5 ms·

the left are constantly calling out Christians for certain behaviors, is this racist?

by kofejnik 9y ago

nailer 9y ago
I dislike stuffed crust pizzas, which are also not a race, but I imagine everdev considers that racist too.
- everdev 9y ago
  You can hate whatever pizza you want
  - nailer 9y ago
    Wouldn't that be racist against stuffed crust pizza? Why one idea and not the other? Are we allowed to dislike Christianity? Scientology? Libertarianism? Socialism? Capitalism? Cutting off dogs tails? If so, what makes Islam non dislikeable? Are you aware of the many ex Muslims and the harassment they receive? The people who've criticised Islam and been killed for it? Do you think declaring Islam non dislikeable helps this? Do you know anyone who is an ex black person or ex white person or ex asian? Why not?
    - everdev 9y ago
      When you focus on certain groups you're probably missing the point. There are Christian parents who have banned their child from returning home when they renounced religion. And there are many Muslims who accept people after they renounce Islam. Instead, probably better to say: When people harass someone who doesn't agree with them, I feel afraid for that person's safety. That's not racist and still honors your fear. To just focus on Muslims doing this shows a bias and lumps many innocent people into a stereotype.
      - nailer 9y ago
        Focusing on ideas is necessary to deal with the problem. By ignoring it, you're missing the point. You seem to think I'm focusing on people, but: a person who believes in the idea of Islam is a Muslim, is the same way a person who believes in communism is a communist and a person who believes in fascism is a fascist. There is little difference between saying a bad idea is bad versus saying supporters of a bad idea are bad for supporting it. Surveying Muslims worldwide and asking them if, for example, they think being gay should be illegal, and reporting what they say, is not bias, it is fact. You're promoting bias by suggesting we ignore those results. And again, because you haven't responded: Islam isn't a race. If we can be racist aginst Islam, can we be racist against people who like stuffed crust pizza?
        everdev 9y ago
        It's much better to say "I'm afraid for the safety and lack of equality and freedom for gay people if being gay is illegal." By focusing on Muslims, you're making it personal and ignoring many non-Muslim countries and religions which have anti-gay beliefs. If the gay equality issue is important to you, why are you focused so narrowly on Muslims? Why not simply focus on your core issue which is equality for gays? Making it about your fear allows people to hear you and is not arguable. Saying "Muslims are anti-gay" is arguable because you can't accurately survey billions of Muslims worldwide and statistically you'll probably find millions of Muslims who don't agree with every aspect of the religion and some that are gay themselves. Religion and races are not consistent or homogenous. Lumping people together on those criteria is rarely accurate or productive. For semantics, the term racism applies to race as you mentioned. If you hate Muslims that I suppose the best way to describe you is bigoted or a religious discriminator. And as you seem intent on the pizza aspect, pizza isn't a person. While hating a pizza sounds like anger issues, it's certainly not the same connotation or implications of hating a person. If you want to be kinder to your pizza friends, you could say "I prefer the taste of thin crust pizza". If you want to be kinder to your human friends, I would focus on what you want rather than what you think a group of unique people is all acting out in unison.
        nailer 9y ago
        > It's much better to say "I'm afraid for the safety and lack of equality and freedom for gay people if being gay is illegal." By focusing on Muslims, you're making it personal and ignoring many non-Muslim countries and religions which have anti-gay beliefs. No, you're avoiding the root causes because you're afraid to address them, which in turns harms gay people, women, ex-Muslims, atheists and other victims of Islam. Not focusing on Islam- related violence towards gays and women because other violence towards gays and women exists is awful. > Religion and races We haven't talked about a single race the entire discussion. Why are you introducing it? > And as you seem intent on the pizza aspect, pizza isn't a person. You're right, it's an idea. Let's call people who believe in this idea StuffCrustPizzaLovers. Do you think disliking StuffCrustPizzaLovers is racist? If I say 'Islam is bad' - since Islam isn't a person - is that now OK according to your rules? > rather than what you think a group of unique people is all acting out in unison. Not sure if you're lying or just not reading anything I'm writing, but I'm focusing on what's been measured, as previously discussed, using Muslims' opinion as a primary source. Are you saying think most Muslims are liars? If you want to stop making the world worse, let people who have the courage to report problems do their jobs without labelling them racist.
  - nailer 9y ago
    Wouldn't that be racist against people who like stuffed crust pizza? (Correcting self as you mentioned later)
everdev 9y ago
If you try to define all Christians as X, you're probably mistaken. If it's a negative definition designed to insult then it's probably discrimination. The whole point of being anti racism, anti religious discrimination etc., is that race and religion are not good qualifiers for making assumptions or decisions.
- nailer 9y ago
  The parent asked you if disliking Christianity was racist, not if it was religious discrimination. Please answer them. If, say PEW Research asks a statistically significant portion of people who identify themselves one way, and a large amount of them self declare they have awful views, is reporting this bad because it's 'negative'?
  - everdev 9y ago
    No, it's perfectly fine to have an opinion about an ideology, like: "I don't believe in the Bible/Christianity, etc.". A statement like that only makes a judgement about yourself which is of course your right. If you dislike something, there's usually a fear underneath that. People who dislike Christianity on a deeper level are probably afraid that if everyone was Christian X would happen. Sometimes that's realistic, sometimes it's not, but expressing your fear is OK and usually helps people understand you better than if you simply say "I don't like X type of people". When you switch your focus to a group of human beings and say "I don't believe Christians are...", you're judging others. When we judge others we're probably bias in some way because none of us have enough accurate information to uniformly judge the millions of unique people that identify with a race or religion. Just saying "I" first doesn't mean you can then say whatever you want. If the target of your judgements is a person or group of people, you're probably not being honest with yourself about what you're uncomfortable with and projecting your fears onto a group of people. That's typically what racism is about. Instead, it's usually more accurate to express your fears about a particular non-human target (like a law, behavior, etc.) and leave people out of it.
    - nailer 9y ago

the left are constantly calling out Christians for certain behaviors, is this racist?

nailer 9y ago

I dislike stuffed crust pizzas, which are also not a race, but I imagine everdev considers that racist too.

everdev 9y ago
You can hate whatever pizza you want
- nailer 9y ago
  Wouldn't that be racist against stuffed crust pizza? Why one idea and not the other? Are we allowed to dislike Christianity? Scientology? Libertarianism? Socialism? Capitalism? Cutting off dogs tails? If so, what makes Islam non dislikeable? Are you aware of the many ex Muslims and the harassment they receive? The people who've criticised Islam and been killed for it? Do you think declaring Islam non dislikeable helps this? Do you know anyone who is an ex black person or ex white person or ex asian? Why not?
  - everdev 9y ago
    When you focus on certain groups you're probably missing the point. There are Christian parents who have banned their child from returning home when they renounced religion. And there are many Muslims who accept people after they renounce Islam. Instead, probably better to say: When people harass someone who doesn't agree with them, I feel afraid for that person's safety. That's not racist and still honors your fear. To just focus on Muslims doing this shows a bias and lumps many innocent people into a stereotype.
    - nailer 9y ago
      Focusing on ideas is necessary to deal with the problem. By ignoring it, you're missing the point. You seem to think I'm focusing on people, but: a person who believes in the idea of Islam is a Muslim, is the same way a person who believes in communism is a communist and a person who believes in fascism is a fascist. There is little difference between saying a bad idea is bad versus saying supporters of a bad idea are bad for supporting it. Surveying Muslims worldwide and asking them if, for example, they think being gay should be illegal, and reporting what they say, is not bias, it is fact. You're promoting bias by suggesting we ignore those results. And again, because you haven't responded: Islam isn't a race. If we can be racist aginst Islam, can we be racist against people who like stuffed crust pizza?
      - everdev 9y ago
        It's much better to say "I'm afraid for the safety and lack of equality and freedom for gay people if being gay is illegal." By focusing on Muslims, you're making it personal and ignoring many non-Muslim countries and religions which have anti-gay beliefs. If the gay equality issue is important to you, why are you focused so narrowly on Muslims? Why not simply focus on your core issue which is equality for gays? Making it about your fear allows people to hear you and is not arguable. Saying "Muslims are anti-gay" is arguable because you can't accurately survey billions of Muslims worldwide and statistically you'll probably find millions of Muslims who don't agree with every aspect of the religion and some that are gay themselves. Religion and races are not consistent or homogenous. Lumping people together on those criteria is rarely accurate or productive. For semantics, the term racism applies to race as you mentioned. If you hate Muslims that I suppose the best way to describe you is bigoted or a religious discriminator. And as you seem intent on the pizza aspect, pizza isn't a person. While hating a pizza sounds like anger issues, it's certainly not the same connotation or implications of hating a person. If you want to be kinder to your pizza friends, you could say "I prefer the taste of thin crust pizza". If you want to be kinder to your human friends, I would focus on what you want rather than what you think a group of unique people is all acting out in unison.
        nailer 9y ago
        > It's much better to say "I'm afraid for the safety and lack of equality and freedom for gay people if being gay is illegal." By focusing on Muslims, you're making it personal and ignoring many non-Muslim countries and religions which have anti-gay beliefs. No, you're avoiding the root causes because you're afraid to address them, which in turns harms gay people, women, ex-Muslims, atheists and other victims of Islam. Not focusing on Islam- related violence towards gays and women because other violence towards gays and women exists is awful. > Religion and races We haven't talked about a single race the entire discussion. Why are you introducing it? > And as you seem intent on the pizza aspect, pizza isn't a person. You're right, it's an idea. Let's call people who believe in this idea StuffCrustPizzaLovers. Do you think disliking StuffCrustPizzaLovers is racist? If I say 'Islam is bad' - since Islam isn't a person - is that now OK according to your rules? > rather than what you think a group of unique people is all acting out in unison. Not sure if you're lying or just not reading anything I'm writing, but I'm focusing on what's been measured, as previously discussed, using Muslims' opinion as a primary source. Are you saying think most Muslims are liars? If you want to stop making the world worse, let people who have the courage to report problems do their jobs without labelling them racist.
- nailer 9y ago
  Wouldn't that be racist against people who like stuffed crust pizza? (Correcting self as you mentioned later)

everdev 9y ago

If you try to define all Christians as X, you're probably mistaken. If it's a negative definition designed to insult then it's probably discrimination. The whole point of being anti racism, anti religious discrimination etc., is that race and religion are not good qualifiers for making assumptions or decisions.

nailer 9y ago
The parent asked you if disliking Christianity was racist, not if it was religious discrimination. Please answer them. If, say PEW Research asks a statistically significant portion of people who identify themselves one way, and a large amount of them self declare they have awful views, is reporting this bad because it's 'negative'?
- everdev 9y ago
  No, it's perfectly fine to have an opinion about an ideology, like: "I don't believe in the Bible/Christianity, etc.". A statement like that only makes a judgement about yourself which is of course your right. If you dislike something, there's usually a fear underneath that. People who dislike Christianity on a deeper level are probably afraid that if everyone was Christian X would happen. Sometimes that's realistic, sometimes it's not, but expressing your fear is OK and usually helps people understand you better than if you simply say "I don't like X type of people". When you switch your focus to a group of human beings and say "I don't believe Christians are...", you're judging others. When we judge others we're probably bias in some way because none of us have enough accurate information to uniformly judge the millions of unique people that identify with a race or religion. Just saying "I" first doesn't mean you can then say whatever you want. If the target of your judgements is a person or group of people, you're probably not being honest with yourself about what you're uncomfortable with and projecting your fears onto a group of people. That's typically what racism is about. Instead, it's usually more accurate to express your fears about a particular non-human target (like a law, behavior, etc.) and leave people out of it.
  - nailer 9y ago