letter to dr laura (old classic)

[Kingofthemorlocks]

H. L. Mencken makes me tingly in my bathing suit area.

[Kittyboymuffin]

Dammit, why must so many perfectly good threads end up getting bogged down in religion and/or politics?

[Squidflakes]

I'll repeat, for the record, my family was Christain, on both sides, but I was studying all available options and making my own choices on spiritual matters long before I reached the age of majority.

Which is well and good, but we tend to be fixed in a framework of what we've grown up with. As much as we may study and seek to change, you're always going to have some vestage of your formative years rattling around in your mind. Its like trying to understand living on the water, when you were born and raised in the dessert. Sure, you can learn to handle a boat, but you'll never have the same deep understanding of the sea as someone who was born there.

The same holds true for religion. If you're born and raised a Jew, there are certian contexts to which you will always be receptive. If you were born a Buddist, Muslim, Quaker, Shinto, Mormon, it doesn't matter, your worldview is always affected by your childhood. Yes, we, as intelligent beings can fill our minds with knowledge, but wisdom comes from experience.

Along with that, the gap that experience creates between cultures and lifestyles is one of the biggest factors that keeps people apart. I was born a middle-class white kid, and I will always be a middle-class white kid in my head. If I move to Mexico and become a beggar or if I move to Canada and become Prime Minister, I will still have the same a priori thoughts coloring my posteriori descisions.

To put it another way "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the boy"

[Honor]

H. L. Mencken makes me tingly in my bathing suit area.

He had his clever moments, but he was also a classist, racist, anti-semetic jackass... Which is why I tend not to attribute quotes to him.

Dammit, why must so many perfectly good threads end up getting bogged down in religion and/or politics?

This thread started off on religion and politics, you moron.

But, yes... Conversations will always tend to either devolve into sheer trivialities or evolve to envelope meaningful themes. Law, sociology, economics, politics, and - so long as a significant percentage of the people on this planet make daily life decisions based on a delusional belief in mythological beings... so long as a tiny percentage of savvy tricksters can control huge swaths of ignorant masses by speaking of those imaginary beings - religion. Around here, even threads that don't start off there may well end up there... Just as they will in other forums. The difference here is we (usually) discuss these things on a higher level of debate.

I suggest that, if you can't take the higher IQ boiling point 'round here, you stick to 4chan.




Squiddy... (pre-quote note): I'll say first, even if I agreed with you, the whole conversation below is academic. I didn't say I was raised Christian, I said my family was Christian. Sure... I went to church on rare occasion with various familiy members, usually for a wedding or funeral, but saying I was "raised" Christian would be like saying that a Kansas kid who visited her grandparents in L.A. once every two years was "raised" Californian.

Both my mother and father were agnostic in practice, my father with athiestic tendancies... While my mother experimented a bit with religion in our presence, it was sporadic, near random experimentation... Lets try this catholic thing... or that mormon thing, or this jewish thing, or that hindu thing.

You'd be considerably more accurate to say I was raised Italian, based on the idea that my mom made american italian food like spaghetti, pasta bolognese, or lasagna sometimes twice a week, and it was the first type of food I learned to cook.

I'll repeat, for the record, my family was Christain, on both sides, but I was studying all available options and making my own choices on spiritual matters long before I reached the age of majority.

Which is well and good, but we tend to be fixed in a framework of what we've grown up with. As much as we may study and seek to change, you're always going to have some vestage of your formative years rattling around in your mind. Its like trying to understand living on the water, when you were born and raised in the dessert. Sure, you can learn to handle a boat, but you'll never have the same deep understanding of the sea as someone who was born there.

I understand it's only an illustrative example, so I don't wanna hold your toes to the fire, but it's still bullshit. take a ten year old kid from the projects in Minneapolis and a third generation fisherman's kid from Nantucket, and - so long as they have the interest and aptitude - you can turn either of them into the world's greatest Old Salt.

I still agree with the basis of what you're illustrating, though, even if I don't buy the illustration... I think. We're all influenced by our background, of course.

Problem is, you contradict yourself pretty wildly here. While I'll directly reject the phraseology "fixed in a framework" I can easily agree with "going to have some vestige"... These two concepts are almost the opposite of each other. A framework defines and limits everything about you - everything you are or can ever be must, after all, lie within the greater framework of your being and possibilities - while a vestige is a tiny, barely perceptable trace... only the smallest part of who and what you are.

