People can wear clothing for any reason they want, not just the reasons you think they should be able to.
All theistic religions are harmful (not just Islam), but there are at least two major issues with oppressive laws like this:
It’s just Islamaphobia (racism). Singling out clothing that Muslims would wear and ignoring crosses or other religious clothing kind of gives away the underlying motivation for these bans.
Policing this shit will always cause more harm than good. It would be authoritarian as fuck.
There is no judgement mechanism that the state can employ that can accurately determine when a person is forced to wear something that they may choose to. Attempting to enforce such judgement will always cause undue harm.
What about child marriage? Since “there is no judgement mechanism to determine if it was forced.” And should we let people sell their organs, too, since we can’t prove coercion?
Ultimately, you’re right, we can’t make these cults illegal, but we can make the cultist’s lives as difficult as possible. And we should.
Let me put it another way. Anyone who thinks women must wear black bags on their heads is a piece of shit. Since many people will be helped by this law, and only pieces of shit will be inconvenienced, it is a good law.
The complete inability to acknowledge this kind of obvious facts about the world is why the left doesn’t win elections. It’s literally written in law in places like Iran and Afghanistan and is often the first thing muslim women stop doing the moment the authoritarian grip starts slipping.
Ah yes, the nebulous left who refuse to acknowledge that… Italy is the same country as Iran or Afghanistan???
Iran and Afghanistan are irrelevant in a conversation discussing the harms or perceived benefits of the authoritarian and Islamaphobic ban that Italy is enacting. Italy is the country implementing the ban, and Italy does doesn’t mandate the wearing of clothing associated with Islam.
If you actually cared to prevent forced religious dress code, the thing you would push for is that countries with such laws repeal the laws, rather than cheering when countries with no such laws implement authoritarian bans to prevent people from wearing what they want.
I think most people who say this only have experience with Abrahamism and make sweeping generalisations about it. At best, people have read some European history, but that’s still a very biased sample.
Nope. I mean all theistic beliefs. I became an anti-theist after many years of being a deist. I am familiar with at least one non-Abrahamic theistic belief (deism). And I know a little about others.
But there is no exceptional theism that will ever justify the belief in god(s). We can’t know if god(s) exist. They likely don’t, but that cannot be proven right or wrong, so we should adopt the default position: “we don’t know”. Believing in a consequential claim with no evidence is a great way to believe in harmful lies.
Shaping your identity, ethics, or other major facets about who you are around the (very likely untrue) unfalsifiable belief in god(s) is a dangerous thing to do. If you’re willing to believe such a consequential and unfalsifiable claim, your theism can be used to justify any harmful beliefs.
Beliefs influence actions, and actions have consequences. That doesn’t change just because your preferred god(s) are different than the Abrahamic one.
Believing in a consequential claim with no evidence is a great way to believe in harmful lies.
It’s an equally good way to believe in beneficial lies. Whether the lies are helpful or not depends on the intention and competence of those who made them up. I fully support believing in lies that help society and make our lives happier.
I view religions as ways to make ideas easier to understand. They’re a form of data compression for human thoughts, that makes them easier to remember and to transmit. A JPEG is a “lie” because it’s lossy compression. It creates visual artefacts that aren’t in the original. But those artefacts are byproducts of a process that makes images smaller and easier to store on old hardware.
So if you want a culture that practices complex systems of politics and ethics and science for many many generations, you better have a great compression algorithm. Like a religion. With intelligent design of faith, religion can be a “lie” that makes a society healthy, strong, and nice to live in.
So that’s My critique of the philosophy being espoused here, that objective truth is a moral good. I don’t believe in objective truth, I think everything humans have yet gained the ability to know is some flavour of inaccurate. Best to choose helpful inaccuracies instead of harmful ones.
It’s an equally good way to believe in beneficial lies
That was addressed in my other comment. And if you believe that the reasons for doing good things in the world are “beneficial lies”, I’d say that’s another issue with theism warping your view of reality. You don’t need “beneficial lies” to do good in the world. You merely need the desire and ability to do good – neither of which require theism. But the lies that people are influenced by will contribute to harmful beliefs and actions, which is the main problem with theism.
So that’s My critique of the philosophy being espoused here, that objective truth is a moral good.
