There has to be something said about the people who Christ most had problems with and ended up killing him were people who took religion took seriously. The same people who would believe the letter and not the spirit of the bible. The same people who instead of following in Christs footsteps of tolerance and love would rather follow the path of hate and intolerance.
The catholic church has and continues to embody the very things that Christ fought against when he was on earth. Such a shame that they manage to undermine all the good that other Christians try to do every day across the globe so much.
On November 25 2012 11:19 soon.Cloak wrote: [quote]
So if you feel that bestiality, on a fundamental marriage-based level, isn't wrong (the issue is just the cruelty to animals), and you feel that incest isn't wrong, then we are in agreement, as per the second part of my first post.
But I'm assuming that part about incest. Again, I can't argue if you won't say your opinion, when your opinion is relevant (because my whole point is that we have to be consistent).
No, my opinion is that bestiality has no fundamental marriage-based level as marriage requires consent and animals cannot give it to you. I was talking about my opinion on bestiality as general practice. As pertaining to marriage it is like talking about flying penguins.
Your whole point is complete non-sequitur to the debate. I do not have to talk about human right violations in country A to be able to condemn them in country B. I do not have to talk about issue A to discuss issue B if they can be solved independently. And issues of homosexuality can easily be solved independently from issues of incest or bestiality. So stop acting like there is any need to bring them into the issue.
You are trying to define what marriage is, and argue that marriage"requires" certain fundamental aspects, while denying that other aspects of marriage (i.e. heterosexuality) can be considered fundamental. How did you come up with that?
My argument is about consistency, which by definition relates to multiple issues. I am arguing that it is inconsistent,and thus illogical, to consider some things marriage, while not other things. That is very related to Uganda, as it is arguing that it is illogical to feel that hetero and homosexual relationships are okay, while others are not, which is what I perceive to be the position of many in this thread.
I think you missed my post where I already answered this. I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes. I said nothing about homosexuality or heterosexuality, I think you are confusing me with someone else. Also after you read the post I was referring to I would like to stress that you have no point outside of playing semantic games.
I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes.
Do you not see the self-contradiction in that statement?
And in the post you are quoting now, I explained why it's not simply semantics, and how it relates to Uganda.
Nope, there is no contradiction. Only if you do not know what meaning is you would think so. As I said it seems you did not read a post where I addressed this. It is on this page, look it up.
Oh, my bad, skipped that. There's been a lot of posts...
"Of course there is objective morality", you say? Can I point you to this thread? 40 pages about people arguing about the topic, and the poll says it's subjective. Don't try to say that everyone agrees with you on this.
So now I argue that the "meaning" of marriage is heterosexual, while you argue that the "meaning" is consent. How can you defend the position that you're definitely correct?
I never said everyone agrees with me on that topic. All your responses to my posts are full of attributing to me positions I never defended. Could you stop misrepresenting my posts ? I said that most people (including most probably you) by their actions prove me correct. Their words how they do not believe in objective morality are irrelevant as long as they act like there actually is one. Plus since when matter of science are decided by polls
As for the meaning part, you again completely missed the point. Marriage has as part of its meaning consent. If you disagree, you do not speak English and I can easily ignore you. You can argue that marriage has as part of its meaning heterosexuality. And I would not disagree with you. I would state meaning of marriage is in state of flux right now on that topic. Somewhere in-between. But it is pretty clear the meaning will move in the future to include homosexual relationships. But there is no evidence of the meaning of marriage moving anywhere close to losing its consent component.
As for how I can defend my position. I do not need to defend my position. Meaning of the words is shared between all speakers of the language. And right now it has consent component. If you disagree, be my guest and once again show that you are just playing semantic games. Or do you expect that majority of English speakers in the world would disagree with me ?
lol, thought this thread had died.
It's not that "people disagree with you about objective morality, but that it's a fact". You say that of course there is objective morality. That's your opinion. You can believe in it as much as you want, and believe that it exists, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's your opinion, and no more. And because it's only an opinion, people are more likely to disagree with you (which they do). Your proof from how people act is meaningless. It's like claiming that since most of the world enjoys pizza, pizza is inherently and objectively delicious. There is a significant difference between something that's objective, and something that's subjective, but agreed upon. But I don't want to argue about objective morality. I'm arguing against the people in this thread that are comfortable with defining marriage as hetero and homosexual, and not just heterosexual (as in, not willing to listen to someone that just defines marriage as heterosexual), while they themselves wouldn't be willing (on principle) defining marriage as lacking consent.
Ah, the poll was just thrown in their for literary emphasis .
And it's very nice that you defined the Western definition of marriage, which is in flux. But the Ugandese (?) may define it as heterosexual. And since your definition has no more validity than theirs, because it's subjective, who's to say theirs is wrong?
My point about consent is that the definition of marriage could be whatever we want it to be. Agreed, it's not moving towards the loss of consent, but that doesn't mean that if it would, there'd be anything wrong with that. Thus, those that are willing to define marriage how they want to should be willing to accept the fact that others may define it differently. So if in a different state, they'd legalize and recognize bestiality as marriage, your reaction should be "Oh, guess they define marriage differently", not "Oh, that could never be marriage".
Yes, and in the same vein all scientific facts/theories are also opinions. Good to know. You fail to differentiate something that is agreed upon, because we decided so based on a whim and something agreed upon, because we are so biologically inclined and in fact never had a decision to make. The second one cannot change without our biology changing and is quite objective. Morality falls under the second kind. And that also goes for your pizza example to some degree. It shows that pizza is made in a way that we find (statistically) delicious, which is also biological and objective, in this sense, category. Of course much smaller percentage of people finds pizza delicious than the number of people that agree on core moral principles. Which is not surprising as there are other foods thus no point in evolution forcing us all into one box, whereas without the specific morality humans share, societies could not exist.
As for the rest, you again demonstrate that you do not understand what you read. You are talking about definitions being wrong after I repeatedly told you definitions are not wrong or right. They cannot be. Definitions are tautologies/naming conventions. So I never said Ugandan definition is wrong.
Your original point was trying to argue there is inconsistency between allowing homosexuality and not allowing incest/bestiality. People explained to you why there is no inconsistency. That is why you changed your argument to include the whole marriage discussion, even though it has no relevance to the topic, because it was the only way how you can salvage your refuted argument.
There are only three ways for you to argue your original point. 1) Try to argue that there is only one criteria to judge ethical scenarios. You attempted this first by claiming the supposed inconsistency. That inconsistency of course does not exist if you actually understand that ethical decisions are reached using multiple criteria and so just because two actions share one/few attributes (sex/love/..) they all do not have to fall into the same ethical category. And people pointed out that you are wrong as there is no issue with having multi-criteria to decide ethical considerations.
2) Claim that morality is relative. After that you moved to claim that morality is relative. So please do not lie that you do not want to argue about objective morality.
3) Move the topic from actual ethical calculus, to the murky waters of human language and its meanings. But since the cases of bestiality vs homosexuality was so clear for most people, you moved into this final argument, which is completely irrelevant to original topic. Of course you picked it because it is easier to create confusion and argue whatever nonsense by saying that definitions of the words are arbitrary and so on. It is complete derailing of the thread as your point can easily and clearly be formulated without the whole marriage thing as I have easily shown few paragraphs above. But of course without the marriage thing, you would have to confine yourself to ethical discussion and that does not allow so much bs. So you moved it to semantic games over word marriage.
This was the last thing I am going to write about your tangent on marriage. Either argue your original point, where your only option is to claim that morality is relative to extremely big extent. Or continue with your word games, but without me.
...There is so much I disagree with in this post...
...something agreed upon, because we are so biologically inclined and in fact never had a decision to make.
Really? That's how you define objectivity? Let's check out dictionary.com, shall we?
not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.
We can be biologically inclined to do anything, and it will still be subjective, because it won't be a fact. Biological inclination as nothing to do with it. So a statement like
The second one cannot change without our biology changing and is quite objective.
is meaningless. Even if we all share the same morals, that doesn't make it objective. What would make it objective if it would be a fact. Similarly, a statement like
It shows that pizza is made in a way that we find (statistically) delicious, which is also biological and objective, in this sense, category
makes no sense. You really feel that in any sense, pizza can be considered objectively tasty? What?
...whereas without the specific morality humans share, societies could not exist.
And now all of a sudden, morality is based off the existence of societies. Morality must be objective, because if not, societies couldn't exist . And the existence of societies has to do with morality how...? If evolution causes us to act in a certain way, that way is now objective? What definition of objective are you using?
I will say my original point again, in one sentence. Since we defined what marriage is, anyone can define it however they want, and their definition will be legitimate to act off of. The result of that statement is that it is legitimate for the Uganda government to not recognize homosexual marriage. Note that I never said it it was ok for them to persecute gays; I actually explicitly said the opposite in my first post. My point was exactly what I said, nothing more.
But you seem to have misunderstood my argument. What you think I am arguing is...
Your original point was trying to argue there is inconsistency between allowing homosexuality and not allowing incest/bestiality.
What I am arguing is (a quote from my original post)
If you support gay marriage, but don't support those other things, then you are arbitrarily deciding what is legitimate and what is not. And if Uganda disagrees with you, their laws aren't any less legitimate than yours
See the difference now? Or do I really have to explain it?
So to respond to each of your individual points
1) As you seem to have misunderstood what my inconsistency was, this point is irrelevant. It seems I once actually called it inconsistent. That once was a mistake. My first point, and all my arguments, have never needed to call it inconsistent to feel one way.
2) If it will make you feel better, take out the word morality from my first post, and my argument will still be the same. My argument does not hinge on objective/subjective morality; it hinges on the subjective nature of the meaning of the word marriage. Don't want to discuss the issue-fine, we won't. The end.
3) You are discounting an argument that's based off semantics, by derisively calling it an argument based off of semantics. Again and again, your issue with my argument is that it's based off semantics. That seems to be an issue with you. That's ok. If you don't want to argue semantics that have important results, nobody is forcing you to do so.
Furthermore, your decision that there is a difference between meaning and definition is still ridiculous. See dictionary.com again, for the definition of the word "definition"
the formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc., as found in dictionaries.
And you are going to rage about how I am getting into semantic arguments. And I will nod.
Edit: And one more thing. Just because I'm not relating to exactly what the OP stated doesn't mean what I'm saying is irrelevant to the thread. The people in this thread seem to have felt a certain way, relating to the OP. I pointed out an issue with how they felt. That is on topic enough for me. If not for you, don't respond to me.
