Christian fanatics lack moral authority to criticize Islam

Submitted by J. Guzman (Mexico), Apr 6, 2011 at 21:03

It is absolutely false to say that the western human rights and democratic tradition have a so called judeo christian background, that is just not true, human rights developed in western civilization despite christian religion and NOT because of it, the age of Enlightenment in the XVIII century is the true source of modern democratic freedoms and not judeo christian beliefs, the god of the Bible is the same deity invented by semitic barbaric tribes in the bronze age than the allah of the Koran, but christian fundamentalist apologists are just as intellectually fraudulent and dishonest as their muslim counterparts, this religious apologists (both muslims and christians) want us to believe that we have democratic freedoms thanks to their god... what a lie!, the Bible is full of totalitarian and barbaric rules not different than those of the Koran. Western Enlightenment was largely a reaction against christian religious totalitarism( see the works of Thomas Paine and D Holbach for example), so is not historically correct to assert a judeo christian origin of human rights...that is as false as the claims of muslim reformists(like Dr. Khan) about the sharia being the first legislation in promote human rights and religious freedom.

Abrahamic religions are not sources of democratic freedoms nor individual rights, those are concepts completely unknown to semitic religious leaders like Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, and it would be highly anachronistic, unconvincing and intellectually fraudulent to ascribe to such pre modern people modern western ideas, to thinking otherwise is fanatical self delusion and blind religious prejudice against the power of the human mind to find moral truths by reason and critical analysis.

I fully support the position of Daniel Pipes, he clearly puts religion in its proper place: the sphere of individual and private life, after the Age Reason religion(christian, islamic or whatever other confession) no longer belongs to public sphere and has nothing to do with legal and political institutions in a liberal democracy, the case of Britain being a somewhat odd situation but it should be taken in consideration that in that particular place the presence of religion in public life is symbolic and is product of very specific historical circumstances(like the head of the state being the head of the national church due the schism of the church of England from the Roman Catholic Church). True democratic ideas and principles of state and government must defended against religious fundamentalists in the west and in the muslim world.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".