Address Religion On It's Own Merits
Offline When I express my views of religion and it's role in society, and see others express similar views, I often get the accusation of "giving religion a free ride", or that I'm holding religion to a different standard. The Irony of course is that I'm holding religion to the same standard as anything else. If Jack Thompson were to say that violent video games cause violence in the US, then I would require the same amount of proof than if Sam Harris says that religion causes violence in the US. I won't reject Jack Thompson's argument and accept Sam Harris' if I view them to be supported by the same arguments. If they both have the same amount and type of evidence, I'll accept or reject both of them depending on if the evidence is sufficent or not.
To be fair, I don't really have any solid data on this part, such as how many atheists share my view and how many don't. And of those that don't how many make the accusations above. But hey, if you're not one of those, then you don't have to worry about this post right?
Which brings me to several important points, regarding my views of religon that I would like to express and clear up.
Let's work through an example.
Here, a police officer assaulted a student that didn't have their shirt tucked in
Defining Goals And Starting From The Start
What should we do in this situation? Address the irrational rule of having their shirts tucked in? Address the mental health of the police officer?
Well, what we SHOULD do depends on our goals. What are they? Get rid of stupid rules? Reduce police brutality?
I think our goal when dealing with this situation would be to reduce police brutality and I don't think starting with the rule [justification] is going to get us anywhere.
Why not? The rule is irrational, no? Well yes, it is, but is going for the rule first really a good start?
A good place to start would be with the officer himself. Does he have a history of complaints against him? Did he get a psych evaluation after this incident? IF he does have abuse complaints against him [I'm not saying he does or doesn't], then why does he still have a badge? Maybe if the police force ran checks on their officers, than the muscle-brained power jocks wouldn't get through and be able to put down their coffee to abuse some 15 year old.
So I think the police force reviewing their selection/discipline procedures would also help us achieve the goal of reducing brutality.
On It's Own Merits
Now what does this have to do with the subject of the blog title? Am I saying that we should keep the rule? That the rule is rational or benifical to the school? Or am I holding the irrational rule to a different standard?
Nope.
I hate to tell you this, but the actions of the officer are irrelevant to the rationality of the rule. The rule was most certainly used as justification, but what if the rule wasn't there, and the cop beat the shit out of a kid hot-wiring the teacher's car? Should we re-evaluate the law against Grand Theft Auto?
If I was the parent, I would be evaluating the officer, not the school board. If I waste time on the school board, pleading them to get rid of the stupid rule, what will that accomplish? Now cops have to look for vandals or drug dealers to kick the shit out of?
Where as if I went to the police force, and got them to stop letting these types of officers hold badges, it would help a lot more than letting kids have their shirts untucked don't you think?
In this case, I took a tragic situation, and instead of using it to "fight irrationality", I used it in a much more productive way.
Of course, after the police force has re-evaluated it's recruiting/discipline procedures, I'm free to address the irrational rule.
I mean, Young, Earth Creationists claim that there was a global flood, and the Earth is only 6,00 years old, do we really need any other reason to critisize them?
If Alex Jones says that Obama is a pawn of the New World Order and will take over the world and enslave us all, do I really have to make fallacious arguments such as his radio show causes the brutal treatment of Arabs in Iraq by Americans and Palestine by Israelis, in order to critisize his views?
I would hope not.
If I said that Alex Jones caused US soldiers to torture and abuse Arabs, and you dis-agreed does that mean you think Bush was part of the NWO and the WTC was a controlled demolition?
I would hope not.
What if I said it was possible to take Harris' views of moderate Muslims, and say in the hands of Israel Defence Force, use it to justify bombing civilians in Palestine/Lebanon? What if they bombed a day-care center in Beirut and justified it with "Well, they're Muslims and providing intellectual cover for Hiz'bollah and preventing us from critisizing Hiz'bollah's views. Without them, Hiz'bollah would have fizzled away by now"?
Should I hold Sam personally responsible for it?
No. I highly doubt the IDF consults him for their defence policies.
Making A Difference
I think starting from the start is the best way to reduce prejudice/war.
