re: Religion: Islam and God (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell writes:

This is a response to David Gress’s post of 12 November:

Much of David Gress’s post is in my view the type of material al-Qaida ideologues utilize to bolster their own arguments. It is interesting to note that the kind of arguments al-Qaida ideologues use to attack or to undermine the positions of the many Muslim intellectuals who disagree with the al-Qaida interpretation of the Qur’an as it relates to non-Muslims and war, Christian/Jewish anti-Muslim polemicists use to attack all of Islam and to undermine Muslim protestations to the contrary. Fascinating and sad indeed. One can read the Raymon Ibrahim-edited The Al Qaeda Reader, which is a collection of al-Qaida justification essays, to have this point driven home. This collection provides grim but enlightening reading. One thing comes clear from this book: Puritanical Salafist intellectuals do read Western anti-Islamic polemic as well as Christian intellectual communications towards the Muslim community in general. Puritanical Salafists use statements similiar to the ones of David Gress for fuel to underpin their murderous activities. David’s post ignores basic principles of interfaith dialogue as well–a fact that increases its problematics. His post is representative of a type of polemic common to Christian/Jewish anti-Islamic polemicists, who fail to study or give credence to the copious amount of Muslim spiritual writings regarding appropriate and highly spiritualized/altruistic views of and approaches to non-Muslims; much of it based in the Qur’an itself.

David’s post is a type of polemic anathema to those of us (to include Catholic scholar Hans Kung, a leading proponent of interfaith dialogue on the global stage) who recognize the necessity to uphold Islamic spirituality and ethics as having deep commonality with and spiritual resonance with the most altruistic of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Baha’i and other world religions’ teachings. Great writers like Hans Kung, Hindu thinker Sarvapelli Radakrishnan, Sufi Master Frithof Schuon and Baha’i leader Abdu’l-Baha fully support this thinking of Islam’s spiritually high altruism and powerful, life-affirming resonance, a resonance and beauty that embraces all of human kind. There are numerous Christian scholars as well who support this thinking, to include writer on Christian mysticism Richard Smolens, the great scholar of Western mysticism Evelyn Underwood, and Emory University Professor of Religion John Witte Jr. David’s assertion that Muslim focus on compassion only focuses on Muslims is simply outrageous for one who has read so much of Islamic scripture and commentary as I have. Of course Islamic spirituality and high altruism encompasses all humanity. David’s thinking here does dovetail nicely, however, with al-Qaida views on the matter.

To address some of David’s specific points:

DG: I respect Vincent’s very eirenic understanding of Islam and of politics generally. Unfortunately, many people do not share either.

VL: I am glad David respects the concept of an eirenic view of Islam. However I like to think my view is a bit broader than that. I recognize Islam is not pacifistic. It is fortunate however that many millions of people do have an eirenic view of Islam and God in Islam.

DG: It is, in a way, a pointless undertaking to ask if [Ft. Hood shooter] Hasan was acting as a righteous Muslim or not. Fact one: he believed he was. Fact two: he has ample justification for that belief, not only in the Quran and several hadith, but also in many decrees issued by numerous authoritative imams over the past many decades, not to mention centuries.

VL: It is not pointless to reject Hasan’s association of his actions to Islam. I don’t accept that Hasan had ample justification and certainly not proper Qur’anic justification for that belief, though I accept that he had plenty of resources to draw from. The fact that he believed he was in concert with Islam doesn’t mean he was. I reject the notion that the Qur’an supported his behavior and DG’s Hadith comment is indicative of the problem of Hadith credibility and research methodology that has existed in Islam since the Ummayyads. David’s comment about Hadith very much points to the problem of false or extremely weak Hadith being accepted as authoritative at varying levels of the Islamic and non-Muslim worlds, a problem acknowledged by serious scholars of Islam from most backgrounds I’m aware of.

DG: For one thing, when wahhabi-salafi or what you will Muslims appeal to e.g. the verse of the sword or other verses that command the assault on, subjugation of, and murder (unless they convert) of infidels, they cannot be said to be wrong. The peaceful interpretation of the (to Muslims) divine message is unfortunately rather in abeyance these days.

VL: When Muslims refer to the Sword Verses (almost all the experts I’m aware of, and there are many, on the subject agree that puritanical views towards jihadism reside in a minority viewpoint, however these positions are growing and are generally focused on by the Western news media and non-Muslim religionists who engage in anti-Islamic polemic), many recognize that those verses have a specific historical context and must be read in holistic concert or synergy with the multitudes of other verses enjoining tolerance, love, forgiveness, mercy etc. I’ve written on this at length in this Forum before and quoted from the Qur’an. No need to repeat here. I reject the notion that peaceful interpretation of the Qur’an is rather in abeyance these days. Publicity of ignorant and murderous acts in the name of Islam however is rampant to be sure.

DG: When Muslims hear Allah (who has very little indeed in common with the God Jews and Christians worship) declare himself to be the compassionate, the merciful, it is understood that this refers to compassion and mercy to those who believe, that is, Muslims. It is by submission (islam in the true sense of the word) that men deserve the compassion of the otherwise arbitrary and cruel Allah. All others are excluded from this compassion and mercy.

VL: The entirety of this particular statement is to be utterly rejected. I have written at length in this Forum and quoted scholars who provide ample evidence in their treatises on Muslim love and respect for the humanity of the other (non-Muslim). It is this kind of writing that stands opposed to basic principles of necessary interfaith dialogue and is the kind of statement that makes working towards complex problem-solving as it relates to violence and religion a very difficult thing. I could wax poetic and go on and on about the powerful love and moral beauty reflected in the Qur’an, actual Hadith, and centuries of Muslim commentary on Islamic scripture and I will elaborate further here. David Gress’s simplistic commentary in this public Forum on the Qur’an’s depiction of God, resulting in the appellation of “cruel,” is problematic in the extreme and potentially harmful.** There are certainly enough scholars of religion of Jewish, Christian and Muslim backgrounds to credibly reject David’s belief that the God of the Qur’an is not the God of Judaism and Christianity. For that matter the Baha’i doctrine of progressive revelation also runs counter to such a notion.

David Gress’s comment to the effect that God in the Qur’an is cruel is essentially incorrect, though general Muslim understandings of the Qur’an bring forward the well-disseminated idea that God does have 99 names (or attributes), some reflecting what some people might think of as appropriately fearsome (as opposed to cruel) aspects of divine justice. Those who reference God’s cruelty throughout the Qur’an and Hadith don’t paint a correct picture of the many facets to the “naming of God” and descriptive of divine attributes to be found throughout the massive body of scripture and literature associated with multiplicitous strands of Islamic spiritual thought. Moreover, David very much ignores the practically countless references to God’s merciful and benevolent attributes (that are not just focused on Muslims alone) also to be found throughout the Qur’an and Hadith that are the root to countless Muslims’ benevolent and altruistically spiritual understanding and practice of Islam (if, for example, Islam is inherently violent, I’d be interested in an explanation as to why many Sufi, Sufi influenced orthodoxies and Ahmadi interpretations of Qur’anic revelation lean strongly towards pacifism or have strong peace-oriented strands.

It seems to me that David accepts Puritanical Salafism as authority for pointing to what Hadith or Hadith interpretation is credible as authoritative reflection of Islamic thought. For many respected scholars in Islam, what is actually happening is that Puritanical Salafists use “false hadith” to support concepts that are in reality anathema to higher moral thought, which begs the question: Why do so many non-Muslims who are willing to engage in anti-Muslim polemic not give the appellation of “false hadith” to these erroneous constructions of supposed “true” Islamic theology? More widespread education and enlightenment on the subject is a strategic necessity as a coming cornerstone of peace.

Generally speaking, it appears to me David Gress’s comments in WAIS on Islam reflect some Christian clerical anti-Islamic polemic I’ve been exposed to, a common polemic being something like “the Christian God is a God of love, whereas the God of Islam is one of cruelty and power.” In today’s highly interconnected “global village,” such commentary is archaic and unnecessarily provocative, especially because from countless Muslims and others who study Islamic spirituality perspectives, such a statement is incredibly myopic as a descriptive of the Almighty in Islamic thought and scripture. Throughout a massive body of Muslim commentary on the Qur’an and Hadith one finds multitudes of odes to and analysis of God’s loving aspects, and one finds plenty that is respectful and loving towards non-Muslims (see the writings of Jalaluddin Rumi as an example of this, where he prostrates himself before a Christian, not to be outdone in humility because a Muslim’s duty is to be humble).

In the Mathnavi of Jalaladdin Rumi, who is one of the most famous writers and brightest lights of Islamic spiritual thought, it is stated, “Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries.” In Letter 53 of the Nahj al Balagha, a document I’ve written about or drawn from several times before in this Forum because it is one of the Islamic world’s most thoughtful treatises reflecting heights of Islamic altruism, Imam Ali (Spiritual successor to Muhammad in Shi’a theology and one of the four “rightly guided” Caliphs of Sunni Islam) states the Qur’an is a code written “ to establish a kind and benevolent rule, throwing light on various aspects of justice, benevolence and mercy, an order based on the ethics of Divine rulership where justice and mercy are shown to human beings irrespective of class, creed and colour, where poverty is neither a stigma nor a disqualification and where justice is not tainted with nepotism, favouritism, provincialism or religious fanaticism; and, on the other hand, it is a thesis on the higher values of morality.” (Ali b. Abi Taalib, Letters from Nahjul Balaagh)

I present the Yusuf Ali Translation of Surah 1:

“Al Fatihah (The Opening)

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds; Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way. The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, Those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.”

I’ve said it before in this Forum, I’ll say it again:

An erudite scholar of Islam once told me (and I paraphrase from memory):

“To understand the Qur’an one must understand the first Surah of the Qur’an, in order to understand the first Surah of the Qur’an one must understand the first line of the first Surah of the Qur’an, which is ‘In the name of God, The Compassionate, The Merciful (or Most Gracious, Most Merciful depending on translation of course—VL). Those who have failed to understand the first line of the first Surah and the first Surah itself will fail to understand the Qur’an.”

Inculcation and internalization of mercy and compassion are integral to full holistic understanding of the Qur’an. How then is God to be labeled as cruel, when the very first Surah which requires comprehension to understand the Qur’an sets the stage for that understanding by underpinning future Qur’anic/scriptural descriptives of divine attributes with the concepts of divine graciousness, mercy, and the cherishing and sustaining of the worlds of creation? When Surah 1 informs the reader that we humans seek God’s aid and asks for Him to show us the straight path, we are not asking for such from a cruel God. An all powerful , all loving, all merciful, absolutely just and supreme Lord of all creation is in part how God is reflected in Islam, and that is who humans ask for guidance from in Islamic thought.

It is always saddening to me that those who reflect abhorrence of evil threads in Puritanical Salafist and even conservative orthodox thought do the Salafists the service of supporting those many furiously erroneous and even cruel interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith/false Hadith by upholding those same interpretations as reflective of all of Islam; an appellation that might be correctly said to derive from Puritanical Salafist/Kharijite/conservative orthodox interpretations whilst ignoring countless key pointers to high altruism and spirituality (this problem of similarity of Puritanical Salafist and Christian Polemicist interpretation of the Qur’an might be linked to the deeply problematic and much written about divorce of juristic from theologic and of course mystical/spiritual from both juristic and dogmatic thought in Islamic history).

David Gress is certainly not alone in his myopic anti-Islamic polemic, and it is this line of behavior that actually supports Puritanical Salafism because the Salafists can say when they see writings that have the tone David seems to reflect in this Forum. “See our enemies (infidels) know the truth and reject that truth! They deserve to be conquered, to be defeated, and must be forced to submit!” In other words, when al-Qaida ideologues intellectually justify their actions to convince moderate Muslims of the “rightness” of their murderous actions, they draw on Western polemics like David’s here in WAIS to support their arguments and further fuel the fires of violence and war/jihad against “crusaders .” Our enemies do read and quote and incite violence against us from writings in the media and from the Internet. Until responsible-thinking non-Muslims begin to take interest in the concept of ideology/doctring derived from “false hadith”–and can discuss with each other (i.e., interfaith dialogue) the Writings/Divine Directives/Laws to Obey (from our various religions) that enjoin love, peace, justice, tolerance or all–the search for world peace will remain elusive as has been the case to now. Thus, I am repeatedly saying that it is a strategic necessity to accurately and respectfully engage in interfaith dialogue as a necessary and strategic component to “winning the war” against fanaticism and religious based violence…even in this Forum.

**The works listed below provide nice variations on Muslim views towards non-Muslims, human rights, God’s love, power and beauty, rejection of extremism, use of intuitive intellect, phenomenological experience that transcends the confines of human earthly existence and provides insight into spiritual realms also implicitly available to non-Muslims. Works on Muslim views towards pluralism, like Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values For Humanity are important, as well as Reza Shah Kazemi ‘s The Other in the Light of the One: The Universality of the Qur’an and Interfaith Dialogue, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim’s Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and International Law, Roy Mottahedeh’s The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai’s Kernel of the Kernel: Concerning The Wayfaring and Spiritual Journey of the People of Intellect, the copious writings of Jalaludin Rumi to be found in English to include the Coleman Barks-translated The Essential Rumi, Khaled Abou El Fadl’s The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam From the Extremists, and Fazlur Rahman’s Major Themes of the Qur’an all in different ways reject Mr. Gress’s myopic statement.

JE comments: Speaking with him at the WAIS ‘09 conference, I was awed by Vincent Littrell’s drive to read every scholarly book published on Islam. In this exhaustive and passionate posting, Vince demonstrates the depths of his erudition. An important rebuttal to those who dismiss Islam as a religion of violence.

re: UK: on Sharia Courts (John Heelan, UK)

Randy Black wrote on 16 November:

In his 15 November post, John Heelan corrected my position that Sharia courts in England have judicial powers, when he stated that Britain’s Sharia courts are only arbitration courts and have no real judicial powers. It would appear that John Heelan’s position rests on the definition of the word arbitration. Apparently, the British media’s position is at odds with John’s position.

John Heelan responds:

Perhaps it is better to trust the actual opening words of the Arbitration Act 1996 rather than media interpretations (which might conceal a tinge of bias–none of Randy’s media offerings comments that Sharia Courts will carry out identical functions to those carried out by Jewish Beth Din religious courts for the last 100 years).

General principles

The provisions of this Part are founded on the following principles, and shall be construed accordingly–

(a) the object of arbitration is to obtain the fair resolution of disputes by an impartial tribunal without unnecessary delay or expense;

(b) the parties should be free to agree how their disputes are resolved, subject only to such safeguards as are necessary in the public interest;

(c) in matters governed by this Part the court should not intervene except as provided by this Part.

[Part 1 (1) Arbitration Act 1996- http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/]

The arbitration tribunals are limited to civil (not criminal) cases dealing with financial disputes, community matters, divorce and there have been some potentially criminal cases of domestic violence whose victims withdrew their complaints to the police after a tribunal decision. Previously tribunals decisions could not be enforced legally. The Arbitration Act 1996 now permits legal enforcement via the UK court. (A pedant would say that the Tribunals have no “judicial” powers per se, but their decisions can be subsequently enforced via the normal UK courts, with the proviso that the stipulations of the 1996 Act have been complied with.)

re: Nidal Malik Hasan (Bienvenido Macario, Philippines/US)

Massoud Malek wrote on 14 November:

Timothy McVeigh was a Christian and a decorated veteran of the United States Army, having served in the first Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star. He was convicted of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

Bienvenido Macario responds:

McVeigh was not in active service on April 19, 1995, unlike Nidal Malik Hasan when he committed mass murder. The only difference I can think of between Hasan and other terrorists attackers is that Hasan did not committ suicide and he lawyered up. Availing oneself of the services of legal counsel is not exactly the decision of a deranged man.

I have made my anti-clerical sentiments and still stand by those criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines. And as far as the over one billion Muslims in the world who are not associated with Jihadists, like Filipino parishioners and clerics alike, they have made no considerable effort to distance themselves from violent Jihadists or predatory priests. For me it is not enough not to be associated with Jihadists or corrupt and sexually predatory priests. Islam and the honor of the Roman Catholic Church should be defended by its respective followers. They ought to take it upon themselves to purge their ranks before some extremists or corrupt priest bring shame and dishonor to the good name of Islam or the Roman Catholic Church.

One question that came up is why Hasan’s action was not officially called a terrorist act.

JE comments: Bienvenido Macario, whose postings so often inspire much discussion, has put forth a tall challenge worth further comment: why don’t Muslims purge their ranks of the very small yet violent minority of Jihadists who through their actions bring the world’s wrath upon the one billion faithful? Given the various branches of Islam, and the lack of a central authority akin to a Pope, how could such a thing even be attempted?

re: Nidal Malik Hasan: Muslim Bashing? (Randy Black, US)

Randy Black responds to Massoud Malek’s post of 14 November:

Massoud wrote that the WAIS forum is leaning towards Muslim bashing. Nothing can be further from the truth.

If Massoud believes that posting the facts about the Fort Hood killer’s leanings is Muslim bashing, then what are we to make of the posts that bash capitalism, democracy and China’s persecution of Falun Gong? This is not Muslim bashing nor are the other posts, in my mind, capitalism bashing. We are, for the most part, uncensored in our precious WAIS forum. If there are those among us in favor of censorship, I invite them to justify their goal of ignoring the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

The facts of these matters is that Tim McVeigh’s twisted thought processes led him to believe that he might start some sort of anti-government movement. Beyond that, he really had no followers or plan beyond the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have a radical sect/group/club/gang/militant organization within Islam that has openly declared their goals as total domination of the world. That this Muslim group represents only a tiny percentage, some say less than five percent, of the global Muslim community is a fact. Nevertheless, that tiny group has appropriated, stolen really, the world’s attention.

Al-Qaeda, a multinational, yet stateless arm/sect of Islam, has waged attacks on civilian and military targets dating to the early 1990s in dozens of nations. And with only one goal. Al-Qaeda recruits men, women and children as suicide bombers, warriors and drug runners from Afghanistan to Canada to Australia to Pakistan. About the only nation that appears to be immune is China, unless I missed something there.

Such a large, well-financed and decentralized organization, with the ability to attack just about anywhere on the globe and with the tacit approval of more than a few nations that appropriately are majority Muslim, was not within the talents of Tim McVeigh. McVeigh, who was raised Roman Catholic, later wrote that he was agnostic.

Just last week, Islamic leaders in Britain declared their ultimate goal was to turn England’s Buckingham Palace into a mosque and install Sharia law across Britain where five Sharia courts operating with full judicial authority have existed, with the British government’s approval, since 2008. Additional courts are planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

October 29–all major news organizations: Anjem Choudary–leader of Islam4UK–wants the London residence of Queen Elizabeth to be transformed into a religious centre and renamed “Buckingham Masjid,” the Arabic word for mosque. He claims to have uncovered secret documents that challenge the 83-year-old monarch’s right to the estate, which has been an official royal residence since 1837.

…Asked if he believes in democracy, he said, “No, I don’t at all.”

“One day, the Sharia will be implemented in Britain. It’s a matter of time.”

In a statement posted on the Islam4UK website, Choudary said: “At present, Buckingham Palace is nothing more than a hollow building exploited by the rich and withheld from any real use.” Under the sharia this would never happen, rather the British community would see it converted into a flourishing mosque which would be of a great benefit, not only for those residing in London but also the country as a whole.”

Choudary is already making plans to renovate Buckingham Palace to install a dome and a loudspeaker system to call followers to prayer. He also plans to use the mansion as a court where Muslim leaders would enforce Islamic sharia law and a detention centre for prisoners of war.

DUBLIN, Ireland (CNN) — At a recent debate over the battle for Islamic ideals in England, a British-born Muslim stood before the crowd and said Prophet Mohammed’s message to nonbelievers is: “I come to slaughter all of you.” “We are the Muslims,” said Omar Brooks, an extremist also known as Abu Izzadeen. “We drink the blood of the enemy, and we can face them anywhere. That is Islam and that is jihad.” …However, another Muslim in the crowd said, “”These people, ladies and gentleman, have a good look at them. They actually believe if you kill women and children, you will go to heaven,” said one young Muslim who waved his finger at the radicals. “This is not ideology. It’s a mental illness.”

http://islamizationwatch.blogspot.com/2009/10/islamic-cleric-calls-for-buckingham.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4749183.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1535478/Sharia-law-is-spreading-as-authority-wanes.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/17/warwithin.overview/index.html

re: Religion: God in Islam, Judaism, Christianity (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Ernie Hunt (14 November) wrote these lines about God: “We call Him/Her the Lord of history and use that reference in an ultimate way to understand what the Greeks believed, ‘the judgments of God are moral in time.’”

Did the Greeks believe that “the judgments of God are moral in time”? This is quite new to me. Are these words a quotation? Could Ernie be more specific?

re: Nidal Malik Hasan (Massoud Malek, US; ex-Iran)

Massoud Malek writes:

Timothy McVeigh was a Christian and a decorated veteran of the United States Army, having served in the first Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star. He was convicted of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people and was the deadliest act of terrorism within the US prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh#Religious

Nobody questioned Christianity because of McVeigh’s terrorist act. I feel now that the WAIS Forum is leaning towards Muslim-bashing. There are over a billion Muslims in the world who are not associated with Jihadists. Nidal Malik Hasan was a deranged and lonely man who often visited lap-dancing clubs, but killed innocent friends and colleagues in the name of Allah.

Sura 25, Verse 52 of the Koran states:

“Therefore listen not to the Unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness.”

However there are hundreds of verses in Koran about compassion for humans and animals. I suggest anyone who criticizes Islam in this Forum should first read the Koran. I have no problem with someone pointing out all the shortcomings of a religion, but no one should dismiss it entirely because of a few deranged persons commit terrorist acts while practicing that religion.

Today, there are more Christians than Muslims in the world who kill . A high-minded forum should not embrace prejudice; education teaches us tolerance not hatred for people who do not embrace our ideas and do not worship our God.

JE comments: I do all I can to keep WAIS prejudice-free. Hasan’s act, as Muqtedar Khan pointed out on 12 November, has immeasurably hurt Muslims everywhere.

re: Religion: God in Islam, Judaism, Christianity (Ernie Hunt, US)

Do Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same God? Alain de Benoist (and JE) reflected on this topic on 13 November. Ernie Hunt, retired Dean of the American Cathedral in Paris, responds:

I believe that all three of the Peoples of the Book: Jew, Christian, and Muslim, worship one God, but how that God is perceived is the issue. We call Him/Her by different names according to our histories and traditions. Yahweh (there are other Jewish references); a personal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (omitting the Unitarians); and Allah, but these are all limited because God is much more that our finite conceptions.

For example, some years ago I heard the erudite Dean of Westminster Abbey preach on the Gospel of John in which the text states, “No one comes to the Father but by me,” and he refuted any narrow interpretation of God by saying that the Christian understanding is limited to our concept of His ultimate love, in Christ, but that is not all there is about God.

We can also call Him/Her the Lord of history and use that reference in an ultimate way to understand what the Greeks believed, “the judgments of God are moral in time.”

Theologians wrestle with a proper definition of God but He is beyond us, except for the ways we each know and use to help us in our daily lives and in prayer.

re: Nidal Malik Hasan and Religion (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

David Gress (12 November) wrote: “When Muslims hear Allah (who has very little indeed in common with the God Jews and Christians worship) declare himself to be the compassionate, the merciful, it is understood that this refers to compassion and mercy to those who believe, that is, Muslims. It is by submission (islam in the true sense of the word) that men deserve the compassion of the otherwise arbitrary and cruel Allah. All others are excluded from this compassion and mercy. A message diametrically opposed to that of Christianity or, for that matter, Buddhism.”

AdB: Christianity has, of course, nothing to do with Buddhism. David forgets that, during many centuries, Christians theologians and Church authorities repeatedly asserted that killing disbelievers, “heretics” or “infidels” was not murder, but a sacred duty.

I agree that Allah “has very little in common with the God Jews and Christians worship.” But the God that Christians worship is also very different of the God worshipped by Jews.

JE comments: I took the US Foreign Service Exam ten years ago when I was “between jobs.” I remember one of the questions asked whether Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship the same god or different ones. The correct answer was “the same” (I got it right). But when one thinks deeply, the question takes on a metaphysical quality. For those who argue that humans created and continue to create God to serve our sundry needs, the notion that there is but one God for all the “people of the Book” becomes untenable. The exam, which required one to pencil in the correct multiple-choice circle, allowed for no such nuance or reflection.

Did I pass the FS written exam? Yes. The in-person interview? No; but not one of the eight semi-finalists in my group was asked to come aboard. I guess I don’t have the right stuff for diplomacy.

re: Nidal Malik Hasan (David Gress, Denmark)

David Gress responds to Vincent Littrell’s post of 11 November:

I respect Vincent’s very eirenic understanding of Islam and of politics generally. Unfortunately, many people do not share either.

It is, in a way, a pointless undertaking to ask if Hasan was acting as a righteous Muslim or not. Fact one: he believed he was. Fact two: he has ample justification for that belief, not only in the Quran and several hadith, but also in many decrees issued by numerous authoritative imams over the past many decades, not to mention centuries.

For one thing, when wahhabi-salafi or what you will Muslims appeal to e.g. the verse of the sword or other verses that command the assault on, subjugation of, and murder (unless they convert) of infidels, they cannot be said to be wrong. The peaceful interpretation of the (to Muslims) divine message is unfortunately rather in abeyance these days.

For another, when Muslims hear Allah (who has very little indeed in common with the God Jews and Christians worship) declare himself to be the compassionate, the merciful, it is understood that this refers to compassion and mercy to those who believe, that is, Muslims. It is by submission (islam in the true sense of the word) that men deserve the compassion of the otherwise arbitrary and cruel Allah. All others are excluded from this compassion and mercy. A message diametrically opposed to that of Christianity or, for that matter, Buddhism.

Jihadis are not wrong to understand the command of jihad as a command to conquer. That reading is all over the Quran and the hadith, not to mention the perpetual record of Muslim behavior vis-a-vis subjugated people–India, Asia Minor, the whole Middle East for that matter.

The new thing in recent decades is that jihad is now commanded (again, by authoritative sources) not just against rulers of Muslim lands deemed insufficient in faith, but against us, the remaining infidel, who have not realized that we are all created Muslim and if we do not submit, we are in heinous error and must, as a Pakistani group recently commanded, either convert, pay tribute, leave, or be killed.

Pope Boniface VIII has been often excoriated for declaring “extra ecclesiam nulla salus,” there is no salvation outside the Church. But even such as Boniface never imagined killing or forcibly subjugating all those “extra ecclesiam.” He just believed they would all go to hell. Muslims today, however, do not seem satisfied in believing that we infidel will go to hell; many of them seem to want to put us there deliberately and before our times.

What about just letting “Allah” do his thing without the aid of jihadis? Where is their trust in this supposedly omniscient and benevolent deity?

re: Nidal Malik Hasan (Muqtedar Khan, US; ex-India)

Muqtedar Khan writes:

Here are my observations on Major Hasan: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/11/fort_hood_shooter_attacked_muslims_too.html

JE comments: I urge all WAISers to read Muqtedar Khan’s Washington Post op-ed. I agree with my old colleague that US Muslims have suffered immeasurably by the Hasan rampage. Among other things, the 10,000 Muslims presently in the US Armed Forces will henceforth be treated with much greater scrutiny and suspicion.

re: Nidal Malik Hasan (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell writes:

This is a response to General Michael Sullivan’s 11 November post:

I certainly am of the mind that Hasan’s alleged action was treasonous. The Uniform Code of Military Justice will deal with him and as I see it, once he is formally found guilty he should hang or face a firing squad (provided he recovers from being shot by the police). If found guilty he should be stripped of rank…referring to him as “Major” is distasteful.

I think I take a different view from the General as to Hasan’s being a Muslim. No matter the puritanical/salafist/extremist perspectives, what Hasan did was not of Islam. The first line of 113 of 114 Surahs of the Qur’an read, “In the Name of God, The Compassionate, The Merciful.” Failure to act in accordance with compassion and mercy stands against the fundamental foundational teachings of Islam. I strongly hold to this interpretation. Also, as I explore meaning in the concept of Jihad, supposed “jihadists,” the enemies Coalition and US forces face, have failed to understand and implement the spiritual foundations to this concept. The concept of jihad is debated within the Muslim world to be sure, and we in the West give the puritanicals who get the media attention through their savage actions further credibility by our legitimizing their self appellations and use of vocabulary through our own usage of their terms. This appeals to them. This strengthens them.

Hasan is a criminal and a traitor who adheres to a superstition that claims to be of Islam, a superstition that must be defeated and not given the status of being anything to do with religion or the Prophet Muhammad.

re: Agape and Love: A Greek Question (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Istvan Simon (10 November) asked for more information about the difference between “eros” and “agapè.”

I cannot say anything about “agapo” in modern Greek, but I can say to Istvan that the eros-agapè topic has been extensively studied in theology. The most important study is probably the monumental two-volume treatise Eros och Agape. Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna, which was published in 1930-36 by the Swedish theologian Anders Nygren. There is an English translation which appeared in 1932 under the title Agape and Eros (London). It was republished in 1982 by the University of Chicago Press (764 p.). The French translation, in three volumes, was published by Aubier in 1944, with a foreword by Maurice Goguel, and republished quite recently by the Editions du Cerf (Paris, 2009, 858 p.).

Anders Nygren, first president of the World Protestant Federation, was professor of theology at the University of Lund. Hostile to Platonic philosophy, he opposed eros as an expression of the individual’s desires to agapè as an “unconditional love,” “spontaneous,” “unmotived,” and “indifferent to value” (like charity), stressing that the former turns man away from God, while the latter would be the only authentically Christian kind of love (“Agape is the center of Christianity, the Christian fundamental motif par excellence”). Agape and eros can have nothing to do with each other, because they would belong to two “entirely separate spiritual worlds, between which no direct communication is possible.” More recently, in his first encyclical, “Deus caritas est,” Pope Benedict XVI tried (not very convincingly in my opinion) to defend the idea that both eros and agape can be aspects of divine love. Some modern theologians have also criticized Nygren’s interpretations.

It can be said that agapè loves regardless of the value of the loved, while eros loves its objects because they are worthy of love. Nietzsche wrote: “Christianity has poisoned Eros. Eros did not die, but became vicious.”

re: Golden Rule, Its Origins and Translations (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Ed Jajko (10 November) recalled very accurately that the statement “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is not expressed by Jesus himself, but by the “lawyer” to whom Jesus asked: “What is written in the law?” (Luke 10:25). The answer is a bit strange because, of course, many other things are “written in the law” (Torah). This is probably a device of Luke’s christological perspective. The exchange between Jesus and the “lawyer” [nomikos] seems also to have a polemical background: “ekpereizô” means “to tempt” as well as “to put to a test” (this verb is encountered only twice in Luke, see Luke 4:12). Jesus and the “lawyer” disagree probably on the answer to the following question: but who is my neighbor?

Ed gave also the correct references from Deuteronomy, Joshua and Leviticus. He could have said, however, that Luke 10:25-28 should be compared to Matt. 5:43, which presents the Biblical statement in another light: “You have heard that it has been said: Thou will love your neighbor and thou will hate thy enemy.” Jesus is supposed to have added: “But me, I tell you: love your enemies.” In this pericope, the word “enemy” is apparently related to the private enemy, not the public one.

re: Golden Rule, Love and Compassion (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Robert Whealey (9 November ) is quite right to recall, indirectly, that what Christians usually call “love” is not a translation of Greek “eros,” but of “agapè.” “Agapè” is a disposition of mind very different of what is implied by “eros.” It means “loving” indistinctly anybody, while “eros” is the love of somebody in particular. The meaning of “agapè” is quite close to “charity.” The Greeks were very wise, who made a clear distinction between “agapè,” “eros,” “philia,” “storge,” and “epithumia.”

JE comments, with the WAIS Vocabulary Power! lesson for 10 November: “epithumia” means “desire, craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden, lust.” Epithumia is not a WAISly virtue, though it is fundamental to human nature. Several thousand years ago, craving the forbidden got us into this mess in the first place…

re: Golden Rule, its Origins and Translations (Edward Jajko, US)

When commenting Alain de Benoist’s post of 7 November, JE wrote:

“Love thy neighbor not as thou loves thyself, but rather because love is necessary for a good neighborhood” doesn’t have the power of Jesus’s original soundbite, but maybe something was lost in the translation. Ed Jajko, can you help us here?

Ed Jajko responds:

This is not so much a matter of translation as it is of understanding and interpretation of the text, whether in the original or in translation. Alain is entitled to his interpretation, especially in this Forum. Equally, then, Robert Whealey is entitled to his interpretation, viz., “Jesus’s statement, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ is better than the negative statement of Confucius.” Leaving aside discussion of the merits of this statement or of Alain’s counter-argument, I here respond to JE’s request. The relevant Scripture passage is Luke 10:25-28. In the Greek of the Nestle-Aland ed., as emended by others, and without the necessary diacritical marks and accents, which I am unable to supply, one reads:

“25. Kai idou nomikos tis aneste ekpeirazon auton legon: didaskale, ti poiesas zoen aionion kleronomeso? 26. ho de eipen pros auton: en to nomo ti gegraptai? pos anaginoskeis? 27. ho de apokritheis eipen: agapeseis kyrion ton theon sou ex holes [tes] kardias sou kai en hole te psyche sou kai en hole to ischyu sou kai en hole te dianoia sou , kai ton plesion sou hos seauton. 28 eipen de auto: orthos apekrithes: touto poiei kai zese.”

