Re: Religious State and the Law -- Back Talk

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Subject: Re: Religious State and the Law

Author:
Mark7

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Date Posted: 08:46:18 08/09/01 Thu
In reply to: Mark7 's message, "Religious State and the Law" on 22:07:59 08/08/01 Wed

On DP there is one thread where people are deploring the mores of Turkey, Afganistan and some other Islamic nations and their treatment of women.

The thread revolves around the harsh punishments women get for things like going unveiled in public or touching a man they are not married too.

Frankly, I find it equally barbaric that women wold be put in jail here in the US for exposing their breasts on a beach.

I think most European countris allow it, and I see that as healthy and normal. I don't count a topless woman on a beach as a sexual experience.

I also feel that some laws in the US with regard to legal age of sex are barbaric.

To jail a woman for having sex with a 15 or 17 year old boy is barbaric.

The point I'm driving too is that once you let the genie out of the box in terms of bluring the lines between state and religious morality, you will find that the difference between a civilized Christian nation and a savage Islamic one is just a matter of shades of grey.

We may get light from only one Sun, but boy, it sure feels different when the light comes down in Alsaska vs. here in California.

Same with morality. We may, or may not have morality from the same God, but it sure goes through lots of clouds in more places than one.

It is very easy to condemn another's mores, but until you take down your own cultural glasses you cannot objectively say that punishing women for not wearing a bra is "more moral" than punishing women for not wearing a headscarf or a facescarf (whatever it is they call that thing women wear in Muslim countries over their mouths).

The road to a Religious state is slipery. If morality is truly comming from the same God, putting the 10 Commandments into a courroom is useless. Everybody should agree with them.

If morality comes from different Gods, then we get into trouble with some Gods when we put the 10 commandments in the courtroom.

It tells those who read a different Bible than G.W.B's that there is no justice for them (as American Natives can testify).

On the other hand, if you do take away religion, what are we left with? What makes US Americans, vs. other countries?

Just the belief in the mighty $?

What holds us together in hard times?

Do we view ourselves as Jews first, American second, or do we view Christians as "our people" to the exclusion of non-Christian Americans?

Most American "spiritual leaders" televagelists and such, seem to agree to exclude Americans of different religions from their world. They advise their congregations to segregate in daily life from others and minimize contact.

Don't we, Americans Balkanize ourselves by doing this?

For some here it may be easy, but I, a liberal minded, although not Atheist, more New Age person in California, may need to live with my Persian Muslim neighbor, my Jewish co-worker, my Christian Fundamentalist Southern Babtist and lots and lots of Catholic Mexicans.

If my house gets caught on fire, or if I get a hearth attack at work, I have to trust these people will help me, and they have to trust I will help them.

If this country goes to war, and we all need to serve, I have to trust them also, and they have to trust me.

In WW2, America trusted German citizens, but not Japanese.

Are these "spiritual leaders" advising us toward the same path of discrimination?

Why would a Japanese American or Native American serve in a country that allow legal discrimination against him/her? Yet many did serve in spite of the discrimination.

Do we owe them a society blind to our differences? Can we afford such a society? What do we gain by posting the 10 Commandments in the Courhouse, and what do we lose? Or better said, who's allegience we gain, and who's we lose, and how does that make us.

How would history books look back upon this? Would we be proud, or would we look back with shame and disbelief, the way we look today at the treatment of Japanese Americans during WW2?

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[> [> Subject: Re: Religious State and the Law

Author:
JeffF
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Date Posted: 11:30:20 08/09/01 Thu

Well, the thread about the Turkey is also about the bizzare extreme nature of punishment where women are being killed for the "crime" of being raped or for the "crime" of talking to boys. While I agree with you that it's absurd for a woman to be arrested here if she's on the beach nude,but I do think it's a stretch to equate that with fathers murdering their daughters for being unchaste as happens in Turkey and other countries. Near as I know, American fathers are not generally murdering their daughters for being nude on the beach or for talking to boys. When it comes to Turkey, we have always turned a blind eye to anything they do, from the invasion of Cyprus to the refusal to acknowledge the Armenian massacre to these "honor" killings.

I understand your point about the legal sex age, but where do we draw the line? Surely, you don't want 10 year olds having sex with adults? What would be a reasonable age? A 17 year old boy is often an adult in every way, but is a 13 year old? It seems there should be a line somewhere, not so much because of moral issues as because of emotional ones. Kids are often not ready emotionally for sex. A 17 year old is not really a kid, but younger teens often are.

"What do we gain by posting the 10 commandments in the Courthouse?"

In my opinion, nothing. Those who follow the ten commandments would follow them without their being posted and those who don't aren't going to change their mind because they happen to be posted. Going one step further, should atheists who have to testify in court have to swear the oath "So help me, God" before they testify?

As for WWII, Americans didn't trust German citizens, Mark. They just didn't know how to identify them. It was a lot easier to round up people who looked different than the majority. The Germans looked like any other white guy and it would have been a lot harder to identify them. Remember, there was already a lot of prejudice against people from Japan and China here before the war - a lot of jobs that people who looked like they were from the Orient weren't allowed to apply for.

"Do we view ourselves as Jews first, Americans second?"

Better would be to view ourselves as a collection of unique individuals first before viewing ourselves as either Americans or Jews or Christians.

[> [> [> Subject: Shades of Grey

Author:
Mark7
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Date Posted: 00:52:01 08/11/01 Sat

I agree with you, and the thread in question, that killing a woman for not veiling herself when in public is way above a $200 fine for exposing nude on a Florida beach.

I also agree that most Islamic countries are very tough in enforcing morality on women. Most people adhering to those customs will tell you they are just doing their duty in enforcing morality as they know it.

However, if I remember correclty, morality does come from the one and only same God in the Bible, and since it is not a subjective idea that can be changed rightly or wrongly by peoples around the world, one may say they are just receiving God's message. By the way, Turkey is much more secular than some Arab countries (G. Bush's senior friends and allies, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia come to my mind).

Every morality around the world includes gender provisions. These gender provisions are definitions and prescriptions of how men and women should act as men or women, and every culture has means of moral enforcement of these rules.

As I said before, it is easy to see the abnormal gender moral definitions of different cultures, than to see our own gender biass.

We have expectations from both men and women. One thing I noticed when first in the US was that many American women do not wear panties. That seemed kinky in the beginning.

Many European women do not wear bras under their shirts, and that would be scandalous in the US.

Killing women is an extreme form of enforcing gender morality. Thousands of women die every year because of it.

Let me give you an equally deadly example of gender biass in our culture:

The military draft. Although not practiced anymore, it is technically still legal.

Millions of men in the Western civilized Europe and the US have died, and many still die, because they are expected to play their gender role in war, regardless of weather they agree or not with the war itself, or with their own capability to carry it on.

Many other men are scarred for life because of physical and emotional trauma associated with forceful military service.

I would bet that 10 times more men had died this century because they were expected as men to serve in the military, than women had died because they were expected to be chaste and act the part their societies have assigned them as women.

Most people would find my post and associations absurd. Of course they died, silly, they were men, they were supposed to be drafted, and die heroes for their countries.

Step back from your culture, and pretend to be an alien from Mars, where there are no genders and people reproduce from stemcells.

You will find that the military draft is a more extreme version of enforcing gender definition, then any other on Earth if you judge by the number of involuntary lives lost.

I don't mean to take away from the thread, just to add a spin to it, that I am sure not many people thought about.