programming and religions

Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code.

from amz: If programming languages were religions...

no agnosticism on racism

Below are some key excerpts from a 1953 interview with Bertrand Russell. He speaks with great clarity and conciseness, yet in a very accessible conversational style. I've chosen these excerpts because they touch on the issue of how to evaluate Islam today.

When, in a recent book, I said that what the world needs is "love, Christian love, or compassion," many people thought this showed some changes in my views, although in fact, I might have said the same thing at any time. If you mean by a "Christian" a man who loves his neighbor, who has wide sympathy with suffering, and who ardently desires a world freed from the cruelties and abominations which at present disfigure it, then, certainly, you will be justified in calling me a Christian. And, in this sense, I think you will find more "Christians" among agnostics than among the orthodox. But, for my part, I cannot accept such a definition. Apart from other objections to it, it seems rude to Jews, Buddhists, Mohammedans, and other non-Christians, who, so far as history shows, have been at least as apt as Christians to practice the virtues which some modern Christians arrogantly claim as distinctive of their own religion.

[...]

Of the great religions of history, I prefer Buddhism, especially in its earliest forms, because it has had the smallest element of persecution.

source: Bertrand Russell: What is an Agnostic? (1953)

What Russell says of Muslims or "Mohammedans" is that they can behave as well or as badly as people of any other religion and this is hard to argue with. Christianity, especially, has a very very bad history in matters of persecution and in its failure to reign in emperial brutality as inherited from Rome.

However, Russell doesn't compare the core teachings in their fixed written forms. These are the ongoing legacy of the various religions, pretty much untouched by time and circumstance. It's true that interpretations and evaluations change over time - people "read" or understand the texts differently - but the words themselves have remained fairly stable despite being transmitted for much of their history through manual and not automatic means.

In my own estimation, the Bible remains as a valuable literary work and Jesus remains as a valuable moral leader. I have not found the Buddhist texts accessible, entertaining, or enlightening. I do find the Islamic texts - the Koran itself in conjunction with the traditions and life of Mohammad - to be problematic. I see no moral leadership there, no spiritual instruction, just practical guidance on how to manage political situations and conduct wars. Muslim dogma is not exploited so much in the interests of persecution as in the interests of supremacism through the sword, world domination on all levels: cultural, spiritual, geographical, genetic. On the last point, there is a very apparent Arab racial dominance element to Islam. It is chiefly expressed through the "right" of the conqueror to rape and enslave the women of the conquered. The cultural dominance is chiefly expressed through an insistence that the Koran - the word of God - is untranslatable so that it can only be properly accessed through the Arab language.

The racial element of Islamic supremacism is rarely talked about but its presence is felt most strongly when Muslims project their own racism onto all those who view Islam critically. The "racist" card is pulled out from their own sleeves and no one seems to be noticing this, let alone pointing it out.

So here goes, even if it is a lone voice in the wilderness:

Islam is a racist ideology and the Koran is a racist manifesto.

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collateral damage

I recently finished reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2006) and found it largely entertaining and even, in places, informative. I support his forthright stance against literalist understandings of religious motifs but for me, as for others, he does go a wee bit too far in places. His atheism is asserted a little too stridently. Because I'm on his side in the cultural war he is waging, I feel I can bear the "collateral damage" inflicted by his failure to pick up on the worthwhile nuances to be found in the religious arena.

Because Jung and gnosticism are dear to me, the main collateral damage occurred on pages 50/51 in the following passage:

Let us, then, take the idea of a spectrum of probabilities seriously, and place human judgements about the existence of God along it, between two extremes of opposite certainty. The spectrum is continuous, but it can be represented by the following seven milestones along the way.

1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C. G. Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know.’
   
   
2. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.’
   
   
3. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’
   
   
4. Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’
   
   
5. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don't know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be sceptical.’
   
   
6. Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’
   
   
7. Strong atheist. ‘I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung “knows” there is one.’

I'd be surprised to meet many people in category 7, but I include it for symmetry with category 1, which is well populated. It is in the nature of faith that one is capable, like Jung, of holding a belief without adequate reason to do so (Jung also believed that particular books on his shelf spontaneously exploded with a loud bang). Atheists do not have faith; and reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist. Hence category 7 is in practice rather emptier than its opposite number, category 1, which has many devoted inhabitants. I count myself in category 6, but leaning towards 7 — I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden.

As I understand Dawkins to mean by "atheism" (category 7) and as I understand Jung to mean by "know" (category 1), I would place myself in both categories. I would happily describe myself as a gnostic atheist (or atheist gnostic) and I cannot imagine how to explain all that to Dawkins. He comes across as a very intelligent man on some things and very stupid on others. Maybe we are all like that?

Anyway, I'll leave the last word to Rumi:

To the Prophet, this world is plunged in glorification of God,

while to us it is heedless.

To his eye this world is filled with abundant love;

to the eyes of others it is inert and lifeless.

To his eye, valley and hill are in fluid motion:

he hears subtle discourses from sod and bricks.

To the vulgar, this whole world is a dead thing in chains.

I have never seen a veil of blindness more amazing than this.

Mathnawi IV: 3532-3535,
version by Camille and Kabir Helminski via sunlight