Religion: Understanding the Abrahamic Trilogy

In the Beginning is the End

In a world embracing superficiality and sleights-of-hand, anyone sincere can be forgiven for seeing ever-smaller areas of substance. Politics has been exposed as a reality show designed to distract voters from increasing debt levels at the same time they experience declining quality of life. Meanwhile, mainstream Christianity, especially Catholicism, appears nothing more than a political movement with tax-exempt status using public funds to advance private nepotism. Where, then, can a decent person discover pathways towards an enlightened mind? 

A young Westerner growing up pre-internet might answer "newspapers," "books," "college," and, if lucky, "parents," "coaches," or "neighbors." A teenager in 2020 might cite video streaming services, documentaries, e-books, and college. Very few would include health care workers, police departments, politicians, the military, or the majority of their teachers, despite the fact that the majority of their parents' taxes go towards some combination of the aforementioned. Accordingly, we don't need an academic to explain why Western governments have become irrelevant while multi-national corporations, especially financial and technological institutions, have risen. The technology sector's algorithms, driven by the highest advertising bids, determine what we see, while banks and venture capitalists provide the lubricant for our intellectual deadening. 

"Social media is a nuance destruction machine, and I don't think that's helpful for democracy." -- Jeff Bezos (USA, July 2020) 

As the world's current technological leader, the United States requires a reformation placing technology not above philosophy or spirituality, but beside it. Rigorous anti-trust enforcement may shift placements, but no intellectual ever credited man-made law as non-satirical inspiration, so we must examine something more fundamental than civil law to understand how we arrived at our current lopsided paradigm. As teachers, unions, lawyers, military commanders and politicians exchanged their moral duties for power and groupthink, the task of transferring institutional knowledge--for both the high and the low--is returning to institutions with the most longevity in human history: religion and its discontents. Will such reversion work? An answer requires exploring Avraham's/Abraham's/Ibrahim's influence on today's Western leaders, all of whom publicly profess spiritual backing and, even if financed by teachers' unions, will claim God a greater influence than any teacher.

I hope I have not already lost the agnostic or the atheist, and I also hope many of you equated "discontents" above with "rebels." For it is not self-professed leaders who always make history, but often the ones opposed to them; indeed, were it possible to study history through the eyes of the dispossessed, disenfranchised, and disregarded, surely we'd better understand how we arrived at our current disaffected state. However, since the victors and elites have historically been the ones with financial backing, and most of our kin illiterate for much of our history, we must train ourselves to filter existing information in ways acknowledging our existence as a product of a corrupted but successful narrative. Such training is precisely what I intend to impart here, rather than judgment or certain knowledge. But, pray tell, why religion and not science or some other more objective source? 

Wisdom in the Shadows

First, the reason technological algorithms cannot be trusted with information is because they cannot see what and who is absent. In other words, algorithms cannot and never will be able to imagine historical gaps or to extrapolate meaning by identifying missing information. For example, Frederick Douglass may be one of the smartest men to have ever lived, but it would be a mistake to consider his words the main tributary into the oceans of African-American experience. Above all, the task of learning is an exercise in humility, in realizing our information is always incomplete, and a machine, being unable to understand humility, is therefore handicapped a priori in imparting wisdom. Consequently, though we are, on our best day, sailors paddling a fjord admiring the scenery, because we are able understand the risk of drowning, our single drop of knowledge will always be superior to a machine's ability to analyze the depths of the water but not its own limits. In this way, the agnostic and the deist are better suited to the task of wisdom than anyone--or anything--certain of his or her sources of intellectual progeny. 

Before proceeding, we must address the inquisitive reader's complaint that studying Avraham/Abraham/Ibrahim is a useless endeavor, particularly if agnostics, deists, and rebels are the ones we ought to study. Two responses should suffice: 

1) We are unable to access the thoughts of a man murdered during the Spanish Inquisition, so we can stop right here, let the algorithms and academics dictate the narrative, or we can try to remember human nature has remained relatively constant since at least 2500 years ago and then examine pogroms, religion, and government overreactions generally to gain insights into human nature; and 

2) No matter how enlightened or correct we deem ourselves, all knowledge is incrementally gained. The same young man enamored with Robert Burns' poem "A Red, Red Rose" will eventually consider the poem effete in his older years without realizing it must have been a lyrical masterpiece for all ages in 1794. Even more inscrutable is the notion that listeners in 1794 would not have understood an ee cummings poem just like most Americans today cannot read Shakespeare, and so it follows that ee cummings himself was not possible in 1794 though a Shakespeare is possible today. 

"We bear the scars of patient decades and centuries' dreams... The book, too, reads its readers in real-time." -- The Booksellers (2020 documentary)

If you still follow, then you realize every piece counts, no matter how small, intangible, or incorrect, especially within an environment of incomplete information which is itself disseminated by technology unable to understand limits. We must also consider the possibility we have reached a point in human history where our information is so contrary to wisdom, we can only know what is true by shedding what is false--and, more importantly, to train ourselves to avoid making the same mistakes. 

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." -- attributed to Mark Twain (USA)  

Having resolved the reasons to study religion as a source of historical knowledge about ourselves, we can now discuss the Abrahamic trilogy of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 

The Abrahamic Trilogy: Odd Man Out

Abram/Avraham/Abraham/Ibrahim represents the story of a man equally claimed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; however, religious scholars know Abraham looms larger in Judaism and Islam than in Christianity. More specifically, Christianity places the Messiah--and by extension the Trinity--at the center of its message of faith, whereas Judaism and Islam place humanity below a single, unmorphable higher power and never on equal terms. In essence, Christianity emphasizes a personable faith, whereas its religious cousins emphasize humility. 

