Oh dear, I hope it was nothing I said. Oh, it seems it was. ... or that I'm a whacko "godbotherer" (as one blogger described you two on another site), from the atheist point of view,", she passively aggresses.
Perhaps I should explain. Godbotherer is a piece of English slang for a religious person. It's not generally considered offensive, except possibly by godbotherers.
She seems bemused that anyone could possibly respond to pro-religious polemic with anger, when they could be responding with Tibetan Buddhism. I wrote this to explain, and put it in the comments box.
The problem with the approach you suggest is that the Qur'an isn't that kind of a book. It has its lyrical sections, but much of it is written in a straightforward tone, and contains precisely stated rules, many of which should not be allowed to go unchallenged. Like this one.
If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, Take the evidence of four (Reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way (4:13).
Now I don't suppose for a moment Sardar would live by that verse as written. However, in defending the perfection of the Qur'an he ties himself to all the statements within it. There comes a point where you have to choose which side you're on. It just isn’t OK to describe a book which contains that obscenity as perfect. And yet Sardar himself defines a Muslim as someone who accepts the book as the word of God.
The truly perfect verse at this point would read much more like 'If any of your women (your women??) are guilty of lewdness, mind your own business. It's got nothing to do with you. Watch your own lewdness, and leave them to theirs.' If it said that it would be a better book.
It doesn't say that, of course, it says something hideous instead. And this kind of thing is why we argue so vociferously. It's because this isn't some kind of abstract argument about ethereal subjective experiences, it's a battle for civil rights - women's rights, gay rights, sexual rights for everyone in this country, from any background. It's a battle for the right of children to grow up without being indoctrinated in a religion from age six, and for the right of adults to change or abandon their religious beliefs without fear of violence.
Islam isn't the only threat to civil liberties in this country. It isn't even one of the major ones. For the 96% of Britons who don't come from a Muslim background it's a very minor threat indeed. And nothing in this endorses the detention of Muslims without trial, extraordinary rendition of Muslims for torture abroad, or the invasion of Muslim countries for economic reasons.
And not all Muslims endorse the text as written. Sardar is so concerned to get away from it he brings in quantum physics, chaos theory and Derrida to help him make out it doesn't say what it does.
Comments boxes aren't the ideal space to comment in, so apologies for any slight incoherence in the text. Also, I forgot to make it funny. Sorry about that.
8 comments:
"But when Our Clear Signs are rehearsed unto them, those who rest not their hope on their meeting with Us say: "Bring us a reading other than this, or change this," say: "It is not for me, of my own accord, to change it: I follow naught but what is revealed unto me: if I were to disobey my Lord, I should myself fear the penalty of a Great Day (to come)." [10:15]
Jon, you are leaving a confusing trail of questions behind you as to what your purpose is. On your blog it says that you write because you "like a debate". But when I tried to engage you in debate you only got defensive and avoided mentioning the topics of debate. Then you said that you "mainly write to be entertaining". But on your recent post you abandoned all attempts at humor.
"The Word is proved true against the greater part of them: for they do not believe." [36:7]
I would like to ask you a question about science. Can you name a standard of proof in science other than the one mentioned by Br. Walsh in his comment on the Guardian? His standard was: "repeatable inquiry with transparent methodology".
If you don't really want to debate with me, either ignore this comment or snark at it and I will go away :)
If you recall, Noah, I did ask you to clarify your position, and you declined. If my response seemed irrelevant to you, that may be why. I'm not sure how that adds up to me avoiding a debate. Now you quote more verses at me, without explaining their relevance either.
Let me clarify my purpose. I write to entertain, and because I like a debate. Sometimes I'm aiming to do one, sometimes the other. A lot of the time I'm aiming to do both. I don't think there's any real confusion there.
But, you have asked me a question about science, and I'm happy to answer it. The problem with Walsh's definition is that the concept of evidence is not foremost. He talks about demonstrating that the Qur'an is inimitable, as if there was some quality to the text which humans were unable to generate.
