Another general reminder to humanity in regards to the poison religion is.
Offline To Orthodox Jews, LDS, Mormons, Southern Baptists, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, maybe not all of you have gender rolls for girls/women, I won't claim all of you do. But religion in general has always promoted to far too great of a degree sexism. Not even Catholics or Buddhists allow women to hold power at the highest levels of their religious institutions. I will say this again to all of humanity, no matter where they live or what their traditions are, ANY CULTURE OR RELIGION THAT CANT OR WONT ALLOW GIRLS OR WOMEN TO MAKE THEIR OWN LIFE DECISIONS DESERVES NOTHING BUT SCORN AND CONTEMPT!
But Brian, you're a bigot, you're a madman, you're just being mean. Tell that to the girls still promised at a young age into marriage. Tell that to girls who get shot for wanting an education. Tell that to women who cant drive and are subject to always ask permission from men to do anything.
To blame me for the harm people others do to their fellow humans while basing it on claptrap, is absurd.
"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
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People hardly need religion to be sexist. The sexism that exists in any given religion existed before the religion did, and all the religion did was incorporate it.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
and yet both india and bangladesh have had female prime ministers, while the US lags behind. hindu girls are not denied an education in any way, and arranged marriages are just as binding on the men as the women, both of whom are often matched in adolescence. if you say you "won't claim" a religion is sexist then don't drop its name in a tirade against sexism.
as for buddhists "excluding women" from "holding power" in their "institutions," tell me: which buddhist "religious institutions" are you familiar with besides the tibetan gelugs-pa tradition (the one with the dalai lama), of which you're also mostly ignorant? again, a claim based on ignorance should be beneath anyone. should be...
you're not a madman, brian, nobody ever told you that on this site and i bet nobody ever told you that elsewhere (at least, not among atheists). you obviously have a martyr complex, however. i don't remember anyone calling you "mean"--that's just silly. i have called you stupid and i stick by that. anyone who makes statements as ridiculously broad as you do with such a ridiculous level of ignorance as you have is definitely stupid. and of course, you keep ignoring the fact that no one here is taking issue with you possibly hurting the feelings of the religious, but it's easy to argue with points nobody's making, isn't it?
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Right, they don't need religion to be sexist, so as long as it is used to justify sexism it becomes a shield.
And again, that is because morality is thought of as an inention of labels instead of a range of behavior in our evolution.
"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
that is literally a meaningless fucking statement. there isn't a single major religion on earth that claims to have "invented" morality. they may claim their religion is the most complete revelation of morality, among many other revelations that have been more or less distorted, but that's as far as it goes. i'll wager there isn't a single christian/jew/muslim alive who would say "no one knew what morality was until we came along and told them."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
QFT
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Is this why you stupidly accuse me of having a "maryterdom complex"?
No moron, it is merely saying that anyone pointing at me, be it calling me stupid or bigoted or militant has their priorities out of whack. I'm am nobody's martyer nor do I want to be.
Other countries have female prime ministers? India still has a rape problem and still cant get along with Muslim Pakistan and has had a history of conflict over Kashmir. Bagledesh is mostly Muslim, still where are their female Imams. I'd also wonder what the extent of their blasphemy laws are. I'd guess they are more restrictive about picking on Allah than we can get away with here.
Now if you look at my OP I did not say all people do these things. Religion is a poison because it distracts us from the issues that could be much more easy to resovle if religion were not seen as a priority issue. Defending it as a human right is not the issue, pointing out the distraction it is is the issue, which allows the things I have mentioned, not just in this post but constantly in my entire time on the web.
"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
sure as shit ain't the only reason.
so does every other fucking country in the world, even if they aren't currently trending in the headlines, you fucking nincompoop.
do you know why? hint: it ain't religion. the founder of pakistan (bonus points if you can name him without resorting to google) was one of the most liberal muslims of his day. he constantly talked about women's rights as well as the rights of non-muslims in pakistan.
really? i had no fucking clue...
probably busy getting degrees in medicine, law, and political science, thank god.
well, why don't you actually go find out for once instead of blowing wind out your ass and patting yourself on the back for it?
and that has what to do with sexism?
i don't give a shit why you say "religion is poison," it doesn't change the fact that "religion is poison" has aa much meaning as "my apple is an accountant."
and i only ever read one other person say "religion is poison" and that was mao zedong. who's the fuckin' vicious commie now? fuckin' chump.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
No dipshit, you just reworded what I said to give religion an excuse. "DISTORT" that is precisely the fucking problem.
