tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post5406772485305392515..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Quick Roundup 203Gus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-22240943435097304732007-06-12T13:33:00.000-06:002007-06-12T13:33:00.000-06:00Good points on religion, and thanks for linking to...Good points on religion, and thanks for linking to Diana's post. I read that article on jihadist etiquette in the pub the other day and considered blogging it, but had forgotten it by the time I had the chance.<BR/><BR/>Your point on being able to twist religion to whatever your purpose is is quite profound. All I would add to it is that if you look at the way it is usually done, it (1) requires "authority" to get away with it and (2) frequently among religions in the West will employ the methods of logic (i.e., misuse reason) in order to legitimize itself to the partially-rational believer.<BR/><BR/>In short, it's "subjectivism on steroids" for the religious leader: He gets what he wants and he gets his followers to do the dirty work for him.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-74044253126770242762007-06-12T12:55:00.000-06:002007-06-12T12:55:00.000-06:00Some would say that was an arrant abuse of religio...<I>Some would say that was an arrant abuse of religion,</I><BR/><BR/>ANYONE who says such a thing should be laughed at long and hard, for it is a contradiction in terms.<BR/><BR/>"Abuse" or "misuse" implies that something has a purpose for which its nature is adapted. Using a hammer to slice bread would be misuse; trying to race a Mustang with a Festiva would be abuse of the Festiva.<BR/><BR/>Specific religions (as opposed to the concept of "religion" as a type of philosophy), on the other hand, are completely arbitrary. Their content is utterly mutable -- it has no "nature", no real identity -- and therefore adaptable to ANY PURPOSE, and thusly merges in practice with its purported opposite, subjectivism. I always laugh when I see someone saying that religion had nothing to do with some particular evil action, that the perpetrator just made up some BS to rationalize his choice. I just say "And your point is....?"<BR/><BR/>Check out Diana's blog post referencing the various "rules" for murder followed by the Islamists for <A HREF="http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2007/06/jihadi-etiquette.html" REL="nofollow">a textbook example.</A><BR/><BR/>Any religion can be used to justify anything you want. Just be selective in your reading of the (contradictory) scriptures until you find the combination you want. If you need to convert a lot of the religion's existing followers to your goal, but the prevailing conventional interpretation gets in your way, it's no problem -- your BS is as good as theirs! You can simply take over with some charisma, or perhaps a convenient "miracle" or two in your <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/brodavelister/scribble/cheese_1.htm" REL="nofollow">grilled cheese sandwich</A> or your <A HREF="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/WolfFiles/story?id=307227&page=1" REL="nofollow">fish sticks</A>. <BR/><BR/>Not grandiose enough? Just start a schism to take over from within. Or follow L. Ron Hubbard's <A HREF="http://www.xenu.net/" REL="nofollow">wildly successful example</A> and start a whole new religion -- the tax benefits alone are impressive.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-78875251296999439112007-06-11T10:11:00.000-06:002007-06-11T10:11:00.000-06:00For any lurkers, the first quote from Sid ends as ...For any lurkers, the first quote from Sid ends as follows: "... So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That's just crazy!" and the second starts out with, "There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars."<BR/><BR/>So go read up!Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-67118168497631219592007-06-11T09:44:00.000-06:002007-06-11T09:44:00.000-06:00From the Speigel interview:...jobs that were creat...From the Speigel interview:<BR/><BR/><I>...jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality.</I><BR/><BR/>Brilliant!<BR/><BR/><I>These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman.</I><BR/><BR/>He's right.<BR/><BR/>The millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts are simply the logical end of the aid given to Africa.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-9213753603569003682007-06-11T09:12:00.000-06:002007-06-11T09:12:00.000-06:00You're welcome, and thank you for posting that ver...You're welcome, and thank you for posting that very informative comment.