Religion and Human Rights

[Bells]

Happy Holidays Bells to you and your family!

...Oh yeah I agree with your post

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones as well Lucy!

Earth

What is wrong with this picture?

Membership of the Human Rights Council
Officers of the Human Rights Council

President :
H.E. Mr. Alex Van Meeuwen (Belgium) (Biography: English - French)

Vice-President and Rapporteur:
H.E. Mr. Hisham Badr (Egypt)

Vice-Presidents :
H.E. Mr. Dian Triansyah Djani (Indonesia),
H.E. Mr. Carlos Portales (Chile),
H.E. Mr. Andrej Logar (Slovenia)

Membership of the Human Rights Council 19 June 2009-18 June 2010


Angola
Argentina

Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belgium
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Burkina Faso

Cameroon
Chile
China
Cuba

Djibouti

Egypt

France

Gabon
Ghana

Hungary

India
Indonesia
Italy

Japan
Jordan

Kyrgyzstan

Madagascar
Mauritius
Mexico

Netherlands
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Norway

Pakistan
Philippines

Qatar

Republic of Korea
Russian Federation

Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa

Ukraine
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
United States of America
Uruguay

Zambia


http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/membership.htm

And here is what the UN Human Rights Council is supposed to be about:

The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the UN system made up of 47 States responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe. The Council was created by the UN General Assembly on 15 March 2006 with the main purpose of addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/

I don't think I need to highlight the blessed irony of that list, do I?

That is what is wrong with the UN. That list is why the UN is an absolute failure.

 

[parmalee]

Interesting stuff there.

Thanks.
Yes, I can now see that someone is very confused.
Suffice it to say that it isn't you....




"intrinsic" ???**##&!!

LOL

so then you agree with my post (re: "religious" thinking). it is for precisely this reason that i cannot even bring myself to post a considered response (by which i mean one for which i spent more than twenty seconds composing) in the religion subforum. this is the subforum in which (purported) atheists consistently post idiocy and curiously metaphysical claims (etc.); while--for reasons entirely unknown to me--other atheists, who seem more capable of thought, simply ignore such.

can anyone explain to me why such is the case?

 

[parmalee]

(and i actually took a course in the presocratics from a guy who purportedly had a hand in deciphering one or the other, nearly twenty years ago; though i've often wondered if his claims were somewhat exaggerated.)

ok, now i'm a little obsessed with this matter: the dude has certainly written extensively on such--innumerable articles and here's a couple'a books: Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece and Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy (kevin robb--ahhhh, he was quite fond of my hero, heraclitus!), but deciphering linear a or linear b? to my knowledge, linear a has not been successfully "deciphered" as of today; so i want to know what this guy really did. anyhow, not really relevant...


edit: hmmm, apparently this "decipherment" is a contoversial matter.

 

[earth]

earth, I suggest you read up on classical logical fallacies.
Your entire post here is ad verecundiam.

And Rand?? Come on. You can do better than that.

In any case, despite your fallacious attempt here, all critiques that have been levied at you have yet to be adequately responded to. It's time to start rethinking your position.

I’ll shut up, one last thought, I guess some folks believe a negative “human rights do not exist” has been proven here in this thread. To me that is fallacy.

 

[Baron Max]

I’ll shut up, one last thought, I guess some folks believe a negative “human rights do not exist” has been proven here in this thread. To me that is fallacy.

That's just playing around with symantics and means nothing.

Baron Max

 

[parmalee]

I’ll shut up, one last thought, I guess some folks believe a negative “human rights do not exist” has been proven here in this thread. To me that is fallacy.

and who exactly believes this--that something can be "proven" to NOT exist?

 

[parmalee]

That's just playing around with symantics and means nothing.

Baron Max

heh. oh, and please see my last response in the "introspection is bad" thread--i eagerly await your thoughts on the matter.

 

[earth]

That's just playing around with symantics and means nothing.

Baron Max

I far as I understand, it isn't possible to prove a negative, not exactly symantics.

I've said enough, I know its time to quit.

 

[parmalee]

I far as I understand, it isn't possible to prove a negative, not exactly symantics.

I've said enough, I know its time to quit.

yet you've asserted that some people believe that such can be "proven"--who believes this?

 

[parmalee]

"Originally Posted by Doreen
There are nominalists and there are nominalists."

lol

I guess it all depends one one's definition...

though i think this is really the root of the problem here. in another thread, i asked (Q) this simple question (and of course, along with many others, it was not answered): is the sky blue?

to me there are a number of people here who seem to be suggesting that "rights" are somehow real--in what respect are they "real"? are "they" an entity? do they exist outside of space and time (and matter and energy)?

you write:

the 'right's you enjoy are entirely contingent upon the particular legislative context within which you find yourself.

yet it is clear to me that this contingency is not regarded as significant by many here--as you've seen by now. i think we have a bunch of closet idealists here.

