Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[Valmy]

I don't think secularism is a binary state. It's more of a continuum.

France is more secular than the US. The US are more secular than Saudi Arabia.

Well I guess I disagree.  I do not think secularism of a state is determined by how many religious people live there but rather in their laws and style of government.

[The Minsky Moment]

Because in a secular state, rules are based on reason, . . .

If only.

[Valmy]

Because in a secular state, rules are based on reason, not on revelation. Again, you are confusing democratic with secular. You can have a theocratic democracy. Democracy is a form. Theocracy (or secularism) is the content.

Bullshit.  Theocracy has no room for Democracy, how can divine truth be dictated by the will of the people?  I would consider certain protections for religions important even for a Democracy though.  Freedom of religion and most of the time a lack of publicly funded religion would be among them.

One doesn't need to be a Democracy to be secular but I find it hard to picture a state where the laws are made by elected representatives without clerical interference that could be called a Theocracy.

What if a state has religious and non-religious political parties?  Does it change from secular to a theocracy depending on who won the last election?  That is absurd.

[Malthus]

The issue, as always, is effective and enforced constitutional protection (written or by judge-made law) for minority views. 

Have that, and you can have your population be as religious as you like. Lack that, and as history as shown, secularism will not ensure a good outcome.

[Valmy]

So, I'm not quite sure, are you claiming that James Joyce was inspired by God to write a guide to human morality or are you claiming that the Bible is merely litterature?

And, as for intellegability. If it is impossible to understand what possible meaning can it impart? And if it is difficult to understand how can you be sure you understood it correctly?

I am only claiming it is a spiritual text written by ancient people who were experts, if you will, about spirituality and have some useful and profound things to say if you read it carefully.  Of course that is a mammoth task.  While I do sometimes get a kick out of reading it, religion is a social process and so I usually get more discussing it with other people or reading commentaries.  As for how can I be sure I am interpreting it correctly...it is a spiritual book written by many people over a span of centuries how could there possibly be only one correct way to read it?  Frankly I am not even sure I understand the question, this is a religious book not a physics book.  It is trying to communicate things that language has a hard time really getting across on its own.

One of the things I point out is how it expands from an individual sort of...conciousness...if you will to a tribal one to a universalist one.  It is very interesting how the way the writers feel about God and what it means to be religious as that perspective changes.

But it just happens to be the book we work with here in the West, you could probably get similar ideas with other works in other cultures.  The actual content is just a tool of communicating the basic messages.

[Martinus]

The issue, as always, is effective and enforced constitutional protection (written or by judge-made law) for minority views. 

Have that, and you can have your population be as religious as you like. Lack that, and as history as shown, secularism will not ensure a good outcome.

I agree - I think effective and enforced protection for minority views is a necessary prerequisite for democracy - irrespective of whether it is about religion or other aspects.

Without that, democracy quickly become the tyranny of majority.

[Viking]

I am only claiming it is a spiritual text written by ancient people who were experts,

I'm perfectly happy to treat the bible on it's own merits. Approaching it as I would any other books.

[Pat]

Interesting. Maybe you're right. It is true that this is a minority viewpoint, but it is also true that a majority of Islam research in the west receives funding from the arab world. There are also many other reasons of human psychology one can imagine would, for an Islamic scholar, discourage critical inquiry into the history of early Islam.

I'll suspend judgement until I have done some more reading on the subject.

What would be a more fruitful area of inquiry is looking into the authenticity of individual traditions about Muhammad.
The likelihood that he was entirely a ficticious person is slim; but the likelihood that his true life and deeds are not exactly as tradition claims is far greater.  Indeed, the very reason scholars started writing down hadith in the first place was from a recognition that questionable material had found its way into the oral accounts.

This, too, was discussed at the conference:

The paper delivered by Rainer Nabielek of Berlin provided evidence of a successful application of Luxenberg's method not only to the Koran but to non-religious texts as well. This was convincingly shown by means of a hitherto unsolved medical term. This medical term can be traced back to Syriac in the same way as many Koranic expressions as demonstrated by Luxenberg. In addition to this Nabielek pointed in his paper to the hitherto overlooked phenomenon of the existence of loan syntax in classical Arabic. His contribution confirms the validity of Luxenberg's method in general.

