I practice a West African religious tradition known as Ifa or Orisha. It’s very closely related to Vodun, Santeria, Lucumi, and similar traditions in the Western Hemisphere.
Among the Ifa pantheon are many goddesses. One could say they are black, as they originate in black Africa. And at times one could say that they are angry.
Oya is the owner of the whirlwind. A rushing river. A copper current. She is electricity in the air, the crackle of tension as it builds, the sizzle as it releases. Her name means ”she tore.” Oya cleans away dirt and decay with her powerful broom. To quote my godmother, Luisah Teish, she is “a warrior against stagnation.”
Yemaya is the mother of fishes. She dances on the surface of the ocean, silver and blue and pearly white in the sun and moon. But in a storm–watch out! And like any mother she is ready to defend her children to the death, stashing a kitchen knife in the pocket of that June Cleaver (!) apron. Don’t make her pull it out.
Oshun is sweetness personified. She owns erotic love, money, culture, and the finer things in life. Oshun is honey and oranges, cool spring water and trilling birdsong. She is also the vulture soaring high, casting her shadow over what is spoiled and needs work, over all that must be changed. From her I learned that engaging others with my anger is a blessing, a precious gift I give them.
Some divinities in the Ifa pantheon are asexual, and appear not to have sexual characteristics. Others seem to embody both sexes, either simultaneously or via different “faces” or “roads.” I’ve written here about three of the Orisha who are primarily seen as female, but there are others.
Even the briefest discussion of Angry Black Goddesses would be incomplete without mention of the Iyami. This is a word in the West African Yoruba language meaning “our mothers.” The Iyami of any community are that community’s witches. They act in secret to further women’s interests. They are able to disguise themselves as birds when going about their business. They are very dangerous to oppose.
Those who follow my tradition believe that each of us is closest to one Orisha in particular, and that Orisha is said to rule one’s head. Men may be ruled by female Orisha, and women by male Orisha. In fact, each of us has a father and a mother; the Orisha who rules our head and another of the complementary gender.
This is true of all people, no matter one’s race, origin, or religion.
Do you know who your Angry Black Goddess is? If you want to find out, you can ask a diviner.
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I always love hearing about this.
I wrote and guided a voodoo history tour while I was living in New Orleans. While researching, I became friendly with a couple of amazing women who lived and practiced orisha; I also stopped in their temples on my tour when I could, so I did my best to provide information that would be respectful and true to the message they wanted to give.
I was in my early twenties and thinking about another tattoo, and looking to incorporate veve patterns to acknowledge the importance of that research to my worldview. But you know, young and dumb, so there I was thinking Oya sounded pretty awesome, and like the kind of woman I wanted to be. Well, full-woman full-man, creative and destructive, the way I’d like to think of myself.
“Let me tell you something,” said one of the priestesses. “You can’t ask Oya for petty things. She’ll crush you.” She told me she saw me more as a child of Oshun. I was offended – I didn’t think she knew me all that well, and I didn’t take her warning seriously. But I did end up choosing a design that is more based in a story than a veve, and that does not involve Oya.
Years later I’ve become more of the woman I am on my way to becoming, and that woman takes a lot of her lessons from Oshun. I also take that long-ago conversation about Oya as a lesson in humility (and, well, appropriation and appropriateness). I don’t practice – I’m just an agnostic white girl – but I continue to admire and respect orisha, and consider it a shaping influence on my life.
I’ve had a little bit of contact with Candomble, which as I understand it is related to Vodou and Santeria, when I was learning capoeira. (Capoeira, if you haven’t come across it, is a fight/dance/game from Brazil whose history and practice are intimately bound up with Candomble. Even today, expert players will pause the game to call on the orixas to help and protect them, and many of the songs every player learns refer to the orixas by name.) I never really learned much about Candomble, though, and not just because I was a white college girl learning capoeira in North America: I also got the strong feeling that Candomble is a mystery religion, in the sense that it is not encouraged to talk about it to people who don’t follow it. Many of the senior teachers in the world are certainly practitioners, but most of them won’t talk about it. Is this idea of secrecy specific to Candomble (perhaps as a result of the history in Brazil) or is it more general? (Or am I completely wrong about it?)
