I’m off on holiday soon, and I nearly forgot to mention it. We got an email from Shams Ali:
Hi there!
With reference to your passage in the BLOG:
“And that is when it starts to become confused. Who exactly is going to do the applying? Evidently not ‘politicians’, but somebody will have to. What is a “non-political government” when it’s at home? What ‘fundamental principles’ are these? Perchance, the Law of Sharia?”
The confusion arises from the human habit of jumping at conclusions without having done the spade work to dig out the facts.
The “fundamental principles” are enumerated and defined at
www.worldjustice.org/principles.html and the rules of their application at www.worldjustice.org/rules.html also the reasonings for the need for such institution are described at www.worldjustice.org/wcj.html and some history of it all at www.worldjustice.org/history.html for the difference between government and politics see www.truth-and-justice.info/govpol.html as for Judaism, Christianity and Islam see www.truth-and-justice.info/religions.html and for the various “isms” see www.truth-and-justice.info/isms.html. You will also find some stuff on government, politics, unions, pensions, etc., by browsing the www.truth-and-justice.info/issues.html – and all that stuff is the tip of an iceberg.Once you’ve gone through the stuff, I would like to hear from you what exactly YOUR “libetarianism” is, or, in other words, whom do YOU propose to favour and at whose expense?
regards,
shams ali
I’m more of a Popperian than Shams and I think that jumping at conclusions is very different from jumping to conclusions. If it isn’t Sharia, and if Shams tells us it isn’t Sharia, then fine, it isn’t Sharia. But he doesn’t answer that with a yes or a no. Instead he tells me I have to do an iceberg of homework.
It’s an old trick. You write long tracts, and refuse to supply short summaries and short answers to short questions. The idea is that people will immerse themselves in your oh-so-elaborate thought processes, but the reality is they mostly ignore you on account of you being a pompous git. I shall do neither. I have glanced at some of my homework, and now I’m just going to carry on communicating – guessing, asking and answering. If Shams Ali doesn’t like it, tough. We’ll talk about him amongst ourselves. Being a libertarian (that’s libertarian with another “r” in there, mate) I favour people who are trying to live their lives freely, with their justly acquired property, and I believe in defending them against all who attack them. Pretty much what you say, in other words, Shams, although that “at whose expense?” of yours suggests to me a world of fixed-sum falsehood. I’d like a world dominated by libertarian ideas, and by the libertarian people who most effectively believe in them, at the expense (was this is the sort of thing you were getting at?) of all those who adhere to other more aggressively predatory sorts of ideas, who, in my alternative world, would be kept out of serious power and out of the limelite.
Unlike Shams Ali I do want to answer the who-whom question concerning my preferred utopia because, along with Julian Morrison (who commented on my earlier posting), I believe that governing, dominating, setting the agenda or the tone or the pace, reigning, achieving intellectual hegemony, calling the shots, stopping the bucks – call it what you will – has do be done by people, and that’s just as true for libertarianism as it is for any other ism. The rules matter. They matter a lot. But mere rules alone won’t do it. Verdicts can’t impose themselves. People have to impose them. As Julian says, “even absolute rules have fuzzy edges that require human judgement”, although I don’t think that libertarians will be able to break their own rules “with impunity”, to quote the phrase that Julian goes on to use. I think that libertarianism brings good things out of even quite bad people, and it certainly will bring many good things out of the judges who preside in libertarian courts.
Shams Ali gives no direct answer of his own to my who-whom challenge, nor do I see any in the homework he set me. My suspicion is therefore confirmed. He wants to be the Supreme Panjandrum, but like almost all would-be Supreme Panjandra, under cross-examination he dodges the question and talks of other things.
For strangely, he does answer questions I didn’t ask, about Judaism and Christianity. So, another question: where does devout in-your-face damn-all-agnostics-for-a-bunch-of-fence-sitting-wimps atheism (my preferred creed) fit in with all this?
A more serious question will come from my fellow libertarians: why am I bothering with this character?
