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

Sorry... I am typing one-handed, beibg hampered by a cat that seeks something beyond himself.... his breakfast.

"But what about the evidence that religiosity may be a heritable trait?"

What about it? Where is it? How strong is it? Has it been properly peer reviewed?

And if it is, "religiosity" does not imply the choice of particular religion. If one is uncomfortable because in one's home town/country of choice there's a lot of criticism of, say, Muslims, it remains an option to stop being a Muslim. Heredity does not change that.

There are those who say "Why should I change?", to whom I reply - you don't have to, but if you don't, please don't whine to me about the consequences of your CHOICE.

"And even if it weren't, how often do we really consiously choose what we believe?"

Speaking for myself, all the time, every single day. The thing that distinguishes humanity from animals, the very essence of consciousness itself, is the capacity for introspection.

If you're asking me to shed a tear over people who lack the wit to control the contents of their own heads, you'll pardon me if I consider them less than fully human and prefer to spit in their path.

H.

Well it's unlikely I will pardon you because if it's ok for you to spit in the path of say Christians then why shouldn't someone else spit in the path of homosexuals with equal venom. Ditto about calling them not fully human.

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I hope I live long enough to see all Heterosexuality destroyed utterly. "

Nice spoof, but it doesn't work, does it?

Because religion, unlike sexuality, is a CHOICE you make, every day. (Hoo)
>>

Except for the rather large number of people who make choices about their sexuality all the time, and those people for whom religion is not a choice eg children, or where one is likely to be persecuted for not being religious, or where religion and culture are inseparable.

The reason I spoofed the Doctor's post is because I was short on time and I wanted to show how ridiculous it is to hate a group of people who you disagree with. By all means critique the beliefs, but outright prejudice is just dumb.

Here's another one:

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If you're asking me to shed a tear over people who lack the wit to control their own (homo)sexuality, you'll pardon me if I consider them less than fully human and prefer to spit in their path.
>>


The sheer arrogance of condemning all religious people is surpassed only by the amount of disrespect it entails. I'm not sure how one can be expected to be taken seriously when one condemns the majority of the human race to be a bunch of idiots.

I'm not particularly religious myself, but I am interested in different religious perspectives because they tell us so much about the human experience. I'm also not so full of myself that I think I understand all of reality. There are many mysteries in life and religion makes as good an attempt to understand them as science or philosophy does. But then maybe we just read different books and talk to different people.

I like Mudhooks differentiation between religion and spirituality. I tend to think the need for spiritual experience is inherent in humans too. I know people who have such experiences but don't consider them 'spiritual'. But I wouldn't condemn someone who didn't have this experience.

Hoo, I'm curious about your example of the legal issues to do with Muslims. If Jews are covered by racial anti-discrimination laws what happens if I as someone not ethnically Jewish converts to Judaism?

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I mean, a decade or so ago there was an Anglican Bishop who was on public record as saying he didn't believe in the literal truth of the virgin birth or the resurrection. David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham. Now if you can advance to the position of Bishop while not actually believing two of the central myths of Christianity, surely that suggests that Christians as a whole and Anglicans in particular are a deeply confused and ridiculous bunch?
<< (Hoo)

We have a famous case in NZ of a theologian who was tried by his church for heresy in the 60s. Lloyd Geering is a hugely respected scholar in NZ, as well as very controversial - the reason he was accused of heresy (from what I remember) is because he too questioned the literal interpretations of the bible, and I think eventually even went so far as to say that God didn't exist.

It's too early in the morning to find a decent link to his work, but all I can say Hoo is that try entertaining the idea that this man might actually have an intellectual vigour equal to yours. Just because you don't understand his perspective doesn't mean he doesn't have a valid or useful one. Likewise you calling him ridiculous - saying it doesn't make it so.

Personally I have a lot of respect for Geering because his views challenge the orthodoxy (I value dissent highly). And I don't have any problem with a Christian not believing in God. Christianity isn't a set of absolute rules unless you are a fundamentalist.

This isn't the first time on h2 that I have wondered how so many otherwise intelligent people have ended up with such a narrow view of Christianity (or religion in general).


I did find an essay that Geering wrote on the origins of fundamentalism that some may find interesting:

http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=2732&C=2437

OK, the fairly simple one first:

"Hoo, I'm curious about your example of the legal issues to do with Muslims. If Jews are covered by racial anti-discrimination laws what happens if I as someone not ethnically Jewish converts to Judaism?"

