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Devil's Advocate
 
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Agnostic is pretty clear statement of 'not a meaningful question', but I think it's sometimes understood to mean 'still searching' (I don't know why). Personally, I think agnosticism (in the definitive sense) is a much stronger statement than atheism (disbelief in the meaning of the question rather than affirming the relevance of the question by answering in the negative).
But it not being a meaningful question implies the existence of God is beyond the realm of our reality. Which I think is a load of crap. Dawkins makes a good argument that "There is a universe that exists and works liek x y z" is a scientific hypothesis, and so is "There is a universe that exists and works liek x y z, and was created by a God who controls it".
You can obviously never prove the abscence of something, but that doesn't mean you have to entertain it's reasonable position to hold. Like the idea that unicorns exist for example.
I think Dawkins say something about being scientifically agnostic, but a practical athiest the way he lives his life.
Interesting - everything I've seen of humanism (vaporous as it's definition often seems to be) suggests it's dead in contravention to naturalism.
Errr... your naturalism is not my naturalism.
I'm talking about this:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/naturalism
specifically:
3. Philosophy - The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.
4. Theology - The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation.
Why stop at Bright - surely Right is nearer the knuckle? I guess if you're really convinced in your own rightness, that would make you Far Right
nah, there are so many things I'm wrong about (though time will tell on that telemarketing scam i swear) I wouldn't label myself a "Right" purely on being correct in this one sense 
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
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Wag
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Marios (1/17/2007)
If people can't find them easily, then they can't be terribly good hate-sites (insofar as they are failing to get their message out by the most obvious means).
Primary evidence is king, I'm not disputing that there is a whole army of fundamentalists out there, just waiting to take over the world and kill everyone they don't like. It must be true, it says so on Wikipedia. However it's only acceptable to believe what other people say if it isn't disputed, if it is, the onus is to go and have a look and see what evidence you can find. I did. I didn't. Look and find any evidence that is.
So I'm not judging them by their ability to publicise their hate sites. I'm judging them by my utter inability to find them on Google. And my implicit trust in the Google search criteria which are of course impregnable (it says so on Wikipedia). The only acceptable conclusion I have is that, until faced with some actual evidence of some actual fundamentalists who are actually organising to actually take over the world and actually kill everyone, then I'm going to file this story with Big Foot and flying sorcerers.
Sure the fundy-army is a more credible danger than Big Foot, the Nazi's (aghh, Godwin's law, it burns, it burns) prove that hate filled assholes are part of the human race. But for the time being, I'm inclined to stop worrying about them. When they Fundy-nazis can get a website together I'll worry about them getting anything together...
Seems pretty consistent with cant. In turn, don't you want to heal "BadFundies" of their wrong beliefs?
Consistent but repulsive. I don't know if you've read any of the sites (I read through a lot looking for the hard-core hate) but there's some real soft-core hate going on here. Homosexuality is a disease, we just want to cure people...
Love, as I believe I mentioned is an over-used term. When a peadophile says he loves the children he abuses, we don't say "well shit me, that's ok then!" Now fun though the analogy of fundamentalists to paedophiles is, I'm not trying to suggest equality. Merely to demonstrate that loving someone in your own special way doesn't make soft-core hatred ok.
I'm all for freedom of speech, it's great cuz it lets me talk shit, and I like to talk. And it's always seemed to me that if you're in favour of free speech you gotta be in favour of it for everyone... Even the fundies. Doesn't mean I gotta like 'em. And I have to say when I read some of those fundie sites, the way they expressed their "Christian love" for homosexuals was pretty unpleasant. I support their right to say it, so long as they support my rate to call them a disgusting bigoted pile of human excrement for saying it.
It's important to remember that gay rights organisations (as I'm sure you do - but I'm in lecturing mode and I feel the point cries out to made unsubtley) - like petroleum seller's organisations or the (jewish) anti-defamation league - are entities which grow or die directly on their ability to sustain themselves. That doesn't make them immoral (amoral, yes) or useless. Gay Rights site/organisers don't grow the brand by reflecting an accurate picture of gay-straight interactions in a community any more than Greenpeace do in their editorials.
I've always found the analysis of protest groups as "brand growers" to be both unpleasant and particularly naive. It's cheap it's easy, I think it's what they call a passive-aggressive attack, but I'm not sure cuz I'm not sure I understand that phrase. It's unpleasant because of it's subtle insinuations of self-interest over principles.
But it's naive because the cynicism it implies is, in my experience, totally lacking from most protest groups I've associated with. I have fond memories of my time with Socialist Worker Party and Militant. I met a lot of intelligent, well-educated articulate people who passionately believe that a socialist revolution was just around the corner. When I once suggested it might take a few years, perhaps, I was ridiculed as a defeatist. My point is that, in my experience, people in protest groups passionately believe in the ideals and the issues they are protesting about. That doesn't inherently elevate their judgment of the facts, quite the contrary, it overwhelmingly invalidates their judgment of the facts but it does mean that it's profoundly naive to question their moral fibre. No-one devotes their life to voluntary protest causes to build brand loyalty and market share. They do it because they give a good god damn.
