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FuzzySkinner posted:My question is..when do they stop being such a major influence in parts of this country and when do we see them treated like religious fanatics of the past? (IE Salem Witch Trials, etc). Never. In time, their beliefs will shift and they'll move to using religion as their excuse to be conservative assholes about some other set of social issues.
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Apr 9, 2016 22:58
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HappyHippo posted:Um not really. Their religion absolutely plays a role (although some of the more cynical leaders might just be using it as a tool). To say that religion has no role in shaping the worldviews and ethical beliefs of ultraconservative evangelicalists is ridiculous. It goes exactly the opposite way that you might expect, though. They don't believe things because of their religion, they use their religion to protect their beliefs. One has only to look at how much the awful beliefs people held in the name of religion have changed over time. A hundred-fifty years ago, the Bible Belt believed that black skin was a curse visited by God upon Africans for Biblical sins and basically obligated white people to deprive them of their freedom, and that the US had the God-given right to take all of North America for itself and freely rob anyone in its path. A hundred years ago (and even much more recently), they considered interracial marriage to be a sin and said that segregation was a divinely-ordained part of God's plan. It's local culture and tradition being taught with and masquerading as "religion", the recasting of hatred as heroism (i.e., "I'm not pro-segregation because I hate black people, I'm just trying to do God's will by protecting the divine gift of purity of race that he bestowed upon white people"), combined with a healthy dose of "you might disagree with us but you can't disagree with God - checkmate, you lieberal commie scum  ".At the same time, it's not like all racists were evangelicals or even religious at all, either! The scientific racism that got real big in the early-to-mid 20th century was full of smug atheists, and the eugenics policies they inspired were at least as bad as anything the evangelicals were doing at the time. HappyHippo posted:Edit: also seriously? If someone is brought up their whole life being told that gayness is sinful, and they hate gay people, you think that upbringing didn't cause the hate? They're just intrinsically an rear end in a top hat? No, but I don't think "upbringing" necessarily equals "religion" either. If someone grows up being told by their parents and their teachers and every other adult authority figure in their life that minorities are inferior, then sure, they'll probably grow into an adult who believes that minorities are inferior...but that's not a sincere religious belief, it's just plain old indoctrination, something that even atheists are hardly immune to. At best, it's an aspect of the local culture, not the religion. It's not something that sprang forth from the Bible, it's a local custom that they associated with the Bible because they saw education as something that Bible-centric. MaxxBot posted:There's clearly something special about evangelical Christianity with regards to their views on homosexuality and sexuality in general. With many other denominations of Christianity or other religions there's not such a strong association with anti-gay beliefs. Correlation does not equal causation. In this case, I suspect the correlation is due to other demographic factors - evangelicalism in the US is deeply associated with particular demographics and regions, and I suspect these regional and demographic differences are responsible for those numbers - something that also impacts the other religions listed. For example, in both images you posted, American Jews are by far the most supportive of gay marriage - but they also tend to live in liberal New England cities, are very religiously liberal and consider themselves culturally Jewish rather than religious, and have lived in the US for at least a generation. If their views on gay marriage were purely due to religion, the high level of support would show elsewhere as well, but Israeli Jews have a much lower level of support for gay marriage, with only 59% being in support of either gay marriage or civil unions. Part of this is due to Israel's considerably different demographic makeup from the American Jewish community; the support in Israel appears at first to be divided pretty cleanly among demographic lines, but those religious divides actually line up pretty well with demographic divides as well (to paint with an incredibly broad brush, immigrants from Europe, America, and the Soviet Union tend to be less religious, while immigrants from Africa and the Middle East tend to be more religious). It also ignores local political issues that aren't a thing in the US, since religious organizations in Israel wield a certain amount of civil power that they are absolutely loathe to surrender to the government. In other words, poo poo's way more complicated than "Jews hold this political position, Christians hold that political position". And anyone who thinks Muslims have a monopoly on modern-day religious extremism have clearly never even heard of the Haredi.
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Apr 12, 2016 16:51
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HappyHippo posted:2) Culture, tradition and religion are intertwined, and you can't tease them apart so easily. "That's not religion, that's culture" is nonsensical, religion is an aspect of culture, it can easily be both. If religion can't easily be separated from culture and tradition, but is just an aspect of those two, then how can you say that these beliefs are specifically coming from "religion"? This is particularly the case when different cultures that share the same religion believe different things - it's awfully hard to blame the belief that's different on the religion that's the same, rather than on the cultural differences. On the basis that they believe it because they've been told to and because it's socially expected of them, rather than out of a sincerely-held faith. Take, for example, the abortion debate. There's plenty of anecdotal pieces like The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion that point to the number of pro-lifers, many of whom are evangelical or born-again Christians, who seem mostly concerned about justifying it to their parents or avoiding being ostracized from their church group, rather than fearing divine punishment.
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Apr 12, 2016 19:27
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HappyHippo posted:Your argument is based on the false premise that just because two people are Christians they must share the same religious beliefs (or be the same religion). There's a wide variety of belief that falls under the umbrella of "Christianity." "Christianity" is a taxonomic label that describes religions sharing a belief in Jesus, don't confuse it with the actual beliefs of the various groups and people who fit that extremely broad definition. It looks like you're falling into the trap of trying to figure out what Christianity "really" is, and then defining it broadly enough that you can blame basically every aspect of any US or European culture you don't like on it.
