Israel and Palestine: self and other, positive and negative; 2023
10 Religion
FIRST DRAFT (6 pages)
Abrahamism: violence and belief
Abrahamic Jerusalem
The systems
The four N-Abrahamisms: religion, nation, party, empire, technology and military violence
N-Abrahamism: a certain conception of self and other, of positive and negative
Distributions in V-space
Abrahamism: violence and belief
The present war between Israel and Palestine seems to involve a distinctive combination of violence and belief. Some of the rationales for the conflict offered by the participants are based on religion. The beliefs of the two sides are on the one hand different, and on the other hand both belong to the same broad ‘Abrahamic’ tradition. It so happens that the sacred texts of the Abrahamic tradition have been noted by Pinker as having a strong element of violence. This raises the question of whether Abrahamism is more violence-prone than other religious or secular belief systems. Also, religion does not act on its own but becomes incorporated into broader social systems and which are supported by conceptions of the self, such as the national self.
Abrahamic Jerusalem
Jerusalem’s walled city “contains some of the holiest sites in the three Abrahamic faiths.” (1)
“Tensions rise in the Old City as settlers target Armenians. Christians in Jerusalem are now living in fear of ethnic cleansing.” (2)
“They attack the Al Aqsa mosque.” “The aim of 7th October was to stop the violations of Aqsa.” “It was called Operation Al Aqsa Flood.” “The Al Aqsa Brigade played a very positive role.” (3) to (6).
“The 43-minute film of the Hamas massacre is the worst thing I’ve seen.” (7)
(1), (2) The Times, November 20, 2023: 27.
(3) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65184207 ;
.(4) 35%: In their opinion, the main reason for the operation launched by the Palestinian resistance on 7th October was to stop the violations of Aqsa.
.(5) https://english.almanar.com.lb/1917115
.(6) 49%: The Al Aqsa Brigade played a very positive role.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Martyrs%27_Brigades
.(7) “… The footage is extremely harrowing to watch – but you should says Robert Crampton.” The Times, Times 2, November 27, 2023: 7.
The systems
As mentioned in Section 1 on values, my general idea is as follows. A society is a system which displays valued events - positive events and negative events.
Positivity is caused by a subsystem. We refer to this as the P-system, ‘P’ for positivity.
Negativity and violence are caused by a subsystem. We refer to this as the N-system, ‘N’ for negativity.
The global N-system has a subsystem which generates violence, namely the global violence system - alluded to in:
W6 Positive value … Gaza-Israel … national and world opinion … the global violence system.
This general idea can be applied in the present context. World society contains a subsystem involving the Abrahamic religions – the global Abrahamic system. The power of this system is evidenced by the prevalence of Christianity and Islam throughout the world, arising historically from European and Middle Eastern empires – the Abrahamic empires … and an underlying Abrahamic system. There has been much of merit in the Abrahamic system – I, as a mathematician, am particularly interested in the mathematics produced by the Abrahamic system. However it also contains part of the global N-system, in other words the Abrahamic N-system … N-Abrahamism.
In saying this, I am not saying that there is anything special about the Abrahamic N-system. Other systems in the world are equally capable of producing violence and negativity.
And to repeat, there is much of merit in the Abrahamic system. There is P-Abrahamism as well as N-Abrahamism.
The four N-Abrahamisms: religion, nation, party, empire, technology and military violence
The three Abrahamic religions are: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1). What I mean by the word “N-Abrahamism” is a certain conception of society which involves a certain conception of an Abrahamic religion combined with certain notions of nation, party, territory, empire, technology and military violence … a certain conception of self and other, of positivity and negativity. Most adherents of Abrahamic religions are not adherents of N-Abrahamism.
The following sources have brought me to this notion … Ayaan Hirsi Ali was brought up as a Muslim and encountered the Muslim Brotherhood, then turned first to Bertrand Russell’s atheism and finally to Christianity. She now sees the world in terms of Western civilisation threatened by three different but related forces: great-power authoritarianism and expansionism; the rise of global Islamism; “and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation” (2). Somewhat similar world forces are at play in Robert Harris’ Conclave, a fictional account of the choosing of a new Pope (3). Showing now in cinemas is the film Napoleon. An article refers to his ‘civilising mission’ in the Middle East (4). Paris Echo, by Sebastian Faulks, has Christians, Jews and Muslims … “the shadows of Vichy and Algeria … questions of empire, grievance and identity … asks how much we really need to know if we are to live a valuable life.” (5).
