Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
While I‘ve been trying to take a break from all politics and news as I bask in the glow of my family staying with me this week, I’ve nonetheless been fascinated by the fall of Egyptian President Morsi, in what must be described as a military coup. I’ve never been a fan of coups as I expect is true of most of us, yet the fall of Morsi has raises issues that I think are far more nuanced than appear on the surface. The salient facts are that after too many years the corruption of the government of Hosni Mubarak (who had been installed by the Egyptian military) led to severe economic issues and dissatisfaction with totalitarian rule. This then led to such massive protest that the military felt compelled, or justified to remove him. Mubarak’s removal was cheered, but then the clamor for free elections arose and after 18 months of martial law elections were held, as the first step towards transitioning to democracy and formulating a constitution.
The Society of Muslim Brothers, or Muslim Brotherhood was:“Founded in Egypt in 1928as a Pan-Islamic, religious, political, and social movement by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna,” It’s stated purposes was to: “to instill the Qur’an and Sunnah as the “sole reference point for …ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community … and state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood In a country such as Egypt, with its’ long history of totalitarian rule, the concept of political parties was not strong. Through its 85 years history the Brotherhood became the most stable opposition faction in the Egyptian political scene and was the main focus for opposition to whoever ruled Egypt by dint of the Egyptian Military’s backing. Such has been the success of the Muslim Brotherhood that it has branched out to have a significant presence in 20 nations around the world, many without a Muslim majority, such as the Russian Federation, the Indian Subcontinent, Great Britain and the United States. Therefore when the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 took place, the now legal “Brotherhood” was in an excellent position to vie for political power and formed the “Freedom and Justice Party” as its electoral arm. It won more than 40% of the parliamentary seats and its candidate Mohamed Morsi won election as President with 51.73% of the vote. His chief opponent had been a man who served as Mubarak’s Prime Minister. The Egyptian voters were faced, I think, with a “Hobson’s Choice” of Presidential candidates and chose what they perceived to be the lesser of two evils. Sound familiar? What I will attempt to examine here is a question which is framed as: “Are Religious Fundamentalists capable participating in a pluralistic democratic society?”The stated objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood through its’ “Freedom and Justice Party” politically were certainly ones that few of us could complain about and perhaps soothed the secular voters of Egypt and its non-Muslim Egyptians.
“We believe that the political reform is the true and natural gateway for all other kinds of reform. We have announced our acceptance of democracy that acknowledges political pluralism, the peaceful rotation of power and the fact that the nation is the source of all powers. As we see it, political reform includes the termination of the state of emergency, restoring public freedoms, including the right to establish political parties, whatever their tendencies may be, and the freedom of the press, freedom of criticism and thought, freedom of peaceful demonstrations, freedom of assembly, etc. It also includes the dismantling of all exceptional courts and the annulment of all exceptional laws, establishing the independence of the judiciary, enabling the judiciary to fully and truly supervise general elections so as to ensure that they authentically express people’s will, removing all obstacles restricting the functioning of civil society organizations,etc”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
However, that statement is belied by the following objectives openly acknowledged by the Brotherhood:
“In the group’s belief, the Quran and Sunnah constitute a perfect way of life and social and political organization that God has set out for man. Islamic governments must be based on this system and eventually unified in a Caliphate. The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal, as stated by Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna was to reclaim Islam’s manifest destiny, an empire, stretching from Spain to Indonesia.[21] It preaches that Islam enjoins man to strive for social justice, the eradication of poverty and corruption, and political freedom to the extent allowed by the laws of Islam. The Brotherhood strongly opposes Western colonialism, and helped overthrow the pro-western monarchies in Egypt and other Muslim countries during the early 20th century.
On the issue of women and gender the Muslim Brotherhood interprets Islam conservatively. Its founder called for “a campaign against ostentation in dress and loose behavior”, “segregation of male and female students”, a separate curriculum for girls, and “the prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes … “
“The Brotherhood’s stated goal is to instill the Qur’an and Sunnah as the “sole reference point for …ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community … and state.”
