Wow, I focus on classes for two days and come back to find a lot to catch up on. Apologies to anyone who thought I meant that entire cultures are somehow "bad" because of some beliefs or actions. What I meant was that some cultures have a lot more change to go through than others to be what God had originally intended--and those who don't look at it from a religious standpoint can certainly see the human rights standpoint. Some cultures have a lot less respect for human life than others, and/or separate humanity into various groups and subgroups (some marked inferior). Take cannibalism, which was only stopped in the last century in Papua New Guinea, or the twin killing that used to happen in various parts of Africa until Mary Slessor stepped in and started working to change it. Take the cultures where women are considered inferior to men, and have limited rights to education, health care, or any sort of independence. Those cultures run on a different set of morals than Western culture, and unless we go the route of relativism and say that all sets of morals are equal (and therefore their treatment of women or babies is perfectly fine because it's a part of their culture), we have to say that those cultures have serious flaws in their morals. Food, language, dress, those things are not morally related (except for the sorts of rules about not eating some things--like keeping a kosher household, and modesty does relate to dress). I will never call a culture's foods or language or dress evil or wrong. They might be very different from mine, but they're just as valid. But there's a big difference between those small things and the big issue of morality and related beliefs. And not all cultures are equal when it comes to morals. (And I still don't think ours is perfect--as long as abortion is legal, for instance, the sanctity of human life is not being respected as it should.)
I am also a huge supporter of separation between church and state, Ann, so I'm with you there. When beliefs and government mix (and someone decides to turn their beliefs into a country's laws), someone *always* gets deprived of rights (whether those beliefs are associated with a church or not). As it is, I believe that as time goes on, there will be a union of church and state once more--there are still old laws on the books that cross those boundaries. But that's a matter for a different discussion. The harder thing to tell is the careful boundary where secular laws and religious morals overlap, and how to determine the morals for secular laws when society changes so much . . .
