Mike Fraser and I have been involved in some interesting discussions on his Facebook profile. One debate turned into about five or six, so I'm going to put them here as separate threads so we can keep the discussion going without getting everything tangled up. Everyone else should feel free to join in.

Here's Mike's original post, followed by our subsequent comments. Mike's writing is in italics; mine isn't.

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This is digusting. Seriously.

An Afghan student and journalist has been sentenced to death .

And what did Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh do to deserve this punishment? He was, according to the BBC, “downloading material from the internet relating to the role of women in Islamic societies.”

This, according to the Afghan courts, is tantamount to blasphemy, which, naturally enough, is deserving of the death penalty.

77 Canadian lives (and thousands from other nations) have been lost during the war in Afghanistan, and for what? So that we could replace one batch of religious nutcases with another? ‘Enduring Freedom’, my ass. No party will get my vote in the next election unless it calls for a withdrawl from this mess.

Why must we keep humanity, which is capable of so much, captive in arms of religious myth? Wake up, folks. It’s the 21st century here. Religion is not harmless; it is a powerful weapon precisely because the vast, vast majority of the world’s inhabitants cannot see its inherent ridiculousness. People are dying today because of differing opinions about the invisible sky monster. As Sam Harris has put it, if people were killing over the relative superiority of Windows Vista vs. MacOS X, or Apples vs. Oranges, it would be no less ridiculous than the situation in which we find ourselves.

It’s all fun and games to laugh at the stupidity of creationists, or make light of the beliefs that keep certain people from eating certain meats, or from flicking a light switch on certain days of the week. While our collective intelligence may be insulted (and, in the case of the ridiculous notion of creationism/ID, collectively reduced) by these things, they, in and of themselves, do little harm.

But let us not forget that this sorry exhibition is what religion is really all about. When you believe, really truly believe, that the creator of the universe is insulted by certain web pages, and that the mere viewing of this material constitutes the highest form of insult to the diety, nothing can convince you otherwise. And until such time as we, as supposedly intelligent, secular countries are prepared to stop killing ourselves to defend this barbarism, we will never escape the claws of religion. Until we are able to say “religion is bunk, and here’s why”, we will never be truly free.

Religious moderates have no excuse. They facilitate this madness by asking; no, demanding that we give “respect” to their views on the creator of the universe. Enough is enough.

Religion. poisons. everything.

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Mike, I think your position is unfair to most people of faith.

I think I know your argument: if we have to respect "moderate" faith, on what grounds can we refuse to respect "extremist" faith? Either we accept both or we reject both.

I disagree. First, I don't demand that anyone accept my faith as true. The only respect I ask is the freedom to practice my beliefs insofar as I don't impinge on the freedoms of others. You can offer me that kind of respect without accepting the truth of any religion.

Second, we can distinguish between tolerant and intolerant faiths. My faith demands that I not only tolerate, but actively *love*, those who disagree with me. Intolerant extremism is wholly incompatible with the Christianity that I follow. You can respect that faith and utterly reject someone else's intolerant beliefs.

So to call my faith the thin edge of an extremist wedge is not merely unfair; it's inaccurate. No extremist could hide behind the beliefs that I, and many others, espouse.

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Paul,

First let me say that I'm always happy when you respond to my postings. I know that your arguments will be intelligent and well-thought out. I don't always get that from some.

That having been said, I completely disagree with your sentiment, and here's why.

I recognize that you, as an individual, do not demand that I accept your faith as being literally true, in the sense that "Mike is currently in England" is true. I should state that I absolutely support the freedom of religion; the ability of people to practice whatever religion they wish, so long, as you say, that this practice does not impinge upon the ability of others to do likewise (or to practice no religion). I believe strongly that people should be free FROM discrimination based on religion (though I don't necessarily believe that they should be free TO do what ever their religion commands, simply because it commands it...everyone should have to wear a motorcycle helmet and no one should be able to bring a knife to school, for instance).

