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Originally Posted by Zaqarbal
I'll do you a favor: I won't continue this battle of insults. Your satiric skills are very poor, and I feel sorry for you because you'd probably end up being dialectically sodomized.  BTW, I exaggerated all those things: actually I'm not a know-all, I don't care about your age and I'm not so old (I'm only a few years older than you).  I was only pretending to have an " owerwhelming intelectual superiority" to make you feel ankward, and thus soften that annoying tone of insolent enfant terrible you had (you cannot bug a person that way  ). Anyway, now you mentioned you're about to be a chemist, if you're able to make amphetamines I'd be interested to buy them at a good price. |
I'm guessing that didn't work out too well now did it? And furthermore, just to clear things up, I'm a Chemical Engineer, not a chemist. I guess you're dumber than I initially thought, which is an astounding feat.
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My thoughts about what? Maybe you didn't get my point. Let's go back to the beginning:
I mean "to separate" in order to make moral judgements. Perhaps there's a problem with the meaning of respect. I know it's an ambiguous word, but keep in mind that I'm not a native English speaker, and sometimes I can't find the accurate terms. I thought the video would clarify that what I mean better than me (I feel clumsy when writing about meticulous concepts in English). It seems to be that, strictly speaking, respect denotes esteem or a positive feeling. Considering that, and to avoid confusion, we better use a more proper word when talking about people (although we'll keep the word respect regarding ideas). I've thought of tolerate, but according to some definitions tolerance does not necessarily exclude contempt. I can't find a perfect verb for it, but the underlying concept is clear: TO BE CIVIL. That is, to treat him, at least, according to our common minimum ethical values. There are certain minimum standards, and thanks to them people live together as members of the same society. The aim is to express, at least, normalcy, coexistence as usual, lack of conflict or contempt. That there's nothing "anomalous" that could disrupt our life in society.
So, to sum up, the question would be: Is it possible to be civil to someone, and, at the same time, not to respect his ideas (or some of his his ideas)?
Obviously yes. I think nowadays most of the people distinguish between the two concepts: "to be a good citizen" and "to be an atheist, an agnostic, a Christian, a Buddhist, etc."
Edit: "popular wisdom" corroborates my answer: "Live and let live".
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Thank you for typing this superfluous depthless paragraph, in the effort to choose a singular word to convey the train of thought you're following.
But, I'll consider you're last few sentences. Of course, it is possible to be civil and at the same time respect other people's ideas. However, I am unaware that burning a religious doctrine has become a civil past time. Maybe this needs to be clarified as I am a bit behind the times. But if all we do, is to "Live and let live", the chaos that would ensue would be counter-productive to a
civil society. So, let's be reasonable, nothing about burning a book, can be deemed as
civil and neither can it be deemed as
respectful. Don't be afraid of that "subjective" terminology, the interpretation with which it is open to is quite simple.