I agree that religious adherents are, in general in the US, worse in terms of offensiveness and bigotry.
I disagree that “Dawkins … is clearly not hateful nor a bigot”.
Read the cites in my post above. Seriously stating that being raised Catholic is perhaps worse than being sexually abused by priests is, in my mind, sufficient evidence of hateful religious bigotry.
Citing with approval a fellow whose openly proclaimed stance is that parents should have no right to educate their own children in their culture indicates he’s no friend of liberty, either.
There is not one piece of solid evidence, just millions and millions of examples to make an inference from. It’s rather like evolution, in a way. Showing that finches have adapted to various environments does not prove evolution, and DNA similarities don’t prove evolution, and fossil records don’t prove evolution, and geographical population studies don’t prove evolution, and so on. It’s only when you look at all the mountains of evidence together that evolution is proved. Creationists asking for “just one transitional fossil” are (deliberately) missing the point: it is not one fossil that proves or disproves it.
A similar argument can be made about religion. Millions and millions of people claiming to be religious over thousands and thousands of years have done horrible things, sometimes in the name of their religion. Christianity has been around for 2000 years and the world is in no better shape now than it was 2000 years ago, with Christians sharing just as much blame for that as any other religion. So there is not one piece of evidence that can prove or disprove Der Tris’s assertion. It is the mountains of evidence that all point in the same direction, from which Der Tris makes an inference. You can look at the mountains of evidence and infer something different, but Der Tris’s can make a pretty good case for his interpretation.
This would be very convincing, if there was a society composed of non-religious people to compare with who have not done “horrible things” throughout “thousands of years of history”.
As it is, what you have is a gigantic example of correlation not necessarily meaning causation. People by and large throughout history have done “horrible things” and people, by and large throughout history, have been “religious”. One could easily postulate that the causation goes the other way around: not that people do horrible things because they are religious, but rather that people are religious because they do horrible things - and feel guilty, seek atonement, seek an explaination about why people do horrible things, etc. etc.
Moreover, remove religion and there is no proof that people will stop doing “horrible things”. On the contrary. The replacement of religious authority with that of nationalism, fascism, Communism etc. in the last century or so has resulted in people doing even more horrible things.
I think sometimes that people blame religion for what they don’t want to face…that mankind harbors evil in its collective “soul.” God isn’t the problem…he/she/it either exists, or not, and it doesn’t really matter, because religion is a human construct, just like any other -ology or -ism you could think of. You can use anything for good or evil, and whether or not a person does is their own responsibility.
I agree, in part … except for “soul” I’d substitute “the authority structure of society”.
Certainly, people can be evil on a small scale absent society. It is the organization of society on a large scale which really brings out the nasty - tribalism, warfare, pogroms of all sorts.
In the past, religion was not simply a matter of individual beliefs, but a mechanism (among others) for the ordering and organization of society on a large scale. In the West at least it has mostly been replaced in this respect with other mechanisms, with mixed results.
To my mind, when people say “religion has caused wars and pogroms”, what they are reacting to is the fact that any ideological system of authority used to order society causes wars and pogroms - and religion is one. It is not however unique.
I was in church for a funeral yesterday. I always have mixed emotions when I have to go.
Funerals are religion at its best. They offer you everlasting life, sitting next to god ,who is all good, (when he is not destroying worlds that piss him off), . Nobody is comfortable with dying. It is certainly alluring to be promised everlasting life. But, they can not deliver. They just say they can which is far far removed from the truth. I get resentful when I think of how much oppression was involved in their teaching when I was young.
Then the priest was a young man who appeared to be in his mid 20s. I felt sorry for him. His life is programmed into something so unnatural.A life without sex and children . I felt like shaking him and telling him he does not know what he is giving up. But he is a believer and can not be reached until he is ready. It made me sad.
The constant "he is in a better place "comments drive me nuts. He is dead and in a coffin . He is in a box and will be slowly decaying. That is a fact. He will eat no more,drink no more and will never again laugh. That is not a better place.