"I learned I was Christian. It's the easiest thing in the world. You don't have to do anything. All you have to do is stop doing something. You have to learn to stop trying to preserve yourself." -- C.S. Lewis, as portrayed in Shadowlands (1993), comparing becoming Christian to taking a dive, or a leap of faith 

And here is where we reach, aptly enough, our next lesson. Not only is all knowledge, including science, incremental, but often a reaction to what came before. 

"Science is an incremental process of amassing information over repeated studies to slowly move towards a greater understanding. Rather than yielding sure answers, it's about reducing uncertainty." -- Eva Botkin-Kowacki (2020) 

The single largest impediment to human understanding is the inability to place one's current narrative in relation to historical ones from the ancestors' perspectives, resulting in incompleteness as well as contextual bias. Yet, upon closer examination, we have enough to form a likely narrative based on human nature once we understand the process of incremental knowledge as well as humanity's rebellious instincts. 

From the prism of a religious chain reaction, if we see ancient Jewish scholars as high-handed, arrogant, and corrupted by profit-seeking, then the existence of Jesus makes more sense, from his disregard for religious pedants to his ostracism by established community members. (The same dynamic would be repeated later with the prophet Muhammad, who railed against the elitist Quraysh tribe of which he was a member.) The pattern of hard-nosed teachers producing rebellious students is not new, and in this instance, could explain why Christianity chose storytelling over dogmatic instruction, a three-pronged God instead of a more straightforward singularity. 

[W]hen a dictatorship claims absolute authority over an idea -- in the case of Iran, Islam, in the case of Egypt, a ham-fisted brand of socialism -- frustrated citizens will run to the opposite ideological extreme. [Consequently,] The Islamic Republic was secularizing Iran; in Egypt the short-robed fundamentalists multiplied and multiplied. --  G. Willow Wilson, The Butterfly Mosque (2010) 

By abstaining from a more structural belief system, Christianity as promulgated in the New Testament made itself more attractive but also more ambiguous and thus susceptible to fragmentation based on differing personal interpretations. 2,000 years later, my California community, settled by Catholic Spaniards, has a Jehovah's Witness Hall; two Korean-American churches; numerous Catholic churches, including one catering to Portuguese-Americans; a Mormon temple; and several more Christian institutions, none but the ones hosting Catholics and European history buffs aware of the reasons for such variety. 

To summarize, Christianity's multiple factions--spawned from anti-Catholic European sentiment--may reflect its ideological source code, which is itself multi-pronged; more importantly, its reliance on storytelling renders clear-cut commandments less possible, allowing authorities greater discretion and thus greater diversity of outcomes. When the engines of debt and interest are added to a culture permitting authorities in one district to rule differently than authorities in other districts, especially when no fiat or edict exists against slavery, financial Jubilees become pre-ordained. 

Facts: between roughly 300 BC and 200 AD, millions of slaves arrived in Italy, and Rome's one million inhabitants made it the largest city in Europe. In Rome, 30% to 40% of the population were slaves; in Italy as a whole, 20% to 40% were slaves. As late as 1452 AD, the Catholic Church issued a papal decree, Dum Diversas, promoting "perpetual servitude" against non-Catholics. 

So, too, is the notion of a Western Christian nation possessing the world's most destructive military while presuming to follow a hippie-like spiritual leader who never retaliated against his captors or called for war, even in self-defense. And so, too, can nations of men and women enamored with marriage hold ceremonies in churches under the literal (and often false) image of a prophet who never married. 

He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight hundred, or rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores. -- Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam" (1967) 

Given such variances dislocated from logic and originalism, the Catholic Church, a centralized entity espousing the doctrine of papal supremacy, rose to power by offering to resolve such splits. From the moment it tasted power, the Church realized the shortest path towards relevance was as an intermediary between absentee rulers and illiterate commoners, especially where opportunities for personal discretion and subjective interpretation of laws existed. In such capacity, and unchecked by inbred kings mollified with self-portraits and other egotistical endeavors, it acted to supplant the court's sceptre with the papal ferula; to co-opt the military as royal advisor [Note: in chess, the bishop is next to the king and queen and equal to the warrior knight.]; to call for the Crusades; to murder non-Catholic women and children (unlike Saladin in Jerusalem); and to expel or persecute those not in line with its beliefs, whether Copernicus or common Jew. 

Warren Hinckle's If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade (1974)

Understanding the Catholic Church's methods as well as its status as intolerant political movement reveals a straight line from Pope Urban II's call for the Crusades in 1095; to Pope Nicholas V's "Dum Diversas" in 1452; to Martin Luther's "95 Theses" in 1517; to England's dissolution of Roman Catholic influence in 1536; and to America's Cardinal Francis Spellman and Joseph McCarthy, who, using the pretext of Communism, championed the Vietnam War to promote Catholic interests, including the installation of the Catholic Ngô brothers in South Vietnam, one of whom was an archbishop. 

