Grumpy "Religious" Observation

[minoanmiss]

As so often in US-based discussions, "Religious" means "Christian" means "Catholic and certain kinds of Protestant", sigh.

I have read several discussions recently of this form.

Person A says something associated with certain kinds of Christianity, such as "God wills it that you hire me for this job" or "I'm concerned for your immortal soul" or "unlike false idols I worship a true God."

Person B visibly twitches, says, "Religion shouldn't be part of this disussion," expresses concern about where else Person A will inject their beliefs superfluously, etc.

Person C says "They just made a statement of their personal religious faith! That has nothing to do with anything else they might ever do or anything anyone has ever done in the history of anything!"

I am annoyed with all the Persons C I keep seeing. (Also, needless to say, with A, but if you know my particular religious journey you could guess that.)

Human pattern matching has gotten a bad rap recently, because it often does leads us to false conclusions ("This woman I know is bad at math so The Female Brain is incapable of handling mathematics") but sometimes, especially in matters of patterns of behavior, it leads us to useful ones. If someone starts quoting the Evangelical Playbook, with which I am sadly familiar, why shouldn't I expect them to keep on working from further pages including the homophobia,sexism, and religious bigotry chapters? Or at least why shouldn't I be wary?

Comments

[dine]

very true, though in the past few decades, "Religious" seems to have devolved into mostly being the evangelical sorts of Protestants, for whom no one else (of any other belief - or no - system) counts

[oracne]

This.

[lunabee34]

Thirded.

[minoanmiss]

Ugh, did they explicitly tell you that as a child? They told me so as a child "Catholics are actually pagans, only fundamentalists are actually listening to God.."

[lemonsharks]

I got that too.

[dine]

I grew up Catholic, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear that tosh once I was grown (of course by then I'd wandered far from the church)

I think it's all the saints - they're just jealous that we've got so many people listening, and interceding *g*

[minoanmiss]

As an exvangelical, I can confirm they're jealous. :D

[lunabee34]

Yep. I grew up being told that Catholics were not Christians, that they worship Mary, and that they don't even mention Jesus in their worship services. Many Baptist churches have missionary missions specifically to convert Catholics in foreign countries who they don't consider Christian.

Imagine everyone's consternation when I married into a Catholic family and my parents had to revise all the bullshit they had believed. To their credit, they did eventually revise it, but it was a long an arduous process for them.

[amaebi]

The A types quite often say things like "abortion is a sin and all abortion should be illegal," a policy statement with large, sharp, and fetidly infected teeth behind it.

Policy statements aren't just statements of personal political faith. Same with all normative statements enjoining other people's behaviour, whether by prescription or prohibition.

That listeners might associate other fundamentalist catchphrases with explicitly political ones is far from unreasonable.

[sovay]

Or at least why shouldn't I be wary?

It certainly makes my tripwires go off.

[sabotabby]

You should totally be wary, yes.

[cellio]

On human pattern-matching, I think it's fair to draw a distinction between traits that are innate and traits one chose. While one is typically raised with certain beliefs (whether religious, political, or social) and those beliefs have the incumbent advantage, a thoughtful adult can reassess. So I don't fault a child for following the playbook, but once someone is well into adulthood, doing so is a choice and challenging it is fair.

Not necessarily fruitful (for your own sake, choose your battles), but fair.