This week's must read, at the Belmont Club. Exerpts;
According to this thinking, the Church of England cannot be benign enough to escape its fundamental guilt. Guilty while kneeling. But part of the problem is that the discussion is not wholly objective. Secularism itself has at least once in this century taken on the trappings of a religion. Karen Armstrong, quoted in the 5th page of the UK Times article, notes this explicitly: "There have been five major missionary movements in the world — Christianity, Marxism, Islam, Buddhism and secularism. Secularism can be as lethal as any religion. Our society is very secular but, in the Middle East, where modernism is new, secularism is seen as lethal and invasive." Sayyid Qutb would probably agree. Al-Qaeda's ideology was precisely a Muslim response to the perceived menace of secularism during its heyday in the late 1940s. Proposals by European "intellectuals" to banish Christianity and Islam would probably founder on the objection that the priests of one sect — namely Marxism and secularism — should not have the right to outlaw the votaries of other rites. In other words, any solution to remove "belief" from public life is itself be founded on a normative belief. But embracing this contradiction is easier than to accept the alternative proposition that politics and society have historically been not only about systems of belief but about the dominance of one system of belief over another. That all wars are ultimately wars of religion. Viewed in this way, the debate over banishing "religion" in Britain is really the old one of avoidance versus confrontation in another guise. We twist and turn in an effort to avoid the War, but attempts to define the War out of existence may ultimately be unsuccessful.It is the awareness of the potentially bottomless nature of the conflict, not only in Afghanistan but throughout Europe, that has driven public officialdom into the unprecedented use of euphemism. It talks about the danger in hushed tones in the hopes that it will go away. For example, civil unrest threatens Paris, according to the Telegraph but the mysterious insurgents cannot be identified as anything other than "youths".
[...]
One of the real ironies of the War on Terror is that the most hated targets of al-Qaeda, the culturally liberal — the gays, feminists, entertainers, civil libertarians, artists and novelists — are its most vocal critics. It is only slowly dawning on al-Qaeda's pet hates that the Global Jihad is exactly about them and their whole belief system. Salman Rushdie knows it; Sayyid Qutb knew it. Some parts of Europe are beginning to know it; most will never admit it even to the second the blade is drawn across their throats.
I love irony. I'll take "A couple hundred nauseating case-in-point example entertainers" for $200, please Alex.
It's Political Correctness that is our enemy. If we can't call something by it's name how can we deal with it or fight it if need be?
The terrorist movements in the world today could have no better friends than they have in the Liberal/Leftist movements, the Artsy Fartsies and even Gays, whom the radicals would put first in line to behead. It boggles the mind.
Islam has been hijacked by opportunistic megalomaniacs. As we saw in Germany, if allowed, there are enough sociopaths willing to do their bidding that once the right set of conditions arise, they can be unleashed. Secularism, crusades, Palestine, Zionism - just so much noise. The core issue is that within a significant portion of the world, the conditions have arisen, and the sociopaths serving these megalomaniacs have been unleashed.
Embracing the notion of Islam-as-victim misses the point, and wastes precious time.
Certainly, the west's history in these parts of the world have helped establish the conditions. However, it is not logical, and is dangerous to assume that atonement puts the genie back in the bottle. It's no longer about historical affronts. It's about power in the hands of a few people that lack an ability to empathize with their fellow humans. We have no choice but to eliminate them, before they eliminate us.
And furthermore, I have coined the term 'Chickenmartyr' to be applied to the likes of al Zawahiri, very devout Muslims who like to point out to other devout Muslims that martyrdom is their sacred duty. What's al Zawahiri waiting for? Isn't he past due self-detonation?
Liz J I would modify your comment to say that the enemy is utopianism and its formidable weapon in the West has been political correctness.
There are 2 kinds of powerful utopianisms at the moment and they have partnered. The most threatening is the “enemy within” as often discussed on SDA, e.g. the MSM. The other is Islamofascism, which is a socio-political way of life that worked when tribes were nomadic but doesn’t work in a globally connected economy with large populations.
Islamofascism would just collapse like almost all of Africa is doing but in the ME, tyrants have access to oil funds to keep these failed-states propped up. Plus the tyrants can use these oil states to purchase WMDs and fund terrorism.
