Let’s Not
Ace (of Spades) has a post up that will, most likely, scare the you know what out of most (American) Catholics. It seems that a Dutch Roman Catholic Bishop has suggested that, from now on, Christians refer to God as “Allah.”
According to Bishop Tiny Muskens, God does not care what we call Him. If we, then, can “foster understanding” between Christians and Muslims by calling God Allah, what’s the problem? Muskens wonders. Ace responds:
You ever get the feeling that European establishment churches just don’t care about religion all that much (particularly about the divisive Christ), and are more just social clubs and employers of last result for the drooling imbecile sons of the decrepit aristocracy?
I am not sure what the former aristocracy has to do with anything, but Ace has a good point about the Church in Europe (and dare I say especially in the Netherlands): it seems that it is more busy trying to reconcile everyone, not to insult anyone, than to spread the message of Christ(‘s Love and Salvation).
One of the main problems I have with most Churches in the Netherlands is that they have become overly progressive. Everything is allowed, and differences do not exist. The result? The Church has been weakened. It has virtually no influence over society anymore.
Now, I prayed in a mosque and I wrote about it here. To me, it was a great feeling: a beautiful spiritual experience. However, I will not start referring to God as Allah just yet. Why not? Because the word we describe to refer to God is very good. There is absolutely no need to stop referring to God as God (instead of Allah).
Muskens said that Christians in Indonesia refer to God as Allah – he is right. I believe that Christians do the same in Turkey – or at least some Christians – but I do not see how that is relevant: these Christians live in traditional Muslim countries. Muslims call God Allah, thus it is logical for Christians in those countries to do the same.
The Netherlands – however – is not a Muslim country: it is a – well, it was a – Christian country. In other words, if someone would – logically – change how they call God, it would be Muslims living here. They, however, do not wish to do that, because they believe that Allah is a perfect name for God, which is of course perfectly fine.
Those who already understand that we all worship the same God will not feel the need to change the way we refer to God and it will not be of any use to them. Those who do not understand it, on the other hand, will never understand it; no matter how we call God. In other words, it will be completely useless. The only thing it might accomplish is that European Christians might grow more and more convinced that the Church is trying to make itself as irrelevant as possible.
Again, for Christians living in a Muslim countries it is different, but for Christians living in the West it makes no sense whatsoever to start calling God Allah. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God – since we do not speak Arabic in the West, it makes no sense to start calling God Allah as long as we are living here. When in a Muslim country, it is different of course. When I am in Turkey, and when I tell people “may God bless you,” I do so in Turkish and use, therefore, Allah and not the word ‘God.’
H/t to reader Mike
opinions powered by SendLove.to
67 Responses to “Let’s Not”
Only people who are completely uninformed on theology think that the idea of religion has to be to coerce people to behave through fear of damnation. There’s so much more to it than that, and you can either deny that or you can attempt to learn more about religions. Stating it as fact that this is what motivates people though is another strawman argument. If that’s all that religion was, a trick or coercion, then I’d agree with you that it should go by the wayside- but that’s not a true description of religion. For many, many, people (the vast majority of Christians I’ve ever known), we choose to follow a religion because we believe there is a Creator who made us each with a unique purpose, and we choose to orient our lives toward discovering and living out that purpose.
CS,
That’s a great way to describe spirituality, but it’s not really relevant when discussing organized religious edicts as groundwork for a society.
Spirituality, when tied with a religion or otherwise, is inherently personal. If it’s personal, what about it would point our “compasses” to the same north?
Religion, the institutions and the laws are what tell us how to think, it’s only there that the group mindset is created and that’s where the coercion (albeit subtle) comes in.
Doma- I think we are in sync, the words are just clashing, By a society not finding values, but values finding their society, I mean that these things do evolve, and are not imposed by fiat. Take 2 groups of Mormons, set them adrift on 2 rafts, let them start new kingdoms on desert islands, come back in a couple of centuries, and they may diverge severely from each other and their past, due to threats natal to one region, or experiences endemic to another, or both.
CS- I think when most talk of religion as a destructive force we are talking of the institution, not a personal set of beliefs. Most institutions, by their aggregative nature, destroy individualism.
My main beef w all religion is that it is a divorce from reality. I see no benefit from it, just as I see no benefit from a belief in fairies, not sexually abusive aliens.
Lynx: ’1- Is religion necessary for personal morality?
2- Is religion necessary for societal morality or stability?
