Ok, so I've been thinking a little bit about my stances on a few issues now and then and I've come to the conclusion that I'm not really sure anymore where my opinions should really lie so I thought I'd start a topic in here.

Basically I have a problem. I believe in freedom of opinion, religion etc. Inherent in this belief is that I also believe that it is wrong to discriminate against others based on their opinions or religion, and that people should be allowed to practice their own religion and hold their own beliefs. This is because I believe that I should be allowed to express my opinions and live my life the way I want to and others should similarly have that right. In fact, I've spoken up about how people seem to think it is their right to insult others' religious beliefs (particularly Christian beliefs).

However, the problem arises because of the fact that I belong to several minority groups- I'm gay, I'm not a Christian, I'm an ethnic minority etc etc. The gay thing is the worst in terms of this I suppose. Let me illustrate with an example:

I was at college the night before I left for the month-long mid-year break. Bear in mind that this story makes slightly more sense because it was 2am in the morning, I hadn't packed anything, I was damn tired, and I'd just said goodbye to the girl I'm seeing. Anyway I was talking to a friendly acquaintance of mine, and he said something about how while he agrees with gay rights he thinks homosexuality is morally wrong because of his religious views. Which triggered some discussion about the bible and homosexuality, also with this other guy there... I really didn't feel like having an argument so I wasn't arguing, just listening mostly. And anyway there was some point at which I just got a bit annoyed about it, and emotional since of aforementioned factors.

I'm not exactly sure how to interpret the above episode, because I do respect the fact that the guy supports gay rights even though he thinks it's morally wrong. And I'm not sure whether I should've been annoyed or not given my beliefs. Ordinarily I don't think I would've been that annoyed or emotional. Which brings me to my next point:

Is there a point at which you can be too accepting of other's beliefs? Should I make more of a stand for myself or would that be hypocritical?

The classic stumbling block in the path of universal tolerance is the 'freedom of belief' issue, which of course encompasses both cultural and religious differences, and thus protects other peoples' right to be total asswads, which in turn may impinge upon your right to go through life without coming into conflict with total asswads, etc. etc. I think we've already been down that road with the great eye-cocking debate, which I don't have much to add to. So here's how I deal with this sort of dilemma:

Egotistical delusional fascism.

Basically, assume everyone else is a figment of your own imagination. I highly recommend it. Begin by always being right. Never be accepting of anyone elses' beliefs. (Even if they're the same as your own - you have no reason to suppose this person came to their conclusions rationally, therefore their conclusions must be considered suspect). Gradually you'll find you can internalise this process, and you won't even feel the urge to be drawn into moral and philosophical debates. Eventually, not only will you not care about others' opinions, you'll stop having any of your own. After that, it gets really easy.

It works for me. Sure, I'm now an arrogant, supercilious, shallow toss-pot. But I don't lose much sleep over it. :-)

Is there a point at which you can be too accepting of other's beliefs?

Yes.

Either you can work for a tolerant society, which means challenging the intolerant beliefs of some people, or you contribute (at least passively) to the problem.

"You must be tolerant of my religious belief that gays should be stoned to death/women should be slaves to men/children should have their genitals mutilated/wives should be killed as part of their husband's funeral/etc." is not a viable option.

On your more specific issue, it is interesting that the bible declares many things morally wrong - including eating shellfish, divorce, and being rich - but the "I'm homophobic, but only for moral reasons" crowd seldom notice most of them.

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to tynic (#18237):

Amusingly enough, I figured that was probably the other reasonably self-consistent option!

Though it invites the following question:
If you assume that you're right and everyone else is wrong, then how do you learn anything/change your stance on moral issues?

In Response to snipergirl (#18239):

oh and to clarify, I do believe that I'm generally right and others are generally wrong... however I suppose I believe in their freedom to believe in wrong things. Usually I smack down people who are intolerant if they go out of their way to piss me off. I find it harder however to work out what to do for people who are internally intolerant (don't really express their views, and therefore hardly ever affect me personally) or people with only partially intolerant views, like my friend from earlier...

