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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Dead Horses: Am I an extremist now?
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Because they were all impervious to facts and data?
Because a knowledge of innate same sex attraction is not logically incompatible with disapproving of homosexual sex.
No, you are completely confusing two quite separate propositions.
Saying that something is not logically incompatible is simply saying that a person would not be forced to change their position in order to stay within the bounds of strict logic.
That is completely different to saying that a person would continue, in the light of new evidence, to view their conclusion as the best conclusion. Remember, you framed this as a situation where the writers of the Bible were human beings rather than receivers of divine revelation.
I'm trying to discuss the second proposition with you, not the first. The first isn't the issue even though you think it is. We're talking about the capacity of new information to change a decision.
Your argument is pretty much equivalent to saying that once someone has chosen to eat something that is edible, they won't ever change their decision based on new information about nutritional value, financial cost, or environmental cost/production method.
This is demonstrably not true. People do change their eating and purchasing decisions based on this information.
But you're applying that to ethical decisions. You're saying that someone won't change their ethical position based on new information about injustice or impracticality or consequences.
Which is clearly not true. Gamaliel has given a perfect illustration right here on this thread of what happens to a person's views when they take into account new information.
[ 12. August 2015, 03:43: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The long standing condemnation of homosexual sex is in line with the Bible.
The long standing Christian support for criminalisation of homosexual sex was not.
Leviticus 20:13...you think putting people to death had nothing to do with criminal punishment???
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
I do not think there is any Biblical justification for any form of sin
Completely circular reasoning. This is about as meaningful as saying "I don't think there's anything in the rules of golf that justifies breaking the rules of golf."
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
you are treating the situation as if both 'sides' are on a level playing field.
On the contrary, I recognise that here in the West those who believe that homosexual sex is wrong are in a minority and on the defensive, even when they believe in pluralist toleration.
You might think this is poetic justice, but it is a fact nontheless.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The long standing condemnation of homosexual sex is in line with the Bible.
The long standing Christian support for criminalisation of homosexual sex was not.
Leviticus 20:13...you think putting people to death had nothing to do with criminal punishment???
The people of God under the old covenant constituted a theocracy in which there was no distinction between what we would call church and state.
For Christians the NT supersedes the OT in various areas, such as animal sacrifices.
The NT does not rescind the OT condemnation of homosexuality, but it does rescind the OT concept of the people of God as some sort of church/state arrangement in which Christian morality is forced on society at large.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
So again you highlight the incompetence or inconsistency of your version of the Christian God.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
a situation where the writers of the Bible were human beings rather than receivers of divine revelation.
OK, suppose the OT writers, or any other group you might like to think of, believed that homosexual behaviour was self-evidently wrong on the basis of some sort of transcendent, but not theistic, natural law conviction.
If they then discovered that same sex attraction was innate for some people, they could conclude either a. that the existence of those people showed that there was something wrong with their convictions, or b. that their convictions showed there was something wrong with those people.
Logically, each conclusion is equally valid.
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
And yet theologically, only one makes any fucking sense.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
...The NT does not rescind the OT condemnation of homosexuality, but it does rescind the OT concept of the people of God as some sort of church/state arrangement in which Christian morality is forced on society at large.
So we are back to people wearing poly-cotton shirts or eating shellfish again.
Can we please have some consistency here?
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Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Real life is messier than our theology.
Indeed.
It’s important to honestly face up to what the Bible teaches, and not try to fudge the issue by pretending it says what it doesn’t, but the actual application and practice is far more complex.
If you believed the media, you would think that conservative Christians do nothing but sit around discussing gays, or protesting against them in some way.
In my experience, at what was effectively a generic evangelical church in which all the members believed that homosexual practice was wrong, the issue was very rarely even mentioned, for a number of reasons, which included having gay friends or family members, and thinking there were far more serious sins than homosexual sex, but also just sheer lack of interest – we had more to think about and do.
I don’t know of any who went around confronting gays, directly or in print or in any other way.
C.S. Lewis says somewhere that the fact that Augustine believed that Hell was going to be full of unbaptised babies didn’t mean that he wanted unbaptised babies to be damned.*
The existence of people with same sex attraction undoubtedly raises theological questions, but they are really just a subset of the broader theodicean issues thrown up by the whole field of sexuality.
Now I’m not God (no, it’s true!), but if I were, I wouldn't not allow people to develop SSA, but I would also not create sexual feelings and capabilities in twelve year olds (especially a capacity to fall pregnant), or in people who I knew would never get married, and would suffer sexual frustration all their lives.
Given that gays make up only about 1-2% of the population, from a purely statistical point of view the most suffering from celibacy by those who take the Bible's sexual ethics seriously is probably endured by heterosexuals.
* Not quoted as a prediction of the eternal destination of gays, but as a reminder that some things in the faith are not easy to understand.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
a situation where the writers of the Bible were human beings rather than receivers of divine revelation.
OK, suppose the OT writers, or any other group you might like to think of, believed that homosexual behaviour was self-evidently wrong on the basis of some sort of transcendent, but not theistic, natural law conviction.
If they then discovered that same sex attraction was innate for some people, they could conclude either a. that the existence of those people showed that there was something wrong with their convictions, or b. that their convictions showed there was something wrong with those people.
Logically, each conclusion is equally valid.
No, they're not. If you're going to talk about "logic" you have to understand what logic involves. It's a reasoning process based on the link between premises and conclusions.
What you're claiming is that a person can hold onto their conclusions. If a person doesn't actually know where their conclusions came from, they're not employing "logic" at all. They're employing faith.
At it's highest, all you're telling me is that a person can continue to maintain a conclusion on the basis that it continues to follow from their premises. But the process of logic requires that when new information comes to light, you re-check your premises, not just your conclusions.
[ 12. August 2015, 07:01: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
To put it as simply as possible, a correct conclusion rests on two things:
1. The conclusion logically follows from the premises.
2. The premises are correct.
You can harp on all you like about how the first point is satisfied, but it does precisely nothing to address the second point.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Given that gays make up only about 1-2% of the population, from a purely statistical point of view the most suffering from celibacy by those who take the Bible's sexual ethics seriously is probably endured by heterosexuals.
True but irrelevant. ALL gays must suffer celibacy according to you. Only SOME breeders have to. The fact that there happen to be more breeders, and so therefore more of us will suffer celibacy, does not change this inherent asymmetry. The question is not numbers. It's percents. 0% versus some%. Some is infinitely greater than 0 when you're doing ratios.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Don't lecture me about my theology, Jamat.
Otherwise I'll call you to Hell.
