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Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 3:40pmSanction this postReply
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I am trying to balance the principals of objectivism, with my own  ethos.  It is my firm belief that all children should be educated independently of religious influence.  I am strongly against religious schools of any demonimation and feel that the clean slate of childrens minds should never be tainted with such influence.
Religious teachings can be potentially damaging to the objectives of  education that surely is their right?
I am not suggesting that children are shrouded from the existence of religion, moreover, whilst they are at school, they are protected from parental and social pressure of comformity.  Essentially, I would like to see all religion banned from schools until the age, of say 16?  Then, if that is the direction that a teenager would like to choose, they could be free to explore any religious doctrine (fallacy) of their choice?

I am not denying the rights of people to their beliefs, only trying to protect the rights of children from the dictations of such.  As for the rights of people to set up schools for the teachings of religion, I am not questioning this, however I do believe that attendence of these schools can only be once a child has completed x-amount of years in a religious free environment.

Am I on the right path of objectivism or is my belief denying others of the very freedom that I desperately want available for young minds? 


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Post 1

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 7:41pmSanction this postReply
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hahah, demonination.

Well, I'm afraid most people won't agree with your reformative ideas, but they are good in principle.  In fact, they sound like what my wishes for my child(ren) will be.  And to answer your final question, I'd have to go with the latter possibility.

And as a teenager (16!), I am familiar with the idiocy religion spawns, but, I am more comfortable with stupid people remaining stupid and believing in Jesus.  I find that if kids are going to find the truth, then it's going to happen regardless of whether or not  legislation intercedes.  In this case, people will just become atheists later in life, and from my personal experience, I do not think, "Damn! I wish I'd been an atheist sooner!"  Establishing this belief is natural in one's intellectual growth, and if you force it, it just won't be a genuine or as personal, I think, and you'll be met with so much opposition...

Anyways, the most my child will hear about religion is: "[Me as a father speaking to my six- or seven-year old.son or daughter]  Terry, some people believe that this thing called God lives up above the clouds and controls things on Earth.  They say he has rule over people and trees, and the sun and moon, and the weather, and lottery numbers, and things like that.  They even believe that if they do things that upset God, then they will live in agony in this fantasy-land for eternity.   Does that sound right?"

Little terry:  (s)he'll probably say, "I dunno....maybe."
me:  "well, do you see people rising from death, or the Earth stopping in its orbit?"
terry: "uhh no."
me:  "but does it sound like it'd be a good explanation for natural things, like leaves turning colors, and thunderstorms, and gravity?"
terry: "hmmm..."
me: "ok, think about that.  now go play!"
terry: "Otay dad!"  *scampers off*

hopefully this will sink in (neh), and hopefully terry will show some more thought (not likely) but you get the idea.


Post 2

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 8:10pmSanction this postReply
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If you please allow me to play "devils advocate" for one second though, I would appreciate it. If your child[ren] are in a school that teaches religion as well. Oh lets just say Catholicism, then at least you know what you are up against. The other scenario could be that a teacher is open to any subjective whim as an answer to important questions. So the teacher could be a complete wako the otherway.

Child: "What is sex?"
Teacher: "It is when the trees meet the sky and mommy has a baby"

No this is an absolutely atrocious example but you get the point. What I think "peopled_diagram" is in search for too is an objective type of school or at least an honest one. If you open the gates you just do not know what you are up against. So at least in Caned N Ables response he knew what he was up against and how he can handle it as a parent.

Just a thought. You got me thinking about it though!!!

Thanks,
JML

Post 3

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 1:18amSanction this postReply
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To answer your question, let me repost a reply that I just made on this very topic, but in another topic string, regarding what religion really is:

The word religion seems to be related to the latin word religare, which means "to restrain" or "to tie back"...

In other words, religion means bondage.  Those who love religion, are into the kink of psychological bondage... both binding others, and being bound themselves.

I have always been tireless in my proclamation that religion is nothing more than a covert and dishonest form of Bondage/Discipline/Sado-Masochism (BDSM for short). 

Is it any wonder, then, with this omnipresent and unmistakable undercurrent of the love of dominance and submission in religion, that nuns beat children with rulers, bishops love to lie prostrate, and priests molest choir boys?  They may not overtly know that religion is about kink, but they sure feel it... and eventually act on it.

