Took land? Which natives were driven off? Impoverished? Their economy destroyed, their resources stolen?
Dawkins Choice: Abuse and Religion
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
Took land? Which natives were driven off? Impoverished? Their economy destroyed, their resources stolen?
The siege of Constantinople comes to mind, the expulsion of Jews... For the most part, it isn't in the interest of empires to destroy the economy.
You mean the enlightened west? That was a problem right upto the Holocaust, after which it merely changed focus.
Strange, that was not the Indian experience under the British and it has not been the experience of any economy under WB/IMF scams
You haven't really answered my question - except if your answer is that you are simply proposing a liberal, egalitarian outlook.
I had thought that in accord with your religion, you would have specific grounds for why you think one ought to be kind even to atheists.
(Insert title here)
Well, obviously, but we're not privy to every detail. I remember, when I was fourteen, a girl I knew from school died under mysterious circumstances. A number of circumstances ended up making her emblematic of what is wrong with American society, among them an interesting assertion made by her pastor that she was a "normal" kid. She was what we might, in contemporary parlance, call an "at-risk youth". Normal kids are rebellious, to be sure, but generally weren't smoking, doing meth (in the 1980s), and going on random road trips with enabling adults to steal cars. She was, as we used to say at the time, a "rocker slut". The presence (or, as you would suggest, absence) of religion cannot be blamed as a prime suspect. Nor is it useful to point out that the family had religion that didn't do a damn thing to save her life. Indeed, they could pretend that she believed and was thus saved, even if it isn't true, but more important is the question of how she came to such a state. I cannot say she was an abused child, but I do think it safe to suggest some manner of neglect in order for things to get so far out of hand.
And so it probably was with the teenage Satanic rebellion. As the Bible reminds (Proverbs 22.6), bring up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it. Perhaps this seems naive in the face of adolescent rebellion, but I'm not the only one who sees the imprint of those lessons in the outcomes of revolt. Hollie Atkinson, of the Families Matter Ministry, wrote in 2004:
So of course there's more to it than that, but an adolescent rebellion featuring Satanism and murder owes more to Mom and Dad than it does to Anton Szandor LaVey or King Diamond.
This goes beyond mass media. Well beyond. It's a pervasive, dishonest myth whose advocates over time have included the media, to be certain, but also politicians, parents, schoolteachers and, not surprisingly, the clergy.
Look, even accepting as I do the existence of something called God, it's not a matter of belief.
In principle, it's a right. But, because of the conduct of my society's myriad religious zealots, it becomes a privilege.
You know, it depends on the parents. You are, obviously, looking at this with tainted eyes, as your next sentence makes clear:
This is where you tread into bigotry, S.A.M. Please tread carefully.
The question of religion is its own. It is my intention that she should be free to make her own decisions about religion and belief when she is old enough to do so. This, however, is utterly unacceptable to her maternal grandparents. It also seems to unsettle you a certain amount, although that might have to do with the observable fact that you are responding to your own construction of what I'm trying to tell you, and not what I'm actually saying.
Can you understand a simple difference? While I don't particularly want my daughter to be a Christian, I'm aware that she might choose to be one someday, anyway. I can't stop this, but neither am I willing to construct circumstances intended to forcibly compel her to adopt such a faith. I consider this far different from people who are willing to lie in order to forcibly compel her to adopt such a faith. She might also decide, someday, to be an atheist, or a Buddhist, or even a Muslim. And that's fine with me. But it's not fine with her maternal grandparents. And her mother is content to pretend that her parents are telling the truth about not preaching or evangelizing because she has a financial interest in the outcome: a house. Mommy and Daddy bought her a house, so she will pretend that teaching Bible songs, stories, and principles at the exclusion of all else is not preaching or evangelizing.
Indeed, she campaigned on her parents' behalf to have my daughter put into a Seventh-Day Adventist school. And she said something amazing in that discussion, that it would be better to immerse my daughter in religion now than to expose her to it later, when she is older and unable to defend herself against evangelization. If you don't perceive the absurdity in that argument, we can certainly run it by our neighbors and maybe even take a poll.
But, yes, seriously, I have had that conversation. After a while, one is left wondering what people won't say in order to get what they want.
Indeed. One of my parental hypotheses is that if my daughter is raised without subscribing to every common myth in society, that the form of what seems inevitable will be different. I'm aware that this could backfire horribly, but we'll never know unless someone takes the chance, and, to be certain, the possibility that such an outlook brings a positive outcome is absolutely unacceptable to her mother's side of the family.
