So expect ACTA to pass and expect medicine to remain patented and restricted only for use by the richest 1%. It's the way society is designed, whether ACTA is instituted or not.
The question the modern capitalist must ask themselves is a question of priority. What is more important to you, the lives of poor individuals or profits?
Corporations have chosen profits but what do individuals choose?
It's not that it's bad to have a chain of command. It's bad to have a chain of command that doesn't make decisions based on reason.
Fundamentalism artificially chokes out reasoning because usually they follow one book, or one set of rules which cannot be altered for any reason in any situation. The costs and benefits must always be weighed.
No government is innocent. No large group of people are innocent. No Corporation is innocent. The weak exist to be dominated as long as capitalism is the religion of the world.
As long as it's not our weak being dominated, thats the best we can hope for in the current world.
If I draw a picture of Mohamed blowing a 12-year-old, then I am arguably "insulting" Islam. An "attack" it most certainly is not.
If I draw any picture of The Prophet, just to make the point that I do not share the belief that a picture, any picture, is somehow sinful, how is it that I "insult" Islam? To me, a picture of Mohamed is nothing special. I can draw him if I want and anyone who wants me not to can piss up a rope.
I'll say it again, I am not bound by your religious strictures. You chose to be, and that's fine, but stop busting my balls about it already. That is not "attacking" Islam. It is attacking the unreasonable expectation that others live according to your religious rules.
To you it's no big deal. To you it's nothing. To them it's a huge deal and they are emotionally affected by it. It doesn't even matter why, the fact is it triggers something in their brain that causes them to behave in ways which are unpredictable at best and violent at worst.
This is no different than if someone decided to post cartoons of child pornography all over Facebook to see how Americans would react. It wouldn't be difficult to predict that Americans would not only ask for those pictures to be taken down but they'd want the artists head, meaning they'd want the artist to get 10 years in prison for production and distribution of lewd child porn cartoons.
So tell me why is it okay to poke fun at the taboos of Muslims but it's not okay to poke fun at the taboos of Americans? If it's wrong to draw cartoon child porn, it must be equally wrong to draw a cartoon of Muhammad for the same rational and technical reasons. These sorts of drawings upset millions of people and cause millions of people to go on witch hunts and this neurological reaction in their brains has nothing to do with the religion they follow and has more to do with how their brains are physically.
Their brains cause them to react violently to the exposure to certain images. There is probably a neurological basis behind this reaction. Religion might have some influence but it doesn't explain the violent and irrational reaction people have to taboo subjects and images.
Rule utilitarianism requires a utility function. There is no way to show that the utility function is the 'best' one. For example a rule utilitarianist who believes the function we should maximize is human genetic superiority (above all other concerns) would be a very nasty piece of work.
I do think that ethics that are tested constantly (and the bad ones rejected) are superior to those that don't, but ultimately the current major problem is when ethics are based on something other than empathy (or perhaps the prevention of harm).
I will admit there is no best of all time utility function in rule utilitarianism. But the best utility function which the greatest number of people and nations agree upon is the promotion and creation of human rights. So we can say that ending slavery, torture and genocide are utility functions/rules.
Ethics need not be based on any emotion. Empathy is an emotion. Reduction is harm is not the same thing as empathy. Many slave owners had empathy but did not see owning slaves as fundamentally wrong. Empathy is not always expressed in the right way, and because its an emotion it can be manipulated by dictators and individuals who have the reasoning ability to understand that its just an emotion.
I think right and wrong depends entirely on the situation the individual finds themselves in. The goal of an individual is to get out of the situation intact. To survive the game an individual has to figure out what the best options are at any given moment.
The reason to have rules as a utilitarian is because, at least for me, I understand that I'm not always going to be able to have the ability to see the best option from my individual position on the chess board. I'm not going to always know if a specific action will have unintended consequences, and by following rules which have worked in the past it also allows me to make quick yet accurate decisions. It's the same reason we have functions and formulas when doing math.
Torture is wrong 99% of the time. Slavery is wrong 99% of the time. So it's easy to say as a rule these activities are wrong. Why are they wrong? Because there aren't really any pros that justify torture but there are many cons. There aren't many pros that justify slavery but there are many harms. These harms to many individuals and many families results in an increased level of risk for the individual who commits these acts.
So on a consequential basis alone these activities are wrong.On the other hand consequentialism leads to conclusions about right and wrong activity that a lot of empaths disagree with because sometimes the correct conclusion or solution is counter-intuitive to emotional instinct. So it's not wise to put faith in emotion, but to keep faith in reason when dealing with mission critical situations.
