This is called the EPR paradox and IIRC it was forwarded by Einstein himself to demostrate the quantum physics yielded BS results. I don't think it is now considered a real paradox since information still cannot be transmitted faster than light.
'Organic' was once thought to be those substances that were obtained from or present in living matter IIRC?
It was then changed after urea was synthesized from then non-organic sources. At this point, the definition of organic was expanded to include non-alive stuff.
Now that the definition has strayed away from organic being 'alive', this is a discovery of non-organic aliveness?
I sense some circularity, but can't lay my finger on it... even though my analysis is probably over-simplified and possibly wrong
Someone who speaks BBC English would have a British accent. The Brits amongst themselves have people with "no accent" (i.e. a British accent) and then you have the Yorkshire accent and so on.
You would have what is an "American accent". I have one when I talk to americans and people tell me I have "no accent". We foreigners don't differentiate so readily between the southern drawl and the NY accent. We call it the "American accent". Once I got here, I found out about the various accents within the US.
The best part about cutting out the e-mail here is making sure everybody talks to a human. But I don't mind the e-mail part at all, I just want the assurance that something is indeed happening on my issue rather than an automated template response. Putting 1 and 1 together from your post, I fear chatbots providing customer support.
You said "That should not have a bearing on the issue. Although I am from India (and ESL country)english was the first language I learnt."
Then you're not ESL, are you? His earlier statements regarding ESL countries was what I was going for. There are several non-ESL people in ESL countries.
And on the gripping hand, you said "learnt" which is almost certainly a UK idiom, even tho used over here once in a while. You mean a UK variant? 'learnt' is not an idiom.
None of what you said has much at all to do with his primary big picture complaint, that offshoring to ESL countries is a bad idea. All you have really done is dodged his compalints with hand waving. If you had some bacon, you'd have bacon and eggs, if you had some eggs. Next time, try answering his hig picture complaint. Convenient snippage here. Offshoring to ESL countries is not a bad idea. As long as you hire the right people and don't go overboard with cost cutting, you can still save some money without compromising service. Problem is that most companies outsource with the explicit purpose of cutting costs and go overboard.
Cheers!
On the other hand, you didn't capitalize "english". I don't know what to make of that. This is slashdot, I make punctuation errors like there's no tomorrow. I fear no Nazis!
Southern accents have never been an issue for me either, but more often than not Indian accents are. The problem is that the Indian accent is so think it IS unintelligible. I don't think you're a good judge of that because you were raised in India and were exposed to it growing up. Most people in the US aren't exposed to thick Indian accents on English speech, and for us it IS very hard to understand That was my point. It is not a question of whether an accent is unintelligible, but whether it is unintelligible to YOU. I know a lot of americans that had an incredibly hard time communicating with black people since he had never really been exposed to ebonics much. Look at your local drive through. The people working there are some of the worst people to hire for a job where communication is important since it consists of people willing to work for their low wages and that invariably constitutes predominantly of people (regardless of their race) who couldn't communicate and aren't the brightest of the lot. The focus ought to be on hiring people who communicate well in english with the most number of people in your target audience. That doesn't necessarily exclude Indian call centers.
This is actually much less of a problem than you would imagine. I worked in a call center for a while doing internet tech support for the evilest of the evil. I talked to people all over the country, and we RARELY had problems understanding each other. The biggest obstacle was communicating specific letters. I'm from Ky, so there is a slight drawl in my speech, so usually letters had to be stated as "A as in Apple", "B as in Boy", etc. Just trying to say that differences DO exist. And not any less severe than the difference between American and Indian english. I know people who walk around with books that claim to cover common phrases and words, regardless, training these agents (if they're smart) shouldn't be hard I'd assume.
I'm sure your English is above par, if not excellent. I can already see you use it in the written form better than some people I know. But try staffing a call center in the Philippines with 800 people that speak it as well as you do. Even if you could, the problem he complained about was not that they didn't understand English, it's that they don't comprehend the inflection, the expressions, or the more common English phrases. Pay them 60% of what you would pay the average American employee and you'll find enough brilliant students picking this up part time. I got an informal offer I was in high school to staff and manage a call center full time when I got out. My supposed salary for this was going to be Rs. 25000 p.m. which is roughly $600. Salaries of call center operators are not much different for 10-12 hour workdays. If you bump it up to $8 an hour, you would get excellent students since you would be paying 1.5 times what an entry level engineer makes. Train them for 2 weeks full time on american english and you're all set. best part is that you still save money:))
This is the problem and I concur. I hate Indian call centers as much as the next guy - not becasue they are in an "ESL country", but because of the way they are run.
