We don't want Islam. Period.
Rationale and free speech go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.
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Religion and Human Rights
- Thread starter (Q)
- Start date
We don't want Islam. Period.
Rationale and free speech go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.
We don't want Islam. Period.
Rationale and free speech go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.
Yes, you can. The rational thing to do is pursue efficiency and uniformity.
Of course, humans are not all rational creatures.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
This sounds like the philosophy of a colony of bees, not a species with the cognitive power of Homo sapiens. Please provide some supporting evidence for the assertion that humans must all conform to an identical belief system. Our greatest advances have occurred in times of diversity.A rational species must create direction and long-term goals, and must be absolute in a uniformity of belief; otherwise, you have politics, and politics are a waste of time. Support the state or get the hell out. Thus a rational species will have an indomitable will to achieve a goal. "Diverse" societies won't get anywhere, because people can't agree on what action is necessary. It has to do with efficiency.
The problem with any belief system is that it could be wrong. The only way you'll ever find that out is to let people disagree with it and allow the arguments to play out.
Politics are about power, not philosophy. Just look at the way both the Democratic and Republican parties in the USA stampeded to adopt the 1929 platform of the American Communist Party, when they started winning too many municipal elections and were poised to start infiltrating state governments. It was President Eisenhower, a Republican and therefore supposedly the greatest enemy of communism, who completed the assimilation by creating the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, whose very name sounds like it came out of 1984.
They didn't care about politics. They just didn't want anyone challenging the power they shared in their cozy two-party system.
Look at all the former Communist leaders who have risen to power in post-Perestroika eastern Europe. They have absolutely no philosophical objection to administering capitalist systems, so long as they're on top.
Wikipedia has the following opening paragraph and quote on "Human Rights"
"Human rights are "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled."[1] Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to be treated with respect and dignity, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education in some countries.
“ All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. ”
—Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)"
The Abrahamic religions have been heavily criticized for violating human rights as defined above and usually consider their own version of human rights dictated by their gods. Many adherents to Islam, for example, consider human rights a gift from Allah.
"Sharia Law are laws that penalize non-Muslims through heavy taxation; degrade women to second class citizens; authorizes the execution of any Muslim who converts to another religion; calls for the expulsion of Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula; and implements public humiliation, torture, dismemberment, stoning to death and beheadings as forms of punishment." ~~ Mike Ramirez
It's little wonder then why the Organization of Islamic Countries championed and had pushed through on March 26, 2009 by a vote of 23-11 in the United Nations to make the defamation of religion a human rights violation.
The sheer magnitude of stupidity and hypocrisy of such a move is astounding as it demands everyone turn a blind eye to the same theocratic human rights violations Islamic practices exhibit. Welcome back to the Bronze Age.
While it is true that ambrahamic religions (especially Islam) can have very harmful effects, human rights don't objectively exist. They only exist when there are a group of people who will enforce them.
I certainly hope you stick to your position on this one. I have seen this run by Q and others here and they seem to see no problem with the concept of objective rights.While it is true that ambrahamic religions (especially Islam) can have very harmful effects, human rights don't objectively exist. They only exist when there are a group of people who will enforce them.
I certainly hope you stick to your position on this one. I have seen this run by Q and others here and they seem to see no problem with the concept of objective rights.
Rights cannot be objective; all values are subjective.
Read Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
Norse is quite correct.
I've read it. I said I hope Chrunchy Cats sticks to his position. I am too much on the fringe - for Q and other non-theists who believe in objective rights - to be taken seriously. Chrunchy Cat, on the other hand, is closer to being on the same team. And hence may be tougher to mock and/or ignore.Rights cannot be objective; all values are subjective.
Read Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
mock and/or ignore.
Are these rights? Somewhere? Like here? With respect to theism, isn't this what I have been allowed to do on a daily basis?
I can tell you from experience that there are other forums which do not grant permission to do so. So, is it a right if you are denied?
Rights cannot be objective; all values are subjective.