Well, he’s a Muslim. He certainly has ferociously orthodox Muslim things to say about the state of Israel. But he’s writing in English, and apparently seeking to communicate with us Anglos and not just with other Muslims (hence the stuff about Judaism and Christianity). I favour engaging with Muslims in debate. I’ve learned quite a lot simply from doing a little of my Shams-homework.
Oh sure, I believe in threatening Islam with nuclear holocaust, as do others, such as Dale Amon. I think that’s genuinely a good thing to do. I believe nuclear deterrence can work. But I also believe in trying to talk to Muslims about other much nicer things. The idea that we can’t talk logically and politely with people whose fundamental axioms we disagree with and with whom we have other even bigger quarrels is just plain wrong. It seems hard to believe now, but I really do believe, with some of the commentators on David’s pieces about Israel, that gruesome confrontations can sometimes calm down.
Also, Shams seems to come from the respectable bourgeois end of the Muslim spectrum, the Thatcherite end you might say, which is also interesting. Follow those homework links and you’ll find many things to agree with, as well as to be angry about or confused by. If he were simply a zero-civility zero-creativity barbarian, then he’d be best ignored. But he’s not that.
Finally, there’s the nature of blogging itself. Blogging enables me to correspond, one little person to another little person, without wasting my replies only on my single little person correspondent. It used to be only big celebrity writers who could afford the bother of writing elegant and clever letters to one another, secure in the knowledge that eventually posterity would gather it all up and admire it. The rest of us, forget it. But blogging democratises the institution of the open letter.
Blogging makes it worth my while to correspond with Shams Ali.
“For strangely, he does answer questions I didn’t ask, about Judaism and Christianity. So, another question: where does devout in-your-face damn-all-agnostics-for-a-bunch-of-fence-sitting-wimps atheism (my preferred creed) fit in with all this?”
I’m a strong atheist too, but you shouldn’t be to quick to condemn agnostics. A lot of agnostics hold that god is so poorly defined that the question of whether or not he exists is totally meaningless and hence unknowable. It’s arguable.
To me, the monotheistic (sky-god worshipping) religions seem to have self-contradictory definitions of their God, so I’m perfectly happy to say that the sky-god (Allah, Yahway sp?, the holy ghost, the Marxian utopia, etc.) does not exist.
As to whether or not Vishnu or his ilk exist, well, I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then, I’m going with “no.”
Hi, Brian and the rest,
Sorry, for the ambiguity, In my letter I ommitted the words “no it is not the shari’a – it is the http://www.truth-and-justice.info/principles.html“.
Since, it is the principles, it is obviously, not anything else, so what looked to me obvious, was not obvious to you – but now I confirm that it is the principles listed at the above URL and not the shari’a.
Contrary to your supposition, I absolutely have no objection of you discussing the content of my websites – this is what they are for.
I do not mind you making guesses and assumptions about my personality either, although, all your guesses and assumptions so far have been wrong. But, I am not going to correct your assumptions about myself, because my personality does not matter.
But since you lot are “libertarians”, I shall have fun discussing the ideas.
All my ideas are not based on any religion or anybody’s books. I derived them over the years from observation of life in different countries, from personal and business dealings and from handling court cases, which I have never lost. Even those that conventional lawyers thought hopeless.
I have not read any books by Karl Popper, but a long time ago I, by some chance, read a book by Ain Rand. What struck me in that book was, that her ideas were very close to mine.
The other two books that left me with the same feeling were “sefer ha-torah” (the Book of Moses) which I read in Hebrew, and the Qur’an, which I read in Arabic.
No I did not take my ideas from any of them, but I found that their ideas were very close to mine.
It has nothing to do with any gods, or religions.
The people who wrote these books just understood human nature, and were capable to see the world in a more objective way, then most people that I met in life are capable of. And I met all sorts: from junkies and common law criminals to heads of states – all the way through the “social structure”. Alas, it was the criminals, whom I found the most honest of the lot.
The whole issue is about “objectivity”.
And about dispelling the myths and superstitions of the 20th century.
The passage “whom do YOU propose to favour and at whose expense?”, that puzzled you, is just a quote from Ayn Rand that came to my mind after
so many years, probably by association, when I saw the name at your site.
