priscianus — Thank you for the link. I don’t know all that much about Hindu fundamentalism, but it makes sense to me that it would stem from a “westernized” understanding of Hindu texts.

kuvasz — I did not know that about Aquinas. I’ll have to check it out.

We Are The 801 — thank you for the historical retrospective.

Excellent post (as usual), Maha.

Augustine himself viewed the creation story(s) of Genesis as non-literal & believed that however the earth was created, it probably was not in six literal days.

Origen was originally quite a literalist & castrated himself (”If your eye offend thee, pluck it out,” except it wasn’t his eye, it was his dick LOL). Later, Origen realised the stupid mistake he made & he realised that there’s lots of figures of speech & symbolism in scripture & ought not to be taken at face value. He & Clement were the main proponents of the “Alexandrian School” which took an allegorical approach to reading scripture & has an important place in the evolution of Christian theology.

Now, don’t get me wrong with what I am about to say here– I think the printing press is one of the greatest inventions ever, BUT… The first “book” to be printed was, naturally, the Bible (all the western canonical scriptures being under one cover) & the ones to really open it up & read it were Protestants. Catholics had less of a need for it because the Bible wasn’t read outside of the context of the tradition, whereas Protestantism kinda threw out all tradition & had to compensate for it really by having just the Bible. The problem is this created a sort of theological free-for-all. This is what distinguishes Protestantism from the break between the Catholic church & the Anglicans or the Eastern Catholic church & the Eastern Orthodox.

The problem is, these people had never ever read before in their entire life. This was a totally new experience, one that is hard for US to grasp just how RADICAL it was, to be able to read on your own! And imagine, their first experience of reading is a book where donkeys talk, the world is created in six days, etc. How else could they read it? And with the salvation of each individual depending on the personal relationship between that person & God, there was nothing else to fall back on but one’s own reading of the Bible. Hence the beginning of Biblical literalism– it sparked from a sudden break in tradition, the Bible being lifted out of the context which it “lived” for centuries.

(The Catholic church had its own problems before this, but it did not necessarily stem from Biblical literalism but other problems).

Case in point: Copernicus & Galileo. Now, I’m not apologising for the Catholic church (besides, I am an atheist, but I’m no Richard Dawkins/Sam Harris annoying type), BUT… I think everyone knows the story about WHY Galileo got into trouble was because of a passage in scripture about the sun “rising” and “setting” etc. What is important to note is WHO originally brought this up as proof that Galileo was wrong. The historical context is telling…

First of all, Copernicus, long before Galileo, was comissioned by the Vatican to do a study of why the planets weren’t going in perfect circles around the earth like they were supposed to (this was inherited by Ptolemy & had nothing to do with Christianity to begin with). Copernicus concluded the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way round, and the Catholic church kinda wanted to have it both ways at once (something silly called “saving the appearances”– its a weird concept to us today).

Copernicus’ book on this subject was big in Catholic universities, but Protestants (especially Lutherans) were very upset about all this because of their literalistic reading of scripture, whereas the Catholic church never felt bound to interpret scripture that way.

Then along comes Galileo with his telescope, only making matters worse for the literalists. Now Galileo was a friend of the pope of that time (not good enough obviously LOL) & originally was defended by the Catholic church, albeit with some reluctance (figuring this up on a piece of paper is one thing, but to see it with one’s own eye? how can we “save the appearances” now?).

What happened is the Catholic church caved into the Protestants’ PR campaign, which ran something like this: “See how evil those Catholics are? They keep supporting these people that say things completely contrary to [our literal reading of] the Bible!” And caving into pressure, the Catholic church changed tack & to prove that they were just as “Christian” they made Galileo’s life hell. He became a political victim.

I’m not justifying the Catholic church at all, but what I want to point out is WHERE EXACTLY the problem began– it began with literalism which is something unique to Protestantism. The Catholic church has had its fair share of monstrosities too, but not because of some literalistic reading of the Bible, because the Bible was treated by the Catholic church (& the Anglican & Orthodox churches) in a manner similar to Islamic tafseer. Protestants cut themselves off from that entire tradition.

Since then, the Catholic church has in turn been influenced & even “protestantized” to a certain extent, at least in many Catholic circles in America, but it began with the mixed blessing of Protestantism which based itself on lifting Christian scripture out of its centuries-old interpretive context & its not surprising that it took a literalistic turn.

Issues of faith are not described by rationalism, objectivity, and scientific method; even Aquinas, and long after writing his Summa Theologica that attempted to use rationalism to prove the existence of God, recognized that at the end of his life, since faith is a belief in something for which there is no evidence.

and like a true Taoist once Aquinas “knew,” he shut up and never wrote another word on the subject.

Ever hear of Alister Crowley? Probably yes. He is famous for his instruction on satinism. Why is he famous? Bacause of the attacks on him by outraged Christians. Left alone, noone ever would have noticed the little man or his bizarre beliefs. Am I diminishing the danger of peverted religous teachings? No! But I know that advertising a weird cult is the best way to grow it.

Fundi Islam was a LOT less popular before Bush started the war in Iraq. Wholesale arrests w/out habeus corpus, wireless wiretaps, torture, and the occuparion of sacred lands (to nearly all Muslims) has mobilized fundimental Islam. We are recruiting for our enemy.

That’s my take on ‘diminish the danger’. You don’t put out a fire with kerosine. We have a much larger problem then we did on 9/11, because of the counterproductive methods of this administration.

Do you think the only thing they are angry about is that the US and Europe are predominantly Christian? The experience of being invaded and “colonized” by European powers had nothing to do with it?

Do you think that the fact that we support repressive governments in exchange for being allowed to exploit their natural resources is irrelevant? What about our lavish support for Israel and disregard for the Palestinian people? Is that strictly a religious issue?

Look at the conflict between the Shia and Sunni in Iraq. The real source of the conflict is not a schism that took place 1300 years ago, it is based on ethnic and economic differences.

The Sunni tribes were allied with the British when Iraq was a colony, and the Shia tribes were oppressed. This continued up until Saddam’s Sunni/Baathist government was removed from power by our invasion. The Shia want revenge and the Sunnis know it.

This sounds like a religious conflict until you consider that to the Iraqis, Sunni or Shia is an ethnic identification, not a choice of beliefs. A Sunni cannot “convert” to Shia, the way a Catholic can become a Protestant.

The reason extremists use religious verses to justify their actions is it makes their actions “moral.” That’s why they pick and choose verses that support their aims, and ignore any that conflict. They’re not really fighting over religion.