I’ve had to take our conversation out of the forums and put it on a Word document so I can view it all easily…haha. Love it.
“I totally agree with that, but the reason I brought you up about using the term "hate speech" is because it's used by many people as an automatic dismissal of the persons views and how he came to those views, and that dismissal is counter productive to finding solutions. I've spoken with the kind of people that would be described as engaging in "hate speech" in my life and because I didn't switch myself off and zone out I was able to turn them around and find common ground and build on that ground.”
>>>I hear and understand. Perhaps it was the wrong description, but it seemed the best one to use at the time in accordance to what Void was posting about.
“My point really is that an atheist activist has more in common with an atheist extremist (whatever extremism may be), and for them to argue with themselves while their common enemy is still doing as he pleases it makes no sense whatsoever.”
>>>This is the same debate that goes through the skeptical community – “why are we arguing about HOW we’re doing things when we could be taking out religious leaders and quacks?” I guess if you turn it around, there are plenty of people outside the Muslim community who say that Muslims should be arguing with themselves as well to take out the fuckers who think it’s okay to kill ‘infidels’. (Don’t anyone write back that bullshit that all Muslims think alike – I know they don’t any more than all Jews or all Christians do.). The spiteful language Void was talking about is useless, even detrimental, in the fight against that “common enemy” and it needs to be argued amongst ourselves whether or not it should continue. Otherwise somewhere down the line you’re staring at whether or not the ends justified the means (in some situations).
“A christian will define you as an extremist once you tell him that you're an athiest. He'll regard your opinion as invalid and switch off to anything you say, and so often passive and polite conversation isn't enough to convince him otherwise.”
>>>Not 90% of the Christians I’ve met, but that’s just my experience. Many are quite curious. Some already have doubts and just need a gentle push. The younger ones especially don’t need much coaxing at all.
“In my experience- and i'm a product of the society i'm in and I know attitudes are different elsewhere but i'm in england and I see a lot of indifference and a lot of problems caused by ineffective moderate political attitudes, and its because moderation and passivity just doesnt work when you're dealing with christians or anybody who has the option of not listening to you! In contrast to moderation and passivity, it's only when i've displayed passion or anger that these people have dropped their condesending attitude and begun to listen to what i've said and take it on board- and vise versa.”
>>>Living in America, my observation is that we’re nothing but a mixed bundle of passions – you could argue that we broke away from England because of a few individuals passionately arguing for certain freedoms (we’ll leave which they are to another discussion). The only thing that I notice that limits this is a propensity to be politically correct, and even that is a hotly debated issue. We have a lot of people running around in this country using the First Amendment as their defense to say and sometimes do whatever they want, and that’s to their credit – it’s what that amendment is for. We’re not arguing whether or not the people Void mentioned are ALLOWED to say those ‘hateful’ things…we’re arguing the usefulness of it, by the way, before anyone questions that either.
“What i'm trying to get across here is that if you can convince an evangelist through polite conversation that he may have been in error in his beliefs then my hat goes off to you, well done, but if you can't convince him by that method, will you give up?”
>>>Interesting question – glad you asked it, as I will have to think about it some more. I have to say honestly that I’ve never been presented with a situation where I’ve calmly debated against a Christian and not at least made ‘headway’ and caused him/her to reconsider, or at least tell me to my face that they have things to think about. Perhaps I’ve just been incredibly fortunate, perhaps I’ve been lied to, I don’t know. I take that back – on Shell B’s Associated Content page, I did argue with a rather idiotic Christian woman who simply disappeared and I had no way of continuing the conversation after that. I suppose I’ll never know how things turn out, but I don’t know if I could call that ‘giving up’ either.
“So for that reason I don't think that you'd ever find an atheist lynching a christian, you may find that christian being vigourously talked sense to, but certianly not treated with violence for the sake of violence.”
