Hobby Lobby, Religious Freedom Laws--Just the Beginning?

Several flights from New York to Israel over the last year have been delayed when ultra-Orthodox Jewish men have refused to sit next to women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/us/aboard-flights-conflicts-over-seat-assignme...

I say that if a person has a problem with their seatmate that has nothing to do with their seatmate's behavior, they should get off the plane/bus/trolley/whatever.

You're entitled to your religion, but you still live in a society with other people. If you require everyone around you to humor your beliefs at all times, do like the Amish do and live largely outside of mainstream society.

If two garments are touching, is that forbidden?

Hypothetical: you get on the airplane, and the guy in the seat next to yours is wearing a t-shirt that says, "GAYS ARE GOING TO BURN IN HELL."

Would it be reasonable for you to ask for a different seat?

>4 nathanielcampbell: Would it be reasonable for you to ask for a different seat?

That is an absolutely bankrupt attempt at analogy. The woman whose presence is so disturbing to the ultra-Orthodox has no expressed animosity toward them or anyone else, as far as we know.

A more accurate comparison would be: You get on an airplane to discover that the person assigned the seat next to yours is black. Should we pity your pathetic pale ass? (Oh, and you are a Christian Identity "believer," of course.)

Or: You get on an airplane, and the guy next to you is wearing a t-shirt with a rainbow and the words "CHICAGO PRIDE 2007." Is it okay for you to hide in the bathroom for the whole flight? (Naturally, you are a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.)

Don't let it get away from you that they are objecting to sitting next to a woman. Any woman. Pretty much any person who was born with female genitalia and probably anyone at all who identifies as female.. Not just women who are wearing offensive clothing, or taking an attitude with them, or behaving in another way that they don't like. Just women, a full half of our society.

Does their refusal to be near women stop at who they're sitting next to? What if there is a woman across the aisle? A woman sitting a few rows up who keeps walking past them to go to the bathroom?

If you have that big a problem with 50% of our society, you can't expect everyone to bend to your whims at all times, no matter how sincere your beliefs.

And if your faith requires you to hold yourself apart from half the world's population, then what are you doing taking public transport?

>5 paradoxosalpha: It's merely an attempt to ascertain whether there are ever circumstances in which your right to object to a seat-mate trumps their rights to self-expression.

So, in the hypothetical: would it be right or wrong for somone to object to sitting next to the homophobic bigot (to use the currently accepted terminology to describe the guy in the t-shirt)?

ETA: (Or did I misunderstand the nature of this thread? Instead of an exploration of the complex issues involved in balancing individual rights and freedoms when they appear to conflict, it is meant simply to be a place to beat up on ultra-orthodox Jews? Is it anti-semitic to call them by the epithet du'jour, "bigots"?)

>8 nathanielcampbell: circumstances in which your right to object to a seat-mate trumps their rights to self-expression

Being a woman isn't "self-expression" the way that locution is commonly used, and certainly not in the way that wearing a t-shirt is. Analogy failure complete.

I'm not much interested in your "hypothetical" on its own dubious merits, although I pause to note that your failure to construct an accurate analogy bears marked similarity to the sort of arguments I heard over the last couple of weeks from defenders of the Indiana "Religious Freedom" measure.

Would you bake me an arena-shaped cake with "Why not lionize Christians?" spelled out in the frosting? Or maybe you'd prefer to print me a banner than says "If a fetus is a person, why does it look like a steamed prawn?" These "hypotheticals" are not useful comparanda for declining service to customers on the basis of the customers' sexual preference.

>8 nathanielcampbell: It's merely an attempt to ascertain whether there are ever circumstances in which your right to object to a seat-mate trumps their rights to self-expression.

paradoxosalpha suggested one. Being subject to threats of harm would be a perfectly valid reason to object to a seat mate.

would it be right or wrong for somone to object to sitting next to the homophobic bigot

I suppose it would depend on how violent he got when he saw me wearing my rainbow-flag "Love comes in all flavors" t-shirt with picture of two guys holding hands. My guess is he'd squirm to the far side of his tiny seat in case he caught gay cooties.

(to use the currently accepted terminology to describe the guy in the t-shirt)?

An extraneous comment whose only purpose is to suggest you think the term "bigot" for a guy wearing a Gays will burn in hell t-shirt" is unjustified.

>8 nathanielcampbell: ETA

For my part, I think anyone who wants to control who their seat neighbor is when flying on a regular commercial flight has one obvious recourse: book multiple seats. That's especially the case when the "offending" attribute is more common than, say, blue eyes. To expect everyone else to cater to such obscure scruples is offensively presumptuous.

To legislate in that direction is a recipe for disasters that would follow from demands for various sorts of preferential treatment.

>11 paradoxosalpha: "To legislate in that direction is a recipe for disasters that would follow from demands for various sorts of preferential treatment."

I agree. (Are you surprised?)

>11 paradoxosalpha: I agree. (Are you surprised?)

Not really. Though your gambit in #4 made me wonder.

What I find so very curious about all of this is why is it that the orthodox individual doesn't bother to ask the steward/stewardess if they could find him another seat?

Way back during one of the nations moments of unpleasantness I returned home via plane. I had boarded the domestic flight and was sitting in my seat when my assigned seatmate showed up and went ballistic at the thought of sitting next to someone in uniform. Instead of insisting I move he turned and demanded the stewardess find him a new seat. She found someone willing to trade and that was the end of that.

>14 alco261: Good point. Travelling home with my newly adopted son, more than one business person (men & women) asked to be moved away from us for the overnight flight--and I can scarcely blame them. I would have been upset, though, if I had been moved against my will (strategically placed as I was to care for my lively new toddler), and I am outraged at calls from time to time that these kids be banned from certain flights.

Dangerous as it is to guess someone's motives, I think that someone who feels entitled (say, by religious freedom laws) asks for seatmate to be moved, whereas someone honestly seeking to observe tenets of one's religion asks attendant if possible to be moved. (If not possible, one is confident that God knows one tried. One does NOT hold up plane with adult version of tantrum.)

I'm all for people having freedom to practise their respective religions, as long as others are not compelled also. Wear hijab (face uncovered), cross, yarmulke, Sikh dagger (plastic, pls). Refuse blood transfusions, deny marriage rite to gays, arrange marriages, mutilate your genitals, avoid contraception, if that's your thing, but don't compel others (including minor dependents in irreversible matters) to follow your beliefs.

>15 margd: "but don't compel others (including minor dependents in irreversible matters) to follow your beliefs."

So no infant circumcision (for Jews) or baptism (for Christians)?

Baptism is irreversible? I guess so, but...

>16 nathanielcampbell: Baptism is confirmed (or not) when child reaches age of reason.

IMHO, no circumcision of male or female minors, unless medically advisable.
It's something that can be done, but not undone (for all practical purposes).
If the child wants it when he/she grows up and is competent to decide for him/herself, fine.
And I know we disagree on this one, Nathaniel!!

So this is where the rubber-meets-the-road in terms of one belief system trumping another: margd's belief that "genital mutilation" is wrong for minors comes into conflict with Jewish belief that circumcision of newborn males is an essential statement of the covenant between them and God.

This is why the principle, "free to practice your beliefs as long as they don't impinge on others," is too simple. In this case, the social belief that it's wrong to discriminate against women is "impinging" on the Orthodox Jew, just as much as the Jew's belief that it's wrong to sit next to a women is impinging on the female half of an airplane's passenger manifest.

Of course, one of those beliefs will have to impinge on the other. So the issue isn't really that we aren't forcing our beliefs on others; it's that we have to carefully navigate a myriad of places where two beliefs impinge on one another, and we have to decide which will take precedence and which will give way.

ETA: This is what frustrated me so much with the Indiana-pizza-parlor-RFRA flag -- the failure to recognize that forcing a restaurant to cater a same-sex wedding is forcing a belief on others who don't hold that belief. Of course, as a society, we have determined that the we value the belief in equal public accommodation over a religious act of discrimination.

But it's disingenuous to defend that valorization of non-discrimination on the grounds that one belief shouldn't be imposed on others who don't hold.

>19 nathanielcampbell: the failure to recognize that forcing a restaurant to cater a same-sex wedding is forcing a belief on others who don't hold that belief.

Firstly, everyone is quite clear that same-sex marriage is against these peoples' beliefs. And everyone has been completely clear that what we are asking here are questions of precedence. When does one person's civil rights trump another's. We all recognize that. So charges of being "disingenuous" are unfounded.

Secondly, no one has "forced" these people to suddenly believe in the legitimacy of same sex marriage. What they have done, as you say, is objected to them forcing their beliefs on others to the point where other people's rights are violated. It's one thing to refuse to eat pork because of your religion, quite another to demand no one else eat it.

So the "myriad of places where these two beliefs impinge on each other" -- to use your wording -- is really a question about what it means to practice one's religion, and what it means to respect freedom of conscience. And as has been pointed out a couple times here, it stretches credulity to the point of absurdity to claim delivering pizza to be a religious act, or to be an case of being forced to violate your religion. Demanding that one officiate, or witness, or be involved in the ceremony of a same sex marriage rite would be participating. Serving pizza? Not so much.

>20 southernbooklady: "or be involved in the ceremony of a same sex marriage rite"

The line between the ceremony itself and the reception as an extension of the ceremony can be very fuzzy (I say as someone who worked throughout high school and college at a catering company -- I've probably been to more wedding receptions than most people here).

That's fucking absurd. And I say that as someone who spent over a decade doing various forms of food service (waiting tables/bartending, etc.)

Not once did I feel that my job was to do anything but to ensure that my guests were given the service that they deserved.

When I was running humanitarian relief airlifts into South Sudan a while back we would also send food to our own staff in the field, and this would occasionally include a little bacon and a few cans of beer as a treat. I was watching a Muslim staff member loading bacon and beer one day and I asked him whether he had any religious objections. His reply was that his religion forbade him to eat pork and drink alcohol, not to load it onto planes for other people to eat and drink.

>19 nathanielcampbell: one of those beliefs will have to impinge on the other

Not really. As someone said earlier, if the person who doesn't want to sit in a particular seat for whatever reason quietly asks to be reseated, then usually it can be resolved without anyone's beliefs being impinged. I have sometimes politely asked to be reseated so I can sit next to my wife when we have found ourselves booked in different seats; usually a single traveller is willing to move without fuss. Likewise when travelling alone I myself have willingly moved to allow a couple to sit together. However as soon as you insist that someone else should move out of their seat, then you are impinging on them, whether for religious or any other reasons.

It's funny how the American Christian culture is so wedded to the idea that their faith requires that they discriminate against others without actually having to give anything up. They love the idea of being persecuted for Christ (or at least comfortably FEELING persecuted) while being outraged at the idea of having to give up anything. So the holy pharmacist insists on making her customer be inconvenienced and humiliated for her righteousness, rather than making the difficult (and more Christian) decision to not be a pharmacist, lest it impinge on her beliefs. The Godly restaurant has to take that "brave stance" instead of deciding that they will not cater events (and so make less money).

It's all grandstanding. Feeling all better than those icky others and pleasantly outraged and persecuted for the Lord all at once. It's not the Christian reaction, but they're not interested in following Christ's irrelevant words.

>24 RidgewayGirl: It's not the Christian reaction

Precisely, and thanks for pointing it out.

They love the idea of being persecuted for Christ (or at least comfortably FEELING persecuted)

And as I have pointed out from time to time, most of them have no concept of what persecution actually entails, and they equate their "mild discomfort" (to use the Archbishop of Canterbury's words) with persecution.

>25 John5918: Which must look bizarre to Christians in other places who actually do run risks by embracing their faith or even by worshipping in a church on Sunday morning.

>26 RidgewayGirl: Yes, indeed it does.

(I should say that I quite agree with the compassionate perspective that @johnthefireman has contributed here. Often, when I've gotten myself hopelessly lost within a rhetorical hall-of-mirrors, his simple, clearsighted charity rescues me.)

>24 RidgewayGirl: It's funny how the American Christian culture is so wedded to the idea that their faith requires that they discriminate against others without actually having to give anything up.

In fairness, this attitude may be American, but it is not necessarily a result of its Christian heritage. It's more that Americans all have a hefty sense of entitlement. It's the dark side of our strong sense of individualism. There is not much difference, at its heart, between the pizza maker who won't serve someone a pizza because his religion, and the home owner who gets into a dispute with his local HOA over what color he can paint his house.

Really, as a people Americans just don't like being told what to do -- especially by the government.

>29 southernbooklady: And, I would suggest, this "strong sense of individualism" runs counter to the demands of the Gospel, in which Christ is quite explicit that the heart of true love is not just service but submission to others.

In theological terms, the essence of the primal sin of Adam and Eve was disobedience, and its solution comes through Christ, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:6-8)

It is a mark against American Christianity that it resists obedience.

ETA: One of the great tragedies of American (Protestant and, even more so, evangelical) Christianity is its utter ignorance of the long and deep roots of the Christian tradition. For some 1500 years, for example, a classic expression of the ideal Christian way of life has been treasured in the Rule of St. Benedict, in which obedience is the foundational virtue:

This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through sloth of disobedience. (Prologue, vv. 2-3)

Obedience is a blessing to be shown by all, not only to the abbot but also to one another as brothers, since we know that it is by this way of obedience that we go to God. (...) To their fellow monks they show the pure love of brothers; to God, loving fear; to their abbot, unfeigned and humble love. Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life. (RB, 71.1-2 and 78.8-12)

The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience, which comes naturally to those who cherish Christ above all. (...) Such people as these immediately put aside their concerns, abandon their own will, and lay down whatever they have in hand, leaving it unfinished. With the ready step of obedience, they follow the voice of authority in their actions. (...) It is love that impels them to pursue everlasting life … they no longer live by their own judgment, giving in to their whims and appetites; rather they walk according to another’s decisions and directions, choosing to live in monasteries and have an abbot over them. (...) This very obedience, however, will be acceptable to God and agreeable to men only if compliance with what is commanded is not cringing or sluggish or half-hearted, but free from any grumbling or any reaction of unwillingness. (RB, ch. 5, selections)

If an obsession with entitlement is the dark side of secular individualism, then the obsession with obedience is the dark side of any religion that claims any moral authority. Of the two, I prefer the former to the latter.

>31 southernbooklady: For me these are not the two opposites. The opposite of individualism is community, ubuntu. While I would not want to go to either extreme, and recognise that both have their strengths and weaknesses, I would certainly rather live towards the community end of the spectrum than the extreme individualistic end.

>32 John5918: I would certainly rather live towards the community end of the spectrum than the extreme individualistic end.

It's all about balance. The problem is that most of the truly great advances in life -- and most of the truly terrible ones -- happen because someone or something is out of balance. The difficult thing is figuring out how to nurture the former and still guard against the latter. But contentment, in itself, can also be stagnation. And change happens, so we have to find a way to embrace it. On the whole I think defiance is a virtue.

>33 southernbooklady: Yes, balance is important - as I say, I would not want to live at either extreme. And of course it's true that much creativity comes from those who are different; that's one of the potential strengths of individualism. Christianity (well, perhaps not the modern US versions!) would claim that Jesus was indeed one of those counter-cultural individuals who modelled a path different from the accepted norms of his time and place, although arguably he tried to do it in a way that created a new and inclusive community rather than individualism.

>34 John5918: would claim that Jesus was indeed one of those counter-cultural individuals who modelled a path different from the accepted norms of his time and place

Well he did act up a bit with the Temple officials. Hard to fault him for that.

>35 southernbooklady: And got executed for being a wee bit of a trouble-maker...

I hear it didn't precisely stick, though...

>35 southernbooklady: Isaac Asimov points out that all those sellers in the Temple whose stalls he overturned were letting carpenters from Galilee buy unblemished doves and other animals of sacrifice as demanded in the Bible instead of trying to haul an unblemished animal from Galilee.

>38 prosfilaes: So he conveniently overlooks the entire point of the story, which is that the temple sacrifices are being exploited to charge obscene mark-ups in order to satiate the greed of the merchants?

Isaac Asimov, friend of Wall Street and the "job creators!" Who knew that he was a shill for neo-con economics....

>39 nathanielcampbell: So he conveniently overlooks the entire point of the story, which is that the temple sacrifices are being exploited to charge obscene mark-ups in order to satiate the greed of the merchants

I think the reference is to a book Asimov wrote in the late 60s - Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible -- an example of a historical approach to Biblical events. I don't know where it falls in the line with others of its ilk (for awhile there people were mad to find the historical foundations of various myths and stories), but it's general purpose was not theological but historical interpretation -- in line with his own atheistic outlook.

That said, my impression about the story of Jesus over-turning all the tables on the Temple steps has always been that Jesus thought the Temple should be a place of worship, not commerce. So I don't think the actual price of the doves would really come into it.

Actually when I said Jesus was counter-cultural I wasn't particularly thinking about the incident in the temple, which is open to various interpretations.

Much of his example and teaching was counter to the Jewish culture in which he grew up. His emphasis on love and forgiveness was counter to the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" culture; he engaged with strangers, the poor, the ostracised, sinners, women; he emphasised the spirit of the law over its letter; he demonstrated a new, more intimate relationship with God, etc. There's even a strand of Christian theology which sees Jesus as the clown or fool.

I'm not trying to sell Jesus to atheists, simply reflecting on Nicki's comments about people who are out of balance. Arguably Jesus was, at least in terms of the religious culture of his time and place.

Matthew 21:12-13 "And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”" (ESV)

It seems that the "entire point of the story" is missing from the actual text of the story. As with many rebels, I feel that Jesus was a lot quicker to overturn tables then to set them up, to deal with the fact that you can't drag an unblemished dove from Galilee and thus there must be money-changes and pigeon sellers in Jerusalem, preferably as close to the temple as possible. You can object to it, but to be outraged by an inevitable natural development seems a bit unreasonable.

My own reading of Jesus in the Gospels makes me feel that Christians, at least American Christians, keep trying to whitewash him into a capitalist. You see the charging of "obscene mark-ups" whereas I see someone who was upset with money-changers in any form. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is practically unique in Western literature for naming the poor man and not the rich man, and yet it is turned into a story about the existence of hell, not about how rich men are bad. "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (ESV) makes it pretty clear to me what the lesson of that story was.

>41 John5918: Arguably Jesus was, at least in terms of the religious culture of his time and place.

Not to mention the political culture -- religion and politics not being the separate spheres we try to aspire to today. Whatever its flaws, I thought Reza Aslan's book did a good job making the case for Jesus, the political rebel.

As with many rebels, I feel that Jesus was a lot quicker to overturn tables then to set them up

it's always easier to knock stuff down than to build stuff up. And Jesus had many talents, but "organizer" wasn't among them.

>42 prosfilaes: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (ESV) makes it pretty clear to me what the lesson of that story was.

If it's clear to you, please explain it. Does it mean that rich people are all going to hell when they die?

>44 jburlinson:

What in the Bible suggests to you that "the kingdom of God" is a post-mortem condition?

>45 paradoxosalpha:. Nothing does. I'm just trying to get a sense of what's so clear about this lesson to >42 prosfilaes:, who seems to feel that it's all about "the existence of hell".

If the "kingdom of God" is a pre-mortem condition, then wouldn't it seem as if the little tale of the camel and the needle might not be so clear after all? Of course, the "kingdom of Hell" might be a pre-mortem condition as well, but, again, haven't we started wandering away from how "clear" the message is?

>46 jburlinson:

Hm. Well, prosfilaes seems to have objected to "The story of the rich man and Lazarus" having been "... turned into a story about the existence of hell."

>47 paradoxosalpha:.

Oh, I see. The clear message of both stories (the camel story and the Lazarus story) is that rich men are bad, is that it? Nothing to do with hell.

I suppose that's a simple message, but I'm still not so sure how clear it is.

>48 jburlinson: The clear message of both stories (the camel story and the Lazarus story) is that rich men are bad

I find this sort of funny, because that's not the message I get at all. It's more that the material things we value (riches) are a distraction from, and blind us to, the things we should value ("the kingdom of Heaven"). But it doesn't really mean that rich people are bad -- immoral, evil. Just that money can't buy spiritual enlightenment.

>49 southernbooklady:

That's why we need for prosfilaes to explain the clear meaning of these stories. Clearly, some of us are struggling .

>49 southernbooklady:

"It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle then for a homosexual to enter the Kingdom of God."
"It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle then for a thief to enter the Kingdom of God."
"It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle then for a Samaritan to enter the Kingdom of God."
"It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle then for knitters to enter the Kingdom of God."
"It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle then for an X to enter the Kingdom of God."

I'm just trying to imagine an X here that would get spun the same way. Certainly rich people aren't the only ones who value their material things; in fact, they may be easy come, easy go--the nameless man in the story about the rich man and Lazarus showed no evidence about valuing his material things.

The natural reading of "It is easier for {some impossible thing} then for X to Y" is that X don't Y.

Why did Lazarus get a name and the rich man didn't? Either it's a literary sin, or it's meant to deindividualize the rich man, turn him into a stereotype instead of leaving the audience wondering about which of his individual properties damned him. He's a rich man; what more do you need to know?

If Jesus had wanted to communicate the message that it was bad to be rich, how should he have done that? The only group of shunned individuals that Jesus associated with that Christians don't shun are tax men; prostitutes (like H. L. Mencken and Herbert Asbury's "Hatrack", a work that got Mencken arrested in Boston) are still shunned. But tax men are rich and working on behalf of the rich, so that means that they are good.

>51 prosfilaes: that entire post makes no sense to me.

Here's the full story. (Matthew 19:16-24):

16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

23 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

24 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

The line about the camel and the needle is quotable, but context is everything.

>49 southernbooklady:, >52 southernbooklady:

Thanks, Nicki.

Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

What does "hardly" mean in this case (or are there alternate translations of this?)

>54 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

"Hardly" means "hard for" "very hard for", "with difficulty" etc based on the other standard translations. So not easy, but not impossible I suppose.

I read somewhere that "eye of the needle" might refer to
small gate in wall to the city, so maybe not quite so impossible for a camel to go through as literal eye of the needle?

>54 Jesse_wiedinmyer:, >56 margd: I tend to regard quibbles over the specifics of translations, especially for ancient texts like the books of the Bible, with tolerant caution. Meaning trumps literal references. Consider Shakespeare -- those plays are loaded with inside and topical jokes we miss entirely because we aren't 17th century Londoners. But this has not detracted from the relevance of the plays for us. So even if there were a particular gate Jesus was talking about, it's not important.

Personally, I think that while the camel line is the catchiest, the most important line in that story is this one:

If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

Which is basically a statement that what we call "treasure," isn't.

>56 margd: That's false. Tour guides in Jerusalem get tired of hearing about it. And that's part of my problem; who in the history of time and space talks that way? When someone says something is "as easy as falling off a log", nobody starts to talk about "maybe he meant a log raft, or a Giant Sequoia log, something that it might not be trivial to fall off."

>57 southernbooklady: The most important lines from the perspective of the author are the ones that come after "Then said Jesus unto his disciples,". This is when if you've missed the point of the story as the author saw it, he's going to hit you over the head with it.

The most important text in the Christian gospels is perhaps Mark 4:11-12:

And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

Parables are esoteric instructions that require a key, not simply didactic fables appealing to popular understanding.

ETA: Sola scriptura is for chumps.

>59 paradoxosalpha: "ETA: Sola scriptura is for chumps."

Given Martin Luther's earthy character (he loved a good fart joke), he might not object to being called a "chump."

ETA: I'm sure you know of the online Luther Insult Generator: http://ergofabulous.org/luther/

>60 nathanielcampbell: I'm sure you know of the online Luther Insult Generator: http://ergofabulous.org/luther/

And today it says I am "a toad eater and a fawner." Cyber-Martin is more right than he knows.

>56 margd: who in the history of time and space talks that way?

I thought a lot of speech from the past holds hidden meaning,, e.g. "Ring around the Rosy" is about the plague.

I've always heard that when someone in Shakespeare says "Get thee to a nunnery" the word "nunnery" was slang for whorehouse.

>59 paradoxosalpha: This is not a parable.

Sola scriptura is for chumps.

Given a choice between sola scriptura and the religion being dictated by a large bureaucracy in Rome, I'd doubt either Jesus or Crowley would prefer the second. I don't see that Jesus would have been in love with the centralized authority of the Catholic Church at all.

>62 margd: http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp

>65 prosfilaes:

Putting aside the gnostic nonsense of only the enlightened being able to understand often perfectly simple parables clearly aimed at helping the understanding of the everyperson, on what basis do you think Jesus was against centralised authority?

The earliest texts, as we have them#, don't seem to indicate that particularly. For example he never seeks to attack the temple authorities qua authorities as far as I can see, and clearly set up his own hierarchy with an inner circle (the apostles / the 12).

# Which remain the canonical texts - The only 1st century non-canonical text I am aware of is the orthodox 1 Clement, with the gnostic text discovered all being dated 2nd century or later.

Though based on the fairly well attested story of Cerinthus and John, there presumably are lost 1st century Gnostic texts.

>65 prosfilaes: Given a choice between sola scriptura and the religion being dictated by a large bureaucracy in Rome

Fortunately, the choices are not so limited.

>65 prosfilaes: I'd doubt either Jesus or Crowley would prefer the second.

Crowley was raised among the Exclusive Brethren, whose relationship to scripture was highly influential on our contemporary Christian fundamentalists. His own later position as a religious leader is expressed in the "Tunis Comment," which might be taken as either sola or nulla scriptura, depending on your notions of "salvation." (I incline to the latter.)

As far as what Jesus would have loved, well, that's what Christians fight over, isn't it?

>66 hf22: on what basis do you think Jesus was against centralised authority?

He consistently condemns the Pharisees and Saducees, who, if I understand correctly, were the local Jewish authorities. I don't recall him ever saying anything good about the authorities. At best, I see him like some college student who would agree with the idea of authority but would object to any form of real-life authority. I'm not as certain there as I am with him and the rich; it's more of a reading. (Though I'm pretty sure many of the popes through the ages would have boiled his blood.)

>68 prosfilaes:

He consistently condemns the Pharisees and Saducees, who, if I understand correctly, were the local Jewish authorities.

But for being mistaken, not for being authorities per se.

I don't recall him ever saying anything good about the authorities.

Well, he set himself as an authority, and seems to have given authority to select others. An divine authority clearly gets good press.

I'm not as certain there as I am with him and the rich; it's more of a reading.

I actually read somewhere the other day that perhaps the "sinners" he got in trouble for hanging around were the rich and the gentiles, given that they are the categories often termed "sinners" in other Second Temple Jewish texts.#

I don't think I buy that however, as it seems to have been assumed in the community he gathered around himself that worldly wealth would be held in common or given away.

