posted
My problem with close relatives marrying is that it is difficult to establish free consent. Power relations between siblings often hinder free consent.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Christine: I think it's ok to restrict sexual coupling of close relatives since it has the potential to cause real, physical harm to their potential offspring.
Actually, it's only the sexual *reproduction* part of the coupling that's dangerous. What if siblings wanted to marry but consented to never have children? Or artificially inseminate from an outside donor? Or years from now when we can go in and genetically alter either the egg or the sperm to prevent harm to the offspring?
Well then, that would be a restriction, wouldn't it?
I don't remember making any particularly strong assertions about this issue. It's not something I've really thought that hard about, to be honest.
i don't disagree with your statement. I would just change "since" to "in cases where", since it's not the sexual coupling itself that could harm offspring, but the decision to have the potential offspring in the first place. Though I obviously understand where babies come from. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Clive have you ever read John Stewart Mill's On Liberty?
As homosexual couples who want children could always adopt providing a stable home for unwanted children who might be subject to abuse otherwise in orphanages.
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Sure, we can compare the gay person to people who's defective biology renders them incapable of reproduction, however, since such people are so few, society can carry them. It may not be able to carry people who can't reproduce because they choose to misuse their sexual organs.
Conversely, it could be argued that married couples who don't have children are taking less from their community. Recall the recent discussion on the Duggars' carbon footprint.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Um, Clive, thanks for being willing to carry my wife and I on your matrimonial um...reproductive account.
I guess I don't have any ties to my community, nor give as much as others who have sired children. My work with Scouts--through my adopted son, the work I do at hospitals and all the money I've donated to everything from Jerry's kids to the local library are nothing compared to what real people with real kids do. The two businesses I've helped build, the larger family I support in three states (cousins and in-laws, and by support I mean only rarely financially, but mostly emotionally and intellectually), the local businesses I patronize, etc just don't count.
Or is it really that there is not a procreational component in your basic theory, but the search for a rationalization to be against "them."
Them in this case are those who: 1) Have sex for no other purpose than for enjoyment.
2) Happen to be of the same sex.
and I'm really not sure which you oppose most.
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posted
The reason why I feel sure homosexual behavior is not a sin is because sin blights people's lives. Yet the homosexual couples I know are stronger better people because of their close connection to their partners. Just as married hetero couples make each other stronger and better people, they bless each other with their bonds. The same thing is what I observe with gay couples I'm friends with. They're good for each other. They make each other happier. They make stable families together. I don't see that sort of blessing resulting from something that's a sin. That's why I feel almost completely sure that homosexual love is not in any way sinful. I wonder why that's not obvious to everyone?
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: My problem with close relatives marrying is that it is difficult to establish free consent. Power relations between siblings often hinder free consent.
There are other relationships that exhibit power asymmetry where marriage is unrestricted. Why should this type be singled out?
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: The reason why I feel sure homosexual behavior is not a sin is because sin blights people's lives. Yet the homosexual couples I know are stronger better people because of their close connection to their partners. Just as married hetero couples make each other stronger and better people, they bless each other with their bonds. The same thing is what I observe with gay couples I'm friends with. They're good for each other. They make each other happier. They make stable families together. I don't see that sort of blessing resulting from something that's a sin. That's why I feel almost completely sure that homosexual love is not in any way sinful. I wonder why that's not obvious to everyone?
What sort of blight like effects should we expect to see if a married couple have an open marriage?
Further, how many gay people do you know live in a homosexual relationship now, but in the past were completely (as in intellectually and spiritually they felt it) convinced that lifestyle to be truly sinful? It's one thing to shrug off people's prejudices and be true to yourself, and to believe God himself told you homosexuality is wrong and to then indulge in it later.
If I was raised believing that only monogamy could make one happy, but I had an especially strong sex drive, where I felt I needed variety all the time, I can't see why I wouldn't simply come to terms with that one day, and refuse to marry anybody, and just simply sleep around. I can't see why I would feel the blighting effects of sin as I wouldn't feel I was doing anything wrong.
In the same token, as 99% of homosexuals are not Mormons, nor is the Bible to me by itself very convincing about the nature of homosexuality, I can't see why most homosexuals would not simply say, "There is no good argument against this, and I can't ignore it, I'm happier embracing it."
posted
BB: It says edited for clarity, but I still confused about which point you're actually intending to make, and whether it's a Devil's Advocate you're doing or a Devil's Devil's Advocate?
