Homosexual marriage

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

What?! Tell me how you arent a Hindu. Or a lion tamer. Or a duck…

Well, I don't follow hindu religion, I've never seen a lion except on televsion, though I can often be Duck-ish.
But really Rex, you have argued against a god in the evolution debate threads, and generally shown yourself to be atheistical.
Now I'm not saying that all atheists want to destroy the world or anything, so if you're afraid of being categorized like that, I can understand.
And of course, there are plenty of specific differences between certain atheists and so on...

No, what christians do is want everyone to live by their rules even to the point of trying to force it on them at times. That’s one of the flaws of Christianity. It uses circular logic that requires imposition on the universe in order for it to maintain its consistency. I didn’t make any rules. Im simply talking about equal rights. This is a constitutional issue.

*sigh* Well that just blows my boat out of the water! Here I was trying to argue about where you got your morals etc, and it turns out this is a case of district and country

Heres what yer missing: Im not interested in doing anything for a higher purpose. I choose not to do things like kill and rape and pillage (and discriminate against gays) because I wouldn’t want someone killing or raping or pillaging (or unfairly discriminating against) me or my loved ones.

Thats exactly what I've been pointing out; and I don't know why you've objected to my observances (admittedly, some of them were directed to BJenkins).

And if I allow that killing or raping or pillaging (or discrimination) theres more of a chance that those things could at some point turn around on me. So call it selfish rational if you like. That would certainly pop your “absolute morals” balloon now wouldn’t it.

No, it just proves what I've said already. But I don't believe that raping is bad only if I have a daughter and don't want her raped, thought that isn't a bad reason. But I know you would feel just as bad about someone being raped even if you didn't have a daughter. There must be more to it.

See Hector you always have to look for a reason why we do what we do and not simply assume it must be god magic because its not right there on the surface.

And you always assume that we see everything with God-Magicked colored glasses.

Here's the problem I see with your side sometimes: a thing is "bad" because it hurts, though a lot of things that hurt may actually be good, like getting a medical shot.

You can try. But chances are “being evil” is hard to do among our species with regular success so youll end up either incarcerated or outcast or dead.

But IF the world had gone in the other direction, what would you say? If doing evil stuff had turned out to be the norm, raping for instance, we could still be alive, we wouldn't necessarily have died out from evil acts.
Sodom or Gamorrah were not bad cities at first I'm sure, but evil things became the norm there.

What I'm saying is that evil is not necessarily supressed only because good exists, though that is the reason it is defeated.

And not only does that really hamper your ability to spread your genes (and produce more actively evil offspring)

You're being sarcastic about that last bit, or else you'd lose all those arguments where you said that just becauce a Muslim baby was born into a violent family, that he wouldn't turn out evil

but others see what happened to you and realize that kind of behavior generally doesn’t work

Only if the people who can put you in jail believe the same way, again, for you the principle hangs on the fact that a collective WE punishes the badness, but let me slip this in: if there was no collective WE to punish the bad, would it still be bad? If the roles were reversed, would it be the "right" thing to punish someone who had done good just because people didn't like it-(or were just jealous of someone so righteous)???

and actually could cause great harm or suffering for them and that in turn is instilled into our culture which over time makes doing those things seem… well… bad… And bingo you’ve got your god given morals, get em while theyre hot…

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Also, don't forget Byzantium.

Yes please don't

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Just to chime in with bj here, as I think this is an important misconception which I have seen repeated numerous times in discussions with American religious people (not so much from the UK).

It seems as if you are saying that "God give us value/morals/etc. If there is no God, then there are no values/morals/etc."

I hope you can see how that in no way accords with a secular viewpoint!

No, the point isn't whether secularists still believe in good or evil or not, it's whether they are just accepting them just because "thats the way we're going", or something else. And if they do, WHY and HOW they believe in them.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by klatukatt

Isn't it interesting that the longest living empires were monarchies, usally with strong ties to religion?

Prior to the last hundred years or so, all governments were monarchies, more or less, including the Roman Republic. Some of these "monarchies" just had a small group sharing the power as opposed to one individual.

The reasoning is simple. Until the modern age, people simply didn't have the ability to communicate in such a way that made any form of democracy possible in any area larger than a town.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

But IF the world had gone in the other direction, what would you say? If doing evil stuff had turned out to be the norm, raping for instance, we could still be alive, we wouldn't necessarily have died out from evil acts.

