intended to provide metaphors to help understanding. Your interpretation is that they are literalist instruction books, which is the same mistake the most backward fundies make. I would have thought you capable of a more sophisticated, nuanced understanding.

Joe, we can only be "human" if we know how to be. Education is the key to being a fully human being. We have the motivation to be socially responsible, but we have to be taught how best to think in order to fully understand what social responsibility entails. A child is not "human", but has every chance to become one. Some never do thanks to poor education, which is not just formal schooling, but all of their experiences and the help they have to put them into a human context. The Western/US-corporate social model of the last 50 years reduces the proportion who will ever do so despite the great advances in some aspects of personal freedoms. The fundamentalism of some Islamic cultures is just as unlikely to do so.

It is important to remember that we are a social species, not just a group of individual animals who must rub frictively against each other.
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 9 August 2013 4:22:49 AM
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Dear Antiseptic,

There is one fact that counters the idea that religion is necessary for guiding people to a moral life. That is the fact that people before the inventions of the Abrahamic religions lived together, and, as far as I can determine from my reading of history, were just as moral and caring as people were after the invention of the Abrahamic religions which connected religion with morality.

The Abrahamic religions accepted what we now do not accept in this society. They accepted slavery. It was only in the nineteenth century that slavery became unacceptable in western society. In the United States it took a horrible war to do it. The Abrahamic religions accepted the subjugation of women. It was only in the twentieth century that women became full citizens in western society with the right to vote and hold property independently of the husbands.

Both slavery and the subjugation of women were justified by appeal to Christianity. F. G. Wood’s “The Arrogance of Faith” tells how the Christian religion has been used to justify slavery. One can get it directly from the English Standard Version of the Bible
.
Colossians 3:22 Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

From the early beginnings of Christianity it has been used a tool to subjugate women.

1 Corinthians 14:34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.

1 Timothy 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

The above attitudes sanctioned by Christianity for much of the past are now recognised as immoral according to the current standards of western civilisation. The Bible is now a guide to immorality.

continued
Posted by david f, Friday, 9 August 2013 8:00:58 AM
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continued

As far as chaplains in the schools it is a direct violation of S. 116 of the Australian Constitution:

S. 116 The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Scripture Union and Access Ministries which hire almost all chaplains require the chaplains to subscribe to various Christian creeds. That is certainly a religious test for office. The court has allowed it by weaseling that the government does not directly hire the chaplains but they are hired by Scripture Union and Access Ministries. As far as I can see the chaplaincy is a clear violation of the Australian Constitution which is allowed because the court does not want to challenge the power of the Christian churches in Australia.

Furthermore we live in a multicultural society and our public schools should be a place where children of all religious backgrounds and none should feel comfortable with all the personnel employed by the school. At 87 I have no children of school age but, if I had, I should not like them to go to Australian public schools where fundamentalist chaplains are involved in many activities. I also think that government financing of religious schools is also a violation of s. 116 and a judgment of a government which was not under the thumb of the churches would not allow it.

Christianity and all other religions are unnecessary anachronisms which serve to divide us and cause conflict. We can see it by some of the postings on this thread. People are so blinded by their particular mumbojumbo that they cannot see how similar it is to the other mumbojumbos. Christianity, Islam and Judaism are far more alike than they are different.
Posted by david f, Friday, 9 August 2013 8:10:08 AM
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You're right, David F., down with ALL archaic mumbo-jumbos !

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 9 August 2013 8:55:55 AM
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Antiseptic,

Just how young are we talking here?

<<...children aren't up to complex moral reasoning. The model I discussed is intended to teach them how to do just as you say.>>

We're not asking that they solve the trolley dilemma. Any child, who is old enough to "know full well" that there would still be consequences for their actions in your absence, is old enough to at least understand the golden rule.

More to the point, how is this then relevant to people in general, who generally ARE capable of moral reasoning? Hasn't what you've just clarified here rendered your analogy between your preferred parenting method, and our alleged need for a religious moral framework, false?

<<One of the things [Kohlberg] points out is that many people [are locked] into a particular way of thinking that is focussed intently on their own outcomes and ignores the effects on others.>>

Are you now suggesting that it’s just this small percentage of people who need the religious framework? Because that wouldn’t explain your doom-and-gloom prediction earlier, with talk of anarchy and police states.

I think you’re shifting the goal posts here just a little.

<<I would say that every religion is intended to try to inculcate a more sophisticated moral sense.>>

So what is this “more sophisticated moral sense” you’re now referring to? And what relevance does it have to the people you were just talking about, who don't even consider the impact of their action on others?

You're all over the place here.

<<If we remove the religion without replacing it...>>

You still haven’t justified this assertion.

<<The holy books are intended to provide metaphors to help understanding.>>

Understanding of what, exactly? And how can you know this?

<<Your interpretation is that [holy books] are literalist instruction books...>>

I didn’t make any assumptions about the message they’re supposed to convey. But if it’s only the fundies who get their moral guidance from them, then you’re faced with the even bigger problem of explaining how the non-fundies achieve an objective understanding of this religious moral framework that you think is so reliable.
Posted by AJ Philips, Friday, 9 August 2013 10:41:08 AM
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David, you're still talking straight past what I'm saying. Please go back and read what I wrote. You've just spent two posts on your soapbox ranting at me about things that aren't relevant.

My whole point (to state it yet again) is that some form of moral educative process has to exist. If you throw out the religious means of doing that, then you have to replace it with something.

Would you like to discuss that, or are you going to do some more ranting?

Joe, "mumbo jumbo" is often used to refer to things we simply don't have the capacity to understand. You seem to use the term a lot.

AJ, read the link. I don't have time to rephrase it all for you. Kohlberg's theories cover every stage of life.

Don't be lazy, I've already done the research and given you the Wikipedia pre-digested version. Read it before you reply to this and we'll both know what we're talking about.
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 9 August 2013 11:28:48 AM
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Yes, Antiseptic, I read it all.

<<…read the link. I don't have time to rephrase it all for you.>>

And it doesn’t answer any of the questions I asked you. Indeed, most of it is entirely irrelevant.

<<Kohlberg's theories cover every stage of life.>>

So are you now saying that the extent to which we need this religious moral framework - or whether or not we need it at all - depends on what stage of life we’re at? This would have been better declared at the outset.

Help me out here, because you started out claiming that we need a religious moral framework to avoid chaos:

"My point was simply that religion and especially a concept of a disengaged but very much aware God that won't intervene in our misbehaviour but will punish us later for having been bad is not unlike the parental model I personally favour ... As a result [my kids] have learnt to be self-responsible...

"Unless you have some model to replace that means of inculcating personal responsibility then removing religion is simply going to lead to a need for more draconian regulative frameworks and less personal freedom." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264800)

You later reinforce the simplicity of this moral framework that you’re referring to:

"The model I discussed is intended to teach them how to do just as you say." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264831)

You even go on to give an example of just how basic what you're talking about is:

"...many people never progress beyond ... thinking that is focussed intently on their own outcomes and ignores the effects on others." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264831)

Then all of a sudden, in the very next paragraph, without any warning, you’re talking about a “more sophisticated moral sense”:

"I would say that every religion is intended to try to inculcate a more sophisticated moral sense." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264831)

So what was the point in everything you had said prior to that?

We can get to my other questions later, but I think this discrepancy needs resolving first.
Posted by AJ Philips, Friday, 9 August 2013 12:27:04 PM
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AJ Philips, youve taken on a Herculean task, Antiseptic is one those hit and run posters.He makes wild statements and when someone calls him to account he goes to water. He made the claim above "Islam was the most enlightened religion in the world for a very long time" and when I challenged him he went to water.I suspect hes learned most of his history from the local Imam, he might even be the local Imam
Posted by KarlX, Friday, 9 August 2013 12:41:33 PM
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Dear Antiseptic,

We don't have to replace the morals we get from religion since we already have something. In a previous post I wrote:

I try to be honest, caring, kind, considerate, obey the reasonable (My conscience might tell me to violate an unreasonable law.) laws of Australia and question authority. What more is needed?

