I would say that it depends how it is accomplished - the ends do not always justify the means. No, those are not bad things, but they can be done in bad ways.
If 50% of a population is oppressing the other 50%, is it okay to kill the opressive half to end oppression? I don’t think so.
Not only that, but when proselytizing, the “ends” are never the eradication of hunger, the prevention of illness, etc - the ends are gaining more converts to one’s own faith. It is taking advantage of the people who are starving, sick, and uneducated, to use their desire to remedy their situation as an impetus to plant the seeds of religious conversion in their minds. In other words, the means are desperation, the ends are more converts.
If I went to Africa and found the most starving people in the entire continent, I bet you that, with food and promises of more food, I could convince them to come back to my plantation here in America on my nice slave ship and pick cotton for the rest of their lives. Would they understand what they were getting into? Does it matter if their hunger is abated? Yep, I’d feed them very well. They would never be hungry again as long as they worked on my nice plantation.
I know that, at this point, somebody will say, “come on, there is a huge difference between religion and slavery.” Well, maybe there is and maybe there isn’t, but that is not my point in the above hypothetical. My points are:
The goal of ending hunger/sickness/etc do not justify any means of accomplishing that goal;
Using other people’s suffering for your own goals (slavery or spreading the “Word”) is quite horrible, in my opinion. You have no right to use suffering as a means to your ends;
People in such horrible condition (hunger, disease, etc) will do nearly anything to improve their situation. That fact makes it infinitely worse to try to so much as ask them do anything other than eat food or take medicine.
Since no one is talking about killing here, I don’t know what your point is.
Bullshit. At our church, our “ends” are to feed people. You say that the “ends” are never the eradication of hunger, etc. How absolute you are. How can you say “never”? Are you personally aware of how every church and every religious charity is run?
Also - do you think we feed the needy that come to our church sytrofoam? Do they go away with stone soup in their stomachs? What? Obviously these people get fed, and clothed. And at least in the case of my church, most of these people skip off away with food in their bellies, never having heard a sermon of any kind.
Oh give me a frickin’ break. For one thing, another person on this thread has testified that he was a recipient of charity from a church. While he was in dire need, he wasn’t so desperate as to convert. Did it ever occur to you that just because someone is hungry or poor, that they don’t lose their free will, or their ability to make a decision?
And even if they do “succumb” and convert in the heat of the moment - how long will this conversion last? Not long. If it is not a sincere, heartfelt conversion, they’ll stray away as soon as they are back on their feet.
Slavery ain’t conversion to a religion. And I’d bet you that if you took a lot of starving people and made them slaves, as soon as they were well fed and strong and feeling good again, they’d revolt and leave. Such is human nature.
So. Let’s say my church helps out the starving and needy by having a soup kitchen in the basement of the church. All we do is feed people, and give out clothes. But this is “horrible”, right? Because we do it from a religious setting. Right? Even though we don’t preach any sermons, they know we are a church. So we are (somehow) “influencing” them. And this is horrible, right? Yes or no. Is my church HORRIBLE, or not? Yes or no?
And I’ll say it again - you have bitched before about how churches seem to have all this food and medicine to spare. (The bastards!) But what do you want them to do? Just stop giving? Because, if they give aid to the needy, EVEN IF THEY DON’T PREACH ANY SERMONS (like my church doesn’t - like a lot of churches don’t) the recipients of this aid still know that a church is helping them out. And that’s (obviously) “horrible”. So, to please you, let’s get all the churches to withhold all the medicine and food that have “to spare”. And you pick up the slack, OK? OK? Step up to the plate. YOU pick up the slack. Or stop bitching about what these charities are doing.
You are glossing over the very fact that certain people, like the ones alleviating the hunger and suffering, are motivated to do so in that particular manner (sacrifice, unpaid service, travel far from their homes and loved ones, etc.) by their religion.
What I find particularly distasteful is YOUR use of the suffering to bitch about religion in general.
Equating abolishment of slavery to freedom-of-speech doesn’t really work. Fighting to abolish a practice you deem to be immoral (e.g. slavery) is different from seeking to impose on others your cultural views.
