Quick, dashing post

[silveradept]

...consisting mostly of links to strange things, like Lunchables. Since it was a "class" day, the only deviance from the routine was really that I spent some time giving KKY interviews to our MECs.

Since Red Day is coming up, I thought that bean sprouts with love messages might be worth thinking about.

And since I do claim to give you silly things, this is probably something that qualifies. A different state couldn't get the textbook stickers, so now they’re going straight to the state lawmakers. Why does this place have to look like Jesusland so Goddamned much? Or is that one of those things you can't say? This follows the heels of my subcultures prof saying that lots of high-school age kids have no idea that flag-burning is protected free speech, some saying that the government should be able to censor news publications... it's the school system at work, I suppose. First, they have to be loyal to the State, then they can be whatever. So long as they're loyal to the state and slaves to advertising.

Speaking of, I have to go to work tomorrow - I'm sure there’s an ironic joke there, and I think I might get it, but not fully. Either way, g'night!

Comments

[silveradept]

People should remember that the Cold War developed out of WWII because Russia refused to pull the troops out after they finished the fighting. So who was doing the most fighting? The people that would enter the arms race soon afterward. Don't they teach history these days?

The U.S. electing overtly religious fanatics is a recent development, as best I can tell. They were worried about Kennedy receiving a call from the Pope directing him to do things. Nowadays, they'll elect someone who promises to use his faith as a strong factor in evaluating things like national policy, even potentially overriding facts or evidence that indicates finer nuances to the discussion.

The theology students and the scientists not knowing each other's trades is because everyone wants to read the idea of "separation of Church and State" as "separation of Church from state". So they think that science and religion can't have anything to do with each other, especially in State-run education institutions. People can do religious education, they just can't appear to be endorsing one religion over another. But it's better for the machine if the kids don't think anyone but themselves have the possibility of being right about anything. Why not just start intoning "braaaaaains" while you're at it?

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. Without an understanding of history people get some wonderfully one-sided views. Then they act on them, and get upset when people have a different mythology to them. For instance, every single Europe versus America flamewar about WW2 ever.

Yes. I think its incredably dangerous, personally. In Europe we recently forced out a commissioner because he said that homosexuality is a sin. Blair is a quite pious Christian, but he knows better than to mention it. On the other hand, some people genuinely do care whether he's a catholic or a protestant. Or get upset when royals look into non-protestant religions too much.

That sounds about right. Some days, I bow down and thank the Alien Overlords for the Church of England and its traditional associations with government. The last thing we need is religion being separate from science. Religion at its best is a search for truth. How can we have that if its not aware of everything else?

[silveradept]

I think most of us don't mind if the man in charge of the government is religious - they have been for a very long time - but a lot of us believe that there should be secular justifications for actions taken by an officially secular government, even if one can see obvious religious connections in the result of that action.

So doing something like banning abortion could be accepted if it could be justified in a secular sense (science finds out a strongly positive correlation between abortion and suicide/homicide, for example), instead of "God decreed that you should get pregnant, so it would be a sin to kill the child."

Of course, since a lot of religious groups are also vocal in politics and campaigning, the church and the state do interact with each other. Religion and science should be the two sides of the coin of Truth, as you've said. You really can't have one without the other - they'll lead in interesting directions and discoveries. After all, if we didn't have shamanic trances, I somehow doubt we'd ever understand psychedlics...

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

I can agree with that. Blair can believe anything he wants, but he should be able to justify his action based on the consensus reality. For instance, I take great offence to religious people laying down their laws on marriage for the whole society. They can never quite justify their viewpoint when pressed either, I find.

I don't think that science and religion are the only two tools we have for understanding truth. But they are useful tools. Imagine what would happen if monotheists could more easily connect their worship to the true glory of the universe. Or if magicians and mystics were more determined to follow the scientific method from time to time, instead of manipulating silly pseudo science to explain their point of view.

In an ideal world, people would integrate human knowledge to achieve their wills, rather than wasting energy on power struggles between competing disciplines like Science and Religion.

[silveradept]

I stand corrected. And I agree with you - everyone, including myself, could stand to apply the things we've learned in our travels to the other bits of our lives that could use them, too. Integrating knowledge to achieve will - I like that idea, especially since it takes the synthesis point of view, one of which I am particularly fond.