Derbyshire v Spencer, Round Three
Round One was John Derbyshire's review of Robert Spencer's %%AMAZON=1596985151 Religion of Peace?-Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't%%. Round Two was Robert Spencer's response. Today, John Derbyshire replies.
I am obliged to Robert Spencer for having taken the time to read my review of his book, but I wish he had read it more carefully. I did not say the things he says I said. I do not think that Christianity and Islam are “equally likely to incite violence.” How could I have any opinion on the matter when, as I admitted, I have not read the Koran? What I actually think is that persons wishing to commit violence will find justification in any text they pick up-the New Testament, the Koran, Science and Health, or the Harry Potter saga. Charles Manson, if memory serves, got his inspiration from a Beatles song about a fairground attraction.
What I said was
* Irreligious people see all religions as equally preposterous.
* This is difficult for believers to grasp.
* So “equivalence” is not merely true or false to a believer, but also baffling and vexing.
* And that (in my opinion) is why Spencer spends too much time (in my opinion) on it in his book.
On circumstantial evidence-among which, I include Spencer’s “persuasive” book-I am inclined to think that Islam offers more and better justifications for militancy than does Christianity. To have a more solid opinion, I’d have to do the kind of deep reading in Islamic scriptures that Spencer has, and I have no intention of doing that.
I do read newspapers and books about current affairs, though, and I can say with much stronger assurance what I said in my review: “in the present state of the world, Islam contains a far higher proportion of crazy troublemakers that does Christianity.” I would not exclude the possibility that in some other state of the world, things might be the other way round. I see religious faith as an intensifier, a dispersive factor on the behavior bell curve, making good people better and bad people worse.
Similarly, I carefully (I hope) qualified my own remarks about Islam with phrases like “so far as the present state of Islam is concerned…” The present state of Islam can be sufficiently divined by reading the newspapers; the deep meaning of Islam’s core doctrines, and their implications, can be extracted only by relentless study such has been undertaken by Spencer, and by all those Islamic clerics who no doubt would like to hotly dispute his conclusions, in some forum I do not wish to be present at.
On the prescriptive front, I am very glad to know (that is not facetious: Spencer is widely read and respected, and I am very glad to know) that we are in broad agreement, though I don’t think the bribery policy is as foolish as he says. Something could be worked out, I am sure. Be that as it may, we-he, since this is really his beat, not mine-should try to get some respectable public figure to come out for separationism. I believe it would have wide public appeal, though those “constitutional niceties” I mentioned might hold us up for a few decades.
The rest of what Spencer says seems to be a call to resurrect the Church Militant. I wouldn’t mind that happening myself. The Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren movie of El Cid was a favorite of my teen years; and one of the (lesser) factors that drove me out of Christianity was that wretched and embarrassing “peace” hug-in my case, a squirm. Give me the Cid and Richard the First any time (though not, please, Richard’s hug).
To one who has recently set down Spencer’s book, though, this call to arms sounds a bit off-pitch. Perhaps the book’s subtitle should be: “Why Christianity is a religion of peace and Islam isn’t, and how I wish it were the other way round!”
British-born John Derbyshire is the author most recently of %%AMAZON=0452288533 Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra.%% His %%AMAZON=0312156499 Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream: A Novel%% was a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year.
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24 Comments
1. David Thomson:In many respects, I am not particulary interested in an abstract debate concerning Islamic vs. Christian theology. This is the only thing we really need to know: there are no major denominations within the Judeo-Christian traditions advocating Jihad! The last time I checked the Pope has not ordered the murder of anyone rejecting the doctrine of the Vrigin Birth. Is Osama bin Ladin an authentic Muslim? Sigh, who cares? We should primarily be concerned about his actual behavior and those of millions of other Islamic adherents throughout the world.
Aug 25, 2007 - 6:06 am 2. patagonianplato:To Pong: Here is the proof. Hot off the presses.
“How could I have any opinion on the matter when, as I admitted, I have not read the Koran?”
also
“To have a more solid opinion, I’d have to do the kind of deep reading in Islamic scriptures that Spencer has, and I have no intention of doing that.”
