Skip to content
Why Islam? Of the three great monotheistic religions only one did not go through the Enlightenment
Previous Next
Why Islam? Of the three great monotheistic religions only one did not go through the Enlightenment
One of the central tenets of science is to define a problem to be studied with as much clarity as possible, and the key to clear communication is calling things what they really are. Unfortunately, both the American media and public intellectuals have failed to be honest in identifying what everyone in Europe knows is the primary source of terrorism in the world today: Islam.
Yes, there are political and economic motives behind terrorism in addition to religion, and most Muslims are not terrorists, particularly those living in Western countries. And of course Islam is not the only religion that can lead to violence, as witnessed in the occasional abortion clinic bombing by Christians, but I can’t even remember when the last one was. (I just checked: there were two in 2012, no injuries, three in 2007, also no injuries, a handful of inept attempts at arson in the early 2000s, with most serious attacks made in the 1980s and early 1990s.) Instead, most Christians who oppose abortion protest peacefully, as they did in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington DC that I happened upon on January 22, the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, when I was in town on my book tour for The Moral Arc.
By contrast, a news cycle does not go by without a report of Islamic terrorists blowing themselves to smithereens, igniting car bombs and IEDs, shooting or stabbing so-called infidels and heretics, and cutting off the heads of or burning alive journalists and other innocents who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. How common are these attacks? According to a preliminary report issued by scientists at the University of Maryland at College Park working at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Islamist terrorists stand out far above domestic terrorists on both the Far Left and the Far right. Utilizing data from the Global Terrorism Database, which has accumulated information on over 125,000 terrorist attacks from 1970-2013, including 58,000 bombings, 15,000 assassinations, and 6,000 kidnappings, researchers have been able to more carefully identify what the problem is, starting with a clear definition of terrorism: “The threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation.” Their focus is on terrorism in the United States. Here are a few of their preliminary findings.
This graph, generated from the Global Terrorism Database by typing in the keyword “Islam” found a total of 5,704 terrorist incidents, the vast majority in the last couple of years, thereby confirming our intuitions that the trend lines match the headlines.
Additional data illuminates why violence may be inherent in the Islamic religion, to the extent that Muslims believe in sharia, especially the parts of the law that command corporal punishment for minor crimes, stoning for adultery, and capital punishment for leaving the Islamic faith. A 2013 Pew poll found these disturbing percentages of Muslims who believe that anyone who leaves Islam should be executed: South Asia (76%), Middle East-North Africa (56%, Southeast Asia (27%, Central Asia (16%), and Southern-Eastern Europe (13%). Why do they believe this? One reason is that most Muslims believe sharia is the revealed word of God: Pakistan (88%), Afghanistan (81%), Palestinian territory (76%, Egypt (70%), Malaysia (66%), Jordan (57%), Iraq (56%), Kyrgyzstan (54%), Lebanon (50%), Bangladesh (50%), Tunisia (44%), Albania (43%), and Russia (39%).
A 2009 Pew study found these percentages of Muslims who say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified: 43% of Nigerian Muslims, 38% of Lebanese Muslims, 15% of Egyptian Muslims, 13% of Indonesian Muslims, and 12% of Jordanian Muslims. A 2006 study found that nearly a quarter of British Muslims believe that the 7/7 terrorist attacks on London in 2005 were justified, and 28% said they hoped that one day the U.K. would become a fundamentalist Islamic state.
So when the Islamic terrorists who murdered the editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo shouted “Allahu Akbar” and proclaimed their acts to be revenge for insulting the prophet Muhammad, we should take them at their word that their religion is what motivated them.
But why is Islam caught up in this cycle of violence and not one of the other two great monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity. It was not always so. In the book of Numbers, 31:7–12, for example, Moses assembled an army of 12,000 troops to defeat the Midianites, who were allied with the Moabites in their desire to see the Israelites wiped off the face of the earth.
That sounds like a good days pillaging, but when the troops got back, Moses was furious. “What do you mean you didn’t kill the women?” he asked, exasperated, since it was apparently the women who had enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful with another God. Moses then ordered them to kill all the women who had slept with a man, and the boys. “But save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man,” he commanded, predictably, at which point one can imagine the thirty-two thousand virgins who’d been taken captive rolling their eyes and saying, “Oh, God told you to do that, did he? Right.” Was the instruction to “keep the virgins for yourselves” what God had in mind by the word “love” in the “love thy neighbor” command? I think not. Of course, the Israelites knew exactly what God meant (this is the advantage of writing scripture yourself—you get to say what God meant) and they acted accordingly, fighting for the survival of their people. With a vengeance.
Worse, the book considered by over two billion people to be the greatest moral guide ever produced recommends the death penalty for saying the Lord’s name at the wrong moment or in the wrong context, for imaginary crimes like witchcraft, for commonplace sexual relations (adultery, fornication, homosexuality), and for not resting on the Sabbath. How many of today’s Jews and Christians agree with their own holy book on the application of capital punishment? I dare say it is close to zero. That is how far the moral arc has bent in four millennia.
The reason, I argue in The Moral Arc, is the Judaism and Christianity went through the Enlightenment and came out the other side less violent and more tolerant. Ever since the Enlightenment the study of morality has shifted from considering moral principles as based on God-given, Divinely-inspired, Holy book-derived, Authority-dictated precepts from the top down, to bottom-up individual-considered, reason-based, rationality-constructed, science-grounded propositions in which one is expected to have reasons for one’s moral actions, especially reasons that consider the other person affected by the moral act.
