Same Sex Marriages and Sexual Orientation

[Sparko]

No. It's relative. It depends on the observer. Each observer will judge the morals based on their own moral standards. One observer may find my morals better, and another may find the pedophile's better.

That was my point. Everyone will have their own opinion and nobody's is "right" to anyone but themselves. So there is nothing wrong with raping, murder or pedophilia, other than some people prefer it and others don't. It becomes trivial, like someone's favorite color. I might like blue and you might like yellow but that doesn't mean you are wrong for liking yellow. I might think other people's lives are important and someone else might not. Doesn't make them wrong. Relative morality is no morality.

[Sparko]

It has no objective/absolute right/wrong value. But we know that, because it's relative subjective - so this is just Technique again: relative/subjective morality is not absolute/objective. We all agree that is true.

The claim that only absolute/objective things are meaningful or valuable is not accurate.

The values themselves are just more relative preferences. Bob thinks rape is wrong. Why? because he has a moral value that says sex needs to be freely consented to. why? because he has a moral value that free will is valuable. Why? .... and on and on the rabbit trail goes. Since nothing is more than a personal value/preference, ultimately it is valueless to anyone else. It is trivia. There is no basis for right an wrong other than your preference which means it doesn't matter any more than your preference of politics or ice cream. All of your values are nothing but preferences. So your values are not my values. They might match up here and there but that is merely coincidence. who cares?

Even YOU don't live like you believe that. You claim you do, but you get offended when people don't think your values are more important. You argue as if your values mean something objective and others should listen to you.

[Sparko]

He is morally obligated to follow his own moral framework. What either of his communities tell him is "moral" or "immoral" is just information to him.

And the baker did just that. So I guess you think he did the moral thing for him then. So why are you so upset about this that you keep arguing he was wrong?

[carpedm9587]

I have no idea what that means, or why you feel that I have given up any autonomy, since I really do agree with the teachings of Christ. I mean if you agree with a particular teacher or moral principle does that mean you gave up personal personal autonomy? Hardly... Besides, being politically liberal and godless in my early years I know from experience that those beliefs offer nothing.

Any person who so identifies with a "teacher" that they submit all of their choices to what they think this teacher wants has indeed sacrificed autonomy. No teacher is perfect. And when we do not even have any writings of that teacher, but only of his followers and their followers...it is even more problematic, IMO.

Strange that you should bring it up in the first place as a debating point, considering that it would be meaningless to anyone who would have a different definition of what "fully human" constitutes. Why didn't you just tell me your favorite color?

You didn't ask.

Truth being a universal, objective value. And conforming to universal values is a moral good, and may actually decide your eternal fate.

Truth occurs is when objective reality aligns with language. I'm not sure how you jump from there to morality. As for my "eternal fate," since I do not believe any of us have an eternity, that part is moot.

That is just silly Carp, most humans, for most of recorded history, have believed in the supernatural.

Yes, they have. And since it was pretty much the entire species, no specific survival advantage.

To you they were believing in illusions, yet we survived and flourished.

Yes. Again...when there is no differentiator, there is no advantage. And living with an illusion in one domain does not translate to living in an illusion in all domains.

As a matter of fact believing in a god or gods (illusions according to you) may have in fact offered survival value and greater social cohesion.

That is actually possible. It may well have provided for a degree of social cohesion. On the the hand, it also played into multiple religious conflicts. And many were sacrificed in the name of religions (Aztecs, Inquisition, Islamic Jihad, etc.). So what the world would have been like without this illusion is an unanswerable question. It didn't happen, so we have no basis for comparison.

However, that may not be true forever. As the world becomes more secularized, we eventually will have a basis for comparison. It will be interesting to see which mental modality provides an advantage, and which predominates in our future world.

[kiwimac]

How about when my son had to sit through a Social Science class where homosexuality is taught as just another morally acceptable lifestyle? Where, if he didn't he would lose the credit for the whole course. And why must the Christian, by law, be forced to bake a cake for an event he finds deeply immoral? Should the black baker be forced to bake a cake for a KKK party? A Jew for a neo-nazi party? Where does the Constitution say that any man has a right to MY LABOR?

When you open that door then anyone who walks in the door has a right to your labour. Homosexuality is not a lifestyle, it simply is one of the myriad kinds of human sexuality.

[carpedm9587]

When you open that door then anyone who walks in the door has a right to your labour. Homosexuality is not a lifestyle, it simply is one of the myriad kinds of human sexuality.

Well said - and briefer than I ever have been.

[Tassman]

When you open that door then anyone who walks in the door has a right to your labour. Homosexuality is not a lifestyle, it simply is one of the myriad kinds of human sexuality.

