What about Das Kapital or various other social texts?
Agreed, and I failed to give you credit for that. But the issue is that
And here's where you swerve into an arguement that is completely blind to the facts. There is not question, objectively what's written in the bible. Or any document. The words are there on paper before you. But what is clearly apparent to any student of history is that interpretation has and continues to varry. And will continue to.
The fact is the interpretation of all documents is subjective.
And whether that fits into your world view of how religions should operate, the fact is that's the truth. Again, refer to Said's "Orientalism Revisited" for one of the most tight breakdowns of this ever.
I'm sorry but that's a BS copout for shoddy scholarship and some pretty salacious things.
Again, you return to giving him a level of subjective interpretation that you don't allow religious texts.
And at the end of the day the world needs to be rid of all of them. You forgot that part.
His own quote: "appeasing religious irrationality is not among them.”
In his model moderates are still relgiously irrational and give cover to fundimentalism. Again, you're squirming here. His text is pretty succint, under his logic moderates are as dangerous if not more dangerous than radicals.
Again, I'll suggest that what you've done is essentally detooth his writing in the same way that a moderate religous person (in his model) detooth's the parts of their selected text. His model is clear -- religion is the most distructive force in human history and needs to be dismantled. Beyond all of the shoddy research and other issues, that is the core of the books. To deny that is to broadly interpret it to suit your arguement. It's a subjective reading. Just like what's happening in churches, sinagogues, temples, mosques, ect all over the world.
Your model leaks because it doesn't account for culture or history. It further leaks because you don't consitantly apply it. And I'm sorry, the logic that the bible was inspired by God and therefore can't be able to be subjectively interpreted even discounts the history of the book. Further, on a theological bent, it fails to the account for the notion that the devine has been translated through the imperfect hands of man. As such as with any human product, it can't be perfect. That's at least as plausable as arguing that I can't literally interpret Harris because he's human.
I'm carrying these comments to an extreme because that's what's being done to the opposite side. So I think it's only fair to keep everything on a "fair" playing field.
I simply saying there is no reason or evidence to hold that the Bible is any more special than any other piece of literature. But if the Bible is regarded as emanating from some divine source this is exactly what we must do. Imagine if we had major disagreements/violence other interpretations of the works Shakespeare! It would be absurd.
It ought not to be with divine holy books when you believe the author/revelation of its words is God himself.
Nowhere in the Bible does God say “you don’t have to take me literally” or “feel free to interpret my words” or “take me literally now, but in 2,000 years, please start interpreting.” Clearly God wants us to kill homosexuals and those working on the Sabbath, and women who are not virgins on their wedding night….
If you believe in God, and that he is perfect, omnipotent, omniscient etc and that the Bible contains his words, then the logical ramification of this is you must accept his words. To interpret his words implies you think he is wrong/mistaken - hence the required amendment - which is a contradiction.
Clearly interpretation/cherry picking is most defiantly the smarter thing to do. We must ignore all the absurdities and danger in the text. But this cannot be done without contradicting the notion that this book is somehow ‘special’ - the word of God. You simply cannot hold that the Bible is God’s will/word, but also open to human interpretation/desire. i.e. I don’t agree with this part, so I’ll ignore God here!
Incidentally we just started covering ‘Orientalism’ at Uni. Weird.
Of course I don’t allow this with religious texts. If someone said they think God played no part in the Bible, interpret it as your like. The inconsistency is in hold these words to be divine but at the same time open to human interpretation.
There is no reason to respect irrationality at all. He is against moderates but he does not hold them to be worse people than extremists. He does hold their beliefs to be both equally irrational (which they are), but the fundamentalists willingness to act of this beliefs makes them far far more dangerous.
He is simply applying the same standard of conversation that we all apply to any other discourse in our life! He is against the notion that religious belief must be respected simply because they are religious belief. And I completely agree with that.
Answer this: If someone doesn’t present valid reason/evidence for their beliefs, why should we respect or believe them?
The root of our disagreement is your belief that God words are on equal standing to those of his creation. In which case, why worship the Bible over any other book? Why not worship the Lord of the Rings and draw ones morality and beliefs about reality from there? Clearly and obviously the Bible (and Koran) is considered by believers to be above / transcending any other piece of writing available. This makes them a slave to its content.
As long as people accept the Bible or Koran as being divine they will continue to hold its content to be special. Then you will continue to get people to act of its content.
Please elaborate.
Yes…. but unfortunately believers of the religions do not hold that the Bible is no longer divine because of this. (I don’t know how mistranslated, if at all, it has been) And as long as they still consider the divinity of the Bible, the longer the perception that its content is divine will get passed on. That is the issues I’m arguing. I don’t believe in God so obviously don’t believe the Bible is divine in any way. But people do, and that is a problem.
Feel free to interpret Harris as you please. I agree with his main argument that we ought to be able to criticize irrational religious beliefs and that it shouldn’t be taboo to do this. But I’ve not read his book yet and would prefer to before I join you in criticising any of his arguments you disagree with.
Quite frankly, I began to reply and I realized that I can't. I just don't think that you are willing enough to give on certain points such as:
Me: Your model leaks because it doesn't account for culture or history.
You: Please elaborate.
