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Posted by Dissident on Saturday, May 05 2018 at 03:49:22AM
In reply to confessions posted by Eeyore on Wednesday, May 02 2018 at 06:20:58AM

If today's Catholics turned to any of the various forms of orthodoxy, I would not only understand their reasoning, but have a greater respect for them, even if I find religion too difficult to believe personally. I still value many of its its metaphorical stories and universal insights (repeated Good vs. Evil showdowns, Joseph Campbell's demonstrations of a human rulebook for getting along). It is indeed the greatest story ever told. The stuff that's meant to control people (like making people feel shame for their biological urges) ...well, not so much.

Agreed. I think many of the moral/spiritual aspects of Christianity and most religions in general are positive additions to human culture, when you put that aside from all of the many control-based aspects that emerge once religion becomes politicized and becomes a de facto government and police force. This is why, despite having essentially all the same misgivings with organized religion and a lot of the archaic tenets of the Religions of the Book that you and all the atheists on this board do, I ultimately did not viciously turn on all aspects of religion, spirituality, and anything that could be remotely connected to religion in the cultural view, and adopt an agnostic, let alone "radical" atheistic/materialistic view of the universe, as a protest to the bad aspects of religion... which, when you look at it closely, is every bit as ideological and political as religion, and resulted in the politicization of science (i.e., "scientism"), not the promotion of its value-free methodology.

I instead chose the route of separating the wheat from the chafe, adopting the positive aspects of spirituality (it asks too many important questions about the universe and the place of human beings within it to abandon it in favor of rough materialism), and choosing an alternative form of religion that does not preach, does not proselytize, is not not anti-sex, and stays out of politics (note: I duly acknowledge that ancient forms of Paganism that became politicized were every bit as bad as the three Religions of the Book--the pre-Holy Roman Empire being a stand-out example--which is why I strive hard to oppose any possible attempt to similarly politicize their modern incarnations).

The old "millstone" quote gets presented with many assumptions, but there is nothing at all about "lying down with" as is expressly written for others. God himself would be arrested today for what he supposedly did to Mary, after all.

All scripture can, of course, be interpreted pretty much any way one wants, as these tenets were written in a very different era with very different ways of looking at things, and many of them were politicized even then by the Roman Catholic Church, which at that point had pretty much become a government unto itself. Some of the scriptures are universal across time in their meanings, but others were very problematic in adapting to today's standards and way of life. There are also the several instances where The Bible contradicts itself and the too often cryptic meaning of the scriptures, with the overall nature of God (or is that "Ghod"?) differing quite a bit between the Old and New Testament (in the former, he much more resembled a deity you could find in any Pagan world mythology, save for being the "one and only" god, with the other deities in his pantheon now becoming angels and saints rather than fellow but lesser gods, and with a distinctly male-centric bias).

On labor, yes. I have mixed feelings. I think what Bolivia has done is potentially a wonderful thing, but they are also tamped down on any sort of predatory business system and letting it have political power. As you may remember (or not) I was in support of children being "allowed" to work, but not required to work. At that time, as I still do, I feared having them be targeted as a cheap labor pool, not so different than a slippery slope that led wives to working just to maintain the same family income level as the husband or one partner used to be able to provide.

Which is why the ultimate solution to that problem was not forcing women not to work and keeping them economically dependent on men, but empowering them and giving them their full civil rights, including the same rights of treatment in the workplace as any male (the recent SJW-influenced moves to give them entitlements rather than equality notwithstanding). Traditionalism must also be optional, and never legally enforced. This is why I have no personal problem with women who choose the "submissive" lifestyle and adopt a traditional lifestyle with men that includes an agreement to economic dependence, as well as men choosing the reverse type of lifestyle. However, I would be very much against the law demanding that women didn't work "for their own good." That way leads to bad things for both genders, as history has proven.

In other words, I just don't trust that kids working in our society would remain "optional" for long. The greed is nearly incomprehensible. After all, if you can fool the people into forcing both spouses to work for the same income that one used to be able to provide, then the rancid thinking also follows that you can make the entire family work in order to maintain that old level of income.

I do not want to open the can of worms that may lead to yet another off-topic debate about what type of economic system is best among a plethora of people here, so I will stick to the basics in my response, trying to focus mostly on the civil liberties aspect.

I share your concerns considering how the economic system operates. However, I would never choose the solution of literally criminalizing the right for younger people to work "for their own good" (again), i.e., the Nanny State route that is one of liberalism's great mistakes. Instead, I choose the route of politically empowering them, and giving them sufficient political power to resist attempts at exploiting them in ways that does not apply to adults in the labor force. There are also many creative and interesting ways to combine meaningful, fun paid work with their education, including some great apprenticeship opportunities. That is a tradition for younger people that is much older than the relatively recent "tradition" of simply forcing kids into dependence on adult "guardians."

With rights, however, comes responsibility, and the attempt to have the former while avoiding the latter is the very crux of the SJW movement of today. This is important to note. One thing that can be considered is a universal income for younger people who do not choose to work or are unable to for health reasons, so they are never fully economically dependent on others, and how much they are dependent is a matter of choice on their part. There would be details that have to be worked out, certainly, but I think these are better alternatives than shirking this essential aspect of youth liberation and putting a blanket ban on youth labor altogether (something, it should be noted, that all underage members of the youth liberation movement are fighting strongly against, so those adults who still promote such a ban will invariably end up knocking heads with politically active younger people in the future).


So I'm wary of it, even if I see the good parts of part-time work for youths.


Noted. Above I explained why I temper my wariness with a firm commitment to civil rights, political empowerment, and the important element of choice that is crucial to such civil liberties and empowerment, and seek ways of dealing with the problems you mentioned within that framework. Contrary to what our friends the anti-choicers often contend, you do not have to sacrifice liberties to avoid exploitation. Doing so only unleashes a whole new set of problems that reverberates down on all of society, as history has repeatedly proven, and this despite whatever genuine good intentions may be present at the onset.




Dissident






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