Yes exactly! If you are not prepared to offer your labour to all who walk through your door with a legitimate request for the services you offer then one should not be in business.

[seer]

Any person who so identifies with a "teacher" that they submit all of their choices to what they think this teacher wants has indeed sacrificed autonomy. No teacher is perfect. And when we do not even have any writings of that teacher, but only of his followers and their followers...it is even more problematic, IMO.

Well that's the difference Carp, as Christians we believe we are following the oracles of God, and we would be foolish not to. Never mind that this whole autonomy thing is a silly atheist talking point. We all sacrifice autonomy everyday, in various ways. For family, for work, for society in general.

You didn't ask.

Right, but I didn't ask about your definition for being fully human either.

Truth occurs is when objective reality aligns with language. I'm not sure how you jump from there to morality.

I have no idea what your point is. Christ is the Son of God, that it a truth, and if you align with that truth you find life, if you don't you find death.

Yes, they have. And since it was pretty much the entire species, no specific survival advantage.

You don't know that, you would have to compare our history with a largely godless human history.

Yes. Again...when there is no differentiator, there is no advantage. And living with an illusion in one domain does not translate to living in an illusion in all domains.

That is what I have been saying. But you were broad brushing suggesting that living with illusions was detrimental. Obviously not - they may in fact be beneficial.

That is actually possible. It may well have provided for a degree of social cohesion. On the the hand, it also played into multiple religious conflicts. And many were sacrificed in the name of religions (Aztecs, Inquisition, Islamic Jihad, etc.). So what the world would have been like without this illusion is an unanswerable question. It didn't happen, so we have no basis for comparison.

First humans seem to have an inherent appetite for conflict, so anything could be a catalyst - religion, politics, tribalism, etc... Religion offers a common bond that I don't think can be replaced. Religion by its very nature offers what the secular never could - hope, beyond this world, universal moral truths that we are accountable to, the idea that we are more than biological accidents, that we live in a just, rather than an unjust universe, etc...

However, that may not be true forever. As the world becomes more secularized, we eventually will have a basis for comparison. It will be interesting to see which mental modality provides an advantage, and which predominates in our future world.

Well we only have to look to the atheistic regimes of the last century to get an idea. And the left of today, political correctness (an idea invented by Maoists), speech codes, confiscatory tax rates, your belief that a baker should be forced by law to serve who he chooses not to, etc... They/you will be totalitarian in nature.

[carpedm9587]

Well that's the difference Carp, as Christians we believe we are following the oracles of God, and we would be foolish not to. Never mind that this whole autonomy thing is a silly atheist talking point. We all sacrifice autonomy everyday, in various ways. For family, for work, for society in general.

We atheists know that, Seer. And that's the entire point. As atheists, we believe this god doesn't even exist, so what you are "following" is the "oracles" of men dead 2 - 3.5 thousand years, and you are foolish to so abandon your decision making process in this way. Yes - we all sacrifice autonomy in our various choices. This choice is just not, our my opinion, a particularly good one.

Right, but I didn't ask about your definition for being fully human either.

When has that ever stopped me?

I have no idea what your point is. Christ is the Son of God, that it a truth, and if you align with that truth you find life, if you don't you find death.

I have no idea what your point is. Jesus of Nazareth was a man, an itinerant preacher who lived 2,000 years ago. If you align with that truth, you have a reason grasp of history. If you don't, you follow the teaching attributed to the man by his followers, with no clue how much they inserted into those teachings themselves due to their own personal biases and cultural prejudices.

You don't know that, you would have to compare our history with a largely godless human history.

My point, Seer, is that there can be no survival "advantage" of one group over another when there is only one group...

That is what I have been saying. But you were broad brushing suggesting that living with illusions was detrimental. Obviously not - they may in fact be beneficial.

Again...evolution is about averages. On average, living with illusions separates one from what is real (by definition) and creates risk. Some illusions may temporarily provide benefits. Some people with illusions will thrive. But it is a nonsensical proposition to me, in general, to suggest that people who live with illusions/delusions have a survival advantage over those who do not across the scope of the species.

First humans seem to have an inherent appetite for conflict, so anything could be a catalyst - religion, politics, tribalism, etc... Religion offers a common bond that I don't think can be replaced. Religion by its very nature offers what the secular never could - hope, beyond this world, universal moral truths that we are accountable to, the idea that we are more than biological accidents, that we live in a just, rather than an unjust universe, etc...

Hope beyond this world is pointless if it is false. And you do not know what bonds will arise when religion is not the easy "go-to" that humans fall back on. There will, no doubt, be turmoil as humanity makes the adjustment to a more secular world. But we are bound together by more than our gods (many of whom, quite frankly, are described as exhibiting some of the worst characteristics of humanity). I wish I could live a couple hundred more years - or that I had been born 100 years later. I suspect the world will be a very different place.