The same holds true for religion. If you're born and raised a Jew, there are certian contexts to which you will always be receptive.

Again... Lovely concept, and a popular one, too. But in the case of religion, particularly, there are numerous cases to remind us that it just ain't always so. Quite the contrary... Particularly in matters of religion, politics, cultural upbringing, and other "core" matters, the person who is the most radically not "X" is usually someone who was born into it.

Rare? Sure... Depend son your definitional threshold of "rare", but I'll go along with rare. Either way, it's absolutely true and demonstrably true.

Put differently, while most people born into a family of con-men or mafiosi may become con-men mafiosi themselves, nobody's going to be better at hunting down and prosecuting these folks than the kid who left the life and became a cop. Once she's actively turned against it, nobody looks quite so deep to find all the shit-filled nooks and crannies in a given religion as the person who was born into a place where she was just expected to open her throat and swallow all that shit.

If you were born a Buddist, Muslim, Quaker, Shinto, Mormon, it doesn't matter, your worldview is always affected by your childhood. Yes, we, as intelligent beings can fill our minds with knowledge, but wisdom comes from experience.

And now you're not even saying "raised" anymore, but simply "born"... Some magical limitation is set upon you the moment the cord is cut, and you can never progress from there. I think you've been taking the "Every Sperm is Sacred" number a little too much to heart. You may indeed be a Catholic the moment dad came, but that doesn't mean you're genetically infused with 1000+ years of Catholic tradition and viewpoint before you draw your first breath.

Along with that, the gap that experience creates between cultures and lifestyles is one of the biggest factors that keeps people apart. I was born a middle-class white kid, and I will always be a middle-class white kid in my head. If I move to Mexico and become a beggar or if I move to Canada and become Prime Minister, I will still have the same a priori thoughts coloring my posteriori descisions.

To put it another way "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the boy"

If I actually thought you believed this drivel, exactly as you're saying it I'd be left with nothing to say but "Well, then it's a damned good thing you're not Prime Minister of Canada." As it is, I think we both know Canada would be far better off with you than the current choice.

You're taking the phrase "most humans don't" and replacing it with the phrase "you must". The fact that most people never move past the preconceptions of their youth obviously doesn't mean no person can do so... If it were so, we'd still be living in caves.

While most people never grow past the confines and limitations of their childhood, a good many of us do. You can't gain the childhood experiences of - say - a black kid in the projects or a a jewish kid in nazi germany or a poor factory kid in communist china... But you can learn, and read, and talk, and empathize, and - most importantly - understand the limitations of your own experiences... Understand that they are only a tiny, tiny part of the whole of human experience.

You don't have to literally share in experiences in fact of everyone else to broaden your view... You only have to understand the limitations of your own experiences... As soon as you realize that your own history and cultural biases are not the end all and be all of human experience, or even any better or worse than anyone elses, you're well on the way to the kind of personal growth you're marking down above as completely impossible.

[Tellner]

Honor, you're not stupid, but you're talking out of your ass here, and you know it.

Judaism hasn't had any significant influence on Christian thought since Paul sidelined James and started mass-marketing. If you had even a touch of education in European history, and I'm assuming that you didn't since I'm unwilling to believe that you are actually lying, you would know that Greek and Roman thought were infinitely more influential than anything the Jews came up with. Jewish and Christian worldview, practices, doctrines, modes of inquiry and pretty much anything else you can name are so different that it would make a lot more sense to talk about Christio-Muslim or Yezidi-Buddhist thought than Judeo-Christian. And yes, I can make that case if you're interested. Preferably offline where it won't frighten the horses.

[Honor]

Oh, bullshit.

Bullshit piled on bullshit, with bullshit sprinkled on top.

I have a fairly extensive education in European history, thankyouverymuch, that being one of my favorite topics.

On the one hand, I direct you back to where I referenced recent (I believe I specified that past 1500 years) historical influences on European culture... On the other, I have to point out that you're jumping right back on the religion bandwagon again.

I repeat... "Judeo-Christian" is a socio-cultural term in modern usage, not a religious one.

Yes... Greco-Roman history has, of course, a huge influence on the foundations of modern judeo-christian cultures... But it's deep and old. I doubt it's actually news to you that the classical greco-roman influence ceased to be the primary proactive influence about the time Constantine converted. Since then, the two predominant religious groups in that culture have had a pretty profound influence of their own... Or perhaps you missed the middle ages and the rennaisance?

[Honor]

added here, rather than in edits... good for clarification.

Honor, you're not stupid, but you're talking out of your ass here, and you know it.

Judaism hasn't had any significant influence on Christian thought since Paul sidelined James and started mass-marketing.

See... there's the problem. We're not talking about "Christian thought" (oxymoronic as that may be) when we say "judeo-christian"... we're talking about the overall culture that certain people live in, which has been deeply influenced by jews and christians who live there.

And if you think Jews haven't had more influence on modern American and European culture than Muslims, Yetis, Xenonians, or whoever, you just haven't been paying attention. Find me the modern urban american who's never uttered a word of yiddish that's been coopted into the general American English lexicon, for example.

And the first line offends the fuck out of me. You know me better than that. I don't talk out of my ass. Period. I am sometimes obviously facetious, but this is (equally obviously) not one of those moments.

[Swordsman3003]

Seriously, though.

Judeo-Christian (or Judaeo-Christian) is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, and typically considered (along with classical Greco-Roman civilization) a fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values.

(wiki)

And wait! There's more:

The term was invented in the United States of America in an attempt to create a non-denominational religious consensus or civil religion that, by embracing Judaism, avoided the appearance of anti-Semitism.

The first-known uses of the terms "Judæo-Christian" and "Judaeo-Christianity", according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are 1899 and 1910 respectively, but both were discussing the emergence of Christianity from Judaism. The term was first used with its current meaning in 1938, during World War II[1] to as an alternative to using the term 'Christian civilization' in light of Hitler's attacks on Jews and judaism.

The term is now commonly used in popular culture as a shorthand for the predominant religious influences upon Western culture.

Users of the term Judeo-Christian point out that Jews and Christians have many sacred texts and ethical standards in common, also generally hold that Jews and Christians worship the same God.

(also wiki)

SOME ORIGINAL THOUGHT FOLLOWS I PROMISE!

The term Judeo-Christian has been criticized for implying more commonality than actually exists. In The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition, Jewish theologian-novelist Arthur A. Cohen questions the theological appropriateness of the term and suggests that it was essentially an invention of American politics. [2]. It has also been criticized by some for excluding or marginalizing Islam, the third major Abrahamic religion. Sometimes the terms Judeo-Islamic or Judeo-Christo-Islamic are used to more fully incorporate Islam into this umbrella.

In its political applications, the term is also criticized for over-emphasizing the role of Judaism and Christianity in Western political theory, especially to the exclusion of other predecessor and concurrent schools of thought. In the United States particularly, it is noted that few of the Founding Fathers were Jewish, several were Deists, and that the Enlightenment, religious pluralism, and other philosophies were as influential as either of the religions' holy scriptures. Characterizations of the United States or the West generally as "Judeo-Christian," thus, are often met with criticism that these groups were singled out arbitrarily, and that the hybrid represents more of a political compromise than an accurate description.

(i love wiki)

Tellner, I don't think the term was invented to steal from or associate Xtians with Jews, but rather was a term born out convinience. Just as the term Abrahmaic encompasses Islam as well, whether or not the religions actually follow any of the teachings of Abraham.

Sure, you can learn to handle a boat, but you'll never have the same deep understanding of the sea as someone who was born there.

squiddy

My neighbor was born in Boston, where he lived for seven years, and his father was a professional lobster fisherman. Never having been to the ocean in Boston, and never having done more than spent a day at the beach, I am quite confidant that I know more about lobsters, the New England Coast, the ocean ecosystem in general, tides, boats, shipping, fishing, even BOSTON, than he does. He may have your fabled "understanding" of the sea but he doesn't know jack-shit about it. And I don't feel bad about using one specific example because you were so vague as to be almost meaningless anyways.

Also, short of mind control, I don't think you'd find it very easy to raise your kids to be carbon copy clones of yourself. While it may be true that, statistically, someone born in Muslim Saudi Arabia is more likely to become Muslim than, a black urban man, doesn't mean that he was predisposed, from birth, to be a muslim. While that's not what you were getting at, I wanted to make that point anyways.

What I'm really trying to say is the only limiting factor in a person's intellectual growth and development is the actual physical limitation of that person's access to knowledge of the world and humanity.

Are you expecting to see something different? Does tiny text HAVE to contradict what I've previously said?

[Toawa]

::breaks promise to self not to get involved::

"Christian thought" (oxymoronic as that may be)

You just had to get that cut in, didn't you?

And the first line offends the fuck out of me. You know me better than that. I don't talk out of my ass. Period. I am sometimes obviously facetious, but this is (equally obviously) not one of those moments.

Remember, this is the Internet. Communication can be hindered by being letters... What I'm saying is, your obvious facetiousness isn't always obvious to everyone else; it'd be wise to remember that.

[Tellner]

Honor, sometimes you do. We all do. When you decide that facts don't apply because you don't like them or that reason isn't valid because it doesn't support your conclusions you are talking certainly out of your ass. When you damn and insult anyone who disagrees with you for their short-sightedness and cultural blinders you have to understand that it goes both ways. You did not spring full grown from the brow of Hera. You are just as much the result of your early experience and conditioning as anyone else with one important difference. Intellectually honest and mature people admit that simple fact. The good ones will try to identify those irreducibles and note their effect.

Christian thought an oxymoron? Hardly. I don't see the world the same way a Christian does. I disagree with many things they believe. But I acknowledge that they include great thinkers just like every other group. Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, any trained Jesuit or Dominican and Spinoza all deserve an awful lot of respect for the depth and clarity of their intellectual work.

[Lulujayne]

... so long as a tiny percentage of savvy tricksters can control huge swaths of ignorant masses by speaking of those imaginary beings - religion.

I think that I've posted this link somewhere before, because I really think that you'd appreciate/enjoy it Honor (and the rest of us of course ) It's a three part doco that charts the beginings and rise of both Neo Conservitism and Fundamental Islam. It then goes on to explore the similarities of the two movements which both began in a religious context and ultimately morphed into political ideology - and how the two movements have influenced and driven the current state of the world, for example the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the horror of 9/11 and the birth of Al Qeada.

Although I don't necessarily agree with all of the ideas that the film puts forward, it is definitely an eye-opener - and I think that you guys will get a kick out of it

Here's the films blurb description, just in case my babblings haven't peaked your interest -
""Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created todays nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. " The Power of Nightmares, Baby It's Cold Outside.""

And just by the by, kudos to you Mr. Tellner for your comment regarding the "Christian thought = oxymoron" remark...

[Honor]

::breaks promise to self not to get involved::

"Christian thought" (oxymoronic as that may be)

You just had to get that cut in, didn't you?

Yes, sir... Yes, I did.

And the first line offends the fuck out of me. You know me better than that. I don't talk out of my ass. Period. I am sometimes obviously facetious, but this is (equally obviously) not one of those moments.

Remember, this is the Internet. Communication can be hindered by being letters... What I'm saying is, your obvious facetiousness isn't always obvious to everyone else; it'd be wise to remember that.

An excellent point.... And, like the slippery sledgehammer of an overly Onanic god, along comes Tellner right behind you to miss all the overt, overwhelming obviousness of the "oxymoron" bit, and climb up on his little soapbox to give me a lecture worthy of any kindergarten teacher.

Honor, sometimes you do. We all do.

Bullshit.

The direct implication in the term is that someone is being sloppy with facts... Perhaps one step short of lying, if only because of the implication of blind ignorance and incompetance.

While it might (or might not - but the above statement certainly implies it more than 'might') be your habit to play fast and loose with facts and data, this is as close as I have to a religion... And I am orthodox.

If I say something in a serious, factual discussion, I may be mistaken because of incomplete or faulty data, but you can bet your whole ass it's based on the best facts and data available to me.

When you decide that facts don't apply because you don't like them or that reason isn't valid because it doesn't support your conclusions you are talking certainly out of your ass.

You sir, are cordially invited to either list examples, or kiss my ass.

For the record, none of the numerous instances when I've decided your "facts" don't apply because they clash violently with either all applicable logic, all the data on record, or both, count as an example. Some discussion somewhere in the misty past where you simply could not accept the fact that the word "gun" does not appear in the constitution of the United States doesn't count as an example.

When you damn and insult anyone who disagrees with you for their short-sightedness and cultural blinders you have to understand that it goes both ways.

If someone doesn't agree with me in a matter of fact, (WARNING: FACETIOUSNESS AHEAD!!) it's because they're wrong. (there... does that make it easier for you?)