As I stated, he knows little to nothing about Islamic theology, because he has no intention of doing “deep reading” and has never read the Qur’an. Finally, we have a clear statement from Mr. Derbyshire that he does not possess the requisite background knowledge. I was happy to see him state this so explicitly. Also, I think you do have an opinion and it comes through loud and clear.
“The present state of Islam can be sufficiently divined by reading the newspapers; the deep meaning of Islam’s core doctrines, and their implications, can be extracted only by relentless study such has been undertaken by Spencer,”
No Mr. Derbyshire, the “present state of Islam” cannot be “divined” in this way. This is what the majority of today’s newspaper reporters also believe. However, anyone who gets their knowledge only or even predominately through today’s newspapers is very poorly informed. This is an amazing statement coming from a learned person such as you By the way, when did you get into divination?
I mean no disrespect to you Mr. Derbyshire, but you do not have the bona fides (2 treated as pl. informal a person’s credentials, Oxford Dictionary) to write this review. However, I do agree with Spencer that you are very “entertaining.” For my part, however, I will take informative and/or enlightening, to entertaining, any day.
Aug 25, 2007 - 6:25 am 3. Dan:Derbyshire’s reaction to the book and to Spencer’s rebuttal are disappointing. He gets it exactly backwards, somehow. To wit:
“* Irreligious people see all religions as equally preposterous.
* This is difficult for believers to grasp.”
Ah no – that is not the problem: the problem is that unbelievers, who dominate intellectual life and direct the policies of many major political parties, have great difficulty in distinguishing between faiths, precisely on the grounds that, to an unbeliever, they are all so much nonsense. The resulting conclusion is often “people who believe in such things are equally preposterous, and all their claims are equally harmful.”
Except even a cursory comparison of Islamic and Christian doctrine show quite quickly that any reasonable form of Christianity will enjoin peace, while Islam will counsel submission. If you are inclined to conflate the strategic and moral notions of kings and popes – that is, political figures who live in The World – with the religious denominations they claim blesses their undertaking, whatever it might be, you are simply a slopy thinker, and have not yet entered into the debate Spencer is conducting.
Derbyshire does not make this last point, but that is the critique offered by the bewildered unbelievers everywhere, at least in my experience: since Christians have announced that God has their back in war, have declared God to have relegated the brown people to servitude, or what have you, it must be that Christianity itself urges such conclusions. This is, of course, false, a fact easily discovered.
On the other hand, any Muslim leader can easily find an actual Koranic or legal basis for exactly this kind of conduct; in fact, with a secular and sociological perspective, one must conclude that in fact Islam, almost in its entirety, was formed precisely to fill this role.
When facing a resurgence of Islam, it is necessary to focus our energy on deflating it. It is not necessary that Christians call a crusade, the Western world return to the bossom of the Church, or any such thing. Mr. Spencer is simply trying to neutralize on aspect of the idiot Lefty and paleo- criticism which enervate us by distracting us with equivocal uneducated bullshit masquerading as insight. So Derbyshire do us a favor: you’re old, I know you’ve crawled into an intellectual fetal position and dwell amidst the Midlands of your youth, but please – let us fight, and get out of the way.
Aug 25, 2007 - 7:55 am 4. Benson:The important line that Derbyshire wants us to overlook is his statement that one religion is not “…more or less likely to make us better or worse….” But that is exactly the point: in fact Islam does make people worse than does Christianity. That is not to dispute the fact that some people can appear to be made worse by just about anything; it is to argue that the teachings of Islam are unambiguously dangerous to all non-Muslims, while the Christian precepts are infinitely more benign. As a non-Christian, I acknowledge that as true, while I am critical of many Christian beliefs.
Derbyshire blithely ignores the fundamental role Islam’s holy book plays in making people worse, even though he says, “…Islam contains a far higher proportion of crazy troublemakers that does Christianity.” Why that is the case does not trouble him. It should.
