Carrying the Idiot Ball

[alasdair1076]

   I’m pathologically liberal, despite an upbringing in one of the last pockets of the 1950s left on the planet.  The Isle of Man is a tiny community halfway between England and Ireland and, by dint of its presence in the centre of a pretty hostile environment, it’s very conservative.  Gay rights were a huge issue when I was growing up there, to

Comments

[rhube]

Thanks for this, it was interesting, and well-written. I rarely ask my religious friends about their faith, because I have a history of that going sour - being taken as a challenge, or an excuse to try and convert me. I don't expect this to result from the vast majority of my friends, that would be disrespectful, but I've been surprised, in the past, and generally I don't think it matters what people believe in that area, so I'm happy if they're happy with their beliefs. With the best of intentions, there are reasons why I'm an atheist, and other people I know are Jewish, Christian, Hindi, and so forth, which have a tendency to come out badly if expressed even a little bit wrong.

However, this means I don't get to know about a part of my friends that is clearly very important to them, and it's good to read about your beliefs, and how your religious beliefs have related to your other beliefs. I'm sorry someone has been dickish to you. I'm not quite sure what being passed the idiot ball means in this context, but it sounds to me like someone else has been really, really dum.

I may have been at an impressionable age when I read John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, but I still find it hard to see a lot wrong with that work. At it's foundation is that people should be free to believe, do, and voice whatever they want, as long as they do no harm to others. Because this is the best way to guarrantee the most happiness for the most people. And at the heart of that is listening to others and giving them as much credit as you give yourself. One does oneself no favours by treating the other guy like he's stupid. O'course, we're all fallible, but it's something to aim for. Something I needed to hear, at the time. I said some dum fuck things to some Christians when I was 16, but I was a teenager. All teenagers tend to be a bit stupid like that. At 26, I've been given a lot of reason to respect a lot of people with very diverse beliefs, and I would be really idiotic to think that disagreeing with me on this one matter made them stupid, rightwing, or anything like the fundementalists who actually do harm others, and really should be ashamed of their beliefs.

So, umm: *support*