Ok... It's because one of us is wrong. More correctly, it's because one of us is either wrong or mistaken. I prefer to separate the two because it clarifies levels of fault. If all the best available data says worms wear hats, and you say "Worms wear hats." you're not 'wrong' so much as you're simply mistaken... Or, at worst, guilty of using the socially accepted shorthand of saying "X is." rather than grossly increasing the amount of speaking time you'll spend in your life by saying, in all cases, "according to the best available science and observable data, X is."

In either case, I put a great deal of effort into not being either wrong, or mistaken. It happens, of course... It happens to everyone. But records clearly show that it happens to me a whole hell of a lot less than it happens to most people, because it's important to me to check my facts before I open my mouth.

If someone doesn't agree with me in a matter of opinion... Well, that's another subject. (If, incidently, someone is making the all too common mistake of confusing a matter of fact as a matter of opinion... Fuck 'em, they're wrong.)

Anyway. I'm not apologising for this one. I don't think too highly of idiots. I particularly don't think too highly of idiots who miss the really easy questions because they are cultivating a carefully groomed ignorance. I do try not to "damn or insult" them too much, but obviously it still happens.

You did not spring full grown from the brow of Hera.

Hmm... I don't think I did... But it would explain a lot.

You are just as much the result of your early experience and conditioning as anyone else with one important difference. Intellectually honest and mature people admit that simple fact. The good ones will try to identify those irreducibles and note their effect.

Let's ignore, for a moment, the part where you insult me by implying that I'm intellectually dishonest and immature - gee, thanks - and concentrate on the part where you're... how should I put it... "Talking out of your ass"? No, let's just stick with "obviously and demonstrably wrong".

First, effectively, no two people are affected by something in quite the same way... So, obviously, nobody is "just as much the result" of anything as is anyone else.

Second, I think I'll add another "kiss my ass", just for good measure, and point out that, in the conversation with Squiddy, I clearly state an agreement that people are effected by their childhood experiences... What I disagreed with was the idea that nobody can possibly grow past those early influences... It's simply beyond being worth arguing... It's clearly obvious that lots and lots of people do.

Third, before you start talking about how severely my childhood experiences have limited my view and understanding of the world, maybe it would be best if you gratify us with a full explanation of your godlike knowledge of just what those childhood experiences were.

Christian thought an oxymoron? Hardly. I don't see the world the same way a Christian does. I disagree with many things they believe. But I acknowledge that they include great thinkers just like every other group. Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, any trained Jesuit or Dominican and Spinoza all deserve an awful lot of respect for the depth and clarity of their intellectual work.

Golly, Mister Wizard, thanks... I had no idea anyone with an IQ of over seven had even been Christian. Maybe next you can explain to us what happens when water gets really, really cold?

[Squidflakes]

My neighbor was born in Boston, blah blah lobsters, ect.

Then I invite you sir, to get your skinny ass to Boston, find your way around, and become a succesful lobsterman with nothing but your second hand knowledge of the subject and see how well you do. Its obvious that you didn't understand my comments at all, so I shall attempt to simplify.

Oh, before I start, next time you're selecting classes, pick up a course on philosophy, it will do you a world of good.

Now.. in easy terms.. Human development is affected at a very deep level by the physical, social, and cultural environment in to which one is born and has their first experiences. Is there room for slop? You bet your sweet ass there is, however, we are the sum of our experiences. Our descisions are guided in part by our pasts. Its called learning.

[Honor]

there's a world of difference between saying "we're all influenced by our past experiences" and suggesting that a cabinet maker's son can never possibly be anything but a cabinet maker.

Let's remember that your original point sounded an awful lot like an implication that I can never understand anything from any point of view other than that of an ignorant, undereducated, backward, rural christian because that's what childhood Tellner decided I'd had.

[Swordsman3003]

My neighbor was born in Boston, blah blah lobsters, ect.

Then I invite you sir, to get your skinny ass to Boston, find your way around, and become a succesful lobsterman with nothing but your second hand knowledge of the subject and see how well you do. Its obvious that you didn't understand my comments at all, so I shall attempt to simplify.

Oh, before I start, next time you're selecting classes, pick up a course on philosophy, it will do you a world of good.

Now.. in easy terms.. Human development is affected at a very deep level by the physical, social, and cultural environment in to which one is born and has their first experiences. Is there room for slop? You bet your sweet ass there is, however, we are the sum of our experiences. Our descisions are guided in part by our pasts. Its called learning.

