Are sexual prohibitions mixing religion and the law?

Circular definition. If you define the natural tendancy of humans to be "sinful" - and make no mistake, there's nothing more natural than the human desire to both step out on your partner and to prevent your partner from doing the same - then obviously you're going to think science uncovers a "sin nature."Evolution more than explains why partners cheat, and why their partners try to keep them from cheating. Religion is a social tool used to try to impose the latter, but, quite predictably, does nothing to prevent the former.

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The first thing I would ask you is what you are using to define consent? If you mean willing to go along with/desiring such contact then there is no real age where it is impossible to give consent.

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So, you believe a newborn infant can consent to sexual contact with another person?If so, how do you know?

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If you mean full on penetrative intercourse then that'll have physical limits set by the individuals.

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Is a newborn infant physically capable of being penetrated?I'd like to restrict this discussion to full on penetrative intercourse, to make things clearer.

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The second thing I might ask, to start another important track in this argument you'd be making, is what does nonconsent have to do with being a problem such that it needs to be controlled in some way? For example at which age would you say that it is impossible for a person to consent to eating jello, and if there is such a boundary, what would make it problematic to feed the person jello?

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First of all, how is "eating jello" a comparable activity, wrt the potential consequences and risks, to engaging in full on penetrative intercourse?

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Kids are better than adults in letting people know exactly what they want and don't want. Whether they can be beat down is something else entirely.

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Well, then let me rephrase.Is there any age below which you would consider it unreasonable for a person be expected to fully understand the risks and consequences of giving consent to having sexual intercourse with anyone?Furhtermore, is there any age below which you would consider it unreasonable for a child to be able to defy or resist the cultural authority and power asigned adults over children, the use of coercive or pressuring methods, or the ability to detect dishonesty in an adult?IOW, at what age would you consider it too much to ask for a child to have to deal with all of that?

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Can I pretend that I'm different from the religious right if I honestly don't care if 13 year olds have sex with adults?

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What about 12 year olds?

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Ask randman. But if I'm interpreting his response correctly, then he would reply that even if I don't care whether 12 year old have sex with adults, there are other laws I would support based on my morality; so, to answer your question, no, I still could not pretend that I am different from the religious right.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 21-Nov-2005 06:40 PM

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

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There are plenty of lonely men who are willing to give consent, but there are plenty of lonely men who can be taken advantage of. The law has to draw a single line for everybody, some fall on one sideof the law, some on the other.

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This is an equal position for sexual laws nixing gay sex. My guess is you would not agree with them.

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The idea that repression of one group can be justified by the protection of some within that group who suffer something that has no connection to that first group is pretty ridiculous. You can't stop rape by making sex illegal.

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There are plenty of 10 year old boys who want to be in the Army.Are consent laws regarding the legal age of conscription ridiculous?

I agree with you. But I draw a distinction between Biblical teaching and religion. I think that the Commandment on Adultery and the exposition of it in Mathew are ment as instruction and as a protection mechanism. They reveal the condiction of man's motives.Religions try to usurp the power and provocation of the Biblical teaching on the ordained use of sex with a legalistic formula that becomes a stranglehold and meaningless. It's like if someone tells you not to play in the street unless it has been sanctioned and properly blocked off for the purpose of a play area, vs trying to keep someone on the sidewalk by screaming at them with your hands around their throat. You would obviously try to break free of the stranglehold reguarldess of the message being verbally conveyed. It is natural for man to go against God's way. That is what became alive in man at the fall. Before the fall, the Bible says that man was innocent but not perfect. If he was perfect, he would not have the ability to cultivate a sin nature. But without the ability to cultivate the sin nature, the concept of choice in the garden would have been absurd. Science describes all this as the natural tendencies. Same phenomenon but with a different discription of origin. Interesting note, long before science described it as a natural result of evolution, the Bible recognized it, tagged it, described it and gave it's origin.

An origin that doesn't really explain anything. "People do bad things because they're bad." But people aren't bad. People are mostly good. I mean, look around you. At your friends and family and the people you love. Are those all bad people? Are they all evil in their hearts?I can't believe that you would believe that; if you do truly believe that you must be a very lonely person. I don't see the distinction. All religions justify their precepts in the same way that you just did.

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The precepts that are in the Bible are given by the Creator to allow sexual activity to be a liberating and satisfying activity between a husband and wife.

