On March 22, in Denver, Colorado, two young boys were hit and killed by a passing SUV.
I don't like the news, but my girlfriend watches it. She watches it so that she can hear about horrible stories like this. From time to time she tells me about a tragedy that happened, and it makes me sad, but I still try to cut myself off from the reality of it. I am weak, and I choose to ignore these things because I cut myself off from how terrible this world can sometimes be.
However, after she told me their story, something about it stuck in my mind. These two boys were born in Myanmar, and lived in refugee camps in Thailand before coming to the US in 2009. I realize that I take a lot for granted. I realize that I can't even conceive of the hardships that people have to face, every day. I think about how life must have been for these two boys, growing up in a refugee camp in Thailand. At some point their mother was able to move to the United States, and although she ended up in a poorer neighborhood, maybe she and her children will have a chance at a better life. Then one day, that all ends.
Generally, I can push harsh truths like these out of my mind. I forget about them, as I often do with such things. But whenever I am biking home from school, and I turn right on 14th from Yosemite, I see the little shrine that someone built for those two boys. The shrine that people walk by, often without even knowing what it means. A table. Flowers, which are wilted now. A sign that says "pray for the children." And I am reminded all over again.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
In Defense of Political Correctness
Obama v. Limbaugh: The Watercolor Debate
Context is everything. Consider the following statement:
"Mixing yellow and blue watercolors gives you green."
Fairly innocuous, right? This is just a statement of fact. What if I said
“Obama is on the record as saying that mixing yellow and blue watercolors makes green watercolor.”
The source of this statement, namely that it is coming from Obama, entirely changes the way people will interpret it.
“Obama wants to force everyone in a socialist society where you can just mix whatever colors you want.”
“Obama is trying to take away my rights to keep my colors unmixed!”
“Obama is probably going to levy a huge tax against mixing watercolors.”
These reactions say more about the people making them than the original statement. It works both ways, though:
“On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh said that mixing yellow and blue watercolors makes green.”
“Rush Limbaugh is trying to enforce his narrow-minded view that the only two watercolors that can be mixed are yellow and blue.”
“Rush Limbaugh only sees color when he looks at watercolors, not inner beauty.”
“Rush Limbaugh is offensive to people who self-identify as ‘yellow’ by suggesting that they can only be in relationships with people who self-identify as ‘blue.’”
All of this ties in with political correctness. If I see two men kissing and I say
“Wow, that’s really gay.”
It could be considered offensive. It is, however, just a statement of fact. What could be more gay than two men physically expressing their affection for one another? Here’s another factual statement that really upsets people:
“The word ‘retarded’ is really offensive to people with developmental disabilities.”
There’s no quicker way to upset someone who uses the word “retarded” in their casual, everyday vernacular than to point out the simple fact that a lot of people find it offensive. Throughout the course of my life, I’ve found myself on both sides of this argument. I still very clearly see both sides of it. However, after considering it for a while, I’ve decided that my final position is to err on the side of political correctness. I’m sensitive to people on the other side of the argument as well: I wouldn’t ever use the word “gay” in a derogatory sense, but I would never tell someone who does that they’re wrong. Generally, I just pretend to misunderstand what they’re talking about:
“What’s so gay about putting ketchup on macaroni? I’d venture so far as to say that this behavior transcends sexual orientation.”
So what are both sides of the argument? Well, since I’m ultimately going to argue against it, I’ll present the anti-PC side of the argument first.
Point
If someone regularly uses the word “faggot” to describe something towards which they have a negative disposition, does it make them homophobic? I don’t think so. I would hypothesize that most people who use that word are not homophobic. I used to use that word quite often. I never had a problem with gay people, and I never used that word as a way to denigrate a gay person; to me it was a multi-use word. Someone is being disingenuous? Pretentious? Ignorant? Rude or disrespectful? Call them a faggot. Someone is being gay? Fine by me. People are too sensitive. In fact, I had a friend who knew a group of women who would get offended every time he called them guys.
“Hey guys, how’s it going?”
“We are not ‘guys,’ we are women.”
An attitude like that makes it difficult to talk to someone. It feels like you’re in danger of offending them every time you say anything.
The word 'retard' literally means to 'delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment.' It was unfairly used against people with developmental disabilities, and that purely innocuous word became offensive. In fact, the word 'faggot' has only recently been used to describe gay people. It has been used historically to describe a pile of sticks, a cigarette, and a few other things. In our modern society where homosexuality is generally accepted as okay (with a few exceptions), can't we just use the word 'faggot' to mean something other than gay people? Why does everyone have to be so sensitive?
I was recently informed that the word ‘transvestite’ is considered offensive. I didn’t believe it until I looked it up on a GLBTQ website about offensive words, and there it was. I’ve since forgotten the inoffensive term, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that term becomes offensive soon as well. What, after all, is wrong with ‘transvestite?’ Trans = different, vest = clothing. The term is for people who wear clothing different than you’d expect, considering their sex. What is so offensive about that? It seems like the perfect word to describe people who choose to dress this way.
Counter-Point
I once got into an argument with a friend about the word ‘midget,’ and the correct way to refer to people who choose to dress in the clothing of people of the opposite sex. ‘Little People’ is not a specific enough term. Children are little people. Babies are little people. I’ve met someone who is about 4’11 before - I would consider that person to be littler than most. My friend’s side of the argument was this - why do I care how specific it is? Will I ever find myself in a situation where, in context, people will not know whether I’m talking about a baby or a full-grown adult? Also, if I am not a member of this group of people, who the hell am I to tell them what they should want to be called? This argument works the same way for people who choose to wear clothing that’s generally reserved for people of the opposite sex. If someone is born a man but insists on being referred to as “she,” why should it bother me? If your name is Allen but you prefer to be called by “Tim,” then I’m going to call you Tim. It’s your name, not mine. I can’t imagine a situation in which someone’s sex at the genetic level would be important, unless I were a doctor.
The brother of a very good friend of mine is gay. He also studied film. In high school, I remember having a conversation with him in which I was describing an interview I saw between two actors, discussing a film they’d made. In it, they were insisting that it was not a “movie,” but in fact deserved to be called a “film.” I told him how gay I thought this was. It didn’t seem to bother him, but after I said it, I realized that it may have. What I meant to say was pretentious, but what I said was gay. Did it bother him? I don’t know. This brings up another point - if I had meant pretentious, why did I say gay? If I am trying to get my point across in a coherent and understandable matter, shouldn’t I be using vocabulary that adequately conveys my message?
These days, the word that bothers me the most is the word ‘stupid.’
“That movie is stupid.”
“That joke was stupid.”
“That guy is stupid.”
It doesn’t bother me because it’s mean, it bothers me because the above statements give me absolutely no information about the speaker’s opinion of the subject, other than the fact that whatever those opinions may be, they’re criticisms. I say please criticize away, but without specifying what these criticisms actually are, these statements are not conducive to a constructive discussion. I can intellectually defend any silly movie I like, but when someone says “That movie is stupid,” I have no idea what it is about that movie they don’t like. The same arguments could be made about the words ‘retarded’ and ‘gay.’ Since, to the speaker, these words have transcended their offensive definitions, they should be able to articulate what it is they are trying to say without being offensive or linguistically lazy. Using words that require no consideration of the message they’re trying to send makes that message rather impotent.
