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I've heard a lot over the years about how religious moderates aren't hurting anyone and that they should not be challenged because their views are generally mild and not dangerous. The following has generally been my response. Thought I'd share in case anyone was interested.

It is quite possible that religious moderates are not only part of the problem, but the biggest part of the problem. Their large base gives an air of legitimacy to the belief system and provides an environment in which religious extremism can survive and thrive. Compare the "crazy" beliefs of the marginalized with those of the religious. How different are they, really? A man wearing a tinfoil hat pleading for people to heed his warning about alien abductions and the anal probes that went along with them is not taken seriously by anyone, except maybe those that are also wearing similar hats. So how is it that we're legislating morality based on stories that contain taking snakes and donkeys and people that rise from the dead? It's because there's a huge portion of the population that doesn't think these are ridiculous things to believe. Without religious moderates, religious extremist groups would have no where to recruit members or obtain funding. They would, in effect, be reduced to another crazy, yet powerless person we ignore in the course of our everyday lives, obviously with more asinine headwear, of course.

ChestRockfield 8 June 11
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15 comments

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0

The same thing can be said about people in robes and people flashing colored lights

Yes on the cops, but I don't know what people in robes you're referring to.

@JeffMurray the use costumes to reinforce the imaginary, its mind control

@Rich177 Still have no idea what the hell you are taking about.

@JeffMurray alright.....imaginary things use costumes, like santa claus. Mickey mouse has a costume. I'm not going to elaborate, challenge you to think.

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Humans are going to be hard to partition into tidy groups. We are a species of diversity. The religious are not different. But they may be willing to accept false information as they have been taught since birth.

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I'm not sure I understand what a 'religious moderate' is. You either believe or you don't in that faith. What is it I wonder that gets moderated ?

TO_BY Level 7 June 13, 2020

The more temperate position one can hold about things in the religion. A moderate might say the stories in the Bible study an allegory that teaches a general way to live life and treat each other. An extremist might say the Bible is the literal word of God and we need to follow it exactly, and through this we know the Earth is 6,000 years old, God hates gays, and supports slavery.

@JeffMurray So a 'moderate' is something of an agnostic when it comes to literal translation of the tenets of her/his religion ?

@TO_BY
While EVERYONE should describe themselves as agnostic regardless of their religious beliefs, I don't think that's quite the right way to define what we're taking about here. I think the phrase 'cafeteria Christian' or the red letter Christians would be more apt here if you've heard of those. It refers to being selective in what you adhere to and practice. While it doesn't call into question whether they believe overall, they don't, for instance, feel that they need to carry signs that say, "God hates fags" even though the Bible clearly shows that God does in fact hate them.

I think it is the difference between a religious person (moderate) and a religious nut (extreme). The moderate believes you will burn in hell one day, but the nut would actually set you on fire now.

@Jinx5555555 well said... 😀

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Yeah, the hat is a little bit more than is necessary. Do you think there's gold in the embroidery? $$$ 🤬 And yes I can understand your POV.

1

They may be less bombastic than their fundamentalist brethren but they're still members of a destructive ideology kinda like being a moderate nazi.

1

In any religion there can be no moderates!!

The nature of religion is divide and conquer at any cost to induce and control those susceptible to faith control!!!

Moderation will never work for these so called religious leaders whose whole control and profit model has never been built upon moderation!!!

One of the oldest Ponzi Schemes known to mankind!!!

1

"Compare the "crazy" beliefs of the marginalized with those of the religious. How different are they, really?"

Have you had any success promoting this conspiracy theory, that your average religious practitioner is only in it to provide safe haven for those willing to strap on the explosives? To blithely assume that no one who practices religion is sincerely in it for the reasons they themselves would give is itself nuts. To entertain the notion that no one is sincere is the kind of empathy I would expect from someone so obsessed with rationality that they truly expect science will one day make the arts obsolete. From that frame of mind I wonder how long it will be before all feeling will go out of fashion and we'll all move through life like the character Mr. Spock from the original Star Trek series?

MarkWD Level 7 June 12, 2020

In no way did I suggest that they are doing it knowingly.

2

Good point. I would liken it to a pyramid with the religious moderates at the base gradually changing to the dangerous extremists at the top. Without the base the extremists would have no support.

1

That moderates can create a safe space or provide top cover to the more extreme among them is a well-understood problem. But I am more concerned that these moderates are hypocrites. They’re what we might call, MINOs—moderates in name only.

A true moderate would insist that the scriptures they either respect or casually ignore be redacted, corrected and edited to reflect 21st century knowledge and morality. But these moderates sit in church with a book sitting in the pew in front of them that hasn’t been modified in centuries! This proves that their moderation only goes so far.

The Holy Bible is filled with ideas, and ideas have consequences. Most today would recognize there are ideas found in the Bible that are clearly wrong. But nearly all moderates fail to address this problem, even though they may not even believe that the texts were inspired.

I don’t fault moderates for ignoring their more extreme fellow believers, but I fault them for failing to do anything to change the narrative. Edit the damn book, moderates! Re-write your scriptures!

Yes, they could re-write it. They have written and eliminated whole books of the Bible in the past, not to mention there are countless different versions of the Bible. However, people already only follow that they want to follow, so there's not much of a point.

@TheMiddleWay Fair enough. Leave the 'original' (to the extent that such a thing even exists), but add commentary that identifies passages that are inconsistent with other passages, or are in error (historically or scientifically), or are simply immoral.

1

Only backward areas of the world like Africa and America have a real problem with Christian extremists, Western democracies seem to be immune.

0

I respect your point of view. However I still think the problem is the extremists not the moderates.

Extremists are terrible, for sure. But what if they were just that, extremists that no one paid any attention to? How menacing are the tin foil hat wearing people from major cities you don't live in to you? Not at all.

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You should actualize the photo, that Pope left on February 2013.

Does it really matter which photo of which Pope, aka Protector Of Paedophile Employees, is used?
After all, they all look as stupid as the last one and all of the others when they roam around dressed in their white dresses all embroided in gold and red, carrying their bent stick and having their pointy hats on their pointy heads.
I mean, where EXACTLY do they get off with telling people that they ARE the ELECTED direct Descendant of the Apostle Peter when absolutely NO-ONE can be ELECTED as a descendant of any other person in the first place, especially in this case where there is NO evidence the the Apostle Peter or any of the others ever really existed.

@Triphid sure if you want to convince believers, gives you much more creedence, preaching to the choir only is futile.

Yeah, my bad. The current Pope doesn't wear anything ridiculous on his head.

(FYI: The original photo was from when I first wrote this.)

@Triphid Yeah that's some goofy shit

@twill Yep, any normal person seen walking around dressed like that would be locked in a Mental Institution faster than you could blink.

4

Some humans just cannot understand that they are not that important in the universe, so they have to invent something.

Hmm. I had not thought of it that way before. Thank you for sharing that idea.

Yes Jolanta, religion is people worship

2

Yes, religious moderates give succour, however unwittingly, to religious crazies.

5

We are all getting slaughtered again because of religious beliefs. The anti-science/pseudo-science attitudes that have allowed Covid to thrive so hard and quickly here in America are very much due to religious attitudes. Even if those playing into it are not all religious, religious beLIEfs laid the fertile ground of idiocy down.

I have long considered myself an Atheist seeing the "A" as a classical "not". And I've just shook my head at the theists silliness, and figured "ah well, they are not hurting anybody". Well, now they are. And that "A" in Atheist is starting to mean *Anti-Theist.

Militant anti-theist.

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