ALSO THE FUCKING PROBLEM
The westernized yes, definately moreso, especially liberal. But you'd be out of your fucking mind to say even in the west people dont act like their religion invented morality. Otherwise LDS wouldn't make attempts at child brides. People wouldn't pass laws here trying to turn back women's rights to control their bodies. The Mormon church wouldn't have flooded politics to make attempts at stopping gay marriage. Islam's treatment in the east of women is even more horrid.
Evolution produced morality, but religion like you said DESTORTS IT. Precisely because people pass down from generation to generation the idea that their religion perfected morality,(I'd argue morso that they pretend they invented it or deny that is what they would like to believe) and all these books always give that tap to that group as being "the best, the ones, the chosen".
Their morals do come from their holy books, otherwise why belong to that religion? Which makes religion poison, presicely because we know now, especially science, that morality lays outside religion.
I had a Mormon co-worker say "It's just god speaking in different languages"(meaning its all the same). Cute, but that "distortion" of morality comes from the fact that she thinks being a Mormon, and not her inherent compassion, gave here that morality. At some point that religion was needlessly shoveled into her brain and that book had words in it that she read or someone read to her to allow her to make such a stupid ignorant conclusion. I am sure she would also say that others can be moral and morality was arround before Mormonism. If so then why was Mormonism concocted? Because con artist Joseph Smith convinced gullible people to buy into it. Thus generations later allowed her to swallow the same claptrap.
Scientology, yet another "moral concept" that most of its members, up and until you pick on it, would also say "DUH we accept others can be moral too". And L Ron Hubberd was the one who started that con which has infected millions now.
If people are going to admit, which they should, that others outside their religion can be and are moral, then that should tell them that they don't need the religion they hold on to itself. They may want it, they may like it, but if they didn't think they could be moral without it, they wouldn't have it. Which makes it a poison and as you said a "distortion" which makes it a needless distraction. And not just a needless distraction, one in our entire human history has had very deadly results.
"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
somebody else can shovel all this shit if they want. asininity gives me a headache.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
THIS JUST IN FROM CNN, NO SHIT SHERLOCK! And religions are sexist institutions, so why would India's Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs be any different?
Kashmire "Liberal Muslim" yes, so if Islam was the solution to that conflict, why did it go south? See this is stupid, and also proving my point. Good intent this Muslim had he wrapped in his religion "Look at me I wont hurt you, I want to include". Again "distorts" as you put it, his inherent compassion. I am sure other Muslims there didn't like him chumming up with the outsiders and they too also found their morality in the same Koran he read.
Just like Jews infight over getting along with Palestinians and Palistinians infight over getting along with Jews. Religion is poison because it DISTORTS us from the reality that both the good and or bad we do has nothing to do with religion in reality. But because people belief this shit, it causes us to be devided.
Who else called religion poison? The Late, and capitalist filthy rich author, who wrote "God Is Not Great, how religion POISONS everything". And in that book Hitchens equated god to a "Celestial North Korea". Are you stupidly going to claim he, or even I would value a dictator like Mao? I am sure you also know Hitchens wrote a book about Thomas Jefferson "Author of America". Oh and Jefferson also was not too kind to clergy or pulpit politics. Would you like me to give you some Jefferson quotes on religon?
A few months ago when I merely refected the words of Hitchens who wrote that book in 06, if I remember correctly you said "who is that"? Don't lecture me about not doing homework "TEACH"
"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
Oh shut up you fucking moron. You have less sense than the average theist. You are solid proof that religion is less poisonous than uneducated idiots with lots to say yet no substance in what they say.
Sexism existed before religion, and exists without religion even today. Religion doesn't have a monopoly on prejudice. Yet another thing your existence proves.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Yeah like Hitchens was a shining example of morality
i would mind, because i know very little about jefferson, which is why i don't throw his name around. unlike you, who are ignorant as fuck about hinduism, buddhism, sikhism, islam, etc., yet you continue to toss those terms around as if you knew shit. i bet you don't even know what a fucking sikh is.
yup, i don't keep up much with hitchens. guilty. i don't keep up much with lindsay lohan either. which, once again, is why i don't throw hitchens' name around.
see how easy it is to just admit you're not informed about something and leave it at that?
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
In the interests of a subjective christian viewpoint, I asked my mum - Did your god create morality? Are unbelievers moral?
"No, I think morality was always there, because it is part of God's character, and He was always there. He made us like him so we had morality in our souls, but at the fall man decided not to take notice of that.
