hmmmm. who else has a reputation for having a silver tongue, and is able to fool a lot of people into thinking what he is saying is reasonable and a “good deal”…?
(inb4 OBAMA!)
What about militant Unitarians? I bet Scalia has nightmares about them!
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Let’s remember that the gospel stories come from an occupied country under the boot of the Empire, and were written after an unsuccessful revolt and a brutal crackdown. So they can’t criticize the empire, and they can’t criticize the emperor, but they can criticize the devil and say that the devil, not unlike the emperor, rules over the earth, or they can criticize powers and principalities.
Scalia, first of all, va’ fa’ un culo.
Second, people like you triggered and accelerated my road towards atheism.
So congratulations, even as a religious nutjob you are a miserable failure.
As I say, feel free to substitute “evangelical” for “militant”.
Evangelizing, for anything [1], is inherently disrespectful of the other person. It assumes that their beliefs are weak enough and poorly-considered enough that they’ll cave when they’re presented with your beliefs and rationale. That is rarely the case. If you object to folks trying to push their belief on you, you can’t justify pushing your belief on them. What you can, and should, do is work toward a state where people’s beliefs are their own, and when there is disagreement everyone’s right to live by their own rules is defended.
I’ll defend Scalia’s right to believe in a literal devil precisely because I think he should defend my right to not believe in one.
Whether he would defend my rights or not is a separate question. I don’t like him as a justice because I don’t trust him to do so. But that’s about his competence as a judge, not his beliefs. And it doesn’t justify my lowering myself to that level.
[1: OK, I’ll admit to having been an OS/2 evangelist. I’m not without sin either.]
Earlier in the thread you said this:
How do you distinguish merely considering someone “wrong” and hoping to convince them of that (which you seem to think is OK) from evangelizing (which apparently you do not find the least bit OK)?
It seems to me that taking any action other than “agreeing to disagree” runs afoul of this:[quote=“technogeekagain, post:147, topic:11575”]
It assumes that their beliefs are weak enough and poorly-considered enough that they’ll cave when they’re presented with your beliefs and rationale.
[/quote]
Finally, perhaps you should simply use the term “evangelical” yourself rather than “militant” as several commenters have noted the histrionic and prejudicial nature of the term “militant” in this context.
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It’s a huge problem for religious communities who aren’t nutballs.
The religions that celebrate (or at least do not deny) science are typically non-evangelical. The proselytizers knocking on doors looking for people ripe for a religious conversion are typically anti-science or believe in some weird air-quotes “science” that doesn’t quite jibe with physical reality.
So people often get the idea that religion is anti-science or that spirituality is diametrically opposed to scientific reasoning. It’s a completely wrong idea, and a belief that contradicts logical reasoning and the scientific method itself, but such beliefs are drearily commonplace.
If you look in your local paper you’ll find listings for churches and religious fellowships that have never tried to convert you or persuade you of anything. If you go where they are, you can easily find honest people of good will who are willing to try to pass on their own understandings or enlightenments, as long as you engage them honestly. But those people are tired of being yelled at by atheists for being religious - shell-shocked by friendly fire, if you will - so they aren’t going to evangelize you. They won’t assume, as technogeek said, that your “beliefs are weak enough and poorly-considered enough” that you need (or will accept) guidance.
And thus the more sane religions are shrinking in many communities, and the less sane ones flourish and extend their reach into every facet of society. It’s because spamming, er, I mean evangelizing, works.
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Some people say “the greatest trick the Devil ever played was getting people to not believe in him”, but I think, if the Devil even exists, the greatest trick he ever played was getting people to do evil whilst believing they were doing God’s work.
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Yeah, no doubt. I absolutely understand there are lots of interpretations of religion that do not consider supernatural events or agents to be theologically crucial and I have no problem with these sorts of religions. I would even agree that religious narratives are as long-lived and compelling as they are because they are true in some not-quite-literal sense and that trying to interpret religious narratives metaphorically or symbolically can be a valuable exercise even for an atheist.
What I’m asking technogeekagain is where s/he draws the line between “evangelizing” and “thinking someone is wrong and trying to convince them of that”. It’s not clear to me that there is such a line but at the same time I understand the antipathy towards evangelizing and I’m curious how such a line could potentially be drawn.
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Not a Christian. I’m moderately militant about tolerance.
Those who believe science and religion are in conflict misunderstand one or the other.
That’s a ridiculous oversimplification of a very complicated topic.
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Well it depends in your angle. The scientific method is in conflict with a
faith based system.
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Statistics about belief in both God and the Devil had already been supplied by the time you issued your request. If you believe you powers of inference are adequate for your factually unsupported assertions on Scalia believing in 2000 year-old science and 2/3 of America needing psychiatric help, then it should have trivially followed that you already had the information you needed to know about how many people believe “the Devil is a crafty trickster manipulating the world for his own ends.”
Citation?
[quote=“NathanHornby, post:110, topic:11575”]
But please remember that this is a heavily science influenced blog. It’s hardly surprising that many of the people here have little time for imaginary characters in this game we call life. There’s nothing militant about science.
[/quote]There may not be anything militant about science, but there’s a lot that’s militant about the comments you’re writing. Scientists don’t typically make inflammatory comments, make unsupported insinuations or factual claims, deride their opponents or call for them to be institutionalized, or do other things you’re doing here. Or at least they don’t do these things in their capacity as scientists. They may do them in their capacity as private individuals, but we expect them to also be able to converse in an evidence-backed, factually-supported manner when discoursing as scientists. This may be similar to the way that Scalia can behave as a religious individual in his private capacity but behave as a highly professional Justice when on the bench.
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Plenty of evidence has been presented in this thread that this is not what Scalia does.
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I haven’t seen any evidence pertaining to Scalia’s lack of professionalism as a Justice. What I have seen is a lot of hysterical comments that since he is religious he must be a certifiable nutbar who is unable to render untainted judgments, without any support drawn from his long record as a judge.
But since you claim there’s a lot of evidence showing he’s unprofessional and/or incapable
on the bench, it should be easy for you to point out some examples.
Oh, please.
