Posts Tagged ‘liberal’
Do not judge a book by it’s cover
Which may be easier said then done if we are hard wired to make distinctions between those that will cooperate (for our betterment) and those that would cheat (to our detriment) in a social contract. Some behavioural scientists looking in this area suggest that:
The results of these experiments suggest that cheaters might look different from
cooperators, possibly due to beliefs and personality traits that make them less ideal exchange partners, and the human mind might be capable of picking up on subtle visual cues that cheaters’ faces give off. [source]
Examples have been mock courts, with the same evidence and script, where the only variable has been the demeanour of the defendant. While we may want an impassioned jury to base the innocent or guilt on the evidence, but the dress or physical characteristics of the defendant did impact on how a mock jury made it’s decision. [source]
However, that module that helps us to rationalise trustworthiness in people can be hijacked by cultural traits. These can lend itself to making observations about people which may not be rational in nature, but use the same system of working out who to trust. Using that instinct, often when not all facts are in, may often serve us well on the whole in a fight or flight situation. Now and again though it would fly in the face of logic.
The ancient word online
Take for example my blog being used on a christian forum board, where a poster is concerned about the Codex Sinaiticus, and how to respond. The person that responded to him decided that I was not a trustworthy person because on the cover they assume:
I am gay
I am anti-christian
Claiming that my blog supports the two propositions. Which is odd given that I am straight (as many gay friends will more than happily verify) and that I am against religion being enforced on infidels and none believers by the political and judicial system. If I could get hold of the “Atheists for Jesus” T shirt I would – nothing like trying to emphasises the humanity of Jesus rather than the divinity and hellfire afterlife awaiting non conformists.
Mind you if you just went by:
Homoeconomicusnet
and
Perhaps the person may decide, based on their module for trustworthiness (where religion as a cultural fact is a high indicator that is against homosexuality) consider that:
As to the website you linked to it is typical leftist tripe. The owner is (as his other articles show) a practicing homosexual and an anti-Christian. [source]
The fact that I am for free markets, read economics (hence pseudo name), hetrosexual (practise makes perfect), and someone that thinks that the secular state defends the freedom of the religious and the none believer may counter that. It seems though that we are both inclined to use the same source (this blog) to appeal to our difference of opinion. Perhaps I can claim to have insider knowledge on these things denied to the casual reader. As some do to rendering holy sacred text.
Mind you at least no one on the basis of these words on the blog are going to start a religious creed, or make life and death decisions enshrined in law. These words are recognised as being the product of man – where evidence, logic and rationality can be tested and argued over. Just because I type these things it may not be true.
It helps when you can do this with all literature. Rather than just judging by the cover that the book was written by god. Or that you do not like the cover so disregard it- without examining it. As my comment at the christian cafe ended trying to answer the original post as the devil’s advocate:
As the owner of the blog in question, the pseudo name Homo economicus is an economic concept – and not a reference to my sexuality http://homoeconomicusnet…./01/being-born-a-lesbian/
Even if I was gay, that has nothing to do with the original poster’s question. It actually shows an intolerance that is disturbing.
My concern with religion is where it is forced upon people who do not acquiescence to that belief. Jesus as a human being I have a lot of time for
http://homoeconomicusnet….hristian-not-a-christian/
The point is that various editions of the bible, how scriptures were included to be in certain editions, and the many hands that wrote them is an indication of the works of man. The idea that the bible to every word and punctuation mark is ordained by a higher power seems rather unlikely given the history of how the bible we have today originated.
The strongest argument against that charge is that the gospel is something to be lived, and not a text to be burned into your heart in a fundamentalist way. The bible may have been written by men, but the life lived as a follower of Christ is one that gives grace and would make the world a better place.
I may not agree, but the argument is a stronger one than dismissing some one’s argument on the grounds of sexual orientation or voting intention. [source]
OTHER BLOGS:
Sam Harris on Palin
With regards Palin on the Bush doctrine, that Sam Harris mentions see blog here. The tactic of winning over Hillary Democrats seems to be working with Lynette Long. Also, considering Sam Harris mentioned that we should consider not using the term Atheist when there is a more central goal to be won (in Palin’s case lack of experience) I wonder why he agreed to the title.
When Atheists Attack
by Sam Harris in Newsweek
Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin‘s performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin’s speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones “God and country.” If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.
Then came Palin’s first television interview with Charles Gibson. I was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin’s luster can be much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady’s misfortune—and, above all, upon the “liberal elites” with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.
The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth’s surface (she didn’t have a passport until last year), or that she’s never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska’s geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.
The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin’s lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. “They think they’re better than you!” is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. “Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!” Yes, all too ordinary.
