Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on May 8, 2009 14:10:02 GMT -5
... I can only respect the Ed's belief that HE should not have sex with men. That's it. No more "respect" surrendered which is code for "let me tell you what you can and can not do according to my beliefs." I will only respect someone's beliefs right up to the point where they want to restrict the liberty of others from doing something that will cause them no harm. "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign....That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." -Mill, On LibertyPerhaps your arguments and exhortations to JS Mill, explain the 18 points "On Liberty" received here (it is old I know) www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=7591The Bible has to be number one, right? I mean how much bloodshed was caused by the Good Book? It has to absolutely dwarf the Communist Manifesto.
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SoCalHoya
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Post by SoCalHoya on May 8, 2009 14:17:52 GMT -5
The Bible has to be number one, right? I mean how much bloodshed was caused by the Good Book? It has to absolutely dwarf the Communist Manifesto. Meh. People will find ANY reason to harm one another. And people will twist and pull at religious texts to "support" their views, but it doesn't mean the books themselves did it.
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Post by HoyaSinceBirth on May 8, 2009 14:23:39 GMT -5
1) there is no such thing as a harmful book. Unless you mean it's really heavy so you could easily club someone to death with it.
2) most of the descriptions didn't really point out how the books were harmful except that they supported alternative view points to standard Christianity and capitalism. I'm sorry did i miss the part where people died becuase someone wrote a book that women shouldn't be forced to be stay at home mom's?
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afirth
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Post by afirth on May 8, 2009 14:27:06 GMT -5
I also think it is difficult to completely divorce our laws from "morality," especially since the bulk of our laws stem from Judeo-Christian tenets. Now, I certainly don't believe in legislating based on religious beliefs alone (I think we live in a society too diverse for that), but I think we can all agree that certain religious beliefs have worked out for society in general (e.g., murder as a crime). Sure, plenty of laws have their origins in religion. But the difference is, you can say murder is immoral and should be a crime without religion or religious explanations. I never hear a SINGLE argument for why gay marriage is immoral except that gay sexual activity is immoral because the Bible says so. And in a country that prides itself on separation of church and state, we shouldn’t be making policy in this country that so greatly restricts one minority group based solely on what some verse in Leviticus says.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on May 8, 2009 14:28:19 GMT -5
1. The list was books written in the 19th & 20th centuries. So, no, the Bible, Koran, Torah whatever would not be included. Now, I know Human Events pretty well. I'm pretty sure they knew what they were doing when they put the parameters for this list together. I have no doubt that if someone asked a group of scholars to come up with the most harmful books of all time, many of them would include these religious texts, just as I am equally certain that these texts would show up in a list of the most positive or inspirational books of all time.
2. I find nothing at all wrong with generating a list of books that people think are harmful. If an attempt is made to ban these books, yes, I have a serious problem with that. But no action was advocated here, it was just an exercise. You may say, well, the people at Human Events probably should know that their readers might take this too far and demand these books be removed from shelves. To which I would respond that, in my opinion, if that were to happen, the people at Human Events would probably be the first to condemn such advocacy. To say a bunch of academics can't or shouldn't get together and come up with a list is, in my opinion, MUCH more dangerous to a free society.
(FWIW, this is also the reason why I find hate crimes legislation abominable. Punish the CRIME, not the thoughts behind it.)
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on May 8, 2009 14:35:57 GMT -5
Almost every society has come up with some kind of ban on murder, and many of them have no supreme being behind that.
The concept of "don't hurt each other so we can live together" isn't exclusive to religions.
I don't maintain the same views as thebin on religions, nor do we practically align on our views of the extent of liberty in society. That said, I'm a big person in believing that people should be able to do what they want as long as it doesn't significantly harm someone else.