Undoubtedly every culture has its own morality but putting aside the culture of each particular group, it's obvious that people who are not Christians can behave morally. You only have to look around you. But in communities where the morals only come from within the community and not from a standard outside of humans, the standard might be lowered because it is only measured by itself.
I don't know if you'll know what I mean, but if in an exam you aim at getting 50% you might get that, but if you aim at 100% you're likely to get more. Pretend you're a Christian - God's standard of perfection is higher than man's; nobody is perfect but those who are aiming at God's perfection might attain a higher standard than those who are only aiming to do better than the man next-door.
But on top of that Christians have God living in them to change their hearts and minds, so that they long for that higher morality and can come closer to it because He is helping and changing them. (But no-one does attain to it in this life.)"
So mum doesn't claim her religion invented morality but she claims the god her fellow believers invented created it, which seems to me to be both the same thing and not the same thing. The Judaeo-christian writings certainly appear to attach morality to the god they invented in the garden of eden, yet at the same time they separate humans from it. Interestingly, in the case of mum, she doesn't argue unbelievers cannot be moral. They just can't be as moral as christians - an assertion not borne out by the data.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
well, of course they believe their god invented it, and it's precisely because of that that the monotheistic religions believe all humans carry morality within themselves, due simply to their being creations of god. christians stress that point because they claim it proves that, deep down, all humans know they are guilty before god and therefore in need of the grace only christ can bring. speaking from a strictly theological-pragmatic point of view, morality is irrelevant in christianity, especially protestant christianity, because it has no soteriological value. no amount of morality can ever save the sinner because god demands nothing short of perfection. one does not become a christian to become more moral: one becomes a christian to avoid the wrath of god. christians do tend to be more moral than the rest of humanity (once again, i'm speaking from their perspective) because, a., they are constantly under the refining influence of the holy spirit and, b., it is necessary for them to be effective witnesses.
judaism emphasizes practical morality and ethics much more than christianity because the jews claim no exclusivity for their religion. for them, to serve god is to be moral, regardless of whether it "saves" one or not (the christian concept of salvation is utterly foreign to judaism). as for islam, it also teaches that a specific type of morality is the only appropriate way of serving god. they claim exclusivity for their religion, but only on the theoretical level, i.e. they possess the only pure revelation of god but one need not be a muslim to enter paradise, and not all muslims are guaranteed paradise. the main difference between judaism and islam on the subject of morality is that muslims believe in a final, static, "sealed" revelation from god, which includes morality and moral law, whereas jews believe god's revelation is eternally unfolding ("the talmud is never finished) and thus morality and ethics can and do change and evolve. the christian (particularly protestant) view of morality is much closer to islam than judaism.
still, all of these religions believe that religion cannot exist without humans to follow it. even islam, with its retroactive "islamification" of OT figures, believe islam existed from a definite point in time, i.e. the creation of adam, the first prophet. morality, however, is an eternal idea in the mind of god, so therefore it has no beginning in time. mainstream islam even goes so far as to teach that the quran is not a creation of god, but a part of god himself, and is therefore eternal. religious jews believe basically the same thing about torah (both oral and written). i think most christians would say the bible is not eternal because it was written not by god but by humans under divine inspiration, but still, the ideas in it, morality among them, are part of god and therefore eternal.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Cool. If I burn a quran I'm burning allah himself.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
yeah, that's one of the reasons they get so pissed off. while burning bibles might get a slight rise from jews and christians, it rarely sends them into a murderous frenzy.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
If only.
'Morality', IOW guidelines on how we feel we should treat each other and respond to each others words and actions , originated and evolved in the workings of the collective human mind in the context of our social species, and became incorporated and combined in religious doctrines. As religious ideas developed, they in turn tended to strongly influence our moral thinking, sometimes positively, sometimes not. This allowed irrelevant superstitions to influence our moral thinking, 'poisoning' it, as Hitchens maintained. It also allowed many primitive and arguably harmful practices, such as ritual infant circumcision, to become 'protected' from questioning and modification.
