Benno Barnard's Unpresented Talk in Antwerp
Orthodox Icon of Christ
I recently inquired about Benno Barnard's unpresented talk in Antwerp, "Long Live God, Away with Allah," and I see today that he has supplied excerpts to the Dutch-language newspaper Knack, from which I freely translate selections here, again courtesy of Google Translate and my many years in Germany:
Knack for Benno Barnard, who writes freely what he could and could not tell on the platform of academic freedom.Thus Barnard's talk. Some of it, anyway. I've left out a few passages, but anyone interested can go to Knack to copy and paste the whole article into Google Translate and obtain a readable English version of the excerpts provided by Barnard.
Note from the Author:
At the request of the editors, I post here some excerpts from my aborted reading the "Free Service" of the University of Antwerp. The title is indeed a provocation -- although I intended to provoke an audience of middle-class liberals. Meanwhile, to my mind, there is nothing in the following that I have not already said, but repetition is the servant of truth. Also, of course, of the lie, but you have to look elsewhere for that, for example in [the Belgian newspaper] De Morgan.
Prologue (Paraphrasing Shakespeare)
I warn you, dear audience -- I have not come to praise liberalism, I have come to bury its fundamental mistake. That fallacy is that 'religion' is the enemy of any intellectual independence and spiritual progression. And the premise of this fallacy is that the legacy of Moses and Christ can be interpreted in a similar way could as the legacy of the Prophet.
I want to prove that this is dangerous nonsense, that liberalism is precisely a logical product of the Jewish and Christian tradition -- yes, that atheism has biblical roots!
. . .
The Jewish roots of Christianity
As a connoisseur of the ancient Hebrew language and Hebrew literature, my father raised me with the realization that Christianity at its core is a large sect of Judaism. In summary, this means the following.
The ancient Jews decided that scapegoating an actual goat with sins was better than scapegoating a man. The Lamb of God in Christianity took the role of this scapegoat itself . . . and allowed atheism to penetrate religion. A dead God! Isn't that a paradox that twists your neck into a corkscrew?
. . .
The Christian roots of humanism and liberalism
If we do not want to surrender our culture to Islam, we must . . . take from our Judeo-Christian heritage a different attitude than we nowadays do. We will have to recognize that our humanist and modernist ideas, our liberal democratic tradition, and our ideas about human rights are not only superior to all existing alternatives, but also the products of that legacy. If you want to renounce Christian civilization for its ungodly acts in the past, you will also have to reject all social democratic parties for their legacy of Stalinism.
. . .
Ritual and ethics
What many God-renouncers do not grasp is that religion is not a cognitive system of truths, but initially a liturgical, ritual praxis to keep us from going insane in this universe -- this place [of infinite spaces] that so frightened Pascal. I don't cry aloud in some virile manner that we should be happy with the futility of everything. I think that death is a scandal. Or to put it another way: death in itself is not a problem, its implications in our specific case is our problem. And I think that in Christianity, at least a respectable attempt has made to respond to these implications.
But there is more [to Christianity] than the ritual with its a very calming effect on a nervous system prone to anxiety. There is also the ethic of the Gospel . . . .
In an unprecedentedly cruel social system -- that of the Roman Empire -- a small, quick-tempered man preached a difficult, almost impossible ethic, one that I personally find much too vexing in character. Two millennia later, we have grown collectively insensitive to the radical nature of such notions as forgiveness and sacrifice, precisely because the Christian teaching has shaped us for so long . . . .
Separating Church and State in Christianity
. . . .
The conservative English philosopher Roger Scruton defends the thesis that the separation of church and state from the outset was built into Christianity. The Apostle Paul, who combined his Roman citizenship with legal knowledge, advocated that the early church be protected under law by the secular power of Rome -- and the thought of overthrowing the legal order never occurred to him. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's" -- as Jesus said about paying taxes. In the Christian vision -- again according to Scruton -- man is both servant of God and subject to a secular order. That this order, after an extended period of brilliance and horror, finally become democratic, we owe to the Christian heritage -- in Scruton's opinion. The Enlightenment was the product of the Gospel, our ideas about human rights are translations of the Ten Commandments in the dialect of our time. We should not seek to realize God's kingdom on earth, but aim for mild and reasonable laws to live together.