Though I'm pretty sure many of the popes through the ages would have boiled his blood.

No dispute there. There has been some nasty pieces of work who have sat on the Chair of St. Peter.

ETA - OK, found it, here (http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/who-were-sinners-in-gospel-tradition.html)

>58 prosfilaes: who in the history of time and space talks that way?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/the-surprising-origins-of-35-english-phrases#....

Mathew 23: 1-11: Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (ESV)

I'm not sure citing yourself as authority establishes that you believe in authorities, and in this section he seems to tear into anyone who's not divine who claims authority.

Again, I'm not sure I see the point in arguing this. There's some verses you could pull up on the subject that I would shrug and dismiss as unauthentic, like most of the book of John; they sound like latter additions. And the best I could do to justify that is to cite the Jesus Seminar, at least if they agreed with me, and I'm not up to making their case for them--you might well be better qualified to make their case for them, though I can't see you doing so.

>71 prosfilaes:

I'm not sure citing yourself as authority establishes that you believe in authorities, and in this section he seems to tear into anyone who's not divine who claims authority.

Well, it seems to me to be a passage about how authority should conduct itself, not against authority per se. Authority with divine approval will be servant leadership, not self-interested lordship.

Again, I'm not sure I see the point in arguing this. There's some verses you could pull up on the subject that I would shrug and dismiss as unauthentic, like most of the book of John; they sound like latter additions. And the best I could do to justify that is to cite the Jesus Seminar, at least if they agreed with me, and I'm not up to making their case for them--you might well be better qualified to make their case for them, though I can't see you doing so.

Yeah, if you are going to argue about the authenticity of passages, then this is a dead horse best left alone.

Things like the Jesus Seminar are now considered in the scholarship to have set themselves an impossible task and then inevitably failed in it. We don't really have any reasonable basis for reconstructing a "historical Jesus" outside of the Gospels, which is why every scholar who has tried comes up with a radically different vision.

>70 margd: The question was not that general; it was specifically about comparisons of that sort. In "It is easier for a (some colorful illustration) than for b (what the speaker is talking about)", a has to be hard, otherwise the metaphor is just muddled and unhelpful.

Secondly, you're citing a "BuzzFeed News Reporter", who is cribbing from a book written by "Editorial Board", and if Amazon Look Inside isn't leading me astray, said book lacks a bibliography. It's possible some, maybe many, of those are correct, but it stinks of the type of slapdash workmanship that linguistics often gets. To grab one example, it seems to source "to steal one's thunder" as per more reliable sources, but the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang dates "to take the piss" to 1940, too late for the explanation given, and The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English dates it to 1935 and gives vague explanations unlike the one given in the article. It's not a credible source.

>72 hf22: We don't really have any reasonable basis for reconstructing a "historical Jesus"

Seems convenient. Scholars swear up and down that we have more information and more contemporary sources about Jesus then Hannibal, but no one dismisses attempts to find a "historical Hannibal".

>74 prosfilaes:

No one really tries to discover a "historical Hannibal" who is radically different than the sources present. We compare sources, review archaeological findings, make allowances for biases etc, but the "historical Hannibal" accepted is generally the one presented by the most contemporaneous bits of the historical record.

The issue is not the availability of sources, but our supposed ability to see through the sources to a truer picture of the historical reality. And the answer is we have a very limited ability to so see through sources.

If you would like more information on this, see the recent scholarly work on the Criteria of Authenticity and its demise by scholars like Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne.

>75 hf22: And the answer is we have a very limited ability to so see through sources.

Same rule of thumbs I apply to modern sources; items that have many public witnesses tend to be more reliable, whereas things said to one person in private are less reliable, especially when they contradict the first. I think that's a good solid reason to doubt much of John.

>76 prosfilaes:

Heh, while late, John might have the best claim to input from an actual companion of Jesus. There is a very good basis for accepting the attested story (via Irenaeus and Polycarp) that John lived quite late as a key pillar of the Church in Smyrna.

While that Gospel clearly applies a theological lens to the history (i.e. a this is what it really means approach), its authors access to actually historically valid oral testimony might even be better than the synoptics.

But, either way, it remains pretty much impossible to tell.

Some historians ignore everything except the most certain of Paul's letters, as that they are the most contemporary source for example. And yet Paul's letters make pretty clear he was not particularly well versed in what the historical Jesus did, given he came into the scene post his death.

It is just really hard to see through the sources.

>1 margd:
>2 weener:

Getting back to the original post by margd over the refusal of Orthodox Jews to sit next to women on planes. And also in response to weener's statement that

"I say that if a person has a problem with their seatmate that has nothing to do with their seatmate's behavior, they should get off the plane/bus/trolley/whatever. "

I hope that those of us on this group are equally upset with discrimination against males on planes, based solely on their gender. Just in case you didn't know, some airlines have a policy of allowing adult males to sit next to unaccompanied minors. It is ok for adult females to sit next to them however.

Here is one article describing a situation from a Virgin flyer, but it happens on other airlines as well.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/sydney-fireman-john-mcgirr-accuses-...

-Shawn

As white parents of Asian kids, Customs & Immigration officers tended to scrutinize us more than most families crossing the border. Annoying, yes, but a slight I was willing to overlook since it meant they were focused on children's welfare.

>78 sdawson:

If a minor in your care had to travel alone, and if they had to sit next to a stranger, would it be the same to you if the stranger were male or female (no other information available)? Are you also mad at women who cross the street at night when something male-shaped approaches?

Having been a minor who flew alone (about twice a year, with transfers, from ages 8 to 14) and someone who was molested and continually harassed by men when a minor and later (something probably most women have experienced), if forced to choose for someone else now, I'd plump for a female neighbour. That said, the arrangements my parents made with the airlines involved being sat alone or with a crew member, and always being accompanied by an official on the ground while making transfers. This still seems to me the best solution: it minimises contact with strangers, keeps it and the responsibility limited to the airline.

And margd's point is the most important one--it's about a child's welfare and safety. Surely that trumps any hurt feelings incurred because complete strangers can't read our minds and know what fine, upstanding citizens we are.

>80 LolaWalser: Q.E.D.

Want the airline to reseat your neighbor because she's a she? You're a bigot.

Want the airline to reseat your neighbor because he's a he? You're just being a good advocate of safety.

>80 LolaWalser: That said, the arrangements my parents made with the airlines involved being sat alone or with a crew member, and always being accompanied by an official on the ground while making transfers.

That is my memory as a minor traveling alone as well. But that was so long ago we still had paper plane tickets and they still cooked actual meals on the long flights that they served to you with real forks and knives.

>81 nathanielcampbell: Want the airline to reseat your neighbor because she's a she? You're a bigot.

You seem obsessed with the b-word. Do you think Lola's case for placing child welfare and safety -- especially if they are traveling alone -- is unfounded?

>82 southernbooklady: "Do you think Lola's case for placing child welfare and safety -- especially if they are traveling alone -- is unfounded?"

Not necessarily -- but what she's suggesting is that the moral conviction that men are more dangerous to young children than women are is grounds for asking for an accomodation in public transportation based solely on gender.

I fail to see why this moral conviction should be respected, but an ultra-orthodox Jew's moral convictions should not be, if we are operating under the principle enunciated by >2 weener: "I say that if a person has a problem with their seatmate that has nothing to do with their seatmate's behavior, they should get off the plane/bus/trolley/whatever."

According to that principle, if you object to seating a child next to a man solely because of his gender, then you shouldn't put the child on the airplane at all.

As it happens, I think that trying to reseat unaccompanied minors with women could indeed be a reasonable accomodation -- but then, I also think that personal moral convictions (like that of the Jewish man in the OP) deserve respect and consideration, rather than scorn simply for being a minority point of view.

Hi folks,

I believe this is a worthwhile conversation.

A bit of background on me. I am a male. I also have a teaching license (but am not currently teaching). I have four daughters (ages 9, 18, 19, and 28) and a wife (age withheld out of respect), and am fully aware of the dangers faced by minors, both male and female. My wife was molested by two different family friends as a young teen, and my 28 year old has gone through more than anyone could possibly know (this happened after she was 18 and left the protection of our house). I mention these personal facts, because I don't want to be viewed as a man with my head in the ground, pretending such things to not happen. Believe me, I do know from family experience.

However, being a male, I have seen the progression in our society that has grown to classify all adult males who interact with children as dangerous, predatory, and automatically suspect. It's not just in the airlines. I have talked with parents who have flatly stated that they would not allow their children to be taught in classrooms (at the K-2 level) by male teachers. The view is that there must be something off about a man who wants to teach young children.

And while they couch it in terms including 'I'd rather be safe than sorry', or ' It's about protecting the children', and "I must raise my children as I choose.", that does not negate the fact that it is simply prejudice and discrimination, which I believe is damaging to society. It is fed by fears which are magnified by media. There are better ways to fight such behavior, rather than cordoning off men from children.

If one decides to discriminate based on gender to assuage magnified fears about an adult male on a plane, then one should also not mind discriminating to respect the religious practices of a person.

I'm looking for consistency and honesty in how we treat people.

It was not too long ago, it was in my lifetime, when folks would refuse to sit, or allow their children to sit next to members of another race, or folks perceived as gay, with similar arguments. How can the practice with respect to males be any different?

>83 nathanielcampbell: Not necessarily -- but what she's suggesting is that the moral conviction that men are more dangerous to young children than women are is grounds for asking for an accomodation in public transportation based solely on gender.

the awareness that men are more dangerous to young children is not "a moral conviction" -- it is a conclusion based on evidence.

I've had similar conversations with my mother. I used to walk to school with my Dad, because my grade school was close to the college where he taught. So every morning we'd walk the several miles to Canisius College, and then I'd walk a little further on to the Catholic elementary school I attended for 1st through 3rd grade. But I'd walk home alone, since my school day ended before my dad's. So there's a first grade girl, walking several miles home -- crossing a four lane free way, skirting a park and several other neighborhoods.

We never questioned it at the time, but these days mom and I can only shake our heads. And neither of us would allow a little girl to do something like that --on a regular basis, no less--in this day and age. It might have been dangerous forty years ago. It would certainly be dangerous now.

"No unsolicited hugs. No physical discipline of parochial students. And no overnight trips without other adult supervision.

The reality that thousands of children have been abused by a small percentage of clergy is changing the rules governing relationships among youths and ministers.

For the Catholic Church in the United States, the new challenge is to establish boundaries that promote respect between youth and clergy, but at the same time help them avoid potentially compromising situations.

Some of the guidelines may seem like common sense. Children should not go alone into a priest's living quarters. They should immediately report any inappropriate touching by an adult. But even these steps take practice and education to make young people feel comfortable handling tense situations, say advocates for children." http://www.cleveland.com/abuse/index.ssf?/abuse/more/102292414911380.html

>85 southernbooklady:

All crime in the U.S. is down compared to past decades, and this includes crimes against children. This is well documented in official government studies. Here is a link to a U.S. Bureau of Justice report:

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htius.pdf

The homicide rate is as low as it was in the 1960's. Other types of crime are down as well. The following is not a government site, but the data is valid I believe.

http://www.freerangekids.com/crime-statistics/

What is up is the media exploitation of victims (by this I mean that reporting crime makes money, whether it is on the TV or the internet). So the collective 'awareness' is up, but actual crime is down.

If one can say that 'men commit more crimes against children than women', one can also say that 'men commit more assaults against adults', 'men commit more robberies', 'men sell more drugs', 'men drink and drive more'. One may be able to back all these statements up with incarceration rates, or conviction rates, or arrest records.

So by that logic, men should have all sorts of restrictions placed on them that women do not have to bear.

BTW, I'm not sure that I fully buy the first proposition -- I do see many women accused of predatory behavior as well. But let's assume it is true. It's also a fact that the majority of men do not abuse children. So let's assign some imaginary numbers such as 2% of men are abusers, and only 0.5% of women are.

If we can discriminate against 100% of men because a small 2% are abusers, in the name of keeping children safe. Then it would be just as valid to discriminate against 100% of women because a small 0.5% are abusers.

There would be no cutoff on the lower limit in the name of keeping children safe. But since there are policies in place that do prevent men from sitting next to a minor, but not a woman, then it is not about keeping children safe, but rather about discrimination based on fear rather than facts.

While the airlines can solve this by sitting minors away from all strange adults (as some do I believe), that doesn't address the larger issue that it is harmful to society to accept the believe that all men must be viewed as potential predators while women are not.

>87 sdawson:

If we can discriminate against 100% of men because a small 2% are abusers, in the name of keeping children safe. Then it would be just as valid to discriminate against 100% of women because a small 0.5% are abusers.

That logic is broken. If women are less likely to abuse, then preferring women over men where opportunities for abuse arise, will reduce abuse overall.

The discrimination would still make kids safer.

>87 sdawson: So by that logic, men should have all sorts of restrictions placed on them that women do not have to bear.

Given that 1 out of every 5 women in the United States has experienced some kind of sexual assault by the time they graduate from college, I'd say your logic is sound. Men are potentially extremely dangerous.

But there's no reason to make up statistics. Here are some for you on sexual abuse:

http://www.nsopw.gov/en/Education/FactsStatistics?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

There is a fact that we do as a society tend to ignore-- that most abuse occurs within families and close social circles, where the perpetrator is known to the victim:

An estimated 60% of perpetrators of sexual abuse are known to the child but are not family members, e.g., family friends, babysitters, child care providers, neighbors.

About 30% of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are family members.

Only about 10% of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are strangers to the child.

Not all perpetrators are adults—an estimated 23% of reported cases of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by individuals under the age of 18.

Still, 10% is not an insignificant number when what we're discussing is child safety. So when it comes to the rampant social injustices of our culture that need addressing, the burning issue of men getting to sit where they want on an airplane is not high up on my list.

So, if it's okay to discriminate against men because they are statistically more likely to be sex offenders, would it also be defensible to impose restrictions on certain groups within society that score above average in crime statistics?

>89 southernbooklady:
"So when it comes to the rampant social injustices of our culture that need addressing, the burning issue of men getting to sit where they want on an airplane is not high up on my list."

Possibly. But I would modify that to statement to be 'the burning issue of men or women getting to sit where they want on an airplane' ...

I say we let the Orthodox Jews sit with men if that is their religious belief, and the minors sit with women if it makes their parents feel safer, and focus on real injustices and dangers, which are most likely not the religious man sitting on a park bench or a man saying hello to child in the park.

>90 BartGr.:

Nice statement.

>82 southernbooklady: You seem obsessed with the b-word. Do you think Lola's case for placing child welfare and safety -- especially if they are traveling alone -- is unfounded?

You're looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope methinks...

Travelling with kids, my impression was that most men travelling alone were NOT charmed to be sitting near us. (Too much chat?) Makes me think that more men would prefer NOT to be seated next to unaccompanied minor than the reverse.

>90 BartGr.: would it also be defensible to impose restrictions on certain groups within society that score above average in crime statistics?

You mean, like the way sex offenders in the United States are registered in a database anyone can access, and are restricted in where they can live and where they can go?

Or perhaps you mean that we should impose extra oversight on police departments with a history of racial profiling?

We all draw on our personal experiences when we shape our views of the worlds and our actions. This is tempered with intellectual thought as well though, or we wouldn't be having a discussion. So I'll draw on a few experiences from my life.

My grandfather (born in 1903), was a cabinet maker. He didn't mind working with black men. But he and my grandma drew a line at letting black men enter their homes. From their viewpoint, black people were much more likely to steal than white. I'll bet he could back it up with data. So to reduce the risks of theft, he just would not let them onto his property, or sit next to them where one may grab his wife's purse. This worked for him apparently, and made him feel safer.

When I was in junior high school in the 70's, we had a good biology teacher. It was a small school, and had grades 7-12 all in one building, so he taught junior high and high school. He had been at the school for a few years and made the class interesting and educational. He was a bit effeminate though, and while I did not equate that with being a homosexual, I guess others did. One year he was let go after the Christmas break. He was paid for the rest of the year, but was out of a job anyway. In the name of protecting the children, parents had complained, and the school board agreed that in to reduce the risks that a gay man may corrupt their children, he lost his job.

What were the above, if not actions based on prejudices that excluded certain members of society from other members of society, based on prejudicial fears.

I see the same reasoning applied today, and that is what it is.

I believe my grandfather and the school board would admit that they were being prejudiced, but felt that it benefited society to do so. What I have read in some posts here is the same admission that some prejudices are acceptable in the name of keeping society safe. I can not change those views, any more than I could have changed my grandfather's views or the views of the school board.

I do disagree with it though, and believe it is harmful to society to exclude social interactions and livelihoods based solely on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

>93 margd:

Yeah. I was going to say that an increased chance of sitting next to an unaccompanied minor seems like punishing women to me.

>95 sdawson:

You haven't answered my question about how you'd choose if you had to choose between "male" and "female" for your kid's neighbour on an extended plane (bus, boat, zeppelin...) trip.

The topic you brought into the thread concerns the safety of children, about which most people, it seems, have no sense of "too much precaution". Second, it concerns a situation where your child is spending some indefinite time with a complete stranger--not just someone you don't know, but someone you haven't seen and will not see yourself. In fact, travelling alone is probably unique in that it exposes the child to a crowd of complete strangers, most of whom will never have been seen, before or after, by the child parents'.

This is why some buffer is needed--for parents' (and the airline's) peace of mind perhaps as much or more as for the child's actual safety. While I'd personally always prefer (and insist on) the buffer being a stranger I've at least met (such as the airline officials my parents would hand me over to personally), I can see why the overcrowded and generally awful American airlines might opt for "at least" the theoretically and statistically less scary female sex.

Racial profiling is nothing like this situation, and it is extremely dishonest and ignorant to compare the two. American statistics on crime are what they are because there is an ancient and active racist oppressive system that persecutes blacks from cradle to the grave--not because blacks are innately more criminal. Racial profiling is itself an instrument of racist oppression and contributes to creating and sustaining the underclass status of the non-whites.

Some airline arbitrarily deciding that male strangers are more scary than female strangers and preventively buffering unaccompanied children from ALL male strangers, is a business clumsily trying to cover its ass or present itself as "caring" about what most people hold is priceless--their children. An airline can offend the vanity of the individual who regardless of his female acquaintances' experiences, considers his own decision that men are decent more relevant, but an airline can't oppress him.

>97 LolaWalser:

Hi Lola, sorry for skipping your question.

I would honestly have no preference for whether a male or female were sat next to one of my children on the plane. I feel the risks are negligible in either case.

I am not being cavalier here, my wife and I absolutely do shield our daughters from potentially dangerous situations. Due to my wife's experiences as a minor, and what we have seen happen to our oldest daughter when she did leave our house after high school, we are aware of the dangers. But I do not believe a seat on a plane rises to that level.

On another personal note, we stepped in when our oldest daughter was raising a child, and at the same time developed some very bad habits and because of those habits, associated with some very bad people. For those who do not know, it is very difficult for grandparents to legally assert any rights to protect their grandchildren. She refused to believe she was endangering her daughter and would not listen to our worries (due to the bad habits primarily). It took over a year, and it took complaints from her neighbors to DHS, which strengthened our case with the state, but we were able to finally gain custody of our granddaughter by the time she was about 2 and 1/2. (She is 9 now). I truly believe that our actions saved her from being exposed to violence, bad activity, and sexual abuse. It was the hardest thing in the world that I have had to do --- taking my own daughter's child from her -- but it was also one of the best things we could have done --- we gave her a chance at a normal life, and it has worked out so far.

But I will not view all men, based solely on their gender, as potential predators, only because of what some men have done to my wife and daughter. This would be just as wrong as the other examples I mentioned with respect to people of different races or people who are gay.

You also asked about the 'crossing the street when approached by a male figure late at night'. We have absolutely had these discussions with our daughters (especialy the 18 and 19 year old as they head off to college). First of all, if they are walking alone late at night on a suspect street, they have already ignored my warnings. More advice we have talked about, it they are going to a party -- they can not go alone, they have to bring a friend to have your back. They also have to stay with them at the party and leave with them. Young adults, possibly alcohol or other stuff, music, lack of supervision absolutely does merit such safe guards to be taken by my daughters.

You also said: "Racial profiling is nothing like this situation, and it is extremely dishonest and ignorant to compare the two."

I disagree with you here. It is not ignorant or dishonest to compare the two. In both cases a large group of people are being socially or economically segregated from others in society, they are being marginalized, told that they are suspect, and they they are being watched. There is no attempt to deny the prejudice, but rather there is an attempt to justify it using magnified fears and the loaded terms of safety. If one chooses to do that, I can not stop them, but I also will not pretend that it is morally valid.

first to say: that i don't agree with the moving of the male passenger, although i do understand the reasoning.

second to say: that there is no "moral conviction" that men are more dangerous to children than women are (>83 nathanielcampbell:), there is just the world we live in, in which men are more dangerous to (women and) children than women are.

and now, >98 sdawson:. You also asked about the 'crossing the street when approached by a male figure late at night'. We have absolutely had these discussions with our daughters (especialy the 18 and 19 year old as they head off to college). First of all, if they are walking alone late at night on a suspect street, they have already ignored my warnings. More advice we have talked about, it they are going to a party -- they can not go alone, they have to bring a friend to have your back. They also have to stay with them at the party and leave with them. Young adults, possibly alcohol or other stuff, music, lack of supervision absolutely does merit such safe guards to be taken by my daughters.

taking precautions is smart. being less vulnerable is great. but it's not prevention and it's not her fault if she doesn't do these things and she gets assaulted. it's also not going to protect her from getting assaulted, although we like to fool ourselves into thinking that it will. also, if we're focusing our discussions on "not walking alone late at night on a suspect street" then we are ignoring the way most rapes and assaults transpire.

i think women having these guidelines is helpful, but it's also dangerous because (and i'm not saying that you've done this) it's only one step for many people to then make whether or not she gets raped her responsibility. when it's only fault of the person who decides to rape.

>99 overlycriticalelisa:

I agree completely.

Pregnant mom & crying toddler kicked off flight...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/walk-off-the-earth-singer-sarah-blac...

>101 margd:

Wow, the comment thread there is ghastly.

> 102 Wow, the comment thread there is ghastly.

Though we dote on our own kids, society as a whole often seems much less kid-centric--from this example to tuition loads and the climate we are leaving them.

I usually have a sympathetic word or smile for parent trying to manage a tantrum in public. As toddler and preschooler, our oldest child erupted on virtually every outing. It was tough. I would have expected a flight attendant to assist travelers in distress, though, not dump them!

That's really appalling. I've had to take long flights with my children when they were babies and toddlers and it's stressful enough without people choosing to help instead of complain.

I will say that I always had seats for my children, even when they were young enough to legally ride on my lap. My SO worked in vehicle safety at the time and a baby in a lap is as good as unrestrained in the event of turbulence or rough landing. From the point of view of affordability I can see why people choose to do this, but it's the same as letting them ride in the car without a seatbelt. When they were infants, I had a "kangaroo belt" for them for during take off and landing.

>101 margd: Just out of curiousity -- why did you post that story in this thread? Is there a religious angle to it that I missed?

And I quite agree -- the vitriol directed against parents with small children is obscene.

>105 nathanielcampbell: There's been an ongoing discussion on this thread of reasons why it is or isn't justified to demand that your seat be changed on an airplane. It doesn't seem like a big stretch to me.

>105 nathanielcampbell: It just seemed a vivid illustration of 93--"Travelling with kids, my impression was that most men travelling alone were NOT charmed to be sitting near us". Maybe one could go further to say that in case of children, typical misbehaviour is not an excuse to exclude them.

>106 southernbooklady: I had forgotten -- makes more sense now.
>107 margd: Also makes more sense now -- thanks for the quick explanation! (And as the father of a just-turned-one-year-old, I quite agree.)

Here in Michigan, the Governor just signed legislation that lets faith-based adoption agencies funded by the state decline to place children based on religious beliefs, as long as they refer wouldbe parents to another willing agency. Widely believed to be unconstitutional. ACLU's only decision now is whether to challenge in state or federal court. What a waste of taxpayer money!

...Bethany Christian Services and the Michigan Catholic Conference, which account for 25-30% of the foster care and adoption placements in the state...
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2015/06/11/snyder-michigan-same-sex-ado...

ETA -- http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2015/06/michigan_gov_rick_snyder_sig...

>109 margd: I'd note that when Massachusetts refused to allow Catholic Charities' adoption arm an exemption from placing children with same-sex couples after the state legalized same-sex marriage more than a decade ago, the Church made the agonizing decision to close down its adoption agency rather than violate its conscience. One can only wonder how many more kids languish in the Massachusetts foster care system because of the loss of a major adoption agency and its resources.

In many municipalities, the majority of charitable work--from adoption agencies to homeless shelters to food banks--is done by faith-based groups. When the government forces them to violate their consciences or go bankrupt, and they choose to shut down, will it really be a victory for the many poor who will loose services as a result?

>110 nathanielcampbell:One can only wonder how many more kids languish in the Massachusetts foster care system because of the loss of a major adoption agency and its resources.

I don't think this paints quite the picture you meant it to.

lol

Why is Catholic Charities opposed to placing children with same-sex couples?

>110 nathanielcampbell: One can only wonder how many more kids languish in the Massachusetts foster care system because of the loss of a major adoption agency and its resources.

Money, not social workers, seems to be limiting factor from my experience adopting in MI (albeit internationally) a couple decades ago. Also limiting are people willing to take on some of these kids, often of color, and too often damaged by early experience. Good adoptive parents can make huge difference for these kids and the handful of lesbian and gay adoptive parents I know seem to do a pretty good job. No doubt they were screened as we were, and no biological parent ever is!! I don't think Catholic etc. agencies should be precluded from placing kids, only from taking public money if they can't fairly evaluate potentially good parents who don't fit the RC etc. mold. What these kids need first and foremost are forever families.

>110 nathanielcampbell:

So, the conscience of the Church was more offended by placing children with same sex families than by the thought of neglected children?

It would appear to be a case of misplaced priorities; willing to let other people suffer rather than bruise your institution's tender sensibilities.

>110 nathanielcampbell:

I believe that the history is more complicated than that. First, it was not gay marriage that precipitated the halt. It was the 1989 law against discrimination. Furthermore, for many years Catholic Charities had been placing (older problem) children with same-sex couples. 13 / 720 during the period reported by a 2005 Globe article. Bryan Hehir made the (theologically sound) determination that the greater social good outweighed the legal accommodation. The trouble was when the Commonwealth's four bishops got wind of the Globe report and demanded an exemption from the legislature. When this did not happen, which it could not possibly have in the climate of 2006, the Church's brinksmanship required that it stop offering adoption services. Even though the Catholic Charities 50-odd member board had voted unanimously to continue despite any moral compromise. Hehir and board head Jeffrey Kaneb (milk baron) 's 2006 press release has a quite short reference to “same-sex couples,” and not marriage per se.