I repeat. What more is needed?

What sort of law would I violate? In the United States before the Civil War the Fugitive Slave Act required people to return escaped slaves to their masters. Many Americans violated that law by either hiding slave or helping them on their way to Canada where they would be free. I would also violate such a law.

In Australia I might hide an asylum seeker.
Posted by david f, Friday, 9 August 2013 2:05:14 PM
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Auntipeptic,

Actually, that would be the first time I've used that term for many years. But to make my comment more comprehensible for you, I'll put it another way:

All religions are attempts by people, without the means to understand much of the world, to impose their social systems on nature, and on the world, that the world works much as their ramshackle society does - in other words, how they dignify and justify their particular pile of rubbish is given the term 'religion', but it is still rubbish.

I'm tempted to add that some religions are much more rubbish than others, but I'd be hard put to identify any religion which isn't 100 % rubbish. So I guess they're all perfectly rubbish. We haven't needed them for many centuries, since the imperfect Enlightenment, the recognition of eternal uncertainty and incompleteness, started to gradually see the light of day.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 9 August 2013 4:21:06 PM
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AJ, If you read the link, you obviously didn't bother trying to understand it. Go back and read it again and this time, try actually thinking about it.

Yes, we need a moral framework to avoid the need to impose rules by force. No, religion is not the only possible way to achieve that. Many people never do get beyond stage 4, which is a rigid adherence to law as a means of preventing chaos. From your utterances here, you seem to be one of them. I didn't say that was simple, quite the opposite

I also didn't do any jumping "without warning", I referred you to the source of that "jump", which is Kohlberg, among many others from Aristotle on and no doubt there were people making similar points before that.

You are trying to score silly debating points, not to have a conversation, as is your wont. If you want to continue in that vein, then you're welcome to play by yourself. You can play in the corner and I'll speak with the grown-ups.

If you'd like to try to hold an actual adult conversation, I suggest you start back at the beginning and try to follow along. A moderately intelligent 12 year old should be able to follow the reasoning.

Karl X, you're funny. A "challenge" is not simple gainsaying. Ask your rabbi...

David, how did you develop that sense of morality you claim? Were you born with it, or was it derived from your upbringing, education and experiences? Try to engage with what I say instead of your cognitive biases, it saves so much time and typing.

Moe, I think I hear Larry, Curly and Shemp calling for you. Not sure why, perhaps they need a real Stooge to make them feel better about themselves.
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 9 August 2013 5:15:22 PM
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Sorry, Antiseptic, I read the link again and still don't know what you're referring to.

<<No, religion is not the only possible way to achieve [a moral framework].>>

I agree. An alternative is our secular framework that I mentioned earlier in which theists have recognised the superiority of, adopted for themselves, and now cherry-pick their holy books using.

<<Many people never do get beyond stage 4, which is a rigid adherence to law as a means of preventing chaos.>>

I'd believe that. I remember reading that part too. Twice now. 

<<From your utterances here, you seem to be one of them.>>

An ad hominem fallacy now as well. Well that was low. Why was that necessary? And how do my "utterances" indicate that?

<<I didn't say that was simple...>>

You certainly implied it: "The model I discussed is intended to teach them how to do just as you say."

What do you call that if not "simple"?

<<I also didn't do any jumping "without warning", I referred you to the source of that "jump", which is Kohlberg...>>

So how does Kohlberg's theory get you from...

"My point was simply that religion and especially a concept of a disengaged but very much aware God ... is not unlike the parental model I personally favour."

...with a caveat of...

"...children aren't up to complex moral reasoning."

...to...

"I would say that every religion is intended to try to inculcate a more sophisticated moral sense"?

You still haven't explained this. Unless, of course, you think that the fact that many people get stuck at stage four of Kohlberg's theory is the missing link in your reasoning?

It can't be, though, because you didn't just make an unexplained leap, you completely contradicted yourself.

<<If you'd like to try to hold an actual adult conversation, I suggest you start back at the beginning and try to follow along.>>

I've already done that. I devoted an entire post to it too. (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264856)

How about you give it a try now so that maybe I can see things from your perspective a little better?
Posted by AJ Philips, Friday, 9 August 2013 8:23:40 PM
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Dear Antiseptic,

You apparently want to believe that religion is necessary for moral guidance even people with pre-Abrahamic religions got their moral guidance from other sources than religion and were apparently just as moral. I see no point in arguing with belief for which there is no evidence.
Posted by david f, Friday, 9 August 2013 8:49:15 PM
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Antiseptic,

As usual, I find your posts very insightful.

>> Joe, "mumbo jumbo" is often used to refer to things we simply don't have the capacity to understand. You seem to use the term a lot.<<

“True, human beings may abound
Who growl at things beyond their ken,
Mocking the beautiful and good,
And all they haven't understood ...
(J. W. Goethe, Faust)

>> I would say that every religion is intended to try to inculcate a more sophisticated moral sense.<<

This is what I thought until I read Rodney Stark’s interesting book "Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, HarperCollins 2007 (see also http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5580#154255), where he concludes that

“Some have identified the sixth century (BCE) as the Axial Age in recognition of the pivotal shift in religious perception that occurred along an axis from the Mediterranean to northern China. Even more remarkable than their number … is that all these faiths discovered “sin” and the conscience, as each linked morality to transcendence. Contrasted with the prevailing conceptions of immoral and amoral Gods, this was revolutionary. (p. 20)”

So your sentence should probably be about “every Western (or Abrahamic) religion”.
Posted by George, Saturday, 10 August 2013 1:18:21 AM
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dear david f,

>>In Australia I might hide an asylum seeker.<<

So would I - I mean in Europe where I live now - so would e.g. the Pope, see his talk in Lampedusa. This is because we all have an inbuilt sense of morals; Catholics call it the “natural law” prescribed by God through evolution (atheists leave out the “prescribed by God” part, fundamentalists the “through evolution” part).

However, the problem is not so much moral - hide, this or that particular asylum seeker - but practical, on TWO levels:

How can you safely tell who is an asylum seeker and who, coming from Africa or Middle East, would simply like to live in Europe under conditions similar to those under which an average European lives, or even with some sinister intentions (e.g. spreading Sharia law).

On the second level, even if we ignore the problem of differentiating between asylum seekers and economic immigrants, this is a problem of NUMBERS, not so much of MORALS: I can feed permanently one hungry person, maybe a couple but not thousands of them. For a continent - Europe or Australia - the problem is similar, only the alternative numbers are much higher
Posted by George, Saturday, 10 August 2013 1:24:53 AM
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David, please don't misrepresent me, it diminishes you. I also wish you'd stop begging the question of how you think your sense of morality has been derived. Would you have the same sense of morality of you were a Muslim living in Australia? How do you think you might be different in the terms you have described? What if you were Chinese living in Shenzhen under the Song? Russian living in the USSR as it was? An ancient Athenian? A French revolutionary? An illiterate, poverty-stricken young person in the outer fringes of one of our major cities?

In other words, how much of what you consider your morality is innate, as you seem to be implying, and how much is learnt through experience and acculturation?

AJ, how is a secular framework superior? What are the outcomes that it can provide that a religious one can't? Why is it less likely to lead to abuse through colonisation of the authority structures by vested interests? What is the essential difference in principal between a secular and a religious model? I'm interested in those questions, not trying to score points. Care to have a go?

