I was called away from this little discussion for a few days. I know I’m late, but so be it.
Can we still kill machismo? With impunity and without regret?
Sure, why not? Go for it, my little attack dog!
Question in my mind is, what is the proper role of men in such a revolution? Should we not allow women to cast the torch? Are we subject to a subtle paternalistic chauvenism by believing that *WE* - the male elite - must accomplish this for them?
Some feminist writers don't even consider the possibility of male feminism, as if they believe it's not our battle to be fought as well. I reject this notion personally, however, because men must be the primary targets of feminism if the sexism that harms us all is to be torn down. Therefore, I get frustrated when women label our beliefs "pro-feminist." Call a spade a spade, and drop the "pro." We are what we are.
You have to understand that social progress is by its nature radical, and uncomfortable to a certain extent. I share your opinion that males can be as feministic as females are, but without the diversity of ideas percolating in the feminist movement, progress would be slower and less significant. Every faction has its own take on things, and some are more militant, or more exclusionary—or more of both—than others.
I have found it useful to resist the emotional temptation to go on the defensive against factions that advocate second-class standing for males in the feminist movement, and instead focus on what is important to me. Anybody who does not want my help advancing sexual equality…is not required to accept it.
Humanity is afraid of death, so it has devised an afterlife to save them from this torment. Can we overcome this fear?
Yes. It is a matter of perspective. To live as a human being
at all is extraordinary, and obscenely lucky. Most of the matter in the universe is hydrogen and helium, and is certainly not alive—let alone sentient.
The finitude of our existence is sobering, and, yes, unsettling—or, when the thought of death truly comes into one’s mind, even frightening. Nor are we well-prepared to grapple with it. Instead we are raised in this society to fear death. Sickness and terminality are hidden from the public view. We divert our eyes from the falling. We pretend it isn’t real. Mortality is not discussed frankly even among healthy people in vivacious settings; instead we mollycoddle ourselves with platitudes and empty symbols, thus staving off the reality of death at least in our own minds. By praying for ourselves or others we indulge the thought of cheating death without doing anything to actually effect that.
But we are also taught to
disrespect, and perhaps this is more insidious still. By placing one’s confidence in an afterworld where all is fine, we diminish greatly the value of our
real lives. There’s a humanistic refrain, “I believe in life
before death.” In life, we have the opportunity to do what we can, for a while, to explore and shape this lovely world, experience what can be experienced, and learn what can be learned. Even if for only a little while, our lives are a rare and perhaps even unique opportunity in the cosmos to indulge in our emotions, in our sensations, in our creative thoughts.
Such a shame it is that people waste so much of their own lives, and of others’, preparing for an afterworld that does not exist at all. When they wink out, they won’t realize their mistake…but they will be gone forever.
There are dreams and then there are delusions, Anacalius. Make sure you always try to tell them apart.
It amuses me how Americans still believe they have freedom of speech. Saying anything that even slightly criticizes the status quo apparently warrants abject censure from the profitmongering, irresponsible corporate whores who dare to call themselves the media.
This is one of those times for me to advise, “Don’t give up what hasn’t been taken from you at gunpoint.” Free speech is alive and well, Hadriel, even if the official media of communication are mostly held by the would-be destroyers of liberty.
Every time I see your name I think of Hadrian’s Wall…
If religion is a prison, it is because many of its principles are not applicable to the modern day, because they were not devised with our current knowledge base in mind. This would be more forgivable if religion had a method for self-correction of its scripture as science does; as it stands, Abrahamic religion is limited to "interpreting" its verses.
Precisely. If religion could concede its own fallibility and grow organically, it would be so much less of a threat. And religion does indeed evolve somewhat, in this way. Yet, in the end, it is always at odds with the concept of religious faith.
Lord J has called Daniel Krispin a villain; perhaps this is just the fact that he's my friend talking, but I don't think this definition is applicable to him. The real villains are the ones who want to force everyone to believe as they do, and who attempt to silence dissent in furtherance of their ideology, neither of which describes him.
I define villainy differently than you do. Villains are the practitioners of evil, and evil is simply ignorance or willful ignorance. My definition includes yours, but also includes a great many other things. To wit: Krispin has repeatedly shown his willingness to masquerade as an intellectual while disrespecting the unwritten “laws” of intellectual engagement, replacing true argument with distraction and fallacy, and also neglect.. This hinders real communication while at the same time diminishing the reputation of intellectual discourse to those present. It’s very destructive, which is a part of why I have fought him so doggedly in the past.
Note: If Krispin is a friend of yours, then you should recognize your bias in desiring not to see him labeled unsavorily.
I don't think this actually contradicts what I said, though perhaps I failed to make myself clear enough. It's true that we inherited these cultural attitudes from our animal forebears, but with the rise of intelligent thought, the potential existed even in biblical times for women to throw off the yoke; this had to be suppressed by the patriarchy, and there are in fact many verses in the Pentateuch devoted to furthering the idea of female inferiority - too many, in my opinion, to not be reflective of a concerted effort by the religious caste to maintain male dominance.
