Let’s examine the context, then. Below I’ve quoted each of the posts you cited.
Because, in all but one of those contexts, the term “fundie” was being used purely as a shortened form of “fundamentalist”.
I also note that a couple of those posts actually involve people arguing with you about what the word “fundie” means, and that furthermore, you severely mischaracterize several of the posts, particularly the the ones you labelled as "humorless crybaby, “hate” and “pornographer”.
Don’t be so hard on yourself, Desmo. You’re not an idiot, just mildly retarded. I do appreciate your going to the trouble, though, to show that in every instance the term was used as an instrument of offense.
“I’m rubber, you’re glue” is just such a witty response, I hardly ever get tired of you using it.
If you find all of those instances offensive, there’s not much that can be done to help you. I suggest that you cease to frequent this place that causes you so much offense. Idiot.
I think only an idiot would defend those insults as inoffensive. I think that in your usual rush to nip at my ankles, you had another one of your patented mini-meltdowns. And I think your suggestion is classic Amurika Love It Or Leave It 1970s conservative bullshit.
In most of those cases, “fundie” is either modified or is used as a modifier. In other cases, especially the “humorless crybaby”, you are straining at gnats. I only see one or two instances in which “fundie” could be taken as even mildly offensive, and no instances of “fundie” being used as hate speech. If that makes me an idiot in your eyes, I guess I’ll just have to live with it.
I ask again, is there some reason you find it difficult to grant people using the shortcut “fundie” the same latitude you grant yourself in the use of “hand stabber”?
I see. So, for example, you find minty’s characterization of the people who beheaded Nick Berg offensive, because he juxtaposed the term “fundie” with “nutjob”. And you find revtim’s touching story about watching The Passion of the Christ with his tearful mother offensive because it includes the term “fundie”.
:rolleyes:
No, you’re completely wrong. I interpret your purpose in this thread as being along the lines of “I don’t like it! Ban it!”. My response is “If you don’t like it, don’t fucking read it”.
And perhaps I was wrong in calling you an idiot. “Total loon” was probably more appropriate.
And once again poor Lib goes off the deep end. What a surprise…
And FWIW, I’ve never seen your supposed “patented mini-meltdowns”, Desmo, but we’ve all seen Lib’s patented major-meltdowns…and this looks like the beginning of yet another. Oh well.
Sorry, Lib, you lose. Gaudere laid it out pretty clearly for you. Now get the fuck over it. Or just leave, for God’s sake, and save a lot of us the trouble of having to deal with your fucking lunacy.
(And enough with the “ankle-biting” nonsense, please…you use it so often it’s starting to make you look like a…oh, never mind.)
Wow. As the rabid bigot who was responsible for Lib’s “hate” example, I gotta say, you’ve nailed it, Desmostylus. Thank you. Lib, if you can sincerely believe you’re correct in taking my words and twisting them into hate speech, you really are a whacko nutjob. Whatever your religious affiliation.
Now, I think we may be being a bit uncharitable here. I’m not convinced he’s a whacko nutjob - I think that he may have been working on a model and sniffing the glue a little too much, before posting. That’s the best explaination I can come up with.
In the absence of previous periodic meltdowns on Lib(ertarian)eral’s part, perhaps. On the other hand, you can usually set your clock by his “exiled to Fathom” cycle.
I’m a little surprised to see you use this point in this fashion, given that you often reference it to support the seemingly contrary idea that nobody knows which way causality runs when it comes to finding neurological connections between religious experiences and potential religious realities.
Certainly Ramachandran doesn’t come to the conclusion that you draw from his research (that one can’t simply decide to believe in God), and even though I agree with the conclusion, I wouldn’t want to imply that there is research that supports it beyond merely my own experience with people’s beliefs.
Indeed, his limbic system connection isn’t something that they believe to be majorly active in most believers’s day to day belief, but rather in the minority who have what is vaugely defined as the “religious experience.” It isn’t belief in god that they induce in the lab, it’s what Freud described as the “oceanic feeling” a feeling of being connected to larger things and the world around you, or of a prescence (not unlike what seems to happen to people who awake at night unable to move and feel a sense of prescence, which many attribute in that scary context to demons or aliens).
