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Replying to unknown soldier in post #0]
I'm basing my answer on my use of reasoning. In my view, people have rights, and one person's rights end where the other person's rights begin. Pam has no right to needlessly harm Pete because he has the right to safety.
But this is not what you said in post 19. In post 19 I asked if we should vote on morality and you said "that's democracy".
There are countries in this world where slavery is still acceptable, hatred of a slave and killing them brings no retribution.
That's terrible! You mean there are countries today that have slavery like Biblical Israel did? I'm disappointed that we have yet to completely advance beyond that kind of primitive barbarism, but if I have my way, then the world will never again be blighted by the scourge of slavery as condoned by the Bible.
Why do you think that slavery is wrong? Those that believe in Christian morality have maintained that was written in the US constitution. "That all men were CREATED equal with certain inalienable rights." This is a Biblical principle. And this was not lost men like Martin Luther King Jr.
"In a sense, we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed theunalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds"
Why is this an "Unalienable Right" men? Because all men were made in the image of God and it was that thought that put an end to slavery in the west. Outside of God, slavery is very logical, getting work for nothing. Evidently, slavery is very logical because it was the norm in human society up until Christianity began to grow and gain influence.
There are some humans that eat other humans, we call them head hunters.
I know all about cannibalism. Christianity celebrates ritualized symbolic cannibalism and vampirism too.
Where does it say this in the Bible? I am not sure what you are talking about here.
What is objective morality, and how is it distinguished from subjective morality?
Objective morality does not change. There is a universal moral code that applies to all humanity. Subjective morality as you have already expressed can change and is determined by popular opinion.
Biblical law which does not change can declare these behaviors as immoral moral relativity cannot.
I can declare anything as immoral, and in fact, I declare much of the Bible to be immoral. The men who made it up must have been truly sick individuals who hated people.
According to your comment that you made on post 19 morality is up to democracy it is not up to you. That is the way that moral relativism works. People vote in what they think is moral and the populace has to go along with what people vote in as moral.
All moral relativity can say when Pam kills Pete is that killing Pete is not what I would think is moral. But if Pam would convince enough people that Pete has to die then your "moral" statement would be classified as immoral according to your philosophy.
Would you disagree with Pam if Pete was a psychotic killer who was headed straight for her with an ax in his hands? If she could convince some nearby police officers that her life was in jeopardy and that they needed to gun down Pete to save her life, would you say she was wrong?
Not if she had enough people to agree with her it would not be, "that is democracy" as you said on post 19.
So I hope you can see where you're going wrong with your absolutist morality. We need to think about morality and judge what's best on a case by case basis. Blindly following some rules made up by a self-appointed religious prophet will lead to tragedy and has led to tragedy.
What are you basing your criteria on logic? Slavery is very logical for those in power. Killing millions of very logical for those in power because it can keep them in power. Freedom of speech is not logical, neither is a government by the people and for the people logical for those that want to maintain power.
But what are you basing this "freely chosen morality" on? Your feelings.
No. Again my morality is based on reason; yours is based on a lack of reason.
As stated above morality based on reason has caused all kinds of death pain and suffering.
But why do you see of a human differently than the death of a cow or a pig? Billions of cows and pigs die every year, they are brought to the slaughtering house and killed and butchered so that I can have my tasty steak. (Well, me and others) Doesn't the plight of cows and pigs reach your feelings barometer? If a man is simply a smarter animal than the rest of the animal kingdom why do you not write a post about the plight of all of the animals that we as humans eat, like fish, turkey, chicken, and deer? Ok, I might need to stop I am getting hungry.
Those are issues that I have yet to resolve. I should point out that the Bible is useless in that regard.
The Bible is far from useless. God created man in His own image and that is what makes man different than the animal kingdom. The man was created special outside of the animal kingdom. The man was given an eternal soul which the animal kingdom was not given. This is why the only one that has the right to take a man's life is God because man bears the image of God.
But you are concerned about men and children dying. What about the baby cows we slaughter that give us veal? So what makes man different than animals that would bring about this emotional response in you?
Well, people are different from other species. Plus I happen to be a person, so I suppose I'm biased toward people. I see people as more important than pigs or cows.
So you are saying that you feel like men are better than the animal kingdom. I thought your morality was based on logic not feelings.
What does the Bible say about such issues? Nothing. It's useless and irrelevant in our modern world.
The Bible places man at the pinnacle of creation. Man bears the image of God. It is this fact that gives every man inalienable rights. Far from useless, the Bible is essential to have a moral society.
I can say anything is wrong. The majority can never choose my morality because I choose my morality.
That is not what you said in post 19. You also said in post 19 that "everyone doing what was right in their own eyes" is an untenable position to have. And it is an untenable position to have. Because now you can do what you wish without having to convince a majority of people that it is correct.
