Stephen Law

Here is an email from Ibrahim Lawson, head of an Islamic school, whom I quoted below in Is Religion Dangerous? I am v. grateful to Mr Lawson for permission to post the letter here for discussion. Seems to me Ibrahim Lawson is right - this is exactly the sort of discussion we should now all be having with each other: Muslims, those of other faiths, atheists, etc. Sadly, such discussions don't happen very often, so this is a real opportunity. Contributors will, I'm sure, respond temperately and graciously. I hope we get a range of views. Mr Lawson writes... Dear Stephen, I came across this today: If you're not worried about what's going on in some religious schools, you should be. Here's a brief excerpt from a Radio 4 interview with Ibrahim Lawson, head of an Islamic school: IL: [t]he essential purpose of the Islamia school as with all Islamic schools is to inculcate profound religious belief in the children. ER: You use the word "inculcate": dies that mea...

This is part of an ongoing discussion with the head of an Islamic school, Ibrahim Lawson, focusing on his suggestion that in any good Islamic school "Islam is a given and never challenged". Apologies to Ibrahim for delay in responding. I think this has been a very interesting and useful exchange, myself, and am very pleased Ibrahim has contributed. Certainly I have a somewhat clearer idea of what he believes. Ibrahim says: “I have been trying to suggest that the total chaos of his ‘nuclear option’ might be avoided by appeal to some other criteria of justification than those of the ‘techno-rationality’ (or ‘calculative thinking’ or whatever it might be) of the rational-empirical intellectual tradition characteristic particularly of the European enlightenment up to modern times. Within that tradition, I see no room for religion: it becomes absurd. And I think this cannot be stressed enough.” As I see it, I am not applying some modern Western phenomenon - “techno-rationality”, w...

While some of us might feel anger at the views expressed by others, can I please ask that we avoid venting it – this is a rare opportunity to discuss things openly, and perhaps even change someone’s mind. You are unlikely to succeed if you sound angry and dismissive. My response to Mr Lawson's letter I should begin by explaining to Mr Lawson that I quoted him, not because he is a Muslim, but because he expressed a view about education that I think wrong-headed and, actually, dangerous. It's not just Muslims that hold that view (though many do). To be clear: I am objecting to his educational views, not his religion. Mr Lawson. You say that your school is a happy one. It may well be that the values you inculcate are values of which I approve. That’s not the problem. The problem is with the way in which those values and associated religious beliefs are communicated – as something that must be accepted entirely without question. That is what I disapprove of, and I would disapprove ...

  One thing we lefty liberals particularly fear is being thought bigoted. Call me dumb, naive, greedy, and selfish if you like – I can take it. But accuse me of being a bigot and I’ll immediately collapse into a period of mute soul-searching while I check my privilege. We also know many of us are more bigoted than we realize. So, most of us will take any suggestion that we’re being bigoted seriously. ‘ Am I being bigoted?’ we’ll wonder when the accusatory finger is pointed at us. ‘ Maybe I am! ” Unfortunately, this is a trait that can be exploited by our opponents. On realising we’ve made a pretty good criticism of their views, they may point a finger at us and say, ‘You only say that because you’re [ insert relevant word here ]- phobic ! You’re prejudiced! You should be ashamed!’ Let me be very clear: sometimes these charges of [ insert relevant word here ]-phobia really are merited. I’m not denying thing that. There certainly are Islamophobes, anti-semites, ...

Here's the last response from Ibrahim Lawson. He is responding to this . See link to left for the thread. Dear Stephen et al, I have been away on holiday, but in any case thought that this discussion had petered out. However, since you have replied then I will make one last effort to respond. I have been quite disappointed with the way the discussion has turned out, confirming my doubts about the usefulness of this kind of cyber-conversation as an act of genuine communication. This is partly because the issues are extremely complex to unpack so we end up shouting at each other from our respective entrenched positions. The other reason is the regrettable prevalence of the kind of point-scoring mentality which I suggested characterises debate as distinct from dialogue; perhaps I have been as much to blame as anyone else. I have, though, learned from some of the contributions that my view of religion is evidently even more esoteric than I had previously realised; as such, it is not re...

