That’s definitely something I’ve thought about whenever the “discourse” lands on Islam in comparison to other religions. For better or for worse, it seems like Islam has been much at being true to...
That’s definitely something I’ve thought about whenever the “discourse” lands on Islam in comparison to other religions.
For better or for worse, it seems like Islam has been much at being true to itself throughout the years. I think if you were to go back to 1400 AD, Christianity and Islam would not be all that different, on a macro scale.
But through the ages Christianity seem to have been able to more easily just ignore parts of the religion that are inconvenient for the political and social reality. Today, most mainstream Christian churches barely follow half of their own holy books. A christian monk from 1500 who traveled to today would be horrified. But that’s also made it an easier fit with modern secular societies.
I struggle to name many historically Islamic countries whose governance fits with modern humanistic beliefs. Tunisia, I guess? Meanwhile, there’s many historically Christian countries which are more than happy to just ignore all the parts against sodomy and homosexuality.
So if you go back to 1400, I don’t think Christianity is particularly more violent or repressive than Islam. But Christians have been bad at actually preserving their beliefs and customs throughout the years, whereas Islam has been good at that. Its just… not very humanist.
edit:
Also consider the level of observance from the average Christian and Muslim. Most Christians maybe go to church in Sundays, if they’re feeling like it, and that’s about it?
Muslims have strict dietary restrictions, they have to pray every day, during Ramadan they all fast. Pretty much every Muslim I know actually adheres to at least halal dietary restrictions.
Reminds me of a stat from a 2006 survey that 1 in 6 clergy in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands was agnostic or atheist. It's surprising to me that one would continue to be part of Church...
On Islam, I think you'd be surprised that much of modern Islam is actually more conservative than in the classical period. Traditionally, Islam had a much more liberal attitude toward homosexuality than Christianity (it only comes up a couple times in the Quran and the prescribed punishment if two people are caught is confinement followed by forgiveness if they stop, while the implied punishment in the Bible is capital punishment). I attribute a lot of that to political instability and a post-colonial reactionary revivalism. Though even today, attitudes among American Muslims toward homosexuality are in line with Protestants in aggregate and even more accepting than White Evangelicals.
The Dutch in particular have this religious tradition of reforming or reformation. Don’t beat me on the details, but the core thing is that the definition of what Christianity is, moves along with...
The Dutch in particular have this religious tradition of reforming or reformation. Don’t beat me on the details, but the core thing is that the definition of what Christianity is, moves along with what the religious sub-community believes it is. A large focus is on reading and interpretation. And then deciding and discussing among leadership, what is and isn’t fitting for their particular sub-community of believers. Some reformed churches being more strict than the general Protestant church (so called Bible Belt), but some even more liberal on some aspects (akin to the churches mentioned in the BBC article).
In several ways, it absolutely makes sense that non-traditional believers still stay with church leadership; the community’s standpoint is most important.
Lastly, and maybe I’ll make a separate post on this, I am of the opinion that true atheism is reached through Christianity. It’s not my own idea, but of Slavoj Zizek. In that vein, it’s interesting that one of the interviewed clergymen in the BBC article mentions that Son of God is ‘just a title.’ It’s precisely through this important Easter story, that the Christian view could switch from a one true God experience (like in Jewish and Muslim traditions) to a more humanistic ‘God in the people’ experience. Or more accurately, ‘God in the space between us’ experience. God=Jesus dies on the cross, ascends to heaven, but returns in the form of the Holy Spirit, which will descend back on earth. For this story to hold any power, Jesus has to be ‘Son of God’ and therefore one with God (the Father-Son-Spirit trinity).
I understand the national and historical reasons Dutch Christianity is so reform-minded (or heretical, depending on your beliefs). It raises some interesting discussions around the difference...
I understand the national and historical reasons Dutch Christianity is so reform-minded (or heretical, depending on your beliefs). It raises some interesting discussions around the difference between traditions and beliefs, and what is a religion.
I am of the opinion that true atheism is reached through Christianity.
You've lost me on this point. While some atheists and agnostics still believe in a spiritual power, I don't see Christianity as a necessary component. Especially outside of the Western world, religious attitudes vary a lot.
I don’t claim that Christianity is a necessary component of atheism. Atheism in itself is a certain kind of belief-system (that defines itself by describing what theism is, and defining itself by...
I don’t claim that Christianity is a necessary component of atheism. Atheism in itself is a certain kind of belief-system (that defines itself by describing what theism is, and defining itself by ‘not being that’). But in the end it’s kind of a belief in something greater, still. In Christianity this something greater is explicitly removed. And is in that sense ‘more atheist’ than atheism without prior belief.
Philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek says, "The only way to be an atheist is through Christianity." He claims traditional atheism does not go far enough:
Christianity is much more atheist than the usual atheism, which can claim there is no God and so on, but nonetheless retains a certain trust into the Big Other. This Big Other can be called natural necessity, evolution, or whatever. We humans are nonetheless reduced to a position within the harmonious whole of evolution, whatever, but the difficult thing to accept is again that there is no Big Other, no point of reference which guarantees meaning.
According to Žižek, the idea of Jesus' death on the cross addresses this tension by serving as an act of love and a "resolution of radical anxiety." Indeed, Žižek says that Jesus himself became an atheist on the cross when crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)
Ah, I think I follow Žižek's point now. I can see the argument that atheism is defined on the basis of some theism, so a prior belief in something may make someone "more atheist." Personally, I...
Ah, I think I follow Žižek's point now. I can see the argument that atheism is defined on the basis of some theism, so a prior belief in something may make someone "more atheist."
Personally, I don't like defining my beliefs in relation to theism or religious systems which is why I usually describe myself as an apathetic agnostic. A higher power or spiritual force or lack thereof makes no difference to my life or choices.
I would make that claim. Christianity operates on a model of how the universe works where what you believe matters. It’s a reflexive thing. You don’t just believe in God as an objective fact about...
I don’t claim that Christianity is a necessary component of atheism.
I would make that claim. Christianity operates on a model of how the universe works where what you believe matters. It’s a reflexive thing. You don’t just believe in God as an objective fact about how the world works, it is the act of believing (in spite of its apparent absurdity) that saves you from original sin. It’s not like the belief will elicit the right actions that will save you or that they will cultivate the right habits of mind to become spiritually evolved. Faith, in itself, is the thing that saves you.
That’s the only context in which “atheism” as a sort of “belief-system” even makes sense as a thing. In most cases, what you believe about how the world works doesn’t actually change anything about how the world works for you. So it wouldn’t make sense to hang your hat on it. People tend to identify with things that actually impact what they do and how they live. In societies where the dominant religious traditions are polytheistic, they don’t actually care whether you believe in God(s) or not. The Gods exist or don’t regardless of your feelings about them. You can practice appropriate rituals and traditions to enter into a relationship with them but it’s the practice—a thing you do—that matters not what you think about it. Consequently people tended not to talk in terms of belief or disbelief, they tended to talk in terms of whether they observed certain rituals or not.
Why should Christian countries do any differently? Jesus gave one commandment: love your neighbor. Not sure why that would mean we should imprison gay people. If anything, we should have a wealth...
I struggle to name many historically Islamic countries whose governance fits with modern humanistic beliefs. Tunisia, I guess? Meanwhile, there’s many historically Christian countries which are more than happy to just ignore all the parts against sodomy and homosexuality.
Why should Christian countries do any differently? Jesus gave one commandment: love your neighbor. Not sure why that would mean we should imprison gay people. If anything, we should have a wealth cap because it's harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Alas, he gave two commandments. The first is "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind". And this is unfortunately open to much interpretation.
Jesus gave one commandment: love your neighbor.
Alas, he gave two commandments. The first is "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind". And this is unfortunately open to much interpretation.
A friend of mine once said that many Christians practice "Paulianity" and it kind if stuck with me. This is not a slight on Paul the Apostle nor a slur against Christians, but a recognition that...
A friend of mine once said that many Christians practice "Paulianity" and it kind if stuck with me. This is not a slight on Paul the Apostle nor a slur against Christians, but a recognition that the Teachings of the Gospels, alone, were never going to be sufficient to establish the Church (in the pluralistic sense) as we know it today. Paul, and others, played crucial roles in the interpretation of the Gospels and the resulting establishment of "Christianty". Without them, there would be no Church and it is doubtful that the Gospels, and their wisdom, would be little more than archeological curiosities, if that.
That so much of modern Christiandom is rooted in Paul is easy find fault with, and perhaps that speaks to the modern exodus. But the people of that time benefitted enormously from Christianity, and it would have been impossible without the epistles.
Still though, there are topics that come up with my (dearly beloved) Christian friends that leave me saying, "That's just Paulianity."
The problem is that a lot of that isn't even necessarily based on what Paul actually said, but rather what people 1500 years later thought he meant...often based on what they wanted him to mean....
The problem is that a lot of that isn't even necessarily based on what Paul actually said, but rather what people 1500 years later thought he meant...often based on what they wanted him to mean. Makes for a bit of a shit show.
The U.S. and Kenya have the highest levels of “accession,” or entrance, into Islam, with 20% of U.S. Muslims and 11% of Kenyan Muslims saying they were raised in another religion or with no religion. That said, overall, Muslims are a minority in both places: About 1% of U.S. adults and 11% of Kenyans currently identify as Muslim.
...
In several countries, virtually all adults who answer survey questions by saying they were raised Muslim still identify that way today, yielding extremely high retention rates.