Yes.
Honestly though, if you think you're going to see the death of sexism in your life, I think you're mistaken. We'll most likely not see it happen, or even begin to happen. D=
I maintain that sexism is the deepest of all our animal human prejudices, and will be the last one of them to be uprooted. Nevertheless, extraordinary progress has occurred even in our own lifetimes. You don’t need to look very hard to see it: Just tune in to Nick at Nite and watch some of our television programs from the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s…even ‘90s. Or go to the New York Times website and read some of their articles from across the 20th century.
Feminism is commonly assumed to be dormant or even in retreat right now, but what has actually happened is that the 1990s were a period of digestion. So much of what the feminists of the 1970s were advocating for, against all odds, and to a hostile social reception, became a part of American life in the 1990s.
Underneath the horrible abuses against females committed and depicted in our media, our arts and entertainment, and throughout society at large, there has a been a slow but profound acceptance of the fact that females can and do have access to most aspects of life, and retain a high degree of autonomy throughout their lives. Sexism is by no means cured, not even close, but what we have achieved—and I say “we” pretty audaciously; I’m a small gnome standing on some pretty tall giants right now—is a stark change. It wasn’t long ago that females in America needed their husband’s signature just to get a credit card!
It’s better in the more liberal places; much worse in the hinterlands. Nevertheless, the times are changing.
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm honestly feeling kinda, mixed up right now, but at the same time, so genuinely, purely liberated. ^^;
I can’t presume as to your personal circumstances right now, but allow me to remind you of something you already know: Liberty is for the long-haul. Happiness does not fit just in the weekends or in the moments before falling asleep at night. And it isn’t enough to have a life in the doldrums punctuated by days of feeling above the clouds. Work to make those days appear in all your days!
I don’t know where you’re at, so I can’t tell you, and I know that my suggestion is easier said than done. Nevertheless…many people “recover” from their religious habit only to find that life without religion is not as grand as perhaps they had expected it to be, and then, in time, they fall back into the old addition. Don’t expect the
absence of religion by itself to starkly improve your life. What it does is free up your mind to consider the world in a way that more closely resembles how it truly is. The hard work of building purpose, meaning, satisfaction, and serenity are still yours to undertake.
Actually, I just got my GED a few days ago. =D
I'm wanting to get back into school, I'm looking into a few things. I work 50+ hours a week, though, and man, school schedules alone are rough enough, but to find one that fits in with THAT as well, wow...
Congratulations. This truly is a time of change for you.
As to your schedule, I sympathize with your time commitments. We all draw different lots in life, however, and you’ll have to make do with what you have. One of my favorite mottoes is “When something is important, you
make the time.”
That’s obviously a lot harder to do when you’re working 50 hours a week and have whatever other commitments there are in your life. But it’s no less applicable. Do your best, and good luck. But work for the day when you won’t need luck.
Yeah, that part is a lot easier said than done. Around where I live, people are spurting out babies left and right, and most of the parents are high as a kite most of the time. >.<
We have got to do something about that. Sex education would be a start. Then the de-stigmatization of abortion. Next, a better social services program for unwanted children. After that, we go punitive. Revocation of custody. Harsher criminal penalties for abuse and neglect—not necessarily in terms of jail-time, but in terms of losing your kids. I would even go so far as to propose sterilization, especially if a non-harmful, non-permanent method can be developed. (Cue the Hitler comparisons; I’m sure somebody will be along shortly.)
We’re certainly not suffering for a lack of people in this country, and this world. A few less unwanted babies would be a good thing. That’s what really gets me about the anti-choice people: They’re all for protecting pre-humans, but at birth their vaunted compassion evaporates into thin air. Unwanted children so often grow up in such awful conditions, and go on to perpetuate the cycle. In light of the suffering this causes, sterilization seems less severe than the alternative of letting things go on as they are, even if the alternative is more comfortable in its familiarity.
Has science even been able to prove that such a thing (a soul) MIGHT exist? Perhaps there is no such thing as a "soul"? I see no reason to believe in such a thing (But again, I'm extremely uneducated in this matter). We have a brain and a consciousness to go with it, where in the world does a "soul" even come into the factor?
A general rule is that science can never rule out anything that isn’t explicitly impossible, and that’s pretty rare. More commonly than impossibility, we can establish
improbability.
I would say that until somebody comes up with a good definition for the soul, there is no reason to assume that one exists. We can certainly raise the question, but it’s a nonsense question until we have a starting definition.
This problem comes up with god quite often. I have yet to see a good definition of “God,” and thus so much of the talk about any god is inherently fanciful, because without a definition the word “God” is just a word, and we may as well replace it with ???, because that is what we’re really talking about.
In fact, Anselm’s much-esteemed ontological argument for the existence of god falls apart for this very reason—its definition of god is conceptual, and therefore independent of the thing itself. (At least that’s my personal line of argument; the credentialed philosophers raise other objections, although I note with some satisfaction that they raise mine as well.)
