1. Comment #81955 by sidfaiwu on October 25, 2007 at 12:51 pm

And if all were moderates and didn't hurt anybody, then I wouldn't have a problem with religion. But a sizable minority are harmful extremists that vote and shape harmful policies.

Other Comments by sidfaiwu

2. Comment #81956 by Corky on October 25, 2007 at 12:51 pm

It is only the extremists who are the problem but there would not be any extremists except for the moderates from which the extremists found their roots.

Other Comments by Corky

3. Comment #81973 by steve99 on October 25, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Even moderate people use religion to support their prejudices (such as homophobia). Supposedly mainstream and moderate religious leaders campaign on matters such as birth control, gay rights and so on, in ways that can definitely do harm.

Other Comments by steve99

4. Comment #81980 by Diacanu on October 25, 2007 at 1:30 pm

The moderates give the wacko leaders their power base.



Other Comments by Diacanu

5. Comment #82004 by Kinzuakid on October 25, 2007 at 2:16 pm

The simple response:
The extremists define the moderates, since after all the term "moderate" is relative only to the absolute limit. The only difference between those who hold the extremes and those in the middle is their willingness to act, not in their approval of the cause. This is evident through the sheer number of polls in so called moderate nation states where the believers approve of barbarism but would reportedly never engage in such behavior themselves. I make no such distinction between the end and the middle, both are guilty while none will act to counter.

But turn it back on them:
If we take the extreme view of a philosophy to be "violent" the moderate view is not "non-violent" but simply less violent. Notice how the moderate person does not outright repudiate the extremist, only looking on with some disdain. The views of the extremist are still valid to the moderate and simply distasteful in some sense (hence the hedging by claiming moderation). What prevents the moderate from acting to counter or escalate the violence (and thus become non-moderate)? Doubt? Fear? The "not a true believer" cop out? Any answer is an indictment of the middle. If it were a ground to be held with some cause it would be the extreme, and thus begin anew with the question: if the extreme is not in the "right", how is less of it any more correct?

Sorry, brevity is not my strong suit.

Other Comments by Kinzuakid

6. Comment #82016 by Not the Messiah on October 25, 2007 at 2:36 pm

Most people are genial, emotionally stable and contribute positively to society, whether religious or not, so this is no great claim for the merits of religion. Sociopaths tend to be a minority amongst any arbitrary group of human beings.

(As an aside, I find it disconcerting when Christians, faced with a list of atrocities committed in the name of their faith, effectively respond with the defence "At least we're not as bad as Stalin or Hitler!" Can anyone think of a weaker boast?)

The point is that when you promote the idea that moral guidance can be found in ambiguous and contradictory texts written hundreds of years ago; or worse, that the man in the funny hat speaks with the full authority of God, then you create a framework wherein any action, no matter how despicable, may be morally justified in the minds of the perpetrators.

There is no dividing line between moderates and extremists, only a slippery slope.

.

Other Comments by Not the Messiah

7. Comment #82031 by Clear_enGlish on October 25, 2007 at 3:04 pm

There were lots of nice moderate Irish Americans who got quite a little kick out of putting something in the hat for "The Boys".

Other Comments by Clear_enGlish

8. Comment #82039 by Mewtwo_X on October 25, 2007 at 3:22 pm

"My argument is against religion, not the religious."

Other Comments by Mewtwo_X

9. Comment #82056 by Crosius on October 25, 2007 at 3:42 pm

I don't think any religious person self-identifies as an "extremist," even though many of the religious who advance this argument _are_ extremists by someone else's measure.

If you stood every religious person in a line ranked from most to least extreme, you'd only have one person in that line that everyone _else_ considered an extremist, and he'd probably protest that characterisation as "unfair."

If you then set the midpoint of that line as the dividing line between extremist and non-extremist, you'd still have many people in the "moderate" half who the rest of the moderates would _still_ consider extremists. You could slice the remaining non-extremists fraction in half again and still, there would be members of _that_ group considered extremists by the rest.

With only those two divisions, you would demonstrate that the total number of non-extremist religious persons would necessarily total something less than 1/4 of the total religious population of the world.

Other Comments by Crosius

10. Comment #82059 by Goldy on October 25, 2007 at 3:46 pm

Some 36 per cent of British Muslims between the ages of 18 and 24 think apostates should be murdered.

I guess they're all extremists? From J hari's piece in the Indy - on another thread

Other Comments by Goldy

11. Comment #82210 by EastCoastAtheist on October 25, 2007 at 9:52 pm

This has nothing to do with truth. A harmless delusion is still a delusion.

Also, the harmless deluded drones vote. And they vote the way they are told to vote. This is a problem, and it can have very negative effects on other people's lives. If only these people were taught to think critically.

Other Comments by EastCoastAtheist

12. Comment #82218 by Bonzai on October 25, 2007 at 10:17 pm

steve99 wrote

Even moderate people use religion to support their prejudices (such as homophobia). Supposedly mainstream and moderate religious leaders campaign on matters such as birth control, gay rights and so on..

