Continued: (Ed) Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[qwints]

I question the underlying principle being applied here. Is it that complaining about (or, in general, attending to) a lesser matter is bad, when a more important matter has also been raised?

Fair point. I'd be perfectly fine with criticism of someone using sexist slurs to condemn racist behavior. And, as squeegee points out, this is a different venue and doesn't detract at all from the news coverage this story is getting.

Squeegee, I think that a definition of racism or racist that hinges on the subjective intent of individuals is effectively useless. I understand that people here disagree with me on that.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Squeegee, I think that a definition of racism or racist that hinges on the subjective intent of individuals is effectively useless.

I haven't made any mention of intent. You seem to be arguing against yourself again. Why did you ask me to clarify what I meant if you were then just going to ignore what I said and make something up instead?

 

[qwints]

OK, forget intent. You're defining whether something is racist based on someone's internal thought processes, right? That's what I disagree with.

... imagining them to have a certain skin colour, and then imagining their motives based on nothing but that skin colour.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I'm saying that something that someone has done is racist based on their actions. If you're defining what they've done as "internal thought processes", then all prejudice is also nothing but "internal thought processes" and in one fell swoop you've magically eliminated all prejudice of any kind, anywhere.

 

[blutoski]

I'm glad you've had good experiences, but there are too many stories and recordings of TSA agents not accommodating medical need or being abusive towards passengers to believe that everyone having a hard time in security was looking for trouble.

To the point that I don't think this type of complaint is 'an A+ thing'.

Resentment of public employees with authority is not a special feature of minority groups.

The rationalizations probably vary, though.

 

[Brainache]

...
BTW My working assumption on Christianity is it was concocted in the 3rd century by the Roman Empire (by White Europeans) to hoax the Jews into obedience. That would make Christianity a white people's religion invented for, and still used for, bullying non-whites (South Korea, Philippines, parts of Africa, Latin America, etc.). Notice the current Pope, celebrate for being from Latin America, is actually a White Spaniard in heritage.

I'm not really part of the A+ discussion, so excuse me for butting in, but I have to address this.

You can assume that, if you want to ignore historical facts.

You just look at the most powerful Christian Churches now and assume it was always that way. It wasn't.

To say that Islam is a "Brown Person's" religion and that Christianity isn't, ignores the roots of Islam. It grew out of Judaism and Christianity. It is part of the same Theological tradition.

Looking at the bigger picture, all three religions are Abrahamic in origin. They are also practiced by people of all different races.

I realise you aren't taking Ceepolk's side in this, but I still don't think you can really call Xtianity a "white" religion.

There are lots of "white" churches, but that is a bit different.

 

[Meed]

That depends on the kind of SJW you're talking to. Some are perfectly reasonable and would see how what you're seeing there is racism. However for some none of that would be considered racism because the people doing it aren't white because "power + privilege".

Just remember the one A+er (Setar? Ceepolk? It started with a "se" sound.) who said that you can't criticise Islam because brown people.

Setar has gone so far as to suggest that one shouldn't criticize terrorism carried out by Muslims.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

There are 2.2b Christians in the world. Of those, roughly 800m live in Northern America and Europe. The other 1.4b are more likely to be non-white than they are white.

The countries with the largest Christian populations (total, not percentage) are, in order:

The USA, 245m
Brazil, 173m
Mexico, 108m
Russia, 105m
Philippines, 86m
Nigeria, 78m
China, 68m
DRP of the Congo, 63m
Germany, 57m
Ethiopia, 52m

I think that unless you're either from the USA or Europe and have a parochial view of the world, that there's a better case to be made for Christianity being a religion of brown people than there is for it being a religion of white people.

Figures from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...e-worlds-largest-religion-in-charts-and-maps/

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Leadership matters. The group should be led by people who know how to lead and have sufficient resources (or 'spoons') to do so, not necessarily by people with an axe to grind or by people who are more oppressed than anyone else in the group. If all the people at the top do is vent, then the group won't get anything done besides internal chatter.

It also helps if your leaders aren't mentally ill.

 

[Brainache]

There are 2.2b Christians in the world. Of those, roughly 800m live in Northern America and Europe. The other 1.4b are more likely to be non-white than they are white.

The countries with the largest Christian populations (total, not percentage) are, in order:

The USA, 245m
Brazil, 173m
Mexico, 108m
Russia, 105m
Philippines, 86m
Nigeria, 78m
China, 68m
DRP of the Congo, 63m
Germany, 57m
Ethiopia, 52m

I think that unless you're either from the USA or Europe and have a parochial view of the world, that there's a better case to be made for Christianity being a religion of brown people than there is for it being a religion of white people.

Figures from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...e-worlds-largest-religion-in-charts-and-maps/

Thanks Squeegee.

Definitely a lot of non-white Xtians, I hope this doesn't mean we have to stop taunting Fundies.

If so, I'm quitting the Atheist club.

 

[Mr. Scott]

I'm not really part of the A+ discussion, so excuse me for butting in, but I have to address this.

You can assume that, if you want to ignore historical facts.

You just look at the most powerful Christian Churches now and assume it was always that way. It wasn't.

