So, which one of us is Batman and which is Robin? Are you going to start writing some Slash fiction about us on your little blog, Concord?
Well, a lot was written over the weekend, so I'm not going to address every single point, but here are a few standouts.
Concord continues to argue against assertions that weren't made, positions not taken. His responses not only misrepresent but lie. Like I originally said, this is either conscious and deliberate sophistry, or you truly have that much of a comprehension problem. Which is it?
Concord wrote:Milton
Oh, look, citing literature in an attempt to promulgate an idea, and influence thought and action.
Now, on this question of where blame resides. First off, I have to point out the following: Initially, you claimed that we place full blame on the religion, entirely absolving the actors of responsibility, "letting real criminals get off scott free." This is a LIE. Neither of us have made or even implicitly suggested any such claim. Then, you backed off slightly, arguing that our positions "reduce the proportion of the blame put on the man. You deflect some of it to the book." This is still a misunderstanding, or deliberate misrepresentation of our arguments.
But here's the bigger point that you seem to miss in all your vain talk about "subtleties." This moral blame game of yours, it is not a zero-sum game as you portray it. We can put full responsibility on the actor for the action, full responsibility on the idea for its role of influence. Or some other proportion, depending on situation. Explanation is not excuse; understanding, addressing, and attempting to ameliorate or eliminate cause is not excusing action that arises from said cause.
Begs the question, do you hold someone with mental retardation, or who has been brainwashed, equally as culpable as someone of sound mind? Would you argue against distinctions between murder (first and second degree) and manslaughter (voluntary and involuntary)?
Then you got on about freedom of speech. Much to cover here. First, sinewav telling you to "shut up" was an obvious expression of
dismissiveness; it was not an act of imposing, nor even expressing a desire for someone else to impose, a censor on you. And as he rightly reminded you, the only person in this "debate" who has called for anyone to be forcibly silenced is
you! Don't ignore that inconvenient fact this time. You called for censorship against us because you didn't like what we said or how we said it. You wanted our metaphorical books removed from the shelves of this forum. By your own words, that is in fact "expressing the desire to" suppress speech (something sinewave didn't do), which constitutes being "equivalent in spirit" (and in your case would result in an "equival[ence] in deed") to "preventing people from expressing their views," something you claim to find disgusting. Be disgusted with yourself, Concord.
Next, I want you to watch this video:
Christopher Hitchens - Hate Speech. I want you to listen to this not only for the content, which I'll leave as a source without repetition or elaboration here—noting that it covers several subjects related to this "debate," not just free speech. But also for you to realize and understand who it is and what he's arguing. I want to give you this illustration that being entirely supportive of free speech and being anti-religion is not a contradiction in terms.
Free speech does not require intellectual or moral respect for ideas; protection of free speech does not mean ideas are free from criticism, quite the opposite.
Believe it or not, it's entirely possible to argue against ideas, to even believe that some ideas would best be eradicated or at least reduced to insignificance, while at the same time supporting people's right to hold and express those same ideas. It's possible, that is, if you're capable of holding two thoughts in your head at the same time.
Arguing that humanity would be better off without religion and religious thought is not the same as arguing for legal prohibition of religion or belief. No one is talking about banning religious or any other texts, you ninny.
I will fight for the philosophical principles codified in the First Amendment, and at the same time I will fight to change ideas, religious and otherwise, that influence individuals, cultures, societies, and governments toward immoral action. I will do this while holding
equally responsible the actors and the ideas all the way—the actors with legal and social action, the ideas with dialectic and debate.
And let us not forget that ideas lead to and are the foundation of systems of governance and legality. One cannot hold individuals legally responsible without the legal principles that precede law and legal action, laws derived from moral and political philosophy.
Having come back round to this subject of ideas and actions, I would again like to point out that while you admonish that we dare not confront, much less attempt to change ideas, you are yourself arguing vehemently to change our ideas and what you say would be resulting actions.
Want me to boil down the ideas/actions part of all this into one of your cherished cliches/platitudes? You can't just win the war on the ground, you must win hearts and minds.
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Mkay1 wrote:So you dislike 'radicals' in a religion using it to justify crimes. If you go to all the inner-cities combined, and all religious organizations combined, where would the majority of 'crime and evil' be? What then do people have to blame for committing crimes in the inner-city? Certainly they don't read and study a text like religious people do. And do you regard them better than those who commit crimes while being religious instead of personal choice (I assume inner city people don't read much, maybe rap music was their "cause" to action, or is it poverty?)?