The Koran is not simply another collection of fantasies and confabulations. It is a blunt raison d’etre for catastrophic bloodshed. This bitterly angry book burns with hate and bigotry; its predominant theme is the most horrible violence imaginable, both in this life and the hereafter. Its scenes of peace, tranquility and amity are restricted to the faithful and to a period after the universal caliphate is achieved. Mohammed demonstrated at the Battle of the Great Ditch how merciless and bloody the war to conquer all other faiths must be. When Al Qaeda slaughters innocents, it is following the fell, primitive teachings of the Koran.
Spencer wins this argument — almost by default.
Aug 25, 2007 - 8:11 am 5. venividivici:Irreligious people see all religions as equally preposterous.
Yes, in their abstract doctrines, but when an irreligious person looks at the ethical constructs those doctrines imply in earthly contexts, they are not equally preposterous, because these ethical constructs have implications for our day-to-day life in society, regardless of whether we are pledged to a certain religion or not(at least in a multi-faith society like ours).
You seem to imply that the believer’s actions on earth are just as random as his abstract beliefs, but they aren’t. As an example, pagans believed that sacrificing animals had an impact on the gods, so they sacrificed animals. Christians do not believe that, so they don’t sacrifice animals. Let’s assume everyone in PETA is irreligious. Wouldn’t they still favor Christianity over paganism on this score, even without any dog in the doctrinal fight? This is simply a recognition that ideas have consequences.
As for the passages of the Koran that the Muslim cleric would pull out to show how “peaceful” Islam is, yes, they are there, but they only apply to inter-Muslim ethics. Muslims are supposed to treat each other as brothers, much as the French doctrine of “Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite”. Looking as Islamic societies, this seems more honored in the breach. In any case, all of these wonderful sentiments do not apply to non-Muslims, but, and this is the important point for Mr. Derbyshire to realize, the Muslim cleric won’t tell you that until it’s too late. He will de-contextualize these passages to fool the non-Muslim into thinking Muslims have a universal doctrine of peace. This is the Muslim version of the Trojan Horse, which they are using masterfully to fool naive Westerners who aren’t willing to invest the time to “know the enemy”, and who refuse to believe that those who have invested this time could have, with all due circumspection and caution, found something that upsets the belief system of those who don’t do the looking.
For example, I happen to be a “soft” believer in the virtues of a mulitcultural society. By that I mean I don’t have wet dreams thinking about diversity in the way some people appear to do, but I’m fine with the general doctrine that the US should be open to people from around the world. Even given that belief, there is no way in hell I think that openness should apply to Muslims, since they simply don’t know how to play well with others. You tell a hard-core adherent to the doctrine of multiculturalism that you think there should be an exception made in the case of Muslims and they go postal on you because it offends their pre-existing beliefs, even though, from a purely empirical point of view, a Muslim exception can easily be justified.
In my more pessimistic moments, this is why I come to the conclusion that there will have to be a civil war in the West before we can deal with the Muslim problem. There is simply too much aggressive ignorance about the issues floating around the collective Western mind.
I say all this as an irreligious empiricist with a background in history.
Aug 25, 2007 - 8:24 am 6. Dom:It seems that atheists need as much as anyone else to postulate the tenets of their faith: In the case of Mr Derbyshire, it seems to come down to “All religions are absurd, and therefore could not possibly be different in any meaningful way”.
In this case, the lack of specific knowledge about religions seems to be neatly sealed in a failure to recognize one’s hate of religions, with as much irrationality as they hold the believers to be guilty of in the pursuit of their faith.
The merit of Mr Spencer’s writings is to offer insight into religions, which is a rational pursuit, by a man of faith. This is a public service, I hope eventually as useful to Mr Derbyshire as anyone else.
Aug 25, 2007 - 8:58 am 7. Morton Doodslag:Derbyshire leaves me with the distinct impression that this matter doesn’t rise, in his mind, to the level of grave import that I believe it warrants:
He repeats his promise to not look too closely at Islam — previously describing it as “boring”, this time simply saying he has no intention of looking at doctrinal scriptures any time soon.