>116 MMcM: The trouble was when the Commonwealth's four bishops got wind of the Globe report and demanded an exemption from the legislature. When this did not happen, which it could not possibly have in the climate of 2006, the Church's brinksmanship required that it stop offering adoption services.

Rather more serious than refusing to deliver a pizza.

>110 nathanielcampbell: the Church made the agonizing decision to close down its adoption agency rather than violate its conscience.

I seem to recall that recently in Church history, the Church made the agonizing decision to raise a Jewish boy who had been baptized against the will of his parents, against international outcry, rather than return him to his non-Christian parents and violate its conscience. I'm not exactly trusting the Church's conscience to do the right thing.

>118 prosfilaes: Are you saying that when you disagree with a person's conscience, your point of view should be forced upon them?

>119 nathanielcampbell: I'm saying that when someone's conscience tells them to engage in kidnapping of little children for purposes of forced conversions, my sympathy for them being made to choose between closing their adoption agency and violating their conscience is minimal.

Are you saying that even if you disagree with a person's conscience, they should still get to engage in kidnapping of small children because that's their conscience?

>119 nathanielcampbell:

The law has collided with individual conscience for quite some time. Sometimes the individuals are proven correct; e.g. the various people who defied the Fugitive Slave Act. Other times the law was proven superior; e.g. the people who protested against the removal of 'historic' barriers to integrated schooling and segregated facilities in general.

When the 'act of conscience' requires a person to break the laws, then the person ought to accept the penalties for doing so, content in the knowledge they have done 'the right thing'.

The Church is no longer the State; it no longer has the authority to impose its conscience upon others. When the Church does so anyway, it should be prepared for repercussions.

> 121

Hear, hear!

The pizza, wedding cake, and photographer question is mooted by the Fourteenth Amendment.

"Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State." http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf

>123 theoria: What a day. What a week!

>124 southernbooklady: Indeed. A good day for everyone.

It will drive a lot of people nuts, but history is going to give Obama the credit.

Or Biden.

>127 theoria: It will drive a lot of people nuts

It will, it will.

Opinion polls show 60% or so of Americans will be relieved and pleased with the SCOTUS decision here.

But the opposed minority will, I fear, include among them the sorts who will settle in for a long fight, not disdaining terrorist tactics, in nearly all respects like the foes of Roe v. Wade.

If state has to recognize gay marriage, can it fund private adoption agencies which discriminate based on religious beliefs? I suspect not, but I wonder if Michigan, say, will seek to defend the law allowing it?

>123 theoria: You quoted from the opinion regarding the State's obligations, not those of private citizens. So I think the photographer question is still very much open to interpretation.

>130 nathanielcampbell: You hope. The photographer in question runs a business. Private business are also licensed by the state. Which is why so-called religious freedom advocacy seeks an exemption from state anti-discrimination statutes.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven"

This is the time for photographers, cake decorators, Alabama state legislators, and others literally or metaphorically facing lions in the arena to exult. It certainly seems unseemly to complain about receiving blessings.

>128 paradoxosalpha: But the opposed minority will, I fear, include among them the sorts who will settle in for a long fight, not disdaining terrorist tactics, in nearly all respects like the foes of Roe v. Wade.

I wonder if anti-abortionists have ever considered counseling people to try a same-sex marriage. It could be the solution to one problem is an excellent solution to another problem. Perhaps this is what SCOTUS had in mind as a way to get around having to deal with Roe.

>128 paradoxosalpha: "include among them the sorts who will settle in for a long fight, not disdaining terrorist tactics, in nearly all respects like the foes..."

...of slavery? (Surely you remember John Brown?)

>133 jburlinson:

Brilliant!

>134 nathanielcampbell:

Not brilliant.

>128 paradoxosalpha: But the opposed minority will, I fear, include among them the sorts who will settle in for a long fight, not disdaining terrorist tactics, in nearly all respects like the foes of Roe v. Wade

Considering we still have people in this country who think murdering black people in a church is a justifiable act, I'd say "terrorist tactics" are hardly likely to disappear because of a Supreme Court decision. Such people are beyond the pale anyway. They have already renounced the country they live in--renounced the right of the government to claim any authority over them.

But I do think that this decision will go a long way towards validating LGBT people for everyone else. Especially young people. I hope especially young people. I still remember the epidemic of suicides from several years ago, when it seemed like every time you turned on the news another kid was dead because of being bullied for being (thought) gay.

Now, same-sex relationships are legitimized. Normalized. Which means all those kids now have the law of the land telling them that they are normal, they are fine. That's HUGE.

>136 southernbooklady: Which means all those kids now have the law of the land telling them that they are normal, they are fine. That's HUGE.

It might be huge if people operated differently than the way they do; but I fear that, legitimized/normalized legally isn't enough to stop kids of all ages and sizes from tormenting other kids for being who or what they are. After all, it's legal to be fat, short, black, asian, hare-lipped, or many other kinds of things and yet there's always somebody happy to make your life a living hell.

So maybe everyone should do a better job raising the little beasts.

There's no way to slice this to make it appear worse than NOT having one's rights recognised, so fiddlesticks to the long-faced worrywarts and concern trolls.

>136 southernbooklady: Now, same-sex relationships are legitimized. Normalized. Which means all those kids now have the law of the land telling them that they are normal, they are fine. That's HUGE.

i don't think i realized how huge until i heard a young man (who sounded maybe early 20's) on npr saying that now he knows he isn't a freak. this really, really is going to matter, on a lot of levels. it doesn't mean we're done, but it matters.

I hope religious freedom battles won't be fought at bedsides of patients in religiously affiliated hospitals.

So there's this thing now with Wal-Mart and cakes with flags: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/30/walmart-isis-cake_n_7695550.html

If it's okay for Wal-Mart to refuse to bake a cake with a confederate flag on it (and the message, "Heritage not Hate," thus explicitly denouncing the flag's hateful symbolism), then why wouldn't it be okay for a baker to refuse to bake a wedding cake?

(A friend's quip: Would Wal-Mart be okay making the cake with the confederate flag if it were rainbow colored?)

ETA: I should note that I got into a pretty heated argument with members of my own family over my view that the stars and bars were no longer a defensible symbol of any heritage but that of racist hatred.

>141 nathanielcampbell: If it's okay for Wal-Mart to refuse to bake a cake with a confederate flag on it

The Confederate flag is not protected by anti-discrimination laws.

why wouldn't it be okay for a baker to refuse to bake a wedding cake?

Bakers can refuse to bake wedding cakes for all sorts of reasons except the ones laid out by anti-discrimination laws.

You can, of course, argue that anti-discrimination laws should be off the books altogether and that people should be free to proudly parade their prejudices and put their "White Only" or "No Gays" (or how about, "No Christians"?)signs up in the windows of their shops.

Personally, I'm glad we aspire to something a little kinder, so I'm in favor of anti-discrimination laws and anti-discrimination public policy.

>141 nathanielcampbell:

I think baker-businesses are within their rights not to bake wedding cakes, they just can't refuse to bake them for certain people.

The analogy to the Stars & Bars cake falls apart there.

>141 nathanielcampbell: Another failed analogy.

Nathan continues to justify his existence here at LT forums, I see.

I.e., he is the fulcrum in any intellectually-oriented debate or proffered logical dilemma - i.e., if Nathan comes down on one side of the issue then we are alerted to the fact that taking the other side of the issue is almost assured to be the correct understanding. He serves a valuable service to us here and, I'm guessing, to his friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and others in his real world environment too.

I for one am proud to give him the famed Hee Haw "SAAAAAA - LUTE!"

>143 paradoxosalpha: I'm quite sure I can find someone who is offended by any number of messages, logos, or images that regularly appear on cakes sold by Wal-Mart.

Why does Wal-Mart get to deny service to someone with one offensive cake but not to all the others?

The "message" of a cake for a gay wedding isn't any different from the "message" of a cake for a hetero wedding. It might even be the exact same cake, chosen from a catalog. They're not discriminating against the message, they're discriminating against a person/couple. Same as if they refused to make a wedding cake for a black couple, or an interracial couple, which they should also not be allowed to do.

If they refused to make me a cake that said "Fuck you," they'd be refusing because of the message, not because of me.

Do you understand the difference?

It was a mistake to reenter this conversation, and I apologize. Silence is the better virtue. (See Rule of St. Benedict, ch. 6.)

>148 nathanielcampbell:

Silence, or having your can kicked down the road. That is your dilemma, those are your options - the perfect dualism.

It must be a daily blast being you, nat. Really - you are more fun than a barrel of republicans.

Memorial University (Newfoundland) prof refuses to wear device for hearing disabled student, cites religious reasons. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/hearing-memorial-university-...

Even if the student could force a prof to honor a legitimate accommodation, student might fear retribution in the subjective portion of his grade.

There should be a Prinzhorn Collection for "religious reasons" (i.e., religion brut).

Mississippi now has its own "gay code".

"The governor of Mississippi has signed into law a bill that allows private and public businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples, so long as that couple’s existence conflicts with the “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions” of the business owner.

Governor Phil Bryant released a statement on Twitter after signing House Bill 1523, also known as the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act”, protesting accusations that the bill facilitates discrimination against LGBT Mississippians. Instead, Bryant said, the bill “merely reinforces the rights which currently exist to the exercise of religious freedom as stated in the first amendment to the US constitution”. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/mississippi-law-lgbt-discrimination...

Disgusting.

>153 theoria: I wonder how they'd feel if all the Muslim convenience store owners started refusing to serve unveiled women. Honestly, it's like these people want the word "Christian" to be synonymous with "homophobic prick."

> 153, 154, 155

Just for the record only about 90 per cent of white Mississippians are disgusting christian bigots. This is a similar per cent to that in many other red states.

As I said - just for the record.

I like this:

Report: 1 in 6 hospital beds in U.S. is in a Catholic institution, restricting reproductive care
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/05/05/report-1-in-6-ho...

...The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops advises that Catholic hospitals should not perform abortions or sterilizations and should not promote contraception to patients. Although hospitals vary in how closely they follow the Catholic directives, the American Civil Liberties Union and MergerWatch, which drafted the new report together, expressed concern that patients in many areas of the country find it difficult to access certain forms of care.

The report quoted doctors who said they saw patients become gravely ill when hospitals refused to terminate their nonviable pregnancies, causing infection to set in. It also quoted women who wanted a tubal ligation to prevent future pregnancies at the same time that they delivered babies, when the procedure is easiest, but were told that they would have to go to another hospital to get the procedure separately because their births were at Catholic centers...,/I>

**********************************************

Report: 1 in 4 Michigan hospital beds are in Catholic hospitals
http://michiganradio.org/post/report-1-4-michigan-hospital-beds-are-catholic-hos...

> 158

Sick.

Not as sick as hundreds of priests raping little boys but sick nonetheless.

Since "god" has not struck down all catholic leaders with giant bolts of lightning then there is no god - if not obviously then apparently.

Atheists win.

Let's move on.

I'm thinking:

1. Transparency: elective patients should be told the entire range of options that will be withheld at direction of US Bishops, e.g., abortion, contraception, stem cell treatment of eye diseases, etc.

2. Emergency care: miscarriages, childbirth (etc.) should be treated via standard medical procedures, unconstrained by US Bishops.

If not, mergers should be forbidden and tax-free status withheld. (And maybe US Bishops should be assigned to take a biology 101 lab: dissect pig placenta (clean, nickel-sized velcro-like cotyledons connect piglets to mom) and human placenta (a basin of bloody afterbirth from local hospital). I think that should do it.)

Lawsuits Target Catholic Hospitals For Refusing To Provide Emergency Miscarriage Management
The ACLU is suing hospitals that delay helping women in life-threatening situations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/catholic-hospitals-miscarriage-management_us...

Good! It is intolerable to risk a woman's life, especially for a doomed pregnancy, especially in an emergency, especially if nearest/only hospital, especially if the woman is not agreeable to sacrifice for no good reason. (Even if she is.)

On the up side, my Catholic niece was transferred to an RC hospital when her water broke way too early for the fetus to survive. The hospital managed to prevent infection (for a couple months) with heroic in-hospital interventions. The boy was born prematurely, but SEEMS okay today. Pre Obama-care, the mom had some insurance, but could not handle the bill , I think, so must have been absorbed by the hospital.

The Catholic Church is also coming under fire in Ireland: http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/06/ireland-abortion-united-nations/... "United Nations Panel Tells Ireland to Change its Abortion Ban"

Unitarian Universalists Sue For Right To Use Solar Panels, Cite Religious Freedom
https://thinkprogress.org/unitarian-universalists-sue-for-right-to-use-solar-pan...

Monsters!

Funny! I could see if ground-mount solar panels--lots of people object to those in (sub)urban area--but even in historic neighborhood roof mount solar panels could be made inobtrusive, especially if the shingle design was chosen. :-)

(We are increasingly surrounded by a collective Buddhist farming operation, but so far they've been only good as neighbors.)

Muslim flight attendant for ExpressJet suspended, wouldn't serve alcohol
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2016/08/09/charee-stanley...

>165 margd:

I remember twenty-odd years ago when from time to time we would load a bit of bacon and beer onto our relief flights into South Sudan as a little treat for our staff in the field. One of our logisticians was a Muslim, and I asked him if he had any objection to handling these items. His reply was, "My religion teaches me not to eat and drink these things myself; it says nothing about loading them onto planes for other people".

>166 John5918: "O ye who believe! Strong drinks and games of chance and idols and divining of arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork. Leave it aside in order that ye may succeed. Satan seeketh only to cast among you enmity and hatred by means of strong drink and games of chance, and turn you from remembrance of Allah and from (His) worship. So will ye not then abstain?" Quran 5:90-91

It seems like the reach of that is quite interpretable, even to the range of cutting the difference between loading a bit of beer for a reasonably controlled group of people and between serving an arbitrary group of people trapped together on a plane for two hours.

It's an issue for people of many belief systems; if you believe that something is universally bad (and not merely a ritual restriction), what should you do about it? I think most of us will find thinking alcohol / eating animals / etc. should be inconsistent with running a brewery or slaughterhouse, etc. I'd say that it would generally be morally inconsistent to take a job that is primarily focused around selling that product (though survival gets people to do a lot of things) and taking a job that tangentially involves it is okay; but apparently Muslim taxi drivers who won't take fares that have alcohol don't agree with the latter.

Of four Muslim-owned stores in our area, two don't sell the stuff, one has gentiles handle alcohol transactions, and the fourth discontinued alcohol sales after they renovated. The lady who has gentiles handle sales started that practice after haj--I think maybe to not stain herself after the purifying once-in-a-lifetime trip? (Hers is a convenience store in a particularly rough neighborhood in Detroit--even compared to her native Lebanon.)

Aren't there some jobs one shouldn't take if one's beliefs preclude some aspect of delivery? For example, if you won't fill Rx for contraceptives, don't become a pharmacist. If you won't issue marriage licence for same-sex couples, don't become a county clerk. If you won't serve alcohol on plane, don't become attendant for airline that offers it? If you don't believe in blood transfusions don't work at Red Cross clinic?

(I don't think I've ever had alcohol on a plane--collecting bags, arranging transportation upon arrival requires clear head, IMHO!)

As with most things there is no one-size-fits-all answer. There are some people (religious or otherwise) who wish to impose their belief and/or practice on others; there are others who believe that I make my choices for myself but do not try to control how others behave. And within that spectrum there is a difference in the importance of each particular issue - there are some issues which one thinks important enough to intervene and prevent someone from doing harm to themselves or others, while with other issues one just shrugs and let's it go.

For some Muslims abstaining from pork and alcohol is a personal responsibility, for others it is something to be imposed on society. There's a whole range of beliefs and practices.

>169 John5918: There are some people (religious or otherwise) who wish to impose their belief and/or practice on others; there are others who believe that I make my choices for myself but do not try to control how others behave

It has always seemed to me that no matter how or why they were originally adopted, most religious dictates about lifestyle/dress/etc. are now primarily about how to live as good person of faith in a faithless world. They function as a way to help you negotiate with the rest of the world while still keeping your own faith or identity in your heart, I guess. In fact, I would guess that when such rituals cease to be a source of personal reflection, and become instead a simple sign of status, they have lost their importance and their meaning.

The book If the Oceans Were Ink has a good account of the lives of an orthodox Muslim family in London, and all the small acts that they negotiated in order to live faithfully to Allah in the midst of a busy, exciting, western city. At one point the Sheikh's daughter decides to start wearing the niqab -- not because of any pressure from her father or family (in fact, her father initially was worried she'd fallen under the sway of some hard line extremist), but because she wanted to "try it." To have, apparently, this constant reminder, or call, to contemplate what it is to be a Muslim woman between her and the rest of the world. She didn't wear it all the time, and did have to contend with the unease of non-Muslims around her who were not always sure how to deal with her, but at least according to the author of the book, she felt more comfortable, more Muslim, with it than without it.

>170 southernbooklady:

all the small acts that they negotiated in order to live faithfully to Allah in the midst of a busy, exciting, western city.

As they saw what "being faithful" etc. means. If we bend to hard-core religionists' views of what's "faithful" and what's not, we cut off any hope for modernising Islam--not to mention the damage to those Muslims with different ideas.

>171 LolaWalser: If we bend to hard-core religionists' views of what's "faithful" and what's not, we cut off any hope for modernising Islam-

Indeed. One of the most chilling examples in the book was how much effort it took to convince that same Sheikh that child marriage was a bad thing.

>172 southernbooklady:

Right, it can't be "bad", by definition, if the Prophet did it!

>169 John5918: There are some people (religious or otherwise) who wish to impose their belief and/or practice on others;

I think most everyone is fine in some cases with imposing their beliefs on others. Cannibalism, for example. To stay with the theme of what's edible, whale, dog, monkey and horse are all pretty much illegal in the US, and there's pretty solid consensus on that. It's part of my frustration with many "you have no right to force your beliefs on me" type arguments, that the makers almost always have a long list of beliefs their society is forcing on everyone in it that the arguer is taking for granted.

For some Muslims abstaining from pork and alcohol is a personal responsibility, for others it is something to be imposed on society. There's a whole range of beliefs and practices.

Do Muslims always lump them together? As American me with my Prohibtionist forefathers and -mothers, I see the argument for a society wide prohibition of alcohol pretty sharply, with the main argument against being how poorly it worked last time. I'm not sure of any strong secular arguments for abstaining from pork, at least not just pork and not other mammals.

French towns ban burkini--this sounds like SECULAR excess in imposing values on others! Many non-Muslims (me!) wear rash guards and hats to protect against the sun, and I used to send my sons to swimming lessons in nylon zip-up "onesies" in attempt to keep them warm: http://www.solartex.com/kids/boys-spf-upf-swimsuits-by-stingray-sizes-10-14

I recall a large Sikh family at a L Ontario beach last summer--men, women, and children bundled up more than the rest of us--it was good to see them there! Perhaps their first time at the beach, and they were having a great time!

Discouraging people from the beach or pool can have deadly consequences, e.g., African-American children and teenagers are almost six times as likely as white children to drown in a swimming pool, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/world/europe/fighting-for-the-soul-of-france-m...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/well/swimming-simone-manuel-black-children.htm...

They should ban religious indoctrination of children before they ban religious garb.

Let's remember again this is not a "Muslim" thing. Plenty of Muslims dress "secular", including on the beach. I grew up--and mostly on the beach!--with such Muslims. The Wahhabi intrusion into Western public life and substitution of their extremist image for "Muslims" threatens them more than it does non-Muslims--which may be the point. One of, anyway.

>176 LolaWalser: The Wahhabi intrusion into Western public life and substitution of their extremist image for "Muslims" threatens them more than it does non-Muslims

Meaning, it is regarded as a class of hate speech?

>177 southernbooklady:

Meaning, it is regarded as a class of hate speech?

In French law? I don't know--don't think so.

Personally I certainly regard Wahhabism as hate speech, all bloody trace of it.

They should ban religious indoctrination of children before they ban religious garb.

I just love the internal struggle going on here, and in the heads of many other anti-religious people who don't want to side with anti-religious people of another cultural stripe.

It must be hard when you realize your cries of "Wahhabism is hate speech!" are echoed by and would be cheered by the most ignorant, bigoted, white Americans idiots you can imagine. "I'm not like Trump, I just agree with him!"

>179 timspalding:

Wow, straight on with personal insults, without even pretending to "discuss". Thank god YOU are nothing like Trump, and your disingenuous blather can never be mistaken for hate speech.

> 179

I like Collie dogs, just like Hitler did.

Do I need to dislike Collies instead - you know, to disassociate myself from Hitler?

Do vegetarians and believers in astrology need to give those up too in order not to be "like" Hitler?

No, that's crazy talk.

I would expect cognition somewhat higher up on the evolutionary scale from you, ts.

Perhaps you were just over-caffeinated at the time you posted that crap.

OK. So we will all just let it go.

Except for LolaWalser. lol.

She beat her son with a hanger — and said Indiana’s religious freedom law gave her the right

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/09/01/she-beat-her-son...

Perhaps religion is a disease and atheism is it's only cure? lol.

- - Yes, atheists, being humans, also do very bad things sometimes, but at least they don't embarrass themselves by claiming an omniscient invisible super-being either told them it was OK or even commanded them to commit the atrocity - or, stupider yet, quote a passage from some "holy, inspired or perfect" book to justify their bad behavior.

What's that cliché? - oh, yeah, "adding insult to injury."

I'm reminded of book, The Moral Animal, dated now. Author Robert Wright, an atheist, spent the first half of the book discussing how human behaviors evolved and the latter half, how the heck to socialize people in the absence of religion. Still pondering the question, he wrote Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.

>184 margd:

how the heck to socialize people in the absence of religion.

How the heck do you think atheists anywhere get socialised?

We're out of the tenth century, ffs.

How the heck do we socialise children of extremists?

Mandatory music classes hit a bad note with some Muslim parents

>186 LolaWalser:

I've been following that story as well. WTF??

I've been mulling potential Christian equivalents, such as Baptists' (and Jehovah Witnesses' and, I believe, Seventh-Day Adventists') rejection of theatre, for example. Yet, although I know there were staunch Baptists among my students, my school (and my Board) never had complaints that we included plays in the mandatory English curriculum.

>187 librorumamans:

What a horrible life for those kids, with no music, no art, no drama, eh? I can't even imagine. No, something that hateful and intolerant of life and joy I can't even imagine.

And it's just another incident of that sort, there have been (and presumably still occur) exactly the same cases in the UK and France--and that's only what I remember reading about.

Then, as I already mentioned elsewhere, the cases in Germany where Muslim parents refuse to let their daughters attend swimming classes, regardless of accommodations offered by the schools ("burkinis" no object...) They tried to pull a ten year old out of the class on the grounds that swimming offends her modesty--in German it actually sounds fifty times worse, as the usual term--züchtig/unzüchtig--has much stronger connotations of specifically sexual nature--chastity vs. lewdness, lechery etc. So you have these unspeakable fundie pricks slapping labels like THAT on ten year olds. I mean, how does one NOT logically conclude that if behaviour/piece of rag X is "modest" i.e. "chaste", "virtuous" etc., the opposite or its absence is not? Can you imagine what parents of ten year old "sluts" in those classes must feel when they hear shit like that?

As for this thing in Toronto, what's scary are the hundred+ signatures Virtuous Muslim Dad collected for his cause. Perhaps it's true that few people request exemptions (although I heard requests to exempt Muslim girls from gym are almost routine, which if true gives some idea of just how widely the restrictions are imposed on them--"personal choice" be damned), and even fewer persist all the way, like this guy. But this is why it's so important not to give in to them, ever. Because once you grant one exemption to a particularly stubborn goat, suddenly you WILL find yourself inundated with requests from others.

Within fundie communities like that once the bar is lifted there's no going back. If the rules are broken for one person others will naturally rush in, whether willingly or because of the inevitable manipulation and intimidation. After all, once you establish Virtuous Muslim Dad and his kids as THE BEST Muslims, how could others dare fall behind, at least in his community?

I'm not very optimistic. I was shocked to hear some schools with significant percentages of Muslim students have already dropped music and replaced it with drama. They are also, predictably, attacking sex education.

Unless some iron-clad rules are set in place and scrupulously observed, this kind of thing will only become more frequent.

I must quote a little, for the sake of that final punchline:

When music class begins this week at Toronto’s Donwood Park elementary school, Mohammad Nouman Dasu will send a family member to collect his three young children. They will go home for an hour rather than sing and play instruments – a mandatory part of the Ontario curriculum he believes violates his Muslim faith.

The Scarborough school and the Toronto District School Board originally had offered an accommodation – suggesting students could just clap their hands in place of playing instruments or listen to acapella versions of O Canada – but not a full exemption from the class.

After a bitter three-year fight, however, Mr. Dasu felt he had no other opton but to bring his kids home. (...)

“We here believe that music is haram forbidden. We can neither listen to it, nor can we play a role in it,” said the mosque’s imam, Kasim Ingar.

Conceding that Muslims have to adjust when they send their kids to public school, he suggested that some matters, such as teaching music, are beyond debate.

“We do not compromise with anyone on the clear-cut orders and principles conveyed by the Prophet,” said Mr. Ingar, who also leads the Scarborough Muslim Association.

Within Islam, the question of whether Muslims are banned from music is divisive and nuanced. Similar to questions about whether women should wear veils, there is no consensus on the issue.

(...)

But Mr. Dasu, who says he represents many of the parents at the school concerned about the issue, pushed for exclusion for his own children by invoking the prospect of litigation and the religious freedoms clause of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In response, school administrators pitched an array of potential compromises. Records show one idea was to have the children “research the role of nashid” – or the Islamic tradition of oral music. Another was to have the children clap out quarter notes, half notes and full notes.

“Your children will not be required to play a musical instrument or sing in their music class,” read a formal note to at least one family.

(...) When school officials struggled again to suggest accommodations, they were presented with a “Petition for Accommodation of Religious Beliefs of Muslim Students” signed by more than 130 parents, initiated by Mr. Dasu.

(...)

The TDSB says it does not keep track of the number of students who seek accommodations or exemptions. But Mr. Chasty believes the issue will come up there again in the coming school year.

Mr. Dasu has since moved to a different neighbourhood nearby, and is planning to transfer his children to a new public school. He says he will take up the fight again.

“My kids cannot participate in music or drama, that’s for sure. Let them sit in a library to read, or in an office, or let them volunteer around the school during that time, that’s all okay. We’re flexible.”