Had I seen this paragraph standing alone, without any knowledge of who wrote it, I would think that it was written by a privileged suburban white kid. One who has never had any meaningful contact with anyone else who doesn't also fit this demographic. It's written by someone who uses the terms "inner-city" and "urban youth" as euphemisms for "Negroes." By someone who thinks that cities are full of no one but blacks and other minorities, and that these people are inevitable criminals. Someone who is unaware of the actual crime rates in cities as compared to suburbia and the ex-urbs. It is written by someone who believes that mainstream rap and hip-hop are an actual, accurate expression and reflection of those "people from the inner city," much like white people in the 19th and early 20th century believed that the minstrel show was an accurate reflection of the American 'negro'. And it's apparently written by someone who believes that "inner-city people" are somehow less religious—perhaps he was taught that because of all the crimes they're all obviously committing all the time, they must therefore be "godless," no matter how much the church is part of their lives.
That is to say, the premises are wrong. Likewise for the "'radicals' in a religion using it to justify..." clause. No, they're not radicals. They're not simply "using" religion to justify something. That is their religion. More below. Segue!
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syllabear wrote:You think if, in some parallel universe, Jesus hadn't influenced us, the Bibles weren't written, or widely accepted, or whatever, that NOTHING bad would have happened?
What the hell is wrong with you people? Can't you all read? I have not made, nor have I even approached implying, any such claim. Indeed, I told you, straight out,
exactly the opposite. Religion is not the root of all evil. Religion exacerbates the problem of evil. "It is a false claim of power in the secular world based upon a false claim of knowledge about an ethereal world beyond."
Take, for example, the Israel-Palestine dispute. Yes, there is a secular ethno-nationalistic aspect to it; human tribalistic nature, completely granted. But in examining it, even upon first learning of it, the first thing that should strike you if you're a rational person is what would otherwise be the ease of its solubility, except for the intrusion of religion: Jewish Zionism, the Muslim caliphate and religious sites, and Christian Dispensationalist desire to bring about Armageddon. These are all the exclusive domain of religion.
How do you justify genital mutilation if not for religion?
I quote and paraphrase from this lecture, which if you took the time to listen to and reflect upon before making some reactionary comment, you might better understand the argument that is summed up in that Steven Weinberg quotation:
Christopher Hitchens, The Moral Necessity of Atheism
Mao, Stalin, Hitler
So tired. I'll even throw in Kim Jong-il. Or any Monarchy. What you fail to grasp is that these are/were essentially state religions. They are based on faith claims. As for Hitler specifically, he was an avowed Roman Catholic. You may want to say he was "faking" or something, but even if he was (he wasn't), the fact is that the populace and soldiers who carried out that ideology were either Catholic or Lutheran who had been schooled for centuries to hate Jews because they killed Jesus. A ripe field to plow there that existed in the Christian heritage of Germany.
You say later in your post that the Communist manifesto is responsible for this, but at the end of the day, Mao was the one who enacted the genocide, who was culpable for it.
I didn't actually say that about the
Communist Manifesto. I just mentioned the text, with no comment toward evil or anything else, only in regard to its influence. As for Mao, really? Just all by his lonesome? No? How did he get so many people to follow him? And I wonder, do you believe, then, that fighting communism was a stupid, pointless, even morally wrong thing to do?
A couple final overall points:
Again, no one on "our side" is suggesting banning religious belief or private practice of religion. Wouldn't do it if I could. I doubt whether belief could even be eliminated, giving the faultiness of the human brain. More realistically, what those on "our side" would like to have happen is contemporary religion relegated to the same sort of consideration as the ancient religions, like that of the ancient Greeks or Egyptians, that practically no one believes anymore. Archaic mythology; stories that might be entertaining, prose that might be lovely, parables that might be morally informative like Aesop's fables. But not believed as a literal account of existence, historical or moral.
And lastly, if you wish to take credit for supposedly good deeds "done in the name of religion," you must also accept blame for the evil deeds "done in the name of religion." All of you reading this remember that next time you want to make an argument along the lines of "look at all the good things religion has done; the bad things are just people abusing it."
