Has anyone heard from Dinesh D’Souza lately? He ought to be offering a humble apology now that the atheists he thought were invisible are turning up on the faculty and in the student body.
Oh, wait … he admits that there were “undoubtedly atheists among the mourners”, but considers his point that atheists have nothing to offer “unrefuted”. So I guess the unbelievers are there, they’re just heartless robots. Thanks, Dinesh! You’re a peach!
I don’t know about that free-thinkers site – it is starts off with a questionnaire. Probably organized by the CIA so they can keep an eye on subversives. If so why did they not stop the shooting? Oh yes, it was because he believed in God….They were looking the wrong way (as usual).
Is this same guy who said that killing puppies is ok, and the rationale atheists use to kill people? If so he’s probably right about us being robots too. We’d better drown in him a sack before he reveals more “truths” about us.
Seriously though, that rebuttal by the VT Professor was magnificent. One of the best pieces of writing I have read in a long time. I can only hope to be as eloquent as he is.
“Soulless atheists”? You mean those suffering from the god delusion do have souls? Seriously though, it raises a question if a believer were to use that phrase – if true then what is the point of an atheist changing his or her ways? After all, they have no soul to save. Theology can be fun as long as you remember it is an imaginary subject!
Soul n. 1. A kind of brain parasite which causes the affected to believe in god.
I thought the first commenter to D’Souza’s post hit just the right note:
‘1. Your argument is rather silly. Because we don’t go around saying such things as “Well, God works in mysterious ways,” or “they’re in a better place now,” Atheism has “nothing to offer.”
‘In a way, I guess that is a good point. Atheism doesn’t have much to say on anything, rather it is only a lack of belief in God (personally, as an Agnostic, I’ll lob myself into this side of the argument for simplicity sake).
‘Of course, individuals have had plenty to offer in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with love for your fellow man. Plenty of Atheists are providing a shoulder to cry on, donations to memorial funds, solidarity with the community and other such things. Trust me, if I were dealing with this on a more personal basis right now, all I would want is peopole who would hold me and let me rant and rave to them. The first person who dropped something trite on me, whether it be the religious “God will help you through this/He’s in a better place/mysterious ways etc” or the generally trite “Stuff happens. Everything happens for a reason. He’ll always be in your heart etc” would probably get slugged.
‘But anyhow, you seem intent on propping yourself and your own beliefs on the bodies of the dead and the hearts of the grieving while cutting down anyone else’s. If it makes you feel better about yourself or your religion, more power to you. To the rest of us, it looks self-serving and ghoulish.’
Clearly, the atheists at VT have higher priorities than patronizing a useless hack.
Dinesh needs to get over himself.
It’s been a miserable week. In some ways, the V-Tech massacre has affected those of us at campuses up and down the country as much as 9-11.
D’Souza wants to use this misery to make cheap jabs at atheists- at a time when atheist students, staff and professors are among the grieving.
Schlussel wants to stir up hatred of muslims. She even made fun of a newspaper photo of V-Tech students because it included women in muslim dress amongst the grieving. People like Schlussel are putting muslim students in danger of violent attacks, through insinuation and lies.
Damn them.
The FreeAtVT.Org website has been stale since 2002. Right now, the Virginia Tech Freethinkers communicate only on a Yahoo! discussion board:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freeatvt-discussion/
I’ve also recently begun attending the Virginia Tech philosophy club:
http://www.phil.vt.edu/HTML/philclub/philclub.html
If your looking for atheists that are actively seeking means of living a moral and productive life, I recommend philosophy clubs.
You’re, not your. If I hate reading it so much, why do I keep writing it?!
Gee, my wife and I are raising two beautiful children. I’m an atheist, she’s agnostic — I guess we have nothing to offer these children? Tell that to them. We’re the best huggers. When the younger one is scared of the dark we tell her nothing is there and hug her and sometimes she sleeps on the corner of the bed. (And we’ll NEVER tell her there’s anything “down below” — what a frightening thing religion is.) Does D’Souza know anything about hugging? He used to “date” Ann Coulter — maybe that answers the question.
Atheists — just like anyone else. We can offer shoulders, hugs, warm words, visits to the sick or downcast — pretty much anything useful that a religious person does. Love without baggage.