As someone who isn't gay, I've never been spat at by Christians, so it's impossible for me to put myself in the position of someone who has. But I wouldn't go to Greenpeace for an assessment on the enviromental hazards of genetically engineered crops anymore than I'd go to Monsanto. All research conducted by Monsanto is profoundly worthless because it's contaminated by money, but the research conducted by Greenpeace is twice as worthless because there's is contaminated by principles. When the facts are contested, if you care about the issue you have to go back to the primary evidence and try and make a judgment for yourself.
The best part is, this analysis requires no assumption of corruption/double-think on the part of - presumable sincere - activists - it's just a result of looking at political activism within the paradigm of natural selection (it's also backed up by evidence on the ground - there's a _marked_ difference in attitudes between American minority representatives and the minorities they represent).
I think you're evidence confuses the idea of a minority political point of view that claims a minority ethnicity or religious as it's representative base. I have no doubt that the Jewish lobby in Washington is entirely sincere in it's goals even if it isn't as representative of the viewpoints of the Jewish community as it might claim.
Peter Tatchell is a classic case, he's a passionate tireless advocate of gay rights. I don't always agree with him, and from the little I've read his attitudes are not universally representative of gay people (the whole idea of representing "gay people" is pretty silly). I think he is wrong on some moral issues and often wrong about the facts. But I still admire him as a man who has devoted his life to campaigning for a set of principles which are profoundly important. The idea that he's out to build brand loyalty is cynicism run amok but also naive. You just couldn't be that passionate if you weren't idealistic about your principles unless you were a well paid fake. And very few people in protest organisations are well paid in my experience.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Can't blame a man for being light-hearted (worth noting - as you do - that he completely backed down and apologised). I'm not blaming him for making a stupid crack about killing gay people. I'm blaming the audience for laughing...
I head a joke yesterday. It was about a women and two monkeys. It's a long joke, I'll cut to the punch line, women aren't as clever as monkeys. Pretty funny huh? I didn't laugh. But... I didn't say anything. I didn't tell the guy I thought the joke was dumb, chauvinist, misogynist crap. I just sort of nodded and moved the conversation on. It was a work environment, I didn't need the crap. Prejudice is an essential component in the construction of death camps and we forget that at our peril.
Tomorrow I'll try and take a leaf out of Stetson Kennedy's book and try frown power. A frown isn't much, how hard can it be? (Nice guy, look him up on Wikipedia, wasn't a saint apparently, there's a surprise). But at least I didn't laugh. When Swaggart tells people he was joking about killing gay people that doesn't make it okay, that makes it worse... But not half so bad as when people laugh.
Yes - if you'd said you wanted an example of a BadFundy poster-boy I could have saved you some time. This guy crops up in a number of places (self-proclaimed reverend of what started as just his own family and farmworkers).
He's clearly a fruitloop. Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters. As such I regard him experimental error. He's fun, in a sort of watching people vomit for money way is fun, but he doesn't represent anything other than if you look hard enough you'll find someone, somewhere who believes in anything.
Funny thing - I was reminded of this guy recently when people were saying that they'd be happy to have a nice jig around the graves of bad people/celebrate their deaths since that's precisely what this guy is famous for.
Lol. Ah, yes, that beautiful post-modern moral liberalism again. What I can't understand is this, if there are no ground on which any individual moral position can be judged, why shouldn't I hate anyone I god damn feel like? And if I can, well than I'll start with Reverend Phelps thanks. Why is intolerance unacceptable if nothing is unacceptable? It doesn't make sense...
That's a feeling I often get when viewing the internet/message-boards. But Priests Rape Boys is a work of art, I mean if you had to make a post-modern parody of a fundamentalist that site would be it. It's like... it's like... post-post-modernism. Life imitating art imitating life. Reverend Phelps is a genius! But I still want to dance on his grave.
As, so I understand it, do many people who are not gay. I'm willing to accept that expressing a gay identity will, in some places, put you at greater risk than expressing other identities, but that's a bit weak.
Er, no score I'm afraid. My minority is being a LRPer. And you know what? It's not illegal to be a LRPer in any known country in the world. I guess the secret of being a minority is to be a very small minority. Wikipedia's list of countries in which it is illegal to be homosexual is long and depressing. Violence towards people who are hated is endemic in the human make-up, I suspect we are designed to hate some people and like others so that our genes can help us decide who to attack and who not to attack. (I read too much popular science). Given the general level of prejudice that exists it would be astonishing if gay people weren't physically assaulted.
If fundamentalists were being attacked and beaten and in rare cases killed, I'd be distraught. Because I don't think it's enough to say "I hate these people, but I don't want to see them harmed". If you publically present your views that some people should be treated differently then you are morally culpable when people treat those people differently... But last time I checked, it was the gay people with the sites listing the names of gay people who had been murdered and the fundamentalists with the site warning of the dangers of homosexuality and offering to heal gay people.
Saying "well lots of people get killed" doesn't cut it. Not in the slightest. We don't have to top the Nazis in the scale of persecution before it gets to the point where we say "that's wrong, we should speak out against that."
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)And I'm not convinced you can so adroitly separate the hate that is suffered by some gay people, from the general discrimination and the religious condemnation.
I absolutely agree, this is why I leap on the inconsistency of decrying hate in some distant person while carelessly disrciminating against proximal groups, mindlessly condemning them. Obviously, the law has to try to separate illegal bottle-throwing acts and shouting "I don't like you or things you believe", but I don't see that there's a fundamental (aha) distinction.
