"Tolerance"

[realisticphish]

A blow-up in GD over Hawking got me thinking...

I don't think people on the left really understand what "tolerance" means (well, or the right, either, but I'm talking about DU right now). They picture a tolerant world as one where everyone holds hands and dances around and sings and picks flowers, and never says anything unpleasant. So many people, ESPECIALLY religious/"spiritual" people, cry and moan about intolerance whenever their mythologies are criticized.

Where did this idea that beliefs are delicate, untouchable flowers come from? I think religion is a ridiculous thing, and that belief in the supernatural (without evidence, though with evidence it would cease to be supernatural, wouldn't it?) is an exercise in pseudo-science and self-delusion. Notice that I didn't say you CAN'T believe that, or that you shouldn't have the right to vote, or that you're less than a person. I just think your ideas are stupid, and based on zero evidence. Sorry.

In science, you expect your ideas to come under fire. That's the whole point. How can you possibly advance science without being criticized, or at the very least without knowledge of future criticism. How else can you make sure your ideas are sound? I don't get why religious beliefs suddenly become sacrosanct. How am I being intolerant when I point out the illogical aspects of a faith, or the clear history of the development of a faith from previous beliefs, or patterns of abuse perpetrated in the name of faith?

I'm not one of those people who whines about political correctness, but I do think that we need to get rid of this idea that any idea anyone has is a good one, and should be encouraged regardless of its premises. Calling out illogic helps you; it makes you modify your ideas, until they become more solid, and tenable. If your ideas are so delicate that they can't survive some criticism, are they worth having in the first place?

[charlie]

1. If an hour passes

without presidents, politicians, celebrities, and sports figures declaiming God exists, pinch yourself because you're dreaming.

Note aloud that their blithering is unsupportable and you're a thin-skinned militant, possibly a bigot.

So, when ONE celebrity physicist merely says God is unnecessary to explain cosmic origin, Left and Right find rare common cause and have a collective heart attack. And he isn't just wrong -- he's intolerant, dotty, past his sell date, far afield from his expertise, a famewhore, and waaay overrated anyway.

Some tolerance. It may be two-way, but one lane is nothing but potholes, speed bumps, and detours.

As for the notion that any firmly held belief demands respectful indulgence -- I don't see theists forgoing their skeptic privileges around Birthers, Birchers, Global Warming Deniers, Raelians, Tea Partiers, and the like.

I don't give anyone grief for being a believer, never have. But the ones that keep trying to jam their contrived persecution up my nose can go fuck themselves.

[realisticphish]

2. your point about theistic skeptics

is a great one. Those same people who shout for tolerance don't demand the same of the Tea Party, or even of right-wing fundamentalists. They criticize those groups in a very similar way to the how we criticize them. And justifiably so!

[charlie]

10. For years

I've watched some of the same bunch howling about intolerance in R/T raining troughs of scorn in 911. Where's the love for the conspiracist?

No church, no priests -- no respect. That's pretty much what it amounts to.

[laconicsax]

8. Par for the course.

I don't think I've ever seen a reasonable response to even the slightest suggestion that a basic theistic premise is wrong. In fact, I've seldom seen anything short of frothing-at-the-mouth vitriol.

It's what happens when the light of inquiry is shined on a closed-minded person's core beliefs.

[charlie]

11. Word

And as you've pointed out, what Hawking said is hardly new or controversial. Nor is it offensive. What's he supposed to do, rework the equations so God has some elbow room?

I think Hawking's crime is that he didn't have the decency to die before resolving those exciting ambiguities in his earlier statements. All that delicious quotemining was for naught.

They'll still have Einstein, but turncoat Hawking has littered their apologetics with poison pills that will have to be weeded out. The bastid.

[laconicsax]

13. He's supposed to never say it.

It's like with school policies--you can say that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but you absolutely cannot say it isn't 6000 years old.

It's intolerant to tell someone that their fairy tales aren't literally true.

[realisticphish]

14. I'm not so sure Einstein was ambiguous

he was pretty clear that he was in no way a believer in God. If anything he approached pantheism, but Christians can hardly claim him with that

[charlie]

16. It doesn't matter if he was or wasn't, though

His use of metaphors and poetic imagery, plus the absence of a disavowal of the God concept altogether, makes him irresistable to the happy quoteminers. There's a claim on Einstein as a God-believer with a supporting quote in an active thread right now in R/T.

[realisticphish]

17. very true

he has some pretty unambiguous ones, though...


"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

Letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, January 3, 1954



But yeah, he is a ripe of for quote miners... he used God as a metaphor a LOT, and has been misrepresented because of it

[Odin2005]

3. I think that idea comes from the Silent Generation

The folks born between the WW2 Generation and Boomers. That generation is the source of the "why can't we all just get along" attitude, various kinds of "postmodern" relativism, and similar notions.

[realisticphish]

4. that is true

especially re: pomo...

[Odin2005]

5. Yup, they were the professors in the 60s, 70s, and 80s spouting that nonsense

Not till the 90s and a substantial number of Boomers and their more confrontational attitude reached high places in academia that respect for reason returned, IMO. Now that Xers are entering the halls of Academia they are helping, too, with their love of rational skepticism.

[Warpy]

6. That's Generation Suck, actually

They're too young to remember anything about the Great Depression, although the oldest were born during the latter years of it. They mostly married shortly out of high school, whether they went into college or the military, and were tied down with the kids, the dog, the mortgage, and all the consumer junk they could get their hands on when the 60s party started. They missed the party and have been sour as hell about that, voting straight Republican to teach those damn hippies a lesson ever since.

Having done their military service during peacetime, they bought into the whole line of right wing propaganda and nothing changed their rather rigid minds, especially not that horror show called Vietnam, because part of them regretted missing all that "fun," too.

They're people who bought the whole American dream and then had the rules changed on them by the Republicans they voted into office. Being Suckers, they blamed all those changes on the civil rights legislation that made them compete with women and people of color, so they're ready made bigots who love Beck even if they could spell their signs right if they were ever motivated to get off the couch.

While there are exceptions to any generalization, please don't bother to list them because we all know they are there. However, the study of Generation Suck and how it differed so vastly from generations just before and just after would make a great subject for a dissertation.

[Odin2005]

7. Don't hold back, tell me how you feel!

That reminds me of what a poster at another message board posted about his "War Baby" (born during WW2) parents.

Interestingly enough, those younger silents all came of age under Eisenhower. The older Silents (RFK, MLK, Sagan, my mom's mom) are much more liberal. On the other hand, the younger silents that were left-wing left a very strong impact on the Boomers.

[trotsky]

12. That's my dad right there, Warpy.

Born in 1937, served in the army in the late 50s, stationed in postwar booming Germany. Has always voted against his economic interests, the lone exception being a vote for Paul Wellstone because he didn't care for Paul's opponent, Rudy Boschwitz.

Generation Suck. Ha, fits him to a T. And unfortunately my weak-minded brother picked up all his political philosophy from our dad.

[charlie]

15. Gads. Mine too.

Followed the same trajectory. Born in 1933, a 20-year military man. Was a reactionary long before being a frothing idiot was cool. Hated Kennedys, Gummint, Democrats, and MLK, in that order. Thought Nixon was railroaded, and Jefferson-Madison-Adams combined couldn't amount to one Reagan. Hated cowards who avoided Vietnam, yet pulled every string he could when his orders came and managed to get out of it. An ill-informed know-it-all who never went anywhere without dragging his inflamed bag of resentments behind him.

Yet, he lived in a time of easy opportunity (gummint provided!) that lifted him into a class that was once unattainable. He grew up in a Ma and Pa Kettle shack with 10 brothers and sisters, fer chrissakes, he shouldn't have been so bitter. Warpy probably put her finger on what was eating him -- the Playboy/Pill/Hippie revolutions played out in front of him, but he was already too entangled in domesticity to do anything but watch. His Elvis pompadour falling out early probably didn't help either, long hair on men became a serious affront to him.

I also have a dipshit brother who's his Dad's spitting image.

[realisticphish]

18. I'm lucky with my parents

they were born in 55... too young during the 60s, Dad avoided Vietnam w/ college, they got married in the early 80's, yet avoided the "consumer greed" obsession, and I couldn't be more pleased. Dad is very liberal (and, I think, a closet atheist or deist), Mom just likes to be nice to people :shrug:

I was raised down to earth, and was allowed to choose my own way... I'm not exactly an "out" atheist to my parents, but Dad knows, I'm sure, and Mom reads Facebook, so she's seen my profile; we just don't talk about it. I just know Mom was a-ok with the lesbian minister our church had while I was growing up, and that's all I need to know.

[trotsky]

19. Ha, even more parallels charlie!

My dad only had 3 brothers and a sister, however they lost 3 siblings in infancy in a similar Ma & Pa Kettle shack. (In which they were all born, of course.) All the kids slept barracks-style in a cramped little attic. I suspect Warpy is right on - my dad also had such a resentment against the hippies.

[laconicsax]

9. Tolerance demonstrated:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=820