On Disrespecting the Koran
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Over at Dollars and Crosses is the short, sweet answer to those who claim we should treat the Koran with great respect.
[T]here is a fundamental standard by which to permanently decide the question of respect for the Koran. Above all else the Koran--and it is certainly not unique in this regard--demands that all human beings surrender their reason and submit to faith, i.e., to the acceptance of an idea in the absence of perceptual evidence or rational proof. On this basis alone the Koran should be rejected by all human beings--because surrendering one’s reason is the very essence and cause of human depravity and evil.I bring this up not merely in light of the recent manufactured controversy over the Guantanamo prison camp, but in light of a conversation I had recently with my mother-in-law, in which she suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea for us to "read the Koran."
Needless to say, the idea of reading a Koran didn't sit too well with yours truly and be assured that I cut to the chase immediately upon hearing this suggestion. Namely, that this book, like other religious texts, calls for a renunciation of reason and with it, one's humanity.
My answer was essentially the same as this, but I like this formulation for its brevity.
A text that demands acceptance without evidence or proof is correctly treated like any other arbitrary statement: It should be rejected out of hand.
-- CAV
Updates
6-16-05: Crossposted to the Egosphere
5 comments:
It is fundamentally impossible for one to renounce one's own humanity.
It does seem possible, however, for rational thinkers to renounce seeing, making rational thought that much easier a task.
No. One can renounce one's own humanity -- by renouncing rational thought.
What one cannot do is change one's own fundamental nature. One can pretend that it is unnecessary to think all one wants, but wishing doesn't make it so.
And so it is that nineteen men "saw," via faith, the urgency of killing over 2000 innocent people almost four years ago. (Whether they "accurately" read the Koran is irrelevant. How they arrived at their conclusions is the issue here.)
Such are the consequences of abandoning reason, of pretending that deliberate evasion is "vision."
Ideas have consequences in the actions people take. This is what makes blind faith so dangerous to both the individual and to others. For the ability to test one's beliefs against evidence and the body of his other knowledge has been compromised, if not abandoned entirely, at the outset; and error becomes debilitating if not deadly.
-- Gus
Reason per se is neither the definitive human capacity, nor a particularly exemplary manifestation of what really makes humans uniquely valuable to Universe.
Reason is merely one emaciated manifestation of the human capacity for communication - sometimes referred to as (the) Logos.
David Bohm, emminently reasonable physicist and holder of the Isaac Newton chair at Cambridge until his death, encouraged us to take up what he referred to as dialogue(see, for instance, http://world.std.com/~lo/bohm/0002.html ).
Bohm points out that, unlike the word discussion - though it is often used synonymously w/the term dialogue in common speech - this latter term breaks down into the Greek roots "dia-"(through) and "logos"(the Word) - in other words, the flow of meaning through the exchange of speech.
Bohm contrasts this dialogue approach, which he felt to be perhaps the only mode of communicating which may be capable of saving humanity from the brink of catastrophe, than a sort of "tennis match" approach to "Truth"
connoted by the former term (discussion), which descends from the same etymological roots as "concussion" and "percussion."
The problem with reason is that it can be enlisted into the service of all sorts of irrational and anti-human enterprises. Particularly when reason is exalted over other forms of human intelligence and sensitivity, this leads to the oppression of minorities.
Historically such "unreasonable" typology has been attributed mainly to women, homosexuals, non-white / indigenous peoples, and more recently, those most unreasonable drug addicts. This last group, who are the almost universally considered the scourge of our techno-industrial utopia, at the same time epitomize in many ways the ideal capitalist consumer group - thus having a good "reason" to exist in our amoral, Mammon- worshipping culture (i.e. they fatten the bank accounts of some - no doubt very "reasonable" - men and women comprising the status quo - such as counsellors and other service providers in the A&D industry).
While giving up her life in the service of saving her child may be unreasonable (ie the mother may have more children, or at least have the capacity to conceive, and there are motherless children she could reasonably choose to look after if she lost her own biological offspring), but would unarguably account for some of the most human(e) aspects of our species'behaviour.
While I have no "reason"to believe so, I still find it worth considering the Buddhist belief that all beings, from the lowliest ant to the most mighty politician, have been our mothers (at least once) in a former incarnation. This means that mosquito you just slapped flat may've suckled you at its' bosom in a previous existence. Unreasonable, perhaps - but it is virtually a biological truism, in the sense that they are infinitely old participants in the ecosphere which has supported the lives of all Gaia's children since the first uni-celled organisms started a party in the swamp down here on Planet Flora/Dirt/Zingot (or whatever you call this place...).
Wow, that last post was incoherent enough to have been written by a clinical psychotic. That's all the more reason not to embrace Buddhism or renounce reason!
Wow!
That one's a real prize, and even better than a hate mail someone left there that I, in an act of magnaminity, simply erased. (Though I still retain a copy.)
Thanks for leaving that comment, Andrew! Sometimes, I fail to get email notification of comments, and this was one of those times. I had no idea the moonbat dropping to which you refer had landed here! It and your "diagnosis" were a hoot.
Gus
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