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I posted the question on FB and it generated a fairly good thread. I repost here, edited slightly to remove full names, links to FB pages and some grammar.
Rebecca - Wow! Good question. Deep one. I don't know if either one is more important. Let me think on this. It's got to bounce around in the mind some.
April - Depends on the subject matter. Example:When it comes to taking God out of schools BEC it may offend or go against some ppls beliefs, then I would prefer to offend them! I am outraged that the government don't allow Christians have prayer in school and in some other counties school functions! I am offended when you call businesses and have to press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish when this is a English speaking country. I know English is not the only language here but it is the predominate language here not the 2nd or. 3rd!!
Me - And who decides what can and can't be discussed.
Rebecca - Ben, you love playing devil's advocate? :)
Me - I just want people to think.
April - Ben what do you think is more important then? To offend or be offended?
Me - I want to hear other opinions. I know mine. (which has been expressed in my blog.)
Mike - The right to offend...without question. If I am offended by something, I still have a choice in how I accept the info and how I respond to it. If that info is blocked because of a right NOT to be offended, then I stem the flow of info and I am not given any choice at all. The choice should be mine. I should be a big enough person to make my own decisions and to handle it.
Kathryn -I try not to offend others. But I know everyone won't always agree on the same thing. How about asking God what he thinks? I think it may be better not to offend him. Psalm 32 : 8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way to go: I will guide thee with mine eye. Proverbs 3 : 5 , 6 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not on thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. ........ Maybe that will help in deciding important things like that.
Pakrat - The right to offend.
Kathryn - I don't mind being offended btw. I know how to turn a channel or press a button or walk away.
Greg - I would go so far as to suggest that there is no right to not be offended. I think each person has a right to attempt to avoid offense by carefully selecting the viewpoints, images, etc. to which they will give attention. I also think each person has a responsibility to not unnecessarily offend his fellow man (though defining 'unnecessarily' already puts us on debatable ground). At the end of the day, though, any action we take (including total inaction) will be offensive to someone, and I don't think that God would have given us any rights which were impossible to attain.
Tom - Got to hand it to you, Ben, you like the quandaries. I think MM nailed it, not that the other opinions don't have merit. The bottom line is the free flow of ideas. If that is restricted, then a freedom is lost. Doesn't matter if its objectionable or not, because if you never have the opportunity to hear/read/see it, you never have the chance to evaluate its merits. Moreover, how could you even debate an idea if you don't know what it is? As I have stated many times before, freedom is messy. If you have a problem with that, maybe you should go somewhere with less of it, and see how that works out for you.
Steve - I agree with Tom and Mike, the free flow of information and the opportunity for me to make a choice is paramount. However, we live in a society where too many people "require" us to be subjected to their viewpoint. Even if we have thoroughly evaluated an idea, the ability to opt out is frequently taken from us, most notably when it comes to educating our children.
Mark - Ben, I think the right not to be offended is more important than the right to offend; however, much like a "judgement" placed upon someone, that reasoning must be enforced. One cannot expect not to be offended if he or she walks through life thinking that not to be offended is a given right. If one chooses to walk "outside" of the normal circles that are created by society, then one "opens the door," so to speak to be offended; it is at that time that one needs to speak his mind and "defend his right not to be offended." It is not something one gets for free, for everything in life comes with a price.
Tom - to Mark; What if in the course of vigorously defending one's right not to be offended, one offends others who feel that their right not to be offended is being trampled upon? Moreover, who determines what the societal norms are that one must adhere to in order not to give offense? And what if you are offended by those norms when they abridge your rights in some other aspect? I can see this dog running his paws off to get that stub of a tail. Unless you posed this particular conundrum to elicit this exact query, which I don't put past you!
16 hours ago · Like
Mark - Gee -- I'm really offended! :)
Bryan - (me brother) I much prefer to be offended as it purports free speech and the opportunity to be heard and to hear.
Mark - Interesting twist on the rights of others.
Greg - I think Steve Mecham makes an interesting point. There is a difference between a right to not be offended and a right to avoid participating in that which offends you. This points to a tangentially-related debate around the issue of tolerance/intolerance. Classic objective definitions will tell you that to 'tolerate' means to peacefully coexist with that which bothers (or offends) you while to 'not tolerate' means to find a way to end the existence of that which you find intolerable. Various social and political movements have, however, twisted the word 'tolerance' to be synonymous with 'acceptance' and even 'support', with intolerance being anything less than that bar. Do we have a right to not ever be offended? No. But do we have a right to be offended when confronted with something we find offensive? Absolutely.