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Apr 12, 2016 20:50
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HappyHippo posted:So are (for example) transubstantiation and purgatory not religious beliefs now because not every Christian believes in them? Or does this argument only apply to religious beliefs that make you feel uncomfortable? If you point to one group that believes in purgatory and another group that doesn't, and say that the group that believes in purgatory believes it because they're "Christian", that would be wrong - since some Christians don't believe in purgatory, obviously some other factor besides Christianity is far more directly responsible for the belief in purgatory. It would be correct, on the other hand, to say that the group that believes in purgatory believes in it because they're Catholic (I assume, anyway). fspades posted:I'm not interested in comparing bigotry-midichlorians of self-described religious people. Rather I'm interested in why people do political acts that they describe as religiously motivated, and surprisingly enough, it turns out there are specific religious doctrines and traditions behind them. No amount of playing demarcation game with politics, culture, norms and religion will change the fact that the anti-LGBT Christians in America have pretty specific religious justifications they derived from long-standing Christian teachings. I don't see how understanding those teachings is a waste of time if you care about the issue. There's always specific religious justifications derived from long-standing Christian teachings. That's something that goes back literally more than a thousand years, dating all the way back to probably the first time a religious institution wielded governmental power (or vice versa). People had specific Christian teachings to point to as justification for slavery, they had specific teachings to point to as justification for colonizing the West and kicking out the Native Americans. You name it, someone's used the name of God to justify it. Even when it's a genuine belief that divine providence favors whatever they think is right, it's often not really derived from religious conception; for instance, there's plenty of Victorian accounts which end up so wowed by the impressive grandness of their army/ships/political party/whatever that they decide such a powerful and organized whatever could only be a sign of divine favor and approval in whatever they were already planning to do with all that power, and then later on when some naysayer says a mean thing in the socialist papers they go digging for Bible verses to back up their feelings as they write a grandiose speech about it. Rejecting change in favor of tradition is literally the definition of conservatism, so it's not shocking that conservatives tend to appeal to traditional values, of which religion tends to be one. Evangelicalism in particular is popular among conservatives because the born-again narrative is all about recognizing the sin in your life and turning away from it to reinvent yourself as a more moral person, and fundamentalism was basically the direct product of rural distrust for city intellectuals and their newfangled progressivism.
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Apr 13, 2016 01:53
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vessbot posted:Would it be correct to say that they believe in it because of their religion? I think it would be more correct to say that they believe in it because authority figures told them to throughout their childhood. I don't think purgatory is the sort of thing devout believers end up having big positive revelations about. rudatron posted:Any definition of religion that involves the practicing community necessarily means that 'religion' cannot be cleanly separated from 'politics', therefore handwaving away any possibility of one informing the other is misguided. Even if you believe that they're 'misusing' scripture (what exactly constitutes misuse as opposed to use is debateable), you're still admitting that the religion and the bigotry are codependent structures - the bigotry needs the religious covering to protect it from criticism, which therefore makes it an functional part of the perpetuation of the bigotry. Sure, but declaring that a relationship exists and that religion plays a part in the structure that they contextualize their beliefs within is much, much different from saying "they believe those things because of Christianity", a statement which displays an incredible lack of nuance.
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Apr 13, 2016 14:06
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HappyHippo posted:Nobody is saying Christianity automatically makes you hate the gays, they're saying religion plays a role in the beliefs of the Religious Right. Do they have any evidence beyond "well, that's what they said and clearly no one has ever lied in politics"? Because I'm saying that no, religion has not been shown to play a meaningful role in the political beliefs of the "Religious" Right, something that should be utterly obvious from the existence of people who are of the exact same religion but do not share those political beliefs. fspades posted:If bigotry comes from something that has nothing to do with religion, why do these people feel compelled to express their bigotry in religious terms, with arguments backed by (however flimsily) scripture and tradition? Is it just because it gives them spiritual authority to push their cynical political agenda? Because freedom of religion is written into the Constitution, and as a result of that, there are already certain exceptions in both discrimination law and discrimination caselaw for explicitly religious institutions under certain specific circumstances. The precedents suggest that something as broad as the laws being passed now still wouldn't pass the laugh test in a courtroom, but at least it's a legal argument (even if it's a weak, thinly veiled one) nominally based on fundamental US law, whereas "I want the ability to discriminate against LGBT people because I hate them" doesn't have any legal basis at all to point to. The religious freedom argument is an attempt to pretend it's not just all about hate, while simultaneously giving it a constitutional justification that the right can point to so when it inevitably comes crashing down they can blame evil activist liberal justices destroying our good old AMERICAN values, and feed their persecution complexes from multiple angles at once.