Well, Dim-Nish is a freakin’ jenius.
Pharyngunesh: The embryonic stage where a moron gets owned.
DeSouza’s job is to promote solidarity between Muslim and Christian fundamentalists so that we can join forces against the Godless Yellow Horde.
Whether he succeeds in his attempts is another matter.
The more I read about all this and the more I’m moved and saddened by it, the more John Philip D’Souza pisses me off.
Being fair, you shouldn’t feel dislike or annoyance towards D’Souza in this matter. From what I can tell – and I am trying to be positive here, actively trying to think better of my fellow man because, when I make a similar idiotic statement myself, I want those around me to think the best of me and consider that I might have just made a mistake rather than be a ‘horrible, vile, little man’ – he seems pretty sincere and pretty convinced in the rightness of his religious position. Therefore, in his mind, perhaps comfort and religion are linked. He can’t imagine how an athiest can offer comfort, and therefore conflates that, in his mind, with an athiest being unable or even unwilling to offer that comfort.
I’d rather pity the man than revile him. I’d rather think him a well-meaning fool than a self-centered, spite-festering boil. Being related as I am to Christians, I oftimes may be a bit apologist about them, but really, they seem to be nice people, as long as we’re not talking about something that doesn’t affect their life.
Talen, Talen, Talen… just because the Xians you are related to are decent human beings doesn’t mean that they all are.
Some of them, like some of any class of people are, indeed, vile, despicable pustulent boils on the buttocks of humanity. Dinesh would give pond scum a bad name.
Well, most Christians I know are, in fact, pretty decent people, except when we talk about things that don’t relate to them at all.
My straight father, my straight mother, who have a healthy relationship that has, as far as I know, only been between one another? GAYS ARE DESTROYING THE FIBER OF SOCIETY THOSE FILTHY SINNERS.
I mean… what’s it to them?
Being related as I am to Christians, I oftimes may be a bit apologist about them, but really, they seem to be nice people, as long as we’re not talking about something that doesn’t affect their life.
What?
Most Christians I know are pretty decent people, as long as we’re not talking.
Talen Lee: I admire the compassionate humanist in you, as your take on D’Souza’s “mistake” clearly shows. However, it does reveal one other important detail: That you probably know little or nothing of his history as an ideologue.
As far as D’Souza goes, do I respect his right to live, to think, to speak, to be human? Yes, of course! Is he an evil monster? A mass murderer? A destroyer of worlds? No, no, and no. But when a publicly vile little man persists in being a vile little man in public, what are we to think of him?
#3 “Theology can be fun as long as you remember it is an imaginary subject!”
“In a long-awaited document, the Church’s International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.”
“Pope Benedict, himself a top theologian who before his election in 2005 expressed doubts about limbo, authorized the publication of the document, called “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.”
I feel so much better now that I’ve had a really good laugh!
What I mean by my statement about Christians being fine about things that relate to them and horrible about things that don’t, is that by and large, any Christian already ignores large parts of the Bible, qualifying in his or her mind all the various problems and interpretations to make it all okay.
This kind of thing is basically just typical human behaviour: We rationalise what we want and we avoid that which would inconvenience us.
However, you’ll find that gay Christians don’t think being gay’s a sin. You’ll find that anti-gay Christians will almost universally be straight, or claim to it at least, and suffer their self-loathing in silence (cf Ted Haggard).
The second, however, you deal with an issue that’s far enough removed from the person that they can have a very unfair viewpoint without it being at odds with their personal experience, they go apeshit on the matter. My parents are, as far as I know, not gay, and have not in their lives ever done anything all that gay, but both are adamant that homosexuality is a sin and that its practitioners are, of course, sinners who sin every time they do it. They, for example, refuse to eat at a restaurant we used to attend after finding the owner and both waiters were gay.
But they both are completely fine with eating food from crops that were grown on adjacent fields of different types – something the same section of the Bible as the anti-gay bit condemns as a stoning offence, just like the homosexuality one.
This is because checking up those details, ascertaining what aspects of the crop growth and whatnot is hard. It’s effort-intensive. It’s annoying. And that means they don’t do it, and just ignore the Bible’s commands to have higher standards. Because neither of them are gay, they’re very able to be anti-gay, because there’s nothing bringing the issue home to them. It’s easy to be ignorantly critical.
It’s very difficult to be informed and critical. Which is what I’m trying to do in D’Souza’s case. I’ve seen him on Colbert, but I don’t read his blog, and on Colbert, he was just casually outflanked and bewildered, with the bespotted air of the classic church elder in my experience: A man who is so unused to being intelligently questioned and doubted that he simply can’t keep up with a moderate pace of inquiry. Who can’t actually see the truths of what he’s saying and the ways they contrast with his opponents and what they’re saying.
He came across to me as, well, at best an idiot. But I didn’t see him as a vile, horrible little dork.
Also, he might well be a vile, horrible little dork. I’m not very informed in this matter. I just wanted to voice that there might be another side, since Pharyngula is just a little keen to dogpile sometimes.
Sorry for that lengthy explanation – am I clearer now?
“Gee, my wife and I are raising two beautiful children. I’m an atheist, she’s agnostic — I guess we have nothing to offer these children?”
Ah, an interfaithless marriage. More power to ya.
D’Souza is odious because he’s invalidating the feelings of people among the grieving who happen not to believe in a particular 2000 year old supernatural story. There were atheists among the friends and family of the victims. How do you think it makes them feel to have D’Souza throw cheap shots at them even before they’ve attended the funeral?
Oh- and don’t forget that 9-11 thing. According to D’Souza, that was apparently the fault of liberals and atheists who gave the terrorists justification.
D’Souza is not the naive and ignorant face of the church- he’s the smiling and smooth- talking poster-boy of those who wish to institute a Christian fascist state.
Me? I think PZ was a little too soft on him, but only because polite conversation doesn’t easily admit an accurate description of the vomit that comes out of D’Souza’s mouth.
“But when a publicly vile little man persists in being a vile little man in public…”
(Extrapolating on that a little, Kseniya)
and joins other vile little men in a vile little political movement to “fix” the [select] “subhuman/minority/revisionist/evildoer” problem…
Hence the rationale for smacking down the vile utterances before they take root.
And it’s not restricted to the relatively unknown, many remember this little gem in 1987:
“Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?”
“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”
Thin edges of wedges, middle ages mentality and Boer-ish banal Borgias masquerading as the infalliable font of all morality. The ever present E-coli pretending to be the exclusive milk of human kindness but for the want of a little more nutrient.
Lots of “heat” required to deal with it. (The joy however is in the results, like Kitzmiller/Dover: the “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth” therof.
I knew there was something wrong with the agricultural revolution. Just couldn’t put my finger on it.
Wolfwalker, I’m quite sure that if you bothered to check, you would be able to find a much longer list of theists who have done the same if not worse. So go sit in the corner and put on your dunce cap.
I guess Wolfwalker is not welcome here and had his idiotic comment deleted, Oh well.
Yeah, he’s one of the Kansas trolls who always says the same thing, does not actually engage in discussion, and just buzzes through regularly to rant.
Though I myself am an atheist with very little patience with those of any religious persuasion I do have to say that, Barbara, though she obviously believes in a god, is a human being that I can at least respect.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/21/vtech.shooting/index.html
Among the memorial’s mementos are simple stones decorated with flowers and American flags. Each stone represents a victim, and a 33rd one was added for Seung-Hui Cho, the 23-year-old gunman.
“I feel bad that you did not get help that you so desperately needed,” read a handwritten note left by the stone. It was signed, “God bless, Barbara.”
Talen, you’re right on the mark on this matter. I went to a Christian senior high school, and this is exactly why they can claim to adhere to such a whacky text as the bible, and still – at least to a certain extent – remain quite normal folks. Even some professed fundamentalists pick and choose which parts to follow, and which to just ignore.
I read D’Souza’s comments. The man is a reptile–or is that unfair to cold-blooded vertebrates?.
Don’t react to him, it only feeds his ego. His type thrives on the outrage they stir up.
“I want those around me to think the best of me and consider that I might have just made a mistake rather than be a ‘horrible, vile, little man’ – he seems pretty sincere and pretty convinced in the rightness of his religious position.”
