There’s a pretty obvious reason why the 20th century’s secular tyrannies seemed more sanguinary than the medieval theocrats. They were not in any respect more bloodthirsty – simply in possession of more efficient tools and a larger supply of potential victims. For the first you can thank the industrial revolution, giving us not only machine guns and gas chambers, but the supporting paraphenalia necessary to mass killing such as railways and barbed wire to concentrate the victims, and telecommunications and IBM machines to organise it all.
Secondly, the reason why there were more potential victims to be had stems from the late 19th century’s population boom, due to improvements in agriculture and medicine.
Does anyone think Torquemada or the Duke of Alva would have turned down the chance to use 20th century technology on the Jews, Moors and Protestants?
“jihad – military conquest by the Arabs and their converts. Yet that is largely how Islam has been propagated”
Maybe it is mistaken to assume that it is military conquest that led to the spread of islam. Take for example the conversion of Indonesia. No military conquest took place there. But consider my alternative theory. From the time of mohammed writing to kings to accept islam, it has been the kings who have been the carriers of the islamic (and before that the christian) infection. Islam like christianity required the ruling class to accept that religion first and then over the centuries islamic rulers forced their subjects to convert through terrorising. This will explain the conversion of Indonesia too. Some rulers will allow subjects to retain their religion (like akbar) but some kings will forcibly convert the subjects (like aurangazeb). Some muslims will say that such rulers are not islamic at all (because they forcibly converted which is against islam they will say) but will they then allow such forcibly converted people to leave islam?
But with the progress of civilization wiping out the kings the spread of islam could not take place because the carriers of infections (the kings) have been wiped out.
Do you honestly think climate scientists don’t account for evaporation and cloud reflection in their studies and models? That working biologists are unaware of the existence of monkeys?) Not only have the collected mass of experts probably asked your questions, they probably have a few answers, too.
“A mob attacked and vandalized the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in January, destroying books and irreplaceable manuscripts. “
At the outset I want to say that I am shocked and would like the perpetrators to be locked up. But nowhere in any of the articles/news stories have the perpetrators claimed that they are doing it in the name of religion or in the name of hinduism or hindutva. They have done it in the name of sivaji their hero. So then how have you associated this rampage with hindutva? What led you to the belief that this rampage is motivated by religion?
Concerning the matchless prose article: I’ve read that the Muslim faith, like all others, developed and cnanged over a long period of time. It started as an offshoot of Judaism and Christianity, and obviously that’s why the Koran contains bible stories. I believe that the Koran itself formed gradually over a period of at least 150 years, and it contains a hodge-podge of poorly edited and repetitive statements and stories, some fragmented and unintelligible, written by many unknown hands, and then attributed to “Muhammed,” who likely never existed but was created to give this pernicious faith a founder figure, like Moses or Jesus, for the duped and delusional followers to revere. And as for the supposedly flawless Arabic in which it is written, the Koran contains many words borrowed from Aramaic and Syriac, which calls into question not only the “purity” of the language but also the place where Islam originated. A few scholars who think independently enough not to rely on the completely untrustworthy traditional accounts of the origin of Islam believe that it is likely that the faith began in Syria and not in Arabia.
So, here we have a religion which has heavily borrowed from other religions, which has invented its founder and place of origin, but which has the audacity to call itself perfect. Oh well, to each his own.
Reply to comments on the ‘Matchless Prose’ article.
First: thanks for the comments.
dd 030108: I agree with much of what you say; the counterexample of Indonesia was in my mind when I chose the qualifier ‘largely’. As you say, top-down conversion is an easy way of getting the existing bigwigs to do the hard work for you. The problem is getting them on your side in the first place. This can be done by favours and bribery, but nothing works better than having an enormous army waiting outside. Make them an offer they can’t refuse.
My understanding of the non-military Islamisation of Indonesia is that it started in around the 10th/11th century and was not completed until the 17th, after a ‘drive for conversions’ which had lasted since the 14th. Contrast that with the conversion of the Middle East, Persia, North Africa, Spain and Portugal: Muhammad died in 632; the westward expansion of Islam was finally stopped at Tours, in France, 150 miles from the English channel, in 732. (e.g. the Wikipedia article ‘Umayyad conquest of North Africa’). Eastwards, the Arab armies reached the borders of India by 643. I guess from your two recent posts that you’re probably aware of what happened subsequently. Something else was at work to produce such a rapid expansion – naked military might, or at least the threat of it.
Re your last paragraph: it would be nice to think that the Jihad could be stopped by the elimination of monarchies, but I think that top-down conversion is just one of the many unpleasant ways to seize power. What worries me is that a creeping Jihad is clearly underway in the west. Although this may be somewhat slower than the first Jihad, it is potentially a good deal more rapid than the Islamisation
of Indonesia.
Steve Beck 04/01/08: I’ve read such things also, and they illustrate the fact that the origins of Islam are much more uncertain than Muslims would have us believe. The trouble is, the alternative histories may be as uncertain as the orthodox ones and are therefore easy for Muslims to deny.
That’s why I tend to shy away from this subject and concentrate on the inconsistencies and absurdities of the orthodox story. Still, spread the word.
>I feel the column inches given this in the Western press is a factor to be considered. Certainly in the UK there was a feel of crowing over the foolishness of Islam, which is of course seldom balanced with coverage of the converse.<
Klaude: What “this” are you referring to?
You go on to mention “Iran’s speedy release of the British servicemen captured for illegally transgressing their borders”. Leaving aside that, if it’s the incident involving British Navy personnel a little while back, there was some dispute about whether borders *were* transgressed, this episode relates to a political act by the Iranian state, so where does the issue of the foolishness or otherwise of Islam enter into it?
Religious proponents often mistakenly assume that those who do not believe in their ideology are atheists and from this they equate the atrocities of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union with atheism.
But, as usual, they miss the point. The distinction has to be made between ideologies based on rational, reasoned thought and those based on dogma and the unthinking adherence to the irrational. In this respect, religions share the same foundations as those ideologies that sustained Nazism and Totalitarian Communism.
It matter little if you use Mein Kampf, Das Kapital or the Bible and Koran as your justification – oppression and murder is still wrong.
I feel the column inches given this in the Western press is a factor to be considered. Certainly in the UK there was a feel of crowing over the foolishness of Islam, which is of course seldom balanced with coverage of the converse.
Take for example the subdued tones and brevity of positive commentary on Iran’s speedy release of the British servicemen captured for illegally transgressing their borders. It was a struggle to find ill-words to speak of that, yet of course they were found; while next to nothing is said in press of the protracted and in some cases permanent disappearance of Iranians captured by our side.
So while one agrees that political manipulation was involved, one cannot agree that it was monolateral.
Muthuswamy cites research on the Koran, conducted by the Center for Political Islam, which illustrates the Islamic focus on conformist behavior and beliefs. According to the Center’s analysis of the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith, only 17% of the Islamic trilogy deals with the words of Allah. The remaining 83% refers to the words and deeds of Mohammed. Of all of the references to “hell” in the trilogy, 6% are for moral failings, while 94% are for the transgression of disagreeing with Mohammed. Statistical analysis of the trilogy revealed that 97% of references to “jihad” relate to war and a mere 3% to the concept of “inner struggle.”
About 67% of the Koran of Mecca deals with punishing unbelievers for merely disagreeing with Mohammed. Over 50% of the Koran of Medina deals with hypocrites and jihad against unbelievers. Nearly 75% of the Sira deals with jihad. About 20% of the Hadith by Bukhari is about jihad. The majority of the doctrine is political and it is all violent.
In 4% of the cases, women were superior, in 91% of the cases they were inferior and in 5% they were equal. But there is a big catch. The only way that women are equal is after death on Judgment day, when men and women will be judged on how well they followed the Koran and the Sunna. And guess what? The only way to follow the Koran and the Sunna is to obey men. Equality means obeying men
Woman are superior by being a mother, who must obey her husband. So the perfect woman on Judgment day will be a mother, who obeyed all the men in her life. So really, the women are subordinate to men in 100% of all of the Koran, Hadith and the Sira.