The Enlightenment secular values that we hold dear today—equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity for all, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, civil rights and civil liberties for everyone, the equality of women and minorities, and especially the separation of church and state and the freedom to practice any religion or no religion at all—were inculcated into the minds of Jews and Christians (and others) in the West, but not so much in Muslim countries, particularly those who would prefer a return to the medieval barbarism of theocracies. Until we can take an honest look at the problem and stop accusing people of “Islamophobia” who are courageous enough to say what almost everyone else is thinking, the problem will not go away on its own.
Related
Counter Refutation — Shermer responds to book reviewsMarch 4, 2015In "Civil Rights"
From Stonewall to IndianaApril 29, 2015In "Gay Rights"
Can Science Determine Moral Values?April 8, 2015In "Justice"
By Michael Shermer|February 25th, 2015|Civil Rights, Morality, Reason, Religion, Science, Terrorism, Violence, War, Women’s Rights|104 Comments
Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestEmail
About the Author: Michael Shermer
Dr. Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, and the author of The Moral Arc. His previous books include: The Believing Brain, Why People Believe Weird Things, Why Darwin Matters, The Mind of the Market, How We Believe, and The Science of Good and Evil.
104 Comments
-
Hugo Lindum February 25, 2015 at 1:43 am
I would suggest to Mr Sharmer that the reason that Christians (and Jews) have found it relatively easy to be more flexible in the theology is the following:
a) Christians never had any illusion that the Bible was dictated word by word by Jesus. Muslims do believe that the Koran was dictated directly by Mohamed who got it from the Angel Gabriel (who got it from god);
b) There is no violence (that I am aware of) by Jesus nor of him encouraging violence; Mohamed was personally involved in battles, encourages the taking of non muslim women captives “concubines” and worse;
c) It is difficult to assert that one part of the Bible is superior to another, which leaves a lot of room for debate. In the case of the Koran there is the important concept of abrogation, in which in the Koran itself Mohamed says that latter revelations trump earlier verses (god has the right to change his mind). The problem with this is that the earlier parts of the Koran are much more “love thy neighbour” than the latter verses, which are much more “go out and kill non-believers without mercy.”
My final point would be about the statistics of Islamic violence. I would suggest that pre 1990 it just was not reported as there was little integration of the world compared to today. I lived in Indonesia per 9/11 and there was regular violence against the local Christian minority, but it would certainly not have been reported in the western media.-
akka acute February 25, 2015 at 5:43 am
have you ever read the coran !!! please try to be more rational don’t let felling change your mind read the coran again and ask help from muslims did they explain it to you and you will find the truth is not shame to find yourself make mistake but the shame is to close your eyes from the truth and in addition you speak about something you don’t understood the real meaning or you want to curse the coran just because you follow the majority in your state search search search-
Lynne Daniels February 25, 2015 at 6:39 am
Some of us HAVE read the koran, more than once (Dawood translation twice, Ali’s once) and it is precisely that reading that lead to a deep dislike of islam. The notion that anyone with an aversion to islam is so out of “ignorance” is a comforting assumption I see moslems make online all the time…It is understandable that they would create and cling to that illusion, but it is nonetheless an illusion. -
seve February 25, 2015 at 11:48 am
i read the Koran – and since then i hate islam. -
Nerberg March 1, 2015 at 2:13 pm
@akka acute
The only important part Hugo Lindum forgot to mention is the concept of “taqqiya.” As a muslim I’m sure you know that this means you can (and should) lie/deceive in order to protect your religion or yourself from non-believers.
Other than that, after reading the quran (and parts of the hadith) I too agree with Hugo Lindum. There are fundamental differences that separate islam from all other religions, making it more primitive, more totalitarian, more violent and more resistant to change/enlightenment.
Personally I don’t believe in gods or deity, but the other religions are at least more peaceful and tolerant of people and opinions that differ from their own beliefs. -
Hugo Lindum March 3, 2015 at 3:51 pm
I have read the Coran (sic).
Have you read it? Most muslims have not. All they have done is memorised it like little parrots leaning back and forth in a language they cannot understand. I say to you one word: abrogation. -
Max March 22, 2018 at 11:57 am
Hey, Muslims: Learn English before posting here.-
CheChenBoyYT April 30, 2018 at 4:32 pm
Hey, read a real Qoran instead of a Christian-made one
-
-
-
David Powell February 25, 2015 at 6:04 am
Sir:
A) Strictly true, but there are many Christians (Protestants of various flavors in particular) who believe the Bible is the “inspired, inerrant Word of God.” Maybe Jesus didn’t write the Bible for them, but God did.
B) “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother….” — Matthew 10:34 ff.
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” — Luke 14:26
While they need to be placed in their historical and literary contexts like any other text, these “hard sayings” of Jesus have made Christians itch for a long time. Jesus is not always the warm and fuzzy figure that many Christians and other seemingly contradictory texts make him out to be. And there might not be so much violence, as we’re using that term here, in the name of Jesus, but there is plenty of hate in his name.
-
THE MORAL ARC
Copyright 2015 Michael Shermer | All Rights Reserved
FacebookTwitterYouTube
Go to Top
