Dear Editor: Re: ‘Superstitious nonsense’ has no place in society, Inbox, the Record, Feb. 8.
Mr. Granewall has written a bigoted and offensive letter against legitimate, mainstream religion, while using one of the oldest and most transparent fallacy tricks in the history of debating. First, he creates two straw men in different ways, then he hacks away at the straw men, while claiming that’s all there is of his opponent’s beliefs, and of all religion in general.
His first straw man is a model of evil and malevolence, a topic not introduced yet, but Mr. Granewall digresses over to it. It is like saying if both North Korea and the Khmer Rouge claim to be “democratic,” that must mean all “democracy is bad.” He completely ignores the possible explanation that pedophiles (by essential definition, not genuine priests), under a deep guise of a “priesthood,” corrupted and used individual churchmen and children for their own purposes. No religion is ever guaranteed against any incursion by evil.
His second fallacy is labelling all religion, by implication, as mere fundamentalism, a simplistic, literalistic and willfully ignorant version of “religion.” Few believers in mainstream religion follow simple-minded, literalistic, “inerrant” interpretations of ancient scriptures. He simply paints all members of all religions as moronic followers of a cult of fundamentalism. In all my experience with legitimate religion, I have never met such a person. Labelling them “monuments to ignorance,” he completely ignores the possible role of churches (and buildings) in the fields of the arts, architecture, institutions with diverse roles, or even the general human need for cultural ceremony.
There are religions of fear, religions of law and morality, and religions of self-realization, the latter especially having the beneficial influence of motivating people to be a little less egotistical, selfish, greedy or vengeful. Not all faiths are based on fear or dogmatic cults, and we don’t need a diatribe which sounds too much like the very same fundamentalist cult propaganda which he bitterly attacks.
Terry Hilmar, New Westminster
