H.L. Mencken was one of the most respected scholars, writers and nationally syndicated columnists in
American journalism. He wrote for the Baltimore Sun. His observations on "religious opinions" should be on everyone's fridge door.
"The most unbelievable social convention of the age in which we live is the one to the effect that all religious opinions should be respected, no matter how ignorant."
The insidious and seductive cliche that seems to saturate our society is..."you should not be critical of another person's religious belief...they all deserve "respect". No matter how ignorant...how bigoted...how ugly...how destructive...how false...how cruel...how superstitious...they all deserve "respect".
It reaches the absurd point where a person cannot even write a scholarly critique on a religious belief
without being labeled and attacked. Distinguished scholars such as Joseph Campbell, or Dr. James
Bennett Pritchard who was the biblical advisor to National Geographic magazine and Time-Life books,
write about the myth of the Hebrew patriarchs and the monumental exaggeration of Old Testament
events and they are immediately attacked as being anti-semitic.
An illustration from my own life. About a year ago I wrote a book review on "Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel". Only a book review, mind you, and one that received excellent reviews in the New York Times.
Letters to the Editor came in calling me "anti-semitic" for reviewing the book.
We are so pathologically afraid of stepping on other people's toes that truth is unknown. This thing called "tolerance" can only be an excuse to avoid dealing with the truth head-on. For instance, "creationism" is NOT science. The earth is billions of years old, not thousands. That is a FACT. When are more school boards going to have the guts to say it? Or bible "history" classes in public schools in Florida that have "lesson questions" such as"Who according to Jesus, is the father of the Jews? The devil..."
"Tolerance" and "respect" for ignorance and bigotry should have no place in our lives. The disease that is spreading in our society is the feeling that you should accept and respect an individual's belief's, no matter how ignorant or destructive. This is a most dangerous principle in that it threatens free inquiry, even science and truth itself. The danger is that far too many, in apathy, are dozing while this cancer spreads.
Public criticism in the only way to decide what is right and what is true, no matter whose toes get stepped on and flattened.
A fundamentalist education official in Arizona said this: "If fundamentalist parents tell their children the earth is flat, teachers have no right to contradict them."
Under pressure from Christian fundamentalists, the Oklahoma State Textbook Committee voted that all
science textbooks should include a disclaimer against evolution.
This pathology of "acceptance" and "respect" for ignorance in our society even motivated nationally syndicated conservative columnist George Will to write: "The principle on which all intellectual freedom depends is this: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH OFFENDING SOMEONE IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH."
Put that on your fridge door...with spotlights on it.
Why all the screaming from those being "offended?" The answer is so simple. Ignorance cannot abide informed and intelligent criticism. Any, and I repeat "any". organized religious community or religious tradition is always in danger of collapse through dissent. And so they stigmatize dissent by crying how "offended" they are.
There was a teacher once who had no respect or tolerance for the hypocrisy or the superstition of the
religious leaders of his day. His name was Jesus. To the Pharisees, he said it loud and clear "woe to you hypocrites...on the outside you look clean but inside all are unclean and full of dead men's bones...you go over land and sea to make a single proselyte and then make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." (Matthew: chapter 23)
Poor Jesus. Nobody ever gave him that pathetic, naive and pathological advice that he should be "tolerant" and show "respect" for the hypocrisy and bigotry of the Pharisees.
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