One spectacularly unsuccessful argument is that there is a true core of religion residing in the hearts of true believers and in sacred texts that is immune to the corruptions of actually existing religion. Any critique of forced conversions of indigenous populations to another religion, or religious wars, cannot touch the true core of the religion.
Religion, as I'm defining it here, is religion as it actually exists and has existed in the world, not some idealized version sanitized and modernized according to contemporary standards.
So if I take a volume of Lorca's work and beat my neighbor over the head with it, will that make the poetry less valuable? What if a hundred people beats each other up with the same volume? A thousand?
ResponderEliminarDoes the value of the text diminish, in your opinion, because of the uses to which people put the text?
Don Quijote was used by the Stalinist propaganda machine. Should we abandon Cervantes?
I have no idea what you are talking about. If there were a Church of Lorca that forced indigenous people to worship him, then yes, you couldn't say, "I belong to that religion, but those forced conversions are not part of it."
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