I am not appealing to an “objective truth”. I’m appealing against the solopsism and nihilism required to believe something you know is unfalsifiable. If you can’t know something is true, be honest with yourself and others. Your position on the matter should be “it cannot be proven/disproven; we cannot know”. Not, “I believe in it, despite it being unfalisifiable”.
You don’t need to believe in an “absolute truth”. But you shouldn’t adopt an affirmative belief in things that you know cannot be proven or disproven. The only honest answer to such a matter – a belief in god(s) – is: “it cannot be proven/disproven; we cannot know”; not, “I believe in it, despite it being unfalisifiable”. The latter is harmful.
The existence of an external world beyond our senses can’t be proven or disproven. You could have been deceived by an evil demon’s illusions. You can’t verify the accuracy of your senses using your senses, because that’s circular reasoning.
You and I both have no choice but to believe in an unfalsifiable external world. Because the only alternative is solipsism, and neither of us is considering that one.
Thus, everything we can ever know is built on a foundation of lies.
You and I both have no choice but to believe in an unfalsifiable external world. Because the only alternative is solipsism, and neither of us is considering that one.
What you’re doing is solopsism. You’re adopting affirmative beliefs in things you know can’t be proven true out of the fear that if you don’t, nothing but your own experience can be real. God(s) do not need to exist for things outside your own experience to be real. If you believe otherwise, you are being solopsistic.
It does a lot more than that. In Australia, it’s been used to prevent violence, maintain the environment, and aid in resource use for thousands of years.
Theistic beliefs are a terrible way to determine what is true, especially when theism is not only simultaneously used to justify harm (bigotry, supremacy, exploitation), but also unnecessary for achieving caring about justice (rights, environmental conservation, veganism, anti-capitalism, etc.).
Do some theists end up doing and believing progressive and beneficial things? Yes, but a house built on a weak foundation can fall apart much more easily than one built on a solid one. You should do good in the world because that is the kind of person you want to be, not because of a (very likely untrue) belief you adopted that cannot be falsified.
I just feel like taking this stance a little too hard makes philosophy = bad. There is a difference when beliefs conflict with being just, I agree. But good religion is built on deep conviction, in my mind, and approaches a sort of chicken-or-the-egg relationship with truly righteous acts.
but a house built on a weak foundation can fall apart much more easily than one built on a solid one
I’d say it’s pretty bleedin’ obvious that the house with the strongest foundation is the world’s oldest living cultural group: Aboriginal Australians. Obviously, belief in the Rainbow Serpent has greatly benefitted their ancient nations. They preserved knowledge of the sea level rise at the end of the ice age through 10,000 years, that’s the best history-keeping in the world. I’d say Aboriginal religions are carefully calibrated machines of political technology, creating good societies through social engineering.
The results speak for themselves: Believing in the Rainbow Serpent is the right thing to do, because it makes the world a better place. So I believe.
I didn’t know that about Aboriginal religion, but I have heard of some heady, trance monk type practices (like near interdimensional transcendence stuff) which I appreciate. Can’t remember if it involved straight up psychedelics or just meditation, which is always mindblowing to me.
Something about all these first peoples, man, they really knew how to weave a mythos between the world and ourselves on every level.
The geopolitical west is so politically unstable, they can’t develop their myths properly. Every few hundred years, it’s another cultural revolution with them! With all that turmoil, it’s no wonder their cultural development is so stunted.
I think with the help of science, we can develop cultures fast enough to keep up with modern life. But not the west’s modern science. We need some more advanced psychology, like what the First Australians have.
Plus, banning hijab is one way to strip access to education for women in conservative families. This was a big point that was raised here when it happened. Look, Hijab is repressive, there’s no arguing about that, but it also let’s women who otherwise would have not been let step out of the house, to step out and gain education. Most women don’t wear hijab by choice, but because of family pressure. Banning Hijabs in schools would only make it worse for them.
It’s just Islamaphobia (racism). Singling out clothing that Muslims would wear and ignoring crosses or other religious clothing kind of gives away the underlying motivation for these bans.
The law almost certainly talks about face covering broadly and equally prohibits you to wear a ski-mask to school whether you’re a muslim or not.
In France where this law is in place the ban does not apply if the covering is required by another law or regulation, justified by health, required for work, or part of sport, a festival, or an artistic or traditional event.
Let me break this down because this is the most moronic take in this entire thread.
