Do you think it is a hate crime if someone is shot for their political beliefs?
I’m of the opinion that the government doesn’t have the right to either dismiss an adherent’s claims of belief or to dismiss a religion on the grounds of it not being serious enough (especially since there’s nothing as stupid as christianity). If I claim my religion is sleeping in, that should get full first amendment protections. If Joe says sacrificing virgins to Baal is his religion he should get full first amendment protections. First amendment protections for everyone!
The government apparently doesn’t see eye to eye with me on this, though.
I guess you guys missed the tongue firmly in cheek part.
I wasn’t trying to bash anybody’s belief system (ramain forgive!) Just trying to get some opinions on what constitutes sincerity and if it is the government’s right to determine it for someone.
The CFSM, if I am reading it correctly, was founded to combat forcing a belief system on people. In my way of thinking, using parody is a valid and desirable way to accomplish this.
From the Eight Condements:
1 I’d Really Rather You Didn’t act like a sanctimonious Holier-Than-Thou ass when describing my Noodly Goodness. If some people don’t believe in Me, that’s okay. Really, I’m not that vain. Besides, this isn’t about them so don’t change the subject.
Ramin
Sorry about the double post. Got distracted by some breaking news about spaghetti
Seriously, branding comedy as hate speech is pushing the envelope. The point Henderson (?) was making is that pushing a belief system on others is the problem. The idea was that believeing that a pasta God made the universe is just as valid as creationism or Intelligent Design.
That he did so with humor is not hate speech.
Ummm… Muslims aren’t a monolithic ethnic group. Not even close. Muslims range from Africans to Indonesians and everything in between. They have a wide divergence of ethnicities and beliefs. Malaysian forms of “secular Islam” are very different than Omani fundamentalists. Also, Arabs are not all Muslims, there are large numbers of Arab Christians. The idea that Islam is a monoculture of a single ethnicity strikes me itself as a very stereotyped idea with literally no basis in reality.
Of course not. The “monolithic” part is a description of racism, not reality.
But to the vast majority of Muslims, their religious beliefs and their (various) cultural identities are deeply intertwined - largely because the level of religiosity among Muslims is extremely high, the notion of a “secular Muslim” analogous to a secular Jew is rare. The fact that secular culture and religious belief have not been unbundled as they have elsewhere makes it particularly easy for criticism of ideas to be mistaken for racism.
Or, conversely, to disregard everyone’s, rather than only disregarding someone’s.
Satire, parody, and humor are ancient methods to poke at the powerful. They are not so-called Trumpian. And this idea that any sort of negative commentary is hate speech is as ridiculous as it is predictable.
Honestly, the whole idea that mythology needs to be protected by the state is ludicrous.
That said, a colander on the head is ludicrous as well.
Having your beliefs thoroughly and even unfairly ridiculed is not related to being hated. Hate speech means (perhaps among other things) threatening or inciting others to threaten. If I say all missionaries who proselytize are evil (which indeed I do say), then that’s my opinion. If I said we should all go out and shoot missionaries because of what they do (which I DON’T say), that would be hate speech.
Example: The cartoons of Muhammad were not hate speech, but some people’s verbal reaction to them (conspiring to kill the artists or publishers) was hate speech. But if a certain Muslim said “Nobody ought to be hurt over this, but seriously, drawing this kind of pictures of the Prophet was wrong” - that’s not hate speech.
A statement can be very bad without being hate speech. Even saying “That girl should have sat at the back of the bus” would not be hate speech - but saying “I’ll show her who’s boss” could be.
And… The oppression that Pastafarians are fighting is a free speech issue. They protest against religion’s claims to being exempt from intellectual examination, criticism, and ridicule. Pastafarians believe that discussing religion should be as free as discussing football.
