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A Spirited Manifesto
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Category-Free

Posted April 20th, 2016 by Lesley Hazleton

Publishing a book is, in effect, going public. You spend years shut away inside four walls, and then suddenly, with publication, what was between you and your keyboard is out there for everyone to see.  You take a deep breath — a very deep breath — and cross fingers, toes, and whatever else can be crossed (mashup of religious metaphors be damned).

But what happens then can be quite wonderful. Like when I spoke a couple of weeks back at the Yale Humanist Community.  I started off more or less like this:

“Someone asked me not long ago what I thought of the huge rise in the population of nuns. The question utterly confused me, since so far as I knew, the convent population was in steep decline. He actually had to spell his question out for me: What he meant was not nuns as in sisters, but n.o.n.e.s.

It turns out that this oddly ungrammatical usage is the invention of opinion pollsters. It includes what they call “the religiously unaffiliated” and “the spiritual but not religious.” And I find it quite striking that all of these are negative terms – that is, they define people by what they are not. I mean, there’s nothing quite like insulting nearly 40% of the population by categorizing them in the negative.”

This is the point where it occurred to me ask whom I, in turn, might be insulting. “Are there any opinion pollsters here this evening?” I asked.  No hands were raised.   I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or disappointed at that, but ramped up the point anyway:

“If you wonder why polls so often get it wrong, this might be an excellent example. Because like so much else to do with the vast and varied universe of all things shunted under the umbrella heading of ‘religion,’ it comes loaded with assumptions. And the main assumption behind the ‘none’ classification is that you ‘have’ or you ‘own’ a belief, whether religious or irreligious, theist or atheist.

I think of this as the capitalist approach to belief: belief as a possession. Or a matter of a spiritual haves and have-nots.

opinion pollNow, pollsters believe in categories – that’s their religion – which is why they so often design their surveys in order to force the issue, leaving respondents no option but to lean this way or to lean that way. There’s rarely any room to stand up straight in pollster-land.

But what’s been happening recently is that more and more of us are refusing to go through life leaning in order to oblige the pollsters. Refusing to be categorized. Refusing to be squished under the heading of ‘religion’, whether pro or con. And totally refusing to accept being shoved ‘in between.’”

That, I continued, is why I wrote the agnostic manifesto. And then I went on to lay out the case for the agnostic stance as a fresh and honest way of being in the world and of thinking about being in the world – one of intellectual and emotional integrity.

It was a great audience. Many were leaning forward in their seats, smiling, their eyes alive with interest and excitement. Like the neatly bearded guy in the check shirt five rows up, on the aisle, who was all but bouncing in his seat with excitement. He came up to me afterwards, thanked me profusely, and then said:

“I have a confession to make. You asked early on if there were any pollsters in the hall. Well, I’m not one any more, but I used to be one, and I have to tell you that you totally hit the nail on the head in everything you said about opinion polls. It was just so good to hear it said out loud.”

And so good to hear it said out loud back to me.

 

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File under: agnosticism | Tagged: Tags: 'nones', Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, belief, capitalism, categories, opinion polls, publication, Yale Humanist Community | Be the First to leave a comment

Coming In The New Year!

Posted December 31st, 2015 by Lesley Hazleton

April 5, 2016 publication.  Riverhead Books.
And already available for pre-order here, here, and here!

ag final cover

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File under: agnosticism, existence, light, sanity | Tagged: Tags: Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, agnosticism, belief, doubt, faith, infinity, life, meaning, mystery, soul | 2 Comments
  1. Nuzhat says:
    December 31, 2015 at 7:16 pm

    Countdown has begun for the opening of this Pandora’s box of ‘revelation’….pun intended! It’s high, as well as the right time to understand this ‘hazy to the world’ scripture….excited!!
    All the best Lesley. Reviews are making it more enthusing….
    Nuzhat.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      January 1, 2016 at 7:27 pm

      Good puns always make me smile! Thanks, Nuzhat.

Believing in Peace

Posted February 24th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

“I can’t believe you don’t believe in anything!” someone wrote on this blog a while back, commenting on my agnosticism (actually, she used capital letters and lots of exclamation marks, but I’ll refrain).   And I was a bit shocked by that.  What kind of human being can I claim to be if I don’t believe in anything?  A nihilist?  A god-forsaken creature left to the whims and mercies of fate?    A craven whimpering coward afraid to commit herself?

So in between keeping up with what’s happening in Egypt and Tunisia and Bahrain and Yemen and Jordan and Iraq and Iran and oh-my-god Libya, I’ve been haunted by what she said — and have realized that she placed the stress on the wrong word.  It doesn’t belong on the word ‘anything,’ but on the word before it:  ‘in.’

Of course there are things I believe.  I just don’t generally feel the need to believe in them.  I may well believe that such-and-such a thing is true, though in fact this is much the same thing as saying “I think that…” or the more amorphous “I feel that…”  and I’m trying not to be amorphous here.  And in fact there are some things I do believe in, prime among them the possibility of some seemingly impossible form of peace between Israel and Palestine.

If I look at Israel/Palestine rationally right now, I see no way to a peaceful resolution.   So in the lack of empirical evidence, I have no choice but to fall back on belief – that is, on the conviction that peace is possible, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I’m not being over-idealistic here.   The first step in any thinking about peace is to get rid of all those images of doves fluttering around all over the place and everyone falling on each others’ shoulders in universal brother/sisterhood.  Peace is far more mundane than that.  It’s the absence of war.  It’s people not being killed.  It’s the willingness to live and let live.  And that will do just fine.

