This is a pet-peeve for me, especially as I happen to live in a place with a much higher rate of moderates to bible-thumpers than, say, in the U.S. -- I live in an urban centre of Germany.
How do you de-convert a moderate?
My mother and most of my theist friends happen to be religious moderates (mostly Catholics or Lutherans, at least one distant Muslim), so I had several opportunities to try, but even though they seem to be the group of religious people that can be reasoned with the easiest (if you ever tried using logic with bible-thumpers and other neo-Evangelicals you know what I mean), they seem to be incapable of taking the final step.
Most of these moderates don't believe that their holy book is the word of God, however they believe it was written by people who were directly influenced by their deity of choice (this makes them resistant against any arguments about contradictory passages).
To them the scriptures are more like a religious Rorschach test: you can find Truth, but more by reflection than mere absorption (this makes them resistant against ANY arguments about scripture).
They don't even necessarily believe there is ONE true faith, instead they often think of religion as a kaleidoscope: the different religions are just different understandings of the same thing, the abundance of religions is an argument FOR theism for them, not against it (this makes them resistant against any arguments about true faiths).
What's more, they often don't even TRY to use rational arguments or see any reason to justify their beliefs, so they often argue emotionally: it'd be a sad world if there was no-one watching out for us / I felt His presence when I went through a difficult time / etc (this SHOULD make them vulnerable against plausibility arguments, except it doesn't because they don't claim to be rational in the first place).
So in the end, this is really a problem with sentimental believers, rather than the deluded lunatic fringe. I fear that as long as we, as anti-theists, have no means to de-convert the fence-sitters (the moderates whose "harmless" religiosity distracts from the extremists) and thus the silent support for religiosity that "justifies" acceptance of religious practices and opinions, we cannot win the fight against religious extremists.
The moderates know that Islamists running around with explosive belts, "Mortification of the Flesh" Catholics mutilating their own bodies and bible-thumping televangelists who call down hellfire at homosexuals and Harry Potter are nutcases, but they are ignorant to the underlying problem of Theism and its dangerous influence on political, economical, scientific and social decisions.
This is the group Dawkins & co tend to forget about or ignore. But I think this is also the group that needs to be addressed most urgently to pave the way to a more wide-spread skepsis towards religion and awareness of the threat that is religious fundamentalism.
How do you de-convert a moderate?
My mother and most of my theist friends happen to be religious moderates (mostly Catholics or Lutherans, at least one distant Muslim), so I had several opportunities to try, but even though they seem to be the group of religious people that can be reasoned with the easiest (if you ever tried using logic with bible-thumpers and other neo-Evangelicals you know what I mean), they seem to be incapable of taking the final step.
Most of these moderates don't believe that their holy book is the word of God, however they believe it was written by people who were directly influenced by their deity of choice (this makes them resistant against any arguments about contradictory passages).
To them the scriptures are more like a religious Rorschach test: you can find Truth, but more by reflection than mere absorption (this makes them resistant against ANY arguments about scripture).
They don't even necessarily believe there is ONE true faith, instead they often think of religion as a kaleidoscope: the different religions are just different understandings of the same thing, the abundance of religions is an argument FOR theism for them, not against it (this makes them resistant against any arguments about true faiths).
What's more, they often don't even TRY to use rational arguments or see any reason to justify their beliefs, so they often argue emotionally: it'd be a sad world if there was no-one watching out for us / I felt His presence when I went through a difficult time / etc (this SHOULD make them vulnerable against plausibility arguments, except it doesn't because they don't claim to be rational in the first place).
So in the end, this is really a problem with sentimental believers, rather than the deluded lunatic fringe. I fear that as long as we, as anti-theists, have no means to de-convert the fence-sitters (the moderates whose "harmless" religiosity distracts from the extremists) and thus the silent support for religiosity that "justifies" acceptance of religious practices and opinions, we cannot win the fight against religious extremists.
The moderates know that Islamists running around with explosive belts, "Mortification of the Flesh" Catholics mutilating their own bodies and bible-thumping televangelists who call down hellfire at homosexuals and Harry Potter are nutcases, but they are ignorant to the underlying problem of Theism and its dangerous influence on political, economical, scientific and social decisions.
This is the group Dawkins & co tend to forget about or ignore. But I think this is also the group that needs to be addressed most urgently to pave the way to a more wide-spread skepsis towards religion and awareness of the threat that is religious fundamentalism.
