dan2100

I've been trying to get through Reik's Mystery on the Mountain: The Drama of the Sinai Revelation for about three years now... That's his attempt to psychoanalyze Moses. I think probably you're right, since Reik is already depicting much of this -- religion, art, life -- in terms of guilt and envy. I wonder if Girard read Reik.

Wandering now, old testament and other points are not central to what I'm saying. I'm talking about the central figures and how they are depicted in doctrine. One of them is a total scumbag, and while all should very well be rejected by a rational mind, the question of what cultural/legal/politcal effects might result from worshiping a scumbag is a relevant question. Maybe it matters very little in the big picture - quite possible. But it's like the story of John Smith and the mormons. It's not violent - just outragiously obvious lies and fabrications - but really easy to dismiss. Mohammed is the same, very easy to dismiss on rational grounds, but based more on violence and other disgusting personal qualities. My original point on this thread was to point out that scriptural determinism is incorrect -- at least when it comes to most followers of a given religion. I think my statements were within the ambit of that. When you brought up the central figures of each religion -- interestingly, you left out Judaism whose central figure is probably Moses and the written material usually attributed to him is not pacific by most measures -- I thought this was not going to tell us much about the problem at hand here -- which I took to be that of Muslims being more violent than everyone else, I responded by pointing out it's not so much the central figures that matter, but what worshippers of the religion do regardless of what you believe the message of their central figure is. The fact is, for all religions you've mentioned, at least some of their followers have interpreted the message of their faith as one to go out and slaughter. And, let me add to this, that message has, in all the cases I've mentioned -- Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism -- been interpreted as one, on some occasions by some of the followers, genocidally. This should lead us to look for other factors -- other than what the scriptures say -- to see why some members of a given religion would behave genocidally or at least intolerantly while others don't. For the record, I don't think, again, one can simply read off the sciptures and say, "All followers of this faith are X." Side note: in terms of worship, I think some members of these religions would not consider some of the central figures objects of worship -- not as they use the term. E.g., I don't think Jews worships Moses (or any of the prophets or leaders), Muslims worship Mohammed, and no Buddhists I know would claim to actually worship Buddha. (Christians are a bit different here in that the central figure of Christianity is also part of their god. Jews do not, to my knowledge, think of Moses as part of their god. And ditto for Muslims with Mohammed. Buddha has a variety of interpretations -- some atheistic -- of course, so I'd set it aside here.) But I think you can substitute in "admire," "try to imitate," or "hold up as a moral ideal" in place of worship -- in which case, your statements would apply to Buddha, etc. (Of course, then one would have to ask: How many Muslims today kill that many people, head military campaigns, or marry 9 year old girls (on this last, I don't want to be an apologist, but the usual take on this is marrying 9 years back then and even, sadly, some places today was not outside the social norm)? My guess would be only a tiny number -- probably comparable to members of other faiths that have done the same.)

Girard, from my readings, tends to see envy almost everywhere. As someone and I pointed out earlier, Girardians appear to be much like the caricature of Freudians -- that, in reducing whatever they're studying down to one particular cause that merely manifests in different ways in different arenas.

Chapter 1 This sounds very similar to some of the work of Bryan Caplan -- specifically his work on how people come to hold economic beliefs that don't make sense (i.e., that are fallacious or contradictory).

