Freethought & Rationalism Archive

luvluv · 06-11-2002, 06:36 PM

"It’s abusive because a true ‘Christian’ puts the imagery of a pretend ‘lover’ before real loving and compassionate humans all on the promise of post mortum reward."

Not true exactly. James said that He who claims to love God and does not love his brother is a liar, and doesn't have the truth in him.

Jesus said that if you are offering a sacrifice to God, and remember that you have wronged your brother, leave your sacrifice at the altar and go and be reconciled unto him.

Paul (I think) asked how can you love God, whom you have not seen, and not love your fellow man, whom you have seen.

And then there is the parable of the sheep and the goats:

Matthew 25:34
"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Matthew 25:35
'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;

Matthew 25:36
naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'

Matthew 25:37
"Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?

Matthew 25:38
'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?

Matthew 25:39
'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'

Matthew 25:40
"The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'

Matthew 25:41
"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

Matthew 25:42
for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;

Matthew 25:43
I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'

Matthew 25:44
"Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'

Matthew 25:45
"Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'

So here, Jesus seems to be the first soliditarian, putting himself on equal footing with humanity.

So, it's not true of Christianity that it puts love of God over and above a love of humanity. In fact, many Christian thinkers believe that it is the same thing. Ghandi said that if you do not find God in the next person you meet, there is no reason to look any further.

"You find it completely acceptable and logical to believe that a supreme deity got mad at ‘His’ innocent creation for eating a magic fruit, thereby requiring that ‘He’ punish all of ‘His’ creation’s offspring to torment and suffering until ‘He’ could finally get around to impregnating a human with ‘Himself’ in order to have ‘Himself’ murdered to appease ‘His’ own anger at ‘His’ first creation?

Then, though the same torment and suffering continues to this day, you can ‘accept’ this nonsense and be ‘saved’ <from ‘His’ wrath>, but even then you are only relieved after bodily death which conveniently means that there are no personal testimonials from beyond the grave to confirm these claims?"

Convieniently enough, no I don't belileve it. I believe that the Eden story is a fable. I believe it's only intention was to show that through acquiring moral choice mankind was made by God to be responsible for his actions. I don't even necessarily believe in substitutionary atonement. I believe it is possible that Jesus ressurection, and not his crucifixion, was the key momment in Christian history (as Paul said: "if Christ be not risen, we are of all men most foolish"). I think Jesus time on earth was meant to give us information on how to live, and his Ressurection to give us the hope that He was who He claimed to be. I don't believe that what happened to us by having to work from the sweat of our brows or women having pains in childbirth is necessarily a punishment (though I would agree it is, perhaps wrongly, presnted as such) but it is simply a statement of the implications of leaving, essentially, animal status. Adam and Eve seemed to have lived like animals, barely working for their food (basically just eating whatever fruits were around) and having no moral compulsions. The first thing the Bible records after Adam and Eve ate the apple was that "they knew they were naked" and began to hide themselves. God asks them "Who told you you were naked?" Implying that before this event, they had no more inclination towards modesty than does a dog or a cat. The fable to me simply lays the ground work for free moral agency. In the parts of the Bible that are meant to be taken literally, we don't have things like "a tree of the knowledge of good and evil" or talking animals and such (except for Balaam's donkey, but those are the only two occasions I can recall). For all intents and purposes, out of everything in the Bible, this looks MOST like something that was NOT meant to be taken literally, but only figuratively. So that's how I take it.

I'm not a biblical literalist, just so you know.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]

Vorkosigan · 06-12-2002, 05:49 AM

An honest response, and a solid one, Luv. I enjoyed reading it. You write well when you speak from the heart.

Vorkosigan

scigirl · 06-12-2002, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
True but it does support the claim that as birth control became more available, illegitimacy rose in all industrialized countries.

Ok, I didn't read this Fukuyama book. But. . . how can you prove that one caused the other?

Many other things happened between the 1950's and today that also could have caused, or contributed to this alleged "rise in illegitimacy."

luvluv, you do understand that correlation does not imply causation, right?

scigirl

[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]

Dark Jedi · 06-12-2002, 06:13 AM

LuvLuv: Okay kids I've had enough of this particular subject for a few days. I'll be back after the fight or tommorow.

