But let's not yawn too soon.

In the next few posts, I'll look at a few rhetorical dimensions of Scruton's essay, pointing out how he employs useful slights-of-hand. In this first post, I'll highlight how the first three paragraphs launch a covert attack on the personal credibility of the evangelical atheists prior to laying out their actual case explicitly in the text. It is the sort of rhetorical move that often works really well, but only if the reader does not notice it, in which case it can seem crass and small-minded. This being the rhetorical precipice over which the prose is most liable to fall, let's see how Scruton dances along it.

Scruton starts out by citing a tradition of antipathy toward organized religion, a sentiment that runs from Martin Luther and Voltaire to Dawkins and Hitchens. Maybe it made sense back in the eighteenth century, Scruton grants, but come on,

The violence of the diatribes uttered by these evangelical atheists is indeed remarkable. After all, the Enlightenment happened three centuries ago; the arguments of Hume, Kant and Voltaire have been absorbed by every educated person. What more is to be said? And if you must say it, why say it so stridently? Surely, those who oppose religion in the name of gentleness have a duty to be gentle, even with – especially with – their foes?

Right or wrong, this stuff is pretty outrageous. After Scruton himself promulgates an unbroken line from Luther to Dawkins, he then complains about Dawkins existing in an unbroken line from Luther. Moreover, he has substituted the atheistic point of view - a coherent set of arguments - for the tendency of atheists to be shrill about them. And so a debate about ideas is replaced by a debate about whether it is good or bad to argue too loudly. This way, in order to be victorious on the level of ideas, all Scruton has to do is prove that his opposition is not comporting themselves kindly as they express their perspective. So long as he shows that atheists indulge in too much amplitude, it will seem as if the substance behind their point of view is also daft.

Fine sport. What's next? A long paragraph, telling us how the world works, of course:

There are two reasons why people start shouting at their opponents: one is that they think the opponent is so strong that every weapon must be used against him; the other is that they think their own case so weak that it has to be fortified by noise. Both these motives can be observed in the evangelical atheists. They seriously believe that religion is a danger, leading people into excesses of enthusiasm which, precisely because they are inspired by irrational beliefs, cannot be countered by rational argument. We have had plenty of proof of this from the Islamists; but that proof, the atheists tell us, is only the latest in a long history of massacres and torments, which – in the scientific perspective – might reasonably be called the pre-history of mankind. The Enlightenment promised to inaugurate another era, in which reason would be sovereign, providing an instrument of peace that all could employ. In the eyes of the evangelical atheists, however, this promise was not fulfilled. In their view of things, neither Judaism nor Christianity absorbed the Enlightenment even if, in a certain measure, they inspired it. All faiths, to the atheists, have remained in the condition of Islam today: rooted in dogmas that cannot be safely questioned. Believing this, they work themselves into a lather of vituperation against ordinary believers, including those believers who have come to religion in search of an instrument of peace, and who regard their faith as an exhortation to love their neighbour, even their belligerent atheist neighbour, as themselves.

There's a lot going on in this paragraph. Let's look at few pieces.

1) "There are two reasons ... " This is just not true. People shout at their opponents for a million different reasons: because they are passionate, because they are promoting a book, because they are sick of repeating themselves, because their opponents are very stubborn, or just because they are irremediably French. Scruton is wise to place this at the beginning of a sentence and at the beginning of a paragraph, a juncture at which many readers are unlikely to pause and think things over.

2) "... They think the opponent is so strong ... they think their own case is weak ..." Notice that both of these "reasons" impute that atheists are faking their beliefs. According to this portrayal, the atheists are cool, calculating minds that soberly assess their case and choose a plan of obfuscation after gaming out other strategies. Public intellectuals generally don't think that way. I mean, really: Chris Hitchens dispassionately realizing that his own beliefs are weakly supported and in need of obfuscatory camouflage? The man simply loves himself too much to entertain the possibility that his ideas are weak, let alone in need of over-fortification. Nevertheless, by construing their argument as essentially strategic, Scruton diminishes the sense that the atheist point of view could be conscientiously held. According to the language, evangelical atheists are frauds - they know full well that they are wrong, and are refusing to admit it for some ulterior reason.

3) "... they seriously believe ... the atheists tell us ... they work themselves into a lather ... their belligerent atheist neighbor ..." Scruton continues to build on the image of the unreasonable, browbeating, animalistic atheist. Again, the problem (so far) isn't with the atheist point of view, the problem is with the atheists.

Only after exorbitantly laying this groundwork does Scruton actually tell us the substance of the athiest case

Dawkins and Hitchens are adamant that the scientific worldview has entirely undermined the premises of religion and that only ignorance can explain the persistence of faith.

Coming at this juncture in the prose, this idea is already undermined by the adamance of the haughty, out of touch, animalistic frauds who hold it. Had Scruton provided this sentence nearer to the beginning of the essay, readers may have allied closely with the atheist position, and Scruton would have a much harder time breaking this allegiance. However, since these words appear on the page only after a flood of disparaging remarks about their authors, many readers have been encouraged to consider the atheist position as inherently weak. In this way, the first two paragraphs of the essay do little more than devalue the honesty and trustworthiness of Scruton's interlocutors, rather than making a positive case of their own.

As I mentioned at the outset, this plan only works for readers who don't notice it. Scruton plays with fire on this because so many of his main subject nouns and clauses ("they think .. they believe") make it seem like this is a story "about" damnable atheists and not their impoverished ideas. If this were intended as an essay of philosophy for readers of same, then this is probably a poor choice. But if this is intended as sheer provocation - which is, by the way, a perfectly legitimate and necessary argumentative activity - then Scruton has surely ruffled the right feathers and at the right moment. If this is the case, however, Scruton will have to explain why he starts out an essay against vituperation by getting up his own lather of it.

Next time: Scruton sets out to astonish us with his ability to exterminate paradoxes like godless little roaches.

Hitchens' book--unlike many of us expected--was not about proofs about God or really about much theology at all. The book read like more of a polemic, not against God, but against religion.

Hitchens pulls out every negative example about anything religious he can think of (true or false), and posits that since some of these things having to do with religion are quite negative, then God must not exist and religion must be ultimately a power for evil.

Hitchens' approach is not that of a careful philosopher able to describe her opponent's position and anticipate refutations. Rather Hitchens arrogantly dismisses all religion and those who espouse them without a whiff of respect, intellectual humility, or willingness to consider different viewpoints.

Now I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the book, nor that I never agreed with Hitchens. In fact, I found myself nodding in agreement more than I anticipated. You see Hitchens kept making points that he figured would make me think God didn't exist, or that religion was stupid, but really they just confirmed my previous thinking that God is mysterious and calls us to think deeply; that indeed, religion can quickly become too much about people and too little about God.

For example, Hitchens decries some Christians groups' opposition to the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. He seems to suggest that since some groups of Christians oppose the vaccine (because they think it encourages pre-marrital sex), that all religions are inept and deluded. News flash: I'm a Christian, and I support the vaccine...oh, and I'm not alone. And so he goes, on and on about evolution--which I think I worked out one morning in 3rd grade sunday school--and about slavery, and the crusades, and, well, you get the picture.

He sets up false logic that just doesn't follow for most mainliners, "Either the Gospels are in some sense literal truth, or the whole thing is essentially a fraud and perhaps an immoral one at that." p. 120

I don't know what he might mean by "literal truth," but to anyone who has read the Bible, the implication that the four gospels describe the story of Jesus in different ways isn't exactly a faith challenging claim.  I doubt it leads many to think of Christianity as a fraud.  But Hitchens then goes further--though without any explanation--writing ever so briefly that in fact Jesus the human never existed at all.

All this said, I actually enjoyed reading the book (well, at least the first 200 pages). Sometimes I feel a bit sheltered in my Christian seminary life, and I really appreciated considering another perspective. And heck, at least his arrogance was entertaining from time to time.

