Is religious tolerance a bad idea?

[elliotfc]

The religious are infected with a thoroughly nasty set of memes. They can not be trusted to guess what they would think if they weren't infected with these memes. Quit being silly, elliotfc.

First, I am religious, so saying "quit being silly" is quite a silly thing to say, based on your dogmatic definitions.

If you can't trust what I say, you should expect me to say things that would support your dogmatic definitions. But if I were to "quit being silly"...as in...say things that are more trustworthy, then I would be going against your dogmatic definitions.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

Some religious may be physically healthy but they certainly are not mentally healthy. Living a long life as a superstitious, delusional believer is not my idea of a life well lived.

Life well lived is not necessarily the same thing as mentally healthy, assuming that your premise (religious equals mentally unhealthy is correct).

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

No, it's not. It's reasonable to ask atheists and agnostics whether atheism and agnosticism leads to nihilism and fatalism. Asking theists what disbeleif is like is as stupid as asking virgins what sex is like.

I never SAID that atheism and agnoisticism led to nihilism and fatalism.

Here is all I'm saying, and please accept that this is all that I am saying...

If there were no religion, the once-religious or otherwise-would-be-religious could quite possibly turn to nihililsm or fatalism.

Atheists/agnostics were *never* part of my point, but you keep trying to make them so. Why?

Religion is not anti-anything, except for being anti-reason and anti-fact.

I'm thinking you don't care that I don't take you seriously, do you?

The best thing I can say about you is that you ostensibly dig the movie They Live. And that's no small thing. So you've got that going for you.

-Elliot

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I
If there were no religion, the once-religious or otherwise-would-be-religious could quite possibly turn to nihililsm or fatalism.

On what grounds do you form speculation?

Atheists/agnostics were *never* part of my point, but you keep trying to make them so. Why?

If someone is not a believer, then they are an atheist or agnostic, by definition.

I'm thinking you don't care that I don't take you seriously, do you?

The best thing I can say about you is that you ostensibly dig the movie They Live. And that's no small thing. So you've got that going for you.

-Elliot

Spare me. I have no interest in your opinion of me.

Edit: Honestly, where do you get this notion that people are emotionally better off with religion? Is there any evidence for this, or is this merely an opinion you're dressing up as a fact?

Edit #2: Anticipating that you'll say, "Because when I ask thesists, they say that is how they'd feel if they stopped believing," consider the following.

If you ask newly recruited soliders how they will feel after returning home from combat, "shell shocked" and "jittery" won't be high on the list. However, combat veterans do frequently suffer from PTSD, and often have trouble readjusting to civilian life, despite what they may have anticipated their reaction to be.

If you ask expectant mothers how they think they'll feel after bith, "depressed" won't be high on list, but postpartum depression is a common phenomenon. It seems that expected mothers cannot be relied on the accurately anticipate their emotional response to giving birth.

Likewise, you cannot ask believers how they anticipate feeling after becoming an atheist or agnositc, because they probably won't be correct. The correct way to determine if believers will be nihilists or fatalists after they lose their delusions is to ask former believers who they felt.

 

[Complexity]

By this logic, shouldn't you not tolerate yourself?

I was pretty careful saying what I said - I asked a series of questions and let the reader answer them. While you can correctly infer from them that I have a loathing and disdain for religions and the religious, it isn't accurate to say that I am intolerant of them.

I am surrounded by crazy and ignorant people. I don't know anyone, including myself, who is free of woo. I can say that I and several others have made a conscious decision to learn more, to think better and more deliberately, and to seek out and get rid of our own woo.

I used to be religous. Most of my friends and all of my family are religious. I'm not intolerant of these people - I love them.

I try to work on myself each day and be there for my friends. What I won't do is pretend that religion is not woo.

Hate the woo, not the wooer.

Having said that, it is really hard not to strongly dislike the damned apologists on this board.

 

[Meadmaker]

Hate the woo, not the wooer.

That's funny.

 

[Jorghnassen]

Hate the woo, not the wooer.

Depends on the wooer, if it's the guy buying the stuff, you can't hate him. If it's the seller on the other hand...

 

[Polaris]

I agree, this silliness especially favorable towards muslims of tolerance no matter what as long as theyre not xians or jews is silly

Where is N.O.W. to protest the treatment of women in Dar-al-Islam ?

