Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Well, SC, nailed it, I just elaborated. Like the helpmeet I am.
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
). We were both over 60 so no bloody chance of any more kids even had we wanted them - we have four grownup kids between us anyway.quote:Yeah, I was trying to figure out a way to put it without co-opting the complaint, but that would be the implication, wouldn't it? Holy Cow, if we admit that pair- bonding is about something more than sex and procreation, we have to start thinking about women as something other than brood mares and helpmeets, don't we? To the barricades! We can't have that!
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
So when you have finished having children, you should divorce? So the purpose of a wife is simply to push out child after child?
quote:Kelly nails it, as is not unusual.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Holy Cow, if we admit that pair- bonding is about something more than sex and procreation, we have to start thinking about women as something other than brood mares and helpmeets, don't we? To the barricades! We can't have that!
quote:.
... for the mutuall societie, helpe, and coumfort, that the one oughte to have of thother, both in prosperitie and adversitie
quote:And you not even having procreated! Who'd'a thunk it possible?
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Well, SC, nailed it, I just elaborated. Like the helpmeet I am.
quote:Shhhh! Not so loud. Someone might revoke her licence to be funny.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:And you not even having procreated! Who'd'a thunk it possible?
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Well, SC, nailed it, I just elaborated. Like the helpmeet I am.
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
right, mousethief? I spend my days knee deep in children, but yet somehow I manage to be " barren." Crazy world we live in.
quote:Shit. I can't believe I was so selfish and was ready to impose my lifestyle choices on others.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I am sorry, but I cannot agree with orfeo.
It would simply be unfair to the bus driver, the street cleaners and any passers-by who might be splashed by blood.
I suggest a seaside cliff. Self cleaning and a free meal for the fishes.
quote:Credit where it's due, it was the Ship that made me realise that opposition to same-sex marriage was in fact profoundly anti-feminist. I've now used what I learned here on Facebook, on a story about Australian political reaction to the US ruling (our Constitution doesn't say exciting things like "treat everyone equally" so we have to solve this through Parliament), and the Likes have been accumulating nicely.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:Yeah, I was trying to figure out a way to put it without co-opting the complaint, but that would be the implication, wouldn't it? Holy Cow, if we admit that pair- bonding is about something more than sex and procreation, we have to start thinking about women as something other than brood mares and helpmeets, don't we? To the barricades! We can't have that!
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
So when you have finished having children, you should divorce? So the purpose of a wife is simply to push out child after child?
quote:Ah yes, the Book of Common Prayer, put together by a king who was very concerned about matters like succession.
Originally posted by L'organist:
Even the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 recognised there was more to marriage than children and avoiding sin:quote:.
... for the mutuall societie, helpe, and coumfort, that the one oughte to have of thother, both in prosperitie and adversitie
And I can't recall any cleric ever questioning whether or not a woman was still capable of child-bearing.
quote:IMO, marriage is an important part of our society - it is about long-term commitment, it is about two people wanting to declare that they are together forever.
Originally posted by rolyn:
I can't for the life of me see why marriage, an institution that has been crumbling for decades, is such a big deal anymore. OK it's a legal beagle, why then aren't the marriage advocates welcoming all who wish to support it. Order over chaos is surely what the establishment craves isn't it?
quote:I'm sure that Edward VI was concerned about the succession, but as he was about 17 when he died and somewhat poorly I don't think he was really up to it (fnarr fnarr)
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:Ah yes, the Book of Common Prayer, put together by a king who was very concerned about matters like succession.
Originally posted by L'organist:
Even the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 recognised there was more to marriage than children and avoiding sin:quote:.
... for the mutuall societie, helpe, and coumfort, that the one oughte to have of thother, both in prosperitie and adversitie
And I can't recall any cleric ever questioning whether or not a woman was still capable of child-bearing.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
quote:Presumably this is not really married "in the eyes of God".
Originally posted by JoannaP:
I cannot remember who, but one shipmate has informed me that, despite the nuptial mass with all trimmings, MrP and I are not really married because we had decided that we did not want children.
quote:To be fair, though, if marriage is changing all the time then there need be no automatic assumption that it always has to be about wanting to stay together forever.
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
IMO, marriage is an important part of our society - it is about long-term commitment, it is about two people wanting to declare that they are together forever.
And, of course, marriage has been changing all the time (as anyone who saw the Sex and the Church series will know) and the particular variation that supporters want to retain is a recent version of the idea. It is changing, and always has been, It is not the same static idea that some people claim.
Lets be clear, until relatively recently, marriage was primarily a financial transaction. It is not that same as the biblical concept of marriage. It is something that is - and should - reflect the society we are currently in.
quote:That puts D. and me in the same boat. I got the most frightful ticking-off from some troll on the Daily Telegraph comments board in a discussion about "childless-by-choice" couples; he/she suggested that we should rectify the situation and do our bit for the continuance of the human race before it was too late. I pointed out that as I'm 53 and he's 59, it already was.
Originally posted by JoannaP:
... MrP and I are not really married because we had decided that we did not want children ...
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Orfeo:
God, of course, having written a quite separate piece of marriage legislation ...
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
quote:Well, there's Genesis 2:24, although mentioning it means you have to deal with Genesis 2:23 also.
Originally posted by orfeo:
God, of course, having written a quite separate piece of marriage legislation. . . .
quote:Oh my God, you mean there are relevant Bible verses? My goodness, when I was referring to how God's law gets brought into the conversation, I wasn't thinking about the Bible! I was thinking about some other document entirely!
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:Well, there's Genesis 2:24, although mentioning it means you have to deal with Genesis 2:23 also.
Originally posted by orfeo:
God, of course, having written a quite separate piece of marriage legislation. . . .
quote:1. For whom? Perhaps for a few landholding rich people but seeing as most of the population of the UK owned little or nothing it hardly holds water does it?
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
1. Lets be clear, until relatively recently, marriage was primarily a financial transaction.
2. It is something that is - and should - reflect the society we are currently in. [/QB]
quote:I totally get that. Unfortunately it appears to apply to, well, pretty much everyone at some point or other, just not always as obviously or as offensively.
Originally posted by orfeo:
EDIT: Nothing undermines what Christian belief I have left quite like the fact that so many of my straight brothers and sisters in Christ are colossal hypocritical arseholes.
quote:Well, in fact for many centuries most people simply never got formally married. They would be what was known as a "common law" husband and wife, and basically started living together. Only the landholders went through the church formalities.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
1. For whom? Perhaps for a few landholding rich people but seeing as most of the population of the UK owned little or nothing it hardly holds water does it?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:Ah, a proponent of the idea of certain people as property I see. Society will improve with your departure.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Why must things change? What value does it bring?
quote:Marriage by habitation and repute lasted until 2006 in Scottish law.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Well, in fact for many centuries most people simply never got formally married. They would be what was known as a "common law" husband and wife, and basically started living together. Only the landholders went through the church formalities.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
1. For whom? Perhaps for a few landholding rich people but seeing as most of the population of the UK owned little or nothing it hardly holds water does it?
I forget exactly what year it was, but the idea that you had to get officially married to be husband and wife was introduced by legislation. I think it might have been in the 1700s but don't quote me on that.
quote:The society we live in. All of it. Today, it should reflect the society that we have. It used to represent joining of families, in a fundamental way. These days it is more the joining of individuals.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:1. For whom? Perhaps for a few landholding rich people but seeing as most of the population of the UK owned little or nothing it hardly holds water does it?
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
1. Lets be clear, until relatively recently, marriage was primarily a financial transaction.
2. It is something that is - and should - reflect the society we are currently in.
quote:It was a "timeless" event because it reflected what you understand as timeless. I suspect that 150 years ago, they wouldn't have recognised it. When the church was built, they would probably have considered it a ridiculous or possibly heretical event.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
2. I agree there are always cultural influences: I went to a wedding service yesterday and there were enough of them there! And yet, it was almost a timeless event: a 16th century church in parkland, a summer day with the sounds of summer coming in through the open door. Is there not real value in following an understanding of a major community event that has been part of the fabric of society? Why must things change? What value does it bring?
quote:Procreation licences. Now there's an idea. I wouldn't mind working in that issuing office.
Originally posted by orfeo:
...talking about legal marriage as a procreation licence
quote:This is a very good point, imo.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And anyway, anybody who believes married couples spend the majority of their time having sex has never been married.
quote:Ah, bless.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
.... Why must things change? ...
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quote:It has become common again to be common law. Most young people in my children's generation who get educated into their late 20s and early 30s do what we used to call "shacking up". After one year, legally common law, and treated by gov't as equivalent to married. Eventually the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency, the income tax people) sends them a questionnaire and declaration about it.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Well, in fact for many centuries most people simply never got formally married. They would be what was known as a "common law" husband and wife, and basically started living together. Only the landholders went through the church formalities.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
1. For whom? Perhaps for a few landholding rich people but seeing as most of the population of the UK owned little or nothing it hardly holds water does it?
I forget exactly what year it was, but the idea that you had to get officially married to be husband and wife was introduced by legislation. I think it might have been in the 1700s but don't quote me on that.
quote:They're wanting the CHOICE whether to do it or not
Originally posted by bib:
I'm really not sure why there is a push for marriage by the gay community. Having tried marriage I wish I hadn't. It would be much simpler to be free to enter into relationships without the ties and obligations that marriage entails. And then if you fall out of love, there wouldn't be the expense and headache of a divorce. In fact, I think at this stage of my life there is something to be said for celibacy. It seems odd to me that so many heterosexuals are trying to escape from their marriages whilst so many gays are wanting to walk the bridal path.
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
. Can you not grasp that your own personal experience of marriage is not the basis for dictating to thousands upon thousands of other Australians that because you didn't like it, they're not allowed to give it a go?quote:There's always someone who is going to ruin it by turning on the electric lights or using the indoor toilets. Or some Jews will wander by and expect to be treated like human beings... So sad.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
...
2. I agree there are always cultural influences: I went to a wedding service yesterday and there were enough of them there! And yet, it was almost a timeless event: a 16th century church in parkland, a summer day with the sounds of summer coming in through the open door. Is there not real value in following an understanding of a major community event that has been part of the fabric of society? Why must things change? What value does it bring?
quote:Now that's a position I can get behind. I would however, wish to extend it to all brassicas.
Originally posted by orfeo:
For fuck's sake, bib, you might as well have said "I don't like broccoli, so I don't see why it should be legal to grow it."
quote:So that other couples can have that timeless, major community event, too.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
2. I agree there are always cultural influences: I went to a wedding service yesterday and there were enough of them there! And yet, it was almost a timeless event: a 16th century church in parkland, a summer day with the sounds of summer coming in through the open door. Is there not real value in following an understanding of a major community event that has been part of the fabric of society? Why must things change? What value does it bring?
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quote:Pins on my 'brassica pride' badge...
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:Now that's a position I can get behind. I would however, wish to extend it to all brassicas.
Originally posted by orfeo:
For fuck's sake, bib, you might as well have said "I don't like broccoli, so I don't see why it should be legal to grow it."
quote:Tomatoes. It must be tomatoes.
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:Now that's a position I can get behind. I would however, wish to extend it to all brassicas.
Originally posted by orfeo:
For fuck's sake, bib, you might as well have said "I don't like broccoli, so I don't see why it should be legal to grow it."
quote:In what way?
Originally posted by IngoB:
This thread is simply disgusting.
quote:Yes, really. They are that thick. They are on comments pages all over the world BEING that thick. I am repeatedly witnessing it. I am witnessing married people who don't have children or can't have children pointing out that they are still just as married.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Your opposition has not noticed that some marriage remain childless, and many marriages are contracted when children are unlikely? Really? Well, just exactly what are you doing here then? Making fun of retards? Screaming at imbeciles? If those on the other side were as thick as you pretend they are, then you lot should be ashamed abusing them so. But they aren't, and all you are trying to do here is to drown a discussion in cheap insults.
quote:You disgust easily.
Originally posted by IngoB:
This thread is simply disgusting.
quote:In the two ways I have listed.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:In what way?
Originally posted by IngoB:
This thread is simply disgusting.
quote:That has got to be just about the worst analogy I have ever heard.
Originally posted by IngoB:
orfeo, if the secular state passes a law that water henceforth has to flow uphill equally to downhill, then what of such law? It is contrary to the law of God and hence does not stand in practice.
quote:This is a daft analogue, why would a state legislate for something which is clearly against basic physics?
Originally posted by IngoB:
orfeo, if the secular state passes a law that water henceforth has to flow uphill equally to downhill, then what of such law? It is contrary to the law of God and hence does not stand in practice. And dedicated efforts to make it come true, presumably by using lots of machinery to create the illusion of uphill flowing water, are ridiculous even if they fool a majority of the populace.
quote:Yeah, you just keep repeating this bollocks. Thing is - nobody cares what you think are the laws of God. I think they're total bollocks and you are completely delusional.
This is the nature of the claim that concerning marriage the secular state is imposing law contrary to that of God. Of course, the Divine governance of the moral-social domain is not as easy to "prove" as the Divine governance of the physical domain. But this does not change the nature of the claim, but merely how easily it is demonstrated. There is nothing a priori idiotic about such a claim, regardless of whether you think it is true or false.
quote:No sorry this is a bullshit argument.
Second, obviously your intimate relationship to a partner does not change as such because the secular state redefines the legal status of the label applied to it. But what does changes is then indeed the meaning of that label, in a legal sense and inevitably (laws have consequences) in a socio-cultural sense. If a gay couple can "marry", then I am not "married" to my wife.
quote:Waaa Waaa Waaa. Other people getting the rights I have are oppressing me. No.
Not because somehow my relationship to her has changed, but rather because it has not changed - whereas the label "marriage" then has. The intimate relationship I have with my wife is not one that any gay couple could have under any circumstances whatsoever.
quote:Again, nobody fucking cares about your petty little pain at the change of meaning of words. Get with the fucking programme or shut the fuck up.
The proper word for that relationship used to be "marriage". If now the majority of society - or say an oligarchic panel of judges - decides that gay people can be "married", then I have lost not my relationship but the vocabulary to describe it. I might say things like "I am married in the old sense of the word" from then on. But there is an actual loss in that: you have taken not my relationship, but my language.
quote:Blather blather blather.
Somebody (or something) on the side of the gay lobby is smart enough to realise that occupying the vocabulary is what wins culture wars. If you cannot win the argument (and be it for the bloodyminded resistance of the opposition), then take away their words. They will be rendered speechless all the same. This is the true reason why any sort of "gay civil union" will never be enough, even if it is identical before the law. This is the true reason why gays fight for "marriage", even if aping heterosexual life styles is hardly on every gay person's mind. Words have power. Both forces that shape this world know this, the Word as well as the prince of lies. You can make up your own mind who is behind this - but my point here is once more that there is nothing a priori idiotic about this complaint, regardless of whether you think it is justified or not.
quote:Let me just pick up this particular bit to say that I'm now imagining a white man complaining that when women and blacks were given the right to "vote", he lost his language for what he used to do.
Originally posted by IngoB:
If now the majority of society - or say an oligarchic panel of judges - decides that gay people can be "married", then I have lost not my relationship but the vocabulary to describe it. I might say things like "I am married in the old sense of the word" from then on. But there is an actual loss in that: you have taken not my relationship, but my language.
quote:Not even that smart, talks bollocks consistently about things he knows little about. I'm sure he is talented in the narrow area of science in which he operates, but like many scientists believes this gives him special dibs to pontificate on things outside of the field which he has never really stopped to seriously think about.
Originally posted by orfeo:
You are really are one of the stupidest smart people I've ever encountered.
quote:This is perfectly correct.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Isn't this partly a difference between a secular and religious view of marriage? I mean, that a secular view might argue that marriage has been understood in different ways, for example, in some cultures, as primarily a financial arrangement, or as a means of connecting different tribes or clans (exogamy).
But some religious views might state that marriage is somehow unalterable, determined by God not humans, and so on.
quote:Silly nitpicking.
Originally posted by IngoB:
If a gay couple can "marry", then I am not "married" to my wife. Not because somehow my relationship to her has changed, but rather because it has not changed - whereas the label "marriage" then has. The intimate relationship I have with my wife is not one that any gay couple could have under any circumstances whatsoever.
quote:Of course natural physical law and natural moral law are just two expressions of the same thing: God designing properties into His creation according to His will. I don't really know why you would consider that "ridiculous" rather than "obvious", but I don't really care either. I certainly consider it to be true.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Then don't do something ridiculous as suggesting that God's "law" on the direction of water flow bears any resemblance to the Ten Commandments.
quote:I don't know. The state however is legislating for something which is against basic morality. My point was that this not being clear to everybody is not the same as saying that it is not happening. There is nothing a priori wrong with the claim that "secular law X is against the law of God", whether you think that this is true or not.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
This is a daft analogue, why would a state legislate for something which is clearly against basic physics?
quote:I'm not sure why you are mouthing words at me then, but rest assured that you can fuck off at your inconvenience.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Thing is - nobody cares what you think are the laws of God. I think they're total bollocks and you are completely delusional.
quote:The state used to define "marriage" somewhat similarly to the way of fucking that I consider moral. Hence I was able to use the same word for marriages according to my religion and according to the state, for many (not all) purposes. In the USA at least, this will not be the case any longer, and this will likely culturally codify future usage of vocabulary there. Hence I will now have to make careful distinctions when speaking, where I did not have to before. That was my point.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Religiously, you can define marriage in any fucking way you like. The state defines it for the benefit of everyone, not just you.
quote:I'm not sure where the line between Hell and DH is to be held here. I think I will stick to discussing the discussion, rather than what the discussion itself is about.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Other people getting the rights I have are oppressing me.
quote:Shhh. You are giving away the game... Your lot is still posing as freedom fighters, society is not quite ready yet for the tyranny to come. Patience.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Get with the fucking programme or shut the fuck up.
quote:As for basically all words, the purpose of the word "marriage" is of course to distinguish one thing from another. It is true that when I got married I did not think about gay people marrying, and I probably would not think about them if I did get married today. I would think about my bride and related matters. However, I did not claim that getting married is the purposeful act of demonstrating the proper definition of the word "marriage". Why would it be? That is not at all a requirement. I do not have to think about physical exertion when playing chess in order to have a discussion whether chess should be considered a sport, or not.
Originally posted by orfeo:
How can expansion of a word create loss, unless a key part of the word was to distinguish yourself?
quote:If society decides that being "married" to someone means to rent some form of accommodation from them, then what would you say has happened to my marriage? Wouldn't you agree that under these circumstances, my intimate relationship to my wife likely has remained unchanged, but that it is now problematic to describe it as "marriage"? Wouldn't you agree that I now would have to call this relationship something else, or at least have to add a disclaimer of the form "marriage in the old sense of the word", or be misunderstood when I talk about the relationship to my wife? Well, the change we are witnessing here concerning the word "marriage" is obviously not as drastic. But nevertheless there is an objective change. If you do not know me, and I say "I am married" - what is the sex of my intimate partner? You used to know (if you knew my sex), but now you won't. Of course, you may not care about this loss of implied information. But that's a question of value systems, and a distinct issue. Objectively it remains true that the word "marriage" is getting redefined here, and if I happen to care about that, then I am getting a language problem because of it.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Saying that simultaneously your marriage ceases to be a marriage is quite another, and it's so fundamentally illogical as to be petulant.
quote:We understand that you're perfectly at liberty to claim whatever the hell you want, just as long as you understand that we're at liberty to point to the massive hubris (to the point of sociopathy) involved in your claim.
Originally posted by IngoB:
There is nothing a priori wrong with the claim that "secular law X is against the law of God", whether you think that this is true or not.
quote:And the meaning of words changes over time according to how people use them. The meaning of the word 'marriage' has changed in particularly radical ways since Biblical times, since married women are now allowed to own property and are no longer regarded as the property of their husband. Catholics should be used to holding a different view on marriage to the secular state by now (*cough* no-fault divorce *cough*).
As for basically all words, the purpose of the word "marriage" is of course to distinguish one thing from another.
quote:Well, I'll be interested to see the Water Bible, where water is given God's laws, and given the consequences for breaking God's laws. I've personally never inquired into whether the water around me is moral water or immoral water, but it's good to know that the laws that describe the nature of the physical world are exactly the same thing as the laws that prescribe human conduct.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Of course natural physical law and natural moral law are just two expressions of the same thing: God designing properties into His creation according to His will. I don't really know why you would consider that "ridiculous" rather than "obvious", but I don't really care either. I certainly consider it to be true.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Then don't do something ridiculous as suggesting that God's "law" on the direction of water flow bears any resemblance to the Ten Commandments.
quote:More than that, it's not even the same kind of change. You just described a complete shift in a word, not an expansion, and the fact that you can't figure this out is astounding.
If society decides that being "married" to someone means to rent some form of accommodation from them, then what would you say has happened to my marriage? Wouldn't you agree that under these circumstances, my intimate relationship to my wife likely has remained unchanged, but that it is now problematic to describe it as "marriage"? Wouldn't you agree that I now would have to call this relationship something else, or at least have to add a disclaimer of the form "marriage in the old sense of the word", or be misunderstood when I talk about the relationship to my wife? Well, the change we are witnessing here concerning the word "marriage" is obviously not as drastic.
quote:Well, in the examples I'm aware of where it's occurred, it's that they're trying to avoid taking any action whatsoever regarding climate change and so legislate against any recognition of e.g. sea level rise.
This is a daft analogue, why would a state legislate for something which is clearly against basic physics?
quote:Going a bit Purg rather than hellish, but I really don't understand what you're getting at here, and I would like to.
Second, obviously your intimate relationship to a partner does not change as such because the secular state redefines the legal status of the label applied to it. But what does changes is then indeed the meaning of that label, in a legal sense and inevitably (laws have consequences) in a socio-cultural sense. If a gay couple can "marry", then I am not "married" to my wife. Not because somehow my relationship to her has changed, but rather because it has not changed - whereas the label "marriage" then has.
quote:Leaving aside a cheap smutty gag, and some of the obvious tab B into slot A physical interfaces, how so? In any way distinct from the fact that the relationship I have with my wife is going to be different to the relationship you have with yours &c &c - what's the intrinsic, fundamental difference that means a life-long commitment to form a household, support each other, forsake all others, stick with it in sickness and in health and so on is not equivalent unless you have one boy and one girl involved?
The intimate relationship I have with my wife is not one that any gay couple could have under any circumstances whatsoever.
quote:Not only faulty logic, but also faulty history.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The state used to define "marriage" somewhat similarly to the way of fucking that I consider moral. Hence I was able to use the same word for marriages according to my religion and according to the state, for many (not all) purposes.
quote:The changes underway now are more fundamental, since they touch the very heart of what marriage is about. The state has chosen to accommodate the "hardness of heart" of people before, true, but now it is abasing the creational purpose of marriage as such. At some point in the definition game one has to stop calling various objects a "spade".
Originally posted by Jane R:
Catholics should be used to holding a different view on marriage to the secular state by now (*cough* no-fault divorce *cough*).
quote:Indeed. It is however regrettable that the proper meaning of the word "marriage" will now be reduced to a technical term in "traditional Christian" jargon, with no replacement in sight for general English usage.
Originally posted by Jane R:
Words can also have more than one meaning. A sentence containing exactly the same words can mean lots of different things, depending on who is saying it, when, how and why they are saying it and who they are saying it to.
quote:I'm not sure why we keep getting variations of this nonsense. Once more, at issue is not the thing as such, but rather how we can talk about it. The Catholic mass is what it is, but if I discuss the Eucharist with assorted Protestants and Anglicans I cannot simply assume that we mean the same things with the same words. I have to explicitly express my RC assumptions about the Eucharist, I cannot take a shared understanding for granted.
Originally posted by Jane R:
Other churches hold different views on the Eucharist; would you therefore argue that this invalidates the Catholic Mass?
quote:If your point is that you have more "behavioural" and indeed "free-willed" control over obeying some of God's laws than over others, then that is obviously true. That's why we distinguish moral from physical law, etc. But I don't see what relevance that is supposed to have concerning my simple point that one cannot declare automatically absurd the claim that the state is legislating against the law of God.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, I'll be interested to see the Water Bible, where water is given God's laws, and given the consequences for breaking God's laws. I've personally never inquired into whether the water around me is moral water or immoral water, but it's good to know that the laws that describe the nature of the physical world are exactly the same thing as the laws that prescribe human conduct.
quote:OK then. If you admit the general problem of redefining words indicating social institutions, then we can deal with the more specific change of meaning introduced by expanding the range of such a word. Say I'm an footballer, who has just won the world cup. Somebody asks me what I do for a living. I answer "I am a professional sportsman." Whereupon the other persons says "Oh, I am too. I am a grandmaster in chess." If I say now "Well, with all due respect, I do not consider chess to be a sport." am I out of line? I do not mean whether my assertion is correct (whether chess is a sport or not) or whether this is polite. I mean whether it is meaningful as such to discuss whether chess is a sport. Do we have to accept chess as a sport simply because chess players may think it is one? Does nothing of significance happen if we admit chess as one particular kind of sport? Does this not indicate a difference concerning what we mean by "sport", a difference that one could viably consider important? Is it necessarily good enough for me that I can still call football a sport, even if we accept chess as sport? I don't think so.
Originally posted by orfeo:
You just described a complete shift in a word, not an expansion, and the fact that you can't figure this out is astounding.
quote:Mysterious. I invalidate you as a human being by stating that a "marriage" is a formal union between a man and a woman? Just exactly how does that work? Do you think that absolutely every word we use about humans must be attainable by you personally, or you will be invalidated as a human being? Shit, I better not talk about pregnant genius astronauts.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Just spare me the need to marvel at the profound depths of stupidity that Christians can go to in their attempts to invalidate me as a human being.
quote:Curious. I think you are drama queen in urgent need of a reality check. Or a beer. Probably both.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Ingo, I find you vile beyond all speaking of it. You are the most heartless, graceless, compassion-free person it has ever been my misfortune to have this much conversation with.
quote:Being intrinsically ordered to procreation, which incidentally does not mean that every marriage (and much less every sexual intercourse) must result in offspring.
Originally posted by Snags:
What is it that you mean by "marriage", that is intrinsic to "marriage", that having the word "marriage" applied to same-sex couples breaks?
quote:I do not think that you can leave that aside. Marriage is the social institution designed by God to contain the bodily act of begetting children, by virtue of sticking penises into vaginas and ejaculating semen, and educating them to maturity. And no, this statement is not invalidated by the fact that people have married for political gain, like sticking penises into all sorts of holes, often prefer to not have children result from this sort of activity (and sometimes for good reasons), etc.
Originally posted by Snags:
Leaving aside a cheap smutty gag, and some of the obvious tab B into slot A physical interfaces, how so?
quote:I see. So as I cannot have more children, I am suddenly no longer married, right dickwad?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Or that's at least how this goes according to the traditional definition of "marriage".
quote:OK, I get that within its own terms of reference.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Marriage is the social institution designed by God to contain the bodily act of begetting children, by virtue of sticking penises into vaginas and ejaculating semen, and educating them to maturity
...
Or that's at least how this goes according to the traditional definition of "marriage".
quote:Hoping and praying that you won't be "married" to your wife anymore soon. (In fact, it's overdue.)
IngoB: If a gay couple can "marry", then I am not "married" to my wife.
quote:Agreed.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I can't help feeling that several hundred years ago Ingo would have been arguing that the sun revolved around the earth which was flat because the church said so.
Tubbs
quote:As this is Hell you are of course free to dismiss my comments as nonsense, but don't expect me to continue taking you seriously when you then go on and make the same point as I did in slightly different words.
I'm not sure why we keep getting variations of this nonsense. Once more, at issue is not the thing as such, but rather how we can talk about it. The Catholic mass is what it is, but if I discuss the Eucharist with assorted Protestants and Anglicans I cannot simply assume that we mean the same things with the same words. I have to explicitly express my RC assumptions about the Eucharist, I cannot take a shared understanding for granted.
quote:He would. But then you'd look at the sun and world doing it's thing and realise that well argued nonsense is still well argued nonsense.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:Agreed.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I can't help feeling that several hundred years ago Ingo would have been arguing that the sun revolved around the earth which was flat because the church said so.
Tubbs
And he would argue it very well indeed.
quote:And he would be wrong.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:Agreed.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I can't help feeling that several hundred years ago Ingo would have been arguing that the sun revolved around the earth which was flat because the church said so.
Tubbs
And he would argue it very well indeed.
quote:As in this case.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:And he would be wrong.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:Agreed.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I can't help feeling that several hundred years ago Ingo would have been arguing that the sun revolved around the earth which was flat because the church said so.
Tubbs
And he would argue it very well indeed.
quote:That's an easy one - IngoB is right and everyone else is wrong on the Eucharist, on marriage and on everything else.
Originally posted by Jane R:
You are willing to concede that you cannot take a shared understanding of the Eucharist for granted; why is it so difficult to admit that you can't take a shared understanding of marriage for granted either?
quote:Do you really think IngoB is willing to share an understanding with an institution so flawed as the Holy Catholic Church?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:That's an easy one - IngoB is right and everyone else is wrong on the Eucharist, on marriage and on everything else.
Originally posted by Jane R:
You are willing to concede that you cannot take a shared understanding of the Eucharist for granted; why is it so difficult to admit that you can't take a shared understanding of marriage for granted either?
The weasel words "there is no shared understanding" is IngoB's way to say that everyone else fails to immediately stop their imperfect practices and turn to the Holy Catholic Church.
quote:Several hundred years ago every educated person knew that the earth was round (quoted as well-known to the sciences in the Summa Theologiae, for example) and scientific evidence up to and including the time of Galilei was against heliocentrism (star size problem).
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I can't help feeling that several hundred years ago Ingo would have been arguing that the sun revolved around the earth which was flat because the church said so.
quote:No, that's not right.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
So as I cannot have more children, I am suddenly no longer married, right dickwad?
quote:Such laws were written when dicks, cunts and the like were not spoken about in public, but their official purpose was well agreed upon by all. Today it is the other way around.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But in law, marriage is not defined as an institution ordained by God for begetting children, via dicks, cunts, etc. That is surely a private view.
quote:The bible brings us God's law but is not a legal text by any stretch of the imagination. And furthermore, even a legal text can be stretched beyond imagination by creative human minds. That is why I have always considered the Protestant position to be entirely untenable, and why I consider it as the one and only good outcome of postmodernism that it has exposed reliance on a text alone as fundamentally flawed proposition. I myself do not believe in the bible as such, but in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. The bible is simply the first and foremost teaching document that this Church has produced through Divine inspiration, hence it is obvious whom to ask about interpreting it in case of doubt...
Originally posted by Snags:
Nowhere in the Bible do I find such a clear, unequivocal, no alternative definition of marriage.
quote:It is not difficult to admit, it is a fact, or will be soon enough. I just find it sad, it is the end of a human era. A bit like the Great Schism and the Reformation (and the various other ruptures we have forgotten about, like Arianism) created facts through separation I am now sad about. Except that the era of shared human understanding about marriage at least at the level of "man and woman" is global and goes back to time immemorial.
Originally posted by Jane R:
You are willing to concede that you cannot take a shared understanding of the Eucharist for granted; why is it so difficult to admit that you can't take a shared understanding of marriage for granted either?
quote:This is quite funny.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Such laws were written when dicks, cunts and the like were not spoken about in public, but their official purpose was well agreed upon by all. Today it is the other way around.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But in law, marriage is not defined as an institution ordained by God for begetting children, via dicks, cunts, etc. That is surely a private view.
quote:Ingo, I understand your reasoning, but I don't understand why you seem to be suggesting (and my apologies if I am misreading you) that this problem only arises when the state redefines marriage to include gay relationships. You are a Roman Catholic. Your Church does not recognise divorce. AIUI a person who has been divorced by the civil courts remains, in the eyes of your Church, married to their 'former' spouse and all other things being equal cannot therefore contract a valid new marriage while their 'former' spuse remains alive. Am I broadly correct in my understanding of what your Church teaches? Because if I am, there are very many heterosexual couples in Britain and the US and so on whose legally-recognised relationships are defined by the state as marriage, but which are not marriages as your Church understands the term. Yet I have never heard any married Roman Catholic say that if divorcees with living former spouses can "marry", then he or she is not "married" to his or her spouse because the state gives "marriage" a broader meaning than the (RC) Church does.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Second, obviously your intimate relationship to a partner does not change as such because the secular state redefines the legal status of the label applied to it. But what does changes is then indeed the meaning of that label, in a legal sense and inevitably (laws have consequences) in a socio-cultural sense. If a gay couple can "marry", then I am not "married" to my wife. Not because somehow my relationship to her has changed, but rather because it has not changed - whereas the label "marriage" then has.
quote:Am I right in thinking that the RCC doesn't recognise the validity of a marriage that takes place anywhere other than the RCC anyway, whether the participants intend to have children or not?
Originally posted by IngoB:
... A heterosexual couple that marries with the firm intention of never having any offspring result from their sexual acts is in the eyes of the RCC not validly married ...
quote:A case of 'what the eye doesn't see' then?
Originally posted by IngoB:
A heterosexual couple that marries with the firm intention of never having any offspring result from their sexual acts is in the eyes of the RCC not validly married, and the marriage can be annulled. Though obviously it is impossible to know this from the outside, whereas in the case of the homosexual couple unfortunately the best of intentions cannot get past the concrete embodiment.
quote:The RCC has no requirements whatsoever on fertility - you can be entirely sterile and still marry. It requires however at least intermittent potency, i.e., you have to be able to perform vaginal intercourse in some fashion sometimes. If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry. As I've said above, marriage is quite literally considered as the God given social container for the specific sexual act that is designed by God for the procreation of the species in general (the "union of one flesh" between man and woman). The question is whether socially allowed sex is "naturally ordered to procreation", not whether it will in fact result in procreation.
Originally posted by Albertus:
Just out of interest, Ingo, what's the RCC's line omn marriage between heterosexual people who cannot have children together, because of age or for some other physical reason?
quote:No, you are wrong. The RCC recognises all marriages, including say between pagans or atheists, as marriages. Furthermore, the RCC recognises all marriages between Christians as sacramental, and hence as unbreakable by human means once consummated.
Originally posted by Piglet:
Am I right in thinking that the RCC doesn't recognise the validity of a marriage that takes place anywhere other than the RCC anyway, whether the participants intend to have children or not? If I am, it leaves an awful lot of us living in sin in your eyes (me included - on both counts).
quote:I see. So when Gerontius and Gerontia, both Roman Catholics and both widowed, decide at the ages of 87 and 86 respectively that they want to get married, in the absence of any other impediment their marriage can be celebrated, so long as Gerontius can, not to put too fine a point on it, still get it up and in occasionally?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:The RCC has no requirements whatsoever on fertility - you can be entirely sterile and still marry. It requires however at least intermittent potency, i.e., you have to be able to perform vaginal intercourse in some fashion sometimes. If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry. As I've said above, marriage is quite literally considered as the God given social container for the specific sexual act that is designed by God for the procreation of the species in general (the "union of one flesh" between man and woman). The question is whether socially allowed sex is "naturally ordered to procreation", not whether it will in fact result in procreation.
Originally posted by Albertus:
Just out of interest, Ingo, what's the RCC's line omn marriage between heterosexual people who cannot have children together, because of age or for some other physical reason?
quote:After all, Sarah got pregnant at 90-something, so it's always possible.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:The RCC has no requirements whatsoever on fertility - you can be entirely sterile and still marry. It requires however at least intermittent potency, i.e., you have to be able to perform vaginal intercourse in some fashion sometimes. If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry. As I've said above, marriage is quite literally considered as the God given social container for the specific sexual act that is designed by God for the procreation of the species in general (the "union of one flesh" between man and woman). The question is whether socially allowed sex is "naturally ordered to procreation", not whether it will in fact result in procreation.
Originally posted by Albertus:
Just out of interest, Ingo, what's the RCC's line omn marriage between heterosexual people who cannot have children together, because of age or for some other physical reason?
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:The basic approach of the RCC, and dare I say of Christianity as a whole, in matters of sin is self-reporting. The Church is there to teach, listen, and on request where possible, heal. It is not tasked with advanced espionage and social control. The Church is God's doctor in the world, not God's snitch. Much of the most unsavoury history of the Church has resulted from forgetting that. However, it is the task of a doctor to stand up in public to decry unhealthy practices, where those systematically endanger his patients. It is also not required of a doctor to play along with just everything their patients come up with, in particular not so if the patient blatantly disregards the advice given personally by the doctor.
Originally posted by Boogie:
A case of 'what the eye doesn't see' then? Situation normal for the RC, as with contraception. Go for the easy, visible targets. Why not?
quote:Why lie? I said nothing of the sort.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Well, as he has just stated on the matching Dead Horses thread, Ingo doesn't give a crap about laws, existing or otherwise.
quote:When asked to cite laws that define marriage as you think it should be, you say you're not obliged to. I take that to mean that the laws definition of marriage is irrelevant. Which still makes me wonder why you care what the US Supreme Court has to say on the matter. You can call your marriage what you want and poo-poo the others, but don't expect everyone else to agree with you.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Why lie? I said nothing of the sort.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Well, as he has just stated on the matching Dead Horses thread, Ingo doesn't give a crap about laws, existing or otherwise.
quote:Serious question here. How exactly is this even ascertained? If someone wants their marriage annulled on this basis, how is it proven?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:The RCC has no requirements whatsoever on fertility - you can be entirely sterile and still marry. It requires however at least intermittent potency, i.e., you have to be able to perform vaginal intercourse in some fashion sometimes. If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry. As I've said above, marriage is quite literally considered as the God given social container for the specific sexual act that is designed by God for the procreation of the species in general (the "union of one flesh" between man and woman). The question is whether socially allowed sex is "naturally ordered to procreation", not whether it will in fact result in procreation.
Originally posted by Albertus:
Just out of interest, Ingo, what's the RCC's line omn marriage between heterosexual people who cannot have children together, because of age or for some other physical reason?
quote:Certainly.
Originally posted by Albertus:
So when Gerontius and Gerontia, both Roman Catholics and both widowed, decide at the ages of 87 and 86 respectively that they want to get married, in the absence of any other impediment their marriage can be celebrated, so long as Gerontius can, not to put too fine a point on it, still get it up and in occasionally?
quote:Indeed. More importantly though, Sarah's pregnancy was preternatural (relatively supernatural) rather than (absolutely) supernatural. It was not beyond her created nature as such to be with child, and it was not beyond the nature of the act of Abraham having sex with her to make her conceive (best we know from no such detail being provided). It was merely that supernatural grace helped nature along to an in principle available conclusion that however would not have occurred otherwise.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
After all, Sarah got pregnant at 90-something, so it's always possible. :roll eyes:
quote:No, there is in general an assumption of innocence until one accuses oneself out of one's own free will. However, that assumption goes not so far as to ignore the facts before one's eyes in a delusional manner.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Personally, I'm curious as to the dick into vag bit. Is there a periodic survey sent out by one's priest asking about that? Some sort of "Intercourse Inspector" that makes unannounced visits?
quote:I said that I do not feel obliged to quote US legislation, if my comment did not involve US legislation in any way. I also do not feel obliged to talk about bowler hats, among a near infinite number of other things not relevant to my present argument.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
When asked to cite laws that define marriage as you think it should be, you say you're not obliged to.
quote:The conclusions is as wrong as its premise. And I care about the SCOTUS decisions roughly as I care about the situation in Greece. It's not directly impacting me, but int may well somehow down the track - and anyway, it's one of the few pleasures of the lowly to diss the follies of the mighty.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
I take that to mean that the laws definition of marriage is irrelevant. Which still makes me wonder why you care what the US Supreme Court has to say on the matter.
quote:I assume perpetual impotence is something that could be medically diagnosed in most cases. And perhaps in some cases it could be an existing track record of having tried to resolve ongoing impotence through a doctor that would count as evidence. I doubt that a simple "say so" would be enough, though I'm neither a canon lawyer nor do I have deep insight into the process. But IIRC annulment cases have a "Defender of the Bond" whose duty it is to argue that marriage is valid and sacramental before the priest-judge, against the Advocate seeking the annulment. So I expect there is at least some requirement for more objective evidence also in practice.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Serious question here. How exactly is this even ascertained? If someone wants their marriage annulled on this basis, how is it proven?
quote:I think you will find that it is "more", not "less".
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The odd thing here is that the RCC view expressed by IngoB is that consummation is of less importance than whether the partners are actually fertile and intending to have children.
quote:OK, (sulkily), I suppose that will have to do. Why should secular law and religious codes be isomorphic? Because God gets in a frightful wax otherwise. Spose so.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Because God, quetzacoatl, because God.
God is gonna get all wrathful and shit because the bible says its icky.
that Christians have enslaved, oppressed and commited genocide are all fine because they're biblical.
But let two men* get married and civilisation is DOOMED!
*Yes just men. Cause men get it on and bible thumpers want to shoot them with a gun. Women do the same and they want to shoot them with a camera.
quote:An annulment is not a judgement that a marriage has failed so hard that it should be considered over. An annulment is a judgement that a marriage never happened in the first place. If you are married and have lots of sex while doing everything in your power to avoid having children, then likely you are making a horrible mess of your marriage in God's eyes. That does not make your marriage disappear though. If however at the time when you said your marriage vows it was your firm intention to never have kids, then your vows were false. You lied, basically, to achieve marriage status - for whatever reason. Being open to the possibility of children is a necessary condition for contracting a RC marriage. Hence in this case, no matter how much it may appear that you have had a marriage since, you can insist that your vows were false and that hence your marriage is null.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But you said that if two people were married but not intending to have children, they would not really be married. Or have I misunderstood you? Clearly married people can be having intercourse without intending to ever have children.
quote:I have reacted with anger, and then deleted the post. The anger is still there, but I'm going to try and put it a little more pointedly.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:An annulment is not a judgement that a marriage has failed so hard that it should be considered over. An annulment is a judgement that a marriage never happened in the first place. If you are married and have lots of sex while doing everything in your power to avoid having children, then likely you are making a horrible mess of your marriage in God's eyes. That does not make your marriage disappear though. If however at the time when you said your marriage vows it was your firm intention to never have kids, then your vows were false. You lied, basically, to achieve marriage status - for whatever reason. Being open to the possibility of children is a necessary condition for contracting a RC marriage. Hence in this case, no matter how much it may appear that you have had a marriage since, you can insist that your vows were false and that hence your marriage is null.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But you said that if two people were married but not intending to have children, they would not really be married. Or have I misunderstood you? Clearly married people can be having intercourse without intending to ever have children.
