Maryam Namazie is amazing. Such courage and dignity.

Religion is a form of mental illness. Some people are able to manage their affliction and go on to live happy, productive lives; for others it can be extremely debilitating and even dangerous.

Christ, what a bunch of assholes.

She's put in a complaint to the police and I hope they act on it.

I think you just blasphemed, there.

I really hate how criticism of Islam is automatically associated with the right by a lot of people. It's especially infuriating to see feminists defend Islam. For all the talk about patriarchy in the West, you'd think places like Saudi Arabia would be seen as the darkest depths of Mordor. When has a rape victim in the US ever been sentenced to a public flogging because she couldn't prove she was raped, therefore was convicted of fornication and adultery? Way back when it was fashionable to put buckles on everything?

Here's some Twitter malarkey I read about a little while ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/post_10571_b_8615610.html

I've got a suspicion that the things like safe spaces came about when members of high status (from wealthy or powerful families where their influence might more than outweigh things like gender or race) started getting treated like equals in a collegiate setting, instead of being treated aristocrarically like they've been used to.

I saw some at college between 1996 and 2001 but they were pretty exclusively for gay groups etc. ie this is a safe place where you can be yourself and talk about issues.

It was, however, not considered a portable bubble.

The fact that one guy got up and turned off the projector (to prevent a depiction of Mohammad) was kind of shocking.

There really should have been security called and offenders should have been escorted out. "Safe space" isn't about intimidating groups you don't agree with. Protesting outside is okay- but disrupting speakers on an academic campus isn't okay. That is creating a hostile environment.

I can understand that the said feminist group came out in support of an idea of "safe space" (because they probably want to defend the legitimacy of a "safe space") and might feel that the speech/presentation consituted "hate speech" or sorts... but I think they are really (shamefully) on the wrong side of this as a feminist group.

I think they framed this as a tolerance of minority culture/sensitivity issue- but given the disruption, it seems the exact opposite of that, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "safe space" is suppose to mean.

That said, devils advocate, I suppose this means I'd technically have to be okay with a white supremacist meeting on a campus (but I'd expect there to be protests outside)

So I really don't know where I'd draw the line.

I suppose it would be in the manner of the meeting- I think it would have to be a positivity issue perhaps. Ie "I really like A" as opposed to "I really dislike B, C and D"

I am all for almost everything involved in safe spaces, except, vitally where they require conformity to majority (of the groups) opinions. Obviously, no one wants to open the door to a gay safe space someone of the opinion that gay people are going to hell, and so the concept is valid in some regards. But the line is often not drawn as thickly as it should.

Which is why we have the sort of strange phenomenon we are seeing with them now, where they are used as places where it's safe to have ideas free from criticism, instead of as places safe to be what you are (gay, black, a woman, etc.)

Such a thing is directly abhorrent to the very concept of a university, and has absolutely no place there.

Here is the youtube video... Not impressed by them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1ZiZdz5nao&feature=youtu.be

Conservative religious followers may suffer from inability to abstract think.

That's likely the reasoning behind disallowing graven images and idols, actually.

Would you elaborate?

Sure.

People often believe what they can see, and in the days before wide-spread literacy being able to point to an icon or graven image you can say "there, it is because I can show it to you." (Concrete thinking.)

A monotheistic god is more abstract in a certain sense, but if your god creates everything and is infallible then literally everything you see confirms the existence of god... except for idols and images of other gods.

Then there is the other reason for the prohibition: god is apparently the one that creates life and images, and thus to people unable to take it in the abstract, graven images and icons are literally people attempting to create life and usurp the role of god.

So in a sense, banning icons and images is there to keep concrete thinkers among the faithful, to force them to accept an abstract god you can't sense or see in place of a concrete one you could. But it discourages further abstract thinking beyond that point, since if you are a literal, concrete style thinker, then if you accept the prohibition, the reason for it is that you believe doing these things is literally trying to usurp the role of god.

Basically then, you are left with a system that makes concrete thinkers into fundamentalist, and likely the cause of their inability to think in abstract terms.

Deeply interesting, thank you. I've added it verbatim to my rough notes regarding intangible vs. tangible thought until I can digest it. Abstract thinking apparently comes so naturally as to give me trouble distinguishing it, the concept as independent first introduced just a few days ago, or else I'm not as smart as believed. When you have further thoughts, I'd also be glad for them. I have psychology and philosophy friends to bounce this off of soon enough, hence the note keeping.

Incidentally, your putting this together shows me you've quite some strength in abstract thinking. Do you recall this discussed elsewhere?

Yeah, but I can't recall exactly. I have a pretty strong interest in archaeology, so I imagine I am recalling some suggested reasoning for the proscription. The Abrahamic faiths are nearly unique in this facet, I believe the only other faith similar is the Sikhs.

To understand it, you have to consider the people and times. In this case, ancient Jews and how they related to the faiths of those around them. For most of their ancient history, jews were subjects to other cultures and religions. Most of these people are gone, but one branch is still around: zoroastrians. They are very much a faith built more on abstraction, and they use a great deal of artistic imagery to help narrate their stories, and their stories are not rooted deeply in accuracy but on the sort of here and now concerns of whomever was telling them.

Compare that to judaism: Their religious artwork tends to be simple shapes and calligraphy. If you compare a Torah today to the Dead Sea Scrolls you'd be astonished with how little has changed, because they are a religion that focuses on the exact details.

They are very much at odds, just philosophically. Much of what you read in the Torah is political commentary on the people that conquered Judeah and ancient Israel. You can prove this simply by looking at the Samaritan text (Samaritans are essentially the remnants of the proto-Jews that were NOT carted off by Persians.) and noting the differences. In fact, they had no proscription against idoltry until the ancient jews as we know them returned to the lands of Judea.

For propaganda to work, you don't want people to stop and consider meaning of enemy art. So make the very existence of it proof positive they are misguided and evil, and your people will never have to think abstractly about it, which is good for you.