Book group was pretty solid too, discussing my personal faith with a former Jew and now atheist who wants to believe but can't. The frank, probing, respective conversation reminded me of my two favorite pastoral visits last year.

On both occasions I arrived to a warm welcome, and minutes later the (former) church member was describing how he now espoused a staunch atheism. The ensuing conversations were the most honest, forthright, and deep of any one-time visit in which I'd ever been privileged to take part.

So I don't really not recommend the book, but I don't exactly recommend it either. For thinking Christians, it's not a book to be scared of, but really nothing much to get worked up about either. That said, if you have the opportunity to discuss it with a diverse group, I'd recommend the read for what the discussion might bring.

The first is another MBA, this time in religious studies. I'm fascinated by religion in all ways, but more important, I sense something right now. See, I'm thinking specifically of guys like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, both of whom wrote mega-bestselling books concerning the fact that religion is, at its heart, a bad idea.

But I think there's a foundation for all religious thought and pursuit, really. Personally, I don't believe there's any difference between a spell, a prayer, and a meditation session; all are, at their bases, pretty much mainly modes of positive thinking. Same thing with that The Secret book from last year or so.

The problem, I think, is that Harris and Hitchens lack a scientific background, and are approaching religion from a mainly philosophical/ethical point of view.

Which is fine, of course.

But I think it misses some very huge things. I honestly think that the fact that most people believe in something of a divine nature has some substantive argument to it. But most of all, I think the more one examines biology and quantum electromechanics and physics, the more one starts to not just believe but realize that there's something greater going on.

Einstein himself said that religion without science is lame, but science without religion is blind.

And I think there's something there.

So I could, in theory, design a degree in something like scientific deology (they're not allowed to use the word "theology," apparently, for some Arch-Diocesan reason [okay, so there's a spot where Hitchens and Harris have a point]), and ultimately produce a book I'm planning, called Godology, on the application of the scientific method to areas including God and the afterlife.

Or, I could go for an MBA. Which would really sort of be the first practical degree I could actually use I'd be earning.

And the thing is, it's not a question of passion or love or whathaveyou, because just the existence of this blog and all I've done related to writing is evidence of how I'm fascinated by marketing and branding. I'm aiming for "Entrekin" to become a brand every bit as much as Crichton and King and Gaiman are. I'm not solely concerned with the airy-fairy artsy-fartsy aspect of writing, which is the most major reason I chose USC to study writing; it was about professional writing. About the craft of it yes, but also about selling it.

Because I'll be honest; I'm not solely trying to write the best books I can. I'm also trying to get them to as many readers as I possibly can.

And part of that is marketing. Part of that is both about analyzing target audience and then reaching it.

So this weekend, I've got some figuring out to do. I think, ultimately, the MBA is probably more practical, and I'll certainly write Godology anyway.

Editor's Note: If this was the "water-boarding" experience of Christopher Hitchens after a minute or two, we can only imagine the torture to which prisoners are subjected to when "water-boarding" is conducted by US military thugs who are trained to hate Muslims and whose handiwork is not being video-taped. - Les Blough, Editor

Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of "extreme interrogation" and "outright torture".

From this, his foes inferred that since it was Hitchens' belief that America did not stoop to the latter, the practice of waterboarding - known to be perpetrated by US forces against certain "high-value clients" in Iraq and elsewhere - must fall under the former heading.

Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer's critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding (which may sound like some kind of fun aquatic pastime, but is probably best summarised as enforced partial drowning) a whirl, just to see what it was like. Did the experience feel like torture?

And amazingly, he has done just that. In August's edition of Vanity Fair, you can read all about it, and see more photographs of the "wheezing, paunchy, 59-year-old scribbler", his head hooded, being subjected to this most terrifying of ordeals by veterans of the US Special Forces.

So what did it feel like? Hitchens recounts how he was lashed tightly to a sloping board, then, "on top of the hood, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose ... I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and - as you might expect - inhale in turn."

That, he says, "brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, flooded more with sheer panic than with water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal" and felt the "unbelievable relief" of being pulled upright.

The "official lie" about waterboarding, Hitchens says, is that it "simulates the feeling of drowning". In fact, "you are drowning - or rather, being drowned".

He rehearses the intellectual arguments, both for ("It's nothing compared to what they do to us") and against ("It opens a door that can't be closed"). But the Hitch's thoroughly empirical conclusion is simple. As Vanity Fair's title puts it: "Believe me, it's torture."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/02/humanrights.usa

On the same day that Barack Obama wants to rewrite his Iraq War position while continuing to insist that his position has never fundamentally changed, the McCain campaign seized on the recurrent flip-flop issue by noticing Obama's changing website, which has suddenly brightened up the picture in Iraq! 

Well, updating one's website is normal, but updating the basic premise of an issue that garnered countless thousands of kook-fringe voters in the primaries is another thing altogether!  Obama is both insulting the rubes that voted for him, while giving McCain an opening to legitimately harp on the flip-flop motif of which the Republicans have been trying to tag Obama this last month to great effect: abortion, faith-based initiatives, Iraq itself, gun rights, etc. are all part of the evidence!

Furthermore, Obama's people are making a really dumb political move by allowing this speech without protest.  Insisting that he give an Iraq/Afghanistan speech before he visits the region traps him in a very high-profile political way, making his trip just a lens to justify his preconceptions, not the other way around which would give more political cover to take the exact same positions he lays out today but with more legitimacy.  It's a ridiculous move and McCain's already hitting him on it!  Even Christopher Hitchens, a super duper uber leftist, believes that Obama's "zero-sum" attitude towards the two theaters is unfounded and small-minded. 

CNN photo from Fact Check.

I say it often and I'll say it again, theology matters. Solid theology. Not a theology centered on man, but a theology centered squarely on God, His attributes, His plans, His glory.

Here is the video

Politicians in peril
From saving the planet to rebranding a licence plate, Canada's elected officials are making summer difficult for themselves.

Can Stéphane Dion sell Canada on his Green Shift by summer's end? The question is crucial, says the Toronto Star's James Travers, because a fall election would expose him to a leadership review at the party convention in December, where only a "winning campaign" would be likely to save his hide. So even if Dion quite reasonably decides he needs more time, he'll be besieged by people inside and outside the party accusing him of stalling simply in order to avoid that review. Travers knows what you're thinking: "Regardless of when the election is, he will eventually face a leadership review," so why worry? Because delaying until 2009 might buy Dion an extra two-and-a-half years of leadership (and sideways glances from Michael Ignatieff), that's why.

The Vancouver Sun's Vaughn Palmer is concerned that BC Premier Gordon Campbell's carbon tax (by virtue of being far more "ambitious" than those of neighbouring jurisdictions), and the accompanying cap-and-trade system (by virtue of uncertainty, since it isn't designed yet), are threatening the "commitments to growth and investment that got him where he is today." The resource sector is particularly imperiled, he argues, since its "prices are set by international commodity markets," making it unable to pass the tax burden on to consumers.

Suggestions that American mayors opposed to the US purchasing oil from Alberta's tar sands come to Fort McMurray to judge for themselves are potentially "dangerous," Barbara Yaffe argues, also in the Sun, considering that many in the industry acknowledge how far they need to go in terms of boosting their environmental performance (and, we'd suggest, considering the tar sands look like absolute hell). Indeed, Yaffe suggests the $25-million "image campaign" Ed Stelmach launched in the spring was money that could have gone towards just that goal. "PR campaigns, advertising and websites will not take the oil sands where the petroleum producers hope to go," she very reasonably concludes, "and where Canadians have a vested interest in seeing them go."