Anne Coulter tweeted something about Obama being a ‘retard’ during the presidential debates. The response was immediate: huge groups of people called her out for being narrow-minded and offensive. Ann Coulter and her ilk responded with cries of ‘word police,’ and things like that. I think that the best response to this incident was a letter written by an athlete at the Special Olympics named John Franklin Stevens, which can be found here.
All of these examples highlight the reason I’ve chosen to strive for political correctness in my everyday speech. I’ll be happy to discuss the issues of hyper-sensitivity and preachiness (I still think that women insisting they not be referred to as ‘guys’ is taking it way too far), but in an effort not to hurt anyone’s feelings, I’m going to avoid using words which bother people. If you choose to dress in a way that defies societal norms, if the way you’ve chosen to love bothers people, or even if you’re just shorter than most people, you’ve probably been made fun of in your life, just for being who you are. If there are a certain set of words that you often hear when being ridiculed, I’m happy to avoid saying these words as a gesture of friendliness.
Context is everything. Consider the following statement:
"Mixing yellow and blue watercolors gives you green."
Fairly innocuous, right? This is just a statement of fact. What if I said
“Obama is on the record as saying that mixing yellow and blue watercolors makes green watercolor.”
The source of this statement, namely that it is coming from Obama, entirely changes the way people will interpret it.
“Obama wants to force everyone in a socialist society where you can just mix whatever colors you want.”
“Obama is trying to take away my rights to keep my colors unmixed!”
“Obama is probably going to levy a huge tax against mixing watercolors.”
These reactions say more about the people making them than the original statement. It works both ways, though:
“On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh said that mixing yellow and blue watercolors makes green.”
“Rush Limbaugh is trying to enforce his narrow-minded view that the only two watercolors that can be mixed are yellow and blue.”
“Rush Limbaugh only sees color when he looks at watercolors, not inner beauty.”
“Rush Limbaugh is offensive to people who self-identify as ‘yellow’ by suggesting that they can only be in relationships with people who self-identify as ‘blue.’”
All of this ties in with political correctness. If I see two men kissing and I say
“Wow, that’s really gay.”
It could be considered offensive. It is, however, just a statement of fact. What could be more gay than two men physically expressing their affection for one another? Here’s another factual statement that really upsets people:
“The word ‘retarded’ is really offensive to people with developmental disabilities.”
There’s no quicker way to upset someone who uses the word “retarded” in their casual, everyday vernacular than to point out the simple fact that a lot of people find it offensive. Throughout the course of my life, I’ve found myself on both sides of this argument. I still very clearly see both sides of it. However, after considering it for a while, I’ve decided that my final position is to err on the side of political correctness. I’m sensitive to people on the other side of the argument as well: I wouldn’t ever use the word “gay” in a derogatory sense, but I would never tell someone who does that they’re wrong. Generally, I just pretend to misunderstand what they’re talking about:
“What’s so gay about putting ketchup on macaroni? I’d venture so far as to say that this behavior transcends sexual orientation.”
So what are both sides of the argument? Well, since I’m ultimately going to argue against it, I’ll present the anti-PC side of the argument first.
Point
If someone regularly uses the word “faggot” to describe something towards which they have a negative disposition, does it make them homophobic? I don’t think so. I would hypothesize that most people who use that word are not homophobic. I used to use that word quite often. I never had a problem with gay people, and I never used that word as a way to denigrate a gay person; to me it was a multi-use word. Someone is being disingenuous? Pretentious? Ignorant? Rude or disrespectful? Call them a faggot. Someone is being gay? Fine by me. People are too sensitive. In fact, I had a friend who knew a group of women who would get offended every time he called them guys.
“Hey guys, how’s it going?”
“We are not ‘guys,’ we are women.”
An attitude like that makes it difficult to talk to someone. It feels like you’re in danger of offending them every time you say anything.
The word 'retard' literally means to 'delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment.' It was unfairly used against people with developmental disabilities, and that purely innocuous word became offensive. In fact, the word 'faggot' has only recently been used to describe gay people. It has been used historically to describe a pile of sticks, a cigarette, and a few other things. In our modern society where homosexuality is generally accepted as okay (with a few exceptions), can't we just use the word 'faggot' to mean something other than gay people? Why does everyone have to be so sensitive?
I was recently informed that the word ‘transvestite’ is considered offensive. I didn’t believe it until I looked it up on a GLBTQ website about offensive words, and there it was. I’ve since forgotten the inoffensive term, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that term becomes offensive soon as well. What, after all, is wrong with ‘transvestite?’ Trans = different, vest = clothing. The term is for people who wear clothing different than you’d expect, considering their sex. What is so offensive about that? It seems like the perfect word to describe people who choose to dress this way.
Counter-Point
I once got into an argument with a friend about the word ‘midget,’ and the correct way to refer to people who choose to dress in the clothing of people of the opposite sex. ‘Little People’ is not a specific enough term. Children are little people. Babies are little people. I’ve met someone who is about 4’11 before - I would consider that person to be littler than most. My friend’s side of the argument was this - why do I care how specific it is? Will I ever find myself in a situation where, in context, people will not know whether I’m talking about a baby or a full-grown adult? Also, if I am not a member of this group of people, who the hell am I to tell them what they should want to be called? This argument works the same way for people who choose to wear clothing that’s generally reserved for people of the opposite sex. If someone is born a man but insists on being referred to as “she,” why should it bother me? If your name is Allen but you prefer to be called by “Tim,” then I’m going to call you Tim. It’s your name, not mine. I can’t imagine a situation in which someone’s sex at the genetic level would be important, unless I were a doctor.
The brother of a very good friend of mine is gay. He also studied film. In high school, I remember having a conversation with him in which I was describing an interview I saw between two actors, discussing a film they’d made. In it, they were insisting that it was not a “movie,” but in fact deserved to be called a “film.” I told him how gay I thought this was. It didn’t seem to bother him, but after I said it, I realized that it may have. What I meant to say was pretentious, but what I said was gay. Did it bother him? I don’t know. This brings up another point - if I had meant pretentious, why did I say gay? If I am trying to get my point across in a coherent and understandable matter, shouldn’t I be using vocabulary that adequately conveys my message?
These days, the word that bothers me the most is the word ‘stupid.’
“That movie is stupid.”
“That joke was stupid.”
“That guy is stupid.”
It doesn’t bother me because it’s mean, it bothers me because the above statements give me absolutely no information about the speaker’s opinion of the subject, other than the fact that whatever those opinions may be, they’re criticisms. I say please criticize away, but without specifying what these criticisms actually are, these statements are not conducive to a constructive discussion. I can intellectually defend any silly movie I like, but when someone says “That movie is stupid,” I have no idea what it is about that movie they don’t like. The same arguments could be made about the words ‘retarded’ and ‘gay.’ Since, to the speaker, these words have transcended their offensive definitions, they should be able to articulate what it is they are trying to say without being offensive or linguistically lazy. Using words that require no consideration of the message they’re trying to send makes that message rather impotent.
Anne Coulter tweeted something about Obama being a ‘retard’ during the presidential debates. The response was immediate: huge groups of people called her out for being narrow-minded and offensive. Ann Coulter and her ilk responded with cries of ‘word police,’ and things like that. I think that the best response to this incident was a letter written by an athlete at the Special Olympics named John Franklin Stevens, which can be found here.