There’s no love lost between England and Germany, for instance, but they’re at peace after two utterly devastating wars in the first half of the 20th century.  There’s less than no love lost between Egypt and Israel – in fact it’s safe to say that for the most part, they detest each other —  but that peace treaty, signed by an Egyptian dictator and an Israeli former terrorist, has lasted three decades.  It’s nobody’s ideal of peace, but however uneasily, it’s held, and will likely hold whatever the changes in Egypt – a frigid kind of peace, but peace nonetheless.

But even thinking in terms of pragmatic, undramatic, boring peace, which once seemed as impossible for England and Germany, and for Egypt and Israel, as for Israel and Palestine, I still can’t see it.  Of course this may simply mean that I have a very limited imagination, and so can’t see the forest for the trees.   But to think that something is impossible because I can’t see it is not only an absurd assumption, but also a dangerous one.

What we believe affects how we act.   If we stop believing that Israel/Palestine peace is possible, or even desirable, as the Israeli government seems to have done, then that affects how we act:  we really do make it impossible.  That is, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of unending conflict.   We act in our own worst interests.

I’d rather be naïve than nihilistic.  So in face of the despair that often overtakes me at the latest news from Gaza or from the West Bank, I have to fall back on belief in the possibility of peace, no matter how seemingly irrational.  After all, if it was rational, it wouldn’t require belief.

One definition of despair is in the inability to imagine oneself into the future.  It is, in a very real sense, a failure of the imagination.  So perhaps this is what belief really is:  an act of imagination.   The astonishing human ability to imagine something into existence, and to act in accordance with that imagination.

That’s what we’ve seen these past few weeks in Tunisia and Egypt and Bahrain (and maybe even in Libya), and that’s what’s been so inspiring about it:  belief transformed into possibility.   Belief not as faith in the divine, but as faith in the human ability to act and to change the future.   Belief, that is, in ourselves.

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File under: agnosticism, existence, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Bahrain, belief, conflict, Egypt, faith, Gaza, Germany, imagination, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, nihilism, Palestine, peace, Tunisia, West Bank, Yemen | 15 Comments
  1. Sue says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:44 pm

    Thank you for your distinction between ‘believing’ and ‘believing in’ – I think that’s fabulous.
    Regarding ‘Peace’ – I believe it to be more than just the absence of war – it is a whole other force in itself. It’s people’s determination to live differently and better and to care for each other and their communities, and so much more.
    And perhaps something to think about – it occurs to me that you use the word ‘believe’ (ie. you choose to believe in peace in the Middle East despite all evidence to the contrary) is used in the same sense as others would use the word ‘faith’, eg. I have ‘faith’ that there will be peace in the middle east. I do love words and how we use them, and I do love it when people can string a fabulous sentence together – you do that so well – thank you.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm

      So glad you pointed put my conflation of ‘belief’ and ‘faith’, Sue — it’s one of those things I was vaguely aware of doing, but hadn’t really paid attention to. Yes, I think there is a difference, but will have to work on figuring it out (it has to do, I think, with intention — a kind of willed decision — but am not sure, so will muse, and write about it at a later date). Thanks for the sharp eye. — L.

  2. Kate McLeod says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    What these countries who want to go to war with each other need are football teams. They can take out their aggression in the viewing stands, wear war paint, wave flags–all that.
    Also my new rules about war in the world must be followed: no one under the age of 50 goes to war. I think it’s probably the fastest route to peace.

  3. Sana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    My husband always tells me that what I lack is belief. I give up too easily, hence abandoning any fight in me. My husband is the opposite, if he believes he achieves – and he makes it happen no matter what the odds are. Your article has made me realize how dangerous it is not believe….. its a bit daunting actually. Now comes the hard part – what do i believe? …….

  4. Lynn Rosen says:
    February 24, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    There is no point in believing IN war as an inevitable solution. Peace is the default. That is in what I believe.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:35 pm

      Perfectly in-put!

  5. Lana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    Thank you 🙂
    i hope u add a “like” button under your posts … sometimes i realy like an article but has nothing else to add 🙂

    best wishes

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:36 pm

      Thanks Lana — will poke around and see if I can find out how to do it. — L.

      (Best way to ‘Like’ — click the Facebook button!)

  6. Moes says:
    February 25, 2011 at 9:05 am

    I enjoyed very much your TED talk about Kuran.
    We have a woman a bit like you in France, Annick de Souzenelle (except she’s not an agnostic). She has read the Bible in the languages it was written (she studied years and years to learn Aramean and Hebrew, symbology and theology). If you go back to the source, it’s the best way not to be misguided by translations and interpretations. And her books about the bible explain how deep and beautiful this book is. Far away from the interpretation men have made of it through the centuries, trying to control people out of it. Much more universal than we think it is (not to mention the stupid and childish “creationist” interpretation of it.)
    I guess Kuran is the same. It’s the fragility of beauty, when taken over by gridy and bad intentional people.
    Please continue your struggle for beauty and peace (and excuse my poor english.)
    all the best.

  7. Elisa Sparks says:
    February 26, 2011 at 9:29 am

    Have you seen the bumper sticker: “Militant agnostic: I don’t know, and neither do you”? Virginia Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephens, was famous for his statement of rational agnosticism.

