I presented a question to a group of technology-hip friends the other day. This group of people represented a wide range of technology interests and ideals. From the Windows-hating Slackware bigot to the artsy musicians who exclusively use OS X to the kernel programmers who prefer OS X on their desktop, a wide range of people are represented in this group, but there is one constant; a powerful belief among them that Windows is evil, Redmond is evil, and Bill Gates is evil.
Now many of these people work professionally in the Open Source world as well, and all of them have, at one time or another, professed in the beliefs of Free and Open Source Software, that monopolistic practices are bad, and generally, they express the liberal mindset that companies they deal with should not only produce good products, but should produce them fairly and ethically. I too fall into this category. I try to be a green consumer. I buy locally when I can. I drive a hybrid. I'm a vegan (or, at worst, a pescetarian when good sushi is on the offer). I am a very liberal voter. I try not to patronize businesses that I know conduct business unfairly or unethically. This explains a good deal about their (and my) feelings toward Microsoft, but even in this group, I've started to see a trend.
As I look at this article from Business Insider, I have to ask myself some questions. For instance, why do we put up with shit from Cupertino that we would freak out about if it was from Redmond? Certainly, I feel like it's getting harder to feel like one is on any kind of moral high ground when using Apple products any more, that's for sure. What's funny is that some of the people (er, maybe most) that I know who used to bitch and moan the loudest about Microsoft being a total bastard are some of the most dedicated Apple customers I know these days (myself included!). We were just less tolerant of it during the old M$ days because Windows 98 and its ilk sucked so hard as a product? I guess what I really wander is this:
Is Jobs' real genius just figuring out that we will be totally okay with being completely screwed out of every choice and consumer right, so long as companies make products that work well and put them into sleek sexy cases?
I asked some of my very anti-Microsoft friends this question and they basically responded that yes, they will happily overlook Apple's indescretions, because their products "just work". It makes me really wonder what Apple could get away with before these people balked at buying their products, so long as Apple continued to make products that "just work" they way they are supposed to.
What happened to the idealism of old? You remember, the idea that we should, I don't know, punish businesses that do bad things by not patronizing them?
Take this recent article from the BBC. Imagine if you will that you discovered that a product you had bought was reporting back to its manufacturer with detailed information about your location, the apps you had installed, what you were doing with the device, all without your consent or knowledge. How would you react? I asked the one Palm Pre owner I know, who told me flat out "meh, i <3 my palm pre :)".
What about something as simple as water? In this essay, the author details the hidden horrors regarding Fiji Water and how its purchase supports a brutal dictatorship and keeps a nation on the brink of disaster just so that it can sell water. Do you think that will stop anyone from drinking the stuff? Nah, look at the pretty picture on the bottle! Just look at it for crying out loud!
So, I am starting to figure out something and I really hope that the government isn't reading this, because from my perspective, I think we would all happily be mass interred in re-education camps or have allow constant Big Brother-level surveillance, so long as the camps are ergonomically designed by Steve Jobs and the surveillance devices have broadband access, are encased in shiny white acrylic, and "just work". I wonder about the root cause of such rampant abandonment of our former idealism as well. Is it because we are economically hurting? Is it a reflection of our broader cultural changes? I don't know, but it's scary as hell.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Separation of Church And State
I was listening to a radio talk show yesterday and overheard the hosts talking about this little incident (wherein Miss California, Carrie Prejean, bemoans the fact that she lost this contest because when asked about her position on gay marriage, she took a vocal position against gay marriage). The hosts of the show danced around the issue of whether or not this should have cost her the pageant and callers said it shouldn't because it's a beauty pageant (to which I thought: 'Hello? It's a -beauty- pageant and she's ugly on the inside! They don't ask those questions to see her mouth move, they want to know if she has a beautiful personality too and clearly she has a lot of bigotry going on in there, hence, not beautiful.)
Of course, all this really got me thinking (for the umpteenth time) of what sort of weirdness is it that someone would feel compelled to defend a position that it is wrong for two people to love one another. What on Earth these people could see bad about this issue when looked at logically? I mean yeah, it says some things against men being with men in the Bible, but of course, we have a separation of church and state here right? Wrong!
You see, "marriage" is the only place in our society where something your religious leader can do will have an effect on your civic life in a real, legally-binding, way. It's the only time, for example, that we, as a society, will tolerate the notion that someone from someone's -church- can legally influence how they pay taxes. Nothing else you can have a religious leader do can effect you or anyone else in any civil or legal sense with the exception of marriage.
I think this whole arrangement is absurd. We are not supposed to allow religion to influence our government in this way. I mean, I'm -certain- that it's because of this arrangement that some religious people don't like the idea of gay marriage. It damages the purity of their religious institutions because to them "marriage" is sacred and needs to be kept "pure" and in accordance with their religious teachings. The problem is that I don't need legal approval to be baptised as a Christian, or to be converted to Islam, why would I need it to partake in any other religious ceremony? Further, what right does religion have in influencing who I can make civil contracts with? The problem is that our laws on marriage are written such that "marriage" is defined as basically whatever religion says it is.
In light of this, I really think that maybe we should have two types of unions for everyone.
My theory is simple. Make "civil unions" the default standard for every couple and let "marriage" remain a religious service. This way if someone wanted to get a "civil union", they could. Surely no religious person would disagree with the notion of two people joining in a legally-binding agreement with each other (or that religion should even have any say at all in what legal arrangements I am able to make in my personal life). A civil, legal contract doesn't imply any approval by any supernatural deities any more than getting baptised is a legally-binding contract with a church or deity. I mean, imagine if sin was a criminal behavior, what kind of society would that be? (c.f. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)
Under this arrangement, when ANY couple's rights were looked at to determine their eligibility to, say, see one another in a hospital, it wouldn't be a marriage certificate that would be consulted, it would be some one's "civil union contract". If someone wanted to formalize their union with a religious service that signified some sort of "heavenly approval", that would be something they would do entirely on their own.
So I say let's get rid of marriage altogether in this country. Make this a country of "civil unions" that have the same legal weight as the current definition of marriage and let's let religion have "marriage" back as their own religious ritual, completely separated from all legal influence.
Of course, all this really got me thinking (for the umpteenth time) of what sort of weirdness is it that someone would feel compelled to defend a position that it is wrong for two people to love one another. What on Earth these people could see bad about this issue when looked at logically? I mean yeah, it says some things against men being with men in the Bible, but of course, we have a separation of church and state here right? Wrong!
You see, "marriage" is the only place in our society where something your religious leader can do will have an effect on your civic life in a real, legally-binding, way. It's the only time, for example, that we, as a society, will tolerate the notion that someone from someone's -church- can legally influence how they pay taxes. Nothing else you can have a religious leader do can effect you or anyone else in any civil or legal sense with the exception of marriage.
I think this whole arrangement is absurd. We are not supposed to allow religion to influence our government in this way. I mean, I'm -certain- that it's because of this arrangement that some religious people don't like the idea of gay marriage. It damages the purity of their religious institutions because to them "marriage" is sacred and needs to be kept "pure" and in accordance with their religious teachings. The problem is that I don't need legal approval to be baptised as a Christian, or to be converted to Islam, why would I need it to partake in any other religious ceremony? Further, what right does religion have in influencing who I can make civil contracts with? The problem is that our laws on marriage are written such that "marriage" is defined as basically whatever religion says it is.
In light of this, I really think that maybe we should have two types of unions for everyone.
