Intolerance of Religious Intolerance

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I am not sure what bothers me more; religious intolerance of secular beliefs, or intolerance of religion for its own sake. In this regard, I am quite neutral on issues of theology. While I maintain as rational a position as I can on the unknown, I am also not as likely to dismiss something simply because I can not physically touch it. I am agnostic to religion, but also to atheism. I see neither as right nor wrong, simply two systems of belief that can potentially coexist. Dismissing other perspectives off the cuff is a display of ignorance. 

Unfortunately, there are those in both camps that seem determined to position themselves aggressively toward anything that differs from their own position, never giving in to even discussions about positions or ideas that differ from their own. Tolerance does not imply acceptance of diversity, but it is a good start. 

Evil begets evil. 

There are parallels in the political sphere here as well, with the devout left- and right-wing followers believing that theirs is the only true faith. This is why I tend to be agnostic not only toward faith, but toward top-down social systems as well. 

Society can thrive in absence or abundance of faith, but faith can also be used as a weapon to destroy diversity and beauty in the world, and there is a history of such tragedy. As one political ideology after another professes to be the one true social faith, we need to remember that only by promoting voluntary society can we realize the same sort of social harmony that sometimes exists theologically. 

Aloha From Hell

Richard Kadrey gives insight into an alternate creation story, one far more raw and grity, in his Aloha from Hell, the third installment in the Sandman Slim series:

"You can’t be subtle when you’re dealing with a Kissi, even their leader. And he’s the least psychotic one of the bunch.

　　The Kissi and I have one major thing in common. We shouldn’t exist. We’re both part of God’s Misfits of Nature traveling show. When the Big Bopper created angels at the beginning of time, he fucked it all up. The blowback from conjuring all those angels created both angels and their opposite. The Kissi. They don’t live in heaven with Daddy, but way out in the boiling chaos at the edge of the universe.

　　In their true form Kissi are fish-belly white and have a faint bottom-of-the-ocean-fish glow. They look like a cross between a regular angel and a six-foot-tall grasshopper dipped in wax and left in the sun to melt. If you’ve ever seen one, that’s enough to last a lifetime, and I’ve seen a whole world of them. That was back when I destroyed their Honeycomb Hideout way out in the ass end of Chaosville. Yeah, it’s hard to justify trying to kill off a whole species, but they were collaborating with Mason in his plan to take over Hell and then the rest of the universe. So basically, fuck ’em."

College Rape and Religious Apologists

"President Obama recently announced an initiative to curb rape on campuses across the United States. It is a well-known problem that rapes and sexual assaults that happen on campus are often handled in-house, without police interference. Often, there is little to no punishment for the rapists, and their victims are made to feel shame and guilt for reporting at all. 

Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians often hold up these kinds of stories as examples of how “the world” is corrupt. Christian colleges bank on the idea that they are safer because they are a faith-based environment—the sexual sins of rape supposedly don’t happen on their campuses. 

A number of recent revelations have proven this assertion wrong. From Bob Jones University to Pensacola to Cedarville to Patrick Henry to Hyles-Anderson College, Christian colleges are plagued by accusations at once familiar and strange: College counselors asking rape victims leading questions about their potential guilt, a lack of reporting to authorities, and failure to punish the rapist are all problems known to those who study incidences of rape at colleges and universities. 

But in the Christian environment, the fundamentalist theology surrounding sexual activity and purity creates another layer of shame and guilt. A theology that positions the colleges as better and safer than their secular counterparts also creates an environment in which a person coming forward about rape risks being seen as “impure” and “broken.”"

More: http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/04/christian-colleges-often-advertise.html

Freedom and Power, Balancing Faith and Truth in Liberty

From the introduction to Essays on Freedom and Power,  Lord Acton:

The differences between Acton and the conventional Catholic liberal like Maritain — to say nothing of the Ultramontane Manning — are significant even on the basis of Acton's early articles. In his later work the differences are much sharper and the points of contact between the two are fewer. Acton considered that he had “renounced everything in Catholicism which was not compatible with Liberty, and everything in Politics which was not compatible with Catholicity.” The sentiment is pious but unpersuasive. Another of his maxims may be cited against him: “We may pursue several objects, we may weave many principles, but we cannot have two courts of final appeal.” In fact, when the two conflicted, Acton set liberalism above Catholicism, and this was more and more true as time went on.

We should all seek to place truth ahead of faith, even the devout among us, for we might reach an equilibrium between the two, and peaceful coexistence which promotes liberty for and from religion and the state.

Freedom and Power - Religion and the State

From Acton: Freedom and Power:

Catholic persecution, Acton argued, had had a practical motive; it had been based on the idea that dissent threatened the moral fabric of Christian society.

From that idea, Acton's view applies equally to both state and religion in terms of coercive social order. They are one in the same. The protestant movement sought to force religion and compliance to it upon the individual through the state and law.