You Guys Need to Communicate! (thoughts from an ex evangelical Christian)

Thanks, I doubt that it was the best passage in the book, but I only mean to make peace with fundementalists here. It is very criticized belief, and I do wantonly take part in the criticism because ther is an obvious conflict of interest between Catholicism and those opposed to the institution. Fundementalists are an easy target in their visibilty and the familiarity which most Americans have with christianity in general.It is easy to forget that, before all of the arguments, the fundementalists were part of the movement to 'oppose' religion as it was, and to live in peace and harmony with their environment as the Puritans and Amish have tried. Everything started with an eye to improvement, and outside of the fanatic type, my problems with fundementalism are purely doctrinal. If people want to go nuts and get violent over their differences, they are just irrational. I am fine with violent debate.

That's just silly, though. Why is he pointing the finger at 'religious moderates' if his gripe is with with an entire society that embraces the ideal of religious tolerance? That's a different, and much more diverse, population. Does Harris show any sign of noticing the difference? I'm still more interested in what Judith Krantz has to say on the subject.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I did think that could make an interesting debate proposal; what are the potentially dangerous claims of religion and what is dangerous about them? I don't think I would be the best wo/man for the job; I try to limit my beliefs to silly things like transubstantiation and the trinity. Funny, though, that he fails to mention as evil any of the known inclusive religions which do take a moderate view of other beliefs. I am quite curious as to why only Abrahamic faiths are suspect in his speeches. It is always possible that certain religions are not as desirable in content and leanings as others. I do not know enough about the 'up' side to Islam, as far as charity work etc, but I do know that innocent Muslims are victims of the actions of violence of their peers, and that wherever violence reigns, it is the good people of every faith who suffer.Harris may be well-meaning, or simply ambitious for his own sake. He is by no means original, and the arguments he uses are pretty much the same as those you hear at EvC on a daily basis. It is precisely the same vain hope at a better world that gives religion its impetus, as all things under the sun have been tried and have failed in the effort of world peace. Has religion failed? So far, yes. Everything will fail. It is ALL divisive without the personal commitment to equality by the individual.

I believe Harris is assuming, correctly in my opinion, that religious moderates are the dominant group in American society (though fundamentalism is growing). Were they a minority their attitude of religious tolerance wouldn't figure so prominently. Maybe someone has some figures.--Percy

LOL! Jar is by no means a Christian moderate. He's by all means a radical liberal who appears to regard most of the Bible as either inaccurate or myth/fable, denies that the death of Jesus is relevant to salvation and regards about all religions as acceptable to God except book fundamentalists which allegedly leads to condemnation by the gods of the respective books.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

I'm not aware that writings outside of Jewish scripural cannons of Orthodox Judiasm are regarded as bonafide scripture. As for the Aprocrypha you may have a valid point there as I'm not aware whether YHWH is in the manuscripts of it as I have no interlinear of it.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

In regards to this post and the one following, it is clearly up to Harris to supply some def for what a 'moderate' is. Jar, I believe is self-proclaiming moderate. In spite of my obvious adherences, I am considered a moderate by fundamentalists. No one here puts me and jar in the same category without some sort of definitive, if at all. If the definition is 'one who has a particular affinity for a certain religion, but does not discredit that of others' I doubt you will find many statistics. If the definition is 'anyone who tolerates another's views' well, heck, that is what America is all about, isn't it? We can take a poll here, see who will vote for religious tolerance, and who will oppose all religions...while at the same time having a belief...

Bonafide scripture is non-existant. One person's canon is another's apocrypha.Besides, I though the whole point was NOT to mention YHWH's name?

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Are parents essentially brainwashing their kids when they teach them values?

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Since when are "values" and "belief in the supernatural" synonyms?They aren't.Of course, it was never my point that teaching values is brainwashing, and it's easy to tell this because I didn't say anything close to that.One doesn't need any sort of supernatural belief in order to teach or learn values. Values are secular.It was, though, my point that it is brainwashing to relentlessly teach little children from a very early age that there is such a thing as the supernatural, that to doubt is wrong and dangerous, that certain sorts of knowledge is to be avoided, that only certain select people (us) understand The Truth(tm), that their allegience is first to their religion and second to themselves, their familiy, their country, etc.In other words, it is "brainwashing" becasue it seeks to take away the individual's ability to think for themselves and question what they are being taught to believe.Many, many Christian and Muslim sects operate this way. Some are more strict than others, though.

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I doubt that anybody intends to "brainwash" or to "indoctrinate" their kids, even if they are actually doing it. I don't think people make a point to do this because of its negative connotations.

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I certainly agree. But it is indeed done, all the time to a greater or lesser degree, in most Christian and Muslim sects, at least.

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If one parent talks to their child about Jesus, is that any more of an indoctrination process than telling them that such a person never existed?

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Well, there is little to no evidence that Jesus existed, so to talk to a child as if he did exist is a lot like insisting that the kid believe without any reason to, other than the parent wants them to believe it.

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Where is the line of demarcation? Who gets to decide what is brainwashing material and who doesn't?

