The future is a bright?
Aug. 19th, 2003 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4This has just irritated me mightily.
After the first paragraph, I was already gritting my teeth. The first flakes of enamel started fluttering down like dental dandruff onto my keyboard as I reached the third or fourth. By the time I got to "Children are too young to know their religious opinions" (ascribing a religion to a child is "child abuse", whereas writing them off as too immature to have an opinion is somehow not?) I was gnawing the table-edge and muttering "sorrel, sorrel" under my breath.
Despite the damage to my dental regions, I did manage to read as far as the point where Dawkins kindly decides to inform the "gay" community what connotations "gay", "homosexual", and "queer" have. No, I'm not about to be drawn into the deadly dance of self-identification; my objection is nothing to do with obsessive people-pigeonholing, much less poof-specific pedantry. (After all, I suppose it is understandable that he has failed to notice the Queer Rights movement, and thus still regards "queer" as unquestionably an "insult".) But to blithely limit the meaning of one set of words (and, like it or not, identities) while claiming to liberate his own smug subculture from the tyranny of being called a spade... well, I wonder what the current meaning of "double standards" is in Dawkins' ideolect?
Perhaps he is right, and "I am a bright" really does sound "too unfamiliar to be arrogant". Perhaps it really is "puzzling, enigmatic, tantalising", and will revolutionise the world with its daring and memetic (natch) approach to (a lack of) religion. Fortunately, his real message comes out wholly untainted (and unredeemed) by his religious bias, with the resounding familiarity of the shit hitting the bowl: "I am a self-satisfied waste of the planet's vital resources".
After the first paragraph, I was already gritting my teeth. The first flakes of enamel started fluttering down like dental dandruff onto my keyboard as I reached the third or fourth. By the time I got to "Children are too young to know their religious opinions" (ascribing a religion to a child is "child abuse", whereas writing them off as too immature to have an opinion is somehow not?) I was gnawing the table-edge and muttering "sorrel, sorrel" under my breath.
Despite the damage to my dental regions, I did manage to read as far as the point where Dawkins kindly decides to inform the "gay" community what connotations "gay", "homosexual", and "queer" have. No, I'm not about to be drawn into the deadly dance of self-identification; my objection is nothing to do with obsessive people-pigeonholing, much less poof-specific pedantry. (After all, I suppose it is understandable that he has failed to notice the Queer Rights movement, and thus still regards "queer" as unquestionably an "insult".) But to blithely limit the meaning of one set of words (and, like it or not, identities) while claiming to liberate his own smug subculture from the tyranny of being called a spade... well, I wonder what the current meaning of "double standards" is in Dawkins' ideolect?
Perhaps he is right, and "I am a bright" really does sound "too unfamiliar to be arrogant". Perhaps it really is "puzzling, enigmatic, tantalising", and will revolutionise the world with its daring and memetic (natch) approach to (a lack of) religion. Fortunately, his real message comes out wholly untainted (and unredeemed) by his religious bias, with the resounding familiarity of the shit hitting the bowl: "I am a self-satisfied waste of the planet's vital resources".
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no subject
Date: 2003-08-20 06:05 am (UTC)There are plenty of easy answers for me - with regard to myself, had I been baptised it would be of no particular consequence to me (although I might have filled out a "Certificate of Debaptisement" to make a point).
With regard to others, I feel sorry for those whose lives have been negatively tainted by religion in the way you describe, and I am strongly in favour of practical efforts to reduce the chances of this kind of thing happening (e.g. by ensuring that schools do make it clear to children that alternatives exist). But in the end, the answer for me is that systems of belief that lead to that kind of effect are fundamentally abusive and should be condemned as such. There's no easy *solution*, however.
Have you ever held any religious beliefs?
Yes, but only because my teachers up till the age of 11 taught the Bible as an established fact. So through ignorance, not faith.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 05:46 am (UTC)You missed the smug smiley this time.
But in the end, the answer for me is that systems of belief that lead to that kind of effect are fundamentally abusive and should be condemned as such.
Are relationships also "fundamentally abusive" because people get hurt when they fall apart?
no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 05:49 am (UTC)Correct.
Are relationships also "fundamentally abusive" because people get hurt when they fall apart?
People enter into relationships when adults or at least heading towards adulthood.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 06:04 am (UTC)I'm talking about "relationships" in the broadest sense: engaging with other people on any kind of personal, social and/or emotional level.
Are families and friendships "fundamentally abusive" because people get hurt when they fall apart?
no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 06:18 am (UTC)Families - yes, there's an element of compulsion about such relationships for children, but the alternative is far worse, so there's a clear benefit in having them that outweighs that. Parents have to make _some_ decisions on behalf of their children.