Basically, it's a technicality in the contract that lets you off the hook. If that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, then that is good. Nobody should be happy with that sort of thing. Still, if you lied and cheated your way into marriage, then the RCC will allow you to weasel out of it as well. Your marriage is only as good as your word was at the time, because it is your word (and that of your spouse) which make the marriage. However, the RCC will always assume that your word was good, unless there is undeniable evidence against that (very rare) or you accuse yourself of perjury. The RCC is not in the business of doubting your word, but you might be.
quote:
I declare that I know of no legal reason why I (your name) may not be joined in marriage to (your partner's name).
quote:
And I care about the SCOTUS decisions roughly as I care about the situation in Greece. It's not directly impacting me, but int may well somehow down the track - and anyway, it's one of the few pleasures of the lowly to diss the follies of the mighty.
quote:Such a comical sentence, calling out bigotry in the middle of a making a bigoted statement.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I realize that the bigots can become dangerous and very nasty of course, maybe in the US more than the UK, (not IngoB himself).
quote:How exactly is that a bigoted statement?
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:Such a comical sentence, calling out bigotry in the middle of a making a bigoted statement.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I realize that the bigots can become dangerous and very nasty of course, maybe in the US more than the UK, (not IngoB himself).
quote:Oh fucking bollocks. OK, then, tell me what was bigoted about it. I will fucking regret this.
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:Such a comical sentence, calling out bigotry in the middle of a making a bigoted statement.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I realize that the bigots can become dangerous and very nasty of course, maybe in the US more than the UK, (not IngoB himself).
quote:There's some kind of strange law of compensation here, I think. The more the bigots' world shrinks, and the more exposed and bankrupt it seems, the more they flounce and posture, as if they were the arbiters of morality, life, love, and so on. Narcisssism, envy, revenge, good grief, what a dog's vomit.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Well, indeed.
Ingo can bang on about what constitutes marriage as much as he likes, but no matter how furiously he states what RCC marriage doctrine is, those of who aren't in the RCC, and haven't contracted our marriages according to the rites of the RCC, are quite at liberty to pat him on the head with the clue bat and tell him to run along and play, because the grown-ups decided a very long time ago that those rules extend exactly as far as the RCC and no further.
He's a silly old cross-patch and just so upset that the world keeps turning without his permission. The rest of us, of course, just think it's fabulous and will ride off into the sunset on our rainbow unicorns, leaving him all red-faced and demarried.
Bless.
quote:Twilight can speak for herself when she gets here, but I suspect this might have been what she meant. Of course, since I'm actually from the US I am free to agree with you WITHOUT being a bigot, even without the weaselly "maybe".
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...maybe in the US more than the UK...
quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
quote:How exactly is that a bigoted statement?
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:Such a comical sentence, calling out bigotry in the middle of a making a bigoted statement.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I realize that the bigots can become dangerous and very nasty of course, maybe in the US more than the UK, (not IngoB himself).
quote:
Oh fucking bollocks. OK, then, tell me what was bigoted about it. I will fucking regret this.
quote:I'm in the US and I don't see his statement as bigotry. Look at the crime statistics. Look at abortion clinic bombings, black church burnings, etc etc etc. Our rightwing nutjobs are provably more likely to commit violence then those elsewhere in the Western world.
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
quote:How exactly is that a bigoted statement?
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:Such a comical sentence, calling out bigotry in the middle of a making a bigoted statement.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I realize that the bigots can become dangerous and very nasty of course, maybe in the US more than the UK, (not IngoB himself).quote:
Oh fucking bollocks. OK, then, tell me what was bigoted about it. I will fucking regret this.
--------------------
Has anti-American bigotry become so standard and reflexive you can't see it in a simple sentence? You really believe it's an absolute fact that there are more dangerous, nasty bigots in American than in the UK? You've never heard an anti-gay remark or seen a fight started about this issue in the UK? I was only there for three years and I saw and heard a depressing amount of it.
quote:And if you ever find that you want to annul your marriage before the RCC, that might become relevant somehow.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Not that it is any if your business, but children were not part of the contract I agreed with my wife.
quote:It's waiting for that to happen which is so unnerving. For some fucking reason, no sunset ever seems pretty enough for the exodus of the wicked... Perhaps those rainbow unicorns have their spines crushed when y'all plunk your fat asses on them?
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The rest of us, of course, just think it's fabulous and will ride off into the sunset on our rainbow unicorns, leaving him all red-faced and demarried.
quote:Well, I don't think there are absolute facts. I think in the UK the opposition to ssm was muted, partly because it was introduced by the right-wing government party, (Tories), and partly because the UK is a very secular country, so religious homophobia is low key. Of course, there are nasty people here, no doubt.
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
quote:How exactly is that a bigoted statement?
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:Such a comical sentence, calling out bigotry in the middle of a making a bigoted statement.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I realize that the bigots can become dangerous and very nasty of course, maybe in the US more than the UK, (not IngoB himself).quote:
Oh fucking bollocks. OK, then, tell me what was bigoted about it. I will fucking regret this.
--------------------
Has anti-American bigotry become so standard and reflexive you can't see it in a simple sentence? You really believe it's an absolute fact that there are more dangerous, nasty bigots in American than in the UK? You've never heard an anti-gay remark or seen a fight started about this issue in the UK? I was only there for three years and I saw and heard a depressing amount of it.
quote:Well, quite. But while I suppose that it might be possible, although difficult, to establish what constitutes consummation in SSM, this does suggest, as I say, that there is actually an ontological difference between SS and heterosexual marriage.
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
[Crossposted replying to Albertus]
I think they just didn't want the disaster of trying to define it. PinV doesn't guarantee much - really they'd have to go with, "during sexual activity at least one of the spouses must have experienced orgasm for the marriage to be considered to be consummated." Which would have led to a massive row about what constitutes an orgasm, and one seriously surreal debate in parliament.
(You could define by ejaculation - though female ejaculation remains a controversial concept.)
quote:Whether or not either the chess player, the footballer, or both, or anyone else, agree that chess is a sport, or not, it doesn't change whether football is a sport, does it? Of course, anyone can then split up the definition of sport into 'ball sports' and 'sitting down sports', for your own purposes, but they still both fall into the overall category of 'sports'. Football has not been diminished or changed as a result of someone suggesting - or even a government agency agreeing - that chess is a sport as well. Footballers will still run around kicking a leather ball and fall over occasionally, whether or not other professional sportsmen are pushing wooden figurines around with glad cries of "Knight to KB3, take that you bastard".
Originally posted by IngoB:
Say I'm an footballer, who has just won the world cup. Somebody asks me what I do for a living. I answer "I am a professional sportsman." Whereupon the other persons says "Oh, I am too. I am a grandmaster in chess." If I say now "Well, with all due respect, I do not consider chess to be a sport." am I out of line? I do not mean whether my assertion is correct (whether chess is a sport or not) or whether this is polite. I mean whether it is meaningful as such to discuss whether chess is a sport. Do we have to accept chess as a sport simply because chess players may think it is one? Does nothing of significance happen if we admit chess as one particular kind of sport? Does this not indicate a difference concerning what we mean by "sport", a difference that one could viably consider important? Is it necessarily good enough for me that I can still call football a sport, even if we accept chess as sport? I don't think so.
quote:The reason is that we still live in a world where Western countries like the UK and the USA posit themselves as 'Christian', despite - or perhaps even because of - secularisation.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I am puzzled by the shock felt by some anti-gay people. Why do they think that secular law would mimic a religiously couched view of marriage?
quote:IngoB, can you quote to me the words either MrP or myself said during our wedding ceremony which were knowingly untrue? If not, please apologise for calling us liars.
Originally posted by IngoB:
If however at the time when you said your marriage vows it was your firm intention to never have kids, then your vows were false. You lied, basically, to achieve marriage status - for whatever reason.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
quote:I am one of the most over-sensitive when it comes to sniffing out slanders against the US, but nothing in what quetzalcoatl said struck me as pond-warrish at all. Sometimes a cigar isn't even a cigar.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Just going off the first few days, the reaction in the US has been more dramatic, not to say, melodramatic. I assume this is partly because the US is a much more Christian country than the UK, and quite a lot of US Christians are homophobic.
I don't see how this is bigoted at all.
quote:I support same sex marriage BECAUSE I follow Christ. The two things are hardly contradictory.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
it must confuse people like the elderly clergyman in the OP when our leaders have evangelical prayer breakfasts or talk about our 'Christian nation' - and then proudly introduce SSM.
quote:I wish God would hurry up and doom someone. All these other countries wouldn't have gone down the wrong path if God had just destroyed the crap out of the Netherlands.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Because God, quetzacoatl, because God.
God is gonna get all wrathful and shit because the bible says its icky.
that Christians have enslaved, oppressed and commited genocide are all fine because they're biblical.
But let two men* get married and civilisation is DOOMED!
*Yes just men. Cause men get it on and bible thumpers want to shoot them with a gun. Women do the same and they want to shoot them with a camera.
quote:The first of these sentences can be true without implying the second. A being more than B in no way implies that B is zero.
Originally posted by Twilight:
You really believe it's an absolute fact that there are more dangerous, nasty bigots in American than in the UK? You've never heard an anti-gay remark or seen a fight started about this issue in the UK?
quote:In the USA, it's difficult to talk about "secularisation" when the founding fathers went out of their way to make it a secular nation in the first place.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:The reason is that we still live in a world where Western countries like the UK and the USA posit themselves as 'Christian', despite - or perhaps even because of - secularisation.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I am puzzled by the shock felt by some anti-gay people. Why do they think that secular law would mimic a religiously couched view of marriage?
quote:Ditto - but according to Ingo this only matters if we subsequently join the RCC and want to be divorced. Given that both of these would have to happen sequentially for this to be an issue, the relevance is vanishingly small.
Originally posted by JoannaP:
IngoB, can you quote to me the words either MrP or myself said during our wedding ceremony which were knowingly untrue? If not, please apologise for calling us liars.
Joanna
quote:Err....what?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry.
quote:I never did see The Crying Game.
Originally posted by RooK:
YOU FOOLS!
Clearly IngoB is playing the long game, and has been a secularist plant all along. Years spent slowly and consistently fashioning an irrefutable reputation as a religionist. All so he could believably present this utterly convincing attempt to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that conservative religious views are worthless. I mean, it's mostly just marriage in this case. But doesn't the sweeping grandeur of the fuck-upped-ness of the thinking just make you want to shudder and wipe all of that dog-shit philosophy off the sole of your mind?
quote:I bet you £50 it has only ever been formulated in terms of erectile dysfunction.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:Err....what?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry.
If, through no fault of your own, you are unable to have proper, normal, "God's law" PIV sex, you can't marry?
quote:Oh, come on, it MUST be the latter.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
This is either complete shite or many RC marriage sites on the internet know less than IngoB.
I'm betting the former.
quote:But would it then follow that in such a case the Church could have no necessary objection to unmarried cohabitation, seeing that sex (of this kind) is out of the question?
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:Err....what?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry.
If, through no fault of your own, you are unable to have proper, normal, "God's law" PIV sex, you can't marry?
quote:And for that matter, what's the objection to impotent gay men marrying?
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:But would it then follow that in such a case the Church could have no necessary objection to unmarried cohabitation, seeing that sex (of this kind) is out of the question?
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:Err....what?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry.
If, through no fault of your own, you are unable to have proper, normal, "God's law" PIV sex, you can't marry?
quote:Ah, but the RCC objection to them marrying is that they would be having All The Evil Gay Sex. If one or both parties is impotent, then All The Evil Gay Sex wouldn’t happen, therefore they could get married.
Originally posted by Albertus:
Well, following the RC logic, the objection would be twofold, wouldn't it, with them being men (if marrying men) the more obvious of the two.
If- serious question- you have a straight couple who cannot in the eyes of the RCC marry because of permanent impotence- or come to that a celibate gay couple- would the RCC object to their contracting a civil marriage in order to secure property rights?
quote:Pay up. Canon 1084 states "Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have intercourse, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature." So yes, the RCC (Republican Catholic Church?) explicitly says that the impotent cannot validly marry (well, you can say the words, sign on the dotted line, but...).
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
quote:I bet you £50 it has only ever been formulated in terms of erectile dysfunction.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:Err....what?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry.
If, through no fault of your own, you are unable to have proper, normal, "God's law" PIV sex, you can't marry?
quote:Yes, football does not change as football when we include chess into the definition of sport. What changes is the meaning of "football is a sport" ("my relationship is a marriage"). Now, soon after the decision to include chess into sport, bridge players insist that they are also sportsmen, and why not? Followed by the backgammon association etc. And soon after we hear parents say to their children: "let's do some sport together" as they bring out the Monopoly board. At this point a lot of people who are physically exerting themselves in their sport will start to become uncomfortable with the word. Because the main point of language is to usefully distinguish realities, and it is useful to have an indicator for the involved physical skill and exertion.
Originally posted by JonahMan:
Whether or not either the chess player, the footballer, or both, or anyone else, agree that chess is a sport, or not, it doesn't change whether football is a sport, does it?
quote:If you could reason that there is a significant difference between "computational neuroscience" and say "physics" in terms of their science-ness, then you might have a point. Since you can't, you don't. Whereas we can of course easily extend this discussion into that domain. For example, if homeopathy was called a science, systematically, then scientists would indeed start to get nervous. Of course, just like with chess, a single instance of confusion isn't so bad. But if then dowsing also started to be called a science, and tarot divination, and ... Then the word "science" would start to be corrupted to the point where something will happen in the language to rectify that.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
(btw - 'computational neuroscience' = not a proper science. You'll have to call it something else from now on because all us proper scientists feel diminished by you using our science-word)
quote:First, to clarify, were you actually married in the RCC? Because I was talking about the meaning of RC marriage vows (or if you like of "traditional" Christian marriage vows, referring to an unbroken tradition up to some point in modern times). Second, did you have the firm intention to never have kids when taking your marriage vows? I don't mean whether you can have kids or expect to have kids, but whether you made a conscious decision to not have kids in your marriage. Third, it's not necessarily exactly what you said, but also what was implied by it. RC vows also do not explicitly spell out everything that RC marriage entails. However, the RC doctrine concerning marriage is implicit, and these days in the West you typically get to sign your name against a list of doctrinal statements in marriage preparation (which is basically an admission that RC catechesis in the West is unreliable...).
Originally posted by JoannaP:
IngoB, can you quote to me the words either MrP or myself said during our wedding ceremony which were knowingly untrue? If not, please apologise for calling us liars.
quote:Well, no, but it leads to an interesting idea. Maybe I should become a liberal Christian for a decade or two, a very vocal one...
Originally posted by RooK:
Clearly IngoB is playing the long game, and has been a secularist plant all along.
quote:Indeed, at least not in the RCC. May I delay proper referencing until I have dealt with the next two comments below?
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
If, through no fault of your own, you are unable to have proper, normal, "God's law" PIV sex, you can't marry?
quote:Would you like to bet me instead? Please?
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I bet you £50 it has only ever been formulated in terms of erectile dysfunction.
quote:Another £50, perhaps?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
This is either complete shite or many RC marriage sites on the internet know less than IngoB. I'm betting the former.
quote:A marriage is instantiated by your word, and that of your spouse. The RCC attitude is to accept all marriages on face value, i.e., she cultivates a general bias towards the validity of all marriages. That said, a challenge against the validity of your marriage that you bring yourself is much more likely to succeed if your marriage happened outside of the RCC, because then it is much more likely that your word was not good enough to establish what the RCC considers as a marriage.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Meanwhile Ingo lacks the awareness to see that he has just admitted to religious rules which do not apply generally to the populous. Presumably his mind is too feeble to see how the same can be said for SSM.
quote:From requiring X as necessary for Y it does not follow at all that non-X is allowable for non-Y.
Originally posted by Albertus:
But would it then follow that in such a case the Church could have no necessary objection to unmarried cohabitation, seeing that sex (of this kind) is out of the question?
quote:Name the charity of your choice, (though what they mean by the impotence of a woman is an interesting question.)
Originally posted by Ariston:
quote:Pay up. Canon 1084 states "Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have intercourse, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature." So yes, the RCC (Republican Catholic Church?) explicitly says that the impotent cannot validly marry (well, you can say the words, sign on the dotted line, but...).
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
quote:I bet you £50 it has only ever been formulated in terms of erectile dysfunction.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:Err....what?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you are perpetually impotent, then you cannot marry.
If, through no fault of your own, you are unable to have proper, normal, "God's law" PIV sex, you can't marry?
quote:Afraid not. AIUI it's that ontologically two people of the same sex cannot marry each other. On the whole, I think you may be able to accuse the RCC off starting from the wrong premises, but you can very rarely catch them out in sloppy thinking once those premises are identfied.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:Ah, but the RCC objection to them marrying is that they would be having All The Evil Gay Sex. If one or both parties is impotent, then All The Evil Gay Sex wouldn’t happen, therefore they could get married.
Originally posted by Albertus:
Well, following the RC logic, the objection would be twofold, wouldn't it, with them being men (if marrying men) the more obvious of the two.
If- serious question- you have a straight couple who cannot in the eyes of the RCC marry because of permanent impotence- or come to that a celibate gay couple- would the RCC object to their contracting a civil marriage in order to secure property rights?
And thus, the RCC church disappears in a puff of logic.
quote:In theory, that could be fine. Just like a RC separation of spouses - say over abuse - can be dealt with in the civil space by a divorce of the partners in order to sort out property and childcare rights and duties. Allowing the civil divorce does not mean that the sacramental RC marriage can be actually dissolved, just that the separating RC couple can have access to the regular civil arbitration process of a civil divorce.
Originally posted by Albertus:
If- serious question- you have a straight couple who cannot in the eyes of the RCC marry because of permanent impotence- or come to that a celibate gay couple- would the RCC object to their contracting a civil marriage in order to secure property rights?
quote:No, the RC objection is that they are incapable of having Specifically The Good Hetero Sex, which is why the RCC also does not allow heterosexual couples to marry who cannot have Specifically The Good Hetero Sex. The RCC believes that the only morally licit sex is Specifically The Good Hetero Sex, and that marriage is the only social institution within which one can morally licitly have Specifically The Good Hetero Sex. So an impotent gay couple cannot marry due to being incapable of having Specifically The Good Hetero Sex, if so for two different reasons (one, they are not man and woman, two, they are impotent).
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Ah, but the RCC objection to them marrying is that they would be having All The Evil Gay Sex. If one or both parties is impotent, then All The Evil Gay Sex wouldn’t happen, therefore they could get married. And thus, the RCC church disappears in a puff of logic.
quote:Well, it's true that modern Western Christians have tended to become more tolerant of different sexualities and sexual behaviours. But I don't think it's been made clear in any public forum by leading politicians, clergy or theologians that Christianity and SSM are intimately connected. Maybe the Episcopalians or some similar group ought to embark on a public campaign to promote this position.
Originally posted by St Deird:
quote:I support same sex marriage BECAUSE I follow Christ. The two things are hardly contradictory.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
it must confuse people like the elderly clergyman in the OP when our leaders have evangelical prayer breakfasts or talk about our 'Christian nation' - and then proudly introduce SSM.
quote:And you don't see a problem with that?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Indeed, at least not in the RCC.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
If, through no fault of your own, you are unable to have proper, normal, "God's law" PIV sex, you can't marry?
quote:I'm terribly sorry. The real scientists on this thread know what and what isn't a proper science. You 'computational neuroscience' people might like to call it a science, but it can't be science, and the people doing it aren't scientists so they don't get to decide whether it's a science or not, since only scientists get to decide that.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:If you could reason that there is a significant difference between "computational neuroscience" and say "physics" in terms of their science-ness, then you might have a point. Since you can't, you don't.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
(btw - 'computational neuroscience' = not a proper science. You'll have to call it something else from now on because all us proper scientists feel diminished by you using our science-word)
quote:So long as vulnerable people are kept safe.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't see a problem with it, in the sense that what Roman Catholics do behind their closed church doors is their business.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Sorry, Political Philosophy is the king of all science, so none of you fuckers are really proper scientists.
Experimentalists at best. Hand in your lab-coats at the door.
quote:I don't see the logical link between "I support same sex marriage because I follow Christ" and "leading politicians, clergy and theologians aren't making clear in any public forum that Christianity and SSM are intimately connected".
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:Well, it's true that modern Western Christians have tended to become more tolerant of different sexualities and sexual behaviours. But I don't think it's been made clear in any public forum by leading politicians, clergy or theologians that Christianity and SSM are intimately connected. Maybe the Episcopalians or some similar group ought to embark on a public campaign to promote this position.
Originally posted by St Deird:
I support same sex marriage BECAUSE I follow Christ. The two things are hardly contradictory.
quote:Lots of hand-jobs? What, that's not allowed either? This Christianity thing isn't much fun, is it?
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:So long as vulnerable people are kept safe.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't see a problem with it, in the sense that what Roman Catholics do behind their closed church doors is their business.
What about RC people who are gay?
quote:Individual Christians believe all sorts of things, but the clergyman in the OP was bewildered by the institutional sanctioning of SSM.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I don't see the logical link between "I support same sex marriage because I follow Christ" and "leading politicians, clergy and theologians aren't making clear in any public forum that Christianity and SSM are intimately connected".
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:Well, it's true that modern Western Christians have tended to become more tolerant of different sexualities and sexual behaviours. But I don't think it's been made clear in any public forum by leading politicians, clergy or theologians that Christianity and SSM are intimately connected. Maybe the Episcopalians or some similar group ought to embark on a public campaign to promote this position.
Originally posted by St Deird:
I support same sex marriage BECAUSE I follow Christ. The two things are hardly contradictory.
quote:I see nothing about clergymen or institutions in the OP?
SvitlanaV2: Individual Christians believe all sorts of things, but the clergyman in the OP was bewildered by the institutional sanctioning of SSM.
(I don't think Orfeo is a clergyman either.)
quote:Depends on what you mean by "problem". Do I see doctrinal incoherence, contradiction to scripture, breach with tradition, etc.? No. Do I see potential personal problems, perhaps even massive ones, for a couple so afflicted? Sure. But then I find the RC strictures against masturbation ... problematic, personally speaking.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
And you don't see a problem with that?
quote:Oops! I was thinking about a link posted in another thread! Sorry!
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I see nothing about clergymen or institutions in the OP?
SvitlanaV2: Individual Christians believe all sorts of things, but the clergyman in the OP was bewildered by the institutional sanctioning of SSM.
quote:From their point of view, perhaps. They probably see president Obama (an evangelical Christian) embracing marriage equality as the state rejecting religious values. Others (including me) will see it as the state and Christian values lining up.
SvitlanaV2: Conservatively religious people who worry about the state's relationship with religious values are destined to be disappointed in modern Western culture.
quote:Wanker.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I find the RC strictures against masturbation ... problematic, personally speaking.
quote:"That's not how football is played!" And so they named it "rugby", eventually, because it just won't do to name two different things by the same word (except if context can be expected to differentiate in almost all cases). Indeed, that is another good illustration of the point I was making.
Originally posted by JonahMan:
"That's not football!" came plaintive cries from all around, "That's not how a sport is played!"
quote:First, my position can be defended on the basis of natural moral law. That is to say, it does not even have to be religious at all, and can be successfully stated in terms of a purely philosophical analysis of nature. As such it is entirely universal. However, experience shows that arguing natural moral law on sex is at least as difficult as bible-bashing, because philosophy is difficult at the best of times, and where one is trying to tell people what to do with their genitalia is never the best of times.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The position you defend, IngoB, is arbitrary. It is arbitrary because it hyper-focuses on one thing whilst simultaneously saying other marriage options allowed in the bible are simply not on. Now, you can take this position as the one you prefer, but defending it as anything other than arbitrary is silly.
quote:Given that we live with a generation (at least in the US) that can't be bothered to type more than "u" for "you" or "4" in place of "for", I wouldn't hold out much hope that any but the most ultra-religious will be bothered to make certain they always type those pesky quotation marks around "marriage" when thinking of same-sex couples. As you say, though, we shall see...
Originally posted by IngoB:
My point is that if people truly think that "gay marriage" is the same as marriage, then we will see any such differentiation - by adjectives or by a different word entirely - disappear over time. I bet we won't, because once people have strutted their ideology sufficiently to keep up with the Jones, everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a "marriage" between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. But I may be wrong about all that, and then we will see (everyday, not official!) language change towards a comprehensive lack of differentiation. It's a relatively objective linguistic measure of actual compliance to the new and shiny ideology of sexual egalitarianism. Why oppose it?
quote:But we already do that. This very moment, we have selected certain rules in both OT and NT and utterly ignored them, without any fuss. Did you ever eat crab? Lobster? What about the shirt you are wearing this very moment? Take it off and look at the content label. Is it 100% content, or is there some polyester blend in there?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Third, the idea that the OT and the NT should be considered together as a kind of buffet from which one can choose what one wants, or perhaps as an equal endorsement of all that is ever mentioned there, is so utterly fucking dumb that I refuse to engage with it. With all due respect, if that's your style of exegesis then please join the basic catechesis class of any Christian community on this planet (and if you have a time machine handy, then I will add: throughout history). I know none that proposes such a profoundly stupid attitude to scripture... The rejection of such an approach by essentially everybody who ever called themselves a Christian is about as arbitrary as the realisation that water is good for washing things.
quote:Some of what you say is false, some of it is over the top, and it sure as heck is incomplete...
Originally posted by mousethief:
So a valid marriage in the RCC has these elements:
A man and a woman:
- Neither of which has a living ex-spouse
- Both of whom enter freely and knowingly into the union with no hesitations, reservations, illusions, delusions, deceptions, or intent to deceive
- Who are capable of having PIV sex
- And who do so at least once
What did I miss?
quote:My point exactly! It's the Christian thing to do, it always has been - from the apostolic origins to today. So why now pretend that I must allow polygamy just because some of the people in scripture practised it? It's risible.
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
But we already do that. This very moment, we have selected certain rules in both OT and NT and utterly ignored them, without any fuss.
quote:In which case, I give up.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Depends on what you mean by "problem". Do I see doctrinal incoherence, contradiction to scripture, breach with tradition, etc.? No. Do I see potential personal problems, perhaps even massive ones, for a couple so afflicted? Sure. But then I find the RC strictures against masturbation ... problematic, personally speaking.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
And you don't see a problem with that?
The real question for me is whether I accept that 1) Christian religion can impose crosses on me that I would would not have without it, and 2) whether the RCC is the proper Christian authority to do so in this world. For me the answer is "yes" and "yes".
quote:Natural moral law is the moral law that one discern simply from observing the nature of human beings themselves (in contrast to say moral law specially revealed by God). Just like natural physical law studied by physics, it is indeed both "obvious" and "difficult" at the same time. The diligent student of General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics will find many things obvious that the unstudied person will find "difficult", to say the least. Annoyingly, unlike for physics everybody thinks that their own specific take on morality has the same standing and that their gut can make moral decisions at least as well as someone who has spent decades studying natural moral law. The reason for this is simple: it is convenient to justify what one wants to do as moral, and in the social realm, might makes right. Whereas it tends to be inconvenient to have false ideas about physics, and no amount of social might will make the unphysical come true.
Originally posted by JonahMan:
And what is 'natural moral law'? Given that morality has been defined differently at different times and in different places throughout history, it's difficult to perceive any universality there. Just saying that it's a) obvious and b) difficult isn't really convincing. This is unlike the laws of physics, say, which have (as far as we know, anyway) remained the same and stay the same whether humans are aware of them or not.
quote:The OT dudes were fucking around with God. It's an old habit, which humanity has found near impossible to kick...
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So God was just fucking around with those Old Testament dudes?
quote:Yes, but natural moral law is established neither by the range nor by the mean of observed behaviour. It is established by an analysis what sort of behaviour is appropriate to the nature of a being. Data about actual behaviour certainly feeds into such an an analysis, but it cannot be reduced to simplistic statistics. To give a non-moral but behavioural analogy: most dogs will eat chocolate, but they ought not to, because it is rather unhealthy for them. That some dogs have been observed to eat chocolate and that giving chocolate to dogs may even result in most of them eating it does not establish that they ought to eat chocolate. Rather, we have to analyse this in terms of canine physiology and behaviour, and then find that dogs are misled by the taste of chocolate to eat something that is actually dangerous to their health. One cannot short-cut such systemic analysis with simplistic statistics.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ETA: Natural moral law? Nature is full of homosexuality. Necrophilia. Rape. Incest.
quote:My ideology is not so lightly adopted as your dismissive "keeping up with the Jones" tries to imply.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I bet we won't, because once people have strutted their ideology sufficiently to keep up with the Jones, everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a "marriage" between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
quote:(FTFY). Not me. I neither know nor believe that for what qualifies something as a marriage, that a marriage between two people of the opposite sex is any different than a marriage between two people of the same sex. They are both true marriages, no quotes.
everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
quote:But of course you would think so. That's because you are Mrs Jones. Running ahead is always a bit more strenuous than following after, but so much more satisfying once the followers start streaming in, isn't it?
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
My ideology is not so lightly adopted as your dismissive "keeping up with the Jones" tries to imply.
quote:Aha. Humans are such wonderfully flexible animals, they behaviourally re-program at the drop of a hat. Still, if I showed you pictures of couples and asked you to press a button if you think that they could be married - I think I might be able to see a statistical difference in your reaction times between seeing a heterosexual and homosexual couple. And if I put you in an MR scanner and played some nice heterosexual and homosexual porn to you, who knows what differences I might spot in the fMRI BOLD contrast? It would so disappointing if your insula lit up in disgust.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I neither know nor believe that for what qualifies something as a marriage, that a marriage between two people of the opposite sex is any different than a marriage between two people of the same sex. They are both true marriages, no quotes.
quote:And at the point where this is not something so distinctive that sticks in memory as significant, real racial equality will have been realised. That by the way is something that I think has a chance in hell to happen, if a very small one.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
"Was there anything distinctive about them?" "They were the first interracial married couple I had met."
quote:Which is fine.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The real question for me is whether I accept that 1) Christian religion can impose crosses on me that I would would not have without it, and 2) whether the RCC is the proper Christian authority to do so in this world. For me the answer is "yes" and "yes".
quote:And I daresay if I were to show you pictures of people of difference races, ages and genders and ask which ones you should love there would be an equally statistically variation in your reaction times. I don't suppose this would cause you to argue that you shouldn't love them all equally though, would it?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Still, if I showed you pictures of couples and asked you to press a button if you think that they could be married - I think I might be able to see a statistical difference in your reaction times between seeing a heterosexual and homosexual couple.
quote:If science means making up an experiment and then imagining the results (like we've both done above), then yes.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Science has this nasty tendency to be cruelly objective... Kind of ruins you for life, really.
quote:What a shame all he sees when he looks at a human body is this machine that can do no more than stimulus-response. It's almost science, but with such a massive category error, it's not even wrong.
Originally posted by IngoB:
And if I put you in an MR scanner and played some nice heterosexual and homosexual porn to you, who knows what differences I might spot in the fMRI BOLD contrast? It would so disappointing if your insula lit up in disgust.
quote:Ingo? A bell end? I couldn't possibly comment.
Originally posted by Twilight:
He's one extreme end of the bell curve.
quote:Who is taking away IngoB's freedom of speech?
Twilight: So IngoB's not supposed to have freedom of speech here, because he doesn't agree with the rest of "us?"
quote:Far more information than anyone ever wanted about Ingo's fantasy world.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Still, if I showed you pictures of couples and asked you to press a button if you think that they could be married - I think I might be able to see a statistical difference in your reaction times between seeing a heterosexual and homosexual couple. And if I put you in an MR scanner and played some nice heterosexual and homosexual porn to you, who knows what differences I might spot in the fMRI BOLD contrast? It would so disappointing if your insula lit up in disgust.
quote:Well, I suppose having hoped Ingo dies before the Catholic Church does something which destroys his faith might be interpreted as being mad at him, but I DID give a time period of a thousand years...
Originally posted by Twilight:
So IngoB's not supposed to have freedom of speech here, because he doesn't agree with the rest of "us?"
I never understand why people get mad at him for stating what he believes. I find his input very interesting, particularly on this board which leans toward the liberal side.
quote:Maybe me. I keep trying to provoke something which sounds like a human utterance and less something created by random Vatican statement generator. I also want something which sounds like a contribution to a debate rather than a statement of an immoveable position. The basis of my challenge is that "normal service" is pointless and totally out of context as a "contribution" to a discussion board.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Who is taking away IngoB's freedom of speech?
Twilight: So IngoB's not supposed to have freedom of speech here, because he doesn't agree with the rest of "us?"
quote:One loses every which way with you, doesn't one? Not following the Pope and the Magisterium, therefore one is to be denigrated as being either too far behind or too far ahead, in either way bad.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:But of course you would think so. That's because you are Mrs Jones. Running ahead is always a bit more strenuous than following after, but so much more satisfying once the followers start streaming in, isn't it?
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
My ideology is not so lightly adopted as your dismissive "keeping up with the Jones" tries to imply.
quote:This is relevant, except as a sneer? It would be better if humans did not re-program, or re-programmed only slowly? Or do you only sneer at human flexibility when it's in a direction that you don't approve of?
quote:Aha. Humans are such wonderfully flexible animals, they behaviourally re-program at the drop of a hat.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I neither know nor believe that for what qualifies something as a marriage, that a marriage between two people of the opposite sex is any different than a marriage between two people of the same sex. They are both true marriages, no quotes.
quote:Sure, that might be true for me. And it might not. But if you're saying it's true for the majority of people, then sure, I'll accept that it may well be true for me. So what?
Still, if I showed you pictures of couples and asked you to press a button if you think that they could be married - I think I might be able to see a statistical difference in your reaction times between seeing a heterosexual and homosexual couple. And if I put you in an MR scanner and played some nice heterosexual and homosexual porn to you, who knows what differences I might spot in the fMRI BOLD contrast? It would so disappointing if your insula lit up in disgust.
quote:The experimental results of science do not dictate how we interpret the significance of those results, nor what we choose to try to do in response to those results.
Science has this nasty tendency to be cruelly objective... Kind of ruins you for life, really.
quote:Agreed. I realized after I posted that there was an underlying painful racist bite in that having been my true reaction to my house's senior tutors, and that I remember it. (And obviously another racist bite in that I only realized after I posted it, and not before I posted it so as to think up a different example. I acknowledge my own racism, and I try to move beyond it. I've improved in some ways, in other ways I still suck.) A better example would probably have been something along the lines of "I'm studying married couples. In particular, I'm studying the pressures on interracial marriages compared to intraracial marriages." I wanted to illustrate that we can simultaneously have language to indicate that they're all marriages, and also have language to indicate that there are differences that in our (non-post-racial) society, there is still a potential difference there.
quote:And at the point where this is not something so distinctive that sticks in memory as significant, real racial equality will have been realised. That by the way is something that I think has a chance in hell to happen, if a very small one.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
"Was there anything distinctive about them?" "They were the first interracial married couple I had met."
quote:Ah, I cross-posted with you and now there's also TMI about my own fantasy world.
Originally posted by Anglo Catholic Relict:
Far more information than anyone ever wanted about Ingo's fantasy world.
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
quote:Who's got a hammer and some nails?
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
He's just cross because he's just found out he's not a proper scientist.
quote:My dear over-projectionist: I suspect that very few people are mad at IngoB for the act of being honest. I think you'll find that they're reacting to the fact that the things he's saying are repugnant and horrible, and constructed with circular arguments liberally lubricated with an amazing lack of empathy or insight.
Originally posted by Twilight:
I never understand why people get mad at him for stating what he believes.
quote:I thought "It simply is not so for the rest of us.Get over it." I thought that sounded like someone thought he shouldn't express himself here anymore, since she was speaking for "the rest of us," I didn't want to be included.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Who is taking away IngoB's freedom of speech?
Twilight: So IngoB's not supposed to have freedom of speech here, because he doesn't agree with the rest of "us?"
quote:I don't think this is terribly relevant.
Originally posted by IngoB:
And if I put you in an MR scanner and played some nice heterosexual and homosexual porn to you, who knows what differences I might spot in the fMRI BOLD contrast? It would so disappointing if your insula lit up in disgust.
quote:Thinking he shouldn't express himself here anymore doesn't take away his freedom of speech. Even saying STFU to him doesn't take away his freedom of speech. He's still speaking, isn't he?
Twilight: I thought "It simply is not so for the rest of us.Get over it." I thought that sounded like someone thought he shouldn't express himself here anymore, since she was speaking for "the rest of us," I didn't want to be included.
quote:I was talking to Boogie and Boogie alone and I said freedom of speech here, because it seemed to me she was telling him that his opinion was not welcome here because he didn't agree with the rest of us. Of course telling someone to shut up doesn't legally remove their freedom of speech, but it is asking that they not talk anymore which seems rather closely related to me. Is that simple and literal enough for you?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Thinking he shouldn't express himself here anymore doesn't take away his freedom of speech. Even saying STFU to him doesn't take away his freedom of speech. He's still speaking, isn't he?
Twilight: I thought "It simply is not so for the rest of us.Get over it." I thought that sounded like someone thought he shouldn't express himself here anymore, since she was speaking for "the rest of us," I didn't want to be included.
quote:To me, the difference is rather substantial. Removing someone's freedom of speech is a bad thing, and a lot of people in the world are suffering from that. Asking someone not to talk anymore is just that.
Twilight: I was talking to Boogie and Boogie alone and I said freedom of speech here, because it seemed to me she was telling him that his opinion was not welcome here because he didn't agree with the rest of us. Of course telling someone to shut up doesn't legally remove their freedom of speech, but it is asking that they not talk anymore which seems rather closely related to me. Is that simple and literal enough for you?
quote:The ones that aren't gay, of course.
Originally posted by JonahMan:
Which human beings am I supposed to look at to discern this natural moral law?
quote:All of these are unsubstantiated assertions. As for all human inquiries, there are various approaches and disagreements within the study of natural moral law. But hardly at a level that would justify such sweeping comments.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
Part of the problem with "Natural Moral Law" when it moves from a concept to a "system" is that as a "system" it is not particularly natural, does not always have much to do with morals, and isn't even particularly good as a basis for law. It is so flexible as to be unsuited for the purposes to which it is usually put; it's like using a kite string for a sword.
quote:The RCC is not basing its moral pronouncements on natural moral law. After all, it possess revealed moral law, a much stronger source if one believes in Christian revelation, as the RCC most assuredly does. Natural moral law is largely a failed endeavour as far as sexual morality goes. Those who would believe it don't need it, because they have a better source in their Catholic faith. Those who might be compelled by its arguments, in the absence of such faith, won't listen to it. Its technical sophistications are no match for the sexual drives clouding judgement. For the most part natural moral law concerning sex is a playground for philosophers who can demonstrate that everybody could know better. That's undoubtedly true, but of remarkably little help in a practical sense.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
So I will simply hope that Ingo dies before the Catholic Church decides "Natural Moral Law" indicates something is so with which he can't agree. I'm not certain what that would be, but I'll bet sometime in the next thousand years they will decide something which would make him froth at the mouth were he still alive.
quote:Natural moral law is not about people "acting natural". It is about looking at the nature of human beings, analysing what kind of beings they are, and from this deriving what sort of activities would be good for them, would lead them towards their proper ends. This kind of analysis is not overly concerned with the details of a particular culture, nor indeed with the accidents of any individual. For example, what sort of relationship would it be good to have to one's parents? The answer one would give here for a human being would be different to that one would give for a spider, because the nature of a human being is different from a spider. One would for example not advise a human being to eat its parents as soon as possible after birth, even though this may be appropriate to a spider flourishing.
Originally posted by JonahMan:
Which human beings am I supposed to look at to discern this natural moral law? There seem to be some great big whopping differences between how different people act and think. How should I tell which ones are really natural (and doing things they 'ought' to), and which aren't? Particularly when there are many different examples of people who are acting - in my opinion - morally. Yet if I lived 500 years ago I would have quite a different opinion, I'm sure.
quote:No, it is not "pure nonsense". It is thinking about the world in terms of a paradigm that you are not used to. Specifically, it is thinking about the world in terms of its "final causes", its "ends", its "goals" and "aims". The purposes of a thing or person can be thwarted. The purposes of a person can be thwarted by that person himself. This does not mean that such purposes are not "intrinsic" to that thing or person. It just means that the thing or person was prevented from reaching them, possibly by the exercise of its own free will.
Originally posted by JonahMan:
A law which only 'ought' to be obeyed is not intrinsic in the same way that a law of physics is intrinsic. It's pure nonsense to say otherwise.
quote:It's hardly "my" natural law theory, it's not mathematical in nature and it makes predictions like that all people are born free, as stated already by natural law theorists in ancient Rome who proclaimed that in the face of ubiquitous slavery. A point made here in passing by a juridical natural law theorists who will give you an earful about how you derive that a river should be common property etc. So it's really a big, ancient and by now very varied philosophical tradition which really is not just about what people do with their genitalia.
Originally posted by JonahMan:
Let me know how scientific this 'natural moral law' theory of yours is, how we can test it and make predictions from it, even write some equations to encapsulate it.
quote:Why would I want to get over that? Furthermore, we are not talking about some "purely religious" dogma, like say the Trinity. To me, this issue lives at an interesting intersection between biology, sociology, politics, religion, ...
Originally posted by Boogie:
Which is fine. The key words here being "for me". If it's the proper Christian authority for you then, fine, go with it. It simply is not so for the rest of us. Get over it.
quote:Well, that's bullshit.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Natural moral law is largely a failed endeavour as far as sexual morality goes. Those who would believe it don't need it, because they have a better source in their Catholic faith. Those who might be compelled by its arguments, in the absence of such faith, won't listen to it. Its technical sophistications are no match for the sexual drives clouding judgement.
quote:Not just you, all people who want to tell folks what to do in their private sex lives. All people who want to discriminate against gay sex.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Why would I want to get over that?
Originally posted by Boogie:
Which is fine. The key words here being "for me". If it's the proper Christian authority for you then, fine, go with it. It simply is not so for the rest of us. Get over it.
quote:The point of all this was a refutation of your assertion that you "neither know nor believe ... that a marriage between two people of the opposite sex is any different than a marriage between two people of the same sex." A statement that you made in response to my claim that "everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman."
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Sure, that might be true for me. And it might not. But if you're saying it's true for the majority of people, then sure, I'll accept that it may well be true for me. So what?
quote:But surely the point of marriage (as opposed to simple cohabitation) is that it is a public matter, giving recognition to a relationship that has, in principle, a sexual elemnt (however defined). If it wasn't a public matter people wouldn't be arguing so fiercely for or against SSM.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:Not just you, all people who want to tell folks what to do in their private sex lives.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Why would I want to get over that?