Primacy of religion in Islam
Political misery is mostly the result of bad intentions . . . and of good intentions. Once you have founded the 'Kingdom of God' on earth, you will discover that you have imitated hell. Realistic intentions would be more realistic. According to Scruton, and I agree, the Judeo-Christian conception of social organization is fundamentally different than Islam's. Islam's legal system -- for all dominant Islamic traditions -- is to be based on divine commandment, and the only logical Islamic state is theocracy, with the code of Sharia. Human rights? Equality of men and women? Tolerance of other beliefs? All weaknesses reflecting Western superstition! Intolerable decadence! Fortunately, the vast majority of Muslims have enough common sense to reject theocracy and Sharia.
Aside from the title, "Long Live God, Away with Allah," there's very little controversial in Barnard's talk. Muslims wouldn't agree with his views on the inevitable failure of attempts to build heaven on earth, and many Christians would disagree with his point "that religion is not a cognitive system of truths, but initially a liturgical, ritual praxis" -- though the idea is interesting to consider.
Anyway, I've done my part. Do with it what you will.
Labels: Christianity, Islam, Islamism, Sharia
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 5:37 AM
19 comments
19 Comments:
Jeffery, what are your thoughts on Islam? I ask for your own personal understanding, your agreements and disagreements? Is there any specific blog post in which you have discussed on this at a personal level. I love to know dear Gypsy.
This is interesting, Jeffery. I have come to many of the same conclusions as Bernard. Unlike Bernard, however, my point of departure for coming to these conclusions is rather placed with the Reformation and the Good Old Cause, Milton's over-all project, Locke, Jefferson, and so on.
If I may, I'd like to respond to a few of Bernard's propositions with my own gloss. If you have any correctives or can suggest any leads I might follow, so much the better.
"...that liberalism is precisely a logical product of the Jewish and Christian tradition -- yes, that atheism has biblical roots...he Lamb of God in Christianity took the role of this scapegoat itself . . . and allowed atheism to penetrate religion. A dead God! Isn't that a paradox that twists your neck into a corkscrew?..."
Well, it doesn't place my head into a corkscrew. Hmm. Seems patently obvious to me. Anyway, rather than "roots" I'd say that atheism has it's "origins" in the Bible but rather has it's "roots" in Socinianism.
Further, the Jewish scapegoating as springboard of Christianity over-emphasizes the ritual matter of religion, and the intellectual antecedents within Judaism, to my thinking anyway, are much more significant to Christianity than ritual practice--but of course Bernard is rooted in his conception of religion, as "initially a liturgical, ritual praxis.." One might argue that the progress of Jewish and Christian thought are in fact a movement away from this "praxis" and that the movement away from this "praxis" in fact is the substance and content of both religions, while the ritual isn't so much point-of-departure but rather archeological artifact, in much the same way the organelles within animal cells, millions of years ago, used to be separate and distinct organisms before eventually entering into symbiosis and forming the complex animal cell structure common to all higher forms of life. The ritual in this sense is simply the mitochondria, but we also have golgi, vacuoles, lysosomes, nuclei, and so on. You can; just pick one--as Bernard picks "ritual"for religion--and say IT is the initializing factor in the development of the evolved animal cell.
"We will have to recognize that our humanist and modernist ideas, our liberal democratic tradition, and our ideas about human rights are not only superior to all existing alternatives, but also the products of that legacy. If you want to renounce Christian civilization for its ungodly acts in the past, you will also have to reject all social democratic parties for their legacy of Stalinism."
I quoted the above because I agree with it so strongly, but I suppose I would, being a Jeffersonian. One of the aspects of the underlying issue here is the move by the left to replace post-Calvinist thought and whiggish politics with what I call "The Enlightenment Strawman." In large part the historical importance/centrality of the Dutch-English post-Calvinist movement has been eclipsed by discussion of the so-called "Enlightenment." Really, as a commercial and philosophical movement, as a shaper of history, is the "Enlightenment" really more important than the Dutch and English reformations? The answer of course is "no." What is the enlightenment, then? Well, simply a sort of counter "Good Old Cause" formed of paper mache and painted up by authoritarian German and (to a lesser degree) French scribblers, and then advanced and promoted by their agents in the university. Politically, these German and French scholars are the Prussian junkers and French Vichy of intellectual history.