Anne,
I can’t speak to whether Candomble is a mystery religion in the sense you mean, but I spent some time in Salvador in northeastern Brazil, which is considered the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture. As part of the language school I went to, we had an opportunity to attend a Candomble … ceremony (? – not sure that’s the right word). It wasn’t something put on for tourists. One of the language teachers had a relationship with the particular practitioners who were involved. They had no problem with outsiders attending and getting a basic explanation of what was going on, what different things meant. I suspect a question like “Do they really believe they’re channeling an orixa or are they just acting?” would not have been well received or even pressing the point of what is actually going on.
My impression is that it’s not so much that it’s a secret as that there’s a history of outsiders not approaching in a very respectful way or approaching in a way that reduces a complex religious practice to superstition and folklore. I’ve seen the same thing happen wrt American Indian religious practices and traditional ceremonies. A lot of Indians won’t answer questions about traditional practices not because it’s a secret or forbidden to talk about but because they’ve just had it up to there with being treated as quaint.
At least in the American cultural context, practitioners of major monotheistic religions rarely have to answer the sort of questions that get directed toward pantheistic or animistic religions. Questions like “So wait? God impregnated a human woman and had a human son that he sacrificed?” or “So you believe that wafer is literally the actual body of Christ?” I’m NOT saying you asked those sorts of questions or took that sort of tone (and I’ll confess to having stuck my foot in it once of twice with friends who are native), but there’s a history there that makes folks wary.
Do you think that’s because they’re pantheistic/animistic, or because (my guess) they’re simply the majority?
Really, in America there is only ONE “major monotheistic religion,” and it’s Christianity. Everyone knows about that, so there’s little need to ask the very basic questions; you can’t escape it if you wanted to. Judaism is viewed as “christianity lite,” since the Torah is also an integral part of Christianity–and the story in those first books is even better known than the Jesus stuff.
There are plenty of people who think that the major monotheistic religions are superstition and folklore right along with the minor and/or pantheistic ones; it’s just that we know enough to make that call for the majors without needing to ask many questions.
That’s certainly true. I don’t think skeptics/agnostics/atheists are the folks most likely to do the thing that I’m talking about. They’re more likely to see all religious belief of essentially the same stripe.
Certainly some of the issue is being the majority and simply the issue of familiarity versus unfamiliarity. But I had some rather specific instances in mind when I wrote that – times where I have seen people (Christians in these examples) treat pantheistic/animistic religions as primitive, backwards, absurd, etc. in a way they would never do with Judaism or even, frankly, Islam.
That’s not surprising. Judaism is viewed as the predecessor of christianity and cannot be viewed as too absurd. Jesus was Jewish, and all that. So they share major theological ground: jesus’ father is the same god of the Torah
Islam is basically an analog of Judaism/Christianity, with different places and actors. allah is extraordinarily similar to jehovah, and the feats attributed to Mohammed are quite similar to those attributed to other people in the Torah, or to Jesus.
One could easily have a monotheistic religion which was quite different from judaism/christianity/islam. Mormonism is a step in a new direction (though of course mormons poached a bit of christianity): it’s different enough to be viewed as absurd by many Americans who see j/c/i as relatively normal. There are surely other monotheistic religions which differ strongly from j/c/i, and i suspect those would be likewise viewed as odd.
even the complaints about islam are more cultural than religious. It’s not that people can’t get the idea of “one god and ____ is his prophet,” it’s just that the “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” in the koran are derived from a culture which is quite different from European culture, so unsurprisingly they don’t match what we expect.
Interesting. As I read you, there’s no “opt out” provision; even those who are not informed or who explicitly reject your religion are considered to be part of it, and have participation from your gods–is that right?
