Europe is in a muddle over ritual slaughter • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe is in a muddle over ritual slaughter

#101

Post by WithinReason » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 9:07 AM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #100

WithinReason wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are making a statement that religion excuses people from cruel actions Well then you completely misunderstood me

well then - help me out :) I've re-read your post several times. "Religious prescription makes it possible for otherwise not cruel people to make animals suffer. Blurring the distinction is not helpful or smart in any way." I think there exist valid distinctions; e.g. a vet who needs to make an animal suffer temporary pain while providing long term relief is an important distinction. However, what I've put forward is…

When a person inflicts pain out of cruelty, (mostly) they are to blame. When they inflict pain because of religion, (mostly) religion is to blame.

Re: Europe is in a muddle over ritual slaughter

#102

Post by danbruc » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

WithinReason wrote: post #101

NikolaNovak wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well then - help me out :) I've re-read your post several times. "Religious prescription makes it possible for otherwise not cruel people to make animals suffer. Blurring the distinction is not helpful or smart in any way." I think there exist valid distinctions; e.g. a vet who needs to make an animal suffer temporary pain while providing long term relief is an important distinction. However, what I've put forward is…

When a person inflicts pain out of cruelty, (mostly) they are to blame. When they inflict pain because of religion, (mostly) religion is to blame.

I have at least some sympathy for this argument, humans are not perfect rational beings, they can be influenced, deceived and manipulated. I am less sure about the idea of assigning blame in general, especially as I am pretty convinced that free will does not exist. But I will not go there, this just pull another huge controversy into the discussion and makes it more intractable.

That aside, what exactly are we actually arguing about? Are we discussing religion as a justification? Are we discussing who is to blame? The special status of religion? It seems to me that the positions of the people in this thread might actually be quite close together, but that everyone is just arguing about a somewhat different point.

Re: Europe is in a muddle over ritual slaughter

#103

Post by WithinReason » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 11:04 AM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #102

WithinReason wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a person inflicts pain out of cruelty, (mostly) they are to blame. When they inflict pain because of religion, (mostly) religion is to blame.

I have at least some sympathy for this argument, humans are not perfect rational beings, they can be influenced, deceived and manipulated. I am less sure about the idea of assigning blame in general, especially as I am pretty convinced that free will does not exist. But I will not go there, this just pull another huge controversy into the discussion and makes it more intractable. That aside, what exactly are we actua…

> I am less sure about the idea of assigning blame in general, especially as I am pretty convinced that free will does not exist.

Of course it doesn't, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't incentivize or disincentivize certain behaviours by assigning blame to the correct source of the behaviour. I case of religion it makes sense to assign blame to religion instead of treating people as cruel, since the way to remove the source of suffering is through removing religion itself, not the cruelty of the person (since the cruelty is likely not present).

Re: Europe is in a muddle over ritual slaughter

#104

Post by WkmYq » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #57

NikolaNovak wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started mentally translating all instances " because of my religion" to "because I really really want it", as that is what it effectively translates to. There's just no easy line to draw otherwise between "because religion" and any other personal desire. It's not an appeal to any logic or meaning or external truth or specialness or benefit of humankind or world etc. But it's become this magic phrase that causes…

But even then, if the better part of a population [1] just really, really wants something even if it objectively makes no sense at all, on which ground do you oppose the desire of the majority? I am not sure if you could justifiably oppose the majority, but if you can, it requires probably quite a bit of philosophical work to make that case. [1] Just to be clear, I am not talking about this specific case, there is no…

I can oppose the desires of the majority on exactly the same grounds as I can oppose the desires of a single person. Being in the majority doesn't give anyone the right to impose their desires on everyone else. There is really nothing morally special about a majority.