The problem facing us in the age of religious terrorism is how to determine when a religion has abandoned a reasonable theology and descended instead into the studied stupidity of literalist extremism. These perversities of faith are not real religions but religious pretenders. They are junk religions, and the great religions of both Islam and Christianity have each spun off superb examples of extraordinarily stupid junk religions.
The two part test for a junk religion is: 1. If a religion is antagonist to theology, it is junk religion. 2. If the only fruit a religion bears is adherence to itself, it is junk religion.
In the Middle Ages Islam was home of some of the most sophisticated theologians in the history of human civilization. Avicenna and Averroes represented the pinnacle of rational theology which was ultimately transformed into the rational mysticism of Mulla Sadra in the 17th century. These brilliant Islamist theologians epitomized the work of all theologians by using reason, logos, to understand and analyze the god, theos, of one’s faith. And for Christians and Muslims alike that god is The God of Abraham. But eventually the intellectual sophistication, the logos, of many Islamic religious sects was superseded by anti-intellectual literalism that inevitably led to the extraordinarily rigid and perverse religious stupidities that now under gird those contemporary Islamic extremisms that encourage suicide in the pursuit of unimaginable sexual rewards in a dubious after life.
In a word, the “god” of literalist extremists, be they Christians or Muslims, is not God, but at best a perverse idolatry that praises fanciful mythologized characterizations of the Mystery that is the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. The literalist anti-theological “Ayatollah-zation” of Islam is best illustrated by the fatwa issued against Muslims, such as Salman Rushdie, who refuse to embrace the anti-theological, fundamentally stupid, Islamic literalisms of far too many contemporary Muslims.
This same criticism can be made of fanatical American Christian literalists such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell or, even more bizarrely, the horridly acquisitive Michael Murdoch. The only reason these sorts literalists have not been able to overtly kill people who oppose their literalism is that America, by design, is antithetical to theocracy. Yes, the absolute American value of tolerance, as described in the last segment, is what keeps American Christian literalists from exuding their inflammatory, anti-theological, stupidity — their own napalm of a Christ — unknown to any theologically astute Christian, across America and the world. So, as perverse as American fundamentalist Christians may be, unlike Muslim fanatics of the Middle East, American fundamentalists are stopped at our national boundaries in all ways but as missionaries of their pseudo-Christian idolatry.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - DrPat
You may get some argument about whether you've defined ALL religions into the junk category. But I'm still chuckling over the admonition not to "eat the fruits" of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism...
2 - Scott Butki
Is there any major organized religion that does not require adherence to its own dogma?
3 - Victor Plenty
It depends what you mean by "require," Scott. Not to get all semantic on you, but in practical terms there is a world of difference between saying "you must believe x, y, and z or we won't be able to invite you over for grape juice and crackers," as the modern tolerant religions generally do, and saying "you must believe a, b, and c or the voices in our heads will tell us to kill you and everybody who ever talked to you or looked at you," as the nutcase religions tend to do.
4 - Scott Butki
Ironically I'm currently searching online as an education class project for a lesson plan on... wait for it...
semantics!
Anyway, ok, let's drop my word choice of "Require" and return to the paragraph to which I'm referring:
The two part test for a junk religion is: 1. If a religion is antagonist to theology, it is junk religion. 2. If the only fruit a religion bears is adherence to itself, it is junk religion.
Must Jews adhere to their religion?
Mormons? Catholics?
5 - Victor Plenty
Doc Carmine's point there seems clear, Scott. It's not a problem for a religious belief to produce adherence to itself, so long as that is not the only thing it produces.
Any religion can be practiced with a sane and balanced adherence to its central beliefs by people who use its inspiration to produce practical benefits in the world for themselves and for others. Just as any religion can be practiced with a fanatical devotion that fails to produce anything useful to anyone.
When a religious subculture looks only inward, festering into incestuous fundamentalism, that is when the results become harmful.
6 - Scott Butki
Ok, then again, how about a breakdown on which ones he feels does it right, instead of just listing those he considers it wrong.
I think it a subjective definition.
7 - Matthew T. Sussman
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism?
8 - Victor Plenty
Praise His Noodly Appendage!
9 - Al Barger
James D Carmine, PhD, I could argue with several points here, but one in particular strikes me as totally WAY unfair and off the mark. "The only reason these sorts literalists have not been able to overtly kill people who oppose their literalism is that America, by design, is antithetical to theocracy."
