I don’t see religion as an ‘untouchable subject’, certainly not on this board. Its pretty much a regular feature in fact. Unfortunately, DT’s style of ‘debate’ on religion is to bring a bigger hammer, and attempt to pummel his supposed detractors into submission. I think there are better ways to debate religion than to simply dismiss it out of hand, nose in the air and arrogant in your supposed superiority, then get angry and spiteful when the poor deluded religous fanatics don’t see the error of their ways and bow to your insites. YMMV…obviously DT’s does.
(FTR, I’m an agnostic and sympathetic to debating religion freely and openly…I just don’t think DT does the cause much good with his, um, unique debating style)
Now guys, this thread is for Der Trihs hating/defending, not discussing religion. [/sarcasm]
That’s the problem- I also believe what Der Trihs believes- ok, maybe not the invading-Canada thing, but I’m certainly pretty close to him on, say, religion and the Bush administration. But by making his points in a consistently overblown, hyperbolic and insulting fashion, he both weakens his argument and makes his position (and by extension, its supporters) look ridiculous. I sometimes feel a little like the average religous fellow must feel about, say, Jerry Falwell- like walking behind him with a big banner saying “This man does not represent us!”. He’s also hurting his position- certainly, it’s gotten to the point where I tend to scroll over Der Trih’s posts, looking for certain words- religion, Bush- and just ignoring that post if they appear, because I know exactly what I’m going to find. I don’t think that’s helping him get his message across.
If, on the other hand, you adopt a reasoned tone, make a series of logical points and back them up with examples rather than hyperbole, the opposing side is both more likely to listen to you and to be more willing to accept good points you make. Surely that’s what forums like Great Debates are for- to try and reach a mutually satisfying consensus, or, failing that, to at least understand the other side’s point of view.
That’s why I think that childish absurd exaggertation and straw man arguments like Der Trih’s have no place in that forum.
I ignored your earlier cheap shot, but after this one, I have to ask a simple question. Can you disprove anything that I have posted about organized religion?
This meme has popped up around here several times recently, and I just don’t understand it. Can you describe what it is about religion that you consider makes it “untouchable”?
If someone brings a religious argument into a scientific discussion, I’ll be the first one to shoot that argument down without mercy. But that doesn’t mean I need to viciously attack religion on all grounds. Most people in the US are religious, and they’re able to go about their lives in a decent manner. We have a strong tradition of religious tolerance, and firmly established institutions to keep our government largely secular. Anyone who thinks religion is overwhleming the public sphere (government) needs to time travel back 50 years. We are becoming more and more secular over time, not more and more religious. There may be a few reversals from time to time, but the long term trend is unmistakeable.
I’ll happily agree that religious differences cause myriad problems among human beings. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that; you just have to be vaguely aware.
Taking that from “intolerance is bad, no matter where you find it” to “religious people are bad”… can you guys not see the problem there? It’s like saying “This person used a hammer to brain a kitten. Everyone who uses a hammer is evil and wrong and bad, and hammers have no other use except to brain kittens.” Hammer-users come up and say “But wait, hammers can be used to build houses for the homeless and to tack up posters.” The answer to this, of course, is that you can use a nailgun to build a house and thumb tacks to put up posters, therefore hammers are useless except for braining kittens, therefore they’re bad, and YOU’RE bad because you justify the use of hammers.
“But I only use my hammer to put pictures on my wall!”
“STALIN used hammers!”
And so on.
The problem with this is not the debate of the existence of God or the silliness of being religious. I’ll admit it – I’m a Christian, and I’m a true believer. I think there really is a God, an indefinable creative and connecting force, maybe even with an intelligence I could never fathom. Yet as a rational person (humor me, guys ) I also understand that this belief of mine can never be proven scientifically, that there is no truly rational basis for it outside my brain, and that everything religion gives me and other people could be given – and perhaps given even better – with areligious structures.
Teaching kids right from wrong doesn’t require a big beard in the sky. Social cohesion and community gathering can be managed in other ways. People can get a sense of belonging and meaning outside of religion. Depending on how and where, it can even be better and more efficient without the umbrella of non-rational beliefs casting its shadow.
So I have a sense of humor about it. “So,” people say. “Jesus talks to you?”
