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Try and keep it on the political/societal/cultural end of the discussion. This deals not only with gay rights but also the larger issue of looking at the interaction of religious groups within secular society, their rights and their influence, in contrast with the privileges of other groups. Which religion, if any, is right is irrelevant and arguments of that nature will be moderated. |
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
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On December 16 2012 03:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 18:50 [F_]aths wrote:On December 15 2012 06:26 sam!zdat wrote:On December 15 2012 03:05 [F_]aths wrote:On December 15 2012 01:02 HULKAMANIA wrote:On December 14 2012 23:35 [F_]aths wrote:On December 14 2012 22:48 WhiteDog wrote:On December 14 2012 22:21 [F_]aths wrote:On December 14 2012 21:36 WhiteDog wrote:On December 14 2012 18:08 [F_]aths wrote:
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If they aren't scientitific, what are they? In a broader sense, anything which is testable and falsifiable is scientific. Social sciences aren't falsifiable, but always historically linked to a certain context - hence why the term "law" hasn't the same sense in economy (it's more tendancies than laws) than in physics. sm!zdat is right when he says that there is no "out of context" or "anhistorical" definition for childs that "do fine". The history of familly or filial love is interesting in this regard. We can measure the child's well-being at least roughly. We can have a rough look if the child is exposed to unnecessary suffering. We do have some rough options to decide if a particular environment to raise a child leads to good or bad results. Is corporal punishment good or bad for the child? Science can say something about it. Can a child be raised by same-sex parents as good as a traditional couple can? This seems to be way more difficult, but I see no reason which prevents a scientificly conducted experimet to find out. We can look at the child's level of happyness (at least roughly), we can see the average level of education and income, of healthiness and so on. I admit that those are just some and only quite rough indicators. But it is better than nothing. Is being gay an illness or a mental disorder? Science seems the best tool we have to determine. You are missing the point. Science can't say what is a "good or bad result" regarding child, because science can't define it scientifically. As for corporal punishment, well "science" can show correlation between corporal punishment and specific objectiv facts - such as number of friends, social behavior, or academic result. That's it. There is no way for sociology or any social science to clearly state that corporal punishment are bad for famillies because it's a moral judgement, that is based on the idea that kids should not get hurt by adults. Stop thinking science can teach us what is or what is not a "good" familly, because it can't. Happyness is defined socially, it's not the same at every layers of the social ladder and it's not a scientific concept that you can "measure". As for gay being a mental disorder or an illness (you don't let a lot of choice, how about gay is a sexual preferance and nothing else ?), "science" showed how it could not judge for that. What is normal and pathological is not objectively defined but linked to a rule, a social norm. For exemple, you can read G. Canguilhem, The normal and the pathological : The Normal and the Pathological is one of the crucial contributions to the history of science in the last half century. It takes as its starting point the sudden appearance of biology as a science in the 19th-century and examines the conditions determining its particular makeup.Canguilhem analyzes the radically new way in which health and disease were defined in the early 19th-century, showing that the emerging categories of the normal and the pathological were far from being objective scientific concepts. He demonstrates how the epistemological foundations of modern biology and medicine were intertwined with political, economic, and technological imperatives. While it is true that our concept of health depends on the cultural tradition and political will, we still can learn some objective facts through science. To not beat a child is now widely viewed as a moral in the western culture. Other cultures or our own culture just some umpteen years earlier, found it a moral imperative to beat the child to educate and raise it. Rather depending on a moral zeitgeist, I would like to investigate this issue with the scientific method. "Good" and "bad" or "evil" are traditionally referred to a higher morality or absolute morality. I don't believe in such things. In my world view, good, bad (or evil) must relate to the real world and therefore is subject to science. That does not mean science will get definitive answers. But if science cannot, can anything else? Science is mute on the question "Is it moral to beat a child?" Science has nothing to say about such values, and you are, by necessity, dependent upon a "moral zeitgeist" to answer that question for yourself. This is true if you consider morals a matter of opinion and/or construct of society. But "morals" is a word and we, who use it, must define a meaning for it. As I understand the rough concept of morals, morals who are moral must relate at some point to suffering. Now science comes in because suffering is the cause of events which can be in the end reduced to events in the world. No. Suffering is a phenomenological event and cannot be reduced to a description of physical states in the world. How would you do this? Why would one configuration of the atoms that make up consciousness be more or less "objectively" moral than another? It is far from an obvious axiom that morality is concerned with the alleviation of suffering. We have to reason it out. A single consciousness can be expected (with our experience) to be selfish. No, I don't accept this premise. At any rate, even if true, this is an observation. You would need an extra step to establish that this was a morally justified way to behave. that question remains open. Show nested quote +
We cannot take just an opinion seriously if there is no good reason given. In my opinion, even a good reason is not enough unless it is backed up by testable data.
So when you want to make friends with someone, and you have a reason to do so, do you wait until there's data? What kind of data would it be? Do you believe in the existence of any useful concepts which are non quantitative?
Friendship itself is backed up by data: The observation of cooperation beyond the level a stranger would do. There are other things in the behaviour which reinforces our feel of mutual trust. Of course, in everyday life I don't try to reduce behaviour to physical states of my mind. For example last time I seriously fell in love, I knew about hormons, optical hints of fertility, about my economic position (a fulltime-job and in principle able to provide for a family) and other signs. It did not reduce my experience, nor did it lessen the heartsickness as I got rejected. I also knew of love as an evolutionary mechanism to increase my willingness to make sacrifices to ensure that possible offsprings are raised. I knew that chemicals in my body are influencing my brain. Still I had the full range of experience, still I wrote a silly love-letter.