I do happen to be from Texas. There's nothing about a southern drawl that is unintelligible. I am fairly good with accents and to me, the southern drawl is not an issue. However, I know several people who DO have a problem with understanding various accents within the US including the southern drawl, the NY talk and ebonics. There is nothing about the indian accent that is unintelligible either.
In all of the times I've called customer support (both domestic centers and outsourced) I've never had anyone not understand what I was saying. I've had more difficulty understanding them. Not insinuating anything, but if they understand what you are saying and you can't communicate back, there is still some ambiguity as to which one of you lacks the ability to communicate or whether it is a problem with the connection.
And while it's great for you that you happened to learn English as your first language, that doesn't automatically mean that we can assume the entire nation of India speaks perfectly fluent English. It's only common sense to assume that if the hiring pool is in a nation where the majority of citizens don't learn English as their first language, then the majority of hires will speak limited English. Then I guess it is also common sense to assume that if the hiring pool for a hospital is in a nation where the majority of citizens don't have degrees in medicine, then the majority of hires will have limited medical skills?
Additionally, whether you learn a language as a first language or a second language is irrelevant to your skills in that language. I am better at understanding and communicating in my fifth language (Hindi) than several native speakers of the same due to better communication skills. When you learn a language is not so important as linguistic and communicative abilities.
You seem to have an acute case of closed-mindedness. It was ignorant of you to make such a statement about the fine people of Texas Having a thick southern drawl is not a negative thing. In fact, it is helpful in the south to communicate better. It might be the portland hire's inability to bridge the gap. Point is that the difference between a NY accent and the southern drawl (which I semi-consciously find to be a mark of politeness) is no different from the differences between a Texan and a well educated Indian.
and it was also ignorant of you to assume that you, with your fortunate upbringing, represent the whole, or even the majority of citizens of "ESL" nations. My upbringing was not especially fortunate. My parents spoke 3 languages at home and they just picked one to teach me. I picked up the other two as well and was very comfortable using them. I am by no means an exception like I said, a good portion of India's urban population have kids speaking english by the time the kids are in kindergarten. Regardless, it doesn't matter as long as peolpe like me DO exist and CAN be hired as opposed to dimwits who can't communicate.
Amex is a good example of outsourcing. Their reps tell you their real names and don't hide their accents (most of them speak very good english and their accents are close to RP). I was making small talk with this rep while the 'computer was processing' and he cheerfully told me he was in Bombay and we talked a little bit about their then recent floods. He explicitly told me that he was required to speak in english to avoid any potential issues.
I think there's a middle ground between your comments and mine though thank you for expanding, I didn't have time to better articulate my issues. I agree with your issues having faced them myself. I have better luck with Indian reps because I am familiar with 'Indian English':)
I'm sure the people in the Indian call centers are doing a fine job with what they have & I certainly don't fault them Amex hires some good cutomer reps in India. They tell you their real name and don't hide their accent. They also communicate extremely well. However, this is an exception to the rule since most Indian cost centers focus so much on saving money that they hire incompetent and unskilled people for a pittance.
They're just trying to make a living however the limitations I mentioned do exist and there's not really much at presence to do with it. Don't quite follow this last sentence (maybe becasue I am Indian;) )
I am not denying the limitations and to put it in less diplomatic terms, Indian call centers are crappy. But I am fairly sure that the source of the problem is not the fact that it is Indian, but rather the fact that the companies are cutting costs to the point where the quality of service is atrocious. If they spent a bit more money, they could hire better employees and have more stable and clear connections to India. The companies provide us with the least level of quality that we will put up with, so some of the blame lies with us for not complaining or objecing to their service.
