On insults and religion
When I was a younger man I recall watching a documentary on missionaries in Mississippi. They were Southern Baptists who were on a mission to “save” everyone (this included Roman Catholics and Protestants who had not had a “Born Again” experience). At one point the missionaries encountered a man from Pakistan, who was a Muslim. They confronted him aggressively as to whether he worshiped “idols.” From what I saw their tactics seemed more a way to allow these individuals to act out and be obnoxious than convert people (social science research shows that conversions usually happen through networks of friends, not from encountering the random missionary). Later that year a friend of my younger brother, who was Baptist, saw my dad praying. He asked me whether we worshiped idols. He even slipped a little doll in front of my dad’s prayer rug, an act which my brother found really offensive. At the time I wondered if conservative Baptist churches around the country were sharing literature and tactics which verged in this obnoxious direction (I also had another friend inquire if I was Hindu after there was a sermon on Hinduism. I told him I was not, at which point he still regaled me with the gist of how horrible demonic Hinduism was).
This sort of behavior is very boorish. On the other hand, it brought home to me the importance of intersubjectivity. As an atheist to me all religion was human-created, so the behavior of my Baptist friends and acquaintances when it came to other religions was boorish, but not offensive. But religion is important for most humans. Religions, and societies more generally, tend to share explicit and implicit norms and values. They allow individuals to differentiate between the acceptable and unacceptable. In a society where there is pluralism this is a more difficult task.
The importance of intersubjectivity is why I roll my eyes when Egypts grand mufti talks about an “insult to Islam”. It is important to remember that Islam by its very nature is an insult to many religions. That is, the core beliefs of Islam are an offense. There is a lot of exegesis on exactly what Islam says about the People of the Book, but there is little doubt about what it says about “idolatry.” For example, Hindus who revere idols and consider themselves polytheists are insulted by Islam constantly.* The holiest books of Islam are basically hate-texts against polytheists and those who revere idolts. Among South Asian Muslims the “idolatrous” practices of Hindus are fodder for much humor in social situations.** Even the command to convert the world is offensive to many.
At one point I was a regular participant on the comment boards of Talk Islam and Sepia Mutiny. It was interesting to contrast the two, for though Sepia Mutiny is not explicitly a religious weblog, most participants are from Hindu or Sikh religious traditions (Dharmic). On Talk Islam I repeatedly explained, and made the argument, that one could be sincerely religious, and, accept a common underlying and equivalent truth of all religions. Aziz found this an implausible or false assertion, as for him the nature of religion is such that you adhere to a faith you believe the closest to the truth, and you wish others would also adhere to the nearest approximation of the ultimate truth. By contrast, on the Sepia Mutiny it was clear that many simply could not comprehend why Christians and Muslims had to proselytize by the nature of their faith. For them, it was a given that all religions express aspects of the ultimate truth, and attempts to convert individuals to another tradition is simply cultural aggression which sows discord and is an implicit affront. From long discussions it was clear that the two groups had a very primitive or non-existent understanding of the perspective of the other. Some of the concerns of adherents of Indian religions also emerge among Jews. They perceive Christian attempts to convert them as a form of cultural genocide, but that is because their presuppositions about religion are fundamentally different from those of Evangelical Christians. Jews also have issues with Christians who “compliment” their tradition by asserting that their own religion is simply a “completion” of Judaism. Muslims often prove their pluralist bona fides by observing that they respect all prophets who have come before, and view the People of the Book of having received a true message from God. Of course, these traditions are less than flattered, because most Muslims also believe that their traditions are distortions and degenerations from Islam (Muslims view their faith as the “primal religion.” This view is shared by many conservative Christians as well), ergo, the necessity of Muhammad as the seal of prophets.
As an atheist with no strong emotional connection to any religion I view this with some curiosity and intellectual interest. But, I also think that it brings up a pragmatic issue: genuine religious pluralism has to lead toward religious segregation. The Ottoman millet model, which also existed in Europe in the relationship of Jews to the polity, is in some ways the “natural” state of religious pluralism. But what about the United States? I think we have turned Catholics and Jews into operational Protestants. To assimilate then Muslims have to cede ground on the importance of orthopraxy and Hindus have to accept the ubiquity of religious defection. In Muslim countries Christians no longer act out on the injunction in the New Testament to preach their faith, because they’ve been turned into People of the Book, who exist as religious fossils. The Parsi attitude toward conversions is probably shaped in part by their inculcation of Hindu attitudes. And so forth.***
Addendum: For many religious people I’ve found that the very avowal of atheism is somewhat offensive to them. At least judging by their negative and uncomfortable body language. A few times people have even asked if atheism is too strong of a world, and perhaps I’m just “not religious” or “secular.”
* Many Hindus reject idol reverence and consider themselves monotheists. Perhaps most in the West. But many Hindus will assert that they are polytheists, and accept the importance of the representation of gods in worship.