In order to define any morals, we do need premises. Since you don't accept my premise, what would you accept?
On December 16 2012 03:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +
I am still not sure if we should use the variation of the golden rule (don't treat others in a way you don't like to be treated) as axiomatic because it seems intuitively right or if we shall reduce even this one to physical events.
Ah, now you're on the right track. Go ponder that question for a while.
In the end, even the golden rule should be reducable to physics. The question is imo, if that would be useful. At some point, we have to use presumptions or axioms. For example I believe that the universe exists and that I am not the only sentient and conscious being. I cannot prove the truth of this belief in an absolute sense. If (almost) all of us agree on the golden rule, we still have to discuss it.
Ontopic: 'If you like to have the option of marriage, don't deny it to gays because they might like it, too.' This only works in a moral discussion if the golden rule has been determined being a good moral rule.
On December 16 2012 03:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +
I think, if one tries hard enough and goes a way long enough, suffering can be reduced to physical states. Pain itself doesn't exist as an object, it seems to be created by neurons for our conscious perception. As far as we know, neurons follow the chemical / physical laws all the time. We still don't know yet how exactly this can create the perception of pain, but there seems to be no reason to deny a physical cause.
Before we continue on, how familiar are you in general with the mind-body problem, philosophy of consciousness, and so on? What you're saying is an acceptable enough position but I'm just curious if you're familiar with the shape of the debate. My position is that a phenomenological state is ontologically but not epistemologically or conceptually reducible to physical states. It is an emergent property of a physical system. One is right in some sense in saying "it's nothing but cells", but this is not completely true and it's certainly not useful for ethical theorizing. (edit: which is to say, the fact of its ontological reducibility is by far the least interesting thing one could ever say about it)
I don't really see a mind-body-problem. Neuronal cells can influence other cells including other neurons. I see mind as a property emerging out a complex enough information process. Do apes have a mind? Other animals? How can matter create a mind? We don't know yet, but according to our knowledge nothing but matter (in the right configuration) is required. What we can do is to show how a particular wiring can interpret certain patterns as information and make decisions. That doesn't qualify as mind, but with order of magnitudes greater complexity, it could be a mind. Even able to see the world instead just of using image filters and number crunching on optical input data.
I don't know much philosophy of consciousness and think, that neuronal imaging is a good approach to learn more about consciousness. (Surely not the only one, but I guess any usable approach needs to be backed up by testable things.) Of course I have personal experience, too. I noticed that I think in concepts, where a concept is a list of common properties. I use concepts which are built on other concepts, which in turn still use other concepts. Since a concept is (rather often) a simplificatin, I try to be careful when I go into philosophy.
On December 16 2012 03:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 06:26 sam!zdat wrote:On December 15 2012 03:05 [F_]aths wrote:
I consider any 'morality' which does not intend to reduce unnecessary suffering to be not moral at all. This is an assumption I make. Having values for the sake of having values doesn't really make sense to me.
These two statements are directly contradictory. If you see the meaning of the moral concept (reduce harm, avoid unnecessary suffering) as value, it is contradictory. Yes, that is a value, and don't you dare tell me it isn't. Show nested quote +
We still can try to reduce that to facts: Suffering is experienced as real even though it is only a state of mind. But we experience everything through our brain anyway. In this sense, suffering is as real as the real world. Then we have the fact that most of us don't like suffering. This makes sense in an evolutionary sense: Pain is a mechanism to get the priorities right when our nerve center (the brain) makes a decision between different options. Unnecessary suffering is pain (in a broader sense, also other forms of pain like the feeling of getting betrayed and other emotions) with no sufficient reason.
So? I don't see why any of this tells me I shouldn't punch you in the face. Why shouldn't I do stuff you don't like? You are on exactly the right track when you say a thing like "suffering is as real as the real world." But you have not followed that through to its conclusion.
I wonder if we play semantic games when it comes to "value". While a value can be a useful concept, I think it can be reduced to facts in the sense of physical states in the world.
Before you consider to punch me in the face, you know that you probably reduce the willingness of me and others to cooperate with you while you are dependent on cooperation by others. But that's not the only reason. You also know that a world in which it is acceptable to punch some TL nerd (or other guys) in the face, is a worse world than we have today. You are able to reflect on "if anyone would to it, how would the world be like?" This insight enables one to be moral.
On December 16 2012 03:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +
I am aware that my approach is kind of a reductionist one. Still I think this approach is better than to use the inner sense of disgust (like "gay men sex is disgusting, this cant't be right.")
If those were the only two possibilities, I would be very sad.
What's your approach?
