{"id":1317,"date":"2010-03-21T03:36:55","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T03:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2010-03-21T03:49:12","modified_gmt":"2010-03-21T03:49:12","slug":"mistaking-respect-for-tolerate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/?p=1317","title":{"rendered":"Mistaking “Respect” for “Tolerate”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was listening to Sunday Sequence last week and there was a very interesting sequence on a recent speech given by the\u00a0 ArchBishop of Canterbury entitled “When evangelism becomes bullying”<\/a> There was a representative of the frothing ultra convservative unionist Caleb Foundation <\/a>present who soundly denounced the ArchBish for being an “enemy of Christ” the other participants not wanting (it seemed) to be associated with this rather rabid denounciation pussy footed around the whole issue in a most unsatisfatory way or so it seemed to me.<\/p>\n

This piece did make me think, when I was younger grim men in black, ensconced in a pulpit, 6 feet above contradiction told me I was a worthless sinner and undeserving of salvation. We sang (usualy with great gusto) hymns with lines like “What worthless worms are we<\/em>!. While this is obviously not physical bullying I remember it leaving me feeling ..well.. worthless ..It was a bad taste in the mouth then and it still is now.\u00a0 I didn’t make a fuss at the time because I was young,\u00a0 I knew my place and my place was to show respect regardless of worthiness.<\/p>\n

The sad thing is although most bullies know in their hearts they are bullies, the evangelical bully does not, in fact they usually hold fast to the principal\u00a0 that their religion is owed more respect than any other. This is patently nonsense, for that to be a principal that holds any water at all<\/strong> religions would have to be owed the same respect and understanding.<\/p>\n

Respect assumes defference, defference assmues worth and worth assumes an agreement.<\/p>\n

Since religious doctrines conflict with one another,\u00a0 it is hard to see how respect can be extended to all of them at once. Respect would have to be equally given not only to the conflicting Christian doctrines of Trinitarianism and Unitarianism, but also to the Jewish,\u00a0 Muslim, Buddhist and Flying Spagetti Monsterism not to mention the atheist denial of these doctrines. To ascribe worth to them all at once opens up a world of contradiction that would be impossible to resolve.<\/p>\n

What they should expect is Toleration and that is what I try to do. I tolerate, but that is seldom good enough for the God Bothers.<\/p>\n

But why is tolerance often downplayed in favour of respect by the religious? In a free and open society tolerance is in fact much more important than respect and can go along quite happly with lack of respect, and even disrespect. This was strikingly expressed by Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk,\u00a0 founder of the secular Turkish Republic:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no religion; and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea …<\/em>\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly this shows religion no respect , he continues:<\/p>\n

\u2018Let [the people] worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided that it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow man\u201d<\/em> [1].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also it is apparant that having no respect for religion is quite consistent with having respect for a quite different sort of \u201cobject\u201d, for example the rights or liberties of people to indulge in religion if they wish.<\/p>\n

Salman Rushie expressed the strange “new” respect very well …<\/p>\n

\u2018respect\u2019 is one of those ideas no one is against \u2026 everybody wants some of that. \u2026 But what we used to mean by respect \u2026 a mixture of good-hearted consideration and serious attention \u2026 has little to do with the new ideological usage of the word. \u2026 Religious extremists, these days, demand respect for their attitudes with growing stridency. Very few people would object to the idea that people\u2019s rights to religious belief must be respected \u2026. But now we are asked to agree that to dissent from those beliefs \u2013 to hold that they are suspect, or antiquated or wrong, that in fact that they are arguable \u2013 is incompatible with the idea of respect. When criticism is placed off limits as \u2018disrespectful\u2019 and therefore offensive, something strange is happening to the concept of respect\u2019.[2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Something strange indeed!<\/p>\n

Tolerance requires one \u201cto put up with\u201d\u00a0 that to which one objects.\u00a0 One has to put up with the objectionable if one is powerless to do otherwise.\u00a0 Being powerless is not an intrinsic component of tolerance.\u00a0 One has to be in a position to act against the objectionable either because one already has sufficient power to so act,\u00a0 or if not so,\u00a0 one can act politically to obtain such power in the long run. Tolerance requires is that one refrain<\/strong> from either exercising successfully one\u2019s powers or acting to obtain them. Tolerance is in essence a matter of not interfering with or\u00a0 letting something be, when one could interfere.<\/p>\n

Evangelicals and any person that supports any form of prostylisation is not deffering to my atheism and by trying to convert me they are not\u00a0 tolerating it either.\u00a0 I have a feeling my disrespect will continue to be a pain in their collective arses and of that I am glad.\u00a0 Hopefully some day we can all learn the differnce between tolerate and respect. We can then give respect where it is due and not where it is blindly expected.<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0 Andrew Mango, Atat\u00fcrk,<\/em> (Woodstock NY, Overlook Press, 2002): 463.<\/p>\n

[2] Salman Rushdie, Step Across this Line<\/em> (London, Vintage, 2003.): 145-6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening to Sunday Sequence last week and there was a very interesting sequence on a recent speech given by the\u00a0 ArchBishop of Canterbury entitled “When evangelism becomes bullying” There was a representative of the frothing ultra convservative unionist … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-old-git-wisdom","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319,"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}