Warren Hinckle (1974)

Having formed a cohesive picture, we can draw still further to today's presumptive American president Joseph Biden, Jr., a Catholic who supported the Iraq War and thus the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Semites and Muslims. Whether the target is Jew, Muslim, Protestant, or Buddhist, the Catholic Church's ability to use centralization to consolidate power throughout history is a feature, not a bug, of Christianity's subjective and personal ethos. Think: if everyone but you is dispersed or fragmented, who will prevail in a democratic system? And if you are the main branch from which others have split in opposition, which part will be the strongest until the bough breaks?  

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last Catholic priest." -- attributed to Denis Diderot (1713-1784) 

(Note: Splits in Islam also occurred, not due to disagreements over Islam's (or, for that matter, Judaism's) fundamental tenets, but the bane of every corporate empire: post-succession planning.)

A Linear Reaction

If logic, peace, or objective truth are not universally binding agents in today's Christian-majority United States, then what is? If you understood the Jubilee reference above, then you know the answer. 

America is the country where not one, but two trillion dollar bailouts--with another soon coming--were needed to rescue Western-led banks post-2000. (Jan Hus and Martin Luther's complaints of Catholics "selling indulgences" continues, but in a different, more global form.) This trillion dollar machinery exposes debt as the glue yoking Christian residents and their institutions together, not ideology, education, politics, or religion. To sum up, the absence of a hard rule against interest, combined with a religious corps hell-bent on subsuming government policy to its own interests, has created, ironically, a reaction in which modern America's debt-soaked younger generation views socialism as equally favorable to capitalism. 

"In absolute terms, the average person in the bottom half of the US income distribution today is worse off than the average person in 1980 in the US... [But] the people at the bottom half of [Communist] China's income distribution today are four times better off than they were 30 years ago." -- Danny Quah (2019), Singaporean professor of economics

Having covered Judeo-Christianity's progression and blowback from Torah teacher to anti-Establishment rebel, we can finally discuss Islam's role. At this juncture, the Trilogy's second chain reaction resembles the "flower children" and anti-colonialists of the 1960s who became corporate suits in the 2000s: 

In many countries, anti-colonial fighters and heroes would win independence and assume power, but then fail at nation-building, because the challenges of bringing a society together, growing an economy, [and] patiently improving people's lives are very different from [rebelling against injustice and] fighting for independence. -- Singaporean PM LEE Hsien Loong (2015) 

The Ottomans/Turks (Sunni but not Arab), Omanis (Ibadis, not Sunni or Shia), and Iranians (Shia, not Sunni) would protest the label of "corporate suits," but the Arabs, as traders and merchants (hence, the famous caravans), have little argument, particularly given Khadija bint Khuwaylid's (خَدِيجَة ٱبْنَت خُوَيْلِد) status as an affluent merchant and employer of the young Muhammad (PBUH). 

Despite Islam's attempts to create a more equitable economic system, the political journey from dogma to status exploited for financial gain to equitable economic system is a recurring theme in human history, with the final step appearing more and more elusive. A bright student like Jesus Christ may realize his community's teachers or priests are full of empty bombast and more concerned with stature than wisdom, but such knowledge alone does not render him qualified to work as a teacher or priest, a situation the Catholic Church capitalized upon. Thus, from one point of view, it was left to the Arabians and Sunni branch of Islam to provide a more equitable structure to the ideas of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad under the assumption the last honest man had the advantage of the benefit of time--and incremental knowledge.

As a religion that had to influence traders while led by an orphan marrying a successful businesswoman, Islam was in a unique position to create a system (sharia, or شريعة‎) that would obviate the stories returning caravans told of Christianity's loopholes for exploitation. Today, no Islamic-majority country has citizens with trillions of dollars or dinars of consumer debt, a predictable outcome once one understands Islamic law's ban on interest (not just usury). Whereas Christianity's more subjective source code allowed interest to be charged, Islam negated the possibility of usury from the outset, realizing firsthand the coexistence of greed and business. 

September 2020

Furthermore, in contrast to America's Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist founders, Islam's prophet was never a slaveowner. 

From cover of Stephanie F. Jones-Rogers' book,
They Were Her Property (2019)

Not only did Muhammad (PBUH) never own slaves, he used his wife's money to free African slaves, including Bilal ibn Rabah; however, Muhammad (PBUH) could not immediately ban the established practice of slave-trading, which was highly profitable and as important to pre-Islamic Arab traders in 600 AD as to Christian-American Southern plantation owners in 1700 AD. That being said, from 610 AD to Islam's peak in 1511 AD, no person, whether African or otherwise, could be a slave if also Muslim, though European influence in Africa post-1511 AD made Afro-Arab Muslim slave traders (e.g, Tippu Tip aka Tippi Tib aka حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي‎)  non-oddities. (Note: the business of transporting goods across a vast landscape pre-navy required workers in the same way the tobacco or cotton industry requires manual laborers, with the main question being whether one treated such workers as minority partners or temporary chattel.) 

Abraham's Origin Story

In no way do I mean to denigrate Christianity. While Islam may be incompatible with Catholicism, Catholicism is not the only branch of Christianity. If Christianity is the odd man out in the Trilogy, then Judaism and Islam are the bookends attempting to corral the excesses permissible under a storytelling system. Had law and rationality been enough, we would have stopped our religious exploration at the Torah and Talmud and suffered a shortage of brilliant authors, including C.S. Lewis. Moreover, Islam's core tenets of anti-interest and anti-slavery would be less possible without Christianity's faith in mankind, even if sometimes misplaced. So too, does Islam have much to learn from a belief system able to weave a dream any which way and then attempt the task of elevating its believers into the story, with failure not preventing another dream state. Christianity's placement of a human being on the same plane as God lends itself to egoism and the "cult of personality" but also greater ambition than belief systems more wary of mankind's limits. 

