It’s tough being a scholar sometimes. Just ask Pope Benedict. In the course of a long speech, he took the time to tell a little story about a 600-year-old meeting between two educated thinkers, one Christian and one Muslim. And now he has the whole Islamic world angry at him. His story went something like this:
The Pope’s speech quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.
“The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the Pope said.
“He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached’.”
Benedict described the phrases on Islam as “brusque”, while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.
Hey, this is a popular blogging technique! Just link to a story somewhere else, without giving any explicit endorsement. I wonder if Benedict has been reading Instapundit, or Little Green Footballs?
So now apparently Muslims are upset, as they don’t appreciate the linkage between Islam and violence. Personally, I find it unpersuasive to claim that the two are unconnected when so many people persist in connecting them. Also, if your goal is to insist that your religion is one of peace and tolerance? Probably burning the Pope in effigy is not the best way to get that message across.
The real problem with the Pope’s speech was his claim that violence had no place in true religion (you know, like Christianity).
“Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul,” the Pope said.
We all know that most big-time religions have many examples of terrible violence in their past, and Christianity is certainly no exception. Even putting aside the many recent incidents, it’s interesting to consider the record that is part of official Church doctrine, as recorded in Scripture. Steve Wells has done the hard work of going through the Old Testament and counting up the death toll for both God and Satan, taking care not to exaggerate by only including those examples for which specific figures are given. (Via Cynical-C.) The final tally:
- God: 2,270,365.
- Satan: 10.
This doesn’t include stuff like the Flood, for which reliable figures are unavailable. If violence is incompatible with the nature of God, He sure has a funny way of showing it.
To be serious for a second: my thing about religion is generally not that it’s bad, but that it’s false. The history of religion is far too complex to be summed up as “good” or “bad,” and there are obviously components of both. The Salvation Army, odious discrimination policies notwithstanding, does a tremendous amount of good. Religious people are generally better at donating to charity than non-religious ones (last I heard; I don’t have specific figures, so this could be wrong). And I like a lot of the art and architecture.
The overall effect of religion may be good or bad, I don’t know how to judge. But if you’re going to talk about it (which the Pope is definitely going to do, given his job description), you should at least be honest, including all the ugly parts. Pretending that either Islam or Christianity is all about non-violence and peaceful dialogue is patently false. You can try to say that the episodes of violence are aberrations, not reflective of the “real” religion, but that’s just the No True Scotsman fallacy. What a religion is, for all important purposes, is revealed by what its adherents actually do, for better or for worse. If Pope Benedict had said “We are all fallible human beings, and people of our faiths do not always act wisely, but we should all strive to promote peace over violence within our churches,” perhaps there would have been fewer effigies.
I entirely agree with Mr. Carrol that Mr. Ratzingers comment relative to Islam was both correct and accurate. In addition, there is no doubt that the record of the Christian Church (and its Hebrew antecedents) is indeed bloody. However, I would argue that the Christians (and Jews) have progressed from the savagery of a bygone era, but Islam has not. For instance, I don’t see Christian (or Jewish, or Buddist, or Hindu) homicide bombers.
Then you’re not looking.
Wow! I’ve heard of Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Jewish,… extremism, but Buddhist?
A woman needs a god like a fish needs a bicycle.
Chinamaya, look at Sri Lanka– not quite “homicide bombers”, but nonetheless pretty damn violent towards the Tamils. And before anyone screams at me, I am not supporting either side, or even opposing anyone.
AR, its not Chinamaya but Chinmaya, if its too long use Chinmay 🙂 You make an interesting point; I am sure Sri Lanka also has its interesting points.
#55 AR: To characterise the conflict in Sri Lanka as an example or a result of Buddhist extremism is naive. As someone who left the violence there long ago but still has lots of friends and family in harm’s way, I do have a pretty detailed knowledge of the situation there.
Rob Knop,
The question was not whether science is worth pursuing, but whether scientists are credible moral voices. The answer is no, science does not make anyone more moral or more non-violent than any religion. The central claim of Sean, etc., is that being more rational, more cognizant of physical reality, leads one away from the nasty side of religion. But scientists remain as enmeshed in the politics and culture of their time as any religionist, and the nasty things happen anyway.
The only thing which makes one virtuous is the practice of virtue, and not the belief or skepticism or disbelief about supernatural things, or a belief or disbelief in scientific materialism.
