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September 12, 2006
Ed Brayton on Drawing Religious Battle Lines
One of the things that goes with having a blog is reading other blogs and one of the blogs I read every day is Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars. I often agree with Ed; I also often disagree with him. But even when I disagree, usually I am left wondering if my view is correct.
Ed's post today says many of the things I would like to say if I could write half as well as Ed can. Here's a sample,
I think we spend entirely too much time and energy drawing the lines in the wrong place. Too many people are focused on dividing us up into all the wrong groups. Humans are tribal by nature, I think, but as the world has shrunk we've developed the ability to form intentional tribes rather than tribes of necessity (family, village, etc). But we still tend to distinguish Us versus Them based on the most superficial of characteristics. The lines shouldn't be drawn between Christians and atheists, Jews and Muslims, and so forth; they should be drawn between the decent and intelligent and life-embracing people in every group and the bigoted, ignorant and reactionary people in every group.They should be drawn between those who treat others as equal human beings and those who treat others as pawns to be manipulated, commodities to be bought and sold, or objects upon which to inflict their need to make themselves feel stronger. They should be drawn between those who respect the right of each individual to own themselves and control their own lives and those who seek to use their power, individually or collectively, to deprive others of that self-determination.
There are a couple of items in Ed post with which I might take issue. For example, I think the case against theism is somewhat stronger than Ed thinks. After all, he is a deist. But I agree with him that it is just not very important.
I was once a Methodist and John Wesley is often purported to have said, "If your heart is with my heart, give me your hand." I think the actual quotation had a much heavier theological load but I always liked the sentiment and stripped of its theological connotations I still indorse it.
Posted by Duane Smith at September 12, 2006 9:11 PM | Read more on Religion |
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