>>>I’m just saying, hypothetically – stranger things have happened. In the arena of politics (not that religion doesn’t blend in with it, unfortunately), we had a guy ram his car into the back of another car because he had an Obama bumper sticker. Maybe the first dude was just racist, that could have been the real reason, I don’t know, but if there is violence possibly motivated by opinions towards a secular establishment…
“I totally agree with that, but the reason I brought you up about using the term "hate speech" is because it's used by many people as an automatic dismissal of the persons views and how he came to those views, and that dismissal is counter productive to finding solutions. I've spoken with the kind of people that would be described as engaging in "hate speech" in my life and because I didn't switch myself off and zone out I was able to turn them around and find common ground and build on that ground.”
>>>I hear and understand. Perhaps it was the wrong description, but it seemed the best one to use at the time in accordance to what Void was posting about.
“My point really is that an atheist activist has more in common with an atheist extremist (whatever extremism may be), and for them to argue with themselves while their common enemy is still doing as he pleases it makes no sense whatsoever.”
>>>This is the same debate that goes through the skeptical community – “why are we arguing about HOW we’re doing things when we could be taking out religious leaders and quacks?” I guess if you turn it around, there are plenty of people outside the Muslim community who say that Muslims should be arguing with themselves as well to take out the fuckers who think it’s okay to kill ‘infidels’. (Don’t anyone write back that bullshit that all Muslims think alike – I know they don’t any more than all Jews or all Christians do.). The spiteful language Void was talking about is useless, even detrimental, in the fight against that “common enemy” and it needs to be argued amongst ourselves whether or not it should continue. Otherwise somewhere down the line you’re staring at whether or not the ends justified the means (in some situations).
“A christian will define you as an extremist once you tell him that you're an athiest. He'll regard your opinion as invalid and switch off to anything you say, and so often passive and polite conversation isn't enough to convince him otherwise.”
>>>Not 90% of the Christians I’ve met, but that’s just my experience. Many are quite curious. Some already have doubts and just need a gentle push. The younger ones especially don’t need much coaxing at all.
“In my experience- and i'm a product of the society i'm in and I know attitudes are different elsewhere but i'm in england and I see a lot of indifference and a lot of problems caused by ineffective moderate political attitudes, and its because moderation and passivity just doesnt work when you're dealing with christians or anybody who has the option of not listening to you! In contrast to moderation and passivity, it's only when i've displayed passion or anger that these people have dropped their condesending attitude and begun to listen to what i've said and take it on board- and vise versa.”
>>>Living in America, my observation is that we’re nothing but a mixed bundle of passions – you could argue that we broke away from England because of a few individuals passionately arguing for certain freedoms (we’ll leave which they are to another discussion). The only thing that I notice that limits this is a propensity to be politically correct, and even that is a hotly debated issue. We have a lot of people running around in this country using the First Amendment as their defense to say and sometimes do whatever they want, and that’s to their credit – it’s what that amendment is for. We’re not arguing whether or not the people Void mentioned are ALLOWED to say those ‘hateful’ things…we’re arguing the usefulness of it, by the way, before anyone questions that either.
“What i'm trying to get across here is that if you can convince an evangelist through polite conversation that he may have been in error in his beliefs then my hat goes off to you, well done, but if you can't convince him by that method, will you give up?”
>>>Interesting question – glad you asked it, as I will have to think about it some more. I have to say honestly that I’ve never been presented with a situation where I’ve calmly debated against a Christian and not at least made ‘headway’ and caused him/her to reconsider, or at least tell me to my face that they have things to think about. Perhaps I’ve just been incredibly fortunate, perhaps I’ve been lied to, I don’t know. I take that back – on Shell B’s Associated Content page, I did argue with a rather idiotic Christian woman who simply disappeared and I had no way of continuing the conversation after that. I suppose I’ll never know how things turn out, but I don’t know if I could call that ‘giving up’ either.
“So for that reason I don't think that you'd ever find an atheist lynching a christian, you may find that christian being vigourously talked sense to, but certianly not treated with violence for the sake of violence.”
>>>I’m just saying, hypothetically – stranger things have happened. In the arena of politics (not that religion doesn’t blend in with it, unfortunately), we had a guy ram his car into the back of another car because he had an Obama bumper sticker. Maybe the first dude was just racist, that could have been the real reason, I don’t know, but if there is violence possibly motivated by opinions towards a secular establishment…
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