Social Politics Thread

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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Bad Player »

SuperGanondorf wrote:I don't think it would have a positive impact on society, frankly.
That's why all the states that have allowed gay marriage have devolved into chao--wait
(Is giving two people already living together a slip of paper and some tax breaks really going to do so much harm?)



Also Unas and SG, I really don't buy your historical arguments. That was then; this is now. If you're going to say it should be like that because it was like that for thousands of years, then let's start slavery up again, eh?
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by FenrirDarkWolf »

I love/hate the argument/debate we are having right now.
Back on topic, I'm a Catholic, I'm straight (I think), and I believe in all forms of love, as I've stated before, love is love and people can't deny that fact, I've heard people call gay people abominations and sinners and I was mad, and I mean really mad, I don't think that's right at all. Marriage should be available to all people of any race, S.O., religion, etc.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Bad Player »

BuddyFaithAKADiego wrote:Marriage should be available to all people of any race, S.O., religion, etc.
It is, it is! (as long as you marry someone of the opposite sex)

loltechnicality
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Hodou Okappa »

BuddyFaithAKADiego wrote:I love/hate the argument/debate we are having right now.
Back on topic, I'm a Catholic, I'm straight (I think), and I believe in all forms of love, as I've stated before, love is love and people can't deny that fact, I've heard people call gay people abominations and sinners and I was mad, and I mean really mad, I don't think that's right at all. Marriage should be available to all people of any race, S.O., religion, etc.
This is probably a good point to clarify that though I think the world would be a better place without organized religion, I still have absolutely NO problem with people who follow a religion out of genuine faith and don't pervert it into a tool they can use to make sure the world stays exactly where they want it to be.
Also known as: okappa, houdou.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by LunchPolice »

I fully support gay marriage. If straight people can get married, gay people should be able to as well. It's only fair.

I'm not in the mood to go into superdebate mode, but I will reply to one thing.
About the bad-eyesight = no piloting thing...

I know saying somebody with bad eyesight shouldn't fly a plane isn't looking down on them - it's just a thing they can't really do, but...

If it was possible to make it so they could fly planes with no trouble at all, would you support that?
I mean, it's not like it's dangerous or unwise for gay people to get married, so we might as well let them.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Holhol »

Bad Player wrote:
BuddyFaithAKADiego wrote:Marriage should be available to all people of any race, S.O., religion, etc.
It is, it is! (as long as you marry someone of the opposite sex)

loltechnicality
I have to disagree with you completely.

Think of it in a different way: what if you were gay? You would want to find your perfect match, not to be alone and/or with someone you aren't happy with.

Think of all the hell gays go through just because people treat them as outcasts for the people they love.

If you want to be with someone your happy with, why shouldn't they?
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Bad Player »

Holhol1235 wrote:
Bad Player wrote:
BuddyFaithAKADiego wrote:Marriage should be available to all people of any race, S.O., religion, etc.
It is, it is! (as long as you marry someone of the opposite sex)

loltechnicality
I have to disagree with you completely.

Think of it in a different way: what if you were gay? You would want to find your perfect match, not to be alone and/or with someone you aren't happy with.

Think of all the hell gays go through just because people treat them as outcasts for the people they love.

If you want to be with someone your happy with, why shouldn't they?
Uh... What exactly are you talking about?

EDIT: Oh wait maybe I see how you read it. Diego said "Marriage should be available to everyone!" and I said "It is available to everyone! (as long as it's hetero)" Note the lack of the word "should" in my reply.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Holhol »

I'm sorry. I misread your post... :|
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Unas »

