Ten signs someone is a fundamentalist christian

Tim Robbins

Zillah wrote:

Of come off it. The Islamic world has clearly shown itself to be violently intolerant of criticism. Its the only religion I know of that regularily issues death sentences on people who have done nothing more than saying something that upsets them.

Really, are you just being anal and contrary or do you seriously believe that Islam is not violently reactionary to criticism when compared to other religions?

Here's a method for you: A count of death sentences issued for religious criticism over the last one hundred years.

Islam: Many.
Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism : None.

Why 100 years? why not 1000 years and count the number of people lit on fire for not having the correct belief system.

A lot of this has to do with perception. Many Muslims would think the Western Christian world is mutilating them in Iraq for example.

I remember reading this book about the history of Judaism: "
Letters to Auntie Fori: The 5,000-Year History of the Jewish People and Their Faith"
http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Auntie-Fori-000-Year-History/dp/0805241884
(by the excellant Martin Gilbert who is also a Jew, and has written extensively on Churchill and the Holocaust) and the distinct impression I got was the Jews were far more afraid of the Christians and Christianity than the were of Muslims. This was before Martin Luther's On Jews and their Lies and of the Halocaust.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote:

Why 100 years? why not 1000 years and count the number of people lit on fire for not having the correct belief system.

Why 100 years and not 1000? Probably because we are discussing this in the context of whether it is more dangerous to attack Christianity or Islam in 2007. Unless, of course, you think the Inquisition guys might arise from their graves and start wreaking vengeance against the atheists and agnostics of this board?

A lot of this has to do with perception. Many Muslims would think the Western Christian world is mutilating them in Iraq for example.

Yes, I can see how the Salvation Army is killing the poor Iraqis for printing cartoons that poke fun at Jesus. :rolleyes:

Dades

Tim Robbins wrote:

This is meaningless unless you are suggesting Islam is likely to issue a fatwa against boards.ie. Now I suggest you argue that Islam is likely issue such a fatwa against boards.ie or else admit you were mocking the Islam faith.

If that's "mocking" that deserves admonishing, then I might as well ban the lot of you, then myself, and leave Asiaprod here talking to himself. Because similar stuff goes on here all the time, just not about Islam.

What are you so indignant about?

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

Which proves my point that it's safer to attack Christianity than to attack Islam.

Incorrect it prooves what it states, Christians don't issue Fatwa's. It doesn't prove it's safer to attack Christianity than Islam.

Very good point ... or at least it would be a good point if two things were true:
a) If people were killed in Srebrenica because they had insulted Christianity.
b) If I had displayed shockingly bad logic by arguing that anyone who similarly insulted Christianity had nothing to fear since the hate crime was carried out by a statistical minority.

Since neither of these are true, it is not a good point at all. It is sophistry and anti-Christian rhetoric.

It's not sophistry. They were killed by Christians because they were Muslim. Now, can you justify the killing because you were not insulted and critise killing if it is the result of being insulted?
Of course you can't.

It's not anti Christian rhetoric. I specifically stated that it was a statistically low percentage of the Christian community. You left that out in your intial swipe at Islam. Your act of omission of this crucial point, which you subsequently admitted to, is the sophistry.

Tim Robbins

The Atheist wrote:

If that's "mocking" that deserves admonishing, then I might as well ban the lot of you, then myself, and leave Asiaprod here talking to himself. Because similar stuff goes on here all the time, just not about Islam.

What are you so indignant about?

I will pm you.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

Why 100 years and not 1000? Probably because we are discussing this in the context of whether it is more dangerous to attack Christianity or Islam in 2007. Unless, of course, you think the Inquisition guys might arise from their graves and start wreaking vengeance against the atheists and agnostics of this board?

More sophistry. If you want to be specific, we are talking about wheather is safer to attack Christianity or Islam on boards.ie.
Of course you can choose the parameters and argue it is safer to attack Christianity, but when someone else chooses the parameters it the opposite can be argued.

Dades

Tim Robbins wrote:

I will pm you.

Well I'm going downstairs for a slice of cake first.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote:

It's not sophistry. They were killed by Christians because they were Muslim. Now, can you justify the killing because you were not insulted and critise killing if it is the result of being insulted?
Of course you can't.

