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Amir Krause wrote:
While I do not fully disagree with all the statements supporting the Sensei's, I think most here are looking at the picture from a very specific point of view.
When was the last time you met by strict religious people of other faiths?
Their limitations come from God, yours are man made cultural issues. They can not make the slightest amendment or change - that wold hurt their beliefs. You must accommodate them.
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All of the time. Their limitations come from GOD? Only according to them. The words that they read where written by man. Who among those religious people are actually communicating directly with GOD?
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Amir Krause wrote:
Yep, that is their argument, and in some strange way they even have some point. The way you train is adjusted to your beliefs, they want to train according to their beliefs. It reminds me of the French who decided on a law against wearing overt religious clothings in some (specific) public places, and claimed it was not discriminatory, while in fact, only Christians were not affected by it.
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This is not about training to our beliefs. This is about partaking in some aspect of another culture-> Japanese culture. It is our choice as to whether or not to partake in it. If we choose to partake in it, then we should follow the customs of that tradition. I have had many meals with people from the middle east where we sat on the floor and ate with our hands. I did not ask for silverware. it was my choice to join them and partake in some aspect of their lives. I am not so closed-minded that I insisted that they adapt to me.
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Amir Krause wrote:
You must be joking. Such groups will have their own schools (in Israel, funded by the public  ), they will demonstrate (some times violently) against any business that does not follow their rules
(be it sex segregation, working on Sabeth, or selling non-kosher food). They will demand to get all the social services their way (including public-beaches that are men only or women only with ugly fences blocking the view of anyone in them)...
Again you are missing the very point of those groups - they wish to force you to convert. You believe in freedom of religion and from religion - they do not. You are against discrimination - they are only against any discrimination to them. |
You have clearly spoken of the gross double standards that the very religious people intentionally use. I can talk at length about how their morality seems to be narrowly defined to fit within their fellow believers. They seem to do a good job at talking about faith while failing to live up to the morality which is the underpinning of their faith.
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Amir Krause wrote:
In most cases, a host does take some consideration to accommodate his guests. In my own opinion, and from my experience, it is possible to accept some religious people, with their limitations intact, and still keep the impact on the dojo life acceptable.
The level that is acceptable has to be set by the Sensei, and should not harm anyone else. My Sensei refuses to accept student who will not bow to others, but accept those who will not bow to the Shomen. He accepted in the past few students who did not train with women, but they were alway the minority, and the rule was no woman would be left anytime not-training because one of them refuses to train with her (in such a case, the partner of that one trained with the woman and he was left partner less).
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You are right, the host does maintain the right to run things according to the host's standards. That being said, it says an awful lot about the visitor by how the visitor seeks to impose their standards upon others.
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Amir Krause wrote:
Don't be that naive, the training rules and their religion contradict. Many here seem to imply in such cases, they can change their strictures, just like the "teenage boys". But if they change their strictures, they will no longer belong to the same religion.
You do realize for that to happen, there must be some religious Sensei who trained with someone who did accept him.
Religion is too often not tolerant, and not open to accept other cultures, definitely not to experiencing them.
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Religion speaks of treating everyone in the image of GOD while failing to live up that standard.
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Amir Krause wrote:
For a jew : "when in rome, live in a ghetto" (for that matter, this was true for jews living in any Christian country, not so long ago.
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I too and Jewish, I do not seek to identify myself based upon a long-ago past. Maybe, we as Jews need to formulate a new, positive identity based not upon how others seek to treat us (or treated us) poorly, but upon the positives that represent how we can choose to live.
Marc Abrams
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Amir Krause wrote:
Amir
{ who would hate NOT to train with men and would do my best not to be confined to an all-men dojo, nor thinks it is fun. And who actually believe that as a man, training with women is important to my own technical advancing in doing practical Aikido.
And who is willing to make minor accommodations, but only minor and not as an opening to bigger changes}
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