The statement which I disagree with is:
“Meddling arises when a customer… is approached by the stall holder beyond the perimeter of his stall.”

In the first place, there’s the problem of translating an essentially spatial analogy into the social landscape… what’s the ‘perimeter’ of each religion in society? Would an official statement issued by a church saying, “We oppose the government’s lift on the ban on casino gambling.” cross the perimeter? The wearing of religious dress/symbols in public places? The advertisement of religious celebrations and worship sessions?

Secondly, as I said, the stallholder is also a customer, and vice versa. The roles aren’t clearly defined. So you may have a situation like this:

Customer: So… what you selling?
Stallholder: Pomelo… very sweet and juicy, confirm plus guarantee chop.
Customer: Huh, pomelo?? Like lubber one, nice meh? Durian more shiok lah, dun believe, come to my stall and try.

So the roles of customer and stallholder, of selling (‘advocating’/'proselytizing’) and buying are not quite distinct. Our decisions to accept or reject any religion are made based on our own convictions, and our accepting/rejecting any religion implicitly affirms our own religious (or non-religious) convictions. In that sense, both sides of every transaction involve some degree of advocacy.

good point Smallvice585, you raised the issue of touts. ;) but you missed the chance to raise the example of unruly stall holders who wield the chopper too freely or the ill-tempered durian stall owner!!

:)

I shall use your framework of the “Wet Market” Analogy to re-interpret Arix’s words. The original issue I had with Arix that invoked the analogy was whether unsolicited religious advisory is indeed meddling.

Arix said: Put it this way, in a wet market, different stallowners put out different fruits and vegetables at the same time. Certainly, you would not be buying all of them at the same time. So thus, those that you didn’t buy would be “unsolicited”. So then, you would ask the Wet Market to fit its fruits and vegetables directly to suit your taste, or else the stallholders will be “meddling” in your affairs?

You didn’t specify your position on what constitutes meddling.

Arix thinks my version of meddling materialises as “unsold fruits”. I beg to differ.

Meddling arises when a stall holder:
1) comes to my stall to sell his ware
2) circles my stall with his allies’ stalls, thus concealing my stall.

Meddling arises when a customer:
1) is dragged into a stall
2) is approached by the stall holder beyond the perimeter of his stall

The Owner can only set ground rules of fairness for the Wet Market, which must apply non-discriminatorily to all: how many display shelves there can be, what space each stall can occupy, what advertisements each can display, and so on.

Stallholders are free to promote their products to various customers, as long as they do not physically accost them. If they do, the State can intervene to restore order. In turn, customers can reject what’s being offered, upon which the stallholder cannot continue to harass them.

A curious feature of the Wet Market, however, is that each customer also owns a stall, i.e. all customers are basically off-duty stallholders. This implies three things. First, a customer often rejects what’s being offered simply because he decides that that product is inferior to whatever products he currently has in his own stall. Second, everyone in the Wet Market is ’selling’ something at some point — although some do so more tenaciously than others. Third, the freedom to reject offers goes hand-in-hand with the freedom to sell one’s own products, and vice versa. In other words, freedom of conscience implies both the freedom to practise/proselytize one’s own beliefs and the freedom to reject other beliefs.

beware of the danger of hanging onto every word Arix mention, the “wet market” is an example of the level of choice. this is where you should take things beyond face value. that when it comes to food or food for thought, the certain extent the choice is only as wide as what is available for consumption.

////I don’t engage in projecting false goodwill to establish religious hegemony.////

how do you convince your critics & cynics that you are not projecting falsegoodwill? how you view your own actions & deeds may differ from how others see you. remember?
////I am merely making sure that religious motivation has no role in setting the moral tone beyond the realm of believers.////
that itself raises ask much questions about you as you have questioned others.

thanks for clearing the air.

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hi Smallvice585,

i am rather confused why you (quote)
////Arix wrote in this thread: The role of any religion is to offer a moral tone for all of society, unless it be a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses.////

-.-”

Despite my magnanimity, Arix accuses me of pretence. Is this really an act of a religious moderate, a religious heretic or a religious right? Unlike less benign religious groups, I don’t engage in projecting false goodwill to establish religious hegemony.