Once again, there’s a great over-generalization of who’s to blame. This is a blame game, isn’t it?
The governments that grew out of Catholicism did not represent even to the iota what the doctrine of Christianity is (hence the teachings of Christ). But, this isn’t about that, is it? It’s about the hunting of the scapegoat.
I’ve yet to meet an atheist that could prove that atheism (opposition to spiritual religion) is not a serious component of the worst communist dictators in the world who sought to remove religion from society, nor that could show me where the Catholic perversion of faith represented the sayings of Christ.
If you say you are a devoted vegetarian, but eat meat, then you are not a vegetarian, even if you say you are one – is that too simple to understand?
Ah, but small prejudiced and bigoted minds flock together, don’t they. It does not matter whether by spiritual or non spiritual “religiously” agreed organization, there are always going to be the thugs and gangs who seek to destroy the others who are not like them.
This is the common ground for the extremist and hostile hypocrite religionists and the ardent zealot atheist, for atheism potential is no different in it’s quest to dominate and suppress religion (and those who freely choose spiritual religion), as those who hijack religion for political gain and militaristic domination. Both inaccurately represent freedom or spirituality, and both are highly capable (when organized in hatred) of destroying humanity through hearts of dictatorial desires.
Oddly enough, through the prejudice still remains one common factor – humans capable of reason, but nevertheless selfish and demanding their way when they think they have authority over others by some heightened sense of superiority – whether by self proclaimed intellect or not.
This becomes an organized religion (designed of hatred) when many agree it’s time to take down one group or the other through force and domination based on the sets of agreements or justifications drawn out of theories.
Religion does not require god or need spiritual affects to be a religion – just reasons and a purpose to organize through sets of rules based on philosophies, idealisms and beliefs.
Even if you borrow “quotes” from other atheists who agree collectively to organize your mantras of anti-religion, then you are creating a a collection of quotes that are a collection of reasons to agree (a bible), and therefore creating a religion – sets of agreements and ideas that join together for a cause. It becomes a spiritual practice if you join together to make a change that will effect the masses or even an individual for the sake of belief in improvement based on theoretical perspectives.
Atheism is a religion.
(enter predictable denial here)
To be a real atheist is to not organize for a purpose against any group, for once you do, you become a hypocrite. An atheist simply does not believe in spirituality, which goes to say that they also should not operate on unproven theory of any kind, otherwise they cross the line of “reason” and enter into ideology and even spiritualism – which eventually leads to religion.
In the first of the articles by Brian Whitaker to which B&W has linked he writes on so-called “honour killings”:
“This is an area where Muslim organisations could do a lot to help. There is general agreement (notwithstanding the Islamic Action Front) that ‘honour’ killing has no basis in Islamic teaching.”
Whitaker then refers the reader to a page on the “popular IslamOnline website”, and this turns up some interesting material: http://tinyurl.com/aaekd
>Question: What does Islam say about honor killings? Does Islam really have a concept of honor killings, most of the victims here are females; so does Islam really order to kill females in the name of honor?<
Reply from “Islam Online Fatwa Editing Desk”:
>Sister, it’s a well-known fact that Islam maintains the protection of life and does not sanction any violation against it. In the Glorious Qur’an, Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93)”<
Later paragraphs go on to quote Muslim authorities that reject the concept of “honour killings” as not sanctioned by Islam. However, the paragraph immediately following the one quoted above is of more than a little interest:
>`Abdullah ibn Mas`ud, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The blood of a Muslim may not be legally spilt other than in one of three [instances]: the married person who commits adultery; a life for a life; and one who forsakes his religion and abandons the community.” (Reported by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)<
So a website that Whitaker cites as “popular” states that Islam sanctions the spilling of blood (in the context of a discussion of “honour killings” this can only mean death) for adulterers and apostates.
How authoritative is this popular website? The link “About Us” brings up a webpage that states:
>This site aims to present a unified and lively Islam that keeps up with modern times in all areas…
>Our goal is for this site to be worthy of your trust. To reach our goal, a committee of the major scholars throughout the Islamic world, headed by Dr. Yusuf Qardawi, was formed. Its role is to ensure that nothing on this site violates the fixed principles of Islamic law (Shar’ia). The committee includes experts in politics, economics, the media, sociology, technology, the arts, and other fields, all of whom are committed to participate in the Islamic Renaissance in all fields and at all levels…<
Note that the committee of major Islamic scholars that approves of death for adulterers and apostates is headed by London Mayor Ken Livingtone’s favoured Islamic scholar Dr. Yusuf Qardawi:
Larry: Interesting statistics: it’s emphatic confirmation of the general impression you get when you read the Quran. By the way, have you thought of using a slightly smaller font on your website?
Allen: Yours is a good example of what you find when you look behind the soothing Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace type of statement. There’s usually a nasty sting in the tail somewhere.
For anyone who’s interested: I’ve found that you can get a good idea of what those reassuring Quran quotes really mean from the Tafsir Ibn
Dear Christopher, I am totally with you in denouncing the atrocities that religious organizations have committed. But are you fair when you say that the 20th-century wars have “obviously” been caused by religions? That some religious organizations have participated, sometimes unfortunately with great motives, to the Holocaust is one thing. Saying that the philosophy of these wars was fundamentally religious is another. And I do not see any problem in accepting as well that atheist ideas, as much as religious ideas, as much as any idea for that purpose, can do a lot of harm.
Your accusation should not focus on the type of ideas, atheist, religious, etc, but on the dogma they create and their followers. Dogmatism is, I think, the true “evil”. Any extrem is. Don’t drink too much wine. And don’t take any idea as The Truth. After all, these ideas are human made. Religious or atheist, we should all stay humble and remind ourselves how ignorant we are.
Re the linked article “Charlie Wilson’s Flaw”: The journalist (Martin Woollacott, former foreign editor of the Guardian) who is complaining about the distorted view of history contained in the film “Charlie Wilson’s War” perpetrates the following paragraph:
“When the Soviet Union was drawn into Afghanistan, Russian leaders believed they could transform the country’s incompetent, brutal and faction-ridden communist government into a more moderate and effective administration, bringing in non-communists and seeking change in society through consultation rather than coercion.”
The Soviet Union was “drawn into” Afghanistan? Would that have been the result of some occult force? Can you imagine Woollacott writing in the Guardian that the US was “drawn into Iraq”?
I was amazed at the high body count… I can’t believe they went through so many people! The count for Japan though appears a little low. Aside from the rape of Nanking are you counting up the other atrocities they carried out. I think they attempted biological warfare and mass bombings so the body count for them should be much higher.
To the previous comment: the Soviet Union was “drawn” into Afghanistan because they thought they would be in and out. But once they were in they had to stay a little longer and longer… The term is misleading; it is better to say they were drawn into and extended war after willingly invading the country.
To Francios: Domatism and extremism isn’t the problem; I happen to be a dogmatic realist and I know that no when has even been killed for my case. The problem is belief systems that rationalize themselves, paint a black and white world and excuse murder. Religion fits the bill perfectly (Communism is close, but weaker in the first category). Although not all activities that he gives are religiously motivated. The holocaust grew out of antisemitism which came from two stream; the anti immigrant backlash to their arrival in the 1890s (pogroms kicked them out of Russia) and the blood libel and refusal of Jews to convert to Christianity, the second being and entirely religious motive. The witch burning were backed by church sanction (and are still today; look up Nigeria, witches and children) and the Japanese war machine was justified in the name of the God Emporer. Repeated Jihads have raged across Northern Africa between the muslims, infidels and “fallen” muslims in an effort to “purify” the area. The Cather crusade elimated the population of Southern France (whose crime was thinking different things about god) and the Arian heresy lead to many becoming maytars for doubting the trinity. Thoughtcrimes basicly.
