Who cares about 'Cultural Christians'? [VIDEO]

WATCH:

SO MANY ATHEISTS, AGNOSTICS, no-theists, pantheists, and otherwise non-Christian coves like Richard Dawkins, Elon Musk, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are now calling themselves "cultural Christians" that it's become a phenomenon. Even Nick Cave is signing up. The argument, many say, for subscribing to the nonsense is that, they say, Christianity built western civilisation — so any decent supporter of civilisation should subscribe as well.

A book by Tom Holland is cited as one of the main influences on this movement. Holland is a prolific podcaster who has previously written — and written well — on the histories of Rome, Greece, Persia, and Islam —  Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind "isn’t a history of Christianity," he says, so much "a history of what's been revolutionary and transformative about Christianity: about how Christianity has transformed not just the West, but the entire world." So transformative, says the author, that we of the west find ourselves unable to even see the cultural transformation clearly.

In some in Christian circles this “Tom Holland train” is spoken of as a new route to Christianity.

But there are problems with the book. Most especially that he speaks of a philosophical transformation that preceded and informed the cultural change, yet his philosophical discussions are all but absent.

Not so in another book, by Charles Freeman.

Freeman's book The Reopening of the Western Mind is a magnificent 2023 sequel to his investigative opus The Closing of the Western Mind — an exploration of how Christianity's rise saw the fall of independent thought —the rise of faith bringing the death of reason — ushering in a millennia of darkness age only (en)lightened, eventually, by the revival of interest in Greek and Roman thought. (You can read my own summary of that great story here.)

You can see almost immediately how that might pit Freeman's books against the tale told by Tom Holland. Not least because Holland's overlooking of the importance of Greco-Roman thought (most especially that of Aristotle) undermines the very basis of his story.

An absorbing discussion with scholars from the Ayn Rand Institute (part of a "Bookshelf" series that I hope takes off) examines these two contrasting perspectives (above), evaluating their arguments and assessing their historical and philosophical accuracy. The discussion covered: 

• The central arguments of the books; 
• Why the Church feared Aristotelian philosophy; 
• How Freeman’s books provide a more thorough and philosophical analysis than Holland’s; 
• How Holland diminishes Greek influence on modernity; 
• How Holland appropriates secular ideas and thinkers into Christianity; 
• The role of Christianity in the abolition of slavery; 
• The relationship between Christianity and science; 
• Why Holland’s book gained popularity while Freeman’s did not.

Fascinating.

[NB: The books are published with different titles in the US and the UK, confusingly, so here in NZ you might see the same book with two different titles. I've linked below, if you click the cover pics, to what seem to be the best sources here.]

Spain’s garden of Islamic delights?

Guest post by Jeff Perren 

Robert Andrews has a terrific smackdown of Nicholas Kristof's utterly revolting New York Times review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new book, Nomad. 

Since she is one of the finest public personalities on the planet, defending the uber-heroic Ms. Ali is of course completely appropriate. Rational, factual, totally dedicated to the right and the true, and with the most horrific bona fides of any public intellectual in memory. How ironic the timing, then, that PBS should choose this week to re-broadcast a documentary called Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain (2007) I confess I haven't even seen it and I can already safely predict it's point of view. There's a big clue in the dead-giveaway title. One usually applies “Rise and Fall” to glorious civilizations (though there are exceptions, like the Nazi regime). But the "Cities of Light" moniker is the real kicker. Still, it's the program description that really cements my certainty:

An examination of a time during the Middle Ages when Christians, Jews, and Muslims peacefully coexisted in southern Spain, and what led to the disintegration of the society.”

I researched Moorish Spain fairly well for a novel some time back, and I can assure you that all was not sweetness and light in early 8th to late 15th century Al-Andalus.

Set aside that nobody had any rights in Iberia during those years. That region had been, and continues to be, dominated by the Catholic Church (now overlaid with a huge dose of modern socialism). The results were not pretty even before the Islamic invasion. But forget that for now. Ask yourself instead what kind of 'peace' individuals in those groups would have enjoyed during the period.