Recently I revisited Schofield’s analysis of Israeli politics where he locates voters and political parties in two-dimensional space, the two dimensions being religion and security. I view ‘security’ as relating to military violence – either by the self or by the other or by both. Later I shall say more about this correlation between religion and military violence (6). Steven Pinker noted more than a decade ago that the Hebrew Bible was one long celebration of violence. He also noted the violence of Christendom (7).
All this seemed to relate to my notion of “conceptions of the national self” (8). In particular Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday are important components of “Britannia”, a conception which has been invoked in the Conservative party tumult of recent years. Britannia involves religion, nation, party, territory, empire, technology and military violence (9). Other countries have similar conceptions – for example Putin’s Rus (10).
What then should I think about the atheism and Bertrand Russell alluded to by and rejected by Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Unfortunately for atheism, some forces have embraced atheism with religious fervour – again associated with nation, party, territory, empire, technology and military violence. Some of these forces have occurred in Abrahamic countries and it has been suggested that these atheistic conceptions have drawn on certain Abrahamic ideas. I suggest that this might count as a fourth N-Abrahamism. For example there is reference to communism as “the God that Failed” (11). Somewhat similarly Ayaan Hirsi Ali notes that certain modern ideas are “the product of centuries of debate within Jewish and Christian communities” (2).
[I now discover that others have used the phrase “the fourth Abrahamic religion” (12). This is unrelated to my notion of a fourth N-Abrahamism.]
.(1) Wikipedia: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
Charles Cohen: https://history.wisc.edu/publications/the-abrahamic-religions-a-very-short-introduction/ . Rather unfortunately for me, Aaron Hughes suggests abandoning the idea! https://academic.oup.com/book/12114/chapter-abstract/161491068?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
(2) “Raised a Muslim, I see now that civilisation rests on Christianity. As a child I was forced to follow fundamental Islam, and in adulthood rejected all religion. Now I understand that life without spiritual solace is unendurable – and Christ’s teachings are my guide. … In 1985 the Muslim Brotherhood came to my community in Kenya, … a special hatred was reserved for one subset of unbeliever: the Jew. … ” The Times, November 18, 2023, pp 40-41. Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/
Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Prey/V3MtEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT5&printsec=frontcover
(3) Conclave. Robert Harris. London: Hutchison. 2016.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/24/conclave-by-robert-harris-review
(4) Locating the Ottomans in Napoleon’s World. Virginia H Aksan.
“The Bonaparte invasion inaugurated an interventionist school of both British and French imperialism, a fumbling towards imperial methods, driven by their great power rivalries with Russia and later Prussia, but equally committed to a civilizing mission and the preferential markets represented by the sprawling Ottoman Empire.”
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137455475_20
“From Napoleon to Allenby: the Holy Land and the Wider Middle East”. Robert Fisk.
https://academic.oup.com/book/45676/chapter-abstract/398062731?redirectedFrom=fulltext
(5) Paris Echo. Sebastian Faulks. London: Hutchison. 2018.
(6) See later section.
(7) Page 6 in Steven Pinker. The Better Angels of Our Nature. 2011. Allen Lane Section, The Hebrew Bible, pp. 6-12:
https://wardricker.com/better-angels-excerpt.php
Roman Empire and Early Christendom, p. 12 et seq.
Pinker’s index cites seventeen Pinker pages about the Old Testament and only five Pinker pages about the New Testament.
(8) Nations and world: variation and self.
(9) Britannia: Three Prime Ministers and a Queen
(10) Russian civilisation
The national self … empires in Europe … the Ottoman empire
(11) The God That Failed. 1949.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed
Darkness at Noon. Arthur Koestler. 1940.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_at_Noon; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler
.(12) See “other Abrahamic religions” in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
N-Abrahamism: a certain conception of self and other, of positive and negative
Note: N-Abrahamism is not to be identified with Abrahamic religions. Most adherents of Abrahamic religions are not adherents of N-Abrahamism.
Steven Pinker studied the bible looking for instances of violence. I find it helpful to consider these instances of violence in terms of the relationship between self and other.