Hello again, Ibrahim (if I may) I have pointed out that other religious folk are able to tolerate – some even positively encourage – critical thought about religion in school. I ask: why aren’t you? If I have understood correctly, your answer is that this is simply not permitted according to Islam. In any good Islamic school, “Islam is a given and never challenged”. Your main response to my arguments for encouraging such critical thought seems to be this: that you and I have different foundational principles. Your foundational principles include certain beliefs about Islam, mine don’t. Neither set of foundational principles can ultimately be “justified” (perhaps because all justifications have to come to an end somewhere, and here is where they come to end). Procedural reason always takes something for granted – premises. If our first premises – our foundational principles – differ, reason will not, then, be able to settle which are correct. I guess you think this dispute over how chil...

[this is part of an ongoing dialogue I am having with the head of an Islamic school]. Ibrahim has recently responded to my last post to him. He thinks our dialogue is running out of steam, and wants to try to move things on… “One last attempt to move things along (or move the goalposts, I am sure some people will think). I am absolutely prepared to admit that I know very little and am wrong about everything I think. With the exception of a sole domain: against all human reason and experience, I know as an absolute, incontrovertible certainty that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet and messenger. This CLEARLY puts the whole thing on a totally different basis. How to understand this? Well, that’s precisely the task Islam puts to me. In this, I have found thinking based solely on induction and deduction to be singularly useless, except, via negtiva, in showing where the answer does not lie. Instead, I find this sort of thing a useful place to start:
“If thinking is not...

There's currently a great deal of talk about Islamophobia and anti-semitism in the UK press. You won't be surprised to hear me say I am very firmly against both forms of prejudice. However, I suspect many would consider me guilty of one or other. I suspect many Muslims or Muslim-supporters would consider me Islamophobic because, say, I consider the religion of Islam one root cause of much contemporary terrorism. On the other hand, I don't doubt some Jews or Israeli-supporters would consider me anti-semitic because, say, I think the attacks on Gaza were disproportionate and unjustified, or because I am broadly sympathetic to non-violent methods of Palestinian resistance, such as their BDS campaign - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. It may well be that I'm just mistaken about what is and isn't Islamophobic/anti-semitic, and I genuinely want to be guilty of neither, so I thought I would arrange various claims according to whether I consider them...

(This is reposted from CFI blogs, where it appeared 2015 - still relevant though) In his recent post at the Daily Dot titled 'Atheism has a Richard Dawkins Problem' , Ben Branstetter criticises Dawkins's targeting of Islam and the Quran as sources of bigotry and oppression. Branstetter writes: Dawkins seems to be targeting the treatment of women in many Islamic countries—which use religion to justify stoning rape victims and criminalize homosexuality. Dawkins is wrong, however, to target the Quran as the source of these atrocities: Atheists shouldn’t hold an entire religious community responsible for the actions of governmnents and fundamentalist state religions. Instead, Dawkins and his followers should attack the structures that allow for the systematic oppression of women and LGBT people. Branstetter follows Steve Neumann in supposing that the root cause of such oppression is a delight in exercising power over others, which is by no means pec...

'Corbyn and his supporters do not want us to think about Paris because they cannot accept that privileged westerners can be victims. If Isis kills them, it is their own or their governments’ fault.'  Nick Cohen. Source Below are the results of some twitter polls I did recently. I was interested to know the attitudes of Corbyn supporters on twitter compared to the more general twitterati. I was particularly interested to know whether Nick Cohen's portrayal of Corbyn supporters was accurate. Of course, mine is not a very scientific survey, and it should be remembered that respondents are not representative of the twitterati generally , but of those who happen to follow me (Corbynites are probably over-represented). "Terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and is entirely the fault of the West" Notice the following:   82% of Corbyn supporters rejected the view that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and is entirely the fault of the West. "Isla...

I have a long-standing interest in freedom of speech, and in particular the way in which people will tend to self-censor for fear of being accused of some form of bigotry. I'm particularly concerned, for example, that the accusation of Islamophobia is being used to try to shame and silence critics of Islam. I'm similarly concerned that the accusation of antisemitism is being used to try to shame and silence critics of Israel. Here is something I wrote on that subject. I thought I would do a not-very-scientific twitter poll to see whether people felt they were self-censoring due to fear of being accused of bigotry.  I asked the following 'yes' 'no' questions: 1. Have you ever self-censored yr views on Islam for fear of being accused of Islamophobia? 2. Have you ever self-censored your views on LGBT issues for fear of being accused of bigotry? 3. Have you ever self-censored your views on Israel for fear of being accused of antisemitism? 4. ...