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: BB: It says edited for clarity, but I still confused about which point you're actually intending to make, and whether it's a Devil's Advocate you're doing or a Devil's Devil's Advocate?
Neither, I'm not convinced that all things that are wrong simply blight the person's life. Tatiana made a very interesting point, I'm trying to flesh it out for myself.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
"If I was raised believing that only monogamy could make one happy, but I had an especially strong sex drive, where I felt I needed variety all the time, I can't see why I wouldn't simply come to terms with that one day, and refuse to marry anybody, and just simply sleep around. I can't see why I would feel the blighting effects of sin as I wouldn't feel I was doing anything wrong."
If, assuming that is really how you personally feel you would react, and assuming you aren't deceiving people in your hypothetical quest to sleep with numerous people, what is the blight that you suggest would still be there, regardless of whether you hurt anybody?
This is a clarification I'd love to have. I'm certainly not suggesting that I'm all for, for example, someone sleeping around with every person they see (I've seen enough of that to find some rather negative personal effects. One friend of mine getting two girls pregnant at the same time and hurting people left and right? Not good, and not worthy of respect. Yet that's not the hypothetical I proposed above, either.)
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posted
All things that are sins do blight people's lives. People in open marriages rarely stay married, from studies I've seen.
Sin is sin because it's a mistake and it blights people's lives in the long run. It's not sin simply because God declares it to be sin. God obviously wants what's best for us, and warns us about dangers like drugs or infidelity that we're too short-sighted to notice how dangerous they are until we're irreversibly damaged by them. Wickedness never was happiness.
So you can learn everything the hard way, and come out the other end broken, damaged, wounded. Though it's possible to be healed from that, it can never in this life be as though it had not been. And the very real damage caused to others can often not be completely undone as well. Or you can learn from God's commandments, and never have the damage in the first place. That's infinitely better all around. Or as Ezra Taft Benson said, bad experiences are an expensive school that only fools keep going to.
I heard a doctor say in an interview once that he averaged one miracle cure a week of people with digestive problems by telling them to stop drinking coffee. There really is a real reason for every single commandment. If it were not true we would have been told.
But the channels, human as they are though they try their very best, are sometimes imperfect. That's why we have independent revelation to confirm to us what is right. And it's just as bad to call something good evil as it is to call something evil good. We're given discernment for a very important reason, so we can negotiate this knife's edge and not fall into error either in one direction (building a huge fence around the law and becoming pharisaical) or in the other (by falling into error that is avoidable.)
I just don't understand why something which is so clear to my moral discernment is not equally obvious to everyone. (And just for the record, I do examine constantly the possibility that it is I who am wrong on this.)
quote: There really is a real reason for every single commandment. If it were not true we would have been told.
not to be a pain, but isn't that totally leading into circular reasoning? It's true because you've been told it's true. Because you've been told it's true, it's true.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Samprimary, I was talking primarily to Black Blade in this post, so I was speaking a short-hand language that another Latter-day Saint would understand. It's not really circular at all, if you understand the way it works.
Reality --> Errors --> Damage
God --> Revelation to others --> Commandments --> Fewer Errors --> Less Damage
code:
Reality ------> | Revelation ---> | Our moral discernment --> Fewest possible errors either way --> Least Damage, Greatest Personal Growth possible Commandments--> |
See? It's linear. Okay, let's see if this will work without having to use code tags, lol. =)
Edit: nope it didn't. Tags added.
Okay, so a little explanation of these diagrams may help. The top one shows how we must negotiate reality without the benefit of the gospel. We use our senses to discern reality, do our best, make mistakes, and observe damage. Over a long period of time we're able to see what's right and wrong (good and bad) ((smart actions vs. mistakes)). Unfortunately, by that time we've quite possibly totally screwed up our lives and the lives of our loved ones as well.
The second diagram shows how we can avoid many errors simply by following the commandments exactly without knowing the reasons why. The problem with that is that we don't know when to stop, how precise to be, etc. In that case we can end up building a fence around the law, in other words, avoiding anything even close to or appearing like things that we've been warned of. This way leads to errors of discernment where we may accidentally call good things evil. That's really just as bad as calling evil things good, though, because we do damage that way as well.
The last diagram shows us gaining input from 3 different areas: what we observe with our senses (reality), what we gain from the commandments told us by trusted others, and our own personal revelations. All those inputs go to our spiritual and moral discernment to help us decide what is truly smart vs. a mistake. Moral discernment and free agency are like muscles that grow stronger as we use them. It's an iterative process as we gain more wisdom during our lives, and as we have more experiences, and grow personally and spiritually over time. That leads to our best possible growth as moral agents, as well as fewer errors and less damage in the real world from the result of our moral choices.
quote:Because it's unnatural and deviant behavior.
