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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: I call all homophobes to Hell - especially Russ
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I can approve of someone being (say) a long-distance trucker without having to recommend it to others. Because it may not be right for others. Perhaps this is part of the problem -- you think that there is no such thing as "good for this or that person" -- only "good for everybody." Which is pretty darned Kantian as these things go.
The problem with the simple application of the categorical imperative is that it rules out many harmless choices. I live in the south of Ireland, but don't will that everybody should live in the south of Ireland. When I proposed to my wife I definitely did not will that everybody should propose to my wife.
But it seems valid to say that it's wrong to be a free-rider because you can't will that everybody does it, or that it's wrong to pick wild flowers because if everybody does it then there won't be any. In these cases, the principle really does seem to capture what we feel is the wrongness if the action.
What's the difference between the valid and the non-valid applications of this principle ?
There's a positive benefit in people having different careers, because there are many different jobs to be done. And if one of those jobs is raising children, then there's arguably a positive benefit from some people being parents to more than the average number of children and some people being childless.
What would it say about you if you wanted your son to be a lawyer but didn't want it for someone else's son with similar aptitudes and in similar circumstances ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
It would say that you're spending far too much time thinking about someone else's son.
EDIT: Come to think of it, it would also say that you're one of those dodgy parents who is trying to live through their children. Why the fuck do parents think they can determine their child's career choice? It rarely ends well.
[ 08. September 2015, 02:34: 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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
So, Russ, you admit that one can approve of something yet not want to universalize it. So even though I can't "recommend" being gay to everyone, I can approve of it in some people. Yes?
Just as it might be okay -- nay, commendable -- for a botanist studying alpine ecosystems to pick a few wildflowers.
[ 08. September 2015, 02:46: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
So your so-called "approval gap" needs to be refined a bit. These all seem possible attitudes toward things, which don't fit neatly into a spectrum.
tolerate in some but not others
tolerate in anybody
approve of for some, disapprove for others
approve of for some, indifferent to others
approve of for all
recommend for some
recommend for all
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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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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
The problem with the simple application of the categorical imperative is that it rules out many harmless choices. I live in the south of Ireland, but don't will that everybody should live in the south of Ireland. When I proposed to my wife I definitely did not will that everybody should propose to my wife.
But it seems valid to say that it's wrong to be a free-rider because you can't will that everybody does it, or that it's wrong to pick wild flowers because if everybody does it then there won't be any. In these cases, the principle really does seem to capture what we feel is the wrongness if the action.
What's the difference between the valid and the non-valid applications of this principle ?
It's been a long time since I read any Kant, so I don't know how far this would be consistent with his thinking, but it seems to me that the categorical imperative works in a simple way only where the action is an immoral one that I would want to prohibit as a general rule or is a moral one that I believe to be generally compulsory.
So if I drive a short distance home after drinking four pints, the chance of me personally, on this occasion, having a fatal crash is not that high. I might be tempted to risk it. But I know that if this behaviour is generally acceptable, over the course of my life I likely would lose someone I cared about to a drunk driver, and that I definitely do not want. I would gladly prohibit drunk driving as a general rule. Therefore I should obey the rule even if I can convince myself that this time it would make no difference. I might permit exceptions for myself (medical emergency, say) but only if I would permit the same exceptions for others.
If on the other hand the action is one I regard as permissible but not compulsory, the categotical imperative applies not so much to the act itself as in a more nuanced way to the principles informing the decision. If I approve the choice to become a lawyer, the generally applicable principle might be "everyone should do socially useful work for which their abilities suit them" - and therefore I should only approve the choice if I thought that the work of a lawyer were socially useful and the person choosing was fit to be one.
Personal relationships mostly fall into the "permissible but not compulsory". So the point is not that everyone must choose the same, it's that if I recognise something as being in principle good for me, I'm obliged to consider that it is good for others. Whatever can be stated as generally true, I'm not an exception to it.
By proposing to a woman, I therefore affirm the general rule "If one finds a person whom one loves and with whom one is compatible, and those feelings are reciprocated, it is a good thing to propose to marry her"*. To be consistent, I should approve (though not necessarily require) the choice of others to propose to their beloveds if the same morally salient conditions are met - but I need not think that we should all propose to the same person.
(*which is not to say the rule is without exceptions - there may be all sorts of cases where marriage is adviseable or inadviseable for other reasons, but the point is that they should be principled exceptions).
Now it seems to me that other than by an argument from authority, or by begging the question, there's no way to make the word "her" in the above sentence a morally salient condition. It so happens that the conditions, for me, were met in the case of a female S.O. , but that is not a fact that I can generalise from, because approximately half of humankind tends to fall for men rather than women. I'm also not, for example, going to generalise a rule "you should not marry someone with whom you could not procreate" because I'm certainly not going to apply that to all. In fact, all the conditions I thought important in deciding whether it was right, good, wise and proper to propose marriage are conditions that could be met in a same sex relationship. The only way I can disapprove of gay marriage, or gay relationships, is to treat gay people as exceptions to principles which I perceive to be generally good.