You can't win a war on protest alone. It's you calling them cowards so like I said would you be willing to pay the higher taxes for the witness protection program, or to hire more anti terrorism cops, or to let them serve in the military?
I don't know why you instinctively assume they are cowards.
Science cant deal with morals. Science is about positive (descriptive) statements not normative (prescriptive) statements.
I don't have a moral system (I'm a moral nihilist) but my effective 'moral code' is basically secular humanism. A basic tenet of this is that you should constantly test morals to see which are better. What exactly is the basis for a scientific morality? How do you use a method for falsifying descriptive statements to demonstrate the truth of normative ones?
As for atheism being 'not main stream', it is far larger than most people realize. And it is a philosophical position about the existence of god. Of course it provides no moral framework. You may as well complain that New Criticism provides no explanation of atomic theory. Most atheists I know who have thought about morality subscribe to some brand of secular humanism. Is that what you are taking about?
I'm not especially interested in converting believers. I just want them to recognize me a decent human being with the same concerns as them. I'd also like them to recognize that I have exactly the same 'moral sense' as they do.
Rule utilitarianism is an example of scientific ethics. Consequentialism is scientific and based on statistic measurements, probability. So there is a best option and game theory has proven that there is an objective way to measure the rightness or wrongness of a set of options.
Morality would be the (rules) in rule utilitarianism. The rules should not be set in stone, but basic rules like don't torture, don't harm women, children and innocent people, these rules are true 99% of the time and the exceptions are so rare that most of us will never face them.
And many wrong religions contain some of the right solutions.
But in the end science should trump religion. The response I'm seeing on this blog is not based on science. If it were based on consequentialism and utilitarianism then the mission objectives should be stated and the role of drawing annoying cartoons and ridicule should be known. When the role or purpose of an act cannot be quantified and is not known, there is no way to understand how the act furthers the mission objectives.
If we want to promote freedom I don't see how drawing a cartoon which annoys the majority of the Muslim world is the way to do it. A comedy routine would probably be a better way to do it where you directly ridicule the terrorists and suicide bomber through comic books and standup, but attacking the religion just doesn't seem tactically right.
Islam is in my opinion a more advanced religion than Christianity in that it's a lot more scientific and accepts more of the laws of nature. I do not think everything about Islam is bad and I don't think Islam should be treated as inferior to Christianity. I think fundamentalism is wrong and must be confronted by the scientifically inclined religious community.
I will go on record and admit that I believe in Allah, in God, in a creative force of the universe. But I know that the laws of nature govern reality, and that only science can determine the rightness or wrongness of an action just as only a ruler can measure. We have to measure the tactical rightness of the Muhammad cartoons, as I believe that these sorts of cartoons are tactically wrong because it provokes lunatics to act.
If the goal is to diminish Nazism for example we wouldn't adopt the tactic of making fun of Hitler on websites would we? I mean thats going to just cause the website owners to receive death threats.
Atheists dont have the answer either because a lot of atheists don't promote any form of ethics whatsoever and appear to be amoral, which is part of the reason why atheism never catches on to the mainstream.
Atheism has no dogma that explains any such thing. As a result we're free to have mutually incompatible morality system. But that's nothing new, after all most religions are incompatible on some level with each other, or even within their own branches.
I base my morality on the lack of harm to other people. Self-harm, while not really a good thing is acceptable so long nobody else is harmed as well. That means that I for instance disagree with the existence of all victimless crimes, even if I personally find the behavior disgusting, as I think that tastefulness and morality are separate things.
How do you determine a right and wrong action? Using a decision tree, using a pro vs con list, using a type of math that most people have no knowledge up. People want a convenient list, a code to live by and when it's not given to them by God they go crazy. They'll die to protect this code just as many Americans would die protecting the Constitution.
I do not think I like this idea. You'll have the same old holy wars, for the same old stupid reasons. Hundreds of years from now nobody will remember the reasons and context for the old prohibitions. They'll become sacred and not open to discussion, even after the purpose for which they were made is no longer needed. For instance, is incest still wrong if improved science can guarantee that the child won't have any problems because of it?
I think that such things discourage thinking too much, and we don't need any more of that. A proper scientific morality IMO would start with a good education made to get people to use their brains properly. If most of the population was able to think logically, a few extremists wouldn't be such a big problem.
