In an interview in “The Progressive” he has (of course…he always does) articulated * prefectly * something I have always felt was true and has come up on these boards.
There may be no debate, maybe everyone will agree. Here it is:
And that is exactly how I feel about it. If you chose it, it’s fair game.
Does anyone disagree with this?
stoid
no
Well, I would wager that someone disagrees with it.
I suppose we should act to believe that there’s a definite Disagreer; if we’re wrong, no problem, but if we’re right…
What’s everyone looking at me like that for? What?
<d&r>
I don’t disagree. Except that I would say for most people, it’s such a passive, unthinking decision that it’s almost like something they get at birth. Such decisions should be made intellectually, but often they aren’t. I also think that’s why some people are so shocked when they hear the thoughts of those who actually think about religion–because in many cases, they’ve never really thought about it themselves.
Hit-and-run here, but I agree, George has it stated it correctly. Of course, if you want to disagree with my decision IRT religion, fine, but be aware that your disagreement is also an intelletual decision, and I get to disagree right back.
In other words, it doesn’t matter how eloquent George is, it’s still stalemate.
I love Carlin. Obviously, I won’t be disagreeing with you, Stoid (or with Carlin, either).
Basically, if you’re going to consciously choose a point of view on something, you should be acquainted with all sides of your decision. Ideally, one should be able to not only defend one’s point of view, but be able to debate the opposite side of the issue with equal ease. That goes for religion or any other societal hot-button issue you care to name (abortion, the death penalty, punishment for crimes, what constitutes obscenity, etc.) all of which, as we know, are grist for Carlin’s mill. After all, there isn’t a single sacred cow that doesn’t have a diseased hoof or a broken horn. Failing or refusing to recognize that doesn’t magically cure the cow.
MrO, however, points out a sad fact. People quite often make religious (and other) choices based not upon what they believe, but on what they have been raised to believe or what the majority of people they are around believe.
Carlin is not a bigot, IMHO, nor any of the other epithets I’ve heard directed at him. He’s much more like the boy who quite sensibly pointed out to the crowd that the Emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes while the rest of them were engaged in keeping up the farce.
I disagree.
C’mon, somebody has to.
Well put. I do not understand people who do not question their faith. Be that faith in religion, love, or anything else. Aren’t we obligated to?
I don’t love Carlin for this (I DID love him for “Class Clown” and “Occupation: Fool”), but I agree with him.
I’m a Catholic by choice, just as I’m a conservative Republican by choice. If I’m uncomfortable with criticism of my church or my party, well, it would be mighty easy for me to LEAVE my church or my party, wouldn’t it? It’s not quite so easy for Rodney King to stop being black.
If we choose to believe certain things, we’re fair game for criticism.
So, for instance, if I were to say “George Carlin was hilarious twenty-five years ago, but has been a preachy, pompous, uninspired, unoriginal windbag, running on empty since I was in college,” that wouldn’t be bigotry. That would be a justified exercise of my First Amendment rights.
(Hey, Carlin wasn’t BORN a lousy, washed-up, one-note standup comic- he CHOOSES to be one, which makes him fair game.)
I don’t understand why being collusive with it makes it fair game.
A black man can reject his culture. A gay person, can reject their homosexuality. In some ways, if they embrace it, they are collusive in it.
As a matter of fact, I think it would be much more easy for a gay person to live as a heterosexual then it would be for an Amish born, or especially a Muslim woman to reject their religion.
There are certain elements within protestant Christianity – some Calvinists, for example – who might well object to Carlin’s view.
For Calvinists, the effectual calling of God and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit are absolute prerequisites for salvation. These things cause, but cannot be accomplished by, one’s decision to acknowledge Jesus as Christ, Lord and savior.
Under a Calvinist view, God is perfectly sovereign over human events, such that his calling cannot be denied, once it has been positively given. And human will is totally fallen, such that we can never do anything – including, give intellectual assent to righteous theological concepts – to merit the salvation that is only in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, salvation – which is the essential experience of Christian faith (as distinct from mere ethnic or habitual identification with Christianity) – is not, as Carlin puts it, a “collusive” sort of thing, Calvinistically speaking. Rather, it represents a total overthrow of the sinful self by the soveriegn God of the universe.
