No More Religious Appeasement!

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

This also applies to Christianity.

GordonBlood said...

What an interesting tactic. Go on a diatribe about Islam, more-less surrounded in good solid empirical fact, and then link it with Christianity, an altogether different religion. It seems to me to be just another ploy that atheists have stolen from conservative fundamentalist Christians. Im reminded of the people who say "Stalin was an atheist, thus all atheists are evil". Atheists and agnostics, rightly, argue that this is a nonsense argument. But so to is comparing Christianity to Islam, they are religions with grossly different conceptions of God, theology, revelation etc. This tactic is seen very well in Sam Harris's books, where he attacks Muslim radicals and then seems to then say "see, people with religion just cant be trusted". But im not terribly surprised to see this rhetoric; while I find some of your posts John to be deep and good honest questions other times your obvious atheism seems to keep you from seeking the truth you say you espouse.

Hendrix Keats said...

gordonblood:

loftus is right, and you are wrong. Here is the evidence

Anonymous said...

Gordonblood, I think Islam and Christianity share the same epistemological foundations. They are both based in non-evidential superstitious dogmatism. I know you'll disagree.

GordonBlood said...

John- Then there is nothing more to say, we must turn to the arguments, which I certainly dont want to get into and I doubt you want to either, especially given the context of this comment.

Reason over Religion- Your little diatribe made me chuckle for a short while, but then dissapointed me because you, like many, seem to think Christianity is based on simply "faith" as belief without evidence. Of course this is not how any mainstream Christian denomination defines faith and certainly not how any of the great Christian thinkers down the ages have defined it. I dont know your religious history but it certainly could not have included reading seriously the writings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, Gottfreid Liebnetz, Cardinal Newman, CS Lewis and many modern day commentators. Attack religion if you want, that is your decision, but dont try to write articles like those on your blog and think anyone with more than an elementary understanding of why they are Christian are going to be persuaded. Of course in many areas Christians are not very serious in their religion; they may hold on to it nominally but that is it, it is a hiearchy of hypocrisy.

GordonBlood said...

Oh and yes, Reason over Religion, your just flat out wrong about what fundamentalism is. I have never been a fundamentalist, I think fundamentalism is seriously flawed and it had resulted in an absolute dichotomy in the American conservative churches of choosing science, history, philosophy etc or religion. All fundamentalism is, according to Philip Jenkins who is certainly not a fundamentalist and a leading scholar of history and religion, a way of reading a text. Thats it. I would suggest reading Martin Marty's fundamentalism series but im pretty agnostic that you would do that when you can just attack all religion as fundamentalist without setting forward a correct definition.

Stargazer said...

Yes, but how you read a text affects how you live your life, how you interact with others, how you see God involved with the world, etc. etc. Active fundamentalists aren't just reading things differently, they are insisting that their way of reading is THE way of reading the text, and basically living in hope that this will one day become clear to all, one way or another.

Of course, the fundamentalists are not alone in insisting that their way of reading and understanding the texts is the right way to go, but so far, they remain, to my mind at least, the greatest current threat to the degree stability and freedoms we have experienced so far in this county.

Stargazer said...

Sorry, meant to say "degree OF stability" and COUNTRY, not county.

Ah, typos...

GordonBlood said...

On that stargazer I will more-less agree. However along with Breugemann I think that the fundamentalism seen in the US is avery strange strand which reads things into a literal reading which should not be inserted to begin with. But I do agree that one needs to take the context of the writing extremely seriously, which many conservative fundamentalists seem to scoff at quite abit. For example the group of the religious-right in the US is barely what I would call representing the gospel, in a twisted turn of events im pretty sure im not being controversial in saying they are most certainly modern day pharisees. I dont think Lewis was too far off when he said that it is in the bushes next to the church that only the worst sinners can truly grow.

Jim Jordan said...

This also applies to Christianity.

Sorry, but that's weak. Christians only stand in the way of abortion and same-sex marriage. Even in those instances they work inside the law. Abortion protesters stand at a certain distance prescribed by law and same-sex marriage has been defeated repeatedly by voting, which is a matter of opinions.