Read Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
correct, and nietzsche would agree--but this is rather a peripheral theme to beyond good and evil. nietzsche critiques his contemporaries', and their antecedents', focus upon the intent--deontological ethics--as opposed to earlier humans' focus upon consequentiality--he describes contemporary european morality as "herd-animal morality" (perhaps anticipating chomsky, et al, here). nevertheless, such is not the primal thrust of the text, and that you wrote here:
Yes, you can. The rational thing to do is pursue efficiency and uniformity.
suggests a rather curious reading, if one is to assume that the above statement was in any sense informed by bgae. nietzsche does not readily lend to literalist interpretations (unfortunately, such idiotic interpretations once reigned supreme on account of nietzsche's idiotic sister and her husband, and the national socialists, and finally, the most illiterate of them all, ayn rand), as metaphor, irony, devil's advocacy, and gross hyperbole were his weapons of choice.
rather, bgae is a continuation of nietzsche's effort to subvert metaphysics, and the misguided obsession--and prioritization--of the noumenal over the phenomenal, and to affirm the necessarily perspectival and contextual nature of knowledge and our epistemological means. and so, pursuance of "truth" is misguided, and necessarily doomed to failure; rather we ought to embrace appearances and the superficial, so to speak. nietzsche is effectively, with respect to science, an anti-realist and asserts that it is in fact we who have devised supposed "laws," "causes," whatnots. i do not believe that nietzsche would embrace a rational pursuit of "efficiency and uniformity."
tangential to the topic at hand, but important nonetheless.
"Originally Posted by Doreen
mock and/or ignore. "
Are these rights? Somewhere? Like here? With respect to theism, isn't this what I have been allowed to do on a daily basis?
I can tell you from experience that there are other forums which do not grant permission to do so. So, is it a right if you are denied?
it depends upon how you conceive rights: from a purist perspective, rights are simply permissions and entitlements--intent being the sole focus. however, if one conceives such in, say, a rawlsian sense in which the accordance of rights are contingent upon a mutual understanding and acceptance of a sort of social "contract," then yes, said denial would pertain to matters of "rights."
I really couldn't understand what you meant here. Do you mean rights to be allowed to mock and ignore? Or do you mean rights to not be ignored or mocked?Are these rights? Somewhere? Like here? With respect to theism, isn't this what I have been allowed to do on a daily basis?
I can tell you from experience that there are other forums which do not grant permission to do so. So, is it a right if you are denied?
Or something else, perhaps.
As far as being allowed to do it here. Yes, generally people are allowed to, even when it goes beyond the site rules.
But none of that was my point. I was making a practical comment. I was glad Crunchy Cat said there were no objective rights. And for the reasons I stated.
.....I was glad Crunchy Cat said there were no objective rights.....
Is a person's right to have a lawyer when in a court of law a subjective right or objective right?
Is a person's right to have a lawyer when in a court of law a subjective right or objective right?
it is a legal right--as in, fashioned by man. the point is rather that there are no objective rights as in those existing a priori--and independent of our fashionings.
it is a legal right--as in, fashioned by man. the point is rather that there are no objective rights as in those existing a priori--and independent of our fashionings.
Are we talking about taking rights to the level of God's adminstration and then deciding we have no rights? Any evidence God is independent of our fashioning?
Is a person's right to have a lawyer when in a court of law a subjective right or objective right?
It's a subjective right that is enforced by people.
It's a subjective right that is enforced by people.
IMO, your opinion about no rights is subjective, while I exercise my right to have a lawyer in a court of law. Of course rights are enforced by people, who else would do it?
Humans have decided to act a certain way. They set up rules.Is a person's right to have a lawyer when in a court of law a subjective right or objective right?
A hockey player has the right, according to the rules or hockey, to slam someone into a wall as hard as they can. However they do not the right to hit them with their stick in certain ways. This can get them put in a penalty box.
Human agree or dont on certain rules. But there are no objective rights - as the laws of various countries should heavily imply.
The point was not that someone else would do it. The point is that the rights in themselves do not exist. If they do, what are they made of. If we say a certain person has a right, where does he or she have it? Is it in the endocrine system? the muscle tissue?IMO, your opinion about no rights is subjective, while I exercise my right to have a lawyer in a court of law. Of course rights are enforced by people, who else would do it?
Are we talking about taking rights to the level of God's adminstration and then deciding we have no rights?
i'm not sure that i understand this question, but the issue at stake here is that some contest that there are in fact objective rights, in spite of the fact that they are atheists--and so they must account for this curious conundrum.
Any evidence God is independent of our fashioning?
i don't know, but you speak of this god as though you have some conception of who or what this god is. i suppose that you ought to clearly define this god and it's parameters in order for anyone to be able to answer this question.