If it weren’t so saddening, I’d be greatly amused at those who, as a solution to religiously-based warfare and terrorism, promote the application of more religion. This goes along with the assertion that religion itself plays at best a tiny role in the barbarity of groups like ISIS. Rabbi Sacks has said this in his new book, Miroslav Volf said it in a Washington Post column (see my post from yesterday), and now conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks has joined the chorus.
In his Wednesday NYT piece, “Finding peace within the holy texts,” Brooks unloads a farrago of religious osculation, secularity blaming, and claims about what a “proper religion” is. What he’s trying to say isn’t quite clear, except that he’s trying to be nice to religion and to Rabbi Sacks, and to argue that somehow the cure for inter-religous strife is the application of Moar Religion—”properly understood” religion. To me this sounds supiciously like political homeopathy. (It’s worth nothing that Brooks appears to be a pious Christian.) I don’t want to go into depth about his piece, so I’ll just highlight a few of Brooks’s claims (in bold, with his words indented) and finish up with an analysis of the piece that Steve Pinker sent me.
The meaninglessness inflicting people, and the inability of secularism to dispel it, drives people to religious violence.
Humans also are meaning-seeking animals. We live, as Sacks writes, in a century that “has left us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning.” The secular substitutes for religion — nationalism, racism and political ideology — have all led to disaster. So many flock to religion, sometimes — especially within Islam — to extremist forms.
I’m not sure he’s quite right about what constitute the secular substitutes for religion. . . .
Religion isn’t a cause of violence because not many wars are religious.
Sacks emphasizes that it is not religion itself that causes violence. In their book Encyclopedia of Wars, Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod surveyed 1,800 conflicts and found that less than 10 percent had any religious component at all.
Even if Phillips and Axelrod’s analysis is correct, a figure of 10% of conflicts inspired by religion doesn’t mean that religion is exculpated from violence. As Pinker wrote me:
The atrocitologist Matthew White also gives an estimate of around 10% for both the number of multicides (wars and genocides) in history directly attributable to religion and for the number of deaths. However, he does agree with Anthony [Grayling] that religion figured prominently in many of the others, even if it’s not listed as the primary cause. Even one war that he excluded – America’s bloodiest war, the Civil War, with an unbelievable 650,000 deaths — had an important religious component, as both sides thought they were safeguarding the true religious mission of the US as a divinely inspired city on the hill.
And, of course, the main “war” we’re concerned with now is the war of extremist Islam against Western values, as well as Islam against all nonbelievers, including Sunnis versus Shiites. Only an apologist like Glenn Greenwald would argue that this has nothing to do with religion. The Sunni/Shia division, after all, didn’t derive from Western colonialism, and the groups are ethnically the same. They differ only in who they see as Muhammed’s rightful successors. (For more discussion of religion’s role in ISIS, see this piece at Quartz.)
Religion isn’t implicated in terrorism—it’s “groupishness”.
[Brooks says this right after claiming that only 10% of wars have a religious component.] Rather, religion fosters groupishness, and the downside of groupishness is conflict with people outside the group. Religion can lead to thick moral communities, but in extreme forms it can also lead to what Sacks calls pathological dualism, a mentality that divides the world between those who are unimpeachably good and those who are irredeemably bad.
The pathological dualist can’t reconcile his humiliated place in the world with his own moral superiority. He embraces a politicized religion — restoring the caliphate — and seeks to destroy those outside his group by apocalyptic force. This leads to acts of what Sacks calls altruistic evil, or acts of terror in which the self-sacrifice involved somehow is thought to confer the right to be merciless and unfathomably cruel.
This is a distinction without a difference. What, exactly, is the source of the feeling that you are “unimpeachably good” and others are “irredeemably bad”? What inspires the “moral communities”? Could it be religion? After all, religion’s toxic and tripartite combination of the claimed possession of absolute truth, the promulgation of a divinely-given moral code, and the promise of heaven and threat of hell for violating that code, are things we don’t see in other forms of groupishness, like sports or Sunday Assemblies.
And why, exactly, does what Brooks say above support his notion that “religion itself doesn’t cause violence”? It seems to me that, especially by invoking the return of the Caliphate, he’s just proven what he denies. Further, “self-sacrifice” is intimately connected with martyrdom and Paradise for jihadists.