I ntoday's society I find a lot of people clubbing their objection to outsourcing and the quality of service to strengthen their argument against the low quality call centers in India. I think these are separate issues. I will accept that it would be easier for me to bitch about Indian call centers. If you do it, people might misconstrue it as an argument against outsourcing or xenophobia. If I do it, they take my argument at face value.
Why on earth companies that cater to a predominantly English speaking country off-shore their support to ESL countries where the people that can read & speak English DO NOT understand the vernacular, expressions, idioms and vocal inflexions are driving me nuts Assume for a second you are from Texas. I'd say that a rep in Portland would have trouble understanding your accent if you have thick southern drawl.
Or you can try ordering a 'pie' from a pizza place in Valdosta, GA.
1. They are ESL That should not have a bearing on the issue. Although I am from India (and ESL country)english was the first language I learnt. My spoken english is quite good and most people I meet are surprised that I "don't have an accent". I am not an exception and I know several Indian/Chinese/European people who all speak excellent english. In fact, one of my english teachers at GT was german. Problem, however, is that the people smart enough and capable of speaking good english usually don't end up working in call centers. The fault lies with the hiring process and not the outsourcing itself.
2. They are reading exclusively from a script Again, they hire the wrong people.
3. The connection is so bad it sounds like we're both under water. They are skimping on the mechanism. Nothing to do with the fact that the reps are from ESL countries.
I daresay that these companies can hire better employees, improve connection of the call and still come out ahead if they outsource. It's the implementation that is at fault - not the principle.
My replies usually come from ecare@cc.sprintpcs.com
I usually manage to send them email through the website since they can send it to the right people based on the classfication, but I think I have also used ecare1@cc.sprintpcs.com and ecare@cc.sprintpcs.com
This is how I go about it:
Login to your Sprint acct -> Support -> Email customer care on the right ->Ask inane question-> use mailform
Last time I called Sprint (I usually email, but I needed somethign ASAP) I got this female on the line who said her name was Michelle. She was very obviously Indian trying to put on an american accent by not rolling her 'r's and with less "clicking" of her 't's and 'd's. I went ahead and gave her my information. The moment she saw my name was clearly Indian, she dropped all pretences of an accent.
The other time I had fun was when I got this rep (don't remember what it was for) who put me on hold, but forgot to mute and I heard him talking to his buddies in Hindi. I went ahead and asked him if he was talking in Hindi and he panicked and said in his strongest Indian accent, "No sir, that must have been some disturbance on the line. We are located in Washington". I still find it funny that he felt the need to tell me where their call center was:))
For me, the best way to communicate with a CSR is with a chat thingamajig. It's fairly quick, people don't mind waiting so much (becasue they can do other stuff) and I'd assume the rep can do 3-4 sessions at a time.
Sprint only has it BEFORE you buy... once you are in, you have to call/email. Email works very nicely though with turnarounds generally less than 36 hrs. Plus the guys answering emails seem to be a wee bit more knowledgeable than phone reps. This is just my experience though.
Although I don't really care much when people use curse words, when I was in NY, I heard this guy yelling to his kid at a Toys R Us, "I am not buying you another fucking toy"
Like, oh well, burning witches, or taking hearts off their bodies, or turning down people that says Earth is not the center or the Universe?
*Ethics* is what gives people "the moral compass" that drives society. You, being a declared atheist should know better: it is not God the one that tells people not to kill other people, but *you*. At most, you, once decided not to kill other people because of their thoughts, call then God into your side as an authority argument. But it is not God the one that makes you not to kill people (as there is as many people killing others "in the name of God" than not); it's you While I understand your point (people justify hatred and violence with religion), I still believe that while people do have 'ethics', religion gives them a reason to be ethical. More so when a person doesn't know what is ethical. Then they have a safety net of turning to religion for guidance. And sure enough, you have misguided nuts roaming around there, but the majority of religious people still lead 'good' lives. Trouble is when a religious person gets into power and makes decisions for the entire society based on a literal translation of outdated texts to suit his own ends. Which brings me to...
