On my last diary, there were many commenters that sought to hijack the thread into a discussion of religion, specifically al-Islam and its relationship to FGM. So I said I would make a thread for the discussion of religion.
Andrew Sullivan is on a christianity jag right now. Dawkins and the New Atheists are always talking about religion.
I am a mevlevi Sufi. I have been taught the Sufi don't proselytize, and don't discuss their faith publically...since that is a form of proselytization. Like Jews do not proselytize.
It is a difficult thing to become a Jew, and difficult also to become a Sufi.....exclusive clubs that few can join.
Which naturally engenders resentment and suspicion.
And I do mean a real Sufi....not the fluffy love-bunny boutique sufi celebrity dilletantes.
I am not interested in recruiting anyone for my religion.
Yours is better for you, mine is better for me.
However I can elaborate on a few memes.
Andrew Sullivan lately has been very involved with the divinity of Jesus. At TalkIslam there is also a discussion of Robert Gelinas' book, Between Jesus and Allah.
It seems many people feel the point of contention between al-Islam and Christianity is the Jesus godhead.
But actually that is false.
Dawkins and company believe that religion itself is harmful.
That is crazy talk for an evolutionary biologist or a sociobiologist. Of course religion is an evolutionary fitness advantage or religion would never have evolved.
David Sloan Wilson via Sully--
...I piss off atheists more than any other category, and I am an atheist. One of the things that infuriates me about the newest crop of angry atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, is their denial of the beneficial aspects of religion. Their beef is not just that there is no evidence for God. They also insist that religion "poisons everything", as Christopher Hitchens subtitled his book. They are ignoring the scientific theory and evidence for the "secular utility" of religion, as Émile Durkheim put it, even though they wrap themselves in the mantle of science and rationality. Someone needs to call them out on that, and that person is me.
It is not religion....nor the divinity of Christ that poisons everything. It is evangelism. The idea that a particular religion is the only correct one. The idea that there is only One Truth, only One Path, only One Book.
As a Sufi, I do not care that christians believe in the jesus godhead....i do care that they want to make me believe in it.
The Sufi shayyk Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi said this beautiful thing.
"Beware of confining yourself to a particular belief and denying all else, for much good would elude you—indeed, the knowledge of reality would elude you. Be in yourself a matter for all forms of belief, for God is too vast and tremendous to be restricted to one belief rather than another."