George, thanks for your usual considered and thoughtful contribution. The link you provided is very interesting and I'll have to read it properly. The Chinese, with their adoption of Confucianism and rejection of religion as the basis for State authority way back in the 13th century sought a secularised formalisation of morality, which has been remarkably successful, but it is limited in its ability to resolve moral dilemmas beyond Kohlberg's 4th stage. It is that stage which is most conducive to a highly regulated state authority. It's an ideology of bureaucratism and we are heading down the same path. Managerialism is the most recent form of the same thing and the role of individual moral decision-making is even smaller.
Posted by Antiseptic, Saturday, 10 August 2013 8:47:25 AM
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I think we all do have some innate sense of morality derived from our eusocial nature as a species, but it can only be fully realised through epigenetic factors like education, culture, etc. In the right conditions people can achieve Kohlberg's stage 6, but in most cases stage 4 is as far as they will get. It's interesting too that Gilligan found that there is a gendered disparity in the way the Kohlberg scale plays out, with women tending to top out at stage 4 in much higher proportions than men. This tends to underscore the fact that in our eusocial division of labour, women are the protectees. Their innate morality is served by a strong social fabric, while the male role as protector demands that some ability to reason out the best way to achieve that protection is required, at least of some men.

It's not that women or that men who are at stage 3 or 4 are morally inferior, they are simply reflecting the needs of the group from within their social role.

There is some work being done on this. Academia.edu has some great papers on sociobiology. Look up "Some Potential Contributions of sociobiology to Moral Psychology and Moral Education" by Changwoo Jeong and Hye Min Han, which is directly applicable.

This piece is also interesting
http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00022/full. It's about some of the neuroscience aspects of social interaction, which is what morality is all about.

Some of Peter Singer's stuff on ethics is also very interesting, especially because he deliberately often steps outside morality to shine a light back in.
Posted by Antiseptic, Saturday, 10 August 2013 9:30:18 AM
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Antiseptic,

>> The Chinese, with their adoption of Confucianism and rejection of religion as the basis for State authority … in the 13th century sought a secularised formalisation of morality, … it is limited in its ability to resolve moral dilemmas beyond Kohlberg's 4th stage.<<

I agree in principle, although Confucianism was only one of three “religions” in China. Apparently, also Buddhists and Taoists had some concepts of moraliy.

Quotes from the book:

“(D)espite the fact that the Confucian bureaucracy that ruled China for so many centuries stressed the secular, philosophical character of Confucianism, even a cursory examination of Popular Confucianism reveals that Confucius founded a religion.” (p. 269)

“(Buddhism) complemented Confucianism by adding a spiritual dimension to its focus on the state and society, and it fit so well with fundamental Taoism that during the Han Dynasty, Buddhism was regarded as a form of Taoism. … The privileged position of Buddhism was enhanced when in 581 Yangchien reunited the North and the South … The court remained generously favorable to Buddhism during the first two centuries of the T’ang Dynasty (618-907) as well. But opposition slowly grew.” (p. 277)

“Confucian establishement … found many Buddhist teachings repugnant. … Confucians rejected the quest for purely individual salvation…as narrow-minded and selfish. … The Confucian elite branded the monastic life as ‘immoral and parasitical’. … (E)fforts by Confucian byrocrats to control Buddhism began in the eighth century as a number of regulations were imposed. … Eventually both (Buddhims and Neo-Taoism) lived on, primarily as major features of of the prevailing Fold Religion.” (p. 278)

And a quote unrelated to your last post:

“It is quite unnecessary to doubt Muhammad’s sincerity to conclude that the faith revealed in the Qur’an, having originated centuries after the other great monotheisms, is morally and theologically regressive. … But why would God have sent a regressive message to Arab tribes that were in the process of converting to Judaism and Christianity? … (O)f course it is merely my judgement, upon which matters of faith and taste inevitably intrude. …(and) based on the assumption that God exists. (p.394)
Posted by George, Saturday, 10 August 2013 10:31:25 AM
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Instructions to Muslims about Unbelievers

Koran 9:123: “O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allâh is with those who are the pious.”

Koran 9:73 Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their Home: an evil fate.

Koran 8:39: “And fight them until there is no more disbelief in Islam and the religion will all be for Allâh Alone...”

Sura (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"

Remember Thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the believers, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them

Sura (9:5) - "So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them."

Sura (2:216) - "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye knoweth not."

Sura (4:95) - "Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,-"

Koran 70:39 We have created the unbelievers out of base matters.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 10 August 2013 3:53:30 PM
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Dear Antiseptic,

In saying I am diminished you resort to insult rather than being civil. Stop that or our discussion is over.

When I was a child I heard the story of Abraham and Isaac. It bothered me greatly. I asked my father what he would do if he heard a voice from God telling him to sacrifice me. He said he would see a psychiatrist. I felt secure with my father but pondered on that story. A bit later I told my mother I didn’t believe in God, and she was very upset. I have read the Bible as a child and as an adult and the lessons in that story are repeated in many other places. The Bible teaches obedience, faith and submission to authority as virtues. I decided they were really vices.

I decided that because of my schooling in American history, my family background, and my surroundings. In the Revolutionary War we revolted against King George III to establish our country. That was not only questioning authority. That was violently rejecting it. My parents lived in Syracuse, NY, and my grandparents lived in Lake Placid, NY. There were traces of the Civil War and the antebellum period in both places. In Syracuse there is the Jerry Rescue building where aroused Syracusans rescued a slave named Jerry from the custody of federal agents who were going to return him to his owner. Near my grandparents' house was the farm of John Brown. My grandparents revered him, and we frequently visited his grave. He was hanged after the failure of the slave revolt he attempted to start in Harper’s Ferry, and his body was brought to the farm after his execution.

I was a soldier in WW2 and heard how many who participated in atrocities claimed they were only following orders. That was an example of the vices of obedience, faith and submission to authority. I regret that our crimes were ignored.

I try to be honest, caring, kind and considerate because that was the example my grandparents, not my parents, set for me.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 10 August 2013 5:09:35 PM
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Antiseptic,

Do I "care to have a go"? Heck, I was hoping you'd ask! I've already covered this many times before on OLO, but once more won't hurt.

<<...how is a secular framework superior?>>

Secular frameworks (or more broadly speaking, secular morality in general) are superior because they require thought and effort. Religious morality, on the other hand, is for the lazy and thoughtless; those who would be duped into thinking that something becomes ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ simply because of an edict attributed to some other being. The only advantage religious morality has over secular morality is that, as even you note, religious morality is simplistic.

Going back to the religious framework that you've been arguing for, if a god sits idly by and watches, say, a child being sexually assaulted, as if to say, "You can do that now, but I'll make you pay for it later", is that a moral thing to do? What kind of a moral example is that? If you witnessed such a crime, would you not feel obliged to stop it continuing any longer? If so, then how can you challenge me, as you just have, in the tone that you have, as if to suggest that I'd be hard-pressed doing so? What kind of a standard is that? And if you want to argue that it's not God's standard, then what good is a moral framework in which the central character is immoral enough to take the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do approach to law enforcement?

The Abrahamic god - that so many worship and claim to get their moral values from - cares more about dishing-out justice when it suits him than helping out victims when it really counts. Not a very good central character for a moral framework if 'leading by example' means anything.

[Note: If you want to argue that I'm only talking about the fundies here, and run with the god-prescribed morality that George has mentioned, then fine, but you then need to demonstrate that God had indeed prescribed our morality to us for your argument to hold any weight.

Continued...
Posted by AJ Philips, Saturday, 10 August 2013 6:38:29 PM
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...Continued

You would also need to either retract the carrot-and-stick moral framework that you've arguing for (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264800), or reconcile the two somehow.

You would also be back at square one and need explain what on earth this framework is that you now want to argue is so critical to maintaining peace. The idea, alone, that a god prescribed our morality to us does not explain why we need it.]

<<What are the outcomes that it can provide that a religious one can't?>>

That would depend on the framework that was derived through secular morality. Given what I've just pointed out, however, if it didn't yield better outcomes, then it would only indicate that more thought needed to go into it. Either way, one outcome that I think secular frameworks would inevitably always derive would be thoughtfulness, as opposed to blind obedience, fear of punishment and anticipation of rewards. 

