Blind Faith versus Rational Debate?
Well, how do you do it? How does one logically accomplish any kind of meaningful discourse, debate, exchange of opinion and ideas without logic meeting logic? Can one make snowballs from the ether? Rational debate by its very nature excludes passion, emotion, subjectivity. Reason is by its very nature cold and objective. How else to make meaning of reality? How do you make reality understood but by examination, explanation, and agreement.Faith depends upon the elasticity of the mind of the adherent, its simplicity. Faith demands acceptance, with no explanations, no reason, no proof of existence, no prevarications. You believe or you do not believe, as simple as that. One's intelligence is set aside. There is no room for doubt, there can only be a wide embrace of the unprovable. For the sake of, and in the name of one's belief, sacred scripts conceived by and set forth by people who claimed to have the eye of god, consequently hailed as the messenger of god, were accepted as the holy word of god. There can be no dispute as to their authenticity, their genuine and sacred origins and originality.
Rationality demands proof of existence or reproducibility, of amenity to informed discourse. There is no faith involved other than the belief that for something to exist one must be able to see it, touch it, explain its existence in reasonable terms readily understood and entirely amenable to proof. While there are many people comfortable with the thought and practise of faith as a private element of their being, while still practising rational thought in their everyday existence they exist, for the most part, in the world of the West, where a strict separation of church and state exists for the betterment of practical governance, resulting in a social construct that aims to be objective and just to all of its citizens.
In many parts of the world, those recognized for the most part, as non-democratic in nature, religion informs, instucts and demands its place in the hierarchy of every human endeavour, including governance of state. The most basic tenets of some religions govern the laws and the structure of the state, as well as the daily lives of its adherents, but in a more background manner, whereas in countries where Islam is revered and practised (with rare exceptions and degrees) its precepts inform and command recognition at every level of government and the law, compelling its adherents to embrace their faith in all its demanding manifestations before love of family, tribe, country. In these countries any minority groups which exist among the majority Muslims do so on sufferance and generally without the full protection that the majority enjoys.
Those countries usually referred to as the West have (fairly latterly) been open and welcoming to those who practise Islam, (it hasn't entirely been a bed of roses for many such immigrants, facing ample discrimination in their host countries, making it, in effect, difficult for them to fully integrate even if they were so inclined) while Islamic countries permit the incursion into their realms of those outside their religion begrudgingly and with suspicion. Now we begin to see western countries hesitate in their welcome as they realize that their western values are rejected by Muslim immigrants and integration with the agreement of a common goal for the entire society is not being achieved as anticipated. Experience has demonstrated that the more accepting and welcoming the host country the greater the demands of the immigrants in many instances.
That old saying "East is east and West is west and never the twain shall meet" was always thought of to be terribly quaint. But the fact is human beings are not becoming more intelligent, more tolerant, more humane, more amenable to living together in peace and solidarity of purpose. We always were basically suspicious of one another and tended to treat outsiders as being unlike and inferior to those with whom we share a common background.
The sad thing about all of this is that it is entirely too easy to generalize. And while much of the above is certainly true, there are obvious deviations from the general. There are thousands upon thousands of immigrant Muslims who have lived peacefully among their neighbours and who fully accept their differences, making of the differences not an issue, but an interesting sidebar to their own traditions. These are the countless people who conform to the prevailing social structure and mores, while retaining their important personal ties to Islam. They are also, it would appear, the great silent majority abroad, most of whom reject the image and the purpose of militant Islamists, but who find themselves at an impossible crossroad; the misunderstandings among cultures, the tendency to paint with a broad stroke.
The West sees itself as being progressive and takes pride in its ability to rise above the xenophobia traditionally experienced when foreigners entered its soil. As the West existed the 20th century on entry to the 21st there was a greater appreciation of diversity, and a belief that human nature would adapt itself given the opportunity to living together in harmony. But a people held back by a stern religion and a series of theocratic states or dictatorships failed to evolve past the Medieval era, and the strength of their belief in their god was the only thing that offered succour in the unfair, insensitive and poverty-ridden world they continued to inhabit, where the rulers continued to live in plenty and their populations continued to live a marginal existence. Control of these people could be achieved by the age-old deploy of blaming outsiders, interfering blasphemous infidels for their plight and to enjoin them to accept their lot in life in the name of Allah.
Reason with mobs who declare their pious allegiance to an unseen being who has complete control over their lives? Who have not been able to look beyond their narrow lives and to sharpen their intellects to attempt to understand another way of life? Who exhibit no curiosity, no human understanding and compassion for others? Who take such violent affront to a perceived slight that they demand revenge which can only be satisfied by the death of the offender? This is the raw embodiment of the worst impulses in human nature. How to deal with it?
How far do we go in appeasement of a perceived insult? All this righteous rage aimed at the West in the wake of the casual dissemination of a series of silly cartoons? Clearly, attempts at explanations, at pointing out the proclivity of the West to make light of many symbols or religions, widely accepted as a type of critique, a device to make people think through to a universally logical conclusion has been deemed unacceptable. That such a practise is not meant to degrade one's belief, but to ensure that one can weigh the elements of a situation and reach a reasonable conclusion is insufficient it seems. Apologies, explanations, have been savagely declined, and in their stead, demands for revenge compound the contretemps. When do we determine that the sacrifice to one own's values goes beyond acceptance? How to compare one's intended-or-not slight of another's sacred beliefs to their concomitant demand for attonement in blood?
It seems strange that an overweening belief in a divine spirit whose attributes embody all that might make humans better beings, such as tolerance, compassion, understand, love, seems to make its adherents, in a display of their mob spleen, display instead a lunatic bloodthirsty rage.
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 18, 2006
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