Discussing religions and worldviews can make for riveting philosophical and intellectual dialogue, but when they take an aggressive turn, is it still productive? Or is it now counter-intuitive?
As our American presidential candidates fight for their ability to be the next leader of our country, it’s inevitable to see religion be involved in discussions, from marriage equality to the presence of planned parenthood in government spending to whether or not “Islam hates us”. Candidates’ views on these deeply personal topics directly correlate to the votes they will be receiving in the primaries and later on, the actual election.
From the presidential debates it is quite obvious that religion plays a vital role in the average American’s life and
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They reach the point of perpetuating stereotypes which, in the political world, demagogues eventually capitalize upon fears concerning these stereotypes to gain votes.
We know that religious discussions are prevalent among scientists, theologians, philosophers, and even everyday people. But what even happens during these “debates”?
In religious debates, random, cherry picked, concepts are analyzed over and over again and scrutinized from detail to detail leading to explosive dialogue and a sense of hostility by the time it is all over– and for what? Not for learning more about the subject. Not for trying to understand our fellow human beings’ way of life. It’s to prove someone wrong and to prove someone else right.
When I was a freshman in high school, out of curiosity, I watched some of these debates.
A common opposition set up in these debates includes a nonreligious person vs. someone of a certain faith. These could be the most interesting because they have completely opposing viewpoints, unlike one religion vs. another religion, in which they are really quite similar when you get to the root of it