That, it seems to me, is what you are trying to do with the whole "defect/disorder/perversion" thing. You don't want same sex feelings of loving attraction to fall into the same moral category as loving attraction generally, so you try first to argue that there's a (morally irrelevant) category of biologically defective feeling, and secondly that somehow same sex feelings of love are more similar to (heterosexual) desire for casual, exploitative or forced sex than they are to opposite sex feelings of love. This is special pleading to justify treating a despised group less well. The short word for that is "bigotry".
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Also some while since I read Kant, but I don't think some of the above disproves the categorical imperative.
For example, I don't think it is incorrect according to Kant to not want everyone to be a lawyer whilst wanting your own child to.
I don't think the occupation of your child is a moral imperative in that sense. So the only way this might be relevant would be if I'm saying my child should have special access to funds and teaching and lecturers that others do not have because I'm making a special case for me and my child that doesn't apply to everyone else.
I'd say the relevant part to this debate is where people want special rights that they've had historically (heterosexual marriage) that they are then not prepared to allow for others (in this case homosexuals).
[ 08. September 2015, 11:00: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
By proposing to a woman, I therefore affirm the general rule "If one finds a person whom one loves and with whom one is compatible, and those feelings are reciprocated, it is a good thing to propose to marry her"*. To be consistent, I should approve (though not necessarily require) the choice of others to propose to their beloveds if the same morally salient conditions are met - but I need not think that we should all propose to the same person.
(*which is not to say the rule is without exceptions - there may be all sorts of cases where marriage is adviseable or inadviseable for other reasons, but the point is that they should be principled exceptions).
Now it seems to me that other than by an argument from authority, or by begging the question, there's no way to make the word "her" in the above sentence a morally salient condition. It so happens that the conditions, for me, were met in the case of a female S.O. , but that is not a fact that I can generalise from, because approximately half of humankind tends to fall for men rather than women. I'm also not, for example, going to generalise a rule "you should not marry someone with whom you could not procreate" because I'm certainly not going to apply that to all. In fact, all the conditions I thought important in deciding whether it was right, good, wise and proper to propose marriage are conditions that could be met in a same sex relationship. The only way I can disapprove of gay marriage, or gay relationships, is to treat gay people as exceptions to principles which I perceive to be generally good.
That, it seems to me, is what you are trying to do with the whole "defect/disorder/perversion" thing. You don't want same sex feelings of loving attraction to fall into the same moral category as loving attraction generally, so you try first to argue that there's a (morally irrelevant) category of biologically defective feeling, and secondly that somehow same sex feelings of love are more similar to (heterosexual) desire for casual, exploitative or forced sex than they are to opposite sex feelings of love. This is special pleading to justify treating a despised group less well. The short word for that is "bigotry".
Thanks for this, Eliab. I feel like it gave me a moment of complete clarity on the question. I hope I can sustain it.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I'm also not, for example, going to generalise a rule "you should not marry someone with whom you could not procreate" because I'm certainly not going to apply that to all. In fact, all the conditions I thought important in deciding whether it was right, good, wise and proper to propose marriage are conditions that could be met in a same sex relationship.
So you have made the decision to ignore the historically obvious, naturally reasonable and Divinely ordained relationship between the social institution of marriage and the biological design for human reproduction. In consequence, you are unable to make correct moral generalisations and put your considerable gift of gab in the service of the Zeitgeist rather than the Lord. Is there a particular reasons why you are telling us all this? Does anything follow from it other than that corrupt intellectual choices lead to corrupt morality? I don't think so. No authority whatsoever is attached to your personal, false estimation of the situation, and so it tells nobody but yourself (to your detriment) what one ought to do.
And I note that for the umpteenth time that it is not the actual ability to procreate which is the key criterion that has been used classically. The one and only reason why this falsehood is repeated endlessly (and once more by you here, if as an "example") is that it provides such a convenient straw man. But no, there never has been a denial of marriage to infertile couples of opposite sex, and anybody who critiques this traditional position without first understanding why that is not an inconsistency simply does not understand what they are talking about.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And I note that for the umpteenth time that it is not the actual ability to procreate which is the key criterion that has been used classically. The one and only reason why this falsehood is repeated endlessly (and once more by you here, if as an "example") is that it provides such a convenient straw man. But no, there never has been a denial of marriage to infertile couples of opposite sex, and anybody who critiques this traditional position without first understanding why that is not an inconsistency simply does not understand what they are talking about.
Nice one. You condemn an argument on the basis that it is a "straw man" then use another "straw man" yourself.
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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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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I am so tempted to rename this thread "I call all homophones to Hell".
It'd make much more sense now we've descended into mere etymology and semantics.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And I note that for the umpteenth time that it is not the actual ability to procreate which is the key criterion that has been used classically. The one and only reason why this falsehood is repeated endlessly (and once more by you here, if as an "example") is that it provides such a convenient straw man. But no, there never has been a denial of marriage to infertile couples of opposite sex, and anybody who critiques this traditional position without first understanding why that is not an inconsistency simply does not understand what they are talking about.
And I note for only about the fourth time that suggesting that God only cares about the presence of the requisite parts, not that they actually work, involves proposing that either God cares more about form and aesthetics than he does about substance (which is most certainly not the position that we take on many other theological matters), or that God is quite stupid and can be fooled easily.
To me a far better explanation is that at some point this is what men cared about, then ascribed this position to God. Because I'm far more willing to believe that men lacked the requisite medical knowledge about functionality, rather than believing that God lacked it. Him being fairly all-knowing and all that.
