The explosion from EP148: Homecoming at the Borderlands Café

[DigitalVG]

Ugh.  When did EscapePod get bought by FOX?   This is the most biased piece of crap I've heard outside a visit to my ex-family in rural Oklahoma.

Let's talk about some of the spin phrases, shall we?

"Separate but Equal":  Bullshit.  Soft-sell it all you want as this person does but it's bullshit.  Human beings are not cool logical machines.  We are stupid animals and greed, jealousy, hate, and fear will always exist.  One group will always try to better themselves through demeaning or taking advantage of or limiting another.

"Left Town":  You can just feel the  airquotes around that.  He mentions later the lynchings but the 'left town' bit is a softener.  It makes it seem peaceful.  Friendly.  People are attached to their families, homes, communities.  They don't tend to just  pull up roots and leave en-masse.  They didn't "Leave Town", they fled from a situation that scared them bad enough to make them give up their home.

 I'm just skipping the "All those minority women act that way" crap from our 'not a racist REALLY' narrator.  Too obvious.

"Taking children from religious people"...  The all-too-common cry that WAH religious groups are SO oppressed!   How dare the government step in and say, "You can't cut out your little girl's clitoris and then stitch her labia closed so she rips and bleeds real good for her husband on their wedding night."
Or, "Why no, Mr. Mormon.  We in fact consider it child abuse for you to have a harem of 12-year-olds."   Sorry faith-healer, you don't get as much mercury from thermisol in all the immunizations in your life as you do from sitting in traffic on the daily commute.  We really don't want easily preventable epidemics to permanently cripple large portions of the population."     Or from my own life, "FUCK YOU, MOTHER!  Beatings and bible-camp 're-education' isn't going to make me not a dyke and what you did to me was child abuse."   I'm so sick of hearing this biased whine.  The same people who are so quick to scream, "Think of the children!" when they see anything they disagree with will just as quickly forget children are people at all when it comes to  their God Given right to treat that tiny wide-eyed and beautiful creature as property.   It must be so easy to ignore that if you didn't face abuse for the Glory of God as a child.

"Discriminated against as a teacher for being religious"  Oh look.  More spin.  We're supposed to instantly say, "that's wrong!  Liberals shouldn't do that.  If they were what they claimed, this wouldn't happen."    Yeah.  You know. That fails.  Let me give you a for-instance.  I was taught that women have more ribs than men because Adam gave one up when God created Eve.  In REALITY of course, men's fat placement is over the lowest of the free-floating ribs. We have the same number.  Shall we talk about flat-earth, the 6,000-year-old Earth, or Evolution?  There is tons of evidence from a wide number of fields and tens of thousands of scientists who say that these things fit the available data FAR better than any of the creation myths.   Does that make them 100% true?  No.  However, it does make them far more LIKELY to be right than poorly transcribed oral tradition that's several thousand years out of date.  Especially when none of those can even agree on the details.  Repeating something someone else told you over and over doesn't make it true.  It makes you seem like a six year old.   Furthermore, it's worth noting that unless he made it an issue, how would anyone else know.   The right wing is fond of saying, "If gays would just keep it to themselves, it wouldn't be a problem."  Nice double-standard there.  How many people do you see in a day wearing crosses or other religious symbols.  (And I won't even touch on heterosexual exhibition)  If he was a literature teacher, art teacher, music instructor, or whatever, why would it ever be an issue unless he made it one?  If he was an intellectually honest science instructor, why would he give any more weight to Christian mythology than Xenu throwing everyone into a volcano a hundred trillion years ago?   As someone who has been a student and has continued to take classes throughout the past 20 years of my adult life, I can imagine I speak for most students.  We don't care if you're gay or believe the world was created when and Elvis farted.  We care first about our grade and second about our education.  If you aren't affecting those with your beliefs/lifestyle/whatever, we could care less.  We're all too wrapped up in our own little dramas.

"The minster was gay and you know how much they hate the bible"....   Okay.  Seriously.  Let's just reduce this nonsense to it's core batshit nonsense:  "The minister hates the bible."  And this minister was named Dr. Plotz Devices, I take it?

Come on.  I know you like to toot your own horn and say 'This one really made people think.' when you run crap.  This one isn't making people think.  It does nothing, goes nowhere, is not interestingly written, and gives only a single very biased point of view.  If anything, it's written to make you not think but to make you think that you are.

Most disappointing story to date.

[MattArnold]

Helpless thinking, depicting the sad victims of victims who victimize other victimizers. Helpless. Where were the can-do problem-solvers and their technofixes of the future, uture, ture, ure, re?

It didn't make me think, but having sunk time into it, I decided to do so anyway.

What held my attention the most was the setting that was left offstage: Columbia. I can see how the citizens there might justify taking children away from overtly religious parents, to prevent them being brainwashed. Having grown up in religious fundamentalism and left it for secularism, I feel sorry for the kids who get brainwashed with the Bible. But of course if thinking for one's self is the goal, Columbia's solution is a form of draconian thought restriction, a violation of free speech, and would be counterproductive to its own aims. Since both of these forms of brainwashing are issues that are very near to me, I'm far more interested in what my life would be like if I lived in Columbia.

In response to that part of the story, here's a thought about secularists "hating Christians."

I don't dislike Christians-- I just dislike most of their teachings and doctrine. I don't get too worked up about their teachings, because fortunately, they just pay lip service to the awful parts. Most Christians are fine people with good consciences who are far more praiseworthy than their own Bible. I recognize good people. I've learned that the virtue or monstrousness of someone's opinions seldom has any correlation to the virtue or monstrousness of their behavior, so we must be judged by actions. Given a set of extremely different drivers who approach your broken-down car on the highway, one driver who is a racist pig, another who is an atheist, another who is devoutly religious, and so forth, the odds of which one will pull over to help you is pretty much even. Sweet and kind people can mouth the most awful atrocities while on a soapbox but not go through with them when they witness real people in real pain. They're our relatives, our coworkers, our doctors and mailmen. Doubtless you've all heard of the banality of evil many times, and I won't belabor that any further.

[Mr. Tweedy]

DigitalVG,

I am sincerely grieved that your experience of Christianity has been so negative.  Part of me wishes that I could dismiss it as a fluke, but I know that it isn't.  I've observed a few of the things you mention myself.  I don't doubt that your anger is justified and I don't have much to say in defense of the people who have wronged you, whatever motivation they may have claimed.  I do want to say, though, that at least on Christian (me) is disgusted along with you at the way you have been treated and at all the abuses and stupidities that the name of Christ has been twisted to justify.

[Darwinist]

I don't dislike Christians-- I just dislike most of their teachings and doctrine. I don't get too worked up about their teachings, because fortunately, they just pay lip service to the awful parts. Most Christians are fine people with good consciences who are far more praiseworthy than their own Bible. I recognize good people. I've learned that the virtue or monstrousness of someone's opinions seldom has any correlation to the virtue or monstrousness of their behavior, so we must be judged by actions. Given a set of extremely different drivers who approach your broken-down car on the highway, one driver who is a racist pig, another who is an atheist, another who is devoutly religious, and so forth, the odds of which one will pull over to help you is pretty much even. Sweet and kind people can mouth the most awful atrocities while on a soapbox but not go through with them when they witness real people in real pain. They're our relatives, our coworkers, our doctors and mailmen. Doubtless you've all heard of the banality of evil many times, and I won't belabor that any further.

Well said brother! 

[DigitalVG]

Hey Tweedy.   

For what it's worth, I know I sounded pretty angry, but really, I don't have any serious issues with what people chose to believe, so long as they leave others free to make their own choices.  I have friends who are christians, jewish, wiccans, buddists, people who believe they are dragons, and followers of the self-transforming machine elves.  It's all good so long as it isn't being pushed on others.  For myself, I'm an atheist because it seems most logical.  In order to believe in one religion, I'd have to disbelieve in all the others.  How could I possibly chose Jesus over Buddha, Rama, Zeus, Ra, the Goddess, etc?  None of the religions are more plausible than the others, but at the same time, if a religion gives someone comfort and is not harming others, why would I have reason to care what they believe?

Here's my abstraction of religion:  Basically you have only a few options.
1)  There's no God.
2)  There's one God.
3)  There are multiple gods.

In the first case, it doesn't matter what you believe in or if you believe in nothing at all.
In the second case, given that there are so many religions, you have two possibilities.    The first is that God is pretty mellow and as long as you try to do the right thing most of the time, you're probably alright, even if you're an atheist or you worship a jar of pickles.  The other possibility is that the deity is petty and demands you live by some strict code that is never made crystal clear for all the people of the world at once.  In which case, why worship them at all?  You'll probably never live up to their standard, and there are so many religions, you probably aren't going to get it entirely right.
In the last case...  If there are many gods, why chose one that will make your life miserable and who's a jerk to your neighbors?  You'd be best off picking a fat jolly hedonistic god who really just wants man to reach for their full potential.

In all cases, the best thing really just seems to be "Don't be a jerk and the rest will take care of itself."  If by some chance, only a single God exists and he's a prick...  Well, at least you had a decent life, and really, who wants to spend the rest of eternity with a jerk anyhow?

I think Jesus allegedly said a bunch of stuff like that too.  "Love thy neighbor" and that sort of thing.  My family's problem isn't their religion.  It's that they're ignorant.  They are racist and xenophobic and while it isn't impossible to pull racist and xenophobic ideas out of the old testament, there are really very few instances of it (nevermind the fact that christians are supposed to really ignore OT and only give credence to NT)

Their homophobia is just another example of their ignorance.  There are 3 places in the bible that can be construed as anti-gay.  The levitican law...  Christians, of course, ignore practically every other law in Leviticus except this one.  Very inconsistent of them.    The story of Sodom...  Which is completely misunderstood.  The book of Ezekiel defines the sin of the Sodomites.  It wasn't anything to do with being gay.  It was that they were selfish, greedy, and uncharitable and treated people who were different from them poorly (Ironic, isn't it?)  And the last reference and only one in the NT is the bit where Paul has written that Jesus said a man shouldn't lie with another man.  Paul, of course, was a sexist and racist asshole.  Most of his writing are pretty hateful.  Moreover, other apostles who gave the same sermon (see Luke and John) told the story a totally different way and it's really about adultery.  In short.  The only true edict made against homosexuality in the bible is the one law in leviticus, but if you want to follow that, you should also give up cotton-wool blends, pork, shellfish, masturbation, and using public transportation.

My family's bigotry makes me sad and angry.  It's been 15 years (10 with the same woman) and yet they still won't accept that I am who I am.  I tried waiting for them for 13 years, but when my grandmother died and I was forbade from even coming to her funeral and expressing my love for her, that was enough.  I realized there was no point in letting them continue to rend my heart.  I'll probably never stop loving them and wishing I could have that comfort I had as a child, but I've given up waiting for them.   How could anyone discard their own child, even for a god? 

[DigitalVG]

 The only true edict made against homosexuality in the bible is the one law in leviticus, but if you want to follow that, you should also give up cotton-wool blends, pork, shellfish, masturbation, and using public transportation.

So THAT'S why we don't have a decent public transit system in this country!  Because it's forbidden by God!   Whew, and I thought it was just because people would rather spend 100K on a new Hummer than pony up another 1% on sales tax.  I'll have to find that scripture for next time the subject comes up. 

Leviticus has a bunch of rules about where you can sit and when.  For instance, men aren't supposed to sit within  10 feet of a menstruating woman and on a crowded bus, you can bet there's probably at least one, so either women need to be relegated to a subsection of the bus (As is in practice in some islamic countries) or the bus is 'unclean'.  Ergo, if you don't like gays, don't ride the bus or worse yet, go to a movie.  That wicked den of sloth, gluttony, idolatry, and lust! There could be a woman with her period sitting behind you...  The horror!

[Mr. Tweedy]

The problem with Columbia was that it reminded me of some of the misconceptions I repeatedly run into as an out Atheist... The gay minister and the baby snatching liberals sounded like something right out of AM talk radio and I guess I'm just tired of hearing that kind of thing.

I am going to refrain from saying just about everything that comes to mind to say in response to your posts.  I will say this, though:

Although I freely and unashamedly confess to enjoying Rush Limbaugh on a frequent basis, it is not because of AM radio or anything I have heard in my church that I regard the Republic of Columbia as a plausible scenario.  My fear of atheism and liberalism is not primarily inspired by the words of Rush or Dr. Laura, it is inspired by the words or Richard Dawkins, Pual Kurtz, Edward Tabash, Hillary Clinton, Rod Blagojevich, Al Gore and Jack Clark (a podcaster).  (I am naming a few particular people whose specific words have caused my mind to say DANGER DANGER while waving its arms.)  I am not afraid of atheist liberals snatching my baby because AM radio told me to be afraid.  I am afraid because of a continual stream of rulings like this coming out of American courts.

I don't know if there's any point in even trying to say this because I know that atheist liberals say "No, no, you don't understand.  All our ideas are moral, helpful, reasonable, rational, nice.  You aren't judging us fairly.  You misconstrue out intentions."  In any case, my (very negative) opinion of atheists/liberals/secular humanists/progressives/new atheists/rationalists/secularists/whatever has been acquired by listening to and conversing with them, not by absorbing the teaching of conservatives.

I guess my only point is that it would be constructive for you and your friends at richardawkins.net to evaluate your own message and agenda to try and understand why people might perceive it as threatening to their life, liberty and happiness rather and just assume that anyone who feels threatened is an ignorant sheep of the right-wing media.

[bad_andy]

Mr. Tweedy, after reading your earlier comments I was curious about your perspective, so thanks for taking the time to write. It's obvious we aren't going to agree. I don't want to change your point of view, just explain mine. My initial objection to the story was that it reminded me of straw man political propaganda about me and my friends that doesn't bear any resemblance to us. On hearing Carole's comments, it seems like the very problem she was actually trying to address was the rut you get stuck in when you try to let any group define you, especially in opposition to others. We have to be able to disagree with each other without hating each other in order to live in the same country.

Rush has said that his job isn't to have a balanced discussion, it's to advocate a point of view. People like Rush, Beck, etc. aren't just group joiners, they are group advocates. They really, really love their group and really, really hate your group. Wash, rinse, repeat. I can't listen to Air America for the same reasons. I live in the Midwest and I know lots of people with Republican leanings who don't like AM talk radio. What it engages in these days isn't debate, it's uber-bias and propaganda. "Our team is great and can do no wrong and your team sucks and can do no right." This kind of invective from anyone poisons the thing that any healthy democracy needs to function: the ability for people to disagree constructively.

I guess my only point is that it would be constructive for you and your friends at richardawkins.net to evaluate your own message and agenda to try and understand why people might perceive it as threatening to their life, liberty and happiness rather and just assume that anyone who feels threatened is an ignorant sheep of the right-wing media.

I brought up RD.net because I wanted to make the point that even there, I didn't meet people who wanted to do the things that were happening in the fictional Columbia. I'm not organized under Richard Dawkins and he and I don't have a common agenda. We agree on some things and disagree on others. I participate on the forums there because they're like the forums here and full of intelligent passionate people who have something in common. We also come from many points of view politically including very conservative members of the Republican party. Christopher Hitchens hasn't stopped flogging the Clintons every chance he gets or tirelessly defending the decision to invade Iraq. Non-belief in God doesn't make him liberal. Which group should he join?

Here's another problem. There is an organized point of view on the religious right. There isn't one here. An "atheist" is someone who doesn't believe in God, and that's as much as you can say about them. There are a few organized groups, but there's no organized "atheist" agenda. If the story had been about something else, I doubt I would have brought up my non-belief, but I do usually let people know about it at some point. Many of us think that "atheists" have such a bad name because most people don't think they know a non-believer, so some of us have taken the time to start introducing ourselves.

I don't think of people who disagree with me are sheep. I think there are lots of conservatives who's opinions I respect even if I don't agree with them. Andrew Sullivan and P.J. O'Rourke are good examples. We just lost a big one when William F. Buckley died. But the tone of "Firing Line" was a quantum leap from the ranting and name calling Rush and Fox News engage in, as well as some of their mainstream counterparts on CNN and MSNBC. This isn't intelligent debate and it hurts our ability to run a democracy.

Please understand, I started out as one of you. I was a practicing evangelical and a Reagan Republican. I'm still a strong fiscal conservative. I've discovered that a lot of people who identify as non-believers started out on a different side of the fence. Humanists and atheists aren't, in my experience, threatened by God or the idea of God, we're just deeply concerned with the way some people behave in His name. I, for one, part company with anyone who says that they want to take your freedom to worship your God or listen to your pundit or say whatever you like to me on this forum. Surely we can agree on that.

[birdless]

Very well spoken, Andy. I must admit that I often find myself sliding towards the view that atheists don't just disagree with us—they hate us. I've read so many other threads (mainly news type stuff/comments) where so much hatred and fury are directed at Christians, in particular (not religion in general, but that, too). It's like the stereotype of Christians, I guess, just flipped.

if I want to get beaten over the head with the moral point of the story I can just go here http://librivox.org/newcatalog/search.php?title=Aesop&author=&status=all&action=Search

however that is not the kind of thing I want for entertainment

Hahahahaha! That made me laugh. I was expecting something totally different from something that I interpreted as "Free Voice dot org."

you said some things in here that I was trying to say but did it better than I could good job

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I really tried to keep from mis-stating something.

[Mr. Tweedy]

Bad_andy,

That last post raised you a few points on my respect-o-meter.  I'm sure I disagree with you about lots of stuff but you sound like the sort of person who I could probably have a real conversation with.  I hope you don't feel insulted if I don't have it here and now, though, for reasons unrelated to you personally.  (It's mostly just that I'm not prepared to invest the time in one of the long and winding debates that my posts sometimes spark.  Call me lazy.)  If you feel like hearing more about my crazy views, feel free to send me an email.

[bad_andy]

Mr. Tweedy, it was very nice to meet you as well. I look forward to talking to you again. It was nice meeting everyone else and reading the discussion this story has sparked.

[CammoBlammo]

But as for the story, the characters were really confusing to me. I couldn't figure out what they believed or what their motivations were (except for the moms).

This is a very common thing in any area dominated by religious extremism. You get a few shrill voices saying 'this is the way, and anyone who believes otherwise is an infidel' and everyone follows suit because they don't want to be an infidel.

The most obvious example is Islam. There aren't that many people who sympathise with extremists, yet with a bit of intimidation and simplistic argumentation people let them do their thing because it's somehow easier. Their view of the Koran is the only one spoken freely and thus alternative views aren't heard. Their view of history ('we were okay until the Great Satan ruined it all for us') has elements of truth, so is demonstrably true. If other views are spoken, they're corruptions of the Prophet's words and must be silenced. So it's best to remain silent.

This happened in the story. There are two women in this town who control all debate. Most people don't really agree with the 'separate but equal' doctrine, or at least thought through the all issues properly. If they do have any misgivings their voices aren't heard due to the intimidation and difficult-to-oppose simplicity of what the segregationists teach. Anyone daring to say anything against the status quo is just an evil, baby-stealing liberal. And that's only a step away from homosexuality!

As for motivations, I don't think the characters were as one-dimensional as people on this forum have suggested. They just haven't been explored enough. The story explicitly says that most people just wanted to keep the peace, even if it means removing the source of conflict to a reservation. But a problem has come along that mightn't be too easy to move to a reservation, and the power brokers in town have been challenged by members of their own families.

I'd love to see what happens next --- would Jody be allowed to ride the buses? These folk don't see themselves as bigoted, just sensible. Once they realise the truth the Borderlands could become the next Montgomery.

[Robin Sure]

Although I freely and unashamedly confess to enjoying Rush Limbaugh on a frequent basis, it is not because of AM radio or anything I have heard in my church that I regard the Republic of Columbia as a plausible scenario.  My fear of atheism and liberalism is not primarily inspired by the words of Rush or Dr. Laura, it is inspired by the words or Richard Dawkins, Pual Kurtz, Edward Tabash, Hillary Clinton, Rod Blagojevich, Al Gore and Jack Clark (a podcaster).  (I am naming a few particular people whose specific words have caused my mind to say DANGER DANGER while waving its arms.)  I am not afraid of atheist liberals snatching my baby because AM radio told me to be afraid.  I am afraid because of a continual stream of rulings like this coming out of American courts.ignorant sheep of the right-wing media.

While I'm loath to go off topic, this annoyed me. You're objecting to people attempting to ensure that children are given a full, useful education, so that they grow up and are able to take advantage of any opportunities offered to them? I can see your view that children should be given allowance to develop religious views, but I don't think that should be at the expense of a good education. Hell, the church and state should always be separate anyway.

[Liminal]

In any case, my (very negative) opinion of atheists/liberals/secular humanists/progressives/new atheists/rationalists/secularists/whatever has been acquired by listening to and conversing with them, not by absorbing the teaching of conservatives.

Three points:

1) So you have a negative opinion of rational thinking?

2) You are casting an awfully wide net since atheism does not equal liberalism does not equal progressivism. You can be a religious person and still believe in and support a secular, democratic government. You can be a liberal and be a Baptist Minister. You can be a progressive and a Catholic. To lump all these various positions together as somehow "bad" is intellectually lazy.

3) Since secularism is bad, should we be living in a Theocracy like Iran?

[Talia]

I don't know if there's any point in even trying to say this because I know that atheist liberals say "No, no, you don't understand.  All our ideas are moral, helpful, reasonable, rational, nice.  You aren't judging us fairly.  You misconstrue out intentions."  In any case, my (very negative) opinion of atheists/liberals/secular humanists/progressives/new atheists/rationalists/secularists/whatever has been acquired by listening to and conversing with them, not by absorbing the teaching of conservatives.

Somehow I get the feeling you haven't actually talked to all that many and are basing your dislike on a pretty small sample. By that measure, I could say the same thing about ultra-conservative Christians.

I've had a few very unpleasant experiences, and am severely offended by the behavior of fools such as Fred Phelps. I'm hardly willing to hold those experiences against the whole lot of you, however.

Also, if you happen to live in a super conservative area, likely you're more exposed to folks accustomed to having to be super defensive all the time.

---

Apologies for threadjacking. Like the first poster my response to the story was fury, not at the story itself, which IMHO did a relatively reasonable job of uber-exaggerating both "sides"(although perhaps a little unfairly to the liberal half), but at the ridiculously evil, ignorant, horrible characters who populated it. Discrimination in all its forms has always been a hot issue for me (and I think a lot of liberals feel this way as well, which is why, like other posters, I don't really see the the liberal "country''s depiction in the story as particularly realistic. It does smack of the "Zomgz, WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!"  persecuted mentality, when in 99% of cases people regardless of religious  beliefs are happy to call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree). The story's basic premise also hits home a bit as MANY times over the past 8 years ive considered the serious schism in this country's beliefs and wondered (this is just me speculating out of frustration, mind you, no real intellectual exercise) if it MIGHT not be better to divide the whole thing up. Those who favor the integration of church and state and religion over science could have one part and everyone else could live elsewhere. Not a division of religious vs. non so much as religious people who want to force their beliefs on everyone else vs. those who just want to be left alone. Sometimes it feels like the former group is much larger than it probably actually is.

[Mr. Tweedy]

Those who favor the integration of church and state and religion over science could have one part and everyone else could live elsewhere. Not a division of religious vs. non so much as religious people who want to force their beliefs on everyone else vs. those who just want to be left alone.

Okay, this, this is why I didn't respond to the last few posts and why this sort of discussion has become so frustrating in general to me.  You draw a dichotomy, an either/or, between "those who favor the integration of church and state and religion" and those who favor science.  I reject that dichotomy.  I reject the philosophical assumptions upon which that dichotomy is based.

Liminal asked if I want a theocracy.  My answer is that Christianity and theocracy are inherently antithetical: You can't have a Christian theocracy and as soon as you have theocracy it stops being Christian.  And at the same time I think secularism is very bad.

You want to split the country between people who are tolerant and people who want to impose their beliefs on others?  Sure.  I'd put myself and my right-wing Christian friends on the side with the tolerant people and all the members of the ACLU would be over with the religious oppressors.

Should government be based upon Christianity?  Absolutely!  Should there be a state religion?  Absolutely not!  What's more important, science or religion?  Yes.

Doesn't make sense to you?  Sound like I'm contradicting myself?  Because we're speaking different languages (I guess, as far as I've been able to figure out).  What is "religion?"  What is "secular?"  What is "theocracy?"  What is "rational?"  What is "faith?"  You say "reason vs. faith."  I say "reason leads to faith."  Etc.

We don't have a consensus on what these things mean.  There isn't a common lexicon for dialog, which is, at the least, very frustrating and probably genuinely harmful in the long run.  I'm not sure what to do about it, at least not in this format.

I'm a rational religious pro-science faith-centered conservative anarchist who wants to create a strict theocracy of free speech, sex and religion.  Come over to my side.

[birdless]

Like the first poster my response to the story was fury, not at the story itself, which IMHO did a relatively reasonable job of uber-exaggerating both "sides"(although perhaps a little unfairly to the liberal half), but at the ridiculously evil, ignorant, horrible characters who populated it. Discrimination in all its forms has always been a hot issue for me (and I think a lot of liberals feel this way as well, which is why, like other posters, I don't really see the the liberal "country''s depiction in the story as particularly realistic. It does smack of the "Zomgz, WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!"  persecuted mentality, when in 99% of cases people regardless of religious  beliefs are happy to call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree). The story's basic premise also hits home a bit as MANY times over the past 8 years ive considered the serious schism in this country's beliefs and wondered (this is just me speculating out of frustration, mind you, no real intellectual exercise) if it MIGHT not be better to divide the whole thing up. Those who favor the integration of church and state and religion over science could have one part and everyone else could live elsewhere. Not a division of religious vs. non so much as religious people who want to force their beliefs on everyone else vs. those who just want to be left alone. Sometimes it feels like the former group is much larger than it probably actually is.

I just want to make sure I'm reading you right, Talia, because I don't think I am. Tweedy thinks you draw a dichotomy, but I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. But here is the way what you wrote reads to me:

You feel Christians and, apparently, conservatives aren't particularly concerned with discrimination. And that's not really a fair statement. I think I know what you are basing this on, but, well, to define it so broadly isn't a very accurate view of the truth.

And you think that liberals got an unfair shake in this story... That you would think that conservatives as a whole would be happy to segregate our nation and think that's more realistic than liberals confiscating babies is... well, it's funny to me. It didn't even occur to me that the United Confederate Republic was being portrayed as "conservative" except for their referral to whatever-the-other-nation-was-called as liberal. I though it was just bigoted views from the 1800s holdover (i thought this was a story based on the Confederacy having won their "independence" in the War Between the States until later on in the story when they talk about The Secession, but i never could really get that first idea out of my head). So it disturbs me that you would think that conservatives would actually be in favor of segregation. If that's the mainstream liberal view of conservatives, we have some serious communication issues. Yes, it's ludicrous to suggest that liberals would endorse baby-confiscation, but it's at least equally ludicrous to suggest that conservatives would endorse segregation. I've never heard any serious political leader suggest "separate but equal." Not in the last 25 years, anyway.

You mention the religious people who want to force their beliefs on everyone else. Well, you left out the non-religious people who do the same thing. It's not as black and white as you make it out to be, or as it seems to me you make it out to be. But, like I said, I think I'm misreading you.



The more this discussion goes, the more I'm disliking this story. The exaggerated elements are proving to be divisive rather than introspective or unifying or whatever they were supposed to be.

And lastly... well, i just wanted to say i love Biscuit's Homestar Runner reference. "Asplode." <chuckle>

[Liminal]

Okay, this, this is why I didn't respond to the last few posts and why this sort of discussion has become so frustrating in general to me.  You draw a dichotomy, an either/or, between "those who favor the integration of church and state and religion" and those who favor science.  I reject that dichotomy.  I reject the philosophical assumptions upon which that dichotomy is based.

Ok, so you reject that dichotomy. On a theoretical basis I completely agree with you. But if we reject that dichotomy, should we still accept the "either/or" that you posit?  Namely that one is either good and Christian or bad and secular/progressive/liberal, etc. If there are indeed no contradictions, then why is it impossible to have an effective and moral secular government?

Liminal asked if I want a theocracy.  My answer is that Christianity and theocracy are inherently antithetical: You can't have a Christian theocracy and as soon as you have theocracy it stops being Christian.  And at the same time I think secularism is very bad.

Ok . . . why can't you have a Christian Theocracy?

You want to split the country between people who are tolerant and people who want to impose their beliefs on others?  Sure.  I'd put myself and my right-wing Christian friends on the side with the tolerant people and all the members of the ACLU would be over with the religious oppressors.

First of all, the ACLU will fight just as hard for religious freedoms that are threatened by the state as they will any other issue. Second of all, just by saying that you are tolerant and someone else is not, does not make it so. Deeds speak much louder than words and I challenge you to find me an extreme right-wing Christian conservative operating in the political arena who preaches love and forgiveness rather than fear and hatred.

quote author=Mr. Tweedy link=topic=1386.msg21848#msg21848 date=1205187733]
Should government be based upon Christianity?  Absolutely![/quote]
Um . . . why? Why not Judaism, which is the basis for Christianity? Why not Buddhism or Hinduism? The founding fathers, while surely guided by Christian principles clearly set out to create a government that guaranteed the separation of Church and State.

Should there be a state religion?  Absolutely not!

I totally agree.

What's more important, science or religion?  Yes.

Ultimately a question that is up to the individual to answer. The brilliant thing about a secular democracy is that people are free to pursue one, the other, or both without interference from the state.

Doesn't make sense to you?  Sound like I'm contradicting myself?  Because we're speaking different languages (I guess, as far as I've been able to figure out).  What is "religion?"  What is "secular?"  What is "theocracy?"  What is "rational?"  What is "faith?"  You say "reason vs. faith."  I say "reason leads to faith."  Etc.

You were the one who dismissed huge numbers of people who speak a different cultural language. Your "aetheist/liberal/progressive . . . whatever list of people you don't like is clearly a signal that you don't really want to listen to anyone who holds any of those various religious, philosophical, or political stances. Why can't one be faithful and progressive? Why can't one be religious and liberal? Why can't one be atheist and moral?

We don't have a consensus on what these things mean.  There isn't a common lexicon for dialog, which is, at the least, very frustrating and probably genuinely harmful in the long run.  I'm not sure what to do about it, at least not in this format.

You are right, this is a very difficult discussion to have and I think it speaks volumes about the level of maturity that EscapePod listeners share that all of us have been, for the most part, quite civil toward one another. However, I find it difficult to believe that you are sincerely attempting to create dialogue between various political and religious ideologies when you dismiss people based upon political beliefs that don't quite match your own. Do you really think that Al Gore is not a good Christian compared to yourself? Do you really think that Hilary Clinton is less a Christian because she belongs to a different political party? The Clintons went to church nearly every week that Bill Clinton was President. George Bush doesn't go to church, doesn't even belong to one in Texas. Should I believe that he is less a Christian than my Grandmother who goes to church every week and who belongs to a different political part? You say you want communication, but your rhetoric comes across as inherently divisive. Please note that I am not saying you are trying to be divisive, but that I am explaining how it seems to me.

I am also extremely curious, if the Government should be based on Christianity, how am I to feel as an American if I am Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, or Atheist (to name just a few other religions)? How am I, as an American Citizen treated under the law if I am gay or transsexual?

[Tango Alpha Delta]

... I'm not prepared to invest the time in one of the long and winding debates that my posts sometimes spark.  Call me lazy.)  If you feel like hearing more about my crazy views, feel free to send me an email.

This made me laugh out loud, Mr. T.  I would never think of you as lazy! 

I feel your pain re: time, though... this thread exploded today, and I don't know if I will get a chance to finish it, let alone respond coherently.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I notice that it all comes down to communication, yet again.

Mr. Tweedy asked "are we speaking the same language?"

birdless said "we have some serious communication issues."

And I've noticed that nearly EVERYONE who has commented has expressed some kind variation of "I felt my beliefs were portrayed in an unfairly negative light" or "I felt my point of view was attacked".  Since Carole told us that reaction to this story has been consistent in that way, it tells me that - as painful as it might be to go through - this conversation needs to be held, and it needs to be held again and again until enough of us start to realize two things:

a) We are all too easily provoked by a fear of the "other".

b) We all react to any given situation with a different set of biases and preconceived notions.

You can all see my list of things I immediately reacted to; most of you probably know "what" I am, as far as my race/gender/orientation stuff goes.  (If not, I'll send you the baseball card.   )  I think the most important thing that all of us should take away from this conversation is a sense of the similarities in the fears that we all feel.

We ALL fear a disruption in our lives, whether it's a justified fear or not.

We ALL fear being victimized by an unspecified, and shadowy Majority that we don't really understand.

We ALL fear admitting that our biases control us, and we ALL go to great lengths to distance ourselves from those biases and use logic (however baseless or twisted) and flawed, anecdotal evidence to justify our beliefs.

This isn't about "political correctness" - it's deeper than that.  We all see those who are different from us as a threat.  We are afraid they will attack us (physically or otherwise) and we try to avoid provoking them while not appearing weak.  And THAT is what was going on in the story.  We were shown the set pieces; like tangled rows of dominos, and the surprise was in where some of them fell.  Those sure of their position of power over their perceived enemies acted like bullies; those not sure of their power acted as if they were.  Those unsure of their power, or aware of their disadvantageous positions behaved with degrees of dishonesty and paranoia, and those who observed them in their fear judged them for it.  ("Those minority women... those gays... those Christians... you know how THEY are!")

Logically, I could cry out as if I were a voice of reason in the wilderness and ask "why can't we just discuss this civilly, and try to find common ground?"  But the beauty of this is that we are already doing it.

Maybe the passion some of us have expressed seems a little raw, and maybe some are angry over something that another said... but we are talking, and (more importantly) listening to each other.

And that's what we need to remember when we're listening to pundits telling us how "divided" we are.  Thinking differently is NOT being divided.  It's disagreeing... and it's okay.

Can I get a witness?

[birdless]

You said some really provocative, insightful things, TAD. I especially connected to the similarity of our fears. It's too bad it's the ones that provoke to get that knee-jerk reaction, that divisive strife (not here, just around in life) that always seem the loudest. Is it because we let them, or because our passion for what we believe temporarily blinds us to the fact that they are merely rabble rousers? Probably both, in varying degrees.

Thinking differently does tend to divide us, though. It sometimes transcends/subscends (yeah i made that word up) mere disagreement. Sometimes it's stupid, and sometimes it hits something we feel deeply about, and the two beliefs are mutually exclusive—there is no common ground on which to compromise. But, somehow, we have to. And we have to do it respectfully. Much like most of us here seem to be sincerely trying to do. So, for what it's worth, thank you all for your efforts to be civil and understanding. It's gotta be the right way to go about talking about our differences. Surely we can find some sort of compromise (I'm speaking on a national/global scale, optimistic (nay, idealistic) as it may be). It isn't just naiveté on my part, is it?

Here's to hope…

[Tango Alpha Delta]

You said some really provocative, insightful things, TAD. I especially connected to the similarity of our fears. It's too bad it's the ones that provoke to get that knee-jerk reaction, that divisive strife (not here, just around in life) that always seem the loudest. Is it because we let them, or because our passion for what we believe temporarily blinds us to the fact that they are merely rabble rousers? Probably both, in varying degrees.

Thinking differently does tend to divide us, though. It sometimes transcends/subscends (yeah i made that word up) mere disagreement. Sometimes it's stupid, and sometimes it hits something we feel deeply about, and the two beliefs are mutually exclusive—there is no common ground on which to compromise. But, somehow, we have to. And we have to do it respectfully. Much like most of us here seem to be sincerely trying to do. So, for what it's worth, thank you all for your efforts to be civil and understanding. It's gotta be the right way to go about talking about our differences. Surely we can find some sort of compromise (I'm speaking on a national/global scale, optimistic (nay, idealistic) as it may be). It isn't just naiveté on my part, is it?

Here's to hope…

I'd like to think it's not naive to hope. 

Of course, even saying that can be construed as a political statement these days....  the more I watch this video, and the more I hear people criticize the ideas in it, the more convinced I become that this is exactly what we need to hear.

It's not naive to hope.  It is brave.  (Of course, maybe that comment belongs in the "Edward Bear" thread?    )

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I really liked this story.  I was at first taken aback that it was even on escape pod, and I think it shows some considerable sand for Mr. Eley to present it.  He must have know it was going to rattle some cages, but did it anyway.  Stylistically, I think it was a good middle of the road "what if?" story.  But what really got me, what really cinched it for me, was that the "Union" (Columbia, what have you) was NOT portrayed as bastion of freedom, tolerance, love and rainbows.  The simple fact that so many people on here are shocked, SHOCKED, that anyone thinks "liberals" aren't the higher beings of love/tolerance shows how powerful this story was.  I'm sure many of you "free thinkers" would cheer if it was another story about how closed minded Christians are, and in the end they get shown up for the monsters they are by a gay robot.  But let someone imply that lefties aren't always on the side of right, and you cry foul.  Good SF is the SF that challenges your world view, no matter what that world view is.

I suppose everything is easier to put into a box if you draw a big circle around yourself and declare "I am right, and anything outside of my point of view is wrong" -- or to use the popular codeword: "left" -- but the fact is that people don't divide into any two categories like that.  This is also the point of the story.  We established early on in the thread that this story seemed to provoke some level of outrage from people across the political spectrum, no matter what point of view they start from; and the author even came in to declare that this was her intention.

But I want to address your comments, because I keep hearing a similar theme from your quadrant of the big Graph o' Political Spectra.  It seems disingenuous to me to take so much joy in shouting the "liberals aren't as nice as they say they are" position, while apparently ignoring the fact that "conservatives" are often every bit as mean-spirited and bigoted as they want to be.  A lot of work has gone into identifying "conservative" with "normal, blue-collar, common sense Christian values" since Rush Limbaugh and his clones took to the airwaves.  Ann Coulter loves to paint "liberals" as "godless" and "evil", apparently ignoring the Christian roots of the abolitionist movement, the Christian principles behind the creation of some of our welfare programs, and the simple Christian command to "love your neighbor as yourself."  But the fact of the matter is that the people you imply are part of some monolithic movement bent on taking away your liberties and freedoms tend to actually be individuals who are trying to do what they think is the right thing. 

I guess at the end of the day, I'm not disagreeing with the idea that people with liberal ideals sometimes need a sanity check; I'm just saying that when you come out and try to make everyone outside of your little circle look like an intolerant idiot, you just reinforce the image of those inside your circle as intolerant idiots.  I consider myself to be something of a free thinker, in that I don't base my opinions on a pre-programmed set of doctrines, and I try to stay allergic to obvious propaganda.  So, when people start sneering at "free thinkers", I object as strongly as I can.

[eytanz]

I'm not entirely happy with this thread being attributed to me; I sort of see why my post was moved, but I wish it didn't put my name on the entire thread just because I happen to be chronologically first.

Oh well.

Moderator:  I choose your post to start this thread, because it was so prophetic.  I thought the more conservative folks would be on here saying the story was one-sided and that would be that.  Holy shit, was I wrong.  I came in here after not being around for a few days and it was a mess.  I returned your post to the other thread. 

[Chodon]

...
But the fact of the matter is that the people you imply are part of some monolithic movement bent on taking away your liberties and freedoms tend to actually be individuals who are trying to do what they think is the right thing. 
...

The phrase "the road to hell (or ruin for the athiests in the crowd) is paved with good intentions" comes to mind.

If everyone does what they want without infringing on anyone else's rights then everyone is happy.  End of story.