| | Flushing the Koran or Reason Down the Toilet?
The very title of this article sets up the choice to be made between Reason and the Koran.
"By definition all religions have some or many tenets that must be accepted on faith, not on rational or objective, philosophical grounds."
The choice to believe in any religion is one not to be rational.
"In the case of Islam there are those adherents today who maintain that their religion teaches peace and tolerance and bans murder as contrary to the will of Allah. They tend to be in the tradition that flourished in the Islamic world a millennium ago that respected open inquiry, scholarship and reason."
Son of a gun! There is that choice about whether to choose reason again. The only Golden Age of Islam was one that had some respect for REASON.
"....radical Islamists who commit the most heinous crimes -- ...-- in order to terrorize others into mindless obedience to a primitive, repressive theocracy."
In the context of this article, it is clear that these radical Islamists are those who have most emphatically rejected REASON.
"In Islam the Koran is considered the revealed word of God. Those who question it, criticize it, reject it, even satirize it risk death."
Anyone in the West recognizes this as a completely irrational behavior.
"In the more secular West differences are tolerated. Indeed, this tradition grew out of a rejection of the religious fanaticism practiced for centuries in the West; Catholics and Protestants in Europe butchered each other by the millions over, among other things, ...."
Even in the West, which is now more secular, religion led to extremely irrational behavior. The West finally rejected this nonsense and became more secular (less irrational, see quote above on religion having base in rejection of reason) and more tolerant.
"But fortunately not only American law but also American culture tends to back free speech, even and especially for those we consider to be creeps because tolerance doesn't mean acceptance of their beliefs; it means that we understand their right to believe what they want, even if it is idiotic, and that it's through open discussion and debate that truth is obtained."
Reason is an activity we must each perform ourselves, but that is no reason to reject learning from others and it is no reason not to subject what we think is true to the arguments of others. In science, we do not just sit down with paper and pencil and theorize. We check our results out with experiments and we subject them to the review of other scientists, who may try to repeat our experiments. Similarly, all of our ideas are advantageously tested against the discussions we have with others. Perhaps our idea is consistent with our experiences, but maybe others can show us how they are wrong because they are inconsistent with experiences they have had. This is where our tolerance of their disagreement or their individual effort to understand the world may play a critical role in helping us to have RATIONAL ideas. A rational man is tolerant not of bad ideas or of bad people, but he does have respect for the value of ideas which other independent minds may have developed. The man who does not, might spend a lifetime inventing the wheel, though it was invented thousands of years ago. He might have to reinvent the idea of vaccines, the generator, and the reaping machine. Tolerance is primarily about understanding that many of our ideas have seeds in the thinking done by others. It is really an appreciation of the fact that civilization is based upon rational men thinking independently to develop new ideas, but also upon trading ideas constantly. Tolerance is the means to becoming a Trader of Ideas and of gaining from the accomplishments of other minds. This nonsense that Edward Hudgins or David Kelley depend too much on Tolerance and not enough on Reason stems from a gross failure to understand that tolerance is fundamental to living a rational life within the sphere of a civilization. Living in a rational civilization is hugely better than living in a cave and doing a great job of inventing the wheel all by oneself. David, Ed, and I all want to convince the often rational civilization in which we live to choose to become consistently rational.
"After all, the Old Testament offers many okays to slavery, approval for murdering innocent children ..."
Again a clear link of religion with irrationality.
"Muslim fanatics who self-righteously riot and kill at insults to the Koran manifest the irrationality of their beliefs and culture. Rational individuals are outraged at those beliefs and that culture, but should also understand that tolerance will expose the errors of these fanatics. The fanatics, of course fear tolerance because open discussion and inquiry exposes the nature of their cause."
This is all about reason vs. irrationality and the role that tolerance plays in bringing them head to head to be tested. Ed knows which will win in this contest and so do the Muslim fanatics.
Finally, we come to the paragraph that Dennis says is the only one that says that the real issue is reason versus irrationality. Frankly, I am puzzled at how he and Diana Hsieh missed the fact that the conflict between reason and irrationality as at the core, and constantly at the core, of this article. Ed Hudgins and David Kelley have been given a bad rap by people who do not understand the epistemological purpose of tolerance. Some people are so determined to put them down, that even an article which is constantly making the real choice to be rational or not the central issue is seen as failing to do so.
Truth and Toleration is very clearly about the role that toleration plays among a group of people in making it possible for them to gain the benefit of each others productive and independent effort to think. It is not about not caring whether an idea is good or bad. It is not about not caring whether a given individual has mostly bad ideas or good ideas. It is very much about having a respect for the value of many ideas that are developed by others and about the power that may be brought to bear on a problem by multiple minds. It also gives evidence of some expectation that there are many people in an advanced civilization such as ours who have some good ideas and whose work helps us to enjoy a much richer life than we would have alone or even just in a microscopic community of Objectivists. David Kelley's fundamental approach is one that he and I have shared since our days at Brown University in the late 1960s. It really puzzles me that so many Objectivists cannot understand such basic concepts.
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