# Do progressives believe that all religions are liberal at their true core? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 23, 2026, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297 "2026-09-23T00:54:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/41 "2026-09-23T13:49:01Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > But, is it a belief of many progressives that any religion, when practiced in its “true” form, will consist of peace, tolerance and nonviolence? It seems like, in the eyes of many liberals, that any time someone does violence or bigotry in the name of his religion, that he must be acting on a warped and distorted version of it, and that it’s not possible that his bad deeds may actually be a true, genuine practice of his religion. I’m not sure how many believe this in their hearts, as opposed to it being kind of a knee-jerk response to the statement of “Islam is a religion of war and slavery.” I would advance a softer form of it and make a couple of points in support. First, most religions are loosely about how to live one’s life, manage one’s spirituality, and participate in a community. A religion that was entirely warlike would most likely not have survived due to the ongoing costs of war. So on balance, most religions ought to be in some form about peace, love, and serenity, and I do believe that’s generally what we see. Second, religion and their holy books are handed down from the ages, so it’s inevitable that some of these will reflect attitudes about whatever conflicts shaped them. Again, a community that never fought _at all_ would’ve been wiped out by one more comfortable with violence, so ancient folkways and religions are always going to have some things to say about the conditions for justified violence. But as far as blanket statements about “religion X is warlike” or “religion Y is a religion of peace”, while there’s lkely a lot of real variation here, the characterizations you hear are mostly about what the speaker wants to be true in the moment. Christianity is neither warlike nor peacelike, its founding stories emerged from Bronze-age conflict, and eventually a prophet/teacher emerged who said that love is the way, and he founded an enduring church that returned to violence as soon as it was practical, and then eventually returned to a soft-power peace once a warlike church stopped being practical. The holy books never changed very much, the behaviors are just a reflection of the founding myths and whatever’s happening in their contemporary society. Finally, to take the OP question literally, no, most religions aren’t “liberal” at their core. While many of religions take the idea of justice seriously and feature a significant body of law, and some of it mentions civil rights and civil liberties, liberalism is an 18th century philosophy that doesn’t much resemble any religions that came before it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/42 "2026-09-23T13:50:09Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Only if you are inside the religion can you say what the essence is. Except that there are so many Christian sects that, at most, you might be able to tell us what your particular sect believes. Even if you could boil it down to common tenets that might belong to all Christian sects, upon further examination you would find that different sects have different interpretations and/or definitions of those tenets. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/43 "2026-09-23T13:53:14Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > > [@eburacum45](#): > > > > Mind you, it would be easier to identify progressives if we wore pink. > > Please don’t give the conservatives ideas… Heh - my mind immediately went here: > **[Pussyhat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussyhat)** > > A pussyhat is a pink, crafted brimless hat or cap, created in large numbers by women involved with the United States 2017 Women's March. They are the result of the Pussyhat Project, a nationwide effort initiated by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman, a screenwriter and architect located in Los Angeles, to create pink hats to be worn at the march. In response to this call, crafters all over the United States began making these hats using patterns provided on the project Web site for use with either a k... ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/44 "2026-09-23T14:08:38Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > No, violent people are rare and most people are peaceful. Ergo, in any large group, most people will be peaceful and a small minority might be violent. It’s not helpful to blame the large group for the violence of the few. > > I think that’s all this is. It applies to religions, yes, but also everything else. Pretty much this. That is, nearly all people can be violent under some circumstances; but under current circumstances, most people aren’t, if only because there’d be nearly nobody left on the planet by now if we were. There are what, over a billion Muslims on the planet? If even a sizeable minority of them were violent terrorists, we wouldn’t be calmly typing on a message board about it. We’d be either dead or scrambling to stay alive in some post apocalyptic scenario. I doubt the net would be functional, or any trade routes beyond very local. Also, what “progressives” think about religion is widely varied. Some progressives are religious, in any of a wide variety of religions. Some aren’t. Some who aren’t are opposed to others being religious, some aren’t. There isn’t going to be one neat answer. And also, religions schism. That’s just what humans do. There isn’t going to be one “true” version of any religion for very long. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/45 "2026-09-23T14:20:42Z")
There are people who grew up exposed to a religion whose personal response was not to accept it without question but to consider it and see if it actually has anything to offer. Some would say they end up cherry-picking but others would say their eventual interpretations overlap with the thinking contingent of devout religious folks. Then there are people who blindly follow, who want easy answers. They don’t only find them within the religion they were raised in, they also find it in any crowd they end up following. They, too, could be accused of cherry-picking, although their cherries tend to be rather disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/46 "2026-09-23T14:21:10Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Except that there are so many Christian sects that, at most, you might be able to tell us what your particular sect believes. Maybe there is a difference between traditional sects and organized groups. So an outsider can not say what the true core is of being Baptist or Presbyterian, at least not when it comes to being liberal or conservative. But the Presbyterian Church in America is conservative and the Presbyterian Church (USA) is liberal. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/47 "2026-09-23T14:24:13Z")
But as far as what a Christian can tell you about Christianity in general? Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/48 "2026-09-23T14:27:57Z")