Finally, the cure for religious strife is to read the texts “properly”. (My bolding in what’s below.)
Secular thought or moral relativism are unlikely to offer any effective rebuttal. Among religious people, mental shifts will be found by reinterpreting the holy texts themselves. There has to be a Theology of the Other: a complex biblical understanding of how to see God’s face in strangers. That’s what Sacks sets out to do.
. . . Read simplistically, the Bible’s sibling rivalries [Brooks cites Isaac and Ishamel] seem merely like stories of victory or defeat — Isaac over Ishmael. But all three Abrahamic religions have sophisticated, multilayered interpretive traditions that undercut fundamentalist readings.
. . . The reconciliation between love and justice is not simple, but for believers the texts, read properly, point the way. Sacks’s great contribution is to point out that the answer to religious violence is probably going to be found within religion itself, among those who understand that religion gains influence when it renounces power.
The big question, of course, is this: who is the arbiter of what is a “proper” reading of scripture? Apparently both Rabbi Sacks and David Brooks think that they are. But others, of course, disagree: even among Christians there is huge divergence about how to interpret scripture, and, as we all know, that often involves making things up. Scripture is easily malleable, and can be effortless stretched into the Procrustean bed of your own beliefs.
But the question at issue is not how to interpret the Bible, but how to intepret the Qur’an. Some, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz, argue that a more benign interpretation of that book is essential to curb extremist Islam. Maybe they’re right, too, but given the propensity of Muslims to read the Qur’an literally, that will be a long slog. Here, for instance, are some results from the recent Pew Poll on worldwide Muslim belief. Unfortunately, the data on adherence to the Qur’an was taken only from sub-Saharan Africa, but I’ve no doubt that the figures would be even higher for the Middle East:
Given this, can you really reinterpret “Smite the infidels” as “Don’t smite the infidels!”??
In email discussion of this column with a few people, Steve Pinker offered up his take on this column, which I reproduce with his permission. Note too the allusion in point 4 to his next book, which will come out in 2017.
A few observations on Brooks [by Pinker]:
1. It’s a bizarre boast that only 10% of history’s wars have been religious. Given the claimed aspirations of religion, shouldn’t the appropriate percentage be 0? The claim shows a common logical confusion among religious apologists between the observation that religion causes violence and the claim that religion is the only thing that causes violence.
2. The equally bizarre boast that religion is ascendant because religious people have more unprotected sex than nonreligious people may not be projectable into the future. Birthrates can change quickly, for obscure reasons. The US used to be an outlier among Western democracies in its high birthrate, presumably related to its religiosity, but that is becoming less true: its birthrate is falling, not to Western European levels yet, but it could happen. Even more amazingly, the Islamic birthrate has recently crashed, far more than what one would predict given rises in economic development (see here).
3. “The secular substitutes for religion…have all led to disaster. … Secular thought [is] unlikely to offer any effective rebuttal.”
So secular thought has doubled human lifespan, wiped out smallpox and cattle plague, decimated dozens of other horrible diseases, reduced extreme poverty worldwide from 85% to 10%, increased basic education from 17% to 82%, and wiped out human sacrifice, cannibalism, chattel slavery, heretic-burning, torture-executions, harems, and soon, interstate war. Bo-ring!4. Speaking of which, Brooks and Sacks may have a point that liberal, enlightenment secular humanism has been poor at advertising its own successes. In the 1950s and 1960s there was considerable idealistic energy behind international liberal movements such as the UN, Peace Corps, disease eradication projects, etc., which got sapped by a number of developments, not least cynicism by intellectuals on the left and right. Nowadays the Gates, Clinton, Carter, and other Foundations are capturing some, but not enough, of this enthusiasm. We do need a PR campaign to trumpet these astonishing successes. That will be a theme of my next book.
Nevile Chamberlain and that appeasement paper promise…..
Where are all the troubled atheists? Where are all the violent offender atheists? If Brooks is right shouldn’t the mental wards be filled with atheists who simply lost a loved one or a job and without religion could not cope?
It seems clear to my that the most well adjusted people in this world are atheist/agnostic/secular people. Well educated, upwardly mobile, and non-violent, and able to handle adversity and death with logic and reason.
