# Does Religion Cause Violence?



## Blake Bowden (Mar 27, 2012)

(THOUGHTS FOR DISCUSSION)

EVERYONE KNOWS that religion has a dangerous tendency to promote violence. This story is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies, and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of religion to efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East.

In this essay, I am going to challenge that conventional wisdom, but not in the ways it is usually challenged by people who identify themselves as religious. Such people will sometimes argue that the real motivation behind so-called religious violence is in fact economic and political, not religious. Others will argue that people who do violence are, by definition, not religious. The Crusader is not really a Christian, for example, because he doesn't really understand the meaning of Christianity. I don't think that either of these arguments works. In the first place, it is impossible to separate out religious from economic and political motives in such a way that religious motives are innocent of violence. How could one, for example, separate religion from politics in Islam, when Muslims themselves make no such separation? In the second place, it may be the case that the Crusader has misappropriated the true message of Christ, but one cannot therefore excuse Christianity of all responsibility. Christianity is not primarily a set of doctrines, but a lived historical experience embodied and shaped by the empirically observable actions of Christians. So I have no intention of excusing Christianity or Islam or any other faith system from careful analysis. Given certain conditions, Christianity, Islam, and other faiths can and do contribute to violence.

But what is implied in the conventional wisdom that religion is prone to violence is that Christianity, Islam, and other faiths are more inclined toward violence than ideologies and institutions that are identified as "secular." It is this story that I will challenge here. I will do so in two steps. First, I will show that the division of ideologies and institutions into the categories "religious" and "secular" is an arbitrary and incoherent division. When we examine academic arguments that religion causes violence, we find that what does or does not count as religion is based on subjective and indefensible assumptions. As a result certain kinds of violence are condemned, and others are ignored. Second, I ask, "If the idea that there is something called 'religion' that is more violent than so-called 'secular' phenomena is so incoherent, why is the idea so pervasive?" The answer, I think, is that we in the West find it comforting and ideologically useful. The myth of religious violence helps create a blind spot about the violence of the putatively secular nation-state. We like to believe that the liberal state arose to make peace between warring religious factions. Today, the Western liberal state is charged with the burden of creating peace in the face of the cruel religious fanaticism of the Muslim world. The myth of religious violence promotes a dichotomy between us in the secular West who are rational and peacemaking, and them, the hordes of violent religious fanatics in the Muslim world. Their violence is religious, and therefore irrational and divisive. Our violence, on the other hand, is rational, peacemaking, and necessary. Regrettably, we find ourselves forced to bomb them into the higher rationality.

The Incoherence of the Argument
The English-speaking academic world has been inundatedâ€”especially since September 11, 2001â€”by books and articles attempting to explain why religion has a peculiar tendency toward violence. They come from authors in many different fields: sociology, political science, religious studies, history, theology. I don't have time here to analyze each argument in depth, but I will examine a variety of examplesâ€”taken from some of the most prominent books on the subjectâ€”of what they all have in common: an inability to find a convincing way to separate religious violence from secular violence.

Charles Kimball's book When Religion Becomes Evil begins with the following claim: "It is somewhat trite, but nevertheless sadly true, to say that more wars have been waged, more people killed, and these days more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history."1 Kimball apparently considers this claim too trite to need proving, for he makes no attempt to reinforce it with evidence. If one were to try to prove it, one would need a concept of religion that would be at least theoretically separable from other institutional forces over the course of history. Kimball does not identify those rival institutional forces, but an obvious contender might be political institutions: tribes, empires, kingdoms, fiefs, states, and so on. The problem is that religion was not considered something separable from such political institutions until the modern era, and then primarily in the West. What sense could be made of separating out Egyptian or Roman "religion" from the Egyptian or Roman "state"? Is Aztec "politics" to blame for their bloody human sacrifices, or is Aztec "religion" to blame? As Wilfred Cantwell Smith showed in his landmark 1962 book, The Meaning and End of Religion, "religion" as a discrete category of human activity separable from "culture," "politics," and other areas of life is an invention of the modern West. In the course of a detailed historical study of the concept "religion," Smith was compelled to conclude that in premodern Europe there was no significant concept equivalent to what we think of as "religion," and furthermore there is no "closely equivalent concept in any culture that has not been influenced by the modern West."2 Since Smith's book, Russell McCutcheon, Richard King, Derek Peterson, and a host of other scholars have demonstrated how European colonial bureaucrats invented the concept of religion in the course of categorizing non-Western colonized cultures as irrational and antimodern.3

Now that we do have a separate concept of "religion," though, is the concept a coherent one? Jonathan Z. Smith writes: "Religion is solely the creation of the scholar's study . . . . Religion has no independent existence apart from the academy."4 Brian C. Wilson says that the inability to define religion is "almost an article of methodological dogma" in the field of religious studies.5 Timothy Fitzgerald argues that there is no coherent concept of religion; the term should be regarded as a form of mystification and scrapped.6 We have one group of scholars convinced that religion causes violence, and another group of scholars which does not think that there is such a thing as "religion," except as an intellectual construct of highly dubious value.

The former group carries on as if the latter did not exist. Kimball is one of the few who acknowledges the problem, but he dismisses it as merely semantic. Describing how flustered his students become when he asks them to write a definition of "religion," Kimball asserts, "Clearly these bright students know what religion is"; they just have trouble defining it. After all, Kimball assures us, "Religion is a central feature of human life. We all see many indications of it every day, and we all know it when we see it."7 When an academic says such a thing, you should react as you would when a used car salesman says, "Everybody knows this is a good car." The fact is that we don't all know it when we see it. A survey of religious studies literature finds totems, witchcraft, the rights of man, Marxism, liberalism, Japanese tea ceremonies, nationalism, sports, free market ideology, and a host of other institutions and practices treated under the rubric "religion."8 If one tries to limit the definition of religion to belief in God or gods, then certain belief systems that are usually called "religions" are eliminated, such as Theravada Buddhism and Confucianism. If the definition is expanded to include such belief systems, then all sorts of practices, including many that are usually labeled "secular," fall under the definition of religion. Many institutions and ideologies that do not explicitly refer to God or gods function in the same way as those that do. The case for nationalism as a religion, for example, has been made repeatedly from Carlton Hayes's 1960 classic Nationalism: A Religion to more recent works by Peter van der Veer, Talal Asad, Carolyn Marvin, and others.9 Carolyn Marvin argues that "nationalism is the most powerful religion in the United States."10

At this point I can imagine an objection being raised that goes like this: "So the concept of religion has some fuzzy edges. So does every concept. We might not be able to nail down, once and for all and in all cases, what a 'culture' is, or what qualifies as 'politics,' for example, but nevertheless the concepts remain useful. All may not agree on the periphery of these concepts, but sufficient agreement on the center of such concepts makes them practical and functional. Most people know that 'religion' includes Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the major 'world religions.' Whether or not Buddhism or Confucianism fits is a boundary dispute best left up to scholars who make their living splitting hairs."

This appears to be a commonsense response, but it misses the point rather completely. In the first place, when some scholars question whether the category of religion is useful at all, it is more than a boundary dispute. There are some who do not believe there is a center. In the second place, and much more significantly, the problem with the "religion and violence" arguments is not that their working definitions of religion are too fuzzy. The problem is precisely the opposite. Their implicit definitions of religion are unjustifiably clear about what does and does not qualify as a religion. Certain belief systems, like Islam, are condemned, while certain others, like nationalism, are arbitrarily ignored.

This becomes most apparent when the authors in question attempt to explain why religion is so prone to violence. Although theories vary, we can sort them into three categories: religion is absolutist, religion is divisive, and religion is irrational. Many authors appeal to more than one of these arguments. In the face of evidence that so-called secular ideologies and institutions can be just as absolutist, divisive, or irrational, these authors tend to erect an arbitrary barrier between "secular" and "religious" ideologies and institutions, and ignore the former.

Consider the case of the preeminent historian Martin Marty. In a book on public religion, Politics, Religion, and the Common Good, Marty argues that religion has a particular tendency to be divisive and therefore violent. When it comes to defining what "religion" means, however, Marty lists 17 different definitions of religion, then begs off giving his own definition, since, he says, "cholars will never agree on the definition of religion." Instead, Marty gives a list of five "features" that mark a religion. He then proceeds to show how "politics" displays all five of the same features. Religion focuses our ultimate concern, and so does politics. Religion builds community, and so does politics. Religion appeals to myth and symbol, and politics "mimics" this appeal in devotion to the flag, war memorials, and so on. Religion uses rites and ceremonies, such as circumcision and baptism, and "[p]olitics also depends on rites and ceremonies," even in avowedly secular nations. Religion requires followers to behave in certain ways, and "[p]olitics and governments also demand certain behaviors." In offering five defining features of "religion," and showing how "politics" fits all five, he is trying to show how closely intertwined religion and politics are, but he ends up demolishing any theoretical basis for separating the two. Nevertheless, he continues on to warn of the dangers of religion, while ignoring the violent tendencies of supposedly "secular" politics. For example, Marty cites the many cases of Jehovah's Witnesses who were attacked, beaten, tarred, castrated, and imprisoned in the United States in the 1940s because they believed that followers of Jesus Christ should not salute a flag. One would think that he would draw the obvious conclusion that zealous nationalism can cause violence. Instead, Marty concludes: "it became obvious that religion, which can pose 'us' versus 'them' . . . carries risks and can be perceived by others as dangerous. Religion can cause all kinds of trouble in the public arena."11 For Marty, "religion" refers not to the ritual vowing of allegiance to a flag, but only to the Jehovah's Witnesses refusal to do so.

