Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA14173 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 27 Sep 2001 09:08:17 +0100 Message-ID: <003e01c14731$2a98a160$f89cbed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <JJEIIFOCALCJKOFDFAHBEEHDDIAA.richard@brodietech.com> Subject: Re: Belief & Behavior Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 10:47:44 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Brodie <richard@brodietech.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 4:27 PM
Subject: RE: Belief & Behavior
> I'm not sure what religion you are thinking of that has a "no argument, no
> reflection" policy. Most religions have questioning and reflection as in
> important part of them.
Hi Richard,
Most religions, I agree, but not Islam.
One of the priciple pathologies of islam is its absolutism.
Mohammed, remerber, was the last prophet and there can no further
revelation. Islam accept Jesus as a prophet, but Mohammed stays on
the end of the line.
No argument here.
No reflections count in its absolutism.
If there is no further revelation than what is written down in the Koran
must be the ' last ' words of God. Period !!
This has lead Islam into a situation where it can 't examine ( critically)
its
own beliefs and rules.
Christianity did this and can do this. Islamitic critical research is still
very
in its infancy. ( Look what happened to Rushdie, and look what happens
in Iran, where Rasta... and something is trying to change the whole of the
ballgame. The people are standing one with him but not the religious rulers.
Islam/ Koran can 't be read in an open manner.
That is in a way what I always tried to say, that Islam and other and what-
soever are trapped in its own memetical " absolutism ".
Islam has its view, we got our own.
And we must respect that, but somehow, and I will take here the Western
point of view, if we want to help, if some government is asking for our
help, we always set another camp aside.
If we want to help, for example the Kurds out of humane reasons ( we
help in a certain way their memetic development) we descrease others in
their attempt to do so too_ and we ran into trouble with Saddam.
You can 't do right for both, better in a way is not to help, but we can 't
do
that either, because taking up such a position is committing memetical
suicide. We need to help in order to stay memetically alive and to de-
velop memetically further.
But, Islam hasn 't evolved memetically beyond the words of Mohammed,
and it must be to stay alive. Or it will kill itself or it will be destroyed
by
others.
We need in a sense, someone to opposite Bin Laden, someone who is
willing to let undergo Islam a normal evolution, but and I agree, this can
be seen again as a Western point of view, but within the Islamic world
more and more voices are heard to change.
Maybe we can help in someway, there we are again.....
Best regards,
Kenneth
( I am, because we are) in essence modern
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