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njlauren -> RE: "Religion will become as unacceptable as racism" (3/23/2014 8:24:32 PM)
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Getting away from same sex marriage and homosexuality (which despite what the idiots in the Vatican and Bishops thought for the past 30 years, is not a major point of being Catholic, as Francis is now saying) and the original point, it isn't that religion will be equated with racism, it is that religion that proclaims the ultimate truth and refuses to believe others have truth, or throws out reason, or otherwise claims only they know the truth and therefore should be considered the true voice of God that will be, and for the same reason.
Racism isn't mere prejudice, though it is prejudicial, racism is a series of constructs that argue that one racial group is superior to others, and that as a result the 'superior' group has the right to maintain a position of power over other groups, and they need to necessarily kow tow to the superiority of the other group. Jim Crow is a perfect example of it at work, and those who practiced it were willing to go to extremes, including killing people, to terrorize them into falling in line.
Now let's look at true believer religion. The Catholic church through the dark ages was much that way, which led to things like burning Bruno at the stake for proclaiming the universe was made up of stars and we were but a planet, Galileo being arrested for saying the church's idea of the universe revolving around the earth as the sun does, the various wars between Christian sects in the various religious wars, the inquisition, the crusades, all of them were the equivalent of racism, they said we are the truth, the power and the way, obey us or die. The various protestant spin offs weren't much better, the Anglican church prosecuted anyone not believing as they did, including in the colonies where evangelicals like Methodists and Presbytyrians were harshly dealt with, not to mention the Puritan.
Later on you have the fundamentalists, who claim truth through the literal word of the bible, and to this day spend a lot more of their time demonizing those who don't believe as they do and trying to force society to adopt their beliefs. They believe their religious faith is the true on, and they damn anyone who doesn't believe it. More importantly as with Jim Crow, they keep trying to use the law to enforce their beliefs, whether it is school prayer, whether it is trying to get evolution removed from the schools and or teaching 6 day creationism as science, or censoring school books that dare criticize what the US has done, since the fundies believe the US was created by God and nothing it ever did therefore could be wrong; or the idiots, not surprisingly in Texas, where the fundies through the GOP tried to get critical thinking focused education banned, because it challenged "long held beliefs".....it is racism, except instead of race, it is religious belief used as the focus. The leaders of the US catholic church are like that, where they have turned Catholicism into being anti gay and anti abortion, and pound away at that and trying to use their perceived power (which in reality is bupkus) to try and kowtow others into following their wishes......
I don't think religious belief is dying, I think that what is happening is that the true believer style of religion is dying, and every evidence is there it is. Young evangelicals strongly dislike the negative tone of their elders and think the whole religious right/alliance with the GOP is dead wrong, that it corrupted their faith, and they also don't need to force their faith on others, they generally aren't as excited about prayer in schools or having the 10 commandments on courtroom and school walls, or beating people up over being different.
Catholics for the most part pick and choose what they wish to believe, there is a huge gap between most Catholics and the morons pete the polish prince and Der Pope put in power, 60% of Cathlics support same sex marriage, 80% regularly use birth control and a majority of Catholics are pro choice on abortion, despite being personally against it. Mainstream protestant churches have become more liberal, where the ones with the true believer mentality leave or splinter off. More importantly, of people who say they believe in God, a large percentage of them (I think it is roughly 70%) believe that their own faith tradition doesn't have all the answers and listens to what other traditions have to say. The fastest growing group of religious people is not mega church types like the Rick Warren school of things, it is those who say they don't practice a particular faith but work on it personally based on a variety of teachings. That is heartening, because that is the antidote to the harms of some types of religion, the 'religious racism' so to speak, when you find truth in all teachings, you tend to realize that no one has the corner on truth, and you stop trying to force your beliefs on others or use it as a weapon or stand on street corners yelling at people cause they are going to hell cause Jesus aint their buddy.
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