Can't a person take the good parts of religion (social justice, human rights) and leave the rest and still be a useful person on this planet?

Ericc,
Firstly, the title of this article was not chosen by me. It was taken from Scholl-Latour, quoted at the end of my article, where the “us” refers to Europeans facing, and getting along with, a seemingly inevitable islamic future (in one or two centuries?). Neretheless the title, as stated in its generality, poses a legitimate question that is not so easy to answer. My article was not concerned with that but with the question of a fair criticism of Muslims, which does not include calling them “goatfuckers”. (My original title was “Offence is no criticism”.)

Coming to your question as it stands, the answer is, of course, yes, he can. The same as the answer to the question, “can’t a person take the good parts of mathematics (applications, in particular computers) and leave the rest (pure mathematics) and still be useful to the society” (you see, I am a pure mathematician by profession)? Nevertheless, there are two points to be made: Firstly, without pure mathematics of the past there would never have been computers of the present, and, secondly, without further support for pure mathematics the contemporary “good parts” would remain stale, unable to develop and adjust to new situations. Of course, “further support” must not mean simply return to 19th century (in case of pure mathematics as well as in case of e.g. Christianity). The problem is not with those who do not understand mathematics for whatever reasons, but with those who want to use their influnce to dscriminate against those who do. Similarly, the problem is not with those who do not believe (in a transcendental dimension of reality) but with the “fundamentalist non-religious”, called secularists.

However, I realise you are not defending van Gogh’s (and others’, e.g. Oriana Fallaci’s) methods of “criticism” but object to my reference to “the politically correct but morally permissive post-Christian society that thinks it can live without religion while replacing it with something that in many aspects (human rights, social justice) resembles a plastic replica of Christian values”. I realise, this was implicitly a statement that should have been clarified.

Firstly, the “politically correct but morally permissive (sexual morals) post Christian society” is what I see in Europe as the main adversaries of Islam (as well as Christianity). The question is in what degree and in what sense they dominate Europe. That cannot be explained in a few words.

Secondly, I admit, a misunderstanding could have arisen, as if I were describing all non-religious in this way. There is, of course, a difference. Not every non-believer is a secularists who thinks he/she has to fight, or at least socially discriminate against, those who call their world-view religious. The same as not every Christian is a fundamentalist, not every Muslim an islamist.

Finally, let me point to two different ways of viewing religion in principle. Psychologically, and in the sense of social function, there is no difference between a believer (in God or whatever else he/she sees as standing beyond physical and social reality) and a non-believer who is in fact a negative believer (you have here a distinction between atheists and agnostics). Everybody stands for something along a long scale of positions, from a fanatic, through all colours of fundamentalist, all the way to a tolerant, scientifically (not ideologically) enlightened one.

On the other hand, as far as the world view, the metaphysics, if you like, of what you believe in, is concerned, there is, of course, a difference between various traditional religions. And a big difference between religious believers (in a transcendental dimension of reality), and non-religious deniers. Here I must admit my bias in calling fashionalble today values mere superficial copies (plastic replicas) of their Christian counterparts. But this brings me far away from the topic of my article.

Hi George,

Heaven forbid are you having problems with titles again?

You have again produced a provocative piece, one that I am mostly in disagreement with yet again; however your last effort did make me confront the idea of fundamentalist secularism, something I had not dwelt upon previously and for that I thank you.

It could be that you have a different breed of secularists over there but I find it hard to believe the burning down of Mosques and Churches were their work and not that of the various religious groups engaged in tit-for-tat revenge attacks. Do you have proof, have there been people arrested for these crimes and confessed to being secularists? If not then aren’t you committing a similar transgression, being offensive (in both senses of the word) rather than merely critical?

A piece by Tyler Golson(link below) who is teaching English in Damascus was raised in discussion a few days ago. Tyler found unexpectedly, in this nation member of the Axis of Evil, much support for Bush as a religious man, and much concern about the policies of his opponent Kerry, especially regarding evolution, gun control, abortion, and homosexuality. I had remarked that this should not be surprising since “these are two groups of fundamentalists, albeit of different faiths, which are often able to recognise commonality”. Isn’t this what you seem to be attempting?