And the most atheist of the atheists are determinists, and in determinism hate is irrational, revenge is irrational, forgiveness and understanding are virtues. Feelings still exist but they do not confuse because we understand where they come from and are therefore not controlled by them.
Fortunately I don’t think too many people are going to take Brooks seriously, and I would bet my life he is not going to turn anyone religious. However Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins continue to release religionists from their childhood indoctrination and for this they receive the most wonderful form of gratitude from religion’s former victims.
And then of course there is the fabulous Steven Pinker who continues to show us all the bright side of human nature through science. If humanity has a bright future, it is a secular one not a religion one.
Sorry for all the typos and bad grammar. As usual!
I didn’t even notice any typos. It’s a well considered comment and a good addition.
Relax. This is the internet, baby.
I try not to make errors, but if I do I ignore them. I assume everyone here is smart enough to figure out what I meant.
👍
Excellent comment!
Matt, I am trying to reconcile what determinism is all about with what is expressed, from time to time, by a determinist. Are you a determinist?
Assuming you are, then, would you agree that whether one hates or takes revenge, or forgives or understands is “determined”? Of course that does not mean that a label such as “virtue” cannot be used as a description for forgiveness or understanding, or that it is wrong to say hate or revenge is irrational.
You say “Feelings still exist but they do not confuse because we understand where they come from and are therefore not controlled by them.” You are in effect saying that you have a choice over your feelings – for instance – whether to hate or to forgive. Is this correct?
Good question Richard. Indeed determinism is quite a head trip for the reasons you point out. All I can say is this. Before I understood determinism, hate seemed rational. Now that I understand determinism hate seems irrational. Feelings still arise, including hate, but in the light of determinism, I can now rationalize away the hate. If we find out that someone who has committed murder had a brain tumor pressing on a part of their brain that caused their violence, we do not hate them as much as if we are unaware of any such condition. Determinism is like noticing everyone’s brain tumor. This of course changes nothing about whether or not we need to lock-up dangerous offenders to keep us safe or as a deterrent to future crimes. However moralizing and hatred and revenge seem illogical.
Believing in determinism doesn’t stop people from acting like they have free will, because we can’t help it. But somehow believing in determinism makes me less moralizing, hateful and vengeful. But I get where you are coming from. It’s a bloody head trip and hard to comprehend.
Matt, thank you for the clarification.
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Maybe it’s true as a practical matter, that one way to change fundamentalist’s behavior is to massage religious texts and use their language in a way that dampens literal interpretations. Many people see this as becoming “wiser theologians” and digging deeper into ethics. But to my eyes this is essentially just trying to get people to ignore the texts all together, or parts of them, and join a larger secular conversation about ethics.
Imagine we had a country still believeing that astrology dictated crop yields. While maybe it’s true as a matter of persuasion we’d could use the language of astrology to help them understand modern agriculture…we aren’t really becoming “wiser astrologists,” we’re essentially trying to get people to abandon astrology and become real farmers.
I think your example illustrates precisely why its a good approach. There is no police or government force that goes around disabusing people of their superstitious conduct (like astrological planting) because there is generally no need; we care about legal conduct so that’s what we enforce. We let every individual figure out for themselves how to synch up in their own minds the requirements of their superstitions and the requirements of the civil state.
I don’t see why our approach here should be any different. We should be professional but uncompromising about the requirements for living in the civil state (no violence, no illegal discrimination, etc…) and let people figure out for themselves how to make their superstitious beliefs consistent with those requirements. It is not my business what mental gymnastics someone else goes through to justify obeying the law when they simultaneously claim that they believe in a book that says something different from the law. I only care that they do obey it.
It’s not religion, it’s people embracing a rationale to be inhuman.
At the core of every religion is an admonision to treat others as you want to be treated or its corrolallary to not treat them in ways you would find offensive to yourself.
In Islam, “Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself” Fourth Hadith of an-Nawawi 13
Others at
http://www.religioustolerance.org/mor_dive3.htm
The problem within Islam is the radical belief that the Quran trumps all. This is true in Christianity and Judaism, too, but not with the violence, although the KKK, Skinheads and other Christians (so called) still justify their violence on the Bible.
Religion is neither the problem nor the solution, people are.
If by some stroke religions disappeared, I’m not sure the social good that comes from the religious groups would be replaced by the consequent non-religious world culture.
