What's the criteria for offense? — flannel jesus

Some criteria might be how high the offended person's blood pressure rises, how much their pulse increases, how much cortisol is excreted, how much their rate of breathing increases--when they are "offended". One might also measure the volume of yelling and screaming, and so on. When I get really offended, all those values rise quickly.

Maybe that's not what you are asking? Perhaps you are asking about the criteria for offensiveness in an image, a statement, or an action. "Offensiveness" is an abstraction like "humor'; it may be quite difficult to specify particulars. Why is a particular joke funny? Why is a particular drawing offensive?

I prefer to live in a society where individuals are not protected from witnessing offensive material. As a gay socialist, I am offended fairly often, and that's fine. It's also fine if my sexuality and politics offends others. Don't like it? Not my problem. It's also not your problem if your sexuality or politics offends me.

What we can not do in a civil society is coerce someone to view offensive material. A swastika on a T-shirt is one thing; painting swastikas on a synagogue is altogether different. Charlie Hebdo didn't coerce anyone into looking at its cartoons. Viewing was optional. A school might coerce students into viewing offensive material, though. Attendance in school is required, and students do not choose instructional material. Presenting students with Charlie Hebdo cartoons as part of a required assignment could be seen as coercive, possibly.

There was a case at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN where an art professor presented a very old painting of Mohammed (from a Moslem country and artist) which offended a Moslem college student. There was an uproar. The professor was fired.

In the Hamline University case, the class had received prior notification that a 'sensitive' painting would be displayed. The student could have opted out, but she didn't. Instead, she remained and was duly offended and insisted on corrective action on behalf of her sensitivities. Who was more coerced? The student or the professor?

Maybe that's not what you are asking? — BC

I'm asking how he decides which offensive things are worth punishing and which ones aren't. Anybody can feel hurt by anything, he almost certainly doesn't think we can just be putting people in legal trouble every time their feelings are hurt. So what are his boundaries? Why some things and not others?

Why punish someone for burning a quran but not punish someone for farting in public?

I prefer to live in a society where individuals are not protected from witnessing offensive material. — BC

I agree, that's why I think his idea that offense should be treated as a criminal matter is so bizarre.

Some criteria might be how high the offended person's blood pressure rises — BC

Or the offended person's educational level.

One might also measure the volume of yelling and screaming — BC

Not in a written text. There is no yelling and screaming in a written text. There is not even talking. You think we're all talking here? We're not talking about anything, at all. Instead, we are writing. I don't know whatever the Good Devil you Fine Folks are doing while we philosophically card-shark-it-up 'round these 'ere parts.

Oil slicks.

Liberally educated people are susceptible to offense -- perhaps (but not certainly) less than religiously (fundamentalist madrasas, fundamentalist christian schools, etc.) educated people.

↪Arcane Sandwich Liberally educated people — BC

Some people are not even liberally educated. Some people are not even educated to begin with!

religiously (fundamentalist madrasas, fundamentalist christian schools, etc.) educated people. — BC

Some people are not even educated to begin with!

Why punish someone for burning a quran but not punish someone for farting in public? — flannel jesus

This is the key to this entire discussion. For a devout believer, there is an enormous difference in magnitude between blasphemy and all other crimes or misdemeanours. The issue you are questioning is how can one particular brand of religion hold a book to be so sacred that its desecration would be punishable by death? The Quran is the literal, perfect, unchangeable and final revelation of God. It supersedes all other religious works and is more sacred than any human life. To burn it is to disrespect God himself. For those who don't have a notion of the sacred and the inviolable this can be hard to process.

Why punish someone for burning a quran but not punish someone for farting in public? — flannel jesus


This is the key to this entire discussion. — Tom Storm

Unless it's not.

Your logic is impeccable.

The Quran is the literal, perfect, unchangeable and final revelation of God. — Tom Storm

Unless it's not.

:blush:

I'll just quote it, so that I can remind everyone of it:

↪Arcane Sandwich Your logic is impeccable. — Tom Storm

EDIT: You know what, Tom? I'm quoting that on my Forum Profile now. It's one of my favorite quotes, now. Congratulations.