Since Arix decided to put religion on a comparable level with fruits and vegetables instead of regarding it as something sacred, why should I rebuke him for his lack of oversight? The crops bearing fruits and vegetables require manure derived from faeces.

I hope you will inform him in my place that entering the wet market requires an exercise of choice by the individual / buyer. That’s why the unsold fruits and vegetables do not constitute as unsolicited offer.

1) I am not one of editors; but I am one of the contributors, albeit a sporadic one. I am sure you have read my articles before. My last one was the satire to the Botanic Gardens.

2) Wow, that is rich, coming from you. I am certain you are aware of at least my name; or hasn’t Terence told you yet? Just as I am aware of yours?

Really, why pretend on this one?

3) Put it this way, in a wet market, different stallowners put out different fruits and vegetables at the same time. Certainly, you would not be buying all of them at the same time. So thus, those that you didn’t buy would be “unsolicited”.

So then, you would ask the Wet Market to fit its fruits and vegetables directly to suit your taste, or else the stallholders will be “meddling” in your affairs?

I read that article you linked to. I believe that WKS means society in general. So they set a standard by which the rest of society judges itself by. That is, (moderate) religious groups set the ‘average’ moral atmosphere for society. Of course, there are some minorities (the Fundamentalists) who are more moralistic and some minorities (like You and the Atheists) who have absolutely no morals at all.

So your wonderful last statement is wonderfully redundant and deserves the comment:-

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/facepalm.jpg

5) No, I am not Darren Boon.

How would I know if Arix is Darren Boon? He could be anyone, but definitely not one of the editors since he actually demonstrated ignorance on how TOC presents its position.

However, my disagreement with Arix’s views on religion and its public outreach does not spill over to violating Arix’s choice to remain anonymous. I don’t intend to find out or publicise his identity. I don’t intend to set such a precedence on internet freedom in Singapore. Despite your curiosity, I don’t think you genuinely want to participate in such a precedence.

Unsolicited advisory is meddling, ie. unless religious advisory is explicitly asked for, offering religious advisory is still considered as meddling. According to Minister Wong Kan Seng, religious groups set the moral tone in society. Given the realm of believers is part of society, there is no denying of religious groups to set the moral tone in society. It just so happens that it is not all of society.

////Arix wrote in this thread: The role of any religion is to offer a moral tone for all of society, unless it be a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is poking into non-believers’ affairs. This is unsolicited meddling. Arix has no sense of propriety.////

the keys words are “The role of any religion is to OFFER a moral tone….” not dictate. hahaa… like people offer advise but its up to individuals to heed it. to a certain extent, we can only offer an alternative view, not force it onto others.

“experience is a great teacher”, on occasions the hands-off approach to let others learn from mistakes should be considered. those who benefit from such experience are those who have the ability to learn from mistakes. focus your energies on those who follow blindly & tend to fall into the “idolise the idol” freefall they cannot climb out of. ;)

it’s Ms Thio Li-Ann who is goning to NYU, not Arix. will Arix be there to defend her views there?

1 quick question, “so Arix is Darren Boon?”.

Arix wrote in this thread: The role of any religion is to offer a moral tone for all of society, unless it be a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is poking into non-believers’ affairs. This is unsolicited meddling. Arix has no sense of propriety.

post #97

////religion is not an open license to poke into non-believers’ affairs.////

true, not that i know how best to go about it. just remember to take a break from it all once in a while, beware of being sucked into the abyss yeah? ;)

I admit that (inter-)religious studies is not one of my areas of interest/expertise, so I may be a fish out of water here. However, I’m still a little skeptical whether integralism can both have its cake and eat it, i.e. whether it can find a unifying theme across religions without being overly reductive, or at least without losing the essence of what each religion stands for. As I see it, each religion is so bound up in its cultural and historical specificity that there’s no real way to translate across contexts.

