Originally by: Ruze

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I'm one who likes to reiterate the lessons that religions are prone to be used by bad people to do bad things. None of the major religions are without fanatics and extremists, and all of them have a history of violence and murder.

And yes, I think Christianity is equal to Islam or Judism in many regards, especially to the point of the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of preachers who do nothing more than to build up hate and arrogance against the other religions 'of the book.'

In such, America is a fundamentalist Christian state, just like Iran is a Muslim one. Is there anything wrong with that? For the society of that country, no. But for an individual like me, who see's nothing particularly wrong with having a different sexual orientation, or being able to marry someone of the same sex, or who thinks that there is nothing evil about the human body and nothing perverted about someone being naked ...

I guess the gist I'm trying to get at, is that if I was in India, I wouldn't eat beef. And if I was in Iran, I wouldn't follow a woman with my eyes. And in America, we pretend to be 'free', and yet a woman can't breast-feed in public because it's somehow perverted and sexually oriented, even though that makes leaps and bounds over the mindset of the individual in my book.

I just hope, Spot, that you feel the same about hate mongering generated towards ANY religion, and not just Christianity. Because they are all demonized and degraded by someone.





To another poster, I agree that 'patriotism' is simply another means of asserting one's superiority over others. The easiest 'isms' are those we are born with, our sex and our skin tone. We believe that only the 'ignorant' would rely on these, but more sophisticated individuals will use their religion (as all religions seem to teach their followers the innate superiority of that religions belief over all others), their state, their ancestors and their nation.

We're human beings, and it seems to be a natural response to find ways to justify our own superiority over other, neighbor human beings. I have more money, I have white skin, I've got a d*ck, I have a bigger car, I'm a Southern Baptist, I'm taller, I'm in better shape, I'm younger, I'm from this side of the street, I'm from this state, I'm from this country, etc, etc.

These are the things and methods we use to define ourselves. It's a shame to me that this definition is also how we justify belittling others. Each day we convince ourselves that we are superior, and that the other guy is obviously LESS a human being than we.

- You are a woman, so you are weaker and I should make all the decisions for you.
- You are black, so you come from a poorer nation and I should make all the decisions for you.
- You are from Iraq, so you are from a radical Muslim nation that has a backwards view of right and wrong and I should make all the decisions for you.


You get my drift. How else would we justify pushing the rest of the world around? If we accepted that other human beings have just as much say in right and wrong, in good and bad, as we do ... well, that wouldn't work, would it? I mean, not everyone can be right, can they?

Personally, I have my own views and moral codework. Not everyone agrees with it, and that's fine by me. Cause in the end, I have to live my life, not yours.

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