I guess they never go to any stores ever, because Muzak.

(That's all I can say right now without going into a rant. Maybe tomorrow I can be more calm).

>189 Nickelini:

I know, right? I guess he must be popping ear plugs in and out all the time.

What's particularly crazy is that there are zillion gajillion examples of music and music-making in every Islamic country, even freaking Saudi Arabia. Which makes the bending-over-backwards accommodation exercises by the Ontario school board all the more ridiculous. These people are not "mainstream"! Don't fucking ruin education for everyone because of people like this! Don't be Canadian-nice to assholes!

I'd send this fucker to prison for obstructing his kids' education and development and endangering their future (at a minimum his kids, but clearly he's potentially fucking it up for hundreds).

But it's no use unless some basic principles are applied to public and private schools alike. Segregating these poor kids in some private music-less pen only ensures their alienation.

Nope, this is a battle of fundamental principles that cannot co-exist peacefully in one society.

Well, I vented and feel infinitesimally "better", but much more important than anything I could say is what one particular person commented--bold emphasis mine:

As a Canadian-born person of Muslim background (you can probably guess what the "Mo" in my username is short for), this stuff riles me up because mainstream media and most people who follow it put all Muslims in the same category while in reality the Muslim "community" is as diverse as any other community - it has its fundamentalists, secularists, atheists, liberals, conservatives, etc, etc.

That's all I keep repeating. As long as the media--American in particular--keep talking about conservatives and even extremists as if they were THE Muslims, there's no hope of understanding the situation of Muslims in the West and outside it, of having real communication... Like that older Syrian man in the Guardian video said, we don't know you, but you really don't know us.

I hope you guys are just as hard on the non-vaccinators. Because a Muslim not playing a tambourine isn't going to get my kid killed, yet safeguarding parental choice in that matter is a lodestone of right-thinking left opinion in the US.

>192 timspalding:

Do tell. All my leftist pals and I cut anti-vaxxers no slack.

(And, incidentally, if you think Jill Stein is an anit-vaxxer, you've swallowed some false spin from her opposition.)

>192 timspalding: yet safeguarding parental choice in that matter is a lodestone of right-thinking left opinion in the US.

Zero tolerance for anti-vaxxers here. And not a "lodestone issue" in the lefty circles I run in.

Even I despise and detest anti-vaxxers. They are definitely The Other.

>192 timspalding:

Because a Muslim not playing a tambourine isn't going to get my kid killed

Would be nice if you spared a thought not just for yours but for that Muslim kid too, deprived of education and normal socialisation. And, clearly, there's no telling what ripple effects such restrictions may have. If Canadian school boards give in, it won't be just one freak's three kids; extrapolating from the 130+ signatures, it could be hundreds of kids; thousands and counting if replicated elsewhere. And changes to curriculum (which have already happened in few places) affect everyone.

Are you also okay with some Muslim men refusing to interact socially and professionally with women according to Canadian and Western norms? You don't think this is an infraction of human rights? I think those are dangerous precedents to allow even if your kid doesn't get killed in consequence.

>192 timspalding: I hope you guys are just as hard on the non-vaccinators.

Indeed I am, while allowing for the small number of children for whom one or more vaccinations may be legitimately contraindicated. Society as a whole is placed increasingly at risk as any pool of vulnerable members grows.

>196 LolaWalser:

I do spare a thought for that kid. But there's a difference between not having music class and being dead. There may be "no telling what ripple effects" not having music class will bring, perhaps, but lots of other kids being dead is not one of them.

I am concerned about curriculum changes overall. But I am less worried about that kids' education and socialization than you are, and rather more interested in their parents' consciences. I don't know if music is required for all students in Canada--I suspect not--but I just read that 58% of Ontario elementary music teachers have no background in music. That doesn't say "top priority" for me, and in such a context going after the 0.01% of students whose parents don't want them in music makes me wonder if the point is music and socialization, or Islam. If this were about the former, then I suppose you'd be in favor of laws requiring music class for all children, including home-schooled ones. Does Canada require that? If it doesn't, you should be campaigning for it. Think of all the socialization opportunities being missed!

More generally, these sorts of arguments overvalue what schools can do. A family that refuses to allow their kid to hear music is going to do a lot of other things you--and often I--disapprove of. 99.5% of them will be entirely legal. And other parents, who allow their children to attend music, are doing things far worse to their children that are, again, entirely legal. Want to help children and don't care about rights? Make it illegal to let your kid watch TV all day. Criminalize adultery. Criminalize having children when you're an idiot.

I find it hard to get so worked up about the possibility that such a student won't have music class that I want to legally force it on them. What if the parents tells the kid to sit there and not participate--take the kid away from his parents?

Are you also okay with some Muslim men refusing to interact socially and professionally with women according to Canadian and Western norms? You don't think this is an infraction of human rights? I think those are dangerous precedents to allow even if your kid doesn't get killed in consequence.

Uh, yeah, I am in favor of that. I don't think the law should require me to have drinks with you, say hi to you on the street, shake hands with you when you feel friendly, or whatever. I believe in personal freedom. You don't.

As for professional relations, that's entirely different. If you work for me, and refuse to talk to men, I would fire you. The law should protect my right to do so. You gave up your rights to that when you agreed to work for me.

>197 librorumamans:

Right. I'm actually in favor of conscience objections for vaccination, as well as, obviously, well-founded medical exemptions. But they can only be allowed when number permit--when herd immunity is assured. When the number falls below a certain point, things get dangerous quickly.

(And, incidentally, if you think Jill Stein is an anit-vaxxer, you've swallowed some false spin from her opposition.)

I think Snopes has the balance right. ( http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-anti-vaccine/ ) She's on record as pro-vaccine, but she uses the language of conspiracies and "real questions to be answered" that the anti-vaxers often deploy.

If Trump said he were pro-Mexican immigration, but there were real questions about them being rapists, and that the Mexican government was actually running immigration policy, I'd feel… better, I guess?

>198 timspalding: I am concerned about curriculum changes overall. But I am less worried about that kids' education and socialization than you are, and rather more interested in their parents' consciences.

But not when it comes to some subjects. Science, for example. But the argument can be made that the arts are just as vital to a child's education in giving them the tools to navigate the world we are in.

Uh, yeah, I am in favor of that. I don't think the law should require me to have drinks with you, say hi to you on the street, shake hands with you when you feel friendly, or whatever. I believe in personal freedom. You don't.


So Norway's program of education for immigrants -- you'd be against that because the government has no business dictating "cultural norms" on anyone?

As for professional relations, that's entirely different.

A huge part of our social lives exists in the professional sphere.

But they can only be allowed when number permit

So it's first-come, first-serve approach to honoring the conscience?

If Trump said he were pro-Mexican immigration, but there were real questions about them being rapists, and that the Mexican government was actually running immigration policy, I'd feel… better, I guess?

I wouldn't.

>198 timspalding: she uses the language of conspiracies and "real questions to be answered" that the anti-vaxers often deploy

She shares their lack of faith in the essential benevolence of large, for-profit pharmaceutical manufacturers. That's pretty much as far as it goes.

>198 timspalding: I just read that 58% of Ontario elementary music teachers have no background in music.

Mightn't this figure simply reflect the fact that K-6, at least, is not organized on a rotary timetable and that elementary teachers tend not to be subject specialists?

But not when it comes to some subjects. Science, for example. But the argument can be made that the arts are just as vital to a child's education in giving them the tools to navigate the world we are in.

Me? Or you? I'm not that concerned about the classical science arguments. Yes, I don't want schools teaching creationism, or "ID." But while I'm against it, I can't get THAT upset about some school district that wants a sticker added to books blathering on about evolution being a "theory." The principle is really important to some, but the practical effect is nil. None of the kids are going to change their mind from that--and, unfortunately, many will be anti-science fundies no matter what the schools do. And, in the end, I'd rather they were crazy creationists who could read at grade level and do basic math--and those are a lot harder to get right. Schools just don't change that much, and while these hot button issues are generally symptoms of shitty schools, basic quality is more important than whether or not they teach science the way we'd want them to.

So Norway's program of education for immigrants -- you'd be against that because the government has no business dictating "cultural norms" on anyone?

That's right. How far back can you go before you'd suddenly change your mind about the government teaching us our cultural norms? Homosexuality being a mental disorder? Blacks being subhuman? You confident that'll always go your way even now? Do you want your state legislators telling people how to act? "Immigrants! Don't dress like a slut, and you won't be raped. And make sure to call the police if you see a transsexual in the bathroom!" "Thanks, Mr. Government official!"

So it's first-come, first-serve approach to honoring the conscience?

No, states that have solid rules have low numbers. If you need to assemble some official documentation, write a statement, sign a form, submit it to an office, and so forth, most parents won't do it--only the people with a legitimate conscience objection. If you allow people to opt out by checking a box on their school-enrollment form, the Whole Foods set will insist their special snowflake is allergic to needles.

I wouldn't.

Nor would I.

A huge part of our social lives exists in the professional sphere.

Yes, but, unlike the street, our workplaces are not zones of absolute personal freedom. If you won't talk to women, your job options are limited. We don't need Officer Friendly handing out act-like-a-white-person tickets there.

Mightn't this figure simply reflect the fact that K-6, at least, is not organized on a rotary timetable and that elementary teachers tend not to be subject specialists?

Sure. As the son of an elementary music school teacher, however, I think that's lame. An occasional visit from a real music teacher is perfectly doable. In New England, at least, it was standard decades ago, when schools were by every measure poorer. It vanished because it wasn't valued. I wish schools really taught music, but I'm not going to end Saudi immigrant parents to jail because they don't want their daughter participating in a once-every-two-week 15-minute tambourine-slap.

>202 timspalding:

No, this doesn't get dismissed with some ridiculous sneering about "tambourines". Even in individual cases the ramifications go deep and wide--this man's three children getting shunted from one to another school while he looks for a spot to breach, them and all their classmates getting a lesson in religious bigotry, interrupted education and isolation (how are children who are forbidden from listening to music to socialise outside the sect? Go to birthday parties, the cinema, even just watch television?)--but hey, you value parents' (father's anyway) "conscience" more than those kids' well being and future.

But, my fault, I was stupid even to ask about this someone who brainwashes kids with Catholic catechism for a weekend hobby.

I don't think the law should require me to have drinks with you, say hi to you on the street, shake hands with you when you feel friendly, or whatever. I believe in personal freedom. You don't.

Your disingenuosness is appalling, and as for your insults, stuff them. You know very well it's not about "having drinks", "saying hi on the street" and "feeling friendly"--social interactions with strangers don't belong solely to the private sphere, in fact they predominantly colour and condition the public one. Moreover, "social" enters the professional aspect ALL THE TIME.

As for professional relations, that's entirely different. If you work for me, and refuse to talk to men, I would fire you. The law should protect my right to do so. You gave up your rights to that when you agreed to work for me.

I'll take it you don't mean you'd only fire women for not shaking hands with men--something that so far hasn't been in the news, whereas we have heard by now multiple times of men refusing to shake hands with women, men refusing to extend professional services and /or social courtesy to women--no, YOUR example is naturally one of women discriminating against men, of course, THAT happens all the time...

But, so, yeah, after insulting me you sort of furtively concede this behaviour is not to be tolerated... in the workplace. You may want to look closely at that refusal to connect the social--public and personal--behaviour to that "in the workplace", if your hypocrisy isn't too much in the way.

Not a great article, but as the theme is diversity of the Muslim (European Muslim) population, something that, as I've said repeatedly, is not acknowledged and even denied by the slant of dominant American media:

European Muslims are not new. Nor are they all the same

Slovenia's Grand Mufti Nezad Grabus, a Bosnian import,

If there is one thing he wants to stress, it is that “Islam is part of European civilisation”. Islam is by no means a new religion in Europe, “but it has new manifestations”, he says. He was shocked by this summer’s burkini ban in some French seaside resorts, and he’s bluntly opposed to any legislation outlawing the niqab. But he also says the niqab is something European Muslims must work to counter, because it prevents Muslim women from finding a rightful place in society.

Bold emphasis mine.

Is he being a hypocrite, being "bluntly opposed to any legislation outlawing the niqab" and yet wanting to "work to counter it"? Or does he imagine some work of acculturation that would "work to counter" the niqab without legislation?

I've related elsewhere an incident that happened to my SIL and a friends of hers when they visited Sarajevo this summer. They were walking around the city and got to a quarter where a bunch of wrapped-in-black Qatari women--recent and multiplying newcomers who have taken over the neighbourhoods emptied during the war (mostly of Serbs)--started hissing, clucking and muttering at them. They didn't understand the Arabic but the hostility was easy enough to identify, although my SIL and friend couldn't tell why they were targeted. My SIL told the friend it must've been her (the friend's) Day-Glo shade of hair. Surely not their outfits per se--trousers and shirts.

They entered the first cafe they could find to collect themselves and relax and asked the server who were the women and were they really expressing hostility or what?--and he told them yes, giving dirty looks and worse to women who don't come up to their standards is commonplace. He also said that people like him (natives) don't like it but there's nothing they can do...

how are children who are forbidden from listening to music to socialise outside the sect? Go to birthday parties, the cinema, even just watch television?

Exactly. How? You aren't going to convince the parents to let them go to birthday parties, cinema or television by having them do 15 minutes of music once every week or two. The parent has MUCH more power over that sort of thing that a school can ever have, and always will. Perhaps you can take their kids away and put them in special schools where they are forced to wear bikinis, eat pork and shake hands. Maybe you can hit them if they speak their native language too.

By the way, what's your feeling about students whose parents reject school lunches because they are opposed to meat, GMO foots, pork, or whatever?

Your disingenuosness is appalling, and as for your insults, stuff them. You know very well it's not about "having drinks", "saying hi on the street" and "feeling friendly"--social interactions with strangers don't belong solely to the private sphere, in fact they predominantly colour and condition the public one. Moreover, "social" enters the professional aspect ALL THE TIME.

No, I don't know that at all. You are apparently opposed to "some Muslim men refusing to interact socially and professionally with women according to Canadian and Western norms?" and I see no problems. If they refuse to interact socially, it's their business, not yours. If they do it professionally, they will probably get fired; if they run a business that refuses to cater to women, they'll get sued. What situations are you actually concerned about?

I'll take it you don't mean you'd only fire women for not shaking hands with men--something that so far hasn't been in the news, whereas we have heard by now multiple times of men refusing to shake hands with women, men refusing to extend professional services and /or social courtesy to women--no, YOUR example is naturally one of women discriminating against men, of course, THAT happens all the time...

It's quite common for Muslim women to refuse to shake the hands of men. And men who aren't jerks don't force it on them. Here, for example, is one of many pictures of your prime minister putting his hand to his heart--the conventional way to greet a muslim woman--Syrian refugees, I believe.



Needless to say, your right wing compatriots hate this stuff. The PM should make a point of shaking their hands, because that's what "people" do in Canada. Our right wing agrees, of course.

As for me, I wouldn't fire someone for not shaking hands--women or men. It isn't essential to the job at all. Not talking is another matter. If you hire an employee, you expect them to be able to work with customers and so forth. If they refuse to do so, you can fire them.

Is he being a hypocrite, being "bluntly opposed to any legislation outlawing the niqab" and yet wanting to "work to counter it"? Or does he imagine some work of acculturation that would "work to counter" the niqab without legislation?

I think he imagines that traditional patterns of Balkan Islam triumph over the puristic models of Saudi Arabia through persuasion and attraction, not laws against rigorist practices. More power to him. I know this goes against the grain, but you can want a social result and yet decline to advocate for state power to require it.

giving dirty looks and worse to women who don't come up to their standards is commonplace. He also said that people like him (natives) don't like it but there's nothing they can do...

Maybe you can pass a law against disapproval of others.

I like the wai greeting (hands pressed together) of Asia. Hand on heart looks good, too.

In Thailand, Buddhist monks--even the 3-month variety--aren't supposed to take anything from the hand of a woman, nor help themselves to food and drink, nor take anything after noon, if I recall correctly. (Women leave food offerings on a shawl.)

I recall a young monk coming up to me at water cooler in US Consulate just before noon, obviously thirsty. Unfortunately, paper cups were pointy kind, so I couldn't set down for him, and my spouse, cranky in the heat and the long day, didn't understand my gestures to serve the young man.

Years later I met a sr. monk at a conference in the US. We had a nice chat, and I noticed that in nod to US norms he handed me his business card, but pinching it in furthest corner from me so unlikely for our hands to brush!

I recall a young monk coming up to me at water cooler in US Consulate just before noon, obviously thirsty. Unfortunately, paper cups were pointy kind, so I couldn't set down for him, and my spouse, cranky in the heat and the long day, didn't understand my gestures to serve the young man.

Ha. Much the same problem with ice cream cones, I imagine. :)

Needless to say, nobody ever complains that Buddhist monks won't shake hands, and must be acculturated to western civilization, and made to do this that and the other thing. Because this isn't really about shaking hands.

The difference from the OP is that the thirsty young monk inconvenienced only himself.

I think, too, he would have quietly stood if only seat available was next to a woman(?) He wouldn't delay a flight(?)

The sr. monk found a way to give me his card without risking touch. (He also could have left it on a table.)

(Great power we women must have if at least three of the great religions look for ways to avoid us! I found it amusing, but can see how it might too easily develop into restrictions on US!)

I found it amusing, but can see how it might too easily develop into restrictions on US! ("us" being women)

this is exactly how it pans out in orthodox (or maybe just ultra-orthodox now?) judaism. men can pretty much do fuck-all, but the women, because of their power, their sexuality, also their dirty dirty blood (which of course is also just power) are restricted all over the place.

(i'm apparently pretty annoyed so this is a bit hyperbolic, but it sure feels like this.)

>202 timspalding: I have to admit, when I first read this most my immediate reaction was...fatigue. Every point here make could be flipped, every argument put forth has it's counter example.:

I can't get THAT upset about some school district that wants a sticker added to books blathering on about evolution being a "theory." Stickers? Maybe they should come with trigger warnings for religious people. It would be preferable to the push to actually change the content of those textbooks.

basic quality is more important than whether or not they teach science the way we'd want them to. Basic quality demands they teach science, not stuff that isn't science.

And make sure to call the police if you see a transsexual in the bathroom!" "Thanks, Mr. Government official!" Not to mention Federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Brown vs. Board of Education. The Equal Rights Amendment. In fact, we find the expression of our evolving concept of human rights expressed in our legal code -- our government.

. If you need to assemble some official documentation, write a statement, sign a form, submit it to an office, and so forth, most parents won't do it--only the people with a legitimate conscience objection. So how would this idea apply to a parent who objects to mandatory music class in a public school curriculum? What should that parent have to do to get his kid out of it? (And why do you keep picking on people who shop at Whole Foods?)

Yes, but, unlike the street, our workplaces are not zones of absolute personal freedom. Nor, it should be said, are schools.

Obviously I regard the government as an entity designed to protect civil rights, not encroach upon them, and there are those more libertarian in philosophy that regard it in the opposite light. But it is clear that no matter which side of an one is standing, what is being debated here where we draw the line between one person's rights and another's. One person's right to practice their religion, versus another's right not to suffer by it.

And that line is usually most easily drawn in a tight circle around the individual. We cannot, should not, make a person do something against their religion, against the choices they would make for themselves -- take off the cross they wear around their neck, force them to eat pork, demand they not pray in public. But when that circle widens...when "practicing religion" means not only governing one's own actions, but imposing one's beliefs on others -- then the rest of society has a legitimate cause for concern. We object to people removing books from the library shelves so no one else can read them because they are "immoral" We object to changing school textbooks to conform to some particular religious message. To requiring people to pray at public events. To committing violence against others in the name of religion. We object, in fact, to a person's freedom of conscience being exercised at the sacrifice of our own.

So all those religious directives aren't really about making society conform to somebody's interpretation of the Koran, or the Bible. They are about how to be a person of faith in a wide and uncertain world. They are tools to keep one's own faith focused, not weapons to wield against the ungodly. If they stop being tools, and instead become weapons -- then they have failed. No longer are they guides for navigating the world we live in, they are things that separate us, creating wide divisions between thee and me. In the general scheme of things then, it seems like a society that values art or music so highly it makes learning it a mandatory part of the school curriculum (we should be so lucky here in the USA) is not something that one avoids by demanding silence when we walk into any given room. It is something that must be interpreted -- how does one remain a faithful silent believer in a culture that loves to sing and dance?

Or, you know, one could simply create one's own private school. That would be akin to "assembling official documentation. writing a statement, signing a form, submitting it to an office, and so forth.." (Personally, I am suspicious of government requirements for minorities to sign forms, but that's just me) If parents really don't like the curriculum of a school, it seems like the most sensible thing to do is find another school. Create a different school

It is easy to scoff at programs like one country's attempt to socialize the young men coming into the culture about different expectations -- about how women, for example, are not sluts and not to be treated as such just because they move around with more freedom and fewer clothes. But the hard truth of the matter is that many of the more ....not even fundamentalist, but simply conservative elements in the major religions are actually built upon the repression of entire groups of people they have deemed immoral, subservient, second class. Gay people fare badly in such religions. Women fair badly in them. And I find my tolerance for a person's "freedom of conscience" evaporates when that freedom finds its expression in cruel and inhumane treatment of another human being.

So the principle of "socialization" -- of learning how to exist well in society, a diverse society -- is a little more complex and important to me, and can't really be summed up in some guy's objection to tambourines in the classroom.

Or, you know, one could simply create one's own private school.

I certainly agree that would be one potential answer. It seems to me that LW's objection goes deeper, to issues of "socialization," and would therefore apply to private schools, home schooling and so forth. With such a view, the point isn't disruption to the school and its curriculum—which are real problems to be considered, even on my view—but the necessity of people to behave like good Canadians or French ought to. And good Canadians and French show skin on beaches, shake hands and listen to music. To miss out on that would be a tragedy, not, as I see it, the exercise of the basic human right to non-conformity that doesn't hurt others.

Personally, I am suspicious of government requirements for minorities to sign forms, but that's just me

I believe in the rights at stake here, and dislike mere arguments from advantage and disadvantage. But it shouldn't escape notice that we're talking about some pretty marginal, disadvantaged people. I don't know about where you are, but Maine's conservative Muslims are mostly recent Somali immigrants, often asylees. They mostly scrape by in food packing and other low-wage, low-skill tasks, with another job on the side. Whether you're conservative or liberal, it seems to me there are a lot of fatter fish to fry.

It is easy to scoff at programs like one country's attempt to socialize the young men coming into the culture about different expectations -- about how women, for example, are not sluts and not to be treated as such just because they move around with more freedom and fewer clothes. But the hard truth of the matter is that many of the more ....not even fundamentalist, but simply conservative elements in the major religions are actually built upon the repression of entire groups of people they have deemed immoral, subservient, second class. Gay people fare badly in such religions. Women fair badly in them. And I find my tolerance for a person's "freedom of conscience" evaporates when that freedom finds its expression in cruel and inhumane treatment of another human being.

Yes, and I think many of us see where this is going--drawing the circle of conscience and of private action ever smaller and smaller. You would not, I hope, write "I find my tolerance for a person's 'freedom of the press' evaporates…" or "'freedom of assembly'…" or "'right of due process.'" But freedom of religion? I fear the intellectual groundwork is already laid.

Stickers? Maybe they should come with trigger warnings for religious people. It would be preferable to the push to actually change the content of those textbooks.

Conservative activists should totally press for "safe spaces" on campuses too.

Basic quality demands they teach science, not stuff that isn't science.

Yeah, that's sloganeering. Of course, I prefer that students get all appropriate and up-to-date science. But school is mostly about learning to learn, not learning specific content. So, a good science program 30 years ago is superior to a bad one today, although today's may have more "right" answers. And should Isaac Newton offer his services, I'd love him to tutor my son in science, even though I know he held all sorts of retrograde ideas. (Actually, maybe not Newton; he was a jerk.)

And why do you keep picking on people who shop at Whole Foods?

It's a useful shorthand demographic that contains a large proportion of rich, liberal white people who have dodgy ideas about science. Both the market and our government cater to them and their ideas, because they buy a lot and vote. Similar scientific misconceptions among the Chick-fil-A demo are treated quite differently.

Not to mention Federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Brown vs. Board of Education. The Equal Rights Amendment. In fact, we find the expression of our evolving concept of human rights expressed in our legal code -- our government.

The Equal Rights Amendment was never passed. And I think you may wonder at "our evolving concept of human rights" under a Trump presidency.

So how would this idea apply to a parent who objects to mandatory music class in a public school curriculum? What should that parent have to do to get his kid out of it?

I don't think the school music example is a slam-dunk. Schools are not unrestricted free zones, as you say. But, as an administrator, I'd handle it without recourse to legal compulsion, much as I would handle a special snowflake whose parents insisted they and their child are opposed to dissecting animals, and must be excused from science class on that account. Personally, I wager there are 10 times as many of those out there—morally objections to dissection was standard among rich white people where I grew up—but I've never heard any heated socio-political rhetoric against it. Have you?

Not present so far in this discussion (I believe) is the emerging neurological evidence that processing music is something like a specific brain function, resembling, but distinct from, language and perhaps arithmetic.

At some point, then — although not quite yet — the matter becomes analogous to a hypothetical religious objection to reading or long division.* Is that (are those) deserving of accommodation?

* ETA: Although, since neither of these activities is inherent as language is, one may in the foreseeable future be able to argue that music is even less deserving of accommodation than they are (if music pans out as an inherent brain function).

And why do you keep picking on people who shop at Whole Foods?

>213 timspalding:

Right. They could be spending their money on....



An inspirational glass dome!

or....



23rd Psalm Windchimes!

or how about....



That little piece is called "Forgiven." Jeez. Pun intended.

So if you are objecting to the rampant and ridiculously absurd levels that consumerism expresses itself, I'm right there with you. But it's not a liberal thing. It's an American thing. And frankly, neither a "God is my copilot" or "Visualize whirled peas" bumpersticker means much if it is on the bumper of an SUV that could by itself push the planet over the carbon emission level tipping point that melts all the polar ice.

In point of fact, it's sort of funny you fixated on "organic" thongs. Right now the clothes I'm wearing are made from "organic cotton" -- and more to the point, "fair trade organic cotton" since I am against slave labor. The coffee I get is also fair trade, from some collective in Peru run by a village of women. I recently got an email that they had raised enough money with their coffee plantation to build a high school. I've also been forced to go vegetarian recently because my guy who sells the grass-fed beef, and the pork from happy pigs, the free range chicken and eggs, got into a spat with the my farmer's market steering committee and no longer comes. Since I can't stomach the idea of eating factory-farmed meat if I can possibly avoid it, I've changed my diet.

