posted
And my point, Tom, is that undeniably the need for that has been diminishing as time passes, and shows no signs of slowing down.
I'm not saying it is a bad thing that it's happening, but I don't think you can really argue that Christianity isn't threatened by the 'areligious' just because the threat isn't that serious now.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:But it's hardly reasonable for me to complain to my wife that the damn ants are vying for control of my own house; there's simply no basis for comparison.
Yes, let's go back to your analogy that you made in direct response to one of my posts yet that is irrelevant to the point I made.
The threats exist. Without organizations like the Rutherford Institute and the Center for Individual Rights, those threats would have been successful.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
First of all, KoM, it wasn't Dagonee who said that.
Second, I doubt you even know what my faith is.
Third, I am well aware of the perspective, as I've pointed out more than once. By the perspective you are pointing out, I could watch the water rise for an hour on the beach and rest assured that change wasn't imminent.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:So these atheist Senators are, in fact, being forced to deny their faith in order to have a political career; and you complain that they are a threat to your faith? Dag, that is utterly arrogant and dishonest.
I didn't claim they were a threat to my faith. I said they were a threat to my civil liberties. And the Supreme Court agreed, although 3 lower courts didn't.
quote:But to be fair, let's say we've reached the situation we have in this country -- where the ants are fairly numerous and have demanded the right to cross the counter unscathed, in return for which they won't eat anything off the dinner plates (although they'll take whatever isn't nailed down.) Would I feel threatened? Irrationally, yes; I'd've lost ground, and every ant I'd see would be a reminder that I didn't have complete control over my own environment. But even if a single ant occasionally freaked out and tried to grab something off a plate, we're still so far from parity that my reaction isn't likely to be appropriate.
They haven't agreed not to take anything off our dinner plates. There are organizations dedicated to taking kicking us out of the kitchen. They win about half the time in our courts.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
"They haven't agreed not to take anything off our dinner plates."
I wasn't clear enough in my analogy. Your dinner plates are, of course, your constitutional rights, to which people of any faith are entitled.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
And my point is, and always has been, that there are systematic attempts to take those constitutional rights away. That's the threat. It's real, and it requires the maintenance of organizations dedicated to combat it.
If you have to keep a weapon at the ready to protect something, then it's threatened. In this case, without those weapons (the organizations), the dinner would have been taken from lots of people.
posted
I don't see how not teaching creationism in PUBLIC schools impacts anyones constitutional rights.
If we were to teach creationism and not evolution THAT would be a clear violation of the separation of church and state. Unless we teach ALL creationism stories of all religions AND evolution...but I never hear anyone arguing for the inclusion of Hindu, Native American, or any other religions creationism stories.
The government can not promote one religion over all others in a public institution...and that seems to be what people want when the argue for creationism being taught.
Posts: 512 | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
So, Dag, how about the constant attempts to have creationism and ID taught in public schools? Does that threaten our constitutional rights? How about yon pldege of allegiance, putting people "under God" - a god in whom many do not believe? This is not just a threat, but an actual violation of the right to freedom of religion - including freedom from other people's religion. I look forward to you showing some similarly widespread attack on Christianity.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:So, Dag, how about the constant attempts to have creationism and ID taught in public schools? Does that threaten our constitutional rights? How about yon pldege of allegiance, putting people "under God" - a god in whom many do not believe? This is not just a threat, but an actual violation of the right to freedom of religion - including freedom from other people's religion. I look forward to you showing some similarly widespread attack on Christianity.
Why do you look forward to that? Do you think my contentions somehow depend on my ability to do that?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Are you even listening, King of Men? Dagonee has not said (and he's tired of saying it, I'm sure) that there aren't widespread attacks on the 'areligious'. Constant harping on this point is tiresome and irrelevant.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, in fact they do. You started out this path by telling me I was willifully blind to reality because I took objection to porter's statement that our society has treated Christians poorly for so long by saying that most of the time I see Christians complaining about being attacked, it's really because they are not allowed to force their religion on other people. You then claimed that Christians are often attacked and that they justifiably think that they are constantly under attack.
Now, you've backed off of this to saying "Christians are attacked sometimes.", which is something I don't think anyone is going to dispute (although I'll grant you that some of the stuff people said might make it seem like they were). But yeah, I certainly never suggested otherwise.
