"The Paradox of the Open Society"

[Dan From Smithville]

How "free" is a class of people if there are political groups and propaganda dedicated to shave off rights and privileges of them. How "free", "open" and "equal" is a society where for some classes of people freedom is a fight while for others it's a fact?

I am not arguing that we have achieved even a good approximation of an ideal. Just some thoughts on what I think it would take under practical conditions. For all I know, a free society may require something to create friction in order to maintain fitness in a physical world.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

And perhaps the most important question is who will define & enforce it.
Who here trusts Trump to lead a government with such power?

Trust the Grabber? Not hardly.

 

[Revoltingest]

Trust the Grabber? Not hardly.

You are indeed wise.....even for a rabbit.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You are indeed wise.....even for a rabbit.

It hoppens.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

it is the left wing that calls me names

Except that on this thread, it's you, a conservative, on the attack.

it is the left that characterizes any dissenting opinion as 'hate speech.'

That's hate speech right there - from you. Here you are slandering the entire left with untruths. It wasn't the left angrily and marching at Charlottesville. And yes, that was hate speech coming from the right. And more. They even deliberately ran over a liberal protesting their vile presence.

Of all the left leaning posters on RF...of the vast majority of the left in the USA, do you know any who are dedicated to the idea that people should be free to say what they think, even if what they say and think doesn't march with their own ideas and beliefs?

Pretty much all of them. Tolerating speech is a liberal principle. Conservatives like Kim, the Saudi king, and the Iranian ayatollah don't tolerate free speech. Liberals like Jefferson and Madison did,

WHICH end of the spectrum figures that the First Amendment really means freedom FROM religion, rather than 'Freedom OF?"

Neither. Liberals understand that religion should be tolerated to some extent, although not to the extent that many American Christians expect. Many seem to think that anything that they want to do in the name of religious beliefs should be tolerated by a secular society. I disagree. For example, they want to be able to open a bakery to the public and then discriminate against a class of law-abiding citizens because they don't approve of them, and then whine about being checked by the courts as if anything they want to do must be tolerated by the rest of us because it's their religious belief. I don't care about protecting their right to hate in the name of their god.

Which end of the political spectrum is most likely to advocate for a law to restrict what a specific religion may or may not do within its belief system, then justify what happens by saying that 'religions are not above the law, and if they do something illegal, that's too bad?"

I'm proud to be part of that contingent. Did you think otherwise - that religions are above the law? That was David Koresh's opinion as well. He defiantly flouted the law, and paid the price.

That's called 'begging the question,' by the way, if one is going to be polite about it.

No it's not. Begging the question is making a circular argument, that is, an argument that assumes its own conclusions in its premises.

I do not ascribe to the idea that it's OK for 'our side" to do wrong things if the OTHER side does,

I do, but it's not wrong to retaliate. It's wrong to open fire, but not wrong to returning fire. I encourage the Democrats to be as ruthless to the Republicans as they have been until they change their ways. Then, they should return to civility and forbearance. They need an incentive to imitate decent human beings.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't post in such a hostile manner about conservatives, but since you came into this thread with both barrels blazing gunning for liberals and opened that door, you'll be treated the same.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

As hard as it is for many to accept, open societies came about because of Christian theological concepts

Another false narrative from you.

It's hard to accept because it's untrue. The Christian model for society was the law of the land in the Western Middle Ages - hardly open societies. Freedom came to the West with the liberal Enlightenment and the removal of the church from government.

Religion is antithetical to freedom and open societies. Look at how the Muslims first limited religious intolerance and enjoyed the fruits of an open society, and how conservative religion reared its ugly head yet again to steal that away from them. This is from Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“Of all the stars that have names, two-thirds of them have Arabic names. While the constellations are Greek and Roman, the stars’ names are Arabic. How does this happen? How do you get stars named with Arabic names? It happens because there was this particularly fertile period – this 300 year period [about 800-1100 AD]-when the intellectual center of the world was Baghdad. It was completely open to all visitors – all travelers. They were all there exchanging ideas, and it was that period where we had advances in engineering, biology, medicine, and mathematics.Our numerals are called Arabic numerals! They created a whole field called algebra - an Arabic word. All of this is traceable to this 300 year period.

