A little bit of credit to Mohammad.

[Mole]

Leon Festinger

In 1440 the printing press was invented and gave rise to the dream of universal literacy.

And literacy gave rise to literalism and a literal interpretation of the Bible.

But while we weren't listening, the electric telegraph was invented in 1840, and gave rise to the dream of the Romantics.

And the Romantics are giving rise to the New Age and the Age of Aquarius.

As you all know, Leon Festinger (1919-1989) is the father of cognitive dissonance.

And as Leon pointed out, cognitve dissonance is accompanied by emotional pain. And unfortunately most avoid emotional pain. But for the lucky few, emotional pain means the chance of learning something new.

And here, between the printing press and the electic telegraph we have the perect cognitive dissonance, the perfect storm.

We ride the storm where the hot front of literacy meets the cool front of the global village.

 

[Sniffles]

I don't see that as making my assessment false. Being a modern phenomenon doesn't stop it from being more intellectually honest, in the case of most people.

To consider fundamentalism more "intellectually honest" certainly requires a gross misunderstanding of both history and theology; which in actuality undermines any real claim towards it being more honest.

 

[Synarch]

As it seems Mohammad (the founder of Islam) is not at bad as it seems. In a previous thread of mine I accused Islam of having a black and white view on everything.

That could be true.

But that is the Quran so Mohammad is not to be blamed. And he seems to be a humble and smart leader.


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Ps to all those stupid forum members - Stop calling me Al-Qaeda. Not every brown guy works for Al-Qaeda.

Obvious troll is obvious.

 

[compulsiverambler]

To consider fundamentalism more "intellectually honest" certainly requires a gross misunderstanding of both history and theology; which in actuality undermines any real claim towards it being more honest.

It's important here to distinguish between this dishonesty and ignorance. Most fundamentalists are more intellectually consistent/honest, but less educated and/or less speculative people than most religious progressives. Basically, two things can lead to religious liberalism: intellectual dishonesty or incomplete analysis of the issue, or educated and/or convoluted and/or highly speculative interpretations. The former is by far the more common, especially when considering the world's entire population. Even within countries with the highest literacy rates, the vast majority of religious adherents have very limited knowledge of the history and aspects of other fields relevant to analysing their religion. Therefore, the majority of people who don't take the words at face value don't not do so because they know or reason better, but because they don't want to take the words at face value. And who could blame them.

 

[Sniffles]

Yes, there are various levels in which one can delve into in regards to reading scriptures and understanding its truth. The truth of scriptures is still literal, even if expressed in the form of allegory or metaphor. As for liberalism is concerned; that again depends on what theological context you're talking about. As I said before, Ancient and Medieval theology was rather "liberal" in how it interpreted scriptures - yet that represents the "conservative" perspective among Catholics and Orthodox.