** When I was a child some old guy at a party where everyone was a South Asian Muslim started talking about how Hindus consumed cow feces. I really hated this stuff, since this was invariably before we ate, but people always thought this was really funny. But at this party there was a younger man who was offended by this. He asserted that in fair play Muslims should not mock other religions, even in private. I recall everyone was shocked and dumbfounded. It was clear they’d never even run into this sort of argument, and the conversation moved to other topics. I have been told by Hindus that the inverse mockery also occurs. No surprise.
*** There was always an implicit ethnic Persian aspect of Zoroastrianism. But the historical record attests to Zoroastrians among many non-ethnic Persians, from Armenians to Turks, to converts from Christianity.
No matter how you try to turn it Razib, religion is a matter of psychiatry, a form of paranoia, period.
Mankind for some reason(s) got infected with this disease long ago and we are now coming closer to a deadly climax.
psychiatry is by and large mumbo-jumbo too.
“one could be sincerely religious, and, accept a common underlying and equivalent truth of all religions.”
When I see this postulated, I generally take the speaker as a sectarian of the soft Unitarianism that has absorbed most Western religious belief – i.e. “I think we have turned Catholics and Jews into operational Protestants.” I don’t know anything about Sepia Mutiny or the demographics of its readership; I’d be interested to know whether a receptivity to universalism comes from assimilation into the ideological norms of upper caste Westerners or an analogous approach from Hindu context. Or both.
mouthbreather, read non-western history. what you term “soft unitarianism” is probably dominant in most of the east. i’m not making it up. in fact, hindu nationalists who do take an exclusive view probably derive such ideas from emulation of abrahamic religions. i won’t go into the intellectual genealogy, but it’s obvious from the history.
here is khubalai khan:
“There are prophets who are worshipped and to whom everybody does reverence. The Christians say their god was Jesus Christ; the Saracens, Mohammed; the Jews, Moses; and the idolaters Sakamuni Borhan [that is, Sakiamuni Buddha, who was the first god to the idolaters]; and I do honor and reverence to all four, that is to him who is the greatest in heaven and more true, and him I pray to help me.”
here is mongke khan:
“We Mongols believe in one God, by Whom we live and die”. He then continued “Just as God gave different fingers to the hand so has He given different ways to men. To you God has given the Scriptures and you Christians do not observe them”. He explaind God had given the Mongols their shamans. Mongke offered Louis IX his cooperation but warned all Christians that “If, when you hear and understand the decree of the eternal God, you are unwilling to pay attention and believe it…and in this confidence you bring an army against us-we know what we can do”
neither of these khans were christian, with khubilai having a noted preference for tibetan buddhism (he demanded daoists cease slandering the buddha as a cheap copy of laozi). but their mother was a nestorian christian.
Razib
You lump Christianity and Islam together and observe that various posters at SepiaMutiny didn’t understand why adherents of these two religions had to proselytize “by the nature of their faith.”
You then talk about Christian missionaries and their activities towards Jews.
However, your examples regarding Islam do not strike me as proselytism.
Can you point to me any examples of Muslims proselytizing Hindus, and especially in the “obnoxious” and “boorish” manner as in your Baptist example?
The Qu’ran states that Jews, Christians, and others who believe in God, do good deeds will be accepted into heaven. In all matters, final judgment is with Allah (swt)
There are numerous hadiths stating that the first three people in the Hellfire will be Muslims.
As far as the “Protestantization of Islam” that needs to occur for Muslims to assimilate:
Which Muslims? 1/3 of Muslims are black Americans, people who have been here longer than most Catholics.
Also, it assumes that the immigrant patterns and dynamics are the same as what was happening with Catholic immigrants close to 100 years ago. Basically, alot more research has to be done in regards with socio-economic status, education, and contemporary dynamics in order for this theory to hold weight.
bang gully, i’m aware there is variation among muslims. there are hindus who are like muslims in their attitudes toward other religions (RSS), and there are muslims who are like hindus in their attitudes toward other religions. it doesn’t change the fact that the distributions differ.
anyway, i’m not going to get into an argument with you, because i don’t view you as a useful interlocutor. you know very well that there are muslims who behave in an obnoxious manner when trying to engage in dawah, and many who do not. you also admitted that your cousins nepal think hinduism is ludicrous and funny, so it’s not like you’re ignorant of muslim disrespect for other religions in general.
in any case, as long as you don’t make up lies about my own position (which you’ve done before, assuming i’m a neocon when i’m a moderate isolationist), i will let your comments go through. but i’m not going to waste time arguing about hadiths, i think they’re about as useful a guide to islam as the old testament is to modern judaism. somewhat, but not really.
here’s from *religious landscape survey*
“Views of One’s Religion as the One True Faith”
percentages agree with “My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life”
evangelical – 36
historically black = 34
mainline – 12
catholics – 16
mormon – 57
orthodox – 20
jehovah witness – 80
jew – 5
muslim – 33
buddhit – 5
hindu – 5
the exact number is less important than the rank order. mormons have explained that the way the question is worded had the effect (as mormons at actually somewhat universalist). but i think it’s a good index of exclusivism.
