Free speech is vital for democratic and republican societies to thrive. Trying to stop people we disagree with by the use of violence only comes back to haunt us later on when our own views are opposed by others. Every religion known to man has been misused by extreme believers to silence dissent, and the best of political and moral beliefs can be misused as well, with the true believers convincing themselves that their violent acts are on behalf of a greater good.
Religion is the opiate of the masses, the rituals that bind a group to submit mindlessly to the rules of a theocracy of one sort or another. But not all religions are identical. Not all religions destroy. Some are wicked and some are not. The religion of Moloch demanded burning children alive, Aztecs cut out hearts, Hamas rapes women to death and runs a war machine beneath the beds of sleeping children who they hope will die as martyrs. Catholicism requires we help the poor before the wealthy, recognize that God loves those we hate, and admonishes us create beauty and be kind to our enemies to glorify God. You tell me which is a better religion.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. I have a coupe of thoughts on what you say. One is that you make a comparison between religions from ancient societies with modern ones. I think there are so many other social and cultural variables involved over the long course of history that your comparison is not particularly helpful or useful. And in using the modern Catholic Church in this part of your argument you leave out past times when that church supported horrific violence against heretics or non-believers as well.
The second is that comparing Hamas to modern Catholicism as though they were overall truths about modern Islam and Catholicism blurs large differences in how actual believers live out their religious beliefs today. You can easily find modern believers in Islam who are as loving and kind as the best modern believers in Catholicism, I think. What are your thoughts about my reactions?
Thank you! Nice rebuttal. My only point is all religions are not equivalent. Some are indeed better than others. We often use "cult" to degrade a religion but in fact they are all cults. I am a Catholic Jew and a theologian. I have been a member of many variants of Christianity and even dabbled in Buddhism for a bit. What I now conclude is God has no name we can know. The Jews are right to call him Hashem, His Name. So we do not kill each other over God. I even have a Wikipedia entry on Pseudo-Religions. God is not religion nor is religion ever an accurate rendition of how God would want us to worship God. But religions can certainly be evaluated by how they evolve and what good or evil they have brought to the world. Contemporary Catholicism is vastly better than the depravity of the Hamas variant of Islam. Hamas is evil. God is God.
Wonderful article but you are wrong. Islam is not as powerful and dangerous as much as Judaeo-Christian theology has become feckless, cowardly and otiose. The last theologian who had the courage to oppose Muslim theology was Pope Benedict. God is dead for the Western Intellectual, but Allah is very much alive for the Muslim Intellectual. In the West we confuse God, Religion and Theology. Muslims do not. God and Religion are based entirely on faith. But theology is based on reason. We cannot defeat faith, but we certainly can defeat the bad logic that leads to bad religion that in turn leads to misunderstanding Allah/Hashem/Christ to the point where we forgive Muslims for beheading a school teacher. If the West does not reinvigorate its theologians Islam will indeed wreak havoc on the West. They know their God; we do not understand ours, and the great irony of this is Abraham is the father of all three Western Religions. He had two sons Isaac and Ishmael. Theologically Ishmael, the oldest, is beating the daylights out of Isaac. Let's help the followers of Isaac stand up to his bully of a big brother, Ishmael. Time for the Western theologians to stop cowering and apologizing, and instead start doing Apologetics. Why should Ishmael stop beating up Isaac? I pray the war of theologians will soon eclipse the massacres of the innocents by theologically ignorant "Ishmaelians". God is not illogical, but people are, and deeply so at that.
The issue is not which religion does the comparatively least damage. The issue is that religious belief systems, themselves, don't deserve any special exemption from ridicule and doubt. There is no legitimate basis for claiming that assertions about the intent and will of a supernatural being automatically entitles such claims to special insulation from the verbal and written attacks that can be lobbed at other types of belief systems and ideologies..
Free societies cannot have blasphemy laws, nor should their citizens behave as if they do. France best defends what it treasures as laïcité, upheld by President Macron and the excellent Minister of the Interior, Gérard Moussa (sic) Darmanin, whose middle name commemorates his Algerian NCO grandfather who fought the Nazis in the army and then in the Resistance. Vive la France’. Vive les Lumières!
Anglo-sphere handles all this much less well but readers should note that the President of Hamline who thought snowflake sensibility should supersede academic freedom will be retiring in June 2024. Of course trustees should have fired her but she was permitted to announce forthcoming resignation.
Rights must be enforced. That anonymous teacher would be in a better place psychologically if they had weapons and knew how to use them. Unfortunately the UK banned guns.
