Shift the focus to Islam?
Because of recent events, I would like to see a shift in the focus of The Skeptical Review towards Islam, Muslims, and the Koran. I have recently (since September 11th) read the Koran and am fascinated with any and every bit of information I can find on Islam, both historically and current. I must admit I am deeply disturbed with what I'm finding, though. As with Christianity, there is a lot of propaganda, deception, and lies. The Koran is the most divisive book I have read, and I see the problems we face with Islam and the Middle East as fundamentally religious at root. Given the conditions of the time, it seems far more pressing to learn the unbiased truth of Islam, its history, beliefs, and mindset. Perhaps the Christianity focus at TSR could be put on the back burner for a time and bring to light Islam and its fundamental beliefs. Muslims are deceptive and misleading too in their arguments for Islam.
(David M. Schadeberg, 5701 North 67 Avenue, Apt. 241, Glendale, AZ 85301)
Editor's Note: I agree that there is a need to expose the Islamic roots of much of the terrorism around the world, but the suggestion that The Skeptical Review undertake this task is impractical. I don't know enough about Islam to do this. One can't become an expert on a subject overnight. I spent decades in biblical research to acquire the knowledge I use to expose the absurdity of the biblical inerrancy belief. There just aren't enough years left in my life to research the Qur'an to write on it with any degree of competence.
Religion and terrorism...
Thank you again for your wonderful journal. It is needed more than ever since the tragedy of those recent terrorist acts. The common religious reactions to the events of September 11th are strikingly pervasive. In the U. S. calls for prayer are made by high officials in the government. Signs with the slogan “God Bless America” have popped up across the country, and these sentiments are mixed with calls for justice and war.
There is plenty of evidence of religious sentiment mixed with politics in the Islamic world. Recent television coverage has shown violent demonstrations in Pakistan on the perceived U. S. threat to Islam. Clips of Afghan fighters shouting "Allah akbar" while launching missiles and firing heavy weapons in the Afghan/Soviet conflict hint at the depth of sentiment there in the mixture of religion and politics.
I have great difficulty understanding these religious reactions mixed with patriotic calls. A recent study comes to mind. Brain activity was monitored while various questions were presented to the participants. When moral questions were being evaluated, brain activity was relatively reduced in parts of the brain associated with logic while emotions were elevated in comparison to responses to nonmoral questions. I suppose this is an ingrained reaction that helps maintain social cohesiveness.
People across many parts of the world who are laboring to respond to terrorism need to be as clear headed as possible. Justifying policies in part on sectarian religious sentiments is likely to worsen affairs. TSR by its very nature is playing a role in cautioning readers to treat circumspectly religious motivations that justify policy decisions.
(Michael O'Brien, 1017 Chevney Way, Shady Cove, OR 97539)
Editor's Note: My article on the front page of the November/December issue expressed agreement with Mr. O'Brien's belief that religion engenders attitudes that lead to intolerance and even terrorism. Christians who point the finger of blame at Muslim terrorism should look introspectively at their own religion, which has been responsible for its share of world atrocities. If we could ever rid the world of religion, we would probably eliminate much of the hatred and intolerance that fosters terrorism.
The prophet like unto Moses...
The September/October TSR raised the question of who was the prophet foretold by "Moses" in Deuteronomy 18:15. Christians cite Acts 3:16 to support their claim that it was Jesus. Muslims cite the Koran to argue that it was Muhammad. But the identity of the prophet who was to be Moses' equal cannot be deduced by assuming that information had traveled backward in time, as it would have had to do if the foretold one was someone who was not already living at the time of writing. The prophet foretold by the author of Deuteronomy was in fact the writer himself.
Richard Friedman, a professor of religion at UCSD, has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence (Who Wrote the Bible?) that the author of Deuteronomy was the spokesman (Greek: prophetes) Jeremiah. At the time of writing, the only person who could have plausibly claimed to be the new Moses was Jeremiah himself. As it turned out, nobody interpreted Jeremiah's self-glorification the way he had intended, and he ended his life in exile in Egypt, viewed by Jews as a despised collaborator with the Babylonian occupation. But the failure of Jeremiah's readers to accept him at his own evaluation does not change the reality that the "prophet" he promised was no one but himself. For details, see my Mythology's Last Gods, pp. 166-167.
