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This thread was closed so I couldn't comment. This is in response to post #54.
What are we: sentient beings
First Principle: All sentient beings are end unto themselves. They must be treated with care and compassion at all times.
I get it, believe me I do. If we are taking about mocking a public figure I am all for this method. This idea that we can use another for our amusement is repulsive no matter who does it. We don't get to judge their thoughts. This is just as anti social as anything they are complaining about.
This thread was closed so I couldn't comment. This is in response to post #54.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8
What are we: sentient beings
First Principle: All sentient beings are end unto themselves. They must be treated with care and compassion at all times.
I get it, believe me I do. If we are taking about mocking a public figure I am all for this method. This idea that we can use another for our amusement is repulsive no matter who does it.
Is it not a matter of degree? I am not asking that we put GoCardinals in a stock and then throw tomatoes at him.
Are we not allowed to use humor and satire to mock a silly argument? Does humor not provide a method of making a point more effective? Is gently mocking the obvious fact that he has either not read the links wrong, or has not understood what they are saying; or should I have called him a lying dishonest bigot stirring up trouble, and that his claim that we are abnormal is no better than what Hitler said about the Jews?
Quote:
Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8
We don't get to judge their thoughts. This is just as anti social as anything they are complaining about.
Yet you judged someone's thoughts when you accused them of being rude, and that they had a disingenuous intent to accuse? And you had the right, they put their thoughts on the internet for people to see.
This thread was closed so I couldn't comment. This is in response to post #54.
What are we: sentient beings
First Principle: All sentient beings are end unto themselves. They must be treated with care and compassion at all times.
I get it, believe me I do. If we are taking about mocking a public figure I am all for this method. This idea that we can use another for our amusement is repulsive no matter who does it. We don't get to judge their thoughts. This is just as anti social as anything they are complaining about.
I'm not sure I agree with the bolded...specifically the bolded.
I believe in freedom of thought. I believe in freedom of speech.
But those freedoms, whether we are talking legal freedoms or natural freedoms, change the minute those freedoms bump up against another individual. Particularlly when you go someplace, use the freedom of speech to make a point to others. Like in a forum.
We may be talking about 2 different things here, but...believe it or not...to me, we are talking karma here...karma by the definition that it my belief in karma -- action results in reaction. A person speaks his mind, someone else reacts to that.
Again, we may be talking about 2 different things.
But also, I disagree with something else you said. Just because someone is a politician doesn't make them not another human being. Yesterday, when Mitch McConnell had another of his blank freezeups, I saw comments on another site that were overjoyed. Even though in firm opposition to him as a politician, I have sympathy -- great sympathy -- for him as he approaches end of life.
To me it's very simple.
Would you be prepared to say what you are about to say, directly to someone's face in real life? If not, just try to find another way to say it. Simple.
It goes back partially to what I said in another thread: Empathy. It's about putting yourself in the other persons shoes. That's all it is.
We are none of us are perfect though and when there are as differing views as we have here, inevitably things go awry. We deal with it and move on.
I'm not sure I agree with the bolded...specifically the bolded.
I believe in freedom of thought. I believe in freedom of speech.
But those freedoms, whether we are talking legal freedoms or natural freedoms, change the minute those freedoms bump up against another individual. Particularlly when you go someplace, use the freedom of speech to make a point to others. Like in a forum.
We may be talking about 2 different things here, but...believe it or not...to me, we are talking karma here...karma by the definition that it my belief in karma -- action results in reaction. A person speaks his mind, someone else reacts to that.
Again, we may be talking about 2 different things.
But also, I disagree with something else you said. Just because someone is a politician doesn't make them not another human being. Yesterday, when Mitch McConnell had another of his blank freezeups, I saw comments on another site that were overjoyed. Even though in firm opposition to him as a politician, I have sympathy -- great sympathy -- for him as he approaches end of life.
To me it's very simple.
Would you be prepared to say what you are about to say, directly to someone's face in real life? If not, just try to find another way to say it. Simple.
It goes back partially to what I said in another thread: Empathy. It's about putting yourself in the other persons shoes. That's all it is.
We are none of us are perfect though and when there are as differing views as we have here, inevitably things go awry. We deal with it and move on.
I think that sums it up well.
I have to evaluate the thoughts of others to see if I agree with them. That is not "judging". If I explain why I think they are wrong or unpersuasive in an open discussion forum where presumably they are voluntarily participating, that is not "judging". Even if I call BS in that environment it is not judging. It is just expressing an opposing view.
The problem sometimes (and it's not strictly and only the religious who do this) is that if the argument is a really bad one, or ignores and does not address in any substantive way the points under discussion, or expresses some bigoted notion or other, then someone accustomed to getting knowing nods of approval within their own echo chambers suddenly finds themselves making a fool of themselves in an environment where criticism and free thinking are permitted, and they lash out the only way they know how -- with ad hominems, misdirections, deflections and bluster. Hilarity results.
You can't challenge entrenched and cherished points of view and not have people loose their ... well, you know. The advantage we atheists tend to have is that our points of view have already been challenged every which way, we are where we are for very considered reasons, and the "gotchas" that believers think they are bringing into the conversation don't land at all. My pulse rate and blood pressure remain the same. Theirs does not. But I do have to remain clear on whose problem that is. (Hint: not mine).
To me it's very simple.
Would you be prepared to say what you are about to say, directly to someone's face in real life? If not, just try to find another way to say it. Simple.
It goes back partially to what I said in another thread: Empathy. It's about putting yourself in the other persons shoes. That's all it is.
We are none of us are perfect though and when there are as differing views as we have here, inevitably things go awry. We deal with it and move on.
I agree, but there is one important difference. In real life we have body language, an important part of communication that is missing with internet posts.
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