Do we give religion too much privilege? I took part yesterday in this Sunday Sequence panel discussion on BBC Radio Ulster, with Usama Hassan of the Quilliam Foundation, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, and Peter Lynas of the Northern Ireland Evangelical Alliance, hosted by Audrey Carville.
Has religion too much privilege? My discussion on BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence
All signs point to yes.
The willingness to give special treatment to religion seems to be linked to its long-standing affiliation with State authority. Once that mental module begins to fade, the automatic respect given to clerics will fade also.
The problem is that fundamentalists of all stripes won’t let go of that respect.
They rather go out in a blaze than admit that heaven isn’t real.
Even though they know it deep down.
It is not a curable disease, imo.
Unsurprisingly, the muslim representative manages to link religion with identity politics, so that criticism of Islam is underhandedly identified with racism and discrimination.
It’s a weak defense, for it boils down to “My beliefs are shit, but they are my shit and you’d better respect them.”
Of course it has, and we are damned lucky it no longer had the privilege that it used to have – namely the power of life and death with regard to those who they considered to be dissenters to their dogma/doctrine.
Unfortunately Muslims are still stuck in the savagery that Christianity went through in Europe.
They are selling an invisible product with no overheads or quality control whatsoever, are allowed to practice medicine (for instance Psychology) without any license or accreditation whatsoever and to top it off they have tax and legislative privileges without having anything to show for it.
It is a scam, no matter what it is called.
Personally I think that a tax of over 90% on anything calling itself a religious institution would be fair and commensurate. The taxes should then go towards the families of the descendants of those religion has persecuted over the centuries and millennia.