I still think you're painting with too broad a brush when you use the term "society." Some elements of society take the position you describe, but others do not.
And the negative reaction to criticism from atheists has a great deal to do with its hostility quotient. Simple disagreement doesn't tend to provoke the same response as "And you're stupid to believe this." Plus which, some of the most vocal atheists these days are also often quite ignorant about what religious belief entails. Not making the effort to acquaint oneself with what one is criticizing is perceived to be a function of intolerance, and rightly so, IMHO. Rather than facilitating "full open discussion," it tends to slam the door on it. Those who most prominently speak for atheism need to get their act together, as far as I'm concerned (and speaking as a nonreligionist). Curtis, you way overstate the case. In this country, at least, there's oodles of criticism of biblical ideas, including ideas at the heart of Christian belief. Ever heard of the Jesus Seminar? And a currently popular book, "How Jesus Became God," maintains that the idea of Jesus as God developed very much after the fact, that it was never anything Jesus said about himself. Those are just two examples of many. And I doubt you're going to find a whole lot of people who advocate slavery because the Bible does. Sure, there's always pushback, but to suggest that it's enough to suppress all criticism and challenge is just not supported by the facts. C: Your POV seems just as valid. It also marks out the difference in a society between our liberal democracy with the dominant religion being a more modern reformed one compared to Islamic dominant societies. So point taken. There is plenty of direct criticism about things in the Bible in our country. But this is not the point of critique Harris is launching. Religious ideas and scripture are still held as a special class of human knowledge no matter where you fall on the spectrum between your point and mine. In no other area is the idea of a hands off criticizing the ideas directly tied to a concept of religious tolerance. Lets take racism directly. If you say anything racist , even if you tie it to the Bible you get condemned by the majority of society. But if you attack the Bible as being a man made piece of literature full of outdated nonsense the same society will attack you for being intolerant of religion and a bigot. Watching how society has reacted to atheists through time illustrates my point. So these ideas are still held in a protected class of ideas where full open discussion is not only discouraged, it is shamed as being similar to racism. (It happens to atheists all the time.) Now we may not find a lot of people who advocate slavery because the Bible does but how many people want to deny gay rights because of the Bible? So I am not disagreeing with your objection as wrong, It is just not how I am seeing it as we both value the propositions of truth as we see it in each others statements. The other thing religion adds to the human tendency to power grab is to deflect criticism about the ideas they are spreading because it is shielded by the "don't criticize religious ideas directly" ban. Harris agrees with your analysis of the extremists but he places the blame on the moderates for shielding them behind the odd way we treat religious ideas. If they came out and said that this part of the Koran is wrong, or if Christians did this with the Bible we could have a discussion of ideas like we do with everything else in human knowledge. But both of these books are shielded from direct criticism by the idea that they are different from all other human produced literature containing ideas. There are scripture and God's hand was in their production. And the weird thing is that each religion only accepts their own god book as authoritative, not the other guy's. But they still protect the other guy's divine right of non criticism so that people wont challenge the absurd claim they are making about their own god book. Harris is against this collusion of ignorance. If you take out a section of the Bible that advocates slavery and say, this is stupid and wrong you will be accused of being religiously intolerant rather than just pointing out a stupid and wrong idea some man wrote. This is the battle Harris is picking, not the ultimate cynicism about the leader's motivations.
