Multiculturalism Bias in Religion

"... At the same time, multiculturalism has taught us that while it may be okay to trash fundamentalist Christianity (a freedom that this books will eagerly avail itself of), we mustn't presume to tell non-Western societies what they should or shouldn't believe.

But with creeping theocracy at home and religious fanaticism on the loose everywhere, this is no time for ironic detachment (read, intellectual laziness). It's time to get post-postmodern about religion; less indifferent, less respectful, less relativistic -- frankly, less tolerant--toward religion per se, not just its more "extreme" (read pure) manifestations. The problem with religious moderation is that it helps keep barbaric, scripture-based beliefs respectable. Religious moderation, Sam Harris notes, "is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance." Moderates ignore or pay lip service to scriptural injunctions; Osama bin Laden acts on them. In an age of suitcase bombs, tribalistic irrationalism in any degree is no longer just a harmless anachronism." Jack Huberman