I find it interesting your use of mathematics to clarify your point. I have always found a great similarity between religion and mathematics; both are descriptive tool used by humans to explain their world. Both are human constructs that admittedly have allowed great things to be achieved. We have been able to live in great populous cities through the order afforded by religion in the past and we have put humans on the moon through the application of mathematics.

But the number 42 has no reality in nature nor does Pythagoras’ theory. Both religion and mathematics are incredibly useful tools to improve our lot as humans, although without mankind neither exists. But just as I am not about to eschew the application of math not am I prepared to deny the ‘usefulness’ of the constructed God.

As Einstein said, “such a belief seems to me preferable to the lack of any transcendental outlook of life, and I wonder whether one can ever successfully render to the majority of mankind a more sublime means in order to satisfy its metaphysical needs”.

But as a human construct religion has to be malleable enough to adapt to where societies wish to take themselves, even when appearing to do the opposite. Fundamental Christianity, born out of the early 20th century American churches successfully quashed several strong pillars of Christ’s message while moving to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Preaching against wealth accumulation was never going to cut it in a version of Christianity that focussed on the individual in a capitalist society, nor was a message of peace going to survive intact when the need to protect those assets became apparent.

As in life the ability to adapt has given strength, remember the fittest will survive! You seem to be wanting to deny Islam that ability.

Cheers

Cameron

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=10669

George,
You assume that the mores, norms & principals that the West holds valuable arise from Christianity. You make the same assumption about the Middle East. The best of western mores, norms, & values are rooted in traditions & political/cultural belief systems that predate the state imposition of Christianity. The worst of current fundamentalist Islam predates ( I suspect ) the Prophet. The current versions of these two faiths are the remnants of old empires/ political systems.

The struggle curently underway in Europe, Asia & elsewhere should not be trivialised by its ostensible connection to these current religious systems. It is a more fundamental sruggle than that. It is probably a struggle that may in large part determine the principal mores, norms & values of the planet, of all humanity, of the global village. To combat the worst of fundamentalist Islam we dont need some revitalisation of Christianity ( heaven forbid ), but a gritty & steadfast determination to hold true to values such as democracy & individual freedom that have taken much more that two thousand years to develope

Jesus Christ, I hope we win.

I really feel sorry for all the sheep in the world...baa none!

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. Sir Richard Francis Burton.

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic [or an athiest]. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure: that is all that agnosticism means.

George, it is my personal opinion that the world would be a happier, safer place without religion with all its ugliness muddying the waters of society in general. Almost every religion, believes itself to be the one true faith, their god, their rites to be the only way to find peace and harmony. As an observer of what religions have done in the name of "God" I too am happy to acknowledge that "no faith" allows me my serenity in knowing I in no way contribute to the carnage, bullying, power hungry, including sexual and gender manipulations that is undertaken by "believers" of most "accepted" religions.

Thanks for you comments and explanations, George. Your comments helped me better understand your article.

Do you have a feeling for the percentages of:
A. Muslims that think you can't be a good person unless you are a strict follower of the Koran, as compared to Muslims that believe we can all live together in the world happily, regardless of our religious or non-religous beliefs.
B. Christians that think you can't be a good person unless you are a strict follower of the Bible, as compared to Christians that believe we can all live together in the world happily, regardless of our religious or non-religous beliefs.
C. Secularists who think that any person who follows a religion is causing irreparable damage to society, compared to people who don't strictly follow any religion but generally try to live a peaceful and moral life.

My gut feeling is that there are many more of the second groups (in A., B. and C. above). If I understand you the numbers may be changing. I don't know Europe (or the rest of the world), as well as Australia and North America. Are we reading too much about the first group when they are not a significant percentage, or is the first group a very significant percentage and battles are beginning?

The problems the West is having with Muslims is not a matter of "belief". It is a matter of the Crusader-like treatment of Muslim nations by the West in recent history.

