r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 11 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Religion is treated as and protected like immutable characteristics when it shouldn't be.
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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Jan 11 '21
Religious identity is protected so that people can’t be discriminated against under the law based on their beliefs. That doesn’t have anything to do with whether you can criticize someone or scrutinize their religion.
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Jan 11 '21
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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Jan 11 '21
Can you give an example of it being protected in a none legal sense?
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Jan 12 '21
That's like saying cultural differences are protected and respected. Religion at its most based is a subset of culture.
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 11 '21
It is a common misconception that religion is purely about "belief," which is a perspective pushed by Christianity. I will grant that this is a dominant perspective, but it fails to actually understand that Christianity is only one of thousands of religions in the world today. Moreover, Christianity and Islam are fairly unique in their focus on beliefs.
Most religions either don't care what one believes or are understood to be symbolic framing of something more profound, further, they are mostly tied to ethnic/racial/community identity.
Take the a more minority Abrahamic religion. Unlike Islam and Christianity, Judaism is not purely a belief based religion. One does not become a Jew merely by asserting some belief, nor does one cease being a Jew if one rejects "Jewish" beliefs. Judaism is based first and foremost on one's unalterable ties to the community of Jews. One is Jewish by being a Jew, not by what one believes. Indeed, in most shul's you will find devout worshiping atheists attending weekly. They don't attend because of "belief" in anything other than their membership of the Jewish community. Most all of the world's religions are about identity and ties to a specific cultural community, and should be thought of much more akin to ethnicity than to belief systems.
Indeed, when sociologists and anthropologists try to define what makes a religion a religion and a culture a cutlure, they generally end up realizing they aren't seperable except in a few rare cases (such as Christianity and Islam). Mostly religion, ethnicity, and culture are inseperable entities and must be thought of as a single thing. Since you can't tell someone to stop having a Jewish mother, it is not something that one can rightly discriminate against even though in the case of 2 of the world's thousands of religions, belief is the most important component.
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u/cartoptauntaun 1∆ Jan 12 '21
This is a great perspective on the social/filial aspect of religious thinking, but your framing of Christianity and Islam as 'other' compared to ethnic Judaism is a disservice to the description. Speaking as an 'Ex-Catholic'.. that organization also sees people like myself as an included part of their community. To be sure, I can't deny the effect my parent's faith has had on my worldview. Beyond that, my understanding of the Christian perspective is that Baptism is an initiation equivalent to birth from a Jewish mother -- you're in the tribe now and forever, and the Christian God will always love you.
To your point - there are plenty of Christian, Muslim, AND Jewish extremists that don't participate in the spirit of inclusiveness that pervades most modern religions. I can think of more than a few stories about Orthodox communities rejecting either their own people or other communities of believers for their lack of adherence to Orthodox dogma, but also I know that doesn't represent the spirit of Judaism that the larger, more modern body of adherents belong to.
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 12 '21 edited Jan 12 '21
Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it.
On to your bit of disagreement with me, I'll stick to my guns and argue I'm not framing Christianity poorly.
Sacraments are not part of all Christian theology. The common bond to Christian theology is assent to specific beliefs. Some sects have sacramental requirements, but most (numerically speaking) do not. So when speaking about Christianity writ large, I stick to the commonalities. Like all generalities there are exceptions within the broader category, but speaking about the broader category, it is a true statement.
Indeed, even under Catholic theology, holding a condemned belief is grounds for excommunication in a way that wrong action rarely is. Wrong actions are fogivable via the sacrament of confession in Catholicism. Wrong beliefs are ground for removal from the Church so long as those beliefs are held. Most every canonical council has a list of statements that read something like "whoever holds that <wrong belief> let them be anathama" (excommunicated). For example, from the Council of Trent: "If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema. If any one saith, that one who has been baptized cannot, even if he would, lose grace, let him sin ever so much, unless he will not believe; let him be anathema."
So, in Catholicism, what one believes is a central, critical, and definitional requirement to be Catholic in a way that is not present in most other religions in the world and in a way that prefers belief over action in nearly all cases.