Jeff Goldblum is being criticised for asking whether Islam is anti-gay and anti-women. See e.g. this article in The Independent. Stats suggest e.g. the Muslim population in the UK for example does have a problem with homophobia (according to a survey a third of all UK Muslims think a wife should be forced to obey her husband, and 0% of UK Muslims think homosexuality is acceptable). And certainly that religion traditionally does (but then so does Christianity). At the same time I think Islamophobia is real and pernicious and probably much m ore of a problem than e.g. antisemitism in the UK (again, surveys bear this out). Perhaps we simply shouldn't ask such questions about Islam for fear of stoking such prejudice. On the other hand, perhaps liberals self-censoring - deliberately avoiding mentioning such facts or asking such questions - actually stokes Islamophobia by, in effect, stifling free speech re Islam and also feeding the 'double standard' narrative ...

To refocus the dialogue, can we now start commenting here, please... Also, remember the main topic here is whether or not Ibrahim is right to suggest that in any good Islamic school "Islam is a given and never challenged" . Let me summarize my case for getting children to think critically about morality and religion from as young an age as possible: (i) Actually, individuals cannot avoid the responsibility for making moral judgements. They cannot hand that responsibility over to some religious or other authority. Given they cannot hand it over, shouldn't they be encouraged and trained to discharge the responsibility properly? Surely the best way to do this is to confront them with the responsibility and encourage them to think and question. (ii) There's evidence that raising people to think and question, rather than more or less uncritically defer to authority, provides some protection against the sort of moral catastrophes that marred the 20th Century. (iii) There...

Hello Ibrahim Lots of interesting points being made here (especially in your comments on last three posts) – I won’t try to address them all. Seems to me one of the biggest issues you raise concerns the use of reason. Here’s a popular argument for general scepticism: Why suppose reason is a reliable route to the truth? Any justification of reason we offer will itself rely on reason, and so be unacceptably circular. So, that reason is a reliable route to truth cannot be justified. But if reliance on reason cannot be justified, then, because every justification relies on reason, nothing can be justified. So, all beliefs are equally irrational! Moreoever, if, to qualify as knowledge, a belief must be justified, knowledge is impossible too. Suppose I am involved in a debate – and I’m struggling to make my case. In fact, my opponent seems to have shown I’m wrong. Oh dear. What do I do? I might be tempted to make just this sceptical move. It offers a wonderful “get out of jail” card. I give ...

For those arriving late - this is an ongoing dialogue between myself and Ibrahim Lawson, head of a Muslim school, (and of course, many others), focusing on his remark that "In any good Islamic school, Islam is a given and never challenged". Ibrahim now writes: Stephen, It is good that you have raised the issue of ethics and morality as this brings us closer to the live issues we began with. It was useful to thrash out a few metaphysical matters, albeit superficially, and I fear we must return to this ground sooner or later, even though, in view of recent events in Algeria for example, it sometimes feels as though we are indulging in intellectual speculation as ‘the luxury of the weak’ However, by shifting the focus in this way, we introduce a new element: that of ‘authority’, and associated concepts such as ‘power’ and ‘will’. We can rephrase the non-question “why be rational?” as an inquiry into why we should feel obliged to be rational; what authority does or should ration...

This is a brief response to the several comments Ibrahim Lawson has made here and here . Ibrahim has been defending Islam by suggesting that Islam is mystical, beyond the reach of reason, etc. Hello Ibrahim The appeal to mystery and the mystical has of course been a bog-standard technique of cultists and other purveyors of snake oil down through the centuries whenever they are accused of talking cobblers. Pointing out that their belief makes no sense provokes such responses as - "But you are arrogantly applying Western-techno-rationality, yet failing to acknowledge its own limits." "It does all make sense - only in some profound way inaccessible to us mere humans." and so on... In this way, the cultists make a virtue of the fact their belief system doesn't make any sense (indeed a logical contradiction in what they believe is considered a plus!) The failure is not theirs for believing a load of patent nonsense, but ours for failing to be humble enough to reco...

How to start a prejudice - is six easy steps! Suppose you want to spread the prejudice that Xs are Ys - e.g. Jews are greedy and money-obsessed; women are terrible drivers, etc. What's a good method? STEP ONE: Find some Xs that are Ys. That probably won't be hard. Inevitably, some women are bad drivers and some Jews are money-obsessed. So you will easily be able to come up with a handful of true anecdotes.