Originally posted by Boogie:
Which is fine. The key words here being "for me". If it's the proper Christian authority for you then, fine, go with it. It simply is not so for the rest of us. Get over it.
quote:Nope. Because predicting the future is a damn tricky business, as I have to explain to my clients constantly.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The exact sexual status of the couple ongoing is not mentioned in the public statement.
quote:Marriage is a public statement of commitment and being seen as a single unit, but the sexual relationship, or at least the possibility of it, is implicit in marriage. You don't actually have to be having much sex, but it's in the range of things that might happen. Are you married? If you are, and your other half suggested that from now on there should be no sexual element to your marriage although you'd carry on living together in love and mutual support, would you not think that a fundamental change was being suggested? Arguments about who can or can't marry are absolutely not about saying what people can or can't do in private- quite the opposite. That's why it's worth fighting for.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Sorry, the public statement is that one a) is free to legally marry b) that one will forsake all others.
The exact sexual status of the couple ongoing is not mentioned in the public statement. Historically, it is assumed that the couple are having sexual intercourse, to the extent that the marriage can be annulled without it. However nobody in their right mind (and I am very strongly suggesting that IngoB is not of right mind) is suggesting that a marriage without sex is legally invalid to the extent that a third party can say "oi, that's not a "real marriage", they're not having sex!"
quote:Wrong - you don't actually have to be having any sex at all. Very clearly the law does not discriminate against people who are unable to have sex for physical reasons, for reasons of prior abuse or such - providing the other partner does not complain. Hence such things very clearly are in the private space and between the individuals concerned.
Originally posted by Albertus:
You don't actually have to be having much sex, but it's in the range of things that might happen. So arguments about who can or can't marry are absolutely not about saying what people can or can't do in private- quite the opposite. That's why it's worth fighting for.
quote:This is not just bullshit, it's bullshit based on a deeply flawed premise.
Originally posted by IngoB:
"everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman."
I'm pretty sure that I can objectively show with psychological experiments and neuroimaging that you, personally, do still "know" this difference.
quote:This is a statement not just that one's brain chemistry reacts differently to same-sex vs. opposite-sex couples, but also, via the scare quotes, that legally and morally we are not justified in treating them as the same.
Originally posted by IngoB:
everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a "marriage" between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
quote:And if someone says that both types of couples are married and their marriages are the same, no-one thinks it's very important to say "aha, gotcha, your brain reacts differently to them, therefore they're really different, so different in fact that one is a marriage and the other is only a "marriage"."
everybody still knows that a marriage between two people of similar heights is a different sort of thing than a "marriage" between two people of very different heights.
quote:no no no. There are exceptions- people who can't have sex can be legally married (although they cna also apply for their marriage to be annulled, in certain circumstances), but in principle a sexual relationship is part of marraige- hence the provision for annulment on grounds of non-consummation. Note however that an unconsummated marriage is not in itself void, but can be voided if the parties (or one of them) wish. So a sexual relationship is presumed to be a requirement of marriage but- by declining to seek annulment for non-consummation- it is a requirement that the parties can waive in a particular case.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Wrong - you don't actually have to be having any sex at all. Very clearly the law does not discriminate against people who are unable to have sex for physical reasons, for reasons of prior abuse or such - providing the other partner does not complain. Hence such things very clearly are in the private space and between the individuals concerned.
Originally posted by Albertus:
You don't actually have to be having much sex, but it's in the range of things that might happen. So arguments about who can or can't marry are absolutely not about saying what people can or can't do in private- quite the opposite. That's why it's worth fighting for.
If you are saying marriage is about sex, then sorry, you are saying what can't be done in private (ie you can't not have sex).
quote:I suspect that I'd have a rather strong reaction in my brain chemistry when looking at porn with a lesbian couple. Does that mean that they are morally ok?
Autenrieth Road: This is a statement not just that one's brain chemistry reacts differently to same-sex vs. opposite-sex couples
quote:It seems a mad line of argument to me. Show me a film of some fat hairy-arsed guy pumping up and down in sex, and I would probably have the ick reaction. But I don't really want to ban him from having sex, getting married, or shaving his arse.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I had FTFY'ed and edited out IngoB's scare quotes. What he actually said was:
quote:This is a statement not just that one's brain chemistry reacts differently to same-sex vs. opposite-sex couples, but also, via the scare quotes, that legally and morally we are not justified in treating them as the same.
Originally posted by IngoB:
everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a "marriage" between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
When I see couples where one partner is a lot taller than the other, I always wonder "how do they have sex?" (Yes, yes, I know how they have sex, but the difference in where their faces would presumably be relative to each other always seems strange to me... OK, fine, I'm just digging in deeper.)
Anyway, as long as we're doing armchair fMRI experiments, I would suspect that my brain has a different reaction when shown a couple close to the same height vs. when shown a couple of very different heights and asked about them being married.
But nobody wastes their time asserting that
quote:And if someone says that both types of couples are married and their marriages are the same, no-one thinks it's very important to say "aha, gotcha, your brain reacts differently to them, therefore they're really different, so different in fact that one is a marriage and the other is only a "marriage"."
everybody still knows that a marriage between two people of similar heights is a different sort of thing than a "marriage" between two people of very different heights.
quote:Balls. Given that marriage is a condition that is legally recognised and has legal consequences, the state has to define it in some way, and that involves deciding what it must or must not entail.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
These discussions always seem to get back to some kind of essentialism or oughtism. Marriage is essentially X - well, I don't think the state should be getting involved in that, and as far as I can see, the state tends to agree, well in many European states, and presumably the US.
quote:You are a human being, your motivations can be a bit more complex than simply following biological desires. For example, you may have decided that you would like to support gay people in following their biological desires, may have noted that one way their desires gets attacked is by arguing using natural moral law, and hence gained strong ulterior motives to utterly disagree with it.
Originally posted by St Deird:
My sex life would, in fact, be entirely compatible with what "natural moral law" apparently thinks I should be doing. ie: I do not have any sex-drive-related reason why I should fool myself into not listening to NML, because it won't really place any further restrictions on my behaviour. I still utterly DISAGREE with it.
quote:First, I don't know what you mean by "productive". If you mean by that in principle capable of causing conception, then fine. If you mean by that actually causing conception, then this is not what the discussion is about.
Originally posted by orfeo:
1. Only productive sex is natural (not just a leap of logic, but demonstrably false by spending some time actually observing nature, including human nature, including those lovely monogamous heterosexual couples we've all heard about).
quote:Your purpose in using an exercise bike is exercising, which strengthens your cardiovascular and locomotive systems and hence contributes to your flourishing. Your exercise bike does precisely not twist your limbs into shapes that would compromise their functional integrity. And if somebody tried to sell an exercise device that achieved strengthening at the price of ruining your joints or the like, then we would precisely consider such a device as unsuited for purpose, and the attempt to sell it as immoral.
Originally posted by orfeo:
2. Only productive sex is moral. There are any number of things I do with my body and mind which aren't goal-directed, and yet no-one seems to object. Is chewing gum immoral because it isn't food? Is wordless singing immoral because it fails to praise God? Is punching the air immoral because I've failed to strike an evildoer? Is using an exercise bike immoral because I haven't travelled anywhere?
quote:OK, but secularism is minimalist, isn't it? Or rather, it is becoming mimimalist. I'm talking about the essentialism of 'procreative sex', or 'romantic love', or 'till death do us part', which are being, or have been, stripped away.
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:Balls. Given that marriage is a condition that is legally recognised and has legal consequences, the state has to define it in some way, and that involves deciding what it must or must not entail.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
These discussions always seem to get back to some kind of essentialism or oughtism. Marriage is essentially X - well, I don't think the state should be getting involved in that, and as far as I can see, the state tends to agree, well in many European states, and presumably the US.
quote:Exactly, that's what I was trying to show. In fact, I find the brain scan argument rather ridiculous.
Autenrieth Road: There's a lot more in determining morality than doing brain scans.
quote:Actually the 'till death us do part' thing may be in part a suitable parallel. I believe that there are some jurisdictions (outside the Anglophone world, I think, but I can't remember where) which offer two types of marriage, one time-limited and one not; but the expectation in the UK jurisdictions at least is that marriage is intended to be life long, although not all couples will achieve this and so there is provision for marriages to be dissolved.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:OK, but secularism is minimalist, isn't it? Or rather, it is becoming mimimalist. I'm talking about the essentialism of 'procreative sex', or 'romantic love', or 'till death do us part', which are being, or have been, stripped away.
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:Balls. Given that marriage is a condition that is legally recognised and has legal consequences, the state has to define it in some way, and that involves deciding what it must or must not entail.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
These discussions always seem to get back to some kind of essentialism or oughtism. Marriage is essentially X - well, I don't think the state should be getting involved in that, and as far as I can see, the state tends to agree, well in many European states, and presumably the US.
quote:It is neither one, nor the other. My first suggested experiment did not involve any "ick factor" anyhow. Rather, it was using reaction times to detect when your brain needs extra computing to come to a conclusion. You can interpret this mechanistically in various ways, but a speedier reaction upon seeing a man and a woman would quite literally mean that your brain finds it easier to classify such a couple as "potentially married". Without doubt we would also see influences from other factors, for example age difference. But I'm pretty certain that we would get this effect, and that does tell us something about the internal mental representation. For example, a speculative mechanism would be a learned higher "override" of a lower classifier.
Originally posted by RooK:
This is not just bullshit, it's bullshit based on a deeply flawed premise.
quote:That negates his advantage. See, as much as he pretends otherwise, I don't think he is trying to use logic or reason to convince anyone. (Like, he can't think any of that is either, can he?) his tactic seems to be inundation and repetition to the point of forcing acquiescence.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Dear vile, smug German Catholic,
I don't actually read your posts any more. I have an arrangement. I scroll past.
quote:Ah, I see now. I misunderstood the point of your post.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Exactly, that's what I was trying to show. In fact, I find the brain scan argument rather ridiculous.
Autenrieth Road: There's a lot more in determining morality than doing brain scans.
quote:Indeed.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
his tactic seems to be inundation and repetition to the point of forcing acquiescence.
quote:That wasn't the rhetorical force of what I was trying to say, anymore than the rhetorical force of you banging on about how they're different is just to point out a difference, with no intent to draw legal and moral implications from the difference.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What I did rather talk about was Autenrieth Road's claim that she doesn't even know the difference between a homosexual and heterosexual marriage (anymore).
quote:Fine though. Have it your way for the most naive interpretation of what I'm trying to talk about. Sure, there is an obvious difference between opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples. Sure, my brain reacts differently. My brain reacts differently to a whole lot of things. Some of those things you're eager to hang morality on and argue "see, they're different and that means this one isn't really marriage".
This is, I'm rather sure, demonstrably wrong. We can detect her brain knowing the difference, even if her learned behavioural response is to deny it (nowadays). Whether one or the other is right or wrong is a different issue, my point was that this world is not so brave and new that people literally have a single category "marriage" in their brains now. Or at least I don't think so, and I think one can test that claim.
.)quote:Sort of... If your mind really was "undifferentiated smooth" concerning this topic, then that would be a problem. I would be roughly in the position of convincing a colour-blind person that two colours they perceive as identical are in fact different colours. However, if you are in fact perceiving the difference but only "post-processing" it to be false or irrelevant, then my job is more like convincing somebody who can see both green and red just fine that an Irish costume should be the former but not the latter, that this colour choice matters. I only need to change the "post-processing" that you do.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
As near as I can tell, you're banging on about it because you have speculations about which brain scan results are potentially malleable, and which are im-malleable, and you think this says something about which things we should consider legally and morally the same in essence, or not.
quote:It's not whether you can distinguish two men, two women, or a woman and a man by their physical appearances. That is not the point. Obviously you can usually do that... It's about whether and how your mind classifies these couples as "potentially married".
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
There would have been much easier ways rather than hauling out the speculative brain scans to try to check whether I really meant to express that I can't see the difference in physical appearance between typical same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
quote:I don't have a rhetorical strategy. And I think I have said something interesting.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
If your rhetorical strategy really depends on whether I personally have a difference in reaction times detectable in your armchair mri experiment, then you haven't gained anything to direct you because you have nothing more than the speculation you started with as to the actual result of the experiment.
quote:No doubt we will all pray that your ability to perceive unsubstantiated assertions will someday be equally good when applied to your own writings.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:All of these are unsubstantiated assertions. As for all human inquiries, there are various approaches and disagreements within the study of natural moral law.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
Part of the problem with "Natural Moral Law" when it moves from a concept to a "system" is that as a "system" it is not particularly natural, does not always have much to do with morals, and isn't even particularly good as a basis for law. It is so flexible as to be unsuited for the purposes to which it is usually put; it's like using a kite string for a sword.
quote:Ew. Yes, yes you are.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Am I the only one I find myself wondering if Ingo goes back and gives it to his wife good after each post, to prove his marriage is indeed valid and ours are not?
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...I don't have a rhetorical strategy. And I think I have said something interesting.
quote:
IngoB: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
Peasant 1: Are there? Oh well, tell us.
IngoB: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Peasant 1: Burn them.
IngoB: And what do you burn, apart from witches?
Peasant 1: More witches.
Peasant 2: Wood.
IngoB: Good. Now, why do witches burn?
Peasant 3: ...because they're made of... wood?
IngoB: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Peasant 1: Build a bridge out of her.
IngoB: But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
IngoB: Does wood sink in water?
Peasant 1: No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!
IngoB: No, no. What else floats in water?
Peasant 1: Bread.
Peasant 2: Apples.
Peasant 3: Very small rocks.
Peasant 1: Cider.
Peasant 2: Gravy.
Peasant 3: Cherries.
Peasant 1: Mud.
Peasant 2: Churches.
Peasant 3: Lead! Lead!
King Arthur: A Duck.
IngoB: ...Exactly. So, logically...
Peasant 1: If she weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood.
IngoB: And therefore...
Peasant 2: ...A witch!
quote:Not any more. Thanks for that.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Am I the only one I find myself wondering if Ingo goes back and gives it to his wife good after each post, to prove his marriage is indeed valid and ours are not?
quote:Since the brain scan stuff is purely armchair science as far as the results of my own personal brain scan, you know just as much diddly-squat about that and about me as before.
Originally posted by IngoB:
It's not whether you can distinguish two men, two women, or a woman and a man by their physical appearances. That is not the point. Obviously you can usually do that... It's about whether and how your mind classifies these couples as "potentially married".
quote:He gets to use big long sciency words, which is reward enough. Social 'scientists' love doing that, pretending their subject is actually predictive rather than the post-Enlightenment equivalent of hepatomancy.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
What is it you were trying to achieve by raising the brain scan idea?
quote:Perhaps such a brain scan would indicate you were brought up in a society that didn't have SSM. And if we scanned your great-grandkids 40 years from now, it would show they were. BFD.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I don't think it matters what brain scans say one way or another, for me or anyone else, as far as what we should conclude about same-sex marriages as a matter of morality and law (separate realms, I know), but knock yourself out demonstrating how it bolsters your position.
quote:It is moderately common to provide students in various medically allied professions explicit information about the range of sexual behaviour humans engage in. The follow up discussions invariably include that hetereo and homosexual people are aroused with explicit video material of things not part of their preference. Essentially everyone is turned by everything. Which also tells us that sex is only a portion of attraction and orientation.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I suspect that I'd have a rather strong reaction in my brain chemistry when looking at porn with a lesbian couple. Does that mean that they are morally ok?
Autenrieth Road: This is a statement not just that one's brain chemistry reacts differently to same-sex vs. opposite-sex couples
quote:I will be the first to volunteer. Any sacrifice for science.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If I look at a picture of two people before drinking a Hobgoblin, and then look at a picture of two people after drinking a Hobgoblin, my brain scan will give a different result.
This is important for the morality of marriage, because, er ...
I really think we should do this experiment.
quote:Most actual scientific experiments come about by scientists following up on their hunches, rather than by some neutral "let's just measure something". So would this one.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Since the brain scan stuff is purely armchair science as far as the results of my own personal brain scan, you know just as much diddly-squat about that and about me as before. If you want to assume the results are one way or another, be my guest.
quote:I've already explained that above, at length?!
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
What is it you were trying to achieve by raising the brain scan idea?
quote:What would be "crap" would be to draw the kind of conclusion about natural moral law from this that you did. However, I have not done that. At all. Nowhere. The only people who have stated such "crap" are other posters, like you now, who apparently assume that whatever I say must always be understood as contributing to just one train of thought only...
Originally posted by LeRoc:
C'mon IngoB, this brain scan argument is complete and utter crap.
quote:Sorry, but I have difficulties recognising anything I have actually said here. It's OK if you don't understand my responses, and perhaps they weren't clear enough in spite of their considerable length - but you then should avoid inept paraphrases thereof.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
LeRoc, from what IngoB has said so far, in the merest sliver of a response to similar kinds of examples that I have raised, one needs to bolster the current brain scan results with the speculation that the responses to same-sex couples are immutable, while responses to other differences in couples are mutable.
quote:The idea that anything in the brain is immutable just strikes me as pretty bizarre. I mean, just this week I watched a documentary which showed that:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
LeRoc, from what IngoB has said so far, in the merest sliver of a response to similar kinds of examples that I have raised, one needs to bolster the current brain scan results with the speculation that the responses to same-sex couples are immutable, while responses to other differences in couples are mutable.
I am in awe at the objective science, free of any possible bias fueled by preconceived notions, on display here.
quote:Thank you for the correction. I had thought you mentioned fMRI scans, which is why I've been referring to brain scans. (And I'm open to correction on whether or not "brain scan" is an appropriate word in connection with fMRI scans either.)
Originally posted by IngoB:
Incidentally, the key experiment is a simple reaction time measurement requiring a projection screen, a clock and a button, not a "brain scan". It's a simple little experiment to do...
quote:Since IngoB has disavowed my pastiche, it would be better to base your responses on what IngoB himself said rather than my mistaken interpretation.
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, this does not really touch the point I was making, namely that everybody - including you - still "knows" this at some level. And while this is admittedly entirely speculative at this point in time, I will make the following prediction: we will (perhaps: eventually) be able to find adults who do not have such instinctive "race" knowledge (and we will likely find them in the most "cosmopolitan" places, i.e., this is learned, if at an early stage). Whereas we will never find adults who do not have such instinctive "sex" knowledge (indicating either that this is "hardwired" into the brain, or that no stable society can exist that does not sufficiently maintain and teach this differentiation, or likely both).
quote:The reaction time experiment presumably is meant to describe something like an implicit association test; this site has tests designed to measure unconscious attitudes in a number of areas. "The IAT measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., black people, gay people) and evaluations (e.g., good, bad) or stereotypes (e.g., athletic, clumsy). The main idea is that making a response is easier when closely related items share the same response key."
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
quote:Thank you for the correction. I had thought you mentioned fMRI scans, which is why I've been referring to brain scans. (And I'm open to correction on whether or not "brain scan" is an appropriate word in connection with fMRI scans either.)
Originally posted by IngoB:
Incidentally, the key experiment is a simple reaction time measurement requiring a projection screen, a clock and a button, not a "brain scan". It's a simple little experiment to do...
The kind of experiment you describe here is essentially the same as what I understand the experiments on people's reactions to black vs. white to be. I'll try to refer to the experiments you describe more accurately than "brain scan".
Do you have references for the reaction experiment you just described, or has this experiment not been done and any results are hypothetical at this point?
I'll look for references to the black/white experiment.
quote:IngoB, suppose I posit that reactions in general or even among everyone on such tests about "are same-sex couples as suitable to be married as opposite-sex couples" would be as you (say has been found? hypothesize will be found?). Suppose I even posit that those results will never change, and the black/white results might change.
Originally posted by IngoB:
[...]my claim that "everybody still knows that a marriage between a man and a woman is a different sort of thing than a marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman."
I'm pretty sure that I can objectively show with psychological experiments and neuroimaging that you, personally, do still "know" this difference
quote:Well it makes no difference. The fact that most everyone can recognise a male or a female (assuming this is true) has got nothing meaningful to do with how one responds to a male or female.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Orfeo, this is the post from which I was recalling IngoB's speculations, in particular his third paragraph:
here.
quote:Since IngoB has disavowed my pastiche, it would be better to base your responses on what IngoB himself said rather than my mistaken interpretation.
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, this does not really touch the point I was making, namely that everybody - including you - still "knows" this at some level. And while this is admittedly entirely speculative at this point in time, I will make the following prediction: we will (perhaps: eventually) be able to find adults who do not have such instinctive "race" knowledge (and we will likely find them in the most "cosmopolitan" places, i.e., this is learned, if at an early stage). Whereas we will never find adults who do not have such instinctive "sex" knowledge (indicating either that this is "hardwired" into the brain, or that no stable society can exist that does not sufficiently maintain and teach this differentiation, or likely both).
quote:You say that, but watch out for carpal tunnel syndrome.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I really wasn't kidding when I said I found him one of the most graceless people I've ever had this much conversation with. Not just on this topic, on any topic. So I figure the best response is simply not to give him the oxygen. Responding is exhausting. Scrolling, I'm finding, is quite relaxing.
quote:I realized that there is a book called 'Minimizing Marriage' which seems to be about this stripping away, which I mentioned. Author: Elizabeth Brake. She seems to be suggesting that the state pulls back, and stops valorizing marriage, or stops giving it moral prestige, or turns it into a minimal legal contract.
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:Actually the 'till death us do part' thing may be in part a suitable parallel. I believe that there are some jurisdictions (outside the Anglophone world, I think, but I can't remember where) which offer two types of marriage, one time-limited and one not; but the expectation in the UK jurisdictions at least is that marriage is intended to be life long, although not all couples will achieve this and so there is provision for marriages to be dissolved.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:OK, but secularism is minimalist, isn't it? Or rather, it is becoming mimimalist. I'm talking about the essentialism of 'procreative sex', or 'romantic love', or 'till death do us part', which are being, or have been, stripped away.
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:Balls. Given that marriage is a condition that is legally recognised and has legal consequences, the state has to define it in some way, and that involves deciding what it must or must not entail.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
These discussions always seem to get back to some kind of essentialism or oughtism. Marriage is essentially X - well, I don't think the state should be getting involved in that, and as far as I can see, the state tends to agree, well in many European states, and presumably the US.
quote:Thought process: "Those ideological statements about knowledge... I bet it's not as simple as that, I bet there's some kind of high level override over lower level cognition happening there. ... Hey, wait ... I bet I can show that experimentally. Cool! <types comment>"
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I have no idea why you raised the brain scans in the way you did at all.
quote:I didn't ask you to confirm anything, other than possibly by sitting down to do these experiments.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
And I'm completely baffled, because it seems like you have chosen such an entirely illogical way of proceeding (that is, trying to get me to confirm something about my unconscious which by definition I won't be able to confirm for you) that I find it hard to believe that that is what you really intend.
quote:Experiments like the two I have described have certainly be done, so the tech is readily available. The specific ones I have described have probably not be done. But I have not searched the literature, and I'm neither a cognitive psychologist nor a psychophysicist by trade...
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Have such scans actually been done? If so, can you give reference(s)?
quote:If I used the word "immutable" at all, then only in accommodation to you. You came up with that word...
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
A minor point is that I was trying to understand why you threw in your speculations that responses to same-sex couples are immutable, while the responses to interracial couples are mutable.
quote:For better or worse, it would mean that morality and law face a perpetual uphill battle against human low level cognition, if they want to maintain that there is no distinction. Now, the meaning of this and its evaluation is where we leave the realm of science. I would of course conclude that we see here quite simply the embodied realisation of the "natural moral law" designed into human beings. Basically, we would have hit upon (one of) the brain mechanisms supporting correct moral evaluation. But of course you could also evaluate this as a typical "design flaw" carried over from "less enlightened" times, showing merely that evolution is no substitute for good moral reasoning. Science cannot show which interpretation is true. But science can supply this data which would demand interpretation.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
What bearing does this have on what we should conclude about same-sex marriages vs. opposite-sex marriages in the realms of morality and law?
quote:Marriage was the main topic and guiding organisational principle of cultural anthropology in early Victorian times, perhaps. They have diversified a bit since then, best I can tell... Anyway, minus the modern West, please do tell us about the variation cultural anthropology has found concerning what sexes are matched up in marriage, and whether that has anything to do with producing offspring. And you can skip any statement beginning with "they found some tribe in the rain forest..." Simple global stats will do.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
The funny thing is, if you understand a bit about Cultural Anthropology (which I'm sure IngoB does), then one thing that becomes clear is that there is nothing 'natural' about our concept of marriage as two people who love eachother enough so that they will stay together and care for their children.
quote:Understanding underlying mechanisms of brain disease is indeed part of my work. I'm not working on epilepsy at the moment though. That you would rather I did not is duly noted.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Bingo works in neuroscience? Epilepsy is tedious* enough without the knowledge that he might even be tangentially involved.
quote:It is bullshit. Regardless of the effect you might be able to summon with such experiments, a similar effect could be shown to exist for a myriad of other irrelevant aspects, such as skin colour, religion, language traits, or political affiliation. Moreover, you have not even a shred of reason to assert that said effect would be consistent or meaningful.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:It is neither one, nor the other.
Originally posted by RooK:
This is not just bullshit, it's bullshit based on a deeply flawed premise.
quote:All and any human pairs of adults? Siblings, for example? Aunt/uncle and nephew/niece? Parent and (adult) child? There's a libertarian logic there. But if not, why not? Conerns about genetic defects, perhaps? But if that, why limit it to defects that might be caused by inbreeding? Why just pairs of adults- why not larger groups?
Originally posted by RooK:
Human pairs of adults should be allowed form officially-recognized marriages. To whit: access to legal partnership privileges, family medical benefits, end-of-life decision authority, to celebrate their loving partnership, and all that jazz.
quote:From what I've understood, anthropologically speaking marriage isn't about how children are produced, it's about who they belong to. You're the one claiming that your concept of marriage is naturally showing up in our brain scans (or something like that; when you're making a claim it's up to you to make clear to us what it is); the burden of finding stats to support your claim is up to you.
IngoB: Anyway, minus the modern West, please do tell us about the variation cultural anthropology has found concerning what sexes are matched up in marriage, and whether that has anything to do with producing offspring. And you can skip any statement beginning with "they found some tribe in the rain forest..." Simple global stats will do.
)
quote:It's weird... people keep saying that this is "bullshit", and then they list ever more possibilities where such a study could be relevant. It would indeed be interesting to see if one can track reaction time delays or neuroimaging signatures also in other instances where a high level cognitive idea may be in conflict with established lower level classifiers. The problem with something like "race" would presumably be to find an appropriate control group, i.e., I can probably still find otherwise relatively equal groups of people who are for or against "gay marriage" (to show the absence of delay in the "anti" group, for example). But I'm not sure that it will be easy to find an appropriate control group of avowed racist if one tries something similar with race. That reaction time experiments can track "cognitive cost", and that fMRI contrast can single out "task-relevant brain areas", is not particularly controversial, I would say. So I don't really know why you think such experiments would be outlandish or likely to fail.
Originally posted by RooK:
It is bullshit. Regardless of the effect you might be able to summon with such experiments, a similar effect could be shown to exist for a myriad of other irrelevant aspects, such as skin colour, religion, language traits, or political affiliation. Moreover, you have not even a shred of reason to assert that said effect would be consistent or meaningful.
quote:That's simply a category error. Your socio-cultural / political ideology might be right or wrong according to whatever standards one might judge this by. But that's neither here nor there for the question whether the suggested psychological experiment is "deeply flawed". The experiment would be deeply flawed if it cannot discern "cognitive conflict", if that's what it sets out to do. The evaluation of such conflict, if experimentally detected, is simply in a different category. Or are you saying that it would be unethical as such to detect "cognitive conflict" in people? Why?
Originally posted by RooK:
And it is deeply flawed - because all these aspects are indeed irrelevant. Human pairs of adults should be allowed form officially-recognized marriages. To whit: access to legal partnership privileges, family medical benefits, end-of-life decision authority, to celebrate their loving partnership, and all that jazz.
quote:I'll wait for the papal legate to knock on my door.
Originally posted by RooK:
How about you move on to addressing global warming, like you've been instructed to do.
quote:We are not talking about "brain scans" here, we are talking about your claims concerning "cultural anthropology" and its findings. If you have trouble understanding that, then please re-read the first sentence of the quote above, where you make yet another claim pertaining to that field. It is indeed up to you to produce evidence for your claims...
Originally posted by LeRoc:
From what I've understood, anthropologically speaking marriage isn't about how children are produced, it's about who they belong to. You're the one claiming that your concept of marriage is naturally showing up in our brain scans (or something like that; when you're making a claim it's up to you to make clear to us what it is); the burden of finding stats to support your claim is up to you.
quote:You made a claim about the purported huge variation in "marriages" across the world. Variation is something that can be statistically described, and hence I have asked you to provide statistics actually relevant to both your claim and the topic at hand. (And by the way, I was being nice to you, by allowing you to count any small tribe in the Amazon as a data point. Rather obviously, if we simply do statistics across number of people, rather than the number of weird and wonderful groups of people anthropologists make a career out of studying, then the usual "man-woman" marriage would be statistically utterly overwhelming...)
Originally posted by LeRoc:
(I do wonder though: do you want to base your argument about marriage on statisics?
quote:The problem with most of the examples you give are that when you have generational differences between family members, there are issues of coercion, if not possible abusive behavior. That makes it a wholly different beast for a general policy.
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:All and any human pairs of adults? Siblings, for example? Aunt/uncle and nephew/niece? Parent and (adult) child? There's a libertarian logic there. But if not, why not? Conerns about genetic defects, perhaps? But if that, why limit it to defects that might be caused by inbreeding? Why just pairs of adults- why not larger groups?
Originally posted by RooK:
Human pairs of adults should be allowed form officially-recognized marriages. To whit: access to legal partnership privileges, family medical benefits, end-of-life decision authority, to celebrate their loving partnership, and all that jazz.
quote:Let's see, a postdoc, a fraction of my time, some equipment, compensation for participants... I would say about £0.6M. I will give you peer-review articles, about 1.5 years from start of funding. No sweat.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It's up to you to back up this claim. The best thing to do of course would be to point us to a peer-reviewed article that would show us these brain scans. I don't think you can do that.
quote:You are not being "nice", you are being an idiot. Of course I don't have results in hand of an experiment I just thought up! And it doesn't matter anyway, since I didn't make any grand claims there. Other people did. I only said that I think I can demonstrate that A.R.'s brain still registers the difference between a (heterosexual) marriage and "gay marriage", even though she says there is none. If that happens to be wrong, and I cannot detect what I think I can, then gay marriage is still immoral. If I can demonstrate it, you can still celebrate A.R.'s point of view (now additionally for overcoming her own brain).
Originally posted by LeRoc:
But I'm doing it because I'm being nice to you (succesfully arguing against my doubt would strenghten your claim).
quote:First, again, where is your actual relevant evidence of any kind? How many pre-contact cultures supporting "gay marriage" have in fact been found?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
My anthropological knowledge is very limited, but it is enough to give me the idea that your definition of marriage isn't universally held by pre-contact cultures around the world. This alone is enough to cast doubt that this definition is hard-wired into our human brains.
quote:You're the one making the claim. The burden of proof is on you. I can't believe that I'm arguing the basics of discussion with you.
IngoB: Let's see, a postdoc, a fraction of my time, some equipment, compensation for participants... I would say about £0.6M. I will give you peer-review articles, about 1.5 years from start of funding. No sweat.
quote:So do it. And if you want to deduce from this that marriage between a same sex couple is immoral, one of the things you also need to show is that this difference doesn't show up between other kinds of marriages (that we agree are moral). And oh, you also need to show how you arrive from these different brain states to a moral judgement.
IngoB: I only said that I think I can demonstrate that A.R.'s brain still registers the difference between a (heterosexual) marriage and "gay marriage", even though she says there is none.
quote:You can't just assert that, you need to show that. And without referring to your hierarchy as a moral authority if you want to convince me.
IngoB: If that happens to be wrong, and I cannot detect what I think I can, then gay marriage is still immoral.
quote:I don't need evidence, you do. You claim that your definition of marriage is 'natural' and would show up in brain scans. You haven't given evidence of that.
IngoB: First, again, where is your actual relevant evidence of any kind?
quote:My claim isn't that pre-contact cultures supporting marriage between same-sex couples have been found.
IngoB: How many pre-contact cultures supporting "gay marriage" have in fact been found?
quote:You need to make clear to me what your claim means, not the other way around.
IngoB: And anyway, that "hardwired" here cannot possibly mean totally determined and fully incapable of other behaviour is perfectly clear.
quote:So let's save those 600,000 pounds then. Why the fuck even bring it up?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If that happens to be wrong, and I cannot detect what I think I can, then gay marriage is still immoral.
quote:If you had actually proposed some new experiment that could demonstrate that some specific aspect of homeopathy works, and if that experiment was reasonable in terms of its design, and if your request of "10M" was motivated in terms of its needs, then you would be arguing a bit like me. And if I then told you "but you need provide the evidence of this experiment right now" then I would be in the wrong. Because it would be obviously unreasonable to expect you to produce evidence of a future experiment.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You're the one making the claim. The burden of proof is on you. I can't believe that I'm arguing the basics of discussion with you. If I argued like you, I could claim anything. Homeopathy works. Give me 10M and I'll prove it to you. QED.
quote:Yes, it would be really nice if I had commented on whether and how such an experiment could be cashed out morally. Oh wait, I have discussed that extensively. Above.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
And oh, you also need to show how you arrive from these different brain states to a moral judgement.
quote:I could for example spend time arguing about that using philosophical argument from natural moral law theory. Oh wait, I have done that, in many posts in two different threads. See above and in DH.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You can't just assert that, you need to show that. And without referring to your hierarchy as a moral authority if you want to convince me.
quote:Of course you bloody need evidence for the claims that you make. The burden of proof does not somehow asymmetrically just apply to me. Now, unlike me, you have made a claim about what is supposedly known already in cultural anthropology. You have not proposed some future experiment or expedition in this field, you have said that they have discovered this or that. Well, on request you then need to back that up.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I don't need evidence, you do.
IngoB: First, again, where is your actual relevant evidence of any kind?
quote:No, that's not a corollary. It may be part of the nature of a dog to have four legs. But that does not mean that all dogs we find in nature have four legs. And obviously dogs do not have philosophical definitions, they just have a number of legs. If there is not something that systematically stops that from happening, then we can reasonably expect that most marriages one finds in the world are between males and females, and that children are typically expected to result from such a formal relationship, as seen in various child-related social rules attached to these formal relationships. Since what I've just said is true for the vast majority of marriages we find in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa, there is little doubt that this is the case as simple "global average". If you want to do some special pleading here because you think that insufficiently represents what some tribe somewhere in a rain forest is doing, then you need to tell us what they are doing, and why that should change our mind.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
A corollary of your claim is that your definition of marriage would arise naturally across all cultures. This is another thing you would need to show.
quote:Well, actually that is not a claim I have made. What I have said is that marriage is principally ordered to procreation, the begetting and raising of children. And unless there are systematically disturbing factors, like say a SCOTUS decision, one would expect to see this rendered into intimate long-term arrangements between men and women, where the resulting offspring is being take care of. This still allows for say polygamy or polyandry. It also allows for systems where family members (say grandparents) are expected to take over child care duty. It does however not allow for "gay marriage".
Originally posted by LeRoc:
My claim isn't that pre-contact cultures supporting marriage between same-sex couples have been found. What I'm contesting is that marriage is universally across cultures seen as a commitment between two people to produce and care for their offspring. This is another claim you made. Show me your evidence.
quote:Kinda get the feeling that if Jesus came back and said he was cool with marriage equality, IngoB would explain to him why he was wrong.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:So let's save those 600,000 pounds then. Why the fuck even bring it up?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If that happens to be wrong, and I cannot detect what I think I can, then gay marriage is still immoral.
quote:There is no fMRI (functional MRI) or other "brain scan" evidence that supports any such contention. What we can show is that people show some consistent patterns of arousal in their neurology that gives us a likelihood that they are turned on, but we can't differentiate much.
IngoB
I only said that I think I can demonstrate that A.R.'s brain still registers the difference between a (heterosexual) marriage and "gay marriage", even though she says there is none. If that happens to be wrong, and I cannot detect what I think I can, then gay marriage is still immoral. If I can demonstrate it, you can still celebrate A.R.'s point of view (now additionally for overcoming her own brain).
quote:I proposed two experiments, a reaction time and a fMRI one, respectively. I have almost exclusively discussed the former though, which does not involve a "brain scan", as the better and simpler one.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
There is no fMRI (functional MRI) or other "brain scan" evidence that supports any such contention.
quote:I've stated precisely what my suggested experiments, in particular the reaction time one, may teach us, and I have rejected various interpretations advanced here by others as going beyond what one can reasonably expect to learn from such experiments.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
You start with discussing some (pseudo) science ideas you want to investigate, and then go on to reject anything it might tell you before there is any data.
quote:A significant conflict between different levels of your social conditioning, or possibly, a conflict of your social conditioning with some more "hardwired" systems. The experiment would be exactly about giving some practical and quantitative meaning to the (rather odd, if you think about it) statement that you "do not believe in your social conditioning".
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't understand this tangent. What is reaction time supposed to show?
quote:I have thought about it. I want to be a better person than the one generated by my social conditioning, hence I am often rebelling against my first reactions. Isn't everyone?
Originally posted by IngoB:
]A significant conflict between different levels of your social conditioning, or possibly, a conflict of your social conditioning with some more "hardwired" systems. The experiment would be exactly about giving some practical and quantitative meaning to the (rather odd, if you think about it) statement that you "do not believe in your social conditioning".
quote:Except he won't return doing/saying that: when He returns there'll be other matters on the agenda.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Kinda get the feeling that if Jesus came back and said he was cool with marriage equality, IngoB would explain to him why he was wrong.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:So let's save those 600,000 pounds then. Why the fuck even bring it up?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If that happens to be wrong, and I cannot detect what I think I can, then gay marriage is still immoral.
quote:Your new aspirations are also socially conditioned, of course.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I have thought about it. I want to be a better person than the one generated by my social conditioning, hence I am often rebelling against my first reactions. Isn't everyone?
quote:Seconded. And TBH most of those posting here- with the exception, actually, of Ingo, with whom I ultimately disagree on the question of SSM- are not doing their credibility any favours. The hooting of the Yahoos is becoming deafening and, worse, boring.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
When the Admins are scraping the Ship for barnacles could they possibly remove this thread? Although it is keeping tedious matter out of Purgatory I'm sure it isn't helping the Ship make any progress.
quote:Like I said I don't think you know anything about the area. You propose reaction times, whereas no one would do that sort of research outside of cognitive psychology labs, and even then....
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:A significant conflict between different levels of your social conditioning, or possibly, a conflict of your social conditioning with some more "hardwired" systems. The experiment would be exactly about giving some practical and quantitative meaning to the (rather odd, if you think about it) statement that you "do not believe in your social conditioning".
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't understand this tangent. What is reaction time supposed to show?
quote:
Proverbs 6:16–19
There are six things that God strongly dislikes, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
quote:Do you have some kind of problem with cognitive psychology? I don't. I am however indeed a computational neuroscientist, not a cognitive psychologist.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
You propose reaction times, whereas no one would do that sort of research outside of cognitive psychology labs, and even then...
quote:What I am suggesting is that there will be a delay in reaction time when people are asked to classify whether a couple might be married, if the picture shows a homosexual couple rather than a heterosexual one. And the presence of such a delay would point to some kind of additional "load" on the cognitive system, slowing it down, suggesting that internally "marriage" is not equally applied to both kinds of couples even if the participant states (say in a questionnaire) that there is no difference between such marriages. I guess the biggest confound would be simple unfamiliarity, but perhaps one can control against that (e.g., in participants who state that they know several gay couples, is the purported delay reduced or even absent?).
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
There is almost no evidence for hardwired things in higher order psychological things like "object relations", which is what you are suggesting.
quote:I certainly think such results would be of interest for the doctrinal and moral discussion we are having here. That does not mean that they do not have a scientific life of their own.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
What you might consider is to stop pretending to apply science to this and just admit you're pumping a doctrinal and moral view.
quote:You do know, don't you, that just because one accepts some changes one doesn't have to accept all of them? No of course you don't. Nothign is constant, nothing has an objective trugth or objective existence, nothing has any meaning other than the meanings which we assign to them. That way, matey, lies at best individual madness, at worst savagery and the law of the jungle.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Hence, the abandonment of sex identity (or gender, in modern idiom) as a requirement is a further 'minimization'.
Hence, the idea of traditional marriage is quite odd - which tradition do you yearn to return to? Coverture?
quote:If you keep subtracting stuff from a concept, it is not unreasonable to say that at some point it is not sufficiently similar to the original to warrant the same label.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
ut the secularization of marriage has peeled away a lot of stuff - e.g. indissolubility, constant fertility, the legal erasure of women - and so on. Hence, the abandonment of sex identity (or gender, in modern idiom) as a requirement is a further 'minimization'.
quote:According to IngoB, if you did not have the tackle, you wouldn't be married. As discussed above ad nauseum.
Originally posted by Albertus:
And BTW it's not gender/ sex identity that's a requirement (where SSM does not exist), it's sex. I could call myself Alberta, dress as a woman, think of myself as a woman, but provided I'd got me bits intact I could still, before SSM came in, have got married to a woman.
quote:Do you have some kind of problem with cognitive psychology? I don't. I am however indeed a computational neuroscientist, not a cognitive psychologist. [/quote]
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Well, by sex identity, I mean sex. Called gender today by many.
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:You do know, don't you, that just because one accepts some changes one doesn't have to accept all of them? No of course you don't. Nothign is constant, nothing has an objective trugth or objective existence, nothing has any meaning other than the meanings which we assign to them. That way, matey, lies at best individual madness, at worst savagery and the law of the jungle.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Hence, the abandonment of sex identity (or gender, in modern idiom) as a requirement is a further 'minimization'.
Hence, the idea of traditional marriage is quite odd - which tradition do you yearn to return to? Coverture?
And BTW it's not gender/ sex identity that's a requirement (where SSM does not exist), it's sex. I could call myself Alberta, dress as a woman, think of myself as a woman, but provided I'd got me bits intact I could still, before SSM came in, have got married to a woman.
quote:I think these are good points, and I have no idea how far the minimization of marriage will go, or should go. I suppose you could end up with a kind of contract between people, where sex is not involved, this is like many old jokes of course. But already, I guess, two people can get married who are not in love, and not proposing to have sex, although I'm not sure why they would, maybe for inheritance reasons, or pensions, naturalization, etc.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:If you keep subtracting stuff from a concept, it is not unreasonable to say that at some point it is not sufficiently similar to the original to warrant the same label.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
ut the secularization of marriage has peeled away a lot of stuff - e.g. indissolubility, constant fertility, the legal erasure of women - and so on. Hence, the abandonment of sex identity (or gender, in modern idiom) as a requirement is a further 'minimization'.