And eventually, that philosophical bondage translates into real physical abuse.  Why kid ourselves any longer... We should no longer allow religion to lurk in the shadows as a legitimate entity; it must be identified before the entire planet Earth as the kink it really is. 

All religion should be reduced down to the proper level of just a kink lifestyle... And after that, if people freely choose to live their lives by the laws of kink, then that's their business, and they can't come crying to me.

Religion, as a kink, should only be allowed between consenting adults... If two consenting adults want to lock their bedroom doors and play the game of "master and servant", then that's their business. 

But children should be disallowed in religion; it's a form of child abuse... it's at least psychological abuse, and frequently becomes physical and even sexual.  Religion, being kink, should only be allowable, as I've already said, between consenting adults. 

Religion is not true ethics or rationality... it's not a legitimate way to raise any child.  Any parent who attempts to sneak his or her child into any religion's house of kink, should be found guilty of child abuse and penalized to the fullest extent of the law. 


Post 4

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 4:08amSanction this postReply
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Banning religious schools would be an initiation of force - but equally, denying a childs freedom to believe what he wants is child abuse. I think you would agree that children have the right to freedom of religion as much as adults do, but that freedom is often denied by fundamentalist Christian parents. Legally, I would advocate making it illegal to force a child above a certain age, against his will, to attend church.

Post 5

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 6:32amSanction this postReply
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Philip, hello. Good points. The flip side of course is the child who at a certain enquiring age embraces christianity, or buddhism, or some such, independent of *indoctrination*. Those of us who are parents have a sometimes tough job of nurturing true independence in our children, even when it conflicts with our own philosophy of life.

John

Post 6

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 10:16amSanction this postReply
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Philip,

Do you allow a child to use illegal drugs?  Do you allow minors to be molested? 

If an adult has sex with a child, do you not punish that?

All I'm saying is that I see religion on that level.  Minors should, at all times, be protected from religion. 

Minors in religion, is like allowing minors to smoke or drink or view pornography.  That's how I see it... dangerous to them.


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Post 7

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 10:24amSanction this postReply
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Orion,

Child molestation involves an initiation of force.  Believing in an idea, or convincing someone to believe in an idea, however irrational, does not.  What kind of "protections" from religion are you advocating?

(Edited by Byron Garcia on 10/28, 10:25am)


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Post 8

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 10:40amSanction this postReply
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Orion. Pretty impossible to protect the child against ideas. Hopefully what you would do is provide them with a strong enough system for evaluating the ideas that they come across.And lets face it, at a certain age they're on their own intellectually and will make up their own minds.

John

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Post 9

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 10:56amSanction this postReply
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Byron,

I will add to this however, that in certain extreme cases, persuading children to believe in certain ideas (and to take actions accordingly) *can* come close to abuse.

John

Post 10

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 11:05amSanction this postReply
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This also was from the other thread...

The reason I asked about the etymology of the word religion is to clarify the idea of religion as fake, since I suspect that term is being used loosely.

Orion writes:
"In other words, religion means bondage. Those who love religion, are into the kink of psychological bondage... both binding others, and being bound themselves."

Interesting, Orion. I've found that religion also translates as "reyoke," or "relink." The same general meaning, but I'd like to offer another assessment, if I may play "Angel's advocate."

I am influenced by the Jungian view of the mind, in his ideas of ego development, inflation, and reintegration into the psyche as part of a larger whole. If Jung is right, then the idea of religion as a concept could have a biological (or at least mental, to take Szasz into consideration) basis as a projection of the mind's reabsorption of the inflated ego. This projection not only shows in religious stories, but in the hero myths and cycles of most cultures. (Which is why those stories continue to influence us today.)

But to take it more generally, it could be anything that is being "relinked." Anytime one feels a loss, a reconnection with the lost could be considered "religious." Rand's fiction is a case in point. The quest of her protagonists is to reconnect with their egos. (i.e., the rediscovery of the word "I". Rand's use of religious imagery is an inversion, to be sure, of traditional religious values, but still religious. (Which is why she chose the word "Anthem," and used religious archetypes throughout her work.)

