Does Liberal Religion Make Extreme Religion Possible?

[Orbit]

I've been thinking about Dawkins' position that liberal Christianity and liberal Islam actually make fundamentalist religion possible. He seems to think that giving religion any "respectability" at all opens the floodgates to a general tendency to see all religion as harmless, and to see all religion as in a special category, immune from criticism. In this environment, extremists flourish. What say you?

[florduh]

Yes.

[seven77]

Does liberal faith make extreme conservative faith more acceptable?

 

Perhaps. I think that here in the US, extreme conservatives have done a good job in making themselves seem normal. For instance, the Duggars of 19 Kids and Counting "fame" put a pretty mask on the IBLP and their extreme right views for years. They have written books, toured the world and make lots of money shilling their extreme lifestyle in the limelight. Most of their viewers are Christian-lites seeking wholesome entertainment. Or were when they first started out. Now, it's only the weirdos like myself who turn out to gawk at the trainwreck that is their reality show.

 

Within Christianity, there are so many splinter groups that it makes it difficult to pin down the views of any one version of  it as being liberal or conservative. Besides the obvious extremes (UU on the liberal side, Westboro and the IBLP on the conservative), there really isn't any easy way to discern who is liberal and who is not. It is also important to note that even within the walls of the faith, there is some sort of pissing contest over who is/ what is a "True Christian". My former church was pretty low key and supportive of other churches in our area. They themselves were considered to be a very liberal church...but that was a cover, imo.

 

Their ideas of what it meant to be a Christian basically translated to being a Jew...except for believing in Jesus and all of that. They did accept LGBT in their congregation, but the acceptance wasn't genuine. They held standard conservative views in that arena. In most areas of life, they were conservative and their congregation was as well. I think that this may be the case in a lot of so-called "emergent" churches. They only seem liberal because people are tatted up and wearing jeans to the service, but if you listen and read between the lines, they are preaching the re-worked messages that were so popular during the 80s and 90s.

 

I'm not going to say that all of the liberal churches are like that though. I think that liberal churches that are part of denomination are actually liberal and probably don't fake it like the hipster non-denoms do. I've let my past color this reply....

 

To finish this, I think that the extreme conservative variants of the Abrahamic faiths gain a following because they scare people into submission and consolidate their power in closed, top-down structures. Liberal variants contribute little to the overall dialogue because they are too much like the world, so to say.

[TrueFreedom]

I think that they do the opposite.  While atheism confronts fundamentalism and forces it to defend itself, liberal Christianity undermines  it and serves as a more accessible path for believers to find their way out of it.

[Storm]

While I agree somewhat, considering that religion is often an inflammatory topic, but I see it as a simple cross section of society. Everyone has a place on the bell curve no matter what the topic is. There will always be people on either extreme, but oftentimes, most people just fit somewhere in the middle. This is something I believe is true with society in general.

[florduh]

Example:

 

I hear Non-Muslim apologists for Islam say such things as, "Don't blame the religion. I know a nice Muslim couple who would never blow themselves up." Or, "Most Muslims are peaceful and loving (they don't really know but it's what they heard on NPR). It's not their religion but rather their society/American foreign policy/history of their land that makes them kill innocent people." Sometimes, "We need to respect their beliefs. There are so many good Muslims." Possibly you've heard, "We must not profile Middle Eastern people when looking for Middle Eastern terrorists because most Muslims don't randomly kill people." Yes, Islam is a respectable religion.

 

In Christianity, the Westboro Baptist Church actually follows the Christian Bible, but folks identify more with Osteen than Phelps. Christianity, for the most part, doesn't picket funerals and openly declare that God Hates Fags, so we let Westboro continue to exist since to snuff them out would be religious discrimination. After all, most moderate Christians don't do such obvious harm and Christianity is a respectable religion.

 

When it comes to religions with such huge influence, not all harm is as obvious as an exploding train station or abortion clinic. It's much more insidious, creeping into our laws and school curricula. It happens only because there are so many moderate, harmless followers who aren't extreme at all. Yeah.

 

[Ellinas]

I suspect that every religion has its' extremist, lunatic fringe.

 

I rather suspect so does every political faction.  Do conservatives make neo-Nazis possible?

 

Maybe.  Maybe not.  But, personally, I think that some people have an innate tendency towards extremism whatever their religious, personal, political, social or any other outlook.  That some people are idiots does not condemn the whole group - unless we are going to condemn the entire human race for making prejudice possible.

 

The question of when censorship or repression of an extremist group becomes necessary is a matter of judgement depending on the level of identifiable harm that the group causes - and that judgement may not be always an easy one.

[Overcame Faith]

I tend to disagree that liberal religion makes extreme religion possible. What makes extreme religion, fundamentalism, possible are the so-called Holy books with their Bronze Age world views combined with people who believe that these are god's perfect word which must be followed as written. What liberalism makes possible is a more tamed down version of the religion with the inherent acknowledgment that the books are not the perfect word of god and are not to be read literally.

 

What liberal religious adherents offer is a counterbalance so the crazy fundies can never claim complete agreement among their fellow religious adherents with such actions as beheadings and abortion clinic bombings.

 

Take away the liberals and you are only left with the fundies.

[RipVanWinkle]

Maybe. But the reverse is also true. bill

[DoubtingNate]

I just want to point out that the UU is not in any sense a liberal Christian denomination. There are no doctrinal requirements, and you don't even have to believe in God. They are a fellowship based on core humanist principles, and have very little to do with Jesus, the Bible, or Christianity.

 

Liberal Christianity is hard for me to relate to anymore, but for awhile it was appealing to me. I'd be curious, if all the liberal churches disappeared, would the congregants turn to fundie churches, or would they just be 'nons?' I expect there are plenty of nons who participate in these churches for the social elements, and the liturgy and ceremony is just tradition, window dressing. If atheists were more community oriented and provided the same kind of support networks that churches provide, would anyone 'need' to dabble in liberal Christianity as a gateway to deconversion??

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Example:

 

I hear Non-Muslim apologists for Islam say such things as, "Don't blame the religion. I know a nice Muslim couple who would never blow themselves up." Or, "Most Muslims are peaceful and loving (they don't really know but it's what they heard on NPR). It's not their religion but rather their society/American foreign policy/history of their land that makes them kill innocent people." Sometimes, "We need to respect their beliefs. There are so many good Muslims." Possibly you've heard, "We must not profile Middle Eastern people when looking for Middle Eastern terrorists because most Muslims don't randomly kill people." Yes, Islam is a respectable religion.

 

In Christianity, the Westboro Baptist Church actually follows the Christian Bible, but folks identify more with Osteen than Phelps. Christianity, for the most part, doesn't picket funerals and openly declare that God Hates Fags, so we let Westboro continue to exist since to snuff them out would be religious discrimination. After all, most moderate Christians don't do such obvious harm and Christianity is a respectable religion.

 

When it comes to religions with such huge influence, not all harm is as obvious as an exploding train station or abortion clinic. It's much more insidious, creeping into our laws and school curricula. It happens only because there are so many moderate, harmless followers who aren't extreme at all. Yeah.

 

Brilliant post that I wish I could upvote.

[miekko]

The idea that liberal religion 'enables' fundamentalism is quite common in certain circles. I am not certain that this is the case - however, until I am given a more detailed account for the mechanisms by which people think this happens, I won't go and try and argue against it - simply because I can't be expected to figure out why people think X, in order to show that X is wrong.

 

However, there is a different relationship between liberal religion and conservative religion that is somewhat less obvious.

 

For a historical example, we may observe Judaism. After Karaitism dwindled to insignificance in late medieval times, Judaism was not entirely monolithic, but all the branches in Europe and the Middle East basically considered each other to be acceptable and equivalent - people were just supposed to adhere to the particular traditions of their own community. If you moved, you kept your old community's interpretation, and if you wanted to change that, there was a specific ritual by which one could adopt the other community's interpretation instead. So, although there were differences, they were relatively minor, and they were entirely tolerated.

 

Some almost-schisms did occur - especially with regards to the early hassidim, but this was because other Jews felt they deviated too greatly from received tradition. The hassidim weren't really all that "liberal" in any sense. At this point of time, it makes no sense to talk of 'orthodox Judaism' - there's just '(Rabbinic) Judaism' on one hand, and maybe 10-20 000 karaite Jews in parts of Russia, Lithuania, Turkey and Greece, Falashas in Ethiopia, 1000 Samaritans in Palestine, and various really small geographical remnants of Judaism - Cochin Jews, Dönmeh, etc. Even taken together, the non-Rabbinic Jews added up to less than 5% of worldwide Jewry, and none of them even sustained contact with each other or the rest of world Jewry. Still, all of these accepted pretty conservative ideals. 

 

We go on to the early 19th century. Reform Judaism is emerging. Jews with liberal ideals join reform Judaism wherever it is possible, and the amount of liberally inclined among the mainstream that we've later come to term 'orthodox' changed affiliation. The old mainstream felt threatened and therefore made their rules stricter, enforced old rules in stricter ways and preached stricter adherence to those rules. In effect, 'Torah observance' has become more popular among those who adhere to traditional Judaism than before - back in the day, some basic random level of rule-violation was expected and sort of tolerated. Now that the option of adhering to a Judaism that doesn't really demand observance exists, the zone of tolerance for transgression of the Torah has shrunk.

 

The emergence of a middle path - conservative Judaism - attracted traditional-minded reform Jews (it really originated in the traditional-minded quarters of reform!), but also a second generation of liberal-minded orthodox Jews, leaving an even more conservative base behind. 

 

Now, in the case of Judaism, the things that Orthodox Judaism is concerned with are somewhat different from what Christianity tends to be concerned with, and I would be inclined to think that the obsession with study is a thing that has helped orthodox Judaism from developing entirely in parallel with protestant fundamentalism. The bad traits of Orthodox Judaism are not necessarily the same bad traits you will find in Fundamentalist Christianity (and not all Orthodox are 'fundamentalist' in the sense a Fundamentalist Christian would be - there are 'fundamentalists' among the orthodox, obviously, but the dynamics of belief and community and observance in Judaism are sufficiently different from Christianity - you can't really draw a one-to-one equivalence between orthodoxy and fundamentalism). 

 

So, to reach the final conclusion: the existence of liberal Christian denominations serves to:

• remove liberally inclined Christians from other movements, which removes an influence that slowly could temper those movements from within.
• create an 'other' in opposition to which the fundamentalists will react - feeling that the standards to which the world should adhere are threatened even from within Christianity, and thus creating the need to create a firewall or moat with which to separate themselves from other Christians. Previously it was conflicts between people with roughly the same ethical standards but differences on points of doctrine - now the minor doctrinal differences are dwarfed by the "bid doctrinal" and "ethical" differences, and thus minor doctrine is temporarily not the main focus - gay sex, premarital sex, women's reproductive rights, women's other rights, the rights of religious minorities, etc are now the battleground. This probably will lead to increasingly insanely strict understandings of "Christian ethics" among the fundamentalists.
• weaken the 'bottom line' of conservative groups, which will lead to them trying to attract new members. Since attracting people by becoming liberal is distasteful to such a group, they will try to go more conservative to attract people from the conservative side of the spectrum.
• the stand-off situation will make the conservatives slower to accept liberal-minded reforms. If a leader realizes that the liberals are right, admitting to such a conclusion will be tantamount to admitting to being wrong - it is easier to reform yourself into ideologically virgin grounds - going more liberal is easy if no one else was liberal first. Now that liberal Christians are everywhere, it's difficult to admit that the group you yesterday accused of being in league with Satan actually are right. 

I am not saying the liberals are actively causing this, but it's an indirect result of their existence. Alas, there's not much that can be done about it.

[Vigile]

Dawkins is just expressing his personal opinion on this one and not relying on evidence.  It's a dubious correlation at best. 

[DoubtingNate]

I don't see it as a direct correlation. The issue is that because moderate religions exist, people are allowed to say, see, not ALL religion is bad, look at these nice religions over here. Those bad people are doing those things because they are twisting a perfectly good faith like ours, they aren't good Xians like us. And that's bullshit. Even the most benign sects of Christianity are propagating falsehoods and are an enormous drain on people's time, money and energy which would be spent better doing something useful.

 

One crystal meth recipe might be purer or less dangerous than another recipe, but it would be absurd to say, look, this meth is good because I still have my teeth! It's still crystal meth.

[NeverAgainV]

Yes. Had i not been indoctrinated to the liberal Catholic faith of xianity....I would not have looked for a more pure form, as I saw so much hypocrisy in the Catholics all around me.

 

Liberal Catholicism set the seeds.....for worse to come aka fundamentalist bible religion 

[miekko]

Yes. Had i not been indoctrinated to the liberal Catholic faith of xianity....I would not have looked for a more pure form, as I saw so much hypocrisy in the Catholics all around me.

 

Liberal Catholicism set the seeds.....for worse to come aka fundamentalist bible religion 

The plural of anecdote isn't evidence though - this just shows that some people go from liberal to fundamentalist for whatever reason. It doesn't show that liberal religion makes fundamentalism possible.

[Orbit]

 

Yes. Had i not been indoctrinated to the liberal Catholic faith of xianity....I would not have looked for a more pure form, as I saw so much hypocrisy in the Catholics all around me.

 

Liberal Catholicism set the seeds.....for worse to come aka fundamentalist bible religion 

The plural of anecdote isn't evidence though - this just shows that some people go from liberal to fundamentalist for whatever reason. It doesn't show that liberal religion makes fundamentalism possible.

