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MD can you please help me understand why I should view Christianophobia as any different or dangerous than Islamophobia? I have been following you that you believe criticising Christianity as a part of our culture is an essential deconstruction tool but I do not follow that expressing disgust of Christianity or even disrespect for the practice of it is not equivalent to doing the same for other religions.
I do not follow you that I should be more tolerant of one religion and culture and not another especially in the Temple where people are discussing faith as opposed to the Head Shop where we may discuss cultural politics.
I'm not claiming that we should be more tolerant of any one religion than another. I'm saying that there is no generalised system of 'religious phobias' which can be likened to each other and treated as precisely the same. Just like you can't really claim that heterophobia is exactly the same thing as homophobia, and both should be banned. Each phobia is its very own, with its own idiosyncrasies.
I've tried to avoid getting anecdotal here, but my father was a Catholic. Now, if, because of my previous experiences with Catholicism, and intimacy with how it psychologises and pathologises people in various ways, I am inclined to jokingly sledge the Catholic Church occasionally, or even express my deep-seated antagonism towards it, that's a pretty different order of fear/hatred to theoretically expressing a fear of Islam. Because I am not related to any Muslims and any view I expressed (whatever the sentiment) would inevitably come from ignorance. If knowledge breeds hatred -- intimate knowledge, in the body and the psyche, not just 'learning' -- isn't that a little different to your average religious phobia that stems from fear of difference?
My point is that to hate or fear Islam is not the same thing, qualitatively, as it is to hate or fear Christianity, or any other 'faith' or 'religion'. Each takes place through different mechanisms, different kinds of discourse, different ways that knowledge or ignorance or myth or history or politics intersects with feeling.
Getting back to the topic -- what I'm starting to suspect, here, is that people are regarding the Temple as a place where it's standard to discuss 'faith' in an individualised, depoliticised way where raising politics and history isn't really appropriate. I'm aware that the Catholic discussion was slated for moving to the Temple, and I'm glad it didn't. I don't think it's possible to discuss Catholicism, or any religion, without discussing politics at the same time. But the Temple was never a space where people compared 'faiths'; it's always been quite specifically about magickal practice and method. (That's why it used to be called the Magick.) But never mind, times change, and I don't frequent the Temple much, so perhaps it's not my concern. |
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