Is it 'intolerant' to 'convert' other people?

In our bygone days of youth, we used to have magnificent dreams, dreams that we would soon dispel the darkness from the farthest reaches of the planet, and make the world a happy place for everyone to live in. Today, in our senescence, we instead find ourselves sitting by the fire nodding our heads as we sigh over our heroic but failed attempts. We have been overtaken by fresh blood which lampoons our efforts alleging that we were simply trying to mask our sinister intentions behind grandiloquent slogans. Some of them continue to live uneasily among the broken-down relics of our massive structures, some pick-and-mix fragments from these relics in order to build their own imposing monuments and often deliberately hide their indebtness to us, and some lament that all building activity must now be given up as pointless. Meanwhile, the writing on the wall (that is, whatever is left of the Wall, in Berlin or elsewhere) is clear : All conversion activity is a form of intolerance. Thank you very much, we don't need any more missionaries after the mess that you have made of this lovely, green world of ours. Just leave us alone, will you?

'We' therefore stand accused at the altar of the Goddess (or, God?) called Tolerance. As counsel for the defence in this post, I plead guilty to the crime of often having used dishonest, disreputable, atrocious and violent means in our desire to convert. I willingly and sincerely accept the corrective punishment in some 'penitentiary centre' of having to rethink over what went wrong that led us to resort to violent means in our desire to reach out to the others. However, I also state in the same breath that we must most carefully and resolutely separate (a) the desire to convert others from (b) the tools or methods that are used to express this desire. Indeed, I shall argue more than this : it is possible that even our accusers who now sit smugly on the benches out there, smiling cynically at us, have not completely given up (a), they have only changed the nature of (b) that they use.

The desire to bring others around to our point of view is a very common human desire, though there are significant differences among human beings as to the extent to which they may have this desire. I shall refer to people who have this desire, to a greater or lesser extent, as Evangelists. More specifically, I shall define an Evangelist as a person who (E1) believes that she has a certain message to offer to the world which she thinks is currently engaging in behaviour that is terribly dangerous, or holding beliefs which are highly misguided, and (E2) hopes that the world will come around from its current state of affairs by accepting her message and undergoing a process of reformation. Different Evangelists will, however, express (E1) and (E2) in divergent ways : for some, all human beings must hear this message, for others, it is sufficient that only a few come to hear/accept it; again, for some, it is most urgent that this message is heard by everyone immediately, for others, it may be reasonable to expect that it will take a few generations before it becomes widely-known; for some, it is necessary that the others, after hearing the message, actually undergo a metanoia and cross, once and for all, the threshold that clearly separates the old life from the new, for others, it may be enough to have sown some seeds of doubt in the minds and hearts of the hearers.

Let me explain these differences by contrasting a woman's (possible) relationship to feminist theory with my personal liking for Beethoven's symphony No 9. A feminist is, roughly speaking, a woman who believes that all women who inhabit religious world-views have their lives greviously damaged since such englobing perspectives are rooted in patriarchal assumptions. As for my like of that symphony of Beethoven, I believe that listening to it would be a good experience for other people, if they had the means and the time to do so. Therefore, both a feminist and I are Evangelists, but now note the differences between us. Firstly, the feminist would like to ensure that everyone (that is, every man and every woman) in this world comes to hear about her analysis of the patriarchal foundations of human society; as for myself, I would admit only too readily that for a beggar it is infinitely more important to save money to buy a loaf of bread than to listen to that symphony. That is, the feminist's Evangelism is universal in a sense that mine is not. Secondly, for the feminist it is extremely important that every human being comes to know about her analyses as soon as possible (and, even better, accepts them too), whereas I really couldn't care how many more years it takes before everyone on this planet listens to that Beethoven symphony.

Indeed, it is may be the case that there is something of an Evangelist slumbering deep even within those of us who may otherwise claim not to have any such evangelical intentions. To be sure, we may not quite have the sense of urgency that (many) feminists do, but in our daily interactions with our friends and relatives, and in the processes of telling them what is right and what is not, what we like and what we do not, what we would want them to like and what we would not, we may be living, unbeknownst to ourselves, very much as Evangelists. On the basis of this discussion, then, let us ask : is every attempt at conversion, or, to use my terms, at Evangelism (in the sense (a) above) necessarily ruled out by a vague appeal to the divinity of Tolerance? If we reply in the affirmative, it would imply that we must ban all feminist literature, as well prohibit the (the thousands of) subtle and express attempts at Evangelism that we make on a daily basis with those who live with and around us. Hold on tight, for here is more trouble to come.