“Oh yes. Every Thursday night at 7:30, regular. Jesus also likes sugar and cream in his coffee.”
And I understand that people think I’m silly. I think collecting stamps and baseball cards is silly. I understand that people can be perfectly happy without a dram of religion in their lives, that they can live fruitfully and make the lives of other people so much better.
That’s all okay.
What’s not okay is demonizing me and the people I care about. Saying “YOU’RE WRONG YOU’RE WRONG YOU’RE WRONG” is not a debating tactic. Just as has been said earlier in this thread, the only people who listen to Der Trihs are the people who agree with him. He’s not interested in a debate, he’s just interested in shouting and shouting so he can hear his own voice. He refuses to consider the distant possibility that he could ever be wrong. He refuses to listen to anyone else. He’ll backpedal a little after he says something remarkably stupid, but finally he’ll just call everyone a stupid bigot and stomp off.
This. Is not. Helping. He’s winning about as many hearts as Pastor John, the vitriol-spewing psychotic preacher we all mocked when I was in college. He kept telling us we were going to Hell, and by God we were eager to make the trip if it meant that we’d be going someplace he wasn’t.
It’s not the atheism of Der Trihs I have a problem with. I tend to like atheists, as a rule. It’s being a jerk I don’t like, and he’s got that in spades.
I am not on active duty, although I can see where you’d make that mistake, as the timeframe is such that if you hadn’t heard I’d been discharged you’d assume I was still in. I’m not, and I don’t have many buddies who are, and haven’t talked to any of them in months. Personally, I think that view on individual servicemen–if his view is indeed as you say, as I did miss those threads (no need to dig them up, I don’t really care)–is a little overblown, as those folks are just following orders. But having been on active duty I can tell you that there is a lot of “Hoo-rah! Shoot them sand-niggers dead!” attitude in the military, and I don’t think that having such a murderous attitude is excused by wearing the right uniform at the right time–after all, we lock people up as criminals (not POWs, as we should be doing) for feeling the same way in the wrong uniform. Do all servicemen feel that way? No, but remember that the US military is an all-volunteer force, and that within that force it’s not that tough to get a cushy no-battle job if you want one. Plus, we must go back to the fact that there’s a double standard: we hold all captured Islamist fighters as war criminals just for fighting the war. We deserve to get called out for that. Again, his views are a little exaggerated for effect, and again at their core is an undeniable nugget of truth which isn’t talked about as much as it should be.
It’s a good thing you’re showing a more mature attitude and putting your money where your mouth is by taking the high road, and not turning Der Trihs’s name into an obscenity to make your argument. :rolleyes:
You’re listening, aren’t you? Otherwise you’d have no idea what to say in this thread. You’re at least thinking about the opinions on the other side of the spectrum from yours, which I’d bet you wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s the point. That’s the point I see, anyway.
Personally, I consider the former Soviet Union to have been a religious government. Sure, they eschewed the traditional gods, but what was Stalin if not a deified man? I don’t consider the Soviet Union an atheist or agnostic state as its religion was just like the other ones taken to their respective extremes, with sacred rituals, laws, taboos, and an easily-angered deity who was presented to the masses as kind, loving, omnipresent and all-knowing.
The point is that the crap jammed down the throats of the Abrahamic religions’ followers is as fictional as pyramid theories, and nobody else has the guts to say that. Apparently, it takes someone of an abrasive character to break that taboo. I’d rather it be broken by an asshole than never broken, personally.
I used to feel the same way. About three semesters ago I wrote a beautiful (if I may say so myself) argumentative paper about why marijuana should be legalized, and turned it in to my (very pro-legalization teacher) who said “This is really well-written, and I agree with what you’re saying–but these are the same arguments we’ve been pleading gently for twenty years and no one’s been listening who doesn’t already agree, and they’re certainly not going to listen to this”.
My contention is that Der Trihs’s argument is unfortunate but necessary because sometimes you just gotta fight fire with fire. At the very least, maybe some people who are equally ridiculous on the other side will see how stupid they look, and chill out a little. I consider that a point in the win column.