There’s a vibe. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/49 "2026-09-23T14:31:47Z")
Specifics, please? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/50 "2026-09-23T14:33:03Z")
As exemplified on this and other threads, “Progressive” is itself a fizzy-edged notion with conflicting internal and external definitions. No-True-Progressive and No-True-Christian are both unending arguments. > [@bump](#): > > I’ve found that the more liberal Christians tend to believe it’s not their job to judge, but rather to love their neighbors and try to bring them closer to God. There’s also a big dose of “God made them that way, it’s not my place to gainsay the Almighty” which informs the tolerance. > > The more conservative denominations tend to be textually literal, and view the judging as part of some kind of “tough love”. I like this way of putting it. Problems arise when people start to believe that you must be all-in on absolutely everything; so on the one side “mere” tolerance, or on the other moral/social censure w/o harsh enforcement, are unacceptable compromises or even are just as bad as outright hate. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/51 "2026-09-23T14:51:13Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Sorry… are you saying that’s what the OP’s progressives believe, or what you believe? It’s what I believe, and I think it’s what the more intellectually rigorous of the OP’s progressives believe. Of course not all progressives meet that description. I think a very common cycle we see works like this: Muslims (for example) do something horrific in the name of religion, like 9/11 or 10/9. In the West, hordes of racists and Islamophobes come out of the woodwork to _agree_ with the terrorists that their beliefs and actions are actually the only logical consequence of Islamic theology. Therefore, we are in a “clash of civilizations” and we need to ban the Koran and deport all the Muslims, because they all secretly support terrorism. Progressives, obviously, want to push back against this, which can sometimes lead them to make unqualified statements like “Islam is a religion of peace”. Which may be a defensible position, but these people aren’t actually knowledgable enough about Islam to effectively defend it, so they end up looking silly and naive. But their actual motivation for engaging in the argument was to defend their neighbors from racist attacks, not to debate theology. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/52 "2026-09-23T14:52:35Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > . It may be that most Quakers worldwide are conservative. i.e. Richard Mulhouse Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/53 "2026-09-23T14:57:57Z")
ALL religious people cherry-pick. It’s unavoidable. Any text complex and interesting enough to be adopted as Holy Scripture by any sizable religion is going to be so vague and contradictory as to permit a wide variety of interpretations. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/54 "2026-09-23T14:59:27Z")
The contemporary use of “vibe” is by its nature, non-specific. But I don’t think I’m wrong in assuming that Jesus figures prominently, maybe centrally, in the Christian vibe. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/55 "2026-09-23T15:08:35Z")
That is vaguer than you might think, since the versions of Jesus worshiped vary widely from sect to sect. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/56 "2026-09-23T15:23:52Z")
Part of the problem is that the most vocal “Christians” in the US are from sects/denominations that in past years would have been denounced as heretical by pretty much any mainstream denomination. Most of the evangelical/Baptist congregations believe a mix of things that aren’t in line with mainstream Christianity (i.e. Catholicism/Anglican/Episcopalian/Presbyterian/Methodist/Lutheran/etc.), and that’s IMO, a big piece of the problem. Some are downright heretical - Arianism, Pelagianism, and Nestorianism are three big ones, and there’s a whole gang of others. And they don’t really have a scholastic tradition either, and no hierarchy, synods, or anything that keeps them in line and puling in the same direction. So as a result, they tend to be way off the rails in terms of belief, much less orthodoxy. I mean, the Prosperity Gospel is so far off base theologically that it’s dumbfounding. And without that scholastic tradition, nobody’s studying the Bible in an organized fashion and saying “Uh… it specifically does NOT say that.” when some knucklehead pastor of a megachurch says crazy stuff or implies that your material wealth is related to your faith and belief. I do feel like all this is a symptom though; society has been divided- part is pulling away from religion in general, and part is doubling down by pulling into more insane and bizarre conservative religion. The big questions are what is the split, why is it happening, and what do we do about it? The split is not only religious- it’s social, political, economic, and educational for sure, and probably other things as well. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/57 "2026-09-23T15:37:56Z")
Agreed. To a large extent, these positions have become a shortcut for one side to piss off (and be pissed off at) the other side. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/58 "2026-09-23T15:38:31Z")
I’d like to think that liberal versions of the various religions will need to evolve in due course, if and when we eventually develop an advanced interplanetary or interstellar culture with AGI and commonplace body augmentation and modification. At least that is my hope. The worst case scenario might be an advanced civilisation ruled by competent artificial general intelligences much smarter than humans, but which follow strict religious precepts about the behavior and nature of humans based on some restrictive ideas developed in the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/59 "2026-09-23T15:47:18Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > At least that is my hope. The worst case scenario might be an advanced civilisation ruled by competent artificial general intelligences much smarter than humans, but which follow strict religious precepts about the behavior and nature of humans based on some restrictive ideas developed in the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. A story ostensibly set in the world of Graeco-Roman myth but actually set in a post apocalyptic world where advanced AI model themselves on the Roman gods would go hard. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297/60 "2026-09-23T16:03:00Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > if and when we eventually develop an advanced interplanetary or interstellar culture with AGI and commonplace body augmentation and modification. Don’t worry. We’ll launch a crusade to deal with that. Hope you’re not phobic about large worms, though… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-progressives-believe-that-all-religions-are-liberal-at-their-true-core/1033297.md?page=4)