(1) There are anti-smoking Evangelists all over the United Kingdom who wish to have smoking banned in public places. That is, they believe that something is terribly wrong with a world where smoking is allowed in public spaces (E1), and they campaign for a different world where people will come to see the terrible mess that they have made by allowing such smoking, and will repent and change their laws (E2).

(2) Marxist theorists have regularly pointed out how religious systems are embedded within inegalitarian structures, and how the latter have entrenched themselves even more firmly by making use of legitimising doctrines provided to them by the former. They believe that currently a large proportion of human beings lives within oppressive systems (E1), and would wish to bring it about that these latter are dismantled and more 'transparent' ones are established in their place (E2).

(3) Parents are Evangelists too, and if Evangelism is to be forbidden, so too must parenthood for parents wish to bring up their children according to a specific set of norms and values. For example, if you are born into an orthodox Jewish family, you shall be brought up as a Jew (and be taught that 'being Jewish' is a live option for you in a sense that 'being Marxist' is not); and exactly a similar pattern of argument applies irrespective of whether the family you are born into is Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Taoist, Sikh, Confucian, neo-Pagan, Shinto, Theosophist, Anthroposophist, Buddhist, Jaina and so on. An atheist couple may like to self-congratulate themselves with the belief that they have escaped the conceptual net of this argument; as a matter of fact, however, they have not. It is very likely that an atheist couple will bring up their children to be atheists, and would be, I strongly suspect, mortally grieved to learn that one of their children has become, say, a Muslim. Whether explicitly or implicitly, parents believe that there are certain aspects of the world 'out there' that are nasty, bad, brutish, and dangerous (E1), and they either wish to (actively) change those aspects so that the world becomes a 'better place' for their children to live in, or, at least, (passively) to keep their children away from them (E2). It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that every type of education (whether it is religious, secular, liberal, post-liberal, feminist, post-feminist, atheistic, agnostic, Marxist, critical Marxist, and so on) is, at some level or the other, a form of Evangelism, whether this is kept disguised or made explicit. Therefore, to rule that (a), the desire to convert others, must be declared illegal is tantamount to saying that all schools and universities must be razed to the ground.

(4) There are some thinkers in the 'Western' world, usually (though not necessarily) from an atheist background, who claim that in discussing crucial ('public'/'scientific') issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and stem-cell research, people should not make appeals to ('private'/'traditional') religious sources. Therefore, such thinkers believe that there is something very wrong with a world where such appeals are made (E1), and claim that we should strive to establish a new world where these appeals are declared to be illegal (E2). Consequently, such atheism too is a form of Evangelism, this time an Evangelism which believes that things would work out better for everyone if it were possible to remove voices stemming from a religious context from the 'naked public square'.

(5) The contemporary nation-state itself engages in an active 'mission' of Evangelisation in order to spread its secular nationalism through a process in which older religious-sounding terms are 'translated', wherever possible, into their secularised versions. For example, martyrdom is redefined as death in a war waged by the nation-state, blasphemy is now rather to be understood as treason against it, and the notion of worship is reconceptualised as the ultimate loyalty to it, a loyalty that is to be expressed through national anthems, commemoration ceremonies, and the retelling of the lives of its historical founders.

In short, if we say that (a), namely, the desire to convert others, must be rooted out and branded a form of intolerance, all feminist literature must at once be consigned to the flames, all anti-smoking Evangelists imprisoned, Marxist theorists driven underground, parenthood abolished, the views of (militant) atheists proscribed, and the very existence of the nation-state declared illegitimate. Would that not simply become yet another example of how some of the greatest types of intolerance in human history have been sanctioned in the 'name of Tolerance'?