In our community, the soup kitchen, food bank, free clinic, homeless support, and more might lose the majority of its funding without the individual religious and interfaith efforts which flows from many local religious groups, theist and atheist.
So long as religion allows justification its worse than secularism.
However, I think religion can transform itself so everyone has a bit of ontological importance associated with it, but not ideology, i.e., turning religions into Secular Judaism or Deism where everyone has a sense of personal spirituality and community but no one is willing push an ideology onto anyone else.
I do think that it is possible. There are plenty of people who keep their religion to themselves and would never think to harm another person even if their faith told them to do so.
But a society where this ideal religious state exists is functionally equivalent to a secular society. Churches would be like Legoland or a Kate Perry concert. Go if you want, its just a waste of time but at least it does not hurt anyone. But that’s what those people live for (or put up with) just so they can see grandma in heaven. I am ok with that.
It is too convenient to refer to religion as an entity. What constitutes a religion? For many it’s the leaders. Still, even the RCC is in turmoil on many issues, especially with the new Pope.
That said, I agree with your position that allowing justification is an unacceptable position.
As for the secularization of religion, it exists both formally and informally. There are non-theistic movements in both Christianity and Judaism. Small, but growing. There are also progressive movements in Christianity which view God as an idea of a creative source.
As a practicing UU, my “sacred texts” include all which promote a behavior that is helpful.
One of the problems in the Muslim dominated cultures is more allowance than justification. Saudi Arabia may be Ehibit A in the elite allowing radicalism.
When I ahve a solution, I’ll promote it… 😉
I think we are already seeing major shifts toward Secular Catholicism in America. Well educated Catholics are basically heaven-wishers with checkbooks. Many of them secretly or openly wish for women and/or married priests. They are for gay rights and they would never, under any circumstance, cause harm to another human because of something the bible says. (Ok, they do like to see mangers in public spaces…but I can deal with that.)
Another validation for secularization of society is that that human leaders are subject science and reason. We do not honor the person, we honor the idea. Give a Walmart clerk access to Bayesian statistics, political liberalism, and a cabinet of science advisers and she could lead any nation on our planet as peacefully and democratically as any other person (or computer for that matter). This possibility is only the case because of the progress attained by science.
As one who has been a church goer — mainly Methodist — for more than seventy years, the secularization of progressive Christianity has been growing and continues, but it doesn’t make headlines. One of my disappointments is that the Humanist Manifesto which began by citing Humanism as a religious form, muted it in the second and abandoned it in the third.
“In our community, the soup kitchen, food bank, free clinic, homeless support, and more might lose the majority of its funding ”
Good….then maybe we can build a society where we don’t need those things.
Doubt that can be done, but it would be nice. I would be among the first to applaud it, but until then, I’ll help as I can.
It not only can be done, it has been done. Unfortunately it is being undone by the disciples of Reagan, Thatcher et al.
If we use poverty as a measure, the rates for seniors and youth declined from the late 50’5 to about 15% in the mid 70’s when poverty continued to decline for seniors to about 9% today, but increased and has oscillated around 20% since.
I believe poverty is a primary measure of the quality of a nation.
Link at Pew is http://pewrsr.ch/1I0s6nS
I find it sad and disturbing that so many of those literalist countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. And I have a friend from Cameeroon…
Unfortunately colonialism didn’t really die, it just shifted in some ways from state-supported to NGO-supported. Maybe I’m too pessimistic but I see what’s happening with Christianity in Africa as conservative 1st world sectarians using their massive disparity in wealth to construct their own ‘ideal societies’ there. But because they don’t live there, they don’t have to deal with any of the negative consequences of their choices – grinding poverty, sectarian hatred, brutal punishment for differentness, etc. African Christian intolerance is what you get when western Christian fundamentalists get to play Civilization with real people.
> Rather, religion fosters groupishness, and the downside of groupishness is conflict with people outside the group. Religion can lead to thick moral communities, but in extreme forms it can also lead to what Sacks calls pathological dualism, a mentality that divides the world between those who are unimpeachably good and those who are irredeemably bad.
If “groupishness” is the direct cause (as he seems to argue), this implies that “religious extremism” is the proximate cause. But, IMHO, a cause is a cause.
