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Well the big difference between main-line Christianity and the others is that main-line Christianity holds that all people are "fully formed" and capable of being saved, even the ones you don't like. And yes this was a significant point of friction in the early Church which is why Paul and Peter spend a good chunk of the New Testament hammering the point that Jesus did not come to save just the rich or just the Jews he came to save everyone because is it not written that G-d favors and confides in all who fear him.
As for believing that believing someone to be sub-human being normatively worse than believing that they are risking eternal damnation, That's just like your opinion man. I suppose it makes sense from a utilitarian perspective, but the historical track record of such thinking is also a major part of why I believe utilitarianism to be fundamentally evil and incompatible with human flourishing.
You can take your potential universal saveability and shove it. If it is a crime to think me lesser and wrong, it’s not up to you to judge your beliefs, but to me. Else you should bow down before my assessment of utilitarianism. Its universal saveability is far less conditional. Bentham loves you, man.
Bentham never loved anyone but Bentham and that is a major component of the problem, the rest is aptly summed up by @FCfromSSC
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Thinking someone is lesser is a problem because you are excluding them from baseline considerations about justice and what is right. This is wrong for both metaphysical reasons and practical ones.
Thinking someone is wrong is a necessary consequence of believing in right and wrong. If wrong exists, some people will be wrong. Claiming that thinking others are wrong is a "crime" is a demand for totalitarian enforcement of one's own values.
If Bentham loves me, he has a funny way of showing it. His ideas lead to torture chambers and mass graves.
Yes, obviously. I'm defending freedom of conscience. My position is that thinking of "thinking of others as lesser" as a crime also requires totalitarian enforcement. Firstly, because it requires divining what others are thinking. Secondly, because being wrong is strictly inferior, so those who are wrong are necessarily lesser.
I reject the christian and muslim view of unbelievers as 'lost sheep', potential equals, as a mealy mouthed, patronizing framing. In reality, they damn and demonize them. Mainstreal islam especially, excludes nonbelievers from its idea of justice and morality, and as you say, that is a problem (though for me, only when they act on those beliefs).
Given your stated beliefs, can you honestly argue that " freedom of conscience" is a good thing? If so, How?
Self-evident, really. Promotes liberty and human flourishing, doesn’t result in totalitarianism. Removes the likelihood of conflict by one degree, since beliefs alone are never grounds for conflict, but only overt acts.
You think your beliefs are ‘good’. I disagree, think they’re bad, insulting and unfair to unbelievers. But it doesn’t matter, because I can live in peace with people with bad beliefs, like you or the chabad jews.
Also prevents 30 Years' Wars. You know how they say "every safety rule has a corpse behind it" and suchlike? Freedom of religion is the peace treaty to end a war that depopulated most of Central Europe.
Yeah, it's annoying that I have to explain that we don't need to kill or forcefully convert each other until everyone agrees, but apparently the memory of westphalia is fading.
It is, and that is the problem that prompts this whole thread. Your position is that Christian attitudes are bad, but it's okay to be bad. I don't think this position is stable in the long term, because people are always going to want to punish the bad and reward the good. "bad but tolerated" just begs the question "why are we tolerating it, exactly?" ...And as you say, the memory of why fades, especially when 80-90% of Americans have never heard of Westphalia or the Thirty Years War, because their moral history consists entirely of Slavery, the Holocaust, and the Civil Rights movement.
To the actual point, I maintain that "thinking of others as lesser" is, in fact, quite different from Christians thinking some people are going to Hell, because the two ideas lead to very, very different conclusions. Christians have proven that they can coexist with non-believers long-term, and are capable of playing the pluralism game so long as it's actually pluralism, because at the end of the day we don't believe that you can actually eradicate sin or force people to repent at gunpoint, so wielding power is of limited and strictly contingent value. People who believe that others are lesser, though, sooner or later are going to act on that belief, and then a lot of people are going to have to die resolving the situation.
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I wonder if it depends on what kind of Christianity you grew up around? When I was growing up it was common to hear someone reply to a description of a sinner with "Well they're going to hell." But that was it, that phrase not only ended the conversation, it was a signal that you should stop being concerned about the sinner and move on with your life. Yeah they are doing the wrong thing, and God will take care of them for it, so focus on your own problems. And that's before you bring other religions into it - oh you think I'm going to suffer in a place I don't believe in after I die? Cool bananas!
Meanwhile, considering someone subhuman - that's an open book. Who knows what a person might do to a subhuman - although it isn't a stretch to think they might treat them subhumanely.
I think it might. I grew up amongst this weird mix of Congregationalist Evangelicals, old school Black Baptists, and hard-core latin mass Catholics and Episcopalians who had kind of formed an alliance. Despite their theological differences and semi-regular flare ups these disparate groups tended to regard each other as natural allies. One of those "nobody gets to rag on my little brother but me" type vibes. We would play softball together. Whatever else there was seemed to be a shared consensus that the path was hard and that even trying to follow it marked someone as "not a complete asshole" and worthy of encouragement.
I wonder if people who grew up in more mono-demoninational areas of the country might have missed out on that part.
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