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 7 of 7)
91. Give us a break, D'Souza. As much as you'd like us to believe you radiate the admirable spirit of anti-antisemitism, it's your hatred of atheists motivating every piece you do. How's that for ironic intolerance?
Propaganda statements made to be read as "Atheists hate Jews!" rightly come off as "Hypocrite D'Souza hates atheists!" to anyone with half a brain.
K.A. at 9:41AM on Jul 30th 2007
92. @ #88, Kevin:
Oh, but Christians ARE doing the fundie nonsense you are denying! Ask any abortion clinic who they fear bombing them or shooting the place up in the name of God.
K.A. at 9:46AM on Jul 30th 2007
93. I neglected to mention the Holacaust which was clearly the greatest horror inflicted upon Jewish people. At least 90% of Germany's population called themselves Christians. Thre are in fact no Muslim entities today advocating the extermination of the Jews. There are however groups of neo-Nazis who consider themselves Christians who would be quite eager to pick up where the original Nazis left off if they had the power to do so.
The fact is that Coulter's screed has nothing whatsoever to do with the relative merits that any
comparison of different faiths might reveal. It has only to do with a primitive mentality of conquest quite proper to the days of Ghengis Kahn, which mankind should have long since outgrown. Many of us have. Unfortunately unevolved people like Coulter and far more unfortunately the most powerful man in the world (Cheney)are bound to resort to such atavism unless and until they experience a true spiritual awakening.
Louis Rue at 7:48PM on Aug 11th 2007
94. Someone mentioned the Holacaust as the worst pogrom
in History and also that many Europeans other than Germans collaborated in this with the Nazis. While this is true it is also true that there were American busines men and corporations who did business with the Nazi regime long after their agressive intentions and anti-semitism became indisputable and even after it was illegal under American law to do so. One of these collaborators was Prescot Bush, father of George I, and grandfather of George II. It is surely far more reprehensible to cooperate with murdering thugs out of greed than when motivated by a legitimate fear
for one's life and liberty as existed in all nations occupied by Nazi Germany as well as Germany itself. This is not to deny that there were plenty of European firms profiting enormously from Nazi slave labor and generally by doing business with the regime. Nor is this a justification for collaboration out of fear. Nevertheless, I fail to see any great distinction between American behavior regarding Jewish people vi a vis the Nazis and that of non-German Europeans considering the very different circumstances.
In more recent years we also have our share of neo-Nazi skinheads who are every bit as unevolved and voilently anti-semitic as are those of Europe.
It is fortunate, that due to the far more recent advent of European peoples in this hemispheare, we don't have the history of pogroms that Europe bears. It bears remembering, as well that Muslims have also long endured European Christian persecution through the Crusades and being expelled from nations like Spain. Had Europeans along with enough Jews and Muslims been here as long as in the eastern hemispheare our history probably would not have been much different. Moreover our treatment of native Americans cna legitimately be described as our own Holacaust. To date, it seems that whereever so-called Christians constitute a great majority of the population they have gone along toward exterminating everyone else.
Louis Rue at 3:44AM on Aug 12th 2007