Pat Robertson has not ever anything like even vaguely hinting at killing non-believers. It's completely ridiculous to compare him or Falwell to the ayatollahs. It's a totally false equivalence.
10 - Al Barger
And you Spaghetti worshipping fools can expect to meet the wrath of my One True Gopher God, who don't take no crap.
11 - Matthew T. Sussman
We're not "Spaghetti worshipping fools."
We're Pastafarians.
12 - Victor Plenty
Heck, praise the Gopher God's buck teeth, too. I'm easy.
But don't expect me to turn away from the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for only He has made us aware of the connection between pirates and global warming.
Thus has it been written.
13 - Al Barger
Victor, thou shalt have no other Gods before the Gopher God. Or else...
14 - Silas Kain
I'll gopher God, but a lot of people won't let me into the Church because they say I can't gopher God. I could be a Pastafarian but I'd end up being a Raviolian Monk.
Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo - Ovid
15 - John Bil
All religion is junk. Not one bit is based on reason, logic, or science. Every last bit of it is junk. Worse than junk, it next to diease and old age it is the greatest killer of mankind.
I dare all who oppose science to visit my blog
16 - gypsyman
Al, Isn't that his point though, that people like Falwell and Robertson are limited in the scope of what they can say by western anti theocracy. I mean they do imply that if we don't believe like them we're all doomed to the fiery abyss or something along those lines.
Your right in saying that it is unfair to try and suppose what they would say if conditions were different, but given that Pat just suggested it would save a lot of bother if the government eliminated a political leader in another country becuase he's troublesome, don't you think he might be predispossed towards that way of thinking?
Those boys must have been Italian in a pasta life, but if they think I'm going to gopher that nunsence they have another thing coming.
17 - Warren
Everyone knows that the entire universe was, in fact, sneezed from the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure.
All fear the coming of the Great White Handkerchief.
18 - adam
The entire universe wasn't sneezed -- it was shat out of the anus of the Great-Abrahamic-God-Allah-Jehovah-Whatever-Be-His-Name. We are but His excreta living out our shitty existences on His crapola. Fear instead the Great White Toilet Paper.
19 - ss
Didn't a guy who planted bombs at abortion clinics and the Olympics get sentenced to life like four months ago?
Eric Rudolf, was that his name?
The only reason they're not still blowing people up, just like the jihadis, is they now have a friend in high places (one who isn't invisible.)
I'm sure neither Falwell or Robertson actually endorsed that behavior, but since they have placed part of the blame for 9/11, hurricanes, etc. on abortion, I doubt they were upset.
They were probably eager to explain what frustrated the young man so terribly.
20 - Jaymoo
Adherance as the only fruit to religion? What is that all about? The fruits of adherance to religion is the happiness, self confidence, self mastery, and empowerment that religion brings. The natural man sees rules as inhibitors, the spiritual man realizes that they set free - its a higher law. Try it out when in doubt...its the only way to know.
21 - Al Barger
Gypsyman, right especially clever there in that last sentence, "pasta life" and all.
But it's just whacked to completely project what evil fantasies you can conjure up of what supposedly Robertson would have been like in a different culture. That's about as reasonable as me speculating that if the culture were more open to it, that merely pinko Clinton would have been commie Stalin purging the countryside of counterrevolutionaries by the millions.
And SS, you're not even dealing with reality. You got ONE schmuck who does not represent anybody, and use him to smear all who would dare disagree with you. I could invoke the Unabomber just as easily as the "true" representative of all environmentalists.
Jaymoo, I can dig that rules set you free. I'm down with freedom in Christ.
22 - carmine
Jaymoo,
Wise insight. Personally I am not a man of God per se, but the benefits of theologically sophisticated religions are legion. Contemporary capitalism technology and sciecne are all direct offshoots of Christian theology. For example the scientific method of Descartes is rooted in the onotological argument of St. Anselm. The big bang was the brain child of a Jesuit priest. So there is more than mere God based morality at stake.
23 - The Searcher
Theological reasoning = oxymoron
24 - Carmine
Searcher,
Atheism, my personal position, also entails a theololgical perspective. But mindlessness rejection requires nothing but buffoonery. I suggest you search harder.
25 - The Searcher
Thanks Dr. Carmine, I will revisit the question of how many angels will fit on the head of a pin.