On November 25 2012 15:40 Reason wrote: Explaining to me why opinions based on logic and reason are more valid than those based on religious texts is like teaching a snake how to slither. I advocate gay marriage and my opinions are not based on religious texts..
Assuming you are talking about religious texts of established religions created for a specific purpose, the logic with in them are usually self perpetuating and unprovable / undisprovable, if religious assumptions are true then the logic system is valid, but with out concrete quantifiable proof it's impossible for other parties to observe, debate, or even understand your doctrines better with out accepting the arbituary basis assumptions of said religion. Unless I accept at face value that the Christian god is all mighty, all knowing, etc, and that Jesus is the son of God then everything about the religious belief system falls apart because nearly all of its logics, appeals to authority and credibility, etc are all based on these assumptions.
It also means that strictly speaking there should be no progress to be made in religious logic, no applications except the absolute, no evolution of ideas and concepts, because all of these assumptions are taken for granted as absolutely true. Has humanity's studies of Christianity developed further than it has in the past in the contexts of religious logics? Can humanity develop, improve, and overrule religious logic where it's no longer applicable? Can generations and millenias of developing Christian faith actually lend itself to any degree of growing closeness to God or understanding of God? Based on the fundamental assumptions all of the answers are no, because the assumptions are all absolute. Yet we see that in reality the religious bureacracy is always happy to make private amendments for the sake of popularity and revise their logic to suit their own singular purpose, where claims that these selfish and corrupt purposes reflect those of an unchanging God is ridiculous. A great example is the change of the roles of women in the Christian religious texts to reflect a larger role and the "canon"-ization of the role, sacredness and death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which was literally by popular demand and made as late as the 19th (Immaculate conception) and 20th century (The assumption of).
The problem of undisprovable theories based on self perpetuating assumptions is that they are ultimately singular and meaningless beyond its scope, religion gets around that by claiming that it emcompasses the entire scope of human life and the universe with out actually establishing any logical connection or proof other than the tacid assumptions. What you get is what you are stuck with, which is why religious reform always strikes to me as having your cake and eating it too. Where as quantifiable and proveable theories and logics which do not depend on self perpetuating assumptions are constantly updated and advanced with an evolving society. If scientists all assumed that the opinion of Newton was absolute then we wouldn't have modern physics despite Newton laying the grounds work for much of it since it wouldn't ever advance.
You don't at all need to prove that legitimacy of one theory over the other because doing so would draw in anecdotal evidences which is contrary to the actual problem: That one side favors absolutism based on self perpetuating assumptions, where as the other side evolves along with society. If your scope and judgement of "validity" is based on how accepted a value is or how concrete and unchanging a value is, then yea ofcourse religious texts are more "valid" since its impossible to disprove them if you make the assumption that their logic is correct. But if your scope and judgement of validity is on if methods of science, philosophy, individual thought etc can be applied and advance the theory or opinion then the latter is more valid.
Did you completely misunderstand what I wrote? My opinions are based on logic and reason. My opinions are not based on religious texts. Why are you lecturing me about religious beliefs?
On November 25 2012 11:09 mcc wrote: [quote] No I do not form opinions lightly. And since I see no point to devote time to incest relationships and this discussion does not require it, as it is non-related tangent that you introduced, I will not devote the time to think about it.
As for mistreatment of animals. What is your point ? I oppose also other forms of mistreatment of animals.
Bestiality is not a victimless crime as for incest I really do not care. Feeling uncomfortable is one thing, basing policy on such feelings is another.
So if you feel that bestiality, on a fundamental marriage-based level, isn't wrong (the issue is just the cruelty to animals), and you feel that incest isn't wrong, then we are in agreement, as per the second part of my first post.
But I'm assuming that part about incest. Again, I can't argue if you won't say your opinion, when your opinion is relevant (because my whole point is that we have to be consistent).
No, my opinion is that bestiality has no fundamental marriage-based level as marriage requires consent and animals cannot give it to you. I was talking about my opinion on bestiality as general practice. As pertaining to marriage it is like talking about flying penguins.
Your whole point is complete non-sequitur to the debate. I do not have to talk about human right violations in country A to be able to condemn them in country B. I do not have to talk about issue A to discuss issue B if they can be solved independently. And issues of homosexuality can easily be solved independently from issues of incest or bestiality. So stop acting like there is any need to bring them into the issue.
You are trying to define what marriage is, and argue that marriage"requires" certain fundamental aspects, while denying that other aspects of marriage (i.e. heterosexuality) can be considered fundamental. How did you come up with that?
My argument is about consistency, which by definition relates to multiple issues. I am arguing that it is inconsistent,and thus illogical, to consider some things marriage, while not other things. That is very related to Uganda, as it is arguing that it is illogical to feel that hetero and homosexual relationships are okay, while others are not, which is what I perceive to be the position of many in this thread.
I think you missed my post where I already answered this. I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes. I said nothing about homosexuality or heterosexuality, I think you are confusing me with someone else. Also after you read the post I was referring to I would like to stress that you have no point outside of playing semantic games.
I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes.
Do you not see the self-contradiction in that statement?
And in the post you are quoting now, I explained why it's not simply semantics, and how it relates to Uganda.
Nope, there is no contradiction. Only if you do not know what meaning is you would think so. As I said it seems you did not read a post where I addressed this. It is on this page, look it up.
Oh, my bad, skipped that. There's been a lot of posts...
"Of course there is objective morality", you say? Can I point you to this thread? 40 pages about people arguing about the topic, and the poll says it's subjective. Don't try to say that everyone agrees with you on this.
So now I argue that the "meaning" of marriage is heterosexual, while you argue that the "meaning" is consent. How can you defend the position that you're definitely correct?
I never said everyone agrees with me on that topic. All your responses to my posts are full of attributing to me positions I never defended. Could you stop misrepresenting my posts ? I said that most people (including most probably you) by their actions prove me correct. Their words how they do not believe in objective morality are irrelevant as long as they act like there actually is one. Plus since when matter of science are decided by polls
As for the meaning part, you again completely missed the point. Marriage has as part of its meaning consent. If you disagree, you do not speak English and I can easily ignore you. You can argue that marriage has as part of its meaning heterosexuality. And I would not disagree with you. I would state meaning of marriage is in state of flux right now on that topic. Somewhere in-between. But it is pretty clear the meaning will move in the future to include homosexual relationships. But there is no evidence of the meaning of marriage moving anywhere close to losing its consent component.
As for how I can defend my position. I do not need to defend my position. Meaning of the words is shared between all speakers of the language. And right now it has consent component. If you disagree, be my guest and once again show that you are just playing semantic games. Or do you expect that majority of English speakers in the world would disagree with me ?
lol, thought this thread had died.
It's not that "people disagree with you about objective morality, but that it's a fact". You say that of course there is objective morality. That's your opinion. You can believe in it as much as you want, and believe that it exists, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's your opinion, and no more. And because it's only an opinion, people are more likely to disagree with you (which they do). Your proof from how people act is meaningless. It's like claiming that since most of the world enjoys pizza, pizza is inherently and objectively delicious. There is a significant difference between something that's objective, and something that's subjective, but agreed upon. But I don't want to argue about objective morality. I'm arguing against the people in this thread that are comfortable with defining marriage as hetero and homosexual, and not just heterosexual (as in, not willing to listen to someone that just defines marriage as heterosexual), while they themselves wouldn't be willing (on principle) defining marriage as lacking consent.
Ah, the poll was just thrown in their for literary emphasis .
And it's very nice that you defined the Western definition of marriage, which is in flux. But the Ugandese (?) may define it as heterosexual. And since your definition has no more validity than theirs, because it's subjective, who's to say theirs is wrong?
My point about consent is that the definition of marriage could be whatever we want it to be. Agreed, it's not moving towards the loss of consent, but that doesn't mean that if it would, there'd be anything wrong with that. Thus, those that are willing to define marriage how they want to should be willing to accept the fact that others may define it differently. So if in a different state, they'd legalize and recognize bestiality as marriage, your reaction should be "Oh, guess they define marriage differently", not "Oh, that could never be marriage".
Yes, and in the same vein all scientific facts/theories are also opinions. Good to know. You fail to differentiate something that is agreed upon, because we decided so based on a whim and something agreed upon, because we are so biologically inclined and in fact never had a decision to make. The second one cannot change without our biology changing and is quite objective. Morality falls under the second kind. And that also goes for your pizza example to some degree. It shows that pizza is made in a way that we find (statistically) delicious, which is also biological and objective, in this sense, category. Of course much smaller percentage of people finds pizza delicious than the number of people that agree on core moral principles. Which is not surprising as there are other foods thus no point in evolution forcing us all into one box, whereas without the specific morality humans share, societies could not exist.
As for the rest, you again demonstrate that you do not understand what you read. You are talking about definitions being wrong after I repeatedly told you definitions are not wrong or right. They cannot be. Definitions are tautologies/naming conventions. So I never said Ugandan definition is wrong.
Your original point was trying to argue there is inconsistency between allowing homosexuality and not allowing incest/bestiality. People explained to you why there is no inconsistency. That is why you changed your argument to include the whole marriage discussion, even though it has no relevance to the topic, because it was the only way how you can salvage your refuted argument.
There are only three ways for you to argue your original point. 1) Try to argue that there is only one criteria to judge ethical scenarios. You attempted this first by claiming the supposed inconsistency. That inconsistency of course does not exist if you actually understand that ethical decisions are reached using multiple criteria and so just because two actions share one/few attributes (sex/love/..) they all do not have to fall into the same ethical category. And people pointed out that you are wrong as there is no issue with having multi-criteria to decide ethical considerations.
2) Claim that morality is relative. After that you moved to claim that morality is relative. So please do not lie that you do not want to argue about objective morality.
3) Move the topic from actual ethical calculus, to the murky waters of human language and its meanings. But since the cases of bestiality vs homosexuality was so clear for most people, you moved into this final argument, which is completely irrelevant to original topic. Of course you picked it because it is easier to create confusion and argue whatever nonsense by saying that definitions of the words are arbitrary and so on. It is complete derailing of the thread as your point can easily and clearly be formulated without the whole marriage thing as I have easily shown few paragraphs above. But of course without the marriage thing, you would have to confine yourself to ethical discussion and that does not allow so much bs. So you moved it to semantic games over word marriage.
This was the last thing I am going to write about your tangent on marriage. Either argue your original point, where your only option is to claim that morality is relative to extremely big extent. Or continue with your word games, but without me.
Whether pizza is tasty, or not, is completely subjective.
