I was chatting with another Neville, and I repeated something which I have observed: Many atheists are as able to be rational about an analysis of religion as many opponents of the "War on Terror" are about a deeper understanding of Islam, Islamism and terrorism. Now, the interesting point is that viscerally, emotionally, I am neither a fan of religion or Islam. But, when speaking of these topics I believe it is important to put feelings aside, as much as humanly possible, and analyze with a cold eye. Allow the data to speak. Unfortunately, I've encountered situations where any discussion of Islam which attempts to put aside condemnation is greeted with accusations of moral perfidy. A bizarre inversion of the Islamic ban on criticism of the sacred. Similarly, many atheists, who declare themselves to be rational and empirically driven feel no need to really characterize the distribution of religious belief and practice as it is, rather, their own animosity runs rampant in painting whatever picture they prefer. Consider this comment at Mixing Memory:
You've got to be kidding. The mere concept of god, which is all the second study addressed, has almost nothing to do with religious practise. The religious practises of the theistic religions are almost entirely a product of particular traditions, writings and authority figures that make particular assertions about the nature and desires of their god or gods.
We live in a world of bizarre falsehoods asserted with certitude. This is on a par with "Islam is a religion of peace." Whatever ideals (or delusions) Muslims have about their religion, from the outside its seems rather implausible to declare the faith one of Quaker passivity. "Peace" is renormalized, or interpreted symbolically. I use the analogy to Muslims because they are the more prominent locus of counter-Enlightenment sentiment today, but among many atheists the exact same mental processes seem to induce an uncritical assessment of their own evaluation of the world.
Comments
In a diplomatic context, the Mongols at one point espoused the ideal of "universal peace".
Kotwicz, Wladyslaw, "Les Mongols, propoteurs de l'idee de paix universelle au debut du XIIIe siecle", Rocznik Orientalistyczny, XVI, 1950, pp. 428--424 (??).
Posted by: John Emerson | March 1, 2007 7:58 AM
Gustave Le Bon's "The Crowd" has some insight in all this. People think in images and slogans. For slogans, the more vague and ambiguous ("democracy", "liberty," etc), the better. Repetition is good, but any attempt to present an idea logically will confuse and irritate people. Outside their fields of expertise, educated people have the same socially-programmed biases as working class people or anyone else. Good book, worth a read. Written in 1895, foresaw the 20th century.
Posted by: Joe Blow | March 1, 2007 9:29 AM
On the matter of errors in reasoning, there's an article in the March-April 2007 issue of Scientific American Mind. It doesn't cover errors due to assumptive reasoning, but it can be applied to such with a bit of work.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | March 1, 2007 10:12 AM
Hmm. The nearest interpretation of the above seems to me that the commenter is addressing the Courtiers response, i.e. that atheists must address noninterventionist gods of philosophers and rarefied deists ("the mere concept of god") when instead most people worships interventionist gods of miracles, prayers and theistic evolution ("particular assertions about the nature and desires of their god or gods").
If so it isn't a falsehood but an attempt to address one. For example Dawkins gets this treatment all the time, which allows the critics to avoid the issues Dawkins treats.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | March 1, 2007 10:58 AM
If so it isn't a falsehood but an attempt to address one.
you should write christian apologetics!
Posted by: razib | March 1, 2007 11:22 AM
Why the attempt to pass the buck, by my analysis you seem extraordinary proficient here?
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | March 1, 2007 7:05 PM
by my analysis you seem extraordinary proficient here?
? is that a typo, or do i just not understand you?
go read his comments are chris' website. he wasn't addressing the philosophical god, he has specific ideas about what religion is. religion is not about belief, it is about ritual and practice, that is all. he speaks with the voice of god on this issue, any other characterization of the central tendency is impermissible. in any case, it is entirely overgenerous to assume he was responding to the courtier's gambit, chris was speaking in his role as a psychologist, and if you read the post you see that it is speaking of modal religiosity in the context of the range of expression, not redefining religion in a flight from reality in the land of the philosophers.
and that is why i said you were being an apologist, you took his words and attempted to see them in a light which made him not the fool. but the context and intent is clear, as validated by future comments.
