Friendly Atheist comments on a pyramid of the hierarchy of religious beliefs here. And here is the original article at The Reason Stick. The author comments: “While much thought and effort is directed at tackling those at the top of the pyramid, society seems equally keen to continue fuel the system from the bottom, ensuring that we have a constant fresh supply of enough receptive minds to climb to the top of the pyramid.”
This isn’t totally on point, but it does relate to religious beliefs, so I hope it provokes some thought.
One interesting backlash against same-sex marriage is that some right-wingers are calling for “religious freedom” laws, to protect people who are claiming that it is their “religious liberty” to not bake a wedding cake or book a hotel room, while some state workers in the South have even resigned rather than process the paperwork for same-sex marriages. My own thinking on this is that people with such objections should be required to prove that cake baking or paperwork pushing is genuinely part of their religion. I’ve read a lot of the Bible, as well as some of the Quran, and I’ve never come across those prohibitions. Moreover, as regards the Bible, there are quite a few passages that say we are all sinners, and where Jesus specifically reaches out to help people he believes are sinners. So, two things follow. One, people who specifically discriminate against sinners are behaving contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Two, if everyone is a sinner, then a “religious liberty” law would presumably give everyone the right to discriminate against anyone, for whatever reason they want…which means everyone could discriminate against those nasty cake bakers and paperwork pushers in exactly the same awful manner that they are doing. Since they are sinners, too, maybe they shouldn’t be able to buy gas for their car or food for their kitchen, because the station owner or supermarket manager doesn’t want to sell to sinners like them.
“My own thinking on this is that people with such objections should be required to prove that cake baking or paperwork pushing is genuinely part of their religion.” Spot on.
I have no problem with people who resign their positions for moral or ethical reasons, whether I agree with those reasons or not. Years ago I worked in the Military Industrial Complex, and found it extremely troubling to my conscience. Under the circumstances, I thought that leaving was the honorable thing to do. Selectively performing some aspects of my job, while refusing others on moral grounds, never entered my mind … nor should it have.