I've been addressed by Richard Dawkins!

[James Hannam]

I was hanging around on the Guardian's Comment is Free trying to offer some support for the excellent Andrew Brown. Then Dawkins (now allowed to revert to his real name with apologies for the silly joke) and even Dennett turned up.

His address to me (on the subject of fleas) is about two thirds of the way down page two of the comments:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2008/dec/30/new-atheism-dennett-dawkins?commentpage=2

Perhaps he even read my review of his book (although I have my doubts).

Best wishes

James

[humphreyclarke]

First A.C Grayling, now Dawkins himself. Perhaps you should copy the 'God Delusion' book cover for 'God's Philosophers' and get on the 'fleas page'.

[bjorn]

What greater honor!

My 2007 book on the NA's, BTW, deliberately avoided mentioning Dawkins - the title is translated "Deserved Reply? - on New Atheists and New Age", and the cover showed The Divine Architect.

On the other hand, it is placed in bookstore shelves next to TGD, based on the Fabulous Science of the Alphabet ;D

[zameel]

Just to correct a post-1982 revisionist myth you repeat in your review "Today, the Arabs all gang up on Israel, but frankly but for Islam they would all attack each other" - the Arabs have never ganged up on Israel. They have from the very inception of Israel reluctantly reconciled themselves with the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The 1948 Arab-Israel war was more about Arab infighting, than about destroying Israel. [See myth "c" in Norman Finkelstein's Palestine: The Truth About 1948 - "The invading armies of the other Arab states sought, not to abort the creation of a Jewish state, but rather to check the grandiose territorial ambitions of Abdallah and his imperialist British mentors" - www.nimn.org/Resources/history/000054.php].

The current crisis at Gaza is a testimony to Arab apathy and if anything compliance with the ongoing Israeli massacre. In dispelling the lies of Rice, Livni and the pro-Israeli news (e.g. Hamas violated the cease-fire and are thus to blame), read Mustafa Barghouthi's The Myths of Israeli Victimhood (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mustafa-barghouthi/palestines-guernica-and-t_b_153958.html). To understand Israel's true intentions read Jennifer Loewenstein's If Hamas Did Not Exist (http://www.counterpunch.com/loewenstein01012009.html) - to be read in conjunction with Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival?. To read about the real facts on the ground (and not Livni's "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza"!) see the UN report at www.normalverkehr.com/post/palestine-gaza-crisis-situation-map-ocha-weekly-report-31-december-2008/. But for US and Israeli propaganda, these are mainstream voices - read leading academic specialist on the occupied territories, Harvard's Sara Roy: www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/roy_01_.html

[humphreyclarke]

Jan 2, 2009 18:37:06 GMT zameel said:

Just to correct a post-1982 revisionist myth you repeat in your review "Today, the Arabs all gang up on Israel, but frankly but for Islam they would all attack each other" - the Arabs have never ganged up on Israel. They have from the very inception of Israel reluctantly reconciled themselves with the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The 1948 Arab-Israel war was more about Arab infighting, than about destroying Israel. [See myth "c" in Norman Finkelstein's Palestine: The Truth About 1948 - "The invading armies of the other Arab states sought, not to abort the creation of a Jewish state, but rather to check the grandiose territorial ambitions of Abdallah and his imperialist British mentors" - www.nimn.org/Resources/history/000054.php].

The current crisis at Gaza is a testimony to Arab apathy and if anything compliance with the ongoing Israeli massacre. In dispelling the lies of Rice, Livni and the pro-Israeli news (e.g. Hamas violated the cease-fire and are thus to blame), read Mustafa Barghouthi's The Myths of Israeli Victimhood (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mustafa-barghouthi/palestines-guernica-and-t_b_153958.html). To understand Israel's true intentions read Jennifer Loewenstein's If Hamas Did Not Exist (http://www.counterpunch.com/loewenstein01012009.html) - to be read in conjunction with Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival?. To read about the real facts on the ground (and not Livni's "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza"!) see the UN report at www.normalverkehr.com/post/palestine-gaza-crisis-situation-map-ocha-weekly-report-31-december-2008/. But for US and Israeli propaganda, these are mainstream voices - read leading academic specialist on the occupied territories, Harvard's Sara Roy: www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/roy_01_.html

Zameel.

I hope you wont mind me asking you a question related to the Hamas charter which I was puzzling over the other day (http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm) . Article seven reads:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

This isn't from the Koran, it seems to be a saying from Sahih Muslim, book 41 6985

www.iiu.edu.my/deed/hadith/muslim/041_smt.html

My question is, what is the status of these sayings from the Hadith in Islam?. Is much weight given to them or are they usually regarded as being on the fringes of the tradition in a way similar to the non-canonical gospals.?.

