Matthew Yglesias » The Power of Faith

Oct 12th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

The Power of Faith

Andrew Sullivan points to what he characterizes as “The first incident of anti-gay violence justified by Islamic law.” Jim Henley observes that the Islamist perpetrators appear to have been drunk at the time, which sort of calls into question the depth of their commitment to Islam.

I think you see rather a lot of this sort of thing where ills that anti-Muslim types would blame on Islam, or “new atheists” would blame on religion in general, don’t actually seem to be motivated by religion in anything other than the most superficial possible sense. We all understand, after all, that Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland aren’t really fighting about transubstantiation or other theological questions.

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44

44 Responses to “The Power of Faith”

Comment Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Protestants and Catholics in N. Ireland
now get along pretty well.

In part – because of Clinton.

Clinton extended an olive branch
to “unrepentent fenian terrorist”
Gerry Adams and this led to
the Good Friday acccords.

John McCain opposed the peace process
in Ireland.

Surprise suprise.
Comment Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Also – the fight in Ulster was never
really about religion.

It’s rooted in the Scottish (”the protestants”)
settlement
of N. Ireland and the forced
dispossession of the Irish (”the Catholics”)
under British rule.

But that’s all ending now.
ploeg Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
You neglect to mention the infralapsarian and supralapsarian Protestant fringe groups operating in Ulster.
Ben Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Sure – we see plenty of atheists involved in suicide bombings. I mean, the notion that killing yourself and a bunch of infidels will result in your ascent to heaven and being met by 72 virgins is only a superficial, irreleveant explanation for why Muslims use these tactics.
EL Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
And here I thought that all along the Troubles were really about consubstantiation.
mad6798j Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
He’s not talking about suicide bombers here Ben. He’s talking about drunken street bullies.
Andrew Fly Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Ben, you don’t see the leaders of terrorist groups doing the suicide bombing. You don’t see imams or sheiks or whatever religious leaders doing the suicide bombings. It’s dead-enders with no prospects of future opportunity that are brainwashed by “religious fundamentalists” i.e. terrorist doing the bombings. Their more like religious opportunists than anything else.
gregor Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I am sympathetic to your assertion, but it does smell a bit like the old saw that Stalin was not really a Communist.

On that account, the atheists’ argument that religion is cause of a lot of violence is more to the point.
Ilya Lozovsky Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Homophobia doesn’t come from nowhere. The average religious person, even a homophobic one, may abhor drunken violence, but there’s no question that religion provides these thugs with the rhetoric and thin veneer of tacit social acceptance that empowers them to commit such acts.

Their holy book celebrates violence, even genocidal violence, against homosexuals. They profess, I’m sure, to believe that this book is divinely inspired. They committed a violent act against two gay men. Unless there’s some very compelling reason not to, it’s not unreasonable to claim that they did this at least partially in the name of their God.

When you argue that religion in no way contributes to violent homophobia, I think you’re being willfully blind to the obvious.
mercurino Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
the new weapon of choice for the Islamofascist hordes: Grey Goose bottles.
Ed Marshall Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Sure – we see plenty of atheists involved in suicide bombings.

You have no clue what you are talking about. Suicide bombing was invented by the LTTE and in case you don’t know this, they aren’t Muslim.

One of the first bombers that exported the tactic was a Lebanese, Christian by birth, communist during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 80’s. Every study ever done in conflicts that include suicide bombings have the religious and secular blowing people up in precisely their respective proportions of the population.
tomemos Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
This argument seems simplistic. By this standard, religion had little to do with the Crusades, since, obviously, good Christians wouldn’t use violence at all. The 9/11 hijackers went to strip clubs. Hell, Buddhists fight Hindus in Sri Lanka. That doesn’t mean that religion doesn’t fan all of these flames and provide the aggressors with (in their minds) a moral justification for conflict. Just because they apply it badly doesn’t mean they don’t think they’re fighting for God.
jack lecou Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
It’s dead-enders with no prospects of future opportunity that are brainwashed by “religious fundamentalists”

This may be true in some cases, but my impression was that many Palestinian suicide bombers, for example, have actually been young people with above average ability and prospects. Technical school students, say. Instead they often seem to be motivated by personal tragedy and anger – like the death of one or more close relatives at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

At root, of course, so-called “religious” conflicts are almost always about nationalism, territory, and the self-serving motives of the various leaders.

