Bleh. “Belief in fairies” = “belief in god, the supernatural”.
His was flippantly phrased, but not, sadly, all that inaccurate.
You’ve completely misread or misinterpreted ITR Champion’s post.
ITR Champions said that NOBODY suggests believers in fairies are as bad as child molestors, whereas Richard Dawkins says those who teach kids about Christianity ARE worse than child molestors.
What Dawkins said was either stupid or dishonest. I tend to think stupid, but let’s not rule out dishonest.
After all, if he REALLY believes what he’s saying, one must ask, “So Dickie… what do you we propose we DO about those child abusing Christians?”
If Dawkins REALLY believed I was molesting my son, I trust he’d DO something about it. Call the police, report me to social workers, try to have the government take my son away, whatever.
Well, here we have himn stating in black and white that, by raising my son as a Christian, I’m doing something WORSE than molesting him.
If he believes what he wrote, I defy him, “WHATCHA GONNA DO ABOUT IT?”
Come on Dickie, I’m here torturing and abusing my child. Are you going to stand there like an impotent old fart, or are you going to take some concrete action to stop me?
That you’re not doing ANYTHING to stop miscreants like me suggests that either
-
You’re full of beans and you know it- you’re just tossing red meat to your slobbering fans.
-
Youre too lazy or cowardly to take the actions your public statements demand.
Again, I believe that “damage”, like “offense”, has an objective element to it; it is not wholly subjective.
The notion that “X experience scarred me inside worse than Y, so X is actually worse that Y” strikes me as opening the door to all sorts of unfortunate unintended consequences.
Such as, in this case, being drawn to the conclusion that otherwise loving, caring parents who bring their kids up in the faith they themselves were born into should be restrained by the state.
Similarly, it costs her jack-diggly if I roll my eyes, mutter under my breath, or even shout “And all hail the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man too!!” Unless you’re operating under that double standard called “everybody has to respect religion”.
Or, I can leave the room, and let her do her silly stupid degrading ritual on her own.
Do your arguments apply as well if she were saying “Everybody has to stop and assume respectful silence for forty seconds while I do the chicken dance”?
Well, there is no question about what he’d like to do. He’d like to, basically, outlaw parents bringing up their kids as religious.
He says as much at the end of his bit, where he quotes with “strong recommendation” another essay by a fellow named Humphrey:
Humphrey makes no bones about it:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/humphrey/amnesty.html
Not sure what exactly he proposes - that governments educate young children? That all religions be outlawed?
Doesn’t strike me as at all practical (or for that matter, desireable).
No, that’s not what I’m talking about and I have a feeling you know it. Saying that more damage may be done by being raised Catholic than being physically abused by a priest isn’t even close to saying that believers are worse than child molesters.
Very inaccurate. I’m sure Dawkins, as most people, would agree that child molesters are bad people because they molest children. He’s never said anything even close to claiming that believers are bad people because they believe, or even because they pass those beliefs on to their children.
I was both physically abused as a child and raised with religion. I believe more damage was done to me by my parents bringing me up with beliefs that scared the Hell out of me and have an effect on me today, but I don’t believe for a second that they are worse than child molesters. They did their best to raise me right and tried to do the right thing.
No, you’ve completely misread or misinterpreted Dawkins. He said no such thing. He said that he suspects that the physical abuse of children by priests may do them less lasting damage than the mental abuse of bringing them up Catholic. This is much different than claiming that a believer is worse than a child molester. Hell, Dawkins didn’t even bring up sexual molestation, but physical abuse. You are falsely accusing Dawkins of saying something which he didn’t.
This is what ITR Champion said:
Has anyone ever siad that believers in fairies are worse than child molesters, as Richard Dawkins said of Christians?
Not even close.