*shrug* Careless discrimination flatters nobody. I couldn't agree more that careful analysis of the fundamentalists, and their arguments is important. Saying "they're all wankers" or "they're all trying to grow their own minority group support base" is foolish and ultimately pointless. Partly because we fall pray to the same sins as the bigots and partly because a well paced and carefully constructed argument is more effective than a rock.
Until the fighting starts... At which point, I'll get my rock.
If you (broad sense) want to saying I don't like group A because they oppose group B, which is my group, then all I can do is question whether you are entirely comfortable with everything group B does/whether group A does completely oppose group B/whether group B would be better of with a different form of advocacy - on logical grounds, it's perfectly consistent. The problem becomes when group B is condemned on grounds of 'hate', while the condemnors engage in general discrimination and mindless condemnation or that (or other) groups. As you, it's hard to separate the two (unless the distinction is that they act on it - at which point it's not the attitudes/forms of attitudes/expression of attitudes that are being condemend, but action itself - which seems a bit vacuous).
I don't condemn the fundamentalists for "hate", not really. I might use that language when I'm being sloppy or having fun, but it's not what I actually feel. I condemn them because of what they hate and who they hate and how they hate. That's why I hate them. I wouldn't condemn someone for hating pedophiles or chocolate bars. I would despise someone who hated cunts, or niggers or poofs.
Possibly this is purely because my moral vision is an artful arbitrary creation of society, with no more inherent meaning than the arrangement of visuals in a kaleidoscope. If so, what of it, it's the only morality I have, there is no point in trying to arrange my life according to a sense of morality I don't feel. I am unsurprised that to a moral relativist, my viewpoint seems arbitrary and hypocritical, unsurprised and unmoved.
Woah! I didn't mean to imply that BadFundies don't exist - all I said was that none seem to be present or even have an advocate here on this board and that I've seen no evidence that all Christian fundamentalists are BadFundies.
I'm sure Bad Fundies exist and good Fundies exist. But having singularly failed to find any meaningful trace of "hard-core" bad fundies, I'm less inclined than I was to believe in their existence. Phelps is notable, he as a wikipedia entry. He's clearly an extremist, he also appears to be the only one the professionals can find. That doesn't impress me. Give me some primary evidence for your bad Fundies, not just your average sickening little "heal'em Christian" but your honest-to-goodness "they're going to burn in hell" Phelps style maniac. There doesn't appear to be any.
Sure, there are some bad fundies, of course there. Phelps is the tip of an iceberg, but how deep and how broad is it? Not as broad or as deep as I thought, not as broad or as deep as many think is my conclusion having gone looking for Christian version of Comat-18. (Type Combat 18 in your browser, see facist hate-mongers are EASY to find...)
What fraction of Christian fundamentalists would have to be BadFundies to make broad generalisations OK? As you say, so far, evidence for a significant fraction of Phelps-like Christian Fundamentalists seems weak.
Oh, I don't like *any* fundamentalists... Which is to say I dislike the idea of drawing your moral code from a book written 2000 years ago. It's dangerous in the extreme. (See the charming explanations on "good" fundamentalists sites about how the condemnation of homosexuality in the bible isn't really about condemning homosexuality). I strongly dislike the idea that a book, one book, is so god-damn smart that it is smarter than the rest of humanity put together. Now sure if that book was personally authored and signed in Waterstones by God, then maybe. But I see the worrying signs of human intervention in the bible, translations, human authors, etc, etc, etc. And the idea that one book by some people, even if they have been listening to god, is better than our entire moral consideration now, scares the living bejesus out of me.
What I'm saying is the picture of fundamentalists actively and openly advocating hate-based crimes does not conform to the evidence. We have a pile of "soft-core" hate (we just want to heal the blasphemous perversions of nature so they don't go to hell) and we have one maniac. It's starting to have a but of an "ALF" feel to it all. (Yes, they do have a website!).
(so I've largely responded by unloading my anger with some of the popular science authors whose books I've been reading). You need to read less books, it'll do you the world of good.
Off-topic, but do you think morals are developing in a particular direction? Yes. I think they are getting betterer. I'll stop there, we've definitely done moral relativism last week.
Why target religion? I don't see what distinguishes religion from 'culture' there. Genes, memes and all such persisting, propagating structures (like civil society) are all inherently conservative entities which persist by holding us back.
The problem with religion is that it's inherently conservative. Once everyone accepts that that book there, that one right there, is the honest to goodness actual word of god things go bad. Not straight away of course, it's usually a good book or no-one takes it seriously. But, well if God had actually written the book, why would he write a sequel? And if you can't have a sequel, what happens when someone came up with a better idea that wasn't in the first book? Well the first book is god's book, so you can't have a better idea. In fact just hold it right there, that's what I dislike about religion - "you can't have a better idea".
No point striving for a better understanding of the universe, no point seeking out a better way to live your life, no point searching for a better moral position to occupy. "you can't have a better idea", it was all in the first book.
Books are inherently conservative, when we get a new god whose bible is a wiki-based FAQ, then I'll believe. In fact I feel a religion coming on right now, we just have to wait until Jimbo Wales is dead and then we can proclaim him the new messiah. In fact to hell with waiting, where's his home page, I'm tempted to go and do it right now!
