What Does It Mean To Say That A Religion Is Peaceful Or Violent?
Since we keep coming back to this issue in comments, I guess we ought to deal with it explicitly. As usual, once I get into actual conversations with people, I find my own position shifting around. Conservatives seem to be more prone to claiming that Islam is a violent religion, liberals more prone to claiming that it's a peaceful one. (Note: whenever I make generalizations like this--even though I'm careful to qualify them--somebody gets pissed. But try to pay close attention to the tentative and attenuated nature of my claims.) When I'm around liberals who are inclined to defend Islam, I find myself being more willing to indict it, and when I'm around conservatives who criticize it I find myself being more willing to defend it.
But recently I've recognized that I have little right to do either of these things because I don't know a damn thing about Islam.
I tried to read the Koran once, but couldn't really make much sense of it--less sense, say, than even the old or new testaments or the book of Mormon--three books that don't make a particularly great deal of sense in my opinion. But that was a fairly half-hearted effort. There's no doubt about it: I don't know anything about Islam. Funny thing is, I can tell that most of the people one hears talking about it these days know no more about it than I do...but that doesn't stop them from pontificating about it.
So I've got a couple of books and--in my CST (copious spare time--an acronym I picked up from Bill Lycan)--I thought I'd try to become rather less ignorant about it.
But there are important theoretical questions floating around in the background that I don't know how to answer. Such as: what makes a religion peaceful or not so? One can easily think of a couple of reasonable answers right off the bat, of course:
1. A religion is peaceful to the extent that its practitioners are peaceful.
2. A religion is peaceful to the extent that its practionioners have historically been peaceful.
3. A religion is peaceful to the extent that its official doctrine (holy book, whatever) encourages peace.
I think one can make a case for any--or all--of these. Christianity, for example, fares pretty well on 1, not well at all on 2...and 3 is complicated. As I understand it, the old testament is fairly violent, though the new testament is fairly peaceful. Christians seem to care more about the new than the old testament, so I'd say that swings 3 rather in their favor.
Buddhism seems to fare well on all three criteria.
So what about Islam? Well, I don't know enough about it to say. My fairly uninformed inclination is to think that it doesn't fare so well on 1. I've read some things that make me think the same about 2 (though Islam might fare better than Christianity on that one). I have some inclination, though, to think that 3 is the really important criterion...and about that I just don' t know. I've seen stuff that seems cherry-picked to try to show opposite things about the matter, and I just can't say. This should actually be a fairly easy question to answer, and if you know where I can find good info, please to let me know.
I've just been given Bostom's The Legacy of Jihad, though I've heard that it may not be objective.
Since we keep coming back to this issue in comments, I guess we ought to deal with it explicitly. As usual, once I get into actual conversations with people, I find my own position shifting around. Conservatives seem to be more prone to claiming that Islam is a violent religion, liberals more prone to claiming that it's a peaceful one. (Note: whenever I make generalizations like this--even though I'm careful to qualify them--somebody gets pissed. But try to pay close attention to the tentative and attenuated nature of my claims.) When I'm around liberals who are inclined to defend Islam, I find myself being more willing to indict it, and when I'm around conservatives who criticize it I find myself being more willing to defend it.
But recently I've recognized that I have little right to do either of these things because I don't know a damn thing about Islam.
I tried to read the Koran once, but couldn't really make much sense of it--less sense, say, than even the old or new testaments or the book of Mormon--three books that don't make a particularly great deal of sense in my opinion. But that was a fairly half-hearted effort. There's no doubt about it: I don't know anything about Islam. Funny thing is, I can tell that most of the people one hears talking about it these days know no more about it than I do...but that doesn't stop them from pontificating about it.
So I've got a couple of books and--in my CST (copious spare time--an acronym I picked up from Bill Lycan)--I thought I'd try to become rather less ignorant about it.
But there are important theoretical questions floating around in the background that I don't know how to answer. Such as: what makes a religion peaceful or not so? One can easily think of a couple of reasonable answers right off the bat, of course:
1. A religion is peaceful to the extent that its practitioners are peaceful.
2. A religion is peaceful to the extent that its practionioners have historically been peaceful.
3. A religion is peaceful to the extent that its official doctrine (holy book, whatever) encourages peace.
I think one can make a case for any--or all--of these. Christianity, for example, fares pretty well on 1, not well at all on 2...and 3 is complicated. As I understand it, the old testament is fairly violent, though the new testament is fairly peaceful. Christians seem to care more about the new than the old testament, so I'd say that swings 3 rather in their favor.
Buddhism seems to fare well on all three criteria.