Imagine if Chicago passed a bylaw making it illegal to question the decisions of the coaching staffs of the Cubs, the White Sox, the Bears, the Bulls, the Blackhawks, the Fire, the Red Stars, and the Sky, and illegal to make discouraging or disparaging comments about the teams or anyone associated. And further, that they had the influence to get this passed federally - no one in the entire country can ridicule the Chicago sports teams, everyone must speak of them with complete respect, and their decisions must be considered a priori correct, because they are Chicago sports teams - so of course their decisions are correct.
Should Chicago’s city government pass such a bylaw? If yes, should it also pass federally?
Obviously I missed the edit window, but as far as I’m aware, Pastafarians are not mostly focused on legal issues, but are focused on making it socially acceptable to question and criticize everyone’s religious beliefs including their own. That we all are qualified to judge, and all SHOULD judge, each other’s religions, without getting violent or threatening of course. That it’s your right to subject my religion to your logical and critical analysis, and my right to do the same with yours, and that we should exercise that right frequently and with gusto.
David,
I think we might just be on different wavelengths if you think that telling a black person to go to the back of the bus is ok.
I think that hate speech is many things besides just incitement. When Nazis were saying that Jews were inferior and needed to take themselves and their beliefs and leave Germany by your definition that wasn’t hate speech.
I think that mocking and dehumanizing is certainly hate speech. If I get a fake nose and a yalmuke and sing the dreidl song with the lyrics changed to how i want to steal your money and take over the world, I’m not engaging in innocent satire based on a mutual disagreement about beliefs. I am denigrating Jews and dehumanizing them into mere caricatures and I personally think that that is certainly hate speech.
That’s an extraordinarily broad view and I’m glad that it’s held by a tiny majority. Think about all the costumes and roles people play that poke fun at someone else. Watch any of the Dave Chappelle where he puts on whiteface and pokes fun? Or where comedians such as Martin Lawrence dress as a woman and play to stereotype? Or how about Sasha Cohen’s characters Bruno, Straight Dave, and Borat?
Using sincerity as a benchmark for considering someone’s adherence to a faith as legitimate seems quite … messy to me. A metric fuckton of self-professed Christians and Muslims are insincere judging by how many of them fail to practice what they preach. I guess it should be legal for their religious practices to be disregarded?
Legal authorities don’t want to admit that Pastafarians are actually correct on this point because of the massive backlash that would ensue.
Arguing that Islam is an ethnic group rather than a religion because there aren’t many secular members of the group is a bit of an odd argument. That would appear to be better evidence for it being a religion…
That’s what it comes down to. Once there is a critical mass, regardless of how silly and anachronistic a particular religion is, society, in order to keep the peace, participates in the illusion.
But I would say that we can safely presume that Christians believe in Jesus etc.
What oercentage of Pastafarians do you suppose literally believe in the FSM? Like, actually believe He exists? I’d say as a general guess, zero.
This is exactly my original point. How does one (or in this case a government) determine what is a sincerely held belief?
It is impossible to determine what an individual is actually thinking. It seems to follow that one cannot know if that person’s behavior is based on what they actually believe.
Pastafarianism is, I think, a protest against fundamentalist ideas. Was Christianity a protest against judaeism or pagans, was Islam a protest against Christianity?
Sorry to pick on these two religions, I am just more familiar with them.
What we have not heard from hear are the view of any “genuine” Pastararians.
Please feel free to weigh in if there are any out there.
Where did I even HINT that it MIGHT be OK? It’s an evil thing to say, and an evil opinion to hold. It’s not OK to say it, and never was. But it’s not hate speech.
I disagree with your first point. I think that’s part of Pastafarians’ point - that nobody could seriously believe that shit.
And perhaps also that nobody DOES seriously believe that shit - that religion is 100% inherently hypocritical.
Well, I used to be a staunch supported of Pastafarianism,
but recently I’ve been diagnosed with gluten intolerance.
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So, the Big Question is:
Are HIS noodley appendages gluten-free, or not?
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And can one die of laughter-induced self-injury or not?