 

[Doreen]

I’ll shut up, one last thought, I guess some folks believe a negative “human rights do not exist” has been proven here in this thread. To me that is fallacy.

Using the criteria accepted by the science-advocating community here on sciforums I MUST consider myself agnostic on the issue of the existence of rights.

 

[glaucon]

though i think this is really the root of the problem here. in another thread, i asked (Q) this simple question (and of course, along with many others, it was not answered): is the sky blue?

to me there are a number of people here who seem to be suggesting that "rights" are somehow real--in what respect are they "real"? are "they" an entity? do they exist outside of space and time (and matter and energy)?

you write:



yet it is clear to me that this contingency is not regarded as significant by many here--as you've seen by now. i think we have a bunch of closet idealists here.

I think you're right. One wonders then, if these idealists even realize that that is what they are. Their skepticism always falls one step short....

 

[parmalee]

I think you're right. One wonders then, if these idealists even realize that that is what they are. Their skepticism always falls one step short....

now you are sounding as bitter and disgruntled as i am.

funny how it all seems to come back to ocham.

 

[parmalee]

anyhows, on ocham (occam, ockham) and whatnots:

i think decons offered an explanation far better than most in another thread:

Originally Posted by decons
I guess humans gave up individual, more specialized gods because they realized that they are able to learn, master and/or resist the rules governing individual natural events. Humans were even able to manipulate the production of other living beings such as plants and animals, let alone human inventions such as golf, ski, computers and more public holidays (god of public holidays anyone?).

Only thing humans are yet to master is human condition, i.e. why and how we know what we know. This is maybe why polytheist need was replaced by a monotheist one.

this parallels a conversation i had with a friend who is a biologist--and far more inclined towards proper diligence than i--just the other day. [he also runs a label and is an obsessive music collector: he presently has a running blog in which he critiques every single sun ra album--including known bootlegs--in chronological order. the number is easily in the hundreds. still, he appreciates and respects my minimalist approach towards everything.] why do people feel this compulsion to complicate matters? and of course, some do far more than others. but what lay at the heart of this? why not simply recognize rights for what they are, why must they be something oh-so-much more?

is this simply a pathology for which the most straightforward explanation is not viscerally satisfactory? or is it a means by which to account for behaviors and "gut inclinations" for which the explanations we have do not suffice? IOW fear of and disdain for ambiguity, uncertainty, etc.

 

[glaucon]

now you are sounding as bitter and disgruntled as i am.

funny how it all seems to come back to ocham.

Oh it's not bitterness.
I've just never quite understood the Idealist position; it's an approach that lack consistency, the hallmark of any rational position.

 

[parmalee]

Oh it's not bitterness.
I've just never quite understood the Idealist position; it's an approach that lack consistency, the hallmark of any rational position.

i largely agree--but see the quote i cited from decons above. of course, it does not directly relate to this, but you can probably see how one might extrapolate from such and make it pertinent to this matter.

i think that efforts to strive for consistency are often thrown to the wind when confronted with a very strong visceral reaction against the direction one seems to be going. and i think that nagging uncertainty propels people to abandon "rationality" (proper, but not necessarily their reason; of course, it's all in how one defines reason, yet again) in order to quell the uncertainty.

IOW the thinking goes very much like this: wouldn't it be nice if we could just this once make an appeal to authority (i.e. the universal)? things would go so much more smoothly, and we wouldn't have to contend with "apparent" deviations from a principle.

in this thread--and in most threads--people are inclined to espouse what they "really" believe, and what i really mean by this: what they believe not when really pressed by the matter, but when given the time to abstract and consider what they ought to believe according to the principles and methodologies which the "officially" endorse. yet i am quite surprised to be seeing so many responses which clearly conflict with such, IOW what i am seeing are responses of what people really believe (no scare quotes) inasmuch as it is informed by how they act and what they "feel" in their "hearts." i really needn't even be so overt with the metaphors here, but i felt the need to make it obvious. the fact of the matter is that one would be hard-pressed to honestly articulate the beliefs and concepts without recourse to metaphors and abstractions of abstractions.

alternately:

i am playing with fire--when the cats are away, the mice shall play--but i think that everyone has gone out to lunch. either that, or they simply can't see the fire through the dense fog. nevertheless, i feel confident that by the end of the day i shall be dragging my harmonium up to the rooftop (my violin skills are negligible) and pounding out some drones, while watching the city burn to the ground all about me. i'd prefer some massive tidal waves, but i'll be happy with the fire.

^^^ that was a bit much, but it's really how i see it.