On the practical side of things, married status allows access to all sorts of governmental and legal provisions. Now, by virtue of "gay marriage", this can be accessed by intimate partners of the same sex. Can I ask why the state is still so hung up about sex? That made sense when all this was connected to children being born due to such sex. But now this connection is officially gone. Why then not simply allow people to designate a significant other of their choice that will enjoy these various provisions? If the state does not care about procreation, why exactly does it still care about sex? Why not simple let people get on with their intimate lives as they please, and give them an entirely independent means of designating some person of their choice as "significant other"? Married people could still designate their spouses, but why should someone who is currently not in an intimate relationship not be able to designate a friend? The state was in the business of incentivising procreation, is it now in the business of incentivising sex? Why exactly?
quote:...by many who use language carelessly.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:Well, by sex identity, I mean sex. Called gender today by many.
Originally posted by Albertus:
...And BTW it's not gender/ sex identity that's a requirement (where SSM does not exist), it's sex. I could call myself Alberta, dress as a woman, think of myself as a woman, but provided I'd got me bits intact I could still, before SSM came in, have got married to a woman.
quote:Yep, and this is one of the truly stupid things about the whole situation. Two people who've only just met can get married. Two people who don't like each other but see a financial or citizenship advantage can get married. Heck, a gay guy and a lesbian can get married and use each other as cover while dating other people.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But already, I guess, two people can get married who are not in love, and not proposing to have sex, although I'm not sure why they would, maybe for inheritance reasons, or pensions, naturalization, etc.
quote:I don't think this is true - at least not in the UK. First there is a statutory waiting period of 28 days between registering the intention to get married and the wedding.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Yep, and this is one of the truly stupid things about the whole situation. Two people who've only just met can get married. Two people who don't like each other but see a financial or citizenship advantage can get married. Heck, a gay guy and a lesbian can get married and use each other as cover while dating other people.
quote:By your very wide definition of "theocratic", which apparently considers any direct influence of religious teachings on public policy as "theocratic", it would be more accurate to say that the state always has been "theocratic" everywhere - and in the West Christian "theocratic" for at least 1.5 millennia - until perhaps a century ago.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I mean, if you want to get married, I don't think you have to go to the town hall, and tell them that you want sex/romance/children/your wife's wealth, or whatever it is. ... Of course, tons of people are saying what marriage should be about, but again, presumably the secular version remains neutral. The arguments with IngoB are pointless in a sense, unless the secular state becomes a theocratic one (unlikely).
quote:Not really... The nature of human pregnancies (long, and in the later stages, a considerable burden) and child-raising (incredibly long and involved) means that you need a very sophisticated and organised society to not have marriages in some form. I'm certain that "cavemen" had something we would recognise as "marriage", and should our current sophisticated social system crumble, then I'm certain our descendants will rely mostly on some kind of "marriage" again.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
People procreated before marriage existed and they will no doubt continue if it ends.
quote:Evidence of sacramental marriage is available through the Church Father (Tertullian, Augustine, Ambrose, ...) and various liturgical books and sacramentaries of the different Churches, Eastern and Western, from the earliest Christian times. But yes, it took a long time until marriage became properly established as sacrament even among the faithful. No doubt that's precisely because there were so strong prior traditions concerning natural marriage. It is interesting to note that the Orthodox had much stricter sacramental standards much earlier. Anyway, we are not discussing sacramental vs. natural marriage here. We are not discussing whether it is enough for a man and a woman to promise themselves to each other, or whether a priest needs to witness this (in a proper ceremony). We are discussing that it has to be a a man and a woman, a fact to which "common law" marriages prior to modernity witness just as much as "properly sacramental" ones.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
For the state, marriage is about money and control. Same for the church getting involved. As has been pointed out, the church didn't begin to get fussed about it for a thousand years. And it took several hundred more to get rolling.
quote:Indeed. The sacraments were instituted by Christ for His human followers.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But to pretend that the moment the first organism split into two, there was a third there to consecrate is just silly.
quote:Status quo is maintained in the West by immigration from more procreation-happy countries. It is unlikely that the West can do this forever without changing, since that would require assimilating immigrants as quickly as they are are brought in to keep populations stable or growing. Since any Western success at projecting its ideology to other countries will lead to just one more place needing to import people, in the end something will have to give somewhere. It will make for an interesting chapter or two in world history though, no doubt.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does anyone really think we are going to see a reverse movement on these things?
quote:Your quote-mining skills are something else, since you managed to chop up my post, and extract one sentence, which wasn't really about procreation, and turn into something to do with your hobby-horse.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Status quo is maintained in the West by immigration from more procreation-happy countries. It is unlikely that the West can do this forever without changing, since that would require assimilating immigrants as quickly as they are are brought in to keep populations stable or growing. Since any Western success at projecting its ideology to other countries will lead to just one more place needing to import people, in the end something will have to give somewhere. It will make for an interesting chapter or two in world history though, no doubt.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does anyone really think we are going to see a reverse movement on these things?
quote:Okay, I'm not sure if this future experiment would produce the kind of evidence you think it would. But the more important bit is, even if it did, the conclusions you draw from it wouldn't follow from it.
IngoB: I do not need to provide the evidence of a future experiment that I have just suggested. You merely do not have to believe that this future experiment would produce the kind of evidence I think it would. That is how a reasonable discussion would proceed in such a case.
quote:You've been blabbering a lot about this. You throw the term 'natural moral law' around a lot, and you come up again and again with the example of a dog eating chocolate, but that's nowhere near a coherent argument.
IngoB: I could for example spend time arguing about that using philosophical argument from natural moral law theory. Oh wait, I have done that, in many posts in two different threads. See above and in DH.
quote:Yes it does. You claim that marriage between people of the same sex is immoral somehow, and that you can argue this without referring to your religious tradition. That's quite a heavy claim, with some serious consequences. So far, you haven't given a shred of evidence for this claim.
IngoB: Of course you bloody need evidence for the claims that you make. The burden of proof does not somehow asymmetrically just apply to me.
quote:If 'marriage is geared towards procreation' is something that shows up in brain experiments, we would expect it to be the norm across all cultures that marriage is seen in this way. You haven't shown that this is the case.
IngoB: No, that's not a corollary. It may be part of the nature of a dog to have four legs. But that does not mean that all dogs we find in nature have four legs.
quote:The average is not very reliable here, because the vast majority of people we find in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa are influenced by Western culture. And interestingly, Western cultural thinking about marriage is heavily influenced by your religion.
IngoB: Since what I've just said is true for the vast majority of marriages we find in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa, there is little doubt that this is the case as simple "global average".
quote:You haven't given a shred of evidence for this claim.
IngoB: What I have said is that marriage is principally ordered to procreation, the begetting and raising of children.
quote:You haven't shown that this conclusion follows from your claim.
IngoB: It does however not allow for "gay marriage".
quote:Quite.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Even if you could define consistently what a 'different' brain reaction means, and if experiments show that our brains react differently to pictures of same-sex couples in a consistent way, and even if they wouldn't show this reactions to various combinations of opposite-sex couples (that's already a lot of ifs there), so what?
You would need to follow some general rule to draw conclusions from that. "If our brains react differently to situations X and Y then we cannot use the same word to describe these situations" is surely ridiculous as a general rule. I can give you zillions of counterexamples to that. The English language has many homonyms, and I know that German does too (Portuguese has a lot less).
It becomes even worse if you then try to move to the moral realm.
quote:Homonyms generally occur where context can be expected to distinguish meaning. So you have for example "waist" and "waste", which sound the same, but in regular speech there rarely will be an occasion for confusing them. The garbage truck is not removing your "waist", it is removing your "waste", etc. Anyway, creating homonyms is not really what is happening here. It would be more like the situation where you have oranges, and then you encounter a grapefruit. Or perhaps, where you have mandarin oranges and then you encounter a tangerine. Do you use a new word, or not?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You would need to follow some general rule to draw conclusions from that. "If our brains react differently to situations X and Y then we cannot use the same word to describe these situations" is surely ridiculous as a general rule. I can give you zillions of counterexamples to that. The English language has many homonyms, and I know that German does too (Portuguese has a lot less). It becomes even worse if you then try to move to the moral realm. So, what is the general rule that you are using to draw conclusions from this (still highly improbable) experiment?
quote:It would also be nice if there was a general rule that could mechanically solve all maths problems. But there isn't one, and so we have people like you, mathematicians, who specialise in solving maths problems. They certainly follow rules in this, indeed, a wide variety of rules depending on the concrete problem. But their activity is not easily pressed into a simple algorithm, a general rule. Unless one wanted to say something nearly trivial, like "mathematicians solve maths problems through analysis in terms of maths and logic". Likewise, "natural law philosophers evaluate moral problems through analysis in terms of natures and their final ends".
Originally posted by LeRoc:
For example, when it comes to teleological functions of our body parts. What would be a coherent start of a discussion is if you could formulate a general rule about this. Not "using our body part for the wrong thing is like a dog eating chocolate". An example can help to illustrate a general rule, but it cannot substitute a general rule.
quote:I'm sorry, but that's simply not what we are talking about here and now. You made a claim about what cultural anthropology supposedly has shown. You refuse to back this up with anything resembling evidence. Therefore, this specific claim can be dismissed. That's all. You do not get some kind of special permission to assert all sorts of stuff about all sort of things unchallenged, just because of the wider context of the discussion.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I claim that marriage between people of the same sex is not immoral. That's a much weaker assertion, so I have a much lower proof of evidence.
quote:I wonder what exactly you expect as potential "proof" here? For the vast majority of marriage arrangements, across the globe and throughout history, rights and obligations with regards to children of the married couple have been an integral and important part of the (written or unwritten) rule set governing this social institution. That is so because the couple was expected to have sex with each other, and in the vast majority of marriage arrangements, across the globe and throughout history, sex of the kind that was likely to lead to new babies. Even in cultures that are about as accepting of homosexuality as it gets, say in ancient Greece, marriage has remained a distinct social institution from those governing homosexuality. If procreation was not an essential concept behind all those variations of marriage that we see throughout the world and time, then how come that we are (almost) singular in extending it to homosexual relationships? As we so often hear, homosexuality has been around forever, has a "natural" frequency of occurrence, etc. But however it was treated in society, it has never been seriously considered as the basis of a marriage in wider society. Until now. So we have both positive reason (near universal existence of marriage regulations concerning offspring) and negative reason (near universal absence of homosexual marriage) to assert that marriage has been traditionally ordered to procreation.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If 'marriage is geared towards procreation' is something that shows up in brain experiments, we would expect it to be the norm across all cultures that marriage is seen in this way. You haven't shown that this is the case.
quote:Now you are simply misleading by selective quoting. Indeed, what you say is true. And I've just said that to you in the very sentence you quote, namely in order to stress that you have to argue the special cases because the simple global average is inevitably going to speak in my favour. That's the very next sentence, which you didn't quote.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
The average is not very reliable here, because the vast majority of people we find in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa are influenced by Western culture. And interestingly, Western cultural thinking about marriage is heavily influenced by your religion.
quote:More precisely, the plentiful evidence and argument I have provided is not strong enough to overcome your prejudice concerning this matter.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You haven't given a shred of evidence for this claim. ... You haven't shown that this conclusion follows from your claim.
quote:Needest thou a mirror, Sir Pot?
More precisely, the plentiful evidence and argument I have provided is not strong enough to overcome your prejudice concerning this matter.
quote:The subjugation of women to men has been near universal as well -- you want to argue for that?
Originally posted by IngoB:
So we have both positive reason (near universal existence of marriage regulations concerning offspring) and negative reason (near universal absence of homosexual marriage) to assert that marriage has been traditionally ordered to procreation.
quote:Well, of course. It's traditional.
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:The subjugation of women to men has been near universal as well -- you want to argue for that?
Originally posted by IngoB:
So we have both positive reason (near universal existence of marriage regulations concerning offspring) and negative reason (near universal absence of homosexual marriage) to assert that marriage has been traditionally ordered to procreation.
quote:Yeah, I think so too. Speaking as a 6-foot tall white Anglo-Saxon male, I look around and things seem to be running pretty smoothly.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Done such a bang up job so far...
quote:Just to clarify, I didn't say smoothly.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Yeah, I think so too. Speaking as a 6-foot tall white Anglo-Saxon male, I look around and things seem to be running pretty smoothly.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Done such a bang up job so far...
quote:If you can't take the heat lady, get out of the kitchen.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Just to clarify, I didn't say smoothly.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Yeah, I think so too. Speaking as a 6-foot tall white Anglo-Saxon male, I look around and things seem to be running pretty smoothly.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Done such a bang up job so far...
I said bang up job.
quote:I don't, really. Of course, sometimes it helps saying that the word 'gay marriage' might feel discriminating to gay people. That might convince some people to just use the word 'marriage' and drop the qualifier, but not all of them.
IngoB: "Gay marriage" or "same sex marriage" is still commonly distinguished from (heterosexual) marriage precisely by adding qualifying words. If you want people to stop adding those qualifying words (in typical usage), then you have to say why.
quote:This is a cop-out. I haven't asked for a general rule that explains all of natural moral law.
IngoB: It would also be nice if there was a general rule that could mechanically solve all maths problems.
quote:Alright. Your claim that marriage is geared towards procreation is equally dismissed. Since you have no claim to make against marriage between people of the same sex, I deduct that it should be allowed. Thank you.
IngoB: You made a claim about what cultural anthropology supposedly has shown. You refuse to back this up with anything resembling evidence. Therefore, this specific claim can be dismissed. That's all.
quote:I don't believe that this is what defines marriage across cultures. Evidence please.
IngoB: For the vast majority of marriage arrangements, across the globe and throughout history, rights and obligations with regards to children of the married couple have been an integral and important part of the (written or unwritten) rule set governing this social institution. That is so because the couple was expected to have sex with each other, and in the vast majority of marriage arrangements, across the globe and throughout history, sex of the kind that was likely to lead to new babies.
quote:I haven't seen you providing any evidence whatsoever.
IngoB: More precisely, the plentiful evidence and argument I have provided is not strong enough to overcome your prejudice concerning this matter.
quote:But that's not the proper parallel. I was arguing against Le Roc's (frankly idiotic) assertion that we do not know that marriage overwhelmingly has been ordered to procreation - across the globe, for all of history, until our days in the West. The parallel would be to argue that men have overwhelmingly dominated women - across the globe, for all of history, until our days in the West. And I expect you would basically agree with that assessment. Thus you would actually side with me rather than Le Roc concerning this particular point.
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:The subjugation of women to men has been near universal as well -- you want to argue for that?
Originally posted by IngoB:
So we have both positive reason (near universal existence of marriage regulations concerning offspring) and negative reason (near universal absence of homosexual marriage) to assert that marriage has been traditionally ordered to procreation.
quote:Congratulations, women! It's official.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I don't want to get sidetracked into a discussion of the role of women here.
quote:You just don't get it. The bible is completely clear. Some things are simply clear and others are clearly contextual. And none of these had anything whatsoever to do with privilege or prejudice.
The way in which people can declare "the Bible is clear" while completely ignoring what the Bible actually says is just... mindblowing.
quote:Egads! It's true. I've even caught myself thinking about which hat to wear on a Sunday.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Perhaps your choice to be gay has made you think more like a woman.
quote:Ah, I see!
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Traditional marriage is plain in the bible. Yes, there is incest and polygamy and such, and God seems cool with it* but you have to look at those in the context of their times. And homosexuality is clearly a sin. No context needed.
Works for all sorts of things. And though it appears to be simple justification, it is actually proper interpretation.
quote:LOL, I've met many women in my life who I found sexually attractive. I can assure you that rational thinking almost never had anything to do with it
lilBuddha: Keep thinking rationally and you might start finding women sexually attractive.
quote:Oh dear, it's all my fault.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I will say this though: I agree that secular heterosexual marriage in our modern societies, permanent until one side feels like leaving and containing sex with contraception unless both agree that they would like to have a kid now, is a kind of halfway house to "gay marriage".
quote:Race is not essential to marriage, at least if you mean by that what is usually called "race" in people. Race is essential to marriage in a different meaning of "race", namely insofar as I cannot marry a horse, for example. This in fact follows from defining marriage as the social institution ordered to the begetting and raising of children. (Skin-deep) race is clearly accidental to that. Whereas the sexes of the spouses are not accidental to that at all. Unless there is a "man - woman" combination in the marriage, there will be no begetting of children (and consequently no raising of children, at least not without relying on the begetting of others).
Originally posted by LeRoc:
In the same way, people stopped using 'interracial' as a qualifier for marriages decades ago. Of course, sometimes it makes sense to say that someone is married to someone from another race, as you have in a specific context. But I've seen you saying you're married many times without using the qualifier 'interracial'. That's how it goes. These thing lose their importance over time. And rightly so.
quote:It's not a cop-out. It's more a reflection of the fact that we cannot give an algorithm for correct reasoning. Otherwise we could programme proper AIs, and we very much cannot do that...
Originally posted by LeRoc:
This is a cop-out. I haven't asked for a general rule that explains all of natural moral law.
quote:Rule: Disrupting or distorting a bodily process, in order to gain the pleasure that motivates initiation of that process without ending in its completion, is immoral, or to be more precise, abusive.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Say something — anything — about the teleological functions of our body parts that is stated as a rule, not as an analogy. Something from which we can draw a conclusion that relates to a simple thing like masturbation.
quote:I'm not sure how one can provide evidence for a definition in a non-circular way... If it helps, the first reference in the Wikipedia article apparently defines:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't believe that this is what defines marriage across cultures. Evidence please.
quote:Emphasis added by me to underline the compatibility with what I have previously said.
Haviland, William A.; Prins, Harald E. L.; McBride, Bunny; Walrath, Dana (2011). Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge (13th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-495-81178-7. "A non ethnocentric definition of marriage is a culturally sanctioned union between two or more people that establishes certain rights and obligations between the people, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws."
quote:Aha.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I haven't seen you providing any evidence whatsoever.
quote:...perhaps the odd giraffe.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
...the next day you are in an orgy with him, your dog and any animal which will permit you to fill its orifice or fit into yours.
quote:I have to wonder have you ever actually tried Kale?
pleasure is ordered to nutrition insofar as it motivates the human organism to eat food in order gain the pleasure of eating
quote:Grünkohl mit Pinkel und Kassler (kale with groat sausage and gammon) is an old family favourite in particular for the cold season. Needs plenty of mustard and a (lager) beer to go with it, of course, and some form of potato side. I'm salivating at the mere thought of it...
Originally posted by Alicïa:
I have to wonder have you ever actually tried Kale?
quote:He does that all the time. He thinks he's actually proving his points.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You [i.e., IngoB] seem to be reasoning by analogy very often instead of formulating what you want to say as a rule.
quote:I do agree with you on this point. The thing is, given that to varying degrees human societies are in the process of moving away from male domination of women, human societies can also move away from their marital traditions as well. It's not a side-tracking of the discussion at all. The marital traditions you are defending assumed male dominance.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:But that's not the proper parallel. I was arguing against Le Roc's (frankly idiotic) assertion that we do not know that marriage overwhelmingly has been ordered to procreation - across the globe, for all of history, until our days in the West. The parallel would be to argue that men have overwhelmingly dominated women - across the globe, for all of history, until our days in the West. And I expect you would basically agree with that assessment. Thus you would actually side with me rather than Le Roc concerning this particular point.
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:The subjugation of women to men has been near universal as well -- you want to argue for that?
Originally posted by IngoB:
So we have both positive reason (near universal existence of marriage regulations concerning offspring) and negative reason (near universal absence of homosexual marriage) to assert that marriage has been traditionally ordered to procreation.
quote:No, we're not in the same situation. We now have reliable birth control. Those of us who choose to have children do need stable structures in which to do that, and there is every reason to change "marriage" to meet the needs of those people, some of whom are gay. "Marriage" should also meet the needs of people who choose to be coupled but not raise children. The structure should serve people, not be a Procrustean bed.
However, as a society at least we are still in pretty much the same situation concerning human procreation as our ancestors were thousands of years ago. We need it to keep our societies going, and given the volatility of sexual desires vs. the duration of human upbringing, we need stable social structures to contain it. This is what people have always called "marriage". I don't see a particular reason why we should stop doing that.
quote:Says you, in a bald assertion. There's a case called Loving v Virginia precisely because a different bunch of jerkish Christians said the exact opposite. I'm not sure which bunch of jerkish Christians to believe.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Race is not essential to marriage
quote:In many cultures, it is. There are rather strict rules about who you can marry, usually they have to be some kind of relative in a specified degree. One thing that this guarantees is that your possessions will stay within the tribe. Lévi-Strauss already described this, and it hasn't really been contested.
IngoB: Race is not essential to marriage, at least if you mean by that what is usually called "race" in people.
quote:This isn't what I asked for. I'm asking for a rule that makes the step from the natural to the moral.
IngoB: You probably believe that lungs are for breathing (or more sophisticatedly, for getting oxygen into your body and removing carbon dioxide from it).
quote:I don't accept this rule. I don't believe that this is necessarily immoral or abusive. Prove to me that it is.
IngoB: Rule: Disrupting or distorting a bodily process, in order to gain the pleasure that motivates initiation of that process without ending in its completion, is immoral, or to be more precise, abusive.
quote:I didn't ask how anthropologists define it. What anthropologists are trying to do is to capture the whole variety of things in different culture that are considered 'marriage' into one definition. As the same Wikipedia article will tell you, this is rather contested among them, and some will say that capturing all these things into a definition is impossible.
IngoB: I'm not sure how one can provide evidence for a definition in a non-circular way... If it helps, the first reference in the Wikipedia article apparently defines:
quote:I'm relieved that the animal will make sure that whatever it wants to put into my orifice will fit.
lilBuddha: LeRoc,
The path to liking dicks does not go off a cliff, but slides down a slippery slope. Today, you accept gay marriage but still like women. Tomorrow, you admire the physique of the man in the gym shower and the next day you are in an orgy with him, your dog and any animal which will permit you to fill its orifice or fit into yours.
quote:NO! WRONG! LUNGS are for BREATHING!
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:This isn't what I asked for. I'm asking for a rule that makes the step from the natural to the moral.
IngoB: You probably believe that lungs are for breathing (or more sophisticatedly, for getting oxygen into your body and removing carbon dioxide from it).
quote:Indeed. I think analogy is a valid method of arguing, in principle.
Originally posted by RuthW:
He does that all the time. He thinks he's actually proving his points.
quote:Of course human societies can move away from traditional marriage. The question is merely whether they should. The marital tradition I'm defending historically co-existed with male dominance, that's true. But it does not "assume" male dominance in any way, shape or form.
Originally posted by RuthW:
The thing is, given that to varying degrees human societies are in the process of moving away from male domination of women, human societies can also move away from their marital traditions as well. It's not a side-tracking of the discussion at all. The marital traditions you are defending assumed male dominance.
quote:Children do not drop out of the sky, almost all of them are still crafted just the way they always have been. The few that aren't these days arrive by technological aping of the natural process. Less has changed there than you pretend.
Originally posted by RuthW:
We now have reliable birth control. Those of us who choose to have children do need stable structures in which to do that, and there is every reason to change "marriage" to meet the needs of those people, some of whom are gay.
quote:I do not mind "structures". May all get what they deserve to have, and by the most efficient means. I do however mind calling a "marriage" that which isn't one, and I consider rotten the modern tendency to call egalitarian confusion justice.
Originally posted by RuthW:
"Marriage" should also meet the needs of people who choose to be coupled but not raise children. The structure should serve people, not be a Procrustean bed.
quote:Two comments come to mind:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:NO! WRONG! LUNGS are for BREATHING!
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:This isn't what I asked for. I'm asking for a rule that makes the step from the natural to the moral.
IngoB: You probably believe that lungs are for breathing (or more sophisticatedly, for getting oxygen into your body and removing carbon dioxide from it).
By extrapolation, we should expect IngoB to stop speaking now, so as to not violate Natural Law™.
quote:If only you would limit yourself to only producing ten pages.
Originally posted by IngoB:
[And I don't need a discussion of the role of women to explode into my face in Hell. You know as well as I do that I wouldn't get out of that under ten pages of repetitive whine and ferocious drivel.
quote:Wow. This is like saying "I want the thrill of lighting fires next to flammable liquids without the risk of adverse consequences".
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:If only you would limit yourself to only producing ten pages.
Originally posted by IngoB:
And I don't need a discussion of the role of women to explode into my face in Hell. You know as well as I do that I wouldn't get out of that under ten pages of repetitive whine and ferocious drivel.
quote:But orfeo, you don't understand. A long long time ago a bunch of guys started a tradition that said marriage is supposed to be only between a man and a woman for purposes of procreation. Because it is so old (or something) it has to be right. It doesn't matter that it denies the basic humanity of all kinds of people. It doesn't matter that it reduces marriage into the task of fucking to create offspring - after which it is probably best to go off yourself as being no longer useful.
Originally posted by orfeo:
(Re: Ingo) And thus, you're backed into the only logical corner - that the crucial elements of a marriage are the elements that allow procreation. Whereupon everyone of course comments that you've reduced marriage into something rather mechanical and soulless.
These are the inevitable results of your chosen position. Stop trying to run away from them.
quote:I suppose that once the elements of female+male sexuality become optional in marriage then marriage itself because a highly fluid thing. There's no limit to who or what it might involve, other than what the culture at any particular time might decide. The trouble is that Christianity seems, on the face of it, not to be of much help in charting the waters of all this potential diversity.
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's obvious you're worried about saying something that stereotypes women, which is going to cause a reaction from female Shipmates who don't fit your stereotype. Tough shit, mate. It's actually a fundamental part of your argument, as I've pointed out in another conversation in Dead Horses that you were mercifully absent from. An argument that only heterosexual marriage will do necessarily involves claims that men and women bring something different to marriage, and to go beyond mere assertion that necessarily involves identifying what the differences are.
It's not our fault that this tends to lead to gross stereotyping of all females or all males. That gross stereotyping is absolutely crucial to your argument. Because if you admit for even a moment that actually, a necessary quality of a marriage is usually brought by a man but could also be brought by a woman, that piece of your argument explodes in your face.
And so you cling on to the only qualities that you can confidently declare are "male-only" and "female-only" without causing offence through stereotyping: a penis, a vagina, sperm, eggs and a womb.
And thus, you're backed into the only logical corner - that the crucial elements of a marriage are the elements that allow procreation. Whereupon everyone of course comments that you've reduced marriage into something rather mechanical and soulless.
quote:This statement is undoubtedly old... I'll just leave the question of whether this statement is true or false, and why, to burn through everybody's brain.
Custom without truth is the antiquity of error.
quote:I think I might have seen the article you're referring to, or one that is similar.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:I suppose that once the elements of female+male sexuality become optional in marriage then marriage itself because a highly fluid thing. There's no limit to who or what it might involve, other than what the culture at any particular time might decide. The trouble is that Christianity seems, on the face of it, not to be of much help in charting the waters of all this potential diversity.
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's obvious you're worried about saying something that stereotypes women, which is going to cause a reaction from female Shipmates who don't fit your stereotype. Tough shit, mate. It's actually a fundamental part of your argument, as I've pointed out in another conversation in Dead Horses that you were mercifully absent from. An argument that only heterosexual marriage will do necessarily involves claims that men and women bring something different to marriage, and to go beyond mere assertion that necessarily involves identifying what the differences are.
It's not our fault that this tends to lead to gross stereotyping of all females or all males. That gross stereotyping is absolutely crucial to your argument. Because if you admit for even a moment that actually, a necessary quality of a marriage is usually brought by a man but could also be brought by a woman, that piece of your argument explodes in your face.
And so you cling on to the only qualities that you can confidently declare are "male-only" and "female-only" without causing offence through stereotyping: a penis, a vagina, sperm, eggs and a womb.
And thus, you're backed into the only logical corner - that the crucial elements of a marriage are the elements that allow procreation. Whereupon everyone of course comments that you've reduced marriage into something rather mechanical and soulless.
Catholics and other Christians are only able to get on board if they've absorbed contemporary secular notions of marriage as a sort of blank canvas, legally defined but celebrated almost exclusively as an optional expression of romantic love. Not all Christians are likely to be able to make this step. Despite the protestations of these Christians this shouldn't matter very much to anyone else, though, since the secular view is obviously in the ascendancy.
Moreover, I have an article here which suggests that SSM could serve to transform (straight) marriage, undermining patriarchy and hence oppressive traditional gender roles. This line of thinking seems to be mirrored by your comments, which imply that straight marriage as a concept based on difference is ridiculous and is being and must continually be challenged, and SSM is one aspect of that transformation. But many commentators on the Ship insistently proclaim that SSM will have no bearing on straight marriage whatsoever. I'm not sure if it's really possible to reconcile these two apparently liberal ideas.
quote:The thing is, when US state governments and various others have explained what marriage is designed to do, they've largely focused on the process of child raising, not on the sexual act. The argument has been that marriage is designed to ensure that men stick around and help raise their children.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
IngoB uses the term 'ordered to' as a version of 'designed', so marriage is ordered to procreative sex, hey presto, gay marriage is immoral.
quote:You reside in a country whose population is to a large extent Mestizo and Mulatto, i.e., of mixed race. The world does not consist of the U. S. of A. and Western culture does not fly the Confederate flag. The Portuguese in Cape Verde, say, had different ideas about marrying of white (well, brown) and black.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
And of course in Western culture, race was an essential element in the definition of marriage for a long time. Until very recently in fact. No kind of commitment between people of different races, even if they wished to have children, even if they already had children and were committed to raising them, would be considered marriage. Race was a more important factor than the begetting and rearing of children in defining marriage here.
quote:Just like other animals, we are ordered to certain goods, and our flourishing requires acting towards those good. Unlike animals, we have free-willed and conscious choice over some of these actions. To then choose to act in accordance with our goods is what we call "moral", and conversely to act against them "immoral". The basic rule here is that all things strive towards their good, and where they do not that is a defect of some form in those things; but some things can choose whether they will strive towards their good, and where they do not do that that is then a free-willed defect, a bad choice, something immoral.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
This isn't what I asked for. I'm asking for a rule that makes the step from the natural to the moral.
quote:One cannot prove principles, one proves by them. In the end axiom are agreed upon by appeal to shared thinking, not by "proof".
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't accept this rule. I don't believe that this is necessarily immoral or abusive. Prove to me that it is.
quote:Few people chew gum to the point where this seriously impacts their digestive processes. If people start chewing gum as replacement of eating, then chewing gum can become a moral issue of consequence.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
And I do find chewing gum, which has been mentioned before, a rather good counterexample.
quote:How does one "show" that something is immoral? How do you "show" that slavery is bad, if I am willing to doubt any moral principle that you may wish to employ? In the end these are social games. You assume that you can drive me against some principles that I am not willing to publicly disavow. The whole strategy of bringing in the "equality of women" is based on that. However, even if that is successful, it does not in fact "prove" such a principle. It just proves that I'm not willing to speak up against it (in this social context at least). It's a version of "might makes right".
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If you claim that you can make the jump from the natural to the moral, you'll need to show that disrupting or distorting bodily processes for pleasure is immoral, not contest a counterexample.
quote:Now that cultural anthropology seems to say something in my favour, it suddenly becomes no good any longer. Except where you see some disagreement in the field that might speak in your favour, there it could be good after all. Oh, and the sum total of your knowledge about it all is a Wikipedia article. An article that you apparently started reading only after I linked to it... How about we just agree that you have been talking out of your ass, and leave it at that obvious conclusion?
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I didn't ask how anthropologists define it.
quote:Do you expect the state to support and incentivise your friendships? How about your collegial relationships? No? Why not? Or rather, why do expect the state to support and incentivise your intimate relationships specifically? Why should the state care whom you fuck? What has that to do with the state? And if you think that somehow the state has to care about relationships that you deem terribly important (why?), then how come you think that it is intimate relationships which deserve such attention? Is it not possible that you have a best friend, who is your true soulmate in life and the most important relationship you have? Is it not possible that you care for those whom you fuck only to the extent of your sexual pleasure?
Originally posted by RooK:
Let's make marriage more about human supporting humans in interconnecting symbiotic ways, and less about contributing to the pestilence of resource-consuming monkeys.
quote:Yes, exactly.
Originally posted by Macrina:
My life would be one of barren and lonely isolation, scared to go near another human being with anything like serious emotional depth due to some terrifying fear that I would be encouraging mortal sin. It's a terrible, terrible thing that they blithely suggest to people as 'a cross to bear'. It saps joy and intimacy out of people's lives with nothing to replace it but fear and shame.
quote:If you are happy to live with a female partner like "sister and sister", then there's no RC doctrine, discipline or canon law that stands against that. Of course, some RCs may still object to the outer appearances, but they would be in the wrong. However, it is important that it really would be like living with your sister. You can love your sister with all your heart, obviously, but precisely not in an erotic way. You cannot play games here like "we are only French kissing".
Originally posted by Macrina:
I could quite happily have lived my entire life not having sex. Other people feel differently and I get that. So I could live with the imposed celibacy. My problem is I fall in love with people of my gender and seek out and desire close loving emotional relationships with them. Unfortunately it seems that's not good enough for the RC because my doing that, even in a completely sexless way would be a cause of scandal to others (who couldn't keep their noses out or mouths shut).
quote:How does that follow from anything? My entire purpose as a man is not to knock up some gal and have babies. Regulations of sexuality do not mean that their sex is all a person is.
Originally posted by Macrina:
So really my entire purpose as a woman is to be knocked up by a guy and have babies.
quote:If your loving has an "erotic" component, then how is that unfair? If it doesn't, then why is there a need to bring it up?
Originally posted by Macrina:
I can't join a monastery either because I have 'deep seated homosexual tendencies' (ohh err) so I might scare the Sisters.
quote:I would assume that you are capable of "serious emotional depth" that is non-erotic. If so, then I don't see why you have to live your life in "lonely isolation". It is true that the RCC considers your erotic orientation to be disordered, and that she considers not living it out as a cross you should bear. That is certainly painful, but it shouldn't dominate your entire life. Erotic matters shouldn't dominate anybody's life.
Originally posted by Macrina:
My life would be one of barren and lonely isolation, scared to go near another human being with anything like serious emotional depth due to some terrifying fear that I would be encouraging mortal sin. It's a terrible, terrible thing that they blithely suggest to people as 'a cross to bear'. It saps joy and intimacy out of people's lives with nothing to replace it but fear and shame.
quote:Interesting that you equated Christianity with the RCC there... Happiness is fickle, and in this world, we can be happy about good things and bad.
Originally posted by Macrina:
Upon realising that I decided that the RCC and Christianity as a whole was not for me. I've been quite happy since then.
quote:Brilliant as you are, you do of course realize that nothing in the paragraph you quoted has anything specifically to do with whether or not the people in question are male, female, or otherwise, no? Or are you suggesting that if the family of gay/lesbian couple includes children that the children are not, in actuality, theirs? I certainly hope that's not the case.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I'm not sure how one can provide evidence for a definition in a non-circular way... If it helps, the first reference in the Wikipedia article apparently defines:
quote:Emphasis added by me to underline the compatibility with what I have previously said.
Haviland, William A.; Prins, Harald E. L.; McBride, Bunny; Walrath, Dana (2011). Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge (13th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-495-81178-7. "A non ethnocentric definition of marriage is a culturally sanctioned union between two or more people that establishes certain rights and obligations between the people, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws."
quote:If it said something in your favor, you might have a point. As (see above) it says nothing of the sort, you're talking pure bollocks.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Now that cultural anthropology seems to say something in my favour, it suddenly becomes no good any longer.
quote:Although it could be argued that for some men - particularly working class men - not being required to 'provide' (and the lack of employers who need their labour) has basically made them redundant as marriage partners. They can't offer scintillating conversation, and are unlikely to do a lot of help with the housework. More importantly, the job of 'providing' has been taken over by the state with regards to the practical needs of unemployed or low waged mothers and their children.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Good points further up about ssm representing the culmination of all kinds of changes to marriage.
The list of changes is considerable - civil marriage became an option, women were given legal status as persons, contraception freed women from brood-mare status, divorce was legalized, sex before marriage was stigmatized less.
So secular marriage has been moving towards a civil contract between two people. I suppose the 'natural is moral' people decry the whole thing - back to the old days, when women were in the kitchen and the bedroom, and men were square-jawed providers, and you could be really moral and miserable all at the same time!
quote:Well, people talk about a crisis of masculinity, although a colleague of mine used to say that masculinity is itself a crisis, as it's a goal not an innate talent. Not sure about that, as it's very complicated.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:Although it could be argued that for some men - particularly working class men - not being required to 'provide' (and the lack of employers who need their labour) has basically made them redundant as marriage partners. They can't offer scintillating conversation, and are unlikely to do a lot of help with the housework. More importantly, the job of 'providing' has been taken over by the state with regards to the practical needs of unemployed or low waged mothers and their children.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Good points further up about ssm representing the culmination of all kinds of changes to marriage.
The list of changes is considerable - civil marriage became an option, women were given legal status as persons, contraception freed women from brood-mare status, divorce was legalized, sex before marriage was stigmatized less.
So secular marriage has been moving towards a civil contract between two people. I suppose the 'natural is moral' people decry the whole thing - back to the old days, when women were in the kitchen and the bedroom, and men were square-jawed providers, and you could be really moral and miserable all at the same time!
So what's left for these men to do? Offer recreational sex and make their girlfriends pregnant on request? This may be more fun than 'providing', but it surely also makes many of them surplus to requirements, to put it bluntly.
quote:Aw, poor babies. Now they know what it was like for women throughout most of history - breeding stock.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... So what's left for these men to do? Offer recreational sex and make their girlfriends pregnant on request? This may be more fun than 'providing', but it surely also makes many of them surplus to requirements, to put it bluntly.
quote:And then I thought, hmm, God doesn't seem all that fussy about this whole "correct function" business.
A striking feature of molluscs is the use of the same organ for multiple functions. For example, the heart and nephridia ("kidneys") are important parts of the reproductive system, as well as the circulatory and excretory systems; in bivalves, the gills both "breathe" and produce a water current in the mantle cavity, which is important for excretion and reproduction. In reproduction, molluscs may change gender to accommodate the other breeding partner.
quote:For a homosexual couple, children cannot be "theirs" alone, in a biological sense. If they have sole parental responsibility for a child, then typically this requires law beyond that of marriage proper, e.g., adoption laws. It is true that the quoted definition is broad enough to include a Western gay couple that has married and adopted a child. It is also broad enough to call joining a kibbutz a "marriage", which in my opinion is clearly too broad.
Originally posted by jbohn:
Brilliant as you are, you do of course realize that nothing in the paragraph you quoted has anything specifically to do with whether or not the people in question are male, female, or otherwise, no? Or are you suggesting that if the family of gay/lesbian couple includes children that the children are not, in actuality, theirs? I certainly hope that's not the case.
quote:If gay and lesbian couples just wanted a fun cultural thing, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We're having this discussion because they want the legal protections and social status afforded by marriage, for themselves and in many cases for their children.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The whole discussion here proceeds as if marriage is this fun cultural thing for romantic couples to do, which has no particular purpose other than making them even happier and making everybody happier for them. Well, maybe that's where we are getting to in our societies, but to believe that this is the origin of marriage, or what we can see in history in most cultures, is just plain bonkers.
quote:In one small class, in one small college of divinity, there probably is. But the members will all be men. Betcha.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm guessing Anthropolgy is not really IngoB's strong point. I don't suppose there is any tribe anywhere that resembles his characterisation.
quote:And that is important, in any sense that should have anything to do with legal reasoning, why again?
Originally posted by IngoB:
For a homosexual couple, children cannot be "theirs" alone, in a biological sense.
quote:Indeed - and the same would apply if a Catholic widow with children were to remarry. Your point?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If they have sole parental responsibility for a child, then typically this requires law beyond that of marriage proper, e.g., adoption laws.
quote:I'm glad we can agree on this.
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is true that the quoted definition is broad enough to include a Western gay couple that has married and adopted a child.
quote:If you quote sources to "support" your cause that don't actually do so, that certainly can't be the fault (or problem) of your opposition.
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is also broad enough to call joining a kibbutz a "marriage", which in my opinion is clearly too broad.
quote:So, as per usual, your response boils down to "because marriage = children". Which, though I understand this is the RCC position on marriage, is bullshit.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Anyway, if a young man M'tapa and a young woman Ziblis of the Whatchamacallit tribe marry, then the social laws governing their children are not some kind of arbitrary decoration. They are in place because people expect M'tapa and Ziblis to have sex, and in the normal run of things, quite a few children to arise from that. There are rules about children in marriage because people expect children to result from marriage, not because it might accidentally be the case that married people have children. In fact, the very reason why M'tapa and Ziblis are getting married, in the eyes of their tribe, has to do with the fact that young as they are they can be expected to have sex a lot anyway. And if the tribe doesn't regulate that somehow it will end up with lots of new mouths to feed and bums to clean, and no clear idea who is responsible for putting in all the extra work for that. And yes, maybe M'tapa and Ziblis are actually marrying only because their elders in their respective families decided that this was a good way of forging an alliance between them. But that sort of "alliance power" of marriage actually relies on reproductive biology as well. It is biology that dictates that you should have children with someone well apart from the family you were born into. The diplomacy here follows the practice of good genetics as expressed in natural instincts (people do not seek their sexual partners among the close of kin, generally). And the arrival of offspring is hardly something irrelevant to such kind of "marriage diplomacy". Indeed, by virtue of inheritance rules it can become the very point of a marriage that offspring will have inheritance claims to both sides involved...
quote:Slavery, marital rape, racial segregation, child labor, and anti-Jewish pogroms are also features of "history in most cultures". Unless you're advocating here that those things should similarly remain unchanged, this weak appeal to history is useless.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The whole discussion here proceeds as if marriage is this fun cultural thing for romantic couples to do, which has no particular purpose other than making them even happier and making everybody happier for them. Well, maybe that's where we are getting to in our societies, but to believe that this is the origin of marriage, or what we can see in history in most cultures, is just plain bonkers.
quote:First, this is bullshit as others have pointed out. Second, your whole argument proceeds as if the only possible way that people can feel a connection to each other is by (1) sharing a lot of genes, or (2) creating a person that shares lots of genes with each of them. One wonders how you managed to stay on good terms with Mrs Ingo in the period before she showed physical signs that she was going to give you a biological heir.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The whole discussion here proceeds as if marriage is this fun cultural thing for romantic couples to do, which has no particular purpose other than making them even happier and making everybody happier for them.
quote:I look forward to you elucidating how what I said is at odds with actual anthropology. You could join Le Roc's study club, he's also cramming some serious Wikipedia reading in order to find his next killer argument...
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm guessing Anthropolgy is not really IngoB's strong point. I don't suppose there is any tribe anywhere that resembles his characterisation.
quote:That's confusing the attraction of protection and status with what is getting socially elevated in the first place. I would for example quite like to receive unemployment benefits; but since I am not unemployed, there's no reason for the state to give me any, no matter how much I would love some extra cash.