Lot's of stuff in there, but I don't think we disagree on much. Sure, it's a good point that lots of murders have been committed in the name of the "prophets". Historic accuracy of Jesus/Buddha aside, it's not really central to my point. My point is what are the characteristics of the central figures (accurate or not - doesn't matter) according to doctrine that the believers choose to believe and revere. In this case it doesn't matter if it's true, they choose to worship them, that's what's important. One of them is described as a violent murderous pedophile warlord who killed hundreds (600-900) men (prisoners IIRC) himself. One of them married a 9 year old girl (or was she 6?). This is a "holy" man? A peaceful man? A deity worthy of worship? For the record, I don't think any of them are worthy of worship. But I get your point, but this is partly from a selective reading of the Christian Bible. Surely, as far as we know, Jesus didn't going on a killing spree, but at least some of his rhetoric is militaristic -- especially the "sword" verse in Matthew 10:34: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." And the other sword passage in Luke 22:36: "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." (This might make it more believable that there actually was a Jesus person -- not literally the Son of God or having supernatural powers, but an anti-Roman sectarian Jewish cult leader or agitator. This might make the crucifixion story more believable too: the Romans would eagerly eliminate any serious threat to their rule in Palestine, so they promptly executed Jesus. (It would make it unlikely, though, the Romans would allow Jewish leaders to have any say in this. A clear threat to Roman rule would not need any local approval to deal with -- at least, in my opinion, not in Palestine at that time.)) The figures mentioned in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) are even more clearly militaristic -- such as Joshua and King David. (And some of this might be more a reflection of how these religions evolved. Judaism likely grew out of polytheistic religions in Israel at that time -- via, first, mono idolatry and then into monotheism. Probably during this time, though the Ancient Israelis were stuck between rival empires, they basically were a separate people and, for long periods of time, not under direct foreign rule. Chances are, much of the Hebrew Bible was written in the aftermath of wars with foreign powers, civil wars, and the like -- where the writers clearly were on the winning side. Much of the New Testament, though, was composed and written down by people -- regardless of how much was factual -- who were in Roman occupied lands (Palestine, Asia Minor, etc.) and there was almost no question that the Romans had no rivals to their power in these lands (they successfully put down the three major revolts). Early Christians, wanting to differentiate themsevles from the Jews and likely being perceptive of the near impossibility of a military challenge to Rome would, don't you think, tone down any direct militaristic rhetoric? They might even, say, play down anything military Jesus or his clique participated in.) For Buddha, I would actually count him as peaceful, but does this matter? It's not so much what the founders of these religions do that matters for us, but how their followers interpret this. Some followers might take a more militaristic, intolerant interpretion on their founders' messages; others might not. This is why we have people like Philo -- who seemed to want to build bridges with the Romans so that Jews would be tolerated. Other the other hand, looking at Buddhism, which seems a peaceful, tolerant religion par excellence, one need merely look at Zen Buddhism in Japan to see how militaristic it can become. See Zen at War by Brian Daizen Victoria for how Zen Buddhism not only didn't try to curb militarism, intolerance, and jingoism, but was at their forefront, leading the charge, in Japan.

King David is not the only one. The Old Testament recounts many genocides. (No doubt, some of them are made up or exaggerated.) For instances, read Joshua 10 and Judges 1.

Certainly, I only disagree with your tense. I say "WAS" not "IS" and that's part of my point. I do not deny the violent history of all or most religions. What I'm saying is Islamic-based violent history hasn't ended yet. There is far more violence in the name of Islam - now, let's not deny this. That's where I'm unsure. I don't know the absolute amount of violence today broken down by religious affiliation. I understand your "is" versus "was" usage earlier and this kind of plays into my point, I think -- that being scriptural determinism doesn't work here as Wright would tell us. Rather, other factors -- social, political, etc. -- come into play. I think you agree with this, though you still seem to think, all else being equal, believers in Islam will be more violent than those of other faiths and even those of other Abrahamic faiths. Again, past is past, now is most important. Now, the thought of fighting a holy war is a totally alien thought to the vast majority of secular western society. This isn't the same in the Middle East. Islam seems to have more staying power - in a bad way. Sure, we also cannot deny the powerful social and political forces, I agree. But this doesn't mean you can equate the religions either. But that's a big difference: "secular western society" is very different from societies that are not secular or not Western, whether those be Islamic ones or not. I'm not sure what the "Youngest Wife" thing has to do with this -- unless you're using that as a measure of violence against women. Your test, though, might have come out very different had you asked: Murders committed by people professing the religion of: Jesus_______ Buddha________Mohammed________ Don't you agree? (If my memory's correct, too, we don't have good records on any of the three -- least of all on Buddha and almost as little on Jesus. So, we don't know even if they existed or what their characters and actions were like if they did. We know a bit more about Mohammed, though I'd be careful because most (or all?) of the biography of him comes from believers and was only written down, if my memory's correct, years after his death. Of course, the expectation here would be that the biography would be made more appealing from the stand post of whoever's doing the writing of it. This works much better, though, in the favor of making Buddha and Jesus look more peaceful and honorable than they might have been -- were they real people. (The surprising thing would be that anything questionable survives at all.))