This thread should have ended here.
EDIT: Oh, to be clear, because there's no point in arguing this point with someone who holds these beliefs and is clearly just hoping to get a long thread about him.
posted
Well, I think it probably should've ended when Clive responded to posts of, "No it's not unnatural, animals do it," with, "Oh, those animals just prefer exclusively or nearly exclusively gay sex, they're not actually gay."
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quote:If, assuming that is really how you personally feel you would react, and assuming you aren't deceiving people in your hypothetical quest to sleep with numerous people, what is the blight that you suggest would still be there, regardless of whether you hurt anybody?
In my hypothetical I'm not sure I would feel a blight.
Tatiana: As LDS members, we are commanded not to drink alcohol. One of my best friends (not LDS) drinks, and enthusiastically, but never allows himself to get drunk, never. He brews his own alcohol, he concocts his own recipes and gives the results away for special occasions. He strongly feels that alcohol makes his life far more enjoyable, but also recognizes the dangers of excess, and chooses to stay away from them. He does not believe that God has commanded a general forbearance on alcohol. I can't see a blighting effect in his life that is directly attributable to alcohol consumption.
Now were I to follow his precise example, I would probably feel guilty for going against what I believe God has commanded and hence I would feel ashamed, frustrated, and even angry, hence a blighting effect on my life. My friend however, does not, as far as I have seen.
Now as for open marriages. I don't have raw data on open marriages. Advice columnists I used to read frequently (job related) suggested an open marriage as a way to save two unhappy people. As long as it was done honestly, sensitively, and so long as the other partner was comfortable. If the other partner wasn't comfortable the advice was to get a divorce as you can't deny who you are.
How do you reconcile the fact that the church strongly advocates against homosexuality, and your views that there is nothing sinful about it?
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quote:In my hypothetical I'm not sure I would feel a blight.
I agree with you, however Tatiana's original point is that the lack-of-blight is evident to her, not just the gay people. And while it is easy to be deluded about the consequences of your own actions, it's also tends to be easier for someone outside the situation to notice bad things than someone within.
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posted
Blackblade, unfortunately as an adult convert I have information about the blight that results from far too many of the sins we're commanded to avoid.
As for alcohol, almost nobody I know who drinks at all has never once gotten drunk. I commend your friend for his temperance, but what he does is nearly impossible for others to follow. In my own family there's rampant alcoholism that has caused horrible pain and damage through the generations. My mother said her father's alcoholism ruined her life. Recently a first cousin committed suicide who had battled a lifelong alcoholism problem. My uncle his father was also alcoholic. So the number of people whose lives have been destroyed by alcohol in my family, if you count the children and spouses, is something like 50%. It's horrible.
Not all families have the genetics like mine that put them so much at risk, but embibing enough alcohol can overwhelm even good genetics and get people addicted who weren't even prone to it at first.
The Word of Wisdom which we LDS follow which prohibits drinking alcohol is like the smartest thing ever! All those families who would have been damaged terribly are now rescued by the fact that the people involved never tasted the stuff to begin with. All that suffering, not to mention all that good money down the tubes, since alcohol is so expensive, is practically nonexistent in the LDS community. Of course even the WoW doesn't protect every last one, because some will be foolish enough to violate it. But when I think of my family minus alcohol, I wish my forbears had been converted generations ago. How much happiness would that have netted? How much suffering expunged?
Sometimes our sin may blight other lives than our own. What if you followed your friend's example, seeing how he got so much enjoyment out of brewing and drinking alcoholic drinks? What if your son or daughter followed your example, as my cousin innocently did follow his dad's and grandad's examples? What if they then became an alcoholic? It would have been something you could have prevented that destroyed your child's life and happiness. So that's pretty much a good definition of sin and you'd feel horrible.
Your friend doesn't feel bad because he hasn't yet dotted the i's and crossed the t's. It might take him his whole life or longer to realize that drinking was a mistake on his part. His life doesn't seem to be blighted, but if you look over all the community, lots and lots of lives are blighted.