We have neglected the man responsible for this entire discussion, so let us return to his story. It is true a polytheistic religion or one allowing multiplication of an ancestor could have formed the basis for an anti-slavery, anti-debt philosophy, but not as likely. As most adults know, the difference between themselves and their younger selves is the realization possibilities exist, but probabilities dictate outcomes. Thus, the probable challenger to Christianity's three-pronged approach had to have been one that re-asserted humanity's single, unbroken bloodline back to Abraham, a common ancestor. Why is such reversion so important? Put simply, a shared common ancestor makes it harder to split humanity into racial or other factions, which in turns makes it harder to justify maltreatment of one's fellow human being. 

Once we agree human history can be traced to a single common ancestor, the unifying value of Avraham/Abraham/Ibrahim cannot be disputed. To the uninitiated, Islam is a monotheistic religion with five pillars at its core and a prophet who united Arabia's nomadic tribes, but if monotheism is indeed Islam's sine qua non, why not follow Judaism, which also has a prophet who united his people? While any ideology could have challenged Christianity, probabilities indicate it had to have been one that expressly opposed Christianity's embrace of slavery and interest-driven banking while appealing to a single common ancestor. Islam's overlaps with Judaism look more deliberate under this theory than accidental, further promoting the idea a common ancestor can help unite us in unexpected ways. 

Conclusion

Some of you might be wondering what will be the linear reaction to Islam. You are asking the wrong question. Civil governments should have replaced religious authorities in the same way hospitals replaced shamans. The fact that most civil governments lack credibility while religious extremism is on the rise means we have all failed, merchants, storytellers, and scholars included. My advice? Anyone searching for truly Islamic neighborhoods should look at the prevalence of guest worker dorms, payday loans, and credit card balances, not mosques. A surprising number of countries claiming to be Islamic sanction a surprising number of unIslamic practices. 

At the end of the day, if all you gain from this discussion is the idea that Jews were strict pedagogues, Christians were media-savvy, and Muslims were business-minded, you have not been paying sufficient attention. Look to Abraham to re-align your path, and stay the course. Humanity is counting on your perseverance. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2020) 

Bonus: Cultural differences relating to marriage are often highlighted in discussions comparing Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. On this topic, I am no expert, so I'll be brief. High divorce rates in Christian-majority America; relatively high poverty and inequality, especially for women, in countries once invaded by Catholic Spain;  and child molestation judgments against Catholics should give pause to anyone looking to a priest for marriage advice, but the beauty of a belief system emphasizing storytelling means we are only one positive story away from re-writing history, statistics, and, yes, your own romance. Good luck. 

Luke, on marriage: "It's a bureaucratic civil ceremony and a pretty pointless one... It's not biologically natural for people to mate for life. Animals don't mate for life. Well, ducks do, but who the hell cares what ducks do? I mean, people grow and evolve their whole lives. The chances that you'll grow and evolve at the same rate as someone else are too slim to take. The minute you say, 'I do,' you're sticking yourself in a tiny little box for the rest of your life. But hey, at least you had a party first, right?" (Gilmore Girls, Season 2, "Red Light on Wedding Night," 2001)

"Well, I’m perfectly congenial to the idea of weddings, but what I think ruins so many marriages, though, is this romantic idea of falling in love. It happens, of course, I suppose to some people who are possessed of unusually fertile imaginations. Undoubtedly it is a mystical experience which occurs. But with most people who think they are in love I think the situation can be described far more simply, and, I’m afraid, brutally. The trouble with all this love business is one or the other partner ends up feeling bad or guilty because they don’t have it the way they’ve read it. I’m afraid things went off a lot more happily when marriages were arranged by parents. I do think it is absolutely essential that both partners share a sense of humor and an outlook on life. And, with Goethe, I think marriages should be celebrated more quietly and humbly, because they are the beginning of something. Loud celebrations should be saved for successful conclusions." -- W.H. Auden (Paris Review, Spring 1974)

Religion and Death

Below is a very controversial debate on Facebook regarding religion. Of course, correlation does not equal causation. Remember that when you hear anyone call a particular religion violent or peaceful. 

AC: In the last 250 years, has anyone who openly subscribed to a religion caused more deaths than the Christian-majority British, the Christian-majority Americans, or the Christian-majority Germans? And isn't it interesting that the only group that comes close to the number of killings as Christians are atheists? 

Count 'em: African slaves, the Holocaust, Korean War, Vietnam, WWI, WWII, Sabra and Shatila, Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwandan genocide (the Hutus are primarily Christians), Iraq (again), Abu Ghraib, Pakistan, etc. 

CB: Your whole hypothesis is one big logical fallacy. "correlation does not prove causation". You are saying that most wars in the 20th centuries involved Christian governments and therefore you state you are looking for reasons why "one particular religion has been so much more voluminous in killing people than other religions". That is a huge logical jump...you can't just make it and look for reasons. Who knows if there is even a connection. To say that Christianity "caused" WWII or WWI or the Vietnam war is absurd. Therefore to look for reasons why Christians "cause" more wars is just as absurd. Your argument might just as well be why do democracies cause more wars or why do white people cause more wars. 

