From: ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: On futility of religious palavers. Was Re: Religious Tolerance and
Date: 19 Nov 1992 22:11:08 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: curie.systemsy.cs.yale.edu
Keywords: Religion, Futility


In article <1992Nov20.022847.732@udel.edu>, kazi@dobie.cis.udel.edu (Zunaid Kazi) writes:

> 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. 

That's strange.  Looking back at the last few religious discussions, I
count more participants in each of them than I do in any of the other
recent threads.  To conclude from that that religious discussions
invite the widest participation is a statistical reality.  I agree
about the heated exchange of unyielding opinions, but I do think they
involve many more than just two people.

What bothers me is the tendency of certain individuals to conclude
from their own lack of interest in religious discussions, that this is
true of the net community as a whole.  Obviously, if this were the
case, the flow of articles on such matters would stop, and the host of
email messages that each participant gets from others would also
subside.  Since that isn't happening, we can only conclude that there
*are* people who are very much interested in these "debates," whatever
the reason may be.

> 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". =)  

I do agree that the participants are often unwilling to listen to or
understand different viewpoints, but you seem to be sidestepping the
factual basis on which many of the arguments rest.  Clearly, if someone
presents erroneous material which could be generally misleading to the
readership, and someone else can present the real facts from all the
right sources, then regardless whether the original poster sees the
point or not, many readers will indeed understand and not be misled by
the distorted "facts."

> 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.

I really don't think issues are quite that black and white.  What if
FC Koeln's plight is similar to that of one of the Dhaka clubs?  What
if Mohammedan were to undergo a transformation that led them to a
terrible phase like Bayern Muenchen's last year?  Comparisons then
would be valid.

Let's consider the typical pattern of these religious "debates" on
SCB.  Someone posts some article or other complaining about
discrimination against minorities in Bangladesh.  Others complain.
The original posters plus some well-known Islam-bashers pop up and
claim that it is because Islam preaches that.  Of course, this is
incorrect, and hence people will post a correction.  From this, the
discussion will lead to a general Islam-bashing session through which
some characters somehow hope to prove that non-Muslims are bound to be
mistreated by Muslims.  Of course, it will inevitably degenerate into
claims of alleged Muslim atrocities in neighboring countries such as
India, which in turn will be involved in a pathetic attempt to justify
BJP actions, etc. etc.  What does all this mean?  As you can see from
the above, the discussion weaves in and out of matters relating to our
part of the world.  The history of South Asia involves many of the
disputes that you witness on SCB.  It is very much relevant to our
history and culture, and as long as there are these misconceptions out
there, things will continue to be this way.

-- Shakil Ahmed
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