For those who want a summary of what is to come in this post, it is most easily classified as a rant. Be warned.
Faith and Religion are two words I often see used interchangeably, but I fear this may only be a sign of detriment of the current vanacular to explain phenomona which see outside the self, thus, religious people have been removed from the discourse. This appears to be a product of the fact that in the name of freedom of religion, we have developed the concept of freedom <em>from</em> religion. Beyond the obvious fact that religious views have been removed from the conversation of the society, it also poses a second problem. <!–more–>
When the interaction exists in a discourse, the indentity of of a religious person is set in an idealogical framework. Faith. Faith in this case is a indentity bound to philosophy. The being is as such. However, with the current situation, religious identities are not represented intellectually in the public discourse, therefore the society can easily create the identity on practices. Religion. Religion is seen a system of practices by which one can be identified. Without the interaction and only practices to base assumption off of, manifestations of stereotypes should be of no surprise, as faith identities have been denied the opportunity to reveal their relative dynamicism. This opens up a whole new discussion, as now the non-religious have grouped the people of faith identities in a single stereotype, for instance, of uneducation. This gives birth to fabricated oxymorons, things completely possible and congruent yet considered anomalies. Liberal Christian, White Muslim, or American communist. Granted the desire to remove religion from conversation by means of making appear as folly is nothing new, the communities of faith have only fed the image by devoting what reach they have had on attacking eachother (especially those philosophically most similar), rather than uniting for a campaign of improving the image of faith in general. Faith translates well, it takes faith to believe Marxist-Lenninism, Secular Humanism, etc, all the same of religions. Religions are essentially theistic philosophies. I would go as far to say it requires at least an equal ammount of faith to believe there is no god than to embrace theism, even in its most elemental form.
to be continued…
