pop morality

[Ivan Denisovich]

---

I didn't read what Drippy said that way. I've certainly seen plenty of Christians who try to draw parallels between the two, since they consider them both simply "perversions", but the argument I'm seeing there is that society, based on Judeo-Roman-Christian sexual values that spanned roughly three millennia, formerly (as a whole) prohibited homosexuality and/or viewed it as sinful, harmful, and perverse. 

But that changed.

The reason it changed, according to most people today, is that we discovered that the Biblical version of "morality" was in fact the prejudices of ancient societies enshrined in scripture, and did not fit with actual information about homosexuals, nor what science is discovering about the nature of human sexuality in general. Of course, the Christians see it as "we moved away from God's Plan for a Man and a Woman", blah blah blah.

Others here have tried to point out that the "God's Plan" we see in the Bible is simply immoral by every modern standard:

* It does not prohibit rape against women except in terms of their financial value to the men who "own" them.
* It specifically allows for permanent, heritable human enslavement (for other races, not fellow Hebrews, of course).
* It orders the murder of people for exercising the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
* It demands genocide of entire peoples, for the crime of living on "holy land" and being the wrong faith ("wicked").
* It goes on and on in this way. 

We learned better. Rape is bad. Don't own people. Freedom is good. Genocide is a war crime. Et cetera.

So, in an attempt to suggest a slippery slope, they ask us emotion-evoking questions, "What about people having sex with their pet turtles? Or children? What about the children!?!"

But it's just not the same question. Measurable, demonstrable harm is done by people who have neurochemistry that predisposes them to rape, be it of unwilling adults or of children incapable of giving consent. We, members of society, determine what is and is not tolerable moral behavior, and yes, it evolves though time. Thank goodness for that, or we'd still have slaves!!!

The real question to ask Drippy, here, since he claims that the Bible is the Ultimate and Unchanging Moral Authority™, is how can he condemn slavery or rape, since they are not prohibited by that Bible of his?

The suggestion that "moral relativity" (or whatever term of derision is being used this week) is inferior to that which comes from some Divine Lawgiver is demonstrably false. I'd say that moral relativity is the only type that has any chance at all of being fair to all, someday.

As hard as it might be to imagine, it's plausible that someday it will be discovered that no harm comes from sex with children, that pedophiles are genetically predisposed to it, and such, so that society accepts that as normal behavior (there is some evidence that at least some of the ancient Greeks did just that), but so far the research seems to point strongly in the other direction, and so I suspect it will never  be accepted by future societies... I hope that remains the case. 

Even the right to declare the nature of the universe, when it conflicts with what people thought the Bible says, had to be hard won. The simple fact is that Drippy has no argument, except "well the Bible says...", and only by ignoring that almost literally every right we cherish today was established in defiance of  Biblical Law (see above) can that argument be made.

---

I wish I would be able to put it so eloquently.

But don't you know that god is like Soviet Union? And I'm not speaking about nonexistence. Just as SU was progressive by definition as homeland of Revolution god is just by definition too. Neither SU could cease to be progressive nor god can cease to be just regardless of their doings.