Taranto Calls Kettle Black

James Taranto comments on today's hard-hitting editorial by Sam Harris on the failure of most leftists to take the threat of militant Islam seriously. In the process, he takes leftists to task for taking only the threat of American conservative theocrats seriously before dismissing same as harmless -- making himself guilty of the same error as the leftists, but in the opposite fashion.

To be sure, the history of Christianity has its violent periods. But apart from a few Eric Rudolph types, Christianity in America today is almost totally domesticated. As we argued in The Wall Street Journal last year, the fearsome religious right threatens the secular left with nothing worse than the adoption, through democratic means, of policies with which the latter disagree. By contrast, the goals and methods of radical Islamists are genuinely terrifying. [bold]

This follows a passage in which Taranto tut-tuts liberal concern that a public school sanctioned prayer at a football game constitutes an example of state-sponsored religion. The fact that liberals become apoplectic over such things -- but not about "conversions" to Islam at gunpoint -- does not mean that liberals are wrong to be concerned about the former.

Taranto's Trojan Horse of "democracy" allows him to evade both the nature of government (as the only social institution that can legally wield force) and its purpose (of protecting individual rights). Its sanction of prayer is thus different only in degree to a conversion at gunpoint. Forced prayer at school -- even if chosen by a majority -- and conversions at gunpoint are both wrong and should both be opposed. If James Taranto is a typical conservative, then, we are in danger from both ends of the political spectrum for the same fundamental reasons.

Having said that, I will close with two things. First, let me briefly reiterate here that although Sam Harris has said some very important things about religion, that he is, as a Zen Buddhist and promoter of a new-age cult, hardly an advocate of reason.

Second, I would like to draw your attention to a letter to the editor I learned about through the Harry Binswanger List.

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Five years ago, nearly 3,000 of our fellow Americans were reduced to burnt dust in the rubble of the Looming Towers. They were not killed by ignorance or poverty or because "terrorists hate our freedom." They were murdered by faith

-- faith in unseen gods, in invisible paradises, in the ancient fairy tales of desert tribes, their myths of creation, sacrifice, redemption, and eternal life. Faith caused 9/11.

Oh how easy for us to scoff at the outlandish, misogynistic beliefs of the 19 "holy warriors," the shaving of their body hair, the 72 virgins awaiting each assassin, the eerie willingness of these highly educated children of affluent families to slaughter and die for lurid storybook endings in the happily-ever-after.

But were not 300,000 burned at the stake in Madrid's main square over the course of the Inquisition? Did not all of Europe's Catholic and Protestant armies slaughter and starve to death one-third of the entire German people in the horrible war of 1618-48, fought over whether the Holy Father or the Holy Bible was inerrant, over whether Communion wafers were truly the very flesh of the Living Lord or just a symbol of his gory sacrifice? And did not our German cousins, in living memory, grind 6 million unarmed men, women, and children into wet mud in the crematoria of Central Europe because of their peculiar pagan faith in an omniscient Fuhrer?

Chosen People, Elect of the Lord, Master Race -- on and on, faith in fanciful tales, embellished and handed down for a hundred generations -- these are the lies used by priests, preachers, and politicians, by imams and rabbis, since the first witch doctor sought sway over his fellows in a cave at the dawn of our species.

Faith, its arrogant certainties, and its absolute imperatives caused 9/11.

Faith kills.

William Pinknoras

Midlothian

And if people motivated by faith can murder others, can they not also for the same motivation lull their countrymen to sleep over more subtle threats to their lives -- like the gradual loss of freedom? This latter is what James Taranto is doing when he scoffs at concerns over "little" matters like prayer in government-run schools. It may be cowardly and less directly threatening, but it is no less cold-blooded or dangerous

-- CAV