Rod Dreher wonders, “Does the secular left realize it has a civility and tolerance problem too?”
It deeply annoys liberals to hear conservative Christians complain about how persecuted they are. They’re right, in a strictly limited way. It’s always unattractive to see people wallow in victimhood, which can become a crutch for excuse-making and self-pity. That said, sometimes people,even people we don’t like, really are victims of bigotry. Conservatives,especially conservative Christians, know that we are held to a double standard on these things — a contradiction of which many self-righteous liberals are unaware.
Having spent 20 years working in newsrooms, which tend to be populated with moralists who take a preacher’s pride in reforming society, I heard my share of nasty remarks about Christians — the kinds of things that would never be said about Jews or Muslims. Once I was in a news meeting in which a very senior editor made a vicious joke about Christians. He apparently felt safe enough to say what he did because he assumed everyone present agreed with him. And he was probably right.
August 24th, 2011 | 2:16 pm
Here is an excellent point:
Generalizations about gay people (“they don’t really want to get married . . . .”) as much a product of prejudice and bigotry as generalizations about Christians or Jews or Muslims.
August 24th, 2011 | 2:23 pm
No one thinks that things that are fundamentally wrong should be tolerated. Some of these “tolerant” folks just have really, really skewed ideas about what qualifies as wrong, but to themselves they’re being perfectly consistent in what “tolerance” is about.
August 24th, 2011 | 2:29 pm
But what semantically separates “tollerence” from “indifference”? Would it be better if atheists focused more on being indifferent instead of intollerent?
August 24th, 2011 | 2:41 pm
Some Chritian public laity BSA outright harmful. These should not be merelt tolerated. Christians Are not theonly ones who publicly hold out landing positions and those should alps not be tolerated. Rejection of a stupid position is not bigotry.
August 24th, 2011 | 3:25 pm
Let me know when ads for churches have to take out $36,000 insurance policies due to concerns about sectarian vandalism:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/arkansas-judge-oks-atheist-bus-ads-christians-fight-back-53831/
August 24th, 2011 | 3:28 pm
There was considerable outrage when Stephen Hawking said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” Apparently that is intolerant. But surely those who believe there is no God, human beings are purely material beings who don’t live on after death, and there is no afterlife must not say so out loud.
Surely it is no less intolerant of atheists to proclaim they don’t believe in God than for Christians to proclaim they do believe in God. And surely it is as intolerant to say, “The fool says in his heart ‘There is no God’ as it is to say,”The fool says in his heart ‘There is a God.’”
The criticism of Hawking might not have been so scathing if he had simply said he didn’t believe in life after death rather than saying it was a fairy story for people who were afraid of the dark. But I wonder.
August 24th, 2011 | 3:33 pm
Yeah, I didn’t know what to say to the lady who came up to our table in a restaurant and said, “Your children are so well-behaved and you can just see the love. You must be a Christian family.”
My wife’s a lot more glib and handled it very diplomatically; better than I’d probably have managed. At least the woman was intending a compliment, I guess…
August 24th, 2011 | 3:43 pm
Joe McFaul,
Are you trying to be funny? Just wondering if the juxtaposition of multiple typos, misspelled words and incoherent grammar with the proclamation of “rejection of a stupid person is not bigotry” was intentional.
August 24th, 2011 | 3:57 pm
Ray: Yeah, you’re right. Churches are NEVER targeted for destruction. Never ever. Never once happened, no sir.
And poor you for being slandered like that by a friendly stranger! Why, that’s EXACTLY the same as when a professor of mine said, in the middle of a friendly conversation and for no reason at all, “That just goes to show again that all religious people are stupid.” (He wasn’t talking about me, since there was no reason for him to think I was religious at all, it was just his bigotry bursting forth.) I mean, since that stranger had such potential power over your career and all, I can see why you were so traumatized…
August 24th, 2011 | 4:22 pm
Brian –
How odd. I can’t find where I claimed that. Could you point it out for me? Specific quotes of my own words would be helpful.
What I recall noting is that religious messages are not routinely targeted for vandalism, to the point where advertising companies demand extra insurance policies amounting to multiples of the actual price of the ads.
My story actually rather closely paralleled the opening vignette in Rod Dreher’s article. Which I, y’know, specifically referenced with a direct quote.
Now, to get to what I understand is the meat of your objection. May I paraphrase it as, ‘Christians do so suffer from anti-Christian bigotry!’?
I didn’t deny that. What I was pointing out is that ‘intolerance’ is hardly limited to the ‘the Irreligious’. (Heck, the headline above, itself, is kinda prejudiced – all ‘the irreligious’ are ‘intolerant’?)
Rod’s main question is actually well-phrased, with the “too” at the end. He has a point. And I actually make a point of reminding obstreperous atheists I run across that neither religion nor religious people are automatically ‘stupid’, or even mistaken in many respects.
August 24th, 2011 | 4:27 pm
To be clear, I don’t think it’s intolerant in the least for someone to tell me that I, as a Christian, am wrong. Indeed, if you are a convinced atheist, Muslim, Hindu or Jew, then you must believe I’m wrong. That’s okay; I think you’re wrong too.
But we can disagree without insulting each other, or behaving spitefully towards each other. In fact, if a pluralist society is going to work, we have to. Thin-skinned people bleed too easily.
August 24th, 2011 | 4:38 pm
Actually I have seen churches vandalized by being spray painted with messages intended to insult the members.
Not making a big deal.
Just saying
August 24th, 2011 | 4:51 pm
Ray: Your 3:25pm post sure seems to imply that Christian messages are not subject to vandalism, but atheist ones are. Otherwise what exactly is the point of that post?
The story in your 3:33pm post doesn’t even convey intolerance. Someone tried to be nice to you in her own way. It doesn’t “parallel” the story from the article at all, in which someone expressed open bigotry. Now, if you told a story of some stranger walking up to you and saying something cruel about atheists, that’d be something, but that’s not what happened. Someone tried to compliment you in her own apparently harmless way.
August 24th, 2011 | 4:59 pm
Fox News Facebook Page Gets 8,000 Death Threats
Examples:
i say kill them all and let them see for themselves that there is a God.
Nail them to that cross then display it.
They’re atheists so it won’t matter if you kill them.
stupid atheists, I hope God kills them all.
IF THE CROSS OFFENDS YOU:SO SHOULD THIS COUNTRY;LEAVE BEFORE WE KILL YOU!!!!
August 24th, 2011 | 5:12 pm
I love it. My computer completely autocorrected what I had typed, not what I actually typed.
My computer is an atheist.
What I meant to say was that some Christian public positions are ridiculous and it is not an attack on Christianity to attack those particular positions. My own school district has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in sucessfully defending high profile cases of Christians injecting their religion into the public school system and then claimign they were persecuted for their beliefs. Spare me–this is money out of my pocket and indifference is not an option.
Rejection of stupid positions is not bigotry.
Christianity is often in a “privileged” position.” Pray in public schools is a good example. It’s only Christians who seem to invoke God at graduations. When non-Christians do it, it seems “uncomfortable” as Joe Carter pointed out some time ago at Evangelical Outpost.
I was at a gathering this weekend when a person felt it was time to call for a group prayer of about 30 people. Several people organized the handholding and a prayer was offered for God to cure a person’s disease “through your son, Jesus Christ though whom all good things come.”
The Jews in attendance were ashen-faced. The atheist(s) were amused and those of us who had particular reason to be both Christian and had just suffered the death of a loved one who had not been rescued by God were stung.
There are a number of religions that I believe are fakes and man-made. Do people think I am bigoted because I think all of scientology is a fraud?
I have no problem with the religious neighbor of nearly any persuasion (My neighbors are Hindu). I do have a problem with Harold Camping and others whose public assertion of religious beliefs do positive harm to people.
August 24th, 2011 | 5:25 pm
The exchanges generated by this topic make a strong case for shutting down the ‘comments’ section of this blog. The same hackneyed arguments from the usual suspects pontificating about their favorite causes. Mr. Carter, please forget the idea of using real names for people who comment — do us all a favor and pull the plug on reader comments.
August 24th, 2011 | 5:27 pm
Brian,
Are you as angry as you seem, or am I misreading your tone?
What if someone says to you, “You seem very intelligent and sensible. You must be an atheist.” Would you be pleased?
It certainly is a minor example of bigotry to assume that a loving family with well behaved children is Christian, no matter how much it was meant as a compliment. Do you think a black person would be pleased to hear, “That’s mighty white of you”?
August 24th, 2011 | 5:46 pm
David: Um, Ok. And we could post any number you like of anti-Christian web comments equally as vile as what you’ve listed, which would prove what exactly? Who has argued anywhere above that there’s no such thing as anti-atheist bigotry?
August 24th, 2011 | 6:10 pm
Brian –
Noting that atheist messages are subject to high rates of vandalism and threats is not a statement that Christian messages aren’t subject to any threats. Noting that one rate is higher isn’t the same as claiming the other rate is zero, right?