Whatever science says is right, whatever science says is wrong is wrong. It's objective. A scientific morality is impossible because the majority of Christians and Muslims don't want to accept natural law. Christians want to promote the a lot of ideas which don't make any sense as do Muslims. Our laws are still based around Christian morality, not utilitarian ethics.
The harm principle by Jeremy Bentham is an example of a basis for building a rational morality. I'd say consequentialism and rule utilitarianism are the ethics I follow and that I'm amoral. I do not have a morality beyond doing what I think is in my best interest at the time.
Most people don't think, they feel. They do what feels right. They learn what feels right through religion. So religion is important.
Unless you are willing to financially and materially support this behavior you should not call for it. It's not going to be free to train the moderate Muslims to do what you expect them to be able to do. It's not going to be easy for them to do it without support going up against highly trained terrorist cells.
Think about what you are asking them to do. And then plan how you would help them do it.
How many of you are willing to provide it? The extremist insane Muslims are receiving training and financial support from Pakistan. Unless Moderate Muslims receive the same kind of support what can you expect?
It seems like the active, crazy Muslim population hates the passive, reasonable Muslims even more than they hate atheists. They'll totally murder you for being the wrong kind of Muslim.
The "passive" Muslims are truly on the front line in the battle for freedom. This is why I don't think it's accurate to call them passive since they inherit the majority of the risk.
Saying "They'll totally murder you" doesn't really mean much. You assume moderate Islam cannot help bring terrorists to justice? You think moderate Muslims cannot actively fight the insane Muslims? In the USA moderate Christians have been fighting and successfully have prevented terrorism from the insane Christians. In the USA moderate Muslims have successfully prevented terrorist attacks.
Anyone who is risking their lives to defend freedom has courage and conviction. You assume that moderate Muslims cannot join the military and fight against the terrorists? Or that their lives aren't at risk for speaking out?
While it's not going to change the policies over night, moderate Islam will over a period of decades become a major influence in many Muslim nations until eventually it's the dominant form.
Iran is not Pakistan. Iran is difficult to deal with for many reasons and it has nothing to do with religion.
The USA and the western nations have to trust moderate Muslims.
When I see posts on blogs saying Islam is inferior to Christianity, and that all the problems and terrorism in the world is coming from Islam, this shows me that a lot of people in western society hate Islam and don't seem to be focused on the prime objectives.
And its true that the moderate Muslims hold the key. This is why the west should promote moderate Islam on facebook. Drawing cartoons of the prophet is attacking Islam as a whole and serves no purpose and in my opinion its not promoting moderate Islam. It does not help integrate Islam into western culture.
It's not a good idea to blame Islam, or blame Muslims as a group, and call Islam a primitive religion. Some of the posts on this blog have been just plain stupid and wrong.
There is nothing to be gained by name calling and ridicule in my opinion.
Not to volunteer you for anything, but your demographic (passive, reasonable Muslim) is exactly who we need to speak out against this nonsense. I believe what you're saying is true, but based on 95% of media coverage, it would be easy to mistake the minority for the majority.
Yes it's important that freedom loving Muslims speak out. I don't think it's right to call them "passive" because we don't want them to be "passive." How are they going to be a freedom fighter if they don't take risks?
What we should be doing is building bigger, stronger, more integrated networks with Muslims. How many Muslim friends do you have? It's only when we integrate Muslims into society on some level that we can have these Muslims speak out.
I'm from the USA, most of the Muslims I know are not fundamentalists. In fact I've never met a fundamentalist Muslim in my life. I've met more fundamentalist Christians in this country. The situation in Europe is very different because Muslims are not being integrated. This is only solved by the slow process of integration, inter-marrying, which can take decades.
It requires an open minded approach because you cannot come with arrogance that you are better than them because this automatically creates a distance between you and them. You have to find what you have in common with the Muslim world and bridge the gap using the internet. There are reasonable people and some of these reasonable people are Muslim. Speak with reason to these people, build rapport, and they will see that human rights is beneficial to the entire world and all humans including Muslim humans.
And then it's a matter of dealing with the groups and individuals who don't believe in human rights. There are a lot of these individuals and they aren't all Muslim. We have to see it as the human rights defenders against the human rights abusers. Not see it as Islam vs the west.
The tensions that these kinds of drawings create will be exploited by Pakistan. They only did the ban as a way to bring attention to the drawings which most Muslims probably didn't even know existed until this became big news. Pakistan's extremists in government know that they can use Islam as a weapon against the west. I think the west is using the wrong tactic by attacking Islam. By attacking the entire religion they only strengthen the weapon welded by Pakistan.