I don't doubt inconsistency, especially when it tempers really bad premises, might make for something better than a consistent position. And I do think the major faiths, especially the Abrahamic ones (all of them -- not excluding Islam), have baked in inconsistencies. This is not news and is, in fact, a major debating point for atheists and others against all forms of scriptural literalism. Much of the inconsistency seems to come from these religions being long-term historical movements and, for the most part, their scriptures were collected and canonized later on. Judaism, obviously, has the longest history of the three Abrahamic faiths and its key texts were gathered over a period, if my studies are correct, of about a thousand years ending sometime in the Second or Third Century CE. That said, though, and as my parenthetic comment notes and in my view, Islam is not entirely consistent either -- hence the use of abrogation to reconcile contradictory passages. Were Islam's scriptures consistent, what need for abrogation and interpretation? And, also, were inconsistency the seed bed for liberalism and intellectual independence, why weren't the various Christian and Jewish societies of Antiquity and the Middle Ages hotbeds of tolerance and freewheeling thought? Instead, their histories tend to read, from what little I've read of them, like fairly intolerant societies. I doubt, had any of us been around back them and looking on for where we thought free societies and independent thought would take off, we'd have been focusing on Jewish and Christian societies -- at least not until the Late Middle Ages. Of course, there are some exceptions, but the rule seems to have been intolerance, persecution, and fairly oppressive societies. (In my view, too, some of the more liberal things of the Late Middle Ages might have been due to the Church, but I think this is more because power was divided between the Church and State -- not because the Church was intrinsically liberal. In other words, when there's a competition between rival centers of power, often some freedom ekes its way into existence. Also, the rivals themselves might, because neither can overrule the other, prefer some degree of limitation -- as long as this applies all around and, of course, rationalizations can arise for this.) At least, this is how I see the history. I admit to being no specialist in this area and perhaps others can correct any of my errors here.

Those who don't wish to wade through this rather dense article should skip to endnotes #6 and #7 (pp. 142-46), which deal with a number of smears and misrepresentations. Note #7, which constitutes a mini-essay in its own right, has the dubious distinction of being the longest endnote that I have ever written. I read part of this essay of yours before and the material anthologized in one of your books. (I'd say that my first introduction to Spencer, but it wasn't. I'd already read part of The Man Versus the State in high school -- simply because of its title... I was desparately gobbling up everything I could get on anarchism at that time and that title seemed to fit the bill. Of course, it wasn't the individualist anarchist tome I was expecting, so I didn't read it all the way through at that time.) Oh, I wanted to add: Have all of you here who have written on Spencer thought of putting together an anthology of recent essays devoted to Spencer? It seems like enough material is out there for a book or two. ("Recent" here meaning within the last several decades.)

What do you believe he's trying to get at -- aside from listing as many things as he can pick out that he doesn't like about Rand's big novel?

And you've never had this feeling with the more strident followers of other Abrahamic faiths? Do they not also counsel unquestioning or nearly unquestioning obedience all around?

A much easier way to immediately see less of her would be to not watch the evening news. Would you life be better or worse if you stopped watching it?

Yes, I believe that "qua man" - human nature according to Rand is wrong. Life as the standard of value is not correct, based on reality. We need to look at what evolution teaches us about what it is to be human, not what Rand says it is. I'm unsure what that means in this context. If one is looking to draw ethical conclusions from evolution, what would that mean? Evolution, by itself, is merely history -- what came to pass. I believe it might be helpful, but I'm not sure it's the sum of knowledge one brings to the table to formulate an ethical system. And one must be very careful here. Evolution as the record of what came to pass is mostly hypothetical and mostly only records some more or less partial success stories. I think it'd be more accurate to say some humans are partly altruistic. Looking at human behavior, I see a range from probably fully altruistic to non-altruistic behaviors and people. I'm also not sure arguments about survival of genes and the like would have to lock in any objective ethical views -- unless you're going to presume gene survival is the standard of value, which is open to debate, don't you think? Anyhow, my point in this topic was not to get into Objectivist ethics or even ethics in general, but merely to show that certain types of evolutionary speculation -- just so stories -- need to be vetted via some valid method -- e.g., cladistics.

