[ExI] riots again

[Charlie Stross]

On 27 Sep 2012, at 18:05, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012  Charlie Stross <charlie.stross at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I'm accusing you of arguing in ill-faith. Straw man positions ascribed to your opponents, cherry-picked extracts from someone else's religious texts ... I've seen this before. If we replace "muslim" with "jew" in your previous screed, and replaced the surahs with talmudic extracts, you'd be a dead ringer for Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Propaganda, i.e. it'd be obvious that you were blatantly, axe-grindingly anti-semitic. But switch to a different religious target and folks give you a free pass. You're disgusting.
> 
> It's an interesting phenomena, there is a certain breed of liberal out there that feels it is his moral obligation to defend the actions of any religion no matter how outrageous, provided it is not  one of the primary religions of ones own culture; and to defend the actions of any government no matter how evil, provided it is not his own government. I'm not certain of the cause of this effect, but I suspect it has something to do with making the poor boob feel broad minded and cosmopolitan.

I don't feel the need to defend islam. Or christianity, or judaism. All those faiths harbour a bucketload of intolerant chuckleheads who want to force their beliefs on everyone else. However, to damn *all* muslims, christians, or jews as intolerant chuckleheads is to make a mistake of similar magnitude. The cure for intolerance is not more intolerance.


-- Charlie