It's rare this days for people to write religion, and especially what's known as established religion, as if it matters. As if one's belief about the nature of the Divine, the proper ordering of the world, right and proper behaviour, and Mankind's rightful relation to the Divine were as consequential as choosing a favourite colour! (In fact, I have seen that exact analogy used to paint teaching your children your religion as problematic!)
And... well. I'm not going to insist that authors accommodate me. What I want, all I want, is for them to write characters who have a religion and act on it without being painted as either stupid or evil and to stop acting like it is somehow okay when the religion being so maligned looks like the Church.
Seriously, we have enough IRL troubles with people claiming that the rosary, AKA the most common Catholic prayer, is being 'co-opted as a symbol of violent extremism' as if talking to your mother was a statement of violence, people seriously suggesting Catholic churches (among others) should lose their tax status as religious establishments just for being solidly orthodox* in regards to LGBT+ issues, and people sticking things like 'Hey, so the Catholic Church is bad actually' 'Don't worry I fixed it' in their fic tags (And yes, these are all part of my lived experience) without fiction painting us as fools, evil, or evil fools.
* 'Orthodox' here meaning 'adhering to Church teaching'.
no subject
It's rare this days for people to write religion, and especially what's known as established religion, as if it matters. As if one's belief about the nature of the Divine, the proper ordering of the world, right and proper behaviour, and Mankind's rightful relation to the Divine were as consequential as choosing a favourite colour! (In fact, I have seen that exact analogy used to paint teaching your children your religion as problematic!)
And... well. I'm not going to insist that authors accommodate me. What I want, all I want, is for them to write characters who have a religion and act on it without being painted as either stupid or evil and to stop acting like it is somehow okay when the religion being so maligned looks like the Church.
Seriously, we have enough IRL troubles with people claiming that the rosary, AKA the most common Catholic prayer, is being 'co-opted as a symbol of violent extremism' as if talking to your mother was a statement of violence, people seriously suggesting Catholic churches (among others) should lose their tax status as religious establishments just for being solidly orthodox* in regards to LGBT+ issues, and people sticking things like 'Hey, so the Catholic Church is bad actually' 'Don't worry I fixed it' in their fic tags (And yes, these are all part of my lived experience) without fiction painting us as fools, evil, or evil fools.
* 'Orthodox' here meaning 'adhering to Church teaching'.