bbloke
Registered
OK, thanks, Rhisiart. That helps me to understand where you are coming from and I agree with the vast majority of what you wrote. Likewise, I was not meaning to have a go at you, either. I wanted to illustrate why it can be a touchy subject for me: I feel religious groups are often under both verbal and physical attack, and I worry about this being deemed somehow acceptable.
Much along the lines of what you've said too, for me, one has to approach such subjects with humility, tolerance, and a genuine desire to seek the truth. Whether theist or atheist, anyone who adopts an attitude of being in full possession of Absolute Truth, and that everyone should learn from them, really needs to learn some fundamental lessons... "They're stupid because they believe X," and so on. We cannot possibly hope to completely understand even one other human being or our own planet, let alone the physical universe or an all-powerful Creator, and to me it is arrogant in the extreme to think otherwise. It's also worth noting that I never cease to be impressed by how open-minded and thoughtful many within established religious groups can actually be, despite misconceptions.
You touch upon some good subjects. As soon as one group starts to feel superior or, vice versa, feels one particular group is inferior, this paves the way for all sorts of unpleasantness, to say the least. We must learn from history. This is why language about beliefs and/or believers, in terms of being stupid or the source of evil, can be very, very, very concerning indeed. Interestingly... what happens when one group starts to hear this? They feel threatened. And how are they likely to respond? They may well become more hardline, perceiving an external threat and looking for internal threats too. No surprises what can result from a cycle of suspicion and antagonism.
Actually, without going into a whole new story, this rather links back to the original topic of discussion... Similarly, as ever we're dealing with human beings all the time, regardless of what they believe, and we are all subject to human frailties. I'd argue losing sight of what one's religion truly stands for is necessary in order to commit atrocities in its name. But that's my opinion.
I'll round off my post by some comments made by a Sikh friend of mine. I've often felt that Sikhism seems to have a disproportionately large number of wise people within its ranks. My friend once said to me: "Oh, we have our fundamentalists too, any group does. They're very hardcore, they just don't know what they're hardcore about."
Much along the lines of what you've said too, for me, one has to approach such subjects with humility, tolerance, and a genuine desire to seek the truth. Whether theist or atheist, anyone who adopts an attitude of being in full possession of Absolute Truth, and that everyone should learn from them, really needs to learn some fundamental lessons... "They're stupid because they believe X," and so on. We cannot possibly hope to completely understand even one other human being or our own planet, let alone the physical universe or an all-powerful Creator, and to me it is arrogant in the extreme to think otherwise. It's also worth noting that I never cease to be impressed by how open-minded and thoughtful many within established religious groups can actually be, despite misconceptions.
You touch upon some good subjects. As soon as one group starts to feel superior or, vice versa, feels one particular group is inferior, this paves the way for all sorts of unpleasantness, to say the least. We must learn from history. This is why language about beliefs and/or believers, in terms of being stupid or the source of evil, can be very, very, very concerning indeed. Interestingly... what happens when one group starts to hear this? They feel threatened. And how are they likely to respond? They may well become more hardline, perceiving an external threat and looking for internal threats too. No surprises what can result from a cycle of suspicion and antagonism.
Actually, without going into a whole new story, this rather links back to the original topic of discussion... Similarly, as ever we're dealing with human beings all the time, regardless of what they believe, and we are all subject to human frailties. I'd argue losing sight of what one's religion truly stands for is necessary in order to commit atrocities in its name. But that's my opinion.
I'll round off my post by some comments made by a Sikh friend of mine. I've often felt that Sikhism seems to have a disproportionately large number of wise people within its ranks. My friend once said to me: "Oh, we have our fundamentalists too, any group does. They're very hardcore, they just don't know what they're hardcore about."
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