Religious acceptability?

[Rising Sun*]

I don't respect any religion but I'm prepared to tolerate other people practising their religions as long as

(a) they don't offend what I regard as reasonable standards of human behaviour, which oddly enough were by my standards clearly espoused by Christ and, omitting stuff that relates to his time, were great ideas until the Christian churches started corrupting his message, and

(b) they don't hurt anyone (apart from the usual guilt instilled by the Jews and Catholics; denying Jews and Muslims the delight of crisp bacon; and other things that aren't much worse than being brought up to hold followers of another football team in contempt)

(c) they don't try to make society at large conform with their religious views, in return for which I'm quite happy for them to do what they want in their religious and private circles.

So, what provoked this thread, as it provokes me to outrage about this time every year?

Ashura, the Shiite annual religious festival of, by my amoral agnostic standards, disgusting primitive stupidity, which has just finished, where among other things proud men slash themselves and fathers and mothers slash their children in acts of religious devotion (except in Turkey, where it's banned and they donate blood instead, which just goes to show that Turkey is a long way ahead of most of the rest of the Islamic world, and the Shiite part of it a long way behind the West).


http://time-blog.com/middle_east/Ashura%20Bloody%20Procession.jpg



http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/375518108_67af72d948_o.jpg



http://farm1.static.flickr.com/134/375518138_2aed0756ae_o.jpg



http://bp2.blogger.com/_anQnlU5D4sM/Rbv69C7lBVI/AAAAAAAAALk/am4zQidTy6M/s400/ShiiteAshoura


And it's not confined to Muslim countries.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200506060012

Okay, so it's part of their religious culture. So was human sacrifice for the Aztecs. If they were alive today, would we permit it?

How come that female circumcision got the feminists all wound up a decade or two ago and is now outlawed in many Western countries, which prevents certain African groups and some others following their cultural and religious (yeah, I know, even their own people can't decide whether it's cultural or religious, like honour killings in a lot Islamic countries, which are only about half a century behind parts of Southern Europe and the Balkans, if they're behind some of them at all), but male circumcision, practised by both Jews and Muslims, isn't?

My main question is: Should religious practices which clearly hurt people and which would not be allowed on any other basis be permitted?

A subsidiary question is: How does the Coalition of the Willing reconcile going into Iraq to give people democracy with the exercise of democracy being religious actions which would not be tolerated, and would indeed result in parents being gaoled, in the countries which invaded Iraq?

And just to save a mod issuing a warning, the questions I've stated are the issues to be discussed, not turn this into some attack on Jews or Muslims. (It's probably okay to attack Christians, because they're used to it and don't carry on like some other religions when they think they're being threatened or insulted. Not since the Crusades, anyway. Well, not since the Spanish Inquisitions. Well, it calmed down after Galileo. Well .... They're over it by now, anyway.) Lots of other religions have pratices that offend humanists, and other religions, from the Jehovah's Witnesses denying dying children a blood transfusion and some Christian Scientists refusing medical treatment because they believe faith is stronger.

So, let's just keep it to the general issue of, essentially, whether religious practices should be allowed just because they're religious practices, even when they clearly offend the standards of a society or nation?

[32Bravo]

And just to save a mod issuing a warning, the questions I've stated are the issues to be discussed, not turn this into some attack on Jews or Muslims. (It's probably okay to attack Christians, because they're used to it and don't carry on like some other religions when they think they're being threatened or insulted. Not since the Crusades, anyway. Well, not since the Spanish Inquisitions. Well, it calmed down after Galileo. Well .... They're over it by now, anyway.) Lots of other religions have pratices that offend humanists, and other religions, from the Jehovah's Witnesses denying dying children a blood transfusion and some Christian Scientists refusing medical treatment because they believe faith is stronger.


As a moderate extremist, I don't have any contention with what you have posted.

On a general level, I agree with much, if not all, of what you have written ( I haven't read carefully enough to find a point to disagree with, as yet).

Religeon, supposedly, gives us a moral grounding. It's usually where men are given power to exercise their will over others in the name of religeon that it all goes awry (have you ever read THe Foundation trilogy?).

Do we need religeon in a scientific world? Is it religeon we need, or spiriuallity?

The complexities of our world lead to immense double-standards - IT'S A PARADOX!

As you have highlighted. Globalisation makes what is happening in other countries, the business of us all, but we ought to be cleaning up our own backyards before imposing our will on others.

If it were not for oil, would we be giving a fishes-tit for what is happening in the Near East?


Perhaps, every generation believes that it has reached a turning point of history, but our problems seem particularly intractable and our future increasingly uncertain. Many of our difficulties mask a deeper spiritual crisis. During the twentieth century, we saw the eruption of violence on an unprecedented scale. Sadly, our ability to harm and mutilate one another has kept pace with our extraordinary economic and scientific progress. We seem to lack the wisdom to hold our aggression in check and keep it within safe and appropriate bounds. The explosion of the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki laid bare the nihilistic self-destruction at the heart of the brilliant achievements of our modern culture. We risk environmental catastrophe because we no longer see the earth as holy but regard it simply as a "resource." Unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that can keep abreast of our technological genius, it is unlikely that we will save our planet. A purely rational education will not suffice. We have found to our cost that a great university can exist in the same vicinity as a concentration camp. Auschwitz, Rwanda, Bosnia, and the destruction of the World Trade Centre were all dark epiphanies that revealed wha can happen when the sense of the sacred inviolability of every single human being has been lost.