Were you raised in this religion, or did you adopt it at a later time?
Isn’t that broadly true of most modern religions, though?
It’s not like the Baptists think that Yahweh only created-and-is-in-charge-of the folks who believe in him.
—Myca
If you reject jesus, you’re punished for it by a life in hell, right? Or at least by some failure to attain grace. I don’t know the exact penalties for rejecting allah and/or mohammed, but I strongly suspect they’re similar. You can certainly put yourself in a theological position where god is relatively disinterested in your existence.
The idea that god watches over you and influences your life for the better–but only if you toe the religious line–tends to be linked to acceptance of most religions, I think.
Sure, but now you’re changing the basic conditions of your question.
The idea behind most religions is that some sort of supernatural entity/existence/state of being is objectively true. That is, Jesus loves you and died for your sins, whether you believe in him or not. Jehovah created the sky, the waters, the birds, and the bees, whether you believe in him or not. Each of us has an Orisha who rules our head and another of the complementary gender, whether we believe in them or not.
You can act in different ways to get different responses, but that doesn’t change the fact of the existence and authority.
It’s the same way that you and I might understand fire. It exists whether or not someone happens to believe in it. If you understand how to act, it can be of immense benefit. If you don’t, it can cause immense suffering. You don’t have the option to ‘opt out’ of fire, though, because it is objectively true.
—Myca
It seems different to me to say, for example, “these orisha created the world” as opposed to “these orisha continue to be involved in my life and guide my decisions.”
The world is what the world is, whether it was created by aliens or gods. A rock is a rock, so to speak. Religions can permit rejectino of their creation myth with more impunity when it doesn’t make much of a difference in facts.
My personality and decisions, OTOH, are either my own (my worldview) or controlled by some random orisha (other worldview.) It’s a significant distinction whether I am living my own life in a free-will effort to make nice with an arbitrary set of “god rules,” or whether the gods are in my own head, playing around. Although I suppose it’d be nice to be able to blame a higher power when I do something I regret…
Sure, and I believe that they’re your own, and that my personality and decisions are my own … but when I (for example) refuse to join the Jehovah’s Witnesses, my fiancee’s parents (just to pull an example out of nowhere) believe that I am being influenced by demons.
How many times do we hear things about being tempted by the devil, spoken to by god, etc. The little devil on one shoulder, angel on the other. It’s become part of our common cultural consciousness to the point that we don’t really question it.
Heck, there are even Christians who explicitly reject the very concept of free will and instead embrace predestination, determinism, and ‘God’s plan’ in a massive denial of free will that overshadows Ifa by quite a bit. The doctrine of the ‘elect’ veers into this in many interpretations.
I’m not saying that all of this is a worldview I agree with, by any means. In fact, it’s one I vehemently disagree with. My point is just that it’s not unique to Ifa.
And, actually, that lack of uniqueness, that focus on finding the foreignness in religions that are not western-monotheistic, but ignoring it in religions that are, is exactly what chingona was talking about in comment #3:
—Myca
Yes, but that seems like a “some people” argument. Some christians may do that (heck some christians may do anything) but they’re largely the minority in the U.S. In fact, when people refer to LISTENING to jesus or demons or what have you, they are usually explicitly acknowledging your free will insofar as you can reject them.
But the truth doesn’t really jibe with that convenient summary. Mormons and JWs, for example, ARE often viewed as mildly insane or cult-like by a large hunk of the U.S. population, and that’s even in the U.S.
This is changing as mormonism spreads–in my childhood it was regarded as much more of an oddity than it is now. JW is growing more slowly and many JWs still are viewed as strange.
Unless, that is, you want to classify JWs and Mormons as not being western-monotheistic. But that sounds like a stretch. The more accurate description would be “thinking that religions to which you have little exposure, and which are different than the ones you know about, are foreign.”
