It’s an interesting read, but one passage in particular caught my eye. He writes,
Thus, when Allah commands his followers to slay infidels wherever they find them, until Islam reigns supreme (2:191-193; 4:76; 8:39; 9:123; 47:4; 66:9)—only to emphasize that such violent conquest is obligatory, as unpleasant as that might seem (2:216), and that death in jihad is actually the best thing that can happen to a person, given the rewards that martyrs receive in Paradise (3:140-171; 4:74; 47:5-6)—He means just that. And, being the creator of the universe, his words were meant to guide Muslims for all time.
It wouldn’t have been useful to fully quote all of the Koranic references in the article, but I wanted to go through them on my own. Figured you might find it useful as well.
I’ll repost Sam’s above quote in bold, filling in the references using Yusuf Ali’s translation (and a link to the USC copy of the text).
Thus, when Allah commands his followers to slay infidels wherever they find them, until Islam reigns supreme
2:191-193 And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.
But if they cease, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.
4:76 Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject Faith Fight in the cause of Evil: So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan.
8:39 And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do.
9:123 O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.
47:4
Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah’s Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost.
66:9
O Prophet! Strive hard against the Unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge (indeed).
only to emphasize that such violent conquest is obligatory, as unpleasant as that might seem
2:216
Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.
and that death in jihad is actually the best thing that can happen to a person, given the rewards that martyrs receive in Paradise
3:140-171
If a wound hath touched you, be sure a similar wound hath touched the others. Such days (of varying fortunes) We give to men and men by turns: that Allah may know those that believe, and that He may take to Himself from your ranks Martyr-witnesses (to Truth). And Allah loveth not those that do wrong.
Allah’s object also is to purge those that are true in Faith and to deprive of blessing Those that resist Faith.
Did ye think that ye would enter Heaven without Allah testing those of you who fought hard (In His Cause) and remained steadfast? … (too long to quote in full, go to the link and read though 171 if you’re interested.)
4:74
Let those fight in the cause of Allah Who sell the life of this world for the hereafter. To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah,- whether he is slain or gets victory – Soon shall We give him a reward of great (value).
47:5-6
Soon will He guide them and improve their condition,
And admit them to the Garden which He has announced for them.
- He means just that. And, being the creator of the universe, his words were meant to guide Muslims for all time.
Sam’s conclusion is that “American Muslims should be absolutely free to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, but that the ones who should, probably wouldn’t want to.” I understand the sentiment entirely. I also think that the government should allow it — it simply isn’t the place of the government to start shutting down legal operations because they are unpopular.
Now that my stance on the legality of the matter is stated, I’d like to flesh out a few of my thoughts that the coverage of this ‘mosque at ground zero’ has generated. I’ve heard several interviews in response to the public outcry that the people who think that Islam is dangerous just need to learn about Islam — essentially that the opposition to Islam stems from ignorance of Islam. While ignorance is certainly a common rationalization to oppose something, it’s simply wrong to suggest that it’s always the main underlying reason.
In playing to the more liberal side of the political spectrum, the call to learn more about other religion and cultures is a seductive message, too. It gives a liberal, who might know nothing about Islam himself, the sense that he’s a cultured and sensitive creature while the yokels who only read their Bibles need to learn a thing or two about multiculturalism.
This thinking ignores the possibility of someone like me who has taken a considerable amount of time to learn about Islam. While not being an expert in religion, I can say with confidence that my concern about Islam was not ameliorated the more I learned, it was heightened. When I finished reading the Koran, for example, I was more disturbed than before I had read it.
I think that there are many reasons to argue against Islam, at its core it is another example of a faith-based system for determining how to live ones life. The general promotion of wishful thinking as a good way of deciding ANY decision of consequence is recipe for trouble. Besides that, there is an unbending adherence to the letter-by-letter word of the creator of the universe which seems particularly hard to keep some small percentage from actually believing it.
The selection of quote from the Koran quoted and cited above should give a clear smattering of examples of ideas that can be argued against because of the ideas themselves and not because of some ignorance of what they say. I hope you found this entry informative and useful.
In a previous blog entry, I embedded the TED talk given by Sam Harris — I’ll embed the video again for reference:
He apparently got both a lot of flak and a lot of praise that he thought came from misunderstandings. Moral Confusion in the name of “Science” | Project Reason. He wrote quite a long essay, but I’ll quote from just a part near the beginning.
Sam writes:
My intent was to begin a conversation about how we can understand morality in universal, scientific terms. Many people who loved my talk, misunderstood what I was saying, and loved it for the wrong reasons; and many of my critics were right to think that I had said something extremely controversial. I was not suggesting that science can give us an evolutionary or neurobiological account of what people do in the name of “morality.” Nor was I merely saying that science can help us get what we want out of life. Both of these would have been quite banal claims to make (unless one happens to doubt the truth of evolution or the mind’s dependency on the brain). Rather I was suggesting that science can, in principle, help us understand what we should do and should want—and, perforce, what other people should do and want in order to live the best lives possible. My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics, and such answers may one day fall within reach of the maturing sciences of mind.
