Demonizing people

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There is a difference between simply saying you think some action or belief is wrong (opinion) and characterizing some group as having general character flaws (hasty generalization). People are free to say they think religion is false and that religious belief is wrong. They are not warranted in characterize whole groups of people in a negative manner.

This is the difference between opinion ("I think Jim is wrong") and things like racism ("Blacks are lazy").

And you JUST cited the posts you were referring to in THIS post, so how do you expect me to have already commented on what I asked you for? I commented on "choice", not any comparison. We will address that below (where you actually cite what you are talking about).

The first is wholly a comment about choice (which has not been scientifically and incontrovertibly eliminated). Balerion then asserts it is not a choice, again opinion. Balerion then makes the rather broad statement that "sexuality is immutable".

Now we can choose to think that Jan's comment was either directly about homosexuality OR about sexuality in general (which includes abnormal predilections). This is not entirely clear from the posts you have cited. Further, he did not make a statement, nor even a direct comparison.

So it seems that some foregone conclusions are being added to what the record actual shows. Instead of simply answering the question (and perhaps finding out more details of Jan's view) Balerion chose to assume it a comparison (which may be a straw man), and you seem to have gone along with that.

Now if someone says that all homosexuals are rapists or pedophiles then that would warrant action, but you have to assume quite a bit to get these comments there.

You sure like to rile yourself up with foregone conclusions and weakly founded assumptions.

 

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I would have been surprised if it wan't.

He is entitled to his opinion. He is not entitled to enforce his opinion on others. Let me restate, he shouldn't be entitled to enforce his opinion on others. However, I guess that he is, since that comes with the mod "cape". An unfortunate state of affairs, but what can one do...

No, his powers should not be stripped, unless he abuses them. Has he? I will leave that question to greater lights than my own.

Perhaps unpleasant, but worthy of contemplating nonetheless. I like the sublimely weird...

Well, I won't argue with you there. I do not envy any mod here, I just feel some perform their duties with less integrity than others. I have personally heaped abuse upon you Bells, but I have never seen you react in the arbitrary and capricious way that I perceive Syne to have. A credit to you, but perhaps I am holding Syne to an extraordinary standard.

Yes, everyone is free to hold their own opinion, however vile that may be to the rest of society. They are NOT entitled to enforce that opinion on the rest of us. As long as he doesn't cross that line anymore than he already has, we can all live with the status quo. I just dearly hope someone is taking notice of how close to the edge it currently is.

Be that as it may, where do you draw the line? I would think it a requirement that mods be "oxygen breathing individuals with a functioning brain stem". Maybe I hold standards that are too high for Sci, although I love the place. It is my first and probably last forum, excluding isolated forays. Like others, I miss "the old times" but that is true in real life as well. Maybe I am being overly critical here...

I am happy with any equally enforced rules. That is the way my life has always been - "just tell me the rules of the game and I will outplay you" - works for me.

 

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That doesn't follow. By your own admission, the problem isn't your religio-political leanings, but your behavior. (I'm using the "your" in a general sense) It doesn't take a Conservative Christian to properly moderate abusive posters, or to refrain from abusing religious ones. It seems to me that if the moderators are actively engaging in abuse of members, then they should be removed, rather than hiring an abuser from across the aisle to balance them out. I mean, am I wrong here?

You can't be serious. The solution to the "We're too liberal" problem is not "Let's promote a bigot." I mean, come on.

That's a strawman. It has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not he's entitled to those opinions. What it has to do with is whether we want a person like that representing this site, and whether it's worth the conflicts that will naturally arise from his posting habits. Consider what has occurred in this thread. He's attempting--or perhaps threatening--to moderate people for "propaganda," in spite of the fact that he himself actively engaged in anti-gay propaganda across several threads not that long ago, and has made his homophobia plain in various threads in the past. Do you want to belong to a site where this happens? Do you want people to know you belong to a site where this happens?

 

Sure they are. I suspect even you would agree that murderers, pedophiles, terrorists etc are accurately characterized negatively. I bet you'd even agree that the Westboro Baptists are pretty . . . negative.

Or something like "terrorists are bad."

 

False dilemma. Generalizations can be opinions, too.