As it stands, I hold to classic Nicene-Chalcedonian Christianity and all that this entails.
Because I can square or juggle that with the world also being a messy place you mistake it for a lack of conviction. You are wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
Just because some of us can handle nuance and don't reduce everything to a set of black-and-white fundamentalist propositions it doesn't mean that we lack conviction.
Withdraw your remark please.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Kaplan
If you'd read my posts properly you'd have seen that I'm not trying to make the Bible say what it doesn't say. I said quite clearly that it's difficult to justify same-sex attraction or homosexual activity from the scriptures - without jumping through hermeneutical hoops ...
Yes, there is a big issue here with theodicy and yes, there's an issue with the media, with the 'gay lobby' promoting a particular agenda and everything else yadda yadda yadda ...
But how do we deal with it in practice?
Our church-warden came out as gay recently, just as he was stepping down for the role. The vicar called a special leadership team meeting to discuss the issue ... can you imagine what it must have felt like for him? A bunch of people sitting down to discuss his sexuality and what their response to it should be?
I'm amazed he didn't clear off to a different parish.
As it happens, he's been told he can still play the organ, come to communion, do everything else ... but as soon as he gets a boyfriend ... ah ah ... that's it, he's going to have to stand down ...
Now, I can understand the conservative theology here and the reaction - but bloody hell ...
If we were RCs then the issue would remain between the former church-warden and the priest. There'd be no reason for anyone else to know about it.
This is the sort of thing I'm getting at ... I'm struggling to think what the best way to deal with this is ...
'Look pal, we know you're gay and we still want to be your friend but as soon as you express your sexuality physically - sorry ... there's the door ...'
I'm trying to work and think these things through. Do we extend 'ekkonomeia' - to coin an Orthodox phrase ... or do we give someone the right boot of fellowship for having an orientation we seem to agree is innate and cannot be changed - and if that leads them to express it physically?
I'm not saying that evangelical churches are obsessed with the issue - they aren't. But how do they deal with it when one or other of their congregations turns out to be gay?
Your comments on C S Lewis and evangelicals not going round confronting gays are irrelevant to this issue. What would you do if you were a leader of a church and someone came and told you they were gay -- and subsequently found a partner.
Would you boot them out? Ask them to leave?
Also, calculating how many heterosexuals suffer as opposed to how many homosexuals suffer by taking the Bible's teaching on sexual ethics seriously is missing the point by a country mile.
'Statistically more heterosexuals are having to practice sexual abstinence than homosexuals because homosexuals make up a lower proportion of the population ... therefore that makes it ok and they should put up or shut up ...'
How does that help THIS person in the pew or THAT person in the youth group?
It doesn't. You don't appear to have any more idea of how to deal with this issue than I do.
At least have the honesty to admit it rather than trotting out the same tired, 'the Bible says ...' mantra without engaging with the issues.
Quoting the Bible is one thing, and your tradition is good at that - applying it and dealing with the messiness of real life is quite another.
But you knew that already.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
No Christian institution is obliged to recognize a civil marriage, or a couple married by a rabbi, or a couple married by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. This isn't the Act of Succession, where people will be executed if they don't take a public oath.
Individual Christians have always had the right to tell people, "You know you're not really married, right?"
Is this actually pertinent? That is, as I understand it, every mainstream Christian denomination thinks it is irrelevant where and how a couple got married. The Roman Catholic does claim that some marriages are not actual marriages because they were not entered into in the correct frame of mind, but as I understand it, being a Christian believer and married in a Christian ceremony is neither necessary nor sufficient as a correct frame of mind.
I think framing this as a question of people enjoying equal rights and not infringing each other's rights is a prime example of liberals justifying things on grounds nobody really cares about. Legal marriage is not primarily about legal rights. It's about social esteem and recognition. Marriage matters because it is an honourable estate (instituted by God in man's innocency etc etc), and by recognising marriage between people of the same gender the state and d.v. the church are recognising that.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But the process of logic requires that when new information comes to light, you re-check your premises, not just your conclusions.
Pedantically, that's not logic. It's good reasoning, but reasoning does not solely consist of logic. Logic just accepts premises as givens. This is why logic is both extremely powerful and extremely limited.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But the process of logic requires that when new information comes to light, you re-check your premises, not just your conclusions.
Pedantically, that's not logic. It's good reasoning, but reasoning does not solely consist of logic. Logic just accepts premises as givens. This is why logic is both extremely powerful and extremely limited.
Yes, I misspoke. Really what I had in mind was making logic practically useful. Hopefully I corrected myself in what I said subsequently.
[ 12. August 2015, 09:24: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Jamat
This post.
Feel free to criticise the arguments in anyone's post as much as you like, but posting more general observations and questions about their character or convictions from a personally perceived pattern of posting looks like a personal attack. You've moved from criticism of Gamaliel's ideas to criticism of him. That's a Commandment 3 offence IMO. Feel free to call me to the Styx if you disagree this ruling, but for the meantime don't do that again on any Boards outside of Hell.
Gamaliel
Having reviewed the post in question, I appreciate your indignation. Feel free to call Jamat to Hell. It might have been better to query the element of personal attack in Jamat's post with a Host (by PM) first. It's a close call and my ruling is open to review; I didn't spot the probable C3 offence until I looked at the post again.
Barnabas62
Dead Horses Host
[ 12. August 2015, 09:28: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Thanks Barnabas62.
On reflection, I should have questioned the apparent personal element in Jamat's post before issuing a threat to call him to Hell.
I was indignant, though. Most certainly.
I will desist from calling Jamat to the infernal regions on this occasion.
I will make the following observation, though, FWIW ... I've noticed online and in real life that very conservative evangelicals such as Jamat - and Kaplan Corday too, to a certain extent - seem to have less of an issue with liberal Christians who redefine the creeds and re-interpret traditional understandings of scripture - than they do with conservative Christians such as myself who hold to the creeds and to traditional understandings of scripture yet who argue for some lee-way when faced with the messiness of life or case-by-case circumstances.
I don't mean that to sound dismissive or to suggest that I'm 'better' and wiser than they are - far from it. I'm a complete wally.
However - whilst I do come in for some stick here at times for apparently hedging my bets or assuming a fence-sitting position (to the detriment of my sore backside) and for quoting RCs and Orthodox positively without necessarily crossing either the Tiber or Bosphorus ... and yes, I appreciate how irritating that must be to read -- I cannot for the life of me understand why I should be considered lacking in conviction.
I've got convictions about all sorts of things. I'm passionate about them.