Orion, as to your interpretation, yes, there is a certain bondage involved, but need it be a negative bondage? There is the conception of religion as a master and slave relationship, but one could call a romantic relationship a bond also, a type of bondage. Context being key, of course, but it seems that focusing only on the negative version alone would seem that freedom entails no bond whatsoever. (I do not know if that's what you believe yourself.) It's like saying a hungry man is never free. Freedom from what, freedom for what...So if we can have a positive bond(age), can we not have a positive religion, such as Objectivism (if we go by the idea of religion as being a form of reconnection with one's lost value?)


Here is another explanation of the etymology, for those who care...

"The word religion is derived from Latin "religio" (what attaches or retains, moral bond, anxiety of self-consciousness, scruple) used by the Romans, before Jesus Christ, to indicate the worship of the demons.
The origin of "religio" is debated since antiquity. Cicero said it comes from "relegere" (to read again, to re-examine carefully, to gather) in the meaning "to carefully consider the things related to the worship of gods".
Later, Lucretius, Lactancius and Tertullianus see its origin in "religare" (to connect) to refer "the bond of piety that binds to God".
Initially used for Christianity, the use of the word religion gradually extended to all the forms of social demonstration in connection with sacred."

Post 11

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 2:33amSanction this postReply
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"Any parent who attempts to sneak his or her child into any religion's house of kink, should be found guilty of child abuse and penalized to the fullest extent of the law. "

Orion! You get funnier and funnier with every post.
Does your wish for a totalitarian State really sit well with your so-called objectivism?

Post 12

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 6:59pmSanction this postReply
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Martin,

I guess humor truly is in the eye of the beholder, for me to "get funnier with every post". 

If only you cared as much to direct your lamenting crocodile tears of "totalitarianism" at religion, which is always wielding an iron-fisted control over people's lives, in broad daylight.

Oh, but I suppose the vast mega-monolith of religion is too big an actual menace for you to be honest and proclaim as the enemy it is... So in order for you to maintain a sense of the intactness of your courage and integrity, you invert and pretzel-ize your morality, so that religion is now "okay".

This is such a lame strategy, your following the pseudo-moral mandate that "might makes right".  In other words, because the great, bloated tick of religion is too big and powerful -- albeit obviously evil -- for you to feel easily confident in winning against, and because I am just one person railing against religion, then religion is "right", and I am "wrong".

Whichever way the wind blows, I suppose that's where you align yourself.


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Post 13

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 8:08pmSanction this postReply
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If only you cared as much to direct your lamenting crocodile tears of "totalitarianism" at religion, which is always wielding an iron-fisted control over people's lives, in broad daylight.
Religions have certainly often done so.  But right now, you are the one demanding the use of the state to prevent the young from being exposed to ideas you don't want them to hear, in conscious imitation of the rhetoric of state persecution of 'immoral' sexuality.

And how dare you call Mrs. Shultz unprincipled when he is defending the freedom of all persons on principle, while you have no principles whatsoever regarding respect for human rights, as you have called for state persecution of religions opposed to your philosophy and literal, mass-murder, extermination, genocide of Arabian human beings for the crime of having been born.

You speak often about how much others have hurt you.  I believe it.  But that does not justify your boiling hatred exploding upon the innocent in persecution and racism.

You are the one desiring
an iron-fisted control over people's lives, in broad daylight.

Take the beam out of thy own eye.


Jeanine Ring
no titles.


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Post 14

Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 7:36pmSanction this postReply
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Man Orion!

You must be one of the most religious people I know. It seems like religion dominates every thought, and every waking moment of your life.

Everything you comment on - you must turn into a question of religion. You are so devout!

I don't think oppresive religions are a good thing at all - but to answer them with an equally oppresive anti-religion will lead to much the same result.

You are what I would call an evangelical athiest. About as interesting and as welcome on my doorstep as any other type of evangalist - and just as blinded by their faith.

Oh. And stop putting words into my mouth!

I am quite able to explain my own thoughts. Your strange version of them is not needed.

Oppresive religions ARE the enemy. So are you. Both are anti life and anti reason.

Post 15

Friday, October 29, 2004 - 1:02amSanction this postReply
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Religions have certainly often done so.  But right now, you are the one demanding the use of the state to prevent the young from being exposed to ideas you don't want them to hear, in conscious imitation of the rhetoric of state persecution of 'immoral' sexuality.
Oh yes.  Let's choose the cheap and easy scapegoating path.  By all means.