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I think that one can teach children anything you want as long as you make it clear that they have to learn to be critical thinkers and not just accept things because an authority figure tells them it is so.They should be taught that what they believe is up to THEM, not anybody else.

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'Explanations like "God won't be tested by scientific studies" but local yokels can figure it out just by staying aware of what's going on have no rational basis whatsoever.' -Percy"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders

Do they call it "brainwashing"? No, of course not. But if you think these religious traditions aren't teaching parents that they need to inculcate anti-skeptic attitudes intentionally before their children are old enough to question them, then that can only be because you've never set foot in such a church, and you're completely ignorant of what the culture of Christian fundamentalism is like.The idea that you need to get these attitudes into your children before a certain age is very prevalent. They don't call it "brainwashing", of course, but they don't conceal the fact that they want to insert these attitudes into children before they're old enough to get conflicting messages from society.

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No, of course not. But if you think these religious traditions aren't teaching parents that they need to inculcate anti-skeptic attitudes intentionally before their children are old enough to question them, then that can only be because you've never set foot in such a church, and you're completely ignorant of what the culture of Christian fundamentalism is like.

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It isn't just Christian fundamentalism, by the way. Discouraging children from asking "too many questions" and strong disapproval of doubt are prevalent in many mainstream Christian sects, too.

You're sort of making Harris's point for him. Religious tolerance is a fine ideal, most of us here are strongly in favor, but Harris is arguing that we live in a world where the availability of modern technologies of destruction makes such tolerance untenable. He believes that the truly crazy religious ideas that motivate engineers and architects to fly planes into buildings must be challenged rather than held in respect.Underlying all of what Harris says is his belief that essential to a safe modern world is an alignment between our ideas and reality. The idea that you can indiscriminately mass murder Jews by suicide bombing and get 72 virgins in heaven must be challenged rather than classified as that of a few deranged individuals. Harris thinks we are kidding ourselves if we fail to understand the important role that jihad and martyrdom play in Islamic thought, and that we allow them to go unchallenged at our peril. The odds of safely coexisting with such ideas for any extended time period are not good, you can only throw up the bulwarks for so long. Harris is saying that inaction on this front is dangerous and that action is essential.Harris has not that I've noticed so far indicated what form this action should take. Convincing religious moderates to accept that jihad and martyrdom are actually widely accepted concepts within Islam and that crazy religious ideas should be challenged is where he's starting, but where he wants to take it from there I'm not sure, and it's possible he hasn't thought this far ahead.--Percy

Really? Such as?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Archer:

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That's just silly, though. Why is he pointing the finger at 'religious moderates' if his gripe is with with an entire society that embraces the ideal of religious tolerance? That's a different, and much more diverse, population. Does Harris show any sign of noticing the difference?

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Then it's still silly. On that same basis Harris can blame any of dozens of subsets of the population for his fundy problems.Harris could blame the American middle class. After all, this class is the dominant one numerically. If you want to finger a statistical 'majority' within the culture rather than the culture itself for one of its most characteristic features, blame the middle class--religious and non-religious members of it alike. The argument makes as much sense (not).Harris could blame speakers of English. After all, speakers of English represent a majority within American society. If that society is too tolerant of religous extremism, well, it's obvious that as the dominant group this English speaking population--religious and non-religious members alike--could change things. Let it get off its collective fanny and draw a line. Let the English speakers stop giving those fundies cover!By the same reasoning Harris could blame members of political parties. Or omnivores. Or people over 30. Or heterosexuals. Or high school graduates. Or overweight people. Or taxpayers. He'd be making the same flawed argument.And the stats would look just as good. In each case we could look into the numbers and discover that--lo and behold!--all these groups represent numerical majorities in the population! That would really validate each premise, wouldn't it?'Maybe someone has some figures.' Right. If Harris thinks American society is too tolerant of diverse religious beliefs, let him say it is and let him propose the systematic changes--amendments to the Constitution and everything else--to change it. Or, if he really thinks fundamentalism is the root problem, let him hold the fundies responsible for their own behavior and propose changes there.Those approaches would be logical. Properly acted upon by a perceptive writer, they could fall into the category of informed social criticism.But Harris's case as you present it here is just sophomoric.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I think it would be a mistake to conclude that Harris is merely playing a blame game, as if he were just an atheistic Jerry Falwell casting blame for 9/11 on groups he dislikes. I think his identification of the tolerance of religious moderation as a critical weakness in the west's attitude toward fundamentalism merits some serious consideration.As an aside, it's been interesting observing the reactions of religious moderates in this thread, who appear incredulous that someone could somehow find fault with tolerance. But tolerance isn't always a profitable avenue, witness Neville Chamberlain's attempted appeasement of Hitler prior to World War II. And a substantial portion of the blame for Hitler's early success can be laid at the feet of the disarmament community that was so active throughout most of the 1930's. I think Harris has pretty much said what he means. All of American society would include the fundamentalist community, a group with whom religious tolerance is not usually associated.--Percy