Religious Dietary Laws

[g.johnson]

Winot, you're absolutely right.  Feyerabend argues this position about as well as it could be argued; namely, that when one looks hard at the choices and decisions scientists make, one cannot find a strictly rational basis for them.  He draws the conclusion that research programs might as well be organized by rolling dice or shaking chicken bones as thinking about the issues.  It has to be said that, while Feyerabend's intellectual firepower is widely respected, few people agree with him.  Lakatos is a good antidote.

I know Professor Johnson has some interesting views on Feyerabend.

I do? I’m not sure about the chicken bones, but no, there does not seem to be any well defined process through which physics* progresses (and it does progress). Sooner or later your physicist ends up saying that theory A is preferable to theory B because of simplicity or elegance although neither of those concepts can be clearly defined. Lakatos, whom I admire, did come close to codifying how it’s done but I think he fell short. He substituted the idea of a ‘progressive’ theory (i.e., one which suggests more and different experiments) for the idea of elegance, but there is still no way of measuring just how progressive one program is relative to another.

So, yes, I do think Feyeraband had a point. Physicists are manifestly successful at determining the truth or falsity (always provisionally) of statements about the world but it is currently impossible to say quite how we** do it.

*Biology is rather different, I think, more a catalogue of correlations.

**Smug physicist bastard.

Edit: I should say that none of this poses any problems for the physicist, only for the philosopher of science.

Edited January 3, 2003 by g.johnson (log)

[Nick]

Those hallmarks may also include throwing off the yokes of monarchs and despots of all types.

Who were often in bed with the religious leaders in their country.

Yes. Perhaps King James could be a prime example of this.

[Wilfrid]

I do find it interesting that a physicist would go that far with Feyerabend - many philosophers who don't know a test tube from a pork pie would reject his views out of hand.

You hit on the key point, I think. Physicists are very successful in advancing hypotheses of increasing reliability and plausibility. If one is convinced that they would be less successful if they chose hypotheses by throwing dice, one is forced to conclude that just because we can't yet adequately explain the rationality of science, it doesn't follow that science is, at Feyerabend would say, irrational.

[g.johnson]

Look at radical groups like the Klu Klux Klan, Jewish Defense League and Al Qaeda, just to name three, and how their actions are based on a perverted interpetations of "god's writings." Why is Macrosan justified to follow god's words and they aren't? Because we like his definitions better? Well believe it or not that happens to be the case. We allow people to follow god's words providing they do not violate the rights of others or do not break any laws. But what about rituals and customs that have a negative impact on society but do not break laws? Should we just tolerate them? Or should we point out their negative impact?

Macrosan does not believe that his personal faith justifies imposing his beliefs on others.

The KKK are religious. Stalin was an atheist. Macrosan is religious. You’re an atheist. I don’t see either of you leading the march to exterminate blacks and kulaks. That's because you're both decent chaps and the KKK and Stalin are/were not.

[g.johnson]

Example: I think matryrdom in early Christianity was among other things a reimagining of pagan sacrifice in the context of the Christian belief system.

I bow to your greater knowledge, but did human sacrifice occur in the Hellenic world of the early church? Or am I misunderstanding you?

[Kikujiro]

Who said anything about human?

[g.johnson]

Martydom implies human, no? Obviously, I'm missing something.

[Wilfrid]

But not sacrifice. I think we have pagan animal sacrifices, on the one hand, and human martyrdom on the other. Right?

[Kikujiro]

But not sacrifice.  I think we have pagan animal sacrifices, on the one hand, and human martyrdom on the other.  Right?

Wilfrid is down with it.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Macrosan does not believe that his personal faith justifies imposing his beliefs on others.

But that is the entire point. Religious laws that revolve around controlled behavior that isn't rooted in mainstream logic necesarily impose one's beliefs on others. If the only way outsiders can particpate is to adopt your belief set, even temporarily, you have imposed your faith. That is why a non-Jew can particpate in a candle lighting ceremony and it will have no real concequence to them. But when they come to your home for a sabbath dinner and you keep kosher, they have to alter their lifestyle to participate.

Like any other thing which is rooted in oppression, even if it is a mild oppression like not eating milk and meat together, being confronted with it makes the outsider question why they are different? Where the hypocrisy lies, is the Jewish tradition of welcoming strangers into their homes is spring-loaded with a simultaneous slap to their faces that says your food and custom of eating isn't good enough for us.

So I agree with you it isn't the same level of imposition, but it is imposition and that can't be a good thing. Yes we all live with it because many of us maintain a connection to our religion of birth, whether through theology or culture. But let's be honest. Anything that promotes either systematic exclusion or makes people feel inferior in some way cannot be a good thing.

[Kikujiro]

Steve, while I think you have a point about the effect of the separationist elements in the laws, I don't think the problem is that they are 'not rooted in mainsteam logic'. The issue is effect, not cause.

Compare behaviour based on religious faith to behaviour rooted in infancy. If because of someone's childhood they want to get spanked by their partner, that's between them and their partner. If because of their childhood they want to kill people, it's a problem.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Okay then how about I say they are not rooted in morality and ethics, but they are intended to perpetuate the religion at the expense of morality. How's that?

[stefanyb]

Jewish tradition of welcoming strangers into their homes is spring-loaded with a simultaneous slap to their faces that says your food and custom of eating isn't good enough for us.