The human race would no likely ever have heard nary a peep from you in objection to the countless evils of religion, but as soon as someone stands up to object to a mass kink that veils itself in virtue, you come out, guns-a-blazing.

Try to keep in mind that I'm not objecting to your precious kink, but rather the clandestine entrenchment of psychological kink as an inescapable way of life.  That might possibly cause you to call off your dogs of war from my heels.



Post 16

Friday, October 29, 2004 - 1:13amSanction this postReply
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And I'm no longer going to soil my mind by going for any more of Martin Schultz's endlessly sophistic verbal baiting of me. 

No doubt he fancies himself as so fiendishly clever as to trick me into ending up on his argumentational hamster wheel, with me running forever in a fevered sweat while he childishly chuckles in vain, postmodern amusement.  I am oh so sorry to disappoint him.

From here on in, when he addresses me, all he shall hear is the sound of crickets chirping in the distance.  I can only hope he was able to harvest and store enough sufficient jollies to last him through the winter, for the frost is on the vine now.

:-)


Post 17

Friday, October 29, 2004 - 2:24amSanction this postReply
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Orion - I'm glad to see you're no longer going to allow yourself to get wound up by snivelling, tiny pomo worms. Clever-dick smart-ass hair-splitters, who are *so* smart they can't even spell. We get them from time to time. Best to treat them as evidence that pomo-ism is every bit as revolting & snide as we say it is ... then ignore them. The thing they crave most, in their infantile way, is attention. They're spiritually dead ... leave them to decompose! You, dear boy, must recover that lost spark that you've allowed pomo-ism to extinguish. Study Steven Mallory in The Fountainhead, & find your soulmate!

Linz

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Post 18

Friday, October 29, 2004 - 1:10pmSanction this postReply
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Oh yes.  Let's choose the cheap and easy scapegoating path.  By all means.
I am accusing you of no evils but those you have yourself announced in print.  Have you or have you not, objectively, called for "use of the state to prevent the young from being exposed to ideas you don't want them to hear" and "and literal, mass-murder, extermination, genocide of Arabian human beings for the crime of having been born," quoting my own accusations, which I stand by.

These are your words.  And they are, objectively, both false and vicious. 

The human race would no likely ever have heard nary a peep from you in objection to the countless evils of religion, but as soon as someone stands up to object to a mass kink that veils itself in virtue, you come out, guns-a-blazing.

What I object to is not your denunciations of religion, but your totalitarian fantasies of state-managing education to prevent the young from being exposed to ideas you disagree with.

As for my view of religion, I have stated much of this elsewhere in this forum:

Now, for the record, I do not believe in any irrational sources of knowledge.  I do, in precisely the manner of Locke, believe that there are private sources of knowledge- i.e. that one may perceive objects of consciousness in "the mind" not derived from sensation that are not publically available to others.  I agree, with Locke, that nothing derivable in any necessary part from private sources of knowledge is admissable as public evidence, although I do believe that knowledge originally derived from such sources but demonstrable without regards to it can be publically defensible (and unlike Locke, I do not admit the possibility of "miracles".  My view was a common Enlightenment position, and I fail to see why it is irrational, even if it disagrees with Objectivism.

It is true that I, additionally, hold a somewhat different view of causality and 'mind-body interaction' problems than Objectivists.  It is true that I have a view on ontology and of "the self" radically different from Objectivists (although Rand never really put forward any theory on the issue herself).  It is also true that I think the term "god/dess" has a valid reference, and though this I will not debate here; I will say I do not believe in any transcendant or epistemologically prior entities and that I feel more akin with spiritually serious atheists (Rand definitely included) than most theists.  By the definitions of George H, Smith's Atheism: the Case Against God, I am an atheist.  Which is to say that I think his arguments are valid but that there are other meanings of the term "god(/dess).

I do not believe in the validity of faith in any but the metaphorical sense of trust or friendship.   I do not belive in mysticism, do not belive in an altruistic ethic, and do not believe in religious sources of morality.  I am an agnostic as for as the issue of an afterlife is concerned.  Yes, I do describe myself as a religious person, I do worship a goddess.  Yes, I have found immense spiritual, practical and aesthetic value in the immersion in practices with a solidly religious base... I leave it to the intelligence of readers to figure out the particulars, as my free excercise of religion is a losing supreme court case waiting to happen.