And sorry, the "devaluing marriage" argument is a joke.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on May 8, 2009 14:37:10 GMT -5
I also think it is difficult to completely divorce our laws from "morality," especially since the bulk of our laws stem from Judeo-Christian tenets. Now, I certainly don't believe in legislating based on religious beliefs alone (I think we live in a society too diverse for that), but I think we can all agree that certain religious beliefs have worked out for society in general (e.g., murder as a crime). Sure, plenty of laws have their origins in religion. But the difference is, you can say murder is immoral and should be a crime without religion or religious explanations. I never hear a SINGLE argument for why gay marriage is immoral except that gay sexual activity is immoral because the Bible says so. And in a country that prides itself on separation of church and state, we shouldn’t be making policy in this country that so greatly restricts one minority group based solely on what some verse in Leviticus says. Precisely. As you mentioned, the Bible has so little to say on the subject, I find it baffling that it is such a sticking point for Christianity. Yes, it comes up in the Old Testament, as do many prohibitions on a range of behavior we no longer seem to uphold. What makes this so special? I don't send my wife out to a separate tent to sleep during her "unclean" time each month and I sure as hell don't follow any of the dietary restrictions - and I don't think many (if any) of those who wish to enforce these biblical passages do so either, so why exactly should we adhere to other random edicts from the Old Testament regarding homosexuality? I don't think Jesus gave a flip about who you were sleeping with; at least his teaching don't tend to focus on that issue at all. If he were to return, I think he would be completely despondent, depressed and frustrated with the fact that the focus of his teachings - LOVE OF GOD, FORGIVENESS, GOOD WORKS, CHARITY AND COMPASSION - have been largely ignored by the Catholic Church and the protestant faiths in favor of a perverse dedication to issues he saw as AT BEST secondary or tertiary to his teachings.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on May 8, 2009 14:41:47 GMT -5
Also, you're (Americans complaining about this) Christian. Please see the New Testament.
It seems to me that half the Christians out there get bored and never make it to the New Testament Scripture.
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SoCalHoya
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Post by SoCalHoya on May 8, 2009 14:42:31 GMT -5
Sure, plenty of laws have their origins in religion. But the difference is, you can say murder is immoral and should be a crime without religion or religious explanations. I never hear a SINGLE argument for why gay marriage is immoral except that gay sexual activity is immoral because the Bible says so. And in a country that prides itself on separation of church and state, we shouldn’t be making policy in this country that so greatly restricts one minority group based solely on what some verse in Leviticus says. Just to play devil's advocate, without using religious explanations, why is murder immoral? (I agree with your point, but let's see where this goes...) I agree that I've never heard a single non-religious argument for why gay marriage is immoral either. At least I haven't heard a compelling one. (For the record I don't find the religious arguments compelling anyway.)
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afirth
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Post by afirth on May 8, 2009 14:55:45 GMT -5
We actually talked about that a bit in my criminal law class this semester. Like SF said, every culture has come up with some kind of ban on murder. It's one of the two oldest and most universal taboos in human society (the other being incest). Causing death is a social harm, and the unjustified taking away of someone else's right to live, which is the ultimate right a human has (assuming we're not talking about justified killings or manslaughter, etc, etc). We don't need belief in a God or God's laws to know that it's wrong.
That's less eloquent than I would like to be, but I am in the middle of finals right now...
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on May 8, 2009 14:58:12 GMT -5
We actually talked about that a bit in my criminal law class this semester. Like SF said, every culture has come up with some kind of ban on murder. It's one of the two oldest and most universal taboos in human society (the other being incest). Causing death is a social harm, and the unjustified taking away of someone else's right to live, which is the ultimate right a human has (assuming we're not talking about justified killings or manslaughter, etc, etc). We don't need belief in a God or God's laws to know that it's wrong. That's less eloquent than I would like to be, but I am in the middle of finals right now... Good luck. I don't envy you.