Well, most religions considered word-by-word as they are, expresly ask you for such extreme acts. It's only when religion is not religion anymore that you will find a "sensible" society: if God asks you for such an such, who are you to say "well, this I'll do, but that I won't"; it's God no less asking you going each Sunday to church than asking to lapidate to death in case of blasphemy; who are you to say "I'm a moderate theist, so I will believe Almighty God when He says I shall go church on Sunday, but I won't take Him seriously when He say I shall lapidate the blaspheme"? It's all or nothing, for God's shake! (pun intended). While religions ask for/subtly suggest extreme acts, most people do not indulge in them in today's society. I think civilization can be somewhat measured by freedom of thought and in today's society, flogging a man wouldn't be acceptable in developed and even developing countries even if religion mandates it. The real danger is the ease with which this freedom of thought can be shut down and people manipulated in the name of religion, but I am sure that with time, more and more people will realize that their so called God is something that each one defines for him/herself and has nothing to do with authority figures.
But once you take that path, that God is not to be taken seriously on such and such "unimportant" details, why not follow it in its entirity and just not take God seriously *at all*? After all, you can't be wrong, not at least for a long time: if you are making God ungry disbelieving Him, He will bring upon you a flooding or a notable rain of sulphur and fire, so you can't misunderstand His mightyness, so why not try? Human nature. If the society places heavy penalties for stoning women, people will stop doing it hoping that God will understand that they couldn't. Think of a traffic analogy. Just because you break speed limits on yoru way to work every single day does not mean that you run red lights and drive on the shoulder if you're in a hurry.
All said, a personal religion is therefore something I do not oppose. Nobody does stupid things becasue they 'talk to God every night'. They do stupid things when others interpret the religion for them with ulterior motives like greed for money/power. It's religious groupthink that's dangerous. Having an imaginary friend in the sky is mostly safe ('cept for the odd psychopath) and very necessary for some people.
Sad thing is, the original source of that comment was from an anti-Islamic rant. As I replaced muslims with 'religious people' and non-muslims with 'atheists', I started finding out that the paragraph read truer and truer. It is quite remarkable that the reasons religious nuts give for hating members of another religion can be said about any religion and in fact about religion in general.
However, although an atheist myself, we ought to realize that religion is pervasive in society and is not necessarily a bad thing. It provides the majority with a moral compass and drives them to lead productive and positive lives. The few members of the different religions (and I suppose there are fundamentalist atheists as well) who gain the most notoriety for extreme acts are sadly considered representative of those religions and religion in general.
Organized religion is arguably detrimental to society, but I have no problems with people having a personal religion. Spirituality -not religion seems to be the order of the day
This mod needs to be meta-moderated. Actually, I'll go ahead and earn some karma for myself by saying the following:
"There is no reason for atheists to want religious people, because as believers they spread religion. The spread of religion cannot be considered desirable by atheists because of the societies it creates. Religions are exceptionally oppressive in practice, and practice trumps theory. I've seen the best you can do even with massive wealth (the WORLD) and do not want MY world to be like that. Many of us don't care about political correctness, and don't want even "reasonable" religious people in their midst. If a religious society is good and righteous, religious nuts might prove their loyalty by moving back to wherever their religion started. I don't need them. I don't want religious changes in MY society. I don't want religious people to have leverage by increasing their population in MY country. Just because something is a "religion" doesn't mean it should not be viewed as a political ideology. I am free to oppose religion (everywhere but non-secular countries) just as I am free to oppose Nazism. To the extent my country becomes religious I will be less free, so anything that induces religious people to leave suits me fine."
I hope the OP was being sarcastic and the moderator who modded him up and the replier who 'agreed' construed it as sarcasm.
I am a from a Hindu family who lived through riots in my town and I have seen the kind of inhuman behaviour that can be triggered by such views as your own. I am not defending Muslims, but am preaching acceptance of people's faith and beliefs.
Yahoo has "fanbois"? Absolutely! We were trying to get one of my friends to switch to google (fwd his mails), but he wouldn't abandon Yahoo for email. Everything else he used google for except emails. His argument primarily was 'FOLDERS!'. And all our efforts to respond with 'LABELS!' met with little to no success. And oh! He loved the OE-like interface of the new Yahoo.
Moreover, the mod who modded me troll is probably one:))
I thought it was safe to call people Yahoo fanbois since I figured there would be none on slashdot, but see?