-Arun
Hiranya I did not suggest that it was due to Buddhist extremism alone– but it had a part to play. And you know there always are two sides of the story. If you go to Madras and talk to some of the Tamils from over there they have their own version. Perhaps both sides exaggerate it a bit– and have a little bit of truth as always.
Anyway this is off topic and as I said I am not trying to attack or defend any side in that tragic conflict. See at the end of the day doesn’t matter who started it and all that– as in all wars innocents die on both sides. I apologize if I have hurt your feelings, didn’t want to do that.
Chinmay– sorry for misspelling your name– silly me!
AR: Thanks for being sensitive about your comment. I remember Tamil extremists murdering monks at the holiest of Buddhist shrines, and trying to blow up the temple containing a relic of the Buddha’s tooth. These are not just Buddhist symbols but are deeply connected to the identity of the ethnic Sinhalese. In these instances atrocities were committed in order to provoke religious/ethnic tensions. You can compare it to attacking Mecca or the Vatican to get an idea of the resulting feelings. I agree its off-topic so I won’t comment any further except to say I understand there are two sides to every conflict.
As protests against modernity, the various fundamentalisms—Buddhist and Hindu as well as Jewish, Muslim, or Christian—are more alike than different even they are supposedly versions of distinct religions. Since sufficiently creative interpretation can justify any doctrine or course of action by appeal to some ancient, deeply obscure scripture, whatever the extremists believe or do arises from contemporary social and political circumstances rather than some immemorial essence of the faith. Religion is not like science where the nature of things, always present in the lab, tends to curb dogmatism and fantasy. Relgious conceptions are fictional and therefore quite incapable of providing a rigid structure for social institutions like churches. Religions don’t have any bones in ’em.
Why can we not have faith in what we cannot see? Why are so may of you so anti-God (Organized religion is not the same thing). Why does this blog get soo much comments (I am pleased to note that the Dark Matter blog got more..so far).
And what makes you think that not beiliving in god is not relgious? Its just a different Faith.
greg: Religion is first and foremost an emotional affair, so it will always invite more comments, no matter how interesting the other posts are (and the science is what draws us to this blog anyway, I reckon).
Secondly (and I have made this comment here before): Calling people who do not believe in a god somebody with “just a different faith” is like calling a vegetarian a different type of meat eater.
isn’t it more like calling them a different kind of eater?
I think it’s probably wrong to say that statements that violence is antithetical to one or another religion is not necessarily a “No True Scotsman” fallacy since that fallacy depends on there not actually being a definition from which the claim being made can be evaluated. Presumably, a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist, etc is a follower of the teaching of Jesus, Mohammed, or Buddha. In that case, while there may be disagreements about the finer points, one can actually make real arguments about whether or not a certain idea is in line with the notion of belonging to a certain group. So, regardless of whether a majority of members of a group actually practice something or practice it well, it can still be a part of the definiton of what it means to be a ‘true’ member of that group. I think it would be generally accepted that militant Buddhists (yes, they exist) are not really following the teachings of the Buddha, as very high on his list is loving kindness. So too, regardless of the violent history of Christianity, I think it’s clear that peace and love were very high up on Jesus’s list. And when it comes to Mohammed, even though his writing are significant in length and change tone, it think it is on the whole true that Mohammed promoted peace. His is complicated, however, with being a leading member of a community engaged in a war of survival (that is, Medina vs. Mecca). Therefore, we are at three religions which have notions of peace built into them. Other religions, like Judaism and Hinduism are harder because they are extremely old and do not have single figures promolgating the core values; however, it is true that both of the religions have seen an evolution towards understanding peace and love as univeral ideas, not only limited to a particular racial or cultural group. All in all, it’s incredibly fair to say that the major world religions all have the concept of peaceful co-existence built into them. How well anyone does at attaining these goals, well, that’s anyone’s guess.
In my analogy, all food corresponds to general belief, while meat corresponds to belief without evidence. If you want to argue the contrary you’d be better off with a different analogy alltogether. 😉
PK:So you are right because what you say is true, and what others believe is false……..
mmmmm where have i heard that before?
War/Violence is not a result of God or any other enitity we like to cast the blame on (that is not us). Its lack of tolerance of others, no matter how “unreasonable” you may think they are.
