andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2012-02-15 11:00 am
andrewducker) wrote2012-02-15 11:00 am
Entry tags:
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Interesting Links for 15-02-2012
- When will experiences replace movie theaters?
I think people enjoy passive entertainment a lot, so I don't expect movies to go anywhere. It would be nice to see more "experiences", but I suspect that their cost is going to remain a chunk higher than a movie ticket.
- Some detail on what people who identify as "Christian" in the census actually believe
- Dutch government calls for loosening of copyright law. Could the tide be turning?
- Online RPGs WILL DESTROY YOUR RELATIONSHIP. Unless you play together, of course.
- Some common sense on prayer and councils.
What occurred to me, when reading someone else's journal, was that atheists are merely going to be irked by compulsory Christian prayers - but think about the effect it has on a Muslim, Sikh, etc. that in order to represent their constituents they have to sit through the prayers of a different religion.
- Game of Thrones Valentine's Day cards
- The UK devolved rights to Antarctica to Scotland - by mistake. Now they want them back.
- The BBC replaces the word "Palestine" with the sound of breaking glass. No, really.
- Firefox Roadmap for 2012
- This video is genius. Horrific, hilarious, genius. I can't say more than that without spoiling it.
- What If All the Cats in the World Suddenly Died?
- Chocolate + Apple = best valentine's present evar.
- Shitstorm 'best English gift to German language'
- Being left/right-handed affects your preferences
- Game Developer Gives 7-Year-Old Best Birthday Present Ever
- 9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn
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And yet, Our Writer over there decided that an ignorant strawman was good enough for him, and he presented it in the traditional bigoted "now, don't let anyone POSSIBLY confuse me with one of THEM, they're unclean! Those bitches be CRAZY" manner.
I am abysmally fucking tired of the special pleading that otherwise seemingly-sane people will resort to to explain why THEIR story gets a pass on being considered fiction, and that I'm the one somehow making an unjustifiable leap of logic when I conclude that their bedtime story for boring children is not materially different from The Cat In The Hat or the Eddas or Dianetics.
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I do too. I don't consider Christianity any more likely than Dianetics, but that doesn't make me convinced that there definitely are no Gods, which also strikes me as unproven.
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First part of first sentence: "Now, before I start, let me be clear: I am not an atheist"
Translation: The MOST IMPORTANT PART of EVERYTHING I HAVE TO SAY TODAY (or else I wouldn't have but it first-and-first) is I am definitely NOT a member of this group.
Second part of first sentence: "in fact find atheism’s certainties as puzzling as those of fundamentalists"
Translation: I don't know what an atheist is or what the word atheist means, and I will admit this! I will then attempt to tar them by association with the ignorant.
Third part of first sentence: "the latter are certain that God exists and the former that he does not."
Translation: Strawman argument that demonstrates that the translation of the second part of the first sentence is an accurate translation.
Second sentence: "Quite how, after centuries of Enlightenment philosophy, there are adherents to either point of view is beyond me."
Translation: Those bitches be CRAAZY. I'm not one of them. They're SO UNCLEAN that I must spend my first paragraph explaining that I'm definitely not one of them.
I mean, hell, he gets in a snide, offensively stupid and ignorant shot at people who *do* believe in God, too, while he's at it, but his major focus is that he doesn't know what an atheist IS but he's sure the most important thing he can imagine is that he doesn't want to be mistaken for one.
Let's rewrite his first paragraph about a different group, and maybe you can see why it's so offensively fucking stupid:
"Now, before I start, let me be clear: I am not a homosexual and in fact find homosexuality’s choices as puzzling as those of pedophiles – the latter are certain that sex with children leads to procreation and the former that a man's womb is accessable via his anus. Quite how, after centuries of anatomical science, there are adherents to either point of view is beyond me."
Does that help?
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I'm not sure where you're getting the rest of it from, you seem to be basically translating perfectly normal English into whatever you feel like.