I think killing EarthscienceGuy is wrong. I'm having too much fun telling him why he is wrong.
I am glad to hear that because I also think that would be wrong.
Do you see what's great about my morality? If some barbarian like Moses said that Yahweh wanted you stoned to death, then I could tell Moses what to do with his stones. If I had your morality, then I would need to throw rocks at you until you died.
If it was Moses saying I would also tell Moses what he could do with his stones. But if it were God saying and acting through Moses it would not matter what I said to Moses or if Moses disobeyed and did not do it. The sentence would still be carried out regardless of who did it. God does not need men to carry out His will that He has recorded time and time again in the Bible. God is the sole judge of life and death.
So which morality do you prefer?
In Christian morality, God is the only one who can make that choice of who lives and who dies.
Actually, since God never shows up to judge who lives and who dies, we would put our faith in some person who convinces us he speaks for God to make such judgments. The results have often been very tragic. Just ask "Bloody Mary."
Bloody Mary is the reason why God wrote in His word what is moral. Because it is not what someone says they believe that makes them a FOLLOWER OF CHRIST it is whether they follow the laws of God that make them a FOLLOWER OF CHRIST.
Bloody Mary did not treat her fellow man as image-bearers of God. The same would be true of the Crusades. Although it gets a little dicier with Crusades because it was Islam that attacked and conquered Jerusalem. Producing western civilization's response to the overthrow of Jerusalem.
All of those countries owe their technological advances to the west, the United States, and England mostly.
I suppose that's a plug for the US and the UK. So what?
Western Civilization especially the United States and England were built and govern on Biblical principles.
I am stuck on the idea that the only hope for this world is Biblical morality yes. Because the sanctity and dignity of human life only come from Biblical morality.
That's hogwash. The Bible is a book of barbarism that commands that innocent people like homosexuals be murdered.
Since you believe that logic should be the basis for morality totally godless societies see the logic behind outlawing such practices.
Show me a "real" socialist country that guarantees their right to even exist.
Russia, the first socialist country, quickly conquered its 15 neighbors and assembled itself into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, (U.S.S.R.). Vladimir Lenin criminalized homosexuality under Article 121, which read, "Sexual relations of a man with a man (pederasty), shall be punished by deprivation of freedom for a term of up to five years. Pederasty committed with the application of physical force, or threats, or with respect to a minor, or taking advantage of the dependent position of the victim, shall be punished by the deprivation of freedom for a term of up to eight years." (Basic Documents on the Soviet Legal System; by WE Butler, p. 344, The Criminal Code of the USSR). After the conquest of Germany ending World War II the union grew by eight additional countries to 23. It might be well to remember that prison then was forced hard labor with meager rations which often resulted in starvation.
Adolf Hitlers the National Socialist Workers Party, of Germany, otherwise known as the Nazi Party, was decidedly socialist. Hitler preached class warfare and agitated the working class to resist "exploitation" by capitalists, particularly Jewish capitalists. Nazi persecution of homosexuality was horrific including castration, murder, and incarceration in Nazi (short for nationalist socialist) concentration camps. Both gay men and lesbians were targeted.
In the socialist Republic of China during the Mao tza Tung era, homosexuality was pathologized and criminalized. During the Communist Revolution (1966 to 1976), homosexuals were regarded as "disgraceful" and "undesirable" thus heavily persecuted. Homosexuality was banned until 1997 and removed as a sexual illness in 2001 yet "psychiatric facilities across the country still considering homosexuality as a mental disorder on various degrees and continuing to offer conversion therapy treatments," the same as did its counterparts North Korea, "illegal through decency and obscenity laws," and North Vietnam. The treatment of homosexuals under Fidel Castro in Cuba was horrific.
Venezuela, the most recent socialist country, headed by past president Hugo Chavez, likewise has not shown itself as "gay friendly." In 2009 the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission sent out an urgent alert expressing their concern regarding the arbitrary detention of LGBT leaders in Caracas reporting that they had been verbally harassed, beaten and detained by Caracas police.
https://www.lassennews.com/why-the-lgbt ... socialism/
So why is can homosexuality be considered immoral.
1st Because it decreases life expectancy.
Conclusions. Despite recent marked reduction in mortality among gay men, Danish men and women in same-sex marriages still have mortality rates that exceed those of the general population. The excess mortality is restricted to the first few years after a marriage, presumably reflecting preexisting illness at the time of marriage. Although further study is needed, the claims of drastically increased overall mortality in gay men and lesbians appear unjustified.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636618/
2nd
Homosexual Pedophiles are Vastly Overrepresented in Child Sex Abuse Cases
Homosexual pedophiles sexually molest children at a far greater rate compared to the percentage of homosexuals in the general population. A study in the Journal of Sex Research found, as we have noted above, that "approximately one-third of had victimized boys and two-thirds had victimized girls." The authors then make a prescient observation: "Interestingly, this ratio differs substantially from the ratio of gynephiles (men who erotically prefer physically mature females) to androphiles (men who erotically prefer physically mature males), which is at least 20 to 1."
