Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

David Sloan Wilson, Beyond Demonic Memes: Why Richard Dawkins is Wrong About Religion, eSkeptic, July 4th, 2007

Richard Dawkins and I share much in common. We are both biologists by training who have written widely about evolutionary theory. We share an interest in culture as an evolutionary process in its own right. We are both atheists in our personal convictions who have written books on religion. In Darwin’s Cathedral I attempted to contribute to the relatively new field of evolutionary religious studies. When Dawkins’ The God Delusion was published I naturally assumed that he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. I regret to report otherwise. He has not done any original work on the subject and he has not fairly represented the work of his colleagues. Hence this critique of The God Delusion and the larger issues at stake.

Where We Agree and Where We Part Company

In The God Delusion Dawkins makes it clear that he loathes religion for its intolerance, blind faith, cruelty, extremism, abuse, and prejudice. He attributes these problems to religion and thinks that the world would be a better place without it. Given recent events in the Middle East and even here in America, it is understandable why he might draw such a conclusion, but the question is: What’s evolution got to do with it?

Dawkins and I agree that evolutionary theory provides a powerful framework for studying religion, and we even agree on some of the details, so it is important to pinpoint exactly where we part company. Evolutionists employ a number of hypotheses to study any trait, even something as mundane as the spots on a guppy. Is it an adaptation that evolved by natural selection? If so, did it evolve by benefiting whole groups, compared to other groups, or individuals compared to other individuals within groups? With cultural evolution there is a third possibility. Since cultural traits pass from person to person, they bear an intriguing resemblance to disease organisms. Perhaps they evolve to enhance their own transmission without benefiting human individuals or groups.

If the trait is not an adaptation, then it can nevertheless persist in the population for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it was adaptive in the past but not the present, such as our eating habits, which make sense in the food-scarce environment of our ancestors but not with a McDonald’s on every corner. Perhaps the trait is a byproduct of another adaptation. For example, moths use celestial light sources to orient their flight (an adaptation), but this causes them to spiral toward earthly light sources such as a streetlamp or a flame (a costly byproduct), as Dawkins so beautifully recounts in The God Delusion. Finally, the trait might be selectively neutral and persist in the population by genetic or cultural drift.

Summary in English by Juan Cole, December 27, 2007

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Abd al-Jalil Khalaf, the police chief of Basra, told the al-Arabiya satellite news channel on Wednesday that a shadowy group calling itself “Commanding the Good and Forbidding what is Prohibited” has recently killed 50 women in the southern port. It is probably a puritanical Shiite group, and it says it objects to make-up (tabarruj or the wanton display of oneself in public). The women killed have been for the most part Muslims (both Sunni and Shiite), though two were Christians.

Roman Vishniac, A farmer of Vrchni Apsa, ca. 1935-38

International Center of Photography, eMuseum

Trudy Rubin, Now Iraq needs a surge of political will for reconciliation — baltimoresun.com, December 25, 2007

Now people have the breathing room to assess their sectarian parties that have failed to deliver services or safety while indulging in astounding levels of corruption. The judgments I heard from every Iraqi I spoke with were unremittingly harsh.

Even the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has had to pay attention to popular dissatisfaction with the shakedowns and murders carried out by thugs in his Mahdi Army militia. He has dispersed hit men to try to eliminate some of the more egregious violators in Baghdad neighborhoods. I spoke to one, a hard-faced, middle-aged tough named Abu Ali, who was limping from a gunshot wound to the leg; he told me his men had killed 17 “criminals” in Baghdad’s Hurriyah district on Mr. al-Sadr’s orders. The Shiite mafiosi are cleaning house.

Iraq’s Shiite religious leaders, too, are weighing in on the government’s failures. The leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sent word through his spokesmen of his dissatisfaction with the fact that much of the parliament had decamped to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim pilgrimage at government expense. This at a time when crucial laws on oil and provincial elections are languishing in committees. Ayatollah al-Sistani said that parliamentarians would get no religious credit for the hajj because they had abandoned their duty.