My theory is simple. Make "civil unions" the default standard for every couple and let "marriage" remain a religious service. This way if someone wanted to get a "civil union", they could. Surely no religious person would disagree with the notion of two people joining in a legally-binding agreement with each other (or that religion should even have any say at all in what legal arrangements I am able to make in my personal life). A civil, legal contract doesn't imply any approval by any supernatural deities any more than getting baptised is a legally-binding contract with a church or deity. I mean, imagine if sin was a criminal behavior, what kind of society would that be? (c.f. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)
Under this arrangement, when ANY couple's rights were looked at to determine their eligibility to, say, see one another in a hospital, it wouldn't be a marriage certificate that would be consulted, it would be some one's "civil union contract". If someone wanted to formalize their union with a religious service that signified some sort of "heavenly approval", that would be something they would do entirely on their own.
So I say let's get rid of marriage altogether in this country. Make this a country of "civil unions" that have the same legal weight as the current definition of marriage and let's let religion have "marriage" back as their own religious ritual, completely separated from all legal influence.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Myth of Christian Morality
In a religious debate, one point that the religious often bring up is that without religion, we would have no morality. They maintain that religion is the source of our understanding of how to treat other people. That things like, the Ten Commandments provide us with a moral compass, without which we would be largely ignorant of right and wrong, and basically all of civilization would fall apart, cats and dogs would be sleeping together, everyone would be killing or raping or stealing from each other. In short, they maintain that religion is the moral duct tape and bubble gum that keeps our makeshift raft of humanity from exploding and generally ruining this whole metaphysical MacGyver episode.
I've given this some thought and I think that this is a fascinating position to take, because for the most part most religious persons do not, in fact, take the position that everything in their religious texts are to be taken literally or are to be used as moral teachings. For instance, most Christians would agree that the Bible has a strong stance against, for example, murdering someone. There is even a commandment against this (I'm using "murder" because this appears to be the best translation of the Hebrew word "rasah", but "kill" works equally well for my purposes here); however, they apparently choose to ignore verses of the bible that specifically direct them to murder others, such as:
If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives. (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)
If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)
The list of capital crimes in the Bible is huge and exhausting. God himself appears to murder a lot of people indiscriminately for almost no reason at all. Lot's wife, for instance, was murdered for literally just looking the wrong way.
This same thing holds true for other moral teachings as well. For instance, a Christian might say that the teachings of the Bible would clearly not condone rape, yet there are many stories of rape in the bible in which those who are doing the raping are considered the heroes of the story (Lot, offering his virgin daughters to the mob of men in Sodom so that the angels in his house would not be harmed, for example.) Which Christian today would offer up their virgin daughters to be raped by a mob under any circumstances?
So we come to my point: my observation is that "Christian Morality" is a myth. It is my observation that the morality that people get from the Bible is really the exact same morality that they already possessed and nothing more. That people use their own inherent understandings of morality to decide what parts of the Bible to follow and which are moral, and base their faith on those verses that support their own personal view of God, their own personal interpretation of God's teachings. In a sense, they are creating their own God whose intentions match their understanding of morality. Every Christian denomination does this to some degree. In fact, choosing which parts of the Bible to focus on is basically the defining characteristic of any given offshoot of Christianity.
Now, I am purposely limiting my opinions here to what I know best, Christians and Christianity. However, I think that it stands to reason that much of my argument may still apply to other religions. Though I do know that some fundamentalist religious groups do hold to their religious texts very rigorously and to them, perhaps, this argument does not apply. I would submit to you though, that those who do consider their religious texts as absolute moral authorities and who do try to follow these texts to the letter of the laws prescribed are extremely rare, and when extant, are considered by most outsiders to be extremely immoral, fanatical, and in many contexts, outright dangerous. So again, the concept of religion as a moral authority seems highly suspect.
To close today, I think that it seems clear that morality can be understood outside the context of religion and that, indeed, if anything, religion only muddies the waters. To me, I feel that this strengthens my resolve that morality is best understood in the context of reason and intellect, which is the path upon which I seem to find the best footing. Your mileage may vary.
I've given this some thought and I think that this is a fascinating position to take, because for the most part most religious persons do not, in fact, take the position that everything in their religious texts are to be taken literally or are to be used as moral teachings. For instance, most Christians would agree that the Bible has a strong stance against, for example, murdering someone. There is even a commandment against this (I'm using "murder" because this appears to be the best translation of the Hebrew word "rasah", but "kill" works equally well for my purposes here); however, they apparently choose to ignore verses of the bible that specifically direct them to murder others, such as:
If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives. (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)
If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)
The list of capital crimes in the Bible is huge and exhausting. God himself appears to murder a lot of people indiscriminately for almost no reason at all. Lot's wife, for instance, was murdered for literally just looking the wrong way.
This same thing holds true for other moral teachings as well. For instance, a Christian might say that the teachings of the Bible would clearly not condone rape, yet there are many stories of rape in the bible in which those who are doing the raping are considered the heroes of the story (Lot, offering his virgin daughters to the mob of men in Sodom so that the angels in his house would not be harmed, for example.) Which Christian today would offer up their virgin daughters to be raped by a mob under any circumstances?
So we come to my point: my observation is that "Christian Morality" is a myth. It is my observation that the morality that people get from the Bible is really the exact same morality that they already possessed and nothing more. That people use their own inherent understandings of morality to decide what parts of the Bible to follow and which are moral, and base their faith on those verses that support their own personal view of God, their own personal interpretation of God's teachings. In a sense, they are creating their own God whose intentions match their understanding of morality. Every Christian denomination does this to some degree. In fact, choosing which parts of the Bible to focus on is basically the defining characteristic of any given offshoot of Christianity.
Now, I am purposely limiting my opinions here to what I know best, Christians and Christianity. However, I think that it stands to reason that much of my argument may still apply to other religions. Though I do know that some fundamentalist religious groups do hold to their religious texts very rigorously and to them, perhaps, this argument does not apply. I would submit to you though, that those who do consider their religious texts as absolute moral authorities and who do try to follow these texts to the letter of the laws prescribed are extremely rare, and when extant, are considered by most outsiders to be extremely immoral, fanatical, and in many contexts, outright dangerous. So again, the concept of religion as a moral authority seems highly suspect.
To close today, I think that it seems clear that morality can be understood outside the context of religion and that, indeed, if anything, religion only muddies the waters. To me, I feel that this strengthens my resolve that morality is best understood in the context of reason and intellect, which is the path upon which I seem to find the best footing. Your mileage may vary.
On Religion
I was raised as a Christian in rural America. Growing up, we went to church on Sundays. I went to Sunday School. My Dad sang in the choir. He was an elder in the church. I went to church camp. In short, I was immersed in Christianity as a child, but something never felt exactly right about it all to me.
Even as a child, I think I realized that there was something wrong with the stories they would tell in church. As I approach 40, I don't recall the specifics of my childhood rationale, but I do recall feeling that there seemed to be a lot of glaring inconsistencies with the logic of the people I was around. "Noah did what now?" "I have to love God or he will torture me forever after I die?" "What do you mean, talking snakes?" Needless to say, I was not popular in Sunday School. However, I did take away something from those years: an innate sense of a Creator; that there was some ultimate good in the universe and that it maybe had some plan for me after my life here on Earth was over.
As I grew older, I compartmentalized this part of my mind to keep it away from what I learned in high school, college, and life. If someone would ask, I would say that absolutely I believed in God (denial of God, I remember being told many times, was the one unforgivable sin), but that I wasn't sure of the specifics surrounding His works or will and as such, didn't really feel it was my place to try to convince anyone that they were wrong or I was right. That when it came down to it, my beliefs were, I freely admitted, based on "faith" in what felt right. While all true, this was really just my defense mechanism to keep people from fiddling around too much in that compartment of my mind which I had created to store my irrational thoughts. It seemed to work well.
Lately, I've opened up that part of my mind and begun to examine its contents. This is an activity I can't recommend highly enough; everyone should do it and I wish I'd done it sooner. I've realized that I have a lot of skepticism about religion in general and admitting this has been extremely liberating. It is, as Christopher Hitchens might put it, much like refusing to submit to living in a celestial dictatorship. It is saying, "No. No I do not submit myself to your heavenly government on the basis of threats or promises of rewards. I choose to examine my life and make rational choices about what is right and wrong based on reason and intellect, not fear and greed."