If you read the article, you’ll read that church advertisements have been run on the buses in Little Rock before, yet no one asked for insurance amounting to over seven times the price of the ads. Apparently they perceive that atheist messages are subject to higher risk, no?
By implying that only Christians could have such a loving family?
August 24th, 2011 | 6:15 pm
It’s always a great pleasure to read Dreher’s work. There’s a refreshing honesty, balance, and introspection. He writes like a Christian.
I think he’s right that the irreligious don’t realize the extent of their intolerance. I do find, however, that most of the irreligious are fairly responsive when their intolerance is broached.
I think they respond to Jews and Muslims differently because they think of themselves as a minority and perceive Christians as a powerful majority. They believe that part of their role in building a better America is to protect religious minorities from Christians and Christian prejudice.
—
David,
I was struck by that comment by Dreher as well. As demonstrated in stories like the Good Samaritan and the faith of the centurion, one cornerstone of the Christian faith is the fight against prejudice, and with many, many missteps, Christians have led other Christians past many prejudices. For this reason, I find it embarrassing that the loudest straight voices leading gays out of the closet have belonged to the irreligious. Christians and Christian churches have been slower to accept gays, thus adding to our (somewhat undeserved) reputation for being intolerant.
August 24th, 2011 | 6:57 pm
The topic is getting sidetracked. The problem is that there are a lot of well-educated people who say things about Christians and other religions that they would never say if it were replaced with “black” or “homeless.” You can bring other examples as much as you like, it still doesn’t change the bigotry of a lot of supposedly educated people.
It just becomes a “well you suck too!” thing. That’s not the best thing to build coexistence on. Especially if there is a danger of religious people being tired of it, and starting to mirror atheist contempt of them.
August 24th, 2011 | 8:39 pm
“Well we were victimized first!”
“Well we are victimized more!”
“Well they really do deserve it!”
“Well there really is too a reason why our behavior isn’t really that bad and their behavior really is difffferennnnnt!”
August 24th, 2011 | 8:53 pm
Someone tried to compliment you in her own apparently harmless way.
By implying that only Christians could have such a loving family?
It used to bug me, too, when my own well-behaved kids caused people to assume we must be “Christian”.
Until the kids got older, at which point I had to confront the reality that there is in fact a reason why that correlation exists.
When I understood the relationships between things a little better, I chose the family over the left wing politics. I hope you do too. You simply can’t have well behaved kids, a belief that discipline is bad/kids’ behavior should be ‘voluntary’, and a belief that your child is the one who should have the right to “choose” whether to engage in destructive behaviors – while legally, you’re the one responsible for whatever harm they do to themselves or others.
August 24th, 2011 | 10:06 pm
I love the comment section appearing on Real Clear Religion. The dude who grew up in the South nailed it. I went to high school in the era of Reagan and the beginning of shrill Christian conservativism who attacked my morality, my appearance, and threatened havoc on dissenters future as they took over local government structure like school boards.
The culture wars must truly be ending if Rod Dreher, one of the culture war’s shrillest barbarians, is calling for civility.
Where was the call for civility in 2004, oh blogging pioneer? Where is the call for civility laid to the feet of Michelle Malkin or Ann Coulter? In fact, Ann Coulter questioned my religious and moral fiber because I am, (deep breath), a liberal.
Conservative media is not gentle, deferential, or civil. Why would a conservative who talk largely to conservatives from a deep South Red State whine about liberals and suggest civility? Because he would be very unpopular if he preached to his readership to promote some civility.
Mr. Dreher talks and writes to conservatives.
Mr. Dreher, man up and tell you own partisans to behave first. Then I might listen.
August 24th, 2011 | 10:51 pm
Blake,
I am left wing and raising my child well. Suggestions it couldn’t be otherwise are presumptuous and obnoxious. I challenge the following assertions. Right wing=good parent. Left wing = bad parenting. Good parent=Christian. These are not true.
The left wing chooses family too. Get over yourself.
August 24th, 2011 | 11:11 pm
Judging from the comments here, I conclude that Christians are simply thin skinned and, now having to put up with what others routinely put up with, are whining.
Some more whining:
http://www.patheos.com/community/deaconsbench/2011/08/24/nyc-mayor-no-prayer-at-911-memorial-service/
See the comments: Christian entitlement just reeks from the comments.
August 25th, 2011 | 12:00 am
Joe, come on. Go to the British newspaper the Guardian, register and comment on any fairly controversial topic from a polite, but fundamentalist Christian viewpoint. It’s not just Christians who feel entitled or thin-skinned. Or go to Slashdot, or Huffpo, or Salon, or Slate…
Or confess to your circle of friends you like Left Behind. Christians can overreact, but there still is a massive civility problem. Especially when you here the elites rag on a caricature of what fundamentalists are, when you yourself have grown up with them and know what they are like.
August 25th, 2011 | 1:10 am
Come on, yourself.
Read the Facebook page David linked to above. Is there an atheist equivalent?
And frankly, if you confess to me you like Left Behind….yes, I’ll make fun of you, deservedly. You would be no different than a Xenu follower. Some religious beliefs and practices deserve to be mocked.
We all agree on that. We just disagree on those that deserve ridicule.
August 25th, 2011 | 2:14 am
Do The Irreligious Realize They’re Intolerant?
==============
Only a tiny minority. The majority of liberals is largely dishonest about how profoundly intolerant they are.
And, more specifically, what they really lack is conscience. Sometimes they are so fanatical, they aren’t even lying, they have no conscience to begin with.
For example, take liberals who are completely intolerant of and aggressive towards others who disagree with them. The majority of these liberals will never label themselves “intolerant bigots.” Yet it’s usually their favorite insult towards any ideological opponent who does not accept liberal ideology.
When you point out to liberals the *fact* that they are very much intolerant bigots because of what they think about others and/or how they behave towards others, these liberals will usually cut off the conversation or come back with “I have a right to act in whatever way I want because I am right (about everything).” It is almost impossible to find a liberal who is sufficiently honest to admit they are intolerant and bigoted, even though it’s clear they will not tolerate any other view, and moreover they aggressively attack those holding other views in the public and policy arena.
This is one reason liberalism is attractive to a large number of stupid, ignorant folks. It’s a nice little package telling them they are very intelligent, and also smarter than those “inferior others,” and that the more narrow-minded and incapable of civil debate they are, the more they are right. I see a lot of “liberal-bible thumping” liberals. What I mean here by “liberal bible” is their set of ideological precepts and concepts about society and reality.
August 25th, 2011 | 7:22 am
Alessandra,
Let’s do a little experiment:
Other suggestions: Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Republicans, Baptists, priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis, Republicans, philosophers . . . .
You have provided a perfect and rather extreme example of what is being objected to.
August 25th, 2011 | 7:53 am
I am left wing and raising my child well. Suggestions it couldn’t be otherwise are presumptuous and obnoxious. I challenge the following assertions. Right wing=good parent. Left wing = bad parenting. Good parent=Christian. These are not true.
No, what I’m saying is that left wing beliefs = bad parent.
You could be a good left wing parent – if you’re ignoring what left wingers actually teach and believe.
But hey: you sound like your kids aren’t old enough yet for you to even understand what I’m saying. We will see how you feel when it’s your daughter smoking marijuana “laced with fun” and sleeping with who knows how many different boys and girls (some of whom will terrify you, and the one of whom you approve will be the one who mass-emails your daughter’s naked body to half the city’s cel phones) and dabbling in pseudoreligious “rites” whose primary attraction is that they’re designed to terrify Christians, you might start seeing the threat to your children that you are currently oblivious to.
Will you choose denial or will you use bribery to coerce the appearance of good behavior? Those are the only two options left, once you’ve removed all those nasty right wing parenting tactics.
August 25th, 2011 | 8:30 am
I’m perfectly willing to admit that there are intolerant atheists. (An example where P.Z. Myers stepped over the line here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/it_must_have_been_an_act_of_go.php )
Thankfully, Rod Dreher is just as willing to admit that there are Christians like ‘Blake’ and ‘Alessandra’. (Take Alessandra’s latest post above, and search-and-replace ‘liberal’ with ‘fundamentalist’. Everything except a few lines in the last paragraph works…)
One might want to consider that similarity between the usage of the terms ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘liberal’ when reading this:
http://www.getreligion.org/2011/06/fundamentalists-and-other-s-o-b-s/
August 25th, 2011 | 10:10 am
Blake –
I haven’t seen any real evidence you understand or accurately convey “what left wingers actually teach and believe.” For example, you talk about a belief that discipline is bad/kids’ behavior should be ‘voluntary’, and a belief that your child is the one who should have the right to “choose” whether to engage in destructive behaviors.
Disagreeing about the form of discipline, and what topics are proper subjects for discipline, is not the same thing as “discipline is bad”, for example. Likewise, I know of no parents who think their kids have the right to engage in “destructive” behaviors – but there’s a fair amount of disagreement about which behaviors are actually “destructive” and to what degree.