Another close friend of my family watched his alcoholic parents drink for fun all his life and grew up to do a lot of drugs. Where did he get the idea that drugs were fun happy good things? I mean, his dad taught him to mix drinks when he was about six. He died in his 30s from a cocaine overdose. How are these things not related? Sin blights lives. Unfortunately, you might not realize it until you're 50 and your kid dies of an overdose at 30, you know? By then the damage is done, the pain and suffering are what taught you, maybe. Or you can be oblivious still. But looking at the broad range of people's lifelong experience, you can still see the blight.
Lifelong experience for gays in stable monogamous relationships doesn't have this same sort of stain. The only hardship I see from it is what is caused by so much of society being prejudiced against them, and all the hate that gets directed toward them. That's the haters' sin, not theirs. It's not true that they sin anymore than it's true that black people were fence-sitters in the war in heaven in the premortal existence, and so they deserved never to have the priesthood. Though that was once taught to us as LDS members, and by apostles too. Sometimes human channels for God's revelations can be innocently mistaken.
This is what I meant about using our own observation, revelation, and discernment along with what we hear from our church general authorities. There's always the gut test. Do I feel this is the actual truth as given by God? And to the best of my ability, I do not agree on this one issue. I think there are 3 areas in which apostles are apt to go wrong. All 3 involve civil rights and the changes of society over time.
1) Blacks and the priesthood, which thank goodness finally came right in 1978, but this was a LONG time after society had recognized its wrongs and begun to correct them.
2) Women's equality, which we're making progress on. The Proclamation on the Family has the words "equal partners", which I don't believe the church would have used in the 1950s. We believe the number and timing of children is something that's between a couple and God now, whereas once the commandment was no birth control at all. Over time this error is beginning to be corrected as well.
3) Full rights for gays, and access to the Celestial Kingdom. No doubt further revelation will give us more light on this as well.
Thank goodness we have a religion that can learn and grow over time, the same as we ourselves do learn and grow.
There's so much wisdom in the clear fundamental doctrine that the church leaders are not infallible. For one thing it lets us correct egregious errors that the church may fall into from time to time. For another, we exercise our own moral agency, our own discernment, every time we incorporate a teaching of our church into our daily lives. We get our own confirmation of its truth or error. We then decide using all three arms of knowledge, our observations (and science), our personal revelations, and the teachings of our leaders. Using all three, and using our discernment to judge between them when they are in opposition, helps us grow morally and lifts us on the road to our own eternal progress in the quickest way and with the least error and damage possible.
Again, moral agency is a muscle, and if we don't exercise it, it doesn't grow stronger. If we simply accept with no question whatever the prophet says at a given time, we're still doing better than we would do without the gospel at all, we're still avoiding many errors and much damage. But the best way, what I consider the fully adult way to engage morally with the world, and what we're taught, is to use all three types of input and then wrestle with our consciences, prayerfully and humbly asking for more light, and then choose based on our best judgment between the three. In this way we give all three inputs their full weight. We don't reject teachings easily without complete prayerful examination. So that we're able to learn the most possible from the understanding and knowledge and light that these 15 very wise and holy men have been given. But the answer we come to finally is dynamic and comes from our own best understanding of the whole picture.
We're choosing, whichever way we choose. To choose without thought or effort is also a choice, and we're responsible for it morally. If we could have acted a different way and brought about a better world, then it's our fault if we don't. And the error is possible in both directions, either choosing to call good things evil, or choosing to call evil things good. We see through a glass darkly, and we have to decide things without complete knowledge, but it actually is ourselves who decide what our actions are, what our beliefs are. And we have to live with the consequences. So there's none of this "once the prophet speaks the thinking is done" business. That's an abdication of our moral duty as fully adult moral agents. That's the path of children. Thank goodness our religion is wiser than to teach that.
posted
One size does not fit all. One size should not fit all. God made us different. For some, their ideal, closest to God's will self could be married and having children; for others it could be being single; for others it could be in a committed SSM. What is ideal and God's plan for some - even most people - does not have to be God's plan for every person.
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posted
I am glad I am in the mold of God's children whose lives are massively improved by alcohol and coffee. both of which I can consume to my health benefit.
quote:Women's equality, which we're making progress on. The Proclamation on the Family has the words "equal partners", which I don't believe the church would have used in the 1950s. We believe the number and timing of children is something that's between a couple and God now, whereas once the commandment was no birth control at all. Over time this error is beginning to be corrected as well.
Yeah I have a number of posts floating around talking about how the LDS is pretty much coming around on this.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
"Yeah I have a number of posts floating around talking about how the LDS is pretty much coming around on this. "
Problem is, they're BEHIND people who do NOT follow commandments handed down by an imaginary friend. On this and a variety of other, massively important issues.