But he’s not talking to Falwell or Phelps. He’s talking to the mostly-moderate people on the SDMB. He’s not saying “fundamentalists and intolerant religious people are stupid”. He’s not even just saying that religious differences have been the cause of incredible amounts of intolerance and cruelty over the years. I could get behind that.
Instead, he’s saying that religion is evil, that religious people are evil, that all pastors and preachers and reverends and rabbis and imams are child molesting froth-lipped hate spewing vitriol-filled psychotics, and that anyone who listens to them or respects them is a deluded fool.
He looks ridiculous. Most of what he does makes me suspicious of atheists where I wasn’t before. He makes his entire side look like morons and makes the other side look reasoned and rational in comparison. Because while he’s up there spouting hatred and intolerance, the atheists aren’t sidling up to the theists and saying “Well, he’s a psycho. He takes things way too far. Come on, let’s have a cup of coffee.”
In this thread, instead, the atheists are saying "We agree with this psychotic nutbag. He might be psychotic, but he’s right.
That does even more to harm your side than Der Trihs’s vitriol, really. It tells us that you aren’t interested in a debate either – you have decided he’s right, you’re right, and the rest of us are deluded fools not worth talking to. Instead of moderating his extremism, you support it.
Were Der Trihs religious, he would be one of the ones referenced to in this prayer: Lord, keep me safe from your followers.
I can see where he is coming from with most of his views. I actually agree with some. HOWEVER, he’s a frickin loony if he thinks he’s winning people over with his rants. He’s one of those angry atheists I try to distance myself from. He sounds like one of those people who is just plain angry at everything. It just so happens that he is an atheist; please put me down as someone else embarassed to be associated with his ravings.
And, yes, his brushes could not get any wider.
It doesn’t have to be. If God were an active presence in the world, as he supposedly was in early Biblical times, faith wouldn’t be required. The absence of evidence for God is what drives faith.
Some religions, in fact, retreat to faith when asked for proof, but act as if the existence of God were proven when trying to impose their rules upon others. Those are the religionists who deserve our scorn.
It should not. You should be above such ‘broad-brushing’, especially as you chastise DS for it.
You haven’t read the thread very carefully then. Many atheists have said just that. Some of course have not. I have not, since I reject your characterisation of him as a ‘psycho’. (well at least as far as religious discussions go. I did think his ‘servicemen should all die’ thread was ridiculous and offensive)
No they aren’t. Who would say such a thing? Those who agree with him disagree with that characterisation of him.
No, actually that quote right there implies* that you aren’t interested in a debate. Why do you mischaracterise so much, again the very thing you chastise DT** for? Don’t presume to tell me where I’m coming from here!
I think he is right. I think I am right. I think followers of organised religion are deluded. I do NOT think you are a fool. I do NOT think you are not worth talking to. I WANT to talk to you. Don’t you think it’s rather sneaky and deceitful to start casting aspersions on people who are merely defending DT’s character?
*Of course, being the charitable-minded kinda guy I am, all I take from that quote, is that you’re getting flustered, nothing more. See? Wasn’t so hard.
** Der Trihs, an apology. I think there’s little more asinine on this thread, than the modification of your username that has been doing the rounds. I abbreviated your name cos I hate typing (no really ), so I’m rather dismayed to find, that in an earlier post I abbreviated the offensive version. Sorry about that. :smack:
And I did it again at the top of the previous post. and I can’t code. or capitalise the first words of sentences or start them without conjunctions. Not wishing to offer anyone a blowjob, I can’t even use the embarassed smiley. Yikes.
If it makes you feel any better, whenever I quote Der Trihs to my atheist partner I get about ten minutes of, “And this kind of bullshit is why I hate interacting with other atheists.”
I do try not to, but honestly, the people who come in here to support Der Trihs by saying “He says what needs to be said” have very few SDMB peers on the other side. By this, I mean that we all seem to stand up and say “You’re a nutjob!” to people who take their witnessing to the “Yer all goin’ ta hell!” level, but when Der Trihs says “You’re stupid and evil and wrong and you’re perpetuating hatred no matter what you say”, people actually AGREE with him.
It is these people I find distressing. They represent their causes poorly if they are trying to win hearts.
And what I am saying is I disagree with those who agree with Der Trihs.
