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

A link to the original conversation to which I'm replying to is here.

I know I’m a little behind on the conversation, but I wanted to touch on a few things Maher said in his response to Alex. Maher stated that "Every religion have certain ideologies that goes by and since no religion has clear answers to provide its followers about everything, and since there will always be conflict even between the members of each religion that leads to hatred because different people choose to believe in different things, and since religion brain washes people in many ways in certain ways, then religion is a source of conflict and hence it is a source of the problem' and he states this argument in such a way that it looks like the previous statements seem to imply the latter statements, respectively. I could get into the logic of all of this, since I have my logic midterm tomorrow and that's why I've been behind in reading all this stuff, but I guess I won't bore you with that and just cut right to the heart of the matter.

Specifically Maher's statement that 'there will always be conflict even between the members of each religion that leads to hatred because different people choose to believe in different things' and what this means, paraphrased, is that 'because different people choose to believe in different things...there will always be conflict even between the members of each religion that leads to hatred.' I think here is the problem specifically stated and thus, I don't think it's a necessary feature of religion or ideology per se, but simply stated it's people's inability to accept difference. If these intolerant assholes were able to accept and appreciate difference, even on matters in which they disagree, none of this bullshit in the Middle East or elsewhere would be happening right now. I believe everybody who is reading this has accepted this difference, on some level, or else we wouldn’t be able to debate and discuss things like this, we would just be trying to kill each other or not even be having this conversation. So I guess it comes down to how much difference one accepts and how much of it they reject it and ultimately, the means they use to convey their rejection of difference. This ‘means used to convey their rejection of difference’ is the problem here, not religion.

He later states that 'I am talking about any religion that promotes the idea that they are the only truth out there including Catholicism and Islam' as being the source of that problem. What this statement assumes is that because these religions preach that they are the only truth, they are automatically intolerant and unaccepting of other religions because they are not the truth, and this is both true and false depending upon what each particular exclusivist religious teacher teaches to his/her followers about the treatment/acceptance of non-believers. So I believe, herein lies the problem in religion, but I don’t think you can blame the whole concept of religion or ideology for this particular fact.

I think Maher would now disagree with me and say that religion is the source of this problem because ‘no religion has clear answers to provide its followers about everything’ and restated, ‘religion is the cause of the problem once again for failing to provide clear answers to all of its followers to many issues in our daily life’ and specifically we might add, the treatment/acceptance of non-believers. In fact, in a lot of cases, the religion has plainly contradictory and conflicting passages about the treatment/acceptance of non-believers, especially in the Abrahamic scriptures and traditions. But just because religion is unclear on a truth does not cause it’s believers to hold any opinion, positive or negative, regarding that truth. That issue is left completely up to each particular believer and religion cannot be blamed just because it does not provide clear answers, especially in this particular instance, to every single one of the believer’s inquiry.

I think Alex would here appeal to his general and ambiguous concept of reason as the adjudicator in decisions like these and I think it’s appropriate in this instance, but that concept can, presumably, lead people into opposite directions (because there are no objective standards for reasonableness) with regard to the same issue. But that decision is completely an individual decision and cannot be blamed on the completeness or incompleteness of whatever particular ideology one believes in.

I do agree with your statement ‘The real conflict in the region is because of the hatred that religion promotes towards others’ with one minor adjustment, it’s not the religion itself per se, but the followers of said religion that are ‘promoting’ the hate towards others and they are using their particular religious ideology to help in this promotion, but it’s not the particular religious ideology that is doing the promoting itself, it’s the person.

In fact, because scripture is unclear and contradictory on this issue, I think that this lessens the culpability of religion even more on this issue because how can a particular religious ideology be culpable for the actions/behaviors/beliefs of it’s ‘adherents’ on issues that it doesn’t even have a clear stance on? It’s like asking me ‘What should I do?’ and I say “Well, there are advantages and disadvantages to all these actions, so I’m not really sure” and then you pick one of these actions, commit what we would call an evil action, and then say I’m the one at fault for not clearly telling you what action you should do. It is ludicrous to think that just because I gave you incomplete information and you made a wrong choice based upon that information that I’m totally culpable for your wrong choice. Each individual must make the choice based upon the information they had, and thus, since they made the choice themselves (the information didn’t make the choice), they are ultimately culpable for the consequences of that choice, whatever they may be. Ideologies don’t choose actions, they can recommend and prescribe actions and tell you the supposed consequences of your actions, but only humans choose what action they will take and thus, only humans are responsible and culpable for the consequences of those actions, whatever they may be.

I disagree with your statement that ‘for as long as religion is the driving force in people’s lives, there will always be war and hatred’ and believe a better formulation is ‘for as long as violent unacceptance and rejection of difference is the driving force in people’s lives, there will always be war and hatred’ would be more accurate.

Also, I totally agree with all of your points for improvement in the Middle East. I have said for a while now that I believe the number one problem in the Middle East is that they have no independent, critical philosophical tradition. I believe that your resolutions would go a long way towards solving that. Of course I’m totally biased though because I was liberally educated and think it is a very good thing, but in all truth, if the Middle East wants to keep up as far as globalization is concerned, a liberal education is most certainly the correct starting point, considering where they are at ideologically right now. I’ve got to go study, Peace Out

Maher then responded:

I agree with most what you have said, and when you said i might not agree, i actually did agree :), and i generally can work with it. But, for as long as religion was around, in the real life, there have been problems. Idealy, religion is not the problem, but there is not religion without conflict and hence it is a source of the problem..just make it simple..