The trouble is, some of those who consider that other traditions don't 'think for themselves' and who pride themselves on their notions of the priesthood of all believers and their apparent grasp of scripture do, I'm afraid, come across as though they haven't thought things through properly ... as far as I can see (I'm using caveats here).
It does come over as 'the Bah-ble says, the Bah-ble says ...' end of story without considering the complexities, context and nuance.
I once sat in on a lively debate between an Orthodox Bishop and some RC clergy about their respective views on divorce. The RCs thought the Orthodox guy was wishy-washy and too soft ... the issues were more clear-cut, the RC line was the right one ...
I was impressed, to be honest - impressed by both sides. Why? Because although they were arguing from entrenched positions - my Church (capital C) teaches this or that ... they were doing so in a way that took a whole range of aspects into account. It was very 3-D.
What I see here, I'm afraid, particularly from some of our more conservative evangelical friends (and yes, very conservative Catholic types can equally fall into this trap) are very 2-D arguments.
There's a missing dimension somewhere. They don't seem to be able to square the circle as it were - to consider that if the ideal cannot be attained - for whatever reason - then we must accommodate or settle somewhere ...
For instance, it could certainly be argued from a conservative position that a monogamous same-sex relationship - even if believed not to be the ideal - was eminently preferable to the suffering that might be caused by enforced celibacy (without the 'charism' or calling to endure that) or the alternatives there might be in terms of promiscuous sex, the danger of HIV/Aids and so on.
I'm not saying that's right or wrong - simply saying that it could be seen as a possibility.
What is likely to cause the least harm?
In an abusive marriage relationship, say, should those who take a strong stand against divorce insist on the partners staying together - 'because the Bible says ...'?
No, of course not - I don't think any church - not even the RCC these days - would insist on that.
I'll leave it there.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
A soul will not stand before the Lord in the end as a gender defined soul
Surely the implication of this is that worrying about the gender (or indeed the sex) of the two people who want to marry is a nonsense, and the idea of homosexual sex being a problem when heterosexual sex is not is likewise nonsense?
[ 12. August 2015, 10:16: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Our church-warden came out as gay recently, just as he was stepping down for the role. The vicar called a special leadership team meeting to discuss the issue ... can you imagine what it must have felt like for him? A bunch of people sitting down to discuss his sexuality and what their response to it should be?
I'm amazed he didn't clear off to a different parish.
As it happens, he's been told he can still play the organ, come to communion, do everything else ... but as soon as he gets a boyfriend ... ah ah ... that's it, he's going to have to stand down ...
From the sound of that, there's no problem if he's out having casual sex with men he picks up/is picked up by at bars or wherever???????
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Our church-warden came out as gay recently, just as he was stepping down for the role. The vicar called a special leadership team meeting to discuss the issue ... can you imagine what it must have felt like for him? A bunch of people sitting down to discuss his sexuality and what their response to it should be?
I'm amazed he didn't clear off to a different parish.
As it happens, he's been told he can still play the organ, come to communion, do everything else ... but as soon as he gets a boyfriend ... ah ah ... that's it, he's going to have to stand down ...
From the sound of that, there's no problem if he's out having casual sex with men he picks up/is picked up by at bars or wherever???????
I trust that fornicators, adulterers, whores, drunkards, gluttons and idolators are still welcome?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I think that if I were Gamaliel's churchwarden i'd be tempted to shake the dust off my feet and tell the bloody vicar to stick his church up the place that he has a problem with the idea of things being stuck up.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
you are treating the situation as if both 'sides' are on a level playing field.
On the contrary, I recognise that here in the West those who believe that homosexual sex is wrong are in a minority and on the defensive, even when they believe in pluralist toleration.
You might think this is poetic justice, but it is a fact nontheless.
Very much not the minority in Western churches, and actively targeting LGBT Christians.
See Gamaliel's post about his church's churchwarden - even in moderate church circles, there's so much harm being done.
Exorcism of LGBT Christians in charismatic churches, by the way, is common even in the UK.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
To continue the analogy, I am content to follow a policy of live and let live with Hindus, with respectful dialogue and evangelism where possible, but if they formed a militant organisation to insist that Hinduism is compatible with Christianity; to harass and intimidate and label as Hinduphobic anyone who disagreed with them: and to push for "hate crime" legislation to back their agenda, then I would take them on too.
What is the definition of 'militant' here? Also is it bigoted against Hindus for a baker to refuse to sell them a standard wedding cake because the baker refuses to be involved in a pagan wedding?
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spinner of webs
Posts: 1093 | From: San Francisco Bay area | Registered: Dec 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
To continue the analogy, I am content to follow a policy of live and let live with Hindus, with respectful dialogue and evangelism where possible, but if they formed a militant organisation to insist that Hinduism is compatible with Christianity; to harass and intimidate and label as Hinduphobic anyone who disagreed with them: and to push for "hate crime" legislation to back their agenda, then I would take them on too.
Yeah, I've heard this argument before. Hate crimes laws (as distinct from hate speech laws) are laws that increase sentencing for already-criminal acts that specifically target people based on certain characteristics, usually race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or a few other characteristics. Essentially you're arguing that you should be allowed to assault Hindus free of criminal penalty because assaulting them (or vandalizing their property, or robbing them, or whatever) is part of your religious practice and deserves more leeway than their "agenda" of not being deliberately targeted for criminal acts because of their religion.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
No, there isn't a verse in the NT which says "Thou shalt not commit theocracy", but there doesn't need to be, because it is a perfectly reasonable inference that the absence of any direction for Christians to practice any coercion in their relations to others (ponderously laboured comparisons with wheels notwithstanding), along with directions which are incompatible with theocratic coercion, are sufficient to establish the principle.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The NT does not rescind the OT condemnation of homosexuality, but it does rescind the OT concept of the people of God as some sort of church/state arrangement in which Christian morality is forced on society at large.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It’s important to honestly face up to what the Bible teaches, and not try to fudge the issue by pretending it says what it doesn’t, but the actual application and practice is far more complex.
This seems incompatible. Either you're allowed to "fudge" what the Bible says by pretending that if you run it through your secret decoder ring it says "thou shalt not commit theocracy", or you have to "honestly face up to what the Bible teaches". You don't get to switch back and forth based on your personal preference. Well, actually you do get to, but none of us have to take this inconsistent approach seriously or pretend that it involves some kind of "principle".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Individual Christians have always had the right to tell people, "You know you're not really married, right?" We know this because Christians regularly picket non-Christian wedding locations such as courthouses, synagogues, all-inclusive resorts, etc. and tell all those couples they're not properly sacramentally married and refuse to bake cakes and arrange flowers for them.