“The Brotherhood’s credo was and is, “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”
This is then the dichotomy of beliefs that the Brotherhood’s political party presented to the Egyptian voter. On the one hand it had denounced violence and agreed to work within the framework of a democratic political process. Yet its’ core beliefs are that (at least within predominantly Islamic countries) they should be ruled by the beliefs of Islamic law and justice in accordance with their interpretation of the “Qur’an” which they believe is perfect. Part of the task of the Morsi government was to create and implement a Constitution for Egypt. It was also promised that his government would include all factions of Egyptian society including the large group of Egyptian Coptic Christians. What occurred though was that Morsi only brought in Brotherhood political allies into the various Ministries of government and created a Constitution that was decidedly Islamic in content. Egypt, which was one of the most enlightened countries in the Mid East in the treatment of women, was being pushed into a far more fundamentalist outlook. This decidedly religious obsession of the Morsi government failed to pay attention to improving Egypt’s collapsing economy, growing poverty and the social unrest that goes with those conditions. Rapes of women increased in alarming increments and crime soared as people sought the wherewithal to feed their families. Cairo, that great and venerable city, increased to a population to more than twenty teeming millions the majority living in horrendous slums. City services in Egypt’s capitol collapsed under the weight of those numbers. The elation of the 2011 Revolution led inexorably to the despair of 2013 as millions of Egyptians, many with nothing to lose took to the streets and gave the Egyptian Military the tacit permission to remove Morsi and arrest the top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is not my intent to paint the Muslim Brotherhood as evil, nor is it to give a litany of their history of violence and terrorism. Such a view is in my opinion one sided and ignores the reality that led to the Brotherhood’s creation and to its success in surviving for 85 years in a hostile Egyptian climate. Historically, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Mid East has been an area controlled by wealth and Western imperial power. While wealthy rulers lived in luxury, the middle classes were relatively small and the masses lived in abject poverty. No doubt from the perspective of the Brotherhood’s founders they were mandated by their beliefs to aid their brother Muslims and to return them to the “perfection” of Islamic Law. Intermingled with those beliefs was the memory of Islamic empire and the determination to return to its’ glory. However, noble their motives may have been and are, within their beliefs is this inherent problem. If you see that everything you believe is “perfect” and mandated by God, then the idea of compromising those beliefs is blasphemy and sacrilege. How indeed can you live in a pluralistic society, when those who reject your beliefs, are by your definition “evil” and “sinful”?
There are two thoughts that arose in my mind and caused me to write this piece. The first is that the entire concept of “Democracy” has been deconstructed through the years by ours and other governments to mean the ability to vote and little else. How often throughout the world have we seen dictatorships legitimized simply because elections were held? A democratic government needs to be supported by democratic institutions and the agreement of its citizens to abide by the results of the electoral processes. Beyond that it needs an overall conceptual structure that provides the framework for the existence of a government that will protect the rights of all the people, not just the ever changing majority. It requires a legal system and a judiciary that protects its conceptual framework (constitution) and with it the rights of the individual. It’s of course more complicated than that, but if you’re a regular visitor here I’m sure you get my meaning and could on your own flesh it out beyond my brief offering. The point is that when the world saw the welcomed upheaval of the “Arab Spring” it had been conditioned by years of propaganda that made simply holding a vote appear to be the acme of a democratic process. There is much more to developing a democratic society than simply voting for a “leader” and the election of Morsi, given his subsequent actions, did not a democratic Egypt make. This leads me to my second thought on this subject.
I seriously wonder whether it is possible for Fundamentalist religionists to actually be able to take power in a democratic society and wield it in a way that allows people of differing beliefs their freedom to have those differing beliefs? When you have a belief system that you not only see as “perfect”, but as the road-map for a perfect society, how can you make the compromises that are necessary to maintain a pluralistic, democratic society? From the perspective of the Muslim Brotherhood, indeed it is their stated goal; you can only build a “perfect” society based on Islamic law and justice. In this respect they are not really very different from other Fundamentalist true believers that see “their way” as the only way towards true righteousness.
When we apply this to America the abortion debate comes to mind. There is no doubt that the majority of Americans do not believe that women should be denied the right to choose what they do with their own bodies, yet in the years since Roe v. Wade this has been one of the flashpoints of the American political scene. The only conceivable, immutable ending for those anti-abortionists to this national controversy, is the complete end of abortions. Compromise of positions can only be temporary and must include small gains for their side. If and when those opposed to abortion finally gain power they will not hesitate to end it completely, regardless of the equity of the situation and a sizable opposition to their actions. I use abortion though as merely an illustration of this problem. There are many other areas, prayer in schools for instance, where the same dynamic would apply. The problems is that when someone sees their views not only as perfect, but also as the only way to live, compromise becomes ugly and unacceptable.
