Quick Roundup 77

Did Marilyn slip one past the Thought Police?

I recall being unhappy Sunday with the following Marilyn vos Savant Q & A.

Society tells us to respect all religions. Why should I hold even polite esteem for "religious" beliefs I would otherwise find abominable?
-- Bradley Harris, Littleton, Colo.

This is a misunderstanding so ingrained that it may have caused a social shift to the misunderstanding itself! The historic admonition to respect all religions uses an older definition of "respect" that has nothing to do with esteem. The earlier meaning is the one used in "respect the fence" and "respect the speed limit." In short: "Don't cross that line, or you may regret it."

"Dhimmitude," was what my gut initially saw then.

I remain unhappy, but upon rereading this today, it seems that when one reads between the lines, vos Savant might mean that this saying is a threat which, if she is correct about its origins, is indeed the case. I don't usually expect much when reading vos Savant, but I doubt she could have said that explicitly at all and still seen it in print. As Betsy Speicher might put it, "You'll know Objectivism is winning when ... people in the MSM can call a spade a spade."

(Of course, since religious "morality" is, shall we say, "threat-driven", this still leaves open the question of whether vos Savant endorses the saying in question. If she does, my gut was right.)

Having said that, I am not so sure I agree with vos Savant's derivation of the phrase. I always took it to be a very sloppy way of admonishing both respect for the religious freedom of others and politeness in the vein of, "Don't unnecessarily antagonize others." This was, of course, also improperly packaged with the notion that all religions, being "good", deserve respect. Followers of Islam seem unstinting in their efforts to disabuse us of that notion. (See next subheading.)

In any event, it would appear that Marilyn vos Savant's answer could be a very convoluted, "You needn't." (It is so convoluted, in fact, as to be nearly devoid of meaning.)

Come to think of it, given how self-contradictory every religious scripture is, her actual answer (assuming her parsing of the word "respect" is correct) should have been, "You can't!" An unfollowable moral code and the guilt generated therefrom have been the bread and butter of countless "holy" "men" through the ages. Read on.

Faith-Rape

Here's an example (and a very disturbing one) of what I mean by "holy" "men" using faith -- the mental incapacitation of their own followers -- as a means of living parasitically.

I pondered such thoughts for hours on end and always ended with the question of whether I would also be cursed to eternity in hell for the acts that I had been forced to perform? If humans are punished for being unbelievers when Allah made them such then surely I would also be punished in hell for the acts I had been forced to endure. I dreamed at night about it and often awoke sweating from visions of suffering in hell for eternity. Then one night out of some strange recess of my mind one simple thought arose. A thought that was so alien that at first I could not believe that I was even considering it. But if I was already to be cursed to hell then how could one more heretical thought hurt? ... Especially since it raised a glimmer of hope and solace for me. What if the holy 'prophet', that man who was the most favored of Allah, that 'best of all humans'... what if he had lied and had fabricated this Islam in order to give him such control over the minds of his followers?

This comes from a woman who was repeatedly raped by an Imam in Saudi Arabia and was convalescing from a beating while in the hospital. (HT: Amit Ghate)

Teratomata

Here is the definition of the term, teratoma, that this heart-warming picture immediately brought to my mind.

A teratoma is a type of tumor that derives from pluripotent germ cells. The word comes from a Greek term meaning roughly "monster tumor". ... The designation teratoma refers to a group of complex tumors having various cellular or organoid components reminiscent of normal derivatives from more than one germ layer. ...

Teratomata often contain well-differentiated cells which can result in tissues growing in a teratoma which are quite different from the surrounding tissue -- ovarian teratomata have been known to grow hair and teeth.

It is the look of mindlessness of the man pictured, along with the prominent hair and teeth, I think, that caused me to recall the term.

Interestingly, the Catholic Church used to regard teratomata as human beings with immortal souls. (Gross picture at that link. You have been warned.)

In the past, the teratoma (literally, "monster tumor") was considered to be a conceptus, and (according to an ancient Merck Manual I remember reading) the Roman Catholic Church required that teratomas be baptized (giving rise to interesting speculation about what the Teratoma Department in Heaven was like and who was in charge there--Saint Humpty Dumpty, perhaps?) Currently, neither pathologists nor the Vatican considers teratomas to be anything other than germ cell tumors of host origin only, with no paternal contribution.

But at least teratomata did not start out as human, like Hassan Nassrallah did.

In this respect, it would seem that the Church has made backwards moral progress, from baptizing harmless tumors to sticking up for brutes like Hassan Nassrallah. (HT: Cox and Forkum, Update II) But this is an illusion. Both positions come from the mystical ideas that (1) rationality is a non-essential attribute of man, and (2) life on this earth does not matter. Man, the rational animal, defined instead by the alleged posession of an immortal soul, needn't have a mind (or even a potentially viable body) to be regarded as human, and thus as a creature of God whose continued existence on this earth is subject to His whim. This is why tumors were once blessed as babies would be. And this is why men whose (earthly) lives are being threatened, are now being urged to turn the other cheek even when the consequences of their doing are so clearly deadly.

In religion, morality has nothing to do with living on earth and everything to do with fulfilling the alleged whims of an otherworldly being only rumored to exist. Too bad that such ethereal nonsense has such bloody real-life consequences -- both at the hands of its more consistent practicioners, the Moslems and due to the hand-tying by their religious sympathizers in the West.

Four Announcements

Diana Hsieh and Mike N have details on the following (See Noodle Food on the first three.) for students with an interest in the philosophy of Ayn Rand:

1. September 15 is the deadline for entering the Atlas Shrugged essay contest held each year by the ARI.
2. The Objective Standard offers special subscription rates for students.
3. The deadline for enrolling in the Objctivist Academic Center is July 30.
4. The Undercurrent is looking for submissions -- by July 28 -- for its next issue.

-- CAV