I disagree with your point about tolerant vs. intolerant faiths. While it is true that at this point in history certain religions pose a greater threat to humanity than others, we should be very careful to point out why that is. Jainism, for instance, poses very little threat to humanity, because, while Jains believe some improbable things about the nature of the universe (based on no evidence), there is no tenet of Jainism that dictates the killing of apostates, non-believers, or homosexuals. On the other hand, both Christianity and Islam have specific teachings that dictate that one or more specific group of people should be put to their death for what they do or do not believe or practice. Leviticus and Deuteronomy are chock full of the most horrid things you can imagine, the Koran and Hadith likewise.

Now, at this point in history, as I said, one might argue that Islam is by far the greater threat to humanity relative to Christianity. I would grant this, in part, but not completely. You must remember that Islam has not had its reformation (nor is it likely to); it remains virtually unchanged since its inception, mainly because the Koran is held to be the inerrant word of god. Certainly it doesn't take much to interpret a great deal of the Koran as being wholly incompatible with freedom in the Western sense of the word, and many have done just this. I would not wish to be a homosexual, apostate, or non-believer on the streets of Riyadh or Tehran. Of course, all of the Muslims I have ever encountered have been wonderful, peaceful people, though all have been encountered in the context of a country that does not tolerate intolerance, leading me to wonder what I would encounter should our surroundings change. But make no mistake, the gaping hole in Lower Manhattan was created solely by people who believed that their Tuesday morning deeds would land them a preferential place in heaven. They felled those buildings because of faith; no other reason.

Christianity, by contrast, HAS had its reformation, and has had its books subjected to interpretation. The vast majority of Christians I have encountered (such as yourself) have been peaceful, wonderful folks. Although I know that the vast majority of people on the streets of Toronto or any Western city believe in the divinity of Jesus, I do not feel in the least bit frightened of them as a vocal non-believer.

Why the difference between my opinions of Christianity and Islam? Is it because one is intrinsically more tolerant than the other, as you contend?

No.

It is because you and most Christians have recognized that a literal interpretation of your religion's teachings is wholly incompatible with modernity. The reason you don't keep slaves (as the NEW Testament expressly allows and which Jesus never forbids) is that you know keeping slaves is wrong. Your reasons for knowing that are not a product of your faith, but are concessions to secularism. The teachings of your religion are clear; I should be put to death for using the lord's name in vain, and a whole host of other crimes against god; slaves can be kept. But I dont fear these things from Christians because most (but not all) have agreed to put certain elements of their faith aside in the interest of getting along with others. Many Muslims have not yet done so. These concessions are, once again, to secularism, not to religion.

But, Christianity does not get a free pass. Thousands of people will die in sub-Saharan Africa TODAY because of what two Christian men (Joseph Ratzinger and George W. Bush) believe about what the creator of the universe thinks about placing a thin piece of latex over one's penis. Those people are dying needlessly because the Catholic Church and US evangelical protestants believe that the cure is worse than the disease, despite real honest evidence that condom use is far more effective at preventing HIV infection than abstinence programs alone. If 'love' were at the centre of it, these guys would be dropping condoms from planes. The fact that they are not suggests ulterior motives to their (in)actions

Moreover, millions of people will needlessly suffer or die because the Christian US government official opposes the study of 2-day old piles of embryonic stem cells. Why do they do this? Because they believe the creator of the universe has imparted some special entity to these cells that somehow makes them different than every other cell we routinely harvest for research.

What ties all of this together is faith; the belief in things without evidence. Faith is completely anathema to the progress of humanity. We are what we are today, in every sense, because people have based their beliefs about physical reality on evidence. Yes, most of the triumphs of humanity have been made by people of faith, but their triumphs were in no way dependent upon their faith (nor, for most of human history, did they have a choice of whether to be 'faithful' or not...just as much of the world has little choice today).