Felis seems to equate skepticism with ignorance. That is not necessarily true. I am very skeptical about most of modern theoretical physics, beginning with Special Relativity. I am a summa cum laude graduate of Tufts University (BSEE 1959). I have an IQ of 158. I exhaustively study the subjects of which I am skeptical. I know more about Special Relativity than most who teach it.
I wish to post my comment not in praise (though I hold it generally) or criticism (of which I have a triffle amount) but of clarification with regards to comments and criticisms A FRIEND of mine has brought up but which I seem incapable of countering on my own behalf or Richard Dawkins’.
My friend’s problem is his (I believe erroneous) fixation on Dawkins credentials and presentation. What I (or my friend) means is that, from what he’s seen of his college lecture, that he sees Dawkins presented SOLELY as a SCIENTIST (as opposed, say, to his presentation as an “athiest” and “author” on the O’Reilly Factor), therefore lending SCIENTIFIC credence to what he is saying. My friend perceives a man preaching as a scientist that he has PROVEN using SCIENCE that God does not exist. For me, it is enough that he merely disproves the ARGUMENTS given (often by fiat bereft of proof) by theists using the rules of logic and reason, which incidentally place the burden of proof in the lap of those making the claim of God’s existance to prove, and not Dawkins to disprove. Elsewhere Dawkins does say that science actually cannot prove this 100% (nor can it prove anything without some small margin of error or possibility of future revision or rejection) but I don’t think my friend has heard this, or rather, doesn’t want to, cherry picking “proves that God doesn’t exist” to make his point that Dawkins actaully cannot do that and thus is bogus. If Dawkins can groan when theists cherry pick statements by Hawkins and Einstein, wishing they’s never invoked the name of God “for poetry’s sake or colloquialism’s” then shouldn’t Dawkins (or his publishers) similarly avoid being vague or sensationalist in their endeavors?
Dawkins has also said that he’d be willing to hear or see any evidence or good argument. It seems my friend won’t be satisfied until an alleged-God is slumped on an operating table so Dawkins can, scalpel and gene-sequencing laboratory on stand-by, can operate his SCIENCE on it, instead of, what my friend claims, is mere literary wit – a “stand-up routine” “preaching to the choir” over ethical and philosophical debates, not scientific ones.
My friend also thinks Dawkins has “a serious problem” with Christianity in particular, despite how he does acknowledge other religions and has tackled the question of ANY god. I tried to explain this in view that it was Dawkin’s original “born into” faith, and that it currently is the main one attempting via pseudoscience to taint science curriculum and other reasons, and it would be ludicrous for him to spend his time lambasting, say, Wotan over the Christian God. That seems obvious, but then again I am not biased in favor of a God. I am not necessarily biased against it either, for I was brought up and schooled Catholic (my friend, not), so I think my bias is toward a sound argument and evidence. Anyway, such is my practice in viewing opposing arguments, like watching An Inconvenient Truth (where Gore’s non-scientist standing is apparently irrelevant) back-to-back with The Great Global Warming Swindle and Farenheit 9-11 with Farenhype 9-11, etc.
Is anyone up for clarifying this? “Your friend is obviously an idiot” won’t cut it in my book, for his criticisms do have some merit.
BTW, I certainly did enjoy the article initiating this thread, on par with the briefer and more poignant sarcasm of “The Courtier’s Reply.”
And Dawkins, if you are reading or deign to answer personally, I appreciate your efforts thus far. And do please convey my admiration to Lalla, who appears to be eclipsed by all of this but whom as a child I had admired as a certain travelling companion and was delighted to discover was coincidentally wed to this Dawkins figure I had recently begun investigating…
>The problem with Freud was only that he invented the evidence for his theories, i.e., lied about cures, discoveries, and effects brought about by his “analytic” procedures.<
My question would be: how could we know for sure what happened back then? What truly happened between Freud and his patients? We have Freud’s well-argumented and well-documented case studies, his letters to Fliess. But even so, what Freud wrote was gradually, as he was advancing step by step in his scientific discoveries. Later he would add something to his writings, as he would progress in his discoveries. Even if he lied a little here and there, he had a theory in his mind, and he was trying to prove it. Later, something might come up and upturn the respective theory. Everything was then in the process of making. We also know that it often happens that patients become angry and upset, especially if the treatment lasts for a long time and with no visible immediate results. Psychoanalytic cures often last for a long time. You can’t just take the word for it from a revolted patient. Or, differently said, how can you know that all this ‘evidence’ against Freud was not a set-up by those who were determined to build their argumentation against him and everything he did?
Allen Esterson:
>It is a myth (originating from Freud himself) that his contemporaries were not open to Freud’s theories.<
Freud doesn’t say that they were all against him. He just tries to understand what the motives of those who rejected psychoanalysis and even him as a Jew could have been.
Allen Esterson:
>So we are told that “the strongest resistances to psychoanalysis were not of an intellectual kind, but arose from emotional sources…<
I think Freud identifies several kinds of resistances… Those of doctors or philosophers are of an intellectual kind, while others are simply outraged at what psychoanalytic theories tell them about themselves… It is not easy to face such theories and truth about oneself, sometimes…
>”A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”<
This comment has to be considered carefully before jumping to conclusions about what it is actually saying (or the extent that it is true anyway). It does *not* necessarily imply that most scientific innovations are opposed by most mainstream scientists. In fact this is not generally the case, although of course a period of time often occurs while the ideas are being absorbed and assessed. Within a relatively short time *most* mainstream scientists (the great majority) accepted quantum theory. Note that (i) I wrote *most*, not all (ii) I wrote quantum theory, not quantum mechanics, though here again quantum mechanics became part of mainstream physics in a remarkably short time after it was introduced in 1925. Of course people can find exceptions by citing specific theories or specific scientists, but I’m talking about the general state of affairs in science.
Looking again at what HF wrote, I see I misinterpreted the point he is making, which evidently is that it is “typical” for scientific innovators to argue in the same manner as Freud, and posit that opposition to their theories results from their opponents not being able to overcome emotional attachment to the current theory. (Though in fact what Freud was arguing was rather different, namely that his opponents unconsciously recognized the truth of his theories about infantile phantasy life (Oedipus, etc), but resisted them because they were psychologically unable to face up to their implications, because they were so shocking.)
There is something in the notion that an innovative scientist may see opposition to his theory as indicative of an emotional attachment to the current theory (especially in the case of opposition from scientists who had a hand in developing the current theory). But taken as a generalisation, it is simply not the case that innovative scientists *typically* use such arguments in scientific debate.
>we are told that “the strongest resistances to psychoanalysis were not of an intellectual kind, but arose from emotional sources…>
Typical rhetoric in such situations.
Max Planck “explained” the opposition of the mainstream physicists to the “quantum” hypothesis as :
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
quoted in Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
>Sulloway writes: “Time and time again, Freud saw in his patients what psychoanalytic theory led him to look for and then to interpret the way he did; and when the theory changed, so did the clinical findings.”
We have been here before but unfortunately Allen still hasn’t understood how theories work and what is their relation with the experiment.
To quote Karl Popper :
“All observation is selective and theory laden. There are no pure or theory-free observations”
He has studied physics thus he may realize by logic alone that no experiment ever will refute the 1st. principle of Physics (i.e., Galileo-Newton law of inertia).
Not because the principle is true but because it is apriori true.
[just as is the “unconscious”-thesis and the “repressive oedipian dynamics” in Freud’s system for explaining mind].
Every unpredicted case of observing a deviation of a body or atom from rest or from the straight path at constant velocity has, and it will always be by default, instantly theorized as the discovery of a new type of force.
That is : tail win head you lose.
As Einstein had it “It is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is theory which decides what we can observe.”
>My question would be: how could we know for sure what happened back then? What truly happened between Freud and his patients? We have Freud’s well-argumented and well-documented case studies, his letters to Fliess.<
What do we learn from his letters to Fliess? Well, for starters, when Freud
was waxing lyrical about “the great number of successes” of his
psychoanalytic treatment in a paper published in February 1898, at
precisely the same time he was confiding to Fliess that “The cases of
hysteria are proceeding especially poorly; I shall not finish a single one
this year either.” In other words, we learn that this a man whose clinical
claims are not to be trusted.