Actually, there is. Some followers of Judaism violently suppressed followers of earlier religions within their region. Some followers of Christianity did the same once they attained power. Where did all those pagans go? They were, for the most part, violently suppressed. And followers of both these religions have a history of violently suppressing dissenters within their ranks -- often by killing them off. But most of this can be looked at in light of the social and political circumstances Wright mentions in his book. (And the same goes for Judaism and Christianity. In certain social and political contexts, these religions become extremely dangerous. In the context of advanced Western liberal polities, followers of them are generally peaceful and "abrogate" or ignore the more violent passages in their scriptures. If not, you really need to explain why all these people aren't reading Deuteronomy 13 and applying it to everyone else. Certainly, many followers of these faiths had no problem applying that particular idea in times past -- as during the Thirty Years War, for instance, between various Christian sects in Western Europe.) I'm anti-religion (in general) too -- if anyone's keeping track. I don't think anyone here has advocated tiptoeing around criticizing Islam or any other faith (or philosophy, belief system, or idea). I certainly haven't. And I have no problem with criticizing anything. But I do want to make sure the criticisms are valid and, when applied to religious movements and peoples, take into account things like Wright's views of scriptural determinism. (Which is not to say I agree with all else in Wright's book, though I do recommend it.)

A bit off topic from Bertonneau's essay, but I've read Schutz's Reflections on the Problem of Relevance and parts of On Phenomenology and Social Relations. I also picked up, a few months ago, a book of his correspondence with Aron Gurwitsch that I hope to read some of in the next year or so. (I'm hoping this might relate back to some issues on reference and Frege I'm trying to work through now.) I think Schutz's are highly compatible with Austrian economics, particular in its Misesean form. For instance, I believe his idea of a "finite province of meaning" is useful in understanding human action. This is, if I understand it correctly, that action (including thought as a type of action) has an implied context -- that action divides up existence into separate provinces with things inside treated as relevant for the action and what's outside treated as to be ignored acting in that province. This does appear, to me, to be exactly how people act. (Full disclosure: debates with Georgists have, I think, helped me to better grasp this.)

I first recall reading the term in high school and I think it was while reading either something by or on Mises. But wherever I first read it, the context had nothing to do with Hitler or the Nazis. Nor do I think Bertonneau, who otherwise wants to associate Rand's views with those of Hitler, used it because of its somewhat tenuous association with the latter. I also think what's "snobbish, pretentious, [or] artificial" is going to be relative to each person. I certainly don't find "Weltanschauung" so in most contexts where I've seen it. I don't how most of Bertonneau's readers feel about this. I would, though, probably not use the word were I to write an essay where "worldview" or some other term would do as well, but that's mostly because I'd likely misspell it given my record of botching up spelling among other things.

I think this sort of thing is bad and happens often: someone discovers, invents, or improves on some idea but is forgotten because he or she is either an outsider or linked to otherwise unpopular ideas and then someone more recent repeats the same work being totally ignorant of the earlier thinker (and is often touted as being a creative genius for it). The example that comes readily to mind is the recent discovery by many that the mainstream neoclassical equilibrium models of markets don't work -- things Austrians and others having been telling everyone who would listen about for decades now.

I haven't seen and might not be able to see this for a while, but I'm hoping it isn't under the spell of what Robert Wright, in his The Evolution of God, calls "scriptural determinism." By that term, he means those "who think that scripture exerts overwhelming influence on the religious thought of believers, and that their social and political circumstances matter little if at all." I think that scriptures or rather interpretation of scripture does have influence on believers. This is in fact the only source of religious thought. Islam is militant religion and the history of Islam confirms it. But other religions are not less militant than Islam. History of Christianity is history of bloodshed, war, suffering, sacrifice, torture in spite the fact that New Testament is about love and nothing but love. The only difference is that Islam was and is inseparable from the structures of power while Christianity had been divorced from it. By "scriptural determinism," I think Wright means -- and I certainly use it this way -- something stronger than just influenced by scriptures. I think he means that the scriptures or their interpretation would be the major or dominant factor in the religious person's thought and actions. In other words, if it's true, one would expect to be able to look at the scriptures in question and read off how the believer would act. This doesn't appear to be the case for most believers of any faith. Yes, we can find subsets, but the amazing thing is how little such a reading of scripture would tell us about the thought, action, and character of most self-identified believers. (And the same goes, I think, for ideological determinism. People who claim to hold a certain ideology often think and act in ways that seem worlds apart from what I'd expect them to think or act based on their ideology. Rand seems to have understood this with her notion of compartmentalization.) Regarding the "structures of power" argument, what does this have to do with scriptural deteminism? Even in cases where religious people have power, they don't all seem to merely read their scriptures off into policy. (Of course, given that all these scriptures are full of ambiguities and outright inconsistencies, one would expect either ambiguous/inconsistent policies or policies that aren't exactly predictable from looking at the particular scriptures the leaders supposedly follow.)

