{"id":904,"date":"2016-02-06T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html"},"modified":"2016-02-06T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T13:45:00","slug":"there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html","title":{"rendered":"There are no neutral religious beliefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Religion is a belief.\u00a0 There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.\u00a0 There is no place where it is simply the one secular truth about religion and all the others are biased beliefs and the stuff of\u00a0sectarian clashes.\u00a0 All views of religion are\u00a0biased.\u00a0 They are all opinions and beliefs.\u00a0 And in almost every case, they have little desire to live and let live with other views, at least on some level.<\/p>\n<p>Oh sure, they will live with other views as long as those views conform to their ideas.\u00a0 Jesus is acceptable to Hindus as long as he is understood from a Hindu point of view.\u00a0 So as long as Christians accept the Great Heresy of liberalism, Christians can live along with others in America who disagree.\u00a0 That\u2019s because we\u2019ve already accepted the fundamental doctrine of the secular Left: that one religion is as good (or bad) as the others.\u00a0 So if we accept that premise we\u2019re allowed to hang out in society.\u00a0 At least for a time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/715\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-0dsn48gQK_U\/VrY7Mkj8QNI\/AAAAAAAAGu0\/-T4Aq5n3dDE\/s1600\/benstein_ferrisbueller__120112051425.jpg\" style=\"clear: right;float: right;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 1em\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/715\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-0dsn48gQK_U\/VrY7Mkj8QNI\/AAAAAAAAGu0\/-T4Aq5n3dDE\/s200\/benstein_ferrisbueller__120112051425.jpg\" width=\"181\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>That\u2019s not something Christians really believe, BTW.\u00a0 But it\u2019s something we\u2019ve been forced to accept in practice.\u00a0 The reason is that we were convinced by the constant pounding and pounding and pounding of the evils of past Christians and the horrible things done in the name of the Faith, that we needed to step away from center stage.\u00a0 As if no other evil was ever done for any other reason.\u00a0 But by the constant hashing and trashing of the Christian past, Christians were convinced that we were the main problem, we were unfair, we were the oppressors, and so we needed to step aside from the public square and give others a chance.\u00a0 Then all would be happy and well. <\/p>\n<p>So, for instance,\u00a0they said that proselytizing was a grave evil, and trying to convert others to another religion was unacceptable behavior.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t do such a thing to us. We\u2019d all just live happy and together\u00a0respecting our differences and celebrating a culture that\u00a0celebrated everyone and everything.\u00a0 Correct?\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Bueller?\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>Well, no.\u00a0 There is no value neutral zone in world history.\u00a0 Every movement, philosophy, theology, moral code sees itself as the standard against which all others standards are measured.\u00a0 They might be different, have different priorities, or have different standards than other movements or beliefs.\u00a0 But they are no less willing than any other belief system\u00a0to impose their values and even marginalize and eventually eradicate those things they find reprehensible based on their own indisputable and superior beliefs. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/07\/opinion\/sunday\/sick-and-tired-of-god-bless-america.html?_r=0\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">So we have a growing number of Americans sick of all this God rubbish and ready to call it quits on the whole God and America narrative<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s time that the whole\u00a0God\u00a0Bless America\u00a0be tossed out in the trash heap along with Confederate flags and Better Dead that Red buttons.\u00a0Sure\u00a0we\u2019re told they just want it stopped this one time.\u00a0 But it will be more tomorrow. \u00a0If Christians continue along with the idea that everyone else wants to sing John Lennon songs and give peace a chance, so we need to stop having our Christian beliefs out there and expecting our societies to be based on our beliefs, then pretty soon we\u2019re going to be in the ghettoes and catacombs wondering what went wrong.\u00a0 We still have time, of course.\u00a0 But until we stop accepting the premises of movements and\u00a0heresies that would have us pushed off the stage, we are going to end up off the stage.\u00a0 And it won\u2019t be us, but our children and their children who have to pay the price. <\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/715\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-MvMktvizfTo\/VrY_TrfvRII\/AAAAAAAAGvA\/74AOKnfLgKk\/s1600\/under-god-1024x379.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em;margin-right: 1em\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"147\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/715\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-MvMktvizfTo\/VrY_TrfvRII\/AAAAAAAAGvA\/74AOKnfLgKk\/s400\/under-god-1024x379.jpg\" width=\"400\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Religion is a belief.\u00a0 There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.\u00a0 There is no place where it is simply the one secular truth about religion and all the others are biased beliefs and the stuff of\u00a0sectarian clashes.\u00a0 All views of religion are\u00a0biased.\u00a0 They are all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>There are no neutral religious beliefs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Religion is a belief.&nbsp; There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.&nbsp; There is no place where it is simply\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There are no neutral religious beliefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Religion is a belief.&nbsp; There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.&nbsp; There is no place where it is simply\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daffey Thoughts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-06T13:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/files\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-0dsn48gQK_U\/VrY7Mkj8QNI\/AAAAAAAAGu0\/-T4Aq5n3dDE\/s200\/benstein_ferrisbueller__120112051425.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Griffey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dave Griffey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html\",\"name\":\"There are no neutral religious beliefs\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-06T13:45:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-02-06T13:45:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7\"},\"description\":\"Religion is a belief.&nbsp; There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.&nbsp; There is no place where it is simply\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"There are no neutral religious beliefs\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/\",\"name\":\"Daffey Thoughts\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7\",\"name\":\"Dave Griffey\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dave Griffey\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/author\/dgriffey\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"There are no neutral religious beliefs","description":"Religion is a belief.&nbsp; There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.&nbsp; There is no place where it is simply","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"There are no neutral religious beliefs","og_description":"Religion is a belief.&nbsp; There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.&nbsp; There is no place where it is simply","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html","og_site_name":"Daffey Thoughts","article_published_time":"2016-02-06T13:45:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/files\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-0dsn48gQK_U\/VrY7Mkj8QNI\/AAAAAAAAGu0\/-T4Aq5n3dDE\/s200\/benstein_ferrisbueller__120112051425.jpg"}],"author":"Dave Griffey","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dave Griffey","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html","name":"There are no neutral religious beliefs","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-02-06T13:45:00+00:00","dateModified":"2016-02-06T13:45:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7"},"description":"Religion is a belief.&nbsp; There is no such thing as a zone of neutrality where we all just agree to disagree.&nbsp; There is no place where it is simply","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/there-are-no-neutral-religious-beliefs.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"There are no neutral religious beliefs"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/","name":"Daffey Thoughts","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7","name":"Dave Griffey","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Dave Griffey"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/author\/dgriffey"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}