So, yeah, there may well be a soul; science hasn’t ruled that out. But don’t count it
in just because we have the word “soul” and a vague idea of its quality. We also have an elaborate volume of knowledge about Santa Claus.
Heh. Well put. Basically, you are saying people need to stop copping out behind "But that's not necessarily true" when it's so obvious that it is?
Mostly. I am a big defendant of skepticism (Krispin would capitalize it), and I think it is important to raise meaningful doubts. However, so many of the doubts raised in context of that subject (e.g., “is gravity real,” etc.) are obviously not meaningful, and are intended as a hindrance rather than a furtherance of our understanding of the laws or phenomena under discussion.
If the most important is to reform the fucked education system, then I'm all ears. =D
Ask me again sometime. I’m about to go on vacation.
You make a good point, but what of the people who live their entire lives in servitude to religion and are happy with it their entire lives? Is this a prison for them?
We are each the judge of our own happiness. It is perfectly possible for religious people to lead happy lives, and indeed this happens often enough.
But your second question is very different from the first. Is it still a prison for them? I would argue yes, if for no other reason than it compromises their ability to think clearly. In this day and age, when religion has been thoroughly discredited philosophically and sociopolitically, it is an error for people to continue to subscribe to it. Religiosity is confinement into a realm of fewer opportunities, a realm that offers no unique advantage (other than the haughty belief that one is right because one’s god is right). That may as well be the universal definition of a “prison.”
One of the things I hate most are overbearing parents. Not good parents, overbearing parents. The kind that don't send their kids to school because they are afraid of the "dangers" of peer pressure, etc. etc.
Or the kind that send their kids to religious private schools, is another prime example. I tell ya, every person I speak of actually in the post you're responding to grew up like this. -_-
Parents literally condemn their children this way. The kids grow up so secluded from the rest of the real world, that as soon as they hit that age where they can make their own decisions, they SNAP! They go insane, experimenting with all the evils of the world they were never allowed to simply out of prolonged curiousity.
Well-observed, and dismaying. Where do you live, anyway? Let’s have a city or town name. Don’t worry; I won’t ask for your password and credit card information. =)
Masculine VS Feminine is a system that needs to be killed, mercilessly. As a matter of fact, those words themselves can be killed along with it.
Quite right.
Here, you might enjoy this:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htmlWords are important. They aren’t just collections of letters; they are little pots of soil where big ideas grow. I don’t know if I’ve said this before or not, but because I reject the concept of gender, I try to avoid using terms like “man” and “woman,” and also gendered descriptors like “chairman” or “actress.” I haven’t gotten so far as to tackle pronouns yet, but maybe someday…
It’s hard work, but one gets accustomed to the change. I use “mate” in place of “man” (e.g., “chairmate”), and it sounds pretty natural to me by now.
What I was getting at here is how many people just don't care that the world is sexist, or just aren't realising it at all?
Our job is to make sure that the two are very difficult to confuse.
And one more thing, and this might just get everyone's goat, so to speak, but especially the atheists. Um... you guys see what you are doing as something new, some sort of scientific revolution whereby we'll remove religion, but... there have been atheists for as long as there have been theists. I was just reading Aeschylus today (who, by the way, is entirely pro venerating the gods) and it strikes me that even in that age you had people talking much as you do. The question that remains then is... are we doing anything new here? Or are we just going so the same things again and again just like our ancestors for ten thousand years?
I had a long discussion with my dad a few weeks ago about this. He took the position that, because human nature is unchanged, so too is the world. I disagreed with him. To boil down a three-hour conversation, here is why I take that position:
Column 1:
More people today, than ever before, both per capita and in absolute terms, have more of their material needs met, possess a greater level education, enjoy higher mobility across almost every axis conceivable from the economic to the topographic, and live in a stabler and more just society than ever before. These advantages enable sounder judgments, better options, and greater means, thereby demonstrating an improvement in the human condition—even if human nature largely is unchanged.
Column 2:
Technology is the manifestation of human problem-solving. Its advance, along with the arts, is the quantifiable mark of our growth as a species. Civilization, the grand sum of all human societies, is markedly different than it was ten thousand years ago or even ten dozen. The concentrations of people and flow of ideas, together with our growing technology, represent concrete evolution over time of the human condition—even if human nature largely is unchanged.
Column 3:
Humanity always has its problems, but a thorough review of our problems at various times and places in history will reveal that many old ones have slipped off the list, while newer ones have replaced them. The nature of the difference in substance
and sophistication between the newer and older problems is a mark of our progress as a species, and thus of improvement in the human condition—even if human nature largely is unchanged.
Column 4:
Most importantly of all: From human nature itself follows the adage, “history repeats.” Our ignoble faults are many. However, also from human nature do we derive our virtuous qualities. Up to this point in history, human creativity, adaptability, resilience, and ambition—all inherent qualities, not learned—have continually prevailed (albeit in fits and starts) over our faults, greed, ignorance and inferior ambitions. And until—or unless—the world comes crashing down on us, that will remain true. This triumph of human excellence over human pettiness demonstrates clear progress in the human condition over the course of history.