(William Harwood, 40-3920 50 Avenue, Red Deer, AB T4N 3Z1, Canada e-mail, wharwood@telusplanet.net)
Editor's Note: In addition to the sources that Dr. Harwood cited, I would recommend volume 3 of The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined by Bishop John William Colenso. Dr. Colenso was the Anglican Bishop of Natal, who shocked his church in 1863 by publishing a three-volume work that challenged the traditional view of both the historical accuracy and Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He too took the position that the Deuteronomist was Jeremiah, a position that he supported with textual analyses of the literary styles of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. This work is hard to find, but if it can be obtained on interlibrary loan, you will find some excellent information in it.
Summary of a letter to Hatcher...
This space originally contained the copy of a letter by David Rice written in support of Everette Hatcher. When I sent Rice a copy of the letter set up for publication, he immediately sent me an e-mail that said he was refusing permission to publish the letter. I informed him that I would publish instead a summary of his letter and keep my reply intact as I had originally written it. I have never received an answer from Rice or any indication that he intends to accept the proposal I presented in my reply that will accord Hatcher and him all the publishing space they want for their articles.
In his letter, which was addressed to Hatcher, Rice said that I was interested only in making my position "come out on top"but that I was not "interested in the truth." He accused me of using my "editorial powers to shape the issues in a way that suits [me] even though it does not represent the truth."
Rice cited a letter that he had sent me in which he had given support for Hatcher's position that the "explicative waw" was used in Daniel to indicate that Darius the Mede and Cyrus of Persia were the same person. I discuss this in detail in my reply below, so no further summation of this part of Rice's letter is necessary. Rice complained that I would not publish his previous letter and the most recent articles that Hatcher had written. My reasons for not giving Hatcher further publishing space are also explained in my answer below, but Rice, of course, sees this as an attempt by me to use my editorial powers to make me "come out on top."
Rice went on to claim that the book of Daniel is "fatal" to my atheism, because "(i)f Daniel lived and wrote when he claimed, then supernatural foreknowledge is demonstrated." The if is the problem here, because none of the amazing "prophecies" that biblical fundamentalists attribute to Daniel can be proven. If Rice thinks he can prove this prophetic foreknowledge, I will be glad to oppose him under the terms stated in my reply below.
Since copyright laws permit reasonable quotations, I will just quote the rest of Rice's letter: "In order to argue that Daniel was written later, he [Till] tries to find inconsistencies in the narrative. He finds none, so he manufactures some. He supposes Daniel's use of the term ‘son,’ so broadly used in Semitic languages, is an error if it means other than first generation offspring. He supposes Belshazzar, to whom the kingship was committed by Nabonidus, could not be described as melek except by mistake. (He never seems to wonder how the author knew the name of this son of Nabonidus, which was otherwise lost for generations.) He refuses the claim of Daniel 1:1 that Nebuchadnezzar took conscripts from Judea, even though he was in the area with his army at the necessary time. Though even critics concede Daniel's historical acumen elsewhere, Till cannot believe Daniel knew who conquered Babylon, Daniel 5:28 and Isaiah 45:1 notwithstanding.
Instead, Till quotes people that agree with him, while admitting ignorance of the actual facts-as for example in the discussion of Aramaic-which is just what he accuses you of doing. He ignores that you rebut his arguments with testimony from his fellow critics, and implies you merely cite conservatives. He then refuses to publish your summary of his problems, or my letter of months ago, and instead publishes testimonials to his bravery.
Such is his way.
(David Rice, 8060 Wing Span Drive, San Diego, CA 92119 e-mail, DavRice@aol.com)
Editor's Note: This David Rice is not the same David Rice whose letters have previously appeared in this column. I pass that information along because I don't want anyone to think that the other David Rice has suddenly taken leave of his senses.