In addition, your history is all messed up on Afghanistan. You are flat wrong on the facts about why we attacked Afghanistan. The war started less than a month after 9/11 and way before any war with Iraq. The stated goal was to defeat Al Qaeda and to demand the Taliban stop allowing Al Qaeda use the country as a base for terrorist operations. It had everything to do with 9/11 and zero to do with Iraq. You must have missed the whole state of the Union when Bush demanded the Taliban stop letting Al Qaeda use their country for that.It was Again, it had zero to do with some kind of base for Iraq. And I'm "surprised' that you are "surprised" about me stating that. In any event, you missed the point of my argument. You argued that Afghanistan was a "Christian" war. That's silly on it's face given the circumstances that lead up to the war. 

AC: 1) I never said any religion "caused" more deaths. I fully understand I was arguing correlation rather than causation. Thus, your entire argument involves knocking down something I never said. Let me leave you with the question you and everyone else continues to ignore: 

"In any case, no one here has provided any evidence that Christian-majority countries or atheist-majority countries have not killed the most number of people compared to other religions in the last 250 years. Therefore, my original point stands." 

The question is why is there such an unusual correlation. No one has been able to answer this question. 

2) re: Afghanistan, you completely ignored the potential link between short-sighted Soviet-era policies and modern day problems in Afghanistan. 

Even so, let's address the issue you raised: that "It [the war in Afghanistan] had everything to do with 9/11 and zero to do with Iraq." It depends on which part of the war we're discussing, and the answer depends on whether we're discussing the initial 2001 campaign, or the second, more extensive 2003 campaign. 

First, we basically captured Kabul and Kandahar in the initial invasion. For whatever reason, we neglected to secure other parts of the country. That meant that two years later, in 2003, the Taliban had returned and continued to destabilize Afghanistan. 2003 was the same year we invaded Iraq. You're assuming that is a coincidence--I do not believe it is. Just like we used Cambodia to prevent further escalation within Vietnam (i.e., Operation Menu), we may have used Iraq in 2003 to prevent further escalation in Afghanistan. In other words, it's possible the accusation of WMDs in Iraq had secondary practical purposes, i.e., preventing further escalation within Afghanistan. 

Second, I personally heard General Wesley Clark say that about two weeks after 9/11, he saw plans to invade mostly Muslim countries, including Iraq. 

Third, to the extent I called Afghanistan a Christian/atheist war, you missed my point--I said the country destabilized after atheist-majority (USSR) and Christian-majority (U.S.) countries interfered with it decades ago. (I notice you never disputed the aforementioned statement.) My point was that it is possible that our failure to have a Marshall Plan in Afghanistan post-Cold War led to a power void that allowed terrorists to increase their power within a destabilized country. You never disputed that point, either. 

In short, our military seems to rely on short-term strategies and alliances when faced with a greater potential perceived threat, and it's not clear if we understand the problems this strategy has caused long term. (By the way, we can apply the same line of questioning to our initial support for Saddam Hussein and then our eventual ouster of him.) 

Fourth, we're back at square one, b/c you've ignored my original statement: "In any case, no one here has provided any evidence that Christian-majority countries or atheist-majority countries have not killed the most number of people compared to other religions in the last 250 years." The question is, "What is the reason for this high correlation?" 

You should be able to figure out that I'm trying to teach you and everyone else a lesson so the next time you hear someone call Islam a violent religion, or, in your case, casually associate terrorism with "Islamic radicals," perhaps you'll think twice before associating religion with violence. Because it's quite clear which religion has the #1 death count, religiously-speaking, in the last 250 years. 

We're left with my more interesting question: if, absent religious and racial similarities, history shows that power tends only to understand power, are smaller countries justified in seeking nuclear weapons? Should we stop worrying and learn to love the nuclear bomb, which will force everyone to cooperate by raising the stakes of war? 

Bonus: "A controversial new history of the Indian Mutiny, which broke out 150 years ago and is acknowledged to have been the greatest challenge to any European power in the 19th century, claims that the British pursued a murderous decade-long campaign to wipe out millions of people who dared rise up against them." More here.

Is Christianity a Peaceful Religion?

Is Christianity the religion of peace? Christianity's founder is on record as saying, "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

Even if Jesus Christ meant an ideological conflict, Christian-majority countries have been the undisputed volume leaders in killing human beings over the last 250 years--at least compared to every other religion. Think WWI, WWII, Vietnam (including My Lai), Iraq (including "The Kill Team"), the Holocaust, etc.

The Old Testament is even more brutal:

Deuteronomy, Ch 7: "and when the LORD, your God, delivers them up to you and you defeat them, you shall doom them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy...But this is how you must deal with them: Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their sacred poles, and destroy their idols by fire. For you are a people sacred to the LORD, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own...The LORD will remove all sickness from you; he will not afflict you with any of the malignant diseases that you know from Egypt, but will leave them with all your enemies...The images of their gods you shall destroy by fire. Do not covet the silver or gold on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD, your God."  (See also Psalm 137.)

From Jesus Christ, full quote: "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 10:34-39 NASB)

Obviously, being related somehow to the most number of killings in the last 250 years doesn't mean Christianity or Christians are more violent in general. Everyone should know the difference between causation and correlation. This is why I find it interesting when Americans and American media outlets associate violence with Islam. I saw a more substantial "conversation" on the issue of religion and violence on Facebook, which I am copying below. The first person is responding to a comment about why Americans sometimes associate Islam with violence.

