Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[littlefallsmets]

What... Trans-Gendered Men Love?

While Tom Goes to the Mayor Laughs?

I'm lost, here, I'm lost.

[theinevitable]

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.

[Golfhaus]

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?"

[AugustWest]

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.

[littlefallsmets]

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.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Well, I was being flip and exaggerative because I was trying to be clever and brief. . .

L F M? Noooo. I dont believe it.

[side_show]

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.

[KeithHernandez]

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?

[littlefallsmets]

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.

[side_show]

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.

[lprkn]

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.

[theinevitable]

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.

[KeithHernandez]

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.

[side_show]

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.

[KeithHernandez]

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.