What are you talking about? Who is trying to justify any killing? I am making the very elementary point that you are more likely to get killed for making verbal attacks against the Muslim faith than you are for making verbal attacks against the Christian faith. The slaughter in Bosnia (which, by the way, was committed as genocide against an ethnic group, not because of religion) is totally irrelevant to this discussion.

What would help your argument would be for you to point to all the people who have been killed in any of our lifetimes for insulting Christianity. After all, if we are really so violent then it shouldn't be too difficult for you to find such cases.

It's not anti Christian rhetoric. I specifically stated that it was a statistically low percentage of the Christian community. You left that out in your intial swipe at Islam. Your act of omission of this crucial point, which you subsequently admitted to, is the sophistry.

But it isn't a crucial point at all, is it? Because whether the percentage of the community is low or high has no relevance ('no' as in zero, zilch, nada) as to whether it is more dangerous to insult Islam or Christianity. You really are trying to advance a pretty indefensible argument.

PDN

Being a helpful person, I tried to find an example of someone getting killed for insulting Christianity. So I googled the words "killed", "insulting" & "Christianity". This returned 1,150,000 results - so it should be pretty easy to find such an example.

Oops! My bad. They all seem to be about Christians getting killed for insulting Islam. Damn Google and their crazy pro-Christian bias!

Scofflaw

@PDN

No comment on this?

Scofflaw wrote:

I am slightly at a loss, here. That those who are not saved are damned is, I thought, one of the standard tenets of Christianity. That there are certain beliefs you must hold in order to be saved is, I think, another. That it is possible to share some of those beliefs but not all should be obvious. Finally, that those who share some of the necessary beliefs with you, but not all, are therefore not going to be saved (even though they too consider themselves Christian) follows pretty logically on from the preceding.

I am not claiming by any stretch that you are at one with wolfsbane in following the doctrine of election or anything like that, but I cannot see where exactly what I have outlined above doesn't apply - and the above is what I take to be the spirit of point #4.

Certainly I'm neither trying to offend, nor tar you with something that doesn't apply, but the above is, I think, true of every Christian who follows though on the logic of their religion, surely? If you'd like to tell me where I'm wrong, please do. I am as willing as ever to stand corrected.

humbly,
Scofflaw

cordially,
Scofflaw

PDN

Scofflaw wrote:

@PDN

No comment on this?

cordially,
Scofflaw

I think we read the spirit of the OP very differently. I see it as tarring a fundamentalist as someone who believes that only their particular sect (ie baptist, pentecostal, adventist etc) is going to heaven. You obviously read it differently.

There are many Christians who are very far from being fundamentalists yet still believe in the existence of heaven and hell. Probably all of these would, if pressed, define some beliefs as being necessary to salvation. I also imagine that few, if any, rational people would really believe that some people go to hell because they are non-Christians while others go to heaven because they are born into a 'Christian' society or culture - even if they have no faith in God whatsoever. Therefore I believe you have so widened your interpretation of the OP to encompass anyone who believes in hell at all, irrespective of how wide-ranging their view of the 'saved' may be. However, it's hardly worth falling out over, is it?

I would add that, contrary to the OP, I have never believed or claimed that Christianity is the most tolerant religion of all. Universalist Unitarians are, by definition, much more tolerant.

Scofflaw

PDN wrote:

I think we read the spirit of the OP very differently. I see it as tarring a fundamentalist as someone who believes that only their particular sect (ie baptist, pentecostal, adventist etc) is going to heaven. You obviously read it differently.

Subtly differently, I suppose. Sects are defined by their beliefs, so I regard the beliefs as important.

PDN wrote:

There are many Christians who are very far from being fundamentalists yet still believe in the existence of heaven and hell. Probably all of these would, if pressed, define some beliefs as being necessary to salvation.

In a sense, it's the "pressed" that makes the difference to me. One of the defining characteristics of the fundamentalist, to me, is a willingness to unflinchingly face the logical corollaries of his/her beliefs.

That may seem odd to you, but most people fudge the issue, because they are reluctant to admit that their beliefs condemn others to Hell. The fundamentalist sees his beliefs as more important than his feelings.

PDN wrote:

I also imagine that few, if any, rational people would really believe that some people go to hell because they are non-Christians while others go to heaven because they are born into a 'Christian' society or culture - even if they have no faith in God whatsoever. Therefore I believe you have so widened your interpretation of the OP to encompass anyone who believes in hell at all, irrespective of how wide-ranging their view of the 'saved' may be.

Well, see above...

