September 16, 2006. I turn on the news and I see: Muslims Playing the We're-Offended Card Once Again.

It goes further than that, of course. "We're offended. Our feelings are hurt. Our religion has been insulted. We demand an apology."

I was expecting all of that. More rage of the so-called righteous. I didn't yawn even though it was happening just as I was certain it would. Very interesting, I said to myself. We will see if the others play the same moves as the last time around.

The last time. September 2005.  A Danish cartoonist publishers a cartoon that offends quite a number of Muslims. Muslim outrage. Muslim protests. Muslim demands for apologies. Muslims burning an embassy, torching cars, taking Danish products off the shelves of stores. A price on the Danish cartoonist's head. And Western niceness. IDEA #1

This time. September 2006. The Catholic pope makes a speech, in which he quotes a fourteenth-century Christian Byzantine emperor debating with a Muslim Persian scholar. In that speech, the long-ago emperor speaks against the concept of jihad, holy war, saying that violence in the name of religion is against the nature of god. He also speaks against the rightness of trying to spread a religion by the sword.

I am sure it took the pope quite some time to find the way he wanted to say what he wanted to say about jihad, that it is against the nature of a deity to be in favor of such a thing.

I wondered, watching a news clip of the pope speaking, how has he planned to react to the Muslim reaction which he must have known was coming? For the pope is not a stupid man. I expected that he had a carefully worded response, one as planned as the words of his speech.

In chess, one plans ahead by more than one move.

The Muslim response has come, as I have said. Utterly predictable. Utterly unsurprising. It includes the murder of a Catholic nun.

Here is the pope's response: he is sorry if his words were misinterpreted. No apology. He does not appear to be responding with fear. He does not seem to be intimidated by what he must have known would occur.

My guess. He is deeply upset by what is happening in the name of the Muslim religion. And since Muslims are not responding in outrage to Muslim violence in the name of the Muslim religion, he is.

The image that comes to mind is of someone lancing a boil – opening an underground infection so the wound can be cleaned. IDEA #2

Another guess. The pope has long been angry at the use of violence in the name of the Muslim religion. So he chose harsh words to describe a harsh reality.

Here is the pope's opening quote from the fourteen-century Byzantine emperor:

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

As cowboys say in Western movies, "Them's fightin' words." Often, soon after, guns are drawn, shots are fired, good prevails and evil is vanquished. That's the most common scenario in Western movies.

The world I live in is far more complex, with lots of debate, for example, on what is good and what is evil. I am sure the pope knows that, and also knew he was using fighting words.

The reality the pope describes – people using violence in the name of their god - is one that Christians have often been guilty of. The Crusades were done - largely against Muslims - in the name of the Christian religion. Roman emperors converted their subjects to Christianity with the sword. The alternative to conversion was often death. It is not only part of the Muslim religion that has waged so-called holy war, and had gotten converts by violence. The pope knows that full well.

That horrors have been committed in the name of the Christian religion do not make it any better when the same is done by Muslims. If it is against the nature of god to do these things, that's the way it is. It doesn't matter who does the thing.

Back to the pope and his response to the unfolding events of speech, outrage, response. The pope is not backing away from what he said. He is holding to his beliefs and his vision of god, but definitely not calling for violence.

****

Where do I stand? I hold that one must be able to express one's vision of god, without calling for this vision to be enforced or attacked by violence. And no, not all visions are basically alike (a commonly held and utterly unfounded opinion) or equally valid. Since many of these visions of god are contradictory, it does not stand to reason that they are all valid - for it would make god forgiving, unforgiving, loving, vengeful, hating, rigid, flexible. There is the vision of a loving god, of a punitive god, of a harsh and rigid god, of many very different gods.

It is vital that one can speak what one believes and then back these beliefs with all the evidence one can summon.

Outrage as a response to the pope's words is only meant to cut off debate, thought, reflection. It attempts to keep closed around people the shell that cuts them off from thinking, reflection, experience, development.

We will see the next moves.

When one lances a boil, what oozes out is anything but pleasant. The good thing is that one recognizes it as something that needs to be drained, not as something healthy, to be encouraged as much as possible. One drains as well as possible, and administers antibiotics.

I don't know if the world will manage to lance the outbreak of Muslim rage and outrage, to get Muslims to face fully what is being done in the name of the Muslim religion. "Our religion is a religion of peace," I have heard many Muslims say angrily. The evidence does not show that, not at present.

It will, it's my guess, take thousands of small pushes to get the segment of the Muslim religion that upholds violence in the name of the Muslim religion to somehow or other face what it is doing, to experience the horror of thousands and thousands of Muslims and nonMuslims murdered in the name of the Muslim religion.

