Paul Kurtz: «Hurrah for Freedom of Inquiry: Vital Issues for Secular Humanists»

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For many of us, it is important today that we define and defend constructive alternatives to the reigning religious moralities. Thus, we have argued

• that we need to defend free inquiry, critical thinking, reason, and the methods of science;
• that a person can be good without belief in God;
• that the lives of nontheists can overflow with meaning and enrichment;
• that secular humanism and scientific naturalism can contribute immensely to the growth of democracy and the improvement of the human condition on the planet

Clearly, if God is dead for post-postmodern society, humans are alive-and have the responsibility to create a better world for themselves and their fellow human beings. It is not the death of God but the rebirth of human confidence in the courage to achieve that we especially need to herald.

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Liberal majorities in Western Europe are coming to question their earlier multicultural assumption that all cultures are equal in value-the code of Sharia, which assigns women a lesser station in society, is surely not morally equivalent to the ethics of contemporary democracy, which defends all human rights, including those of women. I submit that one reason for this mistaken multiculturalist view is the belief that Islam is a "peaceful religion" or that the followers of Egyptian philosopher Sayyid Qutb and Osama bin Laden are simply misguided radicals who misconstrue the "real" meaning of Islam. Most Muslims take their religion as nominal and perhaps have not understood the implications of violence in the Qur'an and Hadith. On the contrary, there is considerable contextual support for violence and mayhem within these "sacred texts"; through history, this has frequently motivated passionate hatred against those who resist Islam. This is quite similar to the literal reading of the ancient Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that was used centuries ago to justify the Inquisition and the Crusades. We reiterate what we have said countless times in these pages: there needs to be public discussion of the convictions of fundamentalist religions, including Islam, which teach that they alone possess the absolute truth and the only guaranteed road to salvation and that they can impose their will on all others by violence and slaughter. What Islam urgently needs today is a critical reading of the Qur'an and Hadith, both by independent scholars and by educated Muslims. Careful scientific examination carried out under the impetus of Ibn Warraq of the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society (ISIS) at the Center for Inquiry indicates that, contrary to the Muslim conviction that the Qur'an is the most unitary and consistent of all scriptures, there are many versions of the Qur'an, not just one. Scientific, scholarly, and historical investigations of how the Qur'an was compiled may weaken Muslim convictions as to its inerrancy; perhaps this will lead to a rise in metaphorical (not literal) interpretations of those scriptures. Current research into the origins of the Qur'an indicate that what is taken as the revealed word of Allah was influenced by writings from traditions other than those extant in Arab cultures, including extensive borrowings from Christian, Judaic, and Syriac sources.

The Protestant Reformation was able to tame the medieval churches of the West. The Renaissance in the West, as well as the development of biblical criticism and science, further weakened authoritarian forms of Christianity and Judaism. It is clear that there needs to be an Islamic Renaissance and Reformation, a flowering of Qur'anic criticism, and broad growth in appreciation for science. Only these can help to moderate the Qur'an and weaken its use by fundamentalists as a club to bludgeon dissent.

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(Paul Kurtz na última Free Inquiry; ler na íntegra.)