Just because the majority of humans find it tasty doesn't change that. We are human, and we like pizza. Guess what mcc? That's our subjective opinion as humans.
There are other living creatures within this universe that may find pizza disgusting.
That is why pizza is not objectively tasty. It's entirely subjective and it's not up for debate. This is like the most basic point of contention I think I've ever come across and the fact that you tried to use it as an example to disprove or discredit someone elses beliefs is verging on hilarious. Are you for real, seriously?
That you have completely failed to understand this simplest of examples demonstrates further the extent of your ignorance. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ You are trying to argue that claiming objective morality is a fact is comparable to a mathematical description of the orbit of the Earth?
For someone who regards their opinion and knowledge so highly to not immediately recognise how flawed that view is.... well I find that troubling to say the least.
I'm not going to waste my time destroying the rest of what you've written. Clearly discussing the finer points of this with you would be a fools errand.
You attempt and fail to find flaws in logic and reasoning where there are none and then state unprovable opinion as proven fact.
You are the worst combination of opinionated and ignorant I think I've ever come across.
A great example is the change of the roles of women in the Christian religious texts to reflect a larger role and the "canon"-ization of the role, sacredness and death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which was literally by popular demand and made as late as the 19th (Immaculate conception) and 20th century (The assumption of).
Just wanted to point out that this example is, well, totally inaccurate both in the facts it asserts and the underlying argument they are being used to support.
I feel like you should leave lame semantic arguements for topics that don't actually effect other people. No one really really cares that you can weasel your way out of taking any moral position, you have to take one at the ballot box eventually. And that decision can and will be judged, unless you can provide adequate reasoning besides "morality is subjective, mine just happens to come from an old book."
Here is an additional link to see how hostile people are towards gays in the region. You can read the backstory on the website before watching the video. The video is extremely graphic; the man is burned alive and died. you were warned!
On November 29 2012 05:37 acidstormy wrote: Here is an additional link to see how hostile people are towards gays in the region. You can read the backstory on the website before watching the video. The video is extremely graphic; the man is burned alive and died. you were warned!
A great example is the change of the roles of women in the Christian religious texts to reflect a larger role and the "canon"-ization of the role, sacredness and death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which was literally by popular demand and made as late as the 19th (Immaculate conception) and 20th century (The assumption of).
Just wanted to point out that this example is, well, totally inaccurate both in the facts it asserts and the underlying argument they are being used to support.
Both were changes made to the formal doctrine based on popular belief that changed over the years as the public thought that ideas were synonymous yet not formally recognized with in the context of the religious texts until finalized by respective popes in those years. So how exactly am I totally incorrect.
It's a huge difference whether or not a doctrine is officially recognized by the Pope / respective head of religion, because it actually impacts the world in significant manners whether a religious belief is "formal" because it carries with itself the implication of finality and absoluteness, and people hold laws accountable on that basis. How am I wrong in using this as support for my argument? We can write off the actions of Christian Cults or divisions which have beliefs not officially endorsed by the Catholic hierarchy, but once the Pope finalizes or formalizes it it becomes the official dogma of the religion.
The disparity of recounting of the role of women is a part of the Synoptic problem, as the Gospels do not agree on it, yet the Catholic hierarchy also has official stances on what transpired. How is this totally inaccurate too?
On November 25 2012 15:40 Reason wrote: Explaining to me why opinions based on logic and reason are more valid than those based on religious texts is like teaching a snake how to slither. I advocate gay marriage and my opinions are not based on religious texts..
Assuming you are talking about religious texts of established religions created for a specific purpose, the logic with in them are usually self perpetuating and unprovable / undisprovable, if religious assumptions are true then the logic system is valid, but with out concrete quantifiable proof it's impossible for other parties to observe, debate, or even understand your doctrines better with out accepting the arbituary basis assumptions of said religion. Unless I accept at face value that the Christian god is all mighty, all knowing, etc, and that Jesus is the son of God then everything about the religious belief system falls apart because nearly all of its logics, appeals to authority and credibility, etc are all based on these assumptions.
It also means that strictly speaking there should be no progress to be made in religious logic, no applications except the absolute, no evolution of ideas and concepts, because all of these assumptions are taken for granted as absolutely true. Has humanity's studies of Christianity developed further than it has in the past in the contexts of religious logics? Can humanity develop, improve, and overrule religious logic where it's no longer applicable? Can generations and millenias of developing Christian faith actually lend itself to any degree of growing closeness to God or understanding of God? Based on the fundamental assumptions all of the answers are no, because the assumptions are all absolute. Yet we see that in reality the religious bureacracy is always happy to make private amendments for the sake of popularity and revise their logic to suit their own singular purpose, where claims that these selfish and corrupt purposes reflect those of an unchanging God is ridiculous. A great example is the change of the roles of women in the Christian religious texts to reflect a larger role and the "canon"-ization of the role, sacredness and death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which was literally by popular demand and made as late as the 19th (Immaculate conception) and 20th century (The assumption of).
The problem of undisprovable theories based on self perpetuating assumptions is that they are ultimately singular and meaningless beyond its scope, religion gets around that by claiming that it emcompasses the entire scope of human life and the universe with out actually establishing any logical connection or proof other than the tacid assumptions. What you get is what you are stuck with, which is why religious reform always strikes to me as having your cake and eating it too. Where as quantifiable and proveable theories and logics which do not depend on self perpetuating assumptions are constantly updated and advanced with an evolving society. If scientists all assumed that the opinion of Newton was absolute then we wouldn't have modern physics despite Newton laying the grounds work for much of it since it wouldn't ever advance.
You don't at all need to prove that legitimacy of one theory over the other because doing so would draw in anecdotal evidences which is contrary to the actual problem: That one side favors absolutism based on self perpetuating assumptions, where as the other side evolves along with society. If your scope and judgement of "validity" is based on how accepted a value is or how concrete and unchanging a value is, then yea ofcourse religious texts are more "valid" since its impossible to disprove them if you make the assumption that their logic is correct. But if your scope and judgement of validity is on if methods of science, philosophy, individual thought etc can be applied and advance the theory or opinion then the latter is more valid.
Did you completely misunderstand what I wrote? My opinions are based on logic and reason. My opinions are not based on religious texts. Why are you lecturing me about religious beliefs?
On November 25 2012 11:09 mcc wrote: [quote] No I do not form opinions lightly. And since I see no point to devote time to incest relationships and this discussion does not require it, as it is non-related tangent that you introduced, I will not devote the time to think about it.
As for mistreatment of animals. What is your point ? I oppose also other forms of mistreatment of animals.
Bestiality is not a victimless crime as for incest I really do not care. Feeling uncomfortable is one thing, basing policy on such feelings is another.
So if you feel that bestiality, on a fundamental marriage-based level, isn't wrong (the issue is just the cruelty to animals), and you feel that incest isn't wrong, then we are in agreement, as per the second part of my first post.
But I'm assuming that part about incest. Again, I can't argue if you won't say your opinion, when your opinion is relevant (because my whole point is that we have to be consistent).
No, my opinion is that bestiality has no fundamental marriage-based level as marriage requires consent and animals cannot give it to you. I was talking about my opinion on bestiality as general practice. As pertaining to marriage it is like talking about flying penguins.
Your whole point is complete non-sequitur to the debate. I do not have to talk about human right violations in country A to be able to condemn them in country B. I do not have to talk about issue A to discuss issue B if they can be solved independently. And issues of homosexuality can easily be solved independently from issues of incest or bestiality. So stop acting like there is any need to bring them into the issue.
You are trying to define what marriage is, and argue that marriage"requires" certain fundamental aspects, while denying that other aspects of marriage (i.e. heterosexuality) can be considered fundamental. How did you come up with that?
My argument is about consistency, which by definition relates to multiple issues. I am arguing that it is inconsistent,and thus illogical, to consider some things marriage, while not other things. That is very related to Uganda, as it is arguing that it is illogical to feel that hetero and homosexual relationships are okay, while others are not, which is what I perceive to be the position of many in this thread.
I think you missed my post where I already answered this. I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes. I said nothing about homosexuality or heterosexuality, I think you are confusing me with someone else. Also after you read the post I was referring to I would like to stress that you have no point outside of playing semantic games.
I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes.
Do you not see the self-contradiction in that statement?
And in the post you are quoting now, I explained why it's not simply semantics, and how it relates to Uganda.
Nope, there is no contradiction. Only if you do not know what meaning is you would think so. As I said it seems you did not read a post where I addressed this. It is on this page, look it up.
Oh, my bad, skipped that. There's been a lot of posts...
"Of course there is objective morality", you say? Can I point you to this thread? 40 pages about people arguing about the topic, and the poll says it's subjective. Don't try to say that everyone agrees with you on this.
So now I argue that the "meaning" of marriage is heterosexual, while you argue that the "meaning" is consent. How can you defend the position that you're definitely correct?
I never said everyone agrees with me on that topic. All your responses to my posts are full of attributing to me positions I never defended. Could you stop misrepresenting my posts ? I said that most people (including most probably you) by their actions prove me correct. Their words how they do not believe in objective morality are irrelevant as long as they act like there actually is one. Plus since when matter of science are decided by polls
As for the meaning part, you again completely missed the point. Marriage has as part of its meaning consent. If you disagree, you do not speak English and I can easily ignore you. You can argue that marriage has as part of its meaning heterosexuality. And I would not disagree with you. I would state meaning of marriage is in state of flux right now on that topic. Somewhere in-between. But it is pretty clear the meaning will move in the future to include homosexual relationships. But there is no evidence of the meaning of marriage moving anywhere close to losing its consent component.
As for how I can defend my position. I do not need to defend my position. Meaning of the words is shared between all speakers of the language. And right now it has consent component. If you disagree, be my guest and once again show that you are just playing semantic games. Or do you expect that majority of English speakers in the world would disagree with me ?
lol, thought this thread had died.
It's not that "people disagree with you about objective morality, but that it's a fact". You say that of course there is objective morality. That's your opinion. You can believe in it as much as you want, and believe that it exists, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's your opinion, and no more. And because it's only an opinion, people are more likely to disagree with you (which they do). Your proof from how people act is meaningless. It's like claiming that since most of the world enjoys pizza, pizza is inherently and objectively delicious. There is a significant difference between something that's objective, and something that's subjective, but agreed upon. But I don't want to argue about objective morality. I'm arguing against the people in this thread that are comfortable with defining marriage as hetero and homosexual, and not just heterosexual (as in, not willing to listen to someone that just defines marriage as heterosexual), while they themselves wouldn't be willing (on principle) defining marriage as lacking consent.