The National Post's Kevin Libin reports on another misbegotten branding exercise out of Edmonton—the Stelmach government's idea to replace the simple, elegant "Wild Rose Country" on the province's licence plates with "Strong and Free," which has been branded as "obnoxious" and "straight out of Crawford, Tex." (though nobody seems to object to its use in our national anthem, as Libin notes). The point of this multi-million dollar exercise seems to escape most Albertans, Kibin notes, and delays in unveiling a new layout suggest it may eventually be scrapped. Still, if you ask us, the people who should really be up in arms are British Columbians, who are now forced to drive around proclaiming their province "The Best Place on Earth."

G8, not so great
The Star's Haroon Siddiqui believes the most important event that transpired at the G8 summit was the nuclear agreement between George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which affords India "access to American—and, peripherally, other Western, including Canadian—nuclear fuel and technology, even though it hasn't signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and has no plans to." This is emblematic of India's move out of the Russian orbit and into the American-Israeli one, Siddiqui opines, and while it's very controversial, he says the "humble and honest" Singh can probably muster the votes to survive it.

The Globe's Lawrence Martin bemoans the timid, Bush-placating do-nothingness of the G8 leaders in the face of dire global "crises of energy, hunger, climate and economics." He's so angry, in fact, that he brands the Japan get-together a "ritualistic cocoon"—an epithet hitherto reserved for modern-day Ottawa—and turns on Barack Obama for his recent transformation from an "inspirational idealist" to "a middle-of-the-road panderer." (It really is ghastly Obama actually has to get elected before saving the world.) "In stable times," Martin argues, "these leaders and political stars like Mr. Obama can perhaps be excused for conformist, clubby comportment. But not when the world is on this slope."

While Silvio Berlusconi this week fearlessly touted the idea of building 1,000 more nuclear plants around the world, the Globe's Konrad Yakabuski has this funny feeling that widespread nuclear expansion may be "the best idea since crop-based biofuels." It doesn't produce carbon, it's true—but neither do wind and solar, he notes, and it's quite possible they'll be financially competitive with nuclear by the time those 1,000 reactors come online. In the meantime it costs a bloody fortune, Yakabuski argues, and as ever, it "leaves behind the most deadly waste known to man."

Duly noted
In the Edmonton Sun, Lyn Cockburn says she would "applaud" the deportation of American army deserters back whence they came if she believed "there was any justification for the seemingly endless war in Iraq," but since there isn't, she thinks we should be "neighbourly" and let them stay. Then, a few short paragraphs later, she provides the missing justification: "If [US forces] were to pull out immediately, the country would likely sink instantly into civil war." She's right on both counts, we'd say—there was no justification initially, but there arguably is now. Which just goes to show that when you enlist in the army, neither you nor a foreign judge has any say in where you get sent or what you're told to do there. Back to America with the lot of them, we say!

Isn't it a weird and wacky sign of the times we live in that car salesmen are now called "brand specialists," inconvenient things have "convenience charges" applied to them and mental defects are now called "differences"? the Globe's Margaret Wente asks. Yes, she concludes, it's certainly very weird and wacky, and mildly annoying too. And away she goes to the cottage in her new Subaru.

The Post's Jonathan Kay believes Christopher Hitchens' account of being waterboarded cements his position (Hitchens', that is) as "the finest English-language opinion writer in the world right now." And in concluding the practice is torture even as he continues to support the War on Terror, Kay believes he offers writers and editors of all stripes a valuable lesson: be "true to your own gospel," no matter what your "following" wants from you. "Doing so won't help you get famous (unless you happen to also have Hitchens' spectacular level of talent)," Kay writes. "But it will ensure that what you do publish is something you can be proud of once the fleeting tide of e-mail plaudits from your following has washed in and out of your inbox."

Christopher Hitchens is in no doubt. I am in no doubt. Water-boarding is torture. The United States is routinely torturing people in George Bush's War against Terror. At least they should have the honesty to admit it. But they don't. And the British government does not have the courage to criticise them openly for it.

I remember seeing Condoleezza Rice angrily rejecting the accusation that the United States uses torture. If I met her, I would tell her to her face: 'Secretary of State, you are lying.'

The mainstream media has propped up the most entertaining (read: least inciteful) political commentators on both the left and the right to deliver sound bytes and biting one-liners that only generate discussion of the hateful and ignorant variety. Most of these folks will be found on television, some on the radio, and occasionally, they even write books.

If you really want to understand American politics without a slant on it, you would do well to avoid the following list of folks.

On both the left and the right, 3 personalities have separated themselves from the rest of the herd with a particularly bitter partisan flavor.

The third worst conservative pundit in the country is Bill O'Reilly, host of Fox News' most popular program. O'Reilly regularly berates guests with whom he disagrees, has sexually harassed female Fox staffers on numerous occasions, and revels in the image of the "culture warrior." If there truly is a cultural war, then O'Reilly is one of the people most responsible for it.

The third worst liberal personality in the country is Christopher Hitchens, a writer and public speaker. His rationale for breaking with the left on the issue of Iraq is that essentially, every Muslim is a dangerous extremist that must be hunted down and killed in the street like a dog. This plays into his overall radically Atheist views. In nearly every piece he writes, Hitchens takes pot-shots at people of faith, and normally insulting their intelligence is only the beginning. The title of one of his more popular books is "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."

The second to worst conservative pundit is Rush Limbaugh, host of the most widely heard radio program in America. If you enjoy bigoted, arrogant, dumbfounding commentary, you will love his show and I highly recommend it. I would write more about Limbaugh but in a previous column I promised to never write his name on my blog again. But he's just too large (pun intended) to leave off this list.

The second to worst liberal commentator is the outrageously smug host of HBO's Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher. In between jabs at Christians and the very notion of family, Maher occasionally takes time to admire the 9/11 hijackers: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

The worst conservative pundit of them all is easily Ms. Ann Coulter. While she shares O'Reilly's thuggishness and Limbaugh's partisanship, neither of them to my knowledge have ever advocated genocidal crusades. "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." No other pundit on either the left or the right so flagrantly attempts to generate controversy, booksales, and ratings by saying outlandish, irresponsible, often reprehensible things. That's the most maddening thing about Coulter. Most of the time, I find it hard to believe that even SHE believes the things that she says.

Lastly, and certainly the least, is the worst liberal pundit of the bunch: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. His sexist barbs aimed at Hillary throughout the primary campaign were offensive enough, but his path to popularity is the most disgusting facet of Olbermann. The reason he is in the place he's in today, with his ratings and followers are all thanks to one Bill O'Reilly. Olbermann essentially built his career on attacking O'Reilly on a nightly basis. Sadly, and stupidly, O'Reilly stooped and retaliated, thus making a liberal pundit star overnight. Say what you will about arrogance, sexism, racism, and hate speech, building your career on a feud with a creature as disreputable as O'Reilly is the most pathetic trait of them all.

Thomas Harrison called it the "water treatment".

On May 21, 1951, Lt Col Harrison's F-80 jet fighter was shot down over North Korea. Two years later, Harrison returned home to Clovis, New Mexico a broken man.

His Communist captors, he said, "would bend my head back, put a towel over my face and pour water over the towel. I could not breathe. This went on hour after hour, day after day. It was freezing cold. When I would pass out, they would shake me and begin again."

The treatment inflicted on downed airmen like Harrison spurred the Pentagon in the 1950s to study Communist torture. False confessions, it was discovered, were drawn by methods designed to elicit dependency and dread employing water, cold air, forced standing, isolation and humiliation. According to one 1956 CIA-sponsored report [PDF]:

"The Communists do not look upon these assaults as 'torture'. Undoubtedly, they use the methods which they do in order to conform, in a typical legalistic manner to overt Communist principles which demand that 'no force or torture be used in extracting information from prisoners'. But these methods do, of course, constitute torture and physical coercion. All of them lead to serious disturbances of many bodily processes."

On 2 October 2002, a group of intelligence officials gathered at Guantanamo to discuss an array of coercive methods to be used on inmates. Earlier that year, President Bush declared that the Geneva conventions do not protect Taliban and al-Qaida suspects in US custody. "After 9/11," as the CIA's then counterterror chief Cofer Black infamously put it, "the gloves came off."