My point wasn't that I'd become a world recording holding fisherman, it was that I am quite confidant that I could do a better job as a fisherman with my secondhand knowledge than someone who was merely born there and has NO knowledge. That was my point.

I am taking philosophy

"Human development is affected at a very deep level by the physical, social, and cultural environment in to which one is born and has their first experiences."

What does that even mean? That's just a syllogism I think. And can you even prove that? Again it's vague enough to be meaningless. And while it's true that our past is a part of learning, that DOES NOT MEAN THAT OUR PAST IS THE LIMITING FACTOR IN LEARNING.

[Frombork!]

Honor, although <strike>generally</strike> the skill and crafting of your arguments make them Michelangelos (to my Jackson Pollacks), I find I must agree with Squidz here. I specifically agree with these thingies, which are obviously and indisputably true for everyone who hasn't suffered retrograde amnesia or a very specific type of accident, ...

- you're always going to have some vestage of your formative years rattling around in your mind.

- If you were [raised fill-in-the-blank]... your worldview is always affected by your childhood

... and these thingies, which take a little more defending.

- we tend to be fixed in a framework of what we've grown up with.

- I will [always] have the same a priori thoughts coloring my posteriori descisions.

When Squiddy says "fixed in a framework" he does not define its dimensions. It is not tight and noose-like; he is not saying The Sins of the Father Shall be Visited Upon the Son. He is saying that if you grow up fill-in-the-blank some experiential doors are shut to you. This is trivial to demonstrate: for example, Squiddy and I will never know what it is like to grow up a rich black girl (few people will). That is a quale we will never taste (Well, unless some serious Twilight Zone shit goes down, or possibly a Rob Schneider movie comes true).

In summary, I agree with him because, well, he's right! And that's the best reason to agree with someone.

Note: Squiddy, if I put any words in your mouth, I'm sorry. Just be glad it was only words.

Obvious Edit: Omitting the unnecessary.

[Halo299]

i love you guys

-halo

[Lulujayne]

Yup, I'd have to agree with you Halo, and considering it's not even mating season yet only goes to prove just how hot 'n' sticky they all are

[Putaro]

There are an awful lot of memes that you pick up from the culture that you're raised in. That culture includes your family but also everything else around you that you're exposed to. They color the way you interpret and understand the world and they are often invisible to you.

As an ex-pat living in a very foreign land (Japan) I get my nose rubbed in this fairly often. It's the things that you don't even think about that catch you and then it's like walking down a flight of stairs in the dark and one of the stairs is missing.

I never realized how much Christianity pervades US culture until I was outside of the culture for a while (I thought Christianity was pretty pervasive before and I still underestimate how much it was).

Here's one of my favorite examples. In the US we have the concept of "going to church". Everybody has some position on "going to church". Many of us do not. Many people "go to church" on Sunday, some on Saturday, some on other days. Christians go to church but so do Buddhists, Hindus and just about every other sect and religion. Those that do not will still find themselves discussing things within the framework of why their religion does not "go to church".

In Japan, the whole concept of "going to church" is null and void. Christians here are a very small minority and they will "go to church" but no one else does. Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines do not offer regular times to get together and be lectured by the priest. It doesn't happen. It's a cultural null and void.

In the U.S. religions which don't usually have a "go to church" policy have created one in order to fit in. I know many Buddhist temples in the U.S. that have services and they call their priests "Reverends" and their "going to church" is just an alternate way of doing things that everyone else in the cultural context understands.

I had that discussion with people here in Japan about the "going to church" thing and I was amazed, not that they didn't go, but that the Judeo-Christian (heh, had to sneak it in) viewpoint had been so embedded in my brain that I didn't even have a consideration that some religions don't feel it necessary to lecture you on a regular basis. (And we could continue this little thread with discussion on how pervasive the concept of religion is in human affairs but maybe later)

You don't have to literally share in experiences in fact of everyone else to broaden your view... You only have to understand the limitations of your own experiences... As soon as you realize that your own history and cultural biases are not the end all and be all of human experience, or even any better or worse than anyone elses, you're well on the way to the kind of personal growth you're marking down above as completely impossible.

I agree with you, however the thing that is really hard is finding out what your cultural biases are because you probably don't know them all. Finding out that you have them is the first step. Finding out what they are so you can move past them is harder. Some are obvious, but others just aren't.

