A bit too non-linear
Did Ian Buruma write this in ten minutes, or what? It’s all over the place.
It has become fashionable in certain smart circles to regard atheism as a sign of superior education, of highly evolved civilization, of enlightenment. Recent bestsellers by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and others suggest that religious faith is a sign of backwardness…
Oh get over it for Christ’s sake. Is there no end to the market for people complaining about this overwhelming flood of atheist books that add up to all of five which is as a grain of sand to a beach compared to the flood of theist bestsellers? There certainly doesn’t seem to be. Is this the top item in The Lazy Editor’s Handbook or what? ‘If nothing else occurs, get some windbag to have a tantrum about the uncontrollable torrent of atheist bestsellers.’
Can religion also be a force for good? asks Buruma, dopily. Noooo – religion can never ever ever be a force for good, not nohow. Duh. Of course it can – we don’t need to be told that ‘sometimes religion can be a force for good’ – we know that.
But it’s too late, Buruma has to tell us.
[W]atching Burmese monks on television defying the security forces of one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, it is hard not to see some merit in religious belief.
You don’t say. And watching Saudi religious police send schoolgirls back into a fire to burn to death because they’re not ‘dressed properly,’ it is hard not to see some merit in atheism. So what?
[T]he monks and nuns took the first step; they dared to protest when most others had given up. And they did so with the moral authority of their Buddhist faith. Romantics might say that Buddhism is unlike other religions, more a philosophy than a faith. But this would be untrue. It has been a religion in different parts of Asia for many centuries, and can be used to justify violent acts as much as any other belief. For evidence, one need only look at Sri Lanka, where Buddhism is lashed onto ethnic chauvinism in the civil war between Buddhist Singhalese and Hindu Tamils.
Um, okay, but I thought you were saying religion is sometimes a force for good? What’s the subject again?
[T]he moral power of religious faith does not need a supernatural explanation. Its strength is belief itself, in a moral order that defies secular or indeed religious dictators. Active resisters to the Nazis during World War II were often devout Christians. Some sheltered Jews, despite their own prejudices against the Jews, simply because they saw it as their religious duty. Faith does not have to be in a supernatural being. The Nazis were resisted with equal tenacity by men and women who found strength in their belief in communism.
Oh, okay, so you’re not talking about religion after all, you’re talking about belief, including belief in communism? Only, I thought you were talking about religion, because that’s what you said at the beginning.
Despite the horrific violence of Islamist fanatics, it should not be forgotten that the mosque too can be a legitimate basis for resistance against the mostly secular dictatorships in the Middle East today. In a world of political oppression and moral corruption, religious values offer an alternative moral universe. This alternative is not necessarily more democratic, but it can be.
Or not. Usually not. So your point is…?
Nevertheless, faith has an important role to play in politics, especially in circumstances in which secular liberals are rendered impotent, as in the case of Nazi occupation, communist rule or military dictatorship.
Oh, man – now I’m really confused.
Liberals are most needed when compromises have to be made, but not as useful when faced with brute force. That is when visionaries, romantics and true believers are driven by their beliefs to take risks that most of us would regard as foolhardy. It is, on the whole, not beneficial to be ruled by such heroes, but it is good to have them around when we need them.
Yes no doubt, but you were talking about religion, remember? Remember the beginning of your article? It’s not that long – you could have checked back once or twice while you were writing it. You started out with a dopy whinge about atheist bestsellers #17,985, then you asked if religion can sometimes be a force for good. How did you end up with romantics and heroes?
Dang – I wish I’d been Buruma’s editor for that piece; I would have thrown it back and told him to re-write it. Actually, I would have just said No thanks; it’s banal at best and incoherent at worst. Try harder next time.
That’s a confused mess, all right. I’m beginning to think that there is something about this current Blitzkrieg of the Militant Atheist Panzer Brigades (aka the 4 or 5 books you mention, which happen to have become best-sellers, no doubt due to the influence of Satan) that is really driving some people round the bend. They’re just losing their wits and fouling their pants.
