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Just do not force your opinion/belief on me or attempt to degrade me because of my opinion and beliefs
Quote:
Originally Posted by cupper3
Degrading your beliefs does not degrade you.
Ideas don't have rights... people do.
This is so frequently misunderstood by fundies who tend to equate their beliefs with themselves. For example, a belief that homosexuals should be stoned and killed deserves to be degraded. It is a horrendous idea. There are many such horrendous beliefs that deserve nothing BUT derision and degradation.
At bottom we are talking one more example of people thinking that their beliefs merit some special protection when they are marketed as their "sacred" beliefs. We never see anyone arguing that there should be special laws which protect their favorite actors from criticism, nor any calls for exceptional legislation which prohibits denigration of the sports team they follow. If I announced that I was a follower of the philosophy of Emmanuel Kant and requested laws which punished anyone who denied his precepts, I would be seen as confused eccentric.
The other day I was watching a show that debated the truthfulness and likelihood of the Ancient Astronaut theory promoted by Erich von Daniken.
Now, this post is NOT about whether or not this theory has any truth to it. Rather, what I found very very interesting is how the subject was treated.
One of the things the Ancient Astronaut theory proposes is that the "gods" written about in various holy books were not gods at all but misunderstood aliens using advanced technology.
And yet the first copy of von Daniken's book meant to say that Jesus was probably an extraterrestrial ... but his publisher refused to allow such a thing in his book. In other words, here we have one more example of how fascistic religion has become and how it has free thought by the throat.
But what REALLY made me think was watching the skeptics on this show try and debunk the Ancient Astronaut theory (incidentally I found their logic rather ... wanting).
I thought to myself: Do you think that any television station, cable or broadcast, would allow an atheist to have an hour-long show to deconstruct and debunk religion?
Naturally, the answer is no. As a collector of documentaries and certain infotainment shows, I have seen all kinds of programs where an idea is presented and skeptics try to debunk it -- everything from ghosts and UFOs to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 conspiracies.
But the one thing I have NEVER seen is a show on religion where believers present a religion and atheists get their chance to debunk it. Granted, I've seen debates on YouTube ... but by and large, everyone STILL has to tip-toe around religion. The only hints we get concerning religious skepticism are rather subtle as if they had to be sneaked past the religious censors.
The end result is that everyone has to bend over backwards to placate religious fanatics who might take offense at the ideas being presented. Whether it's Sagan or Tyson narrating Cosmos or whether it's Daniken's various ancient astronaut books, you still see a certain amount of fear factor when it comes to deconstructing religion.
I remember in one of the two-hour long premier episodes of Ancient Aliens, poor Erich von Daniken was practically falling all over himself trying to reassure believers that, "I am still a deep, deep believer in God. Nothing will take away my God."
Because you damn sure can't ever say, "I just don't believe in God" on television.
And this kind of stupidity is precisely why listening to certain Christians whine about being persecuted raises my hackles. They seem to be completely UNAWARE that they still have a monopoly on "free" thought -- which is why the only public places a non-believer even has permission to speak is here on the internet, a formal debate (un-televised), or in person-to-person conversation.
I think that's right - in the US. Here, you can rip religion to shreds, even though nobody really seems to be bothered about doing it and the only documentaries seem to be done with religious apologetics behind it.
Effectively this is a religion -free nation which doesn't realize it is and thinks the state religion has some authority.
In the US Christianity is the state religion in all but constitutional right and, without the roll back that has happened over the past decade or two, they could have done that, too. Yes; I believe that, if they had got the political power, long enough and complete enough, they could have thrown the constitution in the bin, or rather said that it absolutely said that the USA was a christian nation...end of debate. Because that IS what they say and deny that the constitution says anything different.
So The Constitution/ separation of church and state has held as science and education has held against some dangerously close calls in the campaign to replace science 101 with the Bible chapter 1. And now the long roll back is well under way. The battle lines were drawn up around Gaymarridge hill. That one is now lost, the forces of fundymentalism retreat to await the next battle. Probably yet another skirmish of the Schoolprayer.
You should have been here during the 80's, Arequipa.
I was too young to remember that decade myself, but I've studied it. And religion pretty much ruled everything then.
Now, I can't speak for what happens in other countries, but here, everyone I talk to thinks that television shows and most movies from the 80's are just plain campy and cheesy.
And that's because of the influence of the right-wing conservative Christianity, most especially Jerry Falwell's so-called "Moral Majority."
Television producers were so limited as to what they could show that the shows themselves became ridiculous.
As an example of jumping the shark in order to cut violence on television shows, there was this one episode of the A-Team in which a helicopter crashed into the side of a cliff, fell several hundred feet, and rolled half a dozen times.
The scene cut to events happening elsewhere, then, a few minutes later, the camera cuts back to the helicopter showing the pilot and some other unimportant unnamed character crawling out of the wreckage with nary a scratch.