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On December 16 2012 04:16 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 19:17 [F_]aths wrote:On December 15 2012 08:17 HULKAMANIA wrote:On December 15 2012 03:05 [F_]aths wrote:On December 15 2012 01:02 HULKAMANIA wrote:On December 14 2012 23:35 [F_]aths wrote:On December 14 2012 22:48 WhiteDog wrote:On December 14 2012 22:21 [F_]aths wrote:On December 14 2012 21:36 WhiteDog wrote:On December 14 2012 18:08 [F_]aths wrote:
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If they aren't scientitific, what are they? In a broader sense, anything which is testable and falsifiable is scientific. Social sciences aren't falsifiable, but always historically linked to a certain context - hence why the term "law" hasn't the same sense in economy (it's more tendancies than laws) than in physics. sm!zdat is right when he says that there is no "out of context" or "anhistorical" definition for childs that "do fine". The history of familly or filial love is interesting in this regard. We can measure the child's well-being at least roughly. We can have a rough look if the child is exposed to unnecessary suffering. We do have some rough options to decide if a particular environment to raise a child leads to good or bad results. Is corporal punishment good or bad for the child? Science can say something about it. Can a child be raised by same-sex parents as good as a traditional couple can? This seems to be way more difficult, but I see no reason which prevents a scientificly conducted experimet to find out. We can look at the child's level of happyness (at least roughly), we can see the average level of education and income, of healthiness and so on. I admit that those are just some and only quite rough indicators. But it is better than nothing. Is being gay an illness or a mental disorder? Science seems the best tool we have to determine. You are missing the point. Science can't say what is a "good or bad result" regarding child, because science can't define it scientifically. As for corporal punishment, well "science" can show correlation between corporal punishment and specific objectiv facts - such as number of friends, social behavior, or academic result. That's it. There is no way for sociology or any social science to clearly state that corporal punishment are bad for famillies because it's a moral judgement, that is based on the idea that kids should not get hurt by adults. Stop thinking science can teach us what is or what is not a "good" familly, because it can't. Happyness is defined socially, it's not the same at every layers of the social ladder and it's not a scientific concept that you can "measure". As for gay being a mental disorder or an illness (you don't let a lot of choice, how about gay is a sexual preferance and nothing else ?), "science" showed how it could not judge for that. What is normal and pathological is not objectively defined but linked to a rule, a social norm. For exemple, you can read G. Canguilhem, The normal and the pathological : The Normal and the Pathological is one of the crucial contributions to the history of science in the last half century. It takes as its starting point the sudden appearance of biology as a science in the 19th-century and examines the conditions determining its particular makeup.Canguilhem analyzes the radically new way in which health and disease were defined in the early 19th-century, showing that the emerging categories of the normal and the pathological were far from being objective scientific concepts. He demonstrates how the epistemological foundations of modern biology and medicine were intertwined with political, economic, and technological imperatives. While it is true that our concept of health depends on the cultural tradition and political will, we still can learn some objective facts through science. To not beat a child is now widely viewed as a moral in the western culture. Other cultures or our own culture just some umpteen years earlier, found it a moral imperative to beat the child to educate and raise it. Rather depending on a moral zeitgeist, I would like to investigate this issue with the scientific method. "Good" and "bad" or "evil" are traditionally referred to a higher morality or absolute morality. I don't believe in such things. In my world view, good, bad (or evil) must relate to the real world and therefore is subject to science. That does not mean science will get definitive answers. But if science cannot, can anything else? Science is mute on the question "Is it moral to beat a child?" Science has nothing to say about such values, and you are, by necessity, dependent upon a "moral zeitgeist" to answer that question for yourself. This is true if you consider morals a matter of opinion and/or construct of society. But "morals" is a word and we, who use it, must define a meaning for it. As I understand the rough concept of morals, morals who are moral must relate at some point to suffering. Now science comes in because suffering is the cause of events which can be in the end reduced to events in the world. On December 15 2012 01:02 HULKAMANIA wrote:Now if you already assume that the outcomes you're testing for in a scientific study (indices of child's self-esteem, for instance, or the absence of violence in his or her interpersonal relationships) are good or bad, then science may provide some insight on how one style of raising a child is tentatively better or worse—i.e. which style tends to result in the most net "good" outcomes. But you did not derive those original assumptions about good or bad from science. Nor are they "subject to science" in any sense at all. They are actually ideological presuppositions that are already in play.
And it's always the assumptions that you don't realize you're making that are the most problematic. You are right, I assume some things. But without it, we have no definition. If everyone means a different thing when talking about morality, it doesn't make much sense to talk about it at all. I consider any 'morality' which does not intend to reduce unnecessary suffering to be not moral at all. This is an assumption I make. Having values for the sake of having values doesn't really make sense to me. Does gay marriage leads to unnecessary suffering? If we want to know this, we could just discuss, or we could try to plan out a scientific endeavor to determine the answer. The thing is you're essentially conceding our main point. You have a belief about what constitutes moral vs. immoral behavior. And I hope that I'm not being unfair when I summarize that belief (roughly) as follows: "Moral behavior avoids causing unnecessary suffering. Immoral behavior causes unnecessary suffering." On a personal level, I find that belief to be rather admirable, and I think that, by and large, the world would be a far happier place if people attempted to keep space for such sentiments in their day to day lives. But the fact of the matter is, as you have admitted, your belief about morality did not originate in scientific research and experimentation, nor is it corroborated by scientific research and experimentation. No amount of scientific activity can generate the principle "Moral behavior avoids causing unnecessary suffering," nor can any amount of scientific activity help one evaluate whether such a statement is true, accurate, or good. Science is somewhat in the moral business as one shall not lie about the experiment and make up data. No. this just means there are ethical questions involved in the concrete practice of scientific methodology in the life-world. This has nothing to do with science in a way that would be relevant to your thesis. Show nested quote +
But in a moral discussion I would invoke science this way: "If we agree about the meaning of the word 'morality', we should use science to get results."
You're begging the entire question... that's a big "if" and that's what we're arguing about. So you agree that science comes after...? Let's try not to personify "SCIENCE" as some sort of deity or total weltanschauung. Science is a rather good strategy for producing a certain type of truth-claim. Let's not blow things out of proportion. Show nested quote +
In this sense, one could try to use the concept of science even as a reason to establish a morality: With reason we can argue why we should try to avoid unnecessary suffering. (Of course, in many cases it is good to show emotions because we feel better and give valuable information about our feeling to other persons. In this sense, it is not the scientific optimum to keep calm all the time.) If we do something because we should while we don't have to, we can create the concept of values.
