[rescue] Airport Security and Rescues...

[nate at portents.com]

> Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>> Perhaps I missed part of the discussion, but it seems you are drawing a
>> moral equivalence between long-held Muslim beliefs and one or both of
>> "the Christian West" or "the secular, pluralistic West".
>>
>> Is that the case?
>
> That's not actually what I said, but let's explore that.
>
> Couldn't it be possible that forcing secular pluralism on those who
> don't believe in it be just as much arrogant presumption as forcing
> religion on those who don't believe in it?  Can secular pluralism not be
> the solution in every society?  What gives the secular pluralist the
> right to force that philosophy on another?  Isn't that conceit the
> anathema of secular pluralism?
>
> Similarly, the liberal who chooses to force liberalism on a conservative
> is not a liberal.  A liberal respects the conservative's decision to be
> a conservative.

Hmm, interesting.

>From my perspective, religion was a collective expression of the human
societal meta-organism to structure the development and behavior of people
and stabilize the large communities forming with the spread of language
before the time of a secular legal system, widespread literacy, defined
commerce and opportunities for secular upward mobility.  We now have the
opportunity, in a generally less oppressive environment than the past,
through education and communication to achieve empathy and through that a
secular morality.

Religion was government, was law, was the education system, was the
structure of the path to adulthood, essentially a larger 'parent' (hence
all of the parental attributes of god) to adults everywhere, and is still
useful for less developed societies.

I view it more as a kind of vestigial thing which is now a convenient
proxy for things people do both good and bad, and personally I would
prefer a system of more personal accountability and an overall effort from
people to drop their egos and further their own personal development and
honesty.  Organized religion can just as easily block a person's
development as it can assist it.

That said, I don't think anything should be forced on anyone unless it's a
studied collective response to an a-moral action.

Of course, this is all my personal opinion.

- Nate