Radical Enlightenment critique targets religion rather than reason itself

Evidence

Enlightenment thought, and Western culture in general, emerged from a religious context which emphasised teleology and the achievement of God’s grace. Divine providence had long been a guiding idea of Christian thought. Without these preceding orientations, the Enlightenment would scarcely have been possible in the first place. It is in no way surprising that the advocacy of unfettered reason only reshaped the ideas of the providential, rather than displacing it. One type of certainty (divine law) was replaced by another (the certainty of our senses, of empirical observation), and divine providence was replaced by providential progress. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 122 (#expands, via linked claim)

The Enlightenment was a cultural and intellectual movement that arose toward the end of the seventeenth century and reached its apex in the eighteenth century.Enlightenment: a cultural and intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the West that emphasized reason. The movement stressed the primacy of reason in the human quest to acquire knowledge and discover truth. The Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason contributed to a climate in which philosophers and intellectuals increasingly attacked traditional Christianity, in both its Protestant and Catholic varieties, as irrational and superstitious. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 158 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Enlightenment reason reshaped religious providence rather than displacing it — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 122; Enlightenment reason politics drove attacks on Christianity as irrational — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 158; Orientalism once fueled Enlightenment critiques of dogmatic Christianity. (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Enlightenment reason reshaped religious providence rather than displacing it #expands (0.82) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 122
• Enlightenment reason politics drove attacks on Christianity as irrational #contradicts (0.78) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 158
• Orientalism once fueled Enlightenment critiques of dogmatic Christianity. #exemplifies (0.75)
• Enlightenment atheism and false scientific objectivity eroded Western Judaism #contradicts (0.72) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 425