Religious moderates cause religious extremists

[geni]

So you want to get rid of the relgius extreamists by attacking the moderates?

As mind renching stupid ideas go that one has to be pretty high up the the scale. Hasn't human history taught you anything?

 

[duppyraces]

Well, that was easy getting a confession out of you.

I didn't even have to use any lawyer tricks, beat it out of you with a baseball bat, or resort to my sooper sekrit tickling technique.

It's sort of too bad that you caved so early.

Anyway, I prefer milk.

AS

It's hard not to take credit for something when one is proud of it. I was weak. Forgive me?

 

[AmateurScientist]

It's hard not to take credit for something when one is proud of it. I was weak. Forgive me?

Hmmm...forgive you, or ...

No, I think you'll just have to endure the punishment.

AS

 

[The GM]

Yeah, let's get people to open their minds and expand their horizons by mocking their most personal beliefs and telling them that their occasional prayer or holy book reading session is directly responsible for extremist activities world wide. Sorry, Grandma, but your ice cream socials directly tie to terrible events like 9-11.
Christ on a crutch, with talk like that it's no wonder that atheists get a bad rap from religious folks. Such ideas are so insulting, that if said speakers were playing a game of stupid, I'm not sure who the winner would be.
Sorry, Tricky, but tolerance and understanding are the true bridges to trust, and with trust can come a clear and free exchange of ideas. But you go ahead and put pressure on those moderates. Let us know how it turned out.

 

[SezMe]

Well,, GM, how many times have you heard atheism condemned by pointing at Stalin? While taking the high road may be the best way, let's not ignore the mud slinging capabilities of the other side.

 

[The GM]

Well,, GM, how many times have you heard atheism condemned by pointing at Stalin? While taking the high road may be the best way, let's not ignore the mud slinging capabilities of the other side.

And so we should lower our discourse to the lowest common denominator? Should we really be *that* base and vile to one another? What does that solve? It only draws lines in the sand. It sets up an us vs them mentality which has been proven time and time again to be an unhealthy way to relate to one another.

C'mon, guys! You all say you're critical thinkers, and yet you let this half assed notion pass because *Dawkins* and some stage magician said it?!? Did I just wake up in some topsy turvey bizzaro world? Am I taking crazy pills here?

Wowzers.

 

[SezMe]

And so we should lower our discourse to the lowest common denominator? Should we really be *that* base and vile to one another? What does that solve? It only draws lines in the sand. It sets up an us vs them mentality which has been proven time and time again to be an unhealthy way to relate to one another.

C'mon, guys! You all say you're critical thinkers, and yet you let this half assed notion pass because *Dawkins* and some stage magician said it?!? Did I just wake up in some topsy turvey bizzaro world? Am I taking crazy pills here?

Wowzers.

First, it is not just at TAM3 where this notion has arisen. Read that book I referenced above.

Speaking of that, I said I was unsure of the book's conclusions and also indicated support for your perspective and this is the response? Huh?

 

[IllegalArgument]

Most of the argument came from Penn durning the Q&A. One woman, a unitarian, tried to take Penn to task for the comment, but it bogged down in symantec discussion over the word religion.

 

[Kopji]

I agree this conversation about 'religious moderates' began with the book by Sam Harris. Below is a portion of an interview with Amazon that is on their site. I find much to agree with in his explanation of spiritual vs religious, and mysticism. I know that in my own personal journey, I came to a similar conclusion that there was not a middle 'belief' ground for me to stand on.

To say religious moderates cause extremists seems like saying 50% of Americans are of average intelligence though.

Is my 'spiritual answer' right for everyone? This sounds suspiciously like a Procrustean bed, where Atheism is the one size that fits all.

Harris sounds like he has some excellent ideas though, I've seen several reviews and actually read some of it. I might get it for the final chapters...

Harris:
Mysticism, shorn of religious dogmatism, is an empirical and highly rational enterprise. Just as people do not burn their neighbors at the stake as a result of new insights in physics or biology, no one is likely to do so on the basis of genuine mysticism. Religion--especially in the West--is another matter entirely. Religious faith is a conversation stopper.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While Eastern mysticism has its fair share of unjustified belief, it undoubtedly represents humankind's best attempt at fashioning a spiritual science.
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Amazon.com: In other words, you are careful to distinguish between what you term "faith" and "spirituality." In a nutshell, what is this distinction?

Harris: "Faith" is false conviction in unjustified propositions (a certain book was written by God; we will be reunited with our loved ones after death; the Creator of the universe can hear our thoughts, etc.). "Spirituality" or "mysticism" (both words are pretty terrible, but there are no good alternatives in English) refers to any process of introspection by which a person can come to realize that the feeling he calls "I" is a cognitive illusion. The core truth of mysticism is this: It is possible to experience the world without feeling like a separate "self" in the usual sense. Such a change in the character of one's experience need not become the basis for making unsupportable claims about the nature of the universe, however.