3- Supposing that religion is needed for morality which would it be? Is any religion good enough or does it have to be the “true†religion?
3- Where does our moral sense come from?
4- Are there really universal values? What are they?
Most people have very deeply felt answers, and things can get really touchy. Those of us who are atheist would do well to remember that to the religious this isn’t just some entertaining philosophical discussion, it touches something that they feel is essential to their life. The religious would do well to remember that there is no Rule that says that religion is exempt from being challenged, asked to give reasons and evidence, just as any other belief.’
Before I tackle the q’s, I think that religion and serious inquiry into the cosmos are innately opposing. Stephen Jay Gould’s idea of Non-Overlapping Magisteria is false. Yes, there are things, such as emotions and notions, which may never be chartable, but they are different from supernatural beings- be they gods, ghosts, or nymphs.
As for 1- manifestly not, although a non-believer is just as apt to be a serial killer or not as a theist. Neither belief would have anything to do with their perversion.
2- I’d say no. The very presence of secular democracies is proof of this.
3- A false q- both of them, and the very fact that all religions consider themselves to be #1, means all but one have to be wrong, yet the fact that all are likely wrong is not inconsistent with the posit.
4- Morals come from an authority- religious or Stalinist, perhaps. Ethics likely are an offshoot of evolutionary behaviors, such as altruism and symbiosis.
5- 100% universal. No. 99.9%. yes. But, even that opening leaves rooms for hundreds of claims.
The point is that extremism is wrong. The world is not all black and white, and not all gray. It is gray, with black and white at the fringes. Any other life would be sort of dull.
CS, just as you find it rather offensive that religion be thought of as essentially destructive, I find it offensive that lack of religion is assumed to lead to all sorts of terrible destructive things. But I don’t (usually, in civil conversation) take it personally, I simply try to explain why I am certain it’s not so. I myself think that the world would be better off without religion altogether (especially because of the stifling of inquiry) but would be more than happy to settle for a world where religion was a personal, local thing, having to do with each persons inner spirituality and with communities helping one another. I believe that much of the battle would be won if we got rid of the habit of powerful people using religion to ill ends. I am aware that you probably strenuously disagree, that’s life, I’m afraid.
Cosmo I asked the questions only to show that it’s a complicated subject, to say the least. My own answers would be.
1- No, of course not, no such tie has ever been proved and the evidence of it being false is everywhere.
2- No, but some sort of agreed upon moral framework is. It needn’t come from religious institutions, but it has to exist and be respected. Plenty of secular nations are showing more and more how this is the case.
3- Since I answered no before this question is rendered moot, but in any case obviously it can’t be just one “true religion” (partly because there’s no such thing) because otherwise all societies without that religion would be awash in chaos and immorality.
3- I dunno, but I’ve always assumed that it has it’s base in our evolutionary development with a big dose of cultural (which include religious) influence.
4- Probably yes, but I wouldn’t know which they were. For instance most cultures broadly think killing is bad, but most also make convenient “exceptions”. Killing young children I think would be a safe bet for something abhorred throughout history and culture.
I think we should start calling french fries by their arabic name. I’ll bet it sounds way more poetic than freedom fries.
When having a good Chianti and fava beans I prefer to talk to FSM. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
From the link above:
Yes, I can understand that, and you have already commented on some of the comments I made which are much more nuanced than that. I don’t presume that lack of religion leads automatically to terrible, destructive things- but I do think that there’s a need to replace religion with some other structure if it were to be displaced. Even then, of course, I personally don’t think it would be sufficient (if I didn’t think that religious belief were the best support structure then I wouldn’t be a religious believer- I can’t contradict myself, I can only admit that humility which says that I know I could be wrong.)
To be honest, I really think that the lack of discussion of this concept (institutions which are the pillars of organized society) is part of the disconnect between Christians and agnostics/atheists. If those who don’t hold to religious beliefs would help others see that they do have a code of morality, then there’d be less distrust. You may find it offensive or irritating to have to ‘prove’ that (feeling that it should be assumed) but I’d say that historically one of the functions of organized religion has been to allow people to have some idea of what others believe, what morality they subscribe to. You can be annoyed at the fact that some people don’t automatically drop the need for that and give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but if your preference is to bridge the gap and have greater societal acceptance for your non-religious status (as in the complaints that atheists are discriminated against), you could choose to brush aside the annoyance and spend time calmly explaining what forms your value system. It may seem odd to you, but for people who’ve always experienced discussion of values in a religious context, it’s hard to grasp how any value based decisions could be made without a Deist perspective.