  8. Anneza Akbar says:
    March 1, 2011 at 10:39 am

    Very interesting piece,
    I am curious as to what your view is on the idea of:

    “Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice”
    in comparison to:
    “peace is the absence of war”

    Could it be that perhaps “no war” and therefore “peace” could come about after a sense of justice is established?

    of course then the question would arise what would be justice in any specific case?

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts 🙂
    Anneza

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 1, 2011 at 1:12 pm

      Good question, and a tough one. “Peace and justice” is a much-used phrase, yet how exactly they go hand-in-hand is not clear, at least to me. The core problem being, of course, what we mean by justice. Are we talking justice as harmony, as moral rightness (and if so, whose morality?), as retribution, as equitability, as divine justice (in which case, whose concept of the divine?).

      I do think that any kind of peace, however minimal in concept, does have to involve a sense on both or all sides that nobody is being advantaged to the disadvantage of others. In practice, I think that might well mean that both/all sides will have to feel not that they’ve gotten what they think is right or what they deserve, but that they’ve had to give up a certain amount of what they think is right or what they deserve. In other words, that far from being perfect, peace is an imperfect compromise on all sides. And possible only when everyone is willing, finally, to make those compromises. I know it seems like there should be a “win-win” option, but in fact “lose-lose” may be the only realistic one — and thus, paradoxically, in fact a win-win.

      Have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma? It’s a central paradigm in conflict resolution, in which the only rational solution is the one in which both sides lose an equal amount. Hard-headed, and worth thinking about. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

  9. Sunny says:
    March 1, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    War and peace are two sides of the same coin, just as light and darkness are. Just as light cannot exist without darkness, peace cannot exist without war – just as God and Satan cannot exist, atleast in two Abrahamic religions, by themselves. The principle of duality seems to be all-encompassing.

  10. Kathleen says:
    March 4, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    Very though provoking and written – as usual – Leslie. 🙂 I came across a book’s paragraph about an underlying social dynamic (‘bargains with God) that are suppose to guarantee peace (except the world keeps cheating on the bargain by going to war) : During WWI. The protagonist is looking at a stained glass window in a cathedral of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. ‘Behind Abraham was the ram caught in a thicket by his horns and struggling to escape…You could see the fear. Whereas Abraham, if he regretted having to sacrifice his son at all, was certainly hiding it well, and Isaac, bound on a makeshift altar, positively smirked’. …[This represents] ‘the bargain on which all patriarchal societies are founded. If you, who are young and strong, will obey me, who am old and weak, even to the extent of being prepared to sacrifice your life, then in the course of time you will peacefully inherit, and be able to exact the same obedience from your sons. [and this one sacrifice to the gods is enough to appease them, instead of thousands] Only …. [being at war is ] ‘breaking the bargain… all over the inheritors were dying…. while old men, and women of all ages, gathered together and sang hymns. *”Regeneration” by Pat Barker, pg 149 (book 2 of a trilogy based on a Psychologist trying to heal shell shocked solders in England during WWI.) Just an interesting twist on the concept that older men (and women) sit in hallowed-halls and declare war and it’s planning, while the young die to execute the plan. Don’t know that it adds anything to your dialogue on peace but just thought to add it. No comment back needed 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 4, 2011 at 4:44 pm

      I totally agree: the Pat Barker trilogy (‘Regeneration,’ ‘Eye in the Door’ and ‘Ghost Road’) is stunning, and perhaps the most sustained and subtle anti-war fiction ever written. — L.

Hellfire at Christmas?

Posted December 21st, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

I know this is kind of absurd right now.  With half the world gearing up for Christmas, why am I puzzling away at hellfire?  To which I can only say, blame Al.  (He dubbed himself Not Buying on the comments thread of the TEDx video talk I gave, then Fred in a subsequent email exchange, but since the Paul Simon song You Can Call Me Al runs through my head at regular intervals, I’ll do as Paul advises and do just that.)

The discussion was about what Al calls “the hellfire penalty” in both Christianity and Islam – “the notion that it is good and right to destroy/burn the souls of people for mere disbelief, and that disbelief itself is a kind of sin-crime, making disbelievers sinners/criminals.”   (Judaism doesn’t go for hellfire – we just get thrown off a rock as scapegoats, which is what ‘go to hell’ means in Hebrew.)

Now, you could say (as I did) that it makes no sense for an atheist (Al) and an agnostic (me) to be arguing about something neither of us believes in.  But this belief, as Al pointed out, does have very real effects.  It “demonizes nonbelievers,” he wrote, and can be used to see them as a threat to the security of the souls of the believers.  Violence against them can then be rationalized as a way of helping to save souls.

(If that sounds obscene, consider an argument that has been used by Islamic extremists to excuse killing fellow Muslims in suicide attacks, including those killed on 9/11:  they are doing them a favor by ensuring that their souls go to heaven as martyrs.   Someone as cold-blooded as Carl Rove couldn’t have come up with a better rationale for “collateral damage.”  But then we’re all merely collateral damage to the fanatics, whose rationalizations for violence are both endlessly inventive and endlessly repetitive.  Remember the twisted logic of torturing witches?  If they survived, that meant they were really witches and so should be killed;  if they didn’t, that meant they were innocent and so had gone to heaven.  A nice Rove-ian way of shrugging it off.)

