Gabriella,
No it isn't.
Ok I compare it to Stalin, Hiroshima, the Killing Fields, Vietnam, 2 world wars, invasion of Iraq despite UN resolution that did not authorise according to the UN, collateral damage despite laws to the contrary, pre-emptive strikes despite laws requiring imminent threat - the list is endless. Lots of dead civilians in each of these incidents, often in excess of the deaths of 9/11. What 's so special about 9/11?
Yes it is. What you’re talking about here is the effect of
dogma – the belief that you’re so right about something that you can’t be wrong, so you act accordingly. While religious faith is clearly a major source of dogmatic belief that’s not for one moment to say that there aren’t others.
Because morality and the individual circumstances of people's lives are far more complex than 2+2=4. Was that a serious question that you really needed me to explain the answer to?
Yes, because (as I suspect you know) it was just to illustrate the difference between ambiguous and unambiguous statements. If I was an all-knowing and beneficent god, why would I frame my rules with such remarkable vagueness that they’d need millennia of interpretation and re-interpretation to fathom out, and even then with no means of knowing whether we'd ever got there?
It is what it is. I have what I believe is a divinely authored text to interpret so I'll get on with the business of interpreting it with my limited abilities, as will every other individual who believes it to be a divinely authored text…
Not “every other individual at all”. Far from it. Some of those individuals it seems don’t recognise their own “limited abilities”, and then act on their certainty. That’s the problem when faith beliefs about an inerrant god meet human frailty – only if you think there are ultimate rights and wrongs can you be in a position to think you've found them.
…and given that there are a wide range of abilities based on nature and nurture and political and environmental factors etc, I would expect to see a wide range of interpretations, but we share the core belief iin a monotheistic concept of God that has communicated with us through messengers.
No doubt, but see above for why that’s a dangerous belief to have for the rest of us.
Believing in a God and Day of Judgement after death where you are held divinely accountable even if you escape accountability while alive could change your outlook and decision-making in certain situations.
I know – terrifying isn’t it? So what if your interpretation is that the Quran says clearly one thing, but you think that’s the wrong thing to do nevertheless?
That’s not a problem for me if, say, I look askance at something Aristotle or Spinoza said because my judgement isn’t fettered by fear of a
post mortem judgment.
How about you though?
Content? Depends what you mean by content.
It’s simple enough – would you do what your interpretation of the Quran told you to do, or would you do what you thought to be the better course of action?
It might trouble me - if I thought I definitely should be doing it I might feel guilty e.g. when I miss a prayer. If I thought it shouldn't apply in a particular situation then I might wonder whether I was making the correct choice out of all the possible choices, and I would try to figure out what my motivation for my choice was. If I thought I was just finding excuses because I found it too hard in this instance to practise something I might feel a bit guilty and think maybe my resolve will increase in the future.
I was thinking more of when your interpretation told you that the Quran said to do one thing, and you thought it morally better to do something else.
Who wins, and why?
A sense of accountability. And then when I practise fasting and teetotalism I get so much benefit from it that I am glad I have a reason that makes it easy to compel myself to do it. The kids say the same thing - they are so glad they have the Muslim thing to fall back as an easier way to get themselves out of the pressure to drink alcohol than just using will power with no religious narrative.
Bingo.
You tell us that you see the book as a sort of self help manual – applying it is sometimes practically useful, and sometimes it’s not. (ie, the same as can be said of any such book, whether a philosophical treatise or for that matter a cook book (“Thanks for that Delia, but actually I prefer my cake with three eggs rather than two if it’s all the same to you”).)
But then you introduce the notion that “the belief in God bit changes your outlook and choices” because that belief “compels” you to do something you otherwise wouldn’t do.
Compels you to do something to do something you otherwise wouldn’t do.
Isn’t that exactly the argument I’ve been making all along about why the certainty of religious faith is such a bad thing? If even you feel “compelled”, then not having a Bailey’s before bed or flying a ‘plane into a building have exactly the same rationale.
