The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => People & Places => Topic started by: littlefallsmets on December 02, 2007, 08:09:56 am
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This is going to sound like the most freshman-philosophy-class thing ever written? But it's how I feel about the subject and so I gotsta write it.
But as awesome as Fred Rogers clearly was? I have to deduct some points from really nice peoples' nice-person scores when I find out they're deeply religious. Not a whole lot, really, it only knocks Fred down from an A to a solid B-plus but...
C'mon, part of why he was nice... maybe only a small part but... on some level, part of why he was such a good guy was because he was afraid that an invisible monster would punish him if he didn't act like that.
I mean, if someone cured cancer, say... and Dan Rather asked her in a world-exclusive interview as toward why she did is and she looks him square in the eye and says "Well, I really wanted to make the unicorns happy. If you do something good enough, they'll come out and grant you a wish..."
Well, I'm sorry Doctor Crazyshorts.
Thank you for curing cancer but I have to think a little bit less of your accomplishment for it.
Mister Rogers was fuck*ng amazing, don't get me wrong, but if he'd'a been a stone-cold atheist humanist while he was at it, THAT gets you the gold star licked and stuck to your forehead.
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dude...
just no. he was genuinely a nice guy. He wasn't doing it out of fear of God, man. He was just that nice. I refuse to believe otherwise.
If Fred Rogers is anything, he is a guy who makes me like religious people more.
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See, though... uhm... hmmm, how can I put this?
If I've learned anything in this life... and I'm not saying that I have... it's that every time I've wanted to give organized faith or the organized faithful any slack, I've just been later shocked saddened and depressed by the outcome.
If I give that way of thinking the benefit of any doubt, I'm... it's a bad road to start down.
Better to embrace the alternative and assume that Fred Rogers... even Fred fuck*ng Rogers... secretly sacrificed his first-born on a mountain-top to please an obscure Middle Eastern volcano deity.... or something along those lines.
Less disappointment ensues.
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My dad always says that religion is like arch supports - if you need 'em to walk straight, fine, but don't go forcing everyone to wear them.
Fred Rogers, for the most part, kept it to himself. He never proselytized on the show. If he'd ever closed the show by saying, "Now kids, remember to thank God tonight for your mommy and daddy," then I'd be right there with you. But he didn't. Mr. Rogers wasn't perfect - none of us are, and he never said he was. In fact, he was one of the people telling kids it's okay NOT to be. Whatever his motivation, he left the world a better place than it was when he got here. That's really all I think any of us can ask of a person.
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My dad always says that religion is like arch supports - if you need 'em to walk straight, fine, but don't go forcing everyone to wear them.
Where do I click to can your dad? Oh well, I guess you can have one instead.
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I think it's important to judge people by their actions, not by what they say or what they profess to believe in. There are plenty of religious assholes. There are plenty of non-religious assholes. There are some saints out there -- both religious and non-religious. I don't think there's a lot of correlation between one's actual level of goodness and one's professed beliefs.
Whatever we say we believe in, we're all human and all subject to human frailties and failings.
That being said, Fred Rogers taught millions and millions of little children that everyone was entitled to love and respect. Every firsthand report I've read said he lived that way too. That's what I aspire to.
If whether a person is a theist or not plays such a strong role in your evaluation of him, I think that could say more about you than him.
Also, consider that all theists may not be motivated through fear of a deity.
But don't mind me, I'm from the South, so by definition I'm mentally deficient.
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I had something to say, but as usual The counselor said for me much better than I could ever hope to.
Thank you Frank for speaking my mind.
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I think it's important to judge people by their actions, not by what they say or what they profess to believe in. There are plenty of religious assholes. There are plenty of non-religious assholes. There are some saints out there -- both religious and non-religious. I don't think there's a lot of correlation between one's actual level of goodness and one's professed beliefs.
Whatever we say we believe in, we're all human and all subject to human frailties and failings.
That being said, Fred Rogers taught millions and millions of little children that it was everyone was entitled to love and respect. Every firsthand report I've read said he lived that way too. That's what I aspire to.
If whether a person is a theist or not plays such a strong role in your evaluation of him, I think that could say more about you than him.
Also, consider that all theists may not be motivated through fear of a deity.
But don't mind me, I'm from the South, so by definition I'm mentally deficient.
Good sir, you get a tiny can. I apologize for all the stereotypes that you Southerners have to live with, btw.