I’ve been trying to think of where I can distinguish my thoughts from Sam’s — and the only real question where I think we could have divergent opinions would be in trying to pin down what exactly he means by promoting the well-being of conscious creatures. But, since he isn’t trying to parse things at a level that would be controversial to me (nor does he seem to have the inclination), I doubt there’s much disagreement. I will admit that he mentioned the possibility of brain scans as a way of discovering well-being in the future, and that sounded weird to me. I can follow the implicit logic easily enough: if the concern is the well-being of conscious beings, and if the mind depends on the brain, and if the brain is scannable in some meaningful way regarding overall well-being and happiness, then in the future being able to scan the brains of people in a particular society or belief system will be possible and instructive. It’s not obviously wrong to me, but I’m not convinced I’ve thought about it enough to come down clearly on the issue just yet.
Sam also mentions that he is frequently met with hostility to these ideas by people in academia — which I have found the case to be with me, as well. The largest source of disagreement between my fellow atheists and I come on the issue of moral relativism. I have long defended the notion that there exist such a thing as moral facts — in that sense I’m a moral realist. I have also found it an odd point of agreement between many of the theists that I argue with that moral relativism is incorrect. Although, since I think that Yahweh’s ordering his followers to commit genocide is morally wrong — it’s interesting to see a Biblical literalist start to argue that genocide is only sometimes wrong.
Anyway, I’m still forming my thoughts on these issues — let me know what you think!
I think that this TED talk — posted yesterday — is worth watching and thinking and arguing about.
I don’t want to pre-influence your thoughts, so I’ll embed the video (be sure to watch through the end because he gets asked a few questions at the end) and I’ll make further comments after the video.
I’m really interested to hear your own thoughts on the video, so leave a comments. I looked at a number of comments on the atheism sub-reddit, and the comments went in a number of directions.
Some people thought that Sam was flat out wrong. Others thought it was an amazing speech. Some thought that his arguments were addressed and dismissed by Hume hundreds of years ago.
My thoughts: To begin, I thought that every aspect of the delivery of the speech was amazing.
Second, I am a moral realist — in the sense that I think there exist moral facts. (I am aware that this puts me at odds with many of my fellow atheists). As such, I think I agree with the majority of Sam’s talk, although I’m not 100% sure on the specifics of what he means by human flourishing.
I think in almost all of the broad strokes, I’m sure we’d agree on what leads to human flourishing, but it gets trickier when you start saying things like brain states…
One interesting thing to me is that I often use analogies of nutrition to demonstrate a range of points in my day-to-day conversational atheism arguments.
I really liked the line about the Taliban’s ignorance on physics — and how their ignorance of human wellbeing being equally obvious.
Finally, did Sam have to use string theory? I think he should have picked something like General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics… string theory… ::eye roll::
Tonight, I went to a three-hour meeting of Christian graduate students and professors who were discussing the “Sam Harris vs. Philip Ball” blog-debate that occurred over Ball’s editorial in Nature. A full recap of the Harris-Ball interaction is available on The Reason Project’s site: http://www.reasonproject.org/archive/item/what_should_science_dosam_harris_v_philip_ball/
I was the only atheist in attendance, and it was held at a Christian’s house, hence the post title. I was invited to listen and provide an atheist perspective to what they were talking about. It was really interesting to listen to Christians talk about what they thought the “science vs. faith” debate between the two atheists meant.
The group was entirely academics (PHDs or soon to be) in various subjects: chemistry, neuro-linguistics, anthropology, philosophy of science, biology; and from various indications it looked their beliefs in things like the scientific method, human evolution, big bang cosmology, and those kinds of issues were not in conflict with current scientific consensus. They were disheartened that such a high percentage of US adults believed in divine human creation (over 40%) in favor of darwinian evolution.
A number of comments that they said amazed or amused me:
One biologist marveled at the internal struggle a serious archeologist must have in also being a Mormon. — As though a biologist could accept the physical resurrection of Jesus without internal conflict.
In the context of subsaharan Africa, another was saddened that the Christians there had enough faith to believe that the power of prayer could actually heal people of AIDS, because these faithful people would then stop taking their medicines…
Another lamented that Christians are calling children witches in Africa, as well.
In short, it appeared to me that as far as what a hardcore rational atheist would hope for in people who persisted in being serious Christians: these were the best you could find. And don’t get me wrong, they were all serious and committed Christians (and yet far from agreeing with Bishop Shelby Spong on almost anything).
It was also interesting to me to finally hear an example of “the difficulty of coming out as a Christian” especially in context of being a professionally tricky thing to do — and for me to believe them.
The content of the discussion was useful. Many of the people in the room had read the entire Harris-Ball blog-debate and had printed, annotated copies on their laps as we discussed it (I mentioned they were academics, right?).
