I was watching a recent episode of The Rachel Maddow Show in which she was reading some of the more interesting messages proponents of the Oklahoma legislation banning Sharia law were sending to those opposing the legislation. Talk about true American idiocy! My favorite message was one in which the author, clearly a Christian, concluded with, "Your religion is a superstition." It doesn't get much better than that.Unfortunately, I suspect that this Christian was not alone in believing that Christianity is somehow truer or less superstitious than any other religion, past or present. This is part of what makes religion dangerous: it fosters us vs. them mentality, imbues the "us" with divine authorization, and often dehumanizes the "them" by associating them with evil. "My god is better than yours" has been used to justify countless wars and continues to allow people to treat one another poorly while managing to feel good about doing so.
For the record, I'll note that I find Christianity preferable to Islam in some ways. Given the choice, I would rather live in a predominately Christian area than in a predominately Muslim area. Of course, I'd far prefer living in a predominately secular area to either. And while I do regard Christianity as preferable in some ways, this has nothing to do with it being any more rational, any more likely to be true, or any less superstitious.