I don't necessarily agree with all of the above, but it does strike a chord.

[Rising Sun*]

As a moderate extremist, I don't have any contention with what you have posted.

Thank Christ you're not an extreme moderate! ;)

Religeon, supposedly, gives us a moral grounding.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

I sent both my children to Catholic schools because, despite me and the Pope having parted ways when I was about seven because it seemed like too much bullshit, my wife and I took the view that there was a moral content in Catholic education, which alas was bound up with a lot of Church nonsense, which was missing in the state schools. Better a distorted moral content than none at all.

It's usually where men are given power to exercise their will over others in the name of religeon that it all goes awry.

Amen to that. With the emphasis on men, not that women generally behave any better when they get their feet on the accelerator.

Do we need religeon in a scientific world? Is it religeon we need, or spiriuallity?

The world isn't scientific, and never was. Science is just an intellectual state of knowledge which has a set of hypotheses, some disputed by other scientists, which explain the known world.

Every age thought its science had pretty much explained everything.

Science has never been able to explain anything but mechanics, never the why. For example, the mechanics of black holes have been explained, along with lots of other interesting cosmic events. But WHY do they occur?

There are competent, even outstanding scientists, who are content with the mechanistic explanations. There are others who still ask what's behind it, as man has from the beginning, and explain it in religious terms according to their preferred religion. One of the explanations is the stuff that invents gods or a god to explain it, because many people can't handle the notion that they're as inconsequential as bacteria and represent as little purpose in a universe which is beyond the understanding of bacteria, and humans.

As you have highlighted. Globalisation makes what is happening in other countries, the business of us all, but we ought to be cleaning up our own backyards before imposing our will on others.

Exactly.

Why bother with the UN and aid agencies promoting birth control and challenging female genital mutilation in underdeveloped countries (whatever that means) when we haven't resolved those issues in the countries providing the aid?

If we pussyfoot around or hotly debate such issues in our countries, what entitles us to tell others what to do?

Apart from the same sort of arrogance that propelled Christian missionaries into Africa and the Pacific etc, with something less than great results in many cases?

[32Bravo]

We ought to form a double-act? :)


Returning to the pictures you posted.

In these situations, it appears to me that these people have turned to religeous extremism as they have nothing else to give them hope. The West offered them hope in Iraq, but let them down. Now the fanatics are offering them soemthing different.

I spoke, elsewhere of the Pyramid of Needs. http://www.deepermind.com/20maslow.htm
In my opinion, it is applicable to ethnic, political,national and social groups as it is to the individual.

The Islamists offer these people soemthing more than anyone else is doing, in much the same way as socialism did in the past.

[32Bravo]

I sent both my children to Catholic schools because, despite me and the Pope having parted ways when I was about seven because it seemed like too much bullshit, my wife and I took the view that there was a moral content in Catholic education, which alas was bound up with a lot of Church nonsense, which was missing in the state schools. Better a distorted moral content than none at all.


Ah, once a Na Fianna.....:eek:

[Rising Sun*]

We ought to form a double-act? :)



http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-images/Laurel&Hardy.jpg

[Rising Sun*]

Ah, once a Na Fianna.....:eek:

But there comes a time when some can say, even to His Holiness, puig ma hoin ;) :D

[32Bravo]

But there comes a time when some can say, even to His Holiness, puig ma hoin ;) :D

Nahh!

"Give me a child of seven...etc!"

Not that I am saying that you have been a victim of banditry since the age of seven! :o

[Rising Sun*]

Nahh!

"Give me a child of seven...etc!"

Yeah, well, you've got to wonder about the line "And I'll show you the man."


Not that I am saying that you have been a victim of banditry since the age of seven! :o

No. I wasn't. Which makes me part of that world wide movement of puzzled people who wonder why they weren't good or pretty enough.

We're thinking about a class action against the brothers and priests.

Maybe the nuns, too, but if Sister Marita had seen me right there'd be no need for it. ;)

[With, seriously, apologies to all those who were abused. But I've never been accused of letting good taste get in the way of being what I think is funny.]

[32Bravo]

[QUOTE=Rising Sun*;116509]Yeah, well, you've got to wonder about the line "And I'll show you the man."

[QUOTE]

I probably was! ;)

[Rising Sun*]

I probably was! ;)

It's under the soutan, sonny.

I'll show you after school.

Then you'll learn how to genuflect. ;)

[32Bravo]

:shock:
Then you'll learn how to genuflect. ;)


I hope you only mean 'to bend the knee'? :shock:

You're getting faster, Grandad! :D