Bad Player wrote:But letting homosexuals marry or not doesn't change the fact that they can't have kids.
Precisely my point. In my opinion, Civil marriage is an incentive from state for people to procreate, establish a family and ensure the future demography of the country - as state has no interest, as long as it expects its population to be renewed by itself, in giving an incentive to people who can't put it to acts.
Bad Player wrote:But having bad eyesight will have an effect on your ability to be a good fighter pilot. What should your sexuality have to do with "a bunch of small fiscal advantages"?
Nothing. But that's not my definition of marriage.
I was quoting it from Sing', saying "it doesn't matter to give them, it's just a property contract". If it is, then it's not relevant to love itself, so they can establish pretty much any contract which does not bear the name "marriage". That's what Finland calls "Registered Partnership", for example. I am not comfortable with the idea, because I think giving the same incentives, actually encouraging homosexual relations, is wrong and could be troublesome for the future of society; but as I said, it's the state's decision where it wants to spend money or where he intends to give incentives, if it does not consider the stability of society to be at risk.
Marriage, however, is something else. The word means much more than a simple property contract.
Hodou Okappa wrote:The fact is, though, that to say a homosexual marriage is not socially acceptable is bigoted. Plain and simple. You cannot justify this by saying "children cannot grow up properly without a mother and a father." There is ZERO evidence to support that.
If I took your sentence litterally, I would remind you that having no father and/or no mother is what is called being an orphan, and it's not considered particularly happy for children.
Now, your real point was about having two fathers or two mothers... Well, true, there is no evidence that it is not possible; just as there is no evidence that it is. The only evidence we have is that the traditional family model works, as it had done so for thousands of years.
Officialising another kind of union is taking a risk regarding the overall future evolution of society, since there is no certitude of any kind regarding the result.
Also, interestingly, though the link is much more complicated than this, I wonder about the relation between these two facts :
- on the one hand, the progressive dismantlement of this established family structure by some "progressist" people that, since the 60s, have brought the generalisation of divorce, the idea that sex and love are unrelated, and things like that, in the name of "freedom", with stable families (built on undivorced couples) being less and less numerous, since about half first marriages result in a divorce in the US, and numbers are similar in France.
- on the other hand, the rise of suicide rate for young people (10-24 years old) which, according to the WHO (not a religious instance, mind you) has become a major cause of mortality since the 50s.
So, I'm sorry, but I do believe that shifting away from the "strict" family structure is a risk, that you might be willing to take, but others may not be.
Willing to protect humanity, while it is based on personal beliefs, opinion and interpretation of the facts, is not what I consider bigotry.
a man/woman marriage is as much as "pillar of our society" as television; which is to say, a false one, which people fill with unjustified praise and acceptance.
Right. Comparing something that has existed for about 4 thousand years in all known organised societies, to a technological success of the last sixty years still not generalised in developing countries... and arguably already declining because of the free diffusion to Internet growing quickly. Really, 4000 years to 60 years of life span, no scaling problem ?
Hodou Okappa wrote:The Bible is NOT God's word. I believe in God, and I will never believe the Bible is God's word. It was written thousands of years ago by men.
Small digression from the subject of gay marriage, but...
Have you ever heard the word "prophet" ? Basically, its a man who speaks to express the will of God. The Bible is full of those.
Whether you believe in them or not is your choice, it depends on your religion. I also agree that, since they were men, what they wrote was dependent on the time they wrote it. But this does not mean that God's will is not expressed through their words at all.
Also, one precision about slavery - the old parts of the Bible actually define rules to protect slaves, since it was an unregulated practice before. The Bible was a factor of progress, here.
It also details ways in which to make sacrifices to God and notable priests, and what may be done if it turns out that your wife is not a virgin (read: kill or publicly humiliate her.)
But why do we not follow THOSE passages?
Because the New testament takes precedence over the old, since the new is considered to express what God himself said when he came to earth as Jesus. Therefore it represents God's will much more accurately than the Old testament, in which all things had to be interpreted by men; the prophets I just mentioned.
And then, of your two points :
  • Jesus offered himself as sacrifice, so basically the Eucharist replaces the sacrifices of the Old Testament
  • Jesus taught forgiveness during all his life on earth, and for your particular example, he had the opportunity of saying - when pharisians tried to trick him with this problem, kind of like you are doing - : "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".
A great deal has to be taken on faith here, but if we are all creations of God, then why would he forsake some of us just for being different?
[...]
Hateful. These men had nothing but contempt for us, straight and gay alike. They claimed to be spreading God's love, but whenever you would engage them in conversation or debate it became clear what we were to them: sinners, astray from the path of God, destined to hang in the fires of Hell forever.
Agreed - as you say, the whole Bible, and the New Testament in particular, say that we're all his children and that we should all respect and love each other.
Some people forget that - they are extremists of all kinds. What you described is not the point of view of the Catholic church, which I share. If they are really "hateful", as you say, then they are more "astray from the path" than most people.
But I can't let you use these people to discredit the whole Christian religion, sorry. To my knowledge, I have not at a single time lacked respect to homosexuals, even though I'm advocating the point of view of the Catholic Church.
So yes, perhaps the US HAS democratically rejected gay marriage. And on that note, I feel democracy has failed. As has society. We have been taken over, indoctrinated by the Church and turned against the minorities. It is a disgusting truth, and I spend every day trying not to face it.
Strange, I think the same think about democracy, but for a bunch of other reasons.
Anyway, the funny thing here is that you imply that people thinking differently from you cannot have made their mind by themselves - they have to be indoctrinated to think that way.
If I were to say that you have been indoctrinated by pro-LGBT media - of course, since you don't think the same as my Edgewoth-like perfect mind does :P - , and that following any of your opinion would be a failure of the system, would not that seem insulting to you ?
Hodou Okappa wrote:...Unfortunately, even Descartes could not oppose the church safely. He ended up providing what they misinterpreted as one of their greatest proofs, after all.
Again, you seem to consider that a clever man can not have freely advocated the Church. Do you have any reason to even imagine that he disagreed fundamentally with the Church ? I haven't seen any analysis presenting his thought this way, so I'd certainly be interested.
Hodou Okappa wrote:As for whether or not it's murder, that's an even stickier subject. Yes, it ends a potential life, but I'm also of the opinion that life begins with consciousness, which an unborn child does not yet have. Since the baby is not, IMO, alive yet, I do not view it as murder, and yet I still feel it's wrong to take away that life's chance to exist. As you said, it's a difficult topic, because everyone could have their own definitions.
What worries me is that, in spite of the fact that you admit people have different definitions, you said it was against your Constitution to forbid abortion. That would mean it's one of the fundamental rights.
But the same constitution forbids murder. So you imply that abortion is not a murder from the Constitution's point of view (I'm not talking about yours, here). And that last part is only your interpretation of it - SG has a pretty different one, for example.
Therefore, as long as there is any doubt, you can't say that anything is against the Constitution in that respect - unless you claim to be the one of those who wrote it, but I won't believe you :-P
Hodou Okappa wrote:I still have absolutely NO problem with people who follow a religion out of genuine faith and don't pervert it into a tool they can use to make sure the world stays exactly where they want it to be.
Then please stop considering that everyone of those religious people that express an opinion different from yours are perverting their religion.
BuddyFaithAKADiego wrote:I've heard people call gay people abominations and sinners and I was mad, and I mean really mad, I don't think that's right at all. Marriage should be available to all people of any race, S.O., religion, etc.
I agree with your first sentence - calling them abominations isn't right.
However, your second sentence is pretty much unrelated - like okappa, you seem to imply that everyone against gay marriage is motivated by hatred.
I'll repeat it as much as needed, but this is not the case.
LunchPolice wrote:I know saying somebody with bad eyesight shouldn't fly a plane isn't looking down on them - it's just a thing they can't really do, but...

