'Xian' - what's all that about then?

[Wildcat]

Because Bert does not speak for all Berties, just as a Xtian that objects to being called Xtian does not speak for all Xtians.

 

I use my middle name, because I don't like my first one, and people that know me use my middle name too. But people that don't know me always use my first name, which makes me wince a little, but do I claim that I am offended, of course not, it would be petty and childish, just as Ann is being petty and childish if she is offended when people write Anne.

 

If I was to say that I am offended to being called an "Accountant", when in fact I am a "Chartered Accountant of the Institute of England and Wales", and your abbreviation fails to recognise my qualification, you would think I was petty and childish too.

 

Your Bert/Bertie analogy is useless.

 

You haven't demonstrated that it is useless at all though.

 

You have used an example where the replacement requested is 8 words more, rather than just 5 letters more. The point I take from that is that a judgment on the reasonableness of a request would include factoring in the inconvenience. A point I would happily concede but not relevant where the request is just a matter of 5 letters.

 

In relation to your preference for using your middle name. The analogy is in fact exactly the same. You have told people you prefer to use your middle name, you don't take offence where it is used in offical documentation etc but if you told someone you want to be called by your middle name and they persist in calling you by your first then it is reasonable to concluse they are doing so to annoy you.

[six45ive]

That is actually a good contender- cheers guys

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism

 

Of course, we'll need flamingjimmy to have a look at it, as my quest to find a new term was initiated by the fact that he found 'militant atheist' to be offensive.

 

No probs owd.

I assume we'll be seeing you use this accurate term from now on as opposed to the clearly inaccurate term 'militant'.

[Wildcat]

On two other levels wildcat's Bert/Bertie analogy is useless because;

 

1/ If this person was christened Bertie and he works with a xtian, makes it understood to the xtian that he'd been christened Bertie and yet asks the xtian to ignore that because he prefers the name Bert then it's the xtian that's going to end up offended in having to continually call him by a name that is contrary to the xtian's belief.

 

Calling people by their Christian names is not a tenet of Christian belief. Indeed I have never heard a Christian make that argument at all.

 

2/ There is a world of difference in forming a personal relationship with a person that we don't particularly know but we have to work with on a daily basis and the compromises that we're prepared to make to get on with that person as an individual as opposed to making 'offensive' comments on a public forum such as on the internet, radio, TV, cinema, theatre etc where the offended person can make a choice as to whether they wish to carry on experiencing things they find offensive or not.

 

Why is there? I afford individuals whether I know them through work, through friends, or over the internet the same dignity and respect for their wishes regardless of the format I meet them in.

 

Also not sure why you are introducing "radio, TV, cinema, theatre etc" in to this, that has never been a part of this discussion and is changing the context. That said I don't see why you would want to use "Xian" in those formats anyway.

 

But for example to illustrate the importance of context, I would say it rude to persist in calling someone an Xian after they have told you they didn't like it, but would not think it rude to use the abbreviation in personal notes as a shorthand, since no one that has complained is receiving the adjective directed at them.

[milquetoast1]

You haven't demonstrated that it is useless at all though.

 

You have used an example where the replacement requested is 8 words more, rather than just 5 letters more. The point I take from that is that a judgment on the reasonableness of a request would include factoring in the inconvenience. A point I would happily concede but not relevant where the request is just a matter of 5 letters.

 

In relation to your preference for using your middle name. The analogy is in fact exactly the same. You have told people you prefer to use your middle name, you don't take offence where it is used in offical documentation etc but if you told someone you want to be called by your middle name and they persist in calling you by your first then it is reasonable to concluse they are doing so to annoy you.

 

Which is exactly the point. On a personal level, with people you know, if you make it known that you don't want to be called "Bertie", or "Anne with an 'e'", or "Xtian", or "Christian", or "accountant", or "whatever", then even though it might be petty and childish to make such a request, I agree it would not matter, it would still be rude and/or offensive on the part of others to ignore that request.

 

But the analogy is still useless within the context of this discussion, and I'm puzzled that you fail to understand that.

 

 

[six45ive]

Personally, I thought your 'bert' example was good. no doubt, like anything, it can be pulled apart by those with the inclination to do so, but, it made the point it was intended to make pretty well (IMO)

 

If it can be 'pulled apart' then it can't be much good as an analogy then can it?

Also, not everything can be 'pulled apart' even if you have the inclination to do so as was clearly demonstrated in my 'disproving the existence of god' thread. This article remained entirely intact but you can have a go at 'pulling it apart' if you so wish.

 

'Albert Einstein famously said, “Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.” Nothing provides better proof of the truth of this statement than the persistence of religion in human affairs. The widespread belief in the god of Abraham shames us before all other species, making a mockery of our claim to intelligence.

