Journal Mr.Intel's Journal: Islam: Religion and Civil Authority 4
I just became aquainted with Twirlip of the Mists and have been reading and replying in his/her journal. One particular comment got me thinking and I wanted to address my thoughts here.
Basic morality is absolute. The devil, as always, is in the details, but to deny a person his freedom because of an opinion he expressed about a religious figure is wrong. Not unfortunate, not disappointing, wrong. A society that not only allows but actually mandates such a practice is bad, and wrong.
I couldn't disagree more...and agree more. Here is what I read this as saying: "There is one (basic set of) morality for all people. Denying people their rights because they adhere to a different moral code than me is wrong. The only thing worse is government enforced morality.
Okay, I agree that there is only one set of "truths" that apply to the universe. However, there is absolutely no method established for anyone to obtain this knowledge in-toto. Therefore, no one person can pass judgment on another for their beliefs and be justified. Now if we diverge our thinking to include common social morality and ascribe to the social contract theory, then we can find justification for these judgments. But this argument inherently relies on the basic premise of majority rule and democratic political ideology. Everything else is mandated from a person or group of people. So no, I do not agree that any state can apply judgment to any other based solely on moral grounds, no matter how reprehensible they may be.
To apply this to Islam, we need to understand what Islam is and why it functions the way it does. The basic premises of Islam lie in the Koran and sumah (way of the prophet). The Articles of Faith for Islam are: Oneness of God, Belief in Angels, Belief in the Prophets of God, Belief in the Holy Books (Bible, Koran, Torah), Belief in a day of judgment and Qadr (the will of God). The pillars of Islam are: Shadada (testament of faith), Salaat (Prayer), Zakat (Charity typically 2.5% of annual income), Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and Fasting (Ramadan).
Mohammed was the first prophet and civil leader of all Muslims. When he died there were two ideas on how to lead the people. One view held that the leader must be a direct descendant of the Prophet (Shi'i) and the other was to be determined by election (Sunni). Later a third group split from the Shi'i called the Khawaraj due to differences in dealing with sinful leaders, but they are mostly non-existent. See here and here for more information.
There is considerable disagreement between the two remaining sects of Islam regarding what is 'right'. For example, this site makes the following claim, "The Ahlus Sunnah or the 'Sunnis' are the only group of Muslims on the face of this planet who still adhere to the beliefs that were taught 1400 years ago by Islam's Noble Prophet Muhammad." Obviously, the Shi'a do not consider themselves to be in the wrong. Added to this split, there is also the problem of centralization within Islam (or even within its two sects). Simply put, there is no central authoritative body that governs the actions of all Muslims. Without this central body, there is no way to unite member of Islam to a common purpose or to prevent further schisms within the two sects (see Wahhabism and Ismailism). Most religious decisions are made at the local Mosque and are absolute. Furthermore, the concept of ijtihad (independent reasoning) is shunned. Most Muslims are textualists meaning that they practice Islam how Mohammed practiced it with no variation. There are however, voices of dissent who are urging a rational approach to Islam. Still unresolved are the questions of "Who speaks for God?" and "How does God Speak?". Ask ten Muslims and you may get ten answers. There is essentially no answer for these questions and this is why Islam is such a difficult religion to understand.
So now we come to the problem of Islam and Civil authority. There is an inherent conflict between Islam and secular political authority. There is only one way to run a "Muslim country" and that is with Islam. You have a mullah or other Islamic leader double as the leader of the government. If you allow a "Muslim country" to become secular, you are giving up on Islam. This would apparently be in conflict with western ideas like democracy and capitalism, yet we see American Muslims proclaim that there is no better place to practice Islam than the United States. Principally because of the freedom we enjoy. A strange paradox indeed.
The right tool is missing .. (Score:1)
First of all I'd like to thank you for the nice article, I don't say I do agree on every idea stated in the article, but then I find it very nicely written and very insightful.
Well first of all, I *am* a Muslim. I do enjoy to get into religious arguments with my friends from other religions (And atheists to) a lot, and what I would like to reply to is actually the first part of your post more than anything else.
People claim that God does not exist simply because its existance cannot be proven using logic. This is what most atheists use to prove their points. However:
* The existance of God cannot be disproven either, and the belief (or rather the disblief) of atheists shouldn't be based on the basic "lack" of proof, because this by itself isn't a proof for the opposite case.
