1. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161348 by wendelin on April 15, 2008 at 7:38 am

I'm actually with Henri on this... to a ccertain extent. No moral relativism for me: anybody forced to live a life not of their choosing is an abomination, women (or anyone else) enjoying fewer rights than others is an outrage, female infanticide is horrible.

However, the idea that having sex with a consenting 13 year old girl is "child abuse" is definitely arguable. Sexual maturity is biological, and happens way earlier than the culturally/legally mandated 18 years. To look down upon other cultures that consider biological sexual maturity as the only marker for when a girl is ready to have sex is elitist and racist.

Also, in this article (I say again, IN THIS ARTICLE), I see no evidence of women being deprived of their rights, or being forced into this trade against their will. On the contrary, they are empowered by their capacity to earn a good living and provide for themselves and their families. They aren't subservient to pimps or madams, they run their own lives and control their own destinies. Kudos to them, I say. To consider prostitution abominable in itself betrays a distinctly Judeo-Christian prudishness; to think that all prostitutes are downtrodden or in need of rescue is evidence of a western-supremacist mindset.

As long as these women are free to do as they wish, as long as they are earning enough money to take care of themselves and their health (as they clearly seem to be doing), what is the problem?

2. Hinduism and Buddhism offer much more sophisticated worldviews (or philosophies) and I see nothing wrong with these religions.

Comment #98349 by wendelin on December 13, 2007 at 1:55 pm

I don't know anything about Buddhism but I was brought as a Hindu and the major way in which it is different from the big 3 monotheistic faiths is UTTER INCOHERENCE. You could make practically any statement about Hinduism and it would be true. Hinduism teaches reincarnation, but not really. Hinduism has a million gods and goddesses, but they are all contained in a holy trinity - no, wait, it's all just one God - no, wait, there is just one god and there is ONLY god and everything from that pebble to the tapeworm in your belly is just various manifestations of the One Holy One.

The best I can say is that it's truly a free-for-all... you can believe whatever you wish and call yourself a Hindu. I have openly been an atheist since I was 10, and I've always been told that's Hinduism, too - at the "highest level" of Hinduism, there's no god belief at all. When Christian missionaries try to convert Hindus, they're often baffled to see Hindus listen interestedly to stories of Jesus and then cheerfully add a picture of Jesus to their list of Gods to worship.

I once challenged my father - who is very into Hindu philosophy - to make a single moral statement that would contradict Hinduism without a doubt. But a very popular interpretation of Hinduism is to believe that everybody, even murderers, thieves, rapists and lawyers, are here to do follow their Dharma (occupational principle) and do their Karma (ordained task), so they're never held *personally* responsible for their misdeeds. Hey, I'm a thief, this is what I do for a living! There are judges and gaolers and policemen whose job it is to throw thieves in jail, sure, but it's all as impersonal as can be, and ideally, nobody is supposed to harbour ill feelings towards anybody else.

It's very frustrating. It's also the reason why it's impossible to debate a Hindu.

3. The God Delusion and Alister E McGrath

Comment #81795 by wendelin on October 25, 2007 at 7:38 am

Yet another normal, polite and intelligent believer, if rather boring and eager to agree. I get the feeling these guys are capable of thinking and speaking sense if only they weren't talking to atheists.

He's *right* that science can't say much about culture (except perhaps in an empirical measurement sort of way, after the fact)... but he's wrong to suggest atheists claim science IS the arbitrer of culture. He's *right* that a lot of people find comfort in religion, but he's wrong to say atheists claim otherwise (we only say people *shouldn't* be comforted by lies).

But get him to talk to an atheist and he ends up sounding like a moron. He attributes positions to Dawkins that no honest human being would hold. He misrepresents Dawkins's arguments and speaks in non sequiturs.

Shame. I'm beginning to think this dialogue is doomed.

4. Help Counter the New Atheist Crusade to 'Evangelize' America!

Comment #79421 by wendelin on October 17, 2007 at 8:29 am

Do Fundies and bad grammar go hand in hand in America? I wonder what he means by putting "young and old" in quotation marks. Very existential.

5. Faith schools should not be tax-funded, and here's why

Comment #71674 by wendelin on September 19, 2007 at 12:50 pm

jimbob:

"...millions of YOU.."? Seriously? It's amazing how easily some men automatically classify anything remotely to do with women as "women's issues" i.e. "not my business" and "you women can take care of it".