We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter’s microphone, saying things like, “I’m voting for Sarah because she’s a mom. She knows what it’s like to be a mom.” Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.
Palin’s most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been widely discussed. The truth is, I didn’t much care that she did not know the meaning of the phrase “Bush doctrine.” And I am quite sure that her supporters didn’t care, either. Most people view such an ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the other things Palin is guaranteed not to know—or will be glossing only under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain’s advisers. What doesn’t she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin’s ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.
I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but doesn’t: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions of Americans—but we shouldn’t be eager to give these people our nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job she isn’t ready for? He wouldn’t. Everything happens for a reason. Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country—even the welfare of our species—as collateral in her own personal journey of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on his personal journey to the White House.
In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq, Palin urged the congregation to pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God; that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.” When asked about these remarks in her interview with Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response “absurd.” It was worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged about Palin’s life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church, Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible guide to future events and that we are living in the “end times.” Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather. Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing—as all true Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals, Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant when declaring to her congregation that “God’s going to tell you what is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to have that within you”?
You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” “miraculous healings” and “the gift of tongues.” Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin’s spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of “the final generation,” engaged in “spiritual warfare” to purge the earth of “demonic strongholds.” Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: “All options remain on the table”?
It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy to govern the state of Alaska. But we cannot ignore the fact that Palin’s impressive family further testifies to her dogmatic religious beliefs. Many writers have noted the many shades of conservative hypocrisy on view here: when Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant, it is considered a symptom of liberal decadence and the breakdown of family values; in the case of one of Palin’s daughters, however, teen pregnancy gets reinterpreted as a sign of immaculate, small-town fecundity. And just imagine if, instead of the Palins, the Obama family had a pregnant, underage daughter on display at their convention, flanked by her black boyfriend who “intends” to marry her. Who among conservatives would have resisted the temptation to speak of “the dysfunction in the black community”?
Teen pregnancy is a misfortune, plain and simple. At best, it represents bad luck (both for the mother and for the child); at worst, as in the Palins’ case, it is a symptom of religious dogmatism. Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds. She has also fought vigorously for a “parental consent law” in the state of Alaska, seeking full parental dominion over the reproductive decisions of minors. We know, therefore, that Palin believes that she should be the one to decide whether her daughter carries her baby to term. Based on her stated position, we know that she would deny her daughter an abortion even if she had been raped. One can be forgiven for doubting whether Bristol Palin had all the advantages of 21st-century family planning—or, indeed, of the 21st century.
We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched by religious ideology. Bush’s claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted a “higher Father” before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush’s religious beliefs, and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready extremist. Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that while she cannot afford to “talk the talk” between now and Nov. 4, if elected, she can be trusted to “walk the walk” until the Day of Judgment.
What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world’s only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:
“Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child’s brain?”
“Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I’m an avid hunter.”
“But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind.”
“That’s just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink.”
The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.
I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk. The world is growing more complex—and dangerous—with each passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious. Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. “You can’t blink,” she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate of civilization.
Harris is a founder of The Reason Project and author of The New York Times best sellers “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.” His Web site is samharris.org.
OTHER BLOGS:
Islam in Europe – the fear and the irrationality
In the USA there is I think something that may unite the Religious Right and the Secularist community – a fear that Europe is being swallowed up by Islam. The Archbishop’s comments that Sharia Law should have an accommodation in UK law, and other examples do seem to add to that perception – and it is one played on in Europe by anti immigration parties.
One such Dutch politician is Wilders who has spoken about making a film that will depict him decimating the Koran. Which if he did it would be nothing new – youtube has plenty of films of people doing that. How analytical such a film about the Koran will be I am not sure, but the background of course is that four years ago the Dutch film “Submission” was shown on Dutch TV and the director of the film Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death with a letter between his dead body and blade stating that the screenplay writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be next.
Now I am concerned with how some people want to accommodate Islam. That women are given less human rights due to their cultural tradition (a German court ruled that a woman was correctly beaten according to cultural custom but thankfully that decision was overturned). If this is multiculturalism, then it needs to be defeated because it allows people to be treated differently, against the notion of justice as fairness, and leads to the treatment of people that would not be allowed by law on other citizens.
However there is a fight back – witness the condemnation that met the very surprised Bishop of Canterbury (as parts of the Anglican community may refer to him when the schism is complete). Then there is Ayaan herself who though her life is under threat while she lives in the USA, speaks out but with authority because she has has lived it. Sam Harris in “End of Faith” in a chapter talks about the concerns of a literalistic interpretation of Islam.
