Okay, it seems we've all agreed that the issue of Islamist terrorism, of blowing the heads off random people and stabbing random old ladies in the back, has nothing to do with race.

I don't like repeating myself but

Here's a brilliant suggestion from Huntington for all of us to think about:

'The great political ideologies of the twentieth century include liberalism socialism, anarchism, corporatism, Marxism, communism, social democracy, conservatism, nationalism, fascism, and Christian democracy.

'They all share one thing in common: they are products of western civilization. No other civilization has generated significant political ideology. The West, however, has never generated a major religion.

'The great religions of the world are all products of non-Western civilizations and, in most cases, pre-date Western civilization. As the world moves out of its Western phase, the ideologies which typified late Western civilization decline, and their place is taken by religions and other culturally based forms of identity and commitment.' [Clash of Civilizations, pp. 53-54]

Really, this dilemma does seem to be one of progressive ideologies (of all sorts, and 'progressive' in varying degrees) versus dogmatic religions, between the quest for knowledge versus the acceptance of [surrender to] what somebody's 'holy books' tell them to think.

Between freedom of thought and expression in other words, versus the pre-human, or pre-civilized, surrender to the Word As Written.

Huntington's question won't go away: why did ideologies of all sorts arise in the west, but only unthinking, unquestioned, religions in the non-west ?

And no, we are not back in the realm of 'race' either. That is surely buried forever.

But what are the implications of Huntington's suggestion that ideologies and thinking is in decline while religion and surrender to dogmatism and non-thinking is on the rise ? Was he right ?

Thinking caps on :)

Joe

Dear Loudmoth,

You quoted;

“'They all share one thing in common: they are products of western civilization. No other civilization has generated significant political ideology. The West, however, has never generated a major religion.”

This is incorrect and just plain silly.

Just look at that powerhouse of religious creativity, the US. There is a case to be made that the Mormon Church and Seventh Day Adventist numbers are each comparable, some claim have surpassed, the number of those practising Judaism world wide. Scientology also has adherents into the many millions and the Jehovahs Witnesses are far enough removed from mainstream Christianity to be regarded as a separate religion.

These are all relatively new, American created, additions to the religious lists (within the last 150 years) and allowed enough time (especially given Mormon family sizes) may well feature quite high in future rankings.

I invite you to read Harold Bloom's American Religion. Here are some quotes from a NYT review;

“Bloom's attention is directed in particular toward the Mormons and the Southern Baptists, because he judges that their emphasis on the individual makes them the most American of the nation's religions. He is especially sympathetic toward Joseph Smith, whom he calls an "authentic religious genius," a person whose "religion-making imagination" is, in Bloom's opinion, unsurpassed in American history ... The other American-made phenomena he analyzes are Seventh-day Adventism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostalism, the New Age movement and African-American religion.”

“Bloom is least sympathetic toward the New Age high priests, whose prose, he believes, is not much more than "blissful vacuity." Jehovah's Witnesses scare him because of what he calls their "theocratic fascism," and his analysis of the Adventists and the Christian Scientists is the weakest part of the book. As for African-American religion, he believes that its emphasis on the search for individual freedom offers a paradigm for all Americans as they seek to find freedom for the self in the midst of community.”
https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/bloom-religion.html

A great read.

With the exception of Scientology, Mormans, 7DA's, JW, Brethren, Southern Baptists & all the other Protestant sects all Come under the Christian umbrella, Not a "New Religion". & Scientology isn't really a religion, it's a scam.

A bit like Sunni's, Bahia, Sufi's Shiite's, Alawali, etc are all offshoots of Islam. Except that for the most part Christians don't go around killing each other if you belong to the other one. Well not lately anyway.

Jayb,

How about a reference or two?

Hi Steele,

7th-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons would call themselves Christians: the observation that they are unthinking religionists still stands. But I did think that somebody might bring up Scientologists :)

Try to stick to the main issue, Steele: that the West has devised all manner of ideologies, which can be discussed and criticised and analysed and 'deconstructed' up hill and down dale - while the non-western world has relied on religions, which usually cannot be controverted, discussed, criticised, only believed in and their injunctions followed.

Yes, you may say, Judaism has a long and healthy history of disputation - as the old proverb goes, get ten Jews in a room and you'll have eleven opinions. But on the whole, religious people are inclined to simply have faith, and are not inclined to pull their religious beliefs apart, isn't that so ?

Why is that ? As an atheist, and as an ex-Communist and ex-Maoist, I have to suggest that, indirectly, and for all manner of non-religious, non-ideological, reasons, perhaps geography, perhaps conflicting political systems, perhaps the influence of different pre-Christian foundations, but for all that, all manner of Christian-originated and semi-christian and barely-christian ideologies did originate - or at least were elaborated - in different parts of Europe, mainly France and the Netherlands and England and Germany and Scotland.

And the translated works of Greek writers, and the work of Jewish philosophers across Europe, such as Mendelssohn and Spinoza - helped to sort of de-Christianise much of the philosophies of, say, the eighteenth century, those of Diderot, Rousseau, Mongtesquieu, which painfully and slowly opened up thorny paths towards Enlightenment thinking.

Maybe that's it: monolithic control, total control, the control by one religion, by one state/empire with one religion, cripples that development of alternative thinking, and stomps on any frail shoots of independent thought.

The printing press was popularised in Europe in the fifteenth century, and by 1500, a billion books had been printed.

Expression versus religion: The first printing press in the Moslem world was set up in 1824, which says what? (Jack Goody, somewhere).

Joe

Is Mise,

"It is quite possible to believe in virgin birth in humans and for the belief to be rational..."

Perhaps I should have referred to it as "immaculate conception"...because it is quite "impossible" to believe a human was inseminated by a non-human/deity.

Josephus,

The term "Sky God" that I employed was a reference to religions which employ a Heaven/Paradise beyond the realms of reason and Earthly reality as the reward.

Paganism is more akin to Earth worship.

"God is Holy character, able to create, change and destroy matter, actions that bless others and living wisdom revealed, all to build community and righteous society...'

Can you enlighten me as to why God thinks it's useful to make his human creation go through tests before its members can join him?

I mean...why bother with all the torment - if he's so fond of us and so all-powerful "....able to create, change and destroy matter..." why does he get his jollies making humans jump through hoops and worship "Him" to get some nebulous reward in a realm that doesn't exist in reality?