An epic exercise in false equivalency and sophistry combined with a bit of definitional or psuedo-analytic creativity has called yet again for support for the idea of allowing people to throw HRs for disagreement as long as the targets are persons who dared to challenge the validity of arguments and statements based on religion or god.
Of course, it was not cast as that, though the diarist did pretty much admit to a 7 person hit list with one in particular playing the role of most wanted. Instead, it is argued that the site is under assault from anti-theist bigots spewing prejudice wherever they go.
The diary is long on sophistry and rhetoric and short on examples, so I'll give an example I witnessed back in December.
Diary : Entire xtian right is bad, bad, bad. One of them did bad and there is insufficient apology. There is insufficient attack response from the rest of the xtian right. Bad, bad, bad. Where is the soul searching on the part of the entire xtian right?
Commenter 1: There is no soul searching because they have no souls.
Commenter 2: Gee, commenter 1, that seems to be painting with a somewhat broad brush there, that seems to me to be "othering", and its not like the xtian left is itself perfect in every way.
So who here is the evil, hateful, prejudice spewing person? Why Commenter 2, of course, in fact, he resides atop the kill list.
So let's go look at the argument that was made that theists are under seige by bigoted, prejudiced anti-theists.
For starts let's see what our victims are:
Theism, in the field of comparative religion, is the belief that at least one deity exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/... ---
: belief in the existence of a god or gods; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world
http://www.merriam-webster.com/... ---
noun
1.
the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation (distinguished from deism ).
2.
belief in the existence of a god or gods (opposed to atheism ).
http://dictionary.reference.com/... ---
theism, the view that all limited or finite things are dependent in some way on one supreme or ultimate reality of which one may also speak in personal terms. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this ultimate reality is often called God.
http://www.britannica.com/... ---
Missing from all of the above is anything about knowledge, facts or evidence. Why? Because the beliefs in question are not usually evidence based. Though many claim to know that some god exists, none have yet proved it or even presented any strong evidence. Yet, some here desire that everybody be forced to accept it as true when it is used as the basis for some position they take, that it be immune from challenge when they use it as a premise.
Their alleged assailants allegedly manifest -
prejudice
[prej-uh-dis]
noun
1.
an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2.
any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.
3.
unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group.
http://dictionary.reference.com/...
preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
https://www.google.com/...
The diarist tries to hang her argument, in part, upon a psuedo-definition that the hallmarks of prejudice are contempt and overgeneralization. There are no references to those terms above. I don't find any reference to contempt there because it is neither a sufficient nor a necessary cause or element of prejudice. That is simply sophistry, a cheap rhetorical trick like the bogus linkage between Islamophobia and so called "anti-theism". Ditto the word overgeneralization.
Most of the diary is rambling discourse upon prejudice and examination of exemplars thereof. This is better for the diarist's purposes than trying to argue that others saying things like "The argument that we should do x because (diety) says so is invalid" is a manifestation of hatred, bigotry and prejudice. The more one rambles on about prejudice after drawing the false equivalency between such criticisms and real prejudice, the more one reinforces that false equivalency in the mind of the reader. What is really desired by this faction is for their own prejudices to be beyond criticism and for logic based criticisms of their statements to be prohibited.
I was initially baffled about the false inclusion of "contempt" in the definition of prejudice, then it came to me. Demonstration of logicalerror by analogy is a common technique. All arguments of hte form "god xxx ergo" are only as true as statements of the form "IShtar xxx ergo" or "FSM xxx ergo". Those desirous of an echo chamber for religiospeak wish to argue that the use of such analogies is "prejudice", so they attempt to invoke contempt as an element of both the analogies and prejudice in order to make that claim.
Let us get one thing clear; No matter how many rhetorical games one plays, such as misdefining and then rambling on and on about prejudice and pretending to analyze and understand exemplars thereof, disbelief in that for which there is no evidence is not prejudice. Criticism and/or dismissal of arguments, theories, prescriptions and proscriptions based on opinions and beliefs for which there is no evidence is not prejudice. This matter is being cast in terms of prejudice because "Ban the heretics and blasphemers" goes against the grain here and the normal "This is a reality/fact based community" attack on critics cuts entirely the wrong way. Accordingly, it is being argued that failure to treat this specific type of unsupported belief differently from astrology, numerology, augury and the like is bigotry. That is simply false.
We are rhetorically asked if moderating (HRing and outlawing) this kind (what kind? any kind) of anti-theistic (critical) comment will affect many people? Well, of course it would, that is the whole point of all of this bogus rhetoric trying to claim that disagreeing with religionists and theists is akin to anti-semitism and racism. It is unsupportable on any factual or logical basis, so sophistry and semantics are relied upon instead. This is not the first time that certain parties have tried to lay an official or unofficial foundation for censoring disbelief and criticism of religion based arguments, inferences, prescriptions, proscriptions and, generally banning non-believers for heresy. The whole point is to be able to ban or at least hide people like Bertrand Russell, a known "anti-theist" bigot full of irrational, unsupported pre-concieved opinions, from spewing such prejudice as:
"I wish to propose a doctrine ... which may, I fear, appear wholly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing that it is true."
Lord Russell, sadly is dead, but there is still hope. You can ban me for quoting that hellaciously hateful bit of bigotry and maybe you might never have to see it again.
Which leads me at last to the the implication that criticism of beliefs that have no connection to any known evidence should be thoroughly researched? What??? Is spouting something from some-so-called-prophet 44:40 or random-preacher 22:20 well researched commentary? Please get serious. People saying that 'no member of the so-called xtian right is doing soul searching about some event because they have no soul' is well researched and not prejudiced, but somebody replying that such an assertion is perhaps too broad of a brush is a bigot who really needs to research matters further before daring to speak? I'm sorry, but that is laughable. Only one commenter engaged in the kind of speech, prejudice, bigotry and othering that gave us the Albigensian Crusades, and it was not the challenger. Thw whole premise here is bogus, the goal is solely protectionism of declarations by a self chosen elite, those who profess, talk about and argue from religion and religious precepts.
The real issue here has nothing to do with civility or prejudice. Without the false equivalency and suchwhat it dissolves into two questions:
1) Should we create an elite class of participants empowered to create an echo chamber for their opinions, prejudices and statements by silencing challenges, criticism, and critics by throwing pastries and banning folks.
2) Should we prohibit commentary or disagreements based on the principle that tautologies and arbitrary belief systems with no empirical basis cannot meaningfully inform us as to empirical realilty and that arguments based on such definitions and belief systems cannot validly speak to reality.