One participant at the October meeting, according to a recently declassified transcript [PDF], asked about a "wet towel" technique. CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman responded: "If a well-trained individual is used to perform this technique it can feel like you're drowning. The lymphatic system will react as if you are suffocating, but your body will not cease to function." Torture, Fredman added, "is basically subject to perception…. If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

After approval by the Department of Justice and the National Security Council's principles committee, which included Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, waterboarding, plus an array of other coercive techniques, was used on at least three terrorism suspects. Senior Democrats, including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were briefed on its application.

When these facts surfaced in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, many rushed to defend use of the waterboard. In 2006, Cheney agreed that "a dunk in water is a no-brainer" to save lives. For Rudy Giuliani, whether or not it is torture "depends on who does it." For others, waterboarding is "like swimming, freestyle, backstroke", in the bizarre words of Republican Senator Kit Bond. Presidential candidate John McCain, himself a Vietnam-era torture survivor, even voted against an amendment seeking to ban CIA authorization of waterboarding.

Now, neoconservative pundit Christopher Hitchens has waded into the debate. In a new article for Vanity Fair, Hitchens - like several other journalists before him - underwent the procedure. "If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture," noted Hitchens, who lasted roughly 10 seconds under the spout.

Hitchens cites the salient views of Malcolm Nance, a US counter-terrorism consultant who speaks eloquently against its use. "Mr Nance told me that he had heard of someone's being compelled to confess that he was a hermaphrodite," recalled Hitchens, adding: "I later had an awful twinge while wondering if I myself could have been 'dunked' this far."

Still, Hitchens cannot escape the grip of American exceptionalism that has so permeated his work since 9/11. "Any call to indict the United States for torture is … a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down," he huffs.

For Hitchens, in America's pitched battle with "tormentors and murderers", the ends justify the means. I disagree. Communist techniques hinged on the infliction of pain elicit bad intelligence and helps fan the flames of hatred against the US. In the case of the "water treatment", poor means corrupt good ends.

He gets out of the way just when one would want him to interrogate himself. Here is exactly the limit to Hitchens the essayist. But he goes so far and so well before running up against it that I always want to read him.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Tellingly, in order to go through with the trial, after various health checks, Hitchens had to sign a contract of indemnification, with the clause:

“Water boarding” is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body.

Well versed in the thoughts of Orwell, Hitchens is capable of cutting through the government’s psychobabble and sees waterboarding for what it is, not as an “enhanced interrogation technique”, but as torture. Borrowing from Abraham Lincoln who said, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong”, Hitchens come to a similar conclusion: “If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.”

Americans have in the past quick to condemn those who have used the technique against its own people. From the Washington Post (October 5, 2006):

In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

Proponents of the technique claim the information gathered could prevent further attacks like 11 Sept, saving the lives of thousands which justifies the anguish suffered by few bad men. But even then, do these enhanced interrogation techniques provide credible reliable information? Would you not say anything to stop the pain of being torture? What if you knew nothing in the first place? What information would you give to save your life? A false confession? It is often mentioned in debates around torture that during the inquisition old women confessed to being witches who had placed curses on others in their village, who were then killed for their alleged crimes. Unless you believe that old women can in fact turn into cats, you must see the fallacy of torture as a means of eliciting information.

Hitchens covers the opposition to the technique this in his article, referring to a thorough argument by Malcolm Nance:

1. Waterboarding is a deliberate torture technique and has been prosecuted as such by our judicial arm when perpetrated by others.

2. If we allow it and justify it, we cannot complain if it is employed in the future by other regimes on captive U.S. citizens. It is a method of putting American prisoners in harm’s way.

3. It may be a means of extracting information, but it is also a means of extracting junk information. (Mr. Nance told me that he had heard of someone’s being compelled to confess that he was a hermaphrodite. I later had an awful twinge while wondering if I myself could have been “dunked” this far.) To put it briefly, even the C.I.A. sources for the Washington Post story on waterboarding conceded that the information they got out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “not all of it reliable.” Just put a pencil line under that last phrase, or commit it to memory.

4. It opens a door that cannot be closed. Once you have posed the notorious “ticking bomb” question, and once you assume that you are in the right, what will you not do? Waterboarding not getting results fast enough? The terrorist’s clock still ticking? Well, then, bring on the thumbscrews and the pincers and the electrodes and the rack.

Considering those in Guantanamo have not been charged or tried, how do any of us really know how dangerous or otherwise the detainees really are? How do we know the nature of their arrests or their connections to “terrorist” organisations? Considering the way in which detainees such Sami al-Hajj were released, it is safe to say that many who are incarcerated have committed no crimes, have no information and have had their human rights abused. What right does any country have to do that? National security? Guantanamo Bay has created more ill will for America and created more people who would seek to attack US interests than any information coerced under torture is likely to.

If America continues to play by these rules there will of course be consequences, that is the reality of the world. Other Western countries will condemn and Middle Eastern countries will seek revenge for the torture of their peoples. It is up to the people of America to oppose these actions and ensure they stop, for the rule of law, and for their own national security.

Let's go beyond the surface and examine the issues that will make a difference in eternity.  John 15:5  Jesus said:  I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  (NIV) No matter what good we do, or how good we do it, if isn't done in Jesus's name it will not count for anything in eternity.   Romans 3:10  There is no one righteous, not even one.  (NIV)  If you are not ignoring your conscience, the truth of the Word of God will hit your heart.

We think of our lives as being very important; but here is what God says in James 4:14  What is your life? you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  (NIV)  John 17:3  Now this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ[Yeshua HaMashiach] whom you have sent.  (NIV)
Our lives pass so quickly, do you want to make the most foolish gamble and put  off thinking about eternity until it is too late?

We all know people who are liars, but who does the Bible say a liar is?  1John2:22
Who is the liar?  It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ [Mashiach]
Who is the only truth?  we will find this answer in the following verse in the Bible.
John 14:6  Jesus said:  I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the father except through me.

One day we will have to give an account for our lives.  Hebrews 4:13-14  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.  Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.  (NIV)

So many do not understand the mercy and love the Father has for us.  The fact that you are still breathing is a sign of his love for you.  Your very breath is in His control.  If He wasn't merciful and compassionate, you would have died long ago.  2nd Peter3:9
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance[teshuvah] (NIV)

You may not understand God's ways, but that is why he is God, and you are not.  Isaiah55:8-9  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord[HASHEM].   His grace has appeared to you, but you just don't know it.  Titus 2:11-14  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  It teaches us to say no to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ [Yeshua HaMashiach] who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (NIV)

We are called to be worshippers of God, but most of us do not live our lives this way.
We focus our time and energy on things that do not please the Father.  The Bible says in Romans 1:25  They exchanged the truth of God for a  lie, and worshiped and served created things , rather than the Creator---who is forever praised.  Amen.  (NIV)

We have a choice to receive Jesus [Yeshua] in his mercy now, or experience him in his wrath in the judgement to come.   Revelation 6:15-17  Then the kings of the earth. the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.  They called to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!  For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"  (NIV)  There will be no excuses in that day.  Romans 1:18-20  The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature---have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  (NIV)

The biggest x-ray machine for our heart is what comes out of our mouths.  Matthew 15:18-19  But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'  For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  These are what make a man unclean.  (NIV)  Matthew 12:36  Jesus[Yeshua] said:  But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgement for every careless word they have spoken.  For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned.  (NIV) 

If you know you are not right with God, confess your sins with Godly sorrow and ask Jesus [Yeshua] to come into your heart and fill you with His Holy Spirit.  Attend a Church that believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.  Get baptized.  Read your Bible daily and follow the teachings of Jesus  Walk in His Love to all you come in contact with.

