Comments on: Sabbath Prisoners!

By: mixa

mixa — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:38:08 +0000

Shhhh, Brett, there’s someone out there as we speak getting ready to make just that claim about yellow shirts…and call it a silly Jewish name.

By: Brett

Brett — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:20:23 +0000

“So people who believe in a religion you don’t share are now ‘insane’? What a stunning example of tolerance.”

No, that’s not what I said. But obsessing about the causal minutiae of what activates an automated light switch on a Friday evening is insane.

If a person had an obsessive need to wear a bright yellow shirt on a Wednesday and one day the dry-cleaners didn’t deliver the shirt, so the person stayed locked inside, refusing to go to work, and cancelling a long-anticipated evening out with friends, all because it was Wednesday and there was no yellow shirt, we’d judge this behaviour as neurotic and obsessive-compulsive. But if the person whipped out a holy text and claimed it was a religious requirement to wear yellow outdoors on Wednesdays, suddenly we’re expected to step back and say “oh, sorry, it’s not mad after all.”

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:38:07 +0000

Me, 29 June 2009, 10:02 am

Fair point. Allow me to rephrase.

…murder and extermination motivated by atheistic and (pseudo)scientific philosophies and mindsets.

By: DSD

DSD — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:45:30 +0000

“One of the disadvantages of living outside Eretz Israel is that you cannot tell antisemites like Morgoth and field to just shut the fuck up.”

Knowing Mr Morgoth rather well outside the bubble of the Net, I can tell you that this contention is utter nonsense. There’s a huge difference between loathing religion across the board and hating Jews. Morgoth falls into the former category, and it would take a funny sort of antisemite to defend Eretz Israel so assiduously as he does in thread after thread on this site, now wouldn’t it?

For that matter, if disliking the organised worship of any variety of Sky God makes you an antisemite, then I’m an antisemite too.

By: Me

Me — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:13:46 +0000

I’m not “prejudiced”. I have carefully considered their “religious need” and judged after weighing it agianst good sense to be insane.

So people who believe in a religion you don’t share are now ‘insane’? What a stunning example of tolerance.

By: Me

Me — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:02:36 +0000

Does the murder and extermination of people in the name of atheism

Nonsense with a cherry on top. No people were ‘exterminated in the name of atheism’.

By: field

field — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:19:27 +0000

Lbnaz – The Colemans aren’t but if we apply the Joe principle that makes no difference. The Joe principle is that if the religious instruction can be applied without affecting you personally then it should be acceded to.

I say that is a recipe for disaster or Shariah – or both.

By: Jon d

Jon d — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:57:12 +0000

I spotted this story a couple of days before it appeared here and thought it might make a fun guest post… Having read the comments further up I’m glad I never bothered. Fwiw I’m pretty sympathetic to the colemans but I can see a few reasons why the company might be reluctant to accommodate their request… Sheer jobsworthyness is of course one option but from the maintenance side it’s good to have all your buildings wired up in a uniform way, the override switch would look like yet another piece of electrical tat waiting to fuck up. Possibly the company was going for some sort of energy efficiency award – a former employer of mind fitted a highly sophisticated pain in the arse pir lighting system for exactly this reason, it used to plunge me into darkness every few minutes when I had to work late. Billing the Colemans for electricity used is possibly going to cost more than it’s worth, taking the accounts staff off something more profitable to work out the charge on a lightbulb one night a week.

By: modernity

modernity — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:20:12 +0000

field,

A question, do you do this with your neighbours, do you pry into their lives and question all of their decisions?

Your attitudes are very unhealthy.

By: Lbnaz

Lbnaz — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:11:39 +0000

Gee Field I didn’t realize the Coleman’s were requesting a female genital mutilation, or a marriage, or marriage annulment that a young woman was either opposed to or of insufficient age to properly assess whether it was truly in her interest or not.

But now that you have clarified that for you the request to pay for all costs associated with the installation of an override switch which apparently may not have met any objections from other tenants in the Coleman’s housing complex is directly analogous to female genital mutilations and marriage and marriage annulments obtained without full consent from a person of sufficient age to decide for themselves, what can one say except: no thanks, your analogy doesn’t really work, does it?