What if the Allies actually HELPED the Germans after WWI? What if they helped re-build the infastrucutre? What if they helped get the German economy back on track? What if they re-trained the German military to help Germany become self-sufficent again?
What if Hitler didn't have anything to blame on the Jews and Communists? What if he couldn't accuse the Communists of trying to take over Germany? [Ironically that was a self-fullfilling prophecy considering a Soviet flag hanged over the Germany Parliment and Stalin took half of Germany, and lost of previously German occupied countries such as Poland.] How could he blame the Jews on the poverty, if there was little poverty?
Wouldn't that be more effective than trying to de-bunk some guy with a funny moustache yelling?
Sweden has several Neo-Nazi organisations, yet I don't think they'll be making a trip to Poland anytime soon. Why? Because Swedes don't have a reason to follow them. The economy is good, they have health care etc... so the Nazi ideology that previously tried to take over the world and caused so much death and destruction, are now a bunch of idiots yelling at Jews and gays on the streets.
I hate to tell you this, but irrational beliefs are here to stay one way or another, so let's address them on their own merits.
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The Good Cpt - Sweden has several Neo-Nazi organisations, yet I don't think they'll be making a trip to Poland anytime soon. Why? Because Swedes don't have a reason to follow them. The economy is good, they have health care etc... so the Nazi ideology that previously tried to take over the world and caused so much death and destruction, are now a bunch of idiots yelling at Jews and gays on the streets.
Oh, dear.....Did you look at the Swedish situation at all? Do a quick search on Google for islam and Malmo, see what you find.
Certainly the rise in neo-nazis isn't becuase of Jews and gays....[rolls_eyes]. Hint: islam.
Keep fumbling in the dark
How can not believing in something that is backed up with no empirical evidence be less scientific than believing in something that not only has no empirical evidence but actually goes against the laws of the universe and in many cases actually contradicts itself? - Ricky Gervais
Tell you what, while I google that, you google "Klas Lund" and "Swedish Resistance movement" and then come back with concrete facts linking them to Islam. I'll be holding my breath.
k thnx bai
Keep missing the point.
Just a small irrelavant point. The tucking in shirts rule is not irrational. Doesn't change anything tbh but meh. Il read it properly tomorrow, don't have the time now.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
European Bike Gangs and moslems
What determines whether the rule is irrational or not? Or better yet... Who?
Who determines whether or not the officer was justified in his usage of force?
Why?
I'm ignoring the fact that you posted the commentary from TYT. However, it does illustrate the way that morality functions within a society. Particularly so in our modern society of mass communication.
On to the subject of the officer's alleged mental health problems. How deeply do we look into what caused this officer to do this? Or do we simply dismiss the officer as a bad egg and make rules in the future to curtail this type of behavior?
The officer's personal ideological viewpoints must be included in determining whether or not there was an underlying factor causing the behavior. We can't simply dismiss it as "Dude's crazy!" end of story.
Obviously, if we come across something in the analysis that precipitated the action then we can attribute that as a possible cause in other and/or future incidents.
Hypothetically, if the officer is a racist then we would naturally give some credence to the THEORY that racISM was a contributing (if not sole) reason for the action.
Thus, one can begin to understand the amount of influence that ideology can affect psychology.
So, it comes down to (IN OUR HYPOTHETICAL INSTANCE) is the officer crazy because he is a racist or is he a racist because he's crazy?
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Here you have what appears to be a police officer assaulting a student, solely because his shirt wasn't tucked in.
The video looks bad and could very well represent what you think happened. But you don't know what led up to this incident. You don't have any audio, not that the kids mouth alone justifies his being placed on the ground. But seriously, this video doesn't tell the entire story. And the "face down take down" label is a bunch of crap. When you place an individual on the ground you always do it face down. If they were face up they would be in a much better position to continue fighting and resisting the security guard.
Respectfully,
Lenny
"The righteous rise, With burning eyes, Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies, To beat and burn and kill"
Witch Hunt from the album Moving Pictures. Neal Pert, Rush
Thanks for that hard hitting evidence that the rise of neo-nazism in Sweden is due to Islam. It's not like the ol' bait n switch trick eh?
Anyway, I never said there aren't any Muslim gangs or that Muslims are the shining example of a morality, so I don't see the relevance in this.