I am not saying that there is no God; I simply don't know if there is or not. I will say that as I've examined my life and my thoughts on religion, I've come to realize that at some point over the years, I've stopped being motivated to do good because of heavenly threats and promises, and started being motivated to do good because of a deeper understanding of morality and ethics and a desire to act as a genuinely moral person. Furthermore, as I have looked over my own history and examined what I understood about religion up to this point, I have also noticed a great many problems reconciling the beliefs of Christianity with what reasoned thought proclaims as moral and rational behavior. In future posts here, I intend to discuss some of these issues.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." --Thomas Jefferson
Even as a child, I think I realized that there was something wrong with the stories they would tell in church. As I approach 40, I don't recall the specifics of my childhood rationale, but I do recall feeling that there seemed to be a lot of glaring inconsistencies with the logic of the people I was around. "Noah did what now?" "I have to love God or he will torture me forever after I die?" "What do you mean, talking snakes?" Needless to say, I was not popular in Sunday School. However, I did take away something from those years: an innate sense of a Creator; that there was some ultimate good in the universe and that it maybe had some plan for me after my life here on Earth was over.
As I grew older, I compartmentalized this part of my mind to keep it away from what I learned in high school, college, and life. If someone would ask, I would say that absolutely I believed in God (denial of God, I remember being told many times, was the one unforgivable sin), but that I wasn't sure of the specifics surrounding His works or will and as such, didn't really feel it was my place to try to convince anyone that they were wrong or I was right. That when it came down to it, my beliefs were, I freely admitted, based on "faith" in what felt right. While all true, this was really just my defense mechanism to keep people from fiddling around too much in that compartment of my mind which I had created to store my irrational thoughts. It seemed to work well.
Lately, I've opened up that part of my mind and begun to examine its contents. This is an activity I can't recommend highly enough; everyone should do it and I wish I'd done it sooner. I've realized that I have a lot of skepticism about religion in general and admitting this has been extremely liberating. It is, as Christopher Hitchens might put it, much like refusing to submit to living in a celestial dictatorship. It is saying, "No. No I do not submit myself to your heavenly government on the basis of threats or promises of rewards. I choose to examine my life and make rational choices about what is right and wrong based on reason and intellect, not fear and greed."
I am not saying that there is no God; I simply don't know if there is or not. I will say that as I've examined my life and my thoughts on religion, I've come to realize that at some point over the years, I've stopped being motivated to do good because of heavenly threats and promises, and started being motivated to do good because of a deeper understanding of morality and ethics and a desire to act as a genuinely moral person. Furthermore, as I have looked over my own history and examined what I understood about religion up to this point, I have also noticed a great many problems reconciling the beliefs of Christianity with what reasoned thought proclaims as moral and rational behavior. In future posts here, I intend to discuss some of these issues.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." --Thomas Jefferson
Monday, March 9, 2009
Welcome!
Welcome, to the Reasoned Observer
Welcome to my Blog. Yes, it's a Blog. If you don't like Blogs, boy have you come to the wrong place. :)
I intend to use this medium to talk about a great many things I have observed in life and hope that it helps me continue to grow as a person. I intend to try to remain open-minded, but to examine a great many subjects here with a fair amount of honest skepticism.
For those who disagree with my observations, I welcome their input, which I will examine with as much fairness and reason as possible.
Welcome to my Blog. Yes, it's a Blog. If you don't like Blogs, boy have you come to the wrong place. :)
I intend to use this medium to talk about a great many things I have observed in life and hope that it helps me continue to grow as a person. I intend to try to remain open-minded, but to examine a great many subjects here with a fair amount of honest skepticism.
For those who disagree with my observations, I welcome their input, which I will examine with as much fairness and reason as possible.
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