Ah, the poll was just thrown in their for literary emphasis .
And it's very nice that you defined the Western definition of marriage, which is in flux. But the Ugandese (?) may define it as heterosexual. And since your definition has no more validity than theirs, because it's subjective, who's to say theirs is wrong?
My point about consent is that the definition of marriage could be whatever we want it to be. Agreed, it's not moving towards the loss of consent, but that doesn't mean that if it would, there'd be anything wrong with that. Thus, those that are willing to define marriage how they want to should be willing to accept the fact that others may define it differently. So if in a different state, they'd legalize and recognize bestiality as marriage, your reaction should be "Oh, guess they define marriage differently", not "Oh, that could never be marriage".
Yes, and in the same vein all scientific facts/theories are also opinions. Good to know. You fail to differentiate something that is agreed upon, because we decided so based on a whim and something agreed upon, because we are so biologically inclined and in fact never had a decision to make. The second one cannot change without our biology changing and is quite objective. Morality falls under the second kind. And that also goes for your pizza example to some degree. It shows that pizza is made in a way that we find (statistically) delicious, which is also biological and objective, in this sense, category. Of course much smaller percentage of people finds pizza delicious than the number of people that agree on core moral principles. Which is not surprising as there are other foods thus no point in evolution forcing us all into one box, whereas without the specific morality humans share, societies could not exist.
As for the rest, you again demonstrate that you do not understand what you read. You are talking about definitions being wrong after I repeatedly told you definitions are not wrong or right. They cannot be. Definitions are tautologies/naming conventions. So I never said Ugandan definition is wrong.
Your original point was trying to argue there is inconsistency between allowing homosexuality and not allowing incest/bestiality. People explained to you why there is no inconsistency. That is why you changed your argument to include the whole marriage discussion, even though it has no relevance to the topic, because it was the only way how you can salvage your refuted argument.
There are only three ways for you to argue your original point. 1) Try to argue that there is only one criteria to judge ethical scenarios. You attempted this first by claiming the supposed inconsistency. That inconsistency of course does not exist if you actually understand that ethical decisions are reached using multiple criteria and so just because two actions share one/few attributes (sex/love/..) they all do not have to fall into the same ethical category. And people pointed out that you are wrong as there is no issue with having multi-criteria to decide ethical considerations.
2) Claim that morality is relative. After that you moved to claim that morality is relative. So please do not lie that you do not want to argue about objective morality.
3) Move the topic from actual ethical calculus, to the murky waters of human language and its meanings. But since the cases of bestiality vs homosexuality was so clear for most people, you moved into this final argument, which is completely irrelevant to original topic. Of course you picked it because it is easier to create confusion and argue whatever nonsense by saying that definitions of the words are arbitrary and so on. It is complete derailing of the thread as your point can easily and clearly be formulated without the whole marriage thing as I have easily shown few paragraphs above. But of course without the marriage thing, you would have to confine yourself to ethical discussion and that does not allow so much bs. So you moved it to semantic games over word marriage.
This was the last thing I am going to write about your tangent on marriage. Either argue your original point, where your only option is to claim that morality is relative to extremely big extent. Or continue with your word games, but without me.
Whether pizza is tasty, or not, is completely subjective.
Just because the majority of humans find it tasty doesn't change that. We are human, and we like pizza. Guess what mcc? That's our subjective opinion as humans.
There are other living creatures within this universe that may find pizza disgusting.
That is why pizza is not objectively tasty. It's completely subjective.
That you have completely failed to understand this simplest of examples demonstrates further the extent of your ignorance.
You are completely wrong yet love to lecture other people are great length about why you are right when you have literally absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
You are trying to argue that claiming objective morality is a fact is comparable to a mathematical description of the orbit of the Earth?
For someone who regards their opinion and knowledge so highly to not immediately recognise how flawed that view is.... well I find that troubling to say the least.
I'm not going to waste my time destroying the rest of what you've written. Clearly discussing the finer points of this with you would be a fools errand.
You attempt and fail to find flaws in logic and reasoning where there are none and then state unprovable opinion as proven fact.
You are the worst combination of opinionated and ignorant I think I've ever come across.
Did you not read the entire second half of my post? I explained why an opinion based on evidence or logic is more or less valid depending on your definition of validity than one based on absolutism and self perpetuating assumptions. That was the point. I wasn't lecturing you on anything.
I could apply this logic to any other logical argument too, for example, if we were in an argument and I invoked "I'm much more intelligent and knowledgeable about this subject" and provided evidence or logic to back up that information with the previous logic, it's fundamentally different than if I invoke the same thing but with "I'm a messenger of God who you must assume to be maximally knowledgeable and good" or "The rules of this discussion were created by me thus I should dictate who is right", because you can't prove or disprove the latter and its self perpetuated.
On November 25 2012 15:40 Reason wrote: Explaining to me why opinions based on logic and reason are more valid than those based on religious texts is like teaching a snake how to slither. I advocate gay marriage and my opinions are not based on religious texts..
Assuming you are talking about religious texts of established religions created for a specific purpose, the logic with in them are usually self perpetuating and unprovable / undisprovable, if religious assumptions are true then the logic system is valid, but with out concrete quantifiable proof it's impossible for other parties to observe, debate, or even understand your doctrines better with out accepting the arbituary basis assumptions of said religion. Unless I accept at face value that the Christian god is all mighty, all knowing, etc, and that Jesus is the son of God then everything about the religious belief system falls apart because nearly all of its logics, appeals to authority and credibility, etc are all based on these assumptions.
It also means that strictly speaking there should be no progress to be made in religious logic, no applications except the absolute, no evolution of ideas and concepts, because all of these assumptions are taken for granted as absolutely true. Has humanity's studies of Christianity developed further than it has in the past in the contexts of religious logics? Can humanity develop, improve, and overrule religious logic where it's no longer applicable? Can generations and millenias of developing Christian faith actually lend itself to any degree of growing closeness to God or understanding of God? Based on the fundamental assumptions all of the answers are no, because the assumptions are all absolute. Yet we see that in reality the religious bureacracy is always happy to make private amendments for the sake of popularity and revise their logic to suit their own singular purpose, where claims that these selfish and corrupt purposes reflect those of an unchanging God is ridiculous. A great example is the change of the roles of women in the Christian religious texts to reflect a larger role and the "canon"-ization of the role, sacredness and death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which was literally by popular demand and made as late as the 19th (Immaculate conception) and 20th century (The assumption of).
The problem of undisprovable theories based on self perpetuating assumptions is that they are ultimately singular and meaningless beyond its scope, religion gets around that by claiming that it emcompasses the entire scope of human life and the universe with out actually establishing any logical connection or proof other than the tacid assumptions. What you get is what you are stuck with, which is why religious reform always strikes to me as having your cake and eating it too. Where as quantifiable and proveable theories and logics which do not depend on self perpetuating assumptions are constantly updated and advanced with an evolving society. If scientists all assumed that the opinion of Newton was absolute then we wouldn't have modern physics despite Newton laying the grounds work for much of it since it wouldn't ever advance.
You don't at all need to prove that legitimacy of one theory over the other because doing so would draw in anecdotal evidences which is contrary to the actual problem: That one side favors absolutism based on self perpetuating assumptions, where as the other side evolves along with society. If your scope and judgement of "validity" is based on how accepted a value is or how concrete and unchanging a value is, then yea ofcourse religious texts are more "valid" since its impossible to disprove them if you make the assumption that their logic is correct. But if your scope and judgement of validity is on if methods of science, philosophy, individual thought etc can be applied and advance the theory or opinion then the latter is more valid.
Did you completely misunderstand what I wrote? My opinions are based on logic and reason. My opinions are not based on religious texts. Why are you lecturing me about religious beliefs?
On November 25 2012 11:09 mcc wrote: [quote] No I do not form opinions lightly. And since I see no point to devote time to incest relationships and this discussion does not require it, as it is non-related tangent that you introduced, I will not devote the time to think about it.
As for mistreatment of animals. What is your point ? I oppose also other forms of mistreatment of animals.
Bestiality is not a victimless crime as for incest I really do not care. Feeling uncomfortable is one thing, basing policy on such feelings is another.
So if you feel that bestiality, on a fundamental marriage-based level, isn't wrong (the issue is just the cruelty to animals), and you feel that incest isn't wrong, then we are in agreement, as per the second part of my first post.
But I'm assuming that part about incest. Again, I can't argue if you won't say your opinion, when your opinion is relevant (because my whole point is that we have to be consistent).
No, my opinion is that bestiality has no fundamental marriage-based level as marriage requires consent and animals cannot give it to you. I was talking about my opinion on bestiality as general practice. As pertaining to marriage it is like talking about flying penguins.
Your whole point is complete non-sequitur to the debate. I do not have to talk about human right violations in country A to be able to condemn them in country B. I do not have to talk about issue A to discuss issue B if they can be solved independently. And issues of homosexuality can easily be solved independently from issues of incest or bestiality. So stop acting like there is any need to bring them into the issue.
You are trying to define what marriage is, and argue that marriage"requires" certain fundamental aspects, while denying that other aspects of marriage (i.e. heterosexuality) can be considered fundamental. How did you come up with that?
My argument is about consistency, which by definition relates to multiple issues. I am arguing that it is inconsistent,and thus illogical, to consider some things marriage, while not other things. That is very related to Uganda, as it is arguing that it is illogical to feel that hetero and homosexual relationships are okay, while others are not, which is what I perceive to be the position of many in this thread.
I think you missed my post where I already answered this. I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes. I said nothing about homosexuality or heterosexuality, I think you are confusing me with someone else. Also after you read the post I was referring to I would like to stress that you have no point outside of playing semantic games.
I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes.
Do you not see the self-contradiction in that statement?
And in the post you are quoting now, I explained why it's not simply semantics, and how it relates to Uganda.
Nope, there is no contradiction. Only if you do not know what meaning is you would think so. As I said it seems you did not read a post where I addressed this. It is on this page, look it up.
Oh, my bad, skipped that. There's been a lot of posts...
"Of course there is objective morality", you say? Can I point you to this thread? 40 pages about people arguing about the topic, and the poll says it's subjective. Don't try to say that everyone agrees with you on this.
So now I argue that the "meaning" of marriage is heterosexual, while you argue that the "meaning" is consent. How can you defend the position that you're definitely correct?