What I said and still stand by is the thing that you claimed means that I am blind to reality, which is that the claim that Christians have been treated on the whole poorly by society is not correct and that the majority of times that Christians complain about being attacked, it really means that they are being prevented from forcing other people to do what they want, such as being "attacked" by people (such as John Scopes) teaching actual science in science class.
You need to make up your mind. Are you saying that Christians are being oppressed and anyone who says otherwise is just an anti-Christian bigot or are you saying that Christians are sometimes unjustifiably attacked, in which case yu don't have a good argument against what most of the people are saying (and I think you owe me and apology)?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:anyone who says otherwise is just an anti-Christian bigot
you want to know why you piss me off so much, Squick: here's why. Have I intimated anyone in this thread who's been disagreeing with me is an anti-Christian bigot?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dag, Yeah, what I took out of your accustaion was the implication that I willfully ignore reality because of an antipathy towards Christians. To me, that's calling me an anti-Christian bigot. Maybe I read you wrong, but I feel like that's pretty much what you were trying to imply.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
And constantly is perfectly apt - there's at least one of these cases somewhere in process at any given time. Many (most) of them don't get to court.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Bullcrap. While semantically correct, that's not what the word meant in that context and you know it. You could just as easily saying that people are constantly dying of tetanus, because there's always at least one person who's got it.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Yeah, what I took out of your accustaion was the implication that I willfully ignore reality because of an antipathy towards Christians. To me, that's calling me an anti-Christian bigot. Maybe I read you wrong, but I feel like that's pretty much what you were trying to imply.
You added the "because of an antipathy towards Christians." Same thing you did in the very first thread I ever interacted with you in.
You also added the willfully, but that arguably could be inferred from my post.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Bullcrap. While semantically correct, that's not what the word meant in that context and you know it. You could just as easily saying that people are constantly dying of tetanus, because there's always at least one person who's got it.
Bullcrap. It's exactly what I meant, and the context is entirely there in my post. I specified the types of attacks I was thinking of.
If the defending of the discriminatory, unconstitutional polices doesn't count as part of the attack, then the only alternative I see is the initiation of the policy. Unless you thought I meant that every second of every day a principal or dean was initiating such a policy, you have no grounds to stand on. And if you did think that, then you need more reading comprehension classes than I thought.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, I did. Because one of the things you do is imply things that you don't explicitly state, or at least so it appears to me. Are you saying that you thought I was ignoring this for some other reason than that? What reason would that be?
And, incidentally, are you actually going to address the points I made about the difference between persecution and sometimes attacks and the unjustified "They won't let us tell people what to do." persecution complex?
quote:Yeah, I did. Because one of the things you do is imply things that you don't explicitly state. Are you saying that you thought I was ignoring this for some other reason than that? What reason would that be?
I implied nothing of the kind. I didn't speculate. I could think of lots of reasons other than anti-Christian bigotry. Ignorance springs readily to mind. I don't know what your particular reason for doing so is.
quote:And, incidentally, are you actually going to address the points I made about the difference between persecution and sometimes attacks and the unjustified "They won't let us tell people what to do." persecution complex?
I don't care about that point. I wasn't directly refuting it. I was pointing out a class of attacks that seemed to have escaped your notice.
posted
I'll see your bullcrap and raise you another bullcrap. The way you used it was that Christians were justified in thinking that people were constantly attacking them, not that there was always at least one attack around somewhere.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
But then you weren't addressing my point (or most other people's points), because I (and they) never denied that those attacks existed. What we were saying was a very different thing that you haven't then touched on at all.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
But then, again, you've switched from one use of constantly to another. You have shown (well not shown as much, but I'll grant that it's likely true) that there is at least one case in the court system at any one time. But that does not in fact support the idea that Christians are constantly being attacked any more than one person always having tetanus at any one time supports saying that people are constantly dying of tetanus.
posted
You are the only person I've responded to who wasn't addressing my posts.
"[M]ost other people's points" that I've been addressing have been people posting reasons why anti-Christians are attacked or threatened by Christians more than Christians are attacked or threatened by anti-Christians. And those posts have been in response to my posts. I've been dealing with them as responses to my posts.
