On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 4:48 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> Oh, yeah. No question the topic is stupid.
>
> It seems to me that to ask such a question, given the bloodbath of the
> crusades, of the conquest of the Americas, and of the current drone-driven
> massacres in the middle east, is ridiculous.
>
> But both Ramadan and Hitch are considered heavy hitters ideologically, so I
> just thought it might be interesting, zeitgeist wise, to have a look see.
>
> Joanna
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jeffrey Fisher" <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com>
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 12:10:47 PM
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Ramadan vs Hitch
>
> am i the only one who thinks the topic is stupid?
>
> not sniping at you, joanna, and i can see how there might maybe possibly be
> an interesting discussion to come out of it, but why do we insist on
> framing
> questions this way? specifically, by presuming that there is some inner
> essence to any religion independent of the people who practice it. maybe
> the
> problem is that it takes a non-believer to say that and mean it, because
> any
> believer believes that their belief is the essence of the religion.
>
> it always reminds me of thirteenth century France, when the Talmud was
> condemned by Christian authorities as "heretical" [sic] because it deviated
> from the true teachings of the Jews' own Bible (ie, the Catholic Old
> Testament), and collected and burned at the stake. there's a fundamental
> failure to acknowledge that religion(s) change(s) and evolve(s) within
> specific cultural formations, and at the end of the day, there is no
> objective "essence" of a religion from which to deviate, except insofar as
> one selects one's understanding of the essences and takes that as the norm.
> but this involves one's own priorities, apart from any objective essence.
>
> this seems to me a far greater failing in our understanding of religion
> than
> the stuff that Pew was finding in the survey they did.
>
> a religion is a religion of peace if people practicing it act like it is.
> but then it's like socrates' question of euthyphro: if piety is what all
> the
> gods approve of, what do we do with the gods' disagreement about what to
> approve of? if some people practice violence, and others peace, which ones
> have the "true essence" of the religion. the answer is: it's a dumb
> question, because religions are not monolithic entities existing outside of
> time and space like some platonic idea in which practitioners participate
> (in the technical platonist sense).
>
> </rant>
>
> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 11:23 AM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Debate on whether "Islam is the religion of peace." Reserved seats at
> $29.
> > Might be interesting
> >
> > Tuesday, 10/5, 92nd St Y, 8pm
> >
> > http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T-BL5CH01
> >
> > Joanna
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
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