I don't understand where the science came in.
In retroperspective, me neither.
However, I see science – in a broader sense! – the only viable strategy to produce truth-claims. Truth in the sense of models which allow predictions and which are falsifiable. I don't see any kind of truth which is worth the word which cannot be in principle be explored by science.
On December 16 2012 04:16 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +
Another argument would be that many of us search the true, the good, the beautiful. Why do we do this? Maybe as side product of our evolutionary line, but even if we don't know why, we do know that we seek it. I would count this as a fact, which could be reduced to physical states of the world even though we cannot do it now because the brain and the culture is so complex. We maybe never can. And it sounds useless to create a science for the beautiful. How scientific could aesthetics ever be? I still think that science can at least say some things. If we determine why we never fully agree on what it beautiful, we can do this in a scientific way.
Well, let's not get into aesthetics. That is another question. Also, whenever you explain something you can't understand "because of evolution," warning bells should be going off in your head. c.f. Gould and Lewontin "The Spandrels of San Marcos"
Please summarize the argument of that essay.
On December 16 2012 04:16 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +
I don't want a body of authority to determine what is true, what is beautiful or what is good. I want discussion, reason and experiments to the day we cease to exist.
Sure, fine, but I think you may be fetishizing the role of "experiment" and you may have a slightly out of date idea of what "reason" is. Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 08:17 HULKAMANIA wrote:As I understand the rough concept of morals, morals who are moral must relate at some point to suffering. Now science comes in because suffering is the cause of events which can be in the end reduced to events in the world. It is only by previously accepting that statement as true that science can weigh in on the matter at all, which is something that you've just admitted yourself. In other words, if one agrees to the first part of the above argument, then the second part follows. But there is no scientific, purely rational, or strictly logical reason at all to agree to the first part of your argument. It is simply an assertion of belief. Now in a free and pluralistic nation, I believe that it behooves us to be respectful one another's sincerely held moral convictions and to allow one another to act on those convictions to the greatest extent compatible with a peaceful and stable society. Conceiving of our own moral convictions as bearing the authority of science and rationality, however, and conceiving of other people's moral convictions as deriving from irrationality or backwardness is a real obstacle to such freedoms. Because, besides being demonstrably incorrect, such assurance that other people can only disagree with one's obviously superior morals because those other people are uneducated, stupid, disingenuous, scheming, or [insert disparaging adjective here] is a sure path to groupthink and persecution. Civil disagreements like the one were having right now show the fruits of protecting freedom of belief, freedom of religion, and freedom of conscience. They keep such disagreements civil. I mean if the state were to try to forcibly assimilate me into their system of Approved Beliefs, my only recourse would be another Crusade!  This is in a sense my point. We are aware that we developed morals during our evolution as a social being while we still are selfish and egoistic. We also see that some have more power than others and we are afraid that their opinion trumps ours, even in moral questions. So we want to have the safety of a moral code everyone must agree on, to avoid exploitation. We also are afraid of being the victim of unmoral persons who don't even have a bad conscience when they are done harming us. We like to have eternal rules. The greatest fear I have in a moral debate however is dogma. Immoral things like gay sex or even incest could be viewed as not immoral at all at some point in the future. "Moral" in practice is a construct of society. Now I have an issue with different morals in different societies. If one agrees on to ban gay marriage because of moral issues while another society doesn't really have any beef with gay marriage, I question the concept of morality as universal even thought I often find it described as such. I want to find out what really is moral, what actually is immoral. The best tool I can imagine is science. LOL what? You are concerned because people are imposing universal morality on what is in fact a social construct, and then you want to "find out what really is moral" with science?? And this right after you say you are worried about dogma and eternal rules? Tell me, sir, what is the first experiment you will perform?
Science progresses. With new discoveries, new morals could be developed.
I put reason together with experiments because the approach to understand the world through philosophical discussion failed on many fields. Philosophy didn't detect quantum behavior. Of course, the construction of a particle collider could be still easier than a good social experiment, if it is alone for moral implications (can we deny chances for some just to find out how they develop?)
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United States41961 Posts
On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society.
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I just want you to tell me what experiment you will perform if you want to falsify the truth claim "to cause suffering is wrong." Be careful that your experiment does not falsify the claim "when a brain looks like this it is suffering" or "most people think that it is wrong to cause suffering" or anything that is not precisely the claim "to cause suffering is wrong."
(the "Spandrels of San Marcos" paper is a rebuttal to a pan-adaptationist paradigm in evolutionary biology, i.e. that all observable traits of organisms are the product of adaptation. I don't think anyone is a pan-adaptationist anymore).
Science without a doubt is not the only way to produce truth-claims. That is the worst of reductionisms, and I think if you just walk around the world and think about it you will see that it is not true. When you are saying "the golden rule reduces to physics" you are trying to be a Kantian, essentially, who wants to make morality objective by resorting to ideas of categorical imperative and so on. I find this absurd but I actually have just finished a lengthy argument about this elsewhere so I'm not sure I want to take it up again right as this moment. (edit: sorry I know it's a copout but literally I just exchanged 120 facebook messages with a phd candidate in phil debating this precise topic and I simply can't talk about it any more!)
All I need to do to refute your claim is simply ask you to design an experiment. (edit: how would you support the truth-claim that "science is the only valid method to produce truth-claims"? Could you prove it in an experiment? How would that work? I don't even know where you would start.)