Basically, I think God cares a lot less about penises than you do.
[ 08. September 2015, 15:36: 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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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Basically, I think God cares a lot less about penises than you do.
Pass the mind-bleach.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Basically, I think God cares a lot less about penises than you do.
I don't know, he seems to have given a significant portion of the population an unhealthy fixation on them.
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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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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I am so tempted to rename this thread "I call all homophones to Hell".
It'd make much more sense now we've descended into mere etymology and semantics.
That's actually the way I often read it when I see the Hell menu.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
I'm disappointed in you, orfeo.
Please re-read IngoB's post to see what's actually there:
To wit, a petulantly-toned complaint utterly devoid of any actual arguments - simply because he has nothing left to base one on that hasn't been demolished by Eliab. Aside from "just because", obviously. This this, as you should know by now, is as close to conceding defeat as IngoB's profoundly graceless mind can manage.
So we should thank IngoB for his time, pat him on his determinedly-bigotted little head, and let him be off on his miserable way. Because all that's left is to explain why clinging to such beliefs is hateful and assholish, and while perhaps Russ cares about such things, IngoB certainly does not.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Basically, I think God cares a lot less about penises than you do.
I don't know, he seems to have given a significant portion of the population an unhealthy fixation on them.
Indeed so lilBudda. Men aren,t much better either.
[ 08. September 2015, 17:40: Message edited by: rolyn ]
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Ha! I was talking about men.
Is it long enough, hard enough, hard long enough or often enough? Given the sheer number of products and adverts aimed at the owners, men obsess about their penises.
Yes, I do recognise you may have been facetious, but given the thread this is on, just making certain.
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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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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Yes it was meant as a comic aside. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I suppose it could said that the penis is an extension of some men's personality, if you'll pardon the pun.
Anyway maybe we can have another CA after another 5 pages. That's if IngoB and Russ intend to press on.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I've just started being emailed about such matters again, only this time it seems that the concern I am supposed to have about the missing part of my anatomy is its thickness, which was omitted above. I didn't open it, so can't be sure. Of course, they've no way of knowing am a deficient entity, since my address doesn't have my first name in it. I have to admit that all this emphasis on size is very daunting.
[ 08. September 2015, 19:45: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Oh, Penny. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) Now you have made them even more self-conscious and they will be waving the things about all the more vigorously!
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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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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
So you have made the decision to ignore the historically obvious, naturally reasonable and Divinely ordained relationship between the social institution of marriage and the biological design for human reproduction. In consequence, you are unable to make correct moral generalisations...
Many of us decide to marry in spite of not agreeing with your views on marriage, and with no intent to reproduce. The historical obviousness has waned over the last century or so, making the relationship no longer a "naturally reasonable" assumption. The "Divinely ordained" part is a personal belief that the rest of us aren't required to share.
All this "Divine purpose", "natural law" and "ordered to" discussion is similar to the rules of Quiddich, the Klingon language, or the genealogy of Elrond: endless discussion and debate doesn't make them any more real, or any more applicable to the world most of us encounter every day. Personally I would put more trust in someone making "correct moral generalisations" based on reality rather than on the fantasy world you describe.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Envy the spotted hydena. Urogenital system of the spotted hyena
To wit:
quote:
The unique urogenital anatomy and histology of female spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta Erxleben) was reexamined to identify adaptations of "structure" that enable/facilitate urination, mating, and parturition through the clitoris....
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I am not surprised they need a smug gland, they appear to have won mammal genitals.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
So you have made the decision to ignore the historically obvious, naturally reasonable and Divinely ordained relationship between the social institution of marriage and the biological design for human reproduction.
No. Clearly not. My explicitly stated position is that I think sex (and therefore, for fertile couples, procreation) should occur within marriage, and that I would recommend marriage to any couple intending to raise a child. Obviously I acknowledge a relationship between marriage and procreation. I appreciate that you draw some additional conclusions from that relationship that I do not, but to suggest that I ignore the relationship is simply false.
quote:
In consequence, you are unable to make correct moral generalisations and put your considerable gift of gab in the service of the Zeitgeist rather than the Lord.
I'm sufficiently vain that the compliment more than pays for the calumny.
But really - the Zeitgeist? Aimed at someone arguing for a no-sex-before-marriage ethic? I can only conclude that your Zeit is considerably more chaste than mine. Whatever. If I can get the servants of the Lord to sharpen their arguments and explain why they believe what they believe, I suppose my advocacy on the other side might do some good. Indeed, it seems to me that the service is urgently required because so far the arguments advanced on the Lord's behalf are quite astonishingly weak.
quote:
Is there a particular reasons why you are telling us all this?
I think that I'm right. I care enough about the issue to say so. If I'm wrong, I'd like someone to prove it. Good enough?
quote:
No authority whatsoever is attached to your personal, false estimation of the situation, and so it tells nobody but yourself (to your detriment) what one ought to do.
When did I claim authority? My argument against Russ, to which you responded, is an argument for consistency, not an argument from authority. The thrust of it is that if he wants to distinguish the responsibilities of gay people and straight people when they fall in love, he should do so on the basis of principles that he holds to be generally good and applicable, not good only when they are deployed to oppose gay rights. I don't need to invoke authority for that basic approach to be valid.
