Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.This is going to be a more diffuse Doggerel entry, since there's just so much I could go on about. Woos of every stripe love to pretend that morality is magic, like so many of the other things going on in our heads. Fundies like to pretend our "moral fiber" is damaged by seeing things often irrelevant to morality. And they all apparently like to think that people who know something about the world abandon it so easily.
First off, I'd like a straight answer from any woos who end up here: Just what is it about the "supernatural" that allegedly makes the kind of morality you think you believe in different? Fundies, in my experience, inevitably resort to foamy tirades about how I should be selfish and cowardly because some supernatural being will hurt me for not following his random edicts. Woos of other types never get specific, sometimes claiming that love, cooperation, peace, etcetera aren't "transcendental" enough, as if there's some unspecified line between the stuff we know and the "supernatural" where boring old worldly concerns are rendered meaningless for being on the wrong side of that line. It's weird.
Second, I find a lot of fundie rituals and regulations to be downright weird. Kind of like how most (I hope) these days find the death penalty for wearing a blended fabric weird. I don't particularly care how people get their happy. Just be responsible, safe, and do it with someone who can consent. Do what you can to make sure no one gets hurt.
Finally, I see zero connection between learning about the world and being a Nietzsche Wannabe. Just because we don't have all our flights of fancy verified by scientific inquiry doesn't mean that everything good in life is suddenly meaningless. I still stand up for truth, justice, and all that. I don't need fluffy clouds or beer volcanoes to make it all perfect. Just because utopia is impossible doesn't mean the world is only capable of being a dystopia. An imperfect world just means we have to put in some hard work to make it as good as we can.
1 comment:
Fundies like to pretend our "moral fiber" is damaged by seeing things often irrelevant to morality.
My favorite things that fall under this heading are "pornography" and "swearing." Somehow we are metaphysically damaged by watching people have sex or listening to people speak certain phonemes.
Now, children at certain levels of development can be hurt by unregulated exposure to sexuality in ways that could make them victimize others. But adults? Are you kidding? For conservatives that "hate" nanny government, they sure want to treat us like kids a whole hell of a lot of the time.
Post a Comment