In other words, although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses.
http://lanternproject.org.uk/library/ge ... ual-abuse/
ARE MEN WHO MOLEST BOYS REALLY HOMOSEXUALS? Gay Apologists Insist on a Simplistic Stereotype of Pedophilia
Central to the attempts to separate homosexuality from pedophilia is the claim that pedophiles cannot, by definition, be considered homosexuals. Relying upon a questionable methodology, the gay advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign published a "Fact Sheet on Sexual Orientation and Child Abuse," that states: "A sexual abuser who molests a child of the same sex is usually not considered homosexual."
The basis for this claim is the view that pedophiles who molest boys cannot be considered homosexual if that individual has at any time been married or sexually involved with women.
Homosexual Pedophiles: A Clinical Term
The fact is, however, that the terms "homosexual" and "pedophile" are not mutually exclusive: they describe two intersecting types of sexual attraction. Websters Dictionary defines "homosexual" as someone who is sexually attracted to persons of the same sex. "Pedophile" is defined as "an adult who is sexually attracted to young children." The former definition refers to the gender of the desired sexual object, while the latter refers to the age of the desired sexual object.
A male "homosexual pedophile," then, is defined as someone who is generally (but not exclusively, see below) sexually attracted to boys, while a female "homosexual pedophile" is sexually attracted to girls.
The term "homosexual pedophile" was first used in the early 20th century by the Viennese psychiatrist Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who pioneered the systematic study of sexual deviance. Krafft-Ebing described pedophiles as heterosexually, homosexually or bisexually oriented. This division has been accepted by pedophiles themselves, and is well attested in the literature:
The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy published a study on the same topic, which discussed "the proportional prevalences of heterosexual and homosexual pedophilia." The study commented on a study that found that "the percentage of the homosexual pedophiles would be 45.8." Even adjusted downward for exhibitionists, "this would still indicate a much higher percentage (34 percent) of homosexuals among pedophiles than among men who prefer physically mature partners."
- In a review of studies on pedophilia, the Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa concluded: "The findings of previous studies report that pedophiles can be divided into heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles according to their erotic preference. . . . This was confirmed in this recent study." The article classified homosexual pedophilia into three types: the socially inadequate homosexual pedophile, the intrusive homosexual pedophile, and the undifferentiated homosexual pedophile.
- A study of pedophiles in Behavior Research and Therapy concluded: "The second, and perhaps the most important observation we made, is that a homosexual and a heterosexual subgroup can be delineated among these offenders. . . . Categorizing them in this way revealed important differences in the pattern of their sexual preferences."
- The International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology refers to homosexual pedophiles as a "distinct group." The victims of homosexual pedophiles "were more likely to be strangers, that they were more likely to have engaged in paraphiliac behavior separate from that involved in the offence, and that they were more likely to have past convictions for sexual offences. . . . Other studies greater risk of reoffending than those who had offended against girls" and that the "recidivism rate for male-victim offenders is approximately twice that for female-victim offenders."
3rd
Homosexual Males are Sexually Attracted to Underage Boys
- A study in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that homosexual men are attracted to young males. The study compared the sexual age preferences of heterosexual men, heterosexual women, homosexual men, and lesbians. The results showed that, in marked contrast to the other three categories, "all but 9 of the 48 homosexual men preferred the youngest two male age categories," which included males as young as age fifteen.
- In The Gay Report, by homosexual researchers Karla Jay and Allen Young, the authors report data showing that 73 percent of homosexuals surveyed had at some time had sex with boys sixteen to nineteen years of age or younger."
Conversely, Homosexual Pedophiles are Often Attracted to Adult Males
- A study of sex offenders against male children in Behavior Research and Therapy found that male homosexual pedophiles are sexually attracted to "males of all ages." Compared to non-offenders, the offenders showed "greater arousal" to slides of nude males as old as twenty-four: "As a group, the child molesters responsed with moderate sexual arousal . . . to the nude males of all ages."
- A study of Canadians imprisoned for pedophilia in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence noted that some of the adult male offenders engaged in homosexual acts with adult males.
- Many pedophiles, in fact, consider themselves to be homosexual. A study of 229 convicted child molesters in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that "eighty-six percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual."
- Fr. John Harvey, founder and director of Courage, a support ministry for Catholics who struggle with same-sex attraction, explains that "the pedophile differs from the ordinary homosexual in that the former admires boyishness in the object of his affections, while the latter admires manliness." However, the categories are not completely separate:
I think I have gone on long enough. But logically I think a case can be made about the wisdom of this activity.