If it was possible to make it so they could fly planes with no trouble at all, would you support that?
If the solution was perfectly safe and efficient, then the difference would be non-existent, so that rule would not be needed. But a perfectly safe and efficient technique doesn't exist...
One cannot erase difference completely, nor do I think it is desirable anyway.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Bad Player »

Unas wrote:
Bad Player wrote:But letting homosexuals marry or not doesn't change the fact that they can't have kids.
Precisely my point. In my opinion, Civil marriage is an incentive from state for people to procreate, establish a family and ensure the future demography of the country - as state has no interest, as long as it expects its population to be renewed by itself, in giving an incentive to people who can't put it to acts.
But since homosexuals aren't going to procreate, whether they are married or not, there's no incentive to not let them marry.

The overwhelming majority of the population is heterosexual, and there are plenty of people in the world right now; underpopulation is not really a concern, imo. (Especially since gay marriage most likely wouldn't affect the birth rate; you're bringing in (what I at least think is) an unrelated (non)issue)

Moreoever, scientists have found homosexual behavior in I think... over 50 different species. Have those species died out from lack of procreation?
Unas wrote:Marriage, however, is something else. The word means much more than a simple property contract.
Why should it? Separation of the Church and State
Unas wrote:Officialising another kind of union is taking a risk regarding the overall future evolution of society, since there is no certitude of any kind regarding the result.
Ending slavery was taking a risk regarding the overall future evolution of society. I suppose you think we should've just kept it, to be on the safe side?
(Oh, and about the results... You're wrong. We have them. Look at any state or country that has allowed same-sex marriage.)
Also, interestingly, though the link is much more complicated than this, I wonder about the relation between these two facts :
- on the one hand, the progressive dismantlement of this established family structure by some "progressist" people that, since the 60s, have brought the generalisation of divorce, the idea that sex and love are unrelated, and things like that, in the name of "freedom", with stable families (built on undivorced couples) being less and less numerous, since about half first marriages result in a divorce in the US, and numbers are similar in France.
- on the other hand, the rise of suicide rate for young people (10-24 years old) which, according to the WHO (not a religious instance, mind you) has become a major cause of mortality since the 50s.
Here are two other interesting facts:
-The last few years, the population of Louisiana has been increase
-The last few years, Louisiana has been sinking
Make of them what you will.
(Causation =/= Correlation)
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Singidava »