What it all comes down it is that human nature is only a part of the human condition. Physical circumstances comprise the rest, and the human
equation takes that into account. Hereby we have attained growth, and the debates of nonreligious people today are not simply a repetition of those of nonreligious people of old.
I disagree. Education, yes. Violent revolution? No. This is the sort of idealist nonsense I have to see at universities.
In all fairness, I know exactly what ZeaLitY was talking about when he wrote his comment, and he does have a point. He just worded it incorrectly. By “violent” will, he wasn’t explicitly talking about the raising of arms (it was I who introduced that interpretation, as it is the likeliest interpretation). He was talking about asserting one’s self-determination in the face of difficult opposition. Certainly, that phrasing is more agreeable than his own, yet the underlying idea is not so different.
It is still only a part of the solution, of course. Education is key. It isn’t best for the oppressed to rise up in revolution. If there is no alternative, then revolution is what it shall be, but first we have an opportunity to transform society from within.
But economics, rather than reproductivity, may be the more likely cause for sexism. In a basic hunter-gatherer society the physically able are the hunters (and these were usually men). Meat is a bit harder to come by than berries yet greatly desired as a food source, so meat had the higher economic value. Men, therefore, controlled a vital resource.
And yet the females—thanks to their “berries”—gathered the overwhelming caloric majority of the overall human diet. I’d rather have berries seven days a week and no meat, than meat twice a week and no berries. I had trail mix on the airplane just the other day. Stuff like this in a more rudimentary form made up the vast majority of the human diet in times past. It’s not meat, but it’s satisfying enough to grant the mind a reprieve from its endless obsession with hunger. So much for your higher economic value argument, eh?
It is to the woman's advantage, then, to consolidate and pool resources. Thus, it is to the woman's evolutionary advantage for men to not "sow their wild oats," but rather devote all their resources to a single mate and the children produced there in. Polygamy is advantageous to men, monogamy is advantageous to women.
A very old argument which, much like religion, is accepted as common knowledge more due to its age than its veracity. Truth be told, monogamy is a specific social norm—not a biological trait. Humans prefer diversity, and this extends to their sexuality. I hate to say this to you, Thought, but “look it up.” I checked out human sexual monogamy in the
Britannica just to make sure that I wasn’t inadvertently bullshitting everybody, and it’s right there in print.
Thought, even if there
were a biological precedent for monogamy, you have to ask yourself what good that serves today. Now that we have evolved to the point of being able to make up our own minds, many of our biological dispositions are secondary to our
willful desires. To contradict this would be to assert that we should all live exactly as our animal ancestors did, on impulse alone. What modern good is there in monogamy as a social rule? If individual pairs of humans wish to remain exclusive, then they are welcome. But many humans wish nothing of the sort, and why would you say they are less welcome? I invite you to query forward-thinking, liberal females (and males), as to their attitudes on the value of monogamy as pertains to them personally. If
Britannica won’t do it, then the diversity of opinion you will find among
real people should put to rest in one fell swoop your conviction that females inherently desire some “big strong man” to impregnate, feed, and protect them. The fact of the matter—the indisputable fact—is that sexual attraction in both sexes operates at the individual level and is not limited to a quota of one partner for females and more-than-one partner for males. Indeed, female anatomy has evolved to protect against the risk posed by (and therefore the historical realities of) multiple male partners. Just as god intended, eh?
Your premise of polygamous males and monogamous females is an Abrahamic vestige of ancient social thinking among select tribes whose creeds have survived into the present day. Even the terms are out of date: Today we use the suffix
-amory instead of
-gamy to discuss sexual relationships independently of the concept and condition of marriage, as marriage itself is showing its age these days and is in need of reform so as to be more equitable to more people, and less punitive to some.
You are welcome to try and reason out a rationale for a universal requirement of monogamy among humans, but you shall fail. Monogamy as a religious value has hindered the sexual development of millions of children and fostered a culture of sexual misadventure, resulting in an epidemic incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, millions of unwanted pregnancies, and a general state of ignorance of sex and sexuality. More egregiously, it has helped radicalize America’s concept of sexuality, allowing gender roles to stifle sexual integration—and thereby sustaining many of our society’s sexist values.
Contrary to this expectation, monogamy, the woman's benefit, is the norm. If we use religion to explain this, then it would appear that women instituted it to oppress men, not the other way around.
Females forced monotheism on males as a means of oppression? And…whoosh…pbbth…pop!! There goes the Reality Balloon.
It is good that it censors explanations that are not grounded in solid methodology, but it censors even good methodology in subtle ways. If the explanation isn’t new and exciting, it won’t get published in a major scientific journal. If it doesn’t get published in a major scientific journal, the scientist behind it can have difficulties finding a job, getting tenure, and procuring funding.
Quite so. A true bane on science and human society in general.
But on a more pragmatic term, men and women relate to people differently, they think differently, and even what makes them happy is different. Recognizing differences is not sexist (indeed, I would claim discounting such differences is sexist against both). Suppressing one side because of such differences is.
