Halo13, welcome to a fellow bananabender! Whereabouts are you?
The argument you raise and others like it have been done to death in GD. Do a search on likely terms. Probably better to do that than hijack this pit thread.
Eonwe, love that name!
However, I do disagree with you, for points mentioned above. People disrespect my belief in Cthlulu all the time. Do I get mad? No… I just remember what’s waiting for them in the afterlife… heh heh heh. No, seriously. You’ve been at the SDMB long enough to know that people tend to disrespect opinions and beliefs that they find foolish, no matter whether those opinions and beliefs concern god, childrearing, or pb&j. If your beliefs can’t stand up to a little criticism, maybe it’s time to rethink them.
Yeah, Bananabenders rule! 
I’m in South Brisbane. Thanx for your suggestion Princhester, I’ll do just that! Have a good one.
I live in the West End. We live a few hundred yards apart, but communicate through a messageboard in Chicago, USA.
Aaah, this bizarre internet world in which we live…
Princhester, and Halo13? I live on the Broadwater at Paradise Point north of Southport. This morning I saw the in shore dolphins swimming past my front door. I bet you they’re laughing their heads off everytime they think about us crazy humans.
Sua
I appreciate your requesting a word with me. Despite that it contains certain rhetorical conveniences, I believe your opening post shows me that you care to know what I think. Underlying what you wrote seems to be, “why are are doing this?” I’ll try to answer that, but first a bit of background that I hope will help orient you just a bit for the sake of walking in my shoes, so to speak.
As you probably know, my father was half Cherokee. He often tried to hide it but it wasn’t easy. His dark skin, brown eyes, and high cheek bones were not amenable to masking. Besides, it was a small town, and everybody knew what he was. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was hearing a man tell another man to watch my dad because, as everyone knows, “you can’t trust Injuns”. See, we tend to take back gifts that we’ve given to people, they say. And we were known to “break treaties” whenever our villages were ransacked and trampled by white people seeking fortune and adventure.
Why do I bring that up? Well, one of the arguments that I hear around here is that you can’t make derogatory remarks about race because […struggling to compose myself…] people can’t help what color they are. The same argument is often extended to people of certain sexual orientations, though in that case, it is a bit more controversial. And the argument has created a sort of bandwagon that seems to attract folk from diverse social categories — heavy people and short people, for example, who say they are cursed by their glands.
But at the base of it all is always this: they can’t help who they are or what they are, so please don’t be insensitive toward them.
Lest any conservatives read this smuggly and say, “Way to go, Lib!”, under the mistaken impression that I’ve highlighted a famous attribute of liberals, let me say unequivocally that conservatives do the same thing. They bristle when someone pokes fun at stereotypes of God-fearing “rednecks” who can’t help that they were born into poverty in trailer parks. They jump on the same bandwagon when they perceive that they are the object of undue ridicule and insensitivity.
I can’t speak for other people, but I wish I could convey to you how it feels to breathe inside a fog of condescension and pity. He can’t help that he’s an Indian (or worse, a Native American). She can’t help that she’s Black. And those people can’t help that they are gay, fat, or poor.
Yes, it hurt me when I heard someone say that you couldn’t trust Indians. But do you know why it hurt me? It hurt me, not because they were talking about Indians, not because they were talking about something that I couldn’t help, and not because they were insensitive toward my heritage, but because they were talking about my father.
Again, I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, nothing is more insulting than “Oh, you poor thing. You need my special protection because you can’t help who you are.” Excuse me? I don’t need any special protection. I need only the same protection that you wish for yourself — respect for my humanity, consideration for the dignity of my beliefs, and acknowledgment that the things that I treasure are worthy of being treasured.
Examine yourself. You’ll find that you’re no different from me. Likely, you could withstand a hailstorm of invective, insult, and derision about you. You would fend off each blow with blows of your own, rising upon a tide of indignation to fight for your own honor. And well you should.
But let me say something about your mother. Or your father. Or your brother or sister or wife or husband or child. Will you not then draw the line? Will it not cease to be a game of tit for tat? Won’t you bristle and call upon all that is holy to strike me down and teach me the lesson that those you love, those you treasure, those who have your abiding adoration — they are off-limits?
