[fixedd]

> Pinker uses the phrase as a metaphor for four human motivations that, he writes, can "orient us away from violence and towards cooperation and altruism,"[2] namely: empathy, self-control, the "moral sense," and reason.

All of which are contrary to religious fundamentalism... which worries me as a US citizen.

[maxerickson]

Why? Fundamentalists are noisy, but they aren't a majority. Catholics are the largest group, probably followed by the various types of non practitioners (I'm including atheists and people that "aren't sure" together there, I think it's fair to say that "not sure" is a ways away from fundamentalist). It's harder to sort out the protestants, but the more moderate "mainline" groups certainly have more influence than the fundamentalist groups, even if they don't quite outnumber them (but they are at least similar in number).

The type of news that fundamentalists end up making also isn't all that discouraging, they are usually losing court cases where they tried to inject their beliefs into public life.

[fixedd]

I guess it depends on where you draw the line on fundamentalism. I live in the Bible Belt and I'd argue that, at least, the Southern Baptists should be seen as a Fundamentalist organization. That locks down the majority of the people in the SE-quadrant of the continental US.

Also depending on how you draw your lines, the Catholics aren't even remotely close to #1 status. About 24% of Americans are Catholic while about 51% are Protestants. I'll agree that it's a little iffy, but I'm willing to count the Protestants as a singular group.

Perhaps I'm just jaded because I live in the land of "lets turn the US into a Christian theocracy".

[maxerickson]

Yeah, the first step of the discussion is drawing some lines.

When I said the Catholics were the largest group, I was treating the protestants as separate groups. Mostly because if you are treating "fundamentalist" as an axis, the protestants don't really group together. They even tend to be somewhat polarized across that axis.

[parasubvert]

If you've been watching Pope Francis lately, it's providing a strong contrast against fundamentalism, which he has even decried as a disease in the church that needs to end.

[AnimalMuppet]

Self-control is contrary to religious fundamentalism? The "moral sense" is contrary to religious fundamentalism?

I mean, sure, there have been some pretty horrible things done in the name of religion, often by fundamentalists. There have been some even more horrible things done in the name of atheistic philosophies, too. But religious fundamentalism should give one an idea that certain things really are morally wrong, and that you're therefore not supposed to do them. That sounds like "self-control" and "moral sense" to me...

[fixedd]

Please cite an "even more horrible thing done in the name of atheistic philosophies" (I'm actually curious about this, even though I'm going to argue with you in a sec...).

--

The premise that religiosity in any way influences morality (or "self control") is a joke. We live in a world where religious people are performing (or attempting to perform) genocides, who rape children (and adults), and who are subjugating the current out-group. We also live in a world where non-religious people are providing healthcare to the poor, counselling to the abused, and food to the needy. There are, of course, plenty of counterexamples where religious people are acting morally, and non-religious are acting amorally... all this just goes to show that there are moral people and those who are not moral, not that religion has any influence over that morality.

To further the point, the vast majority of religious people (at least in the "Western Religion" sense) go out of their way to cherry pick which of their holy book's rules to adhere to. This is because they have decided to act in a way that they, and their society, have deemed moral; despite what the book has told them was.

[AnimalMuppet]

> Please cite an "even more horrible thing done in the name of atheistic philosophies" (I'm actually curious about this, even though I'm going to argue with you in a sec...).

Pol Pot killed one quarter of Cambodia's population in the name of communism, which was explicitly atheistic. So far as I know, that is the ruler that killed the single largest fraction of his own population. (Stalin killed more people, but he had a much larger population to work with. And, surprise, Stalin also did it in the name of communism.)