The best possible solution in my opinion is if the USA and other countries embrace a form of Islam which promotes freedom of speech and human rights. I don't think this particular issue is the way to build the kind of support which needs to be built.
What do we gain 1. militarily, 2. politically, 3. diplomatically? Until somebody can outline exactly what we gain by drawing pictures of Muhammad there is no justification or scientific evidence to prove it's a rational tactic.
I don't see anything being gained by this. It pisses off the Muslim world, it has unintended consequences, if it's a type of psychological warfare it could actually have counter productive effects.
Are you people really thinking about what the consequences of this may be outside of "We are better, our culture is better, our God is bigger" type talk?
If a newspaper in Denmark, a prominently non-muslim country, can't do the same without being subjected with worldwide cannon fire from muslim authorities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy), what are the chances that a website in a muslim country would fare any better?
Is the war on Islam? Are we having a crusade? If it's not a crusade against Islam then what does the USA, Denmark or any country gain by attacking Islam?
I'm all for attacking the terrorists who are considered to be enemies of the USA, of Denmark and of the western world in general. But to attack Islam isn't going to accomplish anything materially that I can see.
What do we gain militarily, politically, diplomatically? Until somebody can outline exactly what we gain by doing it there is no justification or scientific evidence to prove it's a rational strategy.
I realize that, some will bitch, others will not. The fact that any site would knuckle under because of primitive religious beliefs in the 21st century is mind-blowing..
Maybe if you don't call them primitives you will have more success in educating them. You cannot educate a student when you call the student a primitive.
Or should only the speech the western society doesn't have a problem with be free?
I don't think Pakistan or any Muslim nation wants the west to determine what goes on in the minds of Pakistan. I do believe that the internet can open minds and hearts in Pakistan and should be used, but I believe Islam should be used as a tool to free Pakistan rather than to destroy Islam.
You moral relativism is fine and I agree with it, judge people by the standards of the day and the society they grew up in. Could you now get every single believer who lectures me about how I'm evil and relativist to shut up? Either we judge people by the standards of the day, moral relativism is fine and the Quran (or Bible, or anything else) is interpreted in that manner, or it isn't and pedophilia is a-okay.
We have to promote a scientific morality. Christian morality is no better than Muslim morality because neither are based around science and reason and this is why in many instances you have irrational extremists.
Atheists dont have the answer either because a lot of atheists don't promote any form of ethics whatsoever and appear to be amoral, which is part of the reason why atheism never catches on to the mainstream. The people need a morality because the majority of people just aren't smart enough to determine right and wrong on their own.
How do you determine a right and wrong action? Using a decision tree, using a pro vs con list, using a type of math that most people have no knowledge up. People want a convenient list, a code to live by and when it's not given to them by God they go crazy. They'll die to protect this code just as many Americans would die protecting the Constitution.
I don't think we can attack their entire code and expect it to work anymore than it would work if some foreign country like China started attacking the US Constitution and our laws and codes. What we might consider to be something trivial might be life and death for Muslims. This is why it's better not to directly attack their code, and focus on attacking the fundamentalists, unless this attack on their code actually accomplishes a military or political objective.
What does this attack accomplish? Since nobody yet has given me any indication of what it accomplishes other than to make Christians feel better, I've concluded that it's stupid.
The actual point of debate isn't really important. The point is, how do you debate anything related to the religion in question with a "true believer"?
As a side note, I reject the "normal behavior in members society" argument. If it is a societal norm that grown adults consumate marriage with 9 year olds then that society has engrained abuse issues. Of course even today we see the systematic oppression of women in the devout Muslim countries so one should not necessarily be surprised. The question is, is the oppression of women in a society acceptable because it is "normal" for that society? At one time it was "normal" in our society to keep slaves from Africa. Even though I have a great deal of respect for what the men of that time were able to accomplish, I also do not understand how men of conscience were able to participate in that practice, and it does affect my view of them.
If it were normal behavior then at that point in time it wasn't considered wrong. You might consider it wrong later on with your advanced knowledge and ethics, but to judge a person based on what was considered right at the time is a bit unfair. Should we judge great founding fathers who owned slaves in this way? Should we judge members of royalty who married their brothers and cousins?
There were legit reasons why people lived in this way. They did not have the benefit of technology, the internet, and for the most part people didn't live as long as they do now. The point is you cannot win this battle by low blow attacks. If you attack Islam when there are a billion Muslims on the planet it's just stupid.
