you have made many, many, claims that I don't have any grasp of what the fundie christain position on this issue is.
Find where I said it once, much less many times. I was not talking just about hardcore fundamenatalists, which I think we can all agree are not for gay rights in any aspect.
Your question was why they think being gay is wrong, and then ask them to fulfill your criteria of harm to prove to you that their moral system come to the correct conclusion.
All I did was point out that that is logically impossible. You can choose to judge their system as worthy or not because you personally place more weight on your system than theirs, but you cannot say you have determined, or suggest that you are showing that their system is wrong or "bad".
Oh yes, you can also appeal to their sense of temporal judgement that it sure seems to be coming out with an result they find unappealing. However for true believers in a God, they do have the logical ability to say what appears to be bad from my vantage point may not be from a greater vantage point. Again, the soldier and the general analogy stands.
To adress my own hypocracy, the reason I have stopped discussing pedophilia is becase it is irrelivant to the issue.
If the sole issue is what harm comes from homosexuality, then you are right. If the sole issue is why does God say homosexuality is wrong, then you are right.
But you were not limiting it to that subject and neither were a number of others. While asking the above questions, it was also
asserted that you and people like you have a specific moral system which comes to better moral labels because it is based on criteria of harm.
That is right in your opening post. And note that I did not even bother to address this until you (in order to make an example regarding causes of behavior) reasserted how your moral system functions.
That completely opens the door for me to point out that your system does not function as you describe, specifically given the example you made.
Indeed the superiority of your moral system to that of the Xians continued to get asserted, including more references to that example... though any other sexual minority will do.
That is why if you had mentioned alcoholism that really would have been the perfect dodge. It is equating too wholly different phenomenon. The effects of sexual acts, whatever the cause for wanting to do them, is in no way comparable to the effects of ingestion of chemicals (the inherent deleterious effect of poisons, and their addictive qualities), whatever the cause for wanting to do them. That is if your system is really harm based you should be able to note the vast gulf between the two as examples.
Of course if you had mentioned alcoholism in the first place you would have gotten another criticism altogether. Are you honestly stating that you would judge alcoholism to be wrong? Or even worse, that alcoholic acts are wrong? That would of course be the comparison to what Xians are saying, and I don't think you want to go on record saying that taking a drink of alcohol is wrong.
It is not hypocritical to beleive that child molestation is wrong and that homosexual sex is not wrong.
Actually it is inconsistent given your stated criteria for judging what is wrong. But that is besides the point. The hypocrisy I am attacking is your criticizing another moral system for what its results are, while saying how pure yours is and then not wanting it to be examined... or think that criticism is off topic.
The fact is if their proving the harm of homosexuality should be so easy it is no problem for them (and thus prove their system worthy), why should it be so hard for you? Why can't you set a real example and show how your declared moral system can determine wrong based on harm caused by a sexual act.
And speaking of hypocracy, let's look at your own position.
Heheheh... Can't defend your own position and so you lash out at me with the same criticism? Well I guess that's in keeping with how you do business.
1) You fervently argue aganist a postion you claim you agree with, or are you ust playing devils advocate.
2) You claim that you think gays should be allowed to marry but then say you can see why it should not be called marriage, or were you just playing devils advocate, again?
3) You think that equal rights could be allotted to civil unions even though we have seen that they couldn't.
4)You claim to be all for gay rights, but when people stand up for gay rights by protesting, you claim that they alienate other, more moderate, activists, even though we have seen that the opposite happen more often.
4) You accuse me of not understanding my opponents position, but when I provide evedence that I am quite familiar with my opponents postion you accuse me of somehow showing off.
1) You didn't specify which position you are talking about. If you mean that I don't agree with the Xian moral system, that is true. I am certainly not arguing it is right. I am only pointing out the fact that your argument is incapable of proving it wrong.
2) I didn't fervently argue against gay marriage. I argued that while I am for gay marriage and believe that is the best option, there are those who don't believe its the best option and have a reasonable argument for their position. If necessary, there is room for a valid compromise solution. Whatta hypocrite.
3) You've seen that civil unions
inherently can't be equal? Where did you see that? From singular examples? I am still waiting for an explanation how a contract which has all the same rights and a different name, gives something less than equal.
4) I did not say that no protests are useful. I was critical of the nature of the one's that happened. And I wasn't even critical in the sense that I didn't like them. But the point of protests is to create change in someone other than me. I simply pointed out that they don't seem to have worked, and why they (as they were conducted) did not seem to work.
4b) I'm not sure if you are talking about the people that think homosexual acts are wrong or that gay marriage is wrong. In any case you are mistating my position, but each requires a different explanation of why you are wrong.
The whole point of having a duty is so that people can follow their duty even when they disagree with it, why? To promote well being, to promote benefit of course!
Philosophy comes screeching to a halt... What the hell are you talking about? Do you know the difference between deontological and teleological systems? Do you not recognize that cultural definitions of "promote benefit" would completely remove an objective criteria of what harm and benefit are?
ALL ethical theories exisist to promote benefit
Objectively define benefit. Think to whom? For what? I find it hard to believe that you cannot conceive some moral systems have proscriptions based on the idea that an action (or lack of one) is moral (or not), regardless of consequences.
if God asks us to do something that we know is harmfull (like outlaw homosexual sex)
Enter your circular argument? No, thanks. If there is a God who knows more than us, then we may not know what is harmful or not, or would not be in a place to judge harm as well as him.
It's not for an arbitrary reason, like taste,
I have already explained this, but let me take a different tack using your own theory of ethics. To you the end of all ethics is promote benefit. Thus harm reduced, while benefits maximized. Let's say God agrees and he just happens to see that in the long run an arbitrary rule proscribing homosexual acts does less harm than benefit. After all homosexuals are a minimum of the population, and so social cohesion of the majority may way out.
All the possibilitys that have been suggested are laughable easy to dismiss. Maby we will be tempted by other gods, maby it causes some kind of spiritual polution, It's a gateway sin, Come on! These are all paper thin.
You cannot laugh at the possibilities but that does show your contempt going into the debate. As far as the reasons you list, they are not paper thin once you believe in Gods and magick. They all become possibilities of things you may not know.
I don't believe in that stuff so for me it is not realistic. Why does that remove my ability from seeing that those that do can believe in it?
I don't think you can defend homophobia on secualr grounds. But if you can I'd love to hear it as that would get us closer to the central theme of the thread.
Well that's the irony isn't it? The first evidence that has come in... trying to show that there is secular harm in pedophilia... actually showed that homosexuality "causes" harm.
Or are you going to pretend the link has not been posted?
Oh I suppose before you claim I'm being hypocritical I should say I don't believe the study proves anything. But the point is it has been advanced as evidence of harm according to you system, and if it does, then homosexuality comes off worse.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
™ Version 4.2