Do you like how Dawkins, Hitchens et al. represent atheists?

[Xev]

True.

It's fine to believe in something, but when part of the belief is forcing or coercing others, it's time to ask just who benefits. Follow the money, some people tell me. Well, let's follow it then; there's all kinds of currencies. Some people like to be paid in power.

If you ask me, it's the kind of meme that never changes throughout the ages.

Well, maybe those women just don't want to be able to leave the home without a man's permission.
Contrary to your silly Western notions, not everyone wants to go outside.

 

[Xev]

What religious people are atheists?

Buddhists.

When I see a paper published in Science which accepts an argument like that, I will believe it.

Why would a journal that publishes articles about empirical science start publishing articles on religion, philosophy and logic?

 

[S.A.M.]

Well, such things as this:

" A man can divorce his wife freely and has the right to retain custody of their children. Article 105 of the Civil Code stipulates: "In the relationship between husband and wife, heading the family is characteristic of the husband." The Islamic Council of Guardians decreed that "a woman does not have the right to leave her home without her husband

Interesting; that is directly against the rules of Islam, regarding marriage.

If a couple fears separation, you shall appoint an arbitrator from his family and an arbitrator from her family; if they decide to reconcile, GOD will help them get together. GOD is Omniscient, Cognizant. [4:35]


Once the interim is fulfilled, you may reconcile with them equitably, or go through with the separation equitably. You shall have two equitable witnesses witness the divorce before GOD. This is to enlighten those who believe in GOD and the Last Day. Anyone who reverences GOD, He will create an exit for him. [65:2]

Whichever party chooses for divorce must obey the laws as aforesaid. Normally divorce is mutually decided by the couple. If the aforesaid laws are observed, there could be a situation where either of the spouse may not give their consent but if the arbitrators from both the families decide that divorce is the best solution for the estranged couple then they would, nevertheless go through divorce. The divorce laws are applicable to both man and woman (4:35 and 2:237 indicate this) except that there are certain additional laws which a divorced woman has to observe.

For custody there are varying opinions:

In his discussion of the rules of custody, conservative Saudi scholar Shaykh Muhammad al-Munajjid writes:

Women have more right to custody of children than men; in principle custody belongs to them, because they are more compassionate and more kind, and they know better how to raise small children, and they are more patient in dealing with the difficulties involved. The mother has more right to custody of her child, whether it is a boy or a girl, so long as she does not re-marry and so long as she meets the conditions of custody. This is according to scholarly consensus... But it is best to pay attention to the interests of the child, because his rights come first.

When the child reaches the period of sponsorship, there is a difference of opinion among the Islamic scholars about which parent should sponsor the child. Shaykh Munajjid explains:

The Maalikis and Zaahiris think that the mother has more right to sponsorship of the child, whether it is a boy or a girl. The Hanbalis think that boys should be given a choice, but the father has more right in the case of a girl. The Hanafis think that the father has more right in the case of a boy and the mother has more right in the case of a girl. Perhaps the correct view is that the child should be given a choice if the parents are disputing and they both fulfil the conditions for sponsorship.

Once the child has reached adolescence, he or she is free to make his or her own choices about where to live.

Islamic law recognizes, as Shaykh Munajjid put it, that the child's rights come first. As the child becomes older and is better able to understand and articulate his or her own interests, the child's free choice is given greater weight.

 

[GeoffP]

Well, maybe those women just don't want to be able to leave the home without a man's permission.
Contrary to your silly Western notions, not everyone wants to go outside.

You're right. I admit that my imperialistic, Western pre-conceptions of women's rights coloured my judgement. I did not realize that some women preferred not to face the fear of fresh air and street noises.

I humbly bend my will to the precept of your ovarian morality and await punishment. Oh, let it not be the lash of birch.

:worship:

 

[Xev]

Interesting; that is directly against the rules of Islam, regarding marriage.

Well, you tell the Iranian Mullah that.

For custody there are varying opinions:
In his discussion of the rules of custody, conservative Saudi scholar Shaykh Muhammad al-Munajjid writes:

Yup, but that's Saudi Arabia, not Iran.
BTW -

Women in Saudi Arabia face pervasive discrimination, ranging from strictly enforced gender segregation in public places -- including schools, universities, and the workplace -- to unequal legal status with men in matters relating to marriage, divorce, and child custody. Saudi women do not enjoy freedom of movement, are not permitted to drive, and lack equal rights with men with respect to transmission of their nationality to their children. Women viewed as not in full conformity with the traditional restrictive dress code, or in the company of men who are not spouses or close male relatives, are subject to harassment and abuse by the "religious police" -- the government-funded Committees for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

In one positive development, the government recently began to issue identity cards to women, pursuant to a decision reportedly made in November 2001. Previously, women were not permitted to hold identity cards in their own names and carried "family cards" under the names of their husbands or fathers that did not include their photographs.

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/saudi/

 

[iceaura]

There are religions which do not deal with rituals involving a higher power?

A higher power in the sense of a supernatural being who has authority and control ? A god? Yes. Confucianism. Taoism. Buddhism. Various Animists and worshippers of sacred trees or springs. Again, the Navajo's and similar non-agrarian "religions".

Probably the majority of religious people in the history of humanity have been atheistic, in some reasonable sense of that word. They certainly did not believe in anything like the God of Abraham.

This is maybe the fourth time I have posted that, to you, on this forum. You are not the only person here who seems to have a difficult time getting a grip on the notion of non-theistic religion and non-religious spirituality, and IIRC the others are theists as well. I'm tempted to include this pattern as evidence of the curbing of independent thought by theistic religion. .

He does, though. Your contention that atheism is a kind of faith, or irrational belief, equivalent in its role to a theist's belief in their deity, is nothing you can assume for the sake of argument here. ”
When I see a paper published in Science which accepts an argument like that, I will believe it

? Have you ever seen a paper published in Science that presents any of the arguments you do "believe" about religion, theism, deity, or God?

Meanwhile, the point is that you cannot assume the very conclusions that are at issue, here.

 

[Xev]

You're right. I admit that my imperialistic, Western pre-conceptions of women's rights coloured my judgement. I did not realize that some women preferred not to face the fear of fresh air and street noises.

I humbly bend my will to the precept of your ovarian morality and await punishment. Oh, let it not be the lash of birch.

:worship:

Well, duh. Really, they are being offered freedom from freedom, the freedom to have to ask a relevent male "is it cool if I pop out for a smoke?"
If you weren't an immoral, arrogant, Chinese-people-killing athiest you would know this!

Now....

Fear me and my xx chromosomes of doom!

 

[Oli]

Still looking for those shorts Xev?

 

[Atom]

Forget memes...I've got me a whole bunch of orgones.

I think thats possibly the best post you've ever..posted.

Do you play blow football with your back to the table as well, Xev?

 

[Xev]

I suffer from a dearth of pictures of cute women holding implements of physical punishment.

 

[mouse]

I'm sorry...you mean Stalin closed down 48,000 churches out of sheer whim?

No, I'm saying that an oppressive government will probably try to find ways to stay in power. One possible way is to try to eliminate the competition. The competition may be any religion which is not politically aligned to the powers that be. In general, it may be any one who dares to utter a critical note.

Atheism doesn't play a role in any of this. How can it? It's defined as the absent of a belief in a deity, it is not defined as the distinct urge to build gulags for the misguided.

 

[Atom]

No your not getting it are you....George K. Chesterton once said

""When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything." -
-- GK Chesterton

Once you remove one belief then its simply replaced by another and there can't be better example than Communism. Communism was nothing if not a superstition.

 

[(Q)]

Hey Xev, who took that picture of your derrière?

 

[S.A.M.]

A higher power in the sense of a supernatural being who has authority and control ? A god? Yes. Confucianism. Taoism. Buddhism. Various Animists and worshippers of sacred trees or springs. Again, the Navajo's and similar non-agrarian "religions".

And this is different from theism because?

Probably the majority of religious people in the history of humanity have been atheistic, in some reasonable sense of that word. They certainly did not believe in anything like the God of Abraham.

All non-Abrahamic religions are atheistic? That will be news to the Hindus, the Zorastrians, the Sikhs, the Japanese...

This is maybe the fourth time I have posted that, to you, on this forum. You are not the only person here who seems to have a difficult time getting a grip on the notion of non-theistic religion and non-religious spirituality, and IIRC the others are theists as well. I'm tempted to include this pattern as evidence of the curbing of independent thought by theistic religion. .

Strangely enough, I have had Buddhist friends, I have gone for prayers with them, I have also several types of Hindu friends, the Buddhist temples in Burma did not seem atheist to me, the Chinese system of ancestor worship is very similar to the Hindu system of Ram bhakti.

But hey, whatever you say...:shrug:

? Have you ever seen a paper published in Science that presents any of the arguments you do "believe" about religion, theism, deity, or God?

Like I said, I would be very surprised if it was, like atheism, theism is based on belief; I have never seen a paper on belief (not even in absence of evidence, unless it was absence of evidence of a falsifiable hypothesis).

Meanwhile, the point is that you cannot assume the very conclusions that are at issue, here.

But you can, it would seem.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Once you remove one belief then its simply replaced by another and there can't be better example than Communism. Communism was nothing if not a superstition.

That's an oversimplification. We're not talking about belief so much as faith, which isn't exactly the same thing. It's more useful to the discussion to rephrase that statement as: Once you remove faith in something it's simply replaced by faith in somthing else.

Religion is faith in the supernatural, faith in something that cannot be proven or disproven. Religious faith is based on archetypes, instincts we almost all have which make us feel like we "know" something for which there is in fact no empirical evidence.

But it is possible to have faith that is based on empirical evidence, on reason and learning.