Nevertheless, I don't think it's just a coincidence that we are becoming less-and-less violent (as Stephen Pinker explains in his book, The Better Angel of our Nature) as religion continues to play less of a role in our society.

<<Why is it less likely to lead to abuse through colonisation of the authority structures by vested interests?>>

I didn't claim that it was. I see no reason why it would be more likely to though.

<<What is the essential difference in principal between a secular and a religious model?>>

I believe I already covered this at that start.

<<I'm interested in those questions, not trying to score points.>>

All I have done is sought to clarify what it is that you're saying (since you have taken no care at all to remain consistent). It's all a part of having a productive discussion. That you jump to the conclusion that I am merely point-scoring here suggests a sense of compunction on your behalf.

Anyway, I have shown you the courtesy of answering your questions, how about you start answering some of mine?
Posted by AJ Philips, Saturday, 10 August 2013 6:38:39 PM
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David F,

Thank you for that, it is most inspiring.

Yes, religions seem to demand obedience and deference to authority - perhaps that's why some of the pseudo-Left go for it, the warm bosom of totalitarianism. Zygmunt Bauman compares the Adam-and-Eve story (of questioning and seeking for oneself) to the Abrahamic and Mosaic stories (of obedience and 'thou shalt ....') and comes down very srongly on Adam's side. Lovely man.

Best wishes,

Joe
www.firstsources.info
Posted by Loudmouth, Saturday, 10 August 2013 6:58:44 PM
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David, I wasn't "insulting" you, far from it. I was actually implying that you are inherently a better person than the type who misrepresents others.

Thank you for your lengthy explanation, which I think you might agree supports my point that your morality didn't spring fully-formed from nowhere, but is a product of your cultural and educational experiences.

I had much the same experience and reaction to the bible as you, although I always recognised that there were underlying moral and even practical lessons within it. I was of the view that I didn't need to be told what to do and rebelled from the idea that someone might do so. For a time I also took the somewhat extreme libertarian view that you have expressed, although I regarded the US model as something of a failed experiment and hold even more strongly to that these days. Part of the reason for the failure, it seems to me, is that the US has far too little separation between church (religious authority and hierarchy, not religion) and state, which has allowed vested interests to become dominant by pandering to those church authorities. It's a model that purports to be "flat", but is actually incredibly hierarchical.

However, your post explains why you dislike authoritarianism, it doesn't address how morals should be induced in people. You do certainly agree that a sense of morality is a good thing, but you seem to be willing to throw away a structure that can produce it for reasons that I don't think are consistent. As I said earlier, if we can't assume people will act well toward each other, then we must either accept anarchy, or impose good behaviour by force and that seems to be a much worse set of outcomes. The failed US model is moving in that direction because people have seen the lack of morality of their leaders and churchmen and have rejected their teachings.
Posted by Antiseptic, Saturday, 10 August 2013 6:59:11 PM
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AJ, I'm not trying to build a case, I'm trying to explore ideas. IOW, it's not about being "consistent", it's about following a line of thought to see where it goes. Sometimes it goes down a dead end, other times it takes us to interesting places we haven't been before. In my case it's taken me to the interesting place of thinking about religion as positive, when my life has been spent thinking the opposite!

I'm glad you're willing to discuss the ideas and I hope you can also become willing to accept that I am not trying to convince you of anything or imply you are inferior. If I thought you were I'd ignore you. Fair enough?

The case you have put above is essentially elitist - it assumes that those capable of thinking about their morality are better than those who simply "know" what is moral and act on it without being able to explain why they know. For the same reason it's impracticable. Many people want to be "good", but few people want to have to try to work out what being good means in every case. Even more, they don't want to have to try to work out how the person they are dealing with thinks about morality and how that might affect them. They just want to be able to do what they do without worrying about that stuff.

I've already said why I think the "God-as-father" allegory is useful. It engages people at a basic level that they use themselves with children. It encourages them to think about their own behaviour as though Mum or Dad might be watching. Any fear of retribution can only be abstract - do you know anybody God has struck down for lack of morality?

My main concern with your argument is that it is based on a simplistic literalism. Don't you think the symbolism and metaphor are more interesting? They demand thinking about, they don't necessarily spring from the page. Sometimes they act subliminally, as in the God-as-Father idea.

George, I'll respond when I can post again.
Posted by Antiseptic, Saturday, 10 August 2013 7:42:55 PM
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Dear Antiseptic,

Certainly my morality is largely a product of my education and culture. I never denied that. What I denied is that the morality imparted by religion needs anything to replace it. I want to get rid of it because I think it has caused much more harm than good. In what you labelled ‘rant’ I stated my reasons at length.

Much of my morality has been formed by my connection to the United States. I am a dual citizen of Australia and the US.

In WW2 and the post war period Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or the US might have become the superpower. I have been politically active against US policies and the unnecessary wars it has promoted and pursued. However, as flawed as the US is, I think it better that the US is the superpower rather than the other alternatives of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

In Australia Kevin Rudd was bounced from PM because those who knew him could not work with him. He would break down what separation of state and church we have by his chaplaincy program which subjects little children in school to the primitive ministrations of fundamentalist chaplains from Scripture Union. I think it better to encourage children to think critically. Those children are our future. Rudd so little understands the limitations of water and other natural resources in Australia that he talks of a 'big' Australia. He races Tony Abbott to the bottom in getting tough with asylum seekers. My vote is determined by what I think is right, my hopes and my fears. I shall put both Labor and LNP well down on my ballot. Since I am more afraid of what the Libs will do than what Labor will do I will preference Labor above the Libs. The Libs are backed by Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch. IMHO That makes them worse than the very flawed Kevin Rudd.

We can’t choose perfection. We can only choose the least bad alternative available.

That means to me the US, Kevin Rudd and the secular state.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 10 August 2013 8:45:01 PM
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Antiseptic,

I suspected this was the case:

<<I'm not trying to build a case, I'm trying to explore ideas>>

That explains a lot (no patronsation intended there) but you need to not argue so strongly for just one side of the argument if you genuinely want to find answers.

<<The case you have put above is essentially elitist...>>

If that's what you think, then you have not understood the point of what I said. The bottom line is that nothing automatically becomes 'good' or 'bad' because of what another being - superior to us or not - says.

Ever.

Take slavery for example, the bible endorses slavery and at no point - in all those pages - does it bother to just say, "Slavery is wrong". At no point. Yet we eventually figured this out for ourselves.

<<...it assumes that those capable of thinking about their morality are better than those who simply "know" what is moral...>>

And they are, in that sense that they are capable of thinking about it least.

History has, so far, demonstrated that they are better, and again, slavery is a good example of this. Those who opposed slavery in the US did so by thinking outside the holy book that those who wanted it continued to refer to.

The act of putting thought into what is moral, and what is not, is ultimately all that counts - even if we get it wrong occasionally in the interim.

I have not had to assume anything in what I said.

<<For the same reason it's impracticable. Many people want to be "good", but few people want to have to try to work out what being good means in every case.>>

Maybe so, but we eventually get there. And either way, an edict attributed to some being is never better than having to think for one's self. Even if the outcome is not always as good.

<<Even more, they don't want to have to try to work out how the person they are dealing with thinks about morality and how that might affect them.>>

Continued...
Posted by AJ Philips, Sunday, 11 August 2013 2:17:24 AM
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...Continued

Correct, because they never assume that the person they are trying to do right by is going to be bothered by the right that they do by them.

Morality is not a riddle. Anyone who doesn't understand that it's about maximising well being would soon be removed.

<<They just want to be able to do what they do without worrying about that stuff.>>

Not only is this a gross generalisation, but modern history does not support it (e.g the slavery example).

<<I've already said why I think the "God-as-father" allegory is useful.>>

And I showed why that model was immoral.