They may have that right in your state; they don't have it here. Or, I gather, in every state in the US.
I call bullshit. Show me one example of a Christian being legally punished for saying a legal marriage isn't a sacramental marriage.
quote:
Picketing other people's wedding or civil partnership ceremony is wrong. It's trespassing in other people's lives.
As is picketing funerals and medical facilities, so obviously not all Christians got the memo.
quote:
But someone who bakes wedding cakes for a living should be allowed to decline to bake a gay marriage cake. They shouldn't be sued for deciding not to move into this new market. That's wrong, a breach of their freedom, an intrusion on their life.
And that's a rehash of the Woolworth's lunch counter argument. Someone who makes sandwiches for a living shouldn't have to "move into a new market" and serve black customers just because the law says they have to. Is that really your argument?
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
... I think framing this as a question of people enjoying equal rights and not infringing each other's rights is a prime example of liberals justifying things on grounds nobody really cares about. ...
srsly?
So things like the right to vote or go to school or join a union or own property or get married are things "nobody really cares about". Gosh, it must be exhausting to have to drag that backpack of privilege everywhere.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
... I think framing this as a question of people enjoying equal rights and not infringing each other's rights is a prime example of liberals justifying things on grounds nobody really cares about. ...
srsly?
So things like the right to vote or go to school or join a union or own property or get married are things "nobody really cares about". Gosh, it must be exhausting to have to drag that backpack of privilege everywhere.
Nobody cares about the right to vote because it allows them to not infringe other people's rights. They care about the right to vote because voting affirms them as citizens whose voice in their society is as valuable as any other.
But liberalism does not say that being a citizen whose voice is valuable is intrinsically valuable, and something to be affirmed.
All liberalism can say is that if using your voice happens to be what you want you may have that option equally with everyone else, and if it doesn't you can do something else; liberalism doesn't care.
Liberalism can offer you the right to go to school because it makes you a more productive contributor to the economy who can command a higher salary. Liberalism cannot offer you the right to an education that is valuable for its own sake. All liberalism can say is that if you want to spend your money on your private passtimes that's your choice.
Et cetera.
People care about the above things because they represent values, human achievements and fulfilments. Liberalism can only say that they are choices and desire satisfactions.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Is this actually pertinent? That is, as I understand it, every mainstream Christian denomination thinks it is irrelevant where and how a couple got married. The Roman Catholic does claim that some marriages are not actual marriages because they were not entered into in the correct frame of mind, but as I understand it, being a Christian believer and married in a Christian ceremony is neither necessary nor sufficient as a correct frame of mind.
Actually the most common objection the Roman Catholic Church has to legal marriages is bigamy. If the RCC doesn't recognize divorce, then Bob is still married to Alice, even if he's obtained a divorce from the state, so his subsequent marriage to Carol is therefore invalid (in the eyes of the RCC) regardless of Bob and Carol's "frame of mind". Despite this, most of us don't see the need for the state to accommodate Roman Catholic belief on this matter by refusing to marry Bob and Carol who are, at least in the state's view, unmarried adults.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Nobody cares about the right to vote because it allows them to not infringe other people's rights. They care about the right to vote because voting affirms them as citizens whose voice in their society is as valuable as any other.
But liberalism does not say that being a citizen whose voice is valuable is intrinsically valuable, and something to be affirmed.
Pure bullshit. The concept of human liberty, particularly political liberty, is the basis for liberalism. That's where the term comes from. So yes, liberalism holds that the right to a voice in the affairs of state is intrinsically valued and to be affirmed.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Nobody cares about the right to vote because it allows them to not infringe other people's rights. They care about the right to vote because voting affirms them as citizens whose voice in their society is as valuable as any other.
But liberalism does not say that being a citizen whose voice is valuable is intrinsically valuable, and something to be affirmed.
Pure bullshit. The concept of human liberty, particularly political liberty, is the basis for liberalism. That's where the term comes from. So yes, liberalism holds that the right to a voice in the affairs of state is intrinsically valued and to be affirmed.
No, it does not.
The republican tradition (small r, obviously) believes that participation in running one's society and the consequent self-determination is a human good. Now in the past many thinkers have combined liberalism and republicanism in a slightly unstable amalgam. But that's not part of the dominant neoliberal tradition now.
The dominant tradition now affirms, in Rawls' phrase, the priority of the right over the good. That is, the state does not prescribe any values to its citizens. It merely gives them the liberties and, in centre to left wing variants, the resources, they need to pursue whatever private values they may have. But crucially it does not establish any values. It does not establish religion. Nor does it establish republicanism. One citizen may believe republican engagement is intrinsically valuable, and another citizen believes participation in the political process is merely an instrumental means to avoid oppression, and a third believes that the best human life is one lived without engagement with politics. The liberal state does not endorse any of those positions.
With specific application to marriage: the liberal tradition defends the recognition of marriage by the state on the grounds that, for example, it resolves inheritance disputes, or it allows for the default identification of next-of-kin in cases where one spouse is unable to consent to medical treatment, or for similar bureaucratic conveniences. It's odd if that's the justification that only preferred sexual partners are eligible, and siblings and children are ineligible for the status, because you'd think siblings would be excellent candidates in many cases.
But people do not campaign passionately for bureaucratic conveniences, except where those bureaucratic conveniences are proxy for something else (often intangible). I'd bet most of us who celebrated the legalisation of marriage for non-heterosexual couples in this country couldn't explain the precise legal differences between marriage and civil partnership. We celebrated because it declared that people of the same sex who built a life together were not engaged in some second-class activity, but were equally esteemed.
People care about equality of recognition. Equality of rights matters to people largely because it's impossible to have genuine equality of recognition without it.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
But people do not campaign passionately for bureaucratic conveniences, except where those bureaucratic conveniences are proxy for something else (often intangible). I'd bet most of us who celebrated the legalisation of marriage for non-heterosexual couples in this country couldn't explain the precise legal differences between marriage and civil partnership. We celebrated because it declared that people of the same sex who built a life together were not engaged in some second-class activity, but were equally esteemed.
People care about equality of recognition. Equality of rights matters to people largely because it's impossible to have genuine equality of recognition without it.
No. Just no.
Black Americans living in the Jim Crow South didn't want voting rights because they were uppity and wanted social recognition as equals. They wanted the vote because its lack was a key factor in maintaining an oppressively racist governing system.
People don't battle for the right to maintain custody of their children, something you dismiss as a "bureaucratic convenience", simply because they want some kind of social approbation. They do it because they love their kids and don't want to lose them.
And if your spouse, same- or opposite-sex, is unconscious in the hospital and near death and your first thought is "I certainly hope I can get some social recognition out of this!", then you are a sociopath.
