Daily Kos

as in making me laugh at them as Cohen does. Making me laugh at me ... dunno if there's a movie in that.

LINK

    2 decades later, I still drool buckets and miss the pizza made by arabs in the city I moved from!

    Decent pizza can be had in my current home, but it costs $25.00 for a mere medium.

And what on earth are you doing buying gas while under the influence, pizza or no pizza? Or is this your idea of a snark?

about 80% Buddhist, 20% Muslim. There are small shops and street vendors throughout the area.

Across the street a Muslim man, his wife and small son make great Muslim fried chicken. A breast cost the equivalent of about 65 cents. The price keeps going up (in terms of the dollar) as the value of the dollar continues to slide. The price in the local currency has been the same for more than three years.

Here we're all neighbors, friends, vendors and customers with not the slightest hint of the hatred so often encountered in the US.

please don't drive tipsy anymore.

My point--perhaps not very well expressed--was that it's not just about needing to be tolerated and well-accepted, but about the meaning of toleration and acceptance in general as they exist in our society.

To me, these mean "I may or may not like, respect or approve of you, but for the sake of civility and due to peer pressure and legal constraints and such, I will, in a purely formalistic, outward sense, tolerate and accept you--whether or not I have or will do so in my heart and soul".

I was trying to say that I do not need, have much use for, or generally place much faith in, such often superficial and meaningless forms of "toleration" and "acceptance", because in my experience, and from the experience of others, such toleration and acceptance is often less than worthless.

Certainly some--and hopefully many--people are genuine in their toleration and acceptance of others who unlike themselves (and, of course, this applies not only to Jews but to any members of an historically persecuted minority--i.e. pretty much every minority, to one extent or another), in which case they don't merely tolerate and accept them but actually see them as equal in every meaningful way (but not, of course, equivalent). They are, essentially, blind to others' color, race, religion, orientation, ethnicity, etc.

But I suspect that for most people, toleration and acceptance are just that, formalistic but not deep-seated inclusiveness--which is why I neither want nor trust them. And this also explains why, if you're right about this, so many Americans who supposedly tolerate and accept Jews, do not tolerate and accept Muslims--because their toleration and acceptance or lack thereof of either is superficial, ignorant and essentially meaningless.

You literally cannot dislike and look down upon Muslims as a group and meaningfully or sincerely tolerate and accept other, currently "tolerable" and "acceptable" groups. Such toleration and acceptance is transparently hypocritical.

And when I hear someone say something against a Muslim, Arab, gay person, etc.--precisely because they are a Muslim, Arab, gay person, etc.--I instinctively realize that any utterances by them that they nevertheless like Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., are complete and utter bullshit.

Which, while a bit off-topic (but not by much), I do not and never will trust the inherently racist GOP's "support" for Israel, as I see it as not only based on transparent self-interest, but on an inherently racist worldview.

Just finished his latest, The God Delusion, and in it he says that he doesn't think that his sense of living in a world without deities allows him to state that he "knows" there are no gods. Which is philosophically sound.

What I think is meant here by "evangelical atheism" are two points:

1. Expression of atheism
2. Willingness to discuss religion openly

Dawkins and Harris join a small group of public figures willing to say that they do not believe in a "god." Further, they talk about religion in the same terms they'd talk about politics or science. Both 1 and 2 above are extremely unusual behaviors in that few atheists have the courage to come forward and that most people have been conditioned to tiptoe around religious matters for fear of "offending" the believer.

just had an episode on exactly this ... in the future the humans and the sea otters (yes, they had evolved) were having a war on which of their athiest "religions" was the right one. The argument centered around the right God to not believe in.

first off ... anyone that defends Michael Graham has a screw loose imo ...

but that said, there is abundant evidence of 'religious violence' in the 'name of god' -- in which the populations' belief systems are exploited to achieve a political end (which may or may not be religiously motivated)

there is scant evidence that using 'atheistic beliefs' to visit violence upon another population has EVER been used or even could be for that matter

the 'true believer' imo says in effect, 'your fairy tale religious beliefs have NO rational basis, and are in fact dangerous' -- the validity of this is reasonably backed up through historical reference ... imo

i agree that the 'true believer' core may well need to be cautious of falling into a 'fundamentalist trap', i am guessing that i represent a reasonable extent of the atheist 'true believers' when i say ... 'show me verifiable, testable evidence of god's existence i will certainly be open to look at that' ... but, as we all know, that isn't what god/religion are all about, now, is it!?

I'm of the mind that the only real truth about death, afterlife and God is...

We just don't know.

As for the religions, they don't look for cures to cancer, invent airplanes or create a "culture of questions" as science and intellectual thought does.

If given a choice, I feel much more secure with science and the pursuit of knowledge than I do with religious dogma framed by the implied, "Shut up, this is the TRUTH and don't ask questions."

Think about it -- we criticize evangelical Christians for insisting that their way is the only right way to live, and everyone else should be harassed and ridiculed. There are atheists who similarly insist that anyone who isn't just like them should be harassed and ridiculed.

But as you note, the problem isn't religion per se; it's fundamentalism of any variety.

I have to wonder, though, what blitz boy is talking about. Clearly not all Muslims are terrorists -- the vast, vast majority are not -- and stereotyping about them or members of any other religion (or race, ethnicity, nationality, etc.) is bigotry.

Ridicule and intolerence will NEVER be a useful tool for creating a tolerant democratic society.
Because you walk far enough down that road and we are putting tatoos on all the people turned in by their neighbors for being fundamantalists.
And you become the monster you despise.  
And don't say that I'm being ridiculous, "that would never happen".
And if you think it should happen, then you're right there with those talk show callers.

ridiculing or challenging religion, which we do far too little of in the U.S., is different than ridiculing and stereotyping people who happen to be religious.

Oh, really?  You're telling me there's a difference between ridiculing what someone believes, and ridiculing the person who does the believing?  I tell you that's a distinction without a difference.

This is one of the scariest comments-threads I've ever read on DKos.  The positive embrace of intolerance, and of humiliation (which is, after all, the intended result of ridicule!), and the approval of outright bigotry ...is terrifying.  This is absolutely outrageous. You are in danger of losing your humanity. You know that, don't you? You are in danger of losing your souls. Rethink this!

Mankind has performed the most heinous atrocities, over the millenia sometimes using the excuse of the local god, sometimes using the excuse of "sciencific" law or "advancement", sometimes using another excuse based on a purported "cultural value".

It's a massive deception. It hides the real reason: "I'm angry and/or superior and I want to wield my power. The excuse is to ease the conscience.

comments on this topic I have ever read.  It was a pleasure to read, thank you.

Thanks for reminding me to take a copy of "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong" by Marc Hauser on my vacation.

He apparently has a Chomskyan argument (from reviews) that our moral sense is an instinct (drawing the analogy with language and getting away from the nature/nurture pseudo-debate). While we can rationalize our moral judgements to different degrees as being derived from some fundamental principles, it is driven by variously by reason, instinct, context, custom and personal idiocyncracy.

So equating atheist with someone who believes that morality can be derived from universal principles based on reasoning may no longer be true.

As an atheist, it was very liberating and challenging for me to engage with this idea.

or Hindus or Buddhists or people who have never heard of Jesus? Can they be moral?

Darkins has interested me lately, though I don't entirely agree with his dogmatic arguements against all religion, I don't agree with your premise either. What about all the other cultures, does each have it's own "archtype of morality?"

Why do we need a defined achetype of morality? Just follow the golden rule - I am sure this appears in many diverse cultural beliefs. After that, I'll guess I'll stick with reason and science.

You give too much credit to Jesus alone.

Thanks to our big (but not big enough) brains, we humans have within us the capability to distinguish right from wrong. It's that battle with our inner sadist that's the problem.

Personally I believe we as a species are (evolving?) moving away for our tolerance of violence. If you think of what humans were capable of doing to each other a few centuries ago and how, for the most part, the world condemns -- though in a lot of cases actually does little about -- war and institutionalized violence.

Obviously we have a long way to go and exposing those willing to let their fear bring out the sadist/evil/fascist in them is another stepping stone to combating and cutting off the violence before it even happens.

It's a good day when the Right starts to realize just how dangerous they've become.