Keith Small compared the textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts and Koranic manuscripts. Dr. Elisabeth Puin gave a lucid, and highly original analysis of an early Koran manuscript from Sana, Yemen, [DAM 01-27.1] in part written over a palimpsest Koranic text. Dr. Elisabeth Puin summarized her findings and their implications,


"As for the scriptio superior, the comparison with the Standard text [Cairo 1924/25 Koran] shows that it still contains many differences in orthography and verse counting; there are even minor textual variants, like, for example, singular instead of plural, wa- instead of fa-, and so on. Some - but by far not all - of those differences were at a later stage corrected by erasure and /or amendments. We cannot suppose that all the differences are only due to the calligrapher's inattention, being simply spelling mistakes; there are too many of them on every page, and some of them are found repeatedly, not only in this manuscript but in others too. So we must conclude that at the stage when and in the region where the manuscript was written those variants were not felt to be mistakes but conformed to a specific writing tradition."   


Professor Van Reeth, already much impressed by Luxenberg's thesis and methodology, gave two talks at the conference. The shorter one compared the image of the pearl in four passages in the Koran that refer to a eucharistic prayer, and a parallel image found in the Eucharist of the Manichaeans. The longer talk discussed the similarities of the Islamic vision of the union of Muhammad with his God, and the commentary of Ephrem the Syrian on the union of the believer with God.

There's also a book called "Which Koran?" by Ibn Warraq which I believe deals exclusively with comparing different early versions of the Koran (though I haven't had time to read it yet).

[Queequeg]

Religion is pretty interesting, but only insofar as it is rather fascinating that human are so susceptible to belief in imaginary things.

I don't want to wade too much into the argument, but "imaginary" things effect human life as much/more so than "real things".  Language, for instance, is no less imagined than your non-existent God, nor are Art, Politics, or almost everything we do as a social species.   

My primary objection to you and, if I may be overly general, your type of positivist Atheism is that it appears remarkably inconsistent.  The United States government exists only in the heads of 300,000,000 Americans, as does the grammar of the English language.  I don't see why Religion is specially wrong.

[Pat]

I don't see why Religion is specially wrong.

Because religion makes claims about all kinds of stuff, which the grammar of the english language, in itself, does not.

edit: But you're correct it is a part of human psychology in the same way as language is. That doesn't mean we are, by nature, inclined to organized religion. I adressed exactly this earlier in the thread.

[Queequeg]

So do all Liberal Democracies.  All believe in the value of individual human life, separation of powers, "inalienable" human rights.  Capitalism is based on half-truths as well (as our current economic collapse indicates).  The primary difference is that most Organized Religions have 'myths' (in the Greek sense) rooted in a different epoch.

We are not, by nature, inclined to speak English specifically either.  That doesn't mean that learning and loving the language isn't worth it. 

EDIT: For the record, I'm not *really* advocating some manner of absolute relativism.  I think that religion adds something to the human experience and shouldn't be discarded simply because Diderot found out that we have chemicals in our brain.  Its more complex than that. 

[Valmy]

Capitalism is based on half-truths as well (as our current economic collapse indicates).

Since Capitalism assumes a boom-bust cycle how would a bust indicate is is based on half-truths?

[Queequeg]

Capitalism is based on half-truths as well (as our current economic collapse indicates).

Since Capitalism assumes a boom-bust cycle how would a bust indicate is is based on half-truths?

Hmm.

That's a valid criticism. 

Capitalism is not a good example; Libertarianism or Communism would be.  So would most political ideologies. 

[Pat]

Okay. Right. As I've said earlier in the thread, I would be just fine to see religion as no more than moral philosophy. I doubt, however, that the religious would be content with that.

[Viking]

Religion is pretty interesting, but only insofar as it is rather fascinating that human are so susceptible to belief in imaginary things.

I don't want to wade too much into the argument, but "imaginary" things effect human life as much/more so than "real things".  Language, for instance, is no less imagined than your non-existent God, nor are Art, Politics, or almost everything we do as a social species.   

My primary objection to you and, if I may be overly general, your type of positivist Atheism is that it appears remarkably inconsistent.  The United States government exists only in the heads of 300,000,000 Americans, as does the grammar of the English language.  I don't see why Religion is specially wrong.

You are confusing intangible with imaginary. Government, Art, Politics and Social Interactions are Intangible, they are not Imaginary.