As you can see, we need not rely only on McCutcheon, Smith, King, Fitzgerald, and the rest to show us that the religious/secular dichotomy is incoherent. Religion-and-violence theorists inevitably undermine their own distinctions. Take, for example, sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer's book Terror in the Mind of God, perhaps the most widely influential academic book on religion and violence. According to Juergensmeyer, religion exacerbates the tendency to divide people into friends and enemies, good and evil, us and them, by ratcheting divisions up to a cosmic level. "What makes religious violence particularly savage and relentless" is that it puts worldly conflicts in a "larger than life" context of "cosmic war." Secular political conflictsâ€”that is, "more rational" conflicts, such as those over landâ€”are of a fundamentally different character than those in which the stakes have been raised by religious absolutism to cosmic proportions. Religious violence differs from secular violence in that it is symbolic, absolutist, and unrestrained by historical time.12

However, keeping the notion of cosmic war separate from secular political war is impossible on Juergensmeyer's own terms. Juergensmeyer undermines this distinction in the course of his own analysis. For example, what he says about cosmic war is virtually indistinguishable from what he says about war in general:

Looking closely at the notion of war, one is confronted with the idea of dichotomous opposition on an absolute scale. . . . War suggests an all-or-nothing struggle against an enemy whom one assumes to be determined to destroy. No compromise is deemed possible. The very existence of the opponent is a threat, and until the enemy is either crushed or contained, one's own existence cannot be secure. What is striking about a martial attitude is the certainty of one's position and the willingness to defend it, or impose it on others, to the end.

Such certitude on the part of one side may be regarded as noble by those whose sympathies lie with it and dangerous by those who do not. But either way it is not rational.13

War provides an excuse not to compromise. In other words, "War provides a reason to be violent. This is true even if the worldly issues at heart in the dispute do not seem to warrant such a ferocious position." The division between mundane secular war and cosmic war vanishes as fast as it was constructed. According to Juergensmeyer, war itself is a "worldview"; indeed, "The concept of war provides cosmology, history, and eschatology and offers the reins of political control." "Like the rituals provided by religious traditions, warfare is a participatory drama that exemplifiesâ€”and thus explainsâ€”the most profound aspects of life." Here, war itself is a kind of religious practice.

At times Juergensmeyer admits the difficulty of separating religious violence from mere political violence. "Much of what I have said about religious terrorism in this book may be applied to other forms of political violenceâ€”especially those that are ideological and ethnic in nature."14 In Juergensmeyer's earlier book, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, he writes: "Secular nationalism, like religion, embraces what one scholar calls 'a doctrine of destiny.' One can take this way of looking at secular nationalism a step further and state flatly . . . that secular nationalism is 'a religion.' "15 These are important concessions. If true, however, they subvert the entire basis of his argument, which is the sharp divide between religious and secular violence.

Other theorists of religion and violence make similar admissions. Kimball, for example, says in passing that "blind religious zealotry is similar to unfettered nationalism," and, indeed, nationalism would seem to fitâ€”at timesâ€”all five of Kimball's "warning signs" for when religion turns evil: absolute truth claims, blind obedience, establishment of ideal times, ends justifying means, and the declaration of holy war. The last one would seem to preclude secular ideologies, but as Kimball himself points out, the United States regularly invokes a "cosmic dualism" in its war on terror.16 Political theorist Bhikhu Parekh similarly undermines his own point in his article on religious violence. According to Parekh,

Although religion can make a valuable contribution to political life, it can also be a pernicious influence, as liberals rightly highlight. It is often absolutist, self-righteous, arrogant, dogmatic, and impatient of compromise. It arouses powerful and sometimes irrational impulses and can easily destabilize society, cause political havoc, and create a veritable hell on earth. . . . It often breeds intolerance of other religions as well as of internal dissent, and has a propensity towards violence.17

Parekh does not define religion, but assumes the validity of the religious/secular distinction. Nevertheless, he admits that "several secular ideologies, such as some varieties of Marxism, conservatism, and even liberalism have a quasi-religious orientation and form, and conversely formally religious languages sometimes have a secular content, so that the dividing line between a secular and a religious language is sometimes difficult to draw."18 If this is true, where does it leave his searing indictment of the dangers peculiarly inherent to religion? Powerful irrational impulses are popping up all over, including in liberalism itself, forcing the creation of the category "quasi-religious" to try somehow to corral them all back under the heading of "religion." But if liberalismâ€”which is based on the distinction between religion and the secularâ€”is itself a kind of religion, then the religious/secular distinction crumbles into a heap of contradictions.

For some religion-and-violence theorists, the contradictions are resolved by openly expanding the definition of "religion" to include ideologies and practices that are usually called "secular." In his book Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion, religious studies scholar Richard Wentz blames violence on absolutism. People create absolutes out of fear of their own limitations. Absolutes are projections of a fictional limited self, and people react with violence when others do not accept them. Religion has a peculiar tendency toward absolutism, says Wentz, but he casts a very wide net when considering religion. Wentz believes that religiousness is an inescapable universal human characteristic displayed even by those who reject what is called "organized religion." Faith in technology, secular humanism, consumerism, football fanaticism, and a host of other worldviews can be counted as religions, too. Wentz is compelled to conclude, rather lamely, "Perhaps all of us do bad things in the name of (or as a representative of) religion."19

Wentz should be commended for his consistency in not trying to erect an artificial division between "religious" and "secular" types of absolutism. The price of consistency, however, is that he evacuates his own argument of explanatory force or usefulness. The word "religion" in the title of his bookâ€”Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religionâ€”ends up meaning anything people do that gives their lives order and meaning. A more economical title for his book would have been Why People Do Bad Things. The term "religion" is so broad that it serves no useful analytical purpose.

At this point, the religion-and-violence theorist might try to salvage the argument by saying something like this: "Surely secular ideologies such as nationalism can get out of hand, but religion has a much greater tendency toward fanaticism because the object of its truth claims is absolute in ways that secular claims are not. The capitalist knows that money is just a human creation, the liberal democrat is modest about what can be known beyond human experience, the nationalist knows that a country is made of land and mortal people, but the religious believer puts faith in a god or gods or at least a transcendent reality that lays claim to absolute validity. It is this absolutism that makes obedience blind and causes the believer to subjugate all means to a transcendent end."

The problem with this argument is that what counts as "absolute" is decided a priori and is immune to empirical testing. It is based on theological descriptions of beliefs and not on observation of the believers' behavior. Of course Christian orthodoxy would make the theological claim that God is absolute in a way that nothing else is. The problem is that humans are constantly tempted toward idolatry, to putting what is merely relative in the place of God. It is not enough, therefore, to claim that worship of God is absolutist. The real question is, what god is actually being worshiped?

But surely, the objection might go, nobody really thinks the flag or the nation or money or sports idols are their "gods"â€”that is just a metaphor. However, the question is not simply one of belief, but of behavior. If a person claims to believe in the Christian God but never gets off the couch on Sunday morning and spends the rest of the week in obsessive pursuit of profit in the bond market, then what is "absolute" in that person's life in a functional sense is probably not the Christian God. Matthew 6:24 personifies Mammon as a rival god, not in the conviction that such a divine being really exists, but from the empirical observation that people have a tendency to treat all sorts of things as absolutes.

Suppose we apply an empirical test to the question of absolutism. "Absolute" is itself a vague term, but in the "religion and violence" arguments it appears to indicate the tendency to take something so seriously that violence results. The most relevant empirically testable definition of "absolute," then, would be "that for which one is willing to kill." This test has the advantage of covering behavior, and not simply what one claims to believe. Now let us ask the following two questions: What percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Christians would be willing to kill for their Christian faith? What percentage would be willing to kill for their country? Whether we attempt to answer these questions by survey or by observing American Christians' behavior in wartime, it seems clear that, at least among American Christians, the nation-state is subject to far more absolutist fervor than Christianity. For most American Christians, even public evangelization is considered to be in poor taste, and yet most endorse organized slaughter on behalf of the nation as sometimes necessary and often laudable. In other countries or other traditions the results of this test might be very different. The point is that such empirical testing is of far more usefulness than general theories about the violence of "religion."

We must conclude that there is no coherent way to isolate "religious" ideologies with a peculiar tendency toward violence from their tamer "secular" counterparts. So-called secular ideologies and institutions like nationalism and liberalism can be just as absolutist, divisive, and irrational as so-called religion. People kill for all sorts of things. An adequate approach to the problem would be resolutely empirical: under what conditions do certain beliefs and practicesâ€”jihad, the "invisible hand" of the market, the sacrificial atonement of Christ, the role of the United States as worldwide liberatorâ€”turn violent? The point is not simply that "secular" violence should be given equal attention to "religious" violence. The point is that the distinction between "secular" and "religious" violence is unhelpful, misleading, and mystifying, and should be avoided altogether.

