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| The Gay Agenda; Freedom for all? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 30 2006, 11:39 AM (3,842 Views) | |
| Moonbat | Jun 3 2006, 10:52 AM Post #226 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Do you really think that the belief that homosexuality is a sin, against the will God etc. has no influence on the belief that the law should not allow homosexuals to marrying? These two are unrelated? |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| ivorythumper | Jun 3 2006, 11:06 AM Post #227 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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They are obviously related in the minds of some people, but not in my estimation. It is a question of jurisprudence. I have already advocated some sort of domestic corporation to ensure the rights and responsibilities of all citizens pertinent to the sort of free will associations that they want to enter into. This is not "marriage", which is ordered toward the obvious biological and sociological facts of reproduction and child rearing as a normative human institution -- as broad as that spectrum might be, it is only through the coupling of any one male and any one female that a child is engendered. There is no doubt that the ancients understood this, and so ritualized the relationship. The religious imagery (such as the Bride and Groom, or agrarian hierogamy of earth and sky) are predicated on the biological reality, not vice versa. Underpinning religion is the deep experience of what it means to be human. These things have not changed as much as the superstructure of religion built upon these experience has come into question. Which is why it is ultimately not a religious question but a human one. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Moonbat | Jun 3 2006, 11:12 AM Post #228 |
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Pisa-Carp
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But doesn't that mean all you're really arguing about is the word "marriage", but words aren't static they continually evolve and change. We disagree on what we mean when say the word. And it seems to me that in everyday speech people don't mean a normative human institution which is ordered toward the obvious biological and sociological facts of reproduction and child rearing. Anyway must go. A bar beckons. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| ivorythumper | Jun 3 2006, 11:28 AM Post #229 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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BTW, I have not responded to your very good post above. Pain and suffering are not necessarily bad -- they are part of the healing process. They also have a transcendental dimension to release us from the confines of the ego. Religiously they are even considered redemptive. The points I raise are simply playing devil's advocate -- but I do so because I think that at the core your strict materialism is no more intellectually and experientially satisfying or rigorous than a faith based perspective. I suspect that you (qua athestic materialist) have been so immersed and cultivated in the matrix of vestigial religious thought that it is difficult to entirely eradicate these influences from your consciousness. You make appeals to "equality" which is an attribute of justice (an "eye for an eye" is a deficient formulation of that, "giving each person his proportionate due" is a better notion), but that begs the question. From a strictly materialist POV you have your experiences and observations, but you privilege them as if they really mean anything apart from your own consciousness and whatever societal corporate agreements are made. So you have the comfort of maintaining some semblence of human dignity because of the superstructure that religion has created, and you think yourself competent to judge that superstructure -- but I do earnestly think that if the superstructure were dismantled in some sort of zero degree project that you would have no ethical standing to argue why you have any "right" to exist in the present state of your particular biochemical complex. In short, you would be hard pressed to justify your existence without appealing to some transcendent "good", which is precisely what the Natural Law theories that you reject have developed. The utilitarian project has taken certain aspects of NL and gutted them of transcendence and reframed the language, but still attempt to make some of the same appeals. But these rely on commonalities in the human condition that are refused the name "human nature" when any validity to the notions can only be asserted through the agreement of what humanity is and what the role of the state is in regulating human activity so as to help humanity flourish in an optimal state (common good). |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Dewey | Jun 3 2006, 01:22 PM Post #230 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Jeffrey, you didn't miss a "not" anywhere. My change of position was covered in detail in a thread two or three months back, which I'm too lazy to find again or retype it all in detail now. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Jeffrey | Jun 3 2006, 05:06 PM Post #231 |
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Senior Carp
