Moderates give cover to religious fanatics

[gnostic]

The religious fanatic concludes that the killing of one or a few doctors or the bombing of clinics will save many lives of God's unborn helpless souls and that he will be looked upon favorably in the eyes of an all seeing, all knowing God for fighting His good fight. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Well, one of these fanatic had killed someone at the clinic, but I don't remember if it was Melbourne or Sydney. This was a few years back, but don't remember when precisely.

Anyway, this fanatic killed a security guard working at the clinic. He was simply doing his duty, and he was employed by his security company, not by the clinic itself. So the guard was in the wrong place and the wrong time.

I don't recall if the fanatic was convicted for his crime or not, and if so how long it lasted. Sorry, my memory is not that good with dates that happened some years ago, but I remember what happened because this was the first murder at any such clinic in Australia.

But does it matter if the fanatic killed a doctor or a security guard? Did this man justified his pro-life attitude by taking away another person's life?

I remember a saying that goes like this, "two wrongs don't make it a right".

Alas, I don't remember who said this and when. *sigh*

 

[Yerda]

I'm a tad late.

Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics -- and are every bit as delusional. Is a catchy headline, and cannot be said to have misrepresented the piece. I don't believe though, that Harris sufficiently demonstrated the validity of that position in the article. I also don't happen to believe it is true (although my understanding of what a moderate believer might differ from his own).

I cannot agree though, that it resembles a hate speech in any way. It's provocative, cheeky, and aloof, it's not an incitement to violence, and if anything is an appeal to reason (however unconvincing - perhaps he failed to notice that reason doesn't work between people with polar views).

I also differ in opinion on some of the points raised. For example, he said: The truth is, there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that Muhammad spoke to the angel Gabriel in a cave. And yet billions of people claim to be certain about such things.

I disagree, even as a staunch ashiest as to the accuracy of the above. While I, and every other atheist, would claim that no good evidence is forthcoming it is unjustified to rule out personal revelation. It may not be convincing in the slightest to any other person, but to the person experiencing a sensible manifestation of what they believe to be God it should surely be overwhelmingly believable.

He went on to say: As a result, Iron Age ideas about everything high and low — sex, cosmology, gender equality, immortal souls, the end of the world, the validity of prophecy, etc. — continue to divide our world and subvert our national discourse. Many of these ideas, by their very nature, hobble science, inflame human conflict and squander scarce resources. This is an example where I think he's right on the mark.

 

[des]

But there has to be some vehicle for them to do so. I do not believe that there are enough shared beliefs for this to happen. YOu can go on about how this si so, but I don't see it. I think the similarity between moderate belief and fanatical belief is quite significant (and even more so between liberal/progressive belief and fanatical belief-- perhaps there is a fanatical liberal/progressive belief, but if so I have never heard of it). Beliefs that become fanatical tend to be of two basic sorts:
1. Supposed new revelations. This would be the sort practiced by the Branch Dividian say. These have a strong paternal leader practicing abolute control over his subjects. It is hard to see how a moderate belief could in any way provide cover for this sort of thing. But I suppose you could say, well moderates believe in the Bible and they are taking the Bible to some extreme, but that isn't really a cover. It is taking it to an extreme that most
reasonable people would agree was an extreme.
2. An alternate reading of a standard belief (not universal). For instance, some Christians believe that abortion is wrong, so this is taken to further mean that it is ok to kill abortion doctors for these ends to protect the unborn. This might be more like a standard or moderate belief but it is quite different in many respects. And might even be partly supported by non-religious views in some cases. But this is not to say these same non-religious views "provide cover".

The religious view in question would be that abortion is wrong. This has been trumped up in some circles as "murder". I doubt all religious people would agree with that wording. But still it doesn't provide cover to go and commit two murders. This is clearly illogical. I think as many religious people against abortion could see its lack of logic as you could.

One nonrelgious view is that certain types of killing are "justified". This is a secular belief, not a religious one (but one that many religious people might ascribe to as well). However, the belief that it would be ok to kill abortion doctors because some killing is justified has been taken to a step that few secularites (as well as religious people) could agree with.

You could even argue that not everyone is terribly upset that abortion doctors get killed so that this gives the person cover. Yet deaths occur every day, not everyone is totally focused on these owing to the amt of news etc. This is a secular view but you could say that this gives the person cover, but it is hard to see exactly how.

The "cover" is of the individual's own mind and making. .And is so in all episodes involving fanaticism. The person uses their own intelligence, experience, etc to draw up a world view that may be vastly different than any known religion and any secular event to form some coherent whole.
(I'm not saying that these can't be shared world concepts, such as those practiced by the hijackers on 9-11 or perhaps a group of abortion doctor killers).

If there is "cover" it is equally provided by secular sources as I have shown. But the exact nature of "cover" is more aptly described as an "excuse". We know that there are some no. of people who kill others and then blame it on Twinkies. Twinkies may not be a source of nutrients but they are not the cause of murder. They are not a cover, they are just an excuse.

There are fanatic atheists, such a Mao or Stalin, for instance. I doubt if atheism was a "cover", but it might have been an excuse. "We are acting against the Imperialist religious entities."


--des

I'm not suggesting that moderates intentionally provide cover. I think it's something that many have not even thought about or considered.

Perhaps there are some equally fanatic atheists, I don't know.

 

[des]

But there are many non-religious beliefs that could be "toxic" in the unstable mind, and probably more related to murder. For instance, some adolescents will go on killing rampages after playing Doom. At least in this case there is some comparison of what they were doing-- playing shooting games and the final act, killing people. Some people go and intentionally kill with their autos, does this make driving evil or toxic? People have been known to kill with farm implements, in fact the fighting arts of the East are partly based on them. Does this make farming toxic? People use pesticides to blow up buildings, another example of that toxic farming activity.

Although you deny that you mentioned scripture or revelation or... (just talking about fanatics), there has to be some initial switch. It was NOT just a pure belief in God outside some tenets--IOW it was NOT theism. I wouldn't even argue that these tenets are what is providing the cover, but it would be a little better argument than saying it is theistic belief vs non-theistic belief.

And yes, it is a common schizophrenic belief to believe that you are god or that god is talking directly to you. But it isn't all that common (but very well publicized) when schizophrenics kill. Still, in this case, it is schizophrenia and not theism that was responsible. But I think mostly we are talking of group behavior or some guy that does not appear to be insane. And I know of no cases where there it was a pure theistic belief that was at all the at the center of the actions. There is always some creedal type position. (I'd be more likely to say the problem was in creedal positions, but that would be awfully UU of me. ). Anyway the action is supported (or supposedly supported) by some kind of statement of something like "death to infidels" or "abortion is murder". The action is then further supported by scriptural texts or other "proof". The views of peers is only important if those peers are supportive of the pov., they are not important if the peers are not supportive. They further pay no attention to any scriptural texts that oppose their pov. for instance those which might say to love everyone or turn the other cheek or something of that sort.

So the "proofs" which back up their actions are a sort of narrow range, tunnel vision sort of thing, which do not care of the views of others, for instance moderate Christians, theists who don't take any creedal views, etc.
Nor do they care for alternate scriptures or anything else that would keep them from their actions.

--des

There is nothing inherent in belief in God or soul etc that would lead most people to the conclusion that it's ok to kill people. Some basic religous beliefs combined with an unstable mind can prove to be rather "toxic". There are plenty of gruesome examples of that.