I am being fair to all people of faith. I am well aware that one cannot lump all believers into one category. The actions of fundamentalists and moderates are completely different, and we should judge the people accordingly. But it is faith that underlies all of it. And religious moderates, by demanding not that their faith be practiced by everyone but that their faith be RESPECTED simply because it is faith, who facilitate the fundamentalists. It should, quite frankly, be shameful to hold beliefs that are incongruent with evidence. The fact that religious faith is one of our most cherished virtues (and the fact that you are likely taken aback by my saying that religious faith should be shameful to hold) is a testament to just how messed up we are.

You should be free to believe what you wish (in the sense that you should have the right to believe what you want), of course, but I must also be free to say you are wrong. You are, however, not free to believe what you want about the meaning of the word "north", for instance (not, at least, if you want to be part of rational discourse). If you dispute what the evidence tells us about "north", you should expect not to be taken seriously. The same standard should apply when you dispute what the evidence tells us about, say, the age of the universe, the common descent of all living things, or whether it is possible to perform miracles, answer prayers, or rise from the dead. The fact that it is not is scary to me.

In closing, Paul, I hope you don't find my tone too abrasive. It is not the faithful I distain, but faith itself. We should be able to see the difference.

I should also state again that I very much appreciate our online discussions. While our opinions differ wildly, I find our discourse stimulating and just plain fun.

M

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Mike, I love our discussions too. Thanks for your thoughtful response.

I don't agree with your claim that my tolerance is a concession to modernity and a departure from Christianity, though. There's language in the Old Testament that I'm still coming to terms with, but the message of Jesus is pretty simple:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

One thing I love about Christianity is that it operates on first principles like this. I think that shows a respect for the human capacity to figure out the details on our own. But I digress. My point is: when God Himself says that we are to love Him and love others, and that the whole system of religion and law rests on those principles, anything incompatible with love is incompatible with our faith.

So while I can't speak for anyone else's faith, I can say this for mine: the tolerance and love that I try (not without frequent failure, mind you) to espouse is not a departure from my faith, it's the very core of it.

(As for slavery in the New Testament, Jesus doesn't expressly forbid it--but I think the first principles that He laid out, as quoted in my earlier comment, do a good enough job of that.)

I agree with you that there are dangerous people who do awful things because they think God wants them to. I think it's sick that Christian extremists push condom-free 'abstinence' programs in Africa, seemingly not caring about the fact that this policy leaves a whole continent open to the ravages of AIDS. My response is that these people are misguided. But that doesn't invalidate the faith itself; it just means some people are wrong.

Like I said, I don't demand that anyone respect my faith; I only ask for the right to practice it peacefully. That gives no shelter to extremists.

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Paul,

You can cherry pick the Bible all you want; catch Jesus in half his moods, and be certain that yours is a religion of love and tolerance. I have no doubt that you, personally, are full of love and tolerance.

But:

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. - Leviticus 20:13

But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. - Matthew 18:25

So while I have no doubt that the Golden Rule was a wonderful teaching (which existed long before Jesus), it's lines like this:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. - Matthew 10:34

that make it hard to accept Christianity as a purely peaceful path. You can ignore these parts, but that's only because your secularism is winning out over your faith.

"Like I said, I don't demand that anyone respect my faith; I only ask for the right to practice it peacefully. That gives no shelter to extremists"

But once you allow for the premise of belief without evidence; once you say that it is acceptable, as part of our societal discourse, to hold beliefs based on faith, then you legitimize faith. The 9/11 attackers were, based on this argument, actually BETTER Muslims than most, because they truly followed what is written in their holy books.

I hold that it is this legitimization of faith that is the real problem. Once we allow faith a place of privilege, all interpretations are valid. Fundamentalism may be less palatable than moderatism, but it is not less 'correct' if we allow for faith on first principles.

I'm glad you disavow what's going on in Africa. But Paul, it is our consistent support of religious faith that makes things like that possible in the first place.

