a reminder of my own "bigotry"
On the poly subreddit, somebody who is a Christian asked other Christians how they cope with the seeming contradictions between a Christian belief system and ethical non-monogamy.
Some people responded that Christians aren't supposed to follow the Old Testament anyway, that it's full of crackpot teachings that Jesus told us to disregard.
Then some Jewish people cried foul, saying that all these criticisms of the Old Testament were anti-semitic.
Which reminded me of back when I reimagined the books of Genesis and Exodus here in my LJ. These somewhat satirical retellings, along with my snarky commentary, led at least two of my readers back then to claim I was being anti-semitic. This surprised me, because I was using the Catholic Bible as my source material, not anything Jewish -- I hadn't even thought once about anything Jewish while writing this stuff. But, there is some overlap between the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Torah, and anti-semitism does exist, so I can understand why Jewish people might feel something is anti-semitic, even when not purposely directed at them.
But if I pick on something written in the Bible over two thousand years ago, how is this in any way anti-semitic? If I picked on something in the Tao Te Ching would that be anti-Chinese? Every culture that is ancient has ancient writings that I might pick on, that doesn't make me anti-anything.
I get into tussles with people, usually not directly in person, about what constitutes bigotry. I don't think that each member of a minority group is allowed to define for everybody else what constitutes bigotry. That approach is simply mass censorship by every person in the world. One person feeling offended is not bigotry.
If I were to refuse to hire Jewish people, or vote for Jewish candidates, or sell my house to a Jewish family, or buy my groceries from a Jewish grocer, or ... etc. ... those are instances of bigotry. But if I make fun of something somebody wrote thousands of years ago, I'm just making fun of something somebody wrote thousands of years ago.
Your desire to proclaim a book to be holy doesn't turn me into a bigot when I make fun of that book. It just means I disagree that your book is holy. As an atheist, I disagree that ANY book is holy.
-----
On the other hand, I do think that everybody is at least a little bit bigoted -- by virtue of categorizing people at all, we end up attaching various attitudes, conscious and subconscious, to all these categories. Simply by having a category "Jewish", I have ideas in my head regarding what "Jewish" people are like. Some of these ideas may be positive, some may be negative, some may be neutral, but whatever my ideas may be they are not complete descriptions of every person who is Jewish.
We all create stereotypes, we all have incomplete ideas about others, nobody has perfect knowledge. So, if you dig deep enough, you'll discover that EVERYBODY IS A BIGOT. I don't say this to excuse bigotry. But I will freely admit that I have inaccurate stereotypes regarding men, women, straights, gays, lesbians, transgender people, blacks, whites, hispanics, asians, people with disabilities, teenagers, boomers, nonbinaries, republicans, democrats, socialists, libertarians, christians, jews, muslims, atheists, americans, europeans, pacific islanders, indigenous peoples, etc.
The vastness of 8 billion humans cannot be boiled down into these categories without losing information. This is why I claim that gender and race are fake.
So, it isn't being called a bigot that bothers me. It's being called a bigot for making fun of an old book. You think making fun of an old book is bigotry because you identify with that old book. It's not my fault you identify with a stupid book.
Some people responded that Christians aren't supposed to follow the Old Testament anyway, that it's full of crackpot teachings that Jesus told us to disregard.
Then some Jewish people cried foul, saying that all these criticisms of the Old Testament were anti-semitic.
Which reminded me of back when I reimagined the books of Genesis and Exodus here in my LJ. These somewhat satirical retellings, along with my snarky commentary, led at least two of my readers back then to claim I was being anti-semitic. This surprised me, because I was using the Catholic Bible as my source material, not anything Jewish -- I hadn't even thought once about anything Jewish while writing this stuff. But, there is some overlap between the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Torah, and anti-semitism does exist, so I can understand why Jewish people might feel something is anti-semitic, even when not purposely directed at them.
But if I pick on something written in the Bible over two thousand years ago, how is this in any way anti-semitic? If I picked on something in the Tao Te Ching would that be anti-Chinese? Every culture that is ancient has ancient writings that I might pick on, that doesn't make me anti-anything.
I get into tussles with people, usually not directly in person, about what constitutes bigotry. I don't think that each member of a minority group is allowed to define for everybody else what constitutes bigotry. That approach is simply mass censorship by every person in the world. One person feeling offended is not bigotry.
If I were to refuse to hire Jewish people, or vote for Jewish candidates, or sell my house to a Jewish family, or buy my groceries from a Jewish grocer, or ... etc. ... those are instances of bigotry. But if I make fun of something somebody wrote thousands of years ago, I'm just making fun of something somebody wrote thousands of years ago.
Your desire to proclaim a book to be holy doesn't turn me into a bigot when I make fun of that book. It just means I disagree that your book is holy. As an atheist, I disagree that ANY book is holy.
-----
On the other hand, I do think that everybody is at least a little bit bigoted -- by virtue of categorizing people at all, we end up attaching various attitudes, conscious and subconscious, to all these categories. Simply by having a category "Jewish", I have ideas in my head regarding what "Jewish" people are like. Some of these ideas may be positive, some may be negative, some may be neutral, but whatever my ideas may be they are not complete descriptions of every person who is Jewish.
We all create stereotypes, we all have incomplete ideas about others, nobody has perfect knowledge. So, if you dig deep enough, you'll discover that EVERYBODY IS A BIGOT. I don't say this to excuse bigotry. But I will freely admit that I have inaccurate stereotypes regarding men, women, straights, gays, lesbians, transgender people, blacks, whites, hispanics, asians, people with disabilities, teenagers, boomers, nonbinaries, republicans, democrats, socialists, libertarians, christians, jews, muslims, atheists, americans, europeans, pacific islanders, indigenous peoples, etc.
The vastness of 8 billion humans cannot be boiled down into these categories without losing information. This is why I claim that gender and race are fake.
So, it isn't being called a bigot that bothers me. It's being called a bigot for making fun of an old book. You think making fun of an old book is bigotry because you identify with that old book. It's not my fault you identify with a stupid book.