Posts tagged ‘Islam’
If Islam is the Problem, What is the Solution?
Nine years ago, 19 men with a perverted sense of righteous martyrdom commandeered four passenger planes in an attempt to take down The World Trade Center, The Pentagon and the White House. Three of the planes reached their target with devastating effect. The fourth plane, the one headed for the White House, crashed in Pennsylvania when the hijackers were overcome by the heroic passengers. The 19 men had one thing in common that has presented the United States of America with one of its most compelling crises of conscience. The 19 men were all devout, radical Muslims. Now, a country whose fundamental principle is freedom of worship is faced with how to evaluate Islam. Recently, we have seen an evaluation that is frightening in its paranoia, a paranoia that seems to grow the further we get from that terrible Tuesday morning.
Suddenly an entire “industry” has arisen around being “non-Muslim experts on Islam”. I won’t use the word Islamaphobe which carries too much baggage. Let’s just call them self-professed experts. They would have us believe that Islam is not even a religion, but rather a vile social movement disguised as a religion. They cherry pick the Koran to prove how evil the “religion” is.
As they warn us about the evils of Islam, the experts are short on solutions. Let us buy their perspective wholesale. Let’s say that Islam is on the same level as the Nazi party and the KKK. What are we to do about it?
Convene a cross denominational panel to publicly draft a declaration that Islam is not to be further recognized as a religion.
Have the United Nations prepare sanctions against every predominantly Muslim country on the planet, to outlaw the practice of Islam or face penalty.
Engage our ground forces and air force both within the United States and around the world to destroy every existing Mosque, since they are terrorist incubators.
Arrest and detain every practicing Muslim in the United States with conversion to one of the “sanctioned” religions being the only condition for release.
If Islam is the problem my friends then what is the solution? If Islam destroyed the World Trade Center as many would have you believe, then how can we allow Islam to exist?
If the proposed solutions I have laid out are repugnant to you, then perhaps you should reevaluate your attitude toward Islam.
We either believe that religion is a force for good in the world and that only individual men are evil or we commit ourselves to the dangerous exercise of defining the good religions vs the bad ones and then take the necessary steps to root out “evil”.
The next time you go quoting Newt Gingrich, think about what you’re willing to do to solve the problem as Newt has defined it. I say the solutions make it crystal clear that you have defined the problem incorrectly.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
A Little Religion in the Wrong Hands
I stumbled across this silly video today and it reminded me of the religious debates I’ve been in over the past few weeks regarding Muslim radicals. Here we have a pure ass exercising his right to free speech and suggesting, backed up by his Christian Bible, that women victims of domestic violence should not divorce their husbands. The dialog, if you want to call it that, then devolves into a discussion of cleavage, as prohibited by the Bible.
Clearly, this dude’s twisting of scripture is not comparable to that of a Muslim who thinks he should fly a plane into a building but it clearly supports my assertion that every religion is ripe for misuse by its nuttier followers. That nuttiness can range from harmless to homicidal.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Crisis at the Corner of 1st and 14th
Lately we have seen conservatives remind us at every opportunity of the Constitution’s role in limiting federal government. When it comes to the Constitution’s role in defining us as a decent and fair people, not so much. Two issues brewing in our country right now bring into focus our Constitution and what it says about us as citizens of the world. In one case, the proper conclusion seems to me as obvious as the nose on one’s face. In the other, I am surprised to find some ambiguity.
First, let’s look at the case of the mosque/community center being renovated in downtown New York City. I say renovated, as opposed to the usual media jargon of “built” because the Muslim organization in question already owns a building on the controversial site. The uproar is that this mosque is being “built” in too close a proximity to the ruins of the World Trade Center which was destroyed by Muslim terrorists in September of 2001. Let’s start by pointing out the facts that make the argument absurd:
- As already stated, Muslims have been at this site for over 20 years already.
- You cannot see Ground Zero from the site.
- You cannot see the site from Ground Zero. Hence the site does not “overlook” Ground Zero.
- Ground Zero, supposedly “sacred”, has been left neglected for almost ten years. Where is the uproar over that?