Well we only have to look to the atheistic regimes of the last century to get an idea. And the left of today, political correctness (an idea invented by Maoists), speech codes, confiscatory tax rates, your belief that a baker should be forced by law to serve who he chooses not to, etc... They/you will be totalitarian in nature.

No...we don't. That is a common meme. In fact, most of this list is just common right-wing memes. The left has them too. The right indoctrinates to their religion, is intolerant of any view that differs from their own, places money/economy/profits above people/life/freedom, and the list goes on. The left-wing memes are as false as the right-wing ones. I don't accept any of them.

There are good people on both sides of the equation. Memes are just a way of painting people as "other" and dismissing them from consideration.

[Sparko]

Yes exactly! If you are not prepared to offer your labour to all who walk through your door with a legitimate request for the services you offer then one should not be in business.

so if someone wants a Nazi cake - then they have to make it? Or how about a cake that encourages burning all atheists at the stake?

The more you post, the dumber you sound.

[carpedm9587]

Yes exactly! If you are not prepared to offer your labour to all who walk through your door with a legitimate request for the services you offer then one should not be in business.

The discussion is apparently irreconcilable. They are adamant that it's not a "wedding cake," it's a "gay wedding cake" or "same sex wedding cake." That is why they keep tossing out the "Nazi cakes" and so forth. They do not see that the very act of putting "gay" in front of "wedding cake" is the beginning of the prejudice/bigotry.

The baker and many Christians here are differentiating one wedding from another based solely on the genitals of the people involved. At least Jim was willing to acknowledge the reality of that. The rest apparently cannot see that reality because their religion tells them that it is that very fact (matching genitals) that makes the wedding and subsequent intimacy immoral. So they are blind to the fact that they are basing morality completely on the genetic assignment of the people involved. The same act will be moral for one couple and immoral for another solely on the basis of their genetic identity: same genitals = immoral; different genitals = moral.

At this point, I think I am going to join the CP parade. We are repeating the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

If there is anything new to the discussion, I will happily re-engage. If I am asked a direct question I have not answered before, I will happily re-engage. Otherwise...I leave it to all ya'll.

Michel

[seer]

We atheists know that, Seer. And that's the entire point. As atheists, we believe this god doesn't even exist, so what you are "following" is the "oracles" of men dead 2 - 3.5 thousand years, and you are foolish to so abandon your decision making process in this way. Yes - we all sacrifice autonomy in our various choices. This choice is just not, our my opinion, a particularly good one.

But again, I have not abandoned decision making process, it is my decision making process that brought me to where I am.

When has that ever stopped me?

A rather meaningless definition don't you think - save for yourself...

I have no idea what your point is. Jesus of Nazareth was a man, an itinerant preacher who lived 2,000 years ago. If you align with that truth, you have a reason grasp of history. If you don't, you follow the teaching attributed to the man by his followers, with no clue how much they inserted into those teachings themselves due to their own personal biases and cultural prejudices.

Except we believe in divine inspiration, so truths can be related and understood even in the midst of cultural ambiguity, heck Carp you even agree with 90% of New Testament ethical teachings, so they are not that clouded by personal biases or cultural prejudices.

My point, Seer, is that there can be no survival "advantage" of one group over another when there is only one group...

Again...evolution is about averages. On average, living with illusions separates one from what is real (by definition) and creates risk. Some illusions may temporarily provide benefits. Some people with illusions will thrive. But it is a nonsensical proposition to me, in general, to suggest that people who live with illusions/delusions have a survival advantage over those who do not across the scope of the species.

Right that is what I have said, we can have illusion that are beneficial, but if they cause me to walk into walls then that is bad. So illusions in themself are not necessarily bad and can and do offer benefits. For instance studies show that religious people live longer and are generally happier and more content.

Hope beyond this world is pointless if it is false. And you do not know what bonds will arise when religion is not the easy "go-to" that humans fall back on. There will, no doubt, be turmoil as humanity makes the adjustment to a more secular world. But we are bound together by more than our gods (many of whom, quite frankly, are described as exhibiting some of the worst characteristics of humanity). I wish I could live a couple hundred more years - or that I had been born 100 years later. I suspect the world will be a very different place.

We will see, or actually I will be dead by then...

No...we don't. That is a common meme. In fact, most of this list is just common right-wing memes. The left has them too. The right indoctrinates to their religion, is intolerant of any view that differs from their own, places money/economy/profits above people/life/freedom, and the list goes on. The left-wing memes are as false as the right-wing ones. I don't accept any of them.

There are good people on both sides of the equation. Memes are just a way of painting people as "other" and dismissing them from consideration.

