The Faith Trap

This week's Camino a Ítaca draws parallels between religious bigotry in two distinct places. The faith trap is lethal to inquiry and thought and is throw about with alarming regularity. Click over to the original article published in Spanish in el HOY, or read the English version below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

The world recently watched in horror as American forces abruptly pulled out of Afghanistan. Overnight the Afghan people were once again at the mercy of a tribalistic gang of mercenaries intent on restoring the brutal theocratic regime that the American coalition had overthrown in the wake of the September 11^th terrorist attacks. The Afghan army that had been trained and equipped by the coalition immediately folded and the heavily bearded zealots waltzed into the capital before the West could even evacuate their people.

They did so promising that they were no longer the Taliban of yore. This new 2.0 version was much more media savvy and gave their word that they would respect human rights and implement new laws that would bring peace and stability to the long-suffering land. Western commentators, desperate to paint a positive picture of such a dismal debacle, happily took them at their word or at least used them to try and spin the story away from the treasonous abandonment of the country.

The words that they didn’t spin though were the ominous phrases dropped like deadly bombs by Taliban spokesmen. These were phrases like ‘in accordance with Islamic values’ or ‘in concurrence with the Koran’ when talking about human rights and the laws that they planned to implement. In today’s politically correct world, to question these phrases, based on religious content, is seen as some sort of racism. The fact that they are faith based immediately allows them to be accepted as well intentioned.

Little stifles questioning and debate more than the concept of faith. It doesn’t matter if someone espouses the most outrageously illiberal ideas, or in the case of the Taliban, prevents half of the population from getting an education. If the word faith is mentioned it becomes an extremely effective talisman against investigation and debate. This includes faith-based ideas from Quranic literalists like the Taliban who avoid figurative interpretations of a text they believe to be the immutable word of a perfect god.

But it isn’t only these reactionary tribesmen who shelter behind this celestial shield. Here in Spain the concept of faith is also used to stifle debate around topics related to another religious text many believe to be the word of god. This week, in response to an appeal filed by the extreme right to declare the prohibition of public funding for schools that segregate boys and girls in separate classrooms unconstutional, the constitutional court emitted a draft ruling that stated that that the principle of freedom of education and the criteria of the parents are above the law. In effect, the parents’ beliefs were written in stone.

True, this isn’t quite demanding that a woman who was raped must be executed, because she didn’t cry out loud enough in order to prevent her attack, prescribing the death penalty for same-sex acts, or stoning non-virgin brides to death but the principle stems from the same source, a belief in an ancient text over the laws of the country.

Beliefs do matter and everyone has the right to hold them, but equally important is the right to question them, strip away supernatural shields and expose them to the light of reason.