In fact, I've spoken up about how people seem to think it is their right to insult others' religious beliefs (particularly Christian beliefs).

I'm going to address this bit point. Because I'm right, and you're wrong. :-)

For me, personally hearing someone espouse their religious beliefs - and more particularly hearing them espouse how their religious beliefs will make better laws and better people - is akin to what I imagine hearing someone espouse homophobia is to you. It's oppressive of and degrading to my individuality, it's dangerous thinking, and been the cause of lots and lots of human suffering.

So I speak out, when I can, when I feel it's appropriate. And I'm insulting to people when I do it, because well, I'm human and I suck, and I react badly when I feel like I've been insulted or degraded.

Is there a point at which you can be too accepting of other's beliefs?
Yes. When you're thanking them for cleaning their boot before stomping on your neck.

Should I make more of a stand for myself or would that be hypocritical?
See, the way I got around this question was that I realized fairly early on that waaaayy deep down in my heart of hearts, I'm a hypocrite.

And I really think everyone is. "I want freedom of speech and freedom of religion - but those people can't keep knocking on *my* door with their tirades and pamphlets and guilt-trips and money requests!"

What might have been interesting though, in the particulary situation you describe, is if you spent some time asking the homophobe what drove his support for "gay" rights. If it came from something he read in the scripture - that everyone was an equal child of God or some such nonesense - then he would be interpreting scripture himself. He would be choosing one piece of scripture as "more important" or "more legitimate" than another. And most organized religions don't allow the laity to interpret scripture themselves - especially ones that believe in the "literal" truth of the bible.

So you might have been able to put this young man into a crisis of faith! All for pissing you off with his homophobia! Wouldn't that be fun?

Oh, sorry, I just noticed this.

I belong to several minority groups- I'm gay, I'm not a Christian, I'm an ethnic minority etc etc.

Not being a Christian, in Australia, is a minority group now? That's a worry. Where are you studying in Melbourne (so I can avoid it, natch :-))?

he agrees with gay rights he thinks homosexuality is morally wrong

the guy supports gay rights even though he thinks it's morally wrong.

This guy reminds me of myself. Now, I don't find homosexuality morally wrong or offensive, but we are alike in that, even if I don't agree with something you say, I respect your right to say it.

The basis of my thought structure on human rights and civil liberties is best expressed in a quote by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice (unfortunately, the name of this Justice escapes me right now): "The right for me to extend my fist stops just short of your nose." My rights to my beliefs are paramount up to the point where they infringe on someone else's rights. You have the right to be gay. He has the right to think that's wrong. He's willing to support your rights as a homosexual despite the fact that he thinks it's wrong. In my experience, that is a rare find.

In Response to zamphir (#18244):

hearing them espouse how their religious beliefs will make better laws and better people

Oh, I have problems with that too... because by trying to impose their religion on other people (yourself included) they are interfering with everyone's rights to live their own way. I despise evangelism for the same reason. However I generally have no problem with people saying that they are Christians or stating their opinion on a certain topic as long as they're not being pushy, obnoxious or preachy. Because that would piss me off. The problem as I see it is that a lot of people who are openly Christian (note: I did not say most, I said a lot) are also openly evangelical, which is a violation of my right to freedom of religion in my opinion.

And most organized religions don't allow the laity to interpret scripture themselves - especially ones that believe in the "literal" truth of the bible.

I was under the impression that many if not most protestant churches believe that the laity can indeed interpret scripture themselves- because one's relationship to God is, according to them, an inherently personal thing. A lot of them also believe however that one can only interpret so much as you are supposed to take everything literally...

So you might have been able to put this young man into a crisis of faith! All for pissing you off with his homophobia! Wouldn't that be fun?

Speaking of which, I did argue scripture with him and I did mention the whole eating crustaceans thing... which made him think.

In Response to tynic (#18246):

Meh. The christians are probably loud enough to count for 100 times more than actually exist.

I'm at the University of Melbourne- hardly the most homophobic or Christian place in Australia... unless you go to either the Comm or Law faculties and hang out with some of the young Libs there. hehe.

Although there was this one time that these scary Christians held a seminar at unimelb in which they claimed that sex, gay people and Limp Bizkit were evil. Some equally scary Socialist Alternative protester types convinced some of us gay folks to go and protest... we thought we'd just sit in the audience and object whenever they tried to say that sex or gay people (but not Limp Bizkit) were evil... however the Socialist Alternative people instead walked in and started chanting such intelligent slogans as "No, no we won't go" and then set off the fire alarms in that building. Yes, the LARGEST BUILDING ON CAMPUS. While classes were going on no less. It was a sad sad day for us all... Naturally I ran away and pretended that I had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

In Response to snipergirl (#18251):

sex, gay people and Limp Bizkit were evil

object whenever they tried to say that sex or gay people (but not Limp Bizkit) were evil

Huzzah! Someone else who recognizes that their cover of "Behind Blue Eyes" is an abomination that ought to be wiped from the record.

On the subject of things at large... I agree with Tynic, for the most part. I may - and frequently do - disagree with others' beliefs, but I'm not about to tell them that those beliefs are wrong, or that I'm a better person because I don't believe that. (There are exceptions, and those exceptions are the sorts of people who believe wholeheartedly that blacks are inferior to whites, or that child abuse is fun.)

However, I'm perfectly willing to discuss my beliefs if prompted, and invite others to do the same under those circumstances. My big problem is with people who feel that it is their duty to inflict their beliefs upon you without invitation. This led, one interesting spring, to me wishing people a nice Passover (in Hebrew) every time they said, unprompted, 'Happy Easter.' Most of them looked at me like I was completely nuts, and since the feeling was mutual I felt quite pleased with things.

In Response to snipergirl (#18239):

I believe in freedom of opinion, religion etc. Inherent in this belief is that I also believe that it is wrong to discriminate against others based on their opinions or religion, and that people should be allowed to practice their own religion and hold their own beliefs.

Well that's pobably your first mistake. Having beliefs that are so broad and altruistic sounding probably means you're never really examined what they mean. Otherwise you'd have a lengthy self obsessed diatribe about what you _really_ think is right and wrong and as soon as you had a couple of beers you'd have to go back and correct it. Plus it'd be boring and hard to follow as there would be so many individual assumptions and sidetracks.

Get down to the easy bit of the situation:

1. A guy said something.
2. It either means your entire world view needs reassessing or you need to think his statement through.
3. Choose.

See, easy. If you need to rework your entire world view you've decided you made a crap load of mistakes in building it and I'd suspect you have just joined a cult or something. If you just need to work through his statement and find the areas causing issue you either find he is a tool or that there is a small section of your worldview that can be fine tuned.

In this case he probably just admitted that he is not a christian in terms of living his life for the literal word of god (otherwise he would be unable to condone something that, supposedly, is categorically against the word of god). This means that he is a christian for reasons other than serving god. This is fine, there are lots of reasons he could feel this way, a community he can belong to, childhood training and so on.

But the upshot is that he has conflicting views with a faith he espouses (in a region not allowed by said faith). In the list of people that need to work on their worldview I suspect he is ahead of you.

So you either nod and say "isn't that interesting" or you present him with this analysis, watch him get upset and start explaining exactly where and why he has exemptions from the faith and the entire aspect of the conversation changes. Of course he probably won't speak to you much after that as anyone that questions their faith to this point and hasn't given it up as a lost cause is probably not willing to have these conversations as they are salt in the wound.

If you assume that you're right and everyone else is wrong, then how do you learn anything/change your stance on moral issues?