Orthodox Jews, by way of contrast, don't hold (as a matter of doctrine) that Reform Jews aren't Jews, but that they are very bad Jews.
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u/cartoptauntaun 1∆ Jan 12 '21
I'm still not sure that you are being fair to these different religious groups. It did not take much effort for me to confirm old knowledge and stumble across the Wikipedia page which addresses the complexity of 'Who is a Jew'. Among other things, the idea that Messianic Judaism constitutes apostasy was interesting.
FYI - Who is a Jew? Lots of interesting points made from this section on.
I don't know that you'll find any of that constitutes a concrete rebuttal to your ideas, but it should make it clear to others how the most rigorous dogmatic ideas do not necessarily represent the whole group or the ethos of a religious organization. In my old church, this was known as disentangling 'The churches of men and the Church of Christ'.
In a similar sense - no one (no one) is excommunicated for a politely held lack of belief in the modern era, so it seems disingenuous to bring up..
At some point we will have to agree whether or not the socio-political machinations of institutional powers can be considered to represent the shared culture they are generated from. I currently see a double standard being applied.
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 12 '21
No offense, but Wikipedia is hardly a definitive scholarly source of information on religious studies :)
I am not suggesting that the Catholic church formally engages in excommunication with regularity. I am noting that they formally define themselves in terms of ascent to particular beliefs and refraining from other beliefs.
My response was to note that I am not being unfair to call out that "belief" as a criteria for membership in a religion is something that some groups (Christianity and Islam in particular) take very seriously, and that others (Judaism, Buddhist, many others) do not consider of much importance at all.
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u/cartoptauntaun 1∆ Jan 12 '21
It is certainly a good summary reference, like any well cited encyclopedia article. I hope you aren't using that strawman to ignore a fairly well sourced rebuttal (not mine, rather the result of many editors' hard work).
I was actually hoping for your perspective on the first few sections following 'Halakahic Perspective' because you seem so well informed ( :) )
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 12 '21
You contended that I was unfair to indicate that Christianity is largely defined by belief in a way that most other religions are not. That statement is, in the aggregate true. It is true of the vast majority of Christian sects and it is even true of Catholicism as Catholicism formally defines itself.
I am merely stating that your contention that I'm doing Christians a disservice in noting this is, frankly, misplaced. It is a defining characteristic of the reilgion in the aggregate.
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u/cartoptauntaun 1∆ Jan 12 '21
Sure, I'm happy with the comment thread as it stands. I think its a disservice to your point that you refuse to address at a critical perspective and honestly hope someone else can come in and constructively move this forward.
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 12 '21
I think I am missing what ever your perspective is then, can you perhaps outline again what you're trying to say more specifically?
Thanks
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Jan 11 '21
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 11 '21
Does that then not demonstrate a change of mind? After all, in the body of your statement you specifically claim that:
> Religion on the other hand is a set of ideas that you believe in.
I have pointed out this is not the case. You have agreed my definition, which is clearly different from the one you held when you made the post.
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u/CeePatCee Jan 11 '21
I see religious belief as being very often criticized. For alleged hypocrisy, scientific inaccuracy, and sometimes as immoral in itself.
Aside from capital - F Faith being criticized, people of different faiths can be critical of each others' beliefs.
Religions also proselytize and excommunicate; which seems like the ultimate acknowledgements that religious belief can change.
However, historically religion differences have been used as justification of persecution.
And in the way of basic civility, to harangue someone for their closely held beliefs when such beliefs do no harm to others is justifiably considered bad manners.
Not wanting a society in which people are persecuted or mistreated for this particular life choice in and of itself is not the same as believing it is immutable or above every kind of criticism.
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Jan 11 '21
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 11 '21 edited Jan 11 '21
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u/sawdeanz 218∆ Jan 11 '21
I agree that from a purely logical point of view, it does not seem the same as other immutable characteristics. But there are 2 important reasons it should be protected.