How would you compare that to a Jew being invited to the home of a Christian family to participate in the decorating of their Christmas tree? In some ways, and I've experienced this myself, the sentiment is poor pathetic you, you don't even have Christmas. You can come and share ours. Obviously your religion is inferior and would never be good enough for us- what? no Christmas? Heaven forbid.

[Kikujiro]

Well, I'd prefer you to argue that that's their effect as opposed to their intention (whose intention would that be?), but we're getting there

[Steve Plotnicki]

Similar but not quite the same. Religious discrimination and mild persecution aside, you can decorate a x-mas tree and not have to alter your lifestyle. It's just indoor gardening . Not eating certain foods or certain pairings of food is altering your lifestyle. And as Vivre-Manger says, eating is a more basic human need then gardening . And you can't compare a once a year custom to an everyday event.

I think that you are pointing to an aspect of human nature that breeds competitiveness between sets of people. I don't necessarily think that what you are describing is engendered by religion, although human nature might use that aspect of it as a launching point to create a social difference and you get segregation based on class distinctions that originate from religion.

[Stone]

Is it really being exteme to suppose that it wouldn't last a week?

Where is this Hindu Heartland? There is one Hindu kingdom on Earth and it is called Nepal. The Nepalese strike me as a fairly tolerant people. Surely, there are many Western-style restaurants in Kathmandu and nobody is blowing them up. I'm not sure if they serve beef or not, but do you have evidence that a steakhouse in Kathmandu would somehow be attacked by Hindus? Surely, plenty of Buddhists live in Nepal with no problem, and I think I read somewhere that the largest Passover seder in the world is held annually in Kathmandu.

Steve -- you'll have a very hard time finding beef anywhere in Nepal; I don't recall seeing any in Kdu. It's all water buffalo. And I think there are many Hindu areas in India and elsewhere where a beef joint would not be tolerated. People have been killed on rumors that they killed a cow -- recently. There are castes in India who are permitted to skin cows that have died of natural causes. Recently, five members of the caste were accused of killing a cow and skinning it. They were lynched.

Edited January 3, 2003 by Dstone001 (log)

[SobaAddict70]

you don't even have Christmas

I thought the Jewish version of Christmas was Hannukah.

(only because of one obvious similarity between the two: they're both in their own way, all about "light in the midst of darkness"; Hannukah being literally "the festival of lights", a celebration enshrining the miracle of the menorah lasting eight days and nights in the Temple; Christmas being a celebration of the birth of Christ -- God self-transformed as a human being which paves the way for his eventual selfless self-sacrifice for all of humanity, yadda yadda yadda)

Aw, I'm blabbing....

SA

[Wilfrid]

I think that comes under the heading of unacceptable religious practices!

I once shared a kitchen with some Muslims. During Ramadan, they considered cooking pork in the kitchen to be unclean. I used to cook it anyway, but tell them it was rabbit or something. How bad was that?

[g.johnson]

But not sacrifice.  I think we have pagan animal sacrifices, on the one hand, and human martyrdom on the other.  Right?

Wilfrid is down with it.

That I get. What I don't get is the idea that pagan animal sacrifice somehow morphs into human martydom. They seem too different. One hurts the other doesn't.

[stefanyb]

What I don't get is the idea that pagan animal sacrifice somehow morphs into human martydom. They seem too different. One hurts the other doesn't.

G. They both hurt only one hurts an animal and the other hurts.....well, an animal.

[SobaAddict70]

What I don't get is the idea that pagan animal sacrifice somehow morphs into human martydom. They seem too different. One hurts the other doesn't.

G. They both hurt only one hurts an animal and the other hurts.....well, an animal.

Not to mention that re the latter, two souls are injured in the process.

*cough*

SA

[Kikujiro]

g., it was an aside that I'm beginning to regret having made

I can't remember the details of the argument any more (it's been a long time since I attempted it) but I think it had partly to do with systems of looking. It's not a morphing of one to the other, it's an appropiation of some of the discourse around sacrifice to turn martyrdom from a dismissal of Christianity into an affirmation.

It was also to do with accounts of early Christianity that suggested an absolute bullheadedness around any compromise with pagan ritual and an apparently fervent desire to be martryed that suggested it was a useful transformational phase. But you got me on what the actual arguments were.

edit for illiteracy; am losing it

Edited January 3, 2003 by Kikujiro (log)

[Gavin Jones]

it's an appropiation of some of the discourse around sacrifice to turn martyrdom from a dismissal of Christianity into an affirmation.

Isn't this rather the primal trope of christianity.

The early accounts do seem rather written with this in mind...

[Kikujiro]

Think you could make a case for that, yeah.

[Wilfrid]

I don't know how far we want to go down this admittedly intersting path, but isn't there a significant distinction within Christianity between Christ's passion and the martyrdom of the saints (and others)? Clearly, there are plenty of Biblical passages drawing analogies between Christ and the sacrificial lamb, and between Christ and the scapegoat. In the former case, a kind of sacrificial offering for the propitiation of sins, and in the second case a way of transferring the burden of sin.

I am not sure martyrs were viewed as performing either of those functions. Now, I'm not sure how that relates to Kiku's argument, but I can more readily see the relationship between pagan animal sacrifice and the passion of Christ, than between animal sacrifice and the martyrdom of the saints.