Kathryn - I simply think of it this way. You have the right to be a jerk as long as you let of walk away. Not meaning any of you are being a jerk... figure of speech.
The views in this blog are not those of people who can't think for themselves and rely on others to think for them. For that matter, the views expressed here may not be those of people who CAN think for themselves, but it comes extremely close.
Atheists may or may not be offended by religious displays on public property, but that's not the real problem that most of us have with them, and it's certainly not why our legal actions hold water.
ReplyDeleteIt's because religious displays on public property are governmental establishment of religion, and they are spending my money to support your beliefs and all the crap that comes with them. It's against the constitution. If you or your fundy friends have trouble understanding this idea, think about how you would feel if the government put up some sort of Muslim holiday display with your money, or allowed Muslim teachers to lead the class in a Muslim prayer.
Offended is one word, but it's more and deeper than that. It's being forced into someone else's faith by your government.
Also, it's funny that you and your friends think that we're the ones trying to claim a right not to be offended. We're simply trying to claim a right not to have our government turned into a theocracy. I tend to hear much more about religious people being offended at, well, the very existence of atheists, offended that anyone could question the existence of god, offended that we might put up a billboard saying you can be good without god. And making a big stink about it.
Keeping prayer out of schools isn't about personal offensiveness. It's about religious freedom. Something which was put into the constitution very explicitly because the founding fathers recognized that allowing religion into the sphere of government destroys both. That allowing religion and government to mix is a bad idea, because while your religion might be on top and able to oppress everyone else today, tomorrow the tides might shift and you could be the one getting oppressed.
If we instead keep government and religion entirely separate, keep government actions from supporting or suppressing any religion, then we will all be free to follow the religion of our own choosing.
Oooo. I'm a FUNDY!
ReplyDeleteIs a religious display put up with tax dollars is different from a religious display put up at private expense?
If you truly believe that keeping government from supporting OR suppressing any religion does that means I can erect a religious display at my expense on a public place? By your reasoning if government tears it down, they are suppressing my religion.
Depends... is anybody allowed to put up whatever display they want on that land? Usually public land has specific uses laid out. If they take down your display because nobody was allowed to leave shit lying around there, then they've acted correctly. Content neutrality would be the key here.
ReplyDeleteThus, if they allowed your display, but disallowed mine, based on the content of that display, there would be a problem. Open forums are cool, you can say whatever you want there. Government endorsed censorship based on content is not very cool.
Put it up on your own land, with your own money, say in the window of your store or on a billboard or whathaveyou, and there's no legal charge to be made. Some people might complain, but they wouldn't be me. I might be less likely to shop there though, depending on the nature of the display. That's fine, they'd make up for the loss of me with the increase in religious folk going there.
But what you'll find, in nearly 100% of cases where some display has been disallowed or torn town, it's because the government was granting special privilege to religion, allowing them to use public land in ways which are disallowed to other groups and individuals, in clear violation of the establishment clause.
Wish I could get more intelligent comments on my writings like yours. You make me think and I appreciate that.
ReplyDeleteSo. S'public land. As long as it doesn't constitute a hazard or interfere with the defined public use, I probably don't a problem with it. I haven't gone through myriad permutations on this one. So I probably could find some I object to.
Permutation example: Content is an issue. If you put up displays calling for the death of Christians simply for being Christian, I have the same problem with that as I do a Christian putting up a display calling for the death of Muslims. Exhortations to violence against others must be carefully considered.
I do agree if you allow one group, you should allow all groups. The fact that I am a pentecostal Christian doesn't matter. Muslims have the same rights me as Wiccans as Satanists as Pagans as Atheists etc etc etc.
I GLADLY share space with those who will share space with me. Sadly, finding people willing to so share is like me hunting deer. I hunt. I don't find 'em.
True, there are generally exceptions to free speech based on incitement to violence and such, and those types of restrictions come from a good place, and, if codified and enforced properly, are a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy you've let me share your little internet space today, and happy to have some intelligent conversation.
Now I just need to learn to hunt... although I actually want to find some deer when I do it. Don't you live in white tail country? I thought they were supposed to be everywhere and dumb as bricks. Black tails out here, from what I hear it's damn near impossible to catch one.
http://porkbrainsandmilkgravy.blogspot.com/2011/03/you-dont-want-prayer-in-schools.html
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on School Prayer.
Would appreciate hearing your thoughts on my other musings.
As for hunting, we have deer. Not as many as in N. Georgia. Problem is as the season progresses, the deer go nocturnal.