Most people would agree that slavery infringes basuc human rights. Abolishing it didn’t require people to “flout” the law (how?) but by lawmakers getting together and outlawing the practice, and then punishing those who did not follow the law (i.e. flouted it!).
Freedom of religious expression is not a right recognised by everyone. Fundamentalists believe that it is a crime to blaspheme. When in their country, obey their rules. If you don’t like it, get out.
There are people who believe that abusing children is fine. The fact is, it’s not, so we have laws against it. But would you say that these paedophiles have a right to flout these laws as they believe them to be unfair - and then to escape prosecution just because they were carrying out their beliefs? Of course not.
The fact is, no-one has the right to flout a countries laws.
kalt, what I take issue with in your premise is that religious persecution is acceptable. You explained it nicely here:
You’ve made some assertions here that are baffling in light of 800 years of civilization and a variety of revolutions in England, The United States and France.
But, more fundamentally, you’ve decided that freedom of worship is not a human right. I’d like to know how you can defend such a premise.
However, should you try to defend your notions, you’ll find that the international community disagrees with you, and has for quite some time.
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
So, you’ll note that the international community believes it is acceptable for people to have a religion, and to practice and teach that religion. Your own premise, that Christians have a duty to proselytize, defeats your argument.
Look, if you don’t like religion, and you think it would be a good thing of the religions of the world destroyed each other, have the guts to say so, without hiding it behind some attempt at a reasoned argument.
In the course of your OP, you give us a number of gems that suggest that you don’t understand Christianity and that you are all too willing to attribute the actions of a few people to an entire group. Monty, thankfully, is taking you to task on some of your religious stupidity. Though, I do appreciate you pointing out that the true purpose of Christianity is money - that answers a number of questions for me.
Implicit in this, is the idea that talking about your religion to nonadherents to your religion hurts others. This, again, is a stunning idea that really should be better supported than with a bold assertion as to its truth.
After a brief respite, you offer us:
To begin with, I plan to assume that here refers to the US. kalt, the US does very little actual persecution. We have laws that make certain actions illegal. We have remarkably few laws that make a thought illegal. You are confusing the two of them. Such confusion suggests, again, a complete misunderstanding of criminal jurisprudence in the US.
Here, you state it is acceptable to persecute people for talking to others. I know that you have all manner of horror-show scenarios to “prove” that they are really “forcing” religion upon people, but that is just a horror-show in your own mind. In the States, we don’t imprison people for proselytizing. You know this, and you find comfort in that. But, you have to realize, if the scary people ever take over, then you become a threat to that government’s existence, and you’ve argued that it is then acceptable for them to persecute you. This still terrifies me.
One of the many, deep flaws of your argument, is your denial that freedom to practice a religion is a human right. Your analogy that soliciting religion is soliciting any other crime in Afghanistan again shows a deep misunderstanding to the subjects on which you write. I don’t think any one argues in favor of a human right to solicit prostitutes or murder of hire. We make those sorts of things illegal in the US. Soliciting new adherents to your religion is not the same.
kalt, you don’t seem to like Christians very much. That you would use something like the Taliban, which is neither Islamic nor a government, in your perverse attack on Christians, is deeply troubling. You support the actions of a group of heavily-armed fanatics simply because they are directed against Christians. This is sick. You seem to either be unaware of, or blithely ignore, that the Taliban has no regard for human rights as any culture sees them. They have oppressed the people of Afghanistan. They are a government because they have more weapons than the other guys do. They are a government because a people without food or medicine rarely mount an effective revolution.
Maybe you do think that you can shake the Devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.
For another example of how the Taliban doesn’t represent the people of Afghanistan, consider the following, from a description of the adoptionof the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
So, the Afghans thought they had religious freedom, the Taliban took that from them as well.
And if someone thinks that restrictions on free expression are immoral? Then he’d not be seeking to impose his cultural views on others, he’d be fighting a practice he deems to be immoral. What, in the end, is even the difference? If a culture thinks that slavery is fine, fighting for the abolishment of slavery IS imposing our cultural views on others, no? People don’t fight slavery because they want to impose their cultural views on others, they fight slavery because they consider it immoral. By the same token, people fight for free expression not because they seek to impose cultural views but because they feel restricting expression is immoral. In either case, the motive is the same, and in either case, it’s still true that you’d be imposing your cultural views on someone else.
