Random Rantings

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

A question of morals

I must admit I am perplexed. I’ve been called a lot of things in life, but this has got to be a first… someone called me a bigot. Part of me is shocked… the other part finds this hilarious. It’s so obvious that this person doesn’t know me – because I know all of my friends are laughing…

According to the American Heritage Dictionary a bigot is “One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.”

You can read my foray into an attempt at logical discussion here:http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2006/06/truth-about-left-behind-video-game.html

Which is a response to an article on Talk2Action, here:http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/6/1/82458/92817

(Tip: read the T2A article first, then the cadre site… just to keep the logical flow)

In all seriousness, my friend Turtle figures that my rhetorical opponent threw out the word so that any logical argumentation would be stopped. In the parlance of the BITE model (cult awareness), it’s a “thought stopping cliché”. Anyone who dare question his point of view must be intolerant and therefore a bigot. End of discussion.

To be honest though – I am intolerant - - of intolerance!
I have a deep-seated hatred of hatred!

And so I ponder the question – if someone desires to be tolerant, does this mean they must also tolerate intolerance?

This is a question that often trips up those opposed to hatred and hate speech. In specific, the Religious Right has figured out that this is a great way to shut down opposing voices calling them intolerant: No, you’re the one being intolerant – this is our religion. You are denigrating Christianity!

First, this argument is using the fallacy of equivocation– which is using the same word with two different meanings in an argument. In this case, the word Christianity is being used to describe both mainstream Christian theology, and dominionism. It’s a logically unsound argument, and I’m just not going to give it any more time.

I’m more interested in dealing with the morality of intolerance.

In a future post, (working on it at the moment) I will explain the existence of universal moral laws, and how intolerance, such as espoused by the Religious Right, is immoral, because it is based on factual inaccuracies in their arguments.

Stay tuned!

(BTW – I’ve stopped posting on the cadre thread – once someone starts pulling Holocaust rhetoric… That’s a hot button for me – I didn’t feel I could continue.)

-Emily

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The individual who wrongly called you a bigot goes by the handle of Layman, and posts on the Christian Cadre site. Layman has just been exposed -- caught accusing Talk to Action of telling a whopper, and made to eat that big, greasy whopper himself. Mmmm. Tastey! URL: http://www.talk2action.org/admin/story/2006/6/9/32014/83270

4:35 AM, June 09, 2006

 
Blogger Emily Wynn Strauss said...

All I can say is thanks Jonathan!

-Emily

12:59 PM, June 09, 2006

 
Blogger BK said...

Hello Emily,

I didn't know you had your own site. It looks good.

As the CADRE site notes, each of the bloggers speak for themselves, and I, for one, think that you clarified your position sufficiently that I don't think you are a bigot. I do think that your concerns are unfounded vis-a-vis real Christians, but you clarified that by saying that you were concerned with people who claimed to be Christians but really weren't. I fear those people, too.

But just for the record, since Jonathan Hutson pointed out Talk2Actions' blog focusing on Layman, in fairness it should be pointed out that Layman has responded to the talk2action piece on the CADRE blog, here:

http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2006/06/talk2action-tries-to-defend-itself.html

Oh, and let me add: I don't think you have to tolerate intolerance, but there is a difference between intolerance and lack of agreement. For example, under the traditional meaning of "tolerance" you could be a non-Christian (I don't know your religious beliefs, I am just giving an example) and I could be a Christian and we would agree to disagree and co-exist peacefully. That would have been considered tolerance. But today, the term "intolerance" has been warped to mean that even disagreement is intolerance. Thus, if I, as a Christian, say I think you are wrong for being a non-Christian, under the modern day defintion merely disagreeing is considered intolerant. Thus, if that is the meaning of intolerance then I don't agree that it is okay to be intolerable of intolerance.

Finally, I have been reading about this Dominionism thing, and I simply don't see the Left Behind people being involved in Dominionism. They make other errors of theology, but I don't see them involved in trying to make the U.S. into a theocracy or the new Israel.

Otherwise, a good, thoughtful post.

2:33 PM, June 09, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ooooo.... I think Jonathan and Layman are getting into a bit of a pissing fight... you think?

3:14 PM, June 09, 2006

 

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