I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, Easy. My mind is not made up on whether any theological writing does or does not contain any grounds for absolute authority, it may...but the lens through which we have and continue to view the Bible is undoubtedly subjective, flawed, and subject to change...as such I see no reason to give any implicit faith in any one version of that interpretation, and the fact that there are several adaptations over the years is, in itself, enough for me to not see a certain passage, such as re: homosexuality, as the definitve moral/theological/Godly judgment of same. That aside, you are becoming one of my favorite posters in terms of the quality, thoughtfullness, and intellectual integrity you bring to discussions. Looking forward to the next one...
It seems as if most people in this thread misunderstand genetics and interactions between genetics and the environment. Somebody please inform me as to where the 'gay gene' resides in the genome. Also, people in here write as if examples of the environment constitute a kid flipping a quarter, and posing the question, "beautiful voluptuous women or skank nasty male buttholes". Great, more marxist diatribe on the philosophy of science. JV, is it just me, or are you a wheat thin away from diving into born again Christianity? I have been reading your posts for a few years now, and it always seems as if you delve in the two extremes... you pay fairy tales and myths complete respect... and you then pay silly political philosophy complete respect. When do you reside in the middle ground? Most people don't choose to be atheists and then wallow in Foucault and Habermas for some sort of peace of mind. You know... read the times, newscientist, Harry Potter, that sort of thing. It's as if you had a bad calculus professor and now seek intellectual solace in literature that hasn't been important since, errrr... 1989. In the meantime, study some statistics, learn something about correlation coefficients, rsquared values, that sort of thing. You seem to have a requirement for absolutes in your life, and it has completely warped your impression of science. Sure, your faith must have been shaken by the whole Lysenko affair, but honestly... come back to us.
As I said, no interpretation is absolute. And I agree 100% that "the lens that which we have to view the Bible is undoubtedly subjective and flawed." Yet, there are degrees of subjectivity and flaw. So there is no reason to throw everything away simply because our interpretations (not just about the Bible, but about everything in our lives) are subjective and flawed. Our job is to figure out the best interpretation we can, through what we learned from people in the past. (I'm sure you know this because you are a history guy.) So I don't see why you "see no reason to give any implicit faith in any one version of that interpretation." That doesn't sound right. Everything you know or think you know now are subjective and flawed interpretation of reality. Do you abandon all faith in all your knowledge? In fact, I am sure you have different degrees of faith in different things. Besides, religious faith is not pure intellectual analysis. It has a lot to do with subjective experiences. Those experiences are undeniable to the one who experienced them. Yet they are difficult to prove objectively to other people. To me, if the subjective experience of the deity matches the more objective intellectual thinking, that is convincing enough for me to commit myself into such faith. I am flattered. I'll try very hard to unseat you as the Most Respectable Poster.
Damn, I need to get back in it and check out the D&D forum more often. I went with Genetic. It just doesn't make sense to me, the what we find sexy argument. I know that over time and accross cultures, what we find sexy is different and it changes, but at some point, we all want the same thing, sex. Sex is reproduction so it's something that's in our genetic makeup. God, there's a point to this, stick with me whilst I ramble. You can't go against nature, right? Nature will always win. So, male with female sex should be the only way that it is done, but that's not the case. That means that gay sex is natural. Of course, it implies than the it's the result of a genetic defect and I don't think gay people want to think of themselves that way. It could be a method of self population control. I remember from Anthro that Chimps practice gay sex as a way to relieve stress or something.
Oski what exactly do you mean that gay sex is "natural sex"? Explain a little further because I don't see how there is any way it could be natural because the act of sex is done to obtain one thing, offspring.
I know, I know! I keep trying and trying, but that goalie is too damn good! One of these days! One of these days!! I'll sneak one past that b*stard! Then again, it's not whether you win or lose... ask not what her, er... if at first you don't succeed, er. Incidentally Lil Gun, Oski (Frans de Waal) highlighted a major point of evolutionary ecology theory... sex is 'for' quite a few things. Mother nature may have tagged the act to do one thing, but it has been appropriated by us animanics for several other benefits. ps, the notion that fundamentalists are only having sex 2 or 3 times a lifetime explains a lot about their hostile attitudes.
if the only time people had sex was to have offspring then nobody would post on this bbs because they'd each have to work 3,731 jobs to support their 1,353,741 children. please.
Offspring is the last thing I want when I do it. Is masturbation unnatural too? What about oral sex? It is all natural. Two robots doing it would be unntatural.
So, B-Bob, are you trying to say that you are smarter than I? Now my feelings are hurt - I thought we had something special. In any event, why do some primates, birds, and other non-human animals end up being gay? Environment? Traumatic experiences? Somebody asked about a scale, here is my response: There is no "gay" and there is no "straight." There is a sexuality curve with each end being 100% straight/gay. Only, nobody starts at 100%, everyone falls somewhere in the middle (although it can still be extremes within the middle). So, we are all bisexual to some degree. How is that? Not my original theory, but I like it pretty well. heb, I thought you were dead. Did you escape from your wife's backyard or something?
speak for yourself twinkle toes. j/k. rimmy, I've been lurking for a long time now, but it took a bunch of guys making stuff up to evoke a response out of me.
If that was your sole criterion, you would have come out of lurking a long time ago. By the way, I kind of agree with your assessment of JV, although mine is not a negative one (especially since I am big on intellectual history - what you would call worthless). However, I think he is interesting in that he deals with extremes but does not really ascribe to them. He could basically have a polemical argument with himself.