Stop projecting your own obsession with social approbation on everyone else.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Black Americans living in the Jim Crow South didn't want voting rights because they were uppity and wanted social recognition as equals. They wanted the vote because its lack was a key factor in maintaining an oppressively racist governing system.
Shall we see?
quote:
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights: "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied and we will not be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
You go along with the bits about police brutality, you go along with the bits about hotels and motels, maybe you go along with the bit about mobility from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. But you must think the next sentence falls into bathos. King complains that signs rob black people of their selfhood and dignity.
Are you saying King is obsessed with social approbation?
Are you saying King is 'uppity'?
quote:
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
You are saying King is obsessed with social approbation?
You are calling King 'uppity'?
quote:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
You are saying King is obsessed with social approbation. You are calling King 'uppity'.
quote:
People don't battle for the right to maintain custody of their children, something you dismiss as a "bureaucratic convenience", simply because they want some kind of social approbation. They do it because they love their kids and don't want to lose them.
There are a lot of things that people battle for and don't want to lose. But not all emotions are of equal weight with the state. Certainly not when children's well-being is at stake. When the state awards particular weight to whether people love their kids and don't want to lose them it is granting that emotion recognition and esteem. That does not mean social approbation, by which I presume you mean something like patting on the back and awarding subjective warm fuzzies.
On the Purgatory thread, hatless quoted Pratchett giving Granny Weatherwax the words 'sin is treating people like things'. Recognition is what you don't have when you're treated like a thing. Recognition is what you don't have when you're stripped of your selfhood and robbed of your dignity.
quote:
And if your spouse, same- or opposite-sex, is unconscious in the hospital and near death and your first thought is "I certainly hope I can get some social recognition out of this!", then you are a sociopath.
Why isn't your first thought 'I'm going to stay well out of the way of the nursing staff so I don't risk interfering with them doing their jobs'?
The nursing staff do have the right to keep people out so they can do their jobs. They're allowed to restrict visiting hours. Suppose your old school friend of fifty years standing is unconscious in hospital and near-death. Ought you have the right to sit with your friend outside visiting hours? Why then, if you do not, ought your friend's spouse of only a few years standing have the right?
Our society makes the value judgement that friendship is not a matter for the state's esteem to anything like the same extent as spousal relations are.
quote:
Stop projecting your own obsession with social approbation on everyone else.
Do you really think that when King talks about dignity and selfhood, all he is talking about is what you call 'social approbation'?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You go along with the bits about police brutality, you go along with the bits about hotels and motels, maybe you go along with the bit about mobility from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. But you must think the next sentence falls into bathos.
Actually my objection was to your classifying police brutality, fair housing, and the economic plunder inherent in Segregation as "bureaucratic [in]conveniences". Dismissing voting rights as being solely about "social esteem and recognition" is a deliberate attempt to erase all the other abuses of Jim Crow.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
King complains that signs rob black people of their selfhood and dignity.
Are you saying King is obsessed with social approbation?
Are you saying King is 'uppity'?
Not at all, though I would say that anyone who claims the only thing Dr. King was concerned with was using "bureaucratic conveniences" to gain "social esteem and recognition" has pretty much missed the point of his entire philosophy.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
There are a lot of things that people battle for and don't want to lose. But not all emotions are of equal weight with the state. Certainly not when children's well-being is at stake. When the state awards particular weight to whether people love their kids and don't want to lose them it is granting that emotion recognition and esteem. That does not mean social approbation, by which I presume you mean something like patting on the back and awarding subjective warm fuzzies.
You can consider "social approbation" to be roughly equivalent to "social esteem and recognition", which you seem to believe is the only reason people have kids. You certainly imply that if someone tried to take away their children the only reason a parent would resort to the "bureaucratic convenience" of asserting their custody rights was to garner "social esteem and recognition", not because of any emotional connection they might feel towards their offspring. I disagree.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
And if your spouse, same- or opposite-sex, is unconscious in the hospital and near death and your first thought is "I certainly hope I can get some social recognition out of this!", then you are a sociopath.
Why isn't your first thought 'I'm going to stay well out of the way of the nursing staff so I don't risk interfering with them doing their jobs'?
Probably because simply assuming the nursing staff is doing their job is often inadequate. Simply assuming that they know about your husband's penicillin allergy is a sucker bet.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Suppose your old school friend of fifty years standing is unconscious in hospital and near-death. Ought you have the right to sit with your friend outside visiting hours?
Or, even further, why can't you make treatment decisions on behalf of your incapacitated old school friend? Sure, you haven't really talked that much recently, but you're pretty sure she wouldn't mind you authorizing that amputation. Probably.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Why then, if you do not, ought your friend's spouse of only a few years standing have the right?
Our society makes the value judgement that friendship is not a matter for the state's esteem to anything like the same extent as spousal relations are.
If you're really that close a friend, you should be listed in the Advance Medical Directive. If not, why are you the one who gets to decide on their organ donor status and what type of funeral service to have? I'm not sure "esteem" is the right word for these kinds of very practical questions. One of the basic assumptions of family law is spouses know these kinds of contingencies are possible and discuss them in advance.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Don't lecture me about my theology, Jamat.
Otherwise I'll call you to Hell.
As it stands, I hold to classic Nicene-Chalcedonian Christianity and all that this entails.
Because I can square or juggle that with the world also being a messy place you mistake it for a lack of conviction. You are wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
Just because some of us can handle nuance and don't reduce everything to a set of black-and-white fundamentalist propositions it doesn't mean that we lack conviction.
Withdraw your remark please.
Apologies Gamaliel, no personal aspersions were intended and I can see how you read that as a personal attack.
Barbnabas,Thanks for the reminder, my comment was thoughtless.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Essentially you're arguing that you should be allowed to assault Hindus free of criminal penalty because assaulting them (or vandalizing their property, or robbing them, or whatever) is part of your religious practice and deserves more leeway than their "agenda" of not being deliberately targeted for criminal acts because of their religion.
Given all I have written about the imperative of tolerance between groups who disagree, with its total absence of any suggestion of violence, the only reason I can come up with for such a bizarre misrepresentation of what I wrote about the need to "take them on" as anything other than argument, is some sort of ideologically driven spite and paranoia.
Feel free to apologise.
quote:
This seems incompatible.
Nope.
What I am doing is what all Christians have always done, ie recognise that there are things in the OT which still apply to Christians, and other things which don't, using the NT as the arbiter.
Show me one verse in the NT which justifies a religiously coercive theocracy.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
you are treating the situation as if both 'sides' are on a level playing field.
