Gays getting married

(Discuss literally anything here including introductions)

Postby Bluecast » Tue Apr 20, 2010 10:54 pm

Mike meet Kiba.
You might as well say two words and he will go off ona wall of text blah blah.
We kinda stopped reading his wall of text posts ages ago. Just "Good ol Kiba"

You can always just go to this topic.

http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40075
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Postby mikec_ct » Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:19 pm

haha, I haven't been sucked into a wall of text exchange like this in years. I admit it's gotten a bit more boring each go 'round.
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Postby KiBa » Wed Apr 21, 2010 2:42 am

Fuck off, mon ami.

LawXiu wrote:
KiBa wrote:^ Sorry. Learn English better.


mou4, ying1 yu5 gou1 gu2. bag6 qi1.

Check mate.


I surrender. I assume you speak Chinese natively? I envy you. As much as I love alphabets, and prefer them to memorizing an insane amount of characters, I really hate English.

mikec_ct wrote:I was restating a point I already made, that I don't support limiting the freedom of individuals so long as they are not treading on the freedoms of others. Any other moral law is mere pandering to some perceived deity.


Nonsense. Even without recourse to the supernatural that you despise, there are all kinds of situations where everybody knows the "do whatever you want so long as you don't tread on me" attitude is not enough and even cruel. Anybody who loves anybody knows that allowing self-destruction is often much worse than limiting that person's freedom. Why? Because we have a duty to help each other, not to just leave everyone else alone. What does that have to do with a deity you do not believe in?

mikec_ct wrote:Those with power need not respect "moral laws," they merely need to respect THE LAW. In a nation based on some version of democracy, founded on reason (the closest we've come thus far is the US Constitution, though the nation obviously has many kinks and injustices to iron out), those laws would be such that if a leader abused his authority he could be deposed. This is why I'm opposed to absolute power, such as that of a dictator or theocratic monarch.


Those with power make the laws. You know what's naive? Thinking a people who do not believe in the rights of man will depose a tyrant. On the contrary, they will elect him.

mikec_ct wrote:I said "areligious," not religious, so most of this paragraph is moot. As for the first half, I'd only agree if marriage were compulsory. It is not.


Oh.

Marriage may not be compulsory, but the economic benefits granted by the state to those it has made into arbitrary pairs, are made up by everyone else. All of the legal rights conferred to these arbitrary pairs are solutions in search of problems - problems created by the institution in the first place. The underlying rationale is usually that these policies are in place to encourage the creation of families, and that rearing the next generation deserves a little public assistance. But having children is not compulsory. In fact, having many children (if at all) is often discouraged. That sounds like a self-serving, self-perpetuating system of control to me. Of course, it is.

mikec_ct wrote:Okay, so you're not a man of letters, I apologize for insinuating something so terrible. Sounds like you just want to oppose every word I say


Not at all. I just despise "educated" people.

mikec_ct wrote:It's a shame you ignored my earnest response to your anti world cooperation stance.


I didn't ignore it. You don't believe self-government is possible, and there is only one other alternative. There is no such thing as "world cooperation." Power always lusts after more power. If history teaches us anything, it's that somebody always gets the short end of the stick.

mikec_ct wrote:Why is there the struggle for political capitol? If all the Irish were just Catholic or just Protestant, there'd be nothing to fight over.


Wrong. Obviously, the people of Northern Ireland desire and have desired politicial union with the British. This is for many reasons, not the least of which is that the northern provinces had a large population of English and Scottish people. Religion is a defining mark, even a rallying point, but the fact remains that Irish unity trumps the religious teachings of either community. Why? Because it is a war for land and culture and poltical power. The Irish socialists, for the most part, are not even Christian, yet still they war. The Irish don't kill each other over whether faith alone justifies salvation, or whether Christ is present in the Eurcharist, or whether people should confess their sins to a priest. They kill each other over the political idea of Ireland. Well, that, and the hatred that has come from trying and failing to realize that dream.

mikec_ct wrote:It's a chicken and egg question, sure, but to deny religion's role at the outset, not just as a rationalization, is wrong.You're making a pretty sweeping assumption that everyone who ever undertook a religious crusade, was merely using that as a cover for other intentions. Most holy books, including the major ones, talk explicity about converting or killing those who disagree with you. You're also denying one of the most major aspects of human history, essentially sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la." I wonder why Jews have been consistently persecuted for thousands of years, killed in Easter pogroms, etc. If you think no one ever killed or died for/against a religion and for no other reason, you are being extremely naive.