In the translation of the Revised Standard Version, this reads: “25. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26. He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” 27. And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28. And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.” This is followed by the lawyer’s question “who is my neighbor,” and Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan.

Note that Jesus asks the “lawyer”–which does not mean a barrister or solicitor but rather a doctor of the religious law–what is “written in the law,” i.e., the Torah and remainder of the Bible, and it is the lawyer who answers. The formula quoted by the “lawyer” comes from three Old Testament sources, Deuteronomy 6:5 and 10:12; Joshua 22:5; and Leviticus 19:18..

The verses in Deuteronomy are, here in the New International Version:

“6:5 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

“10:12 And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, …”

And from Joshua:

“22:5 But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to obey his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.”

And from Leviticus:

“19:18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”

Leviticus 19:18, in romanized Hebrew, is “Lo tiqqom ve-lo tittor et b’ne ‘ammekha ve-ahavta le-re’akha kamokha ani YHWH.” The relevant part is the penultimate phrase, “ve-ahavta le-re’akha,” “you shall [have] love [for] your neighbor.”

The interesting question in this exchange is how it was that the lawyer picked those portions of several Bible verses and joined them together to make a set of deceptively simply rules for how to live one’s life relative to God and others. Was this a formula that was current in Jesus’s time? Why did the lawyer, who would have known the Bible backwards and forwards, pick these injunctions, leaving out the 613 commandments? Granted, Deuteronomy 6:5 is the Shema’, the declaration of faith that was on the doorpost of every house in Israel and Judea, and was regularly recited as part of the prayer rituals. Or is this simply a device of Luke’s?

But it should be kept in mind that the way Luke writes this story, it is not Jesus who states that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves; rather, it is the lawyer who does so, quoting centuries-old Jewish Biblical texts. Jesus accepts the lawyer’s formula and agrees with him and with this ancient Jewish tradition.

JE comments: Many thanks for this response–detailed and learned in the fashion we’ve come to expect from Ed Jajko!

re: Religion: on Prophets, Persecution and Falun Gong (Ying Rong, US)

Ying Rong responds to Istvan Simon’s post of 8 November:

I agree with Istvan that persecution over Falun Gong is a human right issue. Belief is everyone’s choice, and Falun Gong practitioners respect other people’s choices. We don’t and won’t impose our belief/practice over others.

Falun Gong practitioners respect Mr. Li but we don’t worship him, since this has been strongly discouraged from the very beginning. The practice is focused on becoming a better person.

Below is from FalunInfo.net:

Who is Li Hongzhi?

Mr. Li Hongzhi is the founder and instructor of Falun Gong. He first taught the practice of Falun Gong to the general public in 1992 in northeastern China in the city of Changchun. He is the recipient of numerous awards and citations for his efforts to promote human betterment. He is a four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and has been nominated by the European Parliament for the Sakharov Prize For Freedom of Thought.

Why do you call him “Master”?

This is a common honorific in China for any accomplished instructor in any of a variety of skilled arts–such as the martial arts, Tai-chi, or qigong–or religious disciplines, such as Buddhism or Daoism. There is nothing sensational about it, any more than, say, might the designation “professor” be for one’s instructor while in college.

An article I read said that you “worship” Master Li?

Those who practice Falun Gong do not as a practice worship Mr. Li, and Li has, for his part, specifically discouraged this sort of thing in his teachings (veneration of one’s spiritual teacher is common in Asian culture). While it is common in the Asian martial arts to, say, bow to a portrait of one’s sensei/teacher before commencing one’s training, Falun Gong’s teachings do not suggest anything of the sort. Attention has always been directed to the teachings in Falun Gong, as opposed to any one personality.

Why did he leave China?

Mr. Li has explained that he wished for a better educational opportunity for his daughter, who was then of high school age, when deciding to relocate to the United States. The move could also be seen as consistent with his decision in 1996 to discontinue teaching in China in favor of introducing the practice abroad.

Where does he now live?

As of the time of this writing, Mr. Li is said to be living in the United States on the East Coast.

I heard he lives a secretive life. What’s he hiding?

Mr. Li keeps a low profile at this time, presumably owing to threat of physical harm from agents of China’s communist regime. Radio Free Asia and others have reported that China’s rulers have dispatched assassins to the U.S. with orders to track down and kill Li. Several of his more prominent students, active in human rights efforts, have been physically assaulted by hired thugs; in at least two cases the thugs were later found to have been sent by the Chinese consulate.

Why doesn’t he address the public or do interviews?

Alongside the above concern for safety, Mr. Li has suggested a wish to avoid media fanfare and the possibility of a cult of personality forming around him; several journalists have not represented his words or teachings accurately, which might be another factor.

How does Mr. Li make a living?

He has indicated that his income as of 1999 came primarily from the sales of books which he authored.

Is it true he’s made millions off of Falun Gong?

No. Mr. Li is believed to have only made a nominal amount from the sales of Falun Gong books and videos, and the giving of lectures in China between 1992 and 1994. China’s Ministry of Propaganda has labored to paint Li as a wealthy swindler in an attempt to turn public opinion against him, going so far in one story as to show photos of a Manhattan skyscraper and claim he had amassed a real estate empire in the U.S. In reality, he owned a small residential home in Queens.

Who taught him the practice?

Mr. Li has indicated that he studied under several Buddhist, Daoist, and other masters in China in the decades leading up to Falun Gong’s public introduction in 1992. He has expressed a wish to protect their identities following the persecution of Falun Gong which began in 1999; their identification would likely lead to arrest and torture, as it has others associated with the practice.

Is it true he is “controlling the movement” via the Internet?

No. Mr. Li reportedly didn’t know how to use a computer when last asked. He has composed a number of essays in recent years, published by various adherents online, which offer spiritual and philosophical guidance to students of the practice, many of whom live in China under constant threat. But it would not be accurate to describe this as “controlling” what is happening in China, particularly given how loosely organized are the grassroots efforts there meant to resist the suppression.

What is Li’s response to the suppression in China?

Mr. Li originally called for dialogue with Chinese authorities, believing them to be acting on a mistaken perception that Falun Gong threatened their power. China’s rulers refused, and issued an arrest warrant for Li; soon after it was reported they sent assassins to the U.S. Li has since then suggested that students try to expose human rights abuses against Falun Gong to fellow citizens, and combat official propaganda with grassroots informational efforts.

JE comments: Does Mr. Li make public appearances now? Does he still live in his “small residential home in Queens”? The information presented above appears to be current only through 1999.

re: Religion: on Prophets, Persecution and Falun Gong (Alain de Benoist, France)

Istvan Simon wrote on 8 November:

Li Hongzhi may be a flawed individual, but that does not make the persecution of the followers of his teachings any more acceptable.

Alain de Benoist responds:

I agree. But persecution is not proof that the persecuted are “right,” “good,” or that they hold any “truth.” There is today a tendency for some victims to use the fact that they are (or have been) victims to show how good they are. This is a non sequitur. Persecution of insane people is also unacceptable, but it is certainly not a proof of their good mental health.

Moreover, I think it is perfectly reasonable to compare Li Hongzhi to Jesus or Muhammad, not because he is supposed to be a prophet, but because he is a founder. Li Hongzhi “is” not the Falun Gong, but I suppose that Falun Gong practitioners can have only reverence for what their founder has said.

Finally, Istvan is right to retract the statement that “no spiritual movement has been successfully suppressed by savage persecution.” John Heelan gave the counter-example of the Cathars in medieval France. He could have quoted a great number of other spiritual movements, Christian “heresies,” or popular beliefs, which have also been suppressed by persecution. He could also have quoted all the original European religions (Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Roman, Greek, etc.) which were suppressed by Christianity.

re: Religion: on Prophets, Persecution and Falun Gong (Mike Bonnie, US)

Istvan Simon wrote on 8 November:

It seems to me that Massoud Malek [7 November] misstates the relationship of Li Hongzhi with the Falun Gong, and I think also the nature of the Falun Gong when compared to other religions. Li Hongzhi is not a prophet. As far as I know Falun Gong practitioners do not consider him to be a prophet either. If so, it is inappropriate to compare him to either Jesus or Muhammad, because the latter are considered to have been endowed with divine powers by their followers, whereas that does not seem to be the case with the Falun Gong practitioners and Li Hongzhi.

Wikipedia has a balanced and well-researched summary, which I think could be a good starting point for an understanding of the proper relationship of Li Hongzhi to the Falun Gong for non-expert WAISers like me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong

Mike Bonnie responds:

Istvan cites Wikipedia.org/Falun Gong as a balanced and well-researched summary of the beliefs of Falun Gong members. I believe its fair to cite Wikipedia.org/Li Hongzhi as an equally balanced and well-researched summary:

“Much of Falun Gong’s doctrine and all of its texts are directly compiled from Li’s lectures and he wields near-absolute influence over the practice.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi

In my opinion, it’s not what a teacher as Li Hongzhi professes himself to be (a metaphor for religious, spiritual leader) teaches that is important–what’s important is what sticks in the students’ heads.

A bit more researched information can be found in translations of Zhuan Falun II, one of the principle writings and teaching of Li Hongzhi.

From a Wikipeidia.org discussion of Falun Gong text on the subject of homosexuality:

Li’s Statement About “the disgusting homosexuality” in Zhuan Falun II:

Dilip: You questioned the validity of the Li Hongzhi quote in “Ephasis
on Moral Nature,” so I just added a link to the source. I hope we can
avoid an overt war over this one paragraph on homosexuality. I agree
that we do not need a big section on homosexuality in this article, but
we certainly need a fair representation of Li’s teachings on this
subject. Frankly, I don’t undertand why you keep deleting these
statements of Li, except perhaps that they embarrass you.

This particular quote has appeared in many English articles over the
years. There may be a question of translation from the Chinese. Here are
two possible versions:

Existing version: “The disgusting homosexuality shows the dirty abnormal
psychology of the gay who has lost his ability of reasoning at the
present time.”

More literal translation provided by Samuel Luo: “The disgusting
homosexuality reflects the dirty twisted mind which has lost its
reasoning ability at the present time.”

I am happy with either version, and wonder if anyone on this site can
offer an expert opinion on the best translation of this quote.

Source: Falun Canada web site.

Select “Dafa Books” in left column. Select Zhuan Falun II. Go to
“Humankind at the Period of the Last Havoc” at page 22. –Tomananda
20:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

As I stated above, this quote serves no purpose as the issue is
comprehensively addressed in the following quote from Germany. It’s
clear from the Germany quote that Falun Gong views this behavior or
state of mind as filthy. And since there is no official translation it
is even less acceptable. If you cannot provide a better reason to keep
the quote it cannot stay in the article. The same goes for the poem
quote; I stated ample reasons for it’s removal, so unless you or anyone
else can respond, it should not be included.

Mcconn 16:35, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive6#Li.27s_Statement_About_.22the_disgusting_homosexuality.22_in_Zhuan_Falun_II

For greater depth in understanding the nature of cults, I’ll defer to
the late Dr. Margaret Singer and recommend watching a video interview of
her discussion of cults and Falun Gong:

Interview with Dr. Margart Thaler Singer on Falun Gong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC3USBF42RM&feature=related

For people who do not know of Dr. Singer:

Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer (1921 - 2003) was a clinical psychologist
and adjunct professor emeritus of psychology at the University of
California, Berkeley.

Singer’s main areas of research included schizophrenia, family therapy,
brainwashing and coercive persuasion. Singer performed research at the
University of Colorado’s School of Medicine, Walter Reed Army Medical
Center Institute of Research, the National Institute of Mental Health,
the United States Air Force and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. She received many awards for her work, including the Leo J.
Ryan Memorial Award, the Research Scientist Award from the National
Institute of Mental Health, and both the Hofheimer Prize and the Stanley
R. Dean Award from the American College of Psychiatrists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer

re: Golden Rule and Compassion (Ernie Hunt, US)

Ernie Hunt writes:

It seems to me that Jesus was quoting Leviticus that emphasized love of the other, the neighbor and his or her household, so the implication is communal not so personal, and certainly not egotistical, which would be the last thing in Jesus’s mind. He quoted the heart of the Scriptures he knew to those who opposed his more liberal interpretations of the Torah.

When I say liberal I am not being political but imply that Jesus, at least as far as we can tell from the research of scholars, often crossed the social line defined by the law then and purposely embraced sinners, that is: outcasts, lepers, all kinds of women, and others like tax collectors who were not very popular at the time.

Theologian Marcus Borg, who I believe still teaches at the State University in Oregon, refutes any egotistical love about Jesus aimed at himself. Borg has written, “To belove Jesus means more that simply loving Jesus. It means loving what Jesus loved. That is the heart of Christianity.” Hence, the ethic involves loving those whom he loved, the outcasts.

At the University those who wish to differ from fundamentalists I understand have worn tee shirts which say, ho, ho: “Borg Again Christians.”

re: The Golden Rule and Compassion (Robert Whealey, US)

Robert Whealey writes:

I don’t have any disagreement with Alain de Benoist’s 7 November
addendum to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Love thy neighbor as thyself”
is only an opening gambit, if one meets a stranger in school or on the job,
which in a democracy is assumed to be a classless situation. Privates in
the army start out all equal, until the job proves otherwise. So adding to
the presumption of love, the qualification that love is also is necessary
for a good neighborhood is fine.

Part II: If you do not love yourself, one cannot take care of a spouse,
children, or aging parents. One cannot hold a job. Every moral system
assumes that the ego or the seven deadly sins, pride, greed, etc. must be
restrained for a neighborhood or community to survive.

The Greek agape and philos has to be taught to the neighbors, by parents or
teachers. Jesus was a rabbi. He had the moral sophistication which proved
more sophisticated than the high priests of his day. Paul the tentmaker
became a teacher or missionary for the message of Jesus, and took the message
beyond the tribes of Judea and Israel.

re: Religion: Falun Gong and Homosexuality (Ying Rong, US)

Ying Rong responds to Massoud Malek’s post of 7 November:

Five major misconceptions about Falun Gong were fabricated in China and exported worldwide. The communist regime takes Mr. Li’s words out of context and uses them to incite hatred against Falun Gong. Years ago, several pro-communists did a large anti-Falun Gong campaign in San Francisco based on this point, and many gays/lesbians inquired about what was going on. After clarifying our position, they understood it. I would like to recommend to WAISers who are interested to read on:

Misconceptions About Falun Gong

http://faluninfo.net/article/651/?cid=23

1. Intolerant of homosexual/interracial marriage?

Falun Gong is not anti-gay. Living in the San Francisco bay Area, I myself have friends/coworkers who are gays and lesbians. One I worked closely wrote recommendation letter for me when I was swiching jobs. Now I am a friend on his face book.

In fact some gays/lesbians have joined Falun Gong. As Falun Gong practitioners, we don’t practice homosexuality. This is easy to understand from Taoism, a traditional Chinese belief. Taoism says the universe has both “yin” and “yang,” while combinning “yin” and “yang” is a natural way to achieve balance. Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese practice that has many Taoist elements. However, we don’t impose our own belief over others.

In regards to interracial marriage, many Falun Gong practitioners I know are in interracial marriages and many of them have children. Hope these facts help to answer Mr. Malek’s question.

Below is from Faluninfo.net:

Knowing the democratic West to be a tolerant, pluralistic, and diverse place, Chinese authorities have sought to brand Falun Gong as contrary to these basic values. In a word, they’ve sought to cast it as “intolerant.” Several journalists have taken the bait.

The characterization is patently misleading, and rests solely upon an outsider’s uninformed interpretation of doctrine. It’s found to be at odds with lived practice.

Consider the first of the two major issues Chinese authorities cite: an alleged intolerance of homosexuality. (We can’t help but note the irony of China’s communist rulers having until recently banned homosexuality, labeling it a mental disorder.)

Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are welcomed by the practice just like anyone else, and not accorded any different treatment. Whether they continue to live that lifestyle, or self-identify with that term, is solely a personal choice and not something anyone in Falun Gong would force upon the individual. Central to Falun Gong is the making of one’s own decisions.

Falun Gong’s teachings do suggest that certain behaviors, including homosexuality, generate more karma than others or are not conducive to certain aspirations in the practice. But this it is left at the level of teaching, and not a creed or regulation. How one understands a given teaching, and to what extent he or she applies it, is always a personal matter.

A second, related point that must be emphasized is that Falun Gong’s teachings on this and other matters do not equate to a “position statement” or “stance” on some social issue. They are intended solely for the individual aspirant, and to be applied to his or her own life; they are not meant to be applied to others, much less non-practitioners. Falun Gong does not have any position on what other people should or shouldn’t do with their lives. It simply offers its teachings on personal change to whomever is interested in its path to spiritual growth.

What holds true for homosexuality holds true for interracial marriage, if not more so. Falun Gong’s teachings have little to say about the matter. What several journalists have picked up on, prompted by Chinese state media intimations, is the presence of one passage in one book where Falun Gong’s founder mentions the issue in passing.

Regrettably the said journalists didn’t temper their own, outsider’s reading of that passage with investigation or evidence. They failed to check with any living, actual persons who do Falun Gong, preferring, seemingly, to not let a sensational reading of the passage be spoiled by evidence to the contrary.

Had they looked into the matter, they would have found their assumptions to be just that, assumptions. Many who practice Falun Gong have married individuals of a different race after taking up the practice. Of the 14 individuals who make up the Information Center’s staff, fully 4 fall into this category. If Falun Gong teaches racial segregation, it’s doing a poor job of it.

If the practice does not breed racial intolerance in the life of the individual, one might readily imagine how much less so it translates into a general “stance” on interracial marriage in society.

The two most frequently cited forms of “intolerance” end up suggesting, upon closer examination, just the opposite. Indeed, if anything, it would seem that something in Falun Gong is instead conducive to greater tolerance.

JE comments: An interesting verb usage: Faluninfo.net refers to people who “do” Falun Gong, not those who “are” FG members/believers. This suggests a self-identification that FG is a practice or philosophy rather than a religion–I cannot imagine a Catholic or Muslim publication talking about those who “do” Christianity or Islam. Or is the editor and philologist in me attempting too close a reading?

re: Religion: on Prophets, Persecution and Falun Gong (Istvan Simon, US)

Falun Gong has proven to have very long legs on WAIS–the postings keep coming in. Here, Istvan Simon responds to Massoud Malek’s post of November 7 and John Heelan’s post of November 6:

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on the Falun Gong, nor Christianity nor Islam, or any religion for that matter. However, I do not have to be an expert on any religion to be able to comment on the impropriety of the persecution of its followers. That is primarily a human rights issue, and I think something sufficiently basic and fundamental that anyone can comment on without expert knowledge.

Having said so, it seems to me that Massoud Malek misstates the relationship of Li Hongzhi with the Falun Gong, and I think also the nature of the Falun Gong when compared to other religions.

Li Hongzhi is not a prophet. As far as I know Falun Gong practitioners do not consider him to be a prophet either. If so, it is inappropriate to compare him to either Jesus or Muhammad, because the latter are considered to have been endowed with divine powers by their followers, whereas that does not seem to be the case with the Falun Gong practitioners and Li Hongzhi.

Wikipedia has a balanced and well-researched summary, which I think could be a good starting point for an understanding of the proper relationship of Li Hongzhi to the Falun Gong for non-expert WAISers like me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong

Perhaps Ying Rong would be kind enough to further comment on this relationship from the perspective of a practitioner.

Li Hongzhi is the founder of the Falun Gong. Nonetheless tens of millions of people now claim to be practitioners, and when such a large number of people is involved, it is I think appropriate to state, as I have done in my November 6 post, that Li Hongzhi is not the Falun Gong. I also think that my comparison of the relationship of the Falun Gong to Li Hongzhi with that of the Catholic Church to the Pope is more appropriate than Jesus to Christianity or Muhammad to Islam.

If this is so, the enumeration of the supposed shortcomings of Li Hongzhi that Massoud Malek brought up is not relevant to the discussion on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Li Hongzhi may be a flawed individual, but that does not make the persecution of the followers of his teachings any more acceptable. Furthermore, his flaws do not necessarily invalidate the possible truths that Falun Gong practitioners find in his teachings.

I stated in my November 6 post that no spiritual movement has been successfully suppressed by savage persecution. John Heelan responded with the counter-example of the apparently successful suppression of the Cathars in medieval France. John Heelan seems to be right, so I retract my statement made with the sweeping generality that I have indulged in on November 6. Nonetheless, the following considerations perhaps make it unlikely that the Chinese authorities will ever succeed in suppressing the Falun Gong.

The article in Wikipedia states that there is no centralized organized membership list of the Falun Gong. So it is not clear in particular how many practitioners there are. At one point the Chinese government claimed that there were 70 million followers in China, but following the ban of the Falun Gong and the propaganda campaign against it this number was revised to 2 million. I am frankly skeptical of this spectacular reduction in the number of practitioners by a factor of 35 claimed by the Chinese authorities. However, in any case, there seem to be millions of followers outside of the reach of the Chinese authorities, which makes their attempt to suppress the Falun Gong by savage persecution unlikely to ever succeed.

JE comments: I have a response in my inbox from Ying Rong, to Massoud Malek’s posting of 7 November. Ying’s note is next in the queue.

re: Religion: Falun Gong (Massoud Malek, US; ex-Iran)

JE: Just one more Falun Gong posting for now. This time, we hear from Massoud Malek:

On 6 November, Istvan Simon wrote:

I do not particularly care whatever Li Hongzhi may or not have said in front of television cameras. That is because I think that Li Hongzhi is not the Falun Gong.

Massoud Malek responds:

Could we also say that Jesus is not Christianity or Muhammad is not Islam?

Today , there are over 100 million Falun Gong practitioners who follow the teachings of their master, Li Hongzhi. These people are persecuted by the Chinese government and the West keeps quiet because of cheap Chinese products. There are actually more followers of Li Hongzhi than all the Jews, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, Shamanists, Voodoo practicers, Jains, and many other faiths combined.

No one knows exactly when Zoroaster was born. The same goes with Buddha. Li Hongzhi’s birth certificate states that he was born on 7 July 1952, but he was actually born on the same day as Sakyamuni (Buddha), on 13 May 1951. Here is how Li Homgzhi explains his birthday:

http://clearwisdom.net/emh/download/publications/peacereport_statement.html

“Some people spread rumors that I changed my date of birth, and this is true. During the Cultural Revolution, the government misprinted my date of birth. What I did was simply to change the misprinted date of birth to the correct one. As for the fact that Sakyamuni was also born on this day, what does that have to do with me? Many other people were also born on this day. In addition, I have never claimed that I am Sakyamuni.”

Note: The Cultural Revolution took place many years after his birthday. Why did the Chinese government issue a new birth certificate making him younger?

By reading “Brief biography of Li Hongzhi: founder of Falun Gong and president of the Falun Gong Research Society,”

http://www.trinity.edu/rnadeau/Chinese%20Religions/Li%20Hongzhi.htm

one could understand why Falun Gong is not a cult, it is based on “Zhen-Shan-Ren:”

Zen: Do true things and speak the truth.

Shan: Be kind and compassionate.

Ren: Refrain from resentment and hatred.

It is safe to practice Falun Gong. No practitioners of Falun Gong will suffer from adverse changes. Li Hongzhi has time and again emphasized that no problems must arise in the practicing of Dafa. Falun Gong has excluded all factors that are likely to lead to adverse changes. For instance, there can be no “yi nian” in the course of practicing gong, nor can there be “spontaneous gong.” Also, each student is protected by his or her “fa shen” (Dharma body); the family of each student, and even the venue where he or she practices gong, is cleansed and protected by a “safety hood” (anquan zhao) that ensures that the student is not affected by evil information.

Every prophet produced at least one miracle; here are some miracles by Li Hongzhi that [ordinary people could not comprehend]:

When Li Hongzhi was eight years old, he suddenly became aware that something had appeared at the corner of his eyes. Gradually, he realized they were the words “zhen-shan-ren.” It was the master who had impressed these words in his eyes. No one else could see them, but they were constantly visible to him. In the years that followed, the master told him the meaning of these words: Zhen means to do true things and speak the truth; it means not practicing deception or speaking untruths, and not concealing one’s mistakes; this will eventually result in the attainment of truth. Shan means to be kind and compassionate, to refrain from bullying people, to sympathize with the weak, help the poor; it means that one should always be ready to help others and do good things. Ren means that, when one experiences difficulties and suffers injustices, one should look at the bright side of things, be able to hold out, refrain from resentment and hatred, refrain from nursing grievances and taking revenge, be able to endure the worst of adversities and things that normal people are unable to endure.

At the age of eight, Li Hongzhi was already highly proficient in Dafa and had acquired supernatural powers. When he played hide-and-seek with his companions, he had only to think “other people cannot see me” to make himself invisible to others, who could not see him even if they directed a flashlight at his face. With a simple flick of a finger, he could draw long, rusty, and crooked nails out of pieces of wood. When water pipes froze up in winter, he had only to tap them with his hand for the pipes to bend; even he himself did not know how he did this. As he was playing with his little companions in snow-covered fields, he could jump and fly through the air. If he found two people about to get into a fight, he could prevent one of them from approaching the other simply by thinking that that person should not go near the other person.

One day, when in the fourth grade of elementary school, Li left school without taking along his school bag, and when he went back to get it the door of the classroom was locked and the windows had been shut. He thought that it would be nice if he could get in. No sooner had the thought flashed through his mind that he found himself in the classroom. Another thought, and he was out again. On another occasion he had this thought: what would it feel like to be in the middle of a window pane? No sooner had he thought this than he found himself positioned in the window. He at once felt as if his body and brain were filled with shards of glass; it was most uncomfortable, so he hurriedly got out again. He did not know, at the time, what was the power of gong; he thought everyone was like this, and paid no attention to the matter.

Here is what Li Hongzhi said on September 4–5, 1998 in Geneva about the decline of the Greek Civilization:

http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/lectures/19980904L.html

Question: Why is it that homosexuals are considered bad people?

Teacher: Let me tell you, if I weren’t teaching this Fa today, gods’ first target of annihilation would be homosexuals. It’s not me who would destroy them, but gods. You know that homosexuals have found legitimacy in that homosexuality was around back in the culture of ancient Greece. Yes, there was a similar phenomenon in ancient Greek culture. And do you know why ancient Greek culture is no more? Why are the ancient Greeks gone? Because they had degenerated to that extent, and so they were destroyed.

Conclusion: What is more disturbing? Mike Bonnie’s posts on Falun Gong or reading in this high-minded forum posts about a prophet who dislikes homosexuals, mixed races, and the Chinese government?

JE comments: This is the first time I’ve heard that Li-Hongzhi is so anti-gay. Can Ying Rong comment?

re: Religion: Falun Gong (Charles Ridley, US)

JE: I know, I know–this morning I said no more Falun Gong posts for awhile. But I always want to know what Charles Ridley has to say. So this is what Charles has to say:

I will have to leave the question of the degree of suppression of the Falun Gong to those better informed than I. It does appear that the Chinese government has chosen the Falun Gong as its major domestic enemy at the present time. As I noted in my WAIS ‘09 talk, the government most likely feels the necessity of indentifying an “enemy” within the society as a rallying point so that people will have a ready target for their discontent. In earlier days, it was landlords and other “rightists” who were the targets.

The primary fact about the Chinese government is that it is extremely authoritarian. The history of the regime since 1949 has been one of persecution of those seen to be on the wrong side of regime values, a tendency that led to a high level of slaughter of innocent citizens.

A major difference now is that the eyes of the world are on China, which means that any persecutions inside its borders must be handled without undue publicity. Whether the nature of the beast has changed is another question.

My own personal and very anecdotal evidence suggests that people are well indoctrinated into a belief that the Dalai Lama is an evil man, and, I suspect, on the idea of the “civilizing” character of the regime in dealing with the “decadent” culture of Tibet.

At a personal level, because of my past publication history, I was a bit nervous about undertaking my trip to China this past summer. When I applied for my visa I wondered of they would check on me and deny me entry. And I even wondered if I might be challenged once I was in the country. That can be chalked up to paranoia, of course.

When I get to analyzing the school books, one of the approaches I will take (and have undertaken in the past) is to look for contradictions between the values the government wishes to inculcate and the behavior of the government.

One of the problems deriving from actual visits to China is that the Chinese are very charming and most visitors returned enthused. One acquaintance of mine who spent last year in China has informed me that he “loves that country” and prefers Chinese to Americans. (He has also taken a dislike to Japan, after having spent three years there studying Japanese.)

I must conclude with the caveat, that in spite of my doctorate in Chinese studies, I have had virtually no experience, excluding my visit in July, of the country and do not think of myself as a “China expert.” I merely investigate one aspect of the culture, namely education, and that only from a “documentary” basis as I lack the experience of observing Chinese schools in action and have no way of knowing what actually happens in moral education and language classes. Thus, in practice, I am merely an amateur.

JE comments: Amateur, schmamateur. Don’t be so modest, Charles! Your on-the-spot readings of Chinese textbooks at the WAIS conference was one of the most impressive demonstrations of the entire weekend.

re: Religion: Falun Gong, Cults and Persecution (Mike Bonnie, US)

Ying Rong wrote on 6 November:

I don’t truly have anything more to say to [Mike Bonnie] since [he] claims to be so well-informed about Falun Gong. May my compassion go all the way out to you. I silently wish that one day in the future your heart will wake up to the truth. I hope that you will have a chance to appreciate the truth soon.

Mike Bonnie responds:

Not so fast. Falun Gong does not have a monopoly on truth. Ms. Rong would like to personalize the discussion regarding the torture and abuse of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Very well; I’d like to share some personal insights of which, being younger than me, she may not be aware. I’m certain more than a few WAISers older than 60 can chime in with their own views.

I was raised attending a Roman Catholic school and adjoining church. At that time it was standard practice in the “hidden curriculum” that all boys were raised to be priests. All girls were raised to be nuns. Writing script with the right hand was required. I had a particular disadvantage because I was born a natural left-hander. I recall being whacked on the hand numerous times in the presence of my classmates, and being told the “devil” was inside me causing me to make the Sign of the Cross with my left hand.

Probably the most difficult day of the school week for me was Monday. That was the day the list came out from the church announcing the names of families, in order of size of donation, who put how much in the Sunday donation basket.

My abuse went on for 7-1/2 years until one day, while running on the playground, I fell and hit my head. Unbeknownst to me at the time I suffered a concussion. All I knew what that I hurt, I was throwing up on the floor and the nun in the classroom refused to let me call home. I left the tutelage of Roman Catholicism never to return.

The abuse I suffered was nothing compared to that I’ve since seen and heard testified and graphically demonstrated by others. I’ve forgiven the nuns in the school and priests who idly stood by. I’ve forgiven the members of the religious cult that tore my family apart for well over 20 years and still holds sway. I’ve forgiven but haven’t forgotten. I don’t need or require lectures on the right or wrong of abuse and forgiveness, cults or religions. I prefer that people do not silently wish anything for me. We may not be wishing the same things.

When you say “Falun Gong practitioners believe in ‘Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance,’ Doing good deeds will be rewarded; doing bad deeds will be punished,” what is Falun Gong (the U.S. corporation) doing to the people of China (those who do not want to be liberated–those who are happy as is)? How is Falun Gong, Inc. any different from any other religion that has attempted to back the colonization China?

On 11/05/2009 JE commented: If a “good cult” has transparency and integrity, and creates provisions for challenging its leadership openly, how many governments or large organizations can we classify as “good”–cult or otherwise?

Mike Bonnie replies: I can’t address the list of governments and organizations that exist or existed that could be classified as “good” cult or otherwise. I can address the number of Falun Gong/Falun Dafa organizations that exist in the U.S. operating as tax-exempt 501(c)(3), B99 (Education N.E.C. ), Q70 (International Human Rights), or X99 (Religious Related, Spiritual Development N.E.C. ) corporations.

Here’s the list from Guidestar.com http://www2.guidestar.org/

Friends Of Falun Gong
Tenafly, NJ 07670

Global Mission To Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners
West Roxbury, MA 02132

Coalition To Investigate The Persecution Of Falun Gong In China
Washington, DC 20024

Washington DC Area Falun Dafa Practitioners Assoc.
Silver Spring, MD

Mid-USA Falun Dafa Association
Chicago, IL

Falun Dafa Information Center
New York, NY

Southern USA Falun Dafa Association
Richmond, TX

Falun Dafa Museum
Richardson, TX

Falun Dafa Association of New England
Lexington, MA

Wisconsin Falun Dafa Association
Madison, WI

US Southwestern Falun Dafa Association
West Covina, CA

Arizona Falun Dafa Association
Tuscon, AZ

Indiana Falun Dafa Association Incorporated
Indianapolis, IN

North Carolina Falun Dafa Association
Duluth, GA

North Carolina Falun Dafa Association
Cary, NC

Western US Falun Dafa Association
San Jose, CA

Eastern US Buddahs Study Falun Dafa Association
Woodside, NY

I’ll close with a quote from the past: American President Ronald Reagan once famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

JE comments: The Falun Gong discussion is getting very personal. I think it would be best to move on to other topics for awhile.

