Pat Condell on Islam in Europe

Whilst I agree with concept of de-valuing ALL religion in politics, much of his rant seems alarmist. Do they not elect their own politicians in Europe? Is he really afraid the evil brown people will out-breed them and there will be public stonings and beheadings in Piccadilly in two generations time?

The guy points to a few, sensationalist, isolated occurrences to justify a generalized, ignorant, and antagonistic viewpoint. Guess what? Most muslims don't believe in imposing Sharia law. The only people that believe in it are from a minor twig on an isolated branch of the Muslim religion. Any fears that public stonings are going to be occurring in public squares reminds of fears in the last century that catholic immigrants are going to be slavishly obeying the Pope. Has this guy ever bothered to get know a British muslim citizen? I have tons of cousins from across the Atlantic and they are quintessentially English, down to alienating me with offers of tea. Just like any other immigrant wave, assimilation is occurring. Death Surge, you should know better.

I stopped listening to the guy after a couple of minutes. Other than stopping marches from occurring due to fear of clashes and him attributing someone in Italy getting leniency in an assault case because of his religion (I would love to see the actual news item he's quoting), what other 'concessions' did he cite were occurring?

Is the above part of what you consider his overreaction? Does he give any suggestions as to how we can "devalue religion as a currency?"

I dunno... start printing bibles in Mexico?

What is the Bible - peso conversion rate?

Let me just clarify, to be sure that I understand you - what about homeless shelters and meal programs that are affiliated with religious organizations?

It kind of reminds me of Richard Dawkins. I may agree with the basic premise of what he is saying (religion is not necessary to having social order) but that doesn't mean you have to be a cock about it.

Mmmmm...tijuana bibles!

That's pretty much how I feel too. I vaguely agree with what he says, religion shouldn't have control over government, but his tone and the overall impression he gives off is one of a xenophobic dumbass.

What could Dawkins do to be more civil? What does he do that isn't civil already?

I agree that church and state should be further separated, but I disagree with the idea that muslims in western countries will suddenly start trying to impose sharia law. Countries that impose these laws on their people have done so for a long time and use it as a form of control. I imagine that the average Iranian doesn't think it just to cut off the hand of someone who steals a loave of bread. They just accept it because they can't change it, unless they immigrate. To me, this is the same as saying that if we let too many cubans into the states, then we'll all become communists.

You don't think Dawkins is condescending toward relgious people?

oO Islam! Always a fun conversation.

You know what's a MUCH bigger problem than Islam? Soil erosion. Kills millions of people a year, does long term damage to the sustainability of populations, turns vibrant ecospheres into wastelands. But you can't put a face on it, so you can't use it rile people up.

All this shit is stupid. Very rarely is religious extremism the sole cause of violence. In fact, it almost never is. You have to combine it with resource conflict (see: Darfur), or an Occupation/Occupier struggle (see: N. Ireland, Iraq). Any arguments made that the brown people are overrunning our cities and changing our cultures is spot on. Remember when white people did that to the rest of the planet? Might as well get used to the new order, cause in a couple generations all our children are going to be good looking mixed heritage kids, and the world will be a better place for it.

[clarification: none of this lessens the amount of disdain I have for religious extremism. Zealots need to be identified and marginalized. You know what religious fundamentalists I'm more afraid of? The Dominionist end-of-days Evangelicals walking the halls of the Pentagon. If you cut away the bullshit, it's pretty clear that the United States' has been responsible for the deaths of far more civilians than al-Qaeda or any related terrorist group has in the last 6 years. I love this country, but we're sure as fuck not doing a good job 'leading' the free world. Desperate measures born out of insecurity and fear are a classic marker of a pre-Collapse system. Is all I'm saying.]

Dawkins writes excellent books, they always engage me fully and thoroughly. When he gets to religion, he becomes a dismissive asshole. This might seem fine, to discredit the whole of human spiritual thought as 'rubbish', but I look at it this way. I'm not gonna go hang out with the Sioux Nation Native Americans, take part in their customs, partake of their rituals, and then say it's all a bunch of bullshit, why don't you guys get with the program? I strongly feel that is a wrongheaded way of looking at it. But that's what Dawkins does to the whole of religion, for whatever reason. His motivation might be good, but his implementation is not. You can't attack belief with science unless the two directly contradict. The problem Dawkins has with this is he defines belief as something within the scientific framework, thereby giving him cause to attack it, and that's just not how it works. Attack the actions of evil men who rationalize their actions through faith (everything and anything in the vocabulary of human culture can be rationalized into violence). Attacking faith is a whole other matter.

