Tags
Christianity, DAECH, Ecumenism, Fanaticism, Freud, Gérard Haddad, Intolerance, Islam, Islamophobia, Judaism, Monotheism, Protestantism, Salafism, Wahhabism
Freud was not first to have affirmed that Judaism’s invention of monotheism was the origin of religious intolerance, which until then was, as he wrote, “unknown in Antiquity”. The affirmation has been corrected by, among others, the psychoanalyst Gérard Haddad : “It is not monotheism which leads to intolerance but the will to impose it as a universal faith.” (“Dans la Main Droite de Dieu. Psychanalyse du Fanatisme”, Premier Parallèle, 2015, p.116). Christianity’s founder decreed that His doctrine must be “preached to every creature”. Seven centuries later, Islam claimed to be the Ultimate Revelation for all mankind. The history of the three monotheisms could almost make us nostalgic for the good old days of polytheism, when no religion claimed to be the one true faith. That claim has led to a long history not only of theological conflict but even wars between rival religions.
Many have, in recent centuries, and in particular the 20th, come to learn to live with and tolerate people of religious persuasions different from their own. The anti-Protestantism of my childhood has given way to ecumenism, the Council of Churches and even to increasing indifference to any religious belief and practice. Anti-semitism, dedicated to the destruction not only of Jewish culture and religion but of the Jewish people, is widely recognized as a pernicious aberration that led to the Holocaust. Islam, which for most of us was a largely unknown, irrelevant religion practised in far-away countries, has in recent times become very much present in our own, and in its radical, fanatical expression, identified as an intolerance which seeks to destroy all other religions and force their members to convert or to be executed : an intolerable intolerance.
In our own lifetime we have experienced the before and after of 9/11. Since then, the relative tranquillity and mutual tolerance between religious faiths to which we had become accustomed, is increasingly giving way to an irrational islamophobia embracing moderate as well as radical versions of Islam.
How does atheism fit into this picture ? We, of course, are the arch-enemies of Daech, but so are all faith-stances except wahhabism and salafism. Atheists continue to be a thorn in the side of all religions, but no religion except Radical Islam practises more than intellectual intolerance of our atheism. Many atheists ignore religion and prefer to find better things to do with their lives than attack it. Some of us, however, are militant in our opposition to religions. Our (non-violent) intolerance is coupled with a certain frustration : why can’t they recognize that their religion is the irrational product of credulity ? Non-atheists are equally frustrated that we refuse to accept the “evidence” for the existence of God, the “validity” of divine revelation, and the “reality” of the soul and an afterlife. (Believers on the Brink, at least, have begun to have doubts.) Both theirs and ours are examples of tolerable intolerance. Whence my personal adaptation of the “Serenity Prayer” :
“God (or whatever), give me the guts to denounce radical religious intolerable intolerance, the creativity to convince and convert BOTBs whose intolerance is tolerable, and the wisdom to recognize the difference.”
R I D E N D A R E L I G I O
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
First, Freud was wrong. Monotheism had been practiced in Egypt. He was right though on religious intolerance. I think it was unknown in antiquity. Was Socrates’ trial a case of religious intolerance?
The problem of Islam isn’t just about religion. It is the desire to conquer and dominate the world as Alexander the Great did. Or as Napoleon dreamed he would. The only way Islam can do this is either wipe out the opposition or face it into slavery. There is no other means available to them.
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A great pleasure – and an honor – to welcome a comment from Kenya !
The French psychoanalyst I quoted is not alone in suggesting that the only way to eliminate the threat of Radical Islam is to destroy it militarily : “It is self-evident that fanaticism is always born in societies sick with the cancer of poverty, especially when it is accompanied by injustice and corruption. The combat against this evil is therefore essentially political and economic. When it concerns hard-core militants, like those of the Third Reich or the barbarians of today’s Islamic State, the only possible solution seems to be military.” (op.cit., pp.116-117).
The “final solution” I have advocated is rather a media-blitz, exploiting the expertise of film-makers, geopoliticians, psychologists, philosophers and … theologians ! Apart from a few crackpot, neo-Nazi skinheads, National Socialism was in fact definitively destroyed by military might. I fear that even if Daech were eliminated, radical Islamic fanaticism would continue to threaten us, notably through countless individuals ready to avenge Allah and the Prophet anywhere at any time. The eradication of terrorism requires nothing less than a “metanoia”, the New Testament’s word for “conversion”. I use it deliberately, because while “the problem of Islam isn’t just about religion”, it is fundamentally religious in its roots.