What depresses me most about the literal belief in hellfire, though, is what seems to me a terrible nihilism.  It implies that this life – this world we live in — is of no importance.  What is important is eternity – your soul in the afterlife.   Religious faith then becomes not a matter of being a better person in the here and now, but instead, a kind of long-term Investment Retirement Account.  And one based entirely on fear.

Worse still, life itself becomes the enemy.  If to live is to place one’s soul in jeopardy by risking eternal hellfire, then better by far to die while you’re still “safe.”  This world becomes the enemy of the next, which is indeed a terrible, and terrifying, way to live.

In the past, I’ve had letters and emails from fundamentalist Christians assuring me that I will burn in hell and that they will pray for my soul (this, for saying that Mary’s virginity is a wonderful metaphor instead of a physical description).  Though tempted to say that I would meet them in hell, I replied simply that I appreciated their concern and welcomed any prayers I could get.  The response was inevitably along these lines: “Oh my God, you actually read what I wrote, I’m so sorry, I was just letting off steam, I wasn’t really thinking of you as a real person…”

So how do we all become real persons for each other?  Not abstractions, not just another of the billions of souls wandering through eternity, whether heaven or hell or somewhere in between, but real, live, thinking, feeling people here and now, on this earth.    How do we bridge the awful gap between religion at its worst — blinding us to our own and each other’s humanity – and at its best:  opening our eyes to precisely that?

I don’t know.  What I do know is that I’m with Al on this:  I hate the idea of hellfire.  Not because I’m afraid of experiencing it, but because I’m afraid of what it does to people who take it literally.

I don’t think of the hellfire penalty as one of unbearable heat.  I think of it as utterly, immeasurably cold:  hearts turned to stone, human warmth to icy indifference.   So I leave the cold, inhuman reaches of infinity to the physicists and the astronomers – and to those who claim to be so loyal to their idea of God that they presume to be God.  Unwilling to wait for the Day of Judgment in which they so fervently proclaim their belief, they imagine that they can be both judge and executioner.

In religious terms, I believe that is called heresy.  There’s also a more everyday word for it:  evil.

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File under: Christianity, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: "the hellfire penalty", belief, disbelief, hell, nihilism, suicide bombings, terrorism | 30 Comments
  1. villainx says:
    December 21, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    Just wondering, but what you are objecting for your soul in hellfire, that line of rationale seems to apply for belief in heaven/afterlife/soul in paradise too.

    Maybe I’m commenting too quickly after reading your entry, but well, that’s what it sounds like.

  2. Lesley Hazleton says:
    December 21, 2010 at 6:44 pm

    I’m really not worried about my soul, Villainx, but about the soullessness of over-literal belief in hellfire.

  3. villainx says:
    December 21, 2010 at 6:50 pm

    Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean specifically your soul.

    I guess if there is a soullessness of over-literal belief in hellfire, then it sounds like it’d be applicable to an over-literal belief in heaven/paradise/afterlife. Or that’s my initial take.

    I have to re-read your post more careful and think about it.

  4. Tea-mahm says:
    December 21, 2010 at 8:31 pm

    I was taught by my unusual Arabic teacher and Imam that the hell fire in Islam is a COLD FIRE. Yes –– “hearts turned to stone.”There is coldness and separation, isolation even, which for those who think collectively as they did at the time of Revelation, is terrifying. It seems to be the penalty for self-betrayal, for jumping over “the natural state” of love and harmony toward self and others. Symbolic–– yes!, as Lesley says, not literal.

    • Chad Tabb says:
      March 11, 2011 at 1:40 pm

      That’s what I was taught too. It made me conclude at the time that its a psychological hell rather than a literal hell. Becoming unable to live with oneself. Some people may call it conscience. This is also the description we see in some gnostic interpretations of different religions (such as Sufism and Gnistoc christianity). Cold hell would be worse than hot hell (if it was there)!

  5. lavrans says:
    December 21, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    To me it’s not the hellfire that’s the dilemma. It’s that bridge between faith and the understanding that your particular faith is not like any other person’s faith.

    But what scares me about belief and faith is that they too often appear to me to be reasons to excuse a person’s selfishness. The idea that, to some, their faith be a window to see everyone as human I find to be a fair damnation of humanity in general. If they require faith to have empathy, then are they worth having empathy for?

    I am terrified by the idea that such a huge number of people require faith to avoid terrorizing their own neighbors, their family, their community. And yet, when I look at the spiritualists, I find I have the same derision. There I see faith as a justification for selfishness and tempered only by the relatively universal rules against the horrors of fanaticism.

    Which is worse? Hellfire and damnation or the new age love of the self?

  6. Meg says:
    December 21, 2010 at 11:55 pm

    Excellent ending three sentences. Shukran. Ma’asalaamah.

    • Meg says:
      December 21, 2010 at 11:58 pm

      (Lesley’s last 3 sentences, to be specific!)

  7. Links 12/22/10 « naked capitalism says:
    December 22, 2010 at 12:09 am

    […] Hellfire at Christmas? Lesley Hazleton […]

  8. Meezan says:
    December 22, 2010 at 2:10 am

    your article reminded me of Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice”.

