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Christians, lions
Apr. 5th, 2009 10:47 amI just wrote a lengthy comment about religion and human nature over on Askville. Earlier, I'd pointed out that wearing a blatantly atheistic t-shirt was likely to get get the wearer beaten up and bullied in schools in some parts of the USA.
[An atheist I know wrote:] "Heh.. because that's typical christian behavior, when they are in power or outnumber others."
Actually, that's typical human behavior under those circumstances. We see some of the worst behavior from Christians here in the USA because they're in the majority. So we tend to assume that it's Christianity itself that is to blame for that arrogance.
But other groups behave in much the same way, if not worse, in those areas where they are in the majority. The basis can be ethnic, religious, racial, or other; as long as human beings can categorize some other group as "other", many of them will take that as a license for all sorts of bad behavior. It's a rare group that doesn't fall into that trap.
( Read more... )
Sorry, I've kind of gone off on a tangent. My original point was that while many right-wing American Christians are arrogant and dictatorial, it's probably not fair to ascribe that to their religion itself. Rather, it's a reflection of basic human nature...as well as poor education and upbringing, at a guess.
[An atheist I know wrote:] "Heh.. because that's typical christian behavior, when they are in power or outnumber others."
Actually, that's typical human behavior under those circumstances. We see some of the worst behavior from Christians here in the USA because they're in the majority. So we tend to assume that it's Christianity itself that is to blame for that arrogance.
But other groups behave in much the same way, if not worse, in those areas where they are in the majority. The basis can be ethnic, religious, racial, or other; as long as human beings can categorize some other group as "other", many of them will take that as a license for all sorts of bad behavior. It's a rare group that doesn't fall into that trap.
( Read more... )
Sorry, I've kind of gone off on a tangent. My original point was that while many right-wing American Christians are arrogant and dictatorial, it's probably not fair to ascribe that to their religion itself. Rather, it's a reflection of basic human nature...as well as poor education and upbringing, at a guess.