That’s the argument of an apologist, not a thinker. If you were to
read that literature you so blithely cite, you would find a big question mark on the extent and even the very existence of whatever inherent biological differences arise on a sex-specific basis to influence the way that people think, relate to others, and derive happiness.
Thought, people have searched
very hard to find these supposed differences. Their failure to find any is significant. And Thought, the fact that, as science has advanced, the “known” differences between males and females have evaporated, is also significant. The difference between “male” and “female” in modern humanity is very limited. Even though our physical bodies (and our brains!) still have some apparent differences, the full extent of our
similarities is astounding. And yet Christianity has taught that males and females are practically of a different species, and has imposed gender roles ruthlessly over the centuries. From these traditions of sexism, you are informed that our society’s attempts to reconcile the sexes is misinformed and, worse, is itself sexist.
Hah! Blaming the other side for being sexist. Hah!! You preempted my Captain Hook line in the other thread, but, as I wrote this section last week, I shall say it here: Poor form.
Sounds a lot like homeschooling…
That’s not quite what I had in mind.
Science cannot prove; it can only disprove. But yes.
Semantics. Substitute “verify” for “prove,” then, and stop distracting.
gen•der, Pronunciation [jen-der],
noun 1. Grammar. a. (in many languages) a set of classes that together include all nouns, membership in a particular class being shown by the form of the noun itself or by the form or choice of words that modify, replace, or otherwise refer to the noun
b. one class of such a set.
c. such classes or sets collectively or in general.
d. membership of a word or grammatical form, or an inflectional form showing membership, in such a class.
2. sex
3. Archaic. kind, sort, or class.
Yes, I am aware that many people conflate sex and gender, and that that synonymity is valid linguistically to the extent that people use the terms interchangeably. I am also away that, in past times, the distinction was more vague (as “gender as a construct” was just being formulated).
Now, Thought: Just because two words are synonymous in the minds of many people does not mean that these two words do not include two completely distinct concepts.
Once again, if you were to look into the wise pages of the
Britannica, you would have found this distinction clearly delineated. I haven’t got an online portal to
Britannica, but I did find the same basic idea in Wikipedia:
Although gender is commonly used interchangeably with sex, within the social sciences it often refers to specifically social differences, known as gender roles in the biological sciences.
The term
gender role was coined in the mid-twentieth century by, I think his name was Money. However, the division of people based on
perceived characteristic differences as adjunctive to their biological sex is as old as civilization itself. Terms like
female point to some very specific anatomical and physiological distinctions, but supposedly corresponding terms like
woman and
feminine point not to the genitals but to the
role in society that those people who owned those sex-specific genitals are “supposed” to follow—a supposition often “justified” by Biblical blather and brute repression of females—a justice that mocks everything that is good and decent about us.
However, if I might propose, the world does not need a feminine revolution but a sort of human revolution. If we operate under the old "us v them" mentality, no matter how we define "us" and "them," it seems like we will be trapped in a spiral of division. If women are to be equal, it is a task for humanity to solve, not women alone.
Now you’re talking much more sensibly, enough that I can forgive you a subtle oversight: Females
are equal, already. They are possessed of the same sentient will that males are; that’s the great equalizer. What remains unequal are the societies in which we all live.
Do you also praise religion where it deserves it? The Crusades, for example, provided the tinder for the Renaissance and Enlightenment, while the Abrahamic faiths were instrumental in dissolving slavery (see William Wilberforce). Indeed, one of the fascinating things about history is that essentially no matter how horrible the event, if it didn’t happen then subsequent good might not have been done either.
I know a little bit about William Wilberforce, due to his role in abolishing slavery throughout much of the British Empire. But, as you say, I’ll see you a William Wilberforce, and I’ll
raise you another William Wilberforce—the person you neglected to mention.
Wilberforce, after his evangelical awakening and turn to ultraconservatism, became obsessed with imposing morality throughout every corner of the Empire. Unfortunately, his idea of morality was not limited to abolition. I looked him up to refresh myself, and found much of what I was expecting:
Wilberforce founded the Society for the Suppression of Vice, which infamously jailed another Britain, Richard Carlile, who played a key role in establishing a free press in the Empire, and who advanced the cause of universal suffrage. This same Society for the Suppression of Vice, no less infamously, played a part in depriving the British people of knowledge of contraception—which would have been very useful to them.
He was also instrumental in promoting Christianity in India. Although that campaign failed, it is indicative of his disregard for the attitudes of peoples who did not agree with his ultraconservative and socially oppressive views. Like most Christian fanatics, he perceived his own religion as pluperfect and other religions, as well as atheism, as mean, rough, and low.
Wilberforce, just like many evangelicals in any country and in any era are wont to do, perceived the Britain of his day as being in a state of moral decline (even though the exact opposite was true at that time). He used his station to try and cram piety down the throats of the British upper classes, writing a great deal of propaganda to advance his aims, resisting secularization, and, through his attempts at legislation, threatening people with fines, imprisonment, and hard labor for activities he saw as radical or immoral. He was opposed to worker organization and wage increases. He was opposed to gains in women’s rights (such as they were back in those times). He supported the suspension of habeas not once but twice (remind you of anybody?). His answer to the social unrest caused by war and food shortages was to seek to ban public assembly.
