this seems like the weakest point in the atlantic article to me. It's true that the very early church came to be in a political environment that led to a different attitude towards the existing state within sacred writings, but I think it may fall into an anachronism in its understanding of the importance of the Bible in the political/religious regimes in the Byzantine and western Roman empires from the 4th-15th centuries especially.

I'm not an historian, but if you read accounts of the empire, the codifications of canon law, the development of liturgy, the political importance of clergy, and etc etc, there are plenty of comparisons to be made to Islamism or the caliphate as a political factor.

Edit: actually the Great Schism might be a perfect example of the strong intersection between politics and religion

Stop with the putting words in others' mouths. I'd insist that religion is a crucial part of all the examples that have come up. Bring on an economic determinist and I'll go on about the power of theology.

Other than drawing my attention to my aberrant (abhorrent?) use of their I'm going to thank you for that article.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask what that something is and his answers seem well considered it's a really good read.

I'll take this as flattery since you couldn't come up with anything meaningful yourself.

If this is a reference to my claim that quantitative claims such as "religion is a net negative" are close to meaningless unless "religion" is able to be reduced to some quantitative measure (I gave the example 'religiosity' as a valid term) then you are going on the ignore list. At this point I have to assume you are deliberately arguing in bad faith.

Grunch: to me, Maher and Sam Harris won the short debate on Maher's show, but only because Affleck did a bad job. Reza Khan had much to say about it and I think he wins the debate hands down.

I take it that you haven't read Harris' comments about him then...

I don't know if we're talking about the same ones, but the comments on Khan that I've read showed no indication that Harris understood what he was replying to.

In particular, the fact that religion is a smorgasbord that people pick and choose from, not dogma established by authority, went fffft over his head.

Ya Affleck did a completely horrible job. And this comes from someone pretty critical off Harris (don't know much about Maher). Basically anyone cheering his performance is a moron

Abrahamic religion tends toward authority and often very strict authority where holy clergy speak and make doctrine on behalf of God. If we are talking about Islam in particular, that religion's most overaching theme is submission to God, that is what it means (I must out point out that this is what it literally means, as the last time I said this I was pretty much implicitly accused of hate speech).

I use religion in this sense as "an organized system of spiritual beliefs", not "any spiritual belief with a label". This, for the record, is a completely bog standard definition of religion.

Who the hell is Reza Khan?

I don't think this is a very accurate description.

Catholicism is pretty varied under local leadership so that while there is a formal structure from the Pope downward, we don't necessarily see strict adherence to doctrines. For example, many Americans reject some of the formal church theologies while still calling themselves Catholic.

Protestantism is basically the complete rejection of the formal authority structure.

Within Judaism, there's a huge variation of beliefs. While they keep some sort of structure with regards to their holy texts, Reform Jews don't hold the Jewish laws as laws as much as they view them as guidelines.

The only one that fits your model is Islam.

And one out of three is... well... failing.

Do you honestly believe this?

Here's a good example of Azlan and his bull****.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/o...-of-defamation

Makes Azlan look pretty bad.

Sure, social institutions create religious authority. But they still are at a smorgasbord because they choose which parts of scripture to emphasis and enforce. I could have phrased the "dogma from established authority" part better. I was referring to something Aslan emphasizes, which is that a religion does not have a fixed core that never changes. A religion arises from history, through practice, not from a divine essence.

wil: So you found a cheap shot on twitter that Aslan retwitted. So what. That does not undermine the thorough arguments he's made elsewhere, some of which I've linked to in this or the other thread.

There's a reason I once asked you to use the code word "splash" to prove you actually read to the end of a post. Show you can represent someone else's argument, then respond in your own words, then we'll have something to talk about besides "that's bull." I've given very specific criticisms of Harris using actual quotes, your only response is that he sounds really smart and can't be so bad. You don't even paraphrase Harris's actual content, much less engage Aslan's substance.

It wasn't a "cheap shot". It was blatant slander, a total misrepresentation from a "scholar" who criticized Harris for taking a position that was actually less extreme than the very position Aslan took himself. It's total intellectual dishonesty. It's very much not just a cheap shot.