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posted
religion is not in any way different from other human institutions. they are not static. one of the guarantees of 'inerrant truth' and/or the 'unchanging word of god' is that it will err and be changed.
re: LDS on blacks. very potent example of a church changing to avoid falling critically behind on the evolution of social mores. even happens with science (see: catholocism, evolution, heliocentrism)
it doesn't need to involve any discussion about whether or not God exists!
man now I need to find that post.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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man this thing has undergone some revision over time.
quote:God, as appropriated by the experts within heavily authority-structured religions, only rarely goes from "This is totally true" to "nevermind, that's totally false now, disregard it, this is now totally true and always was." Sometimes He does (as observed in the history of Mormonism) but usually He follows a four-step plan to keep Himself from falling to the wayside.
1. The 'We strongly believe this and openly argue for it' phase 2. The 'Ehhhhhhhhh it is true based on gospel but we don't like to stress it' phase 3. The 'Oh well, a certain reading of our gospel may say that but we try to distract you from it HEY LOOK OVER THERE' phase 4. The 'We strongly disbelieve this and openly renounce it' phase
Example relating to above issue: In 1920, pope pius XI or whoever openly condemned (phase one) giving women the right to vote, saying that suffrage debased the divinely founded obedience of women through masculine activities such as, say, political involvement, and it was a distraction from women's sole role as mothers and homemakers.
Yeah, that's the pope, yo. This was the church's very official position. But obviously if you ask Pope Whichever Pope Is The Pope Today XI about the church's official stance on the issue ~today~, this inerrant truth of god is apparently not true anymore! something else is true! Pope Is Not The Pope Anymore VII has essentially been doctrinally told to go stuff it.
Over the years the church flipped through the phases to phase four. The catholic church is now solidly Pro-Allowing-Women-To-Vote.
Look at other even more controversial issues! Stuff like the issue of homosexuality has already entered phase two. Birth control is mutating from phase two to phase three. Evolutionary theory is in stage three, beginning to mutate to stage four. The church's heliocentric stand is long ago stage four.
Really, I would bet a lot of money that social circumstances (sorry, God) is going to suddenly inspire the vatican to 'discover' that god is actually okay with condoms for people with HIV, followed by them 'discovering' still later that ehhh okay god is okay with this whole birth control thing, etc. Honest. This is going to happen.
An excellent demonstration of this is going on RIGHT NOW with christianity's take on whether or not the husband is the boss of a family and a woman must submit to that authority.
Not but a handful of decades ago, it was in the 'Definitely True' category. Total phase one. Ask the keepers of scripture about it and they would have said "that is absolutely true, the bible says so, the man is to have dominion over the woman always."
Then as this sentiment became increasingly viewed with hostility and created issues for the church, it morphed into the 'Essentially True, But It's Far More Nuanced Than It Reads, Of Course' phase two. The step where they're still assuring that yes it is gospel but they don't like to stress it and they would rather coach it in more acceptable verbiage. At this point, they would say "yes, this is how a family is supposed to work, the man is supposed to be in charge, but, you see, being in charge, while, yes, he's in charge, this more, you see, represents responsibility, you see, than .. ah, authority, as it is his sacred duty to be strong, for the, ah, woman." (this is actually not such a blatantly silly transcription of their actual statement on this affair. It does actually come off sorta like that).
Then as this fails to placate the new social order, it morphs into the Well Here's What We Mean When We Say That Is True, Don't Get Us Wrong phase three, the point where they're saying that it is only a certain interpretation of the gospel which gives people a misapprehension of the truth of the gospel and most of the energy is spent in deflecting criticism. it is a phase where the truth is being blatantly remade into something completely different! This is the final stage before 'No, That's Not True' phase four where the church is now openly renouncing the idea it previously held. Today, the official line is going to read something like "This does not at all imply that the couple is unequal in authority, no, it's not quite like that, what the bible actually means when it talks about that is that the man has a responsibility as a role model and to walk a righteous path, this is what constitutes being the head of the household, in the bible, that's what that means, you know, so, feminists don't have to get all up in arms, just remember they're joined, they're one, that's equal, guys!"
Eventually, we get to the final phase. The bible's text is unchanged, it still says the same thing about the role of men and women in marriage, but now it is bypassed/ignored like the stuff that says you supposed to off a dude for wearing a polyester-cotton blend. Men and women become now totally equal partners in marriage according to the new official church dogma, something Pope 40 Years Ago XVX would have hardcore disagreed with. Today it getting there. an example currently in motion of how predominating cultural forces often supplant or override holy texts themselves in the way a religion is transmitted and taught. God's constantly changing eternal truths.
