"You Can’t Love People and Hate Their Religion." Actually, yes, you can. Robert Hunts piece starts by use that old logical fallacy, guilt-by-association, and never gets around to coming up with anything better. From start to finish its a mash-up of conflations, logical fallacies, and a whole lot of bullshit.
Hunt can seem to accept that religion is not an innate part of an individual's identity. It is an aspect of it but it is choice. People choose to belong or leave a faith and always have. Despite being a construct of society, religion is not a person. Statements like, "The first reason that this won’t work is that personhood cannot be separated from religious belonging" is demonstrably false. It's also rather narrow minded and bigoted. It most certainly can be separated. You are a person whether you are religious or not. Also, loathing a religion is not automatically connected to the individuals within that religion. I fucking hate the Catholic Church! I have absolutely nothing against the average Catholic. I loathe the doctrines and policy of the institution of the Catholic Church. I also have a great deal of animosity toward the Pope and the rest of the top leadership of the Catholic hierarchy. I don't actually hate them. I hate the consequences of their collective actions and beliefs.
I, unlike the individuals Hunt uses as examples, would never seek to harm or restrict the rights of a single Catholic including that religion's leaders or encourage anyone else to act in a discriminatory manner. Their beliefs are a different matter altogether. I despise most of their beliefs. Quite a few atheists seek to undermine religions because they care about people. They see the negative consequences religion causes and want to end it.
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