I'm not being naive. You are. Religion is your universal scapegoat for all the problems in the world. That is ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous, however, is that you regard all religions as equal, and do not even attempt to give the Bible the same respect you'd give to any other work of literature. It's not some big mystery as to how the Bible should be interpreted. There are two-thousand year old traditions that have already done this, yet you'll only respect and refer to the two-hundred year old radical fundamentalist view in order to portray the whole religion in its worst possible light, and to hell with what its actual members think. That's just ridiculous. It's not honest. You act like Jew-slayers meet with resounding praise from multitudes of bloodthirsty Christians who then bestow them with sainthood and honor them with acts of veneration, when the religion itself teaches the exact opposite. Then you turn a complete blind eye to the explicitly violent teachings of numerous atheists, just in the last century.

It's not a chicken and egg question at all. The motivations of most historical figures are incredibly transparent, and they are almost always worldly or at least self-delusory. No matter how much you'd like it to be true, people do not and have never gone to war over theological questions, but political realities. The best you'll ever get is something like, "We want their land, besides they're wrong about God." Apparently, only the new atheists are stupid enough to believe them. Hahaha....

mikec_ct wrote:On the other hand, if you're admitting that many religious leaders (whatever their true motives) have manipulated their followers' beliefs to get otherwise good people to do horrible things...well we're finally getting somewhere, because I agree! That's why religion is so dangerous, because credulous people can easily be made to commit murderous acts in the name of their beliefs.


Right... Nobody but religious people believe in anything. Kings don't manipulate people, only Popes do. Only religion is dangerous; states and big businesses wouldn't hurt a fly.

mikec_ct wrote:The fact that the universe is billions of years old, while our species hasn't even been around for a quarter of a million years is a logical starting point.


No it isn't. There is no necessary logical connection between brevity and obscurity.

mikec_ct wrote:Note this doesn't mean that I don't value humanity. I merely state it to show that, even if there were a creator, we're a tiny speck in a tiny corner of a seemingly endless expanse of space and dust, and probably wouldn't mean much to that being.


Similarly, there is no logical connection whatsoever between size and importance. You've got baseless dogmata in your premises.

mikec_ct wrote:This video is one of my favorite descriptions of this concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M


I think Carl Sagan was an arrogant moron, for all the above reasons. That makes his reflections on the so-called pale blue dot somewhat ironic and, ultimately, puerile, really. For a modern to think he has stumbled upon something unique by reflecting on the vast scale of the universe, is to ignore centuries of religious men and women who reflected on a comparison of far greater import: that between a single person and God.

mikec_ct wrote:I don't love Osama bin Laden, or Kim Jong Il, or Hitler. If you do, I'd call that insane (so long as we're throwing such descriptions around)


Then I'm insane for pitying all of them.

mikec_ct wrote:I know very well what Catholics believe. I also know that the church officially believed in the hideous concept of limbo til a couple years ago, so their views are clearly as transient as mine.


Limbo was never an official doctrine, and has never been dogmatically defined. I wouldn't call it hideous, either. It is a very merciful idea - that good people who die without being baptised into the Church will live in paradise forever. Limbo means nothing else but the state of such a person who is deprived of the beatific vision of God that the faithful greatly desire.

mikec_ct wrote:Are you joking? Darwinism has nothing to do with conscious application. We are programmed to do things that we often haven't got the slightest clue about at a conscious level, that's kind of the point.


No. I think you missed my point, completely... which kind of proves my point. When it comes to moral choices, nobody knows why people do what they do in the sense that people who pretend to believe in Darwinistic psychology do.

mikec_ct wrote:Are the ten commandments as God's actual word allegorical? Because that's what I meant by God "getting involved" after so many centuries. Truly I'd be appreciative if you could send me a copy of the Bible telling me what's allegorical and what isn't. Is Jesus' resurrection allegorical? His virgin birth? His cursing a fig tree? Is it all just a big fable? If so, why should I value it any more than Aesop's fables, or the Greek pantheon?