The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
[Excerpt from Robert Alun Jones. Emile Durkheim: An Introduction to Four Major Works. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1986. Pp. 115-155.]
Outline of Topics

1. Durkheim’s Two Problems
2. Defining Religion
3. The Most Primitive Religion
4. Totemic Beliefs: Their Nature, Causes, and Consequences
5. Totemic Rites: Their Nature and Causes
6. The Social Origins of Religion and Science
7. Critical Remarks

Magic, Science and Religion, by B. Malinowski

[MB 17] There are no peoples however primitive without religion and magic. Nor are there, it must be added at once, any savage races lacking either in the scientific attitude or in science, though this lack has been frequently attributed to them. In every primitive community, studied by trustworthy and competent observers, there have been found two clearly distinguishable domains, the Sacred and the Profane; in other words, the domain of Magic and Religion and that of Science.

On the one hand there are the traditional acts and observances, regarded by the natives as sacred, carried out with reverence and awe, hedged around with prohibitions and special rules of behavior. Such acts and observances are always associated with beliefs in supernatural forces, especially those of magic, or with ideas about beings, spirits, ghosts, dead ancestors, or gods. On the other hand, a moment’s reflection is sufficient to show that no art or craft however primitive could have been invented or maintained, no organized form of hunting, fishing, tilling, or search for food could be carried out without the careful observation [MB 18] of natural process and a firm belief in its regularity, without the power of reasoning and without confidence in the power of reason; that is, without the rudiments of science.

David Hume, The Natural History of Religion

Hume’s The Natural History of Religion was first published in 1757. It was among the first attempts to account for the origins of theism in naturalistic terms. It can therefore be seen as a response to the argument that the sophistication of monotheism is such that it must have been handed down to men by God; Hume disputes this, giving a psychological explanation of the rise of refined monotheism, in just the same way as modern Darwinists give naturalistic explanations of the apparent teleology in nature that theists say can only be explained with reference to God.

Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is battling his Shiite rival along lines of personality, class and ideology. (By Alaa Al-marjani — Associated Press)

Sudarsan Raghavan, Shiite Contest Sharpens In Iraq - washingtonpost.com, December 26, 2007

KARBALA, Iraq — Posted at the door of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s office recently, a flier denounced the arrests of his followers. Up and down the barricaded street, soldiers and policemen loyal to his Shiite rivals stood sentry, some in tan armored personnel carriers, questioning anyone they suspected of links to the populist cleric.

Inside the shuttered office, five guards spoke frankly of their sense of vulnerability and weakness. Once in control of the streets of this southern city of holy sites, the Sadrists said they have been chased underground, their rivals at their heels.

The arrests of Sadr’s loyalists are part of a broader power struggle between the two most powerful Shiite factions seeking to lead Iraq: the Sadrists, who are pushing for U.S. troops to withdraw, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Bush administration’s main Shiite ally. Given the nation’s majority-Shiite population, this intensifying confrontation could play a major role in deciding Iraq’s future.

Tom Segev, Apology in Kafr Qasem - Haaretz, December 26, 2007

The Kafr Qasem massacre shocked the country and gave rise to a public debate on basic questions of morality and democracy. Twelve years after the end of World War II this discussion took place against the backdrop of the Holocaust. The murderers were put on public trial. Benjamin Halevi, who was later one of the judges in Adolf Eichmann’s trial, asked one of the accused whether he would also justify a Nazi soldier who obeyed orders. The trial gave rise to every Israel Defense Forces soldier’s obligation to refuse to obey a “blatantly illegal” order such as one to murder civilians.

However, not long after they were convicted and sentenced to prison, the murderers were released, and a few years later the military government was revoked. The IDF is not doing enough to instill in its soldiers the obligation to refuse to obey a blatantly illegal order; it is acting with determination against conscientious objection.

In the decades since the Kafr Qasem massacre, IDF soldiers have killed thousands of innocent Palestinians, the vast majority of them in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. From time to time they have also killed Arab demonstrators, citizens of Israel. To this day the Arabs of Israel are not citizens with equal rights, and Israel insists that it does not want to be a state of all its citizens but rather a “Jewish and democratic” state. Government representatives do not participate in the annual memorial service for the Kafr Qasem massacre, but the president’s apology is likely to be mentioned one day as a first step toward a historic declaration of reconciliation between the Jews and Palestinians.