Actually you don't need religion to be a homophobe. I know quite a few very homophobic atheists. Usually they argue that homosexuality is a sickness or they object to the aesthetic of two men kissing, etc. These are not valid reasons, but they are entirely secular.

On the other hand there are Christians who support same sex marriage and gay rights in general. I am not just talking about the wishy washy moderates, there are committed Christians who genuinely believe that gay rights is an integral part of social justice and their faith demands them to take a supportive stance. While the C of E leadership is guilty of cowardice on gay issues, but the very fact that there is a threat of schism indicates the Church is not uniformly homophobic.

I don't think religious belief in and of itself necessarily causes social harm. It depends on the content of the specific beliefs in question. Religion is not a stand alone institution and religious people don't live apart from the society. Religion as practiced by most believers tend to get integrated into the ambient social zeitgeist to varying degrees. With very few exceptions, most believers don't run their lives according to an overarching religious agenda.

Other Comments by Bonzai

13. Comment #82228 by Eric Blair on October 25, 2007 at 10:37 pm

I'm surprised more people here haven't provided some numbers in reply to this question, challenging the idea that most religious people are "moderates."

A related reply is to question what the definition of a moderate is.

These are really the only valid responses. The rest, trying to establish a continuum between moderates and extremists, is simply opinion -- one way of looking at the facts of religious belief and believers.

To me, it's just as valid to say moderate Christians (and I do specify Christians) because they generally accept the post-Enlightenment notion of a secular "public arena" have more in common with humanists and liberal-democratic atheists than with extremist Christians or Muslims or Jews.

Sorry, this isn't really a rebuttal but then I agree with the headline argument. I also think, given the kinds of social and political issues related to diversity all our nations are facing these days, these debates may be amusing games but they don't add a lot to the key discussions that need to go on.

EB

Other Comments by Eric Blair

14. Comment #82266 by MuNky82 on October 26, 2007 at 1:07 am

Copy and paste of a post I made today on a Facebook cause called "Keep God in Schools". There was some impromptu debate on the main page and the conversation line went to judgmental Christians. I paste my comment here even though I feel this can be used on different debate points too. Anyway:

"That is the problem I have stressed. Christianity has a lot of good things (heck, most religions do) But the problem is the good things are the hook, and thus The Bad Things (slavery, prejudice, bigotry, genocide) must be accepted/tolerated too. That is a point I am making - a moderate caring compassionate reasonable Christian will tolerate the hard lined bible-slapping fundaMENTALS because they are Christian too. How about you disperse the common denominator between the two? (I know it is a difficult proposition since we are talking about your faith and soul here) But you have to be frustrated with God/Jesus if he allow such perversion in His name. You have to remember too that the God of Abraham is also known as Allah, and some strong believers in Allah flew into some buildings a while back. Some of these believers feel it is alright to cut the throats of young children to get their point across. You cannot blame them, since their interpretations and religious morality is somewhat medieval - people did this in the name of Christ as well a few centuries ago. Luckily Westerners had some enlightenment of reason in the mean while. But still we cling to some of our beliefs, the same beliefs that not only allowed, but inspired so many horrors. You have to be frustrated with an invisible being, whose only actions seem to be indirect coincidences, for allowing such problems in His name. You have to maybe realize that these beliefs and faiths might seem a bit silly in the face of these evidence to the contrary. And if you say that things are improving, then what about the millions of innocent souls lost in the process? What happened to the souls in the thousands of years before Christ? What happened to the souls of those sacrificed on the Aztec altars? Doesn't the presumably strongest sentient force (which has been accredited with love and compassion) in the universe seem a bit horrible in this light? Think about it."

Other Comments by MuNky82

15. Comment #82279 by Philip1978 on October 26, 2007 at 1:44 am

I have always thought that all the moderates I have ever met are wonderful, jovial and less harmless people but I still think they do provide the platform on which the extremists stand. Without their firm belief in the basics there would never be anything to take that one step further- the basics being firm belief in a God and adherences to the doctrines ordered by that religion. Its like saying "I believe in the God of the Bible, I just ignore the more ferocious parts of it".

What I want to do is stay very clear of generalisations, I hear it all too much about atheists to last a life time

However, I don't think moderate religion is anywhere near as harmless as they are made out to be. I think religion in itself is as BillySands coined the phrase "Mental Torture". Religion to me, I dont care what faith it is, is this belief that if you do what you think a higher power wants you to do in life, rewards will be given. Should you break one of these rules you are then putting the most unnecessary pressure on yourself, you are mentally torturing yourself because you have somehow offended this higher power. Be it the most minor thing, you can still blame yourself for your lack of adherence to the rules of that faith. So then you beg this higher power for forgiveness, worse still you pray to have this God to set things right. Which leads nicely onto prayer...

Prayer is a waste of sodding time, Yes, No, Maybe later is not the most convincing way of KNOWING that your particular God answers prayer. If it doesn't happen you are left thinking, "shit, I have offended Him somehow!" and possibly start inventing reasons why you have offended Him.

If things are going well, yippiee, a nice cosy feeling of well being and arent I a good believer!

All if this is mental delusion and this is the reason I think moderate religion is harmful, thinking that you KNOW what the invisible thinks is just positively nasty in my opinion, the rules are so ambiguous, nothing gets done and you can punish yourself for the most ridiculous of things.


Of course the obvious response to all this is "Oh but that's not how MY God works, noooo, its not like that at all!"

I say it is THEIR God, if they pray, if they believe in an invisible being who is supposed to have an effect on theirs or the whole world's population then there is some reason that they are mentally deluding themselves and possibly psychologically damaging themselves over nothing.

Moderate religion is fantastically harmless and should not be encouraged too much, if they have these basic beliefs then its no wonder some people take it several horrible steps further to the extreme and dangerous levels.

Ok rant over, apologies to all! Must be the fundamentalist atheist mindset I have :)

Philip

Other Comments by Philip1978

16. Comment #82288 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 2:21 am

Religious moderates prepare the ground for new fundamentalists, and shield the existing ones from open criticism, when they insist that all faith should be respected. While there is a taboo against criticising faith we can't adequately combat violent fundamentalism.

Other Comments by bitbutter

17. Comment #82291 by Bonzai on October 26, 2007 at 2:28 am

Religious moderates prepare the ground for new fundamentalists, and shield the existing ones from open criticism, when they insist that all faith should be respected

Very often the most vocal criticisms of the fundamentalists come from moderates. If religious people always close ranks simply because they share a nominal belief there wouldn't have been heretic burning and sect wars.

Instead of reciting canned responses from Dawkins or Harris like religious incantations atheists should filter them through their brains first. Afterall we are supposed to be "free thinkers".

Other Comments by Bonzai

18. Comment #82296 by Juleofdenial on October 26, 2007 at 2:41 am

In my experience the moderates are harmless until confronted with atheism...then their true colors of being fundamental extremists come out.

Other Comments by Juleofdenial

19. Comment #82301 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 2:56 am

@Bonzai

Instead of reciting canned responses from Dawkins or Harris like religious incantations atheists should filter them through their brains first. Afterall we are supposed to be "free thinkers".

[rolls eyes] And a fellow 'free thinker' should be prepared to allow that people who cite Dawkins and others may well be thinking for themselves and may have decided that Dawkins is right, and that his formulation of the problem is the most succinct one they've come across.

Very often the most vocal criticisms of the fundamentalists come from moderates.

I don't know if this is true. It certainly doesn't match my experience. Edit: Now i think about it you might be right, but the criticism from moderates is almost always accompanied by an attempt to protect religion from criticism "The attacker was not a real X". By deflecting the blame from faith in this way it may be that they do more harm than if they had just stayed silent.

In any case, even if it's true that moderates strongly criticise fundamentalists it's irrelevant to what I wrote:

Religious moderates prepare the ground for new fundamentalists, and shield the existing ones from open criticism, when they insist that all faith should be respected.

Other Comments by bitbutter

20. Comment #82306 by Bonzai on October 26, 2007 at 3:07 am

I have never heard any religious moderate saying point blank that all faiths have to be respected. I challenge you to show me any Christian who is not a member of the Westeboro Baptist Church who insists that we should respect Phelps because of his faith.

Other Comments by Bonzai

21. Comment #82309 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 3:14 am

@Bonzai

I have never heard any religious moderate saying point blank that all faiths have to be respected.

Then you've never entered this google search "all faiths should be respected" school

Other Comments by bitbutter

22. Comment #82310 by Diacanu on October 26, 2007 at 3:17 am

Know, I think a lot of us, if not most of us, could agree, that the problem with Islamofasm is faith itself.

Therefore, the cure to such things as islamofasm is to dry up the well of faith.

Yet, even knowing the cure for more 9/11s is atheism, the faithful kick and thrash and scream against it.

That lays it out plain and clear to me.
Given the choice between islamist thuggery and atheism, they'll keep the thuggery.

Ain't nothing a damned sight moderate about that.

.

Other Comments by Diacanu

23. Comment #82311 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 3:18 am

Comment #82306 by Bonzai

I have never heard any religious moderate saying point blank that all faiths have to be respected. I challenge you to show me any Christian who is not a member of the Westeboro Baptist Church who insists that we should respect Phelps because of his faith.

Agree to a certain extent. But I don't think this is the problem.

Moderates are obviously going to defend their faith against atheists, and I don't have a problem with this. However, how do they do this and at the same time denounce the likes of the Phelps?

