posted
"Nonsense. There are things I think that are wrong that I actually quite like. Wrong of me to like them, true, but I do, and they are. I can think something is wrong without hating it."
You've misunderstood me. Simply allow for different layers of importance, and hopefully you'll see what I mean. I happen to agree with you in that there are things I would LIKE to do, but don't, because I think they are wrong. When I analyze why I think they are wrong, it comes down to either producing a bad outcome, or irrational prejudice. But if the prejudice is deep enough, it still stops me from engaging in the activities, because I'll still think its "wrong."
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Weren't most of the oldest moral systems just a list of things you couldn't do? [/QB]
Can you give an example?
Are you thinking of the Ten Commandments? At most you could say that there content reflects an underlying moral system. In any case, their legitimacy was derived from the fact that they (allegedly) came from God, not the reasonableness of the underlying axioms.
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1.I don't agree that the only two possible moral systems are utilitarianism or personal prefernce. There are plenty of moral systems out there that rely on moral absolutes other than "the greatest utility" and which don't amount to "do whatever you personal preference is". [/QUOTE]
Ok, so give us an example of a moral system, actually held by a real human being, which bases opposition to gay marriage on something other than these two.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Weren't most of the oldest moral systems just a list of things you couldn't do?
Can you give an example?
Are you thinking of the Ten Commandments? At most you could say that there content reflects an underlying moral system. In any case, their legitimacy was derived from the fact that they (allegedly) came from God, not the reasonableness of the underlying axioms.
I suspect he actually means Hamurabi.
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quote:Sure, utility is arbitrary. But we can at least find out whether something promotes utility, and adjust our actions accordingly. The arbitrariness can put itself into a "reality" context.
On the other hand, "God told me so," or "It seperates us from our soul," or "there's a universal dictum against it," can be used to justify ANY action, and there's no possible argument against the statement.
I agree that arguing over it is impossible - but that doesn't mean it's arbitrary. I think the fundamentals of morality are something you must observe for yourself, through introspection, not something that can be proven to you through argument.
It's sort of like trying to convince someone that the sky is blue, when that person claims that the sky is brown. You can argue all you want, but if that person continues to insist that he sees a brown sky, there is no way you can prove he is wrong. He needs to see the blueness for himself - which is different from saying the color of the sky is arbitrary.
quote:The statements "I hate teachers," and "I hate the act of teaching," have no difference to people who find that they must teach to be happy. The statements "I hate cops," and "I hate the action of enforcing laws," are meaningless to people who see themselves as serving a great good by becoming police officers.
There's a lot of room between "I hate the action," and "I hate the person performing the action," but the distance becomes infintisimally small when we're talking about an action that someone needs/wants as a major component of their life.
There is a difference: If you hate teaching but not the teacher, then you would act to help the teacher become something other than a teacher, to better their life. If you hate the teacher, then you would probably prefer if the teacher simply vanished from the face of the earth. A more realistic example might be hating alcoholism vs. hating an alcoholic. If you hate the alcoholic, you'd probably be fine just throwing him in jail to keep him away from you. If you hate alcoholism but not the alcoholic, you'd want to help the alcoholic get better or at least avoid drinking.
Hating the sin but not the sinner is a kind way to act (because the ultimate goal is to protect the sinner from the sin), whereas hating the sinner is unkind.
quote:Can you give an example?
Rivka answered quicker than me... Yes, something along the lines of Hammurabi - or other lists of moral rules that were held in societies that existed without a belief in the Judeo-Christian God.
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posted
My Buddhist inlaws believed strongly that marriage is for continuing the family line. The things we have chosen to never ever mention to them are all tied to that. For example, I had surgery for endometriosis a week before visiting them. Despite the fact that I was still recovering, we kept that quiet (and they probably thought I was a spoiled brat since my husband got me anything I needed so I didn't have to move and was super attentive). Another of my in laws has not mentioned that he took his wife's name on marriage. A gay in law hasn't mentioned it either and has said he would ask a bf to not come with him when visiting them (family is all in the same state so the bf would be invited to all the other activities). These in laws are fine with having fun on the side, as long as the wife has legitimate babies. One relative cheated on his wife, then left her and the big condemnation I hear is that he didn't have a baby by the wife (she wanted one, he didn't). I disagree with them, but clearly they are people who believe strongly in family is for breeding (and would say infertility is a reason for divorce as well). I have a hard time seeing them as hate filled bigots, even if they vote for prop8.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Hating the sin but not the sinner is a kind way to act (because the ultimate goal is to protect the sinner from the sin), whereas hating the sinner is unkind.
With such kindnesses, who needs hate?
quote:Rivka answered quicker than me... Yes, something along the lines of Hammurabi - or other lists of moral rules that were held in societies that existed without a belief in the Judeo-Christian God.
Piffle. Hammurabi's laws are explicitly utilitarian, in that they all have the form "If A harms B by doing X, he shall pay restitution Y". What's more, they are not held as a moral code by any living human being, and have no word to say about gay marriage. Let me remind you of my suggestion:
quote:Ok, so give us an example of a moral system, actually held by a real human being, which bases opposition to gay marriage on something other than these two. [Referring to your "utilitarianism or personal preference", and noting that the 'personal' here also includes laws claimed to be divine in origin.]
posted
Man - back to gay marriage arguments. I guess I should have expected not less, although I was hoping to have a discussion on privacy and political statements and the like.
kq, if you're still reading, I appreciate that you weren't being snide. Sorry to have thought that you were. And I apologize for being snide.
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quote:Ok, so give us an example of a moral system, actually held by a real human being, which bases opposition to gay marriage on something other than these two. [Referring to your "utilitarianism or personal preference", and noting that the 'personal' here also includes laws claimed to be divine in origin.]
I think that all of the arguments I've given already on this thread are held by real human beings. I think that if you'd ask most people who consider homosexuality to be wrong, they'd say its because they think there is either (1) a divine moral rule against it, or (2) a natural moral rule against it. Neither (1) nor (2) fit into the categories of utilitarianism or personal preference.
And moral laws that are divine in origin are definitely not the same as personal preference. When a moral law is based in personal preference, you can change it simply by preferring something different - which can't be done if a law is made by God or any other divine being.
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quote:And moral laws that are divine in origin are definitely not the same as personal preference. When a moral law is based in personal preference, you can change it simply by preferring something different - which can't be done if a law is made by God or any other divine being.
You most certainly can; have you noticed that the blacks have the priesthood now? More generally, you simply say "I misunderstood God's will, it really wants Y, not X". Or you change your church, which comes to the same thing. Let me remind you of the original quote you were responding to:
quote:Once you remove utility, all you're left with is personal preference (whether that preference is justified by god, one's emotions, or past tradition, or something that eventually fits into one of those three categories).
posted
I'm just not sure how people can rationally hold any serious arguments against gay marriage any more. Gay people ARE married. It already happened.
People are not now pushing to have human/animal marriages legalized. So it's clear that the slippery slope is invalid.
Society has not fallen apart. Gay couples are not recruiting youth to turn gay. Straight families are not falling apart. Churches are not required to teach that God Loves Gays.
I think a lot of us knew that those arguments were pure BS from the start, but now we can actually say for certain that they are BS.
Really, the ONLY justification I can still see that holds any water is, "God really thinks those gay people suck." And if you want to think God hates gay people, or Jews, or Muslims, or Brown people, or atheists, or dog catchers, that's between you and your conscience.
We're not a theocracy, so if the only real reason to prevent same-sex marriage is because God doesn't like it, we cannot make that a law.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: People are not now pushing to have human/animal marriages legalized. So it's clear that the slippery slope is invalid.
TRAVESTY! The Possum Nation will NEVER quit our quest for marriage to Hot Human Chicks! NEVER!
DOWN WITH BELGIUM! UP WITH GAY/POSSUM MARRIAGE!
I want to marry a hot human chick, with all the Possum Circumstance.
-The Awesome Possum
quote: "God really thinks those gay people suck."
:giggle:
POSSUM PUN SMASH!
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quote:have you noticed that the blacks have the priesthood now?
Just a note-- as far as I know, Tresopax isn't Mormon. So this specific argument may not be useful when discussing things with him.
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posted
Except the divine law didn't change. As you said yourself, what changed was that particular church's understanding of divine law.
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quote:People are not now pushing to have human/animal marriages legalized. So it's clear that the slippery slope is invalid.
But they are pushing for polygamy to be legal, so it's clear it was valid after all.
Personally, I am disappointed more people aren't up in arms about the bigoted anti-polygamy and anti-incest laws still on the books. I mean, if not letting people get married is bigoted, then pretty much everyone is a bigot, they are just bigoted about different things.
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posted
Although I don't agree with a map of donors like this, I do think it is a way for people who are in favor of same sex message to talk to people who aren't. I have found that if you have a same sex couple who wish to get married, and it does need to be the right couple because occasionally there is some hostility to overcome, sit down and talk with people who are against same sex marriage you truly can change a lot of minds.
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quote:But they are pushing for polygamy to be legal, so it's clear it was valid after all.
They've been pushing for that since long before SSM was on the radar.
The slippery slope argument is a complete red herring. There is no logical necessity between allowing SSM and allowing polygamy. Each case should be decided on their own merits independently.
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quote:Originally posted by Seatarsprayan: Personally, I am disappointed more people aren't up in arms about the bigoted anti-polygamy and anti-incest laws still on the books. I mean, if not letting people get married is bigoted, then pretty much everyone is a bigot, they are just bigoted about different things.
Are you trying to be a parody? Seriously.
1. Polygamists are not a well defined group of people, nor is there a large religious group in the US that still supports polygamy. Add to that the sheer complication of our laws that legal polygamy would introduce (which are not comparable to changes in the system if gay marriage is allowed), and you can easily see why the question is different. Gays are a group of people defined by their genes- they are deserving of society's tolerance, and the accommodation of their unique needs and rights.
2. Incest is demonstrably a danger to society. Not only is incest a danger to the gene pool, and a cruel fate for children with genetic diseases (in some cases) but it is an observable fact that societies who commonly practiced incest in the past suffered deeply negative social consequences. Gay marriage is not any of these things- it is not a danger to children, nor a source of victimization, nor a danger to greater society or the gene pool.
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posted
To be a bit more constructive, what Paul said. The question was "Can a law justified as coming from divine revelation change according to personal whim?", and the answer is, such laws have changed many times.
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posted
<I'm deleting a comment I just wrote, because I don't have the time, nor inclination to get in a silly fight today. Sorry in advance to anyone who's furiously responding right now and won't see this edit until it's too late.>
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quote:To be a bit more constructive, what Paul said. The question was "Can a law justified as coming from divine revelation change according to personal whim?", and the answer is, such laws have changed many times.
Imagine a boy believes that all objects fall to the ground when he lets them go from his hand. Then he tries it with a balloon and the balloon goes into the air, so he changes his conclusions - he now believes only SOME objects fall to the ground when he lets them go. Would it be correct to say the laws of physics changed in that situation? No, the laws of physics stayed the same - his understanding of the laws is the only thing that changed.
The same is true with morality.
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posted
Tres, it is clear that you do not understand the premises I'm arguing from. I do not demand that you agree with those premises, but until you show some sign of understanding that they differ from yours, we will be talking past each other. Try again.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Would it be correct to say the laws of physics changed in that situation? No, the laws of physics stayed the same - his understanding of the laws is the only thing that changed.
The same is true with morality.
Which is why many of us are trying to make the point that preventing same-sex marriage is immoral. Once enough people figure that out, then their understanding that it was always immoral and God has actually always loved same-sex marriages will come to light.
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posted
Orincoro- Slate's science writer has written a few times about the increased chance of disease with incest (assuming a population such as the US- so not like double cousins for many generations) and compared it to the risk if parents are older. Since the risk of serious problems is much worse with older parents, do you think that they too should be forbidden from having children? If not, how would you justify forbidding the lower risk group when the higher risk group is still allowed to breed? That isn't meant as an attack, it is just a curiosity, interest question.
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posted
I believe a general prohibition against incest could easily be made on psychological grounds - it's almost never the case that a parent-child relationship can transform into a sexual relationship without some serious psychological issues, given the authority figure issues of being in a romantic relationship with someone who raised you. I'd be perfectly willing to grant exceptions to this prohibition where it's clear that the situation warrants it - for instance, I believe there has been at least one case of a sperm donor accidentally almost marrying his daughter before they checked DNA (this might be an urban story).
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Would it be correct to say the laws of physics changed in that situation? No, the laws of physics stayed the same - his understanding of the laws is the only thing that changed.
The same is true with morality.