Imagine a world in which all beliefs scaled with evidence; in this world, people who held beliefs contrary to evidence would be asked "why do you believe this?", and be held to answer for those beliefs before actions could be taken based upon them. In this world, the sub-Saharan Africa problem would not exist, because no one would be able to claim 'faith' as a legitimate reason for doing anything. The current US policy on Africa (and stem-cell research) is based entirely on faith.

You may disagree with those policies and actively work to have them removed, and that's great. But their root cause, the life blood of those policies, is the acceptance of faith as a virtue. Faith is necessary and sufficient for those policies, and only by de-legitimizing faith can we improve things.

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It's not necessary to cherry-pick from the Bible to see Christianity as a peaceful, tolerant faith. The Leviticus line about stoning homosexuals is from the Old Testament. It was clearly superseded by Jesus' teaching: he once prevented a stoning by saying that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. (John 8:7)

The passage about the slave (Matthew 18:25) doesn't endorse slavery at all. It's from a parable decrying hypocrisy. The character in the story happens to be a slave, but there's nothing there suggesting that slavery is acceptable. Read the rest of the chapter; it'll be clear.

Likewise, Matthew 10:34 ("I came not to send peace, but a sword") should be read in context. This is a passage in which Jesus tells his followers that they may be rejected by their loved ones for following him, and that they should be willing to pay that price. He's not advocating actual violence.

Of course, I'm sure there are some people who read the section literally and commit violence in Jesus' name. But the only way to reconcile the line about swords (which could conceivably be read as metaphor) with the line about the golden rule (which cannot) is to infer that the line about swords does not advocate actual violence. Given that this is the only reading that makes sense when read as a whole, and that it doesn't strain credibility to read it this way, we can conclude that Jesus is not advocating actual violence here. That squares not only with the golden rule, but with the rest of the non-judgmental, non-violent philosophy that he preaches elsewhere in the New Testament.

That's not to say there aren't misguided, violent people who believe they're doing God's work. But there is at least one credible reading in which Christianity -- all of it -- espouses love without exception.

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Paul,

There is no question that Jesus is, by and large, an excellent individual upon which to begin to build a philosophy of relationships with others (his failure to disavow slavery in Luke, notwithstanding).

The same can be said for numerous others throughout history, of course. The only difference is that Jesus has been elevated o a somewhat higher state than, say, Gandhi or Plato.

If we could simply accept that the Bible is just a book, with some bits thrown out for good measure, we might be on to something. We've done this with stories about Zeus, Poseidon, and Ra, but we cannot yet do this with the Bible for some reason.

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Mike,

Here's my response to your second point:

"I hold that it is this legitimization of faith that is the real problem. Once we allow faith a place of privilege, all interpretations are valid. Fundamentalism may be less palatable than moderatism, but it is not less 'correct' is we allow for faith on first principles."

As I understand it, your argument is this: faith equals belief without evidence. Some people believe, without evidence, that God wants them to make bad moral choices (such as flying planes into buildings). If we accept that it's legitimate to espouse harmless beliefs without evidence, we have no basis on which to challenge beliefs that lead to harm. Whereas if all beliefs were evidence-based, there would obviously be no basis for harmful beliefs such as those held by religious terrorists.

We both believe that some moral choices (such as flying planes into buildings) are bad. But what is the basis for that belief? It's not evidence-based. This is a normative, not an empirical, issue. If we disavow any beliefs that are not evidence-based, I can't see any room for moral judgment at all.

In other words: you can only argue that non-empirical belief leads to 'bad' acts if you have a standard for defining what a 'bad' act is. As far as I can tell, that standard can't be empirical. Which means you need a non-empirical belief in order to justify your argument against non-empirical beliefs.

I'm not saying your moral standard has to be religious. I'm just saying that we all have non-empirical moral beliefs. The fact that some are both perverse and ostensibly religious doesn't mean that we should avoid non-empirical belief. I'm not even sure we *can* avoid it, unless we disavow morality altogether. But your argument against non-empirical belief is a moral argument.