Let us now take up what I shall call the 'litmus-test' of anti-Evangelism : Is postmodernism, and particularly the version of it that (apparently) sets its face against all activities of conversion as being 'imperialistic', 'paternalistic' and 'totalitarian', itself a kind of Evangelism? To be such a postmodernist you must (a) believe that there is something grievously wrong with the world 'out there' where believers in some meta-narrative or the other such as Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Marxists, atheists, 'scientists' and so on are trying their best to convert one another, and (b) either have a mild occasional wish that the world was not such, or have a stronger desire to somehow (though you-know-not-how) bring it about that such conversion activity came to an immediate halt. Now in terms of my definition above, (a) here corresponds to E1, and (b) to E2, which is to say that this version of postmodernism too is a form of Evangelism. In fact, the only absolutely consistent non-Evangelical postmodernist would be a person who withdraws to the silence-wrapped heights of the Himalayas straight-away and never utters, ever again, a single word for the remainder of her life. Anything that she might say thereafter (either as an affirmation or as a denial; or as a denial of either of these alternatives; or as a denial of a denial of .....) will be taken as evidence, against her alleged non-Evangelism, in a court of law.

Why is it the case, then, that some world-views seem to be more Evangelical than others? For example, it is more common to come across a Christian, a secular nationalist, or a Marxist Evangelist than, say a Hindu or a Jaina one (or, at least, this was the case until very recently). The reason for this is that Evangelism belongs to the 'intrinsic core' of beliefs of certain world-views, while in others it may be an optional extra that lies at the periphery. For example, if you believe that human beings have only one life-time in which to undergo a decisive change from the present empirical conditions of finitude to an infinitely better state to be established in the future, you are more likely to exhibit greater Evangelical zeal than someone who believes that this perfection can be attained over several life-times. Therefore, as a Marxist it might be imperative for you to go out into the world straight-away and try to make Marxists out of everyone; as a Hindu, on the other hand, you could sit at home and actively hope that those who are, say, Jews and atheists in this birth will, during and over a period of future world-orders, come to be born into a Hindu family, and thereby proceed towards final liberation. This, incidentally, is not to claim that Hinduism is more 'tolerant' than Marxism, for the basic issue in this context is the validity of the truth-claims that are being raised within the Marxist and the Hindu horizons respectively. If a Marxist can provide sufficient reason why a Hindu should not have epistemic confidence in the doctrine of karma and reincarnation, this Evangelical act on the part of the Marxist should rather be viewed as being truly 'tolerant', for this is the act of bringing the Hindu out of her former ignorance to the truth of the matter concerning this doctrine.

In a similar fashion, a Buddhist who believes that the route to liberation from this world of suffering is through the four Noble Truths, which apply to all sentient beings, is likely to display greater Evangelical fervour than someone who thinks that there is, in fact, no such route, or someone who believes, for whatever reasons, that this liberation is possible through alcoholism, or someone who claims that even if one knows about such a route, one should not reveal it to one's neighbours. Again, an atheist who believes that she has a 'duty towards humankind' to expose the illusions that religious believers suffer from will tend to have more Evangelical zest than an atheist who believes that religious folk are in any case incorrigible and should be left to their own devices.

In short, different Evangelists display varying levels of Evangelical enthusiasm, and this is partly related to the differences among the world-views that they inhabit. Let us now move on to (b), that is, the question of the variety of tools that people use (and have used) to express their desire to convert others to their view-point, and it is actually here that most of the trouble starts brewing.

Historically speaking, it is true that Evangelists of a religious persuasion have often used force and compulsion to bring people over to their world-views. Muslims and Christians, in particular, have received quite a bad press in this matter and it is this historical record that rouses the strong passions of many people whenever they come across the phrase 'religious conversion' (which is a more specific case of what I have termed Evangelism and which includes 'conversion to atheism' too). However, in order that we do not commit the fallacy of mistaking what is contingent for what is necessary, we must be patient and willing to (a) find out if there really is a logically necessary connection between the desire for conversion and the use of disreputable and violent tools in that specific religion, and (b) to read what inhabitants of that religion have themselves said about those specific historical instances where violent tools may have been used. To take the case of Christianity, for example, a careful study of its doctrinal history will reveal, firstly, that there is no such connection, and secondly, that many Christians themselves have come to recognise that certain activities that earlier went under the label of 'conversion' were, in fact, betrayals of the Gospel. There is, in other words, no reason to believe that all religious conversion necessarily goes with violent means; much of conversion activity is carried out today through the means of persuasion, discussion, presentation of one's views, and dialogue with others. Indeed, if anything, it is the opposite impression that may be need to corrected in some contexts; that is, we may need to be re-assured that in spite of all the Hitlers and the Stalins of the world, the desire to convert other people to (some kind of) an atheist world-view need not necessarily be expressed through deceitful and violent tools.