Unas wrote:
Singidava wrote:If we look at it rationally marriage itself doesn't really have anything to do with religion
This is because of the definition you give of marriage. Marriage in the Catholic church has a deep religious meaning and value...
Also, although it dates too far back to have a precise account, the "formal" concept of marriage seems to have developed through religions. The first known tracks of it are in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and ancient Rome, where a lot of their Gods were in couple, and people saw marriage as a way to be closer to their god and farther from animals. Other old traces of marriages are seen during early days of Judaism, and so on.
In fact, the concept of non-religious marriage is pretty recent : 1836 in England, 1792 in France...
So saying that marriage has nothing to do with religion is an oversimplification of the matter, and in the culture of those countries it still means more than just a property-related contract.
What I was talking about was today's society. After the separation of Church and State marriage became "just a contract" or a tradition from state's point of view. What it means to Church is a different matter entirely, of course, but we're talking about laws and that's something State decides.
Unas wrote:I was quoting it from Sing', saying "it doesn't matter to give them, it's just a property contract". If it is, then it's not relevant to love itself, so they can establish pretty much any contract which does not bear the name "marriage".
Since when has the marriage been related to love? Marrying out of love is even more recent idea than marriage not related to church you mentioned earlier. Arranged marriages used to be treated like business deals and maybe even today in some countries they still are. That tradition has lasted for ceuntries even in Europe.
Unas wrote:That's what Finland calls "Registered Partnership", for example. I am not comfortable with the idea, because I think giving the same incentives, actually encouraging homosexual relations, is wrong and could be troublesome for the future of society; but as I said, it's the state's decision where it wants to spend money or where he intends to give incentives, if it does not consider the stability of society to be at risk.
"Encouraging homosexual relations"? I understand this is just your opinion but it's not like you could decide wheter to be be gay...
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Re: Social Politics Thread

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Hodou Okappa wrote:The fact is, though, that to say a homosexual marriage is not socially acceptable is bigoted. Plain and simple. You cannot justify this by saying "children cannot grow up properly without a mother and a father." There is ZERO evidence to support that.
If I took your sentence litterally, I would remind you that having no father and/or no mother is what is called being an orphan, and it's not considered particularly happy for children.
Clever.
Now, your real point was about having two fathers or two mothers... Well, true, there is no evidence that it is not possible; just as there is no evidence that it is. The only evidence we have is that the traditional family model works, as it had done so for thousands of years.
Officialising another kind of union is taking a risk regarding the overall future evolution of society, since there is no certitude of any kind regarding the result.
Also, interestingly, though the link is much more complicated than this, I wonder about the relation between these two facts :
- on the one hand, the progressive dismantlement of this established family structure by some "progressist" people that, since the 60s, have brought the generalisation of divorce, the idea that sex and love are unrelated, and things like that, in the name of "freedom", with stable families (built on undivorced couples) being less and less numerous, since about half first marriages result in a divorce in the US, and numbers are similar in France.
- on the other hand, the rise of suicide rate for young people (10-24 years old) which, according to the WHO (not a religious instance, mind you) has become a major cause of mortality since the 50s.
Except those feelings have been around for centuries before they were socially acceptable to act on. The difference is that now, if you're in a loveless marriage or find out your wife/husband was cheating on you, you can move on instead of being trapped with that person for the rest of your life. And the idea is not that sex and love ARE unrelated, but that they CAN be. Which is, quite honestly true, and has been since long before the 60s. Hell, prostitution has been around since before the concept of monotheism.

As for why half of first marriages are resulting in divorce, I would argue it's not that divorce is more appealing now, but that marriage is. The media plays marriage up as an end-all, be-all goal to life. "If you aren't married, what are you? And don't you want to get her that perfect engagement ring~? You've been dating for two years now. Isn't it time?! Man, what's wrong with you?" I'm only 19 and I already know, personally, a disturbingly large number of couples who are getting married. In the majority of these cases, I feel they're far from ready to say that the person they're marrying is really the person they want to spend the rest of their life with.

