Summary
[...] Buruma finds, the gulf "is not as wide as might be presumed." There are useful distinctions to be made between faith and reason, the religious and the secular, but Buruma's overly sharp dichotomy and loose wording does not do justice to the historical reality of either religion or reasoning. [...] it discourages rational debate about religion, not as an enterprise for the Uberai democratic state (which Buruma wisely rejects) but as an undertaking by liberal democratic citizens, whether believers or nonbelievers.
See the full content of this document
Extract
Democracy's Faith-Base Troubles
BOOKS Democracy's Faith-Base Troubles TAMING THE GODS! RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY ON THREE CONTINENTS BY IAN BURUMA, Princeton University Press, 144 pages, $19.95
BY PETER STEINFELSThree years ago, Ian Buruma published Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, an analysis of the shocking public slaying by an Islamist extremist of a Dutch filmmaker who, working with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, self-declared atheist and fugitive from Islam, had provocatively attacked Muslim attitudes toward...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
