| Responcibility in abusive relationships Mar 24th 2012, 10:29 I'd forgot about this one. Last time I was home I got in an argument, with my brother about who is ultimately responsible for the hurt in an abusive relationship.
We were talking about an instance where a man, who was pretty much a control freak and couldn't stand others to be independent. He had struck the women numerous times and has always verbally abusive with people who allowed him to get away with it.
My brother was a cut and dry person who stated it was the women's fault for staying with the guy but I've heard different arguments about people getting into a certain mindset that ensnares them into abusive relationships and I wanted to hear you guys thoughts about | | Best Life Mottos: Mar 21st 2012, 05:47 Any statement or philosophy that you think everyone should live by. State and comment: | | Free Will is Supernatural? Mar 20th 2012, 01:13 Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozymandias (Post 343785) A physicist who believes in supernatural phenomena like free-will can still study inanimate physical laws and come to useful conclusions.
| Free will is supernatural? :eek: | | knowing knowing knowing... Mar 19th 2012, 16:39 The self awareness of knowledge, knowledge knowing itself to exist. To me this is foundational where the metaphysical (what exists) and the epistemological (knowledge) meet. - Without it we can claim knowledge, but know know knowledge exists.
- Or we can claim existence, but not know of the existence of knowledge of that existent thing.
Both these latter paths are philsophically inadequate. Even for Descartes cogito when one says "I think" it is pertinent to ask "Does one know one thinks?" etc. So knowing knowing knowing is metaphysically and epistemologically prior to the cogito. Yes or know? | | Escaping the "charity" paradigm (short rant) Mar 19th 2012, 08:23 Charity is sort of a done thing in western society; the idea that if you're a good person, you will donate to organizations that have a stated mission to distribute food to the poor or whatever. But historically, the origin of the concept of "charity" is a bit sinister. It was originally (and still is theologically) a Christian virtue, meaning not "helping the poor" or the community, but rather "love of God". The connection between charity and helping others was that if you loved God, you'd do what he said, and there are certain passages in the sacred books where the cult-leader/deity lays out lists of things to do such as feeding the poor, visiting people in prison, and so forth.
Charity is thus an authoritarian concept--you do what God says, and if he says to give to the poor, fine, and if he says to kill the Infidel, then have at it. Charity is just the motivation.
Personally, I believe in compassion, and I believe in humans looking out for each other, but I'm not sure I believe in "charity". I think that even if theology no longer is consciously believed by the majority, it infuses the subconscious collective mind and influences the creation of related institutions, and it does so with all its qualities--good and bad. I'm not sure how directly relevant this is, but it's hard not to think of Mother Theresa's sadistic charity work, as exposed by Christopher Hitchens and others. I feel a need to shrug off the unconscious baggage of "charity" before I can figure out the right way to think about compassion and the wider human community. | | Pro-Life or Just Pro-Sperm? Mar 16th 2012, 15:14 http://www.care2.com/causes/pro-life...pro-sperm.html Another tl;dr possible, but I think a good summary... Quote:
Written by David Morris, Common Dreams
Recent events make clear the need for a new language to describe the raging debate about sex and birth. Consider the problematic word that dominates our conversation: pro-life.
Most pro-life organizations more accurately should be labeled pro sperm. For they insist the sperm has the inalienable, indeed the God-given right to pursue the egg without human enabled interference. Joseph M. Scheidler, the National Director of the Pro-Life Action League memorably declared, “I think contraception is disgusting-people using each other for pleasure.” Judith Brown, President of The American Life Lobby asserts its opposition “to all forms of birth control with the exception of natural family planning.”
The Catholic Church is fervently pro-sperm. Decades before the Church mobilized against abortion it mobilized against contraception. As late as 1960, many states outlawed sales of contraceptives. The Catholic Church was the driving force behind these laws. In the 1940s, Connecticut legislators introduced bills allowing physicians to prescribe contraceptives only for married couples if a pregnancy would be life threatening. The Catholic Church swung into action. One historian describes the process; “priests became heavily involved…Their efforts were not confined to anti-birth control sermons on Sundays. They engaged in voter registration drives, they encouraged parishioners to support anti-birth control candidates for the legislature, and they actively campaigned to defeat any changes in the birth control laws”. The bills failed.
[...]
It appears that today’s Republican Party will pull out all the stops to protect the rights of the sperm but all but turn its back on the rights and needs of babies. This is what the term pro-life has come to mean in 2012, and the reason we need to change the language we use when we talk about the issues surrounding reproduction.