As for the suicide rate increase, this is just a classic example of "missing variables." I feel the situation is best illustrated by this excellent explanation of global warming. You have no way of saying that the suicide rate is tied to divorce, because there's absolutely no way of proving that. Instead, you just cite it to fit your needs. Happens to the best of us.
So, I'm sorry, but I do believe that shifting away from the "strict" family structure is a risk, that you might be willing to take, but others may not be.
Willing to protect humanity, while it is based on personal beliefs, opinion and interpretation of the facts, is not what I consider bigotry.
And you're right. In your case there's no bigotry. I make a lot of generalizations when I speak, as you may have noticed.
a man/woman marriage is as much as "pillar of our society" as television; which is to say, a false one, which people fill with unjustified praise and acceptance.
Right. Comparing something that has existed for about 4 thousand years in all known organised societies, to a technological success of the last sixty years still not generalised in developing countries... and arguably already declining because of the free diffusion to Internet growing quickly. Really, 4000 years to 60 years of life span, no scaling problem ?
Okay, it's as much a pillar of our society as hunting, how's that?

In that they both arose from a need to survive, and both are still around, but arguably neither one is still a stark necessity.

In the caveman days, if one caveman refused to hunt, he'd hurt the whole tribe. Nowadays, millions of people don't hunt and society is no worse off for it.

The man/woman marriage was around for so long because men and woman can reproduce. That's it. It was born from survival of the species, and as such it became the socially accepted norm.

Gay marriage doesn't result in reproduction, no. But just because it's not the social norm doesn't mean it somehow de-values man/woman marriages. I never understood the argument that gay marriage destroys the sanctity of traditional marriage, because as far as I can tell it does nothing to the institution of man/woman matrimony. It's not like heterosexual marriage is going to go away or change somehow just because now gay people can do it too.


Hodou Okappa wrote:The Bible is NOT God's word. I believe in God, and I will never believe the Bible is God's word. It was written thousands of years ago by men.
Small digression from the subject of gay marriage, but...
Yeah I tend to do that...
Have you ever heard the word "prophet" ? Basically, its a man who speaks to express the will of God. The Bible is full of those.
Whether you believe in them or not is your choice, it depends on your religion. I also agree that, since they were men, what they wrote was dependent on the time they wrote it. But this does not mean that God's will is not expressed through their words at all.
Also, one precision about slavery - the old parts of the Bible actually define rules to protect slaves, since it was an unregulated practice before. The Bible was a factor of progress, here.
Yes, I know what a prophet is. Personally I think prophets were no more holy or divinely inspired than the people they walked among. If we wanted to get really dangerous, I could mention that I feel the same way about Jesus himself, but that's rather pointless as far as this discussion is concerned.

The problem is that, while many understand this, there are still active religious groups (I once again point out the Westboro Baptist Church, if only because they're so egregiously terrible that it makes my point easy) who don't seem to understand the concept of prophets, and believe that not only is every word out of a prophet's mouth directly from God Himself, but that those who think otherwise are worthless and deserve to go to Hell. The issue with religion is that there are the religious, and then there are the overzealous.

Much to my dismay, you'll find plenty of overzealous people in the old US of A. So many, you see, you begin to wonder if it really is the majority. Especially in the South (and in Maine, which is basically the South in the Northeast,) where they do things like try to pass laws forbidding even the teaching of the theory of evolution. (As a theory, mind you -- not as fact.)
It also details ways in which to make sacrifices to God and notable priests, and what may be done if it turns out that your wife is not a virgin (read: kill or publicly humiliate her.)
But why do we not follow THOSE passages?
Because the New testament takes precedence over the old, since the new is considered to express what God himself said when he came to earth as Jesus. Therefore it represents God's will much more accurately than the Old testament, in which all things had to be interpreted by men; the prophets I just mentioned.
And then, of your two points :
  • Jesus offered himself as sacrifice, so basically the Eucharist replaces the sacrifices of the Old Testament
  • Jesus taught forgiveness during all his life on earth, and for your particular example, he had the opportunity of saying - when pharisians tried to trick him with this problem, kind of like you are doing - : "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".
Ah. Yes, I brought those examples from the Old Testament because they're the most ridiculous and easy to remember. I remember there being outdated beliefs in the New Testament too, though -- it would just take me much, much longer to get them. :| In any case, my point remains, though it's much weaker without examples. I'll get back to you on these sometime.
A great deal has to be taken on faith here, but if we are all creations of God, then why would he forsake some of us just for being different?
[...]
Hateful. These men had nothing but contempt for us, straight and gay alike. They claimed to be spreading God's love, but whenever you would engage them in conversation or debate it became clear what we were to them: sinners, astray from the path of God, destined to hang in the fires of Hell forever.
Agreed - as you say, the whole Bible, and the New Testament in particular, say that we're all his children and that we should all respect and love each other.
Some people forget that - they are extremists of all kinds. What you described is not the point of view of the Catholic church, which I share. If they are really "hateful", as you say, then they are more "astray from the path" than most people.
But I can't let you use these people to discredit the whole Christian religion, sorry. To my knowledge, I have not at a single time lacked respect to homosexuals, even though I'm advocating the point of view of the Catholic Church.
Good for you. :) Then though I disagree with you, I don't think less of you as a person -- it's become a purely political debate at that point.

