If holy war is a serious problem in the Middle East and in the world today, the French atheist Michel Onfray knows where the whole thing started: with the Jews. Onfray's Atheist Manifesto, a bestseller in Europe, has a section called "The Jewish Invention of Holy War." Onfray traces a direct line "from the bloody sword of the Israelites killing off the Canaanites to the use of airlines as flying bombs in New York."
One might think the radical Muslims perpetrated 9/11 and other contemporary atrocities. But Onfray holds monotheism responsible for the Islamic mindset, and since Judaism came before Christianity and Islam, he insists that the roots of religious intolerance and conflict are in Moses and Abraham. First, the Jews declared themseves God's chosen people, implying that their enemies were the enemies of God. According to Onfray, "Yahweh blessed war and those who waged it. He sanctified combat, supervised it...sanctioned crimes, murders, assassination." Onfray goes on, "Yahweh steps in to justify the Jews in their extermination of certain peoples explicitly named in the Torah: the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites and Jebusites." In an inflammatory way, Onfray even holds the ancient Israelites responsible for what he calls "the first genocide": the wholesale destruction of Jericho. If Bin Laden ever wanted a model, Onfray suggests, he could easily find it here.
I'm not suggesting Onfray is anti-Semitic: he is equally hostile to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this, Onfray resembles America's atheist troika of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. But in the process Onfray--like his British and American counterparts--fails to make necessary distinctions. The Old Testament depicts a harsh world, but it is no harsher than that of ancient Greece and Rome, with their Melian expeditions, savage wars of conquest, large-scale slavery, gladiatorial contests, and persecution of the Christians. So why hold monotheism responsible for practices that were hardly distinctive to it?
Moreover, the punitive tribal ethic of the Old Testament is specifically repudiated in the New Testament which replaces it with an ethic of universal brotherhood. Onfray flails away at Jesus, but he can find nothing in Christ's teachings that condones violence or terror. Yes, there were historical abuses committed in the name of Christianity, but even here Onfray goes overboard, attempting for example to blame Christianity for the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Finally Onfray does not even mention that there are important differences in the way the three monontheisms have evolved. These differences help to explain why much of the terrorism is the world is being perpetrated by Muslims and not by Jews or Christians. Where is the Jewish Bin Laden, the Christian Ahmadinejad? They exist only in the atheist imagination.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 7)
31. Love the term "holy war". It's a misnomer. War is not holy at all. No matter what religion claims it!!! It is an act of violence directed at another human. If God is the creator, who are we, as humans, to destroy that creation? The blame game is a childish game.
june at 9:17PM on Jul 23rd 2007
32. Without the Jewish money-lenders that the European nobility were in hock to up to their eyeballs there would have been no crusades; money talked, the crusaders walked. Their first action was to pillage, rape and steal through the Christian kingdom of Byzantium (Constantinople, which, as the song goes, is now Istanbul). Jesus Christ, and the "Holy Land", were nowhere in sight.
Thomas Green at 11:06AM on Jul 24th 2007
33. After having Jesus Chist killed, the first persecutors of others were the Jews who killed the newly formed Christians in Palestine. They went so far, in Yemen, to gather Christians into pits, pouring naphalm on them and burning them to death.
In modern times, after WWI, and aside from the German Nazis (who didn't like anyone very much, slaughtering Christians and Jews no matter of what national origin) the persecution of Christians and Muslims is the hallmark of Zionist Israel. Only today, not to mention the murder of thousands of Palestinians such as in villages as Deir Yassin, the skillful genocide of Palestinians in Gaza goes unabated as part of Zionist Israel's apartheid policies.
Thomas Green at 9:41PM on Jul 23rd 2007
34. Anyone who believes that according to Judaism, "God favors them over all others" doesn't know what they are talking about. Judaism has an amazingly universalistic outlook, in that Judaism posits that any people that follow the Noahide laws and believe in one God get into heaven. Maimonides even stated that a Jew may worship in a mosque (although I'm not quite sure how Muslims feel about that). Judaism has no trouble acknowledging that a good Muslim or Christian will experience a positive afterlife before a bad Jew. Show me another major religion that has this outlook.
Neil Kuchinsky at 9:51PM on Jul 23rd 2007
35. Thomas Green, your swastika armband is waiting for you at the cleaners.
richter at 9:53PM on Jul 23rd 2007
36. Like it or not until we love others as we love ourselves and cease biting and devouring and consuming one another there will be no peace in this world. The reason the meek will inherit the earth is because the rest of the world will have killed each other off.
lmaddox2610 at 10:04PM on Jul 23rd 2007
37. Islam and Christianity both originated as Judaism ideals. Of course getting either of them to admit that would be difficult if not impossible. (And no I am not Jewish)
All these Holy Wars and tantrums and killings because all sides "think" they are right. A complete lack of respect for everyone including themselves. Each side brings to the table how they were so persecuted and slaughtered and how they were so in the right for their murderings. Yes they all were slaughtered and discriminated against by each other in different parts of history. It is a shame that this still exists today. I was raised Fundamentalist Christan. (and no, I am no longer what you would consider Christian. It is way too linear for me)I have visited many different denominations. I have come to the conclusion that you have extremists and bad eggs in every situation. There are also some good people though. The good people do their best to try and balance out the idiocy of the extremists. Jews didn't invent Holy War. Man as a whole did.