I'm a Smart Fox :)
I'm a Firefox! :D
:fire:

I can't think of anything good that results from burning it. I can think of bad that comes of it. The stabbing is a good example.

Not according to medieval Islamic occasionalists, or to a European rationalist occationalist like Malebranche.

For the occasionalist,
God is the cause of both,
yet separately.

They simply occur next to each other,
the burning and the stabbing,
the former does not cause the latter
it merely coincides with it.
It's a coincidence.

The burning is an occasion,
and the stabbing is another occasion.
One occasion does not cause the other.
God causes them both, according to the occasionalist.

I'm not saying that it's right,
I'm just saying that's what occasionalists believe.

Wanna disrespect their beliefs?
Go ahead, no one's stopping you.

Some people are not even educated to begin with! — Arcane Sandwich

Of course we have to ask 'what do we mean by 'educated'. But however we define it, there will certainly be people who are not even educated to begin with. Some didn't have the opportunity; some resisted every inch of the way; some rejected what they had received. There's not a lot one can do for invincibly ignorant people.

There's not a lot one can do for invincibly ignorant people. — BC

That does not make them evil.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

That does not make them evil. — Arcane Sandwich

Why not? — tim wood

Because being an invincibly ignorant person is neither a sin nor a crime, that's why. It's not even a misdemeanor. It's not even comparable to reckless behavior. It is simply a fact.

Or, what do you suppose evil is? — tim wood

This, is the really interest question.

The Devil is Evil, I would say. Just the Devil? No, not just the Devil.

Men and Women can be evil. They are not born that way. But they can become evil, by committing a sin, or a crime, or a misdemeanor, or by engaging in reckless behavior. There are degrees here. Yes, a misdemeanor is an act of Evil. But it is Trivial Evil, it doesn't really matter. Homicide, on the other hand, is a greater evil. Arguably, so is suicide.

Yet the particularly interesting question, is the following one:

Is it Evil to Burn the Qur'an?

Hmmm... What would I say?
I would say that it is not evil to burn a Qur'an.
Of that I am :100: % sure

Is it Evil to burn the Qur'an?
...
But how would that be possible, to begin with?
The Qur'an that can be burnt is not the True Qur'an.
So What Difference Would It Make?

That does not make them evil. — Arcane Sandwich

What invincible ignorance makes them is very difficult to enlighten. Invincible ignorance is not a virtue of any sort and might be a sin IF it is deliberate and maintained over time, especially in the face of suspected evil which one doesn't want to admit.

Invincible ignorance is not a virtue of any sort — BC

I am invincibly ignorant.
I am not ashamed to admit that fact.
:frown:

and might be a sin IF it is deliberate and maintained over time — BC

I maintain my invincible ignorance over time, because that is how I am.
:frown:

especially in the face of suspected evil — BC

I am the face of Suspected Evil Itself.
:frown:

which one doesn't want to admit. — BC

I admit it freely.
I fear nothing.
Death is Nothing to Me.
Why would it matter to me?
I am already obligated to Die just by being alive, ain't I?
Now whose fault is that? I certainly had no say, nor word, in that matter. So how is it somehow my fault that I simply exist?

Before long you'll be bitching and carping about not being consulted in your conception and birth, as some people do who consider being born a misfortune.

I am the face of Suspected Evil Itself. — Arcane Sandwich

Reminds me of a travesty on Psalm 23: Yea, though I walk through the valley of death I shall fear no evil, because I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.

[a 'travesty' here means crude satire]

I'm not impressed.

I don't care.

Good. One should only care about lesser creatures. I'm the opposite of that.

The Quran is the literal, perfect, unchangeable and final revelation of God. — Tom Storm

You personally believe that?

You personally believe that? — flannel jesus

No. I am not a theist.

Ok, so I know that Muslims feel that way about their holy book, that's a given.

The question "why punish?" isn't for muslims to answer, it's for *everyone else* to answer. In fact it was specifically asked to BC, who said that ANY offense should be punished, but then inexplicably decided that homophobia and homosexuality both don't count as 'offenses', despite people feeilng offended by them.

Do YOU believe people should be punished for burning holy books?