by defender of truth 193 Replies latest members adult
"You missed the point. The point is, why would any society have a problem with homosexuality in the first place? Religious or not, what would prompt a ban on it or a taboo on it?" -
As I pointed before, society didn't had a problem with homosexuality. The problem started when the abrahamic religions established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature.
Ismael
Cofty, your facts aren't always facts.
If I ever assert something as a fact that isn't, I would welcome somebody providing evidence to the contrary.
More often you just launch into a patronising lecture about "tone".
All orderly societies require a degree of compliance and group-think.
Did you get that from the Watchtower?
MadGiant I would challenge this 'tisese' religious belief, doctrine if that what it is. In a big Population once a STD infection, bacterium, virus gets on the loose, you would regret having not looked at enforced monogamy. But it would make for bio diversity breeding of a desirable male population. may be a nation of basket ball players? maybe we have a hidden tisese nation among us?
Religion as tool to xplain existence is one thing, religion as a tool for social engineering another
to be challenged all.
As I pointed before, society didn't have a problem with homosexuality.
Religious societies are societies. Why did they have a problem with homosexuality, whomever decided it was a bad thing in the first place? Now, if it was indeed human beings, and you and I agree that it was, who came up with banning homosexuality, why did they decide it was a bad thing? What were the reasons behind it?
We aren't speaking about tone, Cofty. We are speaking about things you can't know to be either factual or infactual such as people's supernatural experiences. Someone may tell me they saw an apparition. The natural skeptic in me may doubt the person, but I cannot say it's a fact that the person didn't see an apparition. Well, I can, but it doesn't make it a fact. Maybe the person did see one, maybe the person didn't. Neither you nor I can say for sure.
FHN - We can explore the causes of supernatural experineces and test whether they are consistent with reality.
But you have chosen a very limited example. Christian theism is about asserting a whole load of propositions that can be proven to be objectively false.
"Tone" is your favourite topic.
@Apognophos I really appreciate the honesty, I don't understand, but thanks. To me religion is an organized collection of beliefs and cultural systems and you can't separate the emotional, tribalistic or instinctual aspect of human nature, because that's religion.
Respectfully,
Ismael
"MadGiant I would challenge this 'tisese' religious belief, doctrine if that what it is. In a big Population once a STD infection, bacterium, virus gets on the loose, you would regret having not looked at enforced monogamy. But it would make for bio diversity breeding of a desirable male population. may be a nation of basket ball players? maybe we have a hidden tisese nation among us?" -
It's not religious, it's cultural. The example was to address FHN, post:
"Then you have parents and grandparents, other villagers raising the babies. You have married people running around having affairs. No one can be sure who the baby's fathers are. There is jealousy and there are fist fights and worse, maybe even murder, as consequences. Your little society is breaking down. So as the ruler of this village, you and your advisors come up with a code of ethics to try to turn the chaos around and get some order back to your village." - FHN
I agree, but it's not about STD's or bio-diversity. It's their way of life. They have being doing this for centuries, and their society still intact. It was to demonstrate, the "traditional" idea of marriage is kind of hazy if you take a look around the world.
Ismael
"Religious societies are societies. Why did they have a problem with homosexuality, whomever decided it was a bad thing in the first place? Now, if it was indeed human beings, and you and I agree that it was, who came up with banning homosexuality, why did they decide it was a bad thing? What were the reasons behind it?" -
The Hebrews considered themselves the "chosen people" of a jealous and vindictive god, morally superior to their neighbors. They developed a sexual code unlike anything in the ancient world. Mosaic law made thirty-six crimes punishable by death; one-half (18) involved sexual relationships of one kind or another.
For two men who made love to each other, the law stated: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)
The penalty for males guilty of homosexual acts was death by stoning, the most severe penalty. Adulterers, in contrast, were put to death by the more humane method of strangulation.
There was no prohibition against female homosexuality per se. In consequence, for the nearly three millenia following, it was almost always male homosexuality but not female homosexuality that was outlawed. The taboo on homosexuality is a taboo on male homosexuality.
Rigid sex-roles were imposed for both men and women, including a ban on transvestitism; "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abominations unto the Lord thy God." (Deuteronomy 22:5)
The Hebrews came to associate homosexual practices entirely with foreign customs. They referred to the "way of the Canaanite" or the "way of the heathen" rather than name practices which in time became unnameable. To them, the Sodom and Gomorrah story vividly illustrated the wrath of Yahweh against an alien people for their alien practices.
Religion, still the root of all problems,
Ismael
But you have chosen a very limited example. Christian theism is about asserting a whole load of propositions that can be proven to be objectively false.
I don't argue this. Stick with the ones that you can prove to be false. It's fine for you to talk about the reasons you aren't a theist. Just realize that there are facts and there are opinions about religion. We know it's bizarre, even abusive, to insist that all males be circumcised for symbolic reasons. We don't know, cannot prove, that people have never had experience with the supernatural.
