h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That works for me. Have fun here.

B

Excuse me you guys, you can't just go around depriving the audience of good entertainment with some sort of pretence of amicability! We were expecting blood, at least!

I suppose the argument hinges a little on semantics, but I am going to take a little of Tango's side here. Let us suppose, for example, that you have a person who sets up some sort of sect in the name of religion (unspecified) with some sort of camp in the jungle where he/she persuades his followers to indulge in... I don't know, lets say incest, murder and drug-taking. Not even you Ben would show much respect for the leader surely. More importantly, and more relevant to this conversation, how can you claim respect for the followers, for those who discard their personal self-respect in the name of faith in this leader.

You may try and understand their motives, you may want to help them reclaim their lives, you may have pity or even love for them, but respect??? I think not. How could they throw away themselves like that? How can you respect those who have no self-respect?

And, if you accept that point, then look at other slightly less awful zealots and fanatics and their followers. Do you respect those who preach hatred? Think of Bin Laden.

And, if I have carried you thus far, what of the less extreme, who 'just' preach intolerance? Think of Ian Paisley.

There is a line somewhere, beyond which you cannot surely 'respect' those who cannot or will not think with their own humanity. And many of those on the wrong side of that line will claim their version of God for their side.

I am not at all sure that I would defend to the death the right to express the most vile points of view. Not, perhaps, the most civilised attitude, but some things are just plain wrong.

"Excuse me you guys, you can't just go around depriving the audience of good entertainment with some sort of pretence of amicability! We were expecting blood, at least!"

I'll assume that was a joke, otherwise you'll get my "former Ace who still knows how to throw large psychological buckets of water over people" treatment .



"I am not at all sure that I would defend to the death the right to express the most vile points of view. Not, perhaps, the most civilised attitude, but some things are just plain wrong."

OK, this is possibly going to take a while for me to explain my point of view on, so I'm going to post what I've written so far and come back in about 10 minutes when I'm finished carrying out my other tasks...

Right, back to work ()...

"Let us suppose, for example, that you have a person who sets up some sort of sect in the name of religion (unspecified) with some sort of camp in the jungle where he/she persuades his followers to indulge in... I don't know, lets say incest, murder and drug-taking."

Weren't we talking about Christianity a few posts ago... Anyway, religion-named or not, "incest, murder and drug-taking" are all illegal, even in jungles. Christianity doesn't break the law but is, instead, a harmless diversion for its members...

"...how can you claim respect for the followers, for those who discard their personal self-respect in the name of faith in this leader."

Quote from Ben: "I respect people because they are people. I may have a lack of respect for the way in which they behave, but they are still people, regardless of what they believe."

"There is a line somewhere, beyond which you cannot surely 'respect' those who cannot or will not think with their own humanity. And many of those on the wrong side of that line will claim their version of God for their side."

OK, so you're saying that anyone who doesn't "think with their own humanity" (whatever that means - I'll take humanity to mean "brain" for want of a better translation) shouldn't be respected?



OK, now to the long bit...

"I am not at all sure that I would defend to the death the right to express the most vile points of view. Not, perhaps, the most civilised attitude, but some things are just plain wrong."

Someone else - for example an average dictator - might think that my views on democracy, capitalism, free-speech, etc. are "just plain wrong". Does that make them "just plain wrong" in everyone else's opinion.

To be slightly confusing, your views on a lot of things may be "just plain wrong", but you'd still want the right to express them.

As an English immigrant to the US, I happen to dislike American Football, to use a relitivly non-controversial example. Therefore, my view on AF is that it sucks because the rules don't make sense, it's too much like rugby, and it's boring to watch. An AF fan would totally disagree with me, and think that I was "just plain wrong". Does that mean that I should not be allowed to express my point of view? Does this mean that I shouldn't have got permission to run track instead of playing AF in my PE class?

What people say with their free speech may p*** you off (best way of putting it, in my opinion), but that doesn't mean that they should be oppressed, or stopped from practicing their views.

Summary
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As long as Christians aren't damaging you in some way, I don't see why you give one about the way that they act or the things that they say. Try looking at things from a Christian point of view and see what I mean.

metaki summed up my response to Pheroneous pretty neatly, though I do have a couple of other things to add to it.

