[InsaneBaron]

@Karajorma: I'm a little confused by your post, but I assume your intentions are good, in which case your answer seems to be "sorry my post came out wrong". In which case, I'm sorry for misinterpreting your post. My point still stands regard yuezhi.

@Luis: Precisely.

[The E]

For better or worse, GD currently is predominantly on the rationalist/science side. Anyone wanting to discuss Creationism will get a considerable amount of pushback from those of us most willing to discuss these topics, and that means that the multitude of flaws that particular doctrine has on every level are open to debate.

[Luis Dias]

The_E that was very much not what InsaneBaron implied. I think it's obvious that creationism and any sets of ideas should be questioned and criticized. Hell, I was well known for doing just that against religious views myself a couple years ago (not fondly!). The point is that while any hint of something said against homossexuals and homossexuality is rightly shut down immediately, while it is probably the case that if people are going like "those *stupid religious* people" they'll be perfectly fine, despite the fact that there are a considerate number of religious people in the HLP community.

E: Having said this, I think that this grudge should be dealt with in the general regulation thread for discussion if one deems it important to state it. My advice is that InsaneBaron posts in there a good summary of the perceived problem, if there is one he feels to be unadressed.

[The E]

True, there is that.

[InsaneBaron]

I like Luis's suggestion. I'm going to bring this up- respectfully- in the Ruleset revision discussion.

[Scotty]

As far as I see it, any one of any faith is allowed to believe whatever they want to believe.  However, any one of any faith is not allowed to disparage or otherwise refer to a group of people in a derogatory or malicious fashion.  I'm not saying that you or anyone else has yet done that, but please keep it in mind before automatically assuming that there is a double standard in place.

Truthfully speaking there probably is a little bit of one.  That said, it's neither deliberate on the part of any part of the moderation staff, nor is it malicious.  Please, please, please feel free to report or otherwise appropriately respond if you think something like that has happened, but also be aware that discussion of "The Church" or any one of a number of intolerant groups or decisions within the religious community is not necessarily a condemnation of that religion or anyone within it who is a non-bigot.

tl;dr it's not religion it's the people in it.

[MP-Ryan]

As far as I see it, any one of any faith is allowed to believe whatever they want to believe.  However, any one of any faith is not allowed to disparage or otherwise refer to a group of people in a derogatory or malicious fashion.  I'm not saying that you or anyone else has yet done that, but please keep it in mind before automatically assuming that there is a double standard in place.

Truthfully speaking there probably is a little bit of one.  That said, it's neither deliberate on the part of any part of the moderation staff, nor is it malicious.  Please, please, please feel free to report or otherwise appropriately respond if you think something like that has happened, but also be aware that discussion of "The Church" or any one of a number of intolerant groups or decisions within the religious community is not necessarily a condemnation of that religion or anyone within it who is a non-bigot.

tl;dr it's not religion it's the people in it.

This.  Oh so much this.

Moreover, religion is a choice.  Like any choice, I have the right to discuss it and debate it.  I can question someone's views or choices without questioning that person's existence.  This doesn't apply to traits.  I can no more question someone's sexuality as I can their gender, skin colour, etc.

So is there perhaps a perceived double standard?  Sure - but emphasis on perceived.  Choice, religious or otherwise, do not deserve the same level of protection from critique/debate as a person's very identity.  I can respectfully debate your choices, but its inappropriate to do that with traits.

[General Battuta]

400% agreed.

And I question why any person who genuinely believes in a creed of compassion and tolerance would want to protect the right to condemn compassion and tolerance - to actively defend an event in which intolerance and hate were enshrined in law.

People will be killed in these nations. They will be gang raped. Their heads will be caved in and their bodies will be left in ditches. These are not disconnected events: they are a direct result of a culture and legislature willing to condone violence against gay people. These things happen in America too, and we've been working to stop them. That effort has to be global.

[Luis Dias]

Same page here as all of you, just a minor correction.

It has been implied that religion isn't part of the "identity itself" of the person. Well allow me to disagree on that point. Religious people often time *do* feel as if this identity is fundamental to their person. It's something so deeply ingrained and so much of their lives revolve and depend on their religiosity that it is innacurate to state that it is merely a "choice" or an "idea" that they can dismiss with just some facts or observations or arguments, etc. It's something emotionally attached to the person in such a way that any attempt to "take it out" can become extremely painful.