What I thought was interesting wasn't that those men escaped injury even after their helicopter crashed, fell, and rolled. No, it was the fact that the producers felt it necessary to SHOW that the crew of the helicopter survived. Thus even ancillary characters that aren't even named or have even a single line to speak must survive -- and survive with no injuries -- and the viewing audience must SEE that they survived.
That's what the 80's was like when almost no one was allowed to die. That's violent! *gasp* So the bad guys never really seemed all that bad -- more like big bullies than true criminals. The good guys always managed to bring the criminals to justice after a big fist fight. No guns. IF a show had to have someone die, such as whodunnit shows, the victim will never be shown dying. There will simply be a body that was killed "off camera" to be discovered by someone on the show.
They attacked music just as vociferously then -- and they still do, but fewer people listen to them now. They had a special beef with rock music so that even in the mid-90's when "gangsta" rap was growing in popularity, the fascist fundamentalists were burning Harry Potter books and AC/DC disks. Never mind that rap music was talking about killing cops, raping women, and smacking around your mom. (Which is another reason why I have zero respect for these types of fascists. When music really DOES cross the line, the fundamentalists ignore it in favor of far more mild lyrics used by rock bands).
Religion has FAR more influence than even some Christians want to admit, and I fear that America is going to suffer through another 80's-like decade with the GOP candidates all being some measure of evangelical or fundamentalist. Even Trump is waving a Bible around now because he knows you can't be anything but a mainline Christian to win public office.
The end result is that everyone has to bend over backwards to placate religious fanatics who might take offense at the ideas being presented. Whether it's Sagan or Tyson narrating Cosmos .
It is a shame that even Carl Sagan was intimidated by the possibility of religious objections. His novel "First Contact" featured a character representing the religious point of view which I found tedious. I'm sure there are those who would argue that it made for a more balanced presentation, but it struck me as little more than Sagan acknowledging that he had to throw that crowd some crumbs or his book would be subject to outrage from the faithful.
It is a shame that even Carl Sagan was intimidated by the possibility of religious objections. His novel "First Contact" featured a character representing the religious point of view which I found tedious. I'm sure there are those who would argue that it made for a more balanced presentation, but it struck me as little more than Sagan acknowledging that he had to throw that crowd some crumbs or his book would be subject to outrage from the faithful.
Yeah, that's another very good example.
And every time I watch the movie adaptation and the scene arrives whereby Jody Foster's character is asked, "Do you believe in God?" I cringe. Ugh, it's the most puke inducing scene in the movie.
One of the reasons is because we all know that science and mathematics are the only truly universal languages. We have 30,000 denominations of Christianity ALONE in this country, much less the thousands of other religions both big and small. How do you decide which religion the human traveler should represent? Which denomination of that religion? Catholic or Christian? Sunni or Shi'a? And what makes the panel of questioners think that the gods we worship will mean a thing to the extraterrestrials? More likely than not, the aliens, if they worship anything, will have a completely and utterly different religion than anything on earth -- resulting in the same old divisiveness, intolerance, and scapegoating that always accompanies religious beliefs. For every thousand good Christians (or other believer), there's one bad Christian that ruins it for everyone.
I thought to myself that an agnostic atheist was the best candidate to go through the wormhole. That person would not be representing one specific religion and one specific God. Instead, an agnostic atheist could represent all religions ... and none of them simultaneously. Moreover, an agnostic atheist could describe the world's major religions objectively -- on the outside looking in rather than a devout believer of one specific denomination of one specific religion being too close to his own belief system to even want to discuss the "false" gods of other beliefs. What's worse, ick, the aliens wouldn't have to worry about a human coming through the wormhole and having his first words be, "Hello, Mr. Alien, let me tell you about the Good News ..."
Sending a believer up there runs the risk of finding out, oops, the aliens are atheistic and think beings who still worship gods are too primitive to be bothered with ...
It follows along with the logic of, "They can't all be true, but they CAN all be false." And that is why I always thought that sending an agnostic atheist was the best choice.
But hell no, that won't happen. However, Sagan DID manage to squeeze in the religious fanatic to show just how bad religion can be and the lengths it will travel to ensure its own sole survival.
And every time I watch the movie adaptation and the scene arrives whereby Jody Foster's character is asked, "Do you believe in God?" I cringe. Ugh, it's the most puke inducing scene in the movie.
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The part that made me cringe was the attitude being demonstrated by the religious people which was "We have made contact with an alien race? Then of course we must introduce our ideas about god to them." They treated it like it was the most important aspect of the entire phenomena. Send an atheist or agnostic? What?!! And let the aliens think that we don't worship the great creator?
Yeah, nothing more vital than to let the aliens know that we are still mired in superstition.
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