Amartya Sen (Nobelist economist) in “The Argumentative Indian” claims that observant Hndus are able to accept atheism as a kind of Hindu devotion. He was talking about family members. This can be attested quite early — they were classified as a kind of ascetic, presumably because they’d renounced the comfort of theism, providence, the afterlife, etc.
The Mongols are not an especially good example, because their primary belief up to a certain point was to the Mongol mission of world conquest, which had religious (shamanist, more or less) grounds. They’re fairly unique in recorded history, and it’s a freak of history that we have abundant records of them.The Mongols favored all religions as long as the religions respected Mongol rule. Partly this was because they respected literacy and wanted to gai the advantages of literacy. Partly they hoped for religions to bring powers of one kind or another, and they also used religion in diplomacy and as a tool of government. But their deepest beliefs was Mongol for several generations.
There seems to be some connection between monotheism and religious intolerance. Egypt was fine before Aten. The Romans were fine before the Jews and Christians. There was conflict in Asia on religious lines–Buddhists in China–but the degree and scope of that violence was nothing like what happened in Europe. Even the Hindu RSS are very Christian-like (arguably more that than Hindu-like) in their organization and monotheism.
Amartya Sen (Nobelist economist) in “The Argumentative Indian” claims that observant Hndus are able to accept atheism as a kind of Hindu devotion. He was talking about family members. This can be attested quite early — they were classified as a kind of ascetic, presumably because they’d renounced the comfort of theism, providence, the afterlife, etc.
there are streams of hindu philosophy which are atheistic. but there was an explicitly materialist group which arose in india, the carvaka. whether they are hindu or not depends on who you talk to. i read sen’s essay, and he’s identifying with them (he uses the other term for them, lokayata i think). hinduism intellectual is a little confusing to abrahamists though because apparently the big issue with carvaka wasn’t their rejection of gods, but their materialism and rejection of karma. that’s what really puts them outside of the hindu intellectual tradition.
There seems to be some connection between monotheism and religious intolerance. Egypt was fine before Aten. The Romans were fine before the Jews and Christians. There was conflict in Asia on religious lines–Buddhists in China–but the degree and scope of that violence was nothing like what happened in Europe. Even the Hindu RSS are very Christian-like (arguably more that than Hindu-like) in their organization and monotheism.
this is an old and empirically robust observation. i would say though that what distinguishes the monotheism which came out of the jews, and was reformulated by the greeks and arabs in their own ways, isn’t intolerance. many societies were intolerant of particular religions and sects. in the 9th century china had a famous wave of persecutions against ‘foreign sects,’ which included buddhism. in india there were conflicts along religious lines as well, think jain vs. hindu in south india. the romans suppressed as seditious particular religious sects. and their opposition to christianity was probably more about political disruption that he new religion was causing more than their atheism (that they rejected other gods), as jews were atheists too and were tolerated within limits (even given exemptions from ritual emperor worship). rather, it’s that monotheistic religions tend to have a monopolistic drive when it comes to driving out other institutionalized religions that is beyond compare.
but this is not limited to monotheists, they just express it to the utmost most vigorously. buddhism in tibet and japan behaved in ways you would recognize from reading about the pagan conversion of europe. but the difference seems to be that whereas non-abrahamic religions are comfortable with marginalizing other traditions, abrahamic religions have a drive to extirpate other institutional variants once they achieve ascendancy.
Razib,
In regards to there being obnoxious Muslims: yes, generally to other Muslims who aren’t observant enough or hold some political opinion not in agreeance with the obnoxious person.
I’ve personally never seen or heard of any obnoxious Muslims giving dawah to non-Muslims. Not to say that there aren’t any. Thats why I asked you for some examples since you so casually lumped Muslims together with obnoxious Christians.
I brought up Quran and hadiths because contrary to your point of view, I would posit that religious people do follow the texts of the religion. Adherence of course varies from place to place, or from time to time and other factors are involved. These inconsistencies don’t mean that the texts have no significance.
I also brought them up because you said “nature of the faith.” You’re not the type to use vague words. I assume “faith” here would include texts or what would fall under traditional scholarly understandings of what “faith” would mean.
Muslims disrespecting certain Hindu beliefs is not proselytism however. Its just disrespect. my father is an ardent secularist/bengali nationalist and he routinely laughs at hindu epics/myths. That doesn’t mean he wants to discriminate against hindus or change their way of life. Or even believes in Islam.
Also, you didn’t address the Protestantization and assimilation question I had.
Also, since we’re on the subject of making up lies. I was mistaken to assume you were a neo-conservative. it was a movement associated with the Republican party and you are a registered Republicans and therefore i thought you would at least have some allegiance to their thinking.
Nevertheless, i should not be the only one warned here as you yourself have been found to mislead people on certain issues regarding Bangladeshi society and history. I debated you once earlier this year as well and there was a female scholar on Bangladeshi history at TalkIslam that you debated with as well. At least when I misrepresented your opinion, i never called you names or insulted you. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for you.