  9. Susan says:
    December 22, 2010 at 4:17 am

    Very well said- from a fellow Agnostic (by way of Judaism by birth, Catholicism by conversion, and Buddhism by heart). The Catholic kids used to pray for the souls of the “pagan babies” (any non-Christians). So much evil has been and continues to be done in the name of “religion”- I’m with John Lennon, “imagine no religion”- now, that would be heaven on earth!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      December 22, 2010 at 10:29 am

      Thank you Susan (and John Lennon). But I do have to point out that to cite the evil done in the name of religion is not in itself an argument against religion — unless, for example, you want to cite the evil done in the name of love and use that as an argument against love…

  10. AA says:
    December 22, 2010 at 9:06 am

    There is no heaven and there is no hell. They are not geographical, they are part of your psychology. They are psychological. To live a life of spontaneity, truth, love and beauty is to be in heaven. To live a life of hypocrisy, lies and compromises, to live according to others, is to live in a hell. To live in freedom is heaven, and to live in bondage is hell.

    -osho

  11. H.H. says:
    December 22, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    My father told me once that the only observable behavioral difference between believers and nonbelievers is that the former go to church on Sundays, on all other days they cheat, lie, steal, speed and run red lights, get drunk, abuse children and spouses, you name it, equally. However that would not stop the believers from demonizing the nonbelievers, thus I fully side with your concerns.
    What bothers my logic is that not believing is considered the kind of sin of the highest magnitude: a person can be honest and hard working, helping and caring, and still set to burn in hell if he does not pay respect to god, not that it matters to that person as he anyway thinks that there is no hell. On the other side a criminal has a good chance to escape the eternal damnation, provided that prays enough, exhibits guilt and gives money to the church. He might even get some sympathy in the religious community. This variety of justice doesn’t seem divine at all to me. It must come from the church entertained certitude that the nonbeliever is rotten to the core, even if all seem good on the surface: it must be faked.
    There is grace in living without god, in accepting our existence on Earth as is with dignity and responsibility, knowing that its only meaning is just relative, if any.

  12. not buying says:
    December 22, 2010 at 1:07 pm

    Lesley,

    After this, I think I’m going to have to change my moniker here from the seemingly disgruntled “Not Buying” to something less oppositional. I wouldn’t want to be stuck with that, considering for example, that I agree with practically everything in your article here. But I think we are going to have to share the blame for bringing up hell-fire in the Christmas season, because, after all, you put the question to me.

    ———————————————-
    For those readers who want to study the Quran online, here are some free resources that I’ve found useful:

    http://corpus.quran.com/
    http://tanzil.info
    http://al-quran.info
    http://altafsir.com/
    http://www.tafsir.com/

  13. Medina Tenour Whiteman says:
    December 22, 2010 at 2:58 pm

    I would like to point out the first Sufi saint Rabia’s al-‘Adawiya’s famous exploit of running through the streets of Baghdad with a flaming stick and a bucket of water, saying she was going to put out the flames of Hell and burn down the gardens of Paradise so that people would not worship Allah for fear of the former or desire for the latter, but only for the sake of Allah alone (which is a difficult concept enough to understand as a practising Muslim of Sufi orientation, let alone anyone else!)

    My personal hell is the burning ache that engulfs my heart when I am hurting others, judging, ‘playing God’ – in other words not living in truth, and my personal paradise is the peace that overpowers me when I am. That is all I can honestly say I believe the Islamic ideas of hell and paradise to be, and I don’t think I am heretical or even particularly unorthodox for holding those views.

    It is sad that believers feel threatened by non-believers, and this inevitably makes them aggressive (even if only in attitude), exposing their uncertain faith. However, any rigid belief is dogmatic, and atheists can certainly become just as ‘religious’ in their denunciation of religionists, their condescension, their judgement, even their hatred.

    Real ‘religion’ is invisible, and cannot be charted by trips to the temple or size of beard or demonstrable acts of worship. In this way – and this is absolutely in line with classical Islamic thought – it is impossible to judge the quality of another person’s faith (or lack of) purely based on their behaviour, or indeed anything else; after all, ‘Allahu ‘Aleem’ (only God knows). As Karen Armstrong points out in the History of God, the kafirun (disbelievers) referred to in Qur’an were people bent on the annihilation of the nascent Muslim population and its new way of life and thinking, and it takes a very long stretch of the imagination to apply it to atheists in the modern-day sense of the word.

    Wonderful research and writing by the way, Lesley. I am forwarding the link to your TEDx video to everyone I know!

    • not buying says:
      December 22, 2010 at 4:23 pm

      Medina,

      You write: “As Karen Armstrong points out in the History of God, the kafirun (disbelievers) referred to in Qur’an were people bent on the annihilation of the nascent Muslim population and its new way of life and thinking,”

      1. Are you saying that you accept the belief that _all_ the people referred to in the Quran as non-believers (kafirun) were out to kill Muslims?

      2. Are non-Muslims in the Quran always referred to as kafirun or are there other labels also?

      “…and it takes a very long stretch of the imagination to apply it to atheists in the modern-day sense of the word.”

      You think this is an improbable interpretation? Do you believe most Muslims today do not view atheists as disbelievers (kafirun)?

      • Yusuf says:
        January 6, 2011 at 5:16 am

        A kaffer is one who knows what is being said is true, but covers it up. The root, kaf, fa, ra means to cover. The Arabic word for farmer comes fr the same root because he covers seeds.

