I'm in the this-is-no-big-deal camp on the question in general, but I don't see what the practices of 10th-century muslims have to do with anything . Those who are expressing concern are worrying about the message that gets communicated to Islamic extremists (and perhaps would-be extremists, sympathizers, etc.) -- I'm guessing that those folks will interpret this in the light of their own contemporary understanding of their religion and the world, regardless of what anyone else might find in history or the holy texts.
In general, these questions are overwhelmingly (religio-)cultural, not historical or scriptural -- browsing through texts is not going to produce a relevant answer one way or the other.
something of this sort is virtually assured to be passed once there’s a Republican comeback.
I wouldn't be so sure. They could've done this anytime since 9/11 -- why wait till now, when it has no chance of passing? Reeks of political stunt rather than serious proposal.
I think the problem is that we're actually dealing with two axes but we blend them together. On the one hand, there's the question of where someone's political "center of gravity" is located on the scale from left to right; on the other hand, there's the question of the intensity of someone's ideological commitments.
I think it'd be helpful if we stuck to positional terms for the former (e.g. centrist, center-left, far right) and saved the terms "moderate" and "extreme" for the latter. I describe myself as a moderate because I think most of the big political issues don't really have right answers, just different sets of costs and benefits. I would call someone like Freddie "extreme" regardless of his particular political beliefs, simply because he believes passionately in the utter rightness of his views.
Yep, this is true, and it really sucks if you're an independent/moderate voter, because even if you're lucky enough to have a candidate to vote for that you're actually pretty happy with, s/he's not going to have much real power -- it ends up just being a proxy vote for the party hacks.
Of course. But simply claiming with no evidence that my own beliefs are written into the fabric of the universe doesn't seem any better, if the object of my coercion doesn't agree.
If we all acknowledged the absence of a universal standard, perhaps it'd make us a little more careful when deciding to force unwilling others to follow our rules.
Well, even if there is a Big Book O'Morals out there somewhere, it's inaccessible to us, so in effect everything *is* a "because I said so" morality. Except that in many cases we can avoid coercion by applying moral reasoning to shared (though unproven) fundamental beliefs.
When we do decide to coerce, it's essentially because certain of our normative beliefs are so important to us that we're willing to hold others to them even when they disagree. Notions of an absolute morality are just rationalizations.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Posted without comment”
Has everyone seen this already?
On “The Symbolism of the Cordoba House Project”
I'm in the this-is-no-big-deal camp on the question in general, but I don't see what the practices of 10th-century muslims have to do with anything . Those who are expressing concern are worrying about the message that gets communicated to Islamic extremists (and perhaps would-be extremists, sympathizers, etc.) -- I'm guessing that those folks will interpret this in the light of their own contemporary understanding of their religion and the world, regardless of what anyone else might find in history or the holy texts.
In general, these questions are overwhelmingly (religio-)cultural, not historical or scriptural -- browsing through texts is not going to produce a relevant answer one way or the other.
On “We Are All Enemy Belligerents Now”
something of this sort is virtually assured to be passed once there’s a Republican comeback.
I wouldn't be so sure. They could've done this anytime since 9/11 -- why wait till now, when it has no chance of passing? Reeks of political stunt rather than serious proposal.
On “There’s more than one way to skin a moderate”
I think the problem is that we're actually dealing with two axes but we blend them together. On the one hand, there's the question of where someone's political "center of gravity" is located on the scale from left to right; on the other hand, there's the question of the intensity of someone's ideological commitments.
I think it'd be helpful if we stuck to positional terms for the former (e.g. centrist, center-left, far right) and saved the terms "moderate" and "extreme" for the latter. I describe myself as a moderate because I think most of the big political issues don't really have right answers, just different sets of costs and benefits. I would call someone like Freddie "extreme" regardless of his particular political beliefs, simply because he believes passionately in the utter rightness of his views.
On “Yes, Google is making me stupid”
multi tasking doesn’t really exist. At most we switch rapidly from one tasks to another
But that *is* multitasking -- a single CPU multitasks by rapidly (every X milliseconds) switching between "active" processes. Simulated simultaneity.
On “One Step Closer*”
Yep, this is true, and it really sucks if you're an independent/moderate voter, because even if you're lucky enough to have a candidate to vote for that you're actually pretty happy with, s/he's not going to have much real power -- it ends up just being a proxy vote for the party hacks.
On “A- still does not imply Anti-”
Of course. But simply claiming with no evidence that my own beliefs are written into the fabric of the universe doesn't seem any better, if the object of my coercion doesn't agree.
If we all acknowledged the absence of a universal standard, perhaps it'd make us a little more careful when deciding to force unwilling others to follow our rules.
"
Well, even if there is a Big Book O'Morals out there somewhere, it's inaccessible to us, so in effect everything *is* a "because I said so" morality. Except that in many cases we can avoid coercion by applying moral reasoning to shared (though unproven) fundamental beliefs.
When we do decide to coerce, it's essentially because certain of our normative beliefs are so important to us that we're willing to hold others to them even when they disagree. Notions of an absolute morality are just rationalizations.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.