It’s been said that natural lefties in the old days were often abused in parochial schools, but Mike Bonnie’s tale is the first time I’ve heard from one of the victims. What absurdity to persecute the leftists among us, to call them “sinister,” “gauche” and the like! (Left-handedness came up on WAIS about 18 months ago, and I recall that we have a high number of southpaws–far beyond the “normal” level of 10% or so. Do WAISers have the devil in them?)

re: Religion: Falun Gong, Cults and Persecution (Alain de Benoist, France)

Istvan Simon wrote on 6 November:

When a spiritual movement has as many adherents as the Falun Gong does, it is absurd to call it a cult.

Alain de Benoist responds:

Maybe. A question, however: what is the level of membership to be reached for getting the privilege not to be called a cult anymore? Are religions cults which have been successful, and cults religions which have failed?

re: Religion: Falun Gong, Cults and Persecution (Siegfried Ramler, US)

Siegfried Ramler writes:

In relation to the recent postings on Falun Gong, may I add a perspective
based on contacts with academics in China under East-West Center
auspices during the last several years. There is a wide spectrum in
China from often brutal repression to freedom of religious
expression, reflecting the diversity in twenty-first century China.
Take, for example, the centers for religious studies at Nanjing
University, the theological Protestant seminary and the Nanjing
center for Judaic studies in that city. While the government
forbids proselytizing, such centers do grow in research and
publications.

Travelling in China with American scholars in recent years, including
discussions in Nanjing, we raised the issue of brutal Falun Gong
repression. We would point out that in the US, as in other
countries, sects or cults, such as Hare Krishna, would manifest on
the streets, chanting and beating drums, and generally would be left
alone by police. Why can’t the Chinese authorities tolerate
manifestations which do no harm? The answer was consistent wherever
we raised this issue. We were told that social stability must be a
priority for China. If manifestations are not stopped, they will
grow and interfere with the social order. Though not openly
expressed, the argument goes that a relaxation in maintaining public
order would not only endanger social stability but might also incite
political unrest, such as the 1989 Tiananmen incident, to be avoided
at all costs.

re: Religion: Falun Gong, Cults and Persecution (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell responds to Istvan Simon’s post of 6 November:

I think Istvan Simon has written eloquently and reflected almost exactly what I was thinking along several strands related to the Chinese government persecution of the Falun Gong. I have quite frankly been disturbed by Mike Bonnie’s posts on this topic, which seem to paradoxically combine both a criticism of religious persecution in general with a dismissal of the Falun Gong situation. I was appalled by his indication that the Falun Gong were not “worth saving.” The phenomonological aspects of Falun Gong member experience cannot be discounted out of hand. If, as I believe now, the experiences of Falun Gong persecution reflected in the WAIS ‘09 conference presentation are true, the Chinese government has much to answer for in this regard. Though I’m not an expert on the demographics of Falun Gong persecution yet, I am increasingly thinking that a moral imperative exists for the international community to pursue this subject at the level of formal state-to-state diplomacy. Of course, this all ties into the overarching issue of religious persecution in general.

re: Religion: on Religious Persecution (John Heelan, UK)

Istvan Simon wrote on 6 November:

No spiritual movement was ever successfully suppressed by savage persecution, and so the Chinese government is being extremely short sighted in believing that their persecution of the Falun Gong will succeed in suppressing this movement. I believe for many reasons that it will fail, just like the persecution of early Christianity failed, and the even more savage and persistent persecution of Jews throughout history failed too.

John Heelan comments:

What about the 12th and 13th century Albigensian Crusade and Inquisition that entirely eradicated the Cathars in Languedoc?

(The faith could be transmitted only by a ceremony conducted by a “perfectus” or “bon homme.” The last bon homme was burnt at the stake in 1321. This subject was discussed a few years ago in WAIS by Christopher Jones, who is very knowledgeable on the subject.)

re: Religion: Falun Gong: Response to Mike Bonnie (Ying Rong, US)

Ying Rong responds to Mike Bonnie’s post of 5 November:

Falun Gong practitioners believe in “Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance.” We are also striving to become selfishless human beings, putting others as first priority. Our practice only has benefits to ourselves, our families and friends, our coworkers and the society we live in.

It is the communist regime that sets this group of practitioners as the “No.1 enemy,” treating Falun Gong as “anti-revolutionary” because of the party’s fear of Falun Gong’s popularity. It is the communist regime’s negative propaganda that has put so many negative thoughts in your mind. Think about it, did you have any negative thoughts about Falun Gong in the first 6 years when Falun Gong was being spread in China and the persecution hadn’t started?

Being merciful to a murderous dictator is not compassion. Following a murderous regime’s logic to justify a large-scale genocide is wrong.

This world’s history is filled with battles between the evil and goodness. However, it is up to each person to choose which side he or she stands with. There is an old saying in Chinese that goes, “Doing good deeds will be rewarded; doing bad deeds will be punished.”

I don’t truly have anything more to say to you since you claim you are so well-informed about Falun Gong. May my compassion go all the way out to you. I silently wish that one day in the future your heart will wake up to the truth. I hope that you will have a chance to appreciate the truth soon.

JE comments: Ying Rong has also sent me an “open letter” to President Obama on the eve of his trip to China (12 November). I’ll post it tomorrow.

re: Religion: Falun Gong, Cults and Persecution (Istvan Simon, US)

Istvan Simon writes:

As the moderator of the China panel at WAIS’ 09, I would like to offer my comments on the persecution of the Falun Gong in China, and address the recent comments on this subject by Ying Rong, Mike Bonnie and Alain de Benoist.

There is no doubt in my mind that Ying Rong’s presentation at WAIS ‘09 was one of the high points of the WAIS’ 09 conference. Her presentation was powerful, because it included a first-hand testimony of someone who was actually tortured by the Chinese authorities for no other reason that she was a follower of the Falun Gong. The savage and on-going persecution of the Falun Gong by the Chinese authorities is a stain on the Chinese government which in my opinion no moral person can condone. I condemn this persecution as unjustifiable, inhumane, and I believe ultimately futile. No spiritual movement was ever successfully suppressed by savage persecution, and so the Chinese government is being extremely short sighted in believing that their persecution of the Falun Gong will succeed in suppressing this movement. I believe for many reasons that it will fail, just like the persecution of early Christianity failed, and the even more savage and persistent persecution of Jews throughout history failed too.

Alain de Benoist is correct that the persecution of the Falun Gong in China, terrible as it is, is not a genocide, and so it should not be called so. And he is also correct that the Falun Gong has turned into a movement which now has partially political overtones. But I would add that this is hardly surprising, and it should be noted that this political tilt is not due to the original ideas of the Falun Gong, which were not overtly political, and in fact for many years were viewed positively by the Chinese authorities themselves. In a nutshell then, it is the Chinese government’s savage persecution which turned the movement into something which also has political overtones, because o reasonable person would expect followers to remain politically neutral towards their persecutors when their brothers and sisters in belief are imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and “re-educated,” and in many cases murdered by a government gone berserk.

I have many things in common with Mike Bonnie. Like him, I have a Chinese wife, and through her, Chinese family members. And like him I have many many Chinese friends. I can say like him that I love China, and I wish the Chinese people well, and even that I wish success to the Chinese government when I see their efforts as benefiting China and the Chinese people. All of this is true, in spite of the fact that I abhor communism and dictatorial governments. But I draw the line when it comes to human rights and issues of freedom. So I part company with Mike Bonnie when he says that the Falun Gong is “not worth” saving.

It is clear to me, that even though I am not a follower of the Falun Gong, and some of its practices even strike me as strange, nonetheless, when a spiritual movement has as many adherents as the Falun Gong does, it is absurd to call it a cult. Furthermore, calling it so is disrespectful to the many many millions of people that believe in it. Freedom of worship and tolerance of the beliefs of others is a cornerstone of our values. I support such tolerance and condemn intolerance wherever it comes from. For me, the key point in this kind of question is whether or not the belief is unduly threatening or not to the beliefs of others. But I have never seen the Falun Gong resort to violence, and so I see it as a peaceful and primarily spiritual movement. Who resorted to savagery and violence is the Chinese government. So it is the Chinese government that is wrong, and the followers of the Falun Gong are doing nothing more than exercising their right to believe in whatever they want to believe in. It is not against the law, or in any case it should not be against any reasonable law, to have beliefs that in some aspects may appear to us as bizarre, and we do not necessarily share.

What is the difference between religion and cult? What is it that gives anyone the right to term the beliefs of millions of people as a “cult” and thus with a simple arbitrary choice of a word make their persecution supposedly acceptable? I do not particularly care whatever Li Hongzhi may or not have said in front of television cameras. That is because I think that Li Hongzhi is not the Falun Gong, just like Maffeo Barberini, who as Pope Urban VIII ended up ordering the persecution Galileo by the Inquisition, was not the Catholic Church. So what Li said or did not say is irrelevant. What matters to me is that millions believe in the ideas of the Falun Gong, and who is anyone to say that they are being deceived or wrong? No one is the judge of what people may believe in and no one should be. I have never seen the Falun Gong threatening anyone. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, Falun Gong practitioners are entitled to their beliefs, and whoever persecutes them or is indifferent about their persecution is wrong.

re: The Golden Rule Talks; on Compassion (Robert Whealey, US)

Robert Whealey responds to Mike Bonnie’s post of 3 November:

Jesus’s statement, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is better than the
negative statement of Confucius. Love requires a moral duty, obligation and
responsibility to take care of the poor, the sick, one’s spouse and
children for each follower of sophisticated interpretations of Christianity.
Christianity leads to liberalism and socialism. The Confucius philosophy
collapsed in China from 1790 to 1949.

Marx’s brand of socialism was distorted by Lenin, Stalin and Mao, just as
the message of Jesus and Paul has been distorted by many narrow-minded
clergy men and women over the centuries.

JE comments: Not so quick–is Confucian thinking dead in China? I don’t see this as Charles Ridley’s (or Roberta Tontini’s) interpretations, as expressed at the WAIS ‘09 conference. I’d welcome their thoughts, as well as those of Bill Ratliff, Mike Bonnie, George Zhibin Gu and Ying Rong.

re: Religion: Falun Gong (Mike Bonnie, US)

Ying Rong wrote on 3 November:

I would like to recommend a few websites to Mike
Bonnie to read and absorb before he writes his next post, since a person
like him should gain some fundamental understanding of Falun Gong prior
to making a judgement, otherwise this person’s actions are not
responsible to himself, and not responsible to WAISers either. In face
of such a brutal large-scale genocide, randomly writing some negative
comments to defame a peaceful group of Falun Gong practitioners and
support the Chinese communist regime is absolutely wrong.

Why are the other governments silent? Because of economic benefits with
China.

Mike Bonnie responds:

There is no more noble cause, in my opinion, than to
address and remedy genocides, murders, injuries and injustices,
bullying, and falsehoods and insults that damage the esteem and
well-being living things, humans or animals (idle gossip). I don’t feel
out of the mainstream in believing as I do; as is I may be a bit more
enthusiastic even about addressing injustices than average individual
(or I wouldn’t be addressing these issues). So, it is in that spirit
that I’ll address the last of Ms. Rong’s statements first. World
governments are silent about the injustices taking place in China
against Falun Gong members for economic reason, and furthermore, world
government needs supersede the belief that Falun Gong is both or either
salvageable or worth saving.

Secondly, I have access to more than sufficient first-hand translations
of information regarding Falun Gong, in writing and orally communicated,
both in the U.S. and China, for and against Falun Gong. I refuse to
participate in a circular debate regarding the health benefits of the
organization, the suppression of information, or the punitive stance of
China’s government toward Falun Gong. I don’t believe I’m being
paternalistic toward anyone nor am I naive when I say, apparently
non-caring governments (as I) have seen Falun Gong before, under
different names, but with the same motives and deceptiveness.

When Li Hongzhi steps up to the television cameras and microphones and
convincingly discusses his personal supernatural powers and the inner
circle of his organization, than perhaps governments (people) will put
the needs of Falun Gong above their own. Without that commitment to the
people, Falun Gong is just another self-serving group of religious
fanatics bent on destroying the world and themselves.

I’ll suggest to Ms. Rong, readers and participants of WAIS, do more
investigations on their own. Here’s a few places to begin or continue
the investigation:

“Is there such a thing as a good cult?”

?*/
– Christopher Glass

“Great question. It is one I used to pose in my Mind Control course at
Stanford University, going one step further and inviting students to
design such a cult. Many cults start off with high ideals that get
corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry
and dominate and control members’ lives. No group with high ideals
starts off as a ‘cult’; they become one when their errant ways are
exposed. A good cult delivers on its promises. A good cult nourishes the
needs of its members, has transparency and integrity, and creates
provisions for challenging its leadership openly. A good cult expands
the freedoms and well-being of its members rather than limits them. [my
emphasis added] http://blog.ted.com/2009/06/you_asked_phili.php

“Talks Diane Benscoter on how cults rewire the brain”

Diane Benscoter spent five years as a “Moonie.” She shares an insider’s
perspective on the mind of a cult member, and proposes a new way to
think about today’s most troubling conflicts and extremist movements.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ex_moonie_diane_benscoter_how_cults_think.html

JE comments: If a “good cult” has transparency and integrity, and creates provisions for challenging its leadership openly, how many governments or large organizations can we classify as “good”–cult or otherwise?

re: Religion: Falun Gong (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

While I certainly disagree with any persecution of Falun Gong people, I also think that speaking in that case of a “large-scale genocide” (Ying Rong, 3 November) is a gross exaggeration, which deprives the word “genocide” of its specific meaning.

Ying Rong wrote that, if Mike Bonnie wants to “become an expert” on Falun Gong, he has to read the information published on the website “Friends of Falun Gong.” I think that to be informed on the Falun Gong cult, one has to get objective information, which cannot expected from “friends” nor by enemies of Falun Gong.

Finally, it seems to me that to present Falun Gong only as a spiritual movement is not accurate, as its practitioners also hold quite evident political views (“the Chinese communist regime is absolutely wrong”).

re: Religion: Falun Gong (Ying Rong, US)

Ying Rong writes:

I would like to recommend a few websites to Mike Bonnie to read and absorb before he writes his next post, since a person like him should gain some fundamental understanding of Falun Gong prior to making a judgement, otherwise this person’s actions are not responsible to himself, and not responsible to WAISers either.

In face of such a brutal large-scale genocide, randomly writing some negative comments to defame a peaceful group of Falun Gong practitioners and support the Chinese communist regime is absolutely wrong.

If Mr. Bonnie truly wants to become an expert, please read:

Falun Dafa Information Center

http://www.faluninfo.net/

Friends of Falun Gong

http://www.fofg.org/

Falun Gong books, please read the whole book “Zhuan Falun” if time permits:

www.falundafa.org

In today’s world it is not easy to find true facts about Falun Gong (in English it is even more difficult). In 1999, the Chinese communist dictatorship mobilized all the state-controlled media to churn out negative propaganda to defame Falun Gong. The Chinese communist regime fabricated a large amount of stories to demonize Falun Gong over the years.

At that time, Falun Gong practitioners, a loosely organized group of people didn’t have any right to have their own opinion being exposed in any of the Chinese media (sadly, this is still the case today). While the rest of the world was interested, the foreign media could only copy what was reported by the Chinese state-controlled media then. That is why many, many westerners also were deceived by the communist party on what Falun Gong truly is.

What opiton was left to the Falun Gong practitioners? All they could do was to go to Beijing, telling their own experiences, appealing to the central government and hoping the government would change the policy. But what did they get in return? Brutal beatings, detentions, tortures, killing and organ harvesting.

Just for saying one phrase, “Falun Gong is a good (a righteous) belief,” a person in China can be detained, tortured to death by the evil communist regime.

Why are the other governments silent? Because of economic benefits with China.

How to stop the ruthless persecution over Falun Gong? This is a question for every WAISer, for every person in the world.

re: Religion: Falun Gong (Charles Ridley, US)

Charles Ridley writes:

I will be starting my survey of the latest Chinese elementary school readers in a couple of days (being impeded at the moment by the necessity of performing a “commercial” translation), and will check carefully for any references to the Falun Gong. In other textbooks, I see “Love for science” coupled with condemnation of “superstition,” but have not seen another specific attack on the Falun Gong except for the one cited in my presentation.

I will let you all know as soon as I have more evidence.

JE comments: I look forward to your findings. For those who missed Charles’s paper, “Attitudes Towards Science in China” (posted on 29 October), it can be accessed at:

http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=40223

re: Religion: Falun Gong (Ying Rong, US)

Ying Rong responds to Vincent Littrell’s questions (17 October) on Falun Gong:

The persecution of Falun Gong is one of the most brutal persecutions in the history of humankind. In 1999, the Chinese communist regime turned 100 million Falun Gong practitioners into the “No.1 enemy” and started the most ruthless genocide of this peaceful group. I would like to recommend some links here:

About what Falun Gong is and why it is being persecuted:

http://www.fofg.org/

About the large-scale persecution:

http://www.faluninfo.net/article/918/?cid=84

About the actual torture cases and death toll:

http://www.clearwisdom.net/

In a recent article on FalunInfo.net titled “Large Numbers of Falun Gong Practitioners Targeted for Persecution and Arrest in 2009, Says Congressional-Executive Commission on China,” it was stated that:

In its 2009 Annual Report released last week, the U.S. government’s Congressional-Executive Commission on China thoroughly documents the continued and intensified targeting of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese security apparatus over the past year. The section on Falun Gong cites, in particular, the involvement of top Chinese Communist Party officials in directing a “strike hard” campaign against Falun Gong, as well as the robust activity of the extralegal 6-10 Office in carrying out such directives.

“The government maintained its longstanding ban against the Falun Gong spiritual movement [in 2009],” says the report. “Viewing the 10th anniversary [of the ban] as sensitive, the central government held fast in 2009 with its 2008 pre-Olympics efforts to ferret out and punish Falun Gong practitioners.”

Authorities conducted propaganda campaigns that deride Falun Gong, carried out strict surveillance of practitioners, detained and imprisoned large numbers of practitioners, and subjected some who refuse to disavow Falun Gong to torture and other abuses in reeducation through labor facilities. International media and Falun Gong sources also reported deaths of practitioners in Chinese police custody in 2008 and 2009.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China is a special joint body of the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, and executive branch established in 2000 to monitor human rights and the development of rule of law in China. Its 400-page annual report, released on October 10, covers in detail a wide range of issues, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and the functioning of the judicial system. The research on Falun Gong draws on official Chinese documents and websites, reports by international media and human rights groups, and testimony from Chinese rights lawyers and former prisoners of conscience.

Key Findings and Evidence

Four key conclusions emerge from the CECC’s research insofar as it relates to the current persecution faced by Falun Gong practitioners in China. Following the abbreviated list below is a more extensive explanation citing samples of the relevant evidence provided in the report. For a full compilation of Falun Gong-related excerpts, see CECC 2009 Annual Report (excerpts):

Advancing the CCP’s decade-long persecution against Falun Gong was a key priority in a nationwide crackdown in 2009. The crackdown was led by top Party leaders—including Vice President Xi Jinping and Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang–and carried out by the public security bureau (PSB) and local Party branches throughout the country.

Large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners nationwide continued to be subject to surveillance, detention, “re-education through labor” and abuse in custody, leading sometimes to death.

During the year, concerns of organ harvesting from nonconsenting Falun Gong prisoners of conscience continued to arise, including from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Extensive efforts were made, led by the 6-10 Office, to vilify Falun Gong practitioners amongst Chinese citizens and mobilize the public to contribute to the arrest of practitioners–including via special school lessons and offers of monetary rewards to informants.

The CCP and 6-10 Office continued to use political control over the court system, legal profession, and law enforcement agencies to systematically deny Falun Gong practitioners their basic rights to due process, fair trials, and access to counsel. These efforts included direct instructions to judges on how to decide Falun Gong cases and an escalation in the assaults and harassment of Chinese lawyers seeking to defend Falun Gong clients.

I hope this answers your questions.

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? A Greeting (Estelle Irizarry, US)

On 24 October, Jordi Molins i Coronado wrote about the latest book by Estelle Irizarry, El ADN de los escritos de Colón [The DNA of Columbus's Writings]. In response to Jordi’s note, Estelle sends the following, which I post with her permission:

I remember you [JE] volunteering to proof, and especially your article on William H. Prescott that I was delighted to have in Hispania during my final year as editor. I had occasion to correspond cordially with Prof. Hilton on several occasions. I wish you continued success at Adrian and in your responsibilities as moderator of WAIS.

Please let your readers know that there is an English version also (my translation) available directly from the publisher, Ediciones Puerto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that can be ordered by phone (787) 721-0844 or email (edicionespuerto@gmail.com).

The book really took off; the newspapers that picked up the ADN de los escritos de Colón from the wire services ranged all over the map, even in languages I couldn’t recognize.

JE comments: I am very happy to hear from Estelle Irizarry, one of Hispanism’s finest and most gracious scholars, for the first time in several years. Regarding Columbus’s DNA, unfortunately I’m back to square one, having received notice from Amazon yesterday that they cancelled my book order. I’ll get on the phone (see number above) today or Monday to order directly from the publisher.

WAIS ‘09 Proceedings: “Genesis 1: 1″ (Edward Jajko, US)

JE writes:  In the beginning of WAIS ‘09 there was Jajko.  Ed’s talk on Genesis 1: 1 opened our conference on 10 October, and set the erudition bar very high for subsequent presenters!  I am pleased that Ed has written up his thoughts (his original talk was a PowerPoint presentation) to share with the WAIS multitudes.  See below.

(Next on deck for WAIS ‘09 Proceedings:  Charles Ridley.  For those who haven’t done so already, please send me your papers and I’ll publish them in the order received.)

Genesis 1:1

 Edward A. Jajko

World Association of International Studies

October 10, 2009

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

 I suspect that everyone here recognizes these words. They are the opening verse of Genesis, as found in the King James version, the Authorized version, of 1611 and later editions, and succeeding translations like the highly conservative translation of the Jewish Publication Society (c1917 and 1945), the King James Version Open Bible (c1985), and the 21^st Century KJV (c1994)..

 A related translation, in the same tradition, is just slightly different:

 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

 New International Version (c1973, 1978, 1984)

 Oxford Study Bible (c1992)

 New American Standard Bible (c1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971)

 Jerusalem Bible (1966)

 Revised Standard Version (c1952)

 New Living Translation (c1996)

 Revised English Bible (Oxford and Cambridge, 1989)

 Teen Devotional Bible (Zondervan, 1999)

I will consider these translations as one, and will refer to this as the “traditional translation.”

 Anyone who studies Scripture or who uses the Bible in church or synagogue knows that there are other ways of translating the opening verse of Genesis.

 Some of those translations are:

 When God began to create the heaven and the earth –

 Jewish Publication Society (1962)

 When God began to create heaven and earth,

 Jewish Publication Society (1985)

 In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,

 New Revised Standard Version (c1989)

 New American Bible (c1970)

 (The New American Bible was selected some years ago by the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States to serve as the source of the biblical selections that comprise the Lectionary, the official readings that are used at Mass and other liturgical celebrations. Because of agreements between the Catholic Church and main-line Protestant denominations, the NAB serves as the lectionary for some of those churches as well. Thus it is a very influential translation.) …

 There are other translations in much the same vein as these, that I will not go into.

 The latter half of the twentieth century brought us a couple of the more unusual translations of the opening verse of Genesis:

 In the beginning, God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.

 Amplified Version (c1962, 1964, 1965, 1987)

 In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and void.

 Good News Bible (American Bible Society, c1976, 1992)

 Finally, in 1964, Doubleday published the first volume of its Anchor Bible series. This series – which, a few years ago, was bought and is now published by Yale University Press – was intended for the advanced reader and for students and scholars of Biblical studies and was meant to reflect the latest in Biblical scholarship. The first volume published was, fittingly, Genesis. It was written and translated by Dr. Ephraim Speiser, who was for many years chairman of the Oriental Studies Dept. of the University of Pennsylvania, in which I studied. Dr. Speiser was one of the great Assyriologists, Bible scholars, and all-around Middle East experts of the twentieth century. Dr. Speiser translated the opening verse of Genesis as:

 When God set out to create heaven and earth –

 Please note a couple of things about these translations:

 – the punctuation is irrelevant.

 – the difference between “the heavens and the earth” and “heaven and earth” is also irrelevant. The Hebrew translates literally as “the heavens and the earth,” but we have the English idiom of “heaven and earth” – I moved heaven and earth to get you that promotion; Heaven and earth will never convince me to allow you to wear that dress to the prom. It’s a stylistic difference.

 – What is significant is the difference in meaning or emphasis between the two sets of translations. In the “traditional” translation, the first thing that happens is God’s creation, after which comes the chaos that is referred to in the second verse. In the other translations, the first verse is made a subordinate or dependent clause. Some translators make the first verse a modifier or the second, which means that the main action is in the second verse. In other words, first there was chaos, and then God began to create from it. Other translators make both the first and second verses dependent clauses, making “Let there be light” be the first significant act of creation history.

 But it is not my intention to discuss semantics, or cosmology, or theology, or philosophy, or literary style, this morning. Rather, what I want to discuss with you today is how it is possible that there can be such differing translations of seven simple Hebrew words;

בראשית

ברא

אלהים

את

השמים

ואת

הארץ

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

 These words, these letters, come from the Hebrew/Aramaic Bible. This text is also known as the Masoretic text, a name that comes from “Masorete,” in Hebrew “ba’al masorah.”

 “Masorah” in Hebrew means “tradition.” It is an extended meaning, coming from a word meaning “fetters” or “bindings.”

 To oversimplify, the Masoretes were a group or committee of now unknown size, unknown membership, unknown composition, that flourished roughly between 700 and 1100 A.D.

 It was the task of the Masoretes to establish an authoritative text of the Hebrew/Aramaic Bible for the entire Jewish community.

 Despite the limitations under which they worked, the Masoretes were amazingly successful.

 But there is a problem with this text, one that will be more evident if I romanize the Hebrew/Arabic letters, i.e., transliterate them into the Roman alphabet.

 Using a romanization I have made up for this talk and running the letters from left to right so that they may be read more easily, here is what the Hebrew text says:

BR%SYT BR% %LHYM %T HSMYM W%T H%RC

In this romanization, the percent sign stands for the Hebrew letter Alef, the first letter of the alphabet.

Alef is the glottal stop, a sound made in the throat by sharply starting or stopping a vowel.

The letter S stands for the Hebrew letter Shin, for the sound “sh,” which is one letter in Hebrew, as in Hungarian.

 The letter C stands for the Hebrew letter Tsade, which in modern Hebrew is pronounced as a “ts,” like a German “z;” but this is a result of the centuries of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe. Tsade is actually what is known in Semitic grammar as an emphatic S, pronounced S.

 That said, you can see the problem in this text, which looks sort of like vanity-plate writing.

 The problem is that the Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters, all of them consonants.

 A couple of the letters can serve also as indicators of long vowels and serve other functions that I won’t go into here.

 Vowels are, for the most part, not indicated in the written text, and reading is further complicated by the fact that certain of the consonants may be pronounced in two ways, depending on the form of the word (although that does not affect this verse).

 Let’s look at these words and see what complications and possibilities they offer.

 Let’s look at them starting at the end and working our way backwards, towards the beginning of the verse:

 H%RC: As it happens, there is only one way of reading this combination of letters: ha’arets, the earth.

 W%T: Another word that is unambiguous: The W is ve-, meaning “and,” and I will discuss the %T after the next word.

 HSMYM: As with H%RC, there is only one way to read this combination of letters, as hashamayim, “the heavens.”

 %T: There are a couple of ways of reading this combination of letters. One is AT, the second person singular feminine pronoun, “thou.” The masculine pronoun for “thou” is “atah.” Another way of reading %T is ET, an untranslatable grammatical particle that must precede the definite object of a verb. This combination of letters can also be read as a preposition, meaning “with.” (But I know of this usage only with personal endings, e.g., “iti,” with me, “itkha,” with thee (masculine.)) In this sentence, H%RC and HSMYM are definite. H is the definite article; %RC means “earth,” SMYM means “heavens.” Hence, from context, we can deduce that the proper reading of %T here is the untranslatable grammatical particle ET.

 These last four words of the opening verse of Genesis are unambiguous and non-problematic.

 We can narrow the focus of our discussion: It is the first three words, the opening words of Genesis, that are the problem.

 The next word, %LHYM, has two possible readings. The root word is ELOH, meaning “god” or “a god” – small “g.” One reading of the word in the text is ELOHAYIM, the other is ELOHIM. ELOHAYIM is the dual form, “two gods.” Could this be a barely hidden sign of ancient Hebrew dualism? The other possible reading is ELOHIM. This is the plural of ELOH, three or more gods. Could this be a sign of the polytheism of the ancient Hebrews?

 No, this is something else. The word is plural in form but singular in meaning. In Semitic grammar, we call it the “plural of majesty.” There are no honorific forms in Hebrew or other Semitic languages, and the only way to make an honorific is to use the plural – as we do in English with our generalized use of the word “you.” ELOHIM is the plural of majesty, meaning God, with a capital G.

 BR%: There are four possible readings of this combination of letters. One is BARA, “he has created,” the third person singular masculine perfective form of the verb. Another is BARO, a verbal noun – dictionaries call it an infinitive – meaning “creating; the act of creating.” And just conceivably, one could read these letters as BORE’, “creator,” or BARU’, “creature.”

 BR%SYT: There are two ways of reading this combination of letters. One is BARESHIT, meaning literally “In the beginning” or “at the start.” The other way is “B’RESHIT,” meaning “In a beginning” or “at a start.”

 The job of the Masoretes was to establish the authoritative text of the Bible for the Jewish community. Making sure that the words, the letters, of the text were correct was insufficient.

 This is an oversimplification of what happened, but to prevent people from doing what I just did and to ensure that there would be only one correct reading or pronunciation of the words of the Bible, the Masoretes came up with their other great accomplishment.

 They adapted or invented a system of representing the vowel sounds of Hebrew so that there would be no uncertainty or ambiguity in the reading or pronunciation of the text.

 The system they came up with, of dots and dashes, is known as Masoretic pointing – nikudim, in Hebrew.

 Here is the first verse of Genesis without Masoretic pointing:

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

 And here is the first verse with the pointing:

בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ

 All problems taken care of, right? No. Any first-year student of Biblical Hebrew can tell you that this בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים is an impossible formation.

 As the verse stands, there is no problem with BR% %LHYM: God has created.

 BR% is the third person singular masculine of the perfective form of the verb, meaning “he created, he has created, he will have created” – completed action, not past time.

 %LHYM is God.

 BR%SYT, the first word, has been taken by the traditional translators to mean “In the beginning.”

 But BR%SYT does not and cannot mean “in the beginning.”

 The Hebrew language is very particular about when words are definite or indefinite. And when words are translated from the Hebrew, they should reflect the definition or indefinition in the original language.

In this instance, the traditional translators rendered B’RESHIT as “in the beginning,” assuming perhaps that the Hebrew phrase does mean, or can mean, or in this specific usage does mean “in the beginning.” And granted, there is a long tradition in Judaism of reading B’RESHIT as meaning “In the beginning,” which is found in the Septuagint, in Midrash, and in Biblical commentary.

 But I take it on the authority of scholars who know far more about the Hebrew language than I do that nowhere in the entire body of Hebrew literature is the phrase B’RESHIT used with the meaning of “in the beginning.”

 The reason for this is that it cannot.

 B’RESHIT is a phrase that can only mean “at a beginning,” “at a start,” and is ordinarily used in combination with other words to mean things like “at the start of the affair,” or at the start of anything. It needs to be combined with a noun or phrase to fully make sense.

 But the traditional translators rendered it as “In the beginning.”

 The individuals and committees that produced the other translations that I singled out for mention looked at the first verse of Genesis and said that there is indeed a problem with it.

 They, however, accepted the Hebrew reading B’RESHIT, most likely because it is the first word of the book, and most likely on the theory that the Masoretes would not have erred in the very first word of the Bible.

 These non-traditional translators see, rather, that the problem is with the second word.

 They say that the Masoretes erred in vocalizing it as BARA’, the third person singular masculine perfective verb “he created.”

 Instead, they say that the second word of the Hebrew/Aramaic Bible should have been vocalized as BERO’ – the verbal noun meaning “creating,” “the act of creating.”

 The non-traditional translators say that the Biblical verse should read B’RESHIT BERO’ ELOHIM ET HASHAMAYIM VE’ET HA’ARETS – literally, “at the start of God’s creating the heavens and the earth,” or in other words, “When God began to create heaven and earth.”

I had the greatest of respect for Ephraim Speiser but still don’t see where he got “When God set out to create.”

 So here we have two distinct groups of translators. The first does not recognize, or ignores, the fact that there is a textual problem in the first three word of the Bible. The second would change centuries, even millennia, of tradition, and emend the Received Text.

 One party of translators gives us “In the beginning, God created …” The other party gives us variations on “When God began to create …”

 Who is right? Is there any resolution to this problem?

