LOL! I will try to remember that the next time parents are allowing their child to die because they refuse to allow her a blood transfusion. I will be careful not to suggest that there is anything ridiculous about the idea.
Karen, I am perplexed that you would agree that the ridiculous may claim to be exempt from normal ridicule? I don't say that ridicule is always necessary; it would depend on context and situation. But to suggest that it is always inappropriate???? Why should ridiculous ideas enjoy immunity from ridicule?? The dictionary states plainly that the ridiculous arouses and deserves ridicule.
Firstly, I think there exists a somewhat diametric relationship between ridiculing people and ridiculing ideas. Ideas are not the person; nor do they belong to the person.
I think it is necessary to judge, evaluate, and challenge ideas which are shameful, harmful, or detrimental to human progress, safety, or values. To that end, when one comes across texts or teachings in the Jewish, Christian, or Islamic bibles, or when one encounters such teachings in the persons of such apologists in these or any other sects, where such ideas diminish, antagonize, and gainsay the integrity and reason which are necessary to human decency...then one has a duty to oneself (if one values freedom and reason) to judge these ideas, and if necessary to condemn them. The idea that IDEAS deserve immunity from judgement is both risible and arrogant: these are ideas which are opposed to reason, and which arise from the deep shadows of mystical confusion and hubris.
To pretend that ideas are equally meritorious, and to suggest that one ought not to judge ideas because they are part of some "sacred" corpus or dogma of some religious sect or cult, is to pretend a special privilege for the very ideas that inform the twisted thoughts of people such as Andrea Yates.
Ideas are not equal. We don't simply send people out to space and expect that they will somehow "astroplane" over to the moon. We may talk about demons and "satan" in the parlour, but we don't smile indulgently when parents allow their children to die by refusing them a blood transfusion.
In order that ideas operate in the service of humankind (or at least not to her detriment), they must conform to a complex paradigm of reason and scientific congruence. There is a limit as to how batty ideas may become before it is justified, if not obligatory, to stretch them before the sunlight, and to expose them as worthless or dangerous.
The idea that 72 virgins and 28 young boys await someone "obedient" to such nutty ideas, ought to be ridiculed and condemned. Such ideas (apart from their self serving nature) display a disregard (not merely for the ideas of others), but for the rights and the existence of others. To suggest that the sexually inexperienced and young are the legitimate prey of the selfish urges of mindless mental misfits is to collaborate in the exploitation of human beings, and to co-operate in the sabotage of intellectual and moral progress.
Ideas may be merely useless and unhelpful; or they may be actually harmful. So when the Christian bible speaks of testing the faithfulness of your wife by forcing her to drink slaughterhouse offal and worms mixed in muddy water in order to "judge" her fidelity by the manner in which her immune system responds to this assault--we do not merely laugh good naturedly and encourage the equality and merit of such a malignant idea. When we find people claiming that Jews are vermin and fit only for the manure pile, we do not chuckle with respect and tolerance for the claimant, nor do be minimize the ugliness of the ideas by withholding our contempt and ridicule.
For anyone to suggest that anyone should be considered exempt from criticism, ridicule, or challenge, simply because they have couched their harmful and ridiculous ideas in one or another traditional belief structure, is arrogant and fatuous. Anyone proselytizing hatred of Jews or any other group is rightly condemned, regardless of whether or not the hatred is a religious or secular interpretation. Those who believe that magicians in Egypt used to know the secret of creating life from nothing deserve a roll of the eyes. These ideas are not neutral. These ideas inform the mad structure of the kool aid drinkers and the comet travellers, and they represent an assault on the safety of those fragile and needy. We have a right to withhold our assent to these nonsensical scriptures. We have shed too much blood in our journey across the morass of superstition, fear, and arbitrary treatment at the hands of mystery moochers, to allow our humanity to be held hostage to the vicious superstitions of the dim and the witless.
I refuse to contribute, for instance, to the deaths of innocent children, because their parents are mired in superstitious nonsense, and refuse them necessary medical treatment. How is this any different or more acceptable than blowing off their heads with a shot gun and burning down the house? Why do we run like rabbits to avoid the pursuer of reason? Is it so frightening to allow a bit of truth and reason to trip us up at the heals? Or do we continue to humour ideas which justify oppression and inequality (such as the gnashing of teeth in "Hell", or the perpetual service of 72 virgins)?
I'm sorry. I have no respect for ideas which exalt tyrants or racists; I don't care if their name is Hitler or Yahweh. I am not going to pretend that ideas have no consequences, or that the consequences are of equal weight.
Naturally, I do not ridicule the idea that the unknown could be benign and personally interested. I may disagree--but that is not at all the same thing. However, when people begin to imagine the unknown from an ugly heart, and when they start peopling the unknown with tyrants and losers who command an obedience to ugly doctrines which are opposed to human thought and individual rights...then, I am going to ridicule and condemn those ideas--even while having compassion for those whom sling them about.
Neocon seems to be urging that a certain immunity be granted the ideas of those couching their thoughts in religious terms, or when they reflect sentiments consistent with a religious character. How does he justify why such an unnatural latitude should prevail in the providence of ideas which are ridiculous, and oft times harmful?
Ridiculous ideas invite ridicule as the primary natural response. A request that such a natural and positive response ought to be stifled to the furtherance of superstitious nonsense, is somewhat repulsive--suggesting as it does that the responses of disdain and abhorrence, or disrespect and caution , are dismissed as, at best, inappropriate, and, at worst, immoral. Instead, we are to exalt the irrational and to let the seeds of human endeavour fall where they may--to live or to die as chance alone may dictate.
Such a mendacious allowance of unnatural margin in favour of the ridiculous...is itself ridiculous and deserving of opprobrium. One may argue which ideas are ridiculous; but one may not argue the fact that some are--nor that those "some" are deserving of natural ridicule.
This is not to suggest that the people who hold ridiculous ideas are themselves ridiculous; only that their ideas should not enjoy a special immunity to the natural judgements of reason and common-sense.
If someone tells me that a greater power, or a higher order, has walked with them and assisted their sense of meaning and their manner of coping...do I find it ridiculous? Of course, not. The idea is not a ridiculous one. However, if someone tells me that the "law of jealousies" in the bible was God's law, and is something which should be respected because it is sacred teaching...do I find THAT ridiculous? You bet I do. I condemn it, and I ridicule it with all my ability. Indeed...the idea ridicules itself.
If parents are (in effect) murdering their child by denying them a blood transfusion because of some ridiculous beliefs they hold in Christianity, do I ridicule and condemn? You know the answer. They are savages of the mind, and they are dangerous to the cherished beliefs of America which must fight for reason and rights if they are to prevail over superstition and might. Will I smile indulgently while some mindless mental midget yaps about the reward of 72 virgins and 28 young boys and fresh water and fruit and pretend that these were other than the primitive hopes and dreams of a desert dwelling people with less of these things than they should like, thus making their promise a highly motivational carrot? No. Nor will I pretend that such ideas as the purpose of children being to act as slaves to satisfy the lusts and proclivities of the faithful in heaven are harmless ones and that their opposition is prejudicial or rude. Give me a break!
Trying to promote a society of reason and rights must be suborned to the attainment of a phoney peace with the supernatural and her dim sighted proselytizers? Sorry.
Neocon is asking that rational people voluntarily disarm themselves in the arena of ideas and allow the ridiculous, the dangerous, and the crude to stand side by side and equally with the sensible, the empirical, and the refined. It is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard of... |