All of these examples highlight the reason I’ve chosen to strive for political correctness in my everyday speech. I’ll be happy to discuss the issues of hyper-sensitivity and preachiness (I still think that women insisting they not be referred to as ‘guys’ is taking it way too far), but in an effort not to hurt anyone’s feelings, I’m going to avoid using words which bother people. If you choose to dress in a way that defies societal norms, if the way you’ve chosen to love bothers people, or even if you’re just shorter than most people, you’ve probably been made fun of in your life, just for being who you are. If there are a certain set of words that you often hear when being ridiculed, I’m happy to avoid saying these words as a gesture of friendliness.
Monday, October 22, 2012
My New Political Ad
Fade in. A banner that looks like someone ate a bunch of American flags and then puked out my name appears. I say
I'm Sean Jacobson, and I approve this message.
I appear in a field, next to a dog, or a horse, or whatever. I say
Hi, I'm Sean Jacobson. Are you tired of Congress/The President/The Government telling you what to do? When I'm elected, I'll make sure that government remains small, like God intended. And you can be sure that my attitude will be so arrogant, rude, and dismissive that you'll feel even better about thinking I am right. After all, you're not an idiot, are you? Are you??
(Cut to me holding a pistol)
I'll stop the government
(cut to me holding a shotgun)
from taking away your
(cut to me holding a rocket launcher)
second amendment rights.
(cut to me sitting on top of a tank)
<my opponent> wants to take away your right to defend yourself from poor people, ghosts, and super-Nazis. I say that this is America, and the second amendment is as valid today as it was during the revolutionary war.
(cut to me in front of a church)
When elected, I will make sure that abortion remains illegal. If we don't allow people with low socioeconomic status to continue to have unwanted children, how are we going to keep taking advantage of that group of people by giving them money to join the armed forces? Are you going to join the army? Me either. Fuck that. Also, I'll support our troops by keeping them stationed in the shittiest countries in the world for no reason.
(Cut to me in a huge truck)
<my opponent> wants to raise gas prices to pay for gay marriages and planned parenthood so that he can force everyone to have abortions. This is my truck, and since I don't believe in global warming, I'll pollute everything as much as I damned well please, and if you have a problem with that, you can go fuck yourself.
(Cut to me on top of a hill with a giant American flag behind me, with two horses, three trucks, five dogs, nine crosses, and two gun racks. I'll be holding two shotguns and three pistols. Can we fit all that on a hill in front of the flag? Of course we can, fuck you.)
Vote Sean Jacobson for <whatever>. I definitely don't have a small penis.
Cut to a banner that says "Sean Jacobson" decorated with a ton of flags. Have a bunch of flags in the background. Put the banner on a flag. Play "God Bless America," "This Land is Our Land," and "America the Beautiful" at the same time. Underneath my name, put the phrase "I don't have a small penis."
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Why I Am a Vegetarian
I get asked this quite a bit, so I thought I would write all this out for anyone who is interested in reading. I recently attended a talk given by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, who talked about veganism, and the moral reasons for that. I will address the veganism/vegetarian issue later, but it’s something worth considering.
I’ll start out by giving reasons I think vegetarianism is a good idea. Basically, I’ll give all the reasons I might give if I were asked “Why are you a vegetarian?” Next, I’ll go into common arguments against vegetarianism that I have heard, and my responses to those arguments.
The original reason I became a vegetarian was for this reason. Not necessarily because I was eating unhealthy food constantly, but there are a lot of health problems associated with eating meat. Cancer and heart disease, are big problems - http://huff.to/pPSfmA. For me, the reason I started was because I was getting bad stomach aches after consuming large amounts of meat, and I had a good friend who was a vegetarian, so it seemed easy enough to try. I stopped eating meat, and I felt better, and to this day, I’ve continued the trend.
Here’s one with which most people will disagree. I think it’s wrong to kill animals for food. It’s not super cut and dried with me, though, so let me elaborate. I think that, in our modern society, we give people the opportunity to avoid an ethically dubious dilemma, considering how easy it is to not eat meat. That dilemma is as follows: if you are not willing to personally kill an animal, then you shouldn’t eat the meat that comes from someone else doing it. While I’m aware it’s a worse offense, ethically speaking, eating meat is to killing an animal as paying an assassin to murder someone is to murdering that person yourself. Again, I’m not comparing murder of people to murder of animals, but eating meat is essentially like hiring an animal assassin. Someone has to kill it, even if it isn’t you. Hunters are, of course, exempt from this argument. Hunters do indeed kill their own food, and they are ethically fine with killing an animal, which is fine. I wouldn’t want to kill a cow, a chicken, or a pig, so I don’t want someone else to do it for me. I think that if you eat meat, you have to be able to kill the animal yourself. If you couldn’t bring yourself to do that (like I can’t), then you shouldn’t be eating meat.
The farming situation in the United States is bad. Even if you’re okay with killing an animal (see above, Ethics) you have to make sure you’re okay with subjecting an animal to awful conditions, crowded stables and pens, disease runs rampant and the animals are given antibiotics (which gives humans resistance to antibiotics, by the way), and the conditions are generally reprehensible. Cows and chickens are forced to sit in a cage and are unable to move for their entire lives, and a lot of times, chickens are given hormones to plump them up, so that there will be more meat, although a lot of times, there is just more water in it.
Also, cows are often fed corn, which their stomachs are not equipped to process. Cows are supposed to eat grass. Corn makes cows sick. Mad cow disease, as is my understanding, started with cows being fed the brains and other parts of of other cows - http://bit.ly/NiwBe5. What it boils down to is that we are actively hurting animals, and that is wrong.
Global warming is probably real. A lot of people don’t think so, and they’re probably wrong. I’ll grant the possibility that global warming isn’t real, but it’s a slim possibility. The vast majority of scientists in the climate field agree that global warming is a serious problem, and even if it isn’t, the overwhelming evidence that it is real is a good enough reason to try to do something about it. Eating meat is a serious contributor. I’ll only briefly mention that cow flatulence is causing more greenhouse gases to be emitted, which is true.
A problem which I think is bigger, is transportation. With plant based food products, the only time they need to be transported is from the farm to the grocery store. Meat, on the other hand, comes from animals, who need food of their own. Thus, more greenhouse gases are emitted by vehicles which transport food from farms to other farms for the animals there. Then, of course, the animals, once slaughtered, have to be transported from that farm to the grocery store, and meat is more easily perishable than plant based foods, so it has to be refrigerated, and that takes even more energy. It’s a very arguable possibility that the huge amount of meat we eat in the US is a significant contributor to global warming.
Here’s a reason with which I wouldn’t agree, but I’ll include it because it is a reason that some people have. Interestingly enough, I suspect that, despite the fact that this is the reason in this list which is by far the least logical (I don’t want to eat meat because I want to impress my magical invisible friends), it is the one that, in polite discourse, would be met with the least counter-argument. However, I won’t argue too much with it, because although it’s a silly reason for doing the right thing, it is still the right thing.
If you ever get the opportunity, and you know of a Hare Krishna place of worship, a lot of them give away free vegetarian food on Sundays, to promote vegetarianism and celebrate their religion. A little silly, but it sounds awesome to me, so who am I to judge?
No one knows what protein is. Yet, somehow, we all seem to think that without it, our bodies will wither and die like an unwatered plant. I recently had to learn about the process of RNA synthesis, which involves RNA coding to create proteins, which naturally occur in your body, and then serve some biological function. I was talking to my biology-majoring roommate about this, and I asked him what is the difference between RNA-synthesized protein and dietary protein. He had no clue. He was a BIOLOGY major. Yet, somehow, everyone is convinced that we humans absolutely CRAVE protein.
