{"id":5213,"date":"2012-10-03T16:51:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T20:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=5213"},"modified":"2012-10-03T16:51:30","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T20:51:30","slug":"unarmed-prophets-stuck-in-a-chinese-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/unarmed-prophets-stuck-in-a-chinese-room.html","title":{"rendered":"Unarmed Prophets Stuck in a Chinese Room"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u00a0received\u00a0a comped copy of\u00a0<\/em>Alone with a Jihadist<\/a> through Speakeasy<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Aaron Taylor spent seven hours arguing with Irish convert to Islam Khalid Kelly as part of a documentary called Holy Wars<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0 After the debate was over, he was troubled by Kelly\u2019s conflation of religion and the state and endorsement of war as evangelization. \u00a0This book lays out his pacifistic theology.<\/p>\n<\/iframe>\nWhen I signed up to review this book, I though more of it would be focused on the debate itself, but the confrontation is mostly limited to the first chapter, and in Taylor\u2019s telling, Kelly isn\u2019t particularly responsive to argument. \u00a0So the rest of the book is mostly Taylor alone.<\/p>\nI didn\u2019t like it. \u00a0To be honest, I found Taylor\u2019s case for pacifism (to which I have sympathy!) to be dense\u00a0and<\/em> shallow. \u00a0The pages are peppered with scripture quotations (opening to random pages to confirm just now, the unusually large font pages often have 2-4 refernces). \u00a0The clustered citations don\u2019t leave much room for exegesis, so the reader has to mostly take Taylor\u2019s word on interpretation.<\/p>\nSo, let me leave off a detailed critique and just pull out one strand of the argument that I found interesting. \u00a0During their initial argument, Kelly tells Taylor that Christianity is a pale shadow of a religion because it\u2019s not prescriptive enough. \u00a0Kelly runs down a list of sins (adultery, blasphemy, etc) that have well defined punishments in his interpretation of Sharia and challenges Taylor to name the equivalent penalties in Christianity. \u00a0When Taylor falters, Kelly concludes:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\u201cYou still haven\u2019t described how you would implement the Bible as a way of life or in government. \u00a0I\u2019ll be honest with you. \u00a0I\u2019m gonna pin you down. \u00a0I don\u2019t think you can\u2026 This is Islamic Sharia. It\u2019s comprehensive.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nKelly seemed to be describing religion as a big moral and legal lookup table, the more detailed the better, and I was reminded of <a href=\"http:\/\/overheardatyds.blogspot.com\/2011\/03\/its-not-complete-list.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">this quote from Overheard at Yale Div School<\/a>, \u201cAny faith tradition worth its salt will tell you what to do with your food, your time, your genitals, and your money.\u00a0 Otherwise it\u2019s not a real religion.\u201d \u00a0But what I was also reminded of was the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chinese_room\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Chinese Room thought experiment<\/a>. \u00a0Here\u2019s how Wikipedia summarizes it:<\/p>\n<blockquote>[S]uppose that there is a program that gives a computer the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation in written Chinese. If the program is given to someone who speaks only English to execute the instructions of the program by hand, then in theory, the English speaker would also be able to carry on a conversation in written Chinese. However, the English speaker would not be able to understand the conversation. Similarly, Searle concludes, a computer executing the program would not understand the conversation either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn the dialogue, Kelly seems to be clinging to the\u00a0comfort<\/em> of a comprehensive rule-based system for laws or morals. \u00a0Kelly doesn\u2019t need to be confused, he can just consult his moral law program and implement the correct answer. \u00a0To me, he sounds like the person in the Chinese room.<\/p>\nWe tend to value human judges for the sake of the person judged. \u00a0A human can take into account context that might not have an input field in your sentencing program. \u00a0But a good system of law seems like it would be good for the judge as well. \u00a0Figuring out how to properly apply a good system of law would help the judge how to exercise and develop her virtues.<\/p>\nThe certainty and precision that Kelly doesn\u2019t leave room for the development of human judgement and character. \u00a0It\u2019s the difference between having a list of formulas for your stat exam and understanding the theory well enough to be able to rederive them if needed. \u00a0Ultimately, we\u2019re trying to grow our moral faculties so that we\u00a0are<\/em> the hypothetical lookup table, and we don\u2019t need to consult an external one.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u00a0received\u00a0a comped copy of\u00a0Alone with a Jihadist through Speakeasy. Aaron Taylor spent seven hours arguing with Irish convert to Islam Khalid Kelly as part of a documentary called Holy Wars. \u00a0 After the debate was over, he was troubled by Kelly\u2019s conflation of religion and the state and endorsement of war as evangelization. \u00a0This book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[181],"class_list":["post-5213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morality-in-practice","category-reviewsrecommendations","tag-offering-resistance"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Unarmed Prophets Stuck in a Chinese Room<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u00a0received\u00a0a comped copy of\u00a0Alone with a Jihadist through Speakeasy. Aaron Taylor spent seven hours arguing with Irish convert to Islam Khalid Kelly as\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/unarmed-prophets-stuck-in-a-chinese-room.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Unarmed Prophets Stuck in a Chinese Room\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u00a0received\u00a0a comped copy of\u00a0Alone with a Jihadist through Speakeasy. 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