Originally posted by RuthW:
If gay and lesbian couples just wanted a fun cultural thing, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We're having this discussion because they want the legal protections and social status afforded by marriage, for themselves and in many cases for their children.
quote:So what's wrong with fixing the benefit system? What is wrong with calling homosexual relationships "unions", and heterosexual ones "marriages", if the state gives equal benefits to both? Indeed, where is the discussion why the state should give any benefits to heterosexual marriages? That discussion would tell us which benefits should be extended to homosexual unions, and which ones shouldn't. Why the simple assumption that all of them should? Based on what?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
As far as I can see, much of the support for ssm talks about the various legal and civil benefits which accrue, both for the partners and the children involved.
quote:Because legal reasoning is supposed to be about the real world, and blood relations matter to people?
Originally posted by jbohn:
And that is important, in any sense that should have anything to do with legal reasoning, why again?
quote:This is not true. If her new partner wanted to become the father, rather than the stepfather, of her previous children, then adoption laws would be required. However, the woman needed no legal provisions apart from marriage to have her own children in the previous marriage, nor does she need any to have her own children in the current marriage. Adoption law is needed precisely for what is not the result of her marriages, namely making her children from her previous marriage the children of her current husband (rather than his stepchildren). Likewise, a gay couple requires law other than marriage law to have children with each other.
Originally posted by jbohn:
Indeed - and the same would apply if a Catholic widow with children were to remarry. Your point?
quote:Assertion is refuted by counter-assertion. So no, the RC position is correct.
Originally posted by jbohn:
So, as per usual, your response boils down to "because marriage = children". Which, though I understand this is the RCC position on marriage, is bullshit.
quote:But I'm not simply appealing to history. I'm writing pages of arguments concerning the reasons why history has been as it has been, why that is by and large good and right, and why the introduced change are largely mistaken and wrong. In this context I'm complaining about abandoning traditional values.
Originally posted by jbohn:
Slavery, marital rape, racial segregation, child labor, and anti-Jewish pogroms are also features of "history in most cultures". Unless you're advocating here that those things should similarly remain unchanged, this weak appeal to history is useless.
quote:And that is the one worthwhile thing to come out of this whole painful ordeal!
Originally posted by orfeo:
I tell you the truth: it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for IngoB to admit that he just makes shit up.
quote:What's wrong with being consigned to the back of the bus? It gets you to the same place. What is wrong with having separate restrooms, drinking fountains, and schools for people of a different skin tones? Everyone still gets to use the toilet, have a drink of water, and learn stuff from books and teachers.
So what's wrong with fixing the benefit system? What is wrong with calling homosexual relationships "unions", and heterosexual ones "marriages", if the state gives equal benefits to both?
quote:You're reacting to something that isn't really a part of my argument. I didn't claim universality of interracial marriage prohibitions, that doesn't play a role here.
IngoB: You reside in a country whose population is to a large extent Mestizo and Mulatto, i.e., of mixed race. The world does not consist of the U. S. of A. and Western culture does not fly the Confederate flag. The Portuguese in Cape Verde, say, had different ideas about marrying of white (well, brown) and black.
quote:I'm not asking you to. In fact, I'm counting on it that you'll find them immoral.
IngoB: Anyway, I do not have the duty to defend the marriage laws of colonial masters.
quote:This counterexample disproves your assertion that "Whenever X is considered an essential element of marriage, we can't call it marriage anymore after X has been removed from the definition." (I'm formulating it as a general rule for you, since you seem to have diffulties in this regard.)
IngoB: I quite happily admit that many Western societies had pretty stupid ideas about racial purity, and imposed them in many ways, in particular also on their marriage laws. So what?
quote:I do think that if you try to build a moral system based on what is 'good' for the body, you'll run into a multitide of problems rather quickly. But I'm leaving this to the ethical philosophers for now, because your argument fails on a much more fundamental level.
IngoB: All these are however instance of people using their various faculties in a manner contrary to their purpose. And in all these cases, beyond the variation in how you call such behaviour, you will I assume think "they should not do that". But that just is a moral evaluation.
quote:You formulated a general rule. It didn't say anything about seriousness of impact, or replacement. It seems to me that you need to reformulate your general rule.
IngoB: Few people chew gum to the point where this seriously impacts their digestive processes. If people start chewing gum as replacement of eating, then chewing gum can become a moral issue of consequence.
quote:Well, during your long years on the Ship you have claimed that you can do exactly that. In innumerous, tedious non-arguments, you have said that the RC prohibitions on various DH topics aren't just a bunch of people in funny clothes making stuff up, but that we can prove that these things are immoral by observing nature and applying logical reasoning to that.
IngoB: How does one "show" that something is immoral?
quote:You're right on one point. The question I asked you has to do with anthropology. Good one.
IngoB: Now that cultural anthropology seems to say something in my favour, it suddenly becomes no good any longer.
quote:I believe that orfeo has been sufficiently clear that his reading of your posts will be minimal, and mostly via what other people quote. Other People who, unlike myself, actually seem to read your whole posts.
Originally posted by IngoB:
orfeo, can you please decide whether you are back to reading my posts properly and responding to them directly? Because otherwise I will keep ignoring you...
quote:Indeed, the basic attack rhetorics is to paint the distinction as unjust along the patterns of racism, claiming for yourself the success of the civil rights movement. Problem is that there are clear and undeniable differences between a heterosexual couple and a homosexual couple, differences that are crucially relevant for what marriage has been traditionally considered to be about. So that would completely kill this rhetorical strategy, which relies on there being irrelevant distinctions maintained on superficial differences. The answer? First redefine marriage so that indeed there are now no relevant difference any longer between those couples, and only then employ the attack rhetoric based on the analogy to racism. So what must be defended ferociously to maintain this moral high ground? The redefinition, of course. Under no circumstances whatsoever must any sort of argument or evidence be allowed that marriage is fundamentally ordered to procreation. That's the lynchpin on which all of this turns. And so it goes...
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
What's wrong with being consigned to the back of the bus? It gets you to the same place. What is wrong with having separate restrooms, drinking fountains, and schools for people of a different skin tones? Everyone still gets to use the toilet, have a drink of water, and learn stuff from books and teachers.
quote:No, stop doing that you utter tit.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:I look forward to you elucidating how what I said is at odds with actual anthropology. You could join Le Roc's study club, he's also cramming some serious Wikipedia reading in order to find his next killer argument...
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm guessing Anthropolgy is not really IngoB's strong point. I don't suppose there is any tribe anywhere that resembles his characterisation.
quote:You made this shit up, didn't you.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Anyway, if a young man M'tapa and a young woman Ziblis of the Whatchamacallit tribe marry, then the social laws governing their children are not some kind of arbitrary decoration. They are in place because people expect M'tapa and Ziblis to have sex, and in the normal run of things, quite a few children to arise from that. There are rules about children in marriage because people expect children to result from marriage, not because it might accidentally be the case that married people have children. In fact, the very reason why M'tapa and Ziblis are getting married, in the eyes of their tribe, has to do with the fact that young as they are they can be expected to have sex a lot anyway. And if the tribe doesn't regulate that somehow it will end up with lots of new mouths to feed and bums to clean, and no clear idea who is responsible for putting in all the extra work for that. And yes, maybe M'tapa and Ziblis are actually marrying only because their elders in their respective families decided that this was a good way of forging an alliance between them. But that sort of "alliance power" of marriage actually relies on reproductive biology as well. It is biology that dictates that you should have children with someone well apart from the family you were born into. The diplomacy here follows the practice of good genetics as expressed in natural instincts (people do not seek their sexual partners among the close of kin, generally). And the arrival of offspring is hardly something irrelevant to such kind of "marriage diplomacy". Indeed, by virtue of inheritance rules it can become the very point of a marriage that offspring will have inheritance claims to both sides involved...
quote:Calling others dishonest when you erect a straw man and claim that is normative is utterly repulsive, you pathetic sack of shite.
Originally posted by IngoB:
All this is of course rather dishonest. At a minimum, there should be an admission that one can validly define marriage as it has been for millennia, and that from that perspective all these new policies are rather questionable. There should be compromise and accommodation, and some basic respect. But hey, it is so much more fun to call people "bigots", picture yourself as an enlightened hero of liberty, and just change the laws of the land as you see fit.
quote:Sure. Typed the first tribe name that came to mind into google, "Zulu" as it happens, and here you go: A Traditional Zulu Marriage.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Now, the onus is on you to show why this is actually normative behaviour in tribes other than the ones you've made up in your example. Nobody else has to prove anything - you made this shit up, now pull your thumb out of your arse and give us one actual, real tribe that it applies to. Go on.
quote:Yeah, I really have been lowering the tone of this discussion, haven't I?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Calling others dishonest when you erect a straw man and claim that is normative is utterly repulsive, you pathetic sack of shite.
quote:Learn?
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
They can't offer scintillating conversation, and are unlikely to do a lot of help with the housework.
...
So what's left for these men to do?
quote:"Zulu metsha was non-penetrative intercourse, common among young, unmarried couples throughout southern Africa."
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Zulus are an interesting example - non penetrative sex was so engrained in society throughout the centuries that they had a special word for it.
quote:Well, you have some chutzpah mouthing off like that, I must admit. Not many people can post a link to a minor passage in an obscure reference in Google bloody Books, and keep a straight face while scolding others for using Google search.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But hey, given that the only thing you know about the shit you are spouting is what you find at the top of google, I don't suppose there is much point in trying to talk to you about it at all.
quote:See how beautifully the system works? I can find out the key point that he was whining about my method.
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:I believe that orfeo has been sufficiently clear that his reading of your posts will be minimal, and mostly via what other people quote. Other People who, unlike myself, actually seem to read your whole posts.
Originally posted by IngoB:
orfeo, can you please decide whether you are back to reading my posts properly and responding to them directly? Because otherwise I will keep ignoring you...
Whether you yourself reads anyone else's posts is probably functionally irrelevant for everyone - including yourself.
quote:First you make up shit, to buttress an argument. As if that proves anything.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Well, you have some chutzpah mouthing off like that, I must admit. Not many people can post a link to a minor passage in an obscure reference in Google bloody Books, and keep a straight face while scolding others for using Google search.
But it just comes naturally to you, I guess.
quote:Ah but Joseph and the BVM had already fulfilled their married function by having children.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Guess "ignoring" me means there won't be any acknowledgment that Jesus instituted a blended non-biological family. No different from the situation if I wasn't being ignored. Yeah, I'm still finding the time savings are an appealing side-effect of a strategy that was basically about preserving my sanity.
quote:But unfortunately, surplus men tend to be problematic for society (which includes women!) to deal with. That's always been the case.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:Aw, poor babies. Now they know what it was like for women throughout most of history - breeding stock.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... So what's left for these men to do? Offer recreational sex and make their girlfriends pregnant on request? This may be more fun than 'providing', but it surely also makes many of them surplus to requirements, to put it bluntly.
These guys were once automatically on the top of the heap simply by virtue of being male, not because they had any particularly valuable skills or qualities. In the modern world, they're mimbos - guys who have a job because they impressed the other guys with their guy-ness but are fucking useless and incompetent. Now they're losing what little privilege they had to women and men who are capable of earning their place in society. For them, it's the end of centuries of affirmative action, and it's bloody well about time.
quote:This depends on the culture, I think. In some countries, the benefits of marriage don't seem to be all that enticing. In the UK nearly half of all babies are born out of wedlock, and a majority is predicted in the next few years. Until recently this meant that unmarried fathers had practically no rights over their children, although this didn't seem to be a big problem for many of them. Inheritance is a different matter. As for divorce, despite the view that patriarchy has nearly been conquered divorcing women are still far more likely to seek alimony than men are, which suggests that men still own and control more money. I don't know if same-sex divorces will make this sort of division less likely.
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:If gay and lesbian couples just wanted a fun cultural thing, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We're having this discussion because they want the legal protections and social status afforded by marriage, for themselves and in many cases for their children.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The whole discussion here proceeds as if marriage is this fun cultural thing for romantic couples to do, which has no particular purpose other than making them even happier and making everybody happier for them. Well, maybe that's where we are getting to in our societies, but to believe that this is the origin of marriage, or what we can see in history in most cultures, is just plain bonkers.
quote:Wonder who Jesus sent the card to on Father's Day?
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:See how beautifully the system works? I can find out the key point that he was whining about my method.
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:I believe that orfeo has been sufficiently clear that his reading of your posts will be minimal, and mostly via what other people quote. Other People who, unlike myself, actually seem to read your whole posts.
Originally posted by IngoB:
orfeo, can you please decide whether you are back to reading my posts properly and responding to them directly? Because otherwise I will keep ignoring you...
Whether you yourself reads anyone else's posts is probably functionally irrelevant for everyone - including yourself.
Guess "ignoring" me means there won't be any acknowledgment that Jesus instituted a blended non-biological family. No different from the situation if I wasn't being ignored. Yeah, I'm still finding the time savings are an appealing side-effect of a strategy that was basically about preserving my sanity.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:First, I made an argument involving an imagined tribe. Second, when challenged by you to find a real tribe corresponding to this, the very first thing I googled already worked (no surprise there). Third, you then hypocritically accused me of "just googling" while you "just googled" for some complication of the picture. Ironically, the complication you managed to find is actually a perfect illustration of my points, in and by itself.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
First you make up shit, to buttress an argument. As if that proves anything. Second, when challenged, you find some shitty article on google about something you clearly don't know anything about, as if that proves anything. Third, when shown that the example you are choosing is far more complicated than it first appears, you accuse me of chutzpah for bothering to find an anthropological source on the subject.
quote:I never claimed to be any kind of expert in anthropology, and I didn't bring it into play initially either. Turns out though that the counter-arguments purportedly based on anthropology are about at the level of "I've looked at the pretty pictures in National Geographic once", and trashed with ease even by me.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
My earlier statement is absolutely proven: you don't know anything about Anthropology.
quote:First, if rather incongruently you would want to analyse the marriage of Mary and Joseph by RC marriage law, then they would be considered validly and sacramentally married ("ratum tantum") but without consummation ("ratum et consummatum"). Thus the pope would be able for "just cause" to dissolve this marriage. Now, obviously the pope wasn't around yet, but we can go one better here: Jesus was. So Joseph and Mary were in a valid and sacramental marriage that the Son of God could have dissolved for a just cause. One would assume that there was no just cause, and there is no indication that Jesus did dissolve this marriage, of course.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But then, I wonder how that works with the perpectual virginity of Mary. I guess Mary wasn't really married after all if she wasn't having intercourse with Joseph.
quote:Right, so you admit that this whole argument is totally made up. And that you don't know anything about the content of the shite you post.
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, I made an argument involving an imagined tribe. Second, when challenged by you to find a real tribe corresponding to this, the very first thing I googled already worked (no surprise there). Third, you then hypocritically accused me of "just googling" while you "just googled" for some complication of the picture. Ironically, the complication you managed to find is actually a perfect illustration of my points, in and by itself.
quote:With an argument like yours, who needs actual fucking scholarship?
With enemies like you, who needs friends?
quote:Simply a lie. You made some stupid shit argument about an imaginary tribe as if this proved anything - ipso facto you were making a claim about anthropolgy. Which, incidentally, is utter bollocks.
I never claimed to be any kind of expert in anthropology, and I didn't bring it into play initially either.
quote:You wouldn't know, given that you know jack-shit about anthropology. You haven't even begun to engage with it, because it happens to challenge all the shit that is going on inside your head.
Turns out though that the counter-arguments purportedly based on anthropology are about at the level of "I've looked at the pretty pictures in National Geographic once", and trashed with ease even by me.
quote:Let's all just pause to think about this. Oh yes, that's complete utter bollocks and totally destroys your whole argument.
First, if rather incongruently you would want to analyse the marriage of Mary and Joseph by RC marriage law, then they would be considered validly and sacramentally married ("ratum tantum") but without consummation ("ratum et consummatum"). Thus the pope would be able for "just cause" to dissolve this marriage.
quote:I see, so your assertion is that Jesus validated his parent's marriage rather than any other kind of relationship that might or might not have been around at the time.
Now, obviously the pope wasn't around yet, but we can go one better here: Jesus was.
quote:We know nothing about how Jesus saw the marriage of Mary and Joseph.
So Joseph and Mary were in a valid and sacramental marriage that the Son of God could have dissolved for a just cause. One would assume that there was no just cause, and there is no indication that Jesus did dissolve this marriage, of course.
quote:Utterly amazingly batshit stupid.
Second, where the supernatural and miraculous is known to have occurred is probably not the best place to look for natural law. One should also not study the law of gravity and water surface tension by observing Jesus walking on water. Bad idea. Third, personally speaking, I agree with other RC thinkers like Brian Davies that God is not a moral agent and is not required to conform to human morals in His actions. That's not official RC doctrine though, just a possible theological opinion. Anyway, if one holds that opinion, then one does not have to fit Mary's marriage into the "natural" marriage law anyhow.
quote:He's equating the natural laws of physics with the "natural" laws of morality. Again. Even when we told him not to.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Utterly amazingly batshit stupid.
quote:As just discussed, the marriage of Mary and Joseph would be both valid and sacramental (but dissolvable) by RC canon law. There simply is no big issue with that marriage.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Fascinating idea, though, that "supernatural" can not just mean God bending the laws of physics but that God can also bend the laws of morality. The implications are fascinating, and probably not at all what Ingo intended of course - he just wanted to wriggle away from the fact that Jesus didn't go around morally condemning his nearest and dearest for not having an Approved Catholic Marriage.
quote:Well fascinating and more than a little incongruous too.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Fascinating idea, though, that "supernatural" can not just mean God bending the laws of physics but that God can also bend the laws of morality. The implications are fascinating, and probably not at all what Ingo intended of course - he just wanted to wriggle away from the fact that Jesus didn't go around morally condemning his nearest and dearest for not having an Approved Catholic Marriage.
quote:They've given their minds to something. Then used that as an excuse for firmly closing them. Given some of the things they then come out with, I'm not entirely convinced the thing they've given their minds too is Jesus.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The world is full of stupid people.
In quite a lot of cases it's because they've given their minds to Jesus.
quote:Has it ever been proven that we all, men and women, secretly crave a bit of anal action?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Lots of chat about sodomy and one's moral revulsion thereunto.
Envy, I suppose.
quote:It depends on which end of the deal you're talking about.
rolyn: Has it ever been proven that we all, men and women, secretly crave a bit of anal action?
quote:Without running water, easily accessible soap, or condoms, there is a blindingly obvious disadvantage to anal sex of any kind.
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:Has it ever been proven that we all, men and women, secretly crave a bit of anal action?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Lots of chat about sodomy and one's moral revulsion thereunto.
Envy, I suppose.
If this is indeed so, it would be interesting to know when and why early human cultures deemed it to be unacceptable.
quote:Yes, I was reflecting the rhetoric rather than the reality. I suspect they were trying to give their hearts, and missed.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:They've given their minds to something. Then used that as an excuse for firmly closing them. Given some of the things they then come out with, I'm not entirely convinced the thing they've given their minds too is Jesus.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The world is full of stupid people.
In quite a lot of cases it's because they've given their minds to Jesus.
quote:I'm sure you can point to a post on this thread where I have claimed that that has been the global norm throughout history? No, you cannot? Oh.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
As for the chunks of IngoB that float up, they continue to entertain. Note the claim that normative definition of marriage is one man and one woman for thousands of years. Except that two thousand years of that came after 5 or 10 thousand years of polygamy. IngoB sure has to trim a lot of outliers to get his evidence.
quote:This does not follow as neatly as you would think, since being ordered to procreation does not require success at procreation, and since leaving one's partner violates secondary purposes attached to the primary one, namely those of unity with the partner. It would be an interesting discussion whether natural law allows this. However, as far as Christians are concerned, they have of course been commanded super-naturally by their Lord to keep their union until death. This is grace shaping nature, and for a Christian not something they can licitly ignore.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Meanwhile, if the moral purpose is to propagate, then if one person of a marriage is sterile, it must be the moral thing to do to divorce and go on to a real marriage. It's like celibacy, a selfish refusal to procreate.
quote:... demonstrates that I long ago realised I don't have the stamina, skill or time to pursue a defence of this sort of stuff on the Ship myself, where the opposition is like Hydra's heads.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Well, that you do not choose to attempt to bolster IngoB's argument, but instead attack the rudest opponent...
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I've wondered if you were IngoB's sock puppet.
Me, IngoB's sock-puppet? Ooh, that makes me so cross. IngoB is my sock-puppet, dammit. I was here a couple of years before he appeared, thank you very much. Sorry I wasted all that effort now...
quote:Yes. How dare large numbers of Shipmates all come to a similar view that Ingo is talking out of his arse.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
where the opposition is like Hydra's heads.
quote:A quick webscan for info suggests that the last formal rules in Brazil against interracial marriage were removed in 1888 with abolition. After this, there even was an intentional policy of "whitening" the population, where the elites encouraged lower class whites to marry non-whites (similar strategies were employed to wash out the Aborigines in Australia, IIRC). Obviously that's racist, too, but pushing the other way. Before 1888, there were rules against interracial sexual relationships, but they apparently weren't obeyed much. Certainly there was "master - slave" type of coerced sex, but it looks like this was not all that was going on, and it also looks like there was a lot of regional variation since exploration and settlement was proceeding quite differently in different parts of the country. It would take me more than a few minutes of reading stuff on the web to get that sorted out clearly though...
Originally posted by LeRoc:
FWIW, I do believe that what you're saying is wrong. The origin of why the Brazilian population is so mixed (much more than that of for example the US), is that the Portuguese who came to this country were mostly men. They forced indigenous and later black women to have relations with them. Needless to say, these weren't considered marriage.
quote:I reject this general rule, and I have difficulties with it because it does not represent my claims. I have stated throughout that marriage has one primary element, namely its ordering to procreation. That's just what this particular social institution has been essentially about, basically always and everywhere. Or to be more precise, we have so far treated social institutions under the general label of "marriage" precisely when they established the kind of sexual relationship between people that would lead to offspring (and driven by practical necessity, people always have some kind of social institution concerning that). For example, the relationship between older men and younger boys in ancient Greece was definitely a proper social institution that established formal relationships containing a significant sexual component. But neither the ancient Greeks themselves, nor we now, treat this as a marriage of some kind.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
This counterexample disproves your assertion that "Whenever X is considered an essential element of marriage, we can't call it marriage anymore after X has been removed from the definition." (I'm formulating it as a general rule for you, since you seem to have diffulties in this regard.)
quote:I already did formulate a general rule above. And I'm glad to hear that you now accept the foundation of natural moral law reasoning, if reluctantly and for the wrong reasons.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I still think that it's problematic to draw moral conclusions from this (just try to formulate that as a general rule), but you know what? Have a free one on me, just for today.
quote:Why, exactly? Oh, and I already did, above.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Prove to me that masturbation is immoral.
quote:It is one thing to say that something is "morally wrong", it is another thing to say how badly "morally wrong" something is. I don't need to squeeze the entire moral apparatus and extensive consideration of cases into one single rule.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You formulated a general rule. It didn't say anything about seriousness of impact, or replacement. It seems to me that you need to reformulate your general rule.
quote:I don't think the physiological engagement is really all that comparable. Masturbation usually is a "complete" simulation of the sexual act, e.g., men typically masturbate to ejaculation. Chewing gum engages only the very first part of the digestive process (mastication) with minimal effect down the chain (perhaps a bit of excess saliva in the stomach). The intention of chewing gum is furthermore usually not actually a simulation of eating, in the sense that the person chewing gum primarily tries to fool its body into assuming that it is getting nutrition. It is more about enjoying certain psychological side effects of the chewing itself (or even about cleaning your teeth). A comparable act would be more if you touched your penis regularly to keep it half-stiff, because that somehow allowed you to concentrate better mentally on some task. There is perhaps some minor moral problem with that, but it would not be "masturbation" in the usual sense of the word.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
(And just for fun, we can conclude from this that masturbation is fine as long as you also have sex. Ok then.)
quote:And that is of course correct. However, as you should know well as a mathematician, thinking always requires a start in something, and that something cannot be proven by derivation from something else (or we simply push the problem towards the starting point of that derivation). As we touch on the foundations of things, reason has the role of bootstrapping these foundations. This act we induce in others not by logic, but by appeal.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Well, during your long years on the Ship you have claimed that you can do exactly that. In innumerous, tedious non-arguments, you have said that the RC prohibitions on various DH topics aren't just a bunch of people in funny clothes making stuff up, but that we can prove that these things are immoral by observing nature and applying logical reasoning to that.
quote:If we are honest here, then neither of us is going to put in the substantial work that would be needed to extract relevant statistics from anthropological sources. There is a key difference though. You were the one who brought cultural anthropology in, you were the one who was making big claims about what that field has to say concerning our topic. It wasn't me who did this, it was you. Consequently, the failure to deliver serious evidence here leaves this approach stale for both of us. But it leaves you as the party primarily embarrassed by making unsubstantiated claims.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
But you answered a different question to what I asked. "Give evidence that the begetting and rearing of children is the constituting element of marriage across cultures" doesn't mean the same as "Give an anthropological definition of marriage." I'll leave it up to you to find the difference between these two (I already said something about it).
quote:As a non-contributing reader (up 'til now) of this thread, this is one of the more interesting (and stronger) parts of your argument. I wonder if anyone else has any comments on it. Of course, the Greeks had a concept of marriage that we differ from substantially in various ways.
Originally posted by IngoB:
For example, the relationship between older men and younger boys in ancient Greece was definitely a proper social institution that established formal relationships containing a significant sexual component. But neither the ancient Greeks themselves, nor we now, treat this as a marriage of some kind.
quote:And this is one of the weakest. If a group of people call themselves a football team but don't actually play football, we'd all think they're talking nonsense. But if a married couple don't actually have children, that doesn't mean that we don't think they're married after all.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Football teams are essentially ordered to one thing only, namely to playing the game of football. Everything else is relevant primarily as far as it is ordered to that purpose, and potentially changeable as long as that does not change that purpose.
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Slavery, marital rape, racial segregation, child labor, and anti-Jewish pogroms are also features of "history in most cultures". Unless you're advocating here that those things should similarly remain unchanged, this weak appeal to history is useless.
quote:Nice try. I meant of course that there are so many arguments (or plain jibes) to the contrary position that for every one you tackle two or three more will generally spring up in their place.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Yes. How dare large numbers of Shipmates all come to a similar view that Ingo is talking out of his arse.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
where the opposition is like Hydra's heads.
quote:(Apologies in advance to all who suffer from infertility, or indeed to those who for good reason have decided to not have further kids. The following is not intended to be in any way appropriate to that, but merely makes a logical point concerning "ordering" things in terms of a prior analogy.)
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
And this is one of the weakest. If a group of people call themselves a football team but don't actually play football, we'd all think they're talking nonsense. But if a married couple don't actually have children, that doesn't mean that we don't think they're married after all.
quote:As do non-blood relations. My young niece, for instance, is not biologically related to me. She is, however, absolutely my much-loved relative. Anyone asserting otherwise can fuck right off.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Because legal reasoning is supposed to be about the real world, and blood relations matter to people?
Originally posted by jbohn:
And that is important, in any sense that should have anything to do with legal reasoning, why again?
quote:I do find it interesting how you jump from what is "natural" to what is "legal" whenever you find yourself in a bind. If the married opposite-sex couple has no need for adoption, barring the desire to become the "parent" as opposed to "step-parent", than neither does the same-sex couple; they are legally identical.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:This is not true. If her new partner wanted to become the father, rather than the stepfather, of her previous children, then adoption laws would be required. However, the woman needed no legal provisions apart from marriage to have her own children in the previous marriage, nor does she need any to have her own children in the current marriage. Adoption law is needed precisely for what is not the result of her marriages, namely making her children from her previous marriage the children of her current husband (rather than his stepchildren). Likewise, a gay couple requires law other than marriage law to have children with each other.
Originally posted by jbohn:
Indeed - and the same would apply if a Catholic widow with children were to remarry. Your point?
quote:"Traditional" to whom?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:But I'm not simply appealing to history. I'm writing pages of arguments concerning the reasons why history has been as it has been, why that is by and large good and right, and why the introduced change are largely mistaken and wrong. In this context I'm complaining about abandoning traditional values.
Originally posted by jbohn:
Slavery, marital rape, racial segregation, child labor, and anti-Jewish pogroms are also features of "history in most cultures". Unless you're advocating here that those things should similarly remain unchanged, this weak appeal to history is useless.
quote:Sometimes because it's fun. Watching a seemingly intelligent person work so bloody hard to construct a castle from soap, water and hot air.
Originally posted by Tortuf:
Perhaps it is repeated attempts to change another person's point of view when there is more than ample evidence that it is simply not going to happen.
quote:Oooh, you almost had it. And then
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:... demonstrates that I long ago realised I don't have the stamina, skill or time to pursue a defence of this sort of stuff on the Ship myself, where the opposition is like Hydra's heads.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Well, that you do not choose to attempt to bolster IngoB's argument, but instead attack the rudest opponent...
quote:you blew it.
Maybe if at any point I felt IngoB were struggling to out-argue the stuffing out of his opponents I might be tempted to wade in - but seriously, as things stand, where's the need?
quote:Thank you, but it is no trouble at all.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I'm afraid don't have the faintest idea what you mean, but please don't trouble yourself to explain.
quote:'Good Christians' by whose standards? Self-praise is no recommendation.
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Bob Jones University, citing scripture, continued to ban interracial dating and marriage until 2000. So, yes, "good Christians" did have that position.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
quote:Well, not quite what I said of course, but I'll happily admit to quite often being feckless and slow. Will that do?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You began well by saying that you let Bingo do your fighting because you are too tired, stupid and busy.
quote:So glad you think so.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:Which is an honest reason and not inherently indicative of polishing boot or anus.
quote:I may be slow, but even I can see he's got the better of the debate so far. Of course, "I would think that, wouldn't I?" Yes, I would. And I do.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But then you say he was winning. I mean, you might agree with his conclusion, but his "proofs" wouldn't pass muster in a crèche, much less serious debate.
quote:Dear Ms Proops,
Originally posted by IngoB:
And if they come with a basketball and ask where the hoops are, then we will tell them that they are not looking for the football association, but for the basketball association.
quote:Have you ever thought he didn't? Can you give us a link? As I believe Lewis said, if two people always agree about everything, one of them is doing all the thinking.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:I may be slow, but even I can see he's got the better of the debate so far. Of course, "I would think that, wouldn't I?" Yes, I would. And I do.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But then you say he was winning. I mean, you might agree with his conclusion, but his "proofs" wouldn't pass muster in a crèche, much less serious debate.
quote:My argument is that at one period in time (before the Abolition of slavery), interracial marriage was not possible in Brazil. This was so, even if the couple wanted to have children and wanted to care for them. This shows that at that period in time, race was seen as an essential element of marriage, more so than the begetting and rearing of children.
IngoB: A quick webscan for info suggests that the last formal rules in Brazil against interracial marriage were removed in 1888 with abolition.
quote:If this is part of your argument, then you need to show that. Giving an anthropological definition of marriage doesn't show that. Giving a Zulu example doesn't show that (an example doesn't show universality). And if this is part of your argument, then you need to show that. I don't need to show that it isn't true. Your argument isn't true until proven false. If you want to make this argument, you need to show that it is true.
IngoB: I have stated throughout that marriage has one primary element, namely its ordering to procreation. That's just what this particular social institution has been essentially about, basically always and everywhere.
quote:What I can show is that marriage was more about racial criteria than it was about the begetting and rearing of children.
IngoB: Even if it were true that most people throughout history had some kind of racial criterion attached to their concept of marriage (something you have not shown, but merely asserted without evidence), then this would still not mean that marriage is about that.
quote:Because you claim you can. You claim that you can show that masturbation is morally wrong by logical means using natural moral law theory. I've already given you the difficult step for free, going from the natural to the moral.
IngoB: Why, exactly? Oh, and I already did, above.
quote:Your general rule says nothing about completion of a simulation (it only talks about completion of the bodily process, and there completion is a good thing). It says nothing about effects down the chain. It says nothing about the difference between performing a simulation and enjoying the side effects.
IngoB: Masturbation usually is a "complete" simulation of the sexual act, e.g., men typically masturbate to ejaculation. Chewing gum engages only the very first part of the digestive process (mastication) with minimal effect down the chain (perhaps a bit of excess saliva in the stomach). The intention of chewing gum is furthermore usually not actually a simulation of eating, in the sense that the person chewing gum primarily tries to fool its body into assuming that it is getting nutrition. It is more about enjoying certain psychological side effects of the chewing itself (or even about cleaning your teeth).
quote:I gave you that starting point, so for now you don't have to worry about that. (The rest of your 'argument' here was a tl;dr for me.)
IngoB: However, as you should know well as a mathematician, thinking always requires a start in something, and that something cannot be proven by derivation from something else (or we simply push the problem towards the starting point of that derivation).
quote:Let me recap again. You claim that you can show that marriage between people of the same sex is immoral. Part of your argument is that the essential element of marriage is the begetting and rearing of children. If you want to make this argument, then you need to show that this is universally true across cultures. Even if you show that there are still problems with your argument, but at least you need to show this.
IngoB: If we are honest here, then neither of us is going to put in the substantial work that would be needed to extract relevant statistics from anthropological sources.
quote:Here's the thing, mousethief. IngoB almost always argues these things out completely solo these days - and I've no reason to suppose he isn't entirely happy to do so.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Have you ever thought he didn't? Can you give us a link? As I believe Lewis said, if two people always agree about everything, one of them is doing all the thinking.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I may be slow, but even I can see he's got the better of the debate so far. Of course, "I would think that, wouldn't I?" Yes, I would. And I do.
quote:
Originally said by Nikola Tesla:
One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
quote:I doubt that he represents even his own thoughts. He hasn't worked out for himself what he believes. He has decided, instead, to defend the received 'wisdom' of the RC using the tools he knows best.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
For me, it doesn't have much to do with the fact that IngoB defends Catholic theology. His morality is despicable of course and I often doubt that he represents Catholic thought.
quote:The fact that the vast number of arguments for the contrary view doesn't actually make you think "hmm, maybe the contrary view is correct" says a heck of a lot about you.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Nice try. I meant of course that there are so many arguments (or plain jibes) to the contrary position that for every one you tackle two or three more will generally spring up in their place.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Yes. How dare large numbers of Shipmates all come to a similar view that Ingo is talking out of his arse.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
where the opposition is like Hydra's heads.
To "slay" them all you'd need to be superhuman. Or limitlessly leisured. Or IngoB. On a very good day.
quote:The irony of this is delicious. If there is anyone on the Ship who basically tries to "win" by exhaustion, it's your good friend Ingo. People just eventually give up, leaving his cast-iron ego intact.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Quitting - through exhaustion, more often than not - can seem like admitting that the Catholic faith cannot be coherently argued for, when in fact it can (as I believe).
quote:Well, that's my point. IngoB has the stamina and resourcefulness to battle it out. That's rare, whether you think he establishes his argument or not.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:The irony of this is delicious. If there is anyone on the Ship who basically tries to "win" by exhaustion, it's your good friend Ingo. People just eventually give up, leaving his cast-iron ego intact.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Quitting - through exhaustion, more often than not - can seem like admitting that the Catholic faith cannot be coherently argued for, when in fact it can (as I believe).
quote:So another Catholic, say an FCB or a Triple Tiara, would get a respectful hearing arguing for the Catholic teaching that any sex outside heterosexual marriage is wrong and that the concept of homosexual marriage is a non-starter? Yes? Because I'm pretty sure that anyone who argued for that here on these boards and didn't yield to the opposition's arguments quite quickly would in the end prove to be no more popular than IngoB. Perhaps a bit better tolerated, at the most.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I think there are many things in Catholic doctrine that can be argued for. I also think that there are some quite interesting and articulate Catholics on the Ship.
quote:You can think it's bullshit if you like. It's not. Even on issues where I've been in Purgatory and agreed with Ingo on something (which does happen - the idea that I'm some touchy feely liberal on everything doesn't actually stand up, because a touchy feely liberal wouldn't actually bother trying to argue over the interpretation of homosexuality "clobber passages" in the first place), I still find myself wincing at the way he turns everything into uncaring, insensitive dogmatism and has a profound inability to ever come across as acknowledging that anyone besides himself has a legitimate point.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So I think it's bullshit to imply that it's not the content of IngoB's beliefs that is the problem - that it's not that he's a believing Catholic - but the manner in which he argues for them.
quote:This thought has crossed my mind too. I often doubt whether IngoB believes what he says on the Ship, or whether it is all about the game to him. Of course, if you play-believe something for a long enough time, you can end up believing it. But whether IngoB believes what he writes here isn't very relevant in the end.
Boogie: I doubt that he represents even his own thoughts. He hasn't worked out for himself what he believes.
quote:Now this is where you misunderstand him. I don't believe that he follows parameters, rules and logic at all. Just because he says with much conviction that he does doesn't make it true. To IngoB, the words 'parameters', 'rules' and 'logic' mean whatever is convenient for him at that stage in the debate.
Boogie: He needs parameters, rules and logic to be able to think things through.
quote:I always thought that gay people preferred the natural end to be slippery?
quetzalcoatl: I was reading another discussion on natural law, and noticed again the use of a term like 'natural end' by the anti-gay people. I see this as very slippery
quote:I never said that folks had nothing against IngoB's way of arguing too, just that the teachings he's defending - however he's defending them - have already been deemed in themselves (by their content) inherently unacceptable to most people here. Fair enough. But have the honesty to admit that just as, in the past, Croesus and Justinian - oh, and Hilary Mantel - have.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:You can think it's bullshit if you like. It's not.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So I think it's bullshit to imply that it's not the content of IngoB's beliefs that is the problem - that it's not that he's a believing Catholic - but the manner in which he argues for them.
quote:I meant something rather stronger than that. The idea that Catholic teaching on certain subjects is entirely beyond the pale, something that "decent" people would have nothing to do with. That it should be fought tooth and nail - or at least pilloried - wherever it is encountered.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Catholic theology is unacceptable to me. Is that what you wanted me to admit? Duh, it's the reason why I'm not a Catholic.
quote:Well yes. I do think that Catholic teaching on things like homosexuality and the role of women is immoral, and that it should be resisted. Me debating with IngoB isn't going to contribute much to that though, so that isn't the reason why I do it.
Chesterbelloc: The idea that Catholic teaching on certain subjects is entirely beyond the pale, something that "decent" people would have nothing to do with. That it should be fought tooth and nail - or at least pilloried - wherever it is encountered.
quote:Yes.
Chesterbelloc: Really? So if IngoB conducted himself in precisely the same way but in favour of your side on thse issues, you would criticise him just as energetically rather than applaud his skewering of the opposition? Do you really think you would do that?
quote:This would be worth a thread of its own.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
The idea that Catholic teaching on certain subjects is entirely beyond the pale, something that "decent" people would have nothing to do with. That it should be fought tooth and nail - or at least pilloried - wherever it is encountered.
quote:I've chastised people on these boards who were"on my side" for that very behaviour. Less often than IngoB, yes. Partly because he can take it, partly because he is the reigning champ and partly because it is more noticible when in opposition than in sympathy.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Really? So if IngoB conducted himself in precisely the same way but in favour of your side on thse issues, you would criticise him just as energetically rather than applaud his skewering of the opposition? Do you really think you would do that?
quote:I don't agree with Catholic theology on a variety of things to do with sex.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:I never said that folks had nothing against IngoB's way of arguing too, just that the teachings he's defending - however he's defending them - have already been deemed in themselves (by their content) inherently unacceptable to most people here. Fair enough. But have the honesty to admit that just as, in the past, Croesus and Justinian - oh, and Hilary Mantel - have.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:You can think it's bullshit if you like. It's not.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So I think it's bullshit to imply that it's not the content of IngoB's beliefs that is the problem - that it's not that he's a believing Catholic - but the manner in which he argues for them.
quote:Ding ding ding! Mr Cheesy wins this page of the thread. This is exactly it.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is hardly a radical philosophical idea that there is a difference between a revealed and a logical truth about ethics.
But according to IngoB, there is no difference. All truth is logical, and therefore his truth is true - not because it is revealed but because it is logical. Hence he says it is as logical as his science.
The problem is that he does not argue his beliefs as being revealed to the Roman Catholic Church, he argues that they are logical and apply to everyone, but then fails to supply any scrap of evidence to suggest why this is the case. In this thread alone he has made statements about the wide applicability of marriage relationships throughout the ages and throughout cultures, but has failed to even attempt to justify them.
He is not, actually, arguing a logical position, he is arguing a position that a) he accepts and b) has internal consistency. That's not the same thing.
Now, I have no problem with revealed ethical positions. I am pleased to live in a country where all kinds of different beliefs are held by people who think that various deities have revealed themselves to them at different times.
I am happy that Roman Catholics can live here, can exercise their rituals and beliefs freely, and so on.
I happen to believe that of the collection of beliefs that encompass those who say "God says x", the one expressed by IngoB is one of the worst I have ever heard. But that's fine, who cares what I think anyway.
But what does matter is when someone with a "God says" theology tries to say that their belief is some kind of trump card which should be respected over and above the wishes of others in society. That isn't the society I want to live in.
You can declare anyone you like to be ordained under whichever rules you like. But you don't get to tell other religions who they can ordain, you don't get to tell the state who they should recognise under any religious tax advantages, you don't get to speak with final authority on these boards.
Your beliefs are just another claim to received ethics like every other buggers.
The dishonesty here is when IngoB claims he can prove something with logic when very clearly he is not using anything like logic at all.
quote:It isn't just the fact that it is Catholic teaching is necessarily the problem. The Catholics are welcome to believe whatever they want.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
The idea that Catholic teaching on certain subjects is entirely beyond the pale, something that "decent" people would have nothing to do with. That it should be fought tooth and nail - or at least pilloried - wherever it is encountered.
quote:Well evidence is a wide term. There is more to it than logic and experiment. IMV IngoB is not attempting to argue from any logical or material premise, he is attempting an argument from both history and from revelation that he claims does not counter any logical or materialistic premise and IMV he is kicking butt.
Mr Cheesy: any scrap of evidence
quote:The man has refused to talk about the role of women, despite his insistence that every marriage must have a woman in it, and you think he's kicking butt?
Originally posted by Jamat:
IMV he is kicking butt.
quote:Exactly.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But what does matter is when someone with a "God says" theology tries to say that their belief is some kind of trump card which should be respected over and above the wishes of others in society. That isn't the society I want to live in.
quote:Well, if people want to use natural law within Christian theology, no problem, since they can preface everything with 'God created ...'. Thus, God created marriage as a procreative instrument, and so on.
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:Well evidence is a wide term. There is more to it than logic and experiment. IMV IngoB is not attempting to argue from any logical or material premise, he is attempting an argument from both history and from revelation that he claims does not counter any logical or materialistic premise and IMV he is kicking butt.