(Call it a hunch, but I suspect I’ll have recourse to this link in short order…)
August 25th, 2011 | 10:25 am
If a person complemented me by noting I must be an atheist because of my good behavior or logic or other such, I’d be mildly amused. As an indirect example, an atheist at one of my jobs, who frequently wore a Flying Spaghetti Monster t-shirt, said he didn’t wear his other T-shirt which showed the Christian fish symbol cut up with word Sushi inside it because he was afraid to offend someone. All I could think of was the Real Presence. Maybe that’s why I am proud to call myself an X-ian. I guess some people (Christians too) don’t know X is also a letter in the Greek alphabet. Hey, the truth is out there. It’s just that none of us humans can ever know it all.
We Christians do forget it from time to time but we have a written corrective. See Luke 18:9-13. That some seculars also become like the Pharisee shouldn’t be a surprise to us.
August 25th, 2011 | 10:53 am
“My story actually rather closely paralleled the opening vignette in Rod Dreher’s article.”
A ham-handed compliment from a possibly narrow-minded person based on an actual positive impression of real behavior “closely parallels” a hateful remark based on bigotry toward people who own a business she actually had a positive experience with?
If the woman had said, “You must be Christians because unbelievers’ kids are all brats” you may have had a point. But there was no actual negative impression in her remark at all, just a failure to acknowledge that other people might have nice families, too.
Now I know why I always have so much trouble parsing your analogies, if that’s a “close parallel.”
August 25th, 2011 | 10:59 am
If a person complemented me by noting I must be an atheist because of my good behavior or logic or other such, I’d be mildly amused.
Mike Melendez,
Whether or not you would be amused, it would still be an example of prejudice on the part of the atheist. I was just watching a clip of William F. Buckley talking about Ayn Rand, and he recalls that on their first meeting, she said to him, “You are too intelligent to believe in God.” Buckley tells it as an amusing story, but it’s still a bigoted remark.
August 25th, 2011 | 11:04 am
If the woman had said, “You must be Christians because unbelievers’ kids are all brats” you may have had a point. But there was no actual negative impression in her remark at all, just a failure to acknowledge that other people might have nice families, too.
pentamom,
You write so persuasively you must be a man. :P
August 25th, 2011 | 11:55 am
I haven’t seen any real evidence you understand or accurately convey “what left wingers actually teach and believe.”
Well, that answers the question re: which strategy you’re going to fall back on, when your kids hit the age at which their liberal teachers and peers will be reassuring them that marijuana is safe, sex starts at menstruation and parents who actually set limits are “fascists”.
August 25th, 2011 | 12:04 pm
Thankfully, Rod Dreher is just as willing to admit that there are Christians like ‘Blake’
You just can’t do it, can you?
You just can’t talk about whether liberals have a “civility” problem without justifying it using a comparison to how Christians behave – and throwing in some attacks.
But I’m sure you don’t have a civility problem.
August 25th, 2011 | 1:43 pm
I don’t normally like to name names, but we could have another thread entitled, “Do Blake and Alessandra Realize They’re Intolerant?” Every time they write a diatribe about “liberals,” they are engaging in a very similar (if not identical) type of intolerance to what Rod Dreher is lamenting in the piece Joe Carter links to.
It would be depressing if it weren’t so hilarious.
Wake up!
August 25th, 2011 | 1:48 pm
“Publius”, I can’t discern if your post was an attempt at satire or seriousness. The irony of a person with such a handle using the very thing he decries to suggest shutting it down is humorous.
And a reason in itself to continue allowing reader comments :).
August 25th, 2011 | 1:59 pm
I don’t normally like to name names, but we could have another thread entitled, “Do Blake and Alessandra Realize They’re Intolerant?” Every time they write a diatribe about “liberals,”
I’m sorry, is it slanderous for me to assume that liberals actually ascribe to left wing beliefs?
Is that a “No True Scotsman” fallacy? To actually make generalizations about liberals that presuppose they actually ascribe to liberal beliefs?
I mean, given how bankrupt liberals’ stated beliefs and policies are, I can see why you would view it as slander to assume that there are people out there who actually believe that stuff.
But really – all I do is just explain why I think liberal policies and practices are morally bankrupt – just like you do, only in reverse.
Just as you feel you’re within your rights to explain why you think my views are wrong, I feel I’m within my rights to explain why I think your views are wrong.
Why do you have to turn everything into a personal attack?
August 25th, 2011 | 2:06 pm
If a person complemented me by noting I must be an atheist because of my good behavior or logic or other such, I’d be mildly amused.
Happens to one of my kids all the time.
Atheists seem to just naturally assume anyone who acts “intelligent” (that is, uses “ten dollar words”) must obviously be of their own particular (superior) ideological bent.
We use cultural markers because they’re usually pretty reliable: now that I’m not hanging out with lefties so much any more, I find my own “ten-dollar words” have more or less dropped out of my vocabulary.
August 25th, 2011 | 2:31 pm
Here’s the difference, David:
Neither your nor the terrible person who complimented Ray said *anything mean about anyone.*
Would I think that your statement was rather prejudicial if you meant it?
Of course.
Is it the same as saying something mean about anyone? No.
You didn’t call anyone stupid, the lady in the restaurant didn’t call anyone bad parents, but Rod’s friend *did* call people crazy — people whose identity she was aware of, not merely “the opposite set of the people I’m talking to.” She *actually called* the proprietors of Forever 21 “crazy Christians” knowing both that they existed and that they ran a good business (in her evident opinion.)
So I’m not saying that the restaurant lady or you wouldn’t be speaking in a prejudicial fashion or possibly be revealing bigotry by the statement, I said that “close parallel” is a really odd way of looking at what at best could be called a completely opposite situation by someone who might have had a similar mindset. Intending to mean and intending to be kind to specific people are not the same thing.
August 25th, 2011 | 3:10 pm
Well, I’ve read the entire thread so far. So I suppose I’ll inject my sixteen cents worth (inflation) based on my experience in higher education. What with my own education and then teaching in a college, my adult experience lies pretty much entirely within higher education and with the folks who inhabit higher education, so take the following with that caveat.
Having said that: The overt intolerance and bigotry displayed by Christians in higher education is close to nothing, and I do mean nothing, compared to the overt intolerance and bigotry displayed by the non-religious in higher education.
Anti-Christianity, in higher education, is the assumption. It is the default mode. If you are a Christian in higher education, you learn survival skills, you clam up and hide, or you get out.
Argue all you want to. As far as my experience in higher education goes (which has been fairly extensive), anti-Christian intolerance and bigotry is a fact, much, much more so than its opposite.
This does not imply, of course, that reasonable and tolerant non-Christians or even anti-Christians do not exist. But in my experience, they are terribly rare.
August 25th, 2011 | 3:24 pm
“Neither your nor the terrible person who complimented Ray said *anything mean about anyone.*
What they did was a public display of bigotry, whatever their intentions.
“Rod’s friend *did* call people crazy — people whose identity she was aware of, not merely “the opposite set of the people I’m talking to.”
She didn’t call them crazy–she told someone else they were crazy–that’s a big difference becasuse it’s not uncivil. She also had no intention of offending the person she was speaking to, as is also true in David’s examples.
She was not incivil and appears to continue politely shopping there. What was wrong with responding to her, “I dont share your opinion–these people seem to be very real, humble and down to earth Christians”?
And–try saying something similar to a Christian–”Thank you for your invitaiton to prayer–I am an atheist, therefore I don’t believe that Jesus existed as a historical person and I believe it is useless to pray to a nonexistent entity.” How many Christians would respond to such a statement by saying “Oh, thank you for telling me that, I appreciate your candor–have a nice day!”
I suspect they would accuse the atheist of incivility.
August 25th, 2011 | 4:05 pm
“She also had no intention of offending the person she was speaking to, as is also true in David’s examples.”
But she had no qualms about explicitly and deliberately saying something objectively offensive about specific real people, which *cannot* be established from Ray and David’s examples.
That’s why it’s not a “close parallel,” which is all I addressed.
As Brian and Craig have pointed out, explicitly nasty words against Christians are frequently uttered by people who would never consider themselves, or wish their friends to consider them, bigoted. The fact that nice Christian ladies also say bigoted things indirectly while trying to be nice neither changes this nor addresses Rod’s point that the high-minded irreligious live in a milieu that allows them to act this way while thinking they are superior to her. Dollars to Donuts that Forever 21 customer would get the vapors if someone tarred any ethnic or economic group that way (let alone specific, identifiable members of any such group in relation to their group membership) in front of her, but Rod’s expected to laugh it off and continue to think that she’s better than someone who compliments people out of her own narrow view of human behavior.
