The split could be seen as more "inclusionist" and "exclusionist" (see post #45) than it is about "God" or not. (Or tribalist/universalist...)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=15126
by eridani
When talking about religion, always specify which one first. The human race has had, during its entire existence, only two religions—tribalism and universalism. All of the evil associated with religion is due to the former, and all of the good associated with religion is due to the latter.
The premise of tribalism is organized male brutality incarnated as divinity, and the goal as Yahweh promised Abraham was “I will bless you abundantly and greatly multiply your descendants until they are as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants shall possess the cities of their enemies.” Women are cattle, rape is a sacrament (except when the property rights of higher-ranking men are violated), xenophobia is a sacrament (the ‘other,’ however defined, is to be subordinated or killed), sex is for men (who have a right to it) and done to women, always potentially evil due to loss of control and the possibility of the wrong sperm connecting with the wrong egg. Hierarchy and domination are important—it’s necessary for everyone to know whose boots they have to lick and who they are entitled to kick in the face with impunity. Faith in irrational mythology is a loyalty oath to the tribe, and God likes your tribe better than any of the other ones and will help you take their real estate. Or, as one of its major exponents, Genghis Khan, put it, “Man's greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding, use the bodies of his women as a nightshirt and a support.”
The premise of universalism is that empathy is the basis for universal ethics that apply not only to your blood relations but to all humanity, succinctly summarized by the Golden Rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And according to the Book of Jonah, that means even Assyrians, who were to be treated the same as any of the tribes of Israel, provided that they repented of bad habits like mass murder, rape and pillage. The ‘other’ is human too, and women and children are moral agents and not just possessions. The goal is that “every man shall sit in safety, underneath his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” No warlords, no empires, owning your own means of production but not anybody else’s, art and human knowledge as higher pursuits than conquest.
When discussing religion, remember that every single specific tradition has elements of both tribalism and universalism. The Old Testament has Yahweh the mass murderer, but also the universal deity of the Book of Jonah. The Catholics have Francis of Assisi and Torquemada, Hildegarde of Bingen and the Borgia Popes. Muslims have the Wahabis and Sufis, Osama bin Laden and Badshah Khan, etc. Judaism has Likudiks and those whose practice is Tikkun Olam, struggling for social justice to repair the world. All the famous prophets and reformers, Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, etc. were all universalists. All suffered the fate of having tribalists eventually reclaim them as tribal totems.
And cyberspace village atheist threads notwithstanding, there is no such thing as an ethically privileged epistemology either. Atheists, agnostics, pagans and members of non-theistic traditions also have the exact same tribalist/universalist split. Oppenheimer vs. Teller, Stephen Jay Gould et al. against the eugenicists, etc. Though the contrast is not as intense, Soka Gakkai Buddhism is much more nationalistic than Zen. Older pagan traditions were often into the My God Is Better Than Your God game, and emperors often demanded to be worshipped as deities, but pilgrims and seekers generally took great care to respect the local deities of others. Neopagan traditions include the Nazi Thule Society and white supremacist versions of Asatru, as well as people who go beyond dancing naked in the woods to significantly altering the way they live to protect them.
I see some people's "personal freedom" morality as being "exclusionist" when it comes to women's rights. Other people can be "exclusionist" when it comes to world resources. And I react against those systems.
I suppose some don't see me as being "inclusionist" because they don't see me as including them - if I reject their tribalism. But I see them as only being "inclusionist" when you agree with them and when women are willing to give up their expectations of equality and respect.