The LATimes has an opinion this morning from Sam Harris. The title is
God’s Dupes: Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics — and are every bit as delusional.
Niiice. His premise which isn’t argued in any rational way is that because anyone believes, it makes it acceptable for fanatics to be fanatical. Here’s his key point:
The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists — men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin’s Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren’t sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.
Oddly enough on this column about religious fanatacism, it’s the Christians and only the Christians who are getting blamed for the whackjobs.
It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. He would never write a column blaming moderate Islam for the fanatacism of Islam because that just might get him killed. But slap a Christian and they don’t slap back. That’s a good atheist. You showed em all, didn’t you?
I am sorry that Mr. Harris has no relationship with God. He seems happy with that though so more power to him. His column is looking to cut the delusion out of life so that we can all go on and live happily in reality vs myth. My mocking of his column comes from the paragraph above. Christianity is not the most popular religion of the world. Christianity is certainly not the current whackjob religion of jihadists. And yet Christians are his examples in entirety when looking to blame for keeping the door open to the whackjobs.
For a more inspirational message of the day, see Of Burning Bushes, Places and Time (ht the Anchoress)
cchhheeeez louize. What a sad, empty, meaningless life that man must have. Plus, who is he or anyone else to tell me what MY reality is? hmm? riddle me that batman.