I hate what you're saying, it makes me angry and you should shut your mouth!

Translation of the article: Don't feel any empathy towards your enemy, they will use that weakness against you because they want to destroy all you believe in.

The article isn't bad, but it does ascribe to liberals what's true of anybody who takes offense. More tolerance, honesty, patience, and humility is good for everyone.

The whole debate strikes me as very similar to the phrase, "Stop being so defensive." How do you respond to something like that?

I believe that is only the case if you are trying to discuss these topics with people not prepared to discuss them. It is also a clever defense for people not willing to defend an unpopular position. "You'll just be offended!" I can't talk about serious things with you people because you all act childish and pretend that I'm saying things that don't jive with your egalitarian viewpoints. Hippies!
No one is preventing you from having the tough discussions. Just make sure you have them with the people that WANT to have them. If you force them upon the general public you will always find people that look for your agenda instead of your meaning. And sometimes the perceived agenda is most certainly offensive.

Also: I hate what you're saying, it makes me angry and you should shut your mouth!

Here's the problem with the essay.

The "analysis" this guy does simply leaves out one entire side of people being "offended" and slagging off the speaker, to avoid the uncomfortable conversations. It's not a liberal thing.

So perhaps the solution lies in the readers (the speaker's audience, if you will) not jumping to apply labels, and perhaps withholding judgment until the speaker has said her peace?

I disagree, at least with regards to Christianity. Christianity is founded on reason as much as faith. Christ expected his followers to question and reason. Theology itself is the formal process of reasoning about God.

So no, as pithy as your statement was, religion is meant to be questioned.

BTW, how's the new job?

Whether or not Christianity is meant to be questioned, the reality is that vigorous questioning of religious doctrine will buy you a beatdown in Southern Virginia and points south. Trust me, I've gotten really close.

The job is busy. Doing the evil sales guy thing and filling the funnel takes some work. Thanks for asking.

I would argue that questioning any strongly held belief that the person is not equipped to defend will buy you a beatdown in any part of the world. Which is why when war supporters show up at peace rallies, they get assaulted by the 'peace activists'. It isn't always a problem with the idea, sometimes it's the person.

I think that is mostly fair. That said, religious belief is really in a special category. People generally don't scream about persecution or lobby congress for constitutional amendments when I ridicule their sports teams.

Without having read the article (I'm more interested in the discussion here):

My general impression is that the problem lies most often not with those doing the offended but those who take offense. Somehow taking offesne has infused people with the impression that once you've been offended you are no longer held to the responsibility of making reasonable arguments. Not to be blunt, but I see it in these forums all the time, particularly by those who take offense to JMJ's well articulated arguments.

People take offense at responses that run counter to what they firmly believe -- as should occur in all good arguments -- but instead of building an equal response the moment being offended plays a part the discussion degenerates. That's just poor debate skills for one thing, but worse it perpetuates the failure of dialogue that has become prevalent in our society. I disagree with JMJ (I'm picking on him here because he often runs counter to the general philosophies on the board, but always argues backed with solid information) on numerous fronts, but the discussions we have are stronger because he is here. Discussions are useless if everyone agrees on the same point, one of the things that makes politically one-sided books by the likes of Al Franken, Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter so useless.

It should not be possible to debate passionate topics in meaningful ways without running the risk of being offended. But, when being offended leads one to conced the strength of oratory for petulance, it is not he who offended at fault, but he who took offense and changed the nature of the discussion.

Don't know if any of that made sense. Feel free to be offended by the poor reasoning I employed.

By most definitions of religion, yes. There are some sects of Buddhism that are non-theistic, but I didn't want to split hairs.

I don't quite understand the question especially with regard to "intent". Do you mean, "The truth of Christian doctrine can be arrived at through critical, rational inquiry?" I don't want to put words in your mouth, I just want to make sure I understand your question.

No, they're not equivalent. Tolkien assumes that you'll take his work as fictional. No offense is intended.

Okay... check this out:

And then for some reason:

Basically, Free Speech Ãœber Alles... except if it offends our religion or pretexts for war.

It's a nicely worded piece that crashes apart in the last few paragraphs. Right about the point where most people get tired of slogging through his tedious phrasing. Let me paraphrase the examples he holds up as indicative of this phenomenon of "OP": We wanna keep saying that Homosexuals are evil and attack them verbally without getting into trouble!" The person that says teaching children in school that

is offensive is wrong. It is not an example of Hate Speech which should be punished. That person simply

/edit Somehow missed a clause.

Wait a minute... I smell jab at me... that, or bacon... mmm.

I stated this in an earlier post and it seems relevent to the above quote:

"Until we as human beings get to a point where understanding and acceptance replace tolerance we are all screwed just the same; the façade just continues" - Tolerance is not a good thing...

I believe that, if someone says something that is totally off base and not true, then your reaction will reflect that and be less of a reaction than if that same person spoke on something with a partial truth...In other words if there is some truth to it, then it is more likely to offend...

With that said, being completely honest with yourself is the answer to staying "offended" free"…

Some of the best comedians in the world (Fox, Pryor, Murphy & Chappell) all used half truths and the possibility of offending whole groups to create some of their best routines"…And without question, it's the truthful parts that are the most funny...

As human beings we need to celebrate and embrace each others differences all while having the ability to laugh at ourselves throughout the process"…Because not matter who or what you are, you're imperfectly human and just that alone holds comedic value"…