PDN wrote:

However, it's hardly worth falling out over, is it?

Few things are!

PDN wrote:

I would add that, contrary to the OP, I have never believed or claimed that Christianity is the most tolerant religion of all. Universalist Unitarians are, by definition, much more tolerant.

So would I. I suspect that I regard that as a better thing than you do, although I may be traducing you again!

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

PDN wrote:

The slaughter in Bosnia [...] was committed as genocide against an ethnic group, not because of religion [...]

Come off it, PDN, that's completely false.

Broadly speaking, the carve-up of Bosnia was carried out by orthodox christian Serbs and catholic Croats. Within Bosnia, religion was by far the largest determinant of one's ethnic group and therefore, one's life expectancy when militant Serbs or Croats were around.

The massacre of thousands of muslims at Srebrenica, in the east of Bosnia, was carried out by christian Serbs who were motivated, amongst other things, by large doses of christian religious imagery in the propaganda of the time which also called for the removal, by whatever means, of the only muslims to exist in any real numbers in Europe.

PDN

Come off it, PDN, that's completely false.

Broadly speaking, the carve-up of Bosnia was carried out by orthodox christian Serbs and catholic Croats. Within Bosnia, religion was by far the largest determinant of one's ethnic group and therefore, one's life expectancy when militant Serbs or Croats were around.

The massacre of thousands of muslims at Srebrenica, in the east of Bosnia, was carried out by christian Serbs who were motivated, amongst other things, by large doses of christian religious imagery in the propaganda of the time which also called for the removal, by whatever means, of the only muslims to exist in any real numbers in Europe.

Not completely false at all. It is perfectly true that the Serbs used religious symbolism as cultural indicators to distinguish one ethnic group from another. However, this is no different from my childhood in Northern Ireland where Protestant and Catholic were used as labels for two cultural groups irrespective of whether anyone actually believed in God or worshipped at any church. In fact I personally know two people, both atheists, who were actively involved in terrorist activity on opposing sides of the fence. They both claimed, with absolute seriousness, to be a Protestant atheist and a Catholic atheist.

For a good overall balanced assessment of the role of religion in the Bosnian conflict (written by someone who is most certainly not a fundamentalist) look up: http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2007/2007-8.html That is, of course, if anyone is really interested in what happened in Srebrenica instead of just using it as a ploy to win an argument.

However, if we adopt the incredibly broad definition of 'Christian' used by many on this board then it is certainly true that 'Christians' have been responsible for killing many people in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Of course some of these 'Christians' were also atheists as well.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

What are you talking about? Who is trying to justify any killing? I am making the very elementary point that you are more likely to get killed for making verbal attacks against the Muslim faith than you are for making verbal attacks against the Christian faith. The slaughter in Bosnia (which, by the way, was committed as genocide against an ethnic group, not because of religion) is totally irrelevant to this discussion.

What would help your argument would be for you to point to all the people who have been killed in any of our lifetimes for insulting Christianity. After all, if we are really so violent then it shouldn't be too difficult for you to find such cases.

PDN it is clear you are using sophistry here.

1. You commit an act of ommission of a crucial fact in your initial allegation w.r.t. the Fatwa.
2. You shift the debate from something very specific: boards.ie getting a fatwa, to the mor general "one is just in general more likely to get attacked". A fatwa has never been issued against a website - not that I know off. This website has an Islam section and Muslim posters who are people's online friends. The more likely to thing to happen would be one of them pointing out that an insult against Islam was violating a charter.
3. When you shift the debate, you refuse to let someone else point out to you that Christians can kill without even an insult, they have simply just killed. If you are trying to argue cause and effect, and you favour objective analysis you should also point out that Zillah or whoever can simple be killed by a Christian, it doesn't even require an insult from Zillah. Althought any sort of killing or Fatwa are extremly unlikely statistically it does beg the pertinent question:
what are you more concerned about someone's safety or getting a dig in at Islam?
4. You also omit the fact that these boards have charters and moderators which restrict biggotted insulting and therefore would further decrease the probability of a fatwa.
5. In your last mail, you are trying to differentiate between words ethnicity and religion to try to trick people you have a point. Here is the first definition for ethic in dictionary.com
"pertaining to or characteristic of a people, esp. a group (ethnic group) sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like."