As for my first post in response to you, I've already said, "I wasn't directly refuting it. I was pointing out a class of attacks that seemed to have escaped your notice."
You claimed that "most of what I've seen is of type X." I posted a string of examples and a category of very common attacks that are not of type X. I don't know if it tips the balance; I do know it's not a trivial amount.
posted
Dear me, Dags, calm down. When you get to the point of writing "Canti-hristians" you know that the discussion is not doing your blood pressure any good.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:But that does not in fact support the idea that Christians are constantly being attacked any more than one person always having tetanus at any one time supports saying that people are constantly dying of tetanus.
But it would be correct to say that people are constantly fighting tetanus infections. And if tetanus were 100% fatal, then it would be support for that proposition.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:As for my first post in response to you, I've already said, "I wasn't directly refuting it. I was pointing out a class of attacks that seemed to have escaped your notice."
You claimed that "most of what I've seen is of type X." I posted a string of examples and a category of very common attacks that are not of type X. I don't know if it tips the balance; I do know it's not a trivial amount.
Come on. You said this:
quote:Squicky, you seem to be very good at blatantly ignoring a lot of what goes on in this country. Get this through your head: Christians are being attacked often, and not as you mischaracterized it here.
You were trying to refute what I was saying and imply that I was motivated in my ignorance. Either stand behind what you wrote or say you were mistaken, but don't expect me to believe that it was meant as a "Oh, I don't know if you are aware of it, but there are some cases that might affect your view of the situation."
As I said, I stand behind what I said. You had a problem with it when I first posted. Do you still have a problem with it now, or were you wrong then?
edit: KOM, Dag made a slip of the finger. Chill out already.
posted
I think MrSquicky's the one mostly doing the talking past, though Dag's done a bit. Either way, though, the productive part of this conversation got passed long ago.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Out of curiosity, do you (any of you) think that women are attacked or treated unfairly because of their gender more or less than christians are because of their religion?
BTW Dag, when you talk about freedom of speech are you actually referring to the UVA case? Because while it's discriminatory for the activities office not to give the magazine money, I can't see how that act restricts free speech.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I actually had no hope of affecting your view of the situation. I was hoping that the mischaracterization you were making wouldn't be accepted by other readers.
I totally stand behind what I wrote. The only thing that kept me from outright calling you a liar was that you included "Most of the time I see". Which left open the possibility that you just aren't seeing these episodes, although I find it doubtful.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:But it would be correct to say that people are constantly fighting tetanus infections. And if tetanus were 100% fatal, then it would be support for that proposition.
No, it wouldn't The use of the word constantly in that context means that it is a set of cases that are happening very often. Using it in a situation where there are few cases, but where the cases, due to their duration, overlap, is not tenable.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Suneun: its a freedom of speech issue because the reason they were being denied funds was the speech they wished to make (with public funds that had been set aside for, among other things, students to learn how to run a newspaper, which activity is not dependent on the speech in the newspaper).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:BTW Dag, when you talk about freedom of speech are you actually referring to the UVA case? Because while it's discriminatory for the activities office not to give the magazine money, I can't see how that act restricts free speech.
Yes, I am referring to the UVa case, among dozens of others. Denial of a government benefit on the basis of the content of speech is legally considered a restriction on free speech. The Court has ruled that most of the justifications that might be present in a high school or elementary school setting don't exist in college. And UVA had a policy of not exerting editorial control over any student-run publication. I've stated before my preference is to avoid government funding of purely expressive activities. But if the funding exists, the eligibility criteria must be content neutral.
In other cases, the actual restriction on speech are even more blatant: banning of Christian fliers from general purpose bulletin boards, etc.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:No, it wouldn't The use of the word constantly in that context means that it is a set of cases that are happening very often. Using it in a situation where there are few cases, but where the cases, due to their duration, overlap, is not tenable.
Whatever. I used other temporal frequency descriptions in that same post - "often." I stand by the post, I stand by often, and I stand by Christians seeing the attacks constantly.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
See, there you go. So you disagree with my assessment that the majority of cases are of Christians complaining about not being allowed to force their views on others because of these cases. And you think that my reasons for saying so were of low moral character, but you didn't want to say it outright, so you only implied it.
