From Stockholm
More (I know, but there are a lot of good items today, and I want to quote from them). From the always-rewarding Ishtiaq Ahmed – who teaches political science in Stockholm.
Are human beings united or estranged in their essence? Tragedies such as the October 8 earthquake in Pakistan bring out the best and the worst in human beings. We have heard how people volunteered to help, sometimes risking their own lives, when involved in rescue operations…Everyday we see foreigners engaged in providing medical aid, food, blankets and other help. They too represent the best qualities in human beings. We should never forget their sense of duty to fellow human beings.
That’s exactly what I meant the other day when I said that the guy who kicked Reginald Denny in the head might on a different day have rushed to rescue people from danger after an earthquake. I think that’s true. Disasters (can) bring out the best in people. We’re moody, we’re labile, we’re flighty and changeable and unsettled; we can hate people one minute and run into danger to save them the next. Or we can live peaceably next door to them for decades and then after listening to the radio for awhile decide to kill them all.
The most shameful and disgraceful reaction was that of Islamic obscurants who – even before the full tragedy had unfolded – had in their enthusiasm to score cheap and vulgar points against the Musharraf regime, opined that those hit by the earthquake were facing divine punishment because they had done nothing to prevent the Pakistan government from allying itself with the Americans against fellow Muslims such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda and being soft on India and Israel. I have, in subsequent exchanges with such utterly despicable custodians of Islam, demanded an explanation as to how schoolchildren and those several hundred pupils at a Quran school who also perished while reciting the sacred scriptures could do anything to change Pakistan’s foreign policy. There is, of course, no answer to give but we are told that we mortals do not understand how God works in human societies.
Yes, the Pat Robertson school of thought. If it ever rains hard in Dover, Pennsylvania, well – it’s all up with the people there because God won’t lift a finger. He’s too pissed off.
Why inflict so much pain and suffering on ordinary creatures, many of whom barely managed to stay alive even under normal circumstances? The answer one gets is silence or prevarication but never an admission that when they make such a statement they start playing God themselves and that is wrong. I have yet to meet an obscurantist who ever admits having made a mistake in interpreting the will of God.
And they not only start playing God themselves, they cheer on a God who inflicts pain and suffering on innocent impoverished people in order to make an unrelated point.
Consequently all philosophy and religious beliefs should be judged as benign or malevolent on the basis of how ideas are used to either advance the notion of a common humankind with the same needs for respect, love and security or to preach permanent war and hatred deriving from differences of faith and colour and so on. We can also safely assume that although each individual is unique, our survival as a species has been possible because of our ability to cooperate. We are united in our essence and not estranged.
Yes. Just say no to those who preach permanent war and hatred – no matter how passionate their grievance, no matter how intense their conviction, no matter how strong their feeling, no matter authentic their tradition. Just, No.
I’d recommend Kleist’s story, “The Earthquake in Chile,” to anyone who wants to think a bit more about Ophelia Benson’s claims here.
Something that just occurred to me as I was cleaning out the cat litter tray (yes, my life is really that glamorous). Have you ever noticed how much religion resembles the mafia? Things like, if you don’t pay (pray) for protection them your house might just burn down, you gotta problem you come to see me, understand, your enemy is my enemy and so on.
This means that when folk go on about a ‘religious morality’ what they are basically advocating is the ethics of the mob. An endearing thought, don’t you think?
Hardly surprising Corleone is called the ‘Godfather’ is it?
David – this link is worth checking (found on the rather good Arts and Letters Daily web site)
http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/110518.html
It concludes “So, will science and religion find common ground, or at least agree to divide the fundamentals into mutually exclusive domains? A great many well-meaning scholars believe that such rapprochement is both possible and desirable. A few disagree, and I am one of them. I think Darwin would have held to the same position. The battle line is, as it has ever been, in biology. The inexorable growth of this science continues to widen, not to close, the tectonic gap between science and faith-based religion.
Rapprochement may be neither possible nor desirable. There is something deep in religious belief that divides people and amplifies societal conflict. In the early part of this century, the toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us.
In any case, the dilemma to be solved is truly profound. On the one side the input of religion on human history has been beneficent in many ways. It has generated much of which is best in culture, including the ideals of altruism and public service. From the beginning of history it has inspired the arts. Creation myths were in a sense the beginning of science itself. Fabricating them was the best the early scribes could do to explain the universe and human existence.
Yet the high risk is the ease with which alliances between religions and tribalism are made. Then comes bigotry and the dehumanization of infidels. Our gods, the true believer asserts, stand against your false idols, our spiritual purity against your corruption, our divinely sanctioned knowledge against your errancy. In past ages the posture provided an advantage. It united each tribe during life-and-death struggles with other tribes. It buoyed the devotees with a sense of superiority. It sacralized tribal laws and mores, and encouraged altruistic behaviors. Through sacred rites it lent solemnity to the passages of life. And it comforted the anxious and afflicted. For all this and more it gave people an identity and purpose, and vouchsafed tribal fitness — yet, unfortunately, at the expense of less united or otherwise less fortunate tribes.
Religions continue both to render their special services and to exact their heavy costs. Can scientific humanism do as well or better, at a lower cost? Surely that ranks as one of the great unanswered questions of philosophy. It is the noble yet troubling legacy that Charles Darwin left us.”
Remarkable how often something turns up on ALD, and then, just a day or two later, on B&W… ;-)))
Sometimes, though, we get there first…
Dave – yes, I like their approach – they don’t give a stuff how much their links enlighten or annoy, which will usually depend on one’s point of view anyway… with regard to this particular piece, the following made my evening
“..the high risk is the ease with which alliances between religions and tribalism are made..(etc)”
Yeah, I’ve had the mafia thought. Extortion, is one word that often seems apt. Protection racket is two more.
Not a bit remarkable about ALD. You think I’m abashed about finding good articles there? Hardly. I look at other portal sites, too. I have a lot of different ways of finding news links, and ALD is certainly one. (Apart from anything else, DD added B&W to ALD’s ‘Favorites’ when B&W was barely three months old, so naturally I think he has a shrewd eye.) I could have a policy not to duplicate ALD links since most people who know B&W know ALD too – but that would exclude articles that are squarely in B&W territory, and I don’t want to do that – so I decided against that policy a long time ago.
The overlap has never bothered me. It’s not possible to catch everything anyway, so it’s helpful to have a site, or more than one, where you know that the discriminating eye of the link-poster has eliminated the dross, promising a minimal level of quality, whether or not you agree with the opinions expressed. The ability to personalise by selecting from an already-good selection is, after all, one of the things that is best about the Web. Frees one from the limitations of the TV stations broadcasting in your area or the newspapers to which you subscribe.
G.,
Those of us who are neither enslaved to nor in any way taken in by religious beliefs go about establishing our understanding of the world in a completely different way and this includes our understanding of the undeniable fact, no matter how much we may lament it, that a huge percentage of mankind cannot conceive of its existence without religion.
Dawkins and Dennett have both written interestingly on possible reasons for religion both coming about and continuing to hold sway.
Because of the difference in approach between believers and us “nons,” we have at our disposal a better method with which to understand them than they possess for understanding us. I see this in hopeful terms, because a deep enough understanding of their motivations may eventually enable us to develop more effective strategies to hit the irrationality at the root (brings to mind what OB discusses two threads back under the heading “Cheap Copies”).
I don’t think they could ever develop such a strategy in reverse to convert us all. The nature of the problem makes it so much less likely.
Religions and Tribalism… an unholy alliance…