This is an issue of hypocrisy that has been bothering me for a while now, and I felt in the mood to go ahead and say a little something about it tonight.
There are certain religions out there that I feel are being treated a little unfairly, and they’re not the one’s you probably think I’m going to talk about.
We are far too prone, it seems, to judge any sort of group by it’s worst elements rather than its best. All skateboarders, for example are tattooed young delinquents who damage property and disrespect the law. Now to the audience reading this, that’s probably a laughable stereotype, but we know that opinion used to be a popular on and is still held by many. Most of us would be quick to point out how unfair such an assumption is. We’d say the same about any racial stereotype as well.
So many of us, however, apply the same prejudices to religions and don’t realize that we’re making the same sort of judgments that we would call unfair.
If someone tries to claim that all Muslims are terrorists, we get all over them. We claim that it’s an unfair stereotype, that the followers of a legitimate faith can’t be blamed for the actions of a few extremists. And that’s completely true.
However, we (and I keep saying we because I’m plenty guilty of this myself) turn right around make assumptions like “ah, ‘Buddhist’ huh? She probably does a little yoga, tries to be a vegetarian, knows jack about actual Buddhism and is following a trend more than a faith.” Or, “Christian? Okay, so that means he’s an asshole who thinks he’s better than me and will shove his bible down my throat until I choke.”
Somewhere along the line we went and picked which stereotypes are unfair and which are absolutely fine, when of course no stereotype is fair. No one member of any group, religious or otherwise, should be judged based on the actions of the other members, especially not the actions of the worst examples.
It happens easily. If three Jehovah’s Witnesses came to your door and smacked you across the face, and you met an fourth… well you’d obviously be apprehensive. That fourth person, however, has yet to wrong you in anyway. You know nothing about him in particular. It’s not fair to assume anything about him, even if several other members of his faith have acted poorly towards you.
Anyway, I can always tell when I hit the point in a post where I’m about to start rambling and repeating myself. This one’s just about there. I’ve just had this on my mind a while and felt like vomiting it on to the page for a moment.