On the contrary, I recognise that here in the West those who believe that homosexual sex is wrong are in a minority and on the defensive, even when they believe in pluralist toleration.
You might think this is poetic justice, but it is a fact nontheless.
Very much not the minority in Western churches, and actively targeting LGBT Christians.
See Gamaliel's post about his church's churchwarden - even in moderate church circles, there's so much harm being done.
Exorcism of LGBT Christians in charismatic churches, by the way, is common even in the UK.
The fact that some Christians think that homosexual practice is wrong does not change the fact that they are, for better or worse, a weak and diminishing minority in the West.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Kaplan
I’m quite genuinely at a loss to understand your defensive tone, Gamaliel, because I had imagined I was, in essence, agreeing with you.
We both recognise that there is a strong a priori case that the Bible disapproves of homosexuality (the comment about dodgy exegesis was not directed at you), and also recognize that to apply it in real life, including church settings, can involve messiness and less than perfect consistency.
And not just homosexuality.
What to do, for example, with a fellow Christian who would desperately like to be married but isn’t, or who is in a marriage in which for some reason the sexual relationship has become impossible, and who, in either case, deals with their frustration by going to prostitutes?
I haven’t come across such a situation while on a church leadership, for which I am extremely grateful.
Part of the problem, of course, is that in contemporary Western culture we now have de facto recognition of a universal human right to sexual fulfillment, which is seen to override almost any other consideration, and while we can question it at the theoretical level, it feels mean-spirited to do so from the position of being in a happy marriage.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
To put it as simply as possible, a correct conclusion rests on two things:
1. The conclusion logically follows from the premises.
2. The premises are correct.
You can harp on all you like about how the first point is satisfied, but it does precisely nothing to address the second point.
That's because a premise is a given.
You can't show that a premise such as "it is wrong to impose deliberate cruelty on animals" is correct or incorrect.
To you and me it is self-evident, but to countless people it is not, and there is no way we can demonstrate its "correctness" rationally, empirically or whatever.
I repeat: if you start with the premise that homosexual activity is wrong per se, a premise which on the face of it the Bible teaches, then whether or not that activity proceeds from innate same sex attraction or not is irrelevant.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What to do, for example, with a fellow Christian who would desperately like to be married but isn’t,
See, here is the thing. One of the sources of NT anti-homosexuality is Paul. But Paul was also no fan of marriage.
So your POV makes a big deal out of marriage by using a source that says marriage is the lesser of two evils.
Marriage is one of the biggest deals in modern Christianity. Yet, by the very source used to define who gets to do it, it shouldn't be.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
To put it as simply as possible, a correct conclusion rests on two things:
1. The conclusion logically follows from the premises.
2. The premises are correct.
You can harp on all you like about how the first point is satisfied, but it does precisely nothing to address the second point.
That's because a premise is a given.
You can't show that a premise such as "it is wrong to impose deliberate cruelty on animals" is correct or incorrect.
To you and me it is self-evident, but to countless people it is not, and there is no way we can demonstrate its "correctness" rationally, empirically or whatever.
I repeat: if you start with the premise that homosexual activity is wrong per se, a premise which on the face of it the Bible teaches, then whether or not that activity proceeds from innate same sex attraction or not is irrelevant.
You genuinely don't seem to understand what's a premise or what's a conclusion. You've gone back to saying "what the Bible teaches", when the very basis of this part of the conversation was accepting for the sake of argument that the authors of the Bible:
1. Were not receiving divine revelation.
2. Were writing down their conclusions, not their premises.
"It is wrong to impose deliberate cruelty on animals" is not a sensible premise in an ethical debate. It's a conclusion. "Homosexual activity is wrong" is simply not a sensible premise. It's a conclusion. If we're trying to derive ethical positions, writing an ethical position as a premise makes no sense whatsoever.
In fact, even if we go back to treating the Bible as divinely inspired, the premise is not "homosexuality is wrong" but that "God said in the Bible that homosexuality is wrong".
As for your notion that a premise is just a "given" and can't be challenged... I'm sorry, but this is just bullshit.
Here's a premise for you:
"The Bible says that men must masturbate on Thursdays".
There you go. That's a given. It's a premise that I can use to draw conclusions from.
Oh wait, you don't agree the premise is true? But, but... it's a given!
Right, okay, here's another one:
"God says that people should eat fish on Fridays."
No? Still have an urge to disprove it? Interesting, isn't it? You in fact are one of the Shipmates most eager to disprove other people's statements about what the Bible does and does not teach.
[ 13. August 2015, 07:18: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Was Paul anti-sex? I read him as being influenced by the following.
1. His expectation of Christ's imminent return.
2. His general belief that the licentiousness of Roman and Gentile culture stood in sharp contrast to Jewish and Christian understandings of how people should behave towards one another.
3. His deep understanding that love (agape) was different at its core to love (eros).
Personally, I liked the reference to the Terry Pratchett notion that all sin is caused by treating people as things. Human sexual desires are very strong and when in their grip it is easy to forget that. That produces much pain, suffering and regret.
There is a good deal of tacit approval in Western culture for the notion that there is nothing wrong in treating sex as a recreational activity. I think that is just rationalisation of desire and in itself it encourages this treatment of people as things.
I do think traditional Christian sexual ethics are in serious need of a Spring clean but I do support these embedded notions that relationships cannot be based on treating others as things, that faithfulness and promise keeping are virtuous, that the strength of our sexual desires can lead us into selfishness which is dangerous to both ourselves and others. That last warning applies just as much within marriage as outside it.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I didn't think I was being defensive, Kaplan but still ...
What Barnabbas is saying is close to my position - and, I imagine - your own.
In the instance you cite about a heterosexual couple not being able to have sex for whatever reason then my own view is that alternatives should be found within the relationship rather than reliance on third parties as it were. Easier said than done. I am not saying there are no limits and anything goes - simply that there are occasions where answers aren't clear cut. People must be free to follow their consciences in these things.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Personally, I liked the reference to the Terry Pratchett notion that all sin is caused by treating people as things. Human sexual desires are very strong and when in their grip it is easy to forget that. That produces much pain, suffering and regret.
There is a good deal of tacit approval in Western culture for the notion that there is nothing wrong in treating sex as a recreational activity. I think that is just rationalisation of desire and in itself it encourages this treatment of people as things.
I do think traditional Christian sexual ethics are in serious need of a Spring clean but I do support these embedded notions that relationships cannot be based on treating others as things, that faithfulness and promise keeping are virtuous, that the strength of our sexual desires can lead us into selfishness which is dangerous to both ourselves and others. That last warning applies just as much within marriage as outside it.