So I'm probably the epitome of your idea of a card-carrying, Whole-Foods-shopping, consumerist liberal, even if I don't actually shop at Whole Foods. But these are all things I do because I can afford to, and because I don't have kids to feed or a family to support beyond some dogs and cats and two nephews to whom I have dedicated a life-time supply of providing any book they want to read. That's capitalism. You vote with your dollar, you spend money on the things that reflect your values, and don't spend money on the things that don't. The biggest flaw in such a system is that spending money (or not) is not ever enough. And sending checks -- to Heifer International or to Save the Children -- is in no way the equivalent of actually, personally helping people. It may be just the opposite -- a way to avoid facing the realities of people in need so we can live in our comfortable, gadget-filled bubbles.

>211 timspalding: With such a view, the point isn't disruption to the school and its curriculum—which are real problems to be considered, even on my view—but the necessity of people to behave like good Canadians or French ought to. And good Canadians and French show skin on beaches, shake hands and listen to music.

I think the point is that "Good Canadians" -- indeed, "good people" believe in the tolerance of others as a fundamental principle of a "good" society.

I believe in the rights at stake here, and dislike mere arguments from advantage and disadvantage. But it shouldn't escape notice that we're talking about some pretty marginal, disadvantaged people.

What you call "mere" (trivializing, there) "arguments from advantage and disadvantage" are actually arguments that take into account that there are unequal levels of power influencing how those rights are expressed. If one person's freedom of conscience is actually founded on the right to repress another -- if it is in their religious (or political) faith that it is not only okay to repress women, or black people, or Christians, but actually a directive -- to convert them, isolate them and deny them the benefits of education, or health care , or even to kill them -- well, you've got a real problem.

You would not, I hope, write "I find my tolerance for a person's 'freedom of the press' evaporates…" or "'freedom of assembly'…" or "'right of due process.'" But freedom of religion? I fear the intellectual groundwork is already laid.

And yet, we already tolerate all sorts of limits on each of those things. We accept the necessity that some information must be classified in the name of national security. Our "freedom of assembly" does not mean we don't have to apply for permits to have public demonstrations and it does, indeed, "evaporate" if that assembly turns into something that causes a danger to others -- like property damage. And every time we strengthen the ability of one person to shoot at another in the name of "self defense" we are de facto sidestepping our right to due process.

But school is mostly about learning to learn, not learning specific content.

Somebody should tell the Texas state school board.


The Equal Rights Amendment was never passed. And I think you may wonder at "our evolving concept of human rights" under a Trump presidency.


Exactly my point. Human rights are not only an abstract idea. They are a constantly negotiated and renegotiated expression of cultural values being played out in the real world, where different people have different ideas of what "human rights" actually are. "Government" is one of the ways we enact those negotiations. It is sometimes an obstacle, sometimes an ally. But that really depends on where you stand on any given issue. The goal is to end up with a government that most reflects our own values -- an impossible thing, of course, but the fact that we each always have a voice and a say in the process of what becomes our government -- what becomes our society -- is what is important. And once again, if one person's idea of "good society" requires the disenfranchisement of an entire group of other people -- that's a real problem.

I would handle a special snowflake whose parents insisted they and their child are opposed to dissecting animals, and must be excused from science class on that account.

It's been a long time since I've been in school but when I was, kids who didn't do the dissection lab failed that part of the class.

I don't like the phrase "special snowflake" though. It's mean.

I just had to add this fine object to the list.

:-)

ETA: responding to 213, but also 215--WHAT were they thinking of??

>214 southernbooklady: Since I can't stomach the idea of eating factory-farmed meat if I can possibly avoid it, I've changed my diet.

Me too. I cut out beef and pork years ago. I do eat fowl, and other meats from time to time, but I don't require animal flesh every day. I actually save money this way, as opposed to spending the Whole Foods premium for their assurances about the sourcing of my food.

>213 timspalding:

The thing I saw for sale at Whole Foods that made my hair stand on end was bottled water melted from Scandinavian glaciers and shipped to the US. A rep of the bottler was offering tastes to sell people on it, and I'm afraid I gave her an earful.

I don't see the problem with making underwear out of organic cotton, or touting the fact on a package--not compared to most of the consumer nonsense out there.

>215 RidgewayGirl: That light switch is rather suggestive. And creepy.

>215 RidgewayGirl:, >218 theoria:

"Honor thy father and mother" is the icing on the cake.

>206 margd:

I like the wai greeting (hands pressed together) of Asia. Hand on heart looks good, too.

It's all cool... as long as it is not sexually discriminatory.

In Thailand, Buddhist monks--even the 3-month variety--aren't supposed to take anything from the hand of a woman, nor help themselves to food and drink, nor take anything after noon, if I recall correctly.

Every major religion discriminates against women; that does not make anyone's religious and cultural misogyny all right. But the key point is, you're talking about MONKS--once again we see the "career religious" invoked as if they were a logical counterpart to the conservative Islam faithful, and clerical sexism equated with that of the ordinary public. Women in burkinis are excused by the example of nuns; Islamic misogyny by the example of monks. Why don't you compare the behaviour of ordinary, lay Buddhist men to that of conservative Muslims?

Telling choices, and only making more clear why secular countries would want to limit religion to the private sphere.

The French press I read (Libération, Le monde) put a positive spin on the results of a poll conducted on 1029 French citizens of Muslim faith or cultural background, but looking for something to link to in English, the right wing take predominates... Regretfully, the best I could find (at least it's not a tabloid?) is Financial Times:

Third of French Muslims reject secular laws

A quarter of Muslims were hardline, made up of “mostly young, low-skilled people with low levels of participation in the labour market” living on the outskirts of cities. This group approved of the burka, polygamy and the superiority of Islamic law.

Worryingly for policymakers, about half of Muslims under 25 fell into this most radical category, compared with roughly 20 per cent of those over 40. “Islam is for them a way of asserting themselves on the margins of French society,” said the report.

The study also showed that, while most respondents consider their religion important to them, only 29 per cent attended a mosque on a weekly basis.

The young, the un- and under-employed, and the converts are most likely to be extreme. We get back to the point about education and socialisation. Are you more or less likely to become a religious extremist if your parents raised you not to listen to music, study science, learn sex ed, socialise with women and regard the latter as your equals? Do we have to "wait ten years and see"?

Article in French in Libération: Musulmans : une enquête «pionnière» mais limitée

Some numbers FT doesn't report: 46% of the correspondents are either "completely secular or in process of integrating contemporary French values"; 25% are "intermediary", "proud to be Muslim" but clearly reject the niqab and polygamy and accept laïcité.

Therefore, a great majority of French Muslims puts Frenchness ahead of the concept of their faith promulgated by conservatives.

That little piece is called "Forgiven." Jeez. Pun intended.

It's horrible. Not sure that "X is horrible too" is really a riposte.

In point of fact, it's sort of funny you fixated on "organic" thongs.

Don't forget, it's also GMO-Free. Because GMO cotton--it burns, it burns!

What I'm objecting to is the commoditization and reinforcement of a certain sort of anti-scientism. The terms "organic" and "GMO-Free" have nothing whatsoever to do with the attractiveness, comfort or healthiness of your underpants!

This is anti-scientific posturing to sell underpants to ignorant people with an unmet need for purity and protection. And its own way it reinforces those ideas. After all, if my supermarket won't allow GMOs in its underpants, which I don't even eat, there must really be something wrong with them! The world is a dangerous place, and I must buy special, expensive items to stand a chance against it. Is there a gluten-free underpant out there?

And the stupid is all the worse because Whole Foods isn't Walmart or Hobby Lobby. Its customers are the cream of American society. They make much more than other Americans, and I can't find another retailer whose customers are more likely to have advanced degrees. They should know better. (See http://infoscout.co/retailer/whole_foods?ab=b&utm_expid=75303912-8.CrRi-k5-T... and compare to Walmart http://infoscout.co/retailer/walmart?ab=b&utm_expid=75303912-8.CrRi-k5-TRWFG... ).

And, yes, if opposite-world Whole Foods sold panties to a conservative elite, advertising "SEWED BY VIRGINS," and implied that this guaranteed the wearer less itching and temptations to fornication, I would feel much the same.

And sending checks -- to Heifer International or to Save the Children -- is in no way the equivalent of actually, personally helping people.

Fair-Trade is a trickier topic. In theory, I'm all for it. Practice often falls short, and I'm wary of empty virtue signaling that makes people feel better and accomplishes little. But such is life.

>222 timspalding: opposite-world Whole Foods

You mean Hobby Lobby? (Demonstrating that the thread is still on topic after 222 posts.)

Actually, their opposite-worldishness extends to a willingness to sell mass-produced stuff that may have involved Asian slave labor and/or environmentally degrading production processes. (Not that I'd rule it out at Whole Foods, but they at least pretend otherwise.)

You mean Hobby Lobby?

Hobby Lobby is not for the hyper-educated bicoastal elite. There is no opposite-world Whole Foods.

>224 timspalding: the hyper-educated bicoastal elite

It seems like your animus here is trained on people I've never encountered, living my whole life in "flyover country" (Illinois, Iowa, Texas, Colorado)--but I've certainly been exposed to my share of Whole Foods customers, whoever they are.

Edited to add: As an infrequent shopper at both Whole Foods and Hobby Lobby, my impression is that very few of the frequent shoppers of either would darken the door of the other.

As an infrequent shopper at both Whole Foods and Hobby Lobby, my impression is that very few of the frequent shoppers of either would darken the door of the other.

Very true. Mostly, the latter couldn't--Whole Foods is too expensive. The former could, but Whole Foods works in part as a sort of gated community--a safe space where you're unlikely to meet someone fat, poor, uneducated, black or brown. (No place demonstrates more clearly how wealth and weight are now almost the same thing in the US.)

Best of all, you can buy some GMO-free underpants and feel good about helping poor Mexicans--putting you in the moral clear--but also rest assured you're not going to brush shoulders with any actual Mexicans. In Maine at least, this even goes for the staff--mostly white people with a statistically improbable number of hipster beards, whereas Hannaford is perhaps half Somali.

>226 timspalding: Whole Foods works in part as a sort of gated community--a safe space where you're unlikely to meet someone fat, poor, uneducated, black or brown.

Hobby Lobby is a lot whiter than Whole Foods by me. Fatter, though, yeah. Just anecdotal, of course.

What makes someone a member of the hyper-educated bicoastal elite? Ok, living in a state that has an ocean view (so no Colorado residents, then), and hyper-educated? How much education is a bad thing and moves the person from being able to think for themselves to a mindless liberal sheep? Is a BA enough? Or a doctorate? Or is it the subject matter? Would an engineer be acceptable, but someone who studied literature or (gasp!) ancient languages be irredeemable?

I just have a problem with the idea that being well-educated makes a person less likely to think for themselves. Or that higher education is something to fear and avoid lest you be educated out of the right way of thinking.

Basically, that insult is lazy and unworthy of you. I'm as far from the coast as I can be in my state, but it does have a coastline. I have a BSc, but in philosophy. Does that make my point of view less worthy of attention than someone who has two years at a trade school and lives in Idaho? I'd argue our points of view are equally valuable, but I'm possibly a member of the hyper-educated bicoastal elite, although I'd argue that since I never took any latin, I should be able to opt out.

Tim, aren't you part of this terrible group of people?

Tim, aren't you part of this terrible group of people?

Yes, but I'm trying.

As I've often said, I grew up and largely exist within the Whole Foods set. I'd argue many of the pathologies of widespread, elite, bicoastal liberalism arose from areas like Cambridge, MA, where I grew up. (To adapt a phrase, the future was there in 1985 Cambridge; it just wasn't evenly distributed.) To this day, I am much more "comfortable" within that set than without it. I think I have an understanding it. If I were a child of Oklahoma, I might understand Hobby Lobby better, and focus my criticism there.

As it is, I know that my "set" contains numerous people who have all the advantages and, basically, run the country, but can't think straight about science and nutrition, and too often conceptualize their moral duty through public, symbolic acts of little value, while their social inferiors just go volunteer at a soup kitchen. I find that worrying, both generally and because these are my people.

There's a larger point here about demographic groups. We all know they are imprecise; they are made that way of necessity. That doesn't negate their value as an analytical tool, whether in marketing or cultural criticism.

>224 timspalding:

"Hyper-educated" was an ill-considered form of dismissiveness.

There probably are a number of — effectively — opposite-world Whole Foods in the form of local marketplaces in villages all over the southern and equatorial world. It's those that, in its bizarre way, Whole Foods is referencing and evoking. To them, WF has an relation analogous to Hollywood's relation to literature (although that's just my snark).

>215 RidgewayGirl:

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! How can one not love the pious?

You remind me of some precious hymns. One that I can't exactly place runs something like: "Take me, Jesus! I am ready ... etc." Or this:

Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Thou art the Potter; I am the clay.
Mould me and make me
After Thy will,
While I am willing,
Yielded, and still.

If either you or southernbooklady are ever in Montreal, do not miss a visit to the gift shop ("Boutique", they call it ... ever so chic) at St. Joseph's Oratory. It is eye popping.

"Hyper-educated" was an ill-considered form of dismissiveness.

I'm not knocking education. But I'm noticing that Whole Foods customers have a demographically startling level of education which ought to be at variance with a product line based on ignorance. It's not just GMO nonsense; every whole foods has a big section devoted to homeopathy, a straight-up pseudoscience.

Here, for example, is a company blog post about "Homeopathy and Healthy Babies" http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/whole-story/homeopathy-and-healthy-babies . Among other things it recommend belladonna, that is nightshade, a deadly neurotoxin that shouldn't be within a million miles of your baby. And just in case you think I'm blowing smoke, Whole Foods was one seller of the nightshade-based "homeopathic" teething tablets that had (whoops) too much nightshade in them, and gave children breathing problems and seizures. ( http://www.parenting.com/article/hylands-teething-tablet-recall )

Here's another one, about homeopathy for colds and flu. It's scientific nonsense from start to finish. http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/whole-story/homeopathy-cold-and-flu-season-...

If this were poor people and a "right wing" pseudoscience, like Intelligent Design, it wouldn't get a pass.

>232 timspalding: Yikes!!

And back in the innocent times that so many apparently yearn to return to, laudanum or, for the not-so-well-heeled, whisky was a favoured way to deal with teething. Perhaps nothing much has changed and America is still great after all?

Who is it who "gives a pass" to anyone on homeopathy? In what sense am I supposed not to "give a pass" to a freakin grocery or crystal shop or herbal medicine kiosk?

I'm also bewildered by the idea that it's only rich liberals who shop at Whole Foods. I suppose rich conservatives shoot their own.

And don't get me started on the idea that New Age bollocks are some terrible--and strictly leftist!--sin, when there's bloody Sainted Mother Teresa and her ilk ministering to the superstition and ignorance of billions.

Why, just the other day, Whole Foods invoked their "religious rights" to replace their employee health benefit with one that provided only homeopathic treatments. Right? No?

>231 librorumamans: There are days when I think that it's unfortunate that laudanum has gone out of style. If it comes back, I'm trying it. After I buy a locally sourced chaise longue built from repurposed barns and ethically sourced Mongolian silk, of course.

215 It's pretty easy to find modern worship hymns that sound like Jesus is your controlling boyfriend.

>215 RidgewayGirl:, >236 RidgewayGirl: modern worship hymns

Yeah, and "modern" in this case stretches well back into the 1800s.

>232 timspalding: every whole foods has a big section devoted to homeopathy, a straight-up pseudoscience.

As does every store in the US that has shelves devoted to vitamins and other general healthcare products. They are not something that separate Whole Foods from any other place in the US.

>236 RidgewayGirl: Indeed. Opium dissolved in alcohol; what's not to like? And what could possibly go wrong?

And do get a re-purposed-straw mat while you're picking up the re-purposed barn board.

I still don't understand why someone who goes in for homeopathy is to be scorned, but someone who goes in for prayer and faith healing is to be indulged.

It's a conversation that resonates with me personally right now because a good friend is battling a return of the cancer she thought she had beat. She went through surgery to remove the cancer, then a year of chemotherapy, where of course she lost a lot of weight she really couldn't afford to lose. She would probably fall under the label of "hyper-educated coastal elite" We both, after all, live on the coast and have college degrees. When she can work, she's a lawyer. Unlike me, she shops at Whole Foods.

She also is on a mission to beat her cancer, and this has sent her into determined search for all diets that could be called "anti-cancer." She charts foods by their acidity, eliminated sugar and wheat and red meat from her diet. Eats things made from chia seeds, drinks special teas.

How much of that is science-based? I don't have the slightest idea. I think there is something to the sugar thing. She can Google this stuff with the best of them. But I can't fault her determination to take control of her life, nor her will to survive by fighting on whatever field she can. Nor do I begrudge her the rules she has set for herself as a way to feel like she is doing something active to beat back her diagnosis, and I cheerfully learned to make flourless vegan carrot-zucchini muffins with avocado instead of butter (who knew you could do that?), coconut oil instead of eggs, raw applesauce instead of dairy, and coconut palm sugar instead of refined white sugar or honey, because she said she missed having baked goods and she needs foods that will help her keep her weight up. They are expensive as hell to make and reek of liberal privilege no doubt. But she likes them, so I make them without one ounce of guilt.

I'm also bewildered by the idea that it's only rich liberals who shop at Whole Foods. I suppose rich conservatives shoot their own.

Some people are bewildered by statistical generalizations. Tell them that Rich people eat more caviar and their head explodes—"but I know poor people who eat caviar!"

Here's one demographic site's evaluation for Whole Foods:



(source: http://infoscout.co/retailer/whole_foods?ab=b&utm_expid=75303912-8.CrRi-k5-T...

Here's the same for Walmart:



(source: http://infoscout.co/retailer/walmart?ab=b&utm_expid=75303912-8.CrRi-k5-TRWFG...

I also love that, when presented with price, location or selection ZERO percent said they choose Whole Foods because of its price.

Incidentally, this doesn't just "happen." Whole Foods places its stores according to education and income targets. (See http://www.retailleader.com/top-story-industry_news-whole_foods_market_lowers_de... ).

But, yes, bewildering.

As does every store in the US that has shelves devoted to vitamins and other general healthcare products. They are not something that separate Whole Foods from any other place in the US.

It's proportionately larger at Whole Foods, as is anti-GMO and gluten hysteria. ( As a recent article discovered, 86% of Americans who think they are gluten sensitive, are not. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26043918 .)

If you want another metric, look at Twitter. Homeopathy has literally never been mentioned in a tweet by or at Hannaford, Safeway or Shaws. But there are pages and pages of results for Whole Foods ( https://twitter.com/search?q=%40wholefoods%20homeopathic&src=typd ), often from Whole Foods itself. Some of them are, I'm glad to say, Doctors and others asking them why they promote quack medicines that do nothing.

I still don't understand why someone who goes in for homeopathy is to be scorned, but someone who goes in for prayer and faith healing is to be indulged.

I'm not scorning the people as much as the sellers. Prayer and faith healing are free. When they are not, it's different. I have a great deal of scorn for people who profit off of spiritual services--televangelists, Prosperity Gospel types and the lot.

I believe in petitionary prayer, but I don't have evidence it "works." (There's good evidence it can work on the person praying, but that's another story.) I would never claim it's "scientific." And if prayer were a bottle, that looked just like a pharmaceutical and came with a raft of claims about its dosage, efficacy and so forth, I would urge the FDA to clamp down on it.

BTW my favorite WF tweets are the ones where they say they don't sell drugs "but" they sell all sorts of healthful and effective homeopathic remedies. We all have nothing but contempt for religious people who counsel people avoid medical treatments, because prayer is just as good. But, again, telling people to use fake medicine, not real medicine, gets a special pass. It's not profiteering off ignorance, it's wellness!

She also is on a mission to beat her cancer, and this has sent her into determined search for all diets that could be called "anti-cancer." She charts foods by their acidity, eliminated sugar and wheat and red meat from her diet. Eats things made from chia seeds, drinks special teas. …

I'm very sorry about your friend. Whatever their nutritional value, your cooking project is something we should all imitate. More power to you.

To the question, it would be great if places like Whole Foods consistently used their power to promote health, not a mix of health and quakery. While the quest for true "anti-cancer" foods is likely to be tricky, the basics are not—basics like going for fiber and variety, keeping your weight down, and avoiding red meat, burned food, smoked food, nitrates, salt, etc.

Instead, companies like Whole Foods convince shoppers that pesticides, genetically engineered crops and gluten are making them sick, and homeopathy will make them better.

>222 timspalding: The terms "organic" and "GMO-Free" have nothing whatsoever to do with the attractiveness, comfort or healthiness of your underpants!

Why not? If you're concerned about pesticides or allergens in your food, it's not that unreasonable to be worry about them on a piece of cloth that's held close to your mucous membranes.

to sell underpants to ignorant people with an unmet need for purity and protection.

Because when religious people fulfill their need for purity by worrying about kosher, that's okay, but when nonreligious people decided to go organic, that's ignorant.

> 220 ...you're talking about MONKS--once again we see the "career religious" invoked as if they were a logical counterpart to the conservative Islam faithful, and clerical sexism equated with that of the ordinary public. Women in burkinis are excused by the example of nuns; Islamic misogyny by the example of monks. Why don't you compare the behaviour of ordinary, lay Buddhist men to that of conservative Muslims?

Point taken, but in Thailand, all young men--or at least those in the Buddhist majority--are expected to spend three months as Buddhist monks, and that was likely the case with the thirsty young man. It's like a rite of passage to adulthood and to marriage-eligibility.

>242 timspalding: I'm not scorning the people as much as the sellers

Sure you are. You're scorning the "anti-science" trend that makes educated people buy quack remedies in their existential desperation to "feel better" or give their lives meaning. Of course, capitalism is driven by our pandering to that need in human beings -- to assure them that this new car, that new iphone, this homeopathic oil, that special designer sweater, will make their lives "better," make them better, happier. America's economy depends on our ability to both exacerbate and feed that existential insecurity. We are a nation that depends on "retail therapy."

And I agree, I do. "Stuff" doesn't make us happier or better people. But that fear those product makers are pandering to, that Whole Foods is trying to answer, isn't limited to the Whole Foods set. It is exactly what is behind the success of Amazon-- Amazon assuages that need in us faster and (ostensibly) cheaper than any other store. It is capitalism in action -- give the customer what he wants. Charge him whatever he will pay for it. "Profiteering off ignorance" as you put it is fundamental to a capitalist economy. No special passes needed.

It would be great if places like Whole Foods consistently used their power to promote health, not a mix of health and quakery.

But Whole Foods, like Hobby Lobby, is not a church. Nor a nonprofit. Nor a political party. it is a retail business. Whatever its "mission" it is necessary that it be a successful business. It may target a specific lifestyle, but it must answer to the needs and desires of its customers. And it's mission always has to include a commitment to profitability, or it closes. I really don't get why you resent the company for this. You don't like its incarnation, then don't shop there. I don't like Sams Club, and never shop there. But then, on the whole I am a capitalist (the exception being healthcare and education, the two things I think every person needs to live a self-determined life). I work in the book industry, so of course I'm a capitalist. I watch people buy what I think are really bad and pointless books all the time!

So I'm actually okay with people spending their money on stupid stuff. As long as that stuff isn't actively harmful or deliberately fraudulent, then I'm fine with letting them navigate their own way through life's dilemmas and solving them however they want. Even if that means donating money to their megachurch, or spending their food budget on gmo-free peanut butter. Neither will make them feel happier, but that is for them to discover and come to terms with.

> 245

I agree with sbl. Best to keep your elitism to yourself and refrain from pointing out the intellectual failures of others, in a personal way for sure - unless there is real harm to real people involved, e.g., withholding medical care from children due to religious piety, the actual promotion of racism or bigotry (e.g., trump and duke), not to mention most of the activities of the republican party, etc.

Why do people want to scorn prayer and a belief in faith as a way to help heal? True story: my neighbor had a recurrence of breast cancer in her bones from head to toe. In February she started on monthly chemo and hormone shots. In addition; she had her church and anyone else to participate in prayer for her recovery. In August she went for a bone scan and guess what she is now cancer free and her bone lesions have healed. Her doctor also suggested exercise that elevates her heart rate to 110 ( I have been going to Y with her at least 3 times per week). The essence of my story is that I do believe in the personal belief in Christ and these other scientific activities have together healed her body. She can now out walk me and is much more energetic than me. I just choose to celebrate our belief in a healing Christian faith and a belief in medical science together have healed my friend. This is just an example of what true faith not dogma can do in a person's life. P.S.; her onocologist is also a Christian.

>247 JaneAustenNut: Why do people want to scorn prayer and a belief in faith as a way to help heal?

Why do you think? I have no doubt that the right attitude can help the sick, but I watched my deeply faithful father retire, promptly develop cancer, and suffer for a few years before it eventually killed him. I watched my faithful grandmother break her hip and instead of recovering or getting a merciful death, spend weeks in bed sinking into dementia before death took her.

Ecclesiastes 9:2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.

On 21 September 1995, statues of Ganesh around the world drank milk offerings. There are scientific answers, but they seem somewhat dismissive. If a supernatural event of such magnitude can be ignored by non-believers, why do you think your account will impress those who do not already believe? Other religions have their prayers of healing and stories of miraculous healings; there's naturalistic answers and there's various supernatural explanations, but the ones that say our healings are real and other's aren't I find the least persuasive.

>247 JaneAustenNut:

I think personal belief in Christ heals cancer only when you have a Christian oncologist.

OK. It's "fuck this shit" time.

To wit, why would a god bother to supernaturally intervene in the natural world and heal some particular person of a disease and thus allow him or her to live a few decades longer? What would be the use of that?

I.e., according to traditional monotheistic religions this life is a flash in the dark, then after "your body" dies, then you go on to an ETERNAL life - either pleasant or not so pleasant. So - in religious terms - what is the value of this (temporal) life we know we have? Not much of anything, obviously. What are people, stupid?

Please - one cannot just believe shit into existence or believe other shit out of existence, just because you strongly prefer it that way.

Individual religious belief - prayer and all that - is just a pitiful cry to an uncaring universe demanding that it, someone, a god, or whatever PLEASE, PLEASE, CARE about ME. PLEASE MAKE IT ALL WORTH THE TROUBLE. PLEASE.

Fucking pitiful.

Every person should just suck it up, like an adult, and get on with life as you are given it. Cut out the whining - whining is for children. Quit being a child. It is god damn embarrassing for everyone, the religious and the not-so-religious.