As someone who has been a vegetarian for three years, I assure you that protein is no problem. Rice and beans, soy products, wheat gluten, and quinoa are excellent sources of vegan protein, and they are not super hard to come by. Also, it’s worth it to mention that people in this country generally eat quite a bit more protein than they really need. Of course we need protein, but we don’t need a huge amount of it, and we can easily get adequate amounts of protein from plant-based foods.
Of course there are other nutrients. Iron (leafy greens), calcium (also leafy greens, plus it’s in OJ and soy milk these days), omega 3 fatty acids (walnuts, flax seeds). Colleen Patrick-Goudreau came up with a good argument. Apparently farmers are supplementing the diets of cows with calcium so that there is more of it in milk. Well, you can supplement your diet with calcium. Why go through a cow? For that matter, we all want these nutrients that are found in the meat of these animals, and the animals are herbivores. Where do you think they get these nutrients? Their food. You can be an herbivore, and much like a cow, you’ll have iron in your blood.
This is an argument I hear a lot. Essentially, the argument is that if I don’t want to eat animal meat, it’s hypocritical of me to eat dairy and eggs. One aspect of this argument which I’ve heard is that eggs are meat. Well, no, they’re not. It would even be easy to convince a dogmatic pro-lifer of this, since life begins at conception, and I’m fairly sure I’ve never eaten a fertilized egg. Eggs are not meat, they are just an animal byproduct.
The one part of this argument that is hard to get around is that I am against cruelty to animals when they are being used for meat, but by eating dairy and eggs, I am supporting cruelty. In the United States, this is true, but there’s no reason it has to be. It would be possible to harvest milk and eggs from chickens and cows without killing them and still guaranteeing that they live a life without pain and discomfort. The costs would be high, but I would be willing to pay for those higher costs. In the talk I recently attended, the speaker, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, brought up the point that in order to harvest milk from cows, one has to get the cow pregnant. It’s then common practice to murder the cow’s offspring if it is a male (because it can’t make milk) and keep it alive for milk if it’s female. Also, cows that are used for milk are eventually killed and made into meat. Ms. Patrick-Goudreau made a remark which was akin to “There’s no retirement home for these cows.” Obviously I don’t know if these claims are true, and I’ve found it’s pretty tough to find out exactly what goes on at these factory farms on the internet (I guess they must not want you to know, for some reason). Even so, these are still good arguments to cut down on milk and eggs.
It’s the natural order of things for us to eat meat! This is my favorite argument, because it’s the easiest to refute. Not that I’ve ever had the chance, but it would be great if a creationist presented me with this argument. Someone who thinks science is made up by God to fool us into thinking He isn’t real arguing for natural order would be the height of absurdity, in my opinion. Interestingly, vegetarianism is condemned in the Bible:
“For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.” -Romans 14:2. Take that, heathens! In my opinion, just another great reason to consider vegetarianism. But, I digress.
Arguing that eating meat is the natural order of things and therefore we should do it is tantamount to arguing that we shouldn’t be wearing clothes because it’s the natural order of things to be naked. Of course, you’re welcome to flaunt your nudity if you want to, but if you like wearing clothes, go ahead. As humans we have the capacity to do things like refrain from eating meat, wear clothes, and defecate directly into toilets. Talk about unnatural! Not to mention that, if you are talking about eating meat because it’s the natural order of things, you should be hunting your own meat (see above, Ethics). Lions don’t have grocery stores, refrigerators, or chicken nuggets.
This is something that doesn’t really fall under either category here, but it’s something that I’d like to mention. People in the United States (not, interestingly enough, in some other countries) don’t eat dogs, cats, or horses. I’ve brought this point up to many people, and their counter-argument is that they are out pets, and that’s why we don’t eat them. This argument would only make sense if you are talking about your own pet.
Basically, the argument is that a large number of people have cats and dogs as their pets, so that species is safe from the grill. Well, how large of a number does it have to be? Plenty of people have chickens and pigs as pets. There are probably even people who have a cow that they love. Why don’t these people stop you from eating those animals? Keep in mind here that I am not arguing for eating cats, dogs, and horses, I’m just saying that morally there is no difference between that and eating cows, pigs, and chickens. So basically, if you eat meat but you would never ever eat a dog, then you are a hypocrite. I will grant you the right to not eat your own dog, but that’s it.
Recently there was a lot of press when people found out that Obama ate a dog when he was in Indonesia, and it also came out that Romney put his dog in a cage on top of his car and drove around. Different people were pissed at different candidates, but in a society where we habitually kill animals and eat them, Obama's actions are essentially the norm. Obama eating an animal that was killed in order to be eaten is hardly a capital offense. Romney, on the other hand, was treating very poorly an animal that he’d taken on the responsibility of taking care of, so his offense was greater, as far as society should be concerned. If Obama had eaten his own dog, that would be different. Of course, killing and eating a dog is worse than forcing it to partake in a very unpleasant and windy car ride, but Obama (and, presumably Romney) eat animals that have been killed for the purpose of eating all the time. What difference does it make if it isn’t a dog?
Hopefully anyone who reads this won’t take it as me telling you that you have to be a vegetarian. At best, I hope I have convinced any readers to consider vegetarianism, or at the very least, trying not to eat very much meat. At worst, I hope I’ve convinced people to be more tolerant of vegetarians, and if you own a restaurant, (unlikely), throw some more veggie options, and maybe even a vegan option. I’ve been pretty fortunate in that all the meat eaters in my life have been totally tolerant of my vegetarianism, with one exception who will remain nameless, but he’s gotten over it since I’ve been veggie for like 3 years. I, in turn, am tolerant of meat eating, in that, I don’t think that eating meat translates to a desire to torture animals. I do, however, think that it’s wrong to eat meat, but it isn’t my place to judge. I’m always happy to tell you how I feel about it if you ask me, or if you happen to want to read any of this, but I won’t shove the fact that I won’t shove meat down my throat down your throat.
I’ll start out by giving reasons I think vegetarianism is a good idea. Basically, I’ll give all the reasons I might give if I were asked “Why are you a vegetarian?” Next, I’ll go into common arguments against vegetarianism that I have heard, and my responses to those arguments.
Reasons
Health
The original reason I became a vegetarian was for this reason. Not necessarily because I was eating unhealthy food constantly, but there are a lot of health problems associated with eating meat. Cancer and heart disease, are big problems - http://huff.to/pPSfmA. For me, the reason I started was because I was getting bad stomach aches after consuming large amounts of meat, and I had a good friend who was a vegetarian, so it seemed easy enough to try. I stopped eating meat, and I felt better, and to this day, I’ve continued the trend.
Ethics
Here’s one with which most people will disagree. I think it’s wrong to kill animals for food. It’s not super cut and dried with me, though, so let me elaborate. I think that, in our modern society, we give people the opportunity to avoid an ethically dubious dilemma, considering how easy it is to not eat meat. That dilemma is as follows: if you are not willing to personally kill an animal, then you shouldn’t eat the meat that comes from someone else doing it. While I’m aware it’s a worse offense, ethically speaking, eating meat is to killing an animal as paying an assassin to murder someone is to murdering that person yourself. Again, I’m not comparing murder of people to murder of animals, but eating meat is essentially like hiring an animal assassin. Someone has to kill it, even if it isn’t you. Hunters are, of course, exempt from this argument. Hunters do indeed kill their own food, and they are ethically fine with killing an animal, which is fine. I wouldn’t want to kill a cow, a chicken, or a pig, so I don’t want someone else to do it for me. I think that if you eat meat, you have to be able to kill the animal yourself. If you couldn’t bring yourself to do that (like I can’t), then you shouldn’t be eating meat.