Let’s go back to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Case closed, nothing to see here, time to move on. But no, some still want to debate. Well, let’s look at a debate that makes the matter even clearer. On MSNBC’s Hardball Dan Senor, a foreign affairs “expert” and Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President, debated the mosque issue. The host, Chris Matthews remained more or less neutral and let the two gentlemen hash it out.
For me, the most striking part of the debate was this statement by Dan Senor, who opposes the mosque:
I think there‘s an opportunity for national political figures and city and state political figures—Mayor Bloomberg, Attorney Cuomo, Mr. Stringer—to step forward and approach the imam and say, look, we understand your objectives. We understand what you are trying to do. You‘re objectives are good. Your motives are good.
We just think you are going to undermine them. You are—you are provoking something that could wind up being more divisive. And this is going to be a step backwards for New York.
via Tuesday, August 3rd – msnbc tv – Hardball with Chris Matthews – msnbc.com.
This reminded me of the scene in Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” where a black family planning to move into a white neighborhood is approached by a member of the neighborhood association and is offered a payment not to move in. Mr. Lindner from the association says:
It’s a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing… ..rightly or wrongly, as I say… …that for the happiness of all concerned…that our Negro families are happier……when they live in their own communities. — A Raisin in the Sun
When he doesn’t get the reaction from the black Younger family that he expected, he says,
I don’t understand why you people are reacting this way! What do you think you’ll gain……by moving to a neighborhood where you aren’t wanted…and where some elements…People get worked up when their way of life…and all they’ve worked for is threatened.
This is basically what Dan Senor wants to say to the imam. “It’s in your best interest to appease the folks who are uncomfortable with you.” In “A Raisin in the Sun”, Walter Lee Younger throws Mr. Lindner out on his ass. They move into the white neighborhood. That is exactly the same approach that the imam has taken and good for him! Of course, the amazing thing is that these Muslims have already been a part of this community for almost 30 years. Did 9/11 suddenly make them evil?
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated the case quite eloquently:
Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.
This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.
Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.
For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.
On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to?’ (Bloomberg’s voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) ‘What beliefs do you hold?”
The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.
via Michael Bloomberg delivers stirring defense of mosque – War Room – Salon.com.
Bloomberg makes this case so clearly that I am amazed that there is still room for debate.
The Fourteenth Amendment has also come under attack as Senators Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell call for its reevaluation in light of our broken immigration system. It is Section 1 that currently raises concern: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” As a result of this amendment virtually everyone (except children of diplomats) born in the United States becomes a citizen automatically.
The liberal media is having a collective aneurysm over how we could even think of tinkering with this amendment. To the surprise of my liberal friends, I don’t understand the outrage. The 14th Amendment’s original intent was to protect the citizenship of former slaves whose legitimacy had been challenged based on their African heritage. News flash: anyone who was ever a slave in this country is long since dead. The citizenship of blacks, with the exception of Barack Obama, is no longer an issue. The citizenship part of the amendment has served its purpose. Obviously the piece about due process applying to citizens needs to remain untouched but why on Earth should anyone born here automatically be a citizen? I believe it is completely appropriate that the birthright of American citizenship should apply to anyone who has at least one parent who is a citizen. I also believe that children of legal immigrants should become citizens automatically when their parents do. To put it simply, children born in the United States should inherit the highest level of citizenship status attained by either one of their parents.
It is a legitimate question to ask what problem would actually be solved by changing our citizenship standards. I honestly don’t know but I don’t see what is sacrosanct about the status quo. Furthermore, we do need to send a message to those who are here illegally that they will not enjoy the benefits of those who are abiding by the law. Those benefits include any that might be enjoyed by their children. Under the surface of this debate is the whole question of national sovereignty and the right of any country to dictate who may or may not reside there. On my more 1960′s free-love days, I favor a borderless world where we all live together in harmony. Human nature makes that an impossibility.
