Christine, I can't agree that religion offers little to society. Perhaps "society" isn't the right word, though.
Very few cultures, large or small, without some basis in "religion". Without Christianity, European history and culture would be unrecognizable to us. I think it has been a positive. Without it, relatively painless dentistry might still be a thousand years in the future. Think about that!
No civilization is possible with acceptance and enforcement of common value. Many who wail about keeping a wall between government and religion seem to forget that government has its roots in religion.
In a real sense we're all a bit shy of the dark -- the night, the unknown and the BIG dark -- death. Men and/or women have exploited our need for "explanations" ever since we could communicate. Some have been sincere and true to purpose. Others, quite naturally, as groups grew larger, as people settled, as surplus became possible and contact between groups became inevitable, became powerful figures who led in the name of this God or that.
With the passage of time we have moved from fright of the divine to the divine right of kings (holy and unholy) to focus on the rights of individual humans (and, other living things). In some ways, I see the extreme of this as a divide and disintegrate movement. I do not think it bodes especially well.
FWIW, my own opinion is that neither Hitler or other Germans turned on the Jews because they were NOT Christian, but because they WERE Jews -- a readily identifiable group who often held themselves to be different and thus provided a least objectionable scapegoat for German problems. I am no holocaust revisionist, but it is useful to remember that Jews were not the ONLY people brutalized in the camps.
Christine, I would never dream of suggesting you would be a better or more moral person if you were a Christian. Whatever is working for you is just fine by me. But, although you write in a more congenial manner than some on this subject -- I do detect a hint that I (and others of my ilk) might be better or more moral persons if we were NOT Christian. That seems odd to me.
I am a Christian. I am a conservative. I do not foment hate crimes. I do not practice bigotry. And, I am certainly not a member of the KKK. I have spent much of my life living and traveling outside the United States, often among people who were "different" from me. Saints and sinners of all colors, beliefs and customs surround us.
For some reason the ONLY religious group scorned on this thread seems to be Christians -- I would be curious just what your definition of bigotry is.
I am listening to "All the Best Greek Bouzoukis." Hard to be very angry with anyone while remembering/dreaming of sunny days and the deep blue sea. Maybe October.
Mike |