My contention is that without the ability of people to compromise, maintaining democratic institutions becomes impossible. This is true whether in Cairo, or Washington. The nature of much of today’s religious fundamentalism, be it Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Judaic, is that compromise is impossible, because one cannot compromise “God’s Word”. If you are a true believer than that is an obvious fact of existence and you would cease to be a “true believer” without that philosophy. This brings me back to Morsi and Egypt. I hate the idea of military coups anywhere, but what was to be done in Egypt. There is strong evidence, that contrary to their platform, once in power those of the Muslim Brotherhood returned to their stated principles and were moving quickly to establish the version of Muslim Law upon Egypt, while at the same time denying equality of treatment to others. This fanaticism in the application of their beliefs distracted them with dealing with the economic and social problems that plagued most Egyptians and led inevitably to the Egyptian Military’s coup. I think this is a quandary that is at the heart of the difficulty of maintaining a democratic, pluralistic system in many countries, including ours. While is certainly is not the only difficulty, it ranks high on a list of contributors to political dysfunction. The question is what to do about it and the answer is quite difficult. The problem is that if you exclude religious fundamentalists from the political process due to their authoritarian views, then you no longer have a pluralistic society because of that exclusion. In a pluralistic society religious fundamentalists should also have a voice, or when do you stop excluding. Please help me out here because while I can frame the problem I admit that I don’t have the “perfect” answers.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Excellent thread.
Juliet, your comment is a gem with a price above rubies. As I read down the comments I wondered how willing I was to listen to some ‘ad hominum’ yada yada (if you frame it properly you can call someone really awful names and not technically run afoul of that rule) but then there you were, a beacon of wit and wisdom. LOL. Thanks.
Dredd: re water wars, yea, Kashmir is the perfect place for WWIII to start. The protagonists are both nuclear powers, hate each other, have gone to war several times and both want the same patch of land which just happens to be the headwaters of the Indus river system- without which Pakistan just dries up and blows away. Water wars world-wide are going to be a serious future problem.
No Gene, it was the Easter Bunny that told me Randall Flagg is not real.
J Brian: What I ask people to falsify by actually tangible demonstration…
I know your ridiculous premise, which is why I wrote what I did. We have different fundamental beliefs, which we have discussed at length, and we cannot reconcile them. So what I see as clear and compelling falsification of your ridiculous premise, you do not, because you argue in circles using what you think are self-evident axioms and I reject as completely false.
See what I mean? You do not ask others to falsify your beliefs, or when you do, you include the implicit caveat that they must falsify your beliefs within your belief system, which you have constructed (either intentionally or inadvertently) to be unfalsifiable.
Your claim is no different from a religion, which is always constructed in the same way; to be unfalsifiable; and just as full of obfuscation and logical hand-waving and willful blindness to alternative interpretations of events in order to hide the fact that it is all just one long circular argument.
If we do not agree on the fundamentals of what is self-evident (and you and I do not) then I will never be convinced by you, and you will never be convinced by me. But neither of us threatens force to compel the other to recant, so that is not a problem for us or society. We can agree to disagree, authoritarians cannot.
Gene,
Now take that back….. If there’s no Easter bunny….. Then next you’ll say that there’s no tooth fairy…. And if there’s no tooth fairy…. Then…. Christmas Day Jesus wasn’t born….. You nonbelievers…..
“Whether you while away your hours worshiping a non-existent deity or reading Stephen King stories about non-existent monsters is all the same to me, I would prohibit neither.”
What? Randall Flagg isn’t real? I guess you’re going to tell me there is no Easter Bunny next.
DavidM: The real issue at stake is someone who is uncompromising in their support of a particular dogma or ideology.
That is NOT the real issue at stake at all. That is simply freedom of speech and belief. The real issue at stake is one person willing to coerce another person because of the other person’s exercising of freedom of speech in support of religion, ideology, or whatever. The real issue at stake is authoritarianism; the inability to tolerate (and use dictatorial force to suppress and oppress) any belief system but your own. Religious or not.
DavidM: It is difficult to reason with someone who has already defined some particular tenet or dogma in the back of their minds which works to guide their every response and pattern of thought.
I am an uncompromising rationalist, and that works to guide my every response and pattern of thought. I am an atheist, I am a scientist, I will never, ever be “reasoned” into believing in the supernatural. But it is not necessary for you to reason with me or change my mind, because I present no threat to you or your existence: I am not an authoritarian in the political sense of that word, I am a civil libertarian that thinks you have the right to squander your time and energy as you see fit, as long as you do no harm to others. Whether you while away your hours worshiping a non-existent deity or reading Stephen King stories about non-existent monsters is all the same to me, I would prohibit neither.