 

The inherent absurdity of faith is revealed most clearly in the central dilemma that religion has never been able to solve, exposing to us the vulnerable belly of the beast. That is, religion must somehow explain the existence of evil in the presence of god (an endeavor known as theodicy). Despite heroic efforts, all attempts at theodicy have failed completely. The bottom line is clear. In a world that knows evil, an all-powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil. That interpretation is unavoidable and certain. But given that a few billion people will insist on disputing the claim, we will show next how no other conclusion is possible.

 

Some who oppose the notion of a brutish ugly deity propose that god did not intentionally create evil. If so, that leaves us with the question of evil’s origin if not from the hand of god. In one scenario, evil flourished as an unintended consequence of human depravity once his newly-minted Adam and Eve started roaming the Earth. God was surprised by evil, but allowed it to exist once brought to his attention. In another scenario, evil sprang to life without god’s permission at all, as a rude cosmic surprise. Both scenarios would give god a pass on being evil himself, but they create yet another dilemma. In either scenario, god is not omnipotent. After all, if evil exists as a mistake or without god’s permission, we must conclude that he is incapable of peering into and controlling the future, a decidedly un-god-like attribute. None of this is looking too good for Mr. Big. Let’s review our two choices: first, an all-powerful god must be evil since evil exists and god created all, including evil; or, second, god’s work somehow got beyond his control, with evil coming along as something like a divine blooper, a mistake not typically associated with an all-powerful thing. We can only conclude, then, that god himself is evil or he is benign but with diminished powers. And a god with limited powers is no god at all.

 

Religion solves this conundrum the old-fashioned way: by making up a silly answer with truly contorted logic. The answer in this case is free will, but only for human beings. Somehow, when god gathered his last strength to make humans before taking a one-day vacation, he decided to give his new creation – but not spiders, beavers or parrots - the ability to choose a path not preordained by god. This divine grant of free will solves the dilemma because people can choose to be evil without implicating god. Whew!

 

Unfortunately, the idea holds water no better than a cracked sieve. Even the briefest examination lays waste to the claim that free will was or could be granted by an all-powerful god. The idea is an absurd oxymoron: the very act of granting free will would remove the possibility of omnipotence. Let’s see why by looking at the combination of free will, evil and prayer in the presence of an omniscient god.

 

We can start with prayer. If god has a plan for everything and everyone, prayer could not affect his behavior. If he changed his plan according to a prayer, that would be an admission that god’s original plan was flawed, making him fallible. If only those prayers that fit into god’s original plan are answered, then the purpose of praying is defeated. With preordained fate, prayer could not change any outcome, which is the very purpose of a prayer.

 

Aha, you might say, the trick is that god gave mankind free will – that allows for the legitimacy of prayer. But prayer cannot work in the case of free will, either. If we have the power to choose our own destiny, prayer has no role to play. If I pray to god for a certain outcome, just the act of praying is an admission that I do not determine my fate; I admit my fate is in the hands of god, that god can change the outcome of my life, making the notion of free will redundant. The idea of free will is religion’s version of having your cake and eating it too. You can have a god who already preordained everything, and you can pray for a different outcome anyway, and you have free will to change your destiny. Simultaneously holding three mutually incompatible ideas is a form of insanity.

 

An argument often provided to counter this line of reasoning says that god knows what every person will choose beforehand, but the person does not; the person is still making a choice. How oddly tautological. Whatever we choose, our choice is according to god’s plan because we chose it! But if god already knows what we will choose, already knows the outcome of every choice, that is not free will, only the cruel illusion of free will. The choice was already made at the beginning of time, meaning there never was any choice at all.

 

Another common argument is that free will allowed humans to fall from god’s grace, without impugning god’s character. That is simply defining away the problem without solving anything. If god is all-powerful, he could have created a species of humans who chose to use the gift of free will only for good. That his creations chose to behave badly means that such behavior was either god’s original intent, or that god is not all-knowing.

 

Perhaps a benevolent god created a world with evil, but he chose to do so for good reasons. He created evil, but is not evil himself. Assuming this logic, some argue that evil and suffering are necessary in order to know god. Well, that is simply another example of solving the problem by defining it away, and ultimately contributes nothing. Since god is all-powerful, he could have just as easily designed the world such that suffering was not required to know him.

 

Let’s look at a real case of evil, that of Slobodan Milosevic and his choice of genocide: only three scenarios are possible. One, god knew beforehand the choice Milosevic would make, and did nothing to prevent the outcome; two, god knew beforehand, but could do nothing to change the outcome, or three, god did not know what choice Milosevic would make. From these three possibilities we must once again come to the same conclusion we reached earlier. In a world in which evil and suffering exist, god is either all powerful and is responsible for that evil and suffering, through design or neglect, or god is benevolent but not all-powerful. Nothing else is possible, other than the obvious conclusion that god does not exist. With evil in the world, an all-powerful god cannot be benevolent. Whether god’s power is diminished either as an original state of being or as a consequence of voluntarily relinquishing his power to human free will, the effect is the same. If god is benevolent and not culpable of evil, he has no control over evil. If god is not evil, he cannot alter our fate. No amount of twisted or convoluted logic can change that immutable conclusion.

 

That conclusion yields an obvious and terminal problem for prayer. If your baby is seriously ill, you pray to god for her recovery. Why? If god is all-powerful, he would already know the fate of your baby, and your prayers would be for naught. Whether you prayed or not, your baby’s fate is already sealed, pre-ordained, for better or worse, by the all-powerful god. Plus, since an all-powerful god must be evil, since he is responsible for everything in the universe, including evil, he might take joy in your suffering, since he has allowed so much grief to visit the human condition long before your child became ill.

 

Alternatively, if god is benevolent, he is not responsible for the evil and suffering in the world, meaning he has diminished powers since forces exist in the universe for which he has no responsibility and no hand in their creation. You would be praying to a being without the ability to control human fate, rendering the prayer useless. If god has no control over evil, praying to him to stop evil and suffering makes no sense. Prayers to an all-powerful and evil god are futile; prayers to a benevolent god are useless. You might as well pray to the tooth fairy. At least with the tooth fairy you get a dollar.

 

The notion that an all-powerful god granted humans free will is one of the most egregious examples of religion’s inane absurdities. But the situation becomes positively surreal when people believe that praying to an all-powerful god can alter the outcome of events according to the entreaties of the prayer. Yet the idea is widespread.

 

The flip-side of human free will is also important to examine; that is, does god himself have free will? If not, can god grant what he himself does not have? An all-powerful god is all-knowing, meaning god knows all of his future actions, and all of the choices he would make. Here is the rub: god could not change those choices, otherwise his earlier knowledge would have been wrong, meaning god would not be all-knowing! All omniscient god therefore has no free will to choose actions, since all actions must be preordained. God becomes an observer of his own omniscience since all knowledge of the future precludes any changes to that future. Any god with free will would have to be imperfect, and would by definition not be all-knowing.

 

So an all-knowing god, who cannot possess free will, cannot grant something he himself does not have. But a bigger problem remains. Free will implies a future with no predestination. A god who knows all, about everything past, present and future, could not create any free will that would prevent that knowledge of the future; the very act of creating free will would destroy the fact of omniscience.

 

These obvious arguments are not new, and in fact date all the way back to Epicurus, as summarized by Moojan Momen in 1999:

 

"The presence of evil and suffering in the world has ever been argued by some philosophers from Epicurus (341-270 BCE) to David Hume (1711-1776) to cast doubt on the existence of God. Other more modern writers such as Freud and Marx sought to show that religion’s explanations of the presence of evil and suffering were based on delusions."

 

And so we have the human species embracing what is nothing but an insane delusion. How embarrassing. I hope no alien species is watching this spectacle of ignorance. We would be the laughing stock of the universe.'

 

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5...ite-underbelly

[Wildcat]

Which is exactly the point. On a personal level, with people you know, if you make it known that you don't want to be called "Bertie", or "Anne with an 'e'", or "Xtian", or "Christian", or "accountant", or "whatever", then even though it might be petty and childish to make such a request, I agree it would not matter, it would still be rude and/or offensive on the part of others to ignore that request.

 

But the analogy is still useless within the context of this discussion, and I'm puzzled that you fail to understand that.

 

 

 

Why does it not apply when Christians time and time again say they take offence at use of the word and people persist in using it? It is precisely the same.

[Wildcat]

If it can be 'pulled apart' then it can't be much good as an analogy then can it?

Also, not everything can be 'pulled apart' even if you have the inclination to do so as was clearly demonstrated in my 'disproving the existence of god' thread. This article remained entirely intact but you can have a go at 'pulling it apart' if you so wish.

 

'Albert Einstein famously said, “Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.” Nothing provides better proof of the truth of this statement than the persistence of religion in human affairs. The widespread belief in the god of Abraham shames us before all other species, making a mockery of our claim to intelligence.

 

The inherent absurdity of faith is revealed most clearly in the central dilemma that religion has never been able to solve, exposing to us the vulnerable belly of the beast. That is, religion must somehow explain the existence of evil in the presence of god (an endeavor known as theodicy). Despite heroic efforts, all attempts at theodicy have failed completely. The bottom line is clear. In a world that knows evil, an all-powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil. That interpretation is unavoidable and certain. But given that a few billion people will insist on disputing the claim, we will show next how no other conclusion is possible.