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Which is to say, an ignorant restatement that marginalises and erases and belittles.
(and incorrectly reverses the burden of evidence - but that's why it's a STUPID statement, not why it's an OFFENSIVE statement)
Which is one of the main definitions of atheism, and agreed with by two dictionaries I just checked with.
If you look in a dictionary you will also find "theory" to be a synonym for "hypothesis". Try that in biology, see how that works out for you.
Dictionaries reflect casual and non-technical usage as well as technical.
you seem to be basically translating perfectly normal English into whatever you feel like.
I'm going to assume you yourself have no argument with my translation of the first part of his first sentence because I don't see any other way for it to be read. If you do disagree, please, tell me why.
Assume, for a moment, that I genuinely do feel that "atheists actively believe in the nonexistence of God, and this is an irrational leap of logic that requires at least as much faith as believing in the divinity of Jesus" to be an offensively ignorant statement, much along the same lines as "Muslims worship the moon" and "feminists hate men" and "homosexuals were abused as children".
(Because I do. But even if you don't believe me, just assume it, for a moment)
Given that, can you now see why I find his statement incredibly offensive?
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I can see that you find it offensive, but I think that's _your_ problem. If you are offended by logically accurate statements then that's not something I can do anything about.
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Very well: You've redefined nonreligion as a religion. What do you then call "those who lack belief in culturally postulated supernatural beings"?
(Or, to use the normal word, "atheists". But you've redefined that one.)
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Of course atheist _also_ means that, because it means two different things. And agnostic also means people who believe that there is no possibility of knowledge about supernatural beings. Which verges into the territory of ignostics, who believe that the concept of God is meaningless (or at least no definition currently extant is actually coherent). I usually lump myself into the last of those, because I've never heard a definition of "God" that made sense to me.
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The "standard model" that I most often see, that we used in university and that most of the current discussion follows, puts theism and gnosticism on different axes.
A "theist" is someone who believes in one or more culturally postulated supernatural beings (to wit, "gods", but also includes anima, ancestor spirits, and other beings of supernatural reverence. "culturally postulated" is meant to exclude ghosts and UFOs and Michael Jackson.)
An "atheist" is an a-theist. A non-theist. One who does not believe in any supernatural beings
A "gnostic" is someone who believes either than the existence of supernatural beings is known or can be known. It really should be split into two words for the two different concepts but nobody ever does, and it rarely lacks for context.
An "agnostic" is a non-gnostic: Someone who believe either that the existence of supernatural beings is unknown, or cannot be known. See also: needs a two-word split.
Your position, then, could be anywhere along the two (or three) axes. Several positions are incoherent and cannot be reached reasonably - theism along with agnosticism, for example, necessarily involves a logical failure, most often special pleading, somewhere along the line.
Anyway. That's the standard model.
My personal position is atheist - I lack belief in any gods - but I reject the entire gnostic/agnostic axis as meaningless along the lines of your statement of ignosticism. The statement "nonbelief in god" is meaningless, and an attempt to repaint nonbelief as a positive statement necessarily leads into the first-year philosophy dropout's "but what if ANYTHING was true, and everything else was arranged to make it LOOK like it wasn't true? What if you're in the MATRIX, man?"
(This is most often formally stated as Chris Carter[1]'s Principle: Given a large enough conspiracy, nothing can be ruled out.)
The question itself *is meaningless*, and treating the question seriously in the first place incorrectly cedes the validity of the concept of "god" as more worthy of consideration than that of werewolves from space.
[1]: Creator of The X Files.
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Placing things in context is not the same thing as stating that it's the most important thing you have to say.
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He thinks enforced participation in pseudomagical rituals, while the head druid chants magic spells and symbolically sacrificies a nonexistent goat, is a totally meaningless thing to require as a prerequisite to participate in a body that is purely secular in purpose and that is legally obligated to not endorse or participate in any religion?