Dinesh has a long and disgusting history of making comments like this, going back to his Dartmouth Review days when he published some really nasty racist rants and unfunny “satires.” He’s pretty much Ann Coulter without the miniskirt and with a little less overt insanity. He may be sincere and convinced he’s right, but that doesn’t mean he also can’t be a squalid and disgusting cockroach.
As to D’Souza’s alleged “sincerity” – Just as some of the most vicious and outspoken homophobes behave as they do because they struggle to repress their own homosexual feelings, many of those who actively harass atheists do so because, in their heart of hearts, they know that there is no god. (That’s my theory, at any rate.)
“Even some professed fundamentalists pick and choose which parts to follow, and which to just ignore.”
Most likely they don’t even read the whole thing, let alone place it in any sort of historical context. There’s so many dumbed-down Bible-Lite texts out there to feed the needs of people who need some sort of spiritual bromide and who have an axe to grind against people they don’t understand.
“The joy however is in the results, like Kitzmiller/Dover: the “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth” therof.”
I’m going to stick to my idea that D’Souza’s latest blog posts (a whopping three) are part of that wailing and gnashing of teeth. Why do you think he keeps harping on Dawkins? Because Dawkins has planted the Seed of Doubt. That, I think, is why we’re seeing folks like D’Souza dropping any pretense of politeness and making outright attacks on atheists. Nobody likes to admit that they’ve been had, but you can’t tell me that in the supermajority of Christians who’ve been exposed to the book title “The God Delusion”, there hasn’t been at least one brief thought of “What if he’s right?”
It doesn’t hurt that he now has a convenient hook, a supposedly “honest question” to hang it on: atheists can’t tell happy stories of eternal happiness, so they’re useless! Where’s your lack of a Messiah now, Dawkie?
And guess who’s coming to dinner…
if you believe in natural selection and selfish genes and that morality is invented by man, intellectually where is your case against this fellow?
The classical atheist position on the “Problem of Evil” is nicely structured as a 2×2 Boolean table by Lactantius [c. 240-320] quoting Epicurus, as translated by William Dyrness, “Christian Apologetics in a World Community”, Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1983, p.153:
“God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or he is able and unwilling; or he is neither willing nor able; or he is both willing and able. If he is willing and unable, he is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if he is able and unwilling, he is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if he is neither willing nor able he is both envious and feeble and therefore not God; if he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does he not remove them?”
I was reminded of this argument by “The Lion, the Witch, and the Bible: Good and Evil in the Classic Tales of C.S. Lewis”, Robert Velarde, Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005, p.23.
I am a scientist. I am not a Christian. I bought this because C.S. Lewis is, to me, an interesting Fantasy/Science Fiction author, albeit second-rate compared to Tolkien, because Lewis is trying to seduce readers into his version of Christianity, whereas Tolkien clearly doesn’t care what the readers believe.
It seems likely to me that PZ Myers considers all religion to be Fairy Tales, which is a perfectly self-consistent position. Epicurus, because of his explicit belief in Democritus’ Atomism, is a philosophical predecessor of modern atheist Science. C.S. Lewis, in “Out of the Silent Planet” — the 3rd book of the Perelandra trilogy — is clearly making a cruel characature of H. G. Wells as the bloviating atheist scientist front-man for the satanic “macrobe” in the talking severed head.
Luke 13:4-5 ‘Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them& ;do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’
When do atheists offer similar words of comfort for the distressed and bereaved?
Never. That shows you how morally bankrupt atheism is.
What the fuck do you know about what atheists say, Carr? How many of them do you know intimately, spend time with, and listen to when tragedy strikes them?
I can say that atheists would offer the distressed and bereaved a lot more than your God offered them when the bullets were flying, which was absolutely nothing.
D’Souza and Carr are among theism’s more pathetic creatures. Their problem is this. When tragedies like Virginia Tech occur, God has a bad habit of not putting in an appearance, saving lives and all that. This inaction is, of course, due to his nonexistence. But believers cannot handle that blunt reality, and concoct all manner of wild justifications and rationalizations for why “a loving God” allows such tragedies to occur. The psychological addiction to belief in an invisible man is far stronger than mere reality can overcome.
