Moderate Religion

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(from an online essay a couple years back)

One of the most controversial questions among atheists involves moderate theists. Many who identify themselves as simply non-religious would prefer that us outspoken atheists leave moderates alone. After all, they will say, moderates don't hurt anybody, and most of them are really nice people. Their religion is mostly just cultural. They don't really believe the nasty parts of the Bible. They should be left alone even though they do happen to practice a potentially nasty religion. I take an opposing view, and I believe there is a very good reason for doing so.



Without spending thirty minutes finding statistics that will be debatable, I'm going to hazard a guess that maybe 20% of Christians in America are either fundamentalists or evangelicals or both. It doesn't really matter. The point is, they're the minority of Christians. Most are moderates. They believe in some version of Christianity, most likely one that leaves out the nastier elements like stoning homosexuals, and the unscientific elements like a 6000 year old cosmos.

These moderates, in my view, are the ones directly responsible for the decline of America into quasi-theocracy that has occurred in the last 30 years. Their complicity is a result of at least two things: first, they defend fundamentalists as “slightly misguided, but genuine, honest people,” and second, they defend “faith” as a legitimate source of knowledge. The first defense is maddening. In any other discussion, moderates would most likely not advocate letting people continue to do harmful things just because they are well intentioned. Imagine an alternative medicine guru who advocated a return to the use of mercury to cure various illnesses. Suppose that he had been living by himself somewhere for the last thirty years, and was simply unaware of the mortal danger involved with mercury. Would moderate Christians say that he should be allowed to continue with his recommendations simply because he had a genuine desire to help people?

At this point, many people, including some atheists, might be balking at my comparison. After all, we know that mercury kills, and advocating taking poison is not the same as letting people have their religious beliefs, is it? Well, in the case of right wing fundamentalism, it's not really much different. After all, it is right wing fundamentalists who refuse to permit stem cell research, effectively killing people who would benefit from cures available only through this new research. If that's not concrete enough for you, think for a minute about abortion clinics. They have security systems that would make a Guantanamo Colonel swell with pride. That level of security isn't excessive, either. Without it, we would have a lot of dead doctors. With it, many doctors who perform abortions fear for their lives, and occasionally, one of them dies at the hands of someone doing "God's will." Every election, two of the biggest issues are gay marriage and abortion rights. It's probably not too much of a stretch to say that George Bush gained eight years of power riding the coattails of the Fundamentalist Right.

Still, you may object that most moderates are vehemently opposed to right wing violence. They detest it as much as us non-theists. It's unfair to say that they are not opposed to such things. This is where I, along with Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and other atheist activists, part company with even the majority of atheists. I say that not only is it fair to say they facilitate violence, I also say that they are actually causing much of the violence because of their refusal to examine their own beliefs and reject the very foundation of religion itself!

Moderate Christianity is deceptively alluring because of its seemingly scientific basis. Most educated Christians have no problem admitting that there's something to evolutionary science, and they have no problem admitting that the earth is very old, and that dinosaurs once roamed about. In fact, if you get a good Moderate Christian into a theological discussion, they will almost inevitably tell you that they believe questions are good, and that any thinking person ought to question what they believe.

Forgive me, but the devil is in the details, and they're missing a very, very important detail. The admission that questions ought to be asked makes it seductively simple to believe that moderate Christianity is ok, and doesn't hurt anyone. Maybe it's even helpful in some way. The problem, and the main point of this essay, is that questioning is not ok for moderate Christians. I can prove it. Next time you're talking to a moderate, try getting them onto the nature of god. If you're any good at debate, you can quickly steer them to one of the half dozen paradoxes inherent in god belief. Once you get them there, note how quickly they will revert to the position, “There are some things you just have to take on faith.” If you press them into explaining why, they will get defensive. They will probably end the discussion very quickly.

The simple, indisputable fact is that any god belief requires faith, and if you follow my writings at all, you know that “faith,” properly defined, is “belief in a thing despite evidence to the contrary, or a total lack of evidence.” Once you get them to the point of admitting that they hold a belief despite it's opposition to reason, you can see that the facade of moderation is just that – a facade. At their core, they are exactly the same as fundamentalists. They just pick a more socially acceptable irrationality. What they really mean when they say you should question everything is that you should question everything – except for the validity of faith as a means of acquiring knowledge.