 

<snipped Dawkins waffle>

 

The absurdity is saying that a belief system that depends upon faith should explain anything in a literal sense. It would cease to be a metaphysical statement and would not require faith. Knowledge or proof of it would be direct and not revealed.

 

The whole epicurean problem falls down because it makes a category mistake, by trying to treat the metaphysical like the physical.

 

BTW what has this to do with the topic?

 

Your lead in to the long copy and paste seems to be misunderstanding onewheeldaves post. He was saying that a post will be pulled apart and dissected... that doesn't mean the original post was wrong and didn't require filling half my page with Dawkins words.

 

An assessment of the strength of an arguments is made on the basis of its strength not the existence of weak or irrelevant counter arguments. Counter arguments that in the case in point have already been responded to as irrelevant or barely relevant to the point that was being made.

[six45ive]

Calling people by their Christian names is not a tenet of Christian belief. Indeed I have never heard a Christian make that argument at all.

 

Then you haven't met many xtians. Why do you think so many of them (ime) find the term 'first name' as opposed to 'christian name' so offensive when filling forms etc?

 

Why is there? I afford individuals whether I know them through work, through friends, or over the internet the same dignity and respect for their wishes regardless of the format I meet them in.

 

You might do but I don't. If I feel that somebody is taking offence over something too easily or to make a point then that offends me. As an honest, forthright person it would be hypocritical of me not to point that out to the person I was responding to.

On top of that if you treat everybody the same irrespective of whether you know them personally or not then how does somebody you're close to know that they're special?

 

Also not sure why you are introducing "radio, TV, cinema, theatre etc" in to this, that has never been a part of this discussion and is changing the context.

 

Because this thread is about offence on a public forum which means it's perfectly legitimate to apply the same standards to other public organisations.

 

But for example to illustrate the importance of context, I would say it rude to persist in calling someone an Xian after they have told you they didn't like it, but would not think it rude to use the abbreviation in personal notes as a shorthand, since no one that has complained is receiving the adjective directed at them.

 

I agree it would be rude or ill mannered or discourteous in a personal context with a work colleage. That's not to say it would be offensive. Rudeness and offensiveness are different things.

[six45ive]

The absurdity is saying that a belief system that depends upon faith should explain anything in a literal sense. It would cease to be a metaphysical statement and would not require faith. Knowledge or proof of it would be direct and not revealed.

The whole epicurean problem falls down because it makes a category mistake, by trying to treat the metaphysical like the physical.

 

You're still arguing the point from a deist standpoint but the article was specifically about a theistic god that is both metaphysical and yet manifests itself in the physical world so from that standpoint it's good to know that you understand the idea of a theistic god is as non sensical as the rest of us atheists, it's just a shame you don't spend as much time as the rest of us atheists in pointing that out to xtians, muslims and jews.

 

Your lead in to the long copy and paste seems to be misunderstanding onewheeldaves post. He was saying that a post will be pulled apart and dissected... that doesn't mean the original post was wrong and didn't require filling half my page with Dawkins words.

 

Well, yes. I'm afraid 'pulled apart' does mean 'to find flaws and highlight them' leading to the conclusion that, in this case your analogy, was weak and ill thought out.

 

An assessment of the strength of an argument is made on the basis of its strength not the existence of weak or irrelevant counter arguments. Counter arguments that in the case in point have already been responded to as irrelevant or barely relevant to the point that was being made.

 

No. The strength of an argument, or more accurately your analogy, is made on the grounds of whether it stands up to scrutiny by other independent people seeing if they can find fault with your reasoning.

[flamingjimmy]

However, I suspect that this word does not really represent what he claims because he really does want to include the negative offensive baggage that is associated with "militant" and "fundamentalist". Not forgetting the recent examples from spindrift of "shrill", "hysterical" and "thugs". It's difficult to imagine that the people that use these adjectives alongside the word a'theist are not knowingly doing so in an offensive manner, and I am pleased to see that onewheeldave's hypocrisy has been found out.

 

This just goes to prove that religion still has special, and undeserved, status. That people like Wildcat and Halibut, who seem to go out of their way to appear neutral and fair, can ignore the use of obvious offensive terms when attached to a'theists, but will criticise an innocuous and well established abbreviation because, well, err, it just doesn't seem right, it's religion, it's special.

 

Nail on the head, in fact Wildcat even came on earlier and argued for using the word 'militant' to describe atheists like me.

 

I agree with a lot of what he's got to say on most topics, but he does indeed exemplify perfectly the double standard of society at large when it comes to this one.