Not just mine, S.A.M. I've watched this process happen in many of my generation.
We'll skip out of order for a moment because it's relevant:
Perhaps in a prior age, the breaking of myths was less common. But in today's world, it is becoming nearly inevitable that parental conditioning in myth will be challenged. The magnitude of the information exchange today, compared to a hundred years ago, is exponential, even mind-boggling.
I would not be so arrogant as to presume that I can prevent my daughter from rebelling. Indeed, I see the teenage rebellion as part of one's psychological and intellectual development.
The nihilism of atheism you describe is one that coincides with a transition away from religious myths. Among my generation, at least, the people I know who avoided a nihilist phase altogether, or merely engaged it as an academic or intellectual exercise are those who didn't have as far to fall when their myths broke. In other words, they weren't twisted into form, psychologically blackmailed into believing grand ideas purporting to affect them beyond the stake of life itself.
While nihilism is not necessarily an inevitable component of one's intellectual or psychological development, certain circumstances can raise its likelihood to something near to unavoidable. At that point, the only way around it is to seal a person off entirely behind a wall of bigotry and myth. And I'm pretty sure that you object to the most common outcomes when that happens.
And we don't have to invoke suicide bombers to make the point. We merely need to point to theocrats and even those activists who would boycott Disney films because two lions playing in the dirt is apparently a deliberate attempt to subvert our children with homoerotica.
(Yes, that objection did come about. From the Wildmon camp. Seriously, I could not make that up.)
Something about projection goes here. Again, you tread in the realm of bigotry, S.A.M.
As to the theists, many of them are instructed by their chosen God to go forth and evangelize. The atheists? Well, they're a diverse bunch, but given that asserting that children should be spared religious coercion so that they can decide for themselves when they're ready is denounced as "evangelizing atheism", I would suggest that you and many other theists need to take some time and examine, rationally, what your words equal.
Take it up with the evangelicals, S.A.M. The vast majority of American Christians violate regularly one of the Ten Commandments. A significant portion—perhaps a majority—of American evangelical churches violate the teachings of Jesus on a regular basis (divorce and remarriage). Here, read this scathing parody by Betty Bowers:
Take off your zealot-colored glasses for a moment, please, and actually take a look at the state of religion in the United States. Especially the influential evangelical Christians.
Don't try for a minute to blame the actions and decisions of a vast majority (theists) on the presence of a minority (atheists) who only recently have been able to assert themselves at all.
Okay, S.A.M., I won't.
I'll leave that for you to either explain or not, as you see fit.
You know, one of the jokes I make about why Americans hate Muslims is that our Christians resent that Islam has not gone entirely apostate.
Christianity in the United States is riddled with dysfunction. You cannot look at the vicious capitalists who wield so much influence and necessarily call them atheists. On the one hand, many—even most—of them are, indeed, religious. To the other, there is a long-established connection between the "Protestant ethic" and the "spirit of capitalism". In fact, Weber's famous book is online these days.
Basham, in The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism, asserts in the early pages, that henotheism is common among Hindus. If you wish to go beyond that to polytheism, we might consider the point that polytheism is sublimated monotheism.
If you would like to inform, then do so. If you would prefer to anti-identify, I won't try to stop you, but anti-identification in general fosters inaccurate perceptions, suggestions, and conclusions.
However, it is enough to note at this time that my primary concern is, indeed, redemptive monotheism. Coercing belief at the stake of an immortal soul is just a bit sinister, S.A.M. Perhaps you've missed my free-will analogy, which really is rather savage. But, essentially, to pretend that a decision to accept the faith made under duress is free will means that a woman who chooses to stop fighting instead of get knifed in the chest consents to sexual intercourse, and therefore isn't raped.
And since I reject the proposition that consent given at knifepoint suffices to acquit the accused rapist, so also do I reject the proposition that faith under duress is accepted as a matter of free will.
The problem arises from the redemptive aspect. By asserting an undemonstrable stake more valuable than life itself, and then conditioning a mind to believe in it, one corrupts that mind's ability to process certain information rationally.
You're treating the Christian experience in the United States remarkably simplistically. What you note is, in large part, the result of the very conditioning I object to. People are accepting faith because they are groomed in such a manner to predispose them to acceptance. They are not coming to faith through rational consideration. They are unprepared to deal with many of the issues life puts before them, thus allowing and even encouraging self-indulgence of all manner.
Good for them. It's an interesting change of subject.
Selective atheism? That's awesome.
Show me a religious experience that does not involve psychological blackmail, and I probably don't oppose it.
Think of it this way: Is a Christian an "atheist to Hinduism"? Is a Wiccan an "atheist to Christianity"? Is a Christian an "atheist to Islam"?
Retreating to the rhetoric of bigotry, despite any pretense you might have to the contrary, does not help your argument.
And I believe you. I would only ask that you act like it.
Descent into hyperbole? I'm trying to meet you on your terms. If I have to descend into hyperbole in order to do so, we might then wonder why you've set such a low standard.
I would suggest that you are responding to a situation with which you are somehow unfamiliar. You seem to be treating the reality of many people's experiences with religious faith as some sort of propaganda. Accept that religion has done a lot of harm to a great many people. Show some human sympathy for those who have survived, and acknowledge at least those who haven't. Show that you understand there is a reason why people are growing hostile toward mythologies that shoot up trains, blow up buildings, and aim to overthrow the freedom to be rational.
The effects of a religion are more real, S.A.M., than the cosmic and divine promises. And people are responding to these effects.
Sisyphus is happy, m'lady. Sisyphus is happy.
_____________________
Notes:
Atkinson, Hollie. "Train Up A Child". Salon.com. Updated September 17, 2004. http://blogs.salon.com/0003213/stories/2004/09/17/trainUpAChild.html
Bowers, Betty. "Friend-Of-Our-Lord: Creflo Dollar". BettyBowers.com. http://www.bettybowers.com/fool3.html
See Also:
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/WEBER/cover.html
S.A.M. said:
Well, obviously, but we're not privy to every detail. I remember, when I was fourteen, a girl I knew from school died under mysterious circumstances. A number of circumstances ended up making her emblematic of what is wrong with American society, among them an interesting assertion made by her pastor that she was a "normal" kid. She was what we might, in contemporary parlance, call an "at-risk youth". Normal kids are rebellious, to be sure, but generally weren't smoking, doing meth (in the 1980s), and going on random road trips with enabling adults to steal cars. She was, as we used to say at the time, a "rocker slut". The presence (or, as you would suggest, absence) of religion cannot be blamed as a prime suspect. Nor is it useful to point out that the family had religion that didn't do a damn thing to save her life. Indeed, they could pretend that she believed and was thus saved, even if it isn't true, but more important is the question of how she came to such a state. I cannot say she was an abused child, but I do think it safe to suggest some manner of neglect in order for things to get so far out of hand.
And so it probably was with the teenage Satanic rebellion. As the Bible reminds (Proverbs 22.6), bring up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it. Perhaps this seems naive in the face of adolescent rebellion, but I'm not the only one who sees the imprint of those lessons in the outcomes of revolt. Hollie Atkinson, of the Families Matter Ministry, wrote in 2004:
So of course there's more to it than that, but an adolescent rebellion featuring Satanism and murder owes more to Mom and Dad than it does to Anton Szandor LaVey or King Diamond.
This goes beyond mass media. Well beyond. It's a pervasive, dishonest myth whose advocates over time have included the media, to be certain, but also politicians, parents, schoolteachers and, not surprisingly, the clergy.
Look, even accepting as I do the existence of something called God, it's not a matter of belief.
In principle, it's a right. But, because of the conduct of my society's myriad religious zealots, it becomes a privilege.
You know, it depends on the parents. You are, obviously, looking at this with tainted eyes, as your next sentence makes clear:
This is where you tread into bigotry, S.A.M. Please tread carefully.
The point is not to condition her for atheism, but to not condition her for supremacist ideologies and religious bigotry.
The question of religion is its own. It is my intention that she should be free to make her own decisions about religion and belief when she is old enough to do so. This, however, is utterly unacceptable to her maternal grandparents. It also seems to unsettle you a certain amount, although that might have to do with the observable fact that you are responding to your own construction of what I'm trying to tell you, and not what I'm actually saying.
Can you understand a simple difference? While I don't particularly want my daughter to be a Christian, I'm aware that she might choose to be one someday, anyway. I can't stop this, but neither am I willing to construct circumstances intended to forcibly compel her to adopt such a faith. I consider this far different from people who are willing to lie in order to forcibly compel her to adopt such a faith. She might also decide, someday, to be an atheist, or a Buddhist, or even a Muslim. And that's fine with me. But it's not fine with her maternal grandparents. And her mother is content to pretend that her parents are telling the truth about not preaching or evangelizing because she has a financial interest in the outcome: a house. Mommy and Daddy bought her a house, so she will pretend that teaching Bible songs, stories, and principles at the exclusion of all else is not preaching or evangelizing.
