It’s time to fight religion: Toxic drivel, useful media idiots, and the real story about faith

[cleanhippie]

It’s time to fight religion: Toxic drivel, useful media idiots, and the real story about faith and violence
Out of misguided notions of “tolerance,” we avert our critical gaze from blatant absurdities. We must now get real



Those whose profession it ostensibly is to enlighten found ample grounds on which to rebut reality and muddy the waters around the matter at hand: the faith-motivated murder of cartoonists for doing nothing more than drawing cartoons. Serial Islam-apologist Reza Aslan appeared on Charlie Rose‘s show and admitted that the Quran has “of course” served as a “source of violence” for terrorists, but then resorted to his usual tiresome Derrida-esque double-talk when it came to discussing his religion’s material role in the killings. “We bring our own values and norms to our scriptures; we don’t extract them from our scriptures.”

--snip--

We are accustomed to reflexively deferring to “men of the cloth,” be they rabbis and priests or pastors and imams. In this we err, and err gravely. Those whose profession it is to spread misogynistic morals, debilitating sexual guilt, a hocus-pocus cosmogony, and tales of an enticing afterlife for which far too many are willing to die or kill, deserve the exact same “respect” we accord to shamans and sorcerers, alchemists and quacksalvers. Out of misguided notions of “tolerance,” we avert our critical gaze from the blatant absurdities — parting seas, spontaneously igniting shrubbery, foodstuffs raining from the sky, virgin parturitions, garrulous slithering reptiles, airborne ungulates — proliferating throughout their “holy books.” We suffer, in the age of space travel, quantum theory and DNA decoding, the ridiculous superstitious notion of “holy books.” And we countenance the nonsense term “Islamophobia,” banishing those who forthrightly voice their disagreements with the seventh-century faith to the land of bigots and racists; indeed, the portmanteau vogue word’s second component connotes something just short of mental illness.

--snip--

Worse still is the offense that denying faith’s role in atrocities inflicts on commonsense. No one doubts people when they say their religion inspires them to attend mosque or church, make charitable donations, volunteer in hospitals or serve in orphanages. We should take them at their word when they name it, as did the Charlie Hebdo assassins, as the mainspring for their lethal acts of violence. We should not toss aside Ockham’s razor and concoct additional factors that supposedly commandeered their behavior. The Charlie Hebdo killers may have come from poor Parisian banlieues, they may have experienced racial discrimination, and they may have even been stung by disdain from “the dominant secular French culture,” yet they murdered not shouting about any of these things, but about “avenging the Prophet Muhammad.” They murdered for Islam.

--snip--

This all leads us to an overarching issue of critical import. Adherence to any of the Abrahamic religions — that is, to the trumped-up doctrines of systematized, unverifiable fables mandating certain kinds of behavior and outlawing others — is, to repeat Kristof’s silly term, “otherizing,” or divisive, provocative, and ultimately inimical to social harmony. Traffickers in such fables, or those who provide cover to those who do, deserve to be disinvited from every forum convened to seek solutions to the problems they themselves have helped create. Or perhaps they should be invited, but only as court experts in the particular variety of mass psychosis they and their ancestors have engendered. “Dialogue between religions” — a perennially popular yet doomed endeavor often proclaimed as necessary by religious potentates — should be eschewed in favor of rational discourse among reality-based individuals. Please, let’s give the shamans and witchdoctors the day off.


http://www.salon.com/2015/02/08/its_time_to_fight_religion_toxic_drivel_useful_media_idiots_and_the_real_story_about_faith_and_violence/

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Mr. Tayler again hits the nail on the head.

[trotsky]

2. It is astonishing someone can say something this stupid:

“We bring our own values and norms to our scriptures; we don’t extract them from our scriptures.”

And still be taken seriously. But I know it plays well with the "religion is NEVER the problem" gang.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. That caught my attention too.

If, in fact, they are bringing there own values to scriptures, that means that they really are saying that there is no need for scripture or religion. Their values and norms will be the same with or without the Bible. This is the same as me writing my own book of personal values and calling it divine.

[JNelson6563]

10. This is exactly what I think too.

The reason the bible is so successful is because there is every sort of bad behavior and contradictions that there something for just about everyone who's an asshole of any sort.

Julie

[GeorgeGist]

4. Jumped off the page for me too.

[mr blur]

7. But how can he have moral "values and norms" without scripture?

We've all been told that without God(s) there can be no morality. If we don't "extract them from our scriptures.” then where do they come from?

He sounds like one of those immoral atheist to me.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. That is a question they can't answer honestly.

The "liberal" abrahamists, that is. They've boxed themselves in with "it's metaphor, not literal" in a way the literalists haven't. The literalists of course have other problems, like we really should suffer a witch to life, not slaughter disobedient children, etc.

[LiberalAndProud]

16. But that's true, isn't it?

“We bring our own values and norms to our scriptures; we don’t extract them from our scriptures.”

How else does one know which cherries to pick? In my view, the obvious follow-up question is, "Since that is so, what purpose does scripture serve?"

[trotsky]

17. Not as a universal declaration.

Various holy books most certainly do contain values and norms. 10 commandments. Love thy neighbor. Etc.

People extract the ones that they like, certainly, but what they like could be as simple as what they've been taught - which is to take the values and norms in their holy book literally.

What Aslan attempts to do is absolve religion and religious teachings entirely from bad things, because there are many believers who want to hear his message. It keeps them from having to question religious faith in general (and thus their own). But his position is mindlessly easy to demolish - as long as a moral commandment or teaching is in a holy book, it's possible for someone to extract it. Good or bad.

On edit: I wanted to note your question - "what purpose does scripture serve then?" - is an excellent one and I would love to hear him try to answer it.

[LiberalAndProud]

18. Sure. I understand what you're saying.

When we can point to the passages of scripture that justify and even exhort violent, barbaric, hateful acts, it's incredibly frustrating when defenders respond with, "Of course, but that's not the fault of the scripture. Ignore those bits."

[onager]

5. This will be a VERY unpopular article...

Elsewhere on DU.



Especially this part:

“Dialogue between religions” — a perennially popular yet doomed endeavor often proclaimed as necessary by religious potentates — should be eschewed in favor of rational discourse among reality-based individuals.

But...but surely "interfaith dialogue" is the only thing that will save us! The lion shall lie down with the lamb. Reza Aslan shall lie down with Pat Robertson (well, both will continue to lie, anyway). The awesome majority of America's Liberal Xians shall triumph over a few Fundamentalist Assholes and we'll all live in the New Jerusalem! Because no one would want to live in a place without religion, amirite?

And this from Mr. Tayler was just mean, hurtful, and over-the-top:

Please, let’s give the shamans and witchdoctors the day off.

Harumph! As a certified 1/285 Native American and descendant of shamans, I've decided to turn Mr. Tayler into a newt. Don't worry, he'll get better...

[onager]

11. Ha! Glad to hear that.

I was mostly grumping about "interfaith dialogues" I've seen around DU. Where that phrase often seems to mean: "The believers are talking, everybody else shut up. And don't you dare interject your damn reality into our conversation."

[rhett o rick]

12. Honest dialogue is most often of value. nm

[Fumesucker]

6. "garrulous slithering reptiles, airborne ungulates"

That made me LOL...

[rhett o rick]

13. What seems obvious to me but apparently not the Faithful, when the scriptures

are used for guidance, it's really a humans interpretation of the scriptures which is not divine.

[Jeff Murdoch]

14. An hour and a half,

And the "No true Scotsman" hasn't made an appearance yet? Must be a record.

[LiberalAndProud]

19. Rec.

Because the It's-not-religion meme makes my blood boil too.