Then, as now, any non-Muslim was a second-class citizen and, at that time and place, "second class citizen" meant something a good deal more onerous than even that of a black person in Georgia circa 1960. To a Christian or Jewish male it was: just pay your Jizya and keep your mouth firmly shut or suffer the consequences.

And what were those consequences? Then as now: imprisonment, beheading, or banishment (which often meant death by starvation). Women, of course, didn't even register on the scale as fully human, a situation that persists in Islamic countries to this day. And, as a side note, Kristof's (and the filmmaker's) belief that Christians got by real well during that time is belied by the many armed revolts led by Christian kings over almost the entire period. That continued until Queen Isabella and her husband completed the final transfer that ended the Caliphate in all of that region. The fate of Jews, not only in Spain but everywhere prior to the mid-20th century, is too well known to require discussing.

How modern so-called liberals can decry Randal Paul's mild disapproval of one aspect of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and enthusiastically embrace Islamic Spain as a garden of delights and an era of religious brotherhood is almost beyond comprehension. It's as if one were to look at the Soviet Union in 1933 and declare that everything was hunky dory because there was 'peace' among Kulaks, Tartars, and Russians. Peace under rule by gangsters is not the same as peace of mind under freedom.

Truthfully, I don't think creatures like Kristof and that documentary maker lack historical knowledge nor are lying. I suspect their minds simply refuse any connection to reality when the facts are not as they wish. It's cherry picking raised to the level of a psychotic break. Fortunately for us, we have Ayaan Hirsi Ali as a counterweight, and that slender woman's weighty thoughts far outweigh any foolishness the Kristofs of the world can spew.

Husain: "Moderate muslims" must "end the madness"?

Yesterday's Herald had a piece by Ed Husain, culled from the Observer, that looks at exactly the same recent incidents around the Muslim world I canvassed yesterday -- the floggings, the hangings, the calls for execution -- and takes an almost identical position to the one I took in yesterday's post, except that Husain calls on so called "moderate Muslims" to make a stand against Islamists to "end the madness."

Last year, it was the Danish cartoons. This year it is a teddy bear. What next? And why this repeated madness? For me, it is not about the possible offence taken at perceived negative portrayals of Islamic symbols, but the repeated calls for death, lashings and stoning. The medieval, literalist mindset that fails to comprehend the inhumane nature of these brutal and barbaric acts, often carried out against the defenceless, is the crux of the matter.

And so it is. But where Husain starts well by observing the barbarity, by recognising that "The Western media are right to hold a mirror to educated Muslims by highlighting these outdated practices," by asking "the ubiquitous question ... where is the voice of the Muslim majority?" he still falls some way short. Since he still maintains that there is a moderate Islam with a "benign face" he comes up without any real solution to those Islamists who truly believe that "No one shall live who insults the prophet."

This medieval, literalist mindset is the face of Islam, and I'm certain Husain himself knows that, which leads to him simply hand wringing instead of taking a proper and potentially more productive stand.

"More than ever," he says, "Western Muslims need to stop viewing the world through bipolarised lenses and assert our Western belonging." True, but. The "but" is that Islam itself is built on a barbaric heritage: it was a creed born by force, filled with bloodshed and spread by the sword. It's true that it subsequently enjoyed a golden age of wealthy secularism, but the realisation that the secularism was in no way compatible with the Koran led to a swift and decisive rejection (by Islamic philosophers such as al-Ghazali) of the this-worldly focus that had preserved Aristotle and Euclid and Archimedes and built the Alhambra in Spain -- the rejection resulted in a thousand-year plunge into the Dark Ages. Islam is still there, and until it can find a philosopher to reverse al-Ghazali's disastrous rejection of reason and this world, so it will remain.

