we’re talking about the house because the town believes that it’s a good idea to fine someone because of a non-standard nativity scene
5 Likes
And displaying a standard nativity scene says, “I don’t know if you know this, m’lady, but I’m a Christian” to people who weren’t particularly interested in knowing, either.
That fish-shaped bumper sticker? Same.
That Canadian flag on somebody’s bagpack? It tells me either “I’m Canadian” or “I think Canada is a cool country”. I didn’t ask to know. But I’ll probably tell them how I lived in Canada for a while, so it’s good.
But don’t tell people you’re an atheist. Doing that without being asked is “inane”. And when St. Valentine’s Day comes around and the world celebrates its shared heterosexuality, be sure to hide away your rainbow flag. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Displaying that rainbow flag to people who didn’t want to know, now that would be “immature”.
Actually, I don’t mind people putting up a nativity scene in their yard. What I do mind is Christians telling me that my my belief that this world is more beautiful if you assume that there is no Creator is something to be kept to myself.
17 Likes
Or when every local article or newscast somehow manages to work in “God” or “prayer” or “the Lord” or some other bullshit that saturates everything where you live. I ignore it, but it’s in my face and I’m tired of it, to be frank.
14 Likes
Wow, that’s a…pretty big leap there, making the connection between someone putting up something that I (personally) found annoying and the long-standing oppression of an entire range of sexual identity.
Nowhere in my original post did I say anything about the oppression non-heterosexual people face in the world , and saying that somehow I condone it because someone made a holiday decoration that makes the most toothless, inoffensive argument of modern liberalism (“I don’t believe in God, I’m so sophisticated”) and I was put off by it is pretty wild. But okay.
Nor did I assume you did. I was drawing an analogy between your statement and a statement you did not make and that I assume you would not want to make.
I was taking offence at your suggestion that “I don’t know if you know this, m’lady, but I’m an atheist” was an inane or immature statement to make as a yard ornament.
It’s no more inane than displaying a rainbow flag as a sign of support for gay rights. That, too, is an inoffensive, toothless argument of modern liberalism.
2 Likes
People still get murdered for being openly homosexual in America (ex.). Not so many get murdered for being atheists in America.
I’m not defending the city council’s thinly-veiled attack on his first-amendment rights, nor am I saying he should be disallowed from putting up this display. All I’m saying is that cracking a stale joke does not make this guy a hero.
This shouldn’t be a who-is-more-discriminated-against contest. I know of no murders for either reason in Austria, where I live. I assume that not quite as many countries will execute atheists as will execute homosexuals. And while the fact that the Boy Scouts of America still exclude atheists might be particularly hurtful to me as a life-long scout in Austria, I am aware that just isn’t important.
Atheists, and the larger group of people who think that religion just cannot be taken seriously, have suffered serious discrimination in the past and are still being discriminated against. It does not matter if other groups have it worse.
It shouldn’t require heroism or even originality to be allowed to make a statement without being called inane and immature. And when the consequence of him making that statement is a thinly veiled attack on his first-amendment rights, the question of the joke’s originality really becomes moot.
Of course, we don’t even know he’s an atheist. He might be a devout Christian who believes that God can take a joke (yes, those exist, and they’re the most fun kind of Christian to be with).
7 Likes
Ok, from a theatrical perspective, it’s absolutely scenery - but then so is every other sort of outdoor decoration that isn’t covered by the city ordinance.
You were the one who originally introduced the comparison between this and a rainbow flag. Invariably, from that standpoint, it becomes a question of whether or not those two items have any equivalency in this context. You feel they do, I disagree.
No, but whether or not you agree with the thrust of the statement made by the piece in question, it shouldn’t be immune from free-speech reactions. I agree that the question is somewhat moot in light of the circumstances (and I regret, in my original comment, framing my point in such a way that it looked like I was saying my feelings about the display were an equivalent grievance to the fine-based censorship at the core of this.)
I guess I’m just really exasperated with the culturally-libertarian faction of the Western Left that antagonizes people’s religious beliefs and gets uncritically cheered on. Same probelm I have with people like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher. I don’t think any of these people should be persecuted for their beliefs–I’m just sick to death of people being praised for making the unspeakably stupid argument that all religious people are either Jerry Falwell or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. At this point, it mostly just serves to alienate moderate or progressive people of faith to causes they should otherwise be 100 percent behind.
