Very insightful, informed comments as usual…err…mostly, I mean… on this e-zine. To recap the argument…
It is comforting at least to know both Christian and secularist know who their real enemy is these days. That’s a start. But then again, is disconcerting to watch them blame each other for that threat. While Spencer implicates leftist secularism for the enablement of violent Islam through “equivalency” doctrines and such, Derbyshire reacts by blaming Christianity (a la Gibbons, his co-antireligionist colleague of the 18th century), especially that pesky Sermon-on-the Mount thingy.
Oops, am I falling into equivalency myself, or can it possibly be that one worldview is right and the other (heavens forbid!)…wrong? As pointed out by other critics here, Derbyshire’s abject ignorance as to Islam, and also Christianity, and his unstated-but-obvious blind adherence to his own atheist creed seems to be at fault for skewing his view. Hence he falls into what seems to be the coomn pathology of the religiously anti-religionist- he will simply not look at religion as a cause and effect influence because it simply makes him and his primordial presumptions, uneasy.
Well, we all anxiously await what Spencer could possibly add to the already weighty Derbyshire criticisms here.