Posted by: razib | March 1, 2007 8:44 PM
We live in a world of bizarre falsehoods asserted with certitude. This is on a par with "Islam is a religion of peace."
Could you please break this statement down for me? On a day to day level, to practising Muslims, how exactly does Islam not promote peace? In what ways do the five pillars cause violence?Shahadah, praying,zakat, Hajj(if possible), and fasting during Ramadan, to most Muslims, this is what Islam consists of. To the dissapointment of most "Islamist ideolouges", I would actually argue that the average Muslim doesn't view Islam as some sort of political movement.At least not yet,and definitely not at the abstrract level that Islamists would desire.
I ask this because I read your blogs and you tend to say it alot. Islam gives injunctions for violence right,so how does this work out on a day to day level? Are the Muslims in America all potential threats inherently because of their following Islam?
Posted by: Bang Gully | March 2, 2007 1:14 PM
The Five Pillars are what compose Islam? Fascinating. So, would it then be possible to have Islam without the Koran?
Posted by: Caledonian | March 3, 2007 5:09 PM
Are the Muslims in America all potential threats inherently because of their following Islam?
no. the rest of your comment added specific interpretations to what i was saying (e.g., i didn't say anything about the five pillars), so i'm not going to respond to it.
Posted by: razib | March 3, 2007 6:44 PM
Well, I could either react to that you didn't adress my argument, or react to that you did so like an apologist.
In one sentence it is ritual and practice, in the next a philosophical and apologetic argument. I rest my two cases.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | March 4, 2007 7:21 PM
Caledonian-Sure,the Qu'ran is Islam as well. But I meant that most practicing Muslims do prayers, which is part of the pillars. The vast majority of them do not read the Qur'an every night and day, except during Ramadan. The pious do read every night,and whenever they can. However, does that mean they are more prone to violence because they follow Islam more piously?
Razib-What exactly do you mean then when you say that "Saying Islam is a religion of peace is a bizarre falsehood?"
The reason I asked for a breakdown is because you usually give thorough breakdowns with points and bullets for most of your assertions. So I would like to see one of those for this assertion.
Posted by: Bang Gully | March 5, 2007 10:29 AM
[insulting comments will be deleted, and, i will not be dictated to in regards to what i must say. i've written about islam for 4 years, so do some due diligence.
-razib]
Posted by: Bang Gully | March 5, 2007 10:58 AM
There was nothing insulting about what I said. I've read worse on these blogs. And nobody is dictating to you what you need to say, I'm simply pointing out some honest flaws I think in your analysis of Muslims and Islam in general. I rather enjoy your point by point breakdowns of various subjects and I wanted to see one for the assertion you have repeatedly and quite zealously made regarding "Islam" and "peace." You dedicated a blog paragraph to my supposedly stupid question and yet you are guilty of the same abstractions and generalities that you claim that I use. I've read you past blogs about Islam as well and that is what I based my judgement on. So please,save the drama.
Posted by: Bang Gully | March 5, 2007 2:04 PM
I rather enjoy your point by point breakdowns of various subjects and I wanted to see one for the assertion you have repeatedly and quite zealously made regarding "Islam" and "peace."
the short answer, which i will offer, is that a religion of 1+ billion people can not be reduced to one character such as "peace" or "violence." muslims who deny the islamicness of terrorists and assert that the religion's essence is "peace" are engaging in the same short of rhetorical/semantical trick as war-on-terror propogandists who extract "proof text" to show how islam is innately violent. a full argument in regards to my characterization of islam would take a non-trivial amount of time, and i don't have that right now. suffice it to say that i do not think that islam can be properly characterized by the body of texts or a few spare axioms, just as i do not believe any religion can be so characterized. you point to history, and that is a relevant point, but i believe that all religions are basically historically contingent systems whose manifestations often have little deterministic relationship to their founding body of texts. if, for example, islamic violence is the result of a post-colonial counter-reaction, that still does not negate that the violence exists, and islam is not currently about peace, but is a muscular ideology of resistance.
that's all i'll give you...because, i have a job you see that demands my attention. for a more fully fleshed out argument, google "islam" on my other weblog.