Rape was more or less the norm up until recent times. It was often against the laws, but it was unenforced and unenforcable on any real scale until quite recently in the history of humanity.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Rape was more or less the norm up until recent times. It was often against the laws, but it was unenforced and unenforcable on any real scale until quite recently in the history of humanity.

And my question is: if the society doesn't care, does it make it right?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

And my question is: if the society doesn't care, does it make it right?

No, because that society will not survive in the face of other societies that do care.

Societal evolution.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

No, because that society will not survive in the face of other societies that do care.

Societal evolution.

You dodged the question

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

You dodged the question

I gave the real world answer as opposed to some religio-psycho-moral philosophy. Religion doesn't promote morality in society. Thousands of years of human history proves it. Societal evolution has created the morality we have today.

Rape is not accepted by us today, but it was accepted almost universally "back in the day". Even by Popes and Priests did it with little recourse, no matter what was written in scripture.

What is "right" is what the people in power can get away with. It is not right anymore, not because of scripture, but because they can't get away with it anymore.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I gave the real world answer as opposed to some religio-psycho-moral philosophy. Religion doesn't promote morality in society. Thousands of years of human history proves it. Societal evolution has created the morality we have today.

What you gave was a "blueprint" answer that was only half the answer.

If a math teacher asked you "what's two and two?" would you reply that it was written on paper with ink?

Rape is not accepted by us today, but it was accepted almost universally "back in the day". Even by Popes and Priests did it with little recourse, no matter what was written in scripture.

As some people like to say everytime they don't like facts: Source please

What is "right" is what the people in power can get away with. It is not right anymore, not because of scripture, but because they can't get away with it anymore.

Think of all the Hermits you're insulting!

I think this theory falls apart: in earlier America people use to live more "in the woods", occasionally they'd have neighbors. Would you conclude that in a desperate time one of them would kill the other for his stuff, with nobody around to judge?

The question is, is the only reason a hermit not murderous or cruel simply because he has no quick access to people? If he did would he kill somebody? Did the owls tell him to do it?

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Tessar

The USA is a democratic state. If enough Americans stand up with the desire to get Gay Marriage passed, then it will happen. As it is, it seems quite a number don't want that in their state.

If someone wants to be a Catholic, then they should realize they can't marry someone of the same sex. Kind of like how you need to enjoy camping and doing projects to become a boyscout. If you don't like doing projects or camping... maybe you shouldn't be a boyscout . No one is forcing me, or anyone else that I know of, to be a Catholic, it's a choice.

It's my right to remain a faithful Catholic, for the time being, and it's also Lief's right to vote against homosexual marriage.

But wait a minute. Youre working with apples and oranges there. Of course its your right to be a catholic. You are a PERFECT example of how this should work. You choose to be a catholic for your own reasons. And because of that you agree to follow certain behaviors FOR YOURSELF which is just how it should work. If someone doesn’t like gay marriage they shouldn’t marry someone of the same sex. But when Lief tries to discriminate arbitrarily against homosexuals he is NOT following this same model. He is imposing his belief system on other people in a way that is unfair and unjust.

The only thing 'banning' gays from marrying is all of the lazy people who wont get off their asses and go vote.

No. It may be sad that more people don’t support gay marriage but you certainly cant say “lazy” people are banning gay marriage. It is the people who want to actively discriminate against gays that are banning gays from marrying. Who else is proposing the constitutional amendments? Lazy people?

but you know what? Almost without fail, the people who are against it are people who go and vote. The people who are for it seem much, much less likely to vote.

You know Im not sure about that. I really think theres a LOT of people right now in our society that don’t have a problem with discriminating against gays. Theres a lot of people who either have religious reasons for wanting to discriminate or have homophobically related reasons for wanting to discriminate (or both). I cant really think of any other reason to actively be against two people marrying really.

[Tessar]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

But wait a minute. Youre working with apples and oranges there. Of course its your right to be a catholic. You are a PERFECT example of how this should work. You choose to be a catholic for your own reasons. And because of that you agree to follow certain behaviors FOR YOURSELF which is just how it should work. If someone doesn’t like gay marriage they shouldn’t marry someone of the same sex. But when Lief tries to discriminate arbitrarily against homosexuals he is NOT following this same model. He is imposing his belief system on other people in a way that is unfair and unjust.

Forgive me, but I believe you've missed my entire point. I should have worded it better.

For whatever reasons he has to be against it, Lief has every right to express his views on homosexual marriage and to vote as he pleases. The fact that he is doing so on religious grounds does not change the fact that he has that right.

You say that Lief is imposing his beliefs on people by not allowing them to marry. Well then following on that train of thought, that is the POINT of a Democratic society. If enough people feel the same way, they get to 'impose' their beliefs on everyone else.

[Lief Erikson]

Absolutely right.

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by Tessar

Forgive me, but I believe you've missed my entire point. I should have worded it better.

For whatever reasons he has to be against it, Lief has every right to express his views on homosexual marriage and to vote as he pleases. The fact that he is doing so on religious grounds does not change the fact that he has that right.

You say that Lief is imposing his beliefs on people by not allowing them to marry. Well then following on that train of thought, that is the POINT of a Democratic society. If enough people feel the same way, they get to 'impose' their beliefs on everyone else.

Like they get to stuff Jews in ovens if 51% approve?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Tessar

You say that Lief is imposing his beliefs on people by not allowing them to marry. Well then following on that train of thought, that is the POINT of a Democratic society. If enough people feel the same way, they get to 'impose' their beliefs on everyone else.

That's not quite the "POINT" of our society. Study up on the Supreme Court decision on interracial marriage. Whether or not you think it applies to gay marriage, it is a perfect example of how our constitution protects certain basic rights and priviledges even if a majority tries to take them away.

Lief or anyone else does have the right to vote however they want, but certain votes are completely counter to our constitution and would never hold up in court.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

What you gave was a "blueprint" answer that was only half the answer.

If a math teacher asked you "what's two and two?" would you reply that it was written on paper with ink?

As some people like to say everytime they don't like facts: Source please

Think of all the Hermits you're insulting!

I think this theory falls apart: in earlier America people use to live more "in the woods", occasionally they'd have neighbors. Would you conclude that in a desperate time one of them would kill the other for his stuff, with nobody around to judge?

The question is, is the only reason a hermit not murderous or cruel simply because he has no quick access to people? If he did would he kill somebody? Did the owls tell him to do it?

Obviously you are more concerned with trying to be witty that actually discussing the topic, so I will leave the research up to you. Though I highly doubt you will care to do it.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by GreyMouser

Like they get to stuff Jews in ovens if 51% approve?

Yes. Let's hear it for democracy.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

That's not quite the "POINT" of our society. Study up on the Supreme Court decision on interracial marriage. Whether or not you think it applies to gay marriage, it is a perfect example of how our constitution protects certain basic rights and priviledges even if a majority tries to take them away.

Lief or anyone else does have the right to vote however they want, but certain votes are completely counter to our constitution and would never hold up in court.

Exactly. Which is what Ive been trying to say for like the past 3 posts! Its not about someones "right" to vote. How inane. It doesnt end there in our system. Its about Justified and fair and reasoned treatment when legislation is imposed on its citizens. Not state endorsed unjustified discrimination. I can vote to kill all the jews but EVEN IF the majority agree with me IT SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. So therefore Liefs right to vote that way is largely irrelevant other then in theory.

[Rosie Gamgee]

A lot of people would say that homosexuality should not be allowed for the same reasons that shoving Jews in ovens should not be: because it's wrong.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

But really Rex, you have argued against a god in the evolution debate threads, and generally shown yourself to be atheistical.

Well see I would disagree with that. Im not of the opinion that evolution and religion (even Christianity) are diametrically opposed. The problem is that so many Christians have allowed the extremist creationist types to hijack the scientific discussion and so that makes ANYONE else who says ANYTHING other then god created everything in 5 minutes a god hating atheist communist or something. Well how silly.

Personally the role of evolution is irrelevant of the concept of a god. Just as the role of gravity is irrelevant of the concept of a god so when I talk about evolution I don’t do so to counter religious ideas. Evolution could be part of gods tool box after all. And Im pretty sure Ive said that many times before.

And by the way what you probably should have asked is so what are you and not assume atheism right off the bat. Believe it or not agnostics hold widely differing views.

*sigh* Well that just blows my boat out of the water! Here I was trying to argue about where you got your morals etc, and it turns out this is a case of district and country

I get my “morals” from my genes and my environment. I see no worthy evidence of them coming from an outside higher source. I see no evidence that we are “programmed” with the ten commandments in our head or some such.

