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The prevailing wisdom on DU seems to be: the reason people are getting offended by the anti-Christianity comments is that their personal beliefs are being insulted. But to me it is NOT mainly about beliefs, it is more about identity. Look, I grew up in a very Democratic, blue-collar town. There was a strong "Old World" presence. Everybody was something - Ukrainian, German, Italian, Greek, Polish... And everybody was also some religion, usually one of the religions that falls under that very big umbrella called Christianity. There were Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, various Orthodox religions. No one would have identified himself as merely "Christian." People used these labels to identify themselves with one culture or another. Children at my school proudly identified themselves as Irish or Hungarian or whatever. They also identified themselves by their specific religions. There was never any hostility between the various groups. People were proud of their culture and their heritage. It was a rich multi-cultural area with lots of food and festivals celebrating this. If you quizzed most of the people there about how the beliefs of their religion differed from the beliefs of some other religion... well they could probably think back to their catechisms and come up with the general idea, but no one was all that concerned about it. It was about culture and identity, not beliefs. Most people attended church, and churches were important community institutions.
Now I live in a more "sophisticated" city. But a lot of the people here came from hometowns like mine. I know many, many people who are more or less atheist or agnostic in terms of their actual beliefs but who have not entirely relinquished the labels of their youth, meaning they do not consistently identify themselves as "atheist" or "agnostic." They might describe themselves that way in an actual conversation about religion, but a lot of times they will call themselved "lapsed" Catholics or Jews, or Presbyterians who "just don't go to church anymore". Even if they don't fully accept all the tenets of their childhood faith, they may still go to church on holidays, and they may still cling to other aspects of the religion.
On the other hand, I realize there are a lot of people in this country who didn't grow up in that sort of environment. There are people who didn't go to church or temple growing up, people for whom Easter and Christmas were merely secular holidays. And a lot of those people also don't have strong ties to their ethnic heritage. They may identify themselves as "your basic Euro-mutt" or simply "white." It may surprise some of you to know that as a child, I associated religiousness with the left wing, just as I associated blue-collar labor with the left-wing. Right or wrong, I tended to think of Republicans as wealthy and white -- with no further ethnic distinction and thus no strong religious association. They were "New World" instead of "Old World" and therefore they did not go to church.
My point is NOT that we should be more respectful of Christians because they might be only nominal Christians who don't actually believe a lot of the tenets their religion. And my point is NOT that religion is really the province of the left and not the right. What I want to say is that religion is much more complex and personal than many people seem to realize. It is not JUST about one's beliefs. And in many cultures, beliefs are not actually how they even define religion. For some, religion is merely a set of rituals and practices to be followed. Some religions do not consider themselves exclusive. For example, I believe it is possible to be Buddhist and also another religion. Sometimes religion is about identity, sometimes about principles and ethics, sometimes about just the emotional power of spirituality.
There are many different types of religions in this world, and many different types of Christians. MOST of the people in this country call themselves Christians. And yet 85% of people believed Congress was wrong to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case. What does that tell you? I do see plenty of insensitivity, hostility, and condescension toward religion here on DU, whether or not some people care to believe it. There are many atheists and agnostics who have seen it as well. Perhaps it is only a small minority, but they definitely make their presence known, and perhaps they appear to be a larger contingent simply because of their big mouths. But even some DUers who claim to be "tolerant" seem to me to have a condescending attitude toward non-atheists. I don't "tolerate" gays and minorities, for example; I VALUE them. I value cultural diversity. I value people of many religions as well as people of no religion. Some people act like religion is fine "as long as you keep it in the closet". I guess these are the same people who argue that the right-wingers in the French government were right in banning schoolchildren from wearing headscarves.
Proselytizing is another matter, but I honestly have not seen any proselytizing going on at DU unless it is atheists proselytizing to Christians. If people are harassed by religious people in their real lives, don't take it out on innocent bystanders here. I sometimes think Christians on DU are like the spouse and children who get yelled at at home because the other spouse had a bad day at work or got picked on by the boss. This is a discussion board for politics, and it is true that there is sometimes an intersection with religion. We're all sick of seeing threads discussing how Christians and religions are treated on DU, but people wouldn't be complaining if offensive and bigoted attitudes weren't being expressed. Is there ever a good reason to tell someone that their religious beliefs are "wrong"? Or that their religion is somehow deserving of less respect than others (e.g. "Christians asked for it by trying to ram their beliefs down our throats")? Is it really in the liberal spirit to mock someone's culture and assume that what may in actuality be a complex and nuanced philosophy and/or set of values is nothing more than a silly superstition?
When I see certain DUers mocking others beliefs, it really makes me feel like some of what Republicans say is true -- that we have become "elitists" who do not truly connect with a large portion of what used to be the backbone of the party -- minorities, the poor, the less privileged classes... all of whom tend to have stronger-than-average connections to religion.
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