“Choices are what I say they are.”
People can wear clothing for any reason they want, not just the reasons you think they should be able to.
Only if they actually have a choice… which they don’t. That’s the whole point here. It doesn’t matter how many token muslim you find to claim otherwise, it’s very well documented that these veils are not optional. They are enforced by violence, fear, intimidation, and coercion for most women and girls. It’s like saying that black slaves in the south had a choice to wear shackles and chains because very technically it could be a choice for some. White slave owners would claim it is, shackled slaves would say it is out of fear or brainwashing, and there might be a comically limited number of individuals who really do it out of choice… but that’s not exactly the rule, now is it? We both know it’s ain’t. Your argument replaces all context with a morally bankrupt principle that holds no weight.
All theistic religions are harmful (not just Islam)
This is just “all lives matter” with a twist of misogynistic apologia.
It’s just Islamaphobia (racism). Singling out clothing that Muslims would wear and ignoring crosses or other religious clothing kind of gives away the underlying motivation for these bans.
First of all, islam is a religion and not a race. There are muslims of literally every race and ethnic group so the very notion that one can be racist against muslims as if they’re a coherent racial group is mind numbingly ignorant. islam is a religion, and therefore it is an ideology. There’s nothing morally wrong or inherently irrational about being against islam. It’s a violent, oppressive religion full of hate and falsehoods. It’s perfectly rational and morally just to be against an ideology this hateful. The paradox of tolerance says that a free and tolerant society cannot tolerate the intolerant, and islam is intolerant.
Second of all, the issue here is NOT religious symbolism or clothing. It’s these specific veils for women in islam are made and used for the exact purpose of oppressing women and girls. That’s why they exist, that’s how they’re used, and that’s why they’re a problem. They’re made to rob women and girls from their agency, from their individuality, from their freedoms. It’s well established that these clothes are enforced through fear, coercion, and violence and not through actual choice.
Policing this shit will always cause more harm than good. It would be authoritarian as fuck.
It’s literally the opposite dingus. These laws are outlawing any oppressive practice that robbing women and girls from the rights. This restores their rights and integrates them into society. You have to be either brain dead or completely evil to defend the insanely horrific oppressive cult over the actual victims. You entire argument is just you defending the freedoms of the oppressors to oppress. This doesn’t make you seem like a princpled and level headed human rights champion like you think it does.
“Choices are what I say they are.”
People can wear clothing for any reason they want, not just the reasons you think they should be able to.
All theistic religions are harmful (not just Islam), but there are at least two major issues with oppressive laws like this:
This law isn’t oppressive for kids forced to wear a fucking bag and indoctrinated into a cult. Religion is a monstrous evil.
There is no judgement mechanism that the state can employ that can accurately determine when a person is forced to wear something that they may choose to. Attempting to enforce such judgement will always cause undue harm.
What about child marriage? Since “there is no judgement mechanism to determine if it was forced.” And should we let people sell their organs, too, since we can’t prove coercion?
Ultimately, you’re right, we can’t make these cults illegal, but we can make the cultist’s lives as difficult as possible. And we should.
Let me put it another way. Anyone who thinks women must wear black bags on their heads is a piece of shit. Since many people will be helped by this law, and only pieces of shit will be inconvenienced, it is a good law.
The complete inability to acknowledge this kind of obvious facts about the world is why the left doesn’t win elections. It’s literally written in law in places like Iran and Afghanistan and is often the first thing muslim women stop doing the moment the authoritarian grip starts slipping.
Ah yes, the nebulous left who refuse to acknowledge that… Italy is the same country as Iran or Afghanistan???
Iran and Afghanistan are irrelevant in a conversation discussing the harms or perceived benefits of the authoritarian and Islamaphobic ban that Italy is enacting. Italy is the country implementing the ban, and Italy does doesn’t mandate the wearing of clothing associated with Islam.
If you actually cared to prevent forced religious dress code, the thing you would push for is that countries with such laws repeal the laws, rather than cheering when countries with no such laws implement authoritarian bans to prevent people from wearing what they want.
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A bag? These aren’t American prisoners of war.
I think most people who say this only have experience with Abrahamism and make sweeping generalisations about it. At best, people have read some European history, but that’s still a very biased sample.