On balance, Calvinism is less depressing and more complicated than I have made it out here. But that’s a bare-bones, truncated sketch of a Calvinist argument, contra-Carlin. The point is, when you understand the proposition in those terms, there is at least something to be said for the notion that – for some Christians – Christianity is an inescapable reality as they understand it, even if it becomes volitional after the fact.
If you want a fuller – by which I mean, better – explication of Calvinist theology, a few good names to track down might be: R.C. Sproul, James Boice, Cornelius VanTil, B.B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, Geerhardus Vos, Hermann Ridderbos, Robert Murray, John Calvin and – if you like the really old stuff – Augustine. To start with, you could look for anything to do with soteriology, justification, sanctification, predestination, total depravity, or limited atonement. An impartial list again, written for audiences with varying degrees of exposure to Christian theology. But a place to start, at least.
As for the bigotry angle, it seems to me that Carlin has utter, unswerving, prima facia (sp?) contempt for the intellectual capacity of anyone who is not an atheist. That’s his own business – and perhaps I have misunderstood him – but if I’m right, then I don’t think he’s very different from all kinds of other bigots, regardless of the degree to which religious faith is volitional. It’s the prima facia judgments about other people, not merely their ideas – if he’s making them – that would be troubling to me.
Cheers,
–B
Isn’t that what Sunday School is for? 
I would say it depends on WHAT you are criticizing and WHY.
A significant proportion of the debates on this board seem to spawn from people who are dropped into a philosophical box from birth and who, despite our best and most righteous efforts, cannot be pried away from their convictions. That seems to me to be contradictory to the concept of an intellectual decision.
I would argue that people have to be taught to think openly and to question the world around them. Let me propose a hypothetical example which nobody who regularly reads these boards has ever, not even once, seen firsthand.
OP: I come armed with the truth as I understand it. Believe me.
SDMB: Cite?
OP: Here is a list which was sent to me via e-mail.
SDMB: Your list is factually incorrect here, here, and here. Circular reasoning is employed here. Here is the latest scientific evidence which not only refutes your point of view, but also supports another theory which you are claiming to be false. Here is a lifetime’s worth of sources you can examine which prove you wrong, and finally, here is an appeal to your common sense.
OP: La, la, la, la. I can’t hear you. In summation, I’m right and all of you are wrong.
SDMB: Didn’t you hear us, you blindered fool?
OP: La, la, la, la. The fact that you are arguing with me underscores the validity of my position.
SDMB: You didn’t hear us, did you?
NO. The OP did not hear us. They don’t hear us, and many of them never will. They have been taught to think that way and if you knock every last pillar of logic out from under the OP he will continue to float there on faith alone. This, by definition, is not intellectual. Instead, it is thinking based on emotion and preconceived conclusions.
I think that questioning, can encourage someone to think intellectually, but presupposing an intellectual decision on the part of someone who embraces a particular religion is just not the case. In fact, in many cases, it is just the opposite.
Just out of curiousity, which culture is that?
That would be black culture, PLD.
Well, I might agree and I might disagree, depending on just how this is applied. I’m not familiar with Carlin’s views directly, so I’d like a clarification.
I see a big difference between saying, for instance, “Christians ought to rethink their insistance on the existance of a supreme being, as there is no evidence to support such a belief.” and saying, “Christians are ignorant yahoos whose belief in an imaginary man-in-the-clouds makes them unfit to participate in society.”
I have no problem with an intellectual questioning of religious positions, but there’s a limit to how much “unremitting scorn” (ignoring the oxymoron of “limited unremitting scorn”) can be included in one’s questioning before it’s simple anti-religious dogma.
My only question, and I don’t know if this means I disagree or not, is that…he didn’t answer the question put to him which was:
He gave the answer that he’s allowed to have scorn for religion, and we can’t be mad at him for having scorn for religion, and yet…never told us why he had such scorn for religion. He went on the ‘loud Carlin kick’ right away: “I TAKE PRIDE IN HAVING SCORN FOR SOMETHING” but never told us why.
Or aren’t you giving us the whole quote?
I guess my question to Carlin would be “why does my personal spirituality bother you in the least? I’m nothing to you, so why the hell do you care if I believe in God or find peace in that or not?”
jarbaby
I was just curious, Scylla, as I said. I wasn’t aware that there was a single “black culture,” but I stand corrected.