I'm the Religious Left!Follow

For the past two weeks every time I walk to class I walk past about 30 small paper and wooden signs advertising Iamsecond.com. Every so often I will be approached in person and handed a slip of paper advertising the same. If it helps this anecdote also applies for at least a few thousand other people.

Actually, putting a sign on a billboard is specifically called push marketing.

Ok. But when Elinda said that the thing that bothers her the most about religious people is their unending need to 'push' their faith on others, was this really what she was implying?

Cause this is no different than any of a thousand things that are "pushed" (to use your own marketing term) on us every single day. If that is true, than I guess she's no more annoyed by religious people than any of the other zillion people who advertise any of a number of different things that we're exposed to every single day.

In the context of her statement she certainly seemed to be suggesting that religious people somehow do this more or in a manner that is more intrusive than anyone else with any other idea or cause out there. Frankly, I feel that global warming advocates go far further to push their cause on me than just handing out informative bits of paper. They're actually demanding that a portion of my taxes pay for the things they want to do. I don't recall any religious organizations forcing me to pay for their activities.


Aren't we really just talking about disliking something because you don't agree with it? It's not about "pushing". It's about being exposed to ideas you don't agree with. And that's fine. But it kinda ties into the point of this thread. That many people are ridiculously oversensitive to the mere presence of religion in society as though it's an affront to them. It's that "your ideas don't deserve to be spoken publicly" approach that tends to set off religious people...




Yes. Wonderful. So you agree it's advertisement and not some horrific infringement on your life? Cause I don't use the fact that other things are advertised as an argument to oppose them, and I think it's a pretty weak argument to suggest so. Which was more or less why I responded to Elinda's statement.

I know you want me to respond to your earlier post. I will, I'm just handling the comments I can respond to in between dota games first.

No, not really. We've gone through this all before, Allegory. At this point, we should just have the Anna/Allegory auto-religious argument generator :P.

Actually, in my own life the "push" I experience from some people of religious faith is the political lobbying and political participation they do, that gets laws enacted or modified, or budget spending directed, that I experience as the most burdensome "push" on myself and other people, and the most horrifying in consequences in some effects and jurisdictions. And I'm talking specifically about Australia here, and America and Europe as well. The most specific example is the spread of deathly AIDs and other STDs. The spread of poverty and suffering because of the birth of children to people who aren't mature enough or financially equipped yet to be nurturing overall instead of harmful overall as parents. In Australia itself this isn't as much of a problem, at the present, but our overseas aid got hijacked by the fundamentalist Christians leading to those consequences overseas.

As far as I'm concerned, this diversion of my tax funds away from reproductive medical spending and reproductive education overseas has been a massive killer. Within Australia, the human rights of gay couples are still suppressed legally in many ways, in large part because of Church/religious agendas. Part of the legal suppressions are the hodgepodge of recognition or non-recognition of gay couples for various concession, benefit and tax purposes. Usually meaning that they get shafted at both ends.

Qualification for Anna's nerves and boundaries: I've studied a lot of religions, I find many brilliant goods, and astounding insights in them. Many truths. Collections of ideas and ethics that can be bundled together to live a fulfilling, meaningful, happy and beneficial life, a life that does no harm and much good to others.


PS I reguard a lot of advertisements as infringements on my life, and in some cases they are even "horrific". I grew up watching two free to air TV stations that had no advertisements on them, and several government radio stations, also without advertising. A lot of billboards just RUIN architectural vistas and streetscapes, and in Aripyanfar's dictatorship, they'd just be banned.

Film on Videos and DVDs, and especially DVD collections of commercial TV series, have been my saving grace. While I appreciate some ads as hilarious, funny, artistic, or fun quirkiness, as far as I'm concerned cutting into any programme with an ad is an unforgivable sin, ruining the experience. And most ads are merely an assault on my senses.

The "horrific" ads, the most grievous assault came when my local small shopping center installed two large vertical screens at the top of the entrance ramp that would loop over and over the same moving ads on each screen. Turning the corner and seeing them always came like a body blow of revulsion. I don't know why I hated them so much in that setting, when they were the sort of thing I'd seen on TV screens and computer screens. Maybe because they ONLY played ads. As happened, they kept having faults happen to them, and were eventually removed.

Edited, Apr 9th 2009 3:13am by Aripyanfar

It's not really the quantity, but the quality of the intrusions. I live out in the boonies, yet I get visited by the evangelists - at my front door (and door-to-door solicitation is illegal).