^
Free advice to people too dumb to take it, I know but, free speech and all that, muthaflockers.

>247 JaneAustenNut: Why do people want to scorn prayer and a belief in faith as a way to help heal?

I think it's possible to not believe in prayer and see no value in faith without scorning a person. Others think that if they're asked to believe something that they see as outrageous, then a little mocking might be in order. But disbelief mot automatically equal scorn.

Some thoughts on prayer:

If it worked, Christians would have vastly different cancer outcomes than non-Christians. Christians would have better success at regrowing amputated limbs--currently no Christian or non-Christian has ever regrown an amputated limb.

And if a congregation prays in earnest for someone with cancer, and then that person dies, how do they explain that? Did they pray wrong? If God has decided all our fates, why would he change his mind because we pray? If God knows everything, why doesn't he tell us the cure for cancer? If you had it within you to cure cancer, wouldn't you do it right now? I would.

Also, in looking at the efficacy of prayer, we need to separate prayer for ourselves from intercessory prayer. (Results from the first may be from the mind-body connection, meditative powers, etc.) There was a large double-blind study about praying for others. Here is a NYT article about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?_r=0

A few excerpts:

"Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation."

"The congregations were told that they could pray in their own ways, but they were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not."

"The study also found that more patients in the uninformed prayer group — 18 percent — suffered major complications, like heart attack or stroke, compared with 13 percent in the group that did not receive prayers. In their report, the researchers suggested that this finding might also be a result of chance."

Personally, I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as is possible. (To quote a wise man)

>250 JGL53: It's probably the cold bugs screwing with my frontal lobes that prod me to respond to this spew when normally I would avert my eyes and pass on by.

First, that post is simply uncivil and inappropriate.

Second, and on the basis of my recollections of most of your previous posts, I, likely among others, would appreciate your giving some evidence of awareness of what words like 'religion', 'belief', and in this case 'prayer' can actually refer to in the 21st century. Among many possibilities, you might have a look at the first chapters of The meaning and end of religion at least.

I, too, suspect that the universe does not care about the particular arrangement of atoms and whatnot that constitute me qua me. But why on earth — so to speak — can it follow that I should not ask and seek others to care about me instead? It doesn't; on the contrary. Not to ask others to care, indeed rejecting that sort of caring, is not a sign of maturity but of profound dysfunction.

I could go on, but those are my basic points.

> 252

I can tell you are really sincere and really care, libro, but I don't see how your posted comments are in any way germane or relevant to my expressed opinions in my previous post.

People should care for each other? Sounds like a good idea. I don't oppose it.

As to the meaning that individual people may give to words like religion, prayer, belief, etc. - I only crap on the Old Time Religion definition these words represent to fundamentalist, evangelical, charismatic, literalist, hard-shell, bible-thumping, super-naturalists, superstitious extremist ontological dualists.

If someone is ONLY using these words in some new age, touchy-feely, indefinitely defined way - or 'merely' as metaphors, similes, analogies, or allegorical or poetic expression - TITS, as mythic language understood as mythic stories (as opposed to historical events) then I have no problem with that whatsoever. Why would I?

E.g., I no doubt have used words like "god" and "prayer" - or variations of them - many hundreds of times over the decades I have been an adult atheist. Don't mean shit because I use them just as throwaway expressions.

In a nutshell - using religious words in a literally serious way? - well, there could be a problem, maybe even a serious problem. Using ANY word or words as metaphor? - no problem.

Does this clear up my meaning here?

BTW - uncivil and inappropriate? Now that is a LOL. I.e., IF religious belief over the millennia had ONLY caused many people to be somewhat more uncivil and to many times act inappropriately THEN religious belief would have to viewed as benign and something we could either take up or ignore, as each of us felt the need - or not.

However, murder and rape (including that of pregnant women, babies, children), torture of the most creative and horrifying types, and horrible treatment of fellow humans in general have been much of the history of (belief in) traditional religions.

If and when I act in a similar manner please feel free to call me out for being, uh, uncivil and inappropriate.

In the meantime I would argue that rants on the internet, no matter how rude, DO NOT put me in the same category of that of old time religion/religious believers. Especially christians and muslims.

Have a nice day.

>247 JaneAustenNut: The essence of my story is that I do believe in the personal belief in Christ and these other scientific activities have together healed her body.

I think there is probably something to the idea that being able to take a positive action of some kind towards your own health is physically beneficial. It won't make cancer magically disappear, but a state where you feel you are doing something to affect your own fate -- that is very different from feeling like you are at the mercy of the whims of chance and nothing you do will make a difference. We all want to make a difference. It's how we know we are alive, how we find meaning and purpose in our lives.

So, setting aside for the moment the commercialism that Tim objects to, I really don't see why it matters if the action we take is to pray, or to enter a drug trial, or to drink anti-cancer tea, or to meditate, or to check in with our favorite astrologer, or spend a night in a sweat lodge, or make a pilgrimage to a holy shrine. None of it will cure us, but any of it may set us back on the path towards wellness simply by giving us something positive to do.

Tim objects to the way companies profit from our need for reassurance in the face of disease and death. But not being a believer myself, I don't see much distinction between the shop that sells organic underwear and the church that offers to bless our babies. They are both rituals we adopt to make ourselves feel that we are not alone in an apathetic universe. That we are special in some way and have some control over out fate. Neither will have any quantifiable effect on our wellness, they are just defenses against an indifferent existence. And in the end their efficacy -- whether we're talking taking dosing yourself with Hoodia or praying to St. Jude -- depends mostly on the willingness of the patient to be convinced it works.

So if the complaint is simply that one shouldn't charge for dispensing unfounded hope -- but that it is okay if it is handed out for free, well, I find that inconsistent.

>247 JaneAustenNut: >251 Nickelini: >254 southernbooklady:

I see that 'heal' and 'cure' are beginning to be used somewhat interchangeably. In the context of this thread, I don't think that works well.

Years ago now I was approached to become an anointer at my church. Congregations of Metropolitan Community Churches handled the brunt of providing support during the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. During every service, therefore, there is a time of anointing for healing for oneself or for others. Initially I felt that for me to take on this role would be insincere and hypocritical. I gave the invitation a great deal of thought; some might call that process reflection, others discernment, and still others prayer.

During that time I happened to read John Dominic Crossan's The Birth of Christianity, and in the chapter "The Meaning of Healing" I found an approach that allowed me to accept the invitation.

In the fields of medical anthropology, comparative ethnomedicine, and the study of "indigenous" healing, there is distinction made between curing disease and healing illness. Crossan quotes an academic article from 1979, "Why Do Indigenous Practitioners Successfully Heal?":

... ideally clinical care should treat both disease and illness[;] ... modern professional health care tends to treat disease but not illness; whereas in general, indigenous systems of healing tend to treat illness, not disease"

I can't give an extensive summary of Crossan's discussion here; but, quickly, 'disease' is the malfunction of a biological or psychological process, while 'illness' refers to the "psychosocial experience and meaning of perceived disease." (That's Kleinman, Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture)

So, if you have HIV/AIDS you have a serious immune system condition that requires sophisticated medicine to treat. That's a disease, and it may become curable like many other diseases. But you probably also have to deal with considerable social stigma, including some that is self-directed, that can have its own effect on your overall health. That's illness, and illness can be healed.

My church welcomes a large number of, one might say, displaced people: sexual minorities, trans, those at various stages of recovery from substance abuse, foreign refugees fleeing sexual persecution, etc. These, and all the other folks who are facing life's more common vagaries, I am absolutely willing to anoint in order to signify that they are — despite everything that has gone on and will go on — acceptable and whole human beings.

>255 librorumamans: Ah yes, that "heal-cure" issue. I've heard Deepak Chopra say the same thing. He failed to convince me too.

>256 Nickelini: Since I know nothing about Deepak Chopra, I can't respond directly. But if you are saying that there isn't a psychosocial aspect to many diseases, or that there may be but that it can only be addressed in a clinical setting, then we do indeed disagree.

Where and why, for example, do you see therapy dogs fitting into treatment plans? Or do you not, perhaps?

>255 librorumamans:, >256 Nickelini:, >257 librorumamans:

I think these things can be overly polarised. Long before Deepak Chopra, a lot of old-fashioned doctors and nurses understood instinctively that there is more to healing than simply medication - the "bedside manner", good food, rest, a comfortable environment, good morale, family or friends supporting the patient, peace of mind, good basic hygiene, and many other rather intangible things could contribute along with the clinical treatment. It's both/and, not either/or.

>257 librorumamans:, >258 John5918: Nah, I was only responding to the use of the words "heal" and "cure."

>258 John5918: the "bedside manner", good food, rest, a comfortable environment, good morale, family or friends supporting the patient, peace of mind, good basic hygiene, and many other rather intangible things could contribute along with the clinical treatment.

None of the things you listed are "intangible." They are all measurable factors that reduce stress, and thus allow the body to dedicate more energy and more resources towards combating whatever disease it faces. Which is a long long loooooong way from "I believe my faith in God cured my cancer."

>259 Nickelini:

Fair comment. I have no real interest in the semantics.

>260 southernbooklady:

Again, fair comment, they are not intangible

Most of us here are not saying that faith cures cancer. I am saying that things such as peace of mind, good morale, will to live, etc can be factors which can, in your words, " reduce stress, and thus allow the body to dedicate more energy and more resources towards combating whatever disease it faces". Prayer is another one for some people.

Darwin's Cathedral reported that early Christians better survived a Roman plague. It's been a while since I read the book, but my recollection is that author attributed the improved survival to Christian sense of community, but also to belief in an afterlife that might encourage one to care for a patient (altruism) when self-interest might suggest a different course.

>257 librorumamans: The Old Testament word here is "unclean". And that's part of my problem; menstruation is not a disease, but in many culture it is unclean, and then priests get the glory of healing them. Especially in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, AIDS patients were unclean in the eyes of society, but to translate that into the terms of "illness" and "healing" that illness misses the point it was society that was fucked up, not the patients. Some of that may have been internalized, but to say they're "ill" and the person who wants him banned from the grocery store is not is just wrong.

>261 John5918: There's also points where people can get so pumped up on the power of faith and prayer that they fall into despair when things get worse. I'm sick because I don't have enough faith, or because of my sins.

> 263 Wow. I don't really know how to respond to your post.

>264 prosfilaes:

Well yes, of course some people can, just as they can on any health regime that they get all pumped up about and then find it doesn't work.

Independent: "10 children die after taking homeopathic teething pills"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/teething-pills-deaths-homeopath...

>247 JaneAustenNut: Why do people want to scorn prayer and a belief in faith as a way to help heal? True story: my neighbor had a recurrence of breast cancer in her bones from head to toe.

Because on October 4th, Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti. As Haiti is a nation with many Christians and its neighbors are also majority Christian, I'm sure that many voices were raised to God to divert this storm from hitting a incredibly poor nation that had no way to effectively protect its people. Hurricane Matthew killed over a thousand people. There's a lot of ideas about God that just invoke a shrug from me, but the concept of God that has him intervene to save one first-world woman from cancer and not intervene to save a thousand Haitians is disturbing; it feels more like the God of the US, not the Almighty God of all nations.

>268 prosfilaes:

I'm a believer, as you know. But naive thinking about God, miracles and intervention is rife among Christians. Practically the first thing we know about the world is that it is a meat grinder. A woman dies of cancer, five hundred people die from a bad storm, a million die from a mosquito, or from diarrhea. Many, if not most, who die, die in great, extended and uncomprehending pain. A large percent die young. Not a few live lives of almost uninterrupted pain and privation, followed by death. A serious theology starts with that simple, horrible fact.

A serious morality—theist or not—starts with it too. What have you done about it? What have I?

>268 prosfilaes: the concept of God that has him intervene

As Tim says, many Christians do think like this. But it is not the only image of God found within Christianity.

>269 timspalding: & >270 John5918:

Which, this being LibraryThing, brings us around to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, Voltaire, and Candide.

Especially so since I was discussing this just yesterday with my son, at the Lisbon Cathedral itself!

Theists say there must be a god because - uh, first cause, design, ultimate justice MUST be available, Pascal's Wager, and similar stupidities of inverted logic and outright mealy-mouthed whining.

But they have absolutely NO sane answer for the theodicy question except word salad, always trying the time-honored ploy of "If you can't convince them then confuse the living hell out of them". LOL.

Also, the "explanation" from the book of Job is usually offered up by theists as a last grasping-at-straws resort. I.e., god is all powerful, humans are his creations (pawns), he runs things the way he sees fit, humans have no right to complain, god dishes it out and it is (only) the job of humans to take it, if the bible makes no sense then that is YOUR problem Mr./Mrs. Human, not god's, etc., etc.

Albert Einstein didn't know everything , like god apparently does, ha ha - but Albert was not a god damn fool. He was convinced that belief in personal human immortality was only for the weak-minded - and that any type of anthropomorphic god was just too ridiculous an idea for a decent person to even consider.

The facts of reality - not me - say Albert Einstein was correct. The brain-washed (religionists) don't get it. And they make up the majority of humans.

OK. Not everyone is an Albert Einstein.

13.8 billion years of evolution are wasted on most folks. Got it.

And life goes on, as such.

In the meantime the new scientific estimate for total stars in the Universe is 2 trillion. One can only imagine that odds are intelligent life (in the majority) evolved on some planet around some star somewhere. It is nice to imagine that such is so.

Of course not earth, obviously.

Everyone have a nice day.

>272 timspalding: The teachable moment — lucky you!

>274 librorumamans:

Yeah, kinda. They had a good video on the earthquake. And it comes up basically everywhere you go near Lisbon--every building description has a bit on what happened during the quake. Generally, they weathered it without much of a problem, so it's also a good teachable moment about selection bias.

>273 JGL53:

I think you're a bit out of touch with quite considerable swathes of religious thought through the ages and across the world, but of course everything you say is probably true of some manifestations of religious thought.

> 276

No, I think I am quite well-read about all the various "swathes of religious thought through the ages and across the world". I claim no expertise but only a fair familiarity with all the major themes, occidental, oriental, esoteric or mystic, and primitive.

But - if you think I missed any "swathe" then kindly inform me - and all of us - of a prime example of such a "swathe" with which you suspect I must be unfamiliar.

Please use as many keystrokes as needed - I promise to hang on your every word. I am always glad for the opportunity of exposure to any wisdom or knowledge available that has to date escaped me - including the theological, the philosophical or the scientific.

Even just a reference to any and all edifying books you might could recommend would be appreciated. (Just FYI - below are books I have read just on the subjects of western and eastern theology, and philosophy):

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/JGL53&tag=religion

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/JGL53&tag=eastern+thought

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/JGL53&tag=philosophy

- And I have a separate category for Alan Watts:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/JGL53&tag=Alan+Watts

>276 John5918:

As an addendum, I'm now about 2/3 through "New Testament & Mythology And Other Basic Writings (by Rudolf Bultmann) - selected, edited and translated by Shubert M. Ogden.

One blurb on the back cover avers "Rudolf Bultmann (1884 - 1976) was perhaps the most influential New Testament scholar of the twentieth century..."

So far I haven't learned anything new. He seems to be no more sophisticated a liberal christian apologist than, e.g., Michael Novak or John Spong (I've never read C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton - should I?)

According to Bultmann we all must rely on faith or belief and forget about everything else. That looks to be his basic message.

Well, faith and belief = wish, desire and hope - and nothing else.

Wow. No wonder so many people are atheists these days and think religion is just one big joke that deserves ZERO respect. It's like the children who wish, desire and hope that they will get a pony next christmas - except in a scenario wherein "christmas" never comes-then-goes so that they can never be proven wrong.

LOL.

>278 JGL53: I've never read C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton - should I?

I can't give you an opinion on Chesterton, but Lewis will most certainly neither please nor enlighten you.

Edited to add: My understanding is that Bultmann's premium on faith is of a piece with his informed skepticism regarding the historical value of the scriptures. But I only have him at secondhand. Is that off-base?

> 279

"...Bultmann's premium on faith is of a piece with his informed skepticism regarding the historical value of the scriptures..... Is that off-base?"

No.

My take-away so far - Bultmann uses three words when one will do, his writing is most abstract, and he uses certain phrases redundantly which he seems to think are quite meaningful but the profundity, if any, escapes me. Several of his essays focus on explaining misunderstandings of his previous writings by fellow theologians but damned if I can see how he elucidates them to any extent - certainly not for me.

He seems to believe the historicy of any biblical story is unimportant but that the "existential truth" or perhaps inspiration of biblical stories is the point of the bible, and just faith in the overall claims of lostness as an initial human condition then salvation coming by some sort of enlightenment epiphany being the saving grace. Literalism does a disservice to christianity in his view.

That is best as I can translate his word salad writing - which reminds me of the writing style of William James - except James ultimately gets to the point. I am not sure Bultmann does. He seems too intent on avoiding being seen as dogmatic that his writing expires from the cuts of a thousand qualifications, plus all the circling back to say the same damn thing in a slightly different way but never adding any elucidation.

My ultimate take is that he does not believe in any crazy things but just believes in believing - and using religious language, acting like it all is very esoteric and serious - because then one can pretend one knows something and that one's time is being wisely spent - and what is the alternative - atheism? - well, that is a dead end for the fragile ego, so screw that.

He is the typical liberal christian theologian apologist. If such people stand as some effective opposition to the religious crazies (fundamentalists) then great. But do they..... really?

Well, maybe. My brother was as liberal a member of the Episcopalian communion as one can get. He seemed to have a happy and rewarding life. So, then, OK.

>280 JGL53:

It's been a long time since I thought about Bultmann, but your summary ("He seems to believe ...") looks about right. Certainly it remains the case in progressive Christian circles that whether the Biblical accounts are factual is perhaps the least important question to address in a discussing them. And, indeed, literal (or literalistic) readings have little or nothing to do with mainstream Christian theology, and broadly speaking never have (Augustine, for example).

I recommended one title to you up-thread. Another is Northrop Frye's The Great Code: the Bible and literature, which offers another way of approaching scripture; while Walter Kaufmann's The Faith of a Heretic is a philosopher's viewpoint.

>281 librorumamans:

Frye's The Great Code is quite good. His other two books on the Bible, not so much.

>282 paradoxosalpha:

That was my reaction as well.

>277 JGL53: But - if you think I missed any "swathe" then kindly inform me - and all of us - of a prime example of such a "swathe" with which you suspect I must be unfamiliar.

I have no idea with what you are familiar, but it seemed to me that your post >273 JGL53: focused on interventionist and anthropomorphic images of God. My apologies if I misunderstood you. As I said, of course these exist within major religious traditions including Christianity, but there are other narratives too, probably not majority narrratives but nevertheless found across time and space within the Christian tradition.

I wouild refer to the mystic tradition, contemplative practices, the anaphatic tradition, Catholic Social Thought, Creation Spirituality, feminist and LGBT theologies, liberation theology, inter-faith explorations - many of these would raise questions about the interventionist and anthropormorphic narratives.

Authors? Thomas Berry, Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, Anthony de Mello, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, maybe Albert Nolan, the desert fathers, the 14th century mystics...

It's so long since I studied Bultman that I don't really recall much. He was certainly one of the very influential scripture scholars of the 20th century, but also not the only one.

I'll also repeat what I have said before, that faith is not a set of intellectual assertions which can be proved or disproved.

>269 timspalding: I'm a believer, as you know. But naive thinking about God, miracles and intervention is rife among Christians.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you never call anyone on it. I know that not all Christians, like I said in my post. Jumping up every time an atheist mentions the problem with that type of thinking and ignoring that type of self-centered, willfully blind thinking is very tribal.

>285 prosfilaes: Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you never call anyone on it

But to be fair, if you were to go back through many threads on both the Christianity and Catholic Tradition groups, you'd find that Tim, myself and a number of other regular LT posters have engaged in long and sometimes heated exchanges with other Christians of the type you describe.

> 284

I am pretty much aware of all that you say - and so you are right - there are indeed more takes on "religion" and what it really means amongst the earth's billions than one person can comfortably innumerate.

My criticism of religion do seem overbroad to many but in fact my focus is narrow. I.e., I think my criticism generally revolves around the concept of ultimate and meaningful dualism (of both matter/spirit and god/human). Some people obviously can handle such dualistic dogma and thus no harm, no foul - they have found a way of living good lives, following the golden rule, or even being aggressively altruistic and so forth.

I do criticize the basic logic. But mainly I criticize those who DO NOT work out a system that actually adds to the sum total of rational and golden rule living but instead actually do evil and then claim, yeah, god told them to act and think such a way and it is not their ultimate decision, they are just following orders, and if god says do it then it must be good by definition, etc., etc.

So, then, primitive thinking associated with western monotheism is the focus of my severe criticism.

As to mysticism - of the eastern type - basically pantheistic - I have no criticism. How such could be used to justify evil acts is beyond me - though it does happen, I know. So Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, etc. are not on my shit list particularly.

As to mysticism - of the western type - well, if we are talking about the Meister Eckhart type, then I have no criticism. Such mindsets are still too much of a ego-centric nature, but if they are happy, and no harm, no foul, then no problem. Those who claim mystic experience - revelations and such - e.g., Joan of Arc - well, maybe there is a problem there. LOL. (god told her to kill people, basically. Not good in my personal opinion.)

>287 JGL53:

Thanks, JGL. Understood. I would add that there are also Christian strands which question the dualistic model which is, admittedly, quite widespread within Christianity. Rohr has been writing about it a bit in his daily meditations recently.

> 288

Of course there are minority reports in every religious or secular tradition or philosophy on earth. The mystic one within Christianity is certainly there but I don't think it proffers any danger to the body politic, not so much because of its benign nature, but because it is not of cultural consequence - i.e., I think the vast majority of Christians - in raw numbers - are not even aware of any mystic tradition. And when most of them do become aware they dismiss it as New Age gobbledygook at best or as satanic-inspired heresy at worse.

Your average atheist may unthinkingly dismiss the Christian mystic tradition as useless as teats on a bull, or as trying to have it both ways, or as dishonest atheism disguised using religious language, or just a psychological game - but their rude assessment is hardly worse than how most Christians see mysticism, assuming they even know it exists.

My view is that Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu and other type mystics are vastly outnumbered by publically-admitted atheists these days - who is turn are vastly outnumbered by the orthodox, literalism-oriented, dogmatic, creedal religious.

You may disagree. OK. I don't know if the issue could be settled by data gathered and analyzed in extant various studies. Probably not.

------

Anyways, I checked Richard Rohr books on amazon and read several descriptions and a few reader reviews.

Most individual reviews are quite positive. He seems to have a good following. But I always check the few dissenters reviews too.

On the book below there is a two star review by a timothy wooley - who identifies himself as an atheist. What do you think of his criticism. Is it fair?

https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Diamond-Search-True-Self/dp/1118303598/ref=cm_cr...

>289 JGL53: Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu and other type mystics are vastly outnumbered by publically-admitted atheists these days - who is turn are vastly outnumbered by the orthodox, literalism-oriented, dogmatic, creedal religious

No argument with that, although many of the mystically-inclined still situate themselves within a credal narrative.

a two star review by a timothy wooley - who identifies himself as an atheist. What do you think of his criticism. Is it fair?

Fair, certainly. But I don't necessarily agree with it all. Saying Rohr "was simply teaching Buddhism using the Bible", "The idea that most religions see the world in some universal way" and "Even an atheist like myself can agree with that" does not necessarily mean that what is being taught is false, although as the reviewer says, neither is it evidence of it being correct. But he seems to be obsessed with proving things, whereas to me the questions asked and answered by religious thought are not questions where there is a provable right or wrong answer.

An anecdote about Christianity and Buddhism. Twenty-odd years ago I was hanging around a Christian monastery in the USA where some inter-faith dialogue was going on with Buddhist monks from the Dalai Lama's monastery. The monks said that when they talked theology (intellectual stuff) they differed on most things; when they talked about their experiences in contemplation and meditation, they were in agreement. So it's not a question of "teaching Buddhism using the Bible", but rather of two faith traditions coming to the same point via different paths - just as some atheists have also discovered meditation and contemplation through their own paths.

> 290

(long post - sorry)

Yes - the time-honored analogy of each cultural tradition and every person within each taking his or her individual path (assuming paths of honest faith or understanding) but all paths eventually lead to the top of the mountain - the goal of Oneness with whatever - that is a beautiful dream - and certainly a desired alternative to the various opposing eternal win/lose nightmares of warped people and societies.

The methodology of an open-ended approach which seeks truth but never pronounced that the search has ended at some Omega point - yes, all thinking people would agree that is preferable. The common failing of dogmatic secular creeds and dogmatic religious creeds is the pompous dogmatism, surely.

----

On the subject of Christianity compared to Buddhism - I relate to the later - always having felt something was wrong somewhere with the religion of my formative years (protestant Christianity). And in researching other Christian traditions I determined the problem was not unique to protestantism.

It is a matter of an ultimate identity rather than some ultimate relationship. In the former I see and have found acquiescence of (authentic) humbleness, while in the latter I only see a never-ending contention with one's ego. After all, Satan n'ee Lucifer had it as good as it gets - top angel in heaven - and even HE rebelled - in heaven no less. So it seems to me that only in Oneness will the "problem" of existence be sol-ved (my apologies to Inspector Clouseau of the surete).

Since we are all recommending books/authors here, on the subject of Buddhism compared to Christianity (or east vs. west) here are books that are enlightening, I think, on the subject:

1. Einstein and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings - Introduction by Wes Nisker

- Compares the conclusions of Western Physics with those of Buddhism - turns out they meet at the top of the mountain, lol.

2. Zen and the Birds of Appetite - Thomas Merton

- The last chapter "A Dialogue: D.T. Suzuki and Thomas Merton" pretty much lays out your ultimate choice (I go with Suzuki - it just seems both intuitively and rationally right.)

3. The Buddhist Writings of Lafcadio Hearn - Introduction by Kenneth Rexroth

- Good chapter on Nirvana and reincarnation - what they really seem to mean.

Also, I have lost the reference but in one of W. Somerset Maugham's books - a non-fiction writing - he has the best explanation of eastern religious thought I have ever read, by a westerner for sure, perhaps even compared to any actual eastern theologian.

>292 John5918: The common failing of dogmatic secular creeds and dogmatic religious creeds is the pompous dogmatism, surely

Well, yes. But many who still find a home within one of these religious creeds have moved beyond the pompous dogmatism.

It is a matter of an ultimate identity rather than some ultimate relationship. In the former I see and have found acquiescence of (authentic) humbleness, while in the latter I only see a never-ending contention with one's ego

Ego is another of the things that Rohr has been addressing recently in some of his daily meditations. I've just ordered his new book, The Divine Dance.