Cheap, but then so is utopian musing. I generally like to have a go at trying to come up with the closest real-world or believable literary example when people express themselves in that way.
*shrug* I think you could have got closer to my moral position than suggesting I wanted to eradicate everyone who disagreed with me. I accept I am biased in this respect.
A desire to limit disagreements which lead to murder seems to be precisely what "Organised Religion/Ideology" would have it, if it were an intentional entity with beliefs, desires and intentions (just look at the figures on murder versus uptake of mass-ideology and have a squint at Papua New Guinea).
Papua New Guinea... or Iraq? Which evidence do you prefer?
Religion is part of culture, it's a very effective way to replace someone's culture with your own (and by the way I despise cultural preservation, so don't take that as criticism of religion). It's no surprise that peace-prising cultures in the west use religion to damp down social conflicts. And no surprise that cultures not inclined to peace use religion to incite social conflicts in Iraq.
I'm certainly not saying that Organised Ideologies are the only mechanism which lowers the murder rate - contrary to the Daily Mail, the murder rate in all the Western Countries has been falling consistently like a 1/x curve all through the last 500/600 years - but it's very hard to argue that OI's aren't a contributing factor in face of such a preponderance of evidence, albeit conflated and anecdotal.
Generally speaking religions get to kill people without calling it murder. So, I don't think your figures are necessarily valid since they would automatically exclude the people murdered for their religious beliefs during the religious troubles in England around the start of your 500/600 year quote.
I think religions have been wonderfully effective in helping us transcend our more barbaric instincts. I just think they've had their day and are now holding us back. The New Testament is a great moral textbook for anyone living over the last two thousand years or so, but it's time for a sequel. It's time for some better ideas.
I don't think I particularly raised the ante above where others set it
Chalicer was rude to you, you responded with a heavy dose of sarcasm. He was offended, but you were scathing of the offence you caused. I don't mind people getting offended, a good debate should cover topics you feel strongly about. But if you want to have a conversation it's important for everyone involved to seek out ways to make their points whilst causing as little offence as possible. And to make certain that others understand that their points are not meant personally or as judgements but as attempts to explore ideas that are worth considering.
When informed that you'd offended someone, you blew them a raspberry. Well done. The thread has survived, but will we get Chalicer's contribution now? Perhaps, perhaps not. But as the only person here to have primary evidence of actual experiences of prejudice against gay people, I'm rather inclined to give a helluva lot of weight to his opinions and views and to want to hear what he has to say.
(I assume that people display what they believe to be reasonable conventions by their own behaviour and try to keep my responses at least within what they seem to consider reasonable
If you really believe that for one second that makes you the biggest idiot on the planet. That's pure justification for putting up a post that was rude and inconsiderate. Don't pass it off as intellectual respect.
1) Two wrongs don't make a right. Don't give that moral relativism crap, you learnt this to be true when you were five years old.
2) People who are offended respond angrily. Claiming that means they expect to treated offensively is to deny the existence of human emotion. You are not a vulcan.
If someone gets pissed off, you can either stop the conversation or start a fight, or you can apologise and attempt to refocus the conversation on the issues you are trying to express in ways that don't offend them. Allen may be bored stupid, but I like this conversation, it's interesting, so please stop spilling my pint.
although some people do seem to make a distinction between criticising people not present and those who are which I don't (if anything, I'd have thought that you should give people who aren't present to defend themselves a lighter time of it than those who are)).
If you criticise someone who isn't present then the critique is cold, unemotional and rational. If you criticise someone who is part of your discussion you are well advised to do so in ways that are as non-confrontational as possible. Well advised if you want the notion of a "friend" to be something other than an abstract noun.
The only time to worry about criticising people who aren't present is to remember that the internetweb can be printed out and given to the people who aren't present. If there is a chance of that then you'd be well advised to consider the feelings of those not present as well.
I do keep trying to hammer the point that I'm responding to things that I see lots of people
Your points will be better received if you don't respond with scathing sarcasm when someone tells you that you've offended them. Thats a tip. 
If I have killed the thread, it's hard to feel any great guilt given the first four pages (would you consider circlejerk a reasonable summary?).
I think all human debate is valuable. I like talk, talk is good. Talk is what we do instead of killing each other. Talk is cheap and beautiful and wonderful. Did I mention I like talk?
But I suspect that some threads are more inclined to produce the sort of intellectual posturing that you and I prefer whilst others prefer shorter more chat based conversations which I personally find less interesting. Allen hasn't locked the thread, but we're probably the only two left alive here, so it's only a matter of time.
I think it would be a bit sad if the mods leapt in to lock a topic simply because one person took sufficient offence at my characterisation of their statement to include swear words in their post (swear words not actually directed at other posters)
Grrrr. Here's a hint. Sit down for a bit and try feeling sorry about the fact that you offended Chalicer. If you don't feel sorry, try faking it. If you fake it long enough you may get the hang of it. Try thinking about the last time someone said something that really upset you. Please don't tell me it's never happened, I've met you and your eyebrows do not go up to produce a permanently bemused expression.
I like talk, but talk that offends people leads to people killing each other. It's the offending people that is bad, not the talking. Losing the thread, no big deal, there'll be another one tomorrow. Pissing someone off? That's a shame.
and I hope that you don't mean that as a request for the topic to be locked. This topic is more interesting than my work. I have 6000 pieces of paper to fold. It's not thrilling. But it is work....