Pretty simple. The law prevents RACIAL discrimination. Jews are recognised within that law as a race (as are Sikhs). You can't convert to a race.

That the race coincides almost 100% with a religion is, as far as the law is concerned, an irrelevant coincidence. As far as UK law is concerned, once a Jew, always a Jew, not born Jew, never a Jew. (Or Sikh, as I say).

Now onto the other stuff...

"if it's ok for you to spit in the path of say Christians then why shouldn't someone else spit in the path of homosexuals"

I thought I went through this. Choice.

"Except for the rather large number of people who make choices about their sexuality all the time"

Is sexuality a conscious choice? You surprise me. That is a very illiberal view.

Sexual BEHAVIOUR may be a conscious choice, but I had always thought that the accepted wisdom for most people, even most right wing bigots, is that sexuality is something innate over which a person has no control at all. That is certainly the church's position at the moment, accepting as it does that some people have homosexual tendencies which they cannot control, but tolerating it, on the whole, as long as they do not act on them.

If you're now telling me that you think that a person's very sexuality is a matter of choice, I'm going to have to ask you to explain why your opinion is so very different than almost everyone else I've ever come across.

"and those people for whom religion is not a choice eg children,"

I feel sorry for children forced to be religious by their parents. And of course, I blame the parents. One can hardly blame a child for being impressionable - that's their job.

"or where one is likely to be persecuted for not being religious"

My answer to that one is - that is what the laws on asylum are for. If you're being persecuted for your religion, or lack of it, and you don't want to change (bearing in mind that changing IS an option, always), then you can always get the f**k out of the backward hellhole you're living in and go somewhere civilised.

"or where religion and culture are inseparable."

See my previous point.

"By all means critique the beliefs, but outright prejudice is just dumb."

Is it prejudiced treat people who are in prison differently? I suggest it probably is not. You don't really need to KNOW why they're there - the fact they are there tells you pretty much all you need to know.

Similarly, if someone is good enough to mark themselves out as religious, perhaps by ostentatiously wearing a particular form of regalia in public, then if you treat them differently - THAT ISN'T prejudice. Prejudice implies treating them differently out of ignorance. For instance, skin colour alone is no signifier of honesty, intelligence or trustworthiness. Racial discrimination is therefore prejudice, plain and simple.

But if you know someone is religious, you know something pretty important about them. It doesn't really matter what their particular brand of superstition is - Christianity, spoon-bending, Islam, flying saucers, whatever - by marking themselves out in that way they've given you an important piece of information about themselves, specifically that they reject, at least on some level, a rational view of the universe. They prefer fairy stories to real life. That's not prejudice, it's rationally acting on empirical evidence.

"I'm not sure how one can be expected to be taken seriously when one condemns the majority of the human race to be a bunch of idiots."

Are you seriously suggesting that the majority of humans are intelligent rational beings worthy of respect? Because if you are I'd love to visit your planet some day, it sounds fantastic.

"There are many mysteries in life and religion makes as good an attempt to understand them as science or philosophy does."

Utter nonsense. Absolute, and more to the point DANGEROUS, bollocks.

One of the mysteries of life used to be what to do about cholera. Religion made an attempt to understand it, and came up with prayer. Countless millions died. Science came up with hygiene, water treatment and vaccination. Millions were saved.

Anyone who suggests, even for a second, that religion and science are of equal value is a wilfully ignorant cretin who deserves to be injected with smallpox and offered prayer as a cure.

And I wasn't calling Geering ridiculous - I've never heard of him. I wasn't calling David Jenkins ridiculous - I believe he was possibly approaching rationality, albeit slowly and from a great distance. The people I call ridiculous are the people who appointed such a person to such an exalted position in a church.

"I don't have any problem with a Christian not believing in God."

Well, I'm afraid I do, because if you don't believe in a god, what, precisely, makes you different from an atheist who's also a nice bloke? I mean, for f**k's sake isn't the single defining characteristic of a Christian that they believe CHRIST was what he claimed to be, i.e. divine? I mean, isn't the clue in the name? CHRISTian? I mean, if you think Jesus existed, but was not in fact the son of god born of a virgin but just a bloody nice bloke, are you a bloody-nice-blokian?