So what about Islam? Well, I don't know enough about it to say. My fairly uninformed inclination is to think that it doesn't fare so well on 1. I've read some things that make me think the same about 2 (though Islam might fare better than Christianity on that one). I have some inclination, though, to think that 3 is the really important criterion...and about that I just don' t know. I've seen stuff that seems cherry-picked to try to show opposite things about the matter, and I just can't say. This should actually be a fairly easy question to answer, and if you know where I can find good info, please to let me know.
I've just been given Bostom's The Legacy of Jihad, though I've heard that it may not be objective.
posted by Winston Smith at
2:48 PM
19 Comments:
re 2: I'm willing to be shown evidence to the contrary, but what little I know of human history suggests that the disposition to violence is pretty uniformly distributed -- i.e., religious affiliation doesn't make a lot of difference.
Agreed with Bob. I have to wonder at anyone who thinks that religion differentiates human behavior that much. The inquisition, the crusades, pretty much every war in Europe was a "Christian" war. The whole colonization of the western hemisphere was "Christian" based. Heck, our own "manifest destiny" was a Christian justification of eradicating the natives and grabbing land.
All religions are violent because all people are violent.
Kung Fu practicing Buddhist monks, anyone?
As for "Christians seem to care more about the New than the Old Testament", that really depends on the Christians in question. Most of the fundamentalist types who are pushing for Ten Commandments morality and the like seem much more enamoured of the fire and brimstone OT model than the Prince of Peace NT model. Not that it's clear-cut -- a lot of Paul's writing's at odds with a straightforward reading of the Gospels. But then, it's hard to get a consistent straightforward readingof the Gospels.
That the world, and man, are violent I think is beyond question, unless one subscribes to the modernist view of the mutability of man's nature.
(This proposition so far has absolutely no grounding in observable history.)
To say that religion is therefore necessarily violent seems to gloss over the question if he is violent because of or in spite of it. That religion can be used to incite violence is undeniable; however the inciting is usually done for cynical and self-serving political purposes by the incitor.
(Even a slam dunk like the crusades might not be an exception. But certainly the fratricidal European "religious" wars were not fought over the doctrine of transubstantiation.)
A look at the "Old Testament" shows the Israelites kicking a lot of ass in the first half, and getting their asses kicked in the second. They are rendered divine justice just as they were at first the instruments of it. They are the protagonists of the narrative, but by no means the heroes.
It is a very complex document, and to grab a few putatively damning incidents out of theological context misses its larger theme of justice.
The New Testament is fairly straightforward in my view. How Paul differs from Jesus would be an interesting discussion, but not germane here. We do know that the hero of the NT willingly dies but does not kill.
The Qur'an seems equally straightforward, but it seems unfair, as you point out, WS, to grab a few quotes to condemn it as violent without a full understanding of its theology. Still, its protagonist does kill and conquer.
But further, I do think it's safe to say it presents itself as a solution to the problems of humanity, of life on earth, perhaps a promise of heaven on earth. I do compare it to communism in that it's a master plan for ordered living. Unfortunately, both depend on a relative unanimity for the plan to work. What to do with those who don't go along, and in so doing, interfere with the plan?
Man's, and the world's, solution has been violence.
I would not call communism essentially violent, so it seems fair to consider Islam the same. However, man and the reality of the world seem to require violence to get the necessary level of unaninimity.
Until Islam, or communism for that matter, finds a way around the requirement of violence to fulfill its destiny, we are in a pickle.
The problem for this discussion is that Christianity is not a monolith. Some Christians build houses for the poor. Some handle snakes and drink strychnine. Some abuse children. Some march for freedom in the face of vicious, bloody attacks (by other Christians). Some kill each other; some make peace; some keep their heads down.
Within this fabric, there is variation in degree, but it's hard to believe that there's a difference in kind.
The problem for the previous thread of argument is that Islam is the same, almost by definition. Is it less varied on peace than Christianity, right now or historically? If so, will it mature as Christianity seems to have done? One of these questions is empirical; the other is anybody's guess.
Bob Koepp had it right; we're a violent species. Our propensity to kill each other is widely distributed. Where it was absent, evolution (pre-human) has extirpated it. Our propensity to cooperate is also widely distributed, under countervailing but similarly powerful selective pressure.
In this fabric, there is variation in degree, but it's hard to believe that there's a difference of kind.
Consider the following:
(i) Islam was founded approximately 600 years after Christianity
(ii) Roughly 600 years ago (1400 AD), Christianity (itself approximately 1400 years of age) was just winding down off of a bloody, violent era known as the dark or middle ages.
(iii) Present day Islam is roughly 1400 years old, and tends to be bloodier and more violent than we would like.
My point: perhaps the current Islamic trend towards violence is analagous to the Christian episode. If so, the violence differential between these two religions is a matter of temporal displacement, and not of ideological disagreement.