Irregardless of our mutual dislike of each other, I would still like to hear you flesh out the claims in this post just a little bit more. I can separate Razib the intellectual from Razib the person.
In regards to there being obnoxious Muslims: yes, generally to other Muslims who aren’t observant enough or hold some political opinion not in agreeance with the obnoxious person.
I’ve personally never seen or heard of any obnoxious Muslims giving dawah to non-Muslims. Not to say that there aren’t any. Thats why I asked you for some examples since you so casually lumped Muslims together with obnoxious Christians.
1) in general believers are harder on deviants within their own camp than on outsiders. this is not exclusive to muslism (roman christian persecution generally harsher on christian heretics than pagans, same with muslims).
2) i’ll give you three personal examples:
a) chicago april 2003, black muslim preacher downtown.he was basically like the typical obnoxious christian preacher. but muslim.
b) 1989. i had a cousin-in-law who was a muslim convert, and his hindu brother was at dinner. at the party one of my distant relatives decided to dawah him in front of everyone. to the discomfort of most, but he went ahead anyway. i know enough bengali to comprehend it was unartfully done.
c) 1999. a party of bangladeshis in the pacific northwest (my parents friends). one party-goer found out that one of the women (muslim) was married to a man (hindu), and that they were raising their sons different religions. the person went on about how bad this was, and they should raise the kids both the right religion, and it wasn’t correct for a muslim woman to marry a hindu. my impression is this person was brought by someone else.
I also brought them up because you said “nature of the faith.” You’re not the type to use vague words. I assume “faith” here would include texts or what would fall under traditional scholarly understandings of what “faith” would mean.
by nature of the faith, i mean the practice and beliefs of the majority, around 1 standard deviation +/-. the texts are part of it, but i don’t weight them heavily as you note above. i’m more interested in practice than beliefs, though the two are obviously related.
Also, you didn’t address the Protestantization and assimilation question I had.
because i think black islam emerged as a way to further separate blacks from the mainstream of american identity. in fact, the nation of islam was more “american” than he majority movement since the 1970s which more like orthdox islam. as an analogy, orestes brownson was of anglo-protestant origin, but his conversion to catholicism i the mid-19th century separated him from his milieu to some extent because catholicism was not an americanized religion at that point.
Nevertheless, i should not be the only one warned here as you yourself have been found to mislead people on certain issues regarding Bangladeshi society and history. I debated you once earlier this year as well and there was a female scholar on Bangladeshi history at TalkIslam that you debated with as well. At least when I misrepresented your opinion, i never called you names or insulted you. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for you.
1) i don’t usually debate you because our presuppositions vary so much that there’s no point. the issue about the “nature of faith” for example points to that.
2) the individual you are referring to made a half dozen personal attacks on me when she showed up on the blog. secondarily, in that particular thread she made up “facts” about me in the course of arguments. i.e., she actually asserted untrue biographical data which she had no way of knowing. she did that before too. basically, she knew some of my views, and so assumed she could infer aspects of my biography and all my views (like you, she assumed i’m a neocon who is fanatically pro-israel in her initial salvo of attacks. if you read this weblog you can see how preoccupied i am with israel!)
if you ran a weblog, and had to deal with stupid comments and untruths i think you’d be a little less “above the fray.” as it is, you drop in when you want to, and are safe behind your wall of anonymity (well, at least to most readers. i figured out who you are about an hour ago and saw your photo :-).
in any case, a great deal of my hostility with you had to due with your assumption that i was a neoconservative, and the assorted inferences you made from that. i’m frankly still suspicious of you (again, i think you are either misreading or misrepresenting the nature of my hostility to the individual you refer to above), but if you want to engage fruitfully i’m obviously game. but note that just because i don’t respond to everything, that doesn’t mean i concede the point. time is finite, and this isn’t a debate where we’re “flowing” points.
razib,
I’d be interested to know what you’re referring to with the jain/hindu divide, as at least today these communities are well integrated–even though, as a marked dominant minority, you might expect more conflict.
Obviously, there is religious conflict everywhere. But the nature and degree of that in Asia, until recently, has been very different wrt Dharmic faiths. The monopolistic drive is a big part of it, but even Buddhism, which has more universal and missionary aspects, doesn’t compare to Europe/Middle East. Inter-religious strife and apostasy are much less of a concern, as are inter-state conflict along religious grounds.
Unfortunately, it’s the faiths that seek to spread themselves that tend to survive.
I’d be interested to know what you’re referring to with the jain/hindu divide, as at least today these communities are well integrated–even though, as a marked dominant minority, you might expect more conflict.
there were conflicts between jain dynasties and hindu ones in south india. standard issue consequences, deface the temple of the opposition, etc. the saivites won i think.