To say that Islam is a "Brown Person's" religion and that Christianity isn't, ignores the roots of Islam. It grew out of Judaism and Christianity. It is part of the same Theological tradition.

Looking at the bigger picture, all three religions are Abrahamic in origin. They are also practiced by people of all different races.

I realise you aren't taking Ceepolk's side in this, but I still don't think you can really call Xtianity a "white" religion.

There are lots of "white" churches, but that is a bit different.

There's too much of your post to address without going too far on off-topic tangents, so I'll ignore some of it's points without conceding them in the spirit of staying on topic.

Christianity appears to be a merger of Judaism and Roman Pantheism instigated not by ethnic Jews, whatever color they were, but by the (white) Roman Empire. It's been very effective at spreading the empire's influence to far flung places like The Phillippines, South America, and Ireland.

I personally prefer to look at religion with color blind eyes, but decided for a moment to look at Christianity through SJW's color-obsessed eyes to see how it looked to me. I don't see them exercising a coherent, consistent philosophy, but rather a mish-mash of miscellaneous outrages.

Someone bring me up to date -- is Christianity, as practiced by indigenous Latin America, Fillipinos, Black Baptists and Pentecostals, and Black Africans, considered by SJWs to be untouchable "brown people" religions?

 

[Brainache]

...
Christianity appears to be a merger of Judaism and Roman Pantheism instigated not by ethnic Jews, whatever color they were, but by the (white) Roman Empire. It's been very effective at spreading the empire's influence to far flung places like The Phillippines, South America, and Ireland.

...

I'm not sure about the rest, but the 4th century Byzantines might not have been as white as you think.

Also, I think you'll find that the Roman Empire ceased to exist as a Political entity some time ago...

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Thinking about this, there does seem to be a significant issue - the use of white as a default. Assuming an unknown person is white (or straight, male, etc...) is, indeed, problematic and is part of the erasure of minorities from culture we see in a lot of areas.
.

Nope, sorry but just no. The idea that we can assume random person X is white is an axample of the erasure of minorities may, or may not have validity but it is of absolutely no relevance here. In this specific instance, the problem isn't that they removed minorities from the equation (which would be racist) but that they assumed the bullies were racist white kids.

The racist is assuming that there was racist intent behind the bullying, and that therefore the kids involved were white.




(By the way, kudos on the thing I brought up that you responded to earlier)

 

[qwints]

I get that asserting someone who said or did something bad is a certain race without evidence is prejudiced. I agree. I'm confused, however, because I think you are talking about a chain of reasoning where the unjustifiably assumed race informs the opinion about the action. (" imagining their motives based on nothing but that skin color".)

What I think you're missing is that it's the nature of the bullying that's racist, regardless of the perpetrators. The stigmatization of natural black hair has a long history, and insults towards natural black hair can be racist even it comes from another black women. See Hair as Race: Why “Good Hair” May Be Bad for Black Females and the response to Sheryl Underwood.

 

[Joe Random]

Put aside the entire question of racism/bigotry/whatever - the A+ thread in question is yet another clear demonstration that critical thinking is simply not part of their collective toolkit. Assumptions are bad enough, but twisting the story into a supposed data point supporting a pet theory that whitecismalewhatever=THE DEVIL and running with it with Indignation Throttles set to WFO without bothering to spend 15 seconds to see if that was actually, ya know, 'true', only shows that these people aren't interesting in any cause but fueling their personal Outrage Machines.

At this point they're not even fit to serve as an example of good intentions gone bad. They're best used as a 'point at and laugh' target for those of us who are still jonesing for the glory days of alt.usenet.kooks.

I mean, the hell - stigmatisim of black hair? That has sod-all to do with the fact that yet again the Plussers are willing to bend/break/ignore actual reality to stroke their narrative even in cases where it simply doesn't apply, period end. If that doesn't cause people to just walk away from them then what will?

 

[qwints]

FCA's response.


Follow up story.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The stigmatization of natural black hair has a long history, and insults towards natural black hair can be racist even it comes from another black women.

The key words there are "can be", as opposed to "necessarily is".

 

[H'ethetheth]

I get that asserting someone who said or did something bad is a certain race without evidence is prejudiced. I agree. I'm confused, however, because I think you are talking about a chain of reasoning where the unjustifiably assumed race informs the opinion about the action. (" imagining their motives based on nothing but that skin color".)

What I think you're missing is that it's the nature of the bullying that's racist, regardless of the perpetrators. The stigmatization of natural black hair has a long history, and insults towards natural black hair can be racist even it comes from another black women. See Hair as Race: Why “Good Hair” May Be Bad for Black Females and the response to Sheryl Underwood.

The key words there are "can be", as opposed to "necessarily is".

Actually, I'm not sure it "can be". At least, not under the definition of racism qwints claims to be using, that is, as I understand it.*



*I'm open to the possibility that my understanding of "the silly definition" of racism is imperfect.

 

[Jono]

Awww

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Looking it up, it seems that the etymology of "bad" isn't known, but that baeddel is thought of as a possible source. It also means "pedarist".

If it is that case that that's the origin, then that would be a parallel evolution to the modern use of the word "gay" to mean "bad", which would be interesting.