Yes, and our contention is that so too do restrictions on free expression. That not EVERYONE agrees with this is largely irrelevant; there are no doubt people in the world who still accept slavery, after all.
Nope, sorry. No one is EVER morally obliged to obey an unjust law. This does not mean that one should be free from the consequences of disobedience (although it DOES mean that the consequences of disobedience are themselves unjust), but if you think a law if unjust, disobey it and be willing to accept the consequences of doing so. To use the slavery example again… Naturally, helping a slave escape is illegal in our slave-keeping area of choice. Are we then obliged to just live with this slavery, or is it okay to fight against it, even though doing so would be against the law? When, in your view, is it acceptable to fight some “evil,” assuming that evil is supported by some government?
Nor did I say so. Of course, child abuse wasn’t an accepted human right, last time I checked; the relevant right is rather the child’s right NOT to be abused.
And in countries like Afghanistan, neither is the right to freedom of religious expression.
Just because in our culture we deem it a right, doesn’t mean that the whole world does. Muslim fundamentalists consider it unacceptable blasphemy to preach other religions. Just as we feel child abuse is unacceptable, they feel that doubting the “true” religion is something that goes against all their moral codes.
But…but…sirjamesp…look at Robb’s post. The well-documented one, right up there on this page. Yeah, that one.
Surely you couldn’t have skimmed right by it? I hope not. It’s very interesting. It’s the post with the cite about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Afghanistan agreed to. The same Universal Declaration of Human Rights that lists freedom of speech and religion as a “universal human right”? Yeah. That one.
Child abuse has never been considered a basic human right. Freedom of speech/religion usually is. The international community (including the country of Afghanistan) agrees. It’s all carefully documented, on Robb’s post.
yosemitebabe - I think you may have skimmed Robb’s post. 1948 was a long time ago, before the Taliban gained power. Governments have the right to review their laws. Whether we agree with the process, the new laws or the morality of the new laws is irrelevant.
And again, you miss the point about child abuse. Of course it is not a basic human right.
You have just yourself made the point I am making:
The important word you used there is “usually”.
YOU see free speech as a basic human right. I see free speech as a basic human right. The fact is, not everyone does.
Who are you to dictate what is a right and what is not?
The fact is, the fundamentalists ruling Afghanistan consider preaching “false” religions to be a terrible crime, and so they have laws against preaching Christianity.
You cannot pick and choose which laws you will obey and which ones you will not. Your justification seems to be that you consider the law to be unjust. Well, that’s your business - go there and flout it if you will, but expect consequences. If the process you manage to change the law, then that is a bonus - but only from the point of view of those who see freedom of speech as a basic human right.
James.
PS - I like your use of sarcasm, but it didn’t add much to your argument.
Is not being beaten a basic human right?
Is being treated like a human being (instead of an animal) a basic human right?
Is not having your genitals mutilated a human right?
Do you even acknowledge that human rights exist for everyone? Or do they only exist if a government decides they exist? Are they “relative”? Does it all depend on where you live? And if you live in a country where it’s OK to mutilate the genitals of small children, is it OK? Should the rest of us sit back and say, “Well, who am I to dictate that this is wrong?”
Is breathing oxygen a basic human right? What if a government decided it wasn’t? Would that be OK?
Who gets to dictate that it’s wrong if a government decides that some people don’t get to breathe oxygen? Is not allowing someone else to breathe oxygen wrong? I mean, maybe it’s not wrong. It all depends on the government, and the culture. Who are we to dictate what is right and wrong, after all? If some cultures were to arbitrarily decide who can and cannot breathe oxygen, who are we to dictate that this is a wrong thing? They don’t think it’s wrong, after all. So it must not be wrong.