6. Court bans Christian cross on private land in public park

Comment #68390 by wendelin on September 7, 2007 at 3:59 am

Anybody notice the religious tilt of the headline? "Court bans cross on PRIVATE LAND in public park", when it should have read, "Court bans CREATION of private land in public park to keep cross."

7. Another view

Comment #66464 by wendelin on August 30, 2007 at 3:49 am

Baeoz, and others who suggest acupuncture acted as a placebo for my dad and me:

Exactly how does a placebo work when the ailment in question is a SLIPPED DISK? I have mainstream science's medical records to prove it, you know. A slipped disc means horrendous back aches, an inability to straighten up completely on bad days, and my dad even had trauma to muscle fibres in the area, which doctors said was incurable. The AFTER picture: muscle-fibre trauma remained, but the disc was back in place.

I'm an atheist myself, and I think some people on this forum would do well not to exhibit the very irrationality and dogmatism we (and Dawkins) are often accused of. A thing does not become an "assault on reason" simply by virtue of being "Eastern". There is a reason why acupuncture survived for so long - and the same goes for Yoga (which refers to not just the exercise but also the complete Yogic lifestyle, including Ayurvedic medicine). There is a reason why an overwhelming majority of people in Asian countries continue to put their trust in these systems of healing for a select bunch of ailments. Is it impossible that they are rational people who recognise the healing systems have something to offer, just as western medicine does?

And yes, the theory is full of mumbo-jumbo, and I myself have very little faith in THAT. But when a lot of relatives and friends tell you that their - or their friends' - slipped disc problems were taken care of by acupuncture, that's good enough for me.

Anecdotal evidence is still evidence.

54. Comment #66257 by Bonzai on August 29, 2007 at 1:22 pm
BAEOZ wrote:

No, you and your dad, with all respect, are living proof that belief in the efficacy of a treatment, acupuncture, works. It may be that sticking needles into various points of the body works, or just by having these needles inserted into the body makes you think they work and the brain takes it from there. It may be some other cause. I'm not sure which is the case, and I don't know where the evidence lies.



Does it matter which way it is to the patient who is somehow healed while all the pills prescribed by the Western doctors don't do the job? If he used a placebo and it worked while "scientific" medicine didn't more power to him.

It also seems rather unscientific to a priori rule out certain empirical data as self delusion simply because you cannot accommodate it in your theory.

8. Another view

Comment #66250 by wendelin on August 29, 2007 at 12:59 pm

Excuse me? My dad and I are living proof that acupuncture works. Both of us suffered from a slipped spinal disc that would have required very expensive and chancy treatment if we'd done what the doctors said. Instead we tried acupuncture and 15 years later, so far, so good.

9. Sikh girl will convert for a place at Catholic school

Comment #64450 by wendelin on August 20, 2007 at 5:35 am

>>We think Sikhism is similar to Roman Catholicism so we put her in that school.<<

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Since I have nothing intelligent to add, I will note that:
1. I agree 100% with Irate_atheist, and
2. This reasoning is not at all uncommon in India, where I grew up, and where my parents miraculously forgot their Hindu mania when time came for me to go to a Catholic convent school.

10. Amnesty to defy Catholic church over rape victims' abortion rights

Comment #63108 by wendelin on August 13, 2007 at 6:07 am

Well, color me underwhelmed.

Follow that chain of logic for a second. If abortion is murder, murder is OK if rape victims commit it?

One more step. Women who had consensual sex and got pregnant don't get abortions because it was "their fault" - pregnancy and childbirth is your punishment, sister, for having sex.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the pro-life movement.

11. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58588 by wendelin on July 25, 2007 at 9:23 am

I'd actually argue that the caste system is not part of hinduism-the-religion but of hinduism-the-culture, but most Hindus would not see the two as separate. So yes, I agree: social coersion (long ago - to stick to one's family trade, to commit suicide in your husband's funeral pyre; today - to marry the person of your family's choice) is Hinduism's worst aspect.

Another level at which Hinduism grates is its philosophy and metaphysics, mostly because it's impossible to pin Hindus down to any one statement. To an atheist in love with groundedness and solid principles, this is murky mysticism at its most irritating. But this, perhaps, can be remedied by actually taking the time to study Hinduism deeply - though honestly, if growing up with the religion didn't give me any idea what it was about, I don't know how others will fare!

