Religion & Spirituality

Only logged in members can reply and interact with the post.
Join SimilarWorlds for FREE »

In your mind, are religious bigotry and racism the same thing? [Spirituality & Religion]

I ask because of the Muslim mosque shooting in New Zealand. I saw one SW member respond to a question about it, who referred to it as racism.

To my knowledge, there are only a few religions on earth, notably the Jewish religion, the Shinto religion, and perhaps the Hindu religion which are composed entirely of one race. Judaism counts descent from the mother as a qualifier for their religion, but there have been some notable exceptions and conversions, like that of Ivanka Trump and that of Sammy Davis Jr.

Is it not more accurate to refer to blind hatreds of the religious sort as religious bigotry?

Your thoughts?

Top | Newest First | Oldest First

SW-User Best Comment

You can't be racist to a religion.

SheCallsMeCrushDaddy · M

@SW-User 👍

Theseus · 46-50, M

@SW-User And even then there's a difference between hating the ism (Islam) and hating the ist (Muslim).

SW-User

It's religious terror. From what the reports say these people that acted wanted to execute Muslims. This wasn't about trying to undermine Muslims...it was what the killers saw as homicidal revenge. So I agree that the term "religion" applied here instead of "race". But I don't agree with this being an act of "bigotry". That is if we're getting over analytical and picky over word choice.

4meAndyou · F

@SW-User Faust76, below, makes an excellent point. He has actually seen or read a copy of the manifesto written by the shooter or shooters of the New Zealand mosque. Although another comment here mentions white supremacy, this particular shooting was about killing invaders or perceived invaders, and one of the expressed intents was to sow dissension in the US to create a civil war.

As to word choice, I think we need to be accurate. Religious bigotry and/or religious terrorism are not the same thing as racism.

SW-User

@4meAndyou But it's still a religion they went after, not a particular race. Doesn't really matter what words were used in the manifesto because we have actions that can be more easily judged. What the killer said amounts to a bunch of confused bullshit ramble from what I managed to read, lol.

4meAndyou · F

@SW-User It's obvious he's a blithering idiot, like most criminals.

Qwerty14

No religion is a race. Hindus arent a race, Jews aren't a race and Shinto aren't a race.

The NZ shooting was racism though. The people didn't attack them because they were Muslims. They did so because they were foreigners.

View 3 more replies »

Qwerty14

@4meAndyou Yeah it's why race science is total bullshit. Why anyone still focuses on it is beyond me

4meAndyou · F

@Qwerty14 White supremacists aren't very smart.

newjaninev2 · 56-60, F

@Qwerty14 [quote]because they were foreigners[/quote]

Absolutely so... and it can't be emphasised enough

ravenwind43 · 51-55, F

Everything today is racist, bigot, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, hateful, shaming, nazi...blah blah blah onto infinity....according to the media.

4meAndyou · F

@ravenwind43 AND according to the twit brained parrots who repeat everything they hear from the media, from their college professors, from Hollywood actors and actresses, from their favorite rock stars, and from the political activists who started the ball rolling.

Faust76 · 46-50, M

Correct, but in his manifesto the terrorist makes it explicitly clear that it's about race and white supremacism. (Admittedly it's full of different themes, some which seem to exist only to rile up people against each other)

View 2 more replies »

Faust76 · 46-50, M

@4meAndyou In the manifesto he wrote before the attacks, he writes "Do you feel any remorse for the attack? No, I only wish I could have killed more invaders, and more traitors as well." So the justification in his mind for killing any non-migrants is that they are traitors to their own race (merely by being there).

Of course, the intent of terrorism is never quite to be effective and selective; it's all about the terror, to serve as an example and inspiration. Also I think your post may be about my response where I mentioned religion & racism; if so you should also know that he repeatedly expressed that the intent of the attack is to sow further dissension to help bring about a civil war in US, so the mosques weren't even his real "target".

