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"But what about the moderates?"
#1
"But what about the moderates?"
Since the public rant of noted Islamic scholar and mediocre actor Ben Affleck, there has been a divide among progressives between the dewey-eyed "coexist" faction who bristle at public criticism of religion and the so-called "militant" atheists who understand being a progressive must include opposing oppressive and backward ideologies, be they called "religions" or no.

"What about the moderates?" we are asked, accompanying the bare assertion that the hardcore fundamentalists, theocrats and terrorists of religions are a tiny minority, who are motivated by non-religious factors such as politics, historical wrongs or economic issues anyway.

"Moderates" within a faith, I would argue, are those who have watered down their religion with foreign elements such as science or personal conscience. These accommodations to modernity and compassion are difficult if not impossible to square with scripture or, in some cases, with the very tenets of the faith. They have few, if any, theological bone fides and sustain their beliefs either by ignoring the inconvenient parts of their religion or by inventing obtuse rationalizations that both non-believers and fundamentalists find laughably ridiculous. They are more "failed fundamentalists" than a truer representation of their faith, unwilling to follow their religion to its logical conclusions.

For example, a Christian might accept evolution but then he/she must explain what the story of Eden was all about. If it was just a metaphor, then what is Jesus dying to save us from, since the "fall" must also be metaphoric. If Eve was a real person, produced by evolution, then how can we square this with the Christian tenet that death entered the world by sin, which happened by Eve. If Eve brought sin and therefore death into the world, how did evolution produce her without death (a key component in the process of evolution). And what are we to make of passages of the Gospels where Jesus expressed a literal belief in a literal Adam and a literal Noah's Ark?

Either the Bible IS the Word of God or it is NOT the Word of God.
Either the Koran IS the Word of God or it is NOT the Word of God.
There is no "sorta kinda" option with divine revelation.

Sorry "coexist" liberals but the "moderate" loses, hands down, no contest.

The other implicit assumption by the "coexist" liberal is that the "moderate" is any better behaved than the fundamentalist when it comes to political matters. Anyone who depends on the moderates as a bulwark against fundamentalism and theocracy might have also depended on the Iraqi army for protection against ISIL. This kind of barrier can melt away in an instant as moderates will often toss their lot in with the fundamentalists whenever they're not in the cross-hairs of the fundamentalist's agenda. I've personally known many "moderate" Christians who accept evolution who will support a "one man, one woman" definition of marriage, vote against women's rights or support a fundamentalist candidate.

If the moderate doesn't aid and abet the fundamentalist directly, then they arguably do indirectly by holding up their scripture as divinely inspired. The fundamentalist starts from this point and then adds, "...and here's what it says."

Put bluntly, the "coexist" liberal is also enabling the fundamentalist and all their abuses, from acts of violence to intrusive legislation to cruel traditions such as genital mutilations. All of these things are possible only by magical thinking and credence to beliefs about sky daddies. It seems an odd form of "progressive" thinking to not oppose repressive ideologies.
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"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
...      -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
...       -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
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#2
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
Quote:"What Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem."


--Life of Brian
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#3
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
One can argue that there are not enough "moderates" in Islam, but to say that there are none is absurd. If they are not being heard as the loudest voice it is because of a couple of things. Physically in the east they still have a large enough MINORITY that holds most of the power, and still socially speaking criticizing Islam is still frowned upon.

But to say Malala is a hard liner is absurd. To say Muslim senator Keith Elleson is a hard liner is also absurd.

There is an article posted here on this site from a Muslim woman who WANTS the west to criticize Islam. If you fall for the right wing sensationalism of course you are going to think there are no cracks in their theocracy, but you'd be wrong. There was a Youtube movement of Muslim women driving in Saudi Arabia defying their social norms. There was a backlash of women worldwide including Muslim woman when the Turkish politician shot his mouth off.

There are voices in Islam that want that region to get with modern pluralism. But we cannot help them here if we insist walking on eggshells. They need their Jefferson and Paine so that women can drive. So that girls don't get shot for wanting an education. So that Sunnis and Shiites don't kill each other or kill non Muslims. So that no one is murdered for being raped. So that no one is murdered for leaving a religion.

