One of Sam Harris’ main points in his books and newspaper columns is this: that religious moderates protect religious fundamentalists. By “protect”, he doesn’t mean that the moderates actually try to actively defend them, but that they have effectively made it so that religious beliefs (of any kind) are “uncriticizable”, something that must be “respected” (unlike any other kind of beliefs).
Some atheist bloggers agree with Harris; others disagree. For the record, I agree with him on this one. He’s not “blaming” moderates in the sense of “Muslim moderates are guilty of 9/11″, or “Christian moderates are responsible for abortion clinic bombings”. He’s saying, however, that the moderates give an appearance of “niceness” to those religions, and that, as I said, because of the moderates, you can’t, these days, blame religion for anything without being seen as a bigot of the worst kind. Religion, apparently, is above rational discussion, above criticism.
There’s also a third kind of believers: the liberals. Those are the most harmless ones, I guess, though they are so mainly because they don’t take their religion seriously; as Harris says, they actually don’t really know what they believe, and have never thought about it; they just like the feeling of going to church, and of “belonging” there.
Want to see the difference between the three? I’d say it’s easy.
A liberal might say “yes, the Bible says that gays should be killed, but how do we know that that part was realy inspired by God? My God is a loving God, and I’m sure he loves everyone, no matter their sexual orientation”.
A moderate would say “gays should not be full citizens; God doesn’t like them. It says so in Leviticus, and Paul repeats it later: homosexuality is an abomination.” If asked, he will say that gays shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else, though he won’t actually advocate violence against them… though, if any occurs, he won’t condemn the perpetrators, or shed any tears.
A fundamentalist — a true fundamentalist, that is –, would kill homosexuals. The Bible commands so; who is he to question the word of God?
Now, you may argue that those I call “moderates” are really fundies, and those I call fundies are psychos, nutcases, etc.. But… what is really the difference between the 3 examples?
The difference is how seriously they take the Bible. Just that. If it’s just “stories”, from which you can learn something, but shouldn’t be taken literally, you’re a liberal; if it’s a moral guidebook, you’re a moderate. If it’s the absolute, literal word of God, and you really believe that doing the work of God is more important than obeying man’s laws… you’re a fundamentalist.
I’d also add that many moderates, in my opinion, would like to be fundamentalists, if they had the “guts” to do it. If they didn’t enjoy their lives or their freedom (that is, not being in prison) so much. The Bible really tells believers to be fundamentalists in every way. That’s why, in my opinion, moderates never really criticize fundamentalists… even after acts of terrorism!
After all, what can they do? They can’t fight them with scripture, since scripture is really on the fundies’ side! It’s the moderates who are disobeying part of it… and I’d guess that many of them feel ashamed of doing so.
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I totally agree, Pedro. I posted a comment on a “liberal” blog regarding a post about religion, and even though lots of the people commenting were atheists, they called me a bigot. See, you’re really only allowed to criticize Christianity, and really only FUNDAMENTALIST Christians. If you criticize Jews or Muslims, you’re supposedly racist.
I argued that the Abrahamic religions are misogynistic and violent. But because they’re RELIGIONS, we have to be tolerant. If someone came up to me on the street and said, “I think you are less than human, and also, since you don’t agree with my belief system, I am going to kill you,” I would call the cops. But if someone came up to me on the street and said those things, but followed it with, “because God told me so,” I’m suddenly supposed to be tolerant? No way!
You seem to be assuming that one must believe the bible to be a Christian, and that if one disregarded the bible, they wouldn’t be as “true” of a Christian as someone who did pay attention to the bible.
That doesn’t logically adhere.
[quote post="239"]There’s also a third kind of believers: the liberals. Those are the most harmless ones, I guess, though they are so mainly because they don’t take their religion seriously; as Harris says, they actually don’t really know what they believe, and have never thought about it; they just like the feeling of going to church, and of “belonging” there.[/quote]
Even if one were to be a “liberal” by your definition, and disregarded the bible, it does not mean that they don’t take their religion seriously. And it doesn’t mean that they don’t know what they believe, or that they never thought about it.
I know “liberals” who certainly take their religion seriously, and have seriously thought about, but whose religion does not include the bible.
-micah
Micah, are you saying you can be a Christian without believing the bible? I would have thought that was a prerequisite. I mean otherwise how do you know what to believe? In all seriousness if we get our morals from religion, which I don’t believe for a second, then how can you not believe in the bible? Isn’t it the work of God? As his creations, shouldn’t we have to follow his commands? Also how would you even know about Jesus without the bible, or without someone who does believe or at least know the bible? I would be genuinely interested in hearing how it doesn’t logically adhere.
Sometimes when talking about religion, mainly Christianity because I’m familiar with it the most, I’m told that I would not say the same things about Muslims or Jews or even Hindus. I would hope to think I would, but I rarely get to meet such people. The same people tend to have the idea that all beliefs should be respected, yet fail to show the due respect to new beliefs such as Scientology or Mormonism. It seems respect is only for the old Abrahamic faiths.
Alex
Micah: about disregarding the Bible, that’s, I believe, a different subject. I’ve written about it before: Christianity without the Bible, and its second part. I’d like to hear your thoughts on them, but, due to on-topicness, please comment on them, OK?