  14. Brad says:
    December 22, 2010 at 5:14 pm

    Leslie

    I apologize for the length of this post I get carried away at times.

    I don’t find it at all unusual to have concerns about hellfire/eternal punishment. It was one of the main problems I found with Christianity for many years. I could not conceive of the loving God I believed in and was taught about condemning some of His children to eternal damnation. After all, if as a parent, I could not do this with my children, regardless of how disappointed I might be with their behavior, how could a God whose love is infinitely superior to mine do so?

    Rather than reject religion, however, I pondered the apparent contradictions. I saw much to give me reason to believe in a higher power, so I did not reject God or religion, but I certainly questioned what many were saying and teaching. I came to realize that it is arrogant for us, the created, to believe we should fully understand the Creator. After all, the Bible says that the books are sealed until the end times.

    I think it is healthy for us to search for meaning and question. It’s important to recognize that the Bible as it exists is a political document. What was included or excluded was determined by men. The Catholic Bible has more books than the Bible I grew up with. So, while I believe in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, there is always the question of interpretation and understanding. If it is the inerrant Word of God, then there should be no inconsistencies. If it appears there are, then I believe this is a result of our limited understanding. If one views spiritual writing as both literal and metaphorical, that can help explain some of the apparent contradictions. After all, Jesus Himself spoke in parables so that we might better understand. Who is to say that many of the stories in the Bible are not metaphorical rather than or in addition to being literal?

    While I believe that our souls come into existence at conception and are eternal, and I believe in an afterlife, I do not believe Heaven and Hell are physical places, but states of being that actually exist in the here and now. When we are in relationship with God, we are more closely “in Heaven” and when we are out of relationship with God, we are more closely “in Hell.” I can think of many times in my life that I felt like I was “going through Hell” and those tend to be when I am more inwardly focused rather than thinking about those around me.

    I believe in the idea of no compulsion in religion. While those of us who believe (regardless of religion or denomination) are called upon to teach others about our beliefs, we are not to force the issue. That’s why God gave us free will. An all powerful God does not need help. If we did nothing, does one not think God can change us if that is His desire? He has given us the will and mind to think for ourselves. At this stage in the progress of humanity we can all read and reason on our own. My “job” is to teach you about my beliefs and encourage you to investigate on your own. If you like what you find, then you can accept it. If not, then move on. From my understanding, there is no risk to me. And the only risk to you is that you will find yourself farther from God in the next life. And this may be emotionally painful in the next life. But I don’t think you will “burn eternally.”

    As for what we should do in this life, while I believe that we are “saved” by the Grace of God, I tend to view that as God’s mercy. Not that all we have to do is say we believe and we are saved. Our works cannot “save” us, but we are still called upon to love one another and behave towards our friends, enemies and strangers with love, compassion, tenderness, humility, mercy, etc. This helps to prepare us for the next life. When we were in our mothers’ wombs, we did not need eyes, ears, nose, hands, feet, etc. in the womb, but those evolved while in the womb so that we would be prepared for our physical life in this world. Similarly we need to develop spiritual attributes in this life to enable us to function in the next world.

    God’s mercy does not mean we are free to do what ever we wish without regard to the consequences. For me it means that He will forgive me for my mistakes, no matter how many I make.

    I am a member of the Bahá’í Faith and this is where my beliefs come from. Of course, some of this is simply my understanding. If you are interested or have not heard of the Bahá’í Faith, check out this website. http://www.bahai.us/

  15. Cathy Krafft says:
    December 22, 2010 at 10:37 pm

    Notice how evil spelled backwards is live? Suggest stopping all beliefs and realize what is real is what is here… It’s Simple…

    “Who is this god that granted you the long life. Certainly not some force. What is it that has been carrying you regardless of the abuse that is thrown at it. Regardless of anything else it has been there unconditionally. Obviously the condition of it deteriorates according to what one do with your free choice. How you affect God, that God is your physical body. When that ends, you end”. — BernardPoolman

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      December 23, 2010 at 9:53 am

      Cathy, thank you, but I tend to get very wary when phrases like “it’s simple” and “it’s obvious” are used, which is why I exerted my ‘moderator’ function and shortened the long quote you sent.

      • Cathy Krafft says:
        December 23, 2010 at 10:18 am

        Interesting how the words and realistic meaning of ‘Oneness and Equality” is misunderstood, judged and seen as something to be ‘wary’ of when life really is ‘obvious’ and ‘simple’ within the ‘Equality Equation’.

    • Meg says:
      December 26, 2010 at 10:29 am

      Is it not as harmful and arrogant to insist (to those who do believe in God) that He does not exist, as it is to insist (to those who do not believe in God) that He does exist? Perhaps if people listened more, and opened themselves to all possibilities, greater understanding of one another could lend to greater peace between one another.

  16. Yusuf says:
    December 23, 2010 at 5:54 am

    To assume that a belief in hellfire means that my faith is based on fear is too simplistic to come from a mind like yours I think. In Islam we are taught to love and fear Allah, meaning to strive to do those things which please him and to avoid those things which go against him.
    If I say to you, “I will give you all the wealth you need and all the things you desire, if you are true to me” and you decide, of your own free will to reject my offer, can you blame me if I give you nothing? So, what about god, who supplies you with everything, including your own free will which most westerners at least, consider highly valuable, even a defining attribute.

