Huffington Post:We Must Understand The Necessary Distinctions Within A Religion

There is a problem in that the general populace is sloppy in its attempt to understand religions. They thus choose to relate in a monolithic manner to all religious people although such individuals may actually be very dissimilar. In the broadest way, they simply want to assume that all religious people are the same and/or think the same. In the same regard, they tend to believe that all members of a broad religious grouping must share the same theology. This, of course, is not true -- and the consequences of such fallacy can be major. In regard to Judaism, I have addressed this issue, and its negative effects on Jewish unity and Jewish thought, in Adjective and Non-adjective Jews, Nishma Introspection 5761-2. What we are now experiencing in the world, though, is the problematic effects of such fallacy in regard to Islam.

I develop this idea further in my latest Huffington Post blot -- We Must Understand The Necessary Distinctions Within A Religion -- at http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/rabbi-ben-hecht/under-religious-distinctions_b_14632370.html

My original title for the post, btw, was 'We NEED to understand religion' but it was changed by the editors.

Feel free to comment here or there.

Rabbi Ben Hecht