Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 681, Disagreeing About Religion.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 681.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from...
Where else?
Beautiful Los Angeles, California.
That's right.
Visit our website at.
You will learn the secret of life, as well as improve your English by downloading our learning guides.
This episode is a dialogue between Jim and Tammy called Disagreeing About Religion.
Let's get started.
You know that religion is a taboo subject, especially with Paul.
Why were you baiting him all through dinner?
I wasn't baiting him.
We have very different views on spirituality and I wanted to discuss the subject with him.
You were making disparaging remarks about his faith and some of the things he holds most sacred.
I think you were trying to be provocative.
I may have said a few things that were provocative, but I don't understand how people can believe in superstitions.
There you go again.
People's religious beliefs shouldn't be called superstitions.
I'm not a fundamentalist.
In fact I'm an atheist, or at least an agnostic, but I still try to show respect for other people's beliefs.
Beliefs are made to be challenged.
If you can't defend your beliefs, you shouldn't have them.
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the voice of tolerance.
It's commonly accepted by most Americans that if you are among strangers, among people you don't know, you don't typically discuss politics or religion.
But that's not what happened in our dialogue.
Jim says to Tammy, Religion of course refers to a system of belief, a system of practices about how to run your life.
It usually involves certain ceremonies, what we would call rituals, that are connected with it.
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, all of these could be considered religions.
A taboo...
T-A-B-O-O, here it means something that is unacceptable in a particular culture or society.
It's something that you don't talk about because it is considered so evil or so bad or so controversial.
Jim asks, why were you baiting him, baiting Paul, all through dinner?
To bait B-A-I-T someone is to say certain things in order to get a strong reaction from that person.
Often to make them angry.
To say something you know will make them angry.
Bait, as a noun, is what you use to try to catch fish.
You put the bait on the end of a long string that you put down into the water and the fish comes and gets the bait, the food, and then you pull on the string on the line, the fishing line, in order to catch the fish.
That's where that expression comes from.
Tammy says We have very different views on spirituality and I wanted to discuss the subject with him.
Spirituality is a more general term used to talk about one's interests in and beliefs about the meaning of life, the meaning of religion.
Nowadays, depending on where you see it, it often refers to what we might call alternative religious experiences, those that are not part of the more popular religions, such as Christianity Judaism, Islam and so forth.
But it can also be used to describe someone in a particular religion, their particular beliefs and ideas about something.
Jim then says, you were making disparaging remarks about his faith.
To make disparaging remarks means to say something to show that you don't think something else is good.
You don't think it's important to say bad things about another person or another idea that you don't like.
A remark is simply a comment, something you say.
Disparaging means to criticize it, to say it is bad or wrong.
Jim says Tammy was making disparaging remarks about Paul's faith.
Faith here means simply his belief in something.
He says that she was making disparaging remarks about about some of the things that Paul holds most sacred.
Sacred, S-A-C-R-E-D, here means holy, related to God, related to religion.
He holds them sacred.
That's just the expression we use.
We use the verb hold, meaning he has these beliefs.
He believes these things are holy, that you shouldn't criticize them or make fun of them.
Jim then says to Tammy, I think you were trying to be provocative.
To be provocative means to do something that makes other people upset.
It might even make them angry.
It definitely is something that produces a strong reaction.
Sometimes it can be used in a sexual sense.
If someone says that dress is very provocative, they mean that it is sexy, that it produces a certain reaction in the people who see it.
Not always positive.
Tammy says, Superstition, S-U-P-E-R-S-T-I-T-I-O-N is a belief in things that are lucky or not lucky.
So, for example, some people have a rabbit's foot.
At least they used to.
I don't know if they sell rabbit's feet anymore.
But when I was a child, you could buy a rabbit's foot.
And this was considered...
This is a lucky object.
It was actually called a lucky charm, C-H-A-R-M.
This is much closer to the idea of magic, where if you do something, something will happen automatically.
No question about it.
Tammy is saying that Paul is someone who believes in superstitions.
Jim says, there you go again.
There you go again is a phrase used to emphasize that you have just done exactly what you were denying or promising not to do again.
