Does this mean, in simpler terms, that you're looking to give "believers" a dose of our own medicine? This is what is unlike you, IMO.
No, not at all.
Neo has been very adept and very eloquent about explaining how non-believers show contempt for the beliefs of believers and in working out a basis to avoid the gratuitous insult. I am certainly better informed about burning bushes than I was and can better avoid insult.
I have the impression, though, that the religious don't appreciate that seculars have belief systems, too, for which contempt can be shown. Most of the time seculars are trying to defend themselves against the prejudice of the religious that seculars don't have moral systems and aren't good citizens, neighbors, friends, etc. I think we've pretty much dispenses with that here. So I'm moving into the area of the "contempt" that the religious show for the belief of seculars. I have the impression that many religious think that secular means the absence of belief and that there's nothing there to offend in the same way that a crack about a burning bush offends the religious. What I was trying to convey is that I, among many, I presume, "believe in" humanity and that the religious can offend those beliefs, probably unintentionally. Anything that is dehumanizing offends my beliefs and much religious statement is dehumanizing. What I listed in my post was the dehumanizing aspect of popular religion, the imposition of which, in venues such as graduation ceremonies, is contemptuous of my beliefs, which deserve being treated with seriousness, and for which I think forbearance is required, not in discussion, but in the public square.
I'm simply trying to communicate my equivalent of a burning bush to those who are uninformed about such.
As for zombies, there are religions in which zombies are prominent. I find them dehumanizing and I find intrusions of them into the public square contemptuous of my belief system. |