For you to downplay it is in total character of the way you make your arguments. I couldn't imagine Harris doing the same thing in response.

Wait, what?

Islam is the one of the three religions with the least established authority over theological matters. Orders of priests enforcing correctness, convents, pontiffs, rabbinical schools -- that stuff is far less developed in Islam.

The obligation to submit to God does not count as being authoritarian because there is no God. And it can easily work the other way -- I submit to God, MF, not your human interpretation. Emphasis on personal submission to God and the rigorously applied monotheism tend to reduce the authority of mortals.

And wil, do give just one example of an Aslan argument that is disproven because he's totally intellectually dishonest, or by anything else. In fact, let's see you just explain a substantive point Aslan makes.

I wasn't thinking a hierarchy, I was just thinking about "authority." I had actually rambled on a bit and deleted it, but I think there is a much clearer sense of authority in Islam, but it tends to be tied to far more local interests and much more of a conflation between social structures and theological structures.

Even Islam often doesn't fit his model. While of course there are place with almost immutable hierarchial structures where the word of a fatwa is hugely influential at determining behaviour, in many places it fits much more the catholic model of individual churches more or less taking on their own character. In Canada for instance, where I live, you often just have a little local mosque form largely out of volunteers and they adopt their own practices very far removed from a saudi arabia or whatever. There is far less of an authoritative structure than something like Anglicanism (a popular prostetant variant up here)

I'll give you a perfect example of why I dislike Aslan so much. I'll quote him and give some thoughts :

Misleading. Harris' actual blog isn't updated every 5 hours, as he implies. It's very easy to read and isn't all that time consuming. If he wanted to read Harris, a person he constantly criticizes because he rides his popularity coattails, he could. In fact, he should.

Disagree with all this. Harris has an issue with people who won't acknowledge there are instances where religion is the main factor of a person's actions. People like Azlan will almost never say this. It is *always* a combination of politics, economics, etc. Harris calls people out on it and Azlan dodges it. Harris also specifically has said he doesn't think people are "evil" if they believe in religion/god. Azlan purposefully paints him as some sort of wide-spread bigot when it comes to religious beliefs. Anyone who listens to Harris knows this not to be true. He constantly says that many religious people are benign.

Perfect example of why this guy disgusts me. Everything quoted above is wrong. He acts as if Hitchens/Harris etc are total idiots who just type crap on their keyboards at home yet someone wind up with millions of people who agree with their ideas. He implies some sort of intellectual superiority to Harris. Religion is not a "growing force in the United States". Atheism has been on the rise in the US for decades. Completely disingenuous.


Because we all know the number of people who believe in something proves its validity.


What keeps us from having important and necessary conversations are people like him. He's doing exactly what a person does that would need to try to silence someone like Harris. Sweeping generalizations. Disingenuous and slanderous accusations.

As Harris said, if they burned a Quran on Bill Maher's show, embassies would burn and people would be attacked all throughout the Muslim world. People like Azlan would not admit it's due to religious beliefs, he would say some crap about politics and economics. Who is really making that conversation harder?

Which makes it worse. Do you understand why?

When someone issues a Fatwah, what choices are people making?

The US Muslim population is similarly constructed. However, with numbers in the tens of millions, I don't think they constitute a large enough subpopulation to be given enough weight in how Islam is actively practiced for it to be sufficiently meaningful.

See also my minor expansion on the conflation of social and theological structures.

Wil, you've brought up a lot. There's a lot of hissing in the Harris/Aslan cat fight, we can look at little things or at core issues. Below is what I think is most germane in what you've written.

First of all, Aslan would absolutely insist that theology was a central part of your example. The reason he talks more about other factors is because those are what are routinely left out. The guy is an historian of religion, of course he looks at belief. I read his whole book on Jesus and it took the content of Christianity very seriously, as well as the historical context.

You insist that politics and economics -- history -- be left out of your example. I don't know quite what to do with that, it makes me question engaging at all. I have a hunch that when we talk about multiple causes, you see that as making excuses for atrocities. It's not.