Perhaps. But let's look at the Christian millitia movement, KKK and a lot of other home grown violent organizations that are hard core christians who live in the present day (just check out the souther poverty law center's web site). Branch Davidians, you name it. There's a lot around. And so to build on Koepp and LL's point, people who view Islam as a monolithic whole obviously don't understand the sectarian violence in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites.
Now that I think about it, perhaps that is one reason things are so f'd up over there - the simplistic fantasy world view of a monolithic religion of Islam.
But further, I do think it's safe to say it presents itself as a solution to the problems of humanity, of life on earth, perhaps a promise of heaven on earth. I do compare it to communism in that it's a master plan for ordered living. Unfortunately, both depend on a relative unanimity for the plan to work. What to do with those who don't go along, and in so doing, interfere with the plan?
This historically was a problem with Christianity too, despite the apparent peacefulness of Christian scriptures (excepting Revelation, as far as I know). Many Christians committed a lot of violence against people who were not with the program.
Coming to this as a Jew, I know: If you were to give me the offer to be plopped down, as a Jew, in a random Islam-dominated society somewhere in history, or in a random Christian-dominated society somewhere in history, I would pick Islam in a heartbeat. It would suck if I wound up in present-day Saudi Arabia, and it would be fantastic if I picked "Christian" and wound up where I am in the U.S.A (which would be fine throughout most of its history), but the risk of ended up in, say, Spain ca. 1492 would just be too great.
Which is not to say that Islam is better than Christianity, or vice versa. Only that I get impatient when people (no one here did it, but some people to it) try to argue that Islam has some sort of immutable violent or intolerant nature. Christianity was not great with tolerance throughout much of its history, but it got better. There's reason to think Islam might do the same.
JFTR, my little-informed impression is that most religous texts/doctrines are sufficiently ambiguous and contradictory that one can get what one wants from them on many issues, including this one, but that it's rather easier to base violence on Islam than on Christianity. Christ brought a metaphorical sword, Mohammed had an actual one.
Hmmm...what did that Philospher have to say?
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
- Blaise Pascal, Pensees
I have a hard time believing this
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/03/trial_by_fire_holocaust_histor.php
Wasn't motivated by religion and I would not consider it peaceful.
Well, the thing is that lots of Nazi/anti-semitic/Aryan supremacy types are retro-Pagans of some kind. So if the idea here is that we can pin anti-semitism of this kind on Christianity...well, I think it's an unclear case.
Winston,
Much like Hitler the types you mention believe they are Christian (Hitler was catholic), and ofen believe are doing "God's" work.
So what constitutes being a christian, or a muslim, or a buddhist or even a pagan if it's not belief?
Does doing something evil (say, the inquisition or burning heretics (or their buildings)) suddenly not make one a member of a particular religion?
Well, no, that's the so-called "no true Scotsman fallacy" (No Scotsman would do such a thing! Um, the perp WAS a Scotsman. Well, no TRUE Scotsman would do so!)
What we need here is an expert on Nazi religion...all I've got is a casual acquaintance with the subject. There was lots of "back to Paganism!"-type stuff with the Nazis and the SS in particular...sometimes they even express contempt for Christianity...though there's no doubt that most Nazis were Christians...it's just not clear to me, and I've read more about WWII than 99.9% of the population...so without further research I don't see how to go beyond "unclear."
I'm not trying to cheat in favor of the Christians here, I'm just saying there's room for uncertainty here.
Very good arguments, Mr. Weiner. Still, one must ask why the two religions went in such opposite directions, leaving us at the present day. Could it have something to do with their actual content?
---To Pascal, his words were true at the time, but once we hit the 20th century, the non-religionists got their turn behind the wheel, and the crash was stupendous. (Pensees was also written before the French Revolution, no picnic that.
One begins to wonder whether man needs a reason to kill and tyrannize, or just an excuse.
---That Islam is not monolithic is actually a problem. Since there is little central doctrinal authority (the Sh'ias are considered heretics simply for having mullahs), there is great tolerance for various interpretations. Therefore, a Muslim can disagree with bin Laden, but be unwilling to stop him. It is the more civilized in a society who discipline and neuter their barbarians. There is little mechanism for such self-correction in Islam, which is why it has functioned best under a central political authority.
Judaism and Christianity function just fine as minority religions; Islam is not designed that way.
Yeah, I agree, Tom. The content of ideas matters.
Though I've come to think they're rather more of an overlay on human nature...they can guide people a bit...but most people just do what they'd do anyway.
Now I think that the content of ideas has less effect on people than it should, but more effect than none at all.
Ah yes, Dr. Smith, I read your paper "The Effect of Thoughts and Ideas on Human Beings: Little or None?" in last month's Futility Today, the official journal of philosophy profs everywhere.
Fine work, and I reckon what Plato was on about with that cave thing.
Oof...
'tis not so deep as a well,
nor so wide as a church door,
but 'tis enough
'till serve...
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