He seems to have no conception of what a genuinely scientific standard of proof of such an extraordinary claim would amount to. Off the top of my head, you would firstly need to reach some kind of precise formulation of the literary limits of humans, then demonstrate that the Qur'an exceeded them, then show that the excess was such that it was beyond the possibility of accident.
It is the case that scientific enquiry needs to be repeatable, and that the methods need to be transparent. Those conditions are necessary, but not sufficient. The enquiry also needs to stated as a genuinely testable hypothesis, which is the shortcoming I was identifying.
Unless you can cite work by the 'great scholars' Walsh mentions, showing how a scientific endeavour currently beyond the imagining of modern neurologists, for instance, has nonetheless been carried through to a succcessful conclusion by theologians. If you know of any such, please post references. I promise to give it serious consideration.
The reason why I have been quoting the Qur'an in my replies is to provide answers to your attacks on Islam, while myself taking refuge in its perfect language from the Shaitan.
I do not have access to the texts Br. Walsh mentioned when he explained the science of i'jaz. But I do know that the nomadic tribes in Arabia at the time of Muhammad (pbuh) had cultivated an advanced art of poetry. A tribe's strength and power was proved through its poets. This is one reason why Allah's (swt) challenge to produce a single surah like the Qur'an was so weighty. Out of nowhere, an illiterate tradesman was coming up with verses that left speechless a continent of poets.
This is a proof of the Qur'an, and no, it is not scientific. But scientific proof is not exactly the pinnacle of certainty. Proof by repeated experimentation confers no guarantees on the staying power of a theory. For example, take gravity: according to the well-established theory of gravity, the universe should be contracting. Yet we see it is expanding via the Doppler effect. Physicists are still searching for a comprehensive theory of gravity.
Actually Allah (swt) cited the universe's expansion [51:47], centuries before its discovery. But my point is that scientific proof is just one type of proof which has only limited application.
Re your reply to Heather Plant.
The British Muslim demographic is heavily biased towards children. Of 2 million Muslims, about half are likely to be children under the age of 16.
DrJazz
So the Qur'an verses are to protect you against Satan. I don't see why you can't explain why you think a verse is relevant when you quote it though. I'm fond of the poetry of Ovid (in fact I've often used it as a kind of mental cleanser after protracted exposure to the Qur'an), but I only ever quote his words in a context, rather than spraying them around defensively as if they were some kind of psychic Mace.
Even if we accepted that the Qur'an was exceptional poetry, and if it is it must lose a hell of a lot in translation, your assertion that this is proof of divine origin is simply false. This is partly because of the extreme paucity of external evidence of the life of Mohammed at all. Accepting the words of Muslims alone is like writing a biography of Lenin based purely on the testimony of Marxists.
Also, even if you accepted the official version verbatim, it proves nothing in itself, as history is littered with unlikely literary giants. Homer, for instance, may well have been illiterate as well. English poet John Clare came from a poor background, as did John Lydon.
Your comments about gravity are simply irrelevant. This is because the contingency you describe is accepted in the very structure of science, and also because even if scientific claims weren't reliable, it wouldn't improve the status of unscientific claims, it would simply show that we knew even less than we thought we did.
Incidentally, this is the verse in which you claim Allah says the universe is expanding. With power and skill did We construct the Firmament: for it is We Who create the vastness of pace. How is that a comment on modern cosmology? Is all your 'evidence' as good as that?
The very next verse, by the way, is this. And We have spread out the (spacious) earth: How excellently We do spread out! There is nothing in those verses to indicate any real understanding of the correct relationship between earth and space. I'll tell you who might have seen the world like that, though - a seventh century illiterate Arabian merchant.
This comment wasn't accepted by CiF so I'll post it here.
Heather Plant,
I don't detect anyone on these blogs claiming to know all the answers, nor do I detect any anger.
I don't know what other atheists have learned, but this is what I have learned so far from Zia:
The Koran is taught by rote and very few Muslims are taught to read it with meaning. This contrasts with the so called Christian countries, where until recently, nearly all children were taught the basics of Christianity even if they never went to Church or Sunday School. Although not always put into practise, the basics were at least recognised as ideals to aspire to and replaced previous cultural practises. Love thy neighbour, turn the other cheek etc replaced an eye for an eye etc.