But please note, this was a challenge to Russ, not to you. I'm accusing him of inconsistency and incoherence, because his arguments have actually been inconsistent. I'm not accusing you of that at all. You do have principles that rule out gay sex that you apply to sexual ethics generally. That's a different argument, which I haven't yet had on this thread.
If you want an argument from authority, it's this. I am explicitly arguing for greater love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Those are the values underlying my position. All of them. And against such things there is no law.
Prove me wrong if you can - but unless and until you prove that what I am arguing for would work against those stated values, I'll continue to hope that I might still be on the Lord's side.
quote:
And I note that for the umpteenth time that it is not the actual ability to procreate which is the key criterion that has been used classically. The one and only reason why this falsehood is repeated endlessly (and once more by you here, if as an "example") is that it provides such a convenient straw man. But no, there never has been a denial of marriage to infertile couples of opposite sex, and anybody who critiques this traditional position without first understanding why that is not an inconsistency simply does not understand what they are talking about.
I've been unclear then, for which I apologise. This was not intended as a critique of the RC position (which is what I assume you mean by "traditional"), certainly not as articulated by you. If I had directed the comment to you, then you would certainly be right to object for the reasons you give.
Actually, the critique was meant for Russ's position only, which is expressly that the proper object of male sexual desire is a fertile female of child-bearing age, and any attraction to any other object is a biological (and, by equivocation, a moral) 'perversion'. That is not the RC view, as I understand it, and I am sorry if I failed adequately to make clear what I was intending to attack.
The Russ-ite view on the proper use of sex, applied consistently, would rule out all sex where conception was not a real possibility. It would rule out infertile or post-menopausal people from marriage, rule out all natural forms of contraception, as well as artificial forms, and would appear to offer an excuse for infidelity for someone married to an infertile partner. Russ does not, of course, apply his stated principle consistently, because he doesn't really believe it - it's special pleading in support of bigotry. That is not a criticism I make either of you or of the moral principles of the Catholic Church (I suspect that some Catholics, including quite senior ones, apply those principles less than consistently, depending on their degree of prejudice for or against gay sex. But that's not a personal fault I accuse you of).
Having distinguished what I'm saying in response to Russ from the RC position, I suppose I ought to say why I think you are also wrong.
First, though, I want to make clear that I do entirely understand what your position is. I know what you mean by "ordered to procreation", and I can see that the principle that sex should be so ordered is consistently applied so as to prohibit what RC rules prohibit, and permit what they permit. I can see that the arguments and the rules have been thought out diligently, and that RC ethics are logically sound derivations from principle.
Having willingly conceded that much, my objection is that I do not perceive "ordered to procreation" to be a morally relevant condition at all. It's not that I see the principle but think it has been misapplied. It's that the principle being applied isn't a moral one. Or, at least, I can't see that it is.
It's not a principle that I get from any moral intuition (I don't, as a matter of fact, care whether the sex I am having (if any) is "ordered to procreation") or moral reasoning (I can't see any good argument why I ought to care). And while thus facts might be due to some defect or culpability in me, I also observe that in my experience, the moral sense of humanity as a whole has also (outside the RC) also failed to observe and articulate this particular distinction. My defect, if defect it is, is shared by everyone I know except for the Catholics, and indeed, there are many Catholics who don't seem to care much about this purportedly moral value either. I can't find it expressed in scripture, it does not seem to follow from any other truth of the Christian religion, and I can discern no bad consequences that follow on rejecting it. I note that people I know of quite exceptional moral sensibility, kindness and wisdom, are no more likely to care about sex being "ordered to procreation" than anyone else, and if my failure to discern a true value is due to a defect, it is not a defect that any increase in learning, intelligence or sanctity to which I might aspire seems remotely likely to remedy.
Therefore I find myself quite unable to accept the RC position as founded on a true and binding moral principle. That it is a principled stance I would not deny. The trouble is, the principle is, to the best of my ability to judge, simply misconceived.
I think that the only way I could be induced to accept it is if I were persuaded of the Catholic Church's claims of authority, and accepted the teaching as a matter of obedience. That's not impossible, and (as I think you know) it's an issue I've thought hard about in the past. At the moment, I'm unpersuaded. But that's really an argument for another thread. I have no problem at all with an argument against sexual behaviours based on religious authority, provided that, in a free society, specifically religious ethics are voluntary and not given force of law. I think I said as much above: none of us want to be forced to comply with other people's religious taboos, so we should not force ours on others.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
It'd make much more sense now we've descended into mere etymology and semantics.
Not sure it's a descent. We can't talk about anything much without using words (difficult to raise two fingers to someone online) and so much seems to come down to using words to mean slightly different things.
Eliab's recent post suggests that he's talking about love while I'm talking about sex.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Well, when you get to say "I'm not a homophobe because that means I'm terrified of the gays like an arachnophobe is terrified of spiders", you're on a hiding to nothing.
We know what it means and what it looks like, and we're looking at you and nodding slowly. And have been for 15 pages.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Eliab's recent post suggests that he's talking about love while I'm talking about sex.
But that is what homosexuality is!
I'm a straight man. I could go to bed with another man. I could even find one whom I quite liked, and whom I would (in private at least) acknowledge to be attractive in some abstract sense. And I could certainly experience, and (possibly I flatter myself here, but I don't think so) also provide, an entirely satisfactory orgasm.