What Is the Argument For?
If the conventional wisdom that religion causes violence is so incoherent, why is it so prevalent? I believe it is because we in the West find it useful. In domestic politics, it serves to silence representatives of certain kinds of faiths in the public sphere. The story is told repeatedly that the liberal state has learned to tame the dangerous divisiveness of contending religious beliefs by reducing them to essentially private affairs. In foreign policy, the conventional wisdom helps reinforce and justify Western attitudes and policies toward the non-Western world, especially Muslims, whose primary point of difference with the West is their stubborn refusal to tame religious passions in the public sphere. "We in the West long ago learned the sobering lessons of religious warfare and have moved toward secularization. The liberal nation-state is essentially a peacemaker. Now we only seek to share the blessings of peace with the Muslim world. Regrettably, because of their stubborn fanaticism, it is sometimes necessary to bomb them into liberal democracy." In other words, the myth of religious violence establishes a reassuring dichotomy between their violenceâ€”which is absolutist, divisive, and irrationalâ€”and our violenceâ€”which is modest, unitive, and rational.

The myth of religious violence marks the "clash of civilizations" worldview that attributes Muslims' animosity toward the West to their inability to learn the lessons of history and remove the baneful influence of religion from politics. Mark Juergensmeyer, for example, sets up a "new Cold War" pitting the "resurgence of parochial identities" over against "the secular West." "Like the old Cold War, the confrontation between these new forms of culture-based politics and the secular state is global in its scope, binary in its opposition, occasionally violent, and essentially a difference of ideologies." Although he tries to avoid demonizing "religious nationalists," Juergensmeyer sees them as essentially "anti-modern." The particular ferocity of religious nationalism comes from the "special relationship between religion and violence." The question then becomes "whether religious nationalism can be made compatible with secular nationalism's great virtues: tolerance, respect for human rights, and freedom of expression." Given the war between "reason and religion," however, Juergensmeyer is not optimistic; "there is ultimately no satisfactory compromise on an ideological level between religious and secular nationalism."20

Despite its incoherence, the idea that religion is prone to violence thus enforces a binary opposition between "the secular West" and a religious Other who is essentially irrational and violent. The conflict becomes explicable in terms of the essential qualities of the two opponents, not in terms of actual historical encounters. So, for example, Juergensmeyer attempts to explain the animosity of the religious Other toward America:

Why is America the enemy? This question is hard for observers of international politics to answer, and harder still for ordinary Americans to fathom. Many have watched with horror as their compatriots and symbols of their country have been destroyed by people whom they do not know, from cultures they can scarcely identify on a global atlas, and for reasons that do not seem readily apparent.21

Nevertheless, Juergensmeyer is able to come up with four reasons "from the frames of reference" of America's enemies. First, America often finds itself cast as a "secondary enemy." "In its role as trading partner and political ally, America has a vested interest in shoring up the stability of regimes around the world. This has often put the United States in the unhappy position of being a defender and promoter of secular governments regarded by their religious opponents as primary foes." Juergensmeyer cites as an example the case of Iran, where "America was tarred by its association with the shah." The second reason often given is that America is the main source of "modern culture," which includes cultural products that others regard as immoral. Third, corporations that trade internationally tend to be based in the United States. Fourth and finally, the fear of globalization has led to a "paranoid vision of American leaders' global designs."

Juergensmeyer acknowledges, "Like all stereotypes, each of these characterizations holds a certain amount of truth." The fall of the Soviet Union has left the United States as the only military superpower, and therefore "an easy target for blame when people have felt that their lives were going askew or were being controlled by forces they could not readily see. Yet, to dislike America is one thing; to regard it as a cosmic enemy is quite another." The main problem, according to Juergensmeyer, is "satanization," that is, taking a simple opponent and casting it as a superhuman enemy in a cosmic war. Osama bin Laden, for example, had inflated America into a "mythic monster."22

The problem with Juergensmeyer's analysis is not just its sanitized account of colonial history, where the United States just happens to find itself associated with bad people. The problem is that history is subordinated to an essentialist account of "religion" in which the religious Others cannot seem to deal rationally with world events. They employ guilt by association. They have paranoid visions of globalization. They stereotype, and blame easy targets, when their lives are disrupted by forces they do not understand. They blow simple oppositions up into cosmic proportions. Understanding Muslim hostility toward America therefore does not require careful scrutiny of America's historical dealings with the Muslim world. Rather, Juergensmeyer turns our attention to the tendency of such "religious" actors to misunderstand such historical events, to blow them out of proportion. Understanding Iranian Shi'ite militancy does not seem to require careful examination of U.S. support for overthrowing Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and for the shah's 26-year reign of terror that was to follow. Instead, Juergensmeyer puzzles over why "religious" actors project such mundane things as torture and coups and oil trading into factors in a cosmic war. Juergensmeyer's analysis is comforting for us in the West because it creates a blind spot regarding our own history of violence. It calls attention to anticolonial violence, labeled "religious," and calls attention away from colonial violence, labeled "secular."

The argument that religion is prone to violence is a significant component in the construction of an opposition between "the West and the rest," as Samuel Huntington puts it.23 Huntington's famous thesis about the "clash of civilizations" was first put forward by Bernard Lewis in an article entitled "The Roots of Muslim Rage": "It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizationsâ€”the perhaps irrational but surely historic reactions of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both."24 As in Juergensmeyer, actual historical issues and policies and events are transcended by a consideration of the irrationality of the Muslim response to the West. The West is a monolithic reality representing modernity, which necessarily includes secularity and rationality, while the Muslim world is an equally monolithic reality which is ancient, that is, lagging behind modernity, because of its essentially religious and irrational character. This opposition of rational and irrational, secular and religious, Western and Muslim is not simply descriptive, but helps to create the opposition that it purports to describe. As Roxanne Euben writes in her study of Islamic fundamentalism, this opposition is part of a larger Enlightenment narrative in which defining reason requires its irrational other:

[E]mbedded in the Enlightenment's (re-)definition and elevation of reason is the creation and subjection of an irrational counterpart: along with the emergence of reason as both the instrument and essence of human achievement, the irrational came to be defined primarily in opposition to what such thinkers saw as the truths of their own distinctive historical epoch. If they were the voices of modernity, freedom, liberation, happiness, reason, nobility, and even natural passion, the irrational was all that came before: tyranny, servility to dogma, self-abnegation, superstition, and false religion. Thus the irrational came to mean the domination of religion in the historical period that preceded it.25

The problem with grafting Islamic fundamentalism into this narrative, according to Euben, is that it is incapable of understanding the appeal of fundamentalism on its own terms. It dismisses rather than explains.26 It also exacerbates the enmity that it purports to describe. As Emran Qureshi and Michael Sells put it, "Those who proclaim such a clash of civilizations, speaking for the West or for Islam, exhibit the characteristics of fundamentalism: the assumption of a static essence, knowable immediately, of each civilization, the ability to ignore history and tradition, and the desire to lead the ideological battle on behalf of one of the clashing civilizations."27

In other words, the opposition of "religious" violence to "secular" peaceableness can lend itself to the justification of violence. In the book Terror and Liberalism, The New Republic contributing editor Paul Berman's call for a "liberal war of liberation" to be "fought around the world" is based on the contrast between liberalism and what he calls the "mad" ideology of Islamism.28 Similarly, Andrew Sullivan, in a New York Times Magazine article entitled "This Is a Religious War," justifies war against radical Islam on epistemological grounds. He labels it a "religious war," but not in the sense of Islam versus Christianity and Judaism. It is, rather, radical Islam versus Western-style "individual faith and pluralism." The problem with the Islamic world seems to be too much public faith, a loyalty to an absolute that excludes accommodation to other realities: "If faith is that strong, and it dictates a choice between action or eternal damnation, then violence can easily be justified."29

At root, the problem is epistemological. According to Sullivan, it took Western Christians centuries of bloody "religious wars" to realize "the futility of fighting to the death over something beyond human understanding and so immune to any definitive resolution." The problem with religion is that authoritative truth is simply not available to us mortals in any form that will produce consensus rather than division. Locke, therefore, emerges as Sullivan's hero, for it was Locke who recognized the limits of human understanding of revelation and enshrined those limits in a political theory. Locke and the founding fathers saved us from the curse of killing in the name of religion. "What the founders and Locke were saying was that the ultimate claims of religion should simply not be allowed to interfere with political and religious freedom."30

In theory, we have the opposition of a cruel fanaticism with a modest and peaceloving tolerance. However, Sullivan's epistemological modesty applies only to the command of God and not to the absolute superiority of our political and cultural system over theirs. According to Sullivan, "We are fighting for the universal principles of our Constitution." Universal knowledge is available to us after all, and it underwrites the "epic battle" we are currently waging against fundamentalisms of all kinds. Sullivan is willing to gird himself with the language of a warrior and underwrite U.S. military adventures in the Middle East in the name of his secular faith. Sullivan entitles his piece "This Is a Religious War," though the irony seems to elude him. On the surface, the myth of religious violence establishes a dichotomy between our peaceloving secular reasonableness and their irrational religious fanaticism. Under the surface often lies an absolute "religious" devotion to the American vision of a hegemonic liberalism that underwrites the necessity of using violence to impose this vision on the Muslim other.

Sam Harris's book about the violence of religion, The End of Faith, dramatically illustrates this double standard. Harris condemns the irrational religious torture of witches, but provides his own argument for torturing terrorists. Harris's book is charged with the conviction that the secular West cannot reason with Muslims, but must deal with them by force. In a chapter entitled "The Problem with Islam," Harris writes: "In our dialogue with the Muslim world, we are confronted by people who hold beliefs for which there is no rational justification and which therefore cannot even be discussed, and yet these are the very beliefs that underlie many of the demands they are likely to make upon us." This is especially a problem if such people gain access to nuclear weapons. "There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. . . . In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crimeâ€”as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single dayâ€”but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe." Muslims then would likely misinterpret this act of "self-defense" as a genocidal crusade, thus plunging the world into nuclear holocaust. "All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world's population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher's stone, and unicorns."