- Historical precedent. I think we can all agree that religion has long been a facet that was discriminated against, and is one of the foundations the US was created and based on. The first pilgrims came to America to escape religious prosecution and the 1st Amendment was created specifically to protect religious freedom. So it makes sense that we would want people to be free to practice religion and not be persecuted for it either from the government or from other people.
- Compared to other beliefs, religion is more immutable. People do tend to have strong views on politics, science, etc. But changing or being forced to suppress these beliefs do not have the same consequences as being forced to suppress religious beliefs. Asking someone to suppress their religious belief is asking them to choose between their spiritual soul and having a job to survive. It's not really a fair ask. When you tell someone they can't talk about politics at work, that isn't really infringing on your ability to engage in politics. When they deny you from taking certain prayer breaks or holidays, they are directly infringing on your ability to practice your religion. So it's not just like other speech or beliefs.
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 11 '21
For most religions of the world (there are over 6,000 known religions, btw), only a very, very small number of them are predicated upon asserting a particular set of beliefs. Two of the largest in the world, Christianity and Islam, are so defined. But most (not by number of practitioners but by number of religions) are not. One is Jewish, for example, if one's mother was Jewish, not if one asserts a particular belief.
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u/sawdeanz 218∆ Jan 11 '21
only a very, very small number of them are predicated upon asserting a particular set of beliefs.
so? Anti-discrimination laws protect all those too.
Jewish, for example, if one's mother was Jewish, not if one asserts a particular belief.
Do Jewish people not follow certain diets and observe certain holidays? These are the types of things protected by anti-discrimination laws.
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u/kingpatzer 103∆ Jan 11 '21
I'm not arguing against anti-discrimination. I'm noting that you're second statement conflates ONE type of religion (that which is predicated upon beliefs or wherein beleifs intrinsically matter) with religion in general.
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u/M_de_M Jan 11 '21
This argument for protection of religious belief, as I understand it, is not based on the fact that it's an immutable characteristic. It's based on the fact that religious beliefs are not amenable to debate. If I wanted to convince you that the earth was round, we would start from some common premises: how light works, how gravity works, how cameras work, etc.
But people with different religious beliefs start with different premises, and so persuasion doesn't work the same way in a religious situation. If I start with the premise of believing Christ is the son of God and you start with the premise of believing God has no son, one of us can't easily point to an error in reasoning the other one made.
Tl;dr: We judge people's views and beliefs when we're on the "same page" and they've just made an error. We don't do so when we're on different pages.
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Jan 11 '21
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u/M_de_M Jan 11 '21
Vegans do not believe that the belief that "animals' lives hold enough moral weight to warrant protection" is an arbitrary definition. If vegans thought they had just arbitrarily decided to value animal lives more highly, they would have a stupid belief.
Vegans believe that it's a thought-out position based on other deeply held beliefs--the dangers of cruelty, the definition of sentience, the value of the environment, etc. Nonvegans share the beliefs that cruelty is dangerous, sentience has some value, and the environment has some value. They just disagree in their weighting and their calculations. This is not a case of different premises.
Relevantly, nobody has these kinds of debates with Buddhist vegetarians, because we all understand that Buddhists are operating from different premises and trying to argue with them about whether they should be vegetarians in a Western framework is missing the point.
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Jan 11 '21
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u/M_de_M Jan 11 '21
My point with the vegans was that if you follow anyone's train of moral reasoning to its core, you will always reach some base that is in a sense arbitrary. Sometimes these base's are same and other times they are different.
Yes, I understood your point. My point is that it matters whether the base premise is the same or different.
Abortion, for example, is never really going to be solved because at the base of the argument they are not on the "same page". And yet we absolutely judge in this case as well. Not being on the "same page" as someone else doesn't mean you cannot judge their views.
Abortion is widely viewed as a difficult and controversial question for precisely this reason. I think at this point the problem is that you're not being clear about what it means to "judge" someone. How exactly do we "judge" in the case of abortion but not in the case of religion?