They don't have the intestinal fortitude. Much easier to act like you believe in the righteousness of your cause when the biggest foe you have to face is a private golfers' club. Nobody there will shoot you. They're a bunch of hypocrites.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

They don't have the intestinal fortitude. Much easier to act like you believe in the righteousness of your cause when the biggest foe you have to face is a private golfers' club. Nobody there will shoot you. They're a bunch of hypocrites.

Firstly, NOW stands for NATIONAL Organization for Women, not International, so they tend o focus on domestic issues.

Secondly, they do in fact criticise Islam when domestic issues and foreign issues intersect.

http://www.now.org/nnt/summerfall-2005/iraqiwomen.html

http://www.now.org/press/08-05/08-26.html

But, if you feel like making more blatantly false statements, go right ahead.

 

[Complexity]

Depends on the wooer, if it's the guy buying the stuff, you can't hate him. If it's the seller on the other hand...

Actually, I hate the woo, have real problems with the wooers, and regard those selling the stuff as the scum of the earth - I've no problem hating them.

People in general are responsible for the junk they let into their heads (e.g. I always turn off Bush as quickly as possible). To remain complacent in ignorance and wooish idiocy is simply wrong.

 

[Polaris]

Firstly, NOW stands for NATIONAL Organization for Women, not International, so they tend o focus on domestic issues.

Secondly, they do in fact criticise Islam when domestic issues and foreign issues intersect.

But it doesn't say National Organization for AMERICAN Women. "National" just tells me who makes up the ranks. There's no claim to which women they support. And which has gotten more press, their support of Iraqi women (whom I suspect they wouldn't have given a damn about if they weren't able to pin it on George W. Bush) or some private golf course? Islamic oppression of women is nothing new. Where were they all this time and why so measley a protest about it?

But, if you feel like making more blatantly false statements, go right ahead.

If it means a nice bowl of rude flakes from you when I wake up every morning, I'll be happy to keep on doin' just that. However this was not a false statement. NOW couldn't give a rodent's rectum about Muslim women beyond lip service. They only come out in force and protest easy targets because they won't be beaten and jailed. Let's see a group of them stage sit-ins in Iran or Saudi Arabia, or chain themselves to fire hydrants in Algeria and Afghanistan (if the latter even has those). Until they do something visible beyond lamenting and cryptically blaming Bush, to me they're nothing but professional troublemakers with too much time on their hands.

 

[Meadmaker]

If I may, I'd like to relate this exchange about NOW to the OP.

It's very selective outrage, in both cases. NOW stands up for the rights of women, especially when threatened by Republicans. The OP raised an interesting question by asking about the limits on religious tolerance, but then, in my opinion, blew his point badly by picking as his one case in point the Pope and condoms.

There's a lot of outrages committed in the name of religion these days, but in my opinion, the ones that really qualify for outrage involve Muslims blowing things up or burning things down. Once in a while, a cult releases Sarin into a subway system, or tells people to drink some cool-aid because the law is on the way. David Koresh "marries" a bunch of teenage girls, and kills the children of his followers rather than give in to the feds. Those are religious outrages.

The Pope tells people to only have sex in ways that might make babies, and only when you know who the daddy is. His church takes a pretty extreme line on this, demanding chastity, monogamy, heterosexuality, and freedom from contraception. That's an outrage? It might not be realistic advice, and it might not fit with your philosophy of how best to achieve human happiness, but compared to blowing up commuter trains in Madrid, it's really nothing.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

But it doesn't say National Organization for AMERICAN Women.

The rest of this is just plain ignorant. Do yourself a favor and open a dictionary.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

If I may, I'd like to relate this exchange about NOW to the OP.

It's very selective outrage, in both cases. NOW stands up for the rights of women, especially when threatened by Republicans.

False. Funny, but false. NOW stands up for the rights of women when they are threatened. Period.

 

[ponderingturtle]

If I may, I'd like to relate this exchange about NOW to the OP.

It's very selective outrage, in both cases. NOW stands up for the rights of women, especially when threatened by Republicans. The OP raised an interesting question by asking about the limits on religious tolerance, but then, in my opinion, blew his point badly by picking as his one case in point the Pope and condoms.