Pompous Bastard: I simply cannot resist this one. Let me get this straight. You're opposed to porn because of the uncertain, and controversial, possibility that it will cause emotional problems to those who participate in it, yet you have no problem paying to watch two men hit each other repeatedly in the head, leading to certain, permanent brain damage? And you have no moral qualms with this?

Luvy, I would like your response to this as well.

luvluv · 06-13-2002, 03:34 PM

First, off thanks Vork. Means a lot coming from you, one of the first folks I ever met on this board.

Sci-girl, he doesn't argue that contraception alone caused the change, the other major half of his hypothesis was the emergence of the information sector economy as opposed to the manufacturing base economy. Basically, as women became more economically independant, more of them chose to have children outside of marriage. (there is a chart on the page I linked showing a positive correlation between female income and divorce rates in industrialized countries). His argument is basically that the combination of contraception and the economic independance of women has caused a de-stabilization of the nuclear family unit.

I avoided answering the boxing question on purpose because I didn't want to digress the thread until it was over with, which it probably know is. I guess my love for boxing could be considered hypocritical. It's not actually my favorite sport (that is basketball) but I do watch it quite alot. I think half of my enjoyment of it comes from being in a room with a bunch of friends; not the sport itself, but the comradery. Overall, I guess I can say in my own favor that Christians are generally more concerned with a persons spiritual well-being than their physical well-being, and people recover from physical damage more readily than they do physical damage. I don't think that brain damage is necesarily a certainty when it comes to boxing, but the way Pompous worded the question leads me to believe he is going to demolish me with statistics if I deny it. In most of the fights I've ever seen, after the fight both boxers are on their feet shaking hands. I've never personally seen someone get hurt, but of course some folks have died in the ring over the years. Like I said, it has not reached the level of a passion with me (unlike basketball, for the which I will drive upwards of 200 miles) but it is something I will have to start thinking about it. I may have to give it up.

scigirl · 06-13-2002, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
Sci-girl, he doesn't argue that contraception alone caused the change, the other major half of his hypothesis was the emergence of the information sector economy as opposed to the manufacturing base economy.

Ok, good! I'll have to read this book, it sounds interesting. I enjoyed his "the end of history and the last man," mainly because he explained Kant and Hegel to me, without forcing me to read Kant and Hegel.

Quote:

Basically, as women became more economically independant, more of them chose to have children outside of marriage. (there is a chart on the page I linked showing a positive correlation between female income and divorce rates in industrialized countries). His argument is basically that the combination of contraception and the economic independance of women has caused a de-stabilization of the nuclear family unit.

Maybe it needed to be de-stabilized! Anyone ever think of that?

Sure, back in the '**good ole days,' divorce rates were down, crime was down (maybe), kids went to church, and everything was just peachy! But there were some things wrong with America back in those days as well.

scigirl

**phrase 'good ole days' does not apply to you if you were one of the following people:
1) Black
2) Native American
3) Woman
4) Child (forced to work in bad conditions)
5) Non-christian
6) Jew
7) Non-white

livius drusus · 06-13-2002, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
Basically, as women became more economically independant, more of them chose to have children outside of marriage. (there is a chart on the page I linked showing a positive correlation between female income and divorce rates in industrialized countries). His argument is basically that the combination of contraception and the economic independance of women has caused a de-stabilization of the nuclear family unit.

If the nuclear family cannot survive without the economic and reproductive enslavement of women, than the nuclear family is just going to have to die. Slavery is not an acceptable means to an end, nomatter how "moral" you feel that end might be.

Just fyi, I am an unmarried woman, living in filthy sin with an unmarried man, non-reproductive by choice and couldn't give a rat's ass about other people's family structures. Whatever arrangement works for you, as long as you keep your kids quiet and out of my way.

luvluv · 06-13-2002, 05:05 PM

Well, part of Fukiyama's argument is that there is no real evidence that non-traditional families can rear children as well as traditional ones, in fact all of the evidence points in the other direction. Children who grow up in single parent households are more likely to end up in all sorts of pathologies than children who grow up in two-parent homes. Also, all single-parent households AREN'T households in which the mother earns enough to adequately support her children. I believe that being a single mother is the single best predictor of poverty in this country, single mothers and children of single mothers are more likely to be poor than anyone else in the country.

Fukiyama doesn't make the good old days argument, in fact one of his most adamant points is that the Great Disruption happened in every industrialized country. It is not specific to the history of any one group.

