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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (78364)	10/27/2003 1:59:31 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"First all, we need to differentiate between the beliefs and the behavior of the believers." Yes, of course. But beliefs dictate behaviour. When we read a news item of yet another midnight butchery of innocent people as religious "cleansing" in some country where the secular community has withdrawn from active participation in the social values, we take momentary pause for reflection and grab a second coffee as we shrug our shoulders. But you are right. People are entitled to their beliefs. And if their beliefs include the demonizing and the dehumanizing of others--well...so what? This is the fundamental essence of all the major religions. Religion has always been a proxy for all sorts of social, racial, and class distinctions. Secularists behave in accordance with their beliefs just as any other people do. So if we find little to criticise in these regular butcheries...I suppose it speaks well for our respect of religious faith, and our ability to keep the apples and the oranges in different crates. The whole crux of this discussion hinges on the question of whether or not ones defense of liberty and ethics is affected in any way by the strength of ones disbelief in some supernatural authority. I have taken the position that (perhaps) a vigilance for justice is quickened by a sense of righteous anger, and that ones sense of a right to interfere in the bedlam and mayhem of religious wars and conflicts might relate to how strongly one is repulsed by the irrationality of the believer's prejudice and rush to judgement. I cannot prove it. It is just my belief that society is better off for having a tinge of contempt for clearly irrational and contemptible beliefs. It seems to me that we judge the behaviour in accordance with how strongly we despise the belief. For instance, it seems to me that someone who is not strongly convinced that there is no God steering the politics of human society, might be less motivated to resist the uniting of Chutch and State. Of course, I am not arguing ones right to believe; I am only reflecting that degree and intensity of belief makes a difference--whether one believes or whether one does not. In other words the exact nature of belief matters...belief has ramifications. I suppose an agnostic sympathetic to certain theological beliefs might oppose an attempt to unite Church and State as much as an atheist might. But I suspect that the energy of religious certainty is best opposed more with certainty of an opposite kind rather than by a studied indifference. And I know that indifference to belief does not necessitate an indifference to behaviour. But behaviour and belief, well--they do inform one another...