August 25th, 2011 | 6:12 pm
Craig Payne,
For what it’s worth, I have been in the publishing industry in New York since 1970 and currently work for a large conglomerate. I don’t think I have heard a snide “public” remark about religion in my entire career. People may occasionally say something in a private conversation (though rarely), but only when they are sure they are talking to someone who won’t be offended. Right near my office sits a Jehovah’s Witness with another a few doors down. Then there is a Catholic who works for me and does not shrink from telling co-workers he works with a Catholic youth group and organizes a retreat once a year for them. Then there’s a Mormon woman who is currently out on maternity leave with twins. (The whole office was thrilled.) New York of course has a large Jewish population, and many of my co-workers are Jews. Although people don’t discuss religion that much, the Jews (and others) don’t hesitate to say what they are doing for the various holidays or in other ways make casual remarks about their religion. I would be shocked to overhear an anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, or anti-Muslim remark. I take your word for what you say about academic life, and I have worked with hundreds of college professors during my career, some of whom have occasionally complained about academic life, although never about religious discrimination. (“Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.”) So we live in two utterly different worlds, it seems, and basically all of the people I know who don’t work in the publishing industry have had the same experience as I have, as far as I know.
To be 100% honest, a co-worker who was really “overtly” or ostentatiously religious in the workplace would be looked on by many as odd. If a group went out to lunch and somebody insisted we must say grace before meals, for example, or even if they quietly but visibly did so themselves, I think most would think it strange. In an office setting, we don’t expect displays of religion. People who are “too religious” might be looked on as slightly eccentric, but certainly not scoffed at or mocked.
August 25th, 2011 | 6:14 pm
Joe, no they’d probably clam up and say nothing. As for mocking, no, you don’t mock religions. Not if you want to talk to their adherents in any real sense. Mocking closes any hope of real dialogue or talking, and perpetuates a war mentality between people.
Ray and David are examples of how not mocking is good. It’d be pretty easy to mock both’s belief systems-any formal belief system has some element of the ridiculous to it-but that wouldn’t do anything good, especially for a site about the role of religion in public life.
Let alone abusing specific religion’s natures to do so. Contrast Christianity and Islam, for example. The latter has no need to persuade to convert nor a need to turn the other cheek. Atheists complaining about western christianity would do well to temper that with what would happen outside of ex-christendom.
August 25th, 2011 | 8:09 pm
Dave,
We’ll just have to disagree. My experience with some (but not all) evangelicals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses and door to door Mormons is that they do not take a polite “no, thanks” as an opportunity to clam up and say nothing. They take it as a their god-given perogative to attemtpt o convert me and my children well past the point of rudeness on my part.
I think some religions deserve judicious mockery. Their adherents should know they are mocked and can expect to be mocked in the marketplace of ideas.
If you tell me you’re a believer in Xenu, I’m going to laugh at you. If you tell me that dancing with rattlesnakes is the key to heaven, I’m going to laugh at you. If you tell me your religion requires you to marry multitudes of young pre-pubescent girls, I’m going to laugh at you and send you to prison. If you tell me the earth was created 6000 years ago, I’m going to laugh at you. If you tell me the righteous will be raptured on May 12 of any year, I will mock you and hold you up to well-deserved ridicule.
Stupid ideas worthy of judicious mockery come in many forms, and in all political persuasions (anti-vaxxers, Reiki healing, homeopathy all tend to be leftish). Some of them are religious. Some religions are frauds or are run by frauds.
“Atheists complaining about western christianity would do well to temper that with what would happen outside of ex-christendom.”
Ther’s a name to that veiled threat—it’s called “Fatwa Envy.” I mock Christians who suggest their religion could be more violent than it already is, so legitimate criticism should therefore be muzzled.
If you’re going to criticize religion, the threat of violent retaliation is the worst reason to temper that criticism.
And, then, some religious people live out their religion in such beautiful ways that serve as an amazing witness. Here’s just one example (not my religion, but I know people here)
http://saddleback.com/aboutsaddleback/signatureministries/hivaidsinitiative/
August 25th, 2011 | 8:23 pm
Dblade,
I’m surprised to hear you describe David’s participation as mockery either of Christianity or of Christianity’s role in public life. I hear him proposing alternative views and engaging in sincere dialogue. I see him seeking to break out of what you call a “war mentality.” Occasionally but with increasing frequency, I hear David speaking dismissively, but I take this to be weariness in not being taken seriously.
It seems to me that you two have in fact had some pretty interesting and fairly respectful exchanges.
I’m curious to know where you hear him mocking anything in this thread.
August 25th, 2011 | 11:14 pm
Michael, no I didn’t mean that. Sorry, I wrote too compactly. My point is that they are both reasons why we shouldn’t mock others. It would be easy rather than engage both, just to seize on the more ridiculous aspects of their belief (and again, ANY formal system, christian or non, liberal or conservative, has ridiculous aspects) and mock them.
That’s what leads to a war mentality. If we mocked them, we’d close up any chance of each of us taking the other seriously.
I didn’t mean to imply either of them mocked people here at FT, but I was too terse in the above post.
August 26th, 2011 | 1:45 am
It’s interesting that I only raised the question because I’m familiar enough with your comments to know that you are usually generous and not insulting. Otherwise, I might have assumed that you’re just another uncivil conservative.
I’ve been reading this thread with some fascination because I can see people struggling to remain civil despite the limits of blog commenting. For example, I admire in general the comments of both David and Pentamom, though in this thread I’m saddened to see them misunderstanding each other once again. Somehow, they often start off on the wrong foot, and by the time they’ve cleared up what they were trying to say, they’re both exhausted. One exchange should have sufficed to clear up what David meant by “close parallel,” but they both dug in.
The exchange between Ray and Blake has held a different interest. I agree with Ray that liberals reading Blake’s summary of their view wouldn’t recognize themselves. I believe that a mark of fairness is that your opponent believes that you can correctly summarize his views. Despite the insight of some of his views, Blake too often distorts the views of his opponents. Alessandra’s depictions are even wilder.
I’m struck by how the different bigotries discussed in this thread express themselves differently. The irreligious tend to find the religious to be “crazy” or lacking intelligence because the irreligious value rationality above other things. It is more important for the religious to be right, to have found the correct truth regardless of its seeming irrationality. I think religious intellectuals (like the people who read First Things) are especially stung by the charge that their religious belief makes them less intelligent because they do value intelligence so very much.
I’m really tickled by your idea that every view has its ridiculous side. That’s great. You’re right about that!
August 26th, 2011 | 1:47 am
The top of my post got cut off. My first paragraph said, “Dblade, thanks for this clarification. You’ve restored my faith in you.”
August 26th, 2011 | 7:32 am
Intolerance is often most apparant, where it is unconscious.
I remember hearing a sermon in the Madeleine in Paris. It would have been in the Autumn of 1970.
The preacher was dwelling on the impermanence of this earthly existence – “General de Gaulle has gone to his reward,” he said, “Elsa Triolet is no more…”
For him, plainly, Communists were as the beasts that perish.
August 26th, 2011 | 9:03 am
@ David Nichol: “…but it’s still a bigoted remark.”
There’s plenty of “bigotry” to go around. Fear of the other (doesn’t matter whether by faith, skin color, habits, or political belief) seems to be build into us humans. Finding it in ourselves first is the hard part. We, Christians, have a teaching about that. What is interesting, it that some non-believers like to quote it to us. I wonder if these believe the teaching as well or consider themselves exempt. I believe that was Rod Dreher’s question.
One advantage we Christians may have is that we don’t expect to find perfection this side of the grave.
August 26th, 2011 | 11:20 am
Blake –
No… I can’t do it without pointing out that the problem of “civility” is a general one, not one peculiar to ‘liberals’. That’s only an ‘attack’ if you think non-liberals have no ‘civility problem’, too. Is that what you think?
August 26th, 2011 | 11:23 am
Fear of the other (doesn’t matter whether by faith, skin color, habits, or political belief) seems to be build into us humans.
Mike Melendez,
I wonder if it is built in, or if the song You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught from South Pacific is right:
I think there is an “innate capacity” for prejudice—so you are right that it is built in—but I think specific prejudices are learned. But then the become such an integral part of our worldview that we aren’t aware we have them.
August 26th, 2011 | 11:23 am
Dblade –
“We’re not as bad as violent thugs!” is not a mark of pride. :) Are you suggesting that atheists should be quietly grateful they aren’t (generally) subject to violent attacks?
That doesn’t fit with what I’ve read from you before, but I’m having a hard time grasping your point, I guess.
August 26th, 2011 | 12:11 pm
Ray,
I think what he’s getting at (correct me if I’m wrong) is along the lines of something C.S. Lewis once said. To paraphrase, some may ask why Mrs. Doe is so cantankerous if she is a Christian. The real question is, what (how much worse) would she be if she were not.
I’ve known many adult converts to Christianity. I’ve yet to meet a single one that converted from atheism or agnosticism and became a worse person in the process.
I’ve known a few people that “lost the faith” or went from religious belief to agnosticism or atheism. None of those people are more good or happy now than they were before.