Amen ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Croesos;
quote:
I'll note you haven't answered my previous question: Is there any verse in either Testament that expressly forbids the establishment of a theocracy?
by Kaplan Corday;
quote:
Show me one verse in the NT which justifies a religiously coercive theocracy.
I'm with Kaplan on this one. I've read much on this area and even the people keenest on the idea of Christian theocracies seem unable to produce an NT text that supports their position.
In NT terms, the Church itself is of course a theocracy; but the emphatically international Church is portrayed as a somewhat different animal to any earthly state and cannot meaningfully be identified with any such state.
It is not coercive in the state's way of police and armies and the like; perhaps however somewhat similar to a sports club saying 'Membership of our club is voluntary but if you want to be a member we expect you to keep our rules'; while in turn, people outside the club are not to be forced to play the sport and keep its rules, but the sport will of course try to persuade/attract people to join it.
The NT has many texts which are incompatible with the idea of running an earthly theocracy in Jesus' name. One is in I Peter and enjoins Christians not to be 'allotriepiskopoi' – 'managers of other people's affairs'. Another is I think in one of the Corinthian epistles and enjoins Christians to 'come out from among them (the surrounding worldly society) and be separate'.
You will likely agree with me that the 'separation' should not be carried to the extremes seen in groups like the Exclusive Brethren and most Amish; it still requires, I suggest, some very over-imaginative interpretation to go all the way to saying that those verses can plausibly mean “Get stuck in and take over your society and run it as a coercive theocracy”.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Was Paul anti-sex? I read him as being influenced by the following.
1. His expectation of Christ's imminent return.
This still supports my underlying premise. That the bible should not be treated as wholly literal. It is contextual and contains contradictory bits and is filtered through the authors' own preconceptions. That, at the very least, individual statements must be balanced against the general message.
Regardless of its authenticity, it is not a magic open and read. Thinking, studying and discernment are required.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
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Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You go along with the bits about police brutality, you go along with the bits about hotels and motels, maybe you go along with the bit about mobility from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. But you must think the next sentence falls into bathos.
Actually my objection was to your classifying police brutality, fair housing, and the economic plunder inherent in Segregation as "bureaucratic [in]conveniences". Dismissing voting rights as being solely about "social esteem and recognition" is a deliberate attempt to erase all the other abuses of Jim Crow.
I think you're misunderstanding, in that I think the other matters are all bound up with social esteem and recognition.
Your logic, and apologies if I'm misunderstanding, appears to me roughly the sort of logic that people rejecting the category of hate crime use to say that a beating is a beating regardless of whether it's aimed at a black man or a white man, and therefore it's wrong to have additional legal penalties dependent on the status of the victim.
Now racist beatings genuinely deserve greater penalties. This is because they arise out of a systematic refusal of social recognition, and their effect and intention is to maintain and reinforce that systematic refusal of social recognition.
Or else your logic seems akin to that which says that once feminism estabishes formal legal
equality it can shut up shop and go away, and shouldn't talk about cultural representation or similar issues, which according to the logic here are just about people wanting social approbation.
Similarly, if we accept the arguments against economic inequality in something like The Spirit Level, it's hard to argue that social recognition is secondary to economic concerns.
For what it's worth I used the phrase 'bureaucratic conveniences' in reference to the liberal (*) defence of marriage as a social institution. I did not use it to characterise anything in relation to the black struggle for civil rights.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
There are a lot of things that people battle for and don't want to lose. But not all emotions are of equal weight with the state. Certainly not when children's well-being is at stake. When the state awards particular weight to whether people love their kids and don't want to lose them it is granting that emotion recognition and esteem. That does not mean social approbation, by which I presume you mean something like patting on the back and awarding subjective warm fuzzies.
You can consider "social approbation" to be roughly equivalent to "social esteem and recognition", which you seem to believe is the only reason people have kids. You certainly imply that if someone tried to take away their children the only reason a parent would resort to the "bureaucratic convenience" of asserting their custody rights was to garner "social esteem and recognition", not because of any emotional connection they might feel towards their offspring. I disagree.
I think you're missing a fundamental point here, which is that under Scots Law, marriage is as best I can tell after some googling, legally irrelevant. As are civil partnerships. And certainly I can find no suggestion that the difference between civil partnership and marriage is of the slightest moment.
So that's not why people were campaigning for marriage.
Scottish law considers the needs and interests of the child to be paramount, taking into account the child's wishes (dependent on the child's maturity), and assuming until proven otherwise that significant relationships with both parents are beneficial.
Now maybe you disagree. Your defence of marriage here is as a way of short cutting those questions - if one person shows up with the piece of paper that says they were married then the state can assume that resolves some of the questions. It's a bureaucratic convenience for the state.
I think people who aren't married might still love their children, and it might still be in the interests of the child to grant custody to an unmarried partner. You disagree.
quote:
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
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And if your spouse, same- or opposite-sex, is unconscious in the hospital and near death and your first thought is "I certainly hope I can get some social recognition out of this!", then you are a sociopath.
Why isn't your first thought 'I'm going to stay well out of the way of the nursing staff so I don't risk interfering with them doing their jobs'?
Probably because simply assuming the nursing staff is doing their job is often inadequate. Simply assuming that they know about your husband's penicillin allergy is a sucker bet.
You started off by making normative judgements about what ought to matter to people whose spouses were near death. Which is certainly pertinent, and would have been a strong point if I meant by 'recognition' what you seem to think I mean.
But now you're arguing that the reason the state should recognise marriage is because state-recognised wedding ceremonies confer advanced expertise in recognising incipient medical errors.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Suppose your old school friend of fifty years standing is unconscious in hospital and near-death. Ought you have the right to sit with your friend outside visiting hours?
Or, even further, why can't you make treatment decisions on behalf of your incapacitated old school friend? Sure, you haven't really talked that much recently, but you're pretty sure she wouldn't mind you authorizing that amputation.
Before we go even further could you respond to the example about visiting rights? Unless you're arguing that the only reasons that the state should require out of hour visiting rights for spouses are to have the spouse on hand to inform about medical conditions or grant consent if need be?
The question isn't so much why friends are not granted the rights irrespective of whether they've been talking recently, but why spouses are granted those rights without the hospital first checking that they've been talking recently.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Why then, if you do not, ought your friend's spouse of only a few years standing have the right?
Our society makes the value judgement that friendship is not a matter for the state's esteem to anything like the same extent as spousal relations are.