OK. I’ll remind you of that if ever a country passes a law that decides that you shouldn’t breathe oxygen. After all, if the government decided to make it a law, it’s OK. And they are only doing what they think is “right”. And after all, you cannot “pick and choose” which laws you will obey, and which ones you will not" so I’ll remind you to stop breathing oxygen. Can’t break the law, after all! Make sure to obey all of those laws! Your government passed them, and who are you to pick and choose which laws you want to obey? And why should the rest of us interfere, or protest because of your lack of oxygen? After all, who are we to dictate what is right and wrong?
It’s all relative, after all. Far be it for the rest of us to pass judgment.
I see. You consider that a strict religious group who ask you to respect their beliefs by not blaspheming is equivalent to mutilating childrens’ genitals. I’d say that this is perhaps a little overdramatic.
Or perhaps you were attempting to show that since the above act is bad, then other rules from the same regime are bad. Well, murder must be OK, since that is banned in Afghanistan.
You ask if I believe anything is a basic human right. Well, if I had to make a stab at it, I’d say that every person has the right to live quietly without the fear of harm. I haven’t thought through the ramifications of this, mind, so there may be problems with this ad hoc declaration.
As far as I can see, the religious expression rules in Afghanistan do not infringe that right.
Clearly I do not think that beating people is acceptable. I certainly don’t condone mutilating people’s genitals. I wouldn’t say that treating people like animals (whatever that means) is any way to respect a person’s basic rights. In fact, come to think of it, banning someone from breathing oxygen would be a bit harsh. If I have accidentally typed somewhere that all these things are perfectly fine by me, then I do apologise.
BUT, I repeat - showing no respect for someone else’s religious beliefs is NOT a human right. In our culture, we accept a certain degree of freedom of speech. In others, they accept less.
You cannot assume that your moral code is the only correct one. Are you a vegetarian? 'Coz if not, some people would consider you to be barbaric, as you infringe animal rights by eating eating them. You are immoral! Whether vegetarianism is right or wrong doen’t matter; I am sure you would agree that they cannot force their moral code onto you.
I think you need to expand your list of basic human rights beyond the single one you have cited.
You seem to be saying that freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, etc., etc., are not basic human rights. Thus, if thepreme Court ruled tomorrow morning that the US is a Christian nation, and that atheism is illegal, you would meekly join the nearest church. After all, the government has so ruled, and therefore we must all obey.
Likewise, if the government announced strict new censorship on the press (there is a war on, you know), that would be A-OK in your book, right? No violation of rights there.
Similarly, if Afghanistan announced that no one anywhere in the world had any right to post non-Islamic messages on the Internet (the Internet reaches all over the world, including Afghanistan - therefore they have the right to regulate religious proselytization), you would stop posting, right?
Or if some government announced that all the Jews had to wear yellow stars on their clothing…
Eh, blimey. This one’s gonna run and run… Someone lynch Kalt for starting it.
Possibly. As I say, it’s my starter for ten, so I reserve the right to back-pedal furiously at any point. However, I don’t see the need to just yet:
Hallelujah! That is exactly what I am saying.
The above are not basic human rights. They are desirable aims, sure, but the one thing I would say everyone should be entitled to is the freedom to “live quietly without the fear of harm”. None of the above infringe this (depending on the methods employed in the searches and seizures, of course).
Whilst it would not make for a fantastic life, I could cope with no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, etc, so long as I was free from fear of harm. This is why I list it as a basic human right: it is one that, if it was to be lost, would make life unbearable rather than just unpleasant.
The “rights” you list are just examples of the moral code we live by.
No I wouldn’t obey - but only because I live in the UK.
But seriously, if such a rule was passed, I wouldn’t be happy. Hell, I’d be annoyed. I would see it as an afront to the British / US way of life - but not as an afront to my basic human rights. Being forced to go to church is hardly in the same league as getting the bejeezus kicked out of me just because a government takes a dislike to me.
Censorship does occur during both wartime and peacetime if it is deemed to be in the national interest. Do you really think that this denies you a basic human right?
This is a daft argument. I do not live under Taleban jurisdiction, so do not need to follow their rules. It is illegal to drink in the USA under 21, but pubs in the UK can serve drink to 18 year olds.