Most Israelis still find it hard to acknowledge that they bear historical responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The Zionist vision is based, among other things, on the assumption that its fulfillment need not cause injustice to anyone: If only the Arabs would relinquish their nationalist yearnings and agree to the fulfillment of our dream, it would be good for everyone, including them.

Kenro Izu, “School Boys Near Tamshing Lhakhang Bumthang, Bhutan” (2007)

Kenro Izu, Life in Bhutan, The New York Times, Slide 5 of 7, December 2007

Hala Jaber, American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq - Times Online, November 25, 2007

Even the militia commanders confirm that they have the Shi’ites in their long-range sights after a turbulent few months.

First they tired of Al-Qaeda’s beheadings, bombings and strange demands, such as a ban on salads containing (male) cucumbers and (female) tomatoes, and on ice cubes because the Prophet Muhammad never had them.

Then the militias threw in their lot with the Americans to get rid of Al-Qaeda, but without losing their animosity for the occupying forces that many of them had been fighting.

Now they are starting to think about what happens when the Americans leave and how they can counter Iranian-backed Shi’ite forces. Abu Omar, an intelligence officer with the Baghdad Brigade in Abu Ghraib, was candid.

“Of course the coming war is with the [Shi’ite] militias,” he said. “God willing, we will defeat them and get rid of them just as we did Al-Qaeda.”

Abu Maroof, one of the brigade’s commanders, said that he regarded the Shi’ite militias, which include the Mahdi Army of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, as more dangerous than the United States. But he is also increasingly hostile to the government of Nouri al-Maliki, which is reluctant to absorb militia members into the official Iraqi security forces.

The Surge: Illusion and Reality - by Conn Hallinan, AW, December 25, 2007

The narrative in the media these days is the success of the U.S. “surge,” which has poured an additional 30,000 U.S. troops into Iraq since early January 2007. In early December, war critic and close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) said, “I think the surge is working.”

Polls indicate that concern over the economy has replaced the war as the major issue for voters and that, while a majority of Americans want the troops out, those saying that things are going better jumped from 33 percent to just under 50 percent.

Are they going better? Car bombings, sectarian violence, and attacks on U.S. troops are down, although 2007 has been the deadliest year of the war for the Americans. But does the reduced violence have anything to do with the “surge”?

As Patrick Cockburn of The Independent points out, Americans and the U.S. media tend to “exaggerate the extent to which the U.S. is making the political weather and is in control of events there.”

Take the attacks on Americans, which are down. The Sunni-based resistance carried out the majority of those. Sunnis, who constitute 5 million of Iraq’s 27 million people (there are 16 million Shi’ites and five million Kurds), dominated the country under Saddam Hussein.

Initially the Sunnis formed an alliance with al-Qaeda that turned out to be a disaster. Al-Qaeda, an extremist Sunni organization, targeted Shi’ites, whom it considers heretics. The relentless bombings and shootings culminating in the 2006 bombing of the Golden mosque in Samarra, spurred Shi’ite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, to counterattack.

The Sunnis suddenly found themselves fighting a two-front war against the Americans and the Shi’ites, a war they cannot win. They soon were driven out of large sections of Baghdad by the Shi’ites while absorbing massive casualties from the U.S. military campaign.

These defeats forced the Sunnis to turn on al-Qaeda and to reach a détente with the U.S. In return, the new Sunni militias – like the Baghdad Brigade, the Knights of Ameriya, and the Guardians of Ghazaliya – were given vehicles, uniforms, flak jackets and $300 a month for each member by the Americans. Starting months before the “surge,” the so-called “Sunni awakening” soon fielded 77,000 militia members, larger than the 60,000-member Mahdi Army and half the size of the Iraqi army.

But according to the Sunday Times, many of these Sunnis were formerly al-Qaeda members, and the current “truce” with the Americans is little more than a tactical maneuver to buy time. “Of course the coming war is with the [Shi’ite] militias,” Baghdad Brigade intelligence officer Abu Omar told the Times. “God willing, we will defeat them and get rid of them just as we did with al-Qaeda.”