Indeed, she campaigned on her parents' behalf to have my daughter put into a Seventh-Day Adventist school. And she said something amazing in that discussion, that it would be better to immerse my daughter in religion now than to expose her to it later, when she is older and unable to defend herself against evangelization. If you don't perceive the absurdity in that argument, we can certainly run it by our neighbors and maybe even take a poll.
But, yes, seriously, I have had that conversation. After a while, one is left wondering what people won't say in order to get what they want.
Indeed. One of my parental hypotheses is that if my daughter is raised without subscribing to every common myth in society, that the form of what seems inevitable will be different. I'm aware that this could backfire horribly, but we'll never know unless someone takes the chance, and, to be certain, the possibility that such an outlook brings a positive outcome is absolutely unacceptable to her mother's side of the family.
Not just mine, S.A.M. I've watched this process happen in many of my generation.
We'll skip out of order for a moment because it's relevant:
Perhaps in a prior age, the breaking of myths was less common. But in today's world, it is becoming nearly inevitable that parental conditioning in myth will be challenged. The magnitude of the information exchange today, compared to a hundred years ago, is exponential, even mind-boggling.
I would not be so arrogant as to presume that I can prevent my daughter from rebelling. Indeed, I see the teenage rebellion as part of one's psychological and intellectual development.
The nihilism of atheism you describe is one that coincides with a transition away from religious myths. Among my generation, at least, the people I know who avoided a nihilist phase altogether, or merely engaged it as an academic or intellectual exercise are those who didn't have as far to fall when their myths broke. In other words, they weren't twisted into form, psychologically blackmailed into believing grand ideas purporting to affect them beyond the stake of life itself.
While nihilism is not necessarily an inevitable component of one's intellectual or psychological development, certain circumstances can raise its likelihood to something near to unavoidable. At that point, the only way around it is to seal a person off entirely behind a wall of bigotry and myth. And I'm pretty sure that you object to the most common outcomes when that happens.
And we don't have to invoke suicide bombers to make the point. We merely need to point to theocrats and even those activists who would boycott Disney films because two lions playing in the dirt is apparently a deliberate attempt to subvert our children with homoerotica.
(Yes, that objection did come about. From the Wildmon camp. Seriously, I could not make that up.)
Something about projection goes here. Again, you tread in the realm of bigotry, S.A.M.
As to the theists, many of them are instructed by their chosen God to go forth and evangelize. The atheists? Well, they're a diverse bunch, but given that asserting that children should be spared religious coercion so that they can decide for themselves when they're ready is denounced as "evangelizing atheism", I would suggest that you and many other theists need to take some time and examine, rationally, what your words equal.
Take it up with the evangelicals, S.A.M. The vast majority of American Christians violate regularly one of the Ten Commandments. A significant portion—perhaps a majority—of American evangelical churches violate the teachings of Jesus on a regular basis (divorce and remarriage). Here, read this scathing parody by Betty Bowers:
Take off your zealot-colored glasses for a moment, please, and actually take a look at the state of religion in the United States. Especially the influential evangelical Christians.
Don't try for a minute to blame the actions and decisions of a vast majority (theists) on the presence of a minority (atheists) who only recently have been able to assert themselves at all.
Okay, S.A.M., I won't.
I'll leave that for you to either explain or not, as you see fit.
You know, one of the jokes I make about why Americans hate Muslims is that our Christians resent that Islam has not gone entirely apostate.
Christianity in the United States is riddled with dysfunction. You cannot look at the vicious capitalists who wield so much influence and necessarily call them atheists. On the one hand, many—even most—of them are, indeed, religious. To the other, there is a long-established connection between the "Protestant ethic" and the "spirit of capitalism". In fact, Weber's famous book is online these days.
Basham, in The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism, asserts in the early pages, that henotheism is common among Hindus. If you wish to go beyond that to polytheism, we might consider the point that polytheism is sublimated monotheism.
If you would like to inform, then do so. If you would prefer to anti-identify, I won't try to stop you, but anti-identification in general fosters inaccurate perceptions, suggestions, and conclusions.
However, it is enough to note at this time that my primary concern is, indeed, redemptive monotheism. Coercing belief at the stake of an immortal soul is just a bit sinister, S.A.M. Perhaps you've missed my free-will analogy, which really is rather savage. But, essentially, to pretend that a decision to accept the faith made under duress is free will means that a woman who chooses to stop fighting instead of get knifed in the chest consents to sexual intercourse, and therefore isn't raped.
And since I reject the proposition that consent given at knifepoint suffices to acquit the accused rapist, so also do I reject the proposition that faith under duress is accepted as a matter of free will.
The problem arises from the redemptive aspect. By asserting an undemonstrable stake more valuable than life itself, and then conditioning a mind to believe in it, one corrupts that mind's ability to process certain information rationally.
You're treating the Christian experience in the United States remarkably simplistically. What you note is, in large part, the result of the very conditioning I object to. People are accepting faith because they are groomed in such a manner to predispose them to acceptance. They are not coming to faith through rational consideration. They are unprepared to deal with many of the issues life puts before them, thus allowing and even encouraging self-indulgence of all manner.
Good for them. It's an interesting change of subject.
Selective atheism? That's awesome.
Show me a religious experience that does not involve psychological blackmail, and I probably don't oppose it.
Think of it this way: Is a Christian an "atheist to Hinduism"? Is a Wiccan an "atheist to Christianity"? Is a Christian an "atheist to Islam"?
Retreating to the rhetoric of bigotry, despite any pretense you might have to the contrary, does not help your argument.
And I believe you. I would only ask that you act like it.
Descent into hyperbole? I'm trying to meet you on your terms. If I have to descend into hyperbole in order to do so, we might then wonder why you've set such a low standard.
I would suggest that you are responding to a situation with which you are somehow unfamiliar. You seem to be treating the reality of many people's experiences with religious faith as some sort of propaganda. Accept that religion has done a lot of harm to a great many people. Show some human sympathy for those who have survived, and acknowledge at least those who haven't. Show that you understand there is a reason why people are growing hostile toward mythologies that shoot up trains, blow up buildings, and aim to overthrow the freedom to be rational.
The effects of a religion are more real, S.A.M., than the cosmic and divine promises. And people are responding to these effects.
Sisyphus is happy, m'lady. Sisyphus is happy.
_____________________
Notes:
Atkinson, Hollie. "Train Up A Child". Salon.com. Updated September 17, 2004. http://blogs.salon.com/0003213/stories/2004/09/17/trainUpAChild.html
Bowers, Betty. "Friend-Of-Our-Lord: Creflo Dollar". BettyBowers.com. http://www.bettybowers.com/fool3.html
See Also:
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/WEBER/cover.html
Religion wise, what anyone believes (or does not believe) is not for anyone else to decide or judge. After all no one can look into anyone's heart to know what his or her truth is.
I agree with you that religion in the United States is highly skewed in its representation. Which is probably why Dawkins, an Englishman, sees a bigger market for his book there. His arguments on creationism for example could be applied more assiduously to the movement in the US than in the UK or elsewhere in Europe
Religion wise, what anyone believes (or does not believe) is not for anyone else to decide or judge. After all no one can look into anyone's heart to know what his or her truth is.
I agree with you that religion in the United States is highly skewed in its representation. Which is probably why Dawkins, an Englishman, sees a bigger market for his book there. His arguments on creationism for example could be applied more assiduously to the movement in the US than in the UK or elsewhere in Europe
The ideas should be judged like any other idea, like a scientific hypothesis. It become an important issue because religious people don't always keep these ideas to themselves, for instance trying to insert their faith into public schools.
I went to a secular school for all faiths. We learned about all religions in India and moral science. No school shootings by mad atheists or mood altered teens there.
I support the teaching of comparative religion, it's not the same thing at all as trying to teach creationism, or making children pray.
We prayed at the beginning and end of each school day. We also had a thought for the day picked out by the English teacher and read a short snippet from the Readers Digest or the Times of India before assembly. I think it was a well rounded education; we had people from all walks of life and all religions (don't recall any atheists) and we never had any issues with discrimination. Never had any problems with religion in education or science either.
Sure, it would, if one could only get rid of the king. Terribly unIslamic, having a king.
The Abbasids were deeply involved in the study of Hindu, Chinese and European religion and science, you know. All citations and all, not stealing and pretending we found it first, like some other unmentionables.
Dawkins is perfectly reasonable, and quite intelligent. To the extent that anyone can speak for atheism, he is a fantastic spokesperson.
show me how
i wish to open a school in s.a. just like yours
then i shall build a church, temple and synagogue
i agree
that part resides in the disclaimers
the bait is another matter
dawkins is disco
a lcd whatnot
nothing new, just marketing
Stanford University is building a university in Saudi Arabia. And the pope has met the king about a church. Hang on, its gonna happen while you watch.