E at 10:40PM on Jul 23rd 2007
38. Why do people have this ridiculous idea that agnosticism is a third option? It's like believing that there's a middle between a woman being pregnant and not being pregnant.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 11:01PM on Jul 23rd 2007
39. While it is traditional to say that we all believe in the same God, that only extends to Abraham; after
that the Jew goes through Isaac, the Muslim goes through Ishmael and the Christian goes through the
lineage of Isaac. Each understanding of the nature of God as Father seems quite different to me, especially how God works with and through mankind.
George Mills at 9:27AM on Jul 24th 2007
40. The Old Testament bloodshed represents the time period in which it existed and yet it is judged by today's standards. Frankly who cares what an athiest from Great Britain thinks? What's relevant is the fact that holy war today is almost exclusively tied to Muslims. There is simply no Jewish or Christian equivalent to Islamism in terms of scale and virulence.
BeBoppin at 11:27PM on Jul 23rd 2007
41. religion is always a big part of any war, no one will rush into a battle to die unless they believe there is an afterlife. war will always be about greed and power. it is waged by the power hungry and fought by the gullible. if people understood that there is a much greater chance that the end is the end than leavign your dead body and going to live in an invisible city in the sky where people have wings and halos they might put a little more value on their lives. so it doesn't matter what religion started wars or what religion the people are that are causing violence now, it's the fact that they are religious at all for without religion war would be less of a common occurence. By the way, Christianity has killed way more people than Judaism and Islam put together.
hunter at 11:20PM on Jul 23rd 2007
42. There's perhaps nothing more interesting than religious debate. Everyone has faith in their (different) life-guiding beliefs. And people get enraged.
"Why do people have this ridiculous idea that agnosticism is a third option? "
I'm agnostic, and it can be a little awkward. I've come to my personal conclusion that I don't know for sure whether there is or isn't a god and come to the conclusion that that is OK. I am a skeptical, logical person by nature, which means that, for me, I can never come to a definite conclusion on such a divisive and evidenceless issue as the existance of a omniscient, omnipotent, and undetectable being. I see religion as a set of powerful, guiding ideas and ideals.
E has some really good points. Religion is a very powerful, flexible, and open to interpretation force. It is inevitable that people will interpret it in violent ways (or some people focus on the violent sections. Sometimes religion may be the cause of the war, and sometimes religion will be the justification. (And of course, wars happen without religion.)
I strongly agree with E's comment abuot perspective. Any issue involving religion also involves faith, moral foundations, and the idea of sin and salvation. This makes the debate very passionate, yet not very compassionate. People are so sure of their moral system, religious beliefs and their opinion that they fail to see the issue from the other person's shoes. The heated debate on this issue is an illustration of that. [I make a personal effort to be as objective as possible.] Most Americans see Al-Qaida terrorists as horribly evil. I would agree that Al-Qaida terrorists have a strongly negative effect on the world, but I would not consider them evil. They are acting in a way that they consider moral. The US government and the troops in Iraq are considered to be similiar to 'terrorists' by much of the world. Recognizing this, avoiding war, and becoming more compassionate can reduce conflict.
Of course, some conflict is inevitable. Some people will decide to kill other people, perhaps me. Honestly, as long as this happens on a small scale, I'm not going to worry about it. It's inevitable. Taking steps to reduce violence is important though, and should be done on an effective scale.
Please comment!
DanielBr at 11:29PM on Jul 23rd 2007
43. Death of Reason: I don't know who you are quoting and who you are calling a moron, but Michael Onfay does not accuse the Israelis of attacking the WTC, nor does Dinesh say that he does. Are you reading the same article the rest of us are reading?
Dinesh: If you are looking for a more or less contemporary Jewish bin Laden, I nominate Menchem Begin, leader of Irgun, a Zionist terrorist organization which, among other atrocities, bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 killing 91 people and injuring 45.
It is true that all the major ancient civlizations were warlike and brutal, but monotheists added this beautiful twist: exterminating people for believing the wrong thing. Pagans went to war for terrority, loot, slaves, and honor (e.g. the Trojan War). But monotheists were the first to exterminate others for reasons of ideology. And they are still doing it to this day.
dOr makes a good point about the Egyptians. In fact, it is likely that it was the Egyptians and not the Israelites who invented monotheism. I refer to the unsuccessful attempt of the pharoah Akenhaton to replace Egyptian polytheism with one god. So, it is quite likely that the Israelites learned their bad monotheistic habits from their persecutors, the Egyptians!
emelpe at 11:37PM on Jul 23rd 2007
44. Religion is never the problem, almost always without fail, one can trace all the evil to individuals.
Religion was issued to fix the humans, most of us get it, some don't.
Mike ghouse
www.FoundationforPLuralism.com
Mike Ghouse at 11:40PM on Jul 23rd 2007
45. Tom Edgar- does that make you a foolish sap or just plain confused. because you either think their isn't a god or believe their is a god. so that means your either a fool and don't know it or you're sap but don't have the balls to say it. Ponder that!!!!
maluke3 at 12:04AM on Jul 24th 2007