Aswad
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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
And on its surface, while what tweak says may be simplified, it presents, at least to my mind (ha!) what is so troubling to me about religion to begin with. If we can't reduce religion to an essence that makes sense, then, quite simply, it doesn't make sense.
I can do the Hollywood thing and reduce Relativity to "E=mc²", but that would (a) be oversimplifying to the point of inanity, and (b) miss the whole question of "which Relativity?" altogether. I can also do a number of reductions on whatever topic I run into. Earlier today, I spoke with a doctor about the melody that a face is, in the interplay of partial matches from competing filters of different selectivities in the underlying templating system, where the average person hears only a single note and often doesn't even perceive it as musical. Such notions emerge from reducing the entropy of thought by refactoring every cognitive process and datum I've encountered into a set of atomic, irreducible (to me) nodes that can be arrranged in arbitrarily complex graphs and flows. I've applied this to religion, too, which reduces quite well, into something quite sensible. Here's the conundrum, though: (1) How do I, in finite time, talk you through that process so you can see the result, when your starting point is extremely distant from where in the space of thought I wish to bring you, when there is resistance both to doing any of the work for me (even though capable of it) and insistance on opposition? (2) Assuming the former is irresolvable, how do I stand idly by when you reject something on the grounds that you have declined to understand it?
The totality of life could be reduced to "Fuck. Have kids. Die. Recurse." if we cared to be very simplistic, but that doesn't give a good idea of what life is, or what it can be, or anything else meaningful. Similarly, religion can be reduced as far as priests take it when they pander to the masses, or even as far as some atheists take it when they wish to disparage it, but I fail to see where this is- in the final and utterly reduced analysis- any different from people wishing to reduce "black" to "dumb". There's a core of truth to either (Sub-Saharan Africa has an average IQ that passes for moderate retardation in the West, for instance), but it gets taken to an extreme that we don't tolerate when it comes to certain things (e.g. race), but absolutely tolerate with other things (e.g. obesity, religion). That's what simplicity is, at its heart, and I find it somewhat discouraging and disappointing when I see it in people that are usually quite enlightened.
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Whether people feel a need for religion, whether it serves a useful purpose in some people's lives is quite a different question in my mind (and one we've addressed on these boards before).
Quite. I've not touched on it here. Well, it hasn't been the thrust, anyway.
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let's take one example from one religion - the Bible suggests that if a woman is raped she should be put to death - caring about women victims in the rape equation is not something most religions do
There's plenty of misogyny in any doctrine that has passed through a patriarchal stage, where weak men are allowed to thrive and to oppress women and thereby all of humanity. This one, however, is more a question of people interpreting it superficially, much as you have just done. On the surface, yes, this is about capital punishment for levelling an allegation of rape when the alleged rape happened inside a densely populated area and with the accuser not calling for help during the event. That is not, however, the deeper meaning. If the deeper meaning is not read, how can one hope to implement the underlying principle in a different context, let alone after the thing has been mangled by misogynistic pricks throughout the years?
A rough outline of a very simplistic transposition to a modern context, confined to the passage in question, might go like this: Men should not rape the women of their own people, should prevent others from doing so, should intervene if it happens, and after it has happened should investigate, try, convict and sentence the perpetrator, then carry out the sentence, which should be the strictest conventional punishment on the books. Women should take precautions to avoid rape, should call out and resist, even at risk to themselves, should secure what evidence they can (e.g. clawing), and afterwards they should promptly have a rape kit done, report it, press charges, give testimony and generally do their part to make sure the perpetrator doesn't get a chance to do it to someone else. In this context, when one raises allegations of rape without having tended to these civic duties, one should face the same punishment as the accused would if the charges are determined to be false by the courts.
Lo and behold, that's not so far from modern thought as it seemed, is it?
The main difference seems to be the solidarity requirement.
