Morality, Religion & Philosophy: February 2006 Archives

The essayist who writes under the pseudonym "Spengler" is quickly becoming one of my very favorite writers. I recommend to you his excellent "The devil's sourdough and the decline of nations".

For this reason Goethe is the most relevant, and paradoxically the least understood, of modern writers. Life's triumph is to digest the daily sourdough, and its anxiety and sorrow are the greatest temptations. Contrary to my namesake Oswald Spengler, Western society is not "Faustian" because Western man seeks power, but rather because Western man still plays dice with the Devil for his soul according to the rules of the game established by Faust and Mephisto. Technology and freedom offer modern man the temptations of Faust more than those of Job.

Faust thwarts Mephisto because he never ceases to strive, but Faust is an exceptional fellow, a proxy for the inimitable Goethe. What we learn instead from the lives of ordinary people - and from the life and death of peoples - is that a sense of divine presence is what makes the Devil's sourdough digestible. US evangelical Christianity is not "about" conservative values, school prayer, or heterosexual marriage. It is about Christ crucified, and the rest follows as a matter of housekeeping.

By the same token, Muslim unhappiness is not "about" the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or even the intrusion of Western secular values. It is about the Muslim perception that Islam's promise of success against its enemies has eluded them. It is a crisis of faith.

He's going on my list of people I want to meet.

It's amazing to read about Christians forgiving the arsonists who burned down their churches... maybe they're just grateful that no one printed a nasty cartoon about Jesus!

In a startling revelation, it seems that adultery affects more than just the people involved.

Pinellas County sheriff's Chief Deputy Dennis Fowler said he has seen so many cases of deputy-involved cases of adultery leading to 911 calls that he has decided to suspend deputies over the action.

Fowler said the suspension can be given to any deputy, regardless of whether they are married or single.

"It goes beyond just your individual relationship with someone else. It affects other people in the workplace, people's ability to do their job, and I think that is relevant," Fowler said.

I'm sure former President Clinton will be astonished.

Seeing as how it's impossible for the government to outlaw secret, unspoken discrimination, does it make sense for us to have laws like the federal Fair Housing Act that prohibit overt discrimination? Some lawyers are suing Craigslist over discriminatory housing ads, but despite the law I think their suit misses the point: a landlord won't rent to someone he doesn't want to rent to, and there's no way for the government to determine his true motives.

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sued San Francisco-based Craigslist, claiming that during a six-month period beginning in July, the site ran more than 100 ads in Chicago that violated the federal Fair Housing Act.

The committee, a public interest consortium of the city's leading law firms, said in a federal suit that those ads discriminated on race, religion, sex, family status or national origin.

Among the ads cited in the suit: "Non-women of Color NEED NOT APPLY"; "African Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me so that won't work out"; and "Requirements: Clean Godly Christian Male." ...

Laurie Wardell, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Lawyers' Committee, said landlords realize that the Internet has a lower bar for housing ads. "You just shift to the Internet if you want to discriminate," she said.

Landlords who can't discriminate in ads can still discriminate in person. At worst, these ads help prevent renters and landlords from wasting time pursuing arrangements that one party has no desire to approve.

Update:
Aside from the question of whether or not we should have laws prohibiting certain kinds of overt discrimination, Eric Goldman says there is a "a clear federal exculpatory statute and directly-on-point adverse precedent" -- which means he thinks The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law will lose. (Maybe if their name was shorter they'd have time to read more case law.)

Why update my earlier post about challenging the Koran when I can post a new one? In response to my questions about research by Christoph Luxenberg suggesting that the Koran's origin is far different than that asserted by modern Muslims, Clayton Cramer sent me links to posts of his own from 2003 that quote the Newsweek article that has been apparently removed from circulation: "Challenging the Koran", Newsweek, July 28th, 2003. Quotes Mr. Cramer:

In a note of encouragement to his fellow hijackers, September 11 ringleader Muhammad Atta cheered their impending "marriage in Paradise" to the 72 wide-eyed virgins the Qur'an promises to the departed faithful. Palestinian newspapers have been known to describe the death of a suicide bomber as a "wedding to the black-eyed in eternal Paradise." But if a German expert on Middle Eastern languages is correct, these hopes of sexual reward in the afterlife are based on a terrible misunderstanding.

ARGUING THAT TODAY'S version of the Qur'an has been mistranscribed from the original text, scholar Christoph Luxenberg says that what are described as "houris" with "swelling breasts" refer to nothing more than "white raisins" and "juicy fruits."

Luxenberg--a pseudonym--is one of a small but growing group of scholars, most of them working in non-Muslim countries, studying the language and history of the Qur'an. When his new book is published this fall, it's likely to be the most far-reaching scholarly commentary on the Qur'an's early genesis, taking this infant discipline far into uncharted--and highly controversial--territory. That's because Islamic orthodoxy considers the holy book to be the verbatim revelation of Allah, speaking to his prophet, Muhammad, through the Angel Gabriel, in Arabic. ...

Luxenberg's chief hypothesis is that the original language of the Qur'an was not Arabic but something closer to Aramaic. He says the copy of the Qur'an used today is a mistranscription of the original text from Muhammad's time, which according to Islamic tradition was destroyed by the third caliph, Osman, in the seventh century. But Arabic did not turn up as a written language until 150 years after Muhammad's death, and most learned Arabs at that time spoke a version of Aramaic. Rereading the Paradise passage in Aramaic, the mysterious houris turn into raisins and fruit--much more common components of the Paradise myth. ...

The forthcoming book contains plenty of other bombshells. It claims that the Qur'an's commandment for women to cover themselves is based on a similar misreading; in Sura 24, the verse that calls for women to "snap their scarves over their bags" becomes in Aramaic "snap their belts around their waists." Even more explosive are readings that strengthen scholars' views that the Qur'an had Christian origins. Sura 33 calls Muhammad the "seal of the prophets," taken to mean the final and ultimate prophet of God. But an Aramaic reading, says Luxenberg, turns Muhammad into a "witness of the prophets"--i.e., someone who bears witness to the established Judeo-Christian texts. The Qur'an, in Arabic, talks about the "revelation" of Allah, but in Aramaic that term turns into "teaching" of the ancient Scriptures. The original Qur'an, Luxenberg contends, was in fact a Christian liturgical document--before an expanding Arab empire turned Muhammad's teachings into the basis for its new religion long after the Prophet's death.

The actual "Challenging the Koran" article was there at that link, but is gone now. (Mr. Cramer also notes that mainstream Islamic scholars disagree with Luxenberg.)

Seeing the constant headlines about rioting Muslims gets a little wearying, but it's good to see there's at least one sensible Muslim who has a tiny bit of perspective.

Two Jordanian newspaper editors who published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been arrested. ...

Mr Momani's arrest came earlier on Saturday, a day after Jordanian King Abdullah condemned the cartoons as an unnecessary abuse of freedom of speech.

Mr Momani's paper, Shihan, had printed three of the cartoons, alongside an editorial questioning whether the angry reaction to them in the Muslim world was justified.

"Muslims of the world be reasonable," wrote Mr Momani.

"What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

Or, perhaps even more prejudicial, widespread rioting and arson prompted by the caricatures?

In a public letter of apology after his sacking, Mr Momani said he did not mean to cause offence, Reuters news agency reported.

When I think of all the "art" created whose sole purpose is to offend Christians, I wonder why no one bothers directing the same attention towards Islam, a far less liberal religion. Maybe it's because when you offend Muslims you have to go into hiding.