They certainly can be. We all speak ill of groups of people regularly without anyone blinking. The question is primarily one of categorization, but also of what the generalization is. In this case, the category seems to be "religious posters at Sciforums." I'd hardly call that a protected class. And what is being said about them, exactly? Irrationality? Lack of intellectual integrity? Those traits are quite apparent in their posting. It isn't exclusive to them--we're all guilty of it, sometimes--but it's certainly predominate among the theists who partake in the discussions here. And, you'll note, my comment was not a generalization, but an observation; I pointed out that I had yet to encounter one on this site who did not fit that bill--wait, I already said all this. I forgot that you balked at responding to these points earlier. What makes me think you'd do better now? lol

How about "I think gays are wrong?" Why do you seem to think that bigotry is limited to insults?

It's an insinuation. It's typical bigot fare, making sure the words "homosexual," and "gay" are never far from "pedophile," and "rapist."

It's not an uninformed opinion. Research suggests that sexuality is an in-born trait, of which you are already aware. There has been related research, which I've mentioned before, that shows homosexuals demonstrating opposite-gender physical traits and abilities, so it's not like we're going to find out one day that whoops, gayness was a lifestyle choice after all. And we know what "treatment" does to poor, shamed children and adults who try to "cure" themselves of their homosexuality. To deny the likelihood that it's anything but a natural trait would be sour grapes. You know, refusing to let go of some old, rotten preconceived notion? I'm sure you're familiar.

Is this the part where we all pretend we're dumb?

You got that right. Just not how you think you do.

The implication was obvious. It's no different than if I said in regards to Obama's healthcare changes, "Hitler had a good healthcare platform, too." Clearly, the object of bringing up a huge negative is to draw a parallel between the two. That's why you always see some combination of rape, pedophilia, incest, and bestiality being referenced by bigots when discussing homosexuality. There's just no other reason to bring it up.

But not if he said homosexuality is morally equivalent to rape and pedophilia?

Interesting.

 

"no theist"?
sounds like a challenge..
what tests?

 

...

Why do these comments need to be questioned? :shrug:

I compared ''homosexuality to rapists and paedophiles?
Has it occurred to you that homosexuals can also be rapists and paedophiles?
You probably mean I compared homosexuals. Don't you?
If you can show where I have done this I will gladly retract it with an apology.
If you can't, an apology wouldn't go amiss.

jan.

 

Reading my previous posts in this thread will provide context. I don't feel like repeating myself.

 

You should notice that murderers, pedophiles, and terrorists are specifically characterized by their negative actions, but not further characterized as being without other virtues, as they can potentially "serve their time" and be considered "rehabilitated" or at least possessing enough virtue to be trusted in society again. Similarly, while Westboro Baptists do commit a whole array of negative actions, it would not be warranted to say they are without any virtues otherwise.

They certainly can be (never said they could not), but hasty generalizations of specific groups of people, especially those to which posters you are addressing may belong, just so happen to be against the posting guidelines.

Religious affiliation is generally a protected class.

Your "observations" are not exhaustive enough (much less controlled for bias) to form a credible survey nor do they excuse hasty generalizations. You can make such observations of specific posters with a specific post, at least deemed by you, as demonstration, but you are not warranted in extrapolating that to an entire group. Lumping people together is a expedient for marginalizing those who may not neatly fit your characterizations. Just like saying some race is less intelligent even though some individuals of that race hold PhDs.

Who has said "gays are wrong"? People have said that homosexuality is wrong, but not that gays are generally wrong. This seems to be a disconnect between those who assume homosexuality to be wholly without choice and those who do not.

Bigotry? Oh, you mean:

big·ot·ry
intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.​

I can allow you to have a differing opinion without assuming you are generally lacking in some significant virtue. I have even said that my moral opinion is that there is nothing that "ought to" be done about homosexuality (in the normative ethics sense).

Bigotry is where you demonize an entire group of people. Being of the opinion that some specific behavior is wrong is quite different from assuming those people are generally lacking in virtue.

One that must be inferred, as it is not explicitly stated. Or should all moderator action be based solely on what is inferred to be insinuated?

No one assumed your opinion was uninformed, only that science has not reached an incontrovertible conclusion.

No, this is the part where we address what is actual there rather than inference.

Implications are never completely obvious, otherwise they would not be classified as implication, but rather explicit statement. Only your own inference was obvious.

If someone said that homosexuality was morally equivalent to rape and pedophilia then they would need to explain how forceful and non-consensual acts are morally equivalent to consensual ones. They would be on a very short rope to do so.

