Lazy Atheism?

[Thumpalumpacus]

No, we don't necessarily want people humping one another on the bench in front of Bath and Body Works.

*blushing*

Oh, wait, that was Walmart. Never mind.

[Belacqua]

What civilization allows and approves of changes. And of course which institutions get to impose that control is also a matter of ongoing debate.

I'd like to see the argument justifying any institutional control of such private behavior as one's sex life.

Normally people argue that it's bad to fuck a child, and that the police can arrest you for that.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'd like to see the argument justifying any institutional control of such private behavior as one's sex life.

Normally people argue that it's bad to fuck a child, and that the police can arrest you for that.

What a stupid response.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

I'd like to see the argument justifying any institutional control of such private behavior as one's sex life.

Normally people argue that it's bad to fuck a child, and that the police can arrest you for that.

You are going to fall over if you reach much farther.

[The Grand Nudger]

It was excusatory filth from the start.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because the people who wrote his character were perverted kink shamers.  Another mystery solved.

But it's not even just kink stuff that's condemned. It's pretty much any sexual activity at all.

I'm not sure we can credibly say that about a book that condones..even commands... headhunting for sex trafficking. I think that you and many other people get confused by the nature of theocratic sexual moralizing. Like any other ideology of it's type, theocratic law exists to protect but not bind the in group, while binding without protecting the outgroup. They're not prudes. They're perverts telling everyone else to be prude. Perverts who wish to do others harm accusing those they would harm of perversion as a pretext for harming them. Go ahead and ask one, they'll tell you that in the confines of their religiously sanctioned relationships nothing is off limits. It's a privilege that they believe they, and they alone, hold.

-because that's what makes them blow their load. Control. Ownership. The blatant flaunting of their own rules as a demonstration of power, and an exercise of power for powers own sake. The very second some influential christian nut starts yammering about sexual immorality we ought to send somebody out to check their browser for kiddie porn, and their basement for children. For all of their nonsense about fags destroying society, how come we keep finding them under the poolboy? Maybe they're speaking from experience?

[Ahriman]

Honestly I just hate Christians. I hate them so much.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'd like to see the argument justifying any institutional control of such private behavior as one's sex life.

Normally people argue that it's bad to fuck a child, and that the police can arrest you for that.

Right, and perfectly justifiable regulation, even if child molestation is more an exertion of power than a sex act.

But I was getting at things like the social regulation of homosexuality. Care to try again?

[emjay]

Sure I can accept that some parts of the Bible are allegorical, but as I've said before, I think it's clutching at straws to consider Genesis allegorical. It for instance gives the names and locations of rivers, which is just something you wouldn't do if you were speaking allegorically/metaphorically, so to me it's blatantly obvious that it's meant to be taken literally as a factual record.

I don't think historians are clear on just how much the original authors of Genesis wanted us to take literally. 

Currently the consensus seems to be that it was written down in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, while Israel and Judah were under serious threat from more powerful nations. As part of a program to strengthen and unite the Israelites and Judeans (always a fractious group) the powerful people saw it as important to give a greater structure to their history and beliefs. This included a clear origin story. 

We could compare this (loosely) to Virgil writing the Aeneid under Augustus. As you know, Augustus held national image to be very important. Giving his state a heroic, mythic origin story made the country seem more important to the gods, and more admirable to the people. It tidies up the facts that real history tends to be contingent and unglamorous. It uses lots of real locations and a few real events, and weaves them into a new propagandistic narrative.

Yet anyone at the time who was intellectual enough to read the Aeneid was also well-informed enough to know that Virgil had just made it all up. He had cobbled together existing myths and legends and given them a main character, a new telos, and a local meaning. 

On a smaller scale, we can compare the heroicized history of the US that we learned in elementary school with the rather less admirable real history. A bit of myth builds national pride. 

The Israelites and the Judeans were faced with enemies who had far older mythical traditions. We know from the Old Testament that the Israelites were constantly tempted by foreign rituals and ceremonies. Especially during the Exile, when there was a real danger of the Jewish population disappearing through assimilation into their new home, a unified set of national myths was seen as necessary. 

But again, it's not clear to me how much they really believed it. And I also suspect that literal belief in such stories was not as straightforward as it is today. In those days you could kind of accept things and take them seriously without believing that everything happened that way. For example in Plato's books, it's clear that he takes the local ceremonies seriously. ("we owe a cock to Asclepius.") At the same time, he has no trouble rewriting the myths whenever he has a point to make. He can demote Eros from a god to a daemon, and then promote him again. He can declare there are two Aphrodites, etc. etc., and nobody worries that he's being heretical. 

More importantly, we have to remember that in our time, the original intention of the authors is of very little importance. Not to get all Roland Barthes on you here, but the text is not just the text. The text is the history of the text, and all the uses it has been put to, and all the interpretations it has been given. If Genesis has been read as allegory for 17 centuries, then it's allegory. If modern people insist that it's accurate in the way that science is supposed to be accurate, then they are simply wrong. But they're also missing what's important.

That's all very interesting, but, and I think we've talked about this before, at the end of the day, the value of the Bible to me... such as it is... is as a claim to some sort of truth, ie that God exists and is, does, or did x,y, and z. Do you not see it as that sort of claim? Or even a claim at all? Given that you treat much of it as allegory, or as you say, myth and propaganda, how does that, to you, make a more compelling claim to the existence of God than a factual claim? Or are you just in awe of the literary aspects of it but without treating it as a claim? For me, if the majority of it is relegated to the realm of allegory, myth, and propaganda, without any concrete claim, then that does not make it more, but less compelling, ultimately boiling down to a bunch of random people's vague musings on God, which these days is a dime a dozen.

[Belacqua]

Normally people argue that it's bad to fuck a child, and that the police can arrest you for that.

Right, and perfectly justifiable regulation, even if child molestation is more an exertion of power than a sex act.

Yes, I agree it's justifiable regulation. 

Here is one case where people's sexual acts may be forbidden by society's institutions (i.e. government). 

If Humbert Humbert makes the argument "But my sex life is purely personal and the state has no business regulating what I do," we would argue that in the case of his practices he is wrong. 

So we agreed that there is at least one sexual practice which it is well for our institutions to outlaw and punish. 

But I was getting at things like the social regulation of homosexuality. Care to try again?

Right -- we both agree that homosexuality should not be regulated. It was in the old days, but times have changed. I'm glad this is no longer a crime, and I hope the places where it is still punished come around soon. 

But I don't see what I should "try again" about. We actually agree -- our institutions are correct to forbid those practices which our society deems unacceptable.