First, you are inaccurate when you say “Dawkins didn’t even bring up sexual molestation, but physical abuse”. Read his piece - sexual abuse is the “physical abuse” he’s talking about. Quote:
[Emphasis added]
Second, you have a point that Dawkins did not actually pronounce moral judgment on religious people as “abusers” - he merely opined on the quality of “abuse” created by religious belief. However, that is obviously not the main point (and I suspect you know it) - it is the equivalence of the two [sexual abuse, being raised Catholic] which is absurd, even as a polemic - and there is no indication he meant it polemically.
Listenign while they say grace is trivial. Asking them to forego church is not. My father is acting jerkishly when he criticizes me and Kimmy for not dressing up to go to church; he is attempting to force his beliefs upon us, in the arrogant presumption that his Pentecostalist customs are mandated by the Lord of Hosts and the foolish assumption that I, in fact, truly believe everything he believes but simply refuses to believe it. But his arrogance and folly* would not excuse my being rude in return. I cannot control his actions; I cannot force him to behave rightly by my lights; but I CAN control my own, and it is incumbent on me to do so, if only because it makes life easier.
Asking you to listen while they say grace is not the equivalent of asking to urinate on a baby. It’s minor. An equivalent situation would be, say, demanding that you baptize your own newborn as they would and haranguing you about it, or doing it against their will. (Well, not really equivalent: urinating on a newborn is hard to equal without going into downright criminal behavior.)
If someone with whom you have no relationship to protect tries to force his or her religion on you, feel free to respond as vehemently as you can civilly. I horrified a street preacher recently by standing with arms outstretched towards the sun as i dared God to strike me down for my apostasy, but not to murder my wife, stepdaughter, or nieces to punish me. She had pushed one of my buttons; she had initiated the exchange; and, rhetorically, she had walked into it. Also I didn’t care if I ever saw her again.
My father has similar beliefs to the street creature I mocked, but I’d not do the same to him, because I value peace in my family.
*In these areas only; he’s a much better man than me in most ways.
How is the ritual “degrading”?
If she is thanking God for the bounty he has provided, you can metaphorically roll your eyes and tell yourself she might as well be thinking Santa Claus.
Now, if she is making a show of praying for your salvation, of calling you, begbert2, out by name, then yes, she is being degrading and insulting and you are justified in leaving the room.
Oh, I’d stay and watch the chicken dance. It’d make a good thread.
If it’s that absurd, you should have no problem explaining why it is absurd in your next post, Malthus. You keep saying it’s obviously absurd, but I can’t figure out what would make that obvious unless you think nothing could possibly be as bad as sexual abuse, but you say you do not. So if it’s not that comparing anything to sexual abuse is absurd, what specifically is absurd about the claim that many people may end up more traumatized by religion?
Emphasis mine. So you think it’s okay for her to pray for his “salvation” and for him to know she’s doing that, but he’s only allowed to object if she actually says the specific name of everyone present she’s praying for?
I had an experience with this last weekend. I visited my hometown for a family birthday party, at which my 3 extremely Catholic aunts, along with my extremely Catholic mother, were present. After an hour or so of conversation, one of my aunts brings up the “maybe Obama IS the Antichrist”…thing…and my self-control was severely tested. I got in a “there is no Antichrist”, which was countered by “the Bible says”, which I rolled my eyes at since I’d managed to work the gearshift on my mouth in the interim. Then my other aunt started talking about Nostradamus predicting an Antichrist and the end of the world, and my gearshift slipped, emitting “I think my brain is oozing out of my ears here”, which earned me a VERY unpleasant look from my mother. Luckily, the conversation went to other subjects soon after.
I did feel bad for even momentarily treating my aunt like a message board poster, but I plead temporary sanity.
Huh? The main point of who? Dawkins point was not that believers are bad and especially not that they are worse than child molesters and ITR Champion’s point was that Dawkins claimed that believers are worse than child molesters. He made a false accusation and I see no way around this.
He didn’t mean say or mean what ITR Champion claimed he did. Your opinion on comparing one type abuse to another has little relevance on that fact.
