Quote:
Originally Posted by scott snedeker
I feel that The biggest crime in the criminal history of the Catholic church is the persecution of one group after another for not bowing to their thought control. The religious right and orthodox remnants of these ancient sanctimonious predators carry on their forebears' barbary today.
I feel Giving attention to them is unworthy because it turns attention away from building a kinder world by opening hearts to those who also practice connection to unconditional love of self and others. And millions of those others are pagans, buddhists, hindus, reiki masters, and others.
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To defend the rights of Pagans, Buddhists, etc., we cannot take a head-in-the-sand attitude toward the religious right wing. It is necessary to educate the public about the threat that it poses. In my opinion we should avoid exaggerated rhetoric, but it's
not a good idea to ignore the religious right wing on the alleged grounds that it is somehow beneath us to pay them any attention.
Also we should not imagine that, by ignoring them, we would be starving them for attention, publicity, and power. Evangelicals constitute a vast, well-organized subculture. Evangelical leaders can easily get all the publicity they need within their own subculture, without any need for publicity from their enemies or from the mass media. Ditto for other branches of Christianity (and Judaism) that are part of the social base of the religious right wing. Most of the religious right wing's activities have taken place under the radar of the mass media, which generally pays attention to them only when either (1) they've won a major political victory or (2) there has been a scandal of some sort. So, by ignoring them, we would
not be weakening them in the slightest. We would be weakening
only our own side.