Boundaries of Discrimination

[Cognisant]

So as not to derail the memes thread.

She's asking you questions to determine the boundaries of what kind of discrimination you consider correct against religious people.

There's nothing disrespectful in it.

What you've said is that if someone's religious, you don't just think it's okay to discriminate against them but that they 'ought to be' (they deserve it). The limits of what you consider this discrimination 'ought to be' is a fair enough question.

"She" is the cat's mother so I assume you mean @Marbles.

It's a fair question and I will answer it but it's also a loaded question in that as we armchair philosophize about things we tend to be speaking about things in an ideal sense rather than a practical sense. It's all well and good to say if someone isn't motivated by their beliefs to act in a way that adversely affects you that you in turn have no justification to act in a way that adversely affects them. However if there's people with similar beliefs who are emboldened by the apparent ubiquity of those beliefs into acting in a way that adversely affects you then the person in the first instance is clearly enabling them but to what extent they're responsible for the people they've enabled is very hard to quantify.

Ideally people's beliefs are separate to their actions, in theory someone can be racist/misogynistic/homophobic/etc and it has no bearing upon their moral character so long as they don't act upon it. In reality thoughts are not irrespective of actions, words carry weight, maybe not the weight to kill someone (depends whether you consider talking someone into suicide is murder) but certainly weight enough to get someone killed. In practical terms there is a compromise to be made between the ideal case and the complications of reality because there are certain people who will abuse any clemency afforded to them. Ideally we would be tolerant of all without exception, in reality there are those who under the protection of "free speech" will preach hate and condone violence.

Does a jihadist preacher deserve rehabilitation? Ideally yes, but in reality they see nothing wrong with their actions and consider rehabilitation as their enemy's attempt at brainwashing and so they'll play along only so far as they feel their oppressor's eyes upon them and go right back to what they were doing the moment that gaze passes them. Such people cannot be reasoned with and they are by no means the exception, they are but the most extreme subset of an alarmingly large demographic of people who are no less unreasonable. So I suppose what I'm getting at is that (except for the rare exception) it is not the individual that deserves to be blamed for the consequences of their beliefs but rather it is the irrational beliefs themselves that are at fault, but shaking your fist at a cloud doesn't get you anywhere.

Spoiler

Practically speaking, though it is far from ideal, to treat the disease of irrationality you need to persecute the religious and not in the "throw them to the lions" kind of way, killing them just gives the death worshiping cultists what they want. Instead you need to mock them, at every opportunity mock the everloving shit out of them, give them no respect, take from them all their dignity, if they insist on being childish then treat them like children.

 

[Marbles]

Wait, what? My defense of religion and political correctness was taken seriously? Even though it was postfaced by the trololo song? I think you might mean @scorpiomover

Of course people should be discriminated against based on their beliefs. The question is in what ways and to what extent. We always have limited data on people's actions in the past, yet we have to make prognoses of their actions in the future. Their expressed value system seems an excellent place to start.

I was just pointing out the humorous in that in some circles, it is considered virtuous to hate humanity, yet monstrous to dislike any specific part of it. Just an unoriginal joke, certainly not being serious.

 

[Black Rose]

But did mockers ever reduced the number of Christian converts?
It is important to know what others believe but to change what that is required honestly and trust not patronization or blame. A truly unreasonable religious person already has a preprogrammed mind anyway. If they can think it is more difficult to ridicule them.

 

[scorpiomover]

It's a fair question and I will answer it but it's also a loaded question in that as we armchair philosophize about things we tend to be speaking about things in an ideal sense rather than a practical sense. It's all well and good to say if someone isn't motivated by their beliefs to act in a way that adversely affects you that you in turn have no justification to act in a way that adversely affects them. However if there's people with similar beliefs who are emboldened by the apparent ubiquity of those beliefs into acting in a way that adversely affects you then the person in the first instance is clearly enabling them but to what extent they're responsible for the people they've enabled is very hard to quantify.

Ideally people's beliefs are separate to their actions, in theory someone can be racist/misogynistic/homophobic/etc and it has no bearing upon their moral character so long as they don't act upon it. In reality thoughts are not irrespective of actions, words carry weight, maybe not the weight to kill someone (depends whether you consider talking someone into suicide is murder) but certainly weight enough to get someone killed. In practical terms there is a compromise to be made between the ideal case and the complications of reality because there are certain people who will abuse any clemency afforded to them. Ideally we would be tolerant of all without exception, in reality there are those who under the protection of "free speech" will preach hate and condone violence.

Does a jihadist preacher deserve rehabilitation? Ideally yes, but in reality they see nothing wrong with their actions and consider rehabilitation as their enemy's attempt at brainwashing and so they'll play along only so far as they feel their oppressor's eyes upon them and go right back to what they were doing the moment that gaze passes them. Such people cannot be reasoned with and they are by no means the exception, they are but the most extreme subset of an alarmingly large demographic of people who are no less unreasonable. So I suppose what I'm getting at is that (except for the rare exception) it is not the individual that deserves to be blamed for the consequences of their beliefs but rather it is the irrational beliefs themselves that are at fault, but shaking your fist at a cloud doesn't get you anywhere.

True. Abe Simpson isn't solving anything by shaking his fist at a cloud.

Abe could get an umbrella.

But that requires consistent mental effort to keep thinking of potential solutions and then ask many "what if"s to figure out the problems with each potential solution, until you arrive at a potential solution where all the "what if"s are addressed. That, takes mental effort, and time, as much as a whole 300 seconds of thinking.

Seems like a lot. But it's actually only 5 minutes.

Abe would rather shake his fist at clouds all afternoon, than spend 5 minutes thinking to come up with "carry an umbrella", and then enjoy the rest of the day.

Practically speaking, though it is far from ideal, to treat the disease of irrationality you need to persecute the religious and not in the "throw them to the lions" kind of way, killing them just gives the death worshiping cultists what they want. Instead you need to mock them, at every opportunity mock the everloving shit out of them, give them no respect, take from them all their dignity, if they insist on being childish then treat them like children.

This strategy was tried before.

Before WW2, Hitler's Nazi party had attracted many young people. They would go about in groups wearing brown shirts and armbands emblazoned with swastikas. Jewish atheist writers would mock them and lampoon them in cartoons and leaflets. Jewish atheists would jeer at them and mock them.

That in turn convincined the brownshirts that Jewish atheists of the time had no interest in a respectful dialogue. That in turn convinced the brownshirts that there was no possible way to have a respectful dialogue to reach a mutual compromise with Jewish atheists, and thus the only way to reach a situation that both might accept, was by resorting to the other method of resolving a conflict, that of extreme violence.

That's not the only response. Sometimes, a teenage girl says something online that offends her peers. They then make fun of her online. Some of these girls commit suicide.

That's not the only response. Sometimes, a person expresses an opinion that something is dangerous. The other person doesn't understand the problem, and mocks them. So the person shuts up. Then the other person goes ahead with his plan and the danger happens, and then the person loses his leg or something equally harmful.

Mocking is a simple way of communicating that you've stopped listening to other people, and intend to do whatever it takes to make them shut up, until they either kill themselves, let you lose a leg, or physically harm/kill until you stop making fun of them.

 

[Black Rose]

@scorpiomover

You reminded me of the "Charlie Hebdo shooting" debates over free speech 5 years ago.