The problem isn’t with the belief system, the problem is with acting on other people’s belief systems. A person is welcome to their opinion on women dancing, but to claim that women dancing causes any harm to other persons is so far beyond ridiculous that them using force to prevent women from dancing or punishing women for dancing amounts to an effective slavery of women.
The same dictum applies to the Christian’s belief on same sex marriage. People are welcome to believe as they will, even to hate as they will; but when their beliefs combine with authoritarianism to deny others the right to marry, it amounts to an effective slavery of homosexuals. The Christian belief does not trump the homosexual’s belief that homosexual love is real and natural, and to claim that their marriage and commitment causes any harm to others is, like the example of women dancing, so far beyond ridiculous that prohibiting it (or punishing homosexuality) amounts to harm, oppression, and a denial of human rights.
Fundamentalism and a refusal to listen to reason is not the problem. Authoritarianism is the problem; which is using force to prohibit others their own fundamentalism and a refusal to accept the authoritarian’s “reasoning.”
Tony C – Bringing up homosexual marriage is probably a good example of how your mindset is not neutral in regards to religious fundamentalism. From your perspective, the Christians “deny others the right to marry.” I do not perceive this to be the perspective of the Christians.
From the perspective of the Christians, they want to preserve a definition of marriage that includes opposite sex unions and reproduction. They want the law to define the same sex union in a way that is distinct from opposite sex unions because the two types of unions have inherent differences. Furthermore, virtually all the laws passed using the term “marriage” were passed using reasoning with the concept of opposite sex marriage and reproduction in mind. To change the definition of marriage to include same sex unions is simply a way to hijack laws passed when marriage had a different meaning. This is not a responsible path of progress.
You further add on by saying that the Christian belief does not trump the homosexual’s belief that homosexual love is real and natural. What Christian has ever said such a thing? The love of the homosexual is just as real and natural as anybody else’s love. Some might have argued that the unions are not natural in that sex is designed for reproduction and meant to be used toward that purpose, but I don’t think I have heard anyone say that their love is not real or natural. They are encouraged to love each other, just without the sex. I have heard some express the idea that homosexuals confuse the role of sex in love and thereby confuse lust with love.
You also add that Christians claim that their marriage and commitment causes harm to others and that such is ridiculous. It causes harm in the sense of mixing same sex union under the banner traditionally used for opposite sex unions, creating a way to hijack laws under which reasoning was used with opposite sex unions in mind. Harm also is caused by blurring the distinction that exists between same sex unions and opposite sex unions. It is only your own bias that blinds you from recognizing the logic of this. Your pretension that your atheism is neutral in matters of governing over those with fundamental beliefs is falsified by bringing up this example of society’s desire to change the definition of marriage. Your atheism affects your judgment and interpretations of facts in the same way that theism affects my judgments and interpretations of facts.
Oro,
Good catch on the distinction between Hobson’s Choice and Morton’s Fork.
Brian,
I find that you appear to me to be neither qualified or competent to decide what is or isn’t a just and equitable legal system for dispute resolution.
When beliefs are based on justified killing for God’s sake (death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations), there cannot be another way. You have two choices; my way or the highway to hell/heaven.
The current crop of Southern GOP religious fanatics is less physically violent, but their views have many similarities to the Muslim Brotherhood. Damn the tenets of democracy in pursuit of bastardized Biblical beliefs. I think you could probably write a column that asks, ‘GOP Christian extremist or Taliban/Muslim Brotherhood’ and find that they cross many a belief path.
You can add the destruction of voter protection laws to that list as well, since many in the GOP want voters to better fit their majority, which is very white and very Christian.
David,
I don’t have an aversion to principled ideologies. Just ignorant ones whose adherents think they can force their beliefs on others.
I can also pin down precise definitions of socialism as well. Numerous forms of it. Would you like to go down that path?
“Let me just say that people in Egypt look to government to control their future much more than most Americans do. They look to government for jobs, housing, to direct them on the streets…”
Really? And you know this how? Exactly?
“pretty much everything. I have read that 35 to 40% of Egyptians earn less than the equivalent of $2 per day. About two million of them are extremely rich, and in between is its middle class.”
None of which invalidates what was said.
“Have you ever been to Egypt?”
Have you?
“Do you base your opinion on experience or on what you read through the lens of reporters and authors presenting their own ideology?”