The “ enemy within” will die out eventually with the democratization of the media and as parents start to demand that universities stop teaching our youth self-loathing ideologies that will weaken our ability to combat evil forces in the world such as Islamofascism. Meanwhile the utopian enemy within is an impediment to our dealing with the terrorist threat of Islamofascism.
Finally, Wretchard at Belmont goes on to make this important point about the confusion around the word secular … “One example of a possible non-traditional religion is environmentalism; or Marxism which is widely acknowledged to be a religion and an historically murderous one at that. Can you have a Europe without Greens or Socialists, in other words, to have a European politics without religious parties?
However that may be, I think it is important to recognize that religion does not only consist of the familiar monotheisms.”
It is a common flaw of reasoning that just because you make up a name (capitalise an adjective and add "-ism") that there must exist something empirically coherent behind it an agent. "Secularism" is hardly any organized, coherent or well-defined thing. Secularism is at best a negative definition-lack of belief in supernatural powers and non-alliance to religious social institutions. It is a logical fallacy (law of the excluded middle) to suppose that such a negative definition comprises a tractable concept. It would have to include Marxists, anti-Marxists, fascists, democrats, libertarians, anti-libertarions, socialists, anti-socialists, scientists, luddites and so forth.
The egregiousness of the fallacy with respect to so-called "Secularism" invites one to consider how erroneous it is to apply this with respect to "Islam" or "Christianity". In the opinion trade, these concepts get bandied about like pieces on a chess board without much thought as to whether the concept is well-defined or is appropriately used as though it represented a single agency. I don't see how one can even come up with a concept of 'Christian" or "Christianity" that is both descriptive and functional. Some "Christians" do not believe in any god but ascribe to the institution, morals and practices, others who belive in a god but reject the institution. I recall a lecture by John Hull (philosopher of science) in which he observed there were some 27+ working definitions of "species" in biology.
The irony mentioned in the quoted piece is one that glitters when the macro-social-level constructs are viewed from a certain definitional perspective. Others dispute strongly the descriptive or functional appropriateness of those concepts defined in that perspective, and so various groups tend to talk past each other. Mind you, there are useful perspectives (for some purposes) and there are fantastical perspectives. The unreality of "political correctness" perspectives seem to be inviting doom for their adherents. In this respect, Belmont Club is insightful, as usual.
Lenin had a great term for these types. He called them "Useful idiots"
For example, lefties who decry the West and its values, while at the same time promoting their own would-be destroyer (Islam)
So in ten words or less...This piece from the Belmont Club makes sense!
In my view, secularism cannot be defined as a religion. The Belmont Club definition of religion seems to be that it is any 'set of ideological claims'. That would mean that any and all belief systems, even if they are only about 'best nutrition practices' are 'religions'.
I feel that the existence of a set of beliefs is not the point; a religion is an acceptance of a particular type of causality - a metaphysical causality. Since I disagree with such a causality, then, I reject religion - and am an atheist.
What binds Islamic fascists and the postmodern left together, is that both operate within a utopian ideology. The fascist ideology assumes that a perfect world exists; in this case, it is only when organized within Islam; they claim that is has, in the past, existed. Their agenda is to repeat that past. The postmodern left also assumes that a perfect world can exist; in their case, it is within both the future of socialism and cultural relativism. Both views are wrong; utopia or The Perfect Form cannot exist in the real world; they are intellectual abstractions.
I don't think that secularism had its 'heyday' in the 1940's - it's at least two to three and four decades later.
My view is that the real conflict is between group-ism and individualism. Groups inhibit and prevent individualism and therefore, reject thought, reason, analysis, questions, debate. This is valid within both fascism and postmodernism. In postmodernism, since all opinions are equally valid, there is nothing to question, compare, evaluate, conclude.
Individualism rests on doubt, a rather uncomfortable psychological state, but one that is necessary. Doubt is the root of decision-making; you must first define a problem, and then yourself, come up with several solutions. And then, you must evaluate these several paths and make a choice.
It's far easier to 'leave it all to god'. Or the state. Or the gov't. Or..
But, without this action of modeling the problem in your mind, and modeling several solutions and fixing on 'the best solution' - mankind is mindless, without that brain which is the key characteristic of our species.
Without individualism, science and its technological results, wouldn't exist.
