fucktoyprincess
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
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.
Okay, I think what I wrote was not that the distillation should be simple, but that the distillation should make sense. In other words, a comprehensible distillation of relativity should make sense. And if one can't come up with a distillation that makes sense, then I wonder about whether it makes sense at all. While "the devil may be in the details", I do feel religions ought to be able to have a sensical distillation. I hope this clarifies a bit. I was not necessarily favoring simplicity, as much as trying to encourage "sensibility".
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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.
Now, I feel you are oversimplifying (and how often have you been accused of that?) But seriously, part of my point is that the deeper meaning has no fixed context. And therefore, we are simply back to why, or how, any given religion should have any greater weight as we try to elucidate deeper meaning. And I believe we can explore deeper meaning without requiring religion. And, even if one is elucidating deeper meaning, how does one deal with the fact that most religions do treat women as property (incontrovertible in my mind)? How does one elucidate a deeper meaning of "women cannot be property" without, essentially rejecting the religious text. And if we reject the text, are we elucidating deeper meaning of the text, or simply searching elsewhere for guidance. I feel we should be searching elsewhere for guidance.
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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.
Okay, I grant you that perhaps some religions encourage one to question and think - but again, here I would argue that this questioning and thinking is still meant to occur within a framework that is considered sacred. In other words, I don't really think that any religion has at its core, "you can question all of it and reject what you don't like, and even reject all of it if you want".
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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.
I think we can conduct the process without religious input. I don't deny the need for a process as a society to determine laws. And as a society, we are free to pick and choose. But religious belief and doctrine do not work that way within their own structure. And to the extent that individual believers feel they can pick and choose what aspects of their religion to follow, I simply feel that this is not being religious. So I am making a distinction here between "within the religion" and "within the society". As a society we can consider many approaches and determine what works. What I reject, is the religious telling society that we must follow the religious approach because it is the only acceptable approach, especially, when the religious want to impose some aspects, but not all.
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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.
I think what I am trying to say is that a vegan who explicitly states that they want a vegan diet imposed garners my respect for consistency. A vegan who says everyone must stop eating dairy, because my beliefs tell me so, but I don't care what others do about eating animals, doesn't garner my respect. One is either a vegan, or not. And one either thinks veganism should be part of the political process or not. But the picking and choosing of only some aspects of veganism to be imposed on everyone seems weird to me.
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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.
Okay, agreed. At a very micro level, we are all just voting our preferences. Again, I refer to my vegan example above. What irks me more is people who claim to be something, but then break that down into pieces and push some pieces of the agenda but not others. It does not hold up to any rational scrutiny. And if we are going to make choices as a society, I see no other alternative then to have some sense of "rationality" around the process. Otherwise, what are we doing?
I agree that the source for preferences "can" come from any source, but I prefer it when people have actually thought through "why" they support something rather than just taking it from religious doctrine. In order for us to have meaningful dialogue as a society around any issue, it requires people being willing to think through things from multiple perspectives. Most of my solutions to contemporary problems come from fashioning something that tries to take into account many different perspectives and then stepping back to assess what is best for society at large. I may be mistaken, but I do not feel that deep religious belief enables that type of approach. Many political questions have already been answered by religion. The problems occur when contemporary society is at odds with those answers. Obviously we have no problem when there is no challenge. But when there is, it seems to me the religious viewpoint on that particular matter might have outlived its usefulness. But given that religion was structured as an overall framework (that was thought through and meant to work together just like a statutory code), you can't jettison just pieces of it, and claim to still be in the framework. I don't find that particularly inspiring or compelling as a defense of religion i.e, we just keep what suits us, and that is good enough.
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RE: Now God intended rape to happen. - 
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