Why is this? I think it’s probably because, deep down in their minds, intellectuals like Buruma have always had this view that religious belief (of any sort, as long as it is a belief that a god will punish them eternally for behaving badly in this life) in the minds of the common folk is what keeps a society from falling apart, and they are deathly afraid that, now that free thought seems to be seeping down to the masses (it was all right as long as it was confined to those privileged few who were smart enough to know how to handle it, i.e., themselves), everything will blow up somehow.
At least that is their fear of what will happen in the West. In Moslem societies, apparently, irrational religious belief in the minds of the masses is what is causing the explosions. Or not. Well, we Westerners can’t really be sure about the inscrutable Moslems, so it’s best to be suspicious of and fear all of them, right?
Right!
“Liberals are most needed when compromises have to be made, but not as useful when faced with brute force. That is when visionaries, romantics and true believers are driven by their beliefs to take risks that most of us would regard as foolhardy. It is, on the whole, not beneficial to be ruled by such heroes, but it is good to have them around when we need them.”
OB, I’m a little worried that you replied “Yes no doubt” to this evidence-free paean to blatant nonsense. What place do “romantics” have in today’s hi-tech military world, exactly? And the assumption that “liberals” (what? ALL of them?) won’t stand up to physical threat? Why? Are they all too busy sipping chai tea and discussing whether to move a motion of censure against the aggressors?
What qualifications do you need these days to be defined as an “intellectual”, exactly?
Andy Gilmour asks, ‘What qualifications do you need these days to be defined as an “intellectual”, exactly?’
An intellect, perhaps.
Which failing, an MA.
;)
Andy that was partly sarcastic and partly dismissive via speed (indicated by lack of commas) – dismissive because it’s platitudinous: arguably it’s true by definition that true believers are driven by their beliefs to blah blah.
Just imagine if these wankers still had the right to burn us at the stake…
Thank you, Messr’s Jefferson and Madison
I am curious about Buruma’s assertion about “circumstances in which secular liberals are rendered impotent, as in the case of Nazi occupation, communist rule or military dictatorship.”
Can anyone direct me to the scholarship demonstrating that all resistance to Nazis, communists, and other dictators has been carried out only by people who were not secular liberals?
It must be terrible to read people banging on and on about the same damn thing over and over again.
It’s not so terrible if what they’re banging on and on about at least has some merit! Banging on and on about strawmen is double jeopardy.
Good point about the secular liberals (Andy made the same point). Maybe Buruma has some kind of masochistic fouling own nest thing going? That would fit with his calling Hirsi Ali an Enlightenment fundamentalist. Secular liberal guilt is it?
Yech. Guilty secular liberals will hand us all over to religious fascism, at that rate.
OB,
sorry, I was just worried that you were being too nice to him for some unknown reason – a touch of flu, perhaps? :-)
Or were you just turfing him over to the wider B&W readership for the stiff kicking his drivel deserved? :-)
OT, Normblog has an interesting report on Richard Dawkins – purportedly wanting an organisation to hep atheists around the world, and in his advocacy comparing it with the power of the Jews… Was he misquoted?
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2007/10/as-far-as-dawki.html
I predict that most B&dubsters will enjoy this short essay by Sam Harris:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2007/09/religion_as_a_black_market_for.html
Or:
http://tinyurl.com/yu4aos
Excerpt: “How to Believe in God
Six Easy Steps
1. First, you must want to believe in God.
2. Next, understand that believing in God in the absence of evidence is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence of God.
4. Now consider any need for further evidence (both in yourself and in others) to be a form of temptation, spiritually unhealthy, or a corruption of the intellect.
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “faith.”
6. Return to 2.”
Doug – Brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant.
That will be cut’n’pasted to various people.
Anyone want to comment on this report from the BBC, about the Burmese military leaders allegedly being astrology addicts:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7025827.stm
“Tom White was the UK’s cultural attache in Burma during the 1988 protests and bloody crackdown that ensued. He argues that the ruling junta is heavily influenced by lucky numbers.
Burma’s ruling junta holds a belief, widely shared by the Burmese public, in astrology as a means of explaining the present and influencing the future.
This was apparent in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising and has resurfaced during the current crisis.