Mr Cheesy: any scrap of evidence
JAmat
quote:Very much obliged to you. Are they allowed to communicate - like, out loud and everything - what they believe to others too? Or is that beyond the pale?
Originally posted by Carex:
The Catholics are welcome to believe whatever they want.
quote:And the prize for scruffiest straw man goes to... Carex (and mr cheesy and quetzcoatl and...). Except in states where the Church IS or completely controls the government (um, the Holy See and, er...) when and how is this coersion supposed to take place?
Originally posted by Carex:
It is when they try to force those beliefs (or the corresponding behaviors) on non-Catholics, by law or otherwise, that is responsible for most of the reaction.
quote:ISTM what you want is the right freely to make your case in public, without robust criticism.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What the Catholic Church wants is no more or less than what any other body or party or group or individual has: the right freely to make her case in public.
quote:If one of the tactics the Roman Catholic Church is going to use is to deny salvation to those who refuse to toe the party line, doesn't that mean "making a case" has gone too far?
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:ISTM what you want is the right freely to make your case in public, without robust criticism.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What the Catholic Church wants is no more or less than what any other body or party or group or individual has: the right freely to make her case in public.
That's not going to happen here, or most other places now. Better get used to it.
quote:No, this does not show that it was "more so". That is like saying that the prohibition against drunk driving means being sober is "more essential" to driving a car than moving between places, which is of course nonsense. They merely added a mistaken condition to who can marry, a condition that could have been shown as mistaken precisely from the ordering of marriage to procreation. Your error however is not the removal of a false condition, but rather the abolishment of the very principle of marriage. The people they falsely excluded from marriage could have formed a procreative union, they people you falsely include into marriage cannot form a procreative union.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
This shows that at that period in time, race was seen as an essential element of marriage, more so than the begetting and rearing of children.
quote:I have, using natural moral law. And I have shown that various other approaches other people brought into play at least do not speak against that. That you are not satisfied by that is frankly your problem. There are limits to talking sense into someone.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If this is part of your argument, then you need to show that.
quote:No, you cannot. In fact, that is plain silly, since of course the primary worry driving such laws is precisely the mixing of the races. And the races are getting mixed because the interracial couples have offspring. What offends ideologies of "racial purity" is not primarily people living together, nor even having sex with each other as such, it is the resulting "not one, not the other" children that make interracial marriage truly intolerable to racists.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What I can show is that marriage was more about racial criteria than it was about the begetting and rearing of children.
quote:Nope. Just like you are not denying a brother and sister the right to marry each other because the incest taboo is more essential to marriage. Rather, the incest taboo is in place precisely because marriage is expected to result in offspring (and between siblings, is expected to be negatively affected). What you can say is that back then in Brazil "racial purity" was considered more important than marriage, but not that it was a more essential element of marriage.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
This shows that race was a more essential element of the definition of marriage than the begetting and rearing of children.
quote:To repeat, I have already done so. In the paragraph below the one about vomiting I constructed the parallel argument for masturbation.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
So, show it. Show me how you get from "inducing vomiting without a health reason is morally wrong" (which is what you asked for, which is what I gave you) to "masturbation is morally wrong". Show me a series of logical steps that gets me from one point to the other. This is a direct challenge. You say that you can do it. Show me.
quote:What is this nonsense? I have never said that the rule I've given somehow comprises the entirety of natural moral law argument. And it is completely unreasonable to expect that a single rule can determine an entire field. No part of human knowledge works like that. Entire books have been written about natural moral law, and they cannot be compressed into a sentence.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Your general rule says nothing about completion of a simulation (it only talks about completion of the bodily process, and there completion is a good thing). It says nothing about effects down the chain. It says nothing about the difference between performing a simulation and enjoying the side effects.
quote:I do not need universality in an absolute sense. After all, this whole discussion is triggered by an entire society of hundreds of million people abandoning the principle that I claim underlies marriage - at least formally so, by juridical edict. That dogs have four legs is not undermined by the occasional dog with three legs. That dog simply has a bodily defect, it is missing a leg. Of course, it is reasonable to assume that what is in the nature of a thing is what it shows forth most of the time. But that is rule of the thumb, not a perfect law. And anyway, the problem we have here is one of deduction. We are not asking about the universality of some fact, but about the universality of a conclusion from certain facts. And here we have a problem: you can simply deny the conclusions even if you see the fact before you. Just what constellation of facts would it make it inevitable for you to admit that marriage in a specific case is ordered to procreation? Short of people literally signing their name to a statement of that effect, you can always consider telltale signs (men and women join up in marriage, there are social provisions for their expected children, inheritance law follows procreation patterns, ...) as epiphenomena and declare something else as the true foundation (like the wish to live one's life together).
Originally posted by LeRoc:
You need universality for your argument, so you need to show it.
quote:This is plain and simply untrue. I maintain a very clean distinction between natural theology / metaphysics and revealed theology. I dare you to find even a single post where I confuse these. Instead, I have often discussed in quite some detail how far the natural intellect can take us in theology, and where it necessarily fails without revelation.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What IngoB pretends is more than that though. For over 10 years he's pretended he can show that if we just observe nature and apply logic to that, we'll end up with Catholic theology.
quote:Neither is that my opinion, nor have I said anything here that would suggest that there is no such thing as properly revealed truth by God - in particular also ethical revelation by God. For example, God has revealed to you that divorce is against his will for mankind. Natural moral law at best could guess at that, but likely cannot prove it. However, truth does not contradict truth, and grace does not destroy nature. Where we can derive moral law from the nature of things, it does represent ethical truth. An imperfect and incomplete truth perhaps, and one that can be elevated beyond itself by grace. But a truth nonetheless. The discussion we are having here arises because gay marriage is not even in accord with natural moral law, we do not need the help of revelation to reject it. It is also by the way a general rule that some truths will be revealed by God which can be deduced from nature. And this entire thread is a perfect demonstration why God might want to do this. People will be able to follow arguments with varying success, and people can rationalise their opinions with great ease. The theoretical possibility to derive something from nature does not guarantee that in practice this is done correctly. Therefore truths are revealed for our sake even where this is not in principle necessary.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is hardly a radical philosophical idea that there is a difference between a revealed and a logical truth about ethics. But according to IngoB, there is no difference. All truth is logical, and therefore his truth is true - not because it is revealed but because it is logical. Hence he says it is as logical as his science.
quote:What? Who came within a country mile of suggesting that, precisely?
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:ISTM what you want is the right freely to make your case in public, without robust criticism.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What the Catholic Church wants is no more or less than what any other body or party or group or individual has: the right freely to make her case in public.
quote:It is to laugh. Those who dissent from the Catholic Church over this sort of thing generally don't believe in "salvation" as something real, or as something the Church can withhold from them, or at the very least something which they could lose over these sorts of issues.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If one of the tactics the Roman Catholic Church is going to use is to deny salvation to those who refuse to toe the party line, doesn't that mean "making a case" has gone too far?
quote:When someone is driving drunk, we still say that he is driving a car, even if he is doing it in a way he isn't allowed to. Mixed-race couples were never considered to be married whatever they did, even if they wanted to have children. Ergo, race was a more important factor than offspring in defining marriage.
IngoB: No, this does not show that it was "more so". That is like saying that the prohibition against drunk driving means being sober is "more essential" to driving a car than moving between places, which is of course nonsense.
quote:LOL, no-one really tried to conserve racial purity in Brazil. 'Non-pure' children were produced all the time.
IngoB: What you can say is that back then in Brazil "racial purity" was considered more important than marriage, but not that it was a more essential element of marriage.
quote:Parallel argument isn't proof. Given: inducing vomiting without a health reason is morally bad. Show me that masturbation is morally bad.
IngoB: To repeat, I have already done so. In the paragraph below the one about vomiting I constructed the parallel argument for masturbation.
quote:Blablabla.
IngoB: What is this nonsense? I have never said that the rule I've given somehow comprises the entirety of natural moral law argument.
quote:Blabla and bullshit. I haven't even read the rest of this paragraph.
IngoB: That dogs have four legs is ...
quote:I'm not sure which planet you are calling in from, Chesterbollocks, but over here on the Planet Have-a-Fucking-Clue, a "Straw Man" argument is one where you make up shit rather than engaging with the one your opponent is putting forward. Y'know, like IngoB did above with his made-up tribe and like he is continuing to do with personal anacdotes and irrelevant examples which might-or-might not be different to the point we're discussing.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Originally posted by Carex:
quote:And the prize for scruffiest straw man goes to... Carex (and mr cheesy and quetzcoatl and...). Except in states where the Church IS or completely controls the government (um, the Holy See and, er...) when and how is this coersion supposed to take place?
It is when they try to force those beliefs (or the corresponding behaviors) on non-Catholics, by law or otherwise, that is responsible for most of the reaction.
quote:If one thinks that one can reason that monogomous long term relationships are desirable, I'm pretty sure that one could reason that divorce is a bad idea - given that they are part of the same idea.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Neither is that my opinion, nor have I said anything here that would suggest that there is no such thing as properly revealed truth by God - in particular also ethical revelation by God. For example, God has revealed to you that divorce is against his will for mankind. Natural moral law at best could guess at that, but likely cannot prove it.
quote:You just said a whole lot of nothing there. Of course revealed truth contradicts logical truth. That's the whole frigging point of it - you can't work it out on your own.
However, truth does not contradict truth, and grace does not destroy nature. Where we can derive moral law from the nature of things, it does represent ethical truth. An imperfect and incomplete truth perhaps, and one that can be elevated beyond itself by grace. But a truth nonetheless.
quote:I don't accept the definitions you are using here. Because there is nothing inherrently against natural law that says homosexuality is against nature. Let me introduce you to nature, where homosexual behaviours are common. But then, so is eating your male partner immediately after copulation. I don't suppose you think that fits within any kind of natural ethics.
The discussion we are having here arises because gay marriage is not even in accord with natural moral law, we do not need the help of revelation to reject it.
quote:Right, I see. So, please inform me exactly how you are deducing that monogomous human relationships are the natural way of things. Feel free to use actual examples of behaviours in nature in your answer.
It is also by the way a general rule that some truths will be revealed by God which can be deduced from nature.
quote:No, no, don't worry I get it: you are batshit insane. And not only do you know nothing about nature, you also know nothing about philosophy or even how to form an argument. I'd also postulate from this that you also know very little about Roman Catholic theology - because if what you've said on this thread about marriage is all there is.. well God help us all.
And this entire thread is a perfect demonstration why God might want to do this. People will be able to follow arguments with varying success, and people can rationalise their opinions with great ease. The theoretical possibility to derive something from nature does not guarantee that in practice this is done correctly. Therefore truths are revealed for our sake even where this is not in principle necessary.
quote:Unlike some people here, I really don't care if Bingo wants to make Catholic teachings universal. Even if he wanted to enforce them at gunpoint, I would still maintain much the same stance: I disagree with him, but find his explanations of Catholic doctrine interesting and informative.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So I think it's bullshit to imply that it's not the content of IngoB's beliefs that is the problem - that it's not that he's a believing Catholic - but the manner in which he argues for them.
...
You don't want the tecachings themselves - however articulated - to have any respectability, socially or intellectually. Isn't that the truth?
...
Really? So if IngoB conducted himself in precisely the same way but in favour of your side on thse issues, you would criticise him just as energetically rather than applaud his skewering of the opposition? Do you really think you would do that?
...
I never said that folks had nothing against IngoB's way of arguing too, just that the teachings he's defending - however he's defending them - have already been deemed in themselves (by their content) inherently unacceptable to most people here. Fair enough. But have the honesty to admit that just as, in the past, Croesus and Justinian - oh, and Hilary Mantel - have.
quote:What other than when IngoB waa-waa-waaed about the nation redefining marriage without asking, or when you waa-waa-waaed about the general way of things on this board being anti-Roman Catholic?
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What? Who came within a country mile of suggesting that, precisely?
quote:Fine, then stop teaching your theology to children in state-funded schools. If you are so sure of your position and your abilities to win arguments, then stop taking all the tax benefits and special dispensations which give you a privileged position to spout your theology over-and-above other religions (say, for example the Muslims - who have very few state-funded schools, and the Mormons who have none, to name just two). Speak in the town square if you must, but don't expect any state assistance to do it.
Carex said it was unacceptable for Catholics to try to force people to adopt our principles - something else no-one was remotely suggesting should be or was being allowed. What I suspect she meant was that it was unacceptable for us to attempt to persuade people to agree with us. Now that's very different, and a little scary.
quote:I see. So there are no gay Roman Catholics and there are no people who disagree with you who are bothered about their eternal salvation.
]It is to laugh. Those who dissent from the Catholic Church over this sort of thing generally don't believe in "salvation" as something real, or as something the Church can withhold from them, or at the very least something which they could lose over these sorts of issues.
quote:Really. You really believe that someone's salvation is at risk because they disagree with you about the theology of marriage.
But, given the Church does believe that people really can lose their chances of salvation, and that that is the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone, accusing the Church of "going too far" by reminding people of that is rather like accsuing physicians of undue pressure for advising their patients to avoid heavy smoking, drinking and saturated fats. Even then, people can and do frequently ignore them.
quote:NP wins this page.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Masturbation and vomit pretty well sums up this thread.
quote:And what is that case, exactly? That divorce and non-procreative straight marriages were departures with Catholic theology you could live with, but somehow recognizing homosexual relationships is beyond the pale?
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What the Catholic Church wants is no more or less than what any other body or party or group or individual has: the right freely to make her case in public.
quote:Extrapolation: Once they accept that marriage equality is a lost cause, they'll move onto something else.
Originally posted by orfeo:
But no, in my experience, the Catholic Church in public tends to confine itself to discussing the hot topic out of the departures from the Catholic marriage ideal, leaving the other departures alone because they are lost causes.
quote:One can only hope.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Extrapolation: Once they accept that marriage equality is a lost cause, they'll move onto something else.
Originally posted by orfeo:
But no, in my experience, the Catholic Church in public tends to confine itself to discussing the hot topic out of the departures from the Catholic marriage ideal, leaving the other departures alone because they are lost causes.
quote:Hell, I'll say it, 'cause they did try to coerce people. Actually, they kinda temporarily succeeded. The Catholic Church made a significant effort to control the lives of people who do not subscribe to their religion. Not that they were the only ones, still makes them no less guilty.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Chesterbelloc wrote:
And the prize for scruffiest straw man goes to... Carex (and mr cheesy and quetzcoatl and...). Except in states where the Church IS or completely controls the government (um, the Holy See and, er...) when and how is this coersion supposed to take place?
Could you help me here? Are you suggesting that I said that the Catholic Church wants to coerce people?
quote:The RCC in several countries has fought against and even prevented divorce and abortion, etc. I would have thought that in many countries the RCC was there to fight the state when these laws were being introduced, but there's no point in flogging a dead horse. When you lose you move on to the next battle.
Originally posted by orfeo:
In some ways I really wish that the Catholic Church, and some other Christians, would argue for what they actually believe in, because it would even up the numbers quite nicely: it wouldn't just be the gays who would be put out, but large numbers of straight people.
But no, in my experience, the Catholic Church in public tends to confine itself to discussing the hot topic out of the departures from the Catholic marriage ideal, leaving the other departures alone because they are lost causes.
quote:If I detested every person telling me what is going on in my brain, I would have a lot of hating to do...
Originally posted by St Deird:
The reason I detest him, and mistype his name at every opportunity is, quite simply, because Bingo insists on telling me what I think. ... I HATE HIM AND HIS PETTY INSISTENCE ON TELLING ME WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MY OWN BRAIN. (Incorrectly on every occassion, as it happens.)
quote:Like that Roman Catholics are trying to force views onto others, for example? Or as Carex said: "when they try to force those beliefs (or the corresponding behaviors) on non-Catholics, by law or otherwise"?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm not sure which planet you are calling in from, Chesterbollocks, but over here on the Planet Have-a-Fucking-Clue, a "Straw Man" argument is one where you make up shit rather than engaging with the one your opponent is putting forward.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I have never said that the Roman Catholic Church is trying to force views onto others, so that's just a lie.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
what does matter is when someone with a "God says" theology tries to say that their belief is some kind of trump card which should be respected over and above the wishes of others in society.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I do believe that IngoB is trying to suggest that his views should be forced onto society because, according to him, they are obviously, inarguably true.
quote:Just as a matter of interest, would any of those "decent" Catholics be ones who actually accept their Church's teachings on any DH issues? Or would that see them forfeit their "decent" status?
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Present company unacceptable, there actually some decent Roman Catholic people in the world. Who understand theology, dogma, history, real lives as lived, and the differences among them.
quote:I can tell the difference between IngoB and the RCC even if you can't.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Like that Roman Catholics are trying to force views onto others, for example? Or as Carex said: "when they try to force those beliefs (or the corresponding behaviors) on non-Catholics, by law or otherwise"?
quote:If these Catholics try to shoehorn their crazy-ass beliefs into the secular law by applying the dubious tactics and logic that IngoB has been using here, then yeah, they forfeit all notions of decency.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Just as a matter of interest, would any of those "decent" Catholics be ones who actually accept their Church's teachings on any DH issues? Or would that see them forfeit their "decent" status?
quote:There's probably a whole other thread in this, but that strikes me as tactics rather than principles.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
When you lose you move on to the next battle.
quote:I am sure that is true, what is being given up is the tactic of attempting to influence secular politics with a religious agenda - rather than the belief itself.
Originally posted by orfeo:
There's probably a whole other thread in this, but that strikes me as tactics rather than principles.
If the whole essence of this is a belief in some kind of eternal truth, then giving up after losing doesn't exactly sound right.
quote:Join in the party of what Christianity is really about
Chesterbelloc: So what do you think the Church should do, having lost the divorce and abortion battles?
quote:I guess you are not going to reply to my query then? Fucking rude.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So what Christianity is "really about" is not caring about people divorcing and aborting/being aborted? Are there any ethical issues Christians would be allowed to become distracted by during your groovy party?
quote:Fucking forgetful, certainly.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I guess you are not going to reply to my query then? Fucking rude.
quote:It's not a "would". Decency is real, at least in my life. My RC friends acknowledge that their denomination has some strict rules around a host of things, and they seem to consider that these are goals to aim at, and not to speak for them - though I have had explicit and direct conversations about it - that sin is "missing the mark" or failing to attain the goal. And they sincerely express their concern that the idealized, pre-fall Edenized view of people and their decisions corresponds poorly with lived reality. They are willing to accept the mess and noise that are part of the human condition. At the least, that they do not know the reality of others' lives, to the point that they try to suspend the judging. I don't think they would equate SSM with their gold standard of HSM, but they seem to prioritize people before dogma. Unlike our friend IngoB, they are willing to acknowledge theory and practice are disparate, they are kinder, less self-centred, and they judge much less. That's a maturity of view that some never acquire. The alternative as demonstrated in this thread, is to operate excessively impersonally as if people equate with points of argument, which comes through as cruelty to me. When cruelty is enjoyed, it is either evil or illness isn't it?
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Just as a matter of interest, would any of those "decent" Catholics be ones who actually accept their Church's teachings on any DH issues? Or would that see them forfeit their "decent" status?
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Present company unacceptable, there actually some decent Roman Catholic people in the world. Who understand theology, dogma, history, real lives as lived, and the differences among them.
quote:No one here is saying you should not care. They are saying you should not attempt to impose.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So what Christianity is "really about" is not caring about people divorcing and aborting/being aborted?
quote:Dealing with black and white thinking is always difficult for me.
Chesterbelloc:
So what Christianity is "really about" is not caring about people divorcing and aborting/being aborted?
quote:I am SO not falling for that obfuscating horseshit. You must think I'm thicker than horesehit if you think I can't see what you did there.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:It's not a "would". Decency is real, at least in my life. My RC friends acknowledge that their denomination has some strict rules around a host of things, and they seem to consider that these are goals to aim at, and not to speak for them - though I have had explicit and direct conversations about it - that sin is "missing the mark" or failing to attain the goal. And they sincerely express their concern that the idealized, pre-fall Edenized view of people and their decisions corresponds poorly with lived reality. They are willing to accept the mess and noise that are part of the human condition. At the least, that they do not know the reality of others' lives, to the point that they try to suspend the judging. I don't think they would equate SSM with their gold standard of HSM, but they seem to prioritize people before dogma. Unlike our friend IngoB, they are willing to acknowledge theory and practice are disparate, they are kinder, less self-centred, and they judge much less. That's a maturity of view that some never acquire. The alternative as demonstrated in this thread, is to operate excessively impersonally as if people equate with points of argument, which comes through as cruelty to me. When cruelty is enjoyed, it is either evil or illness isn't it?
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Just as a matter of interest, would any of those "decent" Catholics be ones who actually accept their Church's teachings on any DH issues? Or would that see them forfeit their "decent" status?
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Present company unacceptable, there actually some decent Roman Catholic people in the world. Who understand theology, dogma, history, real lives as lived, and the differences among them.
quote:Here we go again. Who is attempting to "impose" anything? Unless you think attempting to persuade is imposing, in which case, what about those lobbying for the changes?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:No one here is saying you should not care. They are saying you should not attempt to impose.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So what Christianity is "really about" is not caring about people divorcing and aborting/being aborted?
quote:The irony! You were the one wanting to draw a clear line between what Christianity was "really about" (unspecified) and what it wasn't (reproductive ethics). What really seems to be difficult for you is straightforwardness.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Dealing with black and white thinking is always difficult for me.
Chesterbelloc:
So what Christianity is "really about" is not caring about people divorcing and aborting/being aborted?
quote:You might also try masturbation and vomit you sophisticate.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I need a beer before tackling any more of this.
quote:When the self-designated moral arbiters tell their flock something, it is more than just persuading.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Here we go again. Who is attempting to "impose" anything? Unless you think attempting to persuade is imposing, in which case, what about those lobbying for the changes?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:No one here is saying you should not care. They are saying you should not attempt to impose.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
So what Christianity is "really about" is not caring about people divorcing and aborting/being aborted?
quote:This is what you are actually doing:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Unless those advocating for homosexuals to have marriage rights are also explicitly saying that Roman Catholics should have their rights diminished at the same time, then these are not the same thing. Reminder: asking for rights for one group does not diminish the existing rights for another. This is a stupid argument.
quote:No, sorry this is flannel.
Originally posted by IngoB:
This is what you are actually doing:In fact, I agree with point 2. More so, I agree that there are many people who refuse marriage to gay couples, claim to be "traditional", but in their words and deeds align largely with your re-definition. For them the conclusion of point 4 is viable.
- Re-define marriage.
- Conclude that it is just and right if the so re-defined marriage is available to gay couples.
- Note that those maintaining the traditional definition of marriage refuse to make it available to gay couples.
- Conclude that this is wrong according to point 2, and hence that they are discriminating against gays.
<snip>
To simply impose your view on your opponents, with great noise and viciousness, is then not fighting for rights, but rather the tyranny of might makes right.
quote:The state is not some abstract entity, or separate monarch, the state is us in a democracy. Sort of. And the very mode of this discussion suggests that religious people have a lot to worry about for the future. If the claim is that religious rules are just bigoted unreason, as you are so happy to proclaim, then the protection of religious rights is a mere current habit, but not something one can really bank on. Bigotry and unreason are not protected before the law, and special pleading will not escape legal attack indefinitely.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The state is making decisions about which relationships to recognise with special status called marriage. Nobody is talking about imposing these upon religious groups, because that would be stupid.
quote:Not so. It looks like men profit from heterosexual long-term relationships, for women the picture is a lot less clear. And as this study reports: "Compared to their peers in married opposite-sex relationships, older men in same-sex relationships exhibited greater odds of psychological distress, and older women in same-sex relationships experienced elevated odds of poor/fair health, needing help with ADLs and IADLs, functional limitations, and psychological distress." The overall picture is once more that men do well in long-term relationships (male-male couples only somewhat worse than men in male-female couples, and those do better), women not so much (the advantage for women in male-female couples is unclear, and women in female-female couples do significantly worse than those).
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Now, it is absolutely proven beyond question that long-term relationships make for healthier people, with better mental health.
quote:Why should the modern state control marriage rights at all? What business is it of the state what your intimate relationships are like? Marriage acts as a gateway here for a bundle of provisions that have historically grown when marriages were between men and women only, and were for the most part expected to result in some offspring. If you want reform, then let the state reform its provision of benefits according to its current purposes, rather than fudging that by redefining marriage so that it can squeeze new groups of people through a legal gateway of its own making.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Why should the Roman Catholic Church have grandfather rights to say whether or not Muslims are legally married? It doesn't. The state should control the marriage rules for the good of everyone, not listening to those who object for the only reason that the concept is being enlarged beyond their control.
quote:It is as much our business as it is yours, who is judging the state's action by whatever makes your boat float. It may well be true that the state negotiates compromises between us that do not fit the preferred specs of any specific interest group. But the question what a good society should look like is not reduced by default to the current leading secular "philosophy". If we disagree even how "good" is defined, then it can hardly be taken for granted that we agree on how the common good is best maintained and strengthened.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Your list and therefore the rest of your post is bunk. As said many times above, the RCC can marry, ordain or use any kind of other rules it chooses, just like any other religious group. What it cannot do is try to tell the state which other groups it should recognise, because that is none of your business.
quote:"Self-designated"? "More than persuading", eh? You're talking about the Mafia now, right? No?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
When the self-designated moral arbiters tell their flock something, it is more than just persuading.
quote:Wow. You really expect me to believe that you think the Church shouldn't publicly criticise public policy? This is a new low-point for ridiculous self-entrapment. Think about the implications of what you've just suggested and get back to me if you notice anything worrying about it.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
More importantly, they've no business "persuading" anything in the legal (Caesar's) realm.
quote:Can I just ask: is there any other group or association you think should only be allowed to preach to the converted? Do you similarly think that the gay rights groups should only be allowed to campaign to those who have already signed up to their agenda?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Saying same sex marriage is wrong at the pulpit to one's adherents is acceptable. Promoting and contributing to campaigns which limit the rights of people outside of that flock is not.
quote:Hilarious. Tell us another, do.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Funny story: before the Marriage Act of 1836 widened the definition of marriage, Roman Catholic marriages were not legally recognised in England.
quote:Yeah, see, it looked like Rook just copied them in from somewhere, there wasn't an ampersand in sight. But thanks.
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Superscripts aren't difficult¹
¹ You need the ASCII code equivalents of symbols and I tend to use the html names because I remember them.
quote:First of all I'm not sure that Rook would ever express something so touchy-feely... but also I haven't been engaging with "Bingo" for days.
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Orfeo, I think he is suggesting it would be good for your blood pressure if you just didn't try to engage with Bingo.
quote:At least here in the US, churches are fairly restricted on their political activities - they can lose their tax-exempt status for crossing the line. Which seems fair - if you're given tax exemption based on your spiritual work and status, you shouldn't be able to abuse it to work to subvert the whole "separation of church and state" thing.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Can I just ask: is there any other group or association you think should only be allowed to preach to the converted? Do you similarly think that the gay rights groups should only be allowed to campaign to those who have already signed up to their agenda?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Saying same sex marriage is wrong at the pulpit to one's adherents is acceptable. Promoting and contributing to campaigns which limit the rights of people outside of that flock is not.
quote:The problem is you don't just preach. You don't just say "we don't think gay people should get married to each other." You try to ensure the law makes it impossible as well.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:"Self-designated"? "More than persuading", eh? You're talking about the Mafia now, right? No?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
When the self-designated moral arbiters tell their flock something, it is more than just persuading.
Let me tell you something about the Catholic Church that has clearly escaped your notice: it's a voluntary association. Nobody sends the boys round if you leave. Heck, even if you stay in and criticise the official teachings 24/7/365, it's almost unheard of for anyone official to do more than point out you're not quite playing the game and perhaps suggest that you might think about not availing yourself of some of the standard benefits of membership for a bit - and even that is rare enough these days.
If some of her members think the Church is fundamentally wrong about what she teaches on the DH issues and believe strongly enough to express that and dissent from those teachings, what on earth makes you think that those people would nonetheless be cowed and defer when the Church tells them that they might thereby be putting themselves at an unhealthy (for them) distance from her?
quote:Wow. You really expect me to believe that you think the Church shouldn't publicly criticise public policy? This is a new low-point for ridiculous self-entrapment. Think about the implications of what you've just suggested and get back to me if you notice anything worrying about it.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
More importantly, they've no business "persuading" anything in the legal (Caesar's) realm.
quote:Can I just ask: is there any other group or association you think should only be allowed to preach to the converted? Do you similarly think that the gay rights groups should only be allowed to campaign to those who have already signed up to their agenda?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Saying same sex marriage is wrong at the pulpit to one's adherents is acceptable. Promoting and contributing to campaigns which limit the rights of people outside of that flock is not.
quote:You'd have a point with social justice issues and abortion. But equal marriage has absolutely no effect on Catholic marriage. And no one is hurt. Well, not anymore than straight marriages.
Wow. You really expect me to believe that you think the Church shouldn't publicly criticise public policy? This is a new low-point for ridiculous self-entrapment. Think about the implications of what you've just suggested and get back to me if you notice anything worrying about it.
quote:This, if true, is a very dangerous and undesirable situation for the churches, IMO. It certainly doesn't pertain here in Blighty. If the Church can be hobbled by tax-exemption laws from criticising public policy and supporting opposition to problematic legislation then it is not free to preach the Gopsel, frankly.
Originally posted by jbohn:
At least here in the US, churches are fairly restricted on their political activities - they can lose their tax-exempt status for crossing the line. Which seems fair - if you're given tax exemption based on your spiritual work and status, you shouldn't be able to abuse it to work to subvert the whole "separation of church and state" thing.
quote:So, not content with insisting the Church keep within her pen, the Church is to be chastised even for pressing her face up against the mesh-fence?
Originally posted by jbohn:
I'm sure the RCC has (had?) the money to hire good lawyers to keep from crossing the line in the example lilBuddha linked to, but they seem to have been dancing along it quite happily.
quote:Have you even been reading this thread, Siegried?
Originally posted by Siegfried:
If all the RCs (and other Christian groups) did was "persuade", that would be fine. A bit annoying depending on the form their persuasion takes, but still OK. What isn't fine is when persuasion moves to enforcing their view on others through laws.
quote:Says YOU. But the whole point, as IngoB has already pointed out on this thread, is that there are competing conceptions of good and harm in this arena, and the Church's is just as real as anyone else's. If people don't like what the Church is saying, they can just ignore it - or fight it. But if people do hear and agree with it, and want to excercise their democratic rights in that direction, what would you have happen - for them to be taken in for political re-programming for having reached the "wrong" conclusion?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:You'd have a point with social justice issues and abortion. But equal marriage has absolutely no effect on Catholic marriage. And no one is hurt.
Wow. You really expect me to believe that you think the Church shouldn't publicly criticise public policy? This is a new low-point for ridiculous self-entrapment. Think about the implications of what you've just suggested and get back to me if you notice anything worrying about it.
quote:I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I made some moments ago.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But they cross the line funding a law that prevents people who don't believe their credo. Something you've now ignored three times. Is that the number it takes to make you aware of denial?
quote:Because, CB, equal marriage laws do not impinge on anyone else other then the people they enable to get married. They do not stop you getting married, for example. However, you (presuming you're on the anti- side) do want to stop other people from getting married.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Have you even been reading this thread, Siegried?
Originally posted by Siegfried:
If all the RCs (and other Christian groups) did was "persuade", that would be fine. A bit annoying depending on the form their persuasion takes, but still OK. What isn't fine is when persuasion moves to enforcing their view on others through laws.
For the benefit of the others who've maybe just tuned in, perhaps you could tell me whether it is just as un-fine for lobby groups campaigning for social changes (say, gay marriage) to seek to "enforce their own views on thers through laws".
If not, why not?
What gets me is that it is often precisely the same sort of people who are most politically interested and active in making sure the "right" laws are passed and the "wrong" ones repealed who are first in line to shout down the Church when she does the same according to her own views and values.
quote:Just as real, perhaps. But not just as justifiable in a secular society. The state has a duty to protect its citizens equally under the law. If the RCC is lobbying against doing so (as it is in this case), then while its view is just as real, it is not just as legitimate. Indeed it is not legitimate at all in a secular state.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But the whole point, as IngoB has already pointed out on this thread, is that there are competing conceptions of good and harm in this arena, and the Church's is just as real as anyone else's.
quote:No, the Supreme Court would strike it down. As it has. As it should for any law(s) that create inequality under the law without good cause as considered from a secular, not religious, point of view. Because First Amendment.
If people don't like what the Church is saying, they can just ignore it - or fight it. But if people do hear and agree with it, and want to exercise their democratic rights in that direction, what would you have happen - for them to be taken in for political re-programming for having reached the "wrong" conclusion?
![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
because they don't get to determine the behaviour of others in society. And because their special god-given ethics are not accepted in the real world.quote:Churches and church leaders are allowed to speak their piece, and to inform the faithful on the church's view of societal issues. Campaigning for, or advocating from the pulpit for, a particular candidate or party would gain rather unfavorable attention from the IRS, as is proper in a society where the state is wholly independent of any religion or religious body. Campaigning in favor of, or against, a particular law or proposed law is skirting the edge of this, to my mind.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:This, if true, is a very dangerous and undesirable situation for the churches, IMO. It certainly doesn't pertain here in Blighty. If the Church can be hobbled by tax-exemption laws from criticising public policy and supporting opposition to problematic legislation then it is not free to preach the Gopsel, frankly.
Originally posted by jbohn:
At least here in the US, churches are fairly restricted on their political activities - they can lose their tax-exempt status for crossing the line. Which seems fair - if you're given tax exemption based on your spiritual work and status, you shouldn't be able to abuse it to work to subvert the whole "separation of church and state" thing.
What if the Church opposed (as in the US it has consistently) what it believes to be unjust immigration laws/policies, for example, and it had the opportunity to support - up to and including partially funding - a campaign to defeat or repeal such laws/policies. How many people posting to this thread, I wonder, would support the Church doing so despite the tax-exempt laws?
quote:Whether or not her face is lined by the fence is for the state to decide - but I'm certainly free to have my opinion, just as the church has its own. And my opinion is that the church (to be crystal clear, *any* church) has no business in the realm of law and the regulating of society as a whole. Legal precedent in the US tends to concur.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:So, not content with insisting the Church keep within her pen, the Church is to be chastised even for pressing her face up against the mesh-fence?
Originally posted by jbohn:
I'm sure the RCC has (had?) the money to hire good lawyers to keep from crossing the line in the example lilBuddha linked to, but they seem to have been dancing along it quite happily.
quote:Not at all - individuals have the right to whatever beliefs they like, even if I (or a whole lot of folks) find them distasteful. What they don't have the right to do is act on those beliefs when acting on them would violate the rights of others. (i.e., if you are a government official, say, a county clerk, you cannot refuse service to people you personally don't want to help, even if it goes against your religious beliefs - you must treat all people the same under the law. As the saying goes, "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose".
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
If people don't like what the Church is saying, they can just ignore it - or fight it. But if people do hear and agree with it, and want to excercise their democratic rights in that direction, what would you have happen - for them to be taken in for political re-programming for having reached the "wrong" conclusion?
quote:First, if "gay marriage" is introduced, then it is inevitable that at some point people will claim that "freedom of religion" does not mean "freedom to discriminate on sex". I'm sure a future SCOTUS can argue this as obvious interpretation of the constitution and obligate performing "gay marriages" on all providers. Or it could be more subtle, for example by simply withdrawing status as charity from all religious organisations that refuse to marry gays. You don't have to outlaw if you can financially cripple, a "soft kill" leaves victims just as dead.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Because, CB, equal marriage laws do not impinge on anyone else other then the people they enable to get married. They do not stop you getting married, for example. However, you (presuming you're on the anti- side) do want to stop other people from getting married. It's not symmetrical. You want to restrict other people's freedoms; they are not seeking to restrict yours. Apart from your "freedom" to restrict their freedom, that is.
quote:Thing is - gay marriage has been introduced, and nowhere has the RCC been forced to marry anyone. And given the amount of charities which support equal and opposite causes, I find it very hard to believe that any state which has legalised gay marriage would try to take charitable status from the RCC.
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, if "gay marriage" is introduced, then it is inevitable that at some point people will claim that "freedom of religion" does not mean "freedom to discriminate on sex". I'm sure a future SCOTUS can argue this as obvious interpretation of the constitution and obligate performing "gay marriages" on all providers. Or it could be more subtle, for example by simply withdrawing status as charity from all religious organisations that refuse to marry gays. You don't have to outlaw if you can financially cripple, a "soft kill" leaves victims just as dead.
quote:I'd be very surprised if this bogus argument was not also used by every group throughout history campaigning against social change - including the abolition of slavery, the overthrow of Jim Crow, woman's votes etc. It is a pretty tired argument.
Second, the state has assigned a whole range of benefits to marriage. If more people get access to them, then we all (including straight couples) will end up footing the bill. Originally marriage was incentivised by the state, because the state got something crucial for its survival back from it: new citizens. "Gay marriages" do not do that. So there is no automatic rationale to incentivise them as well. I think the state should incentivise directly what it wants, without all this referencing of romantic and intimate relationships, which are really private matters.
quote:Again, that is just your opinion. Other people live in this country who do not agree, why should you have any special say on the matter?
Third, "gay marriage" is not acceptable because homosexual acts are sinful, according to the RCC. Putting people together permanently who are typically attracted to committing this sin with each other is a bad idea.
quote:Again, the state is not asking you to define sin, thanks all the same.
People are not free to sin. The state need not criminalise sin, however. This has historically proven to be counterproductive for homosexuality. However, the state should not encourage sin in its populace, by institutionalising it and providing benefits to that institution.
quote:First, nobody is asking you.
If you ask me, marriage is here mostly just a proxy for the question of how "normal" homosexuality is. Marriage has been the "gold standard" for proper sexuality, at least as a romantic ideal. If homosexuals can marry, then this is a symbolic acknowledgement that homosexuality is as good as heterosexuality. That's what the fight is really about...
quote:No one denies this. What sticks in the craw is the forced and politicised redefinition of what most of us have always understood marriage to be. The argument is not about justice, fairness or human rights. Those points are not in dispute. It is about murdering the language for political reasons.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Second, even if one has a moral objection to homosexuality, one can still be grown-up enough to recognise that the state has a role in regulating/encouraging stable relationships, [/QB]
quote:You know, I was about to go back and try to answer some of the responses I've recently had to my posts of earlier today, but I stopped in my tracks when I read this.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Perhaps the most reasonable reform the RCC could make is mandate marriage for its priests. Not married, cannot be a priest. As if celibate priests have the least knowledge of and credibility about relationships outside of their own two hands and pornography, purchased sex and sexual assault.
quote:No, with respect, Karl - you don't just get to say this and have it taken as a given. The whole argument is precisley about whether gay marriage is indeed a right and whether it is good for society as a whole. For the arguments to the contrary, read some of IngoB's posts. You don't have to accept those or any other arguments, of course - but you do have to acknowledge that there are other arguments.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Because, CB, equal marriage laws do not impinge on anyone else other then the people they enable to get married.
quote:There's every chance this could go the way of the church's teaching on birth control. Back in the nineties I lived in Malta for a couple of years which is about as solidly Roman Catholic a country as you will find in Europe. Even there however, there were an awful lot of younger families with two children a couple of years apart. Why, it looked to me like they had planned it that way.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
As gay marriage becomes less and less unusual to successive generations of Catholics in their work and leisure, they will put stronger pressure on the hierarchy. As someone who is not now and never has been a Roman Catholic, I consider this an internal matter.
Neither of those concerns have been enough for any of the countries which have regularized gay marriage to refrain from doing so, even in countries where the Church has more power and a much stronger presence. In the US, the RCC will continue to be as free as they ever were to preach what they wish. Everyone else is just as free as they ever were to believe them or not. Sometimes I suspect the hierarchy doesn't have the faith in their own ability to present the case in a manner that convinces their own laity. Again, that is (from my point of view) a strictly internal affair.
quote:Actually, I think you'll find that it is up to the body politic of any democratic state to determine what are "legitimate" concepts for public polity for itself - not you.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Just as real, perhaps. But not just as justifiable in a secular society. The state has a duty to protect its citizens equally under the law. If the RCC is lobbying against doing so (as it is in this case), then while its view is just as real, it is not just as legitimate. Indeed it is not legitimate at all in a secular state.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But the whole point, as IngoB has already pointed out on this thread, is that there are competing conceptions of good and harm in this arena, and the Church's is just as real as anyone else's.
quote:I have no idea if this is a fair assessment of the way things are and must be in the USA - but please remember that there are other juridictions in the world. And that whether the USA's not previously having recognised same-sex marriage was an act of "creating equality" is very much the question being debated, not something you can take for granted as a premiss.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:No, the Supreme Court would strike it down. As it has. As it should for any law(s) that create inequality under the law without good cause as considered from a secular, not religious, point of view. Because First Amendment.
If people don't like what the Church is saying, they can just ignore it - or fight it. But if people do hear and agree with it, and want to exercise their democratic rights in that direction, what would you have happen - for them to be taken in for political re-programming for having reached the "wrong" conclusion?
quote:Well, I'd rather you answer my question, but I read your recent posts and you don't quite address my query.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I made some moments ago.
quote:So, money is your problem? My, but what good, Christian Ethics you have grandma.
Originally posted by IngoB:
the state has assigned a whole range of benefits to marriage. If more people get access to them, then we all (including straight couples) will end up footing the bill.
quote:And again I cry bullshit. Marriage became a thing because money. Marriage was first formalised for the rich. It wasn't until the poor became middle class that anybody, including the church, gave a shit about them.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Originally marriage was incentivised by the state, because the state got something crucial for its survival back from it: new citizens.
quote:Then how about we keep that opinion in the RCC?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Third, "gay marriage" is not acceptable because homosexual acts are sinful, according to the RCC.
quote:Bullshit. The state is not about sin. Its laws are for the protection of its citizens and itself. And again, again, again, you've no proof equal marriage harms anyone.
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, the state should not encourage sin in its populace
quote:Why does this matter? Anti-discrimination laws changed what the rights of minorities were always understood to be. Is that wrong as well?
Originally posted by Jamat:
What sticks in the craw is the forced and politicised redefinition of what most of us have always understood marriage to be.
quote:Well, at least this is honest.
Originally posted by Jamat:
The argument is not about justice, fairness or human rights.
quote:No, it isn't. First, language evolves. Can't even properly read Shakespeare without translations.