Take that, Kant; take that, Rousseau; take that Hegel; take that, Marx; take that, Nietsche Heidegger, Adorno, Horkheimer, Sartre, Derrida.... Pow!
Part II:
One wonders, what if there was an intellectual movement in English-speaking universities that sought the removal of these apparatchik continental philosophers from our midst, and a resurgence of English and Dutch thought? Something to ponder.
Yes, perhaps I am slipping into Tally-Ho, Cornelius! mode here; but to continue:
"And the premise of this fallacy is that the legacy of Moses and Christ can be interpreted in a similar way . . . as the legacy of the Prophet."
I am sure Bernard could be wrong here. The weakness, in my opinion isn't within Islam. That is, Islam itself is no more resistant to reformation than Judaism or Christianity are. The problem isn't in Islam, but in the breakdown of the western self-image and resolve, itself a process that is driven by the decline of post-Calvinist (Dutch and English) thought and the ascendency of German and French thought. What drives this, in part, is described on page 142 of Tally-Ho, Cornelius! Truth be told, however, that passage itself is deliberately grotesque for the sake of black humor, though there is a principle there to be identified. Perhaps.
If we were strong in the convictions of our post-Calvinist thought--Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams are apt exponents, as are Milton, Locke Jefferson, Hawthorne, Teddy Roosevelt--a reformation within the Islamic world would happily and peacefully precipitate. Instead, however, what we are witnessing is a collusion amongst the most reactionary forces in our civilization--bankers, finance tycoons, lower-middle class bureaucrats and functionaries, continental philosophers, the military--who are colluding, as I say, with Muslim princes and theocrats--combining under their authoritarian world view and replacing liberal Dutch-English civilization with a global system of managed economic colonization, mass migrations and tyranny.
In the realm of science fiction:
We are so weakening the liberal system that the attending authoritarian world order, lacking creativity or economic integrity, will only last a few generations before itself falls and is replaced . . . by a global Chinese system, probably; itself tyrannical; though maybe balanced, perhaps, by a resurgent Japanese Empire, efficient and powerful, which, rationally cognizant of its existential requirements, should very easily subjugate and cull the majority of the world's population, who, living in systemic decrepitude and economic squalor, should be ready for that culling in 100 years or so.
Sifar Anel, my central problem with Islam is that it combines politics with religion in a way that always raises the spector of theocracy, and on this point, I agree with Barnard, namely, that Islamist attempts to set up the Kingdom of God on earth always achieve only Hell on earth.
Most of my posts on 'Islam' are actually posts about Islamism (though where to draw the line is debatable), and you can find a large number by searching Gypsy Scholar.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Goodness, Carter, you ought to start a blog!
I, too, disagree with Barnard about ritual, but we might be in the minority. Low-Church Protestants would probably also largely demure on ritual, but they would perhaps also identify more with the emotionalism of religion than with seeing a strong role for reason in religion.
I'll skip over a lot of ground and just comment on the rise of authoritarian systems. The Chinese and Japanese hierarchical systems will break down because they tend toward inefficiencies that ultimately render them ineffective. In hierarchies that do not allow for open discussion, disinformation comes down from above and misinformation comes up from below.
We see this most clearly in the case of North Korea's 'juche' system, which is falling apart and being replaced by markets, willy-nilly what the North's leaders want. Markets are not just mechanisms for exchanging goods and services, they are processes of information flow bound to the essentials (but also the luxuries) of living, so they are very powerful institutions indeed.
The problem is that with this currently badly mismanaged world of ours, we might just all descend into utter chaos as authoritarian hierarchies fail.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Start a blog? Actually now I have three. The latest consists of my notes for my Ethics course. I'm afraid I've internalized too much Wittgenstein stuff: the notion that Philosophy has nothing to contribute to ethics or morality--if I have that formulated right. Moreover, I am struggling with the related conviction that it is immoral to teach ethics from behind the lectern of a secular institution.