According to all orthodox Christians, the Bible is the word of God written in the words of men. Old Testament - mostly allegorical, except for the obvious explicit historical parts. Some parts are poetry, others are parables. Supposing the Bible is truly a set of inspired books, I don't understand why you think it is so significant when God chose to inspire men to write them. According to the books of the Bible, God was always present to men as the spirit of truth itself, long before the books were written, and among those who never read them. The New Testament is more explicitly historical because each of the gospels claims to be the actual experiences of the four men. Revelation, on the other hand, is explicitly allegorical. As for why you should believe the Bible is a collection of divinely inspired books, ask God.

mikec_ct wrote:Hospitals should not be allowed to prevent gays from having power in medical decisions regarding their legal partner, I see it as a rights issue. In any case, this has nothing to do with your views on government healthcare, which I never said you support.


I think whoever is closest to the patient should make whatever decisions that must be made. Common sense. Why does that require state-marriage?

mikec_ct wrote:But just a day or two ago you were maintaining that secular state marriage is just a copy of religious marriage, that it shouldn't be allowed in a system that separates church and state. I submit that religious marriage is just one evolution of an ancient human institution.


Why are you talking as if nothing has changed in the course of human history? In the ancient world, religion and the state were one. Religion pre-dates city-states and nation-states. The idea of marriage, no matter how it has been changed or abused through the ages, was clearly originally of religious significance. That is why marriage has been so unpopular among moderns who are no longer religious, and if there were no legal and economic benefits conferred by the state on such arbitrary pairs, no irreligious person would make a lifelong vow of fidelity. Now, assuming marriage is to be regarded as it is today, merely as a temporary legal contract, what happens to the secular justification via child-rearing? Every day people come up with pseudo-scientific crap to justify infidelity and divorce, while at the same time advocating for homosexual state-marriage. It's absurd. You are one, I assume, that would advocate the abolition (probably violent) of absolute monarchy. Why chuck that one "evolution of an ancient institution," and champion another? You have not proven the utility of temporary arbitrary pairing, never mind granting legal and economic benefits to temporary arbitrary pairs, and I was under the assumption that secularism means the state will only do what is rationally defensible, dissociated from irrational or arational beliefs such as placing objective value on romantic pairs, and without respecting what a particular school of thought regards as natural or right.

mikec_ct wrote:It's pathetic that you need me to spell this out - I have a problem with forced slavery, racially based or not, because once again it violates my principle of violating the freedom of others. Your rant about "wage slavery" in response to what went on in southern US plantations (which is obviously what I was referring to in my quote, as we were discussing the US) is either intellectually dishonest or stupid.


Pathetic... Rant... I see.

Look, simply explain your principle of never violating the freedom of others. Why is it wrong to violate the freedom of others? If it's just a feeling you have, how is that any different than the feeling a Christian might have that homosexual marriage is wrong? And why should our secular state respect your feeling and scorn someone else's?

Now let us see if you're too bored to answer.
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Postby ys » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:04 pm

I won't bother answering all the answers I got since it won't lead far anyway.

Just one remark : yes Kiba, I consider that one point of pagan European pre-Christian thinking regarding homosexuality to be better compared to how things evolved afterwards.

The fact that they didn't care much as to what someone else prefers to do in those matters seems much better to me than outsiders and the state interferring.
There's even some Germanic and Celtic coins, chalices, ... with same-gender pairs depicted on it having some sort of marriage ritual.

And I think you just made up some of your facts. It IS documented that those cultures didn't see women as inferior (or not as much) compared to some other cultures. It's no coincidence that emancipation nowadays is more widespread in the more northern parts of Europe where said tribes also lived.

By the way, why dismiss accounts from Caesar or Tacitus as worthless when they were one of the first descriptions of how those cultures were? The fact that there is even some praise at places must mean that it wasn't that bad if even a conqueror does honor some aspects.

All that being said, I DO think that the church shouldn't be forced to allow same-gender marriages. It's their religion so they should have the right to keep it as they want. Over here though, marriage for the church doesn't hold any legal value so people have to pass by the local mayor's office anyway to get the legal documents. Which is where same-gendered pairs marry then.
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Postby Bluecast » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:32 pm

If certain religions don't want gays to me that is their right.