What I can't do is fall in love with a man. Because I'm straight. I'm just not wired to form a sexual pair-bond that way. Because I'm straight.
Look, everyone knows that if you put straight men together without women for long enough many of them will end up fucking. And everyone knows that if you make gay men feel sufficiently guilty or scared of acknowledging who they are, you can get many of them to sleep with, and even marry, women. And you can even get love in the sense of affection and friendship accompanying these sorts of sexual pairings. But you don't make straight men gay or gay men straight that way.
"Gay" or "straight" doesn't define who I might have sex with, it defines who I could fall for.
You can't leave love out of your sexual ethics when it comes to gay people. If you do, you are leaving out the thing people most care for, the thing that it's all about. Obviously you'll get a fucked up, unrealistic and inhumane ethic if you try that. As, indeed, you have proved.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Here's a topical song by Paul Anka!.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
What I can't do is fall in love with a man.
Rook is gonna be so crushed.
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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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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think that I'm right. I care enough about the issue to say so. If I'm wrong, I'd like someone to prove it.
I read this, and wanted to post a "me too".
But to be clear, what I care about is not what gay men get up to in the privacy of their own bedroom. That really is their business. It's when they start parading through the streets telling everyone that they get up to things in their bedroom that I start to think something's wrong. And when primary school children start getting told in class to imagine what gay men get up to and what it feels like...
I care about tolerance. Applied to gays and to perverts and to religious conservatives. And one of the difficulties of tolerance is that doing anything to make it happen is itself an act of intolerance.
I care about free speech. I stand up against Boogie's Orwellian project of making dissent from her conclusions impossible to express.
quote:
I'll continue to hope that I might still be on the Lord's side. .
I suspect that throughout history there have been what the Bible calls "just men" on both sides of most conflicts.
quote:
the critique was meant for Russ's position only, which is expressly that the proper object of male sexual desire is a fertile female of child-bearing age, and any attraction to any other object is a biological (and, by equivocation, a moral) 'perversion'.
That's putting it too strongly. Rather say that male sexual desire is a biological drive with the evolutionary purpose of impregnating a healthy fertile female of child-bearing age for the propagation of the species. Attraction to the same physical characteristics in e.g. an inflatable doll or an infertile woman is an instance of a normal expression of the desire that is accidentally such as to frustrate that underlying purpose.
Sexual attraction to anything else (man, child, animal, hairbrush, corpse, whatever) for being itself rather than for resembling an eligible female, is a twisted or in the technical sense perverted expression of that desire.
I don't understand the biology of how these abnormal desires come about (and how they are related to abnormality of desire in terms of what rather than who). I strongly suspect you don't either. If the science genuinely says that homosexuality is a different kind of thing altogether then clearly I'm wrong in thinking of it in that category.
As you rightly point out, the other half of the argument is whether having such a non-normal intrinsically-contrary-to-biological-purpose desire has any moral significance.
Could you morally choose it ? Could you with goodwill wish it on anyone ?
quote:
I have no problem at all with an argument against sexual behaviours based on religious authority, provided that, in a free society, specifically religious ethics are voluntary and not given force of law. I think I said as much above: none of us want to be forced to comply with other people's religious taboos, so we should not force ours on others.
You don't see Boogie's egalitarianism as having similarities to a religion ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
to be clear, what I care about is not what gay men get up to in the privacy of their own bedroom. That really is their business. It's when they start parading through the streets telling everyone that they get up to things in their bedroom that I start to think something's wrong. And when primary school children start getting told in class to imagine what gay men get up to and what it feels like...
I care about tolerance. Applied to gays and to perverts and to religious conservatives. And one of the difficulties of tolerance is that doing anything to make it happen is itself an act of intolerance.
I care about free speech. I stand up against Boogie's Orwellian project of making dissent from her conclusions impossible to express.
Boogie's project is all about tolerance. She really doesn't care what values you hold in the privacy of your own bedroom. It's just that when you start parading through the streets and telling people about the values you hold in your bedroom, or when you start asking primary school children to imagine what it feels like to hold your values, that she objects.
I'm sure you realise now that Boogie doesn't mean any hostility towards you. It's just your values that she thinks are deviant and perverted.
That said, "primary school children start getting told in class to imagine what gay men get up to"? I assume you don't think that means shopping for groceries and going to the theatre together. I'm sure you've got a watertight source for what would otherwise look like deluded and vicious ravings?
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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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think that I'm right. I care enough about the issue to say so. If I'm wrong, I'd like someone to prove it.
I read this, and wanted to post a "me too".
Intersting. Becuase we've discussed evidence and studies, whilst you...not so much.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But to be clear, what I care about is not what gay men get up to in the privacy of their own bedroom. That really is their business. It's when they start parading through the streets telling everyone that they get up to things in their bedroom that I start to think something's wrong. And when primary school children start getting told in class to imagine what gay men get up to and what it feels like...
So why is this different than straight people doing the same?
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I care about tolerance. Applied to gays and to perverts and to religious conservatives. And one of the difficulties of tolerance is that doing anything to make it happen is itself an act of intolerance.
There you go again, tossing in perverts. You do seem unnaturally fixated on perversion.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I care about free speech. I stand up against Boogie's Orwellian project of making dissent from her conclusions impossible to express.
She says stay out of others lives, you promote eugenics but she is the Orwellian? ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I don't understand
And this is the only relevant part of your post. Indeed; it fairly sums your arguments.
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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 Russ:
It's when they start parading through the streets telling everyone that they get up to things in their bedroom that I start to think something's wrong. And when primary school children start getting told in class to imagine what gay men get up to and what it feels like...
We've been through this already when you started talking about the sexual content of your hypothetical version of Frozen, and everybody basically said "What the fuck?"
Primary school children aren't thinking about what gay men get up to in the bedroom any more than they're thinking about what their straight parents get up to in the bedroom. Only adults think like this.
You're right, you're talking about sex, while Eliab is talking about love. And that's the whole problem. You're obsessed with the sexual act.
I honestly don't understand why conservative Christians hear "homosexual" and think about the actual act of sexual intercourse. Because you don't think the same thing about "heterosexual". No, when you think about men and women loving each other, you're perfectly capable of not turning it into a porn film, but all you can envisage for same-sex couples is the actual act of sex.
That's your prejudice writ large, right there.
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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 RooK:
So we should thank IngoB for his time, pat him on his determinedly-bigotted little head, and let him be off on his miserable way.
Can't I just shove a gag in his mouth and fuck him?
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And I note for only about the fourth time that suggesting that God only cares about the presence of the requisite parts, not that they actually work, involves proposing that either God cares more about form and aesthetics than he does about substance (which is most certainly not the position that we take on many other theological matters), or that God is quite stupid and can be fooled easily.
First, God cares that the parts "work", but precisely not in the sense of actually resulting in reproduction, nor in the sense of the partners being fertile. Impotence is an impediment to marriage, infertility isn't. Second, if you don't get how that could possibly make sense, then because you are not thinking in terms of representation. Every marriage is an icon of the original fertile unity of diversity that God created us male and female for. It's a miniature representation of the great creation plan. In a Christian religious sense, the question is exactly what the right form - or if you like "aesthetics" - of this two-bodied reflection of Genesis might be. Third, if you believe that this sort of thinking is somehow at odds with Christianity, then I'm afraid you are like somebody standing in the woods and denying that there are any trees to be seen. Care to elaborate how a single man dying on the cross means anything to anybody? Of course, God could have arranged it for Christ to live to a ripe old age, teaching His disciples, like say Siddhartha Gautama. He didn't. There was a point to be made. A representational point, one of form and indeed of "aesthetics" (more shocking than beautiful, but still). That is the very substance of Christianity, an iconic act, a reality that serves as symbol, matter that is referenced beyond itself. Well, so is Christian marriage. It is not simply a convenient arrangement for shared living and occasional snogging.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Indeed, it seems to me that the service is urgently required because so far the arguments advanced on the Lord's behalf are quite astonishingly weak.
A weak argument on behalf of the Lord is better than a strong argument on behalf of the prince of the world. Morality is not a competition in sophistry.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Prove me wrong if you can - but unless and until you prove that what I am arguing for would work against those stated values, I'll continue to hope that I might still be on the Lord's side.
I can prove mathematical theorems by logic and technical reasoning. I can sort of prove theories in physics, by mathematical analysis and empirical data. Maybe you can prove something beyond reasonable doubt in court. But how to prove moral evaluations?
The things you mention, yes, no law speaks against them. But also, they say little concerning the question at hand. Whether it is kind or unkind to recommend a gay relationship to someone sexually attracted to the same sex depends on whether such a relationship is moral or immoral, respectively. It is not in fact unloving per se to deny somebody something and ask them to exercise self-control. If you are overweight, your doctor will recommend a diet. He is not hating you. What we talk about here is a fundamental question concerning human nature. It is not decided by peace, goodness, forbearance and what have you. It decides them. It tells us wherein all these nice things consist, and wherein not.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Russ does not, of course, apply his stated principle consistently, because he doesn't really believe it - it's special pleading in support of bigotry.
I think you are being unfair here. I'm not even sure that you are characterising Russ' position correctly, but that's sort of trivial point. A more profound point is this: if somebody has a moral insight, then it need not be an intellectual insight, much less does that person have to have the rhetorical means to impose that insight on others. You are basically requiring morals to be a watertight package of intellectual coherence delivered with a professional sales pitch. But morals, all morals, including yours, come from the gut first and foremost. If you are right in your claim that Russ' presentation is not up to scratch, it does not follow that his gut feeling was not right.
And moral fortitude is not bigotry, even if it is stubborn. The problem is that if your gut tells you that something is black, then the finest argument that it is white will fall flat. You may not be able to manage more in response than "Uhh, hmm, yeah, not really..." But that doesn't mean that you can be argued into accepting black as white. This may be frustrating to the persona arguing, but it does not make the person resisting reprehensible.
It is consequently mildly absurd that you then say this:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
And while thus facts might be due to some defect or culpability in me, I also observe that in my experience, the moral sense of humanity as a whole has also (outside the RC) also failed to observe and articulate this particular distinction. My defect, if defect it is, is shared by everyone I know except for the Catholics, and indeed, there are many Catholics who don't seem to care much about this purportedly moral value either.