Tolerance is a wonderful thing, but it does not cover everything. Some things will be beyond a society to accept, the question is only if there is a moral basis. Ethical consideration would be to do with harm and suffering, and the welfare of people. As such, for example, decisions based on divorce and financial arrangements which did not consider genders to be equal parties would be a cause for concern.
However, the xenophobia that exists is out of proportion to the threat posed, which is more within their own community then to wider society. That of genital mutilation, less likely for women to be educated or fluent in the native tongue, and customs such as honour killings which do not deserve the adjective. 7/7 happened, but much of that is ignoring what was happening within a community until it was too late.
In a global communication network, it will be difficult to censor the message of hate that Islamic fundamentalists use. Yet we can perhaps counter their message of hate, with rational passionate discourse about the benefits of human rights and liberal democracy. Hate crimes that encourage harm and the breaking of the law require zero tolerance.
Because it seems the key opponents in politics of Islam are the xenophobic politicians. The other politicians in power seem keen to move public policy to an accommodation with “moderate” faith groups in an attempt to take the sting out of the tail of extremist belief – based on fear. Few of political standing seem able to create a vision of an open country that will stand up for liberal values with a veer and vigour. They seem prepared to sacrifice these values for a better nights sleep after an election, reducing liberties and allowing values out of step with a modern state.
If I am wrong, by all means link them here in the comments – I would like to hear such politicians who will stand up for such values. I doubt that it will be popular with the electorate though it may be correct. But the case has yet to be made in the manner like below:
We live but a brief existence on this earth. We want the best for ourselves and our children. It is part of the human identity to better ourselves. By education. By hard work. The will to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Much do we owe to those that came before us and may we strive that the future generation will say the same of us.
When people overcome obstacles and hardship to come here to make such a better life for themselves, to become a productive member of society that they become as one with us – this is a cause of celebration that the liberty and opportunity that we have created attracts such people that add to both commercial wealth and spirit in the land.
This does not mean that the light of liberty, freedom and opportunity that attracts so many to our shores should be dimmed on the say so of those that would replace our ancestors hard won rights with customs and beliefs that go against enlightenment values. Nor should we let mistrust and hatred allow us equally to do away those same values that allow us the freedoms to be who we are. Let us not sleep walk into thinking these rights are everlasting; may we ever be watchful of the demagogue that will promise us something with one hand while taking away the rights that gave us everything we love and appreciate. Rights that make our country great.
All equal before the law, the right to be tried by your peers, the right to a fair trial, the freedom to religious belief and none, that your private life is yours, the freedom to speak your mind and be challenged in that opinion, that all have the liberty to make their own way in this life and that by doing so shall the greater good be best served within such laws that are in accordance to the common good.
Nick Clegg is OUT
The new Liberal Democrat leader in the UK on radio saying he did not believe in god is not really news – he gave the main speech at the Lib Dem Humanist and Secular dinner a while back. However, even the BBC has given a tabloid like treatment to the news.
I wrote about the reason for a new leader here. Clegg is on the classical liberal side while the challenger he narrowly saw off (though Clegg had more MP support, in the leadership rules my vote is equal to an MPs) Chris Huhne is more of the social democratic type. The Lib Dems formed by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (the SDP in turn being formed by the gang of four MPs that previously had been Labour Cabinet Ministers).
Most of the reaction has been that it is not really an issue. The Archbishop of Canterbury weighed in saying honesty and responsibility were far more important than the religious or otherwise opinions of politicians. A documentary of Tony Blair recently covered his religious belief and his term in office - though the interview was so tame that when he refused to answer a question it just stopped (thank goodness it was David Frost and not this team that interviewed Nixon!).
Having said that Nixon was a Quaker. The actions and character of a person are much more important things to judge someone by. Having said that I remember in my younger days when I was a Labour activist (just before leaving the party in disgust because they did a U turn in office and introduced tuition fess for university causing a housing crisis for students that did not take their gap year, that took months to sort out) trying to get the vote out for Ben Bradshaw in Exeter while I studied there.
On the door, some people refused to support him, even though they were Labour, because he was gay. Even the Conservatives locally made it an issue – stating do not let the pink flag fly above the town hall. When Labour won in 1997 and Bradshaw won I was elated. Only to become bitterly disappointed, not just with the party but also when Bradshaw attacked John Simpson for reporting that NATO bombing had brought the people of Serbia together with the campaign that they were all targets – Ben was wheeled out because he was a journalist himself and his character assassination attempt on Newsnight backfired.
Gordon Brown has his moral compass from his lay preaching father, David Cameron has opportunity and social mobility, and it would seem that Nick Clegg’s is about personal individual freedom and Brian Eno (to get in touch with younger voters).
Well we will see how it all pans out.
