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The neat thing about bad arguments is that usually they are layered in thick and fast that you don’t catch them the first time,so you have to slow down and rewind the tape to see the intersectionality of wrongness and then unweave the fail.
Today’s disservice is dedicated to a post by the Wayward Catholic, ostensibly extending the putrefied olive branch of religion to those who are drifting (I imagine it is code for people who are starting to think for themselves) to get them back into the feckless fold.
A noble cause indeed. But hey, if the arguments are good, then maybe there is a good point to be had. Riiiiight…anyhow, lets see how the Wayward Catholic does in his(assumption of gender) post “Killing is wrong“.
The argument was if I supported such a law and the law passed then that would be forcing my opinion on others. Of course the commentor fails to see that the opposite must also be true as well. Passing any law ca be considered one group of people forcing their opinion on another group.
Individual laws are forcing their “opinion” on other people. Cannibals are rightly annoyed that they cannot go to the local Uncle Wally’s and begin the all-U-can eat feast. Laws are in place in society to preserve order and promote fair treatment in society and usually, said laws are enacted based their utility and on the needs of said society.
A perfect example is the HHS contraception mandate. This mandate forces all employers (with a very narrow exception) to provide contraception, sterilizations and “morning after” pills to their employees whether they have a religious objection to them or not.
Ah, the persecution!! Not being able to propagate outdated and irrational beliefs on society, the horror! Welcome to civilization that does not kowtow to your magic book and delusional mind-set. Women use contraception and should have access to it when they need it, at any time. Reproductive consequences for women are serious and they need to have all the options available to them.
But then this is the typical secular argument. They see all issues from one side, and one side only. If they think something is right, it is right, end of story, and anything which has to do with religion isn’t right so it is bad and must be destroyed.
What a marvellous case of projection you have going there, never mind the sweeping generalizations about all “secular arguments”. I imagine the problem for you is that often, secular arguments are based on evidence and verifiable facts, rather than on mythology, magic and dogmatic adherence to bronze age bugaboo.
The fact is, access to contraception is good for society. The above links are just a small sample of the evidence that supports the benefits of contraception in society. Just because you do not believe in contraception does not mean contraception is a bad thing. You have every right to express your opinion. However, unsubstantiated opinion is pretty much next to worthless when it comes to the law and moral issues in society.
Belief weighs heavily in the next paragraph, a paragraph one sees much to often from those who worship the almighty fetus. But hey one more reiteration won’t hurt, especially when its being used for educational purposes.
Even though killing and murder is wrong they will defend it, doing everything they can to “soften” the fact that it is murder, that they are taking a life. An innocent one at that, one who doesn’t have a “choice”.
Killing and murder is generally wrong, especially when dealing with people. Blastocycsts, fetuses, fertilized eggs et cetera are not people. I’m going to assume, for the sake of argument that you think that “life” begins conception. It is an erroneous, problematic assumption at best. So, what this comes down to is whether or not you think women get to makes choices about what goes on in their body.
You don’t get a say if you need a kidney and I happen to have one that is suitable to donate. Bodily autonomy does not magically stop when it comes to uteri. What goes on in a woman’s uterus falls under the same measure, her body, her choice. It starts and ends there.
We can always thank religion for continuing the war on women.
Yep, she is just asking for trouble isn’t she? What is her crime you ask? Going outside while female. Guilty as charged.
http://youtu.be/qTt4XPEV0W8
Ophelia Benson’s ironic comment on said video: “Tut. They’re just playing victim. They should pull their socks up and get on with it.”
It is a test of sorts. If you cannot seem to find the irony in the statement, please look at the sidebar of this blog. Under the feminist links category, please select Feminism 101.
Hans Zimmer knows Brass. :)
Some of what I dislike about creationists stems from their basic epistemological premises. For instance the idea that belief in an idea ipso facto makes it correct. The harder you believe in something, the more correct you are. Of course this idea is just one of the pathologically shitty ideas creationists come up with; it gets worse.
Because in their epistemology if you believe something, and their magic book of choice happens to mention it in passing, well then Goddidit and no further explanation is needed. It must nice to be dishonest and lazy when it comes to backing up and relating your ideas to the world. Dear reader, I hear you saying, “But Arbourist, this is a rational humanist blog where is your evidence?” Praise the Four-Cheezes patience, gentle reader the mighty wordpress has come to the rescue.