The very reason why you don't seem to see anybody else who has this moral insight is quite simply that you dismiss as "bigot" everybody who does, and who doesn't command the machinery of traditional Catholic argument on this topic to keep your judgement at bay. Russ, whatever shortcomings his actual argument might have, is articulating a moral insight along the same lines as the RCC. Perhaps what he says is not coherent and insufficient. So what?! All this says is that he is not using a millennium of thought to shape his gut feelings.
Of course, also gut feelings can be wrong. And indeed, they can change. But the mere inability to deliver a lawyer-proof intellectual rendering of one's gut feelings does not prove them wrong.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I can't find it expressed in scripture, it does not seem to follow from any other truth of the Christian religion, and I can discern no bad consequences that follow on rejecting it.
The principle of "being ordered to procreation" is not in scripture or in other truths of the Christian religion in the same way as the Trinity cannot simply be found there either. It is a high level analysis that coherently integrates various "givens" from these authoritative sources and projects them into one underlying principle.
If you have difficulties with finding the prohibition of homosexuality in scripture, then I would recommend Robert Gagnon on this matter. On his website you can find links to a good number of videos of talks that explore this issue in depth (scroll down to the pink box).
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
So we should thank IngoB for his time, pat him on his determinedly-bigotted little head, and let him be off on his miserable way.
Can't I just shove a gag in his mouth and fuck him?
Making gratuitous insults is one thing, threatening violent rape is quite another.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Every marriage is an icon of the original fertile unity of diversity that God created us male and female for.
Objection, your Honour. That interpretation of Genesis requires placing together different passages in a particular way.
When God said "it is not good for man to be alone", it was on the basis of the animals being too different from Adam to be a suitable companion. Whereas you're now insisting that being to similar to Adam is unacceptable.
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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 IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
So we should thank IngoB for his time, pat him on his determinedly-bigotted little head, and let him be off on his miserable way.
Can't I just shove a gag in his mouth and fuck him?
Making gratuitous insults is one thing, threatening violent rape is quite another.
Well, actually, the ulterior purpose was to make a point about the difference between sexuality and a sexual act.
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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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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...
But to be clear, what I care about is not what gay men get up to in the privacy of their own bedroom. That really is their business. It's when they start parading through the streets telling everyone that they get up to things in their bedroom that I start to think something's wrong. And when primary school children start getting told in class to imagine what gay men get up to and what it feels like.....
But you're obviously totally ok with having heterosexuality shoved in our faces constantly - advertisements, entertainment, and yes, tons and tons of porn of varying degrees of X-ness and availability. And if you don't think elementary school kids know the mechanics of straight sex and lots more, you're kidding yourself. When kids see a man and a woman with a baby, they can tell you EXACTLY what those two got up to in their bedroom to produce that baby. Alas, they're supremely ignorant about everything else. So there's actually two main reasons to have good sex education. #1: Making sure that the straight kids actually learn some facts, and #2: Making sure that kids who aren't straight learn the same facts and that it's ok for them to have have sex too.* The overwhelming majority of parents either won't or can't deliver the same level of FACTUAL education on sex or any other subject. Parents can and should still deliver morality, ethics, values, and expectations about sex and relationships.
And Russ, I have some bad news for you. It's really only you and other homophobes that spend a lot of time imagining what gay men get up to. Well, gay men too. <oh snap!> Or what it's like to have sex with lots of strangers. Or any of the many sexual "perversions" you seem obsessed with.
---
*When they grow up. And you went there, didn't you, Russ? You were all ready to start screaming about the horrors of teaching scissoring to 6-year-olds, weren't you? You're really one perverted mass of santorum.
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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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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
A more profound point is this: if somebody has a moral insight, then it need not be an intellectual insight, much less does that person have to have the rhetorical means to impose that insight on others. You are basically requiring morals to be a watertight package of intellectual coherence delivered with a professional sales pitch. But morals, all morals, including yours, come from the gut first and foremost. If you are right in your claim that Russ' presentation is not up to scratch, it does not follow that his gut feeling was not right.
This was written to Eliab but I'm going to reply to it.
What exactly makes a moral position an insight? The fact that you agree with it?
Sorry, but no. Russ is choosing to participate in this discussion. If he just wants to hold his own personal moral view, in the privacy of his own head, that's one thing. But if he's going to express his views, he can expect responses on his views, in exactly the same way that everyone else does. And he can expect that people are going to want explanations.
Because why are even having this conversation, if people don't want to justify their views? The very notion that a moral position, a gut feeling is RIGHT immediately takes us away from a conversation about personal preferences (on a level with whether one prefers chocolate or strawberry) into an attempt to get other people to agree that one position is better than the other.
Which means that having intellectual rigour is necessary. Because if Russ' gut feeling is different from my gut feeling, why the blazes should I listen to Russ' gut rather than my own?.
And you are assuredly not relying on "gut feeling". You are relying on authority and Scriptural interpretation and on all manner of things that are not about the gut feeling of finding gay sex icky. You are not making a claim that your personal preference is not to have gay sex because you don't like the sound of it, you are making a claim that people ought not to participate in gay sex even if their gut feeling is that they like the sound of it.
[ 09. September 2015, 01:08: 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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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
... Every marriage is an icon of the original fertile unity of diversity that God created us male and female for. It's a miniature representation of the great creation plan. ...
