Some thoughts on fear of religion.

I have no trouble criticizing Islam. I'll tell you what's wrong with it, too: Islam is exactly what other religions are, only more so.

Why would anyone expect anything about religion to be rational?

Religion is about faith and faith does not require any form of rationalization; just belief without proof or argument.

The trouble starts when people start to organize religion and belief and then form power structures allegedly for the benefit of the religion. At this point the religion has already been corrupted and ultimately evolves into what we see today.

What I don't understand is how Islam was so effectively hijacked and turned into a religion that appears to abhor learning. This from a religion that gave us so much intellectually during what were the dark and middle ages in pre-rennaisance Europe.

"Why would anyone expect anything about religion to be rational?"

Because many people attempt to be rational about their religion. Because many rational people have religious beliefs that they do not think are irrational. I am a person with religious beliefs. I think I am rational and not irrational. We can discuss whether my beliefs are rational or irrational, but declaring them so doesn't mean they are. There are those who argue that having no religious beliefs is irrational.

"Religion is about faith and faith does not require any form of rationalization; just belief without proof or argument."

Religion generally does involve some degree of faith. However, a reasonable religion does require rationalization, proof, and argument. Throughout history here has been a great deal of highly organized intellectual effort devoted to the rationalization of, proof for, and argument about religion.

Religious faith does not equal mindless belief.

I have no trouble criticizing Islam. I'll tell you what's wrong with it, too: Islam is exactly what other religions are, only more so.

Or, Islam is where Christianity was 500 years ago.

Jeff,

You have fallen into the trap of believing that faith must always be rationalized. Faith, by its nature is irrational. Faith is a belief in something with no proof of existence needed or required.

Yes, the trappings of religion can be rationalized but they are pure human artifice. Religion without faith is just a social club.

Perhaps you should consider Russel's Teapot conjecture.

I agree with every single commenter so far, Ilya in particular. I am a Christian, and Ilya is absolutely right.

Christianity was pretty bloody in its day, wasn't it, something we seem to forget when we make the modern day comparison. Whether in it's treatment of fellow Christians with minute differences of doctrine, or in it's support of the most vile Colonial efforts worldwide that were truly a horrible mixture of the Sword and the Bible, justifying plunder by saving native souls.

I doubt I would have remained a Christian 500 years ago. Of course I might very well have been hanged for saying so.

Islam is going through this process and those best suited to change it will come from within the Moslems.

Christianity was pretty bloody in its day

Yeah, it was. Maybe 500 years is a bit of an overestimate.

Hmmm, 500 years ago in Europe; you would have been very lucky to get off with "just being Hung"! I'm fairly certain that some sadistic zealot would have made you suffer very painfully for having the temerity to challenge the established church. You know; burning at the stake, flaying alive, boiled in oil etc. etc.

From the CV article:

The tenets of Christianity -- even over-the-top fundamentalist zealotry -- has not changed since 9/11, nor has Mormonism. But Western religions are attacked as never before. I think they're substitute targets.

I recall this sort of derangement syndrome in the wake of the Salman Rushdie fatwa. Some paranoid whackballs were complaining that this sort of thing was also brewing in Jesusland.

The unwarranted violence (as opposed to warranted violence, such as the Normandy Invasion) often attributed to Christianity was not inspired by Christianity but by some other influence grafted unnaturally onto Christianity.

There is only one Christianity - what Jesus and the Apostles preached. The documentation has one meaning, just as the Constitution has one meaning, and every Christian denomination has it less than 100% right. Part of the reason for this is simple misinterpretation, but the really big divergences tend to come from something else. Nominal Christians are attracted to Christianity, but they have biases originating elsewhere, many of which contradict Christianity. People who have never heard of Hegelian (il)logic will go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify their conflicting biases.

Constantine is a classic example. From its dawn, religion was an extension of foreign policy, mollifying dangerous and capricious gods instead of dangerous and capricious alien human nations; thus it was a function of state. Under theocratic Israel, God was its monarch, not a foreign power and not a rival; religion was thus a function of domestic policy. Under Christianity the purpose of religion was individual reconciliation with God and fellowship among the reconciled; thus its religion was a peaceful private-sector affair. Constantine unnaturally placed the Apostles' voluntary church under the rules of theocracy. This was the heresy central to the Reformation. Unfortunately, most of the Reform churches (Anabaptists perhaps the sole exception) still accepted state religion - they just wanted it to be purely domestic, without Rome being a de facto branch of the government.

The Klan's violence isn't Christian. Neither Jesus nor the Apostles condemned entire races or condoned lynching, thus the beliefs peculiar to the Klan come from somewhere else. What keeps them from being more Christian? They're humans. Humans are selfish, and many are petty and nasty about it.

One more thing: comparing today's Islamic cultures with the Christian cultures of 500 years ago is quite problematic. Not only were these two sets of cultures radically dissimilar, but the various corners of early 1500s Christendom didn't even share the same level of lower-case-e enlightenment. England for one had been evolving checks and balances for centuries, while the Iberian nations did not democratize until during my lifetime. If only the Brits had beaten the Spanish and Portugese to South America...

On top of that, enlightenment really can't be measured in units of time.