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Dwain - Interesting. I stopped reading here for a while; must have been then. I read in the Economist today that support for gay marriage in the US has risen from 12% in 1996 to 37% in 2006. Not bad for 10 years. Still a minority viewpoint, but not for long it seems. I would be quite interested in the thread if anyone knows how to pull it up. Adults rarely change their minds on things, so it is to your credit. Is gay sex no longer a sin, in your view, or is it that it is a sin no greater than the sins that heterosexuals perform every day (hypocricy, drunkeness, vanity) while still being allowed to marry? That is, have you changed your position on the marriage right only, or also on the sex acts themselves? |
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| Jeffrey | Jun 3 2006, 05:10 PM Post #232 |
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Senior Carp
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IT: "If you want me to make your arguments for you, I have no interest in doing your work for you but will entertain your considerations. " Well, that would make it the second time you have failed to argue for your position. Again, it is your odd position, you must argue for it. Why, in a purely materialist universe, are no moral claims true? Go for it. "So ask her. Why are you addressing this to me?" I think I will. |
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| Dewey | Jun 3 2006, 07:22 PM Post #233 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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"... it is a sin no greater than the sins that heterosexuals perform every day (hypocrisy, drunkeness, vanity) while still being allowed to marry...." You could greatly condense my views on the matter in this manner, but there's a lot more theology behind it than just that simple statement conveys. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| AlbertaCrude | Jun 3 2006, 08:19 PM Post #234 |
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Bull-Carp
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Considering Mrs. Crude was raised a practising Marxist-Leninist and member of the Komsomol in university she would say marriage is a state of mind and monogamous civil union between two consenting adults. Mostly a state of mind. It's called love between two humans. |
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| Axtremus | Jun 3 2006, 08:36 PM Post #235 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I agree as well.
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| Axtremus | Jun 3 2006, 08:39 PM Post #236 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Ok... ok... [size=7]Christians LOVE gays![/size] Are you
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| ivorythumper | Jun 3 2006, 11:17 PM Post #237 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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In order for a moral action to be always and everywhere good, both human nature must be stable and immutable, and the action must be beneficial, neutral, or at least not detrimental to the good of the being. Would you admit to the notions of a stable and immutable human nature as well as the perfection of being? Most strict materialists would probably not. Secondly, ideas for the strict materialist are just nerve impulses. How can one argue that one nerve impulse is superior to another? An idea is no more true or false than a toothache is true or false. If you might bristle at this, it would suggest that in fact you are not such the convinced strict materialist that you claim to be. And that's ok. I suspect you are better than your principles. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| ivorythumper | Jun 4 2006, 12:52 AM Post #238 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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And your odd position is that the strict materialist might posit objective moral value epistemologically, but cannot account for it ontologically. You presuppose moral responsibility and moral worth -- but on what real basis? Agreement? If so, then agreement for not ascribing moral worth is just as valid. Consciousness or sentiency? Then you are privileging nothing more than an inexplicable condition that is the product of a certain complex of biochemical reactions. "This set of chemical reactions is valuable and mandates moral obligation, and that set does not." If you were being true to the principles of strict materialism, all you could positively state is the "is", and not the "ought", which is the moral question. You have never argued for the objective reality of human dignity or justice -- you just presuppose it as if that were convincing. If there is no human dignity, then there is no moral imperative to treat humans with any specific moral obligation. All you can do is appeal to some coercive structure of law to avoid anarchy, or such. You obviously presuppose justice, since you so quickly speak of "equality", yet where do you get this? Why should your moral intuition be compelling -- whence the "ought" that you so dearly want to uphold? I have no doubt that you and any atheist or strict materialist can recognize moral truth -- that is simply an epistemological consideration. The challenge for you is to show the ontological basis for the moral obligation that you insist we have toward X. Go for it. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| John D'Oh | Jun 4 2006, 03:46 AM Post #239 |
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MAMIL