But this aside, I say again - freedom of speech is not a basic human right. It is a “nice-to-have” that we take for granted in the West.
Wearing the yellow stars was to identify the wearer as a Jew in order to invite intimidation, which violates my human right.
If the star had been merely to identify the wearer so that the friendly local Nazi could say “Hi, Jew!” on his way to invade France, I don’t think you could call it a breach of basic human rights. I am sure that most people would agree that this would have been a whole lot better than the reality of wearing the star.
It really doesn’t seem that the Afghans got together and rethought their stance on human rights. What’s seemed to have happened in Afghanistan, is that an armed group of militants based out of Pakistan, swept through Afghanistan and forcibly removed all opposition. They then set about forcing their religious views on the people they conquered. As I understand it, many Afghans fled and are now living as refugees. For you to have posted what you have above, it appears that you believe the Taliban represent the Afghans, rather than being the guys with the guns.
My guess, is that the Taliban won’t even let most Afghans practice their religion as most Afghans would like to.
I included that Afghanistan originally accepted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to contrast the acts of their present, not representative “government”. I’m worried sirjamesp that for you to have written what you have in this thread that you believe that the people with guns get to make all the rules.
Sadly, Robb, that is indeed how the world works. The people who make the rules are the ones with the most power. No one can force them to do anything they don’t want to do.
Why do you think that Western civilization and values are the ones that have been dominating the world for 500 years? Has everything to do with the west being able to conquer other countries and exert their influence. The concept of natural, inalienable, individual human rights is one that was developed in Western Europe. Western European/American dominance in the world hierarchy is what allows us to push them onto other countries.
I’m glad that I have the rights that I do, and I personally think that it would be nice if everyone had those rights. But not everyone does, nor does everyone necesarily want them. Fortunately, we currently hold the power to defend our rights and push them onto other countries. It is essentially cultural imperialism, but that’s how the world works.
I don’t think anyone is foolish enough to believe that the Taleban represent their people - hell, not so long ago, the women in Afghanistan attended university and took on professional jobs. Now they dare not show themselves.
In referring to the Declaration of Human Rights you quoted, I was pointing out to yosemitebabe that the Taleban had never endorsed these views, so to suggest that they are now abandoning a code they accepted is ridiculous.
As I say, the Declaration lists what we in the West consider to be basic human rights (and even we, whilst obeying the spirit of the Declaration, bend it to suit ourselves). Once again, I point out that other cultural groups have different viewpoints on what are universal human rights. It doesn’t matter how high-and-mighty we feel; there are others who think us barbaric.
My viewpoint is that a basic right is “live quietly without fear of harm”. Not being given the opportunity to choose your own government does not infringe your basic rights, as it will not in itself make life unbearable. Of course, it’s a bad state of affairs, but I’d rather hand in my ballot paper than live in fear. But this is straying from the point.
The form of government in Afghanistan - whilst not ideal - does not infringe a basic human right. Some of their laws do, sure, but the one we are talking about, i.e. banning Christian preaching, does not. Again, I repeat, it is not ideal, but neither does it make life unbearable, so the right to proselytize is not a basic human right; in fact, some find Christian preaching offensive to their religion.
And one last point (sigh of relief):
Errmm - the people with guns do get to make the rules. It’s a fact of life. Whether they should get to make the rules is a different matter.
You are suggesting that the West should force it’s morals onto Afghanistan. Perhaps I’m missing something, but this seems to be tacit approval of using guns or other pressure to make the rules. “Our way is right, so do as we say”.
That’s intriguing, but it doesn’t answer the question. Because the Taliban has the weapons and believes certain things, we can’t say that the Afghans believe those things. If the Afghans decided that such things as human rights exist, no matter how they came to that conclusion, we can’t then say that the Afghans have abandoned that conclusion because armed evil stands between the Afghans’ beliefs and practice of those beliefs. Which is my point. Just because the Taliban has guns, we can’t say the Taliban represents the Afghans.
I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the Taleban represent the people of Afghanistan.
I am pointing out that forcing your views of Human Rights onto another group is no different from the Taleban forcing their views on any of the population who don’t agree with them.
