Richard Dawkins is wrong: Religion is not inherently violent
by LAURA MILLER
Richard Dawkins IMAGE/Reuters/Chris Keane/Photo montage by Salon
The closest Armstrong comes to naming an advocate of the “all wars are about religion” line is when she quotes biologist, author and stridently public atheist Richard Dawkins in her chapter on terrorism. “Only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such utter madness in otherwise sane and decent people,” Dawkins wrote in “The God Delusion.” But, again, as Armstrong briskly notes, the suicide bombing was invented by the Tamil Tigers, a secularist group, and for many years they held the record for committing such acts. Furthermore (although Armstrong doesn’t bring this up herself), it wasn’t religion that led Rwanda’s Hutus to hack to death nearly 1 million of their fellow citizens, including neighbors of decades, in perhaps the most insane and indecent homicidal eruption of the past half-century.
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Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong, book review: Neo-cons, prepare to get angry
by MARCUS TANNER
It’s hard to reach the end of a news bulletin these days and not hear about a fresh atrocity perpetuated by men who claim that God is not only on their side but egging them on to kill.
If it isn’t Sunni militants, decapitating Shia, Yazidis and Christians in Iraq, then the Shia are killing the Sunni, or Boko Haram are slashing away at Nigeria’s Christians.
One chicken-and-egg question thrown up by this mayhem is whether religion is a cover for other motives (in which case the “messages” of the various holy books are virtually irrelevant) or whether the gorier passages in the Bible and the Koran have given people who might have behaved differently a real inventive to turn on their neighbours. If the latter is true, religion is not just an excuse for violence; it’s a key ingredient. Those familiar with Karen Armstrong’s earlier books will not be surprised to learn that she looks coldly on the simplistic but fashionable view that belief in God is the principal factor in a host of wars, past and present. For a start, she doubts the usefulness in this debate of terms like “religion” or “belief”, because the meaning of these words over time has mutated almost beyond recognition.
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Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong
by DAVID SHARIATMADARI
Islamic State is like a bad dream. Its horror flashes up on our screens, so out of place in the waking world of cities and shopping and work. Its adherents wave what looks like a pirate flag. They are crazy, incomprehensible, intoxicated.
Some kind of spell must have been cast over them to rob them of reason and compassion. But what exactly? There are those who feel confident of the answer. “A hatred of infidels is arguably the central message of the Qur’an,” writes Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith. “The reality of martyrdom and the sanctity of armed jihad are about as controversial under Islam as the resurrection of Jesus is under Christianity.” He goes on: “horrific footage of infidels and apostates being decapitated has become a popular form of pornography throughout the Muslim world. But there is now a large industry of obfuscation designed to protect Muslims from having to grapple with these truths.”
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