No. I can read basic information and draw my own conclusions without someone else providing analysis.
“If you have been there and talked with many Egyptians, I would think you would be struck with the cultural difference between them and us in how they look to government like a parent to provide and guide them. That, from my perspective, is socialism.”
Then you don’t know socialism from authoritarianism.
“If you see socialism differently, feel free to define the correct term to be used in this situation.”
Socialism is not one thing, but many different forms in practice. There is no single encapsulating definition but the common traits are social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy where systems of production and distribution organized to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs. This is done as a public trust so that goods and services are produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital (free market capitalism). It does not mean that the economy is necessarily planned (as it was in the extremist form Communism). Most forms of socialism in fact are a blend of market capitalism and market socialism and can be either self-managed (as in the democratic socialism of Norway or Sweden) or state managed (as in the nationalized socialism of the U.K.).
Gene H wrote: “Any philosophy which is literal-minded, accepts no deviation from their orthodoxy or believe they are the sole source of objective truth is fundamentalist.”
That is a pretty broad definition.
Doesn’t mean it’s not accurate.
“Many non-religious ideologies fit this definition. For example, a secularist might swear allegiance to the Constitution when taking office, and thereby accept no deviation from the orthodoxy of the Constitution. Do you therefore make a distinction between religious fundamentalism and secular fundamentalism?”
Already answered.
“Is your real aversion directed toward religion or perhaps the idea of absolute truths?”
No. My real aversion is to charlatans who claim to know absolute truths without scientifically valid evidence and based on ancient fairy tales.
“Is it possible that you combine the two terms to obfuscate the issue and thereby continue to further a bigotry against a certain ideological group in our society?”
I make no secret that I’m bigoted against willful ignorance.
“My concern about the term “religious fundamentalist” is that it creates a stereotype of others into which people categorize others. It is very much like the racial bigotry of anti-Semitism or using the n word in regards to the black race. The primary difference is that it is based upon someone holding to an uncompromising ideology rather than race.”
Awwwwww. That’s just sad. You’re really going with that argument?
“Once a person is placed into that stereotype, the person putting them there or labeling them as such uses bigotry, a prejudgment system, by which to evaluate whatever else that person says. It is every bit as wrong as the fundamentalist himself being uncompromising in his position.”
Really. Have I described anything about fundamentalism that isn’t correct? Is it not is literal-minded? Does it accept deviation from their orthodoxy? Don’t religious fundamentalists believe they are the sole source of objective truth and that is in some way their “duty” to make everyone think the same way? Sound more like accurate instead of the oversimplification of a stereotype.
“Ultimately, history has shown us that such a system leads to all manner of evil, especially when practiced by governmental authority.”
Really. You don’t say. Then that just makes a really strong argument for a secular government doesn’t it?
“I much prefer the term “ideologue” to “fundamentalist.” The real issue at stake is someone who is uncompromising in their support of a particular dogma or ideology.”
I don’t care what you prefer. A rose by any other name . . .
“It is difficult to reason with someone who has already defined some particular tenet or dogma in the back of their minds which works to guide their every response and pattern of thought.”
Like fundamentalist?
“The term “fundamentalist” as normally defined is someone who believes literally in some sacred text, such as the Holy Bible or the Holy Quran.”
I did mention literal mindedness, didn’t I?
“To make the case that anyone who believes in the Bible, or the Quran, or some other sacred text is thereby incompatible with pluralism and democracy seems like a rather foolish concept to me.”
But it is. That belief that you are the sole provider of absolute truths brooks no deviation from your orthodox dogma? Is precisely the antithesis of pluralism. Fundamentalism is a form of monism. Because such beliefs are inherently top down, they are inherently authoritarian, which is an antithetical concept to democracy where power rests in the people, not the titular head of an organization or a specific ideology.
“Exceptions arise everywhere, especially when we trace the history of champions of liberty, tolerance and democracy to theists like John Locke or William Blackstone who believed in the Bible.”
So what? Our Constitution wasn’t written by Locke or Blackstone. The Founders could have specifically made this a theist state, but instead they went with a secular form of government as evidenced by the 1st Amendment.
“I agree with Jefferson’s comments on separation of church and state, but I wonder why you single him out and avoid someone like John Witherspoon, clearly a founding father who was a fundamentalist, who had signed the Declaration of Independence and who also fought for the separation of church and state, pluralism and democracy.”