Farming in America
The farming situation in the United States is bad. Even if you’re okay with killing an animal (see above, Ethics) you have to make sure you’re okay with subjecting an animal to awful conditions, crowded stables and pens, disease runs rampant and the animals are given antibiotics (which gives humans resistance to antibiotics, by the way), and the conditions are generally reprehensible. Cows and chickens are forced to sit in a cage and are unable to move for their entire lives, and a lot of times, chickens are given hormones to plump them up, so that there will be more meat, although a lot of times, there is just more water in it.
Also, cows are often fed corn, which their stomachs are not equipped to process. Cows are supposed to eat grass. Corn makes cows sick. Mad cow disease, as is my understanding, started with cows being fed the brains and other parts of of other cows - http://bit.ly/NiwBe5. What it boils down to is that we are actively hurting animals, and that is wrong.
Greenhouse Gases
Global warming is probably real. A lot of people don’t think so, and they’re probably wrong. I’ll grant the possibility that global warming isn’t real, but it’s a slim possibility. The vast majority of scientists in the climate field agree that global warming is a serious problem, and even if it isn’t, the overwhelming evidence that it is real is a good enough reason to try to do something about it. Eating meat is a serious contributor. I’ll only briefly mention that cow flatulence is causing more greenhouse gases to be emitted, which is true.
A problem which I think is bigger, is transportation. With plant based food products, the only time they need to be transported is from the farm to the grocery store. Meat, on the other hand, comes from animals, who need food of their own. Thus, more greenhouse gases are emitted by vehicles which transport food from farms to other farms for the animals there. Then, of course, the animals, once slaughtered, have to be transported from that farm to the grocery store, and meat is more easily perishable than plant based foods, so it has to be refrigerated, and that takes even more energy. It’s a very arguable possibility that the huge amount of meat we eat in the US is a significant contributor to global warming.
Religious Reasons
Here’s a reason with which I wouldn’t agree, but I’ll include it because it is a reason that some people have. Interestingly enough, I suspect that, despite the fact that this is the reason in this list which is by far the least logical (I don’t want to eat meat because I want to impress my magical invisible friends), it is the one that, in polite discourse, would be met with the least counter-argument. However, I won’t argue too much with it, because although it’s a silly reason for doing the right thing, it is still the right thing.
If you ever get the opportunity, and you know of a Hare Krishna place of worship, a lot of them give away free vegetarian food on Sundays, to promote vegetarianism and celebrate their religion. A little silly, but it sounds awesome to me, so who am I to judge?
Arguments I Have Heard
Protein
No one knows what protein is. Yet, somehow, we all seem to think that without it, our bodies will wither and die like an unwatered plant. I recently had to learn about the process of RNA synthesis, which involves RNA coding to create proteins, which naturally occur in your body, and then serve some biological function. I was talking to my biology-majoring roommate about this, and I asked him what is the difference between RNA-synthesized protein and dietary protein. He had no clue. He was a BIOLOGY major. Yet, somehow, everyone is convinced that we humans absolutely CRAVE protein.
As someone who has been a vegetarian for three years, I assure you that protein is no problem. Rice and beans, soy products, wheat gluten, and quinoa are excellent sources of vegan protein, and they are not super hard to come by. Also, it’s worth it to mention that people in this country generally eat quite a bit more protein than they really need. Of course we need protein, but we don’t need a huge amount of it, and we can easily get adequate amounts of protein from plant-based foods.
Of course there are other nutrients. Iron (leafy greens), calcium (also leafy greens, plus it’s in OJ and soy milk these days), omega 3 fatty acids (walnuts, flax seeds). Colleen Patrick-Goudreau came up with a good argument. Apparently farmers are supplementing the diets of cows with calcium so that there is more of it in milk. Well, you can supplement your diet with calcium. Why go through a cow? For that matter, we all want these nutrients that are found in the meat of these animals, and the animals are herbivores. Where do you think they get these nutrients? Their food. You can be an herbivore, and much like a cow, you’ll have iron in your blood.
Vegetarian vs. Vegan
This is an argument I hear a lot. Essentially, the argument is that if I don’t want to eat animal meat, it’s hypocritical of me to eat dairy and eggs. One aspect of this argument which I’ve heard is that eggs are meat. Well, no, they’re not. It would even be easy to convince a dogmatic pro-lifer of this, since life begins at conception, and I’m fairly sure I’ve never eaten a fertilized egg. Eggs are not meat, they are just an animal byproduct.
The one part of this argument that is hard to get around is that I am against cruelty to animals when they are being used for meat, but by eating dairy and eggs, I am supporting cruelty. In the United States, this is true, but there’s no reason it has to be. It would be possible to harvest milk and eggs from chickens and cows without killing them and still guaranteeing that they live a life without pain and discomfort. The costs would be high, but I would be willing to pay for those higher costs. In the talk I recently attended, the speaker, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, brought up the point that in order to harvest milk from cows, one has to get the cow pregnant. It’s then common practice to murder the cow’s offspring if it is a male (because it can’t make milk) and keep it alive for milk if it’s female. Also, cows that are used for milk are eventually killed and made into meat. Ms. Patrick-Goudreau made a remark which was akin to “There’s no retirement home for these cows.” Obviously I don’t know if these claims are true, and I’ve found it’s pretty tough to find out exactly what goes on at these factory farms on the internet (I guess they must not want you to know, for some reason). Even so, these are still good arguments to cut down on milk and eggs.
Natural Order
It’s the natural order of things for us to eat meat! This is my favorite argument, because it’s the easiest to refute. Not that I’ve ever had the chance, but it would be great if a creationist presented me with this argument. Someone who thinks science is made up by God to fool us into thinking He isn’t real arguing for natural order would be the height of absurdity, in my opinion. Interestingly, vegetarianism is condemned in the Bible:
“For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.” -Romans 14:2. Take that, heathens! In my opinion, just another great reason to consider vegetarianism. But, I digress.
Arguing that eating meat is the natural order of things and therefore we should do it is tantamount to arguing that we shouldn’t be wearing clothes because it’s the natural order of things to be naked. Of course, you’re welcome to flaunt your nudity if you want to, but if you like wearing clothes, go ahead. As humans we have the capacity to do things like refrain from eating meat, wear clothes, and defecate directly into toilets. Talk about unnatural! Not to mention that, if you are talking about eating meat because it’s the natural order of things, you should be hunting your own meat (see above, Ethics). Lions don’t have grocery stores, refrigerators, or chicken nuggets.
Dogs, Cats, and Horses
This is something that doesn’t really fall under either category here, but it’s something that I’d like to mention. People in the United States (not, interestingly enough, in some other countries) don’t eat dogs, cats, or horses. I’ve brought this point up to many people, and their counter-argument is that they are out pets, and that’s why we don’t eat them. This argument would only make sense if you are talking about your own pet.
