From: kazi@brahms.udel.edu (Zunaid Kazi)
Subject: Futility of religious palavers, Was Re: Religious Tolerance and ..
Keywords: Religion, futility 
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 02:51:27 GMT


In article <1egrdlINN1rs@CURIE.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU> ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:
>
>If you look at the number of articles on SCB in the last few months,
>you will find that the only topics which generate a flood of articles
>and vigorous debate, are those which are religious in nature.  Why do
>you think this is?  Obviously, there *is* much interest in this topic,
>otherwise people wouldn't be posting.  History has shown that time and
>again, the religious discussions invite the widest participation and
>continuous flow of articles.  

I have a dissenting opinion here. Quantitatively religious discussions
may have dominated SCB bandwidth in the last few months, but to infer 
from that, that religious discussions invite the widest participation
is simply incorrect. What typifies religious discussions or even 
discussions on moral philosophy is the fact that these discussions
are usually a heated exchange of unyielding opinions between two
persons. There might be occasional interlopers but the whole thread 
revolves around these people who will not budge from the preset 
opinions they hold. These discussions are futile since, even if one 
participant is rational, no one else has any willingness to listen 
and try to understand different viewpoints. The term discussion
is an obvious misnomer here. One might call such stuff "An alternation
Tirades". =)  

>How come?  I think it is simply because
>the culture, history, and politics of our part of the world is so
>closely intertwined with religion that they cannot be separated.
>Consequently, most South Asians have a certain level of interest in
>religion, whether it be from a follower's perspective, or from an
>atheist's perspective.

This is a murkier issue. And the issue is, what is relevant to SCB.
I agree that our culture is entwined with religion and there is an
obvious interest in religion. As long as religious discussions pertain 
to our history, or culture, or politics they are relevant and have 
their place in SCB. But when such discussions digress to encompass
the general issues, or questions, I think these discussions would
serve a better function if they are moved to newsgroups which are
geared towards such aspects. Such as soc.religion.islam, alt.religion.hindu,
soc.religion, alt.atheism et al.

As an analogy, soccer also plays an integral part in our culture. 
I am sure most netters would agree if, say, a discussion involving
Mohammedan or foreign players in the Dhaka league digresses to
a discussion of Bayern Muenchen's standing [1] in the German
league and why FC Cologne is doing so poorly, then such a discussion
is irrelevant to SCB and is better served in rec.sport.soccer.

>Naturally, there are people on the net who are out to get on
>everyone's nerves and just spread messages of hate.  If success was
>measured by the number of kill files one can enter, they have a very
>high rate of success, but that's about it...  Nevertheless, there have
>been some very interesting debates of religious nature in the past,
>and I think there will continue to be so.

Kill File natives do infest netland, and I suppose we have to live
with these infernal creatures who are usually either motivated by
a sadistic pleasure in starting a futile net-war, or even worse, by
a bigotry with an aim to put down other people's beliefs. Some of these
Kill File regulars are prone to post concocted and baseless articles.
What to do with them is a difficult question. Posting rejoinders
simply encourage them to post more such trash, and since they have
no actual intentions of actually responding to the rejoinders, the
whole thing is a exercise in futility. But on the other hand, there
are net-landers of limited ratiocination ability who might just
take those posts to be factual truths. Repeat a lie long enough and
it wears the garb of truth. A quandary.

>-- Shakil

 -- Zunaid Kazi
    kazi@cis.udel.edu