>We have Freud’s well-argumented and well-documented case studies…<
Well-argued case histories? Like that of "Elizabeth von R." in *Studies on
Hysteria*, where Freud's rhetorical sleights of hand (mis)lead the reader
to conclude that the patient came up with a repressed memory that was at
the root of the problem (when it was actually his own surmise) and that she
was cured of her leg pains? See: http://www.srmhp.org/0202/review-01.html
Or the “Dora” analysis, in the course of which, after having had to put up
with Freud’s absurd interpretations for some three months, the 18-year-old
patient walked out on him? Or the Little Hans case history, in which Freud
writes that the little boy “had to be told many things that he could not
say himself”, and “had to be presented with thoughts he didn’t know he
possessed”? Or the “Wolf Man” case history, with its absurd interpretations
and misrepresentations of the facts? Or the “Rat Man” case, on which
Patrick Mahony reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry (August 1990)
that he had documented “Freud’s intentional confabulation and the serious
discrepancies between Freud’s day-to-day process notes of the treatment and
his published case history of it”? (For an examination of these case
histories, see my *Seductive Mirage*, pp. 33-93).
>But even so, what Freud wrote was gradually, as he was advancing step by step in his scientific discoveries…<
What “scientific discoveries”?
>Later, something might come up and upturn the respective theory.<
Since Freud’s theories were not directly based on genuine clinical evidence, his changes of theory were not the result of something (in his clinical practice) coming up. Rather, they were generally the result of his ongoing speculative quest. As Sulloway writes: “Time and time again, Freud saw in his patients what psychoanalytic theory led him to look for and then to interpret the way he did; and when the theory changed, so did the clinical findings.” (1979, p. 498)
> Or, differently said, how can you know that all this ‘evidence’ against Freud was not a set-up by those who were determined to build their argumentation against him and everything he did?<
I have cited above some small part of that evidence. Try reading my chapters on the case histories, or the chapters in F. Crews (ed.), *Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend* (1998). Or you could start with these short essays:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1991/mar06/24360.html
John Coffin writes of the support the Left gave Argentina at the time of the Falklands war:
>And why? because the Soviets had plonked down on the Argentine side. We forget how blatantly much of the old left was dominated by slavish adulation of the USSR.<
I know next to nothing about the US Left in relation to the Falklands war, but it is not the case that the support for the Argentine position by much of the British Left (though not by the Labour Party itself) had anything to do with the view taken by the Soviet Union. (Nor was more than a miniscule part of the British Left dominated by slavish adulation of the USSR at that time.) Those on the British Left who voiced support for the Argentine case did so largely on the basis of a reflex “anti-colonial” stance that disregarded the central issue of whether a long established population should be forced to be incorporated into another nation against their virtually unanimous wishes (regardless of whether it was, as then, ruled by a vicious military junta).
>Further back, and I am not really able to state this with full certainty, didn’t the western left first break out in rampant anti-Semi..(oops) anti-Zionism, the moment that Nasser turned to the Russians for aid in 1954-6?<
Of course a lot depends what is meant here by “western” (attitudes in different western European countries often differ greatly) and “left” (does this include only those who are adamantly “socialist”, or also self-described “social democrats”?). But regardless of this, my recollection is that strong anti-Israel sentiment only developed on the left of the European political spectrum well after the mid-1950s, and had nothing to do with Nasser turning to the USSR. (I can’t speak for the situation in France, where the Communist Party was still the dominant force on the Left in those days.)
Towards a Reasonable Approach to the Israel-Palestine Question
A possible explanation for the rabid anti-Israel sentiments polluting left-wing thought and speech:
Back in ’83, when the Falklands War broke out, I remarked to my brother; ‘wait three weeks, Argentina will be magically transformed into a third-world country.’ Sure enough, the local (Berkeley, California) orthodoxy was out parading the streets in support of the generals in a few days.
Think of it; a fascist dictatorship, which commits mass-murder against its own citizens, with a vast secret police state organized by Nazi war criminals, which actually exports combat aircraft which cannot be used against enemies who can shoot back (the Pucara), is the side of choice against a western democracy.
And why? because the Soviets had plonked down on the Argentine side. We forget how blatantly much of the old left was dominated by slavish adulation of the USSR.
Further back, and I am not really able to state this with full certainty, didn’t the western left first break out in rampant anti-Semi..(oops) anti-Zionism, the moment that Nasser turned to the Russians for aid in 1954-6?
Most old cold war sentiment has succumbed to a more reality based view of history. The True Believer’s articles of faith about the middle east escaped the confrontation with the facts that Hungary and Prague provided for Europe.
PS: GW has certainly earned the rabid hatred of any thinking American. But there is no reasonable connection between that hate and Israel.
>>It is a myth (originating from Freud himself) that his contemporaries were not open to Freud’s theories.<<
>Freud doesn’t say that they were all against him.<
I was responding to your assertion that in the early days of psychoanalysis people were not open to psychoanalytic theories, which is a myth. Freud may not have said that they were all against him (though he comes close to doing so), but he certainly said that no one was for him: “For more than ten years after my separation from Breuer [around 1895] I had no followers. I was completely isolated. In Vienna I was shunned; abroad no notice was taken of me.” (“An Autobiographical Study”). Sulloway (1979) cites three historians who have documented that the “actual historical record… was quite different indeed from this traditional account”.
>He just tries to understand what the motives of those who rejected psychoanalysis and even him as a Jew could have been.<
Freud presents himself as having provided truths so indubitable that he is *forced* to seek non-rational grounds to explain why anyone opposes them. Only someone who accepts this premise can seriously suggest that what he was doing in his “Resistances” essay (and elsewhere) was merely trying to understand the motives of critics of psychoanalysis, rather than using a rhetorical device that enabled him to evade their arguments.
Incidentally, there is no evidence that anti-Semitism played any role among the critics of psychoanalysis in its early days. (Later on, of course, it was a different story.)
>I think Freud identifies several kinds of resistances… Those of doctors or philosophers are of an intellectual kind, while others are simply outraged at what psychoanalytic theories tell them about themselves…<
Yes, Freud distinguishes between the “resistance” of doctors, philosophers, and “scientific critics” respectively – but this is all part of his rhetoric of persuasion, and amounts to a sleight of hand which, as I’ve said, enables him to evade dealing with the actual arguments of critics.
> while others are simply outraged at what psychoanalytic theories tell them about themselves… <
Very, very view of Freud’s critics were outraged by his theories at a time when Krafft-Ebing and Moll, among others, had already written very explicitly about sexual matters, including in relation to children. As Sulloway writes on the basis of the historical research he cites: “strong opposition was not the initial reaction to Freud’s theories; nor was any opposition premised upon the triumvirate of sexual prudery, hostility to innovation, and anti-Semitism that dominates the traditional historical scenarios on this subject.”
> It is not easy to face such theories and truth about oneself, sometimes…<
What “truths”? That “When a boy (from the age of two or three) has entered the phallic phase… he wishes to possess his mother physically in such ways as he has divined from his observations and intuitions about sexual life, and he tries to seduce her by showing her the male organ…”; that the threat of castration, resulting in the “castration complex” is “the severest trauma of an infant boy’s young life”?; that the “second phase” of infantile masturbation “determines the development of [a male child’s] character… and the symptomatology of his neurosis after puberty”?
There’s a pretty obvious reason why the 20th century’s secular tyrannies seemed more sanguinary than the medieval theocrats. They were not in any respect more bloodthirsty – simply in possession of more efficient tools and a larger supply of potential victims. For the first you can thank the industrial revolution, giving us not only machine guns and gas chambers, but the supporting paraphenalia necessary to mass killing such as railways and barbed wire to concentrate the victims, and telecommunications and IBM machines to organise it all.
Secondly, the reason why there were more potential victims to be had stems from the late 19th century’s population boom, due to improvements in agriculture and medicine.