 The more I study this verse – and I have given it much thought over the years – the more convinced I have become that the fault, if there is one, lies not with the Masoretes, nor with the Biblical text, nor with the translators.

 Rather, the fault lies in the inadequacies of translation.

 Translators have to make choices. It is rare that translators can represent everything that is in the source text. Imagine trying to translate Finnegans Wake into any other language. How do you handle the puns?

 In this case, the opening verse of Genesis, translators have been forced into making choices that cause them to fail to represent what is in the Masoretic text.

 When the Masoretes established the text of the Hebrew/Aramaic Bible, they didn’t make the text up out of whole cloth.

 They worked with the MSS that were in use in the community and with the readings of those texts that were current, and decided which had more merit than others.

 I believe that, in the first verse of Genesis, the Masoretes found two readings that were of equal or approximately equal weight.

 One reading was BARESHIT BARA’ ELOHIM ET HASHAMAYIM VE’ET HA’ARETS: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

 The other was B’RESHIT BERO’ ELOHIM ET HASHAMAYIM VE’ET HA’ARETS: At the start of God’s creating the heavens and the earth.

 I believe that the Masoretes tried, as best as possible, to represent both these readings in their vocalization of the first verse of Genesis. The words are the same in both; what changes is the vowels.

 They represented the two readings by selecting a word from one reading, B’RESHIT, and a word from the other, BARA’, leaving a textual problem for students in the future to puzzle over.

 Why didn’t they choose the other words and make the line read BARESHIT BERO’ ELOHIM?

 Because that would have been near-gibberish. At least B’RESHIT BARA’ ELOHIM just about makes complete sense, enough to have been translated as “In the beginning, God created …”

 Both parties of translators are correct, in my opinion. Their only problem is that they can’t do what the Masoretes did and blend two readings. Instead, they have to choose which of the two readings they will treat as the more valid.

 Perhaps the New American Bible and New Revised Standard Version come closest to what the Masoretes tried to do, despite the clunkiness of the NAB: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, …”

 So here you have my humble attempt to explain why these different translations of the first verse of Genesis exist.

 It is my hope that, at the next WAIS conference, I will take up the second verse of Genesis, and each succeeding verse of the Hebrew/Aramaic Bible at each WAIS conference thereafter, until I have finished the whole book. Thank you.

 c Edward A. Jajko 2009

re: Religion: Vatican Welcomes Anglican Converts (Ernie Hunt, US)

JE asked on 26 October:

What happens to the wives of (male) Anglican priests who decide to embrace the Roman Church? Do the spouses have to hit the road, which would go against Rome’s doctrine, or are they somehow “grandmothered” in, as with the Eastern Orthodox Church? (My understanding is that Orthodox priests can be ordained if married, but not married if already ordained.)

Ernie Hunt responds:

They take their spouses and children with them, but I don’t know what tension that creates in a Roman Catholic Diocese where the majority of clergy are celibate. Another thought on this is perhaps the Vatican is slowly opening the way for married clergy in general, like the Orthodox Church where clergy can marry as deacons before they are ordained priests. For example, down the street from where I was Rector in New York City was the Orthodox Cathedral. Bob Stephanopoulos was its Dean, a compatriot in community ministry in the neighborhood, and you know who his son is on TV [George] as a commentator. I did read, however, that Anglican priests who change to Rome can become bishops if single. That is the Orthodox way, also. So maybe a new model is emerging, but I can’t vouch for it.

re: Religion: Vatican Welcomes Anglican Converts (Edward Jajko, US)

JE asked on 26 October (see Ernie Hunt’s post of that date):

What happens to the wives of (male) Anglican priests who decide to embrace the Roman Church? Do the spouses have to hit the road, which would go against Rome’s doctrine, or are they somehow “grandmothered” in, as with the Eastern Orthodox Church? (My understanding is that Orthodox priests can be ordained if married, but not married if already ordained.)

Ed Jajko responds:

Wives of married Anglican (or Episcopalian) priests who are received into the Roman Catholic Church remain married to those priests, and those priests remain licitly married to those wives. All children of the marriage are considered legitimate children of the priest and wife. A question would arise about what would happen should the wife of one of those priests die, i.e., could the priest remarry? The rule for married deacons in the Roman Catholic Church is that, if the wife dies, the deacon may not remarry, a rule I believe to be unfair and denigrating of the status of married life. But if a separate little jurisdiction has been set up for this Anglican group, remarriage after the death of a wife may be a possibility.

There is an op ed piece in the 26 October New York Times that has an interesting and different slant on the Vatican’s embrace of disaffected Anglicans. See “Benedict’s Gambit,” by Ross Douthat, at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/26douthat.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=douthat&st=cse .

This article references a “Vatican Note on the New Apostolic Constitution” which, despite diligent searching in the Vatican website, I am unable to find. So I don’t have any wording from the Apostolic Constitution itself. With regard to already married priests, the “Vatican Note” mentions only the following:

“In the meantime, many individual Anglicans have entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Sometimes there have been groups of Anglicans who have entered while preserving some “corporate” structure. Examples of this include, the Anglican diocese of Amritsar in India, and some individual parishes in the United States which maintained an Anglican identity when entering the Catholic Church under a “pastoral provision” adopted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope John Paul II in 1982. In these cases, the Catholic Church has frequently dispensed from the requirement of celibacy to allow those married Anglican clergy who desire to continue ministerial service as Catholic priests to be ordained in the Catholic Church.”

The latter words should be noted. If Anglican priests come over to Rome, they must be ordained again as Roman Catholic priests.

JE comments: Thanks for filling us in, Ed. I also have a note on this topic from Ernie Hunt (next in queue).

re: Religion: Vatican Welcomes Anglican Converts (Ernie Hunt, US)

Ernie Hunt responds to Bienvenido Macario’s post of 23 October:

I think the Roman Catholic Church is desperate for priests, and knows that we Anglicans/Episcopalians have divisions, which are not new. They may be trying to take advantage of those, and in some way they are showing us unusual respect, as if we were “Catholics who flunked Latin,” the old saw.

Anglicans have always had controversies, and I do not believe they are bad. After all we have been a church of diversity for some time and never reverted to a conformity to a closed teaching from on high. We have been a conciliar church, that is, councils make decisions, like conventions, and not a single head, as the pope. So, we shall see.

Of course, there are sections of the Anglican Communion which do not elect clergy at all levels, unlike the American Episcopal Church where voters of one Diocese elect a bishop they want but not one everybody in Africa might approve. Yet we do not tell the Dioceses of any African country to worry more about AIDS and the abuse of women than who we elect. That is part of our tension.

As one of the dissident Anglicans said, “There was a reformation!” and he and his group decided to stay in a sub group of our church rather than go to Rome.

Not all of us are like Henry Newman, an Anglican priest who went over to Rome and became a Cardinal. I say that was his individual Protestant decision and that freedom still remains in our church and I cherish it.

JE comments: It’s no secret that I always welcome the serene, conciliatory postings of the Rev. Ernie Hunt. A (possibly stupid) question: what happens to the wives of (male) Anglican priests who decide to embrace the Roman Church? Do the spouses have to hit the road, which would go against Rome’s doctrine, or are they somehow “grandmothered” in, as with the Eastern Orthodox Church? (My understanding is that Orthodox priests can be ordained if married, but cannot marry if already ordained.)

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (David Gress, Denmark)

David Gress responds to Jordi Molins i Coronado’s post of 24 October:

Columbus was not responsible for any mass murder, least of all that of many cultures and peoples in the Americas. So relax, Jordi. (And why feel all this guilt anyway?)

Second, I can make no sense of your assertion that Catalans were not allowed before 1714 to trade with the Americas. Evidence, please.

I will, in the next few months, be reading don Salvador de Madariaga’s biography of don Cristóbal Colón. I’ll be back.

Saludos a todos.

JE comments: Spanish trade with the Americas was monopolized during the first centuries in the Casa de Contratación, located in Seville and later Cadiz. All ships leaving for the New World were required to depart from these ports, which discouraged non-Castilians (or non-Andalusians) from participating. “Extranjeros” were not allowed to ship out, officially, though this rule was frequently abrogated–it is unclear at that time whether Aragonese/Catalans/Valencians counted as foreigners or not. Certainly many non-Castilian Spanish subjects played major roles in the Conquest, beginning with Luis de Santángel, from Valencia, who was the Catholic Kings’ Treasurer and the addressee of Columbus’s 1493 “Carta de descubrimiento”–the first written testimony in Spanish (or was it Catalan?) on the Indies.

Prof. Hilton knew Salvador de Madariaga well; I believe they coincided at Oxford in the early 1930s. Madariaga was one of the Spanish intellectuals most admired by our Patriarch. Regarding Columbus, I have Estelle Irizarry’s new book on order, and will report back in the next month or so.

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (Tim Brown, US

Tim Brown responds to Jordi Molins i Coronado’s post of 24 October:

An interesting and, of course, politically important addition to the centuries-long discussions of Columbus’s provenance between and among those wishing to claim him as a native son, essentially a discussion parallel to the one alluded to by JE about where he first made landfall in the New World (might it not have been Navassa?).

But it’s my understanding that Aragon and Navarra are Basque provinces and pre-Spain were Aragonese, not Catalan. My wife’s paternal ancestry dates back to 15th century Pamplona, Navarra and is proudly Basque, although this doesn’t account for her second name being famously Moorish as in “Yo me era mora Moraima morilla de la bel catar.” [from an anonymous medieval Romance--JE]

Might not the way Columbus wrote Spanish be a product of how he learned to write it, not where he was born? I myself now routinely draw a line through my 7s even when writing in English.

The ability to write, whether in a native or acquired tongue, is acquired at the third level of socialization not the genetic first or familial second level, and is a phenomenon of education not birth.

As to Cristobal Colon, the Duque de Veragua, himself, I once had a delightful lunch-time conversation with him about his continuing claim to the Americas. He said he’s still pursuing his claim still in the courts (surely one of the world’s longest running court cases). He was charming, erudite and loved fajitas. He even gave me his calling card with just his name on it since, he commented, everyone knows who he is without adding anything else other than, as I recall, XXV.

JE comments: A wonderful anecdote! Cristóbal Colón the 25th was referring to the lawsuit begun by his famous ancestor, and most energetically pursued by his son Diego, to regain his rightful claim to the “Indies”–Isabel and Fernando, in the “Capitulaciones,” had granted Columbus the newly discovered lands. My question: who and where exactly would he sue? The World Court?

On the Dukes of Veragua, see this Wikipedia article (in Spanish):

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducado_de_Veragua

re: Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (Hernán Grimberg, Argentina)

Hernán Grimberg responds to Jordi Molins i Coronado’s post of 24 October:

After reading the post about the real place of birth of Columbus, or as we call him, Cristobal Colón, I was surprised when I read that one of the possibilities was that he was born in Corsica. I instantly made the connection with what Jordi was saying that he used to write in Catalan. For what I remember Sardinia was a Catalan colony. I use to have a classmate at my university who was from Sardinia and his dialect was something very similar to Catalan. Nowadays, some Sardinians go to study to Barcelona instead of to continental Italy due to the similarity of their languages. Actually the north part of Sardinia, in fact the city of Alghero, was a Catalan colony and they speak a dialect that is amost Catalan. So was Columbus born in Corsica? Sardinia is not so far… another island where (on the north and facing Corsica) they speak a dialect of Catalan.

Well, these are just speculations. I’ve always thought he was born in Genoa and that he was a Jew. Genoans at that time where very good sailors and traders. His idea of reaching India going the shortest and fastest way was a wish that many Genoan traders had at that time…

JE comments: Desiring a micro-history of Sardinia before posting this note, I of course checked Wikipedia. I did now know that the Italian Marxist cultural theorist Antonio Gramsci (who described the concept of cultural hegemony) was a native Sardinian.

Columbus: Catalan and Jew? (Jordi Molins i Coronado, Catalonia)

Jordi Molins i Coronado writes:

According to the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/6326698/Christopher-Columbus-writings-prove-he-was-Spanish-claims-study.html

“Estelle Irizarry (…) a linguistic professor at Georgetown University in Washington has published new findings following an exhaustive study of documents written in his hand.

“Estelle Irizarry studied his language and grammar and concluded that Columbus was a Catalan-speaking man from the Kingdom of Aragon, an inland region of north-eastern Spain at the foot of the Pyrenees.

“The findings published this month in a new book The DNA of the Writings of Columbus explain that although he wrote in Castilian it was clearly not his first language and his origins can be pinpointed to the Aragon region because of the grammar and the way he constructed sentences.”

Several Catalan historians had already argued in the past Columbus was Catalan, and not Genoan. Their arguments were of a different nature: while Estelle Irizarry bases her argumentation on punctuation (Columbus wrote with a punctuation sign, /, that was only present in Catalan writings, and not in Spanish ones). some Catalan historians had based their thesis on grammatical grounds: in Columbus’s writings one can find typical Catalan words and expressions that had no meaning in Spanish at all.

Of course, these arguments had to be balanced against a possible nationalist bias: Catalan historians may, inadvertently or not, introduce their own biases and personal wishes into their research. However, Estelle Irizarry has apparently no connection whatsoever with Catalonia, so her arguments may be accepted in an easier way under strict research and review.

Apart from asking other WAISers, especially those versed in Hispanist studies, their opinion about this particular issue, I would like to stress three different ideas:

1. Is the nationality of Christopher Columbus important at all? On one side, one could consider that it is definitely relevant in the prestige of a given country (either Italy, Spain or Catalonia.) On the other side, I could argue that I would feel uncomfortable, as a Catalan, to know that the man responsible of the destruction and annihilation of many people and cultures in America was a Catalan. Up to now, I considered Catalans were not responsible for that holocaust, since only Castilians were allowed (at least up to 1714, when we Catalans were defeated by Castilians, assimilated to Castilian law and, as a consequence, considered as Castilians and consequently allowed to trade with the Americas) to trade with the Americas. However, this new finding could force us to rethink the whole issue.

2. What can this issue teach us about us, today ? First, the necessity we Catalans have to reassure us, and to construct and reassess our past and history. Second, the realization that, after the Italians, the Spanish Nationalists are the stronger supporters of the Genoan origin of Columbus. It is odd they prefer Columbus being a foreigner rather than a “Spaniard” (even though from a “rebel” region).

3. The whole argument, Columbus being Catalan and Jew, if true would be consistent with the fact Columbus never said where he came from: it was better, in such an environment as the highly repressive Castilian court, not to stress his Catalanity and, above all, his Jewishness.

JE comments: New theories on Columbus’s origins crop up from time to time. Just last week I received an e-mail from a nonWAIS reader of our website arguing that Columbus was Portuguese. Most of these (such as a Corsican birth) can be dismissed as far-fetched. Estelle Irizarry is a different story–a prolific and very serious scholar. Though we’ve never met personally, Estelle and I worked together for several years on the journal Hispania (she was editor, I was proofreader), and Estelle even occupies a link in the causality chain of why I’m now WAIS E-i-C: Prof. Hilton asked me to join WAIS after he came across an article I published in Hispania on the US historian William H. Prescott. So in a word: thank you, Estelle!

I’ve purchased El ADN de los escritos de Cristóbal Colón (I believe there’s no English edition), and will make a report to WAISdom in a few weeks.

Then we might tackle the issue of where Columbus is buried. Three cities claim this distinction: Seville, Santo Domingo, and Havana.

re: Religion: Vatican Welcomes Anglican Converts (Robert Whealey, US)

Robert Whealey responds to Bienvenido Macario’s post of 23 October:

The 16th-century wars were religions, political, sociological, and economic. Let us leave the vague “culture” [my term--JE] out of the discussion. Marriage of the clergy was one of the many issues involved in the 1500s. But Catholics, Protestants, and Jews all agreed that sodomy was
a sin.

The homosexual debate began in the US in 1962, with Christopher Jorgensen, and
again in 1969 with the Stone Wall Bar incident in Greenwich Village.

Does TV now dominate American “culture?” The problem of the Episcopalian
Church now is that their clergy look at too much entertainment and spend
too little time reading the Bible. The problem with the Catholic Church is
that they have been covering up for homosexual priests for 30-40 years, at
least. Perhaps recent law suits in Mass. have caused the America hierarchy
to re-read the Bible on sex at this time.

JE comments: To call Europe’s conflicts of the 16th century “culture wars” is an anachronism, but what is culture other than the religious, political, sociological and economic taken as a whole? I’d really like to hear Ernie Hunt’s thoughts on this conversation…I hope he’s not too busy, as Robert Whealey suggests, watching TV! For now (and this will be no surprise to WAISers), let me just stress that I support the Church of England’s position on admitting gays into the clergy. This was a principled and brave decision, given that it apparently has cost them some membership.

Religion: Vatican Welcomes Anglican Converts (Bienvenido Macario, Philippines/US)

Bienvenido Macario writes:

While many Roman Catholics in Latin America and the Philippines are converting to non-denominational Christian and Protestant religions, in England it is the other way around. See the news item below. Another manifestation of the El Niño / La Niña syndrome in globalization?

****************

Archbishop Vincent Nichols welcomes Anglican convert plan as an “opportunity”

By Stephen Adams

Published: 22 Oct 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6399855/Archbishop-Vincent-Nichols-welcomes-Anglican-convert-plan-as-an-opportunity.html

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, has welcomed changes
that will allow disaffected Anglicans to convert to Catholicism as “a challenge and an opportunity.”
Archbishop Nichols, the leader of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales,
hailed Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to allow groups of Anglicans to enter into full
communion with the Holy See while retaining parts of their spiritual heritage as “an
extraordinary moment.”

Some 400,000 Anglicans in a breakaway movement called the Traditional Anglican
Communion could be the first to convert after they and other groups, unhappy with the
Anglican Communion’s increasingly liberal stance on female clergy and homosexuality,
petitioned the Pope for reconciliation with Rome.

JE comments: A new ecumenism of sorts, or does this move herald a rekindling of the 16th-century Culture Wars? The rotund Henry VIII must be attempting to roll over in his tomb. It is interesting that Bienvenido Macario has juxtaposed the “return” of conservative Anglicans to Rome against the exodus from Catholicism that is occurring in Latin America, the Philippines, and Africa as well. 400,000 is a lot of converts: how is this affecting the Church of England? Here we have a topic tailor-made for a response from the Rev. Ernie Hunt.

re: Religion: A Personal Journey (Robert Whealey, US)

Robert Whealey writes:

I understand the dilemmas of Tor Guimaraes (22 April)
about his religion. I agree with half of what he wrote.

But I had a different personal journey. Between 6 and 19 I had many
questions about a Methodist interpretation of the Bible.
I slowly abandoned an absolute faith that God exists. But the moral ethics
of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul largely remain. I followed their
words, unless they were contradicted by science and logic.

People who reject Charles Darwin are poorly educated and are to be pitied
rather than scorned. When I had three kids by age 33, my wife and I attended
a Unitarian Church and Fellowship. Various speakers were wise or foolish.
I learned about Jews and Catholics by conversation and reading history. I
learned about Islam solely from reading. I have had two or three
conversations with Muslim students, but they were not very well informed.

I disagree with Tor Guimaraes when he rejects all organized religion. To
teach youth ethical and moral guidelines, educational institutions are
necessary. People change mentally very rapidly between 12 and 25. Few grow
very much beyond age 25. Those fortunate few write, history, philosophy,
theology, economics and sociology.

Outside the US territory a different ball game is being played. What
Hindus do in Sri Lanka or Muslims do in Darfur is none of my business. I
only have a PhD in European and US history.

As an American citizen I can oppose the President from going to war abroad
for his confused ideological and religions programs. America’s wars since
Johnson in Vietnam and Bush II in Afghanistan and Iraq were based on
“over-reach” and unclear goals and purposes.

About twenty US Congresses were foolish in appropriating money to
several Presidents to fight imperial wars in foreign lands. Since 1965, few
of these wars have much to do with the defense of the United States.

JE comments: WAISer thoughts on Robert Whealey’s claim that few grow [mentally] beyond the age of 25? We do learn additional things, but ideologically we are probably set in our ways by the quarter-century mark.

–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: A Personal Journey (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Tor Guimaraes (22 April) sent to WAISers a very interesting post about religion. I agree with some of his conclusions, but not with all of them. Tor seems to think it is possible to justify the existence of religions by the fact that “humans have a basic need to understand the universe.” This is the classical view of religion as a way to “explain” things which otherwise would be unexplainable. The price to pay for this “explanation” would be an alienation of the human mind, as claimed for example by Ludwig Feuerbach. While religion could have occasionally played such a role, this view is not really convincing. If it was true, religions would have slowly disappeared with the emergence of more rational and scientific explanations. This has not been the case. The persistence of religion in societies where scientific knowledge is largely available shows that people are not so much waiting for an “explanation” of some “important phenomena” than for an answer to some ultimate questions for which science cannot have any answer.

What strikes me is that Tor, after having reached the conclusions he exposed, still believes that, beyond all religions, there is something which can be called “God.” He writes that “God is the Universe and is Truth.” Is it some kind of Pantheism? Something like the “Soul of the World” (Plotinus) or like the “Deus sive Natura” (Spinoza)?

–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: A Personal Journey (Ernie Hunt, US)

Ernie Hunt responds to Tor Guimaraes’s post of 22 April:

I respect your new found religion because God, in my opinion, created the universe and is truth, but I would add also compassion. I believe that He/She understands our human condition, so much so that He/She suffered for us all on the infamous cross. That is how the Deity, again in my opinion, showed understanding for all the stupid and irresponsible, even sadistic acts made by us in his name, no matter from a religious background or from a lack of it.

I hope that someday you will also see the good side of religion; for example, St. Francis and his reforms; Albert Schweitzer and his creation of a medical clinic in Africa; Elie Weisel and his Holocaust foundation; and Muhammad, who was a reformer and offered more of the fullness of God than had been known in the desert before. All of these, plus thousands of others I believe, were influenced by the sufferings of others and reached out to them.

However, I respect the distance in which you have placed yourself from those of us who have represented organized religion, but I hope that in time your righteous anger will mellow into a form of compassion about our common frail humanity.

–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

Religion: A Personal Journey (Tor Guimaraes, Brazil/US)

Tor Guimaraes writes:

As someone who knows he is stepping on very thin ice politically, I call on WAISdom to please help set me straight. My family and friends are chewing me up because of my newly found religion.

I understand that believers in different religions also believe that other people’s religions are fantasy, untrue, wrong, or even evil itself. Also, many religions in the name of God threaten the followers of other religions with death or condemnation to some sort of hell in the afterlife. The blind faith of most religious people make them unable to think clearly about religion in general, because they have been brainwashed and mentally paralyzed by faith in their scriptures, by fear of their gods, and by possible loss of comradeship from their religious group. Nevertheless, I would like to express my thoughts about organized religion in general. The primary intention of what you are about to read is not to attack your religion but merely to make you think about the many problems from organized religions and try to reduce the many interreligious problems in the future. I would appreciate your thoughts on this effort.

After many years studying and trying to understand organized religion, I now reached a few conclusions. Humans have a basic need to understand the universe with all its incredibly magnificent phenomena. Before they understand some of these important phenomena, they tend to explain them with supernatural artifacts and complex fairy tales. With time people have learned that many of their fairy tales are wrong when tested scientific facts can obviously better explain a particular phenomenon. Over time this process has represented the single most troublesome challenge to those who have used organized religion as a mechanism to control their group and attempt to conquer the world by widespread conversion and/or gain wealth/power.

Facing overwhelming evidence, the clashes with scientific facts have been a painful process because well established dogma has had to be changed after a long time of so-called gospel truth. God seems to be on the side of the scientists, not the religious zealots. Take for example the enormous pain caused by the fact that the Moon is not a goddess, that Hernan Cortes was not a god, and that the Earth is not the center of our solar system. Despite the pain it has caused to entire civilizations and to religious hearts and minds, this process of discovering the truth about the universe is probably the single most important and wonderful gift that God has given humans. That indicates to me that organized religions have necessarily nothing to do with the real God. In general, organized religion has actually been a self-inflicted curse on mankind, which has caused numerous problems over time:

1. Religions have obstructed the truth while promoting despicable behavior (i.e. that genocide is fine, and little girls should not learn how to read, etc.), and widespread ignorance (i.e. that the Sun and Moon are gods, that the geocentric solar system, the Earth is 6000 years old, Creationism, etc). Going even further in their obstruction of truth, religious leaders have persecuted those who discovered the truth or dared to be different while hurting no one. God is always truth and never a sponsor of stupid and ignorant words and deeds. Only people can do that. Eventually, God’s side will always win and he obviously is on the side of those seeking the truth through the scientific method.

2. All religions follow the same pattern of promising a wonderful imaginary afterlife if the follower behaves in a particular way which can be completely contradictory to another religion. The follower of each religion is taught to believe he is right and the followers of other religions are wrong. If organized religions were directly related to God and not man-made, their principles would be more uniform and not subject to change overtime as mankind evolves. Only humans would create such wide variety of religious artifacts and fairy tales. God’s religion is much simpler, truthful, and unchangeable over time.

3. Religious books and preachers always claim to be based on the word of God, and sometimes testify to God’s action or instructions to commit despicable behavior. That can never be true. Further, they claim man was created in God’s own image even though no one has ever seen God. That cannot be true either. Obviously, man has created God in his own image to produce organized religion for his own ends. That is why organized religion produces so many problems for mankind, it demands faith in man made artifacts and fairy tales.

4. Hindus and Muslims attacked each other during India/Pakistan partition.

5. Muslim Turks committed genocide against Christian Armenians.

6. Christian Lebanese committed genocide against Muslim Palestinians.

7. Aryans attacked Jews, Christians, etc.during WW II.

8. Jewish scriptures say God willed Jews to attack many other peoples/religions and commit genocide. Aryans exterminated 6 million Jews during WW II. Judaism versus Aryanism: Is there a difference between genocide by Joshua or David, and genocide by Himmler or anyone else? Only man can commit genocide; God would never will it.

9. WAIS’s Richard Hancock on 4/9/2009 wrote: We learned that the Christian population of the Holy Land is declining because of the continuing threats of violence. Priests who have spent their entire lives in Israel are opting to retire in foreign countries because of this violence. All three of the Holy Land religions proclaim themselves as promoters of peace. It is a mystery of our time that these religious leaders cannot comply with their respective holy writs that require respect for their neighbors. We need a world-wide moral rearmament program.

10. Muslims in Darfur have committed genocide against other people.

11. Christians attacked Muslims for religious reasons through the Crusades.

12. Christians attacked Christians for religious reasons on numerous occasions: The Inquisition, witch hunts, Northern Ireland, etc.

13. Many Muslims have expressed devotion to the destruction of the Jewish state. Israelis have not openly committed genocide against Palestinians but while in power have turned a blind eye to Christian massacres of Palestinians in Lebanon. Also Israelis have numerous times abused superior military power and inflicted disproportionate destruction on Palestinian civilians. I cannot distinguish between Israeli aggression against Palestinians due to the need for self defense and survival, and their aggression due to religious differences. However, no matter how it started, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has evolved into a religious war between Muslims and Jews/Christians. Similarly, the mistreatment of Palestinian “citizens” in Israel shows a tinge of religious conflict. Because this area is relatively new and widely open for controversy, more specific and detailed food for thought is presented from other sources.

In conclusion, my newly found religion is that God is the Universe and is Truth. There is no afterlife. All religious claims speaking in the name of God are blasphemy. My religious duty is to seek to understand the Universe and Truth by using the scientific method.

JE comments: At Tor Guimaraes’s request, I will henceforth indicate his “subject line” provenance as “Brazil/US.”
–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Pre-Christian European Religions and Baha’i; on Human Rights (Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, US; ex-Iran)

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich responds to to Vincent Littrell (VL)’s post of April 20:

I am fascinated by VL’s ability to “bait and switch” by repeatedly redirecting the Forum to his favorite topic: the Islamic Republic of Iran’s persecution of Baha’is–with our editor obliging under the now new topic of “human rights.” Which begs the question, why does VL always insists on Iran-bashing?

VL’s foremost concern in life, it seems to me, are the Baha’is. Yet he never writes about the Baha’is who suffer around the world, and as I have mentioned in this Forum, receive aid from the United States. I mean Egypt of course.

Citing the good scholar Mayer: “Assumptions will inevitably be made that there is a link between scholarship that critiques human rights deficiencies in the Middle-East and the US deployment of human rights rhetoric to justify invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Seeing yet another chapter in the history of the imperialist West cynically invoking human rights deficiencies in Middle Eastern countries to justify self-interested intervention in the region, observers may automatically associate all academic writing dealing with human rights deficiencies in the Middle-East with White House strategies. However, having conceded that the US government employs cynical human rights rhetoric, I do not see why independent Western scholars should be barred from assessing human rights issues in Middle Eastern societies if they are applying standards consistently to all parties–including the United States. If a scholar’s study of foreign culture were to be disqualified simply by the fact that the foreign policy of his or her country of origin was characterized by hypocrisy, then most such study would be barred.” (pp. 5-6),

…the problem is, in the United States, foreign policy is state-centric and academic freedom has all but disappeared. Those who teach know this to be true. One cannot talk about Israel–at least never in a negative light. So if Prof. Mayer wants to study human rights, let her go ahead. What I say not in defense of the IRI’s actions, but in abhorrence of double-standards and hypocrisy, is fix your own problems first.

If VL or the U.S. government cares about human rights, there is much to be corrected here. I wonder why there is so little compassion for fellow-Americans and why the insistence to go after Iran? I think that Iranian affairs should be left to those who live in Iran and have had the will, the courage, and the desire to live in the country and it really is not up to anyone else to decide their fate other than those Iranians living there. I would like to repeat Sa’adi’ poem which Mr. Obama delivered to the Iranians on the occasion of the New Year (though a little odd since Sa’adi was a Sufi and Sufis are at odds with capitalism–all the same):

“Human beings are limbs of each other, having been created of one essence.
When time afflicts a limb with pain
The other limbs cannot at rest remain
If thou feel not for other’s misery,
A human being is no name for thee!”

So perhaps VL could extend his compassion to his fellow countrymen/women who are also of one limb. He should also be concerned about the Palestinians, and if his only concern is about the Baha’i religion, then speak up against those being persecuted in Egypt. I know that Persia is a wonderful country with a great history, but let us not be so prejudiced with our humanity!

JE comments: I will acknowledge that there has been a good deal of Iran-bashing on WAIS, but were I more sensitive, I would question Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich’s penchant for JE-bashing (see paragraph 1, above). Keep in mind that all bashing involves a “bashee.” Concerning academic freedom, I think Soraya is exaggerating. I can say basically anything I want in the classroom, provided that it is based on respect for all and my best understanding of what is true. I am tenured, to be sure, but hardly unique.

–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

–

re: Religion: Pre-Christian European Religions and Baha’i; on Human Rights (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell responds to Alain de Benoist’s post of 17 April:

I admit a significant gap in my knowledge base regarding comparative religion is in the realm of pre-Christian European religion. About 10 years ago I did read Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths. Homer’s Iliad was required reading for me in graduate school as part of my Humanities curriculum (a whole independent study course was devoted to that work alone as background to my thesis on just war), and I’ve read Harold Berman’s Law and Revolution, which includes discussion of the influences of pre-Christian European tribal law and religion on the development of canon law though not in great depth. I’ve also read enough Roman, Greek, Jewish, and Christian history through the years to get a flavor for pre-Christian European religion. I am just cursorily familiar with pre-Zoroastrian Iranic and pre-Vedic period Aryan religion, primarily through the writings of Mary Boyce, Alessandro Bausani and John Keay; Keay’s two-volume general survey of Indian history titled India: A History, though certainly not able to treat exhaustively the deep ocean that is Indian history, provides an eloquent and accessible overview; the chapter in Volume I titled “Vedic Values” is most worthy of reading, especially in regards to the description of the Aryan connection to the Vedic period in India. Keay notes that though Hinduism of the Vedic period pre-dates Zoroastrianism, Aryan religion/culture that both Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism are rooted in provides much material for comparison between Zoroastrian/Iranic culture and important strands of Hinduism/Indian culture .

Though I’ve heard of Odin as a prominent figure in Norse mythology, I’m not familiar with Odinism, nor am I familiar with a modern-day following of that religion. So I’ll keep further comments about linkages or parallels between Baha’i and Odinism to myself until I learn more of it. With that being said, I do hold to the position that there is a transcendental unity to all true religion. If Odinism has even the most dimly seen connection to divine revelation or inspiration as I believe many traditional religions do (the writings of Frithof Schuon help inform my opinions here), then I confidently assert that Baha’i spirituality can find common ground with Odinism, no matter the exoteric differences. The multidinous layers of religious esotericism, the interior aspects of faith generally speaking, no matter what that faith is, tend to find common ground.

On another note:

I was today reading the latest edition of noted scholar of human rights and the Islamic world, University of Pennsylvania Wharton School Professor of Legal Studies Ann Elizabeth Mayer’s 4th (2007) edition of Islam and Human Rights. Mayer makes a point that I related to some of the writing in this Forum supporting Iran’s current regime.

