Quote from: Dawn D. on October 29, 2009, 06:48:44 PM
Part of what you're saying is true enough! You may not have heard it. But, have you been in front of every pastor or minister out there? Of course not. And neither have I.
Agreed - and I never denied there was the RARE instance of a nutball - I mentioned a couple of them in fact.
QuoteThe point I make was a point that human beings have the capacity to take to a literal sense things they hear and learn in a religious setting.
Or any other - it's not just religious ideas that touch off such people.
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The same as what one can in the same sense learn from within their own family, or school for that matter.
Oops! i see we're on the same page here...
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Religion though, and the people who claim to be religious cannot run away from their own history.
I don't see it that way. Do we hold the Democrat party responsible for the racial bigotry of many of them in the 50's? Or for slavery? of course not. Societies evolve over time and religion is a society too.
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And what you said has everything to do with history, even though you didn't specify as such.. Who was it that said something to the effect, "those that refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
A valid point - and religion most definitely has. Unless you know of some witch burnings or something I missed.
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And Laura, I do not mean you specifically. I am merely attempting a point that the human species is replete with taking aggressive actions based upon what they are told to do or that they misinterpreted implied understanding, at the behest of leaders (religious)
or otherwise
Quotewho had ulterior motives and/or holier than thou beliefs. This cannot be denied. Call these actions ancient history if you wish.
If the case is that "some crazy man will tell impressionable people to do the wrong thing and they will" then that's an easy case to make. Heaven's Gate? David Koresh? Jim Jones?
OBVIOUSLY this can and does occasionally happen.
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But the fact remains that the vast majority of human on human atrocities throughout history have been based upon religious theocracies and doctrine.
Depends on if you mean collective events or if you mean body counts.
If it's the latter, avowed atheist were responsible for more dead people in the 20th century than all the religious wars in the history of man put together.
But if it's the former - that's pretty easy to say since up until the last couple of centuries almost every human alive WAS religious in one way or another and the stunning majority did EVERYTHING they did because of what they believed.
At least, nominally so. It's also true that most of that was more of a cultural/political religion (sort of like Protestants and Catholics opposing each other in Northern Ireland for political reasons instead of religious reasons).
The Crusades, for instance, were VERY MUCH a geo-political action dressed in the robes of religion to gain public support.
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Notice, I did not say all.
They don't necessarily have to explicitly say "go out and kill all the ->-bleeped-<-s and ->-bleeped-<-s" to be complicit in the crime. So, when people like the one name you brought up "Phelps" says things like "God hates ->-bleeped-<-s" and "->-bleeped-<-s are worthy of death", yeah, he said it (go look at his web page) and, someone goes out and does kill one of us based upon those words or can be shown to have been a follower of his, wouldn't you think he (Phelps) may have a little to be accountable for?
It would be hard for me to pass up a chance to see Phelps thrown under the jail. but I do NOT trust the government to restrain their application of that power once they have it.
The price of freedom of speech is that SOME morons are going to say dispicible things. It's a price I'm willing to pay.
IMHO, the man who hears Phelps say "they are worthy of death" and attacks one of us was already a threat to us before he ever heard Phelps' voice. I would argue that far too often our society tries to blame a song, a video game, a movie, or a speaker for creating a monster when the monster was always there.
That said, I am all for it if someone wants to take it to court and get a court to find Phelps liable if indeed the case can be made. Anything bad that happens to him based on his nonsense is something I am very much in favor of.
that does NOT mean i want over 300 million OTHER Americans to have their liberties threatened simply because of the isolated nutter.
There are other ways to go after a guy like Phelps rather than sacrificing our hard-won liberties (liberties very very few other nations in the world enjoy). Once lost, you almost never get them back. there's no such thing as a government which willing reduces it's own power.
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This is not ancient history. This is real! The danger to us is real!
YES!!! Yes it really really is!!!
And if you look up Phelps and what's-his-name in Arizona and every other one who shares their views it will STILL be just as great.
In fact, there's a very very real possibility that you would CREATE even more voices on that side by giving them the weapon of being able to claim we were "out to get them" (more so than some do already) and you'd end up with a MUCH more strident "us v. them" mentality than we already have.
The law of unintended consequences can be a real bitch.
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There are religious nuts living and breathing amongst us. And yes, there are also nuts for other reasons living amongst us as you stated.
Look, I didn't intend to focus solely on the religious aspect of hate crimes. And no, I do not believe that every religious person out there is "out to get us". If that were the case I'd be out to get myself wouldn't I? But when you see what some (religious leaders) have been allowed to get away with more recently, i.e., sodomizing young boys, castrating others so their voices stay on pitch for a choir, it's pretty difficult to not pick on the obvious.
Agreed! Hence the reason I never said "all" as you stated that I did;
Perhaps I over-reacted but very few posts on this subject make obvious use of the word "some" or better yet "a few" because that's what it is in our day.
I don't dispute that religious people have done bad things but that's because, contrary to the sunshine and roses people want to believe - PEOPLE do bad things. If those people have a nice handy religious justification for there bad thing then all the better but it doesn't make them bad.
for just one example, you mentioned sodomizing young boys - you and I both know that nothing in the Catholic religion instructs or justifies what those priests did, there is NO religious motivation or justification BUT
they did it anyway!Not because religion told them to but because they - being people - do bad things.
And if every preacher with a voice says "gays and lesbians and trans are the salt of the earth, wonderful people who deserve our love and respect" every single Sunday, there will STILL be a significant minority of people who go to their graves hating us and some of those enough to be violent.
Now, I AGREE that such messages DO have value and SHOULD be preached, not because of what effect it will have on the hateful...but because of what good it will do in the "mushy middle" of people who don't really know what they think. the people who can be taught to support equal rights for us, and give us jobs, and invite us to their weddings and speak to us when we are at the market.
I absolutely think that when some Fundy Baptist or whatever (like the preacher who married my wife and I) go about preaching wee are perverted sinners that need to repent that that does us damage socially and politically and they ought not do it.
I simply am not willing to give up the tiniest sliver of my freedom of speech to stop them. The price for that bauble is simply far too high.
All of us should defend ALL the rights of ALL of us or we won't in the long term save any of them. Even if that means a hateful man enjoys the right to say hateful things.
Because - if for no other reason - there are far more "normal" (in their view) people than there are LGBT people - and if we give the government the right to infrnge rights...they have a lot more votes for infringing ours than vice versa
(see the results of most of the "stop gay marriage" referenda in the various states - I think my state reached 80% opposed)
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Those are your words not mine. Attempting to put words I never said into my mouth, or implications of such that do not exist is poor form.
Dawn
Perhaps I read a tone into your posts which wasn't there because I'm so used to seeing that broad brush tendency - if it wasn't your intent, I apologize.
But it seems to me that if one means "a few" or "some" in situations like this then it's a good thing to say that strongly because it matters.
One of the favorite tricks of the hateful preacher (or whatever sort of speaker) is to cite the worst examples of behavior by LGBT - things that in reality are VERY rare - and let his audience reach the conclusion that ALL gays are like that, even though he might never use the word "all"
Same thing happens when it's racial bigotry or religious bigotry or whatever - the common form of low debate is to try to tar the image of the whole with the behavior of the few.
i just don't think it's any more fair to make all believers accountable for Phelps than I do when such tactics are used against us.
But I do not want to give offense so I will gladly accept that such was not your intent and apologize.
