This article could have appeared in satirical pages of The Onion but it is an actual editorial that appeared this week. It is the idea of western pluralism taken to absurd extremes. If pluralism is so pluralistic that it can't place blame on axe-wielding murderers but rather on their victims, then it can't survive.
As a religious person, I would like to state for the record that I'm offended by the author's supposed defense of religion. Set aside for the moment that the term "religious people" lumps together radical terrorists and people like me. If religious people can't be expected to act rationally, to accept criticism and satire of their culture, without resorting to murderous violence, then they can't be defended.
The author's vision of the religious/secular divide would make it impossible for religion to exist in a pluralistic society. This is how pluralistic/liberal societies consume themselves and become anti-pluralistic: insisting that anti-pluralistic, anti-modern, anti-democratic violence is a legitimate political expression.
Comments on “Pluralism gone Wild” by Rabbi Rose
ReplyDeleteRabbi Rose appropriately takes offense to the lumping of all “religious people” to include radical terrorist and people like him. I would like to go further to take offense to the lumping together people who are considered “religious” to include people with misconceptions of God and those people who have a true understanding of Him. Christianity falsely claims that a man is God. Islam falsely claims that there is only one prophet who cannot be questioned either satirically or in a reasoned logical approach. These people who have accepted these false conceptions of God and His prophets eventually become so deluded that they resort to violence against anyone who points out their false beliefs and undermines the foundation of their false faith.
Rabbi Rose’s conclusion, on how this type of pluralism ends, was precise and to the point.