* We cannot prove, using our logic, or any other human means, that logic itself is a valid tool to deal with religions. So how do we actually require someone to USE it to prove something we aren't sure it's capable of doing.
More to this, most atheists use consider the theory of evolution as perfectly true, using this theory, I have thought of this:
* Let us assume the theory of evolution is valid.
* A human then is a grandson of some other lower level creature, let's take any creature, say a chimp.
* The mental power of a chimp is obviously lower than this of a human, and his logic reasoning skills and understanding of what's around him, and making stuff out of it are considerable lower (or let's say just "different") from humans.
* To me this rings a bell, does not this mean that there *can* be creatures with better logic reasoning in the future?
* If so, then does not this mean that we don't (yet!) have the full suit of logic, probably! and that in some thousand or million years our ascendants would come closer to it.
Since our theory of evolution was related to the none-existance of God, then there is some sort of contradiction here, which makes me believe that "Prove to me that God exists" or "Prove to me that your religion is valid" is something wrong, because we have to find the valid logic that would be a suitable tool to prove or disprove this, and that tool would never be found if evolution was true.
I hope my ideas weren't just a spam in your journal, thanks for reading if you did that, I just liked your article and wanted to add something I always wanted to write down in an organized manner.
Khalid
Re:The right tool is missing .. (Score:1)
Thank you for your thought out reply. I appreciate the insight that people with other backgrounds and experiences have to offer. For the record, most of my journal entries are just for me to get some thoughts written down in a somewhat orderly fashion. Replies are an added bonus!
We cannot prove, using our logic, or any other human means, that logic itself is a valid tool to deal with religions.I agree. It is a common trap that most empirical thinkers fall into because they cannot see any other way to work through a problem. I call it "cranial myopia".
More to the point, God is most certainly logical, but man simply lacks the ability to see Him for what He is.
Re: Proving the existence of the divine (Score:2)
When I say "The Christian bible is a great book, that can inspire good deeds and useful thought despite its many errors and explicit exhortations to vigilantism, racism, and hatred" I am actually saying almost exactly the same thing as my fundamentalist friend when he says "The Bible is the One True Word of God, and it is completely and fundamentally inerrant."
It took dozens of emails to nail this down, incidentally.
The Christian Fundie view: Basically, my friend believes that the bible cannot be comprehended without divine inspiration, but this divine guidance is available to all who truly believe in the might and goodness of God. When guided by the deity, any mistranslations, parables, or printing errors will be transparent to the reader, and the divine purpose revealed in utmost clarity. If you see hatred or evil in the bible, it is because you have not submitted your will to that of the Lord, and consequently you will be misled by infernal influences and human errors that do not really exist in the True Word.
The rational pantheist view: All things partake of the deity, and even the most evil things can be instructive. When one reads the bible, one reads the history and epic poetry that lies at the base of judeo-christian religious thought, and by careful consideration and sound reasoning processes one can gain insight into the nature and properties of the divine.
To get back to the original statement, it's the definitions that were the problem. He said "the Bible is inerrant" and I heard "I am religiously required to commit any and all atrocities the bible says christians should commit". His definition of what it means to comprehend the text is so radically different from mine that the confusion is understandable. (This is also interesting in the context of Muslim-bashing by Christian groups, who typically quote the Koran for support of their ideas.)
A pantheist definition of the godhead is so different from that of systems that worship anthropomorphic deities that communication becomes difficult. If a pantheist says "I have a personal relationship with God; it speaks to me every day" or "I live my life in accordance with the will of God" s/he almost certainly means something very different than what a Christian would mean by such a statement!
The pantheist proof of the existence of God is easily contained by Descartes' famous aphorism - I think therefore I am.
Thanks for the food for thought; hopefully I have returned the favor.
Re: Proving the existence of the divine (Score:1)
Very much so. Thank you for the insightful reply.
You comments on rational pantheism is intriguing. I strongly believe in the oneness of God, meaning that there is one God for all humankind. This is manifest in the striking similarities between seemingly polar opposite faiths. With few exceptions, there are binding threads between each of the major world religons. It seems to me that the fissures in ideology lies with the "how to's" rather than the whys and we are really more similar than different.