Are you saying that societies based on religious principles that are not based on Jesus are not moral?

A person who claims to have no belief system, yet still claims to be moral is a walking contradiction.

Do you really believe that atheists don't have a belief system because it is not based on superstition or Jesus? Not believing in God or Jesus is very different from not having a belief system.

Without this Jesus archetype, there would be no MLK Jr., no Gandhi or the more pedestrian amongst us who help little old ladies get across the street.

This is pure bullshit, and extremely offensive. Are you saying there was no morality prior to Jesus? Did you ever hear of the 10 Commandments which guided jews for thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. Are you unfamiliar with Buddhist and Hindu texts which guided their morality for thousands of years before the birth of Christ, and still continue to this day, without the underlying archetype of a Christian based society? Do you really believe that a Gandhi would not have happened without Christ? Are you saying that Muslim societies which don't have this underlying Jesus archetype can't be moral? Believe it or not, I think most societies could exist on the basis of the Golden Rule, without any need for God, Jesus or this so-called archetype.
Your beliefs are as ignorant and offensive as the people who called into that radio show.

Applause!

Yes, Religion can be blamed for some destructive behavior including many wars in our history. But Religion does not get enough credit for some of the good it has accomplished. As you said, the roots of the Civil Right Movement as well as the Abolitionist Movement stemmed from religious conviction for many including Rev. King,  and their meetings were held in churches and it was discussed and debated within the context of the church service, itself.

to see you do a diary on this , hour...well said

Prove that morality must come from an outside source. Studies have shown (sorry, I don't have a link) that very young children who have not yet been indoctrinated into a religion understand basic concepts of fairness. Humans are social animals-- we have evolved our morality. It's expressed differently in different cultures, and some aspects are exaggerated or de-emphasized by different cultures, but the essentials are fundamentally the same. Jesus, schmesus.

I disagree a couple of times, and am a little bemused that a couple of your statements have stood so long without comment.

"Jesus is the model/archetype of modern bourgeois/layperson morality...
Jesus is the reason an atheist can claim to be moral..." Huh? You seem to be saying, then, that only through a grounding in Christian belief can people reject the belief in God and remain or become moral. Does that mean that Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists who become atheist cannot be "moral"? And taking the unpleasant but inevitable leap from there, does it mean that individual members of societies which by and large are not Christian are not then capable of "moral" acts, because they are absent the "Jesus" archetype?

Second, while I agree that other irrational belief systems certainly have caused harm (although I can't offhand think of a more longlasting and pervasive collection of irrational ideologies than religions in general, I think humans in general are both horrific devils and walking saints, and would be both with or without the influence of whatever ideologies people choose to attach themselves to...) you coud scarcely have picked a more inappropriate example of an "ideology" uninflected by religious beliefs than that " the planet is not dying.." I assume you are referring to global warming; one of the greatest stumbling blocks to global action on global warming is an intransigent United States, whose rulers are actively courting enormously powerful people of faith who believe the predicted consequences of environmental disaster are both foretold in the Bible, and a good thing.

I haven't read Dawkins; started Harris's "End of Faith" and got distracted by something else somewhere around page 50. This isn't my fight, really, and I've never felt the need to justify or try to defend my failure to "get" religion. But I will say that over the last 15 years my held-since-childhood, "Sorry, just don't feel it" agnosticism has hardened or coagulated into a pretty nasty although mostly private contempt for Christians specifically - I was raised with the expectation that I would be one, and I live in a Christian country - and for religions in general. This is in partial response to being very specifically used as a scapegoat, whipping boy, political football, spawn of the Devil, and exemplar of all that is wicked in a wicked world by the loudest mouths among the many and varied religious mouthpieces of the world. If "nice" believers don't want me to feel that way they can certainly start correcting the record more loudly still. I'd love to hear it, but do forgive my, ahem, lack of faith.

