What happens if their worldview is strongly committed to the proposition that dead spirits live across the sea. They ask you about the world, and you tell, them, tactfully, that you’ve been across the sea and that there are no dead spirits there. Eventually they may get to the point where across the sea is just a metaphor, but you have no choice to tell them that they are wrong. Bishop Wilberforce didn’t object most to Huxley’s tactlessness, after all.
I totally agree that it is tactless to bring it up. But look at how offended some people are about evolution being taught in schools. I know it is possible to teach it without ordering kids to believe it, but the very position is that evolution is how species came into being (especially ours) isn’t respecting their strongly held beliefs.
The “offense” of having to learn about biology is a good example of the fact that offense isn’t entirely subjective - there is an objective ‘reasonableness’ component to it; in that case, the “offended” party is the one being unreasonable. It is unreasonable to expect others to modify educational standards to suit one’s personal beliefs.
I was thinking more in the context of having conversations with people.
I’m saying that it’s a form of political correctness to complain that people are “disrespecting” your religious beliefs. Religion has been injected very aggressively into the political arena, and yet you can’t criticize that brand of viewpoint, unlike “liberal” beliefs which are fair game.
For example, a Supreme Court nominee may have every intention of issuing rulings based on his religious beliefs, but any senator who says he’ll vote against confirming him because he doesn’t think that’s right will be attacked as religiously intolerant.
No distinction is made between an identity based on religious beliefs and a political agenda based on them.
Is religion a race, like being black? Or is it a political agenda, like being liberal? Well, you know a weapon is either offensive or defensive depending on which end you’re looking at? Similar deal.
Agreed. They are offended because of the same reasons they are religious.
“THESE ARE MY BELIEFS!!!”, screamed the believer, typed the believer,
or “THIS IS MY FAITH YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!!!”
We should all say what we want about religion anywhere we are at any time.
When they scream a response like the ones above, we should ask, "Why is this your faith? Why do you believe it? What’s your reasoning? Did you pick your religion?
(Doubt it, but,) If so, why this religion?
There will be tears, but the more we discuss it, the more civilized we will become.
In other words, bring evolution to the religious… but physically!
Honestly, I have friends who think like me with religion, imagine if we discussed it
with a religious friend/acquaintance. Peers usually make sense in today’s world.
Tell them to ask their priest, mom, dad, etc, why squids have better vision?
Why a man needs to die brutally to save sins of those who aren’t going to be born for thousands of years? Why do sharks eat bathers?
I will start the mission today and you’ll probably see my violent obituary notice
within 24 hours. (!)
Let me point out what I thought the OP was on about:
To my way of reading the issue in this thread, it is
That sounds like the person doing the “questioning” or “mocking” is fully aware that the person being “questioned” or “mocked” is not just somebody who is complaining about being disrespected, but somebody the mocker and questioner knows he (or she) is disrespecting.
That’s the difference I have been trying to address. Not some straw man that’s whining in the abstract nor some faceless object of political correctness. A person. And a person one is in dealings with directly, not on the internet or in a joke somewhere.
My complaint in the thread is that you (in the general sense) have no more right to respect for your beliefs and opinions than you provide to others.
Beliefs and opinions (political, religious) and sexual persuasion are unlike gender, age and (to a certain extent) race, in that others can’t know about them until you express them. They can’t tell by looking at you that you’re gay, Catholic or Libertarian until you open up about those things.
If people wouldn’t express those aspects of their personality, they’d have way less trouble with the whole disresrect issue. But, having expressed such things doesn’t give others the right to pile on with the disrespect unless they themselves are willing to take the same level of abuse in return. That’s all I’m trying to say.
I am an atheist. My father is a pentecostalist Xtian. I believe that almost everything be holds to be ontologically and epistemoloigically about the universe to be false. Nonetheless, I would be a jackass to go out of my way to point this out to him, because I would be attacking the very foundationof his being no less than if I were to kick him in the shins for no good reason. That is not a courteous or adult thing to do.
Or, how about the reverse? I’ve had nice, small talk conversation with peeps,
girl peeps, and a casual question of my religious beliefs and I say I’m atheist.
And then the face I’m speaking to becomes agape
with black eyes that roll over white and you hear the poundin’ and the hollerin’ and the poundin’…
Okay, not exactly, but god damn close!
(Aaaah! He said a name in vain!)