Though my linkage of Mayer’s point to some in WAIS may be tenous, glimmers of similiarity are there. It appears to me that at least a couple of WAISers defend the Islamic Republic through deflection or “bait and switch” tactics, by saying that one shouldn’t criticize Iran’s government when the U.S or some other government have problems as well. Mayer makes the point that Western scholar criticism of human rights in the Islamic world meets a similiar type of resistance from scholars with an interest in upholding the notion that any Western-originated criticism of the Muslim world smacks of “orientalism” (per their possibly incorrect interpretations of Edward Said’s well-known work Orientalism), a criticism which ignores Western problems in the human rights arena, and vestiges of colonialism.

Mayer states:

“Due to the mistaken assumption that accepting the authority of international human rights instruments necessarily requires Muslims to abandon their own cherished values and to submit to distinctively Western priorities, some read support for the universality of human rights as tantamount to an endorsement of Western imperialism. This can inspire attacks on Western scholars who undertake critical analyses of Islamic human rights as minions of Western hegemonic projects or purveyors of Orientalist ideas.” (p. 4)

She goes on to say:

“As Muslims have spoken out in ever greater numbers to denounce their governments for violating international human rights law, it has become harder to argue that criticizing governments for using Islamic doctrine to undermine and evade international human rights law is equivalent to promoting the ideologies of Orientalism and Western imperialism.” (p. 4)

She further states:

“Assumptions will inevitably be made that there is a link between scholarship that critiques human rights deficiencies in the Middle-East and the US deployment of human rights rhetoric to justify invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Seeing yet another chapter in the history of the imperialist West cynically invoking human rights deficiencies in Middle Eastern countries to justify self-interested intervention in the region, observers may automatically associate all academic writing dealing with human rights deficiencies in the Middle-East with White House strategies. However, having conceded that the US government employs cynical human rights rhetoric, I do not see why independent Western scholars should be barred from assessing human rights issues in Middle Eastern societies if they are applying standards consistently to all parties–including the United States. If a scholar’s study of foreign culture were to be disqualified simply by the fact that the foreign policy of his or her country of origin was characterized by hypocrisy, then most such study would be barred.” (pp. 5-6)

Mayer goes on then to provide thought provoking criticism US foreign policy in the Muslim world and its repeated placement of strategic interest over human rights law in its relations with countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Mayer then turns her attention back to the Muslim world. Though I don’t necessarily agree fully with all of Mayer’s observations, she has deeply penetrating writing. Her discussion of the Iranian government persecution of the Baha’is is most interesting.

Mayer states:

“Despite the extensive evidence that the persecution of the Baha’is is religiously motivated, in communications designed for international audiences, the Iranian government has gone to great lengths to justify executions of Baha’is on the grounds that those executed have been guilty of political crimes. Executed Baha’is are routinely alleged to be guilty of spying for Israel or the CIA [note: Baha'is under arrest now in Iran have recently made headline news and are charged for political crimes, i.e. spying for Israel, see

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/18/bahai.trial/index.html?iref=newssearch --VL].” (p. 181)

Mayer then, interestingly, states:

“The lack of candor on the part of the Iranian government in its official representations to the international community concerning its treatment of Baha’is correlates with the patterns of ambivalence and evasiveness that one sees in Islamic human rights schemes generally. Given the fact that in the Iranian constitution Islamic principles are treated as the supreme law of the land, one might have expected that the legality of the executions of the Baha’is in Islamic terms would be Iran’s only concern, that it would publicly admit its policy of killing apostates, and that the government would confidently cite shari’a rules in response to any criticisms of its actions. The Iranian government might, therefore, be expected to take a position like that taken in the Azhar draft constitution, where there was forthright endorsement of the rule that apostates were to be killed. However, in reality, the Iranian government realizes that the persecutions and executions of Baha’is are violations of international human rights standards, and it is not convinced that invoking Islamic law will suffice to justify such violations. Iran’s dissimulations reveal that it implicitly recognizes the authoritative, universal character of the international human rights standards–even as it continues to violate them.” (pp. 182-183)

JE comments: Though we’ve trod this path before, Vincent Littrell’s reading of Mayer forces us to raise (once again) one of the paradoxes of Human Rights discourse. The concept itself of “human rights,” in their presently “universal” definition, is culturally inspired and some would say culture-specific. (Note to self: Alain de Benoist has an entire book on the topic–in French no less. A reading assignment for my summer break, which is fast approaching.)

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Pre-Christian European Religions and Baha’i (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

As I had wondered “what kind of common ground might be found between a Baha’i and an Odinist,” Vincent Littrell (16 April) answered by drawing my attention on the similarities between the Walkyries of the Germanic religion and the Fravarti of the Zoroastrian religion. Such similarities are not surprising, as these religions have their roots in the same Indo-European (and Proto-Indo-European) spiritual stock. Henry Corbin (an author I like very much) wrote some lines about this topic, but much more information is to be found in the works of Georges Dumézil (of whom several books have been translated in English). However, I do not see how these similarities could form a “common ground between a Baha’i and an Odinist,” because their respective view of the world are completely opposed. By the way, it is strange that Vincent, who is used to describing at length how he is interested in religions, says that he had “never heard of Odinism.” Is he acquainted with pre-Christian European religions? With Indo-European religion and theology? If not, some readership of Dumézil’s works (among many others) could be useful to him.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Catholicism and Abortion: a History (Ernie Hunt, US)

Ernie Hunt responds to Tor Guimaraes’s post of 21 March:

It is ridiculous to believe that all Jews go to Hell who don’t follow a Jewish Messiah. Where did that uniformed judgment come from? Certainly not from any knowledgeable understanding of religion. The law or Torah has never been overthrown and is still as it was a means of salvation. Even St Paul alluded to the possibility that whenever (some might say when) the Second Coming occurs the Messiah will be the same for both Christians and Jews. Don’t mix up ancient power struggles of Kings or of the State with the religion that was around at the time, as bad as any perverse relationship between the two was at any one time in history.

It is correct to be angry, however, at the folly perpetuated in history by arrogant fools, both religious and political. Yet over-generalization never helps because there is a world of difference between the cultural, perhaps even tribal, climate in which Joshua might have lived and the Nazi worship of Valhalla and of Aryan supremacy. Give me a break.

I also believe, however, that excommunication has little effect today in a world no longer dominated by a religious establishment. I think we Anglicans have been excommunicated and it hasn’t stopped our good or bad efforts. At least in the States one can always change churches, and believe me, people do!

As a parting thought excommunication of a 9 year-old girl, however, over the issue of abortion reveals a distinct lack of Christian compassion and does smack of the old days in which some religious people thought they had control–for which I say, “thank God we don’t.”

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Catholicism and Abortion: a History (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Francisco O. Ramirez (17 March) wrote: “The Catholic Church has not historically held the view that under no circumstances may a human life be taken. The just war theory justifies the taking of human life under some conditions. Until a few decades ago the Church was not opposed to the death penalty, having directly and indirectly been involved in this practice for much of its history. So, here also we find evidence that the Church has not consistently endorsed the principle of no taking of human life under any conditions.”

Francisco is right to say that the Catholic Church has historically admitted that a human life can be taken in some circumstances. But he is wrong when he makes some kind of connection between the death penalty and abortion. From a Catholic point of view (which is not mine), it would be easy to answer that the death penalty means killing a criminal, while abortion means killing an innocent.

What is more interesting is that, contrary to what many people believe, during several centuries, the opposition of the Church to abortion was not so absolute as it is today. Abortion, for the Church, has always been a sin, but not always a crime. The main reason is that the religious authorities had adopted very early the Aristotelian view about the “animation” of the fetus. Following Aristotle, the embryo acquires his soul (anima), not at the moment of the conception, but after some delay–40 days for the boys, 80 for the girls (!) The same idea is exposed, among others, in St. Hieronymus’s works. The result is that the Church made a distinction between two kind of abortions: the homicidal abortion, subsequent to “animation,” and the contraceptive abortion, previous to the “animation.”

In the 4th century, only the homicidal abortion is punished by excommunication for life. In the Middle Ages, between 7th and 10th century, and more especially after the Council of Mayence (847) and the Council of Worms (868), the ecclesiastic books condemn the homicidal abortion to 10 years of penance, the contraceptive abortion to only one year. In 1140, the Decretus of Gratian says: “He is not homicide the one who makes an abortion before the presence of the soul in the body.” The same affirmation is repeated in 1211 by the Pope Innocent III, and in 1234 by the pope Gregorius IX, then by Thomas of Aquinus (Summa theologica, IIIa, q. 33, a.2; IIaIIae, q. 64, a.1). Still in the 17th century, the theologian Sanchez authorizes the abortion of a pregnant woman before the moment where the embryo becomes a fetus, that is before “animation.”

It is only in the 18th century that Alphonsius de Liguori, in his Theologia moralis, will affirm that all forms of abortion are a crime, a position which is today the official doctrine of the Catholic Church. The excommunication has been decided previously, in 1588, by Pope Sixtus V (Bulle Effrenatam), for any abortion of a fetus, “animated or not.” But this decision was reversed in 1691 by the Pope Gregorius XV in the case of the abortion of an “inanimated” embryo.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Science and Religion: Big Bang, DNA, Jews and Israel (Gene Franklin, US)

Istvan Simon wrote on 8 March:

The Jews are entitled to Israel, because they have lived there longer than any other people, lived there continuously, without a break, for thousands of years, much before the Prophet walked on this Earth, and much before the Arabs conquered parts of Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich’s own country and converted it to Islam by force of arms.

Gene Franklin responds:

With respect, I disagree with Istvan Simon on this point. In my view, Jews are allowed to live in Israel, not because Jews have lived in that land for many years, but because the government of Israel invites them to do so. And the state of Israel exists where it is as a result of a resolution by the UN and the recognition of it as a state by the major states of the world, led by the USA. Since its formation, Israel’s territory has expanded mainly through defensive wars until we get to the present situation. As I see it now, Israel does not wish to declare that its boundaries coincide with the territory it occupies, as that would be the end of Israel as a mainly Jewish state. Unfortunately, they have not been able to reach a settlement that would result in a mainly Jewish state living in peace and security with its neighbors.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Science and Religion: Big Bang, DNA, Jews and Israel (Istvan Simon, US)

Istvan Simon answers Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich’s post of 7 March:

I do indeed accept the Big Bang Theory, though I think that the evidence for it is far less compelling than the evidence for Darwin’s theory.

On the subject of DNA and the National Geographic DNA project, Soraya might be delighted to learn that to my knowledge I was the first one in this Forum that mentioned this project, and indeed my son has provided DNA for this project, and hence through him, so have I. Soraya might also be delighted to learn that the result of the DNA test showed that my ancestors moved out of a place near Ethiopia, 60,000 years ago, from where they migrated North, at which point the migratory path branched into two. One turned towards Saudi Arabia, (not my branch), and the other moved further North to Egypt (my branch). This perhaps answers to some extent her own question of why the Jews are entitled to Israel.

Responding to this question in more depth, I would say that the Jews are entitled to Israel, not because God gave it to them–a claim that many Jews will make, but not this Jew, for I do not believe that God exists, at least not the God of the Bible, if interpreted literally. This subject in itself is fascinating and perhaps worthy of further consideration in this Forum.

But for the moment lets just stay on focus: the Jews are entitled to Israel, because they have lived there longer than any other people, lived there continuously, without a break, for thousands of years, much before the Prophet walked on this Earth, and much before the Arabs conquered parts of Soraya’s own country and converted it to Islam by force of arms.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

Religion: Father Abuna Chacour and Peacemaking (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell writes:

My purpose in writing this post is to highlight an emerging paradigm of thought I think necessary to bringing about resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I’ve been reading Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution. One very interesting individual discussed in the work is the founder of the Mar Elias Educational Institutions (MEEI; see: http://www.meei.org/who/abuna.html ) and minister in the Melkite Catholic Church, Father Abuna Elias Chacour. Father Chacour identifies himself as Palestinian, Arab, Christian and Israeli. He is an advocate of pluralism, interfaith dialogue and is a recognized peacemaker. His story is most interesting and provides a glimmer of hope for possibilities of the future in Israel/Palestine. Father Chacour states:

“I was born into the Melkite Catholic Church. I wanted to find ways to minister to my community and the best way for me I found was within the Church. Since 1965 I have been ministering in the Galilee region. I minister to Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Druze and try to help ‘others’ come closer: I do this by trying not to change their identities, but rather their minds and outlooks.” (Peacemakers in Action 328)

Father Chacour’s story is one of great hardship and overcoming of tremendous obstacles. Yet his founding of the MEEI and the recognition attendant efforts towards intercultural and interfaith understanding is most noteworthy. In WAIS I get tired of the same positions associated with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We all know that the “sides” in this conflict all have done wrong. In my opinion those (even in this Forum) who cling with simplistic parochially negative understandings of the historical wrongs done to a people and focus on the myriad problematics that are the outcomes of the many wrongs of the past are themselves contributors to the longevity of those problems and fail to contribute to the search for resolution that needs be done to bring the peoples of that troubled region out of this seemingly intractable conflict.** Linked to this, I think one of the countless reasons why those who view religion as a “curse” on humanity are so utterly wrong is because of the simple yet astoundingly necessary teachings of all the great religions that command the exact opposite of the terrible wrongs done in the name of religion. The teaching of forgiveness is a clear example of this. I hold to the position that religion is critical to changing old patterns of thought that chain mankind to paradigms like “clash of civilizations” and continued cycles of conflict. The simple yet (paradoxically) deeply difficult to socialize act of forgiveness is a clear example of the necessity of religion and absolutely critical corollary of spirituality needed to bring about resolution to intractable conflicts. Is religion without spirituality actually religion? Or superstition? I hold to the position that religion holds the high ground…it is anti-religion if it does not. Father Chacour uses (most appropriately in my view) the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 as a foundation for his actions in peacemaking. It is argued by some that the Beatitudes lie at the heart of Christianity and could it be that maybe this is so? I don’t see how Jesus’s Sermon of the Mount can be a curse on humanity. “For Abuna Chacour, it is clear that God does not intend the faithful to invoke religion to justify killing.”*** (325)

Interestingly however, Father Chacuna asserts, “that at the local level, religion’s negative role was minor, but when the Arab-Israeli conflict is looked at comprehensively, he believes that religion has been a divisive factor and has failed to fulfill its potential for good. ‘Widely, religion has not played a unifying role when dealing with religious extremists…The conflict is not caused by religion, but religion has been distorted to negatively convert religious principles. Muslims, Christians and Jews who believe in killing are saying that God is wrong. But God cannot be wrong and those who kill are acting against God’s will. God is the first victim and is insulted by the extremist groups.’” (325)

Though I have yet to clearly think through what I deem to be an appropriate definition(s) of religion, my own view is that the linkages between spirituality, morals, virtues, and the Divine must be present in any attempt to set forward such a definition (or definitions). Thus those interpretations of scripture that pull believers into extremism fall outside of religion in my view. Simply put, people become superstitionists (as opposed to religionists) when extremism comes into play.

I strongly believe it is individuals like Father Chacour who are on a necessary path in Israel/Palestine. I’ll conclude with the following quote from Peacemakers in Action:

“Abuna Chacour’s stay in Europe was also a time in which he came to have greater understanding and compassion toward the Jewish people. While taking a trip to Germany, he experienced a moment of terror and insight. As if transported back to 1937, he imagined ‘men in dark green helmets and high black boots…with machine guns…[and visible] swastikas of the Third Reich.’ He saw them asking for papers, imagined Jewish people showing their papers and being taken: ‘Men and women…hugging small children, huddling together miserably. They would be taken to other destinations–never to be seen again.’ Abuna Chacour experienced ‘the ache of compassion.’ And he devoted himself to understanding more about Zionism, political influences, and how his people had come to be oppressed…Abuna Chacour committed himself to a lifetime of actively searching for peace. Again, the message of the Beatitudes emerged to guide him, and Abuna felt certainty: ‘Suddenly I knew that the first step toward reconciling Jews and Palestinians was the restoration of human dignity….If I was to go out as a true servant of God and man, my first calling was to be a peacemaker.’” (327)

**As opposed to what might be termed as a “compassionately unitary” or inclusive/sympathetic approach to the histories of all involved.

***In my opinion, there is such a thing as just war supported by legitimate religious teaching

–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Baha’i and Africa (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell responds to Nushin Namazi’s 18 February post asking about the Baha’is in Africa:

As it relates to Africa in particular, I’ve studied Islam more than I have the Baha’i Faith. After some research of Baha’i sources I present the following:

A recent November 2008 letter from the Universal House of Justice to the Baha’is of Africa discusses some of the history of the Baha’is of Africa from (obviously) a Baha’i perspective:

“African Bahá’í history had its beginnings in Egypt, which was opened to the Faith during the period of the ministry of Bahá’u'lláh; it gathered momentum during the ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when Bahá’í localities were established in South Africa and Tunisia. But the early effects of these spiritual endowments became more obvious with the remarkable success of the two-year Africa Project (1951-53) when 16 territories were opened, bringing to 25 the total number of countries and islands in which Bahá’ís resided.”

The letter further states, “In the countries lying to the north where programmes of public teaching cannot now be pursued, the friends [I assume this is referencing the Baha’is in the northern tier Muslim nations of Africa--VL] have continued for many years to maintain their posts with circumspection and heroic fortitude. Not only have they kept the flame of faith alive in their hearts, they also endeavour to transmit the fire of the love of God to members of their families, including their children and youth, in anticipation of the day when freedom to openly proclaim their religion and conduct their community affairs is secured.”

The Universal House of Justice then states, “With immense gratification we now look back over just a few decades during which Africa attained the largest number of National Spiritual Assemblies of any continent; moreover, Africa’s Local Spiritual Assemblies amount to a substantial percentage of the world’s total. The prodigious output of energy devoted to expansion and consolidation has included major endeavours to train the believers and to mount and maintain development projects. As a result the African Bahá’í community can boast of notable progress in the establishment of a number of primary and secondary schools and training institutes. A source of much of this energy in recent times has been the African youth, who have increasingly demonstrated exemplary dedication and vigour in their Bahá’í activities.”

And then it discusses some issues facing the Baha’i communities of Africa as they grapple with the implications and meanings associated with Baha’u'llah’s teachings of the oneness of humanity:

“Tribal conflict is one of the most pressing issues facing Africa. This must be dealt with in the heart of every faithful follower of Bahá’u'lláh and resolutely overcome through the collective will of every local and national Bahá’í community. Indeed, how can the lovers of the Blessed Beauty [reference to Baha’u’llah--VL] allow tribal prejudice and rivalry to be practised in their midst when He has made unity the pivotal principle and goal of His Faith? Hatred and animosity based on tribe, like those based on race, blight the human spirit and arrest the development of the society that accommodates them.”

At least some African leaders publicly praise the presence of the Baha’i Faith in their countries. I found a November 2006 statement from South Africa’s President Mbeki to the Baha’is of South Africa in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the formation of a Baha’i National Spiritual Assembly in that country where the President states, “Since its formation half a century ago, on 11 November 1956 , the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of South Africa untiringly has promoted the spiritual, moral and material development of Bahá’ís in this country as well as that of the South African society in general. In this regard, your notable participation in the National Religious Leaders Forum has also contributed immensely in ushering in an age of hope in our country.” (see: http://www.bahai.org.za/cm/node/18 )

The history of the Baha’is of South Africa is interesting especially in light of how they had to practice under the apartheid system with the principle of the oneness of mankind being central to Baha’i doctrine. Under apartheid, “the Bahá’í Faith was being watched continually by the security police. Both the individual Bahá’ís and the administrative bodies were under police investigation and surveillance. However, although the believers never compromised the principles of the Faith and gradually developed racially integrated Bahá’í communities, the numbers were too small and peaceful to be considered a threat to the apartheid regime. The Bahá’í community thus became a practical workshop for both spiritual and administrative growth and there being no clergy in the Faith, all Bahá’ís learned the process of spiritually based consultation, administering their communities without political affiliation and thus ensuring their unity. With the relaxation of the marriage laws by the government in 1985, a new phase in the development of the Faith began.” (see: http://www.bahai.org.za/cm/node/19 ).

Another praise to Baha’is from an African leader is from the King of Swaziland during the May 2004 commemoration of the 50 year jubilee of the Baha’is in Swaziland. “Representatives of King Mswati III and the Queen Mother were present at the jubilee festivities, a sign of the continuing good relations between Swaziland’s royal family and the Baha’i community. A message from the King was read on his behalf by his brother, Prince Phinda, a member of the Swaziland National Council.

‘We have no doubt that the Baha’is have found a happy home in the kingdom of Eswatini [Swaziland],’the King’s letter to the participants said. ‘This is evident through their active participation in and contribution to the welfare of the Swazi nation.’

” The King’s message also praised the Baha’i community’s efforts in educational and agricultural projects. The Queen Mother sent a message in which she related some of the main teachings of the Baha’i Faith to current issues in Swazi society.

‘As the Swazi nation, we pledge to continue to pray for unity, peace, and harmony, and to support all organizations that promote such values, for a better world, for the benefit of all mankind,’ the Queen Mother’s message said” (see: http://news.bahai.org/story/311 ).

Ther Baha’i House of Worship for the African continent is located outside of Kampala Uganda.** It was at this Baha’i House of Worship that the 50th anniversary of the Baha’i Faith in Uganda was commemorated which included a statement from Uganda’s President Museveni. Praise for the Baha’i Faith’s record of promoting harmony and development in a country that has often been divided by tribalism was a main message of President Museveni’s statement, which was read on 2 August 2001 by the State Minister for Health, before a crowd of some 2,000 people at the Baha’i House of Worship in Kampala.

“In Uganda we are constantly fighting against ethnic and religious sectarianisms and our politics was played out and polarized along those major fault lines for a very long time,” wrote President Museveni, explaining that his government has sought to “bring all the people together irrespective of their faith, race, color or ethnicity. We have been doing what you in the Baha’i Faith began to do a long time ago,” President Museveni stated in prepared remarks. “Yours is a very useful message and can contribute greatly to nation building.” (see: http://news.bahai.org/story/135 ).

Of significance in the development of the Baha’i Faith in Africa, one individual from Uganda should be mentioned; his name is Enoch Olinga (1926-1979). Mr. Olinga was appointed by one of the central figures of the Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi, as a “Hand of the Cause of God.” In the Baha’i Faith, the “Hands of the Cause of God” are a unique institution who members have now all passed away. The last “Hand of the Cause” died in 2007 (see Wiki entry on this institution at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_of_the_Cause ).

I recently acquired a 2007 book on the “Hands of the Cause” institution titled Lights of Fortitude by Barron Harper in which there is a chapter on Mr. Olinga. “Mr. Olinga was initially taught the Baha’i Faith by some Persian Baha’is that had gone to Uganda as part of an organized teaching effort. Mr. Olinga ended up becoming the third Ugandan to formally become a Baha’i. Mr. Olinga ended up being a very active teacher of the Baha’i Faith in Africa and ‘was instrumental in the establishment’ of the Baha’i Faith in West Africa, ‘principally Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana.’ ( Lights of Fortitude , p. 414) Mr. Olinga was an important figure in the administration of the Baha’i Faith between the passing of the Baha’i Faith’s leader Shoghi Effendi in 1957 and the formation of the Universal House of Justice (the governing body of the Baha’i Faith now) in 1963. He was murdered with his wife and three of his children at his home in Kampala in 1979. It is not known if he was murdered for religious reasons or as a result of the general unrest/political situation in the area at the time.” For Wiki entry on Mr. Olinga see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Olinga

The bottom line is that the Baha’i Faith is growing and gaining recognition as a world religion in Sub-Saharan Africa and is gaining formal praise from African leaders. The Baha’i Faith has a low-key presence in the Muslim countries of Northern Africa and is not publicly or openly practiced though it is within the privacy of homes. The Baha’is of Sub-Saharan Africa do grapple with issues of tribalism even within their own communities as a result of applying the Baha’i teachings on the oneness of humankind in daily life.

**There is one Baha’i House of Worship on every continent.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

Religion: Baha’i and Africa (Nushin Namazi, US)

Nushin Namazi writes:

It is obvious that Vincent Littrell is a scholar and follower of Baha’i. I wonder to what extent the countries in Africa have embraced Baha’i? What do the Islamic African people think of Baha’i? Are the Baha’i persecuted or welcomed in Africa? Is there a movement to promote Baha’i among the African countries? What are the contributions of Baha’is to Africa, if any?

JE comments: Interesting questions. Except for Egypt (see recent posts by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich and Vincent Littrell’s response), we’ve not delved into the Baha’i presence in Africa. (To be sure, WAIS discussion of Africa is generally lacking…what can we do about that?)

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Sacred Works and Propaganda Films (Roy Domenico, US)

Roy Domenico responds to Tor Guimaraes’s post of 15 February:

I must take issue with a couple of Tor Guimaraes’s points on religion. First, are “US atrocities in Vietnam (and) Iraq” supposed to be reflective of American Christianity? I frankly don’t see any connection. He then goes on to the conclusion that “organized religion is increasingly becoming a great curse on humanity.” The past two hundred years have seen the consistent triumph of secular power over churches. The bloodbaths of our age have been overwhelmingly the work of secular (often distinctly anti-religious) leaders and factions.

JE comments: World Wars I and II, the worst hecatombs of the twentieth century, were not caused or fueled by religion. But what about the conflicts presently cursing humanity?

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Baha’i and Self-Defense (Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, US; ex-Iran)

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich responds to Vincent Littrell’s post of 15 February:

In a previous post (December 25), I responded to Mr. Littrell with a report from both Los Angeles Time s (Sep 8, 1997, p. A, 1:2), and New York Times (Egyptian Bahais Are Under Attack: [Letter] New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)). Aug 1, 1987. p. 1.30) which stated that the Islamic Center of Cairo’s al-Azhar Mosque and University, the foremost seat of learning in the Sunni Islamic world, had publicly attacked the Baha’is. Other Islamic groups had urged the Egyptian Government to exterminate the Baha’is. My point was why Mr. Littrell showed no concern for other Bahai’s other than the ones living in Iran–I even pointed to the persecution of Bahai’s under the Shah. Yet it seems to me that Mr. Littrell has failed in his defense of Baha’is–though he seems to be doing rather well in his persecution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Today, while defending those who served during the Shah’s regime, he continues his attack on Iran while leaving out the notorious behavior of those who are persecuting Baha’is–unless Egypt is exempt because of their close relationship with Israel and the U.S. Their role in Israel’s assault on Gaza, that is, trapping the innocent civilians who were in need for food, water, and other humanitarian aid, may have elevated their status. They are notorious jail-keepers, but are claimed to be “moderate.” After Israel, Egypt is the U.S.’s biggest recipient of foreign aid.

It makes me wonder why it is that Mr. Littrell does not share his compassion for the Iranian Baha’is with those in Egypt.

In a separate response to Istvan Simon on his various posts:

While the world is grateful that the U.S. helped the Muslims in Bosnia, one must never look at events in isolation. In preventing genocide during the Clinton years, one has to look at his presidency (and US foreign policy in general). The Clinton administration at the time was more interested in preserving the Arusha Accords. There were plenty of warning signs, but they were ignored. The HRW report by Des Forges includes thirty-two pages of early warnings prior to April 1994.

“Be careful. Legal at State was worried about this yesterday–Genocide finding could commit [the U.S. government] to actually ‘do something’” (Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Secret Discussion Paper: Rwanda,” May 1, 1994, emphasis added. The concern was that if the G-word was used and the Clinton administration did nothing, what would be the effect on the November congressional elections.)

Kosovo is in the heart of Europe and former Yugoslavia was under the dominance of the Soviet Union–and later in the sphere of influence of Russia. While America did drop bombs from the sky, in June 1999, “in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Yugoslavia, US forces seized 1,000 acres of farmland in southeast Kosovo at Uresevic, near the Macedonian border, and began the construction of a camp. Camp Bondsteel is known as the ‘grand dame’ in a network of US bases running both sides of the border between Kosovo and Macedonia.” According to Colonel Robert L. McClure, writing in the engineers’ professional Bulletin, “Engineer planning for operations in Kosovo began months before the first bomb was dropped. At the outset, planners wanted to use the lessons learned in Bosnia and convinced decision makers to reach base-camp ‘end state’ as quickly as possible.” The camp is to replace the one in Italy. (http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_ite
m=ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=924696&clef=ARC-TRK-G_01

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/apr2002/oil-a29.shtml). I am left wondering if this was one of the sites Hillary Clinton visited as a First Lady–the site where she “dodged bullets.”

In 1992, the no-bid contract to service Camp Bondsteel was awarded to Brown & Root–thanks to Mr. Cheney.

As for Mr. Simon’s response to me regarding the number of Muslims massacred since WWII:

“In 1994, the historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that 187 million people were ‘killed or allowed to die by human decision’ in what he called the ’short century’–a period of about 75 years from 1914 to 1991.” A further 231 have been added to that number for the full 20th century. Imagine the death toll for this century to-date. Since the data provided will take up too much room, I will give a very rough estimate, but certainly not from lack of disrespect for the dead. The number excludes the minority Muslims killed in Thailand, India, etc. post 2000. If I have erred in including some data, I apologize. I have deliberately included the numbers from the Iran-Iraq war because Saddam Hussein attacked Iran with the encouragement of the United States. It is also a fact that Saddam received weapons from the West, including chemical weapons, in order to defeat the Islamic regime. As Mr. Simon can see, the numbers add up.

Egypt: 1955 Suez invasion/France, Israel, UK 4,000

1967–70 Six-Day War; War of Attrition 75,000

1980–88 (Iran Losses) Iran-Iraq war 1,000,000

1980–88 Iran-Iraq War Iraq losses) 800,000

1975–89 civil war/Syrian and Israeli interventions 131,000

Afghanistan

1978–89 civil war/Soviet intervention … … 1,000,000

1990–2000 civil war … … 1,000,000 ( I am not including this number and more!)

Bangladesh

1971 civil war/Indian intervention 1,500,000

India

1946–48 partition-related strife 800,000

1947–49 India vs. Pakistan over Kashmir 3,000

1948 India vs. Hyderabad 2,000

1965 India vs. Pakistan/Rann of Kutch war 20,000

1971 India vs. Pakistan 11,000

1990–2000 Kashmirb 29,000

Overall death in Indonesia, a Muslim country.

Indonesia

1945–46 independence struggle 5,000

1965–66 massacres following attempted coup 500,000

Malaya (now Malaysia)

1950–60 UK intervention in civil war 13,000

Philippines

1972–2000 Muslims (MNLF, MILF 120,000

People’s Army vs. government;

Muslims (MNLF, MILF), and New

People’s Army vs. government

Chechnya

1994–96 Russia vs. Chechen insurgents (Chechens) 80,000

1999–2000 Russia vs. Chechen insurgents … … (Chechens) 15,000

Morocco

1953–56 independence struggle vs. France 3,000

Tunisia

1952–54 independence struggle vs. France 3,000

(source: Milton Leitenberg, Deaths in Wars and Conflicts in the 20th Century , Cornell University, Peace Studies Program, 2003-06)

The death-toll does not reflect African countries, but it does reflect a sad reality–all the countries have been subjected to imperial rule, colonization, or interference by a colonial power.

The analogy of the former Soviet Union or even former Yugoslavia is not appropriate when applied to Iran. The former Soviet Union was made of different nations occupied by Russia. The former Yugoslavia came to existence only after World War I. On the other hand, Iran has been a nation for more than 2500 years. The sense of national pride and long history is very strong amongst the vast majority of Iranians. Furthermore, nobody knows exactly the precise percentage of ethnic diversity of Iran. Even the Iranian government can’t give the exact figure, what is at hand is based on guestimations. For centuries, Iranians have intermingled from different parts of Iran, greater Persian Empire and even different parts of the Middle East. So, it is inconceivable to map out the map of Iran based on ethnicity. There are neoconservatives who speak of this, and I have listened to them lecture. I have heard neo-Zionist Bernard Lewis talk of this, but Persia will remain undivided.

JE comments: I may be mistaken, but I believe that over the years Vincent Littrell has not limited his WAIS discussions of Baha’i persecution to Iran only.

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Religion: Baha’i and Self-Defense (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell writes:

On 10 February regarding my comments on his treatment of Hinduism, Mr. Malek stated, “We should also stop preaching a faith that forbids its followers to be patriots or never defend their homelands. I respectfully ask Vincent Littrell to stop labeling my intellect.”

Regarding Mr. Malek’s intellect: The labeling of Mr. Malek’s intellect holds no interest for me. Criticism of his polemic against and monolithic treatment of religions stated in authoritative (as opposed to dialogical) style does hold interest for me. Mr. Malek does seem to have a sound knowledge of myths created by the traditional enemies of the Baha’i religion, however.

