Harry Baya October 6, 2024.
\n[ I would probably benefit from watching Cellia Young\u2019s talk today, Oct6, 2024,
\nagain. I zoned out on parts of it.-also I need to know if, and how, I could view
\nolder talks ]
\nHowever, I do have a few comments.
\nThe first is that when I, and I think most people, think about an issue that has
\naspects of the role of government in relation to region \u2013 including the extent to
\nwhich government choices are influenced by religions ( beliefs, traditions, leaders
\nwith particular religious views) -my point of view is more from a kind
\nconglomeration of all aspects of my life \u2013 including what we call culture \u2013 the
\nmovies, books, classes, discussions, values, experience and all of having grown up
\nand been part of the mainstream culture of most U.S. citizens. This inner source
\nof values and weighted logic does not lend itself easily to distinguishing one
\nthread, such as the influence of the state, or the influence of various aspect of my
\nreligious experience, learning, and bias. It\u2019s all just a giant cloud like ecology of
\nmany sources out of which come my thoughts views and decisions.
\nThe second thing I want to comment on is that part of the discussions of these
\nareas try to come up with precedents, choices made in the past, many of which
\nwere at various points attempted to be codified in precise language. I think of
\nthings like the ten commandments, the U.S. Constitution, the bill of rights. More
\nbroadly this includes things like all the legal rulings made by our courts system,
\nand religions texts (The bible, the koran, etc. ).
\nThese statements were created in hope of capturing a particular set of rules or
\nguidelines that seemed most appropriate when they were created. We act as if
\nthose words should continue to be honored today. We act as if to disagree with
\nthem is heretical, or traitorous, or somehow doing something that will harm the
\nwell being of the human race. Our speeches look back to transition points when
\nnew views, such democracy vs autocracy, came into being and try to justify our
\nindividual current views by saying that are coherent with past highly honored
\nstatements.
\nHowever it seems to me that I, and perhaps we, are missing the point that people
\ncan want what they want without having to have some sort of historical
\nprecedent.
\nIf a U.S. citizen does not like a point of view clearly stated by our constitution,
\nthen they are entitled to hold that view without being imprisoned for just stating
\nit. Individual citizens with diverse views must deal with the culture they are in.
\nThey should be allowed to have, and state, preferences \u2013 but what actions they
\ntake may be restricted by their culture.
\nThe extreme example is something like \u201cyou can\u2019t yell fire in a crowded theater\u201d.
\nIndividuals must deal with the laws that could be applied to them. Sometimes
\nthose laws are unfair. Then individuals must work to change those laws they think
\nare unfair.
\nWhat if the \u201cunfair\u201d laws say that it is criminal to work to have those laws
\nchanged. Well that\u2019s an area I have nothing wise to say about at the moment. In
\nother cases the the laws\/guidelines\/rules permit working to change them, but the
\ntask may be difficult and may even take generations, as was the case with
\nabolishing slavery.
\nI read a quote today from a movie, A League of their own, (Tom Hanks, Gena
\nDavis). \u201cIt’s supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it\u201d
\nI just finished reading \u201cDeath by Black Hole\u201d. The last few chapters dealt with
\nsome issues related to religion vs science. The author stated that because science
\nis based on verifiable facts, repeatable experiences, while religion is based on
\nfaith, whether or not that which if believed is verifiable. The result is that though
\nscience may make large blunders, incorrect assumptions and theories, over the
\nlong run they are self correcting by the ongoing use of the scientific approach
\n(experiements, facts, checking ). In contrast religion has no such self correcting
\nprocess \u2013 it can change \u2013 but only to different things to be take on faith.
\nI suggest that, ideally, the evolution of the cultures of the human race are more
\nlike science than religion. However I see little evidence of progress in my lifetime,
\nnor in history as I understand it. I see \u201cprogress\u201d in growing human populations,
\ncomplexities in many ares (psychological, scientific, technology, religion etc. ) but I
\ndo not see progress toward a more stable world, a world that is more satisfying
\nhumans, a world where humans are likely to survive.
\nWhat triggered all this was the awareness that all our values and preferences are
\nin some sense valid \u2013 even if they are not acceptable in a particular context. If
\nsome people want the U.S. government to be modified to have more of Chritianity
\nin it \u2013 that\u2019s a valid goal \u2013 even if it\u2019s not what the founding fathers wanted.
\nPeople can want something different from what their tradition says was right.
\nSo be it.
\nHarry Baya October 6, 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Harry Baya October 6, 2024. [ I would probably benefit from watching Cellia Young\u2019s talk today, Oct6, 2024, again. I zoned out on parts of it.-also I need to know if, and how, I could view older talks ] However, I do have a few comments. The first is that when I, and I think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy-religion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boppers.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}