It's up to the school board to come up with a rational reason for the rule.
Hopefully the judge during the officer's assault trial.
I never said the officer had mental health problems. What I said that he should undergo a psych evaluation to determine whether he actually does, or something else caused him to do this.
Good thing I never said we should dismiss it as the guy's crazy. My entire point is to find out WHY the officer did it!
duh
While the officer being racist is a possible explanation, that would have to be proven.
I know it doesn't tell the whole story, perhaps an actual investigation could clear that up?
For fuck's sake, for someone that bitches so much about others 'not getting the point' you sure missed mine.
I know that we need to discover the cause(s) for the action.
I tried to emphasize HYPOTHETICAL so as to fit with your premise. If you simply want to discuss the incident then forget it. We're right. We don't have enough data.
I thought we were going to try to have another one of those futile discussions where you discount ideology as a key factor in the actions of individuals.
That is why I chose to play along and offer the hypothetical situation of racism as an ideological factor in the incident. I was NOT declaring it as a reason. It was a hypothetical.
Soooo, I'll just ask: Does someone follow an ideology because they are crazy or are they crazy because of the ideology, or are you content with the answer that they are just crazy sans ideology?
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists.
The thing is, and this is what you don't seem to understand at all, it's a much shorter way to go from "god exist" to "god exist and he wants us to murder infidels", than it is to get to that position from "there is no reason to believe god exist". It doesn't take as much for someone who already accepts that a god exist and want us to do something to believe that god wants X, than it takes to make a person who doesn't believe that god exist to first believe that one does exist, and then to believe that god wants X. You kind of have to accept the former before you can accept the latter.
So, though the initial push might not be religion, it takes less force for a believer to become an extremist than it takes for a non-believer to become one. Removing religion is thus one of those way you can decrease the risk of people turning into extremists, just like having a good economy and living conditions does that as well.
Closing your eyes and holding your heads over your ears screaming "LALALA RELIGION IS GOOD, LALALALALALA, RELIGION CAN'T CAUSE BAD, LALALALALALALA" isn't very productive.
"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."
Oh FFS! Haven't we already had this thread?
Allison, since you clearly missed this the last time it came around, allow me to clue you in on some relevant data:
The poor brain damaged special needs child is not what he seems. He is a violent little hoodlum who has been placed in this special needs school that is specifically for those kids who are too violent to be allowed to mix with the general school population. Considering that the community is one of the worst ghettos in America with rates of violent crimes that are running around twice the national average, that is really saying something about the little punk.
Also at what point in the video do you see his hands moving to tuck in his shirt? I have to ask because I can't see that happening. As far as I can see, the little shit is a liar on top of everything else. And just why do punk hoods wear loose clothing? To conceal weapons. Until the matter has been fully investigated and we have heard statements from parties other than the kid, I am going with the theory that the rule is there to make it harder to pack heat in school.
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Captian, you make the same mistake I see even atheists make.
Humans, no matter what they believe are capable of the same range of emotions AND actions.
BUT, I think you falsely excuse religion. It is not practical for any political or religious label to seek a forced utopia. But religion DOES NOT belong on a pedistal, nor does any individual human for that matter.
Do not use, "well you do it to" so therefore religion is valid.
That is a cop out for anyone who uses it no matter what label they are.
Belief in magical births are irrational and impractical and even worse that people want to base their poltics and wars on such absurities. Hitler's "master race" idea was just as utopian and FALSE.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Who says that God belief is required to do X?
Okay, say we have a country with a high crime rate, high murder, robbery etc..
You want to find out why, where would you start?
The reason I brought that up is because Kevin R Brown used it as an example of somebody doing a bad thing due to what he called an irrational rule. Kevin's argument was that if it were not for the rule, the officer would have little justification for the action.
Anyway, I just used it as an illustration to the thought process that would actually get down to achieving the goals.
"The thing is, and this is what you don't seem to understand at all, it's a much shorter way to go from "god exist" to "god exist and he wants us to murder infidels", than it is to get to that position from "there is no reason to believe god exist"."
