RE: Religion's affect outside of religion
September 22, 2015 at 8:47 am
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 8:48 am by Regina.)
I think religion has such strong effects on wider society because of the demand that everyone respects it. This doesn't so much apply to Christianity (outside America anyway) than it does Islam these days. It still affects everyone because we can't have a serious and candid discussion about these religions without being shot down as bigots for it.
You also have to understand that these are religions which hold political power, and with this comes an ability for the clergymen of these religions to influence policy that affects everyone. For example, the fact that euthanasia is still illegal in the majority of countries is because we have so many sadists out there who want to talk about some "sanctity of life". That "sanctity of life", naturally, has to extend to people of other faiths or no faith too. They have power to do that because we have to respect their religious beliefs.
You also have to understand that these are religions which hold political power, and with this comes an ability for the clergymen of these religions to influence policy that affects everyone. For example, the fact that euthanasia is still illegal in the majority of countries is because we have so many sadists out there who want to talk about some "sanctity of life". That "sanctity of life", naturally, has to extend to people of other faiths or no faith too. They have power to do that because we have to respect their religious beliefs.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