Other Comments by epeeist

24. Comment #82319 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on October 26, 2007 at 3:43 am

#82306 by Bonzai

I have never heard any religious moderate saying point blank that all faiths have to be respected. I challenge you to show me any Christian who is not a member of the Westeboro Baptist Church who insists that we should respect Phelps because of his faith.

I'm pretty sure you are right. It's not a continuum, but a series of overlapping sets. However, the primary point still stands.

When I was a fundamentalist, there were fundamentalists I agreed with, and some that I didn't. I considered abortion a sin, but couldn't stretch to bombing clinics myself, but I could sympathise with a fundamentalist who would endorse such actions.

As I became more moderate, my universal "set" widened, it did so more in one direction than another, but nonetheless, views I had once held as acceptable or at least defensible in the context of religious conviction, were rarely removed from the set.

When I eventually gave up my faith, a massive chunk of previously acceptable behaviours quickly became unacceptable. With the justification of religious conviction removed, they fell into the category of dangerously deranged behaviour, as opposed to principled conviction.

Curiously, the more moderate you are the harder it becomes to outright reject other people of "faith", your very moderation has come about through a process of relentless inclusion, often over years or decades of personal growth. Worse still, one is often left with a sneaking admiration of people with such unshakeable "faith".

So from the inside looking out, with myself as a single datapoint, moderates are a problem. If you think your faith and convictions deserve respect, then it's pretty akward to insist that those of others don't, especially when a bald reading of the holy texts supports their interpretation and not yours.

Other Comments by briancoughlanworldcitizen

25. Comment #82332 by Roger Stanyard on October 26, 2007 at 4:56 am

Message to Eric Blair

We at the British Centre for Science Education have done some estimates of the proportion of Christians in the UK who are fundamentalist (extremist if you like). A rough definition of extremism is that the accept Sola Scriptura as extended into all public domains. In English that means into science - creationism if you like.

On a head count of churches it is somewhere between 5% and 10% of all churches. In terms of individual believers it seems to be around 400,000 out of a regular church going population of 3.5-4 million.

However, it ain't no good asking people if they are fundamentalists. No matter how much they foam at the mouth about creationism and hell fire and brimstone, most of them will deny it.

Sadly, in any society there are a lot of authoritarian extremists. Seems to me that you only have to scratch a fundamentalist slightly and underneath they are all the same as hardline fascists, BNPers, white supremicists, Abu Hamza fans, Marxists, racists, homophobes, Trotskyites, Leninists, Maoists, Northern Ireland paramilitaries, KKKers - all birds of a feather.

They all have a 'worldview' that they want to impose on others without consent.

It is silly, though, to suggest all religious believers are of that ilk or that religion is the platform off of which extremism rides. It is like saying that communism is the natural outcome of the beliefs of people who are in the Labour Party or fascism of those in the Conservative Party. The overwhelming majority in both parties believe in liberal democracy, are pragmatic and not prone to authoritarian extremes. Same with religiou believers.

Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education





done

Other Comments by Roger Stanyard

26. Comment #82341 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 5:26 am

@eepist

Moderates are obviously going to defend their faith against atheists, and I don't have a problem with this. However, how do they do this and at the same time denounce the likes of the Phelps?

Precisely. And i think that what generally happens is that moderates do manage to simultaneously defend faith and denounce Phelps etc. But they do this by implying that Phelps' faith, or any faith that fuels hatred, can't be real faith--"it's a perversion of true faith". This approach means that faith itself is never held accountable.

Other Comments by bitbutter

27. Comment #82377 by funkyderek on October 26, 2007 at 7:46 am

The "extremists" are simply those who put their money where their mouth is. The Bible says "Do not suffer a witch to live" so, by God, they'll kill anyone they think is a witch. The "moderates" will hum and haw and wring their hands and talk about changing times and not taking things literally. But if the Bible is the word of God, then shouldn't it be followed completely and absolutely?
It's like calling a driver an extremist because he obeys every rule of the road while "moderate" drivers would ignore some red lights or overload the vehicle or break any of the rules that actually inconvenience them.

Other Comments by funkyderek

28. Comment #82396 by m76 on October 26, 2007 at 8:20 am

Moderates are both more arrogant and less rational than extremists. Both kinds of believer make the irrational and arrogant claim that there is a God and 'He has a plan for me personally'. But the extremist stops there, whereas the moderate goes on to pick and choose what parts of the Bible/Koran/Torah are to be taken seriously and which can be dismissed as 'out-of-date' or 'symbolic'. If one truly believes in an all-knowing, all-powerful God, then such presumptious cherry-picking from scripture is deeply arrogant in the face of God, and therefore deeply irrational (due to the potential of eternal damnation or just a lightning bolt up the arse). If one really believes in God, the only truly rational and humble thing to do is to fear Him and do exactly what he says. In this way, the extremists are more consistent and more honest than the moderates. (Although still utterly doolally.)