But I'll give a try at answering your claim that only Islamic theology should be blamed for riots.

So of the one billion Muslims in the world, only a fraction of a hundredth of a percent have trashed embassies over Koran burnings or what not. How do you explain the non-actions of all those other people without invoking all manner of contingencies? If only the theology is eligible for analysis, why didn't it compel everyone to burn an embassy?

The rioters are almost exclusively male. I'm sure if I attributed the violence to masculinity and dismissed anything else as "some crap about politics and economics and religion," you'd think some man-blaming agenda was behind it, and you'd be right.

The very thought of disqualifying some factors from an explanation is exasperating.

I've given thorough explanations of the problems I and others see in Harris's work. You've chosen to engage with the parts where I've disparaged his character and abilities. Okay, I'll try and get off that. But there's a number of fundamental errors he makes that haven't been addressed by him or anyone else.

Sure. I'd guess Islam in Europe is probably less hierarchical authoritative sturctures than catholicism; that's a bit bigger of a group.

I'd be actually curious to know how hierarchical a country like Indonesia is.

In my opinion, all the hissing and noise comes from Azlan's side. Harris is more than happy to address and engage the disparities Azlan makes. I honestly think Azlan is just looking for publicity. Many people know Harris. Not so much Azlan. He's trying to make a name for himself.

I don't. I think the other reasons for behaviors are somewhat valid. I think there are times when those are not valid. The 9/11 hijackers, the Fort Hood shooting, ISIS trapping 30,000 Yazidis on the mountain to die, etc. These aren't answered by politics economics. These are answered by faith.

Question : when does it ever boil down to religious faith being the main factor for you? Just name one instance.

I have a real problem with this logic. You're logic is essentially "Well, all Muslims don't react that way, so you're incorrect in attributing it to religion." My counter to that is in 2 parts : why can we do the exact same thing (burn a bible, burn the Torah) and not expect the same reaction? Secondly, what percentage of the Muslim world must react in rioting that would make you concerned about it being because of religion? 0.005%? 1%? 5%? 50%?

If you'd have said "yes, very few Muslims actually do react that way, and it's because of their faith", I could respect that answer. I'm completely ok with that. But for you and people like you to react the way you do, it makes me question the reason for such a broad hand-waving that it's just a few people acting like idiots out there.

The Quran is explicit. No caricatures of the prophet. No blaspheming or criticisms of the faith. This is something I just can't accept when it comes to your side of the argument. This idea that religion is simply what we make of it, how we interpret it as individuals is how it's accepted. I don't agree with that. You can't just "interpret" Islam any way you want, and then go write a book about your interpretation or criticisms without having to be legitimately scared for your life.

I reject this entire line of thought. Males might be more violent but if you think many females react very harshly, then I don't know what to say.

I don't believe so. I think you simply disagree with this arguments.

I think many confuse with "religion" with "personal beliefs". Religion incorporates personal beliefs, but it is not personal beliefs. This is in the same sense that "state" incorporates citizens, but a state is actually more than individual citizens and individual action; it is a collective. In this sense you can be religious, but your belief is not "a religion". When we criticize the Catholic church for sacking the Byzantine empire, we are criticizing the collective outcome - not the beliefs of any given Catholic (we are however implicitly blaming the church organization and might therefore be critical towards aspects of the beliefs of those who excuse it).

Religion implies that the beliefs are systematic, organized and the religions being referred to as "Abrahamic" are also almost without exception doctrinal and authoritative. Exceptions apply, but they are not common.

I think it takes willful ignorance to not see that Abrahamic religions are extremely prone to being a catalyst and causes for conflict. They are, to use an analogy, like gasoline to fire. Not only that, but they tend to remove any hope for rationality and diplomacy as the goal of conflict is often moved from "winning" to "fighting". Also almost invariably when religion causes or strengthens a conflict the possible resolutions are reduced to one: Annihilation of the perceived enemy.

And no, this does not mean that all Abrahamic religious denominations are problematic, indeed, most are not. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem.