#56358: — 01/05  at  01:29 AM
This person apparently doesn't see the difference between "tolerance" and "respect".

#56364: Jonathan Badger — 01/05  at  06:31 AM
"This person apparently doesn't see the difference between 'tolerance' and 'respect'"

Exactly! Think about it, PZ Do you (or anyone else here, including me) "respect" the supporters of YEC/ID? However, in a civil society we must "tolerate" them, and not beat supporters of these beliefs up (pity the creationists may not have gotten the memo on that yet). But the flip side of this is that we can't expect everyone else to "respect" us. So grow up and deal with it. The subject of the article was upset that someone called her a mean name. We call neocons mean names like "wingnut" here. So?

#56366: PZ Myers — 01/05  at  07:49 AM
I don't expect everyone to like atheists -- tolerance is all I ask for, and tolerance is all that story was about. There are serious misconceptions about atheists out there -- that we're all about hedonistic immorality and gagging Christians -- and being an out atheist is one way to correct that.

#56368: coturnix — 01/05  at  08:12 AM
That is how I read it (like PZ). There is a LOT of us. We should make ourselves visible. Like women did. Like blacks did. Like gays are doing now. Until then, they'll keep propagating the vile nonsense about atheists and the society will not accept atheists (to run for office, for instance).

#56371: — 01/05  at  08:45 AM
How much of distrust of the 'other' is biological, I wonder. I know a lot of my uber-liberal friends deeply believe in humans being kind of tabula rasa, as if I could make my son into my daughter with the right socialization. I just don't think so, and I think social science is coming to this realization, too. The religious instinct is deep, and is a way that modern tribes organize themselves. Ditto for nationalism, racism, etc.

I am not excusing ignorance or intolerance, but defending the 'in group' against the 'out group' must run pretty deep. So it isn't surprising that you have to continue to educate, to confront, to deconstruct. Not because we can ever create a new, enlightened and properly socialized human, but because we can't. It's a permanent revolution, as it were. The battle has to be won in every generation, house to house.

Racism like that in the story is an interesting example- it is now not really safe to be openly racist about certain groups, and there is a tendency amongst the educated and/or thoughtful to work hard to eradicate these tendencies in ourselves. But this flows, I would submit (for denunciation and opposition, if you disagree), from our commitments- to liberalism, to rationalism, to all the things smartypants people substitute for religion.

Ergo, if you are atheist (and you know who you are), you are swimming upstream. You don't have a pack or tribe to defend you, and it looks like, to Religites, that you are prowling the perimeter, waiting to corrupt minds and destroy souls. I guess I am not expecting tolerance, regardless of the justice of the situation. I lack the faith in human nature to expect it, and the more vocal I become, the more fight I expect to get. I think the vigorous support and utilization of appropriate laws is the best I can hope for.

I'd love to be wrong on this one. But I think one should judiciously pick the fights to engage in to avoid wasting time on a lost cause.

#56372: — 01/05  at  08:49 AM
As a Christian:
1: I do not believe in the literal truth in the bible
2: I don't "believe" in evolution, to me evolution just "IS".
3: I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and i distrust and dislike most people in power (especially the Bush administration with its Mephistophelian delusions of power).
4: I am closer to libertarian than to any other political party.

As for my beliefs, I believe that as a Christian I should
1: Treat others how I want to be treated.
2: Love without judgement, even those who I dont necessarily like - sadly, most Christians (I dont even go to church because of the hypocrisy inherent in most churches).
3: Not judge other people
4: Learn about the nature of our existance.
5: Focus on bettering the lives of the poor, misfortunate, sick, destitute, mentally ill, downtrodden and society's misfits rather than supporting more subsidies to oil companies.

I would honestly love being an atheist. The idea of a capricious god telling his followers to "smash the babies on the rocks" or "not to leave one stone on top of the other" is in my mind repulsive and more indicitive of cultural prejudice than divine law. Most of my friends are atheists, and i respect them above most christians i have ever met. They keep me honest. The conversations we have about religion, politics, science and philosophy keep me honest and keep me searching and keep me learning. When i dont rely on a bible built by a committee it is amazing to discover how much i can learn about the world.

Not believing in the literal truth of the bible frees my mind to discover other religions, other cultures and ways of thinking that have contributed to the noble cause of enriching humanity's experience.

I dont think i am a very good "American christian". I feel more comfortable with those who have independant thoughts, are unafraid to learn and who are not afraid to be wrong once in a while. While reading the blog, I realized that the conservative christian woman truly missed to point. For all the evils in the bible, the one thing that i know for sure is that Jesus probably would have had dinner with those that she hated, and not her. Its sad to think that most christians that i know are uneducated, closed minded, dualistic, hypocritical and fanatical (one of the benefits of living in the south)

There are times I wish i could just give god the boot, but for some reason, i want to believe and i need to stay true to myself. (even if i'm wrong)

My sisters' wife's daughter said the most amazing thing the other day (she's 3). She said that all the bad christians go to hell, all the good christians go to heaven, and everyone else goes to a party in a forest.

I think i like that idea.

