Does living in a religiously tolerant society require that public displays of religious fervor become stigmatized?

Western society claims to be religiously tolerant while actions would suggest otherwise on a number of different levels. Religion v. religion, atheism v. religion is very heated, politics v. religion is huge. We’re not very tolerant of religion at all unless it’s our own, it would seem.

@Captain_Fantasy We aren’t killing people because of their religion. That to me is the definition of religious tolerance. We may argue, hold on to our prejudices, etc., but even Satanists are free to own property, do business, travel, whatever. Not so in all times and places.

I didn’t know we were talking kill-level intolerance. My answer is confined to social tolerance/intolerance.

It is because deep down inside it is forced.
You feel a need or a responsibility to be part of the fellowship.
You are behaving in a way you know is hinkey. Not that you don’t see a righteousness to it. But something is off.

If you discuss it. You will be put right back “on track” and back to your confused state.or be considered blasphemous.

I don’t think that your feelings of distaste have to do with religious tolerance in society.

I understand @Captain_Fantasy‘s demurral to the question. “Intolerance” is a heavily freighted word. It means everything from “I refuse to associate” to “I hunt down and kill” to “I can be killed by” whatever the thing is.

So maybe first we need to define the terms we’re trying to discuss.

As an agnostic / atheistic / Flying Spaghetti Monsterist, I take exception to most other forms of religion (including other flavors of atheism and FSMism), and I can argue forcefully but generally politely against almost any religious doctrine you can name. But it doesn’t mean that I’m “intolerant” of those people or positions; just that I won’t adopt that belief for myself without better counter arguments to mine.

To put it a simpler way: I absolutely loathe the New York Yankees, but without them the American League East wouldn’t be the best division in Major League Baseball, either. And I don’t much care for most rabid Yankees fans, but if someone were to invite me to Yankee Stadium to watch them be humiliated by the Boston Red Sox then I’d be sure not to miss the event. So my position might seem to be one of “intolerance”, but I guess I can tolerate the Yankees (and their stupid fans) as long as I want to enjoy Major League Baseball.

@stump define “religion”

No, it does not require that public displays of religious fervor become stigmatized. By me, anyway. I believe in an inclusive, tolerant society in the respect that I think all religions should be free to use public property to display their creches, crucifixes, Magen David Adoms, Crescent Moons, their spaggetti monsters, or whatever. Line ‘em up. I don’t believe one religion should have a monopoly on this and since they are taxpayers and this is public property, I believe all who choose to be included, should be. I don’t give a shit if it is garish, but I wish it wasn’t—but that is a purely aesthetic, subjective thing. I don’t like most of the architecture on public property anyway. I have no problems with other people’s religious beliefs until they use them to justify invading my personal space, my privacy, threatening me. or harming me in any way. That is when I introduce them to the Prince of Darkness. At this point, they invariably find that they have made a grave mistake, you see, because I am usually willing to go a lot further than they are because I have much less to lose.

There’s a big difference between religious tolerance and using taxpayers money for displays of a religion not everyone believes in. It’s not fair to promote one religion over the rest using the money we all provide to help support the government.

Who uses taxpayer’s money for these things? They pay for and set these things up themselves in my town and the towns around me. “It’s not fair to…” [EDIT. Excuse me. Bad, bad mood today. I apologize, Yarnlady.] I said that any religion that wants can do this. I sense something else going on with you Yarnlady.

Yarnlady, I assume you were talking more about displays such as the ten commandments at a courthouse, and less about displays like a Nativity scene on a church lawn, yes?

Tolerance without real respect is nothing but posturing.

With real respect for others, many if not most problems can be avoided or easily resolved.

@Espiritus_Corvus @laureth I am talking about the huge lighted Christmas displays that many cities have on the courthouse or in the public parks that are paid for in total by the taxpayers, including the electricity to provide the lights, and the manpower to maintain, put up and take down the displays. They insist that there is no religious connotation, they are ‘secular’.

I don’t mind my tax money going to the Fourth of July and New Year’s fireworks, and most of the other patriotic displays, but Christmas is still Christ Mass, and there’s no denying it promotes the Christian religion.

Sorry, I don’t see it that way. I think christmas has lost its religious meaning for most and the yule tree originally was a symbol of pagans, but don’t tell the christians that. I have no problem with my tax money being used to light up an ancient pagan symbol every year as it seems to make an awful lot of people happy; jews, christians, muslims, buddhists, pagans, etc. I personally don’t see the christmas tree as a religious symbol. To me it represents good times, family gatherings, etc.

You see, this crap to me has very low priority while we are draining the treasury into the pockets of private bankers through illegal bailouts, into the pockets of the arms industry through two illegal wars, while the people we elect work in the interests of corporations and not the electorate, that the sons of bitches who supposedly represent us arrogantly deny 50 million American men, women and children health care while they and their families enjoy the best healthcare in the world, for life, often after only four years on the job—on our dime.

As far as I’m concerned, compared to this, religious symbols on the courthouse lawn is a freaking sideshow issue for people who are afraid to confront the real problems this country has, such as the fact that the democracy has been stolen, while Americans sat mesmerized in front of their TVs watching American fucking Idol and worrying about things like which uninsured, underemployed, soon to be foreclosed upon, 401k robbery victim was going to put his goddammed star of david, or christmas tree, or crucifix or rotten pile of spaghetti in the town square.

Can you see how this might be a moot point when your very ability to change this though your vote is at stake?