In formal terms, my views are close to universalism, Latitudarianism, Spinozan pantheism, and deism.  They are not far off at all from the views of Bacon, Newton, and Locke.  But I really cannot say more, as my views relate to personal experiences which I firmly believe cannot be publically validated and will not try to do so.


Actually, I support the notion of a secular education, and oppose any exclusive training of the young within a religious tradition unless they desire it.  I do think it is wrong for parents to seek to insulate their children from opposing ideas.  My views on religion on childteaching are that children should be encouraged to explore for themselves and reason for themselves all options; a parent should present their best rational arguments and living examples for their own worldviews, but should not use the child's dependence as a lever to pressure a set of values.

What I defend in religion is essentially the practise of practicing life within a poetic framework, what Nietzsche called 'giving style to one's character'.  It is in this sense that I object heatedly to the vilification of Jews, or Moslems, Buddhists, or whoever, and having 'irrational' stories that are unacceptable.  I believe spirituality grants depth to life, and would distinguish between religion primarily concerned with establishing values for a social order and religion which is primarily an aesthetic practise of live.  The former I oppose, the second I do not.  And I respect all or nearly all religions in the second sense because of the broad kaleidoscope of artistic beauty they have made possible; in this case, my differences with Rand are primarily aesthetic: I believe it is far wiser to learn the value the various greatest heights of art than those that agree with one's own sense of life.

Ultimately, what I am saying is that religion defined as mysticism, faith, and altruism is false.  Religion defined as spiritual art is strictly no more true or false than Hamlet is true or false.  Like Jung as Joe describes him, (I don't know much about Jung... on the reading list) I would likely argue that the value of religious practice lies in its organization of abstract concepts in archetypical patterns; or to put it another way that there is value in the personification or imaging of ones ideals and addressing personified ideals as subjects in conversation.

I do say up front there is more to the story, which is why I describe myself as a Pagan instead on simply a Romantic.  The problem is that is would be very hard to explain without either (1) a complicated exposition of an ontology of mental space derived in my case from Sartre, Husserl, Kant, and gnosticism, or (2) an exposition of personal experiences which are fully empirical but I cannot replicate as objects of others' experience.  The philosophical differences with atheism that result from my religious perspective are minimal; the only difference between myself an Romantic atheist (of Cynical and phenomenological influences), one not ashamed to live life in experimental fictions (meaning not lies, but literature), is that I find myself faced with uncertainties on the relation between volition and causality.  The rest of what sets me apart is just really a set of empirical, really natural scientific questions.  I do not believe in any transcendant God or gods commanding or ruling nature; my view is much like Spinoza's and John Toland's, seeing the divine as an aspect of nature considered in a certain mode.  If this is childish or vicious, say the same of Spinoza.

Generally, I think you could educate yourself as to the different forms religion takes.  If you mean religion based upon principles of faith in propositions without reason, ethics without enjoyment, or established theocracy, I quite agree that these are vicious.  In fact, I agree with the entirety of Rand's attacks upon mysticism and intrincism- but I do not think these attacks apply to religion as a practice but only religion as a claim to truth.  I do believe that certain practices can without that realm be evaluated on their coherence, cohesion, practicability, and vital-aesthetic quality, and oppose religious concepts that inevitably involve claims of direct propositional truth; if the pursuit of such practices allows a person to become aware of additional natural facts and draw conscious theoretical conclusions, then this kind of discovery of truth in religion I do not object to.  However, such perfectly valid conclusions are not publically demonstrable to another person and should therefore should be remain a person's own practice of life.

The concept of religion I support is an art of society, ritual, mental discipline, and practical spiritual tools which (I think for very good reason) take the form of personal-cosmological narratives, not religion as an attempt at prayer-mat philosophy or science.  I think religion very much has its own proper sphere, one to which I encourage exploration of, and I think within that sphere theo/alogical attempts to understand a logos of practice is valid and possible, but the methods of thealogy are in my opinion very close to aesthetics or music theory.  Anyway, my interest in a religious life is simply a joy in an enriching, fascinating, and useful aspect of life I didn't previously experience.  Lumping that it with defending (say) the Taliban is absurd.  I heavily support the Objectivists, libertarians, the ACLU, or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  Moreover, I heavily oppose the social and coercive pressure placed upon dissenters even in our society to conform to religious tenets.  But then I would be just as much against the insulated and oppressive atheist childrearing you yourself support.  People need to think and experience for themselves.