I'd have to seriously question why, if they don't believe in God, anyone calling themselves "Christian" is using the name. It's like calling yourself a prostitute but staying celibate, or calling yourself a vegetarian but starting each day with a hamburger.

H.

I'm quite interested in this choice of beliefs thing, because for myself I don't think I have it, and so Hoo is probably spitting in my path now.

Other than searching out more information, or taking partially formed ideas to their conclusions, how do you change your beliefs? Surely if you can change them willfully then beliefs they ain't?

I guess that beliefs are things that we hold to be true. I think they are susceptible to change - I certainly don't believe the same things as I did when I was ten, or thirty, or even last week, although some core beliefs haven't changed that much.

My beliefs have changed because of experience and knoweldge, I guess in a way similar to what Hoo is referring to - where something challenges one's belief in something and then one goes through a process of thinking, feeling, inuiting etc in response and the belief either changes or not. This seems an entirely natural processs. I can't see how it's possible for this is be entirely under conscious control in the way that Hoo suggests though.

Bouncy, was it this kind of belief you were referring to, or something else?

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Pretty simple. The law prevents RACIAL discrimination. Jews are recognised within that law as a race (as are Sikhs). You can't convert to a race.

That the race coincides almost 100% with a religion is, as far as the law is concerned, an irrelevant coincidence. As far as UK law is concerned, once a Jew, always a Jew.
<<

Sure, I was just wondering how Jewishness was determined in law. I know that in some countries defining of ethinicity has changed over time. For instance if my great grandparents converted to Judaism, how would the State know to say whether I was an ethnic Jew or not? In some countries there will be a paper trail for this, but not always.

Probably another thread, but I guess I'm pointing out that the lines between ethnicity and religion and culture aren't as black and white as you seem to think.

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I thought I went through this. Choice.
>>

Just because you say it, doesn't make it so. While your views on choice are interesting, they are your own beliefs and I still don't accept the validity of using them prejudicially. So maybe the issue we should be debatin gis in what ways is it ok for people to be prejudiced?

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If you're now telling me that you think that a person's very sexuality is a matter of choice, I'm going to have to ask you to explain why your opinion is so very different than almost everyone else I've ever come across.
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I was thinking primarily of quite a number of people that I actually know, who experience some degreee of choice in their sexuality.
This may come as a surprise I guess given that you are convinced that sexuality is a set thing (maybe you missed the earlier conversation in the thread). And for some people it is. For others it's not.

Even if you are talking about sexual orientation, there are still people who have choice in this. But not everyone. This is one of the frustrating things about debates about sexuality - that people want things to be black and white. But in reality it's entirely possible for some people to have a set sexuality or sexual orientation, and for others to have some choice. It's a matter of understanding that such things are *complex*. indeed.

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I feel sorry for children forced to be religious by their parents. And of course, I blame the parents. One can hardly blame a child for being impressionable - that's their job.
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But you are willing to see them as less than human, and to spit in their path. Very rational that.

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"or where one is likely to be persecuted for not being religious"

My answer to that one is - that is what the laws on asylum are for.
If you're being persecuted for your religion, or lack of it, and you don't want to change (bearing in mind that changing IS an option, always), then you can always get the f**k out of the backward hellhole you're living in and go somewhere civilised.
<<

We've had this kind of argument before. You seem to think that anyone can just get up and shift their life to suit their choices, which I have to say strikes me as a view often held by white, Western men who have a certain level of wealth (just an observation).

But the reality is that many can't. If a woman in a culture that imposes religion has to choose between her beliefs and her children, it's not really a choice is it? Or at least not a *free* one. She may still make decisions, or she may be in a situation where contemplating such a choice is patently ridiculous. I'm thinking about a woman in a village in Afghanistan under the Taliban. The idea that one woman may choose out of this situation and battle her way to the West is nicely heroic. But it's not very rational to think that this is a viable option for most women in that kind of situation.


Gotta Will try and respond to the reat of you post later.

I grew up as a Unitarian. I went, for a while, to the United Church where I was given some "conventional" religious education, which instilled in me the idea that I was going to go to Hell.

When we moved back to Ottawa where I was in closer proximity to the Unitarian Chruch, I went there from then on. In the Unitarian Church, one doesn't usually hear what your parents believe. In my case, my mother did discuss her personal beliefs, though my father did not. Sunday school teaches the basics of all religions.