Facebook Debate

MNA: Some random thoughts... I'm generalizing, and "us" does not necessarily include "me." Radical Islamic fundamentalists have said "Death to America" and some people have chosen to take that personally and as a threat to their very well-being. When threatened, people don't always act rationally or accurately judge how serious that threat may really be. Some of it might be the media coverage - much as we are made to believe that things that kill 10 children a year are "dangerous" it's hard to not perceive the Islamic world as dangerous when we see stories of stonings of women accused of adultery, of honor killings and acid attacks. I think we like to believe that we have moved on and become more experienced and civilized... that confronted with the same situations, we would not behave in the same way. Seeing Muslims acting in vengeful ways straight out of the Bible doesn't make us view Muslims as equally "enlightened."

AC: "You" seem to be saying that it is reasonable for Christians and atheists to feel threatened by the actions of a small minority of Muslims acting barbarically. You then argue that Christians would not act the same way when confronted with the same situations, citing acid attacks and capital punishment. You allege that Christians have "moved on" and become more "civilized."

Acid attacks have happened in America, too--look up Bethany Storro, who, according to various reports, covered her face in acid and blamed it on a black person. I've also heard of acid attacks happening in several high schools in America. Is it rational to believe that America is an evil place because of isolated incidents? Of course not, but your words reveal a certain kind of bias based on selective application of general principles.

Also, America, like Middle Eastern countries, has capital punishment. It's hard to see electrocution as somehow better than stoning, but to the extent there is a difference, it is one of degree, not substance. Your comments seem to prove that human beings tend to think in terms of "us vs. them"--even when substantively, there is little difference between us and them. As a result, realists believe that only power convinces stronger nations to be "civilized." This might be what leads leads Iran and other countries to desire nuclear weapons, i.e., a realistic, rational policy of preservation.

But I'm not done yet. I have two words for you and anyone else who thinks Christian nations are civilized or somehow more civilized than other countries and nationalities: Abu Ghraib.

Let me now flip your statements as an academic exercise: Muslims would like to think that Christians are civilized and enlightened people, but when faced with Abu Ghraib, are Muslims and Muslim-majority countries justified in feeling threatened by Christians? The statistical record does indicate that Christian-majority countries have been highly predisposed to war and mass killings in the last 200 years. Taken together with Abu Ghraib and the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on a false allegation involving WMDs, are Muslim nations not justified in being concerned about their survival?

Overall, your comments indicate a selective memory and a willingness to attribute terrible things to Muslims but not to Christians. But my intent is not to single you out. My point is that human beings have a natural tendency to make people who look and act different from them into "The Other." Realists recognize this innate tendency to believe one's own people are more civilized than "the Other," which can sometimes cause tension and major misunderstandings.

MNA: Umm, I said "I think we like to believe" - I did not say we were right in thinking so, or that it is true. I think almost everyone thinks themselves morally superior to others, until put in a position where they have to make hard choices. Then it has nothing to do with race, color, creed or religion - only content of character as to how we rise to the occasion (or don't). There is no bias here, except yours perhaps ;) I think your entire argument was based around Muslims being somehow morally superior, their values leading them to be more peaceable. Speaking of peaceable...it's merely for "protection" that Iran seeks nuclear weapons? That might seem more plausible if they would stop denying the Holocaust and praying for Israel to be wiped off the map.

AC: Iran's president is a moron--let's agree on that right off the bat. However, his point seems to be that Israel emphasizes the Holocaust as a way of making its country's citizens into victims, which then allows them to victimize Palestinians and Muslims in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere (i.e., 2006 Lebanon War). (Most people intuitively believe that if you're a victim, you cannot be an oppressor or aggressor--see battered wife self-defense theory, etc.)

Thus, Iran's president's goal is to de-legitimize the Holocaust so he can paint Israel as an oppressor of Muslims, which is a stupid, grotesque, and ignorant way of approaching the situation. Even so, statements denying the number of deaths in the Holocaust--though unbelievably stupid and grotesque--say nothing about the likelihood of future attacks against Israel. (You seem to be forgetting that it was Christians that killed the Jews in the Holocaust, not Muslims.) Also, an isolated comment about wiping Israel off the map was stated in the passive voice, i.e., similar to saying that you hope that jerk across the street who's been beating up your brother dies soon. So you still lack objective evidence of any intent by Iran to attack Israel, which would be suicide for Iran, a country that's existed for 3000+ years. In other words, you seem to believe that a 3,000 years old civilization led by a Ph.D. civil engineer wants to commit suicide, even though Iran has a record of protecting Jews (see the story of Esther).

Also, Iran has never done to the Jews what America did to Muslims in Abu Ghraib. Based on your line of reasoning, we should believe that America's nuclear weapons are not for self-defense or peaceful purposes post-Abu-Ghraib and Iraq. If Iran ever rounded up the Jews in Iran and tortured them, your line of reasoning might make more sense, but in the absence of widespread human rights abuses against Jews within Iran, your line of reasoning appears based on prejudice and isolated statements rather than facts. Again, it was mostly Christians who rounded up the Jews in Germany and the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is also interesting that you fail to mention that in the last 200 years, Israelis have killed more Muslims than Iranians have killed Jews--and yet, despite the historical record, you believe Iran has less credibility than Israel when it comes to wanting protection, even though Israel has nuclear weapons and subjects Muslims in the Gaza Strip to daily human rights abuses, while Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons and does not commit daily human rights abuses against its Jewish residents.

