Tag Archives: Religious Extremism

Commentary

Denyse O’Leary explains why theists are lacking courage

Leave a comment

From Uncommon Descent. Denyse O’Leary answers the question I posed in my previous post: why do otherwise intelligent, ambitious, qualified Christians shy away from answering questions about their faith?

Excerpt:

Christians confront a deep double standard, to which Darwinism has greatly contributed, by which the atheist position is considered the normal “secular”one and the Christian or other theist position a sort of disloyalty to the public good.

[…] Secular materialists use fashionable words like “skeptical” to describe themselves, when they are not skeptical at all. That confuses discourse and enables remarkably fatuous people to shape public opinion. While working on The Spiritual Brain, I confronted an astonishing fact: The secular materialist would accept any materialist premise, no matter how implausible, to support his view. In fact, I sometimes ask, is there any proposition fronted in the name of, say, Darwinism (as I did here, that you regard as absurd? I often get blank looks or protests that Darwinism is science and there are no such propositions, and an immediate change of subject. Well, when we hear that, at least we know who we are dealing with.

The Christian/theist labours under no such disability. He can accept a materialist explanation when it fits the facts, but not otherwise. But by acting this way, he becomes – in the eyes of the secular atheist – untrustworthy. He can’t be relied on to just shout the party line.

The upshot is that, the Christian risks more, speaking out, and is far more responsible for the need to have intelligent ideas. It’s much safer for Christians to bury themselves in fluffy Christian books and sweat off the flab in Christian weight loss programs, and little by little accommodate themselves to the reigning orthodoxy. After a couple of decades, they don’t even know.

So basically, I understand her to say that the the “skeptics” are actually so committed to the presupposition of naturalism that they are aggressive and close-minded. Their materialism is functioning as a sort of fundamentalism, much like you would find with Islamic radicals. A Christian can look at some new phenomenon in nature and ask the question: is it explained by materialism or is an intelligence required? But the materialist has to presume the answer before looking at the evidence – so they are close-minded to evidence, because of their non-scientific philosophy of materialism.

There are two ways to have a discussion about nature. You can ask a question and then compare evidence for various hypotheses. That’s the non-fundamentalist approach. That’s the approach used by Christians. The naturalist approach is to not allow questions to be asked and to attack the character of the person asking the question. That’s the fundamentalist approach.

And that’s where the fear and intimidation comes in. Who wants to debate with someone who is not open to having their religious pre-supposition validated against the evidence? You’re just going to get fired, censored, arrested or worse. That’s the way it is with fundamentalists like naturalist extremists and Islamic extremists. All kinds of nastiness to others is possible when you are a true believer. Denyse’s point is that the intimidation drives theists to avoid these discussions, and that leads to their decision to just focus on other things like careers and weight loss and fluff.

Related posts

News

Russia attacks the religious liberty of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Leave a comment

Story here from CBS News. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Russia’s highest court on Tuesday upheld a ruling halting the activities of a regional branch of Jehovah’s Witnesses and banning dozens of its publications in what the group deplored as an unfair move.

Russian Supreme Court spokesman Pavel Odintsov said it rejected the group’s appeal of September’s ruling by a regional court in Rostov-on-Don. That ruling outlawed the group’s activities in the region, seized its assets there and labeled 34 of its publications as extremist.

I found a few more details here at a site called Forum 18.

Excerpt:

The texts considered extremist by the Rostov court are all published in the United States and Germany. They include the books “What Does the Bible Really Teach?” and “My Book of Bible Stories” as well as issues of the tracts “Watchtower” and “Awake!”. The court’s 56-page ruling, seen by Forum 18, gives three categories of alleged extremism located by expert analysts in the texts: 1) “incitement of religious hatred (undermining respect and hostility towards other religions)”; 2) “refusing blood” and 3) “refusing civil responsibilities”. Thus, from the book “Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life”, “true Christians do not celebrate Christmas or other festivals based on false religious ideas” appears in the first category; “out of respect for the sacred nature of life God-fearing people refuse blood transfusions” in the second; and “true Christians avoid false forms of idolatry, such as revering flags and performing anthems” in the third.

So what do I, an arch-evangelical Protestant Christian, think of this?

Well, I am against the Russian government, because I am for religious liberty, and even the religious liberty of groups that I don’t agree with. And I’m going to tell you why. I believe that everyone has a right to believe in anything they want to believe in, and it does not bother me at all that people disagree with my religion,and that they speak out against Christianity, or try to convert people away from Christianity. The state should not interfere with anyone’s free speech or religious liberty, including the right of individuals to say publicly they are right about religion and that others are wrong.

I think that people who reject orthodox Christian beliefs about God and Jesus will go to Hell for eternity. I don’t believe that people go to Heaven because of sincerity and good works. People go to Heaven because they have true beliefs about God’s existence, character and his actions in the world, – e.g. – Jesus death on the cross as atonement for sin. But my thinking that people are wrong doesn’t give me any justification for limiting their human rights, including the right to religious liberty, by using the power of the secular state.

I think we need to take a lesson in tolerance from God. God gives everyone space to try to respond to his revealing of himself to people in nature and in the Bible. He arranges the world in such a way that people who he foreknows will respond to him are placed in a time and place where they can respond to him. He does not force people to convert to Christianity by revealing himself so much that they lose their free will to reject him. And since God is not coercive, Christians should also not use state power to coerce others, either.

The Bible shows Jesus talking to people and being kind to them when they were suffering, as well as giving them evidence for his claims in the form of miracles. And that’s the way Christians should persuade others as well – except that we have to use miracles in nature and history, like the fine-tuning argument and the bodily resurrection instead. At no point does Jesus bring in the power of the state to squash the religious liberty of his opponents.

I am not worried about JWs tricking some Christian into becoming a JW either. If someone is able to trick a person into being a JW, then that person is obviously not concerned about the truth. No one becomes a JW because they think JW doctrine is true. It is extremely easy to disprove the beliefs of JWs factually – just take a look at their failed predictions about the end of the world. And Mormons believe in an eternal universe. That’s how you argue against a rival religion – with arguments and facts.

If the Russian government wants to rein in religions like Islam and Jehovah’s Witnesses, then they should be sponsoring debates between opposing scholars and showing them television. Have the different religion groups vote for the best scholar to represent their religion, and then have the scholars debate different topics. That’s just being fair! The state should not curtail religious liberty by using government power.

I wrote a post about this issue of people being afraid to talk about religion.

News

US lawmakers urge India to protect Christians from Hindu militants

1 Comment

Story from Agence France Presse.

Excerpt:

US lawmakers urged authorities in India’s eastern state of Orissa to prosecute perpetrators of violence against Christians, saying the nation’s reputation for tolerance was at stake.

In a letter to the state’s Chief Minister Navin Patnaik released Friday, the lawmakers voiced concern that many perpetrators of last year’s violence were still at large and intimidating their victims.

More than 100 Christian were killed and thousands more left homeless between August and October 2008 following the murder of a revered Hindu holy man, which was blamed on Christians.

While praising recent statements by India’s central government, the lawmakers said that local authorities have sometimes turned away victims seeking redress.

“Such attacks on the fundamental freedom of religion threaten not only India’s reputation for religious diversity, but also the very stability of India’s secular democracy,” the 21 lawmakers, led by Republican Trent Franks, wrote in the letter sent late last month.

“Given the recent experience with religiously inspired terrorism, we are concerned that if Hindu extremists can act with impunity toward religious minorities in India, these extremists and their ideologies will begin to affect international security as well.”

Christians account for 2.3 percent of the billion-plus population in India, which is majority Hindu but officially secular.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan official advisory panel, in August placed India on its watch list, citing violence against Christians in Orissa and Muslims in the western state of Gujarat.

The move brought swift condemnation from India, an emerging US ally, which said the nation had an independent judiciary and vigilant media to pursue any aberrations from its secular, multi-religious principles.

It may be useful to listen to the recent debate between Hindus and Christians that I summarized, in which two Hindus explain their view of human rights and how religious minorities should be treated. In some parts of India, if you do not accept the Hindu concept of polytheism, then you are opening yourself up to violence from Hindu extremists. On the other hand, the election of the Congress Party and the rejection of the BJP Party was a good sign that the bulk of Indians are more tolerant that the militant Hindus.

Deepak Chopra and intolerance for Christianity

In a related story, Hugh Hewitt had a post up about Deepak Chopra, who often writes against Bible-believing Christians.

Excerpt:

Still more Chopra invective surfaced in The Washington Post this September, again targeting [Rick] Warren and reflecting the charm of the Left. “The abuse delivered by right-wing Christians is such an old story that we are long past irony,” Chopra wrote, before moving on to his favorite target.

“The Rev. Rick Warren has a record for trying to smooth the waters, but he also flirts with intolerance — toward gay marriage, for instance — and since his rationale is that a ‘loving’ God shares the same prejudices, what’s to stop others with worse tempers from following the same logic? When your God hates, you have permission to hate,” Chopra wrote.

When your guru hates, I guess that gives you permission to hate as well?

I think it’s encouraging that the bulk of Hindus seem to be moving away from the view of intolerant extremists like Deepak Chopra and the Hindu militants in Orissa.