Except in the U.S., the survey does not show much variation in Muslim retention rates. In most places, upward of 90% of people raised as Muslims have remained Muslims as adults.
Even in the U.S. – which has the lowest retention rate among Muslims in the countries surveyed – roughly three-quarters of Americans who were raised Muslim still identify as Muslims today.
If you visit r/exmuslim, people will talk about having to hide because certain interpretations of Islam in certain cultures, include very real death penalty for apostasy.
If you visit r/exmuslim, people will talk about having to hide because certain interpretations of Islam in certain cultures, include very real death penalty for apostasy.
I wonder to what extent people identify as Muslim for cultural reasons rather than for strictly religious reasons. After all, there are a lot of atheists out there identifying as Jews and as...
I wonder to what extent people identify as Muslim for cultural reasons rather than for strictly religious reasons. After all, there are a lot of atheists out there identifying as Jews and as Catholics, so I would not be surprised if there are atheists who identify as Muslims as well because they're still members of that cultural community.
I was wondering the same. Islam also feels very cultural compared to Catholicism (and I say that as someone raised Catholic). On that note, I myself would probably still identify as a lapsed...
I was wondering the same. Islam also feels very cultural compared to Catholicism (and I say that as someone raised Catholic). On that note, I myself would probably still identify as a lapsed Catholic or Christian on surveys even though I'm more agnostic. My feelings towards religion are more ambivalent than outright hostile like some who leave, and I imagine the same is true for many others.
The cultural aspect of the Catholic identity seems to be strongest in places where Catholics have experienced a lot of discrimination and social exclusion. I've met people who use "Catholic"...
The cultural aspect of the Catholic identity seems to be strongest in places where Catholics have experienced a lot of discrimination and social exclusion. I've met people who use "Catholic" almost as a synonym for "Irish", for example.
That’s definitely something I’ve thought about whenever the “discourse” lands on Islam in comparison to other religions.
For better or for worse, it seems like Islam has been much at being true to itself throughout the years. I think if you were to go back to 1400 AD, Christianity and Islam would not be all that different, on a macro scale.
But through the ages Christianity seem to have been able to more easily just ignore parts of the religion that are inconvenient for the political and social reality. Today, most mainstream Christian churches barely follow half of their own holy books. A christian monk from 1500 who traveled to today would be horrified. But that’s also made it an easier fit with modern secular societies.
I struggle to name many historically Islamic countries whose governance fits with modern humanistic beliefs. Tunisia, I guess? Meanwhile, there’s many historically Christian countries which are more than happy to just ignore all the parts against sodomy and homosexuality.
So if you go back to 1400, I don’t think Christianity is particularly more violent or repressive than Islam. But Christians have been bad at actually preserving their beliefs and customs throughout the years, whereas Islam has been good at that. Its just… not very humanist.
edit:
Also consider the level of observance from the average Christian and Muslim. Most Christians maybe go to church in Sundays, if they’re feeling like it, and that’s about it?
Muslims have strict dietary restrictions, they have to pray every day, during Ramadan they all fast. Pretty much every Muslim I know actually adheres to at least halal dietary restrictions.
Reminds me of a stat from a 2006 survey that 1 in 6 clergy in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands was agnostic or atheist. It's surprising to me that one would continue to be part of Church leadership after having lost faith.
On Islam, I think you'd be surprised that much of modern Islam is actually more conservative than in the classical period. Traditionally, Islam had a much more liberal attitude toward homosexuality than Christianity (it only comes up a couple times in the Quran and the prescribed punishment if two people are caught is confinement followed by forgiveness if they stop, while the implied punishment in the Bible is capital punishment). I attribute a lot of that to political instability and a post-colonial reactionary revivalism. Though even today, attitudes among American Muslims toward homosexuality are in line with Protestants in aggregate and even more accepting than White Evangelicals.
The Dutch in particular have this religious tradition of reforming or reformation. Don’t beat me on the details, but the core thing is that the definition of what Christianity is, moves along with what the religious sub-community believes it is. A large focus is on reading and interpretation. And then deciding and discussing among leadership, what is and isn’t fitting for their particular sub-community of believers. Some reformed churches being more strict than the general Protestant church (so called Bible Belt), but some even more liberal on some aspects (akin to the churches mentioned in the BBC article).
In several ways, it absolutely makes sense that non-traditional believers still stay with church leadership; the community’s standpoint is most important.
Lastly, and maybe I’ll make a separate post on this, I am of the opinion that true atheism is reached through Christianity. It’s not my own idea, but of Slavoj Zizek. In that vein, it’s interesting that one of the interviewed clergymen in the BBC article mentions that Son of God is ‘just a title.’ It’s precisely through this important Easter story, that the Christian view could switch from a one true God experience (like in Jewish and Muslim traditions) to a more humanistic ‘God in the people’ experience. Or more accurately, ‘God in the space between us’ experience. God=Jesus dies on the cross, ascends to heaven, but returns in the form of the Holy Spirit, which will descend back on earth. For this story to hold any power, Jesus has to be ‘Son of God’ and therefore one with God (the Father-Son-Spirit trinity).