Free speech is vital for democratic and republican societies to thrive. Trying to stop people we disagree with by the use of violence only comes back to haunt us later on when our own views are opposed by others. Every religion known to man has been misused by extreme believers to silence dissent, and the best of political and moral beliefs can be misused as well, with the true believers convincing themselves that their violent acts are on behalf of a greater good.
Religion is the opiate of the masses, the rituals that bind a group to submit mindlessly to the rules of a theocracy of one sort or another. But not all religions are identical. Not all religions destroy. Some are wicked and some are not. The religion of Moloch demanded burning children alive, Aztecs cut out hearts, Hamas rapes women to death and runs a war machine beneath the beds of sleeping children who they hope will die as martyrs. Catholicism requires we help the poor before the wealthy, recognize that God loves those we hate, and admonishes us create beauty and be kind to our enemies to glorify God. You tell me which is a better religion.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. I have a coupe of thoughts on what you say. One is that you make a comparison between religions from ancient societies with modern ones. I think there are so many other social and cultural variables involved over the long course of history that your comparison is not particularly helpful or useful. And in using the modern Catholic Church in this part of your argument you leave out past times when that church supported horrific violence against heretics or non-believers as well.
The second is that comparing Hamas to modern Catholicism as though they were overall truths about modern Islam and Catholicism blurs large differences in how actual believers live out their religious beliefs today. You can easily find modern believers in Islam who are as loving and kind as the best modern believers in Catholicism, I think. What are your thoughts about my reactions?
Thank you! Nice rebuttal. My only point is all religions are not equivalent. Some are indeed better than others. We often use "cult" to degrade a religion but in fact they are all cults. I am a Catholic Jew and a theologian. I have been a member of many variants of Christianity and even dabbled in Buddhism for a bit. What I now conclude is God has no name we can know. The Jews are right to call him Hashem, His Name. So we do not kill each other over God. I even have a Wikipedia entry on Pseudo-Religions. God is not religion nor is religion ever an accurate rendition of how God would want us to worship God. But religions can certainly be evaluated by how they evolve and what good or evil they have brought to the world. Contemporary Catholicism is vastly better than the depravity of the Hamas variant of Islam. Hamas is evil. God is God.
Thank you for that clarification.
Wonderful article but you are wrong. Islam is not as powerful and dangerous as much as Judaeo-Christian theology has become feckless, cowardly and otiose. The last theologian who had the courage to oppose Muslim theology was Pope Benedict. God is dead for the Western Intellectual, but Allah is very much alive for the Muslim Intellectual. In the West we confuse God, Religion and Theology. Muslims do not. God and Religion are based entirely on faith. But theology is based on reason. We cannot defeat faith, but we certainly can defeat the bad logic that leads to bad religion that in turn leads to misunderstanding Allah/Hashem/Christ to the point where we forgive Muslims for beheading a school teacher. If the West does not reinvigorate its theologians Islam will indeed wreak havoc on the West. They know their God; we do not understand ours, and the great irony of this is Abraham is the father of all three Western Religions. He had two sons Isaac and Ishmael. Theologically Ishmael, the oldest, is beating the daylights out of Isaac. Let's help the followers of Isaac stand up to his bully of a big brother, Ishmael. Time for the Western theologians to stop cowering and apologizing, and instead start doing Apologetics. Why should Ishmael stop beating up Isaac? I pray the war of theologians will soon eclipse the massacres of the innocents by theologically ignorant "Ishmaelians". God is not illogical, but people are, and deeply so at that.
The issue is not which religion does the comparatively least damage. The issue is that religious belief systems, themselves, don't deserve any special exemption from ridicule and doubt. There is no legitimate basis for claiming that assertions about the intent and will of a supernatural being automatically entitles such claims to special insulation from the verbal and written attacks that can be lobbed at other types of belief systems and ideologies..
Free societies cannot have blasphemy laws, nor should their citizens behave as if they do. France best defends what it treasures as laïcité, upheld by President Macron and the excellent Minister of the Interior, Gérard Moussa (sic) Darmanin, whose middle name commemorates his Algerian NCO grandfather who fought the Nazis in the army and then in the Resistance. Vive la France’. Vive les Lumières!
Anglo-sphere handles all this much less well but readers should note that the President of Hamline who thought snowflake sensibility should supersede academic freedom will be retiring in June 2024. Of course trustees should have fired her but she was permitted to announce forthcoming resignation.
Rights must be enforced. That anonymous teacher would be in a better place psychologically if they had weapons and knew how to use them. Unfortunately the UK banned guns.