Which is why many of us are trying to make the point that preventing same-sex marriage is immoral. Once enough people figure that out, then their understanding that it was always immoral and God has actually always loved same-sex marriages will come to light.
Soon I hope. Bearing in mind that, for some of us, that has already been made clear.
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posted
In the US, incest would also include cousins. Amongst cousins of the same age, what would be the argument?
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: In the US, incest would also include cousins. Amongst cousins of the same age, what would be the argument?
That is not true for all states. I'm not even sure it is true for most states. Illinois allows first cousins if they are too old or otherwise cannot have children.
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posted
I have no difficulty allowing cousin marriages, which indeed are permitted by many legal codes.
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quote:Not only is incest a danger to the gene pool
Not for same-sex sibling marriage, it isn't, because there is no possibility of procreation.
quote:It is an observable fact that societies who commonly practiced incest in the past suffered deeply negative social consequences.
Please cite examples of societies that allowed same-sex sibling marriage and what the negative consequences were, and how you know they stemmed from that allowance.
quote:it's almost never the case that a parent-child relationship can transform into a sexual relationship without some serious psychological issues
If parent/child incest is bad, does it follow that sibling incest must also be bad, because it shares the same word?
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posted
I'd have to more think about sibling incest. Obviously there's a "squickiness factor", but both economics & philosophy have taught me that base intuitions are not reliable indicators of fact.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: In the US, incest would also include cousins. Amongst cousins of the same age, what would be the argument?
That is not true for all states. I'm not even sure it is true for most states. Illinois allows first cousins if they are too old or otherwise cannot have children.
But why not allow fertile cousins to marry? Old people who have kids have a greater risk of disability then cousins.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: In the US, incest would also include cousins. Amongst cousins of the same age, what would be the argument?
That is not true for all states. I'm not even sure it is true for most states. Illinois allows first cousins if they are too old or otherwise cannot have children.
But why not allow fertile cousins to marry? Old people who have kids have a greater risk of disability then cousins.
I have to assume that the population of aging couples trying to have kids is far higher than that of fertile cousins who wish to marry and have kids. It would take some real political bravery to pass such an unpopular measure. I agree, though, that it seems unfair.
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posted
This has been going on for a time that I was away, so I can mostly just offer my own two cents.
I don't approve of the map. I don't approve of it for supporters of proposition 8 (though I opposed it), and I equally oppose it for supporters of other political causes, abortion providers, or members of any sexual preference or religious group.
That such information may be public doesn't necessarily mean that it should be. For people with views that may be unpopular to be afraid to express them invites tyranny. Whether they feel threatened by their fellow citizens for opposing gay marriage or by their government for criticizing it, the net effect is significantly similar. Information in this form invites abuse and discourages discussion.
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quote:It is an observable fact that societies who commonly practiced incest in the past suffered deeply negative social consequences.
Please cite examples of societies that allowed same-sex sibling marriage and what the negative consequences were, and how you know they stemmed from that allowance.
Please site your own ass. I'm sick of people like you.
What in my comments led you to believe I was talking about same sex sibling marriages in the first place, I have no idea. I wasn't. I have zero opinions on that. It doesn't factor into my worldview at all, because it's a bugbear invented by morons not unlike you who believe that the way to convince people to keep things just the way they are is to scare them about how things could be if we ever allowed anything to change.
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quote:That such information may be public doesn't necessarily mean that it should be.
Why not? Is the issue that it makes it too convenient to know things you might want to know?
Making it more convenient to know things is basically the point of modernity.
Mm, how do I put this...
Is "wanting to know" always reason enough to know? And is it really true that there's no difference between information on a single individual, information on the mass in aggregate, and individual information on a mass of people? Is there some information that, by the way it is collected, implies a specific use in mind?
I'm perfectly willing to believe that there are people who look at a map of Prop 8 supporters and don't think a whole lot more than, "hmm, that's interesting". But I also think that most of those same people would be about as well served in their interest by something that simply showed, say, the density of contributions in a given square mile.
And it may also be that someone wants to know if a given business contributed to Prop 8, and thus knowing, choose to cease giving said business their own financial support. I can't really object to that, though I don't necessarily think it's out of the question to require such identifications to take a few minutes work.
But private individuals' addresses? Over large areas? It's really hard for me to imagine that specific information in that specific form not leading to targetting for harrassment or worse.