I wanted to put up a navity scene where the Wise Men wear business suits and bring XBox, iPhone and Furby.
The wife said no.
13 Likes
I agree with your wife. A Furby is a stupid gift.
10 Likes
Well, to be fair, those religious beliefs, when viewed from outside, are kinda silly.
3 Likes
I claimed a similarity in principle, you argued a difference in degree.
Of course not. But (if I understand correctly what you mean by immunity from free-speech reactions), I was just free-speech-reacting to your free-speech-reaction.
And that exasperation met my exasperation with the strange asymmetry between utterances of religious belief and non-belief in both European and American societies.
Consider the following scale of opinions:
- +4 Non-believers will burn in hell.
- +3 Non-believers are bad people.
- +2 Religion makes people more likely to act morally. It is a positive influence on society.
- +1 Religion will give you meaning in life.
- -1 Religion has no basis in truth
- -1.5 … and here’s a joke about it.
- -2 Religion makes people more likely to act immorally. It is a negative influence on society.
- -3 Religion is a dangerous delusion.
I could not find a -4 that would balance the +4. American public discourse seems to go all the way up to +4. In that context, Dawkins at -3 is just a necessary but insufficient counterbalance. And really, a zombie nativity is just a -1.5.
Going beyond +2 will get you free-speech-reacted against by most Catholics in Austria, so I did consider Dawkins’ book more extreme than strictly necessary. However, -2 is already in the “feel free to hold that opinion, but don’t repeat it while there are children present” category, which is kind of unfair, because +2 is still quite common.
2 Likes
A difference I stand by–again, whatever persecution atheists face in America in the 21st century is infinitesimal next to that experienced by non-hetero people. So great is the division, I think, that the similarity of principle is thin, at best.
No, of course, that’s what we’re doing here. Neither of us has the power to legislate this.
Going by that scale, my point is not that there aren’t people at +4, but that they represent a vocal, troubling and easily-agitated minority that is in fairly steep decline (ditto, for that matter, +3.) The vast majority of Americans of faith, in my experience, get to about +2, and aren’t particularly mouth-frothy about it. But (again, personal experience) many atheists I meet on the left go straight to -3 in every circumstance regarding religion. And as a person of spiritual (if not dogmatic) faith, it irks me that any of the more positive and progressive aspects of religion (social justice, self-sacrifice, empathy, optimism) are tossed out, out-of-hand, by people who act like the full range of this experience is +4 vs. -3, and that’s it.
tl;dr–This guy did some thing at -1.5, a small cadre of +3 people violated the law, and the reaction seems not to be “it is wrong that those religious people broke the law” but “those religious people are wrong and bad and this guy is awesome for making them angry.” It’s a subtle difference, I grant, and one that we’ve been teasing out this whole time. Thanks for engaging, btw.
1 Like
Isn’t “maturity” overrated anyway?
…especially as most people define it as “set of behaviors I approve of”?
9 Likes
I don’t think they’re arguing that it’s any more mature than traditional Christmas decoration. Just that it’s no less mature.
2 Likes
Christmas decorations, by tradition are pretty tacky affairs. Lots of electric lights and cheap plastic and garish colours.
I think playing around with the basic themes is fun and a bit imaginative. If it isn’t exactly the same as everyone else on the street you’re doing pretty good.
2 Likes
Yeah, kind of like when Christians feel the need to have mangers!
4 Likes
Replace it with a massive sex toy?
3 Likes
Now I think that might also be part of my general mode of thinking. It often happens to me in arguments that I lose people by making a comparison to something that works by the same principles but is vastly different in degree. In those situations, I think the extreme degree makes the fault in the logical principle more obvious, while many people will feel that the same logic does not apply because the degrees are so different. We will not be able to tease this one out today.
Wait… I thought those were aspects of humanism? 
Yes, I think we’ve just about analyzed it. For me, the problem remains that I just don’t know how to deal with >=3 people without being occasionally unfair to the silent majority of +1 and +2 people.
And I still don’t know if I’ve placed that -1.5 correctly - humor is supposed to be outside that scale. Religious people should make fun of religion, too. For example, I’ve had a teacher of Catholic religion at high school who explicitly warned us to not subscribe to the traditional image of heaven as a place with “an old bearded man sitting on a cloud, with heavenly chicken flapping about him”. And he was definitely more +1.5 than -1.5.
1 Like