[zameel]

Hello Humphrey. I am happy to answer your questions. Regarding Muslim scripture, the Qur'an and mutawatir (recurrently/mass-narrated) hadiths are regarded as infallible and offer certain knowledge. There is some dispute over the number of mutawatir narrations, although the upper-limit is drawn at about 300. The Qur'an itself is universally accepted as mutawatir. Hence, the scope of absolutely authentic revelation is severely limited, but they represent an almost universal Muslim scripture. Further "canonical" literature do exist but differ between the Sunni and Shiite (and Ibadi) denominations. For Sunnis, typically there are six or nine canonical books (Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Ibn Maja, Abu Dawud, Nasai and the other three being Musnad Ahmad, Muwatta Malik and Sunan Darimi). For Shiites, there are four compiled by Kulayni, Ibn Babuya and Tusi. Generally, the Sunni works precede the Shiite ones by one or two centuries. The canonical literature, nonetheless, is open to criticism either by isnad-criticism or text-criticism, both which yield a fantastic functional diversity within the Muslim community. The functionalist approach to scripture is adopted through the framework of an elaborate legal theory (usul al-fiqh) which differentiates between the certain mutawatir and the probabilistic non-mutawatir (or ahad). Of course, Sunnis and Shiites fundamentally differ on authority so legal theory is radically different, but remarkably the ritual aspects of Sunnism and Shiism remain very similar. For an excellent summary of the hadith authenticity debates (in mainstream Sunnism) see Wael Hallaq's The authenticity of Prophetic Hadith: A Pseudo-Problem (http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/islam/fiqh/hallaq_hadith.html).

In regards to much of the apocalyptic and eschatology related literature in hadith, authenticity differs considerably between various events. Certain events (as mentioned in the Qur'an and mutawatir hadith) include the appearance of the Mahdi, the descent of Jesus, the coming of the Antichrist, the blowing of the horn...However, mainstream Islam has generally accepted much of this literature within the "sahih" (sound) category, hence have constructed an elaborate eschatology.

The narration you mention is mainstream and not on the fringes of the tradition, but must be placed within the wider context of the sequence of events described by the prophet Muhammad. For a typical reading of mainstream Muslim understanding of the end of time, see: www.islamcan.com/dayofjudgement/index.shtml. The Jews are described as the future supporters of the Antichrist, who will be destroyed by Jesus and his followers, after which peace will ensue. This is an end-of-time prophecy and not a general attitude Muslims display towards Jews. The Qur'an is in fact clear that Jews are not to be judged by their beliefs but by their character (see, e.g. 3:75 and 3:113 - "they are not all alike"). Muslims have historically treated Jews similar to their treatment of Christians if not better (i.e. as dhimma, those under state protection), and Jews experienced their Jewish golden age under the Muslims - this is not to say there were not exceptions of Jewish persecutions, there certainly ware e.g. under the Muslim fundamentalist Almohads but Jews always found refuge in mainstream Muslim society, and legal scholars invariably condemned Jewish persecution. Antisemitism has never been a historical Muslim attitude until the early twentieth century, when Arab nationalism and fear of expulsion was converted into a deep disdain for the Jewish occupiers.

[turoldus]

Congratulations, James - if indeed it is a matter of congratulation!

Brown issued a reply to the two Ds here.

And there's a piece by Jonathan West on the same subject there. I don't know whether it's willing or not, but his conclusion pinpoints the actual vacuity of the new atheism:

Now, there is nothing particularly new about these propositions. Most of them have existed in one form or another for a couple of hundred years or more. As far as I can tell, the only thing distinguishing New Atheists from any others is that the New Atheists are speaking and writing today and infuriating present-day believers, whereas the old atheists annoyed the believers of past times.

The same arguments that didn't work - since religion is still around. Maybe Dawkins one century from now will look as corny as Ingersoll?

[unkleE]

And there's a piece by Jonathan West on the same subject there. I don't know whether it's willing or not, but his conclusion pinpoints the actual vacuity of the new atheism:

Thanks for this reference, for it does indeed achieve its purpose of clarifying and simplifying the main points of the "new atheists" (inasmuch as he is representative). I thought I'd share my brief reactions.

1. The wording is what you'd expect from a fair-minded atheist. Neutral in tone but still somewhat slanted in content. As a result, he challenges the intellect more than the angry atheists do, whose challenge is more visceral.

2. But once shorn of the emotional (angry) overtones of Dawkins, Hitchens & co, most of the 6 points are seen to be easily questionable - I personally disagreed with two (1 & 5), largely disagreed with two (3 & 4) and more or less agreed with two (2 & 6). I would think a competent philosopher could easily win a debate on those six propositions. (I do not mean that a philosopher could convince a new atheist to believe in God, only that those particular points cannot be easily defended.)

Thanks again. West is an interesting dude - self described as an atheist who is a confirmed member of the C of E - something not so surprising to many! : )

[zameel]

Jan 2, 2009 19:15:15 GMT humphreyclarke said:

I hope you wont mind me asking you a question related to the Hamas charter which I was puzzling over the other day (http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm) . Article seven reads:

Hamas has grown since writing its charter in 1988, and has become are far more pragmatic party, winning the support of a majority Palestinian in 2006 most of who are secular (see Sara Roy's defence of Hamas: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReH3D1lrB0Y)

We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas, William Sieghart www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5420584.ece?Submitted=true