[Honor]

"going to church"

Yes... I don't know how true it would hold right now, given all the limelight religion had been given under Mad King George, but for most of recent history it's held true that people born in the US tend to think of it as a very open, religion free society - by which I don't mean really 'free of religion' so much as 'free from undue influence from religion'.

That is to say, in studies where they asked 'natives', they tended to answer that we have full freedom of religion, religion is not a very important part of the social landscape, and nothing bad happens to people who have a different religion or no religion at all.

When you ask immigrants, on the other hand, they tend to answer that religion is extremely important part of American culture, that you have to be part of the right religion and church in order to 'fit in', and that you can never really hope to succeed in this culture without fitting in on a religious level.


On the subject of the childhood influences, I think we've devolved (or, actually, pretty much started at) an argument of semantics... And, as usual, I'm at odds because everyone else is being, in my opinion, too sloppy for academic discussion.

It's like this... Consider the statement "All dogs have four legs." (which I consider to be very close, semantically, to the same strength of statment as some folks are making on this matter.) A lot of people would agree. A lot of people would say that's a perfectly good statement.

I, on the other hand, would disagree vehemently, and refuse to let it stand. Not all dogs have four legs. Simple, inarguable fact. Some have been maimed, some have birth defects. Some have three legs, some only two. I suspect there are some very few no-legged dogs out there, being nursed and cared for by doting owners.


It's like that with these formative experiences. One person says "it's a great deal of influence." then another says "no, it's a large degree of influence." the someone else says "nonsense! it's a profound influence!"

I'm only arguing that it is demonstrably not an absolute limiting influence. The influence will be very profound and absolute in some people, and barely discernable in others... Is that better?

Further, as I hinted in another thread, it's particularly perverse in a fun way that the more someone was raised to be free of those limiting influences, the more one could say their experiences are shaped by those influences... In a way.

Honor, although <strike>generally</strike> the skill and crafting of your arguments make them Michelangelos (to my Jackson Pollacks), I find I must agree with Squidz here.

You're so sweet and intelligently diplomatic... It adds to your overall hotness.

As does the vexing fact that you invariably completely ignore me when I admit how damn hot you are... *grubmle*

But, anyway... While you're agreeing with Squidz, in this case, you don't really seem to disagree with me. For instance:

He is saying that if you grow up fill-in-the-blank some experiential doors are shut to you. This is trivial to demonstrate: for example, Squiddy and I will never know what it is like to grow up a rich black girl (few people will). That is a quale we will never taste (Well, unless some serious Twilight Zone shit goes down, or possibly a Rob Schneider movie comes true).

Why does that sound so familiar...? Oh yeah, because:

While most people never grow past the confines and limitations of their childhood, a good many of us do. You can't gain the childhood experiences of - say - a black kid in the projects or a a jewish kid in nazi germany or a poor factory kid in communist china... But you can learn, and read, and talk, and empathize, and - most importantly - understand the limitations of your own experiences... Understand that they are only a tiny, tiny part of the whole of human experience.

Besides which... When we get into as meaninglessly esoteric real estate as discussing that we can never know what it's like to grow up a poor, three-legged schnauzer from mars, or anything else outside our own childhood experience, we've kind of passed the reality marker. We're into information that's true, but meaningless in any useful sense... You know?

Take the two most similar people on the board, Joey and Joseph, for instance, and we would have to say that Joey will never know what it was like to grow up Joseph, and vice versa... No one person can ever fully know what it was like to grow up any other one person... Even their own brother or sister.

And yet, so many of us manage to get along pretty well, most of the time.

How much distance there is between any two childhoods is almost completely academic, and how close they can come to understanding one another is almost completely situational.

I'm not saying anything like "people are not influenced by their childhoods" or "people's viewpoints are in no way limited by their formative experiences" ...What I'm saying is some people are more so and some less... That there are factors of variance that may not be fully identified... That perhaps the more intelligent someone is, or the more open-minded and cosmopolitan they were raised to be, or the more completely or broadly educated they are... The less of a restrictive influence their childhood circumstances will prove to be.

When Squiddy says "fixed in a framework" he does not define its dimensions. It is not tight and noose-like; he is not saying The Sins of the Father Shall be Visited Upon the Son.

Eh... I think "framework" means "framework" and that, if he'd meant a less stringent foundational or limiting structure, he should have said "very loose framework" or something similar.