2. Both Sides Really Do Believe What They’re Saying
-…usually. I’d give the benefit of the doubt that a lot of the more outspoken fundamentalist/literalists don’t really believe what they are saying, because if you say anything ridiculous and tag a “Jeeeeeezussss” on the end, you’ll have a sea of people who’ll support you.

3. In Everyday Life, You’re Not That Different
-Yes, I’d agree with this.

4. There Are Good People on Both Sides
-Well of course.

5. Your Point of View is Legitimately Offensive to Them
-Hmm, I’ll have to give this one chiefly to the Christian side. The mere existence of my position is pretty much saying “Interesting, I think you’re full of it.” I’m not offended by a Christian’s point of view; they are free to think whatever they want, and if they want to spend a lifetime chasing a myth, more power to them. But their point of view is completely irrelevant to my life.

6. We Tend to Exaggerate About the Other Guy
-Oh, yes.

7. We Tend to Exaggerate About Ourselves, Too
-How so?

8. Focusing on Negative Examples Makes You Stupid
-Well, one of the positions claims to be the stem of morality and such, and the other makes no claim on it.

9. Both Sides Have Brought Good to the Table
-And which one has brought bad, lots and lots of bad to the table?

10. You’ll Never Harass the Other Side Out of Existence
-As long as freedom of thought exists, there will be people who will chose to forfeit that.

And, no, I am not Catholic. I used to be. I was an extremely devout Catholic, and a well educated one. I was also a liberal one. I did not disparage other religions (and still don’t), but chose to stick with Catholicism. What Catholicism has going over the other branches of Christianity is tradition. It claims to be the Church as laid down by the apostles. However, I became too educated. I studied medieval and renaissance history and learned that the “traditions” of the Catholic Church aren’t actually that old, and don’t sync with first century Christianity.
That started my road to rationalism.

I love that name, by the way…

The Catholic view is still that you have to do good works.
Without grace you cannot do good works

Are you a Catholic? Or are you just arguing the difference in views? Anyway, the word GRACE basically means “freely given,” so how does works fit into that picture? It’s bit of an oxymoron.

Personally, as a rationalist, I just find the whole theological miasma of interpreting a couple of lines here and there (and historically killing over those interpretations) at best a moot thought experiment.

However, I’m still all in favor of religion as James defined it in the Bible

You are still thinking Christianity. There is no Islamic or Jew that will go for that and there we go with another Crusade.

“caring for widows and orphans in their distress”.

THAT can be secular- without religion. You don’t need religion for that.

Anyhow, as much as I’d like to continue this discussion, I am leaving for Haiti in the morning, so I won’t be able to reply to you all for the next week. C-ya when I get back!

So we have the Jews who are the chosen ones of God, Christians who say everyone who doesn’t believe in their god is going to hell, Muslims who call Christians infidels and everyone who does not claim Allah as the only god are going to hell etc etc. Obviously if one has to say there is no god but Allah, it is a different deity than the Christian god. It doesn’t take rocket science to realize that, esp when you get into their texts. Same goes with Jesus as the son of the One true god. That’s not the same ideology of the Jews. No rocket science there either.

Throw away the ideology, theology, and dogma, things might be more peaceful. We probably wouldn’t be in a war with Iraq and the Armegeddeons wouldn’t be wanting to make Jesus return. Excuse me? I didn’t know we could make Jesus/God do anything. Not how I read the text anyway. If I read it right, they won’t like the outcome and if I’m right that that god doesn’t exist, they aren’t going to know anything after the big one is dropped. The only god that will be descending from the sky is a nuke- as in nuclear weapon.

As to Harris’s controversial position on religious moderates, whether or not it be the emphasis of his position, he is bothered by the free pass that religion gets so as to be unmolested by criticism or scrutiny, and that moderates may provide a cover for all kinds of religion, including fundamentalist religion, to the extent that they discourage criticism of religion, religions, and faith in general.

All these people are, pretty much by definition, vulnerable. To me, handing out the religion along with actual help seems predatory. It’s taking advantage of people in trouble. Let them get well, healthy and happy, THEN try to convert them if you like. That’s fair, the other isn’t.

I agree. (Our church was actually just discussing the same thing this morning. We’ve deliberately gone out of our way in the past to avoid taking advantage of people’s vulnerability in the way you described.) I hope I made it clear that our Haiti project is of the latter type and not the former.

And don’t even get me started on what I think of religious people who campaign against condom use in places where HIV is endemic, if you want a stronger example of “doing good” that is just the opposite.

The problem is that while we can all agree that these things are good and those are evil, there is also a very sizeable number of things that may be on your good list but my bad list. How can I possibly agree that religion does genuinely good things, when half of what is put forward a doing good seems bad to me, and it’s always mixed together?

Well, again, we’re not fundamentalists (or Catholics) so the condom thing is not at all an issue for us. And, given that we’re far more progressive than your apparent fundamentalist stereotype of Christians, I doubt that the things on which we disagree are anywhere close to half. In fact, I doubt there is very much at all (unless you’re a raging conservative – then we might have issues ).