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Wag
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I've tried to split this up and move the off-thread stuff into separate topics. Some of these points I reply to are a bit overspecific (asking questions about motivation that you answer lower down in the thread - it's my fault for not reading and assimilating your entire post before replying by risible points, but I choose to blame forum software for not displaying the posts in thread below the reply window (it's hard to scan through the tagged text, easier to take it a paragraph at a time)). I don't think it damages the flow - certainly highlights my assumptions about what you were thinking - but it may seem a little odd (I thought you considered "hate-mongering" a moral point, and respond on that assumption until right at the bottom of the section where you (seem) to say that you don't).
Matt Pennington (1/19/2007)
I did. I didn't. Look and find any evidence that is.
No disagreement here and kudos for application of experimental method and noting the flaws of the methodology.
Matt Pennington (1/19/2007)
Seems pretty consistent with cant. In turn, don't you want to heal "BadFundies" of their wrong beliefs? Consistent but repulsive.
I can't/don't want to argue with "I don't like them" - if posters restrain themselves to explicitly subjective statements, then all you can really do is ask them why. It's more substantial points like "They are inconsistent/They don't follow their own tenets" where you have to ask people to either make their case, respond to the flaws or explicitly abandon the case. Fair enough if people throw up their hands and say "Oh, sorry, I wasn't being serious, it was just a joke", but if they stick to their guns then I think you have to try to push it until their argument collapses or yours does. Obviously, many people don't like having their arguments picked apart critically - but I don't think that's a sufficiently good reason not to do it (harm is stepping on a nail sticking out of a plank, not being annoyed with something you read on a forum - if statements on a public forum can be counted as 'harmful', then I think you have as much responsibility to the readers who may take offence (without even being able to defend themselves) as you do to members).
Matt Pennington (1/19/2007)
I don't know if you've read any of the sites (I read through a lot looking for the hard-core hate) but there's some real soft-core hate going on here. Homosexuality is a disease, we just want to cure people...
I've seen a mixture of soft- and hard-core hate on this forum and the "Priests Rape Kids" webpage struck me as extremely reminiscent of equally concise (no danger of being boring there!) arguments I've seen here (in fact, "God Hates Gays" is also a three word polemic). I have to say, I did like the Warning!! Gospel Preaching Ahead header on Phelps' site - surprisingly considerate (or a hack??). How often do you see people arguing the case for Obvious Stupidity of Christians preface their arguments with "Warning!! Atheist Preaching Ahead"?
Matt Pennington (1/19/2007)
I support their right to say it, so long as they support my rate to call them a disgusting bigoted pile of human excrement for saying it.
I don't think your right to say such things is really under attack (although, I'm pretty dubious about any movement in that direction - be it a Religious or Homosexual Anti-Discrimination legislation). Personally, I'm driven less by a compulsion to push my own opinions, than to grasp others/update mine if I can convince myself someone else's are better - so I'd normally respond (i) by asking why you thought that and (ii) making a note that the substantial point your opposing there seems to be that they are bigoted and trying to see what that means to you (i.e. is it bigotry itself you have a problem with or just their bigotry? Precisely what is it you define as bigotry and how consistently do you apply that definition (friends as well as distant enemies)?). That's not a specific attempt to reask those questions, merely an attempt to explain that I'm not specifically opposing your beliefs/expression of your beliefs (believing anything while placing some value on skepticism and consistency is difficult, so any attempts are to be lauded).
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)He's fun, in a sort of watching people vomit for money way is fun, but he doesn't represent anything other than if you look hard enough you'll find someone, somewhere who believes in anything.
I think I'm with Dawkins (no - say rather, he's with me) on this one - I think there's probably quite a lot to be usefully studied and sad about such interesting individuals.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Funny thing - I was reminded of this guy recently when people were saying that they'd be happy to have a nice jig around the graves of bad people/celebrate their deaths since that's precisely what this guy is famous for. Lol. Ah, yes, that beautiful post-modern moral liberalism again. What I can't understand is this, if there are no ground on which any individual moral position can be judged, why shouldn't I hate anyone I god damn feel like? And if I can, well than I'll start with Reverend Phelps thanks. Why is intolerance unacceptable if nothing is unacceptable? It doesn't make sense...
Eh? What's 'post-modern moral liberal' about it? If the Wrongness here is Hate, then why is Hate good in some ways and bad in others? I don't think all comparisons can reasonably be shouted down by some "more post-modern claptrap!" - I think these are the sort of reasonable comparisons made by modern/pre-modern philosophers.
If you want to say you don't like him because you don't like his beliefs or his actions, that's fine. Obviously, he doesn't like gays because he doesn't like their beliefs or their actions. The inconsistency comes when people say that he's bad "'cause he's a hate-peddler/he preaches hatred" (I'm afraid I don't think "it's ok 'cause he hated first!" is a reasonable logical defence - although it's certainly a reasonable explanation). You may not have been arguing for him or other effigials as being Wrong Because They Hate And Support Hatred, but others were (for preference, if I'm criticising a behaviour/pointing out an inconsistency, I'll quote it if it's only one person, otherwise it'll be left deliberately broad since it's a not applicable to only one individual).