The Koran is like music, which explains the high degree of repetition.
Prayer for Muslims is simply the recitation of verses from the Koran. No asking God for forgiveness, to restore good health, to save souls or such like. That seems very sensible to me.
What I want to know:
To quote Zia: "But, after the madrassa, the awful difference in attitudes to and provision of education for women in many Muslim countries never ceases to outrage me."
Why is this? After reciting the Koran for 1400 years or so, the inhabitants of many Muslim countries still treat women very badly? Why has culture prevailed over religion for so long?
What is the justification for killing rape victims in some Muslim countries?
What is the justification for Muslim sects blowing up Mosques in Iraq?
Why did educated British Muslims such as Inayat Bunglawala and Sir Iqbal Sacranie think it OK to kill Salman Rushdie?
What is the justification for the hatred towards Jews and Christians in many Muslim countries?
What is the justification for the claim that the Koran is the 'final' word of God? Perhaps if the Koran was viewed as just another religious text, Muslims might look upon themselves and the world in a different light.
Heather, it is a world full of this kind of anger, apparently sanctioned by God, that I don't want to live in.
Literal v Metaphor
God wasn't delivering a lecture to the University of Mecca or University of Medina Literature Department. He was speaking to a group of mainly ignorant people who worshipped idols, killed babies and kept slaves in the 7th century. Familiarity with poetry may well have given them a good understanding of metaphor, but how does anyone distinguish between what is literal and what is metaphor? Is Paradise a metaphor? Is Hell a metaphor? If they are, what do they stand for? However, I don't see how the verses that appear to condone injustice can be regarded as metaphor.
But the main problem with the Koran is, as Zia puts it, "It says one thing on one subject in one place, and something quite different on the same subject elsewhere."
Which is why it is difficult to derive meaning from these teachings, literal or metaphorical, whether or not we believe in God.
In my opinion, if we treat the Koran like any other text, we can derive some meaning from it, but do not need to trouble ourselves with trying to reconcile the inconsistencies. Those are easily explained by the fact that the current version is derived from many orally transmitted variants and compiled by committee.
DrJazz
Dr Jazz:
I'm sorry they didn't put your comment up. If they're prepared to put mine up, I don't see any problem with yours. Maybe it's just taking them a while.
I've never visited the Muslim world, but based on conversations with first generation immigrants to Britain I think the apparent fanaticism of the news channels disguises a fractured reality, in which belief is much weaker than it was.
The next time you see an Islamist demo on TV, look closely. Is the camera angle wide or tight? It's normally fairly tight. Now think of large, popular demonstrations, like the ones that accompanied the Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia. Do you remember the camera pulling back as far as it could to cope with the sheer volume of people?
Which raises an interesting question. If the news channels wanted us to understand that opinion in Muslim countries was diverse, they'd give us wide angle shots of flag burnings and the like, showing demonstrators surrounded by the indifferent, the sullen or the actively hostile. Now why wouldn't they be showing us that?
Jon:
I guess they didn't like my references to Bunglawala and Sacranie. They rather spoil the party, which is to present a nice and cuddly KoranLite, remote from the real world.
I have lived amongst Muslims (one of the 7/7 bombers lived close by) and been to a Muslim country. Turkey. Our guide was a young woman in her early thirties. She told us horrific stories of the way women are treated there. If you look a guy in the eye, even in Istanbul, you are assumed to be 'asking for it' and they'll follow you to try and get it.
In the east of Turkey, which borders on Iran and Iraq, the victims of rape are violently assaulted. Our guide belongs to a group that rescues such women. However, the women resist 'because they will kill me.'
Even if we buy the argument that Islam is essentially peaceful, why has it made such minimal impact in so many countries?
I think you could be right about Islamist demos. I'll pay more attention. The bombs are real though. Killing pilgrims for God's sake!
DrJazz
Post a Comment