[Assam] Defenders of the Faith -NYT Op ed

[Dilip/Dil Deka]

Do you want my vote on it? I agree that organized religion has done more harm than good. 
  Dilip

Ram Sarangapani <assamrs at gmail.com> wrote:
    You are welcome C'da. And see I am not that "lungi kheda" anti this or anti that (of religions) that some often would like to paint me as. :)
   
  I too think this was a brilliant piece. Organized religion has done more harm than good to the world, IMHO.
   
  --Ram

 
  On 3/16/06, Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:   Thanks for sharing it Ram.One of the finest
pieces I have read on the subject with reference
to current events. Brilliant! 

c-da










At 12:28 PM -0600 3/16/06, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>This is an interesting article and advances the
>importance of Atheism in the world religious
>order. I think, many of us (even though we claim 
>to belong to some religion or the other) will
>find the benefits of Atheism.
>
>______________________________
>
>Defenders of the Faith
>By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
>
>London
>
>FOR centuries, we have been told that without
>religion we are no more than egotistic animals
>fighting for our share, our only morality that
>of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said,
>can elevate us to a higher spiritual level.
>Today, when religion is emerging as the
>wellspring of murderous violence around the
>world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or
>Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and 
>perverting the noble spiritual messages of their
>creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about
>restoring the dignity of atheism, one of
>Europe's greatest legacies and perhaps our only
>chance for peace? 
>
>More than a century ago, in "The Brothers
>Karamazov" and other works, Dostoyevsky warned
>against the dangers of godless moral nihilism,
>arguing in essence that if God doesn't exist, 
>then everything is permitted. The French
>philosopher André Glucksmann even applied
>Dostoyevsky's critique of godless nihilism to
>9/11, as the title of his book, "Dostoyevsky in
>Manhattan," suggests. 
>
>This argument couldn't have been more wrong: the
>lesson of today's terrorism is that if God
>exists, then everything, including blowing up
>thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted - 
>at least to those who claim to act directly on
>behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to
>God justifies the violation of any merely human
>constraints and considerations. In short,
>fundamentalists have become no different than 
>the "godless" Stalinist Communists, to whom
>everything was permitted since they perceived
>themselves as direct instruments of their
>divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress
>Toward Communism.
>
>During the Seventh Crusade, led by St. Louis,
>Yves le Breton reported how he once encountered
>an old woman who wandered down the street with a
>dish full of fire in her right hand and a bowl 
>full of water in her left hand. Asked why she
>carried the two bowls, she answered that with
>the fire she would burn up Paradise until
>nothing remained of it, and with the water she
>would put out the fires of Hell until nothing 
>remained of them: "Because I want no one to do
>good in order to receive the reward of Paradise,
>or from fear of Hell; but solely out of love for
>God." Today, this properly Christian ethical 
>stance survives mostly in atheism.
>
>Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good
>deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn
>salvation; atheists do them simply because it is
>the right thing to do. Is this also not our most 
>elementary experience of morality? When I do a
>good deed, I do so not with an eye toward
>gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did
>not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A
>moral deed is by definition its own reward. 
>David Hume, a believer, made this point in a
>very poignant way, when he wrote that the only
>way to show true respect for God is to act
>morally while ignoring God's existence.
>
>Two years ago, Europeans were debating whether 
>the preamble of the European Constitution should
>mention Christianity as a key component of the
>European legacy. As usual, a compromise was
>worked out, a reference in general terms to the
>"religious inheritance" of Europe. But where was 
>modern Europe's most precious legacy, that of
>atheism? What makes modern Europe unique is that
>it is the first and only civilization in which
>atheism is a fully legitimate option, not an
>obstacle to any public post. 
>
>Atheism is a European legacy worth fighting for,
>not least because it creates a safe public space
>for believers. Consider the debate that raged in
>Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, my home 
>country, as the constitutional controversy
>simmered: should Muslims (mostly immigrant
>workers from the old Yugoslav republics) be
>allowed to build a mosque? While conservatives
>opposed the mosque for cultural, political and 
>even architectural reasons, the liberal weekly
>journal Mladina was consistently outspoken in
>its support for the mosque, in keeping with its
>concern for the rights of those from other
>former Yugoslav republics. 
>
>Not surprisingly, given its liberal attitudes,
>Mladina was also one of the few Slovenian
>publications to reprint the infamous caricatures
>of Muhammad. And, conversely, those who
>displayed the greatest "understanding" for the 
>violent Muslim protests those cartoons caused
>were also the ones who regularly expressed their
>concern for the fate of Christianity in Europe.
>
>These weird alliances confront Europe's Muslims 
>with a difficult choice: the only political
>force that does not reduce them to second-class
>citizens and allows them the space to express
>their religious identity are the "godless"
>atheist liberals, while those closest to their
>religious social practice, their Christian
>mirror-image, are their greatest political
>enemies. The paradox is that Muslims' only real
>allies are not those who first published the 
>caricatures for shock value, but those who, in
>support of the ideal of freedom of expression,
>reprinted them.
>
>While a true atheist has no need to boost his
>own stance by provoking believers with 
>blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem
>of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect
>for other's beliefs. Respect for other's beliefs
>as the highest value can mean only one of two
>things: either we treat the other in a
>patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order
>not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the
>relativist stance of multiple "regimes of
>truth," disqualifying as violent imposition any 
>clear insistence on truth.
>
>What, however, about submitting Islam - together
>with all other religions - to a respectful, but
>for that reason no less ruthless, critical
>analysis? This, and only this, is the way to 
>show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them
>as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.
>
>Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the
>Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the 
>author, most recently, of "The Parallax View."
>
>
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