this one came up at dinner...

[daryn]

is hating someone solely due to their religion "just as bad as" being racist?

[gumpzilla]

I think it's pretty damn close. While one can argue that religion is at least a conscious choice, the frequency with which people believe whatever their parents believe suggests pretty strongly that the childhood indoctrination is forceful.

[TimsterToo]

I think there's a difference.

If there's a religion that, let's take something extreme, demands of it's followers to slowly torture little girls of not older then 7 to death I don't see any problem with saying that I hate all of their followers based on the fact that they are members of that religion.

[ QUOTE ]
I think there's a difference.

If there's a religion that, let's take something extreme, demands of it's followers to slowly torture little girls of not older then 7 to death I don't see any problem with saying that I hate all of their followers based on the fact that they are members of that religion.

[/ QUOTE ]

One could argue that would be a cult, not a religion. Mind you I have always had a difficulty in distinguishing the two. It's sort of like terrorists and freedom fighters.

[ QUOTE ]
is being inherently suspiciousof someone solely due to their religion "just as bad as" being inherently suspicious of someone due to their race ?

[/ QUOTE ] absolutely not. Race gives one very little insight as to somebodies charecter, religious beliefs reveal alot more about an individual. I think hate is kinda strong, but i guess i'd apply the same logic to that statement, and say it's not as bad. I don't think there is even an argument here. One thing is almost entirely superficial, and the other likely plays a large role in how the hate'ee acts.

I would say hating someone due to their belief system would be far more logically and morally justifiable than hating them because of their race.

We can probably claim that a person's chosen religion would tell us more about an individual than what race the person is born into. Hence, if we happen to have a great dislike for that particular belief we could logically infer that we do not like this person because 'he believes and follows something I hate'.

It isn't really important if it involves torture of children or baptising children. That would just be an argument that 'justifies' the original question in light of typical everyday western values. What logically matters is you base your hatred on knowledge of what the person believes in, not prejudice of what the person may be.

On the other hand, in practical everyday life we all known hatred due to religion and hatred due to race mostly go hand in hand.

Correct, one is (superficially) regarding their appearance and one is regarding there opinions. There is no decision on which one of the two is correct for forming an opinion of someone else, whether negative or positive.

(note. I added "superficially" in brackets after writing the above because I realised you can correctly make reasonable assumptions (% plays, not 100% correct) based on appearances eg. fat people are lazy, and do not take pride in themselves. Assuming oriental poker players are more likely to be gamblers is not wrong.)

It would definitely depend on why you hated them and whether the correlation was strong. eg If you said:

"I hate xxxx because they are closed minded and gullible."

If you fill in "blacks" I would consider that unreasonable, but if you fill in "Christians" I wouldnt be concerned.

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
Correct, one is (superficially) regarding their appearance and one is regarding there opinions. There is no decision on which one of the two is correct for forming an opinion of someone else, whether negative or positive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Because of course if I were to grab any two random self-described Christians, they would have extremely similar opinions about everything.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

"I hate xxxx because they are closed minded and gullible."

If you fill in "blacks" I would consider that unreasonable, but if you fill in "Christians" I wouldnt be concerned.

Why? I realize religion is a choice and race isn't, but aren't you making the same collective judment about individuals in both cases?

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
is hating someone solely due to their religion "just as bad as" being racist?

[/ QUOTE ]
It's fair to infer character from beliefs. To believe its fair to infer character from race is to be racist.

So only a racist thinks the two are equivalent.

chez