Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
I don't know why you think religion is a grey area, religious bigotry is one of the most cited types, and a very real form of bigotry.
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Maybe grey area was the wrong phrase. Obviously it's a real form of bigotry (see "holocaust, the"). But it's quite different from most other instantiations of bigotry, because there's legitimate ground to criticize religious beliefs and practices without expressing prejudice against the person in question - you can reasonably argue, for example, "I don't think you should be a Christian, because Christianity entails a belief in an afterlife, which results in people using their existence on Earth as a means to an end rather than making the most of the time they have." Or for a slightly more charged example, criticizing Indonesian Muslims for the practice of FGM.
In contrast, it just makes no
sense to criticize someone's homosexuality or skin colour - there's no conceivable end to the sentence "I don't think you should be black, because..." that would be reasonable.
Failure to recognize this distinction leads to a whole hell of a lot of moral confusion.