In Difference

There is, I have learned, a trick to being a serene member of a community or identity. And it mostly comes down to understanding that there will be people who, for reasons of their own, have a problem with it. And the point to remember is the "for reasons of their own" part.

I recently discovered a website called "Only Sky." While it doesn't appear to outright say so, I suspect that the name is a direct reference to that Beatles song, "Imagine." I've been looking for some philosophy to add to my Internet diet, so I read a few articles, and then came across this one: "A philosopher’s bigoted views on atheists." It's a diatribe of the author's problems with the online writings of one "Eve Keneinan." Not long into the piece I found myself thinking that for all that this Eve Keneinan person had taken up residence in the author's head, he may as well be charging her rent.

There's a part of me that gets it. I remember when I felt the need to hit back at people whom I felt were denigrating me and what I believed (or disbelieved, as the case may be). And Ms. Keneinan very much denigrates atheists and atheism. At one point, on X, she notes the following:

We have decided, against all reason and tradition, to attempt to tolerate all manner of vices and evils.
It won't end well for us.
It isn't going well for us.
First, rebellion, and then judgment. That's the way of things.

I understand why people are put out by this, but I'm not sure what else one would expect. A person who understands that the Universe itself demands obedience, and metes out punishments to show its displeasure is not going to be happy with people who openly flout the rules they find to be important (especially if they believe in a Universe that indulges is collective sanctions). This was something that I came to understand when I was still in grade school.

Deists who believe that sins are a form of deliberate harm, either to the individual, the community or to the Universe itself, are likely going to be angry about that. And if that also induces fear in them, their complaints are apt to be public, and loud. This makes them people who are never going to approve of those who who don't follow the rules that the deist believes have been set in place. Once I realized this, I stopped looking for their approval. And for ways to get them to seek mine. Sure, people who understand the life one leads to be a direct threat to them can be bad news. But so can a lot of other people.

Ms. Keneinan appears to believe that tolerating behaviors that depart from her own accepted brand of Christianity is dangerous, and therefore, is irrational, at best. Understood, but why care about that? As much as I understand the point that tolerating intolerance is a bad idea, one's intolerance has to be worth something, or it's just noise. Freedom of religion means that some people are going to be members of religions that teach them to be afraid of the beliefs of others. And freedom of speech means that they're going to be allowed to give vent to their fears. By the same token, freedom of thought means that everyone is free to be concerned about the way other people see the world. But it tends to be a freedom that brings little, if anything, positive with it.

I'm sure that if I met Ms. Keneinan, she'd consider me odious, damned, detestable and vicious. She wouldn't be alone or even particularly noteworthy in that. So why not simply let her rave impotently against my deciding that her deity is mythological? The alternative sure doesn't bring anyone anything, or make the world a better place.

The author notes, at the end of their column on Ms. Keneinan: "When you want a world full of decent people—kind and generous of heart—I can’t help but think, sometimes, that we’ve still got a long way to go." Of course there is a long way to go, because the path is infinite. Kind and generous of heart are not objective terms. Each person is going to fulfill them in their own way, and they don't need permission from others to see themselves as having achieved them.