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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