Why worry about it? As far as I can tell the only evidence-based conclusion it is possible to reach is that human existence is utterly without point, purpose or meaning.
Insofar as the Universe could be said to have any purpose at all, the evidence is that its purpose is to be empty space (barring about one hydrogen atom per cubic metre). A statistically insignificant proportion (SIP, because I’ll be reiterating this a fair bit) is occupied by enough hydrogen to form stars. A SIP of these are massive enough to become supernovae at some time, and a SIP of these actually have done so and ejected heavy elements. A SIP of this has condensed into planets and a hugely SIP of these, perhaps, have the potential to be habitable. On the evidence, there is one and only one habitable planet; we can argue that it is reasonable that others may exist, in unknown numbers, but the evidence shows only one. Whatever you may think of the reliability of, say, the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s miracles, they’re solid as a rock compared to the evidence that other habitable planets exist; we don’t have any accounts of such planets that even purport to be fact, still less that have been shown to be such.
On the evidence available to us, the only habitable planet spends but a SIP of its existence as host to anything other than bacteria, worms and jellyfish. Of this time, a SIP is devoted to all of human history. The lifespan of any human, be it short or long, is a SIP of human history and hence whether anyone chooses to forego any mode of interaction, or has ceased for ever to interact, with his fellow humans is statistically insignificant to the nth degree. We for some reason choose to put meaning to it, partly because we are but a vessel for a particular kind of molecule to attempt to produce imperfect copies of itself and partly because we have developed enough brain function to be afraid of the dark and have the childish impulse to make up stories to keep it at a safe distance. But there is no evidence that it matters one whit what one collection of molecules does or does not do. 99.99…99% of time and space neither knows nor cares. The molecules may convince themselves differently, but only because they are helpless slaves of the impulse to make copies of themselves.
Faith? Faith might be about the only tool we could legitimately use to attempt to ascribe meaning to human existence. I don’t see an evidence-based viewpoint for doing so, at any rate; and certainly not an evidence-based position for feeling sad because one person has chosen a life of celibacy or another has died.
It is oppressive when people absorb their churches doctrine so much that they feel if they reject specific doctrine they are somehow rejecting God. Fortunately people can and do recover.
I think there are better ways than, “he or she is in a better place” to handle a funeral although some people find that comforting. When my Dad died they asked his minister to speak. This man had only known him for the last five or six years of his life and I figured he would use the opportunity to witness for the Lord. I told him I wanted to say a few words because I wanted someone who knew more of him to speak to family. I spoke of the things that would live in our memory and remind us of the positive things he brought into our lives.
I had thought I shouldn’t, but ah well, I might as well point out your stupidity and persecution complex.
Neither dishonest nor one whit less than accurate. You are bigoted against religious beliefs and religious people. You are 100% completely intolerant of any and all religious beliefs.
And you are a coward that you can’t own up to how hateful you are, and instead need to pretend that it’s “dishonest” to recognize that you are a bigot.
This is why you should keep your posts to Cafe Society. When you post on anything substantial, your lack of intellect really shines through. For your first idiotic example, tolerance does not mean that you have to be okay with racists. You stupid schmuck, you’re now at the level of parroting the idiotic shit spewed by people who whine about “hypocritical liberal tolerance”. Someone is not being “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his own prejudices” or treating members of a group with hatred and/or intolerance if he says that you have to tolerate those who have differing opinions, and if you’re unable to do that, you’re a bigot.
Figures, asshole, that you use the same defense of your bigotry that Skinheads use for theirs, as if tolerance demands you to tolerate intolerance.
And no, you black-and-white motherfucker, you don’t have to respect Flat Earthism, but if you respond with hatred and intolerance to Flat Earthers, you are a bigot. You really are too stupid to realize that you can tolerate something even if you think it’s silly, aintcha?
For an atheist, you sure do spend a lot of time up on the cross.
Yes, me and those like me have secretly gone and gotten Merriam Webster to change the entry, just to fuck with you. And hating the members of a group whose very existence you do not tolerate is only bigotry if it applies to religion. People who hate and do not tolerate blacks are no longer bigots.