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)But Priests Rape Boys is a work of art, I mean if you had to make a post-modern parody of a fundamentalist that site would be it. It's like... it's like... post-post-modernism. Life imitating art imitating life. Reverend Phelps is a genius! But I still want to dance on his grave.
Um ... okay. Is this simply because he's Reverend Phelps or because "Priests Rape Boys" - and the connected page - is a bigoted mindless condemnation of a group that he is hostile too? Is it the careless bigotry or the fact that he's posted it on the internet? If you're consistent then I think you may have to broaden the regime to one dance/group or consider outsourcing your indignation (that would be fantastic! Sort of like paying priests to pray for someone else's sins).
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Violence towards people who are hated is endemic in the human make-up, I suspect we are designed to hate some people and like others so that our genes can help us decide who to attack and who not to attack. (I read too much popular science).
So it is the expression of hate that distresses you or is it simply the expression of hate towards people you are neutral/think well of that distresses you?
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Given the general level of prejudice that exists it would be astonishing if gay people weren't physically assaulted.
I'd say it depends on where you are - I don't think expressing Catholicism makes you particularly likely to get physically assaulted in England or Scotland but there are certain areas of Ireland where it is likely.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)If fundamentalists were being attacked and beaten and in rare cases killed, I'd be distraught.
Well, they are, in quite a few different regimes (famously the radical Islamist movement developed out of fundamentalist Islamist being attacked, beaten and tortured). If you want to find victims of a certain flavour, it generally doesn't take too long to do so (I remember seeing on what seemed to a be secular website for the discussion of all religions a list of groups who are repressed/attacked because of their religion - Christians come up the top on numbers (probably comparable to the number of homosexuals suffering repression)). I couldn't specify the denomination of all the Christians involved (I imagine there's a spread), but I'd facetiously imagine that people likely to die because of their faith are likely to consider it pretty fundamental.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)But last time I checked, it was the gay people with the sites listing the names of gay people who had been murdered and the fundamentalists with the site warning of the dangers of homosexuality and offering to heal gay people.
America is over-represented on the internet, but obviously if you choose narrow definitions (American Fundamentalists of flavour X in Utah 1987-88 versus Homosexuals) then you can push it either way. Homosexuals world-wide versus Christians worldwide - I wouldn't be surprised if the 'seriously oppressed' Christians didn't out number similarly oppressed homosexuals by several factors. Even allowing for non-reporting homosexuals, I'd expect the numbers to be in the same order ( 'From 1 to 5 percent of the world male. population is estimated to be “constitution-. ally” gay.' - quick google - versus about 1/3 for Christianity - I would think that saying that 1/7 of the Christians suffer some personal danger because of their faith is probably an underestimate, but it seems like a reasonable guess - Indonesia, India, China - all are/contain bad places to be a Christian/missionary. China being the obvious example, Indonesia being a reasonable follow-up.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Until the fighting starts... At which point, I'll get my rock.
Yes, I concur - but I reject the defence that you can't criticise an argument before you've taken a side. There's no need to take sides until the rocks start flying (even then, it helps to maintain a certain amout of intellectual detachment - individuals fought in both world wars without accepting the characterisation of Germans as animals). But then I'm an Evil Troll - what would I know about morality?
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)I don't condemn the fundamentalists for "hate", not really. I might use that language when I'm being sloppy or having fun, but it's not what I actually feel. I condemn them because of what they hate and who they hate and how they hate. That's why I hate them. I wouldn't condemn someone for hating pedophiles or chocolate bars. I would despise someone who hated cunts, or niggers or poofs.
Aha - progress - now I must delete 1/4 of my previous replies. So if hate/intolerance isn't the principle which makes these people morally wrong - what is it? Is it silly of me to ask for a reason beyond "because that's what I believe"/"that's what the people I respected when I grew up believed"?
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)He's clearly an extremist, he also appears to be the only one the professionals can find. That doesn't impress me. Give me some primary evidence for your bad Fundies, not just your average sickening little "heal'em Christian" but your honest-to-goodness "they're going to burn in hell" Phelps style maniac. There doesn't appear to be any.
I'm disinclined to think that it's just him (obviously there's going to be gradation in extremism/willingness to publically express these views) but I don't have any hard numbers - I'll keep an eye out.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Oh, I don't like *any* fundamentalists... Which is to say I dislike the idea of drawing your moral code from a book written 2000 years ago. It's dangerous in the extreme. (See the charming explanations on "good" fundamentalists sites about how the condemnation of homosexuality in the bible isn't really about condemning homosexuality). I strongly dislike the idea that a book, one book, is so god-damn smart that it is smarter than the rest of humanity put together. Now sure if that book was personally authored and signed in Waterstones by God, then maybe. But I see the worrying signs of human intervention in the bible, translations, human authors, etc, etc, etc. And the idea that one book by some people, even if they have been listening to god, is better than our entire moral consideration now, scares the living bejesus out of me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism
"Movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles."
That's quite broad and if someone had asked me to hazard a guess at your morality, I would have described it as basically fundamentalist (not that I know what your basic set of principles is, but you argue as if you believe in strict and literal adherence to a basic set of moral principles).
