Radicalization of religions

This is indeed the threat facing us today:  radicalization of religions.

And any set of prescribed ‘truths’ which are ‘unquestionable’ by its adherents is a religion.  In keeping with the original meaning of the word ‘religios’, it is a belief system which ties effects to specific causes.  These causes need not be supernatural, but they may be.

We are used to thinking of ’religion‘ as ’worship’ of ‘supernatural god/creator/force/consciousness’, but this is only one face or ’religion’.  Rather, it is the fact that there exist some certain ‘tennets’ or ‘beliefs’ or ‘principles’ that are seen as powerful, influential or important enough to be singled out for ’special attention/worship’ and which may not be questioned that turns a simple ‘belief system’ or philosophy into a religion.

So, it really does not matter WHAT the particular religion teaches.  It does not matter whether this religion is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Secular Humanism, or Global Warming Alarmism.  The  teachings/beliefs themselves are really not the point…

It is the RADICALIZATION bit that is the problem.  It is the WAY in which the ‘radicalized believer’ truly and honestly believes that unless they impose their own beliefs on others, regardless of the cost, the whole society will come to an end/be punished/destroyed.  It is their depth of conviction that they are the only ones who are right and that it is their duty to institutionalize their beliefs which poses the real danger.   

THAT is radicalization, and THAT is the problem.  We need to stop confusing ’symptoms’ with ’causes’…. 

Conspiracy or good marketing?

Oh, my!  Technology is FUN!!!

Today, I had some REAL fun.  Thanks to a tip from CanadianBeaver, I stumbled upon BlogTV!  Sort of like any other blog, except that instead of text, you pump out live video, and people type comments which pop up as you go….  And, once I got me a mike, I got to even talk - live - to a whole ‘roomful’ of people who were chatting with CB!  Thank you, one and all!

One topic which came up was the ‘world domination by the illuminati/banking families/the-13-bloodlines’.  I’d like to make an important point:  never ascribe to a ‘conspiracy’ what you can explain by human stupidity/greed.  Or, really, really good marketing!

Think about it, really.  If YOU were a person in control of great wealth/multinational corporate conglomerate, and you had the opportunity to create strategic alliances with other really wealthy businesses/individuals/families, would you consider this to be ‘a conspiracy’, or would it simply be good business sense?  Prudent corporate strategy, perhaps? 

How naive would we all be if we did not think that ’strategic alliances’ have been forged and broken and re-forged, all throughout our history?  Visible ones, and ‘behind the scenes’ ones…  It is the most predictable, natural course of things… and calling it a ‘conspiracy’ just seems so silly!  Of course it is going on.  Of course the aim is to concentrate wealth, control and market share - power.  It is the most reasonable course of action! 

And….what is the real difference between being ’secretive’ and ‘discrete’?

But to think it all this is somehow evil?  Come on!

Nature of ‘Faith’

In the last two posts, I looked at an alternate explanation of some statements in the Bible.  As the feedback showed, some Christians believe these statements literally, others figuratively.  And they are all happy holding onto their very different beliefs, even though all of them are inspired by the same passage in Genesis.   That is great!  

People ’hold on’ to their ’profound beliefs’, regardless of what others think of them or anything else - and I would not want it to be any other way.  This is called ‘faith’.  I have learned about this phenomenon.  I do not comprehend it, but I am ready to accept that some people are capable of it.

Yet, people often ’hold on’ to ‘beliefs’ or ‘opinions’ on trivial or non-profound points which are demonstrably unsupportable.  I have tried, but I really don’t understand this aspect of human nature.  Personally, I have a hard time with this 100% one way, or 100% the other way mode of thought…..perhaps because I’m not ‘wired just right’…but I don’t think there is anything I’ve invested a 100%, non-conditional ’belief’ in.

No, I’m not talking about everyday life things, like knowing I love my kids and so on….emotional investment is NOT what I am talking about.  Nor am I talking about the ‘ought to’ kind of belief, as in “I belive all humans ought to be treated as equals in the eyes of the law.”

I mean ‘factual’ stuff:  like physics, chemistry, history…that ’stuff’…. and global warming, political implications, someone’s culpability in something, superstitions, trust in actual physical institutions …that ’stuff’, too.  For example, when driving over a bridge, I am reasonably convinced that the probability that the bridge will collapse under me is so low as to be negligible - or I would not have driven onto it.  Yet, I do not believe that it will not collapse….there is a difference!

OK, I ‘know’ gravity is a ‘force’ - yet, if someone presented me with substantiated evidence that it wasn’t a force, but rather an aspect of, say, space, I would be sceptical, yet I’d want to know what they based their claim on.  They’d need solid evidence, but….I could be convinced by it.   Knowledge, conclusions, opinions - these are all subject to change as more information comes in.  I get that!  I understand that process, and have experienced it many times.  What I don’t get is ‘belief’ or ‘faith’.