At the same time don't want a church telling us what should or should not be law according to their "morals".
US claims to have separation of church and state but that is the biggest crock of shit as just about everything comes down to "christian morals"
:mad:
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Postby LawXiu » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:13 pm

"This songs about anal sex and God"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPgila0xBos&feature=related
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Postby beedle » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:32 pm

tim minchin sucks
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Postby Gingefners, The » Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:03 pm

beedle'R'us wrote:tim minchin sucks


Aye, the no good ginger poof should be fucking slashed.
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Postby OL » Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:53 am

I don't know, that video wasn't bad.
Never heard of him otherwise though.
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Postby KiBa » Thu Apr 22, 2010 5:37 am

Ryudo wrote:If certain religions don't want gays to me that is their right.

At the same time don't want a church telling us what should or should not be law according to their "morals".
US claims to have separation of church and state but that is the biggest crock of shit as just about everything comes down to "christian morals"
:mad:


Thank you, Ryudo. This is a perfect example of exactly the kind of utter confusion I've been talking about. Christian morals are not a Church. Would you separate the beliefs of the people from their own government? Very democratic! But if you think the separation of church and state means amputating every last vestige of supernatural beliefs from society, I still fail to see why it would be important to you for the state to license and provide legal and economic benefits to arbitrary pairs, irrespective of gender or sexual potency, and why not license and support other arbitrary arrangements, such as polygamy? More importantly, opposition to slavery is firmly and inescapably rooted in a supernatural ethical dogmatic belief: that of the equality of all people, and the consequent right to liberty many people love to talk about, but rarely ever believe in. Are you one of those people?
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Postby Martin » Thu Apr 22, 2010 5:59 am

Mike Vs Kiba.

Odds:

Kiba = 3/1.

Mike = 5/1.

My money is on Kiba.
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Postby Kenny » Thu Apr 22, 2010 12:50 pm

Ryudo wrote:If certain religions don't want gays to me that is their right.

At the same time don't want a church telling us what should or should not be law according to their "morals".
US claims to have separation of church and state but that is the biggest crock of shit as just about everything comes down to "christian morals"
:mad:


Sure is their right. But we should not have programs benefitting only certain groups. That was my point.
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Postby beedle » Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:24 pm

OL wrote:I don't know, that video wasn't bad.
Never heard of him otherwise though.

Image


Kiba will probably win because he doesn't stop.
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Postby Hanyou » Mon Apr 26, 2010 7:27 pm

I'm new to this thread, and I'm not going to read all of the posts right now. I wouldn't know where to begin replying to them. That said, perhaps after my finals are done I can read the entire thread and more thoroughly reply. For now, I just want to jump in. Sorry if I've missed something vital. =\

I'll first state my opinion: I believe that marriage is a holy institution, ordained by God, and reserved for one man and one woman. Yes, I am a Christian. No, I am not going to explain how I became a Christian or apologize for my beliefs to justify myself; it would sound too much like proselytizing, and it wouldn't get us anywhere. Suffice to say that because I believe the Bible is the word of God, it follows that I believe things like homosexuality, premarital sex, etc. are morally wrong.

I am aware of history. I know that there have been different definitions of marriage throughout history. That does not change my view, simply because my belief that only marriages ordained by God are legitimate and that Christians such as myself should not be complicit in deliberate distortion of the institution does not preclude the possibility of people making marriages out of all kinds of things.

Secondly, let me state my view on same-sex marriage in the legal sense. To the extent that marriage is defined by the state, I simply cannot support same-sex marriage any more than I could support marriage between, say, a brother and sister. To do so would be to actively endorse it by private action and choice (i.e. voting). Consider incest and polygamy, by the way. I find it absolutely hilarious that many advocates of same-sex marriage would not so readily endorse an incestuous relationship/marriage between consenting adults, because their lack of endorsement for it, given their frequent arguments, means their logic is inconsistent. If you happen to support same-sex marriage, but would not advocate for the legalization of polygamy or incestuous marriages where only consenting adults were involved, then, unless you've come up with some magical argument, your personal views at least appear to be based not on solid logic, but on societal whims. Since I haven't thoroughly read this thread, maybe there are geniuses here who have either thought up this magic argument or taken the honest road and justified all contracts between consenting adults. If you've done the former, wow, and if you've done the latter, then you deserve to be applauded for consistency.