I have seen plenty of websites owned by Arabs and Muslims who WANT the west to put those cracks in their theocracies. It is up to Arabs who were former Muslims or are still Muslims along with non Muslims in the west to not bow to the voices of fascism, theocracy and censorship.
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#4
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
(October 27, 2014 at 11:08 am)DeistPaladin Wrote: Sorry "coexist" liberals but the "moderate" loses, hands down, no contest.

Yes and no. You'd be surprised what that amount of cognitive dissonance and sufficiently vague claims can do.


(October 27, 2014 at 11:08 am)DeistPaladin Wrote: Put bluntly, the "coexist" liberal is also enabling the fundamentalist and all their abuses, from acts of violence to intrusive legislation to cruel traditions such as genital mutilations. All of these things are possible only by magical thinking and credence to beliefs about sky daddies. It seems an odd form of "progressive" thinking to not oppose repressive ideologies.

I do agree here. People, religious or not, need to do more to stand up to fundamentalism. I always get the feeling that they're worried that any attack on fundamentalism will be a slippery slope to an attack on moderate faiths. This leads them to knee-jerk in the opposite direction to "protect all religions" out of a perceived threat and self preservation. So, they'll denounce the fundies for "not doing it right", but they never put any teeth on harmful beliefs until they go straight to murder.
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#5
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
This is a very tricky issue.

I agree 100% with the OP that religious liberals provide cover to fundamentalists by claiming their holy books are the word of God. Some liberals like Anglican bishop John Shelby Spong try to sanitize the Bible by admitting to "the sins of scripture" (the title of one of his books). However, it turns into a theological dog's breakfast. Basically, he anathematizes any passages which violate the statement that "God is love." Obviously, a fundamentalist can define "love" any way he wants, for instance, God loves homosexuals so much that He cannot tolerate their sins.

Just a few weeks ago a liberal rabbi who writes a column for a large newspaper tried to hang the whole doctrine of human rights on the biblical story that God created mankind in his own image. If we found such an important matter only through the Bible, the fundamentalist can argue for taking the whole thing seriously.

The problem is this: Is it worth thumping liberals over their attachment to scripture? I must confess I have done that more than once. Yet liberal believers do a lot of good in the world. If I were offered a choice between converting all religious liberals to secular humanism OR converting all fundamentalists to liberal religion, I would choose the second in a heartbeat. The first option would make no discernible difference to the state of the work, but the second would make an immense difference.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
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#6
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
(October 27, 2014 at 12:24 pm)Brian37 Wrote: .

Brian reincarnated! Worship
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#7
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
Liberal propagandists are so far over the shark that they honestly expect us to believe Muslim terror atrocities have nothing to do with Islam. Instead of regarding these violent savages as violent savages, we are supposed to think they are people of peace. Arrgghh
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#8
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
When these so-called islamic "moderates" stand up to the mullahs I'll believe they exist. Just like any fucking god needs evidence before I believe they exist. But if they sit there like sheep just watching then they and their bullshit religion can go fuck themselves.
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#9
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
(October 29, 2014 at 8:18 pm)Christian Wrote: Liberal propagandists are so far over the shark that they honestly expect us to believe Muslim terror atrocities have nothing to do with Islam. Instead of regarding these violent savages as violent savages, we are supposed to think they are people of peace. Arrgghh

Christian propagandists would have us believe that Christian terror atrocities have nothing to do with Christianity . . .

Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:

"You did WHAT?  With WHO?  WHERE???"
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#10
RE: "But what about the moderates?"
(October 29, 2014 at 8:28 pm)Beccs Wrote: Christian propagandists would have us believe that Christian terror atrocities have nothing to do with Christianity . . .

Any religion can be a religion of peace and any religion can be a religion of violence. The Qu'ran speaks of use of violence, the Old Testament speaks of it, but the New Testament doesn't because Jesus Christ preached only love and peace. Even Buddhism could probably be twisted into some kind of violent thing some how.
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