Religious moderates are what make up the bulk of each of the major religions today. Generally a religion can be split into two groups – fundamentalists and moderates. This is most commonly seen with Islam although it can apply to any religion, there are plenty of examples in Christianity too and I have no doubt other religions that I simply haven’t had enough exposure to to be able to see clear examples of.
Fundamentalists tend to follow the religion to it’s exact words, they subscribe to it’s a teachings in whole. Moderates however relax the rules in order to fit into society. They don’t follow their holy book as closely. Therein lies the problem.
The fact is a term like Christian moderate or Islamic moderate is just a cover term. For bad Christian or bad Muslim. If you believe in one of the major religions then you believe that there is a god and he wrote (or dicated) the holy text and that we should all follow it. Whereas non-religion people don’t, that is the difference.
A fundamentalist will do this, they will follow the holy text as exactly as they can. A moderate however will not. They pick and choose what is appropriate in our society and what isn’t. What they are essentially asking us to believe is that this all-powerful all-perfect god that wrote the holy book got some of it right and some of it wrong. The all-perfect god that is therefore inherantly incapable of making mistakes didn’t get the holy book quite right and so therefore there are parts of it we should ignore as they don’t work in our society.
That is where the problem lies. When a fundamentalist starts a holy war or burns someone at the stake it’s because they are following their religon. And the reason why the moderate doesn’t do the same is because they aren’t. Of course this isn’t always the case but as a general rule it works quite well. The lesson here? it is the religon at fault because the fundamentalists that are blaimed in these events are only following their religion. They have not being dragged off their path of their faith, it is the religious moderates that have.
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May 28th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
I think that there are many different interpretations to any holy book, and by “burning people at the stake” I am assuming you are referring to witch burnings that were popular a while ago. I think that this is a complete misinterpretation of the message of the bible. There is the passage in Exodus, which is fairly well known (In the King James version it goes something like “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”) however, I think that with Christianity, cause there were a whole lot of new rules brought in with Jesus, which bacically said “Love people, don’t burn them” that anyone who calls themselves a Christian and burns witches, is missing the point. If you look at the context of the passage, it is in with a whole load of other laws, which Jesus destroyed (If anyone is actually interested this there is stuff about this in Romans 7 and 8 I think and a bit about the Kosher laws specifically in Acts 10). Yeah, I think, definately within Christianity (I don’t know enough about any other major religions to comment), that there are lots who pick and choose, and there are those who pick the socially acceptable bits and only follow those, and there are also those who pick the bits which will allow them to oppress, mistreat and generally be nasty to people, who are often called fundamentalists.
Oh also, although I am not one of these people, there are those who believe that although the Bible is a good book, it was written by humans, and therefore due to free will can have all sorts of stuff in it that isn’t good, and we can ignore the things that we don’t think were written by God, not cause God made the mistake, but cause people did.
May 29th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Like Michelle, I’m going to have to post up some disagreement here. You seem to be touting an all or nothing approach, and while I agree that there are many people who claim to belong to a faith and merely pay lip service to it, there is also a lot of good to be gained from religion with respect to those who don’t follow it to the letter.
In fact you might argue that it is only the interpretation that should be carried forward not the specific word it’s self, after all can anyone honestly say that holy texts are 100% clear in how they should be interpreted? What you are in essence saying is that people should follow the words of their faith to the letter or not at all. The reason religious fundamentalists have gotten so much bad press lately is because they do just that and without placing any thought into how they interpret them. This causes a big problem, because words change meaning over time, as does their interpretation. I would say then that rather than your view of moderate = push-over, fundamentalist = got it right, it is actually the other way around; the fundamentalists who take the word at face value have lost their way and the moderates who spend more time on the interpretation are more grounded.
You must forgive the fact I am unable to back this up with any citations from afore-mentioned holy texts, but I think Michelle has handled that one pretty well.
May 29th, 2006 at 2:28 am
I agree that words change meaning but I fail to see what interpretation “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” used to have that is different from today. I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest God didn’t intend for us to take the literal word of the holy books, it says “heed my word” not “heed your interpretation of my overall meaning.”