Obviously, there is religious conflict everywhere. But the nature and degree of that in Asia, until recently, has been very different wrt Dharmic faiths. The monopolistic drive is a big part of it, but even Buddhism, which has more universal and missionary aspects, doesn’t compare to Europe/Middle East. Inter-religious strife and apostasy are much less of a concern, as are inter-state conflict along religious grounds.
well, i’d like to quantitatize, though on first blush i think you’re right. but remember that most societies go to war under the aegis of their gods, and it is common to destroy the holy places of th defeated, or in the case of babylonia to drag the idols of the enemy gods in chains and replace it with your god on the pedestal.
the difference isn’t conflict. i’s that in an iterative game the abrahamists simply eliminate the defeated, instead of marginalizing them.
there’s a 19th and 20th century example of mass conversions of christians to buddhism. sri lanka, where the protestant elites became therevada buddhist. there is good evidence though that this drive was due to influence upon buddhism by sympathizing westerners who helped trigger a therevada ‘reformation.’
also, the difference is the rate of change. buddhism disappeared in india mostly through gradual hindu marginalization. the muslims simply enacted a coup de grace. similarly, buddhism superseded hinduism in southeast asia over time. institutional religions generally need some basal level of support to not go extinct. in the late roman empire institutional paganism was destroyed by a cutting off that support, the banning of pagan practices in private (though this wasn’t enforced much), and the systematic destruction and conversion of pagan sites and temples by christian fanatics which the authorities did not punish (e.g., the serapium in alexandria). but religions at low frequencies can make a come back. e.g., christianity in spain and sicily. arguably, south korea was less buddhist in 1950 than it is today. the institutional revival has been overshadowed by the rise of christianity in korea, but it occurred simultaneously. a religion disappears or turns into a fossil, as zoroastrianism in iran, the opportunity for revival disappears (there were attempts to revive zoroastrianism as iran’s state religion until the 9th century, when the final hold outs in the north were brought under control).
razib,
Not sure what the differing rate of change is on the ground. It took some time for Islam to spread to the population in India; as it did for Buddhism in SE Asia. My prior is that all World spread equally quickly in terms of what most people believe.
Look at the Christian/Islamic tradition of fine-grained theological disputes becoming violent. Disputes within or between Dharmic religions existed, often for political reasons, but rarely took on the ideological character commonplace with Christianity/Islam, or the severity. Plus you have that whole ahimsa bit–whether or not it was practiced, it was clearly an ideal.
The abrahamists in S Asia never defeated or marginalized local religions. But they still had a sense of religious unity and converting zeal that was far greater than what existed before. It’s a qualitative difference in terms of viewing the world through a religious lens. There was little anti-Semitism in Asia. There was no tax on the unbelievers; no demand that the subjects worship the same god as the ruler.
I would liken this to the 16-17th century creation of race in America. Suddenly people took on race as an identity; the Abramimists did so with their religion a far greater extent than the Dharmics.
Look at the Christian/Islamic tradition of fine-grained theological disputes becoming violent. Disputes within or between Dharmic religions existed, often for political reasons, but rarely took on the ideological character commonplace with Christianity/Islam, or the severity. Plus you have that whole ahimsa bit–whether or not it was practiced, it was clearly an ideal.
this is way too simple. in any case, ideological fixations are more chistian than islamic. islam is more focused on orthopraxy. the shia-sunni split is fundamentally political, not theological or ideological (it became so later). and christianity is fundamentally a religion not of peace? (you have it with islam though)
The abrahamists in S Asia never defeated or marginalized local religions. But they still had a sense of religious unity and converting zeal that was far greater than what existed before. It’s a qualitative difference in terms of viewing the world through a religious lens. There was little anti-Semitism in Asia. There was no tax on the unbelievers; no demand that the subjects worship the same god as the ruler.
again, some of this is false. or i disagree with the qualitative stuff.
a lot of the generalizations are too strong upon further inspection. don’t have time to get into it now. i agree there’s a quantitative difference. but if you examine the chinese traditionalist arguments against buddhism and the abrahamic religions, you see that religious conformity did matter, and these religious were seen to be seditious because of the nature of their beliefs and practices.
if you examine the chinese traditionalist arguments against buddhism and the abrahamic religions, you see that religious conformity did matter, and these religious were seen to be seditious because of the nature of their beliefs and practices.
Of course there is religious conflict in the East. I pointed out China myself. But the degree and nature of that conflict was radically different, something I think you agree with. After Protestantism arose, much of Europe was thrown into war for quite some time. Islam isn’t just Buddhism ratcheted up a little bit; Buddhists don’t routinely murder other Buddhists for being heretics (not that I’m against Islam or buy into Bernard Lewis or Samuel Huntington).
How many Abrahamics have died at the hands of another Abrahamic because of their religion? 100m? What’s the figure for Dharmic-Dharmic violence? 10m? Obviously hard to tell whether or not a given death was religiously motivated or not, but I think the point stands.