Some wag might suggest that I should stand in front of the lectern....
As for authoritarian systems: I agree. Partially my point. The Japanese Empire circa 2100 is more a science fiction idea, as I said. The big scene might come when the Japanese hovercraft pull onto Huntington Beech, while the indifferent 22nd century Americans are living in something like dumpsters and munching on Doritos as they text each other in a pidgin of English, Spanish and gang sign hieroglyphs about who-dissed-who in the the latest podcast documentary concerning a surreal hybrid of American Idol, NASCAR and dogfighting....
First: thank you for sharing with me your thoughts on your ideas of Religion. Visiting your blog is helping me too in constructing my thoughts.
Quoting your words:
"Islam is that it combines politics with religion in a way that always raises the spector of theocracy."
By that you meant Islamism ofcourse.
I don't know how to explain this coming point to you, but I really wish that it comes out clear to you.
Here goes nothing:
>>As I am typing these words here, I should have respect for you in them only then can we be friends and then communicate, I also should not paste any many links without following the instructions that are given below the "Leave your comment" header.<<
So in the simple act of commenting on your blog: New laws have entered into my religion:
Law 1: Talk with respect
Law 2: Post links as per instructions:
And both these Laws are very logical, they have good reasons for their existence. Both help make your blog look clean and tidy, and cleanliness always brings a peace of mind to any being. e.g. Suppose the Devil was driving a car to a particular place...the Devil would be happy to see that the there was less traffic jam on the way, less commotion, tidy roads, so that it could reach it's destination as soon as it can.
---
So in this blog, the political scenario is such that: YOU are the owner and moderator of comments: so by the default nature, regarding my posting of comments I am subservient to you in this blog, you can remove these comments anytime you like.
So you are the LEADER here, and you set up the LAWS: e.g. Law 2 on how to add links in comments.
These very laws have affected my religion on how to behave with you.
Atleast those few minutes in my life.
This was just the political scenario in a blogspot blog, but now think about the scenario of the politics of managing a country.
And Jeffrey, the only reason why US is a world power today compared to all other countries is just because of one Verse alone in the Baghvad Gita, just one verse, no other country in the world accidentally/intentionally fulfills that verse better than the United States. So it has the world power status: just because of it's extent in the fulfillment of that Gita verse, maybe even Obama or the US admin might not know this fact!
Separating politics from religion is like separating TIME from PLACE.
Now coming back to your view on Islam. The Sharia laws if they were made by Mohammed are very very good during the times of Mohammed, Mohammed was not a man with the temperament of a Scholar-Saint, in fact both JESUS and MOHAMMED were with the temperament of politicians. Jesus being the KING (INRI) and Mohammed being an army general and a medium of instruction.
The problem arises when an old custom is continued to the next generation in a SUPERFICIAL sense.
It's the inner sense that needs to be inherited. But here in this transition, that's where the blocks are existent.
But Jeffery, just like the antidote for the venom is made from the venom. Just the way at looking at things can make a huge difference.
E.g. Abraham and Mohammed both prescribed circumcision of the penis foreskin, I think they propagated this because "dirty smell" in the abdomen is a harbringer of diseases, mentally as well as physically.
After urinating, normally some urine remains on the foreskin, which leads to bad smell, and living in the Arabian peninsula, water was always scarce.
So the inner idea behind circumcision is about body cleanliness.
And today, we have great water pipeline systems to provide us with water and soap is readily available, so we can clean ourselves and never be hoarder of bad smells and diseases.
So this way, circumscion is not mandatory anymore in our circumstance, but the inner essence of the old law is still followed in the new law of keeping the body cleaning by providing easily available bathing systems.
So all that we need to do is to explain to the religious scholars the correct POLITICS of it all.
To conclude, all Books/Codes of constitution have become the neo religion scriptures.
In India where I live, the constitution book of law is the basic scripture, any error in it is completely visible in the state of the country. So our job is to keep amending the book with the times and with understanding of the working of nature for the benefit of not just the people but even the physical environment, animals, plants too.
