Today's Post from Freya Aswynn
Jan. 25th, 2008 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lwoodThe latest entry in Freya Aswynn's blog is one whose sentiment I can sort-of understand, but whose message I find rather disturbing.
Go. Read. I'll be here when you get back.
Calling on fear and mistrust of any religion is to call for fear and mistrust of others.
The statement that "Islamophobia is just common sense!" is a great way for someone else to point out, with arguably more justification, that religions that arise from any nationalistic tendencies should be feared, and that this is also "just common sense"--the common thread that should arouse enmity is not any one religion.
As to "but it's in their religion to" [fill in some kind of obviously unacceptable behavior]--well, all right. My religion--Freya Aswynn's religion--has rather a lot to say about the slender justifications one needs to take another's life. Our heroes are known best for the trail of dead left in their wake.
We are, however, hardly alone here:
Those other Canaanites didn't pack up and leave just because one collection of tribes known as Israel suddenly wanted to carve out their own chunk.
The Protestants and Roman Catholics didn't calmly and cheerfully hand England off between them like kids playing catch.
I think it breaks down to this:
The vast majority of human beings gets out of bed each day and decides, each one, not to be an asshole.
Wouldn't it be nice if more people did?
Reasonable accommodations on a per-religion basis aren't the beginning of the slippery slope to establishment of the shari'a in Belgium--reasonable accommodations for one up-and-coming religion, I firmly believe, are steps towards tolerance of, for, and by all.
And no creed has cornered the market on good, or bad, behavior.
It still comes down to getting up each morning and pledging, by whatever you hold holy, to remember as well as possible that you're not an asshole. This pledge is made in the full understanding that you will sometimes forget you're not an asshole, but one hopes, and pledges, nonetheless.
Thus endeth the rant.
-- Lorrie
Go. Read. I'll be here when you get back.
Calling on fear and mistrust of any religion is to call for fear and mistrust of others.
The statement that "Islamophobia is just common sense!" is a great way for someone else to point out, with arguably more justification, that religions that arise from any nationalistic tendencies should be feared, and that this is also "just common sense"--the common thread that should arouse enmity is not any one religion.
As to "but it's in their religion to" [fill in some kind of obviously unacceptable behavior]--well, all right. My religion--Freya Aswynn's religion--has rather a lot to say about the slender justifications one needs to take another's life. Our heroes are known best for the trail of dead left in their wake.
We are, however, hardly alone here:
Those other Canaanites didn't pack up and leave just because one collection of tribes known as Israel suddenly wanted to carve out their own chunk.
The Protestants and Roman Catholics didn't calmly and cheerfully hand England off between them like kids playing catch.
I think it breaks down to this:
The vast majority of human beings gets out of bed each day and decides, each one, not to be an asshole.
Wouldn't it be nice if more people did?
Reasonable accommodations on a per-religion basis aren't the beginning of the slippery slope to establishment of the shari'a in Belgium--reasonable accommodations for one up-and-coming religion, I firmly believe, are steps towards tolerance of, for, and by all.
And no creed has cornered the market on good, or bad, behavior.
It still comes down to getting up each morning and pledging, by whatever you hold holy, to remember as well as possible that you're not an asshole. This pledge is made in the full understanding that you will sometimes forget you're not an asshole, but one hopes, and pledges, nonetheless.
Thus endeth the rant.
-- Lorrie