I brought that up to make a point, but the point was not that all religious people are hateful. I don't think that. And also, my uncle is actually a catholic priest. :) Though we don't see eye-to-eye on many things, I know his opinions don't come from bigotry. If only more people's did not, though!
So yes, perhaps the US HAS democratically rejected gay marriage. And on that note, I feel democracy has failed. As has society. We have been taken over, indoctrinated by the Church and turned against the minorities. It is a disgusting truth, and I spend every day trying not to face it.
Strange, I think the same think about democracy, but for a bunch of other reasons.
Anyway, the funny thing here is that you imply that people thinking differently from you cannot have made their mind by themselves - they have to be indoctrinated to think that way.
If I were to say that you have been indoctrinated by pro-LGBT media - of course, since you don't think the same as my Edgeworth-like perfect mind does :P - , and that following any of your opinion would be a failure of the system, would not that seem insulting to you ?
Let me make my point clearer.

Democracy, in its purest form, is a government in which the majority of the people get to have their way. But we're talking about the rights of a minority group. It's not exactly logical to have a majority vote on the minority's rights, since it's not the majority who's being affected.

And then, in this case, it is first and foremost a religious issue. Whether you can come up with logical, non-religious arguments for it or not, Unas, there is no doubt that in the United States this particular topic has become a religious war zone. That fact's paraded up and down our front lawns (sometimes literally) every time an election comes around. Nobody's trying to hide it, at least not in this country. :/ So the fact that over 2/3rds of the country follows a religion that opposes homosexuality essentially means the vote's rigged.

Now, it doesn't help my case, but I need to point out that not all members of the Church are against gay marriage. I have a very good friend from USM who's very religious, and he makes great efforts to prove that to me whenever I get to the point that I was just at (yelling that organized religion is the death of progress and so on.) I do actually believe that organized religion can take part in moving society forward if it's willing to criticize itself and accept change. Which is why I mentioned the Bible out of nowhere and then led into Descartes, which in retrospect seems odd without the explanation. I can get like that.
Hodou Okappa wrote:...Unfortunately, even Descartes could not oppose the church safely. He ended up providing what they misinterpreted as one of their greatest proofs, after all.
Again, you seem to consider that a clever man can not have freely advocated the Church. Do you have any reason to even imagine that he disagreed fundamentally with the Church ? I haven't seen any analysis presenting his thought this way, so I'd certainly be interested.
It's actually a quite common interpretation of his works. Many say that you have to read his writings through a "filter" of sorts -- after all, opposing the Church back then was often a very quick way to be ostracized from society, and there would be no need or logical reason for Descartes to risk that given that he did, after all, come to his own conclusion that God exists and is benevolent as a necessary condition to his own existence.

