The problem is not with the Religion - it is with various
interpretations of the religion. And it is a myth that there is a
"majority" available to counteract or condemn the "minority"
Take the obscene group of "Christians" that like to protest at military
funerals claiming "the death is a good thing because it is God's
punishment for tolerating gays." Or the group that financed the film
at issue the last few days. (Or Mel Gibson's father's church.) ....
Following Owen's argument we should see almost every other person who
professes to be a Christian denounce this kind of base
misinterpretation of their Religion. But it does not happen - because
"they" are not "us" and so we do not have to explain, apologize or
denounce. Only a few political and religious leaders will react - the
Archbishop of Santa Fe, for example, stated that those people are not
following the precepts of the Christian religion and should be
ignored. Note: no one said they should be expelled, excommunicated,
from Christianity or that Christians were in any way responsible - even
though the extreme position is grounded in another, more mainstream
interpretation of what the Bible may or may not say about
homosexuality. Hussein Abbas' eloquent response is a personal example
of exactly this kind of phenomenon.
There is an exact parallel evident in the middle east today. Yesterday
I heard two imams, the president of Egypt, and the president of Yemen
state that Islam provided no excuse for the violence - that blasphemy
is not an excuse for violence, even to the blasphemer. (Homenei's
famous fatwa against Salman Rushdie was denounced by a majority of
other imams.) Also heard were promises to seek out and punish the
perpetrators (hard there and equally hard here because of the rule of
law). In Pakistan, it is the imams that are denouncing the morons that
apparently framed and wanted to put to death a young women with mental
development issues, for blasphemy.
Owen will never see the reaction he seeks - here, there, anywhere -
because sectarianism in every religion means there is no "majority"
that can react and that every sect sees themselves as apart from "those
idiots over there" and therefore Not Responsible. Nevertheless,
Individual leaders, religious and political, do and are currently doing
exactly what Owen asks - denouncing, pointing out misinterpretations,
apologizing (for faith and for country) for the miscreants, asking for
understanding, and promising all possible corrective action/punishment.
Is it our own insistence to treat a highly diverse group as a
monolithic bloc the real root of the problems? Coupled, of course,
with our unwillingness to truly examine and understand our own religion
let alone that of someone else.
dave west
On Thu, Sep 13, 2012, at 09:25 PM, Hussein Abbass wrote:
Owen
While I am an IT professor, I am very backward in using
blogs and almost incapable of expressing myself in emails or otherwise.
Your question would be better discussed in a long session with lots of
coffees and chocolates J
I do not normally put my Moslim hat on; almost never
because I see religion as a relationship between me and God that is no
one else business. Therefore, my actions are my responsibilities and if
I do something good I take the reward personally so why when I do
something bad should my religion, or any dimension of my identity be
blamed.
But your question was interesting. Not just from
complexity perspective, from many other dimensions that once more,
writing long emails would not send the right message through.
Sometimes the good Moslims (whatever this means and in
whose eyes) do not respond simply because they do not agree with the
premise. The premise of the religion as the centre for conflict. The
premise that we should be blamed for our belief. The premise that I
should spend my time justifying someone else actions simply because
there is a perception that I and them share something in common because
it is written in my passport or on a system somewhere. If I believe in
doing good, I would like to invest my time in that, and not invest my
time to defend bad when bad was not my action in the first place.
So call it an ego-centric or whatever, this is I. In
Islam, when we do good, we should not talk about it because we are
doing it to fulfil a sacred commitment to God. In fact, there is a
premise that you should hide the good you are doing to get a better
reward from God. This is too complicated to explain in an email!
Some of us just do not wish to be bothered to defend or discuss the bad
because the time and resources to spend on doing good alone are very
limited. The world is full of opportunities to do good, why should we
spend the time to discuss the bad!
Sometimes also if we wish to explain concepts properly,
you would not do it properly in a simple email or a simple discussion.
There are things that can take a long time to understand before we can
use them to explain!
If this sounds a weak argument, we have to dig down to
the roots to see what defines weak and strong arguments; and that is a
long discussion!
If I want to use a complexity lens, the Egyptian reply
was a choice they made on a Pareto curve. If someone seriously wishes
to understand it, they will need to analyse in details the underlying
axes for this Pareto curve, the sources of anti-correlation, and the
interaction of the utility functions. Only then, they will see the
complex dilemma setting at the roots of this reply as compared to a
possibly artificial politically correct reply that some people expect.
If the above is a starting point for a discussion, next
time you visit Australia, drop by and we can attempt to resolve it all
on a nice cup of coffee with nice dark chocolates J
Kind regards
Hussein
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Friday, 14 September 2012 3:01 AM
To: Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya |
The Economist
The Economist sent out their weekly email, which included a story on
the Libya fiasco: [1]http://goo.gl/0mfCW
This reminded me of one of my possibly Politically Incorrect notions:
Why don't the civilized muslim world attempt to counter this insanity
on the part of their fundamentalists? At least some attempt to
apologize for My Religion, The Bad Parts? God knows I do!
We had an imam visit the cathedral in Santa Fe to discuss the
simplicity and beauty of his religion. Some questions were asked about
The Bad Parts, in a very civilized manor. The conversation was sane,
polite, and certainly informative.
What if the Vatican sent out a hit squad for all the similar
anti-Christian movies or other inflammatory media? Or the Buddhists
sent ninjas after non-believers? Or the Jews killed Dutch cartoonists?
What I'm getting at is this: why *isn't* there a strong community of
sane and vocal muslims at least trying to communicate to the rest of
us?
Please do understand that this is not a rant against religion, but more
of a puzzled look at an insane situation. And Yes, I really wish we'd
keep our nose out of other's affairs. I'm not trying to be a bigot.
But I truly would like to grok this phenomenon.
What am I missing? Good complexity question, I bet.
-- Owen
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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References
1. http://goo.gl/0mfCW
2. http://www.friam.org/
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
