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- Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 23:56:29 -0800
- Sender: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
- From: Peter Montgomery <MONTGOMERY@CAMINS.CAMOSUN.BC.CA>
- Subject: Re: Deep beliefs
- Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
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-
- > Date: 20 Dec 1992 11:24:21 +0100
- > From: torkel@SICS.SE
-
- > all deep beliefs should be respected. I'm not surprised that it proved
- > impossible to get any discussion going, since such questions are alien
- > to the thinking of many people. I recall something similar in
-
- I'm not surprised either, since you don't really want discussion, you
- just want to play your own version of mouse trap, and other people aren't
- interested.
-
- If you really want discussion about respect for deeply held beliefs,
- and whether it is bigotry to mock such beliefs, even when they are
- repugnant to all commonly held standards of humanity, then go to your
- supreme court and look at all the discussions about upholding the right
- to free speech. Personally, I don't see what there is to discuss. It's
- a matter of values. Either you choose to respect or you don't. If you
- don't then you can't expect anyone else to respect what you hold dear.
-
- What interests me is how religion has become the new taboo.
- Those good, old fashioned Anglo-Saxon earthy words which the Normans
- made vile in their attempts to denigrate the people they had
- "conquered," words like fuck, and shit, and cunt, are now becoming
- commonplace, but let anyone express religious sentiments in an everyday
- context, and this new puritanism shows its head. It's rather amusing.
-
- I rather suspect what the reply is going to be, but I won't spoil the
- game. Go ahead.
-