<<It engages people at a basic level that they use themselves with children.>>

And I provided a better model for children (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264809). Your only response was to retreat back to the very small demographic cosisting of very, very young children (even my 20-month-old can show sympathy when I explain to her why hitting isn't nice).

<<It encourages them to think about their own behaviour as though Mum or Dad might be watching.>>

Which, as I have already explained, only achieves compliance. Any child psychologist will tell you that.

<<Any fear of retribution can only be abstract - do you know anybody God has struck down for lack of morality?>>

No, and that goes back to my point about how God is an immoral example for humans.

<<My main concern with your argument is that it is based on a simplistic literalism.>>

I was addressing the simplistic God-the-father model you put forth. The only model you've put forth. Put a more sophisticated model on the table and I will address it.

<<Don't you think the symbolism and metaphor are more interesting?>>

Certainly. But a god that only wants to communicate in obscure ways that can be explain through more rational means doesn't sound very interested in communicating with me; is fairly inconsequential to me; and thus doesn't warrant wasting my time contemplating.
Posted by AJ Philips, Sunday, 11 August 2013 2:17:45 AM
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David that's all fair enough, but let's face it, there is a great deal of immoral behaviour within the US and by the US, so something isn't working with that model. How do you think that might be improved?

I disagree with your concern about chaplains in schools. Not only are they not all "fundamentalists, I went to one of the major church schools and rejected the religion that was proselytised, despite (or perhaps because of) the enforced attendance at chapel twice a week, RE once a week and the constant reinforcement of the dogma. It simply didn't resonate, perhaps because I was at an insufficiently advanced stage of moral development to grasp it.

AJ, if I "argue strongly" it's because a strong argument exists. I can't make a strong argument from thin air, don't you agree? I have to acknowledge that I think that religion has a central role in creating a moral society and that none of the secular models have approached it in efficacy.

What I find interesting is that your objection is essentially advocating the model of the Bible, which is that it's not enough to do good works, you must also praise God (have an understanding of why they are good) in order to be regarded as truly a good person.

I'm at a loss as to how you arrive at "God is an immoral example for humans". God is a metaphor for all that is quintessentially human surely?

I haven't actually put any model forth. All I've done is to point out that there are useful metaphors, including "God-as-father", within the Abrahamic religious canon. You then proceed to take a literalist approach, which I've pointed out is essentially the same as the fundamentalists. Try to remember I ain't one of them. If you want to argue with fundies, try Answers in Genesis or similar?
Posted by Antiseptic, Sunday, 11 August 2013 12:21:25 PM
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George, I don't see Confucianism or Taoism as religions so much as moral philosophies. They are a different approach to the same sort of question that religion tries to answer, which is "how shall we best live?" They place the individual in the context of the society rather than that of the cosmos and they tend to be prescriptive.

Confucianism was adopted by the T'ang (well over 1000 years after Confucius died) as a pragmatic approach to the problem of governing a large empire which was dominated religiously by the individualistic, somewhat anarchic Buddhist model. It fostered obedience to authority and reverence for tradition, which was a perfect fit with the bureaucratic needs of empire. It still is, as I said earlier. It creates Kohlberg's stage 3 and 4 reliably and repeatably and it is readily combined with any other ideology that might arise, such as the folk religion you describe, which also still exists alongside the Communist political organisation of modern China.

Islam was and is primarily a doctrine of cohesion. It arose in the most heavily trafficked, most cosmopolitan part of the world as it was then and it had as a central tenet the need to reduce friction over things that were not essential to trade and other forms of commerce. It worked very well at that, but it sacrificed some of the individual purpose that Christianity had introduced to the group-oriented Jewish model. God demanded just as much obedience than the Jews had conceived, but he was not exclusive like the Jewish model, but as inclusive as the Christian one and just as insistent on evangelism. He was happy to punish sinful behaviour when it happened rather than delaying it. Morality had to be imposed and no ifs or buts about it.

I wonder if Mohammed knew of Confucius? The Silk road means he might.

Lego, what do you think that all means? Try to get past your insistence on literalism. Why would those Suras be there? What was their purpose? Do you really think they were designed to produce a bloodthirsty fundamentalism? Why?
Posted by Antiseptic, Sunday, 11 August 2013 1:00:56 PM
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Dear Antiseptic: Please read what I wrote. I wrote about chaplains in public schools. Chaplains belong in church schools. I am concerned about chaplains in the public schools, and the last paragraph of what I wrote below makes that clear.

I have neither the patience of AJ Philips who will go through your post statement by statement nor the energy to go through all my past statements. If you want to address yourself to what I have written then please do so. The following is what I wrote on the chaplaincy.

As far as chaplains in the schools it is a direct violation of S. 116 of the Australian Constitution:

S. 116 The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Scripture Union and Access Ministries which hire almost all chaplains require the chaplains to subscribe to various Christian creeds. That is certainly a religious test for office. The court has allowed it by weaseling that the government does not directly hire the chaplains but they are hired by Scripture Union and Access Ministries. As far as I can see the chaplaincy is a clear violation of the Australian Constitution which is allowed because the court does not want to challenge the power of the Christian churches in Australia.

Furthermore we live in a multicultural society and our public schools should be a place where children of all religious backgrounds and none should feel comfortable with all the personnel employed by the school. At 87 I have no children of school age but, if I had, I should not like them to go to Australian public schools where fundamentalist chaplains are involved in many activities. I also think that government financing of religious schools is also a violation of s. 116 and a judgment of a government which was not under the thumb of the churches would not allow it.
Posted by david f, Sunday, 11 August 2013 4:02:45 PM
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Antiseptic, old son, what you don't know about Islam would fill an encyclopaedia. You haven't got any idea about the nature or history of Islam. It is a good job you never told us where it was you learned all you think you know about Islam since it could only embarrass the institution
Posted by KarlX, Sunday, 11 August 2013 4:30:51 PM
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Antiseptic wrote: "David that's all fair enough, but let's face it, there is a great deal of immoral behaviour within the US and by the US, so something isn't working with that model. How do you think that might be improved?"

Dear Antiseptic,

You sound like the bluenoses who decried the immorality of alcohol and managed to inflict the monstrosity of Prohibition on the American public. By what criteria do you claim that Americans exhibit more immoral behaviour as individuals than anywhere else? As far as immoral behaviour by the US gov't I don't think an Australian should be holier than thou. The race to the bottom on the asylum seekers by Rudd and Abbott is a current example. The AIDEX arms trade fairs sponsored by the Australian gov't is another. I have lived in the US, the Netherlands and Australia. There are people who behave well and don't behave well in all three countries.

Immorality is a very loose term whose definition varies widely by those who define it. From what I have seen of other countries I have visited I would say that one cannot rate countries by morality. Where people are ill-fed, ill-clothed and ill-housed they will do desperate things that people in more comfortable circumstances in general will not do.

My son lives in a middle-class area of Williamsburg, Virginia. It is a mixed area with both black and white people. His daughter had a friend whose father was or maybe still is a Virginia State policeman. He told they hadn't been a burglary or a holdup in the area in the last seven years. I asked him what he did. He said there is plenty to do - highway patrolling, helping people who need police assistance in a medical or other emergency, answering calls concerning domestic violence or barroom brawls etc. However, in general, it is a very well-behaved community which only has a small police presence. Other communities more under stress are not as well-behaved.

I don't know what you refer to when you mention a "great deal of immoral behaviour within the US".
Posted by david f, Sunday, 11 August 2013 5:59:30 PM
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Antiseptic,

I wasn't saying your arguments have been strong, and I think you know that.

<<If I "argue strongly" it's because a strong argument exists. I can't make a strong argument from thin air, don't you agree?>>

Cute. But so far only one of has been successful in arguing their case, and when only one of us has remained consistent, while the other is evasive and resorts to logical fallacies, it's pretty clear who that is.

<<I have to acknowledge that I think that religion has a central role in creating a moral society...>>

What gives you that impression, and how have the Abrahamic religions done this in spite of their inherently immoral theology and doctrines?