Contra Matt, this fact is well understand by “New Atheists” and does not in any way contradict the New Atheist indictment of religion. The point is not that religion causes conflicts, so much as that it helps greatly to enable them. After all, religions are garbled, self contradictory collections of dogma which can be selectively emphasized to render support to almost any position, good or evil. The only constant is their emphasis on blind faith and obedience over skepticism and rational thought.
James Gary Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
In my opinion, Jack Lecou at 13 sums it up perfectly. I will repeat his most relevant sentence below:

At root, of course, so-called “religious” conflicts are almost always about nationalism, territory, and the self-serving motives of the various leaders.
kth Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Fundamentalism doesn’t make sexists and homophobes out of people who weren’t already inclined that way. Rather, fundamentalism is an authority structure tailored for people who were already sexists and homophobes.
Eduard Grebe Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
It is not that religion motivates this kind of behaviour. It is that religion often provides people with an excuse and justification to follow their most base impulses.
El Cid Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I’m not sure, but I think Matt may have actually inversed the point of the story.

The point of the original story was that the defendants themselves used as a defense their supposedly Islamic view of the wrongness of being gay. (They may have been motivated by any reason, but since they said it was due to their face, the “supposedly”.)

From the Washington Blade, the article pointed to by Sullivan:

The Georgetown attack last week appears to be the first known time gay people have been targeted in the Washington area by people who asserted they dislike gays because homosexuality is forbidden by their Muslim faith.

Avy Skolnik, coordinator of national programs for the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said that while gay groups in Europe have reported anti-gay assaults by Islamic immigrants, he knew of no such cases in the U.S…

…[Defendants] Elarch and Abdulgader are next expected in court Nov. 12 for a status hearing. The case is slated to go before a grand jury.

No one is saying that the two Moroccan nationals had gotten anywhere with their idiotic decision to mention this to police, and I suspect that this will simply make their grand jury proceeding and subsequent trial go all the worse for them.

So, although I have no idea what “truly” motivated these two for their attack, the news-worthy point was that they themselves asserted an Islamic belief as justification to the police.
Ed Marshall Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Contra Matt, this fact is well understand by “New Atheists” and does not in any way contradict the New Atheist indictment of religion.

I think he’s talking about the sort of people who hang around places like this and get their rocks off hooting about Muslims.

I guess there is some nominal value to thinking about religion in terms of conflict, but I don’t think it’s weighted properly right now in the extreme.
tamiasmin Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Homophobia, cocksureness about your own beliefs, and vodka are a volatile mixture. Being young and male helps too.
fostert Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
“Suicide bombing was invented by the LTTE and in case you don’t know this, they aren’t Muslim.”

That’s not really true. There have been incidents of suicide bombing throughout the past five hundred years. But they haven’t been very well organized. And suicide attacks can be traced even earlier. Consider the biblical story of Samson. What the LTTE did was perfect the techniques. They invented the wearable suicide vest, for example. The LTTE essentially changed the technique from isolated instances to a viable and organized strategy. And many other organizations copied their innovations. As for them not being Muslim, some of them are, but the organization is dominated by Hindus (like the Tamil population as a whole).
Smarmy Liberal Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
While it is certainly a mistake to blame Islam 100% for these attacks (for, as you pointed out, drinking is hardly Islamic), it isn’t right to absolve Islam 100% either. Just because one doesn’t observe or understand a dogma in its entirety, or else is hypocritical — even blatantly so — in dogmatic observance (i.e. drinking), does not mean one is not affected by doctrine. If it did mean that, it would imply that people who violate tenets of their own religion are not influenced by the remaining tenets, even if they adhere to them personally.

What we know from psychology — and neuroscience, for that matter — is that cognitive dissonance is the norm, not the exception, for human behavior. This explains how Christians could conduct the atrocious brutality of the Crusades despite the sixth commandment (thou shalt not kill). It also explains (in part) why Muslims rioted in reaction to Mohammad’s portrayal in Jyllands Posten, but not to the numerous depictions of Jesus Christ in Christendom.

