April 5th, 2010 by Justin
Atrocities committed in the name of religion continue to plague the world. Despite many believers’ claims to the contrary, the fact that travesties of justice and violations of human dignity occur day in and day out on this planet, indicates that the religions of this world—established or otherwise—are still fostering psychotic behavior, as much as they ever have.
We can start our little survey of religious pathologies in the ever-popular Saudi Arabia, where a Lebanese man was recently sentenced to beheading for the crime of witchcraft. Although there is doubt as to whether the execution was actually carried out, that’s not really the point, is it?
Or we can take a look at Dubai, that hedonistic theocracy where you can have fun, just not too much fun, and if you do have too much fun you’re screwed. A British Muslim woman recently filed a complaint with the police that she was raped. The Dubai police, however, were more interested in her love life, and threw her in jail for having “illegal sex” with her fiancee. Because in Dubai, the fun is for non-Muslims only.
In Malaysia, where a similarly unequal legal system applies the strictures of Shariah to Muslims, but civil law to everyone else, Muslims are routinely caned for such outrageous offenses as (shock!) having a beer.
Holier-than-thou Christian Americans shouldn’t be too quick to look down their noses at the backward Islamic communities, though: they should first ask if beating people for wearing something you don’t like is acceptable to their conscience, as it apparently is to those in charge of an Alabama prom, or the fact that such corporal punishment is legal in 20 states.
Alternatively, we can consult the largest Christian denomination on earth regarding its ongoing child rape scandal. Indeed, the Catholic Church has shown itself to be perhaps the world’s greatest institutional force for the abuse of children.
Finally, let’s not forget Uganda, which appears to be one of the worst places on earth, where lawmakers are willing to make homosexual behavior punishable by death, but are unwilling to protect children from being tortured and slaughtered like sacrificial goats.
There’s plenty more where these stories came from. I wish I were exaggerating. Whether caning, paddling or stoning, the psychosis of religion is alive and well on every continent.
No doubt many peaceful religious people would say “that’s not my god,” or “that’s not what my religion teaches; these people are twisting the scriptures.” Indeed. And how, pray tell, does one know this? How is one interpretation of those “scriptures” any more or less legitimate than any other? What is the basic standard of knowledge in any of these backward blind faiths? And if there is such a standard, why didn’t the aforementioned heathens get the memo?
April 2nd, 2010 by Justin
Ever since first studying Aristotle years ago, the quote has always stuck out at me: Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. As someone who has had many discussions, arguments and debates with many people on many issues, online and off, the issue of the proper balance between love of human and love of truth to me is eternally relevant. How does one reckon with a person who refuses to accept argument or evidence? At what point does such a person no longer deserve our respect? It is tempting to say, simply, “when they show themselves to be unreasonable” but who among us has always been reasonable at all times? Unreasonableness is an inextricable part of the human condition, and is present in every human to some degree at some time. And yet it is our capacity to reason that sets us apart from lower life forms and allows us to achieve our highest levels of flourishing.
The Aristotelian sentiment points to possibly one of the most extraordinary leaps in human consciousness to ever occur: the radical notion that first loyalty belongs to an intangible thing–an idea–and not a person. From this groundbreaking intellectual development arose the commitment to objective truth, the actual state of the world, separate and apart from the subjective experiences, desires and assumptions of people. And once humans could conceptualize a world outside of personhood, a reality existing of its own accord with or without any person to interact with it, human thinking and consciousness reached an authentically new level, and has never been the same. Whether or not this mindset actually originated with Aristotle himself or the Greek philosophers themselves (which I doubt), it nevertheless has been delivered to us in excellent form by those philosophers, and it remains one of their simplest, most profound and most important contributions to western thought.
To be sure, the concept of fidelity to something outside of humanity existed long before complex civilization arose, in Greece or anywhere else. The awesome power and huge uncertainty found in nature was enough to get the earliest humans worshipping and praying to forces beyond their control, and seeing human life in the context of the larger universe, rather than the other way around. From these animist origins came the polytheistic conception of “gods” with personalities and desires and consciousness. These gods were essentially intangible beings, immaterial creatures who could control the material world. And once humans acclimated themselves to bodiless personalities, the next step was to eliminate the personality, leaving only an intangible thing, the truth, devoid of personhood or human-like characteristics and attributes, and therefore qualitatively outside of humanity itself.
This remains an essential difference between the theist and the nontheist, to this day. Both can maintain fidelity to an objective thing, outside of humanity. But one has taken the leap beyond an anthropomorphized “god” who is still a person, and the other has not.
So my commitment to the truth remains intact, because it is the one thing that has not changed and will not change, is not tied to personhood and is therefore not tied to persons. While truth borrows nothing from humans, humans cannot thrive without it. Friends, personalities, leaders, followers, whims, emotions, life, death–all these things come and go. The truth remains. And that is why it should be honored above all else.
