Final thoughts
To sum up. The point of all that was to show that liberal xtians are good only because they are not true to their faith, bible or doctrines. This position is based on my experience of both moderates and fundies, and comparisons with what I consider the real xtianity, as seen in history and the bible. To concede that the fundies had a point in dismissing liberals made me uneasy, and it did seem harsh to dismiss those church goers that in many ways are far closer to my views than even some atheists. But To my surprise I found someone who had come to exactly the same conclusion, Sam Harris, author of The end of faith. He too sees religion itself as the problem. I blame the doctrines, he the metaphysics of martyrdom and irrationality, I fear a second Dark Age, he a nuclear holocaust.
Reason has lead us to the true source of religious horror. He has seen how moderates distance themselves form the fanatics, how they use any argument rather than blame their faith itself. Some may not understand my determination to lay the responsibility on the doctrines or why I consider them central to the faith. I may not have made the point clear enough, but I felt this was the right answer, now I am sure of it.
BT used the “individual responsible” defence. She is partially correct, however in extremist belief systems individuality is the first thing to be sacrificed. The individual is not solely responsible if they are a product of conditioning, and there tends to be more in the case of fundies than liberals. Therefore evil xtians will represent the dogmas of their faith more than the good liberals who'll more likely deserve the credit as individuals. This means BT’s explanation did apply to her denomination, meaning neither it nor the faith in general could claim credit for the good done, even in its name.
But those clinic bombing, gay bashing, Jihad terrorists, are far more a product, not just of demagogues, but the false, irresponsible and inhumane paradigm that lurks in the heart of all the worst religions. They never get the blame as liberals can claim to be the real thing. Those fundies who are merely taking the bible more seriously, (and like the inquisition expressing, not perverting the logical conclusion of such ideas as salvation, souls and hell), are dismissed as “evil”.
Remember Bush after 9/11 trying to get Islam of the hook with all that “religion of peace” crap? The Koran is a plan for world domination, it only tolerates what is under it’s rule. It took force of arms to prevent all of Europe from being conquered, and of course Xtianity would try to do the exact same thing later on. Both considered themselves the true rulers of the world, the only path, and “choice” for humanity.
Xtianity is not a good thing, good people just use it not realising its true nature, and not recognising the signs of it in the fundies. For every good teaching of “Jesus” there’s a bad one. +Plus the overall tone and message of the NT is dangerous and inhumane. With enough tunnel vision you could make yourself see good in anything. This is why all theism must go; the oblivious wishy-washy types are used by the fundies as they can build of the foundation of preserved reasonable and moral “normality” that liberals create. But to an atheist who can see the irrationality of the whole thing, even in moderates, fundies are monsters, simple as that. Hence my debate here with a non-fundy. Showing the dark immorality and “functional insanity” of the fundy is easy, showing why liberals must be challenged as well is harder.
They try to be more honest and its harder to show why the condemnations levelled at the faith apply to them, as the decency of the moderate has to be taken into account. But their apathy or wiliness to do mental gymnastics to explain away the evils of their faith are as much the problem as the fundies who do the evil. Religion is wrong, the danger is in its doctrines, but also the irrationality, the metaphysics, the false scientific claims, the why it dis-encourages critical thinking and scepticism, in favour of unjustifiable faith. No matter the degree to which it is utilised, we must oppose it on principle, not just go for the obvious targets.
The same applies to all unreason, and that covers a lot of things not just theism, from communism, to astrology, they all contribute to a culture of incredulity, world-wide, without which no doctrine would survive. It’s a pyramid of subjective bias; the majority of it is made up of liberals theists, the superstitious, gullible, uncritical, illogical, republican, etc. The cap stone of fundamentalism will remain if the entire structure isn’t levelled.
A push towards a unilateral removal of unreason in all its forms is the only way to guarantee not that fundamentalism will never appear but that at least it is recognised as the irrational nonsense that it is. It may seem easier to just pick on the nuts, but it’s pointless, all freethinkers must seize any opportunity to challenge unreason at every turn. Hence in this case my refusal to except that there is any redemption for xtianity. It only takes one religious nut to cause mass suffering. Like with anti-biotics you have to make sure all of the problem is gone or it’ll reappear worse then ever, that’s evolution, and unfortunately it works for religion too.