I actually agree with his general statement about “groupishness” (surely, there’s a better word for this, and my brain is failing me), and you can see it rearing it’s ugly head with the (mis-)handling of the refugee crisis in the US (“They’re not like us, they’re dangerous!”).
That’s why there are so many violent attacks by members of bridge clubs around the world!
There’s groups, and there’s groups. It kinda matters what the defining ideology of any particular group is. When one believes it needs to follow directions from an imaginary being in literature, bad things will happen.
I’ve witnessed some pretty heated arguments over bidding.
As long as these bridge clubs bid No Trump in November 2016, I’m good with them. 🙂
😀
Xenophobia might work for “groupishness”. But, groupishness seems to encompass an array of internal bonds other than simply fear of foreigners.
I think a better word is “tribalism”.
Bingo! That was the word I was looking for. Thanks.
Say the secret word and win $100. It’s a common word. Something you could find around the house. The duck comes down, [tribalism] is correct. 😉
Just don’t mention “cult.” 🙂
Partisanship? Parochialism? Coalitionism? “Us versus them”?
A big problem with religion, beside it’s deplorable texts, is that it softens the minds of followers and makes sheep of them. This sets them up for manipulation by priests and politicians who’s agendas are often warlike or genocidal. Secularism at least promises to free people to think for themselves. A call for more religion as a solution to religious violence only generates more sheep ready for slaughter.
Thinking of the Iran-Iraq war of the last century, how would more mosques and imams have lead to fewer deaths from land mines and poison gas? An end to Islam in those societies might very well have prevented any war at all. Brooks is an idiot.
A tw**t a posted a couple of says ago: https://twitter.com/HeatherHastie/status/666405302271537152
Sam Harris has called radical Islam a death cult. But, the link reminds of, what we all know to be the case.
One thing is certain and that is – you are not the first to take David Books (Pundit) out for a little house cleaning. His difficulties with understand the religious aspects of the wars over the past 14 years as well as many other issues, such as going into Iraq in the first place are well covered.
Andrew Bacevich took him to the woodshed in a piece in Salon back in 2013, but also gave him considerable ink in his book, Breach of Trust, also in 2013. It is hard to understand how he holds his position so long with all bad conclusions but then this is the NYT.
It beats me how any intelligent person that isn’t living under a rock can utter or agree with the statement:
“The secular substitutes for religion…have all led to disaster. … Secular thought [is] unlikely to offer any effective rebuttal.”
When I read it I wanted to throw something at my monitor I was so frustrated. We are surrounded by the benefits of secularism, yet some, like Mr Pinker take them for granted.
As Mr. Pinker points out so very well, the products of secularism are many fold and we benefit tremendously from them.
We have pushed back many of the worst excesses of religion in most secular societies, women are no longer the property of the father or husbands, they can vote, and the husband does not have the right to rape her or beat her.
Would this be true if the Catholic Church reigned sovereign over us? Certainly not the right to vote, the Church never gave the peons this, nor did the church denounce husbands taking their due, the church supported husbands forcing their wives.
If there is anything to thank Glob for, it’s that the Catholic Church (or Islam) isn’t ruling over our lives. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for many others.
I’m looking forward to Steven Pinker’s new book and his trumpeting of the benefits secular, humanist values have brought us.
Is the substitute for religion not called thinking?
Brooks has no authority to undermine the justification of my neighbor killing me because I worked on the sabbath. It’s my neighbors interpretation of faith, which I cannot question based on religion alone.
Only reason, not religion, can provide any hope for a universal morality.
Brooks has taken a deluded position, one I am convinced he would not surrender even at an ISIS knife to his neck.
Gosh, if only there were some sort of methodology for determining the likely truth value of claims. Perhaps individuals could create cognitive frameworks for those beliefs, and specific implications of those beliefs could be tested by looking at the world. Perhaps such testing could be open to all, and via repeated testing collective understanding could be arrived at, which in turn could be continually examined to ensure future cognitive frameworks did not better match observations.
Hmmm…..
Religion is one thing. Divine revelation–the idea that you can own a book dictated by the creator of the universe–is quite another. Because we in the West have grown up with this mad belief we take it for granted, and consistently fail to appreciate just how mad it is.
