loganmule

I've characterized myself from time to time as a moderate Christian, in that I have for the most part kept the faith I was brought up in, but look at much of scripture as metaphor and not literally true (e.g., Jonah getting swallowed by a whale). In so doing, I've smugly allowed fundamentalists their belief in the literal truth of the Bible, even though they would reject my position.

The January '05 Playboy Forum piece by Sam Harris called "Who Needs Religious Moderation?" was a hell of a wake up call for me. As he put it, "The problem with religious moderation is that it doesn't permit anything critical to be said about religious literalism. By failing to live by the letter of the texts--while tolerating the irrationality of those who do--we betray faith and reason equally." Basically, he concludes that we should reject intolerant faiths, be it fundamentalists of Christianity, Islam or others, in favor of a belief system drawn from facts and reason, putting fundamentalists on the fringe, rather than having them in the middle (not just Bush, but 35% of Americans believe the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of God, according to Gallup, and another 48% accept it as the "inspired" word of God).

The complacent part of me wants to find a flaw in his argument, but I can't ignore the logic of it. I think that the deepest truths can be found anywhere, including fiction. It's time for me to reject those who would reject me, I guess.

I would be interested in moderates and fundamentalists alike weighing in on this, and strongly recommend the Harris article to all.