Nope. I mean all theistic beliefs. I became an anti-theist after many years of being a deist. I am familiar with at least one non-Abrahamic theistic belief (deism). And I know a little about others.
But there is no exceptional theism that will ever justify the belief in god(s). We can’t know if god(s) exist. They likely don’t, but that cannot be proven right or wrong, so we should adopt the default position: “we don’t know”. Believing in a consequential claim with no evidence is a great way to believe in harmful lies.
Shaping your identity, ethics, or other major facets about who you are around the (very likely untrue) unfalsifiable belief in god(s) is a dangerous thing to do. If you’re willing to believe such a consequential and unfalsifiable claim, your theism can be used to justify any harmful beliefs.
Beliefs influence actions, and actions have consequences. That doesn’t change just because your preferred god(s) are different than the Abrahamic one.
It’s an equally good way to believe in beneficial lies. Whether the lies are helpful or not depends on the intention and competence of those who made them up. I fully support believing in lies that help society and make our lives happier.
I view religions as ways to make ideas easier to understand. They’re a form of data compression for human thoughts, that makes them easier to remember and to transmit. A JPEG is a “lie” because it’s lossy compression. It creates visual artefacts that aren’t in the original. But those artefacts are byproducts of a process that makes images smaller and easier to store on old hardware.
So if you want a culture that practices complex systems of politics and ethics and science for many many generations, you better have a great compression algorithm. Like a religion. With intelligent design of faith, religion can be a “lie” that makes a society healthy, strong, and nice to live in.
So that’s My critique of the philosophy being espoused here, that objective truth is a moral good. I don’t believe in objective truth, I think everything humans have yet gained the ability to know is some flavour of inaccurate. Best to choose helpful inaccuracies instead of harmful ones.
That was addressed in my other comment. And if you believe that the reasons for doing good things in the world are “beneficial lies”, I’d say that’s another issue with theism warping your view of reality. You don’t need “beneficial lies” to do good in the world. You merely need the desire and ability to do good – neither of which require theism. But the lies that people are influenced by will contribute to harmful beliefs and actions, which is the main problem with theism.
I am not appealing to an “objective truth”. I’m appealing against the solopsism and nihilism required to believe something you know is unfalsifiable. If you can’t know something is true, be honest with yourself and others. Your position on the matter should be “it cannot be proven/disproven; we cannot know”. Not, “I believe in it, despite it being unfalisifiable”.
I think I do. I don’t believe in absolute truth. I think we can only ever choose which lies to believe in.
Good lies, designed competently by well-meaning leaders, will make the world better.
You don’t need to believe in an “absolute truth”. But you shouldn’t adopt an affirmative belief in things that you know cannot be proven or disproven. The only honest answer to such a matter – a belief in god(s) – is: “it cannot be proven/disproven; we cannot know”; not, “I believe in it, despite it being unfalisifiable”. The latter is harmful.
The existence of an external world beyond our senses can’t be proven or disproven. You could have been deceived by an evil demon’s illusions. You can’t verify the accuracy of your senses using your senses, because that’s circular reasoning.
You and I both have no choice but to believe in an unfalsifiable external world. Because the only alternative is solipsism, and neither of us is considering that one.
Thus, everything we can ever know is built on a foundation of lies.
What you’re doing is solopsism. You’re adopting affirmative beliefs in things you know can’t be proven true out of the fear that if you don’t, nothing but your own experience can be real. God(s) do not need to exist for things outside your own experience to be real. If you believe otherwise, you are being solopsistic.
Religion is a manmade technology that is useful as hell when it comes to keeping existential dread at bay long enough to procreate
It does a lot more than that. In Australia, it’s been used to prevent violence, maintain the environment, and aid in resource use for thousands of years.
Theistic beliefs are a terrible way to determine what is true, especially when theism is not only simultaneously used to justify harm (bigotry, supremacy, exploitation), but also unnecessary for achieving caring about justice (rights, environmental conservation, veganism, anti-capitalism, etc.).
Do some theists end up doing and believing progressive and beneficial things? Yes, but a house built on a weak foundation can fall apart much more easily than one built on a solid one. You should do good in the world because that is the kind of person you want to be, not because of a (very likely untrue) belief you adopted that cannot be falsified.
I just feel like taking this stance a little too hard makes philosophy = bad. There is a difference when beliefs conflict with being just, I agree. But good religion is built on deep conviction, in my mind, and approaches a sort of chicken-or-the-egg relationship with truly righteous acts.