Regarding Islam, it's a futile effort to go and point faults at Islam, rather it's about teaching those "so-called" Islamic scholars what true Islam is all about.
Jeffery, do you know that the wikipedia/internet articles on ISLAM which is the current defintion made by the ISLAMIC Scholars has atleast 10000 errors that contradict ISLAM and the teachings of Mohammed.
Mohammed himself has said it in the Hadith(collection of his sayings) regarding Islam...
"Do you know what sappeth the foundations of Islam and ruineth it? The errors of the scholars destroy it, and the disputations of the hypocrites within, and the orders of IRulers who have lost the road."
Jeffery, if you ever get to understand what I was trying to convey to you: you would be just moving giant leaps towards solving all the religion related problems in the world.
With so much love
Sifar
Carter, you have three blogs?! I knew of only two.
I'm glad that I won't be around for that dystopian future that you foresee.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Sifar Anel, thanks for the thoughts.
My basic requirement about comments is that they be relevant to the blog entry, that they be courteous, and that any addresses supplied be linked.
On Muhammad and his character, I'm no expert, but his role as prophet, general, legislator, and ruler has contributed to the concept of Islamic theocracy.
Islam needs reform, of course, as you seem to agree.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Regarding reformation I say...
Islam in it's real true meaning is sugar.
ALL MUSLIMS AS PER THE QURAN ARE SUPPOSED to follow JESUS, ABRAHAM, all prophets of all the world...Mohammed was just the seal Prophet among those.
But today these namesake Muslims just hold on to Mohammed's name and they don't even respect/understand any of his sayings, but act it out superficially.
Islam actually is just a synonym for SURRENDER TO CREATION/NATURE, it's a synonym for SCIENCE. Islam is Sugar.
Sugar was always sugar. Sugar never needs to be reformed or refined. The very definition stands pure and clear in itself. The word Good represents 100% Good.
But in today's scenario, with the passing of generations and due to lack of intelligence, some have polluted the sugar with dirt.
It's not reformation of sugar, it's the refination of dirty-sugar back to sugar that is needed.
Right now the world is witnessing one of the most polluted states of sugar.
Actually Jeffery it's very important that you catch the subtle ideas, I am trying to pull out each thought with different names, infact when I discuss with the Islamist Scholars I have to create my own terminology to convey the ideas.
Well, regarding Mohammed's character, I promise you, that he was such a great man, such a great guy. But he had such poor quality followers just like Jesus whose disciples were no where when he was imprisoned. As soon as Mohammed died, there was a fight of succession for whom to be the next successor, that's how the Shia and Sunni divisions began.
Mohammed is and was the greatest man to me, I have spent years appreciating Buddha, Jesus, Krishna....and they were all great..but Mohammed stands numero uno, but he was and is the most misunderstood of all men till date.
Most of his followers were of very very poor intelligence and heart. They could not understand him at all, so he had to use toddler language to get them to understand anything.
Jeffery, give me any book on Islam written by any great Islamist scholar, I can show you so many lines and lines and lines that contradict the Qu'ran and the teachings of Mohammed.
I am deeply interested in refining this dirty-sugar back to it's purity, back to the way Mohammed really wanted it.
These so called people who call themselves as Muslims today are mostly unconscious-charlatans, they know nothing of Islam. At the age of 4, they by heart the Qu'ran, that's it, they just memorize and do drama, never the REAL THING.
Infact from your thoughts and ideas I feel that you might have more Islam in you than those distorted pseudo-followers.
Cheers,
Sifar Anel
Sifar Anel, my understanding is that the word "Islam" means "submission" and signifies submission to Allah.
As for the real Muhammad, the historical Muhammad, I suspect that in reconstructing him, we run the danger of constructing him in our own image. (Cf. entry of April 12, 2010.)
Some of the hadith that I have read describe Muhammad in ways that are difficult to find admirable, and I've often wondered why pious Muslim literature would present him in such a fashion.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Yes Mohammed is indeed very difficult to understand especially when you look at some of the hadith. That's why he is one of the most misunderstood people in the world to have ever lived, he is misunderstood by not only us but also the so called Muslims themselves. That makes it even more difficult.