Basically, the argument is that a large number of people have cats and dogs as their pets, so that species is safe from the grill. Well, how large of a number does it have to be? Plenty of people have chickens and pigs as pets. There are probably even people who have a cow that they love. Why don’t these people stop you from eating those animals? Keep in mind here that I am not arguing for eating cats, dogs, and horses, I’m just saying that morally there is no difference between that and eating cows, pigs, and chickens. So basically, if you eat meat but you would never ever eat a dog, then you are a hypocrite. I will grant you the right to not eat your own dog, but that’s it.
Recently there was a lot of press when people found out that Obama ate a dog when he was in Indonesia, and it also came out that Romney put his dog in a cage on top of his car and drove around. Different people were pissed at different candidates, but in a society where we habitually kill animals and eat them, Obama's actions are essentially the norm. Obama eating an animal that was killed in order to be eaten is hardly a capital offense. Romney, on the other hand, was treating very poorly an animal that he’d taken on the responsibility of taking care of, so his offense was greater, as far as society should be concerned. If Obama had eaten his own dog, that would be different. Of course, killing and eating a dog is worse than forcing it to partake in a very unpleasant and windy car ride, but Obama (and, presumably Romney) eat animals that have been killed for the purpose of eating all the time. What difference does it make if it isn’t a dog?
Conclusion
Hopefully anyone who reads this won’t take it as me telling you that you have to be a vegetarian. At best, I hope I have convinced any readers to consider vegetarianism, or at the very least, trying not to eat very much meat. At worst, I hope I’ve convinced people to be more tolerant of vegetarians, and if you own a restaurant, (unlikely), throw some more veggie options, and maybe even a vegan option. I’ve been pretty fortunate in that all the meat eaters in my life have been totally tolerant of my vegetarianism, with one exception who will remain nameless, but he’s gotten over it since I’ve been veggie for like 3 years. I, in turn, am tolerant of meat eating, in that, I don’t think that eating meat translates to a desire to torture animals. I do, however, think that it’s wrong to eat meat, but it isn’t my place to judge. I’m always happy to tell you how I feel about it if you ask me, or if you happen to want to read any of this, but I won’t shove the fact that I won’t shove meat down my throat down your throat.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Not Funny?
Offensive, or Cruel?
You may have noticed that, although I claimed the lack of a correlation between jokes being offensive and funny, I defended the first joke (which I thought was funny) while I tore the second one apart. This illustrates an interesting point: both jokes were offensive, but the second one was offensive in an unfunny way. The first one seemed cruel, but I argued that it wasn’t, and the second one seemed cruel, and I argued that it was. It is, however, possible for a joke to be both clever and cruel, and I try to appreciate the cleverness of such jokes while ignoring the cruelty. For example, think of any “blond” jokes you’ve ever heard. Such jokes can often be funny, although cruel. If you want to turn them into social commentary, take any blond joke and replace “blond” with “republican,” or if your audience is composed mostly of conservative people then replace blond with “liberal,” but it’s unlikely you’d ever find yourself telling a joke to a republican because they don’t have a sense of humor. Ha! Another example of topical humor!
In Defense of Offensive Jokes
Recently I watched a comedy special by a guy named Wyatt Cenac. He told the following joke: “I’m going to open a racist bakery called K-K-cakes.” I thought it was funny, so I set it as my facebook status, properly citing Wyatt Cenac as the source (I mentioned I take comedy seriously; I would never allow someone to think that I came up with a joke on my own if I didn’t). My Aunt and cousin, after reading this joke, expressed to me the fact that they were offended by it because they felt was disrespectful towards black people. If my Aunt or cousin is reading this (unlikely) then my message to them would be a deeply sincere apology for offending them, but the assertion that it wasn’t my intent. Certainly the joke was offensive, but was it disrespectful towards black people? I would argue that, if anything, the joke was disrespectful towards the KKK. Here’s an organization that takes their cause very seriously, and Wyatt Cenac was using the fact that the KKK are racist, something which everyone knows, and turning it into something silly. Who in their right mind would go to a racist bakery called K-K-cakes? What sort of ridiculous baked goods would be sold in such a bakery? If anything, this joke conjures up the image of some asshole in a white pointed hat sitting alone in a bakery filled with racist cakes that no one wants to buy, pissed off that their stupid idea wasn’t working. Part of what makes this joke funny, however, is the edginess. The edginess and ability for us, as adults, to look at it with a political perspective, are what make it slightly more clever. To illustrate my point, I’ll give an example of a joke that’s exactly as clever but is completely and utterly inoffensive: I heard that some of the deer in the forest are playing football. They’re calling it N-F-elk! The cleverness of the joke was that “L” sort of sounds like “elk,” much like “K” sort of sounds like “cake.” The absence of any trace of offensiveness and political statement makes the joke rather impotent. It is, by all accounts, a lame joke. It’s the sort of corny joke you might hear when you’re in first grade. However, the only difference between it and Wyatt Cenac’s joke is that his joke has an added element of humor which really makes the joke: the edginess and political statement.
Humor is something I really enjoy, and in spite of its whimsical nature, something I take very seriously. So, I’ve decided to analyze the nature of humor, and the reactions of certain people which deny them the opportunity to fully appreciate it in all its glory. When I talk about denial of the opportunity for enjoyment of humor, specifically I’m referring to offensive humor. A lot of really funny jokes are offensive, and a lot of people are easily offended, and I think the less easily one allows oneself to be offended, the more one can enjoy humor, and I think refusing to allow oneself to be offended is not necessarily detrimental to sensitivity, as you might believe. Throughout the course of this writing, when I say something is “offensive,” I mean it has the capacity to offend people. The distinction is between having the capacity to offend people and whether it should offend people.
When someone tells an offensive joke, there are many possible reactions. My least favorite is when someone gets offended and asserts that the joke shouldn’t have been told, using the reasoning that “it’s not even funny.” This drives me absolutely up the wall, because the argument the person is using is so diametrically opposed to what is obviously their initial objection to the joke. Allow me to clarify: a joke can either be funny or not funny, and it can be offensive or not offensive. There is not and should not be a correlation. If I tell a joke that you find offensive, and you think that it shouldn’t have been told because it is so offensive, then your objection should be “that joke is offensive, and I think you shouldn’t tell it.” Logically, this is an acceptable reaction to an offensive joke, but in my opinion, it doesn’t mean the joke is morally wrong. I’ll get back to that, though. A joke can either be funny or not funny, and a joke not being funny is a good reason not to tell it, but a joke being offensive does not imply at all that it is not funny. For instructive purposes, I’ll give a couple examples.
Today my office mate noted that I was wearing new shoes, from a company called “Toms.” I told him that every time you buy a pair of shoes from this company, they give a free pair of shoes to a child in a developing country. He said, “well that’s good, but the manufacture of my shoes give a job to a child in a developing country.” The implication here being that his shoes were probably made in a sweat shop. This is an example of a joke that is both offensive and funny. I think that most people would agree that this joke is offensive, but not everyone would agree it’s funny. It’s fine not to think it’s funny, but I’m arguing that the offensive nature of the joke shouldn’t affect how funny it is. I think the joke is funny because it’s clever: I made a comment about my shoes being beneficial to youth in other countries, and he satirically made the claim that his shoes were similarly beneficial, as if “giving jobs” to kids in other countries was something that’s good, rather than something akin to slavery, and certainly not benevolent. The next thing to address is whether the offensiveness of this joke means it shouldn’t have been told. I would argue that it isn’t the case. The wording of the joke doesn’t imply that my office mate doesn’t care about the plight of kids who are forced to work in sweat shops, rather it implies a definitive awareness of a real social problem and satirizes the tendency of people who live in affluent countries such as ours to act as if this problem isn’t there. It works in much the same way as Stephen Colbert does; he satirizes people whose point of view he doesn’t agree with by taking their belief systems to a blatantly absurd extreme, which satirizes the nature of those beliefs.
