Yes, obviously. Islam is committed to human flourishing. They should change their tradition so that it's nicer to me. — absoluteaspiration

Why are to telling me that?

You don't get to decide what other people consider harmful.

I think they should at the very least reform their tradition. — absoluteaspiration

Why do you need them or their tradition to be different than they are?
Because you're not in control of your feelings?

You seem to be under the impression that Muslims irrationally defend Islam whenever possible.

No, I'm not under that impression. It's not clear why you think that.

And if you internalized some other psychological theory, you'd speak differently.

That's why it's important for religious leaders to speak up. It's their job to go full MLK Jr and shout "Let freedom ring!" — Tate

Only if they are committed to secularism.

No, I want you to understand why disagreement on important topics makes peaceful coexistence impossible.

And what I see more so unfortunately is an attempt to derail the thread into one over hypocrisy and strained attempts at moral equivalency — Hanover

On the contrary. In order to be able to judge others from the moral high ground, one actually has to hold the moral high ground.

If it can be pointed out that a prospective judge does not hold such a moral high ground, his judgment is at least suspect.

He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

as opposed to better understanding why a religious leader would send marching orders to murder an author

Because the religious leader believes he has the divine authority to do so.

That you don't believe he has such divine authority is on you, not on him.

And I'm really not coming after you so much for this, but just responding to you from how another poster who I generally ignore has responded in the hopes of better explaining my position.

You keep complaining about how religion is treated poorly at this forum. I'm offering some explanations as to why.
For me, the main reason why religions aren't credible is insofar they are worldly, secular, and insofar religious people themselves relativize their own doctrines.

Anyway, I'm fine with emotion, passion and hostility when it comes to things like this that matter. — Hanover

There you go. With passion, and hostility, it all goes downhill. Once you approve of passion and hostility, how can you expect anything other but killing, raping, and pillaging?

I've already stated this the best I could, which is that my best guess is that there is not the impetus upon public condemnation within that community that there is other communities, and I'm not clear exactly where that arises from. — Hanover

Like I already said, I think it's because at least some religious people have a strong sense of religious autonomy, and so see no need to make themselves seem credible to others, or to seek to be understood by others. So they don't explain themselves to others.

A classical example with this is when atheists request theists to provide proof of God. The atheists claim that the burden of proof is on the theists, yet the theists don't consider themselves as having that burden at all (and that instead, if anything, the burden is on the atheists).

Why do I have to "coexist peacefully" with an unjust medieval tradition? — absoluteaspiration

Why should they coexist peacefully with an unjust secular tradition?

I want to live in a society where I'm free to tell the world the pain I suffered because of their hypocrisy.

Just listen to yourself. You expect justice and redress from the very people you consider unjust (and all kinds of bad).
Do you really think that's a sane expectation??

And what do you think will happen if you tell the world "the pain you suffered because of their hypocrisy"?
Why should they care about you and your pain? Can you explain? Can you spell it out?

Similarly, Rushdie's provocation is a creation of Islamic repression. — absoluteaspiration

Again, a case of blaming others.

And a repression of what exactly? Rushdie was at no time a citizen of an Islamic republic where he would be bound, by his citizenship, to a particular religion. So he has no grievance of this kind. Sure, his parents expected him to comply with certain norms. So what? It's teenager rebellion on his part.

Would the Communists have been right to silence Milan Kundera too?

Who says they didn't keep him around for strategic purposes?


-----

If a Hugo Award winning writer like GRR Martin is not good enough for you, then how how about something classic like The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne?

Just what do you think that reading books like that can accomplish? All they do is make people hop from one train of passion onto another one, while the problem of suffering remains looming as ever.

But neither he, nor anyone else, is free to dictate what effect that choice should have on others and how others should respond to it.
— baker

That's a strange way to frame the argument. — Tom Storm

Why strange? Can you explain?