I think a lot of the bad things that came from the good old days are totally unrelated to the sexual revolution. I don't think you can say that if traditional marriages were to come back into vogue, that it would cause a return to segregation or to any of the other problems that have plagued this country. They're totally different issues. Personally, I see the sexual revolution, meaning the freeing of sexuality from the context of marriage, as a wholly bad thing as far as it's effects on society. I obviously believe that people should be able to do whatever they want to do, but I think the results from the sexual revolution are going to be worse in terms of social pathology than the results from traditional family units. I think society benefits more from stable marriages 10 times out of 10 over serial-monogamy (despite gloomy stats on the divorce rate, Fukiyama states that unwed couples are more likely to split up than married couples).

I obviously don't think women should be enslaved and that's not the argument Fukiyama makes in his book. I really don't know what the answer is. But one thing is clear to me is that you can't have everything you want at the same time, so something is going to have to go. It's a matter of what we value more.

livius, I don't think reproductive enslavement is involved in the issue. Women are choosing to have children regardless. The issue here is once the children in the world would they be better off with one parent or two? The economic issue is stickier though.

[ June 13, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]

bonduca · 06-13-2002, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
[QB]Well, part of Fukiyama's argument is that there is no real evidence that non-traditional families can rear children as well as traditional ones, in fact all of the evidence points in the other direction. Children who grow up in single parent households are more likely to end up in all sorts of pathologies than children who grow up in two-parent homes.

luvluv, that statement is misleading. I think the issue of being a good parent is more complex than simply providing two bodies and pronouncing it ideal. Children who grow up in two-parent households can also have a multitude of problems. Children with only one parent can be given sufficient love and encouragement to do well in the world. Each case is different.

Quote:

Also, all single-parent households AREN'T households in which the mother earns enough to adequately support her children. I believe that being a single mother is the single best predictor of poverty in this country, single mothers and children of single mothers are more likely to be poor than anyone else in the country.

This problem would be better solved by remedying the inequities in education and earning power, don't you think? Then they would not be at the mercy of a good/bad spouse to ensure their material comfort.

Quote:

Fukiyama doesn't make the good old days argument, in fact one of his most adamant points is that the Great Disruption happened in every industrialized country. It is not specific to the history of any one group.

I think a lot of the bad things that came from the good old days are totally unrelated to the sexual revolution. I don't think you can say that if traditional marriages were to come back into vogue, that it would cause a return to segregation or to any of the other problems that have plagued this country.

But if we returned to "the good old days," we would see a return to some of the following:

*women unable to earn even a modest living wage
*women unable to have credit in their own name
*advertisements specifying men for jobs that women could do just as well
*women having to have produce a marriage license and permission from the husband to obtain birth control

Personally, luvluv, I would see this as a problem.

Quote:

They're totally different issues. Personally, I see the sexual revolution, meaning the freeing of sexuality from the context of marriage, as a wholly bad thing as far as it's effects on society.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. But as someone who has benefitted enormously from the changes you regard with horror, I strongly disagree.

Quote:

I obviously believe that people should be able to do whatever they want to do,

As long as they are willing to listen to these gloom and doom pronouncements, and feel suitably ashamed?

Quote:

but I think the results from the sexual revolution are going to be worse in terms of social pathology than the results from traditional family units.

And many of us think not. How will you convince us to get back in that cage, my dear?

Quote:

I think society benefits more from stable marriages 10 times out of 10 over serial-monogamy (despite gloomy stats on the divorce rate, Fukiyama states that unwed couples are more likely to split up than married couples).

I fail to see how staying together (if the union is unhappy) will guarantee a happy home and healthy atmosphere for children, however tidy it may appear statistically.

Quote:

I obviously don't think women should be enslaved and that's not the argument Fukiyama makes in his book.

Then stop complaining.

Quote:

I really don't know what the answer is. But one thing is clear to me is that you can't have everything you want at the same time, so something is going to have to go. It's a matter of what we value more.

Each individual must decide that for themselves, don't you agree?

Quote:

livius, I don't think reproductive enslavement is involved in the issue. Women are choosing to have children regardless. The issue here is once the children in the world would they be better off with one parent or two?

If you force or coerce them to couple with someone when they do not wish to, that is sufficiently like enslavement to alarm me. Have you actually thought this through?

Quote:

The economic issue is stickier though.