D’Souza and Carr know that atheists do have an annoying habit of bringing this stuff up. So their solution is to try and do an end-run around us, going on the offensive against us before we have a chance to point out to anyone that God did every bit as good a job of nothing in responding to this tragedy as he has done in all others, and that perhaps believing in this pixie is a foolish waste of time that prevents people from coming up with real solutions to real problems. Atheism will always be superior to theism, which only offers people the “solution” to hide under their blankets and clasp their hands in prayer, in this regard.
Theists simply want to shoot the messenger, which says more about the weakness of their feeble beliefs than about the behavior of atheists in response to tragedy, which has always been, in my experience, warm, sympathetic, and pragmatic.
It appears that atheists can recognise that what Jesus said about the innocent victims of tragedy really offers them nothing.
Right, Jesus offers nothing. You’re catching on.
‘But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’
When do atheists offer similar words of comfort for the distressed and bereaved?
Words of comfort = thinly veiled threats to survivors? We’ll pass, thanks.
if you believe in natural selection and selfish genes and that morality is invented by man, intellectually where is your case against this fellow?
First of all, mass murder followed by blowing your own brains out is not a great way to advance your selfish genes. We hate it when people get the science wrong.
It is surprising how few theists ever quote the words of Jesus on innocent victims of tragedy, despite their immediate relevance.
Perhaps because those sayings just aren’t theologically correct, and so are ignored by Christians who prefer a compassionate Jesus to the Jesus of the Bible.
That is one huge, gaping non sequitur of a question there.
What does natural selection have to do with D’Souza’s vileness? Do you even know what “selfish gene” means? And who ever said “morality is invented by man”? And if morality comes from a god, how is that any better? I suggest you read Euthyphro if you have any interest in sounding informed on the matter of morality.
What does natural selection have to do with D’Souza’s vileness? Do you even know what “selfish gene” means? And who ever said “morality is invented by man”? And if morality comes from a god, how is that any better? I suggest you read Euthyphro if you have any interest in sounding informed on the matter of morality.
I don’t mind reading anything, but tell me first where you think morality commes from if not man. And PZ knows I read the evidence, but I am not going to until you can tell where morality comes from. PZS on the other hand, told me what he thought and then told me what to go read.
If evolution (man) didn’t decide what morality is, then who did?
Just an honest question.
“Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”
Another values argument against atheism. (As if theists have it any better…)
I’d start here, and then follow-up with some Aristotle, and a simple intro-to-ethics text.
Moral naturalism is alive and well, and doesn’t lead to psychological egoism any more than anything else.
You don’t understand, Bob, I am not saying that you are not right, I am asking where morality comes from. Does it come from man as you say it does, or somewhere else as Davis says it does?
It really irritates me by the way, that PZ is the only one who will answer my questions. I was going to ask him about the humbolt squid after I saw it on the discovery channel. I wanted to know if he thought they were aggressive as they say, because I respect his opinion in what he does. I get so pissed off about people who think I am wrong in my specialty, and don’t know a damn thing about it.
I just want to know from an atheist perspective, who decides what morality is, nothing more, and why they get to decide.
Morality is an emergent property that is built on a biological substrate of empathy and group cooperation, refined in the interactions between child and parents, and further expanded in the social dynamics of the peer group and the rest of the culture. We have morality because being able to imagine yourself in someone else’s position is a fast track to learning, because we discover quickly that we’re dependent on others for food and warmth, and because as social animals we desire to be accepted by the group, and following shared rules is a good strategy for doing that.
There’s also an element of selection involved. Sociopaths have a harder time getting laid and do a piss-poor job of raising children.
Nobody “decides” what is moral. Get that primitive, simple-minded authoritarianism out of your head.
Look at this awful stuff posted about Virginia Tech : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9uNtvFSxYM
No comments, no video responses!!!
A few of us co-operated online to make the following response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_z9WgV5jkQ
If you think it is a good one,
please help to promote it in whatever other fora you frequent.
We should not have to sit idly by, while this juvenile drivel is spouted as truth.
I just want to know from an atheist perspective, who decides what morality is, nothing more, and why they get to decide.
Generally when faced with this kind of question, I suspect a god botherer at the root of it. My position is plain, when you can explain why you think the specific absurdities of your brand of religion are more reasonable than the absurdities of some other brand, I’ll be happy to explain where I get my morality.
