You can respect someone's right to believe...

[Silent3]

...without having to respect the beliefs themselves.

I'm not talking about party politics at the moment -- alienating the religious isn't smart strategy when we should be finding as much common ground as we can.

In the wider arena of public discourse, however, I think religion (and I'm using the word in a broad sense, not just referring to organized religions, but including everything from "personal relationships with Jesus" to New Age mysticism) gets way too much of a free ride.

Religious tolerance is an important civic value, and this is what that tolerance means to me: No government suppression of or special advocacy for any particular religious beliefs, no discrimination in housing or employment based on religious beliefs, a general civility and an attempt to get along between people of various beliefs (or lack thereof).

I don't think religious tolerance has to include, however, pretending that "it's all good". Tolerance shouldn't mean giving up the right to voice contentious opinions about what others claim to believe. Diplomatically or not, as the situation dictates, when it comes to, for example, the belief that 6000 years ago some all-powerful deity used a 600 year old man to build a big wooden boat and pack it full of animals, just so he could save a few of them from the wrath of His 40-day world-flooding temper tantrum... I'm going to say that's an incredibly simple-minded and ignorant thing to believe in. Why shouldn't I?

Why shouldn't public discourse regarding religious beliefs be just as vigorous as discourse regarding politics, including not only calm intellectual discussions, but, when appropriate, satire or even derision? Considering how much a person's politics is often governed by their religious beliefs, playing hands-off about religion seems to be a good recipe for providing some of the most ludicrous and/or offensive ideas an unearned safe haven.

If you're not going to offer up lame platitudes like "if it makes you happy", or "if that works for you" when someone's talking about unending tax cuts for the wealthy, why be so toothless when it comes to someone's religious belief in an Omnipotent Being bizarrely obsessed with whose body parts are allowed to touch whose, when, where, and how often? Especially when those wacky beliefs often have a major influence on the laws all of us have to live by?

[beam me up scottie]

1. What brought this on?

Something on DU or outside?

[Silent3]

2. Still slowly digesting...

...recent events like the Dover, PA "Intelligent" Design trial, all of those Texans so ape-shit crazy about making sure men don't marry men, and other stuff from DU a week or two ago.

[beam me up scottie]

4. SPIT it out!!!

It's poison, I tell ya!

You need to visit Landover Baptist Church!

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

[mrcheerful]

3. Thats the problem

there is no common ground with the christen fundies. They want everything their way end of story. They refuse to compromise or acknowledge another point of view if it goes against their beliefs. You are talking about the same mind set as those that blow themselves up to get their point across. To a fundie there is no I'll stay out of your business if you stay out of mine. They want to dictate what you see hear and think. To try to talk to a fundie is like trying to talk to a terrorist, they refuse to hear anything accept agreement that they are right and everybody else is wrong. The fundies want their religious sect to be placed in charge of american politics and want the law of the land to be based on their old testament religious laws.