Atheists, agnostics, religious moderates: Do religious moderates validate religious extremists?

Question

The argument that all of religion should be condemned by atheists (including religious moderates and liberals) has been made by a couple of prominent figures now, including Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.

The idea is that religious fundamentalists validate religious extremists, that moderates validate fundamentalists, and that liberals validate moderates (see Harris' 'concentric circles' argument below).

Does this argument hold water?

Atheists and agnostics: should we buy this argument? Is it of the 'slippery slope' form (if so, is that okay)? Should we regard moderates no differently than religious extremists, or should we be tolerant of anyone not actively violent and oppressive?

Religious moderates: do tolerant religious people create a 'cultural shield' for religious extremists? If so, is there something that the average religious moderate can do about it?

Below is Sam Harris's argument verbatim, if you care to read it:

"Of course, no religion is monolithic. Within every faith one can see people arranged along a spectrum of belief. Picture concentric circles of diminishing reasonableness: At the center, one finds the truest of true believers — the Muslim jihadis, for instance, who not only support suicidal terrorism but who are the first to turn themselves into bombs; or the Dominionist Christians, who openly call for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death.

Outside this sphere of maniacs, one finds millions more who share their views but lack their zeal. Beyond them, one encounters pious multitudes who respect the beliefs of their more deranged brethren but who disagree with them on small points of doctrine — of course the world is going to end in glory and Jesus will appear in the sky like a superhero, but we can't be sure it will happen in our lifetime."

"Out further still, one meets religious moderates and liberals of diverse hues — people who remain supportive of the basic scheme that has balkanized our world into Christians, Muslims and Jews, but who are less willing to profess certainty about any article of faith. Is Jesus really the son of God? Will we all meet our grannies again in heaven? Moderates and liberals are none too sure.

Those on this spectrum view the people further toward the center as too rigid, dogmatic and hostile to doubt, and they generally view those outside as corrupted by sin, weak-willed or unchurched."

"The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists — men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren't sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society."

-Sam Harris

Answer 1

I absolutely concur with Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris on their perspectives concerning religion. I especially find Sam Harris’ arguments, in his trenchant criticism of moderate religion, in “The End of Faith”, concerning how moderate believers give shelter to extremists, to be cogent. Most secular critiques of religious belief leave moderate believers alone, as if they were some sacrosanct group. I applaud Harris for his examination of this protected group, for it is this large subset of religious culture, that truly empowers those within the religious community that really do society harm.

Granted, many may accuse Harris of exploiting a slippery slope, but certain things do exist in a continuum, and religious belief happens to be one of them. Once one accepts something without evidence, even in a metaphorical sense, there is an immediate danger that other, less “sophisticated” believers, will take that belief and take it to a literal extreme. We see this in other areas of life.

After all, why do you think that there is such a stigma against racism? One can be a racist, and yet not take it to the extreme, by killing someone of another ethnicity. Yet the birth of all genocide, whether it is the Nazi extermination of the Jews, the mass lynching of blacks in the south, or the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, started off with moderate beliefs about the inferiority of other races, and this moderate belief was then taken to an extreme by those who had a vested interest in the elimination of other groups. So we have engrained in most civil society, that the expression of racist beliefs, even in a mild “moderate” form is unacceptable or at least politically incorrect, because we know the logical extreme to which those beliefs can be taken.

The same disdain that we share for racists, even the fairly moderate innocuous ones, should also be applied to moderate religious believers. Both passive racists, and moderate believers in religion, hold views, which upon scrutiny, are irrational. Irrational propositions can be taken to any extreme, for the simple fact that they disregard evidence and reason, or they even treat evidence and reason with malice. People who adhere to an ideology that is antagonistic at its core to rationality automatically preclude their own right to criticize the extremists among them, because any criticism must have its foundation in rationality. Moderate people of faith, by taking things as true without evidence, have rendered themselves ineffectual against the radicals in their midst, thus becoming complicity in the nefarious dealings of their radical brethren.

That is why, as Sam Harris has so lucidly explained, we must, as secularists show absolute intolerance for anyone, including people of moderate faith, who promote ideas that defy reason, logic, and evidence. Our most formidable asset in combating the utter perniciousness of religious extremism is our rationality.

Answer 2

Thanks for the question. I hadn't heard this argument before, and I find it intriguing. I'll probably be thinking about it a lot in the next few days.

I'm Jewish, but not orthodox. In Mr. Harris's model, I'd probably be in the mid-to-outer circle. But I'm not terribly worried about "extremists," except for those who want to break the law or stand the constitution on its head. In my opinion, those who break the law should be dealt with by the legal system, regardless of their religious beliefs or affiliation.

As for the orthodox Jews -- the "fundamentalists" -- I learn a great deal from them, and profit from their example. Indeed, I think fundamentalism at the center may be necessary for the survival of a religion. So in a sense, those at the "center" also validate those in the outer circles.

Answer 3

How about the extreme atheists such as the communists? Are they validated by moderates? Gypsy what a crock. Name to me who exactly is trying to ban evolution from being taught? If anyone is trying to censure school literature it is the atheistic crowd who are even trying to stop University Professors from exercising their academic freedom. Anyone in doubt needs to read Jerry Bergman's book The Criterion which documents many cases of discrimination.

Answer 4

i've got study "the top of religion", and that i think of that Harris has a factor. non secular moderates are basically as undesirable as non secular extremists, basically in a distinctive way. perception informs action, and basically because of the fact somebody's ideals do no longer lead them to fly planes into homes does no longer recommend that their ideals are threat unfastened. Moderates are risky because of the fact they're continuously harping on approximately "tolerance". Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance. In different words, we are to tolerate non secular faith, and the strikes it informs. i do no longer think of that some issues might desire to be tolerated. I believe Harris - you do no longer see moderates condemning fans, you spot them the two leaping for excitement and cheering interior the streets whilst 2 homes crumple, as exchange into the case all around the middle east on 9/11 (and then later condemning those comparable acts), or you spot them claiming that the fanatic is "no longer a real Christian", as is very regularly the case interior the united states. In the two case, that's suitable to look, to no longer their words, yet to their strikes (or lack thereof). there's no nicely suited *degree* of non secular faith - that is non secular faith itself that's the situation. If one individual can look me interior the face and have faith, good right down to the very depths of their psyche, that they are going to Heaven whilst they die and that i visit go through eternal torment in Hell, that's a situation. that proclaims plenty correct to the guy who's finding at me, and that i do in comparison to something that it says. that's the inherent divisiveness of non secular faith, that dehumanizing factor, that makes it so objectionable for my section, yet I might desire to factor out that this opinion isn't a results of my atheism. Atheism does no longer recommend that. that's a results of my being anti-non secular. because of the fact of this now, we've people who declare that atheism is reasonable and anti-faith is fanatical, that's a ludicrous assessment yet yet another unlucky results of that tendency to label each and every thing.

Answer 5

moderates interfere with our laws as much as the extremists do... today we have christians seeking to censor what we teach in our school..AGAIN... they have a history of censoring literature but now they are seeking to ban the teaching of evolution ... that's like preaching the world is flat.. or forbidding the knowledge of gravity.. Where do we draw the line of their interferance in our society... they function by taking over no matter the mix of the population... they take pleasure is the freedoms and right that WE fight for then try to eliminate these freedoms for US...

Answer 6

It is true. The moderate does shield the fanatic. If the religion was only made up of fanatics it would be routed out as a cult and removed.