Wonder all you like. However, if you actually knew anything about Witherspoon, you’d know he wasn’t a fundamentalist. He was a Presbyterian with a rather evolved view of private and public morality who though public morality should be pursued as a science free from sectarian ideology. Fascinating guy. You should read about him some time.
“Is it because Jefferson was among those less likely to be called a fundamentalist?”
One cannot be what one is not.
“While Jefferson rejected the Bible in total, he learned Greek and Hebrew and studied the Bible in the original languages, creating his own version of the Bible based upon the words of Jesus, a Bible which he personally believed was inerrant. In that sense, Jefferson too was a fundamentalist in regards to his own version of the Bible.”
Not at all and that’s a ridiculously self-contradictory statement. One cannot be a Biblical literalist if one does as Jefferson did and rewrite to take out all the spooky language and contradictions. Jefferson, as evidenced above, did not care about the religious beliefs of others nor to force his beliefs upon them. And might I add . . . “I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789. Which leads to . . .
“Even more interesting to me is how far away from Jefferson the modern atheist movement has gone in its peculiar dogma of Separation of Church and State. Jefferson not only allowed church to be held every Sunday in the Nation’s Capital, he regularly attended church there in the House of Representatives. Even the nation’s Marine band played for the church at times, something the modern atheist today would object to on so-called Constitutional grounds, supposedly violating their interpretation of the principles of separation of church and state.”
Attending a social function does not make one a congreationalist. And apparently you don’t understand the Separation of Church and State very well. Also you seem to miss that atheists are just as capable of fundamentalism is you Christians are. A fundamentalist atheist would want all religion banned as ridiculous children’s stories. Not all atheists are fundamentalists though just like not all Christians are. That’s why there is a reason to distinguish the fundamentalists of every stripe from the rest of their nominal brethren.
“Getting back to Egypt, the situation is complex and any explanation would need to include a multiplicity of factors. I certainly think religious ideology plays a role, authoritarianism plays a role, fundamentalism plays a role, but the biggest culprit in my mind is the way the people have been raised to look to government as the controller of the means of production. It has created a society where people work less and look to government to define and assign jobs to them.”
And you’d be wrong as your understanding of the Egyptian economy is based on wrong definitions and a lack of understanding about the basic products of their economy and how their government essentially has acted to further a plutocracy rather than redistribute wealth in a more equitable means.
“A principle that I think is much greater than the idea of democracy is one sometimes called the American Dream. It is the idea that any person has the inherent freedom to work hard and better his situation on his own with a minimal amount of government interference and regulation.”
Nowhere in the Constitution are you promised a minimum of governmental regulation. In fact, you are promised that Congress may enact any regulation necessary and proper to fulfill its otherwise Constitutional and legal mandates.
“This principle also is called capitalism. It is an economic system based upon the private individual rather than government reliance, and it connects with the idea that the individual has a right to profit from his labor and ingenuity.”
Too bad capitalism isn’t mentioned once in the Constitution. No particular economic system is endorsed at all – although there is a strong argument for an implicit endorsement of democratic socialism to be found in the General Welfare Clause.
I like watching that vein throb in your forehead.
“It would be difficult to convey such a view intellectually to the Egyptian people, but it is a more likely solution than trying to convince them or anybody else that the problem in Egypt is their religious fundamentalism.”
Really. Because they seem to have a problem with fundamentalists being in power so I’m pretty sure they’ve got a problem with religious fundamentalism.
Gene H wrote: “Fundamentalism is a form of monism. Because such beliefs are inherently top down, they are inherently authoritarian, which is an antithetical concept to democracy where power rests in the people, not the titular head of an organization or a specific ideology.”
Let me outline for you a form of fundamentalism that is not antithetical to democracy. From the sacred writings of the Bible, we determine the following axioms to be true:
1) In Jesus Christ is found salvation and all knowledge, wisdom, and truth.
2) Christ touches and influences every individual who has ever been born.
3) No single individual on earth is perfect in knowledge and has a complete understanding of Christ and God.
4) No single individual on earth has such direct contact with God that he can learn all he needs to learn by that direct contact.
5) In order to comprehend the fullness of God, each individual must receive and learn that through relationship with other individuals in society.
6) Close communion with each individual in the community is the only way in which God can be fully seen and understood by every member in society. It is necessary to both speak and hear each other, to both give and receive from each other, for every person to submit unto others in the community in order for society to fully comprehend God and to have harmony and true peace.
