Book #1: Religion and State by L. Carl Brown

[jmm99]

T:

In your comment, on a multi-culturalist (cultural relativist) hypothesis:

It’s not enough to say that we all believe in G-d (well, I don’t but that’s beside the point) and that therefore we should all get on with one another.

the phrase "...we all believe in G-d ..." is actually an improvement on Brown's statement:

Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God,...

Asserting a widespread belief in an undefined "G-d" (a "higher power" of some kind) is different from claiming worship of the same God.

Your comment:

After the Islamic conquests many “Christian” communities actually found it easier to live under Islam because Muslims did not persecute them for refusing to tow the Constantinian line of Trinitarianism (but also because in holding such views they did not undermine the foundations of Islamic power given the Trinitarian outlook was associated with Islam’s major rival Byzantium).

is spot on; and illustrates (your "...but also ... Byzantium") pragmatism at work - a point made by Omar in his comments and by Brown (in later chapters 3-7).

I'd be interested in hearing from a multi-culturalist (cultural relativist) on how we can "dialog" with Islam, except on matters that can be made a-theistic, a-deistic (pragmatic). Even as to the latter, we have to be able to compartmentalize our hypocracies:

Show me a cultural relativist at 30,000 feet and I’ll show you a hypocrite. Airplanes built according to scientific principles work. They stay aloft and they get you to your chosen destination. Airplanes built to tribal or mythological specifications, such as the dummy planes of cargo cults in jungle clearings or the beeswaxed wings of Icarus, don’t.

Dawkins, p.42 pdf; link).

I'll now return to my pork sandwich, named "Lunch"; its suitably sliced sibling, with rice, will be named "Dinner".

Regards

Mike

[Tukhachevskii]

Asserting a widespread belief in an undefined "G-d" (a "higher power" of some kind) is different from claiming worship of the same God.

Metaphysics was never my strong point but “higher power” would, to me at least, signify a single entity; Monotheism. Three monotheistic faiths all claiming to believe in a single God are bound to come into conflict.

illustrates (your "...but also ... Byzantium") pragmatism at work - a point made by Omar in his comments and by Brown (in later chapters 3-7).

I beg to differ sirrah. There was nothing pragmatic about it. Islam and Muslims were ordered to treat the People of the Book as protected persons under certain conditions. Islamic treatment of these people was wholly within keeping with their doctrine because, as far as Islam and Muslims were concerned, these people were Christians in the proper sense (as People of the Book; i.e., not Trinitarians). Had they failed the criteria of what Christianity was supposed to be according to Islam then I doubt they would have been so well received. I would understand pragmatism to be something along the lines of Churchill’s alliance with Stalin against Hitler.