Perfection is an evolving state. By reassessing and fine tuning your rightness you become righter hehehe.

In Response to snipergirl (#18248):

The problem as I see it is that a lot of people who are openly Christian (note: I did not say most, I said a lot) are also openly evangelical, which is a violation of my right to freedom of religion in my opinion.

I don't see evangelism as a violation of your right to freedom of religion at all. In fact, in some cases it may be more an infringement of that person's right to freedom of religion (trying to promote his or her religion should that be smothing his or her religion calls for), should you try to say they shouldn't be allowed to evangelise. At the very least, because you have the right to ignore that person, you should be rather unaffected.

It'd be a bit different if a person was preaching and going on and on and you were to ask that person to stop and that person kept going on and began to insult you directly and say that you're an evil wench for not believing in his or her religion. That'd be infringing on at least some right of yours.

So why don't me meet on this fine line over here and discuss? ;) (Being rhetorical, sorry.)

In Response to themysticalone (#18339):

trying to promote his or her religion should that be smothing his or her religion calls for

Sounds fine to me. Of course, this rules the Christians right out - remember, boys and girls, the proselytizers have already been repaid.

On a more serious note, we're back to the 'infringing on rights' issue. While I agree that you should certainly have your choice of religions to follow, and be permitted to do so, there really ought to be a limit to what's acceptable. "Praise God!" is fine by me; "Praise God or die!" is not. (And in either instance, if they actually try to force you to praise their/your/any god, you certainly have the right to say, "No way," and back off.) If your religion called for slaughtering goats and dancing around in the entrails... well, as long as you own the goat and do it in the privacy of your own home, sure. But if your religion calls for slaughtering goats and throwing the entrails at other people, don't be surprised if they throw back. (Or up.)

In Response to sakuruth (#18347):

Sorry, Homer. I was born a snake handler, and I'm going to die a snake handler.

In Response to zamphir (#18348):

That's not what you told me. So now i'm envious that you've been handling somebody else's snake all along, i suppose. ;-)

In Response to Teledildonix (#18349):

I suppose this is just revenge for the "rutting like monkeys" line.

Fine, fine.

I was just teasing you about that, though.

In Response to themysticalone (#18339):

In fact, in some cases it may be more an infringement of that person's right to freedom of religion (trying to promote his or her religion should that be smothing his or her religion calls for), should you try to say they shouldn't be allowed to evangelise.

I don't have a problem with personal envangalism - if people want to talk to me about their politics and/or religion then they pay for it by me talking about mine. I can be opinionated, as one or two of you may have noticed. I'm actually pretty interested in religion and beliefs, so on a "here's what I believe, take it or leave it" level such conversations can be fun. If they try to persuade me that their belief is "correct" then I'll try to convince them otherwise.

The ones that annoy me are the preachers on a street corner with megaphones. Partly because if I was to preach, say, satanism in such a way, I'd be moved on if not arrested. (Now there's a double standard for you Tel*.) Partly, because they're just so bad at it and noisy about it.

Worth noting, perhaps, that most Christian sects ban the laity from evangelising. The Bible's fairly clear that Jesus gave Peter alone the right to teach and appoint other teachers. The laity are supposed to teach only by the example of their lives.

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to albionsoft (#18374):

Sorry, i'm not interested in double standards today. Instead, i will be focusing on double insertions. Please refrain from poking at me unless you plan to join me in such endeavours.