It will take more than a simple assertion of "Western belonging" to reverse that, more than just the intention to "build a home together" -- it will take the realisation levelled at Husain by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and which he notes as a challenge to himself: That the very essence of Islam is barbaric, and must be rejected; that to make of Islam a religion of peace will entail excising the very essence of Islam, and rejecting what the Koran maintains is God's law; that thinking must be liberated from its role in the Muslim world as the handmaiden of theology, and focussed instead on this life, and this world.

The extent of what is needed can be judged by the nature of al-Ghazali's rejection (on behalf of Islam) of thought itself, and his embrace of the Koran as the Muslim's sole source of knowledge. "If it's already in the Koran we don't need it," al-Ghazali proclaimed. "And if it's not in the Koran, we don't want it."

It would of course need a new Enlightenment, and leave behind it a religion that was nothing but empty ritual and saintly noise -- something like modern Anglicanism, but with better hymns. That's hard. Harder than Husain seems to realise, or even recognise that this is what his call of necessity entails.

Husain had the courage to put a career as an Islamic fundamentalist behind him. He still has some way to travel -- and so too do his mainstream moderate Muslims. Let us hope he and those few others like him have the courage to continue speaking their mind.

UPDATE: Wafa Sultan explains the barbarism that inspired her to begin her fight Islam, here at YouTube [hat tip Sandi]. "Islam has never been misunderstood," she says. It is "a brainwashing machine... [it is] exactly what the prophet did and said."

Muslim enlightenment?

IN SYDNEY ON HER recent visit, Ayaan Hirsi Ali didn't cause the whole city to shut down, but she did appear in a roundtable discussion on the nature and future of Islam that would have shut down Tehran if they'd heard it.

She argues in the latest Free Radical that the Muslim world can achieve an enlightenment of ideas in far less time that it took the West: she explains in this video of the Sydney roundtable discussion why and how that's both possible, and urgently necessary:
Enlightening Islam - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, CIS [video].

Free Radical 77: THE INFIDELS EDITION

TWO OF THE BRAVEST AND most controversial figures of our times are former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose. As editor of The Free Radical, I'm enormously proud to publish interviews with both of these inspirational heroes.

Hirsi Ali (pictured left on that striking cover) outlines why she damns Islam, and why nonetheless the Muslim world can achieve an enlightenment of ideas in far less time that it took the West -- and Flemming Rose tells Lindsay Perigo about the lessons learned from his commissioning the series of Danish cartoons that sent Islamists berserk, and moral relativists running for cover.

These two interviews kick off an issue that infidels everywhere need to have on their coffee table, in their briefcase, and in their gift bags to business and personal friends. Just look what's on offer inside the 'Infidels' issue:

• AS IT BECOMES increasingly clear that global warming skeptics are made infidels not so much for their scepticism of the threadbare warmist science but more for their refusal to accept the warmist political agenda, The Free Radical asks: What would a freedom-lover do about global warming? How could a freedom-lover use contemporary hysteria to drive the debate upwards to freedom, instead of down towards the ant heap of totalitarianism?
• WHAT WOULD AYN Rand's "Party X" do in opposition to today's environmental hysteria? In seven punches to the green jaw, we show that capturing the debate for freedom need not be difficult if you know a little judo. As Bernard Darnton explains, socialism and central planning are unworkable at seventeen degrees. What makes anyone think things will be different at nineteen degrees?
• WHAT'S THE CAUSE of the present worldwide turmoil in money markets – and what’s the likely outcome? George Reisman has the answers -- and a solution.
• IF AN OPERA singer without a voice for it can go round the world in less than eighty days, then why can't freedom lovers use the same technique for the freedom message? Darnton and Cresswell spot an opportunity.
• AFTER MODERNISM CAME post-modernism. What now for post-postmodern art? Stephen Hicks explains how and why art went to the dark side, and why it now has the chance to head towards the light.
• SOLUTIONS TO THE serious problems with housing affordability are offered by National's John Key and Nick Smith, and summarily dismissed by Peter Cresswell.

