"But what about the moderates?"

[DeistPaladin]

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.