From: mel@niblick.ecn.purdue.edu (Meloney D Cregor)
Subject: Dating, religion, hypocrisy
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Distribution: w
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 19:22:17 GMT

In article <+dtr4hq@lynx.unm.edu> blowfish@carina.unm.edu (rON.) writes:
>
>For sake of sanity, I split this into two articles, this one talks about
>religion and society, and followups to talk.religion, the next talks

Since I don't have any sanity to begin with, I brought it back to soc.singles
and dating, which is what it was about in the first place.

>>Why is it any more of a close-minded criterium then any other criteria like
>>intelligence, humor, physical characteristc, geographic location, level
>>of education, lifestyle compatibility, sexual preference, etc?

>No, no, its archaic for running a society, not for getting laid. 

To begin with, I didn't ask why it was archaic, but why it was any more
close-minded than any other criterium.  I don't disagree that it is 
archaic, but I suspect we disagree on the negative implications that
surround that adjective.

>People will
>always and forever have their own criteria for choosing thier sexual
>partners.

Exactly.  And for a great many, those sexual partners are also LIFE
partners. It is not uncommon for people to prefer their life partners
to share similar and/or common beliefs, whatever those beliefs are.  

>>Religion is a set of beliefs and if you truly believe, then you must
>>abide by the sanctions of that belief system.  To not do so, is
>>hypocrisy and I have a great deal less tolerance for this than I do
>>for religious belief.  
>
>Who sez?
>I'm not allowed to belive in God because I think that hokum rituals, from
>kosher foods to eating representational peices of bread to marching a bunch
>of times around a big rock to lighting candles and dancing nude under the moon,
>the whole lot of 'em, I'm not allowed to believe in God because I think those
>rituals are silly?

Whoa!
Where ever did I say such a thing?

I said religion is a set of beliefs. Do you refute this?
I cite my Random House college dictionary :

  Religion- 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of 
               the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a 
               superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional 
               and ritual observances and often having a moral code for the 
               conduct of human affairs.


I made no mention of YOUR belief system or mine for that matter. 

My original statement says "if you truly believe",  whatever those beliefs
may be, if you have embraced them and adopted them and agree to conduct
your life by them, to not do so, is hypocrisy.

You believe that organised, ritualistic religious beliefs are silly, then it
would hypocritical for you to suggest to someone to go to church. It would
be equally hypocritical for anyone who professes to follow a set of
religious beliefs that forbids marriage outside of one's faith, to do so.   

However, the original point was that limiting ones search by ANY criteria
may be an exercise in close-minededness, but so what?  Why is that
necessarily a bad thing? Why would limiting your search to people who 
share your beliefs, to people who don't believe in organised religion, be
a bad thing?  Personally, I don't believe it is. 

This isn't about people you work with, people you hang with, this is about
people you plan to live with and possibly breed with.  I consider it an
exercise in aggrivation reduction and increasing the likelyhood of
compatibility.

If you can't stand stupid people, you have a criteria of lower level
intelligence bounds, and you aren't going to seek out, nor be comfortable
with unintelligent people.  It would drive you crazy.

If you are a person who uses humor and values humor, you may decide it's 
not a good idea to get involved with someone who doesn't have a sense of 
humor or doesn't appreciate a sense of humor.  Again, you have established 
YOUR criteria.

>God is god is god, and I would be willing to bet that god cares more about
>things like 'peace' and 'love' and 'people getting along' than he does about
>if you eat the wrong type of food.

Quite possibly.  But, what if it's just an exercise is being able to
follow directions?  The point is, you don't know, I don't know and I
don't know anybody else who does.  However, I do know lots of folks
who run on faith, a belief.
 


--
      I'm in a phone booth at the corner of Walk and Don't Walk.
                                    -- Unknown
Newsgroups: soc.singles