I never said everyone agrees with me on that topic. All your responses to my posts are full of attributing to me positions I never defended. Could you stop misrepresenting my posts ? I said that most people (including most probably you) by their actions prove me correct. Their words how they do not believe in objective morality are irrelevant as long as they act like there actually is one. Plus since when matter of science are decided by polls
As for the meaning part, you again completely missed the point. Marriage has as part of its meaning consent. If you disagree, you do not speak English and I can easily ignore you. You can argue that marriage has as part of its meaning heterosexuality. And I would not disagree with you. I would state meaning of marriage is in state of flux right now on that topic. Somewhere in-between. But it is pretty clear the meaning will move in the future to include homosexual relationships. But there is no evidence of the meaning of marriage moving anywhere close to losing its consent component.
As for how I can defend my position. I do not need to defend my position. Meaning of the words is shared between all speakers of the language. And right now it has consent component. If you disagree, be my guest and once again show that you are just playing semantic games. Or do you expect that majority of English speakers in the world would disagree with me ?
lol, thought this thread had died.
It's not that "people disagree with you about objective morality, but that it's a fact". You say that of course there is objective morality. That's your opinion. You can believe in it as much as you want, and believe that it exists, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's your opinion, and no more. And because it's only an opinion, people are more likely to disagree with you (which they do). Your proof from how people act is meaningless. It's like claiming that since most of the world enjoys pizza, pizza is inherently and objectively delicious. There is a significant difference between something that's objective, and something that's subjective, but agreed upon. But I don't want to argue about objective morality. I'm arguing against the people in this thread that are comfortable with defining marriage as hetero and homosexual, and not just heterosexual (as in, not willing to listen to someone that just defines marriage as heterosexual), while they themselves wouldn't be willing (on principle) defining marriage as lacking consent.
Ah, the poll was just thrown in their for literary emphasis .
And it's very nice that you defined the Western definition of marriage, which is in flux. But the Ugandese (?) may define it as heterosexual. And since your definition has no more validity than theirs, because it's subjective, who's to say theirs is wrong?
My point about consent is that the definition of marriage could be whatever we want it to be. Agreed, it's not moving towards the loss of consent, but that doesn't mean that if it would, there'd be anything wrong with that. Thus, those that are willing to define marriage how they want to should be willing to accept the fact that others may define it differently. So if in a different state, they'd legalize and recognize bestiality as marriage, your reaction should be "Oh, guess they define marriage differently", not "Oh, that could never be marriage".
Yes, and in the same vein all scientific facts/theories are also opinions. Good to know. You fail to differentiate something that is agreed upon, because we decided so based on a whim and something agreed upon, because we are so biologically inclined and in fact never had a decision to make. The second one cannot change without our biology changing and is quite objective. Morality falls under the second kind. And that also goes for your pizza example to some degree. It shows that pizza is made in a way that we find (statistically) delicious, which is also biological and objective, in this sense, category. Of course much smaller percentage of people finds pizza delicious than the number of people that agree on core moral principles. Which is not surprising as there are other foods thus no point in evolution forcing us all into one box, whereas without the specific morality humans share, societies could not exist.
As for the rest, you again demonstrate that you do not understand what you read. You are talking about definitions being wrong after I repeatedly told you definitions are not wrong or right. They cannot be. Definitions are tautologies/naming conventions. So I never said Ugandan definition is wrong.
Your original point was trying to argue there is inconsistency between allowing homosexuality and not allowing incest/bestiality. People explained to you why there is no inconsistency. That is why you changed your argument to include the whole marriage discussion, even though it has no relevance to the topic, because it was the only way how you can salvage your refuted argument.
There are only three ways for you to argue your original point. 1) Try to argue that there is only one criteria to judge ethical scenarios. You attempted this first by claiming the supposed inconsistency. That inconsistency of course does not exist if you actually understand that ethical decisions are reached using multiple criteria and so just because two actions share one/few attributes (sex/love/..) they all do not have to fall into the same ethical category. And people pointed out that you are wrong as there is no issue with having multi-criteria to decide ethical considerations.
2) Claim that morality is relative. After that you moved to claim that morality is relative. So please do not lie that you do not want to argue about objective morality.
3) Move the topic from actual ethical calculus, to the murky waters of human language and its meanings. But since the cases of bestiality vs homosexuality was so clear for most people, you moved into this final argument, which is completely irrelevant to original topic. Of course you picked it because it is easier to create confusion and argue whatever nonsense by saying that definitions of the words are arbitrary and so on. It is complete derailing of the thread as your point can easily and clearly be formulated without the whole marriage thing as I have easily shown few paragraphs above. But of course without the marriage thing, you would have to confine yourself to ethical discussion and that does not allow so much bs. So you moved it to semantic games over word marriage.
This was the last thing I am going to write about your tangent on marriage. Either argue your original point, where your only option is to claim that morality is relative to extremely big extent. Or continue with your word games, but without me.
Whether pizza is tasty, or not, is completely subjective.
Just because the majority of humans find it tasty doesn't change that. We are human, and we like pizza. Guess what mcc? That's our subjective opinion as humans.
There are other living creatures within this universe that may find pizza disgusting.
That is why pizza is not objectively tasty. It's completely subjective.
That you have completely failed to understand this simplest of examples demonstrates further the extent of your ignorance.
You are completely wrong yet love to lecture other people are great length about why you are right when you have literally absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
You are trying to argue that claiming objective morality is a fact is comparable to a mathematical description of the orbit of the Earth?
For someone who regards their opinion and knowledge so highly to not immediately recognise how flawed that view is.... well I find that troubling to say the least.
I'm not going to waste my time destroying the rest of what you've written. Clearly discussing the finer points of this with you would be a fools errand.
You attempt and fail to find flaws in logic and reasoning where there are none and then state unprovable opinion as proven fact.
You are the worst combination of opinionated and ignorant I think I've ever come across.
Did you not read the entire second half of my post? I explained why an opinion based on evidence or logic is more or less valid depending on your definition of validity than one based on absolutism and self perpetuating assumptions. That was the point. I wasn't lecturing you on anything.
I could apply this logic to any other logical argument too, for example, if we were in an argument and I invoked "I'm much more intelligent and knowledgeable about this subject" and provided evidence or logic to back up that information with the previous logic, it's fundamentally different than if I invoke the same thing but with "I'm a messenger of God who you must assume to be maximally knowledgeable and good" or "The rules of this discussion were created by me thus I should dictate who is right", because you can't prove or disprove the latter and its self perpetuated.
Fantastic, I hoped that's what you might be getting at, otherwise I would be confused beyond belief.
Since you obviously haven't been paying attention, allow me to refer you to my previous posts...
On November 25 2012 14:22 Reason wrote: Incest isn't limited to parent/child relationships, nor does the fact that consent is difficult to ensure change whether consenting incestous relationships are morally right or wrong.
Nobody is suggesting gay marriage should be prohibited nor that homosexuals are incapable of consent.
On November 25 2012 10:33 soon.Cloak wrote: Well, you're not going to like this (at all), but I'm religious. I follow the bible. The bible says gay marriage isn't a marriage. My definition is based off of god, not off a subjective (human) moral standard.
So if you want, we can have a completely separate argument (in a different thread, I suppose) about the legitimacy of religion. But if you don't believe in an objective definition of marriage based off of god, you are saying your morals are subjective, and that anyone else's view is as legitimate as yours.
So that's how I defend my viewpoint. But you still haven't said how you defend yours.
Sorry, but I don't think we should accept this as a valid position to have. The bible is hugely inconsistent on nearly all it talks about. For example Leviticus 18, 20 and Deuteronomy are completely off with each other on the subject of incest. Thus, in light of the inconsistency, it's not god's literal word you're quoting, you're nitpicking which parts of the bible suit your opinions.
You've missed the point completely.
The only argument against gay marriage is religious. He is quoting this argument. "I believe this because God told me so"
What is your argument? "I believe this because I believe this"
That's the point. Is your position more valid than his?
On November 25 2012 14:22 Reason wrote: Incest isn't limited to parent/child relationships, nor does the fact that consent is difficult to ensure change whether consenting incestous relationships are morally right or wrong.
Nobody is suggesting gay marriage should be prohibited nor that homosexuals are incapable of consent.
On November 25 2012 14:18 Shival wrote:
On November 25 2012 10:33 soon.Cloak wrote: Well, you're not going to like this (at all), but I'm religious. I follow the bible. The bible says gay marriage isn't a marriage. My definition is based off of god, not off a subjective (human) moral standard.
So if you want, we can have a completely separate argument (in a different thread, I suppose) about the legitimacy of religion. But if you don't believe in an objective definition of marriage based off of god, you are saying your morals are subjective, and that anyone else's view is as legitimate as yours.
So that's how I defend my viewpoint. But you still haven't said how you defend yours.
Sorry, but I don't think we should accept this as a valid position to have. The bible is hugely inconsistent on nearly all it talks about. For example Leviticus 18, 20 and Deuteronomy are completely off with each other on the subject of incest. Thus, in light of the inconsistency, it's not god's literal word you're quoting, you're nitpicking which parts of the bible suit your opinions.
You've missed the point completely.
The only argument against gay marriage is religious. He is quoting this argument. "I believe this because God told me so"
What is your argument? "I believe this because I believe this"
That's the point. Is your position more valid than his?
Yes, my opinion is a reasoned, ethical and philosophical stance. His is only based on what he feels god's position is on parts he read in the bible. How is that the same and as valid?
His position is based on the word of God. Your position is only based on your own personal opinions. How is that the same and as valid?
Neither of your positions is stronger than the other, no matter how either of you attempt to prove otherwise. It's completely subjective and down to perspective.
On November 25 2012 15:40 Reason wrote: Explaining to me why opinions based on logic and reason are more valid than those based on religious texts is like teaching a snake how to slither. I advocate gay marriage and my opinions are not based on religious texts..
Assuming you are talking about religious texts of established religions created for a specific purpose, the logic with in them are usually self perpetuating and unprovable / undisprovable, if religious assumptions are true then the logic system is valid, but with out concrete quantifiable proof it's impossible for other parties to observe, debate, or even understand your doctrines better with out accepting the arbituary basis assumptions of said religion. Unless I accept at face value that the Christian god is all mighty, all knowing, etc, and that Jesus is the son of God then everything about the religious belief system falls apart because nearly all of its logics, appeals to authority and credibility, etc are all based on these assumptions.
