I Heart Online Communities
I was thinking about the importance of community. Humans seem to be social animals. Even introverts like me can’t usually function happily without other human interactions.
One of the things that I love about the internet is the ability it has given me to make connections. There are of course, the physical connections, the wires from my hotel room on a business trip, and the magic box that I keep at home that connects me through the air.
Then there are the great people that you can meet - mostly on the web. Forums and blogs provide the opportunity for me to connect with like-minded people all the time. Being “that sort” of person, it gives me the opportunity to connect with people who aren’t like-minded as well. Good discussion is valuable.
When a group of people gather together regularly, they seem to form a community pretty spontaneously. You can get to know the personalities and characters. People drop in and out, but they all add value.
This happens to me all the time online. Every time someone comments on a blog I write, or one of the ever increasing list of blogs that I read, or posts in a forum, I learn a little more about them, and about me. It’s easy to start to care for people once you get to know them, and the online communities that I find make me feel warm and fuzzy.
There is an argument that spending too much time wired in to the net leaves you missing out on real life and, taken to extremes, there’s probably some truth in that. But it does miss the somewhat obvious point that everyone you encounter online is also a real person offline. They may represent themselves differently, but they still exist in flesh and blood.
I’d like to thank everyone I’ve met online here at the religious atheist, and propose a toast, to the value of communities.
Image by D’Arcy Norman
Popularity: 11% [?]
Is Dave Ramsey Ethical?
Some of you know that one of my other hobbies is personal finance. Recently a group of my personal finance blogging friends and I did a series on American personal finance guru Dave Ramsey.
Being British, Dave Ramsey isn’t exactly well known to me. I’ve only ever encountered him on the interweb, where some of my good friends are followers of Dave Ramsey’s baby steps for getting out of debt. This method is a good (if not mathematically optimal) method for getting out of debt, and I have no problems with it.
In addition to his website, and books, Ramsey also promotes his own courses - The Financial Peace University, and you can train to be a Dave Ramsey financial counselor and help other people get out of debt.
Well, you can train to be a Dave Ramsey counsellor only if you’re an Evangelical Christian.
I’m not up on American law, but I’m pretty certain it’s perfectly legal for Ramsey to discriminate on the grounds of religion.
I don’t think it’s right though. And I’m not the only one - Ana who blogs at Debt-FREE revolution is a big Dave Ramsey fan, and she’s not a Christian at all. She wrote recently giving her opinions on the restrictions Ramsey imposes.
There is an argument that Ramsey bases his financial teachings on the Bible. However, other people have reviewed Dave Ramsey’s program and concluded that - somewhat unsurprisingly - you don’t have to be a Christian to follow it.
Ok, so you mostly aren’t that interested in personal finance, but it does illustrate a point - to what extent should religious discrimination be allowed by businesses?
Is it discriminatory to say that religiously motivated organisations can’t discriminate on religious grounds? (I’ll leave that train of thought there before I get tied up in a tongue twister.)
Where religious discrimination is in place, and you think they should be allowed to do as they please (but don’t actually approve) do you avoid promoting them?
On balance, my position is that religious discrimination in unrelated businesses (like personal finance) is usually wrong, and I shouldn’t support it, but I’m ambivalent as to whether it should be made illegal. If public money is involved then I’m more inclined to think it should be illegal.
I know all the commentators on the religious atheist have great things to say, so let me know what you think in the comments.
Image by jasoon
Popularity: 40% [?]
Practical Ethics: Representing Others
Shortly, I’m going to a national conference as a representative of a local organisation. Part of the programme of the conference includes voting on various motions. Typically these are things like “This organisation thinks that war is bad”. This time one of the motions concerns the relative standing of civil partnerships compared to civil marriages.
Pretty much, when I saw the motion, I assumed that everyone would be in favour of equalising the standings between same sex and different sex partnerships. I think it’s the only moral and ethical position to take and completely fail to see any legitimate reason why people would feel differently.
So far, I’ve had two responses from people on the committee that runs the local organisation. The first was ambivalent and said that if they were going they would abstain. The second was opposed, and stated that marriage and civil partnerships are fundamentally different. (By the way, none of these people are a members of a conservative religion.)
Originally, when I wrote this post, I was going to pose it as an ethical dilemma - should I be representing the local organisation’s views, or should I follow my own conscience. Trouble is, even if everyone else in the committee opposes the motion, there’s no way that I can vote against it. That would be just wrong. I feel the same way about abstaining.
I’m going to talk to some friendly people on the committee, and see what they say. I’m normally a big fan of consensus politics, but not when it violates my principles.
What would you do?
Popularity: 16% [?]