This is why I don't let spiritualists off the hook, either. They advocate the same thing. There are some things that are true because they just feel true. It's exactly the same foundation, and it leads to exactly the same place. If we, as skeptics and atheists, allow this hedge-bet to go unchallenged, we are also complicit in the religiostupidification of America. In the case of both fundamentalists and moderates, the individual's own sense of morality determines how much “faith” they need, or in other words, how much irrationality they will accept.

Another way of saying this is that where religious faith is concerned, allowing a little irrationality is no different from allowing a lot. This point is so important that it needs to be made again. Accepting the belief that some things are true and irrational is what gives a perception of validity to every religious belief. Right wing fundamentalists are crazy. These are people who are out of touch with reality. The reason they are not either publicly ridiculed or maybe even forcibly medicated is that they are given a free pass -- because it's religion. If they believed some of the crazy things they believe because the Jolly Green Giant spoke from the side of a can of beans, they would be institutionalized. But, because the Mean Old Sadist in the Sky told them to blow up buildings, they're encouraged to be a little more moderate.

The primary reason that moderates refuse to come out publicly against fundamentalists is the vulnerability of their own position. The really smart moderates know this, and I suspect that the rest sense it even if they can't put their finger on it. The only way to effectively call out the fundamentalists is to challenge them on rational grounds. So, you see, the lie in Moderate Christianity is that it is moderate at all. It is not. It is, however, to use the colloquial term, chicken s**t. Moderates are too intellectually dishonest, or too scared, to apply logic to all questions, lest they have to give up the illusion of a sky daddy that makes them feel better about the world. They are also too scared to take a stand against those of their own faith who are using faith as a weapon, and causing untold suffering among gays, women, atheists, and, dare I say it... Iraqis. They cannot, in good ecclesiastical conscience, take a firm stand against those within their order who eschew science, for if they did, they would be opening the door to the scientific scrutiny of their own beliefs.

Moderate Christianity is a lie. While moderates do not have a political agenda advocating taking America two hundred years backwards, they allow those who do to go about their work unimpeded. Worse, they very often vote based on their religious ideology rather than their rational beliefs. I suggest that it is time to stop giving moderates a free pass just because they embrace a softer, gentler version of a hateful, misogynistic, authoritarian religion. People of reason will never have a rational leg to stand on until we challenge the very foundation of religion – all religion – that is, the errant belief that “faith is a virtue.”

You say this is from a couple of years ago. Did you write this, or is someone else responsible?

Hmm.... I'd simply put a warning on his advice and be done with it. If people want to poison themselves after they've been warned of the danger, then let them.


That's actually a lot of people on their favored beliefs. If you had asked a more intelligent person, they could respond at greater length, and some of them do and write books about it, but the average person is pretty average, and cannot carry on an intellectual conversation at any length, much less enough to answer questions.


Actually, it is not indisputable if we define faith by your definition, as there are theists who argue that a belief in God is supported by philosophical arguments(classical apologetics, such as the cosmological argument and such, along with arguments about human reasoning, such as the argument from reason, etc). There are those who argue that the overall case for the belief in Christ is strong, as a lot of Christians think that the historical evidence for Christianity is decent. There is also the belief that if the Christian God exists, then belief in God is rational, because then it would be a properly basic belief that this God would build into our brains.

In any case, I don't see much proven because people are stupid. You can argue a stupid person into most things. The average Christian is still just a stupid person, just as the average non-Christian. I suppose the term "stupid" isn't that technical, but in order to debate beliefs like this at length, a philosophical background is likely necessary.


Nobody can question everything, and epistemic questions are particularly difficult, because they cannot be solved. There is a problem known as the regress problem. It is a skeptical argument that goes like this:

1. Suppose that P is some piece of knowledge. Then P is a justified true belief.
2. The only thing that can justify P is another statement – let's call it P1; so P1 justifies P.
3. But if P1 is to be a satisfactory justification for P, then we must know that P1.
4. But for P1 to be known, it must also be a justified true belief.
5. That justification will be another statement - let's call it P2; so P2 justifies P1.
6. But if P2 is to be a satisfactory justification for P1, then we must know that P2
7. But for P2 to count as knowledge, it must itself be a justified true belief.
8. That justification will in turn be another statement - let's call it P3; so P3 justifies P2.
9. and so on, ad infinitum.