Think about that.
God's constantly changing eternal truths.
I am utterly fascinated by all this additionally (not meanly, by the way, just strictly as a fascination with our confirmation biases, ability to alter reality on preference, cognitive dissonances, etc) because of the means by which all religions invariably justify this to themselves.
quote: religion is not in any way different from other human institutions.
Largely true.
quote: it doesn't need to involve any discussion about whether or not God exists!
Except Tatiana's argument is that following commands from god reduces the amount of badness in the world.
And, as far as I can tell, people who DO NOT believe they are following commands from God generally are quicker to change for the better in treatment of other people.
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posted
As far as I can tell, the only difference between the way an atheist adjusts their view of social norms and the way a religious person adjusts their view is that the atheist does is faster and with a lot less broken hearts.
It drives me nuts that a supposedly caring God allowed the apostles to apparently make three (or more!) horribly tragic mistakes in what he wanted that people have had to live with and suffer with for more than 2 000 years.
Don't talk to me about free will. Had God come down, given his instructions with the same errors as evidently occurred and then made everyone atheist, I'm sure that we would had faster movement on these social issues. God could have just come back later once everything was sorted out and we'd figured out that women weren't second-class citizens.
Maybe that's why there's a growth in atheists at the moment. God is like, "Hang on, these humans are, overall, better at not being idiots when they don't have to worry about me."
posted
There is a growth in atheists in modern countries because of the widening gulf between popular tolerance of things like homosexuality and evolution and the official position of major religions on those subjects.
If you grow up with gay friends but your church tells you that they are "deviant and unnatural" and you see the harm this does to them and how ugly and pointless it is, you are much less likely to stay faithful in that church's Truth.
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Aged fifteen or so, it took me two weeks to go from being uncomfortable with homosexuality to being fine with it.
I was aware of it but my parents' attitude towards homosexuality, although they are both atheists, is one very much of their generation. They are politely uncomfortable and confused about it. They regard homosexuals as being "different" (their words) from "us", but in their every day lives they function as if this wasn't the case (they are polite about it).
Okay, so I sort of held the same view, although I hadn't really given it much thought aside from being kind of weird. I held the man-women view of love and marriage that I think most kids did when I was growing up.
And then my good friend came out to me as bisexual. I remember this because I remember being quite shocked. It was definitely a big deal for my brain. Over MSN she asked me, "are you okay with this?"
What could I say? She was my close friend. I said yes. "Don't tell G," she asked me. (G was our close religious friend).
So of course I saw my good friend at school the next day and she was still the same lovely person and my brain had nothing-- nothing-- to say in response to that. How could this person, who I was excellent friends with, be somehow wrong or different? She wasn't different. She was my friend.
I didn't have to wrestle with any external influence. There was no Bible telling me this was wrong. There were no church elders of one stripe and other preaching hellfire or damnation or even mild sin about people who were homosexual or bisexual. There was only my (very strong) moral code. My moral code didn't see that anyone was getting hurt by my friend being gay-- except my friend was happier--, so it accepted it.
A couple of weeks later, in music class, homosexuality came up somehow. A girl beside me said something like, "don't you find them weird?"
And I, despite having been of a similar, uncomfortable opinion mere weeks before, could say, "Why? They're just people." And I remember realizing after I said it that I meant it.
Two or three weeks. That's all it took. I wasn't a child, I was a teenager. I didn't drink or do drugs. I had a strong moral code against cheating, lying, stealing, being mean etc. I was as straight laced as they come, and yet because I could see that my friend's bisexuality wasn't doing anyone any harm, I could adjust my worldview rapidly once presented with evidence.
My friend is now happily living with her girlfriend and having a wonderful time.
Given, I was of an open-minded disposition, but I don't know a single person who is an atheist and is violently opposed to homosexuality. I'm sure there are many people, like my parents, who are uncomfortable and unfamiliar and this presents itself as homophobia, but who are polite about it and treat people largely equally no matter what.
I do not think atheism makes people magically perfect-- that wouldn't be proven by evidence at all. People can still hate quite easily. However, I do think that hate/inequality is less easily institutionalized when faith is taken out of the picture. I think people, like me at fifteen, would switch more easily when presented with a situation that worked for them, instead of struggling with another set of rigid morality code that forced them to ignore their own feelings.