There is discussion (both in church school and, later, in church) of the concept of God, about what other people believe about God, about Jesus, spirituality, science, human rights, sexuality (though not when I was still in church school), respect for other beliefs and religions, and many other things. We are taught to think for ourselves and to never stop thinking and learning about things. It is never assumed that your beliefs are fixed because that implies that you know everything. Since that is impossible, one is required to always question, read, learn, and do in order to continue the quest for self-knowledge and the quest for an ultimate truth.

As I have mentioned before, my father was a Zoroastrian. While my brothers and sister and I were small, we learned the prayers and we began studying for the Navjote, the coming-of-age ceremony which all Zoroastrians experiance. It is much like the Bar or Bat Mitzva.

I was always told that it was up to me if I chose to complete the Navjote and when the time came, I chose not to. This was my free choice. I still remember the prayers (and performed the prayers on the night my father died, as no one else was there to do so).

My beliefs have been shaped not only by the beliefs and spirituality of my parents, but by my own search for "the truth" and for my own self-fulfillment.

At one time I did believe in God. I don't now. The only "crisis" in my religious growth was the revalation that I was not a Christian. I certainly believe that Jesus existed and that he was a preacher, etc. I believe that he studied the various religions and, it is obvious that he included these in his teachings. However, when it was pointed out to me, at age 15 or so, that in order to be a "Christian" one had to accept Jesus as one's saviour, which I certainly did not, I was not actually a Christian....

This really threw me into a lot of soul-searching and pondering. However, I realized that was upsetting me was not the actually label that I was going to lose, but that I was associating "being Christian" with "being good". Once I came to that understanding, I realized I was fine not being a "Christian" and that I was still going to be a good person, whatever I believed and whatever I was.

My personal feeling is that it behooves person to come honestly to their particular religion through thought and examination, whatever their faith. If they blindly spout their faith (or agnosticism or atheism) or parrot without actual understanding, I have no use for them.

I will listen to persuasive arguement and I will be open to discussion of someone's beliefs, but I have no use for people who try and convert me or convince others to convert.

Kea, I do understand what you're saying, however, in a country with one universally accepted or imposed religion, it's a slightly different issue, since there isn't generally going to *be* a problem with people being discriminated against on the basis of *their* religion, because they are the same religion as everybody else - hence a woman (or man) in Afghanistan wouldn't have a practical reason to stop being Muslim to avoid persecution. In that sense, the freedom to change religion is a moot point, since there would be no practical benefit in doing so.

The persecution that one inidvidual may suffer because the religion/politics in their country is biased against their gender is another matter - changing or abandoning their religion wouldn't seem likely to do them any good unless they can move somewhere more enlightened.

Since science has been mentioned at last, one of the things in its favour is that while it can sometimes be excessively conservative, and opinion can be partially swayed by 'authority', it doesn't take too long to move on once a few old farts retire or die. Most of those on the lunatic fringes [who generlly are wrong] are accurately decried by the majority as not being real scientists, and ignored even by non-scientists with any sense as being unrepresentative.

Unfortunately, the extreme literalist Christians are (understandably) *not* decried as nutcases by the more moderate (majority) Christians. In fact, it's the extremists who seem to be happy to describe the majority of decent Christians as being mere 'nominals'.
Looking from the outside, it's easy to see who the odd ones appear to be, but it's awfully difficult to be sure whether they actually are more 'correct' in what they say or not. Maybe the extremists are actually right in what they say Christianity truly is, and the more moderate ones are just doing a watered-down liberal version of the real thing, just like the fundamentalists say they are. Maybe the moderate ones are right, and the fundamentalists are just taking things too far, yet the moderates don't seem to be getting together and saying "Ignore that lot - they've completely lost the plot".
Given the outside perspective, it's understandable that people are tempted to say "the hell with the lot of them"

It's rather like a political party with an uncontrolled extreme wing. Until the moderates can stand up and say 'Screw that lot - *this* is what we really stand for', people looking in are going to be uncertain where the centre of gravity actually is, and so the tarring with the same brush is easy to understand.

Maybe that's so, Bouncy, but I have no way of knowing. If it is so, they should ask someone more knwoledgeable than I am! I am just an ordinary believer, not a moron as Hoo keeps saying, but not an expert either...