"You may try and understand their motives, you may want to help them reclaim their lives, you may have pity or even love for them"

Well, to me, all of that IS treating a human being with respect.

I think you are right, Pheroneous, there is a semantic question here. By respect I do not mean admiration. And note that I frequently do not respect someone's opinion, but I do respect their right to hold that opinion.

Mind you, I do agree that there is an element to respect which comes close to admiration, and I agree with Tango that that kind of respect has to be earned.

On the subject of defending someone's right to express unteneble views. This is a toughie. My view is that unteneble views should be debated. Consider Oldham in the UK where the British National Party (who expouse extreme right wing racism) have been doing well in elections. If I had to oppose them, there in Oldham, I would do it in a mixture of ways. One would be debate and rhetoric, but another would be to listen to what they say to the extent that I started to address the poverty and social exclusion which is attracting people to the BNP.

On the subject of Bin Laden: while I was aghast by 9/11, I have a certain sympathy for a group of people who stand up and say 'stop, have done, enough, go away' to the US.

Now the question of how anyone could have got the US to shut the f**k up without blowing up the world trade center IS a hard one... And, having blown the thing up, the question of how the rest of us stop the US 'enforcing a regime change' in Iraq is another hard one.

So, is this post wide ranging and incendiary enough for you Pheroneous? (It IS good to be in a thread with you again, btw)

Ben

The US didn't shut the f**k up after 9/11, did it? It bombed Afganistan out of the Stone Age (That country's population has risen dramatically since the war due to all the refugees coming home. The Taliban held it in the Stone Age). For all that I respect other people's beliefs, I draw the line at Wahabbism, which is plain psychotic. I would be quite happy to see it exterminated.

No. You are right - it didn't get the US to stop meddling overseas, and who knows if that was their intention, anyway. Ho hum.

"Wahabbism" - <huh.

B

Metabi, I have no particular argument with Christians, many are very fine people. Religion is the subject here, not Christianity.

My contention was that religion is used by the powerful as a tool to divert the masses, and that this is done partly by undermining the individual's self-esteem and replacing it with an esteem for a God. ('Give me a child until he is seven' etc etc)

I think I am also trying to say that people who lack self-esteem and have consequently turned to religion, or even more generally, are 'followers' rather than whole individuals, do not deserve respect (But may need our concern, our help, our love), and that their leaders deserve the opposite of respect.

You almost had me wondering, Ben, until you mentioned 7/11. If the perpetrators (who were acting in the name of religion, remember) had chosen a time when the buildings were deserted and/or issued a warning, if they had chosen empty planes rather than planes full of commuters as their weapons, if they had somehow demolished these symbols with no loss of lives but their own, then you may be right to respect their case, but they did not. They slaughtered the innocent, they widowed and orphaned, they.... well you know the rest.

If I hear the BNP in Bolton, I leave. I want no part of a world that thinks like that. Let them shout at each other. I do not respect their right to inflict such nonsense on me, and if they don't go away, I will.

You cannot 'respect' the man who stubs cigarettes out on his child, the man who persuades others to murder innocents, or commit suicide, in the name of a 'God', the man who preaches hate based solely on differences of religious understanding. They, and their followers, have no respect for you. These things are absolutely and plainly wrong.

Oh, and just back-tracking a little. Yes, it is possible to separate 'respect' and your own humanitarian reactions. If Mr Paisley - a man who I do not respect in the least (the words despise and detest come to mind)- were knocked down by a bus in front of me I would, without hesitation, go to his aid. I would not be able to stop myself. I would do what I could to help him, but, I assure you, I would do so with not an iota of respect.

"Metabi, I have no particular argument with Christians, many are very fine people. Religion is the subject here, not Christianity."

, sorry. Must've misunderstood...

*looks at his keyboard, notices that B's rather a long way from K and wonders how Pheroneous typoed his name *



"My contention was... are 'followers' rather than whole individuals,"

I agree with all of that. The language is slightly dramatic, but it's the way I'd probably have written it ...

*wonders where to add "tool to divert the masses" to his Religion journal entry*



"do not deserve respect (But may need our concern, our help, our love),"

This is where I've got a problem. Firstly, they /do/ deserve respect. I, for example, would not disrespect a religious person. It's like saying that everyone who prefers Pepsi over Coca Cola should be disrespected. You shouldn't disrespect someone because of their beliefs!