Those religions to which you are exposed seem normal: Utah residents do not see mormons as odd, because Utah is very mormon. Other states with lots of people who think mormons are crazy, start to think they’re not so crazy when the state becomes more and more mormon.
Those religions to which you are not exposed seem less than normal. We will always focus on differences of things; it’s our nature. the Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants prove that point fairly nicely, I think.
Some christians may do that (heck some christians may do anything) but they’re largely the minority in the U.S.
Many Presbyterians may not take their Calvinism to heart, but it’s not like it’s some weird minority sect. I think there are other modern denominations that also are Calvinist in origin, but I’m not sure which ones they are.
Anyway …
Sailorman,
Is your argument that this boils down entirely to familiarity and there is no theological or cultural component to which religions get treated as superstitions and which get treated as legitimate religions?
Not really, at least not how you wrote it.
First, to get this out of the way: “cultural component” has a significant bit of overlap with “familiarity,” as we both know. But as is my nature, I prefer to use a general term when it is appropriate, rather than a more limiting term. IMO, most of the “cultural component” inherent to this stems from familiarity, so I think familiarity is a more appropriate view.
And this sentence: “Is your argument that this boils down entirely to familiarity and there is no theological or cultural component” appears to be setting up a strawman. Hey, it’s a balanced world, and the words “entirely” “never” and the like will very rarely be correct.
Anyway… I think that it is more appropriate to use familiarity as a descriptor here, because in comparison to the “western monotheistic” meme, it seems to me to be both (1) more accurate and (2) more universal. So I think your argument is on the whole incorrect, but not lacking any shred of correctness (as would appear to be required by your summation.)
Obviously, ‘western monotheistic’ is a characteristic of christianity, as is “familiarity”. obviously, ‘non-western non-monotheistic’ is a characteristic of orisha, as is (in most instances) “non-familiarity.”
So: which is a better meme to use to describe it?
The familiarity meme is more accurate because being familiar is often sufficient to be accepted, while being monotheistic or western are not sufficient to have your religion viewed as normal. Scientologists are monotheistic and western; Mormons are monotheistic and western; JWs are monotheistic and western; so are a variety of relatively new sects and cults across the U.S., both christian and non-christian.
Those groups and practitioners are viewed as odd or unusual in many areas of the country where they don’t practice or do not have sufficient believers. For Christianity itself, the only “standard” things tend to be churches and Jesus; within the umbrella of christianity you have huge variance. Even some of the older religions are viewed as strange in areas where they don’t normally hang out: put a bunch of Orthodox Jews or Amish in a place where nobody is familiar with them, and they’ll be seen as really, really, weird.
Similarly, those groups and practitioners are viewed as comparatively normal or usual in areas where they congregate. Most people in NYC don’t blink when they see orthodox jews; most people near Amish country don’t stop and wonder “who the hell is THAT?” when they see some Amish go by in a horse cart.
If you live in new Orleans, then–from what I hear–you may be perfectly used to voodoo practitioners. Then again, you might not be used to buddhists. But if you live in or near Chinatown you would probably be used to buddhists, but might think voodoo is very strange.
If you think it’s western monotheism at work and not familiarity, I ask: How do you distinguish the two? How do you account for the various (western monotheistic) religions which are not accepted outside their practice areas?
As far as I can see, the “Different = Weird = Bad!” thing has applied to religion since religion was around. And it seems to apply to most of them, though perhaps there’s some religion out there which preaches acceptance of anyone else. So I don’t think your presentation, which appears to treat this as an isolated incident, makes any sense.
The question of free will has been a standard feature of Christianity for better than a thousand years, and there have been prominent Christian thinkers falling on both sides of the debate for better than a thousand years.
I don’t think it’s particularly accurate to refer to Calvinism, for example, as weird or alien to American thought.
Furthermore, since neither you nor I are not particularly familiar with Ifa, it might be good to not assume that, “In fact, each of us has a father and a mother; the Orisha who rules our head and another of the complementary gender,” refers to some sort of complete control or lack of free will, when it could just as easily refer to influence, emotional grounding, archetypical association, or any one of a dozen other sorts of things.
