Michael van der Galien responds to Sam Harris's article, God's Dupes, and pretty much proves Harris's point.
Harris makes a very basic point: "The problem is that wherever one stands on this [religious] continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism."
Now, Harris might be wrong, but by merely labeling criticism of religion as "irrational", "extreme" and "wandering"--without any sort of substantive argument--van der Galien just reinforces Harris's point. If even the moderates hold religion itself above criticism, on what basis are we supposed to criticize the fundamentalists? Must we criticize them for having the wrong attitude about invisible sky fairies, without being able to say that having any attitude at all about invisible sky fairies is fantastically stupid?
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