I think back to the pope's harsh words. They were not gentle, soft, tentative suggestions that it might be better not to kill people in the name of a god. Maybe he could not contain his outrage. Or maybe he intentionally was provoking. At present, only he knows.

My hope is that the pope has given things one more small nudge in the right direction.

signed,

Elsa
September 16 , 2006

I pause. And soon come to further thoughts and questions.

Question one. What made the pope fail to acknowledge the Christian religion's many transgressions against the nature of god, as he sees it – the many instances of Christian violence in the name of the Christian religion? It would have been better had he done so.

Question two. What was the final impetus for the pope's harsh words?  My partner wonders: does it have anything to do with the poor treatment of Christians in overwhelmingly Muslim countries? Has the treatment of these Christians (Copts) deteriorated even more during the last few years?

My biggest question. How will this turn out? – because all is not predictable.

Another thought.

I have pointed out Muslim rage and outrage. I have a link to other equally enraged, outraged and outrageous responses in the wake of the pope's speech – from people against all Muslims, and from people disregarding the pope's major argument.

Anti-Muslim rage. One kind of horror, an equally inaccurate understanding of the pope's speech is to applaud it and call for the death of all Muslims. Rage and outrage and hatred are definitely not an exclusive Muslim phenomenon. A question here: who and what will break the hate-rage shell of these people? - because the anti-Muslim hate-rage shell is just as important to break through.

Non-Muslim raging disregard for the pope's words. Probably the most common way of not hearing the pope's message is through saying that the pope has no right to be against Muslims doing violence in the name of religion because Christians have done the same. This is a logical fallacy. Something is wrong because it is wrong, no matter who has done it. It is fair to point out the masses of wrongs done in the name of the Christian religion – and I have in fact said it would have been better had the pope done so. That does not make the wrongs done in the name of the Muslim religion any better. Once again, how does one break through the shell of not listening, not hearing?

Here's the link to some of these outraged outrageous responses – another testament to the human capacity to rage instead of to care, to cut off without thinking instead of to listen and think well .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/09/14/pope-angers-muslim-leader_n_29474.html

Final thought: what I have written comes from what I know, up to this point. Maybe my views will change through more information. I know I am getting more and more convinced, though, on the danger of the rage-hate-righteousness shell of so many people -

from lone murderer-suicides shooting at a school (again locked inside, cut off from caring for the people they are hurting and killing, as well as cut off from valuing their own lives) –

to large scale rage-hate-righteousness shells fostered by some branches of some religions and political ideologies.

The big question, over and over (stated in earlier pieces, and restated here), is:

how do we break that shell/spell? what works best? and then, how can we reach people as early as possible, as effectively as possible, perhaps immunizing them against the shell/spell?

signed,

Elsa
September 16 , 2006

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2006
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2006

top of page

Click here for a blog on the writing of The Rage of the "Righteous" -
fear, censorship, self-censorship, and the unexpected.

Click here for Give Peace a Chance,
another idea piece.

For a "favorite" stupid opinion, click here for Stupid Opinion #One.

Questions. Why so much Muslim rage at the pope's words?
Why so much rage in people in general? Narcissism. Hate. Illusions.
The Idea Emporium - facts, ideas, conclusions.
Plus stupid opinions exposed.

Opt-in for Updates
NEWSLETTER

The Idea Emporium - why and what

One of my lifelong concerns has been trying to make sense of reality. What is happening? Why is this happening? And with that I come to ideas - ideas about reality, ideas that need to be checked against reality, not just believed in like the tooth fairy is accepted by a child. But how does one check them? What qualifies as proof, as evidence?

And why, so often, is evidence of no interest to people? We have masses of evidence of how good many people are at denying evidence when it goes against what they believe. Millions have denied, and continue to deny the equality of women and men, of Jews and nonJews, of atheists and Muslims, gays and heterosexuals. People are incredible experts at denying reality - what is seen, experienced. Of course we need to interpret reality - we do not know it "pure" but through our limited senses, our limited memory, our limited ability to perceive and make sense of the amazing array of information that does gets perceived.

Still, it boggles the even slightly rational mind - how can so many people be so utterly blind to, let's say, findings about nutrition? It amazed me to find out, when I was growing up, that there was evidence for the health benefits of whole grains over refined products - because masses of people stuck with white flour, white rice, white sugar. How could they be so closed to evidence? Somehow they had a wall against the evidence.

The ideas I want to explore are those that go with, not against, the evidence, that try to make sense of evidence.

So, the Idea Emporium - a place for ideas.
The Idea Emporium - a place where ideas are explored.
The Idea Emporium - a place where ideas are entertained , played with,
looked at from many angles.
The Idea Emporium, a place where ideas are evaluated.

What is an idea, by the way. I hadn't thought of that when I chose the name of The Idea Emporium. It just seemed the obviously right name. It was months before I realized I had a hard time putting into words what I meant by idea. I began to think about the word. Sentences with the word, idea, floated into my mind. Like, "I have an idea. Why don't we order pizza?" That was an eye-opener for me.

My guess is that most of us use the word without knowing exactly what it means. "I have an idea of what we might do. Maybe we could go out for Chinese food. But It's just an idea" - meaning this need not come to pass, but we think it might be fun. That is obviously not what I meant by idea.

"I have an idea. Maybe you left your hat in the car." Again, no

""My idea is that we go in together and talk to her." No.

These are all legitimate uses of the term, idea, but it's not what I meant when I came to name The Idea Emporium. And I'm sure it's not what people might expect if they click on The Idea Emporium - because it's not what most people mean by the word "idea."

Word has a built-in dictionary. This is what it says:

Idea -
a personal opinion or belief;
a thought to be presented as a suggestion;
an impression or knowledge of something;
a realization of a possible way of doing something or of something to be done;
the aim or purpose of a plan or project;
the gist or précis of something such as a book, report, project or plan;
a thought about or mental picture of something such as a future or possible event;
a concept that exists in the mind only;
a mental image that reflects reality.

The last is what I'm most interested in - ideas that reflect reality as well as possible. But I've decided that I like it that idea is such a wide term.

Here I am taking idea to mean (and I think this is what most of us think of when we think of the meaning of the word, idea) some thought one has about something. "I have an idea" - meaning, I am not sure this concept fits reality, but it is a hypothesis I have formed.

I also think that, when I named The Idea Emporium, I was blurring words together in my mind - idea, concept, conception, understanding, hypothesis.

The Idea Emporium - a place for all these things.

This is not the same as people having "an idee fixe" - meaning, a fixed idea, a rigid belief that something is one way or another.
The sooner people get rid of such ideas, the better. The Idea Emporium is not a place to set out rock-hard beliefs and stone people with them, hurling them like missiles at all and any that come within striking range.

That is not The Idea Emporium.

The Idea Emporium - a place to present and explore ideas - for now my ideas.

That does not mean the idea need to be timidly set forth, all hemming and hawing, tentative even when the evidence is strong.

The Idea Emporium – the goal is smart opinions, critical thought, perception, good analysis.

The Idea Emporium. Smart opinions - meaning, drawing on every resource possible, rather than "it's my opinion, that's why I believe it, and it's as good as yours any day. Who are you to say blacks can do math, women can learn to read, Jews deserve to live. I have every right to my opinion." Personally, I'd rather do my best to think well, but many others are clearly proud of their avowed right to be thoughtless.

That's not The Idea Emporium.

The Idea Emporium. Critical thought - that means we do our best to think well, to apply logic, information, all our capacities.

The Idea Emporium. Good analysis. Again, that means we try to ensure that we use valid arguments - not, "because it's my opinion," "because I say so" "because I know that's right" "because my god says so" "because everyone knows that's right" . We both draw conclusions from evidence (so there may be evidence showing patterns and tendencies in certain groups (for instance, I've done lots of research on the impact of rights movements on those who get involved, and have found lots of evidence for patterns of response) - and at the same time we are careful not to generalize, to draw conclusions beyond what we have evidence for, and even contradicting the evidence ("Women are ..." "Muslims believe ..." "everyone this happens to ..." "Jews are..." "Gays are ..."

The Idea Emporium. Perception. Not easy to perceive. We each do it through a filter of experience, memory, assumptions, and so on. We have all learned not to perceive many things - denial - and to magnify other things. The goal at The Idea Emporium (and this should be the goal everywhere) is to be as perceptive - taking in as much information - as possible.

The Idea Emporium. i could go on and on. But this is enough for a start. More important now to put it into action - because it's ideas came first, surging inside me, wanting to find a place to be heard.

I'm (among other things) a college teacher, so my teaching gives me one outlet for my ideas, to express them, modify them, listen to other ideas, test the evidence, the power (or lack thereof) of different arguments.

But that hasn't been enough for me. One small class at a time.