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Do you mean me by that? Be honest, Mudhooks, there's a huge amount of Christian (and Muslim) bashing here on hootoo, it's a pretty hostile place for non-Buddhists!
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One again, do you mean me? If so, thanks a bunch!
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Do you have actual people in mind here who say that?
I don't know what point you waqnt to make with the story about your father. One woman said something tactless. That's supposed to tar all Christians?
I am sick of being the token Christian, and being bashed because of it.

<>

Commendable honesty... but where would I be if I said similar things about say, atheists? (Not Blinky and az, that I am saying such things!)

<<"I have answered this on this thread or another"

Saying it's so don't make it so.>>
Except that it's true - namely, the "Oh my Godess one".
<<"I am not prepared to answer that question.", we might leave you alone. >>
Well, actually I am not prepared to answer it any more, because there's only so much time I want to waste repeating myself until I am in the face. You don't want to know, and azahar just says she's not satisfied. If as Bouncy Historian says, you really do want an anwer, go see a priest.
<>
Not my problem! I've been an Anglican, but as you say, if an Anglican can advance to the rank of Bishop while deciding he doesn't believe anything, I'm outta there!
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You tell me, you seem to believe you know more about me and what I and other Christians think, than we do ourselves.

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Of course it's prejudiced! The fact that someone is in prison doesn't *make* them guilty or prove that they are. See A2689590 for the account of someone wrongly imprisoned.

Adelaide,

You make a point of crying "Christian bashing" every time someone disagrees with you.

If I "hated" Christians as you frequently insinuate, I would hate my best friend, I would hate my niece, I would hate every single one of my American family members, and I would hate a lot of people I work with and spend time with.

Funny how none of them ever winge about "Christian bashing" when we discuss any of these same topics.

The fact is, there are plenty of Christians here who seem not to find offense every time they turn around. One has to ask why you think you are the "token" Christian and why you get offended when people take you to task on certain things you say.

I'm sorry that you are so insecure.... but that certainly isn't my fault.

<>

Take me to task? Now don't make me laugh, you think what Hoo does is "taking me to task"? Or azahar?


I meant, I am the token Christian on this thread, which has ceased to be about its original topic, but is now about how hateful Christians and Muslims are. If you doubt me, take a look at Hoo's most recent postings. Why, I wonder, are Jews exempt?


I am not discussing any of this on this thread any more, there's no point. Some of the other Christians here can take over...

Great!

"The idea that one woman may choose out of this situation and battle her way to the West is nicely heroic. But it's not very rational to think that this is a viable option for most women in that kind of situation."

On the contrary. The evidence is that it IS a viable option, otherwise we wouldn't have so many asylum seekers coming to this country. The fact of the matter is people decide to leave their home country all the time, and often fetch up in the UK having travelled through many other civilised countries to get here. They not only want to leave Afghanistan or wherever, they very specifically want to live here. Claiming this sort of thing is impossible is the truly irrational statement, for it flies in the face of the facts.

H.

"I am sick of being the token Christian, and being bashed because of it."

Then you know what you can do.

Or do you?

"Is it prejudiced treat people who are in prison differently?...>>
Of course it's prejudiced! The fact that someone is in prison doesn't *make* them guilty"

Duh. I had assumed that any vaguely intelligent reader would make the intuitive leap of understanding that I was referring to the 99.9% of prisoners who are guilty and about whom there can be little doubt. I'm touched that just for once you can provide a link to something external to your own mind to support your argument, but unfortunately the tiny, tiny number of wrongly held prisoners hardly undermines my point that the average person in the street is perfectly justified in treating a prison inmate differently purely on that basis.

Why am I not even slightly surprised that you naturally leap to the assumption that people in prison are innocent?

Here's a simple question for you, Della. If it is prejudiced to treat people in prison differently - why do we lock them up?

H.

Going back a bit, I think it'd take either a fairly major screw up in my head or a similarly mad change in the information that's coming in for me to start believing in the spiritual or disembodied personalities or anything like that.

Given that a person was in the same position about not believing in the Christian God in a fundamental way (and I guess if they believe in it at all they have a point being fundamental), I guess they're forced to accept and become all the nastiness that goes with it. Or maybe its the other way around.

The question is, is Christianity associated with intolerance because its a rooted conservative force, or is it a rooted conservative force because...?

We have Tactius accusing them of "hatred of mankind," back in the first century AD, and its all too tempting to draw a line back from modern day Baptists and Evangelicals, back through the Victorians, Oliver Cromwell, Charlemagne etc.