Reply #73: I know I have come late to this party [View All]

[MistressOverdone]

but I keep coming back to the concept of respect. Really, respect is good manners. In my classroom, when I introduce myself to kids, I tell them that the word on the board is respect and I expect them to behave respectfully towards: me, each other, our materials and equipment, and themselves. Sums up what I want from them.

So I think that in an argument about faith, if someone pulls out the pink unicorns canard that they are using bad manners, and therefore, disrespectful. I think a mannerly, civil conversation would go like this: "Well, I don't believe in XYZ because of ABC." Your Turn "Yes, I see your point. I have another way of looking at it. DE and F have convinced me, personally, that XY and Z is the way to go, at least for me."

And so it goes. Everybody makes their point. Everybody is happy, turns off their computer and feels they have been heard. But when somebody says "You might as well believe in pink unicorns" the underlying message is "you are stupid, gullible and an idiot and I am much wiser and have no use for you." And if the other somebody replies, "yeah, well, atheism is a religion, you are closed to your spirituality and you're going to hell but you are too damned stubborn to admit it"...

Then the civil, manner discourse goes to hell in a handbasket and somebody gets tombstoned. Or should.

So, to me, respect = manners.