There's a difference, to my mind, in Googling "uses of nitrogen in modern industry" and "how could I use nitrogen fertilizer to blow up a building of 'x' dimensions". And between "is there a synagogue in my neighborhood" and "show me a local map of addresses of Jewish families, overlain with local gun-shops that have been sited for not following waiting-period and background-check laws."
Now, it may well be that the genie is out of the bottle. I'm not saying I have an easy solution for distinguishing one type of information gathering from another, nor that one exists that doesn't have serious privacy issues of its own.
But I definitely don't find this form of information gathering to be an unalloyed good.
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quote:There's a difference, to my mind, in Googling "uses of nitrogen in modern industry" and "how could I use nitrogen fertilizer to blow up a building of 'x' dimensions".
Whereas I think both uses of Google are perfectly legitimate. In a thread on another forum, on another topic, I made the point that obfuscation is not security. It can make target selection a little more difficult, but that's not the same thing as making the targets harder to hit.
The problem isn't having access to this info; it's wanting to commit violence. To my mind, blaming information technology for violence is rather like blaming the steam engine for railway collisions.
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: This has been going on for a time that I was away, so I can mostly just offer my own two cents.
I don't approve of the map. I don't approve of it for supporters of proposition 8 (though I opposed it), and I equally oppose it for supporters of other political causes, abortion providers, or members of any sexual preference or religious group.
That such information may be public doesn't necessarily mean that it should be. For people with views that may be unpopular to be afraid to express them invites tyranny. Whether they feel threatened by their fellow citizens for opposing gay marriage or by their government for criticizing it, the net effect is significantly similar. Information in this form invites abuse and discourages discussion.
It sounds to me that you don't approve of the law that makes information about people who donate to political causes public. Why not? I can think of a lot of bad outcomes from shrouding donations and other political action by individuals in secrecy, and no bad outcomes that don't already require the intent to be violent from that information being public.
Hypothetical: if you could make it so that no one who had physically violent impulses towards Prop 8 supporters were swayed one way or another by the existence of the map (i.e. if they do violence, they would have done the exact same thing if the map didn't exist), would you still disagree with its existence?
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posted
The information isn't responsible for the violence of its perpetrators, in the same way that the availability of guns isn't responsible for the violence they are used for. One can certainly make the argument that the responsibility for violence ultimately rests with the individual.
But at the same time, I don't think one can claim with certainty that if one had two very large fields of individuals there wouldn't be more violence in group A if said group has easy access to guns and ready knowledge of the people they would be most likely to believe carry beliefs are harmful to the group than group B, which has access neither to guns nor said information. Indeed, I think you could make a strong argument to the contrary.
I believe it is optimistic (and I use that term without pejorative intent) to believe that violence- or more petty forms of harrassment- are such an act of will that they are carried out only by people with such a strong intent to perform them that they will overcome any obstacles in order to do so. I suspect many such acts are carried out not merely because their perpetrators wished to do so, but because they felt that doing so was easy- or at least, the satisfaction to be gained by doing such deeds significantly overcame any inconvenience or risk to be overcome in the performance.
On my way back into the U.S., I lost a tube of toothpaste to airport security that my wife had packed in a carry-on bag. It was stupid. I know that my toothpaste wasn't a threat to anyone on the plane, and I equally know that I could probably come up with a way to get more dangerous or illegal things onto the plane. There are holes in airport security- I have absolutely no doubt about that. But I also recognize that there probably would be more terrorist acts if getting weapons onto an airplane was easy.
It's also been noted by the military that there's less hesitation to push a button to activate a machine that will kill someone from far away than there is to fire a gun at someone.
To throw a question back: why is it necessarily such a bad thing that it take five minutes to look up the address of a political contributor (a address) rather than being able to look up everyone who contributed to a cause by address at once?
A little inconvenience might be a good thing.
I suppose part of my qualm with the map as it's offered is that it isn't true transparency. The people who have made contributions to the success of Proposition 8 are therein exposed to an unknown number of possibly hostile eyes. Its existence makes them feel vulnerable, even if no one uses it to target them in any way. Indeed, I'm not certain that isn't, to some extent, the intent. True transparency would allow the targetted individuals to know who was observing them- how many hits the page had, who had looked at their address specifically. And give them equal knowledge of those who looked at them.
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