What seems to be happening in this conversation is that you're generalising religion and making negative points about it, then backing them up with examples of bad conduct, loosely connected with religion in the perputrator's mind.

At school, I once had to take part in a debate on "Religion does more harm than good." I was atheist at the time, but my English teacher thought it'd be a good idea to put me on the supporting side.

What you're failing to point out is that religion helps to stabilise people who have low self-esteem by providing a foundation to rebuild their lives against. If they aren't going to get that support from anywhere else, would you rather they rebuild their lives using religion, or that they don't rebuild them at all.

I'm going to use myself as a clarification of what I'm saying. A few months ago, I went through a period of depression caused by my relocation to the US (from England). h2g2 helped me to carry on through this, by providing support in the form of my h2g2 friends, providing continuity with my sub-editing work, and providing a focal point for my life. I used this as a foundation to rebuild my social life, my personality, and my self-esteem.

That is exactly the thing that religion does for people who use it to help themselves. It provides guidance through the relevent texts, it provides community at places of worship, and it provides support for your spiritual health.

Metaki

Pheroneous, I think to all practical purposes we react in the same way to the same kinds of situations; we just label the reactions differently.

I think that we are also clear that our reactions to what our fellow creatures say and do are very similar. I would love to be able to say that I try to dissuade bigots when I meet them, but when my drinking buddies were spouting racism in the pub ('acceptably' disguised as being anti-asylum seekers) I bottled out and said 'I am going to leave you Nazis to it' and walked away.



Metaki, I too have found h2g2 a source of friendship, humanity and continutity when away from home. Amazing place, cyberspace.

I think it was Scott Peck who wrote it, and I think it may be in The Road Less Travelled that I read it, but I have certainly come across the observably true comment that there are different kinds of believers.

Simplifying very greatly something I read 8 or so years ago, believers vary in maturity and enthusiasm during their relationship with their deity of choice, in much the same way that people vary during their relationship with a person. And some people are simply incapable of maturity.

A couple of comments have already been made about the kind of Christian who says 'Praise the Lord' every third sentance or so. This is very very different from the old man I met on a yoga and meditation holiday in Spain, who loved to dance and to swim, and who had deep psychological scars he was still dealing with from early beatings, who had been in the army for years, and who let slip on the last night that he was a Roman Catholic priest.

The faith of the first kind of Christian seems to be a bolt-on thing, which they have to constantly re-affirm to make sure it stays in place; while my dancing priest's faith seems to be deeper, much much more complex, and far more part of the fabric of the man.

Scott Peck describes four different kinds of religious faith - different psychologically, that is - and he cites a source who describes thirteen different kinds.

This is allied to my comments to Tango that not all Christians believe the same thing. Not all beleivers believe in the same way.

I wonder to what extent fundamentalists feel that they constantly have to prove themselves to their god?

B

Wahabbism: Fanatical Islamic sect named after its 19th century founder. Forbids practice of any non-Islamic faith and supports forcible conversion of non-believers to Islam. Is the state religion of Saudi Arabia and the faith of Al-Quaeda. I don't support the overthrow of Iraq, but would that of Saudi Arabia. You can liken Saudi to a primary tumour, spreading its cancer throughout the Islamic world.

Two apologies. The first to Mr Ian Paisley. I have never met the man, nor listened to his words, I was just using his public persona as a useful example. The second to Metaki. My brain is not as quick as it should be, and I saw the strange wahabbi word and thought, as one does, of japanese horseradish, wasabi, which phonetically is not so far from metaki (also unfamiliar) and before my brain had worked it all out properly, my fingers had typed the wrong word!

I have spent a little time in Saudi, Mr/Mrs/Ms Leg. As far as I am aware, Saudi is governed by a Monarchy, who are trying to reconcile the demands of the religious leaders for greater restriction, the demands of the secular population for greater freedom, the demands of the West for movement to democracy, the demands of the very extended Royal family for more privilege and wealth, and the demands of the Islamic world for a more rigorous defence of the holy shrines against the corruption of the West. Replacing the Government with, say, a democracy, will not resolve any of those conflicts. I have not read or heard of anything to suggest that the Saudi government has gassed its own people, develops weapons of mass destruction or invades its neighbours. You may have little respect for those who hold such strict and intolerant religious views as the wahabbi clerics, but I don't see how overthrowing the government would help anyone except those same religious extremists who would thrive on chaos, probably take the majority of seats in any parliament, and generally grow in strength.