This post was originally published by Common Dreams.
| | | Pure Evil: A Triumph for the Texas Taliban Mar 16th 2012, 13:39 http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfl...texas-taliban/ I feel sick.... Quote:
A triumph for the Texas Taliban
March 15, 2012 at 2:54 pm Ophelia Benson
So there's this couple in Texas looking forward to their second baby, a brother for their 2-year-old daughter.
Yet now my doctor was looking grim and, with chair pulled close, was speaking of alarming things. "I'm worried about your baby's head shape," she said. "I want you to see a specialist—now."
My husband looked angry, and maybe I did too, but it was astonishment more than anger. Ours was a profound disbelief that something so bad might happen to people who think themselves charmed. We already had one healthy child and had expected good fortune to give us two.
Instead, before I'd even known I was pregnant, a molecular flaw had determined that our son's brain, spine and legs wouldn't develop correctly. If he were to make it to term—something our doctor couldn't guarantee—he'd need a lifetime of medical care. From the moment he was born, my doctor told us, our son would suffer greatly.
And now you're guessing the rest. You're no fools; you didn't miss the deadly "Texas" at the beginning.
Their doctor couldn't do the abortion, because the hospital she's affiliated with is Catholic (as so many hospitals, and more all the time, are). They had to go to a clinic. They went straight there.
My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I'd then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby's heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.
"I don't want to have to do this at all," I told her. "I'm doing this to prevent my baby's suffering. I don't want another sonogram when I've already had two today. I don't want to hear a description of the life I'm about to end. Please," I said, "I can't take any more pain." I confess that I don't know why I said that. I knew it was fait accompli. The counselor could no more change the government requirement than I could. Yet here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it.
But it couldn't be helped.
"I'm so sorry that I have to do this," the doctor told us, "but if I don't, I can lose my license." Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor's voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.
"Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart…"
I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident.
When the description was finally over, the doctor held up a script and said he was legally obliged to read me information provided by the state. It was about the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility and my increased chance of getting breast cancer.
This is pure evil.
| | | Hostility to Migrants in Europe is Strongest among the 'Culturally Christian' Mar 16th 2012, 13:06 http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2012...+News+Daily%29 My initial reaction is that in Europe, the "locals" are likely to be xian anyway, and the migrants non-xian. So is this just..."well, duh"? Quote:
There are many types of religion. In Europe, most people when asked would call themselves 'Christian', even if they rarely (if ever) go to church, and have only a shaky grasp of the core Christian beliefs (you might have seen the recent survey commissioned by the Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science looking into this very issue).
These people are quite different from the dutiful Christians who go to Church and, you know, believe in god and all that stuff. Earlier this year I wrote about some research by Ingrid Storm, at Manchester University in the UK, who showed that observant Christians in Britain are less likely than 'nominal' Christians to think that immigration is a threat to national identity.
In a second study, she compared four North European nations – Britain, Ireland, The Netherlands and Denmark. Britain is unusual among these nations for the high level of hostility towards immigrants. And while in all nations, non-Christians are the least hostile towards migrants (this group includes the non-religious but also Muslims, Jews etc), the difference between nominal Christians and observant Christians is only obvious in Britain and Ireland.
However, when Storm crunched the stats she found that, even in The Netherlands and Denmark, regular churchgoers were a little less hostile to immigrants than non-churchgoers.
Interestingly in Ireland, but not in Denmark or the Netherlands, those who were hostile to atheists were also less hostile to immigrants.
Overall, the numbers show a complicated picture. Clearly, religious people are more hostile to immigrants in all nations, but this seems to be mediated by beliefs that being Christian is integral to national identity. So, for example, members of the Danish Folk Church are particularly hostile to immigrants.
But it also seems to be mediated by a fear of Muslims. Hostility to Muslims helped to explain the religion-anti-immigration attitudes in Britain, The Netherlands, and Denmark, although that wasn't the case in Ireland. Maybe that's because Ireland has relatively few immigrants, and especially few Muslim immigrants.
So although religious people in these countries tend to be hostile to immigrants, it doesn't seem to have much to do with their religious beliefs, as such. Rather, it's because religion is used as a tool to separate 'us' from 'them'.
| | | The Best Anti-Gay Bullying Video Ever? Mar 15th 2012, 13:23 http://www.care2.com/causes/the-best...ideo-ever.html Quote:
The Onion, the now 24-year-old satirical legend, has fooled many with its sly take on American culture and politics. There's a whole website devoted to documenting readers who get fooled by its stories.
Many are saying their latest video has reached a new height.
"Gay 12-Year-Old: 'I Like Eating Lunch Here By Myself'" takes on school bullying – and it really is not, on any level, funny.
It's ostensibly a news report on Franklin Middle School seventh-grader and 'closeted homosexual' Ben McElroy's solitary lunch hour:
McElroy, who sources reported has been called "faggot" on 43 separate occasions in the past month, confirmed his favorite lunch spot is strategically located on the exact opposite end of the building from both the gymnasium and the hall most frequented by the school's eighth-graders.