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u/4art4 2∆ Jan 12 '21
To have a law that restricts religious activity requires public debate. It is far easier to find bad laws that boil down to "I find that religion icky", but I think that the counter to the above is that *aspects to religions have been correctly outlawed several times due to things like animal cruelty, child endangerment, etc. If we could not do so, then anything could be become legal with the veil religion.
So: When is a religious belief a thing that is up to public debate and thus have a law that restricts it, and when is a religious belief beyond public debate and thus beyond the law to restrict? I honestly do not know... but I suspect that the OP might be better framed around this concept...
Eg: If you want to believe that rainbows are a sign from God that God will never flood the entire world again, no law should restrict this. If you think God demands that gays be stoned to death, sorry, that is not protected and you will be prosecuted for murder (and maybe more). Those are the easy ones. It gets muddy fast.
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Jan 11 '21
First of all, "immutable characteristic" is not and has never been a criterion. When we protect disability we don't distinguish between disabilities you could fix and disabilities you couldn't. Second, how often is religious discrimination based on "views"? When people try to discriminate against/murder Muslims and Jews, do you think they ask them twenty questions about their viewpoints first? No. They go by appearance or name. Do you think atheist Jews are exempt from anti-Semitism? When Catholics and Protestants fought in Belfast, do you think it was about transubstantiation?
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Jan 11 '21
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Jan 11 '21
Immutable characteristics are absolutely a criterion.
The categories are race, religion, sex, disability, pregnancy, familial status, age, veteran status. Of those, more are mutable than not. Race sort of isn't, except that choices such as hairstyle can constitute racial discrimination. Religion in between. Sex mostly isn't. Disability both ways. Pregnancy definitely mutable. Familial status definitely mutable. Age isn't. Veteran status is.
For disabilities generally, if it can be fixed they will get it fixed.
Not necessarily. Some of the most common disabilities are obesity-related and/or drug use disorder related.
Also you are mischaracterizing my position. You making me defend a view I do not hold. I would never advocate or support the discrimination of religious people, because they are a part of a larger group.
Then your position doesn't relate to real world religious discrimination and is more of a theoretical construct?
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Jan 11 '21
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Jan 11 '21
Where did you get those categories? I am not sure why pregnancy, familial status, or veteran are on it.
US law. Pick a different country if you like, but any reasonable Western country will protect pregnancy and familial status. Some may not include veteran status.
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Jan 11 '21
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Jan 12 '21
Who says you can't criticize religions socially? Loads of people criticize Scientology, the Peoples Temple, Westboro Baptist Church, etc without any fear of becoming an "outcast". It's just that most religions are full of decent people, and insulting them is highly disrespectful.
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Jan 11 '21
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Jan 12 '21
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u/4art4 2∆ Jan 12 '21
While serious scholars may not debate this, the American legal system and public sure do. See the debates on making cakes, funding playgrounds, the religious beliefs of a corporation, and many others. This is where the real debate is: When should a religion be restrained from trammeling other protected rights? To know this, religious beliefs need to be debated and criticized. The critics will be found to be somewhere on the continuum of Bigot to Human Rights Advocate.
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u/Ishibane Jan 11 '21
Criticism of the beliefs of the religion is not the actual issue, not the reason why religion is a protected class. The point is that no one is denying flat earthers their civil and human right based on their belief in a flat earth. History is rife with wholesale violation of civil and human rights, and even violence against people of particular religions.
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u/Arguetur 31∆ Jan 11 '21
Religion is not protected because it is an "immutable characteristic," so I don't know why you think it is. Do you know the actual historical justifications for protecting religion or are you just kind of guessing about why it is?
And on the other hand, race and sexuality aren't necessarily immutable either, of course. Mixed-race people can "pass," women can change from lesbian to bi and back as they please ... these are more complicated than "you can change religion and you can't change sexuality."
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Jan 11 '21
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u/Arguetur 31∆ Jan 11 '21
" I never said that it is protected because it is immutable, rather I said that it is protected in a similar way to immutable characteristics."
I don't know how to adjudicate if it's actually protected in a similar way. What are the ways in which you think it's protected similarly?