Doesn’t that principle manifest itself here on these very boards over and over and over again? When a newcomer enters and calls Polycarp stupid and narrow-minded, doesn’t the whole community stampede the newcomer, making certain that he understand that we hold Poly to be dear and valuable and undeserving of random derision?
I can’t speak for any of you, but I don’t defend Esprix because he is gay. I defend Esprix because he is a good and decent man with a big loving heart. He’s the man who, when nearly everyone else had piled on me for my role in the Phelps fiasco, sent me e-mails during my hiatus, asking me how I was and whether I was coping well enough and whether there was anything he could do for me. He was the man who showed himself to be my friend.
Yes, I can help that he is my friend. I could just dissolve our friendship and forget about what he did for me. And yet, I won’t, I tell you! Before I would abandon him and fail to fight for him, I would sooner be banned. If any dumbass, smartass, wiseass sucker wants to get to Esprix, he is first going to have to go through me. And it’s not because Esprix is gay and needs my special protection; it is because I value and honor Esprix.
Likewise, I could divorce my wife. I didn’t have to marry her. But you approach her with disrespect or violence and watch me turn into a raging flume of wild terror. I’ll rip your eyes out if you mess with her. Not because I can’t help being her husband, but because I love her.
Maybe Seawitch could disavow her pagan gods; she doesn’t have to worship them. She could choose to worship something else or nothing at all. That would give us all license to assail her gods. But I am respectful of Seawitch’s gods. I cannot even fathom the notion of using them as the object of curses. Nor will I turn a clever phrase at the expense of a Muslim whom I respect. And I would never, ever talk of “jewing someone down on the price” because people like Chaim and Zev are here. I don’t share their faith; but neither do I expect them to abandon theirs.
Gosh. I see that this has gone on much longer than I intended. And in retrospect, I don’t reckon it’ll make much difference to members and mods who’ve already made up their minds that Jesus is fair game. And I know that there are people who think He was a monster for cursing a fig tree and sending a man’s demons into a pack of pigs.
But I just want you to know a few things about Jesus as I see Him. He is tender and merciful and meek in spirit. He loved me when no one else did. He bathed me in His gentle mercy while others sought to destroy me. He extended hope to me when I thought I had none. He gave me eternal life when I thought my life was over. He gave me value beyond measure when I thought I was worthless. He held me in his loving arms and comforted me when I thought that love did not exist and comfort was an illusion that I would never attain.
I can’t stop you from using Him as the object of your curses. And I can’t plead that I can’t help myself. (Although, I’m not sure how I could — I can’t grasp the mechanics of how you would abandon a friend.) I just ask that, before you use images of Him being speared and hoisted, please please please please please use my father instead, or my mother, or my wife, or my child. You’ll be able to use much more clever phrases. “Oh, Lib’s dad in a burning teepee!”
I’ll allow you that, if in exchange you will allow me the dignity of respecting the person Whom I love like no other.
Yes, I guess I shouldn’t have written the expression that you quoted in your Opening Post. I can say only that my doing it was born of a long-held frustration and a seething indignation that finally manifested itself by my blurting it out. My intention — that you feel what I feel — failed. And we all know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
But the reason that the expression is offensive is most decidedly not because Martin Luther King Jr was a black man. It is offensive because he was a man who cared more about character than color, and because he is treasured by all people who love freedom and despise oppression.
That’s all I have to say about any of this for now, so go ahead and do whatever you’re going to do. I don’t care if you’re a Christian or a Jew or a witch or an atheist, I just want you to know, for whatever it’s worth, even if it’s worth nothing to you, that whenever you disrespect the One Whom I hold most dear above any other — I want you to know that I stand between you and Him.
That is all. And I apologize to whomever I might have offended.
Sorry, Seawitch. :smack:
Libertarian, you are still pleading the purported specialness of your belief. Your analogies to Esprix, Polycarp and your father are premised on your beliefs that (a) Jesus existed, (b) he still exists, and © he exists in a form capable of being your best friend.