So yes, there are human beings on both sides (religious and atheists) who are intolerant. That’s because it’s in the nature of human beings to be so…but it also seems to me it is in the nature of only one of those belief systems to consistently make its followers happier or morally better people (albeit, still not perfect–this side of death). Which of course is not to say there aren’t some exceptions to the rule in the atheistic camp…
August 26th, 2011 | 4:24 pm
Blake –
The last time I asked you to actually post evidence that someone believed what you say they believe… well, here’s how I summarized it then:
How hard is it to post a link? Especially when it’s central to your point?
Instead, we get, “Google to find the Dover, PA intelligent design trial transcript, search the document for ‘secular humanist’ and hope you find the person I’m talking about, find the name of ‘a secular humanist group’, then Google that group name to find their ‘statements of belief’.”
You’ve already done all that work, right? Why can’t you help a brother out and actually link to the ‘statements of belief’ directly, or at least give the name of “a secular humanist group”?
If these statements are such a rallying point for such a wide group of people, how come they’re so obscure?
August 26th, 2011 | 5:39 pm
Artaban –
Well, my experience matches yours, I guess… to the extent that haven’t seen religious belief make much of a difference either way as to how good or happy someone is on a personal level.
(Of course, even if Christianity did, in fact, improve people… that would be orthogonal to whether or not it were true. In fact, my favorite quote of C.S. Lewis is from “The Screwtape Letters”, where he has his devil advise: “Believe this, not because it’s true, but for some other reason. That’s the game.”.)
August 27th, 2011 | 8:48 am
“In fact, my favorite quote of C.S. Lewis is from “The Screwtape Letters”, where he has his devil advise: “Believe this, not because it’s true, but for some other reason. That’s the game.”
And I’ve seen you misuse this quote before.
Lewis was not intending to claim that belief has no corollaries. The rest of the Screwtape Letters would have been pretty useless in that case. The argument was simply that truth needs to be the motivation for belief. That is not undermined by saying that believing the truth is superior to not believing it, beyond the pure value of being “right.”
August 27th, 2011 | 6:38 pm
Ray, it’s not about violence. The danger is that a religion will one day come up that doesn’t care about what you think nor need to even talk to you because they don’t need to rationally convert you.
That doesn’t mean we live in a pluralistic wonderland, just that they don’t feel the need to engage your views and just act using raw naked power, be it demographic or other. And there wont be the tension that atheists take for granted in Christianity. You wont be able to hold their principles against them.
It doesn’t have to be the republic of Gilead. It can just be ironically like the soft bigotry described here. That’s what I mean.
August 27th, 2011 | 6:51 pm
The last time I asked you to actually post evidence that someone believed what you say they believe
Yawn.
August 28th, 2011 | 3:52 am
David Nickol
August 25th, 2011 | 1:43 pm
I don’t normally like to name names, but we could have another thread entitled, “Do Blake and Alessandra Realize They’re Intolerant?” Every time they write a diatribe about “liberals,” they are engaging in a very similar (if not identical) type of intolerance to what Rod Dreher is lamenting in the piece Joe Carter links to.
It would be depressing if it weren’t so hilarious.
Wake up!
===========
As I was pointing out, another small example of how liberals can be completely intolerant and bigoted to other points of view. In these forums, David to a large extent, but Michael more specifically, show themselves to be profoundly intolerant and bigoted of other points of view.
Here we have David going around calling other people “intolerant” as if he (and Michael) were something different.
Let’s have another thread where David will call a “diatribe” any pertinent criticism to liberals because he just can’t face reality about liberals.
“Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Republicans, Baptists, priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis, Republicans, philosophers ”
And every time the subject is how *liberals* are intolerant, David tries to change it around to any other group, except liberals.
So what do David and Michael think about liberals and intolerance? Are they really that lacking in conscience and intellectual honesty not to admit liberals are extremely intolerant?
This is what I was talking about that it makes one wonder if liberals deny that they, themselves, are intolerant and bigoted because they really have such a cognitive dissonance that they can’t even face reality or is it because they are conscious of how intolerant they are but are too intellectually dishonest to admit the fact?
Do they need to evade the question about *liberal* intolerance every single time?
It is a fact that it was mainly liberals who started a sort of fashion of name-calling other people as “intolerant” in the last couple of decades. This came about with their dysfunctional and obsessed goal of normalizing homosexuality. Anyone who did not fall for their ignorant and destructive views on homosexuality was tarred and feathered as “intolerant” and a “bigot.”
Basically, liberals “en masse” jumped on this “intolerant” name-calling band-wagon to personally attack opponents of the very same things they were guilty of.
As David clearly proves above, hell will freeze over before we see a liberal admit they are intolerant of other points of view. Even for liberals who are not only intolerant of other views, but who systematically attack their opponents we cannot expect simple honesty. Does David do anything other than attack his opponent’s view points on this forum? Does Michael?
No.
Do they admit this is what they are doing?
No.
What is important to point out is the level of hypocrisy that liberals engage in. While being often ferociously against other views, they call themselves “tolerant.”
It would be hilarious if it weren’t so depressing, because this requires such profound degrees of intellectual dishonesty.
August 28th, 2011 | 8:39 am
I didn’t claim that either. I pointed out – as an aside – that any ‘side effects’ Christianity might have are not in themselves evidence that Christianity is true. (Heck, any negative consequences y’all might believe atheism has aren’t evidence atheism is false, either.)
August 28th, 2011 | 11:56 am
As David clearly proves above, hell will freeze over before we see a liberal admit they are intolerant of other points of view. Even for liberals who are not only intolerant of other views, but who systematically attack their opponents we cannot expect simple honesty.
Alessandra,
More! More! Every word is precious! =))
August 28th, 2011 | 11:57 am
And speaking of how intolerant and bigoted liberals are, here we have a fine, recent example during the Pope’s visit to Spain of a group of disgusting liberals who have a homosexual problem and think they are entitled to harassing people with other views. So much so that even another homosexual political group criticized them:
============
MADRID, August 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of Spain’s leading homosexual organizations, the Spanish Confederation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgender People (COLEGAS), has issued a statement condemning “kiss-ins” and other forms of protest carried out by homosexuals against the pope and Catholics at the country’s recently-concluded World Youth Day.
The organization has issued a communiqué not only denouncing the protests, but has called for the “immediate dismissal” of the government’s delegate to Madrid, Dolores Carrión, for allowing the vulgar protests to take place.
According to COLEGAS the homosexual protesters, who are “profusely subsidized by certain public administrations,” are actually “strongly and violently anticlerical and want to impose their unique way of seeing the world, where there is no liberty or space for religion, not only in the government, but in all facets of public life.”
Catholic news sources and blogs have complained that pilgrims were harassed by homosexuals and other anti-Catholic groups with foul language, epithets, “kiss-ins” and promises to “burn” the nation’s episcopal conference.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/spains-largest-gay-rights-group-condemns-homosexual-kiss-in-protests-at-wor/
===========
This is what happens when you tell people with a completely deformed sexual psychology (homosexuals and other liberals) that they don’t have “any problems” and that whatever crosses their mind in terms of sex is justified and *healthy*, because the only possible explanation is that they were “born this way.”
They just become more deformed and fanatical and… violent.
Ernst Rohm, a virulent, violent, fanatical homosexual, showed the way in Nazi Germany 80 years ago. It seems like it was yesterday, given how history is repeating itself.
August 28th, 2011 | 3:15 pm
As I was pointing out, another small example of how liberals can be completely intolerant and bigoted to other points of view
He sees only how you are intolerant to his.
The question of whether he can or should ever put himself in your shoes, in the same way you just self-evidently ought to put yours in his, is simply not relevant.
Never mind that this is a thread that conceded from the outset that right wingers are imperfect. As long as he can point to evidence (real or imagined) that a right winger is intolerant, it means … I’m not sure what he thinks it means, actually.
If you put reciprocity near a liberal, they get a rash and start to bleed.
August 28th, 2011 | 4:26 pm
Alessandra, that’s not true. There’s a difference between being bigoted and having a minority opinion or unpopular one.
David, however the problem is liberals at times are bigoted: the stereotype has much too much truth for comfort. Especially if you are a fundamentalist-the sheer amount of demonization from liberals both secular and religious makes it too easy to assume they all are like that.
August 29th, 2011 | 12:21 am
Alessandra,
“In these forums, David to a large extent, but Michael more specifically, show themselves to be profoundly intolerant and bigoted of other points of view.”
I’m tired of hearing your slanders. Unless you can point to something intolerant or bigoted I have said in this thread or in some other forum toward “other points of view,” I expect you to apologize.
“So what do David and Michael think about liberals and intolerance? Are they really that lacking in conscience and intellectual honesty not to admit liberals are extremely intolerant?”
Please see my first post on this thread. I address both questions there.
“Does David do anything other than attack his opponent’s view points on this forum? Does Michael?”
My first comment praises Dreher and responds to both him and David positively. If you look around, you’ll see that Dreher and I have had a couple of pleasant exchanges, mostly on the subject of how hard it is to keep young people in the church. I expect you to apologize for mischaracterizing my participation here.
August 29th, 2011 | 1:12 am
David, however the problem is liberals at times are bigoted: the stereotype has much too much truth for comfort.
