On Sun Jul 24, Jim Farmelant wrote:
> Perhaps you can do us the favor of citing some examples where religious
> listmembers were attacked on account of their religiosity.
I think this misses the point, Jim. You don't have to attack religious people personally to make them feel attacked. You can achieve that by attacking religion harshly in the abstract. Responding that no one has been attacked personally (which is perfectly true) is a little like fundies telling feminists or homosexuals that they don't hate them personally -- they just think their beliefs are causing disaster in the world and that if they had any sense they'd realize this and change.
I can't help thinking that some people get a real rise out of denouncing religion in much the same way and for much the same reasons as fundamentalists take pleasure in denouncing the godless: because it feels like action, and it because fires up the cockles of their faith. And they don't want to give it up. It's important to their sense of who they are. And this refusal to give up their pleasure they call principle.
It doesn't take that much to phrase our criticisms of beliefs with which we disagree in such a way as to acknowledge that the people who hold them have feelings and intelligence, and feel the same way about having their beliefs spat on as any of us do. They take it personally.
It may not be as much fun as giving our aggressive impulses free rein. But that's what civilization is all about.
Michael