                                           Shalom in Jesus [Yeshua]

My sympathy for Christopher Hitchens at the end of chapter ten is gone (again). This eleventh chapter attempts to prove that religion is derived from the lowly human desire to separate a fool from his money. He begins by calling the reader to Hobbes's Leviathan chapter 38 and chapter 44. I've got the links here and I'll read the chapters for real later. Honest.

This chapter is a demonstration of the fallacy of proof by example. The form of this argument is:

1. x, a member of the set X, has the property P.
2. Therefore, all members of X have the property P.

For example,

1. The sheep that field is black.
2. Therefore, all sheep are black.

Hitchens has selected three examples: cargo cult religions of the South Pacific, Pentecostal huckster Marjoe Gortner, and Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith. So, after pruning out his rhetoric, his argument seems to be:

1. Cargo cults, Pentecostalism and Mormonism are founded by crooks and, hence, man-made.
2. Therefore, all religions are founded by crooks and, hence, man-made.

Of course, Hitchens has his work cut out for him. Here he needs to examine every religion of the world in time and place and conclude that all of them meet this criteria. A single counterexample, one demonstration of a religion without a crooked founder would be sufficient (as would one white sheep, above). Such a counterexample is not needed, of course, as the argument itself is invalid in its own form.

Chapter 12: A Coda: How Religions End

Another short excursus, like his previously on the pig, that documents the rise and fall of the Millerites, a 19th-century messianic movement. Presumably we are moving toward the ending section of the book and his final arguments. Here we go!

Chapter 13: Does Religion Make People Behave Better?

Hitchens takes on Martin Luther King and Gandhi, with a nod to Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln , to assert that religious belief was not a necessary part of their great moral accomplishments.

In his first example, he hopes to show that Martin Luther King's appeals to Christianity were nothing more than manipulative techniques. Those Biblical narratives could have been substituted with Greek myth, if that's what we all learned on mother's knee:

As it was, though, the 'Good Book' was the only point of reference that everybody had in common (175).

Untrue. Every American has common points of reference in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. We have stories and songs about liberty and equality that appeal to the Revolution and to the earlier Emancipation. And yet, King stuck with Biblical narrative the night before he died.

At no point did Dr. King--who was one photographed in a bookstore waiting calmly for a physician while the knife of a maniac was sticking stright out of his chest--even hint that those who injured and reviled him were to be threatened with any revenge or punishment, in this world or the next, save the consequences of their own brute selfishness and stupidity. And he even phrased that appeal more courteously than, in my humble opinion, its targets deserved. In no real as opposed to nominal sense, then, was he a Christian (176).

Again, Hitchens's presentation of Christianity is selective and one-sided. He read far enough into the Gospels to get John the Baptist's angry preaching, but not far enough to get to the Sermon on the Mount.

The cause of abolition served by Christians and freethinkers alike:

"When Dr. King took a stand on the steps of Mr. Lincoln's memorial and changed history, he too adopted a position that had effectually been forced upon him. But he did so as a profound humanist and nobody could ever use this name to justify oppression or cruelty. He endures for that reason, and his legacy has very little to do with his professed theology. No supernatural force was required to make the case against racism" (180).

He proceeds to blame religion for slavery:

As far as I am aware, there is no country in the world today where slavery is still practiced where the justification of it is not derived from the Koran (181).

Hitchens is clearly incapable of using a brief Internet search to get a little background. The sex slave trade thrives in Thailand, which is majority Buddhist. The BBC reported a year ago on a slave labor scandal in a brick factory in officially atheist China.

As much as chapter 11 was an exercise in proof by example, chapter 13 is an exercise in the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Because religion is present in oppressive cultures, religion has caused that oppression.This is an erroneous argument.

If religion is removed from the equation, does the oppression go away? In the Enlightenment myth, it does. Secular reasoning always leads people to brighter futures. The twentieth century bears witness to the contrary: even in the absence of religion, humanity is capable of great brutality.

In religion's presence, though are we better off? I'm hesitant to push too far. There's a slippery slope here in pushing for the support of religion on utilitarian grounds that it is beneficial for society to have. Where exactly to go with that I haven't quite figured out. It bears more thinking. But, hey, my blog is the perfect place for an inchoate position. I'm not the one who published a book full of inchoate positions.

]]> http://lab16.wordpress.com/?p=186 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:24:24 +0000 Jason Wells http://lab16.wordpress.com/?p=186 Chapter 9: The Koran is Borrowed from Both Jewish and Christian Myths

"One must proceed in the same spirit of inquiry to what many believe is the last revelation," namely, the Koran. Indeed, the "same spirit of inquiry" is followed, and the pattern of the previous two chapters is repeated. He cites only two texts. Most of the information he offers on the Koran could be found, impartially, in an encyclopedia article (e.g., it cannot be properly translated from Arabic). He repeats his anger at the fatwa on his friend Salman Rushdie and laments that no Cranmer can ever touch the Koran as he did the Bible.

To cite Dennis Ritchie's forward to the UNIX Hater's Handbook, "Like excrement, it contains enough undigested nuggets of nutrition to sustain life for some. But it is not a tasty pie: it reeks too much of contempt and of envy. Bon appetit!"

Chapter 10: The Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell

Before beginning this chapter, I've looked ahead to the footnotes to see what's to come. I'm already dreading it, as the only two notes are critical books on Mother Teresa, one of them is his own. That said, he can give details on any number of miracles in many religions and drops names like David Hume and quotes people like Trotsky, so the notes don't tell all.

In not unusual fashion, Hitchens goes for the expected target: the resurrection of Jesus. He immediately refers to Bart Ehrman's "most astonishing finding" that there are two endings to Mark's resurrection story. Hitchens clearly has read Ehrman's 2006 book Misquoting Jesus but fails to give any attention to textual scholarship. To Hitchens, this finding belongs only to the past year's scholarship from Ehrman. There's not a hint that the eminent Bruce Metzger published on this topic fifteen years earlier. Nor the fact that the discrepancy is noted between major writings like Irenaeus (ca. 150, lacking the addition) and Codex Alexandrinus (5th century, with the addition). Again, Hitchens fails to see that Christians have known the textual problem for centuries and yet the religion has not come tumbling down.

Critical nerdiness aside, Hitchens has some clarity in relating the process of Gospel-writing to his own experience in journalistic reporting, "I even read some stories in print under my own name which were not recognizable to me once the sub-editors had finished with them" (144, emphasis his). News regularly undergoes many editorial rounds before finalization and yet the integrity of the story is not drawn into question on those grounds. It took me a few minutes to notice that he's gone all over the map without saying much against the miracle of the resurrection itself.

In one page he sweeps from a clear comment into UFOs, William of Ockham and vitriol for Mother Teresa. For several pages he recycles stories from his other book in which he rejects miracles attributed to Mother Teresa. She has an obsessive power over him that he can't get out of.

Hitchens rightly points out that miracles are not simply "disturbances in the natural order," but that they are favorable disturbances in the natural order. He goes on to remind us that Krakatoa, the 2005 Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina are not termed miracles because of their unfavorableness. He does move on to the worst of the worst, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and their disgusting interpretations of the events. Hitchens says that "everything is already explained" when we remember that we live on an unstable planet with turbulent weather. Yes, that does explain why those things happened. What meterology and geology don't supply is a voice about how to act when these things happen. Robertson and Falwell have their feeble response to "repent" in order to prevent future disasters. Plenty of religious, however, spoke for compassionate action that no weather reporter or news anchor had been able to do.

The argument from authority gets deserved criticism before Hitchens brings in a personal question with more emotional weight behind it than the rest of the book so far.

As one who has always been impress by the weight of history and culture, I do keep asking myself this question. Was it all in vain, then: the great struggle of the theologians and scholars, and the stupendous efforts of painters and architects and musicians to create something lasting and marvelous that would testify to the glory of god?