“Religion” can be benign, but adherence to scripture never will be. Monotheists like Brooks have absolutely nothing to add to this conversation.
Karen Armstrong has said that the proper interpretation of religious texts is in light of the Golden Rule (of which she says the earliest formulation is from Confucius.)
But, if so, there must be some source outside the religious texts that says that the Golden Rule is a good thing.
Benign interpretations of religion may indeed provide motivational inspiration to follow the Golden Rule more deeply by providing a sense of meaning and purpose.
But is the Golden Rule really religious in origin??
Oh noes – the Euthyphro dilemma (for the LOLcat followers)/
“Nobody expects the Euthyphro dilemma” (for the Monty Python fans).
Imagine someone wondering whether or not it’s moral to do something and then resorting to the Golden Rule to figure it out: “Hmm… let me think, would I like it if someone did that to me?”
I think of the Golden Rule as “The Idiot’s Guide to Morality.”
Especially if the someone looking for moral truth is a masochist. “Hmmm…yes a sever beating would feel just great!”
You probably mean it is a truism–morality=not doing things to others you wouldn’t want them doing to you. But most great ideas are truisms. And the golden/silver rule is so much better than “what would jesus do?” Now that is idiotic.
[Looks at Europe’s violent crime rate]
[Looks at US violent crime rate]
I rebut it thus!
So, is Mr. Brooks saying that the RCC could gain global influence if it just gave up that hindrance of nation-state status for the Vatican and handed the land and political power over to Italy? I’m all for that! What about US evangelical groups? Would Brooks say that what they really need to do to gain influence is to stop contributing money and votes to politics?
And how about Rabbi Sacks? Is he really claiming that orthodox Judaism could increase its influence if they just disbanded the Shahs party?
These ideas make no sense. Moreover I would bet a lot of money that neither Brooks nor Sacks would “practice what they preach” if they had the chance. They would not suggest these groups could gain influence by giving up any meaningful, concrete measure of political power. Because their idea is, at heart, baloney.
“The secular substitutes for religion — nationalism, racism and political ideology…”
These may be secular substitutes for religion, but they are not the only ones available. Brooks should know this. Humanism as a guiding set of values and principles is one alternative that Brooks fails to mention. I suspect this is intentional because he seems to want all to believe that the only alternatives to religion are bad ones, as evidenced by the three he mentioned.
I also find it ironic that nationalism, racism, and political ideology… are also found in religious people. Historically, racism has been invoked and buttressed by religion, as has nationalism (one nation under g*d, in g*d we trust). Political ideology is also reinforced by religion, not used as a substitute, just ask Planned Parenthood.
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Here’s a little sample of how religion solves the disputes of religion…
Wow, guess he didn’t get any converts. I have not been to that place for many years – Hyde Park, speaker’s corner. They always had about 3 stands or boxes that one could stand on and begin speaking. Sometimes they were all going at once.
I wonder what Pinker meant when he said that Interstate War would soon be wiped out (end of point #3). I don’t see that happening in either Africa or the Middle East any time soon, but maybe I’m misinterpreting him.
There has been a longterm downtrend as reported by conflict researchers, though the latest “fluctuation” broke it temporarily.
The trend may be driven by having more and more democracies. Then having it wiped out may take a while – especially in the Middle East.
“The secular substitutes for religion — nationalism, racism and political ideology — have all led to disaster. So many flock to religion, so”
Substitutes? Usually you find them all rolled up into the same person.
And all those substitutes characterize conservative religionists rather than liberal secularists.
Essentially all “Holy Books,” the Bible, Koran, Bagavad Gita, or whatever contain contradictions. People choose which ones they want to justify their actions.
Religion has always been a shibboleth.
It is the badge of identity which one wears.
Otherwise, one would simply contemplate god, or pray, in private.
The public display of membership in a religion, and the public display of conforming behavior, are emblems of tribal membership. Religions mark people the way dogs and cats mark territories.
One could say that tribalism is the cause of warfare and religion is just the urine that marks members of a tribe.
The last thing needed is for individuals to cherry pick scriptures for the ‘good bits’ as the post and readers point out.. what the bias wants the bias gets.
We can see when religion’s do this, as in say, ISIS, their ‘good bits’ don’t taste so good. My giidy aunt if they really start looking for the ‘bad bits’
The base line in all this too-ing and fro-ing is to me, it is all based on a lie, a fairytale, a cognitive illusion. As a enlightened humanist (if I can call myself one) is a cost to rationale and reason to allow religion to proceed on these grounds alone, pacified or not.
Mr Pinker, as is our host, is a legend by the way, he nommed Mr Brooks in the nicest possible way.. hold on one minute is that not giving one up for the secular humanist.. f**k yeah! stop swearing! eh, no.
and I agree, more needs to be inputed to raise the profile of enlightened secular humanist values and it’s effects on modern life, indeed, you may have to shout quite loud over the noise and petty and not so pretty hysteria but that, I look forward to.
“Religion. It’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.” ― Jon Stewart
Perfect!
Brooks is Jewish.
There is some evidence that he’s converted to Catholicism.
I’ll be interested in seeing the evidence.
Why should he go for Catholicism, as opposed to a Protestant sect, say, the Southern Baptists, in whose collective bosom I myself was raised (and indoctrinated)? They’re quite conservative. Or Methodist or Presbyterian or Lutheran or Congregationalist or Assemblies of God? Why not Greek Orthodox?
Google is your friend..
As for the questions about “Why not…” I have no idea why not some other version. After all, the Lord works in mysterious ways!
Once you’ve plumbed the depths of conservatism you discover that Conservatism is little more than a shallow dip into the human condition with nothing of value out the other end. Brooks has just realised how much of a shell-game Conservatism is, all facade, no back and sides. Given his abiding penchant for conservatism it is no surprise the one option he chooses is to turn to the christian mythos, an equally epistemological-free zone, through which he imagines he might garner some psychological or emotional succour.
Certainly I’ve wondered about these things. After a while you can’t really understand the mentality.
When scientists and rational people disagree we call it a controversy and is settled by examination of evidence–when religious people disagree it is called a heresy and is settled by a schism, or worse, violence. Religion, by its very nature, divides people by ranking them by level of piety, thus accentuating the differences between them. This is just another in a long line of fatuous pronouncements from BoBo*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise
It seems to me that Brooks has become quite mush brained over the past few years. Why does he still have a job at the NYT? Is he tenured, or can’t they find an intelligent conservative columnist?
His columns just aren’t grounded in any reality any more. He loves to make sweeping generalizations that are simply not grounded in fact. Where is his intellectual discipline?
That Brooks’ views are warped, and his conclusions often mindbogglingly illogical, should come as a surprise to no one. But as to the point that the atheist project is to diminish to zero, over time, the religious impulse, I think that is a fatal misreading of human nature. Absent a re-wiring of our circuitry to get rid of many of the features – like forming binary groups, with religion as an assistant to that project – that evolution has built into us, that is simply not going to happen, in the next hundred years or the next thousand years. It would be a conceivable project if we lived in the fact-based universe and if rationality ultimately prevailed. But that’s not the way it works, as the whole of recorded history – and especially that of the last few decades – proves. To expects more is delusional.
Please point me to these assertions.
Re that survey in Africa of Muslims who take the Koran literally, I’d hazard a guess that polls of Christians who take the Bible literally in those countries would give much the same percentages.
I think it’s a feature of the society – the more primitive, the more likely they are to take religion (of any sort) literally.
Whether that’s a hopeful sign for Iraq/Iran/Syria et al (which until recently were relatively advanced and educated societies) I don’t know, but I would certainly hope so.
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Brooks is Jewish.
“Religion isn’t implicated in terrorism—it’s “groupishness”.
Well I beg to differ Rabbi Sacks, you are correct in one sense, they are a Group, a Group of Islamic Fundamentalists (aren’t all Muslims Fundamentalists ?)who believe that the instructions in the Q’uran on how to treat Apostates, Homosexuals, Women ,Thieves etc etc are the literal word of God and must be followed to the letter, well if that isn’t Religious I don’t know how you define Religion.
I saw a news report on Toronto TV where a guy challenged people to find where in Islamic scripture there are commands to kill innocent people. This is evidence for ISIS not being true Muslims.
So, that’s easy, the parts that call for Jihad and killing apostates. To most if us, including many Muslims,, those people are innocent, to the Islamist fundamentalist, they are guilty.
Excellent point.