As a post script, and probably deserving of a full article on its own, a Federal judge struck down California’s Proposition 8 which denied gay couples the right to marry. History shows that this is a tolerant country. Those that try to restrict the freedom of others always end up on the wrong side of history. With any luck this federal ruling will lead to a Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right of all loving people to marry whom they please throughout the land.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Religion as Game Theory
No matter what topic I write about on this blog, most of my comments sections evolve into a heated debate about the relative merits of Islam. This is partly because tensions between certain Muslim nations and the United States are at an all time high and have an impact on world politics. It is also because one of my readers has devoted a good portion of his time to tracking every perceived slip made by a Muslim anywhere in the world. He documents these slips regularly in the comments section of this blog.
So it was with great interest that I stumbled upon an article in Time magazine by Robert Wright. Wright, as it turns out, is the primary mover and shaker behind a favorite web site of mine, BloggingHeads.tv, where two people, usually authors, record a webcam teleconference between themselves and we get to watch them debate. This Time article was an excerpt from Wright’s latest book The Evolution of God. It’s always a thrill when you read an article that fits neatly into your world view and this one did just that.
Wright uses a concept from game theory, the zero-sum game, to explain the changing “moods” of God throughout scripture, both Judeo-Christian and Muslim. Essentially, his thesis is that when religious interpreters had a zero-sum approach, i.e. one man’s gain is another man’s loss, the result was an intolerant religion and an intolerant God. On the flipside, when a non-zero-sum approach prevailed, religious tolerance was the result.
The ancient Israelites got straightforward guidance from Scripture on how to handle people who didn’t worship Israel’s god, Yahweh. “You shall annihilate them — the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites — just as the Lord your God has commanded.”
The point of this exercise, explained the Book of Deuteronomy, was to make sure the “abhorrent” religions of nearby peoples didn’t rub off on Israelites.
Yet sometimes the Israelites were happy to live in peace with neighbors who worshipped alien gods. In the Book of Judges, an Israelite military leader proposes a live-and-let-live arrangement with the Ammonites: “Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that our god Yahweh has conquered for our benefit?”
The Bible isn’t the only Scripture with such vacillations between belligerence and tolerance. Muslims, who like Christians and Jews worship the God who revealed himself to Abraham, are counseled in one part of the Koran to “kill the polytheists wherever you find them.” But another part prescribes a different stance toward unbelievers, “To you be your religion; to me my religion.”
In the case of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Wright traces the vacillation between tolerance and intolerance back to Solomon:
Solomon believed Israel could benefit — economically and otherwise — by staying on good terms with nearby nations. As game theorists say, he saw relations with other nations as non-zero-sum; the fortunes of Israel and other nations were positively correlated, so outcomes could be win-win or lose-lose. His warmth toward those religions was a way of making the win-win outcome more likely.
Again and again in the Bible, this perception of non-zero-sumness underlies religious tolerance. This doesn’t mean religious tolerance is always consciously calculated. The human mind does lots of subterranean work to pave the way for social success. But whether the calculation is conscious or not, people are more open to the religious beliefs of other people if they sense a non-zero-sum dynamic.
Wright goes on to discuss those who followed Solomon and how polytheism was increasingly viewed as a threat. As monotheism took hold, so did religious intolerance. As paranoia increased, so did intolerance:
In 586 B.C.E., Israelite élites were exiled to Babylon after conquest by the neo-Babylonian Empire. In passages from Isaiah that are thought to have been written during the exile, Yahweh says unequivocally, “Besides me there is no god.” Does this extreme intolerance of other gods — the denial of their very existence — flow from a zero-sum view of Israel’s environs?
It would seem so. The author of these monotheistic passages (known by scholars as second Isaiah, to distinguish him from the author of earlier chapters in Isaiah) sees an Israel long tormented by “oppressors” who are due for a comeuppance. The punishment that Isaiah envisions for these enemies seems to include subjugation and, as a bonus, the news that their gods don’t exist. Isaiah’s God promises the Israelites that, come the apocalypse, people from Egypt and elsewhere will “come over in chains and bow down to you. They will make supplication to you, saying, ‘God is with you alone, and there is no other; there is no God besides him.’” So there.