Not at all. It does not matter to me whether Homer was one person or many, or whether Shakespeare was a secret Catholic or a closet agnostic (150).

...

But there is a great deal to be learned and appreciated from the scrutiny of religion, and one often finds oneself standing atop the shoulders of distinguished writers and thinkers who were certainly one's intellectual and sometimes even one's moral superiors (151).

In a page far more tender than usual for Hitchens, he expresses wonder at Mozart's music, as he is curious if it is heaven-sent. Hitchens closes on his strong suit: literature. He is a well-read man and an expressive writer. "There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb" (153). As I remember from earlier in the book, I'm feeling sympathetic to a man who I strongly disagree with and who, at times, I just can't stand.

That said, he has gone far off course of his argument against the miraculous and has said almost nothing about "the decline of hell" promised in the chapter title. He expresses wishful thinking that the reader's faith has been so far undermined but, at the rate the argument is going, I'm not finding his work effective.

At first glance, you could be excused for saying immediately that there's no doubt Einstein was not religious. The first exctract is from a letter dated March 24th, 1954:

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

This seems clear, but the use of the word "personal" God, muddies the water a little. What many people claim is that he was a Pantheist, in that he saw Spinoza's God in nature and the universe.

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings"

Now the issue is muddied further because Einstein uses the word religious in odd ways. The word "spiritual" or "awe" would probably be better placed in the following:

"The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious."

"To know that what is inpenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men"

So why is the word religion used here? It's daft. Dictionary.com defines the word religious as:

Each of these definitions make certain to include the elements of both belief and practice. As far as I can tell, Einstein's religion concerns no practice, no ritual observance, and only a belief which has more to do with the laws of nature (a scientific belief) than with any kind of God. Fortunately he clears the issue up a little in this next readng, from a letter in 1954 or 55:

"I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything else that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."

Again he insists on using the word religious even though he says almost as clearly as you can that he ascribes no sort of consciousness to this thing he calls Nature. He is genuinely just an admirer of the universe and of science. We would not call that religious today. This is merely the kind of agnosticism that leans towards atheism, in that even if some kind of superior spirit exists, it doesn't matter because it wouldn't concern itself with the fates and actions of human beings. As Hitchens says in his introduction, "Einstein always insisted that the miraculous thing about the natural order was that there were no miracles, and that it operated according to astonishing regularities."

In a way, Einsteins beliefs as I'm interpreting them from his writings are fairly similar to my own. I've often said whilst debating online that I have no problem with the idea that there was a First Cause that we may as well call God. But the odds of this God still existing, being a conscious 'anthropomorphic' entity, being able to control the universe as it wishes (indeed our experience tells us that the universe works according to strict principles than by the whims of a superiour being), having intended to create in the most roundabout way possible a race of beings out in the sticks of the universe, giving a damn about our planet or the living things on it (least of all specifically humans over all the others), and coincidentally being one of the same anthropomorphic Gods that human beings have created out of the mystery of the unknown world and universe are so astronomically small that you may as well live your life as though no God exists.

As Judaism, Christianity and Islam find foundations in the revelation to Moses, Christopher Hitchens opens this chapter at the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20. From these verses, "it would be harder to find an easier proof that religion is man-made." His principal objections are:

1. God sounds like an ancient Near East tyrant (Exodus 20:2, 8-11).
2. The ethical commandments are self-evident (Exodus 20:13-16).
3. The final commandments (v. 17) include slaves and wives as a man's property, showing this to be a culturally-bounded writing, not a teaching from an eternal God.

He blames poor exegesis of the covenant for the nineteenth-century claims on Palestine that are the source of so many present woes in the Middle East. Tyrrany is again the order of the day and Hitchens is again unaware of the past century's work on suzerainty treaties in the Near East and the scholars who have developed theology from them.

He formally cites Sigmund Freud and Thomas Paine and Finkelstein and Silberman's The Bible Unearthed. Again, Freud is invoked to re-iterate that religion is of fear: "too clearly derived from our own desire to escape from or survive death. This critique of wish-thinking is strong and unanswerable...." This, of course, is not true. Freud has certainly had his critics since 1939, including Hitchens's beloved Karl Popper. A 2006 Newsweek article refers to Freud as "history's most-debunked doctor."

Would Hitchens read this blog, I would love to hear him answer:

1. Considering Freud's lack of intellectual credibility, why does Hitchens continue to cling to his claims?
2. Given that we are inescapably prone to our fear of death, how else ought it be dealt with other than the intervention of a God?

Concerning Paine, who "has never been refuted since he wrote," has a blockquote that hints at a rudimentary, eighteenth-century form of textual criticism. Certainly not refuted, but answered through the 1860 publication of Essays and Reviews and any number of Anglican and German Biblcal scholars. Hitchens offers no evidence that he has read or even heard of these two centuries of scholarship.

The only recent text he engages is Finkelstein and Silberman. I don't disagree with his use of modern archeological methods in OT exegesis at all. I'd find his arguments more credible would he reference more twentieth and twenty-first century writers.

Hitchens exposes the problems of poor exegesis of the Old Testament, which are already well-documented. However, he blames the abuse of the text on the text itself, not on its abusers. I would shudder to think of how, based on this example, Hitchens would treat cases of domestic abuse.

Chapter 8: The "New" Testament Exceeds the Evil of the "Old" One

The bibliography of a book is it's most important part, one friend of mine told me. He was right. Again looking at Hitchens's references we have H. L. Mencken, C. S. Lewis and Bart Ehrman. From his selections, it's clear that Hitchens's understanding of Christianity is colored more by essayists, novelists and controversialists than it is by its own theologians and Biblical scholars.

And so the chapter begins. He opens with a character attack on Mel Gibson ("Australian fascist and ham actor," who adheres "to a crackpot and schismatic Catholic sect"). He moves on to pointing out textual contradictions in the Gospels and questioning the canonization process in the light of Nag Hammadi. Textual problems have been evident since at least Tatian's Diatessaron of A.D. 150. Christians of any sensibility have had time to acknowledge this, deal and respond.

About halfway into the chapter, Hitchens alludes to having read any recent scholarship:

The contradictions and illiteracies of the New Testament have filled up many books by eminent scholars, and have never been explained by any Christian authority except in the feeblest terms of "metaphor" and "Christ of faith." This feebleness derives from the fact that until recently, Christians could simply burn or silence anybody who asked any inconvenient questions (115).

Of course, this explains why Thomas Jefferson suffered martyrdom at the hands of the church for his edited New Testament. And why Thomas Paine went into hiding for his deistic views. Or, it's another one-sided argument from someone who can't bother to footnote that he didn't read H. Richard Niebuhr's short book The Meaning of Revelation.

To his credit, he understands typological readings of the New Testament and correctly identifies the Immaculate Conception, a doctrine popularly misunderstood.

He picks C. S. Lewis's popular "lunatic, liar, lord" rhetoric as his next target. Of course, Hitchens's has moved from his topic (the text of the New Testament) and into christological apologetics. Hitchens is quite willing to choose "liar" and continue with his theme that the religion is itself immoral. It's an interesting move that I haven't heard anyone take up before.

Hitchens takes this opportunity to introduce Ehrman and the textual problem of John 8. There are plenty of problems around John 8 and Hitchens identifies a few. However, rather than turning to scholarly consensus, he picks New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. And no one else.

Hitchens concludes that he has "again selected [his] source on the basis of 'evidence against interest:' in other words from someone whose original scholarly and intellectual journey was not at all intended to challege holy writ." To the contrary, Hitchens intentionally chose Ehrman, a scholar of the same race and gender as he. They graduated from college within a few years of one another. Additionally, Ehrman has come out as agnostic in the last year. To say that the distinction between an atheist and an agostic is "evidence against interest" stretches his argument more than thin.