And, see, that’s the point.
What this actually reminds me of is the number of times I’ve heard Christian friends poke fun at Paganism by saying, “Really? They actually think they can do magic?” Ignoring completely that they believe in the efficacy of prayer, ritualized cannibalism and blood sacrifice, etc.
—Myca
Hey, sure, whether it’s “different = weird = bad” or “non-western-monotheist = weird = bad,” whichever. I’d agree that in the US it’s hard to distinguish between those two, and that in other places and times, it’s likely you’d see a similar reaction based on whatever the dominant religion of the region is.
My point is that whichever of the two it is, right now, you’re doing it.
—Myca
I don’t think the orisha etc are … controlling you, so much as a descriptor of influences and guidance? I don’t know. Most of my impressions about Ifa are from Nisi’s writing, and I know it’s fictionalized therein.
Right. Which is why I see myself making a both/and argument, and I feel like you’re trying to shoe-horn me into an either/or argument, which is why I’m trying to clarify what your argument is. Speaking of strawmen. Ahem.
Familiarity is a factor. I acknowledged that immediately, the first time you brought it up. Monotheism and being Western are not enough. Being founded in the last 150 years does make it harder to be accepted. (Is Scientology monotheistic? I thought it wasn’t actually theistic, but I don’t know much about it.) New religions tend to have a rough go of it, particularly when the dominant religion sees you as trying co-opt and supplant its theology (as is the case with Christianity and Mormonism).
But I do think there are theological and cultural factors. I think the basic orientation of monotheism is not particularly open to non-monotheistic faiths. Let me put this another way. Let’s take two people, one a Christian and one a Hindu, neither of whom has ever heard of Ifa. Both have the exact same level of unfamiliarity. I doubt they would have the same reaction to Ifa. Whatever the reaction of the Hindu believer, it’s not going to be that it’s a ridiculous and backwards superstition to believe in multiple gods.
So on the whole I think your argument is incorrect, though it is not without shreds of correctness.
If I had this to do over again, I would have moved this to an open thread.
Hey, is that an ad hom? because if so, you’re getting right to my point:
If what i am exhibiting is a lack of familiarity with something (leaving aside for the moment the fact that someone posted it here for the public to read and comment on) then I am not in the slightest embarrassed. You’d say I’m “doing it right now” and the answer would be “so what?” Why would I care whether or not I’m doing something; why would you need to flag it or point it out, if I’m exhibiting a normal and acceptable reaction?
If I am exhibiting something which is unique to westerners, or monotheists, or Jews, or whites, or men, or some combination… well, i’d want to know that. but the fact that I have those characteristics doesn’t make my curiosity or lack of knowledge any less OK, unless you come from a very odd mindset. (and unless you ignore the “posted for comment” issue entirely, BTW.)
I am posting about what I know to be reality, using examples of U.S. religions and experiences which contradict your argument.
If you want to base your argument on an assumption about what some hypothetical Hindu would think, you’re not responding in kind. Who cares what you guess, if you’re only guessing? Go read something which allows you to intelligently comment based on at least some level of knowledge or experience, because otherwise you’re not really participating. Because my nonexistent never-met-her hypothetical Hindu disagrees with yours.
No.
An ad hom would be of the form, “You’re ugly, so nobody should listen to what you say,” or, “Sailorman punches kittens, so nobody should listen to his argument.” This is of the form, “What you are doing is not okay, so you should stop doing it.”
It’s a (sadly unsuccessful) attempt to get you to check your privilege.
Associating things that you are unfamiliar with as weird and therefore bad, and embracing willful ignorance as to the ways in which things you are familiar with exhibit the same qualities, may be common, but it’s not acceptable. Indeed, it’s the soul of bigotry.
