Channeling Krauthammer:
Truthdig.com is a progressive website (a fancy way of saying a group blog) that includes in its roster, atheist Sam Harris. This week he penned a
blistering attack on Islam. Not radical Islam. All of Islam.
Harris charges Islam with characteristics that apply, or
applied in the past, to Christianity: Non-ecumenicalism. Claim to know the Truth. Are the Elect. Violence is an appropriate means of attaining goals.
Taking a simple view of the situation, it would appear that it's only a matter of time for Islam to, like Christianity did, transform into a more pacific faith. Harris seems unduly alarmist.
NOTE: Tht Krauthammer reference is to his column, "
Curse of the Moderates", saying that, in effect, Muslim moderates are not moderate at all. (Actually Krauthammer's column was published today, so should have been Krauthammer channeling Harris.)
posted by Quiddity at 2/10/2006 02:00:00 PM
Harris isn't very friendly to Christianity as it stands either, is he?
Harris' book "The End of Faith" is fatally flawed by his vicious attack on Islam. While his views on Christianity are well thought out and have a great deal of merit, his views on Islam are simply angry and vicious.
His diatribe has the effect of glorifying Christianity as a religious system by contrast to Islam. In fact, we are now witness to powerful forces in this nation that are frighteningly similar to the Taliban in their attitudes toward modernity, science and free expression. Instead of attacking Islam, perhaps we should be examining fundamentalist Christianity.