Let us take one specific example from the Indian context. The question is sometimes raised, especially in political and legal circles, as to whether or not (Indian) Muslims and Christians should be given the right to convert non-Muslims and non-Christians (and this question acts as a sure red flag to the bulls of historical research who routinely point out instances of Muslim/Christian 'intolerance'). To rephrase the question in my terms, should Indian Muslims and Indian Christians be given the right to Evangelise?, and in order to show why they should be given this right, I shall point out some of the implications of declaring Evangelisation to be illegal.

(1) Let us say that a certain group declares that such Evangelisation is illegal. This group would then have to make at least one claim, X such that X : Muslims and Christians should not be allowed to Evangelise. Now X can be further 'broken down' into X1 : There is something very wrong about living in a world where Muslims and Christians have this right (which corresponds to E1), and X2 : We must do something to bring it about that they do not enjoy this right in the future (and this corresponds to E2). Therefore, those who put forward X are themselves, according to my terms, Evangelists, and having put forward this claim X, members of this group would themselves have to first Evangelise others over to their view, X. That is, if I happen to be neither Muslim nor Christian and yet refuse to accept X (for example, I could be a militant atheist in Bangalore or a Marxist in Kolkata who is aware that my right to Evangelise others to my atheism or my Marxism may be taken away, by subsequent extension of X), this group will first have to Evangelise me, either through persuasion or physical threats , so that I come to accept X. Therefore, the very act of declaring Evangelisation to be illegal presupposes that Evangelisation is not, in fact, illegal! One way out of this tangle is, of course, to make a difference between 'two types of Evangelisation' by putting forward the claim Y, such that Y : Only non-Muslims and non-Christians should be allowed to Evangelise one another. Even in this case, however, one would still need to Evangelise, only that this time it will be the Muslims and the Christians who would not readily accept Y and who will, therefore, have to be evangelised! Once again, then, the proclaimed illegality of Evangelism at one (lower?) level would be presupposed by its assumed legality at another (higher?) level.

(2) It is possible that the group that makes the claim X is from some kind of a 'Hindu' background (though the question of how justified the group would be in identifying itself as 'Hindu' is a different matter). Suppose, however, that there is another group, members of which call themselves Indian 'secularists' and who make the same claim X : a similar argument to the one above could then be made against this latter group too. It can be argued that these people too have their own brand of Evangelism, an Evangelism to spread 'secularism' (ES) throughout the length and the breadth of the country. Therefore, if Muslims and Christians are not be allowed their own Evangelisms (EM, EC) it must first be pointed out precisely what it is about these latter Evangelisms that cannot be accomodated within the broader framework of a 'secular' state. It may be replied that EM and EC make 'absolute truth-claims', and such claims cannot be permissible since they threaten to tear apart its secular fabric. Possibly so, but we must also keep in mind that ES itself goes with an absolute truth-claim A, such that A : It is an absolute truth that given the socio-cultural context of India, only that secularism that 'respects all religions' and makes no discrimination among citizens on the basis of their religious background can be accepted. I do not deny, of course, that there are people who would reject A, but it is a fact that most people who do accept A accept it as an 'absolute' non-negotiable claim. If that be so, one would need to show specifically what it is about the 'absolute' claims of Islam and Christianity that immediately disqualifies them from being raised within the horizons of the 'secular' nation. Moreover, Marxist and feminist theory can be easily 'translated', though, of course, in very different ways, into sets of absolute truth-claims too; therefore, unless Indian Marxists and Indian feminists qua Marxists and feminists are to be banned from 'public life', there is not much plausibility for prohibiting EM and EC on the mere grounds that these latter come packaged with 'absolute' claims.

(3) One aspect of Indian secularism is that the nation-state shall 'respect' all religions, and it can be argued that in order to respect a certain world-view the very least that one must do is not to actually hinder those who inhabit it from carrying out certain practices that directly follow from its 'innermost core' of beliefs. To take the case of Christianity, one belief that belongs to this core is that God's love for humanity has been revealed through the Crucifixion-and-Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that those who have accepted, in faith, this Good News should spread it to their friends and neighbours. Therefore, a Christian could argue that she wishes to deliver this News to those around her, and claim that she would not be able to identify herself as Christian in a nation-state where she is forbidden to do so. That is, Indian secularism can be said to 'respect' Christianity only when it allows EC, for EC is not an 'optional extra' but belongs to the very heart of the Christian scheme of things (and similar arguments apply for EM, and, as I have pointed out above, for (Indian) Marxism and feminism too).

