Photo by Masjid Pogung Dalangan
The Koran! well, come put me to the test
Lovely old book in hideous error drest
Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the Secret, and denied it me?
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
These are the words of the great eleventh-century Persian polymath and opponent of dogma and fanaticism, Omar Khayyam, in his infamous Rubaiyat. This beautifully terse passage elucidates the hubristic and conceited presupposition of the religious in their most zealous guise: that God bequeathed “the Secret” of the universe to them—yet denied it to everybody else.
Khayyam notes that, ironically, atheists often become atheists precisely because they have read the allegedly holy books for themselves, and rejected their extraordinary claims. Seriously reading and studying the holy books is a sure fire way to make an atheist out of someone. Polls on religious knowledge have shown that atheists and agnostics (alongside Jews and Evangelicals) are, on average, more knowledgeable about religion than those who claim to be religious.
When interacting with religious people, I am often somewhat nonplussed by the realisation that I know more about their religion than they do — in some instances, a lot more—not just about the theology, but about the assortment of religious characters, the various stories concerning them, the history and core concepts. I can even quote the texts better, from memory. Most of those who proclaim a faith are relatively ill informed about their own belief system and scriptures.
People can be forgiven for ignorance. But, as Socrates said, the first measure of wisdom is recognising how little you actually know. Daunting as that may be, the consolation of ignorance is that it can form the start of an intellectual odyssey.
What can’t be excused is that some take pride in their ignorance and wish to remain credulous. Some votaries of religion spend their time robotically regurgitating bog standard religious apologetics, which have been easily debunked numerous times before. This reveals one of religion’s greatest iniquities: it teaches people what to think, not how to think. The worst culprits are knowledgeable but intellectually unscrupulous, dodging every opportunity to discuss the core texts, concepts and principles of the religion in question, because to do so would weaken their religion’s arrogant claim to moral superiority and ethical copyright. In such cases, I am reminded of an old debate between Christopher Hitchens and Reverend Al Sharpton: in which Sharpton would not defend Christianity on its own terms because he knew Hitchens would obliterate him in debate, since he was as intimate with the Bible as Al was. (Of course, Hitchens obliterated him anyway.)
Religion has never traumatised or oppressed me personally. I was raised secular: a de facto sceptic and a dormant atheist. It was only when I reached the age of reason that I became conscious of this fact and began to explicitly affirm it. Although, at the time, I lacked the intellectual maturity to be cognizant of it, from a very young age I suspected that the Abrahamic god probably didn’t exist, that the religious strictures on human behaviour (and on sex, in particular) were oppressive and absurd and that tales of heaven and hell were arrant nonsense. I have always been free from religion. I believed more firmly in the truth of Father Christmas than in that of God, whatever his alias: Yahweh, Jehovah or Allah. I will never understand the emotional and psychological tsunami of losing one’s faith or the struggles of those who miss their belief as if it were an amputated limb and who wish they could indulge in the soothing consolations of religion in our sombre and alienating world.
So I have never felt intimidated by the prospect of reading the Pentateuch, New Testament, Qur’an, Hadiths, Bhagavad Gita or the Buddhist sutras. The foundation of the atheist critique of religion is that man makes God in his own image—not vice versa. The religious texts are neither the word of God, nor portals to the supernatural. They are man-made creations, artefacts of history, a compendium of man’s early search for truth and wisdom, the phantasmagoria of the human race in its infancy. Religion is a fascinating subject for this reason. The argument about religion is the oldest argument known to humanity: “The criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism,” as Karl Marx wrote in 1848.
Critics of religion familiarise themselves with holy writ primarily in order to know the enemy. To be more intimate with the ideas underpinning a religion than the religious themselves allows one to formulate confident and formidable critique. That is why a secular, but broad, religious education is important, so that the young can have access to the full gamut of knowledge about the world’s religious and spiritual belief systems.
But learning about religion also allows one to exercise one’s intellect, to analyse and interpret texts, to learn about the diverse ways in which human societies have developed and their historical conceptions of their relationships with the natural and social worlds.
It is also important to study religion for aesthetic and cultural reasons. The King James Bible, for example, is greatly superior to more modern translations, which strip the text of its melodious poetry and the grandeur and gravity of its prose in the name of accessibility and modernisation.
Compare these two passages from The Book of Job, where Yahweh speaks from the whirlwind:
King James Version: Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
New International Version: Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
The purpose of the poetic prose, with its use of the earthy old English idiom of thee, thou and ye, is to dislodge the temporal from the minds of believers and perpetually remind them of the eternal, with its echo of the divine. Every major religion has its own unique, slightly arcane, grandiloquent vernacular of worship. Catholics use Latin in mass; many Orthodox Christian churches in Eastern Europe still use Church Slavonic; and Muslims have to recite the Qur’an in the original classical Arabic, since it is allegedly Allah’s literal speech and therefore shouldn’t be corrupted by translation.
