Are sexual prohibitions mixing religion and the law?

randman writes:

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Keep in mind that I disgree with fornication, adultery, homosexuality, pedophilia and the whole she-bang.

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How do you do that? For instance, how do you "disagree" with homosexuality? What is there to disagree with? Do you mean that you don't want to engage in homosexuality yourself or that you want to stop other people from engaging in it?

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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.

I agree with part of your sentiment, crash, but I'd put it a little differently. Science simply makes no moral judgements. Rand thinks that science is out to destroy everyone's morality, which demonstrates admirably the conundrum science poses for religious fundamentalists. They see everything in terms of religion and religious morality. It is simply not possible for them to look at science dispassionately, the way a scientist or even a moderate Christian would. They don't understand why anyone would try to study something without bringing the bible to bear on it. To them, all knowledge comes from God and the bible, and anything that aims to derive knowledge from a source other than God or the bible is necessarily an evil thing that aims to destroy everyone's morals.Just stop and think about what he said: Randman, like all fundementalists, has no clue about what science is. He can't have a clue about it. His whole world revolves around the supernatural. His whole reason for existing is to glorify a supernatural entity. There's no way to get him to even consider a natural explanation for anything. He doesn't know how to do it, and I've come to realize that it can never be explained to an adult fundie. If rand is ever to truly understand anything about the natural world, he will have to reach that understanding on his own. If it ever does happen, it will probably be quite by accident.All of that said, I must disagree with you here:

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Science no more leads people to sexual amorality than religion does.

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That requires a major rephrasing. It should read:

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Science has never led anyone to sexual amorality, but religion often does.

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EDITED to change subtitle.This message has been edited by berberry, 11-20-2005 07:38 AM

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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.

crash asks me:

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I guess I don't follow. Can you explain a bit more why you feel this is the case?

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Because science is value-neutral. It leads people neither to nor from morality. It has nothing to do with morality.Religion, however, often leads people to favor cuts in social programs that benefit poor people, to favor unneccessary wars that kill people, to oppose equal treatment under the law for minority groups, to force little girls who've been raped by their fathers to get permission from their rapist/father before getting an abortion etc., etc., etc. In other words, religion often leads people into an amoral lifestyle.And if that's not enough sexual amorality for you, look at how certain faiths seem to lead many of their own leaders to rape children.

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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.

randman writes me:

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If you want to normalize homosexual relations, fine, but don't pretend you are doing anything different than the religious right when you don't want 13 year olds having sex with adults, or multiple wives, or whatever.

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Some time ago I had this out with holmes, and he managed what few people have ever managed to do during my adult life: to get a full-blown volte-face out of me on a major issue of morality. Yes, I believe it is entirely possible for a 13 year-old to have sex with a 50 year-old without being harmed by it. However, if the kid IS harmed, the adult should be punished for it. The sticking point between holmes and I is over how to determine harm. Holmes says he's willing to take the word of the kid for that, which is probably fine in the case of a 13 year-old but I'm not so sure in the case of a 15 year-old. A 15 year-old is usually much more mature than a 13 year-old and is, I think, much more likely to hit on an adult. I don't want the law to create a situation where a perfectly mature (let's say mature beyond his or her years), sexually experienced 15 or 16 year-old is able to seduce a drunken adult and then blackmail him or her.I don't know the answer to this conflict, but I am far more likely to look to scientific methods for an answer than I am to look at the delusional rantings of prehistoric tribal nomads (the bible).This is not to say that I reject the whole concept of morality. I don't, I reject only the concept of bible-based morality. I don't need the bible to tell me that I shouldn't murder my neighbor. The fact that my neighbor would be left dead is enough to show me that murder is immoral.Further, I am not looking to "normalize" anything. Homosexuality is and always has been normal. I am looking for equal rights under the LAW, a concept fundies seem to have extreme difficulty trying to grasp. Your church can do whatever it wants, I couldn't possibly care less. Just keep it in your church and leave alone those of us who choose not to believe that god one day just twitched her nose and "poof!" here we are.

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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.

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.