But I don't believe that raping is bad only if I have a daughter and don't want her raped, thought that isn't a bad reason. But I know you would feel just as bad about someone being raped even if you didn't have a daughter. There must be more to it.

But don’t forget raping is dangerous. It makes a lot of people mad at you. It can lead to injury or death. Whereas NOT raping is almost always the safest tactic to take. Now sometimes you CAN get away with it. And pass on your genes to boot because of it. So sometimes raping is the best course to take evolutionarily. Don’t believe me? Look at Genghis Khan. Something like 10% of all Asians on the face of the earth today are direct descendents of Genghis Khan. Raping worked out pretty well for him because he was in a position to benefit from it and the risk was minimal (power combined with culture) so he took it. But for most of us more often then not its too dangerous. So then a system develops where raping is possible but in most situations theres a real stigma associated with it that limits it. But it still occurs. Every day. So what the scientific model predicts we see in practice.

Meanwhile your explanation is that being against rape is programmed into us by god but not quite so much that we still don’t see it because oh god wants us to be able to make our own choices about raping or not raping… And that’s why we have an aversion to raping but we still rape… To me that’s nonsensical contortioning and the scientific model makes much more sense.

Here's the problem I see with your side sometimes: a thing is "bad" because it hurts, though a lot of things that hurt may actually be good, like getting a medical shot.

But more often then not being stabbed in the arm with a piece of metal can generally be understood to be bad news. So its not too hard to understand why we would evolve to have an aversion to such things. 99% of the time when our stone age ancestors were being grabbed and having something sharp stuck in them it wasn’t for a good reason. So evolution causes flight or fight to kick in. Ever tried to give a two year old a shot? They don’t appreciate it and they generally don’t cooperate too much. Even some adults cant deal with needles and faint at the very thought of getting a shot. Now why would god program them like that if it’s a good thing!

But IF the world had gone in the other direction, what would you say? If doing evil stuff had turned out to be the norm, raping for instance, we could still be alive, we wouldn't necessarily have died out from evil acts.

But our species did not evolve to have rape be the primary means of reproduction (many species do although really how are we to know if that elephant seal chick really wanted it or not…) so therefore the world could NOT have gone “in the other direction”. If it had we would not be human. Or at least the type of human we are right now.

Now that being said you can STILL have cultures and societies where rape is a greater part of the picture then other cultures and societies. But that just goes back to the notion that we will do what best maximizes our ability to pass our genes and survive. Rape is a radical short cut but its also an extreme option so many societies have developed taboos against it and therefore you don’t see it as wide spread in these societies. But then you have old Genghis Khan right? In his society, considering his position, it was well worth it. In effect you could say it was the “moral” thing to do from his point of view. Capturing a city and NOT raping the women might be considered an enormous weakness to everyone. Who knows. It could actually limit your ability to survive in the end.

What I'm saying is that evil is not necessarily supressed only because good exists, though that is the reason it is defeated.

“Evil” (a loaded term but Ill work with it for now) is suppressed because its risky… It is not defeated by “good” it is restricted by cost-benefit and reinforced by cultural abstracts (like religion).

You're being sarcastic about that last bit, or else you'd lose all those arguments where you said that just becauce a Muslim baby was born into a violent family, that he wouldn't turn out evil

Actually I was being serious. If you have something in your genetics that makes it more likely that youll be more violent then the next guy then it stands to assume that your children are more likely to inherit this trait as well. Now that is entirely irrelevant to the fact of what religion you may convert to. Islam is not in your genes…

What you are getting at is culture and genetics. Not religion as Ive said before.

if there was no collective WE to punish the bad, would it still be bad?

Its not about someone punishing us for doing something “bad” its about the ramifications, long term and species wide, that these “bad” behaviors have on us in particular and humans as a rule. As far as I can tell that’s the only thing that provides the boundaries on our behavior. Does this mean that there cant be some divine referee out there deciding the rules and nudging us here and there as they see fit? Of course that’s possible but you cant measure it.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Obviously you are more concerned with trying to be witty that actually discussing the topic, so I will leave the research up to you. Though I highly doubt you will care to do it.

On the other hand, you ignored my assertion that your previous reply was simply a "blueprint" answer.

[Earniel]

The 1000 reply-limit has been reached and the rest of the conversation has been split off in a new thread. You can continue here: homosexual marriage II. Closing.