Does anyone think Torquemada or the Duke of Alva would have turned down the chance to use 20th century technology on the Jews, Moors and Protestants?
“jihad – military conquest by the Arabs and their converts. Yet that is largely how Islam has been propagated”
Maybe it is mistaken to assume that it is military conquest that led to the spread of islam. Take for example the conversion of Indonesia. No military conquest took place there. But consider my alternative theory. From the time of mohammed writing to kings to accept islam, it has been the kings who have been the carriers of the islamic (and before that the christian) infection. Islam like christianity required the ruling class to accept that religion first and then over the centuries islamic rulers forced their subjects to convert through terrorising. This will explain the conversion of Indonesia too. Some rulers will allow subjects to retain their religion (like akbar) but some kings will forcibly convert the subjects (like aurangazeb). Some muslims will say that such rulers are not islamic at all (because they forcibly converted which is against islam they will say) but will they then allow such forcibly converted people to leave islam?
But with the progress of civilization wiping out the kings the spread of islam could not take place because the carriers of infections (the kings) have been wiped out.
Do you honestly think climate scientists don’t account for evaporation and cloud reflection in their studies and models? That working biologists are unaware of the existence of monkeys?) Not only have the collected mass of experts probably asked your questions, they probably have a few answers, too.
With reference to the forcing effects of clouds, it seems that there has been recent discussion on whether or not cloud cover provides positive or negative feedback. See: UPDATE: Cause Versus Effect In Feedback Diagnosis by Roy W. Spencer 12/30/2007
Filed under: Guest Weblogs — Roger Pielke Sr. and that CGMs have uniformly assumed that they were positive.
Perhaps there are informed reasons for skepticism about climate alarmism after all.
RE:Hindutva on the attack.
“A mob attacked and vandalized the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in January, destroying books and irreplaceable manuscripts. “
At the outset I want to say that I am shocked and would like the perpetrators to be locked up. But nowhere in any of the articles/news stories have the perpetrators claimed that they are doing it in the name of religion or in the name of hinduism or hindutva. They have done it in the name of sivaji their hero. So then how have you associated this rampage with hindutva? What led you to the belief that this rampage is motivated by religion?
Concerning the matchless prose article: I’ve read that the Muslim faith, like all others, developed and cnanged over a long period of time. It started as an offshoot of Judaism and Christianity, and obviously that’s why the Koran contains bible stories. I believe that the Koran itself formed gradually over a period of at least 150 years, and it contains a hodge-podge of poorly edited and repetitive statements and stories, some fragmented and unintelligible, written by many unknown hands, and then attributed to “Muhammed,” who likely never existed but was created to give this pernicious faith a founder figure, like Moses or Jesus, for the duped and delusional followers to revere. And as for the supposedly flawless Arabic in which it is written, the Koran contains many words borrowed from Aramaic and Syriac, which calls into question not only the “purity” of the language but also the place where Islam originated. A few scholars who think independently enough not to rely on the completely untrustworthy traditional accounts of the origin of Islam believe that it is likely that the faith began in Syria and not in Arabia.
So, here we have a religion which has heavily borrowed from other religions, which has invented its founder and place of origin, but which has the audacity to call itself perfect. Oh well, to each his own.
Reply to comments on the ‘Matchless Prose’ article.
First: thanks for the comments.
dd 030108: I agree with much of what you say; the counterexample of Indonesia was in my mind when I chose the qualifier ‘largely’. As you say, top-down conversion is an easy way of getting the existing bigwigs to do the hard work for you. The problem is getting them on your side in the first place. This can be done by favours and bribery, but nothing works better than having an enormous army waiting outside. Make them an offer they can’t refuse.
My understanding of the non-military Islamisation of Indonesia is that it started in around the 10th/11th century and was not completed until the 17th, after a ‘drive for conversions’ which had lasted since the 14th. Contrast that with the conversion of the Middle East, Persia, North Africa, Spain and Portugal: Muhammad died in 632; the westward expansion of Islam was finally stopped at Tours, in France, 150 miles from the English channel, in 732. (e.g. the Wikipedia article ‘Umayyad conquest of North Africa’). Eastwards, the Arab armies reached the borders of India by 643. I guess from your two recent posts that you’re probably aware of what happened subsequently. Something else was at work to produce such a rapid expansion – naked military might, or at least the threat of it.
Re your last paragraph: it would be nice to think that the Jihad could be stopped by the elimination of monarchies, but I think that top-down conversion is just one of the many unpleasant ways to seize power. What worries me is that a creeping Jihad is clearly underway in the west. Although this may be somewhat slower than the first Jihad, it is potentially a good deal more rapid than the Islamisation
of Indonesia.
Steve Beck 04/01/08: I’ve read such things also, and they illustrate the fact that the origins of Islam are much more uncertain than Muslims would have us believe. The trouble is, the alternative histories may be as uncertain as the orthodox ones and are therefore easy for Muslims to deny.
That’s why I tend to shy away from this subject and concentrate on the inconsistencies and absurdities of the orthodox story. Still, spread the word.
>I feel the column inches given this in the Western press is a factor to be considered. Certainly in the UK there was a feel of crowing over the foolishness of Islam, which is of course seldom balanced with coverage of the converse.< Klaude: What “this” are you referring to? You go on to mention “Iran’s speedy release of the British servicemen captured for illegally transgressing their borders”. Leaving aside that, if it’s the incident involving British Navy personnel a little while back, there was some dispute about whether borders *were* transgressed, this episode relates to a political act by the Iranian state, so where does the issue of the foolishness or otherwise of Islam enter into it?
Religious proponents often mistakenly assume that those who do not believe in their ideology are atheists and from this they equate the atrocities of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union with atheism.
But, as usual, they miss the point. The distinction has to be made between ideologies based on rational, reasoned thought and those based on dogma and the unthinking adherence to the irrational. In this respect, religions share the same foundations as those ideologies that sustained Nazism and Totalitarian Communism.
It matter little if you use Mein Kampf, Das Kapital or the Bible and Koran as your justification – oppression and murder is still wrong.
I feel the column inches given this in the Western press is a factor to be considered. Certainly in the UK there was a feel of crowing over the foolishness of Islam, which is of course seldom balanced with coverage of the converse.
Take for example the subdued tones and brevity of positive commentary on Iran’s speedy release of the British servicemen captured for illegally transgressing their borders. It was a struggle to find ill-words to speak of that, yet of course they were found; while next to nothing is said in press of the protracted and in some cases permanent disappearance of Iranians captured by our side.
So while one agrees that political manipulation was involved, one cannot agree that it was monolateral.
VERY IMPORTANT STATISTICS CONCERNING KORAN
By
Larry Houle
http://www.godofreason.com
intermedusa@yahoo.com
Muthuswamy cites research on the Koran, conducted by the Center for Political Islam, which illustrates the Islamic focus on conformist behavior and beliefs. According to the Center’s analysis of the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith, only 17% of the Islamic trilogy deals with the words of Allah. The remaining 83% refers to the words and deeds of Mohammed. Of all of the references to “hell” in the trilogy, 6% are for moral failings, while 94% are for the transgression of disagreeing with Mohammed. Statistical analysis of the trilogy revealed that 97% of references to “jihad” relate to war and a mere 3% to the concept of “inner struggle.”
About 67% of the Koran of Mecca deals with punishing unbelievers for merely disagreeing with Mohammed. Over 50% of the Koran of Medina deals with hypocrites and jihad against unbelievers. Nearly 75% of the Sira deals with jihad. About 20% of the Hadith by Bukhari is about jihad. The majority of the doctrine is political and it is all violent.
In 4% of the cases, women were superior, in 91% of the cases they were inferior and in 5% they were equal. But there is a big catch. The only way that women are equal is after death on Judgment day, when men and women will be judged on how well they followed the Koran and the Sunna. And guess what? The only way to follow the Koran and the Sunna is to obey men. Equality means obeying men
Woman are superior by being a mother, who must obey her husband. So the perfect woman on Judgment day will be a mother, who obeyed all the men in her life. So really, the women are subordinate to men in 100% of all of the Koran, Hadith and the Sira.
