As a lifelong atheist myself, I’ve seen plenty of ostensible adults inflicting delusions on others that have nothing to do with any sky-talk.
In the last analysis, it’s not specifically religion that makes humans pervasively and persistently irrational. It’s humanity, of which religion is merely a frequent side effect.
Why should I or anybody else care what personal obsessions your weepy melodramatic woo-mind chooses to project onto some unknown woman’s choice of headscarf?
A woman being literally forced to wear a headscarf by an oppressive tyrant who doesn’t truly consider her a person? Yes, that gives me a serious pain too. A woman with the freedom to make her own sartorial choices who chooses to wear a headscarf because she wants to? Doesn’t pain me in the least.
But then I’m not a hypersensitive scold about other people’s personal cultural identifications. And I don’t think it’s their problem if something they like to wear happens to visually remind me of something else that gives me emotional ouchies.
The fact that, say, the sight of a detergent commercial or a pair of high heels or a skirt apparently doesn’t hurt your fragile little feefees at all—despite the fact that such rigidly gendered material artifacts are just as much a part of the historical legacy of women’s oppression as a hijab is—tells us all we need to know about the real quality of the “rationality” you’re so proud of.
Besides, for all you know, that woman you see on the street might not even be wearing a hijab – she might have her head covered because she’s going through chemo and losing her hair. Or hell, maybe she just likes the scarf itself! (Audrey Hepburn used to wear scarves – they were actually quite popular in the fifties and sixties)
Who asked anyone to care? I didn’t say she should be stopped. I was responding to the statement that no one should care about the scarf-wearing because it “hurt” no one.
Although I have not personally set foot upon it’s soil, I’m quite sure Saudi Arabia is not a figment of my “woo-mind,” and genuinely exists. Women must cover there or they may be beaten or imprisoned. This is not my projection, it is a fact.
Well, aren’t you lucky to have the magical power to know one situation from the other just like that!
If only you’d been in Ontario a few years when 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez was the victim of an “honor killing.” The child was beaten to death by her father and brother for not wearing the hijab. ( Murder of Aqsa Parvez - Wikipedia )
Of course since this was Canada, they were charged with murder instead of cheered for, but unfortunately, the girl remains deceased.
Of course it isn’t THEIR problem. They are the victim of brainwashing. Why would I be upset at them?
I know that most people would agree with you, and that the fact that women are treated as they are is just the way it is, no need to shed a tear. If not, it wouldn’t be this way.
A detergent commercial? If you mean some particular sexist type where a woman successfully removing armpit stains from a man’s shirt defines her existence and makes her life worth slogging through for another day, obviously those bring my blood to a simmer.
Skirts are not really a sign of oppression, but a logical garment for convenient elimination in pre-toilet days. Dress codes requiring skirts for females only though definitely enrage me.
My feelings about high-heeled shoes would need their own separate rant.
And I must throw in laws that require that women wear tops while men do not have to. This is the worst one of all, as there is no sign that it will ever change. It is simply part of the landscape and not seen as mutable, plus, look how much worse it is for women in some other places, so we are supposed just be glad we aren’t there. As if women are inherently to be without rights and any that are granted are a measure of the benevolence of the decision-makers in our culture.
Suffice it to say, your assumptions are completely wrong.
What kind of dolt does not realize their own culture is irrational?
Your examples of this do not work, so I hope you are not teaching such a class.
I don’t eat insects for perfectly rational reasons. Where would I get them? I can buy pork chops at the grocery store for $3/lb., but it would cost me hours of effort to trap a pound of my own insects. Since even at minimum wage I could have myself a pound of pork less than 30 minutes of effort, wasting hours on unpleasant insect-pursuit would be irrational.
Then consider that most people use poisonous pest-control levels, which could certainly make my dinner of insects quite toxic. Poisoning myself with tainted insects is not rational either.
I have eaten some insects, and many are quite bitter. None tasted good. Eating food I don’t like the taste of is also irrational.
I dress up for weddings and funerals so as not to distract from the purpose of the event and draw attention to myself. It’s called being polite, not irrational.
One’s choice of attire also serves as a coded system of communication. Ditching a well-established source of non-verbal communication is not necessarily rational either.
