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Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile

#26: April - June 2006 & Nov. - Dec. 2010 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile

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Ch. 1 - Reason in ExileUse this thread to discuss Chapter 1 - Reason in Exile, or create and use your own threads.
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riverc0il
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Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile

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I will break my thoughts down into two parts. The first section will be a briefer Executive Summary of my main thoughts and opinions regarding Chapter 1 with occasional commentary on what Harris wrote. The second section will include detailed analysis and interesting quotes I really enjoyed or took issue with. Please read section one but feel free to skip section two if you are not interested in further thoughts and opinion. Enjoy!Executive SummaryThe central theme Harris seems to be identifying in the first chapter is that there are dangerous ideas born of various religious faiths and we should no longer excuse these various dangerous religious customs as a show of religious tolerance. Indeed, Harris seems to point towards a future absence of Faith without, as Harris puts it, people killing each other over books. I think a preferable stance would be a push towards a future without organized religion and sacred texts. I do not see any problem with people questioning the so called "meaning of life" or pursuing meta-physical answers through belief in a deity. The problem becomes organizing around a dogmatic belief system laid out by a text supposedly delivered from a Supreme Being which stresses some very bad things. Literal interpretation is an especially terrible way to perceive these texts as so many fundamentalists do. There is no way to refute a book that claims to be delivered by the hand of god which claims all non-believers are evil. Only reason can rectify that situation and strong headed folks of faith are hardly willing to listen to reason as most freethinkers are aware. Essentially, Harris suggests a troubling picture of the future in which we are doomed to repeat the past unless we address dogmatic faith and belief in literal translation of books that are mere mythology. Harris goes too far in laying the foundations to suggest an elimination of all faith is needed for humans to survive. While I am an atheist, I disagree that religion must be eliminated or continued pandering from the religiously moderate to the fundamental will enable them to destroy civilization, which Harris seems to suggest.
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riverc0il
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Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile

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Thoughts in Detailp11 introduces the text with a story regarding a suicide bomber who's parents feel "tremendous pride" that their son has killed other people in a suicide attack. Most notably, the reason for the pride is based on the religious principle that people are rewarded for carrying out a holy war and in particular dieing for the cause. This sets up the most fundamental problem on modern religion in my mind: inevitably people praying to different gods potentially going to war against each other for the same exact reason: for their particular god's favor. Striking. Also interesting is the honor attached to this style of killing. We could learn something from the imaginary Klingon code of honor from Star Trek fame about honor in this regard.p14 Harris interestingly links in sentence structure the "metaphysics of martyrdom" (which I interpret to mean Radical Islamism) and literal belief in the Book of Revelation and labels them both "fantastic notions." While I appreciate the linkage of both beliefs being fantastical notions, I must point out that at least Christian Fundamentalists are not conducting suicide bombings to further their belief. However, I guess it could be argued that they need to be here when Armageddon strikes in order to "be saved," so they do not have the motive. Perhaps with motive this distinction between these two radical beliefs might be different. But it should be noted that a religion that once conducted a religious crusade no longer kills in the name of their god, which argues against Harris stance that all faith needs to be elimited for the human race to safely progress.p15 "I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance
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Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile

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Riverc0ilNice start to what will probably be a very vibrant discussion. Would you like to take the role of discussion leader for this book? It would be nice to have two discussion leaders tag-teaming this quarter.
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riverc0il
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I am enjoying the reading and think we could have some good discussion as members get started on this title. A few points already come to mind, but much of the first two chapters is kinda "preaching to the choir," for lack of a better proverb (oops, did it again!). Folks who have already come to question organized religion will be doing much head nodding. Though I suspect the big issues will be in regards to Harris apparent thesis that all faith needs to be eliminated, what to do about terrorism, terrorist links to fundamentalist religion, and comparisons between fundamentalist religions that are known to be violent vs. those that are not. Suffice to say more than enough discussion matter after only two chapters despite the head nodding that should likely occur. I accept the offer to participate as a discussion leader, I will do my best to stir the coals of discussion as best I can.
mal4mac

Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile - religious suicide bombings?

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Harris' argument that only religious extremists perform suicide bombing is not convincing. (In the main text he goes even further by trying to imply that Islamic fundamentalists are the only real problem). In the notes he suggest that the Tamil Tigers' motivations are some kind of suppressed Hindu fundamentalism. This is highly dubious, Shea in the the Boston Globe states that the Tigers are: "decidedly non-fundamentalist, quasi-Marxist", and gives hard data to show that 57% of suicide bombings have not had religious motivations. Also, in the Lebanese civil war 70% of suicide attackers were Christian.Also, suicide bombings work very well on the secular level of the state. The United States and Israel left Lebanon; Sri Lanka gave the Tamils a semiautonomous state. So you would expect secular movements that put the state before the individual to use suicide bombing. Is it the state-first Marxism of the Tamils that lead them to suicide bombing, or their residual Hinduism?Of course, not all secular groups with a high motivation to a collective cause generate suicide bombers. Some can't find them, others have rejected offers from members to do it. "FARC, the Columbian rebel group, once hatched a plan to fly a plane into that country's presidential palace but could find no willing pilot, even after dangling an offer of $2 million for the pilot's family. In addition, the Basque group ETA has rejected offers from its members to blow themselves up."The IRA did not have suicide bombers, but did engage in hunger strikes to the death. Their motivations were secular.
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riverc0il
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Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile - religious suicide bombings?