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Sorry LFM, have to call some bullshit.
Nobody does good things in a vaccum, and for no reason. They do them because they get something from it, whether it's a happy glow, a sense of satisfaction, or prevent the invisible monster from punishing them, everybody's got motives. But I don't think that this destroys the worth of the good that they've done.
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Yeah, I've been saying this a lot lately, but LFM, while I understand what you are saying and usually agree with you*, I have to agree with the others here.
*Not recently apparently.
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...that's kinda why I prefaced the hell out of that statement.
I'm not saying it's a particularly rational statement, in fact, I know it isn't.
But deep in my heart, because my interactions with organized faith... especially with the organized faiths that spring from the children of Abraham, the power structures that developed out of grafting an early Egyptian monotheism on top of the nomadic cults that worshipped the jealous and vengeful volcano deity Yahweh... they've just been uniformly bad.
I can't feel any other way about it, even if logic seems to dictate otherwise.
I'd also rather kill myself than hold a firearm in my hands, even to defend myself or a loved one.
I hold a lot of reflexive feelings from bad experiences and they trump seemingly reasonable statements, sometimes.
It ain't a blanket judgement of anyone else, mind you, it's just my personal emotional reaction to all the ways in which faith has hurt me and lied to me and hurt the people I love.
I'm not saying that I hate or I dislike for reasons of religion.
But, yeah, I am given pause. I am forced into re-evaluation mode by it.
If Factor A was part of why a television actor made me feel better as a child but Factor A is also the underpinning reason why thousands are dying a month and millions if not billions are cruelly supressed... what is the math that we use there to figure out if it was worth it?
It's no simple equation.
If the guy who Jesus was based on, an emminently wise radical philosopher two thousand years ago at the least, saw the world today...
Would that guy look at all the Fred Rogers using the Christian teachings as one of the reasons for their small simple goods... would that guy put it in a scale against all the massive complex horrible things that all the George W Bushes have done using Christian teachings as an excuse and a rationale and find that it weighed out?
That there were so many nice old men telling us we were special as to outweigh all the rich fucks using faith as a way to trick us into killing each other so that they can own some more stuff?
Does it balance out?
I don't have a rational logical answer, I'm certainly not a Hebrew philosopher in the year 30 AD or whatever but... I turn on CNN and my heart gives me an answer right away.
That's all, that's all.
No offense intended, I'm just too much of a bleeding heart to look at the good things faith can/could do and the bad things that faith is/will do and think that they add up.
I'm... I dunno. I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone, else I wouldn't have couched the statement so tightly in pre-emptive apology.
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See, thats a post I can basically agree with.
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WWFRD?
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See, thats a post I can basically agree with.
And this is why I eschew the whole brevity thing... I can only get my points across if I cover all the bases around them with words so as to not be misunderstood.
I shoot for the brevity thing, I just piss people off accidentally.
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WWFRD?
I actually wore a handmade-just-for-me hemp-and-bead "WTGML?" bracelet for a while. Stopped when I got too many questions about it from people I didn't want to give an answer to - old ladies, mostly.
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What... Trans-Gendered Men Love?
While Tom Goes to the Mayor Laughs?
I'm lost, here, I'm lost.
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Would that guy look at all the Fred Rogers using the Christian teachings as one of the reasons for their small simple goods... would that guy put it in a scale against all the massive complex horrible things that all the George W Bushes have done using Christian teachings as an excuse and a rationale and find that it weighed out?
I mean, I feel like he would say that the George W Bushes would have been doing the same thing no matter what, as they always have, but if even one person was inspired to live a better life that would make it worth it?
Or, I mean, that is what I imagine. I like to think that he would have an optimistic viewpoint of these things.
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What... Trans-Gendered Men Love?
While Tom Goes to the Mayor Laughs?
I'm lost, here, I'm lost.
I ask myself that first question a lot, LFM. Sometimes the world baffles me.
No, before making any big decision, I asked myself... "Will This Get Me Laid?"
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But LFM, that's not at all what you said in your earllier post.
As I understood it, you said, in essence, that you think less of someone because they are religious.
Now you're talking about whether or not religion in itself is a good or bad thing. Two entirely different issues.
Don't care for organized religion? Fine. Neither do I.
But you take it a step further when you say that you think less of an individual if they do. Think less of someone because they're willfully ignorant or intolerant or cruel. Not all religious people are. Not all atheists aren't.
Both Fred Rogers and George W. Bush claim(ed) to be religious people. Yet in my personal evaluation, one was very good and one is not. To me that demonstrates the irrelevance of what we claim to believe and the importance of what we actually do.
I don't care if Fred Rogers believed that the world was flat and that every word that L. Ron Hoover preached was the absolute truth. From what I can tell he spent his life doing things that promoted love, respect and dignity. That's the important thing. I'm not sure that I care much why he did that.
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Well, I was being flip and exaggerative because I was trying to be clever and brief and it was four in the morning and I'm always particularly grumpy and apocalyptic after paying the rent.
We all are, aren't we?
Mea maxima culpa for that part.
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Well, I was being flip and exaggerative because I was trying to be clever and brief. . .
L F M? Noooo. I dont believe it.
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But LFM, that's not at all what you said in your earllier post.
As I understood it, you said, in essence, that you think less of someone because they are religious.
Now you're talking about whether or not religion in itself is a good or bad thing. Two entirely different issues.
Don't care for organized religion? Fine. Neither do I.
But you take it a step further when you say that you think less of an individual if they do. Think less of someone because they're willfully ignorant or intolerant or cruel. Not all religious people are. Not all atheists aren't.
Both Fred Rogers and George W. Bush claim(ed) to be religious people. Yet in my personal evaluation, one was very good and one is not. To me that demonstrates the irrelevance of what we claim to believe and the importance of what we actually do.
I don't care if Fred Rogers believed that the world was flat and that every word that L. Ron Hoover preached was the absolute truth. From what I can tell he spent his life doing things that promoted love, respect and dignity. That's the important thing. I'm not sure that I care much why he did that.
Auggie puts it perfectly here.
LFM, being intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from ones own is bigotry. Your first post was bigoted, and I am totally disgusted. You can try to cover your ass all you like now, but I call bullshit. You were tired? So what? Mel Gibson was drunk - does that mean he's not usually a bigot? Having been an atheist since I was old enough to analyze and make my own choice, having been feminist for just as long, having been someone who longs for peace, all I long for is an equal playing field for everyone. You can't build yourself up by knocking others down. People are great or awful because of their actions, not what they believe.
The bad things done to you/your family that you go on about every chance you get were enacted upon you by other people. Yes, these people may have hidden behind a certain belief structure, but it was human beings, making bad choices, that did you and the ones you love harm. It may be harder, and more dispicable to face, but the hard truth is that no matter what one's religion and/or moral structure tells them they can or can't do, every person has free will. Ascribing some all reaching power to the structure of Christianity or any other organized religion over it's followers is quite similar to believing in a magical sky daddy - it's not a very realistic, rational or atheistic assessment of the situation.
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I was saying some stuff but I don't know how and it got hell of personal (not an attack, rather way too much info about me, not in a track me down way, but in a way more personal way).
I don't know how to say it, so I just will. It kind of matters what someone believes, but I dont "deduct" points from people because of it. Fuck, I don't give grades to anyone. If yall want to yell at LFM, maybe do it because he gives letter grades over people's lives? It already works shitty in education, why use it to gauge a life?
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Not to belabour this but... I'd argue that there's a big difference between thinking differently because of someone because of some category they were born into... as opposed to something that they have consciously as an adult decided to accept as true or false.
If I were to think differently of a person because of the religion their parents were, say, or the religion that their ethnicty was associated with... yes, by all means, that would be bigotry as much as sexism or rascism or homophobia or whatever. Absolutely wrong.
But to think differently of someone because... oh... they have decided they are a Yankees fan and that way of enjoying sports that they've chosen is anti-thetical to how I believe one enjoys sports.
To think differently of someone because they believe as a consenting and conscious adult that... oh... they agreed with Hitler on a lot of things, it's just that he went about things the wrong way.
Because they voted for Ralph Nader, say, and I think them naive and accidentally doing more harm than good by taking away support from people who might not do as much good as quickly but could actually get elected to government, perhaps
To think differently of someone because they say that by swinging my arm, I have injured their friend Harvey, a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit and I need to go to jail for not believing in this rabbit and for breaking his two front teeth.
It's very very very different from bigotry.
It's not a uniformly positive way of thinking or reacting, certainly, but it's quite different from bigotry.
There is a difference between what we are born as and born into... and what we decide to believe as rational independent adults... the accusation of bigotry, I'd have to say only applies to that first set.
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I don't know how to say it, so I just will. It kind of matters what someone believes, but I dont "deduct" points from people because of it. Fuck, I don't give grades to anyone. If yall want to yell at LFM, maybe do it because he gives letter grades over people's lives? It already works shitty in education, why use it to gauge a life?
Okay, yes, what you're talking about isn't bigotry. For me it goes down like this:
Let's go for an extreme example: John Doe believes that 8 year old boys are sexual beings. He never acts on this belief. Is John a bad person?
Or, on a more personal, slightly less extreme level: I believe a person I know is so awful that the world would be a better place without her in it and I wouldn't be sad if she were run over by a car tomorrow. I will never push her in front of a car. Am I a bad person?
This is why I say it isn't what someone believes, but their actions that define them. Clearly there are many people who think otherwise. In the religious teachings I grew up under I was taught that to have impure thoughts is as much of a sin as the act itself. I don't think that's true. I have horrible, immoral thoughts all the time, but I don't give in to most of them, so I feel that I am a good person. I think the beauty of human nature is that we have choice, and our successes and failures pivot on that axis.
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But to think differently of someone because... oh... they have decided they are a Yankees fan and that way of enjoying sports that they've chosen is anti-thetical to how I believe one enjoys sports.
Canizzled for trufizzel.
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yeah, but, see, Mr Rogers doesn't believe anything that is reprehensible. What he believes is that God loves everyone equally, and that everyone is special. This is what he said his entire life, and this is what he put out into the world through his show and his actions. There is nothing in there which I would equate with supporting the Yankees or pederasty.
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What I think I meant to say (if you ever want to know when I have an important capstone assignment it is when I put a lot of posts in on Sat and Sun, since the class is once a week on Monday, in this case I was thinking about my post)
It really matters what someone thinks in a very small amount of circumstances.
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Not to belabour this but... I'd argue that there's a big difference between thinking differently because of someone because of some category they were born into... as opposed to something that they have consciously as an adult decided to accept as true or false.
If I were to think differently of a person because of the religion their parents were, say, or the religion that their ethnicty was associated with... yes, by all means, that would be bigotry as much as sexism or rascism or homophobia or whatever. Absolutely wrong.
But to think differently of someone because... oh... they have decided they are a Yankees fan and that way of enjoying sports that they've chosen is anti-thetical to how I believe one enjoys sports.
To think differently of someone because they believe as a consenting and conscious adult that... oh... they agreed with Hitler on a lot of things, it's just that he went about things the wrong way.
Because they voted for Ralph Nader, say, and I think them naive and accidentally doing more harm than good by taking away support from people who might not do as much good as quickly but could actually get elected to government, perhaps
To think differently of someone because they say that by swinging my arm, I have injured their friend Harvey, a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit and I need to go to jail for not believing in this rabbit and for breaking his two front teeth.
It's very very very different from bigotry.
It's not a uniformly positive way of thinking or reacting, certainly, but it's quite different from bigotry.
There is a difference between what we are born as and born into... and what we decide to believe as rational independent adults... the accusation of bigotry, I'd have to say only applies to that first set.
This is a whole lot of nonspecific language. You say you can't be linguistically concise in an earlier post (another nice excuse), but I think you just like to hide behind a bulk of hazy text. Most of the examples you raise don't relate to your original post in any cohesive way. The first section, though... that's a doosey. You allude to how if someone's born into a faith, or if it's part of their ethnicity (because I guess Christianity isn't part of some people's ethnicity in your books?) then that's some how excusable to you, but if they, as an adult, choose a belief structure that doesn't match your own, then they "lose points" or whatever you're trying to say. It's incredibly ignorant to assume that anyone who doesn't choose to be an atheist hasn't put a great deal of care and thought into their spiritual choices. Just because you and I as atheists recognize that the belief in a magic sky daddy is irrational doesn't mean it's thoughtless to believe otherwise, and certainly doesn't mean that such a person is less of a person than you or I. Thinking this is what makes you bigoted. The idea that there is a "right" and a "wrong" to personal belief structure is so narrowminded and arrogant. It's why I almost never talk about my spirituality - I know full well that I don't have the one magical right answer for the world at large, just the one right answer for me.
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I know full well that I don't have the one magical right answer for the world at large, just the one right answer for me.
BOOM but that is what I say when I talk about spirituality, along with reminding them that they don't either.
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BOOM but that is what I say when I talk about spirituality, along with reminding them that they don't either.
Yeah, I try not to tread those waters unless I've got someone trying to convert me. Which has only happend a couple times. I kind of get the sense there's more of that "come over to our team" stuff south of the border than up here. Maybe we're a little bit more of the "to each his own" ilk up here?
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Well, it depends where you are, but, right next to my parents house(~50 miles from my home for the last 3 1/2 years) is a 135ft cross and I am in the "buckle of the bible belt". So there, yes, other south of the border areas, ? It is not so bad in my town, but it is a college town so...
I might have said this before, but my home town there is a law saying no signs, etc. over like 25 ft., or whatever it is. The cross was way over that limit and a guy who wanted to put up a giant (135 ft.) crab across the street at his seafood restaurant was turned down.
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Can we just agree that LFM really stepped in it and move on before this gets nasty?
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Well, it depends where you are, but, right next to my parents house(~50 miles from my home for the last 3 1/2 years) is a 135ft cross and I am in the "buckle of the bible belt". So there, yes, other south of the border areas, ? It is not so bad in my town, but it is a college town so...
I might have said this before, but my home town there is a law saying no signs, etc. over like 25 ft., or whatever it is. The cross was way over that limit and a guy who wanted to put up a giant (135 ft.) crab across the street at his seafood restaurant was turned down.
I am coming out in support of the church of the crab.
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Yeah, LFM fucked up and said something dumb. Now he's getting tag-teamed like a German scheisse video. Dude doesn't deserve this. Remove a tiny can and lock this thread. Please?
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No man, don't take his cans, that is a low blow.
Cans should only be given.
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I wasn't going to, but you're right; that is a pretty low blow. Just lock and -- if possible! -- forgive and/or forget.
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Jesus Christ, did I just use a comma, seimicolon, emdash and slash within the space of two sentences? I need to seriously re-think my ability to communicate coherently.
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No man, don't take his cans, that is a low blow.
Cans should only be given.
Unless its Hound or MrChee.
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Jesus Christ, did I just use a comma, seimicolon, emdash and slash within the space of two sentences? I need to seriously re-think my ability to communicate coherently.
oh god, I use all of those in almost everything I post.
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I would really like to point how how vindicated I feel now that everyone has come wise to LFMs argument tactics.
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I would really like to point how how vindicated I feel now that everyone has come wise to LFMs argument tactics.
Example 47 of why this thread need not exist.
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Commas... semi-colons... dashes... slashes... who uses any of these things?
I'm all ellipses, baby...
As for what A-CAP has to say... I dunno, man... I don't think it's my "argument tactics" that people are disagreeing with.
I have serious issues with religion and faith and I... poorly constructed my feelings on these things to a point where those issues could be misconstrued as an attack on their own personal belief systems, which was not my intention.
God and the people who've claimed to speak for God and the structures created by people claiming to speak for God have knocked me down and kicked me in the teeth so many times that... I sometimes forget that people have had what they consider to be positive experiences with that stuff.
I've spent so much of my life studying those ideas of religion and faith from a skeptical distance, that I might figure out what makes them work so that they can't hurt me anymore, that I forgot that... looking at things that way isn't what everyone does and that to forget that there are people who take my feeling that way as an attack on them.
To negate everything I've ever said here because I have an unpopular stance on the idea of divinity and had/have a hard time putting it into words because its a complicated thing to say... and because I have this self-defeating tick for trying to interject humour into even my most serious statements... is one hell of a stretch, m'man.
A Fox News kind of a stretch.
Great debate club stuff, of course, attacking one idea to attack all my ideas but hardly viable in actual conversation.
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Nah, I'm cool with the lock. This thread has run its purpose, and if A-CAP really wants to have sloppy-ass makeouts with LFM, he can damn sure take it to PM.
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A: Shut up A-CAP.
B: I don't think it's your rhetorical technique either.
C: Not to belabor this or just to get in the last word, but LFM, may I respectfully suggest that you read some of what Mr. Rogers actually wrote? I think you might be surprised -- Mr. Rogers is one of the greatest humanists of the 20th century (behind only Kurt Vonnegut, I think).