It also means that strictly speaking there should be no progress to be made in religious logic, no applications except the absolute, no evolution of ideas and concepts, because all of these assumptions are taken for granted as absolutely true. Has humanity's studies of Christianity developed further than it has in the past in the contexts of religious logics? Can humanity develop, improve, and overrule religious logic where it's no longer applicable? Can generations and millenias of developing Christian faith actually lend itself to any degree of growing closeness to God or understanding of God? Based on the fundamental assumptions all of the answers are no, because the assumptions are all absolute. Yet we see that in reality the religious bureacracy is always happy to make private amendments for the sake of popularity and revise their logic to suit their own singular purpose, where claims that these selfish and corrupt purposes reflect those of an unchanging God is ridiculous. A great example is the change of the roles of women in the Christian religious texts to reflect a larger role and the "canon"-ization of the role, sacredness and death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which was literally by popular demand and made as late as the 19th (Immaculate conception) and 20th century (The assumption of).
The problem of undisprovable theories based on self perpetuating assumptions is that they are ultimately singular and meaningless beyond its scope, religion gets around that by claiming that it emcompasses the entire scope of human life and the universe with out actually establishing any logical connection or proof other than the tacid assumptions. What you get is what you are stuck with, which is why religious reform always strikes to me as having your cake and eating it too. Where as quantifiable and proveable theories and logics which do not depend on self perpetuating assumptions are constantly updated and advanced with an evolving society. If scientists all assumed that the opinion of Newton was absolute then we wouldn't have modern physics despite Newton laying the grounds work for much of it since it wouldn't ever advance.
You don't at all need to prove that legitimacy of one theory over the other because doing so would draw in anecdotal evidences which is contrary to the actual problem: That one side favors absolutism based on self perpetuating assumptions, where as the other side evolves along with society. If your scope and judgement of "validity" is based on how accepted a value is or how concrete and unchanging a value is, then yea ofcourse religious texts are more "valid" since its impossible to disprove them if you make the assumption that their logic is correct. But if your scope and judgement of validity is on if methods of science, philosophy, individual thought etc can be applied and advance the theory or opinion then the latter is more valid.
Did you completely misunderstand what I wrote? My opinions are based on logic and reason. My opinions are not based on religious texts. Why are you lecturing me about religious beliefs?
On November 25 2012 11:09 mcc wrote: [quote] No I do not form opinions lightly. And since I see no point to devote time to incest relationships and this discussion does not require it, as it is non-related tangent that you introduced, I will not devote the time to think about it.
As for mistreatment of animals. What is your point ? I oppose also other forms of mistreatment of animals.
Bestiality is not a victimless crime as for incest I really do not care. Feeling uncomfortable is one thing, basing policy on such feelings is another.
So if you feel that bestiality, on a fundamental marriage-based level, isn't wrong (the issue is just the cruelty to animals), and you feel that incest isn't wrong, then we are in agreement, as per the second part of my first post.
But I'm assuming that part about incest. Again, I can't argue if you won't say your opinion, when your opinion is relevant (because my whole point is that we have to be consistent).
No, my opinion is that bestiality has no fundamental marriage-based level as marriage requires consent and animals cannot give it to you. I was talking about my opinion on bestiality as general practice. As pertaining to marriage it is like talking about flying penguins.
Your whole point is complete non-sequitur to the debate. I do not have to talk about human right violations in country A to be able to condemn them in country B. I do not have to talk about issue A to discuss issue B if they can be solved independently. And issues of homosexuality can easily be solved independently from issues of incest or bestiality. So stop acting like there is any need to bring them into the issue.
You are trying to define what marriage is, and argue that marriage"requires" certain fundamental aspects, while denying that other aspects of marriage (i.e. heterosexuality) can be considered fundamental. How did you come up with that?
My argument is about consistency, which by definition relates to multiple issues. I am arguing that it is inconsistent,and thus illogical, to consider some things marriage, while not other things. That is very related to Uganda, as it is arguing that it is illogical to feel that hetero and homosexual relationships are okay, while others are not, which is what I perceive to be the position of many in this thread.
I think you missed my post where I already answered this. I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes. I said nothing about homosexuality or heterosexuality, I think you are confusing me with someone else. Also after you read the post I was referring to I would like to stress that you have no point outside of playing semantic games.
I am not trying to define anything. Marriage has some meaning and consent is one of its attributes.
Do you not see the self-contradiction in that statement?
And in the post you are quoting now, I explained why it's not simply semantics, and how it relates to Uganda.
Nope, there is no contradiction. Only if you do not know what meaning is you would think so. As I said it seems you did not read a post where I addressed this. It is on this page, look it up.
Oh, my bad, skipped that. There's been a lot of posts...
"Of course there is objective morality", you say? Can I point you to this thread? 40 pages about people arguing about the topic, and the poll says it's subjective. Don't try to say that everyone agrees with you on this.
So now I argue that the "meaning" of marriage is heterosexual, while you argue that the "meaning" is consent. How can you defend the position that you're definitely correct?
I never said everyone agrees with me on that topic. All your responses to my posts are full of attributing to me positions I never defended. Could you stop misrepresenting my posts ? I said that most people (including most probably you) by their actions prove me correct. Their words how they do not believe in objective morality are irrelevant as long as they act like there actually is one. Plus since when matter of science are decided by polls
As for the meaning part, you again completely missed the point. Marriage has as part of its meaning consent. If you disagree, you do not speak English and I can easily ignore you. You can argue that marriage has as part of its meaning heterosexuality. And I would not disagree with you. I would state meaning of marriage is in state of flux right now on that topic. Somewhere in-between. But it is pretty clear the meaning will move in the future to include homosexual relationships. But there is no evidence of the meaning of marriage moving anywhere close to losing its consent component.
As for how I can defend my position. I do not need to defend my position. Meaning of the words is shared between all speakers of the language. And right now it has consent component. If you disagree, be my guest and once again show that you are just playing semantic games. Or do you expect that majority of English speakers in the world would disagree with me ?
lol, thought this thread had died.
It's not that "people disagree with you about objective morality, but that it's a fact". You say that of course there is objective morality. That's your opinion. You can believe in it as much as you want, and believe that it exists, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's your opinion, and no more. And because it's only an opinion, people are more likely to disagree with you (which they do). Your proof from how people act is meaningless. It's like claiming that since most of the world enjoys pizza, pizza is inherently and objectively delicious. There is a significant difference between something that's objective, and something that's subjective, but agreed upon. But I don't want to argue about objective morality. I'm arguing against the people in this thread that are comfortable with defining marriage as hetero and homosexual, and not just heterosexual (as in, not willing to listen to someone that just defines marriage as heterosexual), while they themselves wouldn't be willing (on principle) defining marriage as lacking consent.
Ah, the poll was just thrown in their for literary emphasis .
And it's very nice that you defined the Western definition of marriage, which is in flux. But the Ugandese (?) may define it as heterosexual. And since your definition has no more validity than theirs, because it's subjective, who's to say theirs is wrong?
My point about consent is that the definition of marriage could be whatever we want it to be. Agreed, it's not moving towards the loss of consent, but that doesn't mean that if it would, there'd be anything wrong with that. Thus, those that are willing to define marriage how they want to should be willing to accept the fact that others may define it differently. So if in a different state, they'd legalize and recognize bestiality as marriage, your reaction should be "Oh, guess they define marriage differently", not "Oh, that could never be marriage".
Yes, and in the same vein all scientific facts/theories are also opinions. Good to know. You fail to differentiate something that is agreed upon, because we decided so based on a whim and something agreed upon, because we are so biologically inclined and in fact never had a decision to make. The second one cannot change without our biology changing and is quite objective. Morality falls under the second kind. And that also goes for your pizza example to some degree. It shows that pizza is made in a way that we find (statistically) delicious, which is also biological and objective, in this sense, category. Of course much smaller percentage of people finds pizza delicious than the number of people that agree on core moral principles. Which is not surprising as there are other foods thus no point in evolution forcing us all into one box, whereas without the specific morality humans share, societies could not exist.
As for the rest, you again demonstrate that you do not understand what you read. You are talking about definitions being wrong after I repeatedly told you definitions are not wrong or right. They cannot be. Definitions are tautologies/naming conventions. So I never said Ugandan definition is wrong.
Your original point was trying to argue there is inconsistency between allowing homosexuality and not allowing incest/bestiality. People explained to you why there is no inconsistency. That is why you changed your argument to include the whole marriage discussion, even though it has no relevance to the topic, because it was the only way how you can salvage your refuted argument.
There are only three ways for you to argue your original point. 1) Try to argue that there is only one criteria to judge ethical scenarios. You attempted this first by claiming the supposed inconsistency. That inconsistency of course does not exist if you actually understand that ethical decisions are reached using multiple criteria and so just because two actions share one/few attributes (sex/love/..) they all do not have to fall into the same ethical category. And people pointed out that you are wrong as there is no issue with having multi-criteria to decide ethical considerations.
2) Claim that morality is relative. After that you moved to claim that morality is relative. So please do not lie that you do not want to argue about objective morality.
3) Move the topic from actual ethical calculus, to the murky waters of human language and its meanings. But since the cases of bestiality vs homosexuality was so clear for most people, you moved into this final argument, which is completely irrelevant to original topic. Of course you picked it because it is easier to create confusion and argue whatever nonsense by saying that definitions of the words are arbitrary and so on. It is complete derailing of the thread as your point can easily and clearly be formulated without the whole marriage thing as I have easily shown few paragraphs above. But of course without the marriage thing, you would have to confine yourself to ethical discussion and that does not allow so much bs. So you moved it to semantic games over word marriage.
This was the last thing I am going to write about your tangent on marriage. Either argue your original point, where your only option is to claim that morality is relative to extremely big extent. Or continue with your word games, but without me.
Whether pizza is tasty, or not, is completely subjective.
Just because the majority of humans find it tasty doesn't change that. We are human, and we like pizza. Guess what mcc? That's our subjective opinion as humans.
There are other living creatures within this universe that may find pizza disgusting.
That is why pizza is not objectively tasty. It's completely subjective.
That you have completely failed to understand this simplest of examples demonstrates further the extent of your ignorance.
You are completely wrong yet love to lecture other people are great length about why you are right when you have literally absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
You are trying to argue that claiming objective morality is a fact is comparable to a mathematical description of the orbit of the Earth?
For someone who regards their opinion and knowledge so highly to not immediately recognise how flawed that view is.... well I find that troubling to say the least.
I'm not going to waste my time destroying the rest of what you've written. Clearly discussing the finer points of this with you would be a fools errand.
You attempt and fail to find flaws in logic and reasoning where there are none and then state unprovable opinion as proven fact.
You are the worst combination of opinionated and ignorant I think I've ever come across.