Originally posted by Jamat:
It is about murdering the language for political reasons.
quote:I beg to differ. It matters not whether it's good for society as a whole; we do not, in free societies, progress along the lines of things being forbidden unless they're proved to be beneficial, and everything not expressly permitted being banned. We proceed in the opposite direction; everything not expressly banned is permitted, and things can only be banned when it is shown that they are harmful to society as a whole. The onus is not on me to prove equal marriage would cause no harm; it is on its opponents to prove that it would, and so far I've seen little beyond hypothesis and slippery slopes.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:No, with respect, Karl - you don't just get to say this and have it taken as a given. The whole argument is precisley about whether gay marriage is indeed a right and whether it is good for society as a whole. For the arguments to the contrary, read some of IngoB's posts. You don't have to accept those or any other arguments, of course - but you do have to acknowledge that there are other arguments.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Because, CB, equal marriage laws do not impinge on anyone else other then the people they enable to get married.
quote:Indeed, but my conclusion isn't "it does no harm" - my conclusion is "there's no reason to ban it"; "it does no harm" is one of my premises and it's up to you to disprove it.
There's a label for sneaking the conclusion of an argument into the premises you claim to be arguing that conclusion from: I know you've heard of it, but you don't seem to realise you've committed it.
quote:That last paragraph is indeed the reason that even when I was a card carrying evangelical I struggled with what was taken to be God's view on the matter, and primarily why I came in time to completely reject the traditional view.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Arguments in the public sphere don't refer to things being "sinful" because that is a moral judgement about whether something is bad. It's bad in and of itself, regardless of whether it has any other bad effects besides displeasing God.
And in fact the distinction between a moral judgement and evidence that something is practically bad is exactly what has emerged in all the US court cases leading up to the Supreme Court case. Time and again, opponents of same-sex marriage said "it will have this bad effect, and this bad effect", and time and again judges ended up saying "no, you haven't actually got any evidence of that, all that you're left with is a moral objection, and the State isn't here to implement your moral objections".
The State is not there to stop people from sinning. The State can be there to stop people from causing harm. Despite the fact that Christians are fond of saying that when God bans something he must have a good reason/is doing it for our own good, there is a fundamental conceptual difference between the two.
(In fact, you can turn that argument around and say that if the reason God bans things is because of their potential to harm, the lack of evidence that homosexuality causes harm is as good an indicator as any that people haven't been understanding God's views on homosexuality properly...)
quote:Suck it up. Hey, if you like, you can stick to your definition and chunter about how same sex couples "aren't really married"; you can write letters to the press in green ink if it helps. Just as long as you don't extend that to treating them differently in a commercial or official capacity; i.e. you don't enforce your disquiet on everyone else.
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:No one denies this. What sticks in the craw is the forced and politicised redefinition of what most of us have always understood marriage to be. The argument is not about justice, fairness or human rights. Those points are not in dispute. It is about murdering the language for political reasons. [/QB]
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Second, even if one has a moral objection to homosexuality, one can still be grown-up enough to recognise that the state has a role in regulating/encouraging stable relationships,
quote:For some reason IngoB refuses to accept that his argument is of revelationary divine knowledge and wants to continue with the delusion that he can argue for it with logic.
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
The procreation argument for refusing gay marriage is ridiculous, even when notionally using scripture to support the position. If you are claiming a revelation from God, you don't really need to justify it from logic anyway, so the sophistry involved seems pointless. However, it is even more ridiculous when spouted by people who apparently think it is logical, without reference to any revelatory text, and I suspect they would also tell you that animals also don't have sex except to reproduce. And they would be wrong.
quote:Right, exactly. If you want to claim a moral position that is at odds with the civil law, then you have to carry the cross of that profession. Some jobs are no longer open to you. Hard cheese.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Suck it up. Hey, if you like, you can stick to your definition and chunter about how same sex couples "aren't really married"; you can write letters to the press in green ink if it helps. Just as long as you don't extend that to treating them differently in a commercial or official capacity; i.e. you don't enforce your disquiet on everyone else.
Easy really.
quote:Yet. Gay marriage has just been pushed through for a few years in a few countries. The Church thinks in decades and centuries, not in the mayfly cycles of democratic elections.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Thing is - gay marriage has been introduced, and nowhere has the RCC been forced to marry anyone.
quote:How is this argument "bogus"? You'd have to argue that granting marriage status to a couple provides a net financial gain to the state. Otherwise the logic that extending benefits to more couples means greater costs to the state, and hence all of us, obviously holds. As for "tired", what is really tired is the endless litany of past civil rights glories as if they were supporting your case. Well, they don't.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'd be very surprised if this bogus argument was not also used by every group throughout history campaigning against social change - including the abolition of slavery, the overthrow of Jim Crow, woman's votes etc. It is a pretty tired argument.
quote:Oh noes, the hero of the Civil Rights movement quoted what to justify disobedience to state law? Why, it is St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas and their definitions based on the traditional understanding of the revealed and natural moral law. (tip of the hat to Rorate Caeli)
Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
quote:I should have a special say on the matter because I speak the truth. However, in practice, I simply have my say, as you have yours. And the reason why I have my say right now is to point out that introducing "gay marriage" is not simply "socially neutral" to people who think like me (as was being claimed).
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Again, that is just your opinion. Other people live in this country who do not agree, why should you have any special say on the matter?
quote:The state is however very much in the business of regulating society by law according to certain ethical principles it is adopting. The distinction between "crime" and "sin" is certainly valuable, for many reasons. But not for pretending that only the latter is a matter of "morals".
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
As a matter of fact, secular states are not in the business of defining moral sins.
quote:That's not how democracy works. I don't need to wait for permission to speak from a tyrant or king. So far.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
First, nobody is asking you.
quote:No. The state has no business at all to regulate or encourage relationships, stable or otherwise, unless that significantly impacts the common good. The state is to care for the common good, it is not a micromanager for your individual good. If you want a relationship, have one. If you want it stable, make it so. What has the state got to do with all that? The state has grabbed hold of the marriage business because of procreation and inheritance, basically. If the state now has a different agenda, then it should make that explicit, instead of squeezing that agenda through an old body of law it created for other purposes.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Second, even if one has a moral objection to homosexuality, one can still be grown-up enough to recognise that the state has a role in regulating/encouraging stable relationships, even of people who live lives we personally find abhorrant.
quote:If I get you correctly, I should see "gay marriage" as the attempt of the state to minimise the harm done by homosexuality?!
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I happen to believe gambling is an evil far worse even than the evil you appear to think homosexuality to be. At the same time, I can see the logic of the state legislating for horse-racing and other forms of gambling.
quote:(emphasis mine)
Second, the state has assigned a whole range of benefits to marriage. If more people get access to them, then we all (including straight couples) will end up footing the bill. Originally marriage was incentivised by the state, because the state got something crucial for its survival back from it: new citizens. "Gay marriages" do not do that. So there is no automatic rationale to incentivise them as well. I think the state should incentivise directly what it wants, without all this referencing of romantic and intimate relationships, which are really private matters.
quote:Whatever. I won't even dignify that with any response.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Yet. Gay marriage has just been pushed through for a few years in a few countries. The Church thinks in decades and centuries, not in the mayfly cycles of democratic elections.
quote:US Treasury estimates show that there is a net gain from marriage. Yet again your assertions are shown to be bogus.
How is this argument "bogus"? You'd have to argue that granting marriage status to a couple provides a net financial gain to the state. Otherwise the logic that extending benefits to more couples means greater costs to the state, and hence all of us, obviously holds. As for "tired", what is really tired is the endless litany of past civil rights glories as if they were supporting your case. Well, they don't.
quote:Fuck-all to do with anything.
Here's the famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" of one Martin Luther King Jr.:
quote:You keep asserting this and I keep telling you it isn't true. But you're not actually interested in discussion and facts, are you? You just want to keep asserting things as if they are self evident.
The things is, we really do not mean the same thing any longer when we say "marriage". I mean what has been the consensus for basically ever across the globe, but at a minimum what has been the consensus for about 1.5 millennia in the West.
quote:Slavery ended at a particular point in time. Until that point, slavery had been traditional.
You mean what people have come up with in the last 60-100 years or so in the West. Now, the state (or really the judiciary, at least in the USA) has for some inane reason decided to force laws upon us that can only have a chance to be just by your definition of marriage, but cannot be just or for that matter even sane by the traditional definition of marriage.
quote:Nobody is forcing anything down anyone's throats. Get over yourself.
Now, why is the state (or the lords of law) doing this? If it really is about benefits, then why is the state not rather fixing the benefit system? Why is the state by virtue of contentious law forcing a re-definition of marriage down our throats?
quote:Explain exactly how the state could have avoided 'coming down on one side or another' on an issue like this. Either gay marriage is legal or it isn't.
This is in the end ideological warfare. The state could have staid neutral and simply adjusted its provisions. But no, it had to heavy in on one side against the other, de facto making the new understanding of marriage mandatory (for otherwise one has to declare the state and its actions as unjust and tyrannical).
quote:Oh my goodness, you are a complete prick, aren't you.
I should have a special say on the matter because I speak the truth.
quote:Nope, you've had your say over and over and over again. You've lost the argument, you just can't let it go.
However, in practice, I simply have my say, as you have yours. And the reason why I have my say right now is to point out that introducing "gay marriage" is not simply "socially neutral" to people who think like me (as was being claimed).
quote:Bullshit.
The state is however very much in the business of regulating society by law according to certain ethical principles it is adopting. The distinction between "crime" and "sin" is certainly valuable, for many reasons. But not for pretending that only the latter is a matter of "morals".
quote:Fair societies make rules for everyone, even if self-righteous pricks like to tell the rest of society that they have the truth and that certain laws are inherrently sinful. Because that is how free liberal societies work.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
That's not how democracy works. I don't need to wait for permission to speak from a tyrant or king. So far.
quote:Bullshit. Let's just add law to the long list of things you clearly know nothing about.
No. The state has no business at all to regulate or encourage relationships, stable or otherwise, unless that significantly impacts the common good. The state is to care for the common good, it is not a micromanager for your individual good. If you want a relationship, have one. If you want it stable, make it so. What has the state got to do with all that? The state has grabbed hold of the marriage business because of procreation and inheritance, basically. If the state now has a different agenda, then it should make that explicit, instead of squeezing that agenda through an old body of law it created for other purposes.
quote:You don't get me correctly, because clearly you are a prick. God help anyone who lives anywhere near you.
If I get you correctly, I should see "gay marriage" as the attempt of the state to minimise the harm done by homosexuality?!
quote:Hang on. Isn't that what St Paul said about "marriage"?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If I get you correctly, I should see "gay marriage" as the attempt of the state to minimise the harm done by homosexuality?!
quote:i) Divorce has been "pushed through" for far more years and in many more countries. In how many instances has the RCC been forced to carry out marriages involving a divorced party?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Yet. Gay marriage has just been pushed through for a few years in a few countries. The Church thinks in decades and centuries, not in the mayfly cycles of democratic elections.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Thing is - gay marriage has been introduced, and nowhere has the RCC been forced to marry anyone.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Why should the modern state control marriage rights at all? What business is it of the state what your intimate relationships are like?
quote:You have made this point a few times, and it seems to have gone unanswered, so I'll bite.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think the state should get out of the marriage business and deliver benefits independent of it according to its purposes.
quote:Can you show us any evidence that the church has ever been forced to perform any marriage?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Yet. Gay marriage has just been pushed through for a few years in a few countries. The Church thinks in decades and centuries, not in the mayfly cycles of democratic elections.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Thing is - gay marriage has been introduced, and nowhere has the RCC been forced to marry anyone.
quote:If that is actually true I can cite the horrors of the Inquisition as reasons to doubt the moral judgement of the Catholic Church, seeing as by its way of looking at time it only recently decided executing people for perceived offenses against the faith is a bad idea.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Yet. Gay marriage has just been pushed through for a few years in a few countries. The Church thinks in decades and centuries, not in the mayfly cycles of democratic elections.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Thing is - gay marriage has been introduced, and nowhere has the RCC been forced to marry anyone.
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif){kind=icon}
quote:First, and foremost, the situation is different. One can argue that not allowing "gay marriages" is against the state-declared intention to not allow discrimination based on sex. Divorce does not similarly bring a protected characteristic into play. So from the fact that the Church has not been challenged over divorce through the civil law does not follow that she won't be over "gay marriage". The whole rights ideology plays into "gay marriage" in a way that it just doesn't for divorce.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
i) Divorce has been "pushed through" for far more years and in many more countries. In how many instances has the RCC been forced to carry out marriages involving a divorced party?
quote:This is interesting - they were burning people for what, a 1000 years. Well, it wouldn't have been good to rush to judgment.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jbohn and RuthW,
I think you have proven IngoB's point.
Torture. The RCC have been forced to go against something they thought morally right. And forced conversion, enslaving native populations, OMG! The list goes on.
The RCC are repressed.
quote:that is when the RCC were the state church. Now they are not and you should rejoice stead of messing in civil matters.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Second, the English part of the RCC famously was forced to do just that, marry a divorced man. Admittedly, since the decadent politician in question,
quote:the horror
Originally posted by IngoB:
and so we now have the Anglicans.
quote:Sorry, annulment makes bullshit of this argument.
Originally posted by IngoB:
In more recent times, there has been much ado about accepting the "remarried" to the Eucharist.
quote:Snerk.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:Hang on. Isn't that what St Paul said about "marriage"?
Originally posted by IngoB:
If I get you correctly, I should see "gay marriage" as the attempt of the state to minimise the harm done by homosexuality?!
quote:I think that you will find it was an annulment, which the RCC assures us is not divorce at all, no definitely not. You also seem to be missing out the part where the Pope was being lent on heavily by Catherine of Aragon's nephew so there's hardly just the one politician in that particular mess.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Second, the English part of the RCC famously was forced to do just that, marry a divorced man. Admittedly, since the decadent politician in question, one Henry VIII, couldn't make Rome submit to his desires,
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Why should the modern state control marriage rights at all? What business is it of the state what your intimate relationships are like?
quote:Probably the right thing in is for churches to get out of the marriage business, not the state. Marriages shall be registered by the state, and churches may do their own thing, but without legal status, only church status. Thus get married and then do church about it, or not.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think the state should get out of the marriage business and deliver benefits independent of it according to its purposes.
quote:No idea what you mean. Could you elaborate?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Well, I'd rather you answer my question, but I read your recent posts and you don't quite address my query.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I made some moments ago.
First, You keep referring to speech and that is not what we are objecting to.
quote:Full acceptance of gay people reduces negative health outcomes. So those of you who are being assholes on this, please stop being assholes on this.
Suicide ideation and attempts were positively associated with each individual marginalization indicator (verbal violence, physical violence, bullying, sexual violence and work discrimination) and psychosocial health problems (smoking, party drugs, depression, anxiety, STIs, HIV risk and HIV). Furthermore, prevalence of suicide ideation and attempts increased with each added psychosocial health problem.
quote:To be honest, I'm not sure whether the burden of proof rests more heavily on one side than the other - although, traditionally those advocating for change do bear a greater evidential burden. But let's lay that aside.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The onus is not on me to prove equal marriage would cause no harm; it is on its opponents to prove that it would, and so far I've seen little beyond hypothesis and slippery slopes.
quote:
What do you think, for example, should have happened if a clear majority in the recent plebiscite in Ireland had voted against the notion that same-sex partners could marry? What if a lot of people have voted no in part because they'd been persuaded by the sorts of arguments the Church was using, and/or the natural law arguments IngoB has used in this thread - should those votes have been discounted? Should the Church and others arguing these sorts of stances not have been allowed to campaign in the first place? Should only those advocating for the change have been allowed to influence opinion?
quote:Amen
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
That's really the underlying point here. Stop trying to use the law to oppress my friends. You've no fucking right to do this, any more than the local mosque would have the right to force me not to eat bacon sandwiches. Simple as that.
quote:It's not quite true that someone else getting married has "bugger all effect on you" - marriage has modest financial benefits associated with tax-free transfers between spouses, inheritance and the like.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Tell me, again, why YOUR religious beliefs should tell SOMEONE ELSE WHO DOESN'T SHARE THEM how to live their private lives in a way that actually has bugger all effect on you, with the force of law.
quote:Tell you what - if CB can quantify how much equal marriage costs him I'll write him a bloody cheque. But as has been pointed out, in his perfect world, they'd all be straight and be costing him the same, just in straight marriages.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:It's not quite true that someone else getting married has "bugger all effect on you" - marriage has modest financial benefits associated with tax-free transfers between spouses, inheritance and the like.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Tell me, again, why YOUR religious beliefs should tell SOMEONE ELSE WHO DOESN'T SHARE THEM how to live their private lives in a way that actually has bugger all effect on you, with the force of law.
To the extent that making marriage available to gay couples offers these financial benefits to those couples, it represents a cost to the state (and so has a small effect on everyone else).
The bureaucratic assumptions that come along with marriage - next-of-kin rights in hospitals, intestacy, banking and whatever - don't impose a cost on anyone.
quote:While this may be true, it's also irrelevant - how does affording same-sex couples the right to marry affect anyone else to any greater degree than allowing opposite-sex couples to marry? (Other than purely by number.)
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
It's not quite true that someone else getting married has "bugger all effect on you" - marriage has modest financial benefits associated with tax-free transfers between spouses, inheritance and the like.
To the extent that making marriage available to gay couples offers these financial benefits to those couples, it represents a cost to the state (and so has a small effect on everyone else).
quote:What I linked to was representatives of the RCC campaigning for, and sending money to, the creation of a law inhibiting equal marriage.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
No idea what you mean. Could you elaborate?
quote:The state should get out of the business you have claimed is so vital to its interest?
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think the state should get out of the marriage business and deliver benefits independent of it according to its purposes.
quote:Please try to get your facts right before making wild assertions. Like anything else, marriage has a cost and a benefit to society. Overall, studies show that there is an overall financial benefit - so even if there is a slight cost of tax benefits, this is overwhelmed by the benefits that the state gets. If you don't believe me, try looking at the studies rather than posting rubbish.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
It's not quite true that someone else getting married has "bugger all effect on you" - marriage has modest financial benefits associated with tax-free transfers between spouses, inheritance and the like.
To the extent that making marriage available to gay couples offers these financial benefits to those couples, it represents a cost to the state (and so has a small effect on everyone else).
quote:Even if that is true (I doubt it, bureaucracy never costs nothing), imagine all the benefits that marriage brings. The ambulances that are not called because someone is there to take a partner to hospital. The carers that are not needed, the council staff that are not needed for advice, the nurses that are not needed to change bandages.
The bureaucratic assumptions that come along with marriage - next-of-kin rights in hospitals, intestacy, banking and whatever - don't impose a cost on anyone.
quote:Had it done so, equal marriage would have happened much earlier. There are a number of denominations in the US which have been performing religious marriages for same-sex couples for a number of years now. In the coming years, there will be more.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think the state should get out of the marriage business and deliver benefits independent of it according to its purposes.
quote:Whereas a major component of the decisions for marriage equality in the US courts was the finding that, not only did marriage equality not cause demonstrable harm to anyone, but that lack of marriage equality caused demonstrable harm to the children in families where the adults were not permitted to marry.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
... The assertion is "this will harm society"...
quote:Aren't you conflating partnerships and marriage here? There are plenty of gay couples who have been living together for years / decades without the possibility of a legal marriage, yet nevertheless do/did all these things for each other - because that's what couples do - married or not.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
imagine all the benefits that marriage brings. The ambulances that are not called because someone is there to take a partner to hospital. The carers that are not needed, the council staff that are not needed for advice, the nurses that are not needed to change bandages.
Marriages financially benefit society. Just a fact.
quote:I think you've answered your own point here. Legal recognition of gay marriage will lead to more defined rights for gay couples (re inheritance, etc) which will lead to more people getting married. And studies have shown that the overall effect of more people getting married is positive on society, not negative.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Aren't you conflating partnerships and marriage here? There are plenty of gay couples who have been living together for years / decades without the possibility of a legal marriage, yet nevertheless do/did all these things for each other - because that's what couples do - married or not.
One could make a reasonable case that such a couple was married, but that their marriage lacked state sanction or recognition.
Perhaps allowing same-sex couples to legally marry increases the likelihood of permanent same-sex couples forming. It has to be true that society's increasing acceptance of same-sex relationships makes it more likely for same-sex couples to openly cohabit, and perhaps legal same-sex marriage is a necessary part of that acceptance, so there's an indirect chain of causality.
quote:It is only false in the sense that rather than having a negative effect on those who do not want to marry someone of the same sex (and in fact everyone else), the overall financial effect is positive. So actually Karl is understating things.
(And no, of course there's no difference, other than numbers, in the costs of same-sex marriage being legal vs opposite-sex marriage being legal. It would also be false to say that changing the legal framework surrounding opposite-sex marriage had "bugger-all effect" on anyone else. This is not an argument that same-sex marriage is in any sense a bad thing. It is an argument that the statement "same-sex marriage has absolutely bugger-all effect on anyone who doesn't want to marry someone of the same sex" is false.)
quote:It's clear that a society of couples is better-off than a society of singletons living alone. So to the extent that legalizing same-sex marriage encourages more gay people to form permanent cohabiting couples, there's a financial benefit to society.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And studies have shown that the overall effect of more people getting married is positive on society, not negative.
quote:Think about all the presents I need to buy!
Leorning Cniht: I posted a mechanism that had a small negative financial effect on everyone else.
quote:The state has long ago started separating issues of childcare from marriage. I don't have to be married to claim child benefits, for example. The state should finish its business and reform its provisions, instead of messing about with age-old institutions as a proxy to shitty, convoluted laws it is responsible for.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The state should get out of the business you have claimed is so vital to its interest?
quote:Not at all. I literally think there should not be any law on the books of the state that depends on "validity of marriage". None. Have the courage of your convictions. If another man can act as my representative to hospitals when I'm unconscious, can be my primary heir, can have shared parental responsibilities with me and whatnot, then what precisely has all this to do with my desire to screw him? Nothing. When that was a woman called my wife, then this had something to do with her likely popping out our kids. That was the original idea behind all these provisions. Now you say these provision have taken on a life of their own, I can now assign them to a man I want to screw. Well, then why can I not assign them to a man I do not want to screw? Or a woman I have zero sexual interest in? Perhaps even to my brother?
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
This strikes me as a throw-away remark designed to deflect comment. In the US, at least, the state would not be able to choose which church's marriages were valid and which were not.
quote:Please give up your fear of mirrors, they will not steal your soul.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Be consistent.
quote:I'm not sure that this is necessarily true; it depends on the nature of the benefits offered, and how widely they apply to non-married people. Moreover, SSM is often legal in Western societies where increasing numbers of straight couples are choosing not to marry, regardless of potential access to benefits. This suggests that benefits are not a major part of people's thinking when it comes to deciding whether to marry.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Legal recognition of gay marriage will lead to more defined rights for gay couples (re inheritance, etc) which will lead to more people getting married.
quote:About which you think what - if anything - should have been done? Do you think the Irish people would have a had a right so to decide? Would their right so to decide have depended on how they reached this decision?
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Of course if Ireland had decided to hold a referendum, as it did, it was bound to act in accordance with the results of that referendum. It wouldn't stop me thinking that the Irish government and people had made collectively an oppressive decision.
quote:That's interesting, because almost everyone else here in favour of gay marriage has framed the argument in terms of rights. That's just an observation, not a criticism. But surely freedoms, in the political context, are pretty much acknowledgements of pre-existing (or in some cases specially conferred) rights, so I'm not quite sure what distinction you are drawing here.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I do not think this is about "rights". It is not about demonstrating that gay people have a "right" to marry. It's about freedoms.
quote:I repeat, it is usually incumbent upon those who want to change existing laws to demonstrate why that change should take place. But anyway, why should religiously informed/motivated reasons be less politically considerable that any other "opinion-based" reasons - whether intimately personal, ideological, or whatever? Should the Irish votes influenced by religiously informed grounds have had their votes counted for less than those who voted on the grounds of a particular "secular" philosophical/ideological opinion? What about those religiously inspired votes which were in favour of gay marriage? What about another issue like immigration: should religiously inspired votes - say, those which may be grounded in a thelogical concept like the inherent equal dignity of those of all nationalities as being brothers and sisters under the fatherhood of God - count for less then too? Should there be a qualifying test for how much your vote should be worth? Because that seems to me to be an implication of what you are arguing.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
If gay people want to marry, then it is up to those who would so frame the law to prevent them to present a reason for doing so - and at that, in a free secular country - a reason that doesn't boil down to "it's against my religion".
quote:Ah, so the "right" decision for the Irish is what you think it should be - it was predetermined that a no vote would have been wrong. In which case, why should the politicians have allowed the Irish people the "right" to get it "wrong"? And given that a result would have been so "wrong" what do you think should have done about it?
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Which would be why the Irish people would have made the wrong decision had they voted against. And presumably why, despite the almost proverbial strength of the Irish RCC, they voted for.
quote:*flashback to law school* Yes, we tend to talk about "rights" to cover 3 or 4 different kinds of things, some of which are positive abilities to do things, some of which are freedoms from others doing things to us.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:That's interesting, because almost everyone else here in favour of gay marriage has framed the argument in terms of rights. That's just an observation, not a criticism. But surely freedoms, in the political context, are pretty much acknowledgements of pre-existing (or in some cases specially conferred) rights, so I'm not quite sure what distinction you are drawing here.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I do not think this is about "rights". It is not about demonstrating that gay people have a "right" to marry. It's about freedoms.
quote:What, there are special keyboards? Who knew!
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
And I am not hetereo-typing just now, nor is anyone SS-typing on this thread.
quote:You've made various versions of this point/asked various versions of this question a number of times now. And it's a fair point, and I've been trying to think how to answer it.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:To be honest, I'm not sure whether the burden of proof rests more heavily on one side than the other - although, traditionally those advocating for change do bear a greater evidential burden. But let's lay that aside.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The onus is not on me to prove equal marriage would cause no harm; it is on its opponents to prove that it would, and so far I've seen little beyond hypothesis and slippery slopes.
All I'm really arguing against is the idea that the Church should not allowed to attempt to influence the decision one way or another - especially on grounds which beg the very question, like "But your side is denying gays the right to marry!" Let's have an open and frank debate and let the process work itself out in whatever way the particular society in question has for that (in Ireland, it was a plebiscite) rather than trying to shame-silence one side of the argument in advance.
I asked this of mousethief and I'd like to ask you the same thing:quote:
What do you think, for example, should have happened if a clear majority in the recent plebiscite in Ireland had voted against the notion that same-sex partners could marry? What if a lot of people have voted no in part because they'd been persuaded by the sorts of arguments the Church was using, and/or the natural law arguments IngoB has used in this thread - should those votes have been discounted? Should the Church and others arguing these sorts of stances not have been allowed to campaign in the first place? Should only those advocating for the change have been allowed to influence opinion?
quote:I think a lot of non-religious people have moved away from the idea that morality is relative, back to an idea that morality is objective, but which places human wellbeing at the centre of their view of objective morality. As a result, what we've seen happen is those people actively judge the church as immoral and evil for its stance against gay rights.
Originally posted by orfeo:
And once upon a time, a morality argument was a trump card. Hardly anyone wanted to do anything immoral or be seen to be doing anything immoral, and the church was the definitive judge of what was immoral. Ideas of sin and hell and damnation (however nicely expressed, that's still what's being talked about) were enough to "shame-silence" anyone who didn't think that something looked so bad in this earthly life.
But the world has changed. A morality argument is no longer a winning one - I wouldn't say that people have no sense of morality, but they're conscious that the same morality is not shared by everyone, and they certainly don't accept the church as the judge of morality. Morality is now subjective, not objective. What is seen as objective is science and study of evidence.
quote:I'll give you a clue, Ingo: any reference to whether something is sinful won't be relevant.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Aha. So what is human wellbeing
quote:One way of thinking about it I sometimes find useful is "those things which a benevolent dispassionate third party would wish for a person."
Originally posted by IngoB:
So what is human wellbeing
quote:I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Increasing human wellbeing is the moral rule.
and the moral rules that best support it?
quote:You didn't read the article about the lack of wellbeing of gay people I posted above did you? Here you are again: Suicide related ideation and behavior among Canadian gay and bisexual men. Sample size of more than 8000. Lack of wellbeing is associated with being suicidal don't you agree? Or is it moral in your universe to push people to such psychological pain?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Aha. So what is human wellbeing - and how do we objectively determine that, and the moral rules that best support it?
quote:What he probably means is that eventually he's going to tell you he knows the right way for people to live in order to have "wellbeing".
Originally posted by Starlight:
quote:I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Increasing human wellbeing is the moral rule.
and the moral rules that best support it?
quote:Well in that sense, the fields of medicine, psychology, economics, sociology, history, and cultural anthropology, all have a lot to say about human wellbeing that is based on empirical research. Insofar as anything Ingo says contradicts basic scientific data, he's simply talking crap.
Originally posted by orfeo:
What he probably means is that eventually he's going to tell you he knows the right way for people to live in order to have "wellbeing".
quote:I'm pretty sure that his Church's Inquisition burning me at the stake for being gay wouldn't have promoted my wellbeing. Their more modern Church teachings on the subject are not really much better and boil down to suicide via stigma, ostracization, stress, depression, and loneliness.
Coincidentally, this will be exactly the same way to live that you would live if you followed all the Church's teaching.
quote:Seems pretty common with him.
Thus proving he's missed the point completely.
quote:Who is we?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Aha. So what is human wellbeing - and how do we objectively determine that, and the moral rules that best support it?
quote:One important aspect of wellbeing is having choices. So long as it does not harm others we should be allowed to choose what we do.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Aha. So what is human wellbeing - and how do we objectively determine that, and the moral rules that best support it?
quote:I'm not sure harm to others is the only possible measure, sometimes freedoms are limited by the state due to risk of harm to oneself.
Originally posted by Boogie:
One important aspect of wellbeing is having choices. So long as it does not harm others we should be allowed to choose what we do.
quote:Croatia voted to constitutionally ban SSM by referendum in 2013, which was engineered by the RCC.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Is there actually anywhere with a RC majority which had the opportunity to vote down SSM marriage and did so?
quote:And that this is so can be objectively determined, how? On what grounds can anybody assess this, by what means can we all conclude it?
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'll give you a clue, Ingo: any reference to whether something is sinful won't be relevant. Nor will any procreation requirement.
quote:This of course nothing but a restatement. What makes a person "benevolent" is that they wish the good, and that they are "dispassionate" makes them act objectively. But you thinking about such a person leaves your thoughts subjective. Perhaps it strips out some more obviously selfish concerns, by virtue of you trying to stand apart from yourself. But it is still you thinking, according to your standards and knowledge, it is not objective.
Originally posted by Starlight:
One way of thinking about it I sometimes find useful is "those things which a benevolent dispassionate third party would wish for a person."
quote:Indeed, isn't that interesting? It is almost as if what constitutes human wellbeing is built into us. Do you think a more precise statement of that can be made?
Originally posted by Starlight:
In practice everyone knows what human wellbeing looks like when they see it. International surveys show cultures all around the world agree over the things that constitute human wellbeing.
quote:Yes, things get murky once we go beyond the absolute basics of human life, like being able to breathe or having access to water. We then need a more systematic approach, that's for sure. I don't know if Positive Psychology can deliver it, since I don't know what that is.
Originally posted by Starlight:
But nailing down exactly what constitutes human wellbeing, and trying to promote more of it, is basically what the scientific field of Positive Psychology exists to do.
quote:Well, I would say that is more a moral principle. When we apply this to concrete cases, we will find certain rules. For example, we will find that killing the innocent does not increase human wellbeing, and so we will conclude that murder is immoral. That's a moral rule which follows from this principle. I'm asking what other rules we can derive, and how we go about doing that.
Originally posted by Starlight:
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Increasing human wellbeing is the moral rule.
quote:Yes and no. But I would expect to see very similar findings if we looked at say a group of alcoholics. I have very little doubt that social marginalisation contributes considerably to the misery of alcoholics. Still, it is neither realistic nor appropriate to expect society to embrace alcoholics as entirely normal. (In Christian terms: "hate the sin, not the sinner" is a nice slogan, but putting it into practice is not trivial.) But more importantly, from the (likely) fact that alcoholics suffer under social marginalisation does not follow that alcoholism is neutral or good for their wellbeing.
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Lack of wellbeing is associated with being suicidal don't you agree? Or is it moral in your universe to push people to such psychological pain?
quote:It is indeed very easy to discern where I am going with all this, but unsurprisingly you are not getting it right.
Originally posted by orfeo:
What he probably means is that eventually he's going to tell you he knows the right way for people to live in order to have "wellbeing". Coincidentally, this will be exactly the same way to live that you would live if you followed all the Church's teaching.
quote:First, I'm not aware that anybody has shown that anything I have actually said contradicts "basic scientific data". I have not challenged all claims about what I am supposed to be saying, and some of those claims are likely in contradiction to known fact. But that is a different matter. Second, basic scientific data rarely says anything, interpretation is always required and rarely so straightforward that one can say that the data speaks for itself. Third, I'm always a bit bemused when I see this fervent belief in the correctness of "science". Every working scientist maintains a healthy scepticism about even published science. Particularly so in the "squishy" sciences... Here are the results of a study looking at reproducibility in Psychology. The good news is that some experiments actually could be reproduced. The bad news is that the majority of experiments could not be reproduced. I would agree that in say a century or so we probably know rather well what of the science published now is actually true. The scientific process does work. Slowly.
Originally posted by Starlight:
Well in that sense, the fields of medicine, psychology, economics, sociology, history, and cultural anthropology, all have a lot to say about human wellbeing that is based on empirical research. Insofar as anything Ingo says contradicts basic scientific data, he's simply talking crap.
quote:The Church has burned people at the stake for being gay? Whom, when and where? For the most part the Inquisition was busy with heresy, not morality. As for the attribution of all ills that befall homosexuals to the condemnation of (active) homosexuality, see my comment above on alcoholism.
Originally posted by Starlight:
I'm pretty sure that his Church's Inquisition burning me at the stake for being gay wouldn't have promoted my wellbeing. Their more modern Church teachings on the subject are not really much better and boil down to suicide via stigma, ostracization, stress, depression, and loneliness.
quote:Well, I am pretty sure that we would agree on some universally shared features of human wellbeing. You would probably not like to live in a poisoned environment with no access to clean water, insufficient food resources and constant danger to be short by marauding armed bands. I can make this guess because you, as a human being, are not entirely different to me, as a human being. It seems such guesses are rather useful, because they can guide policy, like making law against poisoning the land. Is there any way of making more such guesses, can we find some a valid method of doing so?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Who is we? Why do you think there are a single set of rules that ensure wellbeing any more than a single size of bed would ensure wellbeing for all who sleep in it?
quote:I appreciate that this is your opinion. I neither agree with your characterisation of my thinking, nor likely with your choice of moral rules. Now, how can we go beyond pitting opinion against opinion? Is there any way of finding objective truth in the matter of morals?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
You could start by eliminating anyone from the We who thinks that obeying an archaic abstract set of rules is more important than the happiness of the people involved. That would be you IngoB.
quote:You've left out the bit where being gay is a cross that must be borne, since everybody has such a cross, so why should gays be exempt? It's sad that they are persecuted and driven to suicide, but the path to heaven is often rocky. The church only has their best interests at heart.
Originally posted by Macrina:
Ah no no no benighted relativists you've got it ALL wrong.
If those poor gays gave up sinning and living that wrongful lifestyle then they wouldn't have ANY of the problems that it causes. It's not the Church causing them by excluding, discriminating and isolating them, making them doubt their bodies and minds. No. Of course not, the Church is concerned for their souls.
Fucking horseshit.
quote:Yes: We are all human. Living as humans and among humans causes us to see and experience human suffering and human thriving, and form views about the types of experiences we regard to be positive and that we would wish on those we love and the types of experience we regard to be negative and that in our less charitable moments we might wish on those we hate.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Indeed, isn't that interesting? It is almost as if what constitutes human wellbeing is built into us. Do you think a more precise statement of that can be made?
quote:It's a relatively recent branch of psychology which seeks to study what things make humans thrive. One of my best friends just completed a PhD in it, and I've read a number of books and articles on the subject myself.
I don't know if Positive Psychology can deliver it, since I don't know what that is.
quote:Okay. There is no particularly special method: As you note, it's pretty self-evident that murder of the innocent is going to be immoral. People are able to quickly reach consensus on most common issues. Some issues are more complex and require scientific data to inform them. eg "What are the effects of the divorce process on the wellbeing of the children involved?" would be an example that science could shed light on.
Well, I would say that is more a moral principle. When we apply this to concrete cases, we will find certain rules. For example, we will find that killing the innocent does not increase human wellbeing, and so we will conclude that murder is immoral. That's a moral rule which follows from this principle. I'm asking what other rules we can derive, and how we go about doing that.
quote:Since gay people are often driven to alcoholism as a coping mechanism to deal with societal prejudice, and often suffer the potentially deadly effects of alcoholism accordingly, I too would expect to see a great deal of similarity between the two groups due to their disproportionate overlap.
I would expect to see very similar findings if we looked at say a group of alcoholics.
quote:Valencia 1572 by the Spanish Inquisition. The statistics given in various sources seem to be different, however both the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisitions both got quite interested in sodomy at times, in several decades apparently prosecuting more people for sodomy than for heresy. They apparently prosecuted nearly 1500 people between them, with at least 30 burnt at the stake.
The Church has burned people at the stake for being gay? Whom, when and where? For the most part the Inquisition was busy with heresy, not morality.
quote:I didn't know that. If Wikipedia is to believed, the Spanish Inquisition at least was primarily persecuting homosexual rape and teen/child abuse by adults, to quote from the link you provided: "Nearly all of almost 500 cases of sodomy between persons concerned the relationship between an older man and an adolescent, often by coercion; with only a few cases where the couple were consenting homosexual adults. About 100 of the total involved allegations of child abuse."
Originally posted by Starlight:
Valencia 1572 by the Spanish Inquisition. The statistics given in various sources seem to be different, however both the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisitions both got quite interested in sodomy at times, in several decades apparently prosecuting more people for sodomy than for heresy. They apparently prosecuted nearly 1500 people between them, with at least 30 burnt at the stake.
quote:Ah, objectivity. A dangerous concept if ever there was one.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:And that this is so can be objectively determined, how? On what grounds can anybody assess this, by what means can we all conclude it?
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'll give you a clue, Ingo: any reference to whether something is sinful won't be relevant. Nor will any procreation requirement.
quote:The question wherein true happiness and satisfaction can be found is a difficult one. But it is not one that needs to concern us here. If we ask instead what people want and wish for, and wherein they find pleasure and attainment (happiness and satisfaction of the moment, if you will), then your statement is quite simply wrong. I do not at all make the assumption that this is the same for everybody. I just happen to also believe that our intellects and wills are weak and confused, and that our impulses and desires are strong and disordered. And yes, I believe that this is so for everybody, though to what extent in what way varies between people. Consequently, we often do not recognise what is good, and where we recognise it we nevertheless do not want it; whereas we often want something that is bad, often enough even if we recognise that it is bad.
Originally posted by orfeo:
One of your fundamental problems, Ingo, is that you often base your arguments on an unspoken notion that whatever behaviour makes you happy and satisfied would make everyone else happy and satisfied.
quote:In case it isn't obvious by now, the reason I was switching to question mode was that Starlight was proposing nothing else but natural moral law. However, also rather obviously, his version of the natural moral law does not come to the same conclusion as mine, which likely means that its basic "abstraction mechanisms" are different. I wanted to tease that out before naming the beast, quite simply because otherwise we would just get the usual assortment of vile and stupid commentary from the peanut brain gallery.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Your other fundamental problem, of course, is that you're a manipulative little shit who is one of those people who asks questions when you think you already know the answers.
quote:I am glad to hear a RC, and a conservative one at that, admit that the RCC is a 'branch' and, by implication,so is the C of E.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Henry VIII, couldn't make Rome submit to his desires, he simply split off the local RC branch and so we now have the Anglicans. were of course fostered by prevailing state law.
quote:Of course you were switching. You have spent most of your time twisting and turning in increasingly desperate attempts to show how your interpretation of the RCCs teaching is wholly true.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:In case it isn't obvious by now, the reason I was switching to question mode was that Starlight was proposing nothing else but natural moral law.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Your other fundamental problem, of course, is that you're a manipulative little shit who is one of those people who asks questions when you think you already know the answers.
quote:Because I want to challenge the apparent implication of several posters' views here that some kinds of reasons or arguments ought effectively to diqualify a person's vote for or against a piece of legislation. As I said to Karl:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't understand why CB is so interested in discussing a hypothetical case of a no vote that didn't happen.
quote:
[W]hy should religiously informed/motivated reasons be less politically considerable that any other "opinion-based" reasons - whether intimately personal, ideological, or whatever? Should the Irish votes influenced by religiously informed grounds have had their votes counted for less than those who voted on the grounds of a particular "secular" philosophical/ideological opinion? What about those religiously inspired votes which were in favour of gay marriage? What about another issue like immigration: should religiously inspired votes - say, those which may be grounded in a thelogical concept like the inherent equal dignity of those of all nationalities as being brothers and sisters under the fatherhood of God - count for less then too? Should there be a qualifying test for how much your vote should be worth? Because that seems to me to be an implication of what you are arguing.
quote:Nope. Never so much as crossed my mind.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think perhaps what CB is getting at is that those who worked on the anti-slavery campaigns (in England) took many years to force through changes, with many votes against them. Therefore why should the RCC give up having lost the (temporary) momentum on the SSM question.
quote:I admire your touching faith in the Whig view of history. But really, it's a fantasy.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
My answer to that is that the arch of history is towards freedom and justice.
quote:Agreed: indeed, it's no more RC teaching that it is what IngoB actually said.
Originally posted by leo:
quote:I am glad to hear a RC, and a conservative one at that, admit that the RCC is a 'branch' and, by implication,so is the C of E.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Henry VIII, couldn't make Rome submit to his desires, he simply split off the local RC branch and so we now have the Anglicans. were of course fostered by prevailing state law.
That's not RC teaching.
quote:It is the one shared by many, including MLK, which he apparently got from the unitarians. I happen to like it more than the bunk you spread.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I admire your touching faith in the Whig view of history. But really, it's a fantasy.
quote:Wrong.
