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Religion may give comfort to individuals, but it is only destructive to society and the world because its representatives, like Pythagorean, are just rabid hatemongers who can't get along with anyone else, who need to make monsters and demons of everyone else until... what? Another war? Is that all religion is capable of?
Yes, this has become quite the jumbled mess. Not a single inflaming claim on the OP has been clarified to carry any weight; not surprising. What is, is that it was said at all. To generalize and condemn is short-sighted. Doing this allows much ill. How many times have we seen a tribe, race or ethnicity stereotyped so? Does anyone think this is a good thing? Can anything good come from it?
One simply can't lump economic, political and religious correlates and apply them to collections of individuals; and this is the glaringly-adolescent flaw of the OP. Its beyond my comprehension that we forget, so quickly, what lumping classifications of peoples together can do.
Self-definition of terminology is pointless and destructive. I've never really quite understood the propensity to take a common term; useful and well-defined and try to make it mean something else. Maybe it speaks to emotional overtones or bigotries, or just some measure of illiteracy. Still, there's no reason to do it. We have specific terms and general ones and an endless command of combinations. Why not employ them?
No, this thread is sophomoric, poorly stated, bigoted and warped. I'm embarrassed that it had any interest other than to illustrate just how far humanity has yet to go to respect individuality and reason.
And rightly so. If philosophical discourse is contingent upon the consistency of language, then it's a logical sham to go redefining words on your own. It allows you to make up the rules as you go along. That's not how logic works.
Completely agree.
Prejudicial and stereotypical attitudes almost invariably make generalizations about the targets. I think it's subconscious on the part of the OP, but it's telling that he chose a loaded word for his target. It says something about his attitude more generally.
And this is true more generally. We see this again and again here, where religious people in general are targeted because of the pecadillos of a few; where Muslims in general are targeted because of extreme attitudes among some; where the scientific community in general is targeted because of haughtiness by some; where women or atheists or Africans or liberals or conservatives or Jews or whatever become the topic of a conversation that carelessly lumps everyone under that label together.
And no amount of qualfiication is going to erase suspicion of bigotry if you're willing to use broad terminology in an idiosyncratic way. The Nazis had a definition of Jew; so did the Spanish Inquisition. Al Qaeda has a definition of American. The slaveholding south had a definition of black. Being discriminatory requires that you discriminate!
The labels we choose matter, and many a good conversation has been lost here because of a careless choice of words.
Then you, knowing what he meant, should have questioned his use of the term in that manner, rather than misinterpretating it on purpose.
I can only assume the obvious on this post but as ive never lumped any group of peoples together. I have criticised the core belief and the few individuals who have abused that belief, so i dont feel the need to beg forgiveness.As for making up the rules as we go along , i can only say i know the feeling only too well.
I didn't misinterpret it on purpose. I didn't realize he had redefined it until later on when I had a chance to read in more detail.
But that's exactly the problem -- you put yourself right out on a plank for misinterpretation if you exercise liberties with loaded words.
Speaking generally:
1) If you're going to criticize the core beliefs of a major faith or major group, be it Islam or be it atheism, you need to be exceptionally careful in your use of language. Since religious beliefs are not founded on logic, it seems to be pointless to undertake a logical critique of scripture. And since traditions develop in ways that only partially call upon scripture, but also call on unwritten or apocryphal mores and interpretations, you run the risk of bleeding a scriptural critique onto the practicioners of a much more nuanced and complicated tradition.
2) If you're not referring to the WHOLE group, then you need to be abundantly careful to make it obvious to whom exactly you DO refer.
If you are NOT careful about these points, then you should not be surprised if people regard your attitude differently than you do. If you'd like I will privately provide plenty of examples, but I don't want to make this particular thread degenerate any more than it already has.
We may clarify all of this in the forum rules and expectations shortly. And while philosophical debate demands a certain amount of free speech, it also demands respectfulness, reflection, and when appropriate self-censorship. And wholesale unabridged free speech can actually be destructive to intelligent, respectful discourse, so it is NOT the only operating principle here.
Plato argued that power and justice are synonymous -- it's not a matter of earning or serving it. To be just is to be a custodian of people first and agendas second. And our job as forum staff is to make sure that potentially inflammatory topics are approached sensitively, fairly, and in ways that reflect well on us as a community.
Accusations of hatred and bigotry, whether direct or indirect, are designed to silence what is perceived by the accuser as "the opposition".
Such accusations are designed to avoid substantive, constructive arguments or criticisms.
They are an appeal to authority to silence a voice which causes them discomfort in hopes that the authority shares their political bias.
It is, as such, a pretension to a higher morality. However, by its very nature it lacks the actual reasons why anyone should embrace one side over another.
The attack upon the language or the terms used within an argument is likewise an avoidance of substantive discussion and criticism in an attempt to actually control speech.