But let me pose a question, which was posed to me way back on the first day of my first real philosophy class. If you had a book of the world, which told you the location and velocity of every particle in the universe, where would be the part that was "you"?
edit: to answer your final question, my view is that morality is an intersubjective question arising from the fact that there are other people in the world. Morality is the question "how should I behave in my relationships with others?"
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sam!zdat, are you a deist or theist? I am neither (which qualifies me an an atheist) and I also come from a quite lenghty debate – with a theist, though.
I see science as the only viable method because I consider everything which is testable and falsifiably in principle to be science. I regard an untestable claim worthless in the quest for truth. Which other ways do you accept to produce truth-claims? (Science does not really produce truth-claims, it provides models which should be true within the limits of the model.)
My claim is that models which can be tested are more useful than models which cannot. Untestable models are maybe an intellectual challenge and can fill our need for irrational thoughts. (So they can have some use.) But I don't want to be right by accident, I need to see if my world view does reflect the real universe.
I do want objective morality, but I see the concept of objective morality not in an absolute sense. We only can get so close to a more or less objective model, and since we develop further, even an "objective" morality will change over time. I am also not on Kant's side in the sense that an objective morally despicable action is despicable in any case. (Is lying wrong? Yes. Is it always wrong? I think, almost yes, not always yes.) Is it wrong to break the law? Generally, yes. But what if the law is wrong? I do think that is is possible that a law is wrong even if it was installed by a vote.
I think the book question cannot work because the book must be bigger than the universe itself. I cannot fit its own universe. I, the reader, also must be bigger than the universe to be able to read and understand the entire book. But since a table of particle movements is not the actual particles, moving, I am still I and the book is not me. If I would be copied, particle for particle, we had two [F_]aths, probably each considering himself the original one and developing different personalities from then on because each one will have different experiences.
"Me" is a concept I think which is useful for information processing. Roughly, everything which is neuronally connected to me and does allow direct experience is covered by the concept of "Me" in opposite to "not me". This concept makes it easier to navigate in the world.
My claim about suffering is, that it is bad. If the actor who causes suffering has insight and if he causes unnecessary suffering regardless, the action is wrong. That is how I use the words for moral discussions. I am aware that there are other definitions. I don't need an experiment to prove that causing unnecessary suffering is wrong. Why then it is true? I am not even claiming that it is true in an absolute sense. With our limited mind we cannot determine absolute truth. I am not claiming that it is engraved in the universe by another being, a somehow immaterial morality which we need to discover. I do claim that concepts of good or bad are real in our mind – in the sense that suffering is real in our mind too, and the word "bad" (normally) means suffering in some sense.
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I'm a pantheist (that's neither a theist, deist, or atheist), but it's not relevant. I could be an atheist and make the same point.
It sounds like you just want to take "suffering = wrong" as an axiom and not present any kind of moral theory. I mean, ok, fine. But that's not very interesting, now is it? You seem to be aware that you cannot design an experiment which would falsify this claim, and so this claim, if true, is not scientific. You seem to then proceed to claim that it's not "true", because all "truth" is scientific truth, but that it is the "true" morality nonetheless simply because you say so. I find this profoundly unphilosophical. You just say "because that is how I use words." Ok. Well what happens if I say "let's use words differently, here's why." All you can do is just get stubborn.
I don't feel like you really have quite grasped the problem here but I don't know how to explain it better. What you're saying doesn't really respond to my point.
Basically you are someone who wants to make a moral claim who is simply (edit: and rather self-righteously) uninterested in defending that claim, and you are someone who is convinced that science is the only way to produce truth claims, again without any interest in defending it - you simply take it as self evident and repeat that claim whenever it is challenged. You must be aware that you cannot prove the claim that science is the only way to produce truth claims with science. I said that before but you ignored it.
It's not that "we cannot get an absolutely objective model of morality," it's that an "objective" model of morality simply doesn't make any sense. It's like saying we're going to find an "objective" model about art. It's a category error. What does ethics taste like? What is the volume of 1 happiness at room temperature?
Yes, when you realize that the book must be bigger than the universe, you realize why being a reductionist is stupid. Ponder that please.
If you're just going to say "suffering is wrong and that's that" please don't engage in discussions about morality on the internet.
edit: when you say "I do claim that good and bad are real in our mind," can you test that with science? What would THAT experiment look like? Same with "suffering is real in our mind." Can you test THAT with an experiment?
edit: btw, the Kant thing has NOTHING to do with the problem of conflict between morality and unjust secular law.
edit: "My claim is that models which can be tested are more useful than models which cannot." You realize that this is an entirely different claim than "only those truth-claims which are produced by science are legitimate." Which is it? Are you making a strong epistemological claim, or a trivial pragmatic observation?
edit: anyway, what is your "model" of morality? "suffering is wrong"? That's not a model at all! Where are the falsifiable and quantifiable predictions?! You don't even have one of these "useful models" and you're going around saying these "useful models" are the only ways to think about anything at all! lol. Even if you were going to reduce all morality to the movement of electrical impulses, the problem would be computationally intractable and would certainly not be "useful."
edit: look, if you want to falsify the claim "it would be wrong if I punched you in the face," you would have to have an operationalized definition of "wrong." Then you would punch me in the face, and see if "wrong" existed after that. What would that be? How would you measure it? You've just been ignoring this question. Earlier, when you tried to explain why it would be wrong for me to punch you in the face, you'll notice that your reasoning had nothing at all to do with science.
edit: at any rate, you seem to have accepted that your claim "suffering is wrong" is not scientific and is merely an arbitrary pronouncement, which proves what I set out to prove, that one cannot ground moral theory in science. ok.