How many Abrahamics have died at the hands of another Abrahamic because of their religion? 100m? What’s the figure for Dharmic-Dharmic violence? 10m? Obviously hard to tell whether or not a given death was religiously motivated or not, but I think the point stands.
i think the last point is key. i’m of the opinion that religious death tolls are generally exaggerated (this is true for the inquisition and the witch burnings). but if you look at the history of the thirty years war it’s a lot more complicated than saying that religion was the determinative factor. wars happen. religion often is a good way to organize sides and form alliances. but not always. e.g., france’s role on the side of the protestants, england’s relative distance from the whole affair.
anyway, you said qualitative difference. i think one needs to be careful of that assertion. the glosses on what happened tends to make the differences between the categories much greater because the variance is removed.
For a given country with a clear cultural-religious majority, there are two ways to assimilate a distinct religious group:
1- The minority just converts outright. AFAIK that’s pretty much what happened to most People of the Book in Muslim lands.
2- The minority doesn’t convert, but adopts the general customs, culture and outlook of the majority, so as to become indistinguishible from it – they become part of the “us”. IIUC that’s what you call “Protestantization” of Jews and Catholics in the US. It also happened to some extent to the remaining People of the Book in Muslimc countries – most prominently in Iran (though the interval of secularisation might have had something to do with it?)
The latter is especially striking in the case of European Jews, because the way in which it happened is historically documented. It begins in earnest with the Napoleonic decision to integrate Jews into the mainstream society, encourage them to adopt French names, etc. – and ends with the carnage of the Holocaust. after that, in much of Europe, Jews were simply assimilated into the general population – they became part of the “us”, as opposed to the definite “them” they used to be. The current challenge is to do the same thing with Muslims.
“Greater India” has always favoured the latter solution. The very term “Dharmic faiths”, which includes strains from very different origins (Jains!), is testament to the assimilating nature of Indian culture.
Right now, despite all the Hindutva rhetorics, the culture is basically trying to do the same thing with Muslims. Bollywood movies really emphasise the (obviously idealised) message: “we pray in different ways, we have different names for Baghwan/Khuda/Allah, but we’re all really the same!”.
Hindus who revere idols and consider themselves polytheists are insulted by Islam constantly.* The holiest books of Islam are basically hate-texts against polytheists and those who revere idolts. Among South Asian Muslims the “idolatrous” practices of Hindus are fodder for much humor in social situations.
Well… I know first-hand that the “Elephant God”, in particular, is highly amusing to even educated Pakistani Muslims (veneration of cows is a close second in order of ridicule).
However, meet Dr. Zakir Naik.
The man is a superstar among South Asian muslims – memorised not just the quran, but also much of the Bible by heart, and can quote chapter and verse at will to support his arguments. In addition, he comes across as a really nice guy, not “boorish” at all – which doesn’t prevent him from being master debater.
On top of that, he has also studied Hinduism in depth and came to the conclusion that it is basically a garbled Monotheistic religion. I suppose that’s based on the concept of Brahman, or whatever Bollywood actors talk about when they say “Baghwan”. So basically he includes Hindus among People of the Book – folks who have strayed from the truth, but should nevertheless be respected and protected as deep-down believers in the One God.
You can see that as an attempt to “assimilate the minority”, if you regard the hundreds of millions of Hindus as a minority “within” about 2 billion muslims. That’s a bit warped, but I believe that’s how they really see it.
tl;dr: Muslims and Hindus are trying to assimilate each other, at different scales, in the same way Western Christianity has assimilated its Jews.
Religions really are different from each other. They hold different beliefs, & have different cultural flavours. Navigating round these is interesting but scary, & makes me favour “laicité” or secularism. But my preference may itself be a product of the specifically post-Christian culture I know.
Take the attitudes of Islam and Christianity to Jesus & Muhammad. Islam teaches that Jesus was a holy man but not the Son Of God. This sounds friendly enough, rather like the Atheists who say Jesus was a great moral teacher like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, but they just can’t believe he got up & walked around three days later.
However, the Islamic view of Jesus isn’t like that. He didn’t die on the cross. Rather, at the last moment, there was a Houdini-like sleight-of-hand. God swapped him for some other person, who suffered the agonising Crucifixion in his place.
If the saving sacrifice, the redemption through suffering, never took place, then Christianity is emptied of all meaning. It also inverts the moral character of Jesus. A Jesus who would endorse a “stunt double” dying a horrible death in his place is a very different Jesus from the Christian saviour who takes the sins of all humanity to the cross. The Islamic view is far more offensive to Christians than the view of many Atheists, that Jesus died horribly at the hands of the Romans but never revived. The seriousness of the Crucifixion feels mocked & trivialised. Nothing in the “Life Of Brian” is as offensive as the Islamic view of Jesus.
There is a similar problem with Christianity’s view of Muhammad. Christians say they believe in the same One God as Muslims. They just don’t believe Muhammad was his prophet. But if Muhammad wasn’t a prophet he must have been either deluded or a charlatan or both – at best an L Ron Hubbard with an army. This is bound to hurt Muslims’ feelings, since Muhammad is “al-insan, al-kamil” – the perfect human.