Given the extreme behaviour is more readily present in history, it would see that even if the moderates have it right, it isn’t the fundamentalists that have lost their way but rather the moderates that have found it. Therefore it would make much more sense for God to to write it as something we could take the literal meaning of given that seems to be what we have done throughout most of history.
I have yet to see any benefit that can be gained from subscribing to a faith-based religion that cannot be gained from rational spirituality so I would disagree there is anything to be said for religious moderation. If they were to take a path of rational spiritualism instead it would stop giving cover to the religious fundamentalists.
May 29th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Well, perhaps there is more interpretation to be made than you think… How do you define the word witch – do you really believe they exist? Brew potions, practice sorcery etc.? Surely that word in it’s self negates the whole statement because witches in the guise of the accepted definition don’t exist because magic is a fallacy. Therefore you can quite happily say you are living by those words because witches don’t exist and so you never have to burn anyone at the stake for being one.
May 29th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
I believe in magic, I would call people who practice Wicca or some other religions “witches” however, I don’t believe for a second that they are bad people, and I think that needs to be stated at the off set, just so I don’t sound like an evil person… I might still, but yeah, bear with me…
I think that practicing witchcraft is dangerouse, and as such, I would not personally partake in it, I don’t think it is a good idea, and I would never do something like play around with a Ouijia (sp?) Board or anything like that. However I don’t think it is a good idea.
Also, I think that when Jesus stoped the people throwing the stones at the woman who had committed adultary “Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone” and all that stuff (I think that my old old church must have used the King James Version of the bible, lol, as all my quotes from memory seam to be from that!) he made it quite clear that the new covenant was one of love, and not of rules, which had to be followed. People could be forgiven, and people should be.
Lastly, I think that it is importaint to point out that these rules were written specifically for the people of the nation of Israel. As Judaism, unlike christianity, is a religion that is passed down through the mother, and therefore as the Jewish people were told to not take wives who weren’t Jewish, there would not be anyone effected by these rules, other than Jewish people. It sounds odd, but these people were all assumed to know God, so turning to witchcraft, would be seen as more of a way of getting power for oneself, from other means, rather than realying on God’s power, which had just brought all of them out of Egypt, and so they knew was real. I mean, obviously this statement has a few problems with it, if you don’t believe in God’s power, but if you had just seen the Red Sea open up before you, but decided that rather than using the power of God to do things, you were going to use other powers, much more dangerous, then you are a danger to that society.
I have a feeling I am going round in circles a little, so I am going to get dressed and ready for Bondi! Woohoo!
June 27th, 2006 at 1:56 am
Note on etymology.
‘Witch’, in the bible, is used in the literal meaning of the word, which is a corruption of the word ‘pact’ as in deal (I think greek, originally). It signifies one who had an agreement with Satan, or one of his ilk.
‘Witch’, in the Wiccan and other Magickal sense is an analogue, referring to, literally; any magick user. It’s a very different meaning. An unfortunate occurrance.
IE: The bible says satan’s followers should probably be put to death, but that’s not that strange. Doesn’t say a word about magick.
June 28th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
So it is advocating putting people to death?
August 15th, 2007 at 10:52 am
[...] I’ve just finished reading a blog post on moderation and anti-fundamentalism and it got me thinking about a number of things. Firstly, is the age old question of fundamentalism. Is it wrong to believe something so strongly that you pursue it with all your might, literally in some cases? I still cannot make up my mind, my fellow A-Soc member Chris Worfolk says that moderation in religion is wrong, a cop out even in his article “The problem With Religious Moderates”. I am not entirely convinced by his arguments, I like to think that there is room even within the most deep set of principles for self censorship and the need to balance your convictions against the freedom of those around you. It is important as a religious commentator that balance is given to all arguments. It is fine blasting non-fundamentalists for failing at their religion as long as you continue that crusade against all non-fundamentalists in every walk of life. Every conviction out there can be followed fundamentally. If fundamentalism was to be applauded then shouldn’t we all be members of the BNP or the Communist Party? Extremism is not the same as fundamentalism, I think it is important that is clarified, but all fundamentalists are extremists in the modern sense. [...]