Of course, it's entirely possible there was no "filter," but the initial message remains the same - to ignore that which you would normally take to faith; not to reject it forever, but so that you may see for yourself what is true. That alone is pretty much the opposite of the Church's message.
Hodou Okappa wrote:As for whether or not it's murder, that's an even stickier subject. Yes, it ends a potential life, but I'm also of the opinion that life begins with consciousness, which an unborn child does not yet have. Since the baby is not, IMO, alive yet, I do not view it as murder, and yet I still feel it's wrong to take away that life's chance to exist. As you said, it's a difficult topic, because everyone could have their own definitions.
What worries me is that, in spite of the fact that you admit people have different definitions, you said it was against your Constitution to forbid abortion. That would mean it's one of the fundamental rights.
But the same constitution forbids murder. So you imply that abortion is not a murder from the Constitution's point of view (I'm not talking about yours, here). And that last part is only your interpretation of it - SG has a pretty different one, for example.
Therefore, as long as there is any doubt, you can't say that anything is against the Constitution in that respect - unless you claim to be the one of those who wrote it, but I won't believe you :-P
A flawless argument. As I said, I can't really disagree with you -- I have to take back that I mentioned the Constitution in regards to abortion, because it's true that despite it being another common religious point there are also non-religious reasons to follow it. Still, it's my personal belief that the choice should be left up to the woman. I just feel like that's morally right. I can't try to convince you otherwise because I wouldn't know how.
Hodou Okappa wrote:I still have absolutely NO problem with people who follow a religion out of genuine faith and don't pervert it into a tool they can use to make sure the world stays exactly where they want it to be.
Then please stop considering that everyone of those religious people that express an opinion different from yours are perverting their religion.
Admittedly I was kind of angry when I wrote all that. In any case, if it came off like that, I assure you that wasn't the intention. I understand that there are different opinions, but it's also true that religion has throughout history been used as a weapon against change, and I feel it's happening again.

Anyway, I like debating with you Unas. I mean, even when I disagree with you, it's at least clear your heart's in the right place.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by SuperGanondorf »

Hodou Okappa wrote:The problem is that, while many understand this, there are still active religious groups (I once again point out the Westboro Baptist Church, if only because they're so egregiously terrible that it makes my point easy) who don't seem to understand the concept of prophets, and believe that not only is every word out of a prophet's mouth directly from God Himself, but that those who think otherwise are worthless and deserve to go to Hell. The issue with religion is that there are the religious, and then there are the overzealous.
Those sorts of people just give religion a bad name. There's no reason for their crap.
wrote:Much to my dismay, you'll find plenty of overzealous people in the old US of A. So many, you see, you begin to wonder if it really is the majority. Especially in the South (and in Maine, which is basically the South in the Northeast,) where they do things like try to pass laws forbidding even the teaching of the theory of evolution. (As a theory, mind you -- not as fact.)
Well, it's hard to complain about them being "overzealous" when in the vast majority of other states forbid teaching anything other than evolution.
Democracy, in its purest form, is a government in which the majority of the people get to have their way. But we're talking about the rights of a minority group. It's not exactly logical to have a majority vote on the minority's rights, since it's not the majority who's being affected.

And then, in this case, it is first and foremost a religious issue. Whether you can come up with logical, non-religious arguments for it or not, Unas, there is no doubt that in the United States this particular topic has become a religious war zone. That fact's paraded up and down our front lawns (sometimes literally) every time an election comes around. Nobody's trying to hide it, at least not in this country. :/ So the fact that over 2/3rds of the country follows a religion that opposes homosexuality essentially means the vote's rigged.
So what you're saying here is that 2/3 of the population don't wish to see their society evolve in that direction. And it is the majority who is being affected; it's their society too, and if they don't want to take the risk, they can prevent the risk from happening.

And the vote's rigged? Really?That's like saying that because a majority of the country supports a presidential candidate, the vote is rigged in favor of the candidate. That's not a rigged vote, that's the whole point.

That having been said, our Founders trashed democracy for a reason. There's a reason our country was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Democracies always fail, because inevitably people simply don't have the time or the willingness to vote on every law. That's why we have representatives, not direct voting. And the representatives are supposed to represent the people.

I had other stuff to say too, but I have to go. I'll be back.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Bad Player »

SuperGanondorf wrote:
Democracy, in its purest form, is a government in which the majority of the people get to have their way. But we're talking about the rights of a minority group. It's not exactly logical to have a majority vote on the minority's rights, since it's not the majority who's being affected.

And then, in this case, it is first and foremost a religious issue. Whether you can come up with logical, non-religious arguments for it or not, Unas, there is no doubt that in the United States this particular topic has become a religious war zone. That fact's paraded up and down our front lawns (sometimes literally) every time an election comes around. Nobody's trying to hide it, at least not in this country. :/ So the fact that over 2/3rds of the country follows a religion that opposes homosexuality essentially means the vote's rigged.
So what you're saying here is that 2/3 of the population don't wish to see their society evolve in that direction. And it is the majority who is being affected; it's their society too, and if they don't want to take the risk, they can prevent the risk from happening.