You need to better define, with an example, how you imagine this being comparable to something said about theists. And where was this supposed "I think" that you assume should pardon all. All I saw was a question with no direct statement nor comparison.

big·ot·ry
intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.​

 

Bigotry is an irrational belief against a person or persons for their immutable traits. It's not irrational to hate pedophiles or rapists due to the harm they cause their victims. It's not bigotry to hate neo-Nazis or religious nuts, they chose their attitudes freely.

If you condemn certain other consensual sexual behavior between adults, then perhaps you aren't a bigot, but you are a jerk who sticks their nose in other people's private business.

 

Science has yet to conclusively prove some things incontrovertibly immutable.

 

That's not what a generalization is. Generalization is making a broad claim about a group. It isn't saying that a group has no redeeming qualities...unless, of course, that was the generalization itself.

It needs to be established that there's something wrong with classifying the Westboro lunatics as, well, lunatics.

Again, there was nothing hasty about my remarks. They come from over a decade of experience at this website. So no, they weren't against the guidelines.

We're not talking about society, Syne, we're talking about this forum. Here, Christian fundamentalists are no more or less protected than an atheist. At least in theory.

That seems to be a broad, uninformed assertion. How do you know my observations are not exhaustive enough? The vast majority of my interactions have taken place in social- and religion-related subforums. More than ten years' worth. And of all the religious people I've encountered, I can say that none of them showed the intellectual integrity I have found in others on this site. That's my experience, and you aren't in any position to tell me that it isn't valid. Unless you happen to know some theists on this forum who have displayed intellectual integrity in their exchanges. By all means, point them out to me.

But what I'm talking about is not one post, but many. Why does the validity decrease as the sample increases?

It's nothing like that at all. I don't deny that my standards are my own, just as yours are your own, but I don't have to apologize for that. We all make value judgments.

You have. Did you forget your posts talking about how their behavior is immoral?

Whether they have a choice or not is immaterial to the question of morality since everything you've listed as your reasons for condemning their actions can be traced right back to people like you, who force them into hiding and lying about who they are.

So a person who is intolerant of rapists is a bigot?

Come now. Get serious.

Which is an impossibility. You can't hold a moral position without believing in oughts or ought nots.

I never said that the theists of this forum were lacking in virtue. I simply said they lacked specific virtues, which is an observation based on their behavior. Nor did I ever say it was exclusive to theists, or a result of their theism.

Since when are explicit statements required to understand meaning? Is all fair so long as it is reasonable subtle, or an allusion to past discussions?

The research suggests it is, so how do you reach the conclusion that it isn't?

What is actually there is an insinuation that everyone else but you seems to see perfectly well.

How did you get this job, exactly?

(See what I did there? Maybe you didn't)

You don't need to make an explicit statement to be obvious. Insinuation simply requires context, which you have been given, and which would have been provided for any moderator who investigated the matter.

Do you think they're morally equivalent?

 

Well, if you want to be an ass about it, technically ANY trait can be changed over time... a lobotomy, for example, or put anyone on high enough doses of sedatives or extensive electro-shock therapy and you can condition pretty much anyone to act how you please, if only so that you stop electrocuting them... hell, you can do that with torture as well.

Are you suggesting that because we could, in theory, stop people from "being homosexual" by torturing them sufficiently that they no longer display their homosexual tendencies in fear of being tortured again, that such a course of action means we can lump homosexuals into the same pool as people who willingly and knowingly harm others through rape, pedophilia, or discriminatory behavior?

Please, for the love of sanity, tell me you see the error in your constant and (honestly, quite obtuse) generalizations

 

hehe..typical..

 

I would disagree with the immutable part, it doesn't have to be unchangeable to be victim to bigotry, any trait or action can be susceptible to bigotry.

correct, it would be irrational to declare all priests to be child molesters, or all germans to be Nazi's, or all muslims to be terrorists , or anyone who believes in God to be 'nutters'.

this is where I am at, I don't understand why gay marriage is such a big deal, its not like they could procreate and create more homosexuals, and what goes on behind closed doors is none of anyones business.

where do you stand on anal sex? would you make it illegal just because you don't think it is acceptable?
(not specific 'you', but generic 'you')

 

Emphasis mine.

I thought it was being discriminatory toward the ''religious''.

jan.

 

Sure that's right, it's not bigoted to hate the non-religious. But it might be considered prejudice which would be judging individual people, without knowing them, based only on their membership in a group.