And, by the way, the 1836 Marriage Act did not prevent Roman Catholics from having their marriages recognised by the state, nor did it forbid them to marry in a Catholic ceremony with a Catholic priest: it merely required them to repeat the vows in front of an Anglican priest, which was the legally validating bit. Just like you're not married as far as the French state is concerned util you've been to the mairie, even if you've been "done" in the Church already.
quote:
The law of England prior to the 1836 Marriage Act did not prevent Roman Catholics from having their marriages recognised by the state, nor did it forbid them to marry in a Catholic ceremony with a Catholic priest: it merely required them to repeat the vows in front of an Anglican priest, which was the legally validating bit. Just like you're not married as far as the French state is concerned util you've been to the mairie, even if you've been "done" in the Church already.
quote:First time this has occurred to you? He has said many times that he is not here to win converts. That he does not care which way they go, is an inference.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Are you actually trying to discourage people from following Christ? It certainly looks like it.
quote:Perhaps it would be ironic if it were true. But it's not. As I've just pointed out. They could have their marriages legally validated by the state by repeating their vows in front of one of the state's minsters - a C of E cleric. And that is precisely what they tended to do, often encouraged by their own Catholic priests.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The irony being, of course, that all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.
quote:
The key question is not whether Catholic couples went through an invalid Catholic ceremony of marriage, but whether they also submitted to the legally binding Anglican rites. At first sight the very idea might appear unlikely, onthe grounds that it would be incompatible with one’s status as a Catholic to attend the religious services of the Church of England. But such an approach had papal sanction. Benedict XIV had considered the question of whether Catholics in Protestant countries should submit to legislation requiring them to be married by a minister of the established church, and had held that ‘it was quite legitimate for Catholics to obey the civil law in this matter.
quote:You don't have to agree with my characterization of your thinking. I've watched you sit here for years insisting that same-sex attracted people should just endure restrictions because you have magic rules. Now you want to ask how *WE* find rules for happiness. Are you including those who don't want your rules in the WE?
Originally posted by IngoB:
I appreciate that this is your opinion. I neither agree with your characterisation of my thinking, nor likely with your choice of moral rules. Now, how can we go beyond pitting opinion against opinion? Is there any way of finding objective truth in the matter of morals?
quote:Read what I actually wrote, tosspot: marriages conducted in Roman Catholic Churches were not valid under English law. The only valid marriages were those conducted by the Anglicans, Quakers and Jews - so any Roman Catholic who wanted to be recognised by the state as married needed to be remarried by an Anglican priest.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Perhaps it would be ironic if it were true. But it's not. As I've just pointed out. They could have their marriages legally validated by the state by repeating their vows in front of one of the state's minsters - a C of E cleric. And that is precisely what they tended to do, often encouraged by their own Catholic priests.
quote:And that's not what I said either...
Originally posted by leo:
I am glad to hear a RC, and a conservative one at that, admit that the RCC is a 'branch' and, by implication,so is the C of E. That's not RC teaching.
quote:Obviously. But if we are trying to determine something objective, then what you or indeed I want to be the case is exactly not relevant.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I've watched you sit here for years insisting that same-sex attracted people should just endure restrictions because you have magic rules. Now you want to ask how *WE* find rules for happiness. Are you including those who don't want your rules in the WE?
quote:Rules apply regardless of opinion. That's pretty much the point of rules. If several rules are tolerated, then either all these rules have a shared core, and that is the actual universal rule (it may be practically useful to work the core out along different lines, as case law, but it is in principle useful to know that core itself). Or this is just an arbitrary collection of rules, which either should be abandoned or allow additions without further ado. One might value rules from the past for various reasons, including simply an appreciation of the past. But for present purposes the question is simply whether these rules are based on an underlying objective truth, in which case they will hold as long as that truth applies, or not, in which case they are merely an arbitrary (if perhaps favoured) choice.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Why would rules for well being be the same for people with vastly different opinions? Why would insisting on a single set of rules be better than a framework which tolerates a number of different rules? Why should the problem be over constrained by insisting on consistency with theories from another millennia.
quote:People do the weirdest things.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
People are not going to adopt the opinion of someone who spews a vast quantity of bullshit to claim an "objective truth" and has demonstrated a history of indifference to the injury their opinions have caused.
quote:They were based on a man selecting a woman to bear his children. The man basically owned her and her womb.
Originally posted by IngoB:
But for present purposes the question is simply whether these rules are based on an underlying objective truth, in which case they will hold as long as that truth applies, or not, in which case they are merely an arbitrary (if perhaps favoured) choice.
quote:There isn't. That's part of the human condition.
IngoB: Is there any way of finding objective truth in the matter of morals?
quote:mr cheesy, you have made many pertinent points and given some strong arguments on this thread. Being unnecessarily rude doesn't enhance those arguments; it detracts from them. Just my opinion, as someone who agrees with much of what you say.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
tosspot
quote:I did. And what you actually said was:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Read what I actually wrote, tosspot.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Perhaps it would be ironic if it were true. But it's not. As I've just pointed out. They could have their marriages legally validated by the state by repeating their vows in front of one of the state's minsters - a C of E cleric. And that is precisely what they tended to do, often encouraged by their own Catholic priests.
quote:Which is not true.
all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.
quote:Really, under the circumstances, I think that would be for the best.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So let's go back to that, then.
Catholics can have a Catholic ceremony and then, if they feel the need to be legitimate, they go somewhere else and get married.
quote:Which part of this are you not able to understand? Roman Catholic marriages before 1836 were not a thing recognised by the state. The only marriages which were recognised by the state were those conducted in Anglican, Quaker and Jewish congregations.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I did. And what you actually said was:quote:Which is not true.
all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.
quote:"Understand"? All of it, I'm afraid - including the bit I've italicised.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Which part of this are you not able to understand?
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I did. And what you actually said was:quote:Which is not true.
all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.
quote:Then get better glasses:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:"Understand"? All of it, I'm afraid - including the bit I've italicised.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Which part of this are you not able to understand?
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I did. And what you actually said was:quote:Which is not true.
all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.
I hate to be picky, but if you didn't mean to imply - as you do above - that Catholics could not be legally married to one another (whilst remaining unimpeachably Catholic) before 1836, it was open to you to express yourself more accurately.
quote:You said 16 July, 2015 20:35
I repeat, nobody in any seriousness is arguing against the provisions of the Marriage Act 1836, which took away the rights of declaring who was and was not married from the Anglican Church in England. Because that would be stupid.
quote:The quote of mine you have at the top of this post was from 16 July, 2015 21:26, which was obviously in the context of what I had posted before, and was after my post of 16 July, 2015 21:23
And, by the way, the 1836 Marriage Act did not prevent Roman Catholics from having their marriages recognised by the state, nor did it forbid them to marry in a Catholic ceremony with a Catholic priest: it merely required them to repeat the vows in front of an Anglican priest, which was the legally validating bit. Just like you're not married as far as the French state is concerned util you've been to the mairie, even if you've been "done" in the Church already.
quote:The last two paragraphs made me laugh out loud. Just about the best bit of my day.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
If we're going to play Ingo Bingo (nice one!) then I propose we up the stakes a bit. By involving alcohol.
Ingo proves something by analogy → down one shot (we might be in hospital pretty soon)
If his analogy involves a three legged dog, of course all players do the three legged dog dance, while downing the shot (playing this song is optional).
Ingo makes a claim and says it is up to his opponent to prove that his claim is false → make your neighbour down a shot.
Ingo claims that he has proven something by just stating with much chutzpah that he has done so → all players shout Jawohl! and hit their glass hard on the table before downing their shot. If there is anything in the glass left. Or if there is a glass left.
quote:Thus proving the validity of natural moral law theory
quetzalcoatl: LeRoc - And if he talks about dogs eating chocolate, we all down chocolate daiquiris. Or maybe not (vomiting noises stage left).
quote:Meh. You can add:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I just need someone to post that they Thought This Was a Christian Website™ and I'll have a Full House in IngoBingo.
As everyone knows SoF is biased against Roman Catholicism✔
Help, help, I'm being oppressed by the state allowing others to do things I don't approve of ✔
As everyone knows, natural theology proves Roman Catholic dogma is correct ✔
The Inquisition was conducted by just some Spanish Catholics and had no official status in Catholicism ✔
You are much too rude for hell ✔
quote:Which, however you read it, is false. Highly misleading, at best.
all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England[.]
quote:Nope, not wrong at all. Roman Catholic marriage is not a thing unless a Registrar is present in England. Not misleading, absolutely accurate. Prior to the 1836 there were no circumstances where a Roman Catholic could be legally married in a Roman Catholic Church.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Which, however you read it, is false. Highly misleading, at best.
quote:They could not be legally married in a Roman Catholic Church.
I take you at your word that you did not actually mean to imply that Catholics could not be legally married before 1836,
quote:I'll take the 'don't believe it option'.
but that is the most obvious meaning of those words, and anyone coming along at this stage of the argument, without having read your previous posts, would think that is what you meant and that it had gone unchallenged. Believe it or not, by that stage even I genuinely wasn't sure what you were getting at by saying it.
quote:Fuck off. You are perfectly willing to misrepresent and misinterpret and generally lie about other posters to put your point across. Even when it is total shite.
I'm all for fairness and accuracy here, especially with so much suspicion and attribution of ill motives - which is precisely why I corrected myself when you pointed out my careless error. That and not wanting to seem even more ignorant than I am. You, of course, must do as you please. But first reflect on whether coming across as an angry arsehole is the look you're going for.
quote:True. And unambiguous. But not what you actually said.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Prior to the 1836 there were no circumstances where a Roman Catholic could be legally married in a Roman Catholic Church.
quote:Which is not the same thing. Which I pointed out.
all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England[.]
quote:But it's not at all the same thing.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Meanwhile in this pretence about the definition of words, the point is obscured: namely that the civil law was rightly changed to allow other religions to have their marriage ceremonies recognised as legal via the provision of civil Registrars who attended their services.
Admitting this would be to admit that the civil law on marriage has been changed before to right an obvious unfairness, despite the majority of the population of England at the time being Anglican.
quote:The definition of all words is 'opinion' in the sense that small or large groups of language users collectively agree on the definitions of words. So what the word 'morality' means is always going to be an "opinion". So in that sense you can never have an objective morality because you can never have an objective anything. So that's not a very useful measure, and probably why you're confused.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Second, Le Roc's point about objective morality - well, I have never really understood this, if by it, one means morality independent of opinion. Granted, the theist can argue that God ordains such a morality, but that is his opinion.
A secular objective morality - by gum, a very strange beast. It reminds me of that old joke, when asking directions of someone, and they say, well, I wouldn't start from here. Alas, here is where we are.
quote:There's been a lot on this thread about morality relating to human wellbeing, but doesn't a wider understanding of morality go beyond that? Ecological concerns go beyond just ensuring that humanity has a future on this planet. Animal welfare, preservation, protecting natural resources, protecting species from extinction; these things might have a subsequent effect on human wellbeing, but the moral drive behind them tends to see them as good & upright on their own, whether or not people are around to appreciate them.
Originally posted by Starlight:
It is however open to a process of scientific discovery, because a growing knowledge of the world will inform our understanding of what things promote human wellbeing and what things do not.
quote:I don't see why this is relevant: anyone before 1836 could be married, providing it was in an Anglican church. The law was changed to allow Roman Catholics to be married in their own churches and via their own rites, rather than via religious ministers they did not recognise.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But it's not at all the same thing.
Before 1836 Catholics had recourse to legally recognised marriage on terms that, if irksome, were sanctioned by their own ecclesaistical authorities. The state never denied that Roman Catholics, whilst being and continuing to be Roman Catholics, could be legally married.
quote:Totally irrelevant. As discussed, the point was that it was deemed unfair to expect practitioners of other religions to be remarried by Anglican priests in order to be valid, and therefore the system of state Registrars was set up, and the definition of marriage was changed.
There was never any question as to whether RC were the kind of subjects which could naturally or legally fall under the terms of marriage. No-one doubted they could be married - nor that those who followed the proceedures were in fact married.
quote:That's just wrong. The state did not and does not sanction any ministers or rites outwith of the Anglicans (other than Jews and Quakers) where the priests are defacto Registrars.
It was only a question of whether their ministers and rites ought to have the sanction of the law (whether by in effect acting as registrars themselves (as is the case in Scotland) or by having official resgistrars present) to effect marriage in the eyes of the state.
quote:There are some warnings against making false promises and oaths, but clearly there is nothing specifically here sanctioning Roman Catholic rites or ministers any more than non-conformist ministers or anyone else.
"I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, A. B. do take thee, C. D., to be my lawful wedded Wife [or Husband]."
quote:Nope, it really wasn't. It was a straightforward issue of fairness. It wasn't fair to expect non-Anglicans to only be able to be married in an Anglican church, so the law was changed.
I doubt if anyone even doubted that RC ministers/rites could be so sanctioned by the law - it was rather a question of whether they ought to be so sanctioned.
quote:But this is the meat of the issue: you've not shown at all how there is any kind of 'disanalogy' here. The fact is that the civil marriage law exists outwith of the Roman Catholic Church dogma already. People can already be married in England and Wales by other religions or via the Register Office that could never be married in the Roman Catholic Church.
So there's a real disanalogy between this and the case of same-sex marriage.
quote:Well I think there's a certain level of inescapable choice involved - there are competing ideas of what makes for a moral code, so at that meta-level it's all relative. However the various possible moral codes have different attributes, and comparing them against each other can be useful both in highlighting differences and informing the choice of which one a person wants to pick and why.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think there are some flaws in that reasoning. First, 'once selected', seems odd to me, since that selection cannot be objective, since it must involve a subject or subjects.
quote:Yes. Sam Harris is one of many modern thinkers who would endorse the view I described.
Your stuff about well-being and doing harm sounds rather like Sam Harris's attempts in his book, 'The Moral Landscape'.
quote:To clarify, the positive intentions are always measured with respect to the wellbeing of conscious entities. So the act to deliberately kill someone involves negative intentions, as it's intended as a harm. (Unless its euthanasia, where the intention is to reduce the suffering experienced by a conscious entity, and thus a benevolent intention.)
I suppose the flaw again is that it's not very clear what a positive intention is, and how the context frames it.
Thus, to quote an ancient example, killing somebody involves harm, but may be viewed as highly moral when people do it in war to defend their country. London is full of statues of men who did huge amounts of harm to others. Of course, they had positive intentions towards their own country, but this strikes me as a subjective morass.
quote:Well they are examples of one person intentionally hurting another, which is basically immoral by definition according to the above standard.
Granted, there are things like rape and torture, which are pretty universally condemned.
quote:Well the problem with such a standard is that "naturally ordered" is not really a coherent concept, insofar as everything humans do and make is artificial, and being intentioned conscious entities we impose our own purposes on things we make and use. "If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings" is the proverbial example of how silly a standard of "natural order" ends up being.
Isn't this the flaw in IngoB's presentation - that he wants to claim that if something is naturally ordered to X, this can be used in moral discrimination. Thus, eating and then deliberately vomiting is immoral, fucking and not wanting babies, is immoral and so on.
quote:Exactly. So Ingo's standard is arbitrary and incoherent, and leads to massive disagreements.
But it all depends on where you start, as usual. The whole notion of 'naturally ordered to' is tendentious, since nature admits no teleology, unless we grant it one.
quote:A rational person will act in accordance with whatever they value. So a person who values the wellbeing of others, will a consider a given situation and say "well, given the situation is the way it currently is, how ought I to act if my goal is to maximize the wellbeing of all involved?"
And then there is the is/ought problem. Does the fact that I do X, mean that I ought to do X? Or how do you get from one to t'other.
quote:Since animals are conscious entities, their wellbeing is generally regarded as morally relevant. Most people seem to think their importance should be scaled based on the level of mental functioning of the animal: So we can still kill stinging insects, but we should be kind to dolphins.
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
There's been a lot on this thread about morality relating to human wellbeing, but doesn't a wider understanding of morality go beyond that? Ecological concerns go beyond just ensuring that humanity has a future on this planet. Animal welfare, preservation, protecting natural resources, protecting species from extinction; these things might have a subsequent effect on human wellbeing, but the moral drive behind them tends to see them as good & upright on their own, whether or not people are around to appreciate them.
quote:I dunno. I think that many people have an innate admiration for the holiness of all creation. If I come across a beautiful rare flower (for example) in the wilderness, then it would somehow feel morally wrong to just stomp on it. I don't think I'm alone in that.
Originally posted by Starlight:
I think very very very few people would argue that plant life, in and of itself (eg on a planet with no animals or humans) is morally relevant.
quote:I'm glad that you agree that traditionally marriage has been ordered to procreation, even if only for rhetorical purposes.
Originally posted by orfeo:
They were based on a man selecting a woman to bear his children. The man basically owned her and her womb. This is no longer true.
quote:Rather obviously, nothing whatsoever has changed concerning the need of the human race to procreate. If the procreational institution "marriage" in the past was associated with unjust social structures, then we can rejoice that they have been removed. But these modern "partnerships of equals" of men and women, not men and men, and not women and women, still have to pop out babies and raise them to adults. If they don't, then this modern worldview will simply die with them. One can prolong demographic decay by importing people, of course. But notably this only works as long as someone in this world is still in the old-fashioned business of producing offspring. As our culture spreads around the world, so does demographic seppuku.
Originally posted by orfeo:
This is precisely the stuff about the role of women that you didn't want to talk about. The very reason that same-sex marriage is now viable is that women are no longer chattel. Marriage (at least for people who've managed to drag their thoughts into the last 40 years or so instead of holding onto a worldview that basically classified all women as either mothers or whores) is now a partnership between equals. It has changed. Okay? Can we end the thread now?
quote:Yes, it's a fact. But what is it supposed to establish? Who has denied that there have been changes to the English marriage legislation over time? My point was that the difference between that situation and the current one with same-sex marriage is that first was a purely administrative change (although partly occasioned by a sense of equity) to an existingly recognised institution which continued to be understood just as it had been; whereas same-sex marriage required no administrative changes but did change something far more basic: the whole concept of who could even possibly be married to whom. Apples and oranges, mate.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:I don't see why this is relevant: anyone before 1836 could be married, providing it was in an Anglican church. The law was changed to allow Roman Catholics to be married in their own churches and via their own rites, rather than via religious ministers they did not recognise.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But it's not at all the same thing.
Before 1836 Catholics had recourse to legally recognised marriage on terms that, if irksome, were sanctioned by their own ecclesaistical authorities. The state never denied that Roman Catholics, whilst being and continuing to be Roman Catholics, could be legally married.
1836 was a change in the civil marriage law. That's just a fact.
quote:Really? How did it change the definition of marriage? When the law in England and Wales was changed in 1994 to allow marriages to take place in different venues, did that also change the definition of marriage in your book?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Totally irrelevant. As discussed, the point was that it was deemed unfair to expect practitioners of other religions to be remarried by Anglican priests in order to be valid, and therefore the system of state Registrars was set up, and the definition of marriage was changed.
There was never any question as to whether RC were the kind of subjects which could naturally or legally fall under the terms of marriage. No-one doubted they could be married - nor that those who followed the proceedures were in fact married.
quote:No, it's not wrong. From 1836 to 1898:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:That's just wrong. The state did not and does not sanction any ministers or rites outwith of the Anglicans (other than Jews and Quakers) where the priests are defacto Registrars.
It was only a question of whether their ministers and rites ought to have the sanction of the law (whether by in effect acting as registrars themselves (as is the case in Scotland) or by having official resgistrars present) to effect marriage in the eyes of the state.
quote:Just as I said above. From 1898:
marriages by licence [could] take place in approved churches, chapels and nonconformist meeting houses, other than those of the Church of England. [...] When a nonconformist minister or other religious official, such as a rabbi, performed the ceremony it was necessary for the local registrar or his assistant to be present so that the marriage was legal.
quote:Source.
nonconformist ministers and other religious leaders could take on the role of notifying official, if so appointed, and on the condition that their premises were licensed for the solemnising of marriage.
quote:What are you saying "nope" to in my statement? The idea that the state could empower non-conformists to become registrars or notifying officials so that people could be married in Catholic churches with Catholic rites without subsequently having to repeat their vows before a CofE cleric? The idea that this change was contemplated? The idea that some did doubt whether it was good to allow the change and in fact opposed it? I never denied that at least one factor motivating the change was fairness. I really don't know what you're objecting to here. Waht am I supposed to have got wrong, exactly?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Nope, it really wasn't. It was a straightforward issue of fairness. It wasn't fair to expect non-Anglicans to only be able to be married in an Anglican church, so the law was changed.
I doubt if anyone even doubted that RC ministers/rites could be so sanctioned by the law - it was rather a question of whether they ought to be so sanctioned.
quote:I beg to differ.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But this is the meat of the issue: you've not shown at all how there is any kind of 'disanalogy' here.
quote:Well, duh. What are you trying to say that proves?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The fact is that the civil marriage law exists outwith of the Roman Catholic Church dogma already. People can already be married in England and Wales by other religions or via the Register Office that could never be married in the Roman Catholic Church.
quote:Why would it, and why would I want to suggest it would/should?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But that doesn't stop you using the law to legally marry people in England and Wales.
quote:What is the difference between what? What is it you think the Catholic Church is doing that makes it so inconsistent or hypocritical?Continuing to let our marriages be recognised legally because same-sex couples can now do the same? Do you think that we should be spurning the state's recognition of our marriages and all the concommitant conveniences/benefits because we think the Church should not extend them to certain others? Like some kind of protest vote? Wouldn't that just be cutting off our noses to spite our faces? As long as there are benfits available from the state to help us support our marriages, I don't see how it makes us hypocrites to accept them - unless it becomes a condition of our doing so that we somehow formally endorse the same-sex and other unions we do not ourselves believe are equivalent.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
You are using a law which allows people to do things you morally object to. So what is the difference?
quote:I think you misunderstand me.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Really, under the circumstances, I think that would be for the best.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So let's go back to that, then.
Catholics can have a Catholic ceremony and then, if they feel the need to be legitimate, they go somewhere else and get married.
quote:It's one and the same taboo topic, whether you like it or not.
Originally posted by IngoB:
It's one taboo topic at a time for me, thanks very much.
quote:Bullshit. It changed the whole nature of the understanding of marriage under English law and took the state function of registering away from the religious and into the secular.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Yes, it's a fact. But what is it supposed to establish? Who has denied that there have been changes to the English marriage legislation over time? My point was that the difference between that situation and the current one with same-sex marriage is that first was a purely administrative change (although partly occasioned by a sense of equity) to an existingly recognised institution which continued to be understood just as it had been; whereas same-sex marriage required no administrative changes but did change something far more basic: the whole concept of who could even possibly be married to whom. Apples and oranges, mate.
quote:Registration of marriage became a secular state function. Or at least it did outside of the Anglican church - in the process allowing the registration of other religions. This therefore changed the definition of marriage, which beforehand was (essentially) something determined by the state church.
Really? How did it change the definition of marriage? When the law in England and Wales was changed in 1994 to allow marriages to take place in different venues, did that also change the definition of marriage in your book?
quote:Roman Catholic ministers and rites were not sanctioned by law. In 1836, Roman Catholic marriages were only legalised in the presence of a Registrar. And there at no point did the law sanction ministers or rites - and in fact that has never happened.
Perhaps you could specify how what I said above contradicts any of that.
quote:As discussed above, the state did not sanction ministers and rites. In fact, the reverse is true - religious bodies who wanted to be able to conduct legal marriages needed to follow the state's rules: have a registered building, in the presence of a Registrar and two witnesses. The people getting married had to be legally free to get married and had to say the phrases mentioned in the law.
What are you saying "nope" to in my statement? The idea that the state could empower non-conformists to become registrars or notifying officials so that people could be married in Catholic churches with Catholic rites without subsequently having to repeat their vows before a CofE cleric?
quote:The law was changed to give rights to Roman Catholics. The law has changed several times since to give rights to others you morally would not accept in your church.
What is the difference between what? What is it you think the Catholic Church is doing that makes it so inconsistent or hypocritical?
quote:I really don't give a shit what you do. Nor should anyone else. Either get with the programme, even though it marries people you wouldn't, because it brings benefits to your people, or don't.
Continuing to let our marriages be recognised legally because same-sex couples can now do the same?
quote:And of course many states have recognised this for centuries - given that they've married people who are a) too old to have children or b) known to be infertile. Clearly, according to most legal systems, childbearing is not a consideration as to whether someone can legally be married.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Also, before I go back to ignoring most of your writing again, can I just highlight the profound logical fallacy lying at the heart of your argument (and indeed at the heart of Catholic theology here) because it's just risen to the surface again.
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate.
quote:Right. Just like in France. The state doesn't have to recognise Catholic marriage as having any legal status as such. The Church doesn't have to recognise what the state calls marriage as necessarily being so. If Catholics want to, they can get their marriage legalised at the mairie.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:I think you misunderstand me.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Really, under the circumstances, I think that would be for the best.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So let's go back to that, then.
Catholics can have a Catholic ceremony and then, if they feel the need to be legitimate, they go somewhere else and get married.
I mean that there would be marriage. And there would be some other-named, not legally binding, not recognised outside of the RCC ceremony.
quote:Sure. But the social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate. Really, the argument you're making founders on that confusion. No one suggests that every human being must create food despite the fact that all human beings must eat.
quote:We are in dreadful need of an anti-capitalist schizophrenia aren't we?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But orfeo, you cannot have homosexuality and heterosexuality together. It does not work, the one cancels the other and no one procreates. This is why the Greeks died out. And why there were no people in the Roman Empire before the people of the Roman Empire became Christian.
quote:Let me just repeat your claim back to you. By altering the rules about how the official registration of marriage should take place the "whole nature of the understanding of marriage" was changed? Really - you really think that?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Bullshit. It changed the whole nature of the understanding of marriage under English law and took the state function of registering away from the religious and into the secular.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
My point was that the difference between that situation and the current one with same-sex marriage is that first was a purely administrative change (although partly occasioned by a sense of equity) to an existingly recognised institution which continued to be understood just as it had been; whereas same-sex marriage required no administrative changes but did change something far more basic: the whole concept of who could even possibly be married to whom. Apples and oranges, mate.
quote:If this is your answer to my question, I can't imagine even you'd expect me to buy it. The state had previously (well, since 1753 anyway) dealt with registration through one branch of the state: the state church; from 1836, it dealt with registration through the state church as before but with the additional provision of registering it through the state's appointed registrars (not all of whom were state clerics). The same people could and could not avail themselves of it: only the rules about how it need be registered changed. And this, according to you, constitutes a complete redefinition of the whole concept of marriage?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Registration of marriage became a secular state function. Or at least it did outside of the Anglican church - in the process allowing the registration of other religions. This therefore changed the definition of marriage, which beforehand was (essentially) something determined by the state church.
quote:But only, as before, under the state's rules! They could already be married under the state's rules. All that changed was that their own religious ceremonies were now considered "registerable" - with the required formulary, in the presence of a state registrar and witnesses.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And given the centuries of persecution of the Roman Catholics following Cromwell, it is a major change in the English concept of legal marriage to even allow them that. Ditto the non-conformists, who were for centuries essentially illegal religious bodies, now had suddenly become acceptable enough to allow them to conduct marriages.
quote:Nor did I say that it had. When I was talking about their being "sanctioned" it was explicitly in the narrow sense of their being fit for the purpose of being witnessable and registerable. Here's what I actually said, verbatim, with emphasis:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Roman Catholic ministers and rites were not sanctioned by law. In 1836, Roman Catholic marriages were only legalised in the presence of a Registrar. And there at no point did the law sanction ministers or rites - and in fact that has never happened.
quote:And now I'm going make dinner for my poor, long-suffering wife.
It was only a question of whether their ministers and rites ought to have the sanction of the law (whether by in effect acting as registrars themselves (as is the case in Scotland) or by having official resgistrars present) to effect marriage in the eyes of the state.
quote:It isn't rubbing it in, it is the Whole. Fucking. Point.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Only you want to rub it in a bit, to make that solution unpleasant for the Church: to make it sound like the state's marriage would be the real marriage to the extent that Catholics would have to call "their" institution something else. Well, you just go right ahead and try and make that happen.
quote:I would also like to add that the desirability of the human race to maintain its existence through procreation is not the same as "everyone needs to breed like fucking rabbits". There will reach a point where the population growth is simply not sustainable even with the best organization of the resources of the planet. I'm not one who thinks a Malthusian Apocalypse is just around the corner, but the problems of overpopulation don't seem to be a favorite subject of the RCC.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate.
quote:Words mean different things in different contexts. Perfectly ordinary English words often have some more specific meaning as a term of art in some field of specialized study.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The state has always determined what marriage is. If the RCC, or any other organisation, wishes to modify the requirements and discriminate, then of course they must change their term.
quote:Is it the duty of every society to keep itself alive forever? Is that possible? Is that a desirable end in itself?
Originally posted by IngoB:
[T]he social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.
quote:Allowing equal marriage will will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and milk curdles . It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Sure. But the social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate. Really, the argument you're making founders on that confusion. No one suggests that every human being must create food despite the fact that all human beings must eat.
quote:The idea of human progress, which seems to be an acceptable secular goal, takes it as read that society must continue to exist. But it appears that much of western Europe is edging towards the end of its current phase of civilisation, in which case exhaustion, decline and collapse of some sort are probably inevitable by the end of the century.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Is it the duty of every society to keep itself alive forever? Is that possible? Is that a desirable end in itself?
Originally posted by IngoB:
[T]he social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.
quote:Bringing ice cream to the melting point intensifies the flavour and hey, Paneer!
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Allowing equal marriage will will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and milk curdles.
quote:I spend too much anyway.
It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code,
quote:Well, I watch too much...Wait, what?! VCR, CDS? How old are you?
screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.
quote:Meh. Caller ID.
It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number.
quote:Need all the excuse I can get and I hook my phone to the stereo to play music.
It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic.
quote:Don't be dissing short people, mate. Besides, its the clowns that are freaky.
It will give you nightmares about circus midgets.
quote:Save me finding that character flaw later and it already stole my money and ruined my cards in the second step.
It will date your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and bill their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card.
quote:She could use the companion, in her 90's, most of her friends have passed.
It will seduce your grandmother
quote:There is absolutely no danger of failure, you twit. Do you know anything about the world's population profile?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Sure. But the social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate. Really, the argument you're making founders on that confusion. No one suggests that every human being must create food despite the fact that all human beings must eat.
quote:Yeah Orfeo, isn't it obvious that if we let the gay ~5% of the population marry rather than forbidding them, then straight men everywhere will completely lose their sex drive and never want to procreate again, because nothing puts straight men off sex like the thought that somewhere out there two women might be going for it with each other, and then our society will DIE.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:There is absolutely no danger of failure, you twit. Do you know anything about the world's population profile?
Originally posted by IngoB:
But the social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.
quote:Whereas, if gays are not allowed to marry each other, they'll all turn straight, marry people of the opposite sex, and start producing lots of babies.
Originally posted by Starlight:
Yeah Orfeo, isn't it obvious that if we let the gay ~5% of the population marry rather than forbidding them, then straight men everywhere will completely lose their sex drive and never want to procreate again, because nothing puts straight men off sex like the thought that somewhere out there two women might be going for it with each other, and then our society will DIE.
quote:Exactly.
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Whereas, if gays are not allowed to marry each other, they'll all turn straight, marry people of the opposite sex, and start producing lots of babies.
quote:Yes, well, the fact that any particular subset of the human race might be in decline isn't the same as the human race being in decline, unless you start valuing certain members of the human race more than others.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
FWIW, in IngoB's homeland, Germany, the population is facing precipitous decline.
Perhaps a little serious Catholicism there to boost the population wouldn't be such a dreadful thing. In the absence of practising Catholics, though, practising Muslims will probably have to do.
quote:I've been to three same sex weddings in the past few months. I am an old lady so they've all been weddings with grandchildren present! Two were formerly straight married people who married in an attempt to "fit in" and had children with heir spouses only to realize they were clearly gay/lesbian and divorced and then raised their children from the marriage with their new partner while co-parenting with an ex. The third involved a bit younger same sex couple who used IVF. These are solid families with successful children and beautiful grandchildren. These are people who have been together for 20-30+ years and are finally able to formalize relationships that are more loving and enduring than many heterosexual relationships I've seen over the years. It is marriage in every sense of the word.
Originally posted by Starlight:
quote:Exactly.
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Whereas, if gays are not allowed to marry each other, they'll all turn straight, marry people of the opposite sex, and start producing lots of babies.
It's also crucial that we ban same sex couples from raising children via adoption, IVF, or artificial methods, because otherwise we will experience overpopulation, and DIE.
quote:Although bear in mind that Ingo strongly favours the previous (German) Pope over the new one. Charitable people might assume that's just because Ingo likes a conservative over a liberal... but this is the hell board... so it's probably because Ingo's a Nazi who favours the purity of the Aryan race.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't think Ingo's a racist. He might be a religionist, but there are plenty of Latin American Catholics doing their bit for the cause. Heck, they even have their own Pope now.
quote:Which makes being a complete jerk an option. Not an obligation.
Originally posted by Starlight:
but this is the hell board
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
I guess not everyone shares my sense of humour.
quote:Only when it's between two blokes ...
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
... Equal Marriage will leave the toilet seat up ...
quote:Hot Damn! Really? Must move to Australia AT ONCE, become straight and procreate! Why did no one tell me this before??? God Bless you Tony Abbott, God bless you.
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
]Whereas, if gays are not allowed to marry each other, they'll all turn straight, marry people of the opposite sex, and start producing lots of babies.
quote:Don't you know that social animals are immoral?
Originally posted by orfeo:
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate.
Really, the argument you're making founders on that confusion. No one suggests that every human being must create food despite the fact that all human beings must eat.
quote:Yeah, well, that's one of the disadvantages of racism.
Originally posted by Starlight:
quote:I've encountered a huge number of people who are/were in a similar situation to that. They didn't/don't have active animosity towards gay people, they just hold to certain idealistic principles (usually the bible and/or tradition) and those principles happen to tell them they should oppose gay rights.
Originally posted by Macrina:
Many here would say he is prejudiced towards gay people but I actually don't think that's fair - he has religious convictions (that I think are wrong) that tell him he must take a certain view - same unjust and wrong result but different starting point than blanket and ignorant hatred.
quote:Exactly.
Originally posted by Starlight:
The problem I have with such people is that their reasoning tends to completely leave out considering the wellbeing of the people involved. If they'd lived a couple of hundred years earlier, it would be like them discussing the topic of whether slavery is biblical, without at all thinking that it might be relevant to consider whether slavery had negative effects on the slaves.
quote:I would suggest that the world is already experiencing overpopulation!
Originally posted by Starlight:
quote:Exactly.
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Whereas, if gays are not allowed to marry each other, they'll all turn straight, marry people of the opposite sex, and start producing lots of babies.
It's also crucial that we ban same sex couples from raising children via adoption, IVF, or artificial methods, because otherwise we will experience overpopulation, and DIE.
quote:The reader supplies part of the interpretation. But a post is not written by a random word generator.
Originally posted by Starlight:
I often think internet forum posts are a bit like inkblot tests, as the ways people choose to resolve ambiguities and infer different emotions often says a lot about the interpreter.
quote:But are you valuing Germans less than others? Is Germany nothing more than a geographic location?
Originally posted by orfeo:
The fact that any particular subset of the human race might be in decline isn't the same as the human race being in decline, unless you start valuing certain members of the human race more than others.
[...]
In terms of Germany as a geographic location, there are plenty of people to import from elsewhere.
quote:What exactly does 'Canadianised' mean? Back bacon instead of side bacon?
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... If I remember rightly, you're Canadian. What you need to understand is that the rest of the world hasn't quite been psychologically 'Canadianised'. ...
quote:And I very much appreciate your saying so, Louise.
Originally posted by Louise:
I don't agree with Chesterbelloc on this, but I'd like to thank him for sticking around and contributing on something where he's very much in the minority. I appreciate it even when I don't agree.
quote:This I entirely agree with. I'm not defending IngoB's position on the rights of LGBT people. I'm just cautioning against attacking the wrong end of the argument by attributing positions to people like him that they don't hold.
Originally posted by Starlight:
quote:The problem I have with such people is that their reasoning tends to completely leave out considering the wellbeing of the people involved. If they'd lived a couple of hundred years earlier, it would be like them discussing the topic of whether slavery is biblical, without at all thinking that it might be relevant to consider whether slavery had negative effects on the slaves.
Originally posted by Macrina:
Many here would say he is prejudiced towards gay people but I actually don't think that's fair - he has religious convictions (that I think are wrong) that tell him he must take a certain view - same unjust and wrong result but different starting point than blanket and ignorant hatred.
It's a level of disinterest in the wellbeing of other humans that I find downright scary whenever I encounter it... it seems to evidence such a complete lack of empathy as to border on the psychopathic. But a lot of these sorts of people turn out to be otherwise good people, who if they actually knew and understood the harms they were doing to gay people they would be genuinely horrified. But they simply don't think to even explore that issue... they don't even actively reflect on questions of how gay people might feel about the situation, or what their motivations might be for wanting rights, or what harms might be done to them by denying those rights.
quote:You win a prize for correct interpretation.
Originally posted by mousethief:
FWIW, I took Starlight to be mocking people attacking IngoB, not attributing Nazidom to IngoB himself.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:This would be relevant if you were ambiguous. You weren't - you explicitly referenced Nazism.
Originally posted by Starlight:
I often think internet forum posts are a bit like inkblot tests, as the ways people choose to resolve ambiguities and infer different emotions often says a lot about the interpreter.
quote:A parody necessarily has to connect in some way to the thing being parodied.
Originally posted by orfeo:
This would be relevant if you were ambiguous. You weren't - you explicitly referenced Nazism.
quote:I literally explicitly stated in the post that there was sarcasm happening. All my previous posts in this thread mocking Ingo took the same tone, so I assumed context would also be suggestive. Clearly a few people read it the wrong way, which suggests I could have been clearer, but not everyone did which suggests I didn't fail totally to convey my intent. It is, of course, quite hard in general to do satire in a way that is entirely unambiguous because explaining any joke is the fastest way to make it unfunny.
And importantly, your post was sorely lacking in the kind of signals one needs in a text forum to indicate irony.
quote:
I thought it was possible that's what you were trying to do, but really you did a pretty poor job of it.
quote:
Saying you were joking doesn't actually save you from the fact that you weren't being funny.
quote:You are, of course, just behaving in your typical way.
Originally posted by Starlight:
You are, of course, the objective judge of humour.
quote:I thought he lived in Canada but was of English descent. Sorry if I'm mistaken.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
orfeo is not Canadian, so Svitlana's rather condescending point is also rather immaterial.
quote:In spite of a lot of fearmongering about this from the right, I don't see immigrants taking away gay rights in the Netherlands.
SvitlanaV2: All this being the case, it's hard to see how the cause of gay rights - and other liberal rights - in the future is likely to be served by increasing immigration to places like Germany, an option that you suggested was the best way to deal with the low German birthrate.
quote:Well, that's obviously a misunderstanding of Canada's commitment to multiculturalism. We actually do think there is value in Englishness and Polishness. We just don't think that they are more valuable or need to be protected or separated from e.g. Punjabiness or Beijingness. One hundred years ago, my neighbourhood was a working class area for colonists from the UK who built their own houses from kits. Today it is a complete scramble of Aboriginal, Filipino, Latin American, Middle Eastern, North African, South-East Asian, you name it, plus yuppies and hipsters looking for cheap(er) real estate in the centre of town. Many of those 100-year-old kit houses are still here, now homes to immigrant families or groups of university students. The Anglican church bills itself as "a multi-ethnic community of richness and diversity ... determined to be free of racism and we are a community that provides meals for the poor." The best pizzeria in the area is operated by a family from Afghanistan, and the best sushi is made by a chef from Korea.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... What you need to understand is that the rest of the world hasn't quite been psychologically 'Canadianised'. Governments will have to do a lot more work to convince ordinary Germans, Englishmen, Poles and everyone else that all that matters is making use of geographical space, and that there's no particular cultural value in Germanness, Englishness, or Polishness, etc., as such. ...
quote:I'm not talking about proponents of disestablishment, I'm talking about the screeching horde that descends on any mention of Christianity in public life in the Guardian. Whether it's faith schools, or the Pope expressing political opinions, they're there wittering about sky fairies or claiming religion should be entirely private and never mentioned in public and children shouldn't be exposed to religion until they're 18.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Rabid secularists. Rabid secularists? Such an odd phrase, generally trotted out by those who think their religion is under attack when their privilege is threatened.
What is wrong with the state being separated from religion? It doesn't mean religion goes away, look at the US.
Hmmm, maybe you are correct. US religious nutters manage to incorporate religion into everything, maybe the state can serve to better muzzle the rabid dogs of intolerance.
Just to clarify, I'm not anti-religion. Just anti state religion.
quote:What you need to understand is that "what you need to understand" is a condescending way to begin a sentence.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't understand how my point is condescending.
quote:As Doc Tor reminds us up-thread, by reference to St Paul, marriage itself is a patch over one of the cracks in our fallen nature. There will be no marriage in the Kingdom.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's the Fall, innit.
quote:I didn't have time to respond over the weekend, but Leaf made the point about condescension far better than I could have.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Nevertheless, I don't understand how my point is condescending. ...
The assumption on the Left is that the ideal modern nation is both multicultural yet also socially liberal, but creating harmony between these two elements is not always easy. If the liberal element declines because of a low birthrate and immigration increases the more conservative element that's likely to present challenges at some point.
quote:I see. Well, I didn't mean to offend anyone here (Hell notwithstanding), so I'd better say sorry.
Originally posted by Leaf:
quote:What you need to understand is that "what you need to understand" is a condescending way to begin a sentence.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I don't understand how my point is condescending.
quote:This is great. I live in a multicultural area of a multicultural city too. My ethnic and cultural inheritance is also mixed.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:Well, that's obviously a misunderstanding of Canada's commitment to multiculturalism. We actually do think there is value in Englishness and Polishness. We just don't think that they are more valuable or need to be protected or separated from e.g. Punjabiness or Beijingness. One hundred years ago, my neighbourhood was a working class area for colonists from the UK who built their own houses from kits. Today it is a complete scramble of Aboriginal, Filipino, Latin American, Middle Eastern, North African, South-East Asian, you name it, plus yuppies and hipsters looking for cheap(er) real estate in the centre of town. Many of those 100-year-old kit houses are still here, now homes to immigrant families or groups of university students. The Anglican church bills itself as "a multi-ethnic community of richness and diversity ... determined to be free of racism and we are a community that provides meals for the poor." The best pizzeria in the area is operated by a family from Afghanistan, and the best sushi is made by a chef from Korea.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... What you need to understand is that the rest of the world hasn't quite been psychologically 'Canadianised'. Governments will have to do a lot more work to convince ordinary Germans, Englishmen, Poles and everyone else that all that matters is making use of geographical space, and that there's no particular cultural value in Germanness, Englishness, or Polishness, etc., as such. ...
quote:Same as it ever was....
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Nevertheless, I'm still not convinced that our societies (especially outside the most multicultural areas) are prepared for the kinds of challenges that lie ahead.
quote:No one knows what will happen, things may not work out well, but there's nothing to be done about it. Thanks for that lengthy analysis which you seem to find interesting.
The people of the world will do as they see best, as is their right, with regards to SSM, immigration or anything else. I simply wanted to point out that replacing one culture with another (as someone proposed in an earlier post) may not necessarily serve the interests of all groups in society. This is not just about immigration either; all cultures change regardless of immigration, and there are always winners and losers.
But in the long run it's all in God's hands and we're all dead, so I'm not complaining as such. I do find it interesting, though.