There’s a bizarre quality in his non-chalance. He admits he’s far more familiar with Christian doctrine — after all, apparently he once was a nominal Christian. Yet he seems altogether EAGER to treat a doctrine which he professes little to no knowledge whatsoever (Islam) in a dreamy, abstract, intellectual and roughly equivalent manner.
I think this is exactly the purpose of Robert Spencer’s thesis — we treat Islam and all other religious roughly equivalently at our peril, and those who argue such rough equivalency are making a grave mistake and misjudgment.
What would it take for persons such as Derbhyshire to delve a little more deeply into the foundational tenets of Islam?
For me, 9/11 set all my bells and whistles off — and though I am an agnostic, I felt it was an incumbent duty I bore to myself, not to mention the 3,000 dead, to find out what these Islamic maniacs were acting upon.
It didn’t require a deep immersion into the texts of Islam to come to my conclusions. In fact, once I learned a few facts about Islam’s founder Muhammad, and double checked those facts to verify I wasn’t reading misrepresentations of his violence and the atrocities he committed during his lifetime — the fog began to clear, and the motives of both the Jihadis, and the so-called “moderate majority” of Muslims, ALL of whom wish to see Islam dominate became very clear.
I think Derbyshire is tilting at his own windmills of his mind — He feigns a certain level of indifference viz. educating himself about Islam — But in truth I get the impression he is actually exerting effort to keep his head in the sand.
I believe he has placed so much stock in his notion that 1. all religions are roughly equivalent, and 2. that Christianity can be just as bad as Islam if given the proper circumstances, that he has too much invested in his current mindset to learn anything new.
This is truly bizarre. One wonders what it will take to yank the heads of such ostriches out of the sand.
I was an ostrich with my head in the sand when I woke up at 6:50 AM on the West coast. The first building had been struck, and I wiped my bleary eyes and watched, still half asleep, trying to grasp the event. The media was obviously unsettled, but was still discussing the first crash as an “accident”. I got up — brushed my teeth, turned on the shower, and then the second plane hit.
For the first time in my life I did one of those cartoon like double takes in the mirror. Also, in a preposterous fashion, I pinched my face, as they say in the movies, to make sure I wasn’t just having a bad nightmare.
That done, I removed my head from the sand, and truly woke up to a world which hadn’t changed in the slightest — it was I who didn’t understand. It was I who had made the mistakes about assuming too much. On that day, my education about Islam began in earnest.
Aug 25, 2007 - 10:26 am 8. Edith L.:I am also an agnostic and I would like to say “amen” (I know – not the right word) to the eloquent post of Morton Doodslag. I would be interested in Derbyshire’s response to THAT.
Aug 25, 2007 - 10:40 am 9. venividivici:It didn’t require a deep immersion into the texts of Islam to come to my conclusions. In fact, once I learned a few facts about Islam’s founder Muhammad, and double checked those facts to verify I wasn’t reading misrepresentations of his violence and the atrocities he committed during his lifetime — the fog began to clear, and the motives of both the Jihadis, and the so-called “moderate majority” of Muslims, ALL of whom wish to see Islam dominate became very clear.
Exactly. I don’t care what the Muslim doctrine states beyond what it states with regard to non-Muslims. As a non-Muslim, this is all that matters to me and it is undeniable that of all the major world religions, Islam has the biggest problem with those who are not within its fold.
Now, one thing I do know about Islamic doctrine outside of its statements regarding non-believers is that Muslims say that to consider God as being one person in a trinity is blasphemous. Now, theologians can argue this point until the cows come home and I, like Mr. Derbyshire, will happily go off to do something else while that debate occurs. But, I’ll just as happily point out when Muslims lie to us about how their religious doctrine treats those they consider infidels, because that does matter to me, whereas the doctrine about whether the concept of the Trinity is blasphemous does not and I just happened to pick up that knowledge of Islamic doctrine in the course of learning about what they think of me as a non-Muslim.