—Myca
Sailorman,
I have no idea how this has become such an issue. You are misreading me so badly and you are reading opinions that are so stupid into what I wrote, opinions that are not represented at all in my ACTUAL FUCKING WORDS. And you do this so often, that I am starting to take it personally. I’m also starting to notice a pattern.
Starting here:
Where on earth did I argue that showing ignorance (or even not showing respect for another religion) is unique to westerners or monotheists or whites or men? Let me explain something about my world view: I don’t have some kind of enormous grudge against Western, monotheistic, white men, and my every comment is not designed to reveal their perfidy or unique horribleness among the human race. If you can bring yourself to believe this about me, it might help you stop putting words in my mouth that I never said and interpreting everything I write in the way most personally insulting to you, causing you to flip the fuck out over nothing.
The point of my first comment (#3) was not that evil western monotheists are oppressing special snowflake polytheists, and they’re the only ones who ever judge or ask questions. Nor was my point that you shouldn’t actually ask a question.
Go back to what I wrote:
I was not making some sweeping indictment of the intolerance of monotheism over all other religious traditions. I was trying to address a very specific phenomenon that Anne had observed, one I had not observed when I had a (very limited) chance to learn something about the same religion in a different cultural context. So while I had not observed people being reticent about Candomble in Brazil, I had the chance to talk to friends about why they don’t like to talk to outsiders about their own religion that shares some superficial qualities with Candomble, and maybe the Candomble practitioners had similar experiences.
I was saying that in an American context, where the dominant religion and generally accepted minority religions all are monotheistic, falling outside that mold is going to lead to more questions and some of those questions are going to be put rather rudely.
My point had nothing to do with who is good and who is bad or who is accepting and who is unaccepting. My point had to do with what characteristics grant a religion social legitimacy as an actual religion in an American context.
You say: Don’t you think familiarity has something to do with that?
I say: Yes, I think it does, but I’ve seen some particular instances where people were pretty disrespectful, and the way in which they were disrespectful seemed tied into these particular characteristics of the religion they were disrespecting when compared to their own. I don’t repeat the words “in an American context” because I thinking we’re having a conversation that flows from the same original starting point, which was a very context specific observation I made.
You expain why you still think familiarity is the key factor.
You and Myca talk amongst yourselves. I’m starting to feel confused about how you are disagreeing so strongly with me because it had seemed to me that we were largely overlapping but putting the emphasis on slightly different places.
I attempt to clarify your position. I use rather absolutist language because I don’t really understand why your objection seems to be so strong. If your position is not that absolutist, I’m thinking there is nothing much to argue about because there is no way to “prove,” which is more significant to acceptance – familiarity (as in simple exposure to people of that faith) or sharing a key characteristic with the majority religion.
You take my attempt to clarify as an attack on you and putting words in your mouth. You insult me up and down your comment.
I’m miffed now. I respond snarkily to your snark. I use the example of a hypothetical Hindu, being very careful not to say what the hypothetical Hindu would think because I really don’t know. I use the example because somehow, despite all this, I still think we’re talking about an American context because that’s what I had been talking about the whole time. I say that I still think monotheism is an important factor in being accepted (not sufficient, but necessary) because it gives your religion an important similarity to the dominant religion. If the dominant religion is not monotheistic, they won’t give a shit about you not being monotheistic and will use other factors in deciding how they’ll judge you and whether you’ll have any social legitimacy as an actual religion and not a superstition.
Later, I re-read your comment and see this, which somehow I had missed:
And I think boy, he’s really misreading me. If that’s what he thinks I’m saying, then yeah, of course he’d think I’m making a ridiculous argument, cause that sure is a ridiculous argument. But I don’t think I argued that anywhere, so now I’m starting to feel really insulted that that’s the kind of assumptions about my general intelligence that you bring to this discussion and use to attribute things I never said to me.
But I decide not to beat a dead horse. But if you want to beat, let the floggings continue.
The reason I was making an isolated argument and not a general argument is because I never intended to make this some indictment of monotheism. I was responding to a very specific issue in an American context.