“Ibn al-Hazen (965-1040 AD) was the first person ever to set down the rules of science. He created an error-correcting mechanism, a systematic and relentless way to sift out misconceptions in our thinking.

[al-Hazen] "Finding truth is difficult and the road to it is rough. As seekers after truth, you will be wise to withhold judgment and not simply put your trust in the writings of the ancients. You must question and critically examine those writings from every side. You must submit only to argument and experiment and not to the sayings of any person. For every human being is vulnerable to all kinds of imperfection. As seekers after truth, we must also suspect16and question our own ideas as we perform our investigations, to avoid falling into prejudice or careless thinking. Take this course, and truth will be revealed to you.”

“And then, something happened. ’The 12th century brought the influence of he scholar al-Ghazali Al Ghazali (1058-1111 AD), and out of his work you get the philosophy that mathematics is the work of the Devil. Nothing good can come of that philosophy. With that, combined with other sort-of philosophical codifications of what Islam was and would become, the entire intellectual foundation of that enterprise collapsed and it has not recovered since.’ ”​

That's what religion does when given the chance. Christianity would do the same in America if given the chance.This is the Christian model for government, and it's authoritarian:

• "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."- Romans 13:1-2

• "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient" - Titus 3:1

It was secular, liberal thought that rejected those Christian principles. Christians may have contributed to ridding the world of several such governments, but they did so by ignoring those scriptures and turning to the methods and values of secular humanism, that is by rejecting religious dogma and applying of reason and compassion.This is what the church would do if it could separate itself from the authority of the state:

• "The long term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to his Church's public marks of the covenant-baptism and holy communion-must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel." - Gary North

• "I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be." - Jerry Falwell

• "Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies." - Randall Terry

• "Why stoning? There are many reasons. First, the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost...executions are community projects--not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do `his' duty, but rather with actual participants...That modern Christians never consider the possibility of the reintroduction of stoning for capital crimes indicates how thoroughly humanistic concepts of punishment have influenced the thinking of Christian." - Christian Dominionist Gary North bemoaning the influence that humanism has had.

• "I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... our goal is a Christian nation. We have the biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism"- Randall Terry, Director of Operation Rescue

I expect you to call these people anomalous outliers, but they all rose to power withing Christian organizations, meaning that their message resonated with large numbers of Christians, just as Trump's message of hatred and intolerance has with white evangelical Christians.

Now please tell us how the United States was founded in Christian principles, and how science is also a gift of Christianity..I've seen those false claims as much as the one you made here.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You are indeed wise.....even for a rabbit.

I often wonder how free the societies of idealists would remain free. There is always information that people do not have or consequences no one expected. Not that people should give up striving for better, just that ideals themselves are likely incomplete.

 

[dianaiad]

Except that on this thread, it's you, a conservative, on the attack.



That's hate speech right there - from you. Here you are slandering the entire left with untruths. It wasn't the left angrily and marching at Charlottesville. And yes, that was hate speech coming from the right. And more. They even deliberately ran over a liberal protesting their vile presence.



Pretty much all of them. Tolerating speech is a liberal principle. Conservatives like Kim, the Saudi king, and the Iranian ayatollah don't tolerate free speech. Liberals like Jefferson and Madison did,



Neither. Liberals understand that religion should be tolerated to some extent, although not to the extent that many American Christians expect. Many seem to think that anything that they want to do in the name of religious beliefs should be tolerated by a secular society. I disagree. For example, they want to be able to open a bakery to the public and then discriminate against a class of law-abiding citizens because they don't approve of them, and then whine about being checked by the courts as if anything they want to do must be tolerated by the rest of us because it's their religious belief. I don't care about protecting their right to hate in the name of their god.



I'm proud to be part of that contingent. Did you think otherwise - that religions are above the law? That was David Koresh's opinion as well. He defiantly flouted the law, and paid the price.



No it's not. Begging the question is making a circular argument, that is, an argument that assumes its own conclusions in its premises.