I am jewish and consider myself very religious. Yet I do not think that homosexuality is morally wrong at all. How I figure it, the Torah (old testiment for you non-heebs) has many laws (613 to be exact) and not all of them make sense today or need to be followed today based on your interpretation (which is one of the cool things about judaism). Now one example is that you are not allowed to wear linen and wool together, why? Who the hell knows? No one, that is who. Another example is kosher law. The majority of it (despite what the wackos say) was as a result of health; a person who ate pig or shellfish or milk and meat usually got sick and died (unprocessed milk turns VERY bad from the acids in meat) but today, they are sort of obsolete (I PERSONALLY try to follow them because it is more ethical). Now, back to homosexuality. My belief (though the Torah never says that Lesbianism is bad strangely enough) the prohibition on homosexuality was in regards to the "tribe" mentality and the estrangement of pagan traditions. At the time the main purpose was to increase the population (12+ kids to a couple with concubines) and homosexuality wouldn't do that at all. Also, many pagan religions of the time practiced homosexuality as part of worship and many of the 613 are against pagan practices (the prohibition on drinking non-kosher wine). So today, there shouldn't be this mentality of population growth for the majority (except for the fact that there is a very small population jews because of death, assimilation, intermarriage and death) and the pagan cults of the day are all gone. Therefore, in my interpretation of it, the law served its purpose and is now obsolete.

In Response to kornz (#18385):

Quite accurate, for the most part. The law is clearly directed at men (who were the only ones expected to study the Torah at the time, incidentally) since it translates roughly to, "You shall not lay with another man as you do with a woman." (Kevin, feel free to comment as necessary on that.)

But yes, according to my sources, the two reasons early Judaism enforced such a strict prohibition were a: to encourage propagation of the species (and, since children of Jewish mothers are themselves Jews, the religion) and b: to dissociate themselves from other Mediterranean cultures, most notably the Greeks and Romans.

Interestingly enough, neither the Jews nor the English seem to recognize female homosexuality. There is no mention made in the Torah of women sleeping with other women, at least in a prohibitive sense, and a Victorian ban against homosexuality had all references to lesbianism struck out.

In Response to sakuruth (#18391):

to encourage propagation of the species

I've seen it explained on the basis that they believed that men could only produce a finite amount of sperm. Any that wasn't used in making women pregenant was wasted. Now we know that men can produce pretty much as much sperm as we want, so such restrictions aren't needed.

a Victorian ban against homosexuality had all references to lesbianism struck out

Legend has it that Victoria refused to sign the act until the references to women were removed. The normal explanation is that she didn't believe that women would do such disgusting things. I'm sure we can all come up with other explanations...

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to albionsoft (#18392):

Now we know that men can produce pretty much as much sperm as we want

Yes, but not all at once.

In Response to zamphir (#18393):

Yes, but not all at once.

That sure hasn't stopped my from trying.

On another note, would it be good or bad for cats to be lesbians? Would that rough tongue be good or bad? Cats . . . tongue . . . lesbians. Aw hell, back to my experiments.

In Response to sakuruth (#18391):

it translates roughly to, "You shall not lay with another man as you do with a woman." (Kevin, feel free to comment as necessary on that.)

I'm not qualified to make many comments about Judaism-- most of mine would be disparaging anyway, because i'm a rabid atheist and i enjoy laughing at many fantasy-based ideas.

I'm only minimally qualified to make comments about "laying with other men as with women". My empirical perceptions are skewed by a factor of almost exactly one hundred to one... actually, over two hundred to two, to be more honest.

But if we leave out the parts about other men and women, and just focus on the laying-- goodness, then, i can make all sorts of well-informed commentary. I spend a majority of my life laying myself down comfortably. On the beds, in front of the televisions, alone, with company, sleeping, awake, relaxing, active... you name it, and i've been lying around during it! So if you care to discuss lying around, i'm your expert!

In the immortal words of MixMaster Morris [tribe.net], "It's time to lie down and be counted!"

In Response to Teledildonix (#18397):

Ooh, but that's laziness.

I was actually expecting you to give the usual response my gay friends do when this comes up: "What, you think I'd do anything with a woman?"

This has led to all sorts of hypothetical discussions, some of which have come to the conclusion that it is definitely not against the literal interpretation of the text for a Jewish man to give another man a blow job, but it may be for him to receive one.