#56374: — 01/05  at  09:02 AM
On NPR's series "This I Believe" Penn Jillette had an amazing letter.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557

(dont know how to make it clicky... sorry)

November 21, 2005 · I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

#56376: — 01/05  at  09:22 AM
I agree with the viewpoint of this posting, but I think that liberals (I am one, by the way) fall into a trap when they accept the strawman of "tolerance" as some kind of absolute ideal. It's not; it is, rather, a necessary stopgap for maintaining a pluralistic society. The absolute liberal ideal is not tolerance, but pluralism. If you promote tolerance as an absolute, then you inevitably get bigots popping up saying (in effect): if you're so tolerant, then you should tolerate my bigotry. I don't tolerate bigotry. I allow that people have certain views that I probably cannot change, but speaking up against bigotry is an instance of intolerance intended to promote the ideal of pluralism.

Tolerance is limited in scope. I call extreme conservatives wingnuts because I'm engaged in a political fight against them, just as they're engaged in a fight against me and call me kneejerk, bleeding heart, fuzzy-thinking, unrealistic, unmasculine etc. etc. I also accept that they have a right to their wingnut opinions, so I limit this fight to rhetoric and political action. I'm not going out keying their cars. Even boycotting their businesses would be limited to extreme tit-for-tat measures. For all of that, it doesn't exactly add up to tolerance, let alone respect, because it isn't the situation where tolerance applies.

Tolerance applies to groups of people who might be different than I am, but are not actively trying to destroy my way of life. This is where I probably get into trouble with other liberals, because it seems to justify rightwing bigots who believe that everyone else, including Mexicans, atheists, and gays are out to destroy their way of life. But belief doesn't make a reality. In fact, most people are merely looking for space in which to live their lives. And how to do this without trampling on each other is the difficult problem of pluralism.

I'm not sure about about this whole respect vs. tolerance thing. I mean, I respect human dignity of each individual, but if you mean that I have to agree with everybody, then I don't see how this leads to a tenable pluralistic society. It seems, rather, to require a development of consensus over time. I don't think that is possible. As Americans, we should have a consensus over a limited set of secular values (e.g. as found in the constitution) but beyond that, we need to accept a sometimes uncomfortable detente between groups that really don't like each other but are enthusiastic about the idea that we all need to live together anyway.

At least, I'd be very interested in hearing some realistic alternative.

#56392: — 01/05  at  10:36 AM

Tolerance applies to groups of people who might be different than I am, but are not actively trying to destroy my way of life. This is where I probably get into trouble with other liberals...

Indeed. There are groups set to destroy the best that the West has ever produced, and they live on the extreme right, and the extreme left, and the extreme religio-political fringe. Not just republicans.

I don't see what is illiberal about recognizing that, as well as realizing that tolerance can fail if one side is indeed out to get you. Tolerance, like the bill of rights, is not a suicide pact. It doesn't mean ideas like 'the Mexicans are taking over', or that all black people are thugs, or atheists eat babies are ok, and good people rightfully oppose them. But to never draw the distinction, to never recognize aloud that some non-republican people, even some brown people, and some ideas are bad, is just stupid. Neville Chamberlain stupid. People afraid to vote for you stupid.

Failing to realize this, and failure to criticize anyone but approved political enemies (you know, Christian, Republican, white males) for fear of being 'intolerant', really does, I think, give traction to those who think liberals and atheists are enemies of our culture, or weak-kneed and unwilling to fight for our culture. It's sad, because most liberals I know have values that are absolutely incompatible with any theocratic or regressive regime.

#56398: — 01/05  at  10:49 AM
"For others, it may be letting your friends or co-workers know you don't appreciate the racist or sexist or homophobic joke."

I've found a useful and non-confrontational way of making the point is to affect not to 'get' it and ask for an explanation. It sends the message you're not part of whatever group the teller thinks is the audience for his joke and it makes the teller squirm. I've used it at the office a couple of times.

#56402: Jim Harrison — 01/05  at  10:58 AM
Atheism or, at any rate, free thinking used to be a characteristic American attitude. The generation of the Revolution was intellectually radical--as many people have noted, few of the founding fathers would have a chance running in a modern election because they weren't sufficiently pious. The suffocating American religiosity noted by later European observers emerged in the 19th Century, in the period I call the American Enmerdement; but even after all the Great Awakenings, skeptical figures like Mark Twain and Ingersoll defined a powerful strain in our national culture. Lincoln was far closer to Spinozism than to Methodism.

We should be promoting free thought as an American value.

#56460: — 01/05  at  01:40 PM
"So it isn't surprising that you have to continue to educate, to confront, to deconstruct."

That seems to be true - religion has been with us a long time, so it ain't likely to disappear spontaneuosly or perhaps alltogether.

"from our commitments- to liberalism, to rationalism, to all the things smartypants people substitute for religion"

I am not sure that you are saying here, but to borrow from PZ: people may be rational and religious - they are just not rational about their religious belief.

"I think the vigorous support and utilization of appropriate laws is the best I can hope for."

Well, at least they are helpful tools. The US constitution _was_ a great achievement.

#56466: — 01/05  at  01:56 PM

...the American Enmerdement...

Great term! And the best part is, understanding the insult requires a knowledge of French, which means most of the people being insulted won't get it.....