Religious bigotry [was Re: Chris, Chris and Chris]

Quoting Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>:

> On Tue, 18 Dec 2001 bjm10@CORNELL.EDU wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> >
> >>> Then why did His followers die for their beliefs? (Puzzled frown.)
> >>> People don't die for what they know to be a lie. (It was documented
> >>> by the Romans that eleven of the twelve apostles were brutally
> >>> martyred.)
> >>
> >> Christians are always saying this.  I wonder if they believe it.
> >
> > Oddly enough, as a Christian, I don't recall having ever said that.
> > Maybe you are just leaning on prejudice rather than reality.
>
> "Always" in English can mean "quite frequently."
If that's the case, then the onus was on you to be clear
so as not to let what you write offend others.

> Contrary to what you've decided to believe, I have nothing against
> either Christianity or Christians.  I do have something against
> feeble and self-satisfied attempts to convert people to a religion
> on the basis of logic.
If this is the case (and I will take you at your word that it
is), then it had the unfortunate side-effect of offending
others on this list.  Chris' attempt to "prove" the validity
of the Christian side of the argument may have been naive and
misguided, but that did not justify the broad generalization
that you used. There are upwards of two billion people on this
planet that associate themselves with some form of Christianity,
and to treat them all with such disdain and condescension
("I wonder if they believe it"), as if they all had the same
ignorant understanding of the world around them, truly merits
the suspicion of religious intolerance, bigotry and ignorance
that others seem to have formed of you.  Ignorance, both willful
and otherwise, is a human failing to which you, and I, and
everyone on this list is subject, and to go around pointing
out that someone has a speck in their eye raises the question
of whether there is a beam in your own. No one here is questioning
your right to criticize the arguments others may make; what's
being criticized is the manner and the assumptions that you
are invoking to do so.

And that will be my last post on the subject. I hope
we will all move beyond our common failings and get
on with conlanging.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>
                     "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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