Did you not read the entire second half of my post? I explained why an opinion based on evidence or logic is more or less valid depending on your definition of validity than one based on absolutism and self perpetuating assumptions. That was the point. I wasn't lecturing you on anything.
I could apply this logic to any other logical argument too, for example, if we were in an argument and I invoked "I'm much more intelligent and knowledgeable about this subject" and provided evidence or logic to back up that information with the previous logic, it's fundamentally different than if I invoke the same thing but with "I'm a messenger of God who you must assume to be maximally knowledgeable and good" or "The rules of this discussion were created by me thus I should dictate who is right", because you can't prove or disprove the latter and its self perpetuated.
Fantastic, I thought that's what you might be getting at. Otherwise I would be confused beyond belief.
Since you obviously haven't been paying attention, allow me to refer you to my previous posts... [edit pending]
On November 25 2012 14:22 Reason wrote: Incest isn't limited to parent/child relationships, nor does the fact that consent is difficult to ensure change whether consenting incestous relationships are morally right or wrong.
Nobody is suggesting gay marriage should be prohibited nor that homosexuals are incapable of consent.
On November 25 2012 14:18 Shival wrote:
On November 25 2012 10:33 soon.Cloak wrote: Well, you're not going to like this (at all), but I'm religious. I follow the bible. The bible says gay marriage isn't a marriage. My definition is based off of god, not off a subjective (human) moral standard.
So if you want, we can have a completely separate argument (in a different thread, I suppose) about the legitimacy of religion. But if you don't believe in an objective definition of marriage based off of god, you are saying your morals are subjective, and that anyone else's view is as legitimate as yours.
So that's how I defend my viewpoint. But you still haven't said how you defend yours.
Sorry, but I don't think we should accept this as a valid position to have. The bible is hugely inconsistent on nearly all it talks about. For example Leviticus 18, 20 and Deuteronomy are completely off with each other on the subject of incest. Thus, in light of the inconsistency, it's not god's literal word you're quoting, you're nitpicking which parts of the bible suit your opinions.
You've missed the point completely.
The only argument against gay marriage is religious. He is quoting this argument. "I believe this because God told me so"
What is your argument? "I believe this because I believe this"
That's the point. Is your position more valid than his?
You reduced the other person's argument to "I believe this because I believe this". Where originally the argument usually contains appeals to other logic constructs such as human rights, genetic causality for homosexuality, natural occurrence of homosexuality, legality and social constructs around homosexuality, etc. Some of which are quantifiable and qualifiable arguments and proofs.
Where as the God appeal is based on the self perpetuated assumption that God is right because God is all powerful.
Didn't I already say this? A personal opinion could be either based on evidence and logic or a self perpetuating assumption, or both. You argument isn't even relevant as it assumes that somehow there isn't any difference between the two, which I implicitly argued against.
"The problem of undisprovable theories based on self perpetuating assumptions is that they are ultimately singular and meaningless beyond its scope, religion gets around that by claiming that it emcompasses the entire scope of human life and the universe with out actually establishing any logical connection or proof other than the tacid assumptions. What you get is what you are stuck with, which is why religious reform always strikes to me as having your cake and eating it too. Where as quantifiable and proveable theories and logics which do not depend on self perpetuating assumptions are constantly updated and advanced with an evolving society. If scientists all assumed that the opinion of Newton was absolute then we wouldn't have modern physics despite Newton laying the grounds work for much of it since it wouldn't ever advance.
You don't at all need to prove that legitimacy of one theory over the other because doing so would draw in anecdotal evidences which is contrary to the actual problem: That one side favors absolutism based on self perpetuating assumptions, where as the other side evolves along with society. If your scope and judgement of "validity" is based on how accepted a value is or how concrete and unchanging a value is, then yea ofcourse religious texts are more "valid" since its impossible to disprove them if you make the assumption that their logic is correct. But if your scope and judgement of validity is on if methods of science, philosophy, individual thought etc can be applied and advance the theory or opinion then the latter is more valid. "
If I make the self perpetuating assumption that "I'm always right" when I'm arguing with you, then I don't need to present any evidence or logic but merely invoke "I'm right because of previous assumption: I'm always right.". Are you arguing that an opinion based on this carries the same weight as an opinion based on factual evidence and other logic constructs? Because that's bloody stupid.
On November 28 2012 12:28 Sermokala wrote: There has to be something said about the people who Christ most had problems with and ended up killing him were people who took religion took seriously. The same people who would believe the letter and not the spirit of the bible. The same people who instead of following in Christs footsteps of tolerance and love would rather follow the path of hate and intolerance.
The catholic church has and continues to embody the very things that Christ fought against when he was on earth. Such a shame that they manage to undermine all the good that other Christians try to do every day across the globe so much.
On November 29 2012 05:33 Smat wrote: I feel like you should leave lame semantic arguements for topics that don't actually effect other people. No one really really cares that you can weasel your way out of taking any moral position, you have to take one at the ballot box eventually. And that decision can and will be judged, unless you can provide adequate reasoning besides "morality is subjective, mine just happens to come from an old book."
You are rebutting my argument by telling me why my opinion is illogical. That's completely irrelevant. We can discuss my opinion after we discuss my argument against the thread's opinion. Try to defend that one first.
On November 23 2012 21:14 EtherealBlade wrote: So if there's strong support for it throughout the country what's your deal with it? Let them make their own laws, they aren't a colony. There are other moral standards than Western.
I don't care one bit for the sovereignty of nations when violating the rights of the individual.
An atrocity here is an atrocity there. No invisible line on a map will change that.
there's quite a difference between anti-gay laws and anti-gay-behaviour laws. most laws fall under the latter, i.e. to discourage open homosexuality, because it is simply not practical to enforce the former.
while i don't support sending gays to jail, i'm actually in favour of discouraging gay pride and all that nonsense. some cultures find it offensive, i find it offensive, and let other countries make their own laws.
You're not finishing your thought.
Explain how you finding something offensive gives you the right to dictate that it must be banned.
"I find it offensive" so what? A dozen things offend me on a daily basis, but why is it you that instantly screams for censorship?
It's up to each society to determine what's offensive and what should be law. These 'rights' that you speak of are relative to the society that you find yourself in. They are not absolute. I bet you can't walk around naked in the streets of your home country. That's just as much of a 'rights violation' in the sense that you are not simply free to behave however you please in public.
Exactly. If they dont like it, they can emigrate to a country where someone accepts their behavior. Thats what a social group is. Think of this forum. If the admins dont like someone that can force them to emigrate, especially if said person is in favor of a view that isnt popular.
There are no white pride parades that are "peaceful and empowering", because if anyone started one, it would start a hate war directed at the people marching.
There are no "hetero pride" parades, because if there were, it would be offensive to gays, since it implies that people are proud to be hetero, which makes gays feel bad. But noone thinks of this in the reverse terms.
White and heteros cant have parades because it is seen as inciting bigotry and hatred, and thus draws bigotry and hatred towards those two groups. They cannot speak in public about what they want and dont want, because they get ostracized for it. It is therefore not equal. Either all of us can march for our ethnic and sexual proclivities, or noone should be able to do it while others are hated or shut down for it.
People in the country they OWN get to decide how they run it. What if China decided the U.S. was a bunch of amoral and deviant pigs, so they invaded to "save you" from yourselves?
edit: to the people talking about how god decrees are essentially "I believe this, because I believe this", people who call it moral and human rights to "believe" people should be treated to their own standard are doing the same thing; believing it because they believe it. Not some empirical and universal law or reality.
It's as if it's Immoral to have a set of Morals these days.
On November 23 2012 21:14 EtherealBlade wrote: So if there's strong support for it throughout the country what's your deal with it? Let them make their own laws, they aren't a colony. There are other moral standards than Western.
I don't care one bit for the sovereignty of nations when violating the rights of the individual.
An atrocity here is an atrocity there. No invisible line on a map will change that.
there's quite a difference between anti-gay laws and anti-gay-behaviour laws. most laws fall under the latter, i.e. to discourage open homosexuality, because it is simply not practical to enforce the former.
while i don't support sending gays to jail, i'm actually in favour of discouraging gay pride and all that nonsense. some cultures find it offensive, i find it offensive, and let other countries make their own laws.
You're not finishing your thought.
Explain how you finding something offensive gives you the right to dictate that it must be banned.
"I find it offensive" so what? A dozen things offend me on a daily basis, but why is it you that instantly screams for censorship?
It's up to each society to determine what's offensive and what should be law. These 'rights' that you speak of are relative to the society that you find yourself in. They are not absolute. I bet you can't walk around naked in the streets of your home country. That's just as much of a 'rights violation' in the sense that you are not simply free to behave however you please in public.
Exactly. If they dont like it, they can emigrate to a country where someone accepts their behavior. Thats what a social group is. Think of this forum. If the admins dont like someone that can force them to emigrate, especially if said person is in favor of a view that isnt popular.
There are no white pride parades that are "peaceful and empowering", because if anyone started one, it would start a hate war directed at the people marching.
There are no "hetero pride" parades, because if there were, it would be offensive to gays, since it implies that people are proud to be hetero, which makes gays feel bad. But noone thinks of this in the reverse terms.
White and heteros cant have parades because it is seen as inciting bigotry and hatred, and thus draws bigotry and hatred towards those two groups. They cannot speak in public about what they want and dont want, because they get ostracized for it. It is therefore not equal. Either all of us can march for our ethnic and sexual proclivities, or noone should be able to do it while others are hated or shut down for it.
People in the country they OWN get to decide how they run it. What if China decided the U.S. was a bunch of amoral and deviant pigs, so they invaded to "save you" from yourselves?
edit: to the people talking about how god decrees are essentially "I believe this, because I believe this", people who call it moral and human rights to "believe" people should be treated to their own standard are doing the same thing; believing it because they believe it. Not some empirical and universal law or reality.
It's as if it's Immoral to have a set of Morals these days.
On November 23 2012 21:14 EtherealBlade wrote: So if there's strong support for it throughout the country what's your deal with it? Let them make their own laws, they aren't a colony. There are other moral standards than Western.
I don't care one bit for the sovereignty of nations when violating the rights of the individual.
An atrocity here is an atrocity there. No invisible line on a map will change that.
there's quite a difference between anti-gay laws and anti-gay-behaviour laws. most laws fall under the latter, i.e. to discourage open homosexuality, because it is simply not practical to enforce the former.
while i don't support sending gays to jail, i'm actually in favour of discouraging gay pride and all that nonsense. some cultures find it offensive, i find it offensive, and let other countries make their own laws.