That secondary issue is, should fanatics

So a "fanatic" is now a clearly definable and universally binding category?

have the right to threaten and kill people whose art/opinion they don't like? There's only one correct answer here.

Should people have the right to act in bad faith, to be hostile, to provoke others, and yet others must take this stoically, because the hater's rights are above every other concern? There's only one correct answer here.

What if it an author wrote a book about a bikie gang and a club decides to kill the author and publisher and anyone else involved because the book took a controversial view of the club's history?

Some people have too much time and money on their hands.

I'm saying it's fine that you make difference judgements to mine - after all no one is going to get killed.

No, it's not fine. We cannot peacefully coexist that way.

That's true what it says, but, as noted in other threads, there's no evidence of any actual stonings or biblically mandated death penalties in the past 2,000 + years.

It's part of the reason for the OP, in trying to figure out the real theology because it's often very distant from its literal decrees. — Hanover

It's more relevant in how one interprets the discrepancy: Do they not stone people because they have mercy, or see them as "fellow humans who shouldn't be hurt"? Or is it because they don't believe that the religious decree was actually issued by God?

What's your response to that? What should we conclude about the Muslims around us? — Tate

People threatening others with death is quite a common occurence. Just look at this forum. Even moderators quite nonchalantly tell others to kill themselves or that they deserve death.
What should we conclude about the people around us?

My point is, those Muslims who believe that someone deserves to be killed aren't some kind of aberration, exception. Liberals, secularists, also threaten with death. (And insofar they hold positions of power, they make it happen too, legally.)

I think that we can conclude from that that some (if not many, most) people want to rule over the lives and deaths of others.

He should be free to make any choice he wants to make. — Tom Storm

But neither he, nor anyone else, is free to dictate what effect that choice should have on others and how others should respond to it.

And further, for a religious person to request input on how to practice their religion -- from outsiders of that religion??? (Like in the passage you quoted earlier.) This is absurd.
— baker

So we disagree on this point and the others are not significant enough to follow up. Irshad Manji is a Muslim. When she makes comments about Islam and the wider world community, it is worth listening. That's a judgement of course, and one you obviously don't share. Fine. — Tom Storm

It's not fine. It's part of the answer to the OP's quest: to understand religious autonomy.

I thought the problem was being stabbed in the face for writing a book. — praxis

This kind of trivializing really doesn't help.

Yes, other people should be responsible for one man's existential problems. We form a community with the expectation of tolerating each other's differences. — absoluteaspiration

Rushdie didn't do his part. He wants other people to respect him, to tolerate him at least, but he doesn't want to return the favor.

If you were alienated from a religious community for being an illegitimate child, then why are you arguing on behalf of traditional religion?

I'm not arguing on behalf of it, I'm presenting its stance. Because nobody else does that here, yet it's crucial for understanding where they come from, and it's crucial for understanding conflicts with it.


One can save oneself a lot of time and grief by understanding traditional religion. It puzzles me how come more people don't take this route.

The alienation you suffered is plastered all over pop culture. See the Game of Thrones, for example.

Yeah, that reeeeally offers brilliant ways of coping. The dragons, they make it all so viable.

The prophet is dead, he can't be harmed. — Benkei

What is wrong with you? Are you unable to see things from another's perspective??

And this too is an accusation one reads on social media: Rushdie did this to sell books. Back to what my door keeper told me: don't write a novel, a work of fancy about Mohammad, in part because that would be disrespectful but also because it would be lowly commercial, hence consumerist, capitalist, sensational, etc. Not serious. Not good. — Olivier5

Agreed.

None of this of course justifies murder but it's an effort to understand the beef.

The consequences for a transgression need to be serious. What is considered serious depends on the particular religion's metaphysical system.

In Buddhism, for example, the worst thing that can happen to a person who disrespects the Buddha is that the advanced practitioners shun them. This is deemed worse than being physically killed (such as by being shot or hanged).
Outsiders will probably laugh at this, but to the Buddhists, this is the worst that can ever happen to a person, being cut off from the Teaching.