I'm sorry but I was in a hurry and did not mean to state that the only goal of sex is to produce offspring but that is the primary function of sex. Yes sex, oral sex, masturbation, etc. are all used for obtaining pleasure as well but one must ask what are you really pleasing? You are pleasing your sexual urges and by nature we get sexual urges to tell us when to reproduce or mate. These are not natural ways of sex just ways to please and ease our own sexual tension. Would you call a dog humping your leg natural? How about an adult male walrus humping a walrus pup? No these things are not natural but they do happen and they happen because these animals have a natural sexual response and a need to act on it and sometimes are not given the ability to act on it in a natural way.
Ummm... it's so clear to me now. Far be it for me to be utterly boring, and deal w/ the real world... but if something happens in nature, isn't it natural? I'll one up that statement by saying if it can happen, then of course it is natural (but that's an affront to a lot of misanthropes, so I won't put the crux of my suggestion there). You might have a hard time wrapping your mind around the notion that people build bridges and beavers build dams... but, er. If a walrus does something 'unnatural' then I don't know what the word 'natural' means. rimbaud, lol... I like reading jv's posts b/c he's a character on the bbs, and we of course need the character that waxes mental masturbation all over the bbs, but I just fear for his sanity. I also despise ideologues. Yep, my ideology is that ideologists are fools. Incidentally, I'm debating whether or not to make a bumper sticker that reads "bumper stickers are for dumbasses". Anybody want to put their order in now?
while on the subject of things being unnatural... what if a woman is infertile? is all sex that she has unnatural since she knows that she won't be able to have a baby? what if a man is sterile? is all sex that he has unnatural since he knows that he's not able to impregnate a woman? what if a couple where the man was sterile and the woman was infertile, she goes to a doctor for invitro fertilization, and had a baby? is that an unnatural baby? what about people who don't engage in sexual activity (natural or not) because they're firm believers of sexual abstinence? are they unnatural? sorry, but i'm still clueless on your definition of "natural".
Natural, to me, is conforming to the usual way nature takes place example: a natural death. That is what I think natural means. Just because a man is sterile or a woman is infertile does not mean that they lose their sexual drive and that's a fact or I doubt so many men and women would choose to become "fixed". Their body will still have the urge to have sex even though they know they are not physically able to procreate. People who do not have sexual urge in fact have problem under a broad section of psychology called sexual disorders/disfunctions. If a couple has a child by any means other than sex than yes that is unnatural because that is not what nature intended. The natural way would be a male having sex with a female then conception then birth. If you bring a third party in the picture I don't see how it could be natural. That's kind of like a woman saying I can't grow big, natural breasts but my doc can give me big, natural breasts. People who do not engage in any kind of sexual activity of any kind still get their urges, they just have a great deal of mind control some how or another. However when that sexual tension builds up it can be very disastrous, example: the Catholic priests that were caught molesting so many young people. I say oral and gay sex, masturbation is unnatural because of this: Was the anus made to be penetrated by the penis or anything for that matter? No it was made for deficating, plain and simple. Were one penis and another made to rub up against each other or whatever it is "gay men who don't perform in anal sex" do? No, the penis is made for urination, and ejaculation of sperm. Was the mouth designed as a sex tool? No, it's for speaking eating, and breathing. Are hands for masturbation? No, they for holding, writing, etc. Sure we as humans have found ways to use these parts of our bodies differently but not the way "nature" intended.
Lil Pun, if you get a chance, please explain to me how a walrus could be anything other than a natural organism. I'm excited about your intuition. Also, just as a side note, many fundamentalists use naturalistic fallacy sort of rhetoric. The argument typically goes from the descriptive to the normative. It's a religious belief, that what does occur in (your view of) nature is what should occur in the natural world. You're hung up on this notion that penises and vaginas go together (damnit, now I've lost my train of thought) and that's the only thing that should occur. This is regarded as fallacious in most logical camps, simply b/c of the counterclaim that there's no link to what "does occur" yielding a statement of what "should occur". For example, everyday male animals rape female animals. That is what occurs in nature. If I go unarmed up into Bear country, I might get my holy natural vagina bound penis bitten off by a bear, but that's not to say that that should occur. Also, I might naturally get cancer, or diabetes, or break a leg. I might unnaturally (in your language, not mine) get into a car and drive down to the airport. Then I might take a plane back to the east coast and "unnaturally" make a 7 mo. walking trip a 4 hour flight. Do you see where this is going? Essentially, there's no reason to associate "natural" or "unnatural" with value laden statements like what "is right" and what "isn't right". To make those statements, and not be a hypocrite, you have to be one of those sorts of people that only farms and doesn't give their kids medicine or stuff like that, you know, weirdo postmodernists like rimbaud.
i hope that you pick your produce from the organic section of the grocery store. otherwise, it's unnatural. natural is pure speculation.... but hey... it's your opinion of the definition.
Please guys, I wasn't the one who started the "natural" discussion I just joined in with my nickel minus three pennies. Achebe, I really have no religious belief I am agnostic and I am not trying to say what is right and wrong because I believe you should live your life the way you wish. Just because I say something is unnatural does not mean that I disagree with it. I'll explain more later but I'm running late for something...to be continued.
I was just trying to puff myself up, like a threatened bird. It's where I'm at. I'm trying to write a couple of papers now, and they feel like they're on thin ice to me. ... You know, like all science: self-important but actually subjective from the ground up. Yeah.