BTW, my concept on religion expressed above may seem to make my religion unserious; I assure you this is anything but the case, though I must reserve explanations of the seriousness of my own practise.   But as an amateur historian, my views are little different from those of educated Pagans in the ancient world or educated followers of many non-Western religious traditions in the past and today, or for that better the views of Goethe and Shakespeare, who were neither Christians nor atheists.  The fact that the Objectivist concept of religion really doesn't deal well with these cases is a problem for Objectivists.

Which brings me to a final point: you accuse others, without understanding them, or collaborating in repression because they refuse to treat social pattern of conformity with your blunt, tyranny-craving fist, which now I see has you quite logically doubting a NIOF principle *I* do support.

This is such a lame strategy, your following the pseudo-moral mandate that "might makes right".  In other words, because the great, bloated tick of religion is too big and powerful -- albeit obviously evil -- for you to feel easily confident in winning against, and because I am just one person railing against religion, then religion is "right", and I am "wrong".

This is a Hitlerian "Big Lie".  I believe you have a right to live, to teach, to establish social institutions according to your own principles, while you are literally declaring, if not 'might makes right', that 'right makes might', and openly demanding that
 Any parent who attempts to sneak his or her child into any religion's house of kink, should be found guilty of child abuse and penalized to the fullest extent of the law. 

You are the person, who apparently believes religion has some strange attraction your arguments are helpless to deal with, who demands bringing in the guns of the state to accomplish what your persuasion is not up to.

Let's play a game, Msr. Reasoner, how about we keep open a free market in religion.  How about we respect people's "NIOF" rights, how about we trust children to think for themselves, how about we drop this fear that if people aren't hammered about the one right way, they can use all of their faculties, including very definitely their minds, to discover how to enjoy life on Earth.  That is my standards, on matters religious and all others.  Is it yours?
Try to keep in mind that I'm not objecting to your precious kink, but rather the clandestine entrenchment of psychological kink as an inescapable way of life.  That might possibly cause you to call off your dogs of war from my heels.

If you really meant this, it might.  But given your common method of treating everything you oppose as an ineffable threat, a strange attractor, which can't be reasoned with, but must be silenced, closeted, not shown to children, shunned, deported, or killed before its senseless and monstrous force takes over, I cannot believe a person of your basic premises will respect either contrary views arrived at rationally nor simple human rights.

And on religion, may I suggest you read, not some mystical text, but the scholarly agnostic Walter Kaufmann's Critique of Religion and Philosophy and Faith of Heretic, to get some human sense of the varieties of what religion can mean, before you mindlessly and blanketly denounce the fallen believers of every religion's house of ill repute?

I encourage you by word and deed to present the best case for your values; if you object to my speech, counter it with better speech.  Wishing I would just shut up is the sign of an impotent inferior afraid to compete on the free market.

If your ideas are better than mine, what are you afraid of?

Jeanine Shiris Ring  {))(*)((}
promiscuity of the mind leads to promiscuity of the body


Post 19

Friday, October 29, 2004 - 5:29pmSanction this postReply
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"Genocide"... Hah.  Spare me the all-purpose "genocide" schtick.

That's baloney, and you know it.  You know full well that what I have really and obviously done is impugn the legitimacy of religion as a "benign" entity, when all it is, is a destructive kink. 

Now, here's where you start grabbing weapons off the wall, because in your gut, you know that religion is a form of kink, which you cherish.  And as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing necessarily wrong with kinks; they can be quite psychologically healing if approached humanely.

Your problem -- and unlike you, I don't need three or four computer screen-lengths to make it -- is that you seem to have weaved kink so profoundly and pervasively into your life, that you have become utterly dependent on it.  This includes religion.  You have lost all objectivity when it comes to being able to separate yourself from the phenomenon, like a cocaine addict who will invert all the premises of logic itself, to justify the cherished conclusion that cocaine just can't be bad for me.

Well, wake up.  It is.  So is religion.  And religion is one of those things that -- being so addictive as a kink -- people tend to push like a drug on other people, who then become addicted, and their lives ruined.

I believe completely in protecting people from that whole phenomenon, and I don't need to summon a list of evidence the size of Texas to make my argument to do so.


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