The different reported characters of Jesus & Muhammad have led to very different cultures. All of Jesus’s teachings are impractical moral absolutes – love your neighbour as you love yourself; don’t punish anyone for anything ever because you’re not morally perfect yourself; turn the other cheek; take no thought for the morrow; don’t just give a percentage of your money to the poor, give all of it – & even that isn’t enough. No society could function on these instructions, though a few have tried. Jesus says render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, & says his kingdom is “not of this world”. This makes possible the separation of Church & State. But Muhammad’s “Year Zero” is the intensely political Constitution of Medina. The good governance of the ummah is at the heart of his teaching.
razib:
psychiatry is by and large mumbo-jumbo too.
Hu! hu! you sound like a scientologist (kidding)
All right, as a purported cure psychiatry is often mumbo-jumbo, as for diagnostics of maladaptive behavior not so much.
I have a recognized psychotic as a neighbor, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, living from a state pension (this is France…), and I can assure you that though this doesn’t cut off all social skills it is definitely maladaptive.
It is in this sense that I deem religion maladaptive in the current era (even schizophrenia could have been valuable at some point, see Geoffrey Miller).
Religion was (and still is) beneficial to strengthen group bonding, allowing the more cohesive tribes to overtake the less so.
But this doesn’t scale, neither to the group sizes we see today, nor to demented ideologies, nor to the evolution of armament, bows and arrows allow the Yanomamos to strive, nukes…
Besides, who wants to live under tribal rules nowadays?
true faith leading to eternal life
This questions seems to assume that all religions share a belief in eternal life and hold that as a goal.
Modern Judaism, for example, in America in particular, does not universally share that belief. It is more of a “do what God wants so He will bless you in this life” mentality. That is not to say many religious Jews(again as an example, I’ve heard pagan echo this sentiment as well) don’t believe the point of Judaism is eternal life.
This distinction may be related to the question of whether or not one can be religious and believe that all religions contain the truth. That is a little different from the question of whether they pave the way to eternal life.
On a side note, I’ve found it odd that Mormons and Muslims share some beliefs(polygamy and their concept of heaven) yet Mormons culturally resemble Evangelical Christians who do not share such beliefs.
kev, let’s just say that outside of the margin (i.e., schizophrenia) a lot of “mental illness” seems be defined due to cultural caprice.
georgesdelatour, most people are stupid. they don’t know what you’re talking about. if you posit that cultural elites, religious professionals, and enormous influence then your argument holds.
It also happened to some extent to the remaining People of the Book in Muslimc countries – most prominently in Iran (though the interval of secularisation might have had something to do with it?)
the religious minorities in iran excluding zoroastrians and jews are not ethnic persians. most christians are armenians. most sunnis are kurds and baloch. in regards to zoroastrians and jews these groups lived in disabilities well into the 20th century from what i know. so i see the iranian identity of persian jews in the USA, for example, as simply one that emerged in the USA more than would have been the case in iran.
The latter is especially striking in the case of European Jews, because the way in which it happened is historically documented. It begins in earnest with the Napoleonic decision to integrate Jews into the mainstream society, encourage them to adopt French names, etc. – and ends with the carnage of the Holocaust. after that, in much of Europe, Jews were simply assimilated into the general population – they became part of the “us”, as opposed to the definite “them” they used to be. The current challenge is to do the same thing with Muslims.
i think the case in eastern europe is a lot less complete than you are presenting. i think the case in western europe was relatively complete (and italy as well). the difference is that there were many jews in eastern europe who could form their own communities, and they were yiddish or german speaking in areas where the population was slavic or hungarian. though they started ‘nativizing’ within the generation or two of the holocaust (i.e., paul erdos’ surname was magyarized from a germanic variant).
On top of that, he has also studied Hinduism in depth and came to the conclusion that it is basically a garbled Monotheistic religion. I suppose that’s based on the concept of Brahman, or whatever Bollywood actors talk about when they say “Baghwan”. So basically he includes Hindus among People of the Book – folks who have strayed from the truth, but should nevertheless be respected and protected as deep-down believers in the One God.
this is an old perspective. it goes back to the conquest of sindh when the muslim rulers did not slaughter all the hindus and buddhists, but simply treated them as dhimmis were treated elsewhere. brahmins were even allowed to retain their tax privileges as well as the rents they collected from the masses. dara shikoh in the mughal period is probably a good exemplar of this. i don’t think this view is waxing among most indian and south asian muslims though from what i know. i think a good gauge of this is that many south asian muslims emphasize turkic, persian or arabic cultural antecedents despite the fact that they are genetically and linguistically (and in many ways culinarily, for example, food) south asian.
as for the humor at ganesh, or reverence of the cow, that’s a common reaction by christians as well. i’ve even felt sorry for hindu acquaintances who have to explain that they don’t “worship” the cow to skeptical christians who obviously have no idea about the nature of hinduism. but it’s also like mormon underwear, it’s funny for non-mormons, but for mormons it’s a serious and spiritual issue. the problem in a religiously pluralistic society is that it takes time to assimilate what others hold sacred, and realize that it shouldn’t be made fun of. since the basic motifs of hinduism are somewhat more alien than islam, and hindus are less wont to threaten violence if turned into objects of humor, you have instances such as the episode of the simpsons when in a moment of ecumenicalism they noted that ap worshipped an eight armed goddess, and they bracketed his religion under “other.” of course, from a hindu perspective some of the things christians and muslims believe and do are just as bizarre and humorous.
razib
I think we can agree that Martin Luther had a massive effect on human history. Yet his argument about “sola fide” may not have been understood by many.