It's also fair to point out that there are plenty of non-religious moral beliefs that are just as cruel as those espoused by religious extremists. Pol Pot, for example, fervently believed that it was moral to slaughter the educated classes in order to establish an agrarian paradise. That's a fanatical moral choice that had nothing to do with religious belief.

So I think the enemy here is not faith per se. As I hope I've demonstrated, every moral system involves faith, if we define faith as non-empirical belief. The enemy is moral systems that allow or encourage cruelty. I think the best answer is to espouse moral systems that embrace love.

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Paul,

We can be moral beings without accepting anything on insufficient evidence. My point is that those buildings were felled by people who honestly thought that the creator of the universe wanted it to be so.

The decision to act with some sense of 'morality', whatever the origins of that morality, need not come without some basis in evidence. We can provide ample evidence that slavery, for instance, is morally wrong because it produces genuine harm against other human beings. If we, at first principles, state that 'doing no harm' is our ultimate goal, then we must accept that slavery is wrong, irrespective of what the creator of the universe does or does not want.

I also dispute whether the actions of the 9/11 attackers represented real 'moral' choices per se. They were entirely moral actions, within the confines of what those 19 people believed to be ultimately moral; indeed, what they did was the height of morality in their eyes.

But once again, I believe firmly that we can be moral beings without accepting anything on insufficient evidence. Philosophy can teach us a great deal, and while my knowledge of philosophical principles is admittedly rudimentary, I know enough to understand that we can make moral and ethical choices that are not, in any way, based upon beliefs about things about which we manifestly do not, and often cannot know.

Morality, as you say, need not spring from religion; religion is neither necessary nor sufficient for morality.

In the final analysis, the difference here is this: you feel that faith, when applied according to moral principles (which can be had without faith), can lead to good. I do not dispute this in the least. My retort, however, is that it is faith, and faith alone (whether it be in a deity, in the case of religion, or in a cult of personality, as we saw throughout the 20th century), that inspires the worst in people.

Our human triumphs have resulted from letting what we DO follow from what we KNOW. All that you speak of; morality, love, peace, can be had without claiming to know anything we do not, and perhaps cannot, know.

Your Pol Pot reference is a standard canard. You might also have tried Hitler or Stalin; those work too.

The gas chambers and the gulag are not examples of what happens when we demand too much evidence for things; too much rationality. The Khmer Rouge, the Nazis, and Stalin-era Communists may have been atheistic, but they were as religious as the most devout church. They worshiped people and beliefs without evidence. They were as faith-based as any religion that has ever existed

Faith is merely a subset of the true evil; dogma.

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My response:

"The decision to act with some sense of 'morality', whatever the origins of that morality, need not come without some basis in evidence. We can provide ample evidence that slavery, for instance, is morally wrong because it produces genuine harm against other human beings"

Only if we start with the principle that it's wrong to harm others. Which, in itself, is not an empirical claim. My point is that all morality starts with non-empirical first principles.

Pol Pot did terrible things because his first principles ("We should have an agrarian society at all costs") collided with his entirely empirical belief that he'd need to kill a lot of people to make it happen.

It wasn't faith that led Pol Pot to slaughter his people: it was the moral conviction that agrarianism is more important than human life. You're correct in noting that this moral conviction is a belief without proof, but so is my moral conviction that human life is more important than agrarianism. Same with your own moral standards. My point is that political and religious extremists aren't dangerous because their believe things that are unproven; they're dangerous because their morality values certain goals more than it values human life.

Moral behaviour is the product of two things: moral first principles (which are never empirical) and a belief about the state of the world (which is sometimes empirical). If I start with bad first principles, I'm going to do terrible things even if my belief about the state of the world is entirely rational. For example, I may believe that it's ok to kill people to achieve my political goals (a moral principle), and I may correctly observe that I can't achieve my political goals without killing anyone (an empirical fact). The problem here isn't irrationality; it's bad morals. That has nothing to do with faith.

It's unfair, then, to blame faith for this kind of fanatical violence. It's just as much a secular phenomenon as it is a religious one.