What's wrong with moderates?
Offline First off, I want to admit that I am somewhat of a zealot, something I am wrestling with since being a zealot (or feeling REALLY REALLY passionate about something as I like to say) seems to automatically discredit whatever you have to say based solely on the fact that you are, in fact, a zealot, and that being such, I kinda have a problem with religious moderates.
(I must also point out that by "religious", I only mean xtian, muslim, and jewish moderates. I got into an argument with my significant other over this who disagrees with me on the question of religious moderates, since she was raised by a very liberal and moderate wiccan. I have no problems with those types of religious moderates seeing how they are not out trying to convert, kill, or torture everyone else of a different confession. So for the sake of this thread, I am referring only to the big 3)
Just to clarify what I mean by "moderates", I'm talking about your everyday person who claims to be "X" casually, doesn't put a lot of thought into their religion, and may go to worship services now and then, or on a regular basis, but doesn't get too much involved beyond donating or helping out at a bake sale. They don't see anything wrong with their belief, or others for that matter, and are quite happy with their place of worship that is most likely also moderate and non-violent.
With all that established, the problem I have with these people is not their peaceable worship (thats fine enough) but that by their membership in an organized faith, they help contribute to the acceptance ("validity" isn't the right word, perhaps "creedence"
of that faith. I'm talking about the line that separates a "cult" (IE, small group of people) from an organized religion (IE, large group of people). The average person dismisses the statements made by a cult given the fact that they are not as well established as other organized religions. By their membership, and that of millions of others, they lend creedence to their faith as an actual religion.
It is behind this wall of moderates that the extremist and often literalists hide, able to say and do ridiculous things that normally would not be tolerated outside their vale of "religion".
My mother protests that her local church group that cooks meals for the person down the street with cancer is not horrible, nor is it extreme. (They're liberal-ish methodists btw) I conceded that they are in no way like the extremists, but even though they are innocent and harmless, they do support a system that harbors and supports people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Catholicism and Islam are much easier targets for they have much more prominent histories of atrocities.
My basic argument is thus: although moderates religion is harmless enough, it enables a much much greater evil. All the good acts done by religious individuals to their fellow man, pale in, and do not even come close to making up for, all the heinous acts purpetrated by religious individuals to their fellow man in the name of religion. It is my dream that humanity will one be free of religion for the benefits accompanied therein do not in any way make up for the cost in human lives and happiness.
Thoughts?
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You are correct.
The other thing is that even the moderates have their thinking modified by their religion. They may not have as many triggers, and they may not be hair triggers, but they are there. Religion tells people what to think about various subjects, this is dangerous and objectionable.
Religion encourages ignorance, intollerance and irrationality.
Zen-atheist wielding Occam's katana.
Jesus said, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." - Luke 12:51
Like I've said in other moderate vs fundy discussions-I have a grudging respect for fundamentalists,I'd still rather have moderates,and better yet,nothing at all.
I think it was Harris who said moderates,while harmless in themselves,provide the base from which dangerous fundamentalists operate. By guilt of assocation,they are just as bad then. In a world where no one believed in god, if someone stood up and said 'god says we must kill all of X people' they would get locked up. But in a world where the majority already believe in god,this statement is already that much less absurd and rejected.
Also,even moderates can have strong opinions on important controversial issues,perhaps simply because those are the views of their perhaps fundamentalist pastor.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
Religious Moderation
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Thanks Hamby ^_^
Bouncing off what Hamby wrote (good stuff, that) my questions about CMs (Christian Moderates) are as follows:
Allow me to put this in terms of sovereignty. What is sovereign? What "rules?"
The existence of freedom of religion, speech, etc. depends on the sovereignty of secular, civil law and authority. If a CM accepts this, if he truly can "live and let live" and "agree to disagree" with those he would otherwise consider apostates, heretics, infidels and blasphemers according to his scripture and dogma - then he's OK by me. We can live and work together. We can be neighbors, co-workers, friends and what have you. We can join together to solve common problems even as I am motivated by humanist ethics and he by his religious teachings.
Ah yes, religious teachings. What about them? Are they sovereign for him in matters of thought and belief? Is, for example, a certain interpretation of the Bible the primary filter through which he views himself, mankind and the world?
This, to me, is the far more interesting question: What is going on in the heads of CMs?
I am sympathetic towards those who are trying to reconcile Faith and Reason but I fear, for their sake, that they are trying to square a circle.
They state that their faith does not require them to believe in Young Earthism and suchlike. They see such things as being - in addition to empirically false - peripheral and even irrelevant to the central teaching of Christianity.
Fair enough, but that elides the fact that the Bible does indeed make many other concrete physical and historical claims including the central element of the orthodox (small 'o') teaching of the Gospels: Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.
