Dave's Response to ' My Response to Maher's Comments in 'This conversation was originally about...'

The end point of this conversation can be viewed here.

I wrote in that previous blog that 'the number one problem in the Middle East is that they have no independent, critical philosophical tradition.'

Dave then responded:

This is absurd. What region can say they do? EU? Hah. There is just as much diversity there. Americas? Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Domincan, Canada, America. There is no indepdendt critical philosophical tradition here. There is only fear. And once Israel establishes it won't take shit, the same relative peace we enjoy will result. I am not talking utter destruction of their enemies. Some restraint and a little less involvement from the "satan,a.k.a US) might go along way in the region.

I then wrote back:

>this is not absurd at all. the region that can say that have an
>independent philosophical tradition is any region where there is
>christianity, because if there is christianity there, then there is
>a great likelihood that at least some people in that place would
>have heard of baruch spinoza and biblical criticism, or the quest
>for the historical jesus, or the jesus seminar, or western
>philosophy. if a region has these types of ideas, then they
>practice critical thinking and the chances of radicalism and
>literalism being the dominant force is lessened.
>
>ask any muslim about what the latest research and findings in
>qu'ranic criticism tell us about that book or about the way it was
>put together or the time it was written? know what the answer is,
>the answer is that there is no qu'ranic criticism and this is a
>problem, no, in fact, this is THE problem in the islamic world right
>now, at least from an ideological standpoint. if there was an
>independent, philosophical tradition in the islamic world that
>tradition would have started this, along with other things, a long
>long time ago and we would be able to talk about 'oh, this early
>muslim complied this part of the qu'ran' or 'these passages in the
>qu'ran have a different literature style, so they must be from the
>later period' or stuff like that. questioning these things make
>more people open minded and less dogmatic and you might not have as
>many radicals if one of these radicals could read this stuff and
>come to question it instead of listening to what their iman tells
>them on blind faith and then going to fight jihad. if you had this
>tradition, i believe you would hear a lot more voices calling these
>radicals pseudo-muslims and you would have a voice, an intellectual
>voice from within the muslim world, calling for common sense and
>reason and true islam to be the order of the day, not this salafist
>wahabist islam you see today.
>
>look what happened to the vatican's power once the enlgihtenment and
>renaissance hit and much of this was triggered by criticism of
>religion and established power norms and structures. one can even
>go so far as to say that if it wasn't for luther, this whole
>attitude which started the enlightenment might not have even
>happened because no one would have been brave enough to stand
>against the church or their ideas. where are the luthers, the
>spinozas, the galileo's, the noam chomsky's in the islamic world
>today. there aren't any, at least none that i've heard of. if
>there was an independpendent, philosophical tradition there, these
>types of people would exist and the muslim world would be a much
>better place then it is now. heck, if they had this critical
>thinking, maybe maher would still be in jordan right now, studying
>philosophy, about to come out with a book about being is and how
>this is related to islam. it would probably be seen as heretical,
>but at least those voices would be there. those voices, today, are
>nowhere to be heard.

Then Maher wrote:

Have you thought about the politics in the Middle East as a possibility and a part of what is not allowing critical thinking rather than Islam? Critical thinking was a big part of the Muslim tradition in the past as they succeeded in stepping humanity many steps forward. Have you thought about the possibility that it might not be Christianity per se that has the "liberal" critical thinking traditions, but rather the tradition started when christianity was not in a total power or control of every aspect of people's lives? I mean, look at catholicism now..do you think they are giving their followers a liberal education? I don't think so. I agree that christian countries now might teach critical thinking, but when it comes to critically think their christian faith, do you think christianity (not the countries) is doing a good job? You can have critical thinking that is biased like having a blind faith (you can't question or critically think about) and believe that your religion is the only truth and other than that, you then could critical think other religions, science and things (like what Muslims did in the past and what christianity is doing now) !The needed critical thinking is a liberal one, free from all religions, i believe. I think all religions that brain washes people into thinking that their religion is the only truth is a part of the problem but I also think that this issue is more complicated than religion. Politics plays a big role here.

Maher then wrote:

I want to apologize. i reread your e mail in regards of the religious criticism and i think i misunderstood what you were trying to say and hence my previous e mail. Your statement that only any region that has christianity has an independent philosophical tradition, through my off. I thought you meant that christianity as a religion promotes independent thinking, which i don't agree with. But when i reread your e mail, i realized you did not mean that. All you were trying to say is that we don't see muslim independent thinkers like we see in the christian world. I agree with that, but again, i don't think it is because of christianity that promotes this, but rather because of the time period/s when christianity was not the dominant force in all aspects of christians' lives, which is the case today with Muslims who follow the perceived religious teachings.