In the beginning, people were convinced that Harris was being stridently scientismy or arguing something akin to: “If you disagree with me, then you’re being irrational. By the way, I decide.”
I worked on that impression for a while, stating what I considered Harris’ main contention is intellectual honesty — it’s ok not to know something, and to mention that you don’t know. And that the best method that we have for making progress on any topic is intellectually honest human conversation (and thus, should be promoted). Also, the only reason Ball’s writing was on Harris’ radar was that Nature (prestigious science journal) had given press, again, to obsessive deference to religious superstition.
It was a long meeting (3 hours), food was served, lots of discussion, and I convinced everyone in attendance to become atheists. Just kidding on that last bit.
At the end of the night, I think people agreed with several of the goals of the Reason Project in several ways:
1. It’s useful to question beliefs that you hold and the reasons for holding them — and this kind of thinking should be promoted.
2. Religious beliefs should not be sheltered from criticism any more than any other belief.
Tempers never flared, everyone had a pleasant evening, and I think I got across how at least I think about these issues in ways I don’t think they had considered.
Harris: In its most generic and well-subscribed form, Christianity amounts to the following claims: Jesus Christ, a carpenter by trade, was born of a virgin, ritually murdered as a scapegoat for the collective sins of his species, and then resurrected from death after an interval of three days. He promptly ascended, bodily, to “heaven”—where, for two millennia, he has eavesdropped upon (and, on occasion, even answered) the simultaneous prayers of billions of beleaguered human beings. Not content to maintain this numinous arrangement indefinitely, this invisible carpenter will one day return to earth to judge humanity for its sexual indiscretions and sceptical doubts, at which time he will grant immortality to anyone who has had the good fortune to be convinced, on Mother’s knee, that this baffling litany of miracles is the most important series of truth-claims ever revealed about the cosmos. Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will (probably) be consigned to a fiery hell for all eternity.
Go, read the debate… it’s awesome. One last quote later in the page: “If the basic claims of religion are false, most people are living in a state of abject confusion, beset by absurd hopes and fears, and tending to waste their time and attention—often with tragic results.” – Sam Harris
I have been very busy these past few weeks, among other things, I have to advance to candidacy within a month. So, starting mid-June expect a bunch of new activity at this site. I have had time to think on my daily commute, and I have had a nice chance to organize a number of different thoughts.
Among the things that I have been kicking around in my mind is to really focus on how to word ideas and questions to create the largest impact on the listener.
I’m in the planning stages of starting (modifying) a Student Organization that will have as its goal something very similar to the Reason Project (a Sam Harris non-profit foundation which very recently got officially launched). The mission statement would be something like:
Mission Statement of a University Chapter of the Reason Project—A student organization devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society and on campus. The campus organization draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
I posted a poll over at the Reason Project website (the response to which has so far been encouraging): http://www.reasonproject.org/forum/viewthread/12179/
I would like for this Student Organization (whether affiliated with RP or not) to do is to actively engage the student community in a productive way. To this end, I envision a number of forums being made available. The tentative plan is for an informal weekly gathering with a specific topic announced to start the moderated discussion, with a more formal monthly debate. There are an entire range of possible topics that can be worded in a number of ways. For example:
Is religious faith a force for good in the world?
Has a much different ring to it than,
Is religious gullibility a force for good in the world?
Now, to be honest, neither is not really a fair question because ‘faith’ has a positive connotation and ‘gullibility’ has a negative connotation. The second question might be a stupid idea as a debate topic, but might be an excellent tool for conversing with fellow atheists who have a problem with a policy of challenging the faithful.
Anyway, I will get back to frequently updating this site very soon!
Sam Harris has written a response to the responses to an essay about the conflict between science and religion posted on Edge.org. By the way, the title of this post comes from the concluding paragraph and Sam is writing satire (and is damn good at it).
It is awesome.
His essay can be enjoyed without reading any of the things that he refers to…although reading through the post and the responses first will give added enjoyment.
Feast on just one small sample from:
It’s All True (link loads the page at Sam’s response on the page that includes the original article and other responses)
For instance: it is now becoming a common practice in Afghanistan and Pakistan to blind and disfigure little girls with acid for the crime of going to school. When I was a neo-fundamentalist rational neo-atheist I used to criticize such behavior as an especially shameful sign of religious stupidity. I now realize—belatedly and to my great chagrin—that I knew nothing of the pain that a pious Muslim man might feel at the sight of young women learning to read. Who am I to criticize the public expression of his faith? Bateson is right. Clearly a belief in the inerrancy of the holy Qur’an is indispensable for these beleaguered people.
Ok, I just couldn’t keep it down to 1 quote. One last bit from the same article:
Is there a conflict between scientific rationality and a belief in magic spells? Specifically, is there a conflict between believing that epilepsy is a result of abnormal neural activity and believing that it is a sign of demonic possession? Dogmatists like Coyne and Dennett clearly think so. They don’t realize, as Dyson must, that the more one understands neurology, the more one will understand—and honor—demonology.
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