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Marc2b -> RE: Religion Is so over-rated (3/24/2010 1:32:07 PM)
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quote:
When I was a "tween" The Beatles were going to be on the Ed Sullivan show on a particular sunday evening. My mother insisted we go to church for some 'family night' thing. I wanted to watch the Beatles. She tried to shame me by asking "Well if Jesus was standing on one side of the room and the Beatles were on the other side, who would you go to!?" I told her that Jesus is eternal and will always be with me but that the Beatles would only be on Ed Sullivan once. My logic didn't do anything to change her mind.
Oh, I bet you were such a fun kid to know while growing up. Well, fun for some, an exasperation for others. I am a little confused though because, according to some people, you should have been well nigh brainwashed by this stage in your life and unable to form such an independent thought in your head.
On the topic at large:
Religion is a belief system but not all belief systems are religions. Many so called philosophies may have more “facts” on their side but who is more factually correct is irrelevant because the primary purpose of a belief system is to comfort us that the world makes sense (or would make more sense if people would just do things our way). There are the good guys (us, who know the “truth”) and the bad guys (them, who are responsible for the things that go wrong in our lives, the world, etc). That is where the danger lays, the fact that we need a bad guy to place the blame on (it has been said that a mass movement can rise without need of a god, but not without a devil). It really doesn’t matter who the “bad guy” is be it Jews, Muslims, blacks, whites, atheists, Christian fundamentalists, Americans, the French, liberals, conservatives, the poor, the rich, Puritans, kinksters, etc, etc, etc. Every one of is a bad guy to somebody, just for being who they are.
This us versus them mentality comes to us from our tribal heritage and when it gets combined with the notion that we (the good guys) are in sole possession of the “truth,” it can cross over from mere distrust and rancor into repression and – as history has shown us numerous times – outright genocide. There are limits to what a society can do to counteract this tendency of human nature. Sure, we can toss murders in to prison but ultimately it comes down to the individual. That’s where it starts. Each of us must decide on our own to respect the rights of others even if – especially if! – we don’t particularly like them. We can, and should, fully expect that our rights be respected in return but so long as they are then I can see no good reason for oppressing, or even showing contempt toward those who see the world differently than us.
This does not mean we should not question or criticize the beliefs (religious or otherwise) of others but if they are respectful toward us and our rights then we should be likewise in return. Consider Fred Phelps’ demented clan and the Duggar family. Both could be labeled as Christian Fundamentalists but the Phelps clan is egregious in its obvious hatred and contempt for others whereas the Duggar clan is respectful of the rights of others, even if they disagree with their world view (when was the last time you saw the Duggars shouting “God hates fags!” at somebody’s funeral?). Subsequently I have no problem with the Duggars, despite the fact that I consider their belief system to be fantastical and not grounded in logic. As for Fred Phelps, on the other hand – I’m with George.
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