When you first fall in love with someone, you have faith that they will live up to your expectations. That faith is based on the emotion of love. After you've been married to them for ten years and (ideally) observed empirically that in most situations they have behaved as you expected them to, and furthermore this correlates with other observed behaviors that appear to illustrate the same character traits, your faith is now based on reason and learning: learning how they behave and reasoning that the probability is very high that they will continue to do so. If they do not do this, you may still love them and decide to stay with them, but you abandon your faith in them.

The Russian underclass had faith in communism, but that faith did not have the same purely emotional basis as faith in supernatural beings. It was not superstition as you call it. Communism was an economic model based on logic rather than feudalism. It included a political model based on dictatorship by people who appeared to be benevolent common folk, rather than despotism by people who had already proven themselves to be uncaring aristocrats. Faith in communism was based on logical reasoning and the "comradeship" (they stressed that word) of people like themselves.

It was a dual faith: that an economy without capital would prevent greed and exploitation, and that comrades would stick together and work for the common good. These were reasonable premises, at the time. Even today, many people believe that capital seduces people into selfish behavior, although it is recognized that capital is another word for the surplus that drives an economy into prosperity. And even today, many Americans believe that a nation of "comrades" of similar background and culture will generate more common good than one which allows foreigners entry to do the menial work.

It must not be forgotten that for about fifteen years Russian communism delivered on its promise. One of my aunts and her husband emigrated to the USSR in the early years of the Great Depression. It was converting itself into a modern industrial nation, the standard of living was undeniably better than under the Czar, and despite the nascent despotism people felt more secure in their homes.

Communism is a falsifiable theory--the kind that satisfies us scientists--and it has subsequently been falsified. There are many fatal flaws in it that simply could not be identified without implementing it experimentally--again something that should delight us scientists. Now that it has been proven false, people are abandoning their faith in it rather speedily--once again we couldn't ask for more.

Do not expect to see this happen with any major religion. Faith in religion and faith in communism are not the same kind of faith.

 

[S.A.M.]

Well, you tell the Iranian Mullah that.



Yup, but that's Saudi Arabia, not Iran.
BTW -



http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/saudi/

Strange, when I lived in Saudi Arabia, I found it was the women who had lived in the West who were most upset about their lack of freedom, the ones who had not, found the notions that they were caged most odd.:shrug:

And Saudi Arabia is a thousand times more conservative than Iran.

 

[Xev]

Strange, when I lived in Saudi Arabia, I found it was the women who had lived in the West who were most upset about their lack of freedom, the ones who had not, found the notions that they were caged most odd.:shrug:

And Saudi Arabia is a thousand times more conservative than Iran.

I'm not sure what your point is - women who had lived in the West and understood that women could vote and drive and do shit without some fuckwad patriarch's approval were upset about lacking basic rights, while women who didn't implicitly know that the world was different elsewhere were okay with the situation?

You have to know a difference to be pissed about your situation. That's why most revolutions occur during periods of relative ease and cultural openness.

Q
Hah, my ass is significantly fatter.

 

[S.A.M.]

I'm not sure what your point is - women who had lived in the West and understood that women could vote and drive and do shit without some fuckwad patriarch's approval were upset about lacking basic rights, while women who didn't implicitly know that the world was different elsewhere were okay with the situation?

You have to know a difference to be pissed about your situation. That's why most revolutions occur during periods of relative ease and cultural openness.

Most educated women in Saudi Arabia are extremely rich and comfortable with their situation. The ones who spend all their lives there are habituated to a culture where women study work have their own money and are free from domestic and economic responsibilities. There are a few women who go abroad and get attracted to the idea of independent lives (single lives, live and work alone, etc). However in KSA, work is secondary to personal relationships and family responsibilities, so the society is not geared to accomodate such attitudes (in both men and women) People who want to live a Western life are pretty much considered asocial or out of sync with the rest of society. Perhaps time will lead to changes, but as of now, a major proportion of the population is satisfied with their standard of living (good housing, excellent education and health services, relatively crime free society, safety of children and family, freedom from external aggression). They like the status quo and resist change. The handful of people can try, but it will be a very long time before people will give up their comfort and plenty for freedom.

 

[Xev]

Most women in Saudi Arabia are extremely rich and comfortable with their situation. The ones who spend all their lives there are habituated to a culture where women study work have their own money and are free from domestic and economic responsibilities. .

Do they legally own their riches? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious - if you can't legally drive or vote, if you're basically the property of a male for most of your life (and correct me if I am wrong on the legalities), how can you be "rich?"

 

[S.A.M.]

Do they legally own their riches? I'm not being snarky, I'm curious - if you can't legally drive or vote, if you're basically the property of a male for most of your life (and correct me if I am wrong on the legalities), how can you be "rich?"

All property given to a woman by her parents or earned by her or given her by her husband (gold house etc) is solely her property, even in case of divorce. A man has the responsibility to provide for his children AND his wife, but a wife has no responsibility to share her wealth with him. Saudi women convert all their wealth into gold (since all the land belongs to the king) and sit on it.

edit: you have got to see the gold souks, unbelievable