Because thats how I want to be treated.
Mods that care... speek up.!!!
- Thread starter cluelusshusbund
- Start date
Because thats how I want to be treated.
So you'd accord Hitler, Jack the Ripper, etc. etc. respect?
Out of self-interest.
Got you.
Respect is earned. Dignity is gained. Those two things are not something that can just be given out.
I believe there are reasons for why people are the way people are and things are the way they are. At their core I think they are still people, that deserve respect and dignity, but they must have been tortured souls to have done the things they did. I'm just not satisfied with the explanation "those people are just evil".
So you DO respect Hitler etc. How about paedophiles? How about serial killers? Racists? Arrogant intellectual elitist mods?
How much respect do they deserve?
All round respect? On every topic?
I repeat:
Strawman. I didn't even attempt to "explain" them.
Wow, the truest thing you ever said!
I heard that in Japan they have this greeting where they reverently greet the buddha-nature of any people they meet. I guess it's kind of like that for me. Go ahead and crucify me for believing that we're all one - how can I hate myself?
Let me insert your next response for you there dywyd because I know how tiring it can be to write the same thing over and over and over and over again
:Dywyd: We're all one? Baseless supposition. Where's your studies that were accepted by the scientific foundation? Any links to back this claim up?
No, dywyd, sorry. Maybe I'll be able to get you those links in a few hundred years - so long as we don't kill ourselves first
I note you responded to something I didn't actually say and avoided the question again.
So you also respect paedophiles and, apparently, me.
I think you'll find that the respect for the Buddha nature does not actually extend to respect for every single aspect (and viewpoint) of the individual.
I'll try and rephrase the question: is a viewpoint as expressed by an individual the sum total of that individual?
Does a disdain/ dislike/ disrespect for one single aspect of anything equate, inevitably, to disdain/ dislike/ disrespect of the entirety of that thing?
Or try this approach: how much of any given post reflects the sum total of that poster as a person? Are you, through your posts here, laid out for any and all who read your posts to understand and know as a complete individual? Is pointing out, for example, that you have a wrong idea about... whatever, and that your reasoning on that subject is fallacious and, indeed, bone-headed to an extreme, an indictment of you as an individual?
Personally I suspect not, but I have been known to be wrong. (Once or twice).
No, I don't think it is. That would be like saying a leaf is the tree.
No, it's possible to like and dislike just certain aspects of people. I think almost every relationship I've ever had in my life is like this.
For instance, Hitler was a very charismatic individual - which is a very likeable and admirable trait. He was also an insensitive, sadistic and callous individual which are all deplorable traits.
This is a subject in which I can't separate my personal beliefs and opinions from my analysis. If you try to analyze this situation based solely on valid scientific findings then you would have to admit that there's nothing you can say about this - that it's inconclusive. That's if you were being honest.
Now as far as Hitler and Jack the Ripper go, I can't help but look at the bigger picture. If you believe we all have one life and this is all there is then this is the biggest picture you can imagine (that some people are good and some are evil - or you can insert whatever atheistic words that mean the same thing for good and evil if you want). But if it's possible to step even further back then there may be a way of looking at these individuals as on a much larger path than just this lifetime and that those terrible acts they did were the result of lessons they needed to learn at that time. That they were making progress, even if it seemed like they were going backward - in the long run they are moving forward. Sometimes you have to move back a bit to move forward.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Then why do you and others apparently equate disrespect for an expressed viewpoint/ attitude/ approach in a post with disrespect for the individual who made that post?
I suppose if that's all anyone did - be disrespectful to just the viewpoint - then there wouldn't be much to say here. In my own experience it either isn't totally clear which is being disrespected (sort of like passive agression) or it's outright disrespect to the person and not the viewpoint.
Still wrong:
The post is NOT the person. The PERSON is not available on-line to be disrespected. Only aspects of that person.
It's assumed that there is a person behind each post so it's not like the person can't be attacked. The kind of passive aggressive behavior I'm talking about, which is more prevalent than the outright aggressive kind (due to forum rules and moderation), is where you get the feeling when reading the post that the person thinks the other person is an idiot, stupid, etc. and does everything in the post but say it.
dywyd said:
Even this for instance... In the context of our conversation, which has been very civil up to now - with this statement you set yourself up as an absolute authority on the matter and insinuate that everyone who disagrees with you is less than you when you in fact are espousing a BELIEF. This is flagrant arrogance.
Can the person be attacked?
You have already stated that an aspect is not the whole: a leaf is not a tree to use your metaphor. All we see here are leaves.
Wrong again.
You made the leaf/ tree metaphor and then contradicted yourself by claiming that attacks are against the person. I'm not setting myself up as anything - you agreed with my proposition and then contradicted that agreement. You can't have it both ways.
We DO NOT SEE the person here.
The leaf is the expressed viewpoint but there can be no leaf without a branch... and no branch with a trunk... and no trunk without roots... so the tree is present whether you like to admit it or not and CAN be attacked. I could attack you right now:
"Dywyd, you're a stupid person with stupid views."
You still don't believe it's possible?
"Dywyd, you're a stupid person with stupid views."
You still don't believe it's possible?
So the leaf is the tree? The aspect is the person? The genocidal impulse is Hitler?
Still wrong I'm afraid.
Since you only "know" what you see here about me you don't know me at all. Therefore your "attack" is vapid and meaningless.
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No, the leaf isn't the tree but the two are inextricably bound. The leaf could not exist without the tree first - so a leaf presupposes a tree.
dywyd said:
That's not true. For one you could make judgments about a person based on the fact that they hold a certain view - whether that's a good thing to do or not. It's impossible not to color one's words with one's essence. So we do get a good idea about a person based on their word choices, construction of words, the tone of their words, their reactions to replies etc.
In the course of a discourse, we usually see many different "leaves" of a person and sometimes even the parts deeper to them - metaphorically their trunk or roots.
So you're withdrawing your agreement that aspects are not the person?
So what do you know about me as a person from my posts?
Next to nothing in actual fact.
I think you're putting words in my mouth. We are made up of billions of molecules, which one of them is us? And yet... what are we without them?
Aside from physical appearance I feel I know a good deal about you. You'd probably make a really good motivational speaker.
No I'm trying to get a definitive position from you.
Is the aspect the person?
Oops. Failed on the first jump. I despise public speaking. It makes me phenomenally nervous, to the extent that I refused to do the obligatory 20 minute presentation on my last degree course.
And I have even less time for "motivational" claptrap.