From the perspective of Muslims, being maimed or killed probably isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person.

I condemn it because I want a thicker, and better, veneer of civilization. — Bitter Crank

Only a veneer? See, that's the problem: setting one's expectations so low.

Civilization is what we use to counter

those parts of our brains that send us off into wild rages and flights of irrationality.

Are you sure about that? People often like to blame our lizard brain, yet all too often, it's just an empty refrain.
The dichotomy between the lower and higher parts of our brains seems first and foremost to be a convenient excuse for people to continue to act on lower intentions, to renounce the power that they have. One has to wonder why. The simplest answer is that those "lowly intentions" aren't actually lowly at all.

Why should Rushdie have to take responsibility? — absoluteaspiration

Everyone does, or else they are left to the mercy of others.

Rushdie should cry foul as much as he likes, and then let the Islamic community take responsibility for that situation.

Really? You believe that other people are responsible for one particular person's existential problems?

I have no idea what kind of alienation you're talking about.

I'm talking about being born as an illegitimate child into a religious community where being illegitimate amounted to having committed a crime, a stigma one can never recover from.

There isn't any organization that can detect the confusion among non-Muslims about the silence of Islamic leaders. — Tate

Google does. I was once having an email conversation about religion with someone. When the discussion came to Islam, the emails came with delays, sometimes for several days. We concluded that the emails were filtered by Google, and that a computer program, perhaps even a person was reading them.

I remember feeling that Rushdie expressed the soul-crushing alienation I felt when my mother forced me to conform to the outward rituals of a religion I didn't believe in. — absoluteaspiration

I also remember the soul-crushing alienation I felt growing up as someone who was ostracized from the religious community by birth. What I'd give to be able to belong! But no, it was as if I had the mark of the devil on my forehead, for all to see.

Nobody I know gives voice to that.

I support Rushdie because he gave voice to my pain without

One has to take responsibility for one's situation, whatever it may be. Crying foul, wanting the religious community to understand one's plight is a waste of time and effort, dangerously so.

Personally I see double standards and an Elitist mindset from "western" nations and Iran. — Adamski

Of course. It would be comical if it wouldn't be so sad to see various authoritarians fighting among eachother. If only the planet wouldn't have to pay the price for it.

There should be freespeech but also common sense.
Public calls for political violence are the limit of freespeech for all parties.

The problem is that when one party breaks the agreement of non-violence, should the others desist from violence or not? And on what metaphysical grounds?

So far, the general practice in human cultures has been retribution. Nobody wants to make the first step and desist from provocation. Nobody wants to refrain from retribution. So here we are.

That's just the thing: It _is_ law. It is _Islamic_ law.
— baker

No, it isn't. Depends on whether a given country recognises is as such. So it might have been law in Iran but it certainly wasn't in the US. — Benkei

Do you dispute that Iran is a sovereign country?

The Islamic authorities disagree.
— baker

Point me to the part where they considered the harm principle. They didn't disagree, it simply wasn't a consideration. Your statement is therefore false.

"Offending the Prophet" is how they apply what you call the "harm principle".

A book that would call for violence against others is not protected speech and does harm others when people act upon the call. Since Rhusdie didn't, your suggested equivocation is wrong footed.

Rushdie and those who defend him are implying that it's okay to reinvent history. You see no problem with that?

You're simply missing the point and arguing against a straw man. The point is that aggravation is not grounds for punishment.

Of course it is, and always has been. The only qualification is that not everyone has the means to act on it.

You currently aggravate me with a badly argued post. Off with your head.

So now I am responsible for how you feel?? To the point where you want to kill me????

Blasphemy does damage a higher norm.
— baker

Which higher norm?

Respect for religious authority.