  17. Matt says:
    December 24, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    It seems to me that hellfire is a necessary component of the Christian system from a philosophical standpoint; without it, the system completely breaks down. If there is no punishment, then the only motivation to do good is reward (Heaven). But frequently the near-term reward for good is not as attractive as that of evil. In a world absent punishment, the rational mind would do evil because it would be more profitable. Hellfire changes that dynamic completely.

  18. Ben says:
    January 4, 2011 at 10:26 pm

    There’s no Jewish tradition for throwing anyone off a cliff as a scapegoat. It’s supposed to be a literal goat, once a year; hence the term.

  19. Adel says:
    January 11, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    Dear Lesley,

    First let me apologize to you for only knowing about you a couple of hours ago. I saw one of your videos on Youtube and I was instantly mesmerized. Thank you for existing in a world full of ignorant, prejudiced bigots.

    Well, my name is Adel, I’m 41 year-old medical doctor. I’m Egyptian, born in Kuwait, was raised in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, got my boards from USA, where I lived for 6 years and in 4 states.

    This introduction was necessary to let you know that God gave me the great gift of understanding and tolerance, but after many years of shaping and formatting.

    As for the current topic about hell fire I’ll talk from my understanding of the Quran (which I know you read). God speaks about a place where people suffer and live in anguish, they talk, eat and drink, they fight and argue and live in a state of hatred and misery. So, this is not the fire we use to make barbeques! Where do you think a sex perpetrator or a career criminal should live?? Prison is not nice, just like “Hell”. I believe that “hell” is a living arrangement for those who would otherwise hate to be in a quiet, serene, peacful loving environment, so God gave them the place where they would feel rather at home.

    Besides, in the Quran there is a very clear verse that says “no soul knows what God had hidden for them in the afterlife”, i.e., all the verses in Quran about paradise, rivers, gardens, streams, virgins; and all the verses and fire, burning, torture and anguish IS JUST A METAPHOR. It is the only way God can approximate ideas that are far beyond the reach of our limited imagination. It is just like when a 6 year old asks you how sweet sex is, how will you explain to this child the joy and ecstatic feeling of love making, you will say it is as sweet as a chocolate. Well, I hope my comment was a useful one. Thanks a lot for taking the time to read it.

  20. not buying says:
    January 14, 2011 at 8:36 am

    Jean’s Take: My Dad Says I’m Going to Hell
    http://www.youtube.com/user/JeansTake#p/u/20/-QXnZ64jO5Y

  21. Donn F. Hensley says:
    January 18, 2011 at 3:08 am

    No one has the true answer to..this question yet but thats part of the job of researchers and investigator…One of the leading theories concerning what..orbs are and the one that I lean towards the most is that they are not..the spirit at all. According to the..laws of Physics energy being transferring like that would assume is natural..shape of a sphere.

  22. amira says:
    April 16, 2011 at 3:32 am

    I believe that God understands that people are and will always be of different backgrounds, ranging from the very ignorant to the very educated.And here lies the magic of the quran, the simple and primitive depend on their primitive instincts fear and the desire for plenty. hence the literal description of heavens and hellfire works for these ppl. But if u r a more sophisticated , cultured person u can see beyond the literal as u have lesley in yr tedex talk. Amazingly God likes more the educated type as he says ” Those truly fear God, among His Servants, who have knowledge: for God is Exalted in Might, Oft-Forgiving. ” [….]

My Father’s Daughter

Posted June 29th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Last year, summer began in Seattle at the end of April;  this year, I find myself saying, we are paying for that.

And yet, record-breakingly gloomy as it still is, I can hardly believe I’m really saying such a thing.   True, I say it half-jokingly, but that’s the problem — at least half is serious.  What do I mean by “paying for it”?    Am I implying there’s some kind of divine retribution at work, biblically cruel and vengeful?

In fact I’m not sure if I think of this strange weather as a matter of divine intervention, or climate change, or simply the way of the world.  But I do suspect I’m subject to some kind of hangover from childhood — an almost superstitious way of thinking in which one needs to be aware that every good may be balanced by bad, and nothing good can be taken for granted.

I was reminded of this by something in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book ‘Nomad‘ — an unpleasant read as it dawns on you just how reactionary her views are, starting with her constant harping on “the Muslim mind”  (replace the word Muslim with male, female, Jewish, black, gay, or any other category, and you’ll see how gross such a generalization is, let alone how absurd).    At one point, she fumes at her sister’s constantly adding “Insh-Allah” to the end of any sentence about something planned for the future.  In Hirsi Ali’s newly atheist and devoutly anti-Muslim eyes, her sister is a believing fool.

I found this fuming particularly grating because my father, a deeply observant Jew, used to do the same as Hirsi Ali’s sister, employing the identical phrase in English:  “God willing.”

Even as a child, I registered this less as a profession of faith than as one of deep insecurity.   For all his religiousness, my father clearly doubted the benignity of God’s will, as any thinking person inevitably must.   It was as though to plan for good could only tempt fate and invite the possibility of bad.  But then his own childhood — an almost Dickensian one of beatings and abandonment — had given him good reasons to mistrust the world’s capacity for kindness, let alone God’s.

Once, not long before he died, he asked me very seriously if I thought that God really exists, and the way he asked made me realize that he must have put this question to each in the series of rabbis who’d presided over the Reading Hebrew Congregation over the years, and never with any satisfactory answer.

