Posted by Steve-
I'd like to answer a question raised in response to Brandon's ealier post. What do we think about cultural distinctions in general (Black, Italian, etc.). Becoming integrated in, influenced and molded by a culture is an inevitability, and in fact, necessity of human development. There is nothing wrong with speaking French if you were raised by French speaking parents or in a French community. What is inappropriate, and what is promoted by the dogma of religion, is the idea that our cultural preferences represent some sort of concrete reality, that the way We do things is fundamentally correct. When a Catholic refers to the saving grace of Jesus Christ son of God on high, and truly believes in this reality, the cultural issue arises. Either he must reject the reality that had he been raised under different circumstances (say the son of an Orthodox Jew)he would believe otherwise or he must admit to naivite on a grand scale: "I realize that, had my parents been Muslims I'd be a Muslim and reject Christ, but lucky me, my folks got it right!" (Further, he may want to ask what those poor saps who happened to be born prior to the rise of Christianity did to deserve missing out on the grand revelation [the Christian God is supposed to love all his creations equally]).
An analogous situation would be the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry. Is it reasonable to be a passionate alum who boos the other team and scorns their symbols? Sure. Is it reasonable to truly and honestly hate another person, or believe that one school is fundamentally inferior to the other? No. For in the latter circumstance, you fail to realize that, had you been born on the other side of the border, the coin would be flipped. I should point out, however, that this is not a direct analogy, for the Universities of Michigan and Ohio State represent concrete, verifiable realities. On could point out, for example, that Michigan Stadium is lager than Ohio Stadium.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
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2 comments:
Let's take the Um/OSU rivalry analogy one step further. Each side has it's own interests, and was willing to fight for those interests. Let's say that the city of Toledo was up for grabs, and each side wanted it. They would fight over this land and there would be conflict. This sort of thing has happened all over the world, and religion may have had nothing to do with it. For instance, say the Palestinians were palestinians by culture and hardly religious. The same for the jews in Israel. Yet, they would still fight over land that is in their best interest. My point I'm trying to make is even in the abscence of religion, there are still massived divided among the people of the world that can and will manifest as war.
You are right to point out that doing away with religion will not do away with war. We haven't claimed that. However, the difference between religiously motivated conflicts and secularly motivated conflicts is that in the former case, compromise is impossible. The Palestinians do not want Israel for cultural reasons anymore than the Jews do. Both want that particular area of land because within it is a city that their respective gods supposedly promised them. Considering the fact that god has neglected to settle the conflict himself, it is doomed to continue ad infinitum. Secular motivations can be analyzed and found to be reasonable or otherwise. If I choose to kill someone because I don't like the way they looked at me, the rest of society is free to condemn my justification. However, if I commit the same act of murder because god told me to, who can condemn me without simultaneously condemning this idea of divine revelation. My point is: without religion, men will still do evil, but they and they alone can be held accountable.
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