What are your religious views?

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There's a difference though. If a guy hit on me, regardless of what he looks like, I'd pass. I'm not bigoted against other sexualities, I just don't happen to belong to that pool.

Unless I understand what bigotry is, to my knowledge its a blanket set of prejudgements and the reason why people don't like bigotry is that it takes, quite likely, a very skilled and talented human being (whether the issue is race, gender, preference, religion, etc). and the 'bigot' is someone who takes one trait about them, a trait that that they don't like, and elevates that trait so high that the rest of that person disappears, or, within a group of ideas, things become extremely rigor-mortise, black and white, where all objectivity to the reality of a situation disappears. In other words, bigotry is disliked enough on its sheer inefficiency and its ability to entirely miss reality to the detriment if not simply the annoyance of the people around the individual holding such views.

If we want to talk about bigotry against religiosity or areligiosity its a situation where people broad-brush those who believe or disbelieve and come up with very ignorant conclusions about what they all stand for (someone made an analogy in I think one of the tea party threads in analogy about some Christians who wish to believe that all atheists believe in God but simply deny it for licentious living, some atheists would insist that all theists are shook-scared sheeple who are terrified of the possibility of thinking for themselves almost as much as they're terrified of death). Religions can of course be extremely bigoted against each other as well. A funny thing happened at the summer Olympics a while back, you may remember, when a member of a certain religion dropped out of Olympic competition simply because a member of an arch-enemy religion would have swam in the same pool.

The problem with all of the above pictures is it attempts to sort life and people into these really neat and pristine little stacks, stacks that in most senses don't exist. With any kind of prejudice you find walking stereotypes, they exist everywhere and they make if obvious of course that most stereotypes or bigoted attituded didn't come from whole cloth. Though, typically speaking, walking stereotypes are the tip of a rather large ice berg.

Like my analogy of my sexuality, an atheist can be an atheist and not be bigoted toward theism quite easily. A theist can be a theist and not be bigoted toward atheism quite easily.

I think Tim is taking in opinion which he thinks are general concensus when really, the people who have a strong - typically overly strong and unqualified - opinions usually bang on the pots and pans the loudest. For every one outspoken evangelical atheist here there's five atheists who get why its a personal choice for them and why they wouldn't harp on theism unless that particular theist was really presenting a problem (ie. getting out of bounds). I'd say the same for theism but I think its closer to 1/20, as in I've noticed the rare proselytizing Christian, Muslim, or anything else here is incredibly rare and they typically get jeered right out the door.

Most definately. But it defends on you defintiions of biggoted. I refuse to respect religious beliefs, simply because such beliefs are not worthy of respect. That statement needs a little clarification. The Cosmological argument is one that is not quite as ridiculous as the rest but I still think that it throws up far more questions than it answers. Once you get into the realm of an interventionist god I think this is just puerile delusional nonsense. But would I discriminate against someone because they had religious beliefs, if they kept referring to god on a regular basis in my daily interactions with them then yes, because it would drive me nuts.

So am I bigoted against religionists? to a degree, but I do try to restrain the impulse

I thought you said had already renounced it..

With such a damning assessment of bigotry, I am very curious to know of your definition of a bigot.

From the Cambridge Online dictionary

bigot noun
/ˈbɪg.ət/ [C] disapproving
a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who thinks that anyone who does not have the same beliefs is wrong

This definition does tend to support Ruveyns assertion that "People who reject Christianity on principled grounds are not bigots." In fact it tends to lean the otherway, YECS it would seem are highly bigoted. And as much as I deride YECS for their wilful obtuseness I would never claim that they were worse than ''alcoholics, drug addicts, wife beaters, and child molesters combined" I also take issue with lumping addiction in with child molestation and spousal abuse.

or from the Oxford Online

bigot
/biggt/

• noun a person who is prejudiced in their views and intolerant of the opinions of others.

Which backs up my belief that I can be a little bigoted toward religionists.

Either way I am fairly astounded at your assertion.




I must thank you Tim for inspiring me to look up the term and get a good definition for it,

can i be a rastafarian?

There are some people who consider bigotry to be anything that even slightly contradicts ultra-left-wing liberal beliefs.

They associate all Christians, regardless of denomination, with people like Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps.

I am an agnostic.

Right. Just as some people associate all Muslims with terrorists. And all atheists with Stalin.

Of course, accusing an entire group of bigotry is often bigotry in itself.

Last edited by DrizzleMan on 15 Mar 2010, 5:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Basically Agnostic.

I.e, accusing an entire group of bigotry is often bigotry in itself.[/quote]

Sand did not say.

and this makes them ".. worse than alcoholics, drug addicts, wife beaters, and child molesters combined" WOW and I thought I was critical of others

Few men are worse than wife beaters. Intramarital violence should be restricted to sparring and regulated competition.

Sure you can. This is still a semi-free country.

ruveyn

I am a Catholic, but do not agree with
some of the policies of the Catholic Church.

If I'm excommunicated, I will be more than happy
to convert to Protestantism or Judaism.
My parish sees me and my family as problematic.

My definition of 'biggoted' would be someone drawing sweeping generalizations about all people of one regard or another and sticking to their guns, ie. glossing over objectivity.

Also, on a note about 'assertive' atheism, someone else in another thread I think summed up the crux of the position perfectly:



You yourself may perhaps call this quote very naive, but this is technically what's being done when atheism is weilded as an assertion rather than being described as personal conviction. Math and science, obviously, don't follow this rule and there still is much to be uncovered in all of these places (to say otherwise it to really succumb to limited imagination but, then again, to be an 'asserting' atheist I quite often have to wonder if it isn't a stand of similar origin to 'We're at the end of science and history'). I don't think many people will argue that there isn't a good possibility that the atheist community is right, via the religious/theistic community that needs to be taken seriously to where real world problem solving can be practiced - so far no one's impaling or burning anyone at the stake on either side these days - good sign.

I guess my point thiough, its all personal conviction. Some people will want to explore theology and metaphysical philosophy, some will choose science and math, others will choose both. Its a problem when people are invading other people's liberties or steering toward, say, doomsday/Armagheddon ideology.