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-71381533843708718832007-06-11T08:37:00.000-06:002007-06-11T08:37:00.000-06:00Yo, Gus, thanks for posting the reminder on the an...Yo, Gus, thanks for posting the reminder on the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (which is a great case name, doncha think?). I was reading some of the literature around the decision a couple of years ago, and it's quite amusing in a sick way the legal details of anti-miscegenation laws. For example, it was up to the states to define the races, so you ended up with different standards in different states--one-drop rules in one or two states up to I think one-eighth African ancestry in others (and contrary to what you might expect, South Carolina, if I remember correctly, actually had the loosest standards for white)--which meant couples who married in one state might not have been allowed to marry in another state, though under the Constitution their marriages would have been recognized in all states, of course. Did this result in people crossing the state line to get married under easier standards? Well, that's what the Lovings did (they went to Washington, D.C., to get married); but Virginia declared that a violation of the aniti-miscegenation law (I think because they were still legally residents of Virginia and thus under the purview of the law) and ordered them to serve jail time unless they left the state.<BR/><BR/>Also appalling are the decisions of the Supreme Court that allowed anti-miscegenation laws--the decision that Loving v. Virginia overturned actually stated that God had created the races separate! It's quoted at Wiki: <I>"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."</I> Some would say that was an arrant abuse of religion, but I prefer to say that it meant the only reason the segregationists could offer for prohibiting miscegenation wasn't reasoned at all but rather a loogie spat into the face of reason.<BR/><BR/>(And then there was the question of intermarriage between other races than black and white that varied widely between states, I believe. This was a lot like the situation that caused a bit of a hullaballoo I heard about some time ago in Virginia in the 1920s or 1930s, when the state wanted to pass a law discriminating against non-whites of any ancestry, with strict standards for whiteness. This had a great deal of support until somebody realized this discriminated against the many Virginians with Indan ancestors, after which the law sank without a trace. When you keep all this in mind, you can see how much bite Schuyler's <I>Black No More</I> actually had--and the fact that it might seem outrageous and contrived to many people now just shows how much this country has changed since the days of Jim Crow.)<BR/><BR/>And it's not like the anti-miscegenation laws hadn't been challened before, but the Supreme Court upheld them on specious grounds. I think it was Pace v. Alabama (1883) that I have in mind: There were stiff penalties under the Alabama law in question for marriage between the races, but the Court upheld the law on the grounds that since the penalties were the same for blacks and whites the law did not violate the equal protection clause. (Truly equal protection would have meant that two whites or two blacks getting married would have been sent to jail just as long as the spouses in mixed marriages, of course, but then separate but equal never really did mean equal.)<BR/><BR/>The anti-miscegenation laws weren't the worst example of legalistic sophistry in the service of white supremacy--probably the most galling (though at root just as irrational) was the whole question of black citizenship. Before the Civil War, national citizenship was taken by the Court as not implying state citizenship (this was used by Taney in the Dred Scott decision), which led in the early 19th century to black sailors in the US navy serving on warships docking in southern ports being arrested by state governments for violating the laws restricting movements of blacks! (Which is why the 14th Amendment defined citizenship as it did.)Adrian Hesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13394227341130065130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-47673851091699707972007-06-11T08:08:00.000-06:002007-06-11T08:08:00.000-06:00By Binswanger? Not that I know of off-hand -- but ...By Binswanger? Not that I know of off-hand -- but read on....<BR/><BR/>I think he's fine bringing in the conservatives since (A) they (1) so frequently and openly make such claims as that rights "come from God" and (2) base their whole notion of jurisprudence on the claim that all law is based on Christian precepts (e.g., the prohibition against murder); and (B) Binswanger refers explicitly to Ayn Rand's essay "The Nature of Government", which plainly states the relationship between man's rationality and the proper role of government, and is easy-enough to come by.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-58584050864213720722007-06-11T07:55:00.000-06:002007-06-11T07:55:00.000-06:00Is there another article where Dr. Binswanger talk...Is there another article where Dr. Binswanger talks about religious conservatives? Because that last bit about the conservatives seems almost smuggled in at the end unless it isn't referring to some other argument elsewhere.Jennifer Snowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00039865566870992465noreply@blogger.com