Proving the Pope Right

Suppose you had the following theory - that the Moslem religion has brought nothing new to the world except evil and inhumane acts. How would you set about convincing others that there may be some truth to it? You could read up on a lot of history, both recent and from times long ago, and write volumes on the subject; but of course, to be fair, it would have to be a comparative history showing that, in comparison to other religions, the claim is borne out. But that would take a long long time, and of course would spur a long debate that would bring to light new and novel interpretation of well documented facts, the introduction of new facts that you may have ignored or were ignorant of, countless debates, calls for further dialogue, etc. etc.

Or you could just quote someone else who said that very thing. And then, rather than document and prove your point with words, stand back and see the adherents to the religion of Peace (who to this day enslave Christians, preach conversion by the sword, talk about the infidel dog, call the Jews the modern day Nazis) burn churches and kill Italian nuns. Point proved if you ask me, but then again I didn't really need any more proof than what has been on offer for years (others more historically informed would say it's been on offer for centuries).

I am sympathetic to the argument that a small minority of extremists have distorted Islam, but I think that argument only goes so far. It seems to me that certain aspects of the religion lend it to extremism on the part of its adherents, especially as compared to the other major religions of the world. To say that it only does so for, say, five percent of Moslems, is no wringing endorsement, if other religions do not contribute to extremism at all. Every religion has its nuts, but only the imams of Islam seem to be confused about the difference between a martyr (the Christian conception of which is someone who dies in defense of their faith) and a suicide bomber, who dies in defense of nothing so as to kill innocents. Encouraging five percent of their unbalanced followers to terrorism (if that is all they have done), given the damage that minority is done, is too much to hold the religion in high esteem even if the remaining 95 percent are pious and peace-loving.

Think of it this way - if you were a non-believer in God, but you had to choose a religion for your kids, would you choose the one that maximizes the probability of them becoming murderers? Think about it as prescribing a medicine for your kid - all religions may, on average, yield equally beneficent effects on the virtue of their adherents, but only one seems to have such violent side effects in a non-negligible subset of the population.

I am reading a very enlightening book now by James Bowman (Honor: A History, you can order the book from his website: http://www.jamesbowman.net/), who makes the point that the Arab world is an old-time medieval honor culture, and that much of how they behave is not to be explained by their particular religion, but instead can be understood within the context of that old-time honor culture, which is largely dead in the West. That old-time honor culture put a lot of weight on any public comment - if you insulted a guy's wife, his courage, his religion, whatever - you had to be prepared to duel or be exposed as a coward whose insult cannot carry any weight. Words often led to matters of life and death. "Honor" killings are still very much a part of the Arab Moslem world, and their reaction to the Pope's comments - treating them literally as "fightin words" - fits Bowman's hypothesis very neatly.

So one might argue that it is this old honor culture that, independent from the religion, would lead to the same behavior. But Bowman knows that the religion is not entirely blameless, because he spends a fair amount of time in the book describing how Christianity had a clear and civilizing influence on the concept of honor. One religion seems to lead people out of the insane aspects of the old honor culture, whereas the other keeps them mired in it.

**********************************************************************************

The Phillies swept the Astros and are 1 game behind the reeling Dodgers for the wild card. Bet the college fund that they lose their next game!