I think insanity is to a great extent a social construct, so appealing to social norms against religion seems rather pointless, because these social norms do not have to have any basis in anything meaningful.


This likely depends on the moderate, however, I think most people are more tolerant of extremists in their own camp than they are of extremists on the other side.

In any case, many more moderate thinkers(depending on how you use this term, as "moderate" could just mean "non-fundamentalist") can and do take a stand against stupidities in other believers in Christianity, they just don't take as big of a stand as atheists would, because they are not major ideological opponents of that sort of belief.


I don't take that divide to be as clear as you put it, as most people don't vote on something truly rational, nor do I think most beliefs are incredibly rational.

Someone else, though he said go paste it as you want.

That is quite a bit to ignore, and some of the most interesting bits.

Oh, I see. I take it, though, that you are in complete agreement with it?

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One argument put forward in the essay seems to be this:

Argument

• Fundamentalists are directly bad for society
• Moderates are not directly bad for society
• Moderates do not discourage Fundamentalist beliefs
• If Moderates do not discourage Fundamentalists, then Moderates encourage Fundamentalists
• Moderates encourage Fundamentalists
• If Moderates encourage Fundamentalists, then Moderates are indirectly bad for society
• Moderates are indirectly bad for society

(If you think this is not a fair interpretation of this argument, please do correct me)

I myself would disagree with premise 3, for I know that many moderate people of religion do indeed clash with fundamentalists among their number. However, I suppose it could be granted that there are some moderates who do not oppose fundamentalists, but if that is granted then all you have proven is that some moderates are bad for society and some are not and that it depends on their personality. This isn't a great thing to have proven, because it does not prove that badness is inherent to the moderate way, but rather proves that some humans are more apathetic than others (something we already know).

I would also instinctively disagree with premise 4, but I think it would be impossible to know whether it is true or not without a great deal of hindsight - something we do not have.

Also worth pointing out is that this argument wouldn't work in a fundamentalist society. We don't of course, live in one of those. I still think that is worth noting as an aside.



I've never been able to finish the Bible because of those damn nasty bits. They always make me faint. It's one of the shames of my life that I've never read the whole Bible.

I agree with it. Though I would say moderates indirectly encourage fundies by agreeing that faith is a valid way of gaining knowledge. Obviously moderates don't encourage the really crazy stuff fundies put forth, but they won't agree that faith is inherently irrational - as it is since faith is belief without, or even contrary to evidence.

Sloppy writing and sloppy reasoning. I won't bother with a point-by-point rebuttal, at least not now.

I take it that by "I agree with it" you mean that you agree with the piece of writing that you posted. All of it? There is not one thing in there that you disagree with?

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So what of my representation of the argument I did earlier? Do you agree that it proves nothing useful because it does not apply to all moderates or do you disagree and say that it does apply to all moderates after all? If you disagree please present your case.

(I also realise that there are other arguments made, but there was a lot to read so I didn't want to talk about it all at once because it would get confusing)

I can't find anything in it I disagree with.

Thanks. It's just I wouldn't want to argue against something written there if you didn't believe it.

~



So you believe this?

Evidence, I take it, would be scientific evidence only?

~

You also haven't made a comment on my attempt to scrutinise the argument which looks to prove that moderates encourage fundamentalists by being moderate. I'd appreciate it if you would do this (apologies if I'm nagging).

You know you want to give a point-by-point rebuttal!

Yeah, but at the moment laziness triumphs.

The central argument is flawed. You assume that fundamentalists are awful people, and then extend that to moderates based on moderates not objecting loudly enough for your taste.

A similar argument could prove that all agnostics are devil worshippers. First, assume that all atheists are devil worshippers. Second, note that agnostics do not generally loudly denounce atheists as devil worshippers. Third, conclude that, because agnostics aren't opposing atheists, that they must also be devil worshippers.

The 2 problems with your argument are that, first, it is assumed, not proven, that fundamentalists are bad. Second, the argument that a conclusion about moderates can be based on whether their opinion of fundamentalists matches yours.

People who are mentally unbalanced are not necessarily evil. Just sick.

Fundies are obviously bad for society, and saying that atheists are devil worshippers would be ludicrous - we hardly worship something we don't believe exists!