This coming from a man who would take away second amendment rights and force, by law, a Christian baker to make a homosexual wedding cake. Sorry Carp, I like you, but I wouldn't give you power over my life for one second.

[Sparko]

The discussion is apparently irreconcilable. They are adamant that it's not a "wedding cake," it's a "gay wedding cake" or "same sex wedding cake." That is why they keep tossing out the "Nazi cakes" and so forth. They do not see that the very act of putting "gay" in front of "wedding cake" is the beginning of the prejudice/bigotry.

The baker and many Christians here are differentiating one wedding from another based solely on the genitals of the people involved. At least Jim was willing to acknowledge the reality of that. The rest apparently cannot see that reality because their religion tells them that it is that very fact (matching genitals) that makes the wedding and subsequent intimacy immoral. So they are blind to the fact that they are basing morality completely on the genetic assignment of the people involved. The same act will be moral for one couple and immoral for another solely on the basis of their genetic identity: same genitals = immoral; different genitals = moral.

At this point, I think I am going to join the CP parade. We are repeating the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

If there is anything new to the discussion, I will happily re-engage. If I am asked a direct question I have not answered before, I will happily re-engage. Otherwise...I leave it to all ya'll.

Michel

You are happy to leave unless someone else actually does get the last word in, then you have to post again.

[carpedm9587]

But again, I have not abandoned decision making process, it is my decision making process that brought me to where I am.

A "decision to abandon decision making" Seer doesn't mean you haven't abandoned your decision making process. If you lock your moral framework to that of another person, until you unlock it, you have effectively abandoned your decision making in that venue (morality). I'm sure you still choose other things.

A rather meaningless definition don't you think - save for yourself...

No. But it may well be meaningless to you.

Except we believe in divine inspiration, so truths can be related and understood even in the midst of cultural ambiguity, heck Carp you even agree with 90% of New Testament ethical teachings, so they are not that clouded by personal biases or cultural prejudices.

I know what you believe in Seer. And I believe it to be a vapor - nothing more. And you believe I am missing "the truth." I don't think we'll resolve that discrepancy.

That I agree with 90% (about) of the NT moral teaching doesn't mean I abandoned my choices, Seer. I agree with them because I have examined them and find they align with what I value. I don't agree with the "because they are in the NT" or "because god says so." I likewise probably agree with 90% of the moral teachings of Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. I probably agree with 90% of the moral positions held by "most people." The 90% is an objective reality about my beliefs. The reason I agree is not because those things are Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or "what most people think."

Right that is what I have said, we can have illusion that are beneficial, but if they cause me to walk into walls then that is bad. So illusions in themselves are not necessarily bad and can and do offer benefits. For instance studies show that religious people live longer and are generally happier and more content.

An trait can have short-term advantage and long-term consequence, Seer. Heck - we don't even know if sentience itself has long-term survival value. But I think I am on fairly safe ground to suggest that deception and self-deception are not "good things" in general. If you think they are, then by all means embrace them. Some avid smokers live to by 90.

We will see, or actually I will be dead by then...

As will I...

This coming from a man who would take away second amendment rights and force, by law, a Christian baker to make a homosexual wedding cake. Sorry Carp, I like you, but I wouldn't give you power over my life for one second.

I would not want power over anyone's life for any period of time, so you are safe.

[seer]

A "decision to abandon decision making" Seer doesn't mean you haven't abandoned your decision making process. If you lock your moral framework to that of another person, until you unlock it, you have effectively abandoned your decision making in that venue (morality). I'm sure you still choose other things.

Yes I do still do choose to other things, like trying to show you the error of your godless ways...

I know what you believe in Seer. And I believe it to be a vapor - nothing more. And you believe I am missing "the truth." I don't think we'll resolve that discrepancy.

Probably not, but there is still hope for you...

That I agree with 90% (about) of the NT moral teaching doesn't mean I abandoned my choices, Seer. I agree with them because I have examined them and find they align with what I value. I don't agree with the "because they are in the NT" or "because god says so." I likewise probably agree with 90% of the moral teachings of Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. I probably agree with 90% of the moral positions held by "most people." The 90% is an objective reality about my beliefs. The reason I agree is not because those things are Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or "what most people think."

The point wasn't about giving up choices, but the fact that these moral teachings seem to have overcome, or transcended, personal biases or cultural prejudices. Which you mentioned to try and minimize them. I guess that is one of your techniques...

An trait can have short-term advantage and long-term consequence, Seer. Heck - we don't even know if sentience itself has long-term survival value. But I think I am on fairly safe ground to suggest that deception and self-deception are not "good things" in general. If you think they are, then by all means embrace them. Some avid smokers live to by 90.

Well if Religion helps you live longer and be happier then for your life that has a definite survival value. And what is wrong with that?