The 12-year-old also told reporters it "felt cool" knowing he had a little corner of the school largely to himself for a moment.
"It's good that the staircase is also near the band classroom, in case I need to run there for help," said McElroy, adding that the band teacher, Mrs. Maki, is nice to him and always smiles and says hello. "I used to try to sneak my lunch into the library, which I liked because I could read. But a librarian caught me and told me I wasn't allowed to bring food in there anymore, so I had to stop."
In comments on gay websites many are saying: 'I can relate.'
"Thumbs up to the Onion, from one former gay kid," says 'redseven.'
Queerty thought The Onion "was afraid to parody homosexuality," but in comments their readers overwhelmingly love the video.
I agree, it is strangely moving even though it is definitely satire of the sort which doesn't make you laugh.
| I can't embed the video link for some reason, so see it at the link above. | | Atheistic Arguments for Morality and Meaning Mar 13th 2012, 21:03 I would be interested, as a theist, to hear a carefully reasoned atheistic argument for morality and meaning that does not presuppose, in the final analysis, the existence of God. | | The End of Homophobia? Mar 13th 2012, 11:50 http://www.care2.com/causes/the-end-of-homophobia.html I hope so......it's a good sign anyway...... Quote:
It's not all bad news in the fight against bullying in schools.
The Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota (site of a string of teenage suicides of teenagers) has settled a lawsuit and will finally change its 'don't ask don't tell' policy on gay students.
And from the UK, a new book documents the virtual elimination of homophobia amongst teenagers.
The Declining Significance of Homophobia is the result of a year long study by author Mark McCormack in three very different schools. The academic notes that many studies have documented entrenched homophobia in schools over several decades, with many instances of boys using homophobia to prove their own masculinity. He says that this was his own experience at school a decade ago.
What McCormack found in 2011 was a complete transformation amongst the kids he studied:
Heterosexual male students are proud of their pro-gay attitudes and friendship with openly gay students. Homosexuality does not affect a boy's popularity; one gay student was even elected school president.
However, The Declining Significance of Homophobia goes beyond documenting this important shift in attitudes regarding homosexuality. It also examines how decreased homophobia results in the expansion of gendered behaviors available to young men. In these schools, boys are able to develop meaningful and loving friendships across many social groups. They replace violence, misogyny and homophobia with hugging and emotional intimacy. Free from the constant threat of social marginalization, boys are able to speak about once-feminized activities without censure.
He told the Economist that when he spoke to graduates of only a few years ago from the three schools in his study, they recalled a bad experience similar to his own, suggesting that the change in behavior is very recent.
He cites two relatively new factors to explain his findings: far more openly gay people in prominent and respected positions in society and the role of the internet in decreasing feelings of isolation. I would suggest as well that this acceptance of gay people is reflected in a recent 'tipping point' in media and cultural representations of gay people across the board in the UK, similar to a previous 'point of no return' in the 1990s with racism becoming an 'uncool' opinion.
McCormack argues that this positive story needs telling so gay teenagers are not just hearing bad news about bullying and suicide and are encouraged to come out and lead more satisfying and fulfilled lives. The one area the book cites as still problematic is the attitudes of some parents, although he also points out that parents of gay children are much more likely to fight for them now and are also receiving positive representations in the media.
He told the Guardian:
I'm not saying the battle is over against homophobia, but it's getting better.
These young people see homophobia as wrong. Guys used to prove they were straight by being homophobic. Now, when young guys want to show they're straight, they do it in a more positive way by joking about being gay.
| | | Is use of the female body degrading? Mar 13th 2012, 10:56 Do women how use their bodies for income, such as prostitutes, strip club girls and models demean what it is to be female, or is it just the sensibilities of a sexual repressed nation that make it seem so.
Being in the line of work at I have been as well as having been in the military, overseas, I've had the chance and at times have used the services of working girls, and I've had the chance to speak with many beyond the confines of their business.
I really don't think that what they do reflect on who they are and I've met several, in Nevada who work on the weekends to help out with their schooling in the colleges they attend, during the week. I remember a certain Asian girl who was attending a college in Idaho and said she made good money doing what she did, but wasn't going to continue past her graduation.
Is this somehow wrong or is it the society that we belong in that makes the use or even the casual revealing of the human body a taboo. I've noticed, outside the U.S. the world is much more relaxed about the human body. I remember, the first time I went overseas. I was shocked at how freely other countries take nude and semi-nudity and after I thought about it, I was personally indignant about the way my own country had dealt with the subject.
What do you think? | |
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