However, you'll never find a Hindu opposed to science and scientific knowledge, probably because of the utter reverence for learning this religion inculcaltes. You'll find social conservatives who oppose abortions, women's rights, and "social evils" like drugs and alcohol, but you won't find anybody religiously opposed to, say, stem cell research (or even eugenics).

And you'll never find hindus speaking out against theories of astronomy or physics or concepts like evolution, either, mostly because this is one religion that gets the time scales of the universe right. Hindus are used to the idea of millions and billions of years.

12. Muslim heads stuck firmly in the sand

Comment #56641 by wendelin on July 16, 2007 at 5:49 pm

I think this is an extremely insightful article, even if it may well have been written by 'one of us' under an assumed name ;D

I'm from India, and some parts of the article resonated deeply with the half-forgotten environment I grew up in. Particularly: Within Muslim families — like any kind of family where its members are expected to live up to demanding traditional standards of behaviour — there has always been a habit of burying their heads in the sand whenever there is something unfavourable happening.

It really is true. India was officially socialist for a long time (until 1991). You wouldn't believe the stories we used to tell about Those Dastardly Americans foiled by Our Great Scientists... Most had a kernel of truth in them, but it was propaganda enough that nobody thought closely about the real ideologies involved. Everybody I knew was staunchly capitalist - I wonder how we reconciled that with endorsing India's socialist policies and damning America for its greed? I don't think we even had a clear idea what 'capitalism' and 'socialism' meant, they were just words to us... words that meant 'them' and 'us'.

The biggest irony is I grew up hearing this from my mother: "Don't act like those Godless Americans!" She didn't mean Americans were of a different religion and therefore technically godless because they had the wrong god. We knew and were friends with many Christians, I went to a Catholic school. My mother (and most people) seriously thought *capitalists* were all atheists.

Imagine my surprise when I landed here 10 years ago!

13. Doctors' beliefs can hinder patient care

Comment #51373 by wendelin on June 22, 2007 at 2:08 pm

I am outraged. How can it be legal for essential-care providers to deny access to legal procedures?

If we lived in a laissez-faire economy, a free-for-all with no government restrictions the healthcare industry (no restrictions on opening six hospitals right next to one another, if need be; no state-funded "managed" healthcare) then I could understand the rights of private hospitals and private doctors refusing to treat patients according to their "conscience" - though I can't help but notice how consciences only come into play when it's WOMEN's reproductive health in question.

I am outraged, outraged, outraged.

As a human being, as a woman, as a person who underwent an abortion with the help of blissfully nonjudgemental doctors at Planned Parenthood - I am outraged.

14. The Future Forum Presents: Christopher Hitchens and Marvin Olasky

Comment #49961 by wendelin on June 14, 2007 at 9:27 am

54 minutes in:
Now we're hearing... the contents of the Bible? The man has 10 minutes to rebut Hitchens, and he isn't just quoting scripture, he's throwing the whole Book at him!

15. The Future Forum Presents: Christopher Hitchens and Marvin Olasky

Comment #49958 by wendelin on June 14, 2007 at 9:11 am

34 minutes into the program:
Eh. Why is Olasky under the impression that TRANSPORTATION PROBLEMS are the reason why Hitchens is unaware of all the good that Christians do? He keeps giving directions to all the places where good Christians can be found.. I keep waiting for Hitchens to say, sorry, can you communicate that to my GPS?

16. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48797 by wendelin on June 9, 2007 at 4:38 am

Comment #48754 by Logicel on June 9, 2007 at 1:44 am
3. Comment #48749 by Logicel on June 9, 2007 at 1:24 am
Religion, often as the outer clothing of ethnicity,...
______

Excellent phrase.

_______________________________________

Maybe not. Perhaps it is more accurate to say instead: that ethnicity, often as the outer clothing of religion,...
_______________________________________

Actually, the rabbi was right. Ethnicity (race, geography, genetic makeup) is intrinsic, religion is acquired.

17. In Saudi Arabia, a view from behind the veil

Comment #48379 by wendelin on June 7, 2007 at 4:11 pm

Having spent the past 3 weeks among educated, "liberated" upper-middle-class Indians, I'm perhaps not as shocked as I should be by this incredibly moving article. The humiliation of living in a deeply sexist society can only be understood from experience. It seeps into the littlest things, everyday liberties I took for granted were checked during my trip: was I talking to a man other than my husband for too long? Was I wearing my bindi, my nuptial necklace, or had I forgotten them again? Was I learning their language quickly enough to suit them? Was I being polite and respectful of the most offensive pronouncements of the elders? It was like being transported into a Jane Austen novel, without the fun and games.