I have a sense that I have some ideas that could be valuable to many people - ideas many people don't have (many have very different ideas), ideas where my ideas may help other people struggling with some of the same concerns, and so on. I think these ideas could help make some kind of positive difference in the world, reach people who are reachable, maybe even break through some shells many people live inside, shells that stop them from perceiving things.

There will be space for the ideas of others as well. Right now I am starting with a few ideas of mine. But I envisage that The Idea Emporium is a place that will grow, enriching both others and also myself - that I and my ideas will grow from some of what comes back.

Elsa
July 30, 2006

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2006
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2006

Questions - on rage, hatred, narcissism, empathy, caring, peace.
Good thinking and analysis. Logic plus emotion.
The Idea Emporium - facts, ideas, conclusions.
Plus stupid opinions exposed.

Opt-in for Updates
NEWSLETTER

THE IDEA EMPORIUM
IDEA * EVALUATION * CONCLUSION * INSIGHT * COMMENTARY * CONTROVERSY * INTELLECTUAL CONFLICTS * CONFLICTING VERSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS * DIFFICULT AREAS * OPINION * WELL-REASONED OPINION * UNFOUNDED OPINION * STUPID OPINION * THEORY * THEORIZING * FEMINIST THEORIES * PERCEPTION * PERCEPTIONS * PERSPECTIVES * PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORIES *
THE IDEA EMPORIUM * THE IDEA EMPORIUM * THE IDEA EMPORIUM * THE IDEA EMPORIUM
ENVORINMENTAL CONCERNS * ANALYSIS * DISCOVERING UNDERLYING CAUSES * AMBIVALENCES * AMBIGUITIES * FEAR OF AND RAGE AGAINST IDEAS * FEAR OF EXPRESSING IDEAS *
ANTI-THINKING TORRORISM * ANTI-INTELLECTUAL TERRORISM * FALLACIES * FLAWED REASONING *
THE RAGE AGAINST UNWANTED IDEAS * THE RAGE AGAINST UNWANTED VISONS OF REALITY *
THE IDEA EMPORIUM + THE IDEA EMPORIUM + THE IDEA EMPORIUM * THE IDEA EMPORIUM
BLINKERS AGAINST PERCEPTION * BARRIERS TO THINKING * BARRIERS TO REASONING *
INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION * STIMULATING IDEAS * FERTILE THOUGHT * VIEWPOINTS * UNDERSTANDINGS * COMPLEXITIES * UNCERTAINTIES * GUESSES * HUNCHES *
FACTS * GUT FEELINGS ABOUT THINGS * EXPLORING IDEAS * EXPLORATIONS OF IDEAS *
THE IDEA EMPORIUM * THE IDEA EMPORIUM * THE IDEA EMPORIUM * THE IDEA EMPORIUM
EXPERIMENTS TO VERIFY IDEAS * REALITIES * REASONING * IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS *
THOUGHT OF THE DAY * PERCEPTION * PERSPECTIVE * DATA * INFORMATION *
OPINION PIECES * LOGICAL THINKING * CRITICAL THOUGHT * INTELLECTUAL LAZINESS * IDEA
THE IDEA EMPORIUM

___________________________________________

comments, responses, further thinking, more ideas
__________________________________________

---

more ...

 

 

THE IDEA EMPORIUM
A CELEBRATION OF GOOD THINKING

THE IDEA EMPORIUM
NO HOLDS BARRED THINKING

THE IDEA EMPORIUM
LOOK AT ANYTHING, ASK ANYTHING

LOOK ANYWHERE

PLUS, LOOK AT THE JOURNEY

 

 

"It is a fact readily acknowledged,
that for humans,
an idea is much more powerful
than a fact."

 

WHEN I HEARD THAT,
I HAD A EUREKA MOMENT.
YES, I HAD SEEN THAT SO OFTEN.

 

SOME OF US ALREADY LOVE GOOD THINKING.

BUT GOOD THINKING IS POSSIBLE
FOR ALMOST ALL OF US,
JUST LIKE EVEN A COUCH POTATO
CAN GET INTO SHAPE!

SO, FOR THE THINKERS
AND THE POTENTIAL THINKERS

CLICK HERE
TO SUBSCRIBE 
FREE UPDATES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUBSCRIBE
TO FREE UPDATES

Opt-in for Updates
NEWSLETTER

 

 

 

 

top of page

 

 

site design, site construction - Elsa Schieder
copyright © Elsa Schieder, 2006-2008 - all rights reserved
copyright © elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.com, 2006-2008 - all rights reserved
an all round creative space, creativity emporium and creativity match space
CLICK HERE TO CONTACT

Elsa
of
elsas word story image idea music emporium.com