In addition, you are pleading the specialness of your particular belief in Jesus. A lot of atheists have just a firm of a belief in Jesus as you do - except that their belief is that Jesus is the worst thing that ever happened to this planet. A lot of people truly believe that your vision of Jesus is harmful and destructive, and the words you wrote about Jesus above are offensive.
I still fail to see why your deeply-held belief should be given more respect than others’ equally deeply-held belief.
Sua
I still fail to see where Libertarian is asking for more respect for her belief over and above anyone else’s belief.
Sua, you are a raving madman, a soulless heathen and, worse, a lawyer.
Lib, you are an overly-sensitive pontificating schmo.
I am a neutral nincompoop.
While I’m all for the continued creative manifestation of more and more wild invectives we see on the board, sometimes I really don’t want to go out of my way to not say something like “Goddammit” when its the most convenient thing to say.
Yes, I believe in God. Do I think I’ll burn in hell for saying “Goddammit” repeatedly. Hell no.
Despite Sua and whomever else calling you out on points of samantics with comments about the fact that Christ was on a stick, I think it just boils down to the generalized and dare I say secularized use of such phrases nowadays.
The instances in which somebody says, “Damn you!” for example, rarely really means they want you to proceed directly to Hell without passing go and collecting $200.
I’m sure there are a lot of Europeans out there who feel the “American” profanities are odd because they all deal with religion, fornication and fecal matter, but I’ve never seen a one on these boards call us Phillistines for our poor usage of curses.
I fully respect your belief in Jesus, and if it came down to it (though I disagree with it), I would defend your right to those beliefs.
I’m not going to promise I’ll never “say the lord’s name in vain” because you feel it is disrespectful.
I would also like to point out that it’s odd that Sua is the one who’s tiring of religious insults, as he has no religion.
The use of particular invectives does not automatically reflect dislike or disrespect of other’s beliefs when used completely out of context.
In other words: Lighten up. The people on this board are smart and empathetic enough to that you don’t have to explain why what they are saying may insult someone. As you should know by now.
I think it’s pretty interesting that a Catholic uses the phrase “Jesus Christ on a stick!”
Thing is, we tend to swear using taboos. A (partially tongue-in-cheek) book I once read claimed that in Quebec, you didn’t swear by saying, “full of shit,” or “motherfucker,” because sex and scat weren’t taboos; instead, you swore by saying, “Holy Mother of Jesus in a tabernacle!” because using religious symbolism loosely was taboo.
Hyperbole aside, I think this is accurate. Breaking taboos and invoking powerful symbols are common forms of swearing. Someone who says, “Jesus Christ on a stick!” isn’t insulting Christians; they’re just reaching out to the nearest handy taboo.
And that’s why you don’t hear many folks in the US say, “Krishna’s smurfy-blue smegma!” Krishna isn’t a particularly resonant symbol for most Americans, and using His name lightly (or mocking His Azureness) doesn’t violate taboos. If most of us were raised in Hindu households, this might be a more effective way of swearing.
I don’t know that you’ll get people to stop using taboos to swear with: I think you could only do this by getting people to stop swearing altogether. But maybe you could take solace in the fact that Jesus is such a powerful cultural figure that His name makes for the best cussin around.
Daniel
I have nothing new to say, Sua. If you reject my response as insufficient, then you’ll just have to settle for an insufficient response. In fact, honestly, I have no idea who you were addressing after my post. Apparently, it was someone who asked for special protections regarding beliefs, and not the person who asked that people respect what other people hold dear. Flame away now if you wish. I said what I said. You read what you read. It’s done.
Which is precisely what Jesus would have chosen anyway. I don’t think he would have advocated being offensive in return to someone offending you. Something about forgiving 7 times 70 or such like.
Libertarian I first of all want to thank you for one of the more thought provoking and well-written posts that I have read. To me, the thinking that you are showing here points to you being a very principled and ethical being.
One point of insight that I will add, as you seem to be deeply concerned with the respect of the belief systems of others, has to do with the fact that (and I am speaking about the USA) the entire culture is pretty much geared to disrespect the beliefs of those of us that are atheist or agnostic. Everything, from the currency to the White House prayer breakfasts on down to being forced to recited the pledge (with the under god bit) when we were in school is geared to being dismissive about the way that we choose to live our lives.
