Fighting Words: The Origins Of Religious Violence [Hardcover]

Hector Avalos (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 8, 2005

Is religion inherently violent? If not, what provokes violence in the name of religion? Do we mischaracterize religion by focusing too much on its violent side?

In this intriguing, original study of religious violence, Prof. Hector Avalos offers a new theory for the role of religion in violent conflicts. Starting with the premise that most violence is the result of real or perceived scarce resources, Avalos persuasively argues that religion creates new scarcities on the basis of unverifiable or illusory criteria. Through a careful analysis of the fundamental texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Dr. Avalos explains how four "scarce" resources have figured repeatedly in creating religious violence: sacred space (churches, temples, holy cities); the creation of holy scriptures (exclusive revelations); group privilege (chosen people, the predestined select few); and salvation (only some are saved). Thus, Avalos shows, religious violence is often the most unnecessary violence of all since the scarce resources over which religious conflicts ensue are not actually scarce or need not be scarce.

Comparing violence in religious and nonreligious contexts, Avalos makes the compelling argument that if we condemn violence caused by scarce resources as morally objectionable, then we must consider even more objectionable violence provoked by alleged scarcities that cannot be proven to exist. Moreover, he shows how many modern academic biblical scholars and scholars of religion maintain the value of sacred texts despite their violence.

This serious philosophical examination of the roots of religious violence adds much to our understanding of a perennial source of widespread human suffering.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hector Avalos (Ames, IA) is associate professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University, the author of four books on biblical studies and religion, the former editor of the Journal for the Critical Study of Religion, and executive director of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 444 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (April 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591022843
• ISBN-13: 978-1591022848
• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 6.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #417,514 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet, sweet stuff... January 21, 2006

By Stefan Isaksson

Format:Hardcover

Oh, how I enjoyed reading this book.

I might as well say that right from the start, so I'll get it out of my system. Because I was thinking about it throughout the entire book. Not many books make me think that way, and especially not non-fiction books. But it was truly an honor to read Fighting Words. An honor? Yeah, because I saw it as a privilege to learn what Avalos had to say.

And so much for all that. Now I really should focus on the contents of the book, right? Well, Hector Avalos, anthropologist and associate professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University, has written a book about violence and its importance to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and if that wasn't enough, it's published by Prometheus Books, known to publish books that are - to say the least - quite skeptical towards religions at large.

Avalos uses a very straight-forward methodology. By applying what he calls the "scarce resource theory", he's able to demonstrate how the phenomenon of religion results in conflicts (violence) based on criteria that are unjustifiable and/or false. In other words, the teachings proposed by religious institutions can never be proven or justified, since religions can be defined as teachings using sources from supernatural beings or sources. Religious violence then turns out to be the most unnecessary of all violence, since the conflicts over the scarce resources fist and foremost are based on premises resulting from unjustified sources.

Even though Fighting Words is a brutal critique against religions in general and religious violence in particular, Avalos still is eager to point out that religions have their good sides, too. You don't HAVE to equate religion with violence, obviously some violence is perfectly secular, and a religious worldview doesn't necessary lead to violence. However, what he does say (and argue professionally for) on numerous occasions is that religions - especially Christianity, Islam, and Judaism - is a whole lot more violent that what most people believe or are even willing to admit, academics included. Furthermore, Avalos makes a tough crack against the latter when he shows how many of them continue their apologetic approach despite the fact that the teachings are based on unbelievably bloody and vicious texts and stories.

Fighting Words is sure to stir quite a buzz, since it more or less says that religions should be done away with. Critics of religion will have a field day, and believers will have to face the fact that what they've believed to be messages of love and goodness get a whole different meaning upon closer analysis.

I'm sure to use this book a lot in the future whenever I find myself in a religious debate.

59 of 69 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A brief overview June 26, 2005

By Andrew Lumpkin

Format:Hardcover

Hector Avalos, an anthropologist and avowed secular humanist, provides a scathing critique of religion and its relationship with violence. Avalos uses scarce resource theory in order to show that religion is inherently violent. The author, also, believes that religious violence is always immoral, but this is not necessarily the case for secular violence. In order to achieve these goals, Avalos employs an empirico-rationalist strategy and divides his work into four sections.