I understand the national and historical reasons Dutch Christianity is so reform-minded (or heretical, depending on your beliefs). It raises some interesting discussions around the difference between traditions and beliefs, and what is a religion.
You've lost me on this point. While some atheists and agnostics still believe in a spiritual power, I don't see Christianity as a necessary component. Especially outside of the Western world, religious attitudes vary a lot.
I don’t claim that Christianity is a necessary component of atheism. Atheism in itself is a certain kind of belief-system (that defines itself by describing what theism is, and defining itself by ‘not being that’). But in the end it’s kind of a belief in something greater, still. In Christianity this something greater is explicitly removed. And is in that sense ‘more atheist’ than atheism without prior belief.
Wikipedia summarizes Zizek’s point:
Ah, I think I follow Žižek's point now. I can see the argument that atheism is defined on the basis of some theism, so a prior belief in something may make someone "more atheist."
Personally, I don't like defining my beliefs in relation to theism or religious systems which is why I usually describe myself as an apathetic agnostic. A higher power or spiritual force or lack thereof makes no difference to my life or choices.
I would make that claim. Christianity operates on a model of how the universe works where what you believe matters. It’s a reflexive thing. You don’t just believe in God as an objective fact about how the world works, it is the act of believing (in spite of its apparent absurdity) that saves you from original sin. It’s not like the belief will elicit the right actions that will save you or that they will cultivate the right habits of mind to become spiritually evolved. Faith, in itself, is the thing that saves you.
That’s the only context in which “atheism” as a sort of “belief-system” even makes sense as a thing. In most cases, what you believe about how the world works doesn’t actually change anything about how the world works for you. So it wouldn’t make sense to hang your hat on it. People tend to identify with things that actually impact what they do and how they live. In societies where the dominant religious traditions are polytheistic, they don’t actually care whether you believe in God(s) or not. The Gods exist or don’t regardless of your feelings about them. You can practice appropriate rituals and traditions to enter into a relationship with them but it’s the practice—a thing you do—that matters not what you think about it. Consequently people tended not to talk in terms of belief or disbelief, they tended to talk in terms of whether they observed certain rituals or not.
Why should Christian countries do any differently? Jesus gave one commandment: love your neighbor. Not sure why that would mean we should imprison gay people. If anything, we should have a wealth cap because it's harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Alas, he gave two commandments. The first is "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind". And this is unfortunately open to much interpretation.
A friend of mine once said that many Christians practice "Paulianity" and it kind if stuck with me. This is not a slight on Paul the Apostle nor a slur against Christians, but a recognition that the Teachings of the Gospels, alone, were never going to be sufficient to establish the Church (in the pluralistic sense) as we know it today. Paul, and others, played crucial roles in the interpretation of the Gospels and the resulting establishment of "Christianty". Without them, there would be no Church and it is doubtful that the Gospels, and their wisdom, would be little more than archeological curiosities, if that.
That so much of modern Christiandom is rooted in Paul is easy find fault with, and perhaps that speaks to the modern exodus. But the people of that time benefitted enormously from Christianity, and it would have been impossible without the epistles.
Still though, there are topics that come up with my (dearly beloved) Christian friends that leave me saying, "That's just Paulianity."
Edit: letter.
The problem is that a lot of that isn't even necessarily based on what Paul actually said, but rather what people 1500 years later thought he meant...often based on what they wanted him to mean. Makes for a bit of a shit show.
Interestingly, there's a similarish movement in Islam against recognising post-Quran laws called Quranism which is very progressive
Maybe, but I'm also wondering if freedom of religion (both legally and culturally) has anything to do with it?
From the article:
...
If you visit r/exmuslim, people will talk about having to hide because certain interpretations of Islam in certain cultures, include very real death penalty for apostasy.
I wonder to what extent people identify as Muslim for cultural reasons rather than for strictly religious reasons. After all, there are a lot of atheists out there identifying as Jews and as Catholics, so I would not be surprised if there are atheists who identify as Muslims as well because they're still members of that cultural community.
I was wondering the same. Islam also feels very cultural compared to Catholicism (and I say that as someone raised Catholic). On that note, I myself would probably still identify as a lapsed Catholic or Christian on surveys even though I'm more agnostic. My feelings towards religion are more ambivalent than outright hostile like some who leave, and I imagine the same is true for many others.
The cultural aspect of the Catholic identity seems to be strongest in places where Catholics have experienced a lot of discrimination and social exclusion. I've met people who use "Catholic" almost as a synonym for "Irish", for example.
And there are "Easter/Christmas Catholics" who might not call themselves atheist but also may not have strong feelings on dogma.