Such axioms would be deemed to be religious fundamentalism through both your definition and the more commonly accepted definition of belief in a sacred text. However, if you apply logic to these axioms, surely you see that they lead away from authoritative rule and toward democracy.
Here are some exact texts from the Bible, that if believed upon as many religious fundamentalists do, lead us away from authoritative rule rather than toward it.
But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
(Matthew 20:25-28)
But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
(Mark 10:42-45)
And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.
(Luke 22:24-27)
But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
(Matthew 23:8-12)
The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
(1 Peter 5:1-6)
I might point out in regards to this last passage that “the elders” are the church leadership. The early church did not have single pastors like most churches today have. Instead they had a council of elders, much like many cities have a city council in an effort to represent the will of all the people. In this passage, we see the exhortation by Peter for them not to function as lords but to be examples. Clearly, this is advancing non-authoritative fundamentalism.
If you still fail to see how this fundamentalism contradicts your thesis that fundamentalism is inherently authoritarian and antithetical to democracy, you might consider the irony that you are the one who operates from a fundamentalist perspective, that you prefer your own monologue instead of true dialogue, that you speak from the perspective that only your view is the correct one, that everyone else must bow to your perspective of the world, and that your position of authority is the only one that has value and deserves respect.
My last reply to you got lost in WordPress. Maybe the moderator can find it?
Davidm####,
Gene is absolutely correct. A belief system does not have to be rational, and many belief systems are faith based. Faith and rationality are incompatible if they try to occupy the same space. What I know to be true though empirical testing of the evidence is quite different from what I believe or suspect. If you cannot show baseline data and that it can be replicated, then you have no way to prove it is a fact.
If a Muslim is absolutely convinced Islam is the only correct belief, and a Christian is convinced Christianity is the only correct belief, then somebody has to be wrong. The elephant in the room is that BOTH may be wrong.
I profess my ignorance of this question, but what great acts of genocide, i.e, the violent dispossession and deaths of millions, do Muslims have to their credit? I know of at least two for the Christians.
Johnathan Hughes: “The Muslim religion is more oppressive and evil than the religious people Jesus faced.”
That may or may not be true (and it probably isn’t), but it isn’t any more oppressive than that which the Native Americans faced (and still do).
Many people use the term “Hobson’s Choice” when they really mean either a “Morton’s Fork,” or a dilemma.
As Oro Lee points out, Hobson’s Choice is a binary choice. Take it or leave it. Morton’s Fork is a forced choice between two equivalent options. A dilemma is a forced choice between two undesirable options.
The movie Sophie’s Choice was based on a dilemma.
One small nit, Mike: A Hobson’s Choice is a “take it or leave” option. The term is believed to have described the practice of a livery stable owner who offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or none at all.
The Egyptians had real choices in the presidential election, really bad choices. In this respect my sympathies for the Egyptian voters is the same which I have for American voters.
Tony C.:
What I ask people to falsify by actually tangible demonstration is the happening of one or more actually avoidable accidents or actually avoidable mistakes.
All people have ever done so far is to concoct intangible hypotheticals and cite the scientific errors of the past as though those errors were not errors.
Demonstrate the actual happening of an accident or mistake, and then demonstrate that the accident or mistake that actually happened was actually avoidable because it was actually avoided and did not happen when and as it did happen.
Do that, and my bioengineering research work and findings will be falsified.
These resource problems of Western Civilization, which I mentioned in my comment just up-thread, could lead to military coups in several other nations.
Especially the U.S. where the military NSA already spies on every citizen, has trained police forces in military tactics, and has a plan for widespread military deployment in the U.S., coordinated with local police forces.
Mike alluded to this dynamic as well:
The citizens of the U.S. seem to think that the most competent institution of all American institutions is the military:
(Stockholm Syndrome on Steroids? – 2). Americans seem to think much like the Egyptians seem to think.
When the Egyptians have a problem with civil government, they see the military solving their problem.
Is this next for the U.S.eh?
Religion may be the least of the problems.
As I pointed out in my comment up-thread, Winston Churchill’s fundamentalist belief in “The Battle of Armageddon” led him to successfully urge the British Empire to switch its Navy from coal to oil as a source of power.
That necessitated imperialistic control of petroleum resources in the Middle East, which became the main dynamic –even though the expected battle of Armageddon did not materialize as expected.
Resources are not going to be taken out of the equation, even if religion is:
(Peak Water).
Gene H.:
I find that you appear to me to be neither qualified or competent to truthfully inform me that my work as a bioengineer is not dishonest and deceptive, but simply wrong.