Here is an example of an offensive joke that isn’t funny. In one of my classes, my teacher said something about how much she disliked working in an environment in which she had to deal with drunk people, and one of the students said something to the effect of “well, you don’t have to be nice to them anyway, since they’re homeless.” The joke was satirizing the fact that alcoholism is common among homeless people, but not in a clever way. Really, it was just a cheap, uncalled for shot at homeless people. It’s not clever to point out the fact that alcoholism is common among homeless people, and in the way this person did it, it was really just making fun of a group of people for a genuine problem they have. You may have noticed that, although I claimed the lack of a correlation between jokes being offensive and funny, I defended the first joke (which I thought was funny) while I tore the second one apart. This illustrates an interesting point: both jokes were offensive, but the second one was offensive in an unfunny way. The first one seemed cruel, but I argued that it wasn’t, and the second one seemed cruel, and I argued that it was. It is, however, possible for a joke to be both clever and cruel, and I try to appreciate the cleverness of such jokes while ignoring the cruelty. For example, think of any “blond” jokes you’ve ever heard. Such jokes can often be funny, although cruel. If you want to turn them into social commentary, take any blond joke and replace “blond” with “republican,” or if your audience is composed mostly of conservative people then replace blond with “liberal,” but it’s unlikely you’d ever find yourself telling a joke to a republican because they don’t have a sense of humor. Ha! Another example of topical humor!
In Defense of Offensive Jokes
Recently I watched a comedy special by a guy named Wyatt Cenac. He told the following joke: “I’m going to open a racist bakery called K-K-cakes.” I thought it was funny, so I set it as my facebook status, properly citing Wyatt Cenac as the source (I mentioned I take comedy seriously; I would never allow someone to think that I came up with a joke on my own if I didn’t). My Aunt and cousin, after reading this joke, expressed to me the fact that they were offended by it because they felt was disrespectful towards black people. If my Aunt or cousin is reading this (unlikely) then my message to them would be a deeply sincere apology for offending them, but the assertion that it wasn’t my intent. Certainly the joke was offensive, but was it disrespectful towards black people? I would argue that, if anything, the joke was disrespectful towards the KKK. Here’s an organization that takes their cause very seriously, and Wyatt Cenac was using the fact that the KKK are racist, something which everyone knows, and turning it into something silly. Who in their right mind would go to a racist bakery called K-K-cakes? What sort of ridiculous baked goods would be sold in such a bakery? If anything, this joke conjures up the image of some asshole in a white pointed hat sitting alone in a bakery filled with racist cakes that no one wants to buy, pissed off that their stupid idea wasn’t working. Part of what makes this joke funny, however, is the edginess. The edginess and ability for us, as adults, to look at it with a political perspective, are what make it slightly more clever. To illustrate my point, I’ll give an example of a joke that’s exactly as clever but is completely and utterly inoffensive: I heard that some of the deer in the forest are playing football. They’re calling it N-F-elk! The cleverness of the joke was that “L” sort of sounds like “elk,” much like “K” sort of sounds like “cake.” The absence of any trace of offensiveness and political statement makes the joke rather impotent. It is, by all accounts, a lame joke. It’s the sort of corny joke you might hear when you’re in first grade. However, the only difference between it and Wyatt Cenac’s joke is that his joke has an added element of humor which really makes the joke: the edginess and political statement.
One unavoidable consequence of being raised by my father was that, while I was growing up, I spent a lot of time around him. One consequence of that was that I inherited his affinity for silly, corny jokes that are a play on words. For instance, when my Dad thought you weren’t telling the truth, he’d say “You lie like a rug!” A silly, inoffensive joke, but I find it classically hilarious. It was this love of the play on words that steered me towards my affinity for “That’s What She Said” jokes. The possibilities are endless: thousands of simple, innocuous statements can be interpreted as being said in sexually explicit situations. All you have to do is watch out for certain key words: suck, big, push, stick it in, hard, wet, etc. Part of what makes “TWSS” jokes so funny is their inherently risque nature, not to mention the cleverness of being able to interpret a sentence in two completely different ways. One of my favorite examples of an inoffensive joke of this nature is a joke my Calculus teacher used to use. I’d say I have class and he’d say “oh, you must be a classy guy!” The concept is exactly the same, but the inherent naughtiness and sexuality is completely removed, making the joke less edgy, and therefore, less funny.
The point is, appreciate humor for what it is. If a joke is offensive (meaning it has the capacity to offend), don’t automatically be offended by it. If you hear a racial joke, avoid the knee jerk reaction of being offended. Rather, assess whether the joke is cruel (something which affects the humor of the joke) and also assess whether the joke is clever. Remember, just because a joke addresses a controversial issue (like sweat shops or racism) doesn’t mean it’s blatantly cruel; it’s possible for an edgy joke to be satirical and clever if it’s interpreted in the correct way. With that, I’ll end with a comic I thought was relevant:
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Secular Morality vs. Religious Freedom
Recently, my girlfriend and I had a discussion sparked by a careless comment I made. This discussion was sparked from a disagreement that she and I have often exchanged words about. She and I have very similar philosophies on life and politics, but when two people who are very smart, argumentative, and opinionated spend a lot of time together, they tend to be quite good at finding issues on which to disagree. The comment I made was made while she and I were listening to Cat Stevens. Cat Stevens converted to Islam in 1978, and my comment was something to the effect of how surprised I was that someone like Cat Stevens could convert to Islam, since he seems to be such a loving person, and Islam is such a hateful religion. My girlfriend’s reaction to this was what one might expect someone as compassionate and caring as she would react to what she perceived to be religious intolerance and condemnation of an entire group of people without adequate knowledge of the religion. Since this incident, I’ve thought quite a lot about our disagreement, my insistence that Islam is indeed a hateful religion, and her insistence that I don’t know everything about it, and it is unfair for me to make such broad statements. The conclusion to which I’ve come is that both she and I were right. I don’t know everything about Islam, and she was correct in her assertion that not all Islamic people are hateful.
In fact, it could be easily argued that very few Islamic people are hateful, and that their actions are all out of the best intentions for mankind. After all, doesn’t it say in the Quran, “O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty.” -The Quran, 5:8. This is a religious message that anyone can and should be able to get behind.
However, was there any validity to what I said? Does it not also say in the Quran, “That is the reward of Allah's enemies: the Fire. Therein is their immortal home, payment forasmuch as they denied Our revelations.” -The Quran, 41:28. In fact, a mere cursory glance at the Quran will reveal numerous references towards nonbelievers - they will suffer a painful doom, they will be burned in the fire, their deeds are made fruitless by Allah, etc. Some may interpret “disbelievers” to mean atheists, but it could be equally valid to interpret it as anyone who is not Muslim. It makes little difference to me; I think that tolerance and acceptance should be extended to people of any belief system. In any case, the huge number of references in the Quran calling for the death and punishment of nonbelievers seems to fly in the face of the first quote from the Quran, but notice that although it calls for the refusal to be seduced by hatred, it only asks this of ‘believers.’ Also, do these two quotes have to be contradictory? Couldn’t someone who considers his/herself a Muslim believe that Allah will punish nonbelievers without succumbing to hating nonbelievers? I consider it wrong to kill another human being, but I’ve known people who have joined the military, and although I don’t know if they’ve ever killed anyone, I wouldn’t hate them if I knew that they did. Their reasons for undertaking such an action were their own, and far be it from me to judge. I have my own personal philosophy, and they have theirs. Couldn’t a Muslim adopt a similar stance, that a nonbeliever will be punished by Allah, and although they think it’s wrong to not believe in the Muslim faith, they refuse to judge or condemn others personally for their lack of belief? I think so, and I think that there’s a good chance that a lot of Muslims in the world believe this way. Let’s look at Cat Stevens, for instance.