I do, but it's not wrong to retaliate. It's wrong to open fire, but not wrong to returning fire. I encourage the Democrats to be as ruthless to the Republicans as they have been until they change their ways. Then, they should return to civility and forbearance. They need an incentive to imitate decent human beings.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't post in such a hostile manner about conservatives, but since you came into this thread with both barrels blazing gunning for liberals and opened that door, you'll be treated the same.

I believe that you have, here, proven my point.

.....especially in the matter of religions being above the law. In a way, they ARE 'above the law,' in that we aren't supposed to make laws that apply to the internal workings of religion.

Perhaps...I get long winded here but be patient:

Real world example.

Take an area where there were no specific laws against having more than one wife, but where marriages were permitted only by government license and recognized as marriages when such licenses were obtained.

A religious group which believed in polygamy made a practice of having a first marriage be done by license, duly recognized by the government. Any further marriages were within the religion only; no attempt to commit the crime of 'bigamy' by trying to have two spouses legally recognized by the government.

The society around them were so incensed by this practice that they deliberately passed a law directed AT this group, redefining marriage as to say that even those associations that are NOT recognized by the government are indeed marriages, and thus the participants were committing bigamy even when no effort was made to have those associations recognized as such by the government.

So now there's a law. A law passed specifically to prohibit a religious practice. The defense then becomes...as yours has been...that religions are not above the law, so if there is a law, the religion must comply.

The question being begged here is...should there have been a law?

The circular argument is...there is a law, so of course the church must obey it.

I have referred to the raid on the FLDS compound by the Texas government. It took quite a long time, but it was FINALLY determined, mostly, that the Texas child protective agency was utterly wrong to make that raid, and to detain the women and children.

But one of the arguments the TCPA made to the judges when they were ordered to let them all go because there was NO reason or evidence of a crime for which to hold them, was this...paraphrased..:

But if we let them go, they'll LEAVE, and we can't keep them here to find anything they've done wrong, so that we can charge them!

THAT is the argument I see being made here, quite often.

BTW, it took several more months for the courts to force the Texas Child protection people to let most of 'em out of detention centers.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I am not arguing that we have achieved even a good approximation of an ideal. Just some thoughts on what I think it would take under practical conditions. For all I know, a free society may require something to create friction in order to maintain fitness in a physical world.

An ideal is probably the best we cam hope for. But, paradoxically, we cant develop an iron fist to enforce it, and just have to accept that striving towards the imperfect ideal is the best we can have.

 

[shmogie]

Another false narrative from you.

It's hard to accept because it's untrue. The Christian model for society was the law of the land in the Western Middle Ages - hardly open societies. Freedom came to the West with the liberal Enlightenment and the removal of the church from government.

Religion is antithetical to freedom and open societies. Look at how the Muslims first limited religious intolerance and enjoyed the fruits of an open society, and how conservative religion reared its ugly head yet again to steal that away from them. This is from Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“Of all the stars that have names, two-thirds of them have Arabic names. While the constellations are Greek and Roman, the stars’ names are Arabic. How does this happen? How do you get stars named with Arabic names? It happens because there was this particularly fertile period – this 300 year period [about 800-1100 AD]-when the intellectual center of the world was Baghdad. It was completely open to all visitors – all travelers. They were all there exchanging ideas, and it was that period where we had advances in engineering, biology, medicine, and mathematics.Our numerals are called Arabic numerals! They created a whole field called algebra - an Arabic word. All of this is traceable to this 300 year period.

“Ibn al-Hazen (965-1040 AD) was the first person ever to set down the rules of science. He created an error-correcting mechanism, a systematic and relentless way to sift out misconceptions in our thinking.

[al-Hazen] "Finding truth is difficult and the road to it is rough. As seekers after truth, you will be wise to withhold judgment and not simply put your trust in the writings of the ancients. You must question and critically examine those writings from every side. You must submit only to argument and experiment and not to the sayings of any person. For every human being is vulnerable to all kinds of imperfection. As seekers after truth, we must also suspect16and question our own ideas as we perform our investigations, to avoid falling into prejudice or careless thinking. Take this course, and truth will be revealed to you.”