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Apr 13, 2016 16:27
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HappyHippo posted:Two people can have the same "religion" with two different beliefs that are nonetheless religious. I don't know how I can put it any simpler. So why are those beliefs different? Is it because of the religion? That seems unlikely, since they have the same religious beliefs. It seems far more likely that the difference in their beliefs is caused by some other factor that has nothing in particular to do with their religion! Your claim that two people who hold the same beliefs on thing A and different beliefs on thing B must necessarily draw their stance on B from their shared belief in A is utterly senseless, and I can't see it as anything other than an attempt to handwave away far more important variables so you can blame things on religion. blowfish posted:So why have special exemptions for religious institutions in the first place? Just because you have a very strong belief in something even in theory shouldn't mean you get to oppress other people over it. Because the Constitution and the Supreme Court both said so. To quote a 9-0 ruling from 2012, "requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs", which the Court went on to say was a clear violation of the Free Exercise clause and the Establishment clause. If you're asking why freedom of religion from governmental interference is in the Constitution, well, you really ought to know the answer to that.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:10
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vessbot posted:It can be breathtaking to see the contortions people will twist themselves into to avoid unwanted implications. Like failing to come to grips with religious doctrines like transubstantiation and purgatory being based on religion. The problem is when you try to stretch that to the point where you could proclaim white supremacy as "based on religion".
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Apr 13, 2016 20:45
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HappyHippo posted:It's possible for two people to have two different beliefs on a religious topic, and for both of those beliefs to be religious in nature and sincerely held. There are literally thousands of examples of this. It's also possible for two people to start from the same premises and reach a different conclusion. That happens all the time, on all kinds of topics, religious or not. It's like you're some kind of robot. "Two people read the same book and reached different conclusions?! DOES NOT COMPUTE" The question is why they hold those different beliefs and why they came to those different conclusions. The answer is because they interpreted that information through entirely different worldviews, which were created by different cultural surroundings, upbringings, and formative experiences. That, not religion, is the cause of their views and conclusions. ToxicSlurpee posted:In one sense that's true but laws against murder, assault, stealing, fraud, and so forth cross an extra barrier; these are actions that involve actively harming somebody else and even then you can get into some suggestions. What about laws against, say, public intoxication or sleeping in public? Nobody is necessarily being hurt there, but many communities have decided that certain things (or people) are icky or distasteful and should be banned from public view even if they aren't actually harming anyone. Anti-LGBT laws typically much more resemble those kinds of laws - ones intended to discriminate against populations seen as undesirable and force them to change their lifestyle or get out. Keep Autism Wired posted:I've wondered where this "religious right" phenomenon comes from where Christians (especially in the south) are super into regressive republican politics. Isn't christianity supposed to be all about helping the poor and needy, welcoming people, forgiving people, treating people well, and all that? Since the South and West were historically poor, uneducated, had low population density, and a poor relationship with higher government, churches typically acted as both community gathering points and cultural centers. As a result, a lot of social stuff tended to happen at the church, and the religious happenings in a town would often shift to reflect social and cultural changes and movements. This isn't unique to the US South, either - religious trends worldwide tended to follow cultural and philosophical movements in the region, though there was some cross-pollination between areas. For example, take the Social Gospel and liberation theology, two Christian movements very centered around the helping the poor and working toward social equality. The former originated in the industrial slums of the early 20th-century North as a reaction to the poverty and need there, and preached labor rights and unionization, free housing and healthcare for the poor, and subsidized education for everyone. The latter arose in Latin America during the Cold War as a reaction to the brutal hyper-capitalist right-wing dictatorships, and similarly sought to help the poor and fight for positive social change. On the other hand, Christian fundamentalism arose from the rural areas and frontiers, and reflected the cultural values of the area and time - such as a rejection of fancy-pants science and liberalism, an ambition to bring about a better and more pure Christianity to reflect the superiority of America's democratic government and its great destiny to own the whole continent, an intention to spread local moral beliefs such as temperance to the whole world, and a particular hatred for minorities and other "other" demographics. Religion is often (if not always) just a mirror that reflects the cultural values people already hold, except with a halo painted on top.
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Apr 19, 2016 21:12
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MaxxBot posted:First of all those laws are usually enforced when someone is doing something that could be viewed as "harm" like being belligerent drunk in public or sleeping in a public park. Second of all you're comparing a group of people, LGBT people, to actions done by an individual. I think laws like those are probably unneeded and should be enforced in very limited situations but they're certainly not comparable to anti-LGBT laws. Wrong - the point of those laws is to criminalize undesirable groups (such as alcoholics and homeless people), and enforcement varies widely by jurisdiction and minority status. For example, in Texas, the laws are broad enough that police can go into a gay bar and arrest anyone who catches their eye for vessbot posted:But worldview, cultural surroundings, upbringing, and formative experiences are cornerstones of religious practice and mindset. They're largely the same thing, not a contradiction. But plenty of people in this thread are saying it all comes from religion! Yet when I suggest that maybe it's one of those many other cultural factors in people's lives, the response is that religion is one of those cultural factors and that there's no way to know which cultural factor is responsible so we can't rule any of them out. And then a few posts later everyone's back to blaming religion specifically while totally ignoring the existence of other factors, and the circle starts all over again. Can't have it both ways, it's not logically consistent.
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Apr 20, 2016 15:13
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