ALL THIS AND MUCH, MUCH MORE in this latest issue, including a fan's review of the Harry Potter series and a non-fan's review of Ian Wishart's feverish best-seller; a beer enthusiast's review of American beer and a romance enthusiast's opinion on the risks of passion in California; the story of the child's mathematical mind and how James Bond and John Galt shave ... all this and more in Free Radical 77.

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Or buy your digital copy here shortly, or your hard copy in any one of these stores here from Monday.

Enjoy!
Peter Cresswell
EDITOR, THE FREE RADICAL
**Politics, Economics & Life as if Freedom Mattered**

"Terrorism is Murder"

One hopeful note in Islamic Awareness Week is that there are quiet voices joining the brave and outspoken voices of the likes of former muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali and dissenting muslims Taslima Nasreen, Wafa Sultan, (see her interview on al Jazeera), Irshad Manji, Seyran Ates and Necla Kelek. Now, there's a musical protest from some 'moderate' musical dissenters:

A Pakistan-born British man and his two sons have done what a lot of people have long been demanding: They are Muslims declaring that those who use terror in the name of Islam are wrong. Waseem Mahmood and his two sons, Khurrum and Khaiyyam, have made this statement via a song and music video. It is called “Yeh Hum Naheen,” Urdu for “This is Not Us.” The lyrics say it all: “This story that is being spread in our names is a lie. … The name by which you know us we are not.”

Taking a page right out of the hugely successful all-star relief song “We are the World,” the song is performed by top young singers in Pakistan. Juxtaposed among the shots of the singers are ugly scenes and headlines about terrorism as well as heart-warming scenes of Pakistanis singing along … with passion.

There are also heartwarming graphics which affirm that "TERRORISM IS MURDER" and "SAY NO TO TERRORISM." You can see it here at YouTube: Yeh Hum Naheen-UK Single Video.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Sydney

Ayaan Hirsi Ali visits Sydney for their Books and Writers' Festival, and she has the luvvies eating out of her hand.

Read Pommygranate's summary of her presentation to see why that matters. [Hat tip Prodos]

PS: Here's a recent interview between Ali and Guernica magazine.

Hirsi Ali rejection topples Dutch Government

NEW YORK TIMES: Dispute Over Minister Topples Dutch Government NIJMEGEN, the Netherlands, June 29 — The center-right government collapsed Thursday after one of its coalition partners failed to force the country's controversial immigration minister to resign over her handling of a prominent critic of fundamentalist Islam. The three-party coalition government came undone after six weeks of political infighting over the way the minister, Rita Verdonk, treated Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant and a member of Parliament who is widely known for her outspoken stance against certain Islamic practices. The smallest party in the governing coalition party said that if Ms. Verdonk, who oversees the country's strict immigration regulations, would not quit, the party would. Late Thursday evening, the party, D66, carried through on its threats and dropped out of the government.

Good. Bloody. Job. (Detailed story here.)

Solving 'illegal immigration'

The case of Hirsi Ali highlights again the great immigration debate, and on that subject Harry Binswanger cuts to the chase once again. You want a solution to the 'problem of illegal immigration? Here it is:

The problem of "illegal" immigration can be solved at the stroke of a pen: legalize immigration. Screen all you want (though I want damn little), but remove the quotas. Phase them out over a 5- or 10-year period. Grant immediate, unconditional amnesty to all "illegal" immigrants.

Hitchens on Ali

Following the shameful revocation of Hirsi Ali's passport by the Dutch immigration Minister Rita Verdonk mentioned here earlier this week, it's worth reminding yourself why this woman matters, and why this latest insult has been the last straw for her any love she might have for the Netherlands -- a place once known for being a haven from oppression.

Fortunately, Christopher Hitchens has done the job [Hat tip Julian Pistorius]. Sample:

Dutch appeasers reject Ali

In what seems to be the last straw for courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch Immigration Minister has now revoked her passport, following which Ali has resigned her seat in parliament and suggested it's time to move to the States.

US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said she's welcome any time. As Andrei says at Sir Humphrey's, "Holland's loss will be America's gain." Sure will.