<snark>If it weren't for Jesus, no one would ever understand that lying, stealing or killing was not in your own self-interest. No one would ever have been able to figure out that if you are a liar, people will be disinclined to believe you. (sit down, Aesop.) No one would have ever been able to figure out that if stealing was acceptable, you would be at a greater risk for being robbed yourself. No one would ever be able to figure out that a society in which murder was acceptable would leave you in greater danger of being murdered  yourself.</snark>

It's rational not to be honest, to not steal or kill. The world may be irrational, but morality is an attempt to bring rationality to it.

human morality seems to follow the pattern of known polygenic traits like height, weight, and intelligence. There seems to be a moral bell curve, where most people are average, few either extremely good, or extremely bad.

Society can shift the media of the bell curve left or right depending on the various circumstances and ideologies, but I don't think such things can have such a large effect.

Even in the "Godly" middle ages, or in "Godly" countries, peoples' behavior en masse, is pretty much the same as it always is.

As an aside, game theory demostrates that "moral" behavior is something that is good for the group, but abandoning it can benefit individuals. See also the cuckoo bird for an example of "immoral" behavior that pays off evolutionarily.

I'm stealing droogie's photobucket account.  Sorry about that, droogie, I didn't mean to!

Were you here when the Pope died? There was a religious war every hour.  The topic seems to go in cycles.

Decry - you mean. Descry means something else entirely.

-- Enter the lexi-nazis!!!!! hehehehe

And, just because I feel the need to make this point yet again, the issue isn't religion, philosophy, magic, or any other occult or esoteric belief system. No matter how crazy another person's cosmology seems to me, it doesn't have to make sense to me -- that's not the point.

The point is the dangers of destructive tribalism* -- the dividing of the world into an "us" and a "them," and then deciding that "we" can't live with "them."

We think they're out to get us and we think we'd better get them first. We justify any atrocity committed against them because, not only would they do the same to us given the chance, but also they are incorrect. They worship the wrong gods or eat improper food or bury their dead in an offensive manner.

What that dividing line is, is entirely arbitrary. It could be skin color, it could be religion, it could be language, it could be whether or not you have a star on your belly. The what of it doesn't matter. At all.

*Destructive tribalism is different from positive tribalism -- I would call things like Scottish Highland Games positive tribalism. It's the difference between simply going "yay! us!" and going both "yay! us!" and "boo! them!"

I heard Darkins on NPR a couple weeks ago. he did admit somethings cannot currently be entirely explained by religion/God.

However, to use God as an explanation for things you/we do not understand is just being intellectually week and uncurious. This is antagonistic to science and human progress.

If you have faith, then fine. However, to ridicule people without faith in God is also not really moral or "Christian" or understanding.

about how we should ridicule all religions.

I'd rather form my opinions by actually watching something rather than hearsay. I actually saw it. Yes, there was stuff that was dumb but there was lots that was damn funny.

Still, I realize that two people can watch a movie at the same time and yet be watching completely different movies.

Your coworkers are all losers.

It was kind of interesting watching it in Germany. They laughed right where I expected them to laugh, except for where the Jew mockery was really bad (like the village festival in the beginning). I had a hard time because the movie was subtitled in German and when Borat and his manager slipped into fake Kazakh, I couldn't understand a thing because at best I speak and read restaurant and bar German.

It's not the quantity of a minority living in a place, it's the willingness of the population to vote for that minority.  And MN has very strong historical progressive and liberal roots.  Surely you've heard of Minnesota nice?  Maybe the water cooler conversation would have gone something like this:

Hey, Sven, whacha think about that Muslim running for office?

Well, what the heck, he's not any worse than the other guy.  Actually, he's not bad.

Ya, sure, I know whacha mean.  So there's really no reason not to vote for him?

You bet.  See ya, Ollie.

They collected lots of money, most of which was went towards their declared purpose of providing legitimate charity in Palestine, before the Treasury dept. declared them a terrorist organization for working with Hamas.

Hamas has been the largest provider of health and education services in Palestine, in sharp contrast to the corrupt, kleptocratic, and ineffective PLO under Arafat. They're reminiscent in some ways of the IRA and Sinn Fein--lots a good with an unfortunate dollop of murder and mayhem.

That was such a brilliant thing to say.

are not mutually exclusive.

signed,

a welfare caseworker

realist in me says that this fight was going on long before I got here and will continue long after I'm gone.  Perhaps it's just part of the human condition.