Godheval.com

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m way late to the party on this one, but I just wanted to weigh in quickly on this whole “Boobquake” thing.

For those who, like me 5 minutes ago, have no idea what this refers to, an Iranian cleric attributed the “immodest” dressing of women to the increase in earthquakes.

Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

As you can read in the article, a woman named Jennifer McCreight launched an effort to prove Sedighi wrong.  On April 26th, tens of thousands of women intend to wear their most revealing attire, figuring that if Sedighi is right, an earthquake should surely follow soon afterwards.

Chances are that nothing will happen, and that Sedighi is either a complete moron, or a ideological predator attempting to appeal to people’s sexual conservatism – through fear – in order to recruit more people to his particular moral code. (more…)

The following video discusses how game design and game playing can contribute to making a better world.  It sounds like a lofty idea, but it is well-argued, as I hope you will see.

Jane McGonigal is not simply comparing games to real life, but is talking about tapping into those abstract qualities that gamers bring to bear against game challenges – applying that determination, hard work, and idealism to real world endeavors.

It can, has been, and will continue to be argued that games are simply games, that they are designed to be won, and that the real world has no such safeguards against failure.  But the game McGonigal most talks about – World of Warcraft – ultimately has no point.  It has no happy ending. It is game that never ends, which works well for the developers, who continue to make millions upon millions of dollars every year.

You can overcome the most epic of epic challenges, but soon thereafter the game resets to the way it was before that challenge was met, to enable others to do the same.  There are people who continue to play Warcraft even though they have achieved the maximum level, have defeated the ultimate boss, and have done almost everything there is to do in the game.

But they will go through it all again, with the same determination and idealism, to help another player have that experience.  In the real world that could translate into people helping those less fortunate – i.e. at a “lower level” – after they have solved their own challenges.  It is not about pity or guilt, but about mutual understanding of a problem, and collaboration to solve it.  It is this kind of idealistic, high-minded, cooperative determination that McGonigal is suggesting we need to employ to take on world challenges.

As children, we believe mostly whatever we are told – by parents, family, teachers, and even friends. We hear a story and we do not know – until it is clarified by another – whether or not the story is real or make-believe.

Then as teenagers it is common for us to go through a rebellious phase – not necessarily acting outside of any established moral or ethical framework, but daring to venture out on our own, to establish our identities as individuals, and to explore for ourselves what constitutes “truth”. Sometimes we act like raving lunatics just to be contrary.

Then we enter adulthood, and invariably become more “grounded”, learning to temper our youthful passions, to focus that energy towards more “practical” pursuits.  We learn balance, objectivity, humility.  We are able – in most cases – to reconcile our personal views with the fact that others have different views.

We grow up.

It occurred to me recently that there may be a parallel between this maturation from childhood to adulthood, and people’s progression through different phases of belief and disbelief.  Of course not everyone has the journey through belief and/or disbelief, just as we don’t all mature at the same pace or experience the same things at any given point in our lives.  So the parallel I am drawing is meant to be generic and abstract, rather than a precise comparison. (more…)

One idea I firmly support is that of Civil Unions for everyone. Rather than legalizing gay marriage, the laws should be changed to recognize civil unions as the only binding legal contract between life partners. Marriages – those contracts recognized by religious institutions – could then either be a subset of civil unions, or a separate thing entirely. In this situation, it would be up to each individual church/synagogue/mosque whatever to decide who they “marry”, but they would have absolutely zero authority to deny anyone the right to be in a social contract with any other person, and or any of the privileges that come with that contract. And if one church refuses to do it, then a same-sex couple, and hopefully any right-thinking straight couple, would choose to have their ceremony conducted elsewhere.