And the vote's rigged? Really?That's like saying that because a majority of the country supports a presidential candidate, the vote is rigged in favor of the candidate. That's not a rigged vote, that's the whole point.
I think what Hodou means is that b/c of all the Christians, it's 'rigged' to go whichever way Christianity dictates, with people blindly following it without looking and the facts and making a decision themselves.
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Re: Social Politics Thread

Post by Unas »

Bad Player wrote:The overwhelming majority of the population is heterosexual
This is precisely one thing I would like to stay as is, you see.
As it is, homosexuals are no danger to the fertility of society as a whole, because of their small numbers - all of you have been putting that argument forward on this topic.
What I'm quite sure of is that officialising a such a relationship would make their number grow. To what extent, I cannot predict, but it would, since people would be more prone to choosing a path if it's officially authorised.

Again, you will tell me "one does not choose to be gay"... Which I only partly agree with. As I said to Geno earlier, I understand that love can happen between any two persons that know each other, even if they are of the same sex, and is not a controllable emotion. In that respect, in fact, I'm rather thinking here of bisexual behaviour : falling in love independently of the gender of the other person.
However, being "strictly gay" (that is, saying "I will never love anyone in the opposite gender") - just like being "strictly straight" - is a matter of choice, since one is planning and negating future emotions. For example, hearing a girl saying she's tried both, liked being with a girl better, and deduced she was a lesbian is what I find worrying. Aside from the fact that I don't approve of the idea of using other people's body as test subjects, the core of the matter is that this point, it is a matter of choice... And the more people insist on how being gay is cool, the more young people will want to try it, and more are likely to join this trend.
What worries me, from the "pragmatic" point of view, is wondering how far it could go.
Bad Player wrote:Moreoever, scientists have found homosexual behavior in I think... over 50 different species. Have those species died out from lack of procreation?
More like bisexual behaviour, actually. See the explanation I gave above - bisexuality is obviously not as much a problem as far as procreation is concerned. And these animals don't have to face the "trendy" and "cool, let's try it" problem I mentioned - as it stays random, the numbers stay low for most species.
Bad Player wrote:Why should it? Separation of the Church and State
So taking a word and a notion from someone else, then twisting its meaning to suit yourself is okay to you ?
If from now on someone decides to use your own name to designate some kind of baboon, would that be okay ? The notions are remotely similar (after all, primates are primates, and the human being is one), but that would be a very provocative and unrespectful stance.
The way marriage is being progressively stripped of all its meaning by the states that decided to use this word is offensive and unrespectful in the same way. In that respect I salute the effort of Finland to choose at least a different name.
Bad Player wrote:Ending slavery was taking a risk regarding the overall future evolution of society. I suppose you think we should've just kept it, to be on the safe side?
Do you enjoy comparing homosexuals to slaves or something ? Second time you mentioned the same comparison regarding their status...
The existence of a risk does not forbid any evolution. However, it does make things more complicated than saying "It's cool, let's go", and it justifies that some people might disagree with you without necessarily being idiots or heartless people.
The same apply when you say (Causation =/= Correlation) : agreed, but correlation is enough to require more study than saying "It's cool, let's go" (bis)
Bad Player wrote:(Oh, and about the results... You're wrong. We have them. Look at any state or country that has allowed same-sex marriage.)
Sure. First country to do it was the Netherlands in 2001. Ten years of observation are very representative of the evolution of a society in the long term...
And even if they are, the visible situation is that the fertility rate is significantly lower in those countries.
Let's compare European countries, based on similar cultures. Netherlands (1.7), Belgium (1.82), Spain (1.47) have same-sex marriage, and fertility rates far too low to renew their population. France and Ireland, two countries among those most attached to the traditional notion of marriage - possibly because having a strong religious history still present in the culture - lead Europe with a rate of 2.1 children by woman in 2010 - precisely the population renewal threshold.
So the example of the other countries, while not "alarming" (as I said, I consider this a way too short term study to prove anything), is not reassuring either.
Singidava wrote:Since when has the marriage been related to love? Marrying out of love is even more recent idea than marriage not related to church you mentioned earlier. Arranged marriages used to be treated like business deals and maybe even today in some countries they still are. That tradition has lasted for ceuntries even in Europe.
Cf : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage#c ... _ages_21-2
While marriage has been used in families with important political status to strengthen their bonds, the idea of free marriage appeared during the late Roman Empire, and was spread by the Catholic Church.
Singidava wrote:"Encouraging homosexual relations"? I understand this is just your opinion but it's not like you could decide wheter to be be gay...
See explanations of my point of view higher in this post.

I'll answer Okappa's post and the following ones later ;-)
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