Within your life experience frame of reference, I am entirely content to accept that you find my work to be simply wrong. My life experience frame of reference appears to me to have some aspects which differ profoundly from your life experience frame of reference.
One such may be my being, methinks, correctly labeled as a form of autistic savant, and, as best I can discern, one of the sort of autistic savants that Fond du Lac, Wisconsin psychiatrist, Darrold Treffert, who has made an intensive study of savant syndrome, deems to be a prodigious autistic savant, in that I have, and use long term working memory, as demonstrated rather vividly with a Quantitative Electroencephalogram (QEEG) done circa 1990.
I work in accord with the requirement of the State of Wisconsin, as a Registered Professional Engineer, in accord with the Code of Ethics of the National Society of Professional Engineers.
http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/index.html
From that Code:
I. Fundamental Canons
Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:
Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
Perform services only in areas of their competence.
Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
Avoid deceptive acts.
Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession.
My work in holding paramount the public safety, health, and welfare is unriddling the human enigma of deception. In doing that work in accord with the NSPE Code of Ethics, I am required to avoid deceptive acts.
For my work to be within the realm of ethical professional engineering, I have needed to understand deception with essentially perfect accuracy, as any actual deception in my bioengineering research would inescapably comprise a deceptive act in and of itself.
In part in response to shattering abuse during my time in second grade at Marshall School, in Eureka, California, in the fall of 1947, at the beginning of third grade, my family having fled from Eureka because of said shattering abuse, I began the unriddling of deception using college, graduate school, and higher level books and other resources my family had.
Early during third grade, reading William S.Sadler, Theory and Practice of Psychiatry, I found only one condition therein that explained my second grade shattering abuse experience; I was, and am, autistic. For me, my primary care physician regards my being autistic to be “a proven diagnosis.”
When I state that I find the American Bar Association to be a religious cartel, and the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Law and Jurisprudence to be an unconstitutional religious establishment, I make that public statement, as a professional engineer, only in an objective and truthful manner, doing so honorably, “responsibly,” ethically and lawfully (though not necessarily legitimately under color of law) so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession of engineering.
I am making that public statement in unconditional and unqualified terms because, if it can truthfully be demonstrated that I have thereby violated the Code of Ethics of the National Society of Professional Engineers, someone need to get my professional engineering license revoked.
How confident am I in the scientific accuracy and validity of my bioengineering-based modeling of deception and trauma as being of moral injury in the form of neurological injury in the form of brain-scan-observable physical brain damage? Exactly 100.000… (where “…” signifies infinitely repeating decimal) percent.
While I accept that, within your frame of reference, you find me to be simply wrong, I find that you are as truthful as your frame of reference permits you to be.
As for your belief, “No better alternative is likely to be had either so long as people disagree,” In a world where disagreement is viciously rampant, I have lived a (or “the”?) alternative for the whole of my life, without a moment of exception, testing it’s scientific validity with ever increasing scientific expertise.
The better alternative to adversarial procedure in the presence of disagreement is named “dialogue”.
Exempli gratia:
http://www.david-bohm.net/dialogue/dialogue_proposal.html
I understand that, in principle, though not in practice for me, for a non-professional engineer to publicly state that a professional engineer, in the engineer’s area of professional expertise, “is simply wrong,” is actionable when false. Ever hear of libel?
I make no threat. I cannot, on engineering ethics grounds, sue people for their scientific and engineering ignorance.
J. Brian: Because I ask people to falsify my expressed beliefs, I surmise that I may actually not be a fundamentalist.
Sort of depends on what you will accept as falsification. If it is your belief that 1+1=123, then how do I falsify that? Tell you that you are wrong and 1+1=2? If I hold a red marble and a blue marble in my hand, and say that is two marbles, and you say No, that is 123 marbles, then we have different fundamental beliefs, and you disagree because I failed to prove you wrong within your fundamental belief system.
That might sound like a ridiculous example, but the same principle is at play if person A says, “Taxation is a coerced taking of money, and therefore theft,” and person B says “Taxation is a partnership share of profit coming due, and coercion is sometimes a necessary act to collect an outstanding debt.”
Person A and Person B can have different fundamental beliefs; person A does not believe society has made any contribution to their success, person B does believe society has made a contribution (safety, protection and infrastructure) to their success.
Unless person B can convince person A to change their fundamental belief, person B cannot falsify the belief of person A.
Falsification ultimately depends on the fundamentals of one’s belief system.