What a dreadful situation It reminds me rebel angels and Magdalene Sisters
What a dreadful situation It reminds me rebel angels and Magdalene Sisters
Once again, there’s a great over-generalization of who’s to blame. This is a blame game, isn’t it?
The governments that grew out of Catholicism did not represent even to the iota what the doctrine of Christianity is (hence the teachings of Christ). But, this isn’t about that, is it? It’s about the hunting of the scapegoat.
I’ve yet to meet an atheist that could prove that atheism (opposition to spiritual religion) is not a serious component of the worst communist dictators in the world who sought to remove religion from society, nor that could show me where the Catholic perversion of faith represented the sayings of Christ.
If you say you are a devoted vegetarian, but eat meat, then you are not a vegetarian, even if you say you are one – is that too simple to understand?
Ah, but small prejudiced and bigoted minds flock together, don’t they. It does not matter whether by spiritual or non spiritual “religiously” agreed organization, there are always going to be the thugs and gangs who seek to destroy the others who are not like them.
This is the common ground for the extremist and hostile hypocrite religionists and the ardent zealot atheist, for atheism potential is no different in it’s quest to dominate and suppress religion (and those who freely choose spiritual religion), as those who hijack religion for political gain and militaristic domination. Both inaccurately represent freedom or spirituality, and both are highly capable (when organized in hatred) of destroying humanity through hearts of dictatorial desires.
Oddly enough, through the prejudice still remains one common factor – humans capable of reason, but nevertheless selfish and demanding their way when they think they have authority over others by some heightened sense of superiority – whether by self proclaimed intellect or not.
This becomes an organized religion (designed of hatred) when many agree it’s time to take down one group or the other through force and domination based on the sets of agreements or justifications drawn out of theories.
Religion does not require god or need spiritual affects to be a religion – just reasons and a purpose to organize through sets of rules based on philosophies, idealisms and beliefs.
Even if you borrow “quotes” from other atheists who agree collectively to organize your mantras of anti-religion, then you are creating a a collection of quotes that are a collection of reasons to agree (a bible), and therefore creating a religion – sets of agreements and ideas that join together for a cause. It becomes a spiritual practice if you join together to make a change that will effect the masses or even an individual for the sake of belief in improvement based on theoretical perspectives.
Atheism is a religion.
(enter predictable denial here)
To be a real atheist is to not organize for a purpose against any group, for once you do, you become a hypocrite. An atheist simply does not believe in spirituality, which goes to say that they also should not operate on unproven theory of any kind, otherwise they cross the line of “reason” and enter into ideology and even spiritualism – which eventually leads to religion.
In the first of the articles by Brian Whitaker to which B&W has linked he writes on so-called “honour killings”:
“This is an area where Muslim organisations could do a lot to help. There is general agreement (notwithstanding the Islamic Action Front) that ‘honour’ killing has no basis in Islamic teaching.”
http://tinyurl.com/2978zn
Whitaker then refers the reader to a page on the “popular IslamOnline website”, and this turns up some interesting material: http://tinyurl.com/aaekd
>Question: What does Islam say about honor killings? Does Islam really have a concept of honor killings, most of the victims here are females; so does Islam really order to kill females in the name of honor?< Reply from “Islam Online Fatwa Editing Desk”: >Sister, it’s a well-known fact that Islam maintains the protection of life and does not sanction any violation against it. In the Glorious Qur’an, Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93)”< Later paragraphs go on to quote Muslim authorities that reject the concept of “honour killings” as not sanctioned by Islam. However, the paragraph immediately following the one quoted above is of more than a little interest: >`Abdullah ibn Mas`ud, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The blood of a Muslim may not be legally spilt other than in one of three [instances]: the married person who commits adultery; a life for a life; and one who forsakes his religion and abandons the community.” (Reported by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)< So a website that Whitaker cites as “popular” states that Islam sanctions the spilling of blood (in the context of a discussion of “honour killings” this can only mean death) for adulterers and apostates. How authoritative is this popular website? The link “About Us” brings up a webpage that states: >This site aims to present a unified and lively Islam that keeps up with modern times in all areas…
>Our goal is for this site to be worthy of your trust. To reach our goal, a committee of the major scholars throughout the Islamic world, headed by Dr. Yusuf Qardawi, was formed. Its role is to ensure that nothing on this site violates the fixed principles of Islamic law (Shar’ia). The committee includes experts in politics, economics, the media, sociology, technology, the arts, and other fields, all of whom are committed to participate in the Islamic Renaissance in all fields and at all levels…<
http://www.islamonline.net/English/AboutUs.shtml
Note that the committee of major Islamic scholars that approves of death for adulterers and apostates is headed by London Mayor Ken Livingtone’s favoured Islamic scholar Dr. Yusuf Qardawi:
http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=4744
Larry Houle and Allen Esterson
Larry: Interesting statistics: it’s emphatic confirmation of the general impression you get when you read the Quran. By the way, have you thought of using a slightly smaller font on your website?
Allen: Yours is a good example of what you find when you look behind the soothing Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace type of statement. There’s usually a nasty sting in the tail somewhere.
For anyone who’s interested: I’ve found that you can get a good idea of what those reassuring Quran quotes really mean from the Tafsir Ibn
Kathir ( e.g. http://www.theholybook.org/index.php/content/section/1/2/). It takes a bit of finding your way around, but it’s well worth the trouble. It’s mainstream Islam without the PR.
Dear Christopher, I am totally with you in denouncing the atrocities that religious organizations have committed. But are you fair when you say that the 20th-century wars have “obviously” been caused by religions? That some religious organizations have participated, sometimes unfortunately with great motives, to the Holocaust is one thing. Saying that the philosophy of these wars was fundamentally religious is another. And I do not see any problem in accepting as well that atheist ideas, as much as religious ideas, as much as any idea for that purpose, can do a lot of harm.
Your accusation should not focus on the type of ideas, atheist, religious, etc, but on the dogma they create and their followers. Dogmatism is, I think, the true “evil”. Any extrem is. Don’t drink too much wine. And don’t take any idea as The Truth. After all, these ideas are human made. Religious or atheist, we should all stay humble and remind ourselves how ignorant we are.
Re the linked article “Charlie Wilson’s Flaw”: The journalist (Martin Woollacott, former foreign editor of the Guardian) who is complaining about the distorted view of history contained in the film “Charlie Wilson’s War” perpetrates the following paragraph:
“When the Soviet Union was drawn into Afghanistan, Russian leaders believed they could transform the country’s incompetent, brutal and faction-ridden communist government into a more moderate and effective administration, bringing in non-communists and seeking change in society through consultation rather than coercion.”
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_woollacott/profile.html
The Soviet Union was “drawn into” Afghanistan? Would that have been the result of some occult force? Can you imagine Woollacott writing in the Guardian that the US was “drawn into Iraq”?
I was amazed at the high body count… I can’t believe they went through so many people! The count for Japan though appears a little low. Aside from the rape of Nanking are you counting up the other atrocities they carried out. I think they attempted biological warfare and mass bombings so the body count for them should be much higher.
To the previous comment: the Soviet Union was “drawn” into Afghanistan because they thought they would be in and out. But once they were in they had to stay a little longer and longer… The term is misleading; it is better to say they were drawn into and extended war after willingly invading the country.
To Francios: Domatism and extremism isn’t the problem; I happen to be a dogmatic realist and I know that no when has even been killed for my case. The problem is belief systems that rationalize themselves, paint a black and white world and excuse murder. Religion fits the bill perfectly (Communism is close, but weaker in the first category). Although not all activities that he gives are religiously motivated. The holocaust grew out of antisemitism which came from two stream; the anti immigrant backlash to their arrival in the 1890s (pogroms kicked them out of Russia) and the blood libel and refusal of Jews to convert to Christianity, the second being and entirely religious motive. The witch burning were backed by church sanction (and are still today; look up Nigeria, witches and children) and the Japanese war machine was justified in the name of the God Emporer. Repeated Jihads have raged across Northern Africa between the muslims, infidels and “fallen” muslims in an effort to “purify” the area. The Cather crusade elimated the population of Southern France (whose crime was thinking different things about god) and the Arian heresy lead to many becoming maytars for doubting the trinity. Thoughtcrimes basicly.
