Atheist Fundamentalism

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I'm sorry but whenever someone says 'I'm a Muslim' I automatically take it as given that they espouse everything written in the Quran. Why? Because that's what being a Muslim entails. Would it not be blasphemy to reject part of the word of Allah as interpreted by Mohammed?

Same with the bible. Nowhere does it say 'this story is allegorical', so how on earth are we supposed to know when talking to a theist what part they accept and what part they reject unless it comes up in discussion?

I think that is the point he is making - since most of the Christians and Muslims don't espouse everything written in the Bible and Quran, you should know that the assumption that "being a Christian or Muslim entails following the scripture" is incorrect. That is why you should not automatically assume that that is what they do.

I understand but I'm wondering how we can make a reasonable inference otherwise? Surely taking it prima facie that they read their scripture as the word of their deity and follow it to the letter is the only reasonable position until proven otherwise? There are, after all, passages in most holy books about what happens to people to ignore [insert god's] word.

And to a larger extent it indicates a real fallacy in the New Atheist movement, that is part and parcel of the lack of a religious education among these critics of religion, which is that they tend to read the scriptures more literally than any literalist I know. And when confronted by some particularly savage line in the scriptures, their conception forces an understanding [that says], “If you do not follow that little bit of savagery, then you’re not really a Muslim, you’re not really a Christian, you’re not really a Jew.”

Ignoring the fact that it's not atheists saying that, it's their own fucking holy text and/or believers!