In other words, if we have to slaughter millions through a nuclear first strike, it will be the fault of the Muslims and their crazy religious beliefs. Before we get to that point, Harris continues, we must encourage civil society in Islamic countries, but we cannot trust them to vote it in. "It seems all but certain that some form of benign dictatorship will generally be necessary to bridge the gap. But benignity is the keyâ€”and if it cannot emerge from within a state, it must be imposed from without. The means of such imposition are necessarily crude: they amount to economic isolation, military intervention (whether open or covert), or some combination of both. While this may seem an exceedingly arrogant doctrine to espouse, it appears we have no alternatives."31



HARRIS'S BOOK is a particularly blunt version of this type of justification for neocolonial intervention, but he is by no means isolated. His book is enthusiastically endorsed by such academic superstars as Alan Dershowitz, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Singer. Indeed, Harris's logic is little different in practice from the Bush Doctrine, which says that America has access to liberal values that are "right and true for every person, in every society," that we must use our power to promote such values "on every continent," and that America will take preemptive military action if necessary to promote such values.32 Today, the U.S. military is attempting, through the massive use of violence, to liberate Iraq from religious violence. It is an inherently contradictory effort, and its every failure will be attributed in part to the pernicious influence of religion and its tendency toward violence. If we really wish to understand its failure, however, we will need to question the very myth of religious violence on which such military adventures depend.

Notes

Charles Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), 1.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (Macmillan, 1962), 19.
See, for example, Russell McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia (Oxford University Press, 1997); Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and 'The Mystic East' (Routledge, 1999); The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History, ed. Derek Peterson and Darren Walhof (Rutgers University Press, 2003).
Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (University of Chicago Press, 1982), xi.
Brian C. Wilson, "From the Lexical to the Polythetic: A Brief History of the Definition of Religion," in What Is Religion? Origins, Definitions, and Explanations (Brill, 1998).
Timothy Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies (Oxford University Press, 2000).
Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil, 15.
See Fitzgerald, Ideology of Religious Studies, 17.
Carlton Hayes, Nationalism: A Religion (Macmillan, 1960); Peter van der Veer, "The Moral State: Religion, Nation, and Empire in Victorian Britain and British India," in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, ed. Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (Princeton University Press, 1999), 3-9; Talal Asad, "Religion, Nation-state, Secularism," in Nation and Religion, 178-91; Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle, "Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 768.
Martin Marty, with Jonathan Moore, Politics, Religion, and the Common Good: Advancing a Distinctly American Conversation About Religion's Role in Our Shared Life (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000), 25-26, 10-14, 24.
Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (University of California Press, 2000), 146, 153, 154, 217.
Ibid., 148-49.
Ibid., 149, 155, 217.
Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (University of California Press, 1993), 15.
Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil, 38, 36.
Bhikhu Parekh, "The Voice of Religion in Political Discourse," in Religion, Politics, and Peace, ed. Leroy Rouner (University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 72.
Ibid., 74.
Richard E. Wentz, Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion (Mercer University Press, 1993), 37.
Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? 1-2, 5, 8, 201.
Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, 179.
Ibid., 180, 181, 182.
Samuel Huntington, "If Not Civilizations, What?" Foreign Affairs 72 (November/December 1993): 192.
Bernard Lewis, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," Atlantic Monthly, September 1990, 60.
Roxanne L. Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism (Princeton University Press, 1999), 34.
Ibid., 14â€“15.
"Introduction: Constructing the Muslim Enemy," in The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy, ed. Emran Qureshi and Michael A. Sells (Columbia University Press, 2003), 28-29.
Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (W. W. Norton, 2003), 191, 182. Berman takes issue with Huntington's "clash" thesis, saying that only Islamists see the conflict in such epic terms. "They also looked upon every new event around the world as a stage in Judaism's cosmic struggle against Islam. Their ideology was mad. In wars between liberalism and totalitarianism, the totalitarian picture of the war is always mad."
Andrew Sullivan, "This Is a Religious War," New York Times Magazine, October 7, 2001, 44, 47.
Ibid., 46-47, 53.
Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004), 87-92, 192-99, 128-29, 151.
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, prologue and p. 15.
William T. Cavanaugh is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author, most recently, of Theopolitical Imagination: Discovering the Liturgy as a Political Act in an Age of Global Consumerism. This essay was presented earlier this year as part of a Lenten series sponsored by Harvard's Memorial Church and Episcopal chaplaincy.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Mar 27, 2012)

Excellent essay (only wish the BBS could do endnote citation formatting). Let's contrast this situation against what little I know of Freemasonry. Freemasonry also endorses liberal values that are "right and true for person, in every society". However, Freemasonry does not endorse aggressive war to impose those liberal values. Freemasonry is a constructive endeavor, not a proscriptive.

Proscriptive groups insist that others be compelled to "agree to" whatever "truth" they promulgate. They "know" what is right and they will force others to be what is right. In essence, they hate humanity. They believe that people are, if left to their own devices, inherently and fundamentally evil. Even if shown the right way, they will intentionally and in full knowledge refuse it. Leadership by compulsion, be it shame, mockery, threat, or violence up to and including genocide, is their preferred leadership style. The proscriptionist would go into a village, shoot a dozen people, burn down all the houses, and then announce any house not built according to proscriptionist plan will result in imprisonment or execution. If the proscriptionists ever lose power, their new style houses will be burnt down as symbols of oppression. Proscriptionism is a philosophy based upon fear and hatred, based on fundamental disrespect for humanity in general--people are inherently bad, and can only be good if forced. Even many "pacificists" subscribe to this philosophy. Although they might shrink away from physical violence, they are happy to use verbal "violence" upon their opponents--insult, group-think, shunning, etc.

Constructive groups may know what is right, but they lead by example. They believe that people are, if left to their own devices, inherently and fundamentally ignorant. They need education. Millennia of human history has demonstrated to all but the most stridently totalitarian that education is not a process of forcing someone to learn but of allowing that person to learn. Thus, force is to be avoided. Leadership by example is the best leadership according to constructive groups. The constructionists would go into a village and hope to find someone who is at least somewhat like-minded (you almost always can, given how much people differ from each other). Then, that man would be taught a different way to build a house. The house would be, given enough time and effort, built according to this way. It would then be available as an example whereby others could be interested, seek knowledge, and also learn. Even if the specific group of constructionists disappears as a coherent group, its lessons become inculcated into the village as part of their own society. Constructivism is a philosophy of courage and love, based on fundamental respect for humanity in general--people are not inherently bad and good comes from understanding and wisdom.

From what I have learned about it so far, Freemasonry is constructive. (Religions can also be constructive--we already know that on this board, but it does not feed into the proscriptionist mindset to admit that.)

As an aside, I do wonder what people like some of the authors cited above actually know about the Enlightenment. It's as if they think Voltaire was the only Enlightenment thinker. Again, Freemasonry, which helped birth and then embraced the Enlightenment, manages to be constructive rather than divisive and proscriptive: Reason and Faith together, not reason vs. faith. Anyway, I digress. An excellent essay that describes the problem well. I hope that my reply has helped reflect or even add to its light, even if only by example of turning out to end up being wrong.


----------



## cog41 (Apr 17, 2012)

I'll say no.
I will say greed does. 
On a country or provincial scale Many religions want to claim more converts, the claiming of converts and converts country leads to resources as well. With land and resources come money, control and power.
Thus they end up using money and power to gain more converts and more land ,and more resources etc etc..
In my experiences on the streets one or more of sex, drugs,alcohol and or cash will be at the root of violence.
Religon may be an excuse but I think most violence boils down to sheer greed.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Apr 18, 2012)

Greed, as it is normally used, doesn't cover the picture. Greed is not enough to motivate the masses, and without the masses, you cannot have war. Greed might motivate some leaders into war, but not all--no matter how cynical we might like to be. Claiming "greed" is ultimately a cop-out, since it absolves "good" attitudes of responsibility. It permits one to blame evil on "external infection" rather than excess, lack of restraint, and fundamental attitudes.

For example, where is the greed behind bombing an abortion clinic? Nevertheless, it is violence done in the name of religion. The bomber does not think "If I kill these people, I will get material gain." The bomber probably believes he is doing "holy work", and his attitudes are entirely divorced from greed. It doesn't matter if his "leaders" might or might not be greedy, and they could also be operating entirely without greed. They might believe that abortion is so offensive to God that killing people is the only proper response. It's really then only a nice, easy slide to believing that it's okay to commit violence for other "moral" causes. When "Thou shalt not murder." becomes "Thou shalt not murder, except for this one little thing.", it's very easy for people to pile on more and more "little things". After all, if it's okay to bomb abortion clinics, why isn't it okay to bomb porn shops? If abortion clinics and porn shops, why not abortion clinics, porn shops, and liquor stores? If abortion clinics, porn shops, and liquor stores, why not abortion clinics, porn shops, liquor stores and smoke shops? If abortion clinics, porn shops, liquor stores, and smoke shops, why not abortion clinics, porn shops, liquor stores, smoke shops, and convenience stores (they carry liquor and smokes--and some carry porn, too)? And at that point, why not the homes of the purveyors of such things? And then at that point, why not the courthouses that permit these purveyors to ply their trades?

None of that has anything to do with greed. It has everything to do with the attitude that on is entitled to impose ones moral will without limit. It is not greed but pride, self-inflation, egotism.

Again, it comes down to proscriptivism (pride) vs. constructivism (humility).

The proud man believes "I know enough to force you to be like me." Greed can easily be a manifestation of pride: "I innately deserve this, so I will take it.", but greed is not the only possible way pride can express itself.
The humble man believes "I know what works for me and am willing to teach if you are willing to learn."


----------



## cog41 (Apr 18, 2012)

You note I said most, not all. The violence I've witnessed in my 30 years of public service people's greed has out weighed pride 10-1. Believe me when 1-100 pounds of dope and $$$$ are involved it aint about pride or religon.
But we can agree to disagree.


----------



## Brother Jason Eddy (Apr 19, 2012)

First of all Brother, very nice paper. I agree with Brother Cog that the vast majority of violence is driven by â€œgreedâ€, or perhaps a step further by â€œpowerâ€.   If we are to look at the Crusades, can we say that those actually committing the atrocities were gaining power, perhaps not, but those that were instructing them to do so were (the Church?).  Those that bomb abortion clinics are, in my opinion, fanatics that are a result of indoctrination by those seeking to gain power (the Church?).  When the United States claims to know what is â€œright and true for every personâ€, where did they learn it (the Church?)? 

Having said that, I must clarify that I do not contend that the majority of violence is a driven by the Church or more specifically to Religion, but rather to those that seek power by using the Church or Religion to steer the masses.  That is where Freemasonry can be of such value to society via Constructivism (this is a new term to me, so hopefully I am using it correctly).  Masonry does not (or should not) place one â€œreligionâ€ above another.  It recognizes only that there is a SAOTU and we are able to kneel at the altar with men from many different religions in harmony.  Religious tolerance was one of the main factors that brought me to the Craft.  Coupled with Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth, I firmly believe that we have an equation for peace.  I am happy to be a part of exemplifying those virtues and hope that I can change others through my example.

In Brotherhood,

Jason


----------



## Brother Jason Eddy (Apr 19, 2012)

*"For most American Christians, even public evangelization is considered to be in poor taste, and yet most endorse organized slaughter on behalf of the nation as sometimes necessary and often laudable."*

Separately I was really taken by the quote above as it is something that is so blatantly true but had never occurred to me.  Great perspective!

.


----------



## BryanMaloney (May 23, 2012)

Since far more Americans are patriolators than adhere to any Divine religion, including those who like to claim to follow a Divine religion, it only makes sense that we would be more willing, as a group, to approve of organized slaughter on behalf of the nation.


----------



## Star Mztyk (May 25, 2012)

Wow! Wonderful depth of thought. I would suggest that a major point in analysis of religion is Collective Consciousness....and that collective consciousness is  where violence is seeded.  As an example, Benjamin Franklin ...if born a century earlier would have been perceived as possessed by Demons and  a follower of the Devil if seen out flying a kite  in a thunderstorm. Obviously, his study of electricity ...a kite, string, key (metallic object) and bottle was an attempt to capture and collect electricity in a container. A battery is a battery.....but if you have no knowledge or concept of it....it is strange,  evil, and the Work of Dark Forces. Benjamin would have been taken by those Witchhunters and when they found his material on astrology.....most likely would have been burned at the stake.  Thank Diety....(he was a deist) he was born when he was or we would not have had his work in the founding of Our Country.
     Today we see a tide turn where some see him as a Devil in his work to found a New World Order.....them evil Secretive Masons. I know one prominent astrologer that buys into the conspiratist theories against Masons. It seems to me the one word that just keeps popping up in my mind is Tolerance. We can tolerate a Terrorist blowing himself up .....but when he takes the life of another and their property the old eye for an eye is imposed.....and I dont mean All-Seeing Eyes.


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Jun 22, 2014)

This seems an excellent and in depth analysis!  My understanding is that religion deals with the deep, mystical, spiritual realities of life which are rooted most deeply in the subconscious mind.  Being beyond our awareness, they are susceptible to manipulation.  

Just as a car can be driven by those who understand it's mechanical workings and those who do not, this manipulation can be accomplished by those who understand the process and by those who do not.  This reality of life; that we affect each other on a subconscious level is, in my opinion, the primary reason why Freemasons must guard the West Gate.


----------



## BroBook (Jun 23, 2014)

To "me" no religion does not cause violence people do, now they may claim to religious 


Bro Book
M.W.U.G.L. Of Fl: P.H.A.
Excelsior # 43
At pensacola


----------



## dfreybur (Jun 23, 2014)

If you read history you will find cases where religion caused wars and as such religion can cause violence.  Violence is and always has been a part of human nature so in most eras religion is impotent to stop violence.  Even some explicit religious wars are better explained by secular influences.

So most of the time, with occasional exceptions, religion and violence pass each other like ships in the night flashing lights at each other.

Reading history produces good news - The degree of violence in human civilization has declined very slowly but very steadily across the millennia.  For all the small wars across the world there are now fewer than ever in recorded history.  More than just wanting to avoid the horrors of global wars, some countries now pay attention to reducing casualties among the opponents.  That is not mentioned in any history book I have ever heard of and appears to be a direct result not of the escalation of wars in previous generations nor even the extermination of civilian populations in wars, but of the home front getting news of it.

Reading modern news produces better news - The degree of violence in everyday life has declined very slowly across the centuries.  First fights except in bars and gyms are now rare enough they might make the news.  People actually attempt to pay attention to abuse and bullying.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 1, 2014)

Not directly, no. Fear and ignorance frequently give rise to violence, but then again, they also give rise to superstition. From a certain perspective,  superstition and religion are indistinguishable. To the fearful and ignorant, cultural trappings like religion are differentiators that identify "the other" and are easily added to the basket of "reasons we should kill the strangers".


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 1, 2014)

From my perspective, the understanding of science among the vast majority of progressives and those who claim to espouse science is indistinguishable from superstition. It might have something to do with me actually being a published scientist. The progressives are so annoying naive in their unquestioning belief in a "science" they could never even begin to describe, but they are so certain that this science is so definite, so secure, so unshakable.

The truth? It's all about approximations, about ifs and buts, all about more or less, and all about trying to falsify currently accepted "scientific facts", never about making them firmer. My job as a scientist is to make all other scientists look bad. My job as a scientist is to make all science turn out to be wrong.

People can't get their heads around that.


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Jul 1, 2014)

dfreybur said:


> some countries now pay attention to reducing casualties among the opponents.


 Who was it that said "You cannot kill an enemy.  If you kill a man his son becomes your enemy."?


----------



## dfreybur (Jul 2, 2014)

pointwithinacircle2 said:


> Who was it that said "You cannot kill an enemy.  If you kill a man his son becomes your enemy."?



Someone who has not read enough history to recognize the name Carthage unfortunately.  It does show an increasing generosity and level of moral generality as the centuries have passed, though.  Few hold the Roman Republic of that era as an example to be reviled while the Roman Empire of an era centuries later is often held as an example to be reviled.

For the first time in human history war has a side that wants to minimize not just their own loses but loses on the opposing side.  Who does this?  The side with the greater secular influence.  Interesting how that works.  The drive has a moral but not religious basis.

Arguably this is because religion supplies absolute morality, secular philosophy supplies relative morality.  Actually practiced morality is better when both interact and build upon each other - The best of both world.  Sure enough that's something I think Masonry teaches.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 2, 2014)

"They will bomb your cities to dust and then come and offer your children chocolate and you loans for rebuildin. Do not be mistaken, they are still Americans, and that is why we have to fight them."

From an old science fiction novel.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 3, 2014)

BryanMaloney said:


> From my perspective, the understanding of science among the vast majority of progressives and those who claim to espouse science is indistinguishable from superstition.


What does science, and the admittedly shaky grasp of it that most folks (_progressives and  conservatives alike) possess_,  have  to do with the discussion of religion and violence? Surely you don't mean to suggest that science "causes violence".


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 3, 2014)

dfreybur said:


> Arguably this is because religion supplies absolute morality, secular philosophy supplies relative morality...


You're painting with a very broad brush, there, WRT both "secular philosophy" _and _religion.


----------



## dfreybur (Jul 3, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> You're painting with a very broad brush, there, WRT both "secular philosophy" _and _religion.



Agreed, which is why I included the word arguably.  As a very broad brush it works to describe world history of the last century but may have the underlying mechanism wrong.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 3, 2014)

cog41 said:


> I'll say no.
> I will say greed does.
> On a country or provincial scale Many religions want to claim more converts, the claiming of converts and converts country leads to resources as well. With land and resources come money, control and power.
> Thus they end up using money and power to gain more converts and more land ,and more resources etc etc..
> ...


 When someone uses just one of the Seven deadly sins in a argument I have trouble with it.  The other gard rail to Greed is Envy.  It takes two to have a conflict and when someone points out Greed I will ask is Envy the reason someone is pointing at Greed.  Greed is if someone is not using the resources that they have earned in some manner.  Envy is someone calling another greedy because they have earned alot of some thing without looking at the good they do.  Like Gov. Romney uses his resources to help others at about 20% but some call him greedy just because he has money.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 3, 2014)

Most Religions do not cause violance.  Only one that I know of actuly states that everyone shall be converted (now the violance) and if not by there own will be forced to or shall die.  Most don't have it writen into there holly book about doing something to those that don't become a beleiver.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 3, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> What does science, and the admittedly shaky grasp of it that most folks (_progressives and  conservatives alike) possess_,  have  to do with the discussion of religion and violence? Surely you don't mean to suggest that science "causes violence".



