Prejudice - Unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social or religious group
Human beings were created with free will but with a ton of emotions. Humans experience joy, pleasure, satisfaction, love, compassion, empathy. On the other side, humans also experience fear, anger, insecurity, hate, greed, self-importance, shallowness. With all of these emotions existing, the result of this can be experiences of good but it can also create experiences of hate that eventually turn to prejudice. Since we have these conflicting emotions, do we believe that we have what it takes to make the sacrifice to rid ourselves of prejudice?
Religion is something that is based on faith and in reality should be enjoyed by all that want to embrace it. There are many religions in the world, enough for everyone to have their own, including Atheism. However, a lot of time is spent on trying to instill that belief in others or making people pay for not believing the same thing as the individual. This helps create religious prejudice that seems to never go away.
Religious prejudice has existed since the dawn of time. If you think about the Garden of Eden, the story of Adam and Eve ends with prejudice. God created man in his own vision but said do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So once they ate from the tree, they were no longer in the image God created so he banishes them. Punishing people for betrayal is one thing but banishing people because they no longer fit your image is another. So even the 'creator' is not exempt from the evils of prejudice.
Over the life of man, many wars have been fought simply because of religious prejudice or in the 'name' of religion. The Crusades, the Muslim Conquests are just a couple of examples of wars fought over religion. In today's world, religious wars are still being fought, whether it is Israel/Palestine, Pakistan/India or Islamic fundamental extremists. Religious wars that are causing thousands or even millions of people to die simply as punishment for not being part of the religion or to blame for others not being part of the religion. Where does morality start and religion end when it comes to this? How can anyone expect to end religious prejudice if people justify their immoral acts in the name of religion?
Alot of religions follow some kind of text that is almost as if it is written in stone. A lot of people use this text to actually validate their religious prejudice.
Examples of this:
The Bible
Timothy 6:6-10
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
So the way that I interpret the above is basically we should be content with what we have and always wanting more just creates a destructive life. So a capitalistic society is actually against the Bible. People who do not have a lot always want more and usually blame those that have more for their problems. At the same time, the rich still always want more and it does not matter that it usually comes at the cost of those that do not have a lot.
The Quran
5:51
O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people [Quran 5:51]
So just reading this at face value, it seems that it says Muslims cannot be friends with Jews and Christians, doing so will isolate you from Islam. However, if you look online they say that 'friend' means only if they are joined by Judeo-Christians alliance. They say this because in reality Jews and Christians are not supposed to be joined at all like this. Anyone confused yet?
Judaism
Judaism is supposed to believe in the strength of women but that is not always the case
http://www.jewfaq.org/women.htm
So here is the text from 3 places that drive 3 different religions. These texts are the backbone of what people use to preach their religion and therefore used to create prejudice. These documents were created thousands of years ago yet we try to instill bits and pieces into today's society as we see fit. What is strange to me is that these documents are interpreted by humans so how can we not understand that they are fallible because they were also written by humans. Each document is different in its preaching but also vague in its interpretation. It is this vagueness that people use to justify treating people badly or even worse, killing people. If people are willing to die/kill in the name of these religious documents, how can we really believe that religious prejudice will ever stop?
In the United States our country was built by people trying to find religious 'freedom'. Since the beginning, we have continued to have religious prejudice. States were even created because one religious group couldn't live with another religious group. All religions believed the American Indians were lacking in religion so they thought instilling their beliefs would help 'civilize' them. So in reality the foundation of this country was actually built in religious prejudice not the fight for religious freedom.
Look at the history:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?all
Our first amendment gives people the freedom of religious expression. It also says governments, states included, do not have the right to establish a national religion. What this means to me is that the government should not be legislating laws based on religious views. This country was not built to follow any one religion, Christianity included. The separation of church and state is something that should be taken with more seriousness if we truly want to have religious freedom. People have the right to not follow this separation based on religious views but they should not have the right to instill their beliefs in others by making laws or hurting others. Having a school build a place to wash your feet is not more acceptable that that same place handing out Bibles in their classes.
From my point of view, the first amendment gives everyone who comes to this country the right to follow their own religion without discrimination. It does not mean that you should be instilling your beliefs on anyone that chooses not to follow. It also does not mean you should be condemning people who choose not to follow those same beliefs. Areas such as abortion and homosexuality are two areas where religious views come into the most disagreement with the Constitution. The government is doing its best to try to hold up the freedom from having religions views instilled upon us yet they are crucified for this because of religious prejudice.
Part of the issue with religious prejudice is also because we elect people not on the basis of they will do right by the country but a lot of time mostly on their religious views. For example, how many 'Christian' people would vote for a Pro Choice candidate even if they agreed with everything else he says. If these people are mostly elected because of their religious views, how can Congress not become a religious battle instead of what's best for the country. To keep this separation is one of the few ways that we can believe we have religious freedom and start to remove religious prejudice.
http://www.countriesquest.com/north_america/usa/people/religion_in_the_united_states/religious_discrimination.htm
The world continues to be at war because of religion. People continue to die because they do not believe the same thing as someone else. We continue to act immorally against others in the name of religion. People continue to fight for laws that instill religious views on others. With all of this prejudice and intolerance how can we truly believe that we can fight religious prejudice? Until people are free to have their own beliefs without persecution or violence, we will continue to live under the illusion that one religion is better than another. Until that sacrifice is made by all, we will have to live with the fact that we have only ourselves to blame for the continued religious intolerance.
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