I may be completely wrong and off-base, but it is not on any of the terms that you have accused me of arguing from, because THAT’S NOT WHAT I’M ARGUING.
With the complete ignorance you’ve shown on this thread about issues of Christian theology that I learned as part of my public high school history class section on the Reformation – and then dismissing others’ arguments based on your own total ignorance – I could easily say the same to you.
Yes. This.
And this.
When I said “this is what you’re doing,” that last paragraph there is a big part of what I was talking about.
—Myca
Sailorman,
For the record,
I personally didn’t think your original question about Ifa at #7 was out of line. Not that you need my permission, but since some of this seems to be that you think we’re saying you shouldn’t ask questions.
I agree with Myca that many religions, including Christianity, think they apply to you whether you believe or not, but, Myca, some certainly don’t. Judaism does not expect non-Jews to follow any of the strictures of Judaism and nothing bad happens to them if they don’t.
Right, I don’t think that it’s a universal condition of religions, just that it’s not one that’s unique to Ifa … it’s one that is a component of many religions that are fairly common in the US.
I also don’t think that the question at #7 was out of line. My problem has more to do with how the conversation has evolved. There’s nothing wrong with being ignorant and asking questions, but at some point part of that has to be accepting the answers you are given and checking to see if your own cultural biases are part of your insistence that the answers need to be different somehow.
Oh, and I wanted to clarify something I said earlier:
I wanted to make clear that I don’t believe either of these to be true. I have always assumed that you are a handsome, Errol Flynn-esque character with a deeply cleft chin and a myriad of purring kittens secreted about your person at all times.
—Myca
Hmm. Which privilege would that be, in this case, on this BB, in this thread? My atheist privilege?
I’ve got plenty of privileges–white, male, U.S.–but they’ve got little to do with whether I think that this religion is unusual. It doesn’t seem much more unusual than a lot of other religions–all of which I generally dislike.
And as for why it’s an ad hom: it’s an ad hom because it addresses me, not the validity of my argument.
If you think that my argument isn’t OK, I’m curious as to why: if it links back to “this isn’t OK because Sailorman possesses certain immutable characteristics” then it’s an ad hom.
Logic and logical fallacies make no distinction about who says things; there aren’t arguments which are only ‘good’ or ‘acceptable’ if you are of a certain class. This contradicts privilege theory sometimes, oh well. But you gotta deal with it.
As for this:
Bigotry is actually an issue of people, not things. Since you want to make those clear distinctions regarding logical fallacies, let’s stick with them here.
Disliking christianity, judaism, orisha = not bigoted.
Disliking christians, jews, or practitioners of orisha, simply because they were born into their religion = bigoted.
Disliking adult converts to christianity, judaism, or orisha, because you disagree with the moral and/or ethical choices taht they have made = not bigoted.
Do you disagree?
Also: Did you intend to suggest that I was being wilfully ignorant, in the exact same thread where i was asking about the religion? That’d be a bit of a Bushism, don’t you think?
Pattern this:
You are apparently failing to read my, ahem, ACTUAL FUCKING WORDS (caps! swearing! fun!) because you didn’t notice the distinction between quoting Myca and quoting you.
No. Your willful ignorance is in choosing to ignore many specific examples of ways in which western religions do the exact same sort of thing that you object to in Ifa. Chingona has complained about this as well:
I call it willful not because you didn’t know about this theology at the beginning but because after having it explained to you more than once by more than one person, you continue to ignore it.
—Myca
Saying, “you are doing something racist (classist/culturally bigoted/sexist/etc) right now, and you might want to stop,” is not an ad hominem argument.
If you believe that it is, you need to educate yourself.
—Myca
Actually, you know what? I’m out.
—Myca
If anyone remains on this thread, please try to dial it down several notches. Thanks.
Considering the number of non Judeo-Christian religions now practiced in the U.S., I find that hard to believe.