Britain has its "Paki"s because of Britain's oppression of India,...and France has its Muslims because of its involvement in Algeria,...and Holland has its Muslims because of its involvement in IndoNesia---and Muslims are particularly infuriated nowadays by the carrying out of the Palestinian Holocaust under the auspices of the USA.
If Muslims were not so persecuted by the West---they would not have a chip-on-their-shoulder as residents of Western nations.

All the West is experiencing is a reaction to decades of abuse by the West. So don't act so surprised. And don't act so "innocent"!!!

There are six comments here. I shall react to them in the reverse order of their appearance.

Bob dd,
The word “crusade” used by George Bush explicitly right after September 11, and repeated implicitly many times since, horrified not only the pope but many other Christians, especially in Europe. Otherwise I must agree, with most of what you are saying, although my original article was not concerned with the causes of Muslim animosity toward USA and the West in general but rather with the problem of a peaceful cohabitation of decent Muslims and others (religious or non-religious) in Europe, where the demographic trend seems to be unequivocal even if one succeeds in controlling the Islamists.

Ericc,
Indeed, I do not have any numbers but I will agree with you that the tolerant, non-fundamentalist prevail in all the three groups. However, the influence of the more aggressive ones is not measured merely by their numbers. The Christian fundamentalists have Bush and his army (although many Christians, especially here in Europe, believe his posturing is not sincere, not really Christian), the Muslims have Bin Laden and his terrorists (although most Muslims do not identify with them). The secularists exert a more subtle influence in Western politics, academia, and media. I realise the last sentence is probably one of the reasons Cameron (see above) calls my article a “provocative piece”. Of course not all non-religious can be called secularist, but those who can are rather influential. For instance, DER SPIEGEL, commonly regarded the best and most influential German magazine, in its anti-Christian bias mixes news/facts and opinion/value judgment in such a way that only the initiated can tell the difference. I did not experience this much bias in Australian mainstream media: very few Christians would like what Philip Adams writes but his pieces are always presented as opinion, not as facts. Of course, DER SPIEGEL would never stoop to insults a la Van Gogh.

Mary,
I think you are referring to religion in the metaphysical sense (belief in a transcendental reality) and not in the psychological sense, a distinction a referred to here in my first comment. In the psychological sense you are also religious, as your expressed beliefs testify. That is your good right and the point of my article was not to proselytize but to defend the right of everybody to have his/her own beliefs without being exposed to ridicule and insult. There is a difference between doing all you can to support fair play, and barracking for your own team: both attitudes can coexist as long as you do not mix them. The fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim, or non-believers) do exactly that: they mix the two, “Because I am right, and the others are wrong, I can set the rules.”

Without religion, many nasty things would not have happened, there you are right. But also without science there would have been no atom bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima, no planes to crash into WTC etc. There has not yet been a civilisation without religion in the traditional meaning of the word to last long enough for us to tell whether its world would be a “happier and safer place”. The two attempts (by the Nazis and the Communists) failed at a horrible price to mankind, and the present situation in the West is still only developing and hardly a generation or two old.

Finally, let me add the story about the three pigs I told my daughter when as a child she objected to the unpleasant parts of religious beliefs. It went something like this. The three little pigs had learned their lesson, all the three built their houses from bricks, but now they wanted to have some beautiful flowers. So they went to a nursery and bought some plants. The first pig liked the flower, but not the rest, so she plucked its head and placed on the ground in her garden. The second pig kept the flower and the stem but threw away the roots with the dirt they came in, because they were not as prety as the flower. The third pig was wiser, she realised that the beautiful flower cannot survive for long without its roots. She planted the whole lot, mixing its dirt with the soil of her own garden, etc. You see, in English, “dirt” stands for the nourishing soil as well as for something rather negative.

Puzzlesthewill,
I do not know where this quote by Burton comes from but as an orientalist he would have known the saying that when the finger points to the moon the fool looks at the finger. You cannot point without using your finger, you cannot worship God without getting man involved. Besides, the validity of his assertion is dubious also for the reason that today the distinction between subject and object, observer and outer reality, is becoming more blurred even in physics (e.g. the Copenhagen school of QM interpretations and more recent cosmological theories).

Also, I have never heard that somebody who is an atheist or an agnostic would consider it an insult to be called just that.