]]> http://rosenqueencompany.wordpress.com/?p=409 Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:36:11 +0000 K. geddoe http://rosenqueencompany.wordpress.com/?p=409 Konspirasisme ialah sebuah cara memandang dunia yang didasarkan pada teori konspirasi--- suatu hipotesis yang menggagaskan bahwa terdapat konspirasi-konspirasi yang menggerakkan dunia dari belakang layar. Menurut jurnalis kawakan Chip Berlet, konspirasisme adalah semacam metode pemikiran yang mengkambinghitamkan musuh dengan mendemonisasi mereka sebagai pihak yang bertanggung jawab akan upaya-upaya yang bertentangan dengan kemaslahatan masyarakat.

Lebih jauh lagi, konspirasisme menggiring para penganutnya untuk memandang para perumus teori-teori konspirasi yang bersangkutan sebagai whistleblower yang heroik; intelektual-intelektual bawah tanah yang berhasil membongkar borok-borok politik di saat media-media umum sudah tidak bisa dipercaya lagi. Dilihat dari sudut pandang ini, memang tidak berlebihan rasanya kalau konspirasisme adalah semacam masturbasi intelektual. Oh, the vanity.

Gramedia dan tumpukan buku-buku

Tidak sampai seminggu yang lalu, saya mengunjungi sebuah cabang Gramedia dengan niat yang sebenarnya tidak terlalu jelas. Memang saya hendak membeli buku, namun waktu itu tidak ada rencana khusus mengenai buku apa yang akan dibeli. Akibatnya, yang saya lakukan adalah berkeliling melihat-lihat sampai hampir setengah jam. Memang rasanya sangat lama, sebab kebetulan toko bukunya sendiri bisa dibilang cukup besar; sewaktu saya masih SMP, katanya cabang yang berlantai tiga ini adalah yang terbesar di Sumatra. Apa sekarang rekor itu masih dipegang, saya sendiri tidak tahu. Nah, setelah berputar-putar, pada akhirnya yang saya beli adalah satu kopi Rolling Stone dan dua volume Ai Kora, namun ada sedikit cerita di balik itu.

Ketika saya perhatikan, porsi bacaan agamis yang tersedia di toko buku tersebut memang cukup intimidating juga, walau memang sangat condong ke agama Islam (atau memang hanya Islam?). Ada banyak sekali novel-novel religius yang saya lihat, yang kelihatannya tersedia untuk bermacam-macam demografik. Ada beberapa yang secara gamblang sepertinya memang ditujukan untuk remaja-remaja rohis kelas gawul yang gemar meleburkan identitas keagamaan mereka dengan kultur pop, ada yang tone-nya lebih dewasa, sampai yang diperuntukkan pada anak-anak.

Saya sendiri tidak bisa dikatakan menyukai atau tidak menyukai tren ini; biasa saja, walau sempat terkesima juga dengan religiusitas bangsa ini. Namun yang sedikit mengganjal adalah majalah-majalah Islami yang terselip di antara serbuan buku-buku religius tersebut.

Kalau berbicara tentang media-media Islami, berbeda dengan media-media seperti novel atau buku, saya sedikit waswas dengan majalah. Konon, meninjau dari komentar-komentar yang masuk di salah satu artikel saya dulu, agak susah mencari majalah Islam yang agak 'sejuk'. Saya tidak terlalu tahu juga, sebab saya memang tidak berlangganan atau membaca majalah-majalah seperti itu secara rutin. Beberapa tahun lalu saya pernah membaca satu-dua majalah seperti Sabili dan sebangsanya, dan memang rasanya tidak terlalu sejuk. :) Waktu saya kelas tiga SMA, meja saya di kelas dikelilingi oleh rekan-rekan yang beragama Kristen. Saya masih ingat bagaimana mereka pada waktu itu sedikit tersinggung dengan headline Sabili yang 'seru' tentang 'Kristenisasi yang semakin marak'.

Nah, di majalah-majalah yang kebetulan saya temukan di toko tersebut, yang sempat saya lihat-lihat kovernya (sayangnya tidak dapat dibuka sebab dibungkus dengan plastik), jualannya juga serupa. Saya ingat salah satu tajuknya adalah; "Media Sekular, Corong Suara Kaum Kafir" atau sesuatu yang mirip seperti itu. Menyeramkan juga. Dan menjual tentunya. :P Sayang saya lupa nama majalahnya apa, jadi tidak bisa memberi referensi. Ada juga yang berbunyi seperti "...Membawa Kepentingan Asing" dan sebangsanya; saya rasa Anda sudah bisa menangkap berita (?) macam apa yang disajikan.

Topik inilah yang saya rasa patut direnungkan. Kegemaran media religi untuk menyajikan teori konspirasi. Saya rasa ini menarik, sebab ada kecenderungan media berita (?) Islam untuk memanas-manasi umat supaya bersikap lebih paranoid terhadap dunia luar. Jadi bertentangan dengan cara bekerja media-media lain, seperti novel-novel, yang lebih tertarik memasarkan nilai-nilai yang dianggap luhur seperti keimanan dan cinta kasih, media-media berita (?) ini cenderung menakut-nakuti akan rangkaian berita (?) yang membahas konspirasi yang dilakukan agama lain, selain menyerukan supremasi golongan serta mengarahkan masyarakat menuju pemahaman yang lebih konservatif.

Yang lebih menyulitkan, umat Islam Indonesia sendiri tidak terbiasa dengan perbedaan pendapat dalam agama, ambiguitas doktrin, dan sudah terbuai dalam paradigma agama yang 'pasti' di mana skisma tidak pernah terjadi. Jadi paham-paham yang berbenturan sekalipun, semuanya ditelan.

Jadi, tren teori konspirasi. Hanya ini. Adapun perkara tren religiusitas, novel-novel, dan lainnya, kita kesampingan dulu; barangkali bisa dibahas di lain kesempatan saja. :)

Teori konspirasi

Ah, saya yakin Anda sudah terbiasa dengan teori konspirasi religius sayap kanan; khas dan bahkan hampir jadi budaya. :)

Formula teori-teori konspirasi ini sangat sederhana dan mudah ditebak, kok. Anda pun sebenarnya bisa membuat teori konspirasi Anda sendiri:

1. Terdapat masalah/kejadian/peristiwa A.




2. Walau tidak diberitakan secara luas di media massa, namun ternyata ada agenda tersembunyi di balik masalah/kejadian/peristiwa tersebut, yang dilakukan oleh satu, beberapa, atau semua elemen di bawah ini:
   • Amerika Serikat
   • Israel
   • Zionisme
   • Freemasonry
   • Kaum agama liberal (Islam liberal, Kristen liberal, dst.)
   • Kaum Yahudi ("Jewsdidit!")
   • "Barat"
   • Pemerintah lokal (Yang ternyata sudah 'dibeli' atau 'disusupi' organisasi-organisasi di atas)
   • ...dan seterusnya.




3. Jadi "kita" sebenarnya ada dalam bahaya, karena perlahan-lahan musuh-musuh di atas mulai menggerogoti "kita" dan pada akhirnya akan menguasai dunia.




4. Waspadalaaah... Waspadalaaah...!

Hal ini tentu bisa dikaitkan ke berbagai macam kasus, tanpa kecuali:

1. Peristiwa: Telah berkembang sebuah aliran agama kecil yang dianggap sesat oleh badan yurisprudensi agama berotoritas.
   
   Teori konspirasi: Aliran tersebut sengaja ditiupkan oleh musuh untuk merusak pemahaman umat agama yang bersangkutan, guna lebih mudah dimurtadkan. Orang-orangnya adalah intelektual tidak jujur yang telah dibayar oleh musuh.




2. Peristiwa: Kelompok terorisme religius ekstrim beraksi dengan meledakkan bom mobil.
   
   Teori konspirasi: Semuanya sandiwara yang dilakukan untuk memperburuk nama agama yang dipermasalahkan.