Felis seems to equate skepticism with ignorance. That is not necessarily true. I am very skeptical about most of modern theoretical physics, beginning with Special Relativity. I am a summa cum laude graduate of Tufts University (BSEE 1959). I have an IQ of 158. I exhaustively study the subjects of which I am skeptical. I know more about Special Relativity than most who teach it.
I wish to post my comment not in praise (though I hold it generally) or criticism (of which I have a triffle amount) but of clarification with regards to comments and criticisms A FRIEND of mine has brought up but which I seem incapable of countering on my own behalf or Richard Dawkins’.
My friend’s problem is his (I believe erroneous) fixation on Dawkins credentials and presentation. What I (or my friend) means is that, from what he’s seen of his college lecture, that he sees Dawkins presented SOLELY as a SCIENTIST (as opposed, say, to his presentation as an “athiest” and “author” on the O’Reilly Factor), therefore lending SCIENTIFIC credence to what he is saying. My friend perceives a man preaching as a scientist that he has PROVEN using SCIENCE that God does not exist. For me, it is enough that he merely disproves the ARGUMENTS given (often by fiat bereft of proof) by theists using the rules of logic and reason, which incidentally place the burden of proof in the lap of those making the claim of God’s existance to prove, and not Dawkins to disprove. Elsewhere Dawkins does say that science actually cannot prove this 100% (nor can it prove anything without some small margin of error or possibility of future revision or rejection) but I don’t think my friend has heard this, or rather, doesn’t want to, cherry picking “proves that God doesn’t exist” to make his point that Dawkins actaully cannot do that and thus is bogus. If Dawkins can groan when theists cherry pick statements by Hawkins and Einstein, wishing they’s never invoked the name of God “for poetry’s sake or colloquialism’s” then shouldn’t Dawkins (or his publishers) similarly avoid being vague or sensationalist in their endeavors?
Dawkins has also said that he’d be willing to hear or see any evidence or good argument. It seems my friend won’t be satisfied until an alleged-God is slumped on an operating table so Dawkins can, scalpel and gene-sequencing laboratory on stand-by, can operate his SCIENCE on it, instead of, what my friend claims, is mere literary wit – a “stand-up routine” “preaching to the choir” over ethical and philosophical debates, not scientific ones.
My friend also thinks Dawkins has “a serious problem” with Christianity in particular, despite how he does acknowledge other religions and has tackled the question of ANY god. I tried to explain this in view that it was Dawkin’s original “born into” faith, and that it currently is the main one attempting via pseudoscience to taint science curriculum and other reasons, and it would be ludicrous for him to spend his time lambasting, say, Wotan over the Christian God. That seems obvious, but then again I am not biased in favor of a God. I am not necessarily biased against it either, for I was brought up and schooled Catholic (my friend, not), so I think my bias is toward a sound argument and evidence. Anyway, such is my practice in viewing opposing arguments, like watching An Inconvenient Truth (where Gore’s non-scientist standing is apparently irrelevant) back-to-back with The Great Global Warming Swindle and Farenheit 9-11 with Farenhype 9-11, etc.
Is anyone up for clarifying this? “Your friend is obviously an idiot” won’t cut it in my book, for his criticisms do have some merit.
BTW, I certainly did enjoy the article initiating this thread, on par with the briefer and more poignant sarcasm of “The Courtier’s Reply.”
And Dawkins, if you are reading or deign to answer personally, I appreciate your efforts thus far. And do please convey my admiration to Lalla, who appears to be eclipsed by all of this but whom as a child I had admired as a certain travelling companion and was delighted to discover was coincidentally wed to this Dawkins figure I had recently begun investigating…
HF:
>The problem with Freud was only that he invented the evidence for his theories, i.e., lied about cures, discoveries, and effects brought about by his “analytic” procedures.< My question would be: how could we know for sure what happened back then? What truly happened between Freud and his patients? We have Freud’s well-argumented and well-documented case studies, his letters to Fliess. But even so, what Freud wrote was gradually, as he was advancing step by step in his scientific discoveries. Later he would add something to his writings, as he would progress in his discoveries. Even if he lied a little here and there, he had a theory in his mind, and he was trying to prove it. Later, something might come up and upturn the respective theory. Everything was then in the process of making. We also know that it often happens that patients become angry and upset, especially if the treatment lasts for a long time and with no visible immediate results. Psychoanalytic cures often last for a long time. You can’t just take the word for it from a revolted patient. Or, differently said, how can you know that all this ‘evidence’ against Freud was not a set-up by those who were determined to build their argumentation against him and everything he did?
Allen Esterson:
>It is a myth (originating from Freud himself) that his contemporaries were not open to Freud’s theories.< Freud doesn’t say that they were all against him. He just tries to understand what the motives of those who rejected psychoanalysis and even him as a Jew could have been.
Allen Esterson:
>So we are told that “the strongest resistances to psychoanalysis were not of an intellectual kind, but arose from emotional sources…< I think Freud identifies several kinds of resistances… Those of doctors or philosophers are of an intellectual kind, while others are simply outraged at what psychoanalytic theories tell them about themselves… It is not easy to face such theories and truth about oneself, sometimes…
>”A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”< This comment has to be considered carefully before jumping to conclusions about what it is actually saying (or the extent that it is true anyway). It does *not* necessarily imply that most scientific innovations are opposed by most mainstream scientists. In fact this is not generally the case, although of course a period of time often occurs while the ideas are being absorbed and assessed. Within a relatively short time *most* mainstream scientists (the great majority) accepted quantum theory. Note that (i) I wrote *most*, not all (ii) I wrote quantum theory, not quantum mechanics, though here again quantum mechanics became part of mainstream physics in a remarkably short time after it was introduced in 1925. Of course people can find exceptions by citing specific theories or specific scientists, but I’m talking about the general state of affairs in science.
Looking again at what HF wrote, I see I misinterpreted the point he is making, which evidently is that it is “typical” for scientific innovators to argue in the same manner as Freud, and posit that opposition to their theories results from their opponents not being able to overcome emotional attachment to the current theory. (Though in fact what Freud was arguing was rather different, namely that his opponents unconsciously recognized the truth of his theories about infantile phantasy life (Oedipus, etc), but resisted them because they were psychologically unable to face up to their implications, because they were so shocking.)
There is something in the notion that an innovative scientist may see opposition to his theory as indicative of an emotional attachment to the current theory (especially in the case of opposition from scientists who had a hand in developing the current theory). But taken as a generalisation, it is simply not the case that innovative scientists *typically* use such arguments in scientific debate.
>we are told that “the strongest resistances to psychoanalysis were not of an intellectual kind, but arose from emotional sources…>
Typical rhetoric in such situations.
Max Planck “explained” the opposition of the mainstream physicists to the “quantum” hypothesis as :
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
quoted in Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
>Sulloway writes: “Time and time again, Freud saw in his patients what psychoanalytic theory led him to look for and then to interpret the way he did; and when the theory changed, so did the clinical findings.”
We have been here before but unfortunately Allen still hasn’t understood how theories work and what is their relation with the experiment.
To quote Karl Popper :
“All observation is selective and theory laden. There are no pure or theory-free observations”
He has studied physics thus he may realize by logic alone that no experiment ever will refute the 1st. principle of Physics (i.e., Galileo-Newton law of inertia).
Not because the principle is true but because it is apriori true.
[just as is the “unconscious”-thesis and the “repressive oedipian dynamics” in Freud’s system for explaining mind].
Every unpredicted case of observing a deviation of a body or atom from rest or from the straight path at constant velocity has, and it will always be by default, instantly theorized as the discovery of a new type of force.