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On December 18 2012 18:24 [F_]aths wrote:
I do think that is is possible that a law is wrong even if it was installed by a vote.
if it were, how would you know?!? science??
edit: hey I'm sorry I'm not trying to yell at you, you stepped on one of my pet peeves and I wrote this before I drank my coffee. I'm not trying to be mean but I really think you are quite wrong. sorry
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Fear ye, hapless soul of science, ye who rouses the Sam!zdat from his communist slumber.
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On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society.
Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake.
Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies.
If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join.
I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies.
Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on.
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United States41961 Posts
On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on.
As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons.
Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322.
Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)".
Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ.
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On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ.
I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man.
A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion.
As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones.
Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church.
Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary.
It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples.
If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt.
Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here.
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On December 20 2012 02:30 Gendi2545 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ. I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man. A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion. Show nested quote +As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church. Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary. It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples. If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt. Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here.
If you replaced "gay" with "interracial" throughout your post I feel like you'd have a hard time defending what you're saying. And yes, there was a time when the church thought interracial marriage was a sin as well so it's an appropriate substitution.
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On December 20 2012 02:36 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 02:30 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ. I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man. A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church. Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary. It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples. If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt. Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here. If you replaced "gay" with "interracial" throughout your post I feel like you'd have a hard time defending what you're saying. And yes, there was a time when the church thought interracial marriage was a sin as well so it's an appropriate substitution.
That's not a valid point at all.
Firstly, there are many churches with completely different views. For example the Catholic Church, Protestant Church and Jehovah's Witnesses are completely different, to the point that they consider each other heretical and damned to hell. I'm trying to represent the views of the mainstream Calvinist and Arminian Protestant Churches, which base their views solely on the Bible (in contrast to the other churches mentioned).
Secondly, the Bible doesn't specifically forbid interracial marriage, and quite a few verses imply it is acceptable, so there's no reason for churches to oppose it. Homosexuality, on the other hand, the Bible has very harsh words for.
Bible-based churches in more racist times might wrongly have condemned interracial marriage (not sure how many did), but there are no gray areas in gay marriage.
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On December 20 2012 04:08 Gendi2545 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 02:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 20 2012 02:30 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ. I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man. A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church. Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary. It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples. If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt. Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here. If you replaced "gay" with "interracial" throughout your post I feel like you'd have a hard time defending what you're saying. And yes, there was a time when the church thought interracial marriage was a sin as well so it's an appropriate substitution. That's not a valid point at all. Firstly, there are many churches with completely different views. For example the Catholic Church, Protestant Church and Jehovah's Witnesses are completely different, to the point that they consider each other heretical and damned to hell. I'm trying to represent the views of the mainstream Calvinist and Arminian Protestant Churches, which base their views solely on the Bible (in contrast to the other churches mentioned). Secondly, the Bible doesn't specifically forbid interracial marriage, and quite a few verses imply it is acceptable, so there's no reason for churches to oppose it. Homosexuality, on the other hand, the Bible has very harsh words for. Bible-based churches in more racist times might wrongly have condemned interracial marriage (not sure how many did), but there are no gray areas in gay marriage.
There are plenty of verses that people believe are about interracial marriage:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/marracbib.htm
Thank god I found a website debunking them as a source because it would be awful to give a hate sight traffic.
And I don't know why you go on about different churches. I don't care that churches believe different things. We're talking about churches that believe gay marriage is wrong. And you're doing a fine job of representing their views. I'm just pointing out that the logic of their views is horribly flawed and very arguably bigoted. We don't offer racism any sort of legal protection, I find it odd that people think homophobia deserves legal protection.
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On December 20 2012 04:08 Gendi2545 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 02:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 20 2012 02:30 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ. I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man. A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church. Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary. It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples. If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt. Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here. If you replaced "gay" with "interracial" throughout your post I feel like you'd have a hard time defending what you're saying. And yes, there was a time when the church thought interracial marriage was a sin as well so it's an appropriate substitution. That's not a valid point at all. Firstly, there are many churches with completely different views. For example the Catholic Church, Protestant Church and Jehovah's Witnesses are completely different, to the point that they consider each other heretical and damned to hell. I'm trying to represent the views of the mainstream Calvinist and Arminian Protestant Churches, which base their views solely on the Bible (in contrast to the other churches mentioned). Secondly, the Bible doesn't specifically forbid interracial marriage, and quite a few verses imply it is acceptable, so there's no reason for churches to oppose it. Homosexuality, on the other hand, the Bible has very harsh words for. Bible-based churches in more racist times might wrongly have condemned interracial marriage (not sure how many did), but there are no gray areas in gay marriage.
Just to clarify, sola scriptura does not equate with literalist exegesis, meaning that while all Protestant denominations do indeed consider the Bible the final word on God's message, they all bring with them differing brands of interpretation. Using "bible-based" as a descriptor is misleading, in that there are many "bible-based" churches that preach individual, subjective biblical interpretation/exegesis. I find it odd you decided to name drop Calvinism and Arminianism, when neither has anything explicitly to do with biblical interpretation.
Edit: And the condemnation of other denominations is a fundamentalist idea that is losing ground amongst mainstream Protestant denominations.
Edit: Additionally, to suggest that there is no grey area when it comes to old testament exegesis suggests to me that you have relatively little actual contact with mainstream, non-fundamentalist Christianity.
