Sacred Exemption Revisited
Last week I posted some questions on whether religion should be exempt from critique and satirical commentary. My Facebook status update generated some interesting comments. The overall consensus was, yes, religion is fair game for critique, satire and debate. Now in all fairness, I suspect that most of the discussion was generated by folks who are not part of some organized religion. I’d be curious to hear from those who are members of a specific religion.
There were two discussion points that I found particularly poignant. The first was the idea that both the staunchly religious AND non-religious could be equally hostile and stubborn when defending their beliefs. Each side seemingly claims to know a certain truth and will unabashedly vocalize to the other side the folly and error of thinking otherwise.
The second was that there needs to be discussion/debate surrounding religion, especially in light of growing multi-faith societies and ever increasing global connectivity. As a religious scholar, I’ve visited many Web sites of both a religious and secular nature and the comment boards are often the most insightful sections of the site. If many of the comments are an indication of the state of religious discussion in mainstream society, then we’ve got a lot of work to do. Clearly, there are some huge misconceptions and sweeping generalizations that are poisoning these discussions.
As Rabbi Adam Jacobs summed up in his An Open Letter to the Atheist Community “We still have a lot to discuss. Let’s do it with a caring heart, and open mind and a spirit of appreciation for our shared humanity”.