[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
Interesting. I think that can acount for part of it, but there’s a flip side: organized groups, whether stupid or not, invite enemies, and those enemies tend to portray them using the enemy’s own criteria of bad qualities. Gay rights advocates earn enmity from some Christians who consider them immoral. Hippies earn enmity from some straitlaced folks who consider them stinky and lazy. Christians earn enmity from some atheists who consider them stupid. These labels often tell as much about the namecaller as they do about the namecallee.
If I may turn this around, especially given your example of your father-in-law (whom you describe as “marginally equipped intellectually”), an equally valid point seems as if it’d be, “People who ask, ‘are you calling me stupid?’ are generally correct: I AM calling them stupid.” Then you call it a hijack when people point out what you’re doing, and go to great pains to give what appears to me to be an equivocating denial of any beliefs about their stupidity.
That’s not something that you can change easily, I’m afraid. If you believe in your heart that someone–your FIL, Christians, folks who don’t parse poetic rhythm the same as you–are stupid, folks are going to know, and they’re going to be pretty insulted by it, and they’re likely to call you out on it. Unless you can find a way to show respect for your opponents positions and not ascribe them to being marginally equipped intellectually, I suspect that pattern will continue.
If you’re okay with that continuing pattern, well, booyah. If it irritates you, though, it’s up to you to stop it.
Daniel
[/QUOTE]
Daniel–My ex-FIL was a convenient example, who happened to be both massively insecure about his innate intelligence and correct in his assumptions about what I thought about it, even in circumstances where (and here’s where the parallel to Xians on he SD comes in) it doesn’t matter what I think of his intelligence because I;m discussing something entirely else: in his case, whether I may open a window (which draws the non-sequitur “SO–you think I’m stupid, huh?”); in the case of Xians, whether their belief in an entity whom I have yet to shown convincing evidence for entitles them to force me to show their beliefs a nominal respect greater than that I would show to anyone else holding equally unsupported beliefs (which draws the non-sequitur “So–you think I’m stupid, huh?”) I may have made the error of responding, out of frustration, “GAWD, Yes, you are too stupid to live!!!” (although I actually don’t remember making that argument explicitly) and have at least implicitly allowed the non-sequitur to stand as a summation of my feelings about Xians’ intelligence, which I’m trying to correct here.
I don’t think Xians are stupid, plain and simple. Some Xians are colossally stupid, far to stupid to live, and it amazes me that someone like Zoe, who can’t distinguish between my honesty (which I refuse to let Brian take potshots at outside of the Pit) and my beliefs (which continue to be open to anyone’s criticism) is able to function in society (if she in fact does), but there are stupid atheists as well. As i say, Xians hold no patent on stupidity–someone like Polycarp is obviously a highly intelligent fellow, able to hold forth knowledgably on many subects, some in my own field of expertise, where I often judge his comments to be thoughtful and based on broad and insightful reading. Why would I need to lump their intelligence levels together to be able to argue with Polycarp’s position, with which I usually strongly disagree? That just opens up an avenue for a hijack that I find distracting, irrelevant, personally distateful, and completely unproductive. I opened this thread to articulate those judgments, and I’d rather pursue Mangetout’s or Kalhoun’s points than keep making the same simple point I started with, which should be understood by now.
Instead of pursuing those areas I find interesting, I have out of politeness, responded to Brian Ekers’s insistence that my opening this thread was itself a hijack (of what, I have no idea) and thoroughly dishonest, which it is not. I am sincere in my rejection of the entire concept of the relative stupidity of Xians and atheists, and I’m done defending it in this thread. I wish Tom, in his even handed dispensing of justice, would view Brian’s personal attacks on my honesty as Pit-worthy and consign him there, but in any case I no longer wish to discuss my motivations for opening this thread. I want to discuss the issues it raises.