 

You outlined how liberal religion creates conditions that contribute to strengthening fundamentalism. That's as close as we get to "cause" in the social sciences.

[miekko]

 

 

Yes. Had i not been indoctrinated to the liberal Catholic faith of xianity....I would not have looked for a more pure form, as I saw so much hypocrisy in the Catholics all around me.

 

Liberal Catholicism set the seeds.....for worse to come aka fundamentalist bible religion 

The plural of anecdote isn't evidence though - this just shows that some people go from liberal to fundamentalist for whatever reason. It doesn't show that liberal religion makes fundamentalism possible.

 

You outlined how liberal religion creates conditions that contribute to strengthening fundamentalism. That's as close as we get to "cause" in the social sciences.

 

The outline hasn't been tested though. Also, compare the fact that there's been some pretty shitty fundamentalisms going on in places with little to no liberal opposition - the Catholic church in medieval Europe, human sacrifice cults in Mesoamerica, Islam in Afghanistan, ...

 

Liberal Christianity has an effect on fundamentalist Christianity, but it's not the only thing that can cause fundamentalism. Of course, one further complication is that we have no idea what fundamentalism is unless we have a non-fundamentalist version to compare to.

[DoubtingNate]

Missing the point. All he is saying is that liberal religion makes it seem more respectable to believe things that aren't true, which in turn makes the world safer than fundamentalism. It is not just a cause and effect relationship.

 

From the source:

 

[miekko]

The last point he makes - that the terrorists of 9/11 probably were 'virtuous people that had been misled' - has kind of been disproven. Most terrorists - even religious ones - are pretty shitty people, even by their religions' standards.

[DoubtingNate]

Bull. Shit. People are complicated. Nobody is completely 'virtuous' or 'shitty' and there no way to 'prove' one or the other. That's been 'disproven??' How can that even be measured? That is your value judgement (that some people are just shitty), not a measurable thing you can prove.

 

These people are virtuous by the standards of their religion, which teaches that martyrdom for the sake of Islam is honorable and will be rewarded. They are just taking their sacred texts literally, whereas other Muslims do not. That's what fundamentalism is.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Bull. Shit. People are complicated. Nobody is completely 'virtuous' or 'shitty' and there no way to 'prove' one or the other. That's been 'disproven??' How can that even be measured? That is your value judgement (that some people are just shitty), not a measurable thing you can prove.

 

These people are virtuous by the standards of their religion, which teaches that martyrdom for the sake of Islam is honorable and will be rewarded. They are just taking their sacred texts literally, whereas other Muslims do not. That's what fundamentalism is.

+1 (out of upvotes)

[gall]

I've been thinking about Dawkins' position that liberal Christianity and liberal Islam actually make fundamentalist religion possible. He seems to think that giving religion any "respectability" at all opens the floodgates to a general tendency to see all religion as harmless, and to see all religion as in a special category, immune from criticism. In this environment, extremists flourish. What say you?

 

nothing is immune from citisism. period.

 

it is either all ok to talk about and air and voice as we see fit or none of it is.

 

There is no middle ground.

 

I have no issue with religion just what other choose to attempt to enforce over me because of their belief system.

 

I will never force myself or any of my ideas on them, and I expect that in return period.

Do I get that? Sometimes but not always.

 

I am think that the more liberal it becomes the more impotent it becomes. The only reasont the extremists seem so strong is the moderate groups of morons are growing smaller and becoming liberal morons and they make the extreme morons seem just that much more extreme.

 

It is relative I feel.

 

A group is not always the majority and often not just because its cries are heard louder than others.

[Orbit]

Thanks all, for the replies. After reading them I think I'm of two minds about it. I see Dawkins' point about liberal religion casting an aura of respectability over the entire thing, giving fundamentalists a sort of social protection from criticism. On the other hand, from what I've read on this board, fundamentalists have a much harder time when they decovert. Coming from a liberal denomination I was halfway deconverted already, so in that sense liberal religion seems like the lesser evil.

[directionless]

There are a few issues I've been thinking about on this topic, but I don't have an opinion:

 

- Is liberal Christianity a subset of fundamentalist Christianity so that a fundamentalist would transition to liberal views before continuing on to atheism? In other words does the liberal simply believe less dogma or does the liberal think rituals and other practices are more important than believing dogma?

 

- Is liberal Christianity harder to cure - like a mutated drug-resistant bacteria?

 

- Is liberal Christianity less harmful to the believers than fundamentalist Christianity or just less vocal?