The phrase was made famous back in a political debate in 1980 between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
When Carter made some statement, Reagan turned to him and said there you go again, Mr President.
Something like that.
But in more general terms it just means that you are saying to the person you are doing whatever they said they weren't going to do again.
Jim says, people's religious beliefs shouldn't be called superstitions.
Tammy says, I'm just calling it like I see it.
The phrase to call something like you see.
It means that you are giving your true opinion and you're not worried about what other people are going to think or say.
You're not worried about making other people angry or not.
You're simply describing the situation as you perceive it, as you see it.
Tammy is a little confused, since superstition and magic are based on the idea that if you do certain things, as I mentioned earlier, other things will happen.
If you say certain words, certain results are guaranteed, if you will.
So God or the gods or some higher power doesn't really have a choice.
In religion, it's somewhat the opposite.
Most religions believe that there are certain things you should do, but that God or the higher power is the one who's in control, not you.
But Tammy knows that this is considered an insulting term really for people who are religious and so she uses that term superstitious or superstitions.
Then she says, I didn't know you, Jim, were such a fundamentalist.
Once again, the word fundamentalist is one that is sometimes used as an insult, not in all cases.
A fundamentalist would be someone who follows religious laws very strictly, does everything they're supposed to do and believes in every aspect of the religion.
In the United States.
It has other meanings, more technical if you will, but we won't go into those here.
Tammy is really using the word as an insult in a general sense, without perhaps understanding exactly the technical differences and what fundamentalism really means.
Jim says, I'm not a fundamentalist.
In fact, Jim says says i'm an atheist, or at least an agnostic.
An atheist is a person who does not believe in god or in gods.
It's a person who denies the existence of a higher power of a god.
An agnostic A-G-N-O-S-T-I-C is a person who says that they don't know whether God exists or not.
A person who believes that it isn't possible, perhaps, to know that God exists.
So Jim is also confused.
He's not sure if he's an atheist or an agnostic.
He says, however, I still try to show respect for other people's beliefs.
Tammy says beliefs, things that you believe in, are made to be challenged, are made to be defended.
In fact, she says if you can't defend your beliefs, you shouldn't have them.
To defend means to protect something or someone from someone else who's attacking them.
To say or do things, in this case, to show that what you believe is true and you have good reasons for believing that.
Jim then makes a joke.
He says, ladies and gentlemen, behold the voice of tolerance.
Ladies and gentlemen, is what you say when you are talking to a large group of people and trying to get their attention, trying to get them to listen to you?
Here, though, it's just Tammy and Jim, so he's joking.
He says, Behold, B-E-H-O-L-D, is a very formal word that means to draw attention to something.
Nowadays, it's used more as a joke.
It's not used in the way that it perhaps used to be used.
So, Jim is saying...
Everyone look at this person.
He calls Tammy the voice of tolerance.
The voice of means that she is speaking as if she were that person.
But this isn't a real person.
This is an idea that she is apparently speaking for.
And that idea is tolerance.
T-O-L-E-R-A-N-C-E.
Tolerance is a willingness to let other people do, say and believe what they want to, without feeling like you have to criticize them or change them.
It's allowing other people to be what they want to be.
Jim is making a joke.
He's saying that, in fact, Tammy is not a voice of tolerance, that by criticizing Paul, she in fact is being intolerant, not allowing people to believe what they want to, in a sense.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
You know that religion is a taboo subject, especially with Paul.
Why were you baiting him all through dinner?
I wasn't baiting him.
We have very different views on spirituality and I wanted to discuss the subject with him.
You were making disparaging remarks about his faith and some of the things he holds most sacred.
I think you were trying to be provocative.
There you go again.
People's religious beliefs shouldn't be called superstitions.
I'm not a fundamentalist.
In fact I'm an atheist, or at least an agnostic, but I still try to show respect for other people's beliefs.
Beliefs are made to be challenged.
If you can't defend your beliefs, you shouldn't have them.
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the voice of tolerance.
Our scriptwriter always calls them like she sees them.
That would be the one, the only, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