Lynx: ‘CS, just as you find it rather offensive that religion be thought of as essentially destructive, I find it offensive that lack of religion is assumed to lead to all sorts of terrible destructive things.’
This is a good point, and why such claims as CS has made (here and in the past)- such as a comment or belief being offensive, are not good in situations, as on blogs, that call for discourse.
All it does is shut debate down and allow others (such as Lynx’s POV) to be claimed.
All claims of offense are a choice, so there is a willful component to such claims, usually meant to stifle debate and seize a ‘moral higher ground’.
cosmo: as I explained earlier, I don’t see how Occam’s razor supports lack of a Creator any more than it tilts toward His existence. So, your description of religion as a divorce from reality doesn’t compute for me.
And yes, I realize the criticisms are mainly of the institutions (although obviously inherent in those criticisms is a presumption that the multitudes who worship within those institutions are idiots). And yes, institutions can stifle individuality but individuality without bounds is chaos and anarchy. So I can criticize that end of the spectrum just as you focus on criticism of the other extreme. The actual situation though is somewhere in the middle, with institutions giving structure to societal groups and allowing people to function collectively, but individuals still pushing the boundaries of the group’s sensibilities, goals, and framework.
Michael and CS,
92% of the world’s population believes in some form of theism, leaving 8% as true atheist.
Only at TMV would you be outnumbered 5 to 1!
LOL!
What you see as shutting down conversation has led to quite a few comments here though. I see nothing wrong with one person taking offense and expressing that, and the other person saying that they are equally capable of being offended. Then both parties can avoid the kind of extreme statements and assumptions that lead to those offenses.
Look, if a bunch of atheists want to discuss all that is evil about religion, they can find plenty of evidence of that. However, the caricature that they would be making of religion is not real, and if we want to have an honest discussion it’s more helpful to consider the real thing instead of the strawman version.
Similarly, it would not be very productive for narrow minded Christians to talk of evil atheists. They could find plenty of examples to bolster their claims, but they too would be overgeneralizing in order to create their preferred ‘enemy’.
So what I’m really asking when I talk of being ‘offended’ is to debate the real institutions of religion, good and bad- to not go to either extreme with assumptions. Yes, to some degree it’s personally ‘offensive’ but I’m not claiming that because I’m thin skinned. The greater point I’m making is that it’s intellectually dishonest to frame the discussion with an assumption that you can’t prove (or can only prove by cherry picking the historical facts).
Well, Occam’s Razor posits that the simplest explanation that best fits the known facts, is likely the correct one.
Since science has explained so much of the cosmos as naturally arising from natural processes, a deity is simply superfluous- as I said, Who made God? is a superfluous query if the only answer is ‘He always was.’ For the same can be said of nature, sans Supernature.
CO: But you leave out the largest group of all- that silent majority of 85-90% of Homer Simpsons sleeping in the pews. Viva the D’oh!
I am in agreement with Lynx’s summary, although my angle of appoach is defferent at times.,
After an another discussion of a similar sort, what followwed was a foray into the question of what constitutes spirituality in an aregligious sense, and what a wild ride that was.. These questions are all difficult, I think, because we understand so little about we,,as humans, come by and utilize our self-aeareness. We know next to nothing about the brain, for instance, the very center of our sense of self and how we relate to the world around us.
How I would love to get a flash-forward to see how these questions are debated by future generations.
Or will robots be doing the debaing?
co: LOL
CS- evil is not simply the stalking of women who get an abortion, car bombings and th einquisistion, but the very desire to collectively steer people towards the irrational, for means that are manifestly set up to benefit the steerers financially and in terms of satisfying their desires for money, power, sex, etc.
This goes for corporations, as well, and governmental bureaucracies. But, religions, as the oldest institutions, have the most deep rot. Thankfully, they are also in greater positions of falling into irrelevance. Hopefully, corporations will follow suit in a few centuries.
This is also a distinct thing from a belief in a deity. That will likely survive past organized churches, but hopefully rationalism will win in the end, for it is the only thing that truly separates us from the beasts.
CS – Maybe you can channel W’s thoughts on his readings of Camus. I think “The Plague” or “The Fall” goes into a “moral existense” without a FSM or singular God. If I recall from younger days, Camus covered this in his other works as well.
“Gott ist tot” Nietzsche
Rudi,
I’m somewhat familiar with existentialist philosophy and have not been persuaded by it.