9/11/2010
Karl "Kid Don Cornelius" R. says:
This reminds me of another thread, Roma. But right I'm not going around attacking, say, Buddhists because I find their beliefs objectionable or funny. That would be disrespectful and they're not getting in my face about it. But if Buddhists wanted Canada to enforce some aspect of their moral belief by the power of law (or worse vigilante violence), they then bring their belief system to the public square. The belief system that informs the dogma they want the rest of us to follow then becomes subject to the broad range of the ways western society winnows out bad ideas in the market place of ideas. That ranges from sober, intellectual debate to biting satire to rap songs with obscene lyrics.
So lets say some religion says eating meat is an affront to the god they worship and Canada should ban the sale of meat because its immoral. Well, it's not immoral to me. I'd like to keep eating bacon. If the faithful want to obey their dogma, more power to them, but if they're trying to get a law passed and use their dogma as the basis for their claim then it's a right and even a duty to pick apart their dogma. After all, they're the ones who brought it to the public square. You can't bring an idea to the public square, ask the non believer to follow it, but then play the religion card claiming religion is the only idea in the market place of ideas that's immune from the burning crucible that is the market place of ideas.
So some christians think muslims, mormons, catholics, etc. are serving Satan. Some muslims/mormons/catholics think some fundy christians are serving Satan. The arguments they use to "prove" the other side is following Satan are the exact same arguments. Just cross out Christian and write in Muslim or vice versa. And frankly if these people want to burn each other's holy books I basically don't give a rats ass. Because each of those faith's do have adherents who do bring their dogma to the public square. Christians want their creation myth taught as fact in public school science classes. Muslims want the UN to pass blasphemy laws that make disrespect of Islam, and only Islam, a world crime.
The only thing that would make me give a rat's ass is if some act of interfaith cock blocking would surely cause the deaths of innocent people.