Of “libertarian” interest would be:
The Rights and Wrongs of the Trade Unions (2002-07-24)
The British trade unions are again in the news, and so are “strikes”, “trade union powers”, and something called “industrial relations” … But what are …? at http://www.truth-and-justice.info/unions.html
And to be “nasty”: You have more in common with Muslims and muslims, than you would like to think.
The answer to the question by Lucas Wiman:
“where does devout in-your-face damn-all-agnostics-for-a-bunch-of-fence-sitting-wimps atheism (my preferred creed) fit in with all this?”
Much of “ethnic-Christian” agnosticism and even atheism springs from the rejection of the idea of a “sky god”. But a “sky god” is a Christian concept, which is rejected by Muhammad, and not asserted by Moses.
Muhammd’s God, has no shape and no image, and exists everywhere at the same time, not in Heaven, like the man-shaped God of the Christians.
In fact his definition of God is very similar to the definition of “Objective Reality” by Western Atheist philosophers – or to that used by insurance companies as in “Acts of God” – events beyond human control.
So to “walk in the ways of God”,
means to act in harmony with the Objective Reality,
rather than in accordance with one’s Freudian impulses or Pavlovian reflexes – “temptations of the Devil”.
Moses and Muhammad were not theoretical theologists. They were moralists, legislators, tribal leaders and nation builders.
They were dispelling the then existing myths about gods or God, and saying what God is not, rather then seeking to describe what God is – which,
according to Muhammad is impossible, and attempts to do so are condemned as a wrongful act – sin. By contrast Christians painted vivid pictures of their human God and his family.
Of course there is a world of difference between what Moses or Muhammad meant, and how their
sayings are understood by Jews, Muslims, or just
readers of the Books, especially, if they read translations, rather than the originals. But, this is not the fault of either Moses or Muhammad.
Eh?
“Muhammd’s God, has no shape and no image, and exists everywhere at the same time, not in Heaven, like the man-shaped God of the Christians.”
Well, to hear some Christians tell it, their god is everywhere too, and is fundamentally unknowable.
“In fact his definition of God is very similar to the definition of ‘Objective Reality’ by Western Atheist philosophers”
“[S]eeking to describe what God is … impossible, and attempts to do so are condemned as a wrongful act – sin.”
So on the one hand, god is objective reality (which is observable and knowable), and on the other hand, god is fundamentally unknowable–it’s even a sin to try to describe him (Einstein was one of the greatest sinners of all by this model). This is exactly the kind of stuff I mentioned: completely contradictory statements about what god is.
If god cannot even be described, then how can you even claim to believe in something you can’t define? What meaning does such an assertion have? I believe in asdlfkj, an object which is not equal to itself, but all of whose other properties are unknowable. Prove me wrong, unbelievers!
“Much of ‘ethnic-Christian’ agnosticism and even atheism springs from the rejection of the idea of a ‘sky god’. But a ‘sky god’ is a Christian concept, which is rejected by Muhammad, and not asserted by Moses.”
I find the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful, god who is everywhere, but who never does things outside the laws of physics to be a pretty empty one as well, and it is one which most Christians seem to believe in (without that last part, usually, since they love their miracles.) In any case, I live in the U.S., so when I talk to a religious person, it’s usually a Christian. Ethno-centric it may be, but is really more pragmatic. If I lived in Turkey, I’d probably talk about how empty the concept of allah is, and if I lived in Saudi Arabia, I’d keep my mouth shut about the whole issue 😉
“If god cannot even be described, then how can you even claim to believe in something you can’t define?”
Human knowledge is very limited, although at every stage of their knowledge people think, that they know and understand everything. Ask children.
They will say, they know and understand everything.
There are also things that people exprience through their effects, without being able to see or describe the thing itself. So, having repeatedly experienced some effect, they invent a name for the cause of that effect, and invent some theory
about the the thing that caused that effect. This can be seen in any “science”, like physics, chemistry, etc. For example, people cannot see radio waves directly, but they can see and even use their effects, and even observe them with instruments, but not directly by their senses.