No more than anyone could seriously suggest that religion causes violence.


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Jul 3, 2014)

Violence seems to be caused by the evil trio; Fear, Ignorance, and Superstition.  Sometimes people who possess these traits join religions.  Yada, yada, yada.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 3, 2014)

pointwithinacircle2 said:


> Violence seems to be caused by the evil trio; Fear, Ignorance, and Superstition.  Sometimes people who possess these traits join religions.  Yada, yada, yada.



I've known some violent people who are not fearful, aren't ignorant, and aren't superstitious. They're simply predatory. It would be nice if a bit of education could fix everybody. Some people have chosen to not be fixed.


----------



## admarcus1 (Jul 3, 2014)

jvarnell said:


> Most Religions do not cause violance.  Only one that I know of actuly states that everyone shall be converted (now the violance) and if not by there own will be forced to or shall die.  Most don't have it writen into there holly book about doing something to those that don't become a beleiver.



Religion in of itself does not cause violence, but it is certainly used as justification/rationalization. The Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Koran have all been used quite effectively to justify the slaughter, oppression, and enslavement of entire populations. It is easy enough to say "Their holy book really does justify it, but those who do it based on my book are twisting/misinterpreting the meaning".  If you can define your enemy as Amalekites, then you can Biblically justify killing every last man, woman, child, and even cattle. When I read the Gospels, it seems clear to me that I and all my descendants are guilty of Deicide, surely a capital crime if there ever was one, and one that was used to justify the persecution of Jews for centuries. I imagine that most modern Christians would say that is misinterpretation. Most modern Jews would say that the commandment to eradicate the Amalekites is an allegorical exhortation to eliminate evil   Most Muslims I know will say that those passages which are often pointed to as problematic are being misinterpreted or are taken out of context. I have no reason to doubt them, any more than I doubt my Christian friends who don't hold me responsible for killing Jesus or being cursed.  

I think violence is about power, either getting it or keeping it for one's self and one's group. Groups are often ethnic/cultural, and those groups often have shared religions. I don't believe that the religions are the true source of the conflict. I imagine that for the combatants in Northern Ireland during the "Troubles", or for the average Sunni or Shia in Iraq, the differences in theology are not their primary concern. 

That said, I think I need to stop reading this thread. I find the topic very distressing. So much violence perpetrated in the name of God for thousands of years  I became a Freemason in part because of the explicit recognition recognition that we are brothers, not to dwell on what divides us. I have both current events and history for that. 

My apologies for the rambling post, Brothers. 




Sent From My Freemasonry Pro App


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 3, 2014)

BryanMaloney said:


> No more than anyone could seriously suggest that religion causes violence.


The question was "what", not "how much". Your suggestion that as much violence has been committed in the name of science as there has in the name of religion is absurd on it's face.  Yes, it is not accurate to say that religion "causes" violence, but to suggest that it is not a frequent catalyst for violence, often of the most extraordinary kind, is simply disingenuous.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 3, 2014)

jvarnell said:


> Most Religions do not cause violance.  Only one that I know of actuly states that everyone shall be converted (now the violance) and if not by there own will be forced to or shall die.


So does the command to commit genocide count as violence?


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 4, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> The question was "what", not "how much". Your suggestion that as much violence has been committed in the name of science as there has in the name of religion is absurd on it's face.  Yes, it is not accurate to say that religion "causes" violence, but to suggest that it is not a frequent catalyst for violence, often of the most extraordinary kind, is simply disingenuous.



You must be one of those science worshipers. Don't worry, most people get over that one, too. I'm a scientist, not a science worshiper. I have only pity for the science worshipers.


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Jul 4, 2014)

At one time science and religion were the same thing, like two sides of the same coin.  It was man who separated them to serve his selfish interests.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 6, 2014)

BryanMaloney said:


> You must be one of those science worshipers. Don't worry, most people get over that one, too. I'm a scientist, not a science worshiper. I have only pity for the science worshipers.


I would have thought that such ad hominem was beneath you, Bryan. More to the point, you clearly have no idea about my understanding of science. 
Most offensive of all though, is your suggestion that you know what I "worship" and what I don't. That is completely out of line.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 6, 2014)

pointwithinacircle2 said:


> At one time science and religion were the same thing, like two sides of the same coin.  It was man who separated them to serve his selfish interests.


Science, as we and our ancient brethren have always understood it, is the pursuit of knowledge and of an understanding of the way our universe works. To the man of faith, that is pretty much equivalent to, "...understanding the nature of the Great Architect's work...". I don't see that as a "separation". 
The gift of insight and understanding, coupled with an insatiable curiosity, is, IMO, our Creator's greatest gift to us. It is only through eternal pursuit of knowledge and understanding that we can properly honor that gift. An earnest pursuit of such things requires the humility to set aside _all _pre-conceived notions and to question every "authority" that claims to know how or why this or that thing is so.


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Jul 6, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> Science, as we and our ancient brethren have always understood it, is the pursuit of knowledge and of an understanding of the way our universe works. To the man of faith, that is pretty much equivalent to, "...understanding the nature of the Great Architect's work...". I don't see that as a "separation".


First, and let me be clear, I do not claim to be in possession of any special insight, "ancient hidden wisdom", or unique knowledge regarding the nature of Reality.   I merely put forth my understanding for the purpose of logical debate in the hopes that together we can arrive at better and more accurate understanding of Reality.

That being said, I am concerned that we are talking about two different things.  I would agree with you that in today's world many people, or perhaps most people, view science and religion as being 180 degrees apart.  My comment was not intended to be about "what" is happening but about "why" I think it happened.  I have read that for millennia there have been people who asked themselves "who am I?" and "what does it mean to be human?".  Traditionally they have said that there are four main factors that shape human reality, namely the Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual.  I think that one reason human beings are so divided as a people is the belief that one of these areas can provide the answer, or is superior to the other areas.  This belief is what I refer to as separation.  Personally I believe that it will be necessary for me, within the limits of my poor human abilities, to integrate all the areas of my life to find anything approaching understanding.



JohnnyFlotsam said:


> The gift of insight and understanding, coupled with an insatiable curiosity, is, IMO, our Creator's greatest gift to us. It is only through eternal pursuit of knowledge and understanding that we can properly honor that gift. An earnest pursuit of such things requires the humility to set aside _all _pre-conceived notions and to question every "authority" that claims to know how or why this or that thing is so.


Here again I think we mostly agree using different words.  To me the phrase "set aside" seems to imply "not use".  I use all preconceived notions as they give me something to question, which as you said is the path to greater knowledge.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 7, 2014)

admarcus1 said:


> Religion in of itself does not cause violence, but it is certainly used as justification/rationalization. The Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Koran have all been used quite effectively to justify the slaughter, oppression, and enslavement of entire populations. It is easy enough to say "Their holy book really does justify it, but those who do it based on my book are twisting/misinterpreting the meaning".  If you can define your enemy as Amalekites, then you can Biblically justify killing every last man, woman, child, and even cattle. When I read the Gospels, it seems clear to me that I and all my descendants are guilty of Deicide, surely a capital crime if there ever was one, and one that was used to justify the persecution of Jews for centuries. I imagine that most modern Christians would say that is misinterpretation. Most modern Jews would say that the commandment to eradicate the Amalekites is an allegorical exhortation to eliminate evil   Most Muslims I know will say that those passages which are often pointed to as problematic are being misinterpreted or are taken out of context. I have no reason to doubt them, any more than I doubt my Christian friends who don't hold me responsible for killing Jesus or being cursed.
> 
> I think violence is about power, either getting it or keeping it for one's self and one's group. Groups are often ethnic/cultural, and those groups often have shared religions. I don't believe that the religions are the true source of the conflict. I imagine that for the combatants in Northern Ireland during the "Troubles", or for the average Sunni or Shia in Iraq, the differences in theology are not their primary concern.
> 
> ...


 You said a key words "justification/rationalization".  The only religion that has say to do something is Islam.  There are some that use there religous doctran to justification/rationalization but not comeout and say to do it like the Qoran.  Justifications are in man mind orders from the supposed word of God is something very deferent.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 7, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> So does the command to commit genocide count as violence?


 I don't know what your point is the only text that talks about genocide in the Bible is old testement and in a spesfice case.  Which is reporting history and not know.  The Qurain is the only openended book that says to kill untill all are eather converted of dead.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 7, 2014)

Please look before replying to my post:
Qur'an (9:29) - "_Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." _

Qur'an (8:39) - _“And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone [in the whole of the world ]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do.”_


----------



## jjjjjggggg (Jul 7, 2014)

Wouldn't the book of Revelations count as genocide in the New Testament?


Sent From My Freemasonry Pro App


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 7, 2014)

jamie.guinn said:


> Wouldn't the book of Revelations count as genocide in the New Testament?
> Sent From My Freemasonry Pro App


 No it is not telling someone to do that it is prodicting that.


----------



## jjjjjggggg (Jul 7, 2014)

And yet it is the armies of god who will do the killing.