Other Comments by m76

29. Comment #82398 by Flagellant on October 26, 2007 at 8:21 am

The problem is that 'moderates' do not deal adequately with extremists. They neither 're-educate' them nor identify them to the police.

Most moderates – and this is particular true of Islam – tend to find more in common with fellow Moslems, whatever they do, than with their secular countrymen.

Thus, when pushed, many moderates will effectively side with, rather than denounce, their co-religionists. Try asking a representative sample of Moslems with whom they have more in common: bin Laden or Richard Dawkins...

This argument can be developed for other religions, e.g. for Catholics and abortion clinic bombers.




God is absolutely grott, merdeiful.

Other Comments by Flagellant

30. Comment #82452 by Aaron on October 26, 2007 at 11:09 am

My response:
Religions are belief systems that are meant to guarantee a peaceful society. Therefore any religion is unacceptable if, as a result of it, enough people act violently enough to disrupt peace in our global society. Obviously Christianity and to a bigger extent Islam are examples of this. Since both the Koran and Christian Bible contain passages that promote violence, inequality, etc any society that follow either of those texts will contain some violence, inequality, etc. This means Christianity and Islam are unacceptable as belief systems if a peaceful society is the goal.

If it is argued one should blame the interpretations of the passages in the bible or Koran that promote violence, inequality, etc it should be pointed out that to not have violence, inequality, etc as a result is impossible since at least some people will tend to read things literally.

My snarky response:
As an analogy consider a recipe for brownies that contains only 1% feces. It's only 1%, a small minority compared to the rest of the 99% chocolatey goodness. Is it the feces or the recipe that is the problem?

Other Comments by Aaron

31. Comment #82463 by Dr Benway on October 26, 2007 at 11:38 am

Vioxx caused vascular events in fewer than 0.1% of people taking it, yet it was removed from the market. We have other drugs for arthritis.

Perhaps it's true that most of the time religion inspires more good than evil. But we can be good without making claims about supernatural realities no one can verify. Therefore, any harm done in the name of these beliefs gives us reason to abandon them.

Individuals ought to be entitled to their opinions as private citizens. But collectively, we are safer if we base our social policies upon corroborative evidence rather than faith.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

32. Comment #82720 by Garnok on October 27, 2007 at 10:43 am

The appeal that religion is generally moderate, and that it is only the extremists who are the problem.

For the sake of arguement, I'll grant that it is a minority of extremists causing all the problems. However, even moderates claim, if indirectly, to have in their possession the Truth when they repudiate the actions and opinions of the extremist minority. Otherwise, how could their actions be wrong or problematic? I must ask how one holds a moderate view on the Truth?

Other Comments by Garnok

33. Comment #83394 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 10:27 pm

This argument is that there is a silent majority of moderate Xians or Muslims or whatever who reject the fundamentalists and extremists.

However, if this alleged silent majority stays silent and lets the extremists be the public face of their religion, one wonders how serious they are about their moderation. It would certainly be in their interest to have a higher public profile, so why be silent?

And by not challenging or opposing the fundies and extremists when they are in a position to, they are enabling those fundies and extremists. I don't think that moderates *necessarily* enable extremists, but many of them seem willing to do so, even when it might be in their self-interest not to enable them.

Other Comments by lpetrich

34. Comment #83406 by debaser71 on October 30, 2007 at 12:03 am

I'm tired but IMO the best phrases are "tacit endorsement" and "silent consent". Work those in somehow. (i'll vote tomorrow)

Other Comments by debaser71

35. Comment #83407 by Wadsworth on October 30, 2007 at 12:24 am

I find religious moderates only remain moderates so long as you do not question or criticise their faith,-then they become extremists. They virtually never re-consider their beliefs, but instead resort to attacking atheists and secular science.

Other Comments by Wadsworth

36. Comment #83529 by Teratornis on October 30, 2007 at 10:24 am

Just from the standpoint of fair play, atheists are constantly having to answer for Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Theists who mention those fellows as their knock-down argument for the existence of God generally ignore the fact that the vast majority of atheists are not genocidal tyrants. Never mind the fact that very few theists who mention Stalin et al. have actually met an atheist who aspires to become an absolute dictator (whereas we have all met theists who want to outlaw abortion, turn back the clock about 100 years on the issue of gay rights, ban stem cell research, etc.). No, somehow according to theist logic, everyone who disbelieves in their God may be fairly judged by the worst men who ever claimed to be atheists.

So, if atheists have to answer for Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, then it is perfectly fair for theists to answer for Osama bin Laden, Tomás de Torquemada, the witch-burners, the Crusades, every discredited televangelist exposed as a lying fraud, the thousands of new spinal-cord injury victims each year being denied any shred of hope, and all the rest.

In other words, if there is to be a notion of "moderate theism" which plays to the polemic advantage of theists, will theists also recognize a notion of "moderate atheism" which they will then refrain from equating with despotism?