This is what God of Moses and Muhammad is. It is a concept for whatever force or whatever it is that
in some unknown to them way brought the Universe
into existence and makes it what it is.
On the other hand at the time of Moses, and a few millenia after that, of Muhammad, just like today, people indulged in wishful thinking and believed in all kinds of magic. They tried to control their own destiny by asking human-shaped blocks of wood, or some other objects, to do something for them, etc.
Muhammad’s approach is different. He cannot control that Thing that makes the World what it is,
and which he calls Allah, he cannot describe it either. But he can seek to understand, by observation and experience, what patterns of human behaviour are in accordance with the “will of Allah” and which are not.
So he tells people of hs time, in a language understandable to them: “If you have to worship, then only Allah is worth worshiping”. And he tells the people of his time how they should behave, what is good and what is bad for them. Seen in the context of the time and place, the laws and advice he was giving to the people are hard not to agree with.
You might say that some of the punishments prescribed by him were too harsh. But this was 1400 year ago. And hanging, drawing and quatering was abolished in England only some 200-300 year ago. And we still have not come up with a truly effective methods of prevention of crime. His methods worked.
You are probably a very nice guy. You do not kill, you do not steal, you do not commit adultery, etc.
And you do so, not because of fear of punishment, but because such actions are not part of your character.
But the reason such actions are not part of your character, could be due to the harshness of the punishments prescribed by Moses and Muhammad, and even to the “hangings-drawings-and-quaterings” which existed in Britain as late as some 200-300 years ago.
But what happens to those who are not as good as you, but are inherently evil. They want to steal, they want to kill, etc. And they hope to be able to escape the punishment of this world either by avoiding being caught, or by being above the law, due to their position?
For such people the Bible and the Qur’an prescribe the punishments of the Hereafter – Eternal Damnation and Eternal Fire. You might laugh at these concepts, just as many people laughed at them at the times of Muhammad. But, would evil criminals, or despotic tyrants, have committed their crimes, if they had believed in Paradise and Hell?
And how many people throughout human history had been prevented from committing crimes because they “feared God”, and believed in the “Eternal Fire”?
This is why the Hebrew Prophets, and Muhammad were so insistently promoting the concepts of Hell and Paradise. And it could well be that your secular moral values have their origin in those concepts.
You follow your “straight path” almost instinctively – in the same way as you urinate
in a specially reserved place, rather on the spot that you feel the urge. You take this habit for granted, but it is the result of a long learning process – the “natural” thing to do is to urinate on the spot.
Civilization of which you are so proud, is the result of a constant struggle against human nature. And Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad are people who played decisive and definitive roles in that struggle. And it is still a very long way before Mankind become truly civilized.
It does not matter if you say “It happened naturally”, or “God has caused it”. Call it nature, call it Allah, or XYZ – it is what exists, whether we know it and understand it, or not. America existed long before the Europeans “discovered” it. Their knowledge of America was irrelvant to America’s existence – it was relevant for the Europeans themslves.
As long as you live your life Morally and Honestly, it does not matter why you do so.
I do it through understanding and I have always been like that, but reading the Bible and the Qur’an gives me a much better undestaning of life and human nature, than I would have had without it. It gives me a historical perspective of Human development which transcends my own personal experience. By being able to look back at the distant past I can not only understand the present, but can also predict the future.
People, who know me often wonder, how I could predict or understand things that they could not. They say “with the benefit of hindsight … you were right, but it did not seem like that at the time”.
And as somebody said: “I have never seen the Devil in my life, but every day I see the results of his actions!”
There have been many attempts by secular thinkers
to expalin human behaviour. But, the truth is that our knowledge is not sufficient to explain it in full.
And people needed morality long before they could
understand the workings of human nature. The Mosaic concepts of God and Devil were useful concepts, although like everything else they have been widely abused.
As for Saudi Arabia, I do not know where your knowledge of it comes from. But, if you are interested, then you might find that a visit to http://www.arabnews.com will convince you that they are not quite what you think they are. It is an English web-newspaper, published by Saudis, but you will find there contributions from Americans, and even Israelis. You might not agree with everything,
but it is definitely not what you think it is.
jokhuiitfyiyi