But it isn't a crucial point at all, is it? Because whether the percentage of the community is low or high has no relevance ('no' as in zero, zilch, nada) as to whether it is more dangerous to insult Islam or Christianity. You really are trying to advance a pretty indefensible argument.

Of course it's relevant if the probability of boards.ie getting a fatwa is 0.0000000000000000000000001 or if it is 60% makes a huge difference. Your "act of ommission" in your intial claim is what proveked my reaction. You were trying to use sophistry to get a dig in at another faith simple as that and refuse to even admit it.

I could get killed today on my way to work or I could state I have a probability of 0.0000000000000000000000001 getting killed on my way to work. (This is not an analogy it's an example using the exact same probability).

It would be interesting to invite a Muslim or some Muslims into this debate and see what they think of the probability of getting a fatwa.

Dades

Tim Robbins wrote:

Althought any sort of killing or Fatwa are extremly unlikely statistically it does beg the pertinent question:
what are you more concerned about someone's safety or getting a dig in at Islam?

The pertinent question is wtf you are riding around on your high horse supporting a faith of which you have no part. Similar (and worse) has been let go here against other religions, by you and others.

Stop dragging this thread off on some personal crusade.

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

In fact I personally know two people, both atheists, who were actively involved in terrorist activity on opposing sides of the fence. They both claimed, with absolute seriousness, to be a Protestant atheist and a Catholic atheist

Yes but they weren't all atheists PDN, so the point is a bit moot. Some of them were genuine honest to God Christians, even by your definition.

I've no issue at all with the idea of saying that atheists kill people, since atheism isn't a belief system and isn't supposed to stop people killing other people. It is a description, like saying someone is a vegetarianism. I do have a problem with violent nationalism.

The problem you face is that Christianity is supposed to make people better people, it isn't supposed to cause people to carry on the way they did in the North, or some where like Serbia.

Now most Christians on this website get around that by saying that these people clearly aren't Christians, because if their were Christians they wouldn't behave this way. But that again is missing the point.

The problem someone like myself has with religion is not whether or not you consider these people real Christians or not. It is that, irrespective of if you consider them part of your particular religion, they are religious.

As someone once said, for good men to do evil it takes religion. The author of that quote wasn't talking about the evil men who start wars for power or money or greed. They were talking about the good men who follow these evil men because genuine religious faith.

When you tie promises of salvation and reward with the need to follow blindly a faith based hierarchy you are asking for trouble. When people start to believe that the world is divided into the saved and unsaved, the sinful and the faithful, you are asking for trouble. When people start to believe that other religion is evil and controlled by evil in an attempt to take from them their personal salvation, you are asking for trouble.

Again you might say that that is not your religion, that your religion doesn't operate like that. But think of it this way, what would you do or not do for your religion.

If you genuinely believed that God was asking you to kill someone would you do it, or would you say No I will not do that, even if it is you commanding it? (a direct answer please, not the God would never ask me to do that in the first place response).

The idea that religion doesn't start wars might hold for the few at the very top who actually do start the wars. But religion is what causes the masses to follow these people. 5 world leaders can't have a war with each other, they need their people to follow them into the war. And more often than not the reason the masses follow people into a war is due to ideology, and more often that not that ideology is religious in nature.

Scofflaw

Many of these points are moot.

"Mute" = silent, dumb, unable to speak.

"Moot" = undecided, up for discussion.

If it's going to be a fashion (which it seems to be at the moment), can it please be spelled properly?

vastly irritated,
Scoffflaw

Zombrex

sorry, the old dyslexia getting the best of me there ... its the problem when the spell checker recognizes the word as valid, but it isn't the correct word .. will take more care the next time

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

sorry, the old dyslexia getting the best of me there ... its the problem when the spell checker recognizes the word as valid, but it isn't the correct word .. will take more care the next time

It's not personal - I just seem to have seen it umpteen times the last few days, and everyone's spelling it wrong.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

It's not personal

*sob* ... *sob* .... I'm fine, I'm fine ... I just have something, something in my eye ... ahhh why don't you love me FATHER!!!

Sorry, sorry. Had flash back to 3rd class English homework

... ahem ....

Anywhoo, I'll do my best to use "moot" instead of "mute" in future, or even Joey out of Friends usage, "moo point", as in a point from a cow

robindch

PDN wrote:

That is, of course, if anyone is really interested in what happened in Srebrenica instead of just using it as a ploy to win an argument.