The historical, cultural and aesthetic significance of the King James Bible cannot be overstated. The printing press democratised religious worship. Communities of believers could for the first time read and discuss their foundational texts, without the mediation of the traditional priest caste. Many of the everyday phrases we use in the English language, such as by the skin of your teeth, the apple of my eye and charity begins at home either originate or were popularised by the King James version. Without an intimacy with that text, it is difficult to fully appreciate the pantheon of English literature: Shakespeare, Milton and Dickens draw many of their allusions and metaphors from the King James version. Any culture that takes itself seriously would not neglect such a cultural store—even though its empirical truth claims are ridiculous and morally dubious. If such an argument holds for the Iliad and the Odyssey, it should also hold for The King James Bible. This also applies to texts like the Qur’an and the Bhagavad Gita, in their respective contexts.
The Bible and the other assortments of holy writ will one day, I hope, be regarded as equivalent to the collections of Greek and Roman myths: not as the word of God or the abiding, unimpeachable dictates of the supernatural, regulating human behaviour and laying down the arbitrary limits of human activity, but as part of the diverse repository of man-made mythology, historical artefacts of humanity’s historical development, a reflection of humanity’s estranged self-consciousness. Because they are man-made, they have historical and cultural value. One can comfortably argue in favour of studying them, without conceding one iota to religious illusions. In fact, a familiarity with holy writ will make any critique of religion more vigorous and all-encompassing. The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
15 comments
I have read the Bible in its entirety about three times, each time in a very different stage of my life. I’m not what you would call religious (I never attend church), but I do believe in God and in the messages the Bible tries to convey to us. Many people make the mistake of evaluating the Bible in a modern context stating that its moral messages are outdated, hateful and contradictory. However, I am of the view that in the modern era we are rapidly regressing back to pagan ways albeit in a new jacket.
The Old Testament was written during a time when most people participated in dysfunctional and disturbing customs: incest; human sacrifice; animal and inanimate object worship etc. These customs seem antiquated to us now, but they were very real in the ages that the Old Testament was written. It proscribed a way for society to move forward. The Old Testament also taught that strong families were key to healthy child development and subsequently a high-functioning society. Now that we’ve removed the spiritual pillars from the foundations of Western Civilization we see these pagan ways returning in dark movements disguised as rights: abortion, animal rights, feminism, transgenderism etc.
To those doubting the veracity of the Old Testament, one only needs to look to the three-thousand year existence of the Israelites. Despite being the target of many genocidal pogroms and agendas, the Jews have outlasted all their more powerful oppressors: the pharaohs, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greek tyrants, the Roman Empire, and the Nazis just to name a few. There is something to be said about shared societal values and rules even if they don’t always stand up under the scrutiny of pure science.
Science makes a good servant but a poor master. We humans and our societies need more than just science to live by. Under science we are just meatbags motivated by pain and pleasure, and at the mercy of those who would control us for ‘our own good’. The Bible offers us a way out of flawed human doctrine, by equalizing us all in God’s eyes. Admittedly I have a hard time reconciling myself with certain aspects of the Bible, but I feel this comes due to my limited understanding rather than it being backward.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I am not religious. I don’t expect anyone to feel or think as I do, and I know that I am totally inconsistent with my approach to God. However, I do think that the Bible provides solutions to problems we’ve long forgotten. I work in academia and am concerned about the Cult of Wokeness that is rapidly taking over our cultural institutions. If you examine it closely, it has all the facets of a religion but without the spirituality. It makes me wonder if secularism has reached its natural conclusion.
Sorry for my long rambling post. I enjoyed reading this article and felt the rare need to put my thoughts into words.
Well said Ken.
“A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew…”
Beautifully terse? Ugly and personally insulting more likely! I’d be more impressed by atheists if they could avoid such ad hominem attacks.
“Khayyam notes that, ironically, atheists often become atheists precisely because they have read the allegedly holy books for themselves, and rejected their extraordinary claims.”
Possibly true a thousand years ago in his region, though I doubt it. Most atheists today have probably never opened a religious text or given it serious consideration, particularly second or later generation atheists who were never religious in the first place.
“Critics of religion familiarise themselves with holy writ primarily in order to know the enemy.”
The truest sentence in this whole article!
“The King James Bible, for example, is greatly superior to more modern translations, which strip the text of its melodious poetry and the grandeur and gravity of its prose in the name of accessibility and modernisation.”
Nice to have this guidance from an atheist. Mere Christians — what do they know? — might point out that the Bible was written in the common language of the time, so the writers of the Bible obviously were unenlightened as to grandeur and gravity and preferred accessibility.
The New testament was written in highly rhetorical Greek. While the old was written in highly rhetorical Aramic. Accessibility was not a factor, but grandeur and gravity were. This is because only the elite could write & read. So yes, modern translations often strip the Bible of its original meaning and context. Test it yourself if you can read Greek/Aramic.