So, the question; should we stop “preaching” (I don’t preach, I do defend against polemic however) those religions that are pacifistic? It seems Mr. Malek might be attacking aspects of pacifism here if he is implying that discussion of a faith that “forbids its followers to be patriots and never defend their homelands” is to be stopped in this Forum. Frankly, I’m not sure what religion Mr. Malek is referring to, as I don’t know of any world religion that categorically forbids patriotism and a number of sects or large branches of more than one religion are pacifistic. If Mr. Malek is referring to the Baha’i Faith, then he is wrong. The Baha’i Faith is not a pacifistic religion and doesn’t forbid patriotism or self-defense in all cases. This is one area I have studied at depth regarding the Baha’i Faith. While I was in graduate school, for my master’s thesis I conducted a comparative analysis of the just war tradition in religious thought. I did include the Baha’i Faith in this analysis in part because of its status as an emerging world religion. Very interestingly, the Baha’i Faith, unlike what many think about it (to include some Baha’is I’ve talked to about this), is not pacifistic. The Baha’i writings teach that military science should be taught to professional soldiery and that soldiery should be equipped with the best weapons (see Abdu’l-Baha’s The Secret of Divine Civilization ; he was writing on the military in the context of the dilapidated state of the Persian Army in 1875). Furthermore, patriotism is not forbidden in the Baha’i Faith. Rather, a nationalism that narrows vision about the oneness of humanity is what is forbidden. Baha’is fully accept the concept of a benevolent patriotism and absolutely believe (as a fundamental principle of the Baha’i Faith) in obedience to the government of the nation under which they reside (with the exception of recanting their faith if ordered to do so; Baha’is do not have to recant their faith on order and are discouraged from dissimulating about their religion when under pressure to recant; the stories of pressure for Baha’is to recant their faith in Persia/Iran are many).

The Baha’i teachings, as I understand them, do allow for self-defense of a nation and do set forth the idea of collective security to deal with aggression. In other words, according to the Baha’is the nations of the world should collectively rise up and put down the government of an aggressor nation. I’ve written in this Forum before about the Baha’i teachings on collective security. What the Baha’i teachings also emphasize is that non-resistance as opposed to violent resistance is necessary in the face of persecution and violence in response to the Baha’is’ existence. Following are some Baha’i quotes on the subjects discussed above:

Regarding Baha’is not forcibly resisting persecution J.E. Esselmont in his book Baha’u'llah and the New Era states:

“As a religious body, Bahá’ís have, at the express command of Bahá’u’lláh, entirely abandoned the use of armed force in their own interests, even for strictly defensive purposes. In Persia many, many thousands of the Bábís and Bahá’ís have suffered cruel deaths because of their faith. In the early days of the Cause the Bábís on various occasions defended themselves and their families by the sword, with great courage and bravery. Bahá’u’lláh, however, forbade this.”

Abdu’l-Bahá writes:

“When Bahá’u’lláh appeared, He declared that the promulgation of the truth by such means must on no account be allowed, even for purposes of self-defense. He abrogated the rule of the sword and annulled the ordinance of ‘Holy War.’ ‘If ye be slain,’ said He, ‘it is better for you than to slay.’” (written by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá for this book). (p. 169)

It is my understanding that the above quote from Abdu’-Baha refers to individual self-defense in the face of persecution for religion. Now moving on to the issue of defense of the nation in the Baha’i writings:
Regarding patriotism, the Baha’i writings allow for a “sane and intelligent” patriotism. The Baha’i writings state:

“Let there be no misgivings as to the animating purpose of the world-wide Law of Bahá’u’lláh….Its purpose is neither to stifle the flame of a sane and intelligent patriotism in men’s hearts, nor to abolish the system of national autonomy so essential if the evils of excessive centralization are to be avoided.” (Esselmont quoting Shoghi Effendi p 276)

However, Esselmont quotes Baha’u'llah on the issue of the prejudice of narrow patriotism, which he equates to racial prejudice when he states, “Equally mischievous with racial prejudice is political or patriotic prejudice.” He quotes Baha’u'llah, who states:

“Of old it hath been revealed: ‘Love of one’s country is an element of the Faith of God. The Tongue of Grandeur hath … in the day of His manifestation proclaimed: “It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world.” Through the power released by these exalted words He hath lent a fresh impulse, and set a new direction, to the birds of men’s hearts, and hath obliterated every trace of restriction and limitation from God’s Holy Book.’” (Esselmont quoting Baha’u'llah, p. 161)

Regarding the non-pacifistic nature of the Baha’i Faith. The Baha’i writings allow for war in certain cases to bring about necessary peace. In the Baha’i writings peace isn’t an utter absence of violence, as such would be unrealistic due to the choices people make; it is associated with justice however:

“A conquest can be a praiseworthy thing, and there are times when war becomes the powerful basis of peace, and ruin the very means of reconstruction. If, for example, a high-minded sovereign marshals his troops to block the onset of the insurgent and the aggressor, or again, if he takes the field and distinguishes himself in a struggle to unify a divided state and people, if, in brief, he is waging war for a righteous purpose, then this seeming wrath is mercy itself, and this apparent tyranny the very substance of justice and this warfare the cornerstone of peace. Today , the task befitting great rulers is to establish universal peace, for in this lies the freedom of all peoples.” (Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization p. 71)

I think that Baha’is are allowed to defend their countrymen and their homes from unjust attack that is not purely religious persecution. What they are not allowed to do is to physically defend themselves against religious persecution and if necessary they are to accept martyrdom for their religious beliefs. For my part, I’m not clear on the Baha’i teachings regarding the line between legitimate defense of one’s family and home which is allowed in the Baha’i writings and letting oneself and family be martyred for his/her/their religious belief(s).

As response to the idea that Baha’is are not allowed to defend their homeland, I can say that there were Baha’is in the Iranian Army during the time of the Shah. I know of one Iranian Baha’i infantry general who suffered greatly in prison in Iran after the revolution until he managed to escape and make his way to the United States through Pakistan. His was a most fascinating story indeed.

JE comments: Among world religions that are categorically pacifistic, can’t we include the Quakers and Jehovah’s Witnesses? (During the US Civil War, logs that were painted black to give the enemy the impression of massive firepower were called “Quaker Guns.”) And how about JWs and patriotism? I understand that they are forbidden from patriotic formalities such as flag-saluting.

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Sacred Works and Propaganda Films (Tor Guimaraes, US)

Tor Guimaraes responds to John Heelan’s post of 14 February:

I watched the two films, as well as read some articles about Israeli agents having committed war crimes and a host of likely lawsuits about it. The Geert Wilders movie seemed more professionally made and scary. The Schism movie struck me as a half-hearted attempt to even the score. It did not even bother to show US atrocities in Vietnam, Iraq (including Abbu Ghraib), and Israeli atrocities against Palestinian civilians. Also I was debating if the Northern Ireland war would be a good example of Christian religious madness. To me both films fortify my notion that organized religion is increasingly becoming a great curse on humanity.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Sacred Works and Propaganda Films (John Heelan, UK)

John Heelan writes:

Istvan Simon (9 February) posted a clip links to a polemic film by acknowledged “Israeli activist,” Perre Rehov (a pseudonym–see my post dated 10 February 2009 ). WAISers might be interested to consider two other polemic propaganda films, one anti-Islam, the other pointing out just how easily an anti-Christianity film can be created.

Firstly, today a right-wing Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, has been refused entry to the UK as the Home Secretary regarded him as a threat to public order. Wilders had been invited by two members of the House of Lords to screen his polemic film Fitna that intersperses readings of the Qur’an with newsreel clips of horrific events. Wilders has apparently visited Israel some 40 times and has claimed close contacts with the Israeli Embassy in Holland and Mossad. The well-crafted 17 minute film can be viewed at

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3369102968312745410

(Warning: it contains horrific images!)

Secondly, the less well-crafted 6-minute video “Schism” by Saudi Raid-el-Saee, as a response to Fitna, intersperses biblical quotations with scenes of Western violence and indoctrination of Christian children. It can be viewed at http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A1f4cflpmpVJwYsANmBLBQx.?p=schism+film&y=Search&fr=ush-mailc&rd=r1

Both films demonstrate how cherry-picking passages from sacred work (Qur’an and Bible in these cases) can be used to justify violence against an enemy.

The saving grace of the second film is that is closes with the statement:

It is easy to take parts of any Holy Book that are out of content (sic) and make it sound like the most inhuman book written. This is what Geert Wilders did to gather more supporters to his hateful ideology.

So far I have not been able to detect a biography of el Saeed.)

Googling Fitna and Schism reveals a lot of background information.
JE comments: I’ve watched the first few minutes both films (I believe that’s sufficient), and what is remarkable is that they are basically the same exercise: the interweaving of blood-and-guts sacred passages with gruesome news footage. My thanks to John Heelan for bringing this troubling episode of “interfaith non-dialogue” to our attention.

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re: Religion: on Original Sin; “Shame” vs. “Guilt” Cultures (Steve Torok, Thailand)

Steve Torok replies to Alain de Benoist’s post of 9 February:

Greek tragedies are not really examples of a shame culture to me, although the chorus chanting evokes the group, just as in Japanese “Noh” dramas. Would Shakespeare, then, be also based on shame culture in his tragedies? Definitely not, but then Kabuki plays and Kurosawa’s movies ( Ikiru , 7 Samurai , Rashomon ) all go beyond shame culture for me to an existentialist reality where more things exist under the Sun then just group consensus.

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Hinduism (Nicholas Ruiz III, US)

On Hinduism, Nicholas Ruiz III writes:

It should not be left unsaid that the cow has been an instrumental part of Hindu culture based upon its use value for their agricultural economy over the millennia. Arguably, it is for this reason, more than any other ancillary mythology associated with it, that the cow is considered sacred in that culture. Killing it would make no sense from the longstanding rural perspective in India. Such an animal is too valuable in the long-term sense of agricultural sustainability and the bio-products it produces, to slaughter and eat for short-term gain.

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Hinduism (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Massoud Malek (10 February ) wrote: “ Mahabharata is mainly the story of Kurukshetra War which could have happened in 10th century BC or so. In this war, two brothers and their children fought for political power. The struggle lasted eighteen days, during which vast armies from all over ancient India fought alongside the two rivals.”

It has been shown by several historians of religions, among them Georges Dumézil, that the Kurukshetra War is the (quite elaborated and epic) Indo-Aryan version of the more general Indo-European theme of the War of Foundation (Foundational War). It is the Indo-Aryan equivalent of the war between the Asen and the Vanen in the Germanic Religion, which was “historicized” in ancient Rome as the war of the Proto-Romans and the Proto-Sabins. It is possible that the story of the Trojan War, in the Greek field, also retains some memories of this theme.

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Hinduism (Massoud Malek, US; ex-Iran)

Massoud Malek responds to Vincent Littrell’s post of 9 February:

At some point we should stop the use of the word “monolithic” in our posts. We should also stop preaching a faith that forbids its followers to be patriots or never defend their homelands. I respectfully ask Vincent Littrell, who I believe is a great patriot and very versed in the subject of faith, to stop labeling my intellect.

In 2002, I took a night train in Rajasthan, India. In my compartment, there was a medical student who was quite versed on different subjects. After talking about almost everything, we ended up with Hinduism. At some point of our discussion, I asked him why do non-vegetarian Hindus eat fish, goat, sheep, and chicken, but not beef? His face became red and shouted at me; after begging his forgiveness, I heard from him that there are three million gods in a cow! Here is a concrete example of abstraction.

Mahabharata is mainly the story of Kurukshetra War which could have happened in 10th century BC or so. In this war, two brothers and their children fought for political power. The struggle lasted eighteen days, during which vast armies from all over ancient India fought alongside the two rivals. Despite lasting eighteen days, it spans centuries of generations of the warring families. Mahabharata is an epic of grand proportions, with about 75,000 verses and almost 2 million words in total; it is the longest epic ever written in human history. Mahabharata is rich in imagination and human wisdom, and it teaches us many moral and spiritual lessons. To be able to read the book and understand it, you have to be a Hindu Brahman priest.

Unlike other major religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, Hinduism was not founded on the teachings of one person. It developed gradually over thousands of years. Many sects arose within Hinduism, and each developed its own philosophy and form of worship. Hinduism has many sacred books divided into Shruti (revealed or heard), and Smriti (remembered) texts. Most Hindus believe in the authority of the Veda. When a mosaic of ideas become one, then for a non initiate, many teachings and concepts become abstract and blurry.

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re: Religion: Opiate of the Masses… (Cameron Sawyer, Russia)

Cameron Sawyer responds to Tor Guimaraes’s post of 9 February:

Small correction: It was Marx, not Lenin, who said “Die Religion . . . is das Opium des Volkes”–religion is the opiate of the people or opiate of the masses. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people , where, interestingly, it is shown that the phrase is foreshadowed in the Marquis de Sade’s Juliette .

De Sade, from whose name the word “sadism” is derived, is thought of today mostly as a pornographer. In fact, he was an extremely important, interesting and original, if rather twisted philosopher; I’ll bet Alain can comment.

JE comments, anachronistically: If you’re born with a name like Sade, it’s hard not to be a sadist…

Thank you for the correction, Cameron. I shouldn’t have let that one get by me.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Steve Torok (8 February ) is quite right to evoke the classical distinction between “guilt cultures” and “shame cultures” à propos Original Sin. The Judeo-Christian notion of “sin” is clearly typical of guilt cultures. But I think Steve is wrong when he sees in ancient Greece an example of guilt culture. Classical Greece, like all ancient (pre-Christian) European cultures, was a shame culture. Honour, not dignity, was the basis of its ethics. This is exemplified in Greek tragedy (it’s only in Sartre’s play that Orestes has remorse in the guilt meaning of the word).

–

For information about the World Association of International Studies
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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Hinduism (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell responds to Massoud Malek’s post of 8 February:

Mr. Malek condenses thousands of years of Hindu history into the following sentence, “Hinduism is just an abstraction.” His astoundingly monolithic statement regarding the complex collection/mosaic of numerous religious traditions as, “Hindus believe that life is just a dream and anything could happen” is not even close to representative of the massively rich and deeply concrete unity of religions that Hinduism is.

Interestingly, I spent this Sunday morning at a most illuminating presentation on Hinduism.

If we look at Hindu thought, in a variety of ways its concrete (as opposed to purely abstract) influences can be seen not only in the vast number of traditions that make up Hinduism itself and the variety of systems of Hindu philosophy, but are to be found in Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and even Sufism in Islam (and I’ve been told anecdotally even forms of Christianity as well). “The Indian philosophical tradition is man’s oldest as well as the longest continuous development of speculation about the nature of reality and man’s place therein. It began with the ancient Vedas, which are probably the earliest documents of the human mind that have come down to us, and has continued age after age in progressive philosophical advance in the effort to understand life and reality” ( A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy , edited by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore). Radhkrishnan and Moore go onto say:

“Philosophically, the study of Indian philosophy is important in the search for truth. Philosophy must include all insights and all experiences in its purview, and Indian philosophy has much to contribute. The major problems of Indian philosophy are the problems faced by thinking man ever since he first began to speculate about life and reality, but Indian philosophy also has special problems, different emphases, unique approaches and methods, and unique solutions–all of which are India’s contributions to the total picture of the truth which is the substance of philosophy. The need of philosophy today is for a world perspective which will include the philosophical insights of all the world’s great traditions. The goal is not a single philosophy which would annihilate differences of perspective, but there must be agreement on basic perspectives and ultimate values. Such a world philosophy should certainly incorporate the spiritual insights of the seers of ancient India and of the thinkers who have guided the many centuries of Indian philosophical speculation” (p. xxxi).

Though Hinduism as a study requires involved commitment and certainly has incredibly abstruse and abstract concepts (as do the all the world’s spiritual traditions), even cursory examination of this religion reveals systems of thought in ethics and moral teachings that defy the simple notion that “Hinduism is just an abstraction.” For example the works of what scholars term “the epic period” in the history of Indian thought such as the Ramayana , Bhagavad-Gita , The Mahabharata , The Laws of Manu (a strikingly concrete effort to provide legitimacy to traditional custom and social rules) and even a political treatise that reminds me in some respects of Machiavelli’s The Prince , titled Artha-sastra by one Kautilya. I have read the Bhagavad-Gita in its entirety and like much scripture/spiritual writing of other religions it is packed with both concrete instructions for moral upliftment and symbological/allegorical writing for the intuitive or spiritual intellect. It is also my contention that non-linearity of thought doesn’t equate necessarily to abstraction, as symbolism can have concrete meaning; meditation is seen by many as a way to come to understanding of symbolism that pulls the seemingly abstract to clarity in linear thought. Certainly there is a vast amount that is non-linear in Hindu writing.

On a personal note, one line that stands out to me in the Bhagavad-Gita is when Krishna says to Arjuna, “When a man puts away all the desires of his mind O Arjuna, and when his spirit is content in itself, then he is called stable in intelligence.” (verse 55 chapter 2). This resonates with me because all of the esoteric traditions I’ve studied say similar if not the exact same thing. The Bhagavad-Gita discussion in Chapter 2 of the characteristics of the perfect sage (verses 54-72) is well worth contemplation and in itself contradicts the notion that Hinduism is just an abstraction. Far from an abstraction, Hinduism has concretely guided the moral lives of billions in history.

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re: Religion: On Original Sin (Massoud Malek, US; ex-Iran)

Massoud Malek writes:

I tried to study both Hinduism and Christianity. I feel that Christianity is full of contradictions and Hinduism is just an abstraction.

Hindus believe that life is just a dream and anything could happen. When we dream, everything is real. Only by opening our eyes, do we realize that everything that happened to us was just a dream.

Should we consider all the Bible stories as kind of bedside stories that put us to sleep and give us dreams of a world with pure love?

Christianity teaches us that humanity’s original nature is good. Adam and Eve were created without sin; this condition is referred to as “original righteousness.” When they ate the forbidden fruit of an apple tree in the Garden of Eden, this gift was lost and since then, human beings are born into a condition of sinfulness. Hence a baby who dies without baptism goes directly to hell and share the same fiery place as Hitler, Jack the Ripper, and Saddam.

Jesus told us to love our neighbors the same way as we love ourselves, our children, and our parents. Should we love our enemies or hate them? It depends on the book that we are reading.

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” (Matthew 5:43)

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28)

Bless those who persecute you. (Romans 12:14)

Should I believe that Christians do not believe in self preservation and dignity? Were Jews wrong for not praying for or blessing Hitler?

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin and Self-Love (Ernie Hunt, US)

Ernie Hunt responds to Alain de Benoist’s post of 8 February:

Alain’s point is well taken, but I also believe that St Paul knew that aside from evil in history that it was also within himself when he said more or less (I am paraphrasing): “the good I wish to do I do not do, and the bad I don’t want to do I do, who will deliver me from this body of death, Jesus Christ!” He also wrote much about wrestling with the old Adam as well as law and grace. Indeed, it was his inner conflict which drew me into the church because I thought, as a student at Stanford, that if a saint had this much conflict over ethical decision maybe there was hope for me. I also remember a Rabbi who taught Old Testament at Stanford who said jovially, “If this be heresy make the best of it.” As an Anglican we do not have a set magisterium even while we have the historic creeds, the articles of religion, the prayer book and its catechism, and scripture. But I suppose I have been trying to make the best of heresy all my life.

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Steve Torok, Thailand)

Steve Torok responds to Ernie Hunt’s post of 7 February:

It would be interesting to analyse, in this context, the difference between “guilt cultures” and “shame cultures.” I claim “shame cultures” are liable to raise “spin artists” while guilt cultures are not! This might be too summary, but there is a very good discussion on this (in Hungarian) in Tavlatok , the magazine of the Hungarian Jesuits in the last 2008 issue.

Briefly, they argue that shame cultures, such as Ruth Benedict described in her “Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” are the culmination of “group think,” and individually considered remorse is only shame, based on fear of group displeasure. Guilt cultures, such as ancient Greece, have individual agonies based on feelings of guilt, even if some learn to live with it, such as Orestes walking away, followed by the flies, in Sartre’s play. Original sin is more compatible with guilt cultures, that is mitigated by sacrifice for others by Christ, as the way to forgiveness…and self-forgiveness. Otherwise we would be back to Greek tragedies, or beliefs of freedom from original sin, as some shame cultures managed to postulate (in Japan a Samurai’s soul is clean like his sword, and gets only stained by shame!).

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin and Self-Love (Alain de Benoist, France)

Ernie Hunt wrote on 7 February:

In my mind, human arrogance and playing God is what Original Sin concerns, not so much as a rigid doctrine planted on everyone but as a realization of our dual natures, which is that we are both good and bad. There is a potential Nazi in each of us as there is a potential “angel.”

Alain de Benoist responds:

This “existential proposition” is philosophically interesting, and personally I could subscribe to it. But it is heretical from the point of view of Christian theology, because it does not explain why the nature of man is “corrupted” nor how Evil was introduced in a world supposedly created by an infinitely good and infinitely powerful God (the classical Christian explanation being that Adam made bad use of his free will). In Catholic theology, a baby who dies without baptism goes directly to hell because he has inherited the state of Original Sin, though he did not do anything bad himself. This means that Original Sin is transmitted by generation, not by imitation (Council of Trent, decree of 17 June 1546 ). The doctrine of the double tendency, or “dual natures” (“There is a potential Nazi in each of us as there is a potential ‘angel’”), has been condemned by the Church Fathers, because it means that Evil is inside man as a result of his creation (of his created nature). It is precisely to refute this doctrine that the notion of Original Sin has been invented.

***************

In a separate message, Alain de Benoist replies to JE’s question of 7 February (see Steve Torok’s post from that date):

“How should we love ourselves?”, asked John Eipper (7 February ). A good answer was given by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who made a radical distinction between self-love (“amour de soi”), which represents the positive, instinctive human desire for self-preservation and is happy when our true needs are satisfied, and self-esteem or pride (“amour-propre”), which is artificial and is never satisfied because it lies upon an endless comparison with the others, thus constantly generating fear and jealousy ( Emile , 4). In Rousseau’s philosophy, society’s negative influence on men centers on its transformation of “amour de soi” into “amour-propre.”

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Ernie Hunt, US)

Ernie Hunt writes:

Alain de Benoist (7 February) is right about the addition to Matthew. That was the early church speaking, but regarding Original Sin I believe we all sin originally . As soon as we make our first cry as a baby we begin the struggle between self alone and a socialization for the sake of others. In my mind, human arrogance and playing God is what Original Sin concerns, not so much as a rigid doctrine planted on everyone but as a realization of our dual natures, which is that we are both good and bad. There is a potential Nazi in each of us as there is a potential “angel.”

My take on Original Sin could be illustrated by the difference between “sinners” and “spinners.” We are all sinners, in the sense that each of us in imperfect and in need. All of us have made mistakes regardless of our position in life, high or low. Hopefully sinners are honest about their needs and imperfections, and then ask for help and healing from God and from each other.

In contrast, “spin artists” work differently, if we use the popular use of the phrase by some in advertising or politics. “Spinners” never admit to flaws, but seek to twist the truth into something that is socially or politically acceptable.”Spinners” seek to shape reality to suit their own needs or to weave a yarn to make themselves seem innocent, or to appear to others as totally unaware of any indiscretion or possible crime. There are plenty of examples right now in our society. “Spinners” rarely acknowledge their own wrongdoing or that of someone close to them because they want everyone to think they are very busy doing good things all the time.

On the other hand, sinners confess and get going again. Sinners acknowledge in their hearts that they are responsible and in need of forgiveness. Sinners consequently remain close to God and to Jesus who “ate with tax gatherers and sinners.” Indeed, Jesus was no spin artist because he spoke the truth perhaps too often during his short life, and then later at his trial offered not excuses, even when accused falsely. So I believe in Original Sin but not dogmatically, but perhaps as more of an existential proposition.

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Steve Torok, Thailand)

Steve Torok responds to Richard Hancock’s post of 6 February:

In this context I have a question: how did the missionaries [in Chihuahua, Mexico, but I presume elsewhere as well--JE] love themselves? Did they make good wine, or perhaps Benedictine? Was their life all deprivation, or did they enjoy the climate and the company they kept? In the Pacific Islands you could argue they did…

Seriously, to take the Second Commandment seriously, we have to seriously study how to love ourselves constructively: is it all self-esteem? Is it all the pleasure of giving? Is it all suffering for others with a smile and “stiff upper lip”?

JE comments: Steve Torok raises an interesting point: how should we love ourselves? This is not just a theological question, although institutionalized religion has a great deal to say on the topic.

I don’t think much wine was made in Northern Mexico during the 16th-18th centuries, although there is some production today–in Baja California, primarily.

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Richard Hancock (6 February ) wrote of people who “willingly suffered incredible hardships, loneliness and total isolation to accomplish Jesus’s Great Commission: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.’”

Jesus would have been unable to say such words (Matt. 28:19), because in his time the dogma of the Holy Trinity had not yet been conceived. This is clearly a later interpolation, identified as such by modern religious criticism. All the end of Matthew Gospel was added later.

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Richard Hancock, US)

Alain Benoist asked [rhetorically, I presume!--JE] on 5 February , ” If I do not love myself, am I allowed to hate my neighbor?”

Richard Hancock responds:

I am not a psychologist, but I think that many if not most criminals have a lack of self-love (self esteem). If they had self-love, which provides a positive image of their selves, they would not commit the major crimes such as murder and rape. I think that all humans are subject to feelings of envy and avarice and have a propensity toward those sins. After all we, like other animals, are strongly motivated toward self-preservation, but of course we do more than provide ourselves with basic needs of shelter and “daily bread.” We need to follow the Greek idea of the “golden mean” in all things. Admittedly, “loving thy neighbor as thyself” is an extremely high standard which most of us don’t come anywhere near to achieving. Perhaps Mother Teresa was one who was able to do this. Even if we personally fall short of this goal, we can, at least, support those who are actively following the proposition of “loving thy neighbor as thyself.”

In my personal research in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, I have found a great example of loving your neighbors as yourself in the history of the missionaries who converted the Indians there. These men, from elite families in Europe, willingly suffered incredible hardships, loneliness and total isolation to accomplish Jesus’s Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Some of these men were martyred, others spent as many as fifty years alone among tribes of a Pagan culture where they enjoyed no contact with western civilization. Their bones now rest in the missions that they created.

It is easy for us to criticize them from our modern concepts. After all, they were products of a medieval world that believed in a living Satan and his witchcraft. Largely because of these missionaries, Latin Americans are Christians and speak Spanish and/or Portuguese. I will leave it to those of a more cynical view, who might wish to say that Latin America would have been better off without them.

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Ed Jajko, US)

Richard Hancock wrote on 4 February:

In his post of Feb . 3, Alain Benoist asked the question, “What is Original Sin?” A huge number of books have been written on this subject and I do not claim to be a specialist, but I will cite a description from The Sources of Christian Ethics by Servais Pinckaers, O.P., translated from French, published by the Catholic University Press in 1995. Father Pinckaers states that it was “the desire to become like Gods that tempted Adam and Eve in the Genesis account.” He explains this by saying that “the pristine ‘I,’ in an immediate and very hidden movement, turns into a ‘me’ which bespeaks interested self-love. This subtle twist isolates us from other people and at the same time incites us to affirm ourselves. Pride is born.” Pinckaers describes the “I” as the good natural love of self in constrast to the “me,” which is egoism.
Ed Jajko responds:

Me, myself, and I think that Fr. Pinckaers’s “definition” of original sin is more a poetic description of the good Dominican’s feelings about it than a true definition of what “original sin” means and is. A solid definition and explanation of original sin may be found at www.newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm , the article “Original Sin” from the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, a highly scholarly work. The basic definition in the article is:

Original Sin/Meaning

“Original sin may be taken to mean: (1) the sin that Adam committed; (2) a consequence of this first sin , the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam . From the earliest times the latter sense of the word was more common, as may be seen by St. Augustine’s statement: “the deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of original sin” (De nupt. et concup., II, xxvi, 43).”

The article is much longer than this, with the following sections:

I. Meaning
II. Principal Adversaries
III. Original Sin in Scripture
IV. Original Sin in Tradition
V. Original Sin in face of the Objections of Human Reason
VI. Nature of Original Sin
VII. How Voluntary

One thing that Fr. Pinckaers does not take up, at least in the very brief quotation given us by Richard Hancock ( “the desire to become like Gods that tempted Adam and Eve in the Genesis account”), is how it is that Adam and Eve, the first humans, created by God (”Elohim”), would have understood the serpent who told them that if they ate of the fruit of the tree, they would be like gods (”elohim”) knowing (”yod’e,” plural) good and evil. How could Adam and Eve, who had known only God, have had any conception of “gods”? An interesting question.

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Richard Hancock (4 February ) wrote: “In his post of Feb ruary 3, Alain de Benoist asked the question, ‘What is Original Sin?’”

No, my question was not “what is Original Sin?” I know perfectly what the Original Sin means in Catholic or Protestant theology. I know also that this thematic (which is not to be found in the Orthodox Churches, nor in Judaism or Islam) was expressed in its canonic form by St. Augustine, who based it on a (bad) reading of the Epistle to Romans (5:12) written by St. Paul, mainly to explain the presence of Evil in a world supposedly created by an infinitely good and powerful God.

My question was: what about Original Sin once it is acknowledged that the story of Adam and Eve is “somewhat metaphorical”?

Richard quotes Jesus’s commandment “to love your neighbor as yourself.” Question: if I do not love myself, am I allowed to hate my neighbor?

JE comments: I’ve never seen the question re-phrased that way before…

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Vatican Moves to the Right? (Ed Jajko, US)

On 27 January, John Heelan wrote:

The primary UK Roman Catholic newspaper reports today that the Pope has revoked the excommunication of bishops anointed by schismatic Archbishop Lefebvre, including the “notorious Holocaust denier, Msgr Williamson.” Given the current Holocaust memorials, the Vatican’s timing could not be more inappropriate.

The Lefebvre sect is ultra-traditionalist and fulminates against the pluralism of the Church that started with the Second Vatican Council, especially the rapprochement with Judaism.

Does the Vatican move provide more evidence of the political shift of the Church even further to the right, long predicted with the advent of the current Pope, as happened during the 1930s Depression? Is history repeating itself? Those mourning the Holocaust will no doubt recall Pope Pius XII.

http://thetablet.co.uk/latest-news.php
Ed Jajko responds:

Rather belatedly, the Vatican has taken notice of the problem created by the revocation of the excommunications of the bishops of the SSPX. The Catholic News Service, in an article dated 4 February , notes that Bishop Williamson will be required to recant his views. The four bishops, in any event, while no longer excommunicated, are in a sort of legal and ecclesiastical limbo, as is the Society and its followers. A relevant article, which I do not wish to copy to the list because of its explicit statements of copyright–and who knows what threats of temporal as well as legal punishments?– may be found at www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0900527;htm .

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: on Original Sin (Richard Hancock, US)

Richard Hancock writes:

In his post of Feb. 3, Alain Benoist asked the question, “What is Original Sin?” A huge number of books have been written on this subject and I do not claim to be a specialist, but I will cite a description from The Sources of Christian Ethics by Servais Pinckaers, O.P., translated from French, published by the Catholic University Press in 1995. Father Pinckaers states that it was ” the desire to become like Gods that tempted Adam and Eve in the Genesis account.” He explains this by saying that “the pristine ‘I,’ in an immediate and very hidden movement, turns into a ‘me’ which bespeaks interested self-love. This subtle twist isolates us from other people and at the same time incites us to affirm ourselves. Pride is born.” Pinckaers describes the “I” as the good natural love of self in constrast to the “me,” which is egoism.

C.S. Lewis says that pride is the mother of all sins in that it enables all the other sins. You only have to scan the daily papers to see this statement affirmed. What underlies the greed of the Wall St. financiers? Why did Sen. Daschle feel that he was above paying income taxes when he had advocated such taxes on the American public?

Jesus’s first commandment is “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.” The second is “to love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” In our church we read the above every Sunday, and I think that therein lies the value of attending church. We humans need continual support in keeping our lives focused on the “I” rather than the “Me.”

JE comments: I/me: an interesting distinction. In grammatical terms, “I” is the acting subject, while the object “me” has things done to it. Of course, there is the tonic pronoun “me,” equivalent to the French “moi.” “Me (moi)? I should find it most shameful to run out of Grey Poupon…” The theological, sinful “me” probably falls into this latter category.

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: What is a Religion? (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

I would like to thank warmly Vincent Littrell (3 February) for having the patience to read my essay, “What is a Religion?” Vincent wrote : “Despite the many excellences of Alain’s paper, and the fact that clearly Alain is a far more accomplished student of Western philosophy than I am, I have to conclude based off my once-through reading that Alain’s and my own views to religious reality are far apart if not in important respects on opposite poles.”

Yes, of course. That’s why the discussion can be of some interest. Opposite poles have always more to say to each other than people who share exactly the same views.

Vincent asked: “Does Alain think that eschatological expectation has no actual validity as a herald? I suspect he does think just that.” Vincent’s suspicion is quite well founded. I do not have more sympathy for eschatology, messianism, assertions of “divine revelation” or necessity of “salvation” than for any kind of universalism! But of course I respect those who have opposite opinions.

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: What is a Religion? (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell writes:

This is in response to Alain de Benoist’s paper “What is a Religion?” (posted on 1 February):

I have given Alain’s paper a once through reading. I feel lucky that I’m versed with a number of the concepts Alain presents in this complex essay; even then to get more of the multiple strands and layers locked into my brain, I feel sure several readings would be necessary. If I may be allowed, I tip my metaphorical hat to Monsieur de Benoist. His paper is educational, thought-provoking, a necessary read for those interested in grappling with the furiously complex issue that trying to define a religion is, insightful in regards to a number of issues related to the place of traditional religion in the West as well as Islamic fundamentalism, insightful in regards to the rise of sects in US and search for identity and meaning, insightful as to the decline of formal religion in Western Europe, and useful for its survey of the scientific literature associated with the psychology, sociology, and some scientists’ treatment with mysticism, the religious tendencies in humans, and religious phenomenology. Also the relationship reflected between polled scientists and their faith is rather interesting.

