Just for the record, I put myself in "agnostic", as in "I don't know". All the signs (starting with the various competing versions of religion) point, to me, to God(s) being inventions of man (to offer a convenient distraction from the fear of death), but I don't know for sure that there isn't an afterlife or a supreme being or whatever.
I consider religious faith to be a personal thing. If it is brought into the public, via political activity and institutions, it becomes criticisable as anything social and political, and thus I don't see why it should not be mocked, criticised or lambasted. Indeed, as leaders of influential (and influencable) flocks, religious leaders wield a lot of power and should be especially targetted for criticism and oversight by the opinions of others.
Publicly stated religious views are no more and no less respectable that any other opinion on anything. Therefore religious people should expect me not to go and mock or criticise them in their churches or homes, but not to not discuss or mock or ignore their church when it starts opining on what is proper or not in society. A religious opinion on what constitute offensive speech is just as relevant or irrelevant as what the socialists or Kate Moss or the national rifle association have to say on the topic. They are free to say they are offended, of course, and, just like anyone else, to go to court if they think the limits of decency or hate speech have been breached, but that's it.
I will not take the pope or the imams more (nor less) seriously than the head of a trade union or of an NGO or than another blogger.
And again, with their capacity to unleash violence onto others in the name of their Gods, which their follwoers seem to take so seriously, religious leaders should be particularly careful with their words.
God is just an opinion. How's that for fundamentalism? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
To me, all questions religious are pointless, because religion doesn't work for me, and the whole thing is a waste of time. I am not interested in art, so the only thing that I can care about is the interaction of religion with politics, where I have a very simplistic reflex: keep religion out, as it deals in absolutes, and absolutes are really dangerous in politics (the ends justify the means / you're with us or against us kind of thing).
So take all of what I write on the topic with that large grain of salt in mind. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
"for a time I had a God." "and you din't keep it?" "oh no, you must be kidding" "it was much too expensive to maintain" In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I think part of your problem, Jerome, is that you don't have contact with people who are true believers. I'm not talking about nominal Christians who might go to mass several times a year. No, I"m talking about people who really and deeply believe in some form of religious teaching.
In the US, for better or worse, one is much more likely to encounter people - at least abstractly - who are true believers. Indeed, my fiancees family is full of them. I think actually knowing this fact really will change your attitude towards people of faith. Once you come into contact with the reality of religious belief, you can't be so intolerant of it. Indeed, if I were to be, or liberals were to be, we'd be in for some pretty long years in the wildnerness.
