Seems silly, but whatever. Still better to condemn snowmen than Snowden.
While I find the idea that snowmen promote lust to be utterly ridiculous, and I donât feel a lot of affinity for Islam - one thing I really do like about their culture is the avoidance of depiction of the human form. The increased focus upon the world around us, as well as the universal beauty of mathematics and geometrical forms.
The avoidance of the depiction of the human form doesnât exist in Islam to increase focus on the world around us or on anything like that. It was borrowed from Judaism for the same reason the first Jews came up with it, preventing idolatry. The reason for this was because both Islam and Judaism developed from pagan cults, and step one was getting rid of the competition.
What I like about Western culture is that not only do we depict the human form, we have artists who are extremely good at it.
Mathematics and geometry are all very well, but they are a human invention. The universe just is, and without an observer, its rules canât be ascertained. We assume that if we ever encountered another civilisation unlike us, mathematics would be the same, and this is most likely the case, but it is likely that the forms could be different - different number bases, a different way of writing complex numbers, different terminology. When Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote that âEuclid alone has looked on beauty bareâ, she still had to write in human terms. (The last lines of that well known sonnet are âfortunate they, who but once only and then from far away have heard her massy sandal set on stoneâ - she ends up trying to describe abstract beauty as a woman.)
Snowmen are perverts, I tell you.
Yes, fornication-inducing snowpeople must certainly be a major social scourge in Saudi Arabia.
Rarely, but yes.
Nice Richard Dawkins example. Hereâs a counterexample: letâs drop a homosexual man in the middle of Uganda and see how he does under the (American Christian-promoted) âkill the gaysâ bill (which has been suspended by the courtsâŚfor now.) I suppose he could hide for the decades it will take the Episcopalians to finish their campaign to make them all a bit more progressive.
Presumably because you think they all make easily disproven categorical statements based on bigotry and lack of research?
Follow up question: Would the building of snowmen be permissible if we immediately behead them?
Iâll take my answer off the air.
Also from the article, the idea that the ruling was against a query about whether is was ok for fathers to build snowpeople for their children. To me thereâs the crime right there. Standing by, watching an adult building a snowman, whereâs the fun in that?
What correlation are you making here e x a c t l y?
Maybe in the fundamentalism?
I agree that an awful lot of religious people, mainly on the political Right, use religion as a cloak for their knuckle dragging, whether they are Evangelicals, Wahabis or Hassidim. I know a lot of the problems in places like Uganda were caused by missionaries in the first place. But I was replying to a post which said there was no value at all in religion, not that it is a mixture of good and bad.
Nihilism, denying any value in religion, politics, and ultimately all human achievement, really doesnât get us anywhere. The Universe is cold and uncaring, and any warmth we have to make for ourselves. Am I channelling Terry Pratchett? So be it.
A false dichotomy of âwestern cultureâ versus âIslamâ might be inaccurate, and problematic for a number of reasons. If most people in the US really identify as being affiliated with Abrahamic religions, then their baseline reality has more in common with Islam than it does with, say, Celtic Gaul.
Of course, none of this is to suppose that an ideal state of objective reason is possible. But I would rather encounter the masses of people interpreting what they think of the world at large, rather than being fixated upon interpreting humanity itself.
Which humanâs terms? The transhumanist in me delights that the ultimate freedom a human has is to re-define what humanity itself is and may be. Unlike most other species, humanity meta-programs itself. But still, I consider this to be more a matter of process than content, and still very much prefer for humans to not resort to dwelling upon their own condition to the exception of all else that comprises a vast superset of their cultures.
I understand the prohibition of iconic worship, but when you add lust and eroticism youâre venturing into the human psyche. Fundamentalist clerics would do well to practice some humility and understand that for humans to be holy is quite improbable. Our minds tend to dwell on that which we are denied.
We are fascinated by the forbidden closet of mystery.
By way of illustration of ways people get hung up upon the human form beyond all reasonâŚ
My bank sends me goofy brochures every so often to advertise financial services which they offer. And besides being peppered with some vague text, these prominently feature contextless photos of people. So, I might be offered something such as a lame scheme for overdraft protection, framed by photos of, for instance, some man and woman drinking coffee on a porch. I have phoned my bank to ask them about this. Are these people proprietors or employees of the bank who are offering these services? Are they other customers of the bank? Are they random models who were photographed somewhere with cups? I got back a flat response that ânobody knowsâ who they are, or what their significance may be. Neither were they able to refer me to whomever they had devise these brochures for clarification. Perhaps most worryingly - they sounded disconcerted that I was asking them about something which millions of other people apparently took for granted as perfectly reasonable, meaningful communication.
When I started using the internet in the 1990s, I did not encounter random photos of people on most web sites, whereas now it has become commonplace - nearly as pervasive as it is on broadcast media such as radio and television. There are even entire classifications of these photos. Nearly all of the people depicted are staring towards the camera. There are the late 90sâ-early-00s photos of people in The Matrix, where everything is a white void and they are shown from above, craning their heads up. The mid-to-late-00s âover the shoulderâ poses of people looking behind them while they type or do some other activity. The âwell dressed people standing in a semi-circleâ. The people lounging at a living room, porch, or patio. The slightly dirty person intently gazing upon something they are presumably repairing. The young hip people who hang out somewhere being stylish. There should be a dedicated âadvert tropesâ site, but I could certainly not stomach making it myself.
Some have argued that this implies a degree of misanthropy on my behalf, but I disagree. I donât dislike people, as such. But I think the persistent drive for identification with token human narratives results in a lot of sloppy thinking.
A false dichotomy of âwestern cultureâ versus âIslamâ might be inaccurate, and problematic for a number of reasons. If most people in the US really identify as being affiliated with Abrahamic religions, then their baseline reality has more in common with Islam than it does with, say, Celtic Gaul.
Thatâs debatable, especially when you consider the impact the Celts had on western Christianity, and before them the Romans and Greeks.
Preposterous.
Religion over the years has held back society just as much if not more than it helped to progress it.
Cool buildings, though. Iâve enjoyed the really old ones all over Europe including the Hagia Sophia in Instanbul.
But I view those buildings the same way that I do the giant homes in the USA that were built by the Robber Barons - neato, but fuck off in the big picture. Shit was built on the backs of the credulous, slaves and helpless.
There is no value in religion except to reinforce oneâs own inclinations, be they good or bad. Without religion those helping in Uganda would be there, because they are good people. How many people do you think there are that think âGosh I really hate black people, but Jesus says I gotta help them so off I goâ? Iâll wager close enough to zero that we neednât bother counting them as anything but anecdotal.
Conversely, without religion backwards-slouching dipshits would be beheading people and bashing gays, because thereâs never been a shortage of awful people (see: any history book).
However, I will bet that there is a significant pool of marginally good people who do awful things that they otherwise would not do in the name of their religion. The papers are filled with enough stories of radicalization of previously-disinterested youths off to fight jihad (or its equivalent).
This is by no means unique to religion, but damn if it sure isnât a primary vector into acts of violence and stupidity. The only difference is between religion and any other man-made ideas is that some people consider criticizing religion is taboo. And for those in charge of those religions this is a feature, not a bug.
