Quoted for Truth

[salinea]

from a_white_rain, as "things that bother me in religious debate" and they do me, too:

• Western Christianity =/= EVERY RELIGION IN THE WORLD OMG. In fact, Western Christianity can be pretty diverse.



• Lets not throw Jews and Judaism under the bus by calling the so-called Old Testament God and evil dick without acknowledging the entire Hebrew Bible, which has more than Job as a story.



• The stories of the bible belong to three religions and a few others that don't quite fall neatly into the umbrella of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity and all of them interact with these stories in different ways. Acknowledging that won't kill you.



• Religion is about community and culture as much as it's about the social roles it plays in life. Religion has always evolved. Christians aren't being cowards when they don't take the book literally. Nor are they cherry picking. In fact, they're actually acting as earlier Christians and Jews did by not taking the stories literally.



• Not all religions have a central text.



• Not all religions are big on faith, much less the way Christians define it.



• Not all religions have a God.

Comments

[scriva.livejournal.com]

These are very interesting points. What often bothers me with regard to the last three points is the implied hierarchy of religion: shamanism and "nature religion" < minor religions with a "mythology" < The Big Fives (Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity) of which the "book religions" are considered the best.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yes, I definitely see that hierarchy and how nefarious it is. It's even written as such in some sociology/anthropology of the 19th which seem to have left a big influence on global consciousness long after they were discredited.