Sent From My Freemasonry Pro App


----------



## admarcus1 (Jul 7, 2014)

jvarnell said:


> Please look before replying to my post:
> Qur'an (9:29) - "_Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." _
> 
> Qur'an (8:39) - _“And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone [in the whole of the world ]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do.”_




There is no translation without interpretation. Even in your translation, I don't see the word to kill. If the Koran is anything like the Bible, I  sure one could find other passages that would appear to contradict your assertion.  The Muslims I know see thus as an imprecations to struggle for an ideal world where all men recognize Allah. I am assuming that your Old Testament reference is to Amalekites. Here you make two interpretations. One is that it applies to a specific imstance. Not everyone has agreed with that. Some would argue that there have been Amalekites who have arisen repeatedly in history (Haman in the Book if Esther, Nazis in the modern era). The second interpretation is that I'd it is in the Old Testament, it somehow no longer applies. Not all Christians agree with that interpretation of Jesus' words, and to what laws those words apply. I can tell you that in the history of Christianity, many have interpreted spreading the Gospel as meaning that it should be done by force of arms, and they were as certain of their interpretation as you are of yours. 

There is anti-Muslim hysteria in this country which President Bush, to his credit, tried to prevent early in his presidency, but was not successful. More than a decade later, and things ate even worse. We as Masons can rise above the emotions. Jews,Muslims, and Christians sit together in Lodge in Israel. They manage to rise above the rancor. So can we. 

I know I said I wasn't going to jump back in, but people if my faith/ethnicity have been accused of having secret, nefarious designs, with proofs offered from the Bible, Talmud, forged documens, misrepresentations, and presenting the actions of individuals (or groups of individuals) as representative of the whole.  Millions paid with their lives. "Never Again" is not meant as a slogan to promote Jewish self-defense, but as a call to all people to not demonize the other, to give in to the temptation of placing the blame for all that is wrong at the feet of those who are different, and therefore threatening. Masons have been on the receiving end of that too, complete with quotations and proofs. Of course, no counter-argument sea to help too much. 



Sent From My Freemasonry Pro App


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 7, 2014)

jvarnell said:


> I don't know what your point is the only text that talks about genocide in the Bible is old testement and in a spesfice case.


So does that make it OK, or not? More precisely, is the adjuration to "kill them all because God said so" _ever_ something worth seriously considering?


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 7, 2014)

I can tell you did not understand what I said.  In the old testement certain land is the isralites and they have to kill everyone to make it there's.  Then they were told to beat the swards in to plows.  This is not religion.  This is one nation being told to do this one time and one time only.  The qurain is never ending and a religion telling them to do this always.  The old testement is telling history not what to keep doing.


JohnnyFlotsam said:


> So does that make it OK, or not? More precisely, is the adjuration to "kill them all because God said so" _ever_ something worth seriously considering?


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 7, 2014)

jamie.guinn said:


> And yet it is the armies of god who will do the killing.
> 
> 
> Sent From My Freemasonry Pro App


But it is not religion rasing the army but God.  Religion is not the word of God but the inturpation by man of that word.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 7, 2014)

admarcus1 said:


> There is no translation without interpretation. Even in your translation, I don't see the word to kill. If the Koran is anything like the Bible, I  sure one could find other passages that would appear to contradict your assertion.  The Muslims I know see thus as an imprecations to struggle for an ideal world where all men recognize Allah. I am assuming that your Old Testament reference is to Amalekites. Here you make two interpretations. One is that it applies to a specific imstance. Not everyone has agreed with that. Some would argue that there have been Amalekites who have arisen repeatedly in history (Haman in the Book if Esther, Nazis in the modern era). The second interpretation is that I'd it is in the Old Testament, it somehow no longer applies. Not all Christians agree with that interpretation of Jesus' words, and to what laws those words apply. I can tell you that in the history of Christianity, many have interpreted spreading the Gospel as meaning that it should be done by force of arms, and they were as certain of their interpretation as you are of yours.
> 
> There is anti-Muslim hysteria in this country which President Bush, to his credit, tried to prevent early in his presidency, but was not successful. More than a decade later, and things ate even worse. We as Masons can rise above the emotions. Jews,Muslims, and Christians sit together in Lodge in Israel. They manage to rise above the rancor. So can we.
> 
> ...


Look at the original question. "Does religion cause violance" and the answer is no.  Except one.  If you look at all the sacrad text of all religions you will see none execpt one telling people that everyone must convert or die.


----------



## jjjjjggggg (Jul 7, 2014)

jvarnell said:


> Look at the original question. "Does religion cause violance" and the answer is no.



If you would have stopped there, I would have been in total agreement with you. 

I'm no fan of Islam, but it isn't religion that causes violence, it's people. A Koran on a coffee table will never kill anyone, it's just a book. Even without a book, abstract religious ideas still won't kill people.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 7, 2014)

This thread has turned into dogpile on the Christians, which is very common. Yes, there are Christians who have done very bad things. You know what, I bet if we went a-digging, we could find Freemasons who have also done very bad things, and where does that leave those here who delight themselves in not being Christian?


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 7, 2014)

Probably the gentlest man I ever met was a Muslim, and he could show how and was strongly of the opinion that those who used the Koran to rationalize violence were going to be treated very severely by God (Allah).


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 8, 2014)

jvarnell said:


> I can tell you did not understand what I said.


Please answer the question. Yes or no will do.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 8, 2014)

BryanMaloney said:


> This thread has turned into dogpile on the Christians...


B.S.
The particular religious doctrine has nothing to do with the question. There are plenty of examples of other religious doctrine giving rise to violence. 

Let's said aside all the defensive "my religion is _not_ a violent one" whining and answer the question in non-sectarian terms. What is it about religion that makes otherwise reasonable people feel justified in committing violence? Keep in mind that "violence" covers a lot of ground. Suicide bombers, Jihadists, and The Crusades are easy targets, sure, but if you think about it for more than a moment, you'll realize that there's a lot more going on, every day. Just ask an average woman in an Islamist state, or the child bride of some fundamentalist Mormon male.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 8, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> B.S.
> The particular religious doctrine has nothing to do with the question. There are plenty of examples of other religious doctrine giving rise to violence.
> 
> Let's said aside all the defensive "my religion is _not_ a violent one" whining and answer the question in non-sectarian terms. What is it about religion that makes otherwise reasonable people feel justified in committing violence?



What is it about politics that makes otherwise reasonable people justified in committing violence?
What is it about an artificial social construction like race that, etc.?
What is it about SPORTS that makes, etc.?

Singling out "religion" as one excuse out of many is inherently dishonest. Insisting that religion has some kind of special status as a particularly pernicious evil says far more about the flaws of the accuser than any flaws unique to "religion".

The great tragedy of actually understanding history is that most people come to hate you. Why? Because you realize that their particular "enemies" or "causes of all woe" aren't fundamentally different from any other when it comes to causing woe. Most people have a harder time tolerating the possibility that the thing they hate may not be any inherently worse than many other things than they do with the possibility that the thing they love might not be the best possible thing in the universe.


----------



## admarcus1 (Jul 8, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> So does that make it OK, or not? More precisely, is the adjuration to "kill them all because God said so" _ever_ something worth seriously considering?



I think that part of the issue is that in much of Christian theology, the Old Testament has been superceded by the New, so this particular call to violence is not a part of Christianity.

It doesn't really matter, though, what I believe to be the proper interpretation of Christian teaching.  If a Christian tells me that something doesn't mean to him what I think it means, I believe him.  When I tell someone that according to Judaism, "an eye for an eye" has never, ever meant that if someone pokes out your eye, you get to poke out his, I expect that person to believe me, because it is true.  If a Muslim tells me that Jihad the word for a struggle in a religious context (and not an armed struggle, though it could be that too I suppose), I will take him at his word.  When someone asks me if some of the weird things he has heard about Freemasonry are true (and has quotes from Masonic books to back it up), I expect him to believe me when I explain that he is mistaken.


JohnnyFlotsam said:


> B.S.
> The particular religious doctrine has nothing to do with the question. There are plenty of examples of other religious doctrine giving rise to violence.
> 
> Let's said aside all the defensive "my religion is _not_ a violent one" whining and answer the question in non-sectarian terms. What is it about religion that makes otherwise reasonable people feel justified in committing violence? Keep in mind that "violence" covers a lot of ground. Suicide bombers, Jihadists, and The Crusades are easy targets, sure, but if you think about it for more than a moment, you'll realize that there's a lot more going on, every day. Just ask an average woman in an Islamist state, or the child bride of some fundamentalist Mormon male.


----------



## Brother JC (Jul 8, 2014)

People cause violence. People use religion, politics, race, sports, location, clothing, noise, money, et cetera ad nauseum as excuses to commit violence.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 8, 2014)

jamie.guinn said:


> If you would have stopped there, I would have been in total agreement with you.
> 
> I'm no fan of Islam, but it isn't religion that causes violence, it's people. A Koran on a coffee table will never kill anyone, it's just a book. Even without a book, abstract religious ideas still won't kill people.


 You are right but it is the only religion that "actively" tell the people following it to do something if they want to be in compliance with the religion.


----------



## jvarnell (Jul 8, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> Please answer the question. Yes or no will do.


 This is not really a yes or no question.  there is nothing absulte except the death of our bodies.  The way we execute faith in a religion is in mans hands and man was given freewill to make those determinations.  I beleive all real religions have a path to God the includes grace.  The profits of the past were compled to to do thing and say things but no one is forced to do them.  In the Qurain there is no path to God/nervana or what ever you beleive in that includes grace and forgiveness not just works.  We are human and have freewill so we will messup  and without grace no one would go to heaven.  This is why jahadi bomings think there only way to heaven is through dieing as a martyrdom.  They have been bad all there life and being a martyr will get them there.