4meAndyou · F

@Faust76 Holy cow! I haven't heard anything on the news about the manifesto. That is just pure evil.

Theseus · 46-50, M

@4meAndyou Got that shit correct!!

TexChik · F

[image deleted]. I think it’s a response to [b][i]this[/i][/b] religious bigotry

SheCallsMeCrushDaddy · M

@TexChik and when muslims bomb the shit out of the rest of us on a regular basis, nobody condemns that as an act of intolerance. odd how that shit works. LOL

4meAndyou · F

@SheCallsMeCrushDaddy The rockets from Gaza into Israel were not religious bigotry, either. Nor were the 100 retaliatory rockets Israel fired into Gaza. It is just plain war, and it should be recognized for what it is.

Theseus · 46-50, M

They're only the same in the sense that hate is hate.

SomeMichGuy · M

That person was probably thinking of the close association of Islam with Arabs, but I agree that hating along religious lines is not racism.

[FYI, "Jewish" as a nonreligious term refers to an ethnicity, not a race.]

SheCallsMeCrushDaddy · M

leader of the Chechen muslims...... bout as white as you can get. muslims come in different colors..... seem that some folks forget that. LOL

4meAndyou · F

@SheCallsMeCrushDaddy Right AGAIN!!! Boy, you are on a roll! 😂

Sicarium · 46-50, M

No, religion isn't a race. But some people have to oversimplify, others just want to smear.

ViciDraco · 36-40, M

They are cut from the same cloth of ignorance and hatred.

They are not technically the same thing as one is based on genetics and the other a set of ideas. A person cannot choose their race. Though in some cultures religion isn't really a choice either but something forced upon you. In places like new Zealand though, religiosity is indeed a choice.

So they are different. But both are acts of bigotry.

4meAndyou · F

@ViciDraco Very, very true.

SheCallsMeCrushDaddy · M

not the same thing.

SW-User

They are not.

ManIsEatingEarthUpLikeCandy · F

I saw that post
and I thought before I think one thing or the other, I better read the definitions of the words race and racism and racial

4meAndyou · F

@ManIsEatingEarthUpLikeCandy And read the definition of religious bigotry. But more to your point, one SW member above did point out that the perpetrator of the shooting in New Zealand was in fact a white supremacist and that they have obtained his manifesto, and the shooting was, indeed (and very mistakenly) about race.

But I think it is very important to make this distinction. Muslims are not all black, and not all white, and not all Arab. They are a mixture of every race.

CopperCicada · M

Race is one way we make people "other". This is why Muslims are called "sand niggers". It's a way of making them fully other and less.

But religion is also a way of generalizing ethnicity. If I tell people I came up with Arabs they presume I'm Muslim. No, there are Arab Christians and Jews.

Anyone from a broad patch of North Africa through Pakistan is just going to be presumed a Muslim. Even though the area contains a whole bunch of religious group and the one we all share in common-- non-practicing.

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

Although Muslims may be of any race they're culturally treated like a race of people and there are caricatures associated with that. A racist isn't really going to care about the distinction between an Arab and a Persian.

softspokenman · M

My thoughts. Are we human beings having spiritual experiences or spiritual beings having human experiences ?

Speedyman · 70-79, M

You are playing with words. It is actually the hatred of one group for another .

4meAndyou · F

@Speedyman Is it playing with words when I say that "a man murdered people" when I could just as easily say MORE accurately that he mowed down 49 people with an AR15 and live streamed the video of the murders?

Sleet is not snow, even though it is similar.

Mist is not pea soup fog.

Speedyman · 70-79, M

We were talking about religious bigotry or racism. Actually there are far more Christians killed in Muslim countries but the press doesn't bother to report it@4meAndyou

This comment is hidden. Show Comment

4meAndyou · F

@Greybare Maybe not the best time to mention that policy after a Mosque massacre. Sensitivity is important.

Add a comment...