Can you in any way substantiate that was I said was a mischaracterization, which, if you look back is what I asked you to do and which you then said wasn't revelant to what you were saying?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dags, dude, the most important thing for a lawyer to learn (if you're going to be doing any trial work, or work with people in general) is the art of understanding how people think. I'm not sure why you think that they will hear and understand what you say with perfect clarity.
If I were you, I'd spend my time at Hatrack learning how people interpret, or misinterpret what I say and why. And how you can change what you say or how you say it so that they take away what you wanted them to. Because even though you are precise with your language, your readers (or juries) are still going to fill in any perceived blanks what they want. And you aren't going to be in the jury room to correct them about all the words you didn't say.
They are going to hear the exact words you said and believe you've said something completely different. That's what would concern me. We already know you know how to argue technically. Now, can you learn to shape your arguments so that the most ignorant are hearing what you are trying to say?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:See, there you go. So you disagree with my assessment that the majority of cases are of Christians complaining about not being allowed to force their views on others because of these cases. And you think that my reasons for saying so were of low moral character, but you didn't want to say it outright, so you only implied it.
I did not imply it. I specifically avoided commenting on your motives, a courtesy you've denied me in the past.
posted
Kayla, One of my arguments with Dag is that he already does that. He uses implication carefully to say thing he doesn't want to come out and say.
In this case, he went from "I wasn't trying to refute what you were saying and how can you say I implied that you were a bigot." to "I was trying to refute what you were saying. It was a mischaracteization and I was coming from the perspective that you were a liar." in the space of a few minutes, and apparently, I'm the one who's off-base.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
You can find that control just behind your right ear . . . well, if you're a Soong-type android.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: So you disagree with my assessment that the majority of cases are of Christians complaining about not being allowed to force their views on others because of these cases.
Much as I am annoyed as any other athiest about Christian ideology in pamphlets and gratutous Sunday Morning Programming in America, I do not think that they are forcing their ideas on others. I can still choose to throw away pamplets with any other junk mail. I don't have to watch their programming which labels me as one of the problems with society. I have a problem with being demonized by them in that way. Personally, I have a complete set of morals which I adhere to very strictly, just as they do. And my system of morality is just (or to myself more) valid.
I don't like the fact that they included "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. I simply skip that part when I am saying it. It is offensive to me, however. I don't like the idea because Christians might be offended if someone put "created by Vishnu" in the pledge, and that doesn't show parity. The idea that it could represent all Gods is vacuuous at best, and does offend those of us who believe that there is no such diety.
quote:Most of the time I see Christians complaining about being oppressed, it means that they are being prevented from forcing their religion on other people (just in the example of evolution, there's the Scope's monkey trial). Occasionally, they're getting their feelings hurt, like in Porter's example, but yeah, I don't know how I'd call characterize that as being treated poorly for so long.
You presented two categories of instances where Christians said they were oppressed: not being allowed to force views on others and feelings being hurt, leaving out a very major one - outright denial of constitutionally protected rights. This is the mischaracterization I was correcting. That there's a third category, and it is extensive.
I left the second line out of the quote in the initial post.
posted
Yes, and as I said in a post above that one:
quote:I'm not going to deny that there are plenty of people who are irrationally and irresponsibly opposing religion
Christians do in fact get attacked. I never denied it. Though nowhere near as involved in it as you, I was in fact aware that these cases existed. If you could demonstrate, as I asked, that they really do, as you said, make what I said a mischaracterization, I would admit it and change my view. However, you've haven't made an attempt to do this, at least in past because you seemed more concerned in denying that you were trying to refute what I said.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Nor does it or anything else I said in any way preclude that.
Because this seems to be the thread for me to repost things, Dag, you said:
quote:Every post I make does not have to be a complete exegesis of every possible subject which you think is related to the one I'm commenting on.
Does that not apply to me? Because, if you said, "Hey Squicky, you're leaving out cases where their Constitutional rights were being stepped on." I would have replied, "Yeah, they exist, but in regards to the whole, I think that they (along with the other serious threats) are present a great deal less than Christians make out."
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Your dinner plates are, of course, your constitutional rights, to which people of any faith are entitled.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