In any case, hasn't your selective memory and reasoning proven my point? That no matter how educated or intelligent a person, he or she is a product of his/her environment and is easily led to accept theories based more on prejudice of the "Other" than facts, logic, and history? We are the country that invaded Iraq for no justifiable reason. Modern history shows that countries, especially Muslim-majority countries, not part of the elite or that do not share a sufficient number of characteristics with the power elite should seek the strongest protection possible as a means of self-defense. Is that not a reasonable conclusion based on the record post-Iraq and post-Abu Ghraib? Or do you think it's illogical for Iran to want protection when it sees what a Christian-majority nation did to Iraq and in Abu Ghraib?

Bonus: according Jewish journalist Roger Cohen, "Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran -- its sophistication and culture -- than all the inflammatory rhetoric. That may be because I'm a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran." More here.

WSJ Letter on Quran: Religion and Randomness

I've written about religion and randomness before, but I don't think I've published the following post. Here you go:

From the WSJ's letters section, A18, December 10, 2008:

One of the most important verses in the Quran reads, "Those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good, they have their reward with the Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve." (Surah 5, verse 69) ... I know of no other religion as inclusive as Islam. In Sura 2, verse 256, the Quran commands, "Let there be no compulsion in religion..." -- Donald A. Jordan, Doha, Qatar

Some people allege the Quran appears to be more inclusive than Christianity. See, for instance, Matthew 11:27:

All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

There are, however, two ways of interpreting this verse. One interpretation equates it with the Quranic verses above, which require belief in the one Abrahamic God and therefore also Jesus and Judgment Day to achieve piety. Another interpretation is more restrictive and can be used to argue that only Christians are able to achieve God's good graces. Certainly, there are plenty of verses in the Torah, Bible, and Quran to lend support to any particular philosophy, but any competent analysis of religion must consider the following:

Religion is determined, most of the time, by the accident of birth. For example, if you are born in Israel, you are most likely to practice Judaism or secularism rather than Buddhism. You can cite similar examples ad infinitum--e.g., if you are born in Malaysia the year 2009, you are most likely to practice Islam rather than Judaism; if you are born in Poland, you are most likely to practice Christianity instead of Islam, etc.

But as far as a child is concerned, being born in a particular place is an accident. Therefore, a system that requires belief only in one particular religion to achieve piety is basing a child's fate primarily on chance and parental decision (or, in some cases, another "accident"). Yet, no reasonable philosophy can elevate chance or other people's random actions as primary factors in achieving piety. Therefore, unless God is unreasonable, either all religions or no religion is required to achieve piety or good graces.

In short, assuming God is just, no just God would allow the accidental factor of birth to play such a substantial (and almost determinative) part in a person's fate or opportunity to achieve piety.

In addition, if God predates religion, and religion is required to achieve piety, then all human beings prior to organized religion had no chance of achieving piety. But this conclusion is absurd. Some human beings prior to the introduction of religion must have acted in ways that we would now consider religious or that allowed them to fall into God's good graces.

Therefore, assuming God is just and reasonable, a person's behavior and actions--not his/her religion--must be the primary factors in determining his/her piety.

Is Christianity the Key to Civilization?

[Update: Arnold Kling corrects me, pointing out that he "was explaining what I think conservatives believe, not what I believe." Mr. Kling's blog post now states, "Again, these are what I think of as conservative beliefs, not what I believe." My post below has changed to reflect Mr. Kling's correction.]

Arnold Kling summarizes what conservatives believe, saying, "Christianity is the key to civilization and, dare one say it, the most progressive force in history." For his full post, see here.

Commenter Tom Hickey dismantles the so-called conservative argument handily:

There are several inconsistencies with this picture.

1. It seems obvious that instead of going downhill, human progress is improving with technological advancement that has vastly improved life for 99% of the the people in developed societies. Christendom was feudal. These "lost virtues" are basically a variation of the romantic ideal of the "noble savage" and the lost "Golden Age."

2. Technology, not Christianity, has been the driving force of modern civilization. Christianity has been and continues to be the enemy of science. As technology enabled leisure for universal education, life became more rational and intelligent, allowing for the establishment of democratic societies. The Enlightenment thinking that lead to democracy was not based in Christian values as much a rational thought that revolted against imposition of ideology. The founding Fathers were not "Christians" in the sense that many use this term today, and many were Deists.

3. Free markets have often led to the "social degradation" that conservatives decry, and many conservatives think that restrictions in the form of censorship could have prevented this loosening of social norms. It can reasonably be argued that the pursuit of profit has led to the pushing of the envelope of social norms, not "social degradation" pushing business. This is the old, "the devil made me do it," excuse.

Finally, caricaturing liberalism/progressivism as believing that wisdom resides with progressive elites is setting up a straw man. That is just ideological bias that fails to grasp what liberalism is about, not a reasoned statement of genuine issues. Liberalism/Progressivism is broadly based on J. S. Mill's On Liberty and Utilitarianism.

I added the following comments:

If Christianity is the key to civilization, then what about the Persian Empire, which was non-Christian? Plenty of evidence shows that great civilizations may be non-Christian--see Incas, Angkor, etc.