Dave,
The problem with what Blake and Alessandra say, and now—to a limited extent—you, is the sweeping generalization. Who are these liberals we are talking about? Has anyone defined “liberal”? Alessandra refers to “people with a completely deformed sexual psychology (homosexuals and other liberals).” This seems to mean homosexuals are liberals. I am sure in her book, pedophiles are liberals, too.
Wouldn’t a racist or an anti-Semite defend himself by saying the stereotype for blacks or Jews has much too much truth for comfort? Generally when trying to be civil or tolerant, we seek to avoid stereotypes, not use them to confirm our prejudices.
Especially if you are a fundamentalist-the sheer amount of demonization from liberals both secular and religious makes it too easy to assume they all are like that.
A good definition of demonize is “to represent as evil or diabolic.” No doubt there is a certain amount of intolerance of fundamentalists, but they usually aren’t presented as evil or diabolical. They are much more likely to be scoffed at as ignorant or far behind the times.
Also, there seems to be an assumption that fundamentalists are conservatives. I would guess that white fundamentalists may tend to be conservative/Republican (and if so, that is no doubt a fairly recent trend), but what about black fundamentalists? Do you suppose they voted for John McCain in the last presidential election?
The world can’t be divided up into two and only two groups—liberals and conservatives—and any statements people make that begin “liberals are” or “conservatives are” are almost certain to be sweeping generalizations. For Blake and Alessandra, “liberal” seems to mean something like “bogeyman.”
August 29th, 2011 | 1:08 pm
The world can’t be divided up into two and only two groups—liberals and conservatives—and any statements people make that begin “liberals are” or “conservatives are” are almost certain to be sweeping generalizations. For Blake and Alessandra, “liberal” seems to mean something like “bogeyman.”
Our nation can be divided up into two parties, with two platforms.
And since, apparently unlike you, I am primarily interested in attacking policy positions, I leave it to the individual to decide how much – or whether – the shoe fits.
However, I occasionally do feel compelled to respond to individuals – such as your generalizations about Alessandra and myself, and your weird belief that you know my motives.
I will tell you my motives: I want to communicate why my policy beliefs have something in them that the other side needs to stop trying to ignore. Denial has a price, and I’m talking about policies that are important and that impact all of us.
Stop trying to make this a personal attack on me. Just because you feel hated doesn’t mean I hate you.
August 29th, 2011 | 2:30 pm
Stop trying to make this a personal attack on me. Just because you feel hated doesn’t mean I hate you.
Blake,
I am not making a “personal attack” on either you or Alessandra. I am pointing out that both of you make broad, sweeping generalizations about “liberals” without ever defining liberal or without backing up any of your assertions.
The initial post was about the “secular left.” No doubt there is a certain measure of religious intolerance among the secular left. However, there is a religious left as well as a secular left. For example, over 50% of Catholics voted for Obama in the 2008 election. Even in the 2010 elections, in which the Republicans won by a landslide, 40% of Catholics voted for Democrats. Not all Catholics who vote for Democrats may identify themselves as liberals, but certainly many of them do.
There are, of course, two major parties, but the latest poll number I can find shows that 34.8% of adults consider themselves to be Democrats, 33.1% Republicans, and 32.1% do not affiliate with either party.
Also, neither you nor Alessandra take into account that not every person who identifies as liberal believes the same things. And may people consider themselves liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues (or vice versa). Also, in the latest figures I can find, Americans classify themselves as follows:
9% very conservative
31% conservative
35% moderate
16% liberal
5% very liberal
4% no opinion
So when you say “liberal,” do you mean the 5% who identify as very liberal, or do you also include the 16% who identify as liberal? And what about moderates? Don’t you suppose moderates hold liberal positions on some issues and conservative positions on others? By the way, 22% of Democrats consider themselves conservatives.
I would be more than happy to hear you or Alessandra criticize liberal positions or policies that you can actually document. But what we usually get is broad attacks on “liberals” defined as people who want to make sure schools teach children there is no right and wrong and liberal parents who are eager for their children to use illicit drugs and have premarital sex at as young an age as possible. These are not liberal positions. They are even too broadly caricatured to be straw men.
Intolerance is pretty common among human beings. I can’t imagine there is any group that can claim all of its members exhibit no intolerance. The secular left may exhibit far too much religious intolerance, but religious groups are not free of intolerance themselves when it comes to secularity or even other religious groups. It seems to me the point of this thread, broadly speaking, is to be aware of intolerance and incivility no matter which group exhibits it.
If you want to see something that is actually, in my book, anyway, a personal attack, look at this:
It doesn’t even hit the mark very well, though. Disagreement is one thing. Intolerance is another. Of course I “attack” my opponents’ viewpoints. I disagree with them! Tolerance does not require agreement, or even (necessarily) pulling your punches. It is actually not even clear to me how tolerance manifests itself in a forum like this. I think what is called for here is more civility than tolerance.
If I have said anything uncivil or anything that personally hurts your feelings (or Alessandra’s), for that I apologize. But that does not mean I have to stop disagreeing with you both. And it doesn’t mean that I have to refrain from giving the opinion that saying something like “If you put reciprocity near a liberal, they get a rash and start to bleed” is not a perfect example of the kind of rhetoric to be avoided in a discussion like this.
August 29th, 2011 | 4:21 pm
If I have said anything uncivil or anything that personally hurts your feelings (or Alessandra’s), for that I apologize. But that does not mean I have to stop disagreeing with you both.
You’re welcome to disagree as much as you want.
Please start doing so in a more civil manner. Stop the personal nature of the attacks, stop pretending you know anything at all about my motives, stop misrepresenting me, and stop trying to make things personal. This thread is about whether liberals realize they have issues with practicing what they preach re: tolerance. It gives from the start that yes, some conservatives are uncivil – but that is not what this thread is about.
So why do you keep trying to bring in specific, personally directed attacks against myself and this other person? Why would you do that, unless perhaps you’re really a conservative troll parodying how liberals allegedly behave?
August 29th, 2011 | 4:21 pm
Blake,
I am not making a “personal attack” on either you or Alessandra. I am pointing out that both of you make broad, sweeping generalizations about “liberals” without ever defining liberal or without backing up any of your assertions.
You are the one making broad, sweeping generalizations without backing up your assertions.
August 30th, 2011 | 2:03 am
Michael
August 29th, 2011 | 12:21 am
Alessandra,
“In these forums, David to a large extent, but Michael more specifically, show themselves to be profoundly intolerant and bigoted of other points of view.”
I’m tired of hearing your slanders. Unless you can point to something intolerant or bigoted I have said in this thread or in some other forum toward “other points of view,” I expect you to apologize.
=============
And I’m tired of your ad homs and slanders, and your bigoted intolerance.
Can you post a copy of a direct comment of yours which is not intolerant, uncharitable or ugly regarding any issue I’ve raised?
You’re the one who has apologies to do.
August 30th, 2011 | 2:03 am
This thread is about whether liberals realize they have issues with practicing what they preach re: tolerance. It gives from the start that yes, some conservatives are uncivil – but that is not what this thread is about.
Blake,
Might we agree that some, but not all, liberals are intolerant of religious people, and some, but not all, conservatives are intolerant of nonreligious people? The title of the thread is “Do The Irreligious Realize They’re Intolerant?” Some liberals are religious and therefore not intolerant of religious people, and some irreligious liberals are not intolerant of religious people. Also, conservatives can be irreligious and intolerant of religious people. As I noted above, when Ayn Rand met William F. Buckley, Jr., she said, “You are too intelligent to believe in God.”
So can we agree that “liberals are intolerant of religious people,” if intended to mean all liberals, is an unwarranted, sweeping generalization?
August 30th, 2011 | 2:49 am
David:
Generalizations about gay people (“they don’t really want to get married . . . .”) as much a product of prejudice and bigotry as generalizations about Christians or Jews or Muslims.
===========
Obviously David needs to look up the meaning of the word “generalization.” It is not the same as the word “stereotype.”
There is nothing about making a general description that makes it automatically false simply because it applies to a certain or larger number of elements of a group.
Obviously, David also doesn’t know the difference between universal and sociological generalizations.
This is why he reaches comical levels of irrationality in affirming that “Also, neither you nor Alessandra take into account that not every person who identifies as liberal believes the same things.”
David, this is your lame misinterpretation of what I or others are writing here. You are the one who is incapable of even grasping what a sociological generalization is.
Not everyone is a clone, yet large numbers of people exhibit similar attitudes and behaviors in society. To bring it back to the liberal question, an individual with a liberal ideology is not a clone of every other liberal, yet a large number of them exhibit the same or similar attitudes and behaviors.
======
Generalizations about gay people (“they don’t really want to get married . . . .”) as much a product of prejudice and bigotry
Certainly this particular example is not a product of prejudice or bigotry given the dismal, ridiculous number of homosexuals who have gotten married in countries where homosexual “marriage” was legalized– the numbers are there to prove it.