Aug 25, 2007 - 12:28 pm 10. schnargley:I agree with Mr. Derbyshire that equivalence is natural to the unbeliever like myself because it is all so baffling. Islam has burkhas and Christians have nuns habits. Same, same. Muslims fly planes into buildings screaming ‘Allaha Akbar’ slaughtering thousands of innocents while Christians fly lawyers and ‘experts’ into Kansas to pollute the minds of innocents with Intelligent Design. Millions of Muslims flock robotlike to Mecca to kiss a black rock while Christians pray silently outside abortion clinics. Muslims slowly saw the heads of innocent, helpless, screaming victims off with a dull knife in one hand and a Quran in the other. Jewish rabbis pray over chickens with their holy book before chopping their heads off. Hello?
I agree with the poster who says he is not interested in theological differences between the religions. It is all so irrelevant. Who knows? Maybe next it will be Episcopalians or Buddhists or Joel Ostreen inciting their followers to strap on suicide jackets to blow up children in pizza parlors or to fly planes into office buildings.
It is all so confusing.
Aug 25, 2007 - 1:14 pm 11. Brett_McS:“* Irreligious people see all religions as equally preposterous.”
This is a good example of the logical fallacy of composition. Anyone who makes this kind of assertion instantly marks himself out as a less than adept thinker. The response is:
I, who am irreligious, do not see all aspects of all religions to be equally preposterous. To me, most aspects of Islam are preposterous and most aspects of Christianity are not.
Aug 25, 2007 - 4:10 pm 12. John:Although I am an academic, I am a classical liberal rather than a radical. To wit, I see liberalism and academia as symbiotic organisms on a Christian host because they could not survive on their own. This contradicts the radical viewpoint of Christian society as infancy and secular society as adulthood (e.g., Derbyshire’s notion that even if the church midwifed science, the church should now go away).
Can secular ideology sustain a community beyond the size of a commune? It is an open question, but I am inclined to answer no. The answer is crucial because Christianity is a thousand-fold better than Islam in permitting liberalism. Catholics even teach their young to seek the truth and to continue to uncover more truths–to be scientists and supreme court justices. Many of these pupils, like me, end up thinking that Catholicism is untrue.
Who will die for liberalism in the first ditch rather than the last? I think history yields the answer: Catholics yes and liberals no.
Aug 26, 2007 - 7:16 am 13. David Thomson:“Muslims slowly saw the heads of innocent, helpless, screaming victims off with a dull knife in one hand and a Quran in the other. Jewish rabbis pray over chickens with their holy book before chopping their heads off. Hello?”
Are you saying that you perceive no real difference between a human being and a chicken? Please tell us that you are joking.
Aug 26, 2007 - 10:49 am 14. Philip:I have always been a fan of Derb’s writing, but frankly his review of Spencers book, and his response to Spencers cogent and polite points, would be laughable if they were not so worrying.
In what other area of knowledge would John happily go public with opinions, and when challenged resort to the “I know nothing” defence?
Aug 26, 2007 - 11:04 am 15. Andy Rigrod:As a (near) atheist, I must say I find John Derbyshire’s statements – well written-though they may be – intellectual vacuous in the extreme. How about this whopper?
“* Irreligious people see all religions as equally preposterous.”
Oh, really? Does Derbyshire sincerely wish to equate Zen Buddhism to Wiccan theology? That is dead on stupid, with all due respect.
My feeling about Derbyshire is that he’s a preening narcissist trying to get attention via extreme statements. Pass.
Aug 26, 2007 - 11:27 am 16. Stellaw:A humble note to the esteemed Mr. Derbyshire, from a person who grew up in the middle east among muslim friends and neighbors, for 29 years, I do come from Persian and Arab, backround. The well educated, and or honest muslims admit the flaws in their Quran and its teachings. My best friends are still muslims in this country.
Aug 26, 2007 - 2:34 pm 17. P. Ami:Mr. Spencer`s books and articles are all well written, I personally believe Mr. Derbyshire, maybe just wanted some name recognition!!!!?
P.S. There is no moral comparison between Christianity and Islam.
I can see why Schnargley relates so well to confusion. One who can’t differentiate between killing 3,000 people and those using argumentative techniques to alter opinions has humble abilities in distinguishing between features. One who can’t see the difference between cutting the head off a human, in order to shock his culture, and another who cuts the head off a chicken, so he can eat, well, someone who sees no difference between these things will find himself confused quite often.