I agree. It is a bit of an uphill struggle to convince some people that women must be prepared and able to earn a good living. But we will persevere.

[ June 13, 2002: Message edited by: bonduca ]

seebs · 06-13-2002, 07:05 PM

While I agree that children benefit a lot from a pair of parents, I'm not sure how easy it is to nail down the causality; to what extent is it people who are likely to be bad parents, being likely to end up as single parents?

I will say, there *IS* evidence that any stable couple will do a good job of parenting; children raised by gay couples do not show statistical variations. So... I think one thing we should do is make adoption a bit easier for the fairly large pool of couples who are physically unlikely to spawn, but who would love to raise children in a loving home.

06-11-2002, 06:36 PM	#171
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	"It’s abusive because a true ‘Christian’ puts the imagery of a pretend ‘lover’ before real loving and compassionate humans all on the promise of post mortum reward." Not true exactly. James said that He who claims to love God and does not love his brother is a liar, and doesn't have the truth in him. Jesus said that if you are offering a sacrifice to God, and remember that you have wronged your brother, leave your sacrifice at the altar and go and be reconciled unto him. Paul (I think) asked how can you love God, whom you have not seen, and not love your fellow man, whom you have seen. And then there is the parable of the sheep and the goats: Matthew 25:34 "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Matthew 25:35 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; Matthew 25:36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.' Matthew 25:37 "Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? Matthew 25:38 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? Matthew 25:39 'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' Matthew 25:40 "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' Matthew 25:41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; Matthew 25:42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; Matthew 25:43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.' Matthew 25:44 "Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' Matthew 25:45 "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' So here, Jesus seems to be the first soliditarian, putting himself on equal footing with humanity. So, it's not true of Christianity that it puts love of God over and above a love of humanity. In fact, many Christian thinkers believe that it is the same thing. Ghandi said that if you do not find God in the next person you meet, there is no reason to look any further. "You find it completely acceptable and logical to believe that a supreme deity got mad at ‘His’ innocent creation for eating a magic fruit, thereby requiring that ‘He’ punish all of ‘His’ creation’s offspring to torment and suffering until ‘He’ could finally get around to impregnating a human with ‘Himself’ in order to have ‘Himself’ murdered to appease ‘His’ own anger at ‘His’ first creation? Then, though the same torment and suffering continues to this day, you can ‘accept’ this nonsense and be ‘saved’ <from ‘His’ wrath>, but even then you are only relieved after bodily death which conveniently means that there are no personal testimonials from beyond the grave to confirm these claims?" Convieniently enough, no I don't belileve it. I believe that the Eden story is a fable. I believe it's only intention was to show that through acquiring moral choice mankind was made by God to be responsible for his actions. I don't even necessarily believe in substitutionary atonement. I believe it is possible that Jesus ressurection, and not his crucifixion, was the key momment in Christian history (as Paul said: "if Christ be not risen, we are of all men most foolish"). I think Jesus time on earth was meant to give us information on how to live, and his Ressurection to give us the hope that He was who He claimed to be. I don't believe that what happened to us by having to work from the sweat of our brows or women having pains in childbirth is necessarily a punishment (though I would agree it is, perhaps wrongly, presnted as such) but it is simply a statement of the implications of leaving, essentially, animal status. Adam and Eve seemed to have lived like animals, barely working for their food (basically just eating whatever fruits were around) and having no moral compulsions. The first thing the Bible records after Adam and Eve ate the apple was that "they knew they were naked" and began to hide themselves. God asks them "Who told you you were naked?" Implying that before this event, they had no more inclination towards modesty than does a dog or a cat. The fable to me simply lays the ground work for free moral agency. In the parts of the Bible that are meant to be taken literally, we don't have things like "a tree of the knowledge of good and evil" or talking animals and such (except for Balaam's donkey, but those are the only two occasions I can recall). For all intents and purposes, out of everything in the Bible, this looks MOST like something that was NOT meant to be taken literally, but only figuratively. So that's how I take it. I'm not a biblical literalist, just so you know. [ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

