Comments on: Does Religion Deserve Respect?

By: John Scott

John Scott — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:10:37 +0000

Sounds like The United Federation Of Planets “Prime Directive” to me. Are you a closet Trekkie?

No, gawd no.

Whether or not you respect religion AND whether or not you respect religious people, a civilized person should respect the rules of civility. This means, in most cases, minding your own business.

*Applause*

By: Keith Cash

Keith Cash — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:01:04 +0000

John;

Most amazing post. This should be on the forum. The comments are equally interesting.

Now Dave. There was a lot of good lessons that came from STAR Trek. Take Head we are tracking you as we speak. Trekkies rule. Do you know what the stun setting is.

John, not to be a homer, but your thought and actions a brilliant as usual. Looks like I need to get back in the game and start posting more.

Cheers

By: Will Spencer

Will Spencer — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:29:20 +0000

Whether or not you respect religion AND whether or not you respect religious people, a civilized person should respect the rules of civility. This means, in most cases, minding your own business.

Our civil governments have lost track of that simple rule of civility.

By: dave walker

dave walker — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:22:54 +0000

Sounds like The United Federation Of Planets “Prime Directive” to me. Are you a closet Trekkie?

By: John Scott

John Scott — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:37:41 +0000

Leaving children alone to make up their own minds whilst allowing them to learn about a variety of faiths and facts seems fair to me.

The test of freedom is not in allowing others to do what we think they should do, but in allowing others to do exactly the opposite of what we think they should do, precisely because you do not have the right to interfere.

Love your humor, by the way.

By: dave walker

dave walker — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:34:24 +0000

Leaving children alone to make up their own minds whilst allowing them to learn about a variety of faiths and facts seems fair to me. By sending them to
a faith school you’ve decided for them what they will believe, or at least you are applying a huge bias that will affect their freedom to make a balanced judgement when they are older.
My dictionary defines Totalitarianism as growing a dodgy looking moustache and invading Europe…oh, wait a minute, wrong dictionary.

By: John Scott

John Scott — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:48:42 +0000

John, my point is that extreme religious beliefs zealously pumped into impressionable unformed young minds who have not been afforded the time or opportunity to acquaint themselves with a variety of worldviews constitute a danger to their mental health and therefore qualify as a form of abuse.

I had a very good friend, Fattohi. Iraqi. Came from an Muslim family. He did just fine in the world, well adjusted, and better shape mentally than some UW (Seattle) kids I knew back then.

Surely there is a point when it becomes abuse. But Dawkins wasn’t talking about the extremes we find in a few places. The petition was to close UK faith schools, and to stop UK parents from sharing their beliefs with their children under penalty of law.

Don’t ideas like these, parentally transmitted imbecility and denial of reality qualifiy as child abuse and should’nt children be protected from them?

That’s totalitarianism. Legislating your morality is no different from Islamic extremists or Christian extremists legislating theirs.

Should we just take all kids away from their parents? Why limit the laws to faith based sharing? What if somebody believes that it’s ok to eat meat? Surely they should lose their children. And people who wear leather. And those jackasses who drive SUV’s. That is not teaching a child to be environmentally responsible.

By: dave walker

dave walker — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:34:03 +0000

John, my point is that extreme religious beliefs zealously pumped into impressionable unformed young minds who have not been afforded the time or opportunity to acquaint themselves with a variety of worldviews constitute a danger to their mental health and therefore qualify as a form of abuse. The poor muslim child, packed like a battery hen into a shed in Pakistan, nodding like a retard and re-routing his synapses with incessant recitatation of the Koran prior to being released on the world proudly flaunting a height- of -fashion [in his part of the world] Jihadi bomb belt is an extreme example. If he lived in the UK he
could watch C Beebies on TV and learn to use a Playstation. Hmmm….
I’m sure the same goes for Christian children with parents of an extreme
fundamentalist persuasion. Those kids might grow up thinking that in recent
history life was like The Flinstones with kids coming home from school and having to cross over the road and walk on the other side to avoid the local T. Rex. Not in itself a very terrible idea but it does deny 150 years of development
in evolutionary science so it can’t be a good thing. That reminds me..I’ll have
to re-visit one of those Creationist websites armed with a mug of strong coffee
to keep me awake and read about how they explain away radiometric testing
of rock samples that indicate an Earth age of 4.6 billion years, not 4000.
Don’t ideas like these, parentally transmitted imbecility and denial of reality qualifiy as child abuse and should’nt children be protected from them?
I would not make any beliefs illegal ,and forcing parents to refrain from
sharing their beliefs by legal means seems heavy handed and unnecessary.
All one can practically do, is hope people will see reason and leave the kids alone. Also pour lots of well argued scorn on the crazies!

By: John Scott

John Scott — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:50:24 +0000

Dave, how is the belief of a Muslim suicide bomber more dangerous than the belief of an anti-theist murderer?

Would you make all belief illegal? How would that work? Doesn’t seem to practical.

By: dave walker

dave walker — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:06:53 +0000

i disagree with you John. The abuse is in the beliefs that are transmitted to young minds. The belief, for example of the suicide bomber that his actions will result in a reward in heaven with a hundred virgins waiting to pleasure him. A false belief
that will result in his painful and pointless death, together with anyone else in his immediate vicinity. And what about the human rights of the virgins - apparently
compelled to engage in rumpy pumpy with a murderous madman? As with most things concerning this particularly warped take on god squadery, i suppose they
don’t have much say in the matter. I’m curious to know however, if they are
permitted to remove their Darth Vader style complete body coverings prior to engaging with the aforementioned madman/martyr? These are the real questions!