--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltabl...@...> wrote: > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > I think going after the religion rather than the behavior > > risks becoming a crusade and even a pogrom (figuratively > > speaking), and it doesn't affect the behavior. > > I missed this first time through. This is a legitimate > point to consider.
Even though the point you go on to consider is not at all the one I was making...OOOOO-K. > I believe that religions have used this extreme use > and application of the concept of challenging unproven > claims (pogrom} Not what I meant by pogrom. I was referring to the potential to portray everyone who shares a specific religious heritage as Bad Guys (the way some here do with Christians and many right-wingers do with Muslims) pretty much regardless of behavior. > to shield them from the normal discourse we expect > with any other ideas. > > If a person today claims the holocaust never happened > we challenge the idea with facts. If people claim > Jesus rose from the dead we have a right to say "what > is your proof?" Do you see any significant differences between these two claims? > So I believe that we have erred on the side of allowing > unchallenged beliefs about how life works rather than > suppressing them or acting uncivilly to religious people > in this country in the last few decades. "Erred"? My goodness, I hope that's a figure of speech. > But we have created a ban on bringing into discussion > these claims as if they are exempt from the challenge: > "what is your proof?" And this is hurting us as a > species trying to rise above superstitious tribal > beliefs about one group of humans being intrinsically > superior to another in a predetermined way. And they > have earned their lower status by being bad in some way > that the scripture, that God wrote or approves of, > describes in detail. You sound as religious here about your perspective as the most fundamentalist Christian, Curtis. To me, it's not a matter of whether religious belief is exempt from challenge; it's a matter of whether indulging in such challenge is a distraction from focusing on the *behavior*. I really don't care whether someone believes Jesus rose from the dead as long as they behave humanely. I don't even especially care whether someone who holds this belief thinks of themselves as better than me as long as they don't allow that belief to affect their behavior toward me (or anyone else). In any case, many Christians who believe Jesus rose from the dead use their faith in that event to motivate them to behave as Jesus prescribed. We could all do a lot worse, behavior-wise, than adhering to Jesus's principles. And I doubt there are very many such people who think of themselves as "intrinsically superior to another in a predetemined way," or that others have "earned their lower status by being bad" in some way described in Scripture. Maybe that's what *you* were taught to believe once upon a time (although "predetermined" sounds more Calvinist than Catholic!), but it certainly doesn't characterize Christians across the board. Painting with that kind of broad, simplistic brush is pretty much what I meant by *pogrom*. It strikes me that the objection to *ideas* simply because you find them "superstitious," rather than evaluating people in terms of their *behavior*, is akin to condemning gay people for what they do in their bedrooms instead of evaluating how they behave in society. I also think the demand to "prove" Jesus rose from the dead is idiotic on its face, from several different angles.