Civil Unions For Everyone
http://godheval.net/civil-unions-for-everyone/

However, I think there is something important to consider here. Many of us “straights” take marriage for granted. Some – if not most – social liberals do not put much importance into “traditional values” such as marriage, meaning that we suppose, by virtue of our own wills, we can enter into a commitment without the church or the law dictating the rules of that agreement. We would cite the ridiculously high divorce rate as proof that marriage is a no more reliable form of commitment than a stated vow.

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As I muddled over the recent comments of two particular individuals, which lead me to think that they should shut their mouths, it occurred to me that “people who need to shut up” could become a recurring topic here at Godheval.net.

Welcome to the first installment, featuring none other than Nobel Peace Laureate and President of Israel, Shimon Peres, and God’s earthly emissary (according to the Catholic Faith), his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

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I apologize in advance for the misleading title and for writing about something so trite, but I’ve got a lot on my plate, and I just wanted to post about something without too much effort.  So, no, this post has nothing to do with any connection between the tasty beverage and self-destruction.

This post actually about O.J. Simpson – who a certain organization claims was unfairly charged in the recent robbery/assault cause in Las Vegas.  According to the Society Against Legal Injustice (SALI):

No matter what your opinion of OJ Simpson, his case in Las Vegas is the epitome of social injustice. This case was originated by motives of greed by the instigator of the incident, Thomas Riccio. From there, political opportunity was created for the District Attorney, Judge and Jury to right what some in our society consider to be a wrong from OJ Simpson’s 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles. Everyone deserves to be treated fairly based on current circumstances, and the fact is this is far from what happened to OJ Simpson in Las Vegas.

It takes virtually nothing for me to believe that the legal system committed an injustice here, from the things I’ve witnessed, my own personal experiences, and the general consensus that lawyers are amongst the most unscrupulous members of society.  However, I think that SALI is underestimating the importance of that first sentence – most people’s opinion of Mr. Simpson.

Most people in retrospect, even the legion of African-Americans who celebrated his victory as a general victory over, ironically, legal injustice, think that O.J. was guilty of killing his wife.  We’ll probably never know for sure whether he did or not.  But although we cannot call him a murderer with any absolute certainty, there is no doubt at all that Simpson is, on the other hand, a complete asshole. (more…)

Altruism – something my personal philosophy places at the peak of ethical importance – is also something that seems completely counter-intuitive and contrary to human – or animal – nature. It seems that in any situation where a person does for another, there is always something for that person to gain, even if it is only personal validation. But altruism is not merely doing for others merely for its own sake, but implies a measure of self-sacrifice. And there are even fewer instances of this behavior. One may immediately think of how parents or relatives will do anything to protect or promote the the well-being of their children. But the selfish gene argument has provisions for that kind of behavior – that the genes are acting on their own “best interests”, or rather, in the interest of propagation.

But then a rather common and obvious example of altruism came to my attention. Taking care of animals as pets. Granted, it could be said that we feed and maintain animals for the apparent “love” and “companionship” they provide in return, but this is not true in all cases, as there are some belligerent animals out there. And there is no guarantee going into a pet situation of how or if the owner will benefit. While we take care of our pets much like our children, and indeed often sacrifice some things for their sake, the selfish gene argument does not work here. While we do share some genes with our pets – the same genes common to the entire animal kingdom – the provisions we make for our pets are of a special character. Since the keeping and maintaining of pets is a practice that seems to extend as far back as human civilization itself, perhaps there is some genuine capacity for altruism in our nature, after all.

Not at all related to this subject, I’ve posted a short essay pieced together from email correspondence between myself and another skeptic.

Sometimes I feel a certain anxiety, as though the people around me – just general people, not friends or acquaintances – that people don’t trust me. And maybe they don’t for a plethora of superficial reasons, false preconceptions, or their own fears and insecurities. But what I’m wondering is if the ability to trust others is based upon a person’s estimates of their own integrity. What I mean is that, if a person considers themselves somewhat morally “flexible”, capable of doing unscrupulous things, do they then project that capacity onto others? If you feel that you are not trustworthy yourself, then do you assume the same about others?