Moreover, assuming that violent oppression and unnecessary/excessive killings of civilians and innocent persons is not progressive, your thesis fails. If, for example, Christianity was the most progressive force in history, then why did an overwhelming number of American Christians tolerate the peculiar institution of slavery? [Could it because Christ himself never took an express stand against slavery?] Why did an overwhelming number of American Christians deem non-whites inferior and less deserving of equal legal protection for numerous decades? Why did American Christians, with the backing of state governments, use police dogs and fire hoses on non-violent civil rights protesters? If we agree that Southerners are more Christian than non-Southerners, then the last 100 years seem to rebut the idea that Christianity and civilized society go hand in hand; after all, fewer places in American have been more Christian and less progressive than the South.

Furthermore, why were most participants in 20th century killings and pogroms from majority-Christian countries? In fact, Christian-led governments and their soldiers have caused the most violent losses of human life over the past hundred years. See, for example, Washington's America and the Native Americans; Lincoln's America and the Civil War; Hitler's Germany; Nixon's America and Vietnam/"Operation Menu"; Truman's America and Hiroshima; Bush I's America and Iraq; Bush II's America and Iraq/Afghanistan. This violent historical record doesn't mean Christianity is wrong or inherently evil--it just means that people in power tend to oppress others who are different, regardless of religion.

Some people may argue that the aforementioned Christian-led killings were made with good intentions, but try your progressive religious argument on the millions of innocent African (slaves), Native American, Jewish, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Iraqi, and Afghan civilians who have been murdered by Christian-led governments.

In the end, I suppose it depends on your particular viewpoint. If you're an American Christian in the year 2009, America is a progressive place. As a result, I can understand why some American Christians would associate progressiveness with Christianity. However, as the death tolls above indicate, no religion can call itself progressive or truly peaceful--whoever is in power at any particular time kills whomever they consider to be "the other." Religious differences are one way of inventing "otherness" and superiority, which allows our conscience to avoid responsibility for the deaths we cause.

Being from Silicon Valley, I may be biased, but I agree with Tom Hickey: "Technology, not Christianity, has been the driving force of modern civilization." Assuming all religions may incorporate and contribute to technological advances, then associating any particular religion with progress is a subjective, historically-myopic, and divisive exercise.

[More here on religious assimilation.]

Burke A. has an excellent response to my comment:

I don't think conservatives believe that civilizations didn't exist before Christianity. Just that the enlightenment and our current American civilization is a product of that values system. Christians were/are not a more moral people, in fact the Christian ideology is a refutation of that very idea. Christianity didn't somehow support slavery because some Christians were apologists for it. Slavery is a human institution far older than Christianity, and most of the fervent abolitionists were zealous Christians.

Nor is it Christianity reflexively anti-science. Unless you think that there should be no restrictions on what a scientist can do, regardless of the effects on other people. Sure the Religious Right opposes things like embryonic stem cell research, but they certainly aren't opposed to all kinds of science. They just disagree with the moral judgments that certain scientists are making. And frankly, scientists are no more qualified to make those judgments than religious zealots, because Science is equipped to ask how, not why, or whether something is moral. It's outside the domain of science's expertise.

Furthermore, why were most participants in 20th Century wars and pogroms from majority-Christian countries? In the past hundred years, evidence shows that majority-Christian civilizations were the most violent of all. In fact, the one entity that has caused the most loss in human life over the past century has been Christian governments and their soldiers...

What about Mao's China, and the bloody wars of tribal humans? I'd say that Christians were no more or less violent than other cultures--we are just more aware of the violence of nominally Christian populations, because that culture is dominant in the Western world and that is the history we study. I also think you are making an error of attribution if you assume that Christianity is the cause of the violence. Just as you attribute the blame of slavery to Christianity. Did Christians practice slavery? Sure, but they were the first people to offer opposition to the institution and eventually make it illegal. To paraphrase, Christianity is the worst belief system on earth, except for all others.

My response to Burke A. is below:

If we eliminate wartime deaths, then you are correct--Mao and Stalin, both non-Christians, caused the most deaths in the 20th century (we'll go ahead and equate being bombed to death with being starved to death, even though part of me doesn't feel right about that comparison).

As for slavery, however, didn't the Islamic Prophet Mohammad condemn slavery on the basis of color/ethnicity centuries before most Christians accepted that such slavery was morally wrong? See, for example, the story of Bilal ibn Rabah.

Also, compared to Judaism and Islam, wasn't Christianity late in condemning slavery on the basis of color or ethnicity? [Jesus Christ does not condemn slavery anywhere in the written record, nor does the New Testament.] For most of its history, Christian America seemed to have few qualms about mistreating/raping slaves or treating persons more harshly because of the color of their skin. In contrast, it appears that Islamic societies tolerated slavery but required better treatment of slaves. Of course, without a written historical record from slaves themselves, it's anyone's guess how they were actually treated, but evidence is clear that Islamic law and culture frowned upon harsh treatment of slaves.

According to Prof. Jonathan Brockopp, for example, "Other cultures limit a master's right to harm a slave but few exhort masters to treat their slaves kindly, and the placement of slaves in the same category as other weak members of society who deserve protection is unknown outside the Qur'an. The unique contribution of the Qur'an, then, is to be found in its emphasis on the place of slaves in society and society's responsibility toward the slave, perhaps the most progressive legislation on slavery in its time." [See also work by Professor Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah aka Salman al-Ouda.]