Um, it's not that simple. Next to no one believes "God exists" or "there are no good reasons to believe God exists" in a vacuum.
For example, is it easier to move from, "A loving God who commands us to love one another as he loves us exists" to "murder those who don't believe in God," or from, "there is no good reason to believe God exists, and belief in God is a dangerous belief that leads to violence and retards progress" to "murder those who do believe in God"?
Edejardin
Hmmm. Interesting. However, it seems that historically the incidence of 'god belief to killing infidels' has happened on a much more frequent basis. That would seem to counter your argument.
Of course, you could assert that the message was ill-received by those invoking whichever god's name, but then wouldn't that fault the message?
Modern concepts of 'divine love to neighbor love' seem to have metaphorically crossed wires aka short-circuited
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I honestly don't know, because I certainly didn't. I said that god belief is required to believe that god wants you to do X.
Oh, I hate dancing around in a ring, can't we just skip to the knockout?
Quite frankly, my one and only claim here is that theism opens a door which remains closed for an atheist. That is all.
I would think no one does. What's your point?
Killing someone because you believe their beliefs are dangerous and retards progress is not something that requires a lack of belief in any god to do. Theists can do that too, and are at least as likely.
Killing someone because you think your god commands you to do that, however, does require a belief in god to do. Atheists can't do that.
Do you see what I'm saying here? In all other cases, an atheist might be an exact copy of a theist. It's just this "god belief" part - and all that follows from it - that is necessarily different.
But to answer the question, it does seem from history that god believers coming to the conclusion that their god wants them to kill someone is not at all rare and we can all make examples of it, but I have never heard of anyone - ever - murdering a theist because they think "theism can lead to violence". That would seem to be a small contradiction, resorting to violence to avoid violence.
"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."
It tells enough. Even if it painted the incident to make the kid look more innocent than he was, the actions of the cop were disgusting.
There's no possible justification for what he did, no matter what the kid did.
I'm certain that there are secure ways to bring someone down face up.
Even though face down might be even more secure, since it's clearly dangerous then there's good reason to disallow it.
Besides, like that ignorant bastard was ever going to get serious resistance from a 15 year old kid who was literally half his size.
I know you're just trying to "not get caught up in hysteria", but on this occasion there's just no "other side of the story".
Even if that's true, there was no need for the assault.
Wow... that's an extreme conjecture there.
But even if you were right, that the cop genuinely thought the kid might have a gun, then he still did wrong.
Just going in for the surprise takedown and beating on him?
Is that really the only way to deal with the situation?
I swear some of you guys must be have a "disagree with Pineapple" reflex because some of the things you lot are saying here...
I don't think she was ever defending "religion should be put on a pedastal and protected from criticism"
I think she's putting the challenge to the "atheist community" that we tend to judge religion harsher than they do other things, that there's a double standard.
That religion is singled out and given a particularly hard time of things.
I generally get that feeling too.
It's not an argument that religion is valid, just that it gets more criticism here than it's due.
On the one hand, we come here to speak our mind and that means venting what we feel, whether it's perfectly rational or not.
At the same time, we're a community that prides ourselves on our rationality and it kind of runs counter to that...
I don't disagree with your point (sort of), but this is a bad comparison.
This cop did not grow up in an environment and family that ascribed to a cult thousands of years old which tells its members over and over that they are morally bound to kick the shit out of anyone who does not have their shirt tucked in.
But he might have been surrounded by violent male stereotypes that taught him to glorify violence, which also taught him that restraint and courtesy were immoral or unmanly. If so, it would be fair to assign some of the blame on his culture, upbringing and beliefs.
Culture does matter, religion is part of culture, and religion is open to fair criticism...just like capitalism or communism or pacifism or any other 'ism'.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Well, it seems to me that the matter of whether the rule is poorly conceived should be considered apart from the officers actions.
Let's say, just for grins, that the rule is right on target and nobody questions it. Then we can look at the actions of the officer in that light. Was he right to do as he did?
Honestly, I don't know and neither does anyone else. The matter needs to be investigated by authorities and the facts need to come to light. Until that happens, I reserve my opinion on what the officer did.
Alternatively, if the rule is automatically bad, then pass judgment on the rule.
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