The confused,
I do not see where I made any assumptions about Middle East. As to European or Western culture it is true that Christianity, which shaped it for most of its history (though, of course, not exclusively, there was also Islam) has both Judaic and Graeco-Roman roots. It in turn gave rise to Enlightenment with its anti-Church (but not necessarily anti-Christian) as well as openly anti-Christian, even anti-religious, branches. Islam has its own history, its own roots and points of contact with historically older Christianity. As far as I can understand your statement it does not disagree very much with what I am saying.

When you say “we don’t need some revitalisation of Christianity” you probably mean “Christendom” and there I agree because that is already impossible, if for no other reason. If you are not a Christian, why should you object to revitalisation of the Christians’ religion? I completely agree when you say that Christianity should not be used “to combat the worst of fundamentalist Islam” as George Bush seems to think. However, speaking of combatting Islamism (that my article was not concerned with), what is needed is to get the non-fundamentalist Islam on our side, and there our opinions differ as to whether a Christian or a post-Christian non-religionist have a better chance to succeed. Democracy and individual freedom are values for both these orientations, though Christians consider them as derived values, whereas for post-Christians, as I understand them, they are a priori values.

Do you think that people with no sense of the noumenon have a better chance to understand the majority of peoples of this world with their variety of religious beliefs than the Christian who can bring in his/her own understanding? People who speak different languages can fight and quarrel, but after they realised the futility of their disagreements they can easier understand each other than a deaf outsider who could not hear what each one of them was trying to say from the very beginning.

Hi Cameron,
Of course you are right, the burning of Mosques and Churches were the work of adolescents on both sides. I never claimed anything else. The secularists’ contribution was on van Gogh’s side (he managed to insult Jews and Christians as well) only the reaction of the fanatic was specifically Muslim. Of course, the majority of Christians disagree with the burning of Mosques, the majority of Muslims with that of churches. Only the disagreement of the non-religious with van Gogh’s insults was not so obvious and visible — they called him champion of free speech — and this can only partly be explained by the fact that he was murdered. That was the main reason why I wrote the article.
Your objection would be more valid in regard to the part where I say “Along these lines also lies the only hope for Muslims, their mullahs and imams (and not the outside attackers)…”. Here “attackers” refers implicitly to Minister Künast, which contradicts what I quoted from her before. Künast, an intelligent secularist, wants to reform Islam from the outside which is not exactly the same as attacking it. Well, the word “attackers” was a replacement by the editors for my, admittedly clumsy, word “deniers”.
You ask “… these are two groups of fundamentalists, albeit of different faiths, … are often able to recognise commonality. Isn’t this what you seem to be attempting?” Well, there is a difference between two groups that have many features in common (yes, that is what I claimed about fundamentalists of all kinds of orientations) and two groups that are able to recognise commonality. The latter could be true in Syria under those special circumstances, but I doubt whether it applies to Christian fundamentalists in USA and Muslim fundamentalists wherever. Certainly Christian and secular fundamentalists (secularists) in Europe do not recognise any commonality, and this I think makes my piece — which among other things tries to recognise it — provocative, as you say.

Your reference to mathematics and religion touches upon a great hobby of mine but I think this is not the proper place to bring it up since it has nothing to do with van Gogh and his insults masquerading as criticism. Let me instead direct you to my new blog — Maths, science, culture and religion — http://gvirsik.blogspot.com/, where, if you wish, we can discuss some of the topics you raised. See also the article “Can religion handle cultural changes as mathematics did it for physics?” on my main homepage http://www.gvirsik.privat.t-online.de/.

I shall just quote a part from my blog that might be relevant to what you say: “The question is not whether a mathematician invents or discovers mathematics; the question is in what relation are these two complementary aspects of his/her activity. The question is not whether what a Christian believes in has an objective existence or is purely a product of his/her mind; the question is in what relation are these two complementary aspects of his/her faith.”

Finally, I do not understand where I “seem to be wanting to deny Islam the ability to survive”. Rather than talking about the survival of the fittest I prefer the sporting model of fair play in the first place and barracking for my team in the second (see my reply to Mary above).

Thanks for reading my articles.
George