Well, that's pretty mcuh what I was saying :)
My point exactly; people use excuses. The homosexuality argument is a good example; I think some people have a problem with gays and the fact that it's in Leviticus is just handy for them to justify it. I reckon that those same people eating pork and shellfish, cutting their hair and using pillows is evidence of a single-issue problem here.
There was a fascinating experiment carried out many years ago on race; experimenters set out to deliberately challenge racial assumptions (They're stupid, they come over here and take our jobs, the tribe of Ham justified slavery, etc etc). the idea was to systematically strip away people's assumptions and excuses and the experiment ended with one person, bereft of their safety net of knee jerk apologia, screaming "I just don't like them, okay?!".

Blaming people's belief set or set of excuses for their behaviour will never change their actions - it's been demonstrated often enough. You have to engage with people on their own terms and change is a slow process. I accept it's very easy simply to despise people for reasons of "they think XYZ, the wankers", but if there's one thing the world doesn't need, it's more reasons for people to hate each other. *g*
(davywavy, Tue 24 Mar 2009, 14:41, Reply)