So just because some bad idea may not have originated in religious doctrine, that does not mean religion is not contributing to and perpetuating the problem.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
replace "religion" in that sentence with "nationalism," "political instability," "fascism," "medical malpractice," "activism," "cultural philistinism," "enlightenment rationalism," "television," "immigration policy," "racism," "the news media," "angry rioters," "drought," etc., etc., and you get a statement with no less "truth." absolutely everything that comes out of the human animal, considered from any angle, has potential for positive or negative. not only that, to say religions cannot develop, grow out of violence and childish superstition, and become more sophisticated is blatant nonsense. a quick look at anything by mircea eliade should be enough to convince one of that. it's just, like anything else in nature, not all religions progress at the same rate, nor is each one's rate ever steady or beyond regress.
neither i nor any other atheist on this site am proposing giving religion a "pass." what i am proposing is not going the opposite extreme of trying to lay the vast majority of humanity's woes, past and present, at religion's feet, indirectly when directly doesn't work. if we become a goddamn john birch society when it comes to religion, then, just like seeing communist spies in every mailbox, we'll begin seeing the sinister hand of religion behind every firebombing, every violent demonstration--shit, eventually every fucking traffic jam--that ever haunts our world.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Bingo. People who blame everything on religion can't see the forest for the trees. Tradition is far more responsible for perpetuating things most decent people would consider immoral than religion. Hell, even religion itself is just a tradition.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
But when we are considering bad ideas about what should be regarded as morally right and wrong, religion is far more fundamental than all those other things in determining how we should go about addressing "humanity's woes", at least for those who have bought into it, because it claims to be the ultimate moral standard, as well as claiming it provides the source of all 'meaning' and 'purpose' in our lives.
Studies have shown that societies with high 'religiosity' tend to have poorer societal health - more crime, violence, etc.
I certainly don't suggest we try to purge religious belief from society by punitive measures, just that we should work to show there can be other, better ways to meet the emotional needs that religion seems to address, more directly based in reality than superstitions.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Religion is no different from most cultures in that regard. Most people even. Take away all religion and you'll still get people claiming to have all the answers and to do things the right way.
Even the binding factor that makes religion so dangerous isn't limited to religion. It can be a state, or anything that has some kind of authority. Even celebrities can form massive groups of followers who hang on their every word.
Religions should be challenged not because they are wrong, but because they are almost always non-inclusive, and they wield great power. Because if you won't buy the bullshit you are automatically an enemy. A dangerous enemy that should be eliminated, by any means possible, lest you destroy the fragile ground they walk on. And in many cases they can pull it off.
Religion needs to have its authority hamstung. It needs to be completely separated from power. It needs to have advantages like tax free status removed forever. Once the overhanging authority which gives it the wealth and power it needs to be able to influence government and bind the masses together is gone, it will wither and become as irrelevant as conspiracy theories and psychics to the majority.
It isn't a poison. The people who wield it are the poison.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Now FEMINISM. That is something that needs to be addressed. That shit is poisoning both sides believers AND non-believers.
Watch Thunderf00t's take on it. Love this guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWxAljFlb-c
theoretically, sure. but you know as well as i do that the vast majority of humanity is as selective of what they take from religious moral codes as anything else, depending on their own preconceptions--usually depending on what they already want. the majority of christians have no problem condemning homosexuality because the majority of them are not homosexual, and if we exaggerate "sins" like homosexuality, which have the mystique due to unfamiliarity, we can trivialize far more prevalent sins like adultery, dishonesty, stealing, etc. in other words, it's scapegoating or smokescreening, which religion neither invented nor perfected.
and? come on, bob, that's beneath you. you know there is no necessary correlation there, and even if there is, it could be the other way round, i.e. religion could be an antidote to the suffering of the people in those societies rather than its cause. however, as with everything else, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.
for some people, sure, there may be better ways. for others, no. the emotional needs met by religion are infinite, and they can and are already met by other means, depending on the subject. religion is at base an aesthetic choice, albeit the vast majority of people are not conscious of that, and, indeed, would emphatically deny it. if my emotional need is to feel my life has a purpose, it eventually comes down to my aesthetic predispositions whether i choose to fulfill that with religion or politics or membership in a lodge or science or my career, or a mix of all of the above.
it has been the malaise of modern man, ever since at least the middle ages, that we feel we are somehow betraying something or "cheating" if we don't swallow our ideologies whole-hog. i can't remember how often i've read the word "cherry-picking" used polemically by both theists and atheists on this site. to my mind, cherry-picking is one of the most rational things we can do: it shows the rational faculty at work. we take what we feel is beneficial and leave the rubbish. one of the pieces of rubbish from the new atheist movement i choose to throw away is the dogmatic assertion that "reality" is nothing more than what science can reveal to us and everthing else is "superstition."