Putting up with it all makes one feel cheap. This writer speaks for me with the words: "But somehow, it always feels like defeat."

18. Sam's Flea!

Comment #32852 by wendelin on April 18, 2007 at 1:28 pm

One of the advertising blurbs for this book reads:

"In the interaction between Doug Wilson and Sam Harris, one of them is wrong and one is right. If you can't figure it out after reading this exchange, you never will."
Hanna Rosin
Washington Post staff writer & contributing editor,
The Atlantic Monthly
(http://www.americanvision.org/store/pc-781-12-letter-from-a-christian-citizen.aspx)

What a hooooot!

19. The Human Body as an Evolutionary Patchwork

Comment #31430 by wendelin on April 12, 2007 at 4:20 pm

I've just had the equivalent of - there's no other word for it - a religious experience. Listening to this man, I want to go back to school to study evolutionary biology. I wonder if he knows how inspiring he is?

I also want to make Creationists sit through this lecture - the ones who are literate enough to understand it. I'm going to point out to them every instance of Dr. Walker saying "This is controversial", "This isn't proven", "There's debate about this", "This is a very preliminary conclusion"... and that shining golden moment when he said: "This is true despite what I've previously written; I was wrong before."

The breathtaking rigour in the evidentiary process used in all science would knock the socks off those ignorant hicks.

20. How Many Scientists?

Comment #28157 by wendelin on March 28, 2007 at 7:01 am

Scooter, the consensus of *scientists* is leagues apart from the consensus (supposed) of laymen.

21. A hundred residents of a Russian village have refused to switch to new passports because they believe the documents' bar codes contain satanic symbols

Comment #27721 by wendelin on March 26, 2007 at 10:31 am

I'm with these peasants, actually - Big Brother by any other name...

22. Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices

Comment #27128 by wendelin on March 23, 2007 at 8:35 am

You didn't read me right, Beth. Does it matter whether your brain creates irresistible impulses for criminal behaviour, or whether you consciously "choose" (whatever that means) to commit a crime? Either way you need treatment: old-school conditioning (normal jail) or meds&therapy (psychiatric ward-jail), whichever works best for you.

The panic is evident when people cry, "Nobody can be held responsible for their crimes! Ohnoes!" There's no reason why you can't be held responsible for the way your brain is - locking you up in jail or a ward for your rehabilitation and public safety is exactly what we do now, and it won't change. Except for maybe more people going to wards.

23. Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices

Comment #26942 by wendelin on March 22, 2007 at 12:42 pm

Also, I can hardly believe people are panicking over this idea that our moral choices may be controlled by our brains. Oooh, radical! All this is going to lead to is the creation of another forbidden tree of knowledge, this time by scientists. Phthooey.

How does it change the way we work now? Philosophers have said for centuries (and governments for - well, decades) that the law is not about retribution but about rehabilitation. Does it matter WHY you held me up and stole my Mahnolos? My soul did it, my brain did it... either way you need to be locked away so you learn how to live without other people's Mahnolos.

Here's another radical thought: brains can be trained! Specifically, they can be trained to think: I'd better not stick up this woman for her Mahnolos or else they'll lock me up again.

24. Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices

Comment #26941 by wendelin on March 22, 2007 at 12:36 pm

Newsflash: Anybody with half a brain (and half a conscience, I suppose) would express "willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save others' lives." It's that old dodge, isn't it, if you could push a button that would kill a Chinaman but save your family from being shot by terrorists, you'd do it!

25. 1986 Oxford Union Debate

Comment #25338 by wendelin on March 12, 2007 at 8:40 am

Oh wow. This brings back so many memories of varsity debating, I'm now realising I really miss it! But I wonder why they're using Australs style debating in Britain, where I've heard it's almost always British Parliamentary style?

26. God, sex, drugs and politics

Comment #22526 by wendelin on February 19, 2007 at 1:45 pm

1. The Texas goverener's former chief of staff is now a Merck lobbyist.

2. GlaxoSmithKline is set to roll out its own HPV vaccine in six months, and its clinical trials have been just as "amazing" as Merck's. ("Amazing", because it was recently reported that 100% - yes, *100%* - of ALL clinical trials EVER, of ALL drugs, when sponsored by the company manufacturing it, have been resounding successes. Go figure.)

So the question I'm asking is: why is the government in such a big hurry to shove this vaccine down our throats?