And so, I don’t know. I guess that when the dominant culture is so powerfully in disharmony with what I see as true, I am probably guilty of taking a pot shot every so often. Also, one of the things (and I freely admit that a huge brush is about to be used here) that is distressing is that to become an atheist or an agnostic, one must ask some tough questions with a certain amount of intellectual rigor. For the most part, the Christians that I have met seem to have pretty much accepted a sealed package. The thought of folks that are this intellectually lazy making decisions that may deeply effect our lives (and I speak of politicians here) is terrifying.
Finally
:eek:
Am I the only one that still has the heebie-jeebies after reading this?
in the thread on Pit Rules, I (reasonably, I believe) interpreted Libertarian’s post as a request that posts cursing people’s dieties also be forbidden. From his latest post, it appears that Libertarian does think he was doing this. Maybe I’m wrong, but if Lib wasn’t asking for special protection, then his post was a non sequitur.*
In this thread, Libertarian also raised the issue, prompting Gaudere to spell out the Board’s policy - namely that dieties are public figures, and ridicule of public figures have always been allowed on these boards.
That policy is what has prompted Lib to start substituting MLK, Jr. for Jesus when people make “Jesus on a ___” comments. Lib is attempting a “see how you like it” campaign.
Effectively, Libertarian is demanding that people on this board stop using idioms that have been part of the English language for centuries, and which usually had no religious denotations, because he thinks they offend his buddy. Ignoring the presumption of Lib in determining by himself what a deity finds and does not find offensive, it’s ludicrous.
The immediate prompt for this thread was Lib’s response to Guin’s “Jesus H Christ on a stick” comment. Quite frankly, Guin is a better person than I am - Guin is a Catholic. Lib’s response at least impliedly says that Guin’s not as good of a Christian as Lib is - Jesus ain’t Guin’s buddy, else she never would have written such a thing.
Had I been Guin, I would have torn him a new one.
Sua
I agree. It’s remarkably insulting when someone says I need to be “saved” because I’m a “sinner”.
The frustration and satisfaction of the SDMB is often the same thing: others saying precisely what one intended to before one gets the chance.
Your OP is 100% dead on. The principles and mythology of any religion exist independent of any individual human being who embraces it. As with any idea, each one of us has every right to form and to speak our opinion of those principles and mythology, and it is rarely meant as a personal attack on anyone who happens to believe in any particular religion. You may happen to think that “Attack of the Clones” was brilliant filmaking, while I think (and say) it was a blight on the history of filmmaking…it doesn’t mean that I am attacking you personally.
The one slight error you made in your OP was in implying that the board doesn’t respond similarly when the topic is politics, rather than religion. I have been excoriated repeatedly for my supposedly “personal” attacks on every human being who agrees with conservative ideas, because I have been so scornful of conservatism and conservative politicians and that must therefore mean that I am denigrating everyone who votes a certain way. Which is ridiculous, of course, but my point is simply that the mindset is identical: “Attack what I believe/like, you have attacked me personally.”
And I for one think such an attitude is bullshit and has no place on a board like this. At your in-laws dinner table, maybe. But not here. Otherwise what is the fucking point?
stoid
PS: Another great frustration is when the reply won’t load at 1am and one must wait til the following day to post it. Sigh…
I’d like to disagree here and say that the vast majority of atheists that I have met are intellectually lazy. Their belief system seems to be based on a false sense of intelectual superiority that is the mirror image of the false sense of moral superiority seen in a raving born-again fundamentalist. They too have accepted a “package deal” and haven’t really thought their beliefs through in any greater depth than “No evidence of God = no God. Why can’t everybody see that? Gee, I’m so smart”. In other words, too many are atheists only because they like to think themselves part of a “persecuted” and “enlightened” minority. They like the image more than the belief system.
But we already did the “You’re intellectually lazy”, “No, you are” thing in the Why are atheists assholes thread.
Question for Sua: Maybe Lib is overdoing it a tad, but why care?
** Lib, ** an eloquent (if sappy) defense of your position.
But…nah.
You cannot possibly be serious.