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

qwints said:
I'm qmartindale over there, which I've said here before. But that was a while back.
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Then I don't see you question ceepolk's colonialism statement. You challenge her on the appropriateness of her example to what she is saying, not on what she's saying. And what she's saying by that point in the thread is something entirely different.

qwints said:
Hitchens talked about being a "protestant atheist", and there are several explicitly ex-muslim organizations, such as Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and ExMuslim Blogs. Many atheists, like myself, left a particular faith.
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Then Hitchens is an ex-Protestant, those organisations you mention who self-identify as ex-Mulsim are ex-Muslim, and you are ex-whatever-you-were.

You cannot be both a Muslim and a non-believer.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
You cannot be both a Muslim and a non-believer.
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That's technically true, but I don't think it's hard to understand the meaning. You can be culturally a Protestant or a Jew or a Muslim while having left the faith. If a particular religious tradition pervades your upbringing, it doesn't cease to inform your outlook just because you stop believing in the supernatural stuff.
 
I know what she meant, it just amused me the way she expressed it.

My main point was the one which was ignored - that she was displaying the same kind of thinking as the bigots the post was nominally anti.
 
Foolmewunz said:
There are, no doubt, arguments against certain religions that have racial overtones. Much of the anti-Islam fervor is based on that, IMHO.

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Others would say it's based on suicide bombers and plane pilots, imnsho. :)
 
Yes, because that accurately describes Muslims just like the Phelps family represents Christians, right? Right?
 
And in the first post Grimalkin admits that their thinking is bigoted and doesn't necessarily chime with reality, but that's fine apparently.
 
qmartindale starts out saying, "...it's problematic for us to assume that the bullies were white." By the sixth post, he/she's saying, "I agree that it's true that the bullies are most likely white."

An odd bunch that generally exhibits stubborn intolerance of any notion that differs from the party line, even while it seems to agree that such a notion might have merit--
 
A+: Atheism + bigotry, apparently.
It's ok though, because they're not like those other bigots, cos privilege.
 
gentlehorse said:
qmartindale starts out saying, "...it's problematic for us to assume that the bullies were white." By the sixth post, he/she's saying, "I agree that it's true that the bullies are most likely white."
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That's me, and I'm a he.

Those positions are compatible. Passing over the simple demographic discussion, I think the claim that several of you have a problem with is the claim that offense is more likely to be caused by people from a privileged group (i.e. whites more likely to cause racial offense, men more likely to cause sexist offense.) I think so because of the nature of privilege - it's much easier for white people to be ignorant of black culture than the other way around - rather than because one group has more animosity than another.

But this is pointless speculation - it doesn't really matter for this case and there isn't sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion even if one could get a decent probability. As was pointed out earlier, VanDyke was not the only black student at the school and there was at least one black administrator involved. Talking about the case as if these people don't exist is a problem.

That said, I'll gladly further discuss the issue of why I don't think it's bigoted to say members of certain groups are more likely to cause offense than others.
 
Can you demonstrate that either of those claims about who's more likely to cause offence are true, Qwints?
Being ignorant doesn't mean that you'll cause offence and being educated about something doesn't mean that you won't.
 
qwints said:
That said, I'll gladly further discuss the issue of why I don't think it's bigoted to say members of certain groups are more likely to cause offense than others.
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I don't disagree with anything you say in your post. The problem, for me, is the difference between saying that members of certain groups are more likely to cause offence than others, and assuming that people belong to a certain group based on their actions. The former is not bigoted, the latter is.

So it's not a question of ignoring the black administrator, it's a question of not even considering that one might exist.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
So it's not a question of ignoring the black administrator, it's a question of not even considering that one might exist.
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Good point.

Dissolution said:
Can you demonstrate that either of those claims about who's more likely to cause offence are true, Qwints?
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No, it's purely based on intuitive reasoning. It seems that someone who knows that something is offensive has an opportunity to avoid doing it that someone without that knowledge lacks. I'm unaware of any empirical evidence for this.

gentlehorse said:
Based solely on skin color? Have at it.
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No, based on race or some other social construct where one group is privileged over another, where one group is normal/regular/default and others are different/strange/exotic.
 
qwints said:
No, based on race or some other social construct where one group is privileged over another, where one group is normal/regular/default and others are different/strange/exotic.
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It was you who said, "I get that asserting someone who said or did something bad is a certain race without evidence is prejudiced." You seem willing, however, to explain why it's okay to do just that in assuming the bullies to be white, sans evidence, even after having initially stated that it's problematic to do so. It might be interesting to see you try to reconcile these statements.
 
"Is" does not equal "probably is". If we pick one US citizen at random, we can say meaningful things about the likelihood of their identity. As of 2010, they're most likely a white woman. Treating that as a given, however, is foolish and, to use Squeegee's language, fails to consider that non-white, non-woman people exist.
 
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