I then wrote:

'All you were trying to say is that we don't see muslim independent thinkers like we see in the christian world,' not only that, but we don't see an philosophically independent critical religious tradition in the Muslim world like we have seen in the christian world over the last 500 years. Philosophy in the west has been criticizing christianity since the time of luther, where is it's analogy in the muslim world was what i was saying. You are correct, Islam had this up until about Averroes time, but then what happened? From what was said in our play or what I read, I can't remember, al-ghazali had a lot to do with this critical tradition being wiped out after averroes time because of his arguments for faith and sufism. If this tradition stayed alive and was able to keep critiquing religion, I think that the muslim world may even be farther advanced then the west is today. The first person who started a discipline called biblical criticism was a philosopher named Baruch Spinoza (there's even a link to biblical criticism in his wikipedia link) and he died in 1677, so we've had over 300 years of this tradition and if this tradition was in the Muslim world today, things would be a lot better, but it's not, so the radical fundamentalists rule the day. and your also right that Islam itself cannot be blamed for this problem but the people in power who do not promote a critical interpretation of religion, the politicians, the scholars, the imams themselves, are to blame for this problem. It is these people who make Islam 'the dominant force in all aspects of' their lives, which may not be such a bad thing, if there was a more critical understanding of it, but since this same force prevents them from starting a critical understanding of it, it's like a vicious circle that never ends. That's why I think the future of Islam is in the West and what is going on in the middle east right now, in some way, are the death throws of an outdated middle ages islam. But again, on this debate, I think we are more in agreement then we thought.

Alex then said:

While there are many excellent points being made I find that Catholicism in particular is being mischaracterized as if the followers of the Church were mere slaves to the "control" of the Church. This is an unfair criticism. You claim that the Church "brainwashes" people but this is another unfair and unjust assertion. What would you say about all the scholars in all the various fields whether it be in the sciences, law, medicine, historians, philosophers etc...who held/hold to the Church as the truth? Are these people fanatics because they do not agree with your point of view? Once again there is this major inconsistency. Divorce rational thought from religion and then humanity will flourish....right? I heard a statement about the Enlightenment which granted there were some major achievements made in the various fields but look at what we have today? Where is the peace so promised by man's attempt to divorce himself from God? You claim that Christianity does not promote "independent thinking" but what exactly does this mean? A cursory glance at the great scholars of the past and the present will show you that belief in a truth does not necessarily mean pig-headed view of the world. No, religion is the problem but man's attempt at solving all the ills of society is the solution. You want society to be composed of individuals who keep religion compartmentalized lacking the vitality to influence their "real" life. Dare I say that the modern problems we are witnessing today are not the problems of religion but man's systematic rejection of the transcendent. Only since the Enlightenment have we had the emergence of totalitarian regimes (the Middle Ages never had such entities) and only since the Enlightenment have we used technology not for the good of man but for his destruction (look at WWI and WWII). Writing during the horrific Second World War Christopher Dawson had this to say and if you are open-minded enough I hope you will at least think about what he had to say:

" But this is just the truth which the modern world has denied. It has put its trust in the 'arm of flesh'; it has believed the word of man rather than the Word of God. It has reversed the whole hierarchy of spiritual values so that our civilization has been turned backwards and upside down, with its face toward darkness and nonentity and its back to the sun of truth and the source of being. For a short time---whether we reckon it in decades or centuries is of small importance---it remained precariously skating on the thin ice of rationalism and secular humanism. Now the ice has broken and we are being carried down the flood, though we may delude ourselves that the forces that have been released are of our own creation and serve our will to power.

Is it possible to reverse this process? No human power can stop the progress to the abyss. It can only come about by a profound movement of change or conversion which brings the human spirit once more into vital relation with the spirit of God."

Difficult for modern ears but nonetheless this was not the "rantings" of some fanatic but a scholar in his own field who once taught in Harvard.

I don't understand this almost "religious zealotry" to divorce all the fields of knowledge from religion. Don't take this the wrong way but I see a species of pride involved which posits that "I must be free to think as I like". And that those who hold to religious truth are somehow deemed as "backwards" and "brainwashed" unfit really for modern society. I am sorry I humbly admit that man does not have all the answers. You think that religion had absolutely NO INFLUENCE in the intellectual realm which I find rather offensive. This is a purely rationalistic viewpoint influenced no doubt by the likes of those so-called enlightened ones of the 18th and 19th centuries. Hardly being "independent" in our thinking.

Seriously though what is your view on all these men and women scholars who were religious and held to objective truth? Do you readily dismiss their research and work as existing in a vacuum.

There are a few books which if one is open-minded enough I think would change one's perception of the role religion has played in civilization:

1) The Beginnings of Western Science by David Lindberg

2) Dawn of Modern Science by Thomas Goldstein

3) Dynamics of World History by Christopher Dawson

4) How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization by Thomas E Woods Jr

One last thing. You don't want religion to play such a dominant role in the live's of the people yet at the same time you want a rationalistic, "free", "critical" (whatever that really means), secular, humanistic, ideology to play an all encompassing role in the life of the individual but this is nothing other (in my opinion) than a substitute religion masked by the mantra of "independent thought".