Aug 26, 2007 - 5:13 pm 18. boris:A visitor in a strange land encounters two medicine men. One recommends herbal rememdy X for what ails the human condition saying the recipe came to him in a dream from his ancestors. The other recommends potion Y for what ails the human condition saying the recipe was dictated by a voice from the heavens.
The visitor, who call himself a man of science, observes that the people using herbal rememdy X do indeed claim relief from many ailments whereas people using potion Y become addicted and die early.
Since the manner by which both recepies were derived sound equally preposterous the visitor concludes that both are equally worthless.
Aug 26, 2007 - 6:36 pm 19. silvy:I would like to make an intellectual comment, but seems that is already covered in all of the previous posts, so all I have to add is there is a white flag flying in Derbyshire’s window tonight, may Spencer tear it down before the muslims find it! BTW, to compare a peace loving religion to a hate filled one and say they are the same, shows your shame! words are cheap, actions tell what the heart desires! a tree is known by it’s fruit! actions speak louder then words! need I go on? I wish to toss Derbyshire into the middle east reality, not for harm’s sake, but for Truth and reality. I think he see’s it, just not yet ready to admit he has no answers to it’s evil! evil is one ugly stage no one wants to act upon. But only heroes, stand up and name evil for what it truly is! Thank you Spencer for that! Shame on you Derbyshire!
Aug 26, 2007 - 7:12 pm 20. schnargley:P.Ami, Thompson, other victims,
Either my satire is poorly constructed, or the world is simply too convoluted anymore to tell the difference.
Either way, I am crushed.
Aug 26, 2007 - 9:19 pm 21. JihadSpinAdmin:All one has to do is read what the mujahideen, i mean terrorists are saying and writing and the versus they quote from the qur’an and the prophets life and sayings to know what they want. They want us to submit to islam. Of course, Islam in arabic translates to “submit”. Or we could just join the dhimmitude and pay our protection tax so they won’t “terrorize” us any more. read “The Al-Qaeda Reader”
Aug 28, 2007 - 3:03 pm 22. Aine:Question: Where in the OT/NT does it say to kill the “unbeliever”?
Answer: Nowhere.
Koran: Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. 9:5 – and that’s only one instance.
I suggest Mr. Derbyshire read the Koran. Religious people see irreligious people as preposterous.
Aug 28, 2007 - 3:10 pm 23. Aine:Warner: To reiterate, all of science is based upon the law of contradiction. If two things contradict each other, then at least one of them has to be false. But inside of Islamic logic, two contradictory statements can both be true. Islam uses dualistic logic and we use unitary scientific logic.
Since Islam has a dualistic logic and dualistic ethics, it is completely foreign to us. Muslims think differently from us and feel differently from us. So our aversion is based upon fear and a rejection of Islamic ethics and logic. This aversion causes us to avoid learning about Islam so we are ignorant and stay ignorant.
Another part of the aversion is the realization that there is no compromise with dualistic ethics. There is no halfway place between unitary ethics and dualistic ethics. If you are in a business deal with someone who is a liar and a cheat, there is no way to avoid getting cheated. No matter how nice you are to a con man, he will take advantage of you. There is no compromise with dualistic ethics. In short, Islamic politics, ethics and logic cannot be part of our civilization. Islam does not assimilate, it dominates. There is never any “getting along” with Islam. Its demands never cease and the demands must be met on Islam’s terms: submission.
The last reason for our aversion to the history of political Islam is our shame. Islam put over a million Europeans into slavery. Since Muslims can’t be enslaved, it was a white Christian who was the Turkish sultan’s sex slave. These are things that we do not want to face.
Aug 28, 2007 - 3:15 pm 24. Ed Hayes:http://www.islam-watch.org/Others/bill-warner-know-thy-enemy.htm
Derbyshire is wrong. He is a talented writer who made a mistake. He should be a man and admit it.
Aug 29, 2007 - 6:44 am