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I guess that would be true, for those who are into that sort of thing.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

What do you mean by a good person or a bad person. Would you draw a contrast between the two in your perception. I know how I want to answer the question but first I want to know how you catagorize a person in to which column.I believe that people are mostly law abiding but who deffinitly need the laws. I love my friends and family despite their badness. God says that he loves man despite man's badness. How hard would it be for you to love a child who is 90% good? Not hard at all. But take an average child who is 90% bad and try to love them. You still do because love transends the behavioral tendencies.So loneliness is not a condiction contingent on other people's behavior or even your own perception of other people's behavioral tendency. It doesn't mean that bad people cannot do good. It means that the sin nature of man is dominant and guides the behavior to be bad.If people were mostly good, things like prisons, criminal law, court rooms and lawyers would be rare. Locks, car alarms, home security systems, armies, personal firearms, servalience cameras and the like would have a very limited market share instead of being common place items in our society.

Chiroptera writes Lizard Breath:

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The precepts that are in the Bible are given by the Creator to allow sexual activity to be a liberating and satisfying activity between a husband and wife.

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I guess that would be true, for those who are into that sort of thing.

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Shame, isn't it? Especially when you consider that help is available to get people out of that lifestyle.

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"We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you."-George W. Bush, Gulfport, Miss.,
Sept. 20, 2005.

No, it's true period. If you are involved in an activity that is outside of the boundries of the Bible's precepts, then you might find it satisfying for a time and even experience the illusion of liberation.But if Sin wasn't fun and satisfying, at least at the onset, who would do it?

If you are involved in an activity that is outside of the boundries of the Bible's precepts, then you might find it satisfying for a time and even experience the illusion of liberation.But if Sin wasn't fun and satisfying, at least at the onset, who would do it?

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If you are involved in an activity that is within the boundries of the Bible's precepts, then you might find it satisfying for a time and even experience the illusion that you are doing what you are supposed to do to get a reward after you die.

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But if following a religion's rules wasn't comforting and rewarded by the religious and greater community, at least at the onset, who would do it?

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This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-21-2005 02:03 PM

They're your friends, so let's go with what you think those terms mean. Are your friends, family, and loved ones bad people? Your fellow soldiers, your brothers in arms? Bad people, every one? Well, they are. The vast majority of people won't ever see the inside of a courtroom or jail except on TV or a guided tour. Less than 1% of Americans are incarcerated. And the purpose of lawyers goes, of course, well beyond criminal defense or prosecution. In the town where I grew up, almost nobody locks their doors, car, house, or otherwise; it's not uncommon to come back from the store and find a good friend waiting in your living room enjoying one of your sodas, and you're glad to see him there. And I'm not that old.Most people are good people. Very good people. So an origin of behavior that explains that our friends do bad things because they're actually bad people doesn't jive with observation."Sin nature"? I don't see it. But evolution not only explains why people do things you consider "sins", but also why you consider them sins in the first place. It's the better explanation, to my mind.

I hear they are doing wonderful work at the Bonobo Center for Sensuocognitive Assonance. Personally, I feel that first achieving a comfort level on one's own with a modest metrosexual stance facilitates an expansive realization of our Bonobo Cosmosexual Potential (BCP).But that's just one big ape's opinion.

