The Guardian: Faith and the hostility it inspires

Posted on 26th February, 2007 by

The Guardian today has a long article, entitled simply Faith, about religion and the heated debates it has recently provoked in the UK. Discussed are the usual matters of faith schooling, creationism and the anger provoked by the likes of The Satanic Verses and Jerry Springer: the Opera, and whether the fervently anti-religious are just as intolerant as the most extreme of religious people. (See this earlier entry for an example of secularist intolerance.)

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  • Phil Hunt

    whether the fervently anti-religious are just as intolerant as the most extreme of religious people

    In the UK at least, the evidence seems to be that they are not. For example, there have been no demonstrations of British atheists calling for an author to be killed because a book was disrespectful towards atheism. Nor have atheists tried to get plays banned that treated atheism irrevelently.

  • http://anarchoakbar.wordpress.com/ Julaybib

    I am having a debate of sorts with a fundamentalist atheist on my blog, who seems to think all who are religious are bereft of reason. His ‘reasoning’, however, seems a mite flawed, to put it mildly. More like dogma, if you ask me!

  • Controversial

    Religious Extremists really put a bad name to us all.

    Theres been:-

    Catholics. - IRA Muslims - Islamic Radicals Christians - Combat 18 Jews - Mobs in USA

    The real bad thing is its not them who suffer. Its everyone around them.

  • George Carty

    Catholics. - IRA

    The IRA is motivated not by Catholicism, but by a desire to unite Ireland.

    Christians - Combat 18

    Combat 18 are Nazis. Their belief system is NAZISM, not Christianity.

    Jews - Mobs in USA

    Jewish gangsters? Hell no, their motive is personal profit, just like any other gangsters.

    If you mean JDL/Kach/Kahane Chai on the other hand, yes.

  • http://abusinan.blogspot.com Abu Sinan

    Sure they are, just in different ways.

    I have always said this whole “clash of civilisations” is nonsense. It is a clash of extremisms. Extremist Muslims/Secularists/Christians and Jews are all people of the same feather.

  • http://nuhgondek.blogspot.com nuh ibn zbigniew gondek al kitab

    As salaam alaikum.

    Its all about the middle path and individual being lead to truth. At the heart of truth is Islam.

    Have you offered salat today? Do it now inshallah!

    Wa salaama,

    nuh ibn

  • Controversial

    I sort of agree with that. Religon is your relationship between your God and yourself. But when people go and do something bad and say “in the name of Allah”. It really seperates a normal peace loving Muslim to a extremist. Same goes for people who say in the name of God “Then do something awful”. Heres one does a sucide bomber who says Allahs name in vain breaking his religon vows? In neally every other religon it is. I’m interested since I’m sorta studying Islam abit to understand Muslims even more.

  • http://www.al-morrin.co.uk Usayd

    Err, to say that IRA did not have religious motivationis absurd. Of course the primary objective was the unification of Ireland, but by far the greatest recruiting tool was that they were the “Defenders of the Catholic People”. The Police attacked the catholics, the Loyalists bombed them, the government gerrymandered against them, but the IRA defended the Catholics. Gerry Adams continuously reaffirms his catholicism, and they only ever negotiated with the British via a Catholic Priest.

  • contro

    Whats needed?

    More Community work.

    Bring Christians & Muslims together and promote equality & democracy.

    We dont want to go back to the old days where Arabs where fighting for Islamic law all over the world and the templars feared this so they killed Islamic Clerics at any chance they got.

    The community cohesion grants are coming though soon to celebrate different cultures in every city. Its gonna be a blast!