If the solution is to get rid of religion…. you are on cursade to convert people to believe what you believe.. that there is nothing outside observable fact.
If thats not a religon then neither is anything else.
Ah well, my point was just to beware of `proof’ by analogy.
You see, I would imagine the person you were trying to convince would regard the typical scientific worldview (whatever that is, and I’m not going to try to define it here) as containing some `beliefs without evidence’. Your choice of analogy implicitly denies that possibility, so in some sense it begs the question.
Of course, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but trying to explain why you won’t convince the other guy above with your analogy.
Manuel II (source of the quote) wa one of the Byzantine rules who oversaw the decline of the Empire. Arguably, Byzantine aggression against Arabs in the eastern Meditarranean was one of the causes of Jihad (the military, a opposed to spiritual version) in the first place. The (Muslim) Arabs were defending themselves against the gaudy and aggresive Byzantine Greeks. That still doesn’t justify the tiresome and predictable over-reaction every time a public figure criticised Islam or any of its figureheads. Live in the west and there’s freedom of speech. You don’t like it? Tough. Having left the Catholic Church many missed Sunday Masses ago, (and having published a book about the papacy) I hold no brief for the Pope, especially this specimen. But this wass a freedom of speech issue. No apology.
The bit about religious people contributing more to charity is a circular argument. Charity is religious in nature.
The question is, what do you contribute to society. And there can’t be much doubt that agnostic and atheistic contributions, even by overtly religious people, far outweigh charity.
Maybe this shouldn’t be so. Maybe we should prize true altruism above any bridge or hospital that can be built. Or maybe not- that’s how it was in medieval times, and people leaped eagerly to the alternative when it became available.
Greg, but unless the things that supposedly exist “outside observable fact” can somehow influence things here on Earth, there is no point in believing in that.
People who go to church do believe that religion is relevant to their lives. So, I don’t see how you can argue that if God indeed exists, he would not be responsible for war and violence.
Arunn–
The only thing which makes one virtuous is the practice of virtue, and not the belief or skepticism or disbelief about supernatural things, or a belief or disbelief in scientific materialism.
Yes, I’ll certainly agree with you on that. And I agree that science is value “neutral”, in that it’s fundamentally amoral. I will argue, though that the knowledge we’ve gained from science has helped humanity immeasurably more than it has hurt — and that’s just the practical stuff. I would also argue that the impractical stuff has enriched human culture as much as the works of the greatest artists.
But, yes, following science doesn’t make you all good, nor does fully embracing rationality. In your first post, it sounded like you were saying that science can be “blamed” for the use of the atomic bomb and so forth. In your latter post, I think you make it clear that that’s not quite what you meant.
-Rob
Count Iblis: My point is that because someone thinks its not relevant to their lives then why shouldn’t it be relevant to others…. Oh because they are wrong?… I just don’t see the difference between “My God is the True GOD you idoit” and “No God is the truth you simple minded fool!!”.
People can see the world differently…. can’t thay… Or perhaps because someone knows better they should tell everyone else what they are alowed to believe? And Who should that be? Dam even most scientists disagree on quite a few things.
Count Iblis,
“Greg, but unless the things that supposedly exist “outside observable fact” can somehow influence things here on Earth, there is no point in believing in that.”
One obvious counterexample is if part of your belief system is an afterlife.
Count Iblis said: “Greg, but unless the things that supposedly exist “outside observable fact” can somehow influence things here on Earth, there is no point in believing in that.”
not morrisey said: One obvious counterexample is if part of your belief system is an afterlife.
There are a million things that may or may not exist, and may or may not be true affect our life on earth:
Is your partner cheating on you?
Even if they are not it is affecting your state of mind (and behaviour?) if you are worried about it. Even if it is NOT True.
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Do strings or dark matter exist?
Some people are dedicating their life to it, almost to the point of obsession, but is it of any consequence either way to the average person, even if it IS True
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Maybe they are matters of life and death we are talking about?
If logical theoretical scientists believe the whole universe goes thru periodical rebirths, what is so illogical about human rebirth resurrection and/or reincarnation.
The only argument would seem to be whether information passes thru, whether there is partial or total information loss, as in ever more broken or corrupt DNA strands. I guess the human equivalent is rebirth with no memory of past life, or ‘conscious’ rebirth and afterlife.
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