Meanwhile what Europe is going through is incomparably worse: a gay couple murdered because they held hands in public, a filmmaker [our Michael Moore counterpart] knifed to death for filming a documentary suggesting women were treated like chattel in Islam, and Muslim men raping women for supposedly not covering up. Did the man not say that Americans had it right on this issue?

What you're saying in effect is that Islamists are dangerous, let's use that to shut up the Christians. That tactic has more in common with Islam (Surah 9:29 et al) then it does with the tenets of Christianity.

I really liked this guy though. IMO he was calling for Europe to show a backbone and stand up for civilization and rebel against religious extremism that threatens the same. I agree.

Red Maria said...

How exactly is a five minute racist rant by failed "comedian" and megalomaniac Pat Condell "debunking Christianity"?
Like a former polytechnic lecturer doing his Jim Davidson routine, Condell declares that "we" fought the Nazis (he sure as hell didn't), that "we" don't want sharia law, which may be the case but he does not speak for me.
And - this is the *really* funny bit - he bangs on about free speech he doesn't even believe in it himself. So when a Cardinal exercises his democratic right to free speech and says that pro-choice "Catholic" politicians should not take communion Condell accuses him of ... interfering in politics.
Condell's version of free speech extends only to those who agree with him. So who the hell is he to complain about demonstrations being stopped and cultural sensitivity?

Spirula said...

How exactly is a five minute racist rant by failed "comedian" and megalomaniac Pat Condell "debunking Christianity"?

I noticed this "how does this debunk..." kind of comment here a lot lately.

Are these people impaired in their understanding of the concept of a blog, or do they also bitch about the fact that Texas Steakhouse puts fries on the menu too?

zilch said...

red maria- pray tell, how was Pat Condell's clip "racist"? I listened to the whole thing, and at no point did he refer to anyone's race. If you consider comments about Islam to be tantamount to comments about any particular race, then perhaps you should think about your own racism.

Shygetz said...

do they also bitch about the fact that Texas Steakhouse puts fries on the menu too?

That was the best quote I've seen in a while. Kudos.

Red Maria said...

zWell I suppose if someone doesn't make explicit reference to n*****s, W**s and all the rest, they're exonerated of racism, right? Well not exactly, there's also the implicit and the snide. Take for example Mr Condell's charming reference to the Moslem birthrate in France. They're outbreeding us, dontcha know.
Now according to secularist orthodoxy, Moslems aren't born but made. You know, freewill and all that. So why is Mr Condell kvetching about the fecundity of Moslem women? Or is there something particularly gross about a dark-skinned woman bringing forth more children than an impeccably palid French woman?
Again I wonder what this has to do with "debunking" Christianity. And no, I don't think the dumb analogy with Texas Steakhouse explains that particular one away. Quite simply if Texas Steakhouse didn't serve any steak, customers would be entitled to complain to trading standards.
There's precious little "debunking" here but a good deal of moaning about Moslems and Christians exercising their democratic rights to participate in the political process.

zilch said...

red maria- how does mentioning "outbreeding" imply racism? I don't know if Condell is a racist or not; based on this clip, there's no knowing. And as far as I understand it, the "moaning" here is not about Christians and Moslems exercising their democratic rights, but about the problems that the religious view of the world, primarily but not exclusively the Christian worldview, makes for the rest of us: discrimination against atheists, homosexuals, women, and disregard of the real problems we're all facing: destruction of the environment, war, and loss of civil rights.

Chuck Wolber said...

Red Maria commented: So when a Cardinal exercises his democratic right to free speech and says that pro-choice "Catholic" politicians should not take communion Condell accuses him of ... interfering in politics.

Total softball... A Cardinal can say anything anyone else can say. I doubt Condell would disagree. It's just that a Cardinal should know better than to get involved in politics, people tend to get burned at the stake when that stuff happens.

In other words, the dialog from people in power tend to be weighted more heavily. The words are legal, but legality says nothing about responsibility. Condell was simply pointing out that the Cardinal was being irresponsible with his power.

..Chuck..