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The funny thing is, I was raised a Church of England schoolboy, and I agree with her. As far as I can tell, Kenny and Jose are already married, whatever the constitution of the United States of America may or may not say. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| ivorythumper | Jun 6 2006, 08:48 AM Post #240 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Typical of Jeffrey to insult people, challenge them, and then when someone bothers to respond he ignores or dismisses it. This is the second time he's done it. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Jolly | Jun 6 2006, 09:07 AM Post #241 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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Neither is it the sole reason people do not support gay marriage. As I have pointed out earlier today, Oregon is not considered anything remotely approaching the Bible Belt. It's a pretty "blue" state in terms of politics. Yet, they were able to pass a referendum against gay marriage, even with proponents of gay marriage outspending the opposition 40:1. I don't think we can argue that opposition is based solely on religion in the face of those kind of facts. |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| QuirtEvans | Jun 6 2006, 10:49 AM Post #242 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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There's a logical fallacy underneath all of that ... the notion that you can't be a Democrat and be religious, too. I don't think most religious conservatives believe that it's possible to be religious and liberal, but it is. In other words, simply saying that Oregon, a Democratic state, passed a referendum against gay marriage is not evidence that the opposition to gay marriage in Oregon was not primarily religious in nature. If you want to make the point that you're making, Jolly, you'd have to produce polls showing the comparative degree of importance religion plays in the life of Oregonians vs. those in more conservative states. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Jolly | Jun 6 2006, 11:04 AM Post #243 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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In Mississippi, a similar motion was passed with an 85% majority. Does that mean that 85% of Mississippians are religious? |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| Jeffrey | Jun 6 2006, 04:08 PM Post #244 |
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Senior Carp
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IT: "Typical of Jeffrey to insult people, challenge them, and then when someone bothers to respond he ignores or dismisses it. This is the second time he's done it." Sheesh! A thread drops to page two, I miss it, and Thumps blows a cork. I work during the day. Is business really that slow for you? |
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| ivorythumper | Jun 6 2006, 04:17 PM Post #245 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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You've been here several time since I posted it, pal. No corks popped on my part, other than the champagne for the recent contracts I've been signing.
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| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Jeffrey | Jun 6 2006, 04:45 PM Post #246 |
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Senior Carp
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Steve: "In order for a moral action to be always and everywhere good, both human nature must be stable and immutable, and the action must be beneficial, neutral, or at least not detrimental to the good of the being. Would you admit to the notions of a stable and immutable human nature as well as the perfection of being? Most strict materialists would probably not." Most moral philosophers from Aristotle to Mill to Kant have placed the focus of morality on some combination of (a) free choice, (b) happiness or © psychological self-development. These are all items readily detectible in a purely materialist universe, and almost all human beings (plus perhaps some non-human beings) seem capable of possessing these attributes. I am a bit slow, so you are going to have to explain to me what you mean by "perfection of being", why it does not exist in a materialist universe, and why it is essential to any coherent notion of moral objectivity (where some moral statements are true or false). "Secondly, ideas for the strict materialist are just nerve impulses. How can one argue that one nerve impulse is superior to another? An idea is no more true or false than a toothache is true or false. If you might bristle at this, it would suggest that in fact you are not such the convinced strict materialist that you claim to be. And that's ok. I suspect you are better than your principles." Your argument contains a simple fallacy. Ideas are true or false because they contain propositions that can be compared to the world. If I think "Grass is green" this is true or false because the proposition "Grass is green" matches with facts in the world (or not). A toothache has no such propositional content. It is just a sensation: it does not have propositional structure, it cannot be used as a premise in a logical deduction (as a true proposition like "Grass is green" can be). Thoughts do not lack propositional content because they are caused by nerve impulses. This is like saying that music does not exist, because it is really just waves of air, or red does not exist, because it is just a light frequency. As for whether one nerve impulse is better than another, well, see above. A nerve impulse that is a freely willed action is better than one that is coerced. The fact that free will is "just" nerve impulses does not mean that it is not free will and lacks moral value, again, any more than music is not music because it is "just" air waves. A simple logical fallacy. Again, a