Other Comments by Teratornis

37. Comment #83664 by ericross on October 30, 2007 at 8:28 pm

I covered this issue in my blog post entitled "an Honest Conversation":

http://proudatheist.blogspot.com/2007/10/honest-conversation.html

First, I disagree with the premise that most religious people are moderate. In the US, polls consistently show that about half of all Christians believe the Bible to be inerrant, which meets my definition of fundamentalism.

Nevertheless, the other half of American Christians, who could reasonably be described as moderate, are a big part of the problem. Moderates shelter fundamentalists from any serious intellectual challenge and give them relatively free reign. This is not surprising, as moderate believers have already acquiesced to the foundational pillars of fundamentalism -- there is a singular God, the Bible is His word, and faith in God is a virtue. Once those ideas are accepted, the only additional element that fundamentalism requires is the belief that the Bible means what it says. Moderate Christianity is an intellectually bankrupt position that cannot survive contact with the first few pages of the Bible. This gives rise to deep (though probably subconscious) insecurities; thus moderates don't want to talk about their beliefs, lest their insecurities be exposed. Moreover, moderates hold a weak hand with which to challenge any religious claim to which they do not subscribe, as those who live in glass houses ought not throw stones. Their way out is to discourage skeptical inquiry, promulgate the idea that it is uncivil to challenge religious beliefs, and console themselves with wishful thinking about fundamentalism being rare and impotent.

Other Comments by ericross

38. Comment #86022 by Eric Blair on November 7, 2007 at 9:56 pm

A lot of opinions and unsupported "facts" here, plus little attempt to define what a moderate or extremist is.

Some 36 per cent of British Muslims between the ages of 18 and 24 think apostates should be murdered.

When taken, context, wording of question, part of survey, depth of feeling, one-time question or trend? A "snapshot" like this shouldn't be taken as definitive.

The extremists define the moderates, since after all the term "moderate" is relative only to the absolute limit. The only difference between those who hold the extremes and those in the middle is their willingness to act, not in their approval of the cause. This is evident through the sheer number of polls in so called moderate nation states where the believers approve of barbarism but would reportedly never engage in such behavior themselves. I make no such distinction between the end and the middle, both are guilty while none will act to counter.

This is simply not true if we look to moderate vs literalist Christians on the issue of gay marriage. In Canada, for example, only evangelical(literalist) Protestants and Catholics are really holding the line against gay marriage. Others are taking a strong stand for it, even allowing gay priests (ministers). The "slippery slope" is actually that some more flexible elements among RCs and literalist Prots find it hard to deny gays equal rights, even if they think gay marriage is wrong.

There's a similar division on abortion (it hasn't been an issue recently with no legal change in the offing).

The "extremists" are simply those who put their money where their mouth is. The Bible says "Do not suffer a witch to live" so, by God, they'll kill anyone they think is a witch. The "moderates" will hum and haw and wring their hands and talk about changing times and not taking things literally. But if the Bible is the word of God, then shouldn't it be followed completely and absolutely?
It's like calling a driver an extremist because he obeys every rule of the road while "moderate" drivers would ignore some red lights or overload the vehicle or break any of the rules that actually inconvenience them.

It may be frustrating (and seem illogical) to atheists that some religious people, especially Christians, don't follow the literal word of sacred texts. You can take that as hypocritical or "evolving." But there are rationales and historical experiences that account for some of these variations. In any case, it seems bizarre to fault moderates for not following the more irrational of religious doctrines. It also shows a complete lack of interest in trying to understand what separates moderates and literalists (in their own words), even if only from an anthropological viewpoint.

EB

Other Comments by Eric Blair

39. Comment #95358 by chipcherry on December 8, 2007 at 6:12 am

My snarky response:
As an analogy consider a recipe for brownies that contains only 1% feces. It's only 1%, a small minority compared to the rest of the 99% chocolatey goodness. Is it the feces or the recipe that is the problem?

Except that in the religious recipe, a belief in god IS the feces.

Other Comments by chipcherry

40. Comment #95900 by Sleech on December 9, 2007 at 12:39 pm

When it comes to moral judgements the religious (be they moderate or extreme) base these on a God whose existence is justified by personal revelation and faith. As these beliefs and the attendant moral code are not based on rational grounds they cannot be challanged by rational argument - Faith is sufficient to establish the truth of God and morality is what He tells us it is.

Unfortunately this argument applies equally to the moderate God who requires us to go to church twice a year and run a stall at the Summer fete, and the extremist God who wants us to fly planes into buildings.

The problem with moderate religion is that it, and its morality, is justified by faith in non-rational beliefs. If faith, without any rational grounds, is enough to justify behaviour, then the 9/11 hijackers were right. Faith was one thing they did not lack.

Other Comments by Sleech

41. Comment #98811 by solesurfing on December 14, 2007 at 12:22 pm

1) Polls show US 80% of the US population believe the creation story is true. That's a good starting point to determine the number of moderates. Cause and effect, and scientific evidence has to be warped by these people to believe the superstitious religious dogma of creationism.

