Rendering unto Caesar: The Terrorism of Superstition

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

There are people who contend that politics and superstition should be separated. Certainly, the world would be a better place if superstitious people simply went about their own personal affairs and stopped meddling in the private lives of their neighbors, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. The superstitious are terrified that if they don't terrorize their neighbors, they will suffer for eternity.

Some will argue that the Constitution guarantees the right of people to be superstitious, but that's no reason to appease their superstitions. It is one thing for the superstitious to terrorize their own children and quite a different matter for them to terrorize their neighbors. They even go so far as having their children terrorize the neighbor kids. This kind of conduct is vicious and brutal.

Superstition belongs to Caesar. It enslaves an entire population in a mental prison of fear and ignorance. People who reject superstition cannot ignore the cruelty of the superstitious.

What do you do to shelter your loved ones from the rabid terrorism of superstition?

Comments

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Could you give some examples about superstition in politics, particularly how superstition affects our neighbours?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Depending on how you see it, there's examples like banning Burkas in Belgium, where the idiots there cannot form a government but can ban a garment won by 30 people in a country of 10 million. Or there's an example as in India where a religious fascist party has been and remains a major force in government.

Then there's Communist China where religions including Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, and so forth are persecuted on a regular basis.

And of course there's those American Evangelicals backing the "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" death camps for gays in Uganda.

Let's see...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I know some guys who had a brick thrown through a window with a note on it telling them to leave the neighborhood. They felt very put-upon by superstition.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Er.....insofar as I understand the US Constitution we *do* have legal separation of Church and State. It's a small irony that our legal separation of the two has led to a very different society than in the EU where most states not only lack the idea itself but blasphemy laws exist across a good swathe of it protecting Christianity from criticism.

I was reminded...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... of blasphemy laws recently. My encounter wit the movement to criminalize flag burning made me think of the criminalization of thumbing your nose at the Church. It's interesting that people have an emotional response to flag burning that is similar to the reaction to putting a crucifix in a urine specimen.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Define superstition. Or is this going to be more of your poorly defined ramblings about the dreaded salad dressing man?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Superstition, for sofia = religion.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Anything that people do or believe that has no support by empirical evidence and science.

Examples:
1. If I go to this weekly shin-dig on Sundays and pray to a long-dead Zombie man, my invisible, immortal "soul" will go to happy land where I'll live with Sky Daddy forever. Bonus points for hating gays.
2. If I blow myself up and take these school children with me, I'll mysteriously have a body in this unproven afterlife, with which I will joyfully f*ck seventy-two virgins for the rest of eternity. All for the glory of Sky Daddy, of course.
3. If I step on a crack, I'll break my mother's back/

All three of these are superstitions, all with no more realistic evidence than any other.

The kind of superstition...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... I had in mind is the kind where people become so afraid of the divine that they commit atrocities. An example in classical literature was the superstition of the Egyptians over cats. When a Roman official's carriage ran over a cat, the locals killed him out of the fear that if they failed to do so, they would suffer from the wrath of Isis.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

What do you do to shelter your loved ones from the rabid terrorism of superstition?

Work really hard to discourage them from the internet, for starters....

Good policy, that!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Also, the Net is more addictive than TV. Who'd have thought that possible?

It's good policy to regulate how children use such devices as computers, television, and video games. It's better that they go crazy in college than before leaving home.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

I try to disabuse them of superstitious notions regarding trustworthiness of individual human intellect, free markets and/or political dogmas.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

But not notions of Invisible Sky Friends?

An excellent list...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... of some of the idols of the modern day. It's fascinating how the culture of faith permeates all aspects of life.

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

black parents put the fear of god into their offspring, so they grow up smoking crack and raping women, because the kids think they are gonna get hung for a lamb it may as well be a sheep.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

But enough about you...

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Insert popcorn GIF here.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

sticks pins into bush doll...

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"People who reject superstition cannot ignore the cruelty of the superstitious."

But they sure can ignore their own pretentions, can't they?


The bigger question is how to avoid patronizing secular aloofness, at least at the moment that is. Tell me how I avoid that and you're 9/10ths of the way to answering your own question.

Query: From whence do you see such an outbreak of 'superstition related terror', in the U.S.? I assume you carefully chose the word 'terrorism' deliberately, correct? Because that means someone has instilled justifiable fear. So do elaborate, if you please.

Terrorism...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... in this context, is trying to get someone to obey you through the use of fear. For example, if you don't persecute your neighbor for her sexual orientation, you will burn in Hell. If you want to curry favor with the material Creator of the flat and immobile earth, you can blow away a health care provider who you think has been murdering children.

Election day superstitions

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

"He always goes to a movie on election day," daughter Meghan McCain told PEOPLE

Election Day Superstitions: Redskins Loss Predicts Obama Win
http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/11/04/redskins-loss-predicts-obama-win.htm

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/the-psychology/ <- this article is full of lulz

Barack Obama’s Ohio campaign manager has neither shaved his face in a month nor has he shown up to the office without his Columbus Clippers baseball hat.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081103/pl_politico/15194

Re: Election day superstitions

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Break a leg.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

By pointing out all the flaws in the Global Warming Hoax.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

infidel.

prays to algod of the internets.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

What do you do to shelter your loved ones from the rabid terrorism of superstition?

If it ever happens, then I'll worry about it.

Which happening?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Would that be if you happened to actually love someone?

[rev-proffessor.livejournal.com]

"What do you do to shelter your loved ones from the rabid terrorism of superstition?"

Simple, I do nothing. I do not believe in sheltering my children from ideas instead preferring to find teaching opportunities. Rigid adherence to any ideology can become a mental prison.

"They even go so far as having their children terrorize the neighbor kids."

I might have ignored this entire post but that line got me. My oldest daughter had her first experience with this in her kindergarten class. Many of her class mates attend the same baptist church, where they have a kids night on Wednesdays. I have no problem with my Sophia going to such a function. I went to VBS at a local church during my childhood summers. However, after asking around with some of the parents, I discovered that my wife and I would be encouraged to join their congregation (not interested) and that this particular congregation holds that all non Christians WILL burn in hell for all eternity (I have given up talking faith and spirituality with anyone who holds this belief). I do not want anyone to teach my children to be judgmental of others.

It sounds...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... like you trust your kids to not get sucked into Baptist judgmentalism.

[ex-restless.livejournal.com]

I was about to comment on this, but then I realized that every time I comment on Tuesdays something bad seems to happen, and I don't want anything bad to happen, so I won't comment at all.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Ironic self-contradiction! The bad shall commence.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I thought Yehoshua was pretty precise on separating Caesar from said superstition. All that rendering stuff in fact.

I seriously doubt...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... that Yehoshua would have his students spreading vicious superstitions. I could see Paul or Peter doing something like that, though.

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

the problem is rationalists make out that if a religious type gives up his pie-in-the-sky all manner of blessings and rewards will flow his way . So he gives living in the real world a go, usualy about 5 seconds, cant feel his big promised reward, so goes dashing back to his slumbersome half-life he had before.

Au contraire...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... true rationalists know that the path to reason is paved with difficulties. It isn't simply a matter of "living in the real world."