As opposed to trying to win an argument by making snide remarks, one imagines

That JRS article you quoted is interesting -- thanks for the link. In the first paragraph, the author notes:

Thus, it was not a religious war, per se. Religion, however, was instrumental in this war in two important ways. First, religion became the primary factor in defining ethnic groups, thus providing a mechanism for the ethnic separatism that was a primary political goal. Second, religious rhetoric and religious symbols were used both to gain public support for the war and to provide a justification for Serb aggression, and the subsequent Bosniak response.

...which is pretty much exactly what I said above -- religion was used as a propaganda source and to demarcate people into groups. No religion means no groups and it then becomes very difficult to know whom one should be murdering during the christian carve-up of the bosnian (ex-)state. Srebrenica just had the misfortune to be part of an enclave of muslims in the east, up against the Serb border and was straight in the geographical line of fire from Belgrade.

If you're interested in reading up more about the Bosnian conflict, I recommend Misha Glenny's "The Fall of Yugoslavia" and Lauren Silber and Allan Little's "Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation". The two-page quotation at the start of Glenny's book is particularly memorable.

BTW, I can't check from where I am now, but I'd imagine that youtube probably has some of the Chetnik and Ustashe military propaganda of the time -- all of it overflowing with kitsch christian religious symbology, and referring to the Serbs glorious "role" since 1389, as the (conquered) defenders of European christian civilization against the heathen muslim Turks. I don't recall so much as a single mention of atheism during my following of the war at the time.

So, just to re-reply to your point, the slaughter in Bosnia was indeed committed as genocide against an "ethnic group", the membership of which was principally and generally exclusively, defined by religion and not independent of it, as you have claimed.

PDN

Wicknight wrote:

Yes but they weren't all atheists PDN, so the point is a bit moot. Some of them were genuine honest to God Christians, even by your definition.

I've no issue at all with the idea of saying that atheists kill people, since atheism isn't a belief system and isn't supposed to stop people killing other people. It is a description, like saying someone is a vegetarianism. I do have a problem with violent nationalism.

The problem you face is that Christianity is supposed to make people better people, it isn't supposed to cause people to carry on the way they did in the North, or some where like Serbia.

Now most Christians on this website get around that by saying that these people clearly aren't Christians, because if their were Christians they wouldn't behave this way. But that again is missing the point.

The problem someone like myself has with religion is not whether or not you consider these people real Christians or not. It is that, irrespective of if you consider them part of your particular religion, they are religious.

As someone once said, for good men to do evil it takes religion. The author of that quote wasn't talking about the evil men who start wars for power or money or greed. They were talking about the good men who follow these evil men because genuine religious faith.

When you tie promises of salvation and reward with the need to follow blindly a faith based hierarchy you are asking for trouble. When people start to believe that the world is divided into the saved and unsaved, the sinful and the faithful, you are asking for trouble. When people start to believe that other religion is evil and controlled by evil in an attempt to take from them their personal salvation, you are asking for trouble.

Again you might say that that is not your religion, that your religion doesn't operate like that. But think of it this way, what would you do or not do for your religion.

If you genuinely believed that God was asking you to kill someone would you do it, or would you say No I will not do that, even if it is you commanding it? (a direct answer please, not the God would never ask me to do that in the first place response).

The idea that religion doesn't start wars might hold for the few at the very top who actually do start the wars. But religion is what causes the masses to follow these people. 5 world leaders can't have a war with each other, they need their people to follow them into the war. And more often than not the reason the masses follow people into a war is due to ideology, and more often that not that ideology is religious in nature.

First of all, I don't believe that 'Christianity' as you define it is supposed to make better people. In fact, if I wanted to invent a system that would motivate peoiple to commit violence against one another, I couldn't come up with anything better than religions where belonging is a mark of cultural identity rather than freely choosing to believe the Gospel.

As to your question. If I really thought God was telling me to kill someone then I hope I would have enough of my sanity left to check in with a psychiatrist ASAP. Such a command would be directly contrary to Christ's command to love my enemies.

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

First of all, I don't believe that 'Christianity' as you define it is supposed to make better people

I know you don't, but the people in it do, which was my original point.

The issue isn't Christianity, or Islam etc. It is the religious mind set.

PDN wrote:

If I really thought God was telling me to kill someone then I hope I would have enough of my sanity left to check in with a psychiatrist ASAP.

Doing so though would demonstrate that you didn't think it was God telling you to kill someone, but instead a mental trick of the mind.