Salman Rushdie was a writer who published a book called The Satanic Verses in 1988. The book was considered by most people in the Islamic community to be blasphemous against Islam. In response, Ruholla Khomeini called for a fatwa on Rushdie, a call for his assassination. Because he had blasphemed Islam, he deserved to die, and Ruholla Khomeini believed that a true follower of Islam would be well within their rights to execute that order, stating that
“Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is
incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell.” - Khomeini, Moin
When asked his opinion on this issue, Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) responded in a way that some perceived to be in support for the fatwa. Since then, he has denied ever calling for the death of Rushdie. (This information gotten from Wikipedia) Since there’s no way to truly be sure what’s going on inside his head, we can only guess as to what he truly believed. I myself would guess that, while he believed that Rushdie deserved to be “sent to hell,” he didn’t have any desire to be the one to do it, nor did he condone the actions of any other Muslim if they were the ones to do it. I’m sure that if not him, there were a significant number of people in this world who consider themselves Muslim who believe this way. On a personal note, I find it beyond belief that the man who wrote “Peace Train” would ever want to kill someone in reaction to a book, no matter how disrespectful it may have been to his personal beliefs.
As an atheist, I’m often called out by loved ones as being “anti-religion,” and as someone who continually strives to improve myself and become a better person, I’ve had to become more introspective, and consider whether my refusal to believe in a god and my insistence that religion is often the cause of violence and hatred is, in and of itself, zealotry. The one thing I would never want to be is the type of person who makes up his mind before hearing the issue, and my girlfriend has pointed out that, although I am generally quite open-minded, I tend to lean towards closed-mindedness when it comes to religious issues. When I alluded to the suggestion that Cat Stevens had revealed himself to be at least a somewhat hateful person by converting to Islam, did I know that he set up The Association of Muslim Schools, a charity that brought together all the Muslim schools in the UK, and Small Kindness Foundation, which supports orphans and families from various developing countries? On his website, during Ramadan, he said “I wish you all a beautiful month of elevation and Forgiveness, for He loves Forgiving at any time, but especially in this sacred month.” So, is it fair to condemn an entire religion because of what I perceive as its faults, as my girlfriend pointed out I have done? Certainly not. Regardless of my personal belief, it’s against my personal philosophy to condemn anyone based on their own personal choices, and beliefs. On the other hand, did I have a point? Yes. There are two sides to every issue, and although it’s not fair to sit on the extreme anti-religion side as I did, it’s also a mistake to ignore the fact of the numerous atrocities that are being done across the world in the name of Islam. Women in Islamic countries are still being circumcised against their will, and honor killings are still being carried out, all justified using real religious scripture. According to the United Nations Population Fund,
“Throughout the world, perhaps as many as 5,000 women and girls a year are murdered by members of their own families, many of them for the ‘dishonour’ of having been raped, often as not by a member of their own extended family.”
It could be argued that Honor killing is encouraged by the Quran: “If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (reliable) witness from amongst you against them; if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them. Or God ordain for them some (other) way.” - Quran 4:15.
In this case, “lewdness” means sex before marriage, and regardless of the involuntary nature of rape, it is still considered premarital sex by many Islamic communities, and is punishable by death.For more information about honor killing, see the following website - http://www.islam-watch.org/SyedKamranMirza/honor_killing.htm.
In fact, it could be argued that the call for the murder of Salman Rushdie is supported by the Quran:
“[Believers] shall fight in the way of Allah and shall slay and be slain. It is a promise which is binding on Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur'an.” -Quran 9:111
“[Believers] long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them.” - Quran, 4:89
Beyond that, Allah punishes by death other unbelievers in the Quran. So, what’s to be taken away from this discussion? What position should anyone who considers themselves a champion of human rights, and someone concerned with the proper treatment of human beings take on religion? Is it true, as some have suggested, that the ten commandments is a perfect code for morality? If that’s true, then why is it that we don’t have any laws against adultery? If a married couple makes the choice that they want to have sex with other people, as long as there is full disclosure and acceptance between both parties, can that really be considered morally wrong? Even if adultery is done without the consent of one’s partner, although that is certainly wrong, should it be punishable by law, or should it be an issue to be resolved between the two people involved? The question here is, regardless of one’s religion, is holy scripture of any religion really a basis for morality? The answer is a resounding no. My zealotry, which at one time was a rally against religion and theism, has changed to a call for secularism in governments across the world. Religion is not a moral code, and should not be treated as such. According to a talk given on Google Talks by Penn Jilette, even Glenn Beck agrees that morality is something that is so deeply ingrained into human nature that even nonbelievers have morality. I suspect, however, that his version of morality is different than mine, but I am sure that we do have some common ground in terms of morality. Based on what I know of human nature, I’ve come to a similar conclusion to Beck’s, although I think that most human beings have an innate tendency toward secular morality, and people’s desire for camaraderie and inclusion motivate them to belong to religious organizations, and embrace the philosophies therein. This is something that should not be discouraged. What should be discouraged is the promotion of legislature inspired by religious doctrine, and the tendency of some religious people to try to enforce their belief systems onto others, because they consider it to be the highest moral code.
The point I am trying to make is two-fold: firstly, a cry for secularity - everyone, regardless of their religious belief, should be able to embrace a secular governing body. Such a system does not inhibit religious belief, unless you consider making honor killings illegal an inhibition of religious belief. This brings up the second point that I am trying to make: although anti-religious zealotry is not really very helpful and doesn’t foster good human rights practices, the attitude that religion is sacred and should be immune to criticism is not beneficial to humanity either. While I agree that religion is a basic human right, and no one should be denied that right, a secular attitude should be adopted when it comes to moral issues that come with religion. Do people who immediately condemn those who criticise Islam know about the passages in the Quran I mentioned above that could, arguably, be interpreted as a call for the murder of apostates and rape victims? Do they know about the real existence of honor killings and female circumcision being done in the name of Islam? Would they object to the implementation of a ban of the wearing of full burqas, as was done in France, an issue which the president said was “one of freedom and dignity, and did not have to do with religion.”? - (http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-26/world/france.burqa.ban_1_veil-public-places-french-people?_s=PM:WORLD). Essentially, my point is that a measured approach should be taken when dealing with religious belief. People who believe in religious freedom should be aware of the tendency of religion to inhibit other people’s freedom, for example, the fact that it’s illegal in a great deal of Muslim countries for women to be seen in public without male supervision and without wearing a full burqa, and the fact that it’s still illegal in most of the United States for gay people to get married. I hope that, after reading this, my girlfriend will have seen my side of the story when I condemned Islam as a “hateful religion,” although I am sure that she will maintain her caring and thoughtful attitude towards everyone in this world, an attitude for which she has earned my respect and admiration.
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