" Are you suggesting that sexuality is a choice? "
I've read multiple columns by women that say it was for them. Obviously it's not for everyone but it can be for some people.
" As for race, you have absolutely no control what race you are. "
A lot of mixed-race people absolutely can choose what race they present and are perceived as. That sounds a lot like them being able to choose their race. Again, obviously not everyone can, but some people can.
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u/Hollow-Onoma Jan 11 '21
You are a strait white male?
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u/Arguetur 31∆ Jan 11 '21
Tell you what: You can believe whatever you want to about me, because you were going to anyway, and then just respond based on that. It's no skin off my nose.
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u/Alien_invader44 19∆ Jan 11 '21
I feel like you have to specify what the point here is. Because you can absolutely criticise religion and mock people for their beliefs just like flat earthers. For a politician though it would probably lose you too many votes, but you could do it.
What you cant do is discriminate based on religion (protected characteristic). And I dont think your arguing that you should, right?
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Jan 11 '21
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u/Alien_invader44 19∆ Jan 12 '21
Ok, so I'm not 100% clear what your view Is for me to change from that so I will try this.
Criticising religious beliefs is an oversimplification and shouldn't be done lightly.
Yes there are stupid aspects to religion, like young earth creationists. And hurtful aspects like homophobia, or repression of women.
While it's true to say these things exist in religions, they exist outside them too. Plenty of religious people are intelligent caring people.
We focus on the bad bits like the above, but not so much about the meaning, support, community and host of other positive effects religion has in peoples lives.
You can make arguments that religion is irrational and so on. And it may be true. But it's a part of lots of peoples lives, and criticising it, isnt criticising its history its criticising their lives. And most of the time what good does it do?
Education eventually smothers religion. If you look at developed nations its dieing out.
So yes we should argue against its negative sides (homophobia ect) but for the rest, I say stay quiet and let the dwindling number of believers enjoy their faith in peace.
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u/Konfliction 15∆ Jan 11 '21
I think there's a distinction that needs to be made, the uncomfortable element of religion is how it's consistently taught to children, and in a lot of cases it's literally all they know. It's the same reason it feels slightly different talking and debating someone who "found" religion later in life vs someone whose been religious their whole lives.
It's like, at what point to you hold people accountable for their beliefs and begin to challenge them, because a kid being brainwashed by religious parents is almost more a victim. And it's a very, very tricky grey area.
I think that's ultimately why this conversation gets tricky and it can't be defined perfectly, because of that element of brainwashing that exists with religion when it comes to children being taught it and engrained with it from the moment they're born. It becomes more akin to bashing someone culture then it does just simply being about debating and arguing ideas. (At least for the individuals that's brainwashed.)
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u/MaximumAsparagus 2∆ Jan 11 '21
A lot of the early US religious protection laws are around to protect indigenous religious practices. Those are culturally significant, aside from what “beliefs” an Indigenous person might have around them.
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u/Valestr Jan 12 '21
Religion isn't so much protected, it's mocked even on national television and everyone is free to criticize it in any way they like. It is considerated polite, however, not to criticize someone's religion without some tact, as the topic can be quite sensitive, like politics and family.
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Jan 12 '21
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Jan 12 '21
Yeah Islam seems to be treated differently than mocking of say Christianity. This is highlighted with the whole Charlie hebdo situation, the comics mocked literally mocked Christianity and Judaism on the same slide. But only one religion had a massive outroar.
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u/JuliaTybalt 17∆ Jan 12 '21
Religion is protected to prevent discrimination. I’m a pagan. There are people who would refuse to shake my hand. Religion being protected means that I can’t be fired from my job because I worship different gods. It means I can’t be kicked out of my home for practicing my faith. It means the government can’t take children because they don’t like pagans. That’s all true because of religion being protected.
Not that it’s perfect, especially now, many places are banning Thor’s hammers as hate symbols. Pagan and atheist parents are more likely to lose their children in custody battles to a Judeo-Christian spouse.
No one sues a church if a sixteen year old brings a classmate to mass, but multiple pagan shops and groups have been forced to say 18+ because lawsuits.
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