Demonstrators gathering in central Rangoon to protest against the government, 06 August 1988
The latest crackdown began on the same date as the 1988 purge
Ne Win, Burma’s dictator from 1962 to 1988, had blind faith in nine as his lucky number, hence the sudden decision in September 1987 to issue banknotes whose face value was divisible by nine (for example 45 and 90 kyat).
The democracy movement’s favourite number was eight, so the 1988 uprising sparked by the ensuing economic crisis began on 8 August (8/8/88). It was savagely put down by the army on the 18th of the following month (1+8=9) of September – the ninth month.
A few nights ago, the BBC rebroadcast a clip from a Burmese television report on what it said was a mass rally supporting the government in the face of the current crisis, attended by “98,100 people” (9 and 8+1).”
The Burmese junta were described recently on BBC R4 News as being ‘superstitious’, but the commentator instantly correctly himself by sying that it was perhaps an unfair term to use (the inference being because it belittled a presumably ‘deeper’ held faith). Good old Aunty Beeb. ‘Balance’ is all.
And Doug, good post !
And it’s not just ‘balance’ with Uncly Beeb – if I’m not mistaken it’s also a heavy dose of deeply internalized guilt about anything that can be seen as ‘elitist’ – which would of course include referring to anything as ‘superstitious.’ In other words I think Beebians fall all over themselves to disavow or correct or apologize for anything that looks like judgment or ‘eltist’ superiority.
“Watching Saudi religious police send schoolgirls back into a fire to burn to death because they’re not ‘dressed properly,”
Yes, undeniably so, the Saudi religious police incident reminds me of the fire tragedy that occurred in Co Cavan Eire in February 1943
Wiki:
“In the immediate aftermath the fire was seen as a tragic accident and much sympathy was expressed to the local Catholic Hierarchy. However, disquiet about the causes of the fire and the standard of care led to the setting up of a Public Inquiry. The outcome of this Inquiry absolved the nuns of any blame but was critical of the local fire service. However this finding has been disputed by many, including in a piece of verse written by the secretary to the Inquiry Brian O ‘Nolan, better known as the author Flann O’Brien” “In Cavan there was a great fire, Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire, It would be a shame, if the nuns were to blame, So it had to be caused by a wire.”
There has always been an anecdote doing its rounds in Co Cavan and yonder regarding circumstances of the fire tragedy in the orphanage – of which of which I heard about when living in Ballyjamesduff. It goes: that the Sisters of St Clare were too frightened to allow the children out of the orphanage because they did not want men seeing them in their nightdresses. However true it is – I do not know but the story is now local folklore. I do know though from my own experience with the Sisters of Mercy that everything to do with the body was like with the Saudi Police, cloak and dagger stuff. Dirty + filthy!
See: Seanad Éireann Cavan Fire Inquiry—Motion. [The church and State as per usual stuck together like thieves.]
Wo – thanks for that, Marie-Therese. Should go in the book.
“True believers would no doubt see the hand of God in these stirring events”.
Yeah, such as the ones mentioned in article by Ian Buruma! I wonder, could he have said the same thing about the children who burned to death in the ’40’s in Cavan Industrial School? Susceptible children of whom were by the courts put into the hands of unqualified religious, by the aforementioned Judge McCarthy] and of whom the latter who had purportedly put their whole lives in the hands of God. Scannal says, “Thirty-five young girls & one elderly woman were burned to death because of a deadly combination of incompetence and arrogant narrow mindedness, officially swept neatly under the carpet of a smug era where children and especially those kinds of children really did not count.” OB,That would be great if it could go in your book. I hope you also give Goldenbridge & Regina Coeli a big mention too. That would make my B&W day. Slan tamal.
“There was a point in this interview between David Thompson and Ophelia Benson where I thought it might be interesting to have a TV series that placed the leading lights of Theory on a desert island and posed them with real-world survival problems. At some point the discussion would turn to cannibalism as a ‘textual practice’ and then the fun might really begin.”
On reading B&W news, I came upon very interesting interview between DT & OB.
Well done ^_^ (..) one and all!
Chris per-Dawkins was clearly referring to AIPAC . M Geras clearly has not heard of it.