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Maverick Philosopher: Does Anyone Really Believe in the Muslim Paradise? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If we are to be as charitable to Atran as possible, we would have to say that he holds his strange view because he himself does not believe in the Muslim paradise and he cannot imagine anyone else really believing in it either. So Muslims who profess to believe in Paradise with its black-eyed virgins, etc. are merely mouthing phrases. What makes this preposterous is that Atran ignores the best evidence one could have as to what a person believes, namely, the person's overt behavior taken in the context of his verbal avowals. Belief is linked to action. If I believe I have a flat tire, I will pull over and investigate. If I say 'We have a flat tire" but keep on driving, then you know that I don't really believe that we have a flat tire.
Same with the Muslim terrorist. If he invokes the greatness of his god while decapitating someone, then that is the best possible evidence that he believes in the existence of his god and what that god guarantees to the faithful, namely, an endless supply of post-mortem carnal delights. This is particularly clear in the case of jihadis such as suicide bombers. The verbal avowals indicate the content of the belief while the action indicates that the content is believed.
You recently reported and linked a piece on "Islam and the Misuses of Ecstasy" written by Sam Harris (June 13) which purports to quote my views on the subject of Jihadi (non belief) in Paradise as "preening, delusional, dishonest" and indicTive of "mental illness" on my part.
ReplyDeleteThe reported conversation never happened as Harris reports, and I have never said jihadis don't believe in Paradise. Indeed, I have writtten dozens of articles (in Science, Behavior and Brain Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society, etc.) and two books (In Gods We trust, Cambridge University, 2002; Talking to the Enemy, HarperCollins and Penguin, 2010), experimentally probing and outlining what those beliefs are. I also regularly brief the White House, Defense, Dept, Sate Dept, Congress and allied gov'ts on the implications of those beliefs. A number of people have twittered that they find Harris's recounting dishonest, and some attribute it to my review of his book "the Moral Landscape" for The National Interest.
My explicit rebuttal of Harris's mendacious blog can be found on the website of the online evolution magazine, "This View of Life":
http://www.thisviewoflife.com/index.php/magazine/articles/here-he-goes-again-sam-harriss-falsehoods
Yours,
Scott Atran
Directeur de Recherche, Anthropologie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
Senior Fellow, Harris Manchester College, Oxford University
Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Public Policy, University of Michigan
Presidential Scholar, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
On June 17, Frank linked to Mr Atran's rebuttal here:
ReplyDeletehttp://booksinq.blogspot.com/2013/06/this-is-very-nice.html
Thanks, Scott, for the clarification.
ReplyDelete