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An interesting point, mal4mac! Harris does seem to have over looked secular suicide bombings. However, it would seem like most secular suicide bombings generally occur during periods of war when nationalistic jingoism runs highest. One could imply extreme "faith" in one's government at this point, but that may be using the word out of context as even humanists could see the benefit of putting an entire society above one life to strike a decisive blow in a time of war.Are there any examples of secular suicide bombings that are more parallel to the motivations of the current islamic fundamentalists? The way I see these bombings, there is no uniting secular drive to these individualistic bombings. Some occured on the suggestions of organized groups such as Hamas, but the suicide bombings certainly were not part of a nationalistic campaign such as a war.I am proposing we need to keep denote a difference between nationalistic and war time suicide "missions" and suicide bombings that are individualistic in nature driven by personal reasons, such as belief in an afterlife or doing a deity's will. The motivations, reasoning, and rational are certainly different, especially in a war time bombing
mal4mac

Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile - religious suicide bombings?

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All the suicide bombers have a secular grievance. For instance, Hamas followers believe Israelis are occupying their country. Looking through the index, I don't think Harris provides an adequate account of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. This looks like a reasonably balanced account:www.cactus48.com/truth.htmlEvery Brit. should read this! Yet another part of the world we screwed up. I like Gandhi's summary (193 : "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds."This seems as true today as in 1938, except the shadow of the US gun became larger than the UK gun, since Truman forced through the partition in 1947. So Hamas and Bin Laden have a secular justification for their actions, though wise and moderate people should surely wish that they would follow Gandhi's path of non-violence. There is also a possible psychological explanation for the observed extremism of Hamas:"You have to remember that 90 percent of children two years old or more have experienced - some many, many times - the [Israeli] army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many were beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had these things happen to siblings and neighbors...The emotional aspect of the child is affected by the [lack of] security. He needs to feel safe. We see the consequences later if he does not. In our research, we have found that children who are exposed to trauma tend to be more extreme in their behaviors and, later, in their political beliefs." Dr Samir Quota, director of research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, quoted in "The Journal of Palestine Studies," Summer 1996, p.84Why do you seldom hear about these issues in the UK (and US?) media:"It is simply extraordinary and without precedent that Israel's history, its record - from the fact that it..is a state built on conquest, that it has invaded surrounding countries, bombed and destroyed at will, to the fact that it currently occupies Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian territory against international law - is simply never cited, never subjected to scrutiny in the U.S. media or in official discourse...never addressed as playing any role at all in provoking 'Islamic terror.'" Edward Said in "The Progressive." May 30, 1996.What do Bright Jews themselves think of all this? I'll leave you to read the comments by famous Jewish writers Albert Einstein, Erich Fromm, Martin Buber, etc., in the above cited publication.Finally, Chomsky writes in his Peace in the Middle East?, "In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice, whatever one may think of the competing claims. Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin."
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riverc0il
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Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile - religious suicide bombings?

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Indeed, there is a Secular Reasoning behind many bombings, but what is the ultimate motivation for the bomber? I think you underestimate the influence of going straight to heaven with 35 (or however many) of your choosen people and having lots of virgins waiting for you and all that crap that Harris cites as being in the Koran. There seems to be a rewarded greater than self sacrifice for those willing to become martyrs. Secularist ideas could be the motivation, but Islamic tradition could be the deciding factor in whether the bombings are actually carried out. And I think it is hard to seperate out Secular Issues from Non-Secular Issues in Fundamentalist cultures that desire Islam to be part of the government. Governments condoning officially santioned state religion (or factions pushing for such solutions) are amongst the most dangerous parties in the world currently.
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Re: Ch. 1 - Reason in Exile - religious suicide bombings?

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Can't comment on Harris' words as I'm not reading the book (...yet; if the discussion becomes appealing enough, I may check the book out just to be involved in a good conversation), but given what you guys have said so far, it's interesting to me that no one has brought up the Kamikaze pilots from WWII Japan. Their motivation was both nationalistic and religious (cf. Ruth Benedict, "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword") so it doesn't really fly as an example of purely secular extremist violence, but I do think it has some bearing on a topic broached by rivercoil. Because the interesting thing about Kamikaze is that, so far as I know, there was no proferred reward for a successful divebomb, at least not in terms of an afterlife. Kamikaze drove their planes into warships not in order to gain entrance into heaven and access to a passel of virgins, but rather for honor and the Emperor.This, I think, points to a more general point: that one's willingness to die for a cause -- and moreover, to persue death in the name of a cause -- is likely connected to a more general eagerness to die. If an atheist is willing to commit suicide out of sheer malaise, then what prevents a atheist from directing that suicidal impulse to an act of aggression that will confer some, at least, social meaning on an act that would otherwise demonstrate only the futility of that person's life?I would even go so far as to say that it's dubious to assume that an Islamic suicide bomber is willing to plunge headlong into death simply for the promise of paradise. There may be some who are so certain of their religion and the war they fight in its name that they do not entertain any doubts as to the reward for death in jihad, but I'm not convinced that they make up the majority of jihadists, even of suicide bombers. As E.M.W. Tillyard has pointed out, those who are most vocal about the tenants of their belief often raise their voices to combat their own doubt. There's something besides faith at play here, I think. It may not be an outright deathwish, but I do think Eric Hoffer is onto something when he says that the member of a mass movement is so convinced of the injustice or futility of his present circumstances that they must be done away with in one way or another. If a change of circumstances can be achieved in his lifetime, so be it. If not, then he may choose to die in the name of a better world -- a terrestrial one, that is -- rather than continue to live a life that is hateful to him. Hoffer's no apologist, but he makes it clear that this pattern is as true of secular movements as it is of religious movements.
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