Maybe I'm an idiot (but I'm pretty sure I'm not because my mommy always told me I was special) but I didn't get much out of Ms. Marilynne Robinson's article. What I understood was that science and religion do not have to be at odds with each other. Religion was not something that was used to explain the world until Bill Nye the Science Guy came around. And just because science can explain something, does not mean that God, or an all powerful being, is taken out of the equation. As the Almighty Thor once said "Your ancestors called it magic...but you call it science. I come from a land where they are one and the same." But just replace "magic" with "religion" and you're good to go.
I think there is only one way to represent belief respectfully. And that is truthfully. Whether you are portraying a faith that is yours or one that belongs to another, you must represent it as truthfully as possible. As members of the LDS Church, we have to deal with this occasionally. People not of our faith try to describe who we are and what we believe and they mostly get it wrong. You have to know what you are portraying; you have to research. A lot of people associate Muslims with turbans, burkas and terrorism. But that is because the Islamic faith has not been represented truthfully or respectfully. I have taken some classes where Islam has been engaged with respect and it is nothing as many may superficially see it. (Hell, if I was not a Christian, I would be a Muslim. But I digress.)
One thing we should avoid when engaging with belief is taking a select few of any given belief (whether it be religious, political, or whatever) and using them to portray that belief as a whole. A couple of Muslims blowing something up does not mean that the whole religion is radical any more than a Mormon not drinking caffeine means that none of us do. That is plain ridiculous. What we should encourage is tolerance, or if you do not like that word, than acceptance. We should find common ground. You're a vegetarian? Great! I eat rabbits and they're vegetarians. So we have that in common.
I think there is only one way to represent belief respectfully. And that is truthfully. Whether you are portraying a faith that is yours or one that belongs to another, you must represent it as truthfully as possible. As members of the LDS Church, we have to deal with this occasionally. People not of our faith try to describe who we are and what we believe and they mostly get it wrong. You have to know what you are portraying; you have to research. A lot of people associate Muslims with turbans, burkas and terrorism. But that is because the Islamic faith has not been represented truthfully or respectfully. I have taken some classes where Islam has been engaged with respect and it is nothing as many may superficially see it. (Hell, if I was not a Christian, I would be a Muslim. But I digress.)
One thing we should avoid when engaging with belief is taking a select few of any given belief (whether it be religious, political, or whatever) and using them to portray that belief as a whole. A couple of Muslims blowing something up does not mean that the whole religion is radical any more than a Mormon not drinking caffeine means that none of us do. That is plain ridiculous. What we should encourage is tolerance, or if you do not like that word, than acceptance. We should find common ground. You're a vegetarian? Great! I eat rabbits and they're vegetarians. So we have that in common.
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