Scandinavian Thread

[garbon]

Oh fuck you. A claim is made that religion is a choice, you get butthurt and make up a ludicrous claim that choosing one's religion is the most important choice in life. Then you get butthurt again when someone disagrees with you and isn't polite (as wont on Languish) and you declare religion isn't a choice. Then you decide to point out that LGBT individuals could just choose to be unhappy.

Guess what? I'd still be gay and attracted to men even if I weren't fucking them.

That said, I do agree that how religion propogates is it gets to children when they are young. The contradictions inherent in organized religion are likely less palatable to non-religious adults off converting. (E.g., loving, omnipotent God who permits all kinds of horrific suffering; if God has you born somewhere where no one is a Christian and you've no opportunity to learn about it to convert, well that might not work out well for you; God gives people ability to reject Christianity and therefore doom themselves for...reasons.)

My point was only that there's not some easy binary between "choice" and "innate characteristic".

When it comes to religion I already said there was an element of choice to it - but there's also an element of innate characteristic.

And that's been an argument used against gay rights in the past - that the person isn't against "the gays" - just against them choosing to act on their sexual attraction.  You rightly object to that kind of reasoning.

I'd already said that.

And it isn't the same.

[Threviel]

My point was that religion is one of many things in life that you carry and that might be important.

Say for example for many people football is the most important. If you're born in Liverpool you might get lucky and be born into a red family or you might be unlucky to be born into a blue family. Even though Everton seems to suck something fiercely you might like them and it would be very difficult to switch to Liverpool FC. That might be your defining feature and what is most important in your life.

That does not give the state the right to create laws forbidding Liverpool FC:ers from ridiculing, humiliating or enraging Evertonians. Sure, it's bad form and we wish that Liverpoolians would behave better, but it should not be illegal.

It's exactly the same with religion. Religion does not have any properties making it a special case. It's a bunch of people with similar views taking themselves far too seriously, just like football fans, communists, atheists or whatever. It's not the purpose of the state to decide which actions are deemed acceptable as long as no-one is harmed. The classic liberal view, Jacob put it very nicely a bit earlier in the thread.

The special feature of Islam is that apparently a large majority of it's adherents hold views that are incompatible with classical liberalism and that there are enough adherents that are an actual threat to the general public. That does not mean that the state should bend over and use its monopoly of violence to force non-muslims to not insult islam. It ought to mean that the state should use all its power to defend the right of its population to insult islam, whilst perhaps using soft power to tone it down a bit, it's bad form after all. Just like states comes down hard on football hooligans, they don't make laws forbidding people from enraging hooligans.

[Josquius]

If you're in a community where everyone wears a pointy hat and your parents raise you to always wear a pointy hat or else a giant elephant will be angry and stomp on your soul, then stopping wearing a pointy hat isn't an easy decision to make.

Fair enough. Nonetheless, you should still not agitate for those who don't wear pointy hats to be stomped by elephants due to your communal beliefs.

Yes.
Though even there worth noting that believing the non-hatted are evil isn't a simple switch if that's all you've ever known.
That does have the advantage in reality that there usually will be moderates within your circle who can provide a neat off-road.

[Barrister]

My point was that religion is one of many things in life that you carry and that might be important.

Say for example for many people football is the most important. If you're born in Liverpool you might get lucky and be born into a red family or you might be unlucky to be born into a blue family. Even though Everton seems to suck something fiercely you might like them and it would be very difficult to switch to Liverpool FC. That might be your defining feature and what is most important in your life.

That does not give the state the right to create laws forbidding Liverpool FC:ers from ridiculing, humiliating or enraging Evertonians. Sure, it's bad form and we wish that Liverpoolians would behave better, but it should not be illegal.

So look - I'm a passionate sports fan.  My father was/is a sports journalist, my kids play competitive sports.  I annually bump a thread about my favourite sports team here on Languish.

But everyone knows that sports is a game.  If I walk into an Edmonton Oilers home game wearing my Winnipeg Jets jersey I fully expect to get comments and teased.  I'm going to hear it if the Oilers win, and I'm going to be smug if the Jets win.  That's all part of the fun.  I don't expect to get assaulted over wearing the wrong jersey, but we already have laws about that.

That's where your analogy is completely wrong.  Religion DOES have special properties.  These are belief systems that go back thousands of years.  They deal with (according to believers) not only your life on earth, but your life after death as well.  They give rules that are supposed to cover how you are supposed to carry out your entire life.

Now I'm not 100% sure about the "banning burning the Koran" laws.  I think burning a Koran is juvenile, childish and deliberately offensive and I wish people wouldn't do it, but I'm not quite sure if it should be banned.  But I do think there's a legitimate argument to be had.

And like I said - I appreciate you being upfront about your bigotry against religious people.

[Threviel]

It's all fun and games until you wear your Everton shirt on the Kop at Anfield when there's a derby going on.

Jokes aside it's obvious that religion plays a bigger part in more peoples lives than sport. It was just a harmless example.

Nothing very much wrong with religion, I'm all for letting people find their own salvation. It's religious laws affecting the nonbelievers I care about. And I used a silly example to display the absurdity of the Danish law. I wish they would target the hooligans instead of protecting them.

[Valmy]

Jokes aside it's obvious that religion plays a bigger part in more peoples lives than sport.

And that's too bad.

[Zoupa]

If you're religious, your religion isn't just "a choice".  You make it sound as if it deserves no more respect then what colour of socks you choose to wear.

That's because it doesn't. Can you explain why it should deserve more respect from others?

Why should I treat any religion with respect? How could my disrespect possibly affect your salvation or whatever?

No, choosing your religion is the most important choice you will ever make in your life, and the next one.

That's what YOU believe. I believe that's total, comical nonsense. Has your faith been affected in anyway by me laughing at this statement?

[Barrister]

If you're religious, your religion isn't just "a choice".  You make it sound as if it deserves no more respect then what colour of socks you choose to wear.

That's because it doesn't. Can you explain why it should deserve more respect from others?

Why should I treat any religion with respect? How could my disrespect possibly affect your salvation or whatever?

No, choosing your religion is the most important choice you will ever make in your life, and the next one.

That's what YOU believe. I believe that's total, comical nonsense. Has your faith been affected in anyway by me laughing at this statement?

Why should I treat your language with respect?  I mean - you obviously know English.  So just man up and speak white, right?

Obviously not.

I should treat your language with respect because it's important to you.

We should try to treat our fellow citizens with respect even if we don't understand or identify with the things that they think are important.  That's just part of living in a hopefully harmonious pluralistic society.

[Zoupa]

Beeb, my language is not treated with respect. Hence the whole separatist movement? I'm speaking white right now, btw.

People's religion of choice is as worthy of respect or even interest to me as their sock colour. I don't care what you believe, it should not have any bearing on my life.

[Barrister]

Beeb, my language is not treated with respect. Hence the whole separatist movement? I'm speaking white right now, btw.

People's religion of choice is as worthy of respect or even interest to me as their sock colour. I don't care what you believe, it should not have any bearing on my life.

"This thing that is important to me should be important to everyone.  This thing I don't care about should be ignored by everyone."

Like - I have no idea why Sikhs put so much importance on their turbans.  I mean - it's just a silly hat, right?  But they do place importance on it, so I should respect it not because I care or understand, but because they care.

[Zoupa]

I'm not going around the city tearing down turbans and crosses from people. I just don't feel the need to have any sort of accommodation related to demands based on religion.

Like the famous Mountie turban guy. I found it profoundly stupid that rules had to be bent for him. You start down this path and you'll get a mountie with a pasta strainer on his head, because why not?

[Threviel]

I think that people deserve respect and the cultural roots of people deserve respect if it's something harmless as a turban or an Everton shirt.

They do not deserve respect for harmful things and for things that are oppressive. The turban is interesting because it's a male symbol that every male Sikh should wear. Kind of like a Hijab, which is very similar to what most older women wore daily when I grew up. I don't really have a problem with either of these and since they are harmless an people think them important we should make allowances. It costs very little and to show respect to our fellow men is the decent thing to do.

In contrast with Niqab and Burkha, they are not harmless in my eyes. They are symbols of oppression and furthermore they cover the face and gives anonymity which is not something that's acceptable in most instances. To them we should make no allowances what so ever.

[Threviel]

And by that I don't mean that religion deserves any kind of special treatment, because it doesn't. Still doesn't mean that we should be dicks to religious people.

[Duque de Bragança]

Jokes aside it's obvious that religion plays a bigger part in more peoples lives than sport.

And that's too bad.

Depends on the country. 

[viper37]

What I disliked most reading about this law was that apparently one governmental reasoning was that Quran-burning was not only "against the interests of Denmark" but "endangering Danish citizens". This is the worst possible reason to make such a law - showcasing that yes, violence works, if you want us more down your zealot road, please do more violence to us.

I usually draw the limit at book burning.  For religious or political reasons.
And incitement to hatred, which is highly subjective.  Publicly, of course.  Privately, is a different matter.

And as I understand it, this is what it was.

There's no way American Christians would not be up in arms if we started burning Bibles publicly.  Actually, they protest in front of metal shows for less.

And there's a loophole in the US laws for free speech:
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N37N1L5/