I think Dawkins has to be the way he is if he's going to be true to his beliefs. And I think people have a hard time being told they're nothing more than a blob of carbon that does what their DNA tells them to do and nothing more. I think he'd argue that the dismissive assholes are the ones who think they're better than their genes. He sells a hard pill to swallow. I understand people's disdain for him, but I don't think he can be any other way.

Carl Sagan certainly wasn't a dick about it, despite very similar beliefs. I don't disdain Dawkins at all, he writes awesome books. But I read a debate between him and a religious minded scientist (who was also very intelligent), and Dawkins ended up couching his argument by saying 'well, if there is God, or some organization similar to what we're describing here, it's going to be something far beyond what our theologies postulate.' Sorry, Richard, that sounds like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

No. Condescending would be pretending to respect religious beliefs just because they're held.

Not really. Is there any reason to think the creator of the universe, should there turn out to be one, has any interest in the population of one planet holding on to beliefs from their Bronze Age? Or any interest at all?

Yes, it is. That's the whole point. Saying 'god is beyond physical evidence' or some such is just a copout as far as I'm concerned. As soon as someone says "God is beyond reason and logic, therefore you can't examine the concept scientifically', they're using reason and logic to argue for . . . no reason and no logic. "God exists" is a hypothesis like any other. There's no evidence that it's true, just a lot of people who want it to be true.

I try to understand why this is different from astrology or dowsing or the frauds who claim to talk to the dead, and I can't see it. The only difference is how many people cling to these beliefs, and how strongly.

So Dawkins and you acknowledge the possibility of a God, just not the possibility of a God who gives a shit.

That's possible too. But why should I think such is the case? And why should I believe one particular religion is right and the others wrong?

It would be intellectually dishonest to declare, full stop, that no gods exist. It's possible that Europa could rise over the Earth tonight and telescopes would reveal the moon in orbit around Jupiter. It's possible that all the world's flowers could have the faces of people when they open tomorrow morning. It's also possible that leprechauns could visit us at lunch tomorrow and unload their pots of gold on us. I consider all three possibilities equally likely.

Those questions are the very reasons for religion. You have to ask yourself these questions in order to form your opinion.

Not really. Religion assumes these things are true; there is a god, and it does take an interest in human activities.

If the assumption (that there is a God) is true, then there is no need for a struggle with faith. That struggle is a key component to understanding why people bother believing in something that cannot be proven. Saying something is beyond science is not a cop-out. Good luck trying to define the equations of love, or hate for that matter (yeah, you can come up with some anthropological/biological framework, but that's still not going to explain anything beyond the mechanism).

Carl Sagan was an atheist, he found the Universe to be so amazing and wondrous that he didn't find the need to attribute it to anything else. I can respect that. Difference of perspective, really. But he didn't go about calling people of faith simple minded morons.

Speaking from a somewhat limited personal experience, I have to say that those fearing the imposition of Islamic law in the West are seriously underestimating the power of assimilation. I went to the university in a part of Greece where there is a significant Muslim minority. One of the things you notice is that the differences in attire and public behavior disappear along with the older generations. There is almost no way to tell if a 17 year old girl is Muslim or Christian apart from asking.

For better or worse, Western popular culture is so broadly appealing and easily assimilated that older more rigid cultures cannot stand against it for any extended amount of time. Are you afraid of minorities? Throw money at them. No one is going to think about Sharia while waiting in line for a Wii.

Somehow this is the most promising yet painful post I've ever heard.

YAY CONSUMERISM! Yay if it yields peace.

There's nothing wrong with proving something exists without being able to explain it. For thousands of years any slob could prove metal changed red, then yellow, then white when heated; but it couldn't be explained until quantum theory came along. Hell, people knew for a fact the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and they were right. But the explanation for why was completely wrong. Knowing something unexplained or wrongly explained exists is a far cry from believing something exists because you want to.

As for the struggle with faith, there is no need for it. If the stories you're taught as a child regarding the nature of the universe don't jibe with the way things really are, then the stories are wrong.