I am shamed when my mother abases herself to santa claus. It is embarassing that my mother is a slave to baseless and nonsensical primitive superstitions.
And of course she prays that I will be “blessed”, either by name or as a member of the class of her children, or the class of the group “participating” in the group prayer (which by remaining present and silent, I am doing). That’s part and parcel, don’t you know.
Okay. Would it make a good thread if your mother was a wild-eyed ranting holocaust denier? (To propose an example to convey exacly how humorous and pride inducing I find the situation.)
Well, maybe it’s just your circle, but in mine, disparaging a footballer’s team is worse than calling his mother a woman of loose morals. 
Here’s the thing about religion: a lot of theists are raised with it intrinsically as a part of their lives, from their earliest memories on, and for them religion is a source of comfort, security, and peace. Another population of believers is passionate because since conversion, they feel suffused with a sense of salvation and that their lives are so much better and more complete.
So when you attack someone’s religion, you’re doing a lot more than attacking his recreational idols or political philosophies. You’re attacking his foundation/identity.
That’s not nearly as lighthearted as making fun of footballers.
That isn’t the claim.
The claim is:
Leaving aside the coyness of the “I suspect it may” qualifier, the “claim” is the general statement that physical abuse (by which he means physical sexual abuse) by priests does them “less lasting damage” than being brought up Catholic in the first place.
That’s quite different from the notion that some people, somewhere, can be found who are so constituted that the experience of being Catholic is so horriffic that being raped wasn’t as terrible in its effects. Indeed, I’m quite sure that many people could be found out there who were horribly tramatized by watching Old Yeller (og knows I was traumatized by that); many of them, if pressed, may well say that being molested by a priest “… as ‘yuchy’” (from the Dawkins anecdote) and nothing near as significant as the pain they felt when Old Yeller was shot ; but it is absurd to conclude that “Odious as the physical abuse of children by priests undoubtedly is, I suspect that it may do them less lasting damage than the mental abuse of … [watching Old Yeller ]”.
Coyness? You’re saying the difference between making a definitive statement and a suggestion based on speculation is merely coyness, and then trying to hammer him for making a definitive statement?
I didn’t say “some people somewhere can be found”, I said “many people”, so I’m not sure why you’re trying to put those words in my mouth. What is absurd about merely suggesting the suspicion that many people may find religion damages them for longer than molestation? Please address this specific claim – argument by analogy with some random entity which bears no resemblance to religion or sexual abuse at all is really not making your position clear to me.
But that’s the double standard. He’s allowed to behave like an ass, solely because of his beliefs. I will say that I have a similar situation in my family, and I totally understand biting your tongue in the name of a quiet dinner. But this is just enabling. The whole thing happens because religion garners respect and protection it hasn’t earned.
I think you are wrong on that. Calling something “abuse” generally implies a moral judgment on the person doing the “abusing”.
Saying that the one - child molesting - is merely physical abuse and the other - being raised religious - is worse mental abuse certainly implies an equivalence between the two.
You have a point insofar as Dawkins doesn’t come right out and say that Catholic parents are worse than child molesters. But, if this was a libel case, the obvious innuendo is that they are.
From the Dawkins article:
[Emphasis added]
Pretty obviouly, Dawkins is making the point that there is no real difference between ‘sexual abuse’ and ‘teaching Catholicism’ - in both cases the real damage (absent violent trauma) is mental:
The reasonable conclusion from the above-bolded sentence is that priests are potentially guilty of abusing children - either through molesting or, worse, through teaching Catholicism. The innuendo is certainly that they are bad, molestors or not.
Maybe I’m not understanding your use of “subjective” and “objective” here. I’m watching The Wire now, and the corner characters use that word all the time - the white and the higher class ones never do. The reaction to the word is going to be a function of how a person subjectively views the intention of the person saying it. That’s as subjective as can be in my book.
When people here say “I’m so going to hell” it is a joke. If Pat Robertson said it it might be a cry of despair.
Maybe you can answer the question?