Discussion Group Report

The importance of "How Moderation In Faith Fosters Fanaticism," extracted from Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and its message revolve around the following: When two people, two ideologies, two communities, or two nations sit down to discuss their differences they can either talk or fight. If they choose to talk, there must be a mutual agreement as follows. The thoughts, ideas, truths, or facts that have the most verifiable evidence behind them must be given more credence than the thoughts, ideas, truths, or facts that have less verifiable evidence to support them. Without this agreement, there can be no discussion. If the sides resort to defending their arguments with "faith" it will turn into a fight.

It has been the "norm" in most of mankind's history to give "faith" an automatic, implied, condoned, and demanded acceptance. Faith in support of a fact, need not supply any verifiable evidence. All other claims to truth, like "external beam radiation therapy can cure prostate cancer," would need to provide supportive evidence.

It is Richard Dawkins claim that the world is now too dangerous a place to continue to allow faith such a sacrosanct position. Quoting from his article, "Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don't have to make the case for what you believe. If somebody announces that it is part of his "faith", the rest of society, whether of the same faith, or another, or of none, is obliged, by ingrained custom, to "respect" it without question; respect it until the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre like the destruction of the World Trade Center, or the London or Madrid bombings." Or perhaps manifests itself in the Christians in America who blow up abortion clinics and murder physicians who work there.

The defenders of faith point out that these people can be considered religious fanatics or extremists. But, as Dawkins points out, "Even mild and moderate religion helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes. As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."

As Dawkins points out, "Our Western politicians avoid mentioning the R-word (religion), and instead characterize their battle as a war against "terror", as though terror were a kind of spirit or force, with a will and a mind of its own. Or they characterize terrorists, as motivated by "evil" (As President Bush has said, "The axis of evil.") But they are not motivated by evil. However misguided we may think them, they are motivated, like the Christian murderers of abortion doctors, by what they perceive to be righteousness, faithfully pursuing what their religion tells them. They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but, because they have been brought up, from the cradle to have a total and unquestioning faith."

The respected journalist Murie Gray, writing in the "Glasgow Herald" after the London bombings stated. "Everyone is being blamed, from the obvious villainous duo of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, to the inaction of the Muslim "communities." But it has never been clearer that there is only one place to lay the blame and it has ever been thus. The cause of all this misery, mayhem, violence, terror, and ignorance is of course religion itself, and if it seems ludicrous to have to state such an obvious reality, the fact is that the government and the media are doing a pretty good job of pretending that it isn't so."

In conclusion I quote from Mr. Dawkins, "This is the one reason why I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself, not just against so-called "extremist faith." The teachings of "moderate" religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism." I would add that it is the blind acceptance of faith by the religious "moderates" that opens this invitation.