On January 18, 2018 HHS Office of Civil Rights Announced New Conscience and Religious Freedom Division: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2018/01/18/hhs-ocr-announces-new-conscience-and-r...

On Jan 19, HHS Takes Major Actions to Protect Conscience Rights and Life
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2018/01/19/hhs-takes-major-actions-protect-consci...

________________________________________
Could vaccines and new treatments based on fetal cell lines be denied, I wonder?

New Law Gives Nurses And Healthcare Workers Religious Protections - Medicaid Changes
Angelina Gibson | Jan 22, 2107

...The Trump policy reverses the Obama-era policies, many of which were enforced mainly to protect LGBTQ people and women...

...“HHS’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is issuing new guidance to state Medicaid directors restoring state flexibility to decide program standards. The letter issued today rescinds 2016 guidance that specifically restricted states’ ability to take certain actions against family-planning providers that offer abortion services.”

...“HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is announcing a new proposed rule to enforce 25 existing statutory conscience protections for Americans involved in HHS-funded programs, which protect people from being coerced into participating in activities that violate their consciences, such as abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide.”

https://nurse.org/articles/trump-gives-healthcare-worker-religious-protection/

________________________________________

Could a same-sex partner be denied family status?

Trump to overhaul HHS office, shield health workers with moral objections
DAN DIAMOND and JENNIFER HABERKORN | 01/16&17/2018

...That's alarmed advocates for LGBT patients, who say they're already fighting to overcome stigmas and discrimination and who warn that the policy shift will only worsen their situation...

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/16/conscience-abortion-transgender-patien...

________________________________________

Discussion (podcast and online comments):

Wednesday, Jan 24 2018 • 10 a.m. (ET)
Health And Holy Services?

Should evangelicals get to evangelize through healthcare?

The newly created Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights handles conflicts between health and faith. For instance, if a doctor doesn’t want to perform an abortion because of a religious objection, they can go to the new division.

The HHS says this move will “restore federal enforcement of our nation’s laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom.” But critics say it will legalize discrimination, and is an example of church infringing on state.

When it comes to our health, who and what should we protect?

Guests

Emmarie Huetteman Correspondent, Kaiser Health News; @emmariedc
Robin Fretwell Wilson Director, Epstein Health Law and Policy Program, Illinois College of Law
Sara Hutchinson Ratcliffe Vice President, Catholics for Choice; @catholic4choice
Ashley McGuire Senior fellow, The Catholic Association

https://the1a.org/shows/2018-01-24/health-and-holy-services

>293 margd: Evidently, according to the new HHS "Freedom of Conscience Division", Registered Nurse Marilyn Fayre Milos would now be protected from being summarily dismissed from her nursing job in a California hospital, after she attempted to educate new parents about the practice of Routine Male Genital Mutilation, by showing them videos of children screaming in pain, and going into shock.

www.intactamerica.org/marilynmilos

Presumably the new directive also protects from dismissal and workplace discrimination every other doctor, intern, and nurse, who object to the cruelty of the ill-advised practice of Routine Male Genital Mutilation.

As far as religion is concerned, in this extraordinarily long thread devoted to examining religion "freedom", anyone who knows the "actual" history of Judaism and not merely the parts made up for effect, knows that Male Genital Mutilation might have long been a tribal practice in the Arabian Peninsula, but MGM was never a religious rite. Ever.

Only after a few Scribes inserted newly written passages into the Biblical narrative, during the Babylonian Captivity did Priests cleverly ascribed their deception to the putative life of one Abram (1996-1821 BCE) who is said to have lived over 1,200 years before their time, as though no one would ever question the origins of Genesis 17. Fortunately for history, they forgot or failed to burn all copies of Genesis 15, which was and remains the only valid Jewish Covenant. All that is lacking is s sacrificial fire pit, and a few Priests and Rabbis willing to get blood on their clothing.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qalTJzk4kO0 ... particularly beginning about 1:27+

Could a Jehovah's Witness refuse to administer a lifesaving blood transfusion, I wonder? (I've never heard of it, but there will be SOMEONE, I'm sure, in time.)

I don't think there's a religion with White Supremacist values(?) but from time to time one reads of a patient who refuses (or tries to refuse) care of an African-American nurse or doctor... Evidence of substandard care for people of color are buried in statistical reports of outcomes.

What a rabbit hole...

>295 margd: I don't think there's a religion with White Supremacist values(?)

I wish you were correct.

>296 paradoxosalpha:

The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa fitted the bill until very recently - I believe they have now publicly repented.

I wonder what happens when they start going after the entities that issue professional accreditation. If you can make it illegal to fire a doctor for denying a medical treatment on religious grounds, does it also become illegal to pull their medical license? What happens if, say, the state licensing boards adopt criteria that the medical profession itself opposes?

>295 margd:, >297 John5918:

"Creativity"

Just an obvious case.

>295 margd:

We should start investigating conscientious objectors. Probably some have racist motives too.

You mean anti-vaxxers?

>300 timspalding: conscientious objectors

Not sure what you mean by that term. In Britain it usually refers to people who refused on principle to serve in the military during times when we had forced conscription. In fact they often were investigated by the authorities, sometimes imprisoned, and discriminated against by parts of the populace caught up in war fever. I doubt whether racism had anything to do with it.

Last summer, a cousin was helping an RC hospital in Ontario develop policy on medical assistance in dying (http://www.cpso.on.ca/Policies-Publications/Policy/Medical-Assistance-in-Dying). Many meetings and discussions, as you can imagine!

Doctors who object to treatment on moral grounds must give referral: court
Paola Loriggio | January 31, 2018

...A group of five doctors and three professional organizations had launched a legal challenge against a policy issued by the province’s medical regulator, arguing it infringed on their right to freedom of religion and conscience under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The group — which includes the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies and Canadian Physicians for Life — said the requirement for a referral amounted to being forced to take part in the treatment.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, meanwhile, said its policy* aims to balance the moral beliefs of individual physicians while nonetheless ensuring access to care, particularly for vulnerable patients.

In a ruling released Wednesday, the divisional court said that though the policy does limit doctors’ religious freedom, the breach is justified. The benefits to the public outweigh the cost to doctors, who can choose to practise a specialty where such moral dilemmas will not arise, the court said.

“The goal of ensuring access to health care, in particular equitable access to health care, is pressing and substantial. The effective referral requirements of the policies are rationally connected to the goal,” Justice Herman J. Wilton-Siegel wrote on behalf of a three-member panel.

“The requirements impair the individual applicants’ right of religious freedom as little as reasonably possible in order to achieve the goal.”

What’s more, the court found, “the applicants do not have a common law right or a property right to practise medicine, much less a constitutionally protected right.”

“Those who enjoy the benefits of a licence to practise a regulated profession must expect to be subject to regulatory requirements that focus on the public interest, rather than the interests of the professionals themselves,” Wilton-Siegel wrote....

http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/doctors-who-object-to-treat...

__________________________________________________________________

*Professional Obligations and Human Rights: Prithi Yelaja P: 416-967-2600, extension 402
http://www.cpso.on.ca/Policies-Publications/Policy/Professional-Obligations-and-...

__________________________________________________________________

College Council approves new policy that safeguards human rights and puts patients first
Mar 06, 2015

The Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO)...approved...polic(y) to better protect patients and improve their access to health care.

The Professional Obligations and Human Rights policy replaces its predecessor, which was entitled Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code. The former policy was reviewed in accordance with the College’s regular policy review cycle and underwent two extensive consultations.

The revised policy sets out physicians’ existing legal obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code, and the College’s expectation that physicians will respect the fundamental rights of those who seek their medical services. The policy also sets out the College’s expectations for physicians who limit the health services they provide due to their personal values and beliefs.

A key feature of the revised policy is that it requires physicians to provide their patients with an effective referral to another health-care provider for those services the physician chooses not to provide for reasons of conscience or religion.

An effective referral means a referral that is made in good faith with a view to supporting, not frustrating or impeding, access to care.

"The referral requirement strikes an appropriate balance between patient and physician rights; reflects the expectations of the Ontario public,” said CPSO President Dr. Carol Leet.

“The policy protects patient rights by ensuring that patients are not prevented from accessing care that is clinically indicated and legally available because a physician objects to that care on moral or religious grounds, while also respecting physicians’ right to freedom of conscience and religion.”

During the consultation, we received more than 16,000 responses, including from the Ontario Human Rights Commissioner who said it effectively strives to balance the rights of both patients and physicians...

http://www.cpso.on.ca/Whatsnew/News-Releases/2015/College-Council-approves-new-p...

>302 John5918:

Yes, the US has laws, and, since the Founding, has usually had laws, allowing people to refuse military service on the grounds of conscience. At first this was largely for religious reasons, mostly for Quakers, a considerable minority in Pennsylvania, especially. In the 1970s the Supreme Court ruled that non-religious conscience objections are equally protected. Thus it is well established that citizens may refuse a perfectly valid and legal order to serve in the military based on their conscience.

I don't think any substantial body of opinion--left or right--disagrees with this. We don't call it a rabbit hole. We don't darkly insinuate that it's a slippery slope to racism. (And you can be sure that some past conscientious objectors had bigoted motives—"I refuse to help Jews kill Aryans," or whatever.) We don't tear our hair out that, unless absolutely ever eligible person shoots a gun when directed to, the nation's military and its laws will fall apart. And so forth.

With abortion and euthanasia, however, suddenly we roll it all out. Seems a bit inconsistent to me. And if we're really going to deny a right of basic conscience when it comes to suctioning out fetuses and poisoning grandma, I don't see why we should continue to defend it for military service.

>304 timspalding: a conscientious objector who declines to fight is exercising control over his or her own body. A doctor who declines to treat a patient on moral grounds is exercising control over his or her patient's body.

>304 timspalding: I haven't thought a great deal about this, but one difference that leaps out is that conscientious objectors are objecting to mandatory service whereas no one is forcing anyone to become a doctor. Also, once you've joined the military we don't allow someone to just shoot the black people in the opposing army.

The military service in question was REQUIRED.
Healthcare workers "can choose to practise a specialty where such moral dilemmas will not arise". (Cdn court)

A local RC hospital must have spent a million dollars (or more!) to save a young relative's pregnancy after her water broke very early in the pregnancy. I counted 14 healthcare workers in the room when she finally delivered. Commendable: the boy is doing fine ten years later. But, under bishops' direction, the hospital's emergency department could not "suction out a fetus" even to save the life of a hemorrhaging patient suffering miscarriage, until the heartbeat of the doomed fetus stopped. Outrageous!

Another relative, an otherwise warm and capable woman, should never be a nurse, as short of a raging epidemic she would NEVER administer a vaccine--and she would happily join whatever religion protected her, if her 'conscientious objections' not otherwise honored. So, yes, a rabbit hole!

>306 jjwilson61: once you've joined the military we don't allow someone to just shoot the black people in the opposing army

Eh, given the nature of "the opposing army" these days, that's a little less apparent than I'd like it to be.

a conscientious objector who declines to fight is exercising control over his or her own body. A doctor who declines to treat a patient on moral grounds is exercising control over his or her patient's body.

This is Orwellian. When the state requires someone to perform complex medical procedures, no body is being controlled, but when someone refuses to give someone an abortion, they're controlling someone's body?

It seems to me the right to an abortion is like other rights: it's the right to provide it and to receive it, not to compel others to give it to you. Shall we not only allow, but require publishers to publish books they don't like now too? Shall we not only allow everyone to have a lawyer, and have the state pay for it to if you can't afford it, but actually require every lawyer to take cases against their will? Or are abortion rights literally the tip-top, special right?

Healthcare workers "can choose to practise a specialty where such moral dilemmas will not arise". (Cdn court)

You sure? If there's some emergency, doesn't southernbooklady's logic stand.

I don't think a dermatologist is trained to perform an abortion? A psychiatrist? A podiatrist?

>310 margd:

Medical school involves rotations. Surely, by SBL's logic, a medical student should be required to assist in an abortions during an OBGYN or ER rotation.

I don't see why someone can't become an OBGYN who doesn't perform abortions. If you want an abortion, go to someone else. Obviously this isn't a capricious right. You can't suddenly decide your practice doesn't include abortions while in the middle of one. But is everything allowed now compulsory?

>311 timspalding: I don't see why someone can't become an OBGYN who doesn't perform abortions

A person wouldn't become a soldier and then insist they'll fire a rifle, but not a rocket launcher. If the requirements of the job include firing rocket launchers they'd have to do it. Or, choose a different career path.

If the standard for medical health care includes abortion services -- or, as has come up in other cases, dispensing contraceptives, fertility treatments or prenatal care for homosexual couples, etc, etc -- then if your moral code doesn't allow you to treat those people according to the standards set by the profession, then you should choose a different career path.

A person wouldn't become a soldier and then insist they'll fire a rifle, but not a rocket launcher. If the requirements of the job include firing rocket launchers they'd have to do it. Or, choose a different career path.

I'm sure there are many plastic surgeons who do fat, and chins and whatever, but don't do noses. OBGYN is a large field. I'm sure there are many abortion doctors who don't also deliver babies. (For starters, if you deliver babies, your instance is going to want to know, because the rates are much higher!) All the other services OBGYN's performed existed before abortion was even legal. It's hard for me to understand how you can imagine abortion to be an essential part of it.

Incidentally, whatever your private views about how things should be, US law is very clear and has been clear since Roe: Neither doctors nor hospitals can be compelled to provide abortions. Period. This idea is now called "controversial" by some. But, as the Federalist put it:

That provision passed 372-1 in the House and 92-1 in the Senate. Noted right-winger Sen. Ted Kennedy spoke in favor of the law on the floor of the Senate, calling it necessary "to give full protection to the religious freedom of physicians and others."

A Democrat-controlled Congress added additional “so-called conscience protections” to the Church Amendment for these.

(see http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/18/no-politico-conscience-protections-neither-c...

>313 timspalding: It's hard for me to understand how you can imagine abortion to be an essential part of it.


Until a woman has complete control over when and how she gets pregnant, abortion services are an essential part of her reproductive health services. It's her body.

>314 southernbooklady:

Okay. But why does the right to an abortion require others to provide it against their will?

Compare other rights. The right to free speech allows you to talk, listen read and write what you want. So too, publishers are allowed to publish what they want, speakers to say what they want. These rights are surely an essential part of the larger right, and your educational and intellectual life. Fair enough.

Here, however, you're going beyond your rights, to destroying others'. You are, in effect, requiring publishers to publish against their will, and demanding speakers parrot the official message—and calling it your rights. That's not rights, it's tyranny.

How does that compare against a restaurant owner's right to not feed black patrons? Are doctors more like publishers or restaurateurs? Or is it in the nature of the service? Is access to health care and food more important than speech?

How does that compare against a restaurant owner's right to not feed black patrons?

It's not discrimination. Abortion is not a service they're providing to anyone. They're not providing it because they think it is morally wrong, not because they hate any class of people.

That this slide even occurs to you is enough of a demonstration that people have lost their goddamn minds. What right can withstand this sort of twisted logic?

Are doctors more like publishers or restaurateurs?

"I do not see broiled fetus on your menu. It's the law."

>315 timspalding: Okay. But why does the right to an abortion require others to provide it against their will?


This is exactly the issue under debate. When does one person's right get prioritized over another's? This is our conscience after all. Our inherent sense of self that is being assessed here.

Why does the doctor's right have priority over their patient's? When does a doctor's rights have priority over their patient's rights? What do you do when the doctor's religion dictates one answer, but the medical profession dictate's another?

And since this entire debate about "conscience" is being framed in terms of religious rights -- what about county clerks and justices of the peace that refused to perform same-sex marriages once they were adopted as the law of the land? Do we hustle them out of the room and have back up officials for gay people? Or do we say those clerks are no longer doing their jobs?

ETA: >317 timspalding: It's not discrimination. Abortion is not a service they're providing to anyone. They're not providing it because they think it is morally wrong, not because they hate any class of people.


It is an example of the discriminatory nature of health care policy vis a vis women. It is a system that consistently narrows a woman's options and resources, and pressures her into the role of motherhood, whether she wants it or not.

OB-GYNs resident at Catholic hospitals are not(?) trained in abortion. Never mind elective abortions, they cannot perform a lifesaving abortion even if they need to. Not acceptable. Get another specialty. They are NOT OB-GYNs, IMO!

This is exactly the issue under debate. When does one person's right get prioritized over another's? This is our conscience after all. Our inherent sense of self that is being assessed here.

Why does the doctor's right have priority over their patient's? When does a doctor's rights have priority over their patient's rights? What do you do when the doctor's religion dictates one answer

Your right to do something is your right to do it. It's not your right to force me to do it for you.

Now, taxes? Sure. So, if there aren't enough abortion centers, tax people and set up government abortion centers. Go for it. But don't require non-government doctors to do it.

but the medical profession dictate's another?

Oh good. Let's see what the American Medical Association's policy is, shall we?

"Neither physician, hospital, nor hospital personnel shall be required to perform any act violative of personally held moral principles. In these circumstances, good medical practice requires only that the professional withdraw from the case, so long as the withdrawing is consistent with good medical practice.” American Medical Association House of Delegates.

— Policy statement 5.995: abortion. Chicago: AMA; 1997.

Are we done?

And since this entire debate about "conscience" is being framed in terms of religious rights

On the contrary, it's about rights generally. There are many non-religious people who don't wan to perform abortions. You ignore this because you want a specifically religious villain. If I weren't so broad minded, I might have other words for that.

what about county clerks and justices of the peace that refused to perform same-sex marriages once they were adopted as the law of the land?

They are agents of the state. They aren't private citizens. I would expect border police to obey the law too, even if they disagreed with it—rounding up poor Mexicans who just want to live and work, for example. Don't want to round up people? I agree with you! But you should quit.

No, the comparandum is a law requiring ordinary citizens be required to round up Mexicans. Would you do that? With your conflation of state of individual, on what grounds could you possibly refuse?

It is an example of the discriminatory nature of health care policy vis a vis women. It is a system that consistently narrows a woman's options and resources, and pressures her into the role of motherhood, whether she wants it or not.

It is suggested that OGBYN's who don't believe in abortion should find some other specialty or leave the profession. This, after having spent six or seven years in training, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you don't want to have to do abortions, don't become a doctor.

Okay. Fine. So, might it be suggested that, if you don't want to be a mother, don't have sex, use more certain birth control, or have your abortion in one of the literally 88% of hospitals and 100% of abortion centers that aren't Catholic?

>320 timspalding: So, might it be suggested that, if you don't want to be a mother, don't have sex, use more certain birth control, or have your abortion in one of the 88% of hospitals and 100% of abortion centers that aren't Catholic?

"Don't get pregnant" is a typical, but useless response that -- as per usual -- places all the blame and all the consequences on the woman. It's about as useful a piece of advice as "don't have sex." And since she bears all the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, I think the woman gets 100% of the say on whether or not she should carry that pregnancy to term.

If you are that woman in the state of North Carolina finding one of those "non Catholic clinics" might be a little difficult. According to the Guttmacher Institute in 2014 there were 1671 facilities in the United States that provided abortion services. 90% of US Counties had no clinics that provided abortions. In North Carolina, apparently more than half the women of reproductive age live in a county without a clinic that performs abortion services.

https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion-north-carolina?...

As for the complaint that I'm somehow making this a religious issue, I'm just going by the headlines:

US government to shield health workers under 'religious freedom'

The fact of the matter is, if a woman wants to be sexually active then pregnancy is a risk she constantly negotiates. Her ability to get pregnant is a fact of life (pun intended) that has to inform the plans she has made for her life. If she wants the freedom to determine her own life, then she needs control over when and whether she gets pregnant. That means access to contraception (no brainer, but nevertheless the original subject of this very topic). It means adopting social values that recognize women are human beings before they are potential mothers, that no means no, and that prioritizes consent in sexual encounters. It means access to realistic options if a woman finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy. Abortion is one of those options. And I've said this before, but until we live in a society where the reasons women don't want a pregnancy are addressed and solved -- so that the only reason she might have an abortion is dire medical necessity -- abortion services remain a necessary part of her reproductive health care.

"Don't get pregnant" is a typical, but useless response that

No, I said, don't have sex, don't get pregnant or go to one of the 88% of hospitals and 100% of abortion centers that aren't Catholic.

I'll explain it to you. I pointedly started out like I was making some sort of moral case. But that was a fake--the point was that you could get an abortion elsewhere—indeed almost anywhere.

That a tiny percent of health-care workers refuse to provide abortions is not preventing you from getting an abortion. It's a tiny concession to the tender consciences of your fellow citizens. It's a short trip to one doctor, not another, after due referral, to avoid coercing the first doctor to perform something he or she believes in good conscience to be literally murder. To refuse that is, I think, a telling sign of a lack of respect for others' beliefs, inmost identity and selfhood.

I'll be more direct: If you believe people's identity, moral choices and consent should be respected and cherished, don't coerce other people to violate their identity, consciences and volition.

And since she bears all the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, I think the woman gets 100% of the say on whether or not she should carry that pregnancy to term.

Great. You get to get an abortion. You don't get to stop random people in the street and demand they perform an abortion on you. And you don't get to demand that the very small percent of hospitals and doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion perform one anyway. Embrace choice, not coercion.

I'm just going by the headlines

If you read the law, it's general, just as the right of conscience not to kill in wartime is general. If you read the article, you'd notice it was to enforce existing law. Laws shielding hospitals and health care workers from being forced to perform abortions have been around from the very year of Roe, up to now.

If you are that woman in the state of North Carolina finding one of those "non Catholic clinics" might be a little difficult. According to the Guttmacher Institute in 2014 there were 1671 facilities in the United States that provided abortion services. 90% of US Counties had no clinics that provided abortions. In North Carolina, apparently more than half the women of reproductive age live in a county without a clinic that performs abortion services.

North Carolina has literally no Catholic hospitals. Not one. Zero. (See https://www.ncronline.org/news/catholic-hospitals-serve-one-six-patients-united-... In general, the South may be anti-abortion, but it's low on Catholic hospitals, because, until the recent rise of Mexican immigration, it was low on Catholics in general.

To the larger point, indeed, abortion is easier or harder to get, depending on whether you live in a big city or a rural area. And local mores and sometimes laws can make it harder.

If you were campaigning to fix that, that would be one thing. I wholeheartedly despite the various nuisance laws that states throw up--requiring hospital-sized hallways, etc. If you were advocating for more abortion centers, or even more public funding, that too would be another thing. If abortion is going to be legal, and even tax supported, it should be accessible too.

But you can have a policy goal without attempting to coerce people to violate their deeply held beliefs. We can have an army without forcing everyone to carry a gun. We can have safe and legal abortion without coercing every doctor to perform them.

you don't get to stop random people in the street and demand they perform an abortion on you.

The history of women being forced to find abortion services from "random people on the street" is pretty ugly.

Embrace choice, not coercion.

I'm a pacifist, so I made a choice not to follow a career in law enforcement or the military. I avoided careers that would require me to fire guns at people.

The problem here isn't that women are forcing all these unwilling doctors to perform abortions on them. It's that these doctors are suddenly faced with a conflict between their personal beliefs and the ethics of their chosen profession. Nor is this conflict limited to matters of abortion.

But it is the patient that ends up at risk from this conflict. And as for all of this simply being the enforcement of existing law, I'm profoundly skeptical. Abortion is a nice juicy polarizing issue that allows politicians to whip up their base with little to no effort or cost. And contrary to what is implied about all these supposed attacks on religious freedom for the hapless doctors, the "coercion" over the last few years has largely been directed against the women with the unwanted pregnancies. They are the ones under legislative attack.

But my position still stands: you want women to reject abortion? Tackle the issues that drive them to need one in the first place.

(Updated with final paragraph, above.)

>321 southernbooklady: and >323 southernbooklady:

And I've said this before, but until we live in a society where the reasons women don't want a pregnancy are addressed and solved -- so that the only reason she might have an abortion is dire medical necessity -- abortion services remain a necessary part of her reproductive health care. and But my position still stands: you want women to reject abortion? Tackle the issues that drive them to need one in the first place.

I think this is a very depolarising sentiment which, in a less irrationally emotionally culture-war identity-politics charged discussion, could lead to a narrowing of the gap between opposing views. Nobody is pressurised to accept that abortion is a good thing, and most people could agree that it would be better if there were no abortions (except in very limited medical cases), because there would no longer be a need for them. But in the meantime, it is an unavoidable necessity.

But I think it is mirrored throughout society in the difference between those who emphasise dealing with root causes and those who tend to deal with symptons. I expect I'm sticking my head up above a parapet if I suggest that the latter are often conservatives and the former progressives. It's very clear in the field of humanitarian aid - the old adage that if you give a person a fish they have food for today but if you give them the resources to catch fish for themselves they can eat every day has a lot of truth in it. But there will always be a push-back - as Dom Helder Camara said, "When I give food to the poor, people call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, people call me a communist". I think too little of the anti-abortion debate has focused on why women have abortions, and on putting resources into addressing those reasons.

Or have I missed your point, Nicki?

But my position still stands: you want women to reject abortion? Tackle the issues that drive them to need one in the first place.

Honestly, without any evidence, you're imagining me to be an anti-abortion extremist. I'm really not. I'm pretty wiggly on it. In the end, however, I can't see Roe v. Wade ever being overturned, and if it were, we'd see abortion legal in most states. We'd have 95% of the abortions we have now—people would just cross state lines to do it. Some would take dangerous abortifacients or resort to even more dangerous surgeries. I don't see any sort of good solution here. I see a horrible and vicious mess, and probably just as many abortions.

No, I'm being consistent. I hate coercion and the deliberate attack on people's fundamental identity and selfhood. And I think it's outright hypocritical to speak of consent and respect for others and insist on coercion and the violation of conscience. You are doing exactly what your enemies do.

To your proposal—"Tackle the issues that drive them to need one in the first place"—I agree with it. Contraception should be legal and accessible, and health care plans should cover it. (I don't think they should be forced to cover it, but I'm on record saying the state should step in and pay for it.) And, most of all, government policy and private initiative should align and conspire to help women forced into abortion by poverty and despair.

There are lessons here for both sides.

"Conservatives" should ensure that poor women have better options, if they care for the unborn. In such a world, conservatives would hold their nose and increase aid for young, poor women and their families.

"Liberals" should wake up to the fact that abortion is a forced choice for many, and be at least as interested in helping women keep their babies as they are in helping them eliminate them. In such a world, you could tell your Planned Parenthood doctor you want to keep the baby, and they'd connect you with a Planned Parenthood house, funded by Planned Parenthood, because they cared about supporting women's legitimate choices, not merely access to abortion.