Alain’s comments on the evolutions of Christianity parallels material I’ve read that also talks about the plight of formal theology regarding the lack of unified thought amongst the many Christian theologians today . I’ve read material in which Christian theologians themselves want to throw their hands up in exasperation at the lack of direction their field seems to have in the face of perceptions of Western hedonism and the erosion of religious lines of authority and disputations amongst the theologians about their direction. Without question Alain makes many excellent points that are corroborated by a number of scholars and observers in the fields of comparative religious studies/theology, philosophy of religion, scholars of religious phenomenology and leaders of various religions as well (see some of Pope John Paul II’s encyclicals, for example). Yet, despite the many excellences of Alain’s paper, and the fact that clearly Alain is a far more accomplished student of Western philosophy than I am, I have to conclude based off my once through reading that Alain’s and my own views to religious reality are far apart if not in important respects on opposite poles. Something I suspected quite strongly already, a suspicion now powerfully re-enforced by this paper.

Alain asks, “Do we live in the age of the ‘death of God’ or the ‘return of religion’?” My thinking tends towards a slow, painful return to religion in an entirely unprecedented paradigm…which includes interfaith dialogue as a backdrop to global politics (I’m fully aware many powerful thinkers will not agree with this). Alain also states, “I personally tend to share Gauchet’s opinion that nothing allows us to foresee a ‘return of religion’ in the phenomena most commonly alleged today as heralding such a possibility.” (p. 47) He then goes onto say, “We already saw the confused and heterogeneous character of the ’spiritual need’ that is expressed nowadays.” (p. 47). Most certainly there are studies pointing to the increased sense of finding a spiritual path or increase in what some term “spiritual receptivity” as people in the West (especially the US, based from what I can tell) search alternate paths than those which traditional religions seem to offer. The breakdown of the old religious order, the erosion of traditional lines of authority, the search for meaning, all seem to corroborate past phenomena (or dare I say prophecy) that heralds the “return of religion.”** Does Alain think that eschatological expectation has no actual validity as a herald? I suspect he does think just that. If eschatology has validity as an aspect to divine revelation, then can rational thought grasp its entirety? Does The Book of Revelations in the Bible have eschatological validity? What about the traditions of Jafar as-Sadiq, Twelver Shi’ism’s sixth Imam, regarding future conditions that herald an expected prophetic return? (see Moojan Momen’s Introduction To Shi’a Islam ) My point for these questions is that I don’t think eschatology can be discounted, though rationalism cannot fully grasp it.

There are a number things that I don’t agree with in the paper, a couple of points I’ll mention here. One small point, Alain’s interpretation of William James I think to be incorrect. James did acknowledge religion as being more than personal, though his book Varieties of Religious Experience does focus on the personal. He acknowledges institutional religion as being one of two branches of religion, the personal and the institutional. It does appear that James did have his issues with institutional religion.

Alain states, “But monotheism itself is not one–so much so that it is no exaggeration to say, contrary to a somewhat naive ‘ecumenism,’ that Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not worship the same God. ” (p. 22). Alain’s comment most definitely is refuted in countless works I’ve read by Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Baha’i scholars. No offense to Alain, but this comment is not in concert with pretty much the entire large body of writing on the subject that I do read whether it be scholarly or actual religious scripture. Certainly aspects of Talmudic interpretation, Biblical (to include the Torah) interpretation, Qur’anic and Hadith interpretation and a large focus of Baha’i writings point to exactly the opposite of this. Based on my sense of Alain’s world view however, it seems possible Alain doesn’t much give credence to these religion’s foundational writings and associated hermeneutics that do point to “the golden chain of spirituality” and common spiritual roots of the world’s religions.

I don’t agree with Alain’s conclusions regarding Judaism specifically (if I’m reading him correctly). My readings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks alone as well as other Jewish writers, none-the-least being Martin Buber, point to a very different mode of thought regarding the nature of divine revelation and the fact that the Torah and Talmud allow for the notion that gentiles received divine guidance and blessing in history as well. I think the books of Isaiah are interpreted as pointing to this. Thus when Alain comments, “In line with Moses Mendelssohn’s [the great Jewish 'Socrates' and father of what some term 'the Jewish Enlightenment' or 'Haskalah' whose philosophy, as I understand it, may run counter to Hasidic, Kabbalistic and other mystical strands of Judaism—VL] ‘Judaism does not know revealed religion,’ philosopher J. M. Salanskis could assert that there is no ‘Jewish religion.’ Judaism, according to him, is not based on belief in God, but on the ceaseless reinterpretation of a foundational text. The core of ‘Jewish life’ is not God, but the Torah.” One can certainly point to prominent Jewish strands of thought that counter this. Granted Jewish thought, like in Christianity and Islam, is definitely not unified. But spirituality and recognition of divine guidance in other religions is a reality amongst Jewish thinkers to be sure.
Bottom Line: Alain’s paper is a worthwhile read. I thank him for letting us WAISers read it. But I don’t agree with what I interpret to be his general conclusions about a return of religion not occuring. I think religious return as being a centrality to future global civilization; though I do think it may be a lengthy and painful process to get there. God is not dead!

**I don’t agree the multiplicity of sects seen in those searching for something new can be monolithically labeled as a search for identity. Generally thinking, I think the motives of the many who are searching for spiritual meaning and alternate spiritual paths may have to do with much more than search for identity and it is directly linked to the ultimately spiritual nature of the human condition (I hope I’m not oversimplifying Alain’s point).

–

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John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Apologia for Baha’i III (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Vincent Littrell (2 February ) wrote: “My opinion is that polemic in this Forum against a world religion should be defended [...] It doesn’t matter the religion under attack [...] In my opinion, intellectuals who attack religion in this Forum [...] contribute to persecution of religionists.”

I strongly disagree. WAIS is a forum devoted to confront different (and sometimes conflictual) opinions on every subject. It is not a forum for believers only, where atheists, for example, would have to refrain from expressing their views. One is entitled to think that a religion, whatever it is, is good or bad, true or false. Not only one has the right to say what he thinks about it, but one must do it. Respect for the persons is one thing, respect for ideologies, religious or not, are another one. Respecting all ideologies, all religions, all systems of thought as if they were all of (the same) value, would not be neutrality, but stupidity.

I can have much respect for Baha’i people, while considering that Baha’i doctrine is completely wacko. To say that to “attack religion in this Forum… contributes to persecution of religionists,” is just a process of intimidation. Would such a principle be accepted and generalized, it would be impossible to criticize anything. Are people attacking communism (or Nazism, or anything else) because they think Marxist doctrine is false, contributing to persecution of communists in the countries where they can be persecuted? Come on, please!

Footnote: Vincent says that polemic “against a world religion” should be defended. Does he mean that polemic against other religions (those which are not “world religions”) should be permitted? What is the basis for such a discrimination?

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re: Religion: Apologia for Baha’i III (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell writes:

On 1 February Alain de Benoist wrote, “discussions about religion with somebody who does not state what religion he practices can only feed erroneous conclusions.” I disagree with Alain on this point. I’ve had many useful discussions on various religious beliefs and phenomenological aspects of religion without anyone in the discussion knowing what the other persons in the discussion practiced in terms of faith and religion. It is not always necessary to know a discussant’s religion, though conversely it might be at times depending on the atmosphere and context of the discussion. However for my purposes in this Forum, which seem to be geared more toward apologia of obviously the Baha’i Faith as well as Islam and other religions, it is not yet necessary for me to share my faith.

I have engaged in apologia in this Forum. It is not always necessary for an apologist to know what religion a polemicist practices My opinion is that polemic in this Forum against a world religion should be defended. In my opinion as even the hint of racism is an embarrassment and not acceptable, the intentional misinformational polemicist should be viewed in the same light as unacceptable; it doesn’t matter the religion under attack. Of course care has to be taken in determining difference between deliberate misinformational polemic, unintentional misinformation, and varying levels of publicly displayed ignorance regarding a religion. Intentional misinformational polemic that is geared towards making a world religion look foolish or getting people to believe outright lies about it through use of that religion’s scripture out of context and other means should be counter-acted in this Forum. The reason why I am so strong on this point is because I believe real efforts at world peace cannot be achieved until religionists and atheists/secular humanists recognize that misinformational polemic and attack on religion contributes to hostility, violence and persecution, even in this Forum.

In my opinion, intellectuals who attack religion in this Forum that is read quite possibly all over the world, contribute to persecution of religionists. This interconnected world we live in cannot afford the misinformational polemicist anymore. That is a key reason why I defend both the Baha’is and Muslims to my utmost in this Forum. Intentional misinformational attacks against these religions in my opinion possibly contribute to persecution of Baha’is and continuing Islamophobia. The anti-Baha’ism in this Forum has many similarities and exact samenesses as the justifications used by the government of Iran to continue its persecution of the Baha’is. I’ve already noticed over my years in WAIS that even this Forum gets widely quoted in other blogs around the world. I found one of my blogs on interfaith dialogue copied into the Portuguese website titled Instituto da Democracia Portuguesa. Now, I’ll repeat again, the dialoguer who takes issue with a religion’s practice that is a verifiable practice enshrined in doctrine or tradition is a different matter. Also, formal religious practice that infringes on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is another issue that has to be carefully looked into and worked against.

I don’t think knowledge of one’s religious practice is absolutely necessary in discussions where the discussants have interests in the commonalities between faiths that are stronger than their particularisms. Further, once polemic/apologia transitions to real dialogue and sharing…then knowing a discussant’s religion becomes more useful. Development of mutual understanding of particularism has an important place in various settings of interfaith dialogue. Alas, WAIS is not yet a Forum for real interfaith dialogue. Though there may be members interested in such, it is still a place where polemic resides and, in my opinion, should be countered with apologetic. Until convinced otherwise, I don’t feel it necessary to share my actual religion in this Forum, for that is a private sharing for those who care about real dialogue. It seems a certain percentage of my effort in this Forum is towards countering unacceptable and corrosive misinformational polemic; at this point in time stating my personal faith in this public Forum seems a tactical error.

JE comments: Vincent Littrell brings up a point that some WAISers, content with our insular e-world, may overlook: we are quoted at length in the most unexpected places. Because my name is at the bottom of every post, sometimes I am cited as the source of everything that goes on in our discussions. My favorite moment was when “John Eipper da Universidade Stanford” was cited as an expert on Brazilian beer–the original post was actually from our friend Joe Listo, who, if I recall correctly, doesn’t even drink beer! Sometimes, as when I found an on-line tirade against JE personally for a perceived insult of Islam–WAISers know that nothing of the sort has ever flowed from my keyboard–such sloppy attribution can be troubling.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Apologia for Baha’i III (Mike Bonnie, US)

John Heelan wrote on 31 January:

Perhaps Vincent should also distinguish between “faith” and “religion.” The former is transcendental and inexplicable rationally: the latter is the grouping together of parts of a “faith” (emphasising some element, ignoring other elements, creating new interpretations of elements to justify contemporary secular actions) and establishing rules and rubrics for practising that flavour of the “faith.”

Mike Bonnie replies:

I wouldn’t make the distinction so complex. As was so eloquently described recently (by perhaps, JE?) “the difference between a language and a dialect is, a language has an army and a navy.” I see the difference between “faith” and “religion” as, a religion has a device and a congregation.

JE comments: I would go one more, that the difference between a “cult” and a “religion” is that the latter has institutional power backing it up. (The passing of time also plays a role–at least several decades.) I wish the “army and navy” quote were mine, but it goes back to the Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich, who first drew this distinction in a lecture during the 1940s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Apologia for Baha’i III (John Heelan, UK)

Vincent Littrell wrote on 1 February :

If I’m reading John Heelan correctly, he in several posts differentiates quite clearly between faith and religion. Though I very much respect John’s opinion on this, I cannot yet say I agree. As I do accept divine revelation, and I do accept the notion that there is a divine law that is inextricably interlinked with institutions on earth, there is a linkage between the spirit, faith, and the institution.

John Heelan responds:

Vincent does read me correctly when I differentiate between faith and religion. The problem is this, as I see it, “divine revelation,” itself, is a matter of faith and allegedly comprises “divine inspiration” to writers of sacred works, “illustrations” that God might bestow on the faithful to bring home a truth of religion obscurely grasped and “divine assistance” such as papal infallibility (see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13001a.htm ).

Each identification of “divine revelation” is in the hands of those managing the “religion.” They decide that some sacred works (Bible, Pentateuch, Qur’an etc) are “inspired” and not others. They decide that certain events–e.g. miracles–are “divine illustrations.” They decide that God gives popes “divine assistance” on matters of dogma.

Given the faith common to all three monotheistic religions that God is omnipotent and cannot be wrong, why do “divine revelations” in their various sacred works contradict each other, not only between those religions but also within segments of those religions–e.g. Christ’s divinity, transubstantiation, virgin birth, papal infallibility, the Succession of the Messenger of Allah , that Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb and Bahá’u'lláh are (or are not) co-equals?

The “managers” of each monotheistic “religion” will interpret its specific sacred works, notionally providing “divine revelation” for the latest interpretations needed to counter some contemporary threat (often secular) to the “religion.” Thus we have the “divinely revealed” interpretations justifying schisms such as various heresies (e.g. Nicene Creed versus Arianism) the Roman Catholic/Protestant schism, the Sunni/Shi’a schism, fundamentalist Islam/Baha’i schism, Judaism/Christianity schism and the impending Anglican Communion schism over homosexuality.

We see a fusion between the “Commandments of the Church”–i.e. Canon Law–and God’s Commandments. Until Vatican II eating meat on Fridays was a “grievous si n” for Catholics. But even matters of sin appear negotiable in different countries (”Diversity in customs, in climate, and in prices of food have gradually paved the way for modifications of the law of abstinence.” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01067a.htm ] Modifying “divine revelation”?

How can the concept of “Divine Revelation” encompass the inconsistencies in the way it is applied within and between the different religions, other than by each “religion” claiming for their own reasons that their particular Divine Revelation is the only true one? If the Supreme Being is unique then God, Allah and YHWH are the same person and his/her/its divine revelations should be consistent. Or is it that the interpretations by the managers of religions provide the inconsistencies for solipsistic reasons?

Monotheistic “faiths” believe in the concept “Divine Revelation,” but “religions” manipulate that faith by interpretation and application, often for contemporary secular reasons.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Apologia for Baha’i III (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist writes:

Vincent Littrell (1 February ) wrote: “I will not explicitly state in this Forum what religion I practice. What one’s religion is shouldn’t matter.” Vincent is of course perfectly free to do so. But discussions about religion with somebody who does not state what religion he practices can only feed erroneous conclusions, not to say involuntary processes of intent.

Vincent wrote also: “Can it be said there is a divinely originated spirit that threads its way into the decision making of the Vatican? Concurrent to that can it be said there is a divinely originated spirit that winds its way through a Protestant institution? Or Islamic institution? Baha’i? These are questions that fascinate me.”

Questions without any possible answer are always fascinating. But a problem without any solution is not a problem any more.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

re: Religion: Apologia for Baha’i III (Vincent Littrell, US)

Vincent Littrell responds to Alain de Benoist’s and John Heelan’s posts of 31 January:

Regarding Alain’s question as to whether I’m a Baha’i, I will not explicitly state in this Forum what religion I practice. What one’s religion is shouldn’t matter in this Forum.

John Heelan has written a most thoughtful post and it continues what I take to be our intermittent dialogue on how exactly religion is to be defined. John states, “Perhaps Vincent should also distinguish between ‘faith’ and ‘religion.’ The former is transcendental and inexplicable rationally [not sure I’m completely in concert with this—VL]; the latter is the grouping together of parts of a ‘faith’ (emphasising some element, ignoring other elements, creating new interpretations of elements to justify contemporary secular actions) and establishing rules and rubrics for practising that flavour of the ‘faith.’” [when cross-cutting across all institutional religion in history, I’m thinking the last may be too monolithic—VL]

If I’m reading John correctly, he in several posts differentiates quite clearly between faith and religion. Though I very much respect John’s opinion on this, I cannot yet say I agree. As I do accept divine revelation, and I do accept the notion that there is a divine law that is inextricably interlinked with institutions on earth, there is a linkage between the spirit, faith, and the institution. (Question for thought: is it possible for divine revelation to decree institutional inspiration or even infallibility?) It seems to me then that religion under the “divine unity” is an all-encompassing reality that embraces the branch of religious pheonomenology (or one’s personal experience/inner disposition in regards “ultimate reality” or the divine) and institutional religion. In other words, personal religion or faith and institutional religion are parts of a whole. Granted there are those who have deep personal faith who don’t adhere to a specific religion. Without rancor or hostility, and with respect to one’s right to hold that position, I’m not in agreement necessarily with that position because I believe that obedience to the divine law is a necessary aspect of faith. But that is a personal view. William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience does differentiate between the two branches of religion, the personal and the institutional. But, he does put them under the rubric of religion in general.

This gets into why I think the Petrine/Pauline conflict in early Christianity is so interesting. A question I’m trying to research for myself is whether the route by which Trinitarian Christendom developed law was what Christ Himself actually intended and what have been the ramifications of the juristic development? These are big questions to be sure.

We’ve discussed before the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church. Can it be said there is a divinely originated spirit that threads its way into the decision making of the Vatican? Concurrent to that can it be said there is a divinely originated spirit that winds its way through a Protestant institution? Or Islamic institution? Baha’i? These are questions that fascinate me. In the arena of personal phenomenology I’m convinced that whether one is Muslim, Buddhist, Baha’i, Zoroastrian etc., one can tap into the “divine unity” or “ultimate reality” for spiritual sustenance. Where the institution fits into one’s spiritual sustenance is an important question and one I do have an opinion on. How to be universal with respect to the reality of particularist institutionalism in religion is a challenge to be sure and one that requires great delicacy in the maneuver.

Other questions for thought: does historicity in human evolution impact revelational effect on institutions in religion? In other words, can one’s personal religion bring divine blessing despite belief in an abrogated institution? This gets into the issue of abrogation of past divine law due to the arrival of new revelation. This of course ties into eschatological expectation, religious relativity as a factor in human social evolution…one can go on and on.

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

Religion: What is a Religion? (Alain de Benoist, France)

Alain de Benoist sends his essay, “What is a Religion?” It is an attached file.

What is a Religion? An Essay by Alain de Benoist

This is the longest piece from Alain we’ve seen on WAIS to date, and far from lost time (see Alain’s self-effacing quip, below…), it’s well worth investing an hour or so of deep thinking. Alain adds this comment:

Religious affairs being frequently discussed on WAIS, I take the liberty to forward this piece of mine (in English), which is a tentative answer to the basic question: what is a religion? It could be of interest for WAISers who have patience, or some time to lose.

JE comments: Not a waste of time at all, Cher Alain! In fact, I’m going to assign this essay as required reading for the month of February, as it goes to the heart of the WAIS mission, “A political, economic and religious Forum…” (Truly P.E.R.-fect!) Alain’s five sections show the breadth of his erudition and scholarly prowess. He provides an overview of the biological and psychological underpinnings of religious belief, and an interesting discussion of the phenomena of secularization and the individualization of religious experience. He discusses the religiosity of the US, the ever-increasing a-religiosity of Western Europe, and the rise of fundamentalism in the Islamic world. In the best tradition of French philosophy, Alain leaves his essay open-ended. WAISers will find much to think about here. I look forward to responses and comments.

To get the discussion started, here is Alain’s tentative answer to what a religion is:

“I will say, with much prudence, that a religion is a form of human association founded on a set of beliefs and practices, symbols and values, related to the distinction between the visible and the invisible, the empirical and the super-empirical, the profane and the sacred, and, at the same time, a socially established worship which structures individual and collective existence by placing it in a universe of meaning, in a symbolic universe governed by an intangible reality.”

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For information about the World Association of International Studies
(WAIS), and its online publication, the World Affairs Report, read its
homepage by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu/

John Eipper, Editor-in-Chief, Adrian College, MI 49221 USA

WHAT IS RELIGION?

Alain de Benoist

Do we live in the age of the “death of God” or the “return of religion”? Religious beliefs seem to be crumbling, but we keep hearing about the resurgence of “fundamentalism.” In fact, in Western Europe at least, there is more talk than ever about religion now that it had lost its grip on so many minds. These two facts are obviously not contradictory, since it is probably the relative decline of religious life that creates the mental distance necessary to study it. By venturing down this path in my turn, my intention is not to pronounce on the intrinsic truth of this or that religious belief, but on the meaning and status of religious life itself. In other words: what is one really talking about, when one talks about religion?

Let us admit from the beginning that this approach encounters grave difficulties. In extreme cases, making belief an object of study can seem unbearable to a believer, who is inclined by nature to withdraw everything concerning faith from discussion. Asking about the origin of religion would then amount to adopting an irreligious attitude from the beginning. Here lies a fundamental dilemma. Can one understand a belief without leaving it behind? Isn’t speaking about a religion without believing it oneself condemned from the beginning to being beside the point? But conversely, if one believes in a religion, what guarantee does one have of speaking about it objectively?

Another difficulty is that speaking about “religious life” or the “religious realm” very quickly falls into anachronism. To isolate religion as a specific realm of social existence—a typically modern approach—contradicts the fact that, in ancient or traditional societies, religion is precisely not a realm separate from the others, but a dimension that cuts across and informs all domains of collective life. Besides, it should it be recalled that the majority of old languages do not have any specific term for what today we call “religion.” As Emile Benveniste writes, “The Indo-Europeans conceived of religion as an omnipresent reality, not a separate institution, thus they did not have a word for it.” And in many cultures today, the distinction between what is and is not religious remains very problematic. In Hinduism, for example, the idea of religion is expressed by the word dharma, which refers at the same time to the guiding foundation of both cosmos and society, and to life in accordance with it.

A religion, finally, is not only a belief, thus it is dangerous to separate religion as social or institutional fact from simple faith, or even “religious feeling” in Benjamin Constant’s sense of the term. Such separation is, however, very widespread today. Marcel Gauchet is not wrong to see this as, “the very model of modern ethnocentric prejudice defining the truth of the phenomenon based on subjective or personal feeling. It is the modern individualistic vision of religion projected on the past.” Finally, matters are further complicated because religiosity is very unequally distributed among human beings, it can take quite varied forms, and the same religious practice can be lived very differently, even represent different things to those who invoke it.

ONE

Inquiring minds have to date counted more than eighty different definitions of religion, half of which come after the end of the eighteenth century. Obviously I cannot examine them all here. But I will observe that explanations of the existence of religion are mainly of three types: psychological, sociological, and biological.

Psychological Explanations

Psychological theories, for example, explain religion through man’s desire to understand and control natural phenomena. Religion, by giving a supernatural explanation of such phenomena, gives man a sense of greater control over his environment, reducing his fear or anxiety. Relieving anguish, religion provides hope or certainty that can compensate for the risks and misfortunes of life, or help one bear them; it renders the idea of death less unbearable; in short, it brings both comfort and consolation. But it does so at the price of an alienation of the spirit, one of the first accounts of which comes from Ludwig Feuerbach. Characterizing religion as both a veil of ignorance and a “dream of the human spirit,” Feuerbach asserted, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that God is only an idealized man, apprehended in an illusory manner in an objective form. Religious alienation is man’s attribution of his own essence to something else.

For Marx, religious belief is also an alienation of the human spirit. Certainly it gives meaning to existence, but by giving men a “false consciousness” of reality. The religious world is a “reflection of the real world,” but it is a deformed reflection—which makes it possible to describe religion as an ideology. Marx’s argument is not about ordinary materialism or atheism strictly speaking. He does not, moreover, raise the question of God. “Religious misery,” he writes, “is on the one hand an expression of real misery and on the other hand a protest against real misery.” “Religious misery” is due to the fact that in religion man strips away his own qualities and attributes them to God, and is himself convinced that his sufferings are in a certain manner justified. In this way, religion is the “opium of the people”: it facilitates the oppression of the dominated class by making it accept the fate imposed upon it by the dominant class; it disarms rebellious inclinations by giving man the assurance of an imaginary happiness, in fact of a consolation in the beyond. But at the same time, religion also expresses a protest and testifies to an aspiration toward a better world. It is thus fundamentally ambivalent. Hence this other formula of Marx: “The abolition of religion as an illusory happiness of the people is necessary to formulate its real happiness.”

Freud interprets religion as both the disguised expression of uncontrolled desires that are projected as illusions, i.e., as a repressed hallucination, and as a model of “absolute infantile dependence” upon a Father in relation to whom humanity has not yet grown up, i.e., as a form of narcissistic regression of adults towards the emotions of childhood. Before the trials of life, man appeals to an ideal paternal figure who is supposed to give him protection and support. Religion, Freud writes in Civilization and its Discontents, is a “collective obsessional neurosis” universally widespread, an illusion born of the necessity in primitive society for moderating certain aggressive and destructive aspects of human nature. The expression of an interior conflict between our conscious aspirations and our unconscious desires, religion is defined above all as a source of guilt and anguish.

For Nietzsche too, religion is born “from fear and need,” which make it impossible to think it contains the smallest truth. Nietzsche’s approach is both psychological and genealogical: psychological insofar as it wishes to make psychology the queen of sciences, “for which the other sciences have the function of serving and preparing,” and genealogical in the sense that, for him, bringing to light the origin of a religious belief is equivalent to its refutation. As everyone knows, for Nietzsche, it is Christianity above all that is targeted as a religion whose morals are directly antagonistic to the values of life. Nietzsche judges the Christian religion as pathogenic: it causes a “degeneration” of humanity by leading it to devalue all that concerns “life” on behalf of an imaginary netherworld.

Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche all assert that religion has to disappear. To hasten the end of religious beliefs, Freud once even called for a “dictatorship of reason,” by means of which psychoanalysis would allow man to regain control of his unconscious and finally grow up. The communist revolution, according to Marx, will provide man the possibility of reappropriating his own characteristics and thus destroy the social need for divine compensation for “real distress.” For Nietzsche, finally, a humanity freed from the illusions of the netherworld will discover that the suprasensible world is without efficient power, that it “does not grant any life.” Thus we are dealing here with a fundamentally hostile attitude toward religion.

Other psychologists, on the contrary, stressed the psychological aid religion can give individuals. William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, a book that has remained famous since its publication in 1902, makes religion a source of personal well-being, which remedies morbid inclinations and psychological distress. James defines religion above all as a personal experience, which explains why he is interested mainly in the burning and spontaneous enthusiasm of converts. He asserts that religion favors mutual aid and psychological and social support, confers moral comfort, gives meaning to life, offers emotional experiences that can be a source of pleasure and self-esteem, etc.

More recently, the alleviating virtues of religious belief have also been scientifically recognized and studied. One can demonstrate, for example, that prayer, which is without any efficacy on its object, nevertheless sooths the mind, lowers the blood pressure and heart rate, reduces the level of adrenaline, improves the immune system, etc. If one believes a study published in May of 2000 by Michael McCullough and William Hoyt, believers even enjoy a slightly greater longevity than nonbelievers.

For other researchers, religion has a psychologically positive role because it gives meaning to existence. It answers ultimate questions, thus justifying our presence in the world. This distinction between religion as aspect of mental well-being and as answer to the quest for meaning duplicates that drawn by G. W. Allport in 1950 between the “extrinsic” and “intrinsic” value of religion. It is a purely instrumental and utilitarian approach to religion.

In recent years, scientific psychology has taken an interest in religious phenomena. To this end, the most commonly used techniques are measuring cerebral activity by magnetic resonance and studying the effect of certain substances on the brain. One can place in this category all work resulting from progress in the neurosciences, in particular those carried out beginning in the 1990s by Jeffrey L. Saver and John Rabin, which made it possible to determine the cerebral areas most receptive to religious mental activity.

Thus certain researchers, such as anthropologist Alan Fiske, liken mystical transport to temporal lobe epilepsy (for epileptics are often very religious), or even interpret religious ritual as a form benign, but systematized automatic or repetitive behaviors characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The latter is merely represents a pathological “superamplification” of the former. In both cases, failure creates a feeling of guilt or anxiety.

Other specialists, like Eugene D’Aquili and Andrew Newberg, the inventors of the concept of “neurotheology,” after having measured the cerebral activity of great meditators—Tibetan Buddhists or Franciscan nuns in prayer—have identified the neuronal bases of mystical transport in our posterior and superior parietal lobes left and right. The “oceanic” feeling of fusion with the world frequently reported by mystics corresponds to a specific state of the brain, characterized by a drop in the activity of the area of the parietal neocortex responsible for spatial orientation. In a famous experiment in cerebral imaging carried out in 2001 by Andrew Newberg, of the nuclear medicine clinic of the University of Pennsylvania, the deeper the meditation, the more the zone of the superior parietal cortex situated in the rear part of the upper cranium is deactivated. Visionary mysticism (Theresa of Avila, Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, etc.) has also been the subject of many psychiatric studies. Trances, altered states of consciousness, and the like have also being studied in the same way.

Other psychological studies concern the distribution of religiosity. It is known, for example, that in all times and places, women believe and practice religion more than men, a difference that remains unchanged in societies where women work. Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain this phenomenon. One can also demonstrate that neurotic personalities (more numerous among women than men) are also drawn to religiosity, contrary to psychotic personalities (more numerous among men than women).

A Swedish research team has highlighted the role of certain chemical receptors, called 5HT1A. Situated in a category of neurons known as “serotoninergic,” these receptors lower the quantity of serotonin released in the brain. The lower the level of these receptors, the higher the serotonin level, and thus the greater the propensity to religiosity. The most religious individuals would thus have a higher serotonin level in the brain.  

Twin studies, finally, have also confirmed the strong heritability of the religious temperament.

These explanations of a psychological nature are certainly not without interest, but remain nevertheless not very satisfactory. First of all, as one can see, their conclusions are rather contradictory. Undoubtedly religion can in certain cases alleviate anguish or relieve anxiety, but it can just as easily strengthen them, in particular by maintaining a feeling of guilt. The religious universe can also prove terrifying, as witnessed by the title—Fear and Trembling—of a book in which Soren Kierkegaard tried to define the true content of Christian revelation. Moreover, one can show that the correlation between mysticism and happiness is actually negative. As for those who find serenity of soul in the religious life, perhaps they already have a natural predisposition to serenity.

On the political level, religion is no less ambivalent. It can certainly be employed by power to legitimize its control—for example, the idea of “divine right” or the appeal to the values of obedience and submission to disarm social conflicts. But many movements of social revolt—from the War of the Peasants to liberation theology—also found a powerful motive for action in religion. This is why Ernst Bloch refused to treat religion as a simple historical “residue” founded on ignorance of the true dynamics of phenomena and, developing another aspect of Marx’s thought, was interested above all in religion’s power to challenge, the “revolutionary” core of the Messianic promise.

Scientific psychology is only marginally informative. To observe what occurs in a brain of someone who has intense thoughts, and to note that these activate specific neural networks, ultimately tells us very little about the nature of religion.

Sociological Explanations

If psychological explanations deal chiefly with religious feeling, sociological explanations are interested above all in religion as an institution and source of social cohesion. Thus they are systematically more positive toward religion—all while retaining an instrumental viewpoint. Insofar as social cohesion is regarded as good, religion appears likely to contribute to it. Perhaps what it says is false, but it still plays a positive role in the life of human communities. In connection with this idea, it is customary to recall that the word “religion” comes from Latin re-ligere, “to connect.” This etymology, which first appears in the Christian author Lactanius, is in fact quite probably false. Cicero gave the valid derivation, from re-legere, “to re-read, to gather,” which refers to the ritual role of re-reading formulas and traditional texts, symbolic acts that always amount to founding religious life on what has already been: the emphasis is upon a tradition to which it is advisable to remain faithful (“fidelity” comes from fides as well as the word “faith”). However, it is quite true that religion connects, and that it even connects doubly—man to man and society to the divine—starting from a distinction between the visible and the invisible, sacred and profane.

The prototype of sociological explanation is Durkheim’s, in his book Elementary Forms of Religious Life, published in 1912. For Durkheim, social reality is never reducible to a sum of individual realities. Thus, according to Durkheim, men maintain society by religious worship, in a quasi-consubstantial relationship with the sacred. At the risk of falling into circular reasoning, Durkheim thus suggests that there is a practical consubstantiality between religion and society. “In religion,” he writes, “I see only society, transfigured and thought symbolically.” Religion is thus defined at bottom as a kind of hypostasis of the social world, as the symbolic representation of a given social order. Fundamentally structuring social life and politics, religion is only a simple projection of society, a simple means of survival.

