One of the standards in debates over religion and Islam in particular is the connection between dogma and the actions of the acolytes. If religion A extols 'bad things' and then acolytes of A do 'bad things', the relationship is clear enough. Thus the brutally sectarian verses in the Koran are thus intrinsically linked to suicide bombers on London buses or Taliban theocrats throwing acid into the face of Afghan school girls.
Conversely, this argument holds, if religion B extols 'good things' and limits 'bad things' to acts of the deity themselves or via proxy, when acolytes of B who do bad things are in schism or heretical. Thus A is irredeemably foul and B is the source of light in the world.
This is bullshit
I have read this argument trotted out by Christians and especially Catholics to separate their delusion of a great peeping tom in the sky from that of Muslims. Their prophet is not only a great clean cut all round good guy, but the SON OF GOD too. Mohammad was a genocidal paedo-bandit instead and could not possibly have been given any divine wisdom at all, ever. So there.....
Thus their delusion is clean and all suited to the modern world and Islam is inevitably backwards. Again this is bullshit
But what Christians who enter into this argument and their agnostic kulkur loving fellow travellers forget is this. The link between dogma and action is not so reductionist and that 'actual existing' Christianity, by their slight of hand, was for virtual all of its history, heretical.
The butchery of dissenting sects or rivals for the mantle of Imperial monopoly might well have been at odds with the teachings of Christ, but without them, would there be a christian faith? The complicity with wealth and power and the bitter sweet sops to slaves and the hungry might made a mockery of the Messiah's fetish for poverty, but how else might the 'word' be spread. Christianity as a phenomena was spread as much by its willingness to sanctify the politik and meet with elites on their terms as any intrinsic 'transcendence' in its doctrines. And all this compromise was still to be regarded as following that simple carpenter from Galilee
Did the Knights Orders realise their heretical nature as they cleaved infidel flesh from unbelieving bone? Did Inquisitors understand they were not actual Christians as they burn away Jewish sins and trespasses? Did Luther comprehend that he was in schism from Christ when he called for God's vengeance and subsequent agony to fall on humble peasant rebels? Of course not. They believed, they interpreted and they acted. The centre of this was their own agency and the social situation in which they inflicted pain for the Lord. Doctrine gave them enough clauses and leeway to carry out what they considered was right.
It was pressure from a changed society, from the laity and an increasing secularised world that forced, and it was forced, bitching and whining, Christianity to stop excusing such brutality. Still, we continue to find plenty of examples where 'heretics' can hack away for the light of the world. Codreanu or Miroslav Filipović believed they were doing God's work, so did Joseph Kony or Paul Jennings Hill, just as much as al-Zawahiri or Ismail Haniyeh believe they are doing that of Allah. Weather or not they are doctrinally true to their creed is immaterial, literally. It is to engage in the respective merits of delusions. It is to excuse them the responsibility. It is the theological equivalence of ' I was only following orders', weather or not that is true is beside the point and a mockery of meaningful justice.
If the outcome of religion A and B is the same, mass inhumanity at times of social stress, sandwiched between periods of sanctified bigotry, then the fairy tales themselves are a matter for footnotes. If religion B suddenly finds it cannot get away with such outrages due to outside conditions and pressures and cleans up its act, returns to the narrative, redefines itself a bit, then well done. But forgive me if i don't forget what it took to get it here, that this fairy tale still can kill and that one cannot claim moral superiority over such begrudging transformation.
5 comments:
Excellent post as usual. Enjoyed. Don't know what your stats say ,but judging from your comments section, not enough people read you, imo. You should "get out more" and advertise--although perhaps your studies prevent you working the problem as hard as you might like.
I'm disappointed in your view of Margret Thatcher, btw. You seem almost as torqued out of true about her as the left in the US was/still is about Bush--BDS--Bush Derangement Syndrome. Your normally thoughtful rationality leaving you when broaching the subject. Actually, although you undoubtedly don't concur; she saved you from yourself and your like-minded compatriots.. Perhaps I'll return and leave a few thoughts back under her heading.
As I mentioned on the post on Thatcher, I fully recognise that there is a great deal of myth in the way I and the left consider Thatcher.
I would say this though. She, acting on the various neo-liberal theories, sought to transform our society and economy far beyond market efficiency. Much of manufacturing and primary industry was purposely destroyed, not because they were inefficient or unprofitable, but because they were the home of Unions. This malicious destruction of communities, places that would become slums and sink estates as the jobs evapourated, was to relaced by hitching the entire British economy to the funny money post 'Big Bang'. And that went well didn't it.
Add to the shrill moralism that described single parent families as cancerous or denied the humanity of gays and anyone with a skin tone darker that a sun tan or political corruption on a unparrelled level or conducting foreign policy at the behest of zenophobes and you can see why there is a wee bit of anger.
Reform was needed in 1979, desperately. But not a government that sought to impose a ideological utopia and attack those it feared and despised.
We weren't saved, we saved ourselves. From where My family and I sat, we merely got a torrent of shit from the Thatcher government and that goes for millions others
With regards to the blog, I quite like it quiet mind :)I get to post whenever and however and the comments are generally more fun and next to no trolls
good one :)
and trolls are not to be encouraged, I've have one or 2, that's too many, they are a pain.
wtf are you talking about?
this is so vague, unformed, pretentiously but vacuously convoluted, hypothetical and wittering, it looks like an acid trip.
do you take drugs, lad?
religion is shit.
different idiots argue about their different fairy tales.
islam is special, special, shit, because mohammed was a murdering, paedophile, raping, looting, enslaving barbarian.
and thats about it.
Comrade Anon
Yes I do, not acid mind. Maybe that abuse of such semisynthetic psychodelic drugs has damaged your capacity for comprehension and the ability to form paragraphs. A sad cost. But never fear, if there are particular bits that you need explaining, please be specific and I shall try my best
For starters, why Islam might be considered 'special, special, shit' from those talking from a christian perspective was the aim of the post.
Welcome to the Republic, Comrade Anon (the 2nd)
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