I wish I’d said simply “I don’t know.”   Perhaps we all wish too late for greater kindness to our parents.  Instead, I ran on about the idea of God and the nature of belief and the human need for mystery — an evasive, intellectual answer that could only disappoint him.   I didn’t actually say that I thought his question simplistic, even child-like, but I must certainly have implied it.

Perhaps I was right, but so what?   In these gloomy Seattle days, I find myself adopting my father’s outlook despite myself.  God or the gods or fate is not willing.  I didn’t propitiate them.  I made the mistake of taking summer for granted.

So I find myself longing for kindness — for a kinder idea of God, a kinder childhood and a kinder daughter for my father, and right now, the kindness of summer:  the gift of warmth and sunshine and the simple enjoyment of what is.  Free. like a child, of all sense of consequence.

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File under: existence, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, belief, climate change, daughter, divine retribution, father, kindness, summer | 3 Comments
  1. Charlotte Gerlings says:
    July 1, 2010 at 3:07 am

    Hi Lesley, Sorry about your gloomy weather, sounds like what we’ve endured for the past three years on the trot. However, we’re now having a heat wave here in the south-east, which for once has coincided neatly with Wimbledon – wish you were here! Of course it won’t last, you know the old definition of an English summer: three fine days and a thunderstorm.
    But what I’m really logging on for today is to send you this item from this morning’s BBC Radio 4. Since you were on about Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s harshness, I thought the attitudes of these women would be interesting to compare and contrast. It also has some bearing on your To the Slaughter thread:

    By Zubeida Malik
    Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 1 July

    A group of Muslim women from around the country will be laying a wreath at the National Memorial Arboretum to pay respects to those who have died fighting for their country, and to show support for the armed services.
    Their outward act of commemoration follows a series of Islamic extremist demonstrations at homecoming parades, which caused disruption and angered many locals and families of the troops.
    Angry scenes broke out during the homecoming of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton when Muslim extremists waved banners and jeered at passing soldiers.
    Five protestors were later found guilty of using threatening or insulting words and of behaviour likely to cause distress.

    Demonstrations in Luton and Barking, and the threat of protests in Wootton Bassett, have made headlines across the world.
    But Tahmina Saleem, who lives in Luton, says she was revolted by the extremists’ actions: “You had a sensitive situation where families were welcoming home their loved ones from abroad then suddenly these images appeared of placards with very vile things written on them and I was really horrified.”
    She says the small group of extremists are trying to divide society. “They are trying to polarise people into them and us, Muslim and non-Muslim, and I’m just horrified by it,” she adds.

    Tahmina and a group of friends began talking about how they could show their support for troops. She believes there is a silent majority of Muslims who don’t speak out enough.
    ”I think that most people unfortunately do get their impressions of Islam and Muslims from the media… I think that people are happy to say that they completely disassociate themselves from extremists but its finding a voice in society to be able to do that.”
    Muslims have long served in the armed forces fighting in World War I and World War II, and on 1 July 2006, Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi became the first British Muslim soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.

    L/Cpl Hashmi died along with his comrade Corporal Peter Thorpe in an attack on their base. A statement at the time was issued by his commanding officer, Lt Col Steve Vickery, which described Jabron Hashmi as “enthusiastic, confident and immensely popular”.
    Group Captain Zahur Ulhaq and chairman of the Armed Forces Muslim Association (Afma) says that the presence of Muslims in the army, fighting in Muslim countries is seen as taboo and that ”generally the public doesn’t realise that there are Muslims serving and fighting and willing and prepared to die for their country.

    “We’re no different to anyone else in the armed forces whether you’re a Christian, a Jew, Hindu or a Sikh, we’re all one, we’re all one body, we’re all one family,” he says.
    He has also found this false assumption when speaking to Afghan clerics who were ”surprised, and I would use the word shocked” to find that there were Muslims within the UK armed forces fighting in Afghanistan.
    Group Captain Ulhaq works within the Muslim community to try and expel the myth and to help the community understand what the armed forces do.
    ”I think the laying of the wreath is for us a symbol of our remembrance and our solidarity for the families and the individuals both men and women who’ve sacrificed for our country over time.”

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 1, 2010 at 9:33 am

      Thanks for posting this, Charlotte. Yes, it’s amazing how people forget that the word ‘extremist’ describes someone at the extreme. And there is indeed a huge silent majority of Muslims, some believing and observant, some not, who are deeply committed to western-style democracy. What particularly interests me about Tariq Ramadan’s work — especially books like ‘Western Muslims and the Future of Islam’ — is how he directly addresses the issue of how to be both a believing Muslim and a European democrat. In fact substitute the word ‘Jew’ for ‘Muslim’ in this book and you have a pretty fair idea of discussions around my family table when I was a child in England — i.e. what it meant to be part of a small Jewish minority (worth pointing out here that only some 4% of Europeans are Muslim, despite Islamophobic anti-immigrant talk of a flood) in a hugely majority Christian country. Or simply, what it means to be a minority, and how to preserve one’s integrity and identity while participating fully in the majority culture.

  2. Pietra says:
    July 6, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    My “summers” are in the smiles of people I see and hear through the day, those I know as well as strangers.

    Your dad most certainly knew you and he asked your opinion because that’s what he wanted from a daughter he most certainly respected. As do all who know you.

    XO P

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