Moreover:
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Possibly this is purely because my moral vision is an artful arbitrary creation of society, with no more inherent meaning than the arrangement of visuals in a kaleidoscope. If so, what of it, it's the only morality I have, there is no point in trying to arrange my life according to a sense of morality I don't feel. I am unsurprised that to a moral relativist, my viewpoint seems arbitrary and hypocritical, unsurprised and unmoved.
Is precisely the manner in which fundamentalists - of all flavours - generally defend their beliefs (if forced up against someone who isn't going to accept a more specific defence).
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)(so I've largely responded by unloading my anger with some of the popular science authors whose books I've been reading). You need to read less books, it'll do you the world of good.
I used to find people interesting because they'd quote all these wonderful books and ideas I'd never heard of before, but I was afraid I didn't have much to offer in return, so I started making a point of reading and chasing up interesting ideas. Now people are much less interesting and I have an enormous pile of bought/borrowed/library books which I can't possibly accompany me on academic peregrinations. That said, my geography is much improved, even if I still can't point out the course of the Danube or the Rhine.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Off-topic, but do you think morals are developing in a particular direction? Yes. I think they are getting betterer. I'll stop there, we've definitely done moral relativism last week.
Different case, really (or, at least, I'm focusing on chasing a different hare) - concepts of Progress seem to revolve around Salvation/Redemption (with INRI chisseled off during the Enlightenment).
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Why target religion? I don't see what distinguishes religion from 'culture' there. Genes, memes and all such persisting, propagating structures (like civil society) are all inherently conservative entities which persist by holding us back. The problem with religion is that it's inherently conservative.
No more conservative than any other average cultural structure (less conservative than some - clothing fashions vary faster than novel religious interpretations - more than others - concepts of monarchy/civil society seem to change more slowly than concepts of religious interpretations). Granted, I'm not a social historian or a theologist and we're talking hand-wavingly of "religion" as if you can use one word to talk about all 'religions' (religions making a substantive component of all human cultures over the world).
If we're talking specifically of literate religions - which I think we both are - then I agree that these do mark a big cultural leap (oral trasmission only to oral transmission + written copy to decrease mutation rate) - but I think that's something shared with any literate tradition (I think written laws mark a big jump 'forwards' (in the sense of distinct, not in the sense of 'towards a Progressive Utopia') from unwritten laws).
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Once everyone accepts that that book there, that one right there, is the honest to goodness actual word of god things go bad.
Why? My weak grasp of Judaic tradition asserts that the Torah (or perhaps just parts of it) wasn't committed to paper until there was a fear that the traditions might be lost if they weren't recorded. I can see how the act of writing down their beliefs drastically alters the manner in which those beliefs reproduce and propagate (similar significance to the biological evolution of sexual reproduction, but with different effects), but that doesn't seem to the sort of thing you're talking about.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)But, well if God had actually written the book, why would he write a sequel? And if you can't have a sequel, what happens when someone came up with a better idea that wasn't in the first book? Well the first book is god's book, so you can't have a better idea. In fact just hold it right there, that's what I dislike about religion - "you can't have a better idea". No point striving for a better understanding of the universe, no point seeking out a better way to live your life, no point searching for a better moral position to occupy. "you can't have a better idea", it was all in the first book.
So, what you're saying is that religion doesn't allow you to have new (better?) ideas or new testaments? On the face of it, that seems absolutely ridiculous.
Presumably, you mean that "religions" tend to oppose new interpretations. That seems to be true of any ideology/culture - including science (the hurdle for overturning new ideas, issuing in a new paradigm is reasonably high - if you don't make a convincing case, expect to be torn to pieces). Of course, the comeback is that science supports the attempt to develop new ideas - supporting institutions to teach and foster creativity and offering a number of orthodox channels through which to challenge the conventional wisdom (naturally, a lot of the most famous scientists are those who used unconventional channels and thereby altered the shape of science). Reviewing that last sentence, I don't see any part of it which doesn't also apply to "religions" - the only key difference is that religions have a longer history of doing so. Just because neither you nor I (?) have been to a seminary doesn't mean they don't exist. Note - I'm not saying "Religion=Science!!!", I'm saying that what you're indicting religion for seems to apply equally to all categories of cultural insititution - of which science is (clearly? one.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Books are inherently conservative, when we get a new god whose bible is a wiki-based FAQ, then I'll believe.
I'm getting flashbacks from Deus Ex and Voltaire.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)*shrug* I think you could have got closer to my moral position than suggesting I wanted to eradicate everyone who disagreed with me. I accept I am biased in this respect.
Did they eradicate everyone who disagreed with them in Brave New World? As far as I recall they were very tolerant of the Outsider who they walked through their utilitarian utopia. Perhaps they eradicated the opposition in the backstory - I haven't read the original book, only seen the film and had bits repeatedly quoted at me.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)A desire to limit disagreements which lead to murder seems to be precisely what "Organised Religion/Ideology" would have it, if it were an intentional entity with beliefs, desires and intentions (just look at the figures on murder versus uptake of mass-ideology and have a squint at Papua New Guinea). Papua New Guinea... or Iraq? Which evidence do you prefer?