We don't live in either world. It be nice to think you an ally in reaching that world. But, again, you stand for coercion and the elimination of individual consciences.

>326 timspalding: the deliberate attack on people's fundamental identity and selfhood

Tim, I think that is hyperbole. It's not a deliberate attack, it is an attempt to negotiate the boundaries of what you are expected to deliver if you choose a particular profession, and to balance rights which appear contradictory. Nobody sat down and deliberately decided to attack doctors' fundamental identity and selfhood.

If I were a vegan or vegetarian who opposes cruelty to animals I would not accept a job in an abattoir. If I were a pacifist I would not join the army, even when the state tries to forcibly conscript me with threats of long imprisonment. If I wanted to be a doctor but absolutely opposed abortion I would probably choose to be a GP, a neurosurgeon, an ENT specialist or one of many other fields which would never bring me into contact with abortion. There is still plenty of opportunity for people to express their fundamental identity and selfhood.

>326 timspalding: We don't live in either world

Which is precisely why this conversation needs to be depolarised so that opposing views can come closer together and we can see that there is actually some common ground.

Nobody sat down and deliberately decided to attack doctors' fundamental identity and selfhood.

We've had these laws since 1973—weeks after Roe v. Wade. As noted, they passed with only one no vote in the House and Senate. They were supported by both parties and by all the medical associations. They have been reaffirmed legislatively over and over. They are basic to our societal compact post Roe.

Now, some extremists have decided that this compact is not good enough. The tiny percent of doctors who take advantage of these long-running, popular and sensible legal protections must be forced to perform abortions. And every time the topic is mentioned, the doctors are tagged with religion—something the law takes no notice of and which doesn't apply to all who refuse. It stinks.

This isn't negotiating a boundary. The boundary was negotiated, with overwhelming societal consensus, forged 45 years ago and re-upped every 10-20 years. It's whipping up your friends against a hated other.

>329 timspalding: It's whipping up your friends against a hated other.

Sounds to me like both sides are doing the same thing. I rarely see moderate language, language which respects the other point of view and invites strengthening of the social contract to which you refer, even, with all due respect, in what you write. Nicki's recent posts seem to me to be an exception to that trend.

>325 John5918: When you have a debate that is framed around the position "abortion is/is not murder" then the only way forward is to side step the question altogether. Create a society where abortion is not needed.

The only way to do that, though, is to ensure women have control over their sexual lives, and thus that pregnancy is their choice, not fate they must constantly try to avoid. It would be a completely alien society to what we have now, though.

>326 timspalding: Honestly, without any evidence, you're imagining me to be an anti-abortion extremist.

Actually, I don't. I know from our many past conversations that you are nothing of the sort. We don't agree on methods and where regulation vs personal choice begins and ends, but on social issues we often align. So the "you" in my statement was meant to be generic, not personal. Sorry for implying otherwise.

But this country? I think the USA is in the grips of right-wing extremism. I think politicians pander to it and exploit the issue to score political points. And I know that women are suffering for it.

In such a world, you could tell your Planned Parenthood doctor you want to keep the baby, and they'd connect you with a Planned Parenthood house, funded by Planned Parenthood, because they cared about supporting women's legitimate choices, not merely access to abortion

In such a world, our social values would dictate that men share the consequences of the pregnancy with women. More to the point, that they would want to share those consequences, because sex would not be about exercising power, or objectification, or having free reign to show off their supposed virility (I'm looking at you, Mr. President). Planned Parenthood -- which I know you know does not "merely" give women access to abortion services but in fact performs a great many very much needed services at low cost -- Planned Parenthood would not need to exist in such a society.

But once again that would require acknowledging that women have the right to self-determination. I think they do. Even when they are pregnant.

>326 timspalding: ... funded by Planned Parenthood, because they cared about supporting women's legitimate choices, not merely access to abortion.

Do you really think that PP cares about "merely access to abortion"? I guess you've swallowed some powerful anti-PP propaganda there.

>331 southernbooklady: The only way to do that, though, is to ensure women have control over their sexual lives, and thus that pregnancy is their choice, not fate they must constantly try to avoid.

Well, there's that, and/or technology for pre-natal adoption. I often think the latter is more likely, though the former is more desirable.

Agreeing with johnthefireman, I feel that this sort of abstract, highly polarized debate is unlikely to be useful.

Against the abstraction, I advance the practical matter of access to medical care, of which abortion is only one procedure of a great many. In a remote community or a thinly populated region, I think medical practitioners of all sorts have an obligation to provide the best and most current care available that comes within their licence — whether that be abortion, vaccination, medically-assisted end-of-life medicine, and many others.

>307 margd: And that a bishop comes to have any say whatever about the operation of the ER in a publicly-funded hospital is monstrous and utterly unacceptable.

Do you really think that PP cares about "merely access to abortion"? I guess you've swallowed some powerful anti-PP propaganda there.

No, not merely. But it is the central animating idea of the pro-choice movement. They fail to realize that, in either direction, the choice is hardly without coercion.

Some day I hope to see a March for Life speech that lays bare the many ways that conservatives undermine the choice to have a baby, and thereby send many to the abortions they say they hate. On the reverse side, I hope to see a Pro-Choice leader who calls for women who care about reproductive freedom to be take pregnant mothers into their homes, as the Pro-Life people do. People abort all the time who would not, if they had a support system and the assurance they wouldn't fall into the abyss. That too ought to be a pro-choice concern.

timspalding: I don't see why someone can't become an OBGYN who doesn't perform abortions

SBL: A person wouldn't become a soldier and then insist they'll fire a rifle, but not a rocket launcher. If the requirements of the job include firing rocket launchers they'd have to do it. Or, choose a different career path.

Only 14% of OBGYN's perform abortions. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/08/22/139859979/proportion-of-ob-...

Now, I can understand if you want more OBGYNs to do it. With enough money and training, those rural parts of North Carolina could have an abortion clinic. But can you concentrate on the vast majority who are willing, but don't make it part of their practice? Or is it more important to coerce the small percent who decline on moral grounds to do it or leave? Excuse me, but that reeks of score settling and heresy hunting, not just a concern for women's choices. Could you not at least respect consciences when it doesn't matter to the outcome?

Against the abstraction, I advance the practical matter of access to medical care, of which abortion is only one procedure of a great many. In a remote community or a thinly populated region, I think medical practitioners of all sorts have an obligation to provide the best and most current care available that comes within their licence — whether that be abortion, vaccination, medically-assisted end-of-life medicine, and many others.

Within living memory the medical profession considered sterilization of the mentally disabled to be not only licit but a core tenet of progressive policy, supported by all right-thinking people. Involuntary sterilization was also extended to the insane, criminals, drunks, those with other disabilities, "paupers," "perverts" and other social undesirables, especially minorities, although not usually officially so. Sterilizations were carried out by doctors, and very much urged by the medical associations. Research was supportive too: Vasectomies made prisoners sleep better, and masturbate less!

What else? Well, kobotomies to be very much the standard of care for people with all sorts of problems, including run-of-the-mill depression, as was absolute and irrevocable institutionalization. Electroshock and many other cruel treatments were used to cure homosexuals, which was considered a mental disease in the US until 1973, and was only removed from the WHO's list in 1992. Up to 1972 top university researchers saw nothing wrong with enrolling black people with syphilis in a study, without informing them of their methods, and then withholding all treatment. As recently as 2010, California prisons were cajoling and coercing women to be sterilized ( see https://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/07/08/chilling-nod-eugenics-doctors-illeg... ).

All of these were the "best and most current care available that comes within their license." Those that rejected them, such Catholic hospitals and doctors, who refused to take part in sterilizations, were regarded as ignorant throwbacks to a less enlightened time. Fortunately, I guess, the idea of forcing private doctors and hospitals to perform these procedures was not contemplated. A good thing, I hope you agree.

Now, I guess, we've arrived. Medicine is and will always remain good, moral and true from here on out, and anything permitted must be compulsory. All conscience objections must be squashed. Well, I sure hope you're right about medicine now.

>335 timspalding: But can you concentrate on the vast majority who are willing, but don't make it part of their practice? Or is it more important to coerce the small percent who decline on moral grounds to do it or leave?

Somehow, I think the woman in need of the abortion is not going to want to submit herself to an unwilling doctor. She deserves a doctor who respects her decision, and she deserves a health care system that allows her to make that decision. Whether or not a doctor can fulfill their duties in such a system is, of course, up to the doctor.

Incidentally, for an excellent boots-on-the-ground account of the realities of abortion from a doctor's point of view, I highly recommend this account:

What you learn from doing abortions after 20 weeks

Be forewarned, it isn't an easy piece to read.

Medicine is and will always remain good, moral and true from here on out, and anything permitted must be compulsory. All conscience objections must be squashed.

I'd be more sympathetic to this bitter piece of hyperbole if anywhere in it was the acknowledgement that all those conscience objections to abortion were on behalf of and in service to the well being and health of the patient. They aren't, though. The Right to Life position -- especially in its most extreme life-begins-at-conception incarnation -- accepts the sacrifice of the woman's well being as the acceptable consequence of its stance. Just as Pro-Choice accepts the sacrifice of the foetus as the consequence of its position. I find the pro choice stance more morally acceptable, for reasons I've stated many times on these fora. But ultimately the point is that if our health care standards include abortion as a medically justifiable and acceptable procedure, then health care professionals have to work under that system or find a way to make sure they are never put in a position of having to perform an abortion. And no, in this case I don't think it is on the health care system to accommodate their objections, because the umbrella principle that governs medical ethics is not the conscience of the doctors, it's the well being of the patient. Presumably these two things are usually in service to each other (one hopes) but where they come in conflict, I think the patient has primacy.

I'd be more sympathetic to this bitter piece of hyperbole if anywhere in it was the acknowledgement that all those conscience objections to abortion were on behalf of and in service to the well being and health of the patient.

All of the treatments I list above were argued on behalf of the patient, although, yes, some were also argued as a societal good. Vasectomies helped people sleep better and reduced depression!

But ultimately the point is that if our health care standards include abortion as a medically justifiable and acceptable procedure, then health care professionals have to work under that system or find a way to make sure they are never put in a position of having to perform an abortion.

So, would choosing to work at a Catholic hospital count?

And no, in this case I don't think it is on the health care system to accommodate their objections, because the umbrella principle that governs medical ethics is not the conscience of the doctors, it's the well being of the patient.

Again, read what the AMA wrote on the topic. The conscience of doctors is a bedrock ethical principle of the medical profession. What are you going off—the Hippocratic Oath?

Some questions:

1. What happens with euthanasia? Do all doctors have to be ready to perform euthanasia the moment it becomes legalized in a state?
2. Do you think the state should force a doctor to perform abortion when, say, the patient indicates it's because the fetus is a girl and girls are worthless?

Presumably these two things are usually in service to each other (one hopes) but where they come in conflict, I think the patient has primacy.

That's why a doctor must refer a patient.

How about this? Resolved: In situations where there are multiple doctors and places to have an abortion, and doctors are willing to provide referrals, the state may allow doctors to excuse themselves from performing abortions.

The Little Sisters et al object to submitting a government form signifying that they don't provide contraception coverage. What chance such people would provide good faith referrals that may result in abortion?

>338 margd:

The Little Sisters are a monastic order. They aren't doctors and don't run hospitals. They are covered by medical ethics the same way the guy who runs the sub shop is—not at all.

But I suppose this raises the question: Are ordinary citizens allowed to refuse to participate in abortions? If asked for directions to the abortion center, would you allow them say "I decline in good conscience to tell you"? Or should that be a crime?

>337 timspalding: How about this? Resolved: In situations where there are multiple doctors and places to have an abortion, and doctors are willing to provide referrals, the state may allow doctors to excuse themselves from performing abortions.

Once again looking at the practical side, referral works only where and when the patient can afford to travel to another doctor, that is, mostly in an urban setting.

Euthanasia, by the way, is not a treatment, in the usual meaning of the term, but at best an abandonment of treatment. And at this point I think euthanasia needs to be distinguished from medically-assisted end of life.

Your response in >335 timspalding: strikes me as using false reasoning.

Once again looking at the practical side, referral works only where and when the patient can afford to travel to another doctor, that is, mostly in an urban setting.

Right. That's why I've stipulated exactly that setting. So, again, stipulating universal, ready access, is it okay for doctors to opt out of this? Or, as I suspect, is the point rather different?

Euthanasia, by the way, is not a treatment, in the usual meaning of the term, but at best an abandonment of treatment. And at this point I think euthanasia needs to be distinguished from medically-assisted end of life.

But you realize that others here entirely disagree with you, and will insist that doctors must provide euthanasia, with no conscience exceptions. Euthanasia, including to those who aren't already dying, is the standard of care in a number of places, but notably Holland.

I gather that it's also legal in California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. That raises the question--can a physician be forbidden to invoke conscience to avoid enacting the "standard of care" when the act would be "standard" in one state, a lengthy jail sentence in another, and require all sorts of added conditions in other jurisdictions. Are doctors "just following standards," and, since they differ from place to place, it doesn't matter what the standards are, only what jurisdiction they're under? Are doctors now required to not only avoid various specialties, but also pick up house and move whenever the laws change?

Your response in >335 timspalding: timspalding: strikes me as using false reasoning.

I argued that immoral and questionable things, from which conscientious doctors and hospitals will wish to exempt themselves, exist. You think the reasoning is false. But you also aren't on board with euthanasia. Square that circle for me.

Anyway, I don't anyone living in the Age of Trump should believe that we've reached ethical nirvana, or that the standard and norms you believe in can't fall apart.

Anyway, you, @johnthefireman and southernbooklady should talk to me when genetic engineering really hits. It's coming soon, and it's going to hit exactly the same questions of agency, patient wishes, fetal rights and medical conscience. I'd like to think you'll reconsider. But maybe you'll all be baying for Catholic hospitals to be shut down because they won't let the 1% produce babies with tall, slim bodies, genius-level minds, business-ready aggression, and a programmed revulsion against homosexual acts.

>341 timspalding:

I think it has become useful, now that in my country medically-assisted suicide is a right in certain defined circumstances, to distinguish that from euthanasia in its broad sense, notwithstanding the word's etymology. The first requires, I understand, that it be instigated by the adult patient herself while legally competent and free of coercion. The second does not carry with it these restrictions and is often used in situations where the subject is incapable of consent or, indeed, non-consenting.

So, you're right, I'm not on board with euthanasia as a social policy (for brevity, I'll not go into detail), one exception being the removal of life support in carefully supervised situations. I am, however, in support of medically-assisted suicide in the form it exists here. I don't think I'm trying to square a circle.

Human genetic manipulation is another, and a different, ethical tangle. I haven't read and thought about it enough to enter into discussion. I'll observe only that I'm not enthusiastic about slippery-slope arguments, which too often boil down to "apples lead to oranges because if we eat the one we must eat the other".

Before designer babies, there will be treatments denied because they were developed on a fetal cell line. I read of one, now RC-approved, that was banned for decades in 20th c. (Can't recall details--kidneys?) Many more now in the works, for example for macular degeneration.

Interesting to read in The Vaccine Race that some widely accepted vaccines were developed on human fetal cell lines. (The advantage over, say, monkey tissue is that human fetuses are relatively free of viruses.) But according to the book, back then, at least one bishop made orphans available for clinical trials. Different times, different mores...early 20h c was an especially tough time to be orphaned, poor, black, imprisoned.

>342 librorumamans:

Okay, do you support the right of a doctor to choose not to offer euthanasia, or do you think that such people should be forced?

one exception being the removal of life support in carefully supervised situations

Yeah, I don't think the removal of most life support qualifies as euthanasia. There's a difference between killing someone and not providing them with the services that keep them artificially alive.

Interesting to read in The Vaccine Race that some widely accepted vaccines were developed on human fetal cell lines. (The advantage over, say, monkey tissue is that human fetuses are relatively free of viruses.) But according to the book, back then, at least one bishop made orphans available for clinical trials. Different times, different mores

The author of The Vaccine Race wrote the following in Time Magazine.

Plotkin grew the virus through several generations in the fetal cells, aiming to weaken it to the point that it would provoke the production of protective antibodies in vaccinees, but not cause the disease. (Adapting to lab life commonly weakens viruses.) Plotkin tested his new vaccine in toddlers at St. Vincent’s Home for Children, a Philadelphia orphanage run by the Catholic Church; he had won approval to run trials at the orphanage from the Archbishop of Philadelphia, John Joseph Krol. In approaching the staunchly anti-abortion archbishop, Plotkin chose not to mention that he had captured the virus from one aborted fetus and grown it in cells from another.

Different times, different mores indeed.

The bishop allowed the vaccines to be tested on the kids, meaning that they were exposed to the pathogen. (Against the protest of the sister who ran the orphanage in the case I'm thinking of.) Different times, different mores! ETA: There is more than one bishop in the book BTW. This guy's predecessor stood with the nun as I recall in not allowing the kids to be test subjects. Later, when ethical standards were better developed, a researcher included his own kids in a (less harsh) clinical test.

I don't recall the Church opposing any vaccine because it was developed from fetal cell lines(?)

>344 timspalding: I suspect that I see removal of life support as a form of euthanasia — not a big point of disagreement, though.

I've said what I have to contribute at present and I have more immediate things to think about, like stage managing/house managing my church's vigil service this evening for the known and as yet unknown victims of a local alleged serial killer. This situation is not abstract.

Two further thoughts before I sign off;

• If/when it becomes possible to safely rectify genetically, say, cystic fibrosis or haemophilia in utero, I expect I will say that the procedure is ethical. There are other incurable genetic conditions that doom children to short and miserable lives; in these cases I do not criticize parents who may choose to terminate a pregnancy. A genetic manipulation that obviated the consideration of an abortion would be to my mind a very much preferable option.
  
  
• I imagine and suspect that the organizations and individuals whose funding keeps the anti-abortion debate alive do so in part because that debate soaks up a lot of societal energy and thus deflects broader debate of certain pesticides and similar chemicals that are highly profitable and highly damaging.

>337 timspalding: All of the treatments I list above were argued on behalf of the patient

Isn't is fantastic how as our understanding evolves so do our ethics?

So, would choosing to work at a Catholic hospital count?

When our public health care system is as extensive and accessible as our public school system, I'll worry less about what private hospitals are doing. Provided, of course, they aren't doing anything egregiously awful like letting someone die because they don't believe in the treatment that would save them.

Again, read what the AMA wrote on the topic. The conscience of doctors is a bedrock ethical principle of the medical profession. What are you going off—the Hippocratic Oath?

The Physician's Pledge
https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-geneva/

Which apparently in November got something of a makeover by adding that the “well-being” of a patient will be a physician’s first consideration, amending a clause to state that the “health and well-being of my patient will be my first consideration.”

https://wire.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/global-physician-ethics-pledge-gets-bi...

As the medical ethicist quoted in the Reuter news article stated:

“When the director of the office of civil rights is quoted as saying that ‘No physician should have to choose between helping a sick person or following their personal conscience,’ the director is simply wrong. That choice was made the moment they became physicians,”

So ultimately, that's the question under debate here: who get's to say what is "the right thing to do"? The doctor? Or the patient?

1. What happens with euthanasia? Do all doctors have to be ready to perform euthanasia the moment it becomes legalized in a state?

I think no one should be forced to violate their conscience, so I would expect a doctor under those circumstanced to quit his/her job because they could no longer support what the system had become.

(Incidentally, my reservations about euthanasia are not founded in the supposed immorality of choosing to end one's life, but in the utter lack of confidence in the ability of our health care system to handle such a situation without exploiting the patient.)

2. Do you think the state should force a doctor to perform abortion when, say, the patient indicates it's because the fetus is a girl and girls are worthless?

Wouldn't it be better to create a society where the idea that girls are worthless would be an utterly alien concept? In such a society a pregnancy wouldn't be a problem to be managed, but a positive contribution. And if the mother was not willing put her own life on hold to become the parent, she'd have options she could turn to without shame or apology. Both child and mother would be equally valued.

That seems more desirable than a "system" of well meaning folks volunteering to take in unwed mothers. I mean really, I know the impulse is a kind one, but why aren't we outraged that such things are even needed?

>341 timspalding: But maybe you'll all be baying for Catholic hospitals to be shut down because they won't let the 1% produce babies with tall, slim bodies, genius-level minds, business-ready aggression, and a programmed revulsion against homosexual acts.

From a moral perspective, the problem with designer babies is that our concept of what is a "good" trait is simplistic and superficial. (Although one has to ask -- why program "revulsion against homosexual acts" instead of, say "revulsion against rape"?). Ultimately, isn't the only "good" trait that matters is one's free will to choose to do good, instead of evil?

From a scientific perspective, the problem with "designer babies" -- like designer food and GMO crops -- is that it reduces the strength of the gene pool. If we get to that point, then extinction is around the corner.

>304 timspalding: Yes, the US has laws, and, since the Founding, has usually had laws, allowing people to refuse military service on the grounds of conscience.

I believe this rewrites history. Looking at the usual sources, if you believed it was immoral for you to fight in the Civil War, you could pay $300 or find another body to fill your place. To quote from "Gillette v. United States" (1971) 'Congress in 1864 explicitly exempted from the federal draft persons who "are conscientiously opposed to the bearing of arms, and who are prohibited from doing so by the rules and articles of faith {of their} religious denominations."' That is, after most everyone was drafted.

In the 1970s the Supreme Court ruled that non-religious conscience objections are equally protected. Thus it is well established that citizens may refuse a perfectly valid and legal order to serve in the military based on their conscience.

The ultimate conclusion of "Gillette v. United States" (1971) is that you may not refuse a perfectly valid and legal order to serve in the military no matter what your conscience says. You may only be exempted if you don't believe war is right. If you don't believe that killing Vietnamese is right, but would be willing to stop an invasion of the US from the Soviet Union, you could be drafted into the Army during the Vietnam war. I believe that's still good law.

(And you can be sure that some past conscientious objectors had bigoted motives—"I refuse to help Jews kill Aryans," or whatever.)

Any objectors who had that motive lied to the enlistment board, because that motive would have got them shipped off to war or Levenworth. If you believe there could be a just war that wasn't explicitly commanded by God, then you can be enlisted.

Here in Michigan, where RC church vigorously supports First Amendment religious liberty rights, it apparently does not extend the same support for others' free speech and conscience, at least in Lansing diocese, where a school suspended a sixth-grader for a day because he knelt during the Pledge of Allegiance. Faced with picketing parents encouraging parishioners to "divest" by ceasing to volunteer, donate or raise money for the diocese, Lansing Bishop Boyea, after meeting with the parents, said he was

“moved” to hear how racism affects the lives of some people in the diocese and its schools. Boyea asked school administrators to “be lenient with the consequences” for students who kneel during the national anthem and pledge of allegiance, but said students should still stand to pay respect to veterans*.

...(He established a) Racial Diversity Task Force”...to make recommendations to the bishop about how Diocese of Lansing Catholic schools can better listen to and meet the needs of racial and ethnic minorities. Bishop Boyea further states, “My ultimate goal is this – that our schools and diocese will accompany people of all races and ethnicities toward God, who desires each one of us to be one with him in heaven."..."

http://michiganradio.org/post/parents-neighbors-divesting-lansing-diocese-over-c...
https://www.dioceseoflansing.org/news/diocese-lansing-form-task-force-racial-div...

_____________________________________________________________________

*Trump Picks (Another) Fight Over Kneeling During Anthem: ‘Proudly Stand’
Matt Shuham | February 4, 2018

...“Though many of our Nation’s service members are unable to be home with family and friends to enjoy this evening’s American tradition, they are always in our thoughts and prayers,” Trump said in a statement marking the NFL championship game. “We owe these heroes the greatest respect for defending our liberty and our American way of life. Their sacrifice is stitched into each star and every stripe of our Star-Spangled Banner.”

“We hold them in our hearts and thank them for our freedom as we proudly stand for the National Anthem.” ...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/04/trump-tackles-nfl-and-national-anthem...

ETA: looks like we need more room to discuss, so I will move this to a new thread.

In commenting on proposed legislation to ban abortion after five weeks, a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists listed some conditions that could become life-threatening for pregnant women before their lives are actually at risk. It's the only time I've seen such a list (though admittedly I've not checked out the College's website), so sharing it here as background on therapeutic abortion:

...Megan Christin, a spokeswoman for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Instead, (the proposed legislation) vaguely indicates doctors can only act once a woman’s life is actively in danger. In application, it leaves doctors with unclear standards, not rooted in evidence, that expose doctors to the threat of criminal and civil prosecution, limiting their options for care that is often needed in complex, urgent medical situations.”

She added that several conditions could become life-threatening for pregnant women before their lives are actually at risk, posing a conundrum for patients and doctors. Those conditions include “pulmonary hypertension, Marfan’s syndrome, severe valvular heart disease, Esienmenger’s syndrome, cyatonic heart defects, hormonally sensitive cancers, kidney disease, preterm premature rupture of membranes with sepsis, severe preeclampsia, HELLP* syndrome, and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/02/05/do-republicans-wa...
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Some of these are familiar, but some I had to look up:

pulmonary hypertension

Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects the body's connective tissue. Connective tissue holds all the body's cells, organs and tissue together. It also plays an important role in helping the body grow and develop properly... disorder that affects the skeleton, heart, blood vessels and eyes. (margd: my understanding is that at end of pregnancy hormones loosen connective tissue of pelvis, and elsewhere, e.g., the new mom may she needs larger shoes. Bet that could be a problem for women with Marfan syndrome.)

Eisenmenger syndrome, usually caused by a hole (shunt) between the main blood vessels or chambers of your heart

severe valvular heart disease

Cyanotic heart defect is a group-type of congenital heart defect (CHD) that occurs due to deoxygenated blood bypassing the lungs and entering the systemic circulation or a mixture of oxygenated and unoxygenated blood entering the systemic circulation.

hormonally sensitive cancers

kidney disease

preterm premature rupture of membranes with sepsis

severe preeclampsia

HELLP syndrome is a life-threatening liver disorder thought to be a type of severe preeclampsia. It is characterized by Hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells), Elevated Liver enzymes (which indicate liver damage), and Low PlateletP count.

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is a medical condition affecting the ovaries of some women who take fertility medication to stimulate egg growth. Most cases are mild, but rarely the condition is severe and can lead to serious illness or death.

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The College spokesperson was addressing later stage pregnancies, but earlier there may be hemorrhaging / infection due to incomplete miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, etc. If I were the mom with issues at any stage in my pregnancy, I would hope that therapeutic abortion was available at the hospital where I found myself, and that my OB-GYN was focused on me and my pregnancy, not on being second-guessed or constrained by government, activists--or bishops.