In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city became the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council. They viewed the power shift and diversity as a meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
Dude I don’t want an any religion majority council.
Whatever happened to separation of church and state?
mad
i think this line of thinking is easily the least useful anti-theist critique you can make of religion. even if we dispensed of all religion, spirituality, and superstition, most people would still be fundamentally irrational actors. religion might influence the ways in which they are and how that practically manifests—but let’s be clear, most people do not even come close to having a coherent moral system or set of beliefs and that wouldn’t even if you made them blank-slate irreligious people. the problem you are describing is not a religious problem, and it would exist even if we had no religion.
EDIT: fyi this post was attached to something previously but something fucked up happened so it’s totally context-less now lol. upvote if you will but this makes no sense in the context it’s now being displayed in
religion is what gives them cause to act on their shitty way of thinking. It gives them an excuse that they can then go to sleep thinking they’ve done right.
Without religion society would come down so fucking hard on them for their shitty ass views… Sadly lots of people are religious so even those that don’t agree, agree that it’s against god or w/e stupid ass shit they come up with.
you’re just describing being an asshole here, which is not religion exclusive. how would your point—which appears to be this is some unique property of religion—reconcile someone like Mao Zedong? Mao was not a religious person in any meaningful sense of that word. he renounced Buddhism and was basically an anti-theist (and/or at least an atheist) for most of his life, and in fact presided over one of the largest systematic destructions of religious heritage in modern history during the Cultural Revolution.
Sure, people of all types can be awful, but there’s definitely trends within an organizations history from which a larger effect can be seen. Religion isn’t needed to be an asshole, but the venn diagram overlap is rather large. If you’re looking at things structurally, religion is often used as a tool of population management and often times goes hand in hand with imperialism. Everything from the Kamloops massacre and genocide to the undertones of homophobia in dancehall music often times comes from religious values imposed by authority figures.
Sure, there are philosophies such as liberation doctrine and the like that seek to make religion as a means to lift people from oppression, but if you take a large look at the effects of organized religion, that is very clearly the exception to the norm. Organized religion is often used as a structural hierarchy to dictate and govern morality, which is why it shares a lot with authoritarians that want to set up strict hierarchies of other means.
Theres ways to practice religion in non-assholish ways, but the religion itself, especially those with more organization in their structure, absolutely to spreads hate and vileness
well currently in the US religion is fighting progress and religion is what half the bills in Texas that just passed were based on. Abortion is sceince, but religion is what has caused it to lose legality. Religion ignores science. Same thing going on with climate change… religion says humans aren’t doing this… Science disagrees, but here we are.
So yeah religion is the thing. not just being an asshole. It’s written into the various religions (who all think the other is wrong by the way) that this is the way to be. To deny science is the right choice of action for them.
“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”
Let’s see what happens when this Muslim majority council calls for solidarity against discrimination of Muslims.
People victim of discrimination based on religion deserve to be defended. At the same time this council deserve to be recalled they were threatening others’ right not too long ago. A little shaming won’t hurt and hopefully would make them rethink their stance.
A recall is necessary but I highly doubt anything will be learned. Religion fosters absolutist-type thinking, and expecting Muslims to be an exception to this just because Christians don’t like them is absurdly silly.
Not all Muslims agree with them, of course. These are conservative Muslims. “Rights for me and not for thee” is a right-wing trait, regardless of religious belief or heritage.
We can say “not all” about basically anything. Doesn’t change the trends
Demonising entire demographic groups gets people killed. The salient point is their conservatism, not their religion.
I’m not demonizing anyone, I’m reiterating a common trend in followers of Abrahamic religions.
The vast majority of religious people are ideologically conservative though.
I don’t think that’s true? It might be true of USian Christians because the Christian right has run riot there for the last 40 years. But I don’t think it generalises?
There is a Christian right in the UK but they’re not really that prominent outside of the Northern Irish context (where they are sadly all too prominent). I think most British people would associate Christians with feeding people, and cardigans. Our Christian churches are mulling over whether to perform same-sex marriages, not trying to ban them for everyone.
And the UK Muslim vote is firmly on the ‘left’, of course. But I don’t know how that breaks down by heritage vs belief (or centre vs actual left).
I’m not exclusively talking about the USA. I live in the UK myself and I still think that most religious people are somewhat conservative. Doing charity doesn’t make you not right wing, in fact some would argue that charity is a right wing concept because right wingers believe that things like feeding the homeless should be done by charitable individuals and organisations, rather than it being something that the government should be fixing (like many left-wing people believe).
There are many different flavours of conservatism, not all of them are rabid screaming morons who publicly admit to their bigotry, many are much quieter and subtle.
Never trust someone religious. By definition they are ruled by fairy tales, and that’s not a rational approach to living.
The same is true for ideologies. It’s the same irrational approach imo.
Depends on the ideology.
also depends on the religion.
I honestly can’t think of a single organised religion that hasn’t had atrocities committed in its name (or encouraged adherents to commit atrocities). A lot of unorganised religions and spiritualities also encourage/require some abhorrent shit too, such as genital mutilation or the use of human body parts in certain folk magics.
Unitarian Universalists. Quakers. Zen Buddhists probably?
Wow what a shock, religious people using it as an excuse for their bigotry? Who could have ever guessed that this could happen!
“Same bigotry, different religion”
Religion-driven identity is literally toxic to humanity.
