Comment of the Week: Status of Nonbelievers in the Qur'an
Tuesday August 28, 2007
People may claim that atheists are "militant" for daring to criticize theistic religion and even suggest that perhaps it would be better if religion died off, but you don't find atheistic philosophies teaching the positive value of killing believers. Theistic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do, however, contain quite a lot of violent teachings and traditions — including some about how to treat nonbelievers. Why?
I was asked to read the Koran several months back. I recently borrowed a copy from my library and began reading it. With regard to unbelievers, I read a lot about thow they would suffer severely at the judgement--but it wasn't until I was pretty well into the front sections that I finally began to see passages that seemed, to me, to pretty clearly indicate that nonbelievers need to suffer in THIS LIFE--at the hands of believers.
I'm pretty sure that many Muslims have some alternate explanation for the verses? I've seen Muslims who claim the book doesn't advocate murder of nonbelievers--so I'm guessing they read these passages differently than I did (or maybe the translation I picked up was negotiable?).
Certainly in the Bible there is no lack of people being ordered by god to kill others for nonbelief in Jehovah. And Jesus himself in the Bible--the man who said to turn the other cheek?--assaulted people with a whip in one story.
Some religions teach and practice nonviolence, certainly. But to say that religion or religious people as a rule are nonviolent isn't, from what I've experienced of the world or read in history books, substantiated in reality. I find people--religious or not--vary as far as their values and predisposition toward violence.
[original post]
It seems to be important for believers to think that their religion and their theism are significant forces for peace and love. Perhaps they fear that without this belief, there won't be much left worth retaining? Unfortunately, they don't really have much of that in the first place. Religions do contain teachings about peace and love, of course, but they also contain plenty of teachings and traditions for the opposite. This is hardly surprising given that religions are fallible, human-created belief systems. Perhaps if adherents recognized that their religions are created by humans for humans, rather than created by gods, there would be fewer problems?
Comments
It seems to be important for believers to think that their religion and their theism are significant forces for peace and love.
I wonder if this is a recent phenomenon. Do we value human life more today than when these books were written?
nal:
I guess it depends on what you mean by recent. Some Eastern religions advocated doing as little damage in the world as possible. But in the Xian tradition–all we have to do is read the OT to see it’s not a traditional view there.
The sayings attributed to Jesus are _extremely_ liberal minded compared to the traditions, laws, and history of the Israelites. But even he supported and promoted The Law–which contains some pretty barbaric and harsh things. But he reinterpreted it in extreme ways according to modern Bibles. In John 7, there is a story of a woman who was caught in adultery who, under The Law, should have been put to death; but Jesus said she should be released.
Of course, modern translations note that this passage was inserted at a later date and isn’t in the oldest copies of the text we have. If you think about it, that is sensible. It isn’t logical that people would disregard The Law because one Jew with no authority said “let her go.” So, the story is pretty far-fetched to begin with.
But it seems that at some point someone decided they needed a kinder, gentler religion and inserted a story to give Jesus a softer profile–one that contrasted with the harsh law and even usurped Yahweh’s command that a death penalty to be imposed.
Religion is tribalism and all the major religions emerged in tribes. Therefore to doubt the local gods is a form of treason.