How can religious moderates be said to enable hateful fundamentalists?

[eqfan592]

85. I don't believe you understood what the point of the quote was.

This really has nothing to do with guilt by association. It's about opening a door. The key phrase is "retreats to faith." It's about creating an environment where "faith" is an acceptable justification for ones words and actions. Every time a moderate or progressive uses faith as a reason for believing in or doing something it is enabling a fundamentalist to do the exact same thing.

And this is where I think progressive christians will have the most difficulty in fighting back the fundamentalists, because faith is something of a dead end intellectually. "My faith tells me this!" "Oh yeah? Well MY faith tells me THIS!" "You're wrong!" "No, YOU'RE wrong!!" and etc. Now they can try and use scripture, but the problem with that is the bible isn't exactly consistent when it comes to a lot of things, so there's plenty of ammo for both sides (tho more for the fundamentalists I think, sadly).