All in all he was an ultraconservative religious extremist who lived in a progressive era of secularization and education. Perhaps through no virtue of his own, therefore, Wilberforce accomplished a number of good things too. He was one of the Founders of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He supported better working conditions for people in several hazardous occupations. He was a charitable benefactor. And I’m sure you can recite still more of his positive contributions. He was not an all-around evildoer.
Let me therefore propose to you a thought, a premise: Religious people are not usually black-caped villains who sit around twirling their moustaches. They exist all across the spectrum of humanity; I will volunteer to you myself that religious activism in America played a big part in winning such advances as abolition, female suffrage, abortion, and more.
But how much of this was actually due to religion? To what extent was religion incidental to, or even the source of a backlash against itself that inspired, meaningful progress? You seem to ignore that Christianity has utterly dominated the West for over 1500 years. Even today the number of people who do not identify as Christian is in the minority—especially in our heavily religious land of America. Thus, whatever is accomplished in a society is bound to have support from Christians. Today there are Christians who advocate as strongly as I do for the separation of church and state, for the Equal Rights Amendment, for wage increases, for environmental sustainability, and more. Does this mean that these movements are based in Christian thinking? Think about it for yourself.
I suspect you cited Wilberforce because his religion was so obviously the force that motivated him, and you found it convenient to connect that religious motivation with his desire to end the slave trade as well as slavery itself. I understand why you would want to do that, but you haven’t really done the intellectual legwork to connect that in support of your larger claim, that religion was the driving force for such events as the Enlightenment. Only in the most perverse sense can that be said to hold truth. The Enlightenment was a breakout period in human history. Its origins lay in scientific, cultural, and industrial advance, as well as an exhaustion with centuries of religious warfare, tyranny, and superstition. The Enlightenment was the Christian world’s first great stroke against the yoke of Christianity itself, and so in this one way, aye, Christianity played a role in the Enlightenment. Likewise, as the result of occurring in Christian societies, most of the people involved with the Enlightenment were Christians. There was a great deal of philosophical space that had to be crossed by intellectuals between the Middle Ages and the mid-twentieth century, when secularism achieved prominence as a social anchor. Therefore, the religiosity of prominent Enlightenment figures should not be taken as a self-affirming proof that
Christians per se were the great drivers of this period. Yes, most of these great drivers
happened to be Christian, but it was not Christianity itself which inspired them. This is evidenced by their reformist attitudes, their skepticism, their empiricism, and in general their concern for the practical aspects of life.
I do resent the constant claim by Christians that Christianity was the great engine of all positive accomplishment in the world, when this is so patently false. You say that, were it not for Christianity’s evils, greater goods would not have come to pass later on. I say that, had those evils not come to pass in the first place, history would have been irrevocably changed for the better, and who knows what might have happened in the future?
Historiography is vital in this claim, and alas it does not hold up. Individuals have been calling America's history into question for the last 80ish years. They aren't branded traitors, they're granted tenure. Academia is awash with individuals who call America's actions and history into question and no, they are not branded traitors but rather praised. Read a modern American History textbook and compare it to a textbook from to years ago. Things have changed quite a bit, all because people called America’s history into question.
Here you make a good point, Thought, but your good point is also a distraction from Hadriel’s charge of Christian revisionism, which is one of the three central pillars of Christian Dominionism and has led our nation into an absurd debate about the intentions of this country’s founders.
Wow, I don't think I ever really knew that. So Europe is a prime example of the fact that we just straight up don't need religion anymore. That's actually insanely interesting, and I'm going to do some research on that, now. =D
Research is always good, but unfortunately resources are limited for this question. You'd need to wait a good fiftyish years to even begin to approach objectivity.
I don’t think so. It’s
been fifty years—sixty, even—since World War II ended and (Western) Europe set out on the course it now follows. You are using the inversion form of Milton Friedman’s perenniual argument, “The next six months in Iraq will be decisive.” By insisting that we wait longer to see how Europe turns out, you are ignoring how well Europe has done for itself already.
In fact, what I said to Anacalius ought to have been qualified: Most of Europe’s success stories are in the west and north of the continent, with exceptions elsewhere. There are plenty of problems in Europe today, from Basque separatism in Spain to Islamic radicalization in the Netherlands. However, the secularization of European culture has showered considerable benefits upon a land that previously spent several thousand years trying to destroy itself, and my point stands: The parts of Europe that have grown past religion the furthest, also tend to be doing the best in terms of those quality-of-life measures in which America used to pride itself in being Number One. Nowadays just about the only thing we’re Number One at is our incarceration rate.
The development between single cellular and multi cellular life forms is probably understood about as well as most evolutionary traits. The eye is a classic example; creationists say it is too complex to have evolved. Evolutionists can point to numerous living species that have some form of proto-eyes, ranging from light-sensitive skin patches to gel-filled optical fossas (fosses?).