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So expect ACTA to pass and expect medicine to remain patented and restricted only for use by the richest 1%. It's the way society is designed, whether ACTA is instituted or not.
The question the modern capitalist must ask themselves is a question of priority. What is more important to you, the lives of poor individuals or profits?
Corporations have chosen profits but what do individuals choose?
It's not that it's bad to have a chain of command. It's bad to have a chain of command that doesn't make decisions based on reason.
Fundamentalism artificially chokes out reasoning because usually they follow one book, or one set of rules which cannot be altered for any reason in any situation. The costs and benefits must always be weighed.
No government is innocent. No large group of people are innocent. No Corporation is innocent. The weak exist to be dominated as long as capitalism is the religion of the world.
As long as it's not our weak being dominated, thats the best we can hope for in the current world.
If I draw a picture of Mohamed blowing a 12-year-old, then I am arguably "insulting" Islam. An "attack" it most certainly is not.
If I draw any picture of The Prophet, just to make the point that I do not share the belief that a picture, any picture, is somehow sinful, how is it that I "insult" Islam? To me, a picture of Mohamed is nothing special. I can draw him if I want and anyone who wants me not to can piss up a rope.
I'll say it again, I am not bound by your religious strictures. You chose to be, and that's fine, but stop busting my balls about it already. That is not "attacking" Islam. It is attacking the unreasonable expectation that others live according to your religious rules.
To you it's no big deal. To you it's nothing. To them it's a huge deal and they are emotionally affected by it. It doesn't even matter why, the fact is it triggers something in their brain that causes them to behave in ways which are unpredictable at best and violent at worst.
This is no different than if someone decided to post cartoons of child pornography all over Facebook to see how Americans would react. It wouldn't be difficult to predict that Americans would not only ask for those pictures to be taken down but they'd want the artists head, meaning they'd want the artist to get 10 years in prison for production and distribution of lewd child porn cartoons.
So tell me why is it okay to poke fun at the taboos of Muslims but it's not okay to poke fun at the taboos of Americans? If it's wrong to draw cartoon child porn, it must be equally wrong to draw a cartoon of Muhammad for the same rational and technical reasons. These sorts of drawings upset millions of people and cause millions of people to go on witch hunts and this neurological reaction in their brains has nothing to do with the religion they follow and has more to do with how their brains are physically.
Their brains cause them to react violently to the exposure to certain images. There is probably a neurological basis behind this reaction. Religion might have some influence but it doesn't explain the violent and irrational reaction people have to taboo subjects and images.
Rule utilitarianism requires a utility function. There is no way to show that the utility function is the 'best' one. For example a rule utilitarianist who believes the function we should maximize is human genetic superiority (above all other concerns) would be a very nasty piece of work.
I do think that ethics that are tested constantly (and the bad ones rejected) are superior to those that don't, but ultimately the current major problem is when ethics are based on something other than empathy (or perhaps the prevention of harm).
I will admit there is no best of all time utility function in rule utilitarianism. But the best utility function which the greatest number of people and nations agree upon is the promotion and creation of human rights. So we can say that ending slavery, torture and genocide are utility functions/rules.
Ethics need not be based on any emotion. Empathy is an emotion. Reduction is harm is not the same thing as empathy. Many slave owners had empathy but did not see owning slaves as fundamentally wrong. Empathy is not always expressed in the right way, and because its an emotion it can be manipulated by dictators and individuals who have the reasoning ability to understand that its just an emotion.
I think right and wrong depends entirely on the situation the individual finds themselves in. The goal of an individual is to get out of the situation intact. To survive the game an individual has to figure out what the best options are at any given moment.
The reason to have rules as a utilitarian is because, at least for me, I understand that I'm not always going to be able to have the ability to see the best option from my individual position on the chess board. I'm not going to always know if a specific action will have unintended consequences, and by following rules which have worked in the past it also allows me to make quick yet accurate decisions. It's the same reason we have functions and formulas when doing math.
Torture is wrong 99% of the time. Slavery is wrong 99% of the time. So it's easy to say as a rule these activities are wrong. Why are they wrong? Because there aren't really any pros that justify torture but there are many cons. There aren't many pros that justify slavery but there are many harms. These harms to many individuals and many families results in an increased level of risk for the individual who commits these acts.