Therefore, the choice, in my mind, is between burying ourselves within a variety of brain-dead groupisms, or, facing up to the nature of our species, and acting as thinking individuals. I don't think we have a choice. The fascists and postmodernists have chosen braindeath - but - such a choice can only be operative within a minority. The majority of the world population cannot move into this desert.
oooooooooooooo, you said it shaken.
no shortage of turncoats, traitors and 5th columnists perfectly willing to sell out their compatriots for perks and advantage.
it happens all the time thru history and cultures. the british residents of jersey and gurnsey in the english channel were quite willing to identify their Jewish fellow citizens as a way of exacting revenge for perceived slights, and to gain brownie points with the nazi occupiers. look at what they gained vs the penalty paid by those Jews.
it happens all the time.
In the listing of the various ideologies, secularism stands out because it is not an ideology nor has it been killing people as the ideologies have. I suspect the author threw secularism into the mix because the entire concept of a naturalistic explanation of the world was too foreign a concept to be understood.
According to iranfocus.com, Iran has the largest number or run-away girls (300,000), many as young as nine. The reason? 86% were raped.
The religion of rapists, err, peace, at work again.
Another fact the left can conveniently ignore while promoting feminism, women's rights, etc.
The hypocrisy.
ET - by common understanding of the term "secularism" as the context in which one makes operational sense (or lack thereof) of the universe, it merits classification as a religion, by definition.
You may wish to redefine the term, but then we would not be speaking about the same thing...
At the risk of ending this thread--which seems to happen when one launches a defence of Judeo-Christian values, which are the foundational values of our Western civilization--I suggest that we in the West now have a new Tower of Babel. Remember that Biblical story where everyone walked around speaking a different language and no one could understand anyone else, which meant there was no common basis upon which to discuss anything?
We in the West are there.
Without a common--for centuries--ethical language, where the concepts of "right" and "wrong" were generally agreed upon--and here in the West these concepts have been based upon Judeo-Christian values and principles which, in a nutshell, boil down to "Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength and thy neighbour as thyself"--we have no grounds upon which to discuss war and peace--or anything, for that matter.
We're in total chaos and turmoil when it comes to discussing our options concerning the threats to our Western way of life by radical Islam. The radical Muslims have chosen a very good time to attack us--as they well understand what material secularism has done to our Western societies: It has totally divided us and has ensured that we have no common discourse and therefore no agreed-upon grounds on which to oppose their assault on us.
Secularism, unlike Christianity which, for centuries has been at the heart of the freedoms we enjoy in Western democracies--which, keep in mind, immigrants from societies NOT based on these principles have flocked to for the past 50 years--has emphasized differences between individual groups and, rather than seek common ground, has encouraged sectarianism and competition for resources: all of the social programs promoted by the Libs and Dippers which only certain groups can ever hope to tap into.
The further we in the West retreat from our religious past--our religious memory--the further we advance into moral and ethical confusion. That would explain why the very groups that Al-Qaeda would like to rid the West of--"the gays, feminists, entertainers, civil libertarians, artists and novelists"--defend radical Islam: first and foremost, it is NOT Judeo-Christianity which they have a cold hatred of and, second, they simply do not understand that they would be the first targets for annihilation by the Jihadists.
It is a mortal blindness.
And the more "voices in the wilderness" try to point this out, the more resistance there is to facing reality. The Western intelligentisia--largely "the gays, feminists, entertainers, civil libertarians, artists and novelists" in our MSM, politics, academia, and even, ironically and tragically, in our churches--have vaccinated themselves against Judeo-Christian values.
This masochistic and, I would suggest, suicidal
distancing from the very spiritual strength needed in the West to combat an enemy which genuinely wishes to annihilate us is exactly what will open us to the blade that is about to be "drawn across [our] throats."
Tragically and narcissitically stupid that our secular seers and prophets can't see it coming. They insist on babbling.
'Speaking of babbling.
On The Agenda on TVO tonight, various members of the intelligentsia and the MSM (a guy from MacLeans) called bloggers and those of us who comment on their blogs a "digital lynch mob."
"a religion is an acceptance of a particular type of causality - a metaphysical causality. Since I disagree with such a causality, then, I reject religion - and am an atheist."
ET - To claim to know that a "metaphysical causality" or God (as I like to call him) does not exist requires one to be onmiscient. Therefore, the claim of the atheist is not that there is no God, but rather that the claimant himself is God or, at the very least, a god.
tenebris -your reduction of religion to merely a set of beliefs by which one 'makes sense' of the universe would also mean that basic physics and chemistry is a religion.
red deer redneck - your argument for the existence of god, based on the fact that since one cannot prove that he doesn't exist (unless one is, onself, omniscient or all-knowing), it must mean that he does exist, is a version of one of the famous arguments for the existence of god, in this case, the ontological (Anselm).