You're free to follow a religion,

Since this is a philosophy forum, the concept of freedom of religion shouldn't be treated so lightly.
Doxastic voluntarism is a highly problematic notion; as is the idea that one can unilaterally choose which religion to follow, regardless of whether one is accepted by its members or not. We have threads on this.

I'm free to ridicule you for it.

As if ridicule would be a civilizational accomplishment.

This is not an example but an interesting representation of your biases. I talk shit about the USA on a daily basis and I'm fine.

You're so confident. Wait until you apply for US citizenship or want something else from the US.

The prophet comes across as a great man, and there is no contempt for Islam in that book whatsoever.
— Olivier5

You don't get to decide that.
— baker

I do, at least for myself. If you disagree, you are welcome to pinpoint what you personally see as the contemptuous parts in Rushdie's book. — Olivier5

Rushdie invented a parallel history for the Prophet. In Islam this is considered unacceptable and punishable.

There is reason to suspect that Rushdie knew what the possible consequences would be but went on anyway; the way he later on defended his work justifies this suspicion.

There is reason to believe that this was a deliberate provocation on his part, and such deliberate provocation is what is problematic.

Why would a civilized, highly moral person resort to provocation?

I believe civilisation really is only a very thin veneer, easily dropped under various circumstances. — Benkei

:100: sadly. — Bitter Crank

Then why condemn what happened to Rushdie?

Sure, that happens. But the point is you don't risk death or maiming by strangers all around the world for decades. Nor will anyone throw acid in your face for being a woman daring to gain an education. For my money you can't compare these expressions of 'authority'. — Tom Storm

Don't confuse an absence of action with an absence of motive. At this very forum, moderators get to tell people to kill themselves or express the desire to kill others. Just in the last couple of weeks, at least three instances of this, by two moderators.

And even if they were exactly the same, this would amount to a tu quoque fallacy.

It wasn't an attempt at justification, but pointing out that those who so severely condemn the "Rushdie attack" are not beyond harboring the same hostility that they so criticize.

Artists in the West can generally be hatefully critical towards power elites and government and religions and not face these problems.

What's the use of being "hatefully critical"?

As for "not facing these problems" when criticizing the government or the elite or religion: absence of retributive action doesn't automatically mean approval or tolerance. Perhaps such retributive action just isn't high on their priority list. Or they are allowing it for their own PR purposes.

Whatever you may have seen does not necessarily warrant calling the quote 'politically correct' as a kind of pejorative. That's a Fox News style comment. But you are correct that some people are hypocrites. Sometimes you can tell if they are or not by how much their public comments have cost them.

And further, for a religious person to request input on how to practice their religion -- from outsiders of that religion??? (Like in the passage you quoted earlier.) This is absurd.

Xtrix is a good mod and I haven't noticed anything untoward in his posts. — Jamal

I'm thinking of leaving this forum because of Xtrix. He is authoritarian, he is patronizing, he acts in bad faith. And now that he's a moderator, we can't do anything against that.

I searched for when he said "kill yourself", and found several hits, not just one, e.g.

Kill yourself — Xtrix

Then kill yourself — Xtrix

He tells people to kill themselves. And he's getting away with it.

Equivocating a fatwa with a rule of law is just plain wrong. A fatwa isn't law and in this case the rule was also intended to have retroactive effect, because it imposes a punishment for behaviour that existed before the rule was communicated. — Benkei

That's just the thing: It _is_ law. It is _Islamic_ law.

Since nobody is harmed by Rushdie's book,

The Islamic authorities disagree.

they can after all choose not to read it, punishing it is quite frankly ridiculous.

Would you make the same case for hate speech?

If you don't want to be aggravated or insulted, don't interact with people at all, don't read, don't watch television and don't listen to the radio.

Wrong. It's not about not wanting to be aggravated or insulted. It's about not tolerating such aggravation or insult.

Nobody specifically wants to be aggraved or insulted. It is not fair to expect some people to quietly tolerate aggravation and insult, while others get to revenge themselves.

