Undercover in an Evangelical Church.

[Jim__]

An excerpt from an interview with an atheist, Gina Welch, who spent a year undercover in an evangelical church:

My Sundays needed structure. No, I think my attraction to the church grew out of repulsion. I grew up thinking of myself as a born atheist, bristling at public expressions of faith, at being shoehorned "under God" by the Pledge of Allegiance. Berkeley was very accommodating of that attitude. For the most part, I didn't have to deal with religion if I didn't feel like it. And so from the vantage point of my little sliver of experience, I thought of our country as a pretty secular place.

The violent realization I had when I moved to Virginia for graduate school was that this is a very Christian country, with around a quarter of Americans self-identifying as evangelical. And in spite of my smug self-conception as a tolerant person, I had this calcified, unrecognized prejudice against evangelical Christians. Their politics angered me, their culture seemed silly. Most of all their vocal efforts to see the world converted to their views made me, frankly, afraid of them.

...

The biggest surprise for me was the individual reflectiveness of church members. I think I'd had this stereotype of evangelicals as blisteringly arrogant dogmatists. But I observed instead humility and a kind of obsessive self-reflection, enacted through prayer. They call it listening to God's voice, but from it seemed to me like a constant internal pat-down of conscience, which really resulted in care with choices, and a movingly ample capacity for selflessness and generosity. I learned a lot by their example.

...

The book's appeal for secular progressives, I hope, is implicit. I think we like to think of ourselves as very tolerant, but we're comfortable being nasty to evangelical Christians. I think Internet culture has really exacerbated this attitude. It allows for hostility that would be unacceptable in life, where interacting with flesh and blood people counteracts any budding impulse to reduce someone to a disgusting cartoon. So I want this book to restore some humanity.

Interesting thought: (Internet culture) allows for hostility that would be unacceptable in life, where interacting with flesh and blood people counteracts any budding impulse to reduce someone to a disgusting cartoon.

[Warpy]

1. Very true. I never had any problem with the self identified

bornagain/Evangelical types in NC with one exception: when they attacked me for being who I was. Then there was a problem and they didn't much like the result.

I've also managed to work with them here in NM and the same thing prevailed. They'd go through their bible workbooks on breaks and I'd keep my big trap shut and we'd get along just fine. After all, I didn't really give a rip as long as they were there to lend a hand if things got crazy.

There was one of the pernicious types who was quick to send everybody else to hell, but she managed to avoid doing it to me, guess she saw me coming and wisely decided to keep her opinion on my ultimate destination to herself.

People are more complicated than just one aspect of their lives would suggest. I tend to take them as they are and treat them the way they treat me and most of them have been just fine and I've been just fine back at them.

[Jim__]

4. A number of people I work with are born-again Christians.

I've found the same thing. I can talk to them just like anyone else and we get along fine. I even talk to a couple of them about life, the meaning of it all, etc. They know that we don't agree on things, but, we don't get in each others faces and we can have good discussions.

[Common Sense Party]

2. You mean people aren't exactly like my preconceived biases and

imagined caricatures? People are deeper than two-dimension cartoons?

Stop. You're harshing my mellow with cognitive dissonance.

[On the Road]

3. That's Pretty Much My Experience, Too

Many evangelicals are among the nicest people you would ever meet. I think non-Christians might be surprised by the obversation of being self-reflective, but that's as common as in any other group.

I suspect a lot of the people who are scornful of evangelicals have never had either the personal or group experiences the author has.

[Jim__]

5. Mine too.

The difference between real people and the stereotypes that we can develop about them are surprising.

[iris27]

6. Interesting...the evangelicals who share my DNA

have never had any trouble reducing me to a disgusting cartoon.

[Jim__]

14. If by "share my DNA" you mean "family", I think that's a bit different.

With family, if there is a traditional family religion and we reject it, some family members will take that as a rejection of the family heritage, and thus a rejection of the family. Family makes the issue a lot more complicated; and based on the interview, family was not at all an issue in the case she is describing.

[iris27]

51. Family, yes, but the church family

they belonged to as well. My house was called a "pit of vipers" as they tried to persuade my younger sister not to live with my husband and I while she attended college.

[TZ]

7. I've had good friends who were born again/evangelicals

And had some interesting discussions about religion from time to time. And NO they didn't make me feel like I was gonna go to hell if I disagreed with them.
Hell my mom's best friend while I was growing up made more than a few trips to Jim Bakker's HeritageLand or whatever it was called in Virginia.
There are plenty of good people who happen to have political religious views that I disagree with.

[Jim__]

13. She definitely has a point about the internet.

I find people tend to be rude on the internet where they tend to be polite in real life. And, it's a lot easier to get along with soemone you disagree with if you are polite to each other.

[Rhythm]

35. Bakker's place was called "Heritage, USA" and it was just inside SC

About 15 miles from downtown Charlotte, in a little suburb town called Fort Mill SC.

[Silent3]

8. "Their politics angered me, their culture seemed silly...

... Most of all their vocal efforts to see the world converted to their views made me, frankly, afraid of them."

Despite the fact that this woman discovered that these people could be personable, likable, and have positive qualities of character, I'm afraid that her original feelings still hold true. These people gave us 8 years of George Bush, and I don't really care if they were friendly and neighborly most of the time while they were doing it.

The evangelical and fundamentalist crowd is still causing problems for gay marriage, gay adoption, and getting decent healthcare reform passed.

Frankly I think it's a good thing that "internet culture" provides a place to express anger at what the Religious Right is doing to our country, without critics getting sidetracked by the "humanity" of the target of their anger into candy-coating some much needed criticism.

[laconicsax]

9. +1

It's a new twist on "...but my church is different."

[Jim__]

15. You're essentially arguing that ignorace is preferable to understanding.

Her own words about the words you quote are that they were based on ignorance:

There was a complicating element: I knew a handful of evangelical Christians in Virginia, and they didn't align neatly with my conception of what evangelicals were like. So I was drawn to the navigation of those inconsistencies, and to challenge my own prejudices by experiencing firsthand the tactile reality of evangelical life.

And, on the issues that you talk about: The evangelical and fundamentalist crowd is still causing problems for gay marriage, gay adoption, and getting decent healthcare reform passed.

She speaks directly about this. My own experience in speaking with evangelicals, similar to the experience that she describes, is that they are a lot more open to discussion and a lot less dogmatic in person than the standard caricature would have them. It may be a lot easier to reach agreement on these issues if we actually spoke person-to-person about them, rather than scream at cartoonish images of each other.

[Silent3]

18. No, I'm arguing that gaining more personal knowledge doesn't wipe the slate...

...clean of all of the bigger problems. You could spend time in prisons and no doubt find out many of the prisoners can be likable people too, that there are many, sometimes complex, reasons why different people steal things, assault people, and murder. You might even gain some useful perspective of ways to keep people out of prison in the first place or ways to reduce repeat offenses.

There would still, however, be a justifiable place for anger against theft, rape, and murder. It would be silly to think that hiding that anger would be very helpful in reducing crime.

Of course, anger can be misdirected so that it has counterproductive results. Not to harp too much on a far-less-than-perfect analogy, I think our prison system is horrible partly because we, as a culture, are more interested in vengeance than solving and preventing crime, and are too impatient with the particulars of individual cases.

Their own martyr complexes aside, I don't think you can say that the Religious Right suffers so terribly at the hands of their fellow Americans, or that they don't dish out much worse than they get. I hardly think we're culturally at a point were anger and ridicule against evangelicals and fundamentalists are having an overall effect of counter-productively creating more religious belief and/or more fanatic belief as a response.

Look at the trends: A number of polls people have posted here recently show a trend toward less religious belief in the US. This coincides with a growing outspokenness of atheists and what I think I perceive (I have no stats to back this up, just an impression) to be a growing cultural willingness to make fun of absurdities of religion. Correlation may not be causation, but even if one thing doesn't cause the other, it would certainly be hard to argue amid trends like that that criticism has been counterproductive and "reaching out" would somehow obviously be much better and more effective.

Look what a year of reaching out to Republicans has gotten Obama.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

10. "Internet culture"

I think Internet culture has really exacerbated this attitude. It allows for hostility that would be unacceptable in life, where interacting with flesh and blood people counteracts any budding impulse to reduce someone to a disgusting cartoon.

This is an interesting point because evangelicals have no problem being nasty in real life to people like me (a weak atheist). They also are particularly nasty on the internet and thank FSM there aren't many on DU. In either arena, evangelicals have a propensity to treat atheists, agnostics, or anyone else who thinks differently, with nastiness.

On the flip-side, I've never once encountered an atheist acting nasty to an evangelical in real life (not that it hasn't happened, but it seems pretty rare). But, we can be particularly nasty on the internet, I think because we really aren't allowed to express ourselves much in real life. If I call out a fundie on the internet I don't have to worry about him getting out his gun and shooting me "for jeebus" (see, there's that nastiness I was talking about).

I have had many relationships in real life with evangelicals that I considered good friends. Many of those people walked away from me when they found out about my atheism. I just don't bring it up any more. I'm justifiably angry about that, and I'm sure that other atheists have experienced similar things.

[Christa]

11. My brother is an evangelical christian

He is the most vile, judgmental, unreasonable person I know.

I just received a friend request on Facebook from an evangelical Christian. She calls herself a God fearing mom who lives for God. I replied that I do not think we have anything in common and declined the request. Immediately I received a very unfriendly letter in reply, and she blocked me immediately.

I know a lovely young girl here in Charlotte who is an evangelical Christian, a really sweet person. Lately she has been complaining and she is asking a lot of questions as she cannot reconcile the behavior of the people in her congregation with the love of God that they are so eager to preach.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wishlist]

12. But 'nice' rw evangelicals as well as batshit crazy ones are both scary to me

Whether their personalities are calmly polite or aggressively outspoken, all right wing evangelicals by their money and votes are supporting an agenda opposing full rights for gays and women and rejecting scientific reasoning. Their churches promote and defend male dominance over women as well as intolerance for gays and those of different beliefs.

All of the rw evangelicals I personally know are generous to some extent and well-intentioned with many positive qualities but varying degrees of belligerance and intolerance. Some faithful church members I know seem to have a weird strange calm Stepford-wife lobotomized effect where they don't seem spontaneous or joyful in their church activities but as if they are dutifully fulfilling an obligation like members of a cult. All of my close friends and relatives who are right wing evangelicals seem to share the need to block out independent thought and are unwilling to question the correctness of their rigid beliefs (with a compulsive need to remain saturated and have their beliefs reinforced by Fox News, Focus on the Family, Christian radio and authors who promote their beliefs)

[Jim__]

16. "All of my close friends and relatives who are right wing evangelicals ..

... seem to share the need to block out independent thought and are unwilling to question the correctness of their rigid beliefs (with a compulsive need to remain saturated and have their beliefs reinforced by Fox News, Focus on the Family, Christian radio and authors who promote their beliefs)."

Well, speaking to them calmly about the issues will give them a different view than they get from Faux, etc. I've done this and found them to be intereested and receptive to discussion. Two of the evangelicals that I speak to, former republican voters, voted for Obama in 2008.

Speaking to family members is more complicated. I spoke about that a little bit upthread. With family, there are always "other" issues.

[skepticscott]

19. Like many people on this board, this author has a distorted and incorrect view

of what constitutes "tolerance".

Tolerance does not require you to to respect all beliefs, or to regard all beliefs to be of equal factual validity or equal moral standing. Tolerance does not mean allowing untruths to go unchallenged or evil and oppression to go unopposed. Tolerance means allowing things you think are foolish or that you may disagree with or that may offend you to go on without interference as long as they don't harm others or restrict their freedoms. To the extent that the tenets and actions of evangelical Christians, as individuals or groups, DO harm others or restrict their freedoms, the virtue of tolerance no longer applies, and a more vigorous response is entirely justified, whether it hurts the feelings of the poor, oppressed fundies and their apologists or not.

Was this person interfering the legal right of evangelical Christians to observe their religion, or advocating that that right be abolished, in the time before she visited this church? If not (and I doubt it), then all of her self-flagellation about her own tolerance (or perceived lack thereof) is just BS, even if she doesn't realize it herself. And I suspect that if she had spent a year in a fundy church where the death of Barack Obama was being welcomed from the pulpit, or where the evils of homosexuality and gay marriage were regularly condemned, her opinions about their "movingly ample capacity for selflessness and generosity" might be a bit different.

[Jim__]

20. If you're going to talk about the meaning of a word, you might want to start by ...

... consulting a dictionary. Or, if you're telling someone they're mis-using a word, you should consult multiple dictionaries to see if they all indicate the word is being mis-used.

In this case, the definition from the the free dictionary indicates that her usage is quite correct:

tol·er·ance (tlr-ns)
n.
1. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
2.
a. Leeway for variation from a standard.
b. The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.
3. The capacity to endure hardship or pain.
4. Medicine
a. Physiological resistance to a toxin.
b. Diminution in the physiological response to a drug that occurs after continued use, necessitating larger doses to produce a given response.
5.
a. Acceptance of a tissue graft or transplant without immunological rejection.
b. Unresponsiveness to an antigen that normally produces an immunological reaction.
6. The ability of an organism to resist or survive infection by a parasitic or pathogenic organism.

Also, a site connected with the Southern Poverty Law Center agrees with her usage of the word:

In its Declaration on the Principles of Tolerance, UNESCO offers a definition of tolerance that most closely matches our philosophical use of the word:

Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference.

We view tolerance as a way of thinking and feeling — but most importantly, of acting — that gives us peace in our individuality, respect for those unlike us, the wisdom to discern humane values and the courage to act upon them.

Tolerance does indeed carry the connotation of respect.

Your remarks about her "self-flagellation" are just nonsense.

[skepticscott]

21. So how, under ANY of those definitions

was she actually "intolerant"before she visited this church? Because that's what she was criticizing herself about..."Oh, I thought I was SUCH a tolerant person before this, but now I realize I wasn't" is basically what she was saying. How does that go completely against the notion of self-flagellation?

And any definition of "tolerance" that requires respect for ignorance, falsehood, bigotry, oppression of women or interference with the rights and freedoms of others (regardless of whether some people's "beliefs" dictate those things) is just so much PC bullshit. "Tolerance" with that requirement ceases to become a virtue in my book.

[Jim__]

22. First of all, she never claims she was intolerant.

She claims that her views of evangelicals were prejudiced and not based on actual knowledge. To form views, especially scornful views, of a POV without actually understanding what the POV is, is in the least, disrespectful, and so, not particularly tolerant. Tolerance is not a categorical word. Common definitions of tolerance include respecting others views. By learning more about their views, she became more understanding and tolerant of them. Assessing other people's views as ignorant, bigoted, false, etc. without coming to an understanding of those views, is indeed, not particularly tolerant.

Dialog with people who disagree with us (in this case Fundamentalists) - essentially tolerance, is necessary for the successful continuance of a democracy that consists of disparate elements. The state of the US democracy today, can easily be rated as endangered. Largely, I believe, because we no longer speak to each other. And, to add another voice to what she is saying, Jürgen Habermas, a world class philosopher, who often speaks on issues of democracy, had this to say in his essay, An Awareness of What is Missing:

It is not a question of an unstable compromise between irreconcilable elements. We should not try to dodge the alternative between an anthropocentric orientation and the view from afar of theocentric or cosmocentric thinking. However, it makes a difference whether we speak with one another or merely about one another <my bolding - Jim>. If we want to avoid the latter, two presuppositions must be fulfilled: the religious side must accept the authority of "natural" reason as the fallible results of institutionalized science and the basic principles of universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality. Conversely, secular reason may not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith, even though in the end it can accept as reasonable only what it can translate into its own, in principle universally accessible, discourses. The one presupposition is no more trivial from a theological perspective than the other is from that of philosophy.

Habermas has conducted fruitful conversations with the religious community on this basis.

[skepticscott]

23. Oh, for pity's sake, try to understand what you read

rather than never straying from the words on the page. If you can't see from this quote:

"And in spite of my smug self-conception as a tolerant person, I had this calcified, unrecognized prejudice against evangelical Christians."

that she no longer regards herself as tolerant as she once did, now that she's spent a year among fundies, then I can't help your comprehension any further.

Her views of evangelicals were based on knowledge of what they did, the policies they advocated and fought against, and the bigotry and hatred that they promoted. That some of the members of one church were not that way in the few hours a week that she had contact with them doesn't change any of what she had already seen. If she was surprised to find that ALL evangelicals were not obnoxious, bigoted, sexist, homophobic and self-righteous 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that's not much of a revelation.

And do you need to understand why someone believes that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time before you dismiss that "belief" as ignorant and false? I don't. Do you need to understand why some culture require the "honor killing" of women who have disgraced their families by allowing themselves to be raped or some other terrible offense in order to condemn that practice as abominable? I don't. And if that makes me "intolerant", then I plead guilty to it proudly. But you go right on respecting those "beliefs" if it makes you feel good and noble.

As far as Habermas, he clearly can't even makes the distinction between "truths of faith", (which are completely arbitrary), and scientific truths (which are not), choosing, as so many hacks do, to create a false equivalence where none exists. And exactly what has been "fruitful" about his conversations with the religious community?

[Jim__]

24. Understanding what you read implies understanding a larger context than one sentence.

As I said before, "tolerance" is not a categorical word. And, as she states later in the interview:

The book's appeal for secular progressives, I hope, is implicit. I think we like to think of ourselves as very tolerant, but we're comfortable being nasty to evangelical Christians. I think Internet culture has really exacerbated this attitude. It allows for hostility that would be unacceptable in life, where interacting with flesh and blood people counteracts any budding impulse to reduce someone to a disgusting cartoon. So I want this book to restore some humanity.

Again, no where does she say she is intolerant, and she does indicate that she thought of herself as very tolerant.

As for your remark about Habermas, comparing him to a hack, first, claiming that he can't distinguish between "truths of faith" and "scientific truths" just shows that you don't even understand that relatively simple paragraph. Second, it speaks more to your ignorance than it does anything about him.

[skepticscott]

25. Which simply goes back to my original point

that this author has some need for self-flagellation, which leads her to propose very bizarre meanings for the word "tolerant". Yes, I AM comfortable being hostile towards fundies for their hatred of gays and their attempts to enact radically homophobic public policy in this country, of their attempts to teach children in public schools that evolution is a complete lie. If that's "intolerant" of me at the same time as being morally justifiable (you DO think it's morally justifiable, don't you?), what does that say about the virtue of "tolerance" in that case, or her misguided use of the word?

And try taking your own advice for a change, and don't just read the words on the page. She says "we like to think of ourselves as very tolerant, BUT..." Do you still not get that what comes after the "but" is her clear implication that she doesn't think that "we" (whoever she presumes to include in that) or she, are really all that tolerant after all? Do you not get that she regards "being nasty to evangelical Christians" as a sign of being INtolerant?

Habermas here is nothing more than another Templeton Foundation type, attempting to lend legitimacy to religious methods of inquiry and to give them equal standing with those of science, and to reconcile things which are fundamentally unreconcilable (i.e faith and science). And yes, he does claim that the "truths of faith" are as legitimate on their side as the truths of science are on theirs.

Once again, what were these "fruitful conversations" that he had with religious communities, and what fruit did they bear, other than making everyone feel warm and fuzzy for a few days, before they went back to their fundamental disagreements?

[Jim__]

26. The meanings that I gave for tolerance, which included respect for the beliefs of others, were ...

... from the dictionary. Gina Welch does not propose any meanings for tolerance, she is simply using the accepted meaning. You're the one who is disagreeing with the dictionary definition. And, it is you who are now proposing that if someone is not very tolerant, then they must be intolerant. This is just your drawing unsupported inferences from the actual text.

As to your comfort with hostility toward fundies, it is similar to the claims that terrorists do not deserve rights, and therefore, prisoners at Guantanamo have no rights. The difficulty is that you first have to establish that people are terrorists before removing all their rights. Similarly, before declaring all "fundies" hostile to gay rights, etc, you first have to establish for each individual that he/she is indeed hostile; and really, incontrovertibly hostile. I have found that not to be true. More to the point, this is what Habermas's first presupposition deals with; and also the fruitful discussions that he's had in that religious participants have agreed to these presuppositions, not a trivial thing for them to accept. It indeed make a difference whether we speak with one another or about one another.

Your remarks on Habermas show a complete lack of knowledge of both the man and his philosophy.

[Silent3]

27. When words like "tolerance" have multiple meanings...

...I think it's perfectly reasonable to strive to work with the most useful of those meanings. "Tolerance" is generally regarded as a virtue. The way some people use the word, however, leads to a result of questionable virtue.

When people take the meaning of "tolerance" beyond respecting the rights of others to believe what they want, and try to turn that meaning into an obligation to respect those beliefs themselves, or when they construe the right to have a belief as tantamount to a right to never be challenged on that belief, a right to live in a comfortable bubble of supportive feelings never troubled by dissent or disagreement or scorn, it's my opinion that they've arrived at a definition of tolerance that is dysfunctional, no matter how well accepted in common usage of the word that definition might be. Such a definition is dysfunctional in my opinion because it loses the aspect of "tolerance" where tolerance is a virtue, substituting a meaning that may give people a self-congratulatory "let's all sing Kumbayah!" feeling of brotherhood and virtuous acceptance, but which is short-sighted, intellectually inconsistent, and really only results in a short-term avoidance of conflict without looking at the bigger picture.

I recently watched a show talking about whether Pluto should be considered a planet or not. The main problem in that discussion is a lack of a well-accepted definition of what a "planet" is. If we slavishly followed the original meaning of the Greek word πλανήτης (planetes) even the Earth couldn't be considered a planet because we don't see the Earth "wandering" in our own sky. As far as the Greeks were concerned, being a "planet" had nothing to do with orbiting a star, or having great physical size and enough gravity to assume a nearly spherical shape. Planets meant nothing other than specks of light in the sky that moved in a odd, more-difficult-to-predict way compared to most other specks of light in the sky. When we finally realized that the sun, not the Earth, was at the center of our solar system, however, it made a lot of sense to change what the word "planet" meant to fit the new circumstances.

If we stuck rigidly to the original Greek meaning of "planet" not only would the Earth not be a planet (unless you traveled to another planet to look back at the Earth), but airplanes and helicopters seen flying at night would be "planets".

When it comes to the word "tolerance", I only strive to be tolerant by a useful meaning of that word. If someone insists on a dysfunctional definition, no matter how commonplace its usage, I gladly admit no desire to practice "tolerance" under than definition of the term.

[Jim__]

28. I've referenced both the dictionary definition, and the UN's definition.

The definition that I'm using is direct from those 2 sources. Both definitions refer to respect. So, the definition that's being objected to here is straight out of the dictionary and the UN.

Besides, the whole issue of the meaning of tolerance is a red herring. Gina Welch's point is that person-to-person communication leads to better understanding than making huge assumptions about what people believe, and then attacking what are essentially assumptions based on ignorance. It's the same point that Habermas was making when he said, we talk to each other or about each other; and clearly indicated that talking to each other is preferable.

[Silent3]

29. The fact that you quoted back to me where your definitions come from...

...demonstrates you didn't grasp anything I said. The case I made is independent of the origins of definitions. Any definition of tolerance, whether it comes from a dictionary, the UN, or a booming voice descending from the heavens amid a choir of angels, is problematic and dysfunctional if it requires respect for beliefs beyond respect for the right to hold those beliefs. Such "tolerance" is not a virtue, and does not hold up well to scrutiny.

If you're eager for tolerance to be defined as a dysfunctional behavior rather than a virtue, well... I respect your right to believe that. :)

And again, I certainly won't argue against the potential benefits of learning more about other individuals, judging individuals as individuals rather than simply members of a particular group, nor against the benefits that sometimes result from diplomatic, friendly, non-confrontational discussion.

What I'm arguing against is any excessive interpretation of Gina Welch's experience which would take her experience as some kind of evidence that being friendly and carefully diplomatic and politely respectful of everyone's beliefs, no matter how absurd or offensive, is some sort of magical panacea for making the world a better place, or that anger expressed against groups as groups for the group's collectively stated beliefs is always a bad thing.

[Jim__]

30. I grasp that the dictionary definition is the accepted definition.

Any qualifiers that you wish to add onto that do not change the common meaning of the word. It is fascinating that people believe that because they disagree with a dictionary definition, that definition becomes either problematic or dysfunctional. The definition cited did not specify tolerance as a virtue.

And, yes, I accept the dictionary definition as the correct definition.

[Silent3]

31. Which dictionary definition?

You still have to pick and choose among the many definitions offered. Not every definition insists that to be a tolerant person you have to politely smile while another person explains how their God wants you to burn in hell for eternity unless you live your life according to their rules, and that you have to value such wonderful "diversity".

You seem to favor one particular definition, among all you could choose, and seem not to care if it makes much sense or if it constitutes a virtue, which seems rather odd to me.

So, let me ask this straight out: Do you consider your favored definition of tolerance a good thing? A virtue?

[Jim__]

32. See post #20 and tell me which one you think applies.

[Silent3]

33. I like these definitions from dictionary.com better

1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.

You can certainly be fair, objective, and even permissive about the opinions and practices of others without respecting those opinions. I think "fair" and "objective" are a particularly important words in these definitions, because even by very fair and objective standards, many beliefs are beyond the pale for deserving respect.

If you didn't feel "respect" for someone's belief in ritual human sacrifice, would you beat yourself up for not be a "tolerant" person, or not "tolerant enough"? Would you have-wave a bit with some excuse like "even too much tolerance is a bad thing"?

I've answered your question, even though you didn't do me the courtesy of answering mine, so I'll ask it again: Do you consider your favored definition of tolerance a good thing? A virtue?

(Since you referred me back to post #20, from among those definitions I'd have to guess the definition you like the most is "The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.")

[Jim__]

36. See post #19. This started with that poster claiming Gina Welch (and others) misuse the term.

Given that she used it in a way that is supported by dictionaries and the UN, she clearly didn't misuse the term. People can use the term as they want; but they can't just claim that others misuse it because they use in a somewhat different, though documented, way.

I don't think of tolerance in terms of virtue; and yes, I generally consider it to be a good thing.

[Silent3]

38. That's contradictory

"I don't think of tolerance in terms of virtue; and yes, I generally consider it to be a good thing."

How can it be "generally... a good thing", but not a virtue? OK, maybe you just don't "think" of it that way, but then that's merely a failure to think things through that saves you from realizing a contradiction.

virtue - noun. 1. behavior showing high moral standards; a quality considered morally good or desirable in a person: patience is a virtue

Whether or not Gina Welch can find cover in a dictionary is hardly the point. What's most important about skepticscott's post #19 (and if you didn't have your own "tolerance" agenda to push, I think you'd see this without having to have it pointed out to you) is which concept of "tolerance" is most appropriate and useful when trying to figure out how best to conduct civil discourse.

If you're all hung up over the terrible, terrible sin of telling someone they're using a word a wrong way when you can find dictionary support for that usage being right, then simply substitute "has a distorted and incorrect view of what constitutes 'tolerance'" in post #19 with something like "is using a poor definition of tolerance for defining useful and desirable bounds of civil conduct".

If you don't agree with that, then, rather than fret about dictionary definitions, defend the usefulness or value of not just respecting someone's right to believe that homosexuals and adulterers should be stoned to death, but actually, truly, deep-down respecting that belief itself.

[Jim__]

40. See post #28.

[Silent3]

42. I see post #28. So what?

Are you going to answer that with another post # too?

You have a highly overrated self-estimate of how well you think you've already explained and justified things. Certainly nothing in post #28 addresses your contradiction about virtue.

[Jim__]

43. In post #28, I stated that the whole issue of the meaning of tolerance is a red herring.

I'm not at all interested in getting into another discussion about the meaning of virtue. This has nothing to do with the OP.

[Silent3]

44. It has everything to do with clarifying the intent of the OP

Any recommendation that people should do things one way rather than another, unless it's a purely practical matter (like explaining a better way to insulate a house or polish silverware), is pretty much a discussion of virtue. If you express disdain for the "budding impulse to reduce someone to a disgusting cartoon" then you strongly imply that resisting such an impulse is a more virtuous path to follow, whether you choose to invoke the word "virtue" or not.

The characterization "budding impulse to reduce someone to a disgusting cartoon" is itself a bit cartoonish. How many people are going to voice support for doing that? Such a comment clearly invites discussion of what is supposed to count as "reduc(ing) someone to a disgusting cartoon".

Did you simply post your OP as a way of sharing the great wisdom of your revelation to the denizens of R/T, viewing anything apart from expressions of appreciation and gratitude for your insight as "off topic" and "beside the point"?

[Jim__]

45. If you want to discuss something about the OP, you should respond there.

This whole subthread started with a poster claiming the Gina Welch ("like many people on this board") have a distorted and incorrect view of what constitutes tolerance. I think that issue has been discussed to death.

As to what I thought of Welch's point, I stated that in post #28 (again, that's why I cited that post): Gina Welch's point is that person-to-person communication leads to better understanding than making huge assumptions about what people believe, and then attacking what are essentially assumptions based on ignorance..

A new subthread may allow us to jump out of the repetitiveness and drudgery of this subthread.

[Silent3]

46. Gee, if only I'd known this was an important matter...

...of the protocol of which message is attached to which other message in the subthread hierarchy of a forum discussion, I wouldn't have gotten the terribly inappropriate impression that you were engaged in annoyingly evasive behavior and pointless harping on minutiae. :eyes:

[darkstar3]

47. +1! n/t

[Jim__]

48. Once again, I'll refer you to post #28.

... the whole issue of the meaning of tolerance is a red herring.

[Silent3]

49. I hate to go back to definitions so much, but...

...the definition of "red herring" is not "something I don't care to deal with even though it's a completely reasonable point of discussion within the larger topic broached by my own OP, but that I'm going to attempt to avoid based on a flimsy technicality about where in a thread one is or is not allowed (by my judgment) to bring up a given subject, or because I just don't feel like it, so there!".

I'll grant you that a "red herring" could be a fish, for whatever evasive mileage you can get out of that.

For further clarification, please see post #753 in any message board and thread of your choosing.

[Silent3]

37. (deleted - replied to wrong message)

.

[skepticscott]

34. You flip-flop back and forth

between citing multiple meanings for the word "tolerance", and implying by phrases like "THE accepted meaning" and THE dictionary definition" that there is one and only one which fits in all circumstances, so it's hard to take anything you say on the subject seriously (or what the UN says seriously either, and if you don't know why, sorry). I'm saying that Welch means quite clearly that she and others are not as tolerant as they thought, and are further towards intolerance then they (we, in her presumption) like to presume. Of course there is no pure "tolerance" or "intolerance", only different locations on a scale from one to the other.

And this : "As to your comfort with hostility toward fundies, it is similar to the claims that terrorists do not deserve rights, and therefore, prisoners at Guantanamo have no rights." is such an assinine non-sequitir that I'm not sure if I can stop laughing long enough to rebut it. I defy you quote me anywhere "declaring all 'fundies' hostile to gay rights", and if you can't do that, to be intellectually honest and admit it. Beyond that, your leaps of illogic are a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

What I said was: "I AM comfortable being hostile towards fundies for their hatred of gays and their attempts to enact radically homophobic public policy in this country". In other words, WHEN fundies are hostile to gays (and whether they are openly hostile as individuals, or fight against their rights through political and social channels as supporting members of a group makes NO difference), then I don't apologize for my own hostility or disrespect towards their "beliefs".

And you keep citing these "fruitful discussions" that Habermas has had, but keep ducking the question about what fruit was borne and what real good was done, so I can only assume you're blowing smoke. Are you capable of anything concrete in that area? As far as Habermas, my only comments are about what you quoted, and no, I don't particularly care about the rest of his philosophy. Sue me for dissing a "world class philosopher" (whatever the heck that even means). Do you and your pet philosopher really think that the only possible choices are speaking with people or about them? Is your range of thought that limited?

[Jim__]

41. Please.

Tolerance has multiple meanings as I clearly showed in post #20 and as I have argued throughout this subthread. Sure, in post #28, I said:

The meanings that I gave for tolerance, which included respect for the beliefs of others, were from the dictionary. Gina Welch does not propose any meanings for tolerance, she is simply using the accepted meaning. You're the one who is disagreeing with the dictionary definition.

which can be changed to:

The meanings that I gave for tolerance, which included respect for the beliefs of others, were from the dictionary. Gina Welch does not propose any meanings for tolerance, she is simply using an accepted meaning. You're the one who is disagreeing with a dictionary definition.

without changing the argument.

And this : "As to your comfort with hostility toward fundies, it is similar to the claims that terrorists do not deserve rights, and therefore, prisoners at Guantanamo have no rights." is such an assinine non-sequitir that I'm not sure if I can stop laughing long enough to rebut it. I defy you quote me anywhere "declaring all 'fundies' hostile to gay rights", and if you can't do that, to be intellectually honest and admit it. Beyond that, your leaps of illogic are a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

What I said was: "I AM comfortable being hostile towards fundies for their hatred of gays and their attempts to enact radically homophobic public policy in this country". In other words, WHEN fundies are hostile to gays (and whether they are openly hostile as individuals, or fight against their rights through political and social channels as supporting members of a group makes NO difference), then I don't apologize for my own hostility or disrespect towards their "beliefs".

All of this simply goes to the point that if you haven't spoken to someone, then you don't know what their beliefs are.

And you keep citing these "fruitful discussions" that Habermas has had, but keep ducking the question about what fruit was borne and what real good was done, so I can only assume you're blowing smoke. Are you capable of anything concrete in that area? As far as Habermas, my only comments are about what you quoted, and no, I don't particularly care about the rest of his philosophy. Sue me for dissing a "world class philosopher" (whatever the heck that even means). Do you and your pet philosopher really think that the only possible choices are speaking with people or about them? Is your range of thought that limited?

Answered in posts #28 and 22.

[skepticscott]

50. Again more

answering with post numbers that answer nothing, or just flat-out evasion.

And this: "All of this simply goes to the point that if you haven't spoken to someone, then you don't know what their beliefs are." :rofl:

Do you really and truly not realize how idiotic a statement that is?

[brendan120678]

39. Oh...wow...how original...

an atheist/non-Christian going "undercover" with a group of Christians for a time to write/blog about their experiences.

Why hasn't anybody ever done this before??

Oh...wait...