From 1998 through 2001, I gave Everette Hatcher thousands of dollars of publishing space in TSR to present his case for the 6th-century BC authorship of the book of Daniel. He used that space to string together unsupported quotations and lists of articles and books that agree with his position, as if this would prove anything. As I have said before, there is probably no religious doctrine that has not had books and articles written in support of it, so merely quoting an article or book that agrees with one's position doesn't even begin to constitute proof that this position is right. Early in the debate, I wrote personally to Hatcher and asked him to stop boring us with his endless listings and to take some of the arguments that fundamentalists have used in support of their position and then try to develop those arguments to show that they are sensible and convincing. Although he sent promises that he would change his methods, he continued with the same old approach and rarely made any serious attempts to develop and support arguments. I finally decided that enough was enough and informed Hatcher after the publication of his latest article (which I had to divide into three sections) that I would publish no more articles from him that were just more of the same.
The result of this was that Hatcher sent another article in which he had enlisted the help of Stephen Miller, a "professor" at Mid-America Baptist Seminary, whom Hatcher had quoted before and who teaches at an institution that requires allegiance to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. That within itself speaks volumes about the probability of bias in whatever he would have to say on the subject. I informed Hatcher that I would not publish his article, because it would constitute allowing him to beat the same old dead horse that for over three years he had been trying unsuccessfully to ride. My refusal was met with accusations that I wouldn't publish the article because it soundly refuted my position.
I presented an offer to Hatcher that he has yet even to comment on. I informed him that it costs about $900 to publish and mail each issue of TSR. (This should have given him some idea of just how much money I had invested in his effort to defend his position on the book of Daniel.) I told him that if he was willing to pay the costs of special editions of TSR I would publish as many of them as he wanted me to, all of which would feature nothing except his articles and my replies. These special editions would be published in addition to the regular issues, which I intend to use to get to articles that have backlogged on me while I was trying to accommodate Hatcher's pet hobby. I am still willing to do this, but Hatcher has given no indication at all that he wants to do it. His silence indicates that he expects me to continue to give him unlimited publishing space but doesn't think that he should have to bear any of the financial burden of printing his recyclings of fundamentalist claims that have been repeatedly answered.
I am now making that same offer to David Rice. If he thinks that I am afraid to publish his articles, all he has to do is agree to pay the cost of the special issues to print his articles and my replies to them. He will find out that the fear he apparently thinks I have of him is entirely imaginary.
His letter above is filled with unsupported assertions, most of which have been answered in my replies to Hatcher, but if Rice is willing to accept my offer, I will be glad to publish his articles and recycle my replies. He did send me an article several months ago, which I fully intended to publish, but the articles from Hatcher kept coming. I didn't publish Rice's article, because I could never find space for it and my reply. However, if Rice thinks this article is so convincing that I am afraid to publish it, all he has to do is agree to bear the expense of publishing a special issue in which to run it and my reply, and he will soon see that I have no fear of him or anything he may have said or will have to say on the authorship of Daniel. He will soon see that the "supernatural knowledge" he sees in the book of Daniel is entirely imaginary and that neither he nor anyone else can give any credible evidence that the "prophecies" of Daniel were ever fulfilled.
The ball is now in his court. I defy Rice to accept this offer.
Hatcher and Rice have both seen just some of the letters that I have published from subscribers who were fed up with Hatcher's regurgitations of fundamentalist quotations and claims that have been repeatedly discredited, and what they have seen in this column were only part of the complaints that I received. These came through e-mail, regular letters, and phone calls from subscribers who told me that enough was enough. Hatcher had been given more than enough space to make his case, and he had failed. As a result of the Hatcher articles, subscriptions to TSR have dropped substantially. I'm sure that Hatcher would like nothing better than to see them decline even more, but I don't intend to give him or Rice a forum for just more of the same. If they want to bear the publishing costs, I will cooperate with them in printing as many special issues as they think are necessary to continue their cause. As I said above, Rice's letter is filled with unsupported assertions. For now, I intend to answer only two of those. If Rice wants the others answered, he can get those answers by accepting my proposal for special issues.
