I would like to acknowledge to begin with the implicit compliment in your assertion that i would recognize and honor the sentiment of the individual described in your hypothetical. Indeed, i would honor such an expressed attitude, were it carried into action, and i would acknowledge and honor the unselfishness of making the deed match the sentiment, and the expression of the affection, for however incapable the object of that affection would be of realizing the benefaction and its expression.
I do not, however, consider that the analogy is appropriate. I do not believe that you would compare the deity in which you believe to be a flawed and uncomprehending entity. Nor do i consider the act of worship to be consonant with the care taken of an uncomprehending and incompetent individual. Finally, what i ridicule is the imposition of belief on others, and i freely acknowledge and do not apologize for ridiculing those who indulge in such behavior. To revert to your analogy, were someone paying lip service to such a devotion, and indulging in a loud self-congratulation for behaving in such a manner, i would have far less regard for them, and dependant upon the degree of their self-promotion, might well hold them in contempt. I am not contemptuous of those who hold a certain belief as being what seems best to them, but who do not propose it as the ideal for others. Therefore, i usually don't comment on their creed and the expression thereof. It is the "whited sepulchres, full of rotting flesh and dead men's bone's" who are the target of my contempt and ridicule. It is those who feel authorize, even compelled, to assert the superiority of their belief, and by extension, their own superiority to those who do not hold that belief. If someone chooses to take offense to the ridicule i heap on people such as that and the expression of their belief, then i can only observe that they place themselves in the same category as the object of my ridicule, and i frankly don't see you as that type of insufferable proselytizing believer, nor do i believe that your faith is such that you would impose on others.
A dictionary definition of proselytize reads:
Dictionary-dot-com wrote:proselytize \PRAH-suh-luh-tyz\, intransitive verb:
1. To induce someone to convert to one's religious faith.
2. To induce someone to join one's institution, cause, or political party.
If you consider the second definition above, you will see why it is that i consider it special pleading to claim that religious ideology be exempt from the criticism we many of us level at other forms of ideology. I see no good reason to exempt religion from the stringent analysis commonly applied to other forms of ideology.
As for your own instance of special pleading, i have already noted that i don't consider your analogy valid. If you in fact believe that your deity is omnipotent and omniscient, then it simply does not follow that any harm is done by scorn on my part.
This is worth quoting:
Snood wrote:I will only say that I share your disgust at the Jerry Falwells and Franklin Grahams and Osama bin Ladens of the world, but I think that their faith in God and mine have little in common both figuratively and in practice.
Because i think it makes the point i was making above, that you are not indeed in a category with the insufferable and imposing proselytizers, the worst of whom are murderous, such as bin Laden or Rudolph. Perhaps you will not agree, but i think i can fairly state that i "put my shots across the bows" of those whose posts at this site have made them fair game. I think that when you have objected to my characterizations, you have responded not to comments i have made about what you have expressed as your belief, but rather the ridicule i have heaped on others. I would not for a moment deny that i deploy as powerful a form of sarcasm and ridicule as i am capable of delivering--i think it fair to state that my targets have chosen themselves. I don't know that i've ever singled you out for ridicule, and if i have, i certainly do regret it, because i have never known you to put yourself into the category of the insufferable proselytizers.
Whether or not i have callously thrown out the baby, having dispensed with the bath, is not for me to judge. However, i think it obvious that i would defend myself by asserting that i had not done so.