A little more rigorous argument and a little less sweeping assertion please.

Did I write that?? I suppose I must still have been in shock after hearing that a man from my village, even though I didn't know him, had died in the Bali explosion. My apologies to the Saudi people. (But not to the Wahabbite mullahs).

Pheroneous wrote:

"I think I am also trying to say that people who lack self-esteem and have consequently turned to religion, or even more generally, are 'followers' rather than whole individuals, do not deserve respect (But may need our concern, our help, our love)."

I hope that is not what you are trying to say! Writing as a Christian who "turned to religion" as a conscious, mature decision, I would doubt whether you could offer your concern or help, much less your love, unless it were done with respect.

Surely we are all both followers and leaders - how we lead is another question! Seems to me Jesus gave a good example! And who amongst us can truly claim to be a "whole individual"? Once again, the example of Jesus comes to mind.

Personally, I am a "work in progress"

Chris

Yes, it is what I was trying to say - although reading it now, it sounds dreadfully condescending!

As a free-thinking atheist, albeit one who is quite happy to leave others to be happy in their own ways, I find it incomprehensible that anyone would want to be told what/how to think by anyone else. (Thats what it looks like from here) The only rational explanation that I can see is that a person thinks so little of themselves that they need they add-on security of a faith, a religion. Hence the contention that a religious faith indicates lack of self-esteem. Hence my lack of respect for - or in Ben's words, I cannot admire - religious followers.

I hope that I am a good kind and humane sort of person. I feel for others, I want to help where I think I can make a difference. In my arrogance, I am happy to help where I can. If you, as a committed christian, want anything from me that I can give, then it will be given without reservation. Unless, that is, you want my respect. How can I have respect for someone who gives up a part of themself for the sake of... well I can't describe it. 'Nonsense' is the word that seems right. I can respect your right to hold whatever views you want to hold. I can respect your rights to a free and happy life etc etc., but I cannot respect the person that is you, for, it seems to me, you are not thinking for yourself.

(Hmm... well there's a thought for a sunday!!)

My turn to hmmm!

Well, respect would have been nice (and good, kind, humane?!)

As a former free-thinking atheist, and now a free-thinking Christian (Perhaps we both think we are each a contradiction in terms!) I can assure you I have done an awful lot of thinking around this subject

I'm off now to think some more. Helpfully, I hope ...

Chris

Are you sure you mean athiest and not agnostic? I have never heard of athiests converting. I'm not saying you couldn't have done, I just want to clarify this.

Tango

Plenty of Atheists convert, Tango. I've heard it said that atheists all secretly believe in god, or how can they hate him enough to be atheists when there's no evidence that he doesn't exist. I don't actually believe that myself, but it's quite an interesting thought.

Even if it isn't true, surely people can change their minds about it. It's really just another something people believe.

I find it very dissappointing that, in many parts of this thread, all Christians have been dismissed out of hand as mindless and unthinking, turning to God because we are unable to cope with the horrors of life; creationists with no understanding of science or logic. Apparently we are too stupid to be allowed an opinion.

It's funny. I never thought of myself like that, either before or since I became a Christian.

Obviously we know there are Christians who do fit into this stereotype, but to assume that we are all the same is nothing short of bigotry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, regarding self-confidence. A belief that there is an all powerful, supernatural being who is helping you out is bound to be a bit of a help in the confidence department. I also agree that prayer is a huge help. Whether you believe anyone is listening or not, it's a very good way to gain perspective on a problem, thereby removing a lot of anxiety from any situation.

Those people who have that kind of faith that is driven by guilt, however, are going to have terrible time gaining self-confidence. But isn't it possible that people like this would have low self-esteem anyway. If you think that God might be mad at you because you thought a bad thought or whatever, then you already have a low opinion of yourself.

"Obviously we know there are Christians who do fit into this stereotype, but to assume that we are all the same is nothing short of bigotry."

Which was *exactly* the point I was trying to make to the excitable Tango. There is nowt so right as a teenager, though.

"prayer is ... a very good way to gain perspective on a problem, thereby removing a lot of anxiety from any situation."

What a good point - I am ashamed to say tthat I hadn't thought of that.

B