Or is it the inverse? That because you are paranoid, insecure, or at least just cautious about the actions or intentions of others, that you assume that feel the same way about you? I am – quite obviously – a cynic, and so perhaps because I don’t trust or anticipate people to have unsavory qualities, I feel like those sentiments are reflected right back at me. Whichever way it goes, I think this kind of thing is at the heart of the barriers to communication and interaction that are so powerful in this city. Certainly there are plenty of people that are genuinely untrustworthy, genuinely immoral, genuinely fucked up – but one would hope that it’s not the majority, or even a large number. Yet it seems as though most people in this city are fearful of mostly everyone else, any macho posturing notwithstanding. What’s strange is that while this area suffers under a lot of crime, it is not unique in that respect, and yet this paranoia-cynicism-insecurity complex is very much a regional (even local) phenomenon. Such bad energy in this place.

I have this sort of lazy interest in transhumanism – which in short is the set of ideas about improving humanity through all sorts of scientific enhancements, such as genetic engineering and technological augmentation. When I say lazy interest I mean that I’ve been thinking about it in passing, like the plot of a science fiction novel, not investigating it like an academic. Some questions immediately came to mind – and I’m sure they’re already being discussed between advocates and detractors. Would a transhuman world would create a society stratified by the different levels to which people were willing to “augment” themselves? We already have stratification on the basis of things such as race, wealth, or level education.

Would one’s willingness to completely “transhumanize” their body give them excessive advantages over those who found it unpalatable? And who would have the most access to these augmentations if not – by default – the wealthy? Would it only widen the socioeconomic gap? It occurs to me, also, that these very ideas of transhumanism are probably only seriously discussed amongst those who have the luxury to even consider such options – the social, economic, or academic elite who are completely out of touch with the rest of humanity. But maybe I’m wrong.

The following article is part of an independent study intended to examine and deconstruct the biases of the author (and undoubtedly many others) towards the practices within “Islam”. The quotations there acknowledge that such an umbrella term was made prominent by Westerners (i.e. non- practitioners) and is often mistakenly used to group many ideologies under one category, to the detriment of acknowledging the many differences between them. I will continue to use the term Islam to highlight the fact that this article may need to be subjected to further scrutiny to acknowledge that the assessments contained within do not apply universally to any group of people or ideologies. Aside from casting a negative light on a religion, my biases present the additional risk of stigmatizing the people who participate in it, and it is for that reason most of all that I am writing this article.

It should be understood in advance that I am writing as someone who is mostly secular in orientation, and a skeptic who feels a need to challenge anything that would be claimed as “truth”. That being the case, I must also put my own orientation to the test, to be willing to abandon my preconceptions about religion – particularly that it is necessarily any more misguided than scientism or any other secular schools of thought. It should also be noted that where I have any grievances towards Islam, it is not due to any exaltation of Western ideals. Instead my biases come out of my own personal ideals – such as a strong sense of justice – which while certainly shaded by Western ideology often fall outside of that context. That is to say, I am not making any qualitative comparisons between “Islam” and “the West”, because I am equally inclined to subject both to indictment.

So it must be said that my bias did not emerge out of some self-fulfilling prophecy that there was anything inherently wrong with Islam, as is often the case where the self must find fault with the “other” to maintain its integrity. Instead it emerged where Islam came into ideological conflict with my own ideals. Therefore Islam can easily be “redeemed” if by further examination I find that my preconceptions on the whole are incorrect. With all of this in mind, one of the few points of contention that I have with Islam is what I have perceived to be a great inequality between genders. I acknowledge right from the start that this preconception is based on the absolute minimum of information about Islam, some of it drawn from sensationalist pop-journalism, the rest from my own conjecture based on what I’ve observed. Focusing on two particular situations that appear to demonstrate gender inequality, I will gather more information, and attempt to either affirm or refute my preconceptions. (more…)