At first sight, this approach appears more convincing, initially because it highlights the eminently collective dimension of religious activity, and because it is scarcely debatable that religion once played a role in framing and structuring society in general. As Jean-Paul Willaime writes, “a religious system produces social bonds, not only by causing specific networks and groupings (institutions, communities), but also by defining a mental universe through which individuals and communities express a certain conception of man and the world in a given society.” Religion, in other words, above all gives meaning as it creates bonds. Whatever the truth value of its contents, by creating bonds it plays a positive role in the existence of the human society. This is why, whereas many psychologists see religion as a harmful illusion, many sociologists see it instead as a useful fiction. (It one must note here that an illusion is not the same thing as an error.)

Recently, however, Marcel Gauchet has vehemently protested the idea of the consubstantiality of religion and society. He bases this on the concept of heteronomy. Heteronomy can be summarized as the idea that it is for the gods, for what is beyond the visible world, that men must be what they are, an idea which consequently limits drastically their political ability to govern themselves. Gauchet defines religion as an “economy of the subjection of men to what is higher than them,” as “man’s rejection of his own creative power, the radical denial of being for something in the human world, such as it is, the transfer to the invisible world of the reasons governing the organization of the community of the living.” Religion, thus defined as “the organization of heteronomy,” also becomes a fundamental form of alienation.

This heteronomy, adds Gauchet, results from a voluntary initial choice, which led men to place themselves under the dependence of the gods. Gauchet thus disputes that there is a religious disposition in human nature. Religion, according to him, had a beginning and will most probably have an end. It is not an anthropological dimension constitutive of our species, but just a phase of our history. There is, he writes, “no form of creative necessity at the basis of religion, such that the collective could not exist without it […].” “The religious,” he says, “does not derive from any anthropological facts; it is a matter of convention.” Religion “is, in the strongest sense of the term, a fact of institution, a commitment of human society to heteronomy.” It is this that enables him to interpret Western modernity as a vast process of moving from heteronomy, a slow march towards the acquisition of autonomy.

Gauchet’s writings are often remarkable, but this thesis strikes me as debatable. First of all, the idea that if a society is more political it is less religious already gives one pause. For Gauchet, in traditional society there is both total submission to the gods and maximum neutralization of politics. All that is given to politics is thus taken from religion. However, this is clearly not true of the Greco-Roman world, according to Gauchet himself. In European antiquity, one finds an interpenetration of political or state functions and religious functions, as well in the exercise of the civil power as in military functions. In Rome, the very exercise of power is of divine nature. And the Greeks, when they invented democracy in the fifth century B.C.E. did not thereby cease to believe in their gods. To Gauchet’s view, one could oppose here the opinion of Cornelius Castoriadis who, far from placing all religions on the side of heteronomy, writes that “there is opposition between the monotheist tradition, as a tradition of heteronomy, and the genuine Greek tradition, or democracy as a tradition of autonomy.”

In addition, as we have seen, Gauchet asserts that the “committment to heteronomy,” to which he would reduce religious phenomena, resulted from an arbitrary choice to which the men are not bound at all. Thus one wonders how and why, in the past, the same choice was made everywhere. If there is no universal need for religion, how is it that all ancient societies were religious? Doesn’t the fact that such a “committment” was adopted in a systematic way lead one to think instead that it by no means resulted from a choice, but could only be the consequence of a certain anthropological propensity?

Gauchet himself recognizes that “it is quite necessary that there is something like an anthropological substrate from which human experience is capable of being instituted and defined under the sign of religion” and which is a “cardinal phenomenon.” He speaks, likewise, of an “anthropological core which has supported religion through the millennia” which is “destined to persist,” which somewhat contradicts his thesis. Elsewhere, he defines this “core” as the “bundle of conditions and propensities that allowed the existence of such a religious being, which is in reality a historical creature.” The last part of the sentence shows that the ambiguity persists, for it is difficult for the same phenomenon to be “anthropological” and “historical” at the same time.

Biological Explanations

     It is here that the biologists intervene. On the principle that any universal human behavior, independent of culture, is likely to have a biological basis connected to the very definition of the species, they advance their own explanations. In recent years, a whole series of works, mostly in English, have proposed to illuminate the “biological basis” of religion.

In general, this work connects religion to the eminently social character of mankind. Man is a social animal: human beings spontaneously form groups where a certain degree of mutual confidence enables them to cooperate with one another, but also to be collectively opposed to members of other groups. Biology and evolutionary psychology explain the differences and the similarities within mankind by assumptions related to the course of evolution. Certain behaviors, but also certain principles or certain ideas, would have been selected in the course of evolution because they confer an adaptive advantage on those who adopted them compared to those who did not. In this point of view, religion would have an “adaptive value” because it rests on principles that pressure the individual to subordinate his own interests to the interests of the group, thus tightening the social bond and supporting the transmission of cultural assets. The rules of conduct imposed by religion facilitate the co-operation and the mutual understanding necessary to common life.

The biologist David Sloan Wilson is one of those who adopted this approach. Maintaining that natural selection is exerted basically on groups, and not on individuals or their genes (as the “orthodox” Darwinians claim), he describes religions as collective “organizations” that confer on their members advantages in terms of survival and reproduction, in particular by leading individuals to adopt co-operative behaviors for the benefit of the groups to which they belong which. These behaviors, if not reciprocated, would prove disadvantageous for them. Religion would thus contribute to strengthening altruism, which leads Sloan Wilson to see it as a kind of “mega-adaptation,” a “system of complex regulation that links members of a group to each other and make it a functional unity.”

Daniel C. Dennett also claims that the emergence of religion corresponds to a natural adaptation that favored the reproductive success of the species, and that religion then evolved, just like language, to ensure its own survival amid ceaseless cultural changes. Thus for him religion is a cultural phenomenon directed by the natural selection processes controlling evolution: it would be “evolutionarily advantageous” to believe.

Other researchers instead stress the tendency of man to adhere to rituals. From an ethological perspective, rituals make it possible to sublimate certain instincts or passions, thus disarming aggressive behaviors. In addition, the rituals have the clear effect of strengthening the bond which exists between those who practice them.

Another more original theory was proposed by the Lacanian philosopher Dany-Robert Dufour. Though describing himself as a convinced atheist, he posits that man is necessarily a “religious being” and claims “to construct a new proof of the very existence of God.” “This proof,” he writes, “will have to be presented in the form of an atheistic proof of the existence of God, the first of this type and the last possible in the order of proofs.” Actually, is does not prove the objective existence of God, but his real existence in the human spirit: “I hope to show that the existence of God in the mind of men is a structural necessity” determined by the bio-anthropological specificity of the human phenomenon. 

Dufour finds this specificity in the thesis of the neoteny of man, a thesis stated by the Dutch anatomist Louis Bolk in the 1920s. The doctrine of neoteny (or “fetalization”) conceives of man as a “premature” being, who only reaches his complete development relatively late after his birth, thus preserving through most of his life characteristics of youthfulness that are only temporary and transitory in other animals. This theory is accepted today by many researchers.

This initial “incompleteness” of man—which goes hand in hand with a considerable lengthening of the period of mothering, a long period of sexual latency, and slow rate of growth—means that man, throughout his existence, lacks most of the internal rules of behavior that other species have. His instincts not being programmed with knowledge of their objects, his existence is more problematic: “All the animals are equipped by nature, man is without equipment.”

To guide themselves and actualize themselves, men must invent a “new nature,” which can be made legitimate only by supposing the existence of a higher invisible being. A great symbolic figure thus controls his imagination, false perhaps, but nevertheless vital for him: “God is the necessary supposition of the human neonate.” Therefore man is the only the animal who has a genuinely symbolic imagination.

The problem, consequently, is knowing what range of real autonomy can profit a man who, in himself, “killed God”: “Does the death of God, liberating man from all his inhibitions, not set in motion the Promethean project to the point of bringing about his own death?” In Lacanian terms, we would have to say that God “is absent in his place”—that he is present in his absence, that he is there to the very extent that he is not there.

Thus, as with most of the sociological explanations, religion is credited with some virtue. Some biologists, however, do not share this viewpoint.

Steven Pinker, for example, while accepting the idea that religions could once have had an adaptive value for individuals or groups, thinks that this value disappeared with the emergence of critical reason and the growth of scientific knowledge. He adds that the thesis according to which religion would have appeared in human society because it would be useful for the cohesion of groups or would give moral comfort to individuals, does not explain why the human spirit should invent supernatural entities for his own comfort or why the belief in invisible divinities would be, biologically speaking, a better means of ensuring the cohesion of the communities or groups than confidence, friendship, honesty, solidarity, etc.

Another well-known researcher, Richard Dawkins, who is a virulent propagandist of atheism as well as the inventor of the concept of the “selfish gene,” holds that religions today have lost all usefulness, because whatever good they have done can henceforth be assured by other means.  He goes further, since he does not hesitate to see in religion a true mental pathology, resulting from a dysfunction of the human brain. Dawkins speaks of “memetic” diseases, cognitive distortions altering the processing of external data that the brain normally accomplishes through its symbolic, logical, and linguistic capacities. Religious beliefs would be “mental viruses” living, like their biological counterparts, at the expense of the cerebral cells that lodge them and transmitting themselves from generation to generation by means of psychological, social, and cultural indoctrination. This is also the opinion of James Watson, who was one of the “discoverers” of the structure of DNA.

Pascal Boyer, in a recent book, expresses a rather similar opinion. Refusing to consider that religion ever conferred by itself an adaptive advantage during evolution, he instead makes it a side effect or by-product of certain cognitive characteristics selected instead of others by evolution. The general idea is that the explanation of religious beliefs and behaviors is to be sought in the way in which the human spirit functions. That is not to say that the human brain is naturally or spontaneously religious, but that it is structured such that it allows one to acquire a religion.

Boyer’s thesis is that “our systems of inferences produce intuitions ordered by relevance, i.e., by the wealth of the inferences that can be drawn from a specific premise.” More specifically, beliefs come from the activation of innate mental modules that drive man to attribute hidden intentions to natural phenomena. Thus religion is reduced to a simple collection of mental representations that our brain judges more credible than others, and that can appear effective in certain contexts, either because they confer an adaptive advantage on those who believe them, or because, while being unverifiable, they are sufficiently plausible to be retained by the human mind: “The religious concepts that persist are those that succeeded in being maintained to the detriment of others.” Systems of inference actuated by their relative pertinence, by-products of cognitive functions present in believers as among unbelievers, religious concepts “mobilize the resources of mental systems which would be there [in any case], religion or not.” In other words, religion is “only one side effect of the operation of our brain.”

Boyer adds that “If religious concepts and behaviors have persisted for millennia—and even longer, no doubt—if they present the same themes the world over, it is simply because they are optimal in the sense that they activate various systems in a way that favors their transmission.” Religion would thus find its origin in the selection of a certain number of propositions and concepts. Some religious concepts would be more powerful than others, in the sense that they are propagated themselves better than others, which would enable them to better parasitize on our mental activities. “To explain religion,” Boyer writes, “is to explain a particular type of mental epidemic.” Religion would be one of the prices to be paid for our mental architecture, while being a vestige destined to disappear.

TWO

This brief overview shows the extreme diversity of possible explanations of religious phenomena. It also shows they are somewhat unsatisfactory. Admittedly, a certain number quite likely contain some measure of truth. This is particularly true of the sociological explanations, since the psychological ones, in addition to having the disadvantage of separating religion from faith, very often consist of mere hypotheses. But one is right to doubt the overall explanatory power of all of them. There are several reasons for this.

First, these various theories seldom depart from a certain ethnocentrism. Claiming to speak about religion in general, they are actually deeply conditioned by a paradigm dominant within Western civilization, in fact the Christian or Judeo-Christian paradigm. This paradigm is then taken as universal model of all religious phenomena, which makes it possible to extrapolate it to any other faith, by neglecting the differences, however considerable, that exist between the religions.

One notes, for example, that a great number of these explanations are based on the idea that religion is above all normative, i.e., a dispenser of moral rules. It is then enough to ask about the utility (for the individual or the group) of these moral rules to think that one elucidated the nature or purpose of religion. But the idea that religion is a belief “in which any credible moral source implies God” (Charles Taylor) is quite simply untenable. Regardless of the fact, confirmed by daily experience, that from the moral point of view believers do not behave better than unbelievers, and sometimes even worse, religion and morality are not necessarily synonymous.

A religion like old European paganism, to cite only one, is clearly not a moral religion. Obviously that does not mean pagans had no morals, but that they drew on other sources besides religion: the mores or values honored by society—the word “moral,” let us recall, comes from the Latin mores, “manners,” just as “ethics” comes from the Greek ethos, “place of residence, habit”—or the philosophical reflections of thinkers like Aristote, Seneca, Cicero, and so many others. The pagans, in other words, did not need God to tell them that courage is worth more than cowardice, generosity worth more than selfishness, sincerity worth more than lying, and nobility of heart worth more than self-debasement. Contrary to the proverb that “if God does not exist all is permitted,” there are societies without God, but there are none where all is permitted.

This ethnocentrism naturally tends to legitimate a unitary approach to religion. The most common approach consists in noting that all ancient societies had a religious dimension, then to conclude from it that “religion” must be definable by characteristics that all these faiths have in common. But where to find this common element? In morality? Certainly not, as we have just seen. In belief in one or more gods? But there exist religions without God, like Hiniyana Buddhism or the Brahmanism of the Upanishads. Transcendence of the divine? But there is an enormous difference between a religion that defines the divine as a personal being, ontologically distinct from the world, and a religion that assimilates it to cosmic harmony.

Such an approach does not make it possible either to understand why certain religions have only one God whereas others have several, why some are dualistic and others not, why some rest on the idea of salvation whereas others by no means aim at the liberation of the soul and are hardly concerned with the beyond, why some adhere to a linear vision of temporality and others to a cyclical vision, why some tend to exclude from the sphere of truth all beliefs which they denounce as “idolatry” whereas others admit quite naturally that each people has its own gods, why some, like polytheism, lead rather to a pluralist and democratic vision of social life, whereas others, like those derived from monotheism, so often legitimate intolerance and despotism, etc.

In paganism, the gods constitute models, archetypal figures, but they do not require, promise, or demand anything. They testify to the presence of Being, of the invisible dimension of the world, not of another world that is supposed to have an ontological perfection that this world lacks. These gods are not only multiple; they oppose one another and are not even eternal. The divine presence in the world is thus immanent, and does not express an absolute transcendence. Sacrifice tends to found and maintain on earth an order corresponding to the cosmic order. Worship is inseparable from collective existence, and more particularly of civic life. One does not practice a religion to secure one’s salvation. One does not seek to convert. Religion knows neither dogmas, nor orthodoxy, nor heresies. In this, paganism is radically different from the universalistic revealed religions, directed to the pursuit of individual salvation and founded on the system of the Fall and sin.

But monotheism itself is not one—so much so that it is no exaggeration to say, contrary to a somewhat naive “ecumenism,” that Christians, Jews, and Moslems do not worship the same God. That Judaism is a “religion,” in the classical sense of the term, has often been questioned. It is first of all the religion of a people, but in the sense that this people made itself the object of its own belief, since it is by the Covenant (Brith) that God himself is supposed to be revealed. Here universalism joins with ethnocentrism, of which it constitutes, if not the projection, at least the justification. It is also a religion which, quite contray to others, privileges the here and now to the detriment of the beyond: it is in this world that Messianic prophecies must be achieved, and it is also this world that must be reshaped to prepare it for the arrival of the Messiah. In line with Moses Mendelssohn’s contention that “Judaism does not know revealed religion,” philosopher J. M. Salanskis could assert that it there no “Jewish religion.” Judaism, according to him, is not based on belief in God, but on the ceaseless reinterpretation of a foundational text. The core of “Jewish life” is not God, but the Torah.

In addition, from the point of view of orthodox Judaism, the truly monotheist character of the Christian religion is doubtful. The question is to know whether the divinity of Jesus is compatible with the monotheist idea. If not, Christianity would be mere “idolatry.”

Finally, if the majority of the Christian theologians place Islam among the revealed religions because of its belief in single God, and not among the “natural religions,” i.e., the pagan religions, this thesis also could be disputed.

If one sticks just to Christianity, what remarkable differences exist between primitive Christianity, medieval Christianity, the Christianity of the Counter-Reformation, and modern Christianity! What a difference between Protestantism, which makes faith prevail over religion at the risk to falling into literalism or an abstract theism, and Catholicism which, not recognizing the text as the ultima ratio, pushes in the opposite direction at the risk of falling into sacralization of the institution!

The truth is that the various religions do not themselves understand religious life in the same way. Let us not forget that, in the Roman empire, Christians were long regarded as atheists because they did not recognize the existence of the gods, and that Saint Paul, addressing the Athenians,  almost reproached them for being too religious (Acts, 17,22). Far from the study of religions revealing a convergence, it instead reveals differences. Indeed, the spectacle of these differences can lead one to doubt the very validity of a general concept of “religion,” i.e., the unitary character of this category.

But there is another reason, undoubtedly more fundamental still, that leads me to doubt the value of the majority of the explanations discussed above. It is that they are almost always explanations of the functionalist type. To explain what religion is, they think it sufficient to identify the need it answers or the function it performs, i.e., for what it is useful or effective. The basic idea of functionalism is the reduction of essence to function or utility: everything has a function and its essence is reduced to the functional role it supposedly plays. To say what religion is would thus be to say for what it is useful. This functionalist or “desubstantialist” approach, already denounced in his time by Benjamin Constant, is the most widespread today, because it claims to be more scientific and especially because it corresponds to the profoundly utilitarian spirit of our time, which is characterized by the increasing functionalization of society—a society where man himself becomes little by little a functional object.

But to note that religion has, for example, a certain psychological or social function by no means signifies that this function suffices to explain its existence. It is one thing to claim that religion makes it possible (in certain cases) to cure fear, another thing to say that fear gave birth to it. Also, when this step is taken, there is a great risk of adopting simple ad hoc explanations. As Pascal Boyer himself recognizes, “it is not because one believes one knows the reasons why people have certain ideas that one can explain why they have them really.” Indeed, one of the errors of functionalism is failing to see that, for a religious value to be transferred to a social fact, it must already have been recognized as a value before this transfer.

Biological explanations are also typically functionalist, because they are always supported by reasoning of a economic-utilitarian type: social reality being explained from the start in terms of investments and benefits, religion supposedly makes it possible to maximize the benefit that the individual draws from social relations. Religion is treated as a biological organ, and one asks what function it plays in the organism. But belief cannot be explained only in terms of benefits, because many times it is prejudicial to those who profess it. The functionalist explanation, as a causal explanation, is in fact necessarily indifferent to the proper contents of religious belief. It is in addition eminently reductionistic, since it implies that one can reduce a symbolic system to its functionality, whereas religion by definition exceeds any functionality. As Jean-Paul Willaime writes,

. . . religion is undoubtedly what exceeds any functionality by managing gaps, uncertainty, otherness. . . . Religion is a symbolic activity that has its own consistency, so to speak, though it may be entirely socially determined—and it is in a thousand ways—it enjoys a relative autonomy compared to all these determinations. It is precisely because religions constitute cultures, i.e., complex worlds of signs and meanings that fall into history and are transmitted from generation to generation, that they enjoy a relative autonomy compared to all the social determinations that inform them.

Finally, the functionalist approach inevitably leads to a theory of the religion substitute. If religion is defined solely by its function, one is indeed immediately led to wonder about the way in which this function could be performed differently. The idea that the end of religion is at hand is often based on this very idea: religion will disappear because its functions will be taken over by means that will fulfill them in a more credible or effective way. “Functionalism,” notes Jacques Dewitte, “inevitably results in admitting that a substitute can serve just as well as the original, that one can replace something with any of its functional equivalents that are in principle interchangeable.” It is this mistake, for example, that is committed by Marcel Gauchet when he writes that religion is a “secondary system, whose old functions can be socially filled and replaced by anything else.”

The theory of the substitute is not in itself absurd. It can encourage fruitful reflection on the “religious” character of phenomena that are not defined as such. One can then speak about “secular religions,” “substitute religions,” etc. This step is not in itself illegitimate, but it nonetheless rests on an ambiguity quite neatly exposed by Hannah Arendt in a polemic against Jules Monnerot in the early 1950s. In his Sociology of Communism, the latter noted that the great modern ideologies, in particular Soviet Communism, took on a certain number of typically religious features and could play the same role in human society, which entitles us to regard them as “secular religions.” Likewise, ideological wars took the place of religious wars, which have the same irreductible character. Ideology and religion, far from being mutually exclusive, in this respect have an obvious continuity, because they have “common formal characteristics.” The fact appears undeniable.

However, Hannah Arendt quite subtly pointed out that this functionalist reasoning (ideology has the same function as religion), actually makes it impossible to know how religion differs from ideology. If everything that fulfills the same function can receive the same name, what then is the distinct mark of religion? How can religion be distinguished from the nonreligious ideology supposed to replace it? “I cannot define what is distinct,” wrote Arendt, “and then arrive at definitions, so far as it is possible, by not making distinctions.” “For my part, of course,” she added, “I do not believe that any thing has one function, or that the function and the essence are the same thing.”

The idea, inherited from the philosophy of the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century positivism, that religion will disappear when the functions that it fills are assumed by more credible procedures, is in fact doubtful. Admittedly, from the rationalist point of view, religion rests on certain assertions that violate our intuitive expectations and for which no empirical verification is possible. Also the process of belief is by nature excluded from the field of rationality. From such a viewpoint, religion constitutes an “irrational” or “obscurantist” answer to legitimate questions that can be satisfied more rationally. Thus religion is perceived as a prescientific mode of knowledge destined to be detroned by science. One deduces that the more science develops, the more religion will dwindle.

This conclusion has already been contradicted by the facts, and indeed it is rather scientism itself that appears as an act of faith. It is certainly correct that, in general, in scientific circles unbelief is most widespread, but it is no less obvious that, generally speaking, modern societies are no more “rational” that those that preceded them. The United States, which has long canonized the scientific spirit, is also the Western country where the most various beliefs continue with the most force (only 5 percent of Americans declare themselves without religion). Also let us recall that Islamic “fundamentalism” is not a matter of the illiterate and ignorant, but often of perfectly well-educated people, particularly engineers and scientific researchers.

Pascal already said that God is not merely an explanatory principle. It is not because we know today that, when lightning flashes across the sky, it is not because Zeus is angry, that certain traditionalist groups ceased interpreting great natural disasters, inter alia, as invisible “signs” or divine “punishments.” And in fact sometimes the progress of science even nourishs new beliefs, either because of the complexity of its statements, or because of the fact that, by definition, the greater the extent of positive knowledge, the greater the extent of what remains unknown. A survey published in England in 2004 even revealed that nearly a third of avowed atheists also admit that they pray from time to time!

The explanatory power of science is, moreover, limited. Science can, by nature, only remain mute on the ultimate questions, like the meaning of our presence in the world. It prescinds from the facts that can only yield their meaning to interpretation, which is not science’s aim. Heidegger says that science “does not think, because its procedure and its auxiliary means are such that it cannot think—i.e., think in the manner of thinkers.” At the same time, science rests on a belief that is proper to it, the primacy of method (in the sense of Descartes) over knowledge, the mathematical projection of a nature that is technically dominable because it is rationally recognizable—in Heideggerian terms, of the “increasing domination of nature through the scientific interpretation of the thing as object” (Jean Beaufret).

Let us note, finally, that the secular conflict of science and faith—which obscured the fact that the rise of science was initially made possible by the desacralization of the world caused by Christianity—persists today only on the margins of opinion, for example, with the “creationist” sects. “Concordism” is no more the aim of the theologians, and religion renounced venturing on the terrain of positive knowledge, where it is obviously not competitive. Schopenhauer already said: “Knowledge is made of tougher stuff than faith, so that, if they collide, it is faith that breaks.” A kind of implicit agreement occurred, science admitting that it does not have anything to say about God, and religion renouncing the search for scientific confirmation of its beliefs. Today, many think that the two spheres are mutually incapable of refutation, because they deal with fields that do not overlap. The most common (but debatable) opinion is that science deals with facts, while religion treats values and norms—the distinction between what is and what ought to be—or that science investigates “how” while religion wonders about “why.”

The functionalist approach, by deconstructing the object that it claims to study, leads in fact to its dissolution. Indifferent to the proper contents of belief, the theories it inspires always explain religion by something other than religion: the utility of the social bond, fear, the need for illusion, the requirements of politics, domination, frustration, etc. From such a viewpoint, religion no longer exists in itself, but only depending on something other that itself. It says something, but it is always something different from what it wants or claims to say. To understand its discourse we must translate it into a different language that is supposed to be more accessible, more transparent, or more true. Religion, in other words, is always something other than what it claims to be. With the result that ultimately, one still does not know what belief is or why religion exists.

In reality, religious beliefs relate much more to ideas than facts or deeds, meaning that they are more subject to reasons than causes. If one wants to reject functionalism, it is thus necessary to start by admitting that religion supposes thought contents, existential attitudes that are not substitutable, and one must give these thought contents priority if one wants to know what religion is:

In other words, religion or the sacred must be understood as an “originary phenomenon,” as a creation of meaning that cannot be derived from something else and which can only be known from itself. Thus, it is impossible to derive it from its functional uses, the various manners in which it “was put in service” of certain interests, for the good reason that these functional uses, which are undeniable, presuppose precisely this creation of meaning or this preexistent value to which they will draw.

It is necessary, in other words, to return from there to a substantive (or substantial) definition of religious phenomena.

A substantive (or substantial) definition of religion has the primary characteristic of not emptying belief of its contents, of not regarding these contents as pretense, projection, derivation, metaphor, transposition, etc. It privileges the contents of religion, i.e., the very object of its discourse. Thus it goes back to the source of the phenomenon; it respects its specific mode of givenness. It asks about the thing itself, for itself, and from itself; about its essence, its substance, its intrinsic ends; about what explains that, even before one asked about it, this thing and not another thing was already there. It begins with the assumption that people who claim to believe something really believe what they claim to believe, instead of claiming that the basis of their belief is something other than what they believe. That does not mean that what they believe is true, but that it is true that they believe what they say they believe. It means ultimately that religion does not have any other object than what is expressly professed by the believers.

Cicero gave a simple definition of religion: “the state of being concerned with a certain higher nature that one calls divine and of rendering it worship” (De inventione). This definition is not so bad, because the religious state obviously refers to human society’s relation to what exceeds its own existence. Roger Caillois, for his part, saw the opposition of sacred and profane as the most essential foundation of religion. Furthermore, religion also concerns a system of gifts and counter-gifts: gifts that the gods make to men, gifts that men make to the gods, gifts that men give one another on the basis of shared belief, including of course the gift of oneself.

Thus for my part, I will say, with much prudence, that a religion is a form of human association founded on a set of beliefs and practices, symbols and values, related to the distinction between the visible and the invisible, the empirical and the super-empirical, the profane and the sacred, and, at the same time, a socially established worship which structures individual and collective existence by placing it in a universe of meaning, in a symbolic universe governed by an intangible reality.

THREE

Where are we today? What is the situation of religion today? For knowledge, we can of course consult the surveys that inform us periodically about the state of beliefs and practices. These surveys, in general, testify to a continuous decrease of religious feeling, a rarefaction of practices, a crisis of vocations, etc. But one would be wrong to cling to these sorts of indications, first, because they are purely cyclical matters, second, because the problem must obviously be approached from a broader point of view, and, finally, because concepts like the distinction between believers and practitioners, and even between believers and unbelievers, have already largely lost their relevance to current developments. How then to characterize these developments? Three essential phenomena are to be taken into account.

The first corresponds to what Gauchet, in a whole series of works published since 1985, calls the “departure from religion.” What does he mean by this expression? Quite simply that the societies of Western Europe today are emancipated from any religious norms, that they constitute a world no longer organized around religion. This “departure from religion” by no means implies that nobody believes in a God any more, or that the number of the believers is necessarily doomed always to decrease. It means only that, for the first time in history, we live in a society where religion no longer structures social and political space, provides essential values, or furnishes the encompassing norms of collective existence. It marks “the passage to a world where religions continue to exist, but within a political form and a collective order that they no longer determine.” Thus a society that has departed from religion may well contain a vast majority of believers (as in the United States today); what counts is the social status that it gives religious fact. Gauchet writes:

God did not die, he simply ceased mixing with the political affairs of men. He moved away. He retired where each believer can reach him individually, but where he does not connect with the order and the rules that link men collectively. Religion does not disappear, but we leave behind the religious organization of society, the religious comprehension of the universe in which we developed.

In a society that has “departed from religion,” where there is no longer a guarantor above society, each individual is free to gather in churches, chapels, in Christian, Buddhist, pagan, or other sects. But these options do not have any general importance for society. Thus belief becomes one opinion among others. Faith changes “from a standard of reference encompassing the community to a particular choice of the citizen.” The Churches reorganize as one among many components of a civil society that is organized on the basis of voluntary adherence of its members. Except for certain minority traditionalists groups, hardly representative of the mass of believers, the very idea of a religious society loses its meaning. “Belief,” continues Gauchet, “became at this point an individual faith, changing its meaning. The bond between religious belief and social order is destroyed. Faith as such has nothing to say about social and political organization. Its object is of another kind. The most fervent believer no longer has the idea of proclaiming a Christian order or a fortiori a politics of God.”

This situation represents the culmination of a long process of secularization, a process by nature complex and ambiguous, with very old roots. Indeed, one cannot understand it without taking into account the distinction between created and uncreated being postulated by Christian theology. In Christianity, the creator god does not merge in any way with the world he created, thus the world cannot in any way be regarded as an intrinsicly sacred place. God is not ontologically related to any place. The result was the desacralization of the cosmos that technoscience then continued at an accelerated pace.

In this “disenchanted” world, the individual achieves his own salvation. The inmost self takes precedence over membership in the city, just as spiritual membership, sanctioned by baptism, takes the place of family relationships (cf. Luke, 14:26). The emphasis placed on the inmost self, on consciousness as the seat of the soul and place privileged by the encounter with God—in connection with the revalorization of what Aristote called “ordinary life” (in opposition to the “good life”)—already separates the believer from public life.

If God is ontologically distinct from this world, it is by detaching oneself from the world that one can best join with him, by apprehending him inside oneself. As Gauchet writes, “to live for one’s salvations, is something different from living according to the rules of this world.” Moreover, convinced that the Second Coming was at hand, the first Christians affirmed themselves as “renouncers” of the world. Wanting first to be citizens of heaven, they emphasized that it was necessary to die to the world to live in God. “To them, any foreign land is a fatherland and any fatherland a foreign land,” one reads in the Epistol to Diognetus, the first apology for Christianity dated to the second century, whose author is unknown. In the third century, Tertullien still states that, “nothing is more foreign to us than public affairs.” “The freedom that Christianity introduced into the world,” observes Hannah Arendt, “was freedom from politics.”

To the theological distinction between created and uncreated being, unknown to paganism, Christianity adds another, just as new: the distinction between spiritual and temporal power, which is also the distinction between the supernatural good and the spiritual common good. Each of the two spheres is proclaimed competent only in its domain, but it is a wholly relative distinction, since it falls under a strictly hierarchical perspective, founded on the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual: positive law cannot go against “natural law.” Thus posed, the duality very quickly seemed problematic. How can these two orders, each sovereign in its sphere, but nevertheless one subordinate to the other, deploy themselves? “In Christianity,” notes Gauchet, “the articulation between heaven and earth is fundamentally problematic; it bequeathed this to post-Christian society, which continues to elaborate it.”

Secularization initially took the form of the sacralization of politics and a religious transfiguration of sovereignty. From the end of the Middle Ages, the state is constituted a veritable spiritual power. To better establish its legitimacy and authority, it created a relationship with religion that was simultaneously imitative and rivalrous, by asserting that it too had a metaphysical dimension.

This process led to absolute monarchy. The France of the Old Regime was simultaneously a denominational state—in the sense that Catholicism had a privileged, even exclusive, position, and the power of the king was known as divine right—and a “secular” state, in the sense that the king did not control the church while the church did not control the monarchy.

In a second stage, which came after the Revolution, the nation, in the modern sense of the term, became “the horizon of the intrinsic completeness of a political arena containing its entire justification within itself.” Politics was increasingly defined as self-sufficient from a metaphysical and ontological point of view, but nevertheless without losing its religious character. Temporal power initiates

. . . a revolutionary reorientation of its features and its ends. Instead of giving the body here below a foundation in the beyond, it would slowly endow the body politic with ontological sufficiency and plenitude. Against the sacrality of the ultimate ends which the church imposed upon individual pursuits, it exalts the collective sacrality of the terrestrial achievement.

That will not happen without a severe struggle for influence, as the history of “secularization” shows. As everyone knows, this fight was finally won by political authority, which did not cease to free itself from the subordination in which the representatives of spiritual power had held it for so long. But we should not lose sight of the dialectical dimension of this struggle. Political power emancipates itself from religion, but it emancipates itself by borrowing religion’s forms. It surpasses it, paradoxically, by imitating it.

There is thus a dialectic of secularization that prohibits interpreting it simply as a unilateral process of laicization or of deterioration of beliefs and religion. The idea that religion and modernity are mutually exclusive, such that every gain by one comes at the expense of the other, is not sustainable. Actually, modernity transforms the status of religion without making it disappear. Today it is admitted that Christianity has itself largely contributed to modernization, or at least that modernity could be established only by employing themes of Christian origin. Likewise, the Calvinist Reformation