That disregard for scientific evidence and lack of understanding cause and effect detrimentally affect social and medical policies in our government.

The following paper describes this in detail: Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies.
Available at http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html


2) If 80% (?) of people in the US believe a creator is overseeing their every move and monitoring their every thought to determine their eternal salvation, or damnation then why wouldn't they acquiesce to governmental surveillance?

I'd think there would be massive protests in the streets to stop the government intrusion of our privacy rights and wonder how it would be different if most of the population weren't already used to being watched all the time by god anyway.

Other Comments by solesurfing

42. Comment #99271 by solesurfing on December 16, 2007 at 7:23 am

Follow the money.

If a 'moderate', 'liberal', or anyone else drops money in the collection plate at church, or a Santa bucket in front of a store for that matter some of it is probably going towards a political movement, or dominionist holy war. Remember it is as Ralph Reed said 'a stealth movement.' Who knows how the donation is distributed?

Here's a documentary on Dominionsim entitled
"Life and Liberty for All Who Believe"

http://video.google.com/videoplay? Mdocid=4716092367662227177&total=74&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

Produced by People for the American Way in the early 1980's, chronicles the formation of the Moral Majority. Narrated by Burt Lancaster, the film's message regarding dominionist politics is more relevant today than ever. www.theocracywatch.org

The coverage of the Christian call for the end of public education is covered well.

At time 13.30 Children shouldn't be taught how to think, but what to think

They protest against the mention of slavery, poverty, evolution and even want to bar dictionaries in school. In one school all reading lists are banned and a Christian book burning in the victory of Jesus is shown.

At time 22.20 "The church should be a disciplined charging army. Christians like slaves and soldiers ask no questions, we are fighting a holy war."

Other Comments by solesurfing

43. Comment #99313 by solesurfing on December 16, 2007 at 9:46 am

Would George W Bush be President if the religious right hadn't convinced the moderates to vote for him?

Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a good organization for keeping the right in check.

http://action.au.org/au/issues/
Shows pending legislation and has draft letters, and petitions on church state seperation that makes it easy to be politically active.

Everyone who reads the Dawkins website should at least sign the Protect Church-State Separation petition/letter
http://action.au.org/au/issues/alert/?alertid=9336421

June 2006
Fundamentalist Christian Forces Seek 'Dominion' Over The Lives Of All Americans, And They Just Might Be Near The Political Clout To Pull It Off.
Religious Right Research
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8255&abbr=cs_

Follow the money.
This talked about the money, media influence, and political clout the RR has. They raked in nearly half a billion dollars collectively. (Some organizational budget figures are from 2004, and some are from 2005. The collective total is $447,368,625.) These groups are well organized, well funded and have specific policy goals.
Religious Right groups also enjoy great access to the public through the media. Much religious broadcasting also promotes far-right politics. These television and radio broadcasts are omni­present. In October, Knight-Ridder News­papers reported, "The growth in the number of religious stations has been marked: Of 13,838 radio stations in the United States, 2,014 are religious stations, according to Arbitron Inc., the media research company. That's up from 1,089 stations among 12,840 in 1998, according to Arbitron. Salem Communi­cations Corp., of Camarillo, Calif., the biggest owner of Christian stations, owns 104 radio stations in the country and syndicates programming to 1,900 affiliates."
The story singled out several Chris­tian TV networks as well, among them Pat Robertson's Christian Broad­casting Net­work, Trinity Broadcasting, Inspira­tion Network, Daystar, Three Angels Broad­casting, World Harvest Tele­vision, Cor­ners­tone Television, Praise TV, Worship Channel, Gospel Music Tele­vision, The Word Network and Family­Net

Other Comments by solesurfing

44. Comment #99484 by Scotty on December 16, 2007 at 7:02 pm

If there were no religious moderates, then the religious extremists would be where the KKK is now - bashed to the outskirts of society. Unfortunately right now, the moderates protect the extremists by maintaining a taboo wall over the issue of religion, making it impossible to criticize without being politically incorrect, and the moderates support the beliefs that are the cause of extremism. This causes things like 9/11 to happen. Religious extremists are a minority, true, but they are a very large minority.

Other Comments by Scotty

45. Comment #106551 by Slavny on January 3, 2008 at 6:10 am

I would say a similar thing to the proponents of this view as I would to those who are in favour guns being legal in America. I know most Americans who own guns are decent, law-abiding citizens and only a few go on homicidal rampages. But frankly I don't find it significant to tot up the number of gun owners and compare criminal records. It's far more significant to look at a gun and ask yourself: could these go wrong if everyone had one?

The answer for both guns and religion is yes. Religion creates the most potent in-groups conceivable, the byproduct of which is often intolerance to other groups, religion is often characterised by sin, shame and punishment and gives mortal actions the dangerous taint of divine purpose. What could possibly go wrong there...?

Other Comments by Slavny

46. Comment #112883 by Riley on January 18, 2008 at 8:14 am

There are good arguments and bad arguments. A moderate adherent to a bad argument is of course better than a dogmatic adherent to a bad argument, but neither is good.

Every argument and claim, religious or otherwise, should be examined and judged openly, without reverence to the idea or the person making the claim. Modern liberal society in general, and moderate adherents to religious faith in particular, tend to shelter religious claims from criticism. What sense does this make? Do we do this out of fear of reactionary extremism?

If so, this is at best a stop-gap solution to the long-term problem caused by extremism. Allowing bad arguments to be made and adhered-to without challenge, lends legitimacy to those arguments; legitimacy they have not earned. Silence allows those non-evidentiary ideas (even the benign ones) to fester in such a way that they can (and frequently do) metastasize into dangerous world-views.

Other Comments by Riley

47. Comment #112931 by Riley on January 18, 2008 at 9:43 am

There are good arguments and bad arguments. A moderate adherent to a bad argument is of course better than a dogmatic adherent to a bad argument, but neither is good. And it doesn't matter where the source of the bad argument comes from. For instance:

"the cure for more 9/11s is atheism"-Diacanu

This is as bad an argument as a good many of the religious arguments I've heard.

Witness the sequential birth of a dogma
-----------------------------------------------------------
1) "Imagine no religion"... becomes:
2) "Imagine no religion" accompanied by a picture of World Trade Center towers still standing. ... becomes:
3) "if not for religion, 9/11 would not have happened"...becomes:
4) "the cure for more 9/11s is atheism".
... the most extreme atheism-as-a-world-view assertion I've heard yet.

If only the Middle East were full of atheists, if it were, then we should not expect that 100 years of foreign mischief-making in the region's governments and exploitation of the region's resources would result in a foreign attack emanating from the region's people. How convenient.

This thread is chock-full of such bad arguments and dogmatic statements. Clearly, "atheism" is not a cure for them. Usually, I think broad statements made about "religion" and "atheism" are doomed to contribute to bad arguments.

Other Comments by Riley

48. Comment #117342 by Eric Blair on January 28, 2008 at 3:24 pm

Two points to add to the discussion here:

- The US presents a unique situation among modern democracies in that polls suggest there are a lot more people holding "extreme" views on religious topics like Creationism, abortion, same sex marriage, etc. than even in other English-speaking liberal democracies like Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. I don't think simply that, because of their proportion in the US population, we should call these people "moderates." I think they are still extremists, or at least possible extremists (see next point).

- For me, the litmus test for a moderate (vs extremist) is their attitude toward the separation of church and state, toward liberal democracy and toward public secularism. On this basis, I would say most Christians (and Jews -- don't know about Muslims) outside of the US support the idea that laws and government policy should not be determined by one's religious beliefs, and in fact should reflect a generally secular "public square."

Some Christians might be less likely to support this but for the arrival of the "Muslim" issue, whereby they now see the risks of advocating for a state that is in any way religious.

EB

Other Comments by Eric Blair

49. Comment #117462 by Eric Blair on January 28, 2008 at 10:13 pm

Riley says: Modern liberal society in general, and moderate adherents to religious faith in particular, tend to shelter religious claims from criticism. What sense does this make? Do we do this out of fear of reactionary extremism?

Riley goes on to say that atheists should discard this tendency and subject religious ideas to as rigorous criticism as anything else.

I'm not really clear on how this "tendency" reveals itself, except as a quality of day-to-day civil discourse among members of a community who don't see anything to gain by offending each other.

Otherwise, more broadly, I think religious ideas have been subject to analysis and criticism on all sorts of fronts, from academia to literature to European politics in particular.

However, if we accept that this "sheltering" tendency is at least somewhat true, then it's, as Riley says, more a characteristic of liberal democracy (along with some post-colonial guilt) than of moderate religion.

And even if (some) moderate believers support this tendency -- not all do -- what is at fault is not their belief itself but their political/social response to extremists.

All this tends to undermine the original premise of this thread, which is to argue that moderates are if not as bad, then almost as bad as extremists.

And to make this argument is really to say there is no difference between the two (or that no continuum of belief exists), or that the difference is just that moderates haven't yet been "pushed" hard enough.

This is simply an unproved opinion, and one that is unlikely to win many friends for Prof Dawkins.

EB

Other Comments by Eric Blair

50. Comment #130241 by martino on February 20, 2008 at 7:34 am

Where is your evidence? How many people are they hurting by not condemning extremists? How many people are they hurting by fighting for religious rights that benefit extremists? How many benefit from the implicit threat of extremists in keeping or creating new double standards in their favor, thereby implicitly encouraging extremism and benefiting from the hurt that those extermist have or could cause?

Other Comments by martino