Hasn't that line -- the similarity between Hayekian and hermeneutics views -- been pursued by a few writers in the journal _Critical Review_ over the last two decades?

I'm sure any halfway decent film on Islam is going to mention abrogation. I only used it because I thought some in my audience would know it and chime in with, "Oh, yes, they claim this has been abrogated, but, you see, it calls for genocide." Then, of course, I'd reveal the passage is not from Qur'an at all and see their reaction. I tried it a few times, but didn't exactly get that reaction. Two people actually figured out it was from Deuteronomy too. It's not exactly the Bible's best kept secret...

I think the Girardianism as Bertonneau deploys it might be exactly that. (And I just posted comparing this to Freudianism... I like to think great minds think alike, but I doubt I've a great mind.) As for postmoderism not being a monopoly of the Left, I agree and good point. If my reading of history is correct, too, I think we could locate the start of postmodernism on the Right, especially with the Right wing and conservative critiques of classical liberalism that were already underway in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I might seem like Ayn Rand here -- and also be hoisted on my own pitard regarding reductionism -- but it does look like there's a stream of anti-liberal thought and postmodernism finds its roots in that -- even if it's usually been coupled with modern liberal politics. (Of course, modern liberalism is anti-liberal from a classical liberal perspective.)

I read Bertonneau's article again, and two of his criticisms stood out. One is that Atlas Shrugged is "morally incoherent" -- a phrase that Bertonneau uses on at least two occasions. The second criticism -- indeed, the major theme of Bertonneau's article -- is that Atlas Shrugged is "primarily...a sacrificial narrative" and that this is "the novel's borrowed premise." Do you agree with either of these charges? Ghs The first charge stood out for me too. I can't see that and can only think the novel, which seems all too morally coherent -- so much so that some readers say it's preachy, just depicts the kind of morality that Bertonneau deeply disagrees with, especially Rand's egoism and her deep critique of altruism. Whether one disagrees with Rand's views here should be beside the point. One can, e.g., disagree with the morality projected in Crime and Punishment yet still say Dostoyevsky's novel is morally coherent. Calling the novel "sprawling" is another matter. That's the feeling I got reading Bertonneau's essay: sprawling. Regarding the second one, I don't think Atlas Shrugged is primarily that. Yes, I do think one can read certain parts of the novel as that -- and that might be an interesting and even fruitful reading -- but my view here is Bertonneau is looking at the novel through Girardian glasses and seeing everything in terms of that sort of thing. This is no different, to me, than how comic book Freudian (not that I believe all Freudians are) might look at any novel as revealing the Oedipus complex welling up onto the page.

I thought so. I'll still give it a look. I'm not sympathetic toward any religion -- least of all Islam. But, like you said, there's all these people who seem to not going around doing all the worst things some interpretations of their scriptures would have believe they must do. So, scriptural determinism doesn't meet the reality test. I also used to pull a little trick in some of the forums I've been in the past. This was to quote a slightly altered passage from Deuteronomy 13, saying it was from the Koran, and then ask if this passage had been abrogated -- because it obviously calls for genocide -- specifically, wiping out entire cities -- for people holding the wrong faith. Of course, it's not from the Koran; it's from the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. Were scriptural determinism true, the world would be a far more dangerous place than even the twenty-four news cycle tries to make us think it is.

You guys are going to have to wait until I write it up in the next few years. Then, it's convert or die! The Objectivist Ethics is a series, properly speaking, of tentative propositions in search of the gold of truth, but it should be understood no matter how close to the truth they'll always be tentative so the working environment consequently demands NIOF, or freedom. That's why its immoral to initiate force and moral not too. We won't get any closer to the gold than that for we can't get any more basic, socially (and tentatively) speaking. --Brant can I be right? Absolutely! Couldn't one of the true propositions -- the final gold you're searching for -- be NIOF? In other words, NIOF is not just an instrument for getting at moral truth, but is one of the [moral] truths.

I haven't seen and might not be able to see this for a while, but I'm hoping it isn't under the spell of what Robert Wright, in his The Evolution of God, calls "scriptural determinism." By that term, he means those "who think that scripture exerts overwhelming influence on the religious thought of believers, and that their social and political circumstances matter little if at all."