There is a handy feature in wordpress where you can search tags people make for the content of their posts. The posts I tag with “creationism” are much different much much that appears in that category. Take for instance, this noxious little gem of stupidity which we are going to examine with some detail.
What can we prove?
The truth is that no one can prove evolution or creation. We have the same evidence, but no one alive today was an eye witness to the origins of man, and neither of the claims of the creationist and the evolutionist can be observed today. We can only study the result.
*splat* That was my cerebral cortex recoiling in horror at the level of stupid in this one small quotation (there is more friends, but my little cortex is weeping and is begging for the inanity to stop). The fastest way to make arguing easy for yourself is to dishonestly represent your opponent. This one little paragraph is dishonest and shows an astonishingly brain-dead-shambling-zombie-like grasp of argumentation and rhetoric.
“The truth is that no one can prove evolution or creation.” – Bullshit – About 3,630,000 results say you are being a dishonest fuck-wit.
“We have the same evidence,” – Bullshit – Your “evidence” is based on the mystical ramblings of barely sapient bronze age goat-herds. Some 3.6 million papers that mostly conform to the scientific method, are peer reviewed and falsifiable say your version of the facts are the equivalent of the chunder my dog threw up yesterday.
“but no one alive today was an eye witness to the origins of man, and neither of the claims of the creationist and the evolutionist can be observed today.” – What the frack does being an eyewitness have to to with anything? I cannot see the moon orbit around the earth, should we infer that it floats into the sky on unicorn farts and then sinks every night once they dissipate? Usually you cannot see electricity, only its effects – are we to believe it doesn’t exist either or is its more fucking fantastical farting unicorns?
“We can only study the result.” – The only thing being studied by creationists is the depths of their rectal cavities because it is where they get all their fecal-dominated facts from when not busily bloviating about how godidit.
There is no controversy, only the religiously deluded making shit up and trying to pass it off as reasonable. Their arguments are piss-poor and they offer little to no evidence of a theory with more explicative power. Their arguments can sound good, but like polishing a turd for centuries,(the bible being one of the biggest floaters in the bowl), once the varnish is gone, all you are left with is shit.
Loved the movie, but I breathlessly await the sequel.
The overarching apparatus of state is plainly evinced by the actions of one president elected on Hope and Change.
I get these great ideas and I say to myself, “Hey Arbourist, you should write a primer on feminism so you do not have to explain and reexplain 101 material until you turn blue”…then (as usual) someone else has already done it and done it better than I could do. So, many thanks to Thinking Girl for her concise definitions :) –
Feminism is a way of looking at the world, a framework or lens through which other issues can be examined. The basic premise of feminism is that societal structures are based on a false assumption that men are superior to women, and that this state of society is unfair and unfounded and causes gender oppression.
Feminism, like women, is not homogenous. There are many, many offshoots of feminism which hold different theories about the nature of gender inequality, how to achieve gender equality, theories about the relationship between gender inequality and other forms of inequality such as racism, homophobia/heterosexism, classism, theories about the relationships between gender inequality and the environment, etc. Some of these include:
- Radical feminism
- Marxist feminism
- Lesbian feminism
- Black feminism
- Postmodern feminism (including queer theory)
- Post-colonial feminism
- Third World feminism
- Socialist feminism
- Liberal feminism
- Ecofeminism
- Equity feminism
- Gender feminism
- Sex-positive feminism (including anti-pornography theory)
What is Patriarchy?
A mainstay in feminist theory is patriarchy, a relationship of power existing between men and women in which men are in control of socio-economic political power and women are subordinate. Patriarchy informs all other social systems and relationships between men and women, men and other men, and women and other women. Patriarchy is the root of gender oppression. Patriarchy is insidious and runs very deep. It is The MATRIX. It is not always immediately visible to the naked eye. Feminist analysis exposes the ugliness, existence, and persistence of patriarchy, even in seemingly innocuous situations.
What is Oppression?
Oppression is the wide-spread social privileging of some groups over other groups through social structures and institutions. An important thing to understand is that oppression consists of two inter-related phenomena: subjugation and privilege. They live side-by-side. Dismantling oppression means dismantling BOTH of these phenomena.
Something else that is important to understand is that oppression is not discrimination. Oppression is about systems and relations of power, and exists in social structures and institutions. Oppression is wide-spread subjugation of one group while simultaneously privileging another group. This means that those groups who are subjected to oppression are not in a social position to oppress people belonging to the dominant group. There is no such thing as “reverse” sexism, racism, homophobia, (dis)ableism, classism, etc.
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