So on a consequential basis alone these activities are wrong.On the other hand consequentialism leads to conclusions about right and wrong activity that a lot of empaths disagree with because sometimes the correct conclusion or solution is counter-intuitive to emotional instinct. So it's not wise to put faith in emotion, but to keep faith in reason when dealing with mission critical situations.
You can't win a war on protest alone. It's you calling them cowards so like I said would you be willing to pay the higher taxes for the witness protection program, or to hire more anti terrorism cops, or to let them serve in the military?
I don't know why you instinctively assume they are cowards.
Science cant deal with morals. Science is about positive (descriptive) statements not normative (prescriptive) statements.
I don't have a moral system (I'm a moral nihilist) but my effective 'moral code' is basically secular humanism. A basic tenet of this is that you should constantly test morals to see which are better. What exactly is the basis for a scientific morality? How do you use a method for falsifying descriptive statements to demonstrate the truth of normative ones?
As for atheism being 'not main stream', it is far larger than most people realize. And it is a philosophical position about the existence of god. Of course it provides no moral framework. You may as well complain that New Criticism provides no explanation of atomic theory. Most atheists I know who have thought about morality subscribe to some brand of secular humanism. Is that what you are taking about?
I'm not especially interested in converting believers. I just want them to recognize me a decent human being with the same concerns as them. I'd also like them to recognize that I have exactly the same 'moral sense' as they do.
Rule utilitarianism is an example of scientific ethics. Consequentialism is scientific and based on statistic measurements, probability. So there is a best option and game theory has proven that there is an objective way to measure the rightness or wrongness of a set of options.
Morality would be the (rules) in rule utilitarianism. The rules should not be set in stone, but basic rules like don't torture, don't harm women, children and innocent people, these rules are true 99% of the time and the exceptions are so rare that most of us will never face them.
And many wrong religions contain some of the right solutions.
But in the end science should trump religion. The response I'm seeing on this blog is not based on science. If it were based on consequentialism and utilitarianism then the mission objectives should be stated and the role of drawing annoying cartoons and ridicule should be known. When the role or purpose of an act cannot be quantified and is not known, there is no way to understand how the act furthers the mission objectives.
If we want to promote freedom I don't see how drawing a cartoon which annoys the majority of the Muslim world is the way to do it. A comedy routine would probably be a better way to do it where you directly ridicule the terrorists and suicide bomber through comic books and standup, but attacking the religion just doesn't seem tactically right.
Islam is in my opinion a more advanced religion than Christianity in that it's a lot more scientific and accepts more of the laws of nature. I do not think everything about Islam is bad and I don't think Islam should be treated as inferior to Christianity. I think fundamentalism is wrong and must be confronted by the scientifically inclined religious community.
I will go on record and admit that I believe in Allah, in God, in a creative force of the universe. But I know that the laws of nature govern reality, and that only science can determine the rightness or wrongness of an action just as only a ruler can measure. We have to measure the tactical rightness of the Muhammad cartoons, as I believe that these sorts of cartoons are tactically wrong because it provokes lunatics to act.
If the goal is to diminish Nazism for example we wouldn't adopt the tactic of making fun of Hitler on websites would we? I mean thats going to just cause the website owners to receive death threats.
Atheism has no dogma that explains any such thing. As a result we're free to have mutually incompatible morality system. But that's nothing new, after all most religions are incompatible on some level with each other, or even within their own branches.
I base my morality on the lack of harm to other people. Self-harm, while not really a good thing is acceptable so long nobody else is harmed as well. That means that I for instance disagree with the existence of all victimless crimes, even if I personally find the behavior disgusting, as I think that tastefulness and morality are separate things.
I do not think I like this idea. You'll have the same old holy wars, for the same old stupid reasons. Hundreds of years from now nobody will remember the reasons and context for the old prohibitions. They'll become sacred and not open to discussion, even after the purpose for which they were made is no longer needed. For instance, is incest still wrong if improved science can guarantee that the child won't have any problems because of it?
I think that such things discourage thinking too much, and we don't need any more of that. A proper scientific morality IMO would start with a good education made to get people to use their brains properly. If most of the population was able to think logically, a few extremists wouldn't be such a big problem.
Whatever science says is right, whatever science says is wrong is wrong. It's objective. A scientific morality is impossible because the majority of Christians and Muslims don't want to accept natural law. Christians want to promote the a lot of ideas which don't make any sense as do Muslims. Our laws are still based around Christian morality, not utilitarian ethics.