if i choose apply ayurveda in the face of modern medicine in an attempt to cure my cancer (i don't know if ayurveda claims to be able to cure cancer, i'm merely speaking hypothetically), that is indeed superstition because it's applying "spiritual" insight to a purely physical problem. however, if i choose to pursue mystical union with the brahman according to advaita vedanta, science at least no place in calling that superstition because it is outside the pale of science, whether scientists like to hear that or not. the great dicta of the upanishads, "everything is brahman," "i am the brahman," etc., and other religious utterances about being, the nature of reality, morality, etc., have absolutely nothing to do with science, and to argue otherwise cheapens both science and religion. furthermore, if i choose to let my religious practices inform my concept of morality, that is not "superstition." in fact, it's utterly unreasonable to expect me to do otherwise. it might be considered harmful to society and challenged as such, but my thought life, including my subjective "spiritual" experiences, are no less a part of my reality than what my senses perceive.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I doubt any sane Americans would turn back the clock on the the United States Constitution because Jefferson owned slaves and had children with Sally Hemmings, and Franklin made Clintion look like a boy scout.
Hitchens boozed it up and smoked like a Chimney, so why are you not bitching about Hendrix?
"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
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that like men, some women project, even on the left a puritanical idealism. I do know women who say "strippers are bad and porn is bad" and when I merely ask "IN WHAT CONTEXT" they flip out and want it all banned in every context. EVEN ON THE LEFT.
But no, if we are going to say women have equal rights, then they should have the same rights to cover up or expose (with consent) as any man. They have the right to compete with their bodies and or be the bread winners as men have dominated.
"Feminism" is a "depends" argument for me. I don't mind you wanting consent or competing for power. I do mind if a women flips out because I say I like boobs. Liking boobs is not the same as saying you are going to grab them without permission.
Men also protect "Manlyism" on other men. Far too much of humanity says "men" do this or that" and also stupidly think that when they are openly sexual that is ok, but when a woman is, they are a slut or tramp.
I am a man, a whimp of a man physically and a very sensitive man. If women want "feminism" to mean anything then it should be as simple as "it is ok to compete with men, and ok to difine yourself as yourself".
"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
probably because nobody here considers hendrix an authority on anything.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Because Hendrix wasn't an immoral war monger
Jefferson also was not too kind to people who supported a strong federal government. Would you like me to give you some Jefferson quotes on government? Jefferson was, after all, an expert on government- not religion. Funny how you like to pick and choose which Jefferson quotes to worship, while completely ignoring the ideology the man fought to enact his entire life. Why is Jefferson such an indisputable authority on religion to you, but not on politics? He was after all, a politician, not a theologian.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
yup, and basically a nut to boot. his presidency isn't generally considered a success. if i had to compare him to any modern figure, it damn sure wouldn't be hitchens or dawkins but someone more like gene scott, despite jefferson's poorly-formed deism.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
No-one gets to make up their own rules (dare I say it 'double meaning') --
.. due to the hardness of your hearts ..
One of the series of wives of the infamous tutor monarch Henry the VII, dubbed as a 'Rose without a thorn (a.k.a. -- Kitty Howard)', supposed she went screaming through the halls, crying for mercy after the Thomas Culpeper affair. When the damaged and mad King Henry didn't like the one, cause to or not; a executioner from france can wield & provide a nifty solution, (if you're capable of such an act), frankly leaves this shutter down your spine, highlights the hardness of heart.
See :: Comment Image --
-- -- --
And, Hey Looky --
See :: Uploaded Pic
Edit (Edit) :: It's "scandalous"
Tudors, not tutors.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
"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
It's his best post in months.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I think you're either thinking of the wrong person, or using the wrong word.
Hitchens was not a war monger. He did support the latest war in Iraq (but opposed the previous one); his stance on this specific war should not be described as war-mongering.. in all conflicts he had carefully thought-out and defensible positions as to why he supported or opposed military intervention. He was a complex man who could not be pigeon-holed into general terms such as neo-conservative. He had more morality in his little finger than most people demonstrate in their entire lives, and he based a lot of his views on first hand experience of what he'd seen (e.g. Saddam Hussein's genocide of the Kurdish people, Bosnian slaughter, waterboarding as torture - which he subjected himself to and subsequently changed his views on).
He didn't think it out very well. Anyone who supported the latest war in Iraq was an idiot who ignored the facts. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and toppling Saddam just gave al qaida free reign and simultaneously removed a threat for Iran. It accomplished the exact opposite of what any rational person would want to see happen. And it was disgustingly predictable that it would do so.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Right person and right wording