In my last post I discussed the smoking of the bible and Koran by an Australian. He was of course making a point that people should relax, and not take religion 'so seriously' and their 'sacred books' so symbolically. He argues correctly that they are just books. I have actually torn up a bible on one occasion on public transport to the disdain of a fellow commuter. I was given the bible by a Christian promoting his cause. I wanted to destroy the bible because its antithetical to my values.
In my case the gesture was practical. I wanted to remove one cancerous book from society. I would not be silly enough to buy the book, but it made the Christian virtuous for giving me the book, and by a different moral standard, it made me virtuous to destroy it. He was very angry at me, but made no effort to beat me up. I challenged his arguments with my own, and he calmed down.
So let's look at a video by a Fundamentalist Christian and examine his arguments....
1. He accuses him of doing drugs in the video - but in fact they are clearly not real drugs. Maybe he has tobacco in them, but they are not 'rollies'.
2. Censoring himself - He may not have closed his account, its probable that the University of Queensland required him to close the account, or maybe YouTube closed the account.
3. He could lose his job - Well some things are worth fighting for; but actually its actually improbable he would lose his job. He has actually raised healthy communication with this video. Its actually a celebration of religious tolerance and Australian anti-intellectualism, i.e. 'just get over it'.
4. Same as Terry Jones - Its not like the Terry Jones case at all. Alex is an atheist opposed to fundamentalism, and Terry Jones is a fundamentalist. Could the disparity be any greater?
5. Because of Terry Jones - Alex Stewart's opportunity to take a stand arose because of Terry Jones. True enough, but why is that an issue. Did he plagiarize Terry's content? No. Actually, he came up with his own. The flipside is actually true. This fundamentalist is not just making this presentation, which is contingent upon Alex's action, but he actually recites mostly media material without any references.
But 'hell', don't expect any intellectual honesty or coherent ideas from Christians or Muslims. That is why they believe - because they need some intrinsic concept of value to satisfy their under-developed minds. Defined by fear at such a fundamental level that they know not their true nature. That is the defining aspect of a fundamentalist - Christian or Muslim.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
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