‘Psycho’ might be over the top. I mean ‘out-of-touch-with-reality nutbar’, but it takes so long to type.
Should I dig up the fairly recent “He says what should be said and in the way it needs to be said, even if it’s regrettable” quote?
Yet you don’t seem to understand who you’re defending.
You think I’m deluded, and that’s your perogative, that’s fine. You aren’t calling me a fool, and I appreciate that. But you are defending someone who DOES call religious people fools. I am religious. I am deluded by choice – I believe in science and evolution and natural selection and the Big Bang, I do not take the Bible literally, and I do not believe that I am absolutely right about anything. I’ll happily admit I’m wrong. I have a problem with people who don’t, no matter their religion.
This is a guy who came out and said that all religious leaders were con-men. Not that they were all deluded or all wrong or all silly. They were all con-men and dangerous and egotistical and uninterested in anything except the lining of their own pockets. This is someone who blames every single human problem on religion. You seem to be a gentle and thoughtful person, and yet you are defending the equivalent of a rabid street preacher. Would you like me to dig up quotes of his I find objectionable? Would you like to debate them?
That’s fair. I am getting a little flustered, but that’s partially because work is being a bit of a pig today and I’ve been tired of DT’s antics for a little while now.
There’s a “nugget” of truth at the core of pretty much any assholian rant. That doesn’t stop the author from being an asshole.
“Listen” doesn’t mean “read” or “ponder”. This is a forum where any ass can post something and we scroll down and there it is. I’m not even religious and his rants are just Mansonian. He does his side no good in “the debate”.
:rolleyes: Based on that logic, science and basketball are both religions. One deifies Einstein, the other Jordan.
So if you hate religion and quash it at every turn, then you are religious. I guess that makes DT a god. And any murderous Dictator who eschews religion is also a god.
Sorry, but this Communism = Religion is some of the stupidest shit possible. Just because something is followed to an extreme or “religiously” (small “r”) doesn’t mean it is a Religion.
You’re as wilfully blind as Der Shit. Don’t you see that he does nothing to sway people that don’t already agree with him? In fact, he makes it easy to discount the whole argument against religion, thus hurting you argument.
Maybe you’re just a poor thinker. Part of being a good writer is being able to couch things in fresh ways.
Are you that out of touch with reality? Fighting stupid with stupid is just plain dumb-fuck stupid. Now, if you want to lock Der Shit in a room with Falwell and Fred Phelps, I’m all for it. But to think any of their beliefs will be shaken by the other is ridiculous.
And then I feel intolerant, and then I feel bad about feeling intolerant, and then I wonder whether he might have a point and religion makes people intolerant, and then I get angry because I’m sympathizing with Der Trihs, and it just feeds upon itself in a vicious cycle of Liberal Guilt before I realize that some people are just wrong.
I enjoy DT’s posts. Do I agree with everything? No. Is he overbroad and fanatical? Yes. Do I roll my eyes on occasion? Absolutely.
But I appreciate the honesty. I appreciate the fact that he follows his opinions to their logical conclusions–something I haven’t been able to do. If US soldiers are in Iraq on an unethical mission, and they are volunteers, they are responsible for being there and acting unethically. I don’t seem to have the moral fortitude to say, as a result of that belief, “So, fuck 'em all!” but I think it’s what follows from the belief.
I think religions are irrational and often stupid. It’s reasonable, if you have that belief, to think that the religious people are irrational and stupid. When DT posts, I have to ask myself why I don’t follow the chain of thought to the same conclusion he does. If someone defended faeries like so many people defend religion, the majority of atheists would guffaw. The majority of atheists think religion is irrational, but won’t say that the religious are irrational. Why the disconnect? I’ve got the disconnect, too, but I can’t explain it or defend it.
(OT: Der Trihs, if you’re reading this, thanks for the suggestions in this thread: epic fantasy. I’m reading Bujold’s Chalion books now and I love them. Couldn’t send you an email to thank you.)
) I also understand that this belief of mine can never be proven scientifically, that there is no truly rational basis for it outside my brain, and that everything religion gives me and other people could be given – and perhaps given even better – with areligious structures.
), so I’m rather dismayed to find, that in an earlier post I abbreviated the offensive version. Sorry about that. :smack: