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[littlefallsmets]

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.

[theinevitable]

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.

[littlefallsmets]

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.

[Golfhaus]

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.

[wombat]

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.

[AugustWest]

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.

[pmcd9]

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.

[linnea]

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.

[lprkn]

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.

[KeithHernandez]

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.

[littlefallsmets]

...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.

[KeithHernandez]

See, thats a post I can basically agree with.

[pmcd9]

WWFRD?

[littlefallsmets]

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.

[Golfhaus]

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.