It is your ignorance about the data that causes you to claim: this generalization is a product of “prejudice.” This generalization is a product of real numbers concerning behavior in countries having populations of tens of millions of people.
In fact, it is your desperate need to be in denial of how much homosexuals shun marriage like the plague that leads you to stereotype homosexuals as something other than this.
It is you who is making a false sweeping generalization when you say that the overwhelming majority of homosexuals are not shunning “marriage” in countries where it was legalized.
August 30th, 2011 | 3:20 am
David,
Alessandra refers to “people with a completely deformed sexual psychology (homosexuals and other liberals).” This seems to mean homosexuals are liberals.
===========
And the majority of homosexuals in the US are liberal or conservative? Or are you suggesting the majority of homosexuals in the US are Muslims?
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“And many people consider themselves liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues (or vice versa).”
We’ve gone over this in other threads, it’s unfortunate you have such trouble reading that you go back to uselessly harping these points. I guess you don’t have anything more substantial to allege?
We are not discussing economic/fiscal issues in the great majority of these threads, we are talking about *social* conservatism, family values, etc. It is in this context that “liberalism” is being used.
==============
“I would be more than happy to hear you or Alessandra criticize liberal positions or policies that you can actually document.”
Same here. Not one of your criticisms has been documented. Nowhere have you shown that liberals are always tolerant. So if they aren’t always tolerant, how intolerant are they? Nowhere have you shown any documented proof of exactly how intolerant liberals are concerning any single issue.
In short, you have provided no documented proof of anything concerning liberal intolerance. You just make up any statement here and then, comically enough, you point fingers to people who tell you your stereotype of liberals is not as pertinent to reality as you think.
What we get from you is basically a false, embellished stereotype of “liberals.” And anyone who points out problems with liberals is demonized by you as an “evil stereotyper.”
As David said, I guess that it’s impossible for you to grasp how many generalizations and stereotypes you have in your head. Apparently you fool yourself into thinking only other people generalize and stereotype. Carry on, carry on…
============
After basically three decades (30 years!) of this:
It is a fact that it was mainly liberals who started a sort of fashion of name-calling other people as “intolerant” in the last couple of decades. This came about with their dysfunctional and obsessed goal of normalizing homosexuality. Anyone who did not fall for their ignorant and destructive views on homosexuality was tarred and feathered as “intolerant” and a “bigot.”
David says:
“If you want to see something that is actually, in my book, anyway, a personal attack, look at this:”
As David clearly proves above, hell will freeze over before we see a liberal admit they are intolerant of other points of view.
===========
Is that an admission that you (and the millions of other liberals like you) are intolerant of other points of view?
And so, for the past 30 years, liberals have been hurling the insult of “intolerance” at others while being exactly the same intolerant bigots?
August 30th, 2011 | 3:30 am
David,
If I have said anything uncivil or anything that personally hurts your feelings (or Alessandra’s), for that I apologize. But that does not mean I have to stop disagreeing with you both. And it doesn’t mean that I have to refrain from giving the opinion that saying something like “If you put reciprocity near a liberal, they get a rash and start to bleed” is not a perfect example of the kind of rhetoric to be avoided in a discussion like this.
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This is where we disagree, we believe there are important things about your views, generalizations, and stereotypes that you fail to recognize at the same time that you criticize others. What you fail to see is that we disagree about what reality is. This also includes the reality about liberals.
Reciprocity in liberals *is* a problem, as the habit they avidly acquired in the last 3 decades in insulting *others* as “intolerant bigots” displays. Only liberals jumped on this particular attitudinal and behavioral band-wagon, concerning discussions about homosexuality, other groups did not.
No one is asking for you to submit to agreement, just as we won’t stop describing how undemocratic, stupid, and irrational liberals often are concerning a variety of issues. And I meant stupid in their viewpoints, not stupid as a biological brain state.
It will be an ongoing debate.
August 30th, 2011 | 3:36 am
As David said, I guess that it’s impossible for you to grasp how many generalizations and stereotypes you have in your head.
correction:
As *Blake* said, I guess that it’s impossible for you (David) to grasp how many generalizations and stereotypes you have in your head.
August 30th, 2011 | 10:48 am
It is you who is making a false sweeping generalization when you say that the overwhelming majority of homosexuals are not shunning “marriage” in countries where it was legalized.
Alessandra,
Can you point out where I said this?
August 30th, 2011 | 1:37 pm
Alessandra,
My parents taught me and I have taught my children that one responds to a request for an apology with an apology and explanation. Perhaps your family has a different tradition since you responded not with an apology but a demand for one.
You have asked me to apologize for my “ad homs and slanders, and your bigoted intolerance.”
In this thread, I have accused you of making “wild claims.” I believe this statement accurately describes some of the statements you’ve made in this thread. Two of them are as follows: “It is almost impossible to find a liberal who is sufficiently honest to admit they are intolerant and bigoted, even though it’s clear they will not tolerate any other view, and moreover they aggressively attack those holding other views in the public and policy arena” and “This is one reason liberalism is attractive to a large number of stupid, ignorant folks.”
I think these are fair candidates for being characterized as “wild.” I wouldn’t and haven’t described conservatives or any other group this way, which is why I think these claims are “wild,” which is to say disproportionate, especially in response to a column that is asking for greater civility.
I wouldn’t describe my statement as ad hominem because ad hominem statements attack the person and not the idea, and I was attacking the claim, not you.
I wouldn’t describe my statement as slander because slanderous comments make false statements about a person. I believe I made a correct statement about your claims.
I wouldn’t describe my statement as an example of “bigoted intolerance” because I don’t have any particular animus against conservatives. If I did, I wouldn’t talk to seven-eighths of my family or two-fifths of my longest and closest friends.
I believe my comments stung you, and I wrote them with that intent. I apologize for writing with this goal. I was wrong to do so, and I promise not to address another comment to you or about you.
I had hoped my hurtful comments would help you see that your participation in these forums usually poisons the discussion. Your passion indicates that you take your ideas seriously, and you have clearly done a good bit of reading, but I had hoped you would notice that I have had many pleasant and mutually satisfying conversations with other conservatives on this site. I have yet to see you have a mutually respectful conversation with a liberal, but perhaps I missed those.
I would now ask that you respond to my two requests for an apology.
August 30th, 2011 | 2:50 pm
“I pointed out – as an aside – that any ‘side effects’ Christianity might have are not in themselves evidence that Christianity is true.”
I wonder what you’ve read here recently to make you think that putting on your “Captain Obvious” cape was necessary in this instance. ;-)
August 30th, 2011 | 3:36 pm
Might we agree that some, but not all, liberals are intolerant of religious people, and some, but not all, conservatives are intolerant of nonreligious people?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that we can’t discuss whether the irreligious “have a tolerance problem”, because some people can’t stand to have that discussed without a heavy dose of justifications and excuse-making even if you grant from the outset that conservatives may also have a “tolerance problem”.
So the question is not whether it’s true both ways. The question is, if we grant for the sake of the discussion that EVERY SINGLE CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS PERSON IN THE WORLD is a jerk, can we ask this question?
Secular humanists – whether you choose to call them “irreligious” or “liberals” – have done great harm to my family and to people I’ve cared for with failed policies. This is why the question of tolerance matters: because the reason I am called “intolerant” is that I am trying to communicate to some social worker that the child in my care is hurt by that ideological prescription that fails in the real world. I am trying to communicate to some teacher that the act of encouraging an unhealthy sexuality in the 12 year old child (who is in my custody because she’s the daughter and granddaughter of women who got pregnant in high school) is interfering with my attempts to get her away from the abusive drug dealing boyfriend: real empowerment is the freedom to not have to have sex, to go to college and be something real. I could echo and repeat these stories times a million – but the point is, there is no such thing as irreligious in America. My experience of the people who describe themselves as “not religious” is that they are the most committed, most ideologically rigid religious zealots in the nation, as fanatical – and as willing to hurt people in their weird destructive beliefs – as Fred Phelps. And you know what, I’m going to say that with as much freedom as you make your generalizations about conservatives and religious people and me, because I have not only a right to say that (without being subject to offended liberals providing lists of the evidence I need to provide in order to clear my name of whatever I’m presumed guilty of) but I have a need to say it. It needs to be said. It needs to be said in ways that people will hear and understand.
Because this behavior is hurting the country and hurting families and hurting individuals and liberals need to take responsibility for both their failed policies and unworkable beliefs, and for the reality that their denial is causing harm.
This is not viewed as a destructive thing to say when it’s the humanists explaining why Christians shouldn’t be allowed to bring their Christian beliefs to the public square or the ballot box. So instead of coming up with reasons why I’m not allowed to say it, why not try a crazy thing – why not try listening to someone even though you apparently hate ‘em, and try evaluating what they say to see if there’s any truth in it?
August 30th, 2011 | 8:26 pm
Blake,
“This is why the question of tolerance matters: because the reason I am called “intolerant” is that I am trying to communicate to some social worker that the child in my care is hurt by that ideological prescription that fails in the real world.”