[Please don't pull the "literalist" line unless you are willing to explain exactly what this sophisticated, metaphor-laden interpretation of the Abrahamic religions is.] 

<<...and that none of the secular models have approached it in efficacy.>>

What secular models are you referring to? I don't think anyone's actually formally identified any, but as we can see, with the way secular societies have dragged Christianity kicking and screaming out of the dark ages, I think it's pretty obvious which models are better.

Given that so much history is against you, I'd love to see you justify this.

<<What I find interesting is that your objection is essentially advocating the model of the Bible, which is that it's not enough to do good works, you must also praise God (have an understanding of why they are good) in order to be regarded as truly a good person.>>

For this to mean anything, you would need to demonstrate (or at least start by explaining) how praising God is the equivalent to understanding why what's good is actually good.

By the way, anything that could qualify as a god would not want praising.

<<I'm at a loss as to how you arrive at "God is an immoral example for humans". God is a metaphor for all that is quintessentially human surely?>>

Apparently not, according to the theology. Either way, this does not negate what I said.

Continued...
Posted by AJ Philips, Sunday, 11 August 2013 7:39:12 PM
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...Continued

<<I haven't actually put any model forth.>>

Yes, you have: "Unless you have some model to replace that means of inculcating personal responsibility then removing religion is simply going to lead to a need for more draconian regulative frameworks and less personal freedom." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264800)

<<All I've done is to point out that there are useful metaphors, including "God-as-father", within the Abrahamic religious canon.>>

...while claiming that removing them would result in chaos.

How is that not arguing in favour of it?

<<You then proceed to take a literalist approach ... Try to remember I ain't one of them.>>

Whether or not you are is irrelevant. I'm addressing your claims. There is no failure on my behalf to remember anything. It has, in fact, been you who has needed constant reminding of what you have said. The closest you've come to any sophisticated argument was saying that religion was intended to inculcate a more sophisticated moral sense. But then, when asked what you actually meant by this, you backed away from it.

This "literalist" line you keep going down is a strawman, and your 'Answers in Genesis' gibe is unfair and totally uncalled for.

You act like these "literalists" are a small minority when in fact they are a big majority, if we use your application of the word. While a small majority of Christians accept evolution they pretty much all believe in God in the traditional sense, with a belief that Jesus actually existed as claimed, that the virgin birth happened, that the second coming will occur, etc. Furthermore, you have not justified why these "literalists'" interpretation of their own theology is wrong and why your's is right.

I said in the last thread that I suspected that you had relatively little experience with theists and you continue to confirm this more and more all the time. KarlX is right; you really don't have clue about religions and their followers.

I suggest you study them a bit more before you consider joining them.
Posted by AJ Philips, Sunday, 11 August 2013 7:39:21 PM
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Aj, To be completely honest, I find your whole approach to be aggressive and about point scoring not conducive to holding a discussion. I'm not sure what you think this might achieve, but
you win, I won't bother trying to discuss this with you anymore.

Put another notch on your pistol, cowboy.

David, you too are being dishonest in your characterisation of what I have said. You're substituting nationalist jingoism, silly sloganeering and personal abuse of me for a conversation. It's sad to watch from someone who is capable of so much better.

I leave you to enjoy the company of your friends and look forward to the scintillating discussion of ideas that will surely follow...
Posted by Antiseptic, Monday, 12 August 2013 12:32:08 AM
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Oh, David, before I go,I'm prepared to risk disturbing your smug middle-class satisfaction with the wonders of the US where you choose not to live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The US murder rate stands at around 4.8 people per 100,000 population, which is worse than many of the Islamic countries you hate so passionately. If you were to remove the middle-class enclaves of safety like those your son inhabits it's much worse than any of them except the ones involved in wars fomented or directly started by the US. The only regions worse than the US are those where civil society has broken down, including much of Africa and South America and your old bete noir the Soviet Union.

Whole cities in the US are bankrupt, unable to pay their bills, most notably Detroit. Unemployment in some areas is at close to 100% and what work their is you wouldn't allow your children to do at any wage.

As I said, a great deal of immoral behaviour. I didn't say it was the worst around, as you dishonestly tried to argue against, just that it was bad. It is, by any measure, once you get outside those enclaves where the poverty is not allowed to intrude.

I'm afraid you've gone down a lot in my estimation David. Moral relativism of the sort you display is not uncommon, but it's ugly wherever it shows its face.

Never mind, you can tell me you're insulted and you won't have to think about it. Good for you.
Posted by Antiseptic, Monday, 12 August 2013 12:56:09 AM
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Dear Antiseptic,

You wrote:

David, you too are being dishonest in your characterisation of what I have said. You're substituting nationalist jingoism, silly sloganeering and personal abuse of me for a conversation. It's sad to watch from someone who is capable of so much better.

I leave you to enjoy the company of your friends and look forward to the scintillating discussion of ideas that will surely follow...

Dear Antiseptic,

I guess you are simply going to continue the name calling. Now I am dishonest. guilty of personal abuse of you and guilty of Jingoism. As far as personal abuse goes I have not accused of dishonesty, jingoism or called you any other names. You abuse me and then accuse me of abuse.

What in hell are you talking about?

You wrote about the immorality of the united States, and it is a reasonable question to ask you by what criteria are the people of the US any more immoral than those of any other country.

You wrote: "David that's all fair enough, but let's face it, there is a great deal of immoral behaviour within the US and by the US, so something isn't working with that model. How do you think that might be improved?"

I repeat. By what criteria are the people of the US any more immoral than the people of any other country?

It is neither dishonest nor abusing nor Jingoistic to ask you to justify your condemnation of the immorality of the US.
Posted by david f, Monday, 12 August 2013 6:05:29 AM
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Antiseptic,

>>I don't see Confucianism or Taoism as religions so much as moral philosophies.<<

So would I have thought (at least about Confucianism), but I am no expert on these things. Therefore I commented just by quoting from Stark’s book, and wrote “religions” in quotation marks. After all, it depends on how you define religion. Stark prefers “variations on how God or Gods are conceived” rather than Durkheim’s “rites and rituals” or ethics as defining characteristics of a religion: his book is full of arguments in support of this approach.

Nevertheless, I agree with what you wrote about Confucianism, in particular that it resembles moral philosophy (with no metaphysics), but I am not so sure about Taoism. I cannot read Chinese, but I own three English and one German translations of Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing). It starts with

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name”.

To a Western mind this (and elsewhere) sounds more like metaphysics/mysticism than ethics, and it can be compared to apophatic theology or Witgenstein’s “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

>> I wonder if Mohammed knew of Confucius? The Silk road means he might.<<
Maybe so. As far as I know, Buddha and Confucius (in distinction to Moses and Jesus) are not mentioned in the Koran or Islamic tradition.

As for Islam, it seems to have moved from being more tolerant to being more intolerant, during the same time as Christianity moved in the opposite direction, more along the Kohlberg scale, if you like. I know, this is a simplification.
Posted by George, Monday, 12 August 2013 7:47:33 AM
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Dear George,

Confucianism originally started out as a collection of statements defining desirable ways to behave and to govern. It has been intimately involved in Chinese politics.

Confucius (551-479 BC) himself was head of a little school that aimed at forming good men. His art of life appealed to tradition and in that sense could be termed reactionary. However, it also had democratic elements since he maintained virtue is the fruit of personal effort and is not restricted to the nobly born.

Quite possibly that is the way some other religions have started. Moses, Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus could have just been primarily teachers or political leaders who later generations venerated and gave to them an aura of sacredness.

The Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279 CE) under Chu Hsi developed a school of philosophy known as neo-Confucianism.

Many Christians think they are living by the Bible. The reality is that what we now call Christianity is a religion formed by centuries of political interaction, tradition and interpretation. One cannot know how it came to be what it is without knowing its history.