Kant refuted this, saying that 'existence' is not contained in the definition of 'a perfect all knowing being'.
So, I accept Kant's statement. The definition of god as 'all-knowing', which also implies, to you, existence, is invalid. I remain an atheist, who is not all-knowing.
And, atheism doesn't mean that I have lost the capacity for reason, therefore, there is no way that I would fall into the relativism of postmodernism, multiculturalism etc.
Actually, thoughtful atheists don't bother me at all. However, secularists do.
When you study the philosophy of religion, atheism if it is thoughtfully constructed, is simply one more legitimate way of cognizing ultimate concern. (a Tillich word.)
One of the first things one learns in philosophy is that it is necessary to define terms in order to have a discussion. And you know, in philosophy that is actually what we do. We discuss things. It's not a matter of someone insisting that another arrive at the same conclusions as oneself. Now I of course believe that absolute nature of the universe is divine nature that is the intelligence, consciousness and energy transcendental to manifestation and also immanent within manifestation.
Here is a way to look at it from the Traditionalists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist
From the point of view of the Traditionalist school of hermaneutics, one might say the following from the concept of "Hierarchy".
This view would say that there are cosmic principles that exist in the universe.
Individuals are pre-disposed to fathom various levels of these cosmic principles.
Not everyone is capable of fathoming high levels of these cosmic principles, which is why the ability to do so is seen to be a hierarchical arrangement.
Seers who can fathom the cosmic principles inform society as to the nature of these principles.
Culture then tries to organize itself as best it can around these cosmic principles that can only be fathomed by those whose minds allow them to do so. (Think of Einstein, for example, or some other seer who looks out at the universe and understands things in a way that is simply beyond the capacity of most.)
Then society tries to do the best it can of operating in concert with the great principles.
So what happens when you live in a world like ours, where not only is the hierarchy of seers completely dismissed as irrelevant, but additionally society (and MSM) do not even believe that any cosmic principles exist to be fathomed?
The entire order of hierarchy is completely brushed aside, and you get materialism.
The secularists that we talk about, TS Elliot's men of straw, are weaned raised and informed by a world entirely dismissive of any cosmic value or principle, whether one wishes to think in terms of religions, science, politics, or any other principle structured in the consciousness of the universe.
And that, my friends, is the world that we live in today. In the East this is referred to as the Kali Yuga. The Yuga of Darkness, when ignorance has completely become the dominant mode.
I love fantastic writing of any genre and this qualifies. The fact that it is also captivating content makes it all the better.
I've been struck by this irony as well. As the article says, left-wingers have been the fiercest critics of the War on Terror. While, all the while, the Al-Qaeda types have attacked us precisely because of our tolerance of such "progressives" and our willingness to accept many secular "reforms."
It has also always struck me how the Jack Layton-types are always trying to justify the actions of and cozy-up to the Islamic militants. Think about it. Left-wingers try to portray conservatives as having scary, hidden agendas in which they aim to curtail the rights of homosexuals, women, minorities, non-Christians, etc.
Groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda don't have a hidden agenda to do these things. They are quite open about the fact that they strive to acheive this agenda (except, of course, you must replace "non-Christians" with "non-Muslims").
So, the Islamo-fascists hold dear ALL of the idealogies that liberals claim to stand opposed to. The terrorists openly admit that they are pursuing ALL of the oppressive ambitions that the liberals accuse the supposedly evil "so-cons" of harboring. And yet, the lefties are out there publicly defending the militants and accusing us conservatives of being delusional. Meanwhile, the Taliban-types are actually able to count on our left-leaning parasites to restrict our own governments' abilities to defend our society...a society that they hate because we conservatives are too liberal for their tastes.
Ugggh. My head is spinning.
"Ugggh. My head is spinning."
'See what I mean, bryceman? The Tower of Babel. It's all noise and none of it makes sense.
From my post above at 10:05 p.m., Oct. 25, 2006: "secular seers and prophets" are not the same as atheists.
Thoughtful and "reasonable" atheists such as ET are not to be equated with "secular seers and prophets."
I just wanted to make myself clear on that point.