My point is that regardless if you don't think that the words of God should subjectively interpreted by relgions at different points in history (or different locations in the work) the objective fact is that they are. That interpretation is objective fact proved time and time again in history. See Luther and the Reformation as just one example of this.
And this is going to be one of the few time that I pull this card, but I'm a Chicago trained cultural anthropologist. I come from the position of authority on this one.
As I have suggested you're supposed objectivity doesn't want to allow for that fact because it doesn't meet your personal, philsophical model. And because of that, we can't have a conversation.
Futher you define the arguement as follows:
quote: The root of our disagreement is your belief that God words are on equal standing to those of his creation. In which case, why worship the Bible over any other book? Why not worship the Lord of the Rings and draw ones morality and beliefs about reality from there? Clearly and obviously the Bible (and Koran) is considered by believers to be above / transcending any other piece of writing available. This makes them a slave to its content.(end quote)
I don't believe that at any point I put that view forward. The irony here is that in recent years I've moved in more of a spiritual secular humanist than necessarily a Christian. I fundimentally see relgions as a cultural products (like I said I'm a cultural anthropologist), and ones that do infact change over time.
And I'm waiting for you to acknowledge that individuals can also be slaves to secular content.
This thread began with a discussion of the positive contributions of Islam/Islamic peoples. I think they've been established.
We've moved into a discussion on Harris. Quite frankly, as I think I've positioned myself, I line up with his secular critics. You have done nothing to convince me that you (for your own personal reasons) are not affording him a level of subjectivity that you refuse to give to religions. Further, you have failed to convince me that his writing (like other secular writing) are not inherently dogmatic and attract people who quote them with relgious furvor. And finally, your defense of his "moderates" aren't that bad, just seems really ill informed and refuses to follow the logic of his work to the bitter end because you don't like it.
It's also obvious that I'm not moving your views. So at this point, this is just two sides yelling at each other. And I'm not willing to engage in that.
What I do want to make clear is that my defense of relgion and my attacks on Harris's faulty logic, has little to nothing to do with my personal belief systems in religion or spirituality. It has everything to do with my academic belief in and understandings of logic, culture, history, and philosophy. In my opinion Harris fails under all of those categories. And again, I'll note that I'm not alone. And those critics that I've cited are all secular ones.
I completely agree. I don’t and never have ignored that it the Bible is interpreted… I’m just saying it is inconsistent to do so.
It seemed to me that you were arguing that we can subjectively read both the Bible and other texts equally. My response was that even though we do exactly this with the Bible, it is inconsistent with the beliefs held about God and the Bible etc.
I’m sure they can, but this is not because they logically ought to be, unlike the Bible (or Koran), which, for the matter of consistency, logically necessitates they should.
I think we're at a pretty good agree to disagree point. However in terms of Harris:
I urge you to return to my original posting on this subject are read some of Harris's secular critics.
His falicies include:
- Not addressing culture or history in his analitical mode
- Reducing everything to relgion -- including stating that communism is a religion in order to make it fit into his analysis
- Ignoring all other research done in these areas
- Failing to address the authoritarian thread of his own writing -- one that essentially allows for a militeristic reading of his own texts.
Harris has said of many ideaologies such as communisim nationalism.ect. that weather or not they are religious in nature is irrelivant, because they are not particularly rational ideas that operate on the same logical level of religion.
Ahh... and again, I'll get back to the fact that nationalism, communism, capitalism, and all other ideologies are culturally logical. The are created and adopted because they make sense. What you keep talking to is a fanatical interpretation of said idologies. However, culture is built on the back of moderate interpretations. However, Harris's model doesn't allow for moderate interpretations of ideologies. And that's a falicy, because, culturally speaking, we're all living moderate interpretations of ideologies. You can't escape them.
However, Harris doesn't allow for a moderate position (as Tekken noted earlier). Moderates are dangerous because they protect the extremists. And as long as the extremists are protect then we are all in danger (in Harris's arguement).
Anyway, probably what we need is a Harris thread as we've gone compeletly off topic.
yeah a harris thread wouldn't be a bad idea (fyi - i'll respond to those earlier longer posts in a bit) so, can we agree that the actions derived from those ideaologies are the logical consequence of holding those beliefs to be true? thats what i'm getting at, that some beliefs lend themselves to actions, and that those actions are indeed not irrational, they are what happens when you hold those propositions to be true beyond any ability of discourse.
No, Harris doesn't have a problem with moderation in of itself; he first and foremost acknowledges that the world would be a happier place if religious extremism were replaced by religious moderation.
What Harris doesn't allow for is beliefs and claims to be exempt from providing good reasoning and evidence. His key criticism of religious moderation is due to the fact that they bolster the notion that religious beliefs must be respected, that it is wrong to be critical of religion/faith… and because of this notion we cannot seriously criticise the beliefs of extremists, as their beliefs are fundamentally on the same level as moderates.
Harris' main argument is that we (society) have no qualms about demanding valid evidence/reasoning for beliefs and claims, and then criticizing/marginalising said beliefs and claims when valid evidence and reasoning is not provided. We do this all the time, every day. Yet this same standard is for some reason not applied to religion… religion is excused.
The danger is NOT because of moderation per se, it is because of the notion that we cannot criticise the beliefs and claims. Moderates are in the firing line as it is them who are the supporters of this notion.