Given a choice, the sample group which has the least confounding factors (Papua New Guinea was largely isolated from external interaction until the 1930's). Papua New Guinea is documented as having by far and away the largest murder rate in the world, backed up by ethnographies (and popular science - see Bruce Parry's "Tribe" series). The fall in murder rate in areas which take up Christianity from missionaries is pretty well documented (every time I've seen it mentioned) and is backed up by recently converted tribe's people saying exactly that (Bruce Parry's Kombai "Tribe" episode has several informal interviews mentioning it more or less by-the-by while talking about recent changes in their lives - he's not a Christian or a missionary and it wasn't the point of the series). I wouldn't call it a water tight case - I'm not an anthropologist and I'm currently not affiliated to a university, so I can't browse JSTOR - but it's a very strong observed trend.
Whereas it's not at all clear what you're trying to say about Iraq or what evidence you have to back it up. If you're saying - religion equal violence because iraq equal religion and iraq equal violence - then I think there are a lot of confounding factors. If you're saying that different organised ideologies for improving mankind/minimising violent conflict over disagreements can come to blows - well, that's sort of obvious. Civil societies have made war on eachother - I don't think that means that civil society isn't an institution/ideology which acts to suppress violent turmoil. Monarchism is another famous way of limiting violence within a country. Pointing out that sometime monarchs fight other monarchs or that there are historical periods where there have been two monarchs (one monarch and a pretender) fighting for control doesn't undermine the case that, outside of civil wars, monarchies as institutions tend to minimise social conflict.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)[quote]Religion is part of culture, it's a very effective way to replace someone's culture with your own (and by the way I despise cultural preservation, so don't take that as criticism of religion). It's no surprise that peace-prising cultures in the west use religion to damp down social conflicts. And no surprise that cultures not inclined to peace use religion to incite social conflicts in Iraq.
What do you mean, you despite cultural preservation? Is this a fight-club "I want to wipe my arse on the mona-lisa and a take a hammer to the elgin marbles - their dead, it's my world" sentiment? Night-time raids on the National Trust? Or is it more philosophical - you want to attack all cultural institutions (if so, please help me dismantle humanism)?
I'm really rather uncomfortable with the characterisation of western cultures as peace-prizing compared to non-western cultures as 'not inclined to peace', without some sort of context. Equally, unless you're saying that 'culture X uses religion to damp down social conflict' in the same way that Dawkins says 'genes are selfish', then I'm uncomfortable with the suggestion of conscious planning which implies that some persisting institution is deliberately releasing religion for specific political goals (other than self-propagation). I wouldn't normally characterise you as white republican conservative or conspiracy nut, but those sentences are more than ambiguous.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)Generally speaking religions get to kill people without calling it murder.
So does the state.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)So, I don't think your figures are necessarily valid since they would automatically exclude the people murdered for their religious beliefs during the religious troubles in England around the start of your 500/600 year quote.
Um - that quote wasn't part of a case for the 'organised religions lower the murder rate'. You seemed to be saying "It would be great if we didn't have organised religions." so I gave an example of somewhere which didn't have organised religions - Papua New Guinea - people seem to live reasonable happily there (much as everywhere), but I wouldn't say it would count as 'great' by your stated definition and the introduction of organised religion seems to reduce the most obvious non-greatness of Papua New Guinea (literally - anthropologists have problems because they spend a while cultivating a convenient cultural source - and then gets killed - wives mentioned often seem to be on third husband since the rest have been murdered). It's an ugly argument, because Papua New Guinea is very large (culturally - lots and lots of small isolated groups with very distinct cultures) and making generalisations over such a broad sweep is naughty - but it seems reasonable for what you're talking about.
The steady decrease of the murder rate in western countries I've seen figures for over the last 500/600 years isn't a case for religion as a 'murder-reducing insititution', merely back-up for when I said "I'm not saying that religion is the only such social institution" (those nations already had an organised religion). Sorry if that's confused matters, I thought it was interesting and reasonable back-up to suggest that I'm not trying to pin all and every similar effect on religion, just because it's been observed to have that effect in some situations.
I'd be interested in looking at the murder rate in a range of countries with one dominant religious ideology compared to Papua New Guinea, then adjusting to include wars that can be argued to be religiously motivated/which occur between countries/groups with differing religious ideology and see what the numbers are like. Hazarding a guess, I would expect that even wars/crusades wouldn't quite compare to a significant difference in murder rate (medieval warfare was limited by transport - you only get so many people to the battle-place - particularly if it's all the way at one end of Europe - whereas a 50%, say, increase in murder rate applies everywhere to everyone) - but that's just hand-waving (I'll try to find data on it, but I don't think it'll jump out in a simply google).
More practically, I think there's a serious distinction between 'murder' and 'war' (one that moralists often gloss over). Dying in war is not at all the same as being murdered in your home community/environs (or being persecuted for your religion - generally, people are allowed to recant). Even if the numbers are similar, I think a 10% chance of dying in war in your lifetime is not comparable to a 10% chance of being murdered in your locale in your lifetime.
Matt Pennington (1/15/2007)I think religions have been wonderfully effective in helping us transcend our more barbaric instincts. I just think they've had their day and are now holding us back. The New Testament is a great moral textbook for anyone living over the last two thousand years or so, but it's time for a sequel. It's time for some better ideas.
Ok - why now? What's special about this period of history?
Marios
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Wag
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{Test Post}
Hey Nesciomancer, are you still reading this shit?
Apologies to all for this irrelevant post which actually belongs on another thread but has to be made here for reasons that will be obvious if you read the Forum Paintball thread.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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