A
If you do not distinguish between those with religious faith who are tolerant of other ideologies and the religious bigots, you too are a bigot.
B
Freedom of religion that does not permit freedom from religion is a hoax.
I like to imagine I am at a balance between those two but it is hard to be sure I am succeeding. I can't even balance blogging with employment.
2 comments:
I got the link to this from Pandagon.
Just wanted to say, it is a hard road, but I would say you are on point.
Differing the devout from the devout bigot is difficult and requires an understanding of the speakers beliefs to determine the difference, even as an athiest.
I Lt.
I started drawing the line when I found I was being asked to imagine a god who would have made us all but then set us at each other's throats. What need have we of such a god...unless what we really wanted from the get-go was to slit a few throats?
I link to Jude Camwell's blog. She is a very patient and enormously constructive person of faith. How could I not march along side her when there is every sort of corruption and malfeasance afoot in our nation's capital and she shares my anger about that? I am sure I blog things about religion that would dismay her or make our aquaintance polite and proper at best...but she is completely silent about the nonbelievers. I have never asked her but I take it as an example of how to deal with people who do the right things for different reasons than you do...and I hope I am returning the favor. I see in her only things to admire.
I have a friend from my highschool days [40 years ago] with whom I still correspond. He became a Luthern Pastor and has charge of relatively conservative flock but we manage to find common ground. I almost think you NEED friends who are that different from yourself to be, as they say, "all that you can be".
The worst thing we can do either to persons of different faith or to ourselves is to oversimplify and to think categorically about them.
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