I’d say it’s pretty bleedin’ obvious that the house with the strongest foundation is the world’s oldest living cultural group: Aboriginal Australians. Obviously, belief in the Rainbow Serpent has greatly benefitted their ancient nations. They preserved knowledge of the sea level rise at the end of the ice age through 10,000 years, that’s the best history-keeping in the world. I’d say Aboriginal religions are carefully calibrated machines of political technology, creating good societies through social engineering.
The results speak for themselves: Believing in the Rainbow Serpent is the right thing to do, because it makes the world a better place. So I believe.
I didn’t know that about Aboriginal religion, but I have heard of some heady, trance monk type practices (like near interdimensional transcendence stuff) which I appreciate. Can’t remember if it involved straight up psychedelics or just meditation, which is always mindblowing to me.
Something about all these first peoples, man, they really knew how to weave a mythos between the world and ourselves on every level.
It’s because of thousands of years of practice!
The geopolitical west is so politically unstable, they can’t develop their myths properly. Every few hundred years, it’s another cultural revolution with them! With all that turmoil, it’s no wonder their cultural development is so stunted.
I think with the help of science, we can develop cultures fast enough to keep up with modern life. But not the west’s modern science. We need some more advanced psychology, like what the First Australians have.
Plus, banning hijab is one way to strip access to education for women in conservative families. This was a big point that was raised here when it happened. Look, Hijab is repressive, there’s no arguing about that, but it also let’s women who otherwise would have not been let step out of the house, to step out and gain education. Most women don’t wear hijab by choice, but because of family pressure. Banning Hijabs in schools would only make it worse for them.
The law almost certainly talks about face covering broadly and equally prohibits you to wear a ski-mask to school whether you’re a muslim or not.
So no more masks during covid, right?
In France where this law is in place the ban does not apply if the covering is required by another law or regulation, justified by health, required for work, or part of sport, a festival, or an artistic or traditional event.
Ah so only if you are a Muslim got it.
Ah, so you’re not even here for conversation but just to posture and act like a smug jerk - got it.
The same law, which, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread?
That is a great way to put it and cuts right at the underlying prejudice of the thinly-veiled bigoted motivation of such laws.
Thanks but I think it’s from Anatole France.
Let me break this down because this is the most moronic take in this entire thread.
Only if they actually have a choice… which they don’t. That’s the whole point here. It doesn’t matter how many token muslim you find to claim otherwise, it’s very well documented that these veils are not optional. They are enforced by violence, fear, intimidation, and coercion for most women and girls. It’s like saying that black slaves in the south had a choice to wear shackles and chains because very technically it could be a choice for some. White slave owners would claim it is, shackled slaves would say it is out of fear or brainwashing, and there might be a comically limited number of individuals who really do it out of choice… but that’s not exactly the rule, now is it? We both know it’s ain’t. Your argument replaces all context with a morally bankrupt principle that holds no weight.
This is just “all lives matter” with a twist of misogynistic apologia.
First of all, islam is a religion and not a race. There are muslims of literally every race and ethnic group so the very notion that one can be racist against muslims as if they’re a coherent racial group is mind numbingly ignorant. islam is a religion, and therefore it is an ideology. There’s nothing morally wrong or inherently irrational about being against islam. It’s a violent, oppressive religion full of hate and falsehoods. It’s perfectly rational and morally just to be against an ideology this hateful. The paradox of tolerance says that a free and tolerant society cannot tolerate the intolerant, and islam is intolerant.
Second of all, the issue here is NOT religious symbolism or clothing. It’s these specific veils for women in islam are made and used for the exact purpose of oppressing women and girls. That’s why they exist, that’s how they’re used, and that’s why they’re a problem. They’re made to rob women and girls from their agency, from their individuality, from their freedoms. It’s well established that these clothes are enforced through fear, coercion, and violence and not through actual choice.
It’s literally the opposite dingus. These laws are outlawing any oppressive practice that robbing women and girls from the rights. This restores their rights and integrates them into society. You have to be either brain dead or completely evil to defend the insanely horrific oppressive cult over the actual victims. You entire argument is just you defending the freedoms of the oppressors to oppress. This doesn’t make you seem like a princpled and level headed human rights champion like you think it does.