Interesting piece in the American Muslim
Problems with Hitchens and Islam
Herman Roborgh, S.J.
Modern atheists in the West and modernist Muslims in Islam are both abusing religion. Since the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, some Western writers on religion and also some Muslim thinkers are interpreting their scriptures with a literalism that has become a characteristic of modernity. Their discourse about God has been influenced by the popular demand for scientific empirical verification, and they have lost confidence in the ability of figurative language to open a way to truth.
Modern atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens make use of Enlightenment discourse to reduce God to a scientific hypothesis. Like other modernist writers, they presume that the Bible must provide scientific information since it claims to be inspired by God. Having failed to understand the nature of scripture and religion, they reject them both as products of the ‘God Delusion’.Both modern atheists in the West and Muslim modernists in Islamic countries adopt an abstract notion of religion that remains unaffected by the historical and social changes taking place in society. Hitchens’ oft-repeated phase, ‘religion poisons everything’, refers to an abstract religion devoid of morality and spirituality and with no concern for human rights.
In the Muslim world, Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) advocated a return to the pristine form of Islam that acknowledged God as the only Sovereign in all spheres of life. Abu A’la Mawdudi (1903–1979) developed a form of Islam in Pakistan that reduced the law of God to a code of commands and prohibitions that all pious believers were expected to accept and obey. An influential teacher in Indonesia today, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, maintains that Muslims will be able to revive the quality of their life only by going back to models provided by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions in the seventh century.
Modern atheists and modernist Muslims reach their extreme conclusions by bypassing the intellectual tradition of the Abrahamic religions. Traditional religious discourse has always been familiar with realities that take us beyond empirical observation and measurement, respecting the language of myth and symbol.
Terminal 3:20 pm on October 10, 2009 Permalink |
“Modern atheists in the West and modernist Muslims in Islam are both abusing religion.”
How stupid is that statement. I might as well say “Both vegetarians and meat eaters are abusing meat”.
Buzz 3:25 pm on October 10, 2009 Permalink |
Abusing the idea of religion, maybe. They frame the concept wrong and proceed from their with their various ideologies.
Buzz 3:26 pm on October 10, 2009 Permalink |
…..proceed from there……
thabet 12:09 am on October 11, 2009 Permalink |
I think the author is referring to way we think about “religion” and “being human”.
Tariq Farook 12:42 pm on November 1, 2009 Permalink |
Good peice , here is another article by adam deen talking about militant atheism
http://adamdeen.blogspot.com/2009/08/militant-atheism.html