Religious Debate: A Surprising End?

For most of the 20th century, there was a trend to liberalism, toward science, away from colonialism and exploitation of people. And this trend was also hurting fundamentalist religions that denied science. It did appear that the steamroller of progressive thought was unstoppable, and so the various believers in cult-like end of the world scenarios were kind of ignored or joked about.

Suddenly it didn't seem so funny any more when the conservative fundamentalist Christians put together a political movement that ended up with one of their own as president of the United States. The liberals, and scientists were taken by surprise. Then on TV, the radio, and the Internet came an onslaught of well-funded Christian propaganda design to win over more converts and strengthen their cause further.

As this phenomenon developed, most liberals became alarmed at where it was going. This Christianity was a new breed of anti-liberal fundamentalist religion. The new conservative Christianity has a broad platform:

• Opposition to liberal political parties
• Opposition to science, specifically global warming research and evolution
• Opposition to the secular public school system
• Support for unregulated capitalism
• Belief in faith healing miracles and praying for monetary wealth
• Support for Israel's claim to Palestinian land, and opposition to the UN mandated boundaries
• Opposition to the UN as an ungodly organization
• Opposition to gun control
• Support for war and torture, including calls to bomb Iran, and a holy war against Muslims.

For a while it seemed like the conservative Christians had the momentum on their side, winning converts and debates against better educated intellectuals. But this situation was only temporary as many hundreds if not thousands of liberals began to organise their opposition. They started taking the time to understand the arguments of the conservative Christians. At first the conservative viewpoints seemed so contrary to common sense that it was not possible to have a real debate.

Gradually that has turned around, and now the Christians are on the ropes. Their strategy is better understood, and so are their weaknesses. But mainly, I think, a lot of scientists and liberals were disturbed enough by what they saw happening, that they made a huge effort do some research about fundamentalism and speak up.

The scientific evidence is pretty much overwhelming, for example, that species evolve into new species, and the world is over 6000 years old. But the religious extremists have produced mountains of "proof" that they are right and science is wrong. And with their political clout, they were beginning to undermine the liberal foundations of western civilization.

Both sides are diametrically opposed, and no common ground exists for rational debate except in one area. In the last few years, the debate has developed along these lines, which I will describe from my own point of view (though many others have argued the same way)

Liberals have found that they are pretty much in agreement with many of Jesus's teaching on loving your neighbour, and there is a goldmine of quotes in the Bible that are left-wing or at least liberal. I mentioned one in this blog back in March 2009.

I have had a field day with the Bible in that there are tons of anti-Republican, anti-war, anti-torture quotes in the Bible. Obviously I was not the only one having fun with this, as I noticed Christian fundamentalists were getting on television to counter these quotes, usually starting off with "Atheists and liberals love to misquote Jesus, especially .... (insert any liberal/Marxist quote from Jesus here)..... But actually.. chose one.. (a) Jesus did not mean this to apply to his chosen people (b) Jesus later contradicted this with .... (insert another pro-Bush quote)... (c)The actual meaning of peace/war/torture/riches/ etc. was ... Insert a rich Capitalist phrase here....

I was kind of pleasantly surprised at this defense tactic from the Evangelicals, because it left an easy response: "You are the ones who say you believe in every word of the Bible is the word of God, so if this quote by Jesus is not correct, then please remove the phrase from the Bible. Otherwise, it's still in there in black and white, and everybody who can read should be able to do it on their own without a Republican party translator looking over their shoulder."

I never expected the fundamentalists would take the liberals up on this offer, because it was mostly a rhetorical point. But the Conservapedia people are trying to do exactly that: write a new Bible for the Pro-war pro-Republican Jesus.

Who could have ever guessed they were so easy to bait? That religion must have their backs to the wall if this is being seriously considered.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/10/08/is-your-bible-too-liberal

Picture shows prominent anti-fundamentalist Richard Dawkins, with last summer's bus advertising campaign by atheists.