He said that months ago he had sent me a letter in which he had identified an Aramaic example of the explicative waw, so I'm going to reply to his "example," which was Daniel 4:13, a verse in the Aramaic section of the book: "I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven."
Rice's claim was that this should have been translated "a watcher, even a holy one, came down from heaven," but why would the letter waw have necessarily carried this meaning? How does Rice know that the writer's intention was not to say simply that the creature that Nebuchadnezzar saw "come down" was both a watcher and also a holy one? If I mentioned a person by name and said that he is a gentleman and a scholar, would Rice understand me to mean that this person was a gentleman, even a scholar, rather than that he was both a gentleman and a scholar? In other words, would he think that I was saying that the words gentleman and scholar carried the same meaning? If so, why?
There are biblical examples that show that Rice's claim about Daniel 4:13 is doubtful. After Joab had killed Abner, David said, "Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel" (2 Sam. 3:38)? The most plausible interpretation of this statement is that David meant that Abner was both a prince and a great man. There is nothing in the text to suggest that he meant that a prince was a great man and a great man was a prince. Such an interpretation would strain the obviously intended meaning, because a person can be a prince without being a great man and vice versa. In Deuteronomy 7:21 and 10:17 Yahweh was called a great and terrible God, but surely not even Rice would argue that this meant that Yahweh was a great, even a terrible, god. The writer obviously meant that Yahweh was both a mighty and a terrible god. (By the way, I agree that Yahweh is a terrible god.) In 1 Samuel 16:19, David was said to be a mighty valiant man and a comely person. Does Rice think that this means that mighty valiant man and comely person meant the same thing, that David was a mighty valiant man, even a comely person?
Rice and Hatcher must resort to verbal gymnastics like this, of course, because they can find no historical record of a person named "Darius the Mede," and so they must stretch the meaning of a rather plain statement in Daniel 6:28, which says that "Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius the Mede and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian." The statement is clear enough that any reasonable person should understand it to mean that Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius the Mede and also prospered in the reign of Cyrus the Persian, but because diehard biblicists like Hatcher and Rice can find no extrabiblical references to a "Darius the Mede" who conquered Babylon, as Daniel claimed, they try to stretch this text to mean that Daniel had prospered in the reign of Darius the Mede, even the reign of Cyrus the Persian. That is the extreme they must resort to in order to find this "Darius the Mede." This point has already been hammered into the ground, so there is no need to say anything else about it, but I would suggest that reasonable people should always be suspicious of biblical fundamentalists who find meanings helpful to their cause that somehow eluded the hundreds of linguistic scholars who were involved in translating the Bible into the various English versions.
Rice said that I suppose "Daniel's use of the term son, so broadly used in Semitic languages, is an error if it means other than first generation offspring," but if he has really followed the debate, he has to know that this is a flagrant misrepresentation. I have never claimed that the semitic languages didn't use the word son to mean anything but first generation offspring. My position has been that the context of Daniel 5 will not allow for son and father to mean anything but actual son and father without stretching credulity far beyond reasonable limits. That position has been supported by detailed analyses of Daniel 5 and quotations from Baruch 1, an apocryphal work, which showed that its 2nd-century BC author also thought that Belshazzar was the actual son of Nebuchadnezzar. These analyses were published twice, but Hatcher made only passing references to them. Now along comes Rice to ignore them too.
If Hatcher or Rice wants to debate their positions on these issues and grasp other fundamentalist straws in The Skeptical Review, they can do that by just accepting my proposal presented above. Let's see just how interested they are in defending their position.
He's back....
"The Real Culprit" (TSR, Nov/ Dec 2001) provides us another example of Farrell Till’s inability to grasp simple concepts about either religion or the Bible. This failing seems to be common among atheists in general.