N-Abrahamism involves a certain conception of self and of other, of positive and negative: it involves a partisanship in favour of the self and against the other.
In the first place the deity is partisan in favour of himself and against other deities and against people. The first three or four commandments are all about the deity himself:
“I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember/observe the sabbath day to keep it holy.”
The remaining commandments are important rules which are a fundamental part of most societies. (Pinker, page 7):
The self should not be negative to the other. … [NN]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
Secondly the deity is all-powerful and when it suits itself, it acts against others – against people. “No sooner do men and women begin to multiply than God decides they are sinful and that the suitable punishment is genocide … [Noah and the flood].” (Pinker, page 6).
Turning now to people, when it suits themselves, they act against others. “When David becomes king, he keeps up his hard-earned reputation by killing by the tens of thousands.” (Pinker, page 9).
Pinker turns to the New Testament. For many, Jesus is about love:
The self should be positive to the other. … [P]
However, at times Jesus also can be partisan in favour of himself and against other people. “He that loveth their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10, 34-37 (Pinker, page 12).
At the end, Jesus will divide. He is partisan in favour of a group who believes in him (the sheep); and partisan against a group who do not believe in him (the goats) – the former bound for heaven, the latter bound for hell. Matthew 25, 31-46:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025%3A31-46&version=NIV
At school we learned “Holy Willie’s Prayer”, a poem by Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. Here is an extract from a speech I made at a Burns’ Supper a year or so ago:
“Holy Willie’s god divided: it divided those bound for Heaven from those bound for Hell. In contrast, in his poem A man’s a man for a’ that, Robert Burns offered a different ‘god’ – a ‘god’ where people unite. Like Burns, Rotary sees a world where people unite.
“that man to man the world oer shall brothers be for a’ that”.”
What is at issue here is binary thinking, dividing people into two groups, ‘our group’ and the ‘other group’. The Christian Jesus in these two excerpts is divisive in - very broadly - the same way as Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s teachers were divisive when they said that if unbelievers “explicitly rejected our summons to Islam, we were to hate and curse them” [(2) above]. Fictional character Tariq has a similar experience to Ayaan’s. As a young child being an Islam was about “being kind to widows and orphans”, but later he encountered a rather different approach: “if you don’t believe that now it’s been explained to you, then you’ll burn in hell for all time.” Faulks pp 271. See (2a) above.
The Quran and Its Biblical Subtext:
https://www.routledge.com/The-Quran-and-its-Biblical-Subtext/Reynolds/p/book/9780415524247 ;
The Quran and The Bible:
https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300181326/the-quran-and-the-bible/ ;
Heaven, Hell and non-Muslims:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2020/03/19/heaven-hell-and-non-muslims-in-the-quran/.
Gabriel Said Reynolds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Said_Reynolds
Fortunately however, adherents to Abrahamic religions happily select and follow the more benevolent passages of the bible …
The self should be positive to the other. … [P]
The self should not be negative to the other. … [NN]
Be positive, not negative. … [P, NN]
… sadly, on occasion adherents to Abrahamic religions select and follow the more malevolent passages of the bible – this is N-Abrahamism. (‘N’ for negative.)
The self being negative to the other. … [N]
The self being not positive to the other. … [NP]
Being negative, not positive. … [N, NP]
Postscript: Operation Wrath of God
“Zvi Zamir. Israeli spymaster who as head of Mossad, took charge of Operation Wrath of God, a covert programme of daring assassinations.” Obituary. The Times, January 12, 2024.
Distributions in V-space
Jesus indulged in binary thinking and divided people into sheep and goats – he judged individual people (ad hominem) rather than individual instances. Instead, there are distributions:
An individual person has a distribution of instances of [P], [N], [NN] and [NP].
The set of people have a set of such distributions.
Let me clarify the notion of a V-space. It is a space consisting of dimensions, each of which is a V-dimension. A V-dimension is one which measures value, with one extreme, extremely positive, and the other extreme, extremely negative. Numerically the range can be taken as [-1,1] or [-100,+100]. Of particular interest is negativity by the self against the other.
. 0
. extremely negative extremely positive
A particular instance has some value x along the V-dimension. A set of instances has a distribution over the V-dimension. In binary thinking an object is either positive or negative … in distribution thinking an object is a distribution over V-space.