--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@> > wrote: > > > > - In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > "You said something revealing in a previous post, that > > we have "erred on the side of" not suppressing religion > > and of not being uncivil to religionists." > > > > First I was just pissed when I read this since it is not what I meant. But > > then I found the quote and understand why you thought this: > > > > Me > > > > So I believe that we have erred on the side of allowing > > > > unchallenged beliefs about how life works rather than > > > > suppressing them or acting uncivilly to religious people > > > > in this country in the last few decades. > > > > You > > > "Erred"? My goodness, I hope that's a figure of > > > speech. > > > > Poorly written and not what I intended. > > Curtis, I know what you intended to say. In the figure- > of-speech sense, we often use "erred on the side of" when > the "error" is clearly a positive, which is the way you > used it. There wasn't anything wrong with the way you > wrote it.
Then why would you write this which was not what I meant? > > "You said something revealing in a previous post, that > > we have "erred on the side of" not suppressing religion > > and of not being uncivil to religionists." > > We erred in the opposite side of allowing unchallenged beliefs. Do you believe I really mean the bad way? > > <snip> > > So let me be clear. I am never advocating either being > > uncivil to any group of people in society or suppressing > > beliefs. This is bad. > > My point was that the subconscious can prompt us to use > figures of speech that reveal more about what goes on > down there than we consciously intended or possibly were > even aware of, along the lines of a "Freudian slip," > although there's no actual mistake involved. That may be so but in this case I am being explicit about what I believe. I don't believe that even unconsciously I want suppress people's beliefs or be uncivil to them for holding them. The other side of this would be reading in something unflattering that you want to believe I hold in my unconscious. I would prefer to stick to what we actually say because I don't share your confidence in your ability to interpret what my unconscious mind is doing. I believe you will always be biased to see me in an unfavorable light. > > You've said over and over that you want to "challenge" > religious beliefs, that we as a species should "shed > the last bits of superstition," that we are "trying to > rise above superstitious tribal beliefs." This is the language of philosophical debate of ideas. It shouldn't be misconstrued as a desire to personally challenge individuals about their particular beliefs. > > Would I be wrong to say you would be happy to see all > religious belief eliminated? Yes, that would be really misleading. Are we happy that as a culture we do not burn accused witches now as they still do in parts of India? Yes, I'm glad that view has been eliminated here. And although it is none of my business that a person wants to believe what they want about their God, scriptures or religion, I am glad that is is the minority who think of woman as intrinsically inferior to men today. But as a culture, I would like us to stop having a situation in our political lives where a person can only get elected if they profess to have private conversations with an imaginary being. Our political use of the God idea would not be tolerated in most parts of Europe and I want to see us progress to that. I cringe when I see our president put his hand on the Bible to be sworn in. I want us to go the next step on the road we are already on, to secularize government and feel comfortable as a society electing a non religious person. > > When you talk about "challenging" a religious belief, > do you not mean *defeating* it? It doesn't advance your > goal if the challenge is unsuccessful. Ideas are challenged all the time and if the evidence is better people change their minds. But not in the ideas of religion. Why is that? Because we have chosen as a culture to give them a protected status over any other idea human's have. > > There's a fine line between defeating a belief and > suppressing it. And when you challenge beliefs on the > basis that they're "absurd," you can hardly call that > being "civil" to the folks who hold them. It would be uncivil in a private conversation with a very religious person. I am giving you the respect of speaking directly about how I feel about these beliefs with the knowledge that it they are not your beliefs I am criticizing, nor am I criticizing you personally. If I have stepped over some line with you let me know and I will happily adjust. But I am not expecting you to adapt the position of being offended on behalf of someone else's perspective. I don't believe I am walking a fine line at all since I am powerless to suppress anyone's personal belief, nor would I care to. But I would be happy to see that we shifted our perspective as a culture into seeing the Jesus story as myth just as we have for all other myths. No one had to suppress the idea that Posiden is not a real guy, it just happened over time. I consider that progress, don't you? Would we really be better off with functioning temples to Greek or Roman gods rather than discussing their intellectual meaning in colleges? Christianity has plenty of intellectual value outside its use as a description of how the world works. > > I'm very dubious about the possibility of ever > eliminating "superstition" (in the sense you're using > the term as well as the usual sense). I think > "challenging" beliefs is rarely successful; it more > often provokes hostility and leads folks to dig in > and hang on even more tenaciously than before. On a personal level this is certainly true. I am not advocating running around pointing my finger in people's chests and claiming I know more than they do. Pleasing people is my business not pissing them off. But in a forum of idea like this one I can express my frustration that it is common for public figures to refer to certain Gods as real entities who might help them decide to go to war with another country with other Gods whose leaders believe that their God is egging them on to blow the West up. I didn't like hearing Bush's confidence that he knew what was right from his faith, did you? Why did an invisible entity even enter the discussion of blowing babies up in another country? Couldn't we have just discussed the facts as we knew them a little more. And yet it had a pacifying effect on the country to know that Bush was being guided by this invisible entity who he had private conversations with. I know I am not the only one to find this disturbing. I don't want our president to be acting on this kind of inner surety, I want him appropriately humble that he is just doing the best he can with the same info we can know, not some divine guidance. > > I think there's a certain personal fulfillment in > demonstrating to one's own satisfaction that someone > else's belief is "absurd." I think that's why it's so > appealing. I've spent plenty of time doing it myself. I'm not so sure that is where the fulfillment is for me. If you saw how I interacted with Rory you can see how I interact on a personal level with a person whose views are about as far away from mine as they can be. It would give me no pleasure to have him feel defeated in some way. What I would seek in that case would be that he could come to a place to see that my lack of faith doesn't make me a bad person and that I value rapport personally over combat. Even if that rapport thread is very thin. In our discussions we are often disagreeing within a context of the rapport that this is a discussion of ideas. We can agree to disagree and neither of us had to feel dissed about our differences of opinion. At least that is how it works best for me. > > But I'm very uncertain that it has ever resulted in > any positive change in behavior, much less in > eliminating the belief itself. On a personal level I agree but on the wavelength of the ideas floating around society I am optimistic about change. I am really happy that atheism is being discussed by multiple sources now so that the idea can evolve from part of the red scare of the Soviet Union through Madalyn O'hair, whom I loved but saw as about the most polarizing person possible, through guys like Hitchens whom is often more combative than I am comfortable with, to Dawkins whom I find more palatable even though combative, to Sam Harris whom I sincerely believe has an appreciation for internal "mystical" states but wants to discuss them outside the framework of the past. (That sentence gives me too much of a headache to correct, I apologize!) We have our modern day atheist thinkers putting their contribution into the mix and I believe it is helping shift the perspective of some who did not know that this intellectual option exists. The fact is that atheists are much more likely to be suppressed today than religious people. (Muslims might disagree) So I am using this opportunity to write out my perspective and I am trying to adjust it to the specific person I am writing to here even though each post is public. I am not trying to defeat anyone or take away anyone's beliefs. I am saying here is what I believe and don't believe. Which is why this forum has a value to my intellectual life. >