“And then, something happened. ’The 12th century brought the influence of he scholar al-Ghazali Al Ghazali (1058-1111 AD), and out of his work you get the philosophy that mathematics is the work of the Devil. Nothing good can come of that philosophy. With that, combined with other sort-of philosophical codifications of what Islam was and would become, the entire intellectual foundation of that enterprise collapsed and it has not recovered since.’ ”​

That's what religion does when given the chance. Christianity would do the same in America if given the chance.This is the Christian model for government, and it's authoritarian:

• "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."- Romans 13:1-2

• "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient" - Titus 3:1

It was secular, liberal thought that rejected those Christian principles. Christians may have contributed to ridding the world of several such governments, but they did so by ignoring those scriptures and turning to the methods and values of secular humanism, that is by rejecting religious dogma and applying of reason and compassion.This is what the church would do if it could separate itself from the authority of the state:

• "The long term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to his Church's public marks of the covenant-baptism and holy communion-must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel." - Gary North

• "I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be." - Jerry Falwell

• "Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies." - Randall Terry

• "Why stoning? There are many reasons. First, the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost...executions are community projects--not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do `his' duty, but rather with actual participants...That modern Christians never consider the possibility of the reintroduction of stoning for capital crimes indicates how thoroughly humanistic concepts of punishment have influenced the thinking of Christian." - Christian Dominionist Gary North bemoaning the influence that humanism has had.

• "I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... our goal is a Christian nation. We have the biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism"- Randall Terry, Director of Operation Rescue

I expect you to call these people anomalous outliers, but they all rose to power withing Christian organizations, meaning that their message resonated with large numbers of Christians, just as Trump's message of hatred and intolerance has with white evangelical Christians.

Now please tell us how the United States was founded in Christian principles, and how science is also a gift of Christianity..I've seen those false claims as much as the one you made here.

Obviously you don't understand the fundamental theological doctrine of freedom found in the Christian New Testament.

There are always negative narratives when one concentrates on the actions of people, rather than the teachings.

The greatest promoters of genocide in history believed in the occult, or were atheists. Using your methodology, those who believe in these things are killers.

ALWAYS, guilt by association is the harbor of the lazy and hateful..

The Founders knew where liberty came from, and made it clear that the rights they bestowed on the Republic came from God.

So, my assignment for you is to take some time and read the New Testament. It won't take you long, and regardless of what others have said, those you seek out to support your biases, you will learn of the actual teachings.

Your bias is so virulent, I suspect that at some time someone declaring themselves a Christian seared you pretty well, too bad, it was never intended to be that way.,

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I believe that you have, here, proven my point.

.....especially in the matter of religions being above the law. In a way, they ARE 'above the law,' in that we aren't supposed to make laws that apply to the internal workings of religion.

Perhaps...I get long winded here but be patient:

Real world example.

Take an area where there were no specific laws against having more than one wife, but where marriages were permitted only by government license and recognized as marriages when such licenses were obtained.

A religious group which believed in polygamy made a practice of having a first marriage be done by license, duly recognized by the government. Any further marriages were within the religion only; no attempt to commit the crime of 'bigamy' by trying to have two spouses legally recognized by the government.

The society around them were so incensed by this practice that they deliberately passed a law directed AT this group, redefining marriage as to say that even those associations that are NOT recognized by the government are indeed marriages, and thus the participants were committing bigamy even when no effort was made to have those associations recognized as such by the government.

So now there's a law. A law passed specifically to prohibit a religious practice. The defense then becomes...as yours has been...that religions are not above the law, so if there is a law, the religion must comply.

The question being begged here is...should there have been a law?

The circular argument is...there is a law, so of course the church must obey it.

I have referred to the raid on the FLDS compound by the Texas government. It took quite a long time, but it was FINALLY determined, mostly, that the Texas child protective agency was utterly wrong to make that raid, and to detain the women and children.

But one of the arguments the TCPA made to the judges when they were ordered to let them all go because there was NO reason or evidence of a crime for which to hold them, was this...paraphrased..:

But if we let them go, they'll LEAVE, and we can't keep them here to find anything they've done wrong, so that we can charge them!