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a) the government in the UK is not legally obligated to not endorse or participate in any religion. We _have_ a state religion, and some its highest members have reserved seats in the House Of Lords.
b) He clearly says that "It is clear to me that the latter is the preferable state of affairs." - which is the option where there are no prayers during the meeting.
I'm not sure where you're getting your bit from.
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To wit, he says it was harmless and meaningless. Y'know, like telling the new woman in the office that she's hot and wolf-whistling her as she goes by - sure, there's LAWS saying that you can't do that, and you're violating her rights, but you're not HURTING her or preventing her from doing her JOB, so it's all OKAY and the woman who complains is just a whiny bitch.
Paragraph 7: "It is clear to me that the latter is the preferable state of affairs."
Oh, it would be NICER if he didn't harass the women around, but...
Paragraph 8 (assuming his quotation is included in paragraph 7): "There are lots of things in life I don’t agree with. But I am a liberal and am not going to state portentously that the reading of the Daily Mail, believing that Margaret Thatcher was a good thing or supporting a football club (any football club, since you ask) have no place in the council chamber."
... but he damn well has a right to harass them and their right to not be harassed doesn't matter.
At which point I gave up on him, again.
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Equating this to harrassing women seems to me to be ridiculous. I'm not sure where you're getting that from either.
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It is so weird to occasionally be confronted with the fact that other countries have no guarantees of religious freedom.
Equating this to harrassing women seems to me to be ridiculous. I'm not sure where you're getting that from either.
Do you accept, in general, that objectivication and nullification and expectations of gender roles and dismissal of all objections as "irrational" and "shrill" is offensive to women? And that much of the time, this behaviour is threatening? And that, despite this, there are still people who say "sheesh, those broads should stop whining and learn to take a joke! I'm not offended so they aren't allowed to be!"?
Do you accept, in general, that constant expectations of heteronormativity and outraged expressions of disgust at homosexuals, is offensive to homosexuals? And that much of the time, this behaviour is threatening? And that, despite this, there are still people who say "well, if you'd just made different choices, you wouldn't be at such a high risk of suicide!"?
What that dude said was the equivalent, aimed at the nonreligious. And it's common, and it's everywhere, and it carries a lot of the same weight.
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Harrassment is something I consider to require intent - the state of religion entitlement strikes me as being more like the general existence of patriarchy, where people make assumptions about what is reasonably behaviour. But _mostly_ in the UK it's not there to deliberately keep people down. Obviously, sometimes it is, and I object to that a lot more strongly.
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Interesting. Do you know the phrase "hostile work environment", in the context of harassment cases?
the state of religion entitlement strikes me as being more like the general existence of patriarchy, where people make assumptions about what is reasonably behaviour.
Except the existence of unconscious and unintended bigoted behaviour can *and should* be correctly recognised as harassment. "It's just the patriarchy" is a reason to not have recognised it before, it is NOT a valid reason to keep doing it.
But _mostly_ in the UK it's not there to deliberately keep people down. Obviously, sometimes it is, and I object to that a lot more strongly.
And you don't think the council prayers, voluntary or not, officially part of the proceedings or simply something that the majority group does, are anything *except* a way of creating an us-vs-them in-group out-group mentality? And that there isn't going to be pressure to attend and pay lip service, or punishment for nonattendance?
Because, fundamentally, that's what ceremonial prayer in nonreligious groups *is*, every time - a way of defining the in and the out. It's why Jehovah's Witness children are required by their religion to leave school classrooms when the national anthem is played - because their church works hard to ensure that they are different and "other" to the other children, so they form fewer out-group bonds. It's why Mormons and Scientologists and Amish and JWs "shun" people who leave the church - the threat of losing all your social contacts (see also: why they make you an outsider in the first place) is the threat they hold not only over you, but over everyone else who thinks they might be like you.
And that's why prayers are required at a legislative session: To ensure that everyone present knows who the in and the out are. And now that it's formally illegal to COMPEL group participation, it's gone to "voluntary but we will KNOW and we will JUDGE" participation.