> Surely you are aware that there are actually people with religious beliefs?
Yes. What's your point? It doesn't make those beliefs rational. Faith is belief in something despite the absence of evidence. I am using the term "religious belief" interchangeably with "faith based belief system."
> belief that there are people with religious beliefs is anything but irrational.
I have no idea what you are trying to say in this sentence.
- I don't "believe" that there are people with religious beliefs. I observe that to be the case.
- I never described "belief that there are people with religious beliefs" as irrational.
I think your point might be that, because there are people with irrational beliefs out there we must appease them? Or something?
I really don't know what you're trying to say here. There are people out there who believe in crazy things. We agree on that. How we should treat those people, or react to their existence, is entirely outside of the scope of conversation. It is perfectly acceptable to call an irrational belief irrational.
We were talking about language and communication and the absurdity that there is a such thing as an arbitrary sequence of phones or characters that would cause anyone exposed to that to be offended. All I was saying is that such a belief is unfounded. I honestly don't know what you are trying to say.
>There are people out there who believe in crazy things. We agree on that. How we should treat those people, or react to their existence, is entirely outside of the scope of conversation. It is perfectly acceptable to call an irrational belief irrational.
But in this context, the purportedly irrational belief is that some phrases are offensive. If you accept that there are people who would, rationally or not, be offended by some phrases, then I don't understand why you would even make the claim that it's absurd to believe that some people would be offended by some phrases.
> But in this context, the purportedly irrational belief is that some phrases are offensive. If you accept that there are people who would, rationally or not, be offended by some phrases, then I don't understand why you would even make the claim that it's absurd to believe that some people would be offended by some phrases.
Now I understand why we are talking passed each other. Thank you for the clarification.
You are reframing my premise and, in doing so, changing it to something I never said.
Although before I explain the source of our misunderstanding, I want to point out the irony that you are coming from a philosophically "subjectivist" position and are defending a philosophical "intrinsicist" position. Usually they are two opposite extremes and tend to be at odds with each other.
Subjectivism is the idea that perception creates reality. We often will hear people use language like "my truth" vs "your truth." Your position is subjectivist in the sense that you are clinging to a premise (that I never refuted or discussed) which states that "SOME people are offended by certain words, therefore 'bad words' exist."
Again, that's not the premise I stated or was discussing. But after your clarification, this is the premise that you thought we were discussing.
The intrinscist position states: "Certain words are bad by their nature. They will automatically cause ANYONE who hears them to be offended."
it is the "intrinsicist" position that I was calling absurd. I never said that there aren't people who hold this belief. And I never said that there was no such thing as PEOPLE who get offended by words.
I was saying that the idea that a word unto itself can be "bad by nature" is absurd. And I stand by that.
I have made no claim of any kind about the inherent badness of words. I'm just saying that your claim that
>The idea that arbitrary sequences of phones or characters will cause anyone within ear or eye-shot to become offended is rather absurd
is completely ridiculous. There plainly do exist words that offend people. Maybe you meant 'everyone' rather than 'anyone'? But that's pretty much a straw man anyways.
> Maybe you meant 'everyone' rather than 'anyone'?
Maybe. IMO the sentence works to convey the meaning I had intended either way.
It is not a strawman to suggest that there are people, a lot of them, who believe that certain words are bad by nature. That any given person (the fully qualified way of expressing "that anyone") who hears them will be offended, or have their soul diminished, or other bad things will happen as a result of hearing them. It's not a strawman, because I grew up around such people. They exist. And that's what I was talking about.
And while I was not talking prescription - what we should do as a result of such people existing - I would ask a rhetorical question. WHY do people get offended by certain words? Is their offence rational? And how should rational people regard such offence?
> It doesn't make those beliefs rational.
Humans are irrational. This shouldn't be news to anyone who is a human. I think it is reasonable to say that literally every single non-infant human in existence has done at least one irrational thing in their lifetimes, including you and me. Certainly there are humans who do more or fewer irrational things than others, but that doesn't matter all that much.
> I think your point might be that, because there are people with irrational beliefs out there we must appease them?
Sometimes, yes. Often, I'd say. People's feelings actually do matter. Sometimes the level of irrationality can be high enough that one might not care too much about hurting someone else's feelings in calling our or ignoring that irrationality. But very very often, we humans take into account others' irrationality when dealing with them, in order to make interactions more pleasant for both parties.
(Anyway, I don't disagree with the sidetracked point: that it's not absurd for a sequence of phones or characters might cause offense. It seems disingenuous to deny the reality of "bad words". I do think that this side discussion on irrationality and how to deal with it is potentially interesting, though.)