How can a Muslim, for instance, dissociate her belief and worship from the five pillars of Islam (with each ritual steeped in its unique symbolism), and still retain what for her is a recognizably spiritual/religious connection with Allah? How can a Catholic conceive of his religion if it’s divorced from the rites of the Mass, the offerings of bread and wine, the concept of transubstantiation, the hymns and prayers which are each freighted with a particular significance? You would distinguish between the ‘belief’ and its ‘manifestation’, but is there any way to grasp a belief except through particular manifestations and practices?

I’m also still curious how the Deep Religion you profess is linked to any other dimension of our lives. If Deep Religion exists at all, it seems a free-standing component of the human experience, separate from the physical, psychological and moral spheres. It’s separate from the physical, because it doesn’t claim to supplant science. It’s separate from the psychological, because it claims to be more than just about emotional well-being or what people feel at any given time. And it’s separate from the moral, because the only way to integrate different religions with their contradictory moral injunctions, is to leave out morality. And if Deep Religion is so detached, one may query whether it’s in fact necessary at all for understanding, enlightenment or eudaimonia.

Integralism also seems to make a bigger fuss of forging order out of chaos than is needed. Religions have all developed in a spontaneous, organic, messy way, often interacting with and responding to specific cultural experiences (for example, Protestant Christianity thrived among the early settlers of the vast, largely-uncivilized New World). There is thus no reason to think that each embodies a piece of some larger ‘jigsaw’, some grand intellectual edifice. History does not unfold in a logical or ‘dialectical’ fashion (a la Hegel); it can be made to seem that way only through heavily-revisionist scholarship.

Lastly, I wonder what the real point of integralism is: to get at the truth, or to reach some kind of psychic harmony by eliminating all sources of inner conflict and doubt, or perhaps to achieve a functional kind of religious ‘multi-lingualism’ (without getting any closer to evaluating the truth of each religion). The last two aims are evidently implied by your statements:

“The idea of integration is to fit several independent parts into one whole.”
The point of mastering integralism would be the ability to translate oneself in between different contexts easily.

Nothing wrong with psychic well-being or inter-religious understanding, of course, but they would seem to be very different goals from the pursuit of objective truth.

I am perfectly aware that my statement “I am merely making sure that religious motivation has no role in setting the moral tone beyond the realm of believers” is creepy from the perspective from a religious person. However, this is an irreversible position – religion is not an open license to poke into non-believers’ affairs.

i think you need to dig deep, dig a tunnel (evade) so you will not be in Smallvice585’s target range.

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hi Smallvice585,

that is a problem in itself. there are few posters here who are as persistant as you & who think its “up to me now” to take on the other side. its not a very healthy way to see the situation. sometimes you need to take a break from it all. to balance the perspective, more importantly if you really want to do this the long haul, yo will need to periodically take a break, seriously.

don’t get too hung up on this “war” you volunteerily engage.

when you say
////I am merely making sure that religious motivation has no role in setting the moral tone beyond the realm of believers.////
its creepy….

-.-”

I am merely making sure that religious motivation has no role in setting the moral tone beyond the realm of believers. On the other hand, believers and parties interested in theology are free to discuss theology among themselves.

There is no hard and fast rules on differentiating believers and non-believers. Examining all my posts, you will find that I have consistently refrained from intervening theological discussion while occasionally posting views on atheism.

If smallvice stops his “fire at will”, then I will stop defending my position against him.

I really prefer talking with people like Hindu. La nausee is fine too, when smallvice doesn’t interfere.

you 2 need to agree to a “ceasefire” leh. the more you both “fire at will” the deeper you both dig into your own positions…

you both go take 5, have a Kit-Kat okie? ;)

1) So is containing the voice of militant atheists.

2) I do not discriminate against various viewpoints. But I do discriminate against various modes of action and styles of voice.

Express your opinion all you want, and as passionately as you want to, but refrain from arguing that other viewpoints should be shut out of the debate or that the people presenting those viewpoints should be targeted by law or incendiary action.