Islam prohibits the visual portrayal of all prophets, including Jesus and Moses. But the brain prioritizes outrage and offense. Does this mean Islam’s teachings had no effect on Muslims in regards to Jyllands Posten? Of course not. Had the Quran said, “And ye shalt rejoice at each and every portrayal of Mohammad and his fellow prophets, be they good or evil portraits, for they are the pinnacle of man and the closest to Allah, and no evil wrought of mortal hands shall ever fell them,” you would be hard pressed to blame the riots on Islam. Had this quote been a major theme in the Quran, it would have been quite unlikely that any reaction similar to the medieval one we saw would have materialized.

Ideas matter. What bothers me about Yglesias and other apologists for Islam (and religion in general) is that they seem to act as if, at least in the realm of metaphysics, ideas have little effect on reality. If two Muslims beat up a gay man, it’s not because they’re Islamic, it’s because they’re… well, this is never quite explained. Presumably they just hate gays. But what makes one hate gay people? Is there some intrinsic gene in male humans that leads them to commit violence against homosexuals? If so, what explains: a) the natural proclivity toward male homosexuality (if not in action, then often in fantasy), and b) the various cultures throughout world history that have endorsed, and in some cases, institutionalized, homosexual behavior? Surely this discrepancy has something to do with the Abrahamic religions’ strong denunciation of homosexuality and anal sex in particular.

I know from personal experience how much ideas matter regardless of one’s ability to adhere to doctrine. I used to be a pretty hard core Marxist. Das Kapital and the manifesto were my Gospels, dialectic analysis my theology. I was by no means a perfect Marxist. I even violated some serious core principles that were at least as egregious as drinking in Islam. A wealthy, private school/private college-educated, well-traveled, son of nouveau riche landlords does not a faithful Marxist make. Nevertheless, I adhered to the belief system in other respects (often battling internally with the overwhelming cognitive dissonance). Had a major tenet of Marxism been homophobia, and had I myself not been a closeted homosexual at the time, I would have gay-bashed with the best of them.

But even if one is not interested in pursuing the philosophy of doctrine, one can still be influenced by the philosophy of others. Simply because many non-Arab Muslims read the Quran in Arabic (a language most do not understand), or else because they are illiterate or have not enquired to read the Quran in their native language, does not suggest they are not influenced by those who can and have. Most Americans haven’t read the Federalist Papers, but it’s safe to say the influence of these works is nevertheless felt in American society. Many an ex-Soviet could tell you plenty about the proletariat and the bourgeois without having so much as touched an essay penned by Marx or Engels. Did these ideas just somehow pop into their head, or is some kind of cultural osmosis going on?

In such a way, even if these two Muslim men have not read the Quran, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the Quran has influenced them and their apparent hatred of homosexuality. Islam may not deserve all of the blame. The black community is very homophobic, especially in DC. This has much to do with another intolerant Abrahamic religion: Christianity. But, the two men in question were immigrants from Morocco. Their purported reasoning for the attack was that gay men would be stoned to death in their country of origin. Why would they be stoned? Is there some pan-human desire to stone homosexuals, or is this the result of a certain brand of pernicious metaphysics? Undoubtedly Islamic morals have shaped Moroccan culture, which has in turned shaped the minds of these two young men. To say Islam has a share in their act of turpitude is thus completely fair. Why can’t an intellectual as sharp as Yglesias see this?
nolaboyd Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
The most common single variable that unites suicide bombers is foreign occupation (real or perceived) of native soil. People then use ideology, religious or otherwise, to strengthen their resolve. That’s why Hindus are the #1 religion for suicide bombing, though our presence in Iraq is giving the Muslims a chance to catch up.
Ed Marshall Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
To say Islam has a share in their act of turpitude is thus completely fair. Why can’t an intellectual as sharp as Yglesias see this?