Perhaps this is a characteristic of us Aspergers’ people:  I recall some friends cutting out a comic strip in which a teacher is handing back a math test.  She reads one of the answers out loud:  ”provided both trains are travelling in straight line, with no hills or curves, provided there are no accidents that slow them down along the way, provided we neglect to account for the curvature of the Earth, provided the clocks in both stations are synchronized, and that the whole path is along same height above sea-level and so no time diallation occurs, the trains’ average speed is XXX. ”  She hands the test to a boy, and he wonders:  “How did she know this was my paper?  I forgot to put my name on it!”

For some reason, my friends thought this was hillarious and wanted to show it to me….something about the comic basing a character on me… 

It seems many people have as much problems with ’my’ processing of information into conditional conclusions as I do with ’faith’.    This truly shocked me….after all, does not EVERYONE state the obvious limits under which any conclusion is valid?  Why do many people percieve such qualifications as ‘waffling’?  It certainly is not so!  Would not presuming such things be an oversimplification, to the point of error? 

Yet ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ seemed more natural to many people than my ‘conditional conclusions’!

What is it that allows one person to ‘believe’ or ‘have faith’, while another cannot even commit to a math-problem answer without stating all the assumptions and limitations?  Which one is the ‘normal’ one, and which the ‘anomaly’?  Or is this like a spectrum, where there are no discrete breaks, just a continuum….with my ilk falling squarely at one extreme?

These questions have haunted me, ever since I can recall formulating their cognitive pre-cursors in nursery shool.  Even back then, I simply could not understand the motivations and expected goals behind other children’s games - and when I asked, I got blank stares or the old ‘index-finger-making-circular-motion-by-the-temple’ gestures in return.  I can understand both the process and the motivation/expected goals behind a calcualted risk, problem analysis, conditional conclusion, that sort of thing….  But, for the life of me, I cannot understand either the process nor the motivation/expected goals behind ‘belief’ and faith’ - both profound and mundane.

Is this just another aspect of my ‘faulty wiring’, one that makes me so very Aspergers?  Or, are ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ simply a label for ‘I don’t understand and am not worthy/willing to think about’?  Or is there something entirely different at play here?

Epicurean, Epidurean…paradoxes everywhere!

As far as Greek philosophers go, Epicurus was pretty O.K. 

Contrary to the customs of his era, he allowed women as students in his school.  Though there is absolutely no historical fact to justify this, I would love to think that the legendary Xanthippe (of whom he most certainly knew) and her famous debates versus Socrates, may have influenced him in this.  After all, his philosophy was not really all that far removed from hers (at least, the few little bits of her philosophy that have survived).

But, unlike Socrates, who was busy gazing at the navel of his immortal soul, Epicurus saw humans as having physical, intellectual, spiritual and social needs:  the ideal, then, was to strike a harmonious balance in one’s life.  Frankly, this seems almost too reasonable an opinion to be held by a ‘philosopher’! 

After all, where is the brooding, the derisive scowl at the cares of the world – isn’t that the image the word ‘philosopher’ is supposed to evoke?  I bet his ‘reasonableness’ cost him a lot of ‘pretentiousness points’ among the lofty circles…

 

He would likely have been written off and forgotten, had he not also voiced some very provocative ideas.  Most (though certainly not all) of his contemporaries aspired to the creed of monotheism, describing God in a way modern day Christians would recognize:  omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent towards mankind, his creation. In the still predominantly polytheistic environment, this idea – coupled with the notion Socrates had taught of the immortality of one’s soul – seemed very deep and mystical.  Yet, Epicurus directed some very pointed questions at this creed…and none of them have been satisfactorily answered as yet!

 

            Is God willing to prevent evil, and not able?

                        Then he is not omnipotent.

            Is He able, but not willing?

                        Then he is malevolent.

            Is God both able and willing?

                        Then whence cometh evil?

            Is He neither able, nor willing?

                        Then why call him God?

                                                -     Epicurus, 341-271 BCE

This is perhaps the most famous group of his questions and has been handed down to us under the name the ‘Epicurean riddle’, or the ‘Epicurean paradox’.  It has been much paraphrased over the millennia, but the above is one of my favourite renditions.

People say that pain can, at times, bring ‘things’ into a sharp focus.  This was true for me, as I deeply questioned every single one of my life’s decisions, whiling away the endless hours of late-stage labour.  Truly, I came to question everything!

And then, it occurred to me:  in order to make people (especially female people) truly comprehend the meaning of the Epicurean paradox, perhaps I could re-phrase it into terms that had more immediate impact on our lives.  It’s almost as if the words came to me of their own volition:

Is God is truly omniscient?  Then He must know the pain of childbirth! 

And if He is also omnipotent, and he did not invent ‘the epidural’ waaaay before inventing this whole childbirth thing, then he is most certainly not benevolent!

I like to think of this as the Epidurean paradox!

I would go on, but I don’t want to belabour the point….