(4) Let us say that someone wishes to remain within the context of Indian secularism (as defined above) and yet denies (the validity of) EC and EM. This could be for various reasons : it may be so that the person has a vague sense of uneasiness with any world-view that makes 'absolute' claims, or may be she objects to certain beliefs and practices within the Christian or Muslim world-views, or perhaps she believes that all religious belief is a pernicious error, and so on. This is a very different type of argument as compared to the ones that we have examined in (1) - (3). The issues that we were discussing earlier were centred around the question of whether any Evangelisation is to be allowed within the socio-political contours of the Indian nation-state, and we came to the conclusion that the declaration that all Evangelisation is, in principle, illegal would subvert itself (for this declaration itself would then be a masked form of Evangelisation). This time, however, we come to the more exciting, and also infinitely more difficult, question of which type of Evangelisation is the correct one : is it the Evangelisation activities carried out by the (Indian) Marxists, the secularists, the Christians, the Muslims, the (militant) atheists, the feminists, the Hindus, or the Buddhists? Here we must be careful not to confuse two logically very different forms of parity : legal parity and epistemic parity. By the former, I mean that all the above-mentioned world-views, and consequently the forms of Evangelisations associated with them, enjoy equal legal sanction from the nation-state. However, it is not for the nation-state to declare that inhabitants of one specific world-view should also regard all other world-views as being on epistemic par with one another. For example, an Indian Muslim may come to the conclusion, (possibly) through a study of Islam and discussions with, say, Hindus, Marxists, and Christians, that Islam is for her a doxastic practice that places within a comprehensive conceptual structure every facet of her existence in a manner that Hinduism, Marxism and Christianity are incapable of doing. And, of course, the (Indian) Hindu, the Marxist, and the Christian can all come to their own respective conclusions about why their specific world-view, and the consequent Evangelisation, is such a 'comprehensive conceptual structure' for them. It is crucial to note here that there is nothing intrinsic to the notion of 'Indian secularism' that can make such declarations invalid. That is, though (Indian) Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and Marxists are all given equal legal sanction to practise their Evangelisations, people belonging to any one of these forms of life cannot be compelled to declare that their own and those of others around them enjoy epistemic parity as well. An Indian Marxist can continue to make --- at the epistemic level --- the 'absolute' claim that all religious belief is a dangerous illusion, while allowing --- at the legal level --- others around her to practise their own Evangelisations, whether or not these latter are religious, atheist, or agnostic. There is nothing 'intolerant' about this; ironically, it is the refusal to patiently listen to the Marxist and to take her truth-claim seriously by making invocations to the elusive authority of Tolerance that should be regarded as a form of intolerance.

(5) Finally, a tricky case from the long and turbulent history of the Christian Evangelical enterprise in India : Christian Evangelists are often accused of making 'converts' out of Hindus and Muslims by promising them financial incentives. Let us examine the issue from four different stand-points :

(a) One Christian Evangelist could put forward the following argument : "If I were to see a hungry man on the street and I had some money in my pocket, I could not care less what religion he puts down as his own on the census form. I shall immediately see in him 'Christ, hungry and naked', and I shall try to help him. This help can be of two types. One is, of course, the immediate one of giving him some food to eat. The other is the more enduring one of trying to find some job that he can take up, and thereby earn some money for his needs. Now it may so happen that after some time, this man on the street becomes curious to know what exactly it is about my set of beliefs that led me to help him on that day; and then I shall introduce him to the Good News of Christianity. To carry on, he may actually accept, in faith, this News and be baptised into the community, or he may not. If, however, he does receive baptism, he has done this out of his own free choice; there is not the slightest element of compulsion involved in the process. What you might now argue is that when I helped that man on the street that day I did this with the hope that he would finally become a Christian someday. I do not, in fact, deny that this is the case, but I ask you to tell me what precisely is wrong with having such a hope. Unless you can give me reasons to believe that the following truth-claim X is invalid, where X : Christ, our Lord, died for us, and He wishes us to turn to Him, I do not see why I should abandon the hope that others around me will, in fact, go to Him when I tell them about Him."

(b) Another Christian Evangelist, possibly a variety that goes under the label 'Franciscan', could pick up the argument from there and chirp in : "You are probably making a distinction between, roughly speaking, 'spirituality' and 'economics' which leads you to believe that the latter has nothing to do with the former. As a matter of fact, however, the way in which I understand my Christianity asks me to believe that no such separation is possible, so that when I feed and clothe a hungry beggar on the street this act is very much a part of my 'spirituality'. Therefore, when you (implicitly) demand that I talk about God only within the churches and not help those on the streets, you are effectively demanding that I stop being Christian. This demand, however, would go against the very foundations of your 'Indian secularism'."

(c) A third Christian Evangelist now comes in : "You are possibly arguing that any act of helping the beggar must be prohibited if this act can be shown to flow from certain (background) motives. In my case, the 'motive' is that I wish to obey the commandment to help the beggar, a commandment which was (derivatively) given to me by my Lord, Jesus Christ, when he (ultimately) ordered us to love our neighbours. In that case, however, neither would a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an atheist, or a Marxist, be allowed to help a beggar since in each of these cases the act would flow from some motive or the other. Even if an Indian claims to have no 'world-view' whatsoever and yet helps the beggar, she would still be acting out of a certain 'motive' which in her case would be : I am motivated to help this beggar by my belief that it is a good thing to do so. Therefore, if you want to claim that the mere existence of a motive is sufficient reason to forbid the act of helping a beggar, you shall have to be more specific and now say that no such act is to be allowed only if this follows from a specifically Christian motive. This move, however, cannot be made unless you can show what is so disreputable about this motive that it must be declared to be illegitimate within the horizons of 'Indian secularism'."

(d) A fourth Christian Evangelist may wish to conclude this discussion with these remarks : "A lot depends on how that term 'incentive' is understood. Some of us in the past may have put forward financial gains to Hindus and Muslims with the hope that this promise will necessarily activate faith in the Gospel in them. They were certainly wrong in this matter of using deceitful means for a living faith in the reality of God can only come as a divine gift; it cannot be earned or bought through any human tools. However, some of us have often invited Hindus and Muslims to be a part of our community and share in our liturgical practices of worshipping God whose love for us was revealed through the Son, Jesus Christ. They have become our truly intimate neighbours, and we are commanded by our Lord to love them, and surely, one aspect of loving them involves helping them with their financial needs. Unless you wish to claim that it is wrong to offer financial help to your own close friends, you cannot demand that we stop doing the same and not help these new friends of ours if they may have such needs. This is not to say, as you falsely believe or wrongly suspect, that we give them money in order that they may become our friends; rather, it is because they have (already) been made our friends-in-Christ, and not solely by us but ultimately by Christ Himself, that we wish to give them monetary help (and, for that matter, any other help that we are capable of). By misjudging the nature of cause-and-effect involved in this process, you wrongly think that the alleged 'incentive' comes before a person becomes a member of our community, whereas, in truth, it comes after."

Let me summarise : (1) The prosecution has not made its case that the desire to convert must be made illegal, not least because the people who argue for this move are themselves trying to convert others (either through 'rational persuasion' or by 'legal force') to their view! (2) The (legitimate) demand that violent methods be given up in converting others must not be confused with the claim that the desire to convert others is itself illegitimate. (3) Nor must it be thought that Evangelism is always connected with the propagation of 'religious belief'; not to mention the (non-religious) feminist and the militant atheist, almost every kind of a (possibly non-religious) postmodernist is also an Evangelist. Therefore, if we still wish to hold on to the notion that Evangelism (or 'conversion') is a form of intolerance, we must be willing to accept that this intolerance applies to militant atheism and (almost every version of) postmodernism too. (4) To claim that members of certain traditions such as Islam (or, for that matter, Marxism) have used, in the past, violent means to propagate their views may be very good history. However, to jump (or, even more strongly, to argue that this jump is logically necessitated) from this sound historical observation to the unwarranted conclusion that all the truth-claims made within Islam (or Marxism) are thereby falsified at one stroke is but a manifestation of slipshod thinking. Just as Newton's 'law of universal gravitation' is not falsified by the mere fact that a tyrant of a school teacher beats his students for forgetting it, so too the question of the validity of the claims made within a world-view and the historical record of how these claims were propagated are two issues that are, and must be kept, conceptually distinct.