You're not finishing your thought.
Explain how you finding something offensive gives you the right to dictate that it must be banned.
"I find it offensive" so what? A dozen things offend me on a daily basis, but why is it you that instantly screams for censorship?
It's up to each society to determine what's offensive and what should be law. These 'rights' that you speak of are relative to the society that you find yourself in. They are not absolute. I bet you can't walk around naked in the streets of your home country. That's just as much of a 'rights violation' in the sense that you are not simply free to behave however you please in public.
Exactly. If they dont like it, they can emigrate to a country where someone accepts their behavior. Thats what a social group is. Think of this forum. If the admins dont like someone that can force them to emigrate, especially if said person is in favor of a view that isnt popular.
There are no white pride parades that are "peaceful and empowering", because if anyone started one, it would start a hate war directed at the people marching.
There are no "hetero pride" parades, because if there were, it would be offensive to gays, since it implies that people are proud to be hetero, which makes gays feel bad. But noone thinks of this in the reverse terms.
White and heteros cant have parades because it is seen as inciting bigotry and hatred, and thus draws bigotry and hatred towards those two groups. They cannot speak in public about what they want and dont want, because they get ostracized for it. It is therefore not equal. Either all of us can march for our ethnic and sexual proclivities, or noone should be able to do it while others are hated or shut down for it.
People in the country they OWN get to decide how they run it. What if China decided the U.S. was a bunch of amoral and deviant pigs, so they invaded to "save you" from yourselves?
edit: to the people talking about how god decrees are essentially "I believe this, because I believe this", people who call it moral and human rights to "believe" people should be treated to their own standard are doing the same thing; believing it because they believe it. Not some empirical and universal law or reality.
It's as if it's Immoral to have a set of Morals these days.
ha. Gay prides make you "feel bad"? Any heteros that "feel bad" because of gay pride parades should get a life.
On November 23 2012 21:14 EtherealBlade wrote: So if there's strong support for it throughout the country what's your deal with it? Let them make their own laws, they aren't a colony. There are other moral standards than Western.
I don't care one bit for the sovereignty of nations when violating the rights of the individual.
An atrocity here is an atrocity there. No invisible line on a map will change that.
there's quite a difference between anti-gay laws and anti-gay-behaviour laws. most laws fall under the latter, i.e. to discourage open homosexuality, because it is simply not practical to enforce the former.
while i don't support sending gays to jail, i'm actually in favour of discouraging gay pride and all that nonsense. some cultures find it offensive, i find it offensive, and let other countries make their own laws.
You're not finishing your thought.
Explain how you finding something offensive gives you the right to dictate that it must be banned.
"I find it offensive" so what? A dozen things offend me on a daily basis, but why is it you that instantly screams for censorship?
It's up to each society to determine what's offensive and what should be law. These 'rights' that you speak of are relative to the society that you find yourself in. They are not absolute. I bet you can't walk around naked in the streets of your home country. That's just as much of a 'rights violation' in the sense that you are not simply free to behave however you please in public.
Exactly. If they dont like it, they can emigrate to a country where someone accepts their behavior. Thats what a social group is. Think of this forum. If the admins dont like someone that can force them to emigrate, especially if said person is in favor of a view that isnt popular.
There are no white pride parades that are "peaceful and empowering", because if anyone started one, it would start a hate war directed at the people marching.
There are no "hetero pride" parades, because if there were, it would be offensive to gays, since it implies that people are proud to be hetero, which makes gays feel bad. But noone thinks of this in the reverse terms.
White and heteros cant have parades because it is seen as inciting bigotry and hatred, and thus draws bigotry and hatred towards those two groups. They cannot speak in public about what they want and dont want, because they get ostracized for it. It is therefore not equal. Either all of us can march for our ethnic and sexual proclivities, or noone should be able to do it while others are hated or shut down for it.
People in the country they OWN get to decide how they run it. What if China decided the U.S. was a bunch of amoral and deviant pigs, so they invaded to "save you" from yourselves?
edit: to the people talking about how god decrees are essentially "I believe this, because I believe this", people who call it moral and human rights to "believe" people should be treated to their own standard are doing the same thing; believing it because they believe it. Not some empirical and universal law or reality.
It's as if it's Immoral to have a set of Morals these days.
ha. Gay prides make you "feel bad"? Any heteros that "feel bad" because of gay pride parades should get a life.
Seriously, in a world where homosexuals are forced to assimilate to a completely heterosexual society no straight person should EVER feel threatened by simply being reminded that gay people exist.
On November 23 2012 21:14 EtherealBlade wrote: So if there's strong support for it throughout the country what's your deal with it? Let them make their own laws, they aren't a colony. There are other moral standards than Western.
I don't care one bit for the sovereignty of nations when violating the rights of the individual.
An atrocity here is an atrocity there. No invisible line on a map will change that.
there's quite a difference between anti-gay laws and anti-gay-behaviour laws. most laws fall under the latter, i.e. to discourage open homosexuality, because it is simply not practical to enforce the former.
while i don't support sending gays to jail, i'm actually in favour of discouraging gay pride and all that nonsense. some cultures find it offensive, i find it offensive, and let other countries make their own laws.
You're not finishing your thought.
Explain how you finding something offensive gives you the right to dictate that it must be banned.
"I find it offensive" so what? A dozen things offend me on a daily basis, but why is it you that instantly screams for censorship?
It's up to each society to determine what's offensive and what should be law. These 'rights' that you speak of are relative to the society that you find yourself in. They are not absolute. I bet you can't walk around naked in the streets of your home country. That's just as much of a 'rights violation' in the sense that you are not simply free to behave however you please in public.
Exactly. If they dont like it, they can emigrate to a country where someone accepts their behavior. Thats what a social group is. Think of this forum. If the admins dont like someone that can force them to emigrate, especially if said person is in favor of a view that isnt popular.
There are no white pride parades that are "peaceful and empowering", because if anyone started one, it would start a hate war directed at the people marching.
There are no "hetero pride" parades, because if there were, it would be offensive to gays, since it implies that people are proud to be hetero, which makes gays feel bad. But noone thinks of this in the reverse terms.
White and heteros cant have parades because it is seen as inciting bigotry and hatred, and thus draws bigotry and hatred towards those two groups. They cannot speak in public about what they want and dont want, because they get ostracized for it. It is therefore not equal. Either all of us can march for our ethnic and sexual proclivities, or noone should be able to do it while others are hated or shut down for it.
People in the country they OWN get to decide how they run it. What if China decided the U.S. was a bunch of amoral and deviant pigs, so they invaded to "save you" from yourselves?
edit: to the people talking about how god decrees are essentially "I believe this, because I believe this", people who call it moral and human rights to "believe" people should be treated to their own standard are doing the same thing; believing it because they believe it. Not some empirical and universal law or reality.
It's as if it's Immoral to have a set of Morals these days.
ha. Gay prides make you "feel bad"? Any heteros that "feel bad" because of gay pride parades should get a life.
Seriously, in a world where homosexuals are forced to assimilate to a completely heterosexual society no straight person should EVER feel threatened by simply being reminded that gay people exist.
I told a pre-op transgender that I wasn't into them because I would like a woman who's born a woman, and they called me a homophobe for stating my preference.
The message is clear: Think like us, or be condemned.
You know how shameful it is to be male these days? I'll tell you. Men who look upset in college are considered "creepy". Women who look upset are just considered upset. I got this from the mouth of my own female friends.
He has procured a prostitute. He characterizes prostitution as a “legitimate” “job” “choice” or defends men who purchase prostitutes. He has ever revealed he conceives of sex as fundamentally transactional. He has gone to a strip club. He is anti-abortion. He is pro-”choice” because he believes abortion access will make women more sexually available. He frames discussions of pornography in terms of “freedom of speech.” He watches pornography in which women are depicted.
its okay if men are depicted in porn, because they're not real people like women are.
If women behaved towards men as men do towards women, we would be hunting you down and killing you, torturing you while we said we loved you, raping you and calling it intimacy. None of you have addressed any of that – it’s all froth-mouthed insults, and people saying that my little post on the internet is “just as bad” as pimps or snuff films and is “the real reason” why men simply can’t be bothered to stop buying little girls in Thailand.
Here’s the difference between me and you boys: I don’t think any of the cruel or terrible shit which men engage in or defend is innate or biologically driven. I think you were taught to treat us in this way since you were kneehigh to a grasshopper, and that those behaviors and attitudes have been reinforced and encouraged daily, and the ruts worn so thick in your brains that you think it’s how you “really are.” I think that you’re in a society in which this stuff is treated as so normal that you have difficulty envisioning things any differently, and when you do get a glimpse of an alternate way of life it’s just easier to forget it and go back to watching yet another pretty dead woman’s corpse on CSI.
Sharon Osborne laughed at the guy who got his penis cut off. Female genital mutilation out of anger draws hatred and massive condemnation.
The females who made a false police report of a very serious crime get no legal action by the police. You can see that they were trolling for guys attention in their outfits, yet are more than willing to use sexuality as a weapon against a man. You think this is isolated? It isn't.
here's a lesbian relationship video for a reference point about how females in our culture perceive their "ideal mate", and how willing they are to degrade their prospect if the prospect fails to meet her standards.
go to 22:00. This is the same idealism levelled at males, only it's worse because at least females are humans, by the standards of most self described feminists today.
a woman's point of view on our present day Mysandry.
Examine how more and more men are dressing "emo", "hipster", trying to be rail thin, effeminate, etc. If you don't think they should be doing that, you're a bigot, however, by the admission of women, they WANT MANLY MEN. I know a 21 year old who broke up with her long term boyfriend, due to being unhappy with his position in life, and the fact that he treated her well, to get into a "casual" relationship with a fireman who was fucking 2 other chicks on the side, and then she had her heart broken, and she went back to him a month later, even though he's clearly not going to be faithful or be what she says she wants. Oh, and his reason for not turning the others down to jump on his unit? "He said he's too nice and doesnt want to hurt their feelings".
it's shameful to be a man, but even if you try to change to be more "emotionally available", less aggressive, etc, women don't respect or want you. They tend to also complain "where have all the good men gone", while at the same time creating false rape charges in revenge, abusing their partners physically and emotionally in public with impunity, and so on. They obviously desire men who are what they describe that they hate, even as the usual "decent man" is ignored.
That is why it feels uncomfortable to watch "gay pride" parades, knowing a hetero male parade is out of the question. Men are viewed as terrible, and being heterosexual is being "closed minded'.
EPT
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