“The New testament was written in highly rhetorical Greek. While the old was written in highly rhetorical Aramic.”
We’ll have to agree to disagree about that. The NT was written in common (Koine) Greek, and the OT was written in common Hebrew. Aramaic (sp!) accounts for only a few scattered verses and single words mostly, tho whole chapters of Ezra and Daniel. Ca. 268 verses in total, about 1%.
There is also some absurd identity politics underlying this comment. Apparently, one’s opinion about a translation’s literary style matters less if they don’t believe in the truth of the source. Why? Who knows.
Let’s apply this to opinions about Star Wars: ‘Nice to have this guidance from a Christian. Mere Jediists — what do they know?’
“There is also some absurd identity politics underlying this comment.”
There is no identity politics in it whatsoever. I do not reference the author’s race, gender, or sexual practices in any way. He is entirely free to hold any opinion he likes as to matters of style and he is also free to comment on what he thinks is of religious importance, however the latter is comparable to a vegan pontificating on which restaurant serves the best roast beef or a Muslim commenting on what makes a wine really good. Can an atheist comment on what is important in a religious book? Manifestly yes, but it is a bit presumptuous. As above, the author here disagrees with the authors of the Bible itself about what is important in the Bible! Would you accept advice from a Flat-Earther as to the best around-the-world tour?
Gotta love the false analogies. A vegan who used to eat beef can reasonably pontificate on which restaurant serves the best roast beef. A Muslim who used to drink wine can reasonably comment on what makes a wine really good. The flat earth one is just absurdly irrelevant.
Since the author read the Bible, there is nothing presumptuous about sharing his views on it. Faith doesn’t magically make your take better. Just like veganism doesn’t make one’s taste in beef less trustworthy. Identity/beliefs don’t invalidate one’s opinions. To say otherwise is identity politics, which are what you are doing.
Ralph,
Interesting take on religion and atheism. We will have to agree to disagree on some parts of the conception, but I respect your willingness to pursue the educative experience of encountering religious traditions on their own terms. I think our world lacks serious, respectful, and truth-finding dialogue between religious and non-religious folk. We have to find ways to model engagement between different ideas, starting with “tolerance”, but more importantly- building towards mutual solidarity and compromise. Otherwise, we will abandon the hard-work of mutual democratic citizenship to capricious forces that don’t have the citizen’s best interest at heart (no matter their opinion on causality).
Utilizing Khayyam’s poetry to build the argument for the engagement of a non-believer with a believer’s text (or Truth) is sort of a canard now in Western takes of the English translation. Khayyam, like many intellectual giants of the early Islamic civilization, was a complex man who wrestled himself with the Truth. If anything, he demonstrates that early Islamic thought and civilization accommodated all sorts of thought patterns what we would label as “free thinking” today. Khayyam’s poetry (especially in English), would have him seem like peer to Hitchens. His scholarly work, would have him appear to be someone well grounded in Islamic metaphysics like an Al-Ghazali and an adherent to that idea of causality. This is not unusual for many Islamic thinkers. Rather, the discursive tradition of what we in the West label “Sufism” has always been the cream on the cake of Islamic tradition, allowing many different flavors to take root on a stable base. There is evidence that Khayyam used the “stable cake” in his day to day practice, but then utilized the cream of “sufism” to attack the hypocrisies and the black-and-white thinking of many religious authorities. That’s part and parcel to Islamic tradition, think of it as its own peer-review method. Whether that made him an atheist or not, no one will ever know, and I’m sure his legacy will be used to support whatever world view the adherent finds themselves taking.
For those interested (and I’m not even sure if Ralph reads these comments), Ibn Arabi represents the pinnacle of Islamic metaphysics, Sufism, practice, theory, law, theodicy, and theology in Islam. He has mostly been inaccessible in the West, but the English translations are growing and drawing in people from all over the world now. His Meccan Revelations are certainly a crowing achievement in human spiritual literature. Very challenging to understand, but worthy of reading if one wants to grasp the highest forms of intellectual engagement within Islamic civilization. As a bonus, Ibn Arabi, like of all these great thinkers, has theories and responses to the idea of fundamentalism in religion and its opponent, unbelief on the other which might interest you specifically, Ralph.
Thank you for your great articles.
Ironic but understandable that Marx never applied his dictum to the religion he created.
“Polls on religious knowledge have shown that atheists and agnostics (alongside Jews and Evangelicals) are, on average, more knowledgeable about religion than those who claim to be religious.”
One needs to click through to the links to appreciate just how misleading that sentence is.
I clicked the links. Saw nothing misleading.
Mr. Leonard compares and contrasts two groups which actually substantially overlap. Jews and Evangelicals are obviously part of “…those who claim to be religious” and should not be lumped in with atheists and agnostics.
Agreed with johntshea. The polls indeed show that religioius knowledge is highest among the group of people that attend worship services most regularly (at least once a week).