Slashdot Mirror
This is called the EPR paradox and IIRC it was forwarded by Einstein himself to demostrate the quantum physics yielded BS results. I don't think it is now considered a real paradox since information still cannot be transmitted faster than light.
Cheers!
'Organic' was once thought to be those substances that were obtained from or present in living matter IIRC?
It was then changed after urea was synthesized from then non-organic sources. At this point, the definition of organic was expanded to include non-alive stuff.
Now that the definition has strayed away from organic being 'alive', this is a discovery of non-organic aliveness?
I sense some circularity, but can't lay my finger on it... even though my analysis is probably over-simplified and possibly wrong
Cheers!
The same could be said about the automated voice that everyone tries to bypass (I usually say 'Kssssshhhshhssst')
Cheers!
Someone who speaks BBC English would have a British accent. The Brits amongst themselves have people with "no accent" (i.e. a British accent) and then you have the Yorkshire accent and so on.
You would have what is an "American accent". I have one when I talk to americans and people tell me I have "no accent". We foreigners don't differentiate so readily between the southern drawl and the NY accent. We call it the "American accent". Once I got here, I found out about the various accents within the US.
Cheers!
Cheers!
You said "That should not have a bearing on the issue. Although I am from India (and ESL country)english was the first language I learnt."
Then you're not ESL, are you? His earlier statements regarding ESL countries was what I was going for. There are several non-ESL people in ESL countries. And on the gripping hand, you said "learnt" which is almost certainly a UK idiom, even tho used over here once in a while. You mean a UK variant? 'learnt' is not an idiom. None of what you said has much at all to do with his primary big picture complaint, that offshoring to ESL countries is a bad idea. All you have really done is dodged his compalints with hand waving. If you had some bacon, you'd have bacon and eggs, if you had some eggs.
Next time, try answering his hig picture complaint. Convenient snippage here. Offshoring to ESL countries is not a bad idea. As long as you hire the right people and don't go overboard with cost cutting, you can still save some money without compromising service. Problem is that most companies outsource with the explicit purpose of cutting costs and go overboard.
Cheers! On the other hand, you didn't capitalize "english". I don't know what to make of that. This is slashdot, I make punctuation errors like there's no tomorrow. I fear no Nazis!
Cheers!
cheers!
Cheers!
This is the problem and I concur. I hate Indian call centers as much as the next guy - not becasue they are in an "ESL country", but because of the way they are run.
Additionally, whether you learn a language as a first language or a second language is irrelevant to your skills in that language. I am better at understanding and communicating in my fifth language (Hindi) than several native speakers of the same due to better communication skills. When you learn a language is not so important as linguistic and communicative abilities. You seem to have an acute case of closed-mindedness. It was ignorant of you to make such a statement about the fine people of Texas Having a thick southern drawl is not a negative thing. In fact, it is helpful in the south to communicate better. It might be the portland hire's inability to bridge the gap. Point is that the difference between a NY accent and the southern drawl (which I semi-consciously find to be a mark of politeness) is no different from the differences between a Texan and a well educated Indian. and it was also ignorant of you to assume that you, with your fortunate upbringing, represent the whole, or even the majority of citizens of "ESL" nations. My upbringing was not especially fortunate. My parents spoke 3 languages at home and they just picked one to teach me. I picked up the other two as well and was very comfortable using them. I am by no means an exception like I said, a good portion of India's urban population have kids speaking english by the time the kids are in kindergarten. Regardless, it doesn't matter as long as peolpe like me DO exist and CAN be hired as opposed to dimwits who can't communicate.
Cheers!
Amex is a good example of outsourcing. Their reps tell you their real names and don't hide their accents (most of them speak very good english and their accents are close to RP). I was making small talk with this rep while the 'computer was processing' and he cheerfully told me he was in Bombay and we talked a little bit about their then recent floods. He explicitly told me that he was required to speak in english to avoid any potential issues.
Cheers!
I am not denying the limitations and to put it in less diplomatic terms, Indian call centers are crappy. But I am fairly sure that the source of the problem is not the fact that it is Indian, but rather the fact that the companies are cutting costs to the point where the quality of service is atrocious. If they spent a bit more money, they could hire better employees and have more stable and clear connections to India. The companies provide us with the least level of quality that we will put up with, so some of the blame lies with us for not complaining or objecing to their service.
