Doug's jibe was at an old issue: the tendency of the religious right and those on the right more generally, to try to turn the issue into one in which the people in power in this country are non-believers, specifically not christians, and that any instance in which christian religion, beliefs, practices, etc. are criticized or ridiculed is an instance of bigotry and therefore a form of oppression.
bogies under the bed!
surveys like the one doug pointed to are ignored or twisted so no one has to acknowledge that these claims about the horrible, horrible bigotry of the atheists against believers and the terrible terrible state of oppression faced by the religious (read "jiss christian") is a lie.
At 04:16 PM 9/28/2007, you wrote:
>On 28 Sep, 2007, at 15:33 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> > Since atheists are the most disparaged "religious" group in the U.S.
> > - polling well below Muslims and queers - I don't see why the
> > nonreligious are supposed to be so solicitous of the feelings of the
> > religious. At least in the U.S. They're the dominant group, and they
> > should be nice to us.
> >
>
>Only if grouping by religious belief has some impact on social order,
>power relationships, ability to realise one's potential, etc, etc.
rubbish.
first, you write as if these indicators of attitudes have no relationship to power. and yet, there are books, probably read only by the "over educated" that reveal histories of the relationship between religion and power.
second, you posit a relationship that works only one way: the grouping by religious belief has (or doesn't have) an impact the social order.
what does that mean? are you complaining that some researcher arbitrarily grouped people by religious belief and that it would be silly to think social researchers have any power or hold over social life? or are you saying that you think it dubious that religion can be a category of oppression? that you see no way, today, in which religious people wield power in ways that harm the lives of those who aren't religious?
>The truth is more probably that atheism is a luxury of over-educated
>comparatively wealthy intellectual brats, while religion is the last
>resort of the poor and the working classes.
you're acting as if you've been terribly misunderstood or that people should really know that you're just a kidder. bad faith, man.
you write a sentence sneering at yourself by way of sneering at others of a group to which you belong. your "out" is that you are overeducated, yourself, so therefore you can say what you say.
doesn't make it any less poisonous to the wells of discourse.
>I would wager that there
>is even today a significant portion of the "religious" who think of
>god or go to church for a moment of peace and comfort, to hope for a
>second for some relief, some higher order, meaning, purpose. They
>don't dominate much when it comes to atheists (especially the non-gay
>white male variety, which also happens to be the group that claims to
>speak for the entire clan -- hence my reference to Hitchens and
>Dawkins, and you might as well throw in Dennett).
horse shit. who the fuck do you think is on the other side of that issue? everyone who is religious is poor, brown, women, gay?
atheists are straight white relatively well off males and the religious aren't?
and all of this always reminds me to ask: what horrible thing has been done to the religious on this list that you and a few others feel somehow oppressed by the aggressive atheists because they said something offensive to someone -- what, I don't recall.
yogurt is cheaper at the 7/11, here, than it is at the market, by the way. but i only buy stonyfield farms, whole, plain if I can help, so that might not be much of a measure. market turned out not to be a whole foods after all, drat! I had bad information. still totally yup though. the owners of the condos have finally moved into the high rise above the new market, though, so I can sit on the veranda and read at night and look up to see their windows and french doors thrown open wide to the night air drenched with the sounds and smell of city, the light glowing out, yellowed as it bounces off the sheen of the hardwood floor.
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)