The harm principle by Jeremy Bentham is an example of a basis for building a rational morality. I'd say consequentialism and rule utilitarianism are
the ethics I follow and that I'm amoral. I do not have a morality beyond doing what I think is in my best interest at the time.
Most people don't think, they feel. They do what feels right. They learn what feels right through religion. So religion is important.
Unless you are willing to financially and materially support this behavior you should not call for it. It's not going to be free to train the moderate Muslims to do what you expect them to be able to do. It's not going to be easy for them to do it without support going up against highly trained terrorist cells.
Think about what you are asking them to do. And then plan how you would help them do it.
How many of you are willing to provide it? The extremist insane Muslims are receiving training and financial support from Pakistan. Unless Moderate Muslims receive the same kind of support what can you expect?
It seems like the active, crazy Muslim population hates the passive, reasonable Muslims even more than they hate atheists. They'll totally murder you for being the wrong kind of Muslim.
The "passive" Muslims are truly on the front line in the battle for freedom. This is why I don't think it's accurate to call them passive since they inherit the majority of the risk.
Saying "They'll totally murder you" doesn't really mean much. You assume moderate Islam cannot help bring terrorists to justice? You think moderate Muslims cannot actively fight the insane Muslims? In the USA moderate Christians have been fighting and successfully have prevented terrorism from the insane Christians. In the USA moderate Muslims have successfully prevented terrorist attacks.
There are even Muslims in the armed forces.
Anyone who is risking their lives to defend freedom has courage and conviction. You assume that moderate Muslims cannot join the military and fight against the terrorists? Or that their lives aren't at risk for speaking out?
While it's not going to change the policies over night, moderate Islam will over a period of decades become a major influence in many Muslim nations until eventually it's the dominant form.
Iran is not Pakistan. Iran is difficult to deal with for many reasons and it has nothing to do with religion.
The USA and the western nations have to trust moderate Muslims.
When I see posts on blogs saying Islam is inferior to Christianity, and that all the problems and terrorism in the world is coming from Islam, this shows me that a lot of people in western society hate Islam and don't seem to be focused on the prime objectives.
And its true that the moderate Muslims hold the key. This is why the west should promote moderate Islam on facebook. Drawing cartoons of the prophet is attacking Islam as a whole and serves no purpose and in my opinion its not promoting moderate Islam. It does not help integrate Islam into western culture.
It's not a good idea to blame Islam, or blame Muslims as a group, and call Islam a primitive religion. Some of the posts on this blog have been just plain stupid and wrong.
There is nothing to be gained by name calling and ridicule in my opinion.
Not to volunteer you for anything, but your demographic (passive, reasonable Muslim) is exactly who we need to speak out against this nonsense. I believe what you're saying is true, but based on 95% of media coverage, it would be easy to mistake the minority for the majority.
Yes it's important that freedom loving Muslims speak out. I don't think it's right to call them "passive" because we don't want them to be "passive." How are they going to be a freedom fighter if they don't take risks?
What we should be doing is building bigger, stronger, more integrated networks with Muslims. How many Muslim friends do you have? It's only when we integrate Muslims into society on some level that we can have these Muslims speak out.
I'm from the USA, most of the Muslims I know are not fundamentalists. In fact I've never met a fundamentalist Muslim in my life. I've met more fundamentalist Christians in this country. The situation in Europe is very different because Muslims are not being integrated. This is only solved by the slow process of integration, inter-marrying, which can take decades.
It requires an open minded approach because you cannot come with arrogance that you are better than them because this automatically creates a distance between you and them. You have to find what you have in common with the Muslim world and bridge the gap using the internet. There are reasonable people and some of these reasonable people are Muslim. Speak with reason to these people, build rapport, and they will see that human rights is beneficial to the entire world and all humans including Muslim humans.
And then it's a matter of dealing with the groups and individuals who don't believe in human rights. There are a lot of these individuals and they aren't all Muslim. We have to see it as the human rights defenders against the human rights abusers. Not see it as Islam vs the west.
The tensions that these kinds of drawings create will be exploited by Pakistan. They only did the ban as a way to bring attention to the drawings which most Muslims probably didn't even know existed until this became big news. Pakistan's extremists in government know that they can use Islam as a weapon against the west. I think the west is using the wrong tactic by attacking Islam. By attacking the entire religion they only strengthen the weapon welded by Pakistan.
The best possible solution in my opinion is if the USA and other countries embrace a form of Islam which promotes freedom of speech and human rights. I don't think this particular issue is the way to build the kind of support which needs to be built.