Likewise, the creationist claims that the jump between single cellular life and multi cellular life is too large. The Evolutionist can point out that there are single cellular life forms that live in colonies of differing complexities in which individual members provide specialized roles. Such colonies are just a hop, skip, and a jump away from being multi-cellular.
Again you show your interesting side. These occasional outbursts of legitimacy make you a much more interesting partner in this discussion. If I may. =)
Moving on to the next person…
On the topic of a theory of everything, in principle it is completely possible. What may not be possible is a grand unified theory, which though similar is technically different; the latter seeks to unify electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force (which are now collectively referred to as electroweak), the strong nuclear force, and gravity. Gravity has proved the most difficult of all because of problems with relativity on a quantum scale. String theory seeks to unify gravity with the rest of the forces by postulating that particles are one-dimensional "loops" rather than point particles; in this it would also provide a theory of everything, since it describes a fundamental constituent of matter and eliminates the problem of quantum foam by proposing a lower limit to the allowable size of an object.
If you don’t mind my asking, do you have any formal education in any of this stuff? Every time I read your descriptions of physics I am reminded of armchair enthusiasm. It could just be that you’re bad at simplification, but I also wonder if you actually know anything about this stuff.
Don’t take that personally. It’s a pet peeve of mine when people pretend to have scientific expertise where in fact they have only a casual acquaintance. One of the reasons I myself usually refrain from discussing scientific stuff in great detail, despite in all probability being the most well-versed or one of the most well-versed people here, is that not only is some of this stuff utterly beyond me, but for the time being it apparently remains beyond the best thinkers in the world—quantum physics being a perfect example. I wouldn’t dare enter a scientific discussion at a high level unless I were prepared to do math and cite papers. This youngness in the advanced frontiers of science tends to betray the people who speak with great certitude about it, for little is warranted.
Here’s a rule of thumb for all: The move from scientific expertise to science fiction expertise is as wise as the move from science fiction expertise to scientific expertise is foolish.
The reason I say humans are gods relative to ants is because we already have some power to interfere in evolution. If you recall, the principles of natural selection are dependent on one's environment. Humans, via the use of tools and intellect, have learned to alter our environment to suit us instead of the other way around, a capacity which may very well end up destroying us via climate change. I would dearly hope that future generations after such an event do not blame science or technology, but most of my hopes for humanity thus far have been rewarded with crushing disappointment.
If there is one thing I may say to soothe your mind, it is that massive cataclysms are relatively unlikely. Humanity is nearing a point of sophistication—and may already be there—that makes it almost impossible for us to be wiped out or set back to the stone age, short of a disaster so rapid—such as an asteroidal impact or a nuclear holocaust—that we do not have any time to react to it. (And even those particular dangers can be mastered with technology.)
Any long-term crisis that operates on a scale of days or better, is unlikely to “destroy us” as you put it. The only exception is a crisis so very extreme and long-term that industrial production becomes impossible.
The experiment falls apart in that you are required to know with perfect certainty how they will react, which is not possible; in fact, it rather reminds me of Babylon 5's John Sheridan attempting to prevent a prophecy and in so doing causing it to happen. Makes for great TV (much better than recent Star Trek, for damned sure), but a thought experiment it is not. For the human, it is at best possible to know how they will probably react; even if you're right, you have proven nothing.
Interesting tangent, and a good point too. Seeing the future prevents one from meddling in it, and vice versa. You can’t have both at the same time. I make use of this in a story of mine.
Indeed, curiously it is adult stem cell research that has the most potential for medical uses (thus the limitation regarding embryonic stem cells is limiting the less profitable line of investigation; given that adult stem cell research is at an economic disadvantage to embryonic research, this could be seen as a good thing). For example, transplant organs grown from embryonic stem cells will still require the use of immunosuppressant drugs to reduce the risk of rejection. Transplant organs grown from adult stem cells, however, have the potential to be grown from the patient themself; there would be no difference in the transplanted organ and the one removed, thus rejection is not a consideration and thus immunosuppressant drugs (which open the patient up for a host of other diseases) are not required.
I hadn't heard that. Do you have a link?
It would be interesting if that were true, and of course there are plenty of religious conservatives who claim very loudly that it is, but the facts say otherwise. All types of stem cells show promise in medicine. You can see that just by looking at the scientific literature—and steering clear of fundie websites that trumpet adult stem cell discoveries while misconstruing or even fabricating the outcome of embryonic stem cell research studies. Christians fundamentalists don’t give a damn about stem cell research in and of itself—and most of the ones who do, do so because they or a friend or loved one are sick. Nay, the fundies are opposed to embryonic stem cell research because they see it as a threat to their anti-choice movement.
The rest of your post, by the way, is well-said and well-come. Mostly. One example of the not-so-good parts:
Don't talk to me about that until you've accidentally witnessed your girlfriend wiping menstrual blood out of her vagina. I will never forget that image as long as I live.