3. Peristiwa: Ada logo produk/perusahaan/instansi yang mirip heksagram.
   
   Teori konspirasi: Badan itu dimiliki/dikendalikan oleh pemerintahan Israel. Hati-hati, karena tujuannya adalah mencari simpatisan di lingkungan lokal.

Yang seperti inilah yang banyak menghiasi halaman-halaman majalah-majalah berita (?) berhaluan religi kanan seperti yang saya sebutkan. Memang menjadi bacaan yang lebih sedap dan menarik, ketimbang, misalnya membaca tentang bagaimana kita mesti beriman dan berbuat baik sesama manusia, atau membaca ulasan acara pengajian. Itulah yang dimaksudkan sebagai masturbasi intelektual; kita bisa mengecap heroisme di situ. Sebab tiba-tiba semuanya jadi epik, segalanya menjadi medan perang. Desain segi enam yang mungkin sebetulnya hanyalah logo biasa, tiba-tiba bisa menjelma menjadi serbuan musuh. Dan kita seolah-olah diberi mandat untuk melindungi orang banyak dari marabahaya yang dibawa oleh serbuan yang dimaksud. Di sinilah ejakulasi intelektualnya.

Apakah teori konspirasi itu salah?

Saya tidak akan dogmatik; teori konspirasi itu bisa saja benar. Mungkin para petinggi politik Israel memang mengirimkan agennya ke tiap pelosok di kolong jagad. Mungkin media massa dan pemerintah Turki memang berkonspirasi menjatuhkan Harun Yahya. Mungkin Pentagon memang menyimpan robot raksasa Mazinger Z. Mungkin presiden SBY memang merupakan alien yang dikirimkan oleh federasi Virgo supercluster untuk mengendalikan rakyat Indonesia. Teori konspirasi bisa saja benar. Lantas mengapa menggunakan teori konspirasi adalah suatu kesalahan berpikir?

Untuk memahaminya, Anda perlu memahami konsep Occam's razor, atau pisau Ockham.

Pisau Ockham adalah prinsip berpikir yang pada konteks aslinya berbunyi; "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem". Terjemahan bebasnya mungkin; "jangan menambah-nambah di luar apa yang diperlukan". Tafsiran yang paling awamnya mungkin bakal berbunyi; jangan mengada-ada!

Akan lebih mudah untuk memahaminya melalui contoh. Seandainya, Anda dihadapkan pada persoalan berikut:

Anda hidup berdua saja di apartemen kecil dengan pasangan Anda. Suatu ketika, Anda pulang dan mendapati kue yang Anda simpan di lemari es telah lenyap.

Apa yang dapat Anda simpulkan?

Saya akan mengajukan dua kesimpulan untuk Anda;

1: Pasangan Anda telah memakannya.

2: Ada maling yang masuk dan mengambil kue tersebut.

Di atas kertas, keduanya adalah mungkin. Namun menurut pisau Ockham, Anda mesti menyimpulkan kesimpulan yang paling sederhana terlebih dahulu. Yang tidak menambah-nambah dalam berkesimpulan. Dan itu ada pada pilihan yang pertama. Kalau setelahnya Anda mendapati bahwa lemari Anda sudah diobrak-abrik dan barang berharga Anda turut lesap, mungkin bolehlah Anda maju ke kesimpulan kedua.

Lebih menarik lagi, kita bisa menambah-nambah kesimpulan macam apa pun;

3: Seorang ilmuwan sinting dari masa depan menggunakan mesin waktu untuk pergi ke dapur Anda dan makan kue, lalu kembali ke masanya.

Dengan mengabaikan pisau Ockham, secara logika maka akan sah untuk menganggap demikian. :) Yang diabaikan di sini adalah mengambil kesimpulan yang terlalu jauh--- kesimpulan yang lebih rumit membutuhkan bukti yang lebih rumit pula. Di sinilah kesalahan teori-teori konspirasi. Terlalu melompat-lompat dan bombastis dalam menarik kesimpulan. Misalnya bentuk heksagram pada logo Indosat. Akan lebih membumi untuk menarik kesimpulan bahwa logo itu hanyalah logo biasa saja; heksagram adalah bentuk yang jamak ditemukan. Lebih memenuhi kaidah berpikir yang benar untuk menyimpulkan bahwa logo itu dipilih karena alasan estetika dan pemasaran saja, ketimbang berpikir yang tidak-tidak kalau ternyata operator tersebut disokong oleh Israel. Lagipula kalaupun memang Israel mendukung Indosat secara sembunyi-sembunyi, kok malah dengan bodohnya memajang logo mereka dengan gamblang? Kalau saya jadi ahli propaganda, ya logo itu tidak akan saya buat mirip dengan logo Israel. :)

Hipotesis ini mesti ditahan di situ sampai ada bukti-bukti lain; misalnya Indosat tiba-tiba menyajikan telepon gratis ke Israel. :P Kalau melanggar batas itu, berarti hipotesis yang bersangkutan bertentangan dengan kaidah berpikir yang didasari metode ilmiah. Kalau hendak dipersingkat, maka translasi layman-nya adalah; teori konspirasi itu terlalu dibuat-buat. Berkesimpulan mesti didasari bukti, bukan "ke-bisa-saja-an".

Adapun selain pisau Ockham, terdapat tiga konsep lain yang bisa dijadikan tes litmus untuk menguji teori konspirasi:

1. Fallacy. Yaitu kesalahan dalam berlogika.
2. Metodologi. Apakah terstruktur atau malah dibuat-buat?
3. Testabilitas. Kalau tidak bisa dibuktikan salah (misalnya, "Ooh, bukti-bukti yang sudah ada sudah dimanipulasi...") maka sulit diterima sebagai hipotesis yang baik.

Yang paling menggelikan adalah, beberapa penganut konspirasisme menuduh kritik bahwa "teori konspirasi tidak ilmiah" sebagai konspirasi para konspirator.

Teori konspirasi itu berbahaya!

Pada tahun 2001, fotografer legendaris Brasil Sebastião Salgado turut serta dalam upaya pemberantasan polio di India. Kampanye pemberantasan itu berupa penyediaan imunisasi murah yang bisa didapat dengan harga yang betul-betul miring. Sang bayi mesti diimunisasi sebanyak dua kali--- saya tidak terdidik dalam bidang kedokteran, jadi saya juga tidak begitu tahu kenapa, namun begitulah prosedurnya.

Kampanye-kampanye pemberantasan polio adalah sesuatu yang menggugah. Sesuatu yang membesarkan hati kita sebagai manusia--- lihat saja pemberantasan polio di El Salvador. Konflik perang saudara pun terhenti sejenak kala itu; para prajurit yang berselisih menyetujui gencatan senjata sementara demi memberi ruang pada para petugas medis.

Bersama Salgado, adalah penulis senior Christopher Hitchens, yang kemudian menjadi tertarik mendokumentasikan gerakan yang luar biasa secara kecil-kecilan. Pada waktu itu ia tidak menyangka, ada cerita pahit yang kemudian mesti ia tuliskan pada akhir kampanye polio ini.

Yang terjadi adalah tragedi. Di Bengal, pada waktu itu penduduk sangat bersemangat menyambut kampanye ini--- mungkin bersukacita mengetahui bahwa kaki-kaki kecil bayi-bayi mereka akan segera dibalut imunitas, dan mereka bisa melupakan kekhawatiran akan melihat anak-anak mereka terserang polio dan jatuh cacat. Para wanita penghibur yang biasanya dipandang nista, bekerja secara sukarela, berlari menyisir kota. Mereka memekik ke setiap rumah, mengajak supaya anak-anak dibawa ke pos imunisasi. Seekor gajah waktu itu diarak-arak berkeliling kota, supaya kampanye semakin meriah dan menarik perhatian. Kawasan ini adalah salah satu titik termiskin di dunia, dan mereka waktu itu melihat titik pencerahan di mana mereka bisa hidup dengan lebih baik.