Where do you want to take this line of inquiry? That would be my immediate problem.
Smary Liberal Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
“The most common single variable that unites suicide bombers is foreign occupation (real or perceived) of native soil.”

Where are the Tibetan suicide bombers?

“Where do you want to take this line of inquiry? That would be my immediate problem.”

I’m afraid I don’t understand the question. I plan on taking the line of inquiry to where it either logically stops or ceases to become analytically useful. As my earlier post suggests, that line is yet to be reached. The causal chain from Islam to two Moroccan men assaulting a gay man in Georgetown is remarkably diminutive. It requires only a few steps. Islam avers the immorality of homosexuality and Muslim nations routinely cite this as justification in persecuting homosexuals. Morocco is a Muslim nation. Ergo, someone who is both Islamic and from Morocco is inundated with a violently homophobic ethos.
hugo Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
As a religious person, I think it’s important to confront the reality that one’s religion can in fact cause or be used to justify horrible acts when applied incorrectly. If you are a believer you tend to impute your beliefs, and those of contradictory religious claims, with a great deal of power. It only seems reasonable that that power, capable of great good on one hand, is capable of equally great evil when perverted.

E.O. Wilson pointed this out in the context of the destruction of natural resources, but I think it applies equally to the type of thing we’re talking about – believing that you are not of this world is a dangerous thing. It can allow people to commit terrible acts, and religion can’t be absolved of responsibility because people have that belief of religion without the discipline to follow all its tenets. I would argue that the good caused by religion outweighs the bad. Anyone who believes in a religion or any other belief system should be constantly vigilant that his or her life is testimony for the positive power their beliefs have, and not the negative.
Ed Marshall Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Islam avers the immorality of homosexuality and Muslim nations routinely cite this as justification in persecuting homosexuals. Morocco is a Muslim nation. Ergo, someone who is both Islamic and from Morocco is inundated with a violently homophobic ethos.

How comfortable would you be with this chain of logic:

Orthodox Judaic exegesis permits Jews to defraud gentiles. New York and Finance are overrepresented by Jews. Ergo, Jews from New York are inundated with a larcenous ethos.

As a matter of fact, this exact line of inquiry is what led directly to the Third Reich. That’s why it freaks me out. It has nothing to do with “defending religion” or however you want to take it. It’s just a really, really, bad road to start going down.

Maybe it’s just manners. I don’t speak badly about other peoples religion in general principle because it’s rude.
rea Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Smarmy Liberal, you’re looking at this from the wrong angle. Sure there’s lots of homophobia in Islam, but not notably more than in, say, Christianity.
mainstreet Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Morocco is one of the most liberal and moderate countries in the middle east and an ally of the United States. It’s home to a large number of foreigners and the king’s protection of Moroccan Jews during WWII is a point of national pride. When these thugs said that where they’re from, gays are routinely stoned, they were lying. I think it needs to be pointed out that the drunken and violent harassment of a gay couple or anyone would land these guys in legal trouble in Morocco just as it did in the U.S.
Michlele Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Minneapolis has a thriving gay community and finally had to try to initiate legislation making it illegal for Muslim cab drivers (many from Somalia) to discriminate against gay fares. I don’t live there any more so I don’t know what came of that, but it was an interesting Constitutional question, what the intersection of freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination. The cabbies were refusing to pick up suspected homosexuals or to take people to destinations with a reputation for homosexual activity. A few years back, a friend and I, who are both straight, were refused a ride to an iconic Mpls dance club that, while happens to be a gay bar, is popular with all sorts of people. The cabbie shooed us out of the cab and called us “filthy whores” for wanting to go to a nightclub. I feel the same way about these cabbies as I do about the “Christian” pharmacists who insist on imposing their version of morality on people seeking birth control. If you can’t manage to fulfill the requirements of the job, find something esle to do.
Bud Gibson Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Your observation that the men perpetrating this act were drunk is very astute. By itself, that fact disqualifies them as devout Muslims.

They were simply acting on a bias and using faith as an excuse.
Hector Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Bud,

With respect, that’s idiotic.