This is not, by the way, a slippery-slope argument, and anyone who tells you so is either being deliberately misleading or has been misled themselves. It is a logical argument--the application of the logical premises behind one situation to another situation.

So we've established that I do not personally support same-sex marriage, and that I could never vote for it. There is a way out of all this. Marriage, when analyzed from a secular perspective (which is the only reasonable way to analyze it if you're talking about making laws), is one of two things--either it is a social construct, defined by the aforementioned societal whims, or it is a private contract. Perhaps it's both. Arguments swing all over the place on both sides, and no one seems to have made up their minds about which it is; either way, a lot of problems could be solved if government got its intrusive nose out of the whole affair. Period. Don't extend benefits to married couples (to do so discriminates explicitly against single people) of any orientation. Don't define marriage. Quite simply, allow people to make their own contracts and define their personal relationships in what way they see fit. Private organizations can arrange and cultivate these unions, or the individuals can simply go through the necessary legal processes to change their names or whatever they wish to do. In this way, anyone able to make a contract (it follows that they would be consenting adults) would be able to marry the person or people of their choice. We could avoid these silly policy debates.

If it's really a matter of individual rights, then get the government out of it altogether.

Ryudo wrote:
US claims to have separation of church and state but that is the biggest crock of shit as just about everything comes down to "christian morals"
:mad:


Whether or not the constitution, which is the document that matters when discussing U.S. law, actually makes this claim is a matter up for debate. Trust me, the "wall of separation" is not a settled issue, even among Supreme Court justices, and the words "separation of church and state" are found nowhere in the Constitution.

I am sympathetic to and generally endorse libertarian solutions and views; however, the concept of state sovereignty that was present at the nation's founding is a conservative belief I strongly endorse. The federal government should not impose any definition of marriage upon the separate states. Flawed as democracy is, these moral issues are best decided democratically at the smallest level of government possible, if only to prevent the raging conflict you saw in the wake of, for example, Roe v. Wade.

By the way, not everything comes down to Christian morals, but unfortunately over the twentieth century things have come down to all-around Statism. The religious right is hardly different than the progressive left in this regard--the only major difference is who's imposing what on whom. Consider that both support rampant bans (be they guns, drugs, or video games), and both support a robust federal government that spends us into oblivion (with wars, corporate welfare, and social programs) and regulates our daily lives (with environmental measures, wiretapping, and health care mandates) and you might start to see the similarities. I could go on. Frustrating beyond belief.

But Christianity is not the enemy here, simply statism. It's a sickness that is by no means unique to the United States.

In spite of my lengthy post, this issue isn't that important to me. If same-sex marriage were legalized in my state, I would be against it, but I wouldn't grieve. There are more important things to worry about. That said, I find efforts by progressives to normalize certain trains of thought by either imposing them on children through public means (read: public education) or by sending tax dollars to their preferred programs to be heinous violations of individual rights in themselves. I would no sooner advocate the deliberate, government-funded normalization of secular views through tax dollars than I would the imposition of my personal Christian values. I understand the concern that conservatives have that, if same-sex marriage were legalized and endorsed by the government, these efforts would prevail, to be well-founded. Likewise, I understand the strong argument homosexuals have--that extending benefits to certain relationships while excising others is, if not discriminatory, at least severely arbitrary and unbalanced.

Hence the "government should get out of the marriage business" perspective.

PS: one thing that has got to go: ALL restrictions on visitation rights.
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Postby mue 26 » Mon Apr 26, 2010 8:05 pm

Errrgh, no offense but all these long rambling posts against gay marriage are just throwing up the same old lame excuses.

How can you really say Oh well if your for gay marriage then you have to be agreeing with incestuous marrages as well?

They are completely DIFFERENT situations and I cant be bothered to go into it however to list a few points

1. Gay couples cant have children and no harm can come from it, whilst incestuous marriage would bring with it the risk of couples having unhealthy children(whom its unfair for) and then saying but its OK coz we were allowed to get married ect.

2.All my friends who are gay have told me they were born gay(just have a different hormonal balance from hetrosexual people maybe), and I have no reason to disbelieve them, whilst I dont think anyone is really born naturally inclined to incest.


so there is my rushed magic argument!
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