{"id":35137,"date":"2014-11-14T17:20:28","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T22:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/?p=35137"},"modified":"2014-11-14T17:20:28","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T22:20:28","slug":"i-slam-lslam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/i-slam-lslam\/","title":{"rendered":"I Slam lslam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the<\/a>I have taught Religions of the World for over thirty years. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m teaching it again right now. I once declined to join a secular humanist educational project because their approach toward the religions was shrill and snotty. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take that approach and retain my scholarly integrity. The first principle of teaching World Religions is to try to represent the religion, each religion, from the inside<\/em>, as (you imagine) it seems to its adherents. I always assign an essay requiring students to choose one of the religions we cover and imagine how their lives would change if they converted to it. This approach to teaching Comparative Religion tends to incline those who take it to embrace a personal belief that, even with all their differences, the various faiths are all \u00e2\u20ac\u0153true\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in some sense. Each seems to do its job for those who embrace it. One thus becomes a supporter of all religions, savoring their artistry (including the cognitive artistry of their theologies), their exoticism, and their idioms of spirituality. I have long affirmed this approach, even as an atheist and humanist. But I am learning to make exceptions.<\/p>\n

I have always taken a dim view of the pothead Rastafarians. Not much of a fan of the murderous Thugee (though that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to say since their sect is extinct). Satanism is not an issue here: the pulp fiction stereotype is, appropriately, a fiction. Real Satanists are just theatrical humanists, believing in neither god nor devil. Om Shinrikyo was a nasty bunch, dedicated to clearing the earth of human beings to prepare the way for the return of ancient gods (which also sounds like pulp fiction, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not: these creeps pumped Sarin gas into the Tokyo subway system).<\/p>\n

Then there are sects that have undeserved bad reputations because of media vilification, like the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. (They receive the same treatment as the Tea Party.) These folks get slandered for the same reason groups like Om Shinrikyo get ignored or not taken seriously when the issues of religious pluralism and relativism come up. They are not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our\u00e2\u20ac\u009d religions, not mainstream religions with large constituencies that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to offend. But I think these faiths must be factored into the equation.<\/p>\n

Think of the parallel situation in party politics. Our Constitution has nothing to say about a two-party system, but it defines democracy as we practice it. There are all kinds of political parties out there, some of which manage to garner enough signatures to make it onto the ballot: Socialist, Progressive Labor, American, Communist, Natural Law, Libertarian, you name it. But they get no air time. Because they receive no coverage, we end up with a skewed view of the democratic system. A high school history teacher of mine (Mr. Faller at Bloomfield High, I think it was) once remarked on the irony of our criticizing the Soviet Union for being a one-party state. You could choose from a slate of candidates\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall of them Communists. Okay, in the USA, you can choose between candidates representing a big two<\/em> parties! Big difference. Libertarians make this point all the time, adding that Democrats and Republicans are pretty much one party anyhow.<\/p>\n

So is our democracy really what we say it is? Maybe not. Likewise, is our respectable, liberal religious pluralism-relativism what we think it is? Does its apparent viability depend upon a convenient oversimplification? We have to deal the barbaric religions into the game and ask if we can give them all equal honor, as we do Judaism, Buddhism, etc. Because if we had to admit some of them are unacceptable, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that render invalid the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153super-ecumenical respect for everything\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (as my Montclair State professor Steve Johnson called it)? I think it would. I think it does. And it is Islam that has forced me to face this question. For I am thinking more and more that Islam is more like Om Shinrikyo than it is like Christianity or Hinduism.<\/p>\n

There. I said it. And I will say more.<\/p>\n

I regard Islam as a religion of barbarism, a self-confessed death cult, a great step backward \"\"<\/a>in the evolution of religion. It marks a return to the bloodthirsty fanaticism of Joshua and Samuel in Bronze Age Israel. One cannot separate a religion from the culture for which it forms the ideological glue. Islam arose amid scimitar-swinging, slave-trading Arab barbarism. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying it simply stopped there. When a religion spreads beyond its cultural cradle, it mutates. It moderates. It begins to shed some of the features that once fit best (or at all) in its original milieu.<\/p>\n