THAT is the argument I see being made here, quite often.

BTW, it took several more months for the courts to force the Texas Child protection people to let most of 'em out of detention centers.

I know you have proven ours, and pointing out what you did is not a sign of liberalism. You went on the attack doing just as you claimed and blamed others of doing. It is quite human, but no less wrong.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

An ideal is probably the best we cam hope for. But, paradoxically, we cant develop an iron fist to enforce it, and just have to accept that striving towards the imperfect ideal is the best we can have.

I think so. After all, it involves people.

In my way of thinking that is a major part of the paradox. How can society be free by engaging in a practice that eliminate free thought, even if it is thought that is disavowed by the majority?

Idealy, a free society would know what was right and act to those ends. But is that really free either? If there is no choice but to follow some underlying nature, are you acting as a free agent?

I have a lot of thoughts, but I really do not know. If I knew, then I would probably not think about it, question the subject or enjoy reading the thoughts of others raised on the topic.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Obviously you don't understand the fundamental theological doctrine of freedom found in the Christian New Testament.

There are always negative narratives when one concentrates on the actions of people, rather than the teachings.

The greatest promoters of genocide in history believed in the occult, or were atheists. Using your methodology, those who believe in these things are killers.

ALWAYS, guilt by association is the harbor of the lazy and hateful..

The Founders knew where liberty came from, and made it clear that the rights they bestowed on the Republic came from God.

So, my assignment for you is to take some time and read the New Testament. It won't take you long, and regardless of what others have said, those you seek out to support your biases, you will learn of the actual teachings.

Your bias is so virulent, I suspect that at some time someone declaring themselves a Christian seared you pretty well, too bad, it was never intended to be that way.,

The Bible narrates genocide. Most fundamentalist sign off on it as the will of God, passing the buck back to Him. A sort of convenience that opens the door to any human-driven atrocity getting a free pass by labeling it divine.

 

[Stevicus]

And perhaps the most important question is who will define & enforce it.

Well, if nobody else will do it, I'll take the job. As long as the pay is fair and I can get regular coffee and smoke breaks.

 

[shmogie]

The Bible narrates genocide. Most fundamentalist sign off on it as the will of God, passing the buck back to Him. A sort of convenience that opens the door to any human-driven atrocity getting a free pass by labeling it divine.

Obviously you are another who hasn't a clue as to what the New Testament says. That ignorance does not deter you from pontificating as an authority regarding what it teaches.

Never worry about the truth, just make up a crock of BS to serve your narrative.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Obviously you are another who hasn't a clue as to what the New Testament says. That ignorance does not deter you from pontificating as an authority regarding what it teaches.

Never worry about the truth, just make up a crock of BS to serve your narrative.

The Bible is not just the NT and those that carried out the genocide of the Bible were not atheists.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Obviously you are another who hasn't a clue as to what the New Testament says. That ignorance does not deter you from pontificating as an authority regarding what it teaches.

Never worry about the truth, just make up a crock of BS to serve your narrative.

Am I mistaken in your claim about promoters of genocide in history and the Jews were believers in the occult or atheist? How can that be?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Obviously you are another who hasn't a clue as to what the New Testament says. That ignorance does not deter you from pontificating as an authority regarding what it teaches.

Never worry about the truth, just make up a crock of BS to serve your narrative.

Being able to read what is actually in the Bible does not require a degree.

 

[Ponder This]

Karl Popper argued that open societies could survive tolerating just about any non-criminal diversity except that they could not tolerate intolerance. Consequently, he believed the state should have the power to repress intolerance -- even to imposing the death penalty upon the worst offenders. He called the need of open, tolerant societies to be intolerant of intolerance "The paradox of the open society".

Do you think Popper had a point? Why or why not?

If you advocate imposing the death penalty against people who are intolerant, then you must impose the death penalty against yourself for being intolerant of intolerant people, as you are among the worst offenders...

So no, he doesn't have a point.

 

[Heyo]

Being able to read what is actually in the Bible does not require a degree.

Being able to read not, being able to understand …