davidbau.com

Uh, I'm a religious moderate. If you aren't hearing much from us lately, its because the fundies are behaving like noisy asshats.

You'll notice I'm using a psudonym - I don't need targeted trolling by my fundie co-religionists. Fundamentalism is just organized asshaberdashery, and moderates like me would like to ignore them the way one likes to ignore the paranoid schizophrenic on the city bus. Yes, they need treatment, but its important to pick your battles.

I'd rather engage them one-on-one, in person, when I can, than en masse online. After all, I have credibility with them, and can clobber them with the scripture they subscribe to, without mixing in outside issues. Engaging with fundamentalist asshats of different religions is trickier, but the calm, in person approach centered on acknowleging common grounds seems to work ok.

You'll notice that I'm not specifying my religion here, either - I don't want anyone reading this to take this post as thinly disguised proselytizing, or have their views of what I have said colored by my background.

I have a problem with the reasoning present in Sam Harris' excerpt (maybe this doesn't represent the full complexity of his thought.) The fact that the sept 11 muderers were motivated by their faith doesn't make faith bad, any more than a murder motivated by jealousy makes love bad.

There are bad (and even fundamentalist) skeptics just as there are bad, fundamentalist religious folk - but since coorelation is not causation, I don't think thats a point for any side. My fundamentalist co-religionists have a long list of bad people who were skeptics and do draw a causal connection, much like Harris'. I don't think drawing those conclusions reflects well on anyone.

Harris is right though - murder motivated by faith, (or other worldview, e.g. stalinism), is qualitativly different than other kinds. It would be worth exploring in what ways - there are some subtlties. And finally, we religious moderates have sinned: we are silent, and so are complicit.

Anon writes: "I'd rather engage them one-on-one, in person, when I can, than en masse online."

This is the point which I think is interesting. It seems to me watered-down, moderate, tolerant religion has serious evolutionary disadvantages when pitted against extremist religious memes:

Extremist religions are more simplistic, so take less energy to articulate, to learn, and to spread. Extremism is precisely the kind of meme that can be spread en-masse, online. One lesson of the Internet is that memes that spread quickly are short and simple.

Extremist religions favor conquest, violence, and intolerance, whereas moderates try to find ways to avoid conflict. The result is that, when trapped in conflict, extremism tends to intimidate non-extremist alternatives into silence.

Extremist religions treat women as baby-making factories. I used to find this almost-universal characteristic puzzling. But is a natural feature of strong memes: the result is very high population growth. The non-extremist alternatives can barely replace their own populations.

In the past, all these advantages enjoyed by extremism were balanced by the advantages of scientific progress that were the exclusive domain of moderate cultures. But efficient trade is reducing the local advantage of science and changing the game in favor of extremism again.

What's a moderate to do?

But pretty much everyone thinks they represent the reasonable and moderate view. And if there is one thing all religions agree on, it is that Atheists are extremists - so it is far more opinion than fact for an atheist to make the reverse statement.

It looks more like Harris and Co. feel they are losing ground and are decrying that fact, rather than dispasionately observing a change in belief systems within populations - and more power to them making their points.

But historically it has not been Voltair's athiestic France that triumphed, but America with its all-faiths-accepted-and-not-surpressed approach. If my observation is correct, attempts to curtail the faith of people to "moderation acceptable to atheists" will destroy the benefits that atheists think they (and their systems of thought/belief) created.

Quadko: the observation of shifts of power between populations is mine, not Harris's. Why is it that in 2006 many non- or moderate- religious people feel so marginalized? And why on the other hand does the power of the religiously devout seem to be on the rise both in the U.S. and overseas. Is it a fluke? Or is it because of Wal-Mart, container ships, and free trade?

On Harris's work: although his distaste for all things religious is colorful, I think his arguments miss the core issues. He pins many of the evils of the world on religion by pointing out scripture and dogma that are connected to the suffering of millions. But these arguments are about as convincing as arguments that blame science for the suffering caused by the nuclear bomb or thalidomide. Religion - like science - is a powerful force, but what ultimately comes of it is in how imperfect humans choose to apply it.

My wife believes that the world's problems come down to the fact that people are too lazy to treat other people like human beings. Whether it's politics, religion, wars or football competitions, there is plenty of evidence that people really love having enemies. Perhaps Harris would be more convincing if he advocated against our divisive instincts directly.

I agree that there is something great in the triumph of America's accept-all, surpress-none approach. It takes the very highest values that people are willing to kill and die for - their religious values - and tells people that in the public sphere, you don't kill and die to advance your religion. No, you go out and vote, and debate, and respect the views of others.

But is the American model sustainable, or is it a blip? If something is odious to your religious values, shouldn't you be willing to die - and kill - to defend those values, even if it is offensive to others, illegal, and even unconstitutional?

If we believe the American model is worth keeping, how do we keep it?

On the one hand, if the “moderates” feel marginalized, I do not know of any group that doesn’t! The "more devout" groups certainly have for a long time and still do. On the other hand, as you point out, there has been an imbalance in power for a while. If the “moderates” have been the marginalizers rather than the marginalized, perhaps that is what is changing as the balance shifts. If so, I expect the definition of “moderate” will change, and “non- and moderate- devout” will be seen as an extreme and devout segment of their own, while the new power group of once-devout-categorized will become the “moderates” who’s devotion is neither too extremely fervent nor flaccid. That would make moderation just a function of power, as in “the winners write the histories,” rather than the intrinsic value of your belief or mine. (I don’t know if I entirely believe that, but it seems at least partially true.)

And I would adjust “you don't kill and die to advance your religion” to “you don't HAVE to kill and die to advance your religion.” To be willing to kill and die if backed in a corner, but to have much better options in a peaceful and free society. I wonder how much the power shift is due to a increased response goaded out of a segment of “more devout” citizens who had their buttons pushed over time with the much argued and temper raising issues like prayer in school, abortion, evolution, and the Ten Commandments on public property – issues where the accept-all, surpress-none approach gave way to suppression and no-tolerance of views contrary to those held by the “non- and moderate- devout” who had the power at the time.

For the real and excellent questions “But is the American model sustainable, or is it a blip” and “how do we keep it?” – I wish these were more frequently publicly discussed! I suspect it is sustainable with difficulty, but easy to lose. Whether we lose it or not, I do not think it is only a blip that is guaranteed to be lost, mostly because of similar successes from somewhat comparable social structures found in Hong Kong, Australia, and Israel. I expect we would disagree on what the details of the “important ingredients” are, but I would emphasize the generalities of “Western Culture” – a broad spectrum of complementary Christian beliefs and Greek philosophy without a central organization like a state religion – as the vital atomic core while avoiding the model sustainability killers like a single state enforced religion (including atheism, polytheism, monotheism, whatever) or suppression of the core beliefs and philosophy.

This would mean if one devout group wins too much power, the model dies. There are no groups truly moderate in such a way that they can have the power to shape society alone – certainly not today’s “moderates,” and certainly not any other individual “devout” group (including my own). For our society to work we all have to feel marginalized to some extent and put up peacefully with other’s triumph as well as our own, though we never have to stop trying to triumph ourselves. I would bet historically that the more power a group gets for long times, the smaller it gets and the more active its opponents get, resulting in change. The rationalistic 1900’s, the hedonistic 20’s, the devout 50’s, the free 60’s, the 80’s, now, 20 years from now…

(Sorry it got longer! Thanks for responding to my first comment.)