If you are in fact not a god botherer, thats fine, and an honest conversation is possible, but we really have to get the specific religion stuff out of the way first.
Thanks for the answer, PZ, I always wondered the scientific explanation was.
Biology, scientific answer that is, and I accept your perspective.Thanks.
Nobody “decides” what is moral. Get that primitive, simple-minded authoritarianism out of your head.
However, I do not understand this, is law simply a matter of logic, or is it a matter of agreement?
Umm, I think you’ll find we’ve got the church, an entire political party and president who make it their day to day business to do exactly that- ‘decide what is moral’.
PZ beat me to it, with a far clearer explanation than I could have offered. I’ll just add that the observation of behavior we consider “moral” in non-humans should be sufficient evidence that morality is absolutely not a product of humanity. Again, I recommend at least a summary of the Euthyphro dialogue — it’s a millennia-old philosophical argument effectively quashing the notion of any authoritarian source for morality.
I’d argue that law and morality are somewhat separate realms, with some overlap — a legal act is not necessarily moral, and an illegal act is not necessarily immoral. Since law depends very heavily on government, the better question might be something like “Is the behavior we’re willing to accept in society a matter of logic, or a matter of agreement?”, since law is (to some extent) a reflection of what society deems acceptable.
However, phrased that way I think it’s pretty clear that acceptable behavior is largely a matter of what we’re willing to agree upon, though that can be informed by logic. The few universals that exist across cultures likely reflect the morality dictated by biology.
However, phrased that way I think it’s pretty clear that acceptable behavior is largely a matter of what we’re willing to agree upon, though that can be informed by logic. The few universals that exist across cultures likely reflect the morality dictated by biology.
Well that is what I am asking, is it agreement or biology? It seems to me, and I may be wrong, that all law is based on agreement, which base was religious and now we are moving towards biology.
So, Homosexuality was deemed as illegal, now it is not, because of agreement by society. For example I live in Texas, where they made sodomy illegal until SCOTUS decided this was a bad law.
Whether you believe that was right or not, I am looking for a standard, where ever that might reside.
Mike at the Questionable Authority has a post about what a real atheist, Stephen Jay Gould, did in the face of an overwhelmingly evil act.
Mike at the Questionable Authority has a post about what a real atheist, Stephen Jay Gould, did in the face of an overwhelmingly evil act.
Monado, unfortunately you didn’t provide the link.
Mike at the Questionable Authority has a post about what a real atheist, Stephen Jay Gould, did in the face of an overwhelmingly evil act.
Mike at the Questionable Authority has a post about what a real atheist, Stephen Jay Gould, did in the face of an overwhelmingly evil act.
(Monado, please try that link again?)
You are on quite a quest, then, Physicist, because standards change. Is there some absolute, fixed peg upon which you can hang your moral trenchcoat? (Sorry, terrible imagery, LoL.) Seriously, I don’t know. I do know that you’re not the only person looking for one…
Hmmm… I don’t think we’re moving towards the biological bases. It was always there. We’re moving back towards a more general acceptance and understanding of the fact that the biological bases exist. The biological bases existed long before the religious. In the big picture, the religious basis is the Jehovah-come-lately, the result of one or more men deciding that they, and not the Consensus, should be The Decider.
I daresay that according to what Davis had to say, it’s reasonable to conclude that the the supposed immorality of homosexuality is man-made, because prohibitions against it are not universal across cultures and therefore have no biological basis.
I suggest, then, if you’re looking for a standard to apply to homosexuality, one option is to apply the biological standard, which offers no prohibition against it.
“Well that is what I am asking, is it agreement or biology?”
That’s a lot like asking ‘is it a particle or a wave’ or ‘is it nature or nuture’. I think you’re asking an either/or question about something that is a complex mixture of both.
And your statement about looking for a standard sounds like you’re hunting for something immutable, which I’m not sure exists, because it seems to me that there’s the standard, And then there’s the interpretation of that standard.
I’m not sure that helps much.
“moral trenchcoat
Oh, I rather like that. I can just see some creep trying to flash some kids, and it refusing to open . . .