The kind of intolerance of faith that I am advocating in my book is not the intolerance that gave us the gulag. It is conversational intolerance. When people make outlandish claims, without evidence, we stop listening to them--except on matters of faith. I am arguing that we can no longer afford to give faith a pass in this way. Bad beliefs should be criticized wherever they appear in our discourse--in physics, in medicine, and on matters of ethics and spirituality as well. The President of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. Now, if he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ludicrous or more offensive.

Harris: I have been quite surprised to find some Christians celebrating my argument against moderate religion. One Baptist minister more or less endorsed my book as the final nail in the coffin of religious moderation, claiming that I have proven that there are only two viable choices, secularism or fundamentalism.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/542154/002-9454436-1478417

 

[MLynn]

Most of the argument came from Penn durning the Q&A. One woman, a unitarian, tried to take Penn to task for the comment, but it bogged down in symantec discussion over the word religion.

Yes, it did get bogged down and I wish I had taken notes on the panel discussion. I'm still trying to connect the dots from my being a moderate Xian to the extremists killing 295 of my collegues at the WTC. I murdered my own colleagues??

 

[The GM]

First, it is not just at TAM3 where this notion has arisen. Read that book I referenced above.

Speaking of that, I said I was unsure of the book's conclusions and also indicated support for your perspective and this is the response? Huh?

=|
Sez,
I used your comment to piggy back directly into that point. Why you're offended, I'm not sure, but I'll apologize for upsetting you. The net can be a poor medium for actual expression and tone of voice. Had I meant to critique your comments specifically, I would have addressed you specifically as that is proper netiquette. Again, my apologies.
My point was that it is ridiculous on a forum that sings the praises of critical thinking that this sort of unsupported, not to mention harmful notion gets a pass because someone from a position of 'authority' uttered it. Indeed, many threads here mock the religious who do the exact same thing. *shrugs*

 

[c4ts]

Penn can be an ass at times.

Okay, here's the problem: extremists.

And here's the solution: attack/block moderates.

Is that how we solve problems nowadays? Indirectly, rather than directly?

Let's try that again.
Problem: extremists
Correct solution: attack/block extremists.
There you go, by removing the problem area, or by preventing it from action, you fix the problem.

Even if you think moderate religion leads to extreme religion, it's better to address the problem directly than to risk damaging something that wasn't part of the problem in the first place, because then it would turn into a different problem. For example, if you go after the moderates, you are leaving the extremists alone, and they will react, and the other remaining moderates will become extremists in reaction to you. Whereas if you attack the extremists, the moderates won't react because they want nothing to do with these guys, and only the extremists will react to you.

You want another argument?

I'd like to explain the democratic ideal we in America love so much:

Do what you want.

However there are a few stipulations involved:

Don't do it to me.
Don't do it in my backyard.
Don't make me pay for it with my taxes.
Don't hurt, kill, or otherwise endanger the lives of anyone who isn't doing what you are.
Don't try to make it a law.
Don't break any laws.
And don't **** with my constitution without my consent!

So please, leave the religious alone unless they attempt one of the seven "don't"s. Believing a bunch of crazy things, no matter how mind-bogglingly stupid, is OK unless they start imposing these crazy things on others. If we all work together to prevent each other from doing anything, then we guarantee that we won't go anywhere worse.

It's okay to believe that your god tells you that abortion is wrong. I might call you a sucker for believing in your god and many things connected to it, but if you want to be a sucker, go right ahead. It's a free country, and some people are barnicles who want nothing more than to cling to the rotting hull of sucker-dom.

But it's not okay to blow up an abortion clinic because you believe that!

And it's not okay to attack the guys who didn't have anything to do with the bombing, even if they were part of the same religion. It's not their job to look for or handle the dangerously insane. That's up to the police, the FBI, the CIA, and so on.

Religious beliefs alone are not the cause of extremism, so expunging everyone who holds those beliefs will not stop extremism.

 

[T'ai Chi]

C'mon, guys! You all say you're critical thinkers, and yet you let this half assed notion pass because *Dawkins* and some stage magician said it?!? Did I just wake up in some topsy turvey bizzaro world?

Penn and Teller? Great magicians. Dawkins? Great evolutionist.

Their comments on anything outside of their area of expertise (should) carry little weight.

 

[Oleron]

I'm not sure what Penn or Dawkins said but I think Tricky's point was more about whether to include religious belief as just another entry in the spectrum of irrational belief or whether to treat it as a separate (untouchable?) entity.

Take for example the following:

2 'believers' - one is a moderate xian and the other is a crystal healer. We don't seem to mind tearing strips off the crystal healer in debate and explaining in technicolor detail the wrongness of their thought processes. However when it comes to the xian, their belief is somehow different. It's just 'faith' or 'untestable' but, when all said and done, one believes in the healing vibration of crystals and the other in life after death.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

- edited to add upon reading further I see c4ts said basically the same thing I did.

