Found on Facebook:
"This is from Chris Preston which i think is a fabulous reminder that we are free to live our lives.
Today (Wednesday, November 18th) I left my voice lesson and noticed two adults on campus holding signs that said “Homosexuality is a sin”. First, I would just like to say that I support people with their own opinions. I think that everyone is entitled to their right to think what they want. However, when someone comes on my campus, where I pay tuition to live, I don’t think it’s appropriate to rub such a hateful sign in someone’s face. I decided that because this woman thought it was okay to make me feel uncomfortable in my home, I would retaliate and make her feel just as uncomfortable, if not more.
This woman was wearing a ankle-length corduroy skirt, which, as we all know, is a fashion nono. So, in order to make her feel uncomfortable, I stood next to her and held a sign that said Corduroy skirts are a sin! I don’t think I have ever drawn so much attention in my life. SO many people asked to take a picture with me, I got laughs, high fives and there were the few that even cursed off the woman standing behind me.
As I drew interest to what was going on with myself and the woman with the hateful sign, I started to draw a crowd that stood with me in support. Before I knew it I had 100+ people holding signs for gay rights asking people to honk their horns to support. I was interviewed by a news station, and more than 5 student organization papers, and the post standard of syracuse.
I never expected anybody to come stand by me and support and I appreciate it so much that everyone came! It meant so much and it proved to those ignorant people that we aren’t afraid, and we will put up a fight.
I’m proud that Syracuse has such a homosexual friendly community."_________________________________________________________
My take on it:
This illustrates the need for an inclusive liberal ethos - moral bigotry breeds conflict because it forces the ethical norms of one community onto another that doesn't see eye-to-eye.
The religious right are and should be free practice their way of life among themselves, but it stops with their community. I don't care what their God says; unless their religion rests on indubitable premises they have no license for moral bigotry.
The fundamental problem lies in the very nature of what I call 'hegemonic' religions - religions whose ideology advocates that their 'God' is the only true god and its word has the utmost legitimacy. Once the absolute nature of this god is accepted, it follows that the entailing ideology will too but the latter often involves proselyter practices and the condemnation of all contrary value systems. This in turn breeds conflict because it is incommensurable with anything less than an utterly uniform society along religious lines.
But upon further inspection, there is little ground for such holier-than-thou attitudes. I shall try to sum up the main arguments* about god and present my own analysis.
The cosmological argument states that the world needs to have been caused by something - a First cause - but we soon arrive at a paradox. Either we fall into an infinite regress where each antecedent cause has another antecedent cause and so on - yet our causal understanding demands that something creates the world because logic dictates that nothing can come of nothing. We thus arrive at a logical paradox that does not establish the existence of the divine.
Another position is called the ontological argument focusing on the nature of god's character. This may only apply to the 'Abrahamic' religions. Imagine a perfect being imbued with every desirable trait, except existence. Since a perfect being that exists is better than one that does not, the perfect god described in religious texts must exist. This position has many loopholes. Firstly, the notion of 'desirability' is itself predicated on the values described in religious texts and using them to justify the same god begs the question of whether the texts are actually sound to begin with. Note that successful prophecy is not the measure of god, because there can be many explanations for an outcome (e.g. the devil at work). Furthermore, the nature of the text is also in question because it is a human compilation based on purported divine influence - which appears to defy attempts to indubitably prove. The ontological argument is thus also indeterminate.
The third and, in my opinion, strongest argument is the teleological argument or argument by design. It holds that the apparent purpose in natural relations cannot be the result of mere, random evolution because it is like a gust of wind blowing through a junkyard and building a 747. However, the ostensible strength of this argument is illusory. Firstly, the awe of natural design may simply be due to our ignorance of the laws of nature. One need only remember that the Greeks once thought Apollo was responsible for the sun's movement. Our failure to fully comprehend natural phenomenayet cannot serve as a justification of divine existence because it proves nothing. Secondly, if there was indeed a Grand Designing entity, it does not establish the nature of the designer(s) and thus fails to sufficiently establish the existence of a particular god - we cannot establish whether Ahura Mazda (Zoroastorianism) or the Holy Trinity (Christianity) created the world but followers of both faiths hold their God to the the ONE uncreated Creator. Since the teleological argument is an inference from ignorance and fails to establish anything of value even if true, it cannot establish the existence of the religious divine.
However, note that these arguments cannot and do not serve as an a priori refutation of god's existence. Unless there is some compelling communication from Above, gods remain in the realm beyond experience - the Kantian noumena - where knowledge is impossible.
The implications of these arguments and their flaws is fairly straightforward: proselytes have no justification for moral 'imperialism' by arguing that their version of 'God' exists. It is extremely difficult to conclusively justify which ethical beliefs are 'better' than others and the imposition of our beliefs on others is unfounded. I believe none of us would want to feel pressurized into accepting a faith we don't believe in. This is why a liberal ethos is essential: so that we may put our ethics into practice in our own communities without fear or prejudice from others. This is the whole point: to avoid conflict and live alongside each other for the antithesis of peaceful coexistence is acrimony and conflict.
It may be argued that liberalism is itself a value system that conflicts with other value systems, but the liberal ethos is one of the few that actually acknowledges the freedom of other systems. It is an inclusive ethos and I dare say it is best suited for the cultural pluralities of our globalised world.
VIVA LA LIBERTY
*The 3 Arguments are adapted from The Story of Philosophy by Bryan Magee
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