The same is true of Confucianism. It is necessary to be familiar with the development of Confucianism in Chinese history to know what it is now. "A History of Chinese Civilization" by Jacques Gernet is a weighty tome, but I think reading that or its equivalent is necessary in addition to reading the Analects if one wants to have a feel for Confucianism.

"If the term 'Confucianism', coined by Westerners, has any meaning at all, it is clear that it goes far beyond the actual personality or teaching of that great sage." Gernert p. 87
Posted by david f, Monday, 12 August 2013 8:55:48 AM
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George,

I agree that the Tao has the element of mysticism, employing the natural world around as instruction....showing us the way things work in order to transmit wisdom and understanding of the world and ourselves.

The Tao is the "One" from which all else emanates and returns:

So the morality spoken by the Tao is one of harmony, working with the knowledge of the way things are.

Quite removed from the humanistic rituals and expectations enforced by Confucianism.

For instance:

"When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos."
Posted by Poirot, Monday, 12 August 2013 9:32:35 AM
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Dear david f,

Thanks for the response. I do not see it contradicting anything I - actually Stark, since as I said, I am no expert on Chinese culture - wrote. I have been an admirer of Lao-Tzu and Chuang-tzu, so I feel closer to Taoism which (with Buddhismn) complemented Confucianism in the shaping of Chinese culture. As somebody put it, Tao is the reverse side of our (Western) God.

>>Many Christians think they are living by the Bible. The reality is that what we now call Christianity is a religion formed by centuries of political interaction, tradition and interpretation.<<

I agree; it sounds like a rejection of the Protestant “sola scriptura” doctrine.
Posted by George, Monday, 12 August 2013 9:35:52 AM
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Antiseptic,

<<I find your whole approach to be aggressive…>>

I’m sorry, but I think I have been rather patient on this wild goose chase that you have led me on and my approach (partly due to word restrictions) has been nothing but matter-of-factly and to-the-point. That you interpret it as aggressive suggests a sense of compunction on your behalf that you are unwilling to admit to.

Moreover, you are the only one here who has resorted to ad hominems and insults, while declining to justify them when asked to (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264875). So where do you get off referring to my approach as “aggressive”?

<<…and about point scoring not conducive to holding a discussion.>>

Again, there is nothing wrong with seeking clarity on the positions of others. Indeed, it is conducive to productive discussion.

If you contradict yourself, how am I to seek clarity without pointing it out?
If you employ fallacies, how am I to stop them without pointing them out?
If you are evasive, how am I supposed to bring you back to the discussion without holding you to what it is that you’re evading?

It seems to me that productive discussion, to you, just means letting you get away with whatever you like and to heck with any consistency.

Your accusations simply stem from the fact that you no longer have anything to hide behind now that I have taken your ‘literalist’ strawman away from you by highlighting its fallaciousness, and that I have shown that I am not willing to be led around like fool by holding you to your claims as you switch back and forth between them. You realise that you are now forced to let us in on what this sophisticated model is that you keep falling back to; only it doesn’t actually exist and so you lash out at me.

On a final note, I’m sure they’ll cover transference in your degree, at some point, too…

<<Never mind, you can tell me you're insulted and you won't have to think about it.>>

I hope you can appreciate the irony there.
Posted by AJ Philips, Monday, 12 August 2013 9:55:20 AM
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Poirot,

I don’t know whose translation of the second last paragraph of Chapter 38 you quoted:

"When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos."

Here are the three alternative English translations that I own:

WING-TSIT CHAN:
Therefore only when Tao is lost does the doctrine of virtue arise.
When virtue is lost, only then does the doctrine of humanity arise.
When humanity is lost, only then does the doctrine of righteousness arise.
When righteousness is lost, only then does the doctrine of propriety arise.
Now propriety is a superficial expression of loyalty and faithfulness, and the beginning of disorder.

GIA-FU FENG and JANE ENGLISH:
Therefore, when Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
When kindness is lost there is justice.
When justice is lost, there is ritual.
Now ritual is husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion
Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao
It is the beginning of folly.

FRANK J MACHOVEC:
When Tao is lost “compassion” becomes doctrine; when compassion is lost “justice” becomes doctrine; when justice is lost “ritual” becomes doctrine; ritual is the lost of loyalty, the beginning of unprincipled confusion.
Posted by George, Monday, 12 August 2013 10:44:11 AM
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Hi George,

Actually I just grabbed the closest book to hand - a modern take of which I'm not sure which translation it's from.

Here's another from a book of Chinese philosophy, translated by E. R. Hughes.

"Thus it is when the Tao is lost, there is personal power,
When that is lost, there is human heartedness;
And when that is lost, there is justice;
And when that is lost, there are the conventions of ritual.
In relation to sincerity of heart and speech. ritual only goes skin-deep, and is thus a starting point of moral anarchy;
And foreknowledge of events to come is but a pretentious display of the Tao, and is thus the door to benightedness.
This is why the really grown man concentrates on the core of things and not the husk,
And thus it is that he rejects 'the That' and lays hold of 'the This'."
Posted by Poirot, Monday, 12 August 2013 11:26:04 AM
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Dear George,

I wasn’t trying to contradict anything you wrote. It is just a subject that interests me, and I know a little about.

No Christians are actually “sola scriptura”. Protestants just refuse to recognise it.
Posted by david f, Monday, 12 August 2013 6:48:24 PM
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AJ, there's no irony in my position. I'm not offended, I just can't see any point in trying to hold a conversation with someone whose purpose is to try to hold a debate. We saw a debate of the type you prefer a couple of days ago on TV. It was stultifyingly boring and nobody got anything at all out of it, despite lots of effort being expended by all concerned.

George, Poirot, I still see Tao as primarily a philosophy rather than a religion. Having said that, I'm intending to look more deeply into it. I may be jumping to conclusions on insufficient data.

George, I don't think morality and ethics are interchangeable terms. Ethics is an attempt to formalise morality as a rational process, or even to justify behaviour that is in any culture seen as immoral.

That's why I like Peter Singer, who likes to take such immoral behaviours (bestiality, for example) and show that they are not necessarily unethical. It's by the creation of dichotomies that difference can be illustrated. Set theory in action!

My musings about Mohammed and Confucius are more with respect to some of the commonalities of the philosophy, such as primacy of the group over the individual. He may not have read the analects, but he may well have met people who were Confucian, or heard of the way that they did things in China. Similarly, he may have got some of his inspiration from the Hindu concept of dharma, it seems to me. The Sikhs have no trouble melding Hindu and Islamic ideas. It would be silly to think that only the Abrahamic traditions had any influence when he lived in such a cosmopolitan part of the world at a time when great empires were forming to the north.

David, I have told you my reasons for making my claims about the US and immorality. Your response, as I predicted, is to pretend offence and ignore that post and you still haven't tried to tell me how you think religion is to be replaced as a morally educative model.
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 4:06:33 AM
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Dear Antiseptic,

You have called me dishonest and made other nasty statements about me. I don't operate that way and will not do the same. I don't feel like addressing anything to you any more. You are free to apologise to me. If not I want to have nothing more to do with you.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 4:53:41 AM
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Goodbye David. No loss on my part.
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 5:09:29 AM
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Antiseptic,

It would be clear to anyone who has been reading that you had muffed it big time, so if you want out, then just say so or don't bother responding, but don't try to make your exit about me: that's an ad hominem.

<<I just can't see any point in trying to hold a conversation with someone whose purpose is to try to hold a debate.>>

Um... You do realise that's the whole idea of this site, don't you?

On Line Opinion: Australia's e-journal of social and political debate (http://onlineopinion.com.au)

Either way, the trick to holding a conversation, without it turning into a debate, is to admit when you are wrong. That way, the person you are having a discussion with won't have to put a case forth as to why you are wrong, and you won't have to resort to fallacies in a desperate scramble to cover your tracks and hope no-one notices.

It's win-win. 