All of our time would be much better spent right now on issues that unite Americans, not divide them, through the commonality and seriousness of the problems. The increasing loss of homes, jobs, insurance, pensions, and self esteem lost in this “recession” might be a good start. When one third more kids than last year are sleeping in cars on the streets with their parents and most likely not eating today—is it even fucking moral to worry about what we put in the town square at the end of every December? Did you know that 13% of the homeless nationwide work full time jobs but are still unable to afford both food and shelter in the places in which they live? That same statistic is 40% in my state, Florida. What is it in yours? That millions of Americans work 40 to 80 hours a week, but still can’t cover both rent and food costs and therefore require the assistance of one welfare agency or another to stay off the street? Do realized that, in this way, we the taxpayer are subsidizing the labor costs of corporations with healthy protflios? That this is corporate welfare, not charity to people who refuse to work hard for a living. Don’t you think that this is a much more pressing problem to discuss at Christmas time, or any other time for that matter, than how we will decorate our bloody fucking cities?

There is a coming battle and it has to do with whether or not we wish to remain victimized by corporations that have essentially hijacked our democracy, repeatedly robbed our treasury, involved us in two wars solely for the benefit of those corporations while our sons and daughters are asked to fight these wars and we are asked to fund them. How many of our Congressmen and Senators’ children do you think are serving in Afghanistan or Iraq? And how many of these bastards do you think have been busted for cheating on their taxes in the past 9 years since these wars began? Do you really think that the people who supposedly represent you in Washington are actually patriotic, that they work in your interests, that they work in America’s interests and not that of corporate interests—and that these corporate interests are not the same as America’s interests?

How about first concentrating efforts on issues that concern the codifying of individual rights for corporations, or bringing back the Fairness in Broadcasting Doctrine so that when your issue of religious symbols comes up in the media, that the opposition’s case isn’t presented unchallenged by a snide corporate media whore for days on end, coast to coast?

If you re going to bitch, bitch about something important.

@Espiritus_Corvus has several very, very good points. However, I don’t think Christmas has lost its religious value for some as much as one might think, since every year we are bombarded with “Merry CHRISTmas” and “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” comments. Christmas celebrated by religionists of a greater number shoving it down the throats of those of lesser number doesn’t unite everyone, it just unites the dominant group – the same group, by and large, that is effectively trying to perpetrate so much of what @Espiritus_Corvus is rallying against.

The rest of the rant is spot effing on, though, as far as I’m concerned – even the Iraq/Afghanistan shenanigans (at least one of which was started righteously) also help to distract from real issues. So do the abortion debate, gay marriage debate, welfare debate, and all that other background noise. On one hand, they’re all symptoms of the group(s) with the most power trying to consolidate power, but on the other, it’s all obfuscation.

@ninjacolin In this question I am talking about organized religion.

“with the most power trying to consolidate power”

You got that right!

@Espiritus_Corvus Can you see how this might be a moot point when your very ability to change this though your vote is at stake? Yes, I sure can, and you have made some very good points.

Forcing everyone to endorse and support the majority religion is exploitation and showing Jesus down the throats of everyone else.

In a period when politics is increasingly defined by religious marginalization of anyone deemed not sufficiently Christian or “right” thinking resembles too closely the rise of Fascism is Europe in the previous century.

It is not an issue to be ignored now. Later, there will be no change to speak out against it without risking deportation to “work camps” or “reeducation settlements”.

Freedom is not maintained by ignoring the human rights of members of minorities.

If we don’t demand that minority rights be respected, the minorities will eventually be declared enemies of the Majority.

The abolition of minority right under California’s Proposition 8 lead to similar bans on the rights of the same minority in other states. The trend to abolish existing right of other minorities will logically follow.

The growth of the “legal” and “illegal” Hispanic population will result in laws to restrict and control that population.

Racist backlash against the election of an African American President will result in attempts to restrict and control the continued rise of African Americans.

Acquired rights are the ones first taken away by a majority fearing the loss of their traditional control as their majority status is increasing viewed as threatened.

@Espiritus_Corvus‘s other issues require attention as well but not instead of the rights of minorities!

@Dr_Lawrence
You are right that the power of the Christian Fundamentalist Right since going nationwide during Reagan’s first election campaign is both frightening and dangerous, but I posit that they are dupes of the true enemy that I described above. My position is to make an end run and go after the true culprit, which is the corporate oligarchy that collectively has it’s hands around the throat of our nation. We need a concentration of effort to wrest back the democracy from the backers of the people you describe. I agree that we cannot allow things like California’s Prop 8 go unchallenged, but xmas trees don’t fall in that category. If you don’t like them, I think the smartest thing to do is what the Christians did, co-opt the bloody things. There are a lot of people like myself that already believe this has been done. I feel no connection to Christianity when I see a tree lit up with lights at Christmastime. This issue, in my mind—and I’m starting to feel a little lonely on this site concerning this issue—is about as important as the flag burning issue. It’s a distraction and I truly believe it is a provocation, with all the characteristics of a Rove campaign, to divide us and derail us from the true job at hand. And sadly, too many of us fall for it. We must pick our battles wisely in order to win anything back from these pricks.

@YARNLADY Thank you for your patience. I have been uncharacteristicly passionate lately, and I want to assure you this was a shotgun blast of frustration not necessarily directed at you. We were friends on AB, and I really miss the editing time we had there, especially in this case.

@Espiritus_Corvus No problem here, I’ve enjoyed the give and take here.

Jesus finds public displays of religious feelings distasteful as well.