Give me any of his authentic hadiths that you find not admirable, and I can show you the wisdom behind it.
I am a very heavy critic, I have been studying these top great characters like Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and Krishna, and I have found great errors in them, but still they are great because they had so much good in them.
I judge Mohammed's character only from the hadiths themselves.
See even if people can have their own ideas of Jesus Christ, like say one guy sees Jesus as a Catholic sweet man IMAGE, another guy sees Jesus as a Yogi IMAGE with so much divinity, another guy sees Jesus as a Muslim IMAGE, Prophet of Allah.
But if someone says that Jesus was a terrorist Rapist cruel thief devil incarnate. WHO WOULD AGREE! So there is a limit to the image making policy. The image making has got it's on inherent limits.
And it's within each of those various bands of images that I try to make my conclusions.
Islam is indeed submission or surrender to Allah, your understanding is correct, but I hope you understand that just like the so-called Muslims think, they think that Allah is formless but has a personality!
Actually, the Qu'ran clearly states that Allah is unfathomable in all attributes, formless as well as has no attributes, the same Allah who is most compassionate is also the creator of the DEVIL.
Allah actually is not a name, "Al" means "The" and "lah" means God in pre-mohammedan time Arabic...Allah has no name, Rahman and Rahim, all are just attributes. But Allah the word is used to invoke the unfathomable phenomenon that it tries to represent for practical purposes.
But the so-called Muslims have made Allah into a big genie in the Alladin's lamp, please the genie and start wishing for things. Bribe and get the goods type of policy.
In fact it is practically impossible for a human to surrender to THAT which is unfathomable in it's highest possible sense. So the maximum we can do is to submit to the Creation in it's real totality.
Jesus did that! Buddha did that! Shiva did that! Krishna did that!
And we all will too. It's pure science to me in my understanding.
Thanks for replying to my thoughts Jeffery! Have a nice week ahead!
Thanks, yourself.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Sifar,
Why do you say that Mohammed is "indeed very difficult to understand"?
I assume you have read the hadith. I have. There are some good stories -- and some very terrible ones about a man that attacked others dozens of times, who raided villages and caravans, plundered and looted, enslaved men women and children, tortured and murdered people that opposed him, who let his men rape captives and even beat his wife.
These actions are easily found and I can link to multiples cases of each in strong traditions. Worse yet, I can find verses in the Quran that support these.
How can you say "I judge Mohammed's character only from the hadiths themselves"? How do you deal with these issues?
Kactuz
Jay, those are some of my very same questions, but I doubt that we'll be hearing from Sifar Anel. He recently took offense elsewhere at my innocuous suggestion that we move on to another post after a series of back-and-forth comments, and in his annoyance, he posted a retort but then deleted it and all of his comments on that post (and on another post as well).
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
The article is stating that Christianity has Judaic roots and I want to commenton this.
Le-havdil, A logical analysis (found in www.netzarim.co.il (Netzarim.co.il is the website of the only legitimate Netzarim-group)) of all extant source documents and archeology proves that the historical Ribi Yehosuha from Nazareth and his talmidim (apprentice-students), called the Netzarim, taught and lived Torah all of their lives; and that Netzarim and Christianity were always antithetical.
The original words of the pro-Torah teacher Ribi Yehoshua were redacted by Roman Hellenists, and the redaction is found in the “gospels”. Jzus described in the “gospels”, and le-havdil the teachings of the historical Torah-teacher Ribi Yehoshua from Nazareth are found in the reconstruction (using a logical and scientific methodology to create the reconstruction), Netzarim Hebrew Reconstruction of Hebrew Matityahu (NHM).
The historical Jew Ribi Yehoshua is not the same as the Christian Jzus. The historical Ribi Yehoshua was a human.
The above website proofs that the roots of Christianity are Hellenism, not Judaism.
Thanksk, Mr. Anders Branderud, for your comment.
I'd suggest that Christianity has both Greek and Jewish roots, so I suppose that we disagree if you mean that Christianity has no roots in Judaism.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
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