Secularism- Is Religion Harmful?‏

by B B Wed Oct 06, 2010 14:59

In his article , The Postmodern Interpretation of Religious Terrorism , (see link below ) secular humanist ,Paul Cliteur , makes the argument that Western freedoms are under attack from religious fundamentalists, and that liberals’ attempts to appease fundamentalism in the name of cultural relativism and multiculturism threaten the very foundations upon which Western freedoms rest.

Paul Cliteur takes multiculturism to task for promoting the view that it is wrong “to invade foreign countries to export democracy and other Western ideals”. Western democratic values based on the principals of the Enlightenment should ,he argues, be a universal right available to all of humanity anywhere in the world . But adherence to the postmodern nostrums of multiculturism by often well-intentioned liberals has allowed religious fundamentalism - which functions as an indispensible ideological resource for terrorism - to take root and flourish even in the European heartlands of freedom and democracy .

Multiculturalism prevents western democratic values, such as freedom of speech, gender equality and the right to publish provocative cartoons, being insisted upon in the West. Out of fear of causing offense to religious or ethnic minorities, the rule of law which underpins our hard-won Western freedoms, gets sacrificed in order to appease those whose inflexible beliefs render them fundamentally opposed to freedom. Cultural relativism and the misguided toleration of religious intolerance have, according to Prof Cliteur , undermined the basis of western democracy , and the result can be seen across Europe in the failure -sometimes the refusal - of religious and ethnic minorities to fully integrate into modern Western democratic societies.

“Terrorism, the use of force by private actors or organizations to intimidate others to achieve political and ideological goals, is a significant menace to contemporary democracies. In the preceding decades, terrorism was perpetrated for the sake of a piece of land (geographical terrorism) or the realization of political goals (political terrorism). Nowadays, we are confronted with religious terrorism: people commit violent acts and justify their deeds with reference to religious ideas or passages of holy scripture”

You can read the rest of Paul Cliteur’s article in the Council for Secular Humanism's ebulletin here: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=librar..._27_2

by Atheist Wed Oct 06, 2010 09:46

Religion has had a free unquestioned ride for far too long. Time for it's tenets to come under serious rational scrutiny. Shine the light of reason on these ridiculous texts and watch the fat corrupt cockroaches at the top that gain prestige and unquestioned power from these structures run for cover.