Of course, one can simplify it to "stone women that get raped", and many choose to do so, just as anything else can be simplified to an absurd extent. The fault, then, lies in the implementation of the idea, not the idea itself. Unfortunately, some older texts aren't quite as verbose as me (and I'm still being pretty brief, simple and superficial, myself), and describe an intermediate stage in the progression from an idea or principle to a concrete instance of it. This requires some thinking to be applied (an implied imperative of the "in Our image" thing), but many refuse to think, whether they are Abrahamists of some denomination, or critics thereof. Directing criticisms at what is at fault- in this case, humans, not ideas- would seem to be the best application of thinking for the critics, but since the fault is in them, too, that usually doesn't happen. Instead, the needle in the other guy's eye is pointed out, or- more commonly- the impaired vision the other guy has as a result of his needle.
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So Mourdock's comment, in my mind, reflects a true understanding and acceptance of what his religion teaches him.
In my mind, it represents a literal-minded piece of mental acrobatics to avoid the effort to truly question and think as his religion tries to teach him.
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But the one thing I cannot fault this man for is being honest.
On this we can agree.
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Because so many "believers" are. They pick and choose what they want to believe.
If you replace the word "believers" with the word "humans", we can agree here, too. The need to replace one with the other, that's my point. He sees it from his perspective, with flawed vision. You see it from your perspective, but crucially with the same flaw in your own vision. The shared flaw is where "human" comes into the picture. You see that his perception is flawed because you see something other than what he sees, but do not extrapolate from this what to attribute to your differences and what to attribite to your shared humanity.
Take it up to the meta level. Never just consider the product. Consider the process. Consider the method applied in the process. Consider the theory on which is based the method that is applied in the process. And so forth. This is what Lockheed-Martin did for software, and a direct result has been that they're the only company that has been rated Systems, Capability and Maturity Model level 5, their products (in the software branch, I mean) keeping a standard that exceeds every other. I have encountered nothing to suggest this does not also hold true for thoughts. Alice recognizing that Bob made a mistake isn't much use if she doesn't recognize why Bob made that mistake and eliminate the causative problem from herself, as well.
We all pick and choose. Being aware of it, we can try to counteract it in ourselves, and to make others aware of their own problem. Since our brains are all but hardwired to work that way, it's something most of us will need to have pointed out and will need a significant effort to adequately counteract.
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But I have been on these boards before challenging the "pick and choose" approach that most people have towards religion.
I have a pretty extensive history of doing the same here. That's not my problem with your perspective.
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If one only picks what suits, how can one questions what others choose to keep and choose to reject?
I hope you will pose yourself this same question now.
I'm not saying I'm necessarily right, but I hope I've made a case that I might be.
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In other words, religion then becomes a completely private, individual thing that should have zero impact on politics and poltiical decisions.
Bullshit. My feelings about animal rights are a private, individual thing, as are my preferences in kink and my thoughts about the value of individual freedom versus social harmony etc., but all three of those have- and should have- an impact on politics and political decisions, as those are about what compromises we as a community reach as regards our views and preferences. In politics, you deal with me as a person, a package deal, and if you try to dictate what parts of that package can have representation, you deny me representation, and then we're done with politics and on to something else. Exactly what, I'm not sure, but I am certain it will benefit neither of us.
A vegan may well choose to attempt to impose veganism through politics, which is no different from religion.
I may choose to attempt to further individual freedom through politics, again no different.
Where I think you and me have common ground is, we both seem to want politics not to impose too many straitjackets, but rather to help people from having them imposed by the majorities around them. Since we have common ground in that, we can cooperate politically and reach good compromises that secure us freedom and independence from each other. But it still comes down to a preference about how to use power, which is the basis of all politics. Without sharing that understanding, our common ground is just a temporary shared cause, a conflux or coincidence, not true commonality.
The unfortunate side effect of this is that we must tolerate that others have different preferences, whether their preference is socialism, libertarianism, Sharia, or even the crap the WBC is pushing. The alternative, though, is worse: a conflict that almost inevitably ends up with civil war. We coexist and cooperate, or we fight, that seems to be the way of things. Communists are a great case in point.
I know atheists that want to ban abortion on secular grounds. I also know people that want to ban it on religious grounds. Whence that preference derives isn't important to me. My own preference is pro-choice. The political process is about whose preferences win out. You can't pick and choose (oh, the irony) what preferences you admit into politics without being a democratic hypocrite, which I'm convinced you don't want to be.
You can, however, vote your own preferences.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Now God intended rape to happen. - 
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