The one thing I think Penn and the others overlook is that it's not "religious" people that are dangerous or that moderates cause extremists. It's people who believe in absolute ideology, be it political or religous. The communists seemed to have little trouble killing millions of people without a belief in god.

I'm sure people on this forum can think of one poster or another who has an evangelical-like reaction to have their political philosophy question.

Equisite point.

Penn's argument is the flip side of "the Soviet Union was a atheist state and look at how many people died." No. The people didn't die because the Soviet Union was communist or atheist, they died because it was a totalitarian state.

The same goes for people who kill in the name of religion. It's not because they're religious per se, it's because they're extremists and extremism is dangerous if you're religious, an environmentalist or a nationalist.

The everyday people who are of a certain moderate position don't make this world a worse place. It's like people who think psychics are real, but would never in a million years call Mrs. Cleo or visit a Tarot reader. They aren't part of the problem.

I found Penn's irrational hatred of Christians to be offputting and walked out of TAM after his and Teller's presentation.

 

[El Greco]

C'mon, guys! You all say you're critical thinkers, and yet you let this half assed notion pass because *Dawkins* and some stage magician said it?!?

In an ideally skeptical world, I would expect Randi to write a commentary where he would say "you know what ? I think that Penn said something completely stupid at TAM3". It seems indeed a bit unfair to spend your life picking nits that Sylvia or Uri left behind and leave something that gross without saying a word. That comment (the way I read it, since I wasn't there) is not only irrational but also anti-skeptical.

 

[IllegalArgument]

Thank you UnrepentantSinner. I do not worry about moderates, but people who absolutely believe in something and will not even consider that it might be wrong.

Not trying to start a flame war, but some libertarian and objectivists have an almost religous like zeal about their believes. Niether of these require a belief in god. I have seen atheists, which I am one, in other forums, have a crusader like tone in their ranting about religion.

We should avoid attacking religous per say, but a mind set that refuses to except or even consider counter-evidence. This does seem to crop up more of often with religous believes, but it's quite easy to have this mind set without a believe in god.

This is where I think Penn, Hitchens, and Dawkins, get it wrong. Though I do agree with Dawkins on his point about labeling kids with a religion to young to make a decision on the subject.

 

[T'ai Chi]

In an ideally skeptical world, I would expect Randi to write a commentary where he would say "you know what ? I think that Penn said something completely stupid at TAM3". It seems indeed a bit unfair to spend your life picking nits that Sylvia or Uri left behind and leave something that gross without saying a word.

I'm pretty skeptical of the possibility of Randi ever publicly announcing disagreement with Penn or Dawkins.

 

[Tricky]

Yeah, let's get people to open their minds and expand their horizons by mocking their most personal beliefs and telling them that their occasional prayer or holy book reading session is directly responsible for extremist activities world wide. Sorry, Grandma, but your ice cream socials directly tie to terrible events like 9-11.
Christ on a crutch, with talk like that it's no wonder that atheists get a bad rap from religious folks. Such ideas are so insulting, that if said speakers were playing a game of stupid, I'm not sure who the winner would be.
Sorry, Tricky, but tolerance and understanding are the true bridges to trust, and with trust can come a clear and free exchange of ideas. But you go ahead and put pressure on those moderates. Let us know how it turned out.

If you read my posts here, GM, you would recognize that I am among the most genial and non-judgmental of the atheist posters here. I always try to separate the person from the belief. Heck, I even consider ElliotFC a friend.

So I'm not really talking about challenging or attacking moderate theists. I'm talking about stating clearly that I think their beliefs are unsupported. On the forum, we can speak pretty openly with anyone, but in the real world, I generally keep my beliefs to myself, even when the topic being discussed is religion because I don't want to offend people who I consider very nice.

But I wonder if this is the proper way to deal with irrational beliefs. I'm certainly not advocating the type of behavior of Penn Jillette or Michael Nedow, but I wonder if I am being cowardly by not making my opinions known when these discussions arise in the real world. Would it cause people to shun me if I politely disagreed and said why? (Hint: The answer is "yes". I lost a girlfriend once because I wouldn't accept Jesus. Probably a good thing, but it didn't feel so good at the time.)

Why are we insulating people from conflicting points of view? Are we doing them a favor by helping them believe that their ideas are rational? And how do do it without alienating them?

Also, you may note that this topic was started as a question, not as a position. I'm still grappling.

 

[El Greco]

Why are we insulating people from conflicting points of view? Are we doing them a favor by helping them believe that their ideas are rational?

I don't know whether we're doing them a favor by not challenging their ideas (I guess the answer is 'no'), but when we challenge their ideas with wrong arguments (eg "extremists") then we make their counter-arguments more obvious and in that case we can be sure that we're not doing a favor neither to them nor to ourselves.