This means its members, amid new surroundings, try to assimilate, downplaying (by reinterpreting) the newly offensive aspects of the religion that no one found scandalous back home. You see this, for instance, in Jewish documents from the cosmopolitan Hellenistic world. The Epistle of Aristaeus, for instance, written in Greek for Gentiles and assimilating Diaspora Jews, tries to make kosher laws look less silly to outsiders by interpreting them as customs aimed at shielding ancient Israelites from corrosive pagan influences in their environment.<\/p>\n

(This was probably true, by the way, but to admit it is already an accommodation to intellectual secularism. This is the issue between Pauline and Jewish Christians in the New Testament: the former viewed Torah regulations as Jewish identity markers unnecessary for Gentiles converting to Christianity, while Jewish Christians deemed those \u00e2\u20ac\u0153customs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as the non-negotiable Word of God binding upon all Christians, Jewish or Gentile.)<\/p>\n

Other Hellenized Jews took it even further, allegorizing ceremonial laws (like the ban on eating mice!) as if they taught moral lessons in some way. Some even thought that, once you understood those lessons, you needn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother with literal observance. How convenient! Nothing standing in the way of going to that pig-picking in your Gentile neighbors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 back yard! \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sure we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Jews! And, er, damn proud of it. Gimme another shrimp cocktail, will you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The more you were a good Roman, the more you had to shave from your Judaism. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the logic of assimilation. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why assimilation is such a contentious issue in religions today. Faced with it, some will double down on tradition, since they can see it slipping (or stampeding) away. This is what occasioned the Hasmonean revolt against Jewish cooperation with the Seleucids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Hellenization program. And this accounts for the rise of militant Islam in the world today (in case you hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t noticed).<\/p>\n

Once you understand this dynamic of evolution-via-assimilation prompting a recrudescence of the original tradition, you can see the fallacy in one of the major arguments of apologists on behalf of both liberal Christianity and moderate Islam. Marty E. Marty (the very poster-boy for namby-pamby, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153standing for nothing, offending no one\u00e2\u20ac\u009d liberal Protestantism) refers to what he calls \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Walter Kaufmann Fallacy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kaufmann (The Faith of a Heretic<\/em>) ruthlessly criticized theologians and clergy, scripture and creeds. Marty felt Kaufmann was being unfair and trying to make it easy for himself by employing the Fallacy of Bifurcation: he sought to force his readers into eliminating any \u00e2\u20ac\u0153third option\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of moderate, reasonable religion, so they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d see the choice as between superstitious stupidity on the one hand and unbelieving rationalism on the other.<\/p>\n

Moderates, Kaufmann argued, were just diluting their faith into a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153safe\u00e2\u20ac\u009d pretense. Liberal apologists like 19th<\/sup> century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher tried to launder Christianity to make it acceptable to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the cultured despisers of religion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Neo-Orthodox theologian and preacher Rudolf Bultmann insisted that the New Testament must be demythologized to make Christianity amenable to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153modern man.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You see where this is headed. Conservative Christians like C.S. Lewis mocked this approach as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christianity and water.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d J. Gresham Machen measured the vast distance between historic Christian belief (what Clark H. Pinnock would call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153classical Christianity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) and liberal Protestant Modernism, concluding that Modernism was Christian in name only (and that it was, in effect, a case of trademark violation). Ultra-liberal theologian Don Cupitt has admitted as much, proposing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christianity is our Old Testament.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Postmodern apologists for liberal, moderating approaches to religion mount an argument similar to Marty\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. They reject what they call an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153essentialist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d approach. Who is to say what<\/em> is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christianity proper,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153true Buddhism,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153essential Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? They bemoan books like Harnack\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s What Is Christianity?<\/em> (in the original German, bearing the same title as Ludwig Feuerbach\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s The Essence of Christianity<\/em>). There is no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153essence,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proper\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153true\u00e2\u20ac\u009d version, of Christianity, Islam, Marxism, or anything else. To say that there is, is merely to claim the crown for one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own favorite version.<\/p>\n

Today, when Multiculturalist apologists (excuse-makers) for Islam hurl accusations of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Islamophobia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d against anyone who dares to criticize Islam, they try to discount Islamic savagery as some kind of distortion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153true Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (as witness our theologian-in-chief: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ISIS is not Islamic.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). No, they say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Muslims are gentle folk quietly running falafel stands on your local street corner. This is of course itself an essentialist argument. Consistent essentialists say there simply is<\/em> no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153true Islam,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but this is really saying the same thing: that you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t condemn \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d since there is no such thing. Sure, there are mass-murdering rapists who carry a pocket edition of the Koran in their ammunition belt, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much a coincidence. You wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153profile\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Muslims as terrorists\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor terrorists as Muslims!<\/p>\n

What gives the lie to this nonsense is the dynamic of assimilation-and-reaction. Religions moderate by virtue of assimilation and accommodation<\/em>. In other words, jettisoning their original principles, no longer being true to themselves. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the whole point of it!<\/p>\n

Moderate Muslims in America (like the innocuous, head scarf wearing teenager in the i-phone commercial, or smiling giant Shaquille O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neill hawking Gold Bond, whatever the hell that is) are good Americans precisely insofar as they take Islam less seriously. Just read the damn Koran. Look at Islamic origins and history. When mealy-mouthed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153moderate Muslims\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tell us that jihad has nothing to do with killing infidels but refers only to the pious individual\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spiritual struggle, we are hearing either disingenuous spin (cynical PR worthy of Josh Ernest and Jay Carney) or hopelessly na\u00c3\u00afve ignorance.<\/p>\n

Consider the claim that Islam is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the religion of peace.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d does mean \u00e2\u20ac\u0153peace\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but in the sense of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pacification, submission.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Submission to Allah, which of course means submission to his self-appointed representatives. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not abstract, but concrete. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about you, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to submit to these cavemen. Nor did the people whom the first, founding generation of Muslims conquered. Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jihadis are merely returning to the roots of their religion, in contrast to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153moderate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Muslims who have modernized, i.e., compromised, accommodated.<\/p>\n

Look where all liberalizing religions inevitably and logically end up: approaching closer and closer to humanism. They increasingly slough off all that once gave them a distinctive character. They come ultimately to see their identity in terms of (sentimental) liberal politics, moral permissiveness, and watered-down beliefs. As far as I can see, from my forty years of study, all that is left to them is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153faith\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as permission to ignore the practical results of their favorite policies. (I call it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political snake-handling.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) Self-righteous \u00e2\u20ac\u0153people of faith\u00e2\u20ac\u009d endorse utopian courses of action, heedless of real-world consequences, since taking them into account would be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153worldly.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Faith means they can be as innocent as doves, but no longer as wise as serpents.<\/p>\n

I have come, very reluctantly, to award the title of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the savages, that bubbling lava pit of primitives howling for the blood of cartoonists, beheading passers-by, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153honor-killing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d rape-victims, mutilating female genitalia, suicide-bombing Israeli schools, machine-gunning people for getting Western haircuts, and so on. The great shame of the decadent West is our pathetic kowtowing to such virulent barbarism. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thank you, effendi<\/em>! May I have another!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

And here is another sense in which \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Moderate Muslims\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are well-assimilated Americans: they are just as cowardly. They have fled the field of the contest for the right to define Islam. They have surrendered the copyright to the savages and the primitives. Thus they just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t count<\/em>. They are like the Germans who, while not actually card-carrying Nazis, knew about the deportation of Jews but raised no note of protest. By their silence, they say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay with me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They have taken the mark of the Great Beast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But even these cowards (and secret sympathizers) are not as bad as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153useful idiots\u00e2\u20ac\u009d like Ben Affleck, Karen Armstrong (who surely ought to know better!), and others who regard \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Islamophobia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a greater menace than Islamo-fascism (which, unlike the former, actually exists).<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0A few years ago I was out in Dearborn, Michigan, where I strolled with great interest through a sprawling street fair run by the large local Islamic community. I was (and remain, despite all I have said here) fascinated with Islamic history and theology, and I rejoiced to see the shining pride of these people, showing off the tokens of their heritage. For a long time, the memory of this experience ameliorated my increasing antipathy for Islam. But then I started hearing that some Muslims at one of these fairs stoned a group of (admittedly obnoxious) Christian evangelists. Oh well\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

So says Zarathustra.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have taught Religions of the World for over thirty years. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m teaching it again right now. I once declined to join a secular humanist educational project because their approach toward the religions was shrill and snotty. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}