I ntoday's society I find a lot of people clubbing their objection to outsourcing and the quality of service to strengthen their argument against the low quality call centers in India. I think these are separate issues. I will accept that it would be easier for me to bitch about Indian call centers. If you do it, people might misconstrue it as an argument against outsourcing or xenophobia. If I do it, they take my argument at face value.
Cheers!
Or you can try ordering a 'pie' from a pizza place in Valdosta, GA. 1. They are ESL That should not have a bearing on the issue. Although I am from India (and ESL country)english was the first language I learnt. My spoken english is quite good and most people I meet are surprised that I "don't have an accent". I am not an exception and I know several Indian/Chinese/European people who all speak excellent english. In fact, one of my english teachers at GT was german. Problem, however, is that the people smart enough and capable of speaking good english usually don't end up working in call centers. The fault lies with the hiring process and not the outsourcing itself. 2. They are reading exclusively from a script Again, they hire the wrong people. 3. The connection is so bad it sounds like we're both under water. They are skimping on the mechanism. Nothing to do with the fact that the reps are from ESL countries.
I daresay that these companies can hire better employees, improve connection of the call and still come out ahead if they outsource. It's the implementation that is at fault - not the principle.
Cheers!
My replies usually come from ecare@cc.sprintpcs.com
I usually manage to send them email through the website since they can send it to the right people based on the classfication, but I think I have also used ecare1@cc.sprintpcs.com and ecare@cc.sprintpcs.com
This is how I go about it:
Login to your Sprint acct -> Support -> Email customer care on the right ->Ask inane question-> use mailform
Cheers!
--
Vig
Last time I called Sprint (I usually email, but I needed somethign ASAP) I got this female on the line who said her name was Michelle. She was very obviously Indian trying to put on an american accent by not rolling her 'r's and with less "clicking" of her 't's and 'd's. I went ahead and gave her my information. The moment she saw my name was clearly Indian, she dropped all pretences of an accent.
:))
The other time I had fun was when I got this rep (don't remember what it was for) who put me on hold, but forgot to mute and I heard him talking to his buddies in Hindi. I went ahead and asked him if he was talking in Hindi and he panicked and said in his strongest Indian accent, "No sir, that must have been some disturbance on the line. We are located in Washington". I still find it funny that he felt the need to tell me where their call center was
Cheers!
For me, the best way to communicate with a CSR is with a chat thingamajig. It's fairly quick, people don't mind waiting so much (becasue they can do other stuff) and I'd assume the rep can do 3-4 sessions at a time.
Sprint only has it BEFORE you buy... once you are in, you have to call/email. Email works very nicely though with turnarounds generally less than 36 hrs. Plus the guys answering emails seem to be a wee bit more knowledgeable than phone reps. This is just my experience though.
Cheers!
Although I don't really care much when people use curse words, when I was in NY, I heard this guy yelling to his kid at a Toys R Us, "I am not buying you another fucking toy"
:S
No one so much as batted an eyelid
Cheers!
Customer: "I tried to have Rancid Aluminium sent to my flat from my mobile and haven got it yet"
Cheers!
Atleast with a call center in portland, the deception doesn't start when the rep says "My name is George"
Cheers!
"Drugs are bad..mmmkay? And marijuana...marijuana's bad...mmkay?"
Cheers!
*Ethics* is what gives people "the moral compass" that drives society. You, being a declared atheist should know better: it is not God the one that tells people not to kill other people, but *you*. At most, you, once decided not to kill other people because of their thoughts, call then God into your side as an authority argument. But it is not God the one that makes you not to kill people (as there is as many people killing others "in the name of God" than not); it's you While I understand your point (people justify hatred and violence with religion), I still believe that while people do have 'ethics', religion gives them a reason to be ethical. More so when a person doesn't know what is ethical. Then they have a safety net of turning to religion for guidance. And sure enough, you have misguided nuts roaming around there, but the majority of religious people still lead 'good' lives. Trouble is when a religious person gets into power and makes decisions for the entire society based on a literal translation of outdated texts to suit his own ends.