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On December 20 2012 04:20 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 04:08 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 20 2012 02:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 20 2012 02:30 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ. I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man. A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church. Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary. It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples. If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt. Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here. If you replaced "gay" with "interracial" throughout your post I feel like you'd have a hard time defending what you're saying. And yes, there was a time when the church thought interracial marriage was a sin as well so it's an appropriate substitution. That's not a valid point at all. Firstly, there are many churches with completely different views. For example the Catholic Church, Protestant Church and Jehovah's Witnesses are completely different, to the point that they consider each other heretical and damned to hell. I'm trying to represent the views of the mainstream Calvinist and Arminian Protestant Churches, which base their views solely on the Bible (in contrast to the other churches mentioned). Secondly, the Bible doesn't specifically forbid interracial marriage, and quite a few verses imply it is acceptable, so there's no reason for churches to oppose it. Homosexuality, on the other hand, the Bible has very harsh words for. Bible-based churches in more racist times might wrongly have condemned interracial marriage (not sure how many did), but there are no gray areas in gay marriage. There are plenty of verses that people believe are about interracial marriage: http://www.religioustolerance.org/marracbib.htmThank god I found a website debunking them as a source because it would be awful to give a hate sight traffic.
There are arguments for and against. People are always misrepresenting verses to support their biases, if someone is interested in what the Bible really says it's best to look at both sides of the argument, compare what they say to what the Bible says and cross out the biased party. It's not all that relevant.
And I don't know why you go on about different churches. I don't care that churches believe different things. I don't care that churches believe different things. We're talking about churches that believe gay marriage is wrong. And you're doing a fine job of representing their views. I'm just pointing out that the logic of their views is horribly flawed and very arguably bigoted. We don't offer racism any sort of legal protection, I find it odd that people think homophobia deserves legal protection.
I'm arguing this because I believe in the God of the Bible and religious debate interests me, not necessarily because I like God or not.
When a church refuses to marry a gay couple it's not because they hate gays, like racists hate people of different colour. They love gays if they truly follow the Bible. They refuse the marriage solely because they genuinely believe it is wrong and are only following their deep beliefs. They do no physical or verbal harm to the gay couple, and wish them no harm. They can go to another church to get married.
The real bigotry is when homosexuals force their own views onto the church.
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On December 20 2012 05:07 Gendi2545 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 04:20 Klondikebar wrote:On December 20 2012 04:08 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 20 2012 02:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 20 2012 02:30 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ. I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man. A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church. Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary. It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples. If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt. Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here. If you replaced "gay" with "interracial" throughout your post I feel like you'd have a hard time defending what you're saying. And yes, there was a time when the church thought interracial marriage was a sin as well so it's an appropriate substitution. That's not a valid point at all. Firstly, there are many churches with completely different views. For example the Catholic Church, Protestant Church and Jehovah's Witnesses are completely different, to the point that they consider each other heretical and damned to hell. I'm trying to represent the views of the mainstream Calvinist and Arminian Protestant Churches, which base their views solely on the Bible (in contrast to the other churches mentioned). Secondly, the Bible doesn't specifically forbid interracial marriage, and quite a few verses imply it is acceptable, so there's no reason for churches to oppose it. Homosexuality, on the other hand, the Bible has very harsh words for. Bible-based churches in more racist times might wrongly have condemned interracial marriage (not sure how many did), but there are no gray areas in gay marriage. There are plenty of verses that people believe are about interracial marriage: http://www.religioustolerance.org/marracbib.htmThank god I found a website debunking them as a source because it would be awful to give a hate sight traffic. There are arguments for and against. People are always misrepresenting verses to support their biases, if someone is interested in what the Bible really says it's best to look at both sides of the argument, compare what they say to what the Bible says and cross out the biased party. It's not all that relevant. Show nested quote +
And I don't know why you go on about different churches. I don't care that churches believe different things. I don't care that churches believe different things. We're talking about churches that believe gay marriage is wrong. And you're doing a fine job of representing their views. I'm just pointing out that the logic of their views is horribly flawed and very arguably bigoted. We don't offer racism any sort of legal protection, I find it odd that people think homophobia deserves legal protection.
I'm arguing this because I believe in the God of the Bible and religious debate interests me, not necessarily because I like God or not. When a church refuses to marry a gay couple it's not because they hate gays, like racists hate people of different colour. They love gays if they truly follow the Bible. They refuse the marriage solely because they genuinely believe it is wrong and are only following their deep beliefs. They do no physical or verbal harm to the gay couple, and wish them no harm. They can go to another church to get married. The real bigotry is when homosexuals force their own views onto the church.
Let's try this:
When a church refuses to marry an interracial couple it's not because they hate blacks, like racists hate people of different colour. They love blacks if they truly follow the Bible. They refuse the marriage solely because they genuinely believe it is wrong and are only following their deep beliefs. They do no physical or verbal harm to the interracial couple, and wish them no harm. They can go to another church to get married.
Now I suspect that the reason most people think that racism and homophobia are different is because they still believe sexual orientation is a choice. It's the only way you can rationalize a difference between the two. Arguing whether or not sexual orientation is a choice just isn't an argument I'm going to have anymore. It's patently silly to think it's a choice and it's certainly not a credible position worthy of any real consideration.
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On December 20 2012 02:36 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 02:30 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 19 2012 03:14 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2012 03:03 Gendi2545 wrote:On December 17 2012 23:43 KwarK wrote:On December 16 2012 17:31 Gendi2545 wrote:
Only up to page 4 on this but I don't see why there's so much confusion on this matter. The (Protestant) church is based on the Bible, which regards the act of homosexuality as an abomination. I believe in the old testament the penalty for it was stoning to death, and according to the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked by God for this particular sin. Even in the new testament the Bible is entirely against the practice of homosexuality, the only difference is the theme is now mercy and the chance to repent (before death anyway) rather than immediate judgement.