I’m not sure what you were trying to prove there…
Actually, the beliefs the Church enforced were the scientific worldviews of Aristotle. Beyond that, as my agnostic philosophy prof says, apparently one need only read Galileo to see why they went down so heavily on him: apparently he was an ass. If you're going to write something, it's usually not wise to openly mock the people who would be affirming its publication. That's apparently what he did. From the way I've heard it, it was more Galileo's fault than anything, and that the ideas he propounded would have been very readily allowed. And anyway, as I said, the problem they had was it disagreed with Aristotle, the scientific dogma of the time.
Ah, yes. We know what you think.
Of course it was Galileo’s fault that the authorities came down on him so hard! Of course, of course! Just like it was Jesus’ fault for being crucified. (
That’d fuck up Christianity, now wouldn’t it?) Of course it was Galileo’s fault! He should have known better! How dare he anger the mighty? He had no one to blame but himself! Just like any ill-tempered female deserves to be raped if she pisses off some football jock. Well said, Daniel! Once again you illumine us with your infinite wisdom.
An omnipotent being, however, could defy logic (remember, we are defining omnipotent as having infinite power, able to do anything, etc). If an omnipotent being cannot defy logic, then that being isn’t really omnipotent; you are holding something else (in this case logic) as being more powerful than it. So the original question, if it is to be used against the idea of an omnipotent being, inherently assumes that such a being isn’t omnipotent. This is then Begging the Question. It is hardly clever so say that a non-omnipotent being is not omnipotent.
I love seeing that “Gotcha!” look on other people’s faces when they are so clearly mistaken.
If our hypothetical omnipotent being could defy logic, then when what basis remains to evaluate its omnipotence? Defy logic? What does that even mean?
What you are postulating is some kind of supernatural chaos, not omnipotence, and in any case you are describing something that obviously does not exist, as the universe is observed to be logical. In advancing your solution to this riddle, you are reduced to denying the validity of our own perceptions. That’s not much of a solution, methinks.
Omnipotence could exist under one, and only one, circumstance: If the processes of universe as it exists are the direct function of some intelligent entity, then that entity would be omnipotent. Why? Because the “all” in
all-powerful must surely refer to the universe in total, while the “powerful” must refer to its
mechanism, and not to some extraneous agent that would corrupt or override that mechanism. If that mechanism is contained by an entity, then the concept of
power applies. If not, then the mechanism simply
is.
In other words, the universe itself is omnipotent, except that, if it’s just the universe, then there is no entity to claim the label, and, while we could
assign it, that would be arbitrary.
You are merely claiming that so far the particular paradigm of the Scientific Method has not displayed any critical errors in its formulation that would necessitate a paradigm shift. However, given that every precursor paradigm has been discarded before, statistically speaking it is quite likely that the current paradigm (that of the Scientific Method) will shift in the future (how, I cannot say; I doubt the standard paradigm will be grossly different, but it will be different). More specifically, no logical contradiction has been shown to exist in the real world because every time one is found, that brings about a paradigm shift putting us into a state where that is no longer a logical contradiction. Your statement is only true because historically, the deck has been stacked to make it true (that doesn’t make it any less true, however).
Incorrect. The scientific method is not a falsifiable object or condition, but simply a process. Hypothesize. Test. Evaluate.
That’s the scientific method. Where is the fundamental wrong?
If anything, any false conclusions drawn under the scientific process are going to be the result of erroneous application. Perhaps the data was contaminated. Perhaps the conclusion did not actually follow from the facts. Etc., etc.
The scientific method
always works, and this irks the religious to no end because their superstitions never consistently work. All the same, the scientific method works because it reduces to observation and simple deduction, the former of which is the product of our physical environment, and the latter of which is a logical given. There is no opportunity for a flaw: Our world exists consistently.
It is, quite simply put, impossible to justify our use of Logic as a system for analyzing the world. We are being illogical in our very insistence of using logic.
And speaking of consistency, logic is the conceptualization of physical or mathematical consistencies.
Really, you sure did put a lot of thought into that just to be taken down so easily, Thought. “The logic of logic is illogical.” Hah! =)
I am married. I’ve experienced worse.
It’s always a bit chilling to imagine the people who marry stalwart Christians…far more so than the specter of sexual stink.
Actually, Hadriel, in answer to the 'rock' question, we went over that one in my Philosophy class. The answer is the same is 'can God sin'? The answer is yes. But He won't. It's called a contrafactual, I think. Something like that.
Rubbish again. Who are we to decide that a god will or will not do something? The question is, is the action possible? If your philosophy professor answered it by saying “yes, but god wouldn’t do that,” then he avoided the question, because the justification for the answer does not lead to the answer.
Though I must answer that no, I do not think that he is entirely on the mark with me (and, instead, might in some regard apply it to him, I think), nonetheless I take this to be amongst the most insightful statements he has ever made. This sounds rather Senecan, actually - something about the form and the structure and the meaning.
Ah! A backhanded compliment of sorts. Well, thank you.
At nineteen pages, I’m afraid this is the end for now.