I do things on occasion that Christian morality forbids, because I am weak and a sinner, and as vulnerable as the next man to the “phronema sarkos.” Does that mean that I’m not a Christian, or that when I do volunteer work or donate to charity, or receive the eucharist, that I’m not acting out of faith?

I think that the problem some people here are having is that being secular people themselves, they can’t really understand religious feeling when it leads to people doing good or bad things. They’d prefer to try and explain it in terms of other things like territory or ‘bias’ or I don’t know what.

In plain terms, evil consists in the corruption of good, and great evils consist in the corruption of great goods. That is the simple answer and the true answer. The nature of evil is that it leads us to prefer a lesser good (in this case, as these men saw it, Islamic sexual morality) to a greater good (charity, love, and the sanctity of life.) Religion (and ideology) is a great way to get people to do bad things, precisely because it’s a great way to get people to do good things. As Aquinas pointed out, the government of one man is the best form of government when the man is virtuous, and the worst form when he is vicious, precisely because the power to do good also implies the power to do evil. Similarly, the more power you give to an all-encompassing ideology that promises to transform the world (whether it be a religious or a secular ideology) the more you stand to gain, but also to lose.

I suspect the main thing left unsaid here, the elephant is the room, is whether we are to judge Christianity as superior to Islam. Well, speaking for myself, of course I do- I’m a Christian after all. Speaking objectively, neither Christianity nor Islam is particularly friendly towards the concept of homosexuality, but I would give an edge to Christianity here, inasmuch as there is more room for debate and intepretation about what the Bible means*, and inasmuch as Jesus is very clear that human life, forgiveness, and charity are infinitely more important than sexual morality, as important as that may be. This isn’t to say that Islam is ‘bad’ or ‘evil’, it’s rather to say that Islam has some rather serious essential flaws, and speaking for myself the flaws are just more confirmation that the Quran is the work of man, and not God.

*You can ‘interpret’ the Koran of course but it tends to be much more explicit in its commands than the New Testament, with much less room for debates over the meaning of the text.
Hector Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I’m not certain by the way that the Muslim cabbies are doing something either immoral or unconstitutional. (That I think they’re doing something silly is beside the point). Having a fun night out is not a fundamental right, as far as I know. The pharmacist example is a little more complicated, since I think the right to maintain one’s health and make intimate decisions about procreation _are_ fundamental rights (subject to other obligations such as to respect unborn life, and so on). Still, if there are other pharmacists around who are able to meet the birth control needs of women, then I don’t object to Catholic pharmacists choosing not to offer birth control.
Dan Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
We have been talking about how the violence and racism present in the GOP rallies might cause violence and how they need to tone down the rhetoric, yet you refuse to acknowledge that religion motivates some people to do violence. The “one true Scotsman” logical fallacy about religion is just irritating. Here in California we have ads that are horrified that children might learn about gay marriage in school. I have students in my class who claim to hate “fags” and don’t think they are human. They say this is because their religion doesn’t allow homosexuality. They want to beat the gays up. If they do beat up someone when they are drunk, I guess we can excuse them.
Eric Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I find it a simply *amazing* double standard that just about every religion in the world is capable of having a religious war, except for Christians. When Sunni and Shia go at it in Iraq, it’s a sectarian conflict. But when Protestants and Catholics go at it, then the religion is completely incidental.

While I don’t think that transubstantiation was really on the mind of Irish militants, I think it’s undeniable that religion played a role in that conflict. If nothing else, religion does help to create the “us vs them” that so often works as a catalyst for violent conflict.

In this case specifically, one cannot deny that Islam and Christianity alike promote, foster, and legitimize homophobia, in much the same way that religions did for racism until secular forces forced that to change.
Roschelle Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Wearing racism on your sleeve…literally!!!
Sid Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 11:18 am
<em inasmuch as there is more room for debate and intepretation about what the Bible means*,

This is a rather serious intentional or not obfucsation/ignorant remark of close to nearly 1400 years of Islamic history and continued reinterpretation of text. I think most religious scholars would argue that this is false, and even those like Bernard Lewis concede Islam has had as much if not more rich interpretive/juridicial history than Christianity.
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Matt Yglesias

The Power of Faith

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