You poor silly bastard.
The real point is that you think that because you’re bigoted against religion, that you should get a pass. You’re also bigoted against conservatives and Republicans and a host of other groups, because you’re a small minded, fundamentally-terrified, irrational, hate crazed manchild.
I’m a atheist, you fool.
Pointing out that you’re a hate crazed irrational bigot is only ‘self serving’ in that bigotry is disgusting and I wish fewer people would excuse your disgusting nature simply because your bigotry is against ‘acceptable’ targets on the SDMB.
Why should this willful ignorance be tolerated? If there was a significant majority of the adult population that believed 2+2=5, wouldn’t we see that as a problem to be fixed, rather than a quirk to be tolerated? I don’t see how a gross misunderstanding of the nature of reality is any less important.
If I knew there was a group of adults who were insisting that 2+2 = 5, despite it being explained how that is incorrect by rational people, I bet I would hate their freakin’ guts. So, I guess I’m a bigot. Who knew?
I’d be interested to know how exactly FinnAgain is defining “tolerance.”
As far as I know, Der Trihs hasn’t advocated infringing on the free speech or legal rights of believers.
He has called the religious beliefs of believers stupid and delusional, but, well, they are. And even if you don’t think so, I don’t see what’s intolerant about someone who does think so pointing that out.
I don’t see how tolerance entails giving deference to something you feel is incorrect and harmful.
Der Trihs says mean things about believers, sure. Things I sometimes diagree with (I don’t think most believers would jump at the chance to kill him, for instance, which is, I believe, a claim he has made) even. But that’s not intolerance or bigotry.
The way that tolerance is defined. They sum it up pretty well, to wit: “to put up with.” Someone who is putting up with something does not rail against it with ugly verbiage, constantly.
So a loon who stood on street corners calling gay people “faggots” and screaming about how they were going to hell, or calling black people “niggers” and screaming about how they were lazy spear-chucking watermelon thieves, or calling Jews “Christ-killing kikes” and screaming about how Jews control the world and make Christians fight wars for their amusement?
He wouldn’t be hateful and intolerant, because he wasn’t advocating infringing on their free speech or legal rights?
Come on.
Contrary to Der’s martyr-instincts, what we’re seeing here isn’t that religion is unique in being given a pass, but that attacking religion and more importantly, religious people, is semi-unique in being given a pass.
“He has called homosexual relationships perverted and immoral, and homosexuals themselves perverts who were leading to the destruction of western society, but, well, they are. And even if you don’t think so, I don’t see what’s intolerant about someone who does think so pointing that out.”
Not even to get into the fact that as long as someone is staying to the realm of faith ,and is an agnostic theist rather than attempting to use faith to gainsay facts and replace science, that they’re absolutely as rational as anybody else. Or that tarring all of the faithful with the same broad brush is, itself, delusional and irrational and based on logical fallacies. Or that stating as a definite rather than the null hypothesis that there is definitely not a God is irrational and based on logical fallacies.
This is hardly the same thing as simply putting up with differing beliefs. And it is indeed irrational bigotry to say that that all religious views are the same and are all harmful, even if that means holding as fungible the Christian who beats the shit out of gay people because he feels they’re morally corrupt and the Christian who works in soup kitchens or dedicates significant time to charity because his religion tells him that’s what a righteous person does.
That’s the very heart of bigotry, being unable to deal with individuals and instead, using fallacious fungiblity to hold members of a group as interchangeable and hate them all regardless of their individual beliefs/actions.
“Coulter says mean things about Liberals, sure. Things I disagree with. But that’s not intolerance or bigotry.”
It’s intolerance and hateful, treats diverse individuals as mere placeholders in a reified abstraction and that abstraction is used to justify heaping scorn and derision on all of them whether they deserve it or not, and is, thus, bigotry.
Even if DT is a bigot, that doesn’t automatically make him wrong.
Personally, the faster humanity relegates religion to the same dustbin as phrenology and the four humours, the better.
