Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and his religion?
In article ,
gregpresley wrote: "Bill Oliver" wrote in message If the best you can do is deny that a parable is a parable in order to promote your bigotry, I suggest you take your irrational hatred elsewhere. billo Bill, I have no problem believing that much of the Bible was written in the form of parables. You cannot imagine the arguments I have had with fundamentalist Christians when I have suggested that the creation outline of Genesis, could, without loss of religious significance, simply be interpreted as a parable intended to show that God took a personal interest in the development of life on the earth. THAT way of looking at Genesis was never acceptable to them. Their response was inevitably that the creation story is meant to be read as the literal "truth" and as the only valid "scientific" explanation - and internal inconsistencies, such as the two completely different and mutually incompatible explanations of the creation of man are glossed over with far-reaching and unconvincing semantic gymnastics. It creates a problem for those of us who are not hostile to Christianity, but who would like some acknowledgment that religious issues and interpretation are not always matters of black and white, right or wrong, my way or the highway. The problem is not that you have issues with some fundamentalists. The problem is that people pretend that one, usually incomplete and inaccurate, view of fundamentalism represents all "Christians." The same people are quick to point out that such generalizations are wrong for other things -- that anybody who sees all Moslems as fundamentalist islamofascists, or all African-Americans as pimps and crack addicts, or all Jews as money-grubbing bankers are acting like bigots -- are equally quick to embrace bigoted characterizations of Christianity. In fact, Christianity, because of the inherent ambiguities I mentioned, covers a profoundly broad swath of belief. People who opine about fundamentalism forget that it is a *reactionary* belief in opposition to Protestant Christian liberalism that formed the mainstream of the early 20th century, and that fundamentalism even in itself, covers a broad range of belief. I don't ask that you ignore real differences you have with certain kinds of fundamentalism. As a mystical Christian, I also have a very hard time with certain tenets of it, and they with me. What I ask is that you do the same thing that any enlightened person should do with any broad heterogeneous group. Recognize that it is broad and heterogeneous. Holding up a crack whore and claiming that she represents all women, or all members of her race, or all members of her social class, or all members of her political affiliation -- **or all members of her religion** -- is simply a bigoted generalization. I don't know anything about you. I don't know your religion, your sex, your race, or where you live. But I bet that I could find an asshole of any such, and pretend that it represents all people of your religion, your race, etc. Would it be correct for me to do so? People who blather on about Christianity, who drag up pronouncements from a thousand years ago, who want to characterize modern Christians by stories from half a millenium ago, who pull out bad examples and ignore the millions of counterexamples are simple bigots. billo |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Newbie needs help with his Bay Tree and Blackcurrant bush | United Kingdom | |||
HeartofTN.net allows users to harrass religion Jabriol feels panic - someone may call his KH..... | Ponds | |||
Bush and his religion? | Texas | |||
The Intersection of Science, Religion, Mysticism and Philosophy | Plant Science | |||
Science and Religion | Plant Science |