View Single Post
Old 11-24-2012, 02:53 PM   #100
BillSmithBooks
Padawan Learner
BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BillSmithBooks ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
BillSmithBooks's Avatar
 
Posts: 243
Karma: 1085815
Join Date: May 2009
Location: www.OutlawGalaxy.com, Foothills of NY's Adirondack mountains
Device: My PC...using Puppy Linux (FBReader, Calibre, Kindle Cloud Reader,
Mr. Card has written some brilliant books and I have read and enjoyed many of them: Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, the first couple of "Seventh Son" books...

I would respectfully argue that his more recent fiction is, ahem, not quite up to the standards that he set earlier in his career. I'll leave it at that.

Mr. Card has the same First Amendment rights as all of us and he is absolutely entitled to believe in bigoted, hateful, angry, inaccurate, crazy things, regardless of whether they are rooted in religious beliefs or beliefs he arrived at all on his own.

Trying to justify wrong beliefs ("he's from a different generation," "it's just his religion's teachings," etc.) is simply excusing boorish and abhorrent behavior.

All of history has been plagued by great injustice and intolerable suffering justified by people saying, "Oh no, it's not me...it's God (whichever version they purport to believe in) and his religion telling me to do this. Hate the sin; love and murder the sinner and all that." This pattern appears to go back to the beginning of time, judging by our oldest texts.

As a society, we should no longer simply step back and nod respectfully if someone justifies bizarre and hateful beliefs when they say, "Oh, all that hate and anger. That's not ME. That's GOD. Says so right in this book. (That was dictated by angels and written on gold tables that nobody else saw.)" *

(* SIDE RANT: Or rules dictated by Fully Operating Thetons, promises of 99 Virgins in Heaven for murdering lots of infidels, "the end of the world is coming right now and everyone shall be judged and only the faithful will be raptured while the sinners will be tormented for all eternity," or Protestants and Catholics shooting and bombing each other as recently as the 1980s in certain parts of the world. Most (all?) religions have a handful of...odd...beliefs. Not singling out LDS for criticism.

Also, NOT trying to imply that only dangerous things originate in religious thought. All kinds of horrible things have come out of non-religious ideologies and philosophies. Humans as a whole are very good at justifying evil...or allowing evil to happen...for a whole host of reasons.)

Instead, we should point out that certain beliefs are crazy and unacceptable, regardless of where they originated.

Just as OSC has a right to express those beliefs, any of us have a right to call BS on his beliefs. We have a right to analyze, deconstruct and criticize those beliefs and say, "This sort of thing is simply not acceptable."

I have a right to refuse to support someone who endorses those beliefs; I have a right to tell the world exactly why I refuse to purchase from someone because they promote dangerous and harmful things with the proceeds.

Do not mistake this as an indictment of an entire religion or any religion, for that matter.

My belief is simple: If you act in love and harmony and compassion and forgiveness, live and let live, do no harm to others, I'm cool with it and IMHO you are acting in harmony with the Creator.

If you act in hate and anger and bigotry, you're not walking in harmony with God, no matter how much you insist you are. And it's high time society pointed that out and that people organized to prevent harmful actions as a result of those beliefs.

Last edited by BillSmithBooks; 11-24-2012 at 05:03 PM.
BillSmithBooks is offline   Reply With Quote