Masked settlers beat Palestinian farmers near Nablus - Haaretz, December 25, 2007

Masked Jewish settlers beat and injured Palestinian farmers in a field near the West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday, Palestinian witnesses and doctors said.

The settlers sprayed four Palestinians who were planting wheat with pepper gas and then beat them with sticks, the witnesses said. Two were injured, one moderately, and treated at a local hospital, doctors said.

“They parked on the road and we thought they were just hiking but suddenly they put on masks and they sprayed me in my eyes and beat me and I couldn’t see who it was,” said farmer Hussein Asida, 46. A Palestinian youth, 15, was among those attacked, Asida said.

The Palestinians said the attackers spoke Hebrew among themselves. Settlers from the nearby illegal outpost of Havat Gilad have attacked Palestinian farmers in the past.

Jehad Nga for The New York Times

On Christmas Eve, the Rev. Thaer al-Sheik offered communion to a dwindling congregation at Sacred Heart Church in Baghdad.

Damien Cave, At Christmas, Iraqi Christians Ask for Forgiveness, and for Peace - New York Times, December 25, 2007

Sacred Heart Church is not Iraq’s largest or most beleaguered Christian congregation. It is as ordinary as its steeple is squat, in one of Baghdad’s safest neighborhoods, with a small school next door.

But for those who came to Sacred Heart for Mass on Christmas Eve, there seemed to be as much sadness as joy. Despite the improved security across Iraq, which some parishioners cited as cause for hope, the day’s sermon focused on continuing struggles.

Iraq’s Christians have fared poorly since the fall of Saddam Hussein, with their houses or businesses frequently attacked. Some priests estimate that as much as two-thirds of the community, or about one million people, have fled, making Sacred Heart typical. Though a handful have recently returned from abroad, only 120 people attended Mass on Monday night, down from 400 two years ago.

Munson: I would question the accuracy of some of the statements in this review of Yifat Kedar’s documentary Between the Lines (2001) about Amira Hass. For example, Sachs writes “from what the film shows, she apparently has no friends in Israeli society.” This seems implausible and biased. I do not know Amira Hass personally and I have not seen this film. But I do know Israelis who revere her–as I do.

Micah Sachs, Seeing between the Lines, (Review of Film about Amira Hass) - San Diego Jewish Journal, February 3, 2002

Amira Hass is probably the most committed journalist in Israel, for better or worse. When first assigned to cover Gaza by Israel’s best-known daily, Ha’aretz in 1991, she decided to spend part of each month living there. She permanently moved to Gaza after the Oslo peace accords.In 1997, well before the current intifada, she moved to Ramallah, in the West Bank. She remains there to this day, braving power outages, squabbles with the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinian Authority, tanks and stonings. During her time covering the occupied territories, she has come to a simple conclusion, fervently held: the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is a travesty.

If you tend to agree with her, then Israeli director Yifat Kedar’s documentary Between the Lines (2001), about Hass’s life in the West Bank, will confirm your convictions. But even if you don’t, you can’t help but empathize for this lonely, courageous and angry woman.

One of the great powers of film is its ability to make us understand those we might normally demonize. Among other reasons, Schindler’s List (1993) is a masterpiece because Ralph Fiennes makes the viewer understand how a person becomes a Nazi monster.

By showing direct evidence of the indignities, injustice and hate that Palestinians in the occupied territories endure, the film makes us empathize with them. But more importantly, it makes us - and hopefully Israelis - understand why one of their own would choose to live “behind enemy lines.”

It would be easy to dismiss Hass if she had a cozy relationship with the Palestinian Authority. But she does not. She needles P.A. leaders about corruption and lack of democracy just as ruthlessly as she hounds Israeli military flaks about the destruction of Palestinian crops.

When she writes, it is with the passion and conviction of a prophet. Her articles are not possessed with the tone of calm evenhandedness that American readers are accustomed to; her work (available at www.zmag.org/meastwatch/amira_hass.htm) is scathing, judgmental and accusatory.