Yes, I'm Christian. This article is written from a Christian perspective. If you'd like to debate Christianity or religion in general, shoot me an email and provided it's civil and readable I'm sure we'll have a long and interesting discussion, but as far as this article is concerned, read it in the context I'm writing it in.
The major failing of almost every religious disagreement is that every side inevitably assumes that the other side shares their perspective; that their opponents at some level intrinsically "know" the same things they do, and share the same opinions, but deliberately choose to be contrary.I can of course only speak for Christianity, but even in that focus there are more than enough examples to prove my point. I want to take a look at some of these examples, starting inside the church itself and working my way out.
Conservatives
This is a nice simple one to start with, because there are very few people in the world who do not have someone more conservative than them. For the sake of this argument, let's talk about those with conservative Christian beliefs. Political conservatism is far too complex an area for me to even begin to go into.
Everybody, I suspect, has met someone they consider "prudish". An older relative, perhaps, who looks disapprovingly at any skirt above the knees, or shakes their head at a girl giving her boyfriend a peck on the lips.
To the younger generation, they seem prudish. The natural assumption is that they are "anti-fun", that hey feel the need to spoil what is perfectly morally acceptable to satisfy some mysterious inner need.
In reality, of course, it is very different. In the environment they grew up in, what we call "hotpants", "short shorts", while not even notable to us tidy, would have been equivalent to girls going out around town in their underwear. To them, it is scandalous - and rightly so, on some level; it would have been, at their age.
Liberals
Much the same applies to liberals; not much more need be said. To me, hotpants are in no way notable. I know one or two rather conservative girls who are quite happy to walk around in rather short shorts. It's no more notable to us than the display of wrists or ankles in public - a terrible thing in 17th century Europe - is to the older generation.
Homosexuals (and LGB-friendly Christians)
Anti-homosexual Christians have a nasty tendency to demonise their opponents, based on a simple difference of opinion. To them, homosexuality is a sin, and to many of them it is for some reason a truly terrible sin, somehow worse than many or even all others. They also almost invariably hold the opinion that homosexuality is a conscious choice. Therefore, to them, allowing homosexuals into the Church is allowing people who deliberately commit a truly abominable sin to describe themselves as Christian.
More progressive Christians range from accepting homosexuality to simply not making it an issue, regardless of its status as a sin or not. The distinction is not important here; suffice it to say that they accept homosexuals into the church. To them, the "antis" are placing a huge amount of emphasis on something that does not define a person's life or religious standing. They may know the seriousness of their opponents' beliefs, but they act as thought their opponents are deliberately placing too much emphasis on something, as opposed to it genuinely deserving that emphasis.
Abortion
The main point of contention in abortion is the question of whether and at what point a zygote, blastula, trilaminar disk or foetus is a human being. If the blastula at 2 weeks is a human being with human rights, abortion is undeniably wrong; if it is a philosophically meaningless collection of cells, abortion is perfectly okay.
Oddly enough, although this is the main point of the abortion debate, the loudest voices on both sides almost completely ignore it. Pro-lifers (anti-abortionists) view and invariably portray pro-choicers (abortion supporters) as deliberately and knowingly murdering a (small) human being, when the pro-choices simply believe that they are neutralising a small collection of cells.
Pro-choicers, generally being by nature more logical in approach, are less inclined to errors of perspective, but many of them believe, on some level at least, that pro-lifers are fighting desperately to place the rights of a small collection of cells over the rights of a living human being (the mother).
Of course, neither side feels how the other side portrays them. That's one of the biggest problems.
Atheism
Christians - particularly fundamentalists, but all Christians on some level - have a tendency to view atheists as knowingly and deliberately rejecting the love of a caring God. I can't really blame them; although I know on a logical level that it isn't the case, part of me wants to arrive at the same conclusion, on a purely emotional basis.
As Christians, we all have our own tangible experiences of the love of God. In fact, in a way, our entire life is an experience of the love of God - more tangible at some times than at others. But an atheist does not - or at least, does not recognise it. The are not intentionally rejecting anything - to them, there is nothing to reject.
By contrast, of course, many atheists believe Christians to be credulous or foolish, precisely because they lack the awareness we have come into - often with great difficulty - of the love of God for us.
Satanism
Satanism is a dubious and sensitive topic, but I believe it's a topic that needs to be discussed, especially in this context. While I personally have no doubt about the "wrongness" of Satanism, it is hugely misunderstood by Christians in general, and this misunderstanding means that rather than making inroads in fighting it, we tend to end up looking like fools instead.
Christianity's view of Satanism is uniform: The deliberate betrayal and abandonment of Good and right in favour of worshiping an acknowledged figure of evil. In terms of Christian philosophy, that is precisely what Satanism would be; but as you may have guessed by the rest of this post, Satanists view things somewhat differently.
Satanism is nowhere near as homogenous as Christians imagine. In fact, there are (very broadly) three vastly different categories or types of Satanism, so different that I have to discuss them each individually.
We'll start with the one which I think conservative Christians - especially conservative Christian parents - are most likely to encounter (and actually notice). I don't think it has an official name, so I'm going to call it Stupid Teenager Satanism. It's not a religion, it's not a philosophical viewpoint, it's a series of stupid, rebellious life choices made for no other reason than to get under the skin of parents and society in general. It's a problem, certainly, and a problem that needs dealing with, but it is in no way an actual philosophical viewpoint - at most, it is a subversive social phenomenon on par with finding meaning in supporting a particular obscure musician - and has no place in a serious philosophical discussion.
The next kind of Satanism is called atheistic Satanism. The "atheistic" is the important part here. Atheistic Satanists (particularly LaVeyan Satanists, a particularly large subset following the teachings of Anton LaVey) don't worship the devil - nor do they believe in him as an individual or person, or indeed in God in the same way. Their use of Satan is purely symbolic, to represent a motivating force behind human darkness.
Their philosophy - which I will not describe in any detail here - is dark, vicious, hedonistic, selfish and in fact rather terrifying, but the approach of admonishing them for "worshipping the devil" will do nothing whatsoever to correct that.
The final kind of Satanism is theistic Satanism. These Satanists actually, genuinely do worship the devil, Satan. But, and this is the important part, their idea of Satan, and of God, is rather different to ours. To them, God is tyrannical and oppressive, while Satan is a just rebel. To those of. You who know any classical mythology, it may help to think of their viewpoint as being similar to the myth of Prometheus, with Satan compared or even conflated with Prometheus, the hero of humankind.
I believe that they are under a terrible misconception that is seriously harmful to them, and one that we should do everything in our power to correct; but they are not malicious, and Nora Re they deliberate worshiping evil; they are merely deceived.
Conclusion
There's really not much more to say.
We, as humanity, will make no progress whatsoever philosophically, religiously or spiritually unless we realise that people are almost always trying to do what they think is right. To quote Sir Terry Pratchett's Maskerade, "if you do know Right from Wrong, you can't choose Wrong." Now, that seems untrue; people do wrong things all the time. But the word he uses is "chose". If you know what's what, you can't make a conscious choice to do wrong. Your passions, your emotions, your desires can all lead you into doing things that are wrong, but your conscious, thinking mind cannot choose the wrong path itself.
So next time you disagree with someone, about anything, even if it's not religious, don't ask "Why would they be okay with doing something that's wrong?" Instead, ask "Why do they think that doing that would be right?"