----------



## admarcus1 (Jul 8, 2014)

I have said before, I will leave it to Muslims to define Islam - I will not define it for them.  I will leave it to Christians to define their faith, and I will practice my own as I understand it.

This thread has been fascinating, frustrating, exciting, and also kind of depressing. More than anything, though, it has illustrated to me the true wisdom of keeping the discussion of religion out of Lodge.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Jul 9, 2014)

It is true that religion is but one thing among many that are used to define "the other" in order to justify  violence and any number of other injustices.  Race, language, diet, all manner of cultural differences, and even gender have always been thrown up as reasons to treat "the other" differently. Religion however, is unique among these, in that it invokes (alleges) Divine authority, letting out any possibility of considering otherwise. You either believe that yours are the chosen people and what you do to "the other" is not only justified but a matter of God's will, or you don't. Failing to recognize that unique thing about religion is to ignore history, and reason, for history (not to mention current events) is littered with examples.

I can hear it now, "But religion didn't actually _cause..._" this or that act of violence. While that is true, it's also true that race, ethnicity, gender, culture, geography, etc. don't _cause_ violence. Those things, _and religion_, are things without their own will. It is only we mortals who then use those things to justify our (usually selfish) actions, and it is only _religion _that can be used to absolve our psyche's completely by allowing us the illusion of shifting that will to some Divine authority. Add in the promise of "salvation", rivers of milk, or dozens of virgins, and you have still more reason to just go with the program.

If you're thinking that all sounds like "atheist talk", you're right. Personally, I believe that the atheists are wrong about the Divine, and I find their refusal to admit that there is no more proof for their beliefs (in nothing) than those of any other believer in the world to be annoying as hell, but they are spot-on in their recognition that an enlightened society should never allow religion to justify discrimination or violence.


----------



## jwhoff (Jul 29, 2014)

Careful Brethren.  We might all still be burned at the stake!


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Jul 30, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> Personally, I believe that the atheists are wrong about the Divine


I am not disagreeing with you, but how does that make them different from anyone else?   Everyone wants to believe that they are right about God.  I think that we _all_ need to admit the possibility that our most cherished beliefs about God are imperfect.  Until we can do that we have little chance of solving anything.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 30, 2014)

jamie.guinn said:


> And yet it is the armies of god who will do the killing



Because Pol Pot wasn't an atheist?


----------



## BryanMaloney (Jul 30, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> It is true that religion is but one thing among many that are used to define "the other" in order to justify  violence and any number of other injustices.  Race, language, diet, all manner of cultural differences, and even gender have always been thrown up as reasons to treat "the other" differently. Religion however, is unique among these, in that it invokes (alleges) Divine authority, letting out any possibility of considering otherwise. You either believe that yours are the chosen people and what you do to "the other" is not only justified but a matter of God's will, or you don't. Failing to recognize that unique thing about religion is to ignore history, and reason, for history (not to mention current events) is littered with examples.
> 
> I can hear it now, "But religion didn't actually _cause..._" this or that act of violence. While that is true, it's also true that race, ethnicity, gender, culture, geography, etc. don't _cause_ violence. Those things, _and religion_, are things without their own will. It is only we mortals who then use those things to justify our (usually selfish) actions, and it is only _religion _that can be used to absolve our psyche's completely by allowing us the illusion of shifting that will to some Divine authority. Add in the promise of "salvation", rivers of milk, or dozens of virgins, and you have still more reason to just go with the program.
> 
> If you're thinking that all sounds like "atheist talk", you're right. Personally, I believe that the atheists are wrong about the Divine, and I find their refusal to admit that there is no more proof for their beliefs (in nothing) than those of any other believer in the world to be annoying as hell, but they are spot-on in their recognition that an enlightened society should never allow religion to justify discrimination or violence.



Are you maintaining, then that religion can include things like Pol Pot's "year zero", the "great leap forward", "the cultural revolution" and other purely atheistic movements that caused a great deal of death and suffering AND were meant to absolve the psyches of the perpetrators completely? Are you including such explicitly ANTI-religious events/movements as the ones I have just cited as "religion"?


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Aug 6, 2014)

BryanMaloney said:


> Are you maintaining, then that religion can include things like Pol Pot's "year zero", the "great leap forward", "the cultural revolution" and other purely atheistic movements that caused a great deal of death and suffering AND were meant to absolve the psyches of the perpetrators completely? Are you including such explicitly ANTI-religious events/movements as the ones I have just cited as "religion"?


No..., but I can safely include religion with all the other things in the list that are often used to define "the other". I guess you missed that part.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Aug 6, 2014)

pointwithinacircle2 said:


> I am not disagreeing with you, but how does that make them different from anyone else?   Everyone wants to believe that they are right about God.  I think that we _all_ need to admit the possibility that our most cherished beliefs about God are imperfect.  Until we can do that we have little chance of solving anything.


The atheists are not at all different from the truest believer of <insert religion here>. And yes, Brother, you are spot on about the need to "...admit the possibility that our most cherished beliefs..." are imperfect. There's even a term for the person who has mustered the courage to admit as much; agnostic. Mind, an agnostic, as Huxley defined the term, does _not_ mean "doubter". That's a common misunderstanding. Humility and faith are not mutually exclusive.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Aug 7, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> The atheists are not at all different from the truest believer of <insert religion here>. And yes, Brother, you are spot on about the need to "...admit the possibility that our most cherished beliefs..." are imperfect. There's even a term for the person who has mustered the courage to admit as much; agnostic. Mind, an agnostic, as Huxley defined the term, does _not_ mean "doubter". That's a common misunderstanding. Humility and faith are not mutually exclusive.



Agnosticism and its cousins are all about doubt--they are about doubting my own infallibility.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Aug 7, 2014)

To continue, though, agnosticism does not include "I do not know and it cannot be known." The moment you say that something cannot be known, you have chosen a dogma.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Aug 11, 2014)

BryanMaloney said:


> To continue, though, agnosticism does not include "I do not know and it cannot be known." *The moment you say that something cannot be known, you have chosen a dogma*.


We're splitting hairs here, but you are correct. Still, I see a huge gulf between the believer mistaking gnosis for faith and the agnostic's (arguably) incorrect conclusion that this or that thing can not be known. The latter still commands a certain humility that the former simply can not abide.


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Aug 11, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> The atheists are not at all different from the truest believer of <insert religion here>. And yes, Brother, you are spot on about the need to "...admit the possibility that our most cherished beliefs..." are imperfect. There's even a term for the person who has mustered the courage to admit as much; agnostic. Mind, an agnostic, as Huxley defined the term, does _not_ mean "doubter". That's a common misunderstanding. Humility and faith are not mutually exclusive.


I have spent several days turning Huxley's definition, which I like by the way, over in my mind.  Yet I am not quite sure that it would apply to me.  I have certain specific, cherished beliefs regarding deity, and I engage in certain specific, cherished practices aimed at improving my spiritual condition.  Yet I find that I must remain open to the possibility that these beliefs and practices are imperfect.  I do not believe that Huxley's definition applies to me.


----------



## dfreybur (Aug 11, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> Still, I see a huge gulf between the believer mistaking gnosis for faith and the agnostic's (arguably) incorrect conclusion that this or that thing can not be known.



To me it would be an unbeliever's mistaking gnosis from faith.  To me gnosis means direct knowledge and that suggests direct personal observation.  Those who have direct personal observation of deity by some mystical experience don't think they have any need for faith on which to base their belief.  This suggests that taking it on faith is what is done by those who believe without having had direct personal observation of deity.  Careful inspection of the issue shows the problem of objective repeatable observations versus subjective internal observations.  Some unbelievers suggest that those who have had direct personal observation hallucinated or lied.

One of the agnostic stance is that existence can't be proven.  If left at that step any of us who believe but understand we could be in error could call ourselves agnostics.  It's usually extended to withholding judgment until there is proof or refusing to participate until there is proof.

Another meaning of agnostic is lacking direct personal knowledge.  Again if left at that step those of us without direct personal observation of deity could call ourselves agnostic until they do experience deity.  It's also not the only step taken in most cases.  Some do some don't have direct experiences and no one has ever figured out how to cross that bridge.  it just happens or doesn't.

Anyways, the fact that it is not yet proven is not good evidence that it never will be proven.  Every scientific discovery made today is something not proven for the entire previous existence of humanity.  there's more to it than that as there are statistical patterns and such, but new discoveries do keep on happening.


----------



## BryanMaloney (Aug 12, 2014)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> We're splitting hairs here, but you are correct. Still, I see a huge gulf between the believer mistaking gnosis for faith and the agnostic's (arguably) incorrect conclusion that this or that thing can not be known. The latter still commands a certain humility that the former simply can not abide.



Regardless of whether or not the dogma is correct, to state that something cannot be known is to adopt a dogma. It is to reject agnosis and embrace a gnosis that something cannot be known.


----------



## JohnnyFlotsam (Aug 12, 2014)

pointwithinacircle2 said:


> I engage in certain specific, cherished practices aimed at improving my spiritual condition.  Yet I find that I must remain open to the possibility that these beliefs and practices are imperfect.  I do not believe that Huxley's definition applies to me.


The "specific, cherished practices" are not at all incompatible with the definition of agnostic. Again, gnosis and faith are not the same thing at all. If your faith carries you in a particular direction, does it matter whether or not anyone (including you) can "prove" your path is the "right" one?


----------



## BryanMaloney (Aug 13, 2014)

Philosophical fideism is a position that most people have never heard of, even though many people have adopted it.

http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/skept.htm


----------