06-13-2002, 05:05 PM	#178
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	Well, part of Fukiyama's argument is that there is no real evidence that non-traditional families can rear children as well as traditional ones, in fact all of the evidence points in the other direction. Children who grow up in single parent households are more likely to end up in all sorts of pathologies than children who grow up in two-parent homes. Also, all single-parent households AREN'T households in which the mother earns enough to adequately support her children. I believe that being a single mother is the single best predictor of poverty in this country, single mothers and children of single mothers are more likely to be poor than anyone else in the country. Fukiyama doesn't make the good old days argument, in fact one of his most adamant points is that the Great Disruption happened in every industrialized country. It is not specific to the history of any one group. I think a lot of the bad things that came from the good old days are totally unrelated to the sexual revolution. I don't think you can say that if traditional marriages were to come back into vogue, that it would cause a return to segregation or to any of the other problems that have plagued this country. They're totally different issues. Personally, I see the sexual revolution, meaning the freeing of sexuality from the context of marriage, as a wholly bad thing as far as it's effects on society. I obviously believe that people should be able to do whatever they want to do, but I think the results from the sexual revolution are going to be worse in terms of social pathology than the results from traditional family units. I think society benefits more from stable marriages 10 times out of 10 over serial-monogamy (despite gloomy stats on the divorce rate, Fukiyama states that unwed couples are more likely to split up than married couples). I obviously don't think women should be enslaved and that's not the argument Fukiyama makes in his book. I really don't know what the answer is. But one thing is clear to me is that you can't have everything you want at the same time, so something is going to have to go. It's a matter of what we value more. livius, I don't think reproductive enslavement is involved in the issue. Women are choosing to have children regardless. The issue here is once the children in the world would they be better off with one parent or two? The economic issue is stickier though. [ June 13, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

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06-12-2002, 05:49 AM	#172
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	An honest response, and a solid one, Luv. I enjoyed reading it. You write well when you speak from the heart. Vorkosigan

06-12-2002, 06:13 AM	#174
Dark Jedi Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Afghanistan Posts: 4,666	LuvLuv: Okay kids I've had enough of this particular subject for a few days. I'll be back after the fight or tommorow. Pompous Bastard: I simply cannot resist this one. Let me get this straight. You're opposed to porn because of the uncertain, and controversial, possibility that it will cause emotional problems to those who participate in it, yet you have no problem paying to watch two men hit each other repeatedly in the head, leading to certain, permanent brain damage? And you have no moral qualms with this? Luvy, I would like your response to this as well.

06-13-2002, 03:34 PM	#175
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	First, off thanks Vork. Means a lot coming from you, one of the first folks I ever met on this board. Sci-girl, he doesn't argue that contraception alone caused the change, the other major half of his hypothesis was the emergence of the information sector economy as opposed to the manufacturing base economy. Basically, as women became more economically independant, more of them chose to have children outside of marriage. (there is a chart on the page I linked showing a positive correlation between female income and divorce rates in industrialized countries). His argument is basically that the combination of contraception and the economic independance of women has caused a de-stabilization of the nuclear family unit. I avoided answering the boxing question on purpose because I didn't want to digress the thread until it was over with, which it probably know is. I guess my love for boxing could be considered hypocritical. It's not actually my favorite sport (that is basketball) but I do watch it quite alot. I think half of my enjoyment of it comes from being in a room with a bunch of friends; not the sport itself, but the comradery. Overall, I guess I can say in my own favor that Christians are generally more concerned with a persons spiritual well-being than their physical well-being, and people recover from physical damage more readily than they do physical damage. I don't think that brain damage is necesarily a certainty when it comes to boxing, but the way Pompous worded the question leads me to believe he is going to demolish me with statistics if I deny it. In most of the fights I've ever seen, after the fight both boxers are on their feet shaking hands. I've never personally seen someone get hurt, but of course some folks have died in the ring over the years. Like I said, it has not reached the level of a passion with me (unlike basketball, for the which I will drive upwards of 200 miles) but it is something I will have to start thinking about it. I may have to give it up.

06-13-2002, 07:05 PM	#180
seebs Contributor Join Date: May 2002 Location: Saint Paul, MN Posts: 24,524	While I agree that children benefit a lot from a pair of parents, I'm not sure how easy it is to nail down the causality; to what extent is it people who are likely to be bad parents, being likely to end up as single parents? I will say, there IS evidence that any stable couple will do a good job of parenting; children raised by gay couples do not show statistical variations. So... I think one thing we should do is make adoption a bit easier for the fairly large pool of couples who are physically unlikely to spawn, but who would love to raise children in a loving home.

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