Depends on the sect. Haredi are not known for tolerance of dissent or questioning authority within their circle. They are the ones most closely associated with far right politics and frequently engage in behavior similar to rural Christian fundies.
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Which, once again, I said above. NO ONE has argued that no religious person is ever authoritarian. That’s not the argument, but that letting authoritarians dictate the terms of reality is a real danger that we should reject. Letting them dominate our understanding of faith is one place we can easily see this danger in this particular period of time. By not allowing for the diversity of faith that objectively, obviously exists in the real world, WE ARE LETTING THEM DICTATE TERMS. Let’s NOT do that, I’m arguing…
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All I am saying is that there is a Jewish Fundamentalist sect that doesn’t get a lot of attention here. One that acts very similar to Christian counterparts. I was responding to a post which seemed unaware of them.
All religions open themselves to authoritarian interpretation. All religions depend on arbitrarily defined authority. Its just a matter of how much they are checked by secular society.
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I address that directly, if not by name. So, yes, I think there is certainly awareness of an authoritarian sect out there in Judaism. It’s a common theme in all the major religions today in fact. These religiously oriented authoritarian movements all byproducts of modernity and it’s real and perceived failures, seeking to impose an imagined, idealized past on the populations they control that never really existed.
And the opposite is absolutely the case.
And the opposite is the case, as doubt and choice are often integral parts of faith, too.
And what about when secular society itself becomes tyrannical? When religious people are purposefully targeted and strip of their ability to make meaningful choices?
The problem isn’t the specific flavor of that kind of authoritarian oppression, it’s the authoritarian oppression of whatever flavor. We should oppose ALL forms of authoritarianism, not just the one that confirms our own understanding of how the world “should” be in our own view. That’s always the danger of dismissing an entire group of people as a “danger” that we might very well fuel kinds of authoritarianism that we don’t intend to…
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You’re missing that arbitrarily defined authority can be literally anyone. Jesus was someone to listen to despite not being aligned with the powers that be. Lots of religions are like that – some even focus on personal understanding, where the arbitrary authority is everyone, which is as anti-authoritarian as you can get. They cover the whole spectrum.
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That’s not exclusive to religion, all ideologies open themselves to authoritarian interpretation.
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Which dodges my point. If the authoritarian bent of the religious text encouraged authoritarian bent of the religion, we would expect a religion based on the Torah/Old Testament (unquestionably a more authoritarian text than the New Testament) to be more authoritarian than a religion based on the Old Testament and New Testament combined (and named after a messiah from the New Testament who isn’t anywhere in the OT). Yet the preponderance of Judaism is less authoritarian than Christianity, which is, in it’s own right, minority authoritarian.
So logically, I reject the premise that the authoritarian bent of the religious text determines the authoritarian leanings of the religion, and also that a small minority of Christians who are heavily authoritarian means the whole religion is.
The exceptions prove the point rather than refute it.
I’m faily disappointed that we even need to be having this discussion among intelligent and well-meaning people, but here it is.
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The number of democratic religious sects can be counted on 2 hands, tops. The ones that respect democracy most are the ones who step aside to respect civil/secular society.
Mainstream religious belief is by its nature authoritarian. Its the norm, not the outlier. I understand the desire to wrest religious authority from the sociopaths.
Mainstream secular belief is democratic. Secularism is respect for all faiths, ecumenism, favor of none. There is no such thing as secular extremism.
Authoritarian belief relies on religion. Even allegedly atheist Communist regimes simply replace trad religion with worship of the state. Its how you get something like North Korea, where the leader is venerated as a God-King.
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And…
not to mention…
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Try to find an example of extremist authoritarian ecumenism or democracy.
Yep, the authoritarian ones try to govern and the anti-authoritarian ones stand aside and let people do their thing instead. That’s exactly what you’d expect because religions can be either.
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I’d argue that there is indeed a right wing kind of ecumenism - right wing Catholics aligning with the white Evangelical white would certainly be that…
As for Democracy, how about Poland or Hungary, right now. They’re Illiberal democracy has not completely abandoned democracy itself, while practicing a sort extreme form of it.
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Even if I take that in the best possible faith, it still doesn’t have anything to do with the topic.
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Never said they weren’t. Secularism was a religious from the beginning. But it was always an outlier belief, not the norm/mainstream.
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Wisconsin certainly fits there right now
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Secularism is a major aspect of the enlightenment… it’s evident in our founding documents, such as in the separation of church and state. It rose out of the destructive religious wars, and is embraced by many western nations, even those with official churches. Secularism is a path forward for living in a world that is religiously plural.
Florida, too. Desantis has repeatedly lauded Orban… Texas…
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If we going to ban books then what about that book with Lot daughters , getting their father drunk to have sex with him?
Why is the Christian’s never upset about drunken rape of their father?
We never heard them call for 5hat book ( the Bible) to be burn
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What about the Romans?
(Yes, I know it was technically an accident, but they still burned down part of a big library.)
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