Hockey and religion

There are parallels between Religious extreamists and Hockey nuts. Notice I didn't say religious nuts.

They are similar in their adamant defence of their "beliefs" in the face of scientific evidence.  What brought this to mind lately, is the furor over the new Ontario school bullying bill and the way a Catholic fringe group called the bill an attack on Catholics and religious values etc etc. (The CBC again giving more air time to a fringe group than is warranted).

The religious fanatics' response is very much like the hockey nuts who keep saying that fighting and hard checking is part of hockey and critics should just butt-out. It's tradition and should be left alone etc.

You can of course, get away with calling the hockey people "nuts", you usually cannot get away with calling the religious fanatics "nuts", and therein, of course, is a major difference.

But it points out an obvious fact;  that it is not the hockey, or the religion, or whatever else, that is the problem, it's the way people settle into their little foxholes of belief feeling completely safe and refusing to leave, no matter what.

One, of course, always thinks that he is viewing others in their little foxholes of belief from the vantage point of level ground. It may be, however, that we do not understand those people in their little foxholes because we are so deep in our own that we only see their heads poking out.