I think religious scripture folds into that part of the metaphor as well. If we exchanged a religious text that for one that didn't attribute numerous contradictory statements to god, or one that didn't claim to quote god at all, we might be exchanging the metaphorical gun for a metaphorical knife. :D But it's definitely a flawed metaphor, like most metaphors.
I think this is quite a stretch. If religious moderates have any influence on extremists, then I think it's a positive one.
I would be very interested to hear your argument for why a large group of religious moderates, relative to an equally large group of nonreligious people, is a positive influence to extremists.
Here in the UK, extremism amongst young people seems to be more about feelings of alienation and marginalisation amongst young Muslims.
Young Muslims you say? Who is alienating and marginalizing them, and why? The UK is 60% Christian - almost entirely Christian "moderates", I assume. Is that helping matters or hurting them, do you suppose? Or perhaps that's too on-the-nose. Perhaps the point is that it's marginalization and alienation by way of being poor and uneducated? Well, I don't intend to blame religious irrationality for everything. Just for greasing the path to legitimacy for otherwise hard-to-swallow movements.
Another example would be 'religious' extremism in Northern Ireland. Although those extremists groups were loosely tied to religion, it seems hard to believe that religion really had a lot to do with it. The factors that caused the rise and eventual settling of extremism in Northern Ireland had little to do with changes in religious belief, practice or the interpretation of scripture.
Then why do you bring it up? Or, more interestingly, why do you suppose the extremist groups bothered to align themselves with a religion?
"... few would think that you could get 'all the answers' to morality, life and the universe through just sitting down and reading the bible."
Did I say anyone was finding 'all the answers' in a religious text? No. Reza Aslan already made enough of an argument against that, in the posted interview.
no subject
I think this is quite a stretch. If religious moderates have any influence on extremists, then I think it's a positive one.
I would be very interested to hear your argument for why a large group of religious moderates, relative to an equally large group of nonreligious people, is a positive influence to extremists.
Here in the UK, extremism amongst young people seems to be more about feelings of alienation and marginalisation amongst young Muslims.
Young Muslims you say? Who is alienating and marginalizing them, and why? The UK is 60% Christian - almost entirely Christian "moderates", I assume. Is that helping matters or hurting them, do you suppose? Or perhaps that's too on-the-nose. Perhaps the point is that it's marginalization and alienation by way of being poor and uneducated? Well, I don't intend to blame religious irrationality for everything. Just for greasing the path to legitimacy for otherwise hard-to-swallow movements.
Another example would be 'religious' extremism in Northern Ireland. Although those extremists groups were loosely tied to religion, it seems hard to believe that religion really had a lot to do with it. The factors that caused the rise and eventual settling of extremism in Northern Ireland had little to do with changes in religious belief, practice or the interpretation of scripture.
Then why do you bring it up? Or, more interestingly, why do you suppose the extremist groups bothered to align themselves with a religion?
"... few would think that you could get 'all the answers' to morality, life and the universe through just sitting down and reading the bible."
Did I say anyone was finding 'all the answers' in a religious text? No. Reza Aslan already made enough of an argument against that, in the posted interview.