I've learned (from my mistakes, obviously) to respect these attachments a lot more, and especially in HLP I try to be as little confrontational as I can be about these subjects. Just bringing them up upsets some posters here, and I understand why.

[General Battuta]

That's definitely something to examine. Religious uptake is largely determined by environment of upbringing, and we now have a good understanding of how and why religiosity spreads and why people choose the religions they do.

I'd argue it's still a separate class of trait, though, but that's probably a matter for its own thread. More importantly, unlike the other traits MP-Ryan outlined, religion can dictate how you think about the moral status of OTHER PEOPLE. It's very important to interrogate and criticize this aspect of belief, and it certainly deprives it of the right to be protected in the same way.

Intolerance is wrong. Tolerance of intolerance is too.

[InsaneBaron]

Battuta, I'm not sure if your comment was aimed specifically at me, but I'm as opposed to lynching, jailing, and anti-gay violence as you are. The type of thing is wrong, whoever it's aimed at.

[Luis Dias]

@battuta,

Oh come on, you do have some kind of a guideline of morality, are you going to tell me you never morally judge anyone else? We always judge other people. The problem is not structural at that level at least. Everyone is entitled to judge. The problem is more one of how wrong these morals are, and how to persuade them they hold these wrong ideas. It's something incredibly difficult for these beliefs are ingrained in tradition and dogma, and those move oh so slowly.

[MP-Ryan]

Instead of repeating myself, I'm just going to point you all back over to Site Support where I've addressed this in some detail.

[General Battuta]

Everyone judges. But I think there's a sharp divide between beliefs that constrain the freedom of others, and beliefs that constrain the freedom to constrain.

Baron, my point is mostly that that kind of violence doesn't come out of nowhere. I would argue that anti-gay violence is the product of anti-gay attitudes, and that defeating these attitudes requires real examination of every social prescription about homosexuality.

[Herra Tohtori]

Respecting someone's beliefs should be a given. I'm not particularly offended that someone chooses to believe something that cannot by definition be proven either true or false, although it does seem very alient to me.

However, religiously motivated intellectual dishonesty is a different thing altogether. That is what most religious factions (christian or otherwise) do with their position on the rights of sexual minorities. Specifically the dishonest argument is that marriage originates from religion and thus religion (and usually one particular religion) should have the right to determine what marriage should be and who's qualified to marry.

Of course this is false - humans pair-bond with or without religion. In the societies of olden days, churches were not just religious institutions but also fulfilled the role of magistrates and census was regularly done based on parish upkeep. They also kept note on who were the parents of a child, etc. With such important functions in historical context, of course churches also officiated marriages in most cultures. It's just that the three Abrahamic religions tend to be so obsessed with sexuality that they all pretty much decreed that you should only have sex after given permission by the church - ie. after being married (although this is not exclusive to Judaism, Christianity and Islam - it seems to be a common trend with patriarchal societies in general).

In the modern society, no one needs to ask the church's permission to have sex. Instead, marriage tends to have more of a legal function, and refusing that from certain types of couples is against the principles of equality. And before someone brings up the slippery slope argument again; no, granting marriage right to same-sex couples doesn't mean you should allow any kind of relationships to be registered as marriage. Just all relationships between two consenting adults.


Another good examples of religiously motivated intellectual dishonesty would be creationism, "intelligent design" and abstinence-only sex education. Since these often are advocated by very religious christians, it can often seem like "christians are not tolerated", and since this suits the propaganda purposes of the ultrareligious organizations, they like to repeat it as often and as loudly as possible, and if you object you're not only satan's servant but also an oppressive person persecuting people who just want to practice their religion...

I would have the same contempt toward anyone who wished to bring complete, falsified nonsense to public education as part of official curriculum, regardless of their reasons for it.

What would your reaction be if schools started teaching that maybe NASA didn't send people to Moon after all, just because some uneducated people don't understand how it's possible and present some arguments based on incorrect premises that "prove" that it's either impossible to go to Moon, or even if it were possible, the pictures are still fake...

Or how about teaching Aristotles' Theory of Impetus as an "alternative" to Newton's mechanics?

Because these are exactly on the same category as teaching creationism or intelligent design as "alternatives" to evolution as the source of diversity of life, or cosmology as the origins and structure of universe.