If you're really that close a friend, you should be listed in the Advance Medical Directive. If not, why are you the one who gets to decide on their organ donor status and what type of funeral service to have? I'm not sure "esteem" is the right word for these kinds of very practical questions. One of the basic assumptions of family law is spouses know these kinds of contingencies are possible and discuss them in advance.
If spouses really know those kinds of contingency are possible and have discussed them, is there a reason that shouldn't be listed in the Advance Medical Directive? Not every one has one of those true, but then not every one is married.
I doubt you think everyone really discusses these matters with their spouses, nor does nobody ever discuss them with their children or friends. You're defending it not because it's true, but because in the event of a dispute or nobody really knowing it's convenient for the law to be able to make a call rather than try to sort matters out.
There is of course a problem here, which is that the spouse is also the default inheritor of the estate. That's a glaring conflict of interest. I doubt we'd consider it wise in any other circumstance to institutionalise a conflict of interest of such a kind, if there weren't overpowering values telling against it.
(*) Liberal of course has a wide range of meanings, depending upon context. Here I'm using it to mean the political philosophical tradition that goes along with neoliberal economics - what unites say Rawls and Nozick.
[ 13. August 2015, 12:13: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Hate crimes laws (as distinct from hate speech laws) are laws that increase sentencing for already-criminal acts that specifically target people based on certain characteristics, usually race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or a few other characteristics. Essentially you're arguing that you should be allowed to assault Hindus free of criminal penalty because assaulting them (or vandalizing their property, or robbing them, or whatever) is part of your religious practice and deserves more leeway than their "agenda" of not being deliberately targeted for criminal acts because of their religion.
Given all I have written about the imperative of tolerance between groups who disagree, with its total absence of any suggestion of violence, the only reason I can come up with for such a bizarre misrepresentation of what I wrote about the need to "take them on" as anything other than argument, is some sort of ideologically driven spite and paranoia.
I thought I was fairly clear in citing your earlier assertion that you find laws penalizing religiously motivated assault, vandalism, and other crimes to be an unwelcome impediment to your interactions with Hindus (virtually all hate crime laws cover "religious belief") and that the existence of said laws was a source of resentment for you. If you're worried about how laws penalizing religiously motivated crimes will affect your interactions with Hindus, I don't think that counts as a "total absence of any suggestion of violence".
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I am doing is what all Christians have always done, ie recognise that there are things in the OT which still apply to Christians, and other things which don't, using the NT as the arbiter.
Show me one verse in the NT which justifies a religiously coercive theocracy.
The rule that nothing in the First Testament counts unless it's explicitly endorsed in the Second is an interesting one, but fairly problematic. For starters, there are various places in the Second Testament where Jesus or Paul reassert the validity of the First Testament in its entirety.
There's also the point that the Second Testament teaches that the government is God's personal representative. It would seem a bit convoluted to argue that government are God's representatives but are nonetheless forbidden from enforcing God's will. At any rate, if anything the government does is God's will (as Romans 13 asserts) then a religiously coercive theocracy seems perfectly in bounds if that's the form of government that exists.
Of course, if we are to take your "anything not explicitly authorized by the Second Testament is therefore forbidden" standard seriously, we'd have to conclude that Christians aren't permitted to hold positions in government at all, rendering questions of Christian theocracy moot. After all, no Christian in the Second Testament is depicted as holding a government post. (At least I don't think so. Feel free to correct me if I've overlooked anyone.)
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
There is a good deal of tacit approval in Western culture for the notion that there is nothing wrong in treating sex as a recreational activity. I think that is just rationalisation of desire and in itself it encourages this treatment of people as things.
So sex is okay only if you're not enjoying it? That doesn't seem like a particularly healthy attitude.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In NT terms, the Church itself is of course a theocracy; but the emphatically international Church is portrayed as a somewhat different animal to any earthly state and cannot meaningfully be identified with any such state.
It is not coercive in the state's way of police and armies and the like; . . .
I'm not so sure. A group willing to practice capital punishment to keep its members in line seems to have a lot in common with the Weberian conception of the state.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Similarly, if we accept the arguments against economic inequality in something like The Spirit Level, it's hard to argue that social recognition is secondary to economic concerns.
I disagree. Take the Segregation-era practice of contract buying in housing. Your argument seems to be that what was most objectionable was the lack of social recognition. I would argue that this is actually secondary to black families having their life savings swindled out of them. You may (and have) argued that this kind of economic cheating is evidence of lack of "social recognition", but I'm pretty sure most of the victims of the practice would prefer getting their life savings back over getting a heartfelt apology.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
For what it's worth I used the phrase 'bureaucratic conveniences' in reference to the liberal defence of marriage as a social institution. I did not use it to characterise anything in relation to the black struggle for civil rights.
Given that you explicitly cited voting rights as one of the things that no one really cares about but are just duplicitously using as a proxy for some other intangible benefit, it would seem to fall under your general rubric of a "bureaucratic convenience".
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You can consider "social approbation" to be roughly equivalent to "social esteem and recognition", which you seem to believe is the only reason people have kids. You certainly imply that if someone tried to take away their children the only reason a parent would resort to the "bureaucratic convenience" of asserting their custody rights was to garner "social esteem and recognition", not because of any emotional connection they might feel towards their offspring. I disagree.
Now maybe you disagree. Your defence of marriage here is as a way of short cutting those questions - if one person shows up with the piece of paper that says they were married then the state can assume that resolves some of the questions. It's a bureaucratic convenience for the state.
Actually I was citing child custody law not as it relates to marriage but, like voting rights, as something you denigrate as a mere "bureaucratic convenience" that people pursue only as a "proxy" for their real goal: "social esteem and recognition", not any value they place upon their children. It seems to follow from your assertion that as long as parents could maintain the same level of "social esteem and recognition" that they derive from having children, they wouldn't care one way or the other if someone (the state, a kidnapper, whoever) took their kids away.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think people who aren't married might still love their children, and it might still be in the interests of the child to grant custody to an unmarried partner. You disagree.
As mentioned above, the only thing I disagree with is your characterization of family law as simply being about "social esteem and recognition". Most people don't want to keep their children because it gives them "social esteem and recognition", they want to keep their kids because they love their kids.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You started off by making normative judgements about what ought to matter to people whose spouses were near death. Which is certainly pertinent, and would have been a strong point if I meant by 'recognition' what you seem to think I mean.
Actually I was making normative judgements about what ought not to matter; specifically your claim that the only reason people care about the legal status of their marriages is "social esteem and recognition". But if you're using some idiosyncratic, Humpty Dumptyish definition of "social", "esteem", "recognition", (or "and"), please feel free to move those goalposts.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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