This is why I muster the courage to admit when I'm wrong (as even you have seen), because THAT is what keeps a conversation moving forward while maintaining its casual style.

<<We saw a debate of the type you prefer a couple of days ago on TV.>>

If you are trying to imply that it is me who lowered the tone of the conversation into more of a debate-style discussion, then may I remind you (again) that it is only you who has used the rough-and-tumble language with insults and unsupported accusations of dishonesty. And what about the way you have been speaking to david f? Is that how someone, who desires a less debate-style conversation, speaks to others?

Forget pots calling kettles "black", this is a case of the pot calling the silverware "black"; yet another example of transference - specifically psychological projection. (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection)

I'm sorry, Antiseptic, but everything I said in my last post still stands. I hope you can appreciate why the ad hominem is a fallacy now too.
Posted by AJ Philips, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 6:14:49 AM
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Antiseptic,

>>I still see Tao as primarily a philosophy rather than a religion<<

As I said, this all depends on what you call religion, and, I presume, also philosophy. For instance, my worldview has one philosophical and one religious dimension which I strive to keep distinct although many of their aspects overlap. There is also something called perennial philosophy, which could be seen as either a (universal) religion or philosophy.

Although Taoism or Buddhism - and perhaps also Confucianism, Shintoism, etc - in their “higher” or “philosophy” versions do not have God, or even anything resembling metaphysics, their “folk” versions abound with spirits etc. This, I suppose, made Stark prefer his characteristic of religion over Durkheim’s.

>>I don't think morality and ethics are interchangeable terms.<<

Neither do I, although again, it all depends on definitions. In my dictionary, morality is about “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.”, and ethics means either “moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior” or “the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles” and involves systematizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.

The latter is probably equivalent to your definition of ethics, as far as I could understand it (“formalise morality as a rational process”?).
Posted by George, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 7:43:39 AM
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AJ, you win. So does David. The board's all yours. I won't intrude on your game, since you obviously don't like playing with me. No worries, enjoy yourself.

George, the thing about ethics, as Singer shows, is that there can be entirely rigorous rational reasoning from precepts (principles) that all agree are good that leads to conclusions that few agree are good.

Morality has an emotional dimension as well, I think, which is perhaps not incompatible with your earlier thoughts about the "innateness" of morality. We feel good about doing good on the whole and if actions or thinking about a particular course don't make us feel good it's a fair bet they aren't moral by our own lights, even if clever people can show them to be ethical.

Kohlberg's moral development is a recognition of how education and experience feed into that emotional response and your "innate morality" similarly, perhaps?
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 9:19:26 AM
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Hiya Anti,

It' difficult to talk with people, isn't it......

"But however many words are used, the number comes to an end.
It is better (to say nothing and ) hold fast to the mean (between too much and too little confidence in heaven and earth)"
(E. R. Hughes)

Or, put another way:

"Hold on to the centre.
Man was made to sit quietly and find
the truth within."

I hope you do check out the Tao. Whenever I poke around the various philosophies/religious beliefs, I invariably find myself returning to the Tao in the end.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 10:48:03 AM
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Antiseptic,

>>the thing about ethics, as Singer shows, is that there can be entirely rigorous rational reasoning from precepts (principles) that all agree are good that leads to conclusions that few agree are good <<

I am afraid here we must part ways, although not being a moral philosopher I cannot claim to properly understand Peter Singer. It is just that the resemblance - real or just envisaged - to things from a very dark period in German history (Mengele) makes his “bioethics” rather unpalatable to my Central European taste.

>>Morality has an emotional dimension as well, I think, which is perhaps not incompatible with your earlier thoughts about the "innateness" of morality. We feel good about doing good on the whole and if actions or thinking about a particular course don't make us feel good it's a fair bet they aren't moral by our own lights, even if clever people can show them to be ethical.<<

Perhaps everything has an aesthetic, rational and moral dimension, reflecting passive perception/feelings, rational analysis and rules of conduct aiming at the three Platonic ideals of beauty, truth and goodness.

Even mathematics has an aesthetic dimension, and people judge scientific research not only how close it is to “truth” but also how “good” it is for mankind. So the three aspects - aesthetic, rational and moral - are intertwined. However, I do not think morality, should be reduced to, or judged by, purely rational (rational reasoning) or even purely aesthetic (feeling good) criteria. But then, as I said, I am not a moral philosopher so I probably should leave it at that.

>>Kohlberg’s moral development is a recognition of how education and experience feed into that emotional response and your "innate morality" similarly, perhaps?<<

As far as I understand Kohlberg, he does not advocate reduction of “moral development” to its aesthetic aspects. What I like or dislike is much more arbitrary, than what I see as true/ false or good/bad: “de gustibus non est disputandum” does not have a counterpart on the rational and moral levels.
Posted by George, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 7:01:35 AM
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Poirot,

>>"Hold on to the centre.
Man was made to sit quietly and find
the truth within.”<<

Again a wisdom that can be compared with the Western “Do not go far: seek within thyself. Truth resides inside of man.” (Augustine of Hippo). There are many examples like this, showing that Eastern tradition is not an alternative to our Western but rather that they complement each other: in the West more emphasis was put on understanding the world external to the Self (science and technology, rational philosophy as distinct from mysticism), in the East they were more focused on understanding the Self’s internal world. Nevertheless, there are traces of both emphases in both traditions.

I agree that Tao is more suitable for “poking around” than our systematized philosophies (or theologies) which have to be grasped in toto. If you have no knowledge of Chinese (language and culture), you need more than one translation of Tao Te Ching into a Western language to better appreciate it.
Posted by George, Wednesday, 14 August 2013 7:03:55 AM
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Hi George,
" rather unpalatable to my Central European taste"

That is precisely the point I was making. He shows that something can be "ethical" on utilitarian and perhaps even "greatest good" grounds (which in other circumstances we would accept as valid precepts)and yet completely fail the test of morality that we as humans use to assess the "goodness" of an idea. Your set of "good" things is a subset of all "ethical" things, constrained by your education and experience.

I have raised this with others including the esteemed editor of this site with similar responses to your own, so there is something deeper about morality than mere rationality. We might also look at the behaviour of Peter Sellick in another thread for an example of a similar thing: he likes to think of himself as a mediator of how things are to be understood, not as a facilitator of others' understanding and as a result, he is seen to be hypocritical and elitist, two of the things Christ was most scathing about. He sees rationality as opposed to his own sense of moral rectitude rather than a servant to it.

I wasn't talking about an aesthetic aspect of morality, but a visceral grasp of what is right and what is wrong. I think we all have that, but we need to nurture it in order to be able to use it effectively. Perhaps analogous to the way a physician trains his nose to detect diabetic ketoacidosis where we might just smell bad breath and turn away.

There is a lot being done on the psychology of morality. Melbourne uni has a lab devoted to it, which I would very much like to learn more about. I dispute that your own morality is arbitrary; it is an integration of several factors even though you may not be able to elucidate them and some things are not disputed as moral or otherwise by anyone anywhere except those we define as socio- or psychopathic.
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 15 August 2013 6:29:25 AM
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Poirot, spirituality comes in many forms, but they are all essentially about one question: "how can I be a better person?". Usually that involves how to behave better towards others with the reward of increased personal well-being.

Whatever works is good, I think.
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 15 August 2013 6:32:30 AM
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Antiseptic,

Yes, I soon realied that “taste” was not the right word to use. There is something deeper than just “taste” that makes me detest, even abhor, Mengele’s praxis and Singer’s recommendations. Though I do not know much about ethics, I know there are moral philosophers who reject Singer’s utilitarianism, if that is what it is, as well. Perhaps I am in a similar position as non-physicists whose only argument against superstring theory is that there are physicists who also reject it.

For the rest of your post, I shall have to think about it, since though outside my field it seems to provide an interesting analysis and insights.
Posted by George, Thursday, 15 August 2013 6:52:26 AM
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