Pope Jumps Into Politics and Science.

[GIThruster]

. . .any systematic injustice is indefensible, no matter how small.

I agree but people judging groups across time often make the mistake of failure to note, the role of the Rule of Law in social development around the world. Without Rule of Law, women are always oppressed because the alternative to Rule of Law is Might Makes Right, and women are not as strong as men. It's surprising how many oddities of history are explained by this simple observation. We have egalitarian conditions (for the most part, but still much to improve) only because our law permits and promotes the liberation of women.

[GIThruster]

This woman is terrific. "What should be the dream of all humanity"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFN8ahYN1b0

[mvanwink5]

"Western culture is not innocent of misogyny"
I'm not intending to single any one statement out for special reason, but to challenge all thoughts about a 'culture' or groups. So, please forgive me for singling this one out. For freedom to work, each individual is responsible for their own actions. To indict a person because he/she is Muslim, etc goes against this. Politics and Gubermant is all about groups and group warfare. There are no such things as black rights, women rights, Gay rights, etc. There are individual rights. That is the key and salient concept behind the 'American' phenomena.

What is important is not what religion person X has but whether individual rights are violated or not violated by person X. Failure to analyze in those terms is a giant step backwards into no man's land of group warfare. It is the only way to cut the Gordian knot of never ending total war. There is no such thing, then, as 'social injustice,' that is a totally BS term.

As I see it, obfuscating this key idea is the biggest threat, not threat to one 'culture' or another.

[Diogenes]

They will try, but in the long term they've got nothing to offer but myth.

And babies. Fecundity is destiny.

[Diogenes]

Almost all Muslim women can only hold the hope of being a second-class citizen at best. And in every extreme Muslim culture they can only hold hope of being a slave at best. We get to see moderate Muslims and they tend to have acceptable life but no matter which Muslim culture you look at the female was always lesser no matter what roll she held in the household: until the Muslim culture can promote equality and women's self as their own patrons is something that needs to be avoided.

Why? Why should women be treated as equal? From what basis do you argue such a thing?

[Diogenes]

. . .any systematic injustice is indefensible, no matter how small.

I agree but people judging groups across time often make the mistake of failure to note, the role of the Rule of Law in social development around the world. Without Rule of Law, women are always oppressed because the alternative to Rule of Law is Might Makes Right, and women are not as strong as men. It's surprising how many oddities of history are explained by this simple observation. We have egalitarian conditions (for the most part, but still much to improve) only because our law permits and promotes the liberation of women.

I believe this notion of "equality" is a byproduct of Christianity. Same thing with abolition of Slavery.


There is a REASON why the Islamic religion does not support this idea of "equality." It is a pecking order Patriarchy from the lowest slave up to Allah.

Their fundamental assumptions are different than ours.

[mvanwink5]

This woman is terrific. "What should be the dream of all humanity"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFN8ahYN1b0

A very powerful statement. Thanks. Institutionalized violence based on religion is tragic especially because of its scope. The long term solution can only be through education and that requires freedom from threat or violence. Honesty is the only way to cleanse this atrocity.

[Diogenes]

What is important is not what religion person X has but whether individual rights are violated or not violated by person X.

Where you go wrong in your thinking is the failure to grasp that it is a fundamental REQUIREMENT of their religion to violate these individual rights of which you speak. They cannot be true to their religion without being contrary to yours. (Or the dominant social foundation from whence your ideas come.)


Incompatible foundational assumptions cannot be reconciled. One must win. You think it ought to be yours and that they should suppress theirs.

[Diogenes]

This woman is terrific. "What should be the dream of all humanity"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFN8ahYN1b0

A very powerful statement. Thanks. Institutionalized violence based on religion is tragic especially because of its scope.

That is your cultural bias speaking. Institutional violence is only a tragedy in your eyes. In the eyes of Islam, it is not a tragedy at all, but is instead a wonderful blessing.

The long term solution can only be through education and that requires freedom from threat or violence. Honesty is the only way to cleanse this atrocity.

You mean they need to be "educated" to think as you do. Something tells me that isn't going to work. They reject your premises because they begin from different foundational assumptions. Assumptions that can only be rejected by rejecting the religion upon which such foundational assumptions are based.


Again, you would force them to chose your foreign ideas over their religion. I wonder how that's going to work out?

[mvanwink5]

D, there you go again with the idea that murder is undefined, that the idea is arbitrary. You can believe all you want that jumping off a cliff is safe, but reality matters. Even primates have the ability to understand the idea of injustice. If injustice truly is arbitrary, how can that be? I realize you have your mind set on this matter though.

Belief is one thing, practice is the issue. Institutionalizing violence against women by laws that police enforce, that is practice.

[GIThruster]

What is important is not what religion person X has but whether individual rights are violated or not violated by person X.

How very PC of you. I think though, you mistake the place of government as if it were the most important issue in life. It is not.

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilites, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

[Diogenes]

D, there you go again with the idea that murder is undefined, that the idea is arbitrary.

It is statements like this that make me shake my head and wonder why I even try. When the "LAW" says you may kill, it is *NOT* murder. What the Islamists do in their countries are legal killings.

You can believe all you want that jumping off a cliff is safe, but reality matters. Even primates have the ability to understand the idea of injustice.

But humans are so smart that they can dream up religions which conflict with the natural ideas of injustice. This idea of a God and spirituality is, i'll wager, above the mental capacities of most monkeys. Even if it is not, how would they communicate such ideas to others so as to enforce compliance?

If injustice truly is arbitrary, how can that be? I realize you have your mind set on this matter though.

Yes, *I* am the completely unreasonable person on this forum.

Belief is one thing, practice is the issue. Institutionalizing violence against women by laws that police enforce, that is practice.

But where do these ideas come from that this should not be done? As has been pointed out above, the Western world has been pretty misogynistic over the Centuries, and it has only been a comparatively recent phenomena in which we have desisted.


What principle or philosophy informs us that we should treat women as equals? Surely you don't think this idea is universal? It wasn't even universal in our own culture until recently.

[mvanwink5]

Very interesting quote. Thanks.

Actually, at least it's my view, PC is a progressive tool used to shut people up or obfuscate, and in that sense should be read as 'Progressively Correct.' For instance, the youtube clip you linked to is not PC, however, the clip points to violence institutionalized on the scale of a whole country. The root of the problem is belief, but unless you advocate Orwellian thought police, the root can't be the issue. Indeed, without freedom to think, how can errors be dealt with? So, no, the problem is practice, but call that what you want.

[mvanwink5]

Yes, D, I know you think that ethics are arbitrary, it doesn't make it so, and there aren't enough words or time to convince you otherwise.

[Diogenes]

Yes, D, I know you think that ethics are arbitrary, it doesn't make it so, and there aren't enough words or time to convince you otherwise.

I do NOT think that ethics are arbitrary. What I think is that not everyone in the world shares *YOUR* ideas about what constitute ethics. That the source of their ethical ideas is different from your own, and that your ideas are irreconcilable with theirs.


I think you believe that *they* should just adopt yours, because *yours* are the correct ideas as anyone can plainly see.


I also think that (as usual) the people with whom I am arguing are once again failing to grasp my point because they already know they are right, and so can't be bothered to give my point any serious consideration.