General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do you know why Catholics put money in the collection plate at Sunday mass? [View all]MellowDem
(5,018 posts)The US is not a belief system. The US doesn't have catcheisms, and you don't have to believe in anything the government says or any of its laws to be a US citizen. The US is a political body, one which can change its policies and does, and even allows for input from citizens.
You can become a citizen merely by being born in the US, but again, you don't have to be indoctrinated into a certain set of beliefs or proclaim your belief in them to be a US citizen.
If you decide to leave the US because you don't like the government's actions, the process is several magnitudes more involved and tougher than leaving a religion, and no matter where you go, you will be under another government.
Religion is a belief system. To belong to a religion, you have to believe the belief system, otherwise you are engaging in intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance. Catholicism specifically is a belief system that has little to no inpute from its members. It is essentially authoritarian and patriarchal in structure.
The vast majority of people who identify as religious came to that decision through childhood indoctrination. That's because religion requires you to believe in a belief system, unlike the US, in order to be a member.
If you decide to leave religion in the US, there are few financial barriers and many other religions out there to join, with all sorts of beliefs, or you can even choose no religion.
A person who identifies as an American is not identifying with any set of beliefs, because it's not a belief system. A person who identifies with a religion is identifying with a set of beliefs, since religions are belief systems.
So American citizens are not identifying or supporting a belief system, while religious people are. IMHO, considering how much easier it is to leave religion than a country (taking away the voluntary nature of it substantially, unless you are wealthy and privileged), and considering being a member of a country doesn't mean you are identifying with a belief system, the analogy that one is engaging in cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty by being a citizen of a country the same as one is engaging in cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty by being a member of a belief system strike me as a false equivalency and poor analogy. It reflects a deflection argument, since it does not answer the legitimate criticism of saying you're identifying with a bigoted belief system by saying "well, everyone does, see?"
With that sort of logic, criticizing a liberal for belonging to Pro-Life organizations, or a Koch Brothers organization, or the KKK, or ANY sort of bigoted or misogynist organization is off-limits. It's silly.
Religious people have this sense of privilege and entitlement that their religious beliefs are somehow above criticism. That's the way it has been for a long time. But no more. No, you're religious beliefs don't get a pass because the word religion is in them, and your membership in bigoted belief systems doesn't get a pass because it's a religion.