You can define or assess morals differently from ethics. However both, as long as they generate a conclusion of value to something, are not objective and include wholly subjective criteria. The concept of merit is inherently a subjective term.Here is an example. The ancient aztecs believed there was great merit in the amount of crying a child did before a sacrifice. We could objectively measure this and so judge its merits, but that would not be judged a merit across societies. Here we have entered the realm of defining what consent is. Unfortunately the concept that those who cannot understand risk cannot assent is not objective. That is a subjective definition. Essentially what you have done here is make consent=risk assessment capability.Why could a person not validly say that consent is merely giving positive assent to an activity? You say without risk knowledge it is meaningless, but is that objective? The other person could reasonably say that it does have meaning. It tells that person whether the person wants to do something given what they know, even if it is merely their own will.The second step you take is even more subjective. One cannot objectively equate a person who involves another (who is unable to assess a risk) in an activity, with a person who forces a person to take a risk against there will. They are quite patently not equal situations, though one can subjectively feel they are the same "level" of risk imposition.In addition to equating two separate issues, it also imposes a responsibility or culpability which does not objectively exist. There are other cultures which do not believe one is responsible for the actions of others at all, and it is up to the individual to learn for themself through experience. Are they objectively incorrect?But let's ignore that issue and assume for sake of argument that what you have said is logically possible and indeed objective.A child or mentally challenged person (MCP) would not be able to assess the risks involved with eating jello, crossing the street, or swimming. Would you define them as being unable to consent to such activities, and those who would involve them in such activity as equal to forcing them to do such things against their will?As it is age and experience hardly makes anyone fully or equally knowledgeable about risks involved with all activities. Does this make a more knowledgeable person responsible for the decisions of all less knowledgable people they may interact with?It might also ask what risks is a person who has no stds, and does not go outside of physical limits of a child, put a prepubescent in? Or in the case of someone sterilized and has no stds, put anyone in? Yes. But my definition of coercion means that a person has not consented, unless it is the consent to the lesser alternative between two harms forced upon them. Consent to an activity is not equal to consent to all risks possible. When does anyone of any age know all risks involved with any activity? It was earlier thought that masturbators and homosexuals were essentially MCPs with regard to sexual activity. They were not capable of understanding the risks they were exposing themselves and others to. Is this the case? No? How would you go about assessing this?Assuming age equals competence for such people is not valid. Don't you see that you are slowly moving the goalposts by changing definitions, and indeed are missing an important underlying point?The study looked at harm as related to consent. That is does harm correlate with concepts of consent? The ongoing practice was to link consent to age, with the assumption that they are all unwilling under a certain age and so will face harm. Ergo it looked at harm as related to age. Since you equate forcing someone to risk harm with those choosing to undergo unknown harm, based merely on age, the study's results still holds some validity.It is correct that they were not measuring differing ability to assess risk, but that does not validate your concept that consent is properly linked to risk assessment, nor undercut the importance that one cannot automatically link harm with age.That has some impact even if one believes that less knowledge of risk leads to actual greater risk.By the way, if I have not mentioned yet, there are cultures that allow children to play with what we would call dangerous tools. Are they unethical to you? They say they are quite ethical and argue that their method builds self-reliance and responsibility. Is this not possible?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yes. How would you not know? When babies don't like anything they cry like hell. I don't know. I would say not for most things. I guess it depends on what you want to put in it, and where you want to stick it. If you mean a full grown man's cock, then no. I'm sorry but there are risks with everything. Two do not have to be equal in degree in order to be said it pose risk and that a person might not understand what that risk is.If you criteria for consent is knowing all risk then a child cannot consent to eating jello.What risks can eating jello pose? Besides introducing sugar addiction, bad diets, and bad teeth, one can choke to death on jello, or even get sick depending on how it was made. Well that is hard since I don't consider it reasonable to expect that adults fully understand the risks involved with anything.But since you want to limit this to full sexual penetration, anyone can tell when they are being penetrated beyond their capability, unless they are incapable of feeling pain.I am unsure what age would be the practical age for identifying possible sexual diseases. My guess would be minimum 8-9 years? With instruction of course. That'd be like instructing them in any other protective skill.And before you jump all over me for this, I am actually shooting higher than actual programs in existence. There are sexual safety programs instructing kids as young as five and six. I remember watching some actress blubbering as she explained how they needed to be instructed in such things in that country.I am still not into equating risk assessment with consent. I don't think this is what you wanted to ask. My obvious answer would be that it sis reasonable for a child to defy and resist anyone of any age doing something they don't want to do.I think you meant that they'd have that ability. That they can let it be known, there is no age they cannot let their will be known. That they can try to defy, any. That they can ultimately succeed, depends on the child and family, but probably won't have total success until 12-13.Detect dishonesty? Who can do that at any age? I've been getting screwed by liars my whole life. Ohhhhh booohoooo, let me go running from the room in tears for the poor kids! Oh wait, no this is reality and appeals to emotion are just fallacies.Let me ask you a question: at what age is it too much to ask a child to have to deal with being told they must go to church? To finish all that has been put on the plate? To do anything they do not want to do, because some adult wants them to do it?And indeed why is telling kids they cannot engage in sexual activity if they are wanting to, somehow less of an imposition than anything you have posed. In psych there are a lot more problem people coming from sexually repressive environments than from sexually permissive environments.See that's the problem with your world view. You argue as if potential risk as actual risk as real risk as something that all kids will face and so we need to protect them. And that there is no consequence from repression in the name of protection.Instead of noting that the stats in the real world do not support such a view of risk and in fact there are negative consequences from stepping on people's sexual desires at young ages.Do you honestly believe that kids cannot be abused to not have sex?You keep wanting to get graphic and push limits that are not pertinent to a discussion on whether consent is possible, or if harm comes from sexual activity.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)