Happily, after the exile, life got more non-zero-sum. The Babylonians who had conquered Israel were in turn conquered by the Persians, who returned the exiles to their homeland. Israel was no longer in a bad neighborhood. Nearby nations were now fellow members of the Persian Empire and so no longer threats. And, predictably, books of the Bible typically dated as postexilic, such as Ruth and Jonah, strike a warm tone toward peoples — Moabites and Assyrians — that in pre-exilic times had been vilified.
This zig-zag between the win-win and win-lose attitude was not limited to Judaism.
Muhammad’s preaching career started in Mecca around 613 C.E., and he seems to have had hopes of drawing Jews and Christians into a common faith. In the Koran — which Muslims consider the word of God as spoken by Muhammad — the Prophet’s followers are told to say to fellow Abrahamics, “Our God and your God is one.”
This hope of playing a win-win game shows up in overtures to Jews in particular, made mainly after Muhammad moved to the city of Medina and became its political and religious leader. Muhammad decided his followers should have an annual 24-hour fast, as Jews did on Yom Kippur. He even called it Yom Kippur — at least he used the term some Arabian Jews were using for Yom Kippur. The Jewish ban on eating pork was mirrored in a Muslim ban. Muhammad also told his followers to pray facing Jerusalem. He said God, in his “prescience,” chose “the children of Israel … above all peoples.”
As for Christians: having denounced polytheists who believed Allah had daughters, Muhammad couldn’t now embrace the idea that Jesus was God’s son. But he came close. He said Jesus was “the Messiah … the Messenger of God, and His Word … a Spirit from Him.” God, according to the Koran, gave Jesus the Gospel and “put into the hearts of those who followed him kindness and compassion.”
However, Muhammad sensed rejection from Jews and Christians alike and this altered his view of any possible win-win relationship:
In his new, zero-sum mode, Muhammad changed the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca. According to Islamic tradition, he expelled three tribes of Jews from Medina — and killed the adult males in the third tribe, which was suspected of collaborating with Meccans in a battle against Medina.
After Muhammad’s death the concept of Jihad emerged (intolerance) but later was softened to encompass a greater jihad or a “struggle within oneself toward goodness” as Wright puts it. Again a move from intolerance to tolerance. Wright’s excerpt concludes by re-iterating the win-win that can be found in both Judaism and Islam:
Isaiah (first Isaiah, not the Isaiah of the exile) envisioned a day when God “shall arbitrate for many peoples” and “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” And in a Koranic verse dated by scholars to the final years of Muhammad’s life, God tells humankind that he has “made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.”
This happy ending is hardly assured. It can take time for people, having seen that they are playing a non-zero-sum game, to adjust their attitudes accordingly. And this adaptation may never happen if barriers of mistrust persist.
But at least we can quit talking as if this adaptation were impossible — as if intolerance and violence were inevitable offshoots of monotheism. At least we can quit asking whether Islam — or Judaism or any other religion — is a religion of peace. The answer is no. And yes. It says so in the Bible, and in the Koran.
Wright, who in his Bloggingheads.tv discussion of The Evolution of God, says he has an affinity for Buddhism, confirms in this Time excerpt exactly what I have believed about organized religion. Religion is informed by politics as much as it is informed by the “word of God”. A religion’s tendency toward peace or terrorism is a by product of its interpreters and those interpreters were shaped by the times in which they lived.
Islam, Christianity and Judaism encompass the greatest expressions of love and the most savage expressions of evil. Such must be the case as religion is the expression of God skewed through the imperfect lens of human beings.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
If you would like to hear Wright discuss his book and you have an hour to invest, I strongly recommend that you visit Bloggingheads.tv. His discussion ends with a section called “Quantum physics and king-sized video games as paths to God” in which he argues that atheism is more or less an ignorant refusal to wrestle with the wonder that is our world and the possibility that even if we say this life is a “simulation”, then what do we label the author of the simulation, the “hacker” so to speak? Wouldn’t that be God?
Why Contemporary Liberals Frustrate the Crap out of Conservatives
Several weeks ago, one of my readers posted a link to an article that attempted to empirically prove that Islam is a dangerous religion. While I reject the article’s conclusion, a part of it did resonate with me.