In a similar vain, treason that could never damage people or protects a higher norm, shouldn't be punished either.

Blasphemy does damage a higher norm.


Example: If a person who is not a citizen of the US says or does something that the US authorities consider harmful to the US, what does the US do? They punish this person, and this punishment can include death. When another country does this same kind of thing, why is this problematic?

Name one instance where it's not like this.
— baker
Literature. — Tom Storm

I majored in literature. An authoritarian endeavor it is. It's all dogma and power games through and trough. "Independent exploration" my ass. At the end of the day, you're supposed to think, feel, and speak about a literary text the way your superiors expect you to, or you fail the grade.

Oh, the political correctness!
— baker
What point are you making?

The passage you quoted is an example of the kind of talk I've heard before, from people from other religions. I've seen it myself that when such an invitation is accepted and the requested challenge in fact posed, the religious get offended. All too often I've seen religious people be like one person in their public talks, but then, when personally addressed, it's like they become someone else, another person.
In my experience such requests were never meant to be taken seriously. It's just religious grandstanding, much like when the RCC pope issues a public apology.

Indeed, countries differ in how they treat flag desceration. In some countries, you can go to prison (for years) for burning the flag. (I brought up flag desecration because it seemed like the universal example of an item of symbolic value, where the value of the item is far more and far different than the material it is made of. The decriminalization of flag desecration seems like a relatively recent development; I wasn't aware of its extent.)

My point is that there are material and non-material items of symbolic value in a culture the desecration of which is punishable by law. Just like the national flag isn't just a piece of cloth, words aren't just sounds or ink blots. This notion isn't limited to primitive cultures.

There is a trend in interpreting the stance of Iran as somehow irrational, that they are "working themselves up over nothing" and severly punish a person who is not guilty of any crime.

I'm pointing out that Western, supposedly democratic, secular cultures can be charged with the same criticism. Just about different things. For example, high treason is punishable by death or life imprisonment in many democratic countries.

The fatwa against Rushdie is equvalent to our notion of high treason. So where seems to be the problem?

First step on the road to the slammer. — Metaphysician Undercover

But if Trump will in fact face punishment (including jail time), what does that mean for America?
A civil war, for sure.

Independent exploration is criticism — Tom Storm

Name one instance where it's not like this. I can't think of any field of human knowledge and endeavor where "independent exploration" is not considered criticism.

I'm asking Muslims in the West a very basic question: Will we remain spiritually infantile, caving to cultural pressures to clam up and conform, or will we mature into full-fledged citizens, defending the very pluralism that allows us to be in this part of the world in the first place? My question for non-Muslims is equally basic: Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called "racists," or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam?

- Irshad Manji

Oh, the political correctness!

Really?? That's strange. You Dutch.

Flag desecration is often a crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_desecration

If the Quran is supposed to be divinely inspired then the suggestion some of the text is the consequence of political considerations is blasphemous. That part seems relatively straightforward, if possibly alien/ridiculous to most Christians and atheists. — Benkei

If you were to burn the Dutch flag in public, what would be the consequences?
It's just a piece of cloth, isn't it?


IOW, it's not only some "primitive" or "violent" nations or religions who punish people, but Western democratic (" ") nations also punish (including with death) the transgression of certain rules.
The execution of these punishments is just a matter of practical means, not a difference in the motive for punishment.

The prophet comes across as a great man, and there is no contempt for Islam in that book whatsoever. — Olivier5

You don't get to decide that.

Your response is typical for the way secularists approach the matter: They see themselves as authorities over "how things really are", as arbiters of the Truth. They see themselves as the ones who get to decide how others should think, feel, speak, and act about things. It's plain old authoritarianism under the guise of humanism.

But the actual resolution of or living with these feelings isn't a well known or even presently knowable process, at least in a general way. — Moliere

It's not such a secret.

Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. It's a hard word to translate because it covers such a complex range — at least three clusters of feelings at once: the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. This is a cluster of feelings we've all experienced at one time or another in the process of growing up, but I don't know of a single English term that adequately covers all three. It would be useful to have such a term, and maybe that's reason enough for simply adopting the word samvega into our language.

But more than providing a useful term, Buddhism also offers an effective strategy for dealing with the feelings behind it — feelings that our own culture finds threatening and handles very poorly. Ours, of course, is not the only culture threatened by feelings of samvega. In the Siddhartha story, the father's reaction to the young prince's discovery stands for the way most cultures try to deal with these feelings: He tried to convince the prince that his standards for happiness were impossibly high, at the same time trying to distract him with relationships and every sensual pleasure imaginable. To put it simply, the strategy was to get the prince to lower his aims and to find satisfaction in a happiness that was less than absolute and not especially pure.

If the young prince were living in America today, the father would have other tools for dealing with the prince's dissatisfaction, but the basic strategy would be essentially the same. We can easily imagine him taking the prince to a religious counselor who would teach him to believe that God's creation is basically good and not to focus on any aspects of life that would cast doubt on that belief. Or he might take him to a psychotherapist who would treat feelings of samvega as an inability to accept reality. If talking therapies didn't get results, the therapist would probably prescribe mood-altering drugs to dull the feeling out of the young man's system so that he could become a productive, well-adjusted member of society.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/affirming.html

If you wouldn't feel sadness and heartache, you wouldn't appreciate the good things in life. — ssu

Hence the recipe for a good marriage is 1 kiss + 1 slap in the face. That really makes one appreciate the kisses!!!!

The idea that it is hardships that make us appreciate the good things is patently absurd, however popular it may be. It's sado-masochistic. It's depressing. The bad stuff doesn't make us appreciate the good stuff, but it can lead us to question whether the good stuff is all that it's popularily made out to be.

Ironically, both the antinatalists as well as the natalists are still firmly immersed in the pursuit of sensual pleasures, they differ only in which types of sensual pleasures they pursue.
The pursuit of sensual pleasures necessarily entails suffering.
— baker

Not sure why you think that, but ok. — schopenhauer1

Why I think what? To which sentence are you refering?

Well, I would say that I have quite a lot of things I enjoy, but at the end of the day I still question myself whether it´s all worth it. I love my family, friends, have an interesting job, enough money, love long walks, driving, cooking, coffee….but still there’s something at the back of my head saying - is it enough?

Also I do think that preferring “nothingness” is a stupid concept, because for me there’s nothing after death, no “you” to “enjoy” the preferred nothingness :roll: . For now suicide seems irrational.

So therefore the question why go on or better yet how to go on, what to strive for? (I mean it still could be just symptoms of depression, but who knows :confused: ) — rossii

It's how the recognition feels that depending on impermanent things for one's happiness is precarious.
That is, you recognize that depending on impermanent things for you happiness is a recognition that feels uneasy; for most people, it's depressing.

A secular psyhotherapist will approach this recognition as a pathological symptom, something to be done away with.

Some spiritual/religious people believe it's the beginning of the spiritual path (using here "spiritual" for the lack of a better word). Not a sign of depression, but a mark of seeing worldly things for how they really are: impermanent and ultimately unsatisfactory, and thus not worth striving for.

But despite these differences, there is an unbending view that a Jew of any stripe is a Jew. — Hanover

Why should the same kind of reasoning apply to other religions?

Designating someone as a member of a particular religion is sometimes purely an artifact of secular religiology.
For example, the people who consider themselves Christians do not necessarily mutually recognize one another as such.

As they say, Hitler saw no distinctions.

He's hardly an authority on religious identity, is he.

But, Jewish terrorist groups need to be condemned, and if they aren't, the leaders need to explain why.

Why do they need to explain that? Can you explain? Who are you to impose on them that necessity?

I'm not trying to assert perfection here, just trying to decipher meaning from silence so I can figure out where they stand.

More importantly, where you stand.