house does not become "not really a house" because it is made of wood and plaster and a yard etc. "And your odd position is that the strict materialist might posit objective moral value epistemologically, but cannot account for it ontologically. You presuppose moral responsibility and moral worth -- but on what real basis? Agreement? If so, then agreement for not ascribing moral worth is just as valid. Consciousness or sentiency? Then you are privileging nothing more than an inexplicable condition that is the product of a certain complex of biochemical reactions. "This set of chemical reactions is valuable and mandates moral obligation, and that set does not." If you were being true to the principles of strict materialism, all you could positively state is the "is", and not the "ought", which is the moral question." Re: the alleged is/ought gap. You have been reading too much David Hume on the "principles of strict materialism". If you think that the basic blocks of materialist knowledge are sense-data in the Humean sense, then I suppose your conclusion would follow. But few people follow such a restricted view of epistemology anymore. No science, at any rate, uses such a method of investigation. Sense-data theory is an invention of the philosophers, not the way people actually investigate the world. Again, moral propositions are true or false by reference to some set of facts in the world as those mentioned above (free will, happiness, psychological self-develpment, all of which are readily and easily detected by simple observation). "You have never argued for the objective reality of human dignity or justice -- you just presuppose it as if that were convincing. If there is no human dignity, then there is no moral imperative to treat humans with any specific moral obligation. All you can do is appeal to some coercive structure of law to avoid anarchy, or such. You obviously presuppose justice, since you so quickly speak of "equality", yet where do you get this? Why should your moral intuition be compelling -- whence the "ought" that you so dearly want to uphold?" Again, I am very slow, so you are going to have to explain in detail what you mean by "objective reality". The standard way moral objectivity is discussed is to debate whether moral propositions can be true or false (a claiim Hume, for example rejects, believing they are nothing more than the expression of personal emotion, but lacking propositional content that can be true or false, like your toothache above). I have stated easily detectable facts in the world, that are the basis for moral propositions being true or false. "I have no doubt that you and any atheist or strict materialist can recognize moral truth -- that is simply an epistemological consideration. The challenge for you is to show the ontological basis for the moral obligation that you insist we have toward X." Moral facts, on my view, and the view of most of the famous philosophers above, are like any other fact and are observable parts of the world. You are the one claiming that moral facts must have some non-materialist "ontological basis" - which is very claim that you need to argue for, not assume. You still have not shown that moral facts must have, by their very nature, a non-materialist ontological stratum of existence. This is just the point at issue. We have no idea what this non-material plane of being is, or why it is allegedly necessary for morality. |
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| Jeffrey | Jun 6 2006, 04:47 PM Post #247 |
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Senior Carp
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IT: "You've been here several time since I posted it" Good thing you don't live near me, or I'd think you were a stalker. |
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| ivorythumper | Jun 6 2006, 04:53 PM Post #248 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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You don't exactly hide your presence here with your aggressive posts. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| ivorythumper | Jun 6 2006, 05:01 PM Post #249 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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We'll just take these one at a time. If there is no stable and immutable human nature -- in short if everything is in constant flux -- how can there be moral norms that are always and everywhere applicable? It seems they can only be contingent upon a particular state of being (evolution, development, etc). And if they are not always and everywhere applicable, then there is no moral claim that can be made as universally true.
Well if you are going to admit to a telos, then there is not much point in further discussion, other than to ask whither the telos? |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Jeffrey | Jun 6 2006, 06:24 PM Post #250 |
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Senior Carp
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IT: "If there is no stable and immutable human nature -- in short if everything is in constant flux" I guess you have to be smarter than I am to understand your false dilemma. Immutable or constant flux are the only two alternatives? "Well if you are going to admit to a telos, then there is not much point in further discussion, other than to ask whither the telos?" I claim your terminology is imprecise and poorly explained and not in accordance with the findings of modern science, and you assume you have won the debate. Is there a Catholic term for chutzpah? |
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4:59 PM Jul 10