Which brings me to... Well, most religions considered word-by-word as they are, expresly ask you for such extreme acts. It's only when religion is not religion anymore that you will find a "sensible" society: if God asks you for such an such, who are you to say "well, this I'll do, but that I won't"; it's God no less asking you going each Sunday to church than asking to lapidate to death in case of blasphemy; who are you to say "I'm a moderate theist, so I will believe Almighty God when He says I shall go church on Sunday, but I won't take Him seriously when He say I shall lapidate the blaspheme"? It's all or nothing, for God's shake! (pun intended). While religions ask for/subtly suggest extreme acts, most people do not indulge in them in today's society. I think civilization can be somewhat measured by freedom of thought and in today's society, flogging a man wouldn't be acceptable in developed and even developing countries even if religion mandates it. The real danger is the ease with which this freedom of thought can be shut down and people manipulated in the name of religion, but I am sure that with time, more and more people will realize that their so called God is something that each one defines for him/herself and has nothing to do with authority figures. But once you take that path, that God is not to be taken seriously on such and such "unimportant" details, why not follow it in its entirity and just not take God seriously *at all*? After all, you can't be wrong, not at least for a long time: if you are making God ungry disbelieving Him, He will bring upon you a flooding or a notable rain of sulphur and fire, so you can't misunderstand His mightyness, so why not try? Human nature. If the society places heavy penalties for stoning women, people will stop doing it hoping that God will understand that they couldn't. Think of a traffic analogy. Just because you break speed limits on yoru way to work every single day does not mean that you run red lights and drive on the shoulder if you're in a hurry.
All said, a personal religion is therefore something I do not oppose. Nobody does stupid things becasue they 'talk to God every night'. They do stupid things when others interpret the religion for them with ulterior motives like greed for money/power. It's religious groupthink that's dangerous. Having an imaginary friend in the sky is mostly safe ('cept for the odd psychopath) and very necessary for some people.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Sad thing is, the original source of that comment was from an anti-Islamic rant. As I replaced muslims with 'religious people' and non-muslims with 'atheists', I started finding out that the paragraph read truer and truer. It is quite remarkable that the reasons religious nuts give for hating members of another religion can be said about any religion and in fact about religion in general.
However, although an atheist myself, we ought to realize that religion is pervasive in society and is not necessarily a bad thing. It provides the majority with a moral compass and drives them to lead productive and positive lives. The few members of the different religions (and I suppose there are fundamentalist atheists as well) who gain the most notoriety for extreme acts are sadly considered representative of those religions and religion in general.
Organized religion is arguably detrimental to society, but I have no problems with people having a personal religion. Spirituality -not religion seems to be the order of the day
Cheers!
This mod needs to be meta-moderated. Actually, I'll go ahead and earn some karma for myself by saying the following:
"There is no reason for atheists to want religious people, because as believers they spread religion.
The spread of religion cannot be considered desirable by atheists because of the societies it creates.
Religions are exceptionally oppressive in practice, and practice trumps theory.
I've seen the best you can do even with massive wealth (the WORLD) and do not want MY world to be like that.
Many of us don't care about political correctness, and don't want even "reasonable" religious people in their midst. If a religious society is good and righteous, religious nuts might prove their loyalty by moving back to wherever their religion started. I don't need them. I don't want religious changes in MY society. I don't want religious people to have leverage by increasing their population in MY country.
Just because something is a "religion" doesn't mean it should not be viewed as a political ideology. I am free to oppose religion (everywhere but non-secular countries) just as I am free to oppose Nazism. To the extent my country becomes religious I will be less free, so anything that induces religious people to leave suits me fine."
I hope the OP was being sarcastic and the moderator who modded him up and the replier who 'agreed' construed it as sarcasm.
I am a from a Hindu family who lived through riots in my town and I have seen the kind of inhuman behaviour that can be triggered by such views as your own. I am not defending Muslims, but am preaching acceptance of people's faith and beliefs.
Cheers!
Moreover, the mod who modded me troll is probably one
I thought it was safe to call people Yahoo fanbois since I figured there would be none on slashdot, but see?
Cheers!