I doubt it. From what I could ascertain of Saudi mentality, they recognise that they need some time to catch up with the rest of the world. A closed society is one way to accomplish that locals have a chance to get with it. The king personally sponsors education abroad for many Saudis and provides on the job training through expatriate workers that Saudis shadow.
But the advent of the internet has changed a lot in the kingdom. A casual look at Saudi English blogs is very revealing of current trends in thought. The grand mufti is not nearly as powerful as many believe and the mutawwas are easily subjugated if the king so wishes it. I doubt there will be a revolution soon, but its a mistake to think that what you see is what you get.
sorry
your "saudi mentality" refer to ole habib. a castrated moderate. spectators
meanwhile.....
Since the eighteenth century, the rulers of the Arabian Peninsula have shared power with their religious contemporaries, and this remains the case in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today. While the monarch is technically the country's supreme religious leader and custodian of Islam's two holiest mosques at Mecca and Medina, in truth, he shares authority with a powerful group of spiritual leaders, the ulema. For nearly 300 years, the Al Saud has controlled the state while the Al ash-Sheikh,3 the descendants of Sheikh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792), has controlled the religious institutions. This cooperative and consensual relationship has provided the kingdom with one of the most stable societies in the region and has allowed it to avoid the war and revolution that has wracked nearly every one of its neighbors.
In reaction to what he considered Islam's degeneration, Sheikh ‘Abd al-Wahhab founded what is generally known as Wahhabism, a movement based on a particularly strict interpretation of Islamic law. Among their many regulations, Wahhabis sought separation from non-Muslims; indeed, the strictest of them eschew all contact with Christians, Jews, or other infidels.4 The Saudi ulema today, as in the past, see themselves as guardians of this legacy.
While the ulema hold a variety of positions in Saudi institutions—they are judges (qadis), lawyers (muhama), and prayer leaders (imams)—only a few of them wield real power. Appointed by the king, these latter individuals staff several leading organizations.
Lacking as they do formal control over policymaking, the power of the ulema is missed by many observers in the West, who mistakenly assume that their influence is limited to the religious sphere. In fact, the ulema exercise their sway in subtle, silent ways. While their input varies depending on the domestic circumstances and the strength of the Saud family, the king can never completely ignore them but must take their views into consideration in every choice he makes. The following four political decisions, which baffled many Western analysts at the time, become a bit clearer when the ulema are factored into Saudi decision-making (The Saudi Ulema)
your "saudi mentality" refer to ole habib. a castrated moderate. spectators
meanwhile.....
Since the eighteenth century, the rulers of the Arabian Peninsula have shared power with their religious contemporaries, and this remains the case in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today. While the monarch is technically the country's supreme religious leader and custodian of Islam's two holiest mosques at Mecca and Medina, in truth, he shares authority with a powerful group of spiritual leaders, the ulema. For nearly 300 years, the Al Saud has controlled the state while the Al ash-Sheikh,3 the descendants of Sheikh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792), has controlled the religious institutions. This cooperative and consensual relationship has provided the kingdom with one of the most stable societies in the region and has allowed it to avoid the war and revolution that has wracked nearly every one of its neighbors.
In reaction to what he considered Islam's degeneration, Sheikh ‘Abd al-Wahhab founded what is generally known as Wahhabism, a movement based on a particularly strict interpretation of Islamic law. Among their many regulations, Wahhabis sought separation from non-Muslims; indeed, the strictest of them eschew all contact with Christians, Jews, or other infidels.4 The Saudi ulema today, as in the past, see themselves as guardians of this legacy.
While the ulema hold a variety of positions in Saudi institutions—they are judges (qadis), lawyers (muhama), and prayer leaders (imams)—only a few of them wield real power. Appointed by the king, these latter individuals staff several leading organizations.
Lacking as they do formal control over policymaking, the power of the ulema is missed by many observers in the West, who mistakenly assume that their influence is limited to the religious sphere. In fact, the ulema exercise their sway in subtle, silent ways. While their input varies depending on the domestic circumstances and the strength of the Saud family, the king can never completely ignore them but must take their views into consideration in every choice he makes. The following four political decisions, which baffled many Western analysts at the time, become a bit clearer when the ulema are factored into Saudi decision-making (The Saudi Ulema)