That said, hate is often institutionalized outside of religion. The state frequently decides that such-and-such a people don't belong and should be kicked out. This kind would still occur.
But then I think it would occur less. We carry across our prejudices from one difference to another. If we feel that women are lesser beings because God decreed, then we can feel that the brown person in the flat downstairs can also fit into this heirarchy. If we are presented with evidence from our everyday life that women are capable of the same mental accomplishments as men then perhaps when we see the brown person in the flat downstairs we are not so quick to judge them because we are more used to using evidence drawn from our experience.
If, say, even 50% of people thought this way, institutionalized hatred would find it harder to take root and be easier to dispel.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:And I, despite having been of a similar, uncomfortable opinion mere weeks before, could say, "Why? They're just people." And I remember realizing after I said it that I meant it.
Two or three weeks. That's all it took.
That's an impressively quick turnaround time! I like that kind of story. I got a friend who grew up in a baptist family who pretty much took three years to be able to shake hands with a gay person.
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If we are talking anecdotes, I was always religious and never thought homosexuality was wrong.
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Well, I'm not excluding that possibility and turns out, G, my New Mennonite friend, was fine with it as well.
But there are millions (billions) of people who do not believe that and have great difficulty, even as teenagers, crossing that divide of beliefs-- and that that divide is made wider and deeper and more perilous because of their religion. Needlessly wide, deep and perilous.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Well if we are really throwing around anecdotes, I was raised to think homosexuality was wrong, dead wrong, I even picked up the stupid assumption that if a gay guy hit on me it was disgusting. This didn't originate at church, it originated with my friends talking about it growing up. My parent's did broach the project either, besides saying it was wrong. I didn't know any gay people growing up until high school, until an acquaintance of mine was seen with his boyfriend in bars.
I discussed my strong feelings against homosexuality with my protestant friends, and surprise surprise they said I was wrong to feel that way. It was largely their influence that set the stage for me to discard some of my beliefs that I did not find reason to hold to.
One of my co-workers is gay and an inactive Mormon, in a committed relationship with another man. His Mormon neighbors got in an argument with him about it and it was his stake president who stepped in and told those members to back off. He also reassured him that he was welcome at church, and that he wasn't a bad person.
There's plenty of churches and religions that teach intolerance, but organized religion is just as able to promote unity.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: As for alcohol, almost nobody I know who drinks at all has never once gotten drunk.
So? All that means is that you're hanging around with a certain segment of the population -- one that for reasons environmental, genetic, or otherwise has trouble handling alcohol.
I enjoy alcohol, and tend to have 1-2 drinks worth probably 5-10 times in any given month. I have never been drunk, and have rarely made it to the "seriously tipsy" stage. My mom is the same way, although in her college years she once deliberately got drunk to see what it was like. (She hated it.) So is my sister and my brothers (well, one can't have alcohol any more because of meds he's on) and while I think my dad may have gotten drunk a few times in his youth, these days his max is 2-3 drinks, and more often just one. (And again, this is a once or twice a week thing, no more.)
I don't believe sin is so simple that human understanding can easily ascertain what is or is not sin. (Unless, perhaps, the sin in question is pride . . .)
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: As for alcohol, almost nobody I know who drinks at all has never once gotten drunk.
So? All that means is that you're hanging around with a certain segment of the population -- one that for reasons environmental, genetic, or otherwise has trouble handling alcohol.
I wouldn't say this. I drink alcohol very rarely, usually once or twice a month, and usually just 1 or 2 drinks -- not enough to get drunk. But I have gotten seriously tipsy and I have gotten drunk. Not because I had trouble with anything, but because I was frankly curious what it was like. So, in my case, 4 or 5 times in my life I have set out to consume enough alcohol to make myself drunk.
Most people I know who drink alcohol do so casually, but most of them have been drunk for whatever reason they had at the time.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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It may be true that many people drink all their lives and never get drunk. You're correct that I don't know anyone like that, except you, now that you've told me. =)
But it still holds true that alcohol costs many people their lives. This includes alcoholics and their families, as well as people who rarely drink who happen to get drunk that one time and have unfortunate accidents, and of course all the non-drinking people who are killed by drunk drivers every year. And all these families' lives are blighted by sorrow and trauma that needn't have happened.
The Word of Wisdom has created a large community of people who just never drink at all. In our community, all those people who might have been alcoholics, or married to alcoholics, never become that by the simple expedient of just never having that first drink. From my perspective that is a wonderful and even a miraculous thing. I'm so happy about it. Think of the lives saved! How I wish my family had converted to LDS generations ago! I might have known my grandfather, and my mother and her siblings might not have been so wounded all their lives. My cousin might be alive, and his children wouldn't have to grow up under the shadow of their father's suicide.
I'm not condemning people who don't live under our law. Do I think it would be smart if everyone decided just never to drink? Yes, I actually do. But I know that's not my decision to make and I leave it entirely up to them.
I probably should have made all that clear in my previous posts but they were directed to BlackBlade mainly, who is LDS. I hope that I've now corrected any bad impression I may have left by leaving out those explanations.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Yay for people who have found out what works best for them. Double yay for people who have found out what works for them but don't assume that what works for them is best for everyone else.
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Alcohol, in moderation, has proven health benefits.
I'm not saying that you should drink, but I have to completely disagree with the colorization that paints it as an inherently superior position to one that allows for moderate consumption of alcohol.
It's irresponsible drinking that hurts and kills.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:I'm not saying that you should drink, but I have to completely disagree with the colorization that paints it as an inherently superior position to one that allows for moderate consumption of alcohol.
This.
Similarly, coffee and tea, in moderation, have well-established health benefits. The lesson should not be to abstain from all things that may cause harm when overindulged; rather to moderate those things with a potential for harm. Drive at or near the speed limit. Use a small amount of lighter fluid on the grill. Don't run a marathon if you haven't conditioned for it. Don't push your kids too high on the swing set. Don't drink too much alcohol at one sitting.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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To be fair, the word of wisdom was written for the weakest among the saints (and then was applied to everyone). So, the idea of complete abstinence was really initially for people who could not be moderate (and I know many alcoholics for whom moderate is not an option).
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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I think Tatiana's point is that some people's psychology/biology is such that moderation is essentially impossible. The benefits of moderate consumption in the aggregate might outweigh the costs of abuse in the minority, but probably not.
Ideally, people would know in advance whether they are prone to addiction and could use that information to determine whether they belong in the moderation or the abstention camp. (Or even more ideally, we'd be able to fix the genetic or developmental problems that make addiction and abuse so hard to avoid for some people.)
Not an easy task, especially when so many of us are unable to accurately evaluate personal risks when we haven't had anything bad happen yet.
So yeah, I see the appeal of a community that generally abstains.
The problem is that once you've identified a set of rules that seem to solve a bunch of problems, you still haven't figured out how to get people to follow those rules. Coercive measures can cause more harm than they prevent, and more moderate forms of social pressure tend to have some fallout too. Square pegs and all that.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:To be fair, the word of wisdom was written for the weakest among the saints (and then was applied to everyone). So, the idea of complete abstinence was really initially for people who could not be moderate (and I know many alcoholics for whom moderate is not an option).
That may be, but I also think some of the opinion about the Word of Wisdom have a character of folk doctrine. There's some post-hoc reasoning about why these commandments were given, but it's not actually explicit in the WoW that these prohibitions are related to specific health concerns.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:There is a growth in atheists in modern countries because of the widening gulf between popular tolerance of things like homosexuality and evolution and the official position of major religions on those subjects.
This may be true, but I hope it's not. Factual beliefs about the existence of gods should not depend on moral beliefs about whether tab A goes in slot B or C.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I think social pressure is the best tool to encourage compliance. Just like when I was a kid it seemed like every adult I know smoked cigarettes, and when I first started working we all puffed away at our desks, then workplaces generally stopped letting people smoke indoors and at some point afterward, almost all the adults I knew had quit or never started. Smoking in that decade or so just fell out of fashion. Instead of looking cool it now had more of a vibe of looking yucky. That's how I think we should get people to quit drinking. By pointing out how yucky it is. And if people who can do it responsibly realized how much they are examples to young people and to others who can't drink responsibly, they might decide the pleasures of alcohol just aren't worth the damage it does overall.
I don't really understand the pleasures of drinking alcohol, personally. When one first tries it, it tastes bad. It is an acquired taste. The buzz it gives is not really pleasant, and quite often it makes a person feel bad afterward.
Other than the dubious joy of doing really stupid things and not remembering them later, then waking up sick, I don't see the plus side? It's got tons of calories, it costs a whole lot, and it tastes bad (unless you've drunk enough that it tastes good to you, which isn't really a positive sign, when you think of what that means has happened in your brain due to the action of the drug on your synapses.)
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