Line between bigotry and traditional values.

[MrFun]

Where do you draw a line between legitimate, sound traditional values, and willfully ignorant bigotry?

For example, if European Catholics in Middle Ages believed that being Jewish was immoral, and anti-Christ, you could say that that was just their traditional religious belief. It would not mean that they were necessarily anti-Semitic.

[Ben Kenobi]

Where do you draw a line between legitimate, sound traditional values, and willfully ignorant bigotry?

Legitimate traditional values:

Marriage is between a man and a woman for life.
Abortion kills an unborn child.
Second Amendment protects the right to own and carry a gun.
Charity should be voluntary not extracted by the state at gunpoint.
The state should intervene as little as possible into the lives of the people.
Government should be elected by the people for the people.

Illegitimate traditional values:

Bombing the world trade centre to get access to my 72 virgins (hopefully female!)
Throwing acid in the face of women you believe are sluts.
Killing women for dishonouring their family.
Killing infidels because they aren't your religion.

That's my list.

[giblets]

Wow, it's like a caricature of the Republican party attacking a caricature of Muslims.

[Jon Miller]

Where do you draw a line between legitimate, sound traditional values, and willfully ignorant bigotry?

For example, if European Catholics in Middle Ages believed that being Jewish was immoral, and anti-Christ, you could say that that was just their traditional religious belief. It would not mean that they were necessarily anti-Semitic.

The belief of the peasants was a traditional belief combined with the standard issue of tribal identities (which is the core cause of racism and why everyone is a bit racist).

The priests/theologians/etc who played a part in promoting this belief against the theological support of their holy books/etc were playing on the tribal identities of the peasants (which is what is always behind anti-Semitism and racism) and such are culpable.

I don't think I need to apologize about the anti-Semitism that my ancestors might have had. I do have some (small, not being catholic?) need to apologize about the anti-Semeticism that the Christian church leadership had.

Note that I don't think that Christianity itself is anti-Semitic, I think it was the leadership/etc of the Christian church (for a period of time) that was.

JM

[Zevico]

Where do you draw a line between legitimate, sound traditional values, and willfully ignorant bigotry?

How can one be "willfully ignorant"? If I know of a belief other than my own, but choose not to accept it, am I ignorant of that alternative? On the other hand, if I do not know of the alternative, then plainly I am simply ignorant and not willfully ignorant.

For example, if European Catholics in Middle Ages believed that being Jewish was immoral, and anti-Christ, you could say that that was just their traditional religious belief. It would not mean that they were necessarily anti-Semitic.

Europeans in the Middle Ages basically conceived of Jews as demonic, or in league with the Devil. Hence, ghettos, blood libels, pogroms, mass expulsions. That was a time in which anti-semitism was a basic European societal norm, as common sensical as the notion that the earth is round may seem to us today.

I suggest you rethink the example and/or the question.

[MrFun]

But thinking that Jews are demonic is not necessarily anti-Semitism if this is based on one's religious belief, or traditional values.

[Jon Miller]

Christians now are not told by their leaders nor either other source that Jews are demonic/etc.

So it isn't religious beliefs nor traditional values for Christians today.

JM

[MrFun]

I'm talking hypothetically.

[Al B. Sure!]

Christians now are not told by their leaders nor either other source that Jews are demonic/etc.

So it isn't religious beliefs nor traditional values for Christians today.

JM

What about at the white supremacy churches?

[Jon Miller]

In the US, bigots of course.

Note that I always put the leadership as at fault. And in US protestantism, every individual is considered as part of the leadership.

For white supremacy cults, it would just be the leaders.

JM

[Kidlicious]

Where do you draw a line between legitimate, sound traditional values, and willfully ignorant bigotry?

For example, if European Catholics in Middle Ages believed that being Jewish was immoral, and anti-Christ, you could say that that was just their traditional religious belief. It would not mean that they were necessarily anti-Semitic.

Here's the short version. Believing that it's a sin to have sex with a man is not bigotry, and it's never will be.

[Aeson]

The OP is promoting a false dichotomy. As well as completely wrong about inferring that bigotry against Jews was "legitimate, sound" in any era.

A person is either bigoted or not bigoted. If that person is predisposed to being a bigot by their upbringing it doesn't change that they are a bigot. (Otherwise there would be no bigots.)

[Aeson]

How can one be "willfully ignorant"?

When you consciously understand that it is ignorant, yet choose to be that way anyways for whatever reason. Trolling is one example.

[Aeson]

But thinking that Jews are demonic is not necessarily anti-Semitism if this is based on one's religious belief, or traditional values.

It is anti-Semitism regardless of why anyone thinks it.

[MrFun]

The OP is promoting a false dichotomy. As well as completely wrong about inferring that bigotry against Jews was "legitimate, sound" in any era.

A person is either bigoted or not bigoted. If that person is predisposed to being a bigot by their upbringing it doesn't change that they are a bigot. (Otherwise there would be no bigots.)

It doesn't make sense to me.

Why can a person be opposed to gay marriage on traditional values grounds without being called a homophobe, but then if someone believes that Jews are immoral for not believing Jesus Christ based on traditional values grounds is definitely an anti-Semite.