I asked if you genuinely believed God was telling you do kill someone would you?

The point of the question is to see if you would refuse to do something you consider morally wrong even if believed God was ordering you to do it.

PDN wrote:

Such a command would be directly contrary to Christ's command to love my enemies.

The Bible is full of instances of God killing his enemies, using humans as his instrument.

You aren't supposed to kill your enemies on your own judgment, but God certainly can.

Fallen Seraph

Wicknight wrote:

The point of the question is to see if you would refuse to do something you consider morally wrong even if believed God was ordering you to do it.

Surely, if a fundamentalist is consistent in their beliefs, such a situation is impossible? If one believes that morality comes from god, and god orders you to kill someone, then the action is automatically moral, is it not?

Blackhorse Slim

PDN wrote:

As to your question. If I really thought God was telling me to kill someone then I hope I would have enough of my sanity left to check in with a psychiatrist ASAP. Such a command would be directly contrary to Christ's command to love my enemies.

So this isn't the same god who tested Abraham?

Zombrex

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Surely, if a fundamentalist is consistent in their beliefs, such a situation is impossible? If one believes that morality comes from god, and god orders you to kill someone, then the action is automatically moral, is it not?

Well yes, that is kinda the point.

Perhaps if I substituted "something you consider morally wrong" with "something you did consider morally wrong" it would make more sense.

Fallen Seraph

Wicknight wrote:

Perhaps if I substituted "something you consider morally wrong" with "something you did consider morally wrong" it would make more sense.

You mean something that before being told to do so was considered to be morally incorrect by the standards of christianity? I think I might be missing the point a little, because surely the christian would respond to such a request by not second guessing god's interpretation of his own laws?

Zombrex

Fallen Seraph wrote:

You mean something that before being told to do so was considered to be morally incorrect by the standards of christianity? I think I might be missing the point a little, because surely the christian would respond to such a request by not second guessing god's interpretation of his own laws?

Exactly, which is where the problems come from.

It goes back to the idea that for good people to do bad thing it takes religion (or in a more general sense fundamentalists devotion to a doctrine)

Often theists seem to distance themselves from more violent elements of religion with the idea that they are fundamentally different from these extremists.

The question is are they actually that different, or do they simply believe in different things.

Take PDN. He obviously has strong devotion to his faith. Luckily for the rest of us his faith doesn't demand of him the death or destruction of the rest of us.

But if his faith did demand that of him, what would he do?

Would he reject his faith, turn away from it. Or would he accept it as part of his faith even if it appeared to conflict with his inner sense of morality.

Of course there is the 3rd option, he would simply interpret the religion differently than how the people who are asking for violence interpret it. That is less of an option in certain circumstances that others. For example, PDN can trawl the Bible for counter arguments to a position if it is forced upon him. Someone without access to the holy book they are asked to believe in, or who is taught that certain leaders interpret the book better than they could, do not have that option.

So ultimately the question is what is the difference between a Christian here and a Muslim who blows up a bus, except what they believe in. If we say that the Muslim terrorist is evil for following what he believes to be the teaching of his religion, we must ask would the theists he be prepared to turn away from their religion if they asked them to do something and you genuinely believed that it was the will of God.

Fallen Seraph

Wicknight wrote:

It goes back to the idea that for good people to do bad thing it takes religion (or in a more general sense fundamentalists devotion to a doctrine)

So ultimately the question is what is the difference between a Christian here and a Muslim who blows up a bus, except what they believe in. If we say that the Muslim terrorist is evil for following what he believes to be the teaching of his religion, we must ask would the theists he be prepared to turn away from their religion if they asked them to do something and you genuinely believed that it was the will of God.

Ah yes. I understand what you're getting at now. Thanks for clearing that up.

But I'm afraid that I still disagree with you; why stop the comparison between Christians and Muslims there? Why not make the comparison between Atheists, Christians and Muslims? Yes, the only difference between Christians and Muslims is what they believe, but this really isn't a trivial difference. The only difference between a Muslim and an Atheist is what they believe.


If anyone is put in the position where throwing acid in the face of a child appears to them to be the only moral action that can be taken, they must then either do so or do something morally wrong by their own standards. I don't understand how they can be expected to react to the situation in any other way. It could (in theory) happen to anyone who genuinely thinks that what they believe is true. Which includes the non-religious.