My sister, while she no longer bugs me, for years tried to save my soul. I think she was truly worried I was going to burn in hell - so I don't really begrudge her her efforts. She doesn't 'push' her beliefs on any of the family anymore for the most part.

I kinda miss the gawking at the Hare Krishna while visiting an airport.

I might decide to craft Allegory a very small violin.

People handing you slips of paper in a public place are violating your rights? Would you think the same of people handing you other types of advertising material? What about people from political campaigns who hand you printed material in public places?

Have you considered simply not taking hold of these slips of paper? And if you're talking about something more ... like blocking the path entirely or putting their hands on you or such, have you considered reporting it to the police?

And actually, some particularly aggressive car salesmen illegally prevent people from leaving the dealership ... by blocking the doorway or by refusing to return your keys after they've taken them while you test drive one of their cars.

Obviously I misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying.

Yes. You are forcing other people to practice a part of your faith that they do not agree with. If I were forcing you to enter into a same-sex marriage because I felt strongly that they should be legal, then I would be pushing my homosexual adgenda on you.

Teeheehee, Iophiel got rated down.

This could have been PREVENTED!!






Edited, Apr 9th 2009 10:30pm by Elinda

Yes. That's what I meant by social change is needed. And... <drumroll please> some sort of education about the benefits of abstinence and monogamy would seem to be a step in the right direction. You don't need to have some puritanical religious belief system to eyeball the situation and come to this conclusion. And it's wrong to toss it out because it smells too much of "pushing religion".




Um... That's a silly comparison. Unless the act of sex is somehow necessary to save someone's life that is...

And yeah. Encouraging people not to have sex with multiple partners is a pretty good approach. Be honest. Do you oppose the idea because it wont work, or doesn't make sense? Or do you oppose it because you associate it with a religious agenda?






Huh? I didn't say they couldn't have sex. I said that there is tons of statistical data that supports the position that increased access to and social acceptance of birth control tends to increase the rate of sexual activity and number of partners that people within that society engage in.

I made *zero* moral judgements, nor did I insist that people "can't have sex". I simply pointed out the correlative social effects of ready access to birth control. Why assume some kind of moral crusade here? I'm a strong advocate for choice and freedom of action. I oppose any sort of illegalization or blocking of access to birth control. I simply choose not to be blind about it and accept that there are costs, which in this particular case would seem to be relevant to the aforementioned AIDS in Africa example.



I already explained why. Because statistically, the availability of birth control tends to increase the rate of sexual activity and number of partners those within the society in question engage in. If the social change that is needed is to discourage this exact sort of behavior, then it would seem to be counter productive to hand out condoms at the same time, wouldn't it?


Handing out condoms only makes sense if you assume that the condoms will be used at a high enough rate to counter-act whatever existing or increased rate of sexual activity will occur after that point in time. Unfortunately, another statistical fact is that condoms usually aren't actually used correctly enough or consistently enough to counteract the increased sexual activity effects. The social effect is to change people habits such that they have sex more casually and with more partners, but the condoms only work if you have one and use it. Statistically, the social effect trumps the physical use of the condom pretty much every single time...



And if even one case of AIDS occurs because someone gets in the habit of having sex regularly, but doesn't have one handy and thinks "This one time, it'll be ok..."? What then? Cause that happens. Alot. Why do you think unplanned pregnancy has skyrocketed since birth control became readily available in the US? Why do you think std transmission rates have risen as well? The habits formed by living in a society with ready access to birth control affect everyone whether they are using birth control or not.


And I'll acknowledge that in the case of many African nations where sex with multiple partners is already high, the availability of condoms may not increase that at all, and certainly would seem to do "some good" even if they aren't used all the time by everyone. However, as I pointed out earlier, the solution has to include a social aspect. You need to compare the delta of both options, not just the one. The mixed message of handing out condoms by the truckload and then telling people they shouldn't have sex so often and with so many people is kinda self defeating.


It's just kinda silly to me if you think about it rationally. Arguably, the primary point to condom use is to allow people to have sex with multiple partners "safely". It enables them to do that. Isn't it absurd to insist that by enabling that behavior, it's not going to increase it? Of course it is. And the overwhelming statistical data bears this out. Yet, so often we address these issues and pretend that it just isn't true...

Edited, Apr 9th 2009 1:59pm by gbaji