There's a lot of outrages committed in the name of religion these days, but in my opinion, the ones that really qualify for outrage involve Muslims blowing things up or burning things down. Once in a while, a cult releases Sarin into a subway system, or tells people to drink some cool-aid because the law is on the way. David Koresh "marries" a bunch of teenage girls, and kills the children of his followers rather than give in to the feds. Those are religious outrages.

That is a very very different point being made. Those are the actions of small cults, and while more extreem results, they are also much more limited in the scale of the dammage.

So the catholic church is a good target if you want a unified religion that makes pronouncements that can effect the actions of millions of people

The Pope tells people to only have sex in ways that might make babies, and only when you know who the daddy is. His church takes a pretty extreme line on this, demanding chastity, monogamy, heterosexuality, and freedom from contraception. That's an outrage? It might not be realistic advice, and it might not fit with your philosophy of how best to achieve human happiness, but compared to blowing up commuter trains in Madrid, it's really nothing.

Picking on the extreemists only expressing displeasure with the extreemists, it does not show the problems created by mainstream religions.

 

[Polaris]

False. Funny, but false. NOW stands up for the rights of women when they are threatened. Period.

But only when "international and domestic issues intersect", as you said. Meaning they allow themselves the luxury of choosing to stand up for the rights of women only if it's not going to cause them too much trouble. Golf courses are safe because they aren't going to have acid thrown on them. Iraqi women? Where was the outrage when Saddam employed a State Rapist to torture the wives of political prisoners? Why did the sufffering of Iraqi women only appear to them when it was convenient to blame it on Bush? NOW is overwhelmingly left wing, and I suspect they don't want to jeopardize their PC credentials by criticizing the multicultural poster child of Islam.

Their work for abortion rights is commendable, I'll grant them that. But so far your evidence that they "stand up" for Muslim women is one story about what might happen to Iraqi women because of Bush's war. Lip service. Let a few of them get on a plane and picket in Riyadh, and then I'll give them their props. Until they're willing to put their money where their mouths are, like RAWA, I consider them a bunch of hypocrites who put partisanship above their principles.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

But only when "international and domestic issues intersect", as you said.

Do you know what this phrase means? I said this:

"Secondly, they do in fact criticise Islam when domestic issues and foreign issues intersect. "

Don't take phrases out of context.

 

[Polaris]

Do you know what this phrase means? I said this:

"Secondly, they do in fact criticise Islam when domestic issues and foreign issues intersect. "

Don't take phrases out of context.

I do indeed know what it means. They only criticize Islam when it bumps into a domestic issue (which is never, unless it has something to do with American foreign policy in the Dar al-Islam). Sounds very convenient to me, like an excuse to ignore the elephant in the room.

If the NOW really cared about oppressed women, they would make their #1 priority the improvement of conditions and human rights for women in the Islamic world - women who really are oppressed, uniquely so in fact. But they don't. It's easier to harp on non-issues in the US.

 

[rachaella]

Firstly, NOW stands for NATIONAL Organization for Women, not International, so they tend o focus on domestic issues.

Secondly, they do in fact criticise Islam when domestic issues and foreign issues intersect.

http://www.now.org/nnt/summerfall-2005/iraqiwomen.html

http://www.now.org/press/08-05/08-26.html

But, if you feel like making more blatantly false statements, go right ahead.

Another link relating to NOW and non-domestic issues,

http://www.now.org/issues/global/

These include action on:
women in Iraq
women in Venezuela
women in Mexico
women in Darfur
women affected by the recent tsunami
women in Israel
women in Afghanistan (pre-Bush)
women in Nigeria
etc. etc. etc.

Clearly NOW cares not a wink about women around the globe.

 

[elliotfc]

My point is that standing on a street corner telling everyone who Jesus told you to castrate youself, is an act of religiosity. So that I would be supprised if there was a high level of correlation between religiosity and mental health.

Doesn't religiosity have to correpsond to a particular religion?

Many Christians claim to be non-religious. Is that a ridiculous claim?

In my opinion religion requires organization, communal practice, and adherence to established tenets. Your example of the street corner guy *might* align with my appreciation of what is religion, but then again it might not. Not enough information.

Most religions are EXTREMELY WARY of individual revelation, which is what your example specificall incorporates. I don't need to state the reasons why religions would be opposed to individual revelation...right?

-Elliot