Do you ever read something and a light goes off in your head and you say “wow, that’s me!” The author, David Steinberg (not the comedian), specifies what he believes to be the dividing point between classical liberals and contemporary liberals:
Liberalism withholds judgment until finding an answer bulletproofed by logic and reason, and this practice is nothing less than the bedrock of the first world.
I am of course referring to classical liberalism, now tragically mistitled conservatism. The half-philosophy known as the Left co-opted that most precious word, liberty, then stopped reading at “withholds judgment.”
He goes on to say:
Technically, the Left preaches that the most enlightened human behavior is to withhold judgment in favor of first concluding a thorough self-examination. But that self-examination process — the perfecting of America and the West prior to judging another culture — can never conclude. There will always be a poor decision, a misguided decision, or a failed policy enacted by democratically elected officials. A Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam.
Our country is run by a marketplace of ideas. Some will win support and be proven right and some will win support and be proven wrong. Representatives will be voted in and out, the future will always remain unknown, and our leaders will continually take risks with our direction. So withholding judgment in favor of a thorough self-examination becomes a fraud, a half-measure. It becomes a permanently withheld judgment, which is no approach at all. Just a worthless, subjective, illogical philosophy of government, a perennial invocation of “this sentence is false,” to the point that a definable Leftist international policy does not, in fact, exist.
Yes folks, I saw myself so clearly in that analysis. My point of view has always been to look to oneself for fault before blaming others. I had to chuckle at how Mr. Steinberg had so accurately nailed one aspect of the modern American liberal. What’s more, it gave me insight into why I (and my fellow liberals) enrage conservatives. It is as much frustration as it is rage. I see it in the comments section of this blog all the time. Readers who give me credit for having at least half a brain, cannot fathom how I come to the conclusions that I do.
What conservatives, and Mr. Steinberg, fail to see is how the other extreme is just as dangerous if not more so. When you begin from the premise that you are unquestionably “right” and therefore the fault must lie with the “other”, there is no room for discussion, for compromise, for empathy or for anything remotely resembling “relationship”. The only logical conclusion is for the right party to defeat the wrong party. The consequence of this philosophy is that all conflicts must be resolved by confrontation. All enemies must either be ignored (like “lazy welfare mothers” in the inner city) or vanquished, like the regimes of Iran and North Korea. No room for conversation. Right is right, wrong is wrong and that’s that.
This difference between extreme conservative thought and extreme liberal thought is irreconcilable. The extreme conservative refuses self examination and the extreme liberal gets so bogged down in it as to become ineffective.
While I think the bulk of Mr. Steinberg’s article is a justification for anti-Muslim bigotry, I must give him credit for holding a mirror up to me on my more extreme days and helping me understand why I frustrate the crap out of my conservative readers.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
The Need for a New Muslim Narrative
The video juxtaposes images of every day Americans who happen to be Muslims with a soundtrack of Islamaphobic hate speech. To anyone with an ounce of empathy, the video is extremely powerful.
There is only one problem. The empathetic folks who would find the video powerful are not the folks who need convincing. Islamaphobia is not the byproduct of some psychosis. It is the byproduct of seeing a small but conspicuous minority of one particular religion use violence as a “normal” reaction to achieving political ends and addressing grievances. The folks featured in the UPF video are not the folks inspiring fear of Muslims.
So what is missing from the video? What is missing from the video is the condemnation of religious violence by Muslims from Muslims. You see, after years on this blog defending Islam, the one thing I can no longer defend is the sound of crickets from the lawful Muslim community every time a follower of Islam blows himself up and kills innocents. If UPF wants to really make a difference they need to publish videos of Muslims denouncing the violent aspects of Sharia law as well as the reprehensible behavior of radical Muslims worldwide.
Very simply and with all due respect to Unity Productions Foundation, fair-minded people know that the grocer, cab driver, research scientist, teacher and soccer coach might be Muslims and they live and love and cry and bleed just like any non-Muslim. What remains to be seen is will they work toward a more peaceful religion and publicly condemn their brothers and sisters who have brought shame upon their religion? That is the new Muslim narrative that we must see if minds and hearts are going to change.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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July 12, 2011 at 7:05 pm Rutherford 306 comments