Can you explain the situation more fully? What was the social worker saying, what did you reply, and what was the response of the social worker?
I can think of things that a liberal social worker might suggest, for example, that most liberal parents would *not* go along with. Was it that kind of situation, or was it the kind of suggestion that most liberal parents *would* go along with?
August 31st, 2011 | 3:50 am
David Nickol
August 30th, 2011 | 10:48 am
It is you who is making a false sweeping generalization when you say that the overwhelming majority of homosexuals are not shunning “marriage” in countries where it was legalized.
Alessandra,
Can you point out where I said this?
============
“Generalizations about gay people (“they don’t really want to get married . . . .”) [are] as much a product of prejudice and bigotry”
No, this is one generalization which is correct and true and documented by the stats from several countries where homosexual “marriage” was legalized.
The overwhelming majority of people with a homosexual problem chose NOT to get married in countries where homosexual “marriage” was legalized, even several years after the respective legalization.
No prejudice, no bigotry–data, facts.
It wasn’t because homosexuals weren’t allowed to, because they had a “second-class” class status (boohoo), because they were oppressed by those religious “bigots” who don’t fall for liberal homosexuality propaganda– legal homosexual “marriage” was completely available to people with a homosexual problem in several countries and the overwhelming majority did not REALLY want to get married, they shunned it by choice.
This only goes to show that embellishing generalizations about people with a homosexual problem as in “they really want to get married” are a product of prejudice, ignorance and fanatical politics. The reality is they don’t.
It doesn’t mean all homosexuals do not want to get married, but the overwhelming majority does not, so the respective generalization is correct.
August 31st, 2011 | 9:49 am
Can you explain the situation more fully? What was the social worker saying, what did you reply, and what was the response of the social worker?
No, I can’t.
Because the point of the thread is not whether I’m justified.
The question is whether I’m entitled to the same as left wingers claim for themselves.
When left wingers discuss the question of whether right wingers are intolerant (which they so often prefer to phrase as “hateful”, I notice), they do not allow lengthy justifications based on the very real facts that liberals are just as intolerant, or that liberal values are in conflict with conservative beliefs, or any of the many justifications, excuses, or denials that I have seen in this thread.
So the question is, can we even consider the possibility of liberals being all the things they so readily accuse conservatives of? Or will the very idea of it be buried under an avalanche of excuses and minimizations?
I am not talking about a single incident with a single social worker. I am talking about policies that fail – repeatedly, and causing great harm – and people who respond to the failures of their own great ideas by finding ways of shielding themselves from feedback they can’t handle. And I believe that is why political discourse in this nation has broken down – because liberals demanded to change the world, and in doing so had to vilify both religion and tradition, and now that it’s obvious that both religion and tradition serve beneficial functions (and liberals are actually constructing their own, even as they attempt to find loopholes around the separation of church and state by claiming their religion is only a religion when they call it Unitarian Universalism, but not when they call the exact same set of beliefs by some other name such as “humanism”) –
Well, now that it’s clear that the attacks on traditions and religion and values turned out to be a really dumb idea.
The secular left was justified in being both uncivil and intolerant because they were changing the world for the better. So now that it’s quite clear that those proposed changes are not in fact making anything better – and are in fact making things very much worse – why should we continue to put up with a double standard?
I don’t really care what standard we agree to. I just want to see some reciprocity for a change – one standard, applied equally to all.
Is incivility is justified because the other side does it? But you wouldn’t like it if the right sent cute little cartoon characters into the classroom to sing, “I am the Lorax, I speak for the unborn fetuses!”, would you? You wouldn’t like it if schoolteachers openly proselytized from the classroom – “winning” the hearts and minds of the kids (and the political arguments) through in-your-face scapegoating, villainizing people the way the left continues to routinely scapegoat people? To listen to what the teachers are teaching, you’d think all the problems of industrialization and overpopulation would just go away if we could just shame the working class hard enough. Personally. By telling kids to harass their parents for being the wrong occupation. Or for not composting. Or for packing their lunch wrong. The wrong way. YOU ARE THE REASON THE WORLD IS A MESS, DAD. I LEARNED THIS IN SCHOOL TODAY.
Is incivility justified because the other side has values you find abhorrent? But you have to admit, Dan Quayle had a point about Murphy Brown. In fact, social conservatives have been right about a lot of things, and secular militants (and their enablers) have done a lot of harm.
And we’re right about abortion and sex ed and gay marriage, too. We’re the ones with reality on our side, and you guys are the ones stuck with arguments that rely on turning “morality” into a dirty word and “family values” into something scary. For all the talk about tolerance, the left wing “tolerance” political movement would be nowhere if they didn’t keep up the paranoid imagery a la “Handmaid’s Tale” about all the horrible things they imagine (fantasize?) social conservatives think and feel and want and intend.
August 31st, 2011 | 12:02 pm
pentamom –
Dblade says atheists should maybe cut Christians some slack ’cause they might be nicer than non-Christians. Artaban concurs with anecdotal evidence.
I respond by pointing out that “truth needs to be the motivation for belief”. In other words, atheists tend to be very concerned about truth and how we know it. If that is in fact the priority… then the fact that Christians might be nicer than others would have to take a back seat, no?
August 31st, 2011 | 12:32 pm
Alessandra,
Sorry, but you have not proved your case against me. In a discussion such as this one, if you want to make a statement about the “overwhelming majority” of a group, rather than every single person in that group, you have to explicitly say “the overwhelming majority.”
Sure there are instances when sweeping generalizations are not a problem. There are many circumstances in which you might say something like, “Brazilians love soccer,” or “Everybody loves chocolate.” But when you are debating with liberals, or gay people, or atheists, or “secular humanists,” and you make a sweeping generalization, you are in effect telling the liberal, gay person, etc., what he or she believes. If you’re debating same-sex marriage with a gay person and you say, “Gays don’t really want to get married,” you’re in effect saying, “You and none of the gay people you know want to get married.”
Sweeping generalizations make for bad arguments.
August 31st, 2011 | 9:15 pm
Blake,
“Because the point of the thread is not whether I’m justified. The question is whether I’m entitled to the same as left wingers claim for themselves. When left wingers discuss the question of whether right wingers are intolerant (which they so often prefer to phrase as “hateful”, I notice), they do not allow lengthy justifications based on the very real facts that liberals are just as intolerant, or that liberal values are in conflict with conservative beliefs, or any of the many justifications, excuses, or denials that I have seen in this thread.”
If I understand you correctly here, it sounds like you think this thread should be devoted to examples of liberal intolerance. Is that right?
It also sounds like you think any tangent is an attempt to evade the truth of liberal intolerance. Is that right?
I could give you plenty of examples of liberal intolerance. I’m quite up front about being Christian and about being pro-life, and so I get plenty of flak from my liberal friends. I can also give you plenty of examples of failed liberal social policies as well as ideas that liberals have tried out and failed. On some of those issues, I think conservatives have better ideas, but on most others, I think that the answer to liberal failures is better liberal solutions.
As a result, when you say that liberal social policies have failed, I have to ask which ones. Maybe we’ll agree on which ones, and maybe we won’t, but the conversation won’t get anywhere without more specificity, which is why I appreciate David’s and Ray’s rejection of “sweeping generalizations.”
In my first post on this thread, I said that Dreher is “right that the irreligious don’t realize the extent of their intolerance.” I don’t know whether you find this statement one of the “many justifications, excuses, or denials that I have seen in this thread.” But I go on in my comment to speculate on the reasons why secular liberals treat Jews and Muslims differently than they do Christians. In doing so, I had hoped to contribute to a discussion of liberal intolerance.
What happened instead is that conservative commenters were far more interested in fighting with other liberals about which statements are or are not evidence of intolerance. You’ve called the back-and-forth on this question evidence of a liberal evasion of the subject, but it seems to me that you have participated in what you decry by not developing other ideas that were broached and dropped. In effect, you fed a troll you helped create.
September 3rd, 2011 | 3:22 am
David Nickol
August 31st, 2011 | 12:32 pm
Alessandra,
Sorry, but you have not proved your case against me. In a discussion such as this one, if you want to make a statement about the “overwhelming majority” of a group, rather than every single person in that group, you have to explicitly say “the overwhelming majority.”
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Given that you are the one who is intent in distorting generalizations into absolute statements, it is you who is in error.
In discussions like these, you’d have something to contribute if you would address the generalized aspect that is being described, and not try to distort it into an absolute strawman, so that you have some false problem to quibble over.
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David: If you’re debating same-sex marriage with a gay person and you say, “Gays don’t really want to get married,” you’re in effect saying, “You and none of the gay people you know want to get married.”
No, I am not.
The meaning of my statement does not change because of the psychological problems in the person reading them. If a heterosexual person reads my generalization or a person with a homosexual problem reads it, my generalization continues to mean the same thing. If you think the entire world and everything that is written must revolve around you, you are mistaken. Therefore, the problem in distorting generalizations into absolute statements lies solely with you, due to your problematic homosexual ideology.
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