Posted by: razib | March 5, 2007 2:10 PM
i think that religeon causes too much hassle. who cares if god is god, allah or steve. as long as live right what more can you do?
Posted by: globalwarming awareness2007 | March 7, 2007 11:24 AM
You seem to be missing the point. I said nothing about reading the Koran "day and night" - my question was simple: is it possible to have Islam without the Koran? In the same sense, we might ask whether it were possible to have Christianity without the Resurrection or Judaism without the Pentateuch.
Posted by: Caledonian | March 7, 2007 7:48 PM
"the short answer, which i will offer, is that a religion of 1+ billion people can not be reduced to one character such as "peace" or "violence." muslims who deny the islamicness of terrorists and assert that the religion's essence is "peace" are engaging in the same short of rhetorical/semantical trick as war-on-terror propogandists who extract "proof text" to show how islam is innately violent. a full argument in regards to my characterization of islam would take a non-trivial amount of time, and i don't have that right now. suffice it to say that i do not think that islam can be properly characterized by the body of texts or a few spare axioms, just as i do not believe any religion can be so characterized. you point to history, and that is a relevant point, but i believe that all religions are basically historically contingent systems whose manifestations often have little deterministic relationship to their founding body of texts. if, for example, islamic violence is the result of a post-colonial counter-reaction, that still does not negate that the violence exists, and islam is not currently about peace, but is a muscular ideology of resistance."-Razib
yeah , this is something I was saying shortly after 9/11, that saying Islam is about "peace" will not offset the fact that to some Muslims "Islam" is "war." There is no centralised Masjid or anything like the Catholic Church. I think the difference between me and you here is the issue of texts and its impact on day to day life. I don't buy the argument that texts don't play a role. I don't beleive in this false dichotomy between texts (Qur'an) and historical circumstances. Throughout Muslim history, the Qur'an was a part of the historical curcumstances. Sometimes it was only at the level of theological controversies that only literate elites would be concerned with, other times it was utilised for rebellions against corrupt rulers or whatever, but the history clearly shows that what the Qur'an says was a major issue in more than a couple battles and wars.I mean the first couple of civil wars or "fitnas" after the Prophet's death all dealt with issues of text. To say that it was the only issue, of course, would be wrong, but to imagine it inside a glass case while the real action went on outside is wrong too. Most people were illiterate in the Muslim world , and the numbers are pretty large even today in many Muslim countries, but that doesnt stop the fact that the Qur'an is a highly oral piece of text, meaning that memorisation and pronunciation has to be taken into account especially in the Arabic speaking world.(Middle East, North Africa)in terms of how it played a factor into people's everyday lives. Even in the non-Arabic speaking world, the Qur'an was taught at least at madrassahs and produced scholars and viziers in Persia, Asia Minor, India,and Africa. So there were actual people going to learn the text, there were various methods of teaching ranging from disciplined institutions to travelling sheikhs.They had an impact on society, and yes society had an impact on them, but thats how it works. We live with our feet planted in the dirt.
Islam is what it is whereever it is. So in Algeria, Islam is a "muscular ideology of resistance"as you say, but in America its not. And even those generalisations I made can be broken down further. So just imagine how "in the air"your generalisations sound to a lot of Muslims.
Posted by: Bang Gully | March 9, 2007 11:12 AM
So just imagine how "in the air"your generalisations sound to a lot of Muslims.
i don't care about muslims (or religionists in general) when i'm in this mode. my audience are intelligent atheists who i am trying to detach from emotional biases re: religion. i think muslims should be manipulated to the interests of the west, but i obviously don't have any credibility in that regard so i don't try to pretend that see the religion anything more than a tissue of fictions (as i see all religions).
as for texts, my family is filled with ulams. i'm not aware of of the nature of texts or customs, but my point is that they are more likely to be ad hoc or post facto justifications, rather than genuine constraints. that's what the psychological literature implies (see atran, in gods we trust, says).
Posted by: razib | March 9, 2007 12:52 PM