I think we can agree that Martin Luther had a massive effect on human history. Yet his argument about “sola fide” may not have been understood by many.
yes. but were martin luther and his ideas sufficient or necessary? i think sufficient, not necessary. luther wasn’t that revolutionary,* but the combination of political tensions, the emergence of the printing press, and the outlines of modern nation-states in parts of europe (england, france), were i believe necessary. if these combinations did not hold luther would have been another wycliff or huss.
what i’m saying is that if martin luther was strangled in his crib, it seems likely to me that the equilibrium of medieval western christendom was going to shatter no matter what. if the reformers did not form their own churches, suspect catholicism would have had to drift toward something more like eastern autocephaly.
and again, as i said, all the stuff you referred to about how islam and christianity views muhammed is pretty irrelevant IMO. in general, my attitude is that ideas in their *specific* content matter less than the fact that ideas differ and can serve as coalitional markers.
* many of luther’s ideas, at least his mature ideas after he realized that a quick reform of western christianity based around the roman church was not possible, has precedents across christian history.
Just remember that the Hussites invented field artillery. The words “howitzer” and “pistol” trace back to the Czech.
It’s all right there in the Bible, if you read carefully.
Jan Zizka.
razib:
kev, let’s just say…
OK, that’s perfectly clear: you don’t want to discuss pathological aspects of religion.
But as a summary dismissal it’s gross, given that you are far from being an idiot and given your dedication to the discussion of religion and civilization matters it makes me think that you are pushing some weird agenda that I cannot readily identify.
Strange…
OK, that’s perfectly clear: you don’t want to discuss pathological aspects of religion.
i’d rather use euphemisms. like “irrational herds.” pathology itself can be a slippery issue. context dependent as you note. having very light skin is a pathology in kenya, but dark skin is a pathology in sweden (at least before modern nutrition). by contrast, albinism is a pathology everywhere. that’s “outside the margin.” since in no nation have i seen data which suggests religious people have lower fertilities than non-religious i’m not too interested in referring to it as a disease.
This was discussed by William James a century ago. Religious beliefs which are obviously false can have a positive social function. They can even be positive in some sense of the word for the average individual, though any society, religious or not, has some people who systematically lose out, sometimes large groups of individuals such as slaves or front-line troops, and if they are motivated by religion their religion will be harmful to them.
Likewise, sometimes when someone escapes from a dogmatic religion they escape to some homemade personal philosophy which does them great harm, e.g. drug cultures.
I’m in considerable agreement with Razib on religion, though I’d never dare tell P Z Meyers that to his face. Religion is a human near-universal and from any evaluative point of view not customized for atheism religion has benign, neutral, and harmful forms.
The Communist states enforced atheism, successfully to a degree, but few would argue that that was liberating. The Czechs are still one of the world’s most atheist peoples, but that was true before Communism came along. (On the other hand, the closely-related Slovaks are pretty religious, and the Poles are extremely religious.)
That from the following
For them ( hindus and sikhs …) , it was a given that all religions express aspects of the ultimate truth, and attempts to convert individuals to another tradition is simply cultural aggression which sows discord and is an implicit affront.
the author comes to the following conclusion
From long discussions it was clear that the two groups had a very primitive or non-existent understanding of the perspective of the other.
shows muddled thinking. When Islam and Christianity prosetylize they are doing cultural aggression. Memes, anyone?
All right, as a purported cure psychiatry is often mumbo-jumbo, as for diagnostics of maladaptive behavior not so much. Um… no. We can’t even determine whether ‘schizophrenia’ is a single disorder or a collection of unrelated conditions which have vaguely similar manifestations.
As for the ability to diagnose, the formal diagnostic criteria for mental illnesses aren’t rigorously applied in practice for a variety of reasons.
Considered as a whole, modern psychiatry is a religious practice, not a science or even a proper medicine.
since in no nation have i seen data which suggests religious people have lower fertilities than non-religious i’m not too interested in referring to it as a disease. I take it you don’t refer to the common cold or chickenpox as diseases either?
Caledonian:
Considered as a whole, modern psychiatry is a religious practice, not a science or even a proper medicine.
That’s beside the point, the fact that both current theory and practice of psychiatry are more or less bunk (not always…) doesn’t mean that there isn’t some real trouble with mental health.
Diseases were just as crippling and lethal before the occurrence of “modern medicine”.
doesn’t mean that there isn’t some real trouble with mental health. Are you kidding? Even the concept of ‘mental health’ is dubious.
If we had any real expectation that mental illnesses were identifiable conditions, they’d be considered part of neurology – like epilepsy.