And even then, millions of examples of conversion are strongly suggestive that while the urge for a religious experience may have deep neuro/psychological connections, the specific religious behavior practiced is a choice.
In any case, back to OP, it can be, but it’s not necessarily so – depends on context.
Not every put-down or insult, and even less so any possible word-which-might-cause-offense is hate-speech. To use Colibrí’s example, “Hispanic” is offensive to some of our [more up-tight brands of] fellow latinos, but it’s NOT hate-speech: the usage bothers many because it’s seen as a kludged-up invention of the Census Bureau imposed for pigeonholing purposes, but it is not born of “hate” (Myself, heck, I got no problem with it).
I don’t really see the problem here for the SD. Instead of endless particular rules about what is and isn’t an okay way to act, we have the Don’t Be A Jerk rule. That may allow too much subjectivity, but it’s pretty good at avoiding the sort of word/po-mo theory parsing that would happen otherwise with explicit rules. It seems pretty clear that “fundie” can be used as hate speech, and has been used as such, though it needn’t be used so. The mods are ultimately going to have to decide where the line is crossed, and given that I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to draw their attention to a potential blinder.
I say again that I would be happy to say good riddance to both.
Actually, the link was slightly off. I apologize to you. I intended to reference the nearby discussion that included the following exchange: “I’m not picking on you…but just out of curiosity…do you differentiate between Fundie Christians and Christians or do you consider all Christians to be a hate group”. That statement establishes Fundamentalists as a hate group.
For purposes of my discussion with Dio, it doesn’t matter about causality, and yes, VSR clearly stated that determination of causality is probably not possible. My point to Dio was that faith is not a “choice”, no matter which way it goes — whether the brain compels or God compels.
Well, that’s why I said I had no opinion as to whether or not it was hate speech. I think the problem is that the usage of “fundie” can be something other than your definition of hate speech, but still be something we should avoid using. That is to say, just because you can say something without getting banned, that doesn’t mean you aren’t being a jerk.
In the case of the “Americans are shitheads,” the difference is that, from what I’ve seen, “fundie” is always used in a derogatory sense around here. The fact that it can be used as a simple abbreviation notwithstanding, I think it’s clear that it has a more common derogatory usage. Like Apos said, it can be used as obvious hate speech, or it can be used as something else. All I’m saying is that the way people usually say “fundie” around here is similar to the way other people use racial slurs.
If I yelled “hey there fundie!” to a christian walking out of church, I don’t think they’d feel anywhere close to how a black man would feel being called a “nigger” as he was walking down the street. Those two words aren’t in the same ballpark, they aren’t even in the same league. I say this as a former fundie myself.
I think you’re right about the difference in degree. Of course, it took many years for “nigger” to become the unholy unspeakable uber-pejorative that it is today. I consider “fundie” to be more in the class of “raghead”. Nevertheless, some fundamentalists, like The Raindog, see it as a derisive taunt, which makes it more equivalent to “nigger” in 1959.
But I doubt anyone can establish such a point, and VSR’s research doesn’t really have anything to add on the subject. I agree that most people don’t seem in a state in which they can just choose to believe or not believe anything, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, or that the only options both include being compelled to choose. If we say that the brain chooses, depending on where we locate conscious volition, we might as well just be saying that the person chooses. For whatever underlying reason or motivation, people do at some points in regard to some issues, describe choosing to believe this or that: sometimes completely reversing previous positions. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be the case in regards to religious belief as well.
I don’t think how a given person might feel is quite as important as how the yeller feels. If the whole point of the term is to use an easy shorthand shortcut to denigrate someone, then it’s probably some sort of hate speech, no matter whether it’s a completely new term or an old established one.
A generic belief in God or a predisposition to faith is not the same as taking specific dogmatic positions which are either demonstrably false (and therefore stupid) or activley bigoted, intolerant or hostile. There is no genetic component to hating gay people or to thinking the earth is 6000 years old. Faith has to be reconciled with reason and a person completely subverts reason to faith is not going to win any fans on a message board devoted to fighting ignorance.
No one uses “fundie” simply for those who have faith, and theistic belief per se is usually not ridiculed or demeaned around here. Even if we get the occasional atheist bomb thrower, they are invariably pulled up short by other posters, and quite often by non-theistic posters.