No Right to Judge - Democratic Underground

Let's say you're my friend. You have just suffered a loss, a deep personal one, and you are grieving. I come to you, sit down, and I listen to you and help you achieve catharsis. When you are done and it's time for me to contribute to the conversation, I simply tell you I care, that I will try to understand as best as I am able, and I let you know that you can come to me anytime you need to talk, and I will listen.

Fair enough, right? I've done what a friend would do most of the time for their friends--be there for them when the need arises. I don't judge whether the loss was something you could have prevented, I don't lecture you on why you should have done something different and I don't try to put my values, moral or otherwise, on you.

Now, let's say the reverse happened. I'm the one with the problem, and you come to me as a "friend." So you listen (at least I think you're trying to listen, even if you interrupt me endlessly during my talking), and then you take my hand in yours and you say, "I will pray for you, you know; I won't let your soul suffer as I will seek a blessing from Jesus for you."

That's well and good if it's a person from your church who believes the same things you do, or if it's a family member who shares your faith, but this kind of response is completely wrong for someone who doesn't share your beliefs. And nowadays, that is often the case.

I'm an atheist. But I'm also secular and a humanist, and I try to keep religion out of discussions in which a difference in beliefs might make some awkward moments. That's how I try to deal with people for the most part, and how some of my dearest friends have been in the past, including one close friend who was a devout Catholic, but who never pushed it on me, despite the fact that I grew up Catholic and "escaped" from it!

But if someone has to inject their faith into any conversations they have with others, especially when they know definitely that the person they're speaking with is not of their faith, how much of a friend are they? If they try to negate the part of you that is either not religious or of a different belief, they cannot really respect you for being who you are--instead, they are transferring their values onto you, and thereupon find you lacking by their moral standards.

I'm pregnant, and I want an abortion....by my belief system, it's got nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with me, a woman, making a choice. By your belief system, I'm going to hell for killing a "baby!" So you feel morally superior to me basing my choice on your rationale.

I'm gay, and I love my partner, with whom I've spent more years than you have with your spouse. By my reasoning, why would you have anything to say about who I care to love and want to spend my life with? You, on the other hand, see nothing wrong with having multiple partners, or multiple spouses, but have a problem with two people with the same equipment caring and loving each other. Again, you are transferring your moral judgement on my life.

I'm for gun control, you love to shoot guns. I don't eat any animal products, you crave steaks about every 20 minutes. I believe that it took many millions of years for this world and all the life on it to evolve into what we know today--you believe that a lot of begatting only took about 10,000 years, and that when your ancestors were little, they used to have Dino the Dinosaur as a family pet.

It doesn't matter. It really can't matter when you come right down to it--no single person on the face of this planet (except if you are one of an identical twin) has gone through the same experiences, has the same genes, or even the same ideas. And that's the joy of being who we are. We are the world (and no, don't cue up the Michael Jackson song, either!) and we are a world of differences. If we were all the same, we might as well be robots or clones, because innovation, ideas and inventions would never come, would never be able to discover the joy at finding out about another person.

I confess: I still have a lot of fury at a former friend because she chose to let her religious beliefs come between us. She always injected her fundie beliefs and values into conversations, and then she got offended the day I told her that I couldn't stand her and the "fucking fundies" she was part of. But during a particularly desperate year in her life, I was there for her, talking about everything in the world (as long as it didn't involve religion) and tried to listen to her without making any moral assumptions. And as a thank you, I had to listen to her rants about gays being evil, about those who had abortions being whores and worse, about how my soul was headed straight for the deepest bowels of hell, and about her being morally superior to me because she had been "reborn" and brought Christ into her life. Oh, and yes, I almost forgot: how Muslims worshipped the "anti-Christ."

I don't ask the people I meet for the first time about what they believe in. It's immaterial, and it isn't any of my damned business. I will argue with you if I find you voted for GWB, but that's far more important than whether you have a personal "savior" or are Wiccan and keep an alter in your bedroom. Who is to know if Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus Christ, or Zeus is the better idol? Who is to question whether you are a better human being if you worship cows or eat them? That's your choice, and I've got mine. Mine says that I have a right to mine, and you have a right to yours. But if yours says that you have a right to yours, and that I have a right to yours, I will surely find you morally repugnant for not extending the same courtesy to me that I have extended to you.

The fact is, we're all right, and we're all wrong. We come at decisions from different viewpoints, we come with a set of values which we inherited from our ancestors, and we will add some new values through our own experiences. If we or our children go to a public school, there is no room--none whatsoever--for religion to be part of a mandatory curriculum. On the other hand, if you or your child goes to a private or parochial school, or if you are homeschooling your child, you are paying or playing to impart to them whatever you want.

I could never be considered shy, nor am I ever anything less than outspoken. But if you give me no reason to attack you on any of your beliefs, you should accept the same from me. Don't tell me smugly that my "god is less than your god," because so help me, I'm to the point where if you do, I will seriously contemplate hauling back and breaking your nose. Treat me as you wish to be treated: nothing less than that. How much simpler can my argument get?

Too 'simple' for most?

what do you need religion for.
If you're a good person only because you have religion, what does that say about your character.
Patience. Peace.
dc

from some people, too. It seems to me that if you need religion to practice "Do unto others...." you can't be a very nice person when you really need to be counted on. That pretty much boils down to the "compassionate conservatives" we all hear about all the time--an oxymoron has more sense to it.

then is not that person's religion a force for good?

consistent to the beliefs which comes out of compassion. I can't name too many Xtians of the fundie persuasion who are willing to listen and accept the belief of others without shoving their own misguided beliefs down that person's throat. A good person extends respect to others, without having the need to belittle the beliefs of that person.

All my life the hypocrisy of such people has turned me into a non-trusting skeptic. It's difficult to accept some things coming from people whose "god" is a belligerent, nasty, condescending jerk. I think that's one of the major reasons bible literalists scare the bejesus out of me: they can't understand why so many of us "non-believers" can't stomach them or their version of a god.

you organize and act on your beliefs?

I tend to think that those who are truly devout aren't so because of religion, but rather the other way around - that's the way they are, and the way they believe they should act, and their religion is a tool they use.

I've known a number of just plain innately good and kind people. Some religious, some not. I'm fairly sure those who are religious would behave just the same way had they been raised in a different culture. They might be good and kind Hindus instead of Christians, for example, but they'd still be the same people.

"Christians" (not fundie) are coming to realize that the Bible does not teach an eternal hell, at all. The word isn't even used. More and more are gaining an understanding that there is no Rapture off into the hills while the world is ablaze.

What torments you are not the teachings of the God(s), but the traditions of men.

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates (judges) all the same people you do. Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

They prey upon people in their weakest moments, when they are emotionally vulnerable. It is because religions do this that they tend to be successful - the technique clearly works.

If you and I disagree about something then at least one of us is wrong.

"Is morality objective" is actually the same question as "is there any such thing as morality".

If enough people think that what you are doing is immoral enough to justify it, they should legislate to forbid you from doing it and punish you if you do.

Faith and religion are not just word games. Either a God or gods exist, or they don't; if they do then either they are like this or they are like that. Some positions are consistent with the observable evidence; others are not.

"But if someone has to inject their faith into any conversations they have with others, especially when they know definitely that the person they're speaking with is not of their faith, how much of a friend are they? If they try to negate the part of you that is either not religious or of a different belief, they cannot really respect you for being who you are--instead, they are transferring their values onto you, and thereupon find you lacking by their moral standards."

Great point, btw!

A have a fundy colleague whose car broke down near my house. He called me late at night and asked to spend the night over since he lives 45 minutes away and it would be a big deal for his wife to come pick him up so late. So, I picked him up, he slept over, and got a nice breakfast in the morning. So before eating his breakfast, he closes his eyes and bows his head to pray, I guess to thank God for the meal (one would think he should be thanking me :-)

) so my 6-year-old son finds the silent pray to be peculiar. That lead my son to ask what my "friend" was doing (perhaps he had a headache). So the guy starts talking religion to my son and giving him a lecture. I had to cut it short because that pissed me off and it was even worse given the fact that the guy knows me for years. He knows my views but, in his point of view, his beliefs were so important that he felt he should preach it to my 6-year-old.

I could see a stranger knocking on my door thinking he/she is helping me "see the light" but then you have a "friend" or a colleague who knows you for years but keeps trying to push this stuff anyway. I mean, what a friend! :mad:

But yes. That's not the act of a friend.

But I wonder how deep that superiority goes, really, and whether the problem really isn't just the opposite: someone so insecure about what they claim to believe that they must shore that up by constantly berating other people with it. As if their goal is to persuade the world to their way of seeing things, just to insure they're not alone and to justify what they're thinking.

And proselytizing someone's kid? That's sort of way beyond the pale, IMO.

The original was random. I can relate better to the new name.

I agree that a lot of the proselytizing and instigating could come from insecurity. If the truth as he sees it is not universal then the universe as he knows it falls apart.

In many ways I have less respect for people who believe that if you do some things you will go to heaven and if you do others you will go to hell and *don't* try to push as many people into getting into heaven as they can than I do for those that do, even though the latter annoy me far more and do far more harm.

It's better to be undogmatic than to be dogmatic and wrong. But it's better to be dogmatic and right than to be undogmatic.

And making a persuasive argument about your own point of view. In a persuasive argument the audience has a free choice to agree or disagree or be somewhere in between. Shoving beliefs and ideas down people's throats is not a very effective way to make people consider a point of view. At least in my opinion.

You're overgeneralising.

It so happens that there are various high-profile examples (evangelical religion being the obvious one) of people pushing their beliefs on others where doing so has been wrong, and so a lot of people have assumed from that that "do not force your beliefs on others" is a valid general principle.

Actually, there are lots of cases where forcing your beliefs on others is a good thing to do, and to explain why evangelical religion is a bad thing you need more specific arguments.

That puts your opinions on the same page with the fascists. That's exactly the argument they make over women's bodies, for one.

Unbelievable.

The difference between me, the anti abortion lobby and fascists is in the choices we want to deny people.

In that sense, we're all on the same page - none of us believes in the total breakdown of the rule of law - but it's a very big page, and frankly I doubt there's anyone who *isn't* on it somewhere.

Are you saying that there aren't choices (like murder) that you want to deny people?

Denying people choices *without a good reason to do so* is a bad thing. Neither the anti-abortion lobby nor the fascists has a good reason for the restrictions they wish to impose, and it's that, rather than the bare fact that they want to impost restrictions, that makes them wrong.

However, in some cases, good reasons to impose restrictions on people's choices do exist.

Imagine this extreme scenario

Congratulations ma'am you are now a slave to your rapist.

For the next nine months you will be required to provide a safe comfortable habitat for your rapist's fetus.

You will be required to provide that fetus with appropriate nutrition and medical care.

You will not be allowed to engage in any behavior that endangers that fetus.

And after nine months you will be required to deliver it in a medically appropriate environment.

And because you are a slave, your health and life are secondary considerations.

If the rapist's fetus endangers your life or health, you must sacrifice your life or health for the good of the rapist's fetus.

Failure to follow these rules will result in criminal prosecution and could land you in jail for a longer sentence than your rapist will serve.

And of course, you must do all this at your own expense.

Now I'll grant that the scenario does not reflect reality in the USA, but that is my counter argument to the "abortion is murder" argument. Unwanted pregnancy is slavery.

Warpy said it quite succinctly in another thread: Childbirth is neither safe nor easy and therefore must be optional.

You've provided a perfectly good example of a situation where it is not the right thing to do to force your beliefs on someone else.

I am arguing that there exist situations (many situations) where it is the right thing to do to force your beliefs on other people.

The reason banning abortion is wrong is because there it would do less good than it would do harm (actually, this is a stronger condition than the one needed - all we need to show is that it would not do enough good more than harm to justify forcing it on people), not because forcing your beliefs on other people is always wrong.

P.S. apologies for the gross violence to the English language in the third paragraph - I'm in the middle of writing up worked solutions to an example sheet for some maths students I'm supervising. Actually, more generally, I think that taking a mathematician's approach to moral and political issues is usually a very good thing to do, though.

It is because I was unable to follow your line of thinking,

My apologies.

...What would be an example of pushing "do not commit murder" down people's throat. "Do not commit murder" is a value that the majority in our society seem to share so consequently there are laws against murder. Is that what you mean when you say "pushing down people's throats"?

You and I live in democratic societies where these issues are supposed to be debated and decided. I don't think "do not force beliefs on others" is a valid general principle because of religion. I think it is a valid general principle because I live in a democratic society and we are supposed to make decisions as a society even if we do not share beliefs and values. Most importantly, we have to take special care in these decisions so they don't get in the way of the freedoms and the wellbeing of certain groups otherwise we cannot really say that we live in a free society.

That is just my opinion. We might agree or disagree but you will also have to be more specific (i.e., about what you mean with "shoving do not commit murder down people's throat") in order for us to determine that.

Most obviously, of course, imprisoning murders is pushing that believe down people's throats. So are publicly advocating imprisoning murderers and socially stigmatising murderers, and trying to forcibly prevent people from committing murder, all of which I think are clearly good things.

Now, the reason why imprisoning/stigmatising/forcibly preventing murder is right while imprisoning/stigmatising/forcibly preventing smoking near children, say, or abortion, is wrong, is a very specific one - murder is very immoral, smoking near children is only very slightly immoral, and abortion isn't immoral at all.

Forcing other people to do things they don't want to because you think it's the right thing for them to do is, in itself, a moral cost; usually a significant one. Them doing the right thing is a moral benefit; sometimes (smoking near children) a small one, other times (murder) a large one.

The general principle is "the right thing to do is the one with the best moral cost/benefit balance", not "don't force your believe on other people". It just so happens that, since belief-forcing has a cost, it often works out that way.

But I was talking about "force belief on other people" as a style not as a principle. So I will correct myself and not call it a principle. We want to achieve "the best moral cost/benefit balance" but originally I was talking about personal relationships and not how laws are designed. It is one thing to come up with a rule/law that has the best possible outcome and it is another, on a personal level, when a "friend" does not respect your personal space and see you as moral flawed for not sharing the same supernatural beliefs.

is both a bad friend, and a bad evangelist!

Seriously, from the sound of it, this is all about the "friend" and not about you - and that's the sign of a very self-focused person. And those people, it seems to me, would make for pretty crummy ambassadors for whatever belief they are attempting to foist on you.

And a "friend" who is unwilling to simply accept you as you are isn't much of a friend, you know?

If the goal is to persuade you to seeing things her way, I think it would be far better to simply live according to her beliefs and let that speak for itself.

Do unto others . . . .	elleng	Jan-28-09 06:47 PM	#1
If you're a good person	david13	Jan-28-09 07:10 PM	#2
I've heard that argument	hyphenate	Jan-28-09 07:19 PM	#3
If a religion helps someone be a good person,	ZombieHorde	Jan-30-09 12:55 PM	#4
It is if it is shared in a way	hyphenate	Jan-31-09 09:24 PM	#13
For the fellowship? For the framework that helps	JerseygirlCT	Jan-30-09 09:32 PM	#11
Greater numbers of	Why Syzygy	Jan-30-09 01:21 PM	#5
Well, that is exactly how most religions work.	trotsky	Jan-30-09 03:05 PM	#6
No, everyone has the right and the duty to judge everyone else.	Donald Ian Rankin	Jan-30-09 05:41 PM	#7
Some feel superior so they feel the need to push beliefs down people's throat	Meshuga	Jan-30-09 07:03 PM	#8
Love the new name, btw	JerseygirlCT	Jan-30-09 09:28 PM	#10
Thanks!	Meshuga	Feb-01-09 12:02 PM	#14
I feel the need to push beliefs like "do not commit murder" down people's throats.	Donald Ian Rankin	Jan-31-09 06:13 AM	#12
There is a difference between pushing things down people's throats	Meshuga	Feb-01-09 01:12 PM	#15
I want to push "do not commit murder" down everyone's throat.	Donald Ian Rankin	Feb-01-09 06:43 PM	#16
Denial of choice.	Why Syzygy	Feb-02-09 04:41 AM	#17
Yes, I want to deny people the choice to commit murder.	Donald Ian Rankin	Feb-02-09 07:35 AM	#18
And I want to deny people the right to compel slavery.	cosmik debris	Feb-02-09 10:47 AM	#21
Reasonable, but a non-sequitur.	Donald Ian Rankin	Feb-02-09 11:08 AM	#22
If that is a non sequitur	cosmik debris	Feb-02-09 11:17 AM	#23
Then let me know...	Meshuga	Feb-02-09 08:15 AM	#19
A wide range of things.	Donald Ian Rankin	Feb-02-09 09:48 AM	#20
I agree with you as far as which is the better principle	Meshuga	Feb-02-09 12:32 PM	#24
Well, I'd say that a friend who would push beliefs on you like that	JerseygirlCT	Jan-30-09 09:25 PM	#9