This politicization of human language is thus similiar to the appeal made to the police or controller of the media.
It should be clear by any mean witness that, within the current climate of opinion, the subject of atheism is closely tied to political matters.
In this climate it appears nearly impossible to engage in objective dialogue.
The subject matter of the dialogue will inevitably revert to issues of free speech in the name of "bigotry" and "hatred" (as if the accusation of bigotry and hatred were not itself immune from maliciousness and hatred on the part of the accusers).
The price paid by this Political Correctness is obviously human freedom and consequently human dignity. What we are witnessing is nothing less than the embracement of despotism by the culture at large.
And accusations of immorality and depravity are not?
You've had substantive, constructive arguments and criticisms, then you ignored them and launched into more accusations of immorality and depravity. You've failed, despite repeated requests, to justify your measure of morality. You've failed to resolve how you can justify generalisations to 'atheism' complaints you ultimately seem to only have of two atheists. You've failed to justify your 1-to-1 correlation of atheism to Democratic Socialism, or of atheism to morality, or of immorality to Democratic Socialism. You've refused to acknowledge that your ideas of how atheists 'arrive' at atheism are necessitated by your religion. You've had opportunity after opportunity to help people figure out where you're coming from, but your points have entirely consisted of little thought-through associations between three things you just really can't stand.
On the contrary. Until any moderator interjection, you're free to call who you like immoral and depraved. And I'm free to call that hatespeech.
How about lack of reasonable hypothesis?
Didn't you just complain about language like 'bigotry' and 'hatred'? Is this dual standards?
Or the moderator of a forum. However that would have silenced the conversation. In the spirit of argument, I made no complaints except directly to you and presumably no-one else did either.
You have to justify this.
'Immoral' and 'depraved' are not objective ideas and they were the point of departure.
I don't hate you. I just don't like being called depraved. If I hated you we would have no dialogue.
Accusations of hatred and bigotry, whether direct or indirect, are designed to silence what is perceived by the accuser as "the opposition".
Such accusations are designed to avoid substantive, constructive arguments or criticisms.
However, by its very nature it lacks the actual reasons why anyone should embrace one side over another.
The attack upon the language or the terms used within an argument is likewise an avoidance of substantive discussion
Accusations of hatred and bigotry, whether direct or indirect, are designed to silence what is perceived by the accuser as "the opposition".
Such accusations are designed to avoid substantive, constructive arguments or criticisms.
They are an appeal to authority to silence a voice which causes them discomfort in hopes that the authority shares their political bias.
It should be clear by any mean witness that, within the current climate of opinion, the subject of atheism is closely tied to political matters.
In this climate it appears nearly impossible to engage in objective dialogue. The subject matter of the dialogue will inevitably revert to issues of free speech in the name of "bigotry" and "hatred" (as if the accusation of bigotry and hatred were not itself immune from maliciousness and hatred on the part of the accusers). The price paid by this Political Correctness is obviously human freedom and consequently human dignity. What we are witnessing is nothing less than the embracement of despotism by the culture at large.
Don't quite understand what you're saying here. As I said I am effectively silenced. (But my forced withdrawal of the question I am forced to conclude, is itself proof of the validity of its charges.)
Really... so are you saying that no one merits such an accusation? My heart doesn't exactly weep when someone incurs that accusation after displaying hatred or bigotry.
It just occurred to me: if atheism is chosen for its allowance of immorality and depravity, why would atheists get upset about being called immoral or depraved? Surely they'd agree, since that's the very reason they chose atheism.
Also, if atheism were chosen as opposed to, say, Christianity, simply to 'allow' immorality, wouldn't the atheist still believe they were going to hell? In order to allow themselves to be immoral, they would have to have come to the conclusion that hell does not exist, and that would require some theological investigation, n'est pas? So your whole argument is contradictory.
The fact that the opening post wasn't outright banned is disturbing, the fact that people actually believe this crap is alarming, and the fact that this thread is being allowed to continue is distressing. No form of such blatant negative stereotyping should be allowed to continue as visible in a respectable forum, like ours here, that condemns such prejudicial judgments of people.
People usually prefer to lie to protect their image rather than saying the truth, as far as I know.
Humans are not totally rational, people allow thenselves to believe in something with greater ease if they want to believe on it.
I think this thread is getting screwed up because people are letting thenselves be driven too much by emotion.
I, for one, do not see any problems in his first post, is an interesting point of view independently of the fact that I do not see it as entirely correct.
Sure he is ranting a lot there, but he is human, and humans need to rant ever so often, some more than others.
I cant understand why people allow thenselves to be irritated so much by the point of view of others: Those are his thoughts wich he is exposing for us, why should you fell offended by then?
If words can hurt you, then its because they are tapping in some part of you you dont know.