Till opines about the terrorist events of September 11, and laments the inability of public officials to state that "religion caused this." The reason why public officials have not done so is that it is not true. It does not even make sense. It would be proper for George Bush or any other official to say, "False religion caused this." However, given the political sensitivities of working with Islamic cultures, it would be unwise for President Bush to announce that Islam, or its spinoffs, is a false religion. The President has, however, made strong statements to the effect that actions of terrorists have no place in true religion. We can see why George Bush is President and Farrell Till fails theology.
Till offers quotes from the Qur'an to support his contentions. However, one can always pull quotes selectively out of a document, destroy the context in which the statement is found, and force the document to say the opposite of what it actually says. Perhaps Till has done that here. Atheists are famous for doing this with the Bible. Why not the Qur'an? Till has already shown how he can take events in the Old Testament out of context in order to promote his personal philosophies.
Till then recycles his tired, old argument about Christians and the murder of abortion providers. Just because a person calls himself a Christian or evokes some religious cause to justify his actions does not make it true or right. Even Till, presumably, called himself a Christian at one stage in his life and maybe even attributed his actions to some religious cause. His confession did not make him a Christian and shielding his actions behind a theological curtain did not make them noble. If he could torque the system in an attempt to get what he wanted, then others can do so also. Jim and Tammy Faye got rich doing it and Robert Tilton is still hustling. Are they any different than Till in his day?
It is true that we do not hear much about atheists planting bombs to promote some political cause. Why is this? One reason is that they misrepresent themselves as religious folk. Look at Bill Clinton. He carried a big Bible under his arm to church on Sunday and dropped his drawers for Monica on Monday. Clinton used religion as a shield to fool people. Those who murder under the guise of religious passion are no different. Religion is not the root of the problem. Sin is. Atheists are in denial about this and prefer to bury their heads in the sand rather than face the truth.
Whatever Till is selling, let the reader beware. Till can dress up his philosophies in whatever words his audience wants to hear. I was not fooled. Till ought to know the real culprit. If he does not, he has but to look into a mirror to find him.
(Roger Hutchinson, 11904 Lafayette Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20902 e-mail RHutchin@aol. com)
Editor's note: Subscribers to TSR should be familiar with Hutchinson's position on this subject. First, unable to answer my arguments on this subject, he has repeatedly attacked my sincerity when I was a preacher (even though he didn't even know me then), so he has resorted to that tactic again. Second, no matter how many persecutions, witch hunts, inquisitions, and other atrocities may follow in the wake of Christianity, Hutchinson would deny with his dying breath that the Bible or Christianity was in any way responsible for them. I suppose that if the Christian Reconstructionist movement should achieve its goal and gain control of our government, Hutchinson would argue that religion was not responsible for whatever persecutions and executions that would surely follow. We have seen scenes on TV of the Taliban in Afghanistan beating and executing women in public for exposing their faces or being disobedient to their husbands. Women have been banned from the work force and educational institutions of this country, but, of course, none of this is the fault of religion. Just ask Roger Hutchinson.
Oh, I forgot! Islam is a "false religion," so examples like these don't count even though like atrocities can be found in the Old Testament, when the "true religion" existed in the law of Moses that Yahweh had given to his specially chosen people. How could I have been so stupid!
I'm not so naive as to think that political ideologies are not also involved in the recent events that have pulled our country into a war we didn't want, but I'm not so blind that I can't see that religion has played a major role. I find it hard to believe that political ideologies alone would motivate so many young men to strap explosives under their clothing and then go off on suicide missions in crowded areas or to hijack airliners and crash them into skyscrapers. Without the belief that those who experience this kind of "martyrdom" will go to paradise and enjoy harems of 70 virgins, I suspect these terrorist organizations would have considerable difficulty recruiting volunteers for suicide missions. When Hutchinson can find atheistic or religiously skeptical organizations that are able to find scores of young men willing to blow themselves to smithereens for their causes, I'll gladly revise my opinion in this matter. Until then, I'll continue to believe that religion is a primary motivating factor in these movements.
I suppose Hutchinson will still argue that religion should
bear no blame in these matters. There's no law against ignorance, and
Hutchinson should be glad there isn't. Otherwise, churches would be
empty on Sundays.
