stuff that contradicts the other stuff

Brought to you by Captain McShanty's "Topic o' the Day" topical ointment and rejuvenating cream cleanser and by the Chickens! Procrastinate By Learning Foundation.

Question: What characterizes a religion? What I mean is, in a religion debate is it more important to discuss what can be determined as the "facts" of a religion ie. the widely accepted doctrine of a religion or do we consider the opinions of anyone who claims to be that religion regardless of how their beliefs coincide with the core ideas typically associated with that religion? Does any crazy whack job with crazy whack job ideas who calls himself a Christian or Muslim or Deist or whatever, have the right to call himself that because that's what he thinks he is? Who is another Christian or Muslim or Deist or whatever to say that that crazy guy is or is not what he says he is just because their belief in that religion is defined differently? I guess what I'm asking is are religions defined by their believers (even the crazy whacked out ones) or the other way around? Maybe, like most problems, it comes down to a misunderstanding of what things are or on judgments based on a misunderstanding, lack of information, or a stereotype (often all three), whether it be about religion, or a scientific concept, or a culture and not just about other peoples religions, cultures, etc. either, but one's own as well. The funny thing is people often get angrier with people of their own religion or group that they think are misrepresenting their group in some way, than they do with people of different religions or groups with opposing ideas. You know why? Cognitive dissonance (this one's for my Dad)!

A lesson in intra-religion intolerance and cognitive dissonance:

Let's say person "A" feels they are part of a group and so feels defined (at least partially) by that group. Now let's say that persona is damaged when another member (person "B") of that group commits an act that is not in line with what person "A" understands to be what he and his group represent (say by discriminating against an outsider, person "C", in some way). So there is cognitive dissonance in person "A"; "A" doesn't think he is a mean person who would discriminate against the innocent "C" just because "C" is different, but he saw that someone in his group, someone who is part of of a defining portion of his identity, would. So, to relieve the resulting dissonance does person "A" change his understanding of himself and his group to include person "B"? No, of course not! Person "A" strives to separate himself and his group-related persona from person "B" through disapproval, or anger, or hate. If anything, person "A" is more enraged by person "B" than person "C" was. What's more, the reverse is the same because "B" thinks "A" is a bad group member for not standing up for the group and for being too soft on outsiders like "C". So, there you have it - intra-religion intolerance explained by cognitive dissonance.

Wait! What about person "C" you ask? Well that all depends. "B"'s actions probably caused "C" to develop some unseemly stereotypes about "A" and "B"'s group, especially if this was his first interaction with one of them. If "A" works hard enough to separate himself from "B" then maybe "C" will recognize them as separate groups (like protestants vs. evangelicals or something), or maybe "C"s initial experience will create a stereotype towards everyone identified as that broad group (like all Christians). So, it all depends.

All pancakes aside though, this is all a rambling spurred by the various angry rants of my friends here and here. Like I said, I think much of the various religion or ideology controversies can be chalked up to lack of understanding. Just like religion vs. science and science vs. science and culture vs. culture controversies. So to remedy a small fragment of this and for a final kick at the religious can I have decided to pit various religions/anti-religions against eachother in an all out battle royale! BwaHaHaHaHa!

Round 1: Scientology vs. Operation Clambake
Notes: a simple and very specific religion vs. anti-that religion pairing. Of course I think Scientology guys are freaks but those Clambake people are pretty angry.

Round 2: Fundamentalist Christians vs themselves
Notes: There's no better adversary for fundamentalist anything than themselves.

Round 3: Roman Catholics vs. Evil Bible
Notes: Swears you can say because they are in the Bible: hell, damn, ass, whore, etc.

Round 4 (Half-time exhibition match): Buddhism vs. ummm I dunno this is a tough one...something old, monotheistic, and zany...how about Zoroastrianism
Notes: Neither of them showed up because the Buddhists were too busy being peaceful and trying to find enlightenment and the Zoroastrians believe you must be born to the religion and so they tend not to recruit. Oh well. Instead of our half-time exhibition match we bring you a cat trying to take down a deer:




Round 5: Any non-Evangelical religion...how about Hinduism or Jaimism or...NO! I know! The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) vs. the Christian Countercult movement (aka Discernment ministries)
Notes: Check out the irony of using a religious tolerance website to explain about a religious movement based on intolerance of other religions (I love irony). Now something like the Christian Countercult movement is basically against almost everything so that one is a bit of a cop-out, I could've used it for anything. But Mormonism is one of the major no-no's according to discernment so it's a good match.

Round 6: Religion vs. Science/Non-religion - CANCELLED
Notes: I'm not going to pit science against religion because science is not religion and vice versa, ergo they shouldn't be compared in this context. That's that. I suppose in lieu I could do something like compare religions with a non-religion religion like Atheism (yes, what's known as "strong Atheism" or the belief in no god(s), is a belief system too because, while there is no way to prove there is a God/god(s), there is no way to prove that there isn't a God/god(s) either) but, I could've compared this to anything too, which was too easy, easier than countercult even, so I won't bother. I suppose we could also go with Satanism against any of the Christian-y religious factions, although apparently only one branch of Satanism is actually defined as the "Anti-Christian". Interestingly, for Satanism I used the Wikipedia article for the link because it had an illuminating yet brief description (I did not find this for most other religions on there, which tended to be long-winded and baffling). But I digress.

And the winner is...[drumroll]... the Christian fundamentalists who defeated the Christian fundamentalists with a clear KO. Wow! What an upset!

p.s. Obviously any literature promoting a religion (or defaming one for that matter) will be biased and must be taken with a grain of salt. However, I like these two websites for "unbiased" info on basically everything:
Religious tolerance
Religion Facts