Religious Moderate B.S.- "We're all a path to peace"...

In so far as religious moderates attempt to hold on to what is still serviceable in orthodox religion, they close the door to more sophisticated approaches to human happiness. Rather than bring the full force of 21st-century creativity and rationality to bear, moderates ask that we merely relax our standards of adherence to ancient superstitions and taboos.

But by failing to live by the letter of the texts — while tolerating the irrationality of those who do — religious moderates betray faith and reason equally. As moderates, we cannot say that religious fundamentalists are dangerous idiots, because they are merely practising their freedom of belief. We can’t even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivalled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don’t like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. It is time we recognised that religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

Religious moderates imagine that theirs is the path to peace. But this very ideal of tolerance now drives us toward the abyss. Religious violence still plagues our world because our religions are intrinsically hostile to one another. Where they appear otherwise, it is because secular knowledge and secular interests have restrained the most lethal improprieties of faith. If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our having dispensed with the dogma of faith.

Moderation in religion has made it taboo even to acknowledge the differences among our religious traditions: to notice, for instance, that Islam is especially hostile to the principles of civil society. There are still places in the Muslim world where people are put to death for imaginary crimes — such as blasphemy — and where the totality of a child’s education consists of his learning to recite from an ancient book of religious fiction. Throughout the Muslim world, women are denied almost every human liberty, except the liberty to breed.

And yet, these same societies are acquiring arsenals of advanced weaponry. In the face of these perils, religious moderates — Christians, Muslims and Jews — remain entranced by their own moderation. They are least able to fathom that when jihadists stare into a video camera and claim to “love death more than the infidels love life”, they are being candid about their state of mind.

But technology has a way of creating fresh moral imperatives. We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation — because our neighbors are now armed with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that these developments mark the terminal phase of our credulity. Words like “God” and “Allah” must go the way of “Apollo” and “Baal” or they will unmake our world.

 

Any form of religion claiming that it is a path to peace is merely blinded by it's own grandeur. Religion is, to put it mildly, a form of mind control. (I said, "religion", not faith). The institution of religion has placed man in the position to obtain his own worldly desires, by claiming that he is under the influence of a higher power. Through veiled eyes, it has given humanity the drive to influence ones own innate desire of self righteousness to conquer. Under a banner of, "religion", mankind has carried out some of the most heinous acts in history.

 

Religion and "Faith" are virtually synonymous. As a matter of fact, "faith" is the driving force behind religion!

 

They differ greatly.. the driving force behind religion is self gratification.

Faith says, "What can I sacrifice of myself for the greater good?"
Religion says, "Under the false illusion of authority, I can take what I desire."

 

Not Biblical faith. It says "what or WHO can I sacrifice for the greater GOD"

 

Biblical faith is spelled out perfectly in the Bible. And the Hebrew root and Greek N.T. root spills the truth of the matter of what exactly Biblical faith is.

 

We can say they are mistaken in scriptural terms in that thee understanding of scripture to which an extremist adheres is shaky to the extreme. Anyone well versed in it can easily bring them to contradict themselves repeatedly.

Not at all true. Our religions are intrinisically peaceful and harmonious. The problem is that most people misunderstand the scriptures and act based on these crazed and flawed beliefs. For example, in India, there is a lot of tension between Hindu and muslim groups. However, this is not the average Hindu or Muslim, we get along fine. it is the handful of extremists who case the riots and murder and hit the headlines all the time. If religious war is to become unthinkable, we must not dispense with religion, we must understand the spirit of it.

The problem with adherence to the letter is this: we forget the context of the teaching. When in what place and to whom the teaching was addressed is essential. After all, while teaching science, a great professor would deal with the same subject differently when teaching college students and when addressing a gathering of his peers. Without taking the context into account, if we merely stick to the letter of the book, then of course we will go horribly wrong, because our understanding is totally incorrect.

Dont blame islam, blame muslims. It is the same thing that happened in the middle ages with Christianity. It wasn't christ's fault, it was the fault of those who manipulated his teaching to gain power.

The Quran is not a book of fiction, it is very real, if nothing else, it is very real to some people, in the joy it gives them and the peace it brings to their hearts. It has essential truth within it. I suggest you read the book, in the original urdu (not some westernized translation) before you make remarks about its veracity.

Not at all. God must be understood and far more important, God must be found, within each and every one of use. Then and only then can there be lasting peace, for only then will we find unity, only then will we find true and unconditional love of all and only then will we have true empathy for others. The path to peace is within.

 

Not at all. People who misunderstand religion say that. Religion, in its true perspective, says that we must rise above our limited identifications and find our true divine identity. The driving force behind true religion is a quest for truth, a quest for our self.

 

I love you B, but I am going to have to disagree with you. Religion and faith are two very different elements. The driving force behind faith, is the quest for truth, the driving force behind religion is control.

Faith is of God, religion is of man.

 

I would be interested to hear your perception on what the original Greek and Hebrew text of the Bible state.

 

Well, I've taken three years of it. So it's not a perception. It's just pure etymology.

 

Then you would be aware of the fact that some of the original text or the pure meaning behind it, was lost during the translation process.

 

That sounds feasible to me. Now, we may be getting somewhere.