What do we gain 1. militarily, 2. politically, 3. diplomatically? Until somebody can outline exactly what we gain by drawing pictures of Muhammad there is no justification or scientific evidence to prove it's a rational tactic.
I don't see anything being gained by this. It pisses off the Muslim world, it has unintended consequences, if it's a type of psychological warfare it could actually have counter productive effects.
Are you people really thinking about what the consequences of this may be outside of "We are better, our culture is better, our God is bigger" type talk?
If a newspaper in Denmark, a prominently non-muslim country, can't do the same without being subjected with worldwide cannon fire from muslim authorities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy), what are the chances that a website in a muslim country would fare any better?
Is the war on Islam? Are we having a crusade? If it's not a crusade against Islam then what does the USA, Denmark or any country gain by attacking Islam?
I'm all for attacking the terrorists who are considered to be enemies of the USA, of Denmark and of the western world in general. But to attack Islam isn't going to accomplish anything materially that I can see.
What do we gain militarily, politically, diplomatically? Until somebody can outline exactly what we gain by doing it there is no justification or scientific evidence to prove it's a rational strategy.
I realize that, some will bitch, others will not. The fact that any site would knuckle under because of primitive religious beliefs in the 21st century is mind-blowing. .
Maybe if you don't call them primitives you will have more success in educating them. You cannot educate a student when you call the student a primitive.
Or should only the speech the western society doesn't have a problem with be free?
I don't think Pakistan or any Muslim nation wants the west to determine what goes on in the minds of Pakistan. I do believe that the internet can open minds and hearts in Pakistan and should be used, but I believe Islam should be used as a tool to free Pakistan rather than to destroy Islam.
You moral relativism is fine and I agree with it, judge people by the standards of the day and the society they grew up in. Could you now get every single believer who lectures me about how I'm evil and relativist to shut up? Either we judge people by the standards of the day, moral relativism is fine and the Quran (or Bible, or anything else) is interpreted in that manner, or it isn't and pedophilia is a-okay.
We have to promote a scientific morality. Christian morality is no better than Muslim morality because neither are based around science and reason and this is why in many instances you have irrational extremists.
Atheists dont have the answer either because a lot of atheists don't promote any form of ethics whatsoever and appear to be amoral, which is part of the reason why atheism never catches on to the mainstream. The people need a morality because the majority of people just aren't smart enough to determine right and wrong on their own.
How do you determine a right and wrong action? Using a decision tree, using a pro vs con list, using a type of math that most people have no knowledge up. People want a convenient list, a code to live by and when it's not given to them by God they go crazy. They'll die to protect this code just as many Americans would die protecting the Constitution.
I don't think we can attack their entire code and expect it to work anymore than it would work if some foreign country like China started attacking the US Constitution and our laws and codes. What we might consider to be something trivial might be life and death for Muslims. This is why it's better not to directly attack their code, and focus on attacking the fundamentalists, unless this attack on their code actually accomplishes a military or political objective.
What does this attack accomplish? Since nobody yet has given me any indication of what it accomplishes other than to make Christians feel better, I've concluded that it's stupid.
The actual point of debate isn't really important. The point is, how do you debate anything related to the religion in question with a "true believer"?
As a side note, I reject the "normal behavior in members society" argument. If it is a societal norm that grown adults consumate marriage with 9 year olds then that society has engrained abuse issues. Of course even today we see the systematic oppression of women in the devout Muslim countries so one should not necessarily be surprised. The question is, is the oppression of women in a society acceptable because it is "normal" for that society? At one time it was "normal" in our society to keep slaves from Africa. Even though I have a great deal of respect for what the men of that time were able to accomplish, I also do not understand how men of conscience were able to participate in that practice, and it does affect my view of them.
If it were normal behavior then at that point in time it wasn't considered wrong. You might consider it wrong later on with your advanced knowledge and ethics, but to judge a person based on what was considered right at the time is a bit unfair. Should we judge great founding fathers who owned slaves in this way? Should we judge members of royalty who married their brothers and cousins?
There were legit reasons why people lived in this way. They did not have the benefit of technology, the internet, and for the most part people didn't live as long as they do now. The point is you cannot win this battle by low blow attacks. If you attack Islam when there are a billion Muslims on the planet it's just stupid.
Attack the followers who interpret it in the wrong fashion. Attack the individuals who don't believe in freedom.
To attack an entire religion is as ignorant as what the Nazi's did. I cannot believe you don't see this.