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afirth
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Post by afirth on May 8, 2009 14:59:49 GMT -5
I don't think Jesus gave a flip about who you were sleeping with; at least his teaching don't tend to focus on that issue at all. If he were to return, I think he would be completely despondent, depressed and frustrated with the fact that the focus of his teachings - LOVE OF GOD, FORGIVENESS, GOOD WORKS, CHARITY AND COMPASSION - have been largely ignored by the Catholic Church and the protestant faiths in favor of a perverse dedication to issues he saw as AT BEST secondary or tertiary to his teachings. Heh. This just reminds me of the famous Gandhi quote - "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
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SoCalHoya
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Post by SoCalHoya on May 8, 2009 15:16:59 GMT -5
We actually talked about that a bit in my criminal law class this semester. Like SF said, every culture has come up with some kind of ban on murder. It's one of the two oldest and most universal taboos in human society (the other being incest). Causing death is a social harm, and the unjustified taking away of someone else's right to live, which is the ultimate right a human has (assuming we're not talking about justified killings or manslaughter, etc, etc). We don't need belief in a God or God's laws to know that it's wrong. That's less eloquent than I would like to be, but I am in the middle of finals right now... As I'm sure you are aware, just because nearly all civilizations had prohibitions on murder does not prove that it is immoral (especially since most if not all of those civilizations relied on religion for the backup). Also, almost every civilization (or maybe all? I guess the Greeks were kinda lax on this) on earth viewed homosexuality in an extremely negative light as well. And until recently, most if not all civilizations have strongly resisted normalizing homosexual relationships. That doesn't really get us where we want to be, does it? Anyway, the good thing about finals is that even though you may feel ill-prepared, they come and go quickly. Best of luck! Summer isn't too far away.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on May 8, 2009 15:24:32 GMT -5
Also, almost every civilization (or maybe all? I guess the Greeks were kinda lax on this) on earth viewed homosexuality in an extremely negative light as well. While on a gut level I think you may be right, I'm not actually sure this is accurate - however, I'm not an anthropologist or a historian. Wikipedia, for whatever that's worth, disagrees with your assertion. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#History_2
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afirth
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Post by afirth on May 8, 2009 15:38:54 GMT -5
As I'm sure you are aware, just because nearly all civilizations had prohibitions on murder does not prove that it is immoral (especially since most if not all of those civilizations relied on religion for the backup). Also, almost every civilization (or maybe all? I guess the Greeks were kinda lax on this) on earth viewed homosexuality in an extremely negative light as well. And until recently, most if not all civilizations have strongly resisted normalizing homosexual relationships. That doesn't really get us where we want to be, does it? Even conceding all that, murder still takes away someone else's right to live. That in itself is immoral. Or if you think the word "immoral" is too tied to religion, at least taking away someone's life without due process is a harm and a wrong that we have been able to recognize in our society, without providing religious justifications. Gay civil marriage, as far as I can tell, does not take away anyone's rights. (At least, as long as the laws are being worded the way they are in Maine, etc - that no religious group will ever be forced to perform ceremonies/rent out space/etc to gay couples). So if two gay people getting married doesn't take away anyone else's rights (to freedom of religious expression or otherwise) I fail to see the social harm.
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Post by AustinHoya03 on May 8, 2009 15:55:19 GMT -5
murder still takes away someone else's right to live. That in itself is immoral. Why is this a true statement? I think that's what SoCal is asking you. Are you saying anything that creates social harm is immoral? That would tie morality to 'what is good for society,' which could be used to justify practices that are considered immoral, such as forced euthanasia. (Don't hate on my quotation marks, thebin...)
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Boz
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Post by Boz on May 8, 2009 16:01:25 GMT -5
Am I back in freshman philosophy?
Too deep for Friday afternoon. Time to drink, wherein I will only kill myself, slowly and pleasurably.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on May 8, 2009 16:02:30 GMT -5
I only hate on totally misused quotation marks Austin- they are very useful of course. It's this legion of people who think that they should be used for emphasis that leads to some pretty funny looking signs.
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TC
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Post by TC on May 8, 2009 16:12:28 GMT -5
thebin is just about the last person who should be hating on people's message board punctuation. Okay, maybe second-to-last, after lichoya.
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SirSaxa
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Post by SirSaxa on May 8, 2009 16:40:52 GMT -5
Am I back in freshman philosophy? Too deep for Friday afternoon. Time to drink, wherein I will only kill myself, slowly and pleasurably. I am right around the corner from McSorley's if you care to lift a pint.
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