"Not Blasphemous?"

I was listening on the radio today to one of the stories about the attack on Salman Rushdie.  One commenter, Geoffrey Robertson, said that part of the response to Islam's call for Rushdie's death a few decades ago, after he published The Satanic Verses, was someone's close examination of the text of this book, to see if it was, in fact, blasphemous against Islam, as the Muslims claimed it was.  Whoever closely examined this text determined that it was in fact "not blasphemous" to Islam.  The report did not include details as to how it was determined that The Satanic Verses was not blasphemous.  I was left not knowing what anyone thinks "blasphemous" means, or what qualifies something to be "not blasphemous."

I read The Satanic Verses when it came out.  The radio story mentioned that it is 900 pages.  Frankly, I remember little about it, except that it was hard to follow.  One particular part that I do remember, because it was captivating, was that Mohamed was dictating what was on his mind, and a scribe was writing it down.  At some point, the scribe, who was writing furiously, in order to keep up with Mohamed, realized he had made a mistake in the transcription.  But he also immediately realized that no one would know he made a mistake.  So he continued to take down what Mohamed was saying, but he gave himself liberty to make more "mistakes," and to approximate the Prophet's words less and less precisely.  I haven't read anything about what Muslim's think about The Satanic Verses, because I don't care what they, or the members of any other cult or religion, think about any of the things they choose to believe, but my assumption, which might be wrong, was that it was this that so offended Muslims: the idea that the Qur'an could be wrong.  Jews, Christians, and other cult followers are similarly incensed at any suggestion that what they choose to believe could be wrong.

They don't get the joke: that this is simply what they choose to believe, and many of them make this "choice" because they were brought up to believe it.  If a Hassidic Jew had been born a Catholic, s/he would think Jesus was the son of "god" and the Messiah.  If a Hassidic Jew or a Catholic had been born a Muslim, s/he would think Mohamed was the Prophet of "Allah."  Anyone who takes the time and trouble to read any of the relevant scriptures with an open mind (I have) would realize they're all impossible nonsense.

But that doesn't stop adherents from believing deeply in this stuff, and not only fashioning their own lives around their own carefully crafted approximations of what it's convenient and satisfying for them to tell themselves it says and means, but from insisting that other people, who do not believe these fairy tales, should fashion their lives, too, around similarly carefully crafted approximations of what the fierce adherents consider it convenient and satisfying to tell themselves this nonsense says and means.

I keep a collection of quotes from various people.  They're in my house, on the hard drive of my desktop computer.  So I can't reproduce them precisely now.  One of them is from a guy named Steven/Stephen Roberts (not the widower of Cokie), who is listed as a software engineer or something.  He said, and I might be paraphrasing a bit here, "I contend we are both atheists.  I just believe in one fewer 'god' than you do.  When you understand why you reject all the other available 'gods,' you will understand why I reject yours."  Another of the quotes, which I remember less, has to do with the fierceness of adherence to the least supportable or provable ideas.  There are lots of other quotes that address more or less similar "intellectual" approaches.

But the problem, as I say, is that these adherents aren't simply deeply and rigorously devoted about their own ways of living.  They want to be deeply and rigorously devoted about your way of living, too.  And if things could get any more creepy, these people tend to call themselves political conservatives.  They're never clear what political conservatism means, but when pressed, they will claim to be "originalists," and to expect modern America to follow (exactly) in the footsteps at least of the "founding fathers" over 200 years ago (these "founding fathers" are imagined to have had or to have been able to form predictable opinions about things that did not exist and were out of the range of imagination at the time).  But imposing their entirely personal and private religious beliefs and interpretations on everyone else (who may well not hold all, or perhaps any, of those beliefs and interpretations) ignores the fact that the Pilgrims came here from England to escape religious persecution, that the US Constitution guarantees "separation of church and state," and, for what it's additionally worth, that Thomas Jefferson famously cautioned to "keep the preachers out of government."  I have said many times, and I'll say again, that it is not possible to adhere to the Republican/conservative agenda without being a hypocrite, dishonest, or both.

So, what's this got to do with Salman Rushdie, who is now off a ventilator, but might still lose an eye after having been stabbed 10 times by some crazed religious person (in this case a Muslim one)?  Sure, the order/fatwa to attack him came from the Middle East decades ago.  But he was attacked in New Jersey, which is in the "good ol' US of A."  And the person who attacked him was some rogue cult-follower, who happened to live in NJ.  But we live in Florida, most of which is exactly like that, except the prevailing cult in Florida is Christianity, not Islam.  The problem is identical, though: cult followers who somehow think everyone should adhere to whatever they tell themselves and each other are the demands or preferences of the cult, which are really, according to the lore and fantasy world of it, the intentions of "god," which no one can demonstrate exists (they call religions "beliefs" and "faiths" for a reason: there's no proof of any of this; you can just believe it and have faith in it, if you want to, and if it makes you feel better), and are prepared to punish anyone who tries to have the independence that the Pilgrims took great pain and trouble to seek, and which the Constitution guarantees.