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I don’t know how a media blitz would work. I don’t think these conquerors are going to spend time reading analyses from theologians on interpretation of their dogma. Unless the aim is to reach those who may be converted to their cause then maybe a media blitz has some chance.
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You are a recent reader of this Blog, unfamiliar with previous posts about the “media-blitz” I propose. I have many times repeated that the readers targeted by this Blog are not fully committed non-atheists (as I prefer to call believers) but Believers on the Brink, people who have already begun to doubt and to reject some of their Jewish, Christian or Islamic beliefs. Likewise I have specified that the media-blitz, essentially audio-visual, would aim principally at preventing the radicalization of potential Daech candidates and of perhaps destabilizing existing members, notably those who may have begun to wonder about the foundations of their fanaticism. It is to your credit that you recognize the same distinction.
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Frank says-” Non-atheists are equally frustrated that we refuse to accept the “evidence” for the existence of God, the “validity” of divine revelation, and the “reality” of the soul and an afterlife. ”
I am pleased that the *non-atheists, who comprise agnostics, the indifferent, other religions and other non-atheists are equally frustrated with Christians in the blind, groundless opinions of the tiny “elite” minority called atheists who consider themselves as the most rational creatures in God’s glorious creation.
Makaqutu corrects Frank re Egyptians believing in monotheism. Of course Greek philosopher, Aristotle also rationally deduced, around 300BC, a monotheistic deity, creator and sustainer of the cosmos. He also deduced the immortality of the soul. His argument still stands.
There are some things that feeble humanity, especially a divided humanity, is incapable of achieving without Divine assistance. Prayer is essential, make no mistake.
Atheism is a hindrance to human harmony.
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lumen de lumine you are not saying the whole truth about Aristotle. In his conclusion about there being one god, he argues in his metaphysics it is for simplicity. There could as well be 33 gods or more.
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33, 47 or 55. Take your pick. In Chapter 8 of his “Metaphysics”, Aristotle speaks of numerous “unmoved movers”, 47 or 55 of them. Frankly I don’t give a ratz as to what a poor pre-scientific philosopher, famous for his unreadable books, came up with as a number for the divinities he imagined. But thank you for providing a little light to Lumen.
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I think anyone who tries to raise Aristotle as support for monotheism is either intellectually lazy or hasn’t read his metaphysics.
You are most welcome.
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It pains me to have to point out that whether or not Judaism invented monotheism (eight centuries earlier, Akhenaten, unique among the polytheistic pharaohs, had indeed considered Ra as the only god), my point was that monotheism is not the origin of intolerance but “the will to impose it as a universal faith”. You thought you were scoring a point, Jim, when in fact – as so often – your cursory reading led you to miss the point. Latecomer Aristotle is irrelevant to the discussion.
I knew an American who constantly said “Trust me”. This followed every unfounded opinion he uttered. “Make no mistake” is in the same category. Not only is “prayer is essential” a gratuitous statement, it raises the question as to why your “God” would expect us to ask constantly for his “divine assistance”. Your “God” is too small, Jim. You make him sound like an arrogant politician, proud of his power to distribute favors, or a pathetic potentate who expects his people to grovel.
Enfin, atheism as a “hindrance to human harmony” has had serious competition in the history of religions. It is religion, not atheism, that “poisons everything”.
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It pains me to have to point out that I was adding to Makaquta’s observation of the error in suggesting that Judaism “invented” monotheism.
Monotheism is evident to those who have soundly and honestly reasoned their existence..
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Lumen should have completed his last sentence with “… from the perspective of the straight-jacketed mentality of Thomistic metaphysics..”
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A few years before Aristotle rationally deduced, around 300BC, a monotheistic deity, creator and sustainer of the cosmos, say 50 000 years before, the Australian Aborigines had a monotheistic deity.
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A welcome comment from someone who seems to be a fellow-Australian. I’m sure readers, including me, would like to know a little more about aboriginal beliefs and how this monotheistic deity fits into the Dreamtime.
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There would be few if any real areas of agreement between the world view of the ancient Greek, Aristotle, and that of Stone Age aborigines. If they both concluded for their various reasons that one deity is preferable to many that is hardly surprising. I would even suggest that if you’ve decided that the show is controlled by someone or something then it’s not stretching the friendship all that much to come down on the side of one rather than many.
But the question that neither Aristotle nor the ancient aborigines have answered is why a rational survey of the world as they knew it necessitated any deities at all, whether one or many.
That question has still not been answered satisfactorily.
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Perhaps one could hazard an answer ? Let’s say that it seemed like a good idea at the time . . .
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