I am going to write down a few paragraphs from a book that I recently started reading. Its about the threat that organized religion poses to society as a whole. And by a 'threat' I am not implying that any other thing poses a greater or lesser threat to human society, but am merely pointing towards the part religion plays. Here it goes:
While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universem it offers no bulkwark against religious extremism and religious violence. From the perspective of those seeking to live by the letter of the texts, the religious moderate is nothing more than a failed fundamentalist. He is, in all likelihood, going to wind up in hell with t he rest of the unbelievers. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a catipulation to a variety of all-to-human interets that have nothing, in principle, to do with God.
Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
By their light, religious moderation appears to be nothing more than an unwillingness to fully submit to God's law. By failiing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reson equally. Unless the core dogmas of faith are called into question--i.e, that we know there is a God, and that we know what he wants from us--religious moderation will do nothing to lead us out of the wilderness.
I would suggest you all to find inconsistencies in this excerpt and discuss this on the blog. What point do you disagree with and why.......I would prefer if you quoute exact words from the excerpt and attack them in your rebuttal.
2 comments:
"the religious moderate is nothing more than a failed fundamentalist"
Well I agree to writer. But the thing is that the is a natural phenomena. Every society is divided into three layers (fundementalists, moderates, liberals).....the fundementalists and the liberal are the two extremes....nd the majority lies in between.
This majority calls itself the "moderates". And some how or the other the society naturallly divides itself into these groups. And larger the society, the more prominent these layers are.
But i dont know how these prbs can be solved. we just keep on discussing and end up at the point where we started from.
Its not about 'knowing' how to solve these problems. Clearly the solution to these problems lay in raising awareness about the inconsistensies of such beliefs(religious). They cause immense hatred between groups which is completely uncalled for.
Imagine if no religious people hate others and the humankind can finally come to a consensus about the basic human rights and dignity.
Being liberal, by the way, need not be another extreme for fundamentalist. Liberals are people that believe in liberation. They value personal liberty and freedom. A liberal can be a fundamentalist by advocating liberalism.
Moderation in religion on the other hand is nothing but hypocricy. The problem however is when you decide what the right level of fundamentalism is.
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