Re: inappropriate racist and other offensive material

[mdanish@andrew.cmu.edu]

[ to debian-devel only ]

On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 03:46:40PM -0600, Timothy R. Butler wrote:
> Hi,
> > Yeah, but it's probably a good idea to stick that fortune in the
> > "offensive" package, because the types of people who are likely to
> > easily take offense likely also adhere to Creationism, believe in
> > spontaneous generation, that the world is flat and was created in six
> > days, that the Sun goes around the Earth, and that there's no such thing
> > as irrational numbers.
> 
>   Just curious, but why do we have to drag Creationism into this, and further 
> more, try to make all creationists look like backwards folks from six 
> centuries ago? Since this conversation clearly has nothing to do with 
> creationism, is there a benefit in insulting people who disagree with you? 
> You wouldn't be suggesting that opposing opinions should be expressed, would 
> you?
> 

While I agree with you that this is an unnecessary side-track, I have to
disagree with your logical reasoning.  He stated that _if_ a person is likely
to be easily offended _then_ ( they are likely to adhere to Creationism _and_
likely believe in spontaneous generation _and_ likely believe that the world 
is flat _and_ likely was created in six days _and_ likely believe in a 
geocentric universe _and_ that there's likely no such thing as irrational 
numbers ).  Nowhere is there an implication that a belief in Creationism 
indicates all the other beliefs listed.  It doesn't imply that Creationists 
can't believe in all that other stuff, nor does it imply that Creationists 
are necessarily easily offended either (note the use of the word `likely').

-- 
; Matthew Danish <mdanish@andrew.cmu.edu>
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