As is every other male-female reproductive pairing, from abalone to zebra, but they're not icons, are they? I guess there's some special magic about those human penes and vaginae. So what about single-celled organisms and bacteria? Or plants? How come their sex lives didn't get picked to represent creation? This is just more of your silly New Age pre-historic yin-yang yoni and lingam shit. FFS, you speak a language with THREE grammatical genders, so why is your brain stuck in fucking binary all the time?
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
No authority whatsoever is attached to your personal, false estimation of the situation, and so it tells nobody but yourself (to your detriment) what one ought to do.
No authority whatsoever attaches to your smug extrapolations beyond official church teachings. nd yet you dare throw this at somebody else. Hypocritical pig.
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Of course, also gut feelings can be wrong. And indeed, they can change. But the mere inability to deliver a lawyer-proof intellectual rendering of one's gut feelings does not prove them wrong.
In discussing the underpinnings of morality, gut feelings have little value at all.
quote:
I can prove mathematical theorems by logic and technical reasoning. I can sort of prove theories in physics, by mathematical analysis and empirical data. Maybe you can prove something beyond reasonable doubt in court. But how to prove moral evaluations?
So all your blather on the SOF for the last 15 years has been just so much farting in the wind? I might have known as much. In fact I did, as do many others, apparently, to hear them tell it.
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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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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
I'm not sure why anybody bothered reading past IngoB's "infertility isn't an impediment to marriage" hilarity. Even ignoring that traditionally failing to provide an heir was grounds for annulment, the statistics of divorce in the case of infertility are themselves mathematically irrefutable. So, I propose to not bothering with IngoB other than to casually insult him for sport, as he's proven yet again that is all he's good for.
Russ, on the other hand, might try his hand at explaining to us his stance on masturbation, and whether or not he tolerates masturbators to have the same legal rights as sex-purely-for-procreation folks. Because, clearly, it is disordered to achieve sexual satisfaction without a chance of procreation. Unless, of course, it's possible that gratification is largely unimportant to the overall survival of the species due to insufficient resources to support overpopulation.
Wait, does this also mean that dogs the hump people's legs don't go to heaven?
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Wait, does this also mean that dogs the hump people's legs don't go to heaven?
What's the gender of the leg?
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Wait, does this also mean that dogs the hump people's legs don't go to heaven?
What's the gender of the leg?
Is the leg capable of getting pregnant? I don't mean this particular leg, mind you. I mean are legs the sort of things that get pregnant, and is humping the sort of thing that would get them pregnant, in a world where these things always happen right the first time? I mean, what's the τελεος for God's sake?
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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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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
I see your point, orfeo. It's hard to keep the truly arbitrary nature of the bigotry in focus.
How long until we point out the complicated and grey-shaded issue of gender itself? Say, 2 more of Russ's thread abandonments and 50,000 more (of the same) words from IngoB?
[crosspost]
[ 09. September 2015, 05:04: Message edited by: RooK ]
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I just checked: dog is a masculine word in German, but leg is a neuter word. I honestly don't know if that puts us in the clear or not.
Curse you, German, and your 3 genders!
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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 mousethief:
Is the leg capable of getting pregnant? I don't mean this particular leg, mind you. I mean are legs the sort of things that get pregnant, and is humping the sort of thing that would get them pregnant, in a world where these things always happen right the first time?
There are definitely species that carry eggs around on their legs, so I'm going with yes.
Although, cross-breeding one of those species with a dog brings up all sorts of other issues we haven't discussed yet.
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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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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Thus spake Ingo:
quote:
Care to elaborate how a single man dying on the cross means anything to anybody? Of course, God could have arranged it for Christ to live to a ripe old age, teaching His disciples, like say Siddhartha Gautama. He didn't. There was a point to be made. A representational point, one of form and indeed of "aesthetics" (more shocking than beautiful, but still). That is the very substance of Christianity, an iconic act, a reality that serves as symbol, matter that is referenced beyond itself. Well, so is Christian marriage. It is not simply a convenient arrangement for shared living and occasional snogging.
Except...
God made us--flesh, blood, spirit, mind, etc. If we're icons, we're not JUST icons. We're real.
I get that working with what might be called "God's blueprints"--all the layouts, plans, and principles--is very important to you. I don't even think that's a bad thing. I have some leanings that way, myself.
But however beautiful and brilliant God's blueprints are, they're not enough. They're not the end goal. They're to be used and built from.
To focus only on the blueprints is like reading a biological treatise on the giraffe (complete with anatomical diagrams and behavioral analysis) and thinking that means you know a giraffe. You haven't even seen a real one.
Nor does studying a topographical map of a mountain mean you've actually been there. Nor does studying house plans mean you've got an actual house to live in.
Real life is messy, and smelly, and gritty, and dirty, and wonderful, and awful, and puzzling, and amazing.
And we're part of it.
If Jesus really is God incarnate, come here to save Creation, then he came into all the mess and glory--to save every bit of it. He didn't just fix the blueprints and Platonic ideals. He became one of us.
God didn't make holiness bots. She made us real.* And made us adaptable.
So maybe marriage is *both* an icon *and* "a convenient arrangement for shared living and occasional snogging"--whether or not you make babies. And maybe that's ok, whether you love men, or women, or both.
*Have you read "The Velveteen Rabbit"?
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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