Thinking about a point raised recently on a podcast I listen to, along with some conversations I've seen here and elsewhere: many people impose strange standards on discussion of religion and gods that don't apply to... well... any other subject, AFAIK.
There are people who will absolutely freak out at people making definitive statements about gods ("you can't say you KNOW my god doesn't exist; have you looked everywhere?") but won't bat an eye at people making similarly definitive statements about other things. If I say "dodos are extinct", I'll just get nods from the people who were super-keen to jump all over any perceived gap in human knowledge as a place where they might stuff their god.
If I say "there are three supermarkets in my town", nobody tells me that there might be some secret supermarket that "elect" shoppers know about but nobody else does. Nobody tells me that my definition of "supermarket" is too narrow, and that by their definition ("a place where food is acquired") the entire town is a "supermarket" for animals.
I can't speak in generalities about religion without somebody saying that my generalities don't apply to the special snowflake of a religion that they came up with themselves (and that has so little weight in terms of the net effect of religion in general that it's less significant than rounding error). We don't get that on other topics.
In all the times that I've criticized the impact of cars and auto commuting on North American society, I've never had anyone object by saying that my criticisms don't apply to antique steam-powered cars that only get driven once a year in parades... despite the fact that such cars certainly do exist.
Anyhow, I'm not sure where I'm going with this othet than to vent my frustration, and to ask why we can't talk about gods and religions the way we talk about everything else.
There are people who will absolutely freak out at people making definitive statements about gods ("you can't say you KNOW my god doesn't exist; have you looked everywhere?") but won't bat an eye at people making similarly definitive statements about other things. If I say "dodos are extinct", I'll just get nods from the people who were super-keen to jump all over any perceived gap in human knowledge as a place where they might stuff their god.
If I say "there are three supermarkets in my town", nobody tells me that there might be some secret supermarket that "elect" shoppers know about but nobody else does. Nobody tells me that my definition of "supermarket" is too narrow, and that by their definition ("a place where food is acquired") the entire town is a "supermarket" for animals.
I can't speak in generalities about religion without somebody saying that my generalities don't apply to the special snowflake of a religion that they came up with themselves (and that has so little weight in terms of the net effect of religion in general that it's less significant than rounding error). We don't get that on other topics.
In all the times that I've criticized the impact of cars and auto commuting on North American society, I've never had anyone object by saying that my criticisms don't apply to antique steam-powered cars that only get driven once a year in parades... despite the fact that such cars certainly do exist.
Anyhow, I'm not sure where I'm going with this othet than to vent my frustration, and to ask why we can't talk about gods and religions the way we talk about everything else.