In Part I of his book, Avalos looks at historical understandings of the relationship between religion and violence. From Late Antiquity to the Enlightenment, the author outlines theories of violence that have been proposed by prominent intellectual and church leaders. Next, Avalos provides theories from several scientific disciplines in order to show the broad range of theories on violence: biological/evolutionary, psychological, sociological, anthropological, and military. He concludes this part by critiquing the current religious theories on the interaction between religion and violence, examining such authors as Girard, Juergensmeyer, Kimball, and Schwartz.

Part II begins by examining the history of scarce resource theory, first proposed by Thomas Malthus and adapted to cover power dynamics on the familial, national, and global scales. Avalos then proposes his theory: four main scarce resources, ultimately unverifiable or non-existent, have repeatedly generated violence from the inception of religion to the present. Access to divine communication, particularly through inscripturation, becomes scarce when not everyone has access to the communications, usually in writing. Sacred space becomes a scarce resource when not everyone has access to, or the ability to live in, a certain religious area. Group privileging becomes a scarce resource when a certain religious group receives certain benefits, usually economic, that others in proximity do not receive. Salvation itself becomes a scarce resource when it is not available to everyone. Examining the religious texts and prominent historical leaders within the Abrahamic traditions, Avalos shows how violence ensues in each religion due to the creation of each of these four scarce resources. Finally Avalos critiques those scholars who seek to reappropriate or minimize violence within each Abrahamic tradition. Avalos is especially critical of `essentialist' scholars, or those who believe religion is essentially good and violence is a deviant form of religion.

In Part III, Avalos examines violence that is thought to have been caused by secularism or atheism. Avalos aims to show that secular philosophies do not provide as clear a motive for violence as has been proposed. Nazism is not an atheistic political theory, but is based on pseudoscience and biblical concepts of ethnocentrism and genealogical purity. As such, religion was a precursor to German anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Stalinism and the Reign of Terror in the early twentieth century had more political undertones than atheistic. Current understanding of secular violence indicts nationalism and statism as root causes, but Avalos believes that famous instances of violence (e.g., the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre) attributed to the rise of secularized states were the result of religious factors.

Avalos concludes in Part IV, that religion is inherently prone to violence because religion is "predicated on the existence of unverifiable forces and/or beings. This means that disputes and claims are not easily settled by verifiable means, and violence is often the means to settle disputes and claims," (347). The author then seeks to explore the ethics of religious violence. Moral relativism, an academic pejorative, is necessary, and self-interest is the ultimate arbiter of human morality and judgment. As such, religious violence is always immoral, because violence for unverifiable or non-existent resources is more immoral than violence for verifiable and existent resources. Avalos proposes ways in which inscripturation, sacred space, group privileging, and salvation can be minimized to lessen religious violence, but he ultimately concludes that eliminating religion from human life is the correct solution. With these conclusions in mind, Avalos ends his work by applying these principles to American foreign policy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars An Extreme View on Religious Extremism December 23, 2012

By Anne Mills

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book argues -- convincingly -- that the three Abrahamic religions include a lot of justification for violence in their foundational texts. Moreover, it demonstrates that these faiths have been used to justify violence many times in the past, and continue to do so.

Why then only two stars? First, I was not much impressed by the author's argument that this happens because these religions create "scarce resources". The "scarce resources" he cites seem to me more instances of "us-ness" vs. "them-ness" than specifics in their own rights, and that makes it hard for me to see much difference between "religious" violence on the one hand and nationalistic, or ethnic, or political violence on the other. Has not religion in history acted too often as an excuse for violence -- motivated by greed, or by sheer human aggressiveness -- rather than as a cause? Mr. Avalos does not convince me that religiously-induced violence is different from violence attributed to other factors.

Secondly, the author seems to imply that one bad apple (or more accurately a whole bunch of bad apples) turns the whole barrel bad. Yes, there are a lot of things in the Bible and in the Koran that say that violence is acceptable, for religious reasons, in some instances. But there are also a lot of things in the Bible and in the Koran that urge the faithful to be loving, forgiving and non-violent. Clearly, an absolutist on either end of the spectrum --on the one end an atheist, and on the other a devout and fundamentalist Christian, Jew or Muslim -- won't be able to accept a "half full/half empty" view of sacred texts. But for this secular humanist, Mr. Avalos' view is too extreme.