It’s precisely because I don’t have the “magical power” to unfailingly tell the difference between an oppressive situation and a nonoppressive one based only on an item of clothing that I don’t reflexively get all upset just from seeing said item of clothing.
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If only you’d been in Ontario a few years when 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez was the victim of an “honor killing.”
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And yet another rationality fail swirling in the mist of your recreational outrage.
Yep, if only I could just keep my eyes pointed directly on the next clump of grass before me like you, oh Zen master. Sometimes black people are just picking cotton because they like it. None of my business! Sometimes Jewish people just like to wear stars stitched to their clothes. Why think the worst? Female genital mutilation or voluntary body modification? Let’s just assume everyone is living the life they deserve and move on. Why get involved or even think a negative thought when we can just ignore and move on?
Is there anything out there that like, doesn’t make you angry?
(Honestly, this thread makes me WANT to wear a hijab the next time I go out. And a crucifix.)
I don’t actually use language like that to someone’s face, at least not at first. The fact remains that religion is given a free pass, when, unlike other protected categories, it’s a choice with real impacts on both the adherent and the rest of us.
That’s genuinely very interesting. Pagan roots, then, similar to the backstories of Christmas and Easter? Honest question: could a student ask those kinds of questions of their classmates without running afoul of religion’s protected status?
That too! Or, perhaps asking about the utterly wrong historical claims made by Mormonism.
True; most of the literalist/fundamentalist movements around today are pretty modern. Secularists/atheists/etc. like me love to throw it down as a challenge, though. I mean, it’s like Sam Harris says regarding moderate religiosity: It’s like saying you only “sort of” believe in it. Put up or shut up, believers!
No, I don’t, but they get set off by the slightest challenge. They often find the idea unfathomable, and frankly that’s understandable. And no, in a case like this, I’m actually going on the offensive, not the defensive.
It happens all over the place.
Here’s the difference. A big part of the reason I’m straight-edge is because I resent the implication from godly types that people like me are all debauched and shallow, caring only for that which is materialistic and sensual. I also think that people will be more likely to take my positions seriously if they can’t call me a drunk or a pothead and/or a “dirty hippie.” I don’t think I’m necessarily better than those who are not sXe, and if I was a parent or guardian, and one of my (sufficiently-mature) charges was not sXe, I would not necessarily mete out punishments (or even think less of them).
That’s the diametric opposite of something like honor killing, or even something much less extreme. My choice to be sXe has nothing to do with fear of disappointing some celestial dictator who is always watching (how is that thought comforting?), and instead stems from a thoroughly rational position. Challenge to it is not blasphemy or heresy.
See the difference?
They’re often apt. What else should one say, if not the truth?
No, it’s the former. I don’t just show up to insult people and try to provoke them. I wanted to see if the Mormons could answer my questions about their fraudulent history (regarding the indigenous Americans, among other things). I want the picketers of Planned Parenthood to explain why sending souls on a guaranteed trip to Heaven is a bad thing.
No, I mean reasoning based on the (empirically sound) negative consequences for the individual or for the planet that come from consuming certain foodstuffs. Is it based on reality, or celestial fiat?
How can one, in good faith, take only the “good” parts of a “holy” book seriously? Would you eat a salad or jump into a swimming pool that each contained but one visible piece of fecal matter, provided alternatives were available?
There’s no need for the race card, inasmuch as plenty of people of all ethnicities loathe FGM and all of the rationalizations behind it. So you’re saying that cultural relativism doesn’t mean that all cultures and practices thereof are equally valid, and any criticism is racist? Because that’s what always seems to happen. As for FGM, I’d be more than happy to end it at gunpoint. It’s a pretty good example for this thread, though, as it stems from a cross-religious fear of female sexuality and overall sex-negativity. It’s taking the attitude that gives us bedsheets as garments to its logical conclusion.
I’m a vegetarian, so while yes, I know that insects are a better protein source than livestock, there are better sources than that. I dress up for events like that if that’s what the hosts want, since it’s their party. However, I have always said that if I do get married for some reason, I want to have a punk-rock wedding; the complete antithesis of the stuffy bourgeois event you’re implying. The same goes for my funeral.
Nice try.
Not all scarves are the same. Far from it! Take a look at pictures of Afghan society during their 1930s-1970s golden age (and then feel despair). Many women wore no head covering, and many others wore what amounted to little bandannas.
If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.