Since the Bible is utterly against the practice of homosexuality, how on earth could a legitimate bible-based church be expected to marry homosexuals? Of course there are many "secular" pastors who only seek to please people and don't care about the Bible who will marry gays, but that proves nothing because they clearly aren't faithful to their own religion.
I'm all for freedom including freedom from discrimination, but trying to force bible-based churches to marry gays is nonsensical and I believe is trespassing on the rights of the people who want to peacefully follow their own religion. It is discrimination by practicing homosexuals against heterosexuals and homosexuals who want to follow the Bible.
There are multiple issues here but one of them is whether freedom of religion exists in terms of actions or if it is only for opinions in which case it is simply freedom of expression, the same right that protects political affiliations. It matters because that freedom does not make your actions, such as denying a service available to the public, free to discriminate in a legal sense. The BNP are allowed to believe Britain should be racially pure but they are not allowed to go further to the action of discriminatory policies. Here the issue is that if religious freedom is just a type of free expression then why should they be able to deny a service in a discriminatory way based on their convictions and if it is it's own special type of freedom, what is it and why does it exist in a secular society. Discrimination is required for the church to remain faithful to its beliefs. You would have to eradicate the (biblical) church to remove the discrimination. How is this fair to Christians? It's not like they're burning homosexuals at the stake. Also, church expenses are paid for by church members. They are tax-exempt, but they are not for-profit organizations (although some pastors are clearly out to fleece the flock). They should be allowed to decide their own policies. If a certain pastor refuses to marry homosexuals, they can go to a church which will marry homosexuals, or make their own religion. There’s no problem, unless people are so sensitive their lives will be ruined if they’re excluded from a group they don’t want to join. I would say that one group forcing its views onto another is far more unjust than one group excluding another from one of its traditional ceremonies. Just out of interest do you think mensa should be forced to accept people with low IQs? Should war veterans clubs be forced to allow anyone to join? And so on. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Age, race, religion, gender (exemptions can apply here), sexuality (I think that's all of them) are the legally protected things which you can't discriminate upon. War veteran clubs can exclude a gay man for not being a war veteran but not for being gay, it's not that you're not allowed to discriminate, it's that you can't discriminate for one of the legally protected reasons. Churches charge to perform marriages, it's a commercial service available to the general public and should be treated as such. The current fee for a CofE church wedding is £322. Discrimination on the grounds of race is required for racists to remain faithful to their racist beliefs too. We dealt with that by saying they could still believe racist things but they could not act in a racist way, why can the church not do that regarding gays. I've still not seen a convincing argument for why religious beliefs should be treated any differently to other strongly held beliefs, there are animal rights activists who are far more zealous about that than most Christians, the only argument I see people use is "religion is different because it's religion (which is different)". Mensa is not legally required to accept them yet (I think) as IQ is not a protected characteristic and therefore they can discriminate based upon it. I can conceive of circumstances under which it would need to be protected but those are theoretical, in practice there is no present case for requiring mensa not discriminate on the grounds of IQ. I'm not so sure the church is actually discriminating against homosexuals. They are welcome to attend church services and activities, and to become Christians themselves. Marriage however, according to the church, is between a man and a woman, not a man and a brick or a man and a man. A man might legally get married to another man, but then it's not any marriage the Bible would recognize. Gays effectively gain nothing by these laws, while millions of Christians lose the right to legally practice their religion. As a society we come up with legitimate grounds to discriminate upon and illegitimate ones. Those laws look good at first glance, but now we've run into this issue. Basically these laws are being used to destroy the church, using government, so the occasional gay couple can get married. This despite the fact they can already get married, just not at every single church. Given that laws are made to serve humans and not vice-versa, and given that a large proportion of people have religious beliefs they would like protected, perhaps the courts should take a closer look at these laws and modify them if necessary. It could for example be argued that an employer discriminating against a homosexual causes actual harm, since jobs are scarce and money is needed to survive. A church refusing to marry a gay couple is no big deal, they can simply go to another church that does marry gay couples. If these laws are strictly enforced without thought they are going to result in a large number of people being oppressed so a few members of a smaller group won't potentially have their feelings hurt. Also just because laws are passed doesn't mean society as a whole agreed to them. They might have been pushed through by vocal special interest groups, I'm not sure if that is the case here. If you replaced "gay" with "interracial" throughout your post I feel like you'd have a hard time defending what you're saying. And yes, there was a time when the church thought interracial marriage was a sin as well so it's an appropriate substitution.
One can't "come out" from their race.
No more than someone disowning their parents makes them an orphan. Or qualify for orphan benefits.
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United States41961 Posts
It's not that they hate gays, they love gays, they just don't want them to have the same things straight people take for granted. It's not at all like racists who never believe they have justifications for their racist actions in their racist beliefs, racists act purely out of hate. What total nonsense.
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United States41961 Posts
Hattori, I think you're confused about what coming out is. It's not when you make up your mind and decide to be gay, it's when you decide to inform your social group that their default assumption about your sexuality is wrong. A mixed race man whose friends thought he was just tanned could absolutely come out about his race. All coming out is is sharing information about yourself to your peers so they can make their assumptions more accurate. I live in England, have an English accent and made this topic, you could assume I have four English grandparents. If I then said my grandfather spoke Welsh you would change your assumption to me being a quarter Welsh. That would be coming out about my cultural heritage. The only difference is that I'd rather be gay than a quarter Welsh.
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