That is : tail win head you lose.
As Einstein had it “It is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is theory which decides what we can observe.”
I. writes:
>My question would be: how could we know for sure what happened back then? What truly happened between Freud and his patients? We have Freud’s well-argumented and well-documented case studies, his letters to Fliess.< What do we learn from his letters to Fliess? Well, for starters, when Freud was waxing lyrical about “the great number of successes” of his psychoanalytic treatment in a paper published in February 1898, at precisely the same time he was confiding to Fliess that “The cases of hysteria are proceeding especially poorly; I shall not finish a single one this year either.” In other words, we learn that this a man whose clinical claims are not to be trusted. >We have Freud’s well-argumented and well-documented case studies…< Well-argued case histories? Like that of "Elizabeth von R." in *Studies on Hysteria*, where Freud's rhetorical sleights of hand (mis)lead the reader to conclude that the patient came up with a repressed memory that was at the root of the problem (when it was actually his own surmise) and that she was cured of her leg pains? See: http://www.srmhp.org/0202/review-01.html
Or the “Dora” analysis, in the course of which, after having had to put up
with Freud’s absurd interpretations for some three months, the 18-year-old
patient walked out on him? Or the Little Hans case history, in which Freud
writes that the little boy “had to be told many things that he could not
say himself”, and “had to be presented with thoughts he didn’t know he
possessed”? Or the “Wolf Man” case history, with its absurd interpretations
and misrepresentations of the facts? Or the “Rat Man” case, on which
Patrick Mahony reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry (August 1990)
that he had documented “Freud’s intentional confabulation and the serious
discrepancies between Freud’s day-to-day process notes of the treatment and
his published case history of it”? (For an examination of these case
histories, see my *Seductive Mirage*, pp. 33-93).
>But even so, what Freud wrote was gradually, as he was advancing step by step in his scientific discoveries…< What “scientific discoveries”? >Later, something might come up and upturn the respective theory.< Since Freud’s theories were not directly based on genuine clinical evidence, his changes of theory were not the result of something (in his clinical practice) coming up. Rather, they were generally the result of his ongoing speculative quest. As Sulloway writes: “Time and time again, Freud saw in his patients what psychoanalytic theory led him to look for and then to interpret the way he did; and when the theory changed, so did the clinical findings.” (1979, p. 498) > Or, differently said, how can you know that all this ‘evidence’ against Freud was not a set-up by those who were determined to build their argumentation against him and everything he did?< I have cited above some small part of that evidence. Try reading my chapters on the case histories, or the chapters in F. Crews (ed.), *Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend* (1998). Or you could start with these short essays: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1991/mar06/24360.html
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/print/borc01_.html
John Coffin writes of the support the Left gave Argentina at the time of the Falklands war:
>And why? because the Soviets had plonked down on the Argentine side. We forget how blatantly much of the old left was dominated by slavish adulation of the USSR.< I know next to nothing about the US Left in relation to the Falklands war, but it is not the case that the support for the Argentine position by much of the British Left (though not by the Labour Party itself) had anything to do with the view taken by the Soviet Union. (Nor was more than a miniscule part of the British Left dominated by slavish adulation of the USSR at that time.) Those on the British Left who voiced support for the Argentine case did so largely on the basis of a reflex “anti-colonial” stance that disregarded the central issue of whether a long established population should be forced to be incorporated into another nation against their virtually unanimous wishes (regardless of whether it was, as then, ruled by a vicious military junta). >Further back, and I am not really able to state this with full certainty, didn’t the western left first break out in rampant anti-Semi..(oops) anti-Zionism, the moment that Nasser turned to the Russians for aid in 1954-6?< Of course a lot depends what is meant here by “western” (attitudes in different western European countries often differ greatly) and “left” (does this include only those who are adamantly “socialist”, or also self-described “social democrats”?). But regardless of this, my recollection is that strong anti-Israel sentiment only developed on the left of the European political spectrum well after the mid-1950s, and had nothing to do with Nasser turning to the USSR. (I can’t speak for the situation in France, where the Communist Party was still the dominant force on the Left in those days.)
Towards a Reasonable Approach to the Israel-Palestine Question
A possible explanation for the rabid anti-Israel sentiments polluting left-wing thought and speech:
Back in ’83, when the Falklands War broke out, I remarked to my brother; ‘wait three weeks, Argentina will be magically transformed into a third-world country.’ Sure enough, the local (Berkeley, California) orthodoxy was out parading the streets in support of the generals in a few days.
Think of it; a fascist dictatorship, which commits mass-murder against its own citizens, with a vast secret police state organized by Nazi war criminals, which actually exports combat aircraft which cannot be used against enemies who can shoot back (the Pucara), is the side of choice against a western democracy.
And why? because the Soviets had plonked down on the Argentine side. We forget how blatantly much of the old left was dominated by slavish adulation of the USSR.
Further back, and I am not really able to state this with full certainty, didn’t the western left first break out in rampant anti-Semi..(oops) anti-Zionism, the moment that Nasser turned to the Russians for aid in 1954-6?
Most old cold war sentiment has succumbed to a more reality based view of history. The True Believer’s articles of faith about the middle east escaped the confrontation with the facts that Hungary and Prague provided for Europe.
PS: GW has certainly earned the rabid hatred of any thinking American. But there is no reasonable connection between that hate and Israel.
I. writes, quoting me first:
>>It is a myth (originating from Freud himself) that his contemporaries were not open to Freud’s theories.<<
>Freud doesn’t say that they were all against him.< I was responding to your assertion that in the early days of psychoanalysis people were not open to psychoanalytic theories, which is a myth. Freud may not have said that they were all against him (though he comes close to doing so), but he certainly said that no one was for him: “For more than ten years after my separation from Breuer [around 1895] I had no followers. I was completely isolated. In Vienna I was shunned; abroad no notice was taken of me.” (“An Autobiographical Study”). Sulloway (1979) cites three historians who have documented that the “actual historical record… was quite different indeed from this traditional account”. >He just tries to understand what the motives of those who rejected psychoanalysis and even him as a Jew could have been.< Freud presents himself as having provided truths so indubitable that he is *forced* to seek non-rational grounds to explain why anyone opposes them. Only someone who accepts this premise can seriously suggest that what he was doing in his “Resistances” essay (and elsewhere) was merely trying to understand the motives of critics of psychoanalysis, rather than using a rhetorical device that enabled him to evade their arguments. Incidentally, there is no evidence that anti-Semitism played any role among the critics of psychoanalysis in its early days. (Later on, of course, it was a different story.) >I think Freud identifies several kinds of resistances… Those of doctors or philosophers are of an intellectual kind, while others are simply outraged at what psychoanalytic theories tell them about themselves…< Yes, Freud distinguishes between the “resistance” of doctors, philosophers, and “scientific critics” respectively – but this is all part of his rhetoric of persuasion, and amounts to a sleight of hand which, as I’ve said, enables him to evade dealing with the actual arguments of critics. > while others are simply outraged at what psychoanalytic theories tell them about themselves… < Very, very view of Freud’s critics were outraged by his theories at a time when Krafft-Ebing and Moll, among others, had already written very explicitly about sexual matters, including in relation to children. As Sulloway writes on the basis of the historical research he cites: “strong opposition was not the initial reaction to Freud’s theories; nor was any opposition premised upon the triumvirate of sexual prudery, hostility to innovation, and anti-Semitism that dominates the traditional historical scenarios on this subject.” > It is not easy to face such theories and truth about oneself, sometimes…< What “truths”? That “When a boy (from the age of two or three) has entered the phallic phase… he wishes to possess his mother physically in such ways as he has divined from his observations and intuitions about sexual life, and he tries to seduce her by showing her the male organ…”; that the threat of castration, resulting in the “castration complex” is “the severest trauma of an infant boy’s young life”?; that the “second phase” of infantile masturbation “determines the development of [a male child’s] character… and the symptomatology of his neurosis after puberty”?