Your premise doesn’t stand up for a second. Consider, for example, that a few years ago a man was fired for using the word “niggardly”, merely because it sound sort of like a word that blacks find offensive. Or for another example, my college (Harvey Mudd College in California) once invited Orson Scott Card to speak at graduation. After someone unearthed an interview where he expressed opposition to gay marriage, the administration announced that all opponents of gay marriage were banned from speaking on campus. Sounds like a bad response from society to me.
By contrast, their is no negative response to mocking my religion (Christianity). Indeed people who mock Christianity are praised, promoted, and rewarded for doing so. That can be seen plainly enough on this forum, where anyone who tells malicious lies about Christianity gets roundly praised for doing so. On the flip side, anyone who starts spreading hatred of anysort gets warned or banned. The same is true in society at large. Authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens who write books full of hatred and lies directed at religious people find themselves peinited to better jobs and invited to the most prestigious forums. It’s impossible to imagine the same thing happening to bigots of any other sort.
Belief in God is much less respected than belief in fairies. Has anyone ever siad that believers in fairies are worse than child molesters, as Richard Dawkins said of Christians? Has anyone ever falsely accused fairy believers of mass torture and murder, as Sam Harris did of Christians? If not, then it seems plain that our cultural leaders view Christians as much worse than fairy believers, and indeed much worse than any other group of humans.
Pretty much the way the anti-theist or anti-religious views in this thread have been expressed.
I can’t see any point in taking insult when someone challenges, or even ridicules, my beliefs. I probably get a bit edgier when people move from “you think funny” to “you are dumb for thinking funny.” (I also recall a number of threads in which non-religious posters expressed absolute outrage at the temerity of some religious believers to express their ideas in public–even when the religious people were not attacking the nonreligious people in any way.) It is a human condition to take umbrage at ideas that appear to contradict one’s most firmly cherished beliefs and to respond in kind to perceived attacks on one’s person.
Oh, piffle. We just watched eight years of people in the Federal government being denied entry to or promotion in jobs for failing to have the “right” expression of religion. Even within Christianity there are still people playing the “we’re better than you” game–as indicated by the deliberate dumping of the Catholic nominee to be Congressional chaplain because he was not (obviously) an Evangelical Protestant.
I think that a number of non-religious posters in this thread have been a bit over the top, but that hardly translates into the imaginary persecution that a number of theists like to portray in this society.
If you’re doing this with friends, you set your own limits within your little community. My pals and I have already established our mutual respect and know the boundaries, so we have no problem with this.
However. If you don’t know me, and you start calling out my teams (say I’m wearing a jersey) or questioning my sexuality while you’re standing next to me on the subway, you’re gonna think how I feel about you mocking my religion is mild. You have established nothing with me that gives you the right to step into my space and be disrespectful, just because you think it’s funny.
I think you’re applying a rule for your microcosm to the macrocosm and that is never a good idea.
Good, but firmly cherished beliefs? That’s where I think we should go, tomanddeb,
not necessarily here in SDMB but American bars (in four cities I’ve lived, not many) always have a silent type of respect, but not really. If a guy or gal comes in to my local hub praising Jesus, he/she is flagged and most say something like “Go home padre/sister!”, yet most are religious by background.
When this type of bar banter occurs, I say step in. Say save it for church
or say this is why it should be illegal, or whatever an indvidual’s opinion is.
In other words,if you tell us your beliefs, why can’t we challenge them? Discuss them and, holy sick, let us offer you logical alternatives?
Bottom line, besides risking an ass kicking, what’s wrong with anyone challenging a religious belief?
Why is it insulting KNOWING most don’t read their scripture?
You and I think so, but I’m not sure someone brought up in that culture would. You can’t make judgments based on the rationality of the position, because how rational it is is the thing in dispute.
I’m not sure conversations are all that different, except that there is no imbalance of power. Many years ago I took my daughter and a friend, whose mother was quite religious, out trick or treating. I think someone dressed as a devil passed by, and the friend was concerned, and I blurted out that there was no such thing as the devil - which was news to her. Then she said “but there is a god, right” and I said something that was easy for her to interpret as a yes. she was like 10 - but what if an adult said something similar? Would it behoove you to pretend that the devil existed to not challenge her belief system? Would it be disrespectful to state quite firmly that none does? When I did believe in God I was Jewish and didn’t believe in the devil.