This is not meant in a metaphorical sense; it actually happened and among other things is held by believers to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, Christ, God Incarnate, etc.
CMs cannot very well explain away the Resurrection itself as being peripheral to their religion the way, say, Noah's flood might be.
So what is science supposed to do with something like that?
The claim that Jesus was a supernatural entity who broke the laws of physics and rose from the dead is just as empirically problematic as the claim that Earth is 6000 years old or that Noah's flood actually happened.
They reach for divine exceptionalism and theurgy (literally: God magic). God and his workings are supernatural so the rules of evidence don't apply.
But if Christian Moderates can invoke supernaturalism for the Resurrection, the Incarnation or ANY religious claim - including the very existence of God in the first place - what's to keep the Young Earthers from playing the same God Magic Card for what they believe?
The same data set which tells us Earth is 4.5 billion years old and that evolution is real also fails to show any evidence for this deity or its incarnation in human form.
So the CMs are left with a double-standard in which they dismiss Young Earthism because there is no scientific evidence to support its claims but they do not - DARE not - hold their own beliefs to the same scrutiny.
As has been oft observed, CMs have the epistemological tiger by the tail. Once they admit that any part of scripture is metaphorical, allegorical, mythological or merely androgenic, how do they know what can be trusted? What's the standard for measuring what's real and what's not?
If they turn to empiricism, they discover not just a conflict between Faith and Reason but a headlong collision.
Science is going to tell them point-blank that there is no evidence that the essentials of Genesis, the Enuma Elis, the Bhagavad Gita or other foundational documents of any religion are true.
Now what do they do? They either invoke divine exceptionalism - God did it; it's supernatural - or...
Or what, indeed?
Boards don't hit back. (Bruce Lee)
Precisely. You have hit the nail squarely on the head, and driven it through the heart of moderate religion. (How's that for mixing metaphors?) What I have been trying for years to communicate to the atheist community is that there is no effective difference between a moderate and a fundamentalist. Both insist that there are some things that are knowable through religion and not science. Once this principle has been established, there is absolutely no way for a theist to justify a real boundary beyond which, the supernatural cannot be invoked.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
There is no debate between "moderates" and "fundamentalists" worthy of note. Moderates do not challenge fundamentalists over their extreme position, despite the fact that it presents as big a theological challenge to their own position as atheism does. Both cannot be right.
There is no concerted effort by moderates to re-educate fundamentalists and get them to abandon their extreme position.
There is no attempt by moderates to support the atheists' well publicised refutation of the fundamentalist position, despite the fact that many elements of that refutation are based on reason, something that they themselves claim to employ, and as isolated arguments do not contradict their own subjective philosophy.
Conclusion: Moderates like having fundamentalists around to divert criticism from their own silliness. Moderates are as casually disdainful of the truth as fundamentalists, and possibly more so since they must compound the lie to stress the difference between themselves and the other group. Moderates are hypocritical. Moderates are liars.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I temper the last couple of sentences a little in my own conclusion. Many moderates are hypocritical liars, but many are also simply ignorant of the philosophical and logical dilemmas their beliefs create. So as not to sound pompous, many atheists are also completely unfamiliar with any arguments worth a damn refuting religion. They just don't believe because it sounds silly, or they just don't care.
But, your primary point is true. Any moderate who has examined the evidence must be cavalier enough to discard reason when it suits his purpose, and only cling to reason when it doesn't interfere.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Biblical history is an additional dilemma, for the CM.
If the events recounted in Genesis did not actually happen, Jesus was on the wrong planet.
God, after all, sent himself/Jesus to redeem mankind's Fallen status - this status being a consequence of Adam & Eve's sin. But if Adam & Eve never existed, then the whole thing unravels even from an orthodox Christian perspective.
All of mankind getting stuck with Adam & Eve's snack bill was bad enough, but if Genesis was metaphorical then mankind is Fallen for... well, why exactly? No reason. We just are.
And what about the manifold stories of mankind following the exit from paradise - including the whole Abraham-Jacob-Israel-Exodus thing? There's not a scrap of archaeological evidence for any of it. Do CMs believe these things happened or are we back in the realm of folktales and tribal myths?
Recalling that believing Christians go to great pains to connect Jesus with antecedent Jewish theology, prophecies and whatnot - after all, it wasn't Druids who were waiting for the "Messiah" - just how much of the Old Testament are Christian Moderates prepared to jettison?
Yeah, okay, they'll happily dump the Tower of Babel story as an explanation for the existence of different languages to avoid gales of laughter from anyone with the slightest knowledge of linguistics. But what about the Exodus? What about the walls of Jericho?
At some point even "Moderates" must nail their flag to the mast. Where do they claim the Bible's real history starts?
Boards don't hit back. (Bruce Lee)
The whole post is really well written, but this line is priceless. You have a gift for words.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism