Bigotry (you win, I give up)

[Rustom Mody]

On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 5:11:58 AM UTC+5:30, Ethan Furman wrote:
> On 04/19/2017 03:58 PM, Ben Finney wrote:
> > Ethan Furman writes:
> >
> >> […] asking that you be courteous to those who come here to discuss
> >> Python.
> >
> > On that we can agree. Let's be courteous to people here, and keep
> > discussing Python.
>

> Will you be filtering your signature lines, then?  Because you
> cannot simultaneously be courteous to someone and mock their
> beliefs.


Thanks Ethan; firstly for not taking cognisance of this ludicrous complaint
against Steven
[
No one seems to have noticed who Rurpy is defending : Ranting Rick and Bart.
Sheesh!
A rhinocerous would have gossamer skin compared to these 'gentlemen'
Sheesh² !
]
Also the obligatory Voltaire quote is: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will 
defend to the death your right to say It”


But more importantly thank you for your polite and consistent pointing out to
Ben Finney that his religion-bashing signature lines [many of them] and his 
claims to wish this list be welcoming are way out of sync.

Its a difficult job… If you find those lines objectionable and wear your mod-hat
to act on this, maybe you are misusing your position because you personally
dont like such stuff

OTOH if you refrain from wearing your mod-hat and say nothing, 
others could also silently hurt maybe unknown to anyone

So yes its tough and I commend your efforts

Since I believe Ben's anti-religion footers are OT, irrelevant,
unnecessary and possibly hurtful to some, some further thoughts on
this…

Firstly I find some of his footers useful/funny/insightful and have on occasion
thanked him for the same.

Not the (anti)religious ones which the following elaborates on.

Personally, I am not offended but mostly only amused because the area under the triangle:
Jerusalem-Bethlehem-Mecca is about 1/1000 the area of the globe
And the implied/explicit suggestion:  Religion=Christianity, or at best Religion=Abrahamic-faiths is correspondingly
about that ratio in narrowness of perspective of what constitutes religion in full generality

In short (to me, an oriental) its just silly

But to someone else
- it could be offensive — which is ok
  Nothing wrong in being offended!
  A big factor that backlashed into Trump as POTUS is just this that
  leftie-libbie-liars  (L³) think that their offendedness, usually at imagined trivia (see this
  thread?) is the centre of the universe
- it could be hurtful — less ok... But still possible to cry a bit, brush it off
and get on

But it could be much worse.

Unfortunately the L³ called secularism has taken away even
our language to talk of this:

If I may be permitted the one-off non-PC act of quoting the Bible there is a fairly precise and exact rendering of this principle:

The sin against God is tolerated, and the sin against the Son also. But the sin
against the holy ghost cannot be tolerated
[Mat 12:32, Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10]

In short, messing up someone's deepest faith is tantamount to the killing of the soul

And since the L³ will speak up for all sorts of 'identities' real and imaginary
except people who sincerely follow (mainstream) religion, I felt called upon to say something of it.
[Number of subsets of a 6 billion set is 2^(6 billion), thats the number of identities that can be concocted]

So let me end with just briefly saying why the L³ called secularism is the root of the problem

Secularism (= worldliness) divides the one world arbitrarily, high-handedly
and ignorantly into two: sacred and profane

The world is real… and profane
The other half is sacred… and unreal

This makes sanctity of anything an unreal property by definition

Hence all this mess.

If the sanctity of a human being were (1) a fact and (2) not negotiable these discussions and interminable threads would not be necessary

PS.
To be fair to Ben, the Oscar Wilde quote: “Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence.”
does not belong (for me) in the objectionable set. OTOH it is funny, precise, and even religiously respectful in a left-handed sort of way
[And now I guess the left-handed identity has been abused? Ball in your court  (Mr.) Rurpy! Go for it!]