I think all religion, by it’s very nature, is exclusionary. It sets up a dichotomy between the “saved” and the “non-saved” the “chosen” and the “non-chosen” the “believer” and the “non-believer” the “enlightened” and the “non-enlightened” etc. It has to in order to work, otherwise the whole thing would be meaningless. What would be the point of being a Christian if it’s not to save your immortal soul? This implies that those who are not Christian are not saved and their soul is in danger. Without that implication, religion would be pointless. If Christianity wasn’t exclusionary, then it simply wouldn’t matter if you were a Christian or not. And the same goes with every single religion.
Does every single religious person in the world make that distinction consciously? Of course not. But the whole principle of religion is based on exclusiveness, and it’s at the core of the belief systems. If it weren’t then there wouldn’t be religion. And because this is the core, then things like what the OP brings up about the fatal flaw of Christianity and Islam is perfectly legitimate. Not only is perfectly legitimate because religion is necessarily exclusionary, but also because they believe it is a requirement to convert and “spread the good news” to as many people as possible. If they don’t they are failing their God, and the people who are “outside” or who are the “other” will be appropriately punished, and either way, not be in God’s presense for all of eternity.
I’m glad to know that someone knows more about my religion than I do. Tell me, what is the meaning of “saved”; it’s not something that has appeared relevant to anything in my faith in the past. How about “chosen”, what significance does that have? Is there some meaning to being a “believer” other than having a particular set of beliefs? Is believing something inherently exclusionary of people who believe other things, and what does that say about the choice to buy brown eggs? And that whole “enlightenment” thing, that sounds like counting coup by satori, which seems to be missing the point some.
Or maybe what I have isn’t a religion again. I suppose I should be as used to that as I am to not being female.
I think you missed the poitn of my post. Some religions are based on who is Saved. Some based on who is CHosen. Some based on who is Enlightened. Then I added an “etc” because I don’t know every World Religion, nor do I pretend to. I grabbed examples from Christianity (which is the whole point of Christianity), Judaism (because they are God’s Chosen People) and Enlightened (because that’s the whole point of Buddhism.)
I didn’t specify a religion, did I? But religion is based on the exclusionary principle. I stand by that, because as far as I can tell, it’s true. If it wasn’t there wouldn’t be religion. By being a member of a religion, you are setting yourself apart from other people, establishing that they are different from you, in such a vital way that makes it necessary for you to be in an organization that doesn’t include them.
It’s not limited to religion. Political Parties work on the same principle. If you are Republican, you are defined by not being a democrat. If you are a third party, you are defined by not being Republican or Democrat. If you are Christian, you are defined by what Christianity is not (Jewish, Muslim, etc). We’ve seen it in this thread! “A true Christian would never…” “My religion would never…” “That’s not what my religion does…” A true Christian would never uh (randomly pick something to prove a point)…own a slave. Therefore, you are excluding all people who do own slaves as not being part of the True Religion.
Violent Christians are set apart from the Infidels, but that’s not good enough. Within religion, there must be further degrees of seperation, until we get to “True Christians” who are defined by whatever “false” Christians are not. And so on and so on.
Everybody wants to belong somewhere. In this case we are talking about religion, but it can be anything from school clubs to politics. In order to “belong” to a group though, there has to be a definition those who don’t belong, or the group won’t be special.
ANd I have no fucking clue what you mean by your last comment. I’m sure you are a lovely female.
I think there’s a lot to be said for the “you’re painting with too broad a brush” scenario, Even Sven, but you do have a point. Some Christians and some Muslims do behave as you posit. Others do not (and generally get reviled for their “lukewarmness” by the positive-they’re-right fanatics). I trust I won’t be considered anti-Semitic for pointing out that in addition to the gentle and well-spoken Jews of this board, there is also the Jewish group self-designated as the Kookists (don’t laugh; it apparently has a different meaning to them) who seem to be fanatical bigots.
Mangetout’s diagnosis would seem to be on target, if it too weren’t a little too broad-brush.
pepperlandgirl is arguing a position that seems equivalent to the claim that holding any opinions, beliefs, or preferences at all is setting oneself apart from other people and establishing that they are different from you.
I’m a member of a couple of groups that involve people who keep reptiles. I consider it necessary to be a member of those groups because they potentially have information that’s useful to me as a person who keeps reptiles. I don’t expect that people who neither keep reptiles nor want to keep reptiles would want to be included in such a group, because they would have no interest in that information.
I’m a member of a couple of groups that involve people who are not monogamous. I consider it pretty important for me to be in those groups, not only for the support of people-like-me, but also because I have experience and suggestions to offer within that context to people who might well need them. I wouldn’t expect that many monogamous people would particularly care about the difficulties of ethically handling more than one partnership.
I’m a member of a group that’s working on assembling the third edition of a book about the Boston Red Sox. People who aren’t willing to work on writing for the book are not included in this project. People who don’t have at least a basic interest in the subject are not included in this project. People who cannot spell or put together a coherent sentence in English are not included in this project.
I have a hard time understanding how a group of people interested in that Jesus guy or that Mohammed guy or in discussing what Hashem wants or what have you is fundamentally different. Yeah, there are some people who think that everyone should be a part of their group, whatever their group is, or who think that their group is superior to other groups. That’s a people thing. People do it for religion, yeah, but they also do it for baseball. And some people don’t care about other people’s groups, and that’s also a people thing.
People by their very nature are cliquish and exclusionary. Try wearing Red Sox garb in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium some time. It’s completely irrational, but there it is. Just another piece of evidence, IMHO, that our much-vaunted intelligence is awkwardly draped over a lot of unexamined pre-cognitive primate underpinnings.
Capitalism and Communism share a flaw that causes violence in this world.
That flaw is that in both of these worldviews, there is no room for the other. It is not legitimate to be a democratic socialist. The only purpose that democratic socialists can serve is to be educated